Perseus and the Quest for 12

And the winner is…

Option A, Chase the figure himself!

Final Score:

Option A, chase the figure himself: 79

Option B, Get Annabeth to chase them and follow: 26

Option C, Let the figure go and head to Clarisse: 10

Chapter 13

Abduction

Annabeth already had her chance to catch the herb stealer. It ended with her tripping on a root. Perseus knew what he had to do. He put his head down and ran.

His limbs pumped, and although the fleeing figure was faster than their body type suggested, he was faster still. In seconds he was closing the gap, air hissing from his lungs as his muscles flexed.

The figure started to pull away again.

Perseus thought they sped up, but that wasn't right. He was the one slowing down. His muscles simply couldn't withstand a high-speed chase. They could barely handle walking around the forest at a normal pace. He kept getting slower, and slower, until he finally gave up, bending over and planting his hands on his knees.

"Owww," he said.

He ached all over. Annabeth walked up beside him, staring after their quarry with her hands on her hips.

"He's gone," she said.

Perseus looked up. All he could see was trees and foliage— even the figure's fleeing back had disappeared.

"Did you really think you could chase him down with the state your body's in?" Annabeth asked.

"I wouldn't have had to if you didn't trip."

Her cheeks turned pink. "I told you! The root grabbed me!"

"Uh-huh."

"It's true!"

They looked at each other, and a moment later, both faced the direction of Clarisse's voice, moving as quickly as they could. Arguments were one thing… but you could bicker while on the move. This wasn't the kind of situation to get distracted.

Perseus pondered what they would find. Clarisse was tough. He knew that as well as anybody. But it was true she was still slightly injured, and Kayla wouldn't be much help. He should have brought the rapier Clarisse loaned him during his stint as a border guard. Problem was, he didn't even know what happened to that sword, or if it had been recovered at all after he passed out.

Kayla was a good healer, though. Even if Clarisse got hurt, Kayla would be able to patch her up.

Patch her up with what? Perseus's brain whispered. The herbs we can't find?

He was willing to admit it: he was worried for Clarisse. So he felt pretty stupid when he and Annabeth ducked around a thick pine trunk and found Clarisse and Kayla sitting on the ground in perfect health, having a snack.

"What are you doing here?" Clarisse asked, tearing a piece of jerky with her teeth. "This is our area!"

"Don't chew with your mouth open," Annabeth said.

Perseus looked around. He didn't see any monsters, burn marks, or a single thing capable of the roar they heard.

"You're not fighting," he said, stating the obvious.

"No shit," said Clarisse.

"Then what were you screaming at to bring it on?"

"Her stomach growled," Kayla said, "and when I looked at her, she thought I was making fun of her."

"You were picking a fight," Clarisse grunted. "I could see it in your cheeks."

"So I pulled out some of the provisions I packed," Kayla finished, pointedly not looking at the daughter of Ares.

"You didn't hear the roar?" Annabeth asked.

Kayla's forehead wrinkled, while Clarisse grunted, "I heard something. It was far off, though. Thought it was just a monster."

Perseus spun away, darting back the way he came— or as close as he could come to darting with the state that he was in. The point was that he moved as fast as possible, without saying a thing.

Someone else was right there at his side. He and Annabeth didn't look at each other. They just moved the same direction, at the same time.

If Clarisse hadn't been fighting, and she and Kayla had barely heard the roar, that meant it came from the opposite direction.

Thalia was the one fighting the entire time.

Clarisse and Kayla caught up with Perseus soon, while Annabeth started pulling ahead, her healthy body giving her an edge in speed.

"Where are we going?" Clarisse demanded.

"To Thalia," Perseus said.

"You think she's in trouble?" Clarisse frowned. "I hate to say it, but she's tough. Takes a lot to give her a hard time."

Perseus remembered that roar, so loud that it had vibrated his body. Clarisse hadn't heard it like he had. She didn't know.

Whatever was out here with them, it definitely qualified as 'a lot.'

Annabeth stopped. Perseus and the others caught up with her, looking where she was looking. It wasn't Thalia.

Four-hundred square feet of forest had been singed to a crisp. It was like the herb patches all over again, but even more brutal. Trees were hollowed out. Branches had cracked and disintegrated. In places, blades of grass still smoldered.

The four of them walked through the destruction, feeling out their steps changed. Instead of the usual give of dirt, the ground here crunched like paper.

"No," Annabeth said. "No. No!"

She ran again, though not far. In the middle of the burned patch, she bent over and lifted something. When she turned back, she had an expression Perseus had never seen on her before.

In her hands was a celestial bronze spear.

It was Thalia's.

O-O-O

"We're going after her," Annabeth said.

It wasn't hard to tell what direction the monster went. Branches were snapped and trees were felled in a straight line leading deeper into the forest. Considering that Thalia wasn't here, the odds seemed sky-high that she was at the end of that path.

"You want to follow whatever did that?" Kayla asked, staring at the destruction. "No! We should go back and get help!"

"That will take too long," Annabeth said.

"She's right." Clarisse nodded. "If we do that, we'll have to share the glory for taking this beast down!"

"You almost died the last time you tried to do everything on your own!" Kayla told her angrily.

"In moments like this, every second matters," Annabeth said. "You can go back for help. I'm chasing the monster."

She left, walking down the aisle of broken trees like it was a hiking path. Perseus walked beside her. Annabeth glanced at him, but he didn't look at her. They both kept walking.

Clarisse caught up. "Quit trying to get a headstart on me!"

"Oh, Apollo burn it all!" Kayla muttered.

She scurried after them, following a bit behind. Perseus wasn't sure if they had convinced her, or if she was just scared to be in the forest alone.

"We shouldn't have split up," Annabeth said.

"Thalia shouldn't have lost her fight," Clarisse said.

"We don't know she lost," Perseus said, when he saw Annabeth grab the hilt of her dagger. "We don't know what to expect."

The line they were following moved straight through the woods, not zigging or zagging around any obstacle. Even full-grown trees had been knocked aside as if they were twigs. In spots, Perseus spotted small burning fires or singe marks, always at the same height— about fifteen feet off the ground.

Then they hit a creek. The trees stopped on either side of a sandy bank. On the other bank, there was no obvious path.

"Looks like we lost it," Kayla said, sounding relieved. "We'll have to go back now."

"No," Annabeth said.

"But it's already the afternoon, and we don't have anything to follow!"

"Give me a second," was all Annabeth said.

Walking to a tree with multiple low-hanging branches, she began to clamber up its trunk.

"Nothing's hiding up there," Clarisse said.

Annabeth ignored her completely. She got high enough up that she could see across the forest over the tops of the other trees, and stayed up there for almost fifteen minutes.

When she climbed down, her expression looked exactly the same.

"This way," she said, turning slightly to the right.

"What did you see?" Perseus asked.

"I had to get high enough to see all the areas the dragon burned," Annabeth said.

"And you saw one that was burning now?"

"No," Annabeth said. "I just looked at them all together. Whatever is doing it must be operating from somewhere. By looking at where the most damage is, and finding the area that's in between them, I can guess where its lair is."

"Is that really going to work?" Kayla asked doubtfully.

It did.

After a lot of walking, and more than a little bit of doubting, Annabeth led them out of the trees. They stopped in an open area where not even grass would grow, in front of a tall, sheer limestone cliff.

"This place," Annabeth said.

"There's no monster!" Clarisse said.

"But something's here," Perseus said.

He walked right up to the cliff. It looked natural. He definitely didn't see anything out of the ordinary about it. And yet, when he knelt in front of it, there were marks.

A wide, shallow divot ran the whole width of the cliff. It looked as if something had been dragged there recently. Not far away, dug into the ground, were divots in the shapes of claws.

"I think there's something on the other side," Perseus said.

"And how are we supposed to get inside?" Clarisse asked.

She turned to Annabeth, as if saying, 'You're the one that's supposed to use her brain.'

This time, however, even Annabeth was stumped. She investigated the same things Perseus had, eyeing them critically, but it wasn't like there was a door handle. If the cliff really did open — as crazy as that sounded — then it did so through a mechanism none of them could spot.

The longer Annabeth spent pressing portions and feeling around for a mechanism, the jerkier her movements became. When Perseus caught a glimpse of her palms, they were scraped and raw from grabbing stones.

"Calm down," he whispered so that only she could hear him. "Keep your head clear."

She looked at him, her expression giving nothing away. Her movements slowed down and became more methodical.

It was only the two of them searching for a way inside. Kayla was too busy looking nervously toward the woods, waiting for whatever attacked Thalia to show up. Clarisse was doing something similar, but instead of looking nervous, she was tapping her foot impatiently, her spear out and ready.

Meanwhile, Perseus hadn't given up yet. He dug his fingers into the trench at the base of the cliff, dragging them sideways. When he pulled them out, the tips were black. He gave them a sniff.

"Soot," he announced.

Annabeth's eyes widened. "Maybe the key is—"

The rest of her sentence was lost underneath an absolutely deafening roar. 

If the one earlier made their bodies vibrate, this one made them shake. Perseus nearly fell over. By the time he twisted around, something bronze was surging out of the forest.

Clarisse had looked away for two seconds to say something to Kayla, and that was the moment the creature arrived. Was it intelligent? It had picked the best time possible, at least, whether that was through dumb luck or raw cunning. It closed the distance and slashed at Clarisse with its claws.

They were more like knives, to be honest. The creature was metal, giving Perseus flashbacks to the bulls that snapped his arm. But this thing was as big as both bulls put together, with a long neck and a reptilian-shaped head. Its fangs were the size of swords, while each claw was basically a machete. Even caught off-guard, Clarisse still managed to dodge. 

She dove under its arm, rolling through the landing, and rose thrusting her spear.

"Bring it on, Scale Brain!" she bellowed.

The point of her spear skidded off the dragon's thick bronze scales. It's tail lashed out, catching Clarisse on the side and sending her flying.

Its eyes fell on Kayla, but the daughter of Apollo was already running. She sprinted back through the woods, running toward camp the way that she wanted to from the start. Annabeth drew her knife. Perseus took a deep breath.

"We can't let it hit us," she said.

"I've already been hit by automatons enough for one month," Perseus said.

The bronze dragon threw back its head and roared again. As it did, sparks spewed from a spot partway down its neck.

When it lowered its eyes, it didn't waste any time before charging. 

It was fast. But the only thing Perseus could pay attention to for some reason was its lack of wings. Don't get him wrong, he wasn't upset that the enormous monster couldn't also fly, it just seemed strange.

It wasn't like the monster was slow, though. It ran on four legs as fast as any beast Perseus had ever soon. In seconds it was looming above him and Annabeth, its jaws descending.

They dodged in different directions. Thankfully, the monster had wide movements. So long as Perseus paid attention to the way it moved, he didn't have to make his body go fast in order to dodge, he just had to react early.

Kayla had disappeared. Perseus wasn't mad about that. He'd like for someone to be able to tell the story of how they died.

The dragon hurled its tail at him the way it hit Clarisse, but Perseus had seen that trick. He dropped onto his stomach, letting the blow fly overhead. His body screamed at him, and he couldn't suppress a wince. His injuries were the whole reason he came here in the first place, and they hadn't gotten any better.

But his need to move had increased greatly, and adrenaline was beginning to wash away the pain, helping him move faster. He would pay for it later… If there was a 'later' for him.

He heard metal striking metal. Annabeth had struck the dragon on the leg. The blow pinged off harmlessly, only attracting the dragon's attention— which was what she was after the whole time.

She dodged and ducked and rolled its attacks, using her healthy body to buy Perseus a bit of time. He was genuinely grateful. Taking a moment to let his body recover, he assessed their options.

Clarisse was dazed, but she was already getting up and looking angry. She'd be back in the fight in a moment. The question was whether her — or any of them — could actually hurt this monster.

Its bronze coat was thick and solid. If the bulls Perseus fought had been wearing armor, the dragon was the equivalent to a tank. There was no piercing that metal hide without the strength of a cyclops. Of course, that was only if they had to go through it the old-fashioned way…

The dragon stopped attacking for a moment, sucking in a deep breath. Annabeth noticed, grabbing her invisibility cap. She disappeared from sight, running in a random direction the dragon couldn't track. Instead, the dragon bathed everything in front of it with a thick gout of flames.

Annabeth reappeared seconds later, a few feet to the left of the attack, and picked up where she left off. Perseus's eyes were focused on something specific, though.

Sparks were fizzing out of a point at the base of the dragon's neck. He'd seen it earlier, when the automaton roared. It wasn't new, either. When they were following the monster's trail through the forest, he'd seen burn marks at exactly that height.

It had a weakness. One point on its nearly-flawless exterior was weakened. If they struck it there…

They could bring it down.

That was the plan Clarisse would want to go with. And with her brawn, Perseus's cunning, and Annabeth's ability to plan and strategize, they might just be able to do it.

But there were other things to think about. Perseus's mind kept going back to the soot he wiped away from the base of the cliff. There hadn't been any obvious mechanism, yet it was like the limestone had been hit by fire, repeatedly. What if that was how you opened it? What if that was the way to get inside, to where Thalia likely was?

They didn't know what condition she was in, and it was probable she wouldn't be able to fight. But just getting to her was the entire reason they came this far.

All of this was risky, though. Both options had a chance of getting them wiped out. As much as Clarisse would hate it, they could run. They could get back to camp, and return with help and supplies. It would take a bit of time, but their chances of success would skyrocket. 

Annabeth yelped. Her sleeve had caught fire, and she patted it out hastily, still dodging the dragon's swipes. There wasn't much more time that she could buy. 

Stalling had done all it could for them. They needed to choose a plan of action, and they needed to do it now.

Choice: What should Perseus do?

Option A: Fight the dragon and aim for its weak point.

Option B: Trick it into breathing fire on the cliff to open what's inside.

Option C: Tactical retreat with Kayla, to come back better prepared.

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