Kapitel 61: Chapter 58: How to steal a car for Dummies
' Percy '
...
"So what we do?" Nyx asked, "I'm getting tired."
"Shouldn't you be like, I don't know, never tired?" I asked, hinting at her true self.
"Haha, of course I'm not tired." Nyx corrected herself half hearted.
"Why don't you ask your stupid arrow what we need to do?" Zoë asked.
"Hey, good point." I said, then I realized what I said and I was happy no one could see me.
Well except Nyx of course, damn night vision.
I tried to open my backpack in the dark but couldn't find the zipper.
"Give it to me." Nyx sighed after my third attempt.
She yanked the backpack out of my hands, and I heard the sound of a zipper.
She pressed something sharp in my hand, "Watch out." I hissed.
"Sorry, it's so dark in here." Nyx said and I had the idea she was grinning.
I held the arrow, or at least I hoped it was my arrow, in front of me and said, "Arrow of Dodona you have any useful advice?"
The arrow shivered in my hand, "The spider goes west."
"What does it say?" Zoë asked.
"The spider goes west." I repeated.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Thalia asked.
"That the spider goes west." Nyx said laughing.
"Arrow anymore advice?" I asked.
"Thou shall lead the spider west." the arrow yelled.
"You already told me that, what spider and can you be more specific about west?"
"The empty vessel makes the loudest sound." the arrow added.
"What did it say?" Zoë asked again and I told them what the arrow had told me.
"Why does it quote Shakespeare?" Bianca asked.
"That was Shakespeare?" I asked.
"Well, the arrow doesn't help ." Thalia muttered.
"Well, it did pin down what we needed to do." Nyx said giggling.
From somewhere in the front Rebel meowed.
"Stop your joking. This is serious." Zoë said accusingly.
"I'm not joking, okay maybe but it was a good one." Nyx said.
"How can you joke in a time like this?" Thalia asked.
"What do you mean?" Nyx asked.
"We are trapped in a car surrounded by flesh eating birds." Thalia cried out startling the birds.
For a few seconds they began bashing their heads at the car and swirling around it.
We stayed silent and covered our ears, after 10 seconds it died down and we were in the car sitting in complete darkness.
"We can summon food all we want, theoretically we could grow old and die of old age in this car." Nyx said.
Then it got to me. The weakness of the birds is noise. Maybe an Empty vessel is a metaphor for our car.
"Guys I know what we have to do." I said.
"You do?" Thalia asked suspiciously.
"You shall lead the spider west." I said quoting the arrow.
"Am I missing something?" Bianca asked.
"The empty vessel make the loudest sound." I added.
"You are losing your mind." Zoë complimented me.
"No. What kind of car are we in?" I said.
"A Spider." Thalia gasped.
"A spider?" Zoë asked.
Thalia laughed, "This car is called a Spider, it's something new. You wouldn't understand it."
Zoë snorted.
"So we drive this car west?" Bianca asked.
"Cool." Nyx answered.
"No not cool, first of we can't drive this spider to the west since we don't have the keys, or are on a train. Second even if we get of this train the birds will follow us." Zoë cried out.
"Chill." Nyx said, "You heard Percy right? The empty vessel make the loudest sound."
"Sound! That's their weakness!" Thalia said, "The car is the empty vessel or something. We are supposed to make sound."
"How does sound help?" Bianca asked.
"Noise makes these birds totally go crazy." I told Bianca.
"One problem though even if we get of a riding train what stops the birds from following us once we stopped horn honking?" Zoë asked.
"Percy can't you kill them with your flamethrower hands?" Nyx asked.
"No, I can kill a lot but from what I have the idea there are simply to many birds. They will fly out of reach and wait for me to get tired." I said thoughtfully.
"And we are still stuck on a riding train." Zoë helpfully added.
"I think I can get the car of the train." I said.
"How?" Zoë laughed.
A plan began to form in my head, maybe if I could use Combat avatar I could lift the car of this train and jump down to the road, the only problem was not getting killed while doing that.
I knew combat avatar was not good against small creatures. It failed Bast in Central Park when she fought Selquet.
These birds destroy me.
Unless...
'Chaos, I could combine Poseidon's control over water with Hestia's power over food.' I said.
'Yes, so what?' Chaos asked not particularly interested.
'Can I combine my combat avatar with my fire powers?' I asked, 'so the birds can't get to me without burning.
Chaos smirked, 'that would certainly be possible.'
"You'll see." I told Zoë.
"So presume Percy gets this car of the road. How do we drive? We don't have keys." Thalia said.
"Yes and it's not like we have a daughter of Zeus who has power over electricity." Nyx said.
Thalia went silent, "I don't think I can do that."
"Well better learn how to do it." Nyx chuckled.
"You still forget one part of the problem." Zoë said.
"What part?"
"The birds, what stops them from following us?"
I went silent.
"We'll have to scare them away. Make ourselves a bad target." Bianca said, "If sound is their weakness why don't we drive away. Hit the horn as much as we can and blast as many of them out of the sky. That might discourage them from following us."
"That sounds like a plan I would come up with." Nyx complimented Bianca, "You're learning."
"This plan is stupid." Zoë muttered.
"I want to drive." Nyx yelled startling the birds outside.
...
"Are you sure you can shadow travel me? You said it's hard with moving objects." I asked nervously.
I put on Annabeth's Yankee cap and hoped I was invisible.
I could not see myself but maybe that was because of the birds outside.
"It should be possible, the car and the train are moving at the same speed and the distance between the start location and the destination keeps the same." Nyx said thoughtfully, "I give it a chance of 70%."
"Well, it would be a shame if you would die." Zoë mumbled.
Nyx tapped on my shoulder and suddenly I was back on the top layer of the train.
Before I move on I should explain how the train looked like.
The train was a long freight train, and we had, totally on purpose, picked the last freight car.
The one we choose was a triple deck filled with cars, it was about 65 foot long and had a metal mesh curtains hanging on the sides.
All the cars were facing the opposite direction we were heading but did not seem to be chained or something.
I silently thanked Apollo for that.
The problem was, the red Spider we had chosen was parked on the top level between two other cars.
And the fact we were on a riding train.
And the birds.
See the birds were sitting on everything and with one glance I decided I could not burn them all.
Birds were not only covering our freight wagon but they were sitting on all the good wagons the train carried.
Glowing eyes were staring at our car from everywhere.
Nyx had shadow traveled me to Thalia's previous car.
I opened the door and silently prayed the invisibility cap worked.
I stepped on a bird immediately.
It squeaked and combusted into golden dust.
I froze for a second.
Birds everywhere.
Mmm...sounds like a title of a horror movie.
But seriously, birds were sitting on every free space the cargo had.
I made another step, crushed 4 birds and they combusted, but nothing happened. The remaining birds did not even look up, maybe it was something that happened on a regular basis.
I made my way over to the what was once a red spider.
'Ready?' I mentally signed Nyx.
'Born ready.' She answered.
Immediately Zoë slammed the car horn.
Toooott! The sound filled the air and around me the frozen birds sprung to life.
Birds flew up and began circling around our car.
But not in rage this time like before.
But like they wanted the sound to stop.
Some birds crashed mid-air while others began banging their heads against everything they could find.
For a second I was tempted to try and fry them all but it would only tire me out and there were way to much of these demonic chickens.
Instead, I yanked of my invisibility cap and activated Combat avatar.
Chaos's holographic body appeared around me and suddenly I towered above the car.
Zoë had stopped honking for a second. The birds recomposed themselves and glared at me.
They dove at me.
I concentrated, and Chaos's holographic body caught fire.
The golden holographic lines were now burning, fire in all the colors of the rainbow formed a second layer around my body.
The birds that were the closest to me instantaneously combust from the heat.
Atleast 15 of birds caught fire mid air and began to swirl around each other like crazy.
Then Zoë began to honk again.
The birds went nuts again, they began to fly into each other and bumping their heads against everything they could find.
I concentrated and wielded the fire to go around the car, so I would not boil my friends.
I extended my hands outwards, and the holographic arms of fire followed my movement.
I held the car by each end while Zoë was still honking like a drunk driver, distracting the birds from me.
I lifted the car and focused on my surroundings.
The train was still driving at a high speed, jumping off it would do me no good, even with my combat avatar.
I didn't know a lot about science, but I knew that if a fast moving object suddenly bumps into an unmoving object thing will go wrong.
The train was riding parallel from to a country road, on the other side there was a forest that stretched as far as my eye could see.
'Ready?' I asked Nyx.
In my hand the car lights flicked to light and the engine roared.
That's a yes I suppose.
I poured water from the air and made it swirl around me.
Some pigeons died when they tried touching the water but most of them were still going nuts.
When I had collected enough water around me, I wielded it into a form.
A ramp.
Water was sent to the end of our freight train and formed a downwards ramp that reached the tracks.
It was as wide as our car and when the shape was good enough for a suicidal attempt I made it freeze and turn into solid ice.
The ice that touched the tracks immediately scattered but the slope was still intact enough.
With my feet I kicked the car in front of us, the one that blocked the ramp, out of the way and turned around the spider so it was no longer facing the ramp but the train and placed it down.
My Combat avatar faded.
Immediately I felt so exhausted I almost dropped to my knees, but I managed to crawl on top of the car.
My skin was no longer on fire and Zoë stopped honking.
The birds stopped flying around and instead all dove at me.
The car began to drive backwards, and I almost fell off the roof but Shadows had wrapped themselves around my feet and kept me from falling.
The car drove back towards the slope, backwards, and I silently prayed to the god of stupid plans.
The car bumped when we reached the slope but it managed to drive down.
Zoë honked from time to time but I had the idea she had trouble driving backwards on a ramp made of ice and honking simultaneously.
I extended my hands outwards and a pillar of flames shot upwards towards the birds surrounding the car.
I wielded it to form a tornado around me and the car but also forced the flames not to melt.
I would've fainted from the effort if it wasn't for Chaos pouring energy into me and helping me maintain the fire barrier.
Once we were entirely on the slope, the wheels turned and tried to drive upwards the ramp but the ice was to slippery. We slipped down onto the track and with a loud metal clunk sound when we slipped of the ice slope and landed onto the tracks.
Immediately the train drove out of sight, going way faster than a normal train could. The engine roared as we drove forwards over the tracks trying to maintain our velocity so we would not flip.
It worked, the moment we hit the tracks and our wheels hit solid ground we drove forward after the train rails without crashing our flying upside down due to the difference in velocity.
Zoë drove of the rails towards the country road, and I thanked Nyx for the shadow safety belt.
When Zoë got the car on the road, she must have kicked the spider on its tail because we drove with a speed not allowed here and would've been called suicidal wasn't it for the birds still following us.
I wielded the flames around us to hit as birds as we could and form a shield at the same time.
I could see the entire swarm of birds and it was terrifying, the entire horizon behind us was filled with demon pigeons, forming a swarm that could easily take out camp half-blood.
Zoë honked a lot while driving as fast as she could and I burned all the birds that tried to get close to the car.
I noticed that the birds began to retreat, the combination of honking, flamethrowers and chasing a sports car must have been tiring for the birds. After five minutes they stopped following us and retreated out of sight, and I collapsed onto the roof.
"Gods why do I always come up with those stupid plans?" I murmured.
====================
So this chapter was hard to write and I hope you people don't mind the mistakes or bad writing. Anyway have a nice day.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein