Capítulo 56: Chapter 53: I burn down a fire engine
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' Percy '
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"Thou shalt feed thy cat!" The Arrow of Dodona exclaimed.
"What? I don't have a cat, nor do I have fish." I replied.
"This is really weird, hearing one side of the conversation." Bianca said.
I put away the arrow in my backpack.
"Trust me, hearing both sides is even more confusing." I said.
"So where are we going?" Zoë asked from the front seat of the van.
"National Air and Space Museum, Washington DC." I told her, not that the arrow told me but I knew it from last time.
Zoë looked at me skeptical but started the van and we drove away.
Bianca and Zoë sat in the front, Zoë insisted she would drive. Nyx tried to argue but luckily Zoë won the argument.
I sat on the left next to Nyx who was playing with her daggers.
Thalia sat on the right side of the van and looked utterly bored and annoyed. It was clear she did not really liked the fact we traveled it with the hunters.
"How long will it take?" Nyx asked after 3 minutes.
"Around six hours." Zoë replied.
"Are we there yet?" Nyx asked a minute later.
"I just said it would take around six hours to reach Washington."
Nyx nodded, "So are the six hours over?"
Zoë sighed, "Are you an idiot?"
"Yes, she is." Thalia answered.
"No I'm not." Nyx said and she crossed her arms.
"You kinda are." I said.
"No I'm not." Nyx huffed.
"Please stay quiet." Zoë muttered.
(Linebreak)
We ran into problems after a few hours of driving. We stopped once in Philadelphia at a Gas station to get some food and to pee. After that we drove for another hour or so when we met our first problem.
As we drove towards Washington I noticed that the road became abandoned. We only passed a car every 15 minutes or so, beside that it was like we were the only one on the road.
Zoë theorized that it was because of the mist, that it kept people from going west. I thought it was weird, but I was just glad we had no trouble with the traffic.
Until we were stopped by a fire truck in Maryland.
We drove through the winter landscape of Maryland, snow covered everything except the road. To our right we had the frozen woods of Maryland City Park.
Snow covered all the tree's as the tree trunks stood out from the white background, making them look like black stripes against a white background.
We were driving on a two lane road we would have no problem reaching Washington if it wasn't for the burning fire engine.
"What is this?" Zoë asked.
"A firetruck you dumbass." Nyx said.
"Yes but what is it doing here? Where is the police?" Zoë said.
"Or the fireman?" Bianca asked.
Through the windshield we saw a burning fire truck parked across the two lanes of the road making it impossible for us to drive past it.
It was a large red fire engine. it Iarried a water reservot on the back that had a large telescopic ladder on top of it that was mounted on a turntable on the back of a truck chassis.
Oh, and did I mention that the fire engine was on fire.
Flames were licking away at the base of the engine. I saw a few empty petrol cans lying on the ground next to the fire engine.
"It's set on fire." Nyx noticed.
"But why?" I wondered.
"We are losing time." Zoë complained.
"We can't drive around it." Bianca said.
"Is no one worried why there's a burning fire engine on the road?" Thalia asked.
"I can burn it away and we can carry on." I noidticed.
Zoë turned in her seat and glared at me, "You can burn away an already burning fire engine?"
I nodded, "Yeah, Greek fire."
"You can use Greek fire?" Thalia asked.
"Yeah, but he will pass out after it." Nyx said.
"Greek fire might work and burn a big enough gap." Zoë said and she opened the door.
We got out of the van, into the cold winter air, and stood in front of the burning fire engine.
"Sel,o do it." Zoë said with a smirk and I think she wanted me to fail.
I raised my hands and turned my palms.
"You fell for it again." A voice behind us said.
I thought we were becoming a good team because we all turned around at the same time.
Behind us 32 feet away stood Despina who was surrounded by a pack of wolves.
I counted at least seven wolves.
They were no regular wolves, I could tell that easily.
Also the fact that the wolf closest to Despina morphed into a human helped.
The wolf jumped up and when it landed it had transformed into a man.
The man had greasy and ragged hair that made it hard to see if it was blond or brown. On his head he wore a crown that was made of finger bones and had a pale skin.
He wore robes of tattered animal skins, and the smell almost made me vomit. I recognized the skin of a deer, rabbit and a cow in his robes, though I did not want to know what he used for his clothing.
He had red eyes that were filled with hate, and he was glaring at Zoë who apparently recognized him.
"Lycaon." Zoë growled.
"Zoë Nightshade, without your Goddess to protect you I see." Lycaon said.
"Who?" Bianca asked.
"Lycaon, the first werewolf." Despina said, "He's a werewolf. He howls at the moon at night."
Lycaon growled at Despina but she just smirked.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
Despina rolled her eyes, "Do I need to tell you everything? We are here to stop you from rescuing Artemis."
"You know where she is?" Bianca asked.
"Duh." Despina laughed, "Well, attack dog!" She said.
Lycaon growled but turned into a wolf and leaped forward, followed by the rest of his pack.
I raised my hand and a burst of flames spurted outwards, it was meant to hit Lycaon but instead it burned two wolves that were following him.
Nyx had summoned her daggers and lunged forward to attack the rest of the pack while Zoë and Bianca were shooting arrows, standing back to back.
Thalia raised her spear and aimed it at Despina who was smirking.
In both her hands an ice sword formed.
"Ready to die brother?" she asked.
I frowned, "That's not even original."
Nonetheless, she charged forward at Thalia and me.
Thalia stepped to the left while I stepped to the right.
Thalia swung her spear at Despina's stomach while I raised my hands to send a fireblast at her direction. However ice formed under Despina's fee, giving her extra speed and made me fall on my butt and the blast of fire was send into the air.
Before I got up she was to close Despina blocked Thalia's spear with both her swords and pressed her backwards. Despina's strength combined with her speed must have been a lot because Thalia flew backwards at least 30 feet.
She managed to land on her feet and break her fall.
Despina spun around and both her swords swung over my head and would've decapitated me wasn't it for the fact that I was sitting on my butt.
Thalia got up and glanced at me from Despina's back.
Her eyes widened and she glanced at Despina and then winked.
I was bad at sign language but if I had to take my guesses she was telling me to distract my evil sister.
"Stop!" I said, and I raised my hands in a tone of surrender.
"What?" She asked annoyed and she lowered her swords.
Thalia stabbed a wolf while sneaking towards Despina, from the corner of my eyes I could see a lot of wolves fled or must have been killed, Nyx was standing on the van and throwing her daggers at the wolves. However, the wolves were to fast to get hit.
It was the same for Zoë and Bianca who were trying to shoot at the remaining wolves who had not fled yet but their arrows were to slow and the wolves kept circling around them.
"Despina." I said, trying to distract Despina.
"What?" she asked again.
"Why did you join Kronos?" I asked, and I felt proud at myself for making such a smart move. Everytime I met a bad guy they would talk for hours about what they would gain from joining the darkside.
Despina shrugged, "Because it's fun." she said.
I scowled at her, "Fun?"
"Oh, and if Kronos wins I'm going to freeze the entire world." she said casually.
Thalia almost was close enough to strike.
My mind was working overtime trying to find ways to keep this conversation going, but it was hard.
"So you are like Mister Freeze? Wanting to freeze the world?" I finally said.
She shook her head, "No, he does it to safe his wife Nora, I'm more like Killer Frost, I just love ice."
I stared blankly at her.
Then Thalia lunged forward and would've pierced Despina from behind, but Despina simply stepped aside, without looking behind.
Thalia stumbled forward and almost hit me with her spear.
Despina shook her head, "Backstabbing? Seriously?"
Suddenly she lifted her ice sword and slashed through the air.
A silver arrow, broken in to pieces, fell to the ground.
More arrows flew towards her, and she was forced back, slashing every single one of them midair. She glared at the van where Zoë and Bianca had managed to scare away the wolves and were firing at Despina.
I got up and raised my hands to fire.
"Cowards." she muttered.
"You were the one who attacked us while outnumbering us." I said.
"No," she pointed her swords at the van, and I followed her glance.
"Lycaon, he fled." Despina said.
I turned back to Despina, only to find a fresh puddle of snow that lay on the place she stood a few seconds ago.
"Urh, she's gone." Thalia said and then glared at me, "You let her go."
"What?" I asked, but she ran away, towards the van.
"Something is wrong." Zoë said when we reached her.
"What is it? The fact that we were ambushed?" Nyx asked sarcastically.
"No, the wolves fled to soon." Zoë stated.
She saw our confused looks and explained. "They ran away while they still could fight us, that's not their style. The only flees when they are outnumbered and on the losing side."
"Weird." Thalia said.
Bianca gazed at the burning fire engine, "We need to go, we wasted a lot of time."
I nodded and raised my hands again and turned my palms outwards.
I closed my eyes and imagined a beam of green fire coming out of my hands and melting a hole through the fire engine.
I opened my eyes and saw that my hands were set on fire. Green flames were burning in my hand.
"Wow." Thalia said with awe.
"Yup, awesome isn't it." Nyx said.
"So what is greek fire?" Bianca asked.
"Watch this." I said with a smug smile.
I aimed my hands forward and concentrated, and a beam of green fire spurted out of my hands and it engulfed the fire engine.
I focused harder and tried to make the flames bend around the road so the road would not be burned away.
My fire worked as a laser, it burned away the midsection of the fire engine.
When the gap was big enough, I finally lowered my hands and felt exhausted.
I was hungry and it felt like someone was banging on the inside of my head with a hammer.
"You did it." Zoë said with awe.
"Yes." I managed.
Then I felt my legs go numb, and I fell to the ground.
"Percy." Thalia cried.
"Don't worry," Nyx said, "He's just going to black out for a while."
I blacked out.
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