daylight | percy jackson

no red flags here

˚₊‧꒰ა ☆ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

BOOK TWO

CHAPTER TWO.

❝ my head is literally on fire! ❞

MYTHOLOGICALLY SPEAKING, Aria hated a lot of things. She used to think that three old hags was at the top of her list, but now she was reconsidering. 

Bulls might be her new top hatred. 

If fighting one wasn't enough, make it two bulls. And not just regular bulls - bronze ones the size of elephants. Even if that wasn't bad enough, they just had to breathe fire too. 

As soon as the group exited the taxi, the Grey Sisters peeled out, heading back to New York, where life was safer. They didn't even wait for their three extra-drachma payment. They just left them on the side of the road, Annabeth with nothing but her weapon and backpack, Aria with nothing but her trusty lip balm and a bronze dagger in her shoe, and Percy and Tyson still in their burned-up tie-dyed gym clothes. 

"This doesn't really look like a welcome back to camp party does it?" said Aria, looking at the battle that was growing more intense by the second. 

The bulls weren't the thing they were most worried about however. It was the fact that the beasts were ranging all over the hill, even around the back side of the pine tree. Which shouldn't have been possible. The camp's magic boundaries didn't allow monsters to cross past Thalia's tree. But the metal bulls were doing it anyway. 

One of the heroes shouted, "Border patrol, to me!" A girl's voice--gruff and familiar. 

"That's Clarisse," Annabeth said. "Come on, we have to help her."

Aria hesitated. Helping out the girl who had literally tried to skin them alive last summer was not her ideal first day back, but she mentally cursed herself for being so mean. She refused to act like their godly parents. 

Clarisse's warriors were scattered, running in panic as the bulls charged. The grass was burning in huge swathes around the pine tree. One hero screamed and waved his arms as he ran in circles, the horsehair plume on his helmet blazing like a fiery mohawk. Clarisse's own armour was charred. She was fighting with a broken spear shaft, the other end embedded uselessly in the metal joint of one bull's shoulder.

Percy uncapped his ballpoint pen. It shimmered, growing longer until he held the bronze sword in his hands. "Tyson, stay here. I don't want you taking any more chances."

"No!" Annabeth said. "We need him."

He stared at the girl. "He's mortal. He got lucky with the dodgeballs but he can't-"

"Percy, those things up there are colchis bulls, made by Hephaestus himself. They're impossible to fight without Medusa's sunscreen SPF 50,000. We'll get burned to a-"

Aria ran up the hill, pulling out her lip balm. 

"Look, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm not going to let Tyson get fried."

"Percy-"

"Tyson, stay back." he raised his sword. "I'm going in."