I might've accidentally started the apocalypse.

"Great," Annabeth groaned, "Just great." We watched as the giant snake-like-dragon rose to its full height, encircling itself around a skyscraper. Python's eyes glinted as he stared down at us eagerly, enjoying our fear.

"What are we going to do about the mortals?" I asked, "And the gods? They're right across the street. All we have to say is, 'Happy early halloween! Your trick is a giant snake wanting to take over the world, and we were pretty unprepared so you'll have to wait to get the treat.'"

"Zeus' going to blame us for this," Percy said, preparing to charge without thinking, "We're going to have to take care of this ourselves."

"On it," I stomped on my heel, and the blades popped out of my shoes. Making a beeline without thinking about my life on the line, I leaped onto Python's body, and started to climb up its body with my shoes. The blades shoved into the scales and made a crunching sound with each step, and I used two arrows to pull myself up. Python already had his body coiled around the skyscraper, and was ready to recreate the King Kong moment for himself.

Percy placed two fingers between his lips and made an ear piercing whistle. Almost immediately, a silhouette appeared, making a nosedive towards him. Yo, boss! Blackjack whined, shaking his mane and made a touchdown, That guy doesn't look so tasty.

"You mind giving us a ride?" Percy nodded his head towards Annabeth, and Blackjack tucked his wings in order for them to climb on. Austin somehow managed to disappear during the fight, but I wasn't going to worry about him for now. Python hissed as he watched me climb up the side of his tail. With a swift shake, he attempted to slam me into the side of the building. I let go of my hold on the arrows and jumped, shoving my shoes onto a different coil. Unluckily, I had nothing to hold onto, so I was dangling upside down with all the blood rushing into my head.

"Well, this didn't work," I complained, dangling lifelessly while Python continued to squeeze the building to death. The mortals of New York, pointed at the building in shock, most of them running away or taking pictures for their Snapchat stories. Those people weren't worth saving.

"Whoo!" An energized shout echoed from the top of the building. I tried to look up, watching as a bright light flashed above Python's head. Austin then appeared, and shoved an arrow in one of Python's dilated eyes.

"Apollo!" Python hissed and tried to bite Austin, but in another flash, he was gone. Since snakes have no eyelids, Python couldn't blink out the fairly large eyelash stuck in his pupil, and shook his head wildly, causing the skyscraper to tilt and screech. Out of anger, the snake blew a breath of fire, and the roof of the building caught flame. It almost reminded me of how Leo wakes up in the morning.

"Holy Hephaestus!" Annabeth cried, "Is that a blessing of Apollo?!"

"Nah," Austin's voice appeared over my head. I tried to turn my eyes upward, or in my case down, but it really hurt. A pair of hands pulled me up, and Austin handed me one of his own arrows for a personalized holding hook. "It's more like the opposite of shadow-traveling. Will and I discovered this one day when I accidentally sneezed myself to the top of Tokyo Tower. Neat, huh?" Dots of sweat kissed his forehead, probably from over exertion.

"Yeah," I smiled back at his Cheshire grin, "I'm jealous." His amber eyes glinted back in response. While I was feeling the warmth of the blood heading back through my body, Austin disappeared again, and he was already doing a mad tap dancing performance on the top of Python's head. "This is going to take forever," I muttered, watching as Blackjack zoomed towards the top of the building, giving the snake a swift kick here and there. Pulling a silver whistle out of my pocket, I blew it with no audible sound to the human ear.

The loud, beating of wings answered my call. Without time to blink, I was yanked off by the collar of my shirt and my shoes were forced out of Python's side, carving out a couple pieces of flesh. He let out a screech, and gold ichor mixed with dust tumbled from his side. Percy leapt off of Blackjack's back, and shoved Riptide into Python's jaw. Python quickly moved his head and smashed Percy against the side of the building. Well, technically not the side; Python's head went straight through the building, and Percy was holding onto the hilt of his sword tightly, but the pained expression on his face wasn't comforting. "Let's go, Blackjack!" Annabeth yelled and pointed at Percy's flailing body. The pegasus whinnied in reply, making a mad dash towards the son of Poseidon.

I looked up at my carrier, smirking, "Hello to you too, Rigel."

Madam Astra, how many times have I warned you not to provoke the enemy? The alicorn sighed, if horses could sigh. With an upturn of his head, he tossed me up into the air, and I landed very uncomfortably on his back.

"I think my butt bone broke..." I winced and rubbed my backside in pain. The constellations on his hide seemed to move, and his black mane billowed in the wind. "Do you have any idea on how to kill a technically invincible dragon that looks like a snake?"

I apologize that I cannot be much of a help, He shook his horn disapprovingly, But with all the monster mutations recently, the already powerful Python has tons of unnecessary strength. You should ask if you can borrow some.

"Look out above!" A voice from under Rigel's hooves shouted. We looked down to find Lance zooming upwards with a pair of winged shoes completely out of control. "Oh Hermes, I better not die by your own invention!" He screamed as he started hitting the back of Python's skull as if he was beating out dust from old clothes.

Percy was clutching his left arm as he held onto Annabeth with his other. "It's broken; might be dislocated as well!" He exclaimed. Python, in the meanwhile, rid himself of the skyscraper and started to move throughout the New York traffic. I couldn't hear what the tourists were saying, but it wasn't entirely positive.

"You know what I was thinking," I said to Annabeth who was flying a bit ahead of us, "Maybe, you know, just maybe, we could've taken the pegasi to Las Vegas and could've avoided this whole dilemma and probably not injuring hundreds of people."

She rolled her eyes and clutched her bone sword, "Now you say something smart." She scanned over Python with a quick look of her eyes, "His skin is hard to puncture, and even if we did, he doesn't disintegrate. My only guess is that the inside of his body isn't as tough."

"Oh no, I'm not going to be performing surgery on the inside," I raised my hands in surrender, "Don't we need to do an ultrasound or something?" As I was asking this, I launched three silver arrows at once into Python's already injured eye, and he blew fire in anger.

"Python's a guy!" Percy stressed, "I have a jar of Greek fire in my bag; Blackjack, get me over towards Python."

"No way José," Annabeth gently tapped his left arm and he winced, with blood trickling down past his fingertips, "Give it to Astra. We'll land and get Austin to help you with that."

"These shoes are terrible!" A spontaneous Lance tumbled past us, but did a backflip on Python's slithering body to maintain balance.

"That's what you get for buying them 50% off!" I shouted down to him, and he stuck his tongue out at me.

"Okay, Astra, be very careful," Annabeth passed me over a swirling green liquid, "Treat it as if it were a baby." Instantly, Blackjack made a dive and headed towards a Krispy Kreme parking lot.

I cradled it in my arms, almost having the urge to sing a lullaby, "Let's go, Rigel."

Alright... He said while steering us off towards the head of the snake, But I wish not to perish besides you.

"Thanks for the moral support," I grumbled sarcastically. I watched as Python wagged his tail like a little puppy, thrashing into every building and monument it could land on. Austin teleported off of his head and reappeared in the parking lot, although he looked extremely exhausted. Lance was running down Python's back and shoved his sword into Python's neck. The snake-dragon shook its body in protest, but Lance hung on.

"A little help?!" He asked to the air, "Probably from a daughter of Artemis riding a pegaunisis?!"

"Sorry!" I shot an arrow past Python's snout to catch his attention while holding the jar under my armpit, "Hey! Useless dragon who can't even fly!"

The monster turned towards me while licking its lips with its forked tongue. "I'm sssurprisssed that you ssstill have the nerve to fight me," Python cocked his head like a chicken, "Do you not have a conscience?"

Do not mock it, Rigel warned, Do NOT mock it.

"Yeah, but I chose to ignore it," I gave Rigel a look. He was like a bigger, more annoying butler-sounding version of Jiminy Cricket. Python blew a blast of fire, and Rigel tilted left to dodge it. The ends of my hair were singed, and the cuffs of my pants were lit. "Rigel!" I scorned, slapping the flames away quickly (don't do that; it's not very smart. But then again, it's kind of impossible to stop, duck, and roll in the air without falling to your doom).

He shook his head innocently, as if he was subtly trying to teach me a lesson. As soon as the stream of fire died down, I immediately jumped off of Rigel's back and chucked the jar of fire into Python's mouth. He didn't close his mouth in time, but to his luck, he bit down on the glass container. If four pointers existed, I could've made the shot. "Drop, Rigel, drop!" I yelled as I tried to curl into a ball to fall faster. He made a nosedive down, and I watched as the snake gagged and started to glow with green steam. I covered my face for protection, and heard a loud explosion from above. Hot dust burned my skin, and it was probably wasn't a great idea to cut off my sleeves for this battle.

Dang it.

I just realized that I was plummeting to my death. I tend to fall to my death a lot, but hey, that's one of the perks for being a half-blood. Closing my eyes, I braced myself for impact, when something caught me in midair. "Gods, you're heavy!"

I cracked open an eye, realizing that Lance managed to catch me in his arms thanks to his flying shoes. "You finally figured out how to use them?" I grinned as he strained to hold me up.

"Nope, just went on a whim," He shifted my body so I was more comfortable, but Rigel swooped down below us, and caught us on his back.

I am just going to say in advance that one day where you're going to fall to your death, I'm not going to be there for you, Rigel snorted.

"Because I didn't call you in time?"

No. I'd eventually give up.

I tugged his mane in annoyance, and we headed down towards the parking lot while Python's guts floated around like streamers. "We've going to have to find a place to get you healed up," I heard Austin say, "Right now, I can't do anything except for-."

"Well, what are we waiting for?!" Annabeth pushed Percy's limp body back onto Blackjack, "Let's get him to his mom's place!"

"What happened?" I asked as we parked midair while Austin and Annabeth climbed onto Blackjack.

Austin gingerly carried something bundled up with spare clothes, and Percy was draped with a light jacket. His eyes were glazed and he kept wobbling around, probably from lack of blood (or sanity). "We're heading off to Percy's apartment right now," Austin said, and the horses took off, "Percy took the worst hit out of all of us."

"Did you give him any ambrosia or nectar?"

"Yes, but it definitely wasn't enough," Annabeth wiped at her eyes angrily, "His arm was, what's a word that wouldn't sound too bad, impaled by some, uh, really rusty thing, and Austin had to take some drastic measures before anything could spread..." She sniffled as she tried to hide her tears.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go past the flying speed limit by like a hundred!"

The two horses zoomed by in the sky faster than a fighter jet, and within moments, we were parked on the emergency stairs by his bedroom. Lance somehow managed to unlock the window, and we managed to get the woozy demigod to stand upright. Loud footsteps came from the hall, and immediately, and the door burst open to reveal a middle aged woman and a guy with salt and pepper hair. "Percy!" Sally Jackson exclaimed, quickly embracing her son without noticing how he was grimacing in pain.

"Nice to see you, Mrs. Jackson," Annabeth smiled sadly.

"Welcome back!" Paul held out his arms excitingly, awaiting a hug from his stepson, "I can't believe it. You're home!"

Percy gave a sad smile, and his mom pushed him away in shock. Her eyes were widening and she covered her mouth with her hands. Her stare was locked onto Percy's left arm-.

Which dangled lifelessly by his side, without any hand to poke out of the sleeve.

Austin carefully placed the long bound object on Percy's bed and hung his head. He was probably thinking that he should've found another way. Another way to save it.

Percy gently touched his left shoulder, his cheeks still upturned but his eyes said otherwise, "Yeah... Well, most of me."

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I don't understand why people hate Austin so much... He hasn't done anything (yet).

Imma just wait for the hate comments to roll in... Sorry to everyone in the PJATO fandom BUT IT HAD TO BE DONE.

Drop a vote and/or a comment if you enjoyed this (not really) violent chapter!

ANGST.

XOXO,
Arisa