The Sea of Monsters

options, more ways to kill. I thought back to Chiron, who’d told me to stay at camp no matter what, and learn to fight. Now I was going to pay for not listening to him.
    Luke lunged and almost killed me on the first try. His sword went under my arm, slashing through my shirt and grazing my ribs.
    I jumped back, then counterattacked with Riptide, but Luke slammed my blade away with his shield.
    “My, Percy,” Luke chided. “You’re out of practice.”
    He came at me again with a swipe to the head. I parried, returned with a thrust. He sidestepped easily.
    The cut on my ribs stung. My heart was racing. When Luke lunged again, I jumped backward into the swimming pool and felt a surge of strength. I spun underwater, creating a funnel cloud, and blasted out of the deep end, straight at Luke’s face.
    The force of the water knocked him down, spluttering and blinded. But before I could strike, he rolled aside and was on his feet again.
    I attacked and sliced off the edge of his shield, but that didn’t even faze him. He dropped to a crouch and jabbed at my legs. Suddenly my thigh was on fire, with a pain so intense I collapsed. My jeans were ripped above the knee. I was hurt. I didn’t know how badly. Luke hacked downward and I rolled behind a deck chair. I tried to stand, but my leg wouldn’t take the weight.
    “Perrrrrcy!” Grover bleated.
    I rolled again as Luke’s sword slashed the deck chair in half, metal pipes and all.
    I clawed toward the swimming pool, trying hard not to black out. I’d never make it. Luke knew it, too. He advanced slowly, smiling. The edge of his sword was tinged with red.
    “One thing I want you to watch before you die, Percy.” He looked at the bear-man Oreius, who was still holding Annabeth and Grover by the necks. “You can eat your dinner now, Oreius. Bon appetit.”
    “He-he! He-he!” The bear-man lifted my friends and bared his teeth. That’s when all Hades broke loose.
    Whish!
    A red-feathered arrow sprouted from Oreius’s mouth. With a surprised look on his hairy face, he crumpled to the deck.
    “Brother!” Agrius wailed. He let the pegasus’s reins go slack just long enough for the black steed to kick him in the head and fly away free over Miami Bay.
    For a split second, Luke’s guards were too stunned to do anything except watch the bear twins’ bodies dissolve into smoke.
    Then there was a wild chorus of war cries and hooves thundering against metal. A dozen centaurs charged out of the main stairwell.
    “Ponies!” Tyson cried with delight.
    My mind had trouble processing everything I saw. Chiron was among the crowd, but his relatives were almost nothing like him. There were centaurs with black Arabian stallion bodies, others with gold palomino coats, others with orange-and-white spots like paint horses. Some wore brightly colored T-shirts with Day-Glo letters that said PARTY PONIES: SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER. Some were armed with bows, some with baseball bats, some with paintball guns. One had his face painted like a Comanche warrior and was waving a large orange Styrofoam hand making a big Number 1. Another was bare-chested and painted entirely green. A third had googly-eye glasses with the eyeballs bouncing around on Slinky coils, and one of those baseball caps with soda-can-and-straw attachments on either side.
    They exploded onto the deck with such ferocity and color that for a moment even Luke was stunned. I couldn’t tell whether they had come to celebrate or attack.
    Apparently both. As Luke was raising his sword to rally his troops, a centaur shot a custom-made arrow with a leather boxing glove on the end. It smacked Luke in the face and sent him crashing into the swimming pool.
    His warriors scattered. I couldn’t blame them. Facing the hooves of a rearing stallion is scary enough, but when it’s a centaur, armed with a bow and whooping it up in a soda-drinking hat, even the bravest warrior would retreat.
    “Come get some!” yelled one of the party ponies.
    They let loose with their paintball guns. A wave of blue and yellow exploded against Luke’s warriors, blinding them and splattering them from head to toe. They tried to run, only to slip and fall.
    Chiron galloped toward Annabeth and Grover, neatly plucked them off the deck, and deposited them on his back.
    I tried to get up, but my wounded leg still felt like it was on fire.
    Luke was crawling out of the pool.
    “Attack, you fools!” he ordered his troops. Somewhere down below deck, a large