Hope you're all enjoying the story so far!

Chapter Quote:

“A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.”

~Robert Frost

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Chapter 15: I Throw Pillow Pets of Death

Bryn

The five of them disembarked off the cruise ship and Bryn had never been so happy to set foot on land.  She made sure she didn’t drop to the ground and kiss it.

“All right, Derek and I will go get the blankets and water.  You three will go get the food and pillows, right?” Luke queried.  He looked at Hannah and Silena but ignored Bryn.  For some reason, it irked her.  What had she done?  It was obvious that he was purposefully ignoring her.

“We got it, Luke,” Bryn said, her temper flaring slightly.  He glared at her.

“Silena, watch yourself,” Luke admonished.

“You, too,” she replied.  At that, they set off.  Luke and Derek headed to the right, the girls headed to the left.  Bryn stayed silent as Hannah and Silena stared in awe at the bustling port.  They sold everything there: food, drinks, knick-knacks, toys.  You name it, they most likely had it.

Bryn’s backpack was empty save for a few snacks in case of an emergency although she didn’t think that would happen.  Her backpack was enchanted to hold more than it looked like it could.  She seriously had to thank Hecate again for giving her that spell book.  It had given her life saving techniques numerous times.

Unfortunately, it didn’t give Bryn any spells to prevent demigod nightmares.  They had been getting worse and worse.  Now it wasn’t just being on the open sea that bothered her.  The dream kept occurring every night and showing Mr. and Mrs. Jackson chained up in a cell with a disembodied voice going: They’re almost here.  And when they do arrive, the girl will be killed.  Her death will break the boy’s spirit.  They are falling right into our trap.

The dream never went any further, but each time it happened, Mr. and Mrs. Jackson looked worse.  They were bloodied up and unconscious.  Mrs. Jackson’s foot was bent at a strange angle.  Mr. Jackson looked like he had two broken arms, possibly from trying to defend his wife against something or someone that had tried to harm her.

“Pillow pets!” Silena exclaimed, knocking Bryn out of reverie.  She looked up to where Silena was pointing and sure enough, a whole stand of pillow pets, ranging from small, medium, and large, were being sold.  The three of them crossed the street and to the vendor.

*“Geia sas korítsia,” the elderly woman greeted with a smile.  Bryn returned it and haggled with the woman for a decent price for the pillow pets.  She hated to use Charmspeak but the woman was asking for such outrageous prices that Bryn decided she had no choice.  In the end, they had two frogs, a turtle, a unicorn, and a ladybug pillow pet.

“The boys will feel oh so masculine with these!” Silena joked as Bryn shoved them into her backpack.  After zipping up her back pack and shouldering it, Bryn and the girls continued their search for small snack foods.  They came across a convenience-like store, sort of like a Greek version of Walgreens.  They split up inside since it was pretty small.  Silena took the candy aisle, Hannah took the chips, and Bryn took the snack bars.  She was the first one done.  Silena and Hannah were having difficulty choosing the best chips and candy.  After paying, Bryn went to go wait outside.  She hated being in enclosed spaces.  Like the sky, she liked to be open and free; she liked to have endless possibilities of where to go. 

When ten minutes had passed, Bryn got worried and as she headed back into the convenience store, an explosion rocked her off her feet.  She was thrown into the stucco building across the street and fell to the ground like a rag doll.  She was aware of sirens coming over to the building but she didn’t care.  Silena and Hannah had been in that building and all that mattered was seeing if they were alive.  If they weren’t… Bryn would never forgive herself.  Forcing herself up, Bryn stumbled into the burning convenience store, yelling frantically for Hannah and Silena.  She found Hannah crawling to the door, grime covering her face and Cheeto bits sticking in her hair.  Bryn helped her up and scanned the room frenetically for Silena but she was nowhere to be found.

“Bryn, she’s not here.  I was on my way out because I had seen her leave the building.  We need to leave.  The building is about to collapse,” Hannah groaned.

“Are you sure she wasn’t in here?” Bryn demanded.  Hannah said she was positive.  When chunks of the ceiling that were as big as Bryn and Hannah combined started falling, they got out of the building quickly.  They barely managed to get outside before the building crumbled to pieces.

Another explosion knocked the two girls off their feet.  Hannah blacked out, leaving Bryn to fend for the both of them.  She rapidly searched for what was causing the explosions but she saw nothing.

“Silena!” She cried out as loud as she could.  No reply.  Worry was gnawing at every bone in her body.  Hannah stirred and sat up.  At least she hadn’t been out for too long.

“What happened?” she mumbled.

“Another explosion.  We need to get out of here, find Luke and Derek, and see if Silena is with them.  Gods I hope she is,” Bryn said.  The two girls walked as fast as they could out of the area and to another side of town.  They stopped so they could each take some ambrosia and nectar to revitalize them; it worked.  Afterwards, they ran.  Hannah spotted the two boys first and the girls had so much momentum going, especially after jumping over two motorcycles, that they nearly knocked the boys over.  Luke and Derek steadied the girls.

“Please tell me Silena is with you,” Bryn pleaded.  Luke’s eyes were mixed with emotion: worry, curiosity, questioning, and angry.

“You let her out of your sight?!” Luke demanded.

“I thought she was with Hannah.  I went out because I was done shopping and I didn’t like being in there.  Then an explosion went off.  I went in to go get them but-”

“But I was the only one there.  I had seen Silena exit the shop so I thought she was with Bryn.  I promise you she wasn’t in that building,” Hannah finished.  The boys looked at the two of them in shock… well, Derek did.  Luke looked like he wanted to murder Bryn.

“What did you do?” Luke inquired seriously.

“What?” Bryn was puzzled.  Her fuzzy thoughts weren’t helping her understand anything either.

“What did you do?  Did you summon lightning and blast the store to bits?  Are you using her for your army?” Luke rambled furiously.

How dare he accuse her of doing such a thing!  And what army was he talking about?  Bryn didn’t have any army behind her.  If she did, she sure didn’t know about it. “What in Zeus’s name are talking about?”

“I overheard your phone call this morning.  I heard you talking about keeping an eye on me and Silena and how you need us on your side,” Luke ranted.

“THAT is what you’re so upset about?  Luke, that call was to Chiron.  Yes, we were discussing you and Silena but not what you’re implying.  Listen, we don’t have time for me to explain right now, but I swear on the Styx on our way to Milos I’ll explain everything, okay?  It is not what you think, I promise,” Bryn insisted.

Luke stared at her, as if he could see right through her.  She really hoped he couldn’t.  She didn’t want him knowing she’d dreamt about his parents.  The only reason she hadn’t told either him or Silena was because she didn’t want to worry them any more than they already were.

“Fine, but I’m keeping you to your promise,” he admonished sternly.

“I know.  Let’s get-” she began, but apparently, the explosions decided to follow Bryn and Hannah.  They all flinched and looked in the direction it had come from.  Out from the dust came two, horrible, massive… husky puppies?  They trotted up to Bryn and Luke and whined.

“These dogs could not have caused all that destruction,” Luke declared, but he sounded dubious.

“No, those dogs couldn’t, but a hydra could,” Derek said, pointing at the dust cloud the dogs had come from.  The four of them looked back at the explosion’s direction and sure enough, emerging from the dust cloud, was not one, not two, not even three, but four hydras. 

“There’s no way we can defeat all four of those,” Hannah said grimly.  Bryn stared at the biggest one, and she started to feel the familiar tug in her gut.  She waited until it felt like it couldn’t be contained anymore and one, bright lightning bolt ripped blindingly through the sky and hit the hydra, making it crumble to dust.

“Bryn, did you do that?” Luke inquired hesitantly.

“Yeah, but I can’t summon any more lightning strikes.  It’ll knock me out.  I haven’t been practicing those lately.  I need to.  Come on.  We need to get out of here.”

“How?  Those things will be able to catch us,” Hannah pointed out.  Bryn looked around, desperately trying to find something.  Her eyes landed on the two motorcycles.  She looked up at Derek who seemed to have already found them, so had Hannah because she was hurriedly putting the two puppies in her back pack; she left the top of the backpack unzipped enough so that they could have air to breathe.  .

“Guys, you better hold onto your heads,” Bryn warned as she grabbed Luke’s hand and pulled him towards the blue motorcycle.

“It’s ‘hold onto your hats,’ not ‘heads,’” Luke told her.

“Whatever!” Bryn grumped as she straddled the motorcycle.  She put on the helmet which was unfortunately just like a regular bicycle helmet so it didn’t offer much protection.  Luke got on behind her and wrapped his arms around her backpack.

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Luke

Most guys would be quite happy if a beautiful blonde girl with a sexy accent grabbed their hand and got on a motorcycle with them.

It was not fun when the beautiful blonde with the sexy accent was a temperamental daughter of Zeus and was a maniacal motorcycle driver.

Bryn and Derek shot off, going separate ways to confuse the hydras.    Luke didn’t risk turning his head to see what route Hannah and Derek had gone off in because he was afraid the speed Bryn was going at would snap his neck in half.  He did, however, without even needing to look back, see two hydras coming after them.

“Bryn!  Two of them are hot on our trail!” Luke shouted over the roar of the engine and wind.

“Open my backpack and throw the pillows at them!” She shouted.  Reluctantly, Luke unhooked one of his arms and opened the backpack, his other arm gripping it for dear life.  He pulled out the first pillow which was a unicorn pillow pet.

“Seriously?  We have to throw the pillow pets?” Luke asked indignantly.  He really didn’t want to throw these; he would never admit it out loud but they were really cute.

“It’s our life of the pillows.  Take your bloody pick!” she snapped.  Unfortunately, the choice was obvious and after saying bye to the unicorn, Luke chucked it at the hydra who met it midway with an acid ball.  The pillow pet consumed the acid ball before exploding everywhere; a large projectile of the gunk narrowly missed Luke and Bryn.

“Pillow pets explode when they hit hydra acid.  What the hell do they put in these things?” Luke grumbled to himself

As he threw another one, this time a frog, he said, “Time to play exploding leap frog!”

He wasn’t sure if Bryn heard him or not but he was hoping she didn’t.  She already thought he was a whack job.

The frog met an acid ball in the air but this time much closer to the hydra and the volatile goo covered the hydra.  Apparently its own acid spit was deadly even to itself and the hydra vanished in a poof of yellow smoke.

“Score one for the demigods!” Luke hollered.  When he grabbed the second frog, his aim was even truer and the pillow pet lodged in the hydra’s throat, making it choke and disintegrate.

“Score two!” Luke declared triumphantly as he turned back around to wrap his free arm back through the backpack.

When he looked in front of him, he saw a truck blocking the intersection.  This was it.  He was going to die at the hands of a crazy British girl.

But of course Bryn had to prove him wrong.  They slid under the truck and righted up on the other side.  That’s when the hydra tail slammed into the bike.  Just before they were ejected off, Bryn grabbed the ladybug pillow pet and tossed it into the hydra’s mouth just as it was spitting acid at them.  The monster disappeared as Luke and Bryn landed on the asphalt and tumbled to a stop.  His body ached from the impact but he managed to prop himself up on his elbows.  Luke surveyed the damage they had wreaked up on the city.  It was pretty impressive for two teenagers.

“You’re incredible, Bryn Winchester,” Luke said with a breathy laugh.  She gave a small chuckle in response.  They started to get up when Bryn cried out in pain.

“Bryn?” Luke asked worriedly.  He kneeled next to her and pulled her into his arms.  Her eyes were scrunched in pain and her hands were clutching the left side of her stomach.  When she pulled them away, her left side was covered in blood.

“Damn… I liked this shirt,” Bryn mumbled.

And then she passed out.

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Hope you liked it!  Exploding pillow pets.  That’s a new one.  Got the idea of using the pillow pets for something in the story after I finished Son of Neptune.  I finished Mark of Athena and let me just say that I wanted to THROW THE BOOK AT MY FREAKING WALL!  The ending was horrible, not the writing, just what happened.  Anyway, moving on from my rant, please review!