Annabeth Chase and the Last Olympian

Chapter 19 - Fighting for my life, but make it fun

I've never been so happy to see drunk centaurs in my life. They loosed a shower of motley arrows at the monsters, vaporising hundreds at once. They weren't even using regular arrows, but ones that made whizzing noises as they flew and ones that had boxing gloves rather than tips. I didn't care what they were using though, as long as they weren't shooting them at us. 

Even more of them arrived, suddenly appearing in our midst with legs moving, like they'd just dropped in from light speed. They were a kaleidoscope of colours, dressed brightly from tie-dyed shirts to rainbow Afro wigs. Some wore Hawaiian grass skirts and some even had time to put on war paint, unless that was already part of their party clothes. 

There was too much to process, but I was fine with standing back and watching as they went nuts, all kinds of projectiles being hurtled at Kronos' forces. The monsters seemed unsure what to make of this and those that mustered the strength to attack were quickly trampled beneath their hooves, or forced to scull a beer. 

"Percy!" Chiron shouted, waving his bow to catch our attention across the sea of centaurs. He was dressed in armour from the waist up and even had a sword buckled to his waist. He looked very pleased with himself. "Sorry we're late!"

"DUDE!" another centaur yelled. "Talk later. WASTE MONSTERS NOW!"

To prove his point, he loaded a double-barrel paint gun and blasted a hellhound bright pink. The hellhound evaporated immediately, so the paint must have been mixed with Celestial bronze dust or something equally deadly to monsters. 

"PARTY PONIES!" a centaur yelled. "SOUTH FLORIDA CHAPTER!"

"HEART OF TEXAS CHAPTER!" came another cry, with a distinctive twangy edge to it. 

"HAWAII OWNS YOUR FACES!" came a third. 

Kronos' army never stood a chance. Mass panic rippled through them and they quickly broke ranks and began to fly, trampling their own forces in the process. 

"Stop running, you fools!" Kronos demanded. "Stand and ACKK!"

A Hyperborean stumbled backwards and sat on top of the Lord of Time, smothering him under his blue butt. 

The centaurs pushed the monsters away, the rest of us following for several blocks until Chiron yelled "HOLD! On your promise, HOLD!"

Surprisingly it worked, the centaurs being reigned gradually and pulled back to help us establish a two block defensive perimeter around the Empire State Building. I could see that Percy's blood was up and from the frown on his face, wanted to keep pursuing Kronos, but I took his arm to hold him back. 

"Chiron's smart," I said. "If we pursue, we'll get too spread out. We need to regroup."

"But the enemy -"

"They're not defeated. But the dawn is coming. At least we've bought some time."

Percy still looked like he wanted to fight but he let me lead him back to the Empire State Building, which was a relief. If he kept arguing, then I was going to have to pull out the old 'I got stabbed earlier and it still really hurts' card, which I was hoping to save for a more dire time. 

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We walked in to the command tent set up just outside the entrance to the Empire State Building to find Chiron in discussions with his brethren, Thalia watching on silently. Apparently almost every state had sent fighters, from a couple from Rhode Island to forty from California. A total of five hundred had answered his call and while it was amazing to have that many, we still couldn't widen our defensive perimeter. The Party Ponies still weren't the most reliable fighters to depend our lives on.