Chapter Fifteen LUNA SILVER “Luna!” Thalia cried before summoning her shield Aegis. I knew immediately what she meant. I closed my eyes and tried to feel the moonlight around me. I twisted it into a tube, and I jumped into the tube. It was better than last time. Although I still could not see, I commanded the moonlight to take me directly towards one spartus. It worked, and just as the warrior was about to fire at Amanda, I became solid and pushed into him, causing his shot to go directly upwards, which meant I had about one second before the bullet would hit me. I knew I didn’t have enough time to get up and run, so I teleported again, this time into another spartus, where I performed the same trick again. Meanwhile, Skeleton I Crashed Into Number One had gotten hit by his own bullet, my intentions exactly. But the skeletons were learning, and between the times I teleported, they pounced again and again, and they spread out. I gulped as I tried to teleport somewhere else, but, stuck in my teleporting tube of moonlight, I realized there was no more safe place to teleport to. The skeletons were spread out strategically enough that anywhere was at least three feet away from one skeleton. So I became solid, pulled out my bow, and nocked a poison cloud arrow.(I did consider fart arrows, but I was pretty sure even if the fart arrows could hurt the undead skeletons, they definitely wouldn’t do as much damage as a poison arrow.) A moment later, I shot. One mistake of their spreading out was that the skeletons could be hit by splash damage, which meant two of them got affected by the poison cloud immediately. Katherine grinned and nocked a poison arrow, aimed at the nearest cluster of spartus. The skeletons were trapped, and with Thalia pushing them back with the aura of her shield, Reyna occasionally diving in with her knives, and me and Katherine shooting the poison, Amanda easily found cover and crafted a net. Now, it definitely was not Hephaestus' use-it-on-Ares-and-Aphrodite-so-I-can-humiliate-them brand, but it was strong. After Amanda threw the net, with the skeletons still in it, down the hill, we thought we were safe. But, as usual, we were wrong. “How impressive,” purred a voice from ahead. Zoe, Thalia, Nico and I gasped. It was Dr. Thorn. Now, a little bit about Dr. Thorn. He’s a manticore servant of Atlas and disrupted the Hunters of Artemis a few years ago. We won, but he fled. As far as I know, he got taken care of later in the quest to save Artemis, but apparently he had reformed. All seven of us drew our weapons. (Nico had his Stygian iron blade, and Zoe, having not been resurrected with her Hunter weapons, had borrowed two hunting knives from Amanda. (Amanda didn’t like melee combat.)) I caught Reyna’s eye, and she motioned for me to surprise the manticore with my teleportation-crash technique before he grew his spikes and would injure me on contact. Three seconds later, he was down on the ground with three half-bloods, one three-quarters-blood(I counted the one quarter Ares blood), one former dryad, and one former mortal surrounding him. Nico raised his sword. “Can I finish him off?” he asked. “Do it,” Katherine said. Soon, he was dead. “Hurry!” Zoe said as she led us farther up the hill. “We are lucky we escaped my sisters this time.” Everybody hurried as the sky came into view. The first thing that I saw was Atlas. Then Dr. Thorn. Then a boy -Nico- struggling against the weight of the sky. “What?” Thalia demanded as she faced Atlas. “You do realize you have been tricked,” Dr. Thorn cackled. “I would not have been that easy to beat in real life. And Nico di Angelo does not have a crush on anybody.” I studied Fake Nico’s face, and then I looked at Katherine. “A Mistform,” she gasped. “Only very talented people can make them. Atlas doesn’t seem to care about magic… and Dr. Thorn… definitely no-” “Ouranos! He doesn’t need to be talented to make a Mistform! He’s ancient and powerful!” Thalia cried. “Yes, exactly,” Atlas said. Thalia flinched. “You do realize you can’t send Luke after me now, do you?” She asked. “And Dr. Thorn definitely is not a match for even one of us.” “But I don’t need him to take care of you for me,” Atlas said. “I am officially able to kill any mortal hero that I come across!” “But-the rule!” Zoe cried. “Ah, but it was Ouranos who made the rule in the first place. And now that he is on my side, all of you will have to face my fury. That, or take the sky.” I shouldered my bow. “Come on, guys. We can do this. Zoe, can you take care of Thorn?” The former Hunter nodded. “Okay, then. Let’s go fight Atlas.”
