The Raise of the Raze: Chapter 8

Global's POV
I trudged along the sand, playing with a silver contraption my step-brother handed me as a good-bye gift. Hippolyta was leading the way, feeling Annabeth's motions on the earth, no doubt. Heart was opening and closing her palm, and each time she opened it, a tongue of flame danced across her fingertips.

We were obviously bored. My bottles of water I had packed were almost emptied out. There wasn't much to see except for rolling hills of sand and a few cacti every now and then.

Hippolyta suddenly tensed and stopped, and Heart bumped into her. I bumped into Heart, busy fiddling with the silver ball, and got a good-sized knot on my head. I quietly laughed.

"You could have said you were going to stop." Heart said, also giggling, rubbing her forehead. Hippolyta smiled. "Sorry. It's just that, Annabeth is close."

Finally, excitement. I had enough of cacti.

Suddenly, the sand dunes in front of us burst up in a cloud of golden dust, revealing scorpions larger than the monster truck we built in our backyard last summer. And the truck was about fifteen feet tall. There were five of them, all shimmering obsidian black with barbed tails larger than I was, dripping with green poison.

Eagerly, I flicked my Swiss Army knife, focusing my thoughts on an extra large fiery whip that matches the scorpions' tails. The knife obliged.

I smiled at my team mates as they pulled out their own weapons. We charged.

Hippolyta took care of two scorpions while Heart got one. I had a scorpion facing me now, but the last one was missing.

The scorpion jabbed its tail numerous times. I attacked viciously with my whip. The armored shell broke off from the scorpion, and with one last strike, cut off its tail. The scorpion made a sound in its throat like a gurgle of madness, and vanished into dust. Now I looked around for the missing one.

Suddenly, a shadow passed over me. I looked up and a pincer swiped down. I managed to dodge, leaped up, and cracked my whip against the tail. The scorpion roared and dodged expertly. This was probably the leader, for its armor was hard to break.

I generated my thoughts into the weapon, trying to turn it into a knife. Finally, I was holding a two-foot long dagger of celestial bronze. I jumped again and landed just above the beady eyes of the beast. The scorpion made a furious sound again and snapped its fingers at me, trying to pulverize me to death. I slid below the pincers and threw, desperately, the knife towards the tail.

I held my breath. Thank the gods, the knife sliced through and left an ugly stump in its butt. The scorpion screamed and disintegrated.