The Demigod Grand Prix: Chapter 14



Damiko Thorne

XIV

The Most Anticlimactic Monster Fight Ever

Damiko tore open the ground above him and went sliding back onto the road. He looked behind him to see something massive hitting the ground and then disintegrating. A monster?

He clenched his teeth. So, whoever was sabotaging the race was making bigger moves than before. That... or it was just a monster attack. But Damiko doubted that. Just ahead of him, in his line of sight, were Victoria Millers and Ramona Waverly. Behind him, catching up, was the familiar Harley Davidson with Yuna at the controls.

"I take it you're the one who took down whatever monster that was?" Damiko asked her.

"It was a troll," Yuna said. Then she smiled. "And I let the others get rid of it while I took the lead."

Not cool, Damiko wanted to say. But then he remembered the goal he had set - It doesn't matter who wins as long as the race ends quickly. Damiko could forgive her for taking a lead while a couple others had to slow down.

"So, Yuna, there's something I need to tell you," Damiko said. "There's someone sabotaging the race. Keeping it from ending so they can annihilate the gods while they're distracted with this. So we have to finish the race as quickly as possible."

"Nice try," she said. "I'm not lowering my guard that easily."

The ground shook beneath her. Stalagmites rose from nowhere and stabbed into her Harley Davidson. The back tire was completely destroyed.

"You jerk."

"I swear, that wasn't me."

More sharp spears of earth slammed into his own motorbike. Slightly more prepared for them than Yuna had been, he dodged the first one in time. The others, however, wrecked the front of his bike.

"Okay, I believe you now."

Damiko swore under his breath. "And if the saboteurs did this to us - who are definitely at least third and fourth place - what'd they do to Tori and Ramona and anyone ahead of them?"

To the side, he saw Sasha Quinn pass right by them.

"Never mind all that about being third and fourth," Damiko amended.

From where the ground had split, a few claws emerged. Then a pair of arms... and a few heads.

"Oh, gods," Yuna said. "A hydra? Seriously?"

"Um... try using your bike's oil spill thing to stop it from moving or something."

"No good," she said. "That's from the half that the ground thing destroyed. What about your whole changing-the-landscape thing?"

Damiko tried it. "Same thing. The controls were in the front half. Looks like we've got nothing now."

Then Richie Stanford drove right over the hydra's head. One of them. But then all of them started looking at him. The hydra got up and started going toward Richie. Damiko hoped that at the speed Richie was going the hydra wouldn't catch up to him.

"If you're right, we've got to help Richie with that thing," Yuna said.

"The only way we can help him is if we can catch up to them. And with both our bikes wrecked, we have to fix them first."

"Fix them? Some of these parts destroyed can't be fixed at this point."

Damiko had an idea at that point. "Maybe they can't be fixed... But they can be replaced. Your bike is now just the working front half of a Harley Davidson. Mine's just the working back half of a Damiko Thorne original. If we team up, then that's enough for a full bike."

"You're insane," Yuna said.

"Good, because I can't think of any other way I could come up with this and actually get it to work."

Damiko put the two bike halves next to each other. It wasn't a perfect fit, but with a little duck tape and a couple minutes, it'd be ready to go.

After both of those things were accomplished - and only one other racer passed them - Yuna sat on the bike and took the bright red handlebars. Damiko got on behind her and kicked the back. The green flames emerged from the back of the bike and sent it flying.

Next stop, Richie. Then Tori and Ramona. Then victory.