CHAPTER 7

AN: Ok, I know it's not an excuse but the reason I didn't update for so long was because I was all out of muse. I had no interest in this story any more even though I have a plot all laid out, then today when I forced myself to sit down and start this, a new idea came to me and I think it's awesome! I'm going to start a poll about the next chapters too which probably concern most of you, so I'll make a note about it on the bottom of the chapter. Thanks for sticking with me all this time, even with the breaks between chapters! Hope you enjoy this one!

I remember a while ago…well, actually only a few months ago, but still. Anyway, a few months ago I woke up in the middle of the night to some strange, muffled noise in the room. I had opened my eyes in exhausted confusion, bleakly remembering the final I had studied for hours for right before bed. Stephanie was still sleeping, snoring softly like she usually did. But Annabeth was tossing and turning, and as I got out of bed to see what was wrong she started talking again, in her sleep. It had happened before, plenty of times before. I would've just gone back to sleep after realizing that as this was a normal thing, but what she was talking about intrigued me. It was that Percy kid. She kept calling his name, and saying "Where are you!?" Then, "Percy, no! Chimera!" Salty tears started leaking from her eyes, and I had a feeling the guy she liked just died. From…a chimera? Those didn't even exist, or at least that's what I thought at the time. We had studied Greek in eighth grade, so I knew a little about it, enough to know that a chimera was some lion thing with a goat head and a snake tail, besides the normal lion head. Suddenly, she just relaxed and muttered, "Percy, you're safe." Or something along those lines. Her voice was so quiet it was hard to tell. So after she quieted down I went back to bed and a dreamless sleep overcame me.

I remembered all that in a flash. I forgot it just as soon when the thing in front of me roared, and flickered in and out of sight. I stepped to the side as I heard paw's land heavily on the ground from where I was standing before. My eyes narrowed, searching (without finding) the body of the thing that probably wanted to eat me. Then I heard a woman's voice, and as I listened closer I could hear cackling. Well, that didn't sound very good, did it?

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh, this is great. Yes, I know who you are, Rosalyn Miranda Haydn. You know, Percy may have escaped my clutches, but now that you're here he doesn't matter anymore. Now I have another demigod for our plans." The witch chuckled again, her laugh sounded horrible, almost like grinding rocks. Okay, now I've met another crazed psycho to add to the list. Just great. And she knows my name, and I have no idea how.

So I ran. Pretty normal, right? Any sane person would've done it. In the end I wish I hadn't. Bad decision there, as soon as I took five steps I heard a roar and the chimera, after he flickered back into sight, pinned me down on the ground with humongous paws. I looked up at him, my green eyes wide. He stared back with a dangerous light shining in his eyes, and he leaned down and roared in my face. His claws started tearing both the skin on my shoulders and my t-shirt to shreds, and I moaned in pain. Even worse, amazingly, than the pain was the breath. Oh! It smelled horrible. Think of the smelliest, grossest thing that has ever reached your nose and this was a thousand times worse. Obviously this guy hadn't brushed his teeth as often as the dentist recommends. And if I was that dentist (which I would desperately hope I wouldn't be) I would tell him to brush his teeth at least ten times daily. The stink was almost enough to feel faint, but yeah right. You think I'd do that in a situation like this? Nobody was going to do anything to me without a fight.

I tried squirming out of the beast's weight, but that didn't work so I moved my leg and kicked him as hard as I could. It didn't do anything other than get the thing annoyed. Like I needed that. A snake suddenly flickered in the corner of my eye, and I watched as it came closer. I hoped it wasn't poisonous, because if it was I was done for. The woman laughed again as she came into view. Sort of – she was still in the shadows of the trees, and the darkness still engulfed her lower half. "No, Sonny. Not just yet. We've got some…friends…who're going to deal with this one. And they want her alive." I briefly wondered what that meant, when the woman stepped closer to me, and I gasped. The lower half of her body was busy switching between a long serpent's tail and a woman's legs. Her eyes were narrowed evilly, and a huge grin was plastered across her face surrounded by long brunette hair, that curled in the way of famous people (think Jordin Sparks' hair). She would be able to be called beautiful if it wasn't for the bottom half issue.

NO! ROSALYN!

As soon as I heard him, I knew I didn't want Zvase to show himself. This strange pair would capture him just like they had me, so I tried as hard as I could to think my answer to him. Honestly, I didn't think it would work. I thought it was only a one-way connection. But apparently not, because when I thought 'go get Annabeth' as hard as I could I heard small hoof beats quickly galloping away, towards the campus. But I wasn't the only one to hear them.

"Sonny, go get the Pegasus. He could turn out to be valuable." With a grunt, the chimera ran away, his profile still flickering.

"He turns invisible then..." I said to myself under my breath.

"No, it's the mist," the creepy lady said. Like I knew what the mist was. What was it, anyway?

Turning all of my attention over to the lady, I narrowed my eyes and growled, "So who do you think you are to try and capture me like this? Go away and get a life, it'll do us all some good."

"You know, I would if I didn't already have one. But you have spunk, wench. Perhaps my cohorts will not be able to break you, but I doubt it. I'm Echidna, by the way. You're worst nightmare." She cocked her head, and a wave of dark hair swished to the side. "Ooh…I like how that sounds. I should add that to the end of all my evil statements."

I had the fleeting thought of the anteater thing that was called Echidna somewhere in Australia or something like that, but it passed as I wondered what she meant by her "cohorts" breaking me. That didn't sound too nice. So once again, I burst into a run and sprinted away. This Echidna was alone; she wouldn't be able to catch me, would she? I had always been pretty fast anyway. But the monster-woman slithered after me lightning speed while picking up a heavy branch laying on the ground, and once she reached me (which didn't take long at all) she whacked me on the head with it, like she would a pinata. To say it in the least, it really hurt. Black spots crowded out my vision until I fell on the ground, unconscious.

A while later, I woke up, dazed. I kept my eyes closed, the only thing I could do to try to concentrate through the pain caused by the bump on the back of my head. My hands were tied now, and I started cursing in my head. Why? Why me? What in the world did I do to become captured by mutant things? Even more, I wondered why I didn't bring along pepper spray or some kind of weapon like that. Pepper spray did work on weird Greek creatures…didn't it? My head hurt too much to think about it, and I leaned back slowly to feel a leather seat behind me. A few minutes passed by eventless and I started wondering if this whole ordeal had just been some stupid nightmare after a pretty hard test and Stephanie was probably playing some practical joke on me by tying me up. The bump on my head was probably by me just being clumsy – maybe I fell off the top bunk. Yeah, that was it. It all made sense now! With a sigh of relief I opened my eyes to see a black Chihuahua sitting in the seat next to me. Uh oh – not a dream then. I was in a car, with my hands tied. And that Chihuahua looked pretty mean – I've never seen a small dog like that have such razor sharp teeth. Then he started barking, and the woman in the driver's seat looked back at me and haughtily grinned. Great, it was Echidna.

And, as if things couldn't get worse, I slowly looked behind me to see that in the wide gap between the back door and the back seat, Zvase was sprawled on the ground, knocked out. His black skin was covered in little red welts, probably from branches whacking into him on his hopeless sprint for Annabeth. Bleeding gashes coated his withers, obviously from claws, the way they were shaped. Downy feathers that coated his wings were slick with blood, and some of the growing feathers that would actually have let him fly soon had fallen out, some even lying on the ground next to him. Someone had taped his muzzle together with duct tape, probably to prevent him from snapping at anyone. Why torture a foal like this? He was a baby for heaven's sake. He could hurt anyone!

Obviously Echidna thought he could, the way she had also hobbled up his legs. I still stared at him openmouthed, horrified. The poor guy started to flinch as he woke up, and his eye facing me shot open, his eye's blazing with anger as the realization that he was completely helpless came upon him. He looked up at me and glared, but when he realized it was just me his gaze softened.

I'm sorry, Rosalyn.

Echidna looked back again to see me turned around and she snapped, "Turn around now! Stop snooping, or I'll sic Sonny on you again! The Chihuahua grinned a toothy smile, and he growled at me. That was when I realized that this was no ordinary Chihuahua. So I turned around and closed my eyes, and Echidna and Sonny seemed content with that. Of course if she knew that we could speak to each other through our thoughts, maybe she wouldn't feel so triumphant.

Don't be. It was my fault-

No, it wasn't! I was the one who ran off when I smelled that beast. I should've warned you to get Annabeth beforehand.

I have a feeling they were watching us anyway, I mused, thinking. Already the pain behind my head was numbing a little, so it felt a lot better. Now I could actually think. She knew my full name, and attacked at the only time we were alone together. Even if we escaped them this time, they'd make sure to not let it happen again.

Zvase moaned, but not loud enough that Echidna would hear. As if granting us an even bigger boon, the serpent-lady turned on the radio and started singing along with the song after she switched between a few channels. Her singing voice was all gravely..not too pretty.

My little black furry friend continued on. What are they going to do with us? I heard that they wanted to give us to some "friends" but what could that mean?

Well if they're going to hand us over to friends of theirs, they're not friends of ours. But what could they want from us? I'm just human, I'm not half snake or anything like that.

Zvase snorted. You're more than you seem to yourself, that's for sure.

What do you mean?

Annabeth explained it all to me right before this…well, happened. It's probably too much to take in now, so I'll tell you later.

I wanted to press him about it, mostly because whatever Annabeth explained was usually pretty important, but I was too tired to even think. You're right. Get some rest Zvase…it looks like we're going to need it.

AN: Okay, a little shorter than most chapters but right here seemed like a good place to stop. I actually know what I want the eighth chapter to be about so I don't think I'll have to make you guys wait for another several weeks for it. :)

But here's the thing – most of you have probably guessed it but Rosalyn has now been captured by the "dark side." Because of this, I need to make a poll, because I don't want to cut out the other half of the story about Percy, Annabeth, and Stephanie and their search for Roz. So do you think it'd be okay until they're all reunited that I'd switch off points of view? The two that I'd do are Roz's POV, and Annabeth's. Of course Percy would join in on the search, same with Chiron and a bunch of others. I'm still a little wary about the idea as I don't like switching POV's like that in the same story, but it seems necessary right now.

SO, the polls on my page, could you all visit it? Thanks! Review please!