Chapter 15: St. Louis Arch
The Gateway Arch gleamed silver against Missouri sky, a monument to westward expansion that drew the eye like a beacon. Percy had been staring at it since the freight train crossed the Mississippi River, and when they'd hopped off in St. Louis, he'd made his case immediately.
"We should visit," he'd said. "Just for an hour. We're ahead of schedule, right?"
"We're behind schedule," Annabeth had corrected. "And tourist attractions are exactly where monsters ambush demigods."
"But it's the Arch." Percy's sea-green eyes held that stubborn determination that meant he was going to do this whether they agreed or not. "When am I going to be in St. Louis again? It's the tallest monument in the Western Hemisphere."
Alaric had the deciding vote. He knew exactly what was coming—Echidna and the Chimera, the observation deck battle, Percy's fall into the river. Canon demanded it happen. The question was whether to prevent it or let it unfold.
"Percy needs this moment," he'd thought. "The river will heal him, prove he's Poseidon's son in ways camp couldn't. And if I'm there, maybe I can control the damage."
So he'd voted yes. They'd bought tickets with their dwindling funds, ridden the tiny egg-shaped elevator up the Arch's interior, and for five perfect minutes, they'd been normal kids looking at an incredible view.
The Mississippi River sprawled below. St. Louis spread in every direction. And Percy had grinned with pure, uncomplicated joy—the kind that came before everything went to hell.
Then the woman with the Chihuahua blocked the elevator exit.
She was heavyset, wearing a floral dress and sensible shoes, looking like someone's grandmother on vacation. But her eyes were wrong. Ancient. Reptilian. And the "dog" in her purse had too many teeth.
Alaric's monster senses screamed warnings. His hand moved toward the Gate of Babylon on instinct.
"Percy Jackson," the woman said. Her voice was gentle, maternal, completely at odds with the predatory intelligence in her gaze. "Son of Poseidon. Zeus demands your death for theft you didn't commit. Such a shame. Children shouldn't suffer for their parents' sins."
The Chihuahua growled. The sound was wrong—too deep, resonating in frequencies that made Alaric's bones ache.
"And you." Echidna—because that's who she was, Mother of Monsters, ancient and terrible—fixed on Alaric with sudden intensity. "You reek of my children's blood, little devourer. Hellhound, Empousai, Dracaena, Medusa... How many of my babies have you consumed?"
Tourists were starting to notice. The observation deck held maybe thirty people, all of them sensing something wrong, fear spreading like ripples in water.
The Chihuahua jumped from Echidna's purse. Grew. Grew. Bones cracking, flesh expanding, transforming from toy dog into nightmare mythology: lion's head with mane of flame, goat's body with additional head growing from its back, serpent tail that hissed with intelligence.
The Chimera. Twelve feet of hybrid monstrosity, each head independent, fire dripping from the lion's maw like liquid death.
Tourists screamed. Scrambled for the elevator, the stairs, anywhere that wasn't here. The Mist would hide the truth from most of them—show them a dog attack or structural failure—but for the demigods, reality was crystal clear.
"Percy, run!" Annabeth yanked her invisibility cap on, disappearing. Smart—can't target what you can't see.
Grover's pipes came out. He played discord, panic music that made the Chimera's heads shake in confusion.
But Percy stood frozen. Staring at the monster with the kind of horror that came from knowing you were looking at your own death.
Alaric made a choice.
"RUN!" he shouted. The Gate of Babylon exploded around him—thirty portals, forty, more than he'd ever summoned simultaneously. Weapons erupted in a defensive storm: swords, spears, shields, axes, all orbiting him like satellites. "Get Percy to the river! I'll hold them here!"
"What?" Percy's voice cracked. "No, we fight together—"
"Trust me!" Alaric met Annabeth's eyes—she was still visible to him, something about their pact letting him sense her location. "I dreamed this! It has to be him in the water! GO!"
Annabeth understood. Her strategic mind calculated odds and decided Alaric was right. She grabbed Percy—physically grabbed him despite her invisibility—and started dragging him toward the emergency stairs.
"NO!" Percy struggled. "I'm not leaving you!"
"You have to!" Alaric summoned more weapons, creating a wall of bronze between his friends and the Chimera. "Percy, trust me! Get to the water!"
Annabeth got him moving. Grover followed, bleating in panic. And then they were gone, footsteps echoing down the emergency stairwell, leaving Alaric alone with two ancient monsters and the stupid heroic choice he'd just made.
The Chimera stalked forward. Three heads tracking him independently—lion's head low and predatory, goat's head bleating challenges, serpent tail coiled to strike. Fire dripped from multiple sources, scorching the observation deck's floor.
Echidna watched with maternal patience. "Brave. Stupid, but brave. You think you can hold us alone?"
"I think I can try."
Alaric attacked.
Fifty weapons launched simultaneously. Bronze rain falling from every angle, each blade and spear and axe aimed at vital points. The Chimera's hide was tough—magically reinforced, resistant to normal weapons—but volume made up for individual weakness.
Three swords pierced the lion's mane. A spear caught the goat between ribs. The serpent tail got pinned to the floor by axes.
The Chimera roared. Fire breath erupted from the lion's mouth—concentrated inferno that melted bronze mid-flight. Alaric's weapons shattered, dissolved, and he just kept summoning more. His blood potency was around 18% now, high enough to sustain this barrage for maybe two minutes before exhaustion hit.
He had to make them count.
The serpent tail freed itself. Struck at him with fangs dripping venom. Alaric summoned shields, caught the bite, used the momentum to vault over the Chimera's back. Landed behind it. Summoned a hammer and brought it down on the goat's skull.
The impact rang like a gong. The goat's head cracked—not dead, but dazed—and Alaric felt savage satisfaction.
Then the Chimera spun. Faster than something that size should move. Its lion claws caught Alaric's chest, tore through his dracaena scales like they were paper, and pain exploded white-hot.
He flew backward. Hit the observation deck's windows—safety glass designed to withstand impacts cracking under the force. Blood poured from three parallel gashes across his ribs.
"You're strong for a half-blood abomination," Echidna said. She hadn't moved from her position by the elevator. "But you're not strong enough. My child will kill you, consume you, and then hunt down your friends. That's what happens to those who murder my babies."
The Chimera advanced. Fire building in its throat. This was the killing blow—the moment Alaric died or did something desperate.
"Ten bloodlines," his mind supplied. "No, thirteen now. You've got thirteen bloodlines absorbed. That's past the threshold. Chimera Genesis should work."
Should. Maybe. He'd never tried it. Didn't know if the transformation would even activate or if it would kill him trying.
But death was certain if he did nothing.
"Fine," Alaric gasped. Blood on his tongue. "Let's see what happens when chimera meets chimera."
He reached inside himself. Grabbed hold of every absorbed bloodline simultaneously—Hellhound, Cyclops, Empousai, Medusa, Minotaur, Harpy, Dracaena, Stymphalian Bird, and more—and pulled.
His body exploded in golden-crimson light.
Pain beyond description. Bones breaking and reforming. Muscles tearing and knitting back stronger. His spine elongated, vertebrae adding themselves like someone was building him from scratch. His skull cracked, reformed, grew horns that curved like the Minotaur's.
Alaric screamed. The sound came out wrong—too deep, resonating with harmonics that belonged to monsters not men.
When the light faded, he stood eight feet tall.
His skin was scaled—not fully, but patches of dracaena armor mixed with Medusa's serpentine patterns covering his torso and arms. Hellhound fangs filled his mouth, each one dripping with Empousai venom. His eyes glowed crimson and gold simultaneously, Medusa's gorgon vision layering over his original heterochromia. Minotaur horns crowned his head. And through it all, Cyclops strength flooded his muscles, making every movement feel like he could shatter steel.
He was a chimera. A living hybrid of thirteen different monster bloodlines, compressed into one impossible form.
The Chimera hesitated. Recognized something familiar. A fellow hybrid. A creature that shouldn't exist but did anyway.
Echidna's eyes widened. "What—how—"
Alaric didn't give her time to finish. The Gate of Babylon erupted at full power. A hundred portals. Two hundred. Every weapon in his dimensional armory manifesting simultaneously, and in this transformed state, he could control them all.
Bronze filled the observation deck like a metallic hurricane.
Swords drove through the Chimera's lion head. Spears pierced its goat skull. Axes severed the serpent tail. The monster tried to fight back—fire breath, claws, venom—but Alaric's transformed body tanked everything. Fire resistance from multiple bloodlines made the flames feel like warm air. His scales absorbed claw strikes. Venom dripped off him harmlessly.
He walked through the Chimera's attacks like they were nothing and drove a legendary spear—pulled from the deepest part of his armory—through all three heads simultaneously.
The Chimera dissolved. Golden dust and blood, so much blood, splashing across Alaric's transformed body.
His Bloodline Devourer nature activated automatically. He drank deep, absorbing the Chimera's essence even as he stood there panting. Multi-aspect abilities flooded in—the capacity to blend different traits simultaneously, adaptive biology that resisted environmental hazards, regeneration that would close wounds in minutes instead of hours.
Fourteenth bloodline. Blood potency spiking to 20%.
And a timer starting in the back of his mind: eight minutes of transformation remaining before complete collapse.
Echidna fled. Just turned and ran, unwilling to face a chimera-hybrid demigod who'd just killed her child. Smart. Alaric probably could've caught her, but he had priorities.
The broken window. Percy's escape route.
Alaric staggered to it, his transformed body making movement awkward. Below, the Mississippi River churned. He knew—from books, from canon, from meta-knowledge he shouldn't have—that Percy was down there right now. Being healed by his father's element. Discovering water immunity. Having the character-defining moment the prophecy demanded.
And Alaric had made it happen. By staying behind. By fighting alone. By transforming into the monster everyone feared he'd become.
Mission accomplished.
His transformation failed. The golden-crimson light flickered, died, and Alaric's body collapsed back to human form. Eight feet to five-six. Scales to skin. Horns to hair. Fangs to regular teeth.
He hit the floor hard. Unconscious before his head bounced off broken glass.
The last thing he heard was sirens. Police, fire trucks, emergency services. They'd find him here—a thirteen-year-old boy surrounded by destruction, covered in blood, with no explanation that would make sense.
"Teenage Terrorist Attacks Arch," the headlines would say. Or maybe "Unknown Hero Saves Tourists."
Alaric would never know which story they told.
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