10-9-13
IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!
Hey, guys! Okay, so the last three chapters—like I said—were all disconnected rough drafts. These next few chapters are actually connected.
I'm REALLY sorry about the cliffies on the last couple of chapters. Unfortunately, they're going to stay that way for awhile.
So, this chapter's starting up with the assumption that the rest of the army has already arrived. I'm kinda disappointed that I didn't have time to connect the previous scenes with this, because I had a big old sissy fight planned for their war council. *Sigh* Well, like I said, the next few chapters are all connected to each other.
Thank you Olympus97 for following, favoriting, and reviewing! Thank you TeamLeoV247 for reviewing!
Enjoy!
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LEO
Leo looked down on the battlefield-to-be from his position at the Argo II's helm. Horns blew below them as the monsters scrambled into ranks under the rapidly descending war ship. They had been spotted.
Leo winced as he remembered that this was the same thing that happened when they had first entered New Rome. That hadn't ended well. And the monsters weren't going to be as hesitant about blasting them out of the sky at first sight.
Greek and Roman demigods lined the deck of the Argo II, watching the enemy grow closer and closer. Flying chariots pulled by eagles and holding more demigods followed the trireme on either side, making a V with the Argo II at its peak.
"Fire the ballistae, Coach!" Jason shouted from his position in the crow's nest. "Aim for those catapults!"
Coach Hedge grinned demonically and Leo was glad he wasn't on the receiving end. "It will be my infinite pleasure, Grace," he hollered. He yanked back the trigger, sending flaming javelins into the ranks of monsters below. "Die!" he yelled gleefully.
Everyone cheered as round after round of shots slammed into the catapults and monsters below, wrecking havoc in the ranks.
"Frank!" Jason called, causing said person to jump in surprise. "Fire at will!"
Frank gulped slightly, then nodded. He raised his bow and nocked an arrow. He pulled the feathered end up to his ear and paused to aim. No sooner had he shot the arrow before another was sailing after it.
Leo watched in amazement as Frank shot arrow after arrow in a matter of seconds, sometimes nocking two or three at a time. Frank Zhang was full of surprises.
"Apollo cabins, stand ready!" Will Solace from the Greek Apollo cabin shouted.
The Apollo campers from both camps raised their bows, waiting for the next order.
Will studied the monsters below, gauging the range. He raised his own bow. "Steady…steady…fire!"
Dozens of arrows shot off the ship, heading like angry wasps into the monsters below.
"Load!" Will demanded. "Ready…aim…fire!"
Another wave of arrows shot towards their targets below.
Leo knew this wouldn't last much longer. Once the monsters recovered from the initial attack, they would return fire. As if in answer to his unspoken thought, Leo heard a strange whistling sound that grew in pitch and volume. The rock flew just above the mast of the Argo II, narrowly missing Jason.
"Coach!" Jason shouted. "Take out the catapults!"
"Die!" Coach replied, releasing another round of javelins.
"Leo, Hazel! Ready the death ray!" Jason continued.
Leo swallowed nervously and nodded.
He dashed over to a set of hastily added controls, and typed a few commands into the keyboard. Suddenly, the Argo II came alive, panels squeaking and whirring, planks turning to expose shining Celestial bronze mirrors. Hazel dragged the huge spotlight into position in front of the mirror placed above the stern.
Leo turned the dial to fifty percent power. He kept his hand poised above the button, waiting for Jason's order.
They were three thousand feet in the air and closing. The monsters looked like ants below them, with the occasional beetle which marked the presence of a giant.
"Keep your heads down!" Jason warned.
Every couple minutes, a cannonball would fly past, but they were still mostly out of range of flying projectiles.
Two thousand feet.
Leo could now distinctly hear the roars of the monsters below, cheering on their comrades who were firing at the Argo II.
"I can see giants!" Jason called.
Leo peered over Festus's bronze head and peered down at the ground below. Sure enough, he could see maybe half a dozen giants among the monsters. He got a sour taste in his mouth as he saw Porphyrion among the group. He was too far away to be able to see any details, but he'd recognize that horrible braided hair anywhere. Unfortunately, he could also see Enceladus. Those greasy dreadlocks were easy to spot. The giant looked no worse for wear after getting swallowed by earth eight months ago. But then, his mother was Gaea, so he supposed it made sense. Okay, it didn't make any sense.
He didn't recognize any of the other giants. One appeared to be wearing some sort of pink bathrobe and bunny slippers, which would have been funny if the giant hadn't been setting fire to hay bales with his breath. Leo dimly wondered why he would do that.
His answer came pretty quick as he saw a flaming bale fly past the mast, setting the sails on fire.
"Hey!" Leo cried. "Those were made on Athena's own loom! Do you realize how many drachmas those things cost?"
"Leo, look out!" Jason cried.
Leo instinctively leapt off to his left, just in time. A flaming hay bale smashed into the spot where he had been standing. He sighed in relief…until the hay bale's momentum caused it to roll over on top of him, slamming him onto the deck.
All he could see was red. He felt like he'd gotten hit by a bowling ball. The fire didn't hurt him, obviously, but the hay bale was sitting on his chest. The combination of the superheated air around him and the weight of the hay bale made it nearly impossible to breathe.
He dimly heard someone cry out his name and the weight being pulled off his chest. He gasped for breath as the air around him became a more tolerable temperature. He opened his eyes to see…three Pipers?
Leo shook his head like a dog and looked back at the Pipers. Er, Piper.
"You okay?" she asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he said. "Where'd your sisters go?"
"What?"
"Never mind." He stood up shakily and leaned against the control board, trying to stop his head from spinning. He was lucky the bale hadn't hit him straight on, or he'd have been a Leo pancake. He gratefully accepted the square of ambrosia Piper gave him and took a small bite.
His vision cleared and the throbbing in his chest went down some. Hazel and Nico had already put out the fire caused by the bale, using the hose stored under the control board. Coach Hedge was beating at the still smoldering hay with his baseball bat.
"Die!" he screamed gleefully.
Leo figured that the Coach was finally living up to his first name: Gleeson.
"Coach!" Jason cried. "Get back to the ballistae!"
The satyr hesitated before glaring down at the now extinguished hay bale. "I'll get you later," he promised. He then clopped off to the ballistae.
Leo turned back to the controls, listening to Festus's status report. So far, nothing was severely damaged.
He looked over the bow. Five hundred feet to go.
"Fire the death ray!" Jason hollered.
Leo held his hand over a big red button. He hesitated slightly before slamming his fist into the button, praying to his father that it wouldn't incinerate the Argo II. The spotlight turned on and reflected of the mirror, causing a buzzing sound to fill the air. The light bounced back and forth between the mirrors placed in a zigzag pattern between the two masts, the buzzing sound growing louder and louder as the beam grew smaller and smaller. Finally, the beam flashed into a prism before shooting off into the ranks of monsters below.
Leo could hear screeches of terror as he waved the joystick from a claw machine back and forth, moving the beam around. Every monster the beam touched immediately exploded into dust.
"Woohoo!" Leo shouted in ecstasy. He started hitting the button on the joystick rapidly, shooting lasers into the enemy like a mini Death Star.
"Hey, no fair!" Coach Hedge huffed.
Leo grinned at him crazily before swirling the joystick in a circle. "Bet'cha I can kill more monsters than you," he taunted.
His old gym teacher's eyes glistened with an almost manic look. "You're on, Valdez." He returned his attention to the ballistae, launching with renewed vigor. "Take that, you Tartarus scum! Die!" he screamed.
Leo was starting to question the old goat's sanity, but he continued with the death ray.
Below them, the giants were trying to get control of their panicking army.
They were about seventy-five feet from the ground now.
"Leo, prepare to launch the special package!" Jason yelled.
Leo licked his lips nervously and turned off the death ray. He moved off to the lever that controlled the bay doors in the stables. In order to drop the statue, they would have to get down to, at the highest, a few feet above the tallest giants. He would have to time this perfectly. Too early and the statue would shatter or fall over. Too late and the Argo II would be driven into the ground. Which meant he and his friends would probably end up as grease spots on the black granite floor of the House of Hades.
He felt his throat tighten. The gravity of the coming events finally hit him. There was a very high probability that some of them might not make it. Once they were got to the ground, all advantages lay with the monsters. The ideal situation would have been to attack from the air, but with the Doors of Death wide open, it would be useless. Besides, that's what their mission was in the first place: to close the Doors of Death. You couldn't exactly do that from the air. Once the demigods began to fight at ground level, they couldn't exactly fire the ballistae without hitting their own troops. That is what demigods like to call a problem.
"Everyone, duck and cover!" Jason warned.
Everyone on board ducked behind the shields lining the sides, and Frank raised a shield over his and Leo's heads.
Not a moment to soon.
Enemy arrows whistled down onto the deck, most tearing through what remained of the sails and thudding, quivering, into the deck. Leo could hear a couple thuds on the shield over his head, and he instinctively wanted to crouch, but he elected to trust Frank and the shield and keep to his task.
He kept his eyes glued to the ground, estimating the remaining distance. The statue was forty feet tall. There was fifty feet to go.
Forty-nine feet…forty-eight…forty-seven…
His hands were slick with sweat as he gripped the lever. He couldn't afford to mess up. If he got this wrong, he and his friends would die.
Something struck a glancing blow on the hull of the Argo II. Festus creaked a warning and Leo gritted his teeth in frustration.
Forty-three…forty-two… forty-one…NOW!
Leo gripped the lever and shoved it forwards.
Hazel held out her hands to try and guide the huge statue as best as she could so it wouldn't topple over when it hit the ground.
Leo practically tripped over his own feet as he reached for the aviation controls. He jerked it up and the Argo II shot up three hundred feet in three seconds, leaving Leo's stomach somewhere down with the statue.
He leveled out at about five hundred feet above the monsters, and turned to see the reaction to the package.
The effect was instantaneous.
The giants cried out in fear and took several steps away from the statue. The monsters hissed and backed up with their leaders, eyeing the statue wearily.
"Chariots!" Reyna shouted. "Attack!"
The demigods in the flying chariots roared a battle cry and swooped down to attack the dazed armies.
"Woohoo!" Leo cried, pumping his fist. "That's what I'm talking about!"
Jason flew down to the deck, his face set in grim lines.
"Good job, Leo," he said. His eyes wandered over the edge of the boat, staring at the open Doors of Death. "I'm going to take Piper and see if Percy and Annabeth have made it to the Doors. Think you can hold the fort?"
"Sure," Leo agreed. His face broke into a grin. "No detours, you two."
Jason gave him a small smile, but Leo noticed his cheeks had turned pink.
"No problem, Admiral," Jason said, giving a small salute.
He strode over to Piper, and said something.
Piper nodded, and Jason wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Meet us at the Doors," Jason told Leo. Then he and Piper shot up in the air and disappeared over the side of the boat.
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See ya'll tomorrow!
OH MY GOSH I'M GONNA DIE BEFORE THE BOOK COMES IN FROM THE LIBRARY! GAAAAAAAAAH!