AN: Hey guys! We're getting ever closer to the end! Only two more chapters after this one! Exciting! I'm even getting excited and nervous for it, and I already know how it ends. That's because your guys' support has been off the chain, so thank you all so much for that! But before we get into the action, let's do review responses, as always.
First, from RockRoy: "Totally liked Jocelyn's backstory :) And you're pure evil, leaving us with a cliffhanger like that... "
A: Glad you liked her backstory! And, I am well aware that I'm pure evil. It's just so much fun!
Next, from Unicute: "OOOOOO CREEPY! DON'T MAKE US WAIT (starts gasping) THE AGONY AHHH"
A: THE SUSPENSE! We're nearly there! After this chapter, you only have to wait until Sunday for the next one.
From the-only-soldier-left: "Noooooooooooooo! HE GOT THERE FIRST! How the Hades?!"
A: I know! Frustrating, isn't it? Unfortunately, Gaius doesn't explain how he beat them, but he figured out a way.
From EllaAnnieGrace: "Oh my now I want know her granddad's (not godly, of course) name!"
A: I made him up. He's not based on any irl NASCAR driver. But his name was Joseph "Joey" Clement.
From cghe: "Is it just me, or is Jocelyn kind of stupid? What's the point of wasting bullets on something invincible? Also, have you considered what kind of gun she uses? Handgun? Semi-Automatic? Maybe MG-42? I know you maintain that she uses a revolver, but that is OLD. Come on Jocelyn, get yourself an assault rifle. Or, maybe a mega-watt auto targeting laser tower, assuming the future has stuff like that."
A: I'm not sure it was stupid of her, really. The bullets did knock the spartoi back. And she was under a lot of pressure, so she probably wasn't thinking completely clearly. As for what kind of gun she uses - I don't know if I specifically addressed it here in Magician's Maze, but in the one-shot I have about her, I believe I mention that she switched over to using a handgun with a clip. She wouldn't want to switch to anything larger because that would restrict her movement.
Lastly, also from cghe: "Also, your demigods need to stock up on Leo-Nets to catch these spartoi :)"
A: That would certainly be helpful, haha.
Alright guys. Without further ado, here's the chapter. DFTBA!
Chapter 20: It's Not Over Yet
"Honestly, I was beginning to wonder if you were ever going to show up," Gaius continued. I looked around the room, sizing everyone and everything up. Pasiphaë's chamber was a large, rectangular room. Throughout the room, there were tables covered in vials, large cauldrons, a few book cases, and a bunch of other things having to do with magic. Up above, the ceiling was vaulted, and a chandelier lit with multicolored flames provided the room's lighting. Smack dab in the center of the room was a huge circular table, but I couldn't see what was on it from over by the door.
On either side of the table, Gaius's squad of demititans fanned out. The rank and file soldiers looked a little worse for the wear. Their armor was damaged and dirty. But there were still fifteen of them, and they all had their weapons at the ready. The members of Gaius's council stood in front of the table. On the left were Andromeda and her twin sister Caesaria. They looked at me in interest. Their twin sets of red eyes were quite off-putting. On the right, Drake and Eliana stood glaring at me, their stares mirror images of hatred. Drake was no doubt still upset about his humiliation. Eliana, of course, had made it her mission to kill me. Yet neither of their stares of hatred was as disconcerting as the two figures standing in the middle of the line, right in front of the center table.
One of them was definitely Pasiphaë. The sorceress was tall and beautiful in a timeless way, like a statue. She wore a sleeveless white dress and a thick necklace inlaid with blood red rubies. It might have been my imagination, but I was pretty sure the rubies were glowing. Pasiphaë's hair was dark as obsidian and was piled atop her head like a cone. The intricate hairdo was encircled with hoops of precious metals. Gems had been placed in her hair, too, and they twinkled. Her dark eyes shone with absolute malice as she gazed at my friends and I. She almost radiated power.
And of course, there was Gaius. His sandy blond hair must've been combed recently, because it lay flat on top of his head. His golden eyes gleamed with triumph. I remembered that he hadn't been expecting me and my friends to follow him into the Labyrinth. Beating us to Pasiphaë must have been a great victory for him. He'd rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt, and his khakis were wrinkled now, but otherwise he looked no worse for the wear. Around his waist hung a sword, perhaps the same one he'd taken my arm off with. My stomach twisted with apprehension. My heart started beating even more rapidly. My lungs stopped being able to inhale a full load of air. My head didn't spin, though, and imaginary scenarios didn't start playing themselves out in my head. Probably because I couldn't imagine anything worse than the reality of facing Gaius again. I couldn't move. I couldn't open my mouth to speak. It was all over.
"Nothing to say, Elizabeth?" Gaius asked. "No smart aleck remark?" I swallowed slightly, trying to find my voice. Gaius just went on. "Goodness me, Elizabeth. You look pale. Are you frightened? Have words finally failed you? You know, I must say that I expected more."
"Why don't you put a sock in it?" Jocelyn spat.
Gaius shifted his attention away from me. "Ah, hello again Jocelyn, Theo. It's been a while since I saw the two of you. How've you been?"
"Oh, go to Tartarus," Jocelyn snapped.
"A bit touchy are we?" Gaius said. "And let's see… you two that I haven't met yet… you must be Matthew Jackson and Emily Zhang, correct?" Neither of them said anything, but only hefted their swords. Gaius laughed. "You all have got spunk, I'll give you that. But your manners could definitely use some work. Speaking of manners, I don't believe you're acquainted with all of my compatriots. You've, of course, met Drake and Andromeda. Next to Andromeda is Caesaria, her twin sister. The two of them are daughters of the Titan Leto. Apollo and Artemis's mother, you know. They're incredibly skilled at magic and have quite the gift of prophecy." Neither Caesaria or Andromeda made any indication they'd just heard Gaius introduce them, but merely continued staring at me. It surprised me that they were children of Leto. As far as I knew, Leto was one of the good Titans. But I guess a good Titan could still have bad children.
"And then there's my top lieutenant, Eliana, daughter of Hyperion," Gaius went on.
Eliana sneered. "Elizabeth Jackson. What a… pleasure to finally meet you."
I still couldn't find my voice, and even if I'd been able to, I didn't have anything to say to Eliana. Somewhere in my head, it registered that I finally had the answer to the question of whether Marcus outranked Eliana or the other way around.
"And of course, the wonderful host of our time here in the Labyrinth," Gaius went on, "Pasiphaë herself."
"So," the sorceress growled, "you're the successors to the seven heroes of Olympus." Her eyes fixed on Emily. "And you, of course, must be the daughter of Hazel Levesque. I cannot tell you how long I've waited for my chance to exact my vengeance on your mother. And what better way to do so than by destroying her daughter?" Pasiphaë's eyes glowed and Emily fell to her knees, clutching her head.
I unfroze. "NO!" I shouted. I slammed my thumb on the trident button. I fired a blast at the sorceress. Eliana reacted quickly. She jumped in front of Pasiphaë and deflected the blast off of her sword. Meanwhile, Drake charged forward, his axe whirling through the air.
"Enough!" Gaius yelled, his voice echoing throughout the room. He thrust out his hands. My friends and I were thrown backwards. Drake fell backwards onto his butt and was yanked back towards Gaius. Pasiphaë staggered slightly, her eyes no longer glowing.
I groaned as I pulled myself back to my feet. What was that? I wondered. I glanced over at Emily, who seemed fine. She was sweaty, but it seemed like Pasiphaë's attack had been lifted.
"I will not allow this meeting to dissolve into chaos," Gaius said. "Pasiphaë, do you want to leave this place or not?"
"What I want is revenge on Hazel Levesque," she growled. "And you promised me that."
"And you will get it," Gaius said, each word clipped. "But for now, control your murderous temperament." Surprisingly, Pasiphaë didn't lay a curse on Gaius for talking to her like that.
"Why do you even care about our lives?" Jocelyn asked. "You outnumber and overpower us. Why not just hold us down and execute us?"
Gaius gave her a tight smile. "Oh, trust me, Miss Clement, there will come a day when you and the rest of your friends are in my crosshairs. But I'm not going to take you out execution style. I don't know if Elizabeth could handle that."
My heartbeat thundered in my head. "What? What did you just say?" I asked.
"Come now, Elizabeth," Gaius said. "Have I ever put you through more than you could handle?"
"What's that supposed to mean?" I snapped. "You chopped off my freaking arm!"
"Yes, and now you have a fancy new one," Gaius countered. "And I'd imagine you've been practicing with your sword more. Probably you've even learned how to fight with your left hand. Losing your arm has made you stronger. Everything I've put you through has been to make you stronger, Elizabeth. Two years ago, when you defeated Dr. Thorn, I saw in you a great deal of raw talent. But you needed to be refined. Tempered. You're getting close, but you aren't quite there yet."
I saw red. Everything I'd been through… it had just been Gaius testing me? I was so angry, I couldn't think. I yelled and dashed forward. Gaius flicked his hand lazily and I went tumbling backwards. "But if I were to straight up execute your friends now?" Gaius continued as if I hadn't just run at him. "Well that'll do you more harm than good. If your friends die, it has to be natural. Part of combat, perhaps. You'll go through a grief period, but in the end it will only strengthen your resolve."
I wanted to charge at him again, but Theo and Jocelyn grabbed my arms and held me back. "You're not gonna get anywhere doing that," Theo whispered.
"Yeah, let's just let Gaius keep talking," Jocelyn added.
I was still furious, but they were right. The longer Gaius talked, the more we might be able to find out about his plan. And the more time I had to put together a plan of my own to get us out of this mess. If I could even start thinking at all, that is.
Meanwhile, Emily asked, "Why would you want to make Elizabeth stronger? She's your enemy. It doesn't make any sense to make her a more dangerous opponent."
I noticed Eliana look down when Emily said that. I knew from some of my dreams that she and Marcus, at least, and maybe some of the other demititans, had been wondering the same thing. "Simply put, Miss Zhang," Gaius said, "Elizabeth and I have a battle in the relatively near future. It is fate. I could be like most subjects of prophecies and try to prevent our fated battle from ever happening, but there's no point. That never works. No, I accept what this prophecy says. If Elizabeth and I are destined to fight, then we will fight as equals."
"That's idiotic," Matt said. "Why would you want that? Why would you want to fight as equals? Wouldn't it be easier if you weren't?"
"I have my reasons for wanting to fight as equals," Gaius said. "But my grand plan is beyond you simple little mind right now. I don't expect you to understand it, so I won't even bother just yet." He turned his eyes back to me. "But when our final battle finally arrives, Elizabeth, I hope you, at least, will understand my plan."
"It would help if you told me the supposed prophecy about us," I said coolly. "You want me to understand your grand plan? Tell me the prophecy."
Gaius laughed. "Nice try, Elizabeth. You'll figure out the prophecy and everything else when the time comes. But anyway, that's enough chatting, eh? My friends and I have business to attend to on the surface. So I'm afraid this is where we say goodbye."
"Hang on," I said. "That's it? What was the point of staying here? You could have left before my friends and I even arrived. And why do you need Pasiphaë's help? What spell are you trying to cast?"
"Nice try, Elizabeth," Gaius said. "But I want that to be a surprise. As for why we stayed… well, it has been a while since I last saw you. I wanted to see your skill and determination –"
"I'm calling bull," Jocelyn interrupted. "You stayed behind so you could gloat. But you made a mistake, dumbass. How do you expect to get out of here? Are you planning to just waltz right past us? You're not worried we're going to try and stop you?"
"Oh, goodness, no," Gaius said. "You won't be able to stop us. You'll be too busy fighting the monsters you left right outside the door. Spartoi, I believe. Is that correct, Pasiphaë?"
"Yes," Pasiphaë replied. "There are ten of them right outside. And there's a secret backdoor that only I can open for our escape."
Gaius clapped his hands together. "Excellent! Well then, we must bid you all adieu. Elizabeth, it was a pleasure as always. Good luck with the spartoi." He nodded to Pasiphaë. Between us and them, a wall of flames erupted into existence. Behind my friends and I, the door opened and the spartoi charged into the room. I whirled around and threw up my sword quickly to block a strike. I glanced over my shoulder. The flames were gone, and so were the demititans and Pasiphaë.
But I didn't have any chance to focus on that. I was too busy spinning my sword around, blocking strike after strike. My friends and I fell back towards the center of the room. Next to me, Emily transformed into a lion and ripped three of the spartoi to shreds. They knit themselves back together and counter attacked. Matt jumped in the way and blocked their strikes. On my other side, Jocelyn was expertly cracking her whip, lashing out at the spartoi and disarming some of them. Theo had leaped up onto one of Pasiphaë's tables and was shooting arrows at the spartoi, knocking them back but obviously doing no real damage. He was running out of arrows fast.
I blocked blow after blow and hacked limbs off of spartoi indiscriminately, but it didn't do any good. They would just pull themselves back together. Before long, we'd be overwhelmed. How did Gaius expect us to get out of this? He said he didn't want me dead, but I failed to see how I was supposed to survive a squad of invincible warriors. I dodged between two sword strikes, then leaped up on a table behind me. I kicked a couple of vials containing potions at the monsters. The potion steamed against the monsters' armor, but didn't do anything else. I leaped over their heads, whapping one of them with the flat of my blade as I did.
From across the room, I saw a couple of the spartoi slam into Emily the lion's side. She hit one of the bookcases hard and morphed back into a human, dazed. One of the spartoi raised his sword up to kill her. I was too far away to do anything. My lungs contracted. My head spun. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. The skeletal warrior's sword plummeted towards Emily. Emily turned her head, seeing the sword plunging towards her. It was too late to block the attack. Emily ripped her sword free and plunged it through the warrior's stomach. The monster burst into flame and dissolved into ash. His sword clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Time returned to normal speed. I whirled around just in time to block one of the spartoi's swords. "Guys!" Emily shouted. "I can kill them when I'm in human form!" It must've been because she was descended from Pluto. I was relieved she was alive, but I didn't have a chance to focus on that.
I pushed back hard against the three spartoi focused on me, sending them stumbling backwards. "Great!" I shouted. "Everyone, form up around Emily! Draw them over to her!"
That was easier said than done. The spartoi weren't dumb. They'd isolated each of us. A couple of them stayed close enough to Emily to keep her from getting over to the rest of us, but remained just outside of the reach of her sword. We needed to force the issue. It was all well and good that Emily could kill them, but there were still nine of the monsters and only one of her. I felt a spark in my brain. I had a plan.
"Emily, use your magic to teleport the rest of us over to you!" I yelled.
A loud snap reverberated unnaturally through the room, and suddenly we all found ourselves standing over by Emily. It surprised the two spartoi that had been blocking Emily so much, that Matt and I were able to push them over. Emily stabbed them and finished them off. The rest of the spartoi stayed away, hesitant to attack. I took stock of my friends. Everyone seemed more or less alright. Sure, a few scrapes and bruises, but okay. Theo notched his last arrow in preparation.
"They'll have to come to us if they want to kill us," I said quietly. "When they do, knock them down so Emily can finish them off. The priority is to keep Emily safe so she can kill them. Everyone ready?"
My friends nodded. Then we turned and waited for the spartoi. Just when I thought they weren't going to attack, they charged. Jocelyn's whip shot past my face. The end coiled itself around one of the spartoi's ankles. She yanked hard, pulling it to the ground and towards us. Emily moved between us and stabbed it. Matt and I stepped forward and blocked attacks two of the spartoi had made at Emily's sides. Emily ducked around Matt and beheaded the one he'd blocked. I traded sword blows with mine, then Emily moved around and killed that one, too. Jocelyn yanked another one to the ground with her whip. And Emily promptly stabbed that one, too. One of the remaining spartoi tried to attack her side, but Matt and I lashed out and broke the monster into three parts. Emily stabbed one of the parts and all three went up in flames. One of the spartoi was nearly on top of me. Theo's last arrow collided with its arm just in time. His attack missed, and Emily killed him too. There was only one spartoi left. He wasn't attacking. Which was fine. Jocelyn threw her whip like a lasso. Emily moved over and finished him off. It was over.
We stood silent for a moment as the dust settled. Theo let out a deep breath. "We did it," he said in relief.
I had the opposite reaction. "No," I said miserably. "We've failed. Gaius got away." My voice broke. I wasn't sure whether I was angry or bitter or sad or… what.
"Maybe we haven't failed," Emily said. She was standing next to the big table in the center of the room. I hadn't been able to get a good luck at it up until now, but I noticed that the table was actually a model maze. "Remember how I told you that Pasiphaë had to be amplifying her powers somehow? Well this is it. This is how. She would pour her powers into this model of the maze and control the real thing. If I can use it, I should be able to redirect the demititans to Mount Tamalpais where –"
"Thalia's waiting!" I exclaimed.
"Right," Emily said. "And I should even be able to get you guys there first, too. I'll just have to stay here and use this table to do it."
"That sounds too good to be true," Jocelyn mused.
"I'm with Joce on this one," Matt said. "There's gotta be a catch."
Emily knit her eyebrows together. "Well… see, Pasiphaë's a lot more powerful than me. She could control the maze very effectively, even when her attention was split between us, the demititans, the hundreds of Underworld escapees down here, and the monsters. If I'm going to pull off what I'm suggesting… well, I'd have to ignore everything but you guys and the demititans. Which means that monsters and Underworld escapees would actually be able to navigate the maze."
"And then they'd be able to get to you," I said grimly. "No, that's too dangerous. I don't want you to get overrun by monsters."
"This is the best shot we have," Emily argued. "You told me last night that I should believe in myself more. Well I know I can do this."
"You can do it," I agreed. "You're definitely capable. But that's not what I'm worried about. If monsters and nasty spirits are gonna be able to roam the Labyrinth freely, that leaves you vulnerable. I'm not leaving you undefended."
"Then don't," Matt said. "We'll split up. I'll stay here with Emily, defend her if any monsters make it through. Meanwhile you three go ahead so you can tell Thalia and Hylla what to expect."
I hesitated. I really didn't like the idea of splitting up. And the part of my prophecy saying someone would die still hadn't come true. What if this was why? What if splitting up and leaving Matt and Emily to fend for themselves got one of them killed? Or worse, both of them? I looked over at Theo and Jocelyn. Theo seemed concerned, too, but he nodded. Jocelyn met my eyes. "It's the best plan, Elizabeth."
I sighed and turned back to Matt and Emily. "Alright, let's do this." I hugged Emily. "You got this," I told her.
"So do you," she whispered before I pulled away.
Theo hugged Emily, too. Meanwhile, Jocelyn nodded to Matt. "Good luck, little Jackson."
"Little Jackson? Really?" Matt demanded. Jocelyn laughed.
I turned to Matt and hugged him, too. "Good luck," I said. Then added quietly, "Keep yourself in one piece, alright?"
"I will," he assured me. "It's gonna be fine." After we separated, he added, "If all goes well, the war will end today." Thinking about my prophecy, I was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. Still, we had to try.
"I'm going to try and space your arrival at Mount Tamalpais and Gaius's so that they'll be about an hour apart on the surface," Emily said. "Your path is going to be a single straightaway. No turns, no forks, just keep going straight. When you get to a dead end, you've made it to the Tamalpais entrance. One of you will be able to open the door."
I nodded my thanks, then turned back to Theo and Jocelyn, who looked as determined as I'd ever seen them. "Let's go."
We crossed the room quickly. Just before we left Pasiphaë's chamber, I glanced back over my shoulder to see Emily gazing intensely at the model Labyrinth, muttering something to herself, and Matt standing stoic, his sword at the ready. Then we were through the door and back in the Labyrinth's passage.
AN: Alright, I'll see you guys in a couple of days with the next to last chapter!