Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter
The Unrelenting Frozen Seas: Symphony of Tempering
Chapter Seventeen: The Great Othrys Rescue
Beta: ShadowofAxios
Inside her cell in the dungeons of Mount Othrys, Rhode was sleeping. Or at least trying her best to do so. The cold slab of metal that masqueraded as her cot wasn't making it easy but even though she had been spoiled by years of having access to proper beds, Rhode had roughed it often enough in the past as a street kid and on Quests to deal with it. Nor was the total lack of privacy that big of a deal for her. Sure, even the small pit that passed for a toilet in her cell was visible to her omnipresent guards through the bars but she'd expected that and embarrassing as it was to have eyes on her even as she relieved herself, she could deal with it. No, what kept her awake was the gnawing fear that came with the uncertainty of not knowing what Luke and his Titanic masters had planned. She knew her family would come to rescue her but the enemy knew that too. Just what horrors did they have in store for them when they did?
They'll get through it. I know they will. Rhode tried to reassure herself as she pulled the thin sheet that her captors called a blanket around herself tightly. But at what cost?
"Master Luke, what are you doing here?" The leader of the Dracanae that had been assigned to be her guards for the evening hissed suddenly, pulling Rhode from her depressing thoughts. "Shouldn't you be at the feast?"
"I-It's none of your business." Luke said, his voice slurring slightly for some reason. "Leave."
For a moment the area was dominated by the sound of hissing as the Dracanae had a secret conversation in their indecipherable serpentine language. It seemed they agreed to follow Luke's command though as they soon quieted and the distinctive sound of them slithering away replaced it.
"S-Stupid Titans," Luke grumbled under his breath as the monsters left. "And to the P-Pit with their insane c-constitutions! Why, by L-Lord Kronos, do I have to drink!? I don't even drink! A-And now? I-I'm d-drunk! But that's a-alright. Drunk or n-not, looking at my Rhode is always a treat."
Rhode could easily imagine the lust filled look Luke shot her then and it sent a shiver down her spine.
"I-It's a s-sh-shame that you're asleep, my Rhode. I-I wanted you awake. You a-always looked better awake. B-Besides, I wanted to see your reaction when I t-tell you we succeeded! We did it, Rhode! We tricked that s-stupid goddess Artemis to take the b-burden of the sky!"
Rhode barely suppressed her gasp at that, she did not want to give away that she was awake, but thankfully Luke was too sloshed to hear her, instead he just continued on his drunken rant.
"Now we're one step closer, Rhode! One step closer to vic-victory! And being to-together wi-without anyone getting in our w-way. Not Jack! Not Su! Not any-anyone!"
Biting her lip to bite back the angry retort that she would never be his, Rhode huddled deeper under her pathetic blanket trying to play off her shivering as being from the cold and not the fury coursing through her veins at Luke's words.
She had expected the traitor to continue his gloating rant, but much to her surprise, he instead let out a sob.
"W-Why!? Why does the General's plans work but my plan fails!? Why? I-It's not fair! You should've been a maiden, Rhode! T-That's mine to t-take! N-Not that weakling Jack's! Y-You shouldn't need to be carrying his b-bastard! But d-don't w-worry Rhode, w-when the b-baby is born I, w-we, will r-raise it a-as our own! That'll be the u-ulti-, uh, the perfect middle finger t-to that n-nobody! B-But off track! Yeah, I-I g-got off track."
Luke was breathing heavily, like reining himself in had taken serious effort on his part. And Rhode hoped it did. Anything that gave the psycho discomfort was a-okay in her book.
"Y-you should've been a maiden, Rhode!" The man who had once been her brother said as he recovered. "Then you c-could've held up the sky l-longer! Be o-our trap for Artemis! If you h-held it l-long enough, it's weight w-would've broken you, b-broke your resistance! Then it would've b-been easy to make you mine!"
Again Rhode had shivered. As with every time that Luke mentioned wanting to make her his, it terrified and disgusted her.
"No, no, I shouldn't give up." Luke suddenly said, changing his mind and grabbing the bars of her cell, pulling himself flush with them so he could shout through them. "I've got you here! You're m-my prisoner! I just need to make you mine the o-old fashioned way without the c-cheat of the sky breaking you! And I'll do it! I will!"
He pulled back and seemed to calm himself somewhat by the sound of it before continuing again.
"Y-You will be mine, Rhode! Mine!" Luke shouted drunkenly, his voice trailing away as he left causing Rhode to sigh in relief.
Disgust rolled off of her as she gave a small shudder. Luke's obsession with her and how he expressed it each time they were together was nauseating and she was forever thankful when he finally left her be.
Every second away from him is a relief by this point. Rhode thought as she tried to conserve her strength as she sneaked a peek outside her cell and saw her guards return from wherever they went off to when Luke had sent them away.
I never thought I'd say this, but I prefer the company of these evil snake women to Luke.
Percy felt awkward sitting at the Ping Pong table. The tension between Thalia and Nightshade was thick in the air as they argued over what was needed or what they thought was needed for the Quest to save Rhode. And Percy was honestly relieved that Chiron and Mr. D were sitting in to serve as mediators. If they weren't, he was sure knives, not words, would be being used to stab the other side by now.
"Okay, let's just settle on who both the Hunters and Campers are taking shall we?" Chiron said diplomatically, eyeing both Zoë and Thalia warningly. "Zoë, if you'd please?"
The leader of the Hunters nodded at Chiron before speaking.
"I shalt has't Bianca accompany us." Zoë said, gesturing to the aforementioned young Hunter. "I wouldst taketh m're, but as we did agree I shalt only has't one of mine own sisters accompany me."
Damn! I know she's old as dirt and struggles to use modern English but listening to her use this old-timey English is making my ears bleed!
"Um, is that really okay Zoë?" Bianca asked, fidgeting nervously. "I'm so new to everything, surely it would be better to take someone more experienced?"
"This shalt beest thy trial of fireth, Bianca. Thy shalt cometh and learneth what thee shall needeth." Zoë reassured her. "There is nothing to feareth, sister. I hadst a vision last night of all. It hath shown yond thee hadst to accompany me. I trusteth in what I did see."
"Always trust in visions," Mr. D said, sounding disinterested as he drank from his can of Diet Coke. "They might save your life."
Chiron shot the god a warning look for some reason but Mr. D just ignored him like always.
"You done, Nightshade?" Thalia asked and received a nod from the older girl. "Good, then it's my turn. I'll be taking Annabeth and Percy with me. Any objections?"
"I doth not liketh the idea of taking a boy with us but-"
"It's non-negotiable," Mr. D cut in. "He swore an Oath to rescue his sister on the Styx. He has to do this. And boy-hating or not, you will help him. Understood?"
The Hunter grimaced, "Nay, I shant deny him this."
"Alright, then let's discuss the logistics of this Qu-" Chiron began only to be interrupted mid-sentence by a burst of light and the arrival of the familiar figure of Apollo.
"Hey hey hey, it's me. Sorry, need to borrow D for a second." The sun god smiled blindingly as he tugged on his brother's arm.
"Oh, fine." Mr. D said, standing up. "I know what you want. But let's talk in my office."
"Oh, good. So I only have to talk to you at half the length I needed to."
"Yes, save us both the discomfort. Come on." Mr. D said as he teleported away, Apollo following a second later.
"Uh, should we continue?" Thalia asked, looking at Chiron.
"Yes," the Trainer of Heroes nodded. "Mr. D will rejoin us once he's done. So where were we? Ah. Logistics? I trust all of you know what you'll need to bring for a Quest?"
This was met with nods all around, though Bianca's was a little hesitant.
"Then all that's really left is the matter of transportation. Hmm… Since the prophecy mentions going West and the Titan's Curse, it is likely you'll have to travel to where the sky is held up and that's on Mount Tamalpais in California. So I think rail passes are in order. Any objections?"
No one raised any objections.
"That'll help for a bit at least." Mr. D said as he teleported back to join them, sans Apollo.
"Mr. D, please!" Chiron said, shooting the god a glare.
"Oh, fine~! I'm just trying to help."
"Annoying the Fates by revealing details beforehand is not helping!"
Wait! Mr. D was trying to tell us what to expect!? Percy thought, gaping in shock and exchanging stupefied looks with Thalia and Annabeth. Since when was Mr. D helpful!?
Were things that serious? Or did Mr. D like Rhode that much?
"It's the latter, Peter. Like I've said, your sister is the only demigod outside of my own children that I've come to respect in a thousand years." Mr. D said, purple fire burning in his eyes. "I will see her rescued. Full stop."
"Mr. D, I, uh, dunno what to say."
"Just get the brat back." Mr. D said snappishly before turning to face the Hunters. "Apollo was here to tell us what the Pythia's prophecy already told us. Artemis is missing and suspected to have been captured by the Titans. If I was a betting god, I'd say she's been forced to bear the Titan's-"
"Mr. D!" Chiron shouted in exasperation.
The two Hunters strangely enough did not respond to the confirmation that their goddess was taken. And glancing at them, Percy could see why. They were literally frozen in place, unable to move.
"Alright, I won't spill any more beans." Mr. D said, looking incredibly put out. "And you Hunters, don't you dare throw a fit. We have no time for it. This Quest has now become a two pronged rescue mission. You'll need to rescue both Rhode Evans and Artemis, thus making it doubly important. And no, Hunters, you may not ask why the daughter of Poseidon is considered as important as your goddess. That is, as the saying goes, above your pay grade."
With his piece said, Mr. D nodded and the frozen Hunters were freed. Standing from his seat, he turned away and began heading off to do whatever he did on his own time.
Chiron sighed as he departed before addressing the rest of them.
"Go, prepare for the Quest everyone. I have to go remind Mr. D why revealing too much of a Quest ahead of times is detrimental to the Questers' survival. Hopefully, what he did say hasn't annoyed the Fates or the other side enough that they choose to make things harder than it already undoubtedly will be."
With that ominous statement, Chiron turned to trot off or at least tried to before Annabeth grabbed his arm.
"I have questions." His girlfriend said simply.
The Hunters turned to look at them then but Annabeth shook her head and with a nod, Zoë led Bianca out of the Big House.
"Chiron, why did the Titans capture Lady Artemis now? Does it have something to do with the Winter Solstice?"
"Indeed," Chiron said with a nod. "As expected of you, Annabeth, to understand the stakes. As you know, every Winter Solstice, the Olympian Council holds a meeting to vote on matters of great importance. This year, the main vote is about whether to formally recognize the war with the Titans. It is, by all accounts, a tight run affair and one in which Artemis was expected to vote for war. With her now captured-"
"If she is not freed and casts her vote, the gods will be unprepared for the war." Annabeth said, finishing the thought with a frown.
"Yes, that's why the stakes have gotten higher."
Annabeth nodded, worrying her usual pink lips to a ruddy red.
Percy reached over, his hand giving her shoulder a gentle comforting squeeze. "Hey, it doesn't mean anything. So what if we have to save one more person? We'll just save the both of them. I promise."
"Yeah," Thalia nodded, a confident smile on her face. "We'll just have to save them both. No worries, Annie."
"I pray then that you are successful, children." Chiron said, offering them all a tired smile. "May Tyche and Nike favour you."
Su would be the first to admit it, she could have found someone more qualified to accompany her on this mission, but sadly her chosen companion was without question the most qualified for sneaking out of Camp. At least during this season. Even if she hated his guts. So she had little choice but to wait patiently in the woods for Jack to make his move.
And it had taken him to around midnight the day the Questers had set off before he did. She didn't know why he waited so long, but with his powers boosted by winter, she trusted he had his reasons. So as she saw him fly away from Camp on his shepherd's crook, she mounted her Nimbus 2000 and silently followed after him.
The blistering cold nipped at her as she flew but she ignored it, focusing instead on catching up to him.
As much as she hated the idea of working with him, she couldn't ignore that their chances of rescuing Rhode were much higher if they worked together so she was willing to set aside her misgivings for Rhode's sake. For Rhode she was willing to do anything!
"So you did manage to catch up." Jack said with a frown as Su pulled up next to him.
"I walked." Su said as she rolled her eyes and bobbed her broom up and down a little. "My broom has a top speed of two hundred miles an hour. Did you honestly think you'd be able to shake me off? Your top speed on that staff of yours is what? A hundred and fifty? Plus, did you think you were the only one who'd sneak off to rescue Rhode?"
"Please Li, you just want to eat her carpet." Jack scoffed at her and Su felt her cheeks heat up with indignation.
"I-! That has nothing to do with wanting to save my best friend, you jerk! Unlike you, I don't think of sex 24/7!" Su said hotly, but calmed herself, taking a breath. "Look, can we agree to work together to help Rhode or not? You know going off on your own can get you killed."
"Like you've not been her obsessive stalker for years now?" The son of snow scathingly retorted.
"I admit that I come on strong sometimes." Su admitted. She was woman enough to do so. She had stupidly misinterpreted Emily's advice in the past and behaved like an idiot to Rhode. But she'd learned from her mistakes. "And I do pine to be with Rhode again. But that's secondary for me. Rhode, her safety, her wants. Those have always been what's most important to me. If that means she friendzones me and I stay as her best friend forever, then so be it. If by some miracle, we become more like I hope then I'd be overjoyed. But ultimately I'm just happy to have her in my life. Everything else is a bonus."
Jack just snorted. "Sure, sure. Like you wouldn't spread your legs for Rhode the moment she says she wants to eat you out."
"No, I'm not you. I don't have sex on my brain all the time. Now shall we continue playing childish games or should we actually save Rhode?"
"Tch! Fine~! It'll be better to have a helping hand anyways."
"You better not have meant that the way I think you did, boy." The familiar voice of Mr. D said as he materialized in front of them, causing them to both pull to a stop in mid-air. "Or I'll turn you into a squirrel and barbeque you right now."
What the hell was Jack thinking that got Mr. D so worked up? Wait! Helping hand? Don't tell me…
"You perverted asshole!" Su shouted, cheeks splotching red on her pale skin. She shot the son of Khione a glare. "Like Tartarus I'd ever touch you!"
"He better not." Mr. D warned, with a glare of his flaming eyes. "Or you'll have to answer to Demeter and that's if I don't get to you first. You got me, Overland?"
"Like I'd want to touch the carpet muncher anyways." Jack said with false bravado. The slight trembling of his shoulders gave away his fear at the warning. "And don't blame me for my thoughts. I'm a teenage boy, it's my hormones."
"So they all say." Mr. D said with a roll of his eyes. "Now that the warning is delivered, let's get down to business shall we? Here's your third."
Su didn't even have time to ask what he meant before Grover just suddenly appeared in front of her on her broom.
"Wha-"
"Grover! Grab the broom. Now!" Su shouted urgently as she tried her best to steady her Nimbus.
Thankfully, Grover was experienced enough to be quick on the uptake and he hastily obeyed.
"Whoa, whoa!" Grover gaped as his usually clumsy hands snaked around the front of the broom and held on for his goatie life. "Why am I suddenly in Jersey?!"
"To help these two lovestruck idiots to rescue your friend," Mr. D explained as Su leveled her Nimbus' flight and pulled Grover gently back into a proper tandem riding position.
"Oh, well, okay. Sure thing Mr. D. Uh, Su, could you land so I can get a proper seat. Please?"
"Of course, Grover."
The polite Satyr deserved as much.
"No time for that," Mr. D said with an annoyed glare. "Honestly, stop being a coward and adjust yourself in the saddle, as it were. Li can show you how. If you dilly dally any longer, the escape window I created for you three will disappear and the next god to stop you won't just send you back to Camp unscathed. They're liable to send you back in casts or worse body bags."
"Why are you helping us?" Jack asked, eyeing Mr. D skeptically.
"I like Evans. Unlike you. So I want her rescued and I don't mind stacking the odds in favour of that succeeding. She is my mortal champion and I have stock in her now. Therefore you will save her." Mr. D said, crossing his eyes. "This is my divine command."
He looked skyward then.
"So don't smite them, old man. They've got my divine sanction now."
Turning back to them, Mr. D continued.
"Now get out of here ASAP before Zeus changes his mind and decides to ignore my protection. You never know with him."
In a sudden explosion of purple mist, the god was gone. Leaving only a fruity grape smell to mark that he had ever even been there.
"Okay, that was a thing." Grover said with a nervous bleating laugh. "So, uh, what now?"
"We should be asking you that." Jack said, shooting the Satyr an irritated glare. "You're the one with the nose to sniff out demigods, right? Which way to Rhode?"
"Oh, right. Of course, your highness." Grover sarcastically retorted and began to sniff the air.
"Okay, why are we here again?" Percy asked irritably as he and the rest of the Questers walked through the disturbingly empty main exhibition hall of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.
"We art here for a plane. We Hunters did hide one here amongst the exhibits, lest we ever did need it." Zoë said as they warily advanced. Even though it was nighttime there should've been security guards they needed to use Mist to get past but there had been no one and that was a sure sign that they were about to be ambushed. "'twill cutteth our traveleth timeth West down substantially."
"Zoë, I have no idea about what you just said." Bianca informed her senior with blunt honesty, her hands moving in animated exasperation as she talked. Percy had to admit, that took guts. "Like, I know you talked about it, but which plane is it?"
"The Douglas DC-3." The senior Hunter said as they came into view of the silver twin engined propeller plane. Because of course it would be silver.
"That one?" Bianca asked, pointing her bow at the plane. "I'm not up to snuff with planes."
"That's the one." Annabeth confirmed. "Now just how are we going to get up to it?"
That was indeed a problem, seeing as the plane was suspended from the roof of the exhibition hall by a set of wires.
"There is a rope ladder inside the plane. Alloweth me wend up to it and throweth it down," Zoë informed them as she leapt up onto the wing of another of the planes on display, clearly intent on wing hopping to the DC-3.
She was about to make another jump when suddenly something reached the DC-3 first. This took the form of a massive white bull crashing right through the machine, wrecking it as it leapt inside through a sizable hole it had made in the side of the building.
"Uh, guys, I think the plane isn't an option." Percy felt the need to point out as the bull landed, somehow staying on its feet as it did so and everyone scattered to give it a wide berth.
"No kidding, Knucklehead!" Thalia snapped at him as she broke into a run. Something he was quick to follow as the Bull charged towards them, smashing through everything in its path.
"Wise Girl! Any idea what monster this is?" Percy shouted as he jinked to his right and the bull charged past him. "There's too many bulls for me to know which one!"
"Marathonian Bull! You can tell from its coat!" Annabeth shouted back.
Percy could see why Minos wanted to keep the bull so much. It was seriously handsome like the stories said it was. It was the size of a school bus with horns that were polished and could probably stab through anything if it tried hard enough. Its coat was a perfect white as even debris seemed to roll off of it to keep it clean.
"Shit, that thing finally reformed?!" Thalia cursed as she aimed her spear at it and fired several static bolts. They splashed against the hide as the bull decided to charge the daughter of Zeus. Proving just as ineffective as the arrows Zoë and Bianca were shooting at it.
"It's hide is impervious to harmeth we can doth it. We needeth to targeteth its head. Tis weakest th're"
"Yeah, but how?" Annabeth shouted as she ran away from the monster who circling around had turned its attention towards her. "Getting close is suicide."
Percy glanced around quickly and spotting a fire hose, he had an idea.
Calling on his control of water, he had it flood the hose and transform it into a snake made of fabric and water. One under his absolute control.
I've got this. Percy thought as he had the hose first shoot out and trip the monster, which running as fast as it was, had it landing harshly enough to crater the floor a little and even skid forward a short distance.
The son of Poseidon wasn't done though and proceeded to have the hose wrap itself around the stunned bull like a constrictor. The monster struggled, using its prodigious strength to try and wrestle itself free, managing to tear the fabric of the hose in the process. But that was merely dressing for the real force killing it and did nothing as Percy tightened the hold of his construct's watery coils.
"Die, already, you bovine menace." Percy said as he lifted his hand in a gesture he belatedly realised strongly resembled the classic one used by the Sith for their Force Chokes in the Star Wars franchise. "Die!"
As if on cue, that was exactly when the Marathonian Bull lost its struggle and breathed its last, collapsing into a pile of gold dust and leaving one of its horns as a spoil.
Using the watery tendril that was still under his command, he snatched up the horn and brought it into his hands.
"Did he just pull a Sith Lord on that thing?!" Thalia asked, sounding a little disturbed.
"Well, it worked?" Annabeth said unsurely as she walked over.
Ignoring both of them, Percy examined his latest spoil.
Is it just me or is this one from the opposite side from the one I received from the Minotaur?
Seemingly drawn by his thinking about it, there was a sudden flash of light and Percy balked as the horn of the Minotaur he'd earned as a spoil back from the first time he arrived at Camp appeared in his free hand.
He looked at how much smaller it was to its parent's horn. One was like a dagger while the larger one more resembled the blade of a polearm. The real question was…
How did it appear here now? And why?
Even as Percy and his group of Questers fought the Marathonian Bull in the Smithsonian, Su and her own merry gang also found themselves flying to the renowned museum. Grover might not have been able to follow Rhode's scent, it was being masked by powerful magic, but there were scents that he could follow that might lead them to where she was being held. In particular, he was following the scent of the Manticore which went by the name of Dr. Thorn nowadays.
"He's in the Museum of Natural History." Grover informed them with a frown. "What could he possibly want there? He was a math teacher."
"Who cares?" Jack shot back snappishly. "What's important is capturing him and forcing him to tell us where the hell they're keeping Rhode!"
Su frowned at his utter rudeness, but Grover just nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, can't waste time. Let's go in. Quietly?"
"Fine, just keep up." Jack said. "Let me show you how living in Cabin Eleven taught me how to sneak with the best of them."
Arrogant prick. Does he need to puff himself up all the damned time? Su couldn't help but think as they circled down for a landing. Then again, he is the best here at sneaking around. Staying in Cabin Eleven does help a lot with that.
Jack landed and immediately wanted to get going, but Su had Helel reach out to grab his arm.
"What?" He hissed.
"Give me a second." Su said as she and Grover dismounted her Nimbus and pulling out her wand, she began packing it away.
"You done?" Jack asked irritably, as Su finished shrinking down her broom and stowing it and her wand away in her mokeskin pouch. "We don't have all day."
"It was only a minute."
"A minute wasted. Come on."
Who died and made you leader? Oh wait, your father. Su thought scathingly, but stopped herself from replying. She had better things to do than play Jack's petty games.
As they snuck through the building though, she had to admit that Jack was pretty good at being sneaky. The place was crawling with mortal mercenaries armed with submachine guns, probably in the employ of the Titans, who were patrolling the place. But somehow, following Jack's lead, they managed to make it to Thorn undetected.
The Manticore was in the centre of the museum meeting with a group of the mercenaries who were presenting him with a handful of fossilized teeth.
"Foolish mortal scientists." Su heard Thorn scoff from behind the pillar where she was hiding, waiting for the right moment to strike. "To mistake actual dragon teeth for mere dinosaur teeth."
Plucking the teeth from the mercenary holding them, he began to plant them, one by one, inside a planter of soil his men had apparently dragged into the building before a group of his men proceeded to drag a half-dead girl forward.
"Oh, Pam. Good." Thorn crooned as he knelt down, cupping the girl's pale face and asked softly. "Are you ready, my dear? Have you prepared yourself for the ultimate sacrifice?"
The pale girl nodded weakly. "Yes, sir."
"Excellent, most excellent." The monster smiled, a grotesque thing that was full of predatory menace despite his human guise. He reached into his pristine coat, pulling a long, glimmering ceremonial dagger. "Now, take it, my dear. Do your duty to your masters."
Shakily, the girl, Pam, took hold of the dagger and walked closer to the planter. Raising it high in the air, her hands firmly wrapped around the hilt, she aimed it downward. "Down with Olympus!"
And with a mighty thrust, she sank the eager blade into her neck and slid it across, spilling her life blood all over the dirt. She collapsed over the planter, dead to the world.
Su had to stifle a gasp even as she smothered Grover's cry of dismay. All whilst wondering how anyone could be that dedicated to a cause before an image of Rhode flashed across her mind.
No, wait. Su corrected herself. I can totally understand why someone would be so devoted to something.
As horrific as Pam's self-sacrifice was, the worst was yet to come. As even as they watched in horror, twelve Skeleton Warriors and one tiny kitten-sized Skeleton Cat pulled themselves out of the planter.
"Ah. Everything is going exactly as the General has planned." Thorn crowed as the undead creatures pulled themselves from the earth that had spawned them. "Well, except for that useless cat. Some unknown teeth must've gotten mixed in with the dragon teeth. Take that away and dispose of it for me, would you?"
The nearest human to the Skeleton Cat hesitated and shot one of his fellows, his leader most likely, a look but received a firm nod in reply. And so with a frown, he picked up the skeletal kitten and carried it away.
As he did, Thorn continued his little monologue.
"Now all I need is to set these Skeleton Warriors onto the scent of the foolish Questers and they'll be dealt with without us having to do anything on our own part." He said whilst pulling a piece of silver fabric from his jacket, one which looked remarkably like a piece of a Hunter's parka.
He stepped forward, intent on presenting the fabric to the Skeleton Warriors who were busy doing stretches for some reason when suddenly Jack shot out from behind his cover on his staff and flying past Thorn grabbed the fabric out of his hand.
"Yeah, no. We're here to ruin your perfect little plan, monster."
"Half-blood!" Thorn shouted furiously as he began to transform into his true monstrous form even as Jack blitzed past him.
The Skeleton Warriors weren't quite so slow though and one of them reached out, managing to grab hold of Jack's sleeve as he flew past and ripped a portion of it off. Even as Jack disappeared down the vast halls of the museum, the undead warrior proceeded to take a deep breath from the piece of Jack's torn sleeve before promptly passing it onto its peers to do the same.
"Jack! Run! Now that they've your scent they'll chase you to the ends of the earth!" Grover shouted in alarm even as the Skeleton Warriors began chasing the son of Khione.
"Move, move! Do not lose him! I want his head!" Thorn demanded with a roar.
"No you don't." Su whispered to herself as she leapt out of her cover, her Ent armor wrapping around her with Helel's tendrils slithering out of the specially prepared gaps in the armor to aid her in the fight.
"Sleep Dust!" Su shouted as the pustules she'd grown all over the outside of her armor as it deployed exploded and released a massive cloud of sleep-inducing pollen that proceeded to knock out all the surrounding humans.
The Manticore was of course not affected by this, and flicking his tail at Su sent a volley of his hypersonic, poisonous quills her way. Most of them ending up embedded harmlessly in the thick dead outer bark of her armor and the rest deflected off entirely, even as the daughter of Demeter brought her own 'guns' to bear.
"Sunflower Cannon!" She roared as a quartet of Helel's vines transformed into sunflowers and fired their seeds like bullets at the Manticore.
The monster's eyes widened in shock at the move and it leapt away, desperate to evade the barrage and mostly succeeded. Though its rear end found itself riddled with wounds from her bullet seeds, it had escaped being killed. Amazingly despite its injuries, it even avoided being slowed down as it proved by leaping at Su with its claws outstretched and clearly intent to maul her.
Su responded by punching it hard from the side with the massive fist of her Ent armor, sending the Manticore crashing to the ground.
Still undaunted, it leapt back to its feet. Or it tried to. As it attempted to do so, vines suddenly exploded from the wounds created by Su's bullet seeds earlier and proceeded to wrap its hind limbs together. Without their support, the Manticore crashed to the ground in an undignified heap.
"You sneaky little half-blood, don't think you've won yet." Thorn shouted back defiantly as he whipped his tail forward so fast that it looked like nothing more than a blur.
The volley of quills this launched were even faster than normal and a good number of them easily pierced right through Su's armor.
"You have to do better than that." Su shouted back as she shot herself out of her perforated armor like a cannonball, its bulk having hidden where her true body was located, saving her from being pierced by Thorn's spines.
Uncurling herself from the fetal ball she held herself in when inside her fully deployed Ent armor, she drew her sword from her mokeskin pouch and pointed it straight at a shocked Thorn's face as she crashed into the monster blade first through its skull.
"Well, that's that." Su declared as she used Helel's vines to pull herself out of the pile of monster dust her killing of Thorn had created and stowed her sword away. She pulled out some ambrosia wafers to nimble on to heal the light injuries she'd sustained from cannonballing herself at the Manticore. The pile of golden dust it had transformed into had cushioned her fall a great deal, but it still wasn't exactly a soft landing.
"Is that my spoil?" She asked curiously as she spotted Thorn's scorpion tail lying amidst the already disappearing gold dust.
"What by the Pit am I going to do with this?" She lamented as she had some of Helel's tendrils reach over to pick up her spoil. Only for the monster part to collapse into more golden dust upon contact and the vines of her trusty Devil's Snare that had touched it to suddenly transform to match it. "Oh! Nice!"
"Uh, Su, did anyone tell you that you're scary?" Grover said as he trotted over from wherever he'd been hiding the whole fight.
"Once or twice," Su admitted, causing Grover to shiver for some reason.
How odd.
Any further conversation was cut short when a shrill cry was heard from the direction Jack had flown off in.
"Make them go away!" Jack screamed in a pitch that Su hadn't known it was possible for boys post-puberty to reach, as he shot past at high speed, slammed into a wall and tumbled out of the sky.
Seemingly shaking off the effects of his collision in record time, he ran towards Su and Grover even as he fired off a cryo blast of awesome cold in the direction whence he came. A blast that by Su's estimation was more powerful than anything he had ever mustered.
Turning in the direction of the blast, she saw that it had created a huge block of ice that had trapped all the Skeleton Warriors inside a frozen coffin.
"We, we need to go. That won't stop them for long." Jack said as he all but collapsed to his knees at Su's feet, his staff the only thing keeping him from faceplanting. It seemed that the ice blast had taken a lot of him. He looked like he had just gone twelve rounds with Cabin Five.
What did those Skeleton Warriors do?! Su thought in worry.
The ominous sound of ice cracking served as a spine chilling proof of what Jack had just said.
"Right, let's get out here." Su said, as redeploying her Ent armor, she picked up the boy and Grover before breaking into a dead sprint out of the building.
"Grover, try and find the others. We need to regroup and warn them!"
"Percy, why are you just standing there and looking at your spoils?" Annabeth asked her boyfriend curiously as he just stood there looking at the Horn of the Cretan Bull in his left hand and the Minotaur Horn in his right in confusion.
"Um, just wondering why the Minotaur Horn just suddenly showed up is all." He confessed, turning to look at her questioningly. "Do you have any ideas?"
Annabeth looked at the two horns for a moment before.
"I might have an idea. It's probably so yo-"
Before she could elaborate on her idea though, there was a commotion in the direction of the museum entrance and they all spun towards it.
"Guys! We need to get out of here. Now!" Su shouted as she ran in fully armored up in her Ent armor and cradling an unconscious Jack and a nervous Grover in her arms. "We have unkillable Skeleton Warriors right behind us!"
"Su? What the hell are you three even do-"
Thalia's question was cut off as suddenly a mockup of a World War Two bomb that was probably ripped straight out of an exhibit was suddenly tossed her way, forcing her to jump out of the way as it crashed into the ground with a resounding crash that cratered the ground.
"Run!" Grover shouted as Su ran past them. "Just run!"
Thalia didn't seem inclined to agree with the advice though as she leapt back to her feet and leveled her spear at the twelve Skeleton Warriors that were running towards them.
"No, we cannot defeat those Warriors." Zoë said, even as she loosed a brace of arrows from her bow with a single shot and snapped the wires holding up Charles Lindbergh's the Spirit of St. Louis, which had been hanging from the ceiling as an exhibit, causing it to crash to the ground and block off the entrance into the exhibition hall they were in and creating a barrier between them and the Skeleton Warriors. "Skeleton Warriors are literally unkillable except in very specific circumstances which we cannot produceth at the moment. For now, we needeth to run."
"She's right. Thalia, Percy come on!" Annabeth shouted as she began to drag a reluctant Percy after her as she began to run after Su, Grover and Jack.
A quick glance behind her showed that Thalia was still hesitating, but thankfully that changed when a skeletal arm burst through the wreck of the Spirit of St. Louis and the two Hunters finally grabbed the daughter of Zeus and dragged her away.
"Zoë drop another plane on them to slow them down!" Annabeth suggested.
"Good idea, daughter of Athena." The ancient Hunter shouted as she took a shot, firing dozens of arrows at once and sending two or three planes crashing to the ground and creating more obstacles to slow down the Skeleton Warriors.
Let's hope that buys us enough time to get out of here.
Hours after their escape from the Smithsonian and shaking off the Skeleton Warriors through switching at least a dozen trains, Percy and the others found themselves in a trainyard belonging to the Sun West Line.
"I think we're safe for now." Grover said with a sniff of the air. "I don't smell them anymore."
"Then alloweth us to taketh the chance to relaxeth. We needeth the rest." Zoë said with a tired sigh as they all hopped off the latest train that they had got onto during their chaotic escape.
"Yeah, I'm exhausted." Percy admitted as he surveyed the trainyard for some place to sit down and take a proper rest. The whole day hyped by the unending pursuit of the Skeleton Warriors had been incredibly draining.
"Oh, there's a fire over there." Grover said, pointing to a fire in a barrel with what looked like a homeless man warming himself next to it. "Let's go see if that guy is willing to share."
"You go ahead, Grover." Thalia told him with a tired smile. "Now that we have a breather, I want to work on a plan for when the Skeleton Warriors do catch up for us. Annabeth, join me?"
"Sure." Annabeth agreed with a nod. "That's a good idea."
"Here, Grover, Percy." Su said, passing him a bag of ambrosia wafers and a packed enchilada to the Satyr. "Go eat by the fire and try to ask the guy there for some directions. I don't think any of us have any idea where we are."
This statement was met by everyone shaking their heads.
"Gotcha, Su. Are you going to join in on the anti-Skeleton planning?" Percy asked as he opened the bag of food the daughter of Demeter had handed him.
"After distributing everyone's dinner? Yeah." Su said with a nod. "We need a plan."
"Indeed. We shall joineth the planning too. Perhaps mine own experience wouldst offer some help." Zoë said, with Bianca trailing after her loyally.
"Me too," Jack chimed in, though everyone ignored him.
"Leave the gathering of local intel to me then," Percy said with a smidgen of his usual humor. Too tired to do any better. "Come on Grover, let's go see what the local knows."
"Sure, Percy, let's go."
"Yo, mind if we share your fire?" Percy asked as he and Grover walked over to the homeless man and his fire.
"Sure," the man in dirty, unkempt clothing said with a dismissive shrug. "Free country an' all."
There's something off about him. Percy couldn't help but think as he looked the man up and down. He was a toothless man who looked like a teddy bear that had been run over by a truck and was dressed in a ripped coat and worn-out almost-white jeans. But he didn't hold himself like someone who was down and out. Instead, he held himself with a confidence that was out of place.
"Thanks, man." Percy said with a grateful smile. "We've had a tiring day."
"You and your friends look it." The man said, eyeing Percy and his friends. "What's brought you bunch of kids out here anyways?"
Grover opened his mouth to spin some lie to mislead the man, but Percy had learned from Rhode that most of the time going with the truth, or at least part of it, was the best way to go about doing just that.
"We're trying to rescue my big sister." Percy admitted, cutting Grover off. "She's been kidnapped."
"Not gonna leave it to the police?" The man asked, shooting Percy an assessing look.
"No," Percy said firmly. "My older sister has always taken care of and taught me to do things for myself. Now that she needs my help, I'm not about to leave saving her to anyone else."
"Your sister sounds like a tough cookie."
"She is," Grover confirmed before Percy could, a fond smile on his face.
"Sounds like my big sister too. Not about the teaching me how to take care of myself bit, but she's definitely a tough cookie too." The man said with a fond smile, his eyes seemingly glowing a little. "She's missing too, you know?"
"Really?" Grover gasped, shocked by the revelation.
His sister is missing too? His eyes glowed. What are the chances…
"You're Lord Apollo, aren't you?" Percy guessed.
The homeless man blinked in surprise before chuckling and was surrounded by a golden glow as he transformed into an older teenager, maybe seventeen or eighteen, that had sandy hair and outdoorsy good looks dressed in jeans, loafers, and a sleeveless T-shirt.
"L-Lord A-Apollo!?" Grover stuttered, staring at the revealed god in shock.
"How did you know?" Apollo asked, offering them a blinding smile.
It was just a guess.
"I've spent quite a bit of time with gods lately. I've learnt to recognise the signs, I guess." Percy said with a shrug. "Plus with all the talk of big sisters, it wasn't hard to guess which god you were."
"I see," Apollo said with a nod. "Well, now that I've been outed I've to keep this conversation short or Father will make an issue of it. So listen carefully okay, Percy? 'Cos I won't have a chance to repeat myself."
Percy nodded dutifully.
"Good." Apollo said with a satisfied nod. "First things first, when you rescue Artemis, don't mention that I admitted that she was older. Or that I was here to Jack either. We don't have a good history."
"Whatever you say, Lord Apollo."
The sun god offered Grover a smile before he pointed at a train that was preparing to set out of the yard.
"You lot will need to take that train. It will take you to your next stop on your journey West."
"That tra-" Percy tried to confirm but before he even finished his question, the god had already vanished.
"Percy, come on! We have to get everyone on that train!" Grover said, pulling on his arm. "It's already starting to pull out of the yard."
"Right," Percy said as he pulled his arm out of Grover's grasp and broke into a run for the train. "Guys! We've gotta catch that train!"
"You okay there, Grover? Need some water?" Thalia asked her Satyr friend worriedly as he sat in the chair across from her in a cafe in some random small town in New Mexico where they'd stopped at his insistence.
"I'm fine." Grover said with a tight smile that said quite the contrary. "I just need time to acclimatize to Pan's presence. It's so strong here."
"Aye, it is. I senseth it as well." Nightshade agreed from where she was sitting with her fellow Hunter, Bianca di Angelo. "Tis liketh that Lord Pan is nearby."
Well, I don't feel anything. Thalia thought with a frown, as she looked between the two skeptically.
"It has to be." Grover agreed. "I've got to come back here when we aren't on a Quest. Pan has to be nearby. He has to be."
"Yeah, but another time okay." Thalia told her friend. "Remember what's at stake on this Quest?"
"Rhode," Grover said, his face turning grim. "Yeah, don't worry I didn't- can't- forget. But where do we go from here?"
"San Francisco." Annabeth declared from the table she was sharing with her boyfriend. "Percy got a prophetic dream last night."
"I think I need to go seek out Nereus, the Old Man of the Sea." Percy said, picking up the explanation. "Then, and I don't know if this bit has anything to do with what we have to do next but after that the dream shifted to one where a vaguely familiar girl gives me tips on how to trick Atlas and then gives me her hairpin which transforms into Riptide."
As he finished describing the second part of his dream, Nightshade abruptly stood and stomped off without a word.
"I'll go see what's wrong." Bianca, the newbie Hunter, said as she stood and followed after her superior.
"Was it something I said?" Percy asked, blinking cluelessly.
Thalia was feeling him, 'cos she had no idea what had suddenly gotten the ancient Hunter upset.
Annie and Su might have an idea though as they exchanged a look but if they did, they chose to say nothing. Thus the rest of them were left thoroughly confused.
Unfortunately, they weren't given much time to be confused as just as Thalia was about to ask the other two girls just what the hell was going on, Jack suddenly stiffened and pointed off in the direction of the town's train station.
"Skeleton Warriors!" He shouted urgently as he leapt to his feet.
Spinning in the direction that the son of Khione was pointing, Thalia felt a shiver of fear go down her spine because not only was he right but the already unkillable monsters had also somehow gotten their hands on some handguns.
Just great! Like they weren't already tough enough to deal with!
"Scatter!" Thalia shouted as she shifted her spear and shield out of their disguised forms. "Focus on getting rid of their guns."
They couldn't kill the undead menaces but they could certainly do something about their firearms and hopefully reduce their threat level a little.
Putting that thought to action, Thalia dipped into her powers and shot towards the Skeleton Warriors in a bolt of lightning. The move was insanely tiring but she'd been practising hard with it and whilst she probably couldn't pull it off more than once a fight, at least it didn't leave her completely drained afterward. So she was willing to risk it to try and get close enough to disarm the Skeletons.
She rematerialised in front of the makeshift firing line the Warriors had made and quickly swept her spear in as wide an arc as she could, aiming for their hands. The Celestial Bronze of her spearhead shattered the bony hands of a half dozen of the gun toting undead, causing them to drop their weapons just like she planned.
It seemed her earlier suggestion to target their guns was being heeded as a fire hydrant a short distance to the side of the Skeletons exploded and a high powered jet of water shot from it and through the arms of four more bony gun arms. Only missing the undead who had been furthest away from the hydrant and thus had the most time to react to the water jet.
That just leaves two more. Thalia noted even as tendrils of water picked up the dropped pistols and tossed them as far away as possible.
Sadly before they could manage to finish disarming them, one of the Skeleton Warriors managed to get a shot off. Though it was in an unexpected direction, as it spun on its feet and shot at thin air to its right.
Or what appeared to be thin air. Instead of passing through thin air and shooting off into the distance, the bullet clipped and knocked Annie's invisibility cap off her head as she dove out of the way of what would've been a headshot.
"Annie," Thalia roared, her blood boiling at the near miss and tucking herself behind her Aegis, she rushed the disorientated Skeletons between her and their fellow who had shot at her sister.
The force of her sudden charge sent the three Warriors in her way crashing straight into the culprit almost responsible for killing Annie, and she ran all four of them through with her spear before channeling a powerful burst of electricity through her weapon. One powerful enough to reduce them to dust.
"Thalia watch out!" Annie shouted, even a shot rang out and only Thalia ducking behind Aegis at the last second saved her from eating lead.
The gunman didn't have a chance for a second shot thankfully as before it could pull the trigger again, Annabeth lashed out with her knife from the position on the ground where she'd landed after her frantic dive earlier and cut through its knees, sending it toppling to the ground.
"Thalia, below you!" Percy shouted from behind her where he, Jack and Su had engaged the other seven Skeleton Warriors.
"Huh?" Thalia asked, glancing down and watching in shock as a skeletal arm formed out of the remains of the Skeleton Warriors she'd killed and tried to grab hold of her leg.
Leaping back, she was even more horrified to discover that it wasn't alone. All four of the undead monsters she'd defeated were reassembling themselves as if being reduced to ash had been nothing more than an inconvenience.
Okay, I get why they're called unkillable now. Thalia thought as she grimly prepared herself for another round with the things.
She was just about to rush them when a hail of silver arrows suddenly flew in from the direction that the two Hunters had run off to earlier and with superhuman accuracy hit the Skeletons in the joints, causing them to stumble around drunkenly. Then exploiting the opening their disorientation created, Nightshade and Bianca leapt into their midst with their silver daggers swinging.
"We have to disarmeth them." The ancient Hunter shouted as she bisected a Skeleton Warrior. "It will sloweth them down."
"Right," her younger Italian counterpart said as she ducked under a wild swing by the undead monster she was facing and emulating her mentor, she swung her daggers to cut it in half. Her aim was a little off though and instead of catching her opponent in the small gap between the ribs and pelvis where the only thing keeping the Skeleton together was a thin section of spine, her slash instead came in high and cut into its ribs.
The Hunter's enchanted blades were sharp though and managed to cut through the monstrous bone like a hot knife through butter. Now, at this point, Thalia and the Questers all expected the two halves of the Skeleton Warrior to just topple to the ground temporarily disabled whilst it reassembled itself. They were thus very surprised when it instead burst into hellish flames, a wailing noise escaping its nonexistent throat as it turned to blackened ash.
And more importantly, after a moment, it didn't rise again.
What the Hades was that?! Thalia goggled at the sight of the unkillable being killed.
Now as if that wasn't the only crazy thing going on, Grover started bleating like no tomorrow. And it wasn't one of his fearful bleats either.
"Pan! I can sense his presence!" Grover shouted as the earth suddenly shook violently.
The source of which quickly revealed itself as in an explosion of dirt and other debris, a massive thirty feet high boar with tusks the size of the canoes back at Camp literally burst from the Earth.
"Holy-"
"The Erymanthian Boar," Su gasped, cutting off Jack's curse.
"As if we didn't have enough on our plate already." Percy groaned as he beheaded one Skeleton Warrior and had watery tendrils rip apart another three. "Now we have to fight Boarzilla too?"
As if offended by the unflattering nickname that Percy had given it, the Erymanthian Boar leapt in his direction. Or at least that's what it looked like before it landed right on top of the Skeleton Warriors directly in front of the son of Poseidon who was left blinking at it, confused and wary by its unexpected assistance. Though that faded to just confusion as the Boar proceeded to ignore him and stampede over to crush yet more Skeleton Warriors.
All while letting out an earthshaking squeal.
"It's asking us to jump onto it's back." Grover translated. "It says that it's here to help us and give us a lift to our next destination."
"Grover, you're sure?" Percy asked nervously.
"One hundred percent," Grover called out after scrambling on top of it, climbing the furry mass like he was a monkey. "Jump on the Boar's back!"
"Good enough for me," Thalia shouted as she broke into a run and leapt onto the Boar's back, helped along by Grover.
"This is insane." Jack shouted as he blasted the two Skeleton Warriors he'd been fighting with a cryo blast and froze them in ice before jumping onto his staff to fly onto the Boar's back. "We're trusting random monsters now?"
"No, not random." Grover insisted as he helped Thalia to catch Annabeth as Percy used some water tendrils to toss her towards them whilst he shot himself onto the Boar's back using a water jet. "This is a gift from Pan."
"Pan is dead." Jack said dispassionately.
"Oh, shut up Jack." Su said as she apparited behind him and had Helel stab him with a vine that she'd morphed into something that looked suspiciously like a scorpion's tail.
"Hey! What did you hit me wi-" Jack said before collapsing forward in a dead faint.
"Tranquilizer." Su said smugly. "At least this way, we'll get some peace and quiet for a while."
"Thanks Su," Grover said, offering the scary daughter of Demeter a smile.
"Aye, most thoughtful of thee. Thee hast our thanks." Nightshade said as she leapt onto the Boars back, with Bianca over one shoulder in a fireman's carry.
The moment the Hunters got on, the Erymanthian Boar grunted.
"Hang on tight, everyone!" The satyr translated. "The Boar is about to get going!"
Thalia heeded her friend's warning and grabbed on tight to the Boar's thick fur like everyone else. Well, everyone except Su who just had Helel's vines wrap around the beast's body like a belt and secured herself that way all whilst using a couple other vines to hold onto the unconscious Jack as well.
"All set, Grover. Tell the Boar it's time to-"
Before Annabeth could even finish, the Boar growled and suddenly burst into a run. Within seconds they were out of town and in the desert and seconds after that, they began moving so fast that their surroundings were reduced to a blur. Fighting the urge to hurl, Thalia closed her eyes and endured the wild ride as best as she could.
Let's just hope this isn't an out of the frying pan and into the fire situation.
The first impression the apparent daughter of Hades had of the place they had stopped at was that it was a dump. No, it was a literal junkyard. One filled with some of the strangest types of junk she'd ever seen.
Toppled robots, clusters of the most dangerous looking but broken weapons, cracked pots with masterful pictures on them, ripped clothes that looked like they were made with the finest silks. On and on it went, some of the most expensive things she had seen in her young life and it was all just… tossed away with little care.
It boggled Bainca's mind.
And then their ride snorted and shook itself.
Bianca felt she did her best not to cry out in surprise when the Boar shook them off like they were water. Or fleas. Yeah, they were probably closer to fleas.
Somehow despite that, Zoë still managed a graceful three point landing with her feet wide apart and one hand supporting her weight on the ground while the other hand was outstretched away from their body, pointed diagonally upwards
Damn. I wonder how long I'll need to train to become that graceful.
"Tis the Junkyard of the Gods." Zoë uttered to the group as she stood gracefully back to her full height and everyone else stumbled to their feet, a pensive look on her face. "Be weary, objects thrown here mayhaps be cursed or worse. Taketh nothing, for divine wrath may striketh thee down."
"That I am afraid, Zoë, isn't the problem you should be worrying about." A stunningly beautiful woman said as she suddenly appeared in front of them. She had luscious red hair and bewitchingly beautiful features. She was dressed in a flattering striped burgundy strapless ball gown with beading in a design across the bodice that emphasised her dress' sweetheart neckline before trailing down at a slight angle to disappear into the folds of the skirt at the waistline beside a single large bowknot. The sight of whom was doing funny things to Bianca, and if the blushes on the faces of all the other girls was anything to go by, she wasn't the only one.
"Lady Lesbos? What are you doing here?" Zoë asked, unaffected by the woman's charm but sounding surprised.
"Lesbos?" Jack said with a lecherous grin. "Is she who I think she is?"
Smirking at the boy, the goddess - What else could she be? - formally introduced herself.
"I am Lesbos, daimon of the island of Lesbos and newly minted goddess of lesbians."
"Why are you here, my lady?" Zoë asked again, looking wary.
"Can't you guess old friend? Is it not fitting for me to face you Questers here? After all, if not for exploiting my island's connection to the Sappho girl and her poetry and through it to the portfolio of lesbians to seize it for myself and you becoming a Hunter, we would both have faded. So it's just poetic, in my opinion, that my challenge for this Quest takes place here in the Junkyard of the Gods, a place we both narrowly avoided being metaphorically confined to."
"What do you want?" Percy said, his voice strong and unwavering before a goddess in a way that Bianca couldn't help but marvel at. "What's your challenge?"
Instead of being affronted by his blunt attitude, the goddess seemed amused.
"Oh, wait your turn Jackson. Let me catch up with an old friend first, would you? Such a serious little boy."
"You still have not answered my question, Lady Lesbos. Why are you here?"
"Honestly Zoë, you've been in this game long enough to know the rules." Lady Lesbos said with a roll of her eyes. "Obviously I took a contract to issue you and the little ones a challenge during the course of this Quest, specifically one from Lord Dionysus if you must know. He added three extra people to this five person Quest and had to hire someone to trim the numbers down before the Fates get all fussy. And since I wanted to have a word with a couple of the Questers involved this time around, I volunteered."
"And how do you plan to do that, Lady Lesbos?" Annabeth asked, seemingly having shaken off the goddess' influence.
The goddess just smirked and snapped her fingers. In response, junk heaps all around them suddenly exploded as dozens of statues, all of them with their once exquisite features and paintjobs weathered away, came to life.
"By using these poor discarded statues of my poor fellows who failed to escape the fate I did." The goddess said with a laugh that did funny things to Bianca's stomach even as the statues charged towards the Questers like a zombie horde.
"Bianca, use thy knives." Zoë advised as she drew her blades, Bianca quickly following her lead. "Arrows will do little against these enemies."
"Got it, Zoë." Bianca replied as she ducked under the reaching arms of the statue of a woman and lashed out with her knives aiming for the thing's shoulders.
Cutting with the magical sharpness granted to it by Lady Artemis' blessing, her silver knives easily cut through the animated but otherwise mundane marble of the statue and the detached arms fell to the ground in a thud.
Undeterred the statue tried to body slam her, but Bianca just kicked it hard in center mass. She expected this to send it stumbling back and give her some room to have another go at it with her knives but instead a small burst of unknown power surged out of her as her feet made contact with the statue and poured into it, causing it to shatter like a dropped wine glass.
"Ah, geokinesis. You must be a daughter of Hades." Lady Lesbos said with a chuckle. "A pity you've signed up with Artemis' handmaidens. I would've so loved to have mapped out a wonderful little romance for you. You do fall into my domain after all."
"Thanks but no thanks." Bianca replied as she leapt back to avoid the arrows fired at her by the statue of a bronze archer before she burst into a zig zagging run towards it. "I'm happy where I am."
"A shame. Truly a shame." The goddess said with a disappointed sigh even as Bianca decapitated the bronze archer, disrupting the magic animating it and reducing it to a mere statue once more.
"Oh, look! It seems my statues have gotten one of the two I wanted for me."
Spinning in the direction of the goddess even as she bisected a plump mini-statue that had tried to ambush her by jumping off the top of a particularly high junk heap, Bianca found Lady Lesbos looking intently at where a giant twelve-feet tall statue of a muscular man had Jack pinned to the ground in a submission hold. The son of Khione was freezing everything around him in a desperate bid to break free but if this affected his captor, it made no sign.
I've gotta help him. Bianca concluded. She might not like the Overland boy. Heck, considering his attitude both back at Camp and on the Quest so far, she would go as far as to say that she disliked him but that didn't mean she was about to let him die.
Unfortunately, she barely made it ten feet before a statue of a snake lunged at her from behind the cover of a junk pile, forcing her to roll out of the way or have her head crushed by its wicked looking basalt jaws.
Hang in there Jack, I'll come help you as soon as I can.
If Jack could read Bianca's mind, he would have urged her to hurry the damn up. Sadly, he could not and thus all he could do as he was held captive by the crazy goddess Lesbos and her magical statue was to glare impotently at her. He'd tried everything he could think of and nothing had worked. It was like the statue had been enchanted to be immune to his powers, to the extent that even when he'd tried using the kinetic force of a mass of ice to force his way free his ice had just sublimated away inches from touching the statue. Though the only reason it'd even been able to catch him was because he was still shaking off the aftereffects of the damned tranquilizer Li hit him with earlier.
"I have to say, Overland, you truly are the most divine comedy I've seen in a long while!" Lesbos said as she giggled merrily. "Did you know the so-called love of yours has been doomed from the start?"
"What by the Pit are you talking about?" Jack shot back, unable to take the insinuation that his relationship with Rhode, one of the last good things he had left in his life, was anything but perfect lying down.
"Oh, let's just say that I've influenced it."
"So you're the one who made Rhode go through that phase where she thought she could be with Li?"
"Phase? Is that what you think it was?" Lesbos said with a shake of her head. "You are truly blind aren't you. Let me let you in on a secret, mortal, we gods can exert a great influence over your kind yes but ultimately we cannot create something in your kind that isn't already there. To do otherwise would violate the Ancient Laws' protections on free will. So that I could influence your precious Rhode at all should tell you about whether or not her attraction to her own sex was just a phase."
"You're lying!" Jack spat. She had to be! Rhode couldn't have genuinely ever been attracted to Li! It was just a phase! It had to be!
"Believe what you will." Lesbos said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "But know that even without my influence, you will never end up with your so-called girlfriend Overland. The sheer amount of gods who have influenced her love life against that outcome is frankly a little mind boggling. Her father and mother, Eros, even Lady Hera! You are that hated, boy. So hated in fact that if not for the protections offered to you by being a Camper at Camp Half-Blood there would be a queue of gods waiting to smite you a mile long!"
"I don't believe you!" Jack shouted defiantly, frigid cold spreading out around him.
It couldn't be true. He couldn't be that hated!
"Oh, so you haven't been insulting us gods every chance you get for years?" Lesbos asked with a raised eyebrow. "Did you think we wouldn't hear you disparage us in thoughts, words and deeds? Did you think we would forget? Did you think we would forgive?"
Jack felt a shiver of true fear run down his spine at that. He had insulted the gods on many occasions. After the shitty hand they'd dealt him, he'd thought it was only his right to do so. Apparently, the gods didn't agree. Typical.
"It's funny, since we never, ever forgive a slight. No matter how small, boy."
"You can smite him another day, Lady Lesbos." Li shouted as she suddenly appeared out of nowhere, most likely courtesy of her wizarding teleportation spell, and using the massive strength of her Ent armor punched the statue pinning him with enough force to not only send it stumbling back and free him, but also take its head clean off.
"Oh, little Su Li. One of my finest projects! Did you know the overabundance of lesbian couples amongst half-bloods were all from my influence? It was all part of my plan to secure my power and with it my rank as a goddess, you know. And you, my dear, are a big reason for my success."
At the confession, the air shifted and Jack had to close his eyes as his head was filled with a surge of all encompassing pain. At the same time, he inexplicably felt warm, cold, excited and very, very confused all at once.
Thankfully, the pain and surge of emotions only lasted for a second and when they passed, there was someone new in the Junkyard of the Gods.
Standing next to the already beautiful Lesbos now stood an even more beautiful woman that looked like the supermodel he had seen on a billboard while riding the Sun West Line. The one he'd made a mental note to look up for fodder for the late nights he couldn't convince Rhode to entertain him. Holy crap! She was the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen. With her lush blonde hair and amber bedroom eyes, just the sight of her was enough to make him hard.
"How dare you!" The woman raged at Lesbos and the son of Khione felt like he was being suffocated by the shout itself. He wasn't the only one, Lesbos too was frozen in place as the beautiful woman ranted. "You dare to subvert the natural course of love and Poseidon's daughter's fate in particular?"
"And you used one of my arrows to do so… how you managed to sneak in my temple to work your magic into them baffles the mind." A beautiful man with white wings said, his voice filled with palpable rage, as he materialized next to the supermodel.
"As punishment for stepping into our domain and interfering with the carrying out of our duties, you'll be put under house arrest and sealed into your temple on Olympus for the next ten years." Aphrodite, the goddess of love - Who else could she be? - decreed with such authority that it left Jack shaking in fright.
"Come along now, Lesbos." The winged man, the god Eros most likely, said as he reached to grab the redhead goddess by an arm.
"Wait! I'll gladly serve my punishment. It's lighter than I expected anyways." Lesbos said, earning frowns from the other two gods of love, before hastily continuing before they could add to her sentence. "But I do have a contract to fulfill here first. Once that's done, I'll gladly report to Olympus and serve my term."
"Fine," Aphrodite said, sounding annoyed. "But you better show up or I'll pull some strings and have Hades send the Furies after you. You got it?"
"I swear on the Styx that I will do as I've promised." Lesbos said, causing supernatural thunder to boom all around them.
Aphrodite still didn't look happy and Eros looked downright furious but neither said or did anything before teleporting away.
Lesbos breathed a sigh of relief at this and turned back to Jack, who only now realized that the whole while she'd been there he'd been so mesmerized by Aprhodite's presence that he'd lost track of his surroundings. It was only with her gone that he noticed that Bianca had somehow fought her way over to join Li in fighting off the mob of statues that seemed hellbent on swarming him.
"Looks like you can't mess up my relationship anymore, you two bit goddess." Jack said, smirking as he conjured a lance of ice and sent it flying at a large bull statue that had been charging Li from the side, pinning it to the ground where Bianca kicked its struggling form and caused it to shatter into pieces with her geokinesis.
"Weren't you listening earlier, it isn't just me among the gods who are against you being with the daughter of Poseidon. Besides, even if it was, my work on her is already done. In fact, once Atlas adds his own contribution, the final product will be all the better."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Evans and the others will find out soon enough." Lesbos said with a malicious laugh. "But I'm done talking to you Overland. Time to kick things up a notch."
Bianca had been listening with a half a ear to the conversation between Jack, Lady Lesbos and whilst they'd be there Lady Aphrodite and Lord Eros as well, but mostly she'd been focused on fighting the seemingly never ending horde of animated statues. But as she heard that Lady Lesbos was about to "kick things up a notch", she couldn't help the shiver of fear that went up her spine.
Suddenly the earth began to shake, and her newly awakened geokinesis told her quite clearly that it wasn't an earthquake. Not that she needed it to do so, as its true source made itself clear soon enough as a particularly large junk pile exploded as a single massive scorpion statue burst out of it. It was at least the size of a whale and had pincers the size of cars and a tail with a stinger that was pretty much a lance, complete with a Celestial Bronze tip.
"Is that a statue dedicated to Scorpio?" Annabeth shouted in confusion. "It isn't a god! And it isn't Faded! Rhode killed it just a few years ago!"
"Semantics," Lady Lesbos said with a shrug. "But thanks for singling yourself out, daughter of Athena."
"Annie! Get behind cover! Now!" Thalia shouted in warning.
But she was too late. Even as she was speaking, the immense tail of the Scorpio statue shot forward in a blur and stabbed Annabeth right through her gut, its Celestial Bronze tip puncturing right through her body such that as it pulled out, blood and viscera, what might have been the blonde girl's intestines, spilling out in a torrent of gore.
"ANnaBetH!" Percy roared. It was so filled with rage that it sounded distorted and almost inhuman. And as if in sympathetic response to his anger, the ground shook violently as suddenly a massive pillar of water shot out from underneath the Scorpio statue, coring it.
He wasn't done though and had the water, drawn from an underground aquifer Bianca's geokinesis informed her, surge through the junkyard as a tidal wave. One that he rode as it swept away the Lady Lesbos' animated statues and brought them into the deadly path of Riptide as he ruthlessly and systematically chopped them to pieces.
It was like a wild wet dervish of death.
In the face of which even a goddess felt fear, as seen by how Lady Lesbos let out a very undignified terrified squeak before teleporting away. So could anyone blame Bianca for just standing there, stunned into silence at the display.
"Bianca! Come over here! I need your help now!" Su shouted, shaking the daughter of Hades from her stupor.
"On the way," Bianca shouted as she ran towards the Chinese girl.
Said older girl was hovering over Annabeth and running her wand in elaborate gestures over the gaping wound in the blonde's gut. Pretty lights shooting from the magical focus to shine over the daughter of wisdom as they began to heal her.
It's not enough. She's dying. A part of Bianca that she didn't know existed until now told her.
Ignoring the discovery, she turned to Su and asked, "What can I possibly do? I can't help with healing her."
Su licked her lips, trying to concentrate as sweat built on her brow. "You wait until the time is right. And then, then you call Annabeth back."
"Back? Back from what?!" Bianca asked in utter bewilderment.
"You'll know when the time comes. I trust you, Bianca."
Bianca didn't, she didn't even know what she was supposed to do!
"Dammit, come on, stay with us." Su cursed under her breath as Bianca watched her using her wizarding magic, as she'd been told it was called, to knit the blonde's flesh together. It was amazing to watch, but Bianca could feel the life draining from Annabeth's body. Like a sinking ship at sea, the girl was going under faster and faster despite her wounds being healed.
Bianca reached out, wanting to help but unable to do anything as the life continued to slip out of her.
What am I supposed to do!? Bianca fretted again, and was about to ask Su one more time when the unthinkable happened.
Annabeth died.
She didn't need to see her breathing abruptly stop. Bianca felt it, deep in her bones, that the daughter of Athena had breathed her last on this mortal coil. While upset, Bianca felt almost at peace with it, like it was perfectly natural to watch a possible friend pass away.
And yet, a part of her rebelled against that feeling and she wrestled with the spirit of the older girl and pulled withall every ounce of her will before she could get far.
"No," she barked, power unlike anything she had ever felt flowing from her lips. "It is not your time yet, Annabeth Chase. Live!"
The world seemed to freeze at her words, and Bianca swore she saw a chocolate skinned, blacked winged figure offer her a smile out of the corner of her eye before suddenly everything around her snapped back into motion and Annabeth let out a wavering breath.
"Good work, Bianca." Su said gratefully, never once looking up from her spellwork. "Your revival bought Annabeth the time my magic needed. I think Annabeth will be fine now."
Bianca nodded, feeling too light headed after whatever she had done to say anything.
"So we're decided?" Annabeth asked tiredly from her seat in the chariot pulled by a pair of automaton pegasi that was the spoil that their defeat of Lady Lesbos' army of animated statues had earned them. "Grover and I will head back to Camp so Chiron can look over my injuries."
"Yes, my healing magic isn't that great. It can only do so much." Su admitted.
"Then why don't you go with her," Percy asked, looking dirty and all handsome. "Just in case her injuries open up again or something."
His concern is so cute. Annabeth couldn't help but think as she shot her boyfriend a loving look.
"I'm sorry but no," Su said, shaking her head and sounding genuinely apologetic. "Annabeth's condition is stabilized and I want to save Rhode."
"Percy, it's fine." Annabeth reassured her. "I trust Su's magic. At least that it'll hold long enough for me to get back to Camp and Chiron."
"Okay, but with your injuries, and no offense Grover, but shouldn't someone who can fight accompany you two back too?"
"None taken, Percy." Grover said, shooting Percy a smile. "And guys, isn't Percy right? I'm not much good in a fight…"
"Yeah, maybe I could go back with them?" Bianca offered. "I'm the least invested in this Quest. I'm the logical choice. Besides, we all heard what Lady Lesbos said. Three of us need to head back or we risk angering the Fates."
"We shall just needeth to risketh the wrath of the Fates." Zoë chimed in. "All of us that remaineth art needeth for the Quest."
Percy looked mutinous, so Annabeth reached out and took one of his hands, giving him a comforting squeeze.
"Zoë is right, Percy." She told him with a reassuring smile. "We just have to risk the wrath of the Fates. Everyone else is needed for the Quest. You, Thalia, Su and Jack all need to be there for Rhode. Zoë and Bianca need to rescue Lady Artemis. And besides, Bianca is the only one who can kill the Skeleton Warriors. We can't spare anyone."
Percy frowned, trying to think up a counter argument but ultimately just sighed in resignation.
"Fine," he said, radiating disappointment.
"Alright, now that's decided. At last." Jack, the asshole, said, sounding annoyed that we had the temerity to waste his oh, so precious time. "What are the rest of us going to do?"
"There's a river about a half a day's walk from here." Percy said, looking away from Annabeth to glare at Jack. "We make our way there and get our bearings from the local nereids. If we're lucky, they'll even help us by more than just giving us directions."
"Seriously? That's the best plan we can come up with?"
"Oh, save it Jack." Su cut in, shooting him a glare of her own. "It's a good plan."
"It is, Overland." Thalia agreed. "So shut it."
Jack looked furious for the girls piling on him but with everyone glaring at him, he was smart enough to shut up and stomp off in a hissy fit.
"Everyone, alloweth us go taketh stock of our supplies and giveth these two some space to sayeth their goodbyes." Zoë, of all people, said, as she walked away gesturing for the others to follow her.
"Good idea," Grover said as he and the others walked a short distance away, shooting her and Percy a smile even as they both blushed.
"Uh, um, stay safe on the way back to Camp, okay Annabeth?" Percy said after taking a calming breath but failing to suppress his blush.
"I will," Annabeth replied with a smile, her stomach doing flip flops as she admired how incredibly cute her boyfriend looked as he expressed his concern for her. "And you take care for the rest of the Quest, alright?"
"I'll try my best."
"You better," the daughter of Athena said as in a moment of daring she reached out and pulled Percy in for a kiss. It was just a quick, chaste peck on the lips. But it was their first kiss and that made it all the more meaningful. "And when you get back to Camp, there will be more of that waiting for you. So come back safe, got it?"
"Definitely," Percy said breathlessly.
Giggling and feeling full of pride at the effect she could have on her boyfriend, Annabeth looked towards Grover and raised her voice.
"Grover, we're done. Let's go."
"Alright, coming." Grover said as he sprinted over and jumped into the carriage of the chariot. "Uh, should I know what you did to Percy that has him looking like that?"
"Oh, nothing." Annabeth said with a smirk. "Right, Percy?"
"Uh, yeah." Percy said, shaking his head to regather his wits. "Bye, Grover, Annabeth. See you in Camp soon."
"If the Fates will it." Annabeth replied confidently. "Bye Percy. Let's go, Grover."
"Right," Grover said as he snapped the reins of the chariot, causing the automaton pegasi to come to life and beating their wings, pull them up into the sky.
Annabeth waved down at the other Questers they were leaving behind and just before they got out of sight, feeling daring, she blew a kiss at Percy.
"Uh, Annabeth, you sure you're okay? I mean you're acting a little out of character."
"Blame it on the concussion." Annabeth replied easily, ignoring her scarlet blush. It totally had nothing to do with the fact that she was feeling like a lovestruck teenager. Nothing at all!
"Wait, since when did you get a concussion?" Grover asked, blinking in confusion.
"Since now."
"Um, okay. Sure. Whatever you say, Annabeth."
"It's really a damn shame that Annabeth couldn't be here." Su heard Thalia say with a sigh as their group of Questers sans Percy wandered the Hoover Dam which they'd reached thanks to the directions and canoes sourced from a group of nereids that had lived near the Junkyard of the Gods which Percy had convinced to help.
"Yeah, we've heard that like a dozen times already, Thalia." Jack said with a snort. "Please shut up about it. We got tired hearing about how the Dam is one of Annabeth's favourite architectural marvels hours ago!"
As much as Su had to agree with Jack's opinion, she also understood why Thalia and Percy had been saying it over and over again. They were worried about her. So she nevertheless shot Jack a glare. Not that it made any difference to him, with how hostile everyone was being to him throughout the Quest so far, he was probably used to it.
"Why don't you tell us where Percy ran off to instead?" Jack suggested.
That was a good question. Despite having been instrumental in bringing them to the Dam, almost as soon as they'd reached it Percy had wandered off from the rest of the group whilst muttering something about a Bessie and leaving everyone but Thalia confused.
"Oh, he went off to check on Bessie."
"And just who is Bessie exactly?" Bianca asked, showing the growing initiative that she had been steadily developing since the Junkyard of the Gods.
"It's a name he gave to some sea monster he befriended recently." Thalia said with a shrug. "Don't know why it would be here though?"
"Perhaps it hast some relation to the Quest we have yet to understand. In the meantime, let us discuss how we shouldst maketh it to San Francisco from here?"
"Hey Li," Jack said, pointing at her rudely. "You have any magic that can help with that?"
"I could create a Portkey if I actually knew how." Su said, with an apologetic shake of her head. "That's advanced though. And it's not something I ever picked up."
"Che, what good are you?" Jack spat insultingly.
"Why don't you shut up Jack and stop pissing everyone else off." Bianca said, glaring at him and fingering the hilts of her knives meaningfully.
"What was that, kid?"
"This kid was too busy saving your stupid hide. So you're welcome."
"And who hast someone who is more than willing to assisteth her in a fight." Zoë told him warningly.
"And Zoë wouldn't be the only one." Thalia said, palming her mace can.
"Okay, whatever." Jack said with a shrug. "If magic is out then the only option left is to take a bus, isn't it?"
"Is that a good idea?" Bianca said with a frown. "I mean wouldn't that put mortals at risk especially with Skeleton Warriors on our trail?"
"Yeah, even if we know Bianca can take them out permanently since she's a daughter of Hades, they're still super dangerous and shouldn't be taken lightly. Especially since they've started using guns. We shouldn't put mortals at risk if we can help it."
"Still wrapping my head around that one." Thalia rubbed her temple as they continued walking around the dam. "So Hades broke the Oath too. Man, could no one keep that Oath?"
"Lord Hades did not. Thee mention having lived for some time in the Lotus Casino, didst thee not, Bianca?" Zoë asked, earning a nod from Bianca. "Likely the birth of thee and thy brother was before the Oath. Though, if he hath sent you to the Lotus for thy safety why he setteeth you two free now is a mystery only he can explain."
"Probably so he has pieces in the game for the Great Prophecy," Thalia suggested. "It was why Granddad got me released from my Tree."
"Sounds like a god." Jack snorted. "We're all just game pieces to them."
"They aren't all that bad." Su insisted as they found themselves standing in front of a pair of giant metal angel statues. "But another topic. What's with these statues, Thalia?"
"They're actually commissions by Lady Athena in dedication to Lord Zeus." Thalia said, looking at the 30 feet tall two winged statues. "Mortals think if you rub their toes, you'll get good luck. It's just them knowing they're special, just not in the way they think. Or at least that's what Annabeth told me."
"Interesting," Bianca said with a nod. "But we still have to decide on how to get to San Fran, right?"
"There is nay choice. We must risketh taking a bus."
Everyone frowned at Zoë's observation. The idea of taking a bus and putting mortals at risk of a confrontation with Skeleton Warriors didn't sit well with any of them.
"Maybe I can grow something that can transport us?" Su suggested, running through the possibilities.
"Guys!" Percy shouted as he ran towards them. "We have Skeleton Warriors!"
"Really, Percy?" Jack asked, his eyebrows raised skeptically. "I don't see any."
"That's because there's a clear-sighted mortal buying us time by confusing them down inside the dam, but she won't be able to keep them occupied for long. So let's get out of here now!"
"How? We're up here with no way down except the elevator and they'd be waiting for that."
"Looks like that's not going to be a problem." Thalia said, pointing towards the direction where Percy had come from. "Look."
Glancing in that direction, Su felt a chill go down her spine as the eleven remaining Skeleton Warriors came running at them from the direction Percy had come from. Thankfully though, they'd failed to recover their handguns and were now armed with much more manageable swords and shields. Well, most of them anyways.
"Shit!" Thalia hissed as she leapt in front of Jack, shielding him with Aegis but getting her spear arm clipped by the bullet fired by one of the last of the Skeleton Warriors with a gun as it ricocheted off her shield.
Thankfully, Bianca was on the ball and sent an arrow through the eye socket of the lone gun wielding Skeleton. It wasn't enough to kill it but it did have it staggering back disorientated.
"A little lower, Bianca." Zoë advised as she drew her knives and prepared to engage the charging undead. "Thee needeth to hitteth them in center mass to dispel them."
"Gotcha, no head shots." Bianca shouted back as she corrected her aim and nailed the skeletal pistoleer in the chest and reduced it to inanimate ash.
Su only paid all that a passing mind though as she ran over to Thalia to check on her wounds.
"Episkey," Su cast healing the bullet graze even as she had Helel grow a pair of sunflowers and another three scorpion tails, to shoot bullet seeds and Manticore quills at the Skeleton Warriors' joints to disable them. All whilst, she deployed her Ent armor around her.
"Bianca, take the shot!" Percy shouted as he kicked a Skeletal Warrior that he had literally disarmed away from him.
"Got it!" The daughter of Hades shouted back as she sent an arrow through the armless undead's chest and reduced it to ash.
"This is getting very repetitive." Thalia asked, as she sent a lightning bolt at the cluster of undead that Su had disabled a second ago but which had already repaired the damage that they'd suffered.
"Guys! We have mortals!" Jack shouted as he froze the group of Skeleton Warriors that he'd been fighting and pointed to a group of tourists who had just appeared and were now busy taking photos and videos of whatever the Mist was making them think their fight was. "We need to get out of here!"
"But how!?" Thalia shouted back irritably.
"Thalia! The statues! They're offerings to your Dad, this is practically a temple to him. Pray to him for help." Percy replied as he trapped a pair of Skeleton Warriors in spherical watery prisons.
Su saw Thalia frown but the Skeleton Warriors they were fighting getting back to their feet and requiring them to disable them again via a lightning bolt and Su's various biological projectiles, seemed to make up her mind.
"Fine!" The daughter of Zeus huffed. "Dad! A little help!"
"Uh, Thalia, maybe you should try something a little more polite?"
"Nah, man!" The statue on the right shouted as it leapt off its pedestal and using one of its massive wings swept Thalia and Su up before depositing them on his shoulder before he turned to do the same for Jack. "Lord Zeus thinks it's more than enough. I'm Hank by the way."
"And I'm Chuck." The other statue said as he scooped up the others. "And Lord Zeus is totally cool with it. So no worries."
That's a surprise. Su thought, blinking in confusion. After all, there was no way that Mother would have accepted such an informal prayer.
"Got them all onboard, Chuck?" Hank asked as he kicked a whole bunch of Skeleton Warriors trying to attack him, smashing them into a pile of broken bones.
"Yup, Hank. Let's fly!" The other statue said as he leapt into the air.
"Right behind you, Chuck!" Hank said as a powerful flip of his wings sent him, and them, soaring into the sky.
"Wait! Fly!?" Thalia shouted fearfully, but everyone ignored her.
Now wasn't the time to worry about her fear of heights.
"Phew, looks like we got away." Jack said with a sigh of relief.
"Yeah, trust us, those bony boys won't be able to catch up to us!" Hank reassured them.
Su had a feeling that it wasn't going to be so easy, it was why she was only cautiously putting away her Ent armor. It was this caution that left her prepared when she spotted a glimmer of metal from the direction of the Skeleton Warriors.
"Gun!" Su shouted as she leapt in front of Jack, who as the Warrior's quarry, was of course the target.
She was just in time as the bullet slammed into her already half withdrawn Ent armor. It nevertheless was enough to save her from injury but it still proved strong enough to cause her to lose her footing and start to fall to the ground. She fell so fast that by the time her head stopped ringing and she got her bearings, Su was too far to grab one of the statues with Helel.
"No, no!" Su cursed and tried to figure out what to do.
And then she saw something else falling towards her, one growing closer to her. She blinked as she realised Bianca had apparently jumped after her.
What is she thinking?! Su panicked in worry for the younger girl. "Helel, catch her!"
At her command, Helel's tendrils reached out and caught the falling girl, pulling her in close.
Near breathless, Bianca shouted over the sound of the wind rushing past them as they fell. "Listen, we're going to take care of the Skeletons. I have Overland's spare jacket to get them to come after us. We can't let them follow the others anymore, okay?"
Su tried to get her Ent armor to cover Bianca, but the plant refused. Groaning in frustration, Su instead resorted to wrapping her armor's massive arms around the young Hunter, shielding her as moments later they made their groundbreaking impact with the Earth. It was harsh enough that Su was honestly surprised her bones weren't reduced to dust by it and she worried about whether Bianca survived.
"Su, you okay?" Bianca said, letting her know that her worries were unfounded.
"Yeah," Su said as she opened her arms, letting Bianca leap off her and onto the ground. "How did you get Jack's jacket?"
"Zoë snagged his spare from his pack when we were at the Dam," Bianca informed her as Su got back to her feet. "She wanted to use it to draw the Skeleton Warriors to me so I could kill them. Though I don't think she thought I'd do it quite this way."
"Yeah, I betcha she did a spit take when you just jumped off the statue like that." Su said, as she deployed Helel's tendrils and eyed the dust cloud thrown up by the Skeleton Warriors running towards them with supernatural speed where they stood on the banks of the Colorado river.
"Ha! Now that's funny." The girl awkwardly laughed, no doubt trying to ease her nerves.
"Totally." Su agreed, before she took a calming breath, her nerves flaring as she loosened herself for a tough fight. "Are you ready?"
After all, the daughter of Hades was the key to success here.
In response, the younger girl drew her bow and nocked three arrows at once, each of her arrowheads supernaturally gleaming with moonlight. Turning to Su, she gave a small nod, black eyes looking around as she wore Jack's jacket. Despite how nervous she seemed, Bianca also looked slightly eager.
"Let's do this." Bianca said as she fired her shot, sending the three silver arrows zipping through the air like shooting stars. The Skeletal Warriors tried to evade, but one moved just a little too slowly and took an arrow straight through the chest, causing it to crumble into black ash. It was the one that still had its pistol and Su couldn't help but wonder if that had been a deliberate move on Bianca's part.
"Let me slow them down for you." Su said as she slammed her armor's fists on the ground, causing hundreds of vines to shoot through the ground before they exploded out of the earth directly under the Skeleton Warriors where they proceeded to latch onto the undead.
Most of the Skeletons somehow still managed to evade her vines, using their swords to cut away the few vines that reached towards them. Three however were ensnared and Bianca capitalized on them like a cat on a fat bird. Three for three, her shots streaked through the air and nailed each of the Skeletons in the chest. Reducing them into nothing but black ash.
"Five left," Su counted. "They're almost in melee range."
"I think I can manage another one." Bianca said as she sent three shots in quick succession.
The first two herded the lead Skeleton into the path of the third, which soon punctured straight through the monster's chest leading to it collapsing into ash.
Damn! She's gotten very good with her bow.
"Here they come!" Su shouted as the rest of the Skeletons closed, Bianca however, instead of putting away her bow, tossed Jack's spare jacket over to her instead.
"Su, keep them busy. I want to try something Zoë told me I should be able to do." Bianca said as her shadow suddenly expanded into an inky black oval that she promptly stepped into, disappearing from sight.
"Uh, okay?" Su said as she used one of Helel's vines to grab the jacket and pull it into her armor where she proceeded to hold it close to her chest, more confused than anything but knowing better than to second guess her comrade's plan in the middle of a fight.
Plus she didn't exactly have time to question it anyway as she'd just finished drawing the jacket in when the Skeleton Warriors reached her position and she became too busy fighting them to think about anything else. Making Helel's vines as sturdy as she could, she whipped them at three of the Skeleton Warriors and sent them flying whilst she used the massive fists of her Ent armor to smash the last undead into powder.
Turning away from the temporarily disabled monster, Su prepared to deal with the other three only to see a cluster of silver arrows rain down on the closest of the Warriors from somewhere in the distance, several of which punched through its chest reducing it to ash. Heck! Bianca even managed to send one into the reforming chest of the Warrior that Su had smashed and put it down permanently too.
Okay, I think a correction is in order. Bianca isn't good with her bow, she's outright superhuman! Is this some blessing for being a Hunter!? I know they're good, but this is scary good!
The two remaining Skeletons weren't stupid and seeing that they were being picked off from a distance began turning around and started searching for their attacker. Only for another two arrows to fly in from their left, in a completely different direction from the previous barrage, that finished off yet another Skeleton.
The last Skeleton began to run, picking up speed supernaturally fast with each stride, as it dashed towards Bianca's last firing position. But the daughter of Hades seemed to have expected it and stepping out of a shadow, she appeared right behind the sprinting Warrior.
"Back to the Underworld with you," Bianca said with cool dispassion as she loosed her already nocked arrow.
It flew true even as the monster desperately spun around, raising its shield as it did to attempt to block the blow only for Bianca's glowing silver arrow to pierce right through it and into its chest.
For a moment, the Skeleton Warrior just looked down at its chest and the gleaming shaft of the arrow sticking out of it with what might have been disbelief. The moment didn't last long though and in seconds the undead monster crumbled into ash.
"That's all of them." Bianca smiled, sweat slicked her face as she panted a bit. From overexerting her power or fading adrenaline, Su had no clue.
Yet she did figure out one thing.
A teleporting archer? What a frightening concept. Talk about a tactical nightmare to have to deal with. Those Skeletons never stood a chance, did they?
Su felt rather useless. In fact, if she wasn't here, would Bianca have been able to win all on her own?
Probably. She concluded with a pout. What the Hades, just how terrifying can Big Three children be?
Most of a day after splitting up with Su and that new Hunter, Bianca - No great loss on either account -, Jack and the rest of the Questers were climbing up the side of Mount Tamalpais, the current location of Mount Othrys, following a path that Nightshade had insisted would lead them to where the sky met the earth, the Titan's Curse, was located and where the Oracle's prophecy seemed to be leading them towards.
"Nightshade, are you absolutely sure this is the right way?" Jack asked, earning himself glares from Thalia and Percy.
Seriously, what's their problem? It's a legitimate question. They might trust Nightshade implicitly, but I sure as the Pit don't.
"Aye, I am sure boy." The ancient girl said, seemingly utterly unable to talk like a normal person.
"Second guessing your Questmates isn't cool, Overland." Thalia spat. "Besides Zoë is hundreds of years old. I think she'd know her way around."
"Thousands," the oh so humble Hunter corrected. "And this is a path that I couldst never forget."
That statement seemed to catch the daughter of Zeus by surprise and she shot the Hunter a confused look but before she could say anything, Percy cut in.
"Leave it Thalia," Rhode's brother said firmly. "Just trust that Zoë knows the way."
Thalia frowned but nodded and they continued their hike in tense silence for a while until it was suddenly broken by the sound of a loud pop from just ahead of them that had them drawing and leveling their weapons warily at its source.
"It's just me guys," Su said with a smile as she put away her wand and broom.
"Su, glad to see you. If you're here then-"
"Bianca and I took care of the Skeleton Warriors." Su confirmed. "Well, it was mostly Bianca, but I helped too."
"Where is she then?" Nightshade asked curiously, probably worried for her fellow Hunter.
"She decided to head back to Camp to get us some backup just in case." Su said as they walked up to her and she fell in with their group. "That and with the Warriors gone, she didn't want to risk jinxing us with her presence screwing up the Oracle's prophecy about how many people made it West."
"That wast wise of her." Nightshade praised.
"Yeah, that was cool of her." Thalia agreed. "So how's she heading back to Camp?"
"Through the shadows. Apparently children of Hades can teleport through them."
"Tis called Shadow Travel. And whilst tis incredibly fast, it is not teleporting." Nightshade corrected. "Tis likely that using it, Bianca will reacheth back to Camp even before Annabeth and Grover."
"That's good," Percy said with a sigh of relief. "She can help tell Chiron what to expect."
"Yeah, we should have IM'd him before we sent them back." Thalia agreed with a wince.
"Don't worry about it." Jack said dismissively. "That old horse will manage either way."
For some reason his reassuring remark just earned him glares from the other Campers. Which was bullshit! He was just trying to be nice dammit! Why the hell were they all against him!?
Ignoring him, Su turned to address Percy.
"So what did you guys do in San Francisco while I was gone? Did you manage to meet up with Nereus like the vision you had suggested?"
"Yeah," Percy said with a wince. "I had to wrestle the guy into submission, but in the end he told me that Bessie, you know the sea monster that popped at the Hoover Dam?"
Rhode's brother waited for Su to nod in agreement before he continued with his tale.
"So apparently he was a she and her real name was the Ophiotaurus, the bane of Olympus, and whose entrails when burnt by someone will grant them the power to destroy Olympus."
"What!? You've handled it I hope."
"Yeah, I sacrificed both the Minotaur Horn and the Horn of the Marathonian Bull to my Dad and asked him to whisk Bessie away to safety back in the Sound by Camp. She's probably safe and sound there right now under Triton's protection. You know he built a base there, right?"
Totally omit the whole part with the Telekhines showing up and almost succeeding in using her Fatal Flaw to tempt Thalia to kill the Ophiotaurus in the name of power, huh? Or that you needed to remind her about rescuing Rhode to stop her?
Then again Fatal Flaws were very personal business so he could give Percy a pass this time. That part of the story was Thalia's to tell and since she was keeping mum, he was going to respect her choice.
"Yeah," Su nodded in agreement to Percy's question. "Rhode mentioned it."
"Well, after that we decided to pay Annabeth's mortal family a visit. You know, to tell them what happened."
"I understand. How did her father take the news?"
"Incredibly well," Thalia replied, sounding disbelievingly. Jack couldn't fault her, he felt very much the same. In his experience, a half-blood's mortal family tended to suck. "I'd never thought a mortal parent could be so understanding of a half-blood's life. Heck, even Annie's stepmother and half-brothers were genuinely super worried about her!"
Shaking her head, Jack barely heard her as she muttered away about how she couldn't understand why Annabeth didn't seem to get along with her family.
"Dr. Chase was really chill. He even lent us his car. It's how we made it here." Percy said, picking up the story once more. "Speaking of which, how did you get here? Don't tell me you apparited all the way?"
"No way," Su said with a shake of her head. "I'd be liable to get lost if I did that. I mainly flew, which is why I was carrying my broom just now. It's easier to navigate from the air. I just apparited the last leg once I spotted you guys off in the distance."
"Just checking here Su, but are you absolutely sure you got all the Skeleton Warriors before you flew off to join us?"
"Yes, Jack. I'm sure." Su replied, sounding exasperated.
Seriously, what is everyone's problem!? Can't I just double check!?
"And what you and Bianca didst is most laudable." Nightshade said before suddenly coming to a stop and paled.
"Zoë, something wrong?" Percy asked, shooting the Hunter a concerned look.
Did the kid get a kick about worrying about everyone or something? It was clear to Jack that Nightshade hated all men, yet for some reason Jackson was intent on making nice with her. Like he wanted into her pants or something. Didn't he already have Annabeth? Really what a scumbag Rhode's little brother was.
I'm so gonna get Rhode to scold him about it later.
"We're here." The Hunter said, her voice monotone.
"Where?" Jack asked with a frown, looking around them at the Mist shrouded mountainside. The damn fog having grown ever thicker as they'd climbed.
"The Garden of the Hesperides." Nightshade declared ominously.
"And that's a problem?" Thalia asked, tensing and drawing her spear and shield.
"Aye." Nightshade said, her voice still the uncharacteristic monotone. "The Garden belongs to the daughters of Atlas, we will findeth no friends within. Yet, it is the only way to proceed. There is no other path into Mount Othrys and the place where the sky meets the Earth."
"In other words, expect a fight inside." Su said with a sigh even as she began encasing herself in her Ent armor even as the Mist ahead of them cleared a little to reveal a large wrought iron gate featuring beautiful images of the sunset and evening.
Nightshade just nodded.
"What's the matter?" Jack asked dismissively. "It's not like this is the first time any of us have walked into a deathtrap. All we need to do is beat whatever is on the other side and be on our way, easy peasy."
Again everyone else shot him a glare and Jack just frowned. Why the hell was everyone picking on him!?
"Everyone ready?" Percy asked a moment later.
"No, but let us do this before I loseth mine nerve." Nightshade said as she pushed open the gates to the fabled Garden of the Hesperides.
As she did, it was as if the world had spontaneously shifted and they had not so much entered into the Garden as they'd been transported into it. Transported straight into what was definitely the most beautiful place that Jack had ever seen. The grass shimmered with silvery evening light and the flowers were such brilliant colors they almost glowed in the dark. At the Garden's centre, stepping stones of polished black marble led round either side of a five-storey-tall apple tree, every bough glittering with the golden apples of immortality.
Apples whose fragrance alone were so enticing that he knew that a single bite from one of them would be the most delicious thing that he had ever tasted. In fact, if it were not for the hundred headed dragon coiled around the tree and the warrior woman standing next to it, he would have stepped right up and plucked an apple.
Both of those under the tree gave him pause but in very different ways.
The dragon, the infamous Ladon, was terrifying, enormous and his one hundred heads were like a hundred pythons fused together. His serpentine body was thicker than a booster rocket, and his bright scales shimmered like copper. As if that wasn't enough, the dragon's breath smelled like acid, a stench similar to that of a dead rat, but a hundred times stronger which made the Questers' eyes burn, their skin crawl and hair stand on end.
Where Ladon was fear inducing, the woman in contrast was imposing. Her hair was as dark as the abyss of the sea, her eyes a haunting blue that seemed to pierce the deepest of boundaries with a mere glance. She was dressed in a set of hoplite armor made of coral and wore a fishing net for a cloak.
"Shit, I recognise that woman." Thalia hissed, tensing. "That's the goddess Desponia. Rhode told me to be careful about this goddess if we ever ran into her."
"Desponia?" Jack heard Percy whisper to himself. "Isn't that one of my sisters?"
"Ladon, destroy them." A group of gorgeously beautiful women said with eerie synchronicity as they appeared out of the Mist that pervaded the Garden. They were all wearing white Greek chitons and had caramel-like skin, glassy black eyes that were like volcanic rock and silky black hair that tumbled loosely around their shoulders.
Holy crap! They're almost as beautiful as Aphrodite! Jack thought as he felt a tightness down below.
"Jack! Stop thinking with your dick and pay attention!" Su shouted at him irritably as she used a set of Helel's vines to pull him out of the way of a stream of acid that Ladon breathed his way.
"Sisters! Wherefore art thee attacking us? We seeketh only passage through the garden, we mean thee nay harmeth" Nightshade cried out at the Hesperides, because seriously who else could those insanely beautiful women be, whilst she ineffectually peppered the hundred-headed dragons with her arrows.
"Sister? You are no sister of ours, Zoë Nightshade. Ladon, kill her along with the rest of them." The nymphs said in the creepy sync they had going, causing the dragon to roar in what Jack imagined must've been agreement.
"Yes, Ladon dear, do the heavy lifting for me please." Despoina said with a chuckle even as she snapped a finger and the lightning bolt that Thalia had thrown at the dragon suddenly arced away from it mysteriously.
"Did she just twist lightning?! How!?" Percy shouted in shock and almost failed to roll out of the way of a blast of Ladon's acid breath.
"She's a mystery! Literally. She can do stuff we don't understand!" Thalia explained even as she used her Aegis to deflect a swipe from Ladon's claws before hightailing away from the dragon before it could bring one of its many heads to bear. "Unless we figure out exactly how she does something, she can basically do anything."
"Lightning rods!" Percy screamed out.
Idiot! It can't be that simple. Jack thought derisively as he sent a hail storm at Ladon, only for his icy projectiles to bounce harmlessly off his scales. Though it did irritate him enough for him to turn a couple of its heads the son of Khione's way and breath beams of its acid breath at him.
Is its scales impenetrable or something!? Jack gripped even as he was forced to leap onto his staff and pull off some fancy flying to avoid getting melted alive.
"Do you see any lightning rods, silly boy?" Despoina said with a laugh as she took a breath before breathing a literal laser beam at her half-brother.
"Okay, that's just bullshit." Jack said as he created a wall of ice, that mostly instantly sublimated into steam, to shield the son of Poseidon.
"Aw, poor boy. Would calling up Mummy make you feel better?" Despoina laughed as fire blazed in her hands. "After all, you both just flap your mouths!"
"Damnation! Desponia is too much a thorn in this battle. We must taketh her down swiftly!" Nightshade said, pointing out the obvious even as she blinded a dozen of Ladon's eyes with an arrow barrage and caused it to roar and recoil in pain.
"Why the hell are you even fighting against us anyways?" Percy asked, as he charged at the goddess under the cover of a bullet seed and Manticore quill barrage courtesy of Li. Not that the projectiles did more than bounce off Despoina's armor.
Shit! Are all their armor super sturdy or what? This is totally unfair. Jack couldn't help but whine to himself as Ladon finally lost interest in him and stopped trying to shoot him out of the sky with its acid breath.
"Because I hate our Father." Despoina spat as she swung her arm in Percy's direction and somehow sent a brace of vacuum blades at him. "I may be one of his daughters. A full goddess at that. But does he care for me? No! Instead, he cares for that little whore more than me! More than our other sisters! Even Rhode, the true Rhode, is gone and when offered the chance to bring her back in exchange for that cheap whore, he refused! Where is that love for us? Where is his fury on our behalf? Nowhere!"
"You created a vacuum by swinging your arm at superspeed!" Li shouted, causing the blades about to cut Percy to pieces to dissipate harmlessly.
"Tsch. That's one more of my favourite techniques that I can't use again." The goddess said with a pout, even as she darted behind Ladon.
"Percy, watch out!" Thalia shouted as her lightning bolts did nothing to slow the dragon down as it barreled towards the son of Poseidon.
Jack could've shouted the warning, but he was more of an action speaks louder than words kinda guy so while she was wasting her breath, he tried instead to trap Ladon's legs in ice. But the monster just shook off his cryo blasts like they were nothing and easily broke free of even the thickest blocks of ice he created, not slowed down in the slightest.
"Daughter of Demeter, entangle his legs!" Zoë shouted as she tried but failed to take out more of Ladon's eyes, the dragon having learned from its earlier mistake and was keeping its eyes closed and relying on its other senses.
"Right!" Su shouted back as she slammed her armor's oversized fists into the ground and caused massive roots to shoot out of the ground under Ladon and wrap themselves around the strong rippling muscles of the dragon's legs. The strain of restraining such a massive beast was immense though and the daughter of Demeter clutched her head in clear pain from the effort.
And for all her trouble, she didn't manage to hold it for long before a few of his heads snaked over its back and used its acid breath to literally melt its floral restraints into so much mush. But the time she'd bought for Percy was enough and he wisely retreated from Ladon's wrath before it could bring its toxic breath to bear against him.
"Aw, he managed to get away? Guess, I'll have to kill him myself. After all, that's why I'm here."
"What the Hades did I do to you?" Percy shouted as she pulled water from a river running through the Garden and shaped it into a lance that he sent hurtling at Ladon only to have the dragon deflect it with a dismissive wave of its tail.
"You exist." Despoina said with a shrug even as she snapped her fingers and somehow sent the elemental attacks Jack and Thalia's were showering Ladon with flying back at them instead. "You are Poseidon's newest favorite. That alone is enough to want you dead. And nothing you or anyone says or does will change my mind. My millennia old bitter hatred will not be assuaged by anything less than the death of all of Father's bastards!"
"And that, Despoina, is why your Father can't stand you." A familiar voice shouted as suddenly an arrow of light, blinding and warm, illuminated the perpetual sunset of the Garden of the Hesperides and hit Despoina in the right shoulder, blowing it clean off and showering everything in her golden ichor.
"Ah! Damn you, Apollo, damn you!" The goddess of mysteries screamed and raged with eyes aglow with crackling energy.
Damn show off! Jack couldn't help but think as the Olympian manifested in the sky above the Garden. Probably didn't show up earlier just so he could make a dramatic entrance.
"The Titans miscalculated." Apollo said, his voice firm and radiating strength yet warm and gentle at the same time and his bronzed skin glowed with a soothing light that shined on all of them. "Deploying a god against these Questers? Stupid move! It means we get to send one of our own to even the odds. Guess who was picked?"
Ladon moved to stand in between Despoina and the sun god as he descended from the skies to loom protectively in front of the Questers, but Apollo just quirked a brow.
"You sure you want to try me Ladon? I defeated Python, you know."
"Yes, so we've heard since forever." Despoina said with a roll of her eyes as she healed her grievous injury. "Try something new, you Helium Headed Oaf. Oh wait, resting on your laurels is all you can do!"
"I could change up my taunts by beating you sad children today." Apollo warned. "Do you want that?"
"Ladon, Despoina, let us retreat for now." The Hesperides said in their unsettling unison. "And leave the mortals to Father. He will handle them."
"Run for daddy, girls, it's all you know after all." Apollo called out tauntingly and laughed as despite looking incredibly disgruntled, both the goddess and the dragon followed the nymphs' suggestion.
"This isn't the last you've heard of me, Percy Jackson." Despoina said as she turned translucent in a slow teleport away. "I'll kill you another time. And in the meantime, I will totally enjoy the suffering my own contribution to your precious sister's Curse of the Seashell has and will cause her."
"Great." Jack said with anger as the enemies finished their departure. "Glad that's finally over."
Ignoring him, which was just rude, Percy turned his attention to Apollo.
"Lord Apollo, what did Despoina mean by that? What did she add to Rhode's curse?"
Apollo shot Jack, of all people, a look at this but all he received was an uncaring shrug in response. After all, whatever it was, it couldn't be that bad. The god frowned in reply but nevertheless proceeded to answer Percy's question.
"She is the one who crafted the part of the curse that caused Rhode to latch onto Jack." The god said, proving that Jack had been an idiot and it could be that bad.
"W-What? But what about, what about our relationship? Was everything about it a lie? E-Even how we met?" Jack asked, his world rocking underneath his feet. He had to float a bit off the ground just not to fall over.
Apollo shot him a look, like Jack was something unpleasant stuck on the sole of his sandal. "Not going to tell you what to do, kid, but it's your right to question a lot of your so-called 'relationship'."
"Lord Apollo," Su simmered like a moron. "How many gods latched onto the curse?!"
Apollo snorted and shook his head. "I don't know. How many possible enemies do you think Uncle Posiedon has?"
They all either flinched or paled at the notion. Poseidon was a hothead back in the day, he had a list nearly as long as Zeus in the enemies department.
"Relax, it's not that bad. I think. It was probably only Lesbos and Despoina, and maybe another two or three. Probably. Sorta."
This was met with an uncomfortable moment of silence, that the god broke. "Okay, any more questions? Anyone in need of healing?"
Everyone exchanged a look. No one was injured, which was amazing and was probably because Apollo stepped in as quickly as he had. Not that Jack noticed much of that. He was still a little too shaken by the revelation that his relationship might've been based entirely on lies. Or manipulations by vengeful gods. That it was a lie.
It is, Apollo said into his mind. Though Jack wasn't entirely sure that wasn't just his imagination.
"If there's nothing you guys need from me, then I have to go." Apollo said out loud, sounding frustrated and apologetic. "The rest is up to you guys. The Ancient Laws won't allow me to interfere any further.
He turned to glare up towards where the sky met the earth.
"May Tyche and Nike favour you, Questers."
With those parting blessings, Apollo vanished completely uncaring of the devastation of Jack's heart that he left in his wake.
"Alright, let's keep going." Percy said, just as uncaring of Jack's suffering. "We have sisters to save."
Everyone else cheered their agreement, even bloody Nightshade! All except Jack who could only wallow in his confusion and heartbreak as he trudged after them like a lost lamb.
"They've just left the Garden of the Hesperides, Master Luke." Rhode heard one of the harpies in service to the Titans inform Luke. "They shall be here soon."
"Good, good." Luke mumbled to himself, before raising his voice to address the winged monster. "Go inform the Princess Andromeda to hurry. It's time to close the vice."
"As you command, Master." The harpy said with a bow before with a flap of its wings it leapt into the air and flew off towards the ocean.
"You brought me out here just to see your little plan get torn apart by the Questers, Luke?" Rhode taunted from where she was bound to a chair on a platform next to where the goddess Artemis was holding up the sky. She was managing it a whole lot better than Rhode had but even she was struggling under the immense strain, if the pained look on her face and copious amounts of sweat pouring off her body was anything to go by.
As for her question, just like the last few times she'd asked Luke since he brought her out here, he ignored her.
I wasted my breath asking again. Rhode thought with a frown even as patience frayed further. She'd been tied up here for over an hour by this point and she really wanted to know why.
Thankfully for her patience, the answer presented itself soon enough as Thalia, Percy, Su, Jack and a girl she didn't recognise reached the top of the path that led to the plateau at the top of Mount Othrys where the namesake fortress sat
"We brought you here to make you watch as we kill your friends of course." Atlas said with a laugh as he teleported in front of her, already clad in a set of Stygian Iron armor.
With that ominous statement, Atlas walked towards the new arrivals.
"These are mine, Castellan." The Titan said as he continued his advance. "You stay back."
"As you command, Lord Atlas." Luke said like the groveling worm he'd become.
"Too cowardly to face true heroes, Luke? Leaving it to your Titan master? You've really fallen."
"No, I am just patient." Luke shot back as he gripped the hilt of his accursed blade and eyed the brewing confrontation between Atlas and the Questers with bloodthirsty anticipation. "I'll get my chance at Overland. I just know I will."
"Welcome to Othrys, servants of Olympus. It shall be where you die!" Atlas shouted bombastically as he stomped his feet unleashing a shockwave of raw power towards the Questers.
They were prepared for him though and walls of ice and flora burst into existence and shielded the heroes, even as a bolt of lightning and a brace of silver arrows arched over these barriers to hit the Titan.
Atlas though was no pushover and batting the arrows out of the air with a careless wave of his hand and completely ignoring the lightning bolt even as it struck him, he made to intercept Jack and Su as they both flew out from behind either side of their barriers, one atop his staff and the other her broom, as they made a beeline towards the platform that Rhode and Luke were on.
"I am your opponent, mortals." Atlas barked as he raised his open palms in the direction of the two airborne demigods, energy gathering in his hands in preparation for some kind of attack.
"And the three of us are yours!" Percy shouted back as he leapt over the still standing barriers Jack and Su had created earlier courtesy of a pillar of groundwater he'd pulled from the earth.
"Eat Celestial Bronze, Titan!" Rhode's little brother roared as he thrust Riptide at Atlas.
The Titan was not so easily felled though and reacting quickly, he swung his open palms forward in Percy's direction and unleashed the twin beams of raw energy that he'd been gathering straight at the son of Poseidon.
"Percy!" Rhode shouted in alarm as the beams consumed her brother.
"Argh! That hurt like a bitch!" Percy hissed loudly as he fell from the sky, clad in her Pallas Armor.
"But you'll have to do better than that if you want to kill me, Atlas." Her brother taunted as the waters that flowed from her armor healed him and he leapt back to his feet, just in time to avoid the Titan attempting to smash him with his fist.
"Then I shall do just tha-" Atlas tried to retort as he prepared to punch at Percy with a glowing fist and probably unleash some kind of ranged attack by doing so, but was cut short, mid sentence and mid action, when a silver arrow with a rope attached to it embedded itself in his raised arm and transformed into a claw, which the archer promptly tugged hard on.
It wasn't enough to send the Titan toppling off his feet but it was enough to cause him to stumble back and send his building attack flying wildly off target whilst also leaving him open for the most powerful lightning bolt Thalia had summoned in the fight so far. One that, aided by him being unbalanced, was enough to send him tumbling to the ground.
"Percy! Get him!" Rhode's sister shouted and her brother rushed the downed Titan.
"Now this is a challenge!" Atlas roared as he unleashed a shockwave of power that sent Percy flying back before he even got close, whilst simultaneously disintegrating the claw attached to his arm and the last of the barriers that had saved the Questers from his opening move.
"Show me just how much of one you can offer, Questers." Atlas sneered as he stood back up, sporting an eager, predatory grin.
Rhode was drawn away from that particular fight though as she heard her name being shouted.
"Rhode!" Su cried out as she used Helel's vines to rip an unfortunate Laistrygonian into pieces whilst just a short distance away Jack was freezing a squad of Dracanae into ice sculptures with a cryo blast. "Hang in there! We're almost there!"
"Su! Jack!" Rhode shouted back, happy to see them and knowing that her rescue was finally at hand.
"Overland!" Luke shouted suddenly, reminding Rhode of his presence. She'd honestly pushed that fact out of her mind for a minute there so the reminder had her flinching and turning towards him in shock.
"You'll pay for defiling my Rhode, you scoundrel!" The traitorous son of Hermes roared as he tapped into the powers granted to him by the Crooked One and blurred towards the son of Khione, who only just barely managed to bring his staff up in time to block the powerful overhead strike Luke had brought down on him in a bid to cleave him in twain.
"Jack!" Both Rhode and Su shouted worriedly.
"Li, go rescue Rhode! I'll keep the psycho here occupied." Jack shouted back as reassuringly as he could manage whilst just managing to push Luke back and jumping back a few feet, narrowly avoiding the crazed traitor's follow up slash.
"Don't die!" Su shouted back even as she somehow transformed Helel's vines into scorpion tails and unleashed a hail of what looked like Manticore quills that killed the remaining monsters around the platform Rhode was on.
Spinning on her feet, Su apparited the remaining distance, no mean feat considering she was in her Ent armor and had to punch through the undoubtedly significant magical interference created by the rich ambient magic of Mount Othrys, and reappeared right next to Rhode.
"Su, get me out of here!" Rhode demanded even as she tried her best to keep track of the fight between Jack and Luke.
A fight that Jack was losing. Badly. Luke was dipping deep into the power her Grandfather had given him and was literally running circles around Jack in a series of blurred sprints, evading the son of Khione's desperate counterattacks be they cryo blasts or swings of his staff. All whilst, he dealt one deep cut with his blade after another and caused Jack to cry out in agony each time as the cursed sword worked its evil magic.
"Give me a sec," Su said as she threaded a hand grasping her sword through her armor and quickly and deftly cut Rhode's bonds. "Rhode, here!"
Rhode snatched Spellbound's disguised form out of the air as Su tossed it to her with her free hand. Acting as quickly as she could, she transformed the spyglass into its true form and using her trusty trident promptly snapped the collar around her neck.
Even as the broken remains of the hated device that had suppressed her powers hit the floor, the mixed sounds of a maniacal laugh and a pained scream had the two girls spinning to look at the fight between Luke and Jack.
The sight that greeted them sent a shiver of absolute horror shooting down Rhode's spine as she laid eyes on Luke with his accursed sword buried in Jack's chest, right where his heart was.
"Jack!" Rhode and Su both cry out in horror even as Luke pulled out his sword, sending a spray of Jack's blood shooting into the air.
"N-Not li-like t-thi-," Jack began as he collapsed forward, only for his last words to be brutally cut short as Luke swung his foul blade once more and in one stroke, decapitated the son of Khione.
Something inside her, something that had been barely clinging on even despite the crushing weight of having held up the sky, broke at seeing the head roll as she let out a howl of utter heartbreak that combined with Luke's roar of triumph in a cacophony of sound that drowned out her awareness of everything in the world except herself and the man who she was about to kill. With her hands gripping Spellbound so tight that her knuckles had turned white, she leapt towards the traitor she'd once called a brother with the intent to impale him. To kill the murderer of the father of her unborn child.
Luke spun around in surprise, batting her first thrust away with a parry, but Rhode spun her polearm, managing to crash the spiked butt into his side with enough force to break a rib. Even still, Luke sent a kick into her chest, making Rhode struggle to keep her footing.
Recovering, the daughter of Poseidon dug her pronged weapon into the ground and flung rock and gravel forward, aiming to blind Luke as she dashed forward. If it failed at that, then she'd hoped it would at least buy her enough time to close and allow her to land a blow before he tightened his guard. However, tapping into the boons his foul master had granted him, Luke blurred around the gravel and not only easily parried her thrust but managed to run his blade along her arm.
Pain that was grossly disproportionate to the shallow wound shot through Rhode's body and had she been a weaker person, it alone would've caused her to drop her weapon but she was made of sterner stuff and spinning out of the range of his blade she reached out with her powers and grabbing hold of as much ice that Jack's earlier cryo blasts had created, sent them hurtling at Luke.
"Rhode, it's over! He's gone!" Luke shouted at her with a twisted smile, as if he had won something even as he effortlessly blurred out of the way of the many icy projectiles Rhode hurled at him.
A feat that made Rhode see red. She wanted to see Luke's blood.
For all his speed though, Luke had seemingly forgotten one of the most basic rules of a fight. Keep track of all your opponents.
He was thus foolish enough to drop out of his superspeed right next to one of hundreds of Helel's vines that Su had extended all over the area. A tendril that promptly latched onto his legs before he could react and lift him into the air before slamming him back down into the ground with enough force to crater it.
The son of Hermes cried out in pain, but before he could be slammed down again, his sword lashed out like a flash of light and he cut himself free. Rolling away even as more of Helel's vines reached out towards him again, he frowned as he found himself beset from all sides by them.
"Pesky plants, die already!" The insane son of Hermes shouted as swinging his sword so fast it resembled a rotary blade, he began cutting any vine within reach.
"Rhode!" Su cried out as she ran towards Rhode's side in her Ent armor.
Her shout caught Luke's attention and he turned towards her with a mad glint in his eyes and a sneer spread across his scarred face. Abandoning his attempt at imitating a lawnmower, he blurred towards Su who responded by unleashing a hail of Manticore quills and bullet seeds at him, forcing him to engage in evasive maneuvers and slowing his advance.
"No more, you won't take anything more from ME!" Rhode roared as she charged at Luke, determined to stop him from killing another of her loved ones.
"Confringo!" Rhode cast, sending a fiery orange bolt of magic at the crazed son of Hermes.
Recognizing the threat from behind him, Luke spun around faster than should have been possible and using his blade slapped Rhode's spell away from him. Su tried to shift her fire to capitalize on him coming to a stop to do so, but he blurred away before she could. Instead, he took advantage of the distraction of her attempt to finish closing with her.
"Die you dyke!" Luke shouted as he reappeared atop Su's Ent armor, his sword raised and poised to stab her.
"No!" Rhode roared as she prepared to cast another spell, even though she knew she'd be too slow.
Su though was another matter entirely.
"Confringo!" Her best friend cast from inside her armor just as Luke was about to stab down, hitting the son of Hermes point blank in his right shoulder and literally blowing his sword arm off in a fiery explosion.
"You talk too much." Su said dispassionately as she had Helel's vines grab the stunned and mortally wounded Luke, both his body and his now cut off arm, and tossed them as far as she could.
Rhode watched, sea green eyes somehow catching the pain filled sky blue ones of Luke as the son of Hermes plummeted off the side of the Mountain of Despair, screaming all the while.
I hope you die and end up in the Fields of Punishment. Rhode thought as she turned away from the piece of shit to check on Su.
"Su, you alri-"
Her question was drowned out though by a laugh that literally shook the earth and caused both her and Su to spin around towards its source, Atlas. The Titan, seemingly having caught sight of Luke's fate, had taken a break from his own fight to show his amusement at it. Though since the earthquake his laughter caused seemed to have disoriented Percy and the others, he had plenty of room to do so.
"With that foolish boy gone, I guess we have no need to keep Poisedon's little whore alive." The Titan of Endurance declared as he reached down and sank his fingers into the ground. With no effort at all, he ripped a large chunk of earth free and tossed it in Rhode's direction.
Glaring, Rhode's fury poured into her magic as she aimed her trident at the incoming chunk of earth. "Bombarda Maxima!"
A white bolt of magic leapt from the trines of her trident and slammed into the boulder, causing it to explode into a cloud of dust that rained harmlessly onto the ground below. Using it as cover, the daughter of Poseidon charged the Titan.
"Ha! Foolish child!" The Titan mocked as he clapped his hands in her direction. So powerful was the force of his clap that it created a blast of air with enough concussive force that it sent Rhode flying back.
Rhode was saved from a painful landing as she felt herself caught in the soft tendrils of Helel.
"Stay away from my sister!" Thalia shouted angrily at seeing Rhode get sent flying, as she unleashed a storm of lightning at the Titan that was joined by blasts of pressurised water from Percy and a rain of silver arrows fired by the Hunter girl.
Not that Atlas even seemed to notice the fierce onslaught of attacks sent at him as he casually weathered them and turned to face the daughter of Zeus.
"Though Zeus' whelp may still have some use." He said, looking Thalia up and down appraisingly.
The Titan's words caused her anger to rise and Rhode once more saw red. Leaping back to her feet, she charged the Titan a second time. "You stay the fuck away from her, you bastard!"
"The only bastards here are you demigods." Atlas said with a disgusted snort as he stomped his foot, causing the whole mountain top to shake with an earthquake so powerful that it caused everyone save for Rhode and Percy to lose their footing. More importantly though, it opened up a fissure of earth that began heading directly towards Rhode which forced her to abort her charge and dive out of the way.
"So anger isn't only your Fatal Flaw, but also that which drives you in battle? Interesting." The General said, sounding genuinely curious. "I wonder how far you can go before the latter transforms into the former."
At that cryptic statement, he reached out behind him and with a casual air that spoke of just how utterly outclassed they were, he picked Percy up like he was nothing more than a toy. Her brother swung Riptide at the incoming hand but for some inexplicable reason, his swing was sluggish and he missed entirely. As such, Atlas lifted him with nary any resistance and proceeded to toss him with the force of a cannon in the direction where Artemis still held up the sky.
A scream tore from Rhode's throat as she saw Percy land in a crumpled heap. But channeling that anger into action, she focused her magic.
"Επικαλούνται: Δύναμη του Δούρειου ίππου [Epikaloúmai: Dýnami tou Doúreiou íppou/ Invoke: Power of the Trojan Horse]!"
The spell had the earth quaking once more but this time, it was the Titan of Endurance who faltered as he fell to his knees, bleeding from his stone-like nose.
"Time for some payback!" Rhode shouted as she flung herself at the downed Titan with an almost feral rage. Her blood screaming to take his head, to tear, rip and leave him in pieces for all the harm he had done to her family!
The others, having recovered, also joined in on raining blows upon the staggered Titan.
Blow after blow in the form of lightning blows, Manticore quills, bullet seeds, silver arrows and an array of destructive spells all landed upon Atlas. But he was unharmed by them all. Even Spellbound bounced off his rock hard skin leaving nothing more than a bruise.
As such as he finally shook off the effects of Rhode's spell, he simply swung his arm at her with the air of one trying to shoo away an annoying fly. Normally, Rhode would have easily evaded such a lazy swing but overcome by her rage she did not even see it coming and was sent flying through the air like a ragdoll.
"Rhode!" The daughter of Poseidon heard multiple voices cry out as her mind cleared, the red haze of rage lifting as agony replaced it.
Thankfully that lasted only a moment before Su apparited to her side and practically shoved a thick wafer of ambrosia down her throat.
"Swallow!" The daughter of Demeter ordered and, too disoriented to really do anything else, Rhode obeyed and let the food of gods heal her injuries.
They also helped her regain her senses a little. Just in time to see Atlas stagger to his feet and slam his clasped hands down into the ground, creating a titanic shockwave.
Caught unprepared, the wave sent Rhode and Su both flying. The daughter of Demeter wrapped herself around Rhode, using her armor to absorb the shock of their rough landing. It was still bone jarring though and the force of the shockwave itself had been intense enough to have burst Rhode's eardrums.
She was thus in no position to put up anything resembling a credible defense as she spotted a sneering Atlas advancing towards her and Su through her blurry vision.
"S-Su, g-get up! At-Atlas. H-He's coming." Rhode slurred, as she struggled to tell up from down all whilst desperately trying to wake her seemingly unconscious best friend.
"I will not allow you to harm them, Father." The Hunter girl shouted bravely as she suddenly appeared between them and Atlas, firing arrow after arrow at the Titan to little effect.
"Out of my way, you traitor." Atlas spat as he backhanded the girl, sending her flying with such force that her body folded in on itself at such an angle that if Rhode remembered her anatomy lessons right probably meant he'd broken her spine.
"NO!" A cry of sorrow and fury rang out with such force that left the whole of Mount Othrys shaking as Rhode turned to see the goddess Artemis charging towards the Titan. Daggers appeared in her hands from the aether as surrounded by an aura of brilliant moonlight, she swung at Atlas like a whirling dervish.
The Titan spun around to face her, clear surprise on his face. Despite that, he managed to raise his arms in front of his face as he used his vambracers to block the blades of the goddess as she slashed at him. However he didn't seem to expect her to turn mid swing into a massive elephant that seemed to resemble the Oliphaunts from the Lord of the Rings more than any real world pachyderms and proceeded to hit him like a battering ram.
To his credit, he kept up his guard even as he skidded backwards, the sheer kinetic force of Artemis' charge too much even for him. The moment they came to a stop, he even tried to go on the counterattack and pushed forward but the goddess of the hunt had expected this and had transformed once more.
This time she became a gigantic octopus, something that held itself much lower to the ground and Atlas found himself pushing his weight against empty air. Titan or not, physics dictated what happened next and he fell forward. But Artemis wasn't about to leave it at that and lashing out with her tentacles, she tripped her opponent and in the split second where he was entirely airborne she used her tentacles that were still wrapped around his legs to toss him right back towards where the sky sought to meet the earth.
Turning in that direction, it was only then that Rhode realised how Artemis had been able to join the fight.
Her little brother had taken the weight of the sky from her.
"Percy!" Rhode cried out in alarm, her mind clearing thanks to the horrible realisation of the torment her brother had willingly borne. She knew, from bitter experience, just how terrible it was to bear that immense weight.
"Boy! Now!" Artemis shouted at the same time as she reverted to her human guise and Atlas crashed landed next to him.
Percy seemed to get what Artemis wanted and dove out of the way, tumbling across the ground.
"No!" Atlas roared in feral fury as he fell into a kneeling position to better hold his burden once more.
"Serves you right, you bastard!" Rhode shouted at the Titan as she ran over to check on Percy, dimly aware of Su stumbling back to her feet behind her.
"Everyone! We need to get out of here now!" Thalia said, running over. "I just went to check on what happened to Luke and I saw a massive army of monsters marching up the mountain."
"I sense them too." Artemis agreed. "They come to answer the Titans' call. We must leave quickly. But first-"
Without finishing her sentence, the goddess of the hunt walked over to the broken, dead body of the girl who Rhode didn't know.
"You served me well to the very end, my lieutenant. Rest well, Zoë. You will be remembered."
With that she picked up the corpse which transformed into stars in her hands and she tossed them skywards where they flew into the night sky and took the shape of a constellation.
They all stood there for a moment, in silent memory of the life lost before the goddess broke it.
"Come, let us leave this accursed place." She said as she whistled, calling down a silver chariot pulled by four golden reindeer. "I depart for Olympus at once. I cannot take you there. If I did, I fear I will be seen to be biased and my vote on the war might be invalidated. The majority is tenuous as best as is, we cannot risk it. But fear not, help will arrive shortly."
"Help? Whose?"
"I hear their wingbeats already." The goddess said with a comforting smile as she shot up into the sky on her chariot. "Until we meet on Olympus, heroes."
"What the hell did she mean?" Rhode asked, too tired by what she'd been through to deal with the typical godly crypticness.
"I think she meant those." Thalia said as she pointed to the East and a pair of pegasi flying towards them being led by a flying chariot being pulled by a pair of what looked like automaton pegasi.
"Okay, since when did we get one of those?" Rhode asked, staring incredulously at the chariot.
"Lady Lesbos gave it to us as a spoil after we beat her army of animated statues in the Junkyard of the Gods." Su explained helpfully, causing Rhode to look at her in confusion. Something that was only added to as she saw Helel reach out to do something that she couldn't figure out. "We'll explain things later. Right now, let's focus on getting out of here before that army Thalia spotted gets here."
"Oh, before that. Rhode here. It's saved me a bunch. Even made bearing the sky, uh, not good but, um, bearable? Yeah, bearable. But it's yours." Percy said, handing her the Pallas coin.
Rhode nodded, taking her treasured armor back with a smile.
Boss lady! Flóga shouted at once joyous and filled with urgency as she dived down and landed right next to Rhode. You're okay! That's great! Now get on! We need to go! Like now! That army of monsters is like, just about to reach the plateau!
"Right." Rhode said as she hopped onto the fiery auburn mare's back. "Let's go, everyone! The monsters are almost here!"
"Yes, get on!" Bianca shouted urgently as she pulled the chariot to a stop nearby and Blackjack landed next to Percy. "We want to be gone by the time they get here. So hurry!"
"Right!" Su said as she leapt onto Flóga's back and wrapped her arm around Rhode's waist, something wrapped in Helel's vines being held on her back.
"Su, is that?"
"Jack's body." The daughter of Demeter confirmed. "Now let's go!"
"...Thank you." Rhode said, pain scratching in her throat as she looked at it.
"I may not have liked him, but the dead deserve basic respect." Su simply said, face stoic but exhaustion and pain laced her voice.
Okay, everyone ready to go? Flóga asked bossily as she looked to make sure.
"Everyone's ready." Rhode told her. "To the air everyone!"
With the sound of the powerful wingbeats of their mounts, the half-bloods leapt into the air and to safety. Only moments later did the first monsters reach the plateau of Mount Othrys and could only shout in impotent fury as they made good their escape. Something punctuated by the pained cry of Atlas as Bianca decided to take a passing shot at the Titan as they flew past him with her bow and scored a hit in his eye.
"And that's for Zoë!"
Huh, she got a spine fast. Rhode thought, blinking in surprise.
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless and Axios as always!
Phew, Titan's Curse is nearly done! I gotta say, it's been a tough road so far with this book, but glad to see we're making strides through it. The content has changed a lot from the draft plan and then some, along with the shift in ideas and how things got to where they would. I know some are scary or generally not PG, but this is a Greek Myth setting, not everything is going to be cake and ice cream. Look at nearly every myth ever and count on your hands how many got a happy ending, or at least a neutral one.
Nameless: Hope you guys liked the nice big chapter we gave you guys to cover the meat of The Titan's Curse. We've mostly shifted to shorter chapters nowadays but long ones are a nice change of pace one in a while. Plus it just felt right to squeeze everything we did into this one chapter. On another note, we hope you guys liked how we tied up Jack's story. Honestly, considering how far he'd fallen, did you expect he'd have suffered any other fate? And for those who decry the darker direction we took him and the story, just read what E4E said above.
And Bainca lived! Whoo, man it's almost like we super care about her or something since she was such a waste to die for Nico's own character. At least to me. I wonder how well she'll do in the Hunters now that she'll have an actual chance. And oh yeah, Jack's dead… yay? Yay. He died because Luke's a Yandere for Rhode. So of course he'd go and show why he's strong and Jack didn't stand a chance in the end.
Nameless: Though considering how Jack was behaving in this chapter alone, it's pretty clear he deserved it. What between thinking with his dick during the meeting with Mr. D and his general putting of Rhode in second place behind himself even when he was on a mission to rescue her… Yeah, Jack is by no means a good person. Hope we further reinforced that. Not that we really needed to, considering his past actions.
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!