Percy and Jason reading this:
Jason: Oh Bianca, you're so brave I'm proud.
Percy: *incoherent screeching* For fuck sake she's gonna think- aghhhhhhh! Wait- wait that's fucking adorable, now kiss! Ignore that asshole gods damn it!
Replies:
Undeath9087: Heh, just wait until you read this chapter- Bianca is stunningly brave confronting her own feelings- for Zoe anyway. And Reyna's mind is just like 'Damn it! Why is there always someone else?!'
Guest: I mean, he's a very very skilled giant if that helps. and I do get what you mean about the power spike- though to be fair, in TTC Percy slices a bullet out of the air I believe- I know in canon he does at one point, and desperation does lend you strength.
"Orion." That was Reyna speaking again- she looked like she was desperate, "You asked what motivates me. Don't you want your answer before you kill us? Surely it must puzzle you. Why women keep rejecting a big handsome guy like you."
The giant nocked his arrow. "Now you have mistaken me for Narcissus. I cannot be flattered."
"Of course not," Reyna said. Hylla rose with a murderous look on her face, at a glance from Reyna Bianca darted forward, grabbing the Amazon's arm and pulling her backwards slightly. "Still … it must infuriate you. First you were dumped by a mortal princess –"
"Merope." Orion sneered. "A beautiful girl, but stupid. If she'd had any sense, she would have understood I was flirting with her."
"What do you wanna bet his flirting was like Torringtons." Bianca muttered the words under her breath. After all she'd heard the stories. Orion seemed to feel just as entitled as that asshole had.
"Let me guess," Reyna said. "She screamed and called for the guards instead."
"I was without my weapons at the time. You don't bring your bow and knives when you're courting a princess. The guards took me easily. Her father the king had me blinded and exiled."
"But you got new eyes." Reyna pointed out, "Hephaestus took pity on you."
"Yes." Orions gaze became unfocused- and that was weird with his mechanical eyes. "I ended up on Delos, where I met Artemis. Do you know how strange it is to meet your mortal enemy and end up being attracted to her?' He laughed. 'Praetor, what am I saying? Of course you know. Perhaps you feel for the Greeks as I felt for Artemis – a guilty fascination, an admiration that turns to love. But too much love is poison, especially when that love is not returned. If you do not understand that already, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, you soon will."
"Oh bullshit." Bianca couldn't help but blurt that out, earning a glare from Orion, "I've been there, done that." she crossed her arms over her chest, trying to ignore the look she was getting from Reyna. "I-" she swallowed hard- but, but Zoe wasn't here. And she could do this. She needed to do this no matter how chest wrenchingly painful it felt. "I fell in love with Zoe the moment I saw her. She was beautiful, she was fierce and brave and she was everything I could have ever wanted. And she was kind to me. But she only ever saw me as a friend. She never felt that same way because she was in love with someone else-"
"Yes." Orion sneered, "I know exactly who the daughter of Atlas loves."
"Then you know that I know how painful it is. Knowing that the person you love will never, not ever feel the same way about you. And not being able to turn off those feelings no matter how hard you try." Bianca distantly realised she was shaking. "But you know what didn't happen? I didn't let that love make me twisted. I've seen the aftermath of what happens when people let love turn into that and it's disgusting." she spat the word. "You disgust me. If you love someone then- then you have to be willing to step back and let them do what they want. And you do what you can to make them happy. And you know I think your death would make her very happy."
"Do you believe you can kill me? Many have tried. Even Artemis's own brother, Apollo, was not able to kill me back in the ancient times. He had to use trickery to get rid of me."
"He didn't like you hanging out with his sister?" Reyna asked that- and was it just Bianca or did she look like she was trying to listen out for something.
"Apollo was jealous." The giants fingers curled around his bowstring. He drew it back, setting the bows wheels and pulleys spinning. "He feared I might charm Artemis into forgetting her vows of maidenhood. And who knows, without Apollo's interference perhaps I would have. She would have been happier."
"I doubt it." Bianca said sharply. "I know Artemis- I spent a fair amount of time with her when I was a hunter and she wouldn't have been happy with you."
"It hardly matters now." Orion shrugged, "At any rate, Apollo inflicted me with madness – a bloodlust to kill all the beasts of the earth. I slaughtered thousands before my mother, Gaia, finally put a stop to my rampage. She summoned a giant scorpion from the earth. It stabbed me in the back and its poison killed me. I owe her for that."
"You owe Gaia," Reyna said, "for killing you."
Orion's mechanical pupils spiralled into tiny, glowing points. "My mother showed me the truth. I was fighting against my own nature, and it brought me nothing but misery. Giants are not meant to love mortals or gods. Gaia helped me accept what I am. Eventually we all must return home, Praetor. We must embrace our past, no matter how bitter and dark." He nodded his chin towards the villa behind her. "Just as you have done. You have your own share of ghosts, eh? Do you dream that the daughter of Hades can send them away-"
"I'd be willing to try." and that earned her a confused look from Reyna. But she shook it off pretty quickly.
"This is not my home. And we are not alike."
"I have seen the truth." the giant's voice really was sympathetic. "You cling to the fantasy that you can make your enemies love you. You cannot, Reyna. There is no love for you at Camp Half-Blood. There is no love for you here. I could have killed you twenty times by now," the giant said. "You realize that, don't you? Let me spare you. A simple show of faith is all I need. Tell me where the statue is."
And Bianca paused at that. Because that meant that Orion had no clue where the statue was- Phoebe's camouflage must have worked. That was good- except, well. The Giant would undoubtedly keep tracking them even if they got away.
But still they had to try. And she caught Reyna's eye, and she could almost hear the Praetors voice in her mind 'It will be harder for him to track one of us than it was to track two. And you need to go to shadow travel it out of here.
"Reyna-"
"Bianca. No."
"But-"
"You know what to do Bianca." and then Reyna and Hylla- who seemed to be in sync charged together. And Bianca felt frozen- she couldn't just run away she couldn't abandon anyone. Not again. That was all she ever seemed to do.
The giant's first shot would have skewered Reyna, but Hylla was fast. She sliced the arrow out of the air and lunged at Orion. Reyna stabbed at his chest. The giant intercepted both of their attacks with his bow.
He kicked Hylla backwards into the hood of an old Chevy. Half a dozen cats scattered from underneath it. The giant spun, a dagger suddenly in his hand, and Reyna just managed to dodge the blade.
She stabbed again, ripping through his leather jerkin, but only managed to graze his chest.
"'You fight well, Praetor," he admitted. "But not well enough to live."
"My death means nothing. Bianca go!"
"I can't leave you." Bianca's voice cracked, "I can't-" and she watched as Reyna's blade extended into a pilum, "I can't lose you-"
"What about their deaths?" Orion sounded amused, "You sisters death does that mean something?"
And he was so fast that Bianca could barely see the arrow that went flying towards Hylla's chest. And somehow she caught the arrow.
Hylla slid off the hood of the car and snapped the arrow with one hand. "I am the queen of the Amazons, you idiot. I wear the royal belt. With the strength it gives me, I will avenge the Amazons you killed today."
Hylla grabbed the front bumper of the Chevy and flipped the entire car towards Orion, as easily as if she were splashing him with water in a swimming pool.
The Chevy sandwiched Orion against the wall of the nearest house. Stucco cracked. A banana tree toppled. More cats fled.
Reyna ran towards the wreckage, but the giant bellowed and shoved away the car.
"You will die together!" he promised. Two arrows appeared nocked in his bow, the string fully drawn back. "Then I will kill the daughter of Hades too-" and Bianca wished that she was stronger. But if she used her powers there'd be no escape, she wouldn't be strong enough to get them all away.
Then the rooftops exploded with noise.
'DIE!' Gleeson Hedge dropped directly behind Orion, smacking his baseball bat over the giant's head so hard the Louisville Slugger cracked in half.
At the same time the Hunters of Artemis along the rooftops, shooting Orion full of silver arrows until he resembled a glowing hedgehog. He staggered blindly, holding his nose, his face streaming with golden ichor.
Then Calypso was at Reyna's side, grabbing her arm, and Zoe was at Bianca's side.
And oh- oh gods how long had the hunter been close- how much had she heard? "Thou must move Bianca!" Zoe didn't even falter. "Come-"
"Go with them!" Hylla's yell was directed towards Reyna, who looked like her heart was breaking.
"Sister!"
"You have to leave now! I'll delay Orion as much as possible!"
Hylla grabbed one of the giant's legs. She yanked him off balance and tossed him several blocks down the Calle San Jose, to the general consternation of several dozen more cats. The Hunters ran after him along the rooftops, shooting arrows that exploded in Greek fire, wreathing the giant in flames.
Bianca didn't waste any more time- she let Zoe drag her along as Calypso pulled Reyna with her, and Hedge fell into pace with them.
"Bianca you should have run! You could have taken the Parthenos-"
"Never." Bianca managed to gasp out as they ran, "I wasn't ever going to leave you behind Reyna!"
"You're an idiot then!"
"And you're my- my friend!"
"Now is not the time for such arguments!" Zoe called.
"Sides-" Hedge piped up, "I wouldn't've left without you anyway! Now let's get-" he glanced over Reyna's shoulder and his voice faltered.
So Bianca followed his gaze- but she could sense what she'd see before she saw it, the second storey balconies of Reyna's old home were crowded with glowing figures: a man with a forked beard and rusted conquistador armour; another bearded man in eighteenth-century pirate clothes, his shirt peppered with gunshot holes; a lady in a bloody nightgown; a U.S. Navy captain in his dress whites; and those were just the ones who Bianca could see clearly. There were more, many more.
And all of them were glaring at Reyna accusingly. And Bianca could hear their voices, kind of, distant whispers she couldn't understand- though based on their expressions of confusion the others, bar Reyna who looked petrified, couldn't.
"No." Reyna sounded like a lost little girl. She looked like she wanted to run away, to curl up and block out the world.
And that made Bianca feel angry- not towards Reyna but at the spirits who so clearly had haunted her for a long time- and she ripped her hand free from Zoe's, ignoring the other girls slightly startled look, and she spun around, glaring towards the ghosts. "LEAVE!" she bellowed the word, "LEAVE HER ALONE!" and she felt her power, felt it lashing out at the spirits.
They wouldn't disappear forever of course. But they vanished in an instant, banished, even if it was only temporary, then she turned to Reyna again- Reyna who was barely even able to stand, tears pouring down her cheeks, though Bianca wasn't sure Reyna had even registered the fact that she was crying.
"I'm here." Bianca was at Reyna's side in an instant, grabbing her hand, "I'm here." and together, she and Calypso started towing her with them as they sprinted towards the restaurant and the Athena Parthenos.
Behind them Bianca could hear Orion roaring in pain, and Greek fire exploding.
And Bianca knew that even if they did get away, this wouldn't be their last run in with the giant.
