Yeah, hope you guys enjoy this chapter in which Hera would probably strangle Leo if she could- but hey he's not wrong to hate her.
Replies:
Guest: I could, possibly. I'm still figuring out the details though and I tend to get very caught up while writing which is why I'm worried I'd end up forgetting because of the new fic.
The Official Clarisse: I mean, the minific is important and I am 100% sure that you guys will enjoy it- honestly y'kinda have to read the minific first no matter what because of how it explains certain stuff that you need to know. And yes, yes their friendship is awesome and Leo definitely deserves all the comfort- especially in the next chapter! Mwahahahahah.
Undeath9087: The minific isn't too long, about six chapters, and you have an evil mind my friend, truly evil- I will say that my plans for Tartarus are different from canon- for one thing there's three people down there not two, actually technically there's four.
pranavjrao: Interesting theory, as always I can neither confirm nor deny!
PJ Fan 285: Why thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed, I like the theory, as always I can't confirm or deny. The only thing I will say to everyone is that the break up is extremely one sided,
Things were fine right up until they reached the storm clouds- and when they did Leo honestly thought that rocks were pelting the wind shield. Then he realized it was sleet. Frost built up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blotted out his view.
"An ice storm?" Piper shouted over the engine and the wind. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"
"I don't think so." Leo gritted his teeth, "I didn't want to freak you out but the first time Festus malfunctioned his control disk was frozen over- and believe me that shouldn't be possible, not unless we were being sabotaged-"
"Oh shit." Piper's eyes widened, "You don't think-"
"I think our old friend the Ice Bitch is here. She's causing this storm."
At that point Jason jolted awake. e crawled forward, grabbing their seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close. "
Leo was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly it wasn't so easy to drive the chopper. Its movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn't been prepped for cold-weather flying. The controls refused to respond, and they started to lose altitude.
Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops and cursing colorfully under his breath. "I am gonna fucking melt that bitch." "There!" Jason shouted.
A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the helicopter straight for it. All around them were flashes of light that reminded Leo of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist.
Combat seemed to be everywhere.
He set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. He was about to relax when he heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.
"Out!" Leo screamed.
They leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Leo off his feet and splattering ice all over him.
He got up shakily and saw that the world's largest snowball—a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage—had completely flattened the Bell 412.
Leo snarled under his breath, feeling his skin heat up from his anger, "Oh that's just fucking making it worse for you bitch."
"You all right?" Jason ran up to him, Piper at his side. They both looked fine except for being speckled with snow and mud.
"Yeah. " Leo shivered. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter. "
Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there. " Then she frowned. "No… it's all around us. "
She was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.
Behind them loomed Jack London's dream home—a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. Leo could imagine how it had looked before it burned down—a combination log cabin and castle, like a billionaire lumberjack might build. But in the mist and sleet, the place had a lonely, haunted feel. Leo could totally believe the ruins were cursed.
And they were going to have to go in there.
"Leonidas!" the call came from a familiar voice and Zoe came sprinting through the fog, her parka caked with snow and her bow at the ready- her quiver was almost empty and she rushed towards them but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre—one of the Earthborn—burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.
"Look out!" Leo yelled. They rushed to help, but Zoe had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.
Zoe straightened up, retrieving her arrow- though the point had snapped off and she let out an annoyed noise "The point has snapped off-" she turned her head to look at Leo, "Thou owe me some new arrows after this boy. Where is my sister?"
"With Coach Hedge and Piper's dad, she's safe, looking after him for us." Leo explained quickly, "What's our status?"
"Thou have made it just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion but I fear we can't hold it for much longer. We shall be overrun."
"By Earthborn?" Jason asked.
"And wolves—Lycaon's minions. " Zoe blew a fleck of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits—"
"But we gave them to Aeolus!" Piper protested.
"Who tried to kill us," Leo reminded her. "Maybe he's helping Gaea again."
"That's not good. And it gets even worse, the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we're surrounded. I don't know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Lady Hera."
"Where is she?" Jason asked.
"Inside," Zoe told them. "We tried to free her, but we cannot figure out how to break the cage. It's only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Lady Hera thinks that's the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. And as you know, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don't free Lady Hera soon—"
She didn't need to finish the thought.
Leo, Jason, and Piper followed her into the ruined mansion.
Jason stepped over the threshold and immediately collapsed.
"Hey!" Leo caught him. "None of that, man. What's wrong?"
"This place …" Jason shook his head. "Sorry … It came rushing back to me."
"You remember being abandoned?" Leo's voice was horrified. "Your mother left you here right."
"She gave me to the wolves," Jason murmured. "At Hera's insistence. She gave me to Lupa."
"You've said that name before, do you know who Lupa is now?"
An explosion shook the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billowed up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.
"Maybe this isn't the time for questions," Leo shook his head, "Sorry for that. Show us to the goddess. "
Once inside, Jason seemed to get his bearings. The house was built in a giant U, and Jason led them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.
One of the spires was much bigger—a solid dark mass about twenty feet high, and to Leo it looked like a stone body bag. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils he could make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature was stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck—rising.
On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire was smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril was as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that Leo doubted he could've gotten his arm through. Still, he could see inside. And in the center of the cage stood Hera.
She didn't look like the beautiful Queen he'd seen in the Labyrinth and on Olympus that horrible day.
No. She looked like she had when he'd been younger. Dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting, scary eyes.
She didn't glow or radiate any sort of power. She looked like a regular mortal woman, his good old psychotic babysitter.
Zoe almost shuddered at the sight, "It is wrong-"
"Go back to your hunters Zoe." Leo's voice was soft, "We'll handle Lady Hera for you." and she stared at him for a long moment before reaching out and laying a hand on his shoulder.
"I trust you. You're not so bad for a boy. Even if I think my sister has terrible taste." then she was whirling around and rushing back outside, and Leo turned to focus on Hera.
Leo dropped into the pool and approached the cage. "Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?" he gave her a slightly smug, spiteful smile- and hey who could blame him. She'd screwed with him for years.
She crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!"
"I dunno." Leo shot back, "After the shit you've done you don't deserve it do you? The way you treated Annabeth and Thalia."
"She shouldn't have existed and the daughter of Athena was disrespectful."
"You tried to kill them-"
"It was one statue." Hera said dismissively, "They weren't important to the battle and Apollo healed them didn't he?"
"Like that makes it better-"
"Leo-" Jason's voice was tight, "Dude I get it but this isn't the time. We need to focus."
"Ugh I hate that you're right."
"Just focus on the cage Leo-"
"Don't tell me what to do." Leo snapped the words- but he did as he was told, focusing on the lock as Hera let out a sigh.
"Thank you Jason. It seems that between the two of you you're much wiser- and certainly wiser than your sister-"
"Seriously you insult my honorary sister right in front of me? Are you that petty?"
"-I chose my champion well."
"I'm not your champion, lady," Jason said. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what's going on with that?"
He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king-size granite body bag. Was Leo imagining it, or had it grown taller since they'd gotten here?
"That, Jason," Hera said, "is the king of the giants being reborn."
"Gross," Piper said.
"Indeed," Hera said. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again —my power. For weeks I've grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form."
"So you're like a heat lamp," Leo guessed. "Or fertilizer."
"Leo-" Hera's voice had a note of warning in it, "You seem to have far too much of your sisters attitude-"
"My sister was a badass bitch that's a compliment." Leo kinda wanted to leave the bitch in there for daring to mention Percy. "If she was here she'd be kicking your ass."
"Joke all you wish," Hera said in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken. Now I'm sure you remember the choice Kronos offered your sister-"
"Fuck you." Leo spat the words, "You can fuck yourself- We'll just blow it up or something-"
"Without me, you do not have the power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."
"Done that once today," Jason pointed out as Leo snorted.
"And you seem to forget I blew up Mt St Helens."
"Just hurry up and let me out!" Hera demanded.
Jason scratched his head. "Leo, can you do it?"
"I don't know. " Leo tried to calm himself, he was just really angry. "Besides, she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?" though he knew it wasn't
that simple. He was just so angry at her.
Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. "Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you're intelligent. Once trapped, a god's power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg—beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus."
"Sounds fair," Leo hissed, "You only care about perfect families, you don't want anyone who doesn't fit that."
Hera gave him the godly stink-eye. "I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone
can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you."
"But it's not a machine. I'm the machine guy. How am I supposed to unlock this thing?! It's like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and …" Leo felt dizzy.
The line of their prophecy came back to him: The forge and dove shall break the cage. "Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I'm going to need your help. And we're going to need time."