Percy

When I had see her before, Gaea's form was made entirely of earthen materials.

Her clothes, her skin, the works. But not anymore. Now I began to see how close she was to rising.

She had the same form her avatars had used, but that was where the similarities stopped.

Her skin was as smooth as marble, and the color of it as well. She wore armor instead of her usual dress, clearly made out of slate, and formed in ways that I could tell would not hinder her movement.

But her eyes where the creepiest of all. No one had truly seen them opened, until now of course, and I was the lucky one to be on the receiving end of them. Go me right?

They were continually shifting, showing all the different colors of soil and rock. And lets not forget brimming with hate and anger, once again directed at yours truly.

"Perseus Jackson," she said slowly, sounding out every syllable and clearly expressing her hatred of me.

"You have been a thorn in my side for far to long. You prevented Kronos's rise to power, and now on the cusp of our victory here, you seek to do the same. Your interference, shall end now!"

With that said, a blade made purely out of earth leapt from the ground and into her hands. Held together by the will of the earth mother, I knew it was as dangerous as any blade I had faced before.

And with a flash of satisfaction in her eyes, she raised the blade to her shoulder and seemed to glide over the ground at incredible speeds toward me swinging the blade towards my neck.

I leaned backwards as she practically flew past me then, after straitening myself out, turned to face her and attacked with everything I had left.

One thing you should know about Gaea, she may sleep the most out of all the deities, but she was the best swordsman I had fought in my young life.

No matter what I did, she was easily able to repel, and honestly I was surprised I could attack at all with how much power I had to put into my defensive techniques.

I couldn't even match her strike for strike, so great was her strength. I was barely able to alter the path of her strikes to prevent them from hitting me.

Knowing she had the advantage over me, Gaea continued to push me backwards, while I did my best to prevent my steady retreat from being to fast.

The last thing I needed was for her to position me in an area with bad footing or worse, a tree.

When she realized that I was taking great care not to be put in a bad position, she abruptly changed tactics.

I felt the earth I was standing on become soft, and without even looking down I knew that I was standing on now moist earth, which meant that earthen hands would be trying to drag me down any moment now.

Not really wanting to use any more energy that I had to, but knowing I didn't have a choice, I created a disc at my feet that acted as a very violent mini earthquake.

The disc was only about a meter in diameter, so I wouldn't be wasting power. The parts I stood on where quite and supportive, while the area my feet didn't touch looked like the ground was having a massive party with how it rolled and bounced.

It did the trick though, the earthen hands couldn't get close enough to grab me. They were destroyed even when they tried going over the disc.

This irritated Gaea ,of course, and she pushed me harder than ever.

I was pure defense now, and Gaea knew it. It was all I could do to parry and dodge her, while keeping up my earthquake zone to prevent an ungracious death off of my feet.

Just as I thought I was finally going to die, due to my defenses being close to overwhelmed, we both heard a cry of anguish.

Both of us looked towards it as one, for it was the death cry of Porphyrion.

The giant appeared to have his head set on fire by Leo somehow, while the rest of the seven had pummeled the other parts of his body.

Artemis must have finished him off apparently, because I could see I silver arrow protruding from what used to be Porphyrion's head.

Then as one, we turned back to face one another.

I had a smirk on my face, while her face had twisted into what her eyes had shown all along. "Now, you die." she growled. And the fight was back on.

I had been able to use the break to rest, but the attacks she threw my way made me almost sprint backwards to avoid being sliced to pieces.

So great was my focus on her, that the only thing I noticed other than the fight was when she imprisoned all the gods and campers that got close to prevent them from helping me.

I could feel them staring at me with fear. They knew I was tired, and Gaea seemed to keep getting stronger.

She finally managed to get an excellent blow to Riptide in. I would have praised her on it if she wasn't my mortal enemy, and it spun out of my hand and off to who knows where.

She held it to my throat and smirked. I had to prevent my self from smirking back. She had hit Riptide so hard that it was already in my pocket again, but I kept my face and mind blank to prevent her from knowing this.

"So," she sneered at me,"You put up a valiant effort son of Poseidon. Much more than these pathetic gods would have, but you have lost all the before me, and I promise your death with be a quick one. Resist, and I will keep you alive for all time in Tartarus, tortured for all of eternity. What say you?"

I looked over to where my friends, my family, were rooted into place by roots of earth. All had defeated looks on their faces.

Those closest to me, Annabeth, my father, the rest of the seven, and even Artemis where nodding their heads at me, urging me to take the deal, to escape the pain.

But how could I take the easy way out?

They might think it is over, but the battle is never over until your foe is lain before you, or until you are dead.

"I say," I begin, gathering all of my strength for one last attempt at salvaging the situation.

Then I leapt towards her, Riptide already out of my pocket and in blade form again.

I heard gasp from my captured allies, along with some no's being screamed by my loved ones and, surprising me yet again, Artemis.

Gaea raised her blade with a satisfied smile on her lips, she had known all along what my answer would be. But I found I didn't care.

This was my world, and she wasn't going to take it away from me.

I was originally going to focus my power on the ground underneath Gaea and hope it would distract her, slim a chance as that was.

But a different idea came to me as I reached the peak of my leap. What if I focused my power on her directly?

Knowing I had nothing to lose, and everything to gain, I released all the power I had gathered during her speech directly all her, willing it to cause the greatest earthquake it could, directly in the goddess of the earth's body.

The results were instantaneous, Gaea's eyes widened, and her sword fell from her hand when she tried to place it against her chest.

She never got the chance, my blade piecing right where her heart should be. She stared at me, and I heard the prison's of my allies crumble to dust, and with one final wail, Gaea herself melted back into the ground.