XLVII
Leo
(A/N: Read. Review. Enjoy. Leo is awesome.)
Alcyoneus had great reflexes, Leo definitely could say that. He raised a battle-axe (when had he gotten that?) and charged at him.
Leo aimed himself a little higher. As the axe came towards him, he tucked in his feet, ran along the blade of the axe, and jumped. He set himself completely on fire and aimed himself at Alcyoneus' eyeball. Unfortunately, he never hit it, because at that moment, a harpy crashed into him, sending him careening through the sky. He managed to kill it, but he had lost his advantage.
Alcyoneus laughed. "You think that you can beat me?" he yelled. "I am invincible in my homeland!"
Leo suddenly remembered a glimpse of Festus that he had gotten when setting the coordinates for this plateau. The border between Nepal and China was right on the edge of the ridge!
Leo could almost have put a hand over his face at the sheer dumbness of this giant. Out of all the places around Mount Everest, he had to pick the one spot where Leo could literally kill him by sending him flying off the ridge. Because the fall would kill him first.
He dodged the rib of a skeleton warrior, then ran over to the edge of a cliff. He blasted it with fire, creating a mountain of water. In a second, the water rushed down the hill, sweeping many of the land monsters off the mountain, into the abyss below.
Alcyoneus raised his staff to summon more skeleton warriors, laughing, but stopped abruptly as he realized that there were no more teeth on it. He cursed. "Harpies, attack!"
Leo could only surround himself with a giant fire barrier to keep himself protected. A few harpies went for the military strategies- surrounding a harpy with their bodies to protect it from the heat, in hopes that it would reach him- but Leo just blasted them to dust.
He was growing tired. Fire has its limits, after all. He expanded the barrier, hoping to take them all down.
It did.
As Leo stood among the ashes, a he heard a zing, then felt blood running down him cheek. He turned behind him and saw a metallic feather stuck in the snow. That was what had hit him.
Suddenly, he saw a piece of bird poop hit the ground a few meters away from him. Well, that's nice, he thought. At least, that was what he thought until it exploded in his face.
The sky became darker. Leo looked up, and got the fright of his life. Over a hundred Stymphalian Birds were flying, stationary, in the air. They were in row after row, preparing to strike.
Leo turned himself on. The fire seemed to frighten the birds a bit, but they didn't fly away. Leo fired his rockets, and blasted into the sky. The birds opened fire.
Unfortunately, Leo's fire wasn't enough to melt them, and the metal feathers went straight through the fire. He dodged most of them by some miracle, but some got him. The scars stung, but he kept going. He fired blast after blast of fire in a desperate fight to stay alive, but it was no use. Their hides were too strong, and he didn't have any of Chiron's Frank Sinatra music. Not good.
He knew that he was dead. There were too many of them, and he had no way of killing them, either.
Suddenly, a wave of cold pushed him off his feet and out of the sky. Every single Stymphalian Bird fell out of the sky. Leo realized that their wings had been frozen- they could no longer move.
"Alcyoneus!" a shrill voice yelled. With a shudder, Leo realized that he recognized that voice. It was Khione's.
With a flourish of snowflakes, Khione descended out of the snowstorm, her long black hair flowing in the wind. Leo was shuddering, because he was weak and close to fainting. His fire was growing weaker, and he was getting colder. His clothes were soaked by the snow.
"How dare you try to kill him!" she stalked up to the giant, a furious expression on her face. Leo was confused. Had she undergone a huge moral change and decided to join the gods?
His expression grew angry. "You know full well that I have the right to kill him myself! There is no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to kill the boy! I have the exact same right to kill him as you do!"
Khione screeched and sent a beam of freezing cold ice straight at him. He deflected it easily and sent his battle-axe at her. She laughed. "You cannot defeat me! There is no way to kill me unless you completely remove the world of cold, ice and snow!"
Alcyoneus grimly charged at her. Khione whipped up a snowstorm, trying to topple him. He realized what she was trying to do, and held his ground. He blindly swung his axe at her, but there was nothing that he could do. She was just too far away. Cursing, he flung his axe blindly. The surprising thing was that it actually hit.
Khione was blasted out of the sky, collapsing in a heap in the snow. Alcyoneus walked over to her and grabbed his axe, which was lying in the snow a good distance away from her.
"Traitor." he snarled, lifting his axe. As he swung, Khione's eyes opened and Leo knew what was going to happen next. She sent a pillar of ice straight at his head. His axe-swing had unbalanced him, and he was sent spiraling down the mountain.
Leo had gotten a lot of his strength back at this point, and stood up weakly. "I never thought you would fight on the side of the gods."
Khione laughed. "Oh, no." her chocolate-brown eyes looked broken, like she had gone insane. "I am here to be the one to kill you. Good bye, Leo Valdez."
She fired a beam of ice at him.