The Amazon Jail was at the top of a storage aisle, sixty feet in the air.
Hylla led her up three different ladders to a metal catwalk and along crates of jewelry.
A hundred feet ahead, under the harsh glow of fluorescent lights, a row of chain-link cages hung suspended from cables. Medea and Magnus were in two of the cages, talking to each other in hushed tones. Next to them on the catwalk, three bored-looking Amazon guards leaned against their spears and gazed at the tablets in their hands like they were reading.
She passed a pallet of crates marked 24-CARAT BLUE TOPAZ RINGS, then another labeled SILVER FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS. An electronic display next to the friendship bracelets read: People who bought this item also bought GARDEN GNOMESOLAR PATIO LIGHT and FLAMING SPEAR OF DEATH. Buy all three and save 12%!
She wondered if she could get something similar to the matching bracelets Drew gave them.
"Here are your friends," Queen Hylla stated as she walked her over. "Chrissy and LuLu will take care of you." She nodded her head to the guards in front of her; the former who glared at her a bit. "I have a meeting with the investors so do take care of her."
Hylla turned to leave. Leaneíras waited until her steps receded down the catwalk. She walked over the cages, tilting her head to look back at the two. Behind her, she could sense the guards moving around.
"Lea," Medea said, crouching down towards the other. Leaneíras smiled lightly, raising the hand that held herring to her chest. It was already pulsing lightly. There was a light glow to her eyes.
"Spider, O Spider, pray why do you spin your pretty white web so fine and so thin?" Leaneíras murmured. A very special spell that she learned from Lou Ellen; one the girl had made to against the Sixth Cabin in Capture the Flag. A very special spell that summoned spiders. "To catch fat flies and make them into pies. Spider, O spider, pray, do you not see? Here comes a big, buzzing, blundering bee. He'll spoil your fine net while you fume and you fret, but no mercy you grant, and no mercy you'll get."
One of the guards walked over to her, brimming with excitement. "So, you truly are the Twice-Blessed," the girl asked. Leaneíras chanced her a glance, knowing that her eyes were glowing just a bit. She shrugged.
"That's what my blessing calls me and well, his Mother called me that too."
"Wow," the guard breathed. "I can't believe a god-consort is in our base."
A what now?
Something brushed against Leaneíras' leg. "I get that a lot," she lied, "but I also hear: Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away home." The girl's eyes flashed green as the compulsion spell set in. "Hand over the Amazon card." She turned around to the others, the light of her ring pulsing once more as she took the card in hand. "Hear me, Heed me. Run Away. Live to see another day."
The guards rushed away and with the swipe of her hand, the spiders — thousands upon thousands of creepy little critters — followed after them. Leaneíras swiped the card. The doors popped open.
"What's the plan now," Medea asked as they let Magnus remove the bands from around their wrists.
"Back to the throne room," Leaneíras said. Alarms began wailing throughout the cavern. "Shit. Our weapons and supplies are at the end of the catwalk. There's a doorway in the throne room.
The first part of the escape was easy. They retrieved their things with no problem, then started climbing down the ladder.
The next part got a bit harder. The Amazons had equipped themselves with blowtorches for her little spider friends. And Leaneíras understood exactly what Hylla meant by foreign mageia not being allowed; she could sense the spell spluttering out in places.
Well, mageia wasn't the only power that she had.
Her eyes slipped closed and she took a deep breath. She reached out to the pegasus hidden within the base and gave them one command: Go wild.
Cages began to groan as the animals rebelled. Medea and Leaneíras faced off with two Amazons, dancing around each other as if they had been fighting together for years. Admittedly, Leaneíras could see where the other girl was better trained.
Amazons swarmed beneath them, demanding their surrender. Leaneíras reached out towards that little part of her that reminded her of the beach and the sea. She thought about the times she and Percy went surfing and when she helped her Mother collect seashells and she'd push them back into the water and tell the ocean to take them to her Father. She thought about the day she had fee into the ocean and hit her head on a really hard rock and the pretty people that she now knew were naiads that helped her back up to the surface.
And then she let the feelings go.
The sprinklers overhead burst into action (and maybe one day Leaneíras would feel guilty about the emotional connection that she had to those memories, but it wasn't like they were strong feelings anyway so, all's well that ends well.)
Leaneíras whistled loudly.
"What's that supposed to do?" Medea asked, sweeping an amazon off her feet.
A tear appeared at her side, glowing green. Salome stepped out, claws still sparking with the teleportation spelled polish that she and Hermes keep on her. The sabertooth tiger roared. Bomon blinked weakly from atop of her back.
"Magnus, on top of Salome. Lead her to the throne room. Wait by Arion." Leaneíras ordered. "Open his cage if you can."
It took awhile for them to get down the ladder especially since Leaneíras and Medea could barely access their mageia; it flickering out as quickly as it came. It gave Leaneíras more time to spontaneously learn how to control her powers over the water. Can she just say that she did not like them? It was definitely a hit or miss with a lot of misses. Percy made it look so easy.
Salome bounded through the amazons, a ferocious roar shaking the building even more. The women skirted out of the way. Leaneíras and Medea fought through desperately.
And Leaneíras was pleased to learn that while the women were very good at trained combat, they sucked ass at a good ol' fist fight. Leaneíras body slammed a few of them and pushed a couple more the railings. She shook her hand out after knocking the teeth loose from one woman and just like she told Hylla, she throat punched another.
The next group of Amazons were dressed in full armor, blocking the throne-room entrance and followed by males in orange jumpsuits.
There were trails of blood leading from the room and a few clawed bodies at their feet. Salome had been busy. A battle cry went up, but before either side could charge, arrows began to pierce the women were they stood. Everyone's gaze moved upwards and Leaneíras felt a wide smile appear on the face of her very pretty best friend.
"Seriously, Nee?" The girl drawled, three explosion and four smoke arrows accompanying her words. "You just can't stay out of trouble."
With the newfound distraction, the tide turned just a bit easier. Drew dropped down into the crowd, swiping a sword from a downed amazon. As the Amazon jabbed at her, she sidestepped, cut the other's spear shaft in half, and slammed the hilt of her sword against her helmet. The guard crumpled. Drew spun around just in time to strike another so deeply that the sword point appeared from the other side.
They ran into the throne room.
Magnus cowered behind the cage holding onto Bomon tightly while Salome and Arion caused mass panic around the room. There was blood coating Salome's mouth and Leaneíras knew that was going to be a bitch to clean.
Bout time you go here, Arion said, amusement curling in his mind as he ran in a circle so fast that a mini tornado appeared and knocked a group of them off their feet.
"There!" someone yelled from the back of the throne room. A battle cry went up behind them. A full army of Amazons stormed into the warehouse.
Leaneíras rushing forward to launch herself onto Salome's back. "Guys, come!" She turned to look at Arion who was running circles around the amazons. "Arion? Will you be okay?"
I'll be fine. What is two years in the wake of eternity? Just go.
Leaneíras nodded her head, pushing her friends into the wispy mirage shimmering in place of the wall behind him.
"What is the meaning of this," came Hylla's "outrage" voice.
Leaneíras chanced a glance back to the Queen storming into the room. "Thank you for the generous hospitality!"
Together with the rest of her friends, they plunged into the dark corridor; the sounds of enraged Amazons sounding behind them.
Hermês stood with the other Fourteen Olympioi Major save Poseidón as they eyed Mount Saint Helens. It was admittedly not a place that they wanted the children of the Earthshaker anywhere near; especially one with such an explosive temper hidden behind a visage of apathy.
"Look," Dionysos stated in the silence. They cast their gaze down onto the beaches of San Francisco. North Beach. Poseidón's frustration brewed to the surface; both from the impending war of his realm but also the treatment of his child. Selênê drift her chariot over the sky. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk.
And rushing through the crowds of the North Beach Festival was the son of Trivia.
As one, their forms flickered and they could see the way that Neptūnus and his grandchildren danced and raged around the boy. Leaneíras may not have been his, but she was still of the sea and may the Halioi have mercy on all those that displeased them.
The mortals began to murmur in alarm as the storm began to grow in strength. Rolling clouds came crashing down, and streaks of lightning danced across the sand. The storm howled ferociously, an unhinged sort of anger to and nearly capsizing it. The harsh lightning struck one right after the other; hitting the sand and the water and the various umbrellas and machinery and booths around.
The waves got bigger, crashing into the beach, spraying them with salt. The ground shook. The wind bent the palm trees almost to the ground even as a clap of thunder boomed. The winds were tyrants, roaring and groaning as they attacked the world, spreading out past the beach and into the city of San Francisco; pulling trees from the ground.
Lightning flashed, the sky grew darker, and the wind rose.
The children of Sāturnus and Opis looked on in worry for their brother.
Their forms shifted flickered once more.
Poseidón's hands reached from within the sea, grabbing at the half-blood's ankles. A waft of magica was flung from his hands. Thunder clapped in response. The god of the sea peeked from within the waves; eyes illuminating a poisonous green, slipping from his pupils and spreading into his sclera. Divinity threatened to drown the boy from within; his true form slipping through bit by bit.
Not a lot.
Όχι, Poseidón would not make his punishment be so swift.
He would pay and he would pay dearly for his actions.
All of them snorted softly as the boy began to plead platitudes and begged for forgiveness; he even called upon his Mother for she was the one that the King of Gods and Men honored above all. She was who had been gifted a share of the earth and the unfruitful sea and received honor also in starry heaven, and was honored exceedingly by the deathless gods.
But for all the love and care they held for her... not even she would intervene when one ignited the wrath of the Sea God. The various grandchildren of the god shifted into the form of bulls crowding around them. His screams grew louder, catching the attention of a few lifeguards as the bulls nudged him closer and closer to the water.
"Come home, broken man," the Halioi seemed to whispered. The waves crashed brutally. "And find a world of pain."
Trent cried uselessly, clawing at the ground in desperately.
The life guards stood at the edge of the water, eyes cloaked in mist and Trent...
Trent was pulled to the ocean floor; never to see the light of the sun again.
"Here," Drew told her, stuffing some clothes at Leaneíras. It was similar to the outfit that she wore for Capture The Flag; the game that started this entire little quest except instead of the glimmering fabric from before... It was a blood red and apparently stronger than the one before.
Leaneíras was truly under the belief that the entire Tenth Cabin were just jocks and mad scientists that dabbled in fashion and makeup on the side.
"Oh, thank the aliens," Leaneíras murmured while Drew and Salome covered her from view as she changed. Quickly and surely, she was dressed into better clothing. They waited a few more moments for Medea to get changed also which was nice; Drew had spent the entire time they had been running for their lives cursing the girl's very existence and not masking her dislike for the other while gruesomely detailing just what would happen if she even thought of attacking Leaneíras.
She was such a good friend.
Then they were running once more. Bomon had been secured tightly to Salome so that he couldn't fall off, but the sounds of angry Amazons continued to follow them.
Lea hoped they got lost!
"How did you know to come?"
"I was sent," Drew cast a suspicious glance to Medea and Magnus. "I was sent by your blessing and my patron. They said you were in trouble. Of course, I was going to help you and well..."
"And well what?"
"Ethan and I got into an argument."
Lea swore the girl's eyes flashed in color a bit.
Children of the Aphrodite?
Terrifying.
And the key to Lea's happiness was to not ask questions.
"Whatever it is," she still says because the two of them were her best friends and quite honestly, she had never met a more perfect pair than them. It was almost enough for her to believe in the concept of soulmates. "The two of you can work through it."
Drew gave her a bright smile.
The tunnel started to get hot. The stone walls glowed. The air felt as if they were walking through an oven. The tunnel sloped down and Lea could hear a loud roar, like a river of metal.
"Where are we," Magnus asked, eyes darting around them. Lea felt a bit guilty. They were clearly nowhere near his family. The roaring got louder. After another half mile or so, they emerged in a cavern the size of a Super Bowl stadium.
"I don't know," Medea murmured, but Lea and Drew had a feeling.
"A titan's base," they said, sharing looks. The other two turned to them.
Drew shrugged, tugging at her handy-dandy pendant that Apóllōn had gifted her. Lea flipped through her grimoire. "Over the past few months, we've been hitting titan bases. And while we can't be one hundred percent sure, that this isn't one... we also can't take the chance that it is."
"You want to what... scout it?" Medea asked in disbelief even as Lea focused on the mageia in her ring. Arkas was back snapping at the excess from her necklace.
"Goddess be, protect us from harm," she murmured, eyes slipping closed as she concentrated. "Let us not be sought or seen by those work their charm."
Drew and Lea pushed past the other two, not paying mind to the way that Salome pushed at them with her snout. They stopped on a rock ridge that circled the cavern, hundreds of feet below them was just bubbling lava.
"This is so going to dry out my hair," Drew grumbled. A network of metal bridges spanned across it. At the center was a huge platform with all sorts of machines, cauldrons, forges, and an largest anvil that was like three Lea's stack atop of one another. Creatures moved around the platform—several strange, dark shapes, but they were too far away to make out details.
"Let's move," Lea said, creeping along the outer rim.
"What's the plan," Medea hissed as she forced Magnus atop of Salome. The three girls had combat training, and if it came down to it, Salome would be able to rush him off to safety.
"We're just doing reconnaissance," Drew said, an arrow already knocked. "If you can see any information on their troops, battle plans, or even where their other bases are located, grab it if you can, but don't risk yourself."
The heat was horrible. And Lea had half the mind to cast a freezing spell, but she really didn't want to risk seeing if she could freeze lava.
The group tensed hearing the sound of pounding feet? — scratch that, the sound of pounding flippers. A group of weird looking animals, monsters... something were rushing around.
"Look," Drew murmured, pointing ahead.
Lea's breath caught in her throat.
Percy.
Her brother. He was alive.
And sure, the tracking spell that she placed on him had been keeping her aware of that in the back of her mind, but it was another thing to see it with her own eyes.
"Annabeth," came the voice of Magnus.
And oh, right. She was there too.
"Come on," Lea said, moving around the platform until they got near them.
"Percy," she hissed as they got closer, swiping her hand out until the same cloaking spell covered him. She cursed a little to see that it blurred their images instead covering them completely from view.
"Lea?"
"Magnus," Annabeth hissed in disbelief. The boy climbed down from a top of the tiger to hug his cousin tightly, relief pouring from him. Well, Lea kind of kept her promise to get him to his family.
"Drew and Medea," Drew muttered, "What's going on? Is Luke here or Daedalus?"
"No," Percy said as he engulfed his sister into a hug. "We're on a side quest for Hephaestus but..." He quickly about the monster orientation class. Lea huffed, thinking of her own orientation that destroyed her school.
"Telekhines," Medea cursed.
"How are you?" Annabeth asked, suspicion in her eyes. "What are you doing here?"
"Lea is—"
"She's a demigod," Lea cut in, lies already on her tongue. She really didn't want Percy to know that she was hunting down her kidnapper. He was a worrier. "From a family of demigods. Drew and I were doing a quest for her patron and we met Medea on it and then we found Magnus in the Labyrinth. And now we're here."
"You found anything," Drew said before anyone could call out her lie. See, that's why Drew was a reliable friend.
"Yeah," Annabeth said. "Look."
They peeked over the cauldron. In the center of the platform stood four sea demons, at least eight feet tall. Their black skin glistened in the firelight as they worked, sparks flying as they took turns hammering on a long piece of glowing hot metal.
"The blade is almost complete," one said. "It needs another cooling in blood to fuse the metals."
"Aye," a second said. "It shall be even sharper than before."
"What is that?" Percy whispered. Lea furrowed her brow, the heat was starting to exhaust her. She pulled back just a little on her mageia; mentally checking her stores in her ring and within herself.
Annabeth shook her head. "They keep talking about fusing metals. I wonder—"
"They were talking about the greatest Titan weapon," Percy said. "And they...they said they made dad's trident."
"The telekhines betrayed the gods," Annabeth said. "They were practicing dark magic. I don't know what, exactly, but Zeus banished them to Tartarus."
"With Kronos."
She nodded. "We have to get out—"
No sooner had she said that than the door to the classroom exploded and young telekhines came pouring out. They stumbled over each other, trying to figure out which way to charge.
"Put your cap back on," Percy said as the group of them. "Get out!"
"What?" Annabeth shrieked. "No! I'm not leaving you."
Lea looked between the two before sharing a glance with Drew and Salome.
"I've got a plan. I'll distract them. You can use the metal spider—maybe it'll lead you back to Hephaestus. You have to tell him what's going on."
"But you'll be killed!"
"I'll be fine. Besides, we've got no choice."
"I'll stay with him," Lea cut in. "With my mageia, we'll be okay."
"Lea," Medea said. She shrugged. Lea's brother was more of a priority than Medea's brother. Her brother didn't kidnapped beautiful girls.
Annabeth glared at them like she was going to punch them. And then she did something that surprised all of them even more. She kissed him.
"I knew it," Drew and Lea said.
Annabeth ignored them. "Be careful, Seaweed Brain." She put on her hat and vanished.
Drew and the others backed away. Lea elbowed Percy in the gut as he stared into the lava.
"There!" a sea demon yelled. Lea cursed hoping that her friends had gotten far as she pulled the rest of her mageia back to herself to fight. The entire class of telekhines charged across the bridge toward them. Lea blasted them back as she and Percy ran for the middle of the platform, surprising the four elder sea demons so much they dropped the red-hot blade. It was about six feet long and curved like a crescent moon.
That thing radiated darkness and Lea really did not want to get near it.
The elder demons got over their surprise quickly. There were four ramps leading off the platform, and before they could dash in any direction, each of them had covered an exit. Lea narrowed her eyes before she caught sight of the younger telekhines at the platform and further behind them were their friends.
The tallest one snarled. "What do we have here? Children of Poseidón?"
"Yes," another growled. "I can smell the sea in their blood."
Percy raised Riptide and Lea brought out Tyson's staff.
"Strike down one of us, demigod," the third demon said, "and the rest of us shall tear you to shreds. Your father betrayed us. He took our gift and said nothing as we were cast into the pit. We will see him sliced to pieces. He and all the other Olympians."
"I'd turn you into salami before you could try," Lea sneered, mentally going through spells.
Before she could think of one, the tallest telekhine said, "Let us see how strong they are. Let us see how long it takes them to burn!"
What?
He scooped some lava out of the nearest furnace. It set his fingers ablaze, but this didn't seem to bother him at all. The other elder telekhines did the same. The first one threw a glop of molten rock at them. A green shield flickered around them. One of them stomped their flipper hard. That dark weapon neared her and Lea flinched away from it.
The shield flickered.
Another glop of molten rock hit them. Percy's pants were set on fire. That thing seemed to call out to her soul. She tried to focus on the shield, but she was feeling a bit weak. Two more splattered across Percy's chest. He dropped his sword and swatted at his clothes. Explosions started to rock behind them and flashes of mageia sprung up. Their friends were fighting the monsters.
"Your father's nature protects you," one said. "Makes you hard to burn. But not impossible, youngling. Not impossible."
More and more lava was thrown. The heat growing unbearable. That weapon fed on the cruelty in the air, relished in the despair.
Lea would never be able to truly recall what happened after that moment. In fact, she only remembered in flashes. Those... those MONSTERS were throwing lava at her Brother. Her mageia burst out of her in waves, mind clouding over in rage. That thing went flying. There was screaming. Lots of it. Some from her. Some from Percy. And some from the people and creatures around her.
Green and green and more green was the only thing she could see, losing herself to her power. Waves and waves of energy waft from around her, seeping into the land under her feet and the air around her. Shades crawled their way from the netherworld, reaching out to her to resemble a sweeping cloak dotted with stars until... until it was obvious that it was not stars that they were seeing, but eyes. Eyes the same shade as green as Leaneíras' own. Blood was streaming down her face. The ring on her finger cast long shadows. The gates of the heavens flew open, pouring into Leaneíras like a roaring waterfall. Power sank into her body, ancient in a way that not even time could touch. A power born from death.
The world shook.
Percy screamed a horrible scream.
And for one scary moment, the earth, the sea, and the heavens stood still.
An explosion, a tidal wave, a whirlwind of power simultaneously catching them up and blasting them downward into the lava. Fire and water collided, superheated steam, and they shot upward from the heart of the volcano in a huge explosion, just one piece of flotsam thrown free by a million pounds of pressure. They were flying, flying so high that they could almost touch the heavens and if Leaneíras concentrated enough, she could see the looks of shock and alarm on the Gatekeepers reaching out for her; the Twice-Blessed.
Leaneíras reached out for her brother, paying no mind to the hands that were wrapped around her arms.
Percy was getting away. She reached out desperately, but she couldn't get to him.
A growl.
Her voice, echoed with eons of power, thousands of voices speaking as one, seeping into the air around her. A mix of her own and something... something not quite human. Something other. Something divine. Eyes illuminating a poisonous green, slipping from her pupil and spreading into her sclera.
"I'm heading home, Under the sky's watery dome; I'm heading home, Back to my father's throne."
Then they began to fall, smoke and fire and water streaming from them. The sea raced toward them at the speed of a truck. Wind ripped the breath from their lungs. Her mageia coated around them and if Leaneíras could think properly, she'd be horrified to realize that it didn't extend to Percy.
A blink and they were transported somewhere else. Bodies falling into a heap on a marble floor.
The last thing Leaneíras remembered before losing conscious was looking up at some sort of council. Looking up, to the throne of seashells and coral; the being that sat there, radiating power in a way that she could only dream of.
But—
It was his eyes that Leaneíras recognized first.
The world seemed to fade around the edges as she stared into those eyes.
Green the same shade as she and Percy's own.
Wavy hair as dark night was pulled into a half up and half down look, crowned with gemstones and what looked like celery in the shape of a laurel wreath.
Looking at him stirred some of her oldest memories: a warm glow that she could remember as a baby, the sensation of his hand on her forehead.
In his hand was a bronze trident, flickering with green light around the tips. The green was same shade as his — their — her eyes.
You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes. Her mother had told them that once before.
Leaneíras found herself falling quickly into the darkened world of sleep and somehow— she still managed to say, "Papa?"
Then she collapsed and fell into the demos oneiron, where the tribe of Oneiroi attended to her.
WORD COUNT: 3983
THINGS TO KNOW:
Searching for Location - Location Found:
1) Percy and the Questers are scouting Mount St. Helens
2) Lea and the Questers are following a labyrinth entrance in Mount St. Helens.
COMMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR:
1) Lea's about to meet her dad. It only took fourteen and a half years.
2) I just realized that the first time Percy meets Háidēs; he calls him Uncle. The first time he meets Ζεύς; he just goes Sir.
3) So you all know how this goes: Typhon is soon released and I wondered of the story for him. He was said to be have buried under Mt Edna BUT we already have Enceladus under there. Ζεύς wouldn't have risked freeing him just to get rid of Typhon. So I went searching and it appears that in Hesiod (who I always go with FIRST!) states that Ζεύς cast him down to Tartarus. (Though there was an account that said he was buried beneath the island of Ischia; I'm still going with Hesiod though.)
3A) So the thought is... Ζεύς cast him down to Tartarus. Gaia had been trying to bring him back just like she did the Giants, but it was taking him much longer to reform and gain strength under there. The explosion shifts enough that the chains of exhaustion and fatigue fade away and he's able to get free.