There were many interpretations of what the end of the world would look like. The most common theory of mankind was that the world shall end in fire. They quote the bible like it was holy grail, and yet they pay no mind to the religions and sacred texts that came before it that had already proclaim the same. They pay no mind to the mortal scientists that have already stated the same.
The poet, Hēsíodos of Aeolis, proclaimed in his poem Work and Days; the Five Ages of Man, and from lines 170 through 201, he proclaimed that it was the race of iron, and men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night; and the gods shall lay sore trouble upon them. But, notwithstanding, even these shall have some good mingled with their evils. And Ζεύς will destroy this race of mortal men also when they come to have grey hair on the temples at their birth. And then Aidṓs and Némesis, with their sweet forms wrapped in white robes, will go from the wide-pathed earth and forsake mankind to join the company of the deathless gods: and bitter sorrows will be left for mortal men, and there will be no help against evil.
Does that not sound familiar, when Ζεύς of the flashing bolt had previously laid waste with Deluge all the earth? Ζεύς will see to the end of this race; he who is armed with thunder and lightning, and the shaking of his aegis produces storm and tempest. His strikes will touch the trees, and great fires will overtake the land, and these men shall perish.
And in the poetic edda; Vǫluspá: did the vǫlva not say in stanza 57 that the earth shall sink in the sea, the sun shall turn black, cast down from heaven are the hots stars, fumes reek, into flames burst, the sky itself is scorched with fire?
Does the bible not speak in Peter Chapter Three Verses 5-7 of how "for they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly". Does the bible not speak of seeing the crimson heavens burning, the darkened sun and falling stars?
And does this great prophecy; that speaks of seven heroes not speak of how to storm or fire the world shall fall? There are seven spheres those that resided in Babylonia believed in, and they spoke of an eighth realm, the fixed stars, where the gods lived. Muslims believe that there are seven hells but eight paradises, signifying God's mercy. There were seven paths that led to heaven in Ancient Egyptian religion and seven heavenly cows. And for those that believed in Buddhism, the number eight was a lucky number, because of the eight petals of the lotus.
Cows. Lotus. The flower that sat crowned a top of the sceptre in which golden-throned Hḗrē whom Rhéa bare and her sacred animal; she who brought these seven together to stand against the Earth Mother; the world who brought upon the rage and her own downfall at the hands of the eighth.
Leaneíras should have teleported.
She really should have teleported.
Her stomach tried to stay behind in Greece and all the air was sucked out of her lungs. Her heart still wasn't fucking beating. The sky turned black. The ship rattled and creaked and the deck cracked like thin ice under her legs and, with a sonic boom, the Argo II hurtled out of the clouds.
"Jason!" Leo shouted. 'Hurry!"
Leaneíras' mageia was holding the ship together, but with the heat brewing under her skin and the ditzy feeling in her head, she was barely holding onto her sanity.
Leo was lashed to the control console, desperately trying to right the ship as they spiralled downward in free fall. The sails were on fire. Festus creaked in alarm. A catapult peeled away and lifted into the air. Centrifugal force sent the shields flying off the railings like metal Frisbees.
Wider cracks opened in the deck as Jason staggered towards the hold, using the winds to keep himself anchored. Leaneíras did her best to close them, then the hatch burst open. Octavian and Medea stumbled through, pulling on the guide rope they'd attached to the mast. Drew, Annabeth and Percy followed, all of them looking disoriented.
"Go!" Leo yelled. "Go, go, go!"
They'd talked through their evacuation plan, but that slap across the world had made Leaneíras' mind sluggish. At least, she managed to change out of the ichor-stained clothing. Though judging from the others' expressions, they weren't in much better shape. The talking table with Gleeson's voice; and wasn't that a trip, saved them, clattering across the desk with a holographic version of the satyr blaring, "LET'S GO! MOVE IT! CUT THAT OUT!"
Then his tabletop split into helicopter blades and Buford buzzed away.
Leaneíras took hold of Percy and Annabeth, mageia coating them as Medea did the same for the Octavian bow. Together, the four of them soared away, and she glanced back to make sure that Jason had ahold of Drew, or she swore she was dragging his soul down to the Underworld personally, bringing him back to the mortal plains, just to send him back all over again.
Jason and Drew shot into the sky, and she wanted to groan when she realized that the Leo boy wasn't with them.
As they plummeted, Leaneíras saw a vast army of monsters spread across the hills – cynocephali, two-headed men, wild centaurs, ogres and others he couldn't even name – surrounding two tiny islands of demigods. At the crest of Half-Blood Hill, gathered at the feet of some statue, was the main force of Camp Half-Blood along with a bunch of kids in purple shirts. The Romans. She recognized them from Livia's world. They were rallied rallied around the golden eagle of the legion while hundreds of other romans were in a defensive formation several hundred yards away and seemed to be taking the brunt of the attack.
Annabeth yelled in her ear, "Let's get 'em!" and Percy was in her right ear, screaming, 'I hate flying!'
And she yelled back, "STOP YELLING!"
When they landed, Leaneíras sent her mageia out in a wide arc, clearing out a pathway around them.
Giant eagles circled Jason, screeching urgently, as if looking for orders.
'Medea!' Jason yelled. 'Those three cohorts are in trouble! If they don't merge with the rest of the demigods –'
'On it!' Medea said.
Drew and Jason veered right towards the summit of Half-Blood Hill.
Leaneíras summoned Lævateinn to her hand, and Travis and Connor flanked her sides and the three of them mowed down those the monsters that crossed their paths. The Greeks and Romans slowly pushed back the enemies. Her head snapped up as the Argo II streaked across the sky in a ball of fire, shedding burning chunks of mast, hull and armament. The comet disappeared behind the western hills and she waited with dread for the sound of an explosion, but she heard nothing over the roar of battle.
In her bones, she could hear whispers of words: What does the end of the world look like?
Leaneíras shook her head, and pushed forward, fighting alongside Travis and Connor as if they were an extension of her will, even more s when more of her; ugh, stepkids came to her side. Wild centaurs toppled. Wolf-headed men howled as they were cut to ashes. More monsters kept appearing – karpoi grain spirits swirling out of the grass, gryphons diving from the sky, lumpy clay humanoids that made Leaneíras ripped a part with extreme prejudice as she sensed the shades within them.
They pushed their way towards the Hill where she saw Drew and Jason, and Hylla's little sister.
Connor grinned. 'What's up, Grace?'
'I'm good,' Jason said. 'You?'
Connor dodged an ogre club that Leaneíras and Travis took down with extreme prejudice and stabbed a grain spirit, which exploded in a cloud of wheat. 'Yeah, can't complain. Nice day for it.'
Reyna yelled, 'Eiaculare flammas!' and a wave of flaming arrows arced over the legion's shield wall, destroying a platoon of ogres. The Roman ranks moved forward, impaling centaurs and trampling wounded ogres under their bronze-tipped boots.
Somewhere downhill, Lea heard that Frank boy yell in Latin: 'Repellere equites!'
A massive herd of centaurs parted in a panic as the legion's other three cohorts ploughed through in perfect formation, their spears bright with monster blood. Frank marched before them. And can she just mentioned that he looked nothing like the Frank from Livia's world? This one looked like he could bench press Leaneíras and Percy and still have strength for four more of them. On the left flank, riding Arion, Octavian beamed with pride as Medea flew alongside them. Much different from Livia's verse. She was pretty sure that Octavian would have trampled the canadian baby man.
'Ave, Praetor Verus!' Reyna called.
'Ave, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano!' Octavian said because sometime during this battle he had been raised to praetor. "Let's do this. Legion, CLOSE RANKS!'
A cheer went up among the Romans as the five cohorts melded into one massive killing machine. Octavian pointed his sword forward and, from the golden eagle standard, tendrils of lightning swept across the enemy, turning several hundred monsters to toast.
'Legion, cuneum formate!' Reyna yelled. 'Advance!'
Another cheer on Leaneíras' right as Percy and Annabeth reunited with the forces of Camp Half- Blood.
'Greeks!' Percy yelled. 'Koilembolos!'
Leaneíras smirked as her fellow campers yelled like banshees and charge; her mageia sparked around her like lightning and she ignored the looks that she got whenever someone caught sight of all the blood and ichor on her body alongside the clothing that she was wearing.
Her blood sang in reply: The earth shall rumble, and the skies shall weep, as nature unleashes its fury upon mankind.
She nearly yelped, jumping about a mile in the air when the earth rippled as if Half-Blood Hill had become a giant water mattress. Demigods fell. Ogres slipped. Centaurs charged face-first into the grass.
AWAKE, a voice boomed all around them.
And how does the world end, was the next question in the wind.
A hundred yards away, at the crest of the next hill, the grass and soil swirled upward like the point of a massive drill. The column of earth thickened into the twenty-foot-tall figure of a woman – her dress woven from blades of grass, her skin as white as quartz, her hair brown and tangled like tree roots.
Her soul said: The gates of hell, deep with the bowels of Tartara are flung open, as demons and divine beings fallen from grace emerge.
'Little fools.' Gaia, the Earth Mother, opened her pure green eyes. 'The paltry magic of your statue cannot contain me.'
As she said it, Leaneíras took note of the weird statue that had she been content to ignore which had been apparently protecting the demigods, holding back the wrath of the earth, but it could last only so long holding back the literal earth that it was made from.
Who to call upon to save us, the despair that waft from the mortals cried.
Fear as palpable as a cold front washed over the demigod army.
Her mageia cackled and cheered: Pray to rich-haired Leaneíras, an enchanting goddess with shining hair, with human speech and with strange mahō; earth-shaking Perseus that bares a brave heart was her brother.
"Hey, you bitch!" Leaneíras stepped forward, mageia coating her hands and eyes. Pointing Lævateinn directly in the middle of Gaia's eyes and funneling her mageia through it, she sneered. "I owe you an asswhooping for a lot of things but let's start with sending my brother to hell!"
Yeah, Hermes told her about that.
But who are they? The world trembled.
Leaneíras' fury was almost a physical thing, and yet it replied back so easily: She is the World Walker, Goddess of Mischief, The Enchantress, and he is the Earth Shaker, God of Seas, The Destroyer.
'Stand fast!' Drew shouted, her charmspeak clear and loud. 'Greeks and Romans... Heroes, we can fight her together!'
Gaia laughed. She spread her arms and the earth bent towards her – trees tilting, bedrock groaning, soil rippling in waves. Lea and Medea and Jason rose on the wind, but all around them monsters and demigods alike started to sink into the ground.
'The whole earth is my body,' Gaia boomed. 'How would you fight the goddess of —"
FOOOOMP!
In a flash of bronze, Gaia was swept off the hillside, snarled in the claws of a fifty-ton metal dragon.
Festus rose into the sky on gleaming wings, spewing fire from his maw triumphantly. As he ascended, the rider on his back got smaller and more difficult to discern, but Leo's grin was unmistakable.
'Drew! Jason!' he shouted down. 'You coming? The fight is up here!'
Leaneíras met Medea's gaze across the battlefield, and they shot across the sky. Lea slammed her leg into Jason's back—that was for Livia— before she grabbed Drew under arms, and shot further into the air.
If she lived through this, she was never flying again. At all. Humans were not supposed to fly, dammit.
Did she look like Archangel from the X-men? No, she did not.
Beneath her, the ground solidified as Gaia was thrust into the air. Demigods stopped sinking, though many were still buried up to their waists. Sadly, the monsters seemed to be digging themselves out more quickly. They charged the Greek and Roman ranks, taking advantage of the demigods' disorganization.
"Lea!" She heard Percy scream, but she ignored it.
"What's his plan," Medea asked Drew as she flew over to her side, and the two of them coated the later in mageia so she could fly on her own.
"Like you told me about Diaper boy back in the maze. Get her away from her source of power, make her drowsy, then blow her up. Like Grandfather; Ouranos. If anything bad happens, I've got the Physican cure."
Whatever the fuck that was.
Leaneíras was shaking her head though she was shaking from the effects of something that she was not going to look too closely at. She was the embodiment of a storm raging against still blue seas, fingertips glowing green and something sharper and much more dangerous took hold of her heart. "That might have worked for him, but she is the earth. It may take centuries and millennia before she'd be able to come back, but she will come back. Atlas holds the heavens because Ouranos still tries to reach Gaia. Dispersing her in the air just means that the air we breathe will be her power; the rain that falls to the earth will be her power, the birds will fly through her scattered remains and when they land on the planet or when they die, they will just go back to her. And hell, do we even know if she'll go to Tartara? No, we need something more permanent."
"What do you suggest?"
"Let's get Johnny Storm out of the way and then follow my lead."
They spiralled upward on the wind.
And a storm began crawling up from her soul to cover the entire plain and then some. Rolling black clouds and lightning rushed across one side of the world to the other as her wrath broke loose, covering everything in darkness. It was a power she barely remembered that she possessed: a spell cast, and not a single word said.
Thousands upon thousands of mortals across the world, cried out in alarm whispers of ragnarok and armageddon and frashokereti.
It was much worse than whatever had just happened within Greece.
'I've got the cure,' Drew murmured like a chant. 'It'll be fine. I've got the cure.'
Leaneíras didn't understand what the cure was about, but she doubted it work against Gaia. This was about storm and fire; about seven demigods, and an eighth; Lea herself. Hermes told her as they were preparing for takeoff of how Gaia had boosted that stupid elixir to throw her through the boundaries of reality. Leaneíras had rewritten reality; enchanting the threads of fate to follow her word and destroy those stupid giants in one world... Looks like she'd be finishing off their mother in this one.
Winds and clouds gathered around them, and Leaneíras was startled to find that it was responding to her. If she hadn't believed that she was the daughter of Poseidon before; the god of storms, then she did now. Her hands touched the old man's body and spread all his stars a veil of mist and cloud, so easily the spells came from her. "By Asteria and Persês: Open sky and do your worst!"
She was glorious, eyes a sinister green somehow, ominous in the darkened skies that gave proof of her rage, wind whipping her hair around her face, grief and agony and anger and pain writ in every movement.
Wide heaven shook and groaned under the charge of the earth shaker's storm brewing daughter. Soon, the three of them were in the eye of a maelstorm. Directly above them, Festus grappled with the earth goddess. Gaia kept disintegrating, trying to trickle back to the ground, but the winds kept her aloft. Festus sprayed her with flames, which seemed to force her into solid form. Meanwhile, from Festus's back, Leo blasted the goddess with flames of his own and hurled insults. 'Potty Sludge! Dirt Face! THIS IS FOR MY MOTHER, ESPERANZA VALDEZ!'
She killed his mom? Oh, she really needed to go down.
The boy's whole body was wreathed in fire. Rain hung in the stormy air, but it only sizzled and steamed around him.
The three of them shot towards them, and Leaneíras found herself somehow wearing different clothing. The diadem of Poseiria clasped around her forehead, lovely pearls that adorned her body like water droplets, the crossed spear and trident with flames symbol of Castellan on royal purple and golden armor that she swore came from Livia's closet. Her skin matched Stéla as it sparkled like stars and her hair turned into shades like Anastasía. The lights of heaven lived with her eyes like Aurelia. She was a mix of history and future and fates never unveiled.
Gaia turned into loose white sand, but another pulse of mageia came from Lea, and to see with eyes and to hear the sound with ears it seemed even as if Gaia and wide Ouranos above came together. "Boreas, North Wind, I summon you. Euros, East Wind, I summon you. Notos, South Wind, I summon you. Zephyrus, West Wind, I summon you."
And far away from this final battle, these four took hold of their stormy children and joined with Leaneíras, to rush upon the Great Mother, and work great havoc amongst her, and constrained her in a cocoon of wind and there was no help against their mischief.
Mortals ran for cover as the winds were tyrants, roaring and groaning as they attacked the earth with its sharp blades. Rolling clouds came crashing down, and streaks of lightning danced across the land twirling about the various monsters.
She could almost hear all the souls upon earth question: These are the saviors?
They soared higher into the mesosphere, and Leaneíras absently remembered that this was where things began to burn, and another reason why humans should not be flying.
Gaia fought back.
When she wasn't disintegrating, she lashed out with shrapnel blasts of stone and soil that Medea and from Leaneíras' shields barely deflected until Drew spoke with charm woven into her voice, turn the stone and soil into pure wind for Leaneíras to manipulate.
Since when the fuck could she do that?
And all at once, their souls said: Hail, Aeri, goddess of lovely song, she who tells of things that are and that shall be and that were aforetime with consenting voice. Tell how at the first gods and world came to be, and rivers, and the boundless sea with its raging swell, and the gleaming stars, and the wide heaven above, and the gods who were born of them, givers of good things, and how they divided their wealth, and how they shared their honours amongst them, and also how at the first they took mighty Thryandia.
The storm grew more terrifying by the minute, those on the ground ducked for cover as more and more monsters were being destroyed, under a heavy assault of lightning that chased them around like an angry old lady with a cane. The storm howled ferociously, an unhinged sort of anger to and nearly capsizing it.
Suddenly, the storm grew stronger; not by Leaneíras' hand, and she risked a glance downwards to watch as Jason and Percy stood side by side, their swords locked together as they stoked the storm winds, containing Gaia. At their sides stood Annabeth and Octavian, channeling strength into Percy, and Alabaster who Magnus and Eliza had found was dragging him over towards them also so that she and Torrington could help.
Leaneíras had never felt more alive.
Her lips, cherry red and luscious as silk in the light, curved into a smile that promised bloodshed.
Together, they rose.
Festus creaked and groaned with the effort, but he continued to gain altitude.
The next hours passed in blurs. Leaneíras remembered pushing the goddess further into the air until the air thinned and they couldn't breathe properly, but they kept going until they could view the Gates of the Heavens; she remembered them falling from the lack of oxygen, sailing back towards the ground, only to gain stability through a rush of strengthen from their various bonds as they pushed her out into the sea. Still, Gaia fought on, gaining and losing strength at every turn. Everything came from her, and she took back what she gave and lost what she retrieved.
None of them let up even as the hours bled into days and as the world tinted green, and the lifetimes that Leaneíras lived and died surge through her, as the glass within her finally shattered and she screamed a scream so vicious that that the gods in heaven and beneath the earth and within the waves cried in despair.
'YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ME!' Gaia had yelled at one point, crumbling to sand, only to get blasted by more flames. Her body melted into a lump of glass, shattered, then re-formed again as human. 'I AM ETERNAL!'
'Eternally annoying!' Leo had yelled back, and he urged Festus higher.
The winds encased the goddess, keeping her solid, but it was all they could do to contain her blasts of sand and soil. Her eyes were solid green, like all nature had been condensed into a few spoonfuls of organic matter.
'FOOLISH CHILDREN!' Her face contorted with miniature earthquakes and mudslides.
Leaneíras punched her in the face, hands coated in pure mageia and golden ichor as she ascended fully; pushing under faux skin and tearing at her divinity.
"OUCH!"
Leaneíras had to dodge out of the way of fucking lava being thrown at her face. Since when was that a goddamn option?
As the nights wore on and the moon got higher, they pushed forward.
Gaea snarled, fighting even harder and stronger, and this far from her seat of power, she could not harm the people on the ground, but she proved to be an irritating bug for the rest of them.
Unbeknownst to those within the air, their images began to project under the seas and beneath the earth where the dead resides and the monsters roam in hell and across the sky, hijacking television and computer screens. Mortals exclaimed in confusion and shock, raising cameras to the sky, yet they continued as the sun rose from the depths once again, and the moon sank beneath the waves.
'You are so weary,' Drew told the goddess, her voice radiating kindness and sympathy. 'Aeons of pain and disappointment weigh on you.'
'SILENCE!'
The force of Gaia's anger was so great that the mageia beneath Drew's feet gave out.
A resounding snarl came from Leaneíras and Medea, arms sweeping out with mageia as they blasted Gaia further away, rocketing downwards to get their friend... their sister.
"You're tired," Drew told her as soon as they settled. "There was a time long ago where women ruled with unparalleled power as warriors, queens, mother of nature. They bowed to no man. You created Ouranos, gave him prestige and he acted as if he was the one to birthed the cosmos. He abused you, threw your children, the Cyclops and the Hundred-Handed Ones, into the abyss. You had your children to take his power away, and set them his jailors, but your grandchildren, the gods, overthrew your beloved children. Typhous was destroyed. The Giants were destroyed. Tartarus stays in his realm, sleeping as he imprisons your children. Let me help you, Gaia. I am the Protector of Ill-Fated Lovers. Millennia of sorrow. Oh, my. I know. You are so tired of heartache."
'LIES!' Gaia crumbled into a tornado of soil and grass, but her essence seemed to churn more sluggishly. "ALL LIES! I AM THE EARTH MOTHER! I RULE—"
"SHUT THE FUCK UP," Leaneíras screeched, wrapping her arm around Gaia's neck like a chokehold as her mageia built more and more in power and a great shaking of the earth came on, and those that lived within Haides trembled, and the Titanes banished back under Tartaros trembled to the dread encounter and the unending clamour. "Never again shall you ignite this planet into the arms of war; for no longer are you a goddess, no longer do you hold domain, whispering evil into the ears of mankind."
"Lea?"
Leaneíras' mageia emerged from her body even further; clawing deep from within her soul like an eldritch horror; the onslaught of the heavens and earth; of the stars and the seas combating in her gaze. The seabed began to boil, seamounts began to shake and erupt, and the chalices of heaven found themselves overflowing, and the earth began to shake. The boundaries between the earth and its surrounding realms began to thin as her mageia ripped holes into reality.
"YOU DO NOT SPEAK FOR ME! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?"
"I am Leaneíras, Olympian born daughter of Sally Jackson and Poseidón Aigaiôn. I am Hērmês Maíados Huios' Kháos-blessed." And her skin peeled away like flakes, dropping all the way to the ground and sea where it began to morph. Around her, hundreds and thousands and millions of illusions of herself and the lives that she lived and her sisters and Helénē and Hektōr and Aineías and Meinsvarra and Avisa and Niamh and Posidaeia surrounded them. Some shifted into different animals, others into different people. Some levitated in the air while others teleported from left to right. Some held blasts of mageia around their hands like energy blasts while others manipulated the ocean. Some held daggers, others held staffs. "Perseus that bares a brave heart is my brother. He is the Earth Shaker, God of Seas, The Destroyer. He has a transverse the depths of hell at your behest. And that is your downfall for I am The Twice-Blessed Enchantress, the Mistress of Mischief, The Seas' Sorceress, and the Walker of Worlds."
Around them, the divine crafted mist that coated the eyes of mortals was lifted away, as her words grew wings, and fear was driven away from the hearts of her friends. Leaneíras' eyes flared with promise, shining with power as she flew into battle. Her hair loose and swirling about her, but her voice... her voice ringed with the sound of prophecy and it sounded like a symphony. A mix of her own and something... something not quite human. Something other. Something divine. This... she was a God.
Beneath the rags of her clothing, her khaos-marked glowed through the fabric, ichor streaming down her body even more.
And there was silence in the heavens and amongst the world as this was a divine event, to which the whole creation moves.
Drew stopped her platitudes, and her eyes gave way to rays of golden light and she hefted her bow; arrows forged by mageia and filled with greek fire. "From your body we shall carve a new home; one Blessed with eternal spring; and the tears of Leaneíras'; and it will be famous for its spice-trees and wealth of silver and gold; and its waters home to flocks of sprisbucks; it shall be larger than Libya and Asia put together, and the stars shall crown our heads, and the clouds shall be our dresses, and the heavens will be our thrones, and we shall divided this honor with nine others for this is the lot that Fate has given them, and we shall name it Thryandia. The rivers shall be born of your blood, cleansed from your unholiness and the boundless sea with its raging swell, shall be your tears of pain, and the gleaming stars will be your teardrops. It as I speak it, Tanaka Aeri of lovely song, who tells of things that are and that shall be and that were aforetime with consenting voice."
'I – YOU CANNOT –'
"The heavenly bodies will be ours to command," Medea hissed; eyes sparking with magicka as her body took on the form of mist itself. "And the raging sea will be ours to live in, and the sleeping death to control. The earth; your corpse and the blessed fields of Thryandia are common to us all."
"NO. NO!"
"You want rest more than victory, more than revenge," Drew said.
"And its too bad for you that I want both," Leaneíras snarled, throwing bolt after bolt of mageia at Gaia, tearing into her form, and condensing her divine essence into small specks. She was angry; so angry because the goddess had cast her away from her beloved and all the companions of her girlhood, because her hurt and pain caused Leaneíras' brother to be stolen away from her, because she forced her brother to walk the depths of hell, and forced Leaneíras to transverse the realms of reality. Leaneíras had sworn to find her brother, and she swore to return to Hermes, and she kept her promises. She found her brother in more than one world, and she returned to her Hermes. And... she was so angry and all the Love in heart; her nonbeating heart... there was the heat of Love within, the pulsing rush of Longing, the lover's whisper, the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, irresistible—magic to make the sanest man go mad.
'You want one thing,' Drew said soothingly, her voice resonating through their bones as Lea's mageia clasped on Gaia's seat of power. 'One word. You want permission to close your eyes and forget your troubles. You – want – SLEEP.'
Gaia solidified into human form. Her head lolled, her eyes closed, and she went limp in Festus's claw.
'Lea, Leo' Drew gasped for breath. 'We only have a few seconds. My charmspeak won't—'
'I know!' Leo looked like he was made of fire. Flames rippled beneath his skin, illuminating his skull. Festus steamed and glowed, his claws burning through the air. 'I can't contain the fire much longer. I'll vaporize her. Don't worry. But you guys need to leave.'
"No," Leaneíras snarled. "Medea, get him out of here."
"No. I have a plan. I have—"
Medea's magicka expanded within the air, and Leo and Festus found themselves hurling back towards the camp, protected by the daughter of Trivia as Leaneíras took hold of the slumbering goddess. She pressed her hands against Gaia's chest, eyes glowing with the force of her mageia, and Medea came to her side and Drew came to her side, and together, they began to chant: "Ater ignus, fusce fume. Te evoco ut potentium tuam monstres. Cupidibus flammis hic veni. Caelo sub isto, harc arborem consumo. Lucem tenebrasque tuas monstra. Impetuum tuum evoco ad devorandum. Hanc arborem ac omnes hospitas devora."
A great shaking of the earth; one by one, volcanoes below and above sea level began to erupt, and they caused no damage as their heat and lava flew towards the sky in the hold of Poseidon's raging daughter, and deep from the bowels of hell, the Phlegéthōn swelled, casting its flames over the abyss of the pit, the rising steam makes it way back to the heavens in the hold of Trivia's darkened child, and the diadem of myriad rays that sat atop of Helios' head burned brighter, a blindly light so fierce in its nature that all that were unfortunate to gaze upon it thought that it had blackened as laid trapped within the eyes of Apóllōn's charming champion.
"No more light. The darkness shall cover you once more. And the dome that separates the midst of the waters shall shatter." Leaneíras growled.
"For both end and the beginning, we are Armageddon." Medea sneered.
"We will wear your skin over ours. Your hair over ours. Your hands as gloves. What you once were, you shall never be again." Drew charmed.
"Ater ignus, fusce fume. Te evoco ut potentium tuam monstres. Cupidibus flammis hic veni. Caelo sub isto, harc arborem consumo. Lucem tenebrasque tuas monstra. Impetuum tuum evoco ad devorandum. Hanc arborem ac omnes hospitas devora."They chanted together.
Over and over, they chanted, and those that heard them, those off impurity, that found themselves with hearts and minds filled with the evils that Gaia once whispered found themselves falling to their knees. And the stars in heaven fell towards the earth, circling around the three, crowning them with their presence, and those that still gazed upon them, could not help but to give them worship because it was clear to see that these were deities or at least, the closest thing to them.
These beings of magic, and there's magic, like Disney godmother magic, and then there's magic — the magic of blood and bone and tears shed. Like these three wield. There's gentle going to the ball and sleeping a hundred years — and there's world domination in the blink of an eye.
In the corner of Leaneíras' eye, a blazing comet streaked upward from the ground with a high- pitched, almost human scream. She supposed that she should have paid more attention to it, but as she and her friends... her sisters; ignited the rage of the cosmos and tore Gaia a part to banish her beyond the realms of earth and throw her back to into the darkened chasm in which she emerged as they secreted her power away from themselves; well... she could not concentrate on that even as the weird comet collided with them.
And the sky; the world exploded in a dome of fire.
WORD COUNT: 5964
THINGS TO KNOW:
1) Koilembolos - hollow wedge formation.
1A) An army in a hollow wedge with a reinforced center could overwhelm the enemy center, while withholding and protecting vulnerable flanks, potentially winning the battle after engaging less than half of their forces.
1B) Extremely lazy to claim that the Greeks didnt have organization. Lazy and ignorant. SOM Clarisse is giving formation orders and now here, 'Let's, um, fight stuff!'
2) Am I the only one to read about the end of the world prophecies? Like not even just the Book of Revelations, but all of them? Because man, its actually kind of crazy.
2A) Thomas Brightman, who lived from 1562 to 1607, has been called "one of the fathers of Presbyterianism in England." He predicted that "between 1650 and 1695 [we] would see the conversion of the many Jews and a revival of their nation in Palestine...the destruction of the Papacy...the marriage of the Lamb and his wife.
2B) I know yall see what's going on right now with the genocide that's happening in Palestine.
2C) The White Horse Prophecy given by Edwin Rushton in about 1900, and supposedly made in 1843 by Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement (Mormons). "You will see the Constitution of the United States almost destroyed. It will hang like a thread as fine as a silk fiber... I love the Constitution; it was made by the inspiration of God; and it will be preserved and saved by the efforts of the White Horse, and by the Red Horse who will combine in its defense."
2D) If you live in America, you see what the hell that they are doing to the Constitution alongside entirety of Project 2025.
COMMENTS FROM THE AUTHOR:
1) If Gaía was really trying to destroy the earth and everything… why was her first thing to do was battle a bunch of demigods instead of crushing the akropolis? Get rid of the gods. Boom. bring up more of her other children that hated them to destroy the demigods. Or just immediately turn everything into quicksand, open up shoots right to the underworld… destroy the akropolis? Like?
1A) We interpret the prophecy to mean Gaía but like she could have easily switched it around on everyone. Activate every volcano above and below sea level. A bunch of storm spirits operating all at once to channel storms all across the cloud. Like? Come on.
2) Octavian's last words were 'Goodbye, Jason Grace the traitor!' ... seriously, fuck the love triangle with Reyna and Piper that he had going on. Jason and Octavian clearly had something going on, and my boy was hurt!
3) All of the seven helped defeat Gaía; fuck that "it started with us, it should end with us" bs. If anything, all of it started with Hazel back in 1940, Leo when his mom died, and Percy as the Child of the First Great Prophecy or you can say Jason because Iūnō raised him to be her champion or Frank because he's older than Jason, and Iūnō appeared to stop him from dying as a baby and because of Hazel's curse. Like sure, that circle close with them keeping Leo's secret, but everything did not start with Leo, Jason, and Piper. Not even the damn quest, because that was again... Leo who Iūnō appeared to as a child, Jason and Percy who places were switched. Canonically it even says that Jason is the linchpin to Hḗrē's whole scheme. He was her first play; he's going to be her last.
3A) Not here, because Lea was said fuck that but its whatever.
3B) When you get really get technical, Piper is legit the seventh wheel.
4) I have been playing around with the idea of ascension since botl arc and now it all comes to head. The entire world now know that the gods still exist. BOOM!
5) The spell used against Gaía is brought to you by CAOS. This spell can be used by only the most powerful witches to call forth fire from the pits of Hell.
5A) Lowkey, not pleased with this but here we are.
6) In the following weeks and months, the rest of the Jaxson Pantheon will begin to ascend.
6A) Percy and Octavian first
6B) then Annabeth and Eliza by proxy
6C) Drew and Medea
6D) then Ethan, Magnus, Daniele, and Pranjal
6E) Jason is next then Alabaster
6F) then Leo and Nico
6G) then Will, Reyna, Cecil, and Lilith.
7) And a few more to also become minor gods like Travis, Leila, Connor, Chris, Clarisse, Hylla, Thalia, Katie, Lee Fletcher, Jake Mason, Lou Ellen, Terrel, Lavinia, Frank, Fletch and Piper (though this is mainly because Ik it will horrify her, and well, I don't like her so this is like torture to her. But she'd probably be a goddess of the wild to protect animals since she's a vegan.) etc etc.