The Veiled Legacy | PJO - Book Two

fifteen

DANCING GIANTS + WELL DESERVED SLAPS

Things went wrong immediately . The giants vanished in twin puffs of smoke. They reappeared halfway across the room, each in a different spot.

Ariana sprinted towards Ephialtes, but slots in the floor opened under her feet and metal walls shot up on either side, separating her from her friends.

The walls started closing in on him like the sides of a vice grip. Ariana jumped up and grabbed the bottom of the hydra's cage.

She caught a brief glimpse of Piper leaping across a hopscotch pattern of fiery pits, making her way towards Nico, who was dazed and weaponless and being stalked by a pair of leopards.

Meanwhile Percy and Jason charged at Otis, who pulled his spear and heaved a great sigh, as if he would much rather dance Swan Lake than kill another demigod.

Ariana registered all this in a split second, but there wasn't much she could do about it. The hydra snapped at her hands.

She swung and dropped, landing in a grove of painted plywood trees that sprang up from nowhere.

The trees changed positions as she tried to run through them, so she slashed down the whole forest with her swords.

"Wonderful!" Ephialtes cried. He stood at his control panel about sixty feet to Ariana's left. "We'll consider this a dress rehearsal. Shall I unleash the hydra onto the Spanish Steps now?"

He pulled a lever, and Ariana glanced behind her. The cage she had just been hanging from was now rising towards a hatch in the ceiling.

In three seconds it would be gone. If Ariana attacked the giant, the hydra would ravage the city.

Cursing, she threw her sword like a boomerang.

The sword wasn't designed for that, but the Stygian Iron blade sliced through the chains suspending the hydra.

The cage tumbled sideways. The door broke open, and the monster spilled out - right in front of Ariana.

"Oh, you are a spoilsport, Parker!" Ephialtes called. "Very well. Battle it here, if you must, but your death won't be nearly as good without the cheering crowds."

Ariana stepped forward to confront the monster - then realized she'd just thrown her weapon away. A bit of bad planning on her part.

She rolled to one side as all eight hydra heads spat acid, turning the floor where she'd been standing into a steaming crater of melted stone.

Ariana really hated hydras. It was almost a good thing that she'd lost her sword, since her gut instinct would've been to slash at the heads, and a hydra simply grew two new ones for each one it lost.

The last time hed faced a hydra, shed been saved by a battleship with bronze cannons that blasted the monster to pieces. That strategy couldn't help her now ... or could it?

The hydra lashed out. Ariana ducked behind a giant hamster wheel and scanned the room, looking for the boxes she'd seen in her dream.

She remembered something about rocket launchers. At the dais, Piper stood guard over Nico as the leopards advanced.

She aimed her cornucopia and shot a pot roast over the cats' heads. It must have smelled pretty good, because the leopards raced after it.

About eighty feet to Piper's right, Percy and Jason battled Otis, sword against spear. Otis had lost his diamond tiara and looked angry about it.

He probably could have impaled Percy and Jason several times, but the giant insisted on doing a pirouette with every attack, which slowed him down.

Meanwhile Ephialtes laughed as he pushed buttons on his control board, cranking the conveyor belts into high gear and opening random animal cages.