NOT FRIENDS ━━━━━ p. mclean²

020.

The four demigods jumped into the pool and ran to the spire. Leo frowned. "Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?"

"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

As much as Isa disliked Hera, what she saw inside the cage alarmed her. Not only was Hera sinking, the ground was rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins.

"The giant wakes!" Hera warned. "You only have seconds!"

"On it," Leo said. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."

"What?" she said.

"Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I ─ "

"Right!" Piper cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"

The more she talked, the more confident she sounded. It seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little ─ becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt. How it fit in there, Jason had no idea. Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"

The spirit horse Jason tamed jumped into the pit and whinnied.

"Really?" Jason asked.

Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug, and a breeze whisked it into the horse's flank. Lighting sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life.

"Sweet!" Leo grinned. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"

Their good mood didn't last long. On the other side of the pool, the giant's spire crumbled with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Its outer sheath of tendrils exploded from the top down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shook himself free and climbed out of the earth.

Look, Isa has fought in the Titan war and she has seen some pretty nasty shit, but this? The giant is scarier then anything she has see.

Porphyrion was even taller, and even more ripped. He didn't radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there was something more terrible about him ─ a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field. Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon's legs; but his skin was the color of lima beans.

His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons ─ daggers, axes, and full-sizes words, some of them bent and bloody ─ maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.

"Alive!" he bellowed. "Praise to Gaea"

"Leo," Jason said.

"Huh?"

Leo's mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed.

"You guys keep working," Isa said. "Get Hera free!"

"What are you going to do?" Piper asked. "You can't seriously ─ "

"Entertain a giant?" Jason said. "We've got no choice."

"Excellent!" the giant roared as Isa and Jason approached. "An appetizer! Who are you ─ Hermes? Ares?"

Jason stepped forward, confidence radiating off of him, "I'm Jason Grace," he said. "Son of Jupiter."