𝕸𝖎𝖘𝖘𝖎𝖓𝖌-- 𝕵𝖆𝖘𝖔𝖓 𝕲𝖗𝖆𝖈𝖊 𝖝 𝕱𝖊𝖒! 𝕺𝕮 (TLH) [Hiatus]

Literally Nothing Happens

Amber was afraid they'd lose their target. The storm spirit moved like...well, like the wind.

"Speed up!" she urged.

"Bro," Leo said, "if I get any closer, he'll spot us. Bronze dragon ain't exactly a stealth plane."

"Isn't," Amber corrected automatically. "And, if you speed up by about-"

"Slow down!" Piper yelped.

The anemoi dove into the grid of downtown streets. Festus tried to follow, but his wingspan was way too wide. His left wing clipped the edge of a building, slicing off a poor stone gargoyle who was just trying to live his statue life in peace before Leo pulled up.

"Get above the buildings," Jason suggested. "We'll track him from there."

"You want to drive this thing?" Leo grumbled. "Wait, no, I didn't mean it literally! Amber--wait, how are you even able to move around Piper like that?"

Amber took the reins from Leo. Her glasses helped her understand the controls, although she'd already figured most of it out. She tried to ignore the pain in her wrist, pushing it to the back of her mind. "You were taking too long. Plus, I can do the proper calculations."

After a few minutes, Amber's glasses spotted the storm spirit again, zipping through the streets with no apparent purpose--blowing over pedestrians, ruffling flags, making cars swerve.

"Oh, great," Piper said. "There're two."

She was right. A second storm spirit blasted around the corner of the Renaissance Hotel and linked up with the first. They wove together in a chaotic dance, perfectly in sync, as if they were each other's second halves. They shot to the tip of a skyscraper, bending a radio tower, and dove back down toward the street. (Why do I ship those venti now tho. I totally didn't add detail just to be able to ship them or anything, though...)

Those guys do not need any more caffeine," Leo decided.

Says him, Emerald hissed.

"I guess Chicago's a good place to hang out," Piper said. "Nobody's going to question a couple more evil winds."

"More than a couple," Jason said. "Look."

Amber made the dragon circle over a wide avenue next to a lake-side park. Anemoi thuellai were converging--at least a dozen of them, whirling around a big public art installation.

"Which one do you think is Dylan?" Leo asked. "I wanna throw something at him."

"Now you know how I felt as soon as he appeared and my glasses identified him as a storm spirit," Amber remarked.

"Wait, you knew? Why didn't you attack him?"

"I was waiting to see if he was just another monster from Hades, or if someone else sent him. He appeared the same day the gods went silent, and I wanted to see if he had anything to do with it, or at least knew why it happened," Amber replied. "And look."

She pointed at the art installation, putting the reins in her left hand for a moment and trying not to wince in pain. The closer they got to it, the more she worried. As she watched, the images on the screens changed from random advertisements to a woman's face, made completely out of dirt, with her eyes closed.

It can't be her. Right? If it really is her...

We're dead, Emerald stated.

"I see her," Leo said. "I don't like her, but I see her."

Then the screens went dark. The anemoi thuellai swirled together in a single funnel cloud and skittered across a fountain in the middle of the installation, kicking up a waterspout 55 feet high. They got to its center, popped off the drain cover, and disappeared underground.