SANITY; heroes of olympus

05.7

Percy and Annabeth were yelling, their shouting in her ear, the anger apparent. Percy was trying to claw his way towards her, agony in every movement and expression and word he spat.

Andromeda did not flinch as she was forced to her knees by an invisible force, one that had invaded her bones and mind. She could hear her breathing in her ears, loud and clear, laboured yet consistent, as her knees hit the ground, now a trophy,

Annabeth tried to say something, but the giantess Periboia shook her by the neck. "Shut up! None of your silver-tongued trickery!"

The princess drew a hunting knife as long as Mania. "Let me do the honours, Father!"

"Wait, Daughter." The king stepped back. "Let her speak."

A voice, one that was not her own, fell from her lips and leapt from her tongue as though they had fought their way from a prison. "I bring you the Daughter of Madness, the Aristos Achaion, Andromeda Storm. For Gaea, to preserve her spirit and power within this body, which will survive a millennium at her will."

A tear rolled down her cheek, a telltale sign that Andromeda was there, witnessing it all, as she always had. Witnessing how she met her end, how Andromeda Storm would die, and Gaea would take her place. Immortaly. Forever. And how she would be cursed to see, feel, hear, and do it all. Awake for an eternity, suffering in silence.

The king spoke again. "The sacrifice must be done properly. Thoon, destroyer of the Fates, come forward!"

The wizened grey giant shuffled into sight, holding an oversized meat cleaver. He fixed his milky eyes not on Andromeda, but on Annabeth.

It didn't take much to know that right then, the intention was not for Andromeda to be the sacrifice alongside Percy. No, Andromeda would be forced to watch as her friends, her family were murdered and mauled, sacrificed for the very entity that her body was meant to hold. Annabeth and Percy's blood would be her fuel, the thing that allowed Gaea to take her body and imprison her mind.

Percy shouted. At the other end of the Acropolis, a hundred yards away, a geyser of water shot into the sky.

King Porphyrion laughed. "You'll have to do better than that, son of Poseidon. The earth is too powerful here. Even your father wouldn't be able to summon more than a salty spring. But never fear. The only liquid we require from you is your blood!"

Thoon knelt and touched the blade of his cleaver reverently against the earth.

"Mother Gaea..." His voice was impossibly deep, shaking the ruins, making the metal scaffold resonate under Andromeda's feet. "In ancient times, blood mixed with your soil to create life. Now, let the blood of these demigods return the favour. We bring you to full wakefulness and offer you the body you wished for. We greet you as our eternal mistress!"

That was when Piper made her grand entrance. She sailed over the heads of the Cyclopes and ogres, landed in the centre of the courtyard and pushed her way into the circle of giants. As Thoon rose to use his cleaver, Piper slashed upward with her sword. She took off Thoon's hand at the wrist.

The old giant wailed. The cleaver and severed hand lay in the dust at Piper's feet. The Mist faded and Piper was Piper again—one girl in the midst of an army of giants, her jagged bronze blade like a toothpick compared to their massive weapons.

"WHAT IS THIS?" Porphyrion thundered. "How dare this weak, useless creature interrupt?"

Piper attacked.

Her advantages: she was small, she was quick, and she was absolutely insane. She drew her knife Katoptris and threw it at Enceladus, hoping she wouldn't hit Percy by accident. She veered aside without witnessing the results, but, judging from the giant's painful howl, she'd aimed well.