ANTI-HERO, j.grace

TWENTY EIGHT

Even before they saw the giant, Klein Maddox was having a pretty bad day. In fact, it was a pretty bad couple of days - so obnoxious that it all seemed to be blending together into one big lump of suck.

The depression that was cut into the forest was easily the size of a football field, trees cut down to make an enormous purple bonfire. Littering the ground were aimless rocks and logs and an intriguing array of construction equipment: an earthmover, a tree harvester, and another machine that the daughter of Apollo didn't even want to ask about because why does it look like a guillotine?

Laying her eyes on the giant, Klein couldn't be sure what the hell hr could have possibly needed with any of the machinery. Enceladus was easily thirty feet tall, matching the height of the remaining trees that lined the area. Waist up, the giant appeared remotely human. His skin was a deep bronze that almost blended in with the armored breastplate he wore, and his biceps were bigger than any of the demigods surveying the scene. He was riddled with scars, hair braided human bones. And his face... well, it looked like somebody had dropped a clay figure they'd been crafting in art class, all crudely misshapen.

But that was where the humanlike characteristics ended. Waist down, Enceladus had scaly green legs with claws instead of feet, as if he was meant to be a dragon but the sorting process down at the factory had gotten messed up.

And as though things weren't already looking bad enough, the spear that Enceladus kept dipping into the fire was the size of a flagpole. Jason was six feet tall, and Klein didn't even want to guess at how many of him stacked up on top of each other it would take to reach that height.

Klein was not six feet tall - and that was not a comparison she was willing to make.

"Okay," Hedge started, "Here's the plan-"

"You are not charging him alone!"

"Aw, c'mon."

Things only continued to decline from there.

On the other side of the clearing was Tristan McLean, unconscious and limply bound to a post. He was just barely visible over the purple flames of the bonfire, but it didn't take Drew Tanaka super-fan to recognize the movie star.

Each of the demigods were beginning to wish that this all was a movie. If that was the case, Piper's dad would slip out of his ties and take care of the giant for them, and something like Stayin' Alive by the Bee Gees would be playing in the back.

Unfortunately for a dismayed Piper and the curiously dressed group of demigods - this was not a movie and her father was about to be eaten alive.

"There's five of us, and only one of him."

"Oh, yeah." Klein turned to the satyr with a less than impressed look, "And if we all climb on each others shoulders, maybe we'll be half his height!"

Hedge (unsurprisingly) dismissed her and proceeded to point to everyone respectively, "So me, Valdez, Maddox, and Grace, distract him. Piper sneaks around and frees her dad."

Was it the best plan in the world? Not exactly.

Did they really have any other options? Not at all.

After a moment of contemplation, everyone turned to look at Jason. When he noticed, he furrowed his eyebrows and frowned. "What? I'm not the leader."

"Yes, you are." Piper nodded.

"But... what about Klein? She-"

"No." Klein immediately cut him off.