Bonds

Jack Meets His Maybe Mama (And Gets the Hades Kicked Out of Him)

Jack squeezed his eyes shut as his spine slammed into yet another one of the numerous trees that enveloped Camp Half-Blood. His reaction wasn't entirely out of pain, as his entire body had grown to a state beyond numb from similar impacts long before, but rather from annoyance and guilt. Destroying so many of the precious growths like the ones Asterion, he, and so many others worked so hard to grow in Tartarus, felt like a wasteful sin. A sin that was only made worse by the knowledge that his blind attempts at a counterattack with Babylon were more than likely damaging other plant life as well.

If there was to be a positive out of all the destruction (because Grandma May and Asterion had told him to find the good in the bad in their own unique ways) it was that he was getting pretty good at identifying kinds of trees by how they broke against his body. Pine and Maple trees were softer and more flexible, while Oak and Walnut trees were as hard and unbending as solid rock. There was also a difference in taste, but his mouth had become so full of sap, bark, and needles that at that moment he could no longer differentiate- though he would say maple had been his favorite.

The trunk CRACKED and splintered into pieces under the son of Kronos' back.

Oak. Definitely an Oak.

Jagged edges of the ruined tree dragged along his body, his Nemean Lion hide clothing and his own invincibility stopping him from being shredded to bits and impaled. And while his gifts prevented injury and death, they did not nullify the pain of blows. Nearly every inch of his body hurt as if Hyperion spent an entire afternoon hitting him with the flat of his sword, everywhere else thankfully only felt like Krios spent the day attacking him. His vision also felt like a representation of the two titans, with it going blindingly white when he smashed into a tree, followed by countless small dots of moving light in darkness.

"UUUUUUMU!"

Despite the incessant ringing and roaring throbbing in his ears, Nero's voice pierced through it all. The annoying nonsensical noise that preceded and punctuated the empress' every sentence and action was far more painful than the forest shattering against his back in ways he could not even begin to describe. The sound was also the Son of Kronos' only warning that she was about to strike.

Out of reflex, Jack called forth dozens of copies of Babylon; the air taking on a brilliant, golden shimmer wherever the Celestial Bronze vinculi emerged. The cyclopes-forged weapons shot forward at blinding speeds, but with their owner blinded, their paths were random. The rain of Babylon doing more damage to the woods and Camp Half-Blood than they ever did to Nero- if they even got close to the blonde goddess.

A burst of hot, hard air rolled over his face- a sign that at least one copy of Babylon had come close to Nero, but her floating pipe organ device had deflected it -just before the female emperor's blade slammed into his stomach. The high-speed blow would have cut anyone and anything else cleanly in two, but his father's and Asterion's gifts- and he was not sure which was doing the most work -prevented his bisection.

They did not however, negate the force of the blow....

Instantly he was propelled backward as his body was bent over- a part of him wondering at how close his chin could get to his heels. His rear crashed through a young pine tree, sending him into clockwise spin before slamming headfirst into an ancient cedar. The son of Kronos lacked the momentum to fall the majestic growth, though he did crack a significant amount of bark before bouncing off it. He tumbled downward, hitting and snapping the branches of multiple trees while he blindly flailed for something to grab ahold of. The clawed tips of his gloves sank into the hardened flesh of a walnut tree after hitting a yet another sticky maple, only for him to hit the ground before he could stop.