GETTING SLAPPED ACROSS the world was not something that Eden had liked.
She guessed that that was her punishment for demanding at her dad to teleport the stuff in her and Piper's room back to Eden's cabin.
"You will do it," Eden had said to her father as the rest of the crew hopped on the ship, preparing to get slapped across the world. Literally. "You owe me that. It's not even close to the shit you owe me."
Poseidon stared at her, but she looked up to where Piper was getting helped up on the ship. "I love her with every cell of my being. I would go to Tartarus and back for her." Eden looked back over at her father. "I don't care about the stuff that Luke had told me anymore — getting revenge, killing you all. I just want her, and for her to be safe. Can't you do this one thing for me? For your fucking daughter?"
"Eden, love!" Piper called, draping herself over the railing. "Can you come up here? You need to hear the plan. And get the door open."
"I'll be up in a second, baby," Eden couldn't stop herself from grinning at her. "Love you!"
She smiled up at Piper's "love you too!" before turning back to her father. "Don't forget that this is the smallest of favors that you owe me, father. And if you can't even follow up on that? God forbid."
She ran to the ship, jumping up on it and running over to Piper. "So, what door d'ya need opening?"
Which was why Eden had shoved her entire body against the door as soon as they landed, because the others were hopeless in opening the hatch. Frank and Hazel stumbled through, pulling on the guide rope they'd attached to the mast. Eden, Piper, Annabeth and Percy followed, all of them looking as disoriented as Eden felt.
"Go!" Leo yelled, who had been attached onto the ship with Perfect Jason. "Go, go, go!"
For once, Leo's tone was deadly serious.
They'd talked through their evacuation plan, but that slap across the world had made Eden's mind sluggish. Judging from the others' expressions, they weren't in much better shape.
Buford the table saved them. He clattered across the deck with his holographic Hedge blaring, "LET'S GO! MOVE IT! CUT THAT OUT!"
Then his tabletop split into helicopter blades and Buford buzzed away.
Frank changed form. Instead of a dazed demigod, he was now a dazed grey dragon. Hazel climbed onto his neck. Frank grabbed Percy and Annabeth in his front claws, then spread his wings and soared away.
Perfect Jason held Eden and Piper, but Eden made the mistake of glancing down. The view was a spinning kaleidoscope of sky, earth, sky, earth. The ground was getting awfully close.
"Leo, you won't make it!" Perfect Jason shouted. "Come with us!"
"No! Get out of here!"
"Leo!" Piper tried. "Please –"
"Save your charmspeak, Pipes! I told you, I've got a plan. Now shoo!"
Eden took a last look at the splintering ship.
The Argo II had been their home for so long. Now they were abandoning it for good – and leaving Leo behind.
Perfect Jason, Piper, and Eden shot into the sky.
The ground wasn't much less chaotic.
As they plummeted, Eden saw a vast army of monsters spread across the hills – two-headed men, wild centaurs, ogres and others she couldn't even name – surrounding two tiny islands of demigods. At the crest of Half-Blood Hill, gathered at the feet of the Athena Parthenos, was the main force of Camp Half-Blood along with some Romans, rallied around the golden eagle of the legion. The other Romans were in a defensive formation several hundred yards away and seemed to be taking the brunt of the attack.
Giant eagles circled Perfect Jason, screeching urgently, and god was it annoying.
Frank the grey dragon flew alongside with his passengers.
"Hazel!" Perfect Jason yelled. "Those three cohorts are in trouble! If they don't merge with the rest of the demigods –"
"On it!" Hazel said. "Go, Frank!"
Dragon Frank veered to the left with Annabeth in one claw yelling, "Let's get 'em!" and Percy in the other claw screaming, "I hate flying!" Eden wanted to snort, but didn't.
Eden, Piper, and Perfect Jason veered right towards the summit of Half-Blood Hill.
Eden's heart lifted when she saw Nico di Angelo on the front lines with the Greeks, slashing his way through a crowd of two-headed men. A few feet away, Reyna sat astride a new pegasus, her sword drawn. She shouted orders at the legion, and the Romans obeyed without question, as if she'd never been away.
Eden didn't see Octavian anywhere. Good. Neither did he see a colossal earth goddess laying waste to the world. Very good. Perhaps Gaia had risen, taken one look at the modern world and decided to go back to sleep. Eden wished they could be that lucky, but she doubted it.
Her, Piper, and Perfect Jason landed on the hill, their swords drawn, and a cheer went up from the Greeks and the Romans.
"About time!" Reyna called. "Glad you could join us!"
Piper grinned. "We had some giants to kill!"
"Excellent!" Reyna returned the smile. "Help yourself to some barbarians."
"Why, thank you!"
Piper turned to Eden and kissed her. "I love you."
"I love you too," Eden smiled at her. "Stay safe, alright?"
Piper nodded, kissed her again, then went to fuck up some shit.
Nico nodded to Eden as if they'd just seen each other five minutes ago, then went back to turning two-headed men into no-headed corpses. "Good timing. Where's the ship?"
Perfect Jason pointed. The Argo II streaked across the sky in a ball of fire, shedding burning chunks of mast, hull and armament. Eden didn't see how even fireproof Leo could survive in that inferno, but he had to hope.
"Gods," Nico said. "Is everyone okay?"
"Leo . . ." Perfect Jason's voice broke. "He said he had a plan."
The comet disappeared behind the western hills. Eden waited with dread for the sound of an explosion, but she heard nothing over the roar of battle.
Nico met her eyes. "He'll be fine."
"Sure."
"But just in case . . . For Leo."
"For Leo," Perfect Jason agreed. They charged into the fight.
The Greeks and Romans slowly pushed back the enemies. Wild centaurs toppled. Wolf-headed men howled as they were cut to ashes.
More monsters kept appearing – karpoi grain spirits swirling out of the grass, gryphons diving from the sky, lumpy clay humanoids that made Eden think of evil Play-Doh men.
"They're ghosts with earthen shells!" Nico warned. "Don't let them hit you!"
Obviously Gaia had kept some surprises in reserve.
"Well that's fucking fantastic," Eden muttered.
At one point, Will Solace, the lead camper for Apollo, a person Eden had worked closely with before, ran up to Nico and said something in his ear. Over the yelling and clashing of blades, Eden couldn't hear the words.
"Eden, Jason, I have to go!" Nico said.
Eden didn't really understand, but he nodded, and Will and Nico dashed off into the fray.
A moment later, a squad of Hermes campers gathered around Eden and Perfect Jason.
Connor Stoll grinned. "What's up, Eden?"
"Connor!" Eden shrieked, wrapping herself around him, shooting an ogre behind him. "Fucking hell, dude. I missed you."
"Missed you more," he said, shoving her off of him to stab something behind her. "Your dog's still alive, if you're fucking wondering."
Eden rolled her eyes. "Thanks, loser."
Reyna yelled, "Eiaculare flammas!" and a wave of flaming arrows arced over the legion's shield wall, destroying a platoon of ogres. The Roman ranks moved forward, impaling centaurs and trampling wounded ogres under their bronze-tipped boots.
Somewhere downhill, Eden heard Frank Zhang yell in Latin: "Repellere equites!"
A massive herd of centaurs parted in a panic as the legion's other three cohorts ploughed through in perfect formation, their spears bright with monster blood. Frank marched before them. On the left flank, riding Arion, Hazel beamed with pride.
"Ave, Praetor Zhang!" Reyna called.
"Ave, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano!" Frank said. "Let's do this. Legion, CLOSE RANKS!"
A cheer went up among the Romans as the five cohorts melded into one massive killing machine. Frank pointed his sword forward and, from the golden eagle standard, tendrils of lightning swept across the enemy, turning several hundred monsters to toast.
"Legion, cuneum formate!" Reyna yelled. "Advance!"
Another cheer on Eden's right as Percy and Annabeth reunited with the forces of Camp Half-Blood. She didn't bother running over there.
"Greeks!" Percy yelled. "Let's, um, fight stuff!"
They yelled like banshees and charged.
Eden snickered and continued fighting with Connor at her back.
She was feeling good about the battle, except for two big questions: Where was Leo? And where was Gaia?
Unfortunately, she got the second answer first.
Under her feet, the earth rippled as if Half-Blood Hill had become a giant water mattress. Demigods fell. Ogres slipped. Centaurs charged face-first into the grass.
AWAKE, a voice boomed all around them.
A hundred yards away, at the crest of the next hill, the grass and soil swirled upward like the point of a massive drill. The column of earth thickened into the twenty-foot-tall figure of a woman – her dress woven from blades of grass, her skin as white as quartz, her hair brown and tangled like tree roots.
"Little fools." Gaia the Earth Mother opened her pure green eyes. "The paltry magic of your statue cannot contain me."
As she said it, Eden smartly realized why Gaia hadn't appeared until now. The Athena Parthenos had been protecting the demigods, holding back the wrath of the earth, but even Athena's might could only last so long against a primordial goddess.
Fear as palpable as a cold front washed over the demigod army.
"Stand fast!" Piper shouted, her charmspeak clear and loud. "Greeks and Romans, we can fight her together!"
Gaia laughed. She spread her arms and the earth bent towards her – trees tilting, bedrock groaning, soil rippling in waves. Eden jumped onto a tree, but all around her monsters and demigods alike started to sink into the ground. One of Octavian's onagers capsized and disappeared into the side of the hill.
"The whole earth is my body," Gaia boomed. "How would you fight the goddess of –"
FOOOOMP!
In a flash of bronze, Gaia was swept off the hillside, snarled in the claws of a fifty-ton metal dragon.
Festus, reborn, rose into the sky on gleaming wings, spewing fire from his maw triumphantly. As he ascended, the rider on his back got smaller and more difficult to discern, but Leo's grin was unmistakable.
"Pipes! Eden! Jason!" he shouted down. "You coming? The fight is up here!"