✦ ༉‧₊˚⋆˚( ⁿᵒᵗ ᶠʳⁱᵉⁿᵈˢ )˚⁺✧₊˚.*♡
🍪 — 020. fulfilling the prophecy.
ISA WHISTLED SHARPLY THOUGH HER TEETH, and a moment later Red appeared in his pegasi form, knocking red-eyed wolves off their feet and hard onto the ground making it easy for Isa to slash them.
"Good job, Red!" Isa praised and climbed onto his back, "Let's get rid of the rest."
The group separated. Piper was surrounded by Earthborn, but she seemed to beholding her own. She was so impressive-looking as she fought, almost glowing with beauty, that the Earthborn stared at her in awe, forgetting that they were supposed to kill her. They'd lower their clubs and watch dumbfounded as she smiled and charged them. They'd smile back ─ until she sliced them apart with her dagger, and they melted into mounds of mud.
Jason had summoned a Venti; it tried to shake Jason, then tried to dissolve into mist to lose him; but somehow Jason stayed on. He willed the horse to remain in solid form, and the horse seemed unable to refuse. The blonde bot charged into battle, swinging his icy piece of wood, knocking aside wolves and plunging straight through other venti.
Leo had taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should've been suicide, Leo was the right man for the job. She kept summoning ice daggers to throw at him, blasts of winter air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burned through all of it. His whole body flickered with red tongues of flame like he'd been doused with gasoline. He advanced on the goddess, using two silver-tipped ball-peen hammers to smash any monsters that got in his way.
Isa realized that Leo was the only reason they were still alive. His fiery aura was heating up the whole courtyard, countering Khione's winter magic. Without him, they would've been frozen like the Hunters long ago. Wherever Leo went, ice melted off the stones. Even Thalia started to defrost a little when Leo stepped near her.
Khione slowly backed away. Her expression went from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo got closer.
"You're too late," Khione snarled. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us."
Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow ─ a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.
Then Isa heard a cracking sound behind them. The melting ice on Hera's cage sloughed off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess called, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"
The four demigods jumped into the pool and ran to the spire. Leo frowned. "Uh, Tía Callida, are you getting shorter?"
"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"
As much as Isa disliked Hera, what she saw inside the cage alarmed her. Not only was Hera sinking, the ground was rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins.
"The giant wakes!" Hera warned. "You only have seconds!"
"On it," Leo said. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."
"What?" she said.
"Talk to it. Use everything you've got. Convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I ─ "
"Right!" Piper cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Gaea. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"
The more she talked, the more confident she sounded. It seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little ─ becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt. How it fit in there, Jason had no idea. Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"
The spirit horse Jason tamed jumped into the pit and whinnied.
"Really?" Jason asked.
Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug, and a breeze whisked it into the horse's flank. Lighting sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life.
"Sweet!" Leo grinned. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"
Their good mood didn't last long. On the other side of the pool, the giant's spire crumbled with a sound like a tree snapping in half. Its outer sheath of tendrils exploded from the top down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shook himself free and climbed out of the earth.
Look, Isa has fought in the Titan war and she has seen some pretty nasty shit, but this? The giant is scarier then anything she has see.
Porphyrion was even taller, and even more ripped. He didn't radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there was something more terrible about him ─ a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field. Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon's legs; but his skin was the color of lima beans.
His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons ─ daggers, axes, and full-sizes words, some of them bent and bloody ─ maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.
"Alive!" he bellowed. "Praise to Gaea"
"Leo," Jason said.
"Huh?"
Leo's mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed.
"You guys keep working," Isa said. "Get Hera free!"
"What are you going to do?" Piper asked. "You can't seriously ─ "
"Entertain a giant?" Jason said. "We've got no choice."
"Excellent!" the giant roared as Isa and Jason approached. "An appetizer! Who are you ─ Hermes? Ares?"
Jason stepped forward, confidence radiating off of him, "I'm Jason Grace," he said. "Son of Jupiter."
Isa spoke nothing as she stood behind him, thinking to herself did he really just say who he was? Unexperienced much she thought.
Those white eyes bored into them. Behind them, Leo's circular saw whirred, and Piper talked to the cage in soothing tones, trying to keep the fear out of her voice. Porphyrion threw back his head and laughed. "Outstanding!" he looked up at the cloudy night sky. "So, Zeus, you sacrifice a son to me? And what are you, the other one? Too scared to speak?" Isa just shrugged at it, giving into his entertainment, "Quiet, aren't you? Well, either way, the gesture is appreciated, but it will not save you."
Jason dropped his makeshift club and Isa raised her spatha. They had to buy Leo and Piper some time, and currently, she was the only one with a proper weapon.
"If you knew who I was," Jason yelled up at the giant, "you'd be worried about me, not my father. I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because we're going to send you right back to Tartarus."
The giant's eyes narrowed. He planted one foot outside the pool and crouched to get a better look at his opponents. "So. . . we'll start by boasting, will we? Just like old times! Very well, demigod. I am Porphryion, king of the giants, son of Gaea. In olden times, I rose from Tartarus, the abyss of my father, to challenge the gods. To start the war, I stole Zeus's queen." he grinned at the goddess's cage. "Hello, Hera."
"My husband destroyed you once, monster!" Hera said. "He'll do it again!"
"But he didn't, my dear! Zeus wasn't powerful enough to kill me. He had to rely on a puny demigod to help, and even then, we almost won. This time, we will complete what we started. Gaea is waking. She has provisioned us with many fine servants. Our armies will shake the earth ─ and we will destroy you at the roots."
"You wouldn't dare," Hera said, but she was weakening. Isa could hear it in her voice. Piper kept whispering to the cage, and Leo kept sawing, but the earth was still rising inside Hera's prison, covering her up to her waist.
"Oh, yes," the giant said. "The Titans sought to attack your new home in New York. Bold, but ineffective. Gaea is wiser and more patient. And we, her greatest children, are much, much stronger than Kronos. We know how to kill you Olympians once and for all. You must be dug up completely like rotten trees ─ your eldest roots torn out and burned."
The giant frowned at Piper and Leo, as if he'd just noticed them working at the cage. Isa stepped forward and yelled to get back Porphyrion's attention. "You said a demigod killed you," she shouted. "How, if we're so puny?"
"Ha! You think I would explain it to you? I was created to be Zeus's replacement, born to destroy the lord of the sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his wife ─ or, if she will not have me, I will let the earth consume her life force. What you see before you, child, is only my weakened form. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But I am already quite capable of smashing you to a grease spot!"
He rose to his full height and held out his hand. A twenty foot spear shot from the earth. He grasped it, then stomped the ground with his dragon's feet. The ruins shook. All around the courtyard, monsters started to regather ─ storm spirits, wolves, and Earthborn, all answering the giant king's call.
"Great," Leo muttered. "We needed more enemies."
"Hurry," Hera said.
"I know!" Leo snapped.
"Go to sleep, cage," Piper said. "Nice, sleepy cage. Yes, I'm talking to a bunch of earthen tendrils. This isn't weird at all."
Porphyrion raked his spear across the top of the ruins, destroying a chimney and spraying wood and stone across the courtyard. "So, child of Zeus! I have finished my boasting. Now it's your turn. What were you saying about destroying me?"
Isa looked at the ring of monsters, waiting impatiently for their master's order to tear them to shreds. Leo's circular saw kept whirring, and Piper kept talking, but it seemed hopeless. Hera's cage was almost completely filled with earth. Jason looked at Isa, whose mind was racing with that one line in the prophecy. She looked up at the sky; stars decorated the darkness that was the sky in the moment, and the girl knew what she had to do.
With one look towards the blonde, Isa knew he got the message.
He took a deep breath, "I'm the son of Jupiter!" he shouted, and just for effect, he summoned the winds, rising a few feet off the ground. "I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the FirstLegion."
Isa didn't know quite what he was saying, but he rattled off the words like he'd said them many times before. He held out his arms, showing the tattoo of the eagle and SPQR, and to her surprise the giant seemed to recognize it. For a moment, Porphyrion actually looked uneasy.
"I slew the Trojan sea monster," Jason continued. "I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed the Titan Krios with my own hands. And now I'm going to destroy you, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves."
"Wow, dude," Leo muttered. "You been eating red meat?"
Jason launched himself at the giant, determined to tear him apart.
The idea of fighting a forty-foot-tall immortal bare handed was so ridiculous, even the giant seemed surprised. Half flying, half leaping, Jason landed on the giant's scaly reptilian knee and climbed up the giant's arm before Porphyrion even realized what had happened.
"You dare?" the giant bellowed.
Jason reached his shoulders and ripped a sword out of the giant's weapon-filled braids.
He yelled, "For Rome!" and drove the sword into the nearest convenient target ─ the giant's massive ear. Lightning streaked out of the sky and blasted the sword, throwing Jason free. He rolled when he hit the ground.
"Red!" in the same moment, Red appeared and Isa jumped on his back, "Go closer to his eyes!"
Are you crazy? Red asked.
Just maybe.
When Isa looked down, the giant was staggering. His hair was on fire, and the side of his face was blackened from lightning. The sword had splintered in his ear. Golden ichor ran down his jaw. The other weapons were sparking and smoldering in his braids. Porphyrion almost fell. The circle of monsters let out a collective growl and moved forward ─ wolves and ogres fixing their eyes on Jason.
"No!" Porphyrion yelled. He regained his balance and glared at the demigod. "I will kill him myself. You want to play with lightning, boy? You forget. I am the bane of Zeus. I was created to destroy your father, which means I know exactly what will kill you."
Something in Porphyrion's voice told Isa he wasn't bluffing. Jason and his friends had had a good run.
"Okay, okay." Isa said quickly, taking a deep breath in. "I got this."
Daughter of colors will brighten your day and be the light to your darkest days. Depp breath in. Saying a quick prayer to her mother, Isa closed her eyes and trusted her hands in front of her. Deep breath out. She felt the warm sensation traveling though her veins; faint glow of the stars above fell onto the girl, surrounding her in their sparkle. She opened her eyes and pushed the warmth of the stars to her hands and willed the blazing glow right into the giants' eyes. The monster yelled in pain and staggered backwards, falling backwards with such a loud thud she could feel it up in the air.
The warmth slowly faded from within and Isa collapsed onto Red's back, exhausted. She has never used this much energy before and her body was not accepting it. The pegasi flew down onto the ground just as Leo yelled, "Got it!"
"Sleep!" Piper said, so forcefully, the nearest wolves fell to the ground and began snoring.
The stone and wood cage crumbled. Leo had sawed through the base of the thickest tendril and apparently cut off the cage's connection to Gaea. The tendrils turned to dust. The mud around Hera disintegrated. The goddess grew in size, glowing with power.
"Yes!" the goddess said. She threw off her black robes to reveal a white gown, her arms bedecked with golden jewelry. Her face was both terrible and beautiful, and a golden crown glowed in her long black hair. "Now I shall have my revenge!"
The giant Porphyrion backed away. He said nothing, but he gave Isa one last look of hatred. His message was clear: Another time. Then he slammed his spear against the earth, and the giant disappeared into the ground like he'd dropped down a chute. Around the courtyard, monsters began to panic and retreat, but there was no escape for them.
Hera glowed brighter. She shouted, "Cover your eyes, my heroes!"
Isa didn't need to be told twice.
Jason really needs to listen, Isa decided. By the time Red walked over to where Piper and Leo were, Jason had collapsed. Why? He didn't close his eyes. Piper kept calling his name as she held him, though it looked like she'd almost lost hope. He'd been unconscious for two minutes now. His body was steaming, his eyes rolled back in his head. Isa couldn't tell if he was even breathing.
"It's no use, child." Hera stood over them in her simpleblack robes and shawl.
Isa slid off of Red's back, keeping her hand on his mane. Thankfully she'd closed her eyes, or was in too much pain to look at her, but she could see the aftereffects. Every vestige of winter was gone from the valley. No signs of battle, either. The monsters had been vaporized. The ruins had been restored to what they were before ─ still ruins, but with no evidence that they'd been overrun by a horde of wolves, storm spirits, and six-armed ogres.
Even the Hunters had been revived. Most waited at are spectful distance in the meadow, but Thalia knelt by Piper's side, her hand on Jason's forehead. Thalia glared up at the goddess. "This is your fault. Do something!"
"Do not address me that way, girl. I am the queen ─ "
"Fix him!"
Hera's eyes flickered with power. "I did warn him. I would never intentionally hurt the boy. He was to be my champion. I told them to close their eyes before I revealed my true form."
"Um. . ." Leo frowned. "True form is bad, right? So why did you do it?"
"I unleashed my power to help you, fool!" Hera cried. "I became pure energy so I could disintegrate the monsters, restore this place, and even save these miserable Hunters from the ice."
"But mortals can't look upon you in that form!" Thalia shouted. "You've killed him!"
Leo shook his head in dismay. "That's what our prophecy meant. Death unleash, through Hera's rage. Come on, lady. You're a goddess. Do some voodoo magic on him! Bring him back."
Piper half heard their conversation, but mostly she was focused on Jason's face. "He's breathing!" she announced.
Isa knelled beside her and put her hand over his heart. Indeed, his heart was pounding against his chest.
"Impossible," Hera said. "I wish it were true, child, but no mortal has ever ─ "
"Jason," Piper called, putting every bit of her willpower into his name. "Listen to me. You can do this. Come back. You're going to be fine."
Nothing happened.
"Healing is not a power of Aphrodite," Hera said regretfully. "Even I cannot fix this, girl. His mortal spirit ─ "
"Jason," Piper said again, "Wake up."
He gasped, and his eyes flew open. For a moment they were full of light ─ glowing pure gold. Then the light faded and his eyes were normal again. "What-what happened?"
"Impossible!" Hera said.
Piper wrapped him in a hug until he groaned, "Crushing me."
"Sorry," she said, so relieved, she laughed while wiping a tear from her eye.
Thalia gripped her brother's hand. "How do you feel?"
"Hot," he muttered. "Mouth is dry. And I saw something. . . really terrible."
"That was Hera," Thalia grumbled. "Her Majesty, the Loose Cannon."
"That's it, Thalia Grace," said the goddess. "I will turn you into an aardvark, so help me ─ "
"Stop it, you two," Piper said.
Amazingly, they both shut up. Piper helped Jason to his feet and gave him the last nectar from their supplies. "Now. . ." Piper faced Thalia and Hera. "Hera ─ Your Majesty ─ we couldn't have rescued you without the Hunters. And Thalia, you never would've seen Jason again ─ I wouldn't have met him ─ if it weren't for Hera. You two make nice, because we've got bigger problems."
They both glared at her, and for three long seconds, Isa wasn't sure which one of them was going to kill Piper first.
Finally Thalia grunted. "You've got spirit, Piper." she pulled a silver card from her parka and tucked it into the pocket of Piper's snowboarding jacket. "You ever want to be a Hunter, call me. We could use you."
Isa glared at the older girl ever so slightly.
Hera crossed her arms. "Fortunately for this Hunter, you have a point, daughter of Aphrodite." she assessed Piper, as if seeing her clearly for the time. "You wondered, Piper, why I chose you for this quest, why I didn't reveal your secret in the beginning, even when I knew Enceladus was using you. I must admit, until this moment I was not sure. Something told me you would be vital to the quest. Now I see I was right. You're even stronger than I realized. And you are correct about the dangers to come. We must work together."
Piper blushed.
"Yeah," Leo said, "I don't suppose that Porphyrion guy just melted and died, huh?"
"No," Hera agreed. "By saving me, and saving this place, you prevented Gaea from waking. You have bought us sometime. But Porphyrion has risen. He simply knew better than to stay here, especially since he has not yet regained his full power. Giants can only be killed by a combination of god and demigod, working together. Once you freed me ─ "
"He ran away," Jason said. "But to where?"
Hera didn't answer, but a sense of dread washed over Isa. She remembered what Porphyrion had said about killing the Olympians by pulling up their roots. Greece. She looked at Thalia's grim expression, and guessed the Hunter had come to the same conclusion.
"I need to find Annabeth and Vivi," Thalia said. "They have to know what's happened here."
"Thalia. . ." Jason gripped her hand. "We never got to talk about this place, or ─ "
"I know." her expression softened. "I lost you here once. I don't want to leave you again. But we'll meet soon. I'll rendezvous with you back at Camp Half-Blood." she glanced at Hera. "You'll see them there safely? It's the least you can do."
"It's not your place to tell me ─ "
"Queen Hera," Piper interceded.
The goddess sighed. "Fine. Yes. Just off with you, Hunter!"
Thalia gave Jason a hug and said her good-byes. When the Hunters were gone, the courtyard seemed strangely quiet. The dry reflecting pool showed no sign of the earthen tendrils that had brought back the giant king or imprisoned Hera. The night sky was clear and starry. The wind rustled in the redwoods.
"Jason, what happened to you here?" Piper asked. "I mean ─ I know your mom abandoned you here. But you said it was sacred ground for demigods. Why? What happened after you were on your own?"
Jason shook his head uneasily. "It's still murky. The wolves. . ."
"You were given a destiny," Hera said. "You were given into my service."
Jason scowled. "Because you forced my mom to do that. You couldn't stand knowing Zeus had two children with my mom. Knowing that he'd fallen for her twice. I was the price you demanded for leaving the rest of my family alone."
"It was the right choice for you as well, Jason," Hera insisted. "The second time your mother managed to snare Zeus's affections, it was because she imagined him in a different aspect — the aspect of Jupiter. Never before had this happened ─ two children, Greek and Roman, born into the same family. You had to be separated from Thalia. This is where all demigods of your kind start their journey."
"Of his kind?" Piper asked.
"Roman." Isa said, "Demigods born of Roman gods."
Jason nodded, "Demigods are left here. We meet the she-wolf goddess, Lupa, the same immortal wolf that raised Romulus and Remus."
Hera nodded. "And if you are strong enough, you live."
"But. . ." Leo looked mystified. "What happened after that? I mean, Jason never made it to camp."
"Not to Camp Half-Blood, no," Hera agreed. "You went somewhere else. That's where you've been all these years. Somewhere else for demigods ─ but where?"
Jason turned to the goddess. "The memories are coming back, but not the location. You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"No," Hera said. "That is part of your destiny, Jason. You must find your own way back. But when you do. . . you will unite two great powers. You will give us hope against the giants, and more importantly ─ against Gaea herself."
"You want us to help you," Jason said, "but you're holding back information."
"Giving you answers would make those answers invalid," Hera said. "That is the way of the Fates. You must forge your own path for it to mean anything. Already, you four have surprised me. I would not have thought it possible. . ." the goddess shook her head. "Suffice to say, you have performed well, demigods. But this is only the beginning. Now you must return to Camp Half-Blood, where you will begin planning for the next phase."
"Which you won't tell us about," Jason grumped. "And I suppose you destroyed my nice storm spirit horse, so we'll have to walk home?"
Hera waved aside the question. "Storm spirits are creatures of chaos. I did not destroy that one, though I have no idea where he went, or whether you'll see him again. But there is an easier way home for you. As you have done me a great service, so I can help you ─ at least this once. Farewell, demigods, for now."
The world turned upside down, and Isa almost blacked out.
When she could see straight again, she was back at camp, in the dining pavilion, in the middle of dinner. They were standing on the Aphrodite cabin's table, and Piper had one foot in Drew's pizza. Sixty campers rose at once, gawking at them in astonishment. Isa felt quite good after being teleported across the country. The same couldn't be said for the rest. Piper looked sick; she could barely control her nausea; Isa held her as she doubled over. Leo wasn't so lucky. He jumped off the table, ran to the nearest bronze brazier, and threw up in it ─ which was probably not a great burnt offering for the gods.
"Jason? Isa?" Chiron trotted forward. No doubt the old centaur had seen thousands of years' worth of weird stuff, but even he looked totally flabbergasted. "What ─ How ─ ?"
The Aphrodite campers stared up at them with their mouths open.
"Hi," Isa said cheerfully. "We're back."