-ˏˋ°•*⁀➷
JASON woke up Rebecca, slushy waves of ice went against the windshield. They were inside an ice storm.
Jason crawled forward, grabbing their seats for balance. "We've got to be getting close."
Leo was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply.
Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill loomed in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.
"There!" Jason shouted.
A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the
helicopter straight for it.
All around them were flashes of light that reminded Rebecca of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing.
Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.
He set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine.
Rebecca was about to breathe in relief when she heard a whistling sound and saw a dark shape hurtling toward them out of the mist.
"Out!" Leo screamed.
They leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Rebecca off her feet and splattering ice all over her.
She got up shakily and saw that the world's largest snowball—a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a garage-had completely flattened the helicopter.
She looked up to the sky, and then around, where the wasn't much of anything. What on earth was she doing there? She had already been in a quest, years ago.
"You all right?" Jason and Piper ran up to her.
"Yeah." She shivered.
Leo trailed behind them. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter."
Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there." Then she frowned. "No ... it's all around us."
She was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.
Behind them loomed Jack London's dream home-a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams.
She remembered her time there, she could remember every single detail.
"Jason!" a girl's voice called.
Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six-armed ogre one of the Earthborn—burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.
"Look out!" Leo yelled. They rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position.
The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.
"Damn," Rebecca whispered, Piper looked at her.
"Damn indeed."
Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the point had snapped off.
"That was my last one." She kicked the pile of clay resentfully. "Stupid ogre."
"Nice shot, though," Leo said.
Leo still didn't give up on Thalia, didn't he know he had no chance with her? She was a hunter of Artemis.
Thalia ignored him as usual. She hugged Jason, fist bumped Rebecca and nodded to Piper. "Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any minute."
"By Earthborn?" Rebecca asked.
"And wolves-Lycaon's minions." Thalia blew a fleck of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits-"
"But we gave them to Aeolus!" Piper protested.
"Who tried to kill us," Leo reminded her. "Maybe he's helping Gaea again."
"I don't know," Thalia said. "But the monsters keep re-forming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus.
But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking.
Now we're surrounded. I don't know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera."
"Where is she?" Jason asked.
"Inside," Thalia said. "We tried to free her, but we can't figure out how to break the cage. It's only a few minutes until the sun goes down.
Hera thinks that's the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don't free Hera soon-" She didn't need to finish the thought.
"Do we really have to save her?" Asked Rebecca.
Thalia sighed, "we do."
Rebecca, Leo, Jason, and Piper followed her into the ruined mansion.
Jason stepped over the threshold and immediately collapsed.
"Hey!" Rebecca caught him. "What's wrong?"
"This place..." Jason shook his head. "Sorry ... It came rushing back to me."
He looked at her, Rebecca slowly stepped back.
He clenched his jaw. "I remember you."
Rebecca's face fell, the moment she had been dreading for so long.
"Jason I-"
"Save it," there was nothing of the warmth she was so used to. "Right now it's not the moment."
Her heart sunk, but she knew it was a consequence for her actions. Whatever she and Jason could've been was dead.
"So you have been here," Piper said.
"We both have," Thalia said. Her expression was grim, like she was reliving someone's death. "This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared."
"She gave me to the wolves," Jason murmured. "At Hera's insistence. She gave me to Lupa."
He glanced at Rebecca, as if to say, but you already knew.
"That part I didn't know." Thalia frowned. "Who is Lupa?"
An explosion shook the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billowed up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.
"Maybe this isn't the time for questions," Leo suggested. "Show us the goddess."
Once inside, Jason seemed to get his bearings. The house was built in a giant U, and Jason led them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool.
At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.
On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire was smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril was as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them that Rebecca doubted he could've gotten her arm through. Still, he could see inside. And in the center of the cage stood Hera.
She didn't glow or radiate any sort of power. She looked like a regular mortal woman.
Rebecca liked it, now normal and useless she seemed to be, she wished she could take a picture. After all Juno had made her gone through Rebecca wished the Queen of Heavens stayed in her cage for a while longer.
Leo dropped into the pool and approached the cage. "Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?"
She crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!"
Rebecca kicked her cage, rattling. "I'd be nice if I were you."
Hera widened her eyes in disgust and... almost fear. "You."
Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste-or maybe she was looking at the goddess. "We tried everything we could think of, Leo, but maybe my heart wasn't in it. If it was up to me, I'd just leave her in there."
Rebecca crossed her arms. "I'm with Thalia on that one."
"Ohh, Thalia Grace," the goddess said. "When I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born." She snapped to Rebecca. "I thought I made my point clear with you."
Rebecca smiled cruelly. "Not well enough I suppose."
"Save it!" Thalia snapped. "You've been nothing but a curse to chalenged covs ates my friend Annabeth!"
"She was disrespectful!"
"You dropped a statue on my legs."
"It was an accident!"
"And you took my brother!" Thalia's voice cracked with emotion. "You ruined our lives. We should leave you to-"
"Hey," Jason intervened. "Thalia-Sis—I know. But this isn't the time. You should help your Hunters."
Thalia clenched her jaw. "Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn't worth it."
Thalia turned, leaped out of the pool, and stormed from the building.
Leo turned to Hera with grudging respect.
"Intestinally challenged cows?"
"Focus on the cage, Leo," she grumbled. "And Jason-you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well."
Rebecca gagged.
"I'm not your champion, lady," Jason said. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative.
Speaking of which, what's going on with that?"
He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king-size granite body bag. Was Leo imagining it, or had it grown taller since they'd gotten here?
"That, Jason," Hera said, "is the king of the giants being reborn."
"Gross," Piper said.
Rebecca looked at the granite body bag. "Why don't we throw it somewhere?"
"He's linked to me," Hera said as if she were stupid. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again —my power. For weeks I've grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form."
"So you're like a heat lamp," Leo guessed. "Or fertilizer."
The goddess glared at him, but Leo didn't look like he cared.
"Joke all you wish," Hera said in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken."
Rebecca looked at her with disgust, "marry him and then divorce."
Hera glared at her, "aren't you the funny one?"
Leo snorted, "nah, it's me." He frowned at the giant's spire. "Can't we blow it up or something?"
"Without me, you do not have the power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."
"Done that once today," Jason said.
"Just hurry up and let me out!" Hera demanded.
Rebecca kicked her cage, rattling it. "I'd be a bit more respectful if I were you."
Hera gave her the evil eye.
Jason scratched his head. "Leo, can you do it?"
"I don't know." Leo tried not to panic. "Besides, if she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?"
Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in
Ancient Greek.
"Use your brain, Leo Valdez. I picked you because you're intelligent.
Once trapped, a god's power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg- beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus."
"Sounds fair," Leo said.
Hera gave him the godly stink-eye. "I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you."
"But it's not a machine. It's like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and..."
Rebecca suddenly had an idea, but before she could say anything, the air turned brittle with cold.
The temperature dropped so fast, Rebecca's lips cracked and her breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House.
Venti rushed in —but instead of winged men, these were shaped like horses, with dark storm-cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning.
Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red-eyed wolves and the six-armed Earthborn.
Rebecca looked at them stupidly, huh? Were they waiting outside all the time?
Rebecca and Piper drew their daggers. Jason grabbed an ice-covered plank off the pool floor.
Leo reached into his tool belt, but he was so shaken up, all he produced was a tin of breath mints. He shoved them back in, hoping nobody had noticed, and drew a hammer instead.
One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human-size statue by the leg.
At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its maw and dropped the statue for them to see-an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.
"Thalia!" Jason rushed forward, but Piper and Leo pulled him back.
Rebecca just stared in shock.
The ground around Thalia's statue was already webbed with ice. Rebecca feared if Jason touched her, he might freeze too.
"Who did this?" Jason yelled. His body crackled with electricity. "I'll kill you myself!"
From somewhere behind the monsters, Rebecca heard a girl's laughter, clear and cold.
She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair.
"Bon soir, mes amis," said Khione, the goddess of snow. She gave Leo a frosty smile. "Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time?
I'm afraid time is one tool you do not have."
She snapped at Rebecca. "You? I thought I turned you into a statue?"
Before Rebecca could say anything Khione made a stalactite appear out of thin air, it was kind of cool.
Khione aimed it at Rebecca's chest before she could say a word.
____________________________
- i feel like i haven't been updating much
- sorry abt that
- tomorrow is monday, i'm not ready for
the weekend to be over
- good luck w the week ahead :)
flo <3