***Here is a nice long update for you guys :) Feel free to correct me on grammar errors as you go, I haven't edited it at all. ***
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Chapter 22
JASON'S POV
At first, Jason thought nothing of the thunder he heard rumbling outside his window. The weather at Camp Demigod was always unpredictable, seeming to reflect the Olympian's moods, and it wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence for his dad to be angry.
He was sitting on his bed, head propped up by pillows, reading a book while Piper napped peacefully on his shoulder. The storm continued to rage outside, but he didn't pay any notice until something peculiar happened.
A single streak of lightning flashed through the window right at Jason, in a way that lightning shouldn't have been able to. He blacked out for a moment as the electricity hit him, but didn't feel any pain.
When he opened his eyes again, he was still sitting in his bedroom, book in hand. Except for two major differences: the glass from the window through which the lightning had struck was laying shattered over the bedroom floor, and Piper was no longer sitting next to him.
"Piper?" he called. Maybe she had run for help when the lightning struck him.
He got up slowly, still a bit dizzy from the shock and surprise of what had just taken place. "Piper?" he called again as he made his way down the stairs. Now that he looked around, he actually didn't see any of his friends in the house. "Leo? Percy? Annabeth?" he called desperately. With another flash of lightning, all of the power went out and Jason was left in darkness.
He ran out the front door, heart thumping against his chest. Something was very wrong. "Piper?" he called into the storm, eyes squinted against the rain.
No answer.
Instead, he heard screaming.
Everywhere.
Demigods were sprinting inside as lightning struck tree after tree, building after building, basketball hoops and volleyball net poles. One of the demigod cabins (Jason couldn't see which one) burst into flames as lightning struck it, though the fire was soon put out by the torrential downpour.
"Everyone inside!" Chiron's voice roared. Focusing with all his might, Jason tried to make the storm stop, or at least calm down. He screwed his eyes shut in concentration, willing the winds to slow, the clouds to part, the lightning to hold itself in. Half a minute later, he wrenched his eyes back open in frustration, knowing he had gotten nowhere.
He sprinted around the camp, calling Piper's name into the wind, but to no avail. Buildings were crumbling under the combined force of rain, hail, winds, tornados, flying debris and lightning. It took all of Jason's power just to stay on the ground and keep the hail from hitting him. In his efforts to stop the storm, he had at least managed to form a protective shield around his body, keeping himself safe from the elements.
In an attempt to see the extent of the storm's damage and maybe find Piper, Jason managed to control the winds enough to hoist himself off the ground and into the air. He soared around, searching. Unfortunately, he really couldn't see much at all through the rain, hail and debris.
"Piper!" he tried one last time. Closing his eyes in defeat, he tried to connect to Piper somehow. They were demigods after all; he wouldn't be surprised if there were some secret way for them to talk to each other.
He didn't get to communicate with Piper, but he did feel a tugging in his gut that seemed to be directing him to her. He knew it seemed crazy, and he was probably just making it up, but stranger things had happened. Plus, it's not like he had anything else to try. He leaned forward as if he were laying flat on his stomach and stretched himself out, trying to be as aerodynamic as possible.
After flying for a few minutes, he came to a horrible sight. The storm was just as damaging here as it had been in Camp Demigod, except that this wasn't Camp Demigod.
This was New York City.
There were people in the streets running, screaming, buildings on fire, lightning striking everything in its reach.
He had to stop it. Even though he knew he hadn't summoned the storm, he somehow felt responsible for all of the damaging. And so, that left him no choice. He needed to do something. He closed his eyes, trying to draw from the power deep within his gut.
A familiar voice soon distracted him from his concentration.
Piper.
"Jason! You need to save them!" she called.
Them? Jason was confused. He needed to save Piper; that was why he had come out originally. Sure, he had thought for a second of saving the whole city, but now all that mattered was Piper. The other Olympians would surely stop Zeus before he destroyed all of New York City.
Jason dove downward, following the sound of Piper's voice. He found her huddled under the awning of an outdoor restaurant, shiver.
Easing the winds around him, he let himself fall lightly to the ground next to Piper.
"Jason," she whispered. "You need to save the rest of the city."
"No, I need to save you," he replied, starting to pick her up. But she fought back.
"Jason, you can help me afterwards. There's a whole city waiting for you to be saved; aren't you a hero?"
As Piper said it, he started to feel foolish. He had been so worried about Piper that he had tossed aside the rest of the city in his paranoia.
"I guess you're right," he admitted sheepishly. He took off his coat and placed it around her shoulder. Giving her a quick peck on the lips, he made her promise to stay safe. Then he took off back into the wind.
Refueled by adrenaline and his encounter with Piper, he tried again to take control of the storm. He could feel the winds around him start to calm down. But then-
A huge, roaring, crashing sound filled his ears. Just as it happened, it seemed that every pedestrian on the streets or in neighboring buildings began to scream and yell at the top of their lungs. He was almost afraid to open his eyes.
His heart dropped when he saw the building start to collapse. It wasn't any well-known building, wasn't the tallest skyscraper in New York City, but it had to have been at least thirty stories tall. And it was falling.
Right where Piper had been.
As the skyscraper crumbled, people sprinted for their lives in every direction away from it. He could see a crowd quickly oozing out of the lower levels, people jumping from the higher ones.
And yet, all that was on Jason's mind was Piper. He rocketed toward the spot where Piper was, straight into the debris and chaos.
With a deafening roar, the last of the building collapsed. And Piper was still nowhere to be seen.
"PIPER!" he screamed, though he knew no one would hear his cries over ear-splitting sound of the skyscraper hitting the ground.
He dove downward, searching the wreckage, but he couldn't find her anywhere. He must have been there for a half an hour, deaf to the cries of the city as he searched for his wife.
But he couldn't find her, and he couldn't hear her.
Jason didn't want to admit it, but the felt one salty tear rolling from his eye nonetheless.
He remembered one of the last things she had said to him: "There's a whole city waiting for you to be saved; aren't you a hero?"
The least he could do for Piper was fulfill her last request. Heaving himself up from the rubble, he tried to regain his confidence. But there was a lump in his throat, a stinging in his eyes that had nothing to do with the rain or dust.
For Piper, he thought. And then he fought with the heavens like he had never fought before.
He drew every ounce of strength from the depth of his gut, directed his every thought towards calming the storm, no longer caring what happened to him.
Slowly but surely, it began to work. The winds began to die down, the rain started to cease, and the lightning became less frequent.
Within an hour, the storm was nothing more than a light drizzle. But before Jason could enough stop to take pride in his work, the air holding him up gave way, and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
***
PIPER'S POV
"I do," Piper said. Jason was just about to say the same thing, but her dream was suddenly interrupted as her eyes shot open.
She looked around, dazed and confused, wondering how she had managed to lay down to sleep on Jason's shoulder and wake up standing alone in the middle of some field.
Piper soon realized she was not alone when an icy voice pierced the silence, calling her name, and she spun alone.
A girl was standing there in a long, white gown that appeared to be made from actual snow swirling around her body. She was beautiful, but cruel and cold looking all the same.
Khione.
And, standing on either side of the snow godess, Piper's dad and Jason.
"Choose," Khione instructed simply, spreading her arms as if to gesture to the two standing next to her.
"What?" Piper asked, utterly confused.
She must have been dreaming; this was weird even for demigod standards, especially since she didn't how she'd gotten there in the first place. But it felt so real and clear and vivid.
"Choose Jason, I kill your father. Choose your father, Jason falls for me and never likes you again." As if to prove her point, Jason edged closer to Khione and smiled at her.
Piper wanted to like.
She didn't know why she had to choose, but wasn't worrying about that at the time. Looking back, she knew the choice should have been obvious: a successful marriage or her own father's life? But being a daughter of Aphrodite, romance was essential and true love was extremely important.
After all they'd been through, she just couldn't imagine Jason with another girl. Or life without him. At the same time, she couldn't just give up her father's life. She knew her dad would tell her to choose Jason and sacrifice himself so she could be happy, but Piper wasn't so sure.
Where was she, anyways? She clearly remembered falling asleep on Jason's shoulder, so something weird was going on. How did Khione have her dad and Jason there in the first place? She knew that Jason always put up a good fight, and now he was just standing there, waiting for her to make a choice.
And why did she have to choose? Where did Khione, out of nowhere, get the authority to do this? Did she want something from Piper?
"Why?" she finally asked the snow goddess.
"I have told you all you need to know. Now choose."
"I will not," she declared firmly, defiantly.
"If you do not choose, I take them both," Khione answered simply.
"Really, Khione," Piper tried to reason, going for a different tactic as she oozed charmspeak from her voice, "there's no reason to do this. Let them go."
"I will not be swayed by your charming words, daughter of Aphrodite," Khione said in a voice as cold as ice.
Without even stopping to think about her ridiculous plan, Piper hurled herself at Khione. She knew she couldn't do a lot of damage, but maybe if she stunned her for even a few seconds, Jason could fly away with her dad and get them both to safety.
"Get away!" she yelled to Jason and her father as she ran forward.
What Piper was not expecting was to slam into a thick wall of ice and snow. She blinked, slighlty dazed at having been thrown out of her false sense of hope so quickly.
The wall stretched at least seven feet tall and surrounded her so that she was trapped in her own icy cell. Squinting through the ice, she saw Jason and her dad each in their own respective prisons.
"I said, choose," Khione seethed, snow and hail swirling around her in a tornado of white.
Piper started to hyperventilate as the reality of the situation started to sink in. She had always dreaded something like this; it was probably her greatest fear. Not anything with Khione specifically, but being able to do nothing but stand and watch while her loved ones were killed or hurt. Being a daughter of Aphrodite, her only real talent was her way with words, her charmspeak. It worked sometimes, but some people were immune to it, and they usually happened to be the people she most needed to defeat. She could fight a fair match with her dagger, but anything special, and if she didn't have that, she was basically helpless.
Obviously most demigods relied on their weapons in a fight, but at least Jason could control the weather, Leo could throw fireballs, Percy could do some serious damage with his water. But Piper? All she could do was stand there and try to sweet-talk the enemy out of killing them.
Well, she'd have to make a choice. She didn't like it, and she didn't like either of the options, but there was really nothing else she could do.
She didn't want to live without either of them. She couldn't. If she chose her dad, Jason would still be alive, but a selfish part of her couldn't help but admit it'd be easier to see Jason dead knowing his love had stayed true to the end than to see him with some other girl.
Then she remembered something her mom had said at her wedding.
"There is lust, wanting someone physically. There is love, wanting someone emotionally. And there is true love, simply wanting the other person to be happy no matter what."
It wouldn't be easy, but she knew she had to choose her dad. Plus, she couldn't give up an innocent life just for a successful relationship.
Taking a deep breath, she opened her mouth. "I choose my dad."
Khione's pale white face broke into an unnatural looking grin as she melted the ice around each of them and beckoned Jason closer. "Wise decision, Piper McLean."
Piper tried to make herself look away as Jason eagerly edged closer to Khione, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her like he always kissed Piper. Like a little girl when she had found out her grandpa died, she burst into tears and buried her face in the familiar comfort of her dad's chest. And then, without warning, she opened her eyes back up and she was next to Jason again.
He was sitting there on the bed panting, sweaty, dirty and flushed, and Piper was next to him, cold with red, puffy eyes and messed up hair from crying in her dad's arms. But when he saw her, he didn't even hesitate, he just kissed her like there was no tomorrow, and with the weird events that had just taken place, for all she knew there might not be.
*** I know you guys are probably getting sick of all these tests and stuff, but the next chapter will be the last ones. Then you will get some answers :)
Again, sorry for the wait. Thank you guys for all sticking with me.
Hope you enjoyed! ***