Jason's pov
Time seemed to slow down, which was really frustrating, since I couldn't move. I felt myself sinking into the earth like the ground was a waterbed—comfortable, urging me to relax and give up. I wondered if the stories of the Underworld were true. Would I end up in the Fields of Punishment or Elysium? If I couldn't remember any of my deeds, would they still count? I wondered if the judge would take that under consideration, or if my dad, Zeus, would write me a note: "Please excuse Jason from eternal damnation. He has amnesia."
I couldn't feel my arms. I could see the top of the spear coming toward my chest in slow motion. I knew I should move, but I couldn't seem to do it. Funny, I thought. All this effort to stay alive, and then, boom. You just lie there helplessly while a fire-breathing giant impairs you.
Leo's voice yelled, "Heads up!"
A large black metal wedge slammed into Enceladus with a massive thunk! The giant toppled over and slid into the pit.
"Jason, get up!" Piper called. Her voice energized me, took me out of my stupor. I sat you, my head groggy, while Piper grabbed me under my under my arms and hauled me to my feet.
"Don't die on me," she ordered. "You are not dying on me."
"Yes, ma'am." I felt light-headed, but she was about the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. Her hair was smoldering. Her face was smudged with soot. She had a cut in her arm, her dress was torn, and she was missing a boot. Beautiful.
About a hundred feet behind her, Leo was hugging Tori, her body was limp, was she dead? No, it couldn't be. This was Victoria Jackson, she never gives up this easily. She could have a sword through her stomach, and she would fight. She can't die. Leo was muttering something in her ear. Then Tori picked her head up and looked at Leo. Their faces were close to each other and red. Then they pulled away from each other and looked down.
"Is it me or is there something going on between Tori and Leo?" I asked Piper.
"I thought I was going crazy, there's definitely something going on." Piper answered. "They've been weird around each other since Omaha."
Tori came over to us, she looked wiped out and I could tell she had something on her mind. Leo went over to a piece of construction equipment—a long cannonlike thing with a single massive piston, the edge broken clean off.
Then I looked down in the crater and saw where the other end of the hydraulic ax had gone. Enceladus was struggling to rise, and ax blade the size of a washing machine stuck in his breastplate.
Amazingly, the giant managed to pull the ax blade free. He yelled in pain and the mountain trembled. Golden ichor got soaked the front of his armor, but Enceladus stood.
Shakily, he bent down and retrieved his spear.
"Good try." The giant winced. "But I cannot be beaten."
As we watched, the giant's armor mended itself, and the ichor stopped flowing. Even the cuts in his dragon-scale legs, which Tori and I had worked so hard to make, were now just pale scars.
Leo ran up to us, saw the giant, and cursed. "What is it with this guy? Die, already!"
"My fate is preordained," Enceladus said. "Giants cannot be killed by gods or heroes."
"Only by both," Tori said. The giant's smile faltered, and I saw in his eyes something like fear. "It's true, isn't it? Gods and demigods have to work together to kill you."
"You will not live long enough to try!" The giant started stumbling up the crater's slope, slipping in the glassy sides.
"Anyone have a god handy?" Leo asked.
My heart filled with dread. I looked at the giant below us, struggling to get out of the pit, and I knew what had to happen. Tori leaned into my ear, "I have a plan and I need your help."
"What's your plan?" I asked. Jacks explained everything to me.
"Leo," I said, "if you've got a rope in that tool belt, get it ready."
Tori and I leaped at the giant with no weapon but my bare hands.
"Enceladus!" Piper yelled. "Look behind you!"
It was an obvious trick, but her voice was so compelling, even I bought it. The giant said, "What?" and turned like there was an enormous spider in his back.
We tackled his legs at just the right moment. The giant lost his balance. Enceladus slammed into the crater and slid to the bottom. While he tried to rise, Tori and I put our arms around the giant's neck. When Enceladus struggled to his feet, we were riding his shoulders.
"Get off!" Enceladus screamed. He tried to grab my legs, but we scrabbled around, squirming and climbing over the giant's hair.
Father, I thought. If I've ever done anything good, anything you approved of, help me now. I off let my own life—just save my friends.
Suddenly I could smell the metallic scent of a storm. Darkness swallowed the sun. The giant froze, sensing it too.
I yelled to my friends, "Hit the deck!"
And every hair on my head straight up.
Lightning surged through my body, straight to Tori and a huge wave of water caught the lightning. Tori brought the entire water/ lightning wave at jet speed through Enceladus, and into the ground. The giant's back stiffened, and Tori and I thrown clear. When I regained my bearings, we were next to each other and slipping down the side of the crater, and the crater itself was cracking open. The lightning bolt and wave had split the mountain itself. The earth rumbled and tore apart, and Enceladus's legs slid into the chasm. He clawed helplessly at the glassy sides of the pit, and just for a moment managed to hold on to the edge, his hands trembling.
He fixed Tori and I with a look of hatred. "You've won nothing, children. My brothers are rising, and they are ten times as strong as I. We will destroy the gods at their roots! You will die, and Olympus will die with—"
The giant lost his grip and fell into the crevice. "So long, Mr. Enchiladas!" Tori called down to the giant. The earth shook. We fell toward the rift.
"Oh, stercore." Tori cursed in Latin.
"Grab hold!" Leo yelled.
Out feet were at the edge of the chasm when Tori and I grabbed the rope, and Leo and Piper pulled us up.
We stood together, exhausted and terrified, as the chasm closed like an angry mouth. The ground stopped pulling at our feet.
For now, Gaea was gone.
The mountainside was on fire. Smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air. I spotted a helicopter—maybe firefighters or reporters—coming toward us.
All around us was carnage. The Earthborn had melted into piles of clay, leaving behind only their rock middles and some nasty bits of loincloth, but I figured they would re-form soon enough. Construction equipment lay in ruins. The ground was scarred and blackened.
Coach Hedge started to move. He sat up with a groan and rubbed his head. His canary yellow pants were now the color of Dijon mustard mixed with mud.
He blinked and looked around him at the battle scene. "Did I do this?"
Before I could reply, Hedge picked up his club and got shakily to his feet. "Yeah, you wanted some hoof? I have you some hoof, cupcakes! Who's the goat, huh?"
He did a little dance, kicking rocks and making what were probably rude satyr gestures at the piles of clay.
Leo cracked a smile, and neither of us couldn't help it—Jacks and I started to laugh. It probably sounded a little hysterical, but it was such a relief to be alive, we didn't care.
Then a man stood up across the clearing. Tristan McLean staggered forward. His eyes were hollow, shell-shocked, like someone who'd just walked through a nuclear wasteland.
"Piper?" he called. His voice cracked. "Pipes, what—what is—"
He couldn't complete the thought. Piper ran over to him and hugged him tightly, but he almost didn't seem to know her.
I had felt a similar way—that morning at the Grand Canyon, when I woke with no memory. But Mr. McLean and the opposite problem. He had too many memories, too much trauma his mind just couldn't handle. He was coming apart.
"We need to get him out of here," I said.
"Yeah, but how?" Leo asked. "He's in no shape to walk."
I glanced up at the helicopter, which was now circling directly overhead. "Can you make us a bullhorn or something?" I asked Leo. "Piper has some talking to do."