Kira didn't go down without a fight.
But with being caught off guard, trying to protect a cripple, fighting a major concussion, and battling a giant Cyclops, she didn't win.
But she tried. She had taken her sword out a given a few good whacks at Cyclops before he had thrown her against a wall and knocked her out effortlessly.
She hung unconscious from a crane arm, mouth gagged.
As soon as she looked around, her first thought was: Not again.
Sighing dramatically, she glanced at the setting. Surprisingly, she was in a beautiful location. There were tall mountains surrounding her, with heavenly waterfalls protruding from the cracks in them. Lush grass surrounded her for a far as she could tell.
"Isn't it beautiful?" A voice called. She turned to see a face, but it made from grass. Literally, the grass had woven together to create a sleeping woman's face.
Kira assumed the woman was a god visiting her. She smiled politely.
"It is, ma'am,"
The face didn't react.
"I created all of this," She told her. "I am the reason you all exist."
"Thank you, ma'am," Kira said with a fake smile stapled to her face.
"Join me, young one. We could use someone with so much..power."
"Join you in what, exactly?" Kira asked, sitting down in the grass and plucking a flower. She began playing "he loves me, he loves me not".
"Destroying the gods. We can make Earth look like this again, without their godly drama. I know how much you despise your father, Kira Willows,"
Kira dropped the flower. She looked at the grass face in shock.
"I may dislike him, but I wouldn't never want to destroy him. I don't want to destroy anyone, that's horrible!"
"You are such wasted potential, darling," The voice snarled, becoming more angry.
"Leave my head," She said, surprising herself with the amount of confidence that it came out as. Her voice only squeaked once.
The grass laughed at her. "We'll see how long you can hold me off for, darling,"
Kira's entire body erupted in pain.
"Are you sure you still want to say no?" The grass yelled.
"Leave..me...alone!" Kira cried in pain.
Kira woke up screaming.
When she realized she was no longer in pain, she stopped yelling, but a few tears escaped. Her voice was muffled by a gag.
Then she realized she was upside down.
Gagging, she tried to tear out the cloth but she hands was tied as well. Without thinking, she called out for Leo.
"Kira!" Piper. She turned to see her best friend also upside down, dangling from a string on a crane. Jason was still out, a knot growing on his forehead.
"AHHHHH!"
Flinching heavily, she turned to see a giant cyclops get thrown into one of the warehouse support beams.
Yellow dust rained to the floor.
"My son...you...you..." The woman cyclops gasped, looking towards...Leo! Thank gods he was okay.
"Ma, I got the extra-spicy—" Another cyclops entered. A giant robotic arm whacked the monster in the chest, exploding the bottle of extra spicy salsa. The cyclops flew backwards. Another arm slammed him against the floor so hard he exploded into dust.
She grabbed the nearest crane arm and ripped it off its pedestal with a savage roar. "You busted my boys! Only I get to bust my boys!"
Kira was desperately trying to unknot her legs, but no luck. She then tried to get the small knife in her pocket, but she couldn't reach that either.
The mom tore the one arm off, and the other smacked her in the head, but it didn't seem to faze her.
"Any more tricks, demigod?" she demanded.
"Heck, yeah, I got tricks!" Leo raised his remote control. "Take one more step, and I'll destroy you with fire!"
Kira's heart pounded, her eyes wide with fear.
The cyclops laughed. "Would you? Cyclopes are immune to fire, you idiot. But if you wish to play with flames, let me help!"
She scooped red-hot coals into her bare hands and flung them at Leo. Kira let out a yell for him, a strangled cry. She couldn't lose Leo.
They landed all around his feet.
"You missed," he said incredulously. Then she grinned and picked up a barrel next to the truck.
Coals sparked. Leo closed his eyes, and Piper screamed, "No!"
A firestorm erupted around him.
"Leo!" Kira screamed, voice hoarse and intertwined with pain. She felt her arms begin to shake, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. Leo...he couldn't be dead. Not after everything they've been through..he couldn't...
The kerosene burned off, dying down to small fiery patches on the floor.
"Leo?" Piper gasped, but Kira was breathless. She was heartbroken, she couldn't even see what was happening anymore, her vision blurred with tears.
"You live? What are you?" At those words, Kira's eyes snapped open, her fury and rage diminishing. She saw Leo, standing around a dying fire, standing unharmed.
"The son of Hephaestus," Leo said. "And I warned you I'd destroy you with fire."
"An impressive try, son of Hephaestus. It's been many centuries since I saw a fire user. You'll make a spicy appetizer!"
"I don't think so," Leo said. A chain snapped, and a engine block fell on top of the mother cyclops.
"Not immune to engines, huh?" Leo said. "Boo-yah!" And then fell to his knees.
"Leo! Are you all right? Can you move?" Piper called. No response.
"Leo?" Kira called hoarsely, and Leo snapped his head towards her. She gave him a tired smile. He stumbled to his feet.
It took him a long time to get Piper and Kira down from their chains. Then together they lowered Jason, who was still unconscious. Piper managed to trickle a little nectar into his mouth, and he groaned. The welt on his head started to shrink. His color came back a little.
Leo whispered something in Kira's ear. "I'm sorry. I wanted you to know first," but pulled away before she could respond.
"Yeah, he's got a nice thick skull," Leo said. "I think he's gonna be fine."
"Thank god," Piper sighed. Then she looked at Leo with something like fear. "How did you—the fire—have you always...?"
Leo looked down. "Always," he said. "I'm a freaking menace. Sorry, I should've told you guys sooner but—"
"Sorry?" Piper punched his arm. "That was amazing, Valdez! You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?"
Leo only looked to Kira, though. He only cared what she thought of him. Slowly, a smile formed on her bruised face.
"I'm so proud of you, L," She said softly, shaking her head. "That was incredible."
Leo blinked before a bright smile crossed his lips, his cheeks turning a light pink.
"They're forming again," Leo said. "Look."
Kira turned, annoyed. She couldn't catch a break. But Leo was right. The yellow dust was shifting across the floor.
Piper stepped away from the dust. "That's not possible. Annabeth told me monsters dissipate when they're killed. They go back to Tartarus and can't return for a long time."
"Well, nobody told the dust that."
"Oh, god." Piper turned pale. "Boreas said something about this—the earth yielding up horrors. 'When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades.' How long do you think we have?"
"I don't know," he said. "But we need to get out of here."
They managed to get back onto Festus in time and away from the three killer Cyclops. Piper tended Jason in the back, and so Kira and Leo fell into comfortable silence.
"Kira," He said, and she smiled at her name on his lips.
"Leo," She murmured.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner." He said, his fingers fumbling with some screws. "I really did want you to be the first to know."
"It's okay, Le," Kira told him sweetly. "We ran out of time, I totally understand that." Leo nodded, drumming his fingers on Festus.
Behind them, they could hear Jason wake up.
"Cyclops!"
"Whoa, sleepyhead." Piper said.
"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"
"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you and Kira both got nasty concussions. How you feeling?"
"How did you—the Cyclops—"
"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"
"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.
Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."
She told the group how Leo single-handedly defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory. Piper told him about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin.
"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."
"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."
"I—I know...but something Hera said. I was having a dream..."
He told them what he'd seen, and what the goddess had said inside her cage.
"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?"
"But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way—"
"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy—that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."
Leo cleared his throat. "About that...she kind of appeared to me back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."
"Did you say ... Porta-Potty?"
Leo told them about the big face in the factory yard. "I don't know if she's completely unkillable," he said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"
"She's trying to divide us."
"I guess now is a good time to tell you guys about my dream, too," Kira spoke up, glancing into the horizon. Leo turned to face her, eyebrows furrowed, worried.
"What do you mean?" He asked.
"When the cyclops knocked me out, I had one," Kira told them. She told them how she had tried to get her to help her destroy the gods, specifically her dad.
"It was like she knew that I wasn't fond of him, you know?" She finished, leaving the group in silence.
"Why are they toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?" Piper spoke up.
"Enceladus?"
"I mean..." Piper's voice quavered. "That's one of the giants. Just one of the names I could remember."
"Well, I dunno about Enchiladas—" Leo started, causing Kira to let out a soft snort.
"Enceladus," Piper corrected.
"Whatever. But Old Potty Face mentioned another name. Porpoise Fear, or something?"
"Porphyrion?" Piper asked. "He was the giant king, I think."
"I'm going to take wild guess," he said. "In the old stories, Porphyrion kidnapped Hera. That was the first shot in the war between the giants and the gods."
"I think so," Piper agreed. "But those myths are really garbled and conflicted. It's almost like nobody wanted that story to survive. I just remember there was a war, and the giants were almost impossible to kill."
"Heroes and gods had to work together," Jason said. "That's what Hera told me."
"Kind of hard to do," Leo grumbled, "if the gods won't even talk to us."
Again, the group fell into silence. Kira drifted in and out of consciousness, but with her head rested on Leo's shoulder, she felt safe. She had no dreams.