Apparently, running to Fire Boy didn't magically solve the problem at hand.
The problem being, the two giant gold dragons that wanted to skin Kira alive.
She held her sword out, ready for a fight. Just as before, she knew exactly what to do, where to hit the dragons. She was ready for this fight.
Her blade felt perfectly balanced in her hands, and she almost wanted to smile. For once in her life, she felt ready for a fight.
The dragons spread their wings and hissed.
"Don't look them in the eye!" Jason warned. "They'll paralyze you."
"Indeed!" Medea was leisurely riding the escalator up, leaning against the handrail as she watched the fun. "These two dears have been with me a long time—sun dragons, you know, gifts from my grandfather Helios. They pulled my chariot when I left Corinth, and now they will be your destruction. Ta-ta!"
The dragons lunged.
Leo, Kira, and Jason charged to intercept, while Piper took off after Medea.
Kira leaped into battle, heading Jason's warning to not look them in the eye. That proved to be a little difficult, but she watched the dragon through the gleam of her blade, and got some sort of sixth sense that she assumed was from being a daughter of Ares.
She knew where the dragon was going to attack, which happened to be at Leo. She furrowed her eyebrows, and got a running start. She leaped up, managing to cut the dragon on the neck as it tried to eat Leo.
No one ate Leo on Kira's watch.
The dragon howled, but the other swatted her off of it, and she was flown into the hard ground.
The wind was knocked out of her, but the adrenaline was flowing through her veins. She got up, wobbling slightly.
Leo blew the safety whistle, and Jason was distracting the first dragon. Jumping back into the action, Kira distracted the second dragon.
The dragon was the one that she sliced, and it seemed to remember that. In the glow in her blade, she saw it snap it's fangs, ready to harvest her organs.
She was ready.
Jason appeared, distracting the dragon so she could slide under it. She ran towards it, knowing it probably had bad reaction time. She skidded onto the as it snapped at her, trying to eat her, and flew underneath it's belly. She drew her sword, and it cut through its stomach. The dragon howled once more.
The dragon fell to the ground, dead. However, Kira barely had time to celebrate her victory when Leo yelled out, "Kira, help!"
The other dragon had Leo pinned to the floor. It was baring its fangs, ready to snap.
Mindlessly, Kira ran to the boy, leaving Jason to deal with the dead one.
The stained glass ceiling splintered in a rain of multicolored shards, and Festus the bronze dragon dropped into the department store.
Festus snatched up a sun dragon in each claw, just as Kira got to Leo's side. She helped him stand, but her adrenaline was wearing off, and she felt as if she might topple onto him.
"That's my boy!" Leo yelled into Kira's ear, making her flinch.
Festus flew halfway up the atrium, then hurled the sun dragons into the pits they'd come from. The dead one flopped in the cage, slowly turning to dust.
Leo raced to the fountain and pressed the marble tile, closing the sundials. They shuddered as the dragon banged against them, trying to get out, but for the moment it was contained.
Jason hopped onto Festus, then Leo, but Kira paused.
"Coach Hedge!" She screamed over the rumbling of the building. Flames curled up the walls. Leo shook his head.
"We've got him, Ki!" He yelled, and Kira listened. She hopped on the back on Festus, right behind him.
Festus dove to catch Piper, who had decided to jump over the side.
The group could hear Medea screaming in rage as the soared through the broken roof and into open air.
Immediately, Kira took a deep breath, no longer being choked by fumes.
The department store exploded behind them.
As soon as the explosion occurred, Kira let a breath of relief, but she could feel herself growing tired.
Her back hurt, as well as her shoulder, which she had landed on when the dragon threw her. Groaning, she tried to get in a comfortable position.
"You alright?" Leo asked quickly.
"Yeah, that dragon threw you pretty far," Jason said calmly.
"What?" Piper and Leo asked loudly at the same time.
Kira groaned again. "I'm good, I just need some sleep,"
Leo moved so she could asleep on his shoulder, and she gave him a tired smile before passing out.
She woke up a few hours, but deja vu hit her pretty hard when she woke up from a dreamless sleep to falling through the cold air.
Again.
She didn't like this pattern.
This time, they stayed on the back, but Festus was cold, and his eyes were dim.
"Not again!" Leo cried. "You can't fall again!"
Kira made a mental note to not fall asleep on the dragon again.
Wind flew past them, and she held back a scream as her stomach did flips.
"Jason!" Leo screamed. "Take Piper and Kira and fly out of here!"
"What?"
"We need to lighten the load! I might be able to reboot Festus, but he's carrying too much weight!"
"What about you?" Piper cried. "If you can't reboot him—"
"I'll be fine," Leo yelled. "Just follow me to the ground. Go!"
Jason grabbed Piper and Kira around the waist.
"Leo, no!" Kira cried as Jason tore her away from him.
Jason shot towards the ground with the two girls in tow, but Kira didn't make it easy for him.
"You can't leave him!" She yelled. "Let me go!"
But they landed safely, and she moved away from the two, deeply upset, as she waited for Leo.
"Kira," Piper said softly from behind her.
Kira understood why they did it, but she couldn't help but be a little mad. They had left him on a failing dragon.
"It's okay," She said softly, her anger dissipating. It was so unnatural for Kira to be mad.
She looked around. There was a large white mansion glowed in the center of the grounds. Tall brick walls with lights and security cameras surrounded the perimeter.
She watched the sky for him anxiously, and then she saw the dragon.
Leo seemed to have him working, he was slowly stabilizing.
All the sudden, a spotlight shone on them from behind them. Then they were shot at.
"No!" Kira cried, as the dragon was torn apart, and Leo fell.
She ran to him as quickly as possible. Sitting beside him, she ran her fingers over the bruises forming.
As Leo woke up, she backed up to give him space, but she still knelt by him.
"Where-" He started.
"Lie still." Piper had tears in her eyes. "You rolled pretty hard when—when Festus—"
"Where is he?" Leo sat up. He looked to Kira, who looked terrified that he had gotten hurt.
"Seriously, Leo," Jason said. "You could be hurt. You shouldn't—"
Leo pushed himself to his feet. Then he saw the wreckage. Festus must have dropped the big canary cages as he came over the fence, because they'd rolled in different directions and landed on their sides, perfectly undamaged.
The dragon had disintegrated. His limbs were scattered across the lawn. His tail hung on the fence. The main section of his body had plowed a trench twenty feet wide and fifty feet long across the mansion's yard before breaking apart. What remained of his hide was a charred, smoking pile of scraps. Only his neck and head were somewhat intact, resting across a row of frozen rosebushes like a pillow.
"No," Leo sobbed. He ran to the dragon's head and stroked its snout. The dragon's eyes flickered weakly. Oil leaked out of his ear.
Kira stood back, biting her lip.
"You can't go," Leo pleaded. "You're the best thing I ever fixed."
The dragon clicked. Long creak. Two short clicks. Creak. Creak. Leo listened more intently, but Kira didn't understand what Festus was saying.
"Yeah," Leo said. "I understand. I will. I promise."
The dragon's eyes went dark. Festus was gone.
Leo cried. Piper, Kira, and Jason stood by his side, patting his shoulders, saying comforting things.
Finally Jason said, "I'm so sorry, man. What did you promise Festus?"
Leo sniffled. He opened the dragon's head panel, just to be sure, but the control disk was cracked and burned beyond repair.
"Something my dad told me," Leo said. "Everything can be reused."
"Your dad talked to you?" Jason asked. "When was this?"
Leo didn't answer.
He looked up at the starry sky and said, "Take him back to the bunker, Dad. Please, until I can reuse him. I've never asked you for anything."
The wind picked up, and the dragon's head floated out of Leo's arms like it weighed nothing. It flew into the sky and disappeared.
Piper looked at him in amazement. "He answered you?"
"I had a dream," Leo managed. "Tell you later."
Kira completely understood, and she rubbed his back comfortingly. He seemed to melt into her touch.
He looked around. "Where are we?" he asked. "I mean, what city?"
"Omaha, Nebraska," Piper said. "I saw a billboard as we flew in. But I don't know what this mansion is. We came in right behind you, but as you were landing, Leo, I swear it looked like—I don't know—"
"Lasers," Leo said. He picked up a piece of dragon wreckage and threw it toward the top of the fence. Immediately a turret popped up from the brick wall and a beam of pure heat incinerated the bronze plating to ashes.
Jason whistled. "Some defense system. How are we even alive?"
"Festus," Leo said miserably. "He took the fire. The lasers sliced him to bits as he came in so they didn't focus on you. I led him into a death trap."
"You couldn't have known," Piper said.
"He saved our lives again." Kira added.
"But what now?" Jason said. "The main gates are locked, and I'm guessing I can't fly us out of here without getting shot down."
Leo looked up the walkway at the big white mansion. "Since we can't go out, we'll have to go in."
One thing Kira was learning about Jason was that he was very imperceptive sometimes.
First it was the motion-activated trapdoor on the sidewalk, then the lasers on the steps, then the nerve gas dispenser on the porch railing, the pressure-sensitive poison spikes in the welcome mat, and of course the exploding doorbell.
Leo had to hold his impulsive friend back, and Kira would have laughed if not for how scary it was.
Leo deactivated all of them. It was like he could smell the traps, and he picked just the right tool out of his belt to disable them.
"You're amazing, man," Jason said.
Leo scowled as he examined the front door lock. "Yeah, amazing," he said. "Can't fix a dragon right, but I'm amazing."
"Hey, that wasn't your—"
"Front door's already unlocked," Leo announced.
Piper stared at the door in disbelief. "It is? All those traps, and the door's unlocked?"
Leo turned the knob. The door swung open easily. He stepped inside without hesitation.
Kira followed him as Jason and Piper began talking, and she felt like she was intruding. Leo was walking around aimlessly, making out the house.
"Hey, Leo," Kira said softly, not wanting to make him upset. He turned, he didn't seem mad, but he didn't seem happy either.
"I'm so sorry," She whispered, and Leo's eyes watered. With his permission, she wrapped him in a tight hug before they scouted around more.
The only light came from the yard lights outside. A faint glow peeked through the breaks in the thick velvet curtains. The windows rose about ten feet tall. Spaced between them along the walls were life-size metal statues. She saw sofas arranged in a U in the middle of the room, with a central coffee table and one large chair at the far end. A massive chandelier glinted overhead. Along the back wall stood a row of closed doors.
"Where's the light switch?" Jason's voice echoed alarmingly through the room.
"Don't see one," Leo said.
"Fire?" Piper suggested.
Leo held out his hand, but nothing happened. "It's not working."
"Your fire is out? Why?" Piper asked.
"Well, if I knew that—"
"Okay, okay," she said. "What do we do—explore?"
Leo shook his head. "After all those traps outside? Bad idea."
Kira pulled Leo to the side, whispering, "Be nice, Le,"
"Easy for you to say, Miss Perfect." He grumbled, and Kira pulled back, hurt.
"Leo's right," he said. "We're not separating again—not like in Detroit."
"Oh, thank you for reminding me of the Cyclopes." Piper's voice quavered. "I needed that."
Kira moved away from Leo, opposite on how she usually went. Not wanting to overthink it, especially because she knew how upset he was. So she focused on the situation, looking for anything hat might jump out and kill her.
"It's a few hours until dawn," Jason guessed. "Too cold to wait outside. Let's bring the cages in and make camp in this room. Wait for daylight; then we can decide what to do."
Everyone separated to do their own thing. Jason was eating, Piper was sleeping, Leo was working on trying to get Coach Hedge out, and Kira was lost in her own head.
Her mind wandered for what felt like forever. She thought about her mother, Ares, Athena, Grass Face, Leo, the quest, and herself.
Her mother was a difficult topic. She and her mother were nothing how a daughter-mother relationship should be, and she wanted to hate her mother. She wanted to despise her. But she had tried to get better. She tried to be sober. The woman that killed her mother was seeming more familiar, like she had met her again.
Ares was another difficult topic. She disliked her father, for ways that he was born to become. He had no control of his anger, and he was selfish. Kira wanted to be everything he wasn't, and trying to control her anger was always something she struggled with. So, she tried to not get angry. Because if she did, she wasn't sure if Ares would take control again.
Kira liked Leo. That much was obvious, but she had really started liking him months ago, when he had first showed up at Wilderness School. She liked his curls, his smile, the way he talked about something that he was interested in, his chocolate eyes, the way he could make anything wanted to, his jokes, and just him. She hated seeing him so upset, but she didn't want to disrupt him.
Kira was proud of herself for beating the dragons back at Medea's department store, even though Festus helped and no one had congratulated her. She knew for her first real fight, she had done well.
She was also proud how she was controlling her anger, channeling into the fight, and not losing her morals. Kira still wanted to be a good person.
"Get some sleep," Leo said to Jason, still working on the locked cage. "It's your turn."
Jason took a deep breath. "Leo, I'm sorry about that stuff I said in Chicago. That wasn't me. You're not annoying and you do take stuff seriously—especially your work. I wish I could do half the things you can do."
"I try very hard to be annoying," Leo said. "Don't insult my ability to annoy. And how am I supposed to resent you if you go apologizing? I'm a lowly mechanic. You're like the prince of the sky, son of the Lord of the Universe. I'm supposed to resent you."
"Lord of the Universe?"
"Sure, you're all—bam! Lightning man. And 'Watch me fly. I am the eagle that soars—'"
"Shut up, Valdez."
Kira smiled at the two talking again.
Leo managed a little smile. "Yeah, see. I do annoy you."
"I apologize for apologizing."
"Thank you." He went back to work, but the tension had eased between them. Leo still looked sad and exhausted—just not quite so angry.
"Go to sleep, Jason," he ordered. "It's gonna take a few hours to get this goat man free. Then I still got to figure out how to make the winds a smaller holding cell, 'cause I am not lugging that canary cage to California."
"You did fix Festus, you know," Jason said. "You gave him a purpose again. I think this quest was the high point of his life."
"I hope," he said. "Now, sleep, man. I want some time without you organic life forms."
Jason fell asleep pretty quickly.
Now it was just Leo and Kira awake. She was sitting against the coffee table, but maybe if she didn't move he would think she fell asleep...
Leo sighed. "I know you're awake, Kira,"
Kira turned, sheepish for the awkward silence.
"Sorry," She said, playing with her ring.
"Hey, don't be. I should be apologizing," He said. He looked exhausted, and his eyes were sad.
"Get some sleep, Le," Kira said sweetly. "There's nothing to be sorry about."
"I was rude earlier,"
"You had every right to be, Le. You were upset."
"Can I tell you something?"
Kira looked into his sad eyes.
"Of course,"
Leo told the girl. He told her about his mother, and how he thought everything was his fault. The whole story, no holes. He wanted her to know first. She deserved that much. He didn't even realized he was crying until he finished.
"Oh, Le," She said sadly, her eyes full of compassion and sympathy. She sat next to him on the couch, giving him a tight hug. Leo hugged back, tears falling down his perfect face.
He held her like she was going disappear if he didn't hold on tight.
They stayed like that for hours, just soundlessly comforting each other until the sun broke through the horizon.
"None of it is your fault," She whispered, breaking the hug to wipe his tears with her thumb.
Kira had this ability, she seemed to be able to calm Leo down, no matter how upset he was. But right now, she was making his heart do flips. he had never been this close to her, and this long.
Was he supposed to make a move? Did she even like him? His breathing came out shuttered as he stared into her hazel eyes. She was smiling, but he could see the sadness behind her eyes when he was this close.
Both of the teens had been through so much.
Before Leo could make a move, the bird cage snapped open and Catch Hedge hopped out.
"AHHHGGHHHH!"