Jason went high, Thalia stayed low.

Having support at his back was not an unfamiliar safety, but this fight still felt different in a way he had no words for. The shield wasn't just going to cover his flank if he needed it to.

What exactly that said about his strange previous life where fighting a monster this big wasn't the strangest part of his day, he'd deal with later. The feel of using the winds came naturally to him, like talking and reading. He didn't know how he was doing it, he was just buzzing around the giant's head like an annoying gnat. He slashed at his eyes, his nose, his ears, mostly he gave him a haircut Piper would be proud of he hoped.

Thalia swayed around his feet with the grace of a dancer, Aegis drawn and leaving this guy always on the edge of his enormous feet. She lost her spear real fast, plunging it into Enceladus's belly button and leaving it there. Then launching arrows into every nook and cranny of his scaly dragon's legs up to the plumage, ten in each of his toes. The effects of some of the magical ones were lost on him, the sonic waves in the air caused a knee to buckle, he jumped right back from, the fart arrow was lost to the winds they were gusting around. Regardless, the trick arrows weren't doing much more good than the plain old pointy, deadly ones. When those ran out, she resorted to her knives, wicked sharp blades that left trickles of golden ichor wherever they landed. At one point the two coordinated so well, he was still facing the wrong way when they circled around and both stabbed him in the small of his back.

He just roared with anger, the fire was everywhere, ash and smoke Jason was barely keeping at bay.

He kept boasting, over and over that his brothers would rise. Jason was getting sick of his voice as he stabbed so hard with his next round he gave the giant a new piercing through his ear. Then he yelled, and a crash of thunder in the distance shook the ground as the sky split, and lightning blackened his entire left side.

"I am the son of Jupiter!" he shouted, stabbing his spear into the thick flesh and tearing as he rode down his arm like a pole dancer. "I am a praetor of the First Legion." Jason didn't know quite what he was saying, but he rattled off the words like he'd said them many times before. They felt good, empowering, like he was giving himself a blessing. His blade caught on the long middle finger and he jumped free, twisting through the air to land in a crouch. He held out his arms, showing the tattoo of the eagle and SPQR, and to his surprise the giant seemed to recognize it.

For a moment, Enceladus actually looked uneasy.

"I slew the Trojan sea monster," Jason continued. "I toppled the black throne of Kronos, and destroyed the Titan Krios with my own hands. And now I'm going to destroy you, for Rome!"

They moved together, the wind itself tearing at his edges as they slammed their power into him with all their might. He fell on his ass in the mud.

Enceladus seemed to sense when Annabeth had vanished right about then. It made him angrier, but that only drew his attention back to them. Instead of taunts into the shadows, he began swinging and fighting back. Every precious wound they'd just painstakingly gave him began sealing shut before their eyes.

That's when things went wrong.

He moved far too quickly for something of his size, and Thalia was slowing, her feet taking a split second longer each time to leap out of the way. Jason had burned too much energy staying aloft so long. He knew he could go back up, but every blow he struck went less deep than the time before.

In one fell swoop, a blur of speed where the mud rushed up to blind them, Jason found himself sinking into the muck with no clue what part of his body was struck, it was all thrumming in pain. His sister beside him with the same dazed expression as if she had no idea how she'd gotten there, the blossoming bruise on her eye and her glowing circlet of Artemis seemed to be dimming.

"No," Jason ground out, reaching for something he knew he needed, but his spear didn't move. The winds were fighting him, they had no more use for him.

Thalia sat up, but she was clearly struggling to do it. For every strand of camo she pulled out, the mud seemed to thicken around the rest of her, pulling her down.

It was warm. It shouldn't be, but the clay was starting to feel more like a pleasantly hot bath he could just sink into and relax for just a moment...

With a roar of defiance, Percy slammed into the center of that bronze armor with such force, it tore halfway off. Only the bit dug into his skin from Thalia's spear remained as the cursed son of the sea scaled easily up to the giant's neck to rest on his shoulder and closed his eyes, locked his knees, then twisted his hands in the air and yanked.

There was a wet squelch, then golden blood was rushing to be free of its imprisonment like an invisible force had just bitten clean through the giant's throat.

Percy dropped, landing at their feet like a god, the look on his face painful with its fury, unrecognizable from the friend he'd made. Panting with exhaustion and struggling back to his feet like any mortal. He'd only bought them a moment as the giant staggered in pain, but it was enough as he looked at them with wild green eyes.

Jason and Thalia grabbed each other, helping each other up. The sun was still sinking inch by inch behind the clouds as if Apollo were still trying with his last strength to stop it melting out of sight in the clouds. "How do we kill it!?" Percy demanded, blood dripping out of the side of his mouth, red and gold mingled together from his trick still leaving splatters across his face like Rachel had given him a quick, halfhearted paint job. "We can barely keep this up, and we still don't even know if they've found Hera yet!"

"We need a gods help," the words came unbidden from Jason's lips. He felt possessed. He knew he was right.

Percy looked again to the crumbling old house behind them, but there was no hint of an avenging goddess coming to their aid, let alone Hera.

Thalia cursed, there were tears in the corner of her eyes, but then a resolve solidified over her like another blessing waiting to be bestowed. He had a feeling Enceladus wouldn't like it as much as a Huntress would. She grabbed Jason's shoulders, looked him in the eyes, and said, "repeat after me."

Then she grabbed up her fallen knives.

Jason glared, demanding his spear back to his side, and the winds bent and obeyed, rushing it eagerly back to him and even polishing off the mud as if in meager apology.

"Percy!"

His head whipped to the side, and he took off towards Will without hesitation.

They couldn't look to see why. His sister crossed her blades in front of her, and vowed, "I, Thalia Grace-"

"I, Jason Grace-" he leveled his spear as the giant looked at them with amusement in his hungry eyes what game they were playing now.

"-swear upon the Styx, never to rise against our father's will. Help us."

Jason didn't even hesitate to do the same.

They threw their weapons with all their might.

The ozone, the sky itself seemed to be taking a deep breath as the last rays of the winter solstice died around them in the black thunderous sky. Their ears popped, their hearts sputtered as if bracing for impact.

"Get down!" Thalia shouted, lunging sideways, tackling Jason face first into her chest as she landed back in the earth, but nobody had a choice in the matter. The world exploded around them in a shower of powerful light, again.

...

Cutting Mr. McLean loose was the easy part. Riptide went through the chains like nothing and with a guilty conscience he dropped the sword and put his arms around him, trying to drag him safely away towards the trees.

The sword glimmered in the faint fire light as he retreated, like it was asking why he was insane enough to think of leaving it there. Will tried his best to ignore the fact that he might be going insane as he gently laid the mortal down.

He didn't have anything to tend to his wounds, but he still mentally cataloged what he could. The worst of it Will already feared had no cure unless Mr. D was in a particularly good mood when they got home.

He turned back to watch the others, expecting to see Percy having doubled back and snatched up Riptide by now.

Percy was a one man's army, to no one's surprise, and somehow more terrifying. The blade was where Will had left it. He'd dart in and try to help Thalia and Jason, but he was a nuisance at best to the beast, just another ant in the way to be stepped on, but he kept Enceladus's attention while Thalia and Jason caught their breath and recharged before sending another vault of lightning each. Percy was relentless, but the hard truth was, his curse was hindering more than helping. He could only add to their winds, his power could only delay the earthborn until Nico swept them away, leaving the air frostbitten and colder the longer this went on with every breath until Will could see the white mist coming from his mouth and blowing away.

Back and forth he bounced between the two fights, but they were all losing ground. It was all the five of them could do to manage it this long.

Jason was dodging, the giant wasn't laughing anymore as he and Thalia continued circling him, blasting him, enraging him.

Nico and Alex were the hardest to watch, the two were drawing the most attention on purpose. Alex was as fast as anyone Will had ever met, flitting from each monster and tangling their feet, their hands, wrapping that garrote so tight around often he'd take off a limb even before Nico came up behind him to finish the job, his sword drawing in their essence and causing him to fall back to the ground with a wet splat. Alex laughed raucously every time, bouncing easily to his feet, occasionally doing a flip or a cartwheel to the next earthborn. He would no doubt proclaim this the best day of his life when they all made it back to Camp.

When Enceladus roared, double, no, triple the amount of mud monsters rose, along with apparitions of wind holding itself together in shapes of demon horses. Every one of them turned their eyes to the house. To them.

Will took an uneasy breath, bracing himself to run ahead of all them and at least warn Annabeth and Magnus what was heading for them.

That's when the rest appeared, circling him.

Wolves, of every shade they could be. Magnificent predators that stalked forward to kill him, a gleaming intelligence too bright to just be animals in their hungry eyes.

Will eeped, and jumped. He managed to grab the nearest low hanging branch and swing to the next one, but that only changed their target from his throat to his shoe as they snapped, most of them going after him, but not all.

He cursed and swung on the last one, rolling and leaping the last feet with all his might and coming up easily with Percy's sword, but on the very first swing he knew this was folly. The animal leapt aside with ease, he'd swear he could hear a mocking laugh coughing out of that throat. A redwood coat, the firelight dancing about them kept throwing new shades of auburn and rustic roan into its movements as it stalked forward. It was beautiful, and it was going to kill him. They might already be feasting on Mr. Mclean and his one job had been useless.

"Percy!" The shout got his attention, but the flare of terror in his eyes was what he expected standing in the shadow of a giant so far away. Percy knew as well as he did what would happen as he charged forward. Those furious green eyes might be the last thing he ever saw as Will clenched his sword tight and didn't look for anywhere to run as he backed up towards Piper's innocent dad the long way. He waited until he knew Percy was in a good enough range, then he threw him back Riptide, and his eyes slammed shut, waiting to feel the teeth.

The bronze blade almost floated easily to his hand despite the torrent of wind trying to tear it anywhere else. Percy took a running leap to catch, and shouted "Nico!" as he came down slamming Riptide into the ground. Nico turned, some silent understanding seemed to pass between them as Nico plunged his sword into the earth too. Will heard, but only understood when he felt the rip.

From the twin blades each, the earth began to widen, to split, to cave and yawn wider and wider until the wounds met, and then together the cracks, the very shifting of the earth beneath their feet began trembling and wrenching apart.

Will was thrown off his feet along with half the hemisphere, slamming back into a tree and then bouncing away, helping knock the last breath away from him, and the last few feet back towards Tristen McLean.

The wolves had vanished.

Before them was an enormous pit in the earth that some of the six armed creatures had vanished into as well, though a few were clinging to the edges of one side or the other and trying to slump back out.

Will was still staring stupidly at it with no clue what normal ground was even supposed to be anymore when he heard it.

"Nico, behind you!"

Both Nico and Percy had fallen to their knees, panting with exertion, and even as he watched Percy seemed close to passing out as he listed dangerously close to the edge of the crack they'd started on shaking knees, his grip on his sword the only thing anchoring him in place.

Alex was still holding back the next earthborn that Nico had abandoned in favor of their newest trench, but the creature didn't feel like waiting their turn. More were already forming up behind Alex to pull him apart, muddy fingers thick as stones clenching around his neck as his fists stayed locked around his garrote, keeping the monster tangled up tight to stop it from coming upon Nico's back.

Will was running, the ground wasn't even fighting him anymore, but he knew he wasn't going to make it in time. As he reached the fork where their two powers had combined, Nico managed to get back to his feet, but Will jumping across the narrowest gap only drew his attention. Nico tried to wrench his sword out of the ground, but his fingers were turning black, his shadow was starting to thicken. He shouted something, but no skeletons came to call here. It took one try too many for him to pull his blade out and whirl around slashing.

When it vanished, Alex fell to the ground with it, eyes empty, the grimy print left upon his neck to hide the deed, the garrote still clenched tight and dripping in mud.

"Get down!" Thalia shouted, but nobody had a choice in the matter. The world exploded around them in a shower of light, again. It was a rumble so deep in their chest, building and building, that the world was blind in the powerful white strike. They heard the roar as the giant staggered at last without assistance, fell deep into their new friendly pit with the smell of fire and lightning leading the path down.

Then there was silence.

...

Hera didn't seem particularly grateful.

She came stalking out of the house, waved her hand, and any lingering monsters vanished. She gave one distasteful look about, and finally smiled when she spotted Jason.

Annabeth and Magnus didn't come out with her, so Percy and Thalia ignored her as they rushed inside, probably saving themselves a flaying or two.

While she spoke to Jason, Will turned away, fists clenched, holding back a few choice swears he'd been saving up for just this moment, but he was busy holding Nico, who hadn't moved. His face was a mask of familiar dread as he kept looking at Alex, waiting for something they both knew wasn't coming.

She didn't even clean the mud off them as she left. As Hera's departure came upon them in a showering spark of glitter, all Will could think was how Alex probably would have tried to catch some on his tongue like the crazy lunatic he was.

Jason came staggering over and fell to his knees in front of them. He reached a handout to Nico, then let it fall away. He looked towards the house, opened his mouth, and whispered, "she said Porphyrion didn't escape, she got out in time-"

"Magnus is dead too." Nico said in a flat voice. His hands were fists on his knees, he still hadn't looked away from Alex. "I felt it, right after that lightning Zeus sent."

Will could see it in his mind, hear it like the new ghosts haunting this place whispering to him. Annabeth was on her knees in front of Magnus. She had her forehead pressed to his, her shoulders hunched. He could hear her yelling at Hera to come back, to fix this, and quite a few things the daughter of Athena was going to do to the Queen of the gods as Percy held her shoulders tight.

Jason opened, then closed his mouth. He brushed his hand across the earth, scooped a bit up, then watched it run through his fingers with a deep sense of morbid peace. Somehow he knew, the blood that had been spilled here had not tainted this ancient home. It wasn't the right kind of blood.

Will tried to move, but he already knew it was too late. One foot, then the other, but it was all he could do as he sank back down in defeat. Nico looked between Magnus and Alex with a calm face, a deathly calm that lingered in the air all around them. The blackness in his fingers was traveling up into his hands. He didn't seem to care, if he noticed at all. He was looking at the sky with the kind of longing to join the stars nobody expected to come back from.

Will crouched down beside him and pried his fingers apart. It felt like seizing dry ice, a cold so intense it burned, but Will didn't stop until his fingers aligned with Nico's. The stygian sword fell to the grass with a soft thump. It still took Will wrapping his hands tight around Nico's for color to even hint at returning. He wasn't shivering, he didn't seem to feel it at all, but he pressed his face into Will's chest like he wanted to.

'You would think you'd have some wise words to fix all this, you've had enough practice' Will told himself scathingly as the silence around them grew still at last in the blackest night of the Winter Solstice ending.