I 022. I

𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑮𝒐𝒓𝒆

❝ curse ❞

ARIADNE DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO FEEL WITH LEO FLYING THE HELICOPTER. Sure, she was ultimately nervous, but quite frankly, she trusted him completely.

The sun was going down as they flew north over the Richmond Bridge, and she couldn't Eve live the day had gone so quickly. Once again, nothing like ADHD and a good fight to the death to make time fly.

Piloting the chopper, Leo looked like he went back and forth between confidence and panic.

"Going okay?" Piper asked from the copilot's seat. She sounded nervous.

"Aces," Leo said. "So what's the Wolf House?"

Jason knelt between their seats. "An abandoned mansion in Sonoma Valley. A demigod built it—Jack London."

Leo couldn't place the name. "He's an actor?"

"Writer," Ariadne said. She was crouching next to Jason. "Adventure stuff. Call of the Wild? White Fang?"

"Yeah," Jason said. "He was a sone of Mercury—I mean, Hermes. He was an adventurer, traveled the world. He was even a hobo for a while. Then he made a fortune writing. He bought a big ranch in the country and decided to build this huge mansion—the Wolf House."

"Named that cause he wrote wolves?" Leo guessed.

"Partially," Jason said. "But the site, and the reason he wrote about wolves—he was dropping hints about his personal experience. There's a lot of holes in his life story—how he was born, who his dad was, why he wandered around so much—stuff you can only explain if you know he was a demigod."

The bay slipped behind them, and the helicopter continued north. Ahead of them, yellow hills rolled out as far as Ariadne could see.

"So Jack London went to Camp Half-Blood," Leo guessed.

Ariadne shook her head. "No. He was never one of those I knew who made something of themself."

"Firebird, you're freaking me out with the mysterious talk. Is Jason remembering his past or not?"

"Pieces," Jason said. "Only pieces. None of it good. The Wolf House is on sacred ground. It's where London started his journey as a child—where he found out he was a demigod. That's why he returned there. He thought he could live there, claim that land, but it wasn't meant for him. The Wolf House was cursed. It burned in a fire a week before he and his wife were supposed to move in. A few years later, London died, and his ashes were buried on the site."

"So," Piper said, "how do you know all this?"

A shadow crossed Jason's face.

"I started my journey there too," Jason said. "It's a powerful place for demigods, a dangerous place. If Gaea can claim it, use its power to entomb Hera on the solstice and raise Porphyrion—that might be enough to awaken the earth goddess fully."

Leo kept his hand on the joystick, guiding the chopper at full speed—racing toward the north. He could see some weather ahead—a spot of darkness like a cloud bank or a storm, right where they were going.

The helicopter shuddered. Metal creaked. He leveled out the chopper, and the creaking stopped.

"Thirty minutes out," he told his friends. "If you want to get some rest, bows a good time."

Jason strapped himself into the back of the helicopter and passed out almost immediately. Ariadne joined him in the seat beside his.

Time passed by while she was just floating in a void of nothing, a great sense of peace enveloping her.

That was until they hit the storm clouds.

At first, Ariadne thought rocks were pelting the windshield. Then she realized it was sleet. Frost built up around the edges of the glass, and slushy waves of ice blotted out her view.

"An ice storm!" Piper shout over the engine and the wind. "Is it supposed to be this cold in Sonoma?"

Ariadne was sure that the storm was malevolent—intentionally slamming them.

Jason woke up quickly. He crawls frowned, grabbing onto Piper's chair for balance. Ariadne held onto Leo's for her own support. "We've got to be getting close."

Leo was too busy wrestling with the stick to reply. Suddenly it wasn't so easy to drive the chopper. It's movements turned sluggish and jerky. The whole machine shuddered in the icy wind. The helicopter probably hadn't been prepped for cold weather flying. The controls refused to respond, and they started to lose altitude.

Below them, the ground was a dark quilt of trees and fog. The ridge of a hill looked in front of them and Leo yanked the stick, just clearing the treetops.

"There!" Jason shouted.

A small valley opened up before them, with the murky shape of a building in the middle. Leo aimed the helicopter straight for for it. All around them were flashes of light that reminded Ariadne of the tracer fire at Midas's compound. Trees cracked and exploded at the edges of the clearing. Shapes moved through the mist. Combat seemed to be everywhere.

Leo set down the helicopter in an icy field about fifty yards from the house and killed the engine. There was a whistling sound and a dark shape hurtled toward them out of the mist.

They leaped from the helicopter and barely cleared the rotors before a massive BOOM shook the ground, knocking Ariadne off her feet and splattering ice all over her.

She got up and saw that the world's largest snowball—a chunk of snow, ice, and dirt the size of a gravar—had completely flattened the Bell 412.

"You all right?" Jason ran up to her and Leo, Piper at his side. They both looked fine except for being speckled with snow and mud.

"Yeah." Leo shivered. "Guess we owe that ranger lady a new helicopter."

Piper pointed south. "Fighting's over there." Then she frowned. "No...it's all around us."

She was right. The sounds of combat rang across the valley. The snow and mist made it hard to tell for sure, but there seemed to be a circle of fighting all around the Wolf House.

Behind them looked Jack London's dream home—a massive ruin of red and gray stones and rough-hewn timber beams. In the mist and sleet, the place has a lonely, haunted feel.

"Jason, Ari!" a girl's voice called.

Thalia appeared from the fog, her parka caked with snow. Her bow was in her hand, and her quiver was almost empty. She ran toward them, but made it only a few steps before a six armed ogre—one of the Earthborn—burst out of the storm behind her, a raised club in each hand.

"Look out!" Leo yelled. They rushed to help, but Thalia had it under control. She launched herself into a flip, notching an arrow as she pivoted like a gymnast and landed in a kneeling position. The ogre got a silver arrow right between the eyes and melted into a pile of clay.

Thalia stood and retrieved her arrow, but the pint had snapped off. "That was my last one." She kicked the pile of clay resentfully. "Stupid ogre."

"Nice shot, though," Leo said.

Thalia ignored him as usual. She hugged Jason and Ariadne and nodded to Piper. "Just in time. My Hunters are holding a perimeter around the mansion, but we'll be overrun any minute."

"By Earthborn?" Jason asked.

"And wolves—Lycaon's minions." Thalia blew a fleck of ice off her nose. "Also storm spirits—"

"But we have them to Aeolus!" Piper protested.

"He did try to kill us," Ariadne reminded her. "Maybe he's helping Gaea again."

"I don't know," Thalia said. But the monsters keep reforming almost as fast as we can kill them. We took the Wolf House with no problem: surprised the guards and sent them straight to Tartarus. But then this freak snowstorm blew in. Wave after wave of monsters started attacking. Now we're surrounded. I don't know who or what is leading the assault, but I think they planned this. It was a trap to kill anyone who tried to rescue Hera."

"Where is she?" Jason asked.

"Inside," Thalia said. "We tried to free her, but we can't figure out how to break the cage. It's only a few minutes until the sun goes down. Hera thinks that's the moment when Porphyrion will be reborn. Plus, most monsters are stronger at night. If we don't free Hera soon—"

Ariadne, Leo, Jason, and Piper followed her into the ruined mansion.

Jason stepped over the threshold and immediately collapsed.

"Hey!" Leo caught him. "None of that, man. What's wrong?"

"This place..." Jason shook his head. "Sorry...It came rushing back to me."

"So you have been here," Piper said.

"We both have," Thalia said. Her expression was grim. "This is where my mom took us when Jason was a child. She left him here, told me he was dead. He just disappeared."

"She gave me to the wolves," Jason murmured. "At Hera's insistence. She gave me to Lupa."

"That part I didn't know." Thalia frowned. "Who is Lupa?"

An explosion shook the building. Just outside, a blue mushroom cloud billowed up, raining snowflakes and ice like a nuclear blast made of cold instead of heat.

"Guys, questions later," Ariadne ordered. "We need to see Hera."

Once inside, Jason seemed to get his bearings. The house was built in a giant U, and Jason led them between the two wings to an outside courtyard with an empty reflecting pool. At the bottom of the pool, just as Jason had described from his dream, two spires of rock and root tendrils had cracked through the foundation.

One of the spires was much bigger—a solid dark mass about twenty feet high. Underneath the mass of fused tendrils Ariadne could make out the shape of a head, wide shoulders, a massive chest and arms, like the creature was stuck waist deep in the earth. No, not stuck—rising.

On the opposite end of the pool, the other spire was smaller and more loosely woven. Each tendril was as thick as a telephone pole, with so little space between them.

Hera looked worse for wear: a dark hair covered with a shawl, the black dress of a widow, a wrinkled face with glinting eyes.

She didn't glow or radiate any sort of power. She looked like a regular mortal woman.

Leo dropped into the pool and approached the cage. "Hola, Tía. Little bit of trouble?"

She crossed her arms and sighed in exasperation. "Don't inspect me like I'm one of your machines, Leo Valdez. Get me out of here!"

Thalia stepped next to him and looked at the cage with distaste—or maybe she was looking at the goddess. "We tried everything we could think of, Leo, but maybe my heart wasn't in it. If it was up to me, I'd just leave her in there."

"Ohh, Thalia Grace," the goddess said. "When I get out of here, you'll be sorry you were ever born."

"Save it!" Thalia snapped. "You've been nothing but a curse to every child of Zeus for ages. You sent a bunch of intestinally challenged cows after my friend Annabeth—"

"She was disrespectful!"

"You dropped a statue on my legs."

"It was an accident!"

"And you took my brother!" Thalia's voice cracked with emotion. "Here—on this spot. You ruined our lives. We should leave you to Gaea!"

"Hey," Jason intervened. "Thalia—Sis—I know. But this isn't the time. You should help your Hunters."

Thalia clenched her jaw. "Fine. For you, Jason. But if you ask me, she isn't worth it."

Thalia turned, leaped out of the pool, and stroked from the building.

Ariadne raised an eyebrow. "If you weren't the only one who knew where Percy was, I would leave you here with no guilt. But, you know, I guess you're necessary for my happiness."

"Phoenix, when I get out of here," she grumbled. "And Jason—you are wiser than your sister. I chose my champion well."

"I'm not your champion, lady," Jason said. "I'm only helping you because you stole my memories and you're better than the alternative. Speaking of which, what's going on with that?"

He nodded to the other spire that looked like the king size granite body bag.

"That, Jason," Hera said, "is the king of the giants being reborn.""

"Gross," Piper said.

"Indeed," Hera said. "Porphyrion, the strongest of his kind. Gaea needed a great deal of power to raise him again—my power. For weeks I've grown weaker as my essence was used to grow him a new form."

"So you're like a heat lamp," Leo guessed. "Or fertilizer."

The goddess glared at him.

"Joke all you wish," Hera said in a clipped tone. "But at sundown, it will be too late. The giant will awake. He will offer me a choice: marry him, or be consumed by the earth. And I cannot marry him. We will all be destroyed. And as we die, Gaea will awaken."

Leo frowned at the giant's spire. "Can't we blow it up or something?"

"Without me, you do not have the power," Hera said. "You might as well try to destroy a mountain."

"Done that once today," Jason said.

"Just grey up and let me out!" Hera demanded.

Jason scratched his head. "Leo, can you do it?"

"I don't know." Leo tried not to panic. "Besides, if she's a goddess, why hasn't she busted herself out?"

Hera paced furiously around her cage, cursing in Ancient Greek. "Use your Brian, Leo Valdez. I picked up because you're intelligent. Once trapped, a God's power is useless. Your own father trapped me once in a golden chair. It was humiliating! I had to beg—beg him for my freedom and apologize for throwing him off Olympus."

"Sounds fair," Leo said.

Hera gave him the godly stink eye. "I've watched you since you were a child, son of Hephaestus, because I knew you could aid me at this moment. If anyone can find a way to destroy this abomination, it is you."

"But it's not a machine. It's like Gaea thrust her hand out of the ground and..." Leo seemed to realize something. "Hold on. I do have an idea. Piper, I'm going to need your help. And we're going to need time."

The air turned brittle with cold. The temperature dropped so fast, Ariadne's breath changed to mist. Frost coated the walls of the Wolf House. Venti rushed in—but instead of winged men, these were shaped like horses, with dark storm cloud bodies and manes that crackled with lightning. Some had silver arrows sticking out of their flanks. Behind them came red eyed wolves and the six armed Earthborn.

Piper drew her dagger. Jason flipped his coin, summoning his sword. Leo reached into his tool belt, but he was so shaken up, all he produced was a tin of breath mints. He shoved them back in, and drew a hammer instead. Ariadne furrowed her eyebrows. She instinctively reached for her sword, but sadness crept in at the fact that Lunacy wasn't there.

One of the wolves padded forward. It was dragging a human size statue by the leg. At the edge of the pool, the wolf opened its Mae and dropped the statue for them to see—an ice sculpture of a girl, an archer with short spiky hair and a surprised look on her face.

"Thalia!" Jason rushed forward, but Ariadne flung her arm before his chest, stopping him completely. The ground around Thalia's statue was already webbed with ice.

"Who did this?" Jason yelled. His body cracked with electricity. "I'll kill you myself!"

From somewhere behind the monsters, Ariadne heard a girl's laughter, clear and cold. She stepped out of the mist in her snowy white dress, a silver crown atop her long black hair. She regarded with with deep brown eyes.

"Bin soir, mes amis," said Khione, the goddess of snow. She gave Leo a frosty smile. "Alas, son of Hephaestus, you say you need time! Um afraid time is one tool you do not have."

Ariadne was growing more pissed. She was at the very place and was about to save the only person who knew where her boyfriend was, and her, she was being interrupted by some stupid goddess.

The enemy was beautiful. Khione smiled, her dark eyes glittering, as a dagger of ice grew in her hand.

"What've you done?" Jason demanded.

"Oh, so many things," the goddess purred. "You're sister's not dead, if that's what you mean. She and her Hunters will make fine toys for our wolves. I thought we'd defrost them one at a time and hung them down fro amusement. Let them be the prey for once."

The wolves snarled appreciatively.

"Yes, my dears." Khione kept her eyes on Jason. "Your sister almost killed their king, you know. Lycaon's off in a cave somewhere, no doubt licking his wounds, but his minions have joined us to take revenge for their master. And soon Porphyrion will arise; and we shall rule the world."

"Traitor!" Hera shouted. "You meddlesome, D-list goddess! You aren't worthy to pour my wine, much less tule the world."

Khione sighed. "Tiresome as ever, Queen Hera. I've been wanting to shut you up for millennia."

Khione waved her hand, and ice encased the prison, sealing in the spaces between the earthen tendrils.

"That's better," the snow goddess said. "Now, demigods, about your death—"

"You're the one who tricked Hera into coming here," Ariadne said. "The idea to close Olympus wasn't Zeus's idea, it was yours."

The wolves snarled, and the storm spirits whinnied, ready to attack, but Khione held up her hand. "Patience, my loves. If she wants to talk, what matter? The sun is setting, and time is on our side. Of course, Ariadne Phoenix. Like snow, my voice is quiet and gentle, and very cold. It's easy for me to whisper to the other gods, especially when I am confirming their own deepest fears. I also whispered in Aeolus's ear that he should issue an order to kill demigods. It is a small service for Gaea, but I'm sure I will be well rewarded when her sons the giants come to power."

"You could've killed us in Quebec," Jason said. "Why let us live?"

Khione wrinkled her nose. "Messy business, killing you in my father's house, especially when he insists on meeting all visitors. I did try, you remember. It would've been lovely if he'd agreed to turn you to ice. But once he'd given you guarantee of safe passage, I couldn't openly disobey him. My father is an old fool. He lives in fear of Zeus and Aeolus, but he's still powerful. Soon enough, when my new masters have awakened, I will depose of Boreas and take the throne of the North Wind, but not just yet. Besides, my father did have a point. Your quest was suicidal. I fully expected you to fail."

"And to help us with that," Leo said, "you knocked our dragon out of the sky over Detroit. Those frozen wires in his head—that was your fault. You're gonna pay for that."

"You're also the one who kept Enceladus informed about us," Piper added. "We've been plagued by snowstorms the whole trip."

"Yes, I feel so close to all of you now!" Khione said. "Once you made it pasty Omaha, I decided to ask Lycaon to track you down so Jason and Ariadne could die here, at the Wolf House." Khione smiled at him. "You see, Jason, your blood spilled on this sacred ground will taint it for generations. Your demigod brethren will be outraged, especially when they find the bodies of these two from Camp Half-Blood. They'll believe the Greeks have conspired with giants. And when the Greeks learn of Ariadne's own death, well, that'll be a sight worth seeing. Percy Jackson will have some choice words to say for everyone. It will be...delicious."

Ariadne wand Jason got the idea.

"You'll set demigods against demigods," Ariadne said.

"It's so easy!" said Khione. "As I told you, I only encourage what you would do anyway."

"But why?" Piper spread her hands. "Khione, you'll hear the world apart. The giants will destroy everything. You don't want that. Call off your monsters."

Khione hesitated, then laughed. "Your persuasive powers are improving, girl. But I am a goddess. You can't charm speak me. We wind gods are creatures of chaos! I'll overthrow Aeolus and let the storms run free. If we destroy the mortal world, all the better! They never honored me, even in Greek times. Humans and their talk of global warming. Pay! I'll cool them down quickly enough. When we retake the ancient places, I will cover the Acropolis in snow."

"The ancient places." Leo's eyes widened. "That's what Rnceladus meant about destroy the roots of the gods. He meant Greece."

"You could join me, son of Hephaestus," Khione said. "I know you find me beautiful. It would be enough for my plan if these other two were to die. Reject that ridiculous destiny the Fates have given you. Love and be my champion, instead. Your skills would be quite useful."

Leo looked stunned. He glanced behind him. The Leo laughed so hard, he doubled over. "Yeah, join you. Right. Until you get bored of me and turn me into a Leosicle? Lady, nobody messes with my dragon and gets away with it. I can't believe I thought you were hot."

Khione's face turned red. "Hot? You dare insult me? I am cold, Leo Valdez. Very, very cold."

"Look, I don't care what kind of millennia old pettiness you all have between each other, but I'm sick and tired of this," Ariadne complained. "If you want to fight someone, fight me and I'll show you to not bring us demigods into your messy shit."

Khione growled. She shot a blast of wintry sleet at the demigods, but Leo held up his hand. A wall of fire roared to life in front of them, and the snow dissolved in a steamy cloud.

Leo grinned. "See, lady, that's what happens to snow in Texas. It—freaking—melts."

Khione hissed. "Enough of this. Hera is failing. Porphyrion is rising. Kill the demigods. Let them be our king's first meal!"

Jason hefted his sword and the monsters charged.

A Wolf launched itself at Jason. He stepped back and swung his sword into the beats's snout with a satisfying crack. Maybe only silver could kill it, but it would be left with a headache.

He turned toward the sound of hooves and saw a storm spirit horse bearing done on him.

Ariadne couldn't focus on him any longer, she was being surrounded. Of course, her friends ha their fill of monsters, but the majority saw her as the main threat, which made total sense.

Earthborn cowered in fear when she smashed half of them with a flick of her hand. Their clubs were no match against many vines. She punched a wolf in the nose, causing it to yelp loudly.

Through the chaos, Ariadne caught glimpses of her friends. Piper was surrounded by Earthborn, but she seemed to be holding her own. The Earthborn stared at her she to her impressive beauty, forgetting that they were supposed to kill her. They'd lower their clubs and watch dumbfounded as she smiled and charged them. They'd smile back—until she sliced them apart with her dagger, and they melted into mounds of mud.

Jason was riding a Tempest spirit, smashing wolves with his sword.

Leo had taken on Khione herself. While fighting a goddess should've been suicide for someone not as experienced as Ariadne, Leo was the right man for the job. She kept summoning ice daggers for throw at him, blasts of winger air, tornadoes of snow. Leo burned through all of it. His whole body flickered with red tongues of flame like he'd been doused with gasoline. He advanced on the goddess, using two silver tipped ball peen hammers to smash any monsters that got in his way.

Jason and Piper watched as Ariadne was being chased by fifty Earthborn, all holding clubs in their six arms.

"Are you okay?" Piper shouted, swiping an Earthborn down.

Ariadne did a spin kick, vines crushing Earthborn left a be right as they followed her movements. Her own sheer force when she landed let out a blast, knocking storm spirits and wolves from her path. "I'm good!"

Khione slowly backed away. Her expression went from enraged to shocked to slightly panicked as Leo got closer.

Ariadne had ran out of enemies. Jason had long run out. Wolves lay in dazed heaps. Som slunk away into the ruins, yelping from their wounds. Piper stabbed the last Earthborn, who toppled to the ground in a pile of sludge. Jason rode Tempest through the last ventus, breaking it into vapor. Then he wheeled around and saw Leo bearing down on the goddess of snow.

"You're too late," Khione snarled. "He's awake! And don't think you've won anything here, demigods. Hera's plan will never work. You'll be at each other's throats before you can ever stop us."

Leo set his hammers ablaze and threw them at the goddess, but she turned into snow—a white powdery image of herself. Leo's hammers slammed into the snow woman, breaking it into a steaming mound of mush.

Piper was breathing hard, but she smiled at Jason. "Nice horse."

Tempest reared on his hind legs, arcing electricity across his hooves. A complete show off.

Then Ariadne heard a cracking sound behind her. The melting ice on Hera's cage slighted off in a curtain of slush, and the goddess called, "Oh, don't mind me! Just the queen of the heavens, dying over here!"

"Ugh. Queen of the whiners is more like it." Ariadne crossed her arms. "Do you ever stop complaining?"

Jason dismounted and told Tempest to stay out. The three demigods jumped into the pool and ran to the spire.

Leo frowned. "Uh, Tia Callida, are you getting shorter?"

"No, you dolt! The earth is claiming me. Hurry!"

Not only was Hera sinking, the ground was rising around her like water in a tank. Liquid rock had already covered her shins. "The giants wakes!" Hera warned. "You only have seconds!"

"On it!" Leo said. "Piper, I need your help. Talk to the cage."

"What?" she said.

"Talk to it. Use everything you've got convince Gaea to sleep. Lull her into a daze. Just slow her down, try to get the tendrils to loosen while I—"

"Right!" Piper cleared her throat and said, "Hey, Gaea,. Nice night, huh? Boy, I'm tired. How about you? Ready for some sleep?"

The more she talked, the more confident she sounded. It seemed to have some effect on the cage. The mud was rising more slowly. The tendrils seemed to soften just a little—becoming more like tree root than rock. Leo pulled a circular saw out of his tool belt. Then Leo looked at the cord and grunted in frustration. "I don't have anywhere to plug it in!"

The spirit horse Tempest jumped into the pit and whinnied.

"Really?" Jason asked.

Tempest dipped his head and trotted over to Leo. Leo looked dubious, but he held up the plug; and a breeze whisked it into the horse's flank. Lightning sparked, connecting with the prongs of the plug, and the circular saw whirred to life.

"Sweet!" Leo grinned. "Your horse comes with AC outlets!"

Their good mood didn't last long. On the other side of the pool, the giant's spire crumbled with a sound like a tree snapping in half. It's outer sheath of tendrils exploded from the top down, raining stone and wood shards as the giant shook himself free and climbed out of the earth.

Porphyrion was much taller than Enceladus, and even more ripped. He didn't radiate heat, or show any signs of breathing fire, but there was something more terrible about him—a kind of strength, even magnetism, as if the giant were so huge and dense he had his own gravitational field.

Like Enceladus, the giant king was humanoid from the waist up, clad in bronze armor, and from the waist down he had scaly dragon's legs; but his skin was the color of Lima beans. His hair was green as summer leaves, braided in long locks and decorated with weapons—daggers, axes, and full size swords, some of them bent and bloody—maybe trophies taken from demigods eons before. When the giant opened his eyes, they were blank white, like polished marble. He took a deep breath.

"Alive!" he bellowed. "Praise to Gaea!"

"Leo," Jason said.

"Huh?" Leo's mouth was wide open. Even Piper seemed dazed.

"You guys keep working," Jason said. "Get Hera free!"

"What are you going to do?" Piper asked. "You can't seriously—"

"I can and I will," Ariadne said. "There's no choice. We're gonna be giant bait. And maybe, I can get close enough to sever his nasty head from his already nasty body."

"Excellent!" the giant roared as Ariadne and Jason approached. "An appetizer! Who are you—Hermes? Ares?"

"I'm Jason Grace," he said. "Son of Jupiter."

Those white eyes bored into him. Behind them, Leo's circular saw whirred, and Piper talked to the cage in soothing tones, trying to keep the fear out of her voice.

Porphyrion threw back his head and laughed. "Outstanding!" He looked up at the cloudy night sky. "So, Zeus, you sacrifice a son to me? The gesture is appreciated, but it will not save you."

The sky didn't even rumble. No help from above.

"If you knew who I was," Jason yelled up at the giant, "you'd be worried about me, not my father. I hope you enjoyed your two and a half minutes of rebirth, giant, because I'm going to send you right back to Tartarus."

The giant's eyes narrowed. He planted one foot outside the pool and crouched to get a better look at his opponent. "So...we'll start by boasting, will we? Just like old times! Very well, demigod. I am Porphyrion, king of the giants, son of Gaea. In olden times, I rose from Tartarus, the abyss of my father, to challenge the gods. To start the war, I still Zeus's queen." He grinned at the goddess's cage. "Hello, Hera."

"My husband destroyed you once, monster!" Hera said. "He'll do it again!"

"But he didn't, my dear! Zeus wasn't powerful enough to kill me. He had to rely on a puny demigod to help, and even then, we almost won. This time, we will complete what we started. Gaea is waking. She had provisioned us with many fine servants. Our armies will shake the earth—and we will destroy you at the roots."

"You wouldn't dare," Hera said, but she was weakening. Piper kept whispering to the cage, and Leo kept sawing, but the earth was still rising inside Hera's prison, covering up to her waist.

"Oh, yes," giant said. "The Titans sought to attack your new home in New York. Bold, but ineffective. Gaea is wiser and more patient. And we; her greatest children, are much, much stronger than Kronos. We know how to kill you Olympians once and for all. You must be dug up completely like rotten trees—your eldest roots torn out and burned."

The giant frowned at Piper and Leo, as if he'd just noticed them working at the cage. Ariadne stepped forward.

"If demigods are so puny, how come one killed you the last time?" she shouted.

"Hai! You think I would explain it to you, Daughter of the Vines? I was created to be Zeus's replacement, born to destroy the lord of the sky. I shall take his throne. I shall take his wife—or, if she will not save me, I will let the earth consume her life force. What you see before you, child, is only my weakened form. I will grow stronger by the hour, until I am invincible. But I am already quite capable of smashing you to a grease spot!"

He rose to his full height and held out his hand. A twenty-foot spear shot from the earth. He grasped it, then stomped the ground with his dragon's feet. The ruins shook. All around the courtyard, monsters started to regather—storm spirits, wolves, and Earthborn, all answering the giant king's call.

"Great," Leo muttered. "We needed more enemies."

"Hurry," Hera said.

"I know!" Leo snapped.

"Go to sleep, cage," Piper said. "Nice, sleepy cage. Yes, I'm talking to a bunch of Earthborn tendrils. This isn't weird at all."

Porphyrioj raked his spear across the top of the ruins, destroying a chimney and spraying wood and stone across the courtyard. "So, child of Zeus! I have finished my boasting. How it's your turn. What were you saying about destroying me?"

Jason looked at the ring of monsters, waiting impatiently for their master's order to tear them to shred. Ariadne clenched her jaw. Leo's circular saw kept whirring, and Piper kept talking, but it seemed hopeless. Hera's cage was almost completely filled with earth.

"I'm the son of Jupiter!" he shouted, and just for effect, he summoned the winds, rising a few feet off the ground. "I'm a child of Rome, consul to demigods, praetor of the First Legion." 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, Porphyrion 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, Porphyrion, and feed you to your own wolves."

"Wow, dude," Leo muttered. "You been eating red meat?"

Jason launched himself at the giant, determined to tear him apart.

Ariadne focused on all the monsters.

Half flying, half leaping, Jason landed on the giant's scaly reptilian knee and climbed up the giant's arm before Porphyrion even realized what had happened.

"You dare?" the giant bellowed.

Jason reached his shoulders and ripped a sword out of the giant's weapon filled braids. He tossed it down to Ariadne, who wasn't that pleased with the unfamiliar weight, grabbed it and raised it high. Jason yelled, "For Rome!" and drive his sword into the nearest convenient target—the giant's massive ear.

Lightning streaked out of the sky and blasted the sword, throwing Jason free. He rolled when he hit the ground. When he looked up, the giant was staggering. His hair was on fire, and the side of his face was blackened from lightning. The sword had splintered in his ear. Golden ichor ran down his jaw. The other weapons were sparking and smoldering in his braids.

Porphyrion almost fell. The circle of monsters let out a collective growl and move forward—wolves and ogres fixing their eyes on Jason.

"No!" Porphyrioj yelled. He regained his balance and glared at the demigod. "I will kill him myself."

The giant raised his spear and it began to glow. "You want to play with lightning, boy? You forgot. I am the bane of Zeus. I was created to destroy your father, which means I know exactly what will kill you."

But as the giant raised his spear, he stopped. His body jerked to the side. Jason gasped while he spear stabbed into the ground, Porphyrion struggled against whatever had him in its hold.

Just then, they both noticed the ring of monsters twitching on the ground. Earthborn were in puddles, mixed with some sort of dark liquid, while the wolves attempted to stand, turning futile.

Golden ichor began trickling even faster down the giant's jaw. It slowly turned a deep burgundy shade. The giant had began to shrivel.

"This isn't the first time I've handled a child of Gaea," Ariadne hissed, her hand clenching into a fist, forcing the giant to groan loudly. "If anything, I've learned that Gaea produces the weakest children I've ever faced."

Porphyrion struggled in her hold. "What—is—this?"

She gave him a dark grin. "Think of it as a little curse of Dionysus. Despite you being a supposed 'giant,' you still have blood running through your veins, and my brothers taught me a way to use that to my advantage."

His arm flipped up and down, his spear being held limply in his hand. Jason had never seen anything like it, nor the cruel look on Ariadne.

"Got it!" Leo yelled.

"Sleep!" Piper said, so forcefully, Jason looked ready to bake for years.

The stone and wood cage crumbled. Leo had sawed through the base of the thickest tendril and apparently cut off the cage's connection to Gaea. The tendrils turned to dust. The mud around Hera disintegrated. The goddess grew in size, glowing with power.

"Yes!" the goddess said. She threw off her black robes to reveal a white gown, her arms bedecked with golden jewelry. Her face was both terrible and beautiful, and a golden crown flowed in her long black hair. "Now I shall have my revenge!"

The giant Porphyrion backed away, struggling. He said nothing, but he gave Jason one last look of hatred, and Ariadne a look of pure fear as she let him go. Then he slammed his spear against the earth, and the giant disappeared into the ground like he'd dropped down a chute.

Around the courtyard, monsters began to panic and retreat as Ariadne returned their blood back to normal, but there was no escape from them.

Hera glowed brighter. She shouted, "Cover your eyes, my heroes!"

But Jason was too much in shock. He understood too late.

Ariadne shut her eyes and turned away, the feeling of a supernova exploding in a ring of force that vaporized every monster instantly. Her back felt a burning sensation, before it eventually cooled down.

When she opened her eyes, there was nothing but ashes, and a blond hero lying on the ground, unmoving.

authors note:

Yo yo

Hey guys! Decided to write instead of doing school work because that's stupid and boring

I'm waiting on an email from my job thingy so I can start soon. Been waiting for a fucking week which is so stupid to me and I've called them three times with nothing in return

So yeah

Q: how do you think Ari's gonna take care of Gaea?
A: obviously, author here so I can't spiky anything, but I will disclose that it is going to be badass

Hope you guys enjoyed this!

Comment what you're excited for and your favorite parts so far!

Love you guys!