misplaced || l. valdez

16 || great, we're falling now and the evil earth lady shows up

° ~ •. ♆ chapter sixteen ♆ .• ~ °
"great, we're falling now and the evil earth lady shows up"

Mari tumbled through the sky screaming. "This is it." she thought. "Zeus's had enough and he wants to kill me." Far below she saw city lights glimmering in the early dawn, and several hundred yards away the body of the bronze dragon spinning out of control, its wings limp, fire flickering in its mouth like a badly wired lightbulb.

A body shot past her, though she couldn't tell who, screaming and frantically grabbing at the clouds. Mari grabbed their hand and pulled them closer, holding on for dear life, all while screaming and cursing at the wind. "What the hell is happening?" she yelled.

The person grabbed her other hand to try and steady both of them, but it just made them spin and fall even faster.

"I don't know, but this is so not cool!" the person yelled.

"Leo? Is that you?"

"Yeah! Is this Ma—"

Suddenly, there was a loud thump! and two other people slammed into them. Mari and Leo started cursing and wiggling again while an arm wrapped around them, trying to hold the two of them.

"Stop fighting!" Jason said. "It's us!"

Jason and Piper were only met with even more screaming and cursing. Jason was struggling to keep all four of them aloft, and there was some kind of force that was pushing them down, way stronger than gravity. There was a loud crash and something exploded below them. A fireball rolled into the sky from behind a warehouse complex, and Leo sobbed, "Festus!"

Jason's face reddened with strain as he tried to maintain an air cushion beneath them, but intermittent slow-downs were the best he could manage. Rather than free-falling, it felt like they were bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time, which wasn't doing Mari's already sick feeling any favors.

As they wobbled and zig-zagged, Mari could make out the details of the factory complex below— warehouses, smokestacks, barbed-wire fences, and parking lots lined with snow-covered vehicles. They were still high enough so that hitting the ground would flatten them into roadkill— or skykill— when Jason groaned, "I can't—"

And then they dropped like stones.

They hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through into the darkness. Somehow, Mari was still holding onto someone, but she couldn't tell who since she'd somehow gotten detached from the other two. She heard a loud groan and tried to get up as quickly as possible, but she slipped on their jacket and fell again. "Ow!"

Mari's eyes adjusted to the darkness and she finally saw who she had fallen on top of— Leo. The two made eye contact and their faces turned red before scrambling to get up. Then they heard Jason's voice somewhere around them, echoing through the building. "Piper! Where's Piper?"

"Gee, thanks for all the concern, man." Leo said.

"Here." Piper whimpered above them.

They saw Jason running a couple feet away from them running up a flight of stairs. Mari took Leo's hand before following Jason up to a metal catwalk that ringed the warehouse interior. As they ran, Mari thought she felt her hand getting warmer, but before she could do anything, she felt her hand being patted down. She turned to Leo in confusion, but he just gave her a sheepish grin and a thumbs up.