Titan Of The Hunt

An Oath to Keep with a Final Breath

All rights belong to Rick Riordan

Chapter 9

An Oath to Keep with a Final Breath

(Percy)

I could do practically nothing as the ship started explode around me. All I could was curl into a ball and hope the curse protected most of my body, while my shield defended my weak point strapped to my back as it was. The small golden figure of Nemea in my arms seemed to understand as well and had coiled up tightly with her head between her forepaws protecting her vulnerable face from the heat. Now I knew from my prior experience at Mount St. Helens, that I was pretty resistant to heat. So, I initially hoped the flames would die out quickly before they became unbearable. Unfortunately for me however, the numerous rents in the falling ship's hull fed the flames with a constant supply of fresh oxygen, only worsening the situation as everything flammable on board started to burn.

The only stroke of luck I had was whatever hit us, had shorn the ship in half as the ammo for the ballistae and cannon had been stored in the bow section and I felt the pressure wave strike my part of the ship when they detonated.

I began to reach out with my senses to see if there was anything left on board that could help me but all water had long since evaporated stopping that trail of hope dead in its tracks. So I thought of what other abilities could be of use, earthquakes no, weapons no, time no... wait, maybe it was a chance.

Hurriedly I began to focus on my surroundings and choosing to try and accelerate time on everything nearby. To my satisfied surprise my actions ended up blowing out the fires around me as I changed everything combustible to an already burnt stage about 15 minutes in the future. With the immediate threat to me cleared I risked a look around.

I was still in the cargo hold several feet away from the massive hole, where the ship had split giving me a great view of the rapidly rising earth. As if Gaia was personally laughing in my face at the situation, I was stuck in. Nemea too had uncurled herself now it was safer and climbed onto my shoulders as we studied the end approaching.

"You're lucky you are a cat, if you jumped you would probably land on your feet and walk it off. I would make a demigod/titan pancake spread across half the countryside" I joked to the wide-eyed cat. That was when it came to me. A slim chance for the both of us to get out of this, after all I had protected her, now it was her time to repay the favour.

I concentrated on the cub in front of me trying to do what I had before and make her age, my plan was simple: make her an adult again and we would leap to safety when we were a few stories off the ground. The problem was I couldn't remember how I did it, my time powers seemed to be rather picky about when they would activate and now was really not the time. I continued to focus on the cub but keeping an eye on the ground only about a thousand feet below. When I suddenly thought it was now or never and threw my energy at the weave of time in my head only to be surrounded by golden light.

When I opened my eyes, all I could see was an enormous golden head of a fully grown Nemean Lioness before she grabbed me in her teeth and ripped her way through what was left of the hull beneath us and we fell the last few hundred feet to the ground.

Now when people say a cat always lands on its feet, they are full of crap as Nemea proved she did land on her feet... then her face (her teeth clamping down on me as a result) before rolling on her back and eventually stopping spread eagle on the floor and dropping me. Just in time for us to see the Argo II strike the floor and explode several hundred yards ahead of us. Even from that distance debris thrown into the sky began to fall back down around me, though thankfully nothing to major. Last thing I needed was to get crushed under a lump of bronze armour plating.