Freak || Percy Jackson x OC

One Hundred and Ninety-Six: Grandpa gets angry

PERCY

˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀

The bridge to Olympus was dissolving. Annabeth, Percy, Thalia, and Grover stepped out of the elevator onto the white marble walkway, and immediately cracks appeared at their feet.

"Jump!" Grover said, which was easy for him since he's part mountain goat. He sprang to the next slab of stone while the demigods' tilted sickeningly.

"Gods, I hate heights!" Thalia yelled as she and Percy leaped. But Annabeth was in no shape for jumping. She stumbled and yelled, "Thalia!"

Thalia lunged, crying Annabeth's name, and she barely grasped her hand. Annabeth gasped as Thalia hauled her back up, her grey eyes alight. Percy remembered seeing her look like that in a distant memory- when she was a seven-year-old girl, and someone finally protected her and loved her for the first time.

"Keep moving!" Grover tugged Percy's shoulder. The demigods sprinted across the sky bridge as more stones disintegrated and fell into oblivion. They made it to the edge of the mountain just as the final section collapsed.

Annabeth looked back at the elevator, which was now completely out of reach- a polished set of metal doors hanging in space, attached to nothing, six hundred stories above Manhattan.

"We're marooned." She said. "On our own."

"Blah-ha-ha!" Grover said. "The connection between Olympus and America is dissolving. If it fails- "

"The gods won't move on to another country this time." Thalia said. "This will be the end of Olympus. The final end."

The demigods ran through streets. Mansions were burning. Statues had been hacked down. Trees in the parks were blasted to splinters. It looked like someone had attacked the city with a giant Weedwacker.

"Kronos's scythe." Percy said. The demigods followed the winding path toward the palace of the gods. Percy didn't remember the road being so long. Maybe Kronos was making time go slower, or maybe it was just dread slowing Percy down. The whole mountaintop was in ruins- so many beautiful buildings and gardens gone.

A few minor gods and nature spirits had tried to stop Kronos. What remained of them was strewn about the road: shattered armor, ripped clothing, swords and spears broken in half.

Somewhere ahead, Kronos's voice roared: "Brick by brick! That was my promise. Tear it down BRICK BY BRICK!"

A white marble temple with a gold dome suddenly exploded. The dome shot up like the lid of a teapot and shattered into a billion pieces, raining rubble over the city.

"That was a shrine to Artemis." Thalia grumbled. "He'll pay for that."

The demigods were running under the marble archway with the huge statues of Zeus and Hera when the entire mountain groaned, rocking sideways like a boat in a storm.

"Look out!" Grover yelped. The archway crumbled. Percy looked up in time to see a twenty-ton scowling Hera topple over on the demigods. Annabeth and Percy would've been flattened, but Thalia shoved them from behind and they landed just out of danger.

"Thalia!" Grover cried.

When the dust cleared and the mountain stopped rocking, the trio found Thalia still alive, but her legs were pinned under the statue. They tried desperately to move it, but it would've taken several Cyclopes. When they tried to pull Thalia out from under it, she yelled in pain.