THE HEALER| Heroes of Olympus

f i v e

The goddess raised her spear.

"Hold that thought!" I quickly tried to come up with a plan. "You haven't seen my best trick yet. I have a weapon guaranteed to win any contest!"

Nike hesitated. "What weapon? What do you mean?"

I looked around and saw Leo's  Archimedes sphere sitting on the ground not to far from me. He must've dropped it while running. I quickly grabbed it. 

I grimaced remembering this was the one he'd spent a whole thirty seconds modifying before we entered the stadium. 

"How many laurel wreaths have you got? Because I'm gonna win them all." I fiddled with dials, hoping I remembered what Leo told me. 

"Behold!" I clicked the final dial. The sphere opened. One side elongated into a gun handle. The other side unfolded into a miniature radar dish made of Celestial bronze mirrors.

Nike frowned. "What is that supposed to be?"

"Great question!" I had absolutely no clue. "Obviously it's a death ray!" I was ashamed that that was my only idea. "Now give me all the prizes."

"Those things don't work!" Nike yelled. "They proved it on television! Besides, I'm an immortal goddess. You can't destroy me!"

"Watch closely," I said. "Are you watching?"

Nike could've zapped me into a grease spot or speared me like a cheese wedge, but her curiosity got the best of her. She stared straight into the dish. I had only one good idea. I pretended to click a button but instead I summoned sunlight. I had been practicing lately and had gotten quite good at it. 

The blazing beam of light shined in her eyes and left her seeing spots.

"Gah!" The goddess staggered. She dropped her spear and clutched at her eyes. "I'm blind! I'm blind!"

I clicked the button Leo told me to. It collapsed back into a sphere and began to hum. I counted silently to three, then tossed the sphere at the goddess's feet.

FOOM! Metal filaments shot upward, wrapping Nike in a bronze net. She wailed, falling sideways as the net constricted, forcing her two forms – Greek and Roman – into a quivering, out-of-focus whole.

"Trickery!" Her doubled voices buzzed like muffled alarm clocks. "Your death ray did not even kill me!"

"I don't need to kill you," I said. "I vanquished you just fine."

"I will simply change form!" she cried. "I will rip apart your silly net! I will destroy you!"

"Yeah, see, you can't." I hoped I was right. "That's high-quality Celestial bronze netting, and Leo's a son of Hephaestus. He's kind of an expert on catching goddesses in nets."

"No. Nooooo!"

I left her thrashing and cursing, and went to check on my friends. Leo looked all right, just sore and bruised. Jasper had propped Hazel up and was feeding her ambrosia. The cut on her leg had stopped bleeding, though her jeans were pretty much ruined.

"I'm okay," she said. "Just too much magic."

"You were awesome, Levesque." Leo did his best Hazel imitation: "Popcorn! Our fatal weakness!"

She smiled wanly. Together the four of us walked over to Nike, who was still writhing and flapping her wings in the net like a golden chicken.

"What do we do with her?" Jasper asked.

"Take her aboard the Argo II," Leo said. "Chuck her in one of the horse stalls."

Hazel's eyes widened. "You're going to keep the goddess of victory in the stable?"