𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔾𝕣𝕖𝕒𝕥 𝕎𝕒𝕣||HoO

𝐗𝐈

AT FIRST Maisie thought she was still dreaming. She let out a scream of terror as she free-fell though the sky, realizing this was not a dream.

Far below the lights of a city she didn't recognize gleamed in the early dawn. A few hundred yards away the body of the bronze dragon was spinning out of control, wings limp, and fire flicker in it its mouth like a badly wire lightbulb.

Below her, she saw Piper and Leo, Leo shouting something she couldn't hear over the wind in her ears.

"Piper, Maisie," Jason shouted somewhere above her, "level out! Extend your arms and legs!"

Maisie did what he said, trusting that he as a son of Zeus knew what he was talking about. Jason grabbed her, then flew down and grabbed Piper.

"We have to get Leo!" Piper shouted.

Their fall slowed as Jason controlled the winds, but they still lurched up and down like the winds didn't want to cooperate.

"Gonna get rough," Jason warned. "Hold on!"

Maisie gripped onto him, and Jason shot toward the ground. Piper let out a scream, then they crashed into something, actually someone - Leo, who was still wiggling and cursing.

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

"My dragon!" Leo yelled. "You gotta save Festus!"

Jason was already struggling to keep the four of them aloft, and Maisie knew there was no way he could help a fifty-ton metal dragon. But before anyone could try to reason with Leo, there was an explosion 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 the air cushion beneath them, but intermittent slow-downs were the best he could manage. Rather than free-falling, if felt like they were bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time. Maisie decided she much preferred flying with Lina than she did with Jason.

As they wobbled and zigzagged, Maisie was able to make out some details of the factory complex below them - 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, when Jason groaned, "I can't-"

And they dropped like stones.

Luckily they hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through it, slowing down their fall just a bit so the weren't instantly killed when they hit the ground.

Maisie tried to catch herself by sticking her hand out, but her wrist did not thank her for that. Pain shot up her arm as she hit the cold hard surface.

Maisie groaned as she sat up. She winced in pain, and glanced down at her wound on her side. She didn't want to check on it in front of all her friends, so she just tried to ignore it.

Jason and Leo were lying on the ground a few feet away from her. Jason tried to get up, and shouted something, but Maisie couldn't hear over the sound of ringing in her ears. Leo said something to Jason, then shouted something else.

Maisie took a few deep breaths and her ears cleared, reducing the ringing to only a minor annoyance.

There was a whimper that sounded like Piper, "Here."

Jason and Leo stood up. Jason glanced over at her, then down at her wrist.

"I'll be okay," she assured him. "Go get Piper."

Jason nodded, and him and Leo made their way up the stairs to the catwalk where Piper had landed.

Maisie looked around the room and found they were in an old car factory that looked like it had been abandoned for years.