ONE LAST TIME . . . heroes of olympus

69

OF COURSE THINGS went wrong immediately, because life hated them. The giants vanished in twin puffs of smoke. They reappeared halfway across the room, each in a different spot. Percy sprinted toward Ephialtes, but slots in the floor opened under his feet, and metal walls shot up on either side, separating him from everything else.

As Kat watched this, she rolled her eyes. "What the fuck?" she muttered.

To her right, Piper was leaping across a hopscotch pattern of fiery pits, making her way toward Nico, who was dazed and weaponless and being stalked by a pair of leopards. So hot.

Meanwhile Jason ( damn, he had some serious muscle on him ) charged at Otis, who pulled his spear and heaved a great sigh, as if he would much rather dance Swan Lake than kill another demigod.

"Wonderful!" Ephialtes cried. He stood at his control panel a good distance away from Kat. "We'll consider this a dress rehearsal. Shall I unleash the hydra onto the Spanish Steps now?"

He pulled a lever, and Kat glanced above her. A cage with the — you guessed it — hydra in it was now rising toward a hatch in the ceiling. In three seconds it would be gone.

"Cortana!" Kat called, and the sword did her bidding as if it could read her mind. It probably could, let's be real. It sliced through the chains suspending the hydra. The cage tumbled sideways. The door broke open, and the monster spilled out — right in front of her.

"Oh, you are a spoilsport, Mikhailov!" Ephialtes called. "Very well. Battle it here, if you must, but your death won't be nearly as good without the cheering crowds."

"It's Mikhailova, bitch," Kat said, catching her sword in her hand, then she realized the hydra was gearing up to attack. "Oh, fuck."

She rolled to one side as all eight hydra heads spit acid, turning the floor where she'd been standing into a steaming crater of melted stone, miraculously not stabbing herself with her sword.

When she got to her feet, she saw that Percy was staring at her, debating if he should help her or not. "I'll be fine," she said. "Can you, like, do something else now? Like . . . oh, I don't know, stop that fucking giant from destroying the world?"

"Are you seriously blaming me for trying to help you?" he asked.

"Oh my gods, I will literally be fine," she told him. "The blood loss hasn't gone to my head yet, I don't think. Just go!"

He turned and ran off. "Don't cut off its heads!"

"Do you think I'm that stupid?" she retorted, cursing under her breath as the hydra went to follow him instead. "Why are you so dumb? Hey! Look at me! Little guy!"

In desperation, she threw Cortana at the hydra, yelling: "Don't slice the head!"

Luckily, it stabbed cleanly into a junction between two of the heads, and the hydra shrieked and turned to her. Unluckily — or maybe luckily — it started going after her instead.

"Shit, shit, shit," she cursed, turning and running away.

She swung around a water wheel, grabbed a garbage bag full of Wonder bread, and yeeted it at the monster. The hydra spit acid, which was a mistake. The bag and wrappers dissolved in midair. The Wonder bread absorbed the acid like fire extinguisher foam and splattered against the hydra, covering it in a sticky, steaming layer of high-calorie poisonous goo.

As the monster reeled, shaking its heads and blinking Wonder acid out of its eyes, Kat looked around to see if everyone else was alive and thriving. As much as they could be in this situation, anyway.

At the dais, Piper stood guard over Nico as the leopards advanced. She aimed her cornucopia and shot a pot roast over the cats' heads. It must have smelled pretty good, because the leopards raced after it.