𝐆𝐎𝐋𝐃 𝐑𝐔𝐒𝐇 [Jason Grace]

102

𝐒𝐨 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥.

The last Dante saw of his dad, was Hermes pointing finger guns at him as they went below deck on the Argo II. Only Jason and Leo remained on the deck.

Dante heard Zeus yell, "HOLD ON!"

Then he tossed the ship so hard Dante went sprawling inside. It was not doing his stomach any favors. As it was, his organs tried to stay behind in Greece and all the air was sucked out of his lungs.

The ship rattled and creaked. The floor cracked like thin ice under Dante's legs and, with a sonic boom, the Argo II flew.

Dante and the others hurried to the hatch leading above deck. Frank and Hazel stumbled through first.

Jason was strapped to the harness like Leo and his face was ashen. His expression only relaxed a bit when his eyes landed on Dante.

He had Piper in front of him and Annabeth and Percy behind. They all pulled on the guide rope they'd attached to the mast. Dante hoped everyone else was as disoriented as he felt.

"Go!" Leo yelled. "Go, go, go!"

For once, Leo's tone was deadly serious.

They'd talked through their evacuation plan, but that slap across the world had made Dante's mind sluggish. Judging from the others' expressions, they weren't in much better shape.

Buford the table saved them. He clattered across the deck with his holographic Hedge blaring, "LET'S GO! MOVE IT! CUT THAT OUT!"

Then his tabletop split into helicopter blades and Buford buzzed away.

Frank changed form. Instead of a dazed demigod, he was now a dazed grey dragon. Hazel and Piper climbed onto his neck. Frank grabbed Percy and Annabeth in his front claws, then spread his wings and soared away.

Jason held Dante by the waist, ready to fly, but he, like Dante, made the mistake of glancing down. The view was a spinning kaleidoscope of sky, earth, sky, earth. The ground was getting awfully close.

"Leo, you won't make it!" Jason shouted. "Come with us!"

"No! Get out of here!"

"Valdez," Dante glared at him.

"I told you lovebirds, I have a plan."

Fuck the Greeks and their idiotic, impertinent tendencies.

Dante took a last look at the splintering ship.

The Argo II had been their home for so long. Now they were abandoning it for good— and leaving Leo behind.

Dante hated it, but he saw the determination in Leo's eyes.

Jason harnessed the winds, and he and Dante shot into the sky.

⭒☆☆⭒

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐬𝐧'𝐭 𝐦𝐮𝐜𝐡 𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜.

As they plummeted, Dante saw a vast army of monsters spread across the hills— cynocephali, two-headed men, wild centaurs, ogres and others he couldn't even name— surrounding two tiny islands of demigods. At the crest of a hill with a lone pine tree (Dante assumed it was Jason's sister's pine tree), gathered at the feet of the Athena Parthenos, was the main force of Camp Half-Blood along with the First and Fifth Cohorts, rallied around the golden eagle of the legion. The other three Roman cohorts were in a defensive formation several hundred yards away and seemed to be taking the brunt of the attack.