Love Against All Odds

Jason - Extraction Squad

At first, Jason thought Leo must have hit his head too hard. But then, out of his eye, he spotted a dark shape descending from the east. It was moving too slowly to be a plane and far too large to be a bird. As it came closer, Jason could make out the details—two winged animals, grey and four-legged, unmistakably horses. Except these horses had wings nearly twenty feet each, pulling a brightly painted, two-wheeled chariot.

"Reinforcements," Jason muttered. "Coach Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us."

"Extraction squad?" Leo groaned as he struggled to get to his feet. "That sounds... painful."

"And where exactly are they extracting us to?" Piper asked, her brows furrowed.

Jason watched as the chariot gracefully descended, landing with precision on the far end of the skywalk. The winged horses, their vast, mighty wings folding tightly against their sides, seemed uneasy as their hooves clattered across the glass. They moved cautiously as though they could sense the fragility of the structure beneath them, each step tentative, as if the ground might shatter beneath their weight at any moment.

Standing tall in the chariot were three figures, each distinct yet commanding in their presence. The first was a girl with long, blonde hair that fell in waves around her shoulders. She looked a little older than Jason, but something about her—her sharp grey eyes, the determined set of her jaw—made her seem far older in spirit. She moved with a sense of purpose, her entire demeanour radiating focus and intensity, like someone who had seen more battles than she should have at her age.

Next to her was a massive guy with a shaved head, his face like it had been chiselled from stone, all hard angles and unforgiving lines. His sheer size was intimidating enough—broad shoulders that seemed to dwarf the chariot itself, arms thick with muscle—but the way he stood, like a sentinel, made him even more imposing. His expression was unreadable, but his presence alone sent a clear message: he was not someone to be messed with. His orange camp T-shirt strained over his muscular chest, the rainbow tattoo on his bicep peeking from beneath the sleeve.

And then there was the third figure. A handsome older guy, probably seventeen or eighteen, with tousled brown hair that looked like he had just rolled out of bed but made it work in that infuriating, effortlessly cool way. He wore a white T-shirt under a weathered leather jacket, and how he leaned casually against the side of the chariot made him look like he had stepped straight out of a boy band or an old movie. His blue eyes sparkled with an easy charm, and he had a half-smirk on his face like he was enjoying something only he knew about. He looked out of place among the other two, like he should be in a magazine spread rather than riding a chariot pulled by winged horses.

Jason narrowed his eyes, unsure of what to make of this trio. There was no mistaking the power radiating from them, but they seemed an odd mix—like they had been thrown together by circumstance rather than choice.

Before the chariot had even come to a complete stop, the blonde girl leapt off, a knife already drawn, as she sprinted toward Jason's group. Her movements were precise and controlled, and her grey and fierce eyes were locked onto them with an intensity that made Jason instinctively tense.

"Where is he?" the girl demanded, her tone sharp.

Jason blinked. "Where's who?"

Her expression soured; it was not the answer she wanted. She turned toward Leo and Piper. "What about Gleeson? Where's your protector, Gleeson Hedge?"

Jason nearly laughed despite the situation. Gleeson? Coach Hedge's first name was Gleeson? The idea of their football coach—a goat-man—being named Gleeson almost tipped him over the edge. But the day had already been far too weird to laugh about anything.

Leo coughed awkwardly. "Uh, yeah. He got grabbed by some... tornado things."

"Venti," Jason corrected, feeling the need to clarify. "Storm spirits."

The guy who looked like he'd just stepped off the set of a movie strode toward them with effortless grace, stepping off the chariot as if he'd been born to it. He was tall—easily over six feet four—and imposing in a way that was hard to describe. His presence was commanding, but there was a warmth to him that softened the impact. He had a friendly expression, his blue eyes crinkling at the edges as he smiled, which stood in stark contrast to the severe energy radiating from the blonde girl who looked ready to kill someone.

The guy's leather jacket flared out slightly as he moved, the well-worn material giving him an air of casual confidence. Seeing someone so relaxed in such a tense situation was strange, almost disarming. The contrast between him and his companion, who was all sharp edges and intensity with a knife drawn, was almost jarring. He looked completely out of place, as if he belonged in a coffee shop or on a magazine cover rather than being part of an extraction team amid a potential battle.

As he approached, he caught the tail end of Jason's comment. He raised an eyebrow, "You mean anemoi thuellai?" he said, "That's the Greek term."

The girl narrowed her eyes at Jason as if sizing him up. "Who are you, and what happened?"

Jason did his best to explain, though keeping his thoughts straight under the weight of her intense grey stare was hard. About halfway through, the other figure from the chariot approached. The guy—built like a wall, his biceps bulging—crossed his arms and glared at them. Jason noticed a tattoo of a rainbow wrapped around the guy's arm, which seemed a bit unexpected on someone who looked like he could benchpress a car.

The girl's face twisted in frustration when Jason finally finished the story. "No, no, no!" she muttered, pacing. "She told me he would be here, Butch. She said if I came here, I'd find the answer."

"Annabeth," the bald guy, Butch, grunted, his voice as gravelly as he looked. He nodded toward Jason's feet. "Check it out."

Jason blinked, glancing down at himself. He hadn't thought much about it, but he was still missing his left shoe. It had been blown off by lightning earlier, and his foot—now covered in soot—looked like a lump of charcoal.

"The guy with one shoe," the movie star guy said. "He's the answer."

The girl, Annabeth, turned to glare at Jason, clearly unimpressed. "No, Oskar, he can't be." Her voice cracked with frustration. "I was tricked. This isn't the answer." She lifted her eyes to the sky as if accusing the gods. "What do you want from me?" she screamed, her voice echoing across the skywalk. "What have you done with him?"

The ground beneath their feet trembled as the skywalk shuddered, and the winged horses whinnied in alarm.

"Annabeth," Butch said, stepping closer, "we gotta go. Let's get these three to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back."

Annabeth clenched her fists, her chest rising and falling as she fought to contain her frustration. After a long moment, she spun on her heel. "Fine," she snapped, fixing Jason with a look that could cut steel. "We'll settle this later."

Without another word, she marched back toward the chariot, her shoulders tense with barely restrained anger.

Piper shook her head in confusion. "What's her problem? What's going on?"

"Seriously," Leo agreed, glancing at Jason. "What was that about?"

Butch stepped forward, his expression softening just slightly. "Look, we need to get you all out of here. I'll explain on the way."

Jason frowned, his gaze darting between Butch and the retreating figure of Annabeth. "I'm not going anywhere with her," he said, gesturing toward the blonde. "She looks like she wants to kill me."

Oskar hesitated, then sighed. "Annabeth's okay. You gotta give her a break. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the key to her problem."

"What problem?" Piper asked.

Butch's face darkened, his voice quieter now. "She's been looking for one of our campers. He's been missing. She's been out of her mind trying to find him. She thought he'd be here."

"Who?" Jason asked, already dreading the answer.

"Her boyfriend," Oskar said. "A guy named Percy Jackson."