REMEMBER ME ---- BOOK I / Heroes of Olympus / Leo Valdez Fanfiction

NOT COOOOOOOOOOL! - Leo Valdez, The Lost Hero

PIPER THUMBLED THROUGH THE SKY. Far below she saw city lights glimmering in the early dawn, and several hundred yards away the body of the bronze dragon spinning out of control, its wings limp, fire flickering in its mouth like a badly wired lightbulb.

A body shot past her—Leo, screaming and frantically grabbing at the clouds. "Not coooooool!"

She tried to call to him, but he was already too far below. Then another body flew past her arms. Penelope. She'd had fainted, in-between falling down a flying mechanical dragon.

Somewhere above her, Jason yelled, "Piper, level out! Extend your arms and legs! Grab Penelope!"

It was hard to control her fear, but she did what he said and regained some balance. She fell spread-eagle like a skydiver, the wind underneath her like a solid block of ice. Then Jason was there, wrapping his arms around her waist. His arms were extended.

Thank god, Piper thought. But part of her also thought: Great. Second time this week he's hugged me, and both times it's because I'm plummeting to my death.

"We have to get Leo and Penelope!" she 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!"

Piper locked her arms around him, and Jason shot toward the ground. Piper probably screamed, but the sound was ripped from her mouth. Her vision blurred.

And then, thump! They slammed into another warm body—Leo, still wriggling and cursing.

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

"Penelope!" Leo yelled. "You gotta save her!"

"She'll survive!" Jason screamed. "She has woken up!"

"What?!" Leo screamed back. Piper looked down and saw Penelope with her arrow pointing down the ground. She shot her arrow down towards the earth but the harsh winds hit the arrow right in the arm. That's when Piper realized that Penelope was fighting storm spirits.

Jason was already struggling to keep the three of them aloft, and Piper knew there was no way he could help a fifty-ton metal dragon or another demigod. But before she could do anything she heard 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 an air cushion beneath them, but intermittent slow-downs were the best he could manage. Rather than free-falling, it felt like they were bouncing down a giant staircase, a hundred feet at a time, which wasn't doing Piper's stomach any favors.

As they wobbled and zigzagged, Piper could make out details of the factory complex below—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—or skykill—when Jason groaned, "I can't—"

And she prepared herself to feel stones clashing against her body. But she hit the roof of the largest warehouse and crashed through into darkness, and then got engulfed in a golden net, that slowed down her fall, did not stop it, as she soon face planted down on the floor.

Unfortunately, Piper tried to land on her feet. Her feet didn't like that. Pain flared in her left ankle as she crumpled against a cold metal surface.

For a few seconds she wasn't conscious of anything but pain—pain so bad that her ears rang and her vision went blue.

She saw a figure bleeding from their forehead and a huge arrow stuck through her arm. Penelope.

"Argh" she groaned. Then she went silent.