A Dance With Fate// Arya Jackson//

Chapter Eighteen: Helping Hands

"And sometimes, against all odds, against all logic, we hope."

18. 

Helping Hands 

~

"What was your battle like on Mount Tam last year?"

He answered, "Terrifying. I only said yes so I could protect Jason and Cato and I ended up sliding past the army and keeping my distance, I kept them alive. There was no thrill, it was pure heart-dropping adrenaline." 

~

HE'S SAID IT ONCE, HE'S SAID IT A MILLION TIMES.

Gods were a rarity in the legion. Most went their whole lives without meeting one. Ace had met more than his fair share, which seemed to run with the territory when traveling with the Jackson siblings. He was already convinced that his friends weren't going to believe him when it was all said and done.

They certainly wouldn't believe this.

Ace struggles to think much of himself, but he is never one to give in easily. He would have continued to slice up giants until he dropped dead and still have hope in his heart that they could have won.

Then everything stopped, Percy's blood hit the ground, Gaia rising and Ace realized that they had lost. For a moment he felt like dropping to his knees and just giving in. There was nothing they could do without the gods...

In an instant, as the ground shifted below them, the sky parted above them. Ace was more than confused. Gaia didn't have any kind of domain in the sky, her awakening shouldn't be able to part the clouds.

"Fuck." Arya said, her eyes glued to the stars shining through the split.

One after another figures entered into the air above the Parthenon, for a moment Ace thought it was more enemies. No, not enemies... gods.

Ace had never seen most of them, but it was not hard to put faces to names. Zeus rode out first on a mighty chariot flickering with lightning, a bolt in his hand. Two of the wind gods that the crew knew followed. Hera next, followed by Ares with a nasty growl. Athena and Aphrodite, Hephaestus with his machines, Dionysus, Nike from the ship, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter. Then lastly as if trying to avoid being noticed; Apollo and Artemis brought up the flank.

"They can die." Arya said at first to herself, then she looked around at her friends, "THEY CAN DIE!"

Arya's gaze finished on Ace and she smiled at him. "LET'S FINISH THIS!"

The giants roared in unison, re-gaining their wits and charging with no fear. Arya let out a nightmarish battle cry that managed to overcome all the giants combined. She launched off her feet for attack as the gods descended.

Ace thought it was a funny fate that Thoon was the giant in front of him, the very one meant to oppose the three ladies themselves. He was old and wrinkled, with milky-eyes that didn't seem to work overly well. Ace wouldn't dare underestimate him, he moved fast, even for a giant, with precision swings that could kill in an instant.

This was realized as Ace hardly managed to evade a b;ow of the giant's meat cleaver, making his dodge messy. He stumbled a few steps before he found hands on his shoulders to steady. Lady Artemis stood in front of him, looking far more like a fearsome god, than the twelve-year-old he had met on Delos.

"We came for you." She said simply.

The giant roared behind them for another attack. Ace pulled out his sword and pointed it at the giant letting out a solar flare right into his neck. The giants stumbled back a few steps, then a few steps more when three consecutive arrows landed right next to one another in his neck.