Daughter of Pluto | Wattys2017

XXXVIII

TIME SEEMED TO SLOW DOWN, WHICH WAS really frustrating, since I still couldn't move. I felt myself sinking into the earth like the ground was a waterbed—comfortable, urging me to relax and give up. I wondered if the stories of the Underworld were true. Would I end up in the Fields of Punishment or Elysium? If I couldn't remember any of my deeds, would they still count? I wondered if the judges would take that into consideration, or if my dad, Zeus, would write me a note: "Please excuse Jason from eternal damnation. He has had amnesia."

I couldn't feel my arms. I could see the tip of the spear coming toward his chest in slow motion. I knew I should move, but I couldn't seem to do it. Funny, I thought. All that effort to stay alive, and then, boom. You just lie there helplessly while a fire-breathing giant impales you.
No matter what life throws at you,always get the fuck back up,Aimee's voice said in my head.I remembered her always urging me to get back up when she beat me in a duel,to get back up and fight her until I won.

Leo's voice yelled snapping me out of my thoughts, "Heads up!"
Suddenly Aimee came out of nowhere slamming a large rock into Enceladus's side just as a large black metal wedge slammed into Enceladus with a massive thunk! The giant toppled over and slid into the pit.

"Sparky, get the fuck up!" Aimee called from where she was. Her voice energized me, shook me out of my stupor. I sat up, my head groggy, while Piper grabbed me under my arms and hauled me to my feet.

"Don't die on me," she ordered. "You are not dying on me."

"Yes, ma'am." I felt light-headed, but she was about the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Her hair was smoldering. Her face was smudged with soot. She had a cut on her arm, her dress was torn, and she was missing a boot. Beautiful.

About a hundred feet behind her,Aimee was yelling at Leo to and I quote "Hurry the fuck up Valdez!! We gotta go!!" Leo was over a piece of construction equipment—a long cannon like thing with a single massive piston, the edge broken clean off.

Then I looked down in the crater and saw where the other end of the hydraulic ax had gone. Enceladus was struggling to rise, an ax blade the size of a washing machine stuck in his breastplate and a large gash where the rock had hit him..

Amazingly, the giant managed to pull the ax blade free. He yelled in pain and the mountain trembled. Golden ichor soaked the front of his armor, but Enceladus stood.

Shakily, he bent down and retrieved his spear.

"Good try." The giant winced. "But I cannot be beaten."

As they watched, the giant's armor mended itself, and the ichor stopped flowing. Even the cuts on his dragon-scale legs, which me and Aimee had worked so hard to make, were now just pale scars.

Leo ran up to us being pulled by Aimee, saw the giant, and cursed. "What is it with this guy? Die, already!"

"My fate is preordained," Enceladus said. "Giants cannot be killed by gods or heroes."

"Only by both," Aimee said. The giant's smile faltered, and I saw in his eyes something like fear. "It's true, isn't it? Gods and demigods have to work together to kill you."

"You will not live long enough to try!" The giant started stumbling up the crater's slope, slipping on the glassy sides.

"Anyone have a god handy?" Leo asked.

My heart filled with dread. I looked at the giant below us, struggling to get out of the pit, and I knew what had to happen.I looked at Aimee who grabbed my hand,she wasn't letting me do this alone.

"Leo," I said, "if you've got a rope in that tool belt, get it ready."

Me and Aimee leaped at the giant with no weapons but our bare hands.

"Enceladus!" Piper yelled. "Look behind you!"

It was an obvious trick, but her voice was so compelling, even I bought it. The giant said, "What?" and turned like there was an enormous spider on his back.

Me and Aimee tackled his legs at just the right moment. The giant lost his balance. Enceladus slammed into the crater and slid to the bottom. While he tried to rise, We put our arms around the giant's neck. When Enceladus struggled to his feet, we were riding his shoulders.

"Get off!" Enceladus screamed. He tried to grab our legs, but we scrabbled around, squirming and climbing over the giant's hair.

Father, I thought. If I've ever done anything good, anything you approved of, help me now. I offer my own life—just save my friends.

Suddenly I could smell the metallic scent of a storm. Darkness swallowed the sun. The giant froze, sensing it too.

I yelled to my friends, "Hit the deck!"

And every hair on my head stood straight up.

Crack!

Lightning surged through my body, somehow through Aimee, straight through Enceladus, and into the ground. The giant's back stiffened, and I was thrown clear. I made sure to have a tight grip on Aimee's hand so I didn't lose her again. When I regained my bearings, I was slipping down the side of the crater, and the crater was cracking open. The lightning bolt had split the mountain itself. The earth rumbled and tore apart, and Enceladus's legs slid into the chasm. He clawed helplessly at the glassy sides of the pit, and just for a moment managed to hold on to the edge, his hands trembling.

He fixed me with a look of hatred. "You've won nothing, boy. My brothers are rising, and they are ten times as strong as I. We will destroy the gods at their roots! You will die, and Olympus will die with—"

The giant lost his grip and fell into the crevice.
The earth shook. I fell toward the rift still holding onto Aimee.

"Grab hold!" Leo yelled.

My feet were at the edge of the chasm when I grabbed the rope, and Leo and Piper pulled us up.

We stood together, exhausted and terrified, as the chasm closed like an angry mouth. The ground stopped pulling at our feet.

For now, Gaea was gone.

The mountainside was on fire. Smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the air. Aimee spotted a helicopter—maybe firefighters or reporters—coming toward us.

All around us was carnage. The Earthborn had melted into piles of clay, leaving behind only their rock missiles and some nasty bits of loincloth, but I figured they would re-form again soon enough. Construction equipment lay in ruins. The ground was scarred and blackened.

Coach Hedge started to move. He sat up with a groan and rubbed his head. His canary yellow pants were now the color of Dijon mustard mixed with mud.

He blinked and looked around him at the battle scene. "Did I do this?"

Before anyone could reply, Hedge picked up his club and got shakily to his feet. "Yeah, you wanted some hoof? I gave you some hoof, cupcakes! Who's the goat, huh?"

He did a little dance, kicking rocks and making what were probably rude satyr gestures at the piles of clay.

Leo cracked a smile, and I couldn't help it—I started to laugh. It probably sounded a little hysterical, but it was such a relief to be alive, I didn't care.

Then a man stood up across the clearing. Tristan McLean staggered forward. His eyes were hollow, shell-shocked, like someone who'd just walked through a nuclear wasteland.

"Piper?" he called. His voice cracked. "Pipes, what—what is—"

He couldn't complete the thought. Piper ran over to him and hugged him tightly, but he almost didn't seem to know her.

I had felt a similar way—that morning at the Grand Canyon, when I woke with no memory. But Mr. McLean had the opposite problem. He had too many memories, too much trauma his mind just couldn't handle. He was coming apart.

"We need to get him out of here," Aimee said.

"Yeah, but how?" Leo said. "He's in no shape to walk."

I glanced up at the helicopter, which was now circling directly overhead. "Can you make us a bullhorn or something?" I asked Leo. "Piper has some talking to do."