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THEY MANAGED TO make it back to the dragon in one piece, even though they were throwing curses in over five languages together, snorting as they learnt some bilingual languages while they dragged a passed out Jason inbetween them. They nestled Jason between the two, with Hana infront and joking with Leo while Piper stayed at the back - keeping Jason in place.
Jason's eyes snapped open. "Cyclops!"
"Whoa, sleepyhead." Piper grinned, they were flying peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had happened.
"Wake me up before you go-go..." Hana muttered.
"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"
"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"
Jason's head throbbed. He remembered the factory, then walking down the catwalk, then a creature looming over him—a face with one eye, a massive fist—and everything went black.
"How did you—the Cyclops—"
"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"
"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.
"You mad or something? It was awesome!" Hana replied, waving her arms.
Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."
And she did—how Leo single-handedly defeated the Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory.
Jason was impressed. Taking out three Cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit? Not bad. It didn't exactly scare him to hear how close he'd come to death, but it did make him feel horrible. He'd stepped right into an ambush and spent the whole fight knocked out while his friends fended for themselves. What kind of quest leader was he?
When Piper told him about the other kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, the one in the purple shirt who spoke Latin, Jason looked like his head was going to explode, probably trying to remember whether he knew him or not.
"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."
"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."
"Etiam me, admirari puer." Hana replied, a smile on her face that Jason couldn't see - he had his own. 'Even me, Wonder Boy' was a thought that ran mad in Jason's head; she sounded good in Latin.
