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JASON
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TIME SEEMED TO slow down which was really frustrating, since Jason still couldn't move. He felt himself sinking into the earth like the ground was a waterbed—comfortable, urging him to relax and give up. He wondered if the stories of the Underworld were true.
Would he end up in the Fields of Punishment or Elysium? If he couldn't remember any of his deeds, would they still count? He wondered if the judges would take that into consideration, or if his dad, Zeus, would write him a note: "Please excuse Jason from eternal damnation. He has had amnesia."
Jason couldn't feel his arms. He could see the tip of the spear coming toward his chest in slow motion. He knew he should move, but he couldn't seem to do it. Funny, he thought. All that effort to stay alive, and then, boom. You just lie there helplessly while a fire-breathing giant impales you.
Leo's voice yelled, "Heads up!"
A large black metal wedge slammed into Enceladus with a massive thunk! The giant toppled over and slid into the pit.
"Jason, get up!" Piper called. He sat up, his head groggy, while Piper grabbed him under his arms and hauled him to his feet.
"Don't die on us," she ordered. "You are not dying on us."
"Yes, ma'am." He felt light-headed, he tried to look around and see what was going on.
About a hundred feet behind her, Leo was standing over a piece of construction equipment—a long cannonlike thing with a single massive piston, the edge broken clean off.
Hana was standing there bashfully, her hands raised and different hues of the rainbow exploded from her fingertips, hitting Enceladus randomly, she definitely looked like a goddess trapped in a mortal's body.
Then Jason looked down in the crater and saw where the other end of the hydraulic ax had gone. Enceladus was struggling to rise with every hit from Hana having him fall back down, an ax blade the size of a washing machine stuck in his breastplate.
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 Jason and Hana had worked so hard to make, were now just pale scars.
Leo ran up to them, 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."
