The Demigod Games

Chapter Forty

Percy awoke to Annabeth holding him tight, rocking back and forth, sobbing.

Her eyes remained closed, unaware of Percy's awakening. He groaned, and Annabeth glanced down at him as his eyes fluttered open.

"Oh my gods, Seaweed Brain. You suck."

Memories came flooding back to him, of the cave collapsing, and the rock splitting his head open, and passing out in his own blood.

"Maybe next time I'll try harder not to get killed by a rock," Percy said, and Annabeth let out a shaky laugh.

Percy smiled, and closed his eyes, allowing the snow to cover his face, numbing the pain that had plagued him for so long.

--

Midas collapsed, sticking his ears into the snow and screaming, "Oh, the pain! It's unbearable!"

Leo towered over him, his trademark maniacal grin pronounced even more so on his dark face.

Aelia stood there, stunned, and stared at him, mania and rage inflicted upon his crazed face.

Panting, he said, "No one, absolutely no one, tries to kill Aelia and get away with it."

His sincerity was intimidating; Aelia unwillingly took a step back.

He looked at her.

She looked back.

"Forest?" she asked.

"Forest," he agreed, and let the flames that had engulfed his clenched fist extinguish.

Midas emerged from the snow, his ears blackened and burnt. When he saw Leo, his eyes widened, and he cowered away in fear.

"Go find another daughter of Apollo. This one lives. You hear me?"

The half-donkey stammered, and then nodded excessively.

"Yes, master, please don't hurt me, master," he said, crawling toward Aelia and hiding behind her legs.

"Forest. Now," he said, and turned on his heels, and sprinted off through the snow toward the distant forest.

Aelia was shivering, having shed some of her outerwear in an attempt to battle the raging heat of the liquid inferno, and now she regretted doing so.

This boy that Aelia had fallen for, his goofy, corny demeanor, had vanished, the illusion gone, the facade cracked. He scared her now. She worried that the Games had gotten to him, and poisoned his spirit. Even worse, she feared that his true spirit was being revealed. But still, she sprinted after him, leaving the cowering donkey in behind her, running into the sprawling, vast forest after the boy she feared and loved.

--

Piper woke up, her entire body red and blistered. The heat had been too close; she had nearly died. She remembered the mountain, the volcano in disguise, and the wave of lava rushing down, Piper herself narrowly escaping a fiery demise.

Jason had landed them far from the volcano after the eruption. Piper had only experienced minor burns and pain, but Jason..

She remembered the flight sapping all the energy from his face, a twisted picture of agony. But he fought hard, jetting them far away from the wave of destruction, before collapsing beside Piper, the energy finally taking it's toll on him.

"Jason," Piper gasped, and got up on her knees. Her entire body was numb and shaking due to the unsuspected blizzard; the only advantage was that it soothed her burns.

She crawled on the snowy ground, searching and digging for Jason, for any sign of him. She warily rose to her feet, her legs shaking, and wobbled up the steep incline that they were on.

She scrambled to the summit of the hill, and found Jason, unresponsive, lying on the cold ground.

"Jason," Piper whispered, the words catching in her throat. "Oh, Jason..."

His right leg was charred nearly off, his face covered in blisters and burns and gashes. His worry lines had disappeared, along with his grimace, replaced by a slight smile.

He had escaped the arena at last.

Crying, she laid over his body, her tears dripping onto his cold face.

"I love you, Jason," she whispered, her will to live replaced by a gnawing hatred at herself in her gut.

Mustering as much Charmspeak as she could, she screamed into his ear, "WAKE UP, JASON! WAKE UP!" Her words were slurred by her choking, and Jason did not move, the lone hill his final resting place.

Piper let out a guttural scream, a cry, a plea, a song of mourning, her clear voice echoing through the snowy outreaches of the Arena. The gods had taken Jason from her, and they would not take anyone else.

She had never felt anything like it; a muddled mixture of desperation and rage and helplessness and sadness and grief. Most of all, she felt angry that he had died so unspectacularly, hadn't died in battle, a mere natural disaster wiping out the son of Jupiter. She was furious, pure hatred ripping through her soul, tearing through her will to live.

She had a sudden urge to lie there, draped over Jason, until someone came and finished her off. Then she could be with him again. She would be there, in the realm of the dead, escaping the arena with Jason. It wasn't the most spectacular escape, but it was an escape.

She lay there for a long time. She couldn't remember how long. She cried, awful sobs echoing off the sides of the mountain. They would know where she was now. She didn't care. Helplessness. She had been powerless to save her wonder boy, she had failed where he had succeeded so many times. Her voice had been able to animate a metal dragon, and yet it had failed to reanimate her closest companion, her anchor to reality in a world of fantasy. And now he was gone. Ripped from her grasp. And the gods would pay.

"I swear on the River Styx that I will get my revenge," Piper muttered as she sat up, her fury evident in her blazing eyes.

She decided that she would be helpless no more. No one else would die because she failed to protect them. She stood, and looked toward the forest, where a burst of flame immediately let Piper know where Leo was. Who else was alerted, Piper didn't know, but it scared her half to death. Brushing the snow from her bare arms, she began to run for the woods.