The Guardian of the Underworld

Chapter 3: Piper

Flying at them was a giant Fury. "Okay, okay, we can handle this." Jason didn't look as confident. 

"Piper," Jason said, his voice wavering, "Look behind it." Piper did what he said and saw why Jason looked so scared.

Behind the Fury were its two sisters, a group of about 15 venti, and the twin gorgons. Piper and Jason had fought monsters together without any other help before, but never this many at once. Jason raced inside to where the suitcase was and pulled out Piper's dagger and his magical coin. He flipped his coin that turned into an imperial gold sword . He tossed Piper the dagger and they both started to fight. Piper saw Jason slashing and stabbing at the three furies while the gorgons came for her.

She waited until one of the gorgons got close enough for Piper to stab at it in one shot. She watched the first monster disappear as its twin yelled out in rage. "You should go down to Tartarus with your ugly sister!" Piper sounded a lot more confident than she felt, but she put as much charmspeak into her voice as she could. She was almost positive she only killed the first gorgon out of luck.

The gorgon had a moment of confusion, and it looked like it was contemplating on finding a way to Tartarus. Once the monster recovered from its confusion, it charged.

Out of the corner of her eye, Piper saw Jason fighting the furies and from what she could see, he'd already gotten one of them. As they were all fighting, the venti were swirling around them creating a miniature tornado on their balcony, making it harder for Jason to keep his feet on the ground.

Piper turned her attention back to the remaining gorgon who was already ten feet away from her. Piper held up her dagger to deflect the monster who fell back giving her some time to refocus on her task. Kill the monsters. She slashed at a ventus who vaporized into thin air. Piper saw Jason try to push the venti away with his crazy wind powers -which worked for a couple seconds- but they just kept coming back. She managed to kill some of the venti before the gorgon got back to her feet and tried to readjust.

Jason had yelled out, "Piper! Behind you!" 

Piper turned around and yelped. The monster had somehow already managed to get itself right behind her and was about to bite right at her. With her back still to the gorgon, Piper took her dagger and held it down so the monster couldn't see what was going on. Piper stabbed and when she looked again, all that was left was a pile of dust. She ran toward Jason whose clothes were all torn up from handling the furies, and they both went to work chopping at the left-over venti. There were about seven left and Piper felt overly confident that it would be no challenge facing these guys with Jason at her side.

Piper watched in awe as Jason slashed his sword and hit two of them at once. Almost immediately, Piper realized her mistake. Annabeth's words raced through her mind. Never let your opponent distract you. She turned to find a ventus fly towards her. Piper tried to hit it, but it was no use. She was too late.

She could hear the whooshing sound as the wind flew past her. Piper guessed the ventus had pushed her over the edge of the balcony, and now she was plummeting to her death. There was no water she could dive into, no fluffy sand anywhere, not even a spot of grass she could aim for. It was all cement. She looked up and saw what she thought was another monster coming towards her to try and kill her faster, but that didn't matter since she was going to die either way. She braced herself for impact with the ground, but when she felt nothing, she opened her eyes to see that she had stopped moving and was just floating in the air.

Piper looked up and saw Jason cradling her in his arms. She should've known he wouldn't let her fall. They both turned their attention to the remaining venti flying off to the west. 

Jason looked back down at Piper and said, "I should've known monsters would come for us there. This was a bad idea." 

Piper forced a smile. "Hey, there's no possible way you could've know a bunch of monsters would attack us tonight. The good thing is that we're both safe."

For a split second, Piper wondered what the two floating here looked like through the mist. Would they look like giant birds in the sky, or skydivers who landed in the wrong spot? That thought didn't last for long because Piper quickly remembered that they had more important problems to worry about right now.

Jason carried Piper back up to the room then he walked over to the suitcase to get a change of clothes. Piper looked down at her own outfit and saw that the dress had been torn up and her shoes had been lost during the fight. The dress she had been wearing on the best day of her life had been ruined. Jason looked up at Piper and his face went from shocked from the fight to sympathy for Piper. 

"Hey Pipes, just remember, the dress doesn't hold the memory. You do." And with that, he went into the bathroom to change.

Piper looked through the suitcase and saw a couple other dresses she figured she wouldn't end up wearing. Eventually, she pulled out a gray t-shirt and some dark blue sweatpants. She put them on and combed her hair. When she was finished cleaning herself up, she watched Jason walk out in his own black sweatpants. 

"Thought I would get us matching outfits for this trip, but I guess I left my t-shirt at home." Piper was used to seeing Jason without his shirt on, but she couldn't help but stare.

They both sat down on the bed and Jason started talking. "...I mean, I guess we've fought monsters like them before, but they've never all come after us at once. Not unless someone told them all to attack. I don't know where they came from, and I've never seen the furies and gorgons work together...." 

Jason stopped talking. "Piper, you seem distracted. Should I go down to the shops and buy a shirt?" 

Piper could feel herself blushing. "Um, no. That's okay." She looked down so she wouldn't have to meet his eyes, but she already knew he was smirking at her, as usual. Jason was used to her getting distracted by him, but she was still never able to stop herself.

"Maybe we should get some rest. It's getting late and after that fight, we should probably sleep. In the morning we'll find the others and tell them what happened." Piper nodded and Jason pulled her close. It didn't take long before the two of them fell asleep.

Piper's dream that night was one she could've lived without. It had been years since she'd had bad dream. Normally she just didn't dream at all. But this was like someone was trying to talk to her, trying to reach out for help, and Piper wanted nothing but to help them.

Help me. Help me escape this prison and we will rise together. I'm being held down here. I need to escape! I need to be free!...

Piper had never heard the voice before, but it was deep and sounded powerful. She didn't want to have to go back to the old days when she had to rescue the gods and fight their battles. That was all fine and good when she was younger, but Piper was happy now! She didn't want to let anything get in the way of her life with Jason.

When Jason woke up, he didn't seem any different, so Piper guessed he hadn't dreamed. She decided not to tell Jason about it until she had everything figured out, but it still crushed her to not be able to tell him. It reminded her of her first year with Jason when she needed to decided if she would save Hera or her father. 

She hadn't been able to tell anyone about her father being kidnapped then. She had been scared. That was exactly how she was feeling now. She had a tugging feeling in her gut telling her not to tell anyone anything, otherwise people would get hurt.