Ice and Fire [Kane Chronicles and PJO/HOO Crossover]

Ice and Fire

Disclaimer: Both Kane Chronicles and Heroes of Olympus belong to Rick Riordan. I own the plot, and nothing else.

Leo's day had started out normal enough. He had eaten breakfast with the rest of the Hephaestus cabin, messed around in the forge for a little while, and then gone into the city for one of his "Leo outings." He had just left his favorite electronics store when he saw the giant, flaming lizard running down the street. The thing had three heads, all hissing and a long scaly tale that thrashed back and forth on the ground, splitting the sidewalk under it.

Leo wasn't really sure what the mortals saw–maybe a scaly bear or a very large tax collector––but they were screaming and cowering. One man was curled into a ball, trembling. The monster stood over him and looked poised to strike.

Leo's hand wrapped around his hammer as he pulled it out of his bottomless tool belt. "Hey, ugly!" he shouted. "Over here!"

Two of the three heads turned in Leo's direction and the monster rapidly stormed towards him. Leo had no idea how something that big and clunky moved so fast, but the monster was definitely making tracks.

Leo adjusted the hammer in his hand and lit the other on fire. He readied himself to attack, but the monster beat him to the punch. All three heads took a deep breath and then breathed long columns of fire at Leo.

The flames washed over Leo, searing his skin and filling his lungs with acidic smoke. When the fire finally died down, he quickly looked down to check his clothes. To his relief, his flame retardant clothing had survived. He looked back up at the monster. The middle head was slightly cocked to the side, as if questioning just how he had survived. The left head was just staring at him, and the right head was looking at all the shop windows. Leo couldn't help but feel a bit of sympathy for the right head. He too struggled to resist window shopping.

That sympathy quickly faded when the middle and left head snapped their jaws at him. He swung his hammer in a circle and charged. He sprung up at the monster's heads and smashed his hammer smack dab into the center head.

The hammer landed with a sickening crack. He thrust his flaming hand between the center head's eyes and wrapped his other hand around its neck. The monster thrashed and writhed under Leo, and its skin became uncomfortably hot. The center head threw Leo onto the sidewalk.

Peeling himself off the concrete, Leo groaned and coughed. There was something hot beneath his left arm. He ran his hand over it and was surprised to discover that it was a crack in the sidewalk. Leo realized that it must have been one of the cracks left by the monster's tail. The monster roared and the left head torched a book store's sign that was hanging above it. It must have grown tired of the right head's window shopping Leo figured.

By the time the monster turned its attention back to Leo, he was getting a little concerned. Today was supposed to be a day off for him, so he was really not prepared to take on a monster by himself, much less one that appeared to be immune to fire and most distressingly, hammers.

He honestly felt that his day could not get any worse, but then the first penguin ran past him––or more accurately, waddled. Leo scrambled away from the bizarre bird which was soon followed by yet another penguin. What they were doing in Brooklyn of all places, Leo had no idea, but they clearly took issue with the monster. They screeched and squawked at it in that unsettling penguin way and flapped their useless wings in its general direction.

Yet another entry in the long list of weird things that happened to Leo today, a boy ran past him in a manner similar to the penguins with a battle cry that sounded suspiciously like horseshoe to Leo. He was holding what looked like a ruler in one hand and a boomerang in the other, and he seemed intent on destroying the monster with that boomerang.