Where You Go ― Jason Grace

i. ophelia pisses off a bunch of mountain gods (on purpose)

OPHELIA WAS GETTING really sick and tired of these goddamn mountain gods.

The ship's alarm bells sounded, the noise a familiar tune to Ophelia's ears, like an overplayed song she'd heard a thousand times on the radio and was this close to ripping the entire thing out of her car.

"Hard to port!" Nico yelled from the foremast of the Argo II.

Back at the helm, Leo yanked the wheel. The Argo II veered left, its aerial oars slashing through the clouds like rows of knives.

Ophelia tackled Hazel to the deck as a dark spherical shape hurtled toward her. The huge rock passed so close overhead it blew Ophelia's hair out of her face.

CRACK!

The foremast collapsed—sail, spars, and Nico all crashing to the deck. The boulder, roughly the size of a pickup truck, tumbled off into the fog like it had important business elsewhere.

"Nico!" Hazel scrambled over to him as Leo brought the ship level.

Ophelia stumbled to the bow, Hazel and Nico not far behind. The clouds parted just long enough to reveal the top of the mountain below them: a spearhead of black rock jutting from mossy green slopes. Standing at the summit was a mountain god—one of the numina montanum, or aurae, in Greek. Whatever you called them, they were a pain in the ass.

Like the others they had faced, this one wore a simple white tunic over skin as rough and dark as basalt. He was about twenty feet tall and extremely muscular, with a flowing white beard, scraggly hair, and a wild look in his eyes, like a crazy hermit. He bellowed something Ophelia didn't understand, but it was clear it wasn't friendly. With his bare hands, he pried another chunk of rock from his mountain and began shaping it into a ball.

"Don't you have something better to do with your life you pathetic piece of—" 

"Remind me how pissing off the already pissed off mountain god is a good defense strategy?" Nico yelled over the chaos. 

"Would you rather I took my anger out on you?" Ophelia shouted back, flipping the mountain god off as the ship retreated away from the mountain. "Yeah, didn't think so!" 

The scene disappeared in the fog, but when the mountain god bellowed again, other numina answered in the distance, their voices echoing through the valleys.

"Oh, shut up!" Ophelia yelled. 

"Fucking rock gods!" Leo yelled from the helm. "That's the third time I've had to replace that mast! You think they grow on trees?"

Nico frowned. "Masts are from trees."

"That's not the point!" Leo snatched up one of his controls, rigged from a Nintendo Wii stick, and spun it in a circle. A few feet away, a trapdoor opened in the deck. A Celestial bronze cannon rose. Ophelia just had time to cover her ears before it discharged into the sky, spraying a dozen metal spheres that trailed green fire. The spheres grew spikes in midair, like helicopter blades, and hurtled away into the fog.

A moment later, a series of explosions crackled across the mountains, followed by the outraged roars of mountain gods.

"Ha!" Leo yelled.

Leo's newest weapon just pissed the numina off. Another boulder whistled through the air off to the starboard side.

Nico yelled, "Get us out of here!"

Leo muttered some unflattering comments about numina, but he turned the wheel. The engines hummed. Magical rigging lashed itself tight, and the ship tacked to port. The Argo II picked up speed, retreating northwest, as they'd been doing for the past two days.