ᴾʰᵒᵇᵒᵖʰᵒᵇⁱᵃ [ᴶᵃˢᵒⁿ ᴳʳᵃᶜᵉ]

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ρ. Algophobia - Fear of pain

Aza woke to the feeling of her stomach flipping, like she was on a roller coaster. "Wha—" she murmured, opening her eyes to see the clouds above her, the sky lit into an early dawn with hints of sunlight poking through. It was then when she realized that her stomach was flipping for good reason - she was tumbling through the sky, hurtling closer and closer to the sky like an asteroid.

Some hundred yards away from her, Festus was spinning like a top, his wings lifeless. Fire flickered uselessly in his mouth. A body plummeted past Aza, and she could just barely hear Leo scream, "Not cooooool," as he tried grabbing at the clouds to slow his descent. Aza knew she should try to grab him, but her mind was short-circuiting; all she could think of was the inevitability of her body smashing onto the earth below.

Somewhere above her, Jason called out. "Extend your arms and legs!"

She tried to, but she just couldn't do it; couldn't focus on such a simple task. Instead, Aza closed her eyes and prayed. Or at least, she tried to. A billion thoughts swirled around her head, and she tried desperately to collect them to pray to a god - any god, really.

"Aza!"

She looked up at the sun. At least it was a beautiful sunrise.

"Aza!"

But if she was honest, she'd prefer if the last thing she saw was Annabeth, or Percy.

"AZA-EVERETT!"

Aza turned her head to see Jason, who was clutching Piper around the waist. He shifted the girl in his arms, so his left arm was wrapped around the daughter of Aphrodite, and held out his right arm, just barely managing to clutch Aza's oversized leather jacket that flapped wildly in the wind.

He yanked her closer to him, tucking her under his right arm and holding her close to his torso. She could feel the wind below them becoming gentler, and their fall slowed slightly; it became a bit more choppy. They would slowly and gently fall for several seconds, then plummet five feet, and then slowly and gently fall once more before repeating.

"We have to get Leo!" Piper shouted faintly over the rushing air that surrounded them. Jason nodded. "Gonna get rough. Hold on!"

Aza fisted Jason's shirt, holding on for dear life as Jason angled headfirst towards the ground, diving like an Eagle towards Leo. Aza screamed and closed her eyes but it was deafened by the roaring winds.

THUMP! Aza cried out in fear, expecting it to be the ground. But instead what they crashed into wriggled and cursed, and it was oddly warm - Aza could only assume it was Leo. Her arm reflexively shot out and grabbed his shirt, holding the boy to her.

"Stop fighting! It's me!" Jason yelled over the winds, but it sounded more like a whisper.

Leo struggled anyway, trying to pull himself out of Aza's grasp, but she just held on tighter, not willing to let the boy plummet alone.

"Aza, let me go!" Leo cried, yanking himself more desperately. "My dragon! You gotta save Festus!"

Aza highly doubted that Jason could carry the four of them as well as a fifty-ton bronze dragon, but she didn't have the heart nor the mental capacity to tell Leo as the four demigods tumbled through the hall.

Leo let out a strangled cry when an explosion echoed throughout the sky. A fireball burst into the sky, so close that Aza could feel the heat burn uncomfortably close to her face as Leo let out a cry of, "Festus!"

It felt to Aza like they were bouncing down giant-sized stairs, hundreds of feet at a time, hurtling closer and closer to the unforgiving ground below them. Aza had never been the biggest fan of heights, and this certainly wasn't doing any favors for her. As they bounced like ragdolls, lowering below the clouds, Aza began to make out a factory complex below them - huge metal warehouses, smokestacks, barbed-wire fences.