DON'T BLAME ME! (p. jackson) (#2) (ON HOLD)

- twenty nine

ROSE HAD FOUGHT MANY BATTLES.

she'd even fought in a couple of arenas, but nothing like this. in the huge colosseum, with thousands of cheering ghosts, the god bacchus staring down at her, and the two twelve-foot giants looming over her, rose felt as small and insignificant as a bug. she also felt very angry.

fighting giants was one thing. bacchus making it into a game was something else.

rose remembered what luke castellan had told percy years ago, when percy had come back from his very first quest: didn't you realize how useless it all is? all the heroics—being pawns of the olympians?

rose was almost the same age now as luke had been then. she could understand how luke became so spiteful. in the past five years, rose and her friends had been pawns too many times. the olympians seemed to take turns using them for their schemes.

maybe the gods were better than the titans, or the giants, or gaea, but that didn't make them good or wise. it didn't make rose like this stupid arena battle.

unfortunately, she didn't have much choice. if she was going to save her friends, she had to beat these giants. she had to survive and find annabeth.

ephialtes and otis made her decision easier by attacking. together, the giants picked up a fake mountain as big as percy's new york apartment and hurled it at the demigods.

the three of them bolted. they dove together into the nearest trench and the mountain shattered above them, spraying them with plaster shrapnel. it wasn't deadly, but it stung like crazy.

the crowd jeered and shouted for blood. "fight! fight!"

"i'll take otis again?" jason called over the noise. "or do you want him this time?"

rose tried to think. dividing was the natural course—fighting the giants one-on-one, but that hadn't worked so well last time. it dawned on her that they needed a different strategy.

"we attack together," she said. "otis first, because he's weaker. take him out quickly and move to ephialtes. bronze and gold together—maybe that'll keep them from re-forming a little longer."

jason smiled dryly, like he'd just found out he would die in an embarrassing way.

"why not?" he agreed. "but ephialtes isn't going to stand there and wait while we kill his brother. unless—"

"good wind today," percy offered. "and there're some water pipes running under the arena."

jason understood immediately. he laughed, and rose felt a spark of friendship between the two. jason thought the same way percy did about a lot of things.

"on three?" jason said.

"why wait?"

they charged out of the trench. as rose suspected, the twins had lifted another plaster mountain and were waiting for a clear shot. the giants raised it above their heads, preparing to throw, and percy caused a water pipe to burst at their feet, shaking the floor. jason sent a blast of wind against ephialtes's chest. the purple-haired giant toppled backward and otis lost his grip on the mountain, which promptly collapsed on top of his brother. only ephialtes's snake feet stuck out, darting their heads around, as if wondering where the rest of their body had gone.

the crowd roared with approval, but rose suspected ephialtes was only stunned. they had a few seconds at best.

"hey, otis!" she shouted. "the nutcracker sucks ass!"

otis snatched up his spear and threw, but he was too angry to aim straight. jason deflected it over rose's head and into the lake.

the demigods backed toward the water, shouting insults about ballet—which was kind of a challenge. there was only so much shit-talking you could do about ballet.