Soul of Olympus

Chapter Thirteen

ARIADNE WOKE UP IN AN EMPTY FIELD. Though it wasn't one full of butterflies and flowers. Dead bodies littered the ground, blood everywhere, and a faint whisper in the air. Ariadne walked forward, making sure to avoid stepping on n of the bodies. She made it a few feet before she froze. She cautiously stepped towards one of the bodies, it's short blonde hair matted with dry blood.

She slowly rolled the body over, and was quickly ready to throw up. Sky blue eyes glazed over lifeless. A cut on the upper lip now reopened, shirt torn to shred, splattered blood everywhere. Jason Grace was dead. Ariadne quickly stood up and looked around meeting the lifeless eyes of her friends and what her gut was telling her the rest of the eight. Piper was mauled, Leo was burnt, Annabeth was head was missing a chunk, a boy with raven hair and tan skin looked like he had drowned, a Asian boy with looked like he had been stabbed by a mix of animal claws, and a girl with brown curly frizzy hair and golden eyes was crushed but what looked to be a giant ruby.

She finally turned and looked straight in front of her, a body was nailed to a post, long black hair strayed everywhere, blood dripping from the body's stomach, head, and mouth. Dark blue eyes, with gold now dull. She was looking at her.

"What is this?!" She yelled.

 She didn't expect a reply. 

"This is what to come, child." a sleepy voice echoed around the field.

 Ariadne whipped around. An earthly woman, literally made of the earth, was behind her, eyes closed. 

"Gaea" she said.

 The earthly woman let out a scary smile, confirming Ariadne's suspicions. 

"You've seen what is to come if you continue on with this prophecy, Ariadne Jordan. Turn back or you shall suffer." 

The land under her feet began to shake and a hotel opened underneath her, the earth swallowing her whole, a scream escaping her lips. Jason and Ariadne's eyes snapped open. 

"Cyclops!"

"Whoa, sleepyhead's." 

Piper sat behind Ariadne with Jason in front of her on the bronze dragon, holding his waist to keep him balanced. Leo sat in front, driving. They flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had happened.

"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought—"

"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you guys got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"

Their heads throbbed. Jason remembered the factory, then walking down the catwalk, then a creature looming over him—a face with one eye, a massive fist—and everything went black. Ariadne just remembered making it down five steps then darkness.

"How did you—the Cyclops—" Ariadne asked.

"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire—"

"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.

Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."

And she did—how Leo single-handedly defeated the Cyclops family; how they freed Jason and Ariadne, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory. Jason was impressed. And Ariadne was giddy, she was so proud of Leo. Taking out three Cyclopes with nothing but a tool kit? Not bad. It didn't exactly scare them to hear how close they'd come to death, but it did make Jason feel horrible. He'd stepped right into an ambush and spent the whole fight knocked out while his friends fended for themselves. What kind of quest leader was he?