บท 198: A forgotten giant must be lost in the land without rain
Less than a second.
Less than a second, that's how long it took Drako to destroy Talos from the inside.
Drako entered the interior of Talos at extraordinary speed. Using the special Golden Drive Noble Phantasm, he outpaced any human or non-human eye could pick up.
Lightning came out of the bike, lightning that was not weak at all. They short-circuited the interior of Talos, slowly killing it. Its interior was very weak, just the opposite of its exterior, and it could not withstand the electrical attacks that carried the power of the thunder god Raijin.
On the outside, Zoë and the others were extremely surprised.
Zoë already knew that bike, it was the one Drako had used before, but the others did not. That's why they were surprised when Drako summoned it. But a few seconds later, they were shocked when the dark night went bright for a second. Drako, in using the Noble Phantasm, had caused the night to turn into day for a few seconds.
Zoë looked horrified when she saw Drako going inside Talos. "He is inside?"
Suddenly, the giant's right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG!
His left arm came loose, too. He was falling apart at the joints.
Talos began to run.
"Wait!" Zoe yelled. They ran after him, but there was no way they could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in their way.
The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, his chest, and finally, his legs collapsed.
When they reached the wreckage, they searched frantically, yelling Drako's name. They crawled around in the vast hollow pieces and the legs and the head. Still, they couldn't find him.
Bianca looked shocked. Her face was pale, and she was trembling. She couldn't believe that Drako has disappeared because of her error.
Zoe sat down and looked at the distance. She has no words to say.
Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.
"Hey, can you shut up?" A voice sounded on the distance. "I'm trying to sleep a little."
All of them looked even more shocked when they heard his voice. Zoe and Bianca actually ran towards the direction of the voice.
They found him lying more than a kilometre away from where Talos had died.
Bianca held him tightly while he cried loudly. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
Drako opened his eyes and gave Bianca a little smile. "It's okay, we all have little mistakes."
"Although it sucks that this robot doesn't count as a living thing, I haven't received any experience points. At least I've received something better," Drako mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothing, nothing."
In destroying Talos, Drako had received an unexpected notification.
[You have successfully changed a person's fate!]
[1 Fate Point obtained]
Drako didn't know whose Fate Point it was, but his instincts told him it came from this girl.
If Drako hadn't intervened... she would have been the one who sacrificed herself to take down Talos.
Bianca took a while to calm down, and Zoe seemed very relieved. The rest of the group soon followed.
They were all happy to see that this was all just a scare.
"How did you get here?" Zoe asked.
That was something everyone wondered. How had Drako ended up so far away?
"Well, Golden Drive consumes too much mana. I was left with nothing after going through the giant's head, so the bike disappeared, and I flew away. Good thing my body's pretty tough."
"Nice job, Drako," Percy said. "That was pretty cool."
Grover nodded and said, "It happened just as it was supposed to."
"What are you talking about?" Thalia asked.
"The prophecy. A forgotten giant must be lost in the land without rain."
Yeah, why had Drako forgotten that?
Here they were in the desert. And a forgotten giant has gone forever.
....................................…
At the edge of the dump, they found a tow truck so old it might've been thrown away itself.
But the engine started, and it had a full tank of gas, so they decided to borrow it.
Drako drove. He didn't want to hear another argument between Thalia and Zoe.
"The skeletons are still out there," he reminded them. "We need to keep moving."
They went through the desert, under clear blue skies, the sand so bright it hurt to look at. Thalia sat up front with Drako. The rest of them sat behind in the pickup bed, leaning against the tow wench. The air was cool and dry.
Bianca played with the little figurine that almost cost her life.
Drako was wondering what he should have said to Nico if Bianca died.
"Oh, Bianca," Drako asked. "Which god is that?"
All of them looked towards her, and she showed the figurine to them.
���It's the only one that Nico doesn't have, I think that it's Hades," She answered.
"It is," Zoë confirmed.
Drako was surprised, as it wasn't a big skeleton.
The figure was of a very "tall", imposing and very muscular man with albino white skin. Nothing compared to that skeleton that appears on DxD.
"I wonder who is your godly parent. I'm actually curious now," Drako murmured.
..............
The tow truck ran out of gas at the edge of a river canyon. That was just as well, because the road dead-ended.
Thalia got out and slammed the door. Immediately, one of the tires blew. "Great. What now?"
Drako scanned the horizon. There wasn't much to see. Desert in all directions, occasional clumps of barren mountains plopped here and there. The canyon was the only thing interesting. The river itself wasn't very big, maybe fifty yards across, green water with a few rapids, but it carved a huge scar out of the desert. The rock cliffs dropped away below us.
"There's a path," Grover said. "We could get to the river."
Drako tried to see what he was talking about, and finally noticed a tiny ledge winding down the cliff face.
"That's a goat path," he said.
"So?" he asked.
"The rest of us aren't goats."
"We can make it," Grover said. "I think."
Drako thought about that. He was okay with the cliff, but… Thalia don't.
"No," Drako said. "We are going farther upstream."
Grover said. "But—"
"There are no buts," Drako said.
He glanced at Thalia. Her eyes said a quick Thank you.
They followed the river about half a mile before coming to an easier slope that led down to the water. On the shore was a canoe rental operation that was closed for the reason, but I left a stack of golden on the counter and a note saying IOU two canoes.
"We need to go upstream," Zoe said. "The rapids are too swift."
"Leave that to me," Percy said.
Well, he is the son of the Poseidon.
Thalia pulled Drako aside. "Thanks for back there."
"Don't mention it."
"Would you go with Zoe and Bianca?" she asked.
"She's not going to like that."
"Please? I don't know if I can stand being in the same boat with her."
It was about the last thing he wanted to do, but he nodded.
Thalia's shoulders relaxed. "I owe you one."
As it turned out, Percy didn't even need to control the currents. As soon as they got in the river, Drako looked over the edge of the boat and found a couple of naiads staring at them.
They looked like regular teenage girls, the kind you'd see in any mall, except for the fact that they were underwater.
Percy seemed to be talking to them, and the naiads each chose a canoe and began pushing them up the river. They started so fast Grover fell into his canoe with his hooves sticking up in the air.
"I hate naiads," Zoe grumbled.
A stream of water squirted up from the back of the boat and hit Zoe in the face.
"She-devils!" Zoe went for her bow.
"Whoa," Drako said. "They're just playing."
"Cursed water spirits. They've never forgiven me."
"Forgiven you for what?" Bianca asked.
She slung her bow back over her shoulder. "It was a long time ago. Never mind."
They sped up the river, the cliffs looming up on either side of them.
"That was dangerous," Zoe said. "Attacking that enemy alone, don't do that again."
"Oh, are you worried about me?" Drako asked with a half-smile.
"Tch, your thinking to much about it."
"You're lying, Zoe," Bianca giggled cheerfully from behind. "It's so obvious."
"Shut up, kid. I haven't been leading the Hunt over two thousand years to have two newcomers making fun out of me," Zoe said. Suddenly, her face turned gloomy. "Although my wisdom has not improved. I put Bianca in danger. Now Artemis herself is in danger."
"Look, you can't blame yourself for that."
"If I had insisted on going with her—"
"You think you could've fought something powerful enough to kidnap Artemis? There's nothing you could have done."
Zoe didn't answer.
The cliffs along the river were getting taller. Long shadows fell across the water, making it a lot colder, even though the day was bright.
Drako looked at the other boat, where Percy, Grover and Thalia where talking. Percy was playing with his pen, Riptide.
Drako recalled his dream.
"You made that," Drako said.
"Who told thee?"
"I had a dream about it."
She studied him. He was sure she was going to call him crazy, but she just sighed. "It was a gift. And a mistake."
"Who was the hero?" Drako asked.
Zoe shook her head. ���Do not make me say his name. I swore never to speak it again."
"You act like I should know him."
"I am sure you do, hero. Don't all you boys want to be just like him?"
Her voice was so bitter. Drako decided no to ask what she meant.
"Your mother was a water goddess?" Drako asked.
"Yes, Pleione. She had five daughters. My sisters and I. The Hesperides."
"Those were the girls who lived in a garden at the edge of the West. With the golden apple tree and a dragon guarding it."
"Yes," Zoe said wistfully. "Ladon."
"But weren't there only four sisters?" Bianca asked.
She was silently hearing the conversation until now when she heard something different that she knows.
"There are now. I was exiled. Forgotten. Blotted out as if I never existed."
"Why?" Bianca asked.
Zoe pointed to the pen. "Because I betrayed my family and helped a hero. You won't find that in the legend either. He never spoke of me. After his direct assault on Ladon failed, I gave him the idea of how to steal the apples, how to trick my father, but he took all the credit."
"But—"
The canoe was slowing down.
Drako looked ahead, and he saw why.
This was as far as they could take them. The river was blocked. A dam the size of a football stadium stood in their path.
"Hoover Dam," Thalia said. "It's huge."
They stood at the river's edge, looking up at a curve of concrete that loomed between the cliffs. People were walking along the top of the dam. They were so tiny they looked like fleas.
"Seven hundred feet tall," Percy said. "Built in the 1930s."
"Five million cubic acres of water," Thalia said.
Grover sighed. "Largest construction project in the United States."
Zoe stared at them. "How do you know all that?"
"Annabeth," Percy said. "She liked architecture."
"She was nuts about monuments," Thalia said.
"Spouted facts all the time." Grover sniffled. "So annoying."
"I wish she were here," Percy said.
The others in the canoe nodded. The ones in the other, Drako and company, didn't understand their feeling, since they didn't know about Annabeth.
"We should go up there," Percy said. "For her sake. Just to say we've been."
"You are mad," Zoe decided. "But that's where the road is." She pointed to a huge parking garage next to the top of the dam. "And so, sightseeing it is."
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