章節 112: DA : Chapter 112: Legends Revealed IV
( Athena POV )
Pain and disorientation was all she knew at the moment.
She felt as the feet slammed into her gut with enough force to turn a tank into a pancake, grunted as her back clipped the edge of the Argo V and continued on for who knows how long, only to make a rather close impression of the Cordoba incident as she plowed through trees, hills, and finally ended at the edge of a small lake.
At some point the feet has left contact but even then she was numbly aware that her breastplate was crumpled against her gut, making it harder to breathe.
She tried to straighten her vision out, idly noting the lake was almost completely evaporate and the smell of burnt fish and soil filled her nose. She groaned as she rolled over and slowly stood on shaky legs, noting the feeling the barrier around her. It took her a moment but she identified the purpose, mainly being that to hide her presence and to prevent flashing, otherwise it was rather simple with no apparent anchor meaning a god was maintaining it somewhere.
She looked around herself, not seeing anything out of place but still kept her wits about her. The breastplate was bugging her but she couldn't risk removing it without exposing herself, either in the process or simply being more vulnerable without the token protection of the damaged armor. At least she'd managed to retain her spear and shield if barely in her grip, though the fall had seriously jarred her shield arm.
She slowly walked as she scanned around, her eyes narrowing as she started to notice slight similarities, vague as they were, to her recurring visions and she could just barely make out the sound of falling water.
Also there was a lingering presence of sorts, one that felt oddly familiar but at the same time distorted that kept nagging at the back of her head. Aside from the water and the retreating steam of the lake she'd landed in there was no noise. It was as if the forest around was very aware of the dangerous beings present and had decided to play as dead as possible in hopes of avoiding attention.
She walked alone for a few minutes, her grip tightened on her spear as she loomed over the terrain, having decided that staying at godly form was the best bet. Honestly it stung that she wasn't even able to so much as push back Percy with Artemis assisting her and both having gone to godly size.
She swore his reflexes and speed to make use of it was utterly ridiculous. Where she would see an opening she would attack only for him to move to the point of near blurring and guard before countering.
His offensive was something else too, each hit making her bones start to scream in protest at even the thought of blocking. And when that blade cut … if she didn't have so much discipline she would have cried and screamed to high heaven in pain.
It was so cold, yet it utterly burned as well. She could only say her thanks that the blades didn't seem to carry the freezing curse Riptide did, or he didn't consider them dangerous enough to use it which stung her pride more. At least her numerous small cuts and the large one running the length of her left thigh didn't bleed much at all and it numbed out after a while.
Just thinking about that short but vicious exchange had her hands trembling and he was only one of them. She'd only caught glimpses at the other ships but it seemed that she wasn't the only one being smacked around with contemptuous ease.
And yet, she was surprised, if a little relieved as ironic as it was, that she could tell he had been holding back as were Artemis and herself. She'd seen how he carefully noted just where were the demigods whenever he kicked them closer to a ship and luckily Artemis had kept enough presence of mind to restrict herself to.
Otherwise the Argo's would have been crushed in the proximity if any god went up to divine level. She was broken out of her thoughts however as she heard the clear sound of a small waterfall and the presence she been closing in on became more defined.
Images from her visions started to overlap, certain and seemingly random paths through the trees as she noticed a small river to her right. She even glanced up and noticed that the storm wasn't around her immediate area but localized a significant distance away to the south.
Just how hard had she been hit? Still she pressed on to find the presence, her senses recalling where she'd felt this before. The smoky smell of a campfire, the gentle, if weak, warmth that seemed to hang low in air itself but also what was entirely new in the mix. Something bestial was here as well, and powerful at that giving her a slight impression of the missing dragon, Ladon.
She raised her guard more as she slowed to a near stalk, pushing aside the low hung trees with her shield as she came into a slight clearing and gasped. There, directly under the small waterfall, if it could be called that considering the small hill with the smaller channel spilling from it and into the larger river, was Hestia. She looked miserable, her hair and ripped up chiton hugging her trembling body.
Her lips were about as blue as a god's could get and her aura seemed weak, constantly being drained with the waters that even now gave off a cool mist, counteracting the warmth of Hestia. Suspended above her head, her wrists were shackled in celestial bronze and connected to a pike driven directly into the rock around behind her.
"Hestia!" Athena shouted in alarm, almost dropping her spear as she ran forward towards the captured goddess, shrinking back down to mortal form as she did so.
Said goddess looked up weakly, her usually bright amber eyes dimming even now as her chattering mouth formed a thin smile.
"A-Athe-na …" Hestia mumbled as she tried to move slightly only to wince and Athena could see the shackles biting into her skin.
"Hold on," Athena muttered as she threw down her shield and with precision, thrust her spear at the joining point between the chains of the shackles and the pike, completely ignoring as the near freezing waters splashed on her as well.
The spear edge scrapped the divine metal but it held firm making Athena growl lowly.
"I'm getting you out of here," Athena grit out as she thrust again and again, at times making bigger grooves and slowly wearing away at the metal.
"G-get … out. R-r-run," Hestia replied as she blinked away the chilling water constantly running over her head and face.
"Not without you," Athena bit back as she glanced around for a moment.
Last thing she needed was another so called primordial god or angel or what have you getting the drop on her. Seeing nothing she returned to trying to liberate her aunt. Honestly it had been weighing heavily on her mind ever since Hestia had been taken a few months back.
It left Athena with too much time on her hands thinking about everything that had happened between Hestia and several members of the council. The damn day that she did nothing to try and understand Hestia, and then remained, though admittedly shocked, in silence after Poseidon struck her.
They'd always had points that they simply agreed to disagree on, mostly centered on how they viewed the mortals and what to expect of them.
How couldn't they, especially when from time to time she and Hestia contemplated the changes of the eras and the demigods progressed or more like survived for millennia until this turn of the century with the strongest generation since the great Roman Empire or Greece. But then again, it also boiled down to simply missing one of her closest friends, someone she once spent a great deal of time with simply sharing in each other's presence.
With Hestia gone all it had done was make Athena feel guiltier about every instance of forgetting her, usually to the background during times of stress and change. Then, watching as the aunt she loved as she was pulled away in the shadows, after a decade of deliberately withdrawing from the goings of the council, had struck Athena hard. But now, having the chance to finally rescue her, to bring her home. Athena wasn't going to let this moment slip by.
With that thought she drove the spear forward one last time, watching in satisfaction as the chain link snapped. Like a string-less puppet Hestia fell into Athena's waiting arms.
The goddess flinched at how cold her aunt felt, still shivering as she hugged Athena back weakly. Athena couldn't help the small smile that formed on her face as she pulled the elder goddess up. However, before she could get a good grip to properly carry the weak goddess Athena heard a twig snap behind her.
She managed to moved Hestia to her side and out of the cold puddle they'd been standing in, away from the chilling waterfall as Athena's eyes locked on to the approaching figure. It was the same one that had slammed into her, a rather busty woman with long, deep brown hair and lavender tips.
Her eyes, also a bright lavender turning to near pink at the ring of the pupils, fair skin and dressed in a provocative corset and plaid skirt with knee-high leather boots, her dark purple wings folded closely behind her. However, what Athena focused on most were the twin, foot-long knives held in her hands that carried an aura of power similar in scale to the likes of Percy's swords.
"Great, another one," Athena nearly growled as she gently set Hestia down to grip her spear with both hands. "And who or what are you?" she asked, wondering if yet another stranger was going to claim the place of a god.
"Introductions will have to wait until later," she replied in a soft, near musical voice even as it held a slight edge to it. "I'm sorry about this, but I can't let you get away with her," the god (?) continued with a gesture towards the nearly unresponsive Hestia.
"You can try," Athena countered as she readied her spear. "But I will get pa—"
Whatever she was going to say was cut off as the angel woman closed the distance in a split second, both knives slamming down viciously on the shaft of Athena's spear to the point the goddess' knees almost gave out.
She grit her teeth as she glared at the neutral face of the woman, tried to draw in more of her power to add strength. It was slow going though, even as her skin gained a golden hue as she felt only a marginal increase in power but her body seemed to respond less than usual.
It was in fact getting numb, the cold… Her eyes widened as she glanced back to the waterfall, the mist coming off it still churning around them. Only now did Athena truly realize how cold she was, her teeth trying to chatter as her fingers and toes gave a dull ache, barely being countered by the divine aura coursing through her. Even the tip of her spear was sporting frost
"Noticed the effects of the fall have you," the woman commented just before Athena felt her increase the pressure to the point her odd knives were in fact biting into the metal of the shaft.
Athena's mind went into overdrive as she thought a way to get out of this. Hestia was too weak and barely conscious behind her meaning that if Athena gave any opening, it was possibly this angel woman could possibly get to her, to either strike her down or take her again.
Athena also considered assuming divine form but with her body already weakening from the cold, she would be a sitting duck for a precious few seconds which could again be used to attack her or Hestia, not to mention the force of the release would knock Hestia's body away, again leaving the weak goddess exposed.
Even if she managed to knock the angel back and grab Hestia, she'd need to run out of the boundary of the simple yet severely powered barrier, knowing that she currently didn't even have the strength to consider forcing her way through it after assuming godly form and accumulating injuries while fighting Percy, least of all considering the draining effects of the freezing waterfall. All her thoughts were running so rampant she barely heard the clinking of metal links behind her.
She noticed as the angel woman glanced past her, a faint and grim smile on her face that confused Athena joined with a sudden spike in heat behind her. Against her better judgment she took her eyes of the current opponent dead-locking her, she glanced back to see eyes filled with crimson fire and narrowed pupils before a fist encrusted in scaled patterned like rubies appeared. Athena couldn't even utter a sound as the fist slammed into her at the same moment that the force in front of her suddenly gave out.
She sworn she heard part of her skull fracturing as she was blown off her feet. Her body limply plowed through trees and skipped along the ground before she finally stopped, crashing into another hill.
Her body was plastered into the hillside, blowing away the soft layers of dirt and grass to meet unforgiving rock as she felt her consciousness slipping. In the darkening haze she looked back, just barely making out the form of Hestia … with crimson wings…
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Don't forget to throw some power Stones, to keep the story going.
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