YEAH NO, GETTING slapped across the world was the worst experience to ever be experienced.

Kat was so out of it. Her vision was blurry, she might've thrown up, it was not a good time. She thought she'd be trapped in the lower deck with most the others forever when Frank and Hazel, aka Kat's heroes, busted open the hatch and stumbled through to fresh air. Kat, Piper, Percy, and Annabeth quickly followed.

"Go!" Leo yelled. "Go, go, go!"

For once, his tone was deadly serious.

They'd talked through their evacuation plan, but that slap across the world had made Kat's mind sluggish. Judging from the others' expressions, they weren't in much better shape.

Buford the table saved them. He clattered across the deck with his holographic Hedge blaring, "LET'S GO! MOVE IT! CUT THAT OUT!"

Then his tabletop split into helicopter blades and Buford buzzed away.

Frank changed form. Instead of a dazed demigod, he was now a dazed gray dragon. Hazel climbed onto his neck. Frank grabbed Percy and Annabeth in his front claws, then spread his wings and soared away.

Jason held Kat and Piper by the waist, ready to fly. Kat made the mistake of glancing down. The view was a spinning kaleidoscope of sky, earth, sky, earth. The ground was getting awfully close.

"Leo, you won't make it!" shouted Jason. "Come with us!"

"No! Get out of here!"

"Leo!" Piper tried. "Please—"

"Save your charmspeak, Pipes! I told you, I've got a plan. Now shoo!"

Kat took a last look at the splintering ship.

The Argo II had been their home for so long. Now they were abandoning it. Rest in peace, Emory Blackthorn the black cat. But Leo had a plan. He always did.

Jason, Piper, and Kat shot into the sky.

The ground wasn't much less chaotic.

As they plummeted, Kat saw a vast army of monsters spread across the hills — cynocephali, two-headed men, wild centaurs, ogres and others she couldn't even name from up here — surrounding two tiny islands of demigods. At the crest of Half-Blood Hill, gathered at the feet of the Athena Parthenos, was the main force of Camp Half-Blood along with two groups of Romans, rallied around a golden eagle. The other three Roman groups were in a defensive formation several hundred yards away and seemed to be taking the brunt of the attack.

Giant eagles circled Jason, screeching urgently, as if looking for orders.

Frank the gray dragon flew alongside with his passengers.

"Hazel!" yelled Jason. "Those three cohorts are in trouble! If they don't merge with the rest of the demigods—"

"On it!" said Hazel. "Go, Frank!"

Dragon Frank veered to the left with Annabeth in one claw yelling, "Let's get 'em!" and Percy in the other claw screaming, "I hate flying!" Weakling.

Piper, Jason, and Kat veered right towards the summit of Half-Blood Hill.

Kat saw Nico di Angelo on the front lines with the Greeks, slashing his way through a crowd of two-headed men. A few feet away, Reyna sat astride a new pegasus, her sword drawn. She shouted orders at the legion, and the Romans obeyed without question, as if she'd never been away.

Kat didn't see Octavian anywhere. Good. Neither did she see a colossal earth goddess laying waste to the world. Very good. Perhaps Gaia had risen, taken one look at the modern world and decided to go back to sleep. Kat wished they could be that lucky, but they were never that lucky. Like, come on, is the world really that great to want to take it over?

Kat, Jason, and Piper landed on the hill, their swords drawn, and a cheer went up from the Greeks and the Romans.

"About time!" Reyna called. "Glad you could join us!"

Piper grinned. "We had some giants to kill!"

"Excellent!" Reyna returned the smile. "Help yourself to some barbarians."

"Why, thank you!"

Piper kissed Jason and Kat quickly, then the two girls launched into battle side by side.

Nico nodded to Kat and Jason as if they'd just seen each other five minutes ago, then went back to turning two-headed men into no-headed corpses. "Good timing. Where's the ship?"

Jason pointed. The Argo II streaked across the sky in a ball of fire, shedding burning chunks of mast, hull and armament.

"Gods," said Nico. "Is everyone okay?"

"Leo has a plan," Kat said firmly. "He's smart. Always has something going on."

The comet disappeared behind the western hills. She didn't hear an explosion or anything, so that was good, but maybe that was because of the sound of battle around them.

Nico looked at Jason. "He'll be fine."

"Sure."

"Hey," Kat forced Jason to look at her. "Trust him. Trust me."

He nodded, looking at her desperately. She gave him a searing kiss before charging into the fight.

The Greeks and Romans slowly pushed back the enemies. Wild centaurs toppled. Wolf-headed men howled as they were cut to ashes.

More monsters kept appearing — karpoi grain spirits swirling out of the grass, gryphons diving from the sky, lumpy clay humanoids that made Kat think of evil Play-Doh men.

"They're ghosts with earthen shells!" Nico warned. "Don't let them hit you!"

Obviously Gaia had kept some surprises in reserve.

At one point, Will Solace, the lead camper for Apollo, ran up to Nico and said something in his ear. Over the yelling and clashing of blades, Kat couldn't hear the words.

"Jason, Kat, I have to go!" said Nico.

Kat didn't really understand, but Jason nodded, and Kat saluted at Will, smirking, and Will and Nico dashed off into the fray.

A moment later, a squad of Hermes campers gathered around Kat and Jason.

"Jules!" Kat shrieked, tackling her into a hug.

"Kat!" Julia crushed her in her arms.

"Focus, you two," Kat heard Connor snap, though he was so glad to see Kat back. She could hear it in his voice.

She pulled away to see Connor's smirk directed at Jason. "What's up, Grace?"

"I'm good," said Jason. "You?"

Connor dodged an ogre club and stabbed a grain spirit, which exploded in a cloud of wheat. "Yeah, can't complain. Nice day for it."

Reyna yelled, "Eiaculare flammas!" and a wave of flaming arrows arced over the legion's shield wall, destroying a platoon of ogres. The Roman ranks moved forward, impaling centaurs and trampling wounded ogres under their bronze-tipped boots.

Somewhere downhill, Kat heard Frank yell in Latin: "Repellere equites!"

A massive herd of centaurs parted in a panic as the legion's other three cohorts ploughed through in perfect formation, their spears bright with monster blood. Frank marched before them. On the left flank, riding Arion, Hazel beamed with pride.

"Ave, Praetor Zhang!" called Reyna.

"Ave, Praetor Ramírez-Arellano!" greeted Frank. "Let's do this. Legion, CLOSE RANKS!"

A cheer went up among the Romans as the five cohorts melded into one massive killing machine. Frank pointed his sword forward and, from the golden eagle standard, tendrils of lightning swept across the enemy, turning several hundred monsters to toast.

"Legion, cuneum formate!" yelled Reyna. "Advance!"

Another cheer on Kat's right as Percy and Annabeth reunited with the forces of Camp Half-Blood.

"Greeks!" yelled Percy. "Let's, um, fight stuff!"

They yelled like banshees and charged.

Kat involuntarily smiled at that, slinging an arm around Connor as Cortana stabbed a monster getting a little too close. "Let's fuck shit up!" she agreed, and the Hermes cabin followed her lead.

She was feeling good about the battle, except for two big questions: Where was Leo? And where was Gaia?

Unfortunately, she got the second answer first.

Under her feet, the earth rippled as if Half-Blood Hill had become a giant water mattress. Demigods fell. Ogres slipped. Centaurs charged face-first into the grass.

AWAKE, a voice boomed all around them.

A hundred yards away, at the crest of the next hill, the grass and soil swirled upward like the point of a massive drill. The column of earth thickened into the twenty-foot-tall figure of a woman — her dress woven from blades of grass, her skin as white as quartz, her hair brown and tangled like tree roots.

"Little fools." Gaia the Earth Mother opened her pure green eyes. "The paltry magic of your statue cannot contain me."

As she said it, Kat realized why Gaia hadn't appeared until now. The Athena Parthenos had been protecting the demigods, holding back the wrath of the earth, but even Athena's might could only last so long against a primordial goddess.

Fear as palpable as a cold front washed over the demigod army.

"Stand fast!" Piper shouted, her charmspeak clear and loud. "Greeks and Romans, we can fight her together!"

Gaia laughed. She spread her arms and the earth bent towards her — trees tilting, bedrock groaning, soil rippling in waves. Jason grabbed Kat and rose on the wind, but all around him monsters and demigods alike started to sink into the ground. One of Octavian's onagers capsized and disappeared into the side of the hill.

"The whole earth is my body," boomed Gaia. "How would you fight the goddess of—"

FOOOOMP!

In a flash of bronze, Gaia was swept off the hillside, snarled in the claws of a fifty-ton metal dragon. Kat immediately grinned.

Festus, reborn, rose into the sky on gleaming wings, spewing fire from his maw triumphantly. As he ascended, the rider on his back got smaller and more difficult to discern, but Leo's grin was unmistakable.

"Pipes! Jason!" he shouted down. "You coming? The fight is up here!"