CHAPTER NINETEEN:
HILL TO DIE ON

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

KIT HAD NO IDEA what to think when he opened his eyes and found Father Dearest glaring back at him. Physically, Ares didn't look much older than Kit, give or take a few years. With a head of thick, dark hair and onyx eyes to match, it came as no surprise to his son that this was the God of war. With just one devilish grin, Ares had the power to slaughter thousands, bury cities in violence and bloodshed.

Kit's first instinct was to scowl and turn his back on him, like a child throwing a tantrum.

"Come now," Ares' sneer burned into his shoulder blades. If looks could kill. "Is that any way to treat your father?"

"If his name is Ares?" Kit retorted as he stared stubbornly at the wall. "Yes."

Sparing a glance back at him, he smirked at the beet-red shade of his father's burning expression. Ares inhaled like he was debating whether to strike Kit where he stood, fists balled at his sides. Through clenched teeth, he spat, "I'm here to give you a warning, Kit Dempsey. Take it or leave it, I really don't care, but at least I can finally wipe my hands clean of you."

Kit faced him then, his quirked brow the only sign of his interest.

"What warning?" he asked.

Ares sneered at him. "This quest you're on? To save Hera? It's far more dangerous than you think." Kit let out a dismissive snort. Ares' face darkened, every sharp angle shadowed by anger. "Just how idiotic are you, boy? Have you given no thought to your prophecy at all?"

"Honestly, not really."

In part, it was the truth, but Kit was nothing if not spiteful. If it meant pushing his father closer and closer to breaking point, he would have disagreed with him on anything.

"You're going to die," Ares stated. He sounded so confident — joyful, almost. The smirk slowly faltered from Kit's face, leaving nothing behind but cool understanding. "But you already knew that, didn't you?"

Before he could answer, he heard Piper's voice.

"Kit?" The sensation of a hand squeezing his shoulder slowly woke him. To both his dismay and relief, Ares' face flickered and disappeared. Kit blinked his eyes open, momentarily blinded by the sun. Piper squeezed his shoulder again. "Kit, wake up."

For a moment, Kit wondered if he was already dead. Aeolus' fortress was long gone. Somehow, the group had found themselves sitting beneath the shade of an umbrella, the scent of coffee and warm cakes seeping through the open door to Kit's right. They were at a café of some sort, surrounded by normal people going about their day — people in suits buying their coffees before work, college students crammed before computer screens and textbooks drinking their third, fourth, fifth coffee of the day already. Children on their way to school, a couple out on their morning walk. And in the middle of it all, four teens and a goat-man magically who'd been teleported into the hustle and bustle.

"Where are we?" he murmured to Piper, the closest to him. Leo, Jason and Hedge were sitting opposite them, slowly blinking into consciousness.

"California," Piper said, lips pursed into a grim line.

Now that got everyone's attention. As did their new clothing, which could only indicate the help of one particular Goddess.

"Mother," Piper muttered in distaste as she messed with the turquoise hem of her dress like she yearned to rip apart the material.

At the same time, Jason gasped, "What are you wearing?"

Piper's face went a bright shade of red. Rolling his eyes, Kit tuned out their flirting to take in the changes Aphrodite had made for him. Unlike Leo, whose whole look had been changed with pinstripe pants and a white t-shirt with suspenders, or Hedge, who wore a canary yellow suit and a matching broad-brimmed hat, Kit's outfit was still relatively his style. Leather pants that were only mildly uncomfortable, a white shirt with the first three buttons undone, and a fleecy black denim jacket (with Leo's army jacket beneath it, of course) Kit looked like something off a runway rather than a demigod about to meet his fate. He grinned as Leo whined in dismay, messing with the sunglasses on the bridge of his nose like he'd never worn glasses before.

"God, Leo." Much like Kit, Piper failed to stifle her laughter. "I think my dad wore that to his last premiere, minus the tool belt."

"Hey!" Leo glowered at her, then Kit. "...Shut up."

"I didn't say anything," Kit frowned.

"You didn't have to."

"I think he looks good," Hedge shrugged, which didn't help Leo's case. "'Course, I look better."

"For sure, Coach," Kit deadpanned.

Hedge narrowed his eyes on him. "I still don't like you, Dempsey."

Kit really couldn't win.

"Anyway," Piper intervened with a pointed cough. "How did we get here?"

Momentarily distracted from Kit, Hedge breathed out an abnormally dreamy sigh. "Oh, that would be Mellie," he told them. "Those winds shot us halfway across the country, I'd guess. We would've been smashed flat on impact, but Mellie's last gift — a nice, soft breeze — cushioned our fall."

"Dang, Coach," Kit smirked. "When's the wedding?"

Hedge bit back a retort, seemingly deciding to just ignore Kit's whole existence. "She just couldn't help herself. I've got that effect on nymphs. I'll send her a message when we're through with this quest and help her figure something out. That is one aura I could settle down with and raise a herd of baby goats."

"Ah, so you're skipping the wedding. Just starting right from the baby-making. Got it."

"Dempsey, do you want to fight—"

"I think I'm going to be sick," Piper interrupted. Kit wouldn't have put it past her. Pale-faced and looking mildly disgusted, she hastily changed the subject. "Anyone else want coffee?"

"Coffee!" Hedge exclaimed in delight. "I love coffee!"

"But, what about money?" Jason, ever the pessimist, asked. "And our packs?"

Piper grinned, reaching beneath the table to grab one of the backpacks that Kit hadn't even noticed were at their feet. Holding one up in triumph, she fished a wad of cash out of her coat pocket and an eerily familiar glass vial that she hid as soon as she revealed it.

"Damn, an allowance?" Leo whistled appreciatively. "Piper, your mum rocks!"

Piper looked ready to disagree, but found herself unable to when Hedge all but snatched the cash from her hands and called out, "Waitress! Six double espressos, and whatever these guys want. You can put it on the girl's tab."

Piper shook her head at him, though in the end decided not to argue. While they waited for the waitress to bring out Hedge's order, they did some digging into where exactly Aphrodite had spat them out. From the sign on the door, they determined it was a place called Café Verve in Walnut Creek. According to the waitress, it was 9am on the morning of December 21st. They had three hours before Piper's dad bit the dust, and who knew how long before Kit joined him.

In case it wasn't clear, it was taking everything in him not to blurt out his interaction with Ares.

It was far easier if they didn't know.

(For who? Kit wasn't sure.)

Leo pulled the old crayon drawing Aeolus had returned to him from his pants pocket. Kit recalled his own lost item weighing down his jacket, but pushed it out of his mind as Piper leaned over him to get a closer look.

"What is that?" she asked.

Like the paper was made of glass, Leo folded it carefully, hiding the mediocre sketch from her view. "Nothing," he said, to which Piper frowned in doubt. "You don't want to see my kindergarten artwork."

"It's more than that, though," Jason insisted stubbornly. "Aeolus said it was the key to our success."

Leo let out a sigh then, shoving his hands into his pockets like he expected Jason to fight him for the drawing. "Not today. He was talking about... later."

"How can you be sure?" Piper quizzed.

"Just trust me. Now — what's our game plan?"

Both Piper and Jason looked ready to protest again, much to Kit's amusement (and vague annoyance) but Hedge let out a loud (and coffee-pungent) belch which provided Leo with the perfect moment of distraction. "We need to climb the mountain," the satyr shrugged like it was obvious. "Kill everything except Piper's dad. Leave."

Scoffing, Jason muttered, "Thank you, General Eisenhower."

"Hey!" Hedge glared at him. "I'm just saying..."

"Look, guys," Piper cut in with a sigh. She briefly caught Kit's eyes, blushing at his raised eyebrows and averting her gaze. "There's more you need to know."

Turned out that Ares wasn't the only God who had decided to play house with their child that day. Piper didn't confirm it, of course, but Kit knew just by looking at her; Aphrodite had also paid Piper a visit, warning them of Gaea and what was to come. Ares and Aphrodite. What a pair.

"Gaea?" Leo frowned in confusion. "But isn't that Mother Nature? She's supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and deer and rabbits doing her laundry—"

"What kind of fantasy land are you living in?" Kit scoffed at the same time as Piper sighed and corrected him, "Leo, that's Snow White."

"Okay, but—"

"But what?" Kit retorted. "Leo, this isn't a Disney movie."

"Listen up, Cupcakes," Hedge intervened with a pointed scowl. He had just downed the remnants of his last espresso and was busy dabbing the coffee out of his goatee. He didn't seem pleased that Leo — and, albeit, Kit — had interrupted him. "Piper's telling us some serious stuff, here. Gaea's no softie. I'm not even sure I could take her."

Leo gaped at him. "Really?"

Hedge nodded, then winced like it pained him to admit it. "This earth lady... she and her old man — the sky — were nasty customers."

"Ouranos," Piper acknowledged just as Kit recalled the name himself.

Leo smirked, the joke Kit knew he was absolutely burning to say on the tip of his tongue, when Hedge continued. "Right. So Ouranos, he's not the best dad. He throws their first kids, the Cyclopes, into Tartarus. Now this makes Gaea mad, but she bides her time. Then they have another set of kids — the twelve Titans — and Gaea is afraid they'll get thrown into prison, too. So she goes up to her son, Kit's best buddy, Kronos—"

"Really, Coach?" Kit sighed. "Did you have to say it? Like, I think everyone gets it by now—"

"That's the big bad dude, right?" Leo asked, shooting Kit a look that made Kit feel exposed, vulnerable — way too vulnerable. "The one they defeated last Summer."

"Right," Hedge confirmed with a nod. "And Gaea's the one who gives him the scythe. She tells him 'hey, why don't I call your dad down here? And while he's talking to me, distracted, you can cut him into pieces. Then you can take over the world. Wouldn't that be great?'"

Kit was pretty sure Hedge was exaggerating, for the only people who could really know what Gaea said was the earth herself and Kronos, but the way Hedge said it left the four of them silent, sullen, and no longer as eager to finish their food. Piper pushed her plate a way in a not-so-subtle gesture, inching closer to Kit like Gaea would appear at any second.

"Definitely not Snow White," she shot at Leo.

Leo didn't argue, for he was equally as pale-faced and wide-eyed as she was.

"Nah, Kronos was a bad guy," Hedge said, with a look on his face that Annabeth had engraved into her features since the Summer. It was a look she shared with a lot of demigods, including Kit's siblings, and in some ways Kit himself — just for entirely different reasons. "But Gaea is literally the mother of all bad guys. She's so old and powerful, so huge, that it's hard for her to be fully conscious. Most of the time, she just sleeps, and that's the way we like her. Snoring."

"But she talked to me," Leo argued, his breath hitching so inaudibly that Kit almost didn't notice it. Almost. For a fleeting second of weakness, he contemplated switching to the empty seat beside Leo, just to be closer to him. "How can she be asleep?"

Hedge sighed, the last of his caffeine high beginning to drain away. "Even in her sleep, part of her consciousness is always active — dreaming, keeping watch, doing little things... like causing volcanoes to explode and monsters to rise. Even now, she's not fully awake. Believe me, you do not want to see her fully awake."

"But she's getting more powerful," Piper pointed out, as if they didn't already know, couldn't feel it in every fight they came closer and closer to losing. "She's causing the giants to rise. And if their king comes back, this guy Porphyrion—"

"He'll raise an army to destroy the Gods," Jason added grimly. "Starting with Hera. It'll be another war. And Gaea will wake up fully."

Hedge caught Kit's eyes then. For once, he wasn't glowering, or itching to make a spiteful comment. Gleeson Hedge looked at Kit Dempsey like he expected something from him, and it wasn't for him to turn tail and run to the easy way out, the place where he knew he'd have protection. It made Kit shift uncomfortably, averting his gaze to his uneaten bagel. Part of him wished Hedge would make a snide comment, just so he'd have a reason to push back even further.

"Which is why it's a good idea for us to stay off the ground as much as possible."

Which brought them to their next problem.

With a wary look at the looming Mount Diablo behind them, Leo said, "So... climbing a mountain. That would be bad?"

Bad would be one word for it. An understatement if Kit had ever heard one.

"Guys, I can't ask you to do this," Piper said dismally. She was eyeing the Mountain like it was Porphyrion himself, half expecting the crevices of the earth to blink open into eyes, a jagged smile of blood-encrusted teeth. She shuddered, insisting, "This is too dangerous."

"Are you kidding?" Hedge belched out a laugh. He turned to Leo and Jason, even Kit, and asked, "Who's ready to beat stuff up?"

It would've been so easy to back down, to hitch a (relatively expensive) ride back to Camp Half-Blood — or anywhere, really. But as the group all gathered together, and that look of Hedge's moved from Leo's face, to Piper's, even to Jason's, Kit found himself following them.

Deep, deep down, beneath every bit of scarred skin, tissue, bone that Kit hid under the surface, he was terrified. Scared of Porphyrion, and getting hurt, and watching the others (Leo) get hurt, too. He didn't want what his dad said to be true. For a moment, he wished to be Kronos himself, just to turn back time.

But the closer the taxi came to the top of the mountain, the easier it was to accept. There would be no turning back, not as the taxi kicked them to the curb a few yards away from where they knew Enceladus would be waiting, not as Leo tugged him out of the vehicle with their intertwined hands, not as the taxi drove away without Kit in it, and a voice seemed to whisper in his head: Are you ready to make things right, Kit?

He didn't think he'd ever be ready.

But the choice wasn't his to make.

"That's Concord," Jason's voice drew Kit back into the present. He wrenched his hand from Leo's, skin scalding. Leo only frowned at him, caught between listening to Jason and looking at Kit with a mixture of confusion and hurt. "Walnut Creek is below us. To the South, Danville, past those hills. And that way..." Jason paused to point West, where golden hills disappeared into a mist of fog. "That's the Berkeley Hills. The East Bay. And past that is San Francisco."

"Thanks for the Geography lesson, Grace," Kit muttered at the same time as Piper frowned and asked, "Jason, do you remember something? Have you been here?"

"Yes... no... I don't know. It just... seems important..."

"That's because it's Titan Land," Hedge said with a grim nod in the direction of those pretty, alluring hills. "Bad place, Jason. Trust me. This is as close to 'Frisco as we wanna get."

Suddenly, a hand reached for Kit, snatching his wrist and squeezing tight — both a warning and a search for comfort, protection. "Guys, let's keep moving," Leo said as he struggled to raise the soles of his feet from the sinking, muddy earth. Gaea. She could sense them.

"She's stronger here," Hedge grumbled. He, too, kicked his hooves in protest, until they popped out of the shoes Aphrodite had gifted him with. Much to Leo's surprise, Hedge shoved them into his arms, forcing him to let go of Kit, who was too busy shuffling his own feet out of the mud to notice. "Keep those for me, Valdez. They're nice."

Leo snorted and saluted him mockingly. "Yes, sir, Coach. Would you like them polished too?"

"That's varsity thinking, Valdez," the satyr nodded. "But first, we'd better hike up this mountain while we still can."

Piper, who'd kept quiet the whole taxi ride up, finally broke her silence to ask, "How do we know where the giant is?"

Jason, with his eyes set on the very top, wordlessly pointed to where a plume of thick smoke was rising into the sky. "Smoke equals fire," he murmured, catching Piper's terrified stare and trying his best to smile in comfort. It didn't work. "We'd better hurry..."

It felt like they hiked for hours, but in reality it was only minutes — maybe ten, fifteen at the most. Kit and Jason were relatively unaffected by the time they reached the top, but Leo, Hedge and (somewhat) Piper all shared a sweaty, exhausted look that had them slowing with their reaction times. Piper had to yank Hedge down behind a small wall of rock, forcing Kit to do the same with Leo, who sank to his knees beside him.

"I don't want to get my outfit dirty," Hedge not-so-quietly whined to the right of them.

Kit shot him a glare as Piper hushed him and tugged on his wrist again. Pouting, the satyr reluctantly knelt beside them, looking devastated when mud and grass left dirt stains on the knees of his yellow pants. Kit shook his head at him, regretting not stopping for an outfit change before they left. In the slowly setting sun, Hedge was like a lighthouse; guiding everything in the darkness towards him. If it wasn't for the purple bonfire spitting flames just a few metres away, he was almost sure Enceladus would've immediately noticed them purely from Hedge looking like an overdressed traffic cone.

Speaking of Enceladus, he had his back to them, kneeling in front of the fire like a miniature mountain had erected from the earth. All of a sudden, he moved, startling them all as he chanted and began to circle the flames in some kind of ritual. With each jarring action, Kit caught more of Enceladus' features, trying and failing to look for weaknesses, places to use to their advantage. But there was nothing. His arms were bulky, like two miniature trucks, and partially covered in the bronze armour that he'd attached to his chest. His skin was covered in soot and dirt, with beady white eyes and matted hair that was braided down his back with pieces of human bone. Each nail, both on his fingers and toes, were clawed like talons to match the sharp green scales that lined his legs, and the spear the size of a flagpole that he clutched in his hands.

In simple words, he was absolutely terrifying, and they stood next-to-no chance against him, especially when Piper's dad was strung up like a sacrifice on the other side of the clearing. Piper looked ready to sob at the sight of him, and Kit felt a striking ache of sympathy for her.

"Okay," Hedge began, oblivious to her glassy eyes. "Here's the plan—"

"You are not charging him alone," Leo argued before Hedge could start his tangent.

The satyr pouted as Kit laughed. "Aw, c'mon. Tell him, Dempsey."

"Just let him do it," Kit shrugged, much to Leo's disbelief. "See what happens."

"Guys," Jason hissed and pointed at Piper.

At the same time, she raised a shaky finger and gestured to where Kit had already seen Tristan McLean. "Dad," she whimpered, and the ache of sympathy returned again.

Fuelled by this feeling, Hedge returned to what he was saying. "There's five of us, and only one of him."

"Did you miss the fact that he's thirty feet tall?" Leo scoffed.

Hedge ignored him, stubbornly continuing. "You, me, Dempsey and Jason are going to distract him. Piper sneaks around and frees her dad."

"And then he cooks us all over his fire," Kit finished with a sickly sweet smile. "Happily ever after. The End."

"Well, do any of you have a better idea?"

Wordlessly, each of them looked at Jason.

"What?" he frowned back at them. "I'm not the leader."

"Yes," Piper rolled her eyes. "You are."

"I mean, this is literally your quest, dude," Kit shrugged when Jason still looked uncertain. "I don't know what you want us to say."

Jason sighed, but for once, Kit had said something he couldn't argue with. "Look, I hate to say it," he muttered, glancing at Hedge and grimacing when the satyr beamed knowingly back at him. "But Coach Hedge is right. A distraction is Piper's best chance."

Already, Kit could feel their time wasting. No one wanted to make the first move, not even Piper, with Enceladus still chanting around the fire like a mad-man. Much to Kit's surprise, in the end, it was Leo who broke the silence. Fishing a little mechanical toy out of his belt, he held it before them with a hopeful grin. Kit felt his heart sink and skip a beat all at once.

"Let's boogie, before I come to my senses," he said, to which the group began to prepare themselves. The countdown had begun. He turned to Kit, his smile widening. "You with me, Christopher?"

Kit would never admit it, but he almost — almost being the key word — smiled at the familiarity of that blasted, oh-so-stupid nickname. Christopher. He'd miss it when all this was over.

With a determined nod, Kit raised his sword. "I'm with you, Leo."

Before he could change his mind, the two burst into the clearing, one doing all he could to avoid death while the other ran into its clutches.

It was show time, after all.

■ ■ ■ ■ ■

A/N: i couldn't not update my baby kit when i saw his story had hit 10K. thank you so much, everyone! you have no idea how much it means to me that you guys love kit and leo as much as i do. so, here, we're almost finished lost hero (finally.) are you guys excited? also, a side note, if y'all hadn't already picked up on it, kit and leo are hugely inspired by alec benjamin songs, but this chapter in particular was written while listening to hill i will die on. i feel like it says a lot about kit and his thought process as he chooses to follow leo into what he thinks is going to be his moment of reckoning. what do y'all think? can you see it? let me know! and as always, thank you so much for reading <3