Chapter 107: I play Plants vs (Giant)Zombie(S)

(Percy POV)

"You know," I said as I finally reached the window ledge, "Maybe we should burn down this fort from the outside and look for the hammer later,"

Magnus perked up, "Won't that be a violation of the guest right?" Magnus wondered.

No, Hearth (our magic expert) signed, But burning down the fortress is impossible.

"It is," Blitzen agreed, "It would save us a lot of time actually. But as a dwarf I can tell you that the fort is made of a fire resistant stone."

I smirked, "Well, I could burn it down."

"You can't burn it down," Sam said.

I dramatically sighed and opened my hand, a green fireball floated in my hand.

The Greek fire tickled a little bit but did no damage to me.

My firepowers had become stronger, especially after using soul fire. I could effortlessly summon Greek fire but the problem was...it's fire, if I don't keep a close eye on it I could accidently burn something important.

'You would pass out for some time though,' Chaos suddenly remarked. 'Like a day or two.'

I slightly turned pale and turned to my friends, "However if I would do that I would pass out for a day or two."

"Then don't do it." Sam said.

"Are you sure?" I said, considering the options we had. I had no idea how strong the giants were and was afraid Magnus would he had a sword that could automatically but he himself had almost no experience sword fighting. I would feel terribly if he died. Again of course.

"Are you sure?" I asked Sam, "We could avoid a big risk if we just burn it down."

Sam rolled her eyes, "Yes that's true but I rather have you awake and alive."

I shrugged, "So do you guys have a plan?"

Blitzen frowned, "I think we should go inside and claim guest right. Hope they won't kill us."

Magnus pulled of his pendant and Jack hummed to life.

"Ah," Jack said, "I see we reached the Giant's house? What's the plan?"

Magnus stared at Jack, "We go inside the house. Claim guest right."

"And…?" Jack asked as if there was more.

"We subtly ask for the hammer," Blitzen said, though sounding a bit nervous.

Sam rolled her eyes, "Let's hope it works out."

...

Sam took the iron staff in her hand and studied it, "It's not the hammer," she smartly remarked.

It was kind of anticlimactic,we had smartly tricked the three giants, Geirrod, Griep and Galpinto admitting they wanted to kill us. The only thing it took was revealing Thor killed his daughter. After that the guest right thing was broken and we killed them off.

Magnus threw Jack and killed of the two daughters while I threw the shield of winter at daddy giant. It shot right through the brains.

Now we had three fifty feet high corpses lying on the floor with their brains out. Yeah, it wasn't the prettiest thing to do.

But we found a weapon. It was just not the hammer.

"So we failed finding

Blitzen studied the iron pole. "I dunno, kid. See this runework? It isn't Mjolnir, but this staff was forged with powerful magic."

Sam's face fell. "Oh … Thor's weapon. Just not the right weapon."

"Mmm." Blitzen nodded sagely.

"Mmm," Magnus agreed. "Would one of you tell me what you're talking about?"

"Kid, this is Thor's backup weapon," Blitz explained. "The staff was a gift from a friend of his – the giantess Grid."

"Cool," I said, "So we can go-"

As I said it I felt the presence of a god behind me, it was a familiar one. I sighed and turned around. As I expected, Hel stood behind me.

She wore a black long sleeveless dress, like she was going to a funeral. She had a sad expression on her face, though it was hard to say since she was half corpse like.

"Hel," I said not particularly scared. "What's up?"

As I expected around me time had frozen, as gods tends to do when having private conversations with mortals. I really had to resist the urge to get a marker and draw a mustache on everyone's faces.

A small smile formed on Hel's lips, "Percy Jackson, still pursuing your quest to stay alive."

She said it like it was a sad fact, which it must have been for her because she wanted my soul.

I shrugged, "Yes, kind of enjoying being alive."

Hel narrowed her eyes, "Life is fragile Percy, just give up. No one will judge you if you give up."

I chuckled, "You think I'm doing all of this because people expect me too?"

"You like doing Thor's work for him?" Hel fired back.

"Touché," I said, "But I'm doing it to help my friends," I pointed at my in time frozen friends. "I'm doing this to help them. Because they are my friends."

Hel gave me an amused smile, "Even when you could die?"

"Yes," I simply said, "If I have to."

Hel sighed, "Just remember you can give up whenever you want to, you know the words."

I frowned, did she came her all the way to tell me that? Just as I wanted to ask her she had disappeared and time stop had worn of.

I stared at my friends, who stared back at me in horror.

"What?" I deadpanned, "Something's on my face?"

Magnus lifted his finger and pointed at my head, Hearth signed, Behind you!

I turned around and even I had to blink a second time.

Geirrod's corpse had began to stir, his leg (which previously had been rotting away).

I turned to Sam, "Is that suppose to happen."

Sam shook her head. I turned back to Geirrod and saw his entire body began to stir.

'Ah,' Lyssa said, 'You have a big problem.'

In front of my own eyes the dead giant rose from the ground, towering above us like he had done before we killed him.

Except he had a giant hole in his head, (that's the place I hit him with the shield of winter). I yelled the first thing that came to my mind, "Giant zombie!"

Zombie Geirrod didn't like being called that apperenty, he let out a (zombie-ish) roar and raised his arms.

As one team, we split up and ran across the room.

Good news; Zombie Geirrod wasn't as smart and fast as normal Geirrod, Bad news; Zombie Geirrod likes to throw around with his one stuff.

WIth a deafening roar he threw a drinking mug at me. My shield sprung to life just in time, It blocked the mug but I was thrown across the room and crashed into the stone wall, which did hurt despite my Einherji resistance.

Jack flew across the room and stabbed Zombie Geirrod in the eye and in the leg but it didn't matter. Some kind of hellish (Pun intended) kept the Giant moving.

"What's going on?" Magnus yelled from across the room. Hiding behind a pilar while Blitzen and Hearth were running away from the (kind of slow) Zombie Giant.

"Hel," I yelled from across the room while I readied my shield.

"Hell?" Magnus asked.

"Hel, the person." I threw the shield at high speed at Zombie Geirrod and managed to hit him straight into the face, it went straight through it. Like a hot knife through butter.

It flew through his mouth, makin g a wide gap, then it flew back like a frisbee towards me and attached itself to my arm. I smirked and waited for the giant to fall dead to the floor but to my surprise it was still standing.

'It's a zombie,' Lyssa said mockingly, 'You have to take out the brains.'

It was a good point, except that the brains of the giant had already been torn apart.

The giant roared and dashed toward me,

I raised my hand and threw a greek fire ball towards his head. The greek fire crashed on his face but didn't harm him at all. Then I remembered Sam saying something about most giants being immune to fire.

I cursed and ran away from the giant, trying to find a way to kill the giant zombie. The ground shook as it charged after me, Jack yelled encouraging things from above while he kept damaging the giant. "Come on senior!"

As I ran the world around me began to slow down and my senses of the world began to double. It was like when I faced Nidhogg and the fire hit me. While I ran away I felt calm and calculated. My mind began to run through a lot of different options to kill the giants, finally I settled down on engulfing it with plants and trying to squish it.

Problem, Geirrod didn't have any plants in his house. But I knew who could summon them. I myself could only summon them from dirt that already had some plantlife.

As I ran, I passed Hearth who had been hiding behind a pillar (next to Magnus) As I ran past him I signed, Summon plants! Don't ask why.

Hearth frowned but nodded anyway. He threw up a run, which I recognized as the rune of Frey.

As the Rune shimmered to life a small piece of grass appeared in the middle of the room. It was really small, it was nothing impressive, Hearth must have been exhausted from summoning Stanley. I ran towards the grass, while the zombie giant still followed me, moaning and grunting.

I stopped when I reached the grass and turned around, the zombie was still 50 feet away, which was a few steps for the giant. I knelt down and touched the grass blades, I wielded it to turn into a vine (I love vines) and commanded it to spread around the room.

The grass blades transformed into green vines, a few inches thick, and began to slither across the room. Rooting in the cracks of the stone floor and generally ruining the Giant's home.

The giant zombie had reached me and leaned forward to grab me. I jumped back and aimed my arms at the Giant, as if I would shoot fire.

The vines shot forward through the air and wrapped themselves around the giant and restrained him for a few seconds.

"Aaargh!" it grunted while the vines began to tear of his dead flash.

"Good work senior!" Jack called out as he floated next to me and studied the trapped giant. However, I didn't had the time to talk. I ran to the side of the giant and gestured the plants to grow faster, however the giant had already ripped himself away from the first vine that had restrained him. Flesh was ripped of his arm and large holes revealed white bone hiding underneath the skin.

Suddenly I felt the room getting warmer, I quickly glanced around and saw Magnus had stepped closer towards the giant and was glowing. Yup, you heard that right. He was actually glowing.

An Aura of gold light had formed around him and bathed the entire room in a golden light. It was warm and felt actually kinda nice.

"What are you doing?" I yelled while I gestured the vines on the ground to grow faster and wrap themselves around the Geirrod, and immediately snapped.

Magnus kept glowing and staring at the giant. Determination written all over his face.

"I'm bringing the summer!" Magnus yelled, the moment he yelled that the plants began to grow faster than I've ever seen. They became thicker and with that stronger. Though Magnus couldn't control the vines he was boosting their grow speed, 'it was probably a son of Frey thing.' I thought.

I took my chance and shouted at the vines, "Destroy him!"

Immediately the plants began to slither through the room, spreading across the floor like snakes. All over the place new plants began to sprout; thick vines with thorns shot toward the giants leg and tore themself right into his flesh. The Giant grunted and groaned as the thorns delve into his flesh and tore it apart.

In front of the giant a large Venus flytrap began to sprout, it's mouth was so big it could've swallowed an entire car. It lashed forward, mouth wide open and bite the giant in his tight, munching away the flesh and trapping it in place.

More and more vines began to form around the giant, Venus flytraps sprouted all over the place and began to bite every piece of flesh they could find, though they avoided my friends like they were poison.

Large green vines rose up and lashed out at the Giant's back like a whip. Slowly but surely the plants were decimating the giant till it was nothing more than a pile of rotting flesh.

The giant had disappeared under all the flora. It let out a giant grunt before all the vines tore into his flesh and destroyed everything that could be recognized as flesh.

After there was nothing left all the vines retreated to eye level and stared at me, (could plants stare?), my only thought was, 'Did that just happen?'

After a few seconds of uncomfortable silence Sam said, "I think they are waiting for you to say something."

I swallowed and said, "Good job,"

The plants kept staring at me.

"Dismissed."

Immediately all the plants slumped and fell dead to the ground, shortly after that they began to wither away till there was nothing left except a pile of shred zombie/giant flesh.

I turned to my friends, "Well, that was-"

"Gross." Sam finished.

"Creepy." Hearth signed.

"Pretty smart." Blitzen commented.

"Awesome." Magnus said, then his eyes closed and he fell down to the floor.