Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

One: Will

A Stroll in the Dark

            Will had only shadow traveled with Nico a few times. Although he didn’t like to dwell on it, he used to be afraid of the dark like the rest of his siblings, but, he always knew Nico would take care of him in the shadows. Despite Nico’s insecurities, Will knew Nico was strong and courageous, even if he did need the occasional reminder to floss his teeth.         

            Now, Will needed to do more for Nico than a quick dental exam. Hades’ words echoed over the scream of air around him, You can bring Nico back from the shadows and stop Melinoe.

            Unfortunately, Hades wasn’t big into How To guides, something Will had been trying to change.

            When Will saw Melinoe, the Greek Goddess of Ghosts, suspend Nico in a shadow state—Nico’s mouth quivering with a scream, his limbs writhing as her ghouls phased through Nico’s torso like it was no more than a sewer gate to crawl out of the Underworld, Nico’s skin dimming in and out of the darkness—Will took the only course available.

            His sister, Kally, had nodded to Will and said, “I’ll sustain you two! Go!” and Will ran towards the son of Hades. He went to shadow travel.

            In the past, Will had compared shadow traveling to riding in the sun chariot at full speed without a windshield. Percy had once described it as “going so fast that it feels like your face is peeling off.” This was different.

            Normally, Mrs. O’Leary sprinted through the shadow realm or Nico would take Will’s hand and pull Will full speed—often forgetting that Will was faster and liked to tease him about it.

            Now, everything slowed down. No map. No guide. No objective exterior to Nico.

            One moment, he was running at Nico. The next, everything muddled to black. He could no longer see the undead army charging Camp Half-Blood with Reyna leading a dismally small dispatch of Romans to defend its fallen borders. He could no longer see Melinoe laughing beside Phobetor, the ghastly God of Nightmares with a terrible taste in bowties.

            Will tried to stumble to a stop, but it felt like he’d wadded into an icy maelstrom. There was black tar everywhere, swirling thickly around him, like the shadows wanted to maul him. From his previous travels, what he’d mistaken as a blast of cold air was really their fingers desperately clawing at him. What he’d mistaken for the whistle of speed was their screams. Thousands of screams.

            This is what he feared entering the dark would be like when he was a child: smothering, eternal, inescapable, cold.

            Was this really what Nico went through every time?

            A mounting sense of panic twisted Will’s insides. He’d never find Nico here—in this vast expanse of nothingness and torrid shadows, with no sense of direction other than—

            Warmth gently tingled his back.

            Will exhaled.

            When he turned around, he could see a dim shaft of light piercing through the blackness. He remembered when Hades had cracked the ceiling of the Underworld, to give Persephone a ray of sunshine for her garden, killing hundreds of people for a few moments of her smile. He remembered Hades asking Will if he’d do the same for Nico. Will had hesitated.

            Will had no idea why there was a ray of familiar sunshine cascading through this darkness. Dawn shouldn’t hit Camp Half-Blood for another ten minutes. While Will really didn’t want that sunshine to come from the death of hundreds—as he had no control over it—he would be sure to write a haiku for them if that was the sacrifice.

            With the sunshine acting as some directional orientation, Will could take a calming breath. 

            He was undead now. He focused on everything Nico had taught him over the lazy months of summer—what Will could remember from when he’d been plotting over how to get the son of Hades to open up to him. From what he could recall, Will should be able to become one of these shadows to move around and turn back into a typical ghost after existing in shadow form. Shadow travel should be safe for him.

            Will stepped forward, the world feeling less like a maelstrom and more like a lake of pudding.

            Over summer, he had struggled to remind Nico that he was always there to listen if Nico ever wanted to talk about Tartarus, or being captured by Giants.

            But, looking at all of this that Nico handled so casually, Nico deserved so much more than a smilie band-aid or a happy sticker that Will swiped for him from the infirmary.

            As the pounding of Will’s heart quieted, and he stepped directly away from the light, he discerned the faintest echo of a sob over the shrieks of the shadows.

            Nico was crying in front of him.

            The shadows seemed to weave into the flickering form of his Death Boy. Unlike outside, where Nico was suspended upright by Melinoe’s powers, here, Nico knelt by the dim figure of a gravestone. No—he didn’t kneel by it. He was half-way melded into it. His hazy silhouette—the crazed, black hair, those hollow eyes—intermeshed with the shadows around them.

            Will could barely make out his features.

            The part most in focus was the gravestone’s etching, recording the names and dates of three people: Maria di Angelo, Bianca di Angelo, and Will Solace.

            Will opened his mouth to shout for Nico, but choked.

            Persphone’s instructions. He’d almost forgotten her warning—You can’t talk to him. You can’t acknowledge him. If you fail to ignore him, you’ve damned you both.

            At the sound of Will’s choke, Nico’s fading outline glanced up. “Will?” Nico asked. Even his voice sounded detached, like an old recording.

            Will turned away. He clenched his fists, trembling.

            “Will?!” Nico repeated, his voice more desperate.

            The pain in Nico’s voice made Will bite his lip. Will wanted to reassure Nico, to hug him, to tell him that he wouldn’t leave, that he’d somehow find a way to undo his death and the current threat to the camp. But he had to get Nico out of the shadows first. How was Will supposed to lead Nico out of this if he couldn’t talk to him?

            You need to have faith that your love will be enough to bring him back and defeat his despair.

            Will took a step towards the dim ray of light.

            “Stop—please!” Nico sobbed, “Y—you’re the only one left th—that has time to care about me—”

            The screams of shadows withered to nothing compared to Nico’s quivering voice. Will wasn’t sure if it was because the son of Hades had command over shadows, or because the terror in Nico’s voice sounded worse than anything the other shadows could produce.

            Like the sound was amplified for twisted assurance, Will could hear Nico stumble once after him. He tried not to envision it: Nico half crawling from that tombstone. “You’re the only one that hasn’t l-left me. N-no one else has time for me. I know they’re all good intentioned. B-but Reyna’s a praetor. Gleeson has a kid. Percy’s getting ready for college. You’re—you’re—you’re d—”

            Will was hoping Nico would run after him.

            He froze in horror when something dropped behind him. No more footsteps. Nico must have collapsed.

            Will closed his eyes, grinding his teeth to keep himself quiet. His body trembled to turn around and run to Nico, to assure him everything would be alright. But, he couldn’t do that. If he turned around, everything wouldn’t be alright.

            They could do this. They had to be able to do this. He wasn’t about to let Nico disappear into shadows. He wasn’t going to let Melinoe use Nico’s body as a conduit for an undead army to destroy Camp Half-Blood. The original hero who tried to return someone from eternal darkness, Orpheus, had failed his quest. Orpheus had doubted his and Eurydice’s love and violated the conditions of the quest by looking back. But Will wasn’t Orpheus. And Nico wasn’t a wood nymph or a daughter of Apollo…. Fortunate since that would be very weird.[1]

            Will visualized the first time Nico had kissed him: running late for archery class, Will scolding Nico for not getting enough sleep the night before, Nico leaning up and surprising Will before rushing toward the archery range. For the rest of the day, Will couldn’t stop singing. Nico kept complaining it was embarrassing, especially since campers kept high-fiving them and giving them congratulatory gifts. But Will loved Nico’s blushes and the way he pretend to be angry and Will had to express—

            “Every time you kiss me it’s like sunshine and whiskey,” Will sang aloud to himself.

            The shadows seemed to silence their wails.

            Will remembered how Nico’s blush extended all the way to his ears when Nico parceled out the words the first time.

            “Alright, you hit me like fire, shot me like a bullet.

            Burned me up and down, no way to cool it—”

            Nico’s sobs stopped.

            Will couldn’t hear Nico get up, nor could he hear Nico’s footsteps. But Will continued towards the dim ray of light piercing through the blackness. He felt like Persephone was testing him with the silence. Yet, somehow, Will felt calm. He knew they could make it through the darkness—their love would be enough.

            Come on Death Boy, he thought as he continued to sing. Let’s get you some sunshine.

            Will stepped forward, leading Nico toward the illusion of safety: a camp under siege by two gods with no plan of what to do when they got there.

Author’s note: I’m baaaaaccckkkk! XD

Sorry for the delay, and those *ehem* cliffhangers.

For those of you who might be new: Welcome! This is the fourth and final book of the Traitors of Olympus series. If you enjoy being flummoxed, not knowing what’s going on, and to further empower Eris (our beautiful goddess of chaos and strife) then please continue to read without catching up on the others books in the series and be sure to throw your computer/tablet/phone/printed out copy (*author fans self at the idea of printed-off copies*) across the room as hard as you can each and every time you read a name you’re unfamiliar with or find a plot point that confuses you. Eris will assuredly flutter down on her black wings and give you little Discordian welcome stickers and appreciate your contribution to her cause. Otherwise, if you liked the writing in this chapter and like to keep order in the world, feel free to check out the rest of the series before you read this one!

To those of you returning: Thank you for coming back to put up with this series’ nonsense! It has been a rough past six months, and your comments and support have really helped pull me through. You guys are awesome and I want to give each of you a personalized hug! (complete with adoring attack weasels!)

We should be back to weekly updates for the rest of summer with the occasional short! I hope you guys enjoyed and are ready for next week’s chapter: Kalypso—I Run to the Dumbest Spot Possible.

(Also! Mormoc made the awesome front cover of this book. Check it and her art out!)

Footnote:

[1] Pax: *pouts* Must be nice not to have creepy siblings.

Eris: *pats his back* Welcome to godhood, my son!

Chapter Text

Two: Kalypso

I Run To the Dumbest Spot Possible

            When Kally bolted to the front lines of the battle at the camp’s border and told Will that she would cover him, she hoped she sounded like she had a plan.

            She didn’t.

            Kally found herself, without a plan, running between two scary gods, and two equally terrifying half-bloods. The battle escalated so quickly, she couldn’t have kept track of who was stabbing whom without the sense of time slowing down—something Axel had explained as a demigod power.

            To one side, a boar the size of a minivan charged Alabaster C. Torrington, the child of Hecate and enemy—former enemy?—to Camp Half-Blood. From the few Greek mythological studies she’d attended, she knew other campers might think this was just a standard, terrorizing boar, but the hideous pink and green bowtie gave away his identity: Phobetor, the God of Nightmares—someone she’d rather see as bacon rather than an oncoming attacker. 

            As Phobetor barreled forward, Kally could feel her legs tremble, unsure how Alabaster took such a solid stance, lowering his forked staff like a lance.

            “What, little child of magic? Are you defending this camp, again?” Phobetor huffed.

            If Kally was closer to Alabaster, the aura of Alabaster’s hatred might roast her: no powers necessary.

            At the last second, the child of magic knelt, scrawling something into the dirt while hissing, “Incantara: captarent eum.” 

            As Phobetor bore down on him, Alabaster rolled to the side.[1] The pouches for his spells rattled and spun around as he dodged. Because he’d shoved his Cloven Terror helm back on—a Stygian iron enlaced ram’s skull with smoking green eyeholes—he looked almost as much a monster as Phobetor. Alabaster’s eerie eyes blazed in the shadows and his limbs looked elongated and almost tree-like.

            One of Phobetor’s front feet snagged on that spot of ground, catching on whatever trap Alabaster had set.

            Alabaster lunged from his crouch, forked staff aimed at Phobetor’s head. “For the last time,” he snarled, “I’m not doing it for this camp!”

            The god melted into black tar before Alabaster’s strike could land.

            When the tar reformed, Phobetor stood in a humanoid form, donning a colorful minstrel’s costume. He had a bird skull in place of a head and a piccolo-hatchet in hand. The hatchet was mid-swing at the child of magic.

            Meanwhile, on Kally’s other side, Reyna had led her small unit of legionnaires in a wedge shaped pattern into Melinoe and her amassing army of ghouls.

            Before Pax had run off to do whatever with his brother, Axel—she’d been too far away to discern much of Pax’s shouts—he’d called the Goddess of Ghosts, “Two-Face.” This was an appropriate title. The goddess looked like two desecrated corpses, one mummified in wrappings and one drained of blood, cut down the center and sewn together.

            The goddess’ form rippled when she rushed forward at Reyna’s army. With a swift motion, she knocked Reyna away from her troops, closer to Nico. Reyna barely avoided tumbling to the ground.

            Instead of a monster, Melinoe turned into something that Kally found far less ghastly: a middle-aged Hispanic man wearing an American soldier’s desert camo uniform. There was a saber hanging out of his bleeding torso and a rifle in his hands. His sharp, stern features almost reminded Kally of the praetor’s.

            Reyna fully regained her footing when Melinoe reached the praetor again. With Reyna’s brave stance, the glare of her imperial gold breastplate in the moonlight, the glow of her tattoo, and the fluttering of her dark braid and billowing of her purple cloak, she looked like a goddess of war. Kally could completely understand why a warrior like Axel had fallen in love with her.

            Reyna’s seeming invulnerability made it all the more horrifying when Melinoe managed to nail Reyna in the face with the butt of the rifle. Seeing Melinoe in the form of a Hispanic soldier, Reyna looked too shocked to dodge.

            Reyna skidded backward. Blood leaked from her lips.

            “Ramirez!” a centurion from the Roman unit, Kally thought it was Kahale, cried. Their wedge slammed into the line of ghouls nearby. The clash of celestial metal and the hiss of ghouls thundered around the camp.

            “Keep the formation!” Reyna snarled, wiping the blood off her face and straightening to full height. “I’ll handle the goddess!”

            With that, Reyna charged the Goddess of Ghosts, fighting spear to rifle. The goddess screamed at Reyna in enraged Spanish.

            With Reyna and Alabaster taking on two gods without back up and the Roman legionnaires fighting the undead, Kally reminded herself she could only help one person right now, and the person who needed her the most was Nico.

            With Phobetor and Alabaster colliding hatchet-to-staff on one side, and Reyna and Melinoe battling on the other, Kally raced forward.[2] She didn’t see Will anywhere and hoped her ghost brother had done whatever he could for his boyfriend.

            In front of her, Nico was strung up like a marionette with shadowy threads. They entwined into his skin, appearing to thicken with each second. His mouth contorted in a scream. Despite the roar of brutality from the nearby combat, his desperate shriek pierced her ears. He withered in spasms and Kally was nauseous when she saw why.

            From a mesh of blackness around his waist ghoulish arms erupted, clawing into the sides of his torso and ribcage to pull themselves out from within. The ghosts would erupt, howl with glee, then rush to flank the Roman formation. The process took seconds, sometimes with more than one ghost greedily slithering through. With each escapee, part of Nico’s arms or legs would dissipate into shadow, like they’d stolen a piece of his life to sustain their own.

            A shadow bridge—that’s what Melinoe had called Nico.   

            Despite her terror and confusion, Kally quivered in rage.

            Even after everything they’d gone through: all their quests and tribulations, the months of nightmares, what Apollo had done to her mother, how Joey and Will had died, and how she and the other “Traitors of Olympus” had fought Percy and his gang for Eris’s amusement, Kally hadn’t given much thought to the gods that had been puppeting them.

            What Melinoe was doing to her friend was like a billboard of We’re Jerks and This is How We Amuse Ourselves.

            Kally wasn’t sure what to do. She couldn’t throw her imperial gold discus at Nico’s shadows. It would either go through him or hit him and make things worse. And she doubted her healing would help him here.

            Will’s shouts echoed in her head, about how to treat Nico’s shadow poisoning and how to weaken ghosts.

            Last time Pax had driven her to anger, she learned how to harness one of her powers, something she hadn’t been able to replicate on a large scale since months ago in Howe Cavern.

            But, now, Kally could feel her hands heating up. Her gut twisted the same way it did when she healed someone. As she stumbled to a stop directly in front of the son of Hades, she screamed, “Nico, Will, hold on!”

            When she lifted her hands up, light exploded out of them.

            The ghosts crawling out were incinerated with little more than a hiss.

            The tendrils wrapping Nico exploded off.

            He collapsed onto his face.

            Nico’s arms and legs didn’t reappear in the sunrays like she had hoped. What was left of his thighs and upper arms barely remained solid. To her horror, Kally realized Melinoe’s tendrils hadn’t just been holding him upright. They’d been holding him together.

            Nico would probably disappear into the shadows if she stopped her rain of sunshine now.

            Worse: he continued to wail.

            Last time she’d done this, her solar flare had burned bright enough to knock Python off of her and Will. Could she eviscerate Nico like she’d done the shadows and tendrils? But, if she stopped, he’d dissipate.

            On the edge of her peripheral vision, Kally could see something moving towards her—fast.

            “Insolent child of Apollo!” Melinoe shrieked nearby.

            Her heart seemed to hold its beats. She couldn’t turn or do anything to defend herself. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to sustain Nico.

            Something made a horrifying, chattery hiss right beside her ear.

            Then she heard a double thump.

            A shade stumbled out from beside her, into her beam of light and obliterated into a puff of smoke. Before it poofed, she could see two distinct arrows sticking out of it: one gold, one silver.

            More shades chattered around her.

            “We got you covered!”

            “Keep that torch on, Kal!”

            Although she couldn’t turn, something produced a brief flash of light and a pop. Electricity arched nearby. Shades hissed.

            Another set of shades jumped, willfully, into her blaze, as though they’d decided the sight was so lovely, they’d die to touch it.

            Judging from the shouts and actions, Kally assumed Thalia, the Lieutenant of Artemis, and Calex, the son of Eros, were keeping an eye out for her.

            Over the shriek of dying ghosts—did ghosts… die?—she could hear Nico’s continued sob. Each heave was so despairing, the area seemed to radiate despondency.

            She strained to focus on the intensity of emotion and the tug in her stomach. She could feel her body whine in protest under the stress and heat. As someone trained to repress her emotions and forgive everything, fueling the sunlight with her rage was difficult.

            With the way Nico wouldn’t raise his head, Kally couldn’t shake the feeling that Nico wanted to fade away. That scared her more than any of the ghouls, the Goddess of Ghosts, and the God of Nightmares all together.

            Although she didn’t know what Will was doing or what she could do, she found herself thinking, Hurry, Will.

            Two things gave her hope.

            In the distance, she could see the horizon tinting pink. The sun would rise soon, putting this battle to a standstill.

            That, and, in the distance behind Nico, she could see a van park along the border of Camp Half-Blood, beside the Paxmobile. Sam Datta’s taxi van. A very pissed Percy Jackson had hopped out of the front passenger seat and an infuriated Hazel Levesque jumped out of the back.

            Percy cracked his neck and took a step towards the battle.

Author’s note:

Thanks for the read! We’re jumping hardcore back into our battle!!! Tune in next week for Chapter Three: Percy—I Become King of the Party.

Let me know what you think!

[1] Pax, “Get it? The boar bore down on him—” “Ajax, shut up.”

[2] I needed to reword this sentence to smooth it out, but Pax wanted me to maintain part of the original sentence and point out that Reyna and Alabaster are taking on two gods, head on, without back up. Percy wants to point out that this is a typical night for him.

Chapter Text

             Percy hadn’t wanted to punch someone in the face this bad since that jerk, Octavian, had proved he could be more annoying and in-the-way than a god. During their taxi ride to Camp Half-Blood, Annabeth had explained—between exhausted, feverish dozing in Percy’s lap—what happened when they captured Ajax Pax and how Will’s skull had been crushed by his half-brother. Their taxi driver was some twenty-year-old mortal who was uncomfortably calm about everything and way more worried about his biostats final than the fact there was a corpse reverently rolled up in the back and seven injured teens crammed illegally into his van. Sam Datta also was more excited than worried when Hazel shadow-traveled into the middle seat beside Leo and Calypso.

            Leo and Calypso were too worn out to do more than curl away. There was a small rumble of surprise from Frank, Jason, and Piper in the back seat.

            “Sorry,” Hazel apologized. “That spell the Cloven Terror cast made it so I couldn’t shadow travel back into the child of Hecate’s territory. I popped up far away and then Arion and I had to track you guys down before I could shadow travel in here. What happened? And, isn’t this the same driver that drove the bad guys earlier?”

            Sam Datta gave her a friendly wave from the driver’s seat. “Look lady, I’m just trying to pay for college.”

            Percy cradled Annabeth tighter in his arms. If they got into a car crash with a wandering cow or stray centaur, they’d go through the window and be smashed into the world’s most demigodly burger patties. If Will was around, he’d have had a fit about their lack of seatbelts, and he would have given lollipops to those wearing seatbelts, and only those wearing seat belts.

            Percy frowned and swallowed at the thought of Will’s body.

            He updated Hazel on how Pax, or who she kept calling the Silver Tongued Snake, had puppeted Leo into fighting Percy, fire versus water. Percy tried to keep the recount concise and vague, not wanting to make Leo feel any worse than he already felt. The son of Hephaestus was still shaking beside Calypso, upset by more than having to temporarily leave their broken, metal friend, Festus, behind.

            Pax had exposed all of Leo’s insecurities when he took Leo over. The child of Eris had used every dirty trick in the book—from repeatedly kicking Jason between the legs during battle, to stealing Frank’s stick, to telling Leo that he was worthless—so Percy didn’t exactly want to give this guy a hug.

            But, if everything Pax told Annabeth was true: that the Pax brothers hadn’t been trying to destroy Camp Half-Blood, but wanted to warn it of an impending attack, that Pax and his friends weren’t rogue psychopaths that murdered a bunch of mortals, but that those mortals (and Pax’s father) were killed because they’d sacrificed one of Pax’s friends in a crazy Greco-Mesoamerican ritual, and that Pax hadn’t attacked Will, but had—in fact—tried to save Will and the others from some maniac called Jak-Jak the Plague Bringer… if all that was true, then Pax and his friends weren’t the bad guys here.

            “It would explain why no one tried to kill us at that crazy monster club when it was perfect for an ambush. And why someone healed Frank and me when you were still fighting,” Jason grumbled from the back, where he was holding an exhausted Piper. This was the first time the son of Jupiter had managed to talk since Percy dragged him into the van. Percy just wished they had some godly-powered aspirin for his sore friend.

            Percy hadn’t seen Pax kick Jason over and over, but he knew one kick was enough to knock Percy down for a few minutes, let alone an onslaught of bludgeoning to the family jewels.

            “The Plague Bringer,” Hazel muttered. She snapped her fingers. “I remember now. Dakota used to scare us at night with stories of him and the Triple A Chimera. Even if they’re not wishing us harm right now, they’re still not good people in the stories. They were Saturn’s assassination unit.”

            Although Percy didn’t look over his shoulder at the back of the van, he could envision Jason nodding. “They’re not just stories,” Jason said, “Everyone thought they were responsible for murdering several senators and staging it to look like internal treachery. Rumor had it that was the duty of the Silver Tongued Snake and the Cloven Terror.”

            “But if the Leonis Caput got you, you’d disappear,” Hazel finished. She swallowed “Nico told me that he’d drag you into the labyrinth, rip out your heart, and eat your soul. Nico said he never saw the souls of the people the Leonis Caput supposedly kidnapped.” She looked worried mentioning Nico. They were all worried about what could have happened to him.

            Beyond that worry, they were still stunned over Will.

            They couldn’t think about what happened to them right now. They had to focus.

            “So, Reyna’s boyfriend is some crazy Aztec murderer?” Percy asked skeptically, trying to sort all the facts. He wished Annabeth was more coherent. She’d be able to parcel through this way quicker and with way less of a headache.

            “Mayan,” Annabeth muttered sleepily.

            “Should one of us have a talk with Reyna about her charming cat-boy?” Percy asked.

            “Yea, you have fun with that conversation,” Frank said, “I’ve never seen Reyna look so mad. I wouldn’t even bring that up even if I were Iris Messaging her from Vancouver.”

            Percy frowned. From what he gathered, they had all been played, and Percy was tired of getting played by gods. Eris had somehow kidnapped his little sister, probably kidnapped Nico, and was on her way to attack his camp. Half his friends were grievously wounded, exhausted, or unconscious from a fight Eris had staged to distract his friends and Axel’s group—the only people who knew her plan—from warning their camp.

            When Sam Datta drove up Farm Road to the edge of the strawberry field, Percy was furious to find out Pax had been telling the truth.

            “Pisaasu!” their driver swore in amazement.

            “Beautiful mother Athena,” Annabeth breathed from his collar.

            “Yea, not good,” Frank agreed.

            Flood lights were set up in a perimeter around the field, like someone wanted to stage the world’s most epic strawberry picking contest. Unfortunately, there were no satyrs out, scrambling for fruit. The illumination acted like a horrific backlight for something far worse.

            Romans clashed into an undead army. In the glow of the oncoming dawn, Percy could see Reyna was separated from her troops, locked in battle with a seemingly normal ghoul. Percy had a sneaking suspicion he knew that ghoul though—Melinoe, the Goddess of Ghosts.

            He, Thalia, and Nico had met her before, and she hadn’t been exactly friendly.

            Nearby Reyna, the Cloven Terror, Alabaster C. Torrington, was struggling against a monster that melted into tar each time Alabaster tried to land an attack. If it didn’t look like the Cloven Terror was defending his camp, Percy might have put his money on the monster. Last time he’d met Alabaster, the child of Hecate shot three imperial gold bullets at Percy’s head, [1] and would have sent Percy to an early Elysium if not for Hazel’s fast thinking and reflexes. Not the best way for Alabaster to make friends.

            In the middle of the battle, there was a blinding light shining in their direction, one far brighter than the flood lights, so bright that they couldn’t make out the center of the field.

            Once Percy exited Sam Datta’s taxi van and set Annabeth gently in the passenger seat, he felt his rage flare up at something else.

            “Holy Pluto, is that a second army?!” Hazel said, getting out beside him.

            In the edges of darkness around the camp, more ghouls lingered and chattered. Only a fifth of their number had attacked the Romans. These shades were so far away from the light and the fight, the Romans likely didn’t even know they were there.

            In front of the reserves were two women. One, he’d never seen before. The seeming fifteen-year-old wore a dirty leather jacket, a torn up shirt and ripped leggings, and held a sledge hammer and a lead pipe. Her jagged hair twisted out with spirals of purple, red, white, and black. Percy couldn’t tell if she looked agitated or bored as she tapped her lead pipe against one brightly colored shoe.

            Beside her was a woman that might have been in her twenties had Percy not recognized her as a goddess. She and the younger girl looked related, both with an uncanny beauty, like a creepily lifelike doll that should be exorcised before it starts winking at passerbyers. The woman had long, dark hair, quarter shaved, and plaited, though several locks twisted out of the braid. Along her belt, similar to Pax, she had a hidden gadgets and toys, though most of her looked like grenades and detonators. Beside the explosives was a satchel of golden apples.

            “Eris,” Percy hissed, “Just the person I want to punch in the face.”

            “Like, Discordia? The Goddess of Chaos and Strife?” Hazel said. “Are you sure that’s her?”

            “She looks like some crazy mercenary,” Frank said. He’d stepped out of the car, then leaned against the doorframe for support, liking forgetting how hard he’d been hit in the head. “Those troops—this isn’t her main attack. What are they waiting for?”

            “Sunrise,” Hazel said. “Ghosts don’t do well in the light and the sun is about to come up.”
            “She’s testing their defenses,” Frank said. “Maybe for an attack tonight. Percy… I don’t see any Greeks out there. Just the Romans.”

            When Percy examined the troops, he saw Frank was right. There weren’t any orange shirts or familiar PJs intermixed with the Roman militia. There was almost no distinctive hew of celestial bronze, just imperial gold.

            “We’ve gotta help them,” Leo said softly. He’d crawled out the back. Leo’s fingers toyed with some wiring from his pocket, likely pieces of Festus’s broken wing. Although he still looked shaken up, Percy was glad to see awareness return to the son of Hephaestus’s eyes. Percy just wished Leo’s depression had broken because of different circumstances, like a crazy welcome home party. Put that on the list of things to do under Saving the Camp. Again.

            “We don’t want to provoke the second army,” Jason said, “We’re not exactly in top notch shape for fighting. And, we don’t want to draw attention to the van. We need to protect Annabeth and Piper.”

            “And your still-unpaid taxi driver,” Sam said. His eyes were wide with excitement seeing the battle unfold. Though, Percy could see the fingers of his one hand nervously tapping on the steering wheel while his other tapped on a biostats notebook in his lap.

            Percy frowned. “I’m going directly to the source to have a talk with little Ms. Sunshine.”

            “I’ll come with you,” Hazel offered.

            “Great. Jason, Leo, Calypso, and I will see if there’s anything we can do to help Reyna and guard the taxi,” Frank said.

            “Words of a true hero,” Percy said. “If an enemy comes over, just try to pass out on top of them.”

            Frank blushed when Hazel gave a half-hearted giggled. At least the two of them were finally acting normal again.

            “Be careful,” Jason grumbled from the back.

            Percy was nervous about leaving them. That giant Canadian was amazing in a fight, but—regardless of how much ambrosia and healing he’d received—he still had a nasty concussion. Jason could barely stand. Leo was an emotional wreck and Percy trusted Calypso as much to save his friends as he did to stick Annabeth outside the van with a roasting sign that said Smart Brains for Zombies! Get them while they’re fresh!

            But he couldn’t bring Annabeth to the two goddesses and second ghoul army. He wouldn’t be able to protect her.

            “Hazel, stay here with the others,” he requested. “I can handle the evil duo.”

            Hazel looked surprised, but nodded her head upon looking at the sorry state of their friends. “I’ll take care of everyone. Just shoot up a giant water flag if you need help.”

            Percy nodded. “Hey, you’ve seen me take out a ghost army before. No sweat.”

            Percy stepped away from his friends, hoping they’d be okay, in a world where hope liked to betray them. A lot.

            His knee ached from the earlier battle, where Axel Pax had torn some ligament or something and Percy had healed it with water. Percy clenched his jaw.

            As he approached, he could make out Eris’s form sitting backwards on a chair. On either side of her, there was a mirror, several feet in diameter, with tiny batwings keeping them elevated to eye level.

            One of the mirrors appeared to be very angry. It fluttered up and down with someone’s movement.

            “—part of the deal, Ajaxamamma! You never said anything about letting Ajaxapax and Tuff Ears get trapped by two gods that want to smash them up more than I want to hit your face! Holy Hun-Batz--!”

            The raging voice was enough of a baritone that it could have been a boy, but high enough that it could have been a girl. Ajaxapax and Tough Ears? Those must have been nicknames for the Pax brothers.

            The girl tapping the lead pipe stared at the mirror, her lips twitching downward slightly. As Percy got closer, he could see her eyes were a brilliant shade of red. They didn’t blink. She wore a Favorite Massacres Tour shirt that read, under a list of dates and places, a second large caption, Celebrate the Rechristening of the Rape of Nanking.

            Eris waved a hand flippantly. She withdrew a frag grenade, tied a hair band from her wrist around the safety lever, withdrew the pin, and began to toss it aimlessly from one hand to the other. “My little sweetie, Atë, tried to warn him not to go, but our champion didn’t listen—”

            “Hey!” Percy shouted. He wanted to have some clever nickname for her, but Grenade Hand didn’t sound like much of an insult. He remembered the last time he met Eris, in Tartarus, with her mother, Nyx, and her siblings: all bickering over which of Nyx’s children was the darkest.

            As he leveled with them, the goddesses and the mirrors quieted down. Eris grinned. The other girl, Atë, gave them an uncanny wave, one where she reached a hand out and slowly closed her fingers inward.

            On Eris’s torn up shirt, there was a depiction of an illuminati eye with the words Count Olaf is my Homie underneath. Percy had to resist snatching that grenade from her, removing the hair tie, and jamming it into her mouth.

            From what Annabeth had said, Eris was still sore over their last encounter. Once they were close enough, Percy stopped walking. “Okay, I was wrong last time. Clearly you’re the darkest,” he said, hoping this didn’t tick off another of Nyx’s children into hatching an elaborate scheme. “There. Can I have my sister and camp back now?”

            Eris gave a joyous laugh. “Oh my, little Poseidon Foal, do you really think I can do that so easily?”

            The ghouls rustled with chatter behind her.

            Percy scowled. “What?” he growled. “Do you want me to go down to Tartarus and get Nyx to sign a report card saying Most Evil?”

            Eris laughed again. Her cackling sounded like a serial killer at the end of a murder. “I’m not the one attacking camp. Melinoe is. She wants to make sure you have ghosts that haunt you, even if that means killing every single camper in Camp Half-Blood.”

            “Yea, I’m sure they’ll haunt me for Melinoe attacking them,” he said to point out the flaw in the Ghost Goddess’ plan.

            The girl with the lead pipe twitched into a smile.

            The Goddess of Discord hopped up from her seat, looking giddy. “Oh, I wonder what would happen to the gods if their Greek worshipers are whipped out. I was a huge fan of our previous schisming during Gaea’s little fight. One can hope we all start to lose it again.” She hugged the grenade like a teddy bear.

            Percy found himself wondering what Pax’s father was like to attract the attention from this goddess. The idea that Mr. Pax Senior wanted to enact a human sacrifice in a Greco-Meso ritual was sounding more and more likely. What a great, loving family.

            “Ajaxamama,” the mirror said in irritation.

            Percy glanced over to see a different location in the reflection: the inside of some shed. Someone stood in the center. Percy couldn’t tell if it was a boy or a girl, and currently didn’t care. Whoever it was looked about fifteen, had a vibrant blue mohawk and dark eyes smeared with eyeliner. He or she wore a punk-style leather vest with a burgundy dress shirt underneath. Golden bangles contrasted harshly against her or his dark skin.

            Eris winked at Percy. “Oh lookie, you get to see dissonance between my heroes too!” She turned to the reflection. “Lapis, your other brother doesn’t seem to mind Axel and Ajax’s positions, and neither does Atë —”

            Atë clenched her lead pipe in a way that made it clear she minded quite a bit.

            A whistling sound came from the second mirror, tilted slightly away from Percy. Lapis’s brother must have been in the other mirror reflection.

            “You just keep Hemera nice and trapped,” Eris continued. “We won’t need her alive much longer once Nyx decides to accept our invitation.”

            Lapis’ face contorted into a scowl. “Listen, you grime-licking—”

            Eris snapped her fingers and the mirror’s reflection went dark.

            Percy vaguely remembered something about Hemera, the goddess of daylight or something, from Annabeth’s Greek mythology lectures. He didn’t know how she factored into this and didn’t currently care. 

            Eris waved the grenade back and forth dismissively. “If only I could borrow Kronos’ scythe, Hemera wouldn’t be around anymore. Now, I think you wanted to know something about stopping the party at your camp. I can’t just call it off. Python wants to get back at Apollo. Phobetor wants someone to remember who he is. Think of us more as a cluster of individual agents, acting on our own, who happen to be here at the same time for our own reasons, though, I guess I did extend them all a quick invitation.”

            Percy was getting tired of all this roundabout talking. They were getting nowhere and all he wanted was his sister. “What do you want? Other than to be annoying,” he asked. He hovered his fingers over Riptide. Although he was exhausted from the earlier fight, he didn’t mind taking on two goddesses and a ghost army if necessary.

            Eris’s eyes twinkled. “To throw a party.  You see, once the sun rises—”

            She nodded to the horizon. By now, it was glowing orange. If Hazel was right, Percy just needed to keep Eris talking a few more minutes, then, at least, the second army wouldn’t be able to flank the Romans.

            “—then Saturnalia will be at its finest, a holiday where all roles are reversed, and the sun has the least amount of time in the sky. I’ve set the stage for a huge party, with all the right invites, as you can see. Percy, you are going to be our grand Saturnalicius Princeps, the King of the festival, sitting in this throne—” She patted the chair beside her. “—all day and night.”

            “That’s great and all, but I just want my sister back,” Percy said, “I’m not really in the mood for sitting around.”

            Eris giggled again. “Oh, I didn’t kidnap your sister. He did.”

            The second mirror fluttered its monkey wings and tilted into Percy’s view. An Asian boy, no older than thirteen, came into focus. He wore a burgundy dress shirt, like Eris’s other henchman, with suspenders covered in colorful darts. His long, dark hair fluttered in a slight breeze. He pulled at some kind of pulley system with absolute glee. The room around him looked medieval, with a narrow, open window. If Percy remembered properly from Annabeth’s excited ramblings on architecture, those windows were gothic. 

            Through the gothic window, using the pulley system that extended outside, the boy pulled a cage with a squirming baby. He’d make a high pitch whistle when pulling her in, and a low pitch one when wheeling her out.

            Percy’s little sister cackled with happiness at the apparent game.

            Percy felt like his insides were being pulled along the wires each time his sister dangled outside the window.

            While Percy stared in disbelief, Eris clapped her hands around the grenade and spoke, “If you, Percy Jackson, move from your throne before sunrise tomorrow and the end of Saturnalia, or if any warriors are sent after Hiro to fight for your sister, then she’ll free fall three hundred feet onto concrete and put more weight onto Atlas’s shoulders.”

            To illustrate, the Asian boy, Hiro, released the cord attached to the pulley system. Percy’s little sister jolted down a foot outside of view, giggling at the little roller coaster ride.

            “No!” Percy cried, and lunged towards the mirror, like he could warp through the glass to grab the cord.

            Hiro snatched the cord and reeled her back in. His lips twitched into a devilish grin and he bowed deeply to Percy, pulling the baby up a few extra inches.

            “If you hurt her—” Percy snarled.

            “Then you’ll have a dead sister,” the girl with the lead pipe said. Her expression was deadpan and factual. “That’s how Melinoe will give you ghosts, Percy. You need to choose which ones you’ll get.”

            Eris grinned and ruffled the girl’s twisted hair. “Oh, go on, sweetie. You’re making me so proud.”

            Atë tilted her head to one side. “When the sun comes down,” she said, “and Mom’s festivities of Saturnalia begin, will you watch as Melinoe kills campers that you could be saving? Or will you try to save your friends and put your family into mourning?”

            Eris beamed. “You see, Atë is the Goddess of Ruin and likes to discover people’s flaws. She told me loyalty was your heroic flaw, but I’ve never seen it tested. Where does your loyalty lay? Which family are you going to choose? This one,” Eris pointed to the mirror, showing how Hiro continued to rock the cage back and forth, “or that one,” she pointed to the troops along Camp Half-Blood’s border.

            The sun had completely risen. The silhouette of jeering ghosts lightened until they dissolved like a morning Mist. Melinoe evaporated with them, vanishing under Reyna’s next attack. Phobetor took a step back from the Cloven Terror, bowed, and liquefied into black tar. The blinding light emitting between them stuttered out, and a girl—that daughter of Apollo, Kally—collapsed onto her face where it had been. In front of her, Nico phased into existence, flopping beside her onto the ground in the sunlight.

            Percy was too distracted to even register that Nico was alright.

            As Eris and Atë escorted Percy to his “throne,” sitting him down so he had a perfect view of both mirror reflections and the camp’s borders, he could hear the Roman troops cheering in victory. A pit formed in his stomach. All he could do was sit, numbly, as Eris slipped an hourglass timer into his hand. “This will keep track of how long you have to decide,” she said. “I hope you enjoy panicking! See you at the party when the sun comes down, our King of Saturnalia!”

Author’s note: Thanks for reading! :D All the plot is finally unfolding! I hope you’re enjoying it. Tune in next week for Ajax: A Most Uninspiring Rescue.

Footnote:

[1] Actually, it was one at the head, two at the chest, according to proper procedure. But I understand that Percy trained with swords, not guns, unlike Alabaster. I’m sure they can have a nice chat about it in the movie rendition: Percy Jackson and the Ass-Kicking of a Lifetime.  

Chapter Text

Four: Ajax

A Most Uninspiring Rescue

(or: Titan Ex Machina)

            The hush aboard the Princess Andromeda cruise ship became eerier with each erratic creak of the smoldering floorboards. The strength of the waves that were battering the hull weakened, as though the sea itself had quieted to listen. The souls of Kronos’ former army lingered on the top deck. Because Ares owned the souls of all combatants that died in a losing battle, they could do no more than stare as two gods and a titan decided the fate of some of the last survivors from their ranks: two of their last heroes alive and free.

             That was all great, but all Pax could think about was how boring Prometheus was when he talked.

            Or, at least, that’s what Pax told himself to think about.

            Now that Prometheus’ initial aura of, Oooooo! Titan Ex-Machina! had worn off, Pax’s hand and shoulder felt like Zeus had prodded him a couple hundred times with a lightning bolt in a “is it dead?” motion. From what Pax could tell, his left shoulder was either dislocated or fractured and his hand definitely had a hole in it. Prometheus still cradled him and his brother, Axel Pax, in either arm, with Axel squirming and thrashing violently, like a proper, indignant, kitten warrior.

            Pax wanted to make a joke about but was only able to burrow his face further against the Titan’s white tuxedo. All he wanted was a hug, a lollipop, and probably seven years a therapy paid as worker’s compensation for being a demigod.

             “Ares, Aphrodite, I’m really here for your interest,” Prometheus said diplomatically. He sat on a patio chair across from the God of War and Goddess of Love, like they were talking business while he was holding a cup of coffee, instead of two sobbing Pax boys, one kicking like a toddler. “If you kill Ajax Pax now, you’ll regret all the misery that you could have put him and his brother through if you let him live.”

            Gee, Prometheus, guess who’s not getting a homemade Christmas sweater this year.

            Pax opened his mouth to thank Prometheus for swooping in with the most rousing rescue ever, but he couldn’t get intelligible words to come out. He choked on tears.

            This was a typical demigod Sunday: one minute you’re off, trying to stop a friend from listening to a homicidal sword so she can defend your summer camp, and the next minute, you’re pulled off course and your brother is stabbing you through the hand because a god’s driven him mad.

            So, maybe Axel shouldn’t have tried to castrate Ares in a fight during the Second Titan War and maybe Axel shouldn’t have turned the goddess down so harshly, but it wasn’t like Axel was in the wrong. Plus, Ares and Aphrodite both cursed Axel in turn. Let bygones be bygones, right?

            That’s how Pax would have started this meeting.

            “Can we start beating him now?” Ares asked Aphrodite, adjusting his sunglasses. The darkened lens blazed with a backlit fire. The frames settled onto his facial scarf that wrapped around his head like a Somalian pirate. The AK-47 strapped on his back swayed as he cracked his knuckles and widened his stance.

            Aphrodite huffed. She smoothed the purple straps of her bikini and shook her now-spiraling red locks. “Human Lover, why should we listen to you?”

            Prometheus shrugged. “If you want to miss out on tragic romances and some bloody battles…”

            Aphrodite’s amber eyes softened at the words “tragic romances.”

            Ares grinned at “bloody battles.”

            “Well, let’s dissect this logically. If you force Axel to kills Pax now,” Prometheus continued, “Then, Aphrodite, you’ll never see how the love triangle will unfold between Kally, Alabaster, and Pax.[1] You’ve worked too hard to build up that tension just to let it be resolved by a simple death. As subplot romance goes, that would be lazy writing.[2] You’ll miss out on all the remorse, the struggle, the jealousy, and the passion.”

            Aphrodite pouted. “I do hate when shows cop out at the end. It really deprives you of the loser’s emotional turmoil.”

            Pax should have been offended that her only qualm with his death was how it would rob her of a good season finale. Instead, despite all of his current pain, his ears chimed in to “love triangle.” That implied he still had a chance with Kally or Alabaster, or, in a dream world where the Fates didn’t hate Pax and where he owned a weasel circus, maybe he’d have a chance with both. Meow.

            “And Ares, if Pax dies now, you’ll never have a chance to add his soul to your collection.” Prometheus gently lifted the Pax brothers. If his hands were free, Pax could tell he would gesture to their dead friends, gathered around to silently listen. His stomach clenched to think that Flynn was watching this. “And I think you’re only missing Luke and Jack currently. And Jack’s soul might be up for grabs again soon.”

            Ares’ lip twitched. “What makes you think I wouldn’t get the Pax brat’s soul? He’d be the loser in a battle.”

            Prometheus scoffed. “Really, Ares? I feel like Artemis would enjoy watching that more than you would. That was no battle. That was a hunt. Little Pax will never fight his brother. He’ll always run away.”

            From across Prometheus’ shoulder, Pax could hear the low whine of a suppressed sob.

            Normally, Pax would have never thought that noise could come from his brother. As far as Pax was concerned, Axel was created from primordial awesome and didn’t know the meaning of the word “flinch.” Crying and cowering: those were Pax solutions to problems. The last time Pax had heard Axel cry was five years ago, when their father had bludgeoned Uncle Frasco and Aunt Nilley to death. After that, Axel always had that stupid, stoic expression on his face, and only expressed his emotions through night terrors, cigarette smoke, and miraculously losing his shirt around Reyna Ramirez.[3]

            “And when it comes to Axel,” Prometheus said, “do you really want a broken man? As a lover or an opponent?” His gaze alternated between Aphrodite and Ares.

            Pax wanted to point out that ambiguous directing of Prometheus’ comment made Ares’ relationship to Axel terrifyingly questionable. Instead, Pax found himself trying to peek over Prometheus’ shoulder to look at his brother. He wished he could give him a hug, or remind him that Reyna would still find Axel sexy after this, but he regretted the motion for more than the ache it caused in his shoulder.

            One glance of the Leonis Caput helm, obscuring Axel’s face, sent Pax shivering. Pax could perfectly envision Axel stealing one of Pax’s own celestial daggers and posing it to stab Pax in the throat, like he had mere minutes ago. Yea, he loved his brother and didn’t want Axel to worry… but Pax was officially freaked out more than a Reese’s Stick and a hug could fix. And those were fantastic bartering tools in the Book of Pax.

            From the soft sounds Axel was making, he was freaked too.

            “Ares, if you have Axel finish off his brother, he’ll likely never fight again. So you’ll lose the chance at two souls from Kronos’ army. And you love watching Axel fight.”

            “That kid is really violent,” Ares agreed.

            “And Aphrodite, you fell for Axel’s tenacity and aloofness. If anyone is going to break him, it should be you, because he finally crumbled to your wiles, as you know he eventually will.”

            “He will,” she said stubbornly.

            Despite their discussion on Axel rising to the occasion, both for fighting and for… um… Aphrodite, Pax had to bite back a horrified thought: what if Axel was already irreparably broken?

            “And lastly, Ares,” Prometheus said. Pax tried to focus on the calming tones of his voice, remembering all the times Prometheus had talked Luke out of punishing Pax for a prank gone wrong. Pax wanted to hold it together, to pretend everything was alright. Axel was already going to feel terrible enough without seeing Pax a mess. “Eris won’t be happy if you kill the only child she’s had in centuries.”

            Centuries? Pax managed to choke down his sobs. “I’m a special snowflake,” he said.

            “She can make another one,” Ares grunted.

            “It takes a unique psychopath for her to fall in love,” Prometheus said. “As you would know from your dallies on the battlefield.”

            Ares cracked a grin. “Ah, the Trojan War, Stalingrad, Vietnam… Those were the good days.”

            Gross, Pax thought. That was about as comfortable as thinking about a porcupine mating with a condor.

            But the diversion was ingenious. Aphrodite’s eyes immediately narrowed. “The good days?” she echoed softly.

            Ares nodded absently before noticing her careful expression. He put his hands up. “Oh, no, babe, I didn’t mean—”

            “The good days?” she said again.

            Pax wanted to point out the double standard of Aphrodite wanting Axel and Ares not being allowed to want Eris, but figured now wasn’t the time to help with their godly love life. Though, judging by how big their cabins were, neither of these two cared about the other’s interests. Only if they were “the good old days.”

            The Goddess of Love began to snarl in a low voice to a retreating God of War.

            Prometheus rose to his feet. “I wouldn’t want our presence to be any more a mare on your vacation.” The titan stepped casually around the deck, nodding to fallen Kronos soldiers as he gathered Pax’s Silver Tongued Snake helm. Several soldiers on deck dropped their mops and rushed to bring him Pax’s utility belt from the pool. Pax hiccupped to see Flynn tuck Pax’s daggers into Prometheus’ belt.

            Flynn gave Pax a mixed expression: a warm smile of relief with an icy scowl that said I never want to see you again. The message was a good one, that he shouldn’t get killed in a losing battle and become a slave to Ares. Though Pax would have preferred a kazoo send off, this was the best he could hope for in this parting.

            With his white tuxedo, random weapons, and the two Pax boys—one sobbing and one still struggling to be released, the titan must have looked like the most heavily armed, well dressed baby sitter ever to ride on a cruise ship. 

            “I’m glad you’re smart enough to see how this could have been a terrible misstep in judgment. I’ll get them out of your hair so you don’t need to worry about it,” Prometheus said.

            Aphrodite didn’t turn from her argument with Ares. She snapped her fingers and snarled, “Get lost.”

            At the snap of her fingers, Axel stopped struggling against Prometheus’ grip. The door to Johnny Rockets—where the Pax brothers had originally entered—flew open to reveal a narrow set of ascending stairs instead of a restaurant: their way back to camp.

            Pax could only hope the heroes of Olympus had patched themselves up and come to Camp Half-Blood’s heroic rescue. That would mean a rather pissy, sore Jason Grace might be waiting for him. But, after having nightmares-premonitions of Axel trying to kill Pax and living through the event, he would have been happy to scrub Jason’s cabin with a toothbrush.

            Imagine the prank and terrorizing access he’d have.

            Memo to self: offer to scrub Jason Grace’s cabin with a toothbrush when we get back.

            Once they walked through the Johnny Rocket’s door into the stone passageway, a wave of icy, dank air greeted them. Earlier that morning, when Euna forced Jack, their decapitated, singing friend—long story—to make these stairs by singing the earth into a headache, Jack had been inconsiderate in accommodating a titan’s size. If Jack were around, Pax would scold him for his bigotry and told Prometheus to stage a social justice boycott. In the meantime, Prometheus shrank down in size.

            Pax could barely get his voice to work. “Th-they d-don’t c-c-call you the T-titan of c-craft-ty c-c-council f-f-for no reason. T-though I th-think you sh-should add d-dramatic t-t-timing to your list-st of s-s-super powers.”

            “Thank you, Ajax. I will remember to put that on my resume next time they dedicate a statue to me,” Prometheus said. Although there was some humor to his words, he sounded sad.

            The grey light from the ship disappeared when the door swung shut. All they had was what dim firelight trickled down the passage from above. Pax wished Prometheus would sprint up the stairs. He was waiting for Ares to appear and shout, “Psych!” and drag them back down.

            He also hoped his brother would scold him for being ungrateful. Instead, he heard Axel’s choked whisper, “Th-thank you, Prometheus. I… I…”

            “Axel, do you remember what you said to me when I thanked you for slaying the Kaukasian Eagle?” Prometheus asked softly. His steps echoed up the stairs.

            There was a pause. Then, “That no one should be punished for trying to better the world.”

            Pax could envision Prometheus squeezing Axel’s shoulder. “I’m just repaying you in kind.”

            At first, Pax thought this “bettering the world” was in reference to how Axel had helped Hephaestus pull a prank on Ares and Aphrodite and, really, to how Axel tried to cut off Ares’ dick. While those actions would certainly make a better tomorrow, Pax realized Prometheus meant their service to the Titan Army.

            They quieted for the last few steps, enough that Pax could hear Axel’s shaky breath and the renewed ruckus from Camp Half-Blood above. From the sound of it, campers had woken from Phobetor’s spell. 

            “Um, P-Prometheus?” Pax said, trying to get his voice under control, “Y-you’re g-good at pr-predicting things. H-how do you think a bunch of p-panicked demigods w-will react when an e-enemy t-titan walks into the middle of their c-c-amp during a b-battle?”

            “I’m not sure. I haven’t given it much forethought.” Prometheus smiled. “Let’s find out.”

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed seeing Prometheus… in talking action? Man, he sounds a lot less epic when you remember his powers are like those of a British aristocrat. Anyhow, I hope you enjoyed! :D Tune in next week for Kally’s Dental Floss Does Not Equate to Surgical Thread

(or: Unsanitary Surgeries and Unconventional Kisses). (Ooooo, a shippy chapter)

Footnotes:

[1] Mel, my editor, has repeatedly asked if Prometheus has a ship for these three. In response, Prometheus would like to remind everyone that he is a titan of forethought and it would be cheating for him to answer.  

[2] And Jack can’t have that. Merry would murder him.

[3] Pax would like to add this to the list of powers that Axel possesses.

Chapter Text

Five: Kalypso

Dental Floss Does Not Equate to Surgical Thread

(or: Unsanitary Surgeries and Unconventional Kisses)

            “There’s a titan attacking the cabins!” someone cried in the distance.

            Kally blurrily opened her eyes. Several warming rays of dawn fell onto her face, like her godly father had finally decided to assure her, Hey, I’m here, I care, and I’m not here to give you a sun burn.

            A surge of relief made her chest feel like Zeus had decided to increase the oxygen content in the air. Beyond several trampled, muddy strawberry plants, Nico lay flat on his face. His shoulders shuddered slightly with breath. His arms and legs flickered with shadows, but he wasn’t just a ball of shadow. He was still here as a person.

            Will knelt on one side of him. Despite his form dimming in the encroaching sunlight, her brother’s beautiful hum remained comforting and strong.

            On Nico’s other side, Reyna Ramirez crouched. Although Kally couldn’t make out any of the words, Reyna’s mouth moved to shout rapid orders to her troops.

            Romans raced around, gathering their fallen with expert ease. The huntresses of Artemis acted as scouts, scanning where the enemy had been. Sentries were already posted around Camp Half-Blood.

            Someone picked Kally up.  

            She wanted to protest that she could walk. But, she also wanted to beg that they take her to the closest bed roll so she could sleep for a week.

            The smell of sweat and blood dissipated with the sharp contrast of herbs. As the person cradled her, she caught several distinct, passing scents: sandalwood, sage, thyme, and something else sweet that made her lightheaded. 

            “That was reckless and could have gotten you killed.”

            When Kally glanced up, she saw the gleam of a bone jaw line. Hideous teeth stuck out of a hollowed ram skull. The Stygian iron inlay seemed to suck light out of the morning and into the glowering, glowing eyes.

            Kally startled and reflexively shoved against the monster’s chest, where her fists slammed into magical satchels that reeked of herbs and probably dead demigod fingers.

            It made a pained, not-so-monsterly grunt.
            She would have to save her question for Pax later: whether or not goat monsters would maniacally laugh by going baaa-ha-ba-a.

            For a moment, she thought Phobetor had snatched her up, old-school villain style, and was going to have off with her. Then she registered the monster’s voice and felt her face go red with embarrassment for hitting him.

            The monster released her legs, letting them thump heavily to the ground, but kept her upright with a hand around her back. Alabaster pushed his helm off his head, the ram skull catching on a cord around his neck. Those green eyes glowed with a magical fury.

            When she registered what he said, about saving Nico being reckless, she thought about how he’d rushed against a god with no hope for backup. “You mean, like what you did for Clovis?”

            Alabaster’s stern expression weakened. He slipped his free hand back under her legs to lift her up. “Did you even know if you could sustain sunlight like that?”

            “No,” she admitted. “Did you know you could pigball a god?”

            There was a pause where she thought he might drop her. “No,” he said at last. Some tension eased from his face.

            Alabaster took two steps towards camp before someone snarled, “Ey—hold it!”

            For a blissful moment, Kally had forgotten Alabaster was a wanted criminal by Roman standards. The blur of a black, white, and red Arsenal beanie and black scarf cut off their path. She exhaled in relief to see the tall, painfully handsome son of Eros had intercepted them. His golden bow, Soul Pain, was slung over one shoulder, and sweat glistened on his ebony skin.

            He squeezed Kally’s shoulder. “That was brilliant, Kal.”

            Although she normally couldn’t make eye contact with Calex, she found herself smiling at him like he’d complimented her for an excellent assist on a goal. “Thanks for the cover fire.”

            He grinned at Kally before turning to her companion. His expression fell. “And, uh, I guess you did alright against that god. Where are you blokes off to?” he asked. Although the question was directed at both of them, Calex’s grey eyes narrowed suspiciously at Alabaster.

            “To investigate the rumors of a titan attacking the camp.” The way Alabaster’s eyes gleamed, he was hoping for it to be true.[1] 

            Kally hadn’t heard shouts about it since the first one, but her focus was so shot, she felt like the titan could have thrown a cienañera and she might have overlooked it in the blare of noise. Reyna shouted something about reestablishing a perimeter and investigating whether her troops could cross the camp border without passing out. Other campers called for medics. Another shouted about the importance of bacon in a healthy breakfast.

            Her inability to concentrate became clearer when she realized Alabaster was still talking.

            “And to see if Lou Ellen has a laboratory where I can resupply before Phobetor reveals himself again,” he said.

            “You think he’s still here? You don’t think the Mist barrier is back up?” Calex asked. He glanced behind them and his fingers tightened on Soul Pain. Although she couldn’t see over Alabaster’s shoulder, she had a feeling whatever was behind them might be more important than this conversation.

            “I’m inside the camp, aren’t I?” Alabaster scoffed, bitterness souring his expression. “Zeus wouldn’t forgive me and let me inside just because I defended myself when attacked. That means Phobetor is keeping your border guardians asleep and Camp Half-Blood’s Mist barrier is still down. Phobetor is letting everyone stay awake right now. Either that, or he’s recuperating some of his powers for a later attack, likely when the sun goes down.”

            Calex glanced from whatever was over Alabaster’s shoulder back to Alabaster. He frowned. “I’m not letting you stroll around our camp unescorted.”

            “Calex!” someone called behind them. “We need you as a medic assistant!”

            “He’s not unescorted,” Kally said. She struggled in Alabaster’s grip. “I can walk.”[2]

            She really hoped she could walk, else this was about to be embarrassing and she’d spend another six months unable to maintain eye contact with Calex.

            At her words, Alabaster’s face went so red that his freckles looked like cool spots in an active volcano. He gently set her down, looked away, and folded his arms. “I didn’t want to leave you alone since you’re wanted by the Romans and Phobetor might come back,” he said defensively. “The Pax brothers would kill me if anything happened to you on my watch.”

            When she touched the ground, she didn’t pass out immediately like she’d feared. Instead, Kally managed to stand up, hopefully confident enough to pretend she could stop Alabaster if he went on an old-school, Camp Othrys rampage.

            Upon registering his over-explanation and why he might feel the need to over-explain, Kally felt her own cheeks heat up.

            Calex rubbed his face with one hand in exacerbation. Kally remembered Calex’s warning about Alabaster. “I know you think he’s fit, but he’s wrong in the head.” She could feel her blush intensifying.

            “Right, Kal, just make sure he doesn’t do anything too dodgy,” Calex said. He lowered his hand and extended it to her. Out of reflex, she high-fived him as he ran past, like they were switching out players on the field.

            She glanced back to see what had distracted him and to make sure he didn’t see her waver when she started walking.

            Kally froze.

            There was a light up sign, like you’d find in a storefront, about two dozen feet from the barrier and previous battle. It curved above a throne and read: Saturnalicius Princeps. Beneath it, flanked on either side by two shiny, flying mirrors, was Percy Jackson.

            Either Alabaster wasn’t impressed, or he’d already decided not to care about Percy; he walked further through the trampled strawberry fields, towards the path between the Big House and the Forge.

            Kally almost stumbled to keep up with his long gait. “Wait—Saturnalicius… Saturnalia? What is that?” she asked.

            “I guess this camp wouldn’t celebrate it,” he said. His eyes were distant, both because he was looking ahead towards the cabins, and because his brain was clearly occupied elsewhere. “It was the biggest festival we held at Camp Othrys. After all, it honored Saturn, or you would call him Kronos. Luke got really into the winter solstice celebration and how it would flip the social norms. He, Krios, Prometheus, and the other titans would serve the demigods and monsters food. The only person who threw a fit about being a servant was Hyperion…”

            Kally had to wonder what it felt like for Alabaster: reminiscing on jubilees at Camp Othrys while walking through enemies that destroyed his prior home. She remembered all the emotions and memories she’d shared with him on his back porch: the glimpses of his siblings laughing and joking. Then, the ones  screaming as they were cut down by a relentless undead army that didn’t respond to surrender, the friends that drowned in the bridge collapse, and those that were scorched in the fire, and the bodies they’d fished out of the ocean after an explosion from a ship.

            Maybe she didn’t agree with Alabaster’s approach, but no wonder he wanted to kill Percy, the leader of those defenses and attacks.

            “The King of Saturnalia, to which I assume Eris has appointed the son of Poseidon, is supposed to be the master of ceremonies,” Alabaster absently continued, “You should have seen the year we elected Ajax to that position.”

            Kally swallowed at the thought: Reese’s for everyone. Wedgies for the unworthy.

            As they approached the cabins, Kally could see the chaos ensuing there. Campers were scrambling around, most in sleep wear, some even with teddy bears.

            Something had happened to Cabin Two. Half the marble had collapsed to reveal a new statue. There was a gaping hole in the ground just outside—maybe some kind of stairs?

            Clarisse La Rue, the belligerent, hulking daughter of Ares, stood in the center of the horseshoe of cabins beside Hestia’s billowing fire, like a moving watchtower with a spot light. “Stay calm everyone! Or I’ll kick your ass!”

            She barked orders to a cluster of campers around her, pointing to various cabins. These campers would run to the destination while others ran back.

            One of those campers, a large Latino named Chris Rodriguez, was exiting Cabin Eleven and racing straight towards them. His head was turned towards Clarisse as he shouted, “Connor is missing! I need to go check on the lines for—”

            He almost face-planted when he skidded to a stop in front of them.

            Alabaster also halted, his fingers tightening into fists. Kally wasn’t sure why Alabaster would hate Pax’s old friend, beyond his typical hatred of Camp Half-Blood members, until she realized Chris’ status as one of Pax’s old friend made Chris a former member of Kronos’ army.

            “Kally!” Chris shouted, initially not noticing Alabaster. “Pax is in Cabin Eleven. He’s hurt and a mess.”

            Kally could hear her heart thudding in her ears. “He’s hurt,” wasn’t something she normally heard about Pax, considering his more-than-demigodly nature let him heal faster and his cowardly nature kept him from direct confrontations. Last she heard, he’d stepped off for a quick talk with Alabaster. She didn’t know where he’d been for the battle. She wondered if he’d swiped Reese’s from the wrong person. Like Cerberus.

            Chris continued, “He won’t let any other healers get near him, and we’re still trying to distribute the information Lesedi gave us about the Romans—” Chris choked off the end of his sentence when he registered Alabaster. “Torrington?” His question was a demand.

            “Rodriguez,” Alabaster greeted with an icy nod.

            Kally swallowed. While she really didn’t want to get between Alabaster and someone on his hopefully-theoretical-hit-list, there was a likely sobbing Pax boy that needed her help. In her best impression of what she thought Calex or Merry might have done, Kally grabbed both their shoulders and shoved them into a walk towards Cabin Eleven.

            Neither resisted. If anything, Alabaster’s pace picked up. He shook his head and asked, “What kind of hurt?”

            Whatever tension existed between the two of them came to a silent standstill, like a god had pushed pause on a remote.[3] Amazing how Pax, a child of chaos, could always seem to bring people together like that.

            “I’m not sure,” Chris said as they rapidly approached his cabin’s rickety porch. “I was starting to wake up when Prometheus stepped out of those stairs in front of Hera’s cabin with the Pax brothers.”

            “So that was the titan people said attacked camp?” Kally asked.

            Chris looked taken aback. “Attacked? No. He handed Pax off to me and told me to take him somewhere he’d feel safe. Then he—he took Axel elsewhere.”

            The way Chris said it made something readily apparent to Kally: Chris was a terrible liar. She could avoid the truth better than Chris, and she was the more likely to blurt it than the prophet, Kassandra, that was cursed to always say the truth.[4]

            Kally and Alabaster halted outside the cabin’s door.

            “Where is Axel?” Alabaster demanded.

            “Um—Prometheus said he would need time alone,” Chris said. He avoided their gaze.

            Kally couldn’t imagine Axel would want to be anywhere other than Pax’s side if Pax were injured. Something horrible must have happened. “Is Axel hurt?” Kally asked.

            “I… I don’t know. Prometheus had him wrapped in something white. I think it was his tuxedo jacket. He was carrying him around. Axel never spoke.”

            Kally felt her jaw drop. She imagined the bodies that she’d attended to before the battle broke out. There were still blood flecks smudging the vision through her glasses. No matter how often she rubbed them against the sweater she borrowed from the Pax brothers, the glasses wouldn’t get clean. Probably because her arm cuffs and hands were bloodier than the lenses.

            With the crisis with Nico, she’d managed to forget the campers she’d robotically pronounced dead by exsanguination or how she’d helped the healer from Rome, Ric, wrap bodies with cloths. Thinking about them and that Axel might… that he might—

            Her stomach twisted.

            “Where is he?” Alabaster asked again, this time in a growl. “So help me, I’ll turn you into a piglet and dangle you out for drakon hunting! Don’t think your precious Percy Jackson or camp can save you from the wrath of the Cloven—“

            “Chris,” Kally interrupted, putting a hand on Alabaster’s shoulder. “I’ll take on all your debts that you owe Pax, other than life or death ones, and I’ll make sure he doesn’t prank you for the next six months.”

            “You’re serious?” Chris asked, astonished.

            She nodded.

            Alabaster said, “That’s not a good—”

            “Deal. In the Big House, in the basement. That’s where—it’s a good place if you need to be alone,” he said.

            Alabaster glanced back beside the strawberry fields, where Kally knew they’d passed the looming form of the Big House. They must have barely missed Prometheus.  He frowned, glancing back to the door of Cabin Eleven.

            “Chris!” Clarisse barked from the center of the camp.

            Chris sighed. “She’s wonderful. I gotta go. Take care of Ajax!” He bolted back to his girlfriend.

            Kally understood Alabaster’s hesitation. She wanted to go make sure Axel was alive, but she needed to heal Pax. She was about to step into the cabin when Alabaster snapped his fingers.

            “Of course,” he muttered and withdrew one of the cards from his Mist deck.

            The card glowed dimly and the image of a tall, middle-aged man in slacks, a dress shirt, a tweed jacket, and polished loafers appeared before them. Kally balked to think that Dr. Howard Claymore had gone to sleep in such attire. Did Mist forms need to sleep? Or did they just kind of… float there at night?

            “Damn it, Torrington!” Claymore said, his brow furrowing. “I told you not to—”

            Alabaster cut him off. “Roughly six hours. Camp Half-Blood, Long Island. Minutes after dawn.”

            Claymore’s anger dissipated. “This is Camp Half-Blood?” he asked. He glanced around the cluster of cabins, the central hearth fire, and the counselors Clarisse was rounding up. From the skepticism on this face, he looked unimpressed.

            “Not now. I need you to check on Axel, the tall Mayan Pax brother—”

            “I know who he is,” Claymore said. His expression softened. “Does this have to do with the nightmare?”

            Alabaster swallowed.

            Kally unintentionally touched her mouth. His nightmare-prophecy? That Axel would hunt down Pax to kill him?

             “I think so,” Alabaster said. “He’ll be under a stairwell in the building in that direction.” At Alabaster’s pointing, Claymore looked more annoyed. “Make sure he’s okay. Stay with him if he needs it. Report back to me if he needs me. Be careful. These people have weapons that can destroy your Mist form and are currently skittish of ghosts. Do not engage if you can help it.”

            The child of Hecate fished another card out. It glowed dimly and a pistol appeared. Alabaster handed him the gun.

            Claymore stowed the pistol inside his jacket. “I think I can take a few summer kids. You’re going to owe me a hell of an explanation—”

            “I always do.”

            They smiled at each other wryly.

            Claymore nodded to Kally. “Young lady, I doubt you’re competent enough to do so, but please keep this gentleman out of trouble as best you can.”

            With that, he turned and walked briskly in the direction of the Big House.

            “Um…” Kally managed, relieved that someone was checking on Axel, but embarrassed by the accusations on her competence and the knowledge that she was nowhere near capable of keeping Alabaster out of trouble.

            “I think he likes you,” Alabaster said. He turned and opened the door to the Hermes cabin.

            Kally had been inside this cabin before because of Pax. Out of all the cabins, it looked the most like stereotypical, rundown housing, though maybe more like that of a homeless shelter than that of a summer camp.

            As Kally suspected, the cabin was mostly empty. Most campers were probably outside, trying to figure out what was happening or pranking the other cabins in the chaos. There were two or three faces peeking from various bunks. Although she didn’t know all the inhabitants yet—the Hermes Cabin had, by far, the most campers—she could tell they were the youngest, unclaimed members, likely told to stay inside to stay out of trouble and stay safe.

            They stared at the whining figure in the corner.

            Pax was curled up in a pile of bloody blankets. His boots, utility belt, Silver-Tongued Snake helm, and pants were neatly folded and stacked beside him. He was upright, cradling one of his shoulders. He rocked on his haunches.

            Alabaster cleared his throat and grabbed Kally’s arm before she could run to Pax’s side.

            Pax flinched.

            Slowly, he glanced up. His expression was twisted with repressed sobs. Upon recognizing them, he tried to smile and jump with joy. But he cried in pain and hiccupped.

            Alabaster gently pulled Kally forward. Her heart thudded.

            Pax opened and closed his mouth. He reached a hand out towards them, one that was trembling and covered in glistening blood. Pax’s middle two fingers didn’t appear to respond appropriately with the motion.

            “Hey, Ajax,” Alabaster said quietly. Once they leveled with Pax, he pulled Kally down to kneel nearby.

            She took Pax’s outstretched hand, only to find a deep gash on either side of his palm. Although she could see the tendons in his forearm flex, his fingers didn’t respond to grasp hers. With a quick examination of his palm, she could tell his tendons had been severed.

            He trembled violently.

            Using her other hand, Kally fumbled in her pockets for an ambrosia square, hoping she had one left over from earlier.

            “Hey Witch Boy, Cyclops,” Pax greeted, his red-rimmed eyes glancing from one to the other.

            “Hi,” Kally said. Her mouth felt completely dry. She wanted to say more, but wasn’t sure what could help. Nothing would. “Chris—I took on Chris’ debt to you. Everything except life or death oaths.”

            Pax’s black and hazel eyes went wide. Although she felt stupid for saying it, she was glad to see her comment alleviated the tears for a moment. “That brings your total to… 247 Reese’s plus 10—that’s 257 Reese’s. And 9 drachma plus 56… that’ll be 65 drachma.”

            Kally blinked. “Excuse me?”

            “I told you it was a bad idea,” Alabaster said.

            Pax gave her a weak, but genuine, smile. “I had years to con him,” he said with pride.

            When Kally offered him an ambrosia square that she found in her pocket, he made a face. Kally frowned and held is up to his lips.

            She gave him a pass on wrapping his lips around her finger to get the square. The way he lingered was half-hearted.

            She was too unsettled by his condition to blush.

            “Did Axel do this to you?” Alabaster asked. “Like the nightmare?”

            The tears came back. Pax nodded as he chewed. “He—he d-didn’t want to. A-Ares and Aphrodit-te made him do it. H-he was sobbing. And he was begging. I—I’ve never heard Axel b-beg. A-and he broke my shoulder. A-and he tore of my belt—”

            Pax pulled his hand away from Kally to hook his thumb on the ends of his shirt and pull up. The tops of his boxers had claw marks. There were deep gashes along his hip. His blood—which always looked tinted with gold—had soaked all the way down to stain his pegasus boxers and darken his thigh.

            Pax was lucky Axel hadn’t disemboweled him.

            “A-and they wouldn’t let him stop. H-he stabbed my hand. H-he-hee—” Pax broke into hysterical giggles. He released his shirt and raised the bloody hand again. “I’m 3/4ths god and I have a holy hand.”

            Kally stared. Horror choked her. Axel had done this? Begging? Attacking his little brother? Sure, she’d believe he’d one day rip off Pax’s ear as a repercussion of Pax’s well-practiced stupidity, but…

            Her eyes and magic traced his injuries, verifying the severity of each wound and how Pax’s nerve endings trembled in pain. The ambrosia wasn’t accelerating Pax’s healing the way it should have. Almost like Pax’s entire body had given up.

            “Gods can make someone do this?” Kally whispered.

            She needed to snap out of it. She needed to focus well enough to heal him. But would she be able to if Pax’s body fought her magic? Could he do that?

            Alabaster nodded. “Some can. Though that isn’t a typical Ares or Aphrodite move.”

            “Can one of you check on Axel?” Pax asked, staring at the back wall. Seeing his typically attentive, mischievous gaze so unfocused was eerie. “I don’t think he feels like hot chocolate and sunshine right now and—and someone needs to scold him about acting Mr. Stoic and it… it can’t be me. Someone needs to make sure he remembers how to smile and—and I c-c-can’t—”

            Tears clogged Pax’s throat. His body heaved with another sob. “I c-c-an’t h-h-help—I c-c-can’t s-see h-him—”

            Kally felt like Hades had locked her heart inside his shoe.

            Alabaster scooted forward so Pax could lean into his chest. Cautiously, he settled his hand at the small of Pax’s back. “I sent Dr. Claymore to see to him, and I’ll go afterwards. Now, Ajax, you’re in shock. You need some rest.”

            “How am I supposed to sleep right now?” Pax whispered. “Other than pulling a quick IOU from Morpheus?”

            Alabaster fumbled in his pouches with his free hand. He withdrew two pills, the same ones he’d given Euna to quiet her out of a godly rage.

            Pax shook his head against Alabaster’s shirt. In a voice barely audible, he said, “If I sleep, I’ll have to relive it again.”

            Alabaster glanced over at Kally. They both wanted to comfort Pax with a, “You don’t know that,” but both knew it was true. Phobetor had been giving Pax that nightmare for months.

            Kally also knew Alabaster was right about Pax needing to sleep. This day felt never ending. If they didn’t count their quick nap at Alabaster’s house, they’d left New Rome, been chased by demigods, fought said demigods, then ran into a battle at Camp Half-Blood. No slack for Team Pax.

            Pax needed rest, both emotional and physical.

            He whined.

            Alabaster sighed. He looked annoyed.

            Indignation flared inside Kally at Alabaster’s reaction. She wanted to hit him for being so callused—Pax may like to take advantage of situations, but he’d been through a lot—until Alabaster muttered, “This doesn’t mean anything and I won’t enjoy it. Now good night. I’ll do what I can to assure you better dreams.” He popped the pills into his own mouth, leaned down, and lifted Pax up.

            Kally blushed and glanced away.

            Pax made a muffled sound of surprise. Then his body went slack.

            Alabaster gently set him back into his nest of blankets.

            As though Kally simply needed her sort-of-not-ex-boyfriend and sort-of-crush to share a mouth exchange closer to a bird feeding than two people kissing, her mind snapped into focus. Kally reached for Pax, who continued to lay still on his back, despite his fractured shoulder.

            Once he’d gone unconscious, the ambrosia kicked in, pairing rapidly with Pax’s accelerated healing. He had been fighting it. She needed to set his shoulder before it got too far along, clean out his hip gashes, and… some Apollo spidey sense told her these tendons wouldn’t heal correctly if she didn’t attend to them.

            Compared to his prior sobs, Pax’s countenance looked uncannily calm and pleasant. Something about his wild, raven hair made him look like something out of a Midsummer’s Night’s Dream.

            She searched around her messenger bag, withdrawing disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer.

            “I need a scalpel. And a medical pack. Quick,” she said, glancing around the rickety bunks of Cabin Eleven. The tiny heads poking over various bunks gave her no response. She wanted to tell them this was going to be gross, but that would probably make them want to stay more. “I need to make a small incision to sew his two flexor tendons back together and to do a quick check up on his lumbrical muscles.”

            Alabaster handed her something from one of his pockets.

            Without pause, she flipped open the leather medical folio to reveal exactly what she needed: a full biology dissection kit and a small container of latex gloves.

            Reflexively, she slid on the gloves and went to sanitizing the tools.

            Alabaster went into the bathroom and returned with a few clean towels. Hopefully clean towels. One could never tell in the Hermes Cabin.

            Alabaster sat back beside her, pulling Pax’s bloody hand from his nest to clean and prep it.

            Sensing her question, he said, “I never know when I need to collect specimen for spells. Also, I found a leather working needle and suture floss on the counter.” Once he was done prepping Pax’s hand, he held Pax’s wrist and fingers down against the floor on a fresh towel.

            Kally made a face. Although she’d never done this before, she could tell this wasn’t ideal. She had to wonder what prank the Hermes Cabin had played on Cabin Seven to think they’d need medical supplies of their own. Normally, they knew better than to anger the healers, else they’d end up with a severed finger in place of a toe.

            Like the other times she had healed, her instinct outweighed her thought—she cut open  Pax’s palm, pulled the skin back, pinned it, and immediately identified the thick, white strands as his tendons. They almost looked like thinly rolled fish cakes, narutomaki, that she’d get when Merry dragged her out for “real” ramen. Except, covered in Pax’s weird blood-glitter and surrounded by—

            Despite being the surgeon and feeling completely competent up until that point, Kally imagined trying to explain to Axel why she threw up on Pax and made a stab wound into a serious infection.

            Pax’s breathing pattern hadn’t changed. He barely mumbled when she had made the incision. Luckily he couldn’t read her thoughts, or he’d have a whole string of food-related commentary.

            “I’m just glad they’re both alive,” Alabaster said.

            The comment brought Kally out of her panic. By now, she knew her godly powers would take control with routine ease; she just needed to focus on not losing what little snacks she had in her stomach from the Paxmobile.

            As she threaded the hook needle, her mind wandered to why Alabaster had a surgical kit on him and how somewhere, in one of his pouches, there were shavings from Frank’s ear.  Then again, she’d cut open her friend’s hand and was now stitching his tendons while trying to dodge around his godly healing and the ambrosia… She wasn’t sure she could judge.

            “This shouldn’t have happened in the first place,” she said, having almost forgotten his comment.

            Alabaster frowned. He trembled while he continued to hold Pax’s motionless wrist and fingers flat. “My mom showed me the most likely results of this encounter after I had the nightmare. Pax’s death was most probable. But, she’s been wrong before. I’m glad she was this time…”

            One more pull and the stitch was done.

            Kally exhaled. She didn’t think she could recount the procedure if asked. Though, she did make a mental note to demonstrate stitching two fish rolls together for Merry next time Kally needed retaliation against her.

            Kally withdrew the pins in Pax’s skin. With nine quick sutures, Pax’s hand looked a lot less like something from one of her mom’s doctor drama shows and a lot more like Frankenstein’s monster.

            “Those pills are scarily effective,” she whispered. Once she’d finished up with the mini surgery, she piled all the pins, the scalpel, the needle, and the left over floss onto a towel. When she removed her latex gloves, she was unsettled to see her hand still stained red from the earlier bodies, like the latex gloves were nothing more than a curtain dropped to cover a horrifying finale. 

            “You’ve never performed surgery have you?” Alabaster asked.

            “That obvious?” she croaked.

            Kally didn’t realize she was staring at her fingers until Alabaster hesitantly touched them. When she looked up, his green eyes were steady. “You did incredible.”

            “Thank you,” she said, feeling her cheeks rouge. He swallowed and glanced back at Pax. Her gaze followed. The unconscious boy’s breathing was scarily soft.

            They sat in silence for a moment, Alabaster’s fingertips tickling the tops of hers. Although she hated the thought of singing in such quiet, her work wasn’t done. Kally reached her free hand out to Pax’s incision. She hummed.

            “You’re too weak to do that,” Alabaster said.        

            “He should have had a tendon graft. I need to make sure the tendons latch without one and I need to set his shoulder,” she said, but—even with the tiny bit of humming—she could feel her head start to spin.

            Alabaster stood and walked to a closet in the back. When he returned, he had a pillow and two blankets in hand. She wondered why he thought Pax would need to expand his nest—it was already worthy of Mrs. O’Leary.

            Alabaster sat beside her, laying the bedding out with military neatness.

            The tendons are anchored. His shoulder—I need to work on his—

            Everything blurred for a second. Kally’s hum broke. Her body felt heavy. She shook her head, clearing her throat and sang,

            “There has to be an invisible sun.

            It gives its heat to everyone.

            There has to be an invisible sun.

            That gives us hope when the whole day is d—”

            As she mumbled the last few words, the world slid to the side. She felt like Midas had flicked her forehead, weighing her skull down with gold.

            Pax’s shoulder—she hadn’t finished—

            “Knock it off,” Alabaster said, “You’re exhausted.”

            Everything smelled of sandalwood, sage, thyme, and something that made the world spin more. Maybe that last smell was Frank’s ear. Did Sino-Canadian shapeshifters have a smell that made one sleepy? She guessed those weren’t common enough to make a real test group.

            Alabaster gently set her onto the pillow and blanket that he’d set up beside Pax. While still seated beside her, he rested a hand next to her pillow to lean down. He sighed. “Can you remove your glasses?”   

            “Not yet,” she said. Kally wanted to be able to see everything, in case she could heal more. Thinking about the last few hours, she whispered, “I can’t stay at this camp. After all of this. I can’t condone what the gods have done. I… I think I understand…”

            Tears welled in her eyes.

            When the words came out, she wished she could suck them back in. She couldn’t understand everything Alabaster had gone through, the lives he’d lost, and the extent of his hatred. She didn’t want to offend him.

            But Alabaster just gave her a wry smile, crinkling his freckles. His emerald eyes glistened with amusement. “Well then, we’ll have to do some quick brainstorming on that third camp to get it running. As soon as Ajax wakes up, we’ll set him on designing the camp’s insignia and I’ll tell Axel he needs to create a training regiment.”

            Kally felt her blush deepen at his teasing. “I was serious about that camp.”

            His smile softened. “I know. I’ve grown accustomed to not having a permanent home and not… having hope.”

            With what little strength she had, Kally slipped her hand up to clasp the one he had beside her pillow.

            Alabaster’s pale cheeks reddened. He cleared his throat, paused, and said, “This does mean something. And there are no pills attached.”

            “Wha—”

            He leaned down to grace his lips against hers. The smell of herbs flooded her system. Kally felt her eyes flutter closed and she hoped she’d think about this embrace when she lulled to sleep, instead of Python’s deadly one.

            Then she almost burst out laughing when the three tiny Hermes cabin occupants cried, “Ewwww!” and felt Alabaster jump in alarm.

Thanks for the read!!! Sorry for the week delay! The end of this summer is wrecking me and I’ve been struggling to keep up, but I hope you guys enjoy regardless!

Footnotes:

[1] Mel’s Betacomment: “Nawww! But sneaky Alabaster. I thought you were going to get Kally to a bed-- *notices phrasing* NOT IN THAT WAY! I MEANT AS IN REST!”

Jack response: It’s okay, Mel. I know you ship Kalabastax <3 XD

[2] Mel Betacomment: “Uh-huh, and stop Alabaster in your state? Well, as my professor always says, just start taking off your clothes.”

Jack response: How do you find these classes and how do I sign up for them?

Also, yes. Yes, that would embarrass Alabaster out of any rage mode XD Please consult your local superhero manual under, The Power of Boners.

[3] I wanted to put that the goddess of hate and argument had pressed pause… but that would be Eris. And I was scared that might cause some confusion on her actions, as Pax says she would absolutely be on standby, pressing on and off an anger remote faster than the average person can slice in Fruit Ninja.

[4] Princess of Troy that was cursed to speak true prophecies that no one believed. She, Apollo, and Ajax go wayyyy back.

Chapter Text

            When Alabaster left Cabin Eleven, his cheeks felt like they were on fire. The jeering from the Hermes occupants shouldn’t have bothered him so much—they were children that likely didn’t know that allegations of cooties actually meant that one had a parasitic bug infestation. Something else must have been unsettling him, and, in this particular case, beyond the fact that he was in Camp Half-Blood and NOT destroying the son of Poseidon, he suspected it was his attachment to Kally.

            Everyone close to him warned him that he was reckless: his mother, Axel, Luke, and Claymore.

            But, suffering from a severe infatuation after two real encounters? And acting on that infatuation? Eros and Aphrodite might as well come out of hiding to bow for applause. He did not like being their puppet and letting them distract him from what he should have been focusing on.

            His heartbeat thudded inside his head, his lips tingled, and he could still smell Kally’s scent beneath the sweat and blood: a shampoo or soap with mint and eucalyptus undertones. He could perfectly visualize the hope and excitement on her face when she spoke of a third camp, one not Roman or Greek.

            Maybe it wasn’t just Aphrodite and Eros.

            He didn’t have time to think about that right now, or whether or not one could love without the influence of those gods. He and Axel had discussed it before. Both of them liked to think someone could still fall in love without godly meddling, but that could have been their stubbornness clinging to independence from the gods.

            Alabaster felt a little nauseous to think that Axel had probably been referencing his love for the praetor during those conversations. Had he really been interested in her for that long?

            Alabaster didn’t have time for this. He should have been focusing on his transit in enemy territory.

            Most campers didn’t pay him heed. They seemed to think he was a mysterious Roman unit. The daughter of Ares and Rodriguez had gained more control over the camp. The Greek chaos had become more organized.

            As Alabaster walked past the other cabins, readily identifying to which god they belonged, he heard the chatter of units scurrying by,           

            “—counselor meeting outside the boundary—“

            “—true about Percy? Is he really—”

            “—Jason can barely walk. Anyone hear what happened to h—”

            Another set of campers, this one equipped with medical kits, a stretcher, and stethoscopes—likely Kally’s siblings—raced past.

            “—five dead campers. Each from a different cabin.”

            “It’s like someone systematically—”

            “—ghosts did some serious damage to the Roman—”

            “—Chiron still not up—”

            He stopped outside the cabin with the eerie glow of green torches: Cabin Twenty. There were spells inscribed on each stone, although half of it was gibberish that Alabaster readily identified as Minoan, likely written by Lou Ellen. One of the stones read something like, They think I’ll turn people into a tree, but really I explode glitter. The black tome-like doors were enormous and took up most of the façade.

            Originally, Alabaster had planned to map this out, so he could return from the Big House and restock here.

            Staring at Hecate’s cabin, he felt himself tremble in rage.

            He couldn’t go inside.

            As part of the deal to pardon Hecate for her involvement in the Titan’s War, Alabaster had been banned from Camp Half-Blood and from “polluting” the minds of his siblings. If he went inside, he’d have to accept that it would only ever be once and only because the barrier was down. He’d have to accept what few siblings he had left had been tricked into worshipping the corruption of Olympus.

            Although he told himself it didn’t bother him, that he didn’t care how a group of Olympic-lovers would live, that he had no business seeing how his siblings thrived, Alabaster learned he wasn’t as indifferent as he had hoped. He didn’t want to see what he could never have again.[1]

            Alabaster shook his head, writing the weakness off as exhaustion. He reached into his pocket to withdraw a Reese’s Stick that he’d swiped from Pax. The wrapper crinkled as he tossed the candy into the torch fire. This was a measly sacrifice. He’d have rather given Percy’s head, but this would have to do.

            While the green flames wicked around the bars, crackling into sickly, black smoke, he prayed, Mother, Morpheus, please grant the Pax brothers peace and distraction in their slumber. You owe them that at least. And… Alabaster bit his lip. And, please grant this to Kalypso Kassand, the daughter of Apollo.

            The dark tendrils twisted into the face of a winking man before being dusted by the breeze. At least Alabaster knew Morpheus heard him.  

            “I think I modeled if off of your laboratory,” someone said beside him.

            Alabaster caught a girl’s hand in mid-reach towards his nose. Although she hadn’t started the incantation, Alabaster could feel the Mist build up for something like a limb removal.

            When he glared at her, that piercing headache returned.

            Lou Ellen mimicked his wince of pain. Those brilliant green eyes, the same shade as his, twinkled playfully and painfully as he shoved her hand away.

            Alarm sank Alabaster’s stomach when he couldn’t remember what she had just said. Something about this cabin’s construction? From the blank stare of her pale face, she had a similar absentmindedness. Or she was an idiot. But, their previous team up and Alabaster’s instinct told him that Lou Ellen was no one to underestimate.

            “I was hoping you could restock me once I get back from the Big House, so I can defend myself when other stray gods decide to attack me.” Which, he figured, would happen to him statistically more often than the average demigod-to-god conflict. “Before I approach the main building, what defenses should I be aware of or what traps might I trigger?”

            If nothing else, at least this trip would be excellent for collecting intel on Camp Half-Blood’s defenses.

            “Um, this is a camp for teenagers,” she said, like his question was unwarranted.

            “Yes, and Guantanamo Bay is a playground for adults.”

            Lou Ellen took a step towards the Big House and grabbed his arm, like he was escorting her down a street in Victorian England and she’d be helpless in the case she was attacked without her older brother. Something about Lou Ellen screamed that she would want some poor idiot to try attacking them in a situation like that.

            He was confused and annoyed by her escort until he saw why: a Roman soldier had met up with Clarisse on her way away from the cabins with several other—Alabaster assumed—counselors. They were talking and the Roman was pointing to him.

            Lou Ellen made him walk faster towards the Big House.

            “I’m not sure they finished building it, but Pax had jumpstarted a project with the Stoll brothers, Matthias, and Jake to make a rapid-rotate ramp that will activate when Chiron’s wheelchair hits it, so as to rocket him into the Big House with uncontrollable speed.”

            “The centaur has a wheel chair?” Alabaster asked skeptically. He vaguely remembered a rumor about this, but had chalked it up to Pax’s nonsense.

            When they approached the Big House, Alabaster was stunned by its lack of grandeur and its rustic simplicity. The four-story country house was painted blue with white accents. In the morning light, the wrap-around porch looked homey and quaint. Not the home to a God of Madness and the trainer of blind killers.

            He could almost see why everyone bought into this trash.

            “When he’s not a centaur. I mean, why would a centaur need a chair?” she asked as they walked past the dangling dryad wind chimes. “The stairs you’re looking for are past the parlor and down the hall. I might have overheard Chris and known the area to be a prime territory for casting spells to curse the Demeter Cabin.”

            She released his arm at the door, near an outside table set for a card game. Once again, he had to bat her hand away from removing his. Somehow, he knew she’d try limb removal every chance she got.

            “Thank you,” he said. Although he’d fought beside this Greek, she didn’t owe him anything. Even if they did somehow know each other from the past, he was still surprised that she treated him more like an equal and a friend than a former enemy.

            She laughed sadly. “I mean, you’re a stiff, but you’re still my brother. And there aren’t a lot of children of Hecate left.” She glanced at one of the dryad wind chimes as it rotated into something else. “I feel like there were once a lot more…”

            “There were.” Alabaster preferred not to think about how popular his mother was with mortals and other creatures. And he didn’t want to think about what happened to his other siblings.

            Lou Ellen shook her head, her black hair shuddering. Her smile brightened and Alabaster couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d be great friends with Pax. “I need to go check on Miranda again and mess with her while she’s out. We can’t have everyone acting too serious right now. But uh, make sure Axel is okay. I think…” She rubbed her forehead, grimacing. “I… I think I used to have a thing for him.”

            Alabaster snorted out a laugh. “You and every other girl or monster at Camp Othrys.”

            They laughed. A wave of nostalgic irritation hit Alabaster and he could distinctly remember removing a much younger Lou Ellen’s tongue so she’d stop gushing about his older friend, only to have her post Axel’s band pictures all over Alabaster’s laboratory.

            Pain shot through his temple.

            Both of them cried out.

            “We have got to clear this up with Mom,” he said.

            “Yea,” she agreed. “Well, until then. Don’t die in there!” She waved him off and stepped off the porch.

            “Don’t die out here,” he said, another wave of nostalgia hitting him.

            When Alabaster stepped inside, he found the interior similar to the exterior—charming and old-fashioned. There was a fireplace and another table set up. Grape vines ran along the walls, reminding Alabaster that Dionysus normally lived here.

            A sense of pervasive unwelcome screamed at him to leave.

            Alabaster would have liked to breeze through the room after a brief, defensive sweep, but he saw two people in the corner that made him pause.

            Well, a centaur and a person.

            The centaur lay on the ground. An empty glass sat upright beside him near a stain in the carpet. There was a Party Ponies blanket covering most of his horse-half and part of his button-down shirt. A pillow was shoved under his thinning, brown hair.

            Beside the centaur, crouched ready for an attack, was a curly-haired blond demigod with narrowed violet eyes. For an instant, Alabaster thought the demigod was Dionysus himself, but knew he was mistaken by the way the boy’s hands trembled around a xiphos sword.

            “Prometheus told me that you’d come,” said the demigod, “After he put the monster in the basement.”

            That monster. Axel must have still been wearing his Leonis Caput helm. Alabaster refused to believe this could be an ambush set up by Prometheus. There would be no point in saving the Pax brothers in the first place if he wanted to end the Triple A Chimera later.

            “He also wanted me to tell you that it would be unwise to attack us,” he finished.

            Us.

            Alabaster glanced down at the centaur. Killing Chiron would be easy right now, the trainer of Percy and a line of other Olympic henchmen.  As an ease on his consciousness, Alabaster wouldn’t even have to kill this demigod. Somewhere on him, he must have had a disarming rune left.

            That was why Prometheus left the message. The gods would just replace Chiron. Their tyranny would continue. And Alabaster would shatter what fragile peace allowing the Triple A Chimera and their friends at this camp and make everyone more vulnerable to Eris’ next attack.

            Alabaster sighed. “I’m not here to fight.”

            The demigod’s shoulders relaxed. Clearly, he wasn’t either. “We’re going to be taking shifts to watch over Chiron and Argus until they wake up,” he explained, as though to say don’t change your mind. That sword stayed posed for a defense. “You and that monster… you were at the Battle of the Labyrinth, weren’t you?”

            From the age of this demigod, this boy would have been old enough to be part of the battle. Alabaster nodded his head. “Yes. It was a disaster.”

            The demigod nodded down the hallway. “That monster, the one Prometheus brought in…” He swallowed. “He crushed my twin brother’s, Castor’s, head at that battle.”

            Alabaster stared. Everyone knew there were causalities on both sides.  But, the emotion was still raw in this boy’s red-rimmed eyes. Alabaster had never spoken to an enemy soldier about it. There was no theology here and no argument over government or godly rule. Just a dead sibling, like the ones that Alabaster lost.

            “I’m sorry for your loss,” Alabaster said.

            They examined one another for a moment longer. Had this boy wanted to, he could have come down the hall and killed Axel to get revenge. From Pax’s description of the situation, Alabaster doubted that Axel would have defended himself, or at least not defended himself well.

            With a sense of unease, Alabaster. continued past the parlor, down the hall. He tried to ignore the feeling of that boy’s eyes. At the end, he found the stairs, and the door behind them, slightly ajar. “Axel? Claymore?” he called to alert them to his presence.

            The reek of smoke stung his nose when he pushed the door completely open. With the daylight and hallway light spilling down the stairs, Alabaster could see the reflective gleam of two golden eyes above the crimson glow of a cigarette. In the corner, amongst the silhouettes of crates, jars, and other storage containers, a pile of imperial armor glistened.

            Claymore stood on the last step, his arms folded, leaning against the banister.

            Each step creaked as Alabaster leveled with him. The air grew chilly.

            “Your friend isn’t exactly the chattiest of company,” Claymore said.

            “Thank you for checking on him.”

            “A lot of good it did,” Claymore said, sounding more pensive than annoyed. Before Alabaster could ask him to, Claymore stepped up the stairs. “I’ll give you two a moment. I’m sure I’ll find the young gentleman by the horse even more uplifting.”

            Once Claymore exited the stairwell, Alabaster sat on the bottom step. Now that his eyes had adjusted to the lack of lighting, he could better see Axel. The older boy sat on the concrete floor and leaned back against a crate labeled Strawberry Preserves—A Divine Delight! His knees were pulled up, so he could rest his elbows on them and dangle his hands between his legs. Everything but his boxers must have been in the corner of the room.[2] 

            All Axel’s injuries from the past twelve hours were on display with a few additions Alabaster didn’t remember. There was the new scar where they said Kouta shot him in the shoulder. Bruise marks covered his chest from Percy’s hosing. Claw marks decorated his arms that—from the angle—Alabaster would have guessed were self-inflicted. In the center of Axel’s chest, above his heart, was a raw gash, one he hadn’t cleaned yet. Alabaster wondered, though doubted, whether or not Pax had given him that in defense.

            Axel’s reflective eyes were distant, rimmed red, and had dark circles. His tufted ears sat in a neutral position. The cigarette pinched between his lips had an inch of untapped ash dangling limply from the end. 

            “Ajax is asleep,” Alabaster said. “I gave him some of my pills. Kally passed out beside him while she was healing his hand.”

            Alabaster continued to update Axel on what little he knew about Percy’s position as King of Saturnalia, the camp’s condition, and the potential counselor meeting.

            The unease Alabaster felt earlier clenched his stomach tightly. Alabaster hadn’t seen this strategist slouch during their time at Camp Othrys, let alone sit in the dark, mostly-naked, nonreactive to any information…

            Until then, Alabaster didn’t realize how emotive Axel was when formulating a plan.  Alabaster wished Axel would narrow his golden eyes in thought, twitch his ears at bad news, or clench his jaw. Something.

            After Alabaster finished talking, the ash fell from Axel’s cigarette, feeding a pile between his knees.

            “Thank you,” Axel said softly, “for checking on Ajax.”

            As if there had been any other option for Alabaster.

            Alabaster frowned. “He tends to be hopeless on his own.”

            In all the replays of Alabaster’s nightmares, he hadn’t realistically considered how Axel would react after attacking—or being forced to attack—his little brother.

            For some reason, Alabaster always assumed Axel would be enraged.

            “Euna isn’t with you,” Alabaster said, wanting something to trigger inside Axel, instead of the nothingness in his eyes.

            Axel didn’t even shrug. “I assume she’s still going towards Tartarus with Jack.”

            The ash met the filter on Axel’s cigarette. His lips released, dropped it into the pile, still smoldering. Without looking, Axel reached behind him, to the side of the crate, where there was a box of cigarettes and a lighter. He tapped one out, lifted the thin cylinder to his lips, and reflexively cupped one hand around the end, like there was a breeze that might snuff out the flame. No breeze or movement came but the subtle flick of flame. The basement was still and cold.

            Alabaster had to wonder where he got those at this camp.

            When Axel was done, he set everything behind him and folded his legs pretzel style, ignoring how his calf crushed the still-glowing filter on the ground. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees again. “What was the point? Ajax and I gave three years of our lives, our childhoods, to fighting for Kronos. You gave even more. We watched good soldiers and friends die. Your family. I traded my consciousness to become a symbol of power and fear.”

            His golden eyes flicked to the discarded pile of armor in the corner.

            “Eris was right. Kronos’ army kept us safe from Santiago until we were old enough to confront him—as if we were enough to take him.” He grunted. “But… those gods… those tyrants we fought to dethrone are still there. Powerful enough that they could just… puppet me to brutalize one of the only things that matters in my life.”

            Slowly, Axel’s eyes met Alabaster’s. Again, he asked, with the dull, hopelessness of knowing he wouldn’t get a response, “What was the point?”

            This question had plagued Alabaster since the Battle of Manhattan. He’d sat in Dr. Cenotes’ office, staring at the hideous paintings on the therapist’s walls, wishing any answer would satisfy him. He’d screamed in his mother’s alter room, where she prayed to some mysterious, higher power, wanting an all-powerful deity to grace him with an acceptable answer, or at least verify that his feelings of helplessness and purposelessness were justified.

            At least Lamia’s attempts at his life had kept him busy. As had babysitting a manic, grieving Jack. As had his and Claymore’s research.

            But, confronted with Axel’s hollow gaze, the question extended to more than the war.

            “You’re alive,” Alabaster said. The words and sudden desperation in the pit of his stomach surprised him. “You, Ajax, and I—we’re all alive still. We may not feel like it, but we’re going to have to act like it for Ajax’s sake and our own.”

            He thought about Kally’s hopefulness and her suggestion to make a new camp.

            “We have to make a new home and build a new purpose,” he said, not sure he’d committed to the idea until the words came out.

            Axel gave an empty laugh. “No gods. No kings,” he quoted something the two of them had agreed upon a long time ago.[3] “How long do you think that will last?”

            “It doesn’t matter. There isn’t another option. Giving up isn’t an option. For people like you and I, it never has been and never will be. Breaking us is exactly what the gods want right now.”

            “Look who has become the riling lieutenant,” Axel teased weakly.

            Alabaster was relieved to see Axel’s eyes focus and crinkle with the tiniest hint of pride.

            “Shut up,” Alabaster said, rolling his eyes. He picked up the Leonis Caput helm and held it out to Axel. “Now come on. Let’s take something that symbolized power and fear and turn it into something else.”

            Axel’s bronze skin took on a sickly hue. “I will follow you up those stairs, but I am going to throw up if I try to put that on right now. And I do not want to be wearing a helmet with throw up in it.”

            For an awkward moment, Alabaster paused. He was so accustomed to Axel’s complete self-composure; he had forgotten the older boy would still be in shock. Quickly, he withdrew the helm and latched it onto his belt. He’d never noticed how much heavier the Leonis Caput was than his or Ajax’s helmets.

            After another moment, he gathered Axel’s Nemean Lion cloak. Axel swallowed and strapped back on his pteruges, his Mayan bracers, and his grieves. Alabaster helped him up and the two of them started up the stairs.

            “Where are we going?” Axel asked.

            Logic dictated that they should gather Pax and get into the Paxmobile before the Romans gained full awareness of exactly who they were. However, Alabaster was exhausted and knew there was no way they could get Pax out of here without a fight. Judging from the way Axel trembled as he walked up the stairs, Axel was even in worse shape, especially considering the onset of traumatic stress.

            They needed to do something very important before they could go to a demigod meeting, defend the camp, decide to help attack it, or strategize how to collect Percy’s head.             “We’re going to get you some clothing,” Alabaster said, “So Lou Ellen doesn’t squeal when she sees you with your shirt off.”

            “Excuse me?” Axel asked, clearly baffled as to why his lack of clothing would cause Alabaster’s annoying little sister alarm.

            “And then we’re going to find you somewhere safe to catnap. I didn’t sacrifice one of Pax’s Reese’s Sticks to Morpheus for a solid nap just to hear Pax whine about it being wasted later.”

            Despite their situation, Axel gave a near-genuine laugh. “You’re not letting me get out of that, are you?”

            “Do you want to hear your little brother whine?” Alabaster asked.

            Axel sighed sadly. “I’d be happy to.”             

Thank you guys for the read! Some of my favorite chapters to write are Alabaster chapters. What do you guys think? I hope you enjoyed this! Tune in next week for chapter seven: Maari

Diffusing the Aura of Strife and good luck to everyone heading back to school!

[1] Mel’s Betacomment: “D: why do all your characters need such giant hug piles?”

Jack response: “Because the more I like a character, the worse things I do to them. It’s a societally acceptable version of masochism :D” (Also, she knows I’m WAY nicer to these characters than the ones in my others series XD)

[2] Mel’s Betacomment: “WHY YOU GOTTA MAKE AXEL SOUND HOT RIGHT NOW??? HE SHOULD BE SAD AND MOPEY AND UNATTRACTIVE LIKE PAX AND INSTEAD I'M GOING, WOW THAT'S HOT. WHAT EVEN!!! XDDD”

Jack’s response: I don’t have one. I just needed to share this with other humans XD

[3] Name the reference! Either the philosophical one, or the video game.

Chapter Text

            The counselor meeting was postponed for too many precious daylight hours. Eris’ nighttime shindig would be fast approaching; timeliness was important, considering you couldn’t come late to a party when the partiers were coming to you.

            Merry found some of the holdup commendable: they had a moment of silence for the five campers that Phobetor murdered and for the others injured in battle.

            Also commendable: Lou Ellen cast a silencing spell on Hiro’s mirror so the tiny lacky of Eris couldn’t be eavesdropping.

            Further commendable: Lou Ellen accidentally silenced everyone within a mile radius for the next half-hour. Merry had to remind Clarisse that “one quick punch” would probably crack the tiny Hecate child in half.

            Watching a cluster of dyslexic children communicating through whiteboards was splendid. Between the misspelled and misread words, Merry suggested it easier to play charades.

            Less fantabulous: little catfights and bickers broke out everywhere in camp, fueled by old jealousies and resentment, and childish “but he said/she said”s. Had Merry not been casually matchmaking all the campers over the last month and observing their patterns of flirtation and confrontation, she might have found their bickering baffling. But she had covered Pollux’s headboard with sticky notes about everyone’s infatuations and friendships for a reason.

            Really, it was to blackmail and shame people. But, now, she could use her powers for good: to defuse the arguments through polite blackmail and friendly extortion.

            When Merry came upon Drew Tanaka and Jake Mason arguing over whether a spare board should be used to strengthen defenses or as a backup stretcher in medical supplies, Merry sauntered over to the child of Aphrodite and slid a hand over her shoulder. “Drew, bae, I know you want to continue this argument as much as you want rumors of you fancying the wrong Stoll brother.”

            Cruel and inaccurate: Drew would be embarrassed if everyone thought she loved a Stoll brother, and—if rumors spread that she liked Travis—Connor, the one Calex said that Drew actually fancied, would never make a move on her. Merry hoped it would pressure Drew into making a confession to Connor, as Merry openly shipped the two.

            When Drew hissed and stormed off, Merry nodded to the flustered Jake, the child of Hephaestus and said, “Now, you make sure that versatile slate of wood gets stored beside the lollipops and stickers in medical once you’re done. Wouldn’t want everyone to blame Cabin Nine if they ran out of stretchers during the fight.”

            From the stupidity of some of the fights—like whether or not Greeks or Romans had been given better lollipop flavors by the medics (definitely the Greeks)—Merry could tell that Eris was still around, probably sipping a mimosa and enjoying her anger-riddled show.

            Merry found the Goddess of Strife a formidable foe. But, Merry had years of expert training in settling petty disputes in a broken family and she had a shiny badge in Shut Up and Like Each Other. This was a walk through the strawberry fields comparatively, albeit a very large field with pits and basilisks for challenging measure.

            By the time she sat down at the ping pong table, wiggling her way between Calex and Lou Ellen on the long side, adjacent to Percy’s throne, she almost felt too tired to investigate the rumors that Alabaster made out with both Kally and Pax in the Hermes Cabin before laughing maniacally and initiating both of them into his cult of the dark arts and Snape worship. She suspected the latter half of the rumor to be a Hermes elaboration—Alabaster was way too much of a psychopathic Grinch to have that much a sense of humor.

            “Hey, Teddy Bear,” Merry greeted, sitting closer to Calex than remotely necessary, considering the lack of people on Lou Ellen’s other side.

            For tradition’s sake, the campers had dragged the ping pong table from the Big House all the way to Percy’s Throne of Saturnalia, so he, Jason, Hazel, and Hiro’s floating mirror could sit at the head without having Percy violate Eris’ conditions. The table was uncomfortably lopsided, with the Romans, Reyna, Frank, and Hazel all seated beside Percy and Jason, and most of the newer cabin’s chairs uncomfortably absent. 

            Merry checked her watch: almost eleven o’clock. By the time Reyna and Frank came over to chat with him, Percy looked like he was ready to make Camp Half-Blood a new waterway to the Great South Bay with all the delays.

            “Hey,” Calex said to Merry. Her handsome Brit’s grey eyes flicked around, alert to the stragglers filing in, like he was afraid Phobetor might show up, grab a chair, whip up some chai, and say, “Do continue.” Calex’s black scarf was tucked tightly against his chin and his beanie was pulled far down, revealing only a slit of his ebony tan around his eyes.

            With the barrier down and the temperature control disrupted, Travis Stoll had made it Cabin Eleven’s duty to break into the camp store and distribute merchandise to everyone. But—he had clarified—only for the greater good and not because he wanted to give his brother a Chiron stuffed animal during recovery.

            Merry burrowed into her burgundy parka as she snuggled up against Calex. For all the right reasons: to keep them both warm, to comfort them, and to make Calex bothered. “Any word on our ability to call around? Are we still on godly cell phone time out?” she asked.

            “Iris Messaging, cell phone reception, and Annabeth’s satellite connection are still rubbish,” he said. 

            A wave of anxiety threatened to shake Merry. She touched her parka, the one Dionysus had given her, and some smooth jazz played. Not only would she like to message her godly dad for a quick SOS—maybe Pax and Matthias could draft a Diet Pepsi canon for her father’s arsenal—but she wanted to call her mother, beyond the typical “Wah, Am’ma! Evil gods are attacking!”[1]

            The timing of Eris’ kidnap had been too inconvenient, but she doubted Eris would have responded positively had Merry asked, “Yea… this isn’t going to work for me. Can we reschedule to next year?”

            If the social workers came to investigate Ms. Blythe while Merry wasn’t there, before Merry was properly emancipated, and her mother could only give the social workers a nonworking number and an address that led to nowhere, except to lost pizza delivery men… Merry didn’t want to think about what could happen to Nikhil. During her time at Camp Half-Blood, she’d recruited Malcolm to help her investigate custody laws. She doubted they would take her little brother back to his abusive father, but what if the Department of Family Services got involved and put Nikhil into foster care?

            Something felt warm around her hand.

            She resisted the urge to flinch.

            When she saw Calex’s fingers had slipped into her pocket, to take her hand, she tried to look calm.

            Calex took extra care not to startle her, since he knew she startled easier than a bunny loose at a cat adoption event.

            Normally, this big teddy could never scare her. But, today was a little stressful, considering the impending doom of the camp and her nightmare coming true the day before.

            Calex immediately released her.

            His alert eyes had stopped their vigilance around the last counselors to be seated and rested squarely on her. For a split second, he looked hurt. Merry felt uncomfortable to realize that somehow—with some fancy trick of Eros—he knew she hadn’t wanted to be touched. And worse, he was taking it that she didn’t want to be touched by him.

            Merry didn’t believe that there was such a thing as a “normal” life or a “normal” person, and—among demigods the absurdity of a “normal” demigod became laughable (“I’m born from one of the original twelve—who is your parent, weirdo?”). But, around Calex, she found herself wishing that she had a tiny bit more of that elusive, mysterious “normal” gene that girls had, the ones that could curl up with their snuggly partners and think about how bad they wanted to kiss them instead of mapping out how his future could warp him into a miserable, abusive alcoholic.

            “Where’s Pollux?”

            Merry sighed in relief at the distraction.

            The weak question came from Calex’s other side. Piper rested her head on the table. She still sounded terrible, but she’d had enough ambrosia to make Aphrodite worry about her daughter’s calorie count for the day. Piper wouldn’t be winning any swing dance competitions in her state, but at least she could participate in the Demigods of the Round Table.

            “He wanted to keep two round eyes on Mr. Pony Wise,” Merry said.

            That, and Pollux thought his opinion might be too biased on what to do with the Triple A Chimera.

            Speak of the snake, Merry thought when she saw someone unexpected approach one of the empty chairs around the ping pong table.

            Reyna and Clarisse were in the process of quieting the counselors down—through intimidating of course—when Percy snarled, “Who invited you?”

            Everyone silenced and turned toward the subject of Percy’s ire.

            A teenager with wild, raven hair, tan skin, and one hazel eye and one black one shuffled up to their ping pong table. There was a giant blanket draped over his shoulders and swaddled around him, concealing injuries that Merry heard he’d acquired.

            Pax poked one bandaged hand through his swaddling to wave. His middle finger and ring finger awkwardly stayed together, like he was doing a reverse Live Long and Prosper sign.

            Slightly behind him, Kally froze upon having all their gazes turn towards them.

            “Hi,” Pax said, “I heard there was a demigod support group gathering here. My name is Ajax Pax and I have a demigod problem.”

            Despite the dreary atmosphere, Travis and Connor Stoll doled out, “Hello Ajax,” like it was, indeed, a help group.

            Pax continued, “I’m the head counselor for the Eris Cabin, unless some other child of Eris would like to disrupt my ‘by default’ title?”

            He glanced around, like he was genuinely worried one of his siblings would show up to dispute the claim. About a third of the counselors, who hadn’t received the Pax’s-Mom-Is-A-Crazy-Chick memo, glanced around in confusion and surprise, both at the announcement and Percy’s vehemence.

            “I invited him here.”

            Like a comedy skit, everyone turned their heads down the table to the head of Cabin Six. Annabeth had refused to keep a pillow by her table, and instead was surrounded by an assortment of coffee and energy drinks. Apparently, ambrosia, much like modern medicine, could do little to thwart the symptoms of mono. With the exhausted rings around her grey eyes and tangles in her blonde, curly hair, the daughter of Athena looked like she’d spent the night at a crazy party with Merry’s father.          

            Mono: the disease Apollo invented when he went through a rebellious Puritan phase. Or, possibly to keep Dionysus from partying too hard.

            “I invited all three of them here,” she said.

            A grunt of irritation came to the left of Merry. She and Calex turned their heads to see two figures seemingly materialize out of the ether. Axel had his hands wound through the leather straps of his pteruges, presumably to plunge into the pockets of his jeans underneath. He wore delightfully little other than that. Alabaster still wore his Cloven Terror get up, with his and Axel’s helms tethered to his belt. His arms were folded and his chin raised.

            Axel and Pax made eye contact. Both looked away rapidly.

            “The Pax brothers can give the counselors the fullest rendition of what led up to this. And Pax might be able to give us insight into Eris’ plans,” Annabeth said.

            Pax gave a half-hearted, devilish smile. “When you’re trying to predict an unpredictable goddess, you need someone just as unpredictable. That’s how probability works, right?”

            Merry could tell from the sour look on Annabeth’s face that she wanted to correct Pax, but knew it wasn’t worth the headache. Merry would like to see her try. “From what I’ve gathered, the Pax brothers can’t lie if Kally is there to correct them,” Annabeth said.

            Although Kally’s movements had gone rigid, Merry was proud of her little doormat for not booking it like a deer in Festus’ headlights. Instead, she stepped out from behind Pax and gave a brief nod of affirmation. Merry just hoped the Pax brothers didn’t force Kally to sell her soul to Orkus by making her correct their lies.

            “And I figured the four of you could clear up the rumor that Prometheus showed up and punched a hole in Hera’s temple.” Annabeth shot a look to the giggling Stoll brothers. “That doesn’t really fit his Titan of Crafty Counsel’s modus operandi.”

            “We’re also here to let you know that Hiro can read lips,” Pax said.

            Axel nodded in affirmation. “Even with a successful sound barrier, for those of you facing him, it would be wise to cover your mouths when you speak.”

            The mirror with tiny bat wings bobbed up and down beside Percy. In the reflection, they could see Hiro nursing Percy’s little sister with a bottle of formula. The twelve-year-old paused, lifted one of the baby’s tiny hands and waved it at them. Hiro and the tiny girl moved like they were laughing, though no one could hear anything with the (now successful) sound barrier.

            If he wasn’t a sociopathic bent on infanticide, Hiro would have made an excellent babysitter. Merry wasn’t sure if that made it more disturbing.

            With Annabeth’s defense and their input on Hiro, Percy sighed. He flipped his pen up and down in a violent motion and Merry wondered how he would manage another five and half hours sitting in that chair. For a demigod with ADHD that was prone to action, staying in one place was the equivalent of asking someone to balance a spinning watermelon on a toothpick.

             “Sorry. You can be here,” Percy said. “I’m just a little sore about your little brother kidnapping my sister and your mom threatening to destroy my camp. Oh, and the whole Leo thing. But please, join us.”

            Pax looked like he might shatter.

            Alabaster scoffed.

            Pax huddled more into his blankets and tucked his hand back inside. “The Pax Family is definitely known for our ambition,” Pax said, trying to sound jovial with a quick glance to Alabaster. As he shuffled up to an empty chair between Clovis and the Nike twins, across from where Jason, Percy, and the other biggies were scowling at him, his eyes went wide, noticing the lack of counselors, and among the missing ones, the counselor for Cabin Nine.

            “Leo, he’s—”

            “He and the Hephaestus cabin are repairing Felix, the Silver Festus, for the camp’s defenses,” Piper said gently. “He just needs some time. Nyssa said to fill them in afterwards.”

            “But you can’t sit there,” Laurel, one of the co-counselors for the Nike cabin, snapped.

            “I was going to say that,” her sister, Holly, half-heartedly added. “That’s Damien’s seat.”

            A mournful silence smothered the counselor’s chatter. Clovis made a choked sound from where he napped on the table. Butch, on his other side, patted Clovis’ back.

            Merry jutted her jaw to one side.

            Damien White had been the counselor for the Nemesis cabin.

            Merry was relieved that Reyna took the burden of explanation. She leaned forward from her seat beside Frank. “From the reports Thalia and Clarisse gave me—” She nodded to the huntress of Artemis, seated on Piper’s other side and out of Merry’s view. Then Reyna nodded to Clarisse, diagonally across the ping pong table from Merry. “—Phobetor wiped out three of the newer cabins when he was terrorizing the camp: Sixteen, Eighteen, and Nineteen. We suspect Nike’s cabin was spared because Holly and Laurel were in Cabin Six at the time. Unfortunately, Kayla Knowles was visiting with Chiara Benvenuti, in Tyche’s cabin, at the time Phobetor attacked.”

            Clovis trembled violently on his pillow.

            Merry suddenly realized he wasn’t sleeping. Or, if he was, Sleep Clovis still blamed himself for being unable to save the others. Although Merry wished she could have helped, she was secretly relieved to have slept through the horrors of that attack in the Roman barracks. At some point, they would need to remind Clovis that he’d slowed Phobetor down enough for the cavalry to arrive and prevented even more campers from dying.

            Lou Ellen sank slightly into her seat. Alabaster and Axel stepped up behind her. Alabaster put a hand on his sister’s shoulder.

            While Merry had mentally added this to the list of things she and Kally needed to cry out during their now week-long movie and ice cream date, she was surprised at how muted Kally’s reaction was. Her best friend turned her hands inward to stare at the dried blood on them.

            Merry felt like the Nemean Lion had drop kicked her in the chest. Had Kally tried to heal Kayla? Guilt threatened to make Merry throw up when she thought about her caring, innocent friend sobbing as someone dragged Kally away from trying to heal her dead half-sister.

            Pax’s eyes watered. “Chiara? Paolo?” he said.       

            “You slept through their memorial ceremony,” Connor said, the typical glee in his voice gone. He clutched a stuffed animal centaur in his lap. “We thought it would be better for you to get your rest.”

            Pax glanced at the other empty seats around the ping pong table, distressed.

            Kally’s eyes widened. One of her hands slipped up to her lips. “Nico—”

            “No, he’s with Calypso and Ric. He’s recovering,” Hazel assured. She frowned slightly, her cavalry sword on the table in front of her.

            “And Will—right—never mind,” Pax said, noticing the two empty seats between Clarisse and the Stoll brothers. “Wait—why did you bring all of these chairs over?”

            “Out of habit.”

            “Out of respect.”

            Clarisse and Miranda said at the same time from opposite sides of the table.

            “Will is still dead,” Hazel said. “I’m translating for him. Something about a hold-up in the system and lots of bureaucratic red tape with Hades.”

            Although Merry hadn’t heard the full story, the comment seemed to comfort Hazel.

            Pax stared at Will’s chair suspiciously, like he was waiting for Will’s spirit to shake the table. “Translate… from dead people speech?”

            Hazel looked exhausted and Merry could tell Hazel had explained how to pass undead notes with her brother’s boyfriend too many times for her two lifetimes. Add that to the examples of No Such Thing as a Normal Demigod.

            “From ghost chatter. He’s a lot weaker and harder to hear during the day, especially in full daylight.” She gestured up towards the sun. “He says Kally can take his seat for now, and Pax, Nyssa’s.”

            “Holly, Laurel, let’s let Axel and Alabaster sit in Paolo’s and Chiara’s chairs for now,” Jason suggested. The tone of his voice made it clear how little he liked the idea.

            Kally looked horrifically uncomfortable taking a counselor’s seat, especially that of her dead brothers that, apparently, he was haunting. Plus, that put her beside an irritable looking Clarisse.

            Alabaster sat beside Lou Ellen, and Axel took the seat between the children of magic and the Nike twins. Pax looked relieved to have the Stoll brothers, Butch, Clovis, a table corner, and Holly and Laurel as a barrier from Axel. The Pax brothers continued to carefully avoid eye contact as they settled.

            “To make this clear,” Alabaster said icily. “I’m only here because Lou Ellen swiped my deck of Mist cards.”

            Pax leaned forward to give Lou Ellen a grin, and Merry knew Lou Ellen wasn’t the one who did the swiping.

            “And, I won’t make Axel’s shirt visible again unless you behave,” Lou Ellen snickered.

            Calex tilted his head in confusion at Axel’s exposed scars. “Axel, you’re wearing a shirt?”

            Axel sighed. “Yes.”

            “And a sweatshirt,” Alabaster said, glaring in annoyance at his sister.

            Despite everything, Merry, Calex, the Stoll brothers, and Pax choked on laughs.

            “Lou Ellen, you saint,” Merry said.

            “I’m not sure I believe your story, Lelly,” Pax said, sneaking a glance at his brother. “Axel seems to always lose his shirt around the praetor. Have you noticed they’re never in the same room at the same time? I think, secretly, she and Axel’s shirt are the same person.”

            Another stifling of laughter erupted around the ping pong table, this time, partially from the Romans. With all the stress and bereavement, the laughter sounded hysterical and desperate.

            Although Merry might have expected Axel to casually walk around the table to rip Pax’s ear off, a relieved, sad smile touched his lips. Merry remembered that she and Pax accepted people a similar way: mockery at their friend’s expense. Public humiliation was the first step towards a repaired family bond, Pax boy style.

            “Ajax, that doesn’t even make—”

            Axel’s comment was cut off when Reyna’s knife slammed into the table in front of Pax. “Silver Tongued Snake,” she snapped.

            Pax paled, clutched his bandaged hand to his chest, and sank into his blankets.

            Axel flinched, his eyes blazing with anger, until he saw how red Reyna’s face was.

            He froze, his own face going scarlet.

            Axel sat up straighter and scowled at Pax, hissing something in Mayan.

            Pax peeked out from his blankets to whisper a retort that made Calex choke on another laugh.

            “We’re sorry,” Axel finally said.

            Before the awkwardness could overpower the previous comedy, Merry cleared her throat. “While I appreciate how solidly that proved we all have a sense of humor, let’s keep the script in order. I second Annabeth’s invitation. If our new Hecate babe—”

            “Don’t call me that,” Alabaster said.

            “—has taken the place of Joey in the Traitor’s Prophecy, then his fate his entwined with our own. We’re on the last verse, ‘Darkness End: Peace or Chaos.’”

            “’Darkness end,’” Annabeth repeated. “That must refer to the battle tonight.”

            Frank frowned. “Do you think Eris, Phobetor, and Melinoe found a way to extend the night? It would give them more time for their attack.”

            “They did kidnap Hemera,” Kally piped up. Merry could tell how nervous she was to be talking in front of a group of important people. When she caught her eye, Merry gave Kally a thumbs up.

            “Yea, but that shouldn’t—”

            Butch put up a hand. “Hold up. Can we back up and get some explanations? Last time we heard, everyone was worried because the Pax brothers, Song sisters, Merry, Calex, and Kally had disappeared in the middle of the night and you guys—” He gestured to the left of him, where Jason and Percy sat beside Hazel, Frank and Reyna, then continued the gesture across from him where Annabeth and Piper were dotted between Miranda, Thalia, and Calex. “—left to make sure they were okay. Now you’ve found Leo and it sounds like you guys hate each other.”

            Miranda nodded. “Yea, and exactly who is Eris? And what does she have to do with Phobetor or Saturnalia? And what is that creepy timer for? It’s more than halfway done.”

            The counselor of Cabin Four frowned at the timer in front of Percy that flickered chaotically between different colored sand. At least three fourths of the sand had already spiraled to the bottom.

            Annabeth frowned. “I thought it was a timer until sunset, but it’s going too fast.”

            “Whatever it’s for,” Percy said, “We don’t have a lot of time. We need to figure out how we’re going to save my sister.”

            “And protect the camp,” Jason said.

            “And figure out what Eris is up to,” Thalia added.

            “And get Euna,” Calex said.

            “All before sunset.” Annabeth sighed, the circles around her eyes looking deeper.

            Merry refused to let the weight of the situation make them stagnate. It could be worse. They could have Apollo singing haikus in the background. She clapped her hands together. “Well then, what are we waiting for? Let’s get this party started.”

Thanks for reading guys! Especially since “Council of Elrond” chapters are always everyone’s favorite and the most engaging XD Tune in next week for Ajax: How to Quiet a Child of Poseidon in Two Seconds Flat. Not so sure Percy is going to like that chapter….

[1] Mom in Tamil.

Chapter Text

Eight: Ajax

How to Quiet a child of Poseidon in Two Seconds Flat

            Pax was impressed: no one punched anyone during his recap of their early adventures, from kidnapping Rachel Elizabeth Dare, to stealing the coals of Kronos’ sword and stealing the Golden Net from Bunker Nine, to the trials of Psyche, to tricking Leo into reforging Backbiter, and to Santiago’s Mayan temple, where their father killed Joey, and Euna killed their father.

            Axel, Calex, or Kally chimed in to explain parts where Pax wasn’t there or where he exaggerated how important the weasels, Hunnie and Baller, were to the mission—always vitally important, even when unconscious. Pax was sad Axel didn’t give the full rendition of how he fought off Aphrodite’s giant doves with a frying pan[1] and how Euna got temporary god pills out of it, but Pax figured they could save the long version for Axel and Reyna’s children to assure the kids that their father was versatile with all weapons and cookery. 

            They got through the misunderstandings of what led up to their fight against the heroes of Olympus and why Jack had murdered his half-brother, Will. Well, that last part was less a misunderstanding and more a psychotic break, but Pax hoped they got the picture.

            When Pax mentioned the Princess Andromeda, that’s when things went down a tiny, Everest-sized hill.

            “The Princess Andromeda?” Travis interrupted before Pax could explain in full. “I thought that sunk after Beckendorf…”

            Yep, that was the weird part, Pax thought. That and not that the passage of stairs in the middle of their cabins that led down to an ocean. Or it used to. Pax had to wonder if magical passages like that got bored and moved places. He would if he were a magical passage.[2]

            Alabaster set his glass of strawberry flavored water down.

            Pax was pleased that Merry had commanded the satyrs bring everyone drinks, especially since—with his hand condition—the satyrs had taped three straws together so Pax could sip from his without leaning forward or using his hands.

            While blowing bubbles into his drink, which took awhile and required three straws-worth of backwash, Pax glanced over to Alabaster’s side of the table.

            The child of Hecate’s knuckles were white as he clutched one of the ingredient satchels that dangled from his neck. His other hand casually clinked the ice in his glass. “Beckendorf?” he repeated. “Was that the name of your suicide bomber?”

            Clarisse choked in rage.

            Most of the other counselors went still.

            “Charles Beckendorf was a hero,” Percy said, scowling.

            “As were the kamikaze pilots in Japan and the jihadists for ISIS,” Alabaster said, his eyes boring into Percy with a scary intensity. If Pax had some, he was pretty sure he could roast marshmallows between the two of them.

            Percy’s face went red. He shot to his feet, had a foot on the table, and Riptide in hand before Jason and Hazel grabbed him.

            A baby cried.[3]

            All eyes turned towards the mirror at Percy’s side.

            Throughout the explanation, Hiro had finished several puzzles and eaten a full pizza. When Percy stood, Hiro snatched Percy’s little sister from the crib-cage, where he’d put her down for a nap.

            With his other hand, Hiro snapped out a switchblade the size of her arm.

            He pinched her hand and dabbed one of her fingers.

            For the first time since Hiro had gotten his hands on the baby, she squealed and squirmed.

            The color drained from Percy’s face as he scrambled back into his throne of Saturnalia. Baby Cry Shock Collars—highly effective against children of Poseidon.

            “I’m sorry—I—I didn’t mean—” Percy stammered.

            Hiro pointed the knife at Axel. Then he carefully set the whining baby back into her crib and folded the knife up beside her—the proper way to store weapons around tiny children. Pax swallowed as Hiro made a motion, like he was holding a zucchini in one hand and his other hand were a butcher knife chopping it. To finish the comment, he held one hand out, grabbed his index finger, and shook it.

            Although Pax doubted anyone needed translation, Axel puffed up and popped his cheeks. “He says he’ll start cutting fingers off if you stand up again.”

            “I won’t,” Percy said through gritted teeth. “Just don’t hurt my little sister.”

            After reading both of their lips, Hiro nodded cheerfully. He turned back to the baby, made a goofy face at her, and wrapped her up in his arms, careful to dodge around the darts lining his suspenders. Hiro gave her finger an apologetic kiss and rocked her to some unknown tune.

            “Man, maybe we really shouldn’t have left Hiro with Dad for those years,” Pax muttered. He waved a hand at Hiro and made sure his lips were fully visible as he said, “Hiro, do you want someone to take you to the park to play ball? Or get you ice cream or a puppy? That you won’t kill—okay, maybe not a puppy—I guess I’m trying to say that Axel and I will give you attention without you committing several felonies and doing the whole, ‘creepy villain…’”

            Pax trailed off when he saw the look in Hiro’s eyes.

            Pax liked to remember Hiro as the tiny, happy child that would crawl onto Pax’s shoulders to pretend Pax was a horse and followed Pax around Frasco’s circus to learn everything Pax knew.

            But now, Hiro’s eyes weren’t alight with admiration. They were narrowed with malice. The look told Pax that no number of hugs, or hand knit sweaters, or crazy moon bounce parties would let Hiro forgive each night that Axel and Pax hadn’t come to save he and Lapis from their father.

            “--ait until I can get out of this chair—”

            Pax felt numb as he tuned back into Percy’s threat.

            Alabaster cut him off with a shrug. “We never bombed any of your living quarters, neither cabin nor barracks. We didn’t want to support that kind of blind murder.”                 

            Clarisse snorted. “You probably couldn’t think of a lot of different tactics.”

            Something, Pax thought, one really ought to be proud of, Oh damn, I’m so uncreative in my terrorism.

            “No, we did,” Axel said, as calm as Alabaster. “Luke didn’t want to fight that kind of war.”

            “I find that queer, coming from the Cloven Terror and Leonis Caput,” Reyna said. She appeared to regret throwing her knife at Pax, as she now resorted to twirling a ring on her finger. As a show of good faith towards a future sister-in-law, Pax almost considered tossing it back to her, but—judging by the tense environment—that might not be the best way to express his positive emotions.

            Axel didn’t buckle under her scrutiny. “You pick your battles. We would carefully chose and eliminate a few selective leaders to immobilize an army and minimize overall killing instead of attacking a majority, especially not an area with noncombat units.”

            Alabaster sighed and Pax found himself wishing he had his headphones so he didn’t need to hear this argument again. “Grassroots versus trickle down approach. Axel strongly believed in trickle down.” Alabaster rolled his eyes.

            “Hey!” Kally’s shout made Pax jump in surprise. “This isn’t helping the camp full of kids that are going to be obliterated at sundown. Plenty of which know nothing of the Titan war.”

            The table quieted. Everyone but Axel and Alabaster looked off to the side and grumbled.

            “Sorry,” Kally said as an afterthought, exhaling.

            As best Pax could, he rested his hand atop hers under the table.

            Merry gave Kally an encouraging nod from across.

            Although Pax didn’t want to talk after seeing Hiro’s expression, he managed, “If I were an evil goddess with an amazing fashion sense and great monologue skills, this is exactly the kind of internal fighting I would want to cause to waste time and distract everyone.”

            “The daughter of Apollo and counselor of Eris are right,” Reyna said. “We can discuss ethics and wartime philosophy later.” Her gaze lingered on Axel.

            Axel raised an exhausted eyebrow at her.

            Pax wondered if Axel could find a way to make a discussion on ethics and wartime philosophy into some weird flirting. Twenty Reese’s said he could, and could make it end with some weirder make out/wrestling session.

            Moving on from his brother’s creative Top Ten Questions to Ask a Girl on the First Date, and the debate of who murdered whom more ethically, Merry directed them back onto the subject at hand. 

            Pax finished off his story and Percy filled in the gaps from his party.

            Hazel chimed in on Will’s behalf—since he still couldn’t speak for himself—narrating Will and Joey’s adventures through the Underworld before Joey became real competition for Medusa’s Best Statue of the Year award and about how the dead told Will that something had upset Nyx.

            Merry’s jaw jutted to one side as she watched Hiro tuck the now-sleeping baby back into her crib-cage. “Gothic architecture… Everyone else heard some lovely chimes this morning, right? Just after sunrise?”

            Percy groaned and glared sideways at the mirror. “Yea, they were right in my ear.”

            Annabeth’s eyes went wide. “Chiming as in bells? Like church bells?” She turned to Percy, looking more awake than she had the whole meeting. “Did Eris say anything else? Anything when she was threatening your sister?”

            Pax was glad Athena had decided to click on some lights above Merry and Annabeth’s heads, because his mind was still skipping in the dark as were the minds of the other fifteen or so cabins present.

            “I didn’t exactly take notes,” Percy said.

            “Anything could be important, Water Muffin,” Merry said.

            Percy’s brow furrowed, though Pax wasn’t sure if it was from Merry’s nickname or from thought. “No warriors can be sent after her or he’ll drop her three hundred feet onto concrete…”

            Annabeth and Merry made eye contact. Merry grinned. “Annabeth, what Gothic churches are three hundred feet tall or above in the USA?”

            “Not many.” Annabeth pushed some of the curls out of her face. “The Washington Cathedral, the Riverside Church…”

            Percy’s face brightened, in direct contrast to his words. “She also said something about falling to concrete to put more weight onto Atlas’s shoulders. Last I checked, Atlas is stuck on Mount Tams. Any of those churches in California?”

            Annabeth frowned. “No—”

            Merry snapped her fingers. “Our little Hiro and bae are right next door.”

            Annabeth blinked for a second before saying, “Of course! Saint Patrick’s Cathedral by the Rockefeller Center.”

            “The weight of the world is on the Rockefeller Center?” Travis whispered loudly to Connor.

            “Talk about performance pressure,” he responded in kind.

            Merry chuckled. “Only when they’re putting up their Christmas tree. No. There’s a pretty statue of Atlas between it and the cathedral.”

            A slow, methodical clap chilled their celebration at the discovery and reminded everyone that they had forgotten to cover their mouths when facing the mirror. Hiro gave them a half-grin, one a little too close to Pax’s devilish smiles.

            “So we know where she is,” Clarisse said. “But what good does that do us? No one can go there.”

            “I can go.”

            Everyone glanced over to where Merry had leaned forward, stretching her hands out in front of her in a way that—Pax suspected—she did to distract Calex with how much it pinched her chest between her arms.

            Merry relaxed, so she could put an elbow on the table and lean her head against that hand. “Eris specified big bad warriors, right? I’m not a big bad warrior. I’m a demigod contradiction: a pacifist. I will only lift a finger for dancing, partying, and sacrificing good grades to Annabeth’s mom—not to violence.”

            Her gaze switched from the counselors over to the mirror. “And, I’ll bet Hiro and Lapis saw that when they were creeping on our group. What do you think Hiro? I won’t bring any weapons. Can Aunti Merry drop by for a hug without you having a baby shower?”

            Pax wanted to hug Merry for the ill-timed pun, but he sensed a flaw in her plan, one that Axel stated perfectly for the group. “That will probably just give Hiro two hostages.”

            Calex swallowed. “No offense, Merry... but Axel is right.”

            She winked. “Trust me. I got this. How’s about it, Hiro?”

            Hiro considered, bobbing his head from side-to-side and making his long, black hair flutter. Then, Hiro rapidly signed something that Pax didn’t catch.

            “Hiro!” Axel snarled disapprovingly in a way that made Pax want to say, Oh yea, NOW is when you want to chastise him for being rude.

            Hiro signed slower.

            Pax frowned, wishing his brother was a bit more like a cute panda. “So you won’t defend yourself if attacked?” he translated in place of Axel.

            Merry’s honey skin paled a shade, but her relaxed smile stayed strong. “Won’t lift a finger,” she repeated.

            Hiro clapped giddily and jumped in place. Pax imagined—if Hiro were an animated character—that his hair would take more time to draw then the background.

            “Augh, what a creep,” Miranda grumbled.

            There was a grumble of agreement, especially from the victory twins. Though Pax still didn’t know what people were expecting from someone who had threatened to play Fruit Ninja with a baby’s fingers.

            Calex gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles paling. He whispered something into Merry’s ear. She gently touched one of his hands to calm him.

            The pit in Pax’s stomach had grown from a baby stream to the size of the Grand Canyon. When Hiro began to sign again, Pax wondered if he could pretend he’d experienced sudden amnesia and could now only sign the words Doritos are awesome.  “No weapons. No backup. Only mortal transportation. We can have lunch. Tell Pax and Axel that they are dumb f—hey!” Pax huffed. “My face is adorable!”

            Merry folded her hands in front of her, straightened her shoulders, and closed her eyes. “Axel. Pax. You are dumb faces.”

            Hiro’s shoulders shuddered with a giggle.

            Axel sighed. “Hiro, when this is all over and I get my hands on you, I’m dragging you all the way back to Chiich and making you tell her everything you’ve done.”

            Pax’s ear hurt at the thought and he wasn’t even the one who would be in trouble.

            Hiro huffed, crossed his arms, and turned his back to the mirror.

            With Hiro’s back turned, Merry’s smile weakened. Even from where Pax was sitting, he could tell she needed a huge hoard of weasels to hug her. That always made him feel better.

            Percy glanced at the mirror back to the daughter of Dionysus. “Do… do you really think you can help my little sister?” he asked. “Especially with the whole no-kicking-ass thing?”

            “Who needs to go fisty-cuffs when you’ve got a noggin?” She tapped her forehead.

            Clarisse scoffed, “Hippie.”

            Annabeth gave Merry an exhausted smile of appreciation. “I assume you have a plan?”

            Merry nodded.

            Axel scowled. “Don’t let your guard down just because he’s a child. He can throw darts as quick as Ajax and I don’t know what Santiago has been teaching him… I refuse to let you be the next Joey.”

            The cheer in Merry’s face erased at the mention of their ghostly, petrified friend.

            Pax could feel Kally trembling violently under his hand. “Merry… are you going to be okay?” she asked. Although everyone else might not notice, Kally had put her other hand on the table in a thumbs down position.

            “I’ll be careful, sweeties,” Merry said, looking across the counselor table to make eye contact with Kally, Pax, Axel, and ending on Calex. Subtly, she put a thumbs up on the table in response.

            From the looks of it, Calex was two seconds away from exploding into a panicked array of shiny, Eros arrows, hopefully putting on the best fireworks show Pax had ever seen and ending with the least PG twist for any demigod.

            Except that ex-Roman son of Jupiter was here.

            Pax vetoed the non-PG Eros ending for this counselor meeting.

            “I don’t like this, but we don’t have any choice except to trust that Merry knows what she’s doing.” Thalia drummed her fingers along the table. Pax found it weird to look at Thalia’s silvery camo and dark hair in full daylight. When Matthias was feeling better, they would have to make a little moonlight screen to put behind the Lieutenant of Artemis during all meetings, complete with deer-shaped nightlights and cartoon constellations. “We don’t have a ton of time, and I think we need to talk about how a demigod with god-power eye drops and a singing head that can blow a hole in the camp are on their way to Tartarus.”

            Axel’s eyes narrowed. “We do. The longer we wait, the more distance Euna puts between here and Tartarus, and the harder it will be for me to catch up with her.”

            Pax felt like Phobetor had snuck up on him and used that piccolo-hatchet to hack out his heart. “You’re going back there? To the happy land of fratricide and cheesy, cop out villains?” he said, not realizing until the very end that his squeak had come out in Mayan. “What are you going to do if Mrs. I-want-inside-your-pants and Mr. And-I’ll-cut-off-what’s-in-your-pants show back up?!”

            Those dark, Mist-covered eyes sank down to his hands. “I think they got what they wanted. Besides…” Axel cleared his throat and returned his gaze to the table. “I’m not sure if Euna’s stairwell has connected with the labyrinth yet or what is down there, but if I enter the labyrinth via Zeus’s fist, I should be able to navigate it easily and avoid godly confrontations.”     

            Pax prayed no one would connect that knowledge with the Battle of the Labyrinth.

            A few displeased grumbles came from Frank, Hazel, and Reyna.

            “Assuming we let you go,” Reyna said, twirling her ring while scrutinizing him, “Someone needs to go with to assure that you’re not convincing Euna to join the gods attacking camp—”

            Pax thought nothing could distract Calex from fretting over Merry, but those words made him gawk. “Euna wouldn’t do that. She blames Eris for her sister’s death.”

            “And,” Reyna said, her eyes flashing over to Calex to silence him before returning to Axel. “If you were stricken with madness again, you would need someone that can hunt you down in the event that you rampage and attack allies.”

            Although Axel maintained eye contact and posture, Pax knew Reyna could hurt Axel less by putting her metal greyhounds into a ballista and firing them at Axel than by saying that. Axel didn’t try to defend himself; his expression broke.

            The worst part: Pax couldn’t defend Axel either. She was right.

            At least one good thing could come out of this: maybe Axel and Reyna could take a romantic vacation to Tartarus to talk about their feelings, punch daimons, and—

            “I can,” Thalia said. “Euna was close to joining the ranks of Artemis. If Artemis isn’t around to do so, it is my responsibility to help a maiden in my goddess’ absence. And,” Thalia raised her fingers, snapping them so a burst of static electricity arched. “I can take Axel.”

            Axel, though still looking appropriately sulky, raised an eyebrow again in amusement.

            Calex cleared his throat. His wary gaze shifted from Merry, back to Axel in uncertainty. “I can come too. I know Euna, a medic is always useful, and three is a sacred quest number.”

            “That would outnumber Thalia two to one if you decide to turn on her,” Frank said.

            “Frank!” Piper chastised, touching her nephew’s shoulder to show her disagreement.

            “Uh, Calex is pretty cool,” Percy said. “But… going to Tartarus…” He trailed off, looking to Annabeth for help.

            She gave an exhausted sigh. “I don’t think Calex would betray us. But, without Chiron’s healing, we need all the medical assistance and fighting power we can have here. You shouldn’t go to Tartarus.”

            Those words were like putting a parental lock on Calex’s quest options. Although none of them said it, Pax had the distinct feeling, from the glance Percy, Annabeth, and Axel exchanged, that none of them thought Calex would enjoy the walk through the River Acheron. However, Pax wanted to point out that Calex had probably been an Arsenal hooligan at a West Ham stadium after West Ham lost a match, and which likely had similar conditions.

            “I think your skills are better suited here,” Axel agreed.

            Calex looked unsettled, but was unwilling to contradict both Annabeth and Axel.

            “It’s alright,” Axel said, “We’ll get her home safely.” He scooted his chair back, stood, and rested one hand on Alabaster’s shoulder. “If we have any hope of intercepting Euna, Thalia and I need to pack up now.”

            Pax caught Axel’s eye. They both puffed up their cheeks and popped them. Pax wanted to tell Axel not to go, that there were scary bad guys in Tartarus, that Pax had no way of keeping Alabaster from pigballing Percy to make bacon for the group, and that Pax would inevitably stuff his face with tree nuts without Axel around, puff up to the size of a condo, and fly away into the sun. And they all knew how that turned out for Icarus.

            But Pax also didn’t want to go anywhere near Axel. He got the distinct feeling this was Axel’s big boy version of needing a stroll to cool off.

            Thalia stood up and unslung a silvery backpack from one side of her chair and her unstrung bow from the other. “Done packing,” said the huntress. She rolled her eyes at Axel’s half-smile. “Ugh, boys always take so long to get ready.”

            There was a brief vote, something that clearly made Miranda and Butch uncomfortable without Chiron’s approval. The overwhelming majority voted in favor of their departure, with Clovis abstaining due to a nap, and Jason the only one uncomfortable with sending his sister to Hell with a beast.

            As his brother walked away with little more than an awkward wave, like Pax’s mother, Hiro, and Lapis had abandoned him previously, Pax realized that he’d need to learn how to take care of himself and he’d have to learn fast.

Thanks for reading! Anyone surprised by the Tartarus promenade pair? Tune in next week for Axel’s chapter: Hot Women Need to Stop Sneaking Up on Me.

Also! Sorry if my edits were sloppy this round. Mel was awesome in giving me a rush delivery on betaedits, and I completely butchered them this round XD

Footnotes:

[1] Mel Betanote: “I was about to say ‘PAX, THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN’ but then I remembered that it did and now I can’t tell the difference between what actually happened and Pax’s exaggerations because they sound the same!”

Jack’s response: My work here is done.

[2] China Mieville.

[3] So, if I had more sleep, I could more artfully slip this in here…. But sound can come out, it just can’t go in. This footnote is to remind Jack not to be a lazy jerk and clarify this properly in writing! *tsk tsk* to Jack’s lazy footnoting.

Chapter Text

Nine: Axel

Hot Women Need to Stop Sneaking Up on Me

            As Axel stuffed a spare shirt from the van’s compartments alongside his weapons, he couldn’t stop wondering whether he’d made the right decision[1]. Despite counting his breaths and working through several meditative mental exercises and mediating a play session between Baller the weasel and Harvey the chinchilla, his decision to leave and what he did to his brother eclipsed thoughts about Alabaster’s anger, helping Euna, or saving camp.

            Everything in here was a reminder.

            The shirts he picked up off the floor made Axel grit his teeth. They were all gifts from Pax with dorky, cocky sayings on them, like the quickest way to anyone’s heart is with my fist and Kronos waits for no man… except me. Even his weapon’s duffle bag was a present Pax gave him on National Sibling Day—a holiday he had to prove existed before Axel would accept—with an embroidered patch that read Schrodinger’s Laundry Bag: Clean or Dirty, None can Tell.

            These shirts were too arrogant for Axel, but Pax had needed someone to look up to as a hero and protector when he was growing up, and Axel had donned that persona with pride when it meant making Pax feel happy and safe.

            But during the counselor-praetor-Triple A Chimera meeting, Pax hadn’t been able to maintain eye contact. He flinched every time Axel made a full movement. Axel had only ever seen Pax look at one other person with so much fear: their father, Santiago.

            “You take longer to get ready than Grover.”

            Axel startled, snatched a sword off the wall, and made an already terrified Harvey whimper. He didn’t swing immediately—he recognized the scent: comfortingly earthy, with a hint of… ozone? Like the jungle before a storm.

            Instead, Axel pivoted defensively to face the van’s entrance.

            Thalia stood outside the van, leaning against the ajar door. Her arms were folded and puffed out with the silver parka. Between her pale skin and the eerie huntress glow, he almost couldn’t tell where the white fur lining began and ended.

            New van rule: no more sneaking up on him while he was handling deadly weapons.

            He winced to see that Alabaster must have handed off the Leonis Caput helm to her. The imperial gold glinted queerly against the silver of her backpack, where it was tethered.

            “Are we arming a small militia in Tartarus?” she asked, those shocking blue eyes examining the array of weapons he had strapped onto his chest, hips, and legs.

            “Hello, huntress.” Axel bowed his head slightly. “No, I—”

            Axel felt his eyes widen as his gaze sank down to the blade in his hands.

            “Yep,” Thalia confirmed. “That’s a sword.”

            When he shook his head and touched the hilts of his other weapons with his free hand, her expression shifted from metered to worried. She said, “Please don’t actually try to arm a small militia in Tartarus.[2] I have strict orders to electrocute you if you do.”

            Oddly specific orders.

            Axel stepped out of the van and hefted the sword to be level with her again. “Would you mind… attacking me?”

            Thalia stared. “You’re so weird.”

            “I need to test one of my blades before we leave.”[3]

            “Good thing you specified since I was talking about zapping you,” she said. She withdrew a canister of mace from her belt.

            Axel flinched, putting a hand up to cover as much as he could of his mouth, eyes, and nose. “That’s not—”

            One poke and the canister expanded into a spear.

            Axel relaxed, cleared his throat and straightened his posture.

            Thalia grinned at him. “Now I know how to keep you in line.”

            “I have a very strong sense of smell,” he said, shuddering to think of the last time he’d been pepper sprayed, when Dr. Thorn’s tail spike accidentally punctured Lucille’s pepper spray container and it exploded everywhere. And Axel had worked so hard to fund getting all the younger girls and boys special pepper spray in case of godly or demigodly creeps. All his soldiers could handle the mortal ones without assistance, but after what happened to Ethel, he wanted those in his troop to have the hope of defense if something should go wrong.

            “Even weirder.”

            Thalia lunged forward with her spear.

            Axel parried with his gladius.

            As he went to push her spear tip downward, Thalia moved the spear into the motion, letting the tip drop to the ground so she could spin the butt of the spear up to hit him.

            For that moment of watching the bottom of the spear swing towards him, Axel swallowed. If he forced himself to use the same blade, and that blade shattered, she’d hit him full force in the face with the added insult of shattered metal bits.

            But, if the blade stayed intact—

            Axel tightened his grip as he parried a second time.

            And the gladius didn’t shatter.

            A well of excitement energized him. When she jabbed a third time, and—yet again—his weapon survived another block, all of Axel’s self restraint went into disengaging from the fight. He withdrew and stepped back. His muscles screamed to attack Thalia full force, to have fun sparring without the waste of destroying each weapon he touched. He wanted to storm up to Reyna and demand a rematch and schedule a time block to take on Percy and Jason.

            Reyna might take a request for a rematch as… ill-timed flirting, and they were on a time crunch. Axel knew his celebration had to be kept short and private. 

            Despite that, Axel gave Thalia a huge grin. “Thank you, huntress,” he said and scrambled back into the van while stripping off the layers of weapons covering him. As he tossed them to the side, he fumbled to rapidly test which was the most balanced, sharpest, and best fit his fighting style.

            “Now, I won’t be trying to arm a militia in Tartarus,” he said with a laugh.

            “Glad I could convince you otherwise.” Thalia depressed her spear. She walked back over to the van and glanced over his shoulder to look inside, seeming confused by his sudden vehemence.

            Axel hardly noticed. How long had it been since he’d been able to fight without a handicap? Or have favorite swords? Maybe now he could finally name a sword. Axel remembered the day he’d surpassed Luke with a sword and secretly dreamed about becoming a sword fighter skilled enough that his blade would become legendary.

            Those dreams had shattered when Ares cursed all his weapons to break.

            “Good thing we tested the sword you’re not bringing,” Thalia grumbled. “You’re worse about packing than Apollo going to a beauty pageant, you know that? Euna is getting farther and farther away.”

            “I know. I’m almost done,” Axel said. He frowned at the Mist coated trunk behind the passenger seat. Any secrecy would be pointless with their identities revealed. He popped the trunk, making Thalia do a double take as the Mist twisted away. “I made it a habit to use the worse blades first, so I wouldn’t regret shattering them and I need to find—this!”

            Axel triumphantly lifted one hand from rummaging around the old photographs, fliers, scrolls, and armor to reveal one of the things he’d been looking for: a wrist watch with a sickle hour dial. “This will always point to the exact time at the Temple of Saturn in Rome.”

            Thalia was staring at a photograph that had slipped out of the trunk and landed on the van floor. She’d knelt down to pick it up. On the back, he could read San Pedro and a smeared date that only had July legible. That had a picture of Axel, Pax, Jack, Luke, and—forcibly—Alabaster walking along the beach, moments before the girls launched a surprise assault of balloons filled with food coloring.

            Axel paused, watching Thalia’s expression. He and Pax had several dozen pictures of their old Mount Othrys gang, many featuring Luke before he lost his mind. When Axel and Thalia returned from Tartarus, assuming they did return and the Romans didn’t immediately arrest him, he wondered if Thalia would want to look through them with him. Although Pax had frequently flipped through the photos, Axel had never been able to look at the faces of those that he couldn’t save. Now he’d seen them anyway on Ares’ ship.

            “Always the time in Rome…” she echoed. Thalia shook her head and shoved the picture at Axel, like it meant nothing and she’d just been practicing picking up pictures in the slowest fashion possible. “Oh!” Her gaze focused. “Right—I’ve heard time in Tartarus and the Labyrinth is stupid.”

            “Exactly. This way we know how much time is passing on the outside.”

            Axel stood up from crouching. Now he was only armed with a few weapons: a club with obsidian teeth, an imperial gold gladius, his hidden obsidian arm stilettos, a hunting knife, his mother’s boomerang, some bolas, and a sling with some ammunition. He opted out of bringing his trusted frying pan. Part of him felt too light and naked with so few weapons. Another felt liberated. He could move so much faster without carrying the extra weight.

            Thalia glanced down at the scars covering his chest. “So… you’re not going to wear a shirt the whole trip? While traveling with a huntress of Artemis?”

            Axel sighed. “Lou Ellen swears her spell will wear off within the next half-hour. I’m sorry to offend your eyes with the male form, huntress.”

            Thalia snorted, probably mistaking his comment for sarcasm. She took a step to exit the van, but paused. “If… Jason and I were closer, and I was leaving on a mission that I might not come back from, I would want to give him more than a wave to say goodbye.”

            All of his excitement deflated. Axel gritted his teeth as his thoughts returned to Pax flinching. “I can’t,” he said.

            “Fine. Be a coward,” she snapped and stormed out of the van. “I’ll be waiting at Zeus’ fist. Hurry up.”

            Axel blinked, wondering what he’d done to personally offend the Lieutenant of Artemis before they’d even started their trip.  He hopped out after Thalia, told Baller to protect the Paxmobile, Pax, Hunnie, Nietsche, and Harvey while he was gone, and locked up the van.[4] The magical weasel nodded gravely at his charge and showed his determination by nipping the terrified chinchilla’s ear.

            Pax or Chris could easily picklock their way into the van, so Axel could leave the keys under the front visor.[5]

            Before he could take off after Thalia, he heard the hum of smooth jazz coming from the barrier. A tall girl with a parka walked towards him.

            “Hey Mr. Stoic, you ready to get down for this shindig?” Merry asked. 

            This was the last person he expected to send him off.

            “Are they still arguing semantics?” Axel asked.

            “Like any good United Nations meeting.” She grinned.

            Axel thought over Hiro’s proposition for her. Only mortal transport… He glanced to the taxi van parked near his, where Sam Datta had reclined his seat and was using his biostats notes as a sleep mask. ”I suppose you’ll be riding with him back into New York.”

            “Good thing we kept him around. I think I’ll give him a soothing Merry wakeup call in a few.” She tapped her jacket and Axel remembered her parka could get loud enough to supply a night club. “I’d like to be in New York City ASAP. It’s not polite to roll in late just because we can’t get a parking spot.”

            Axel stared at the van. By now, Sam Datta must have missed his biostats test. “We really owe him a debt.”

            “I vote we give him a ransom note with a picture of you attached, since your father already made it sound like you’re prone to kidnapping people,” Merry suggested. “I feel like they’ll be more willing to forgive his absence if they suspect foul play.”

            She jammed her hands into her pockets. Her tone changed. “I’m worried about my teddy bear.”

            Axel understood her fear. While Calex was a medic and was used to helping at his mother’s clinic, he was a warrior, one who would bear arms if necessary, unlike Merry. He couldn’t join her on her quest; it would violate Eris’ rules.

            Although Axel suspected his reasons to be different from Percy’s and Annabeth’s, there was no way Axel would allow the son of Eros to accompany he and Thalia. The terrors didn’t worry Axel; Calex had proven to be tough. However, Axel didn’t know if the fastest route would lead them through the Underworld. How would Calex react if he ran into his brother and mother waiting in line for judgments?  While Calex might be able to handle the impersonal cruelty of Tartarus, he would shatter upon seeing the two people he felt he’d abandoned to die.

            “I’m sure he’ll do well protecting camp…” he said. Axel frowned. Calex wasn’t the main one Axel was worried about.  “Merry, my brother is very dangerous.”

            He had never agreed with Merry’s life philosophy of “do no harm”—he thought it naïve, idealistic, and occasionally maddening, but he trembled to think of losing another one of their group. Looking at her challenging, playful smile, he wondered how long it would take Hiro to break her.

            “Don’t worry. My plan isn’t to walk up and sing Kumbaya.” Her jaw jutted to one side, something she seemed to do when nervous.  “Besides, you watch yourself, Mr. Stoic. I’m going to corral a twelve year old. You’re going on a date with your girlfriend’s friend who has to shoot you if you look at her ankles funny.”

            Axel felt his face get hot. He opened his mouth to protest, but clamped it shut. Merry was very good at backing people into corners, and he didn’t want to give her more ammo.

            Merry’s gaze fell along with her smile. “I needed to ask you something about that to make all of this work.”

            He spoke before he could stop himself, “I’m not taking the Lieutenant of Artemis on a date to Hell.”

            “No, sweetie, I’m not one to judge who you romance in your personal time.” Merry put her hands up, then dropped them. “I need to ask you something about Hiro.”

            “Anything,” Axel said. For once, he meant it.

            Merry inhaled and exhaled, and Axel had a feeling this was about to get personal. “What kind of flora and fauna do you have in Belize? And how old was Hiro when he left there?”

            Axel blinked. “Excuse me?” If that was the kind of information Merry was asking to take out Axel’s little brother, Percy might need to get comfortable in his chair.

            The first time Axel had seen Zeus’ Fist was from the inside of the rock pile, when he and the other soldiers of Othrys followed Kampe through the Labyrinth to attack Camp Half-Blood. Between marching behind a bunch of smelly monsters down dark tunnels and strolling through a beautiful forest with friendly nymphs, Axel decided he liked this view of Zeus’ Fist more.

            Rumor was that the entrance had closed after the battle ended and Kampe died. A brief glance at the stones told Axel that the entrance had moved to the other side of the rock pile, as entrances to the Labyrinth were apt to do. That side shimmered with a dim blue symbol, likely the mark of Daedalus, the maze’s creator.

            There was something eerie beyond the glowing hue. Although the campers whispered that this place was cursed, Axel could distinctly see a flag pinned to the top of Zeus’ Fist: the capture the flag banner.

            Instead of gleaming with any of the typical cabin colors, it gleamed with wicked golden and black twists that swirled into a golden apple.

            Axel’s breath caught.

            A symbol of Eris.

            Axel ducked down and withdrew his gladius. Thalia should be around here somewhere. He could smell her scent, though it was difficult to distinguish with the rest of the forest. There weren’t any signs of struggle and this didn’t feel like an ambush… but…

            He crept forward.

            Something else colorful smattered the rocks. Somehow, he’d have to get closer without alerting any potential threats—

            “What are you doing?”

            Axel startled. He kept forgetting how silent the huntresses of Artemis could move amongst the trees. He now understood why Pax always threatened to get him a bell.

            Thalia stood a few yards ahead of him. Her arms were crossed and she tapped her jacket sleeve impatiently.

            Sheepishly, Axel rose from his crouch. He gestured towards Zeus’ Fist. “If the flag is flying with Eris’ colors, it might mean another trick of Eris’—”

            Thalia snorted. “Or it could mean your brother is less of a coward than you are. Come on.”

            Axel kept his gladius out as they approached the pile of rocks. When they got close enough, he felt the tip slowly lower in disbelief.

            The rocks and flag had been graffitied. Once he turned around the bend of the rock, he could see a quick and sloppy spray painting of a weasel climbing a pole to the banner. There was a haphazard combination of Mayan script, the ancient Greek alphabet, and Latin letters encircling it. A note was pinned to the rock with a dart.

            Axel numbly pulled it off to find a sloppily drawn weasel and jaguar surfing on a river of fire. A packet of gum slipped out from behind it. Around the note were the signatures of everyone at the counselor’s meeting. Down at the bottom was a block of text in the fancy font that Alabaster only used when writing orders for people. Alabaster’s personal script was illegible.

            Axel,

                        Pax claimed the solidarity of having everyone sign the same sheet of paper would combat Eris’ hold on the camp. Then he asked me to write, “Be safe on your date to Tartarus. Don’t get turned into a bear or become a Hunter. But, if you do become a bear, become a really COOL bear” and pretend it was a send off card from all of us. Your brother is an idiot.

                        But really, don’t become a bear. In light of the new things I’ve discovered about your tastes, I don’t trust your decision making and it would be most inconvenient to acquire a curse from Artemis as soon as you absolve a curse from Ares.

                                                                                                -Alabaster

            Axel’s eyes felt warm. He rubbed his face against the back of his hand. As soon as Axel and Thalia left, Pax must have run around, collecting the signatures, then sprinted—with one or two helpers—to Zeus’ Fist to paint it. They’d likely enlisted Merry to stall him. If Axel had to guess, Pax and his accomplices were still on top of this rock, holding their breaths.

            The note didn’t make Axel choke up. It made him want to tear Alabaster’s ear off, since his elaboration on Pax’s wish—claiming Axel would get in trouble with Artemis for something he’d do on this trip—was far worse than just acquiescing to writing Pax’s words verbatim. But… when he finally sounded out what Pax had tried to write in his jumbled, dyslexic mess of Greek, Mayan, and Spanish…[6] 

            Pax rarely wrote things down without prewriting it so he wouldn’t mix up the letters of his various alphabets. Axel understood what Pax wrote when he flipped two letters and recognized the writing as phonetically Mayan. And, Axel understood why Pax didn’t want anyone else writing it but him.

            Frasco, Nilley, and I still love you and still believe in you.

            Thalia touched Axel’s shoulder.

            Axel coughed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I—”

            When he looked down at her, Thalia’s smile was surprisingly gentle. She nudged him and glanced up at the top of the rock, reaffirming Axel’s suspicion that his little brother was still there.

            Axel cleared his throat and spoke louder, “If Ajax were around, I would want him to know how much—“ Axel choked up again and switched tactics. “That, when I get back, I’ll do anything to atone for what I’ve done to him and do anything to make it better…”

            Nothing felt right, or enough to say, but he was glad he said something. Especially when he heard someone else say, “Dude, atone? Like, old school punishment and trial? He knows where he’s going, right?”

            “Good luck one-upping ‘atonement.’”

            Among the giggles in response, he could hear Pax’s shaky one.

            Thalia released his shoulder. “You’re such a drama king,”[7] she said as though they hadn’t heard the others. “You finally ready to show me the entrance?”

            “More ready than I thought I could be,” he said. Axel slipped his hand against the rock, finding the labyrinth entrance beside the weasel’s foot. He stuffed the note and gum into his pocket and paused. “You… didn’t read that note, did you?”

            “If you think the front is bad, wait until you see what’s on the back,” Thalia said. As she stepped past him, keeping her gaze forward, her eyes seemed to twinkle.

            And with the realization that Alabaster and Pax had given Thalia license to tease him for the whole trip, Axel and Thalia began their descent towards the pit of the damned, to save a friend that—Axel hoped—hadn’t completely lost herself to hatred yet.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Tune in next week for a surprise guest star in the chapter I Play Trans-Mythological Messenger (or: I Crush a Commander with my Bum).

Footnotes:

[1] Mel Betanote: “Does he plan to be ripping through his shirts that often?!”

Jack’s response: Reyna’s not around, so he might be able to keep them on.

[2] Mel Betanote: “Someone later: ‘Why are the gremlins so well armed???’”

[3] Pax, “However, we all know Thalia is correct, as this happens to be the infrequent mating call of the Axel.”

[4] Mel Betacomment: “AWWWWW! I JUST IMAGINED AXEL SAYING THAT AND THEN BALLER SALUTING HIM!”

Jack’s response: Who is to say that Baller didn’t salute him?

[5] Mel Betacomment: “I was about to ask who was going to feed them.”

Jack’s response: Why do you think Axel left Harvey in the van?

[6] I spelled dyslexic wrong about five times without realizing for a solid few moments between each misspelling.

[7] Mel Betacomment: “Axel would be the main character to a shojo manga.”

Jack’s response: You mean he’s not?

Chapter Text

Eleven: Axel

We Fall into the Wrong Underworld

            After a quarter of a mile through the dim tunnel, Thalia broke the silence. “I’m sorry I called you a coward earlier. I never got to say goodbye to Jason, or even knew what happened to him when my mom gave him to Hera.”

            Axel sighed in relief. Not about her brother. He rather liked Jason and didn’t enjoy the image of baby Jason being held away from Juno by one toe, as Axel assumed Juno did with all the children of Jupiter that she kidnapped. But, he was happy for something to disrupt the silence.

            He hesitated. There were dozens of questions he wanted to ask Thalia, things he’d been wondering for years. Because of Luke, he knew more about her than she would ever be comfortable with him knowing, but…

            “I… actually wanted to thank you for saying it,” he said, keeping his eyes focused on the brick walls surrounding them.

            If he had to guess, this was a collapsed section of vaults underneath an old European city, with occasional divots in the walls for storage. The ceiling varied from sector to sector, sometimes alarmingly tall, sometimes tight enough to make Axel’s heart clench. Gas lamps made him nervously edge around the wall’s parameters, wondering if the air was safe to breath.  The air was soggy, like a hoard of minotaurs had done suicide sprints up and down the hall moments before they’d arrived.

            “If Ajax and I weren’t able to say goodbye properly and you and I die down here, he would probably graffiti my grave stone with Lamest Mayan Warrior and make sure his children kept up the tradition for generations.”[1]

            Axel felt like he could hear Thalia roll her eyes. “You’re such an optimist.”

            “The universe has taught me not to be,” he said. “Optimism gets people killed.”

            The comment was too final. Axel immediately regretted it. This quest would be horrifically long if they couldn’t talk.

            “Thalia… may I ask you something personal? Far more personal than polite conversation should warrant?” he asked. Although the motion would be too obvious, he glanced behind to catch sight of the Lieutenant of Artemis.

            In the dim lighting, the silvery glow of her skin was prominent. The tiara atop her head glistened eerily, like she was a decorated statue of Artemis herself. Axel was glad the brilliant blue of her eyes and the wave of her raven hair disrupted the comparison.

            Thalia jammed her fingers into his back.

            Something he never thought his Nemean Lion cloak would save him from: annoyed fifteen-year-old girls.

            “Maybe if you keep your eyes forward,” she said.

            When they first stepped into the Labyrinth, he’d warned her about the importance of situational awareness. One of the many reasons he was worried about Euna going down here. If she didn’t have Jack, he feared she’d walk right off a cliff or into a trap baited with snacks. He hoped monsters down here wouldn’t think of such a practical demigod lure.

            Thalia grumbled to herself before saying aloud, “I’ll shock you if it gets too personal. Just know that curiosity does kill the cat when it involves the huntresses’ spa days and bubble baths.”

            Axel choked. “Why would I ask—”

            He thought about most of the myths about Artemis, about men sneaking up on her and her huntresses bathing. His disgust worsened when he remembered how young all the huntresses looked.

            “No—no one should ever be asking you about that,” he said.

            “You’d think it would be common sense, but people are stupid,” she said.

            Axel appreciated that she generalized “people” instead of just “men.” Though he knew the huntresses could take care of themselves, he felt the intense urge to find anyone who had the audacity to ask them about that and beat the fear of Xibalba into them.

            Except Pax would definitely ask about that, especially since Pax had wondered about it before. For shockingly innocent reasons:  Do they make biodegradable bubble bath solution for huntresses to put in wild rivers? Or is that one of Artemis’ godly powers—to imbue rivers with scented bubbles? Are splash fights allowed, or are they considered too sexual in nature? [2]Would you allow a lesbian to join you bathing or a trans? Then Pax would push the line by asking if he could bath with them if he ate one of his apples and turned into a girl.

            Axel sighed. “No… what I wanted to ask was more personal to you…”

            He clenched his jaw. Maybe he should think that none of it was his business, but this was. Or had been.

            “Your father abandoned you and your brother. All you had was Luke and Annabeth, and Luke was the only one who cared enough to turn you back from a tree. He said you cursed the gods and what fortune they’d given you. But you chose to defend the gods that neglected and blighted you. Why? Why didn’t you join us?”

            He remembered Luke’s broken body when Thalia had kicked Luke off a cliff. How long it took Jack to piece him back together, and how much longer the psychological damage and betrayal took to repair. As if it was ever fixed. That was Luke’s cracking point. That was when Kronos wormed his way in, when Luke lost his will to fight.

            He remembered all the preparations they had painstakingly made. “He had two different units ready for you to command at your choosing.  We had personalized a room for you according to what he knew you liked. He made sure we were ready for a celebration for when you killed the ophiotaurus…”

            Axel trailed off, realizing he hadn’t heard Thalia make a sound. His stomach tightened. “Lieutenant?”

            Her fingers jammed him in the Nemean lion pelt. He had to wonder if she had shocked the pelt and the bolt somehow didn’t going through.

            They walked down the ancient vault in silence. He glanced at his Kronos watch. According to it, thirty seconds had passed in the outside world. When he flipped his hand for a normal watch that he’d found in the trunk, he found they had been walking for three hours.    This was too long to go without encountering any monsters or traps.

            “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing he’d pushed it too far. But, he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t thought about what it would have been like to have Thalia at Camp Othrys, strategizing battles as the head of the Assault and Battery Unit while he directed the Sabotage Unit. From what Luke said, they probably would have hated each other and fought all the time.

            Throughout the entire tunnel, the floor had glowed dimly to direct their route, as the Labyrinth did for those who could see through the Mist. About four tiles of rock ahead, the turquoise glimmer disappeared. There must have been a false wall, though no walls nearby were glowing to signify a direction.

            When he examined the floor, he could tell the second to last tile was covered in sticks and leaves: obviously a trap.

            “I see it,” Thalia said before he could give a warning.

            He forgot that he was working with a huntress that likely specialized in traps and wondered if they could make a very dangerous game out of betting on which one of them would misstep first.

            They stopped at the edge of the twigs. Thalia expanded her mace into a spear, to experimentally tap the twigs.

            Her spear poked through.

            She leaned forward to poke the next tile over.

            Nothing happened. The spear tip made a subtle clank with the stone.

            They exchanged a glance.

            “The path ends up ahead. There must be a hidden door or the likes.” As he explained, he took a few steps back, bolted forward, and jumped at the wall between the two tiles, using it as an extra step to lung over the trapped tile.

            He landed safely on the other side and listened. Part of him expected something to shoot from the walls or that a wild pig might fall, screaming, out of the ceiling. He was pleased by the lack of falling pork. [3]

            Thalia lithely landed beside him a moment later.

            He bent down to examine the tile while Thalia kept vigilance up and down the corridor. “Can I ask you something personal?” she asked.

            A smile twisted the corner of his lip. “I also don’t answer questions about my bathing or workout habits.”

            “Do you like baths?”

            Axel glanced up at her. In the dim gaslight, he could tell she was trying not to smile.

            “I mean, everyone calls you a catboy… and cats hate water…” she said.

            For an instant, he let the Mist mask around his eyes fall, hoping he could give her a quick glint of gold.

            Thalia flinched.

            She must have never seen him with his Mist mask off.

            “Common misconception,” he said. “Jaguars love the water. Why? Is that important information for my Hunter of Artemis application?”

            “No,” she scoffed.

            Axel prodded the rocks patiently, knowing he’d find some way to flip the entrance soon. Maybe there was a trap ladder above them?

            As he examined the floor panel, Axel frowned. Etched into the stone was a painted depiction of a severed man’s head. The blood flowing from his neck swirled into corn stocks. This belonged in a Mayan dig site or ball court.

            After a moment, Thalia spoke again, her voice serious. “Why are you helping Camp Half-Blood now?”

            The real question.

            Axel wanted to give her a firm answer, one that would inspire confidence and convince everyone that he wouldn’t go for a snack that was high in demigod protein. But he didn’t have one, other than saying demigods didn’t shower enough to be tasty.

            “I can’t sit by and watch as a group of powerful gods massacre…” a group of helpless demigods? Axel almost laughed. “Camp Half-Blood. After this, if I thought there was any chance we could destroy the gods of Olympus, with one or two exceptions, your lady included, I would fight Camp Half-Blood and Camp Jupiter all over again. But, there…”

            Under his words, he could hear a subtle rustling.

            He and Thalia locked eyes.

            There was something down here with them.

            At first, Axel thought the sound was rushing water, or at least the dribble of a pinky-sized stream. But the forlorn murmur solidified into something more ominous: weeping echoed down the corridor.

            Thalia and Axel searched around them, but didn’t see a source. The noise seemed to bleed from the walls.

            “That sounds like… a child,” Thalia said. “Like, a little girl. Do you think someone could have gotten lost down here?”

            As though in response to the eerie sound of the soft cries, the flicker of light from the walls shrank. Axel wasn’t sure, but he thought the hue had taken a bluish tint.

            “I’ve heard that before…” he said.

            Something about this felt familiar. His chest clenched at a long forgotten fear. All his instincts told him something predatorial, something bigger than him, watched their confusion with satisfaction.

            He saw the alarm in Thalia’s gaze before she could shout a warning.

            Axel didn’t have time to withdraw a weapon.

            One moment, he saw Thalia’s hand twisting her spear towards him and her gaze tracking a movement behind him. The next, something tore his leg out from under him with the speed and force of a bullet. His face would have thwacked into the floor if he hadn’t slapped his hand down first, narrowly missing a concussion on the stone tile.

            Great way to start the quest’s first fight.

            Whatever it was gripped his ankle with the tightness of a Cyclops and dragged him backwards.

            His functional foot skid across the surface, not catching any traction on the stone tiles until he hit a—a snapping branch?

            Their suspicion about the twig-covered floor tile, unfortunately, proved to be correct. The false floor gave way when the thing dragged him through the scratching pieces of foliage.

            Axel was about to fall through the floor.

            He had a split second to decide if he wanted to dislodge the monster’s grip or grab the ledge.

            If he left Thalia now, she’d wander the Labyrinth for eternity.

            His claws tore into the ledge. “Thalia!” he shouted. Pain erupted in his shoulders. He strained to keep his grip. If the thing pulled any harder, he feared he’d dislocate both his arms. He kicked with his free leg, splashing into some liquid and not appearing to hurt the attempted kidnapper.

            A crackle sounded above him.

            “Don’t use electricity!” he said, knowing she’d fry him with the creature with his feet now drenched.

            Axel risked a glance down.

            A childish fear choked him.

            There was a pale, blue hand wrapped around his ankle. The arm was long, bent, and twisted like someone had removed the bones of eight different arms and sewed the skin into one, lengthy tube.

            Beyond that, he could see the reflective gleam of predatory eyes and the glistening teeth of gaping jaws. Drool stretched between the monster’s canines, like a finish line for Axel to break when he fell into the mouth. The beast itself was canine, with ragged bluish fur so covered in slime that it might be confused for the bottom of a river or Pax after playing in the mud with the weasels. It must have been the size of a Grizzly bear.

            Its arched, spiked back shuddered, like it was laughing, except each laugh came out like the sob of a young girl.

            When Axel realized the hand squeezing his ankle was the creature’s tail. Chiich’s old warnings of rivers and Frasco’s teasing echoed in his head.

            “What IS that?” Thalia asked.

            One of her arrows shot it squarely in one gleaming eye.

            It screamed in rage.

            “An ahuitzotl!” Axel shouted. “An Aztec and Mayan water demon!”

            To his horror, instead of letting go, the creature sprang up. At first, he thought the monster would attack Thalia, and at least give him enough time to reach for a weapon and attack its belly.

             When it dropped down into a dive, Axel’s stomach clenched. The hand-tail still wrapped around Axel’s ankle, the ahuitzotl plunged into the water. All its body weight and momentum from the jump—

            Pain shook his index and middle finger as the nails snapped off Axel’s fingertips under the strain. His grip failed him. With the backdrop of Thalia shouting and the thunk of her bow, Axel fumbled to withdraw a weapon.

            By the time he’d slipped out his obsidian stilettos, Axel submerged into the icy water. After almost being drowned by Percy and knowing this aquatic demon would thrash him around until exhaustion left him unable to swim, Axel thought he might need to reassess his answer to Thalia: maybe he didn’t like baths after all.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Tune in next week, for Calex: Why You Shouldn’t “Bet Your Life” on it (or: I Gamble with Death (Again.))

Footnotes:

[1] Mel Beta comment:

Pax children: Dad, are you crying?

Pax: No… *scribbles more insults into stone*

[2] Mel theorizes that, since Greeks wrestled naked and did competitions naked and still kept it about sports, splash fights should be allowed. As long as it was for battle in honor of Artemis!

[3] Mel Betacomment: “Now I’m hungry…”

Jack, “WTF?!”

Chapter Text

Ten: Sadie

I Play Trans-Mythological Messenger

(or: I Crush a Commander with my Bum)

A Quick Note from Yours Truly: Jak-Jak the Plague Bringer

            Dear Reader,

                        While I was singing these events to my personal scribe, I was rudely interrupted by a persistent young spitfire, audaciously asserting she could dictate this next section with more eloquence and style. Fortunate for her, spitfires are my style.

                        Her preferred method is using a low quality voice recorder (like a savage). If you have the misfortune of hearing that version (instead of reading it) I am the one accompanying all of her oration in acapella, to set the mood. I hope her insertion does not ruin the retelling of this epic tragicomedy for you. Though, if you do find yourself wanting to smash your face into a wall—as her brother assures you will—please remember that she’ll only be around for a few chapters and that smashing your face into a wall can cause severe trauma, enough so that you will not be able to attend your next bull fight or read the next release of Trials of Apollo.

                        And I promise to wrestle the mic from Ms. Kane should she get too vapid. Without a further drum roll (there’s a drum roll happening on the audio version) here is Ms. Sadie Kane.

                                                                                                -Jack Flash

            Wrestle the mic? From me?

            I’ve tangoed with enough disembodied spirits to know they can make quite a fuss, but Jack, you’ve got no hands!

            Well, now that I finally got the microphone from that decapitated freak, we can tell this part of the story proper, where I, an Egyptian magician, deliver a Greek message from the future. Don’t worry, it didn’t make much sense to me either.      

            I’ll say one thing for Camp Half-Blood: I was not impressed. Brooklyn House is just better. Sure, they had a lava wall and a bunch of fancy cabins. But they didn’t have an albino crocodile guarding it—just a napping dragon who they should consider replacing due to job negligence—and they didn’t have a baboon running around eating Cheerios. I didn’t even see the half-horse guy that Annabeth had been going on about.

            I might have also been biased, considering my first few seconds at Camp Half-Blood involved me free-falling out of a portal before something squishy broke my fall.

            Sometimes, when you’re traveling by portal, you won’t end up where you plan—oh right. Portals are real. I can use them because I’m a descendent of the Egyptian pharaohs. Long story. At least it wasn’t as bad as the time I appeared three hundred meters above Cairo with a terrified Russian. Thank goodness that Russian could fly. Anyway, enough of flying Russians. Back to Greek demigods about to be obliterated.

            I expected a well-placed cushion or a particularly lush patch of grass had broken my fall. Had I known I was going to fall on top of a boy, especially a boy who was having a rather rubbish day, I would have shifted a few feet to the side and taken the worst of it! Honest!

            “Hey! Aim better when you skydive, lady!” the boy under me cried.

            “Sorry!” I said, scrambling to my feet.

            There were quite a few of them—campers I mean, not skydivers. They were gathered in a clearing around some metal dragon thing. After stopping a giant snake from ending the world a few times, I’d grown to resent giant creepy, scaly things, but it looked like they were trying to repair it, not destroy it.

            The campers stared back and forth from me to the spot several feet above me, like they wanted to disassemble the air particles and figure out how I’d made my brilliant entrance.

            “I need to talk to Annabeth or Percy right away!” I said, clutching a scroll in one hand. Leave it to the gods to make someone as important as me a message runner. Oh, the nerve!

            The boy that I had fallen on stood and placed his hands on his utility belt skeptically. He pushed up a pair of goggles from his face and into his hairline, leaving him with circles of soot around his eyes. With the oil-stained shirt and dirt smudges, he looked a bit like a mechanic or someone who had been hit with a steam train.

            He was Hispanic, with wild black hair, energetic eyes, and elfish features. Somehow, I felt like he’d be a minion of Loki if Norse mythology were real along with the Greek and Egyptian. (Oh, shut up Carter, you can’t assume it’s real. Honestly, my brother thinks he knows everything.)

            The energy and glee in the boy’s eyes seemed to drain as quickly as it came, like my entrance had given temporary amnesia from a bigger problem.

            “Are you one of the new campers?” he asked.

            “Erm, yes?” I said, confident as ever. I couldn’t just say I was a magician. When my brother, Carter, and I teamed up with Annabeth and Percy to stop a dead, evil magician from becoming a Greco-Egyptian god—also long story—we agreed not to have our two worlds mix. Enough apocalypses to stop with one mythology, thank you very much.

            “Which cabin?” He crossed his arms. “Other than the Cabin of Inconvenient Landings.”

            Ah, a smart guy.

            “I prefer the Cabin of Graceful Entrances,” I said and frowned. Carter was much better about remembering this kind of nerd stuff. I had a hard enough time keeping track of all the Egyptian gods, let alone Greek, and I had lived with an Egyptian goddess.

            I wanted to say the Isis Cabin. I vaguely remembered Carter saying something about the Greeks or Romans worshipping her at some point. I knew I should play it safe though. What was Percy’s dad’s name?

            “Poseidon’s,” I said.

            A few of the other campers whispered to each other. The boy laughed, the twinkle returning to his eyes. “Poseidon? Yea right, lady. And I’m a son of Aphrodite.”

            Goddess of Love! I knew that one. (Shut up, Carter. It’s not obvious.)

            “Well, you could be. You’re kinda cute when you smile, in a dorky sort of way. Put you on top of a sea shell, paint your nails, and I’m sure you’d fit in their cabin just fine,” I said. And, if it wasn’t for the grime and dirt, he would have been quite attractive. Not my usual type, but not bad. That, and I’ll admit, I might have hoped a compliment from a pretty girl would speed things along.

            He snorted. “Okay, if you’re working for Eris, this is the worst infiltration I’ve ever seen. Follow me and we’ll see if Percy can fit you into his busy schedule. And, sorry Pinkie—“ He was referring to the pink streak of dye I’d put into my blonde hair. “—but this Bad Boy Supreme is taken.”

            The luster went out of his eyes again as he led me away from the silver lizard and confused campers, past a few fairly impressive buildings that I could only assume were cabins.

            Now, it was my turn to snort. “I said you were cute. I didn’t say I was trying to chat you up or anything. Who do you think you are?”

            “Commander Leo,” he said. We walked through a field that looked like it lost a fight to a crashing helicopter. There were campers bustling all around, preparing battle defenses if I had to guess. But I’m not Greek. This could have been how they picnicked for all I knew.

            “Well, Commander Leo, I have a boyfriend too. Or I think I do.” I sighed, thinking over why I had been so eager to volunteer in delivering this message. “It’s complicated, dating older people, especially deities.”

            The boy rolled his eyes. “Tell me about it.”

            I rarely needed encouragement to do that, but—as we approached an oddly placed ping pong table with a throne and casino-style lighting above it—I found myself blathering to this stranger. “I mean, it is a LOT of pressure. I’m the reason he lives and everything, and that’s great and all, but I want to get him a hobby or a pet. Something else that reminds him that the pyramids will still be in Cairo if I’m not around.

            “I did not mean to literally tell me all about it,” Commander Leo said, though, for a second, his amber eyes flashed with understanding. Not something you expect when you’re discussing problems about your romantic, godly partner.

            We walked up to a meeting that looked awfully boring. I’m sure they were discussing important stuff, “Bla-bla-bla defenses here, bla-bla-bla chimera, bla-bla-bla magical, stolen stick” (oh? Do the Greeks have magic wands too?) but Jack tells me you’ve already heard enough of that.

            I had to wonder why Annabeth was half-asleep and Percy was sitting on such an odd throne.  That didn’t seem his style. They weren’t sitting side-by-side as I would expect of the cute couple, but I suppose business came first. There were other campers scattered around the table, maybe a dozen and a half, all looking agitated.

            From a quick glance at Percy’s expression, I could tell he was resisting the urge to bash his face into the table at the discussion. He flipped his pen furiously.

            “Hey, Water Boy, this chica fell out of the sky and said she’s your sister on your daddy’s side,” Commander Leo said.

            At first, I was offended. Percy scowled at me with irritation like I was a pile of particularly smelly laundry that blocked the end of his chore list. Then his expression lit up with recognition. He grabbed the armrests of his throne. “Sadie! What are you doing here?”

            Annabeth startled awake. Her disoriented gaze found me and she smiled.

            Commander Leo looked completely taken aback.

            I smiled at him smugly. “Told you.” I turned back to my friends. “Hey Percy, Annabeth. Sorry to say that I’m here on official business. Have you ever heard of a bloke called Hermanubis?”

            “He was a popular god when the Romans occupied Egypt, albeit he mostly disappeared afterwards,” Annabeth said, “He was a combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Anubis.”

            I winced, not wanting to think of any more gods in my boyfriend’s head. Walt hosted Anubis, the god of death and would die of an ancient curse if Anubis left. It was complicated.

            “Wait—slow down. Percy, a sister?” said a rather handsome blond boy with stunning blue eyes and enough muscles to punch out a sphinx. He had a cute scar on his lip, probably from fighting a hydra or something else hot Greek heroes did.

            “Not another demigod, right? Is she a nymph? She doesn’t look like one,” said a large Asian boy wearing a flowy purple toga with a military haircut.

            Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen Poseidon.

            “I’ll explain later,” Percy said.

            “Questions after the presentation,” I agreed. “So, half-Egyptian, half-Roman god. Yep, that would be the one. Apparently you’ve been talking to some Necromanteion Oracle or some nonsense? Dead people that use the oracle like a delivery system?”

            A girl with reddish-blonde hair timidly leaned forward. “The Traitors Prophecy, um, I think Rachel was possessed by that oracle when she gave it.”

            “Great,” I said, wanting to rush this along. I rather enjoyed getting out of Brooklyn House, but there appeared to be some eminent destruction underway if we didn’t make it quick. “So, this undead, Greek delivery system had to go through Hermanubis. Something about your gods all fighting each other and your communication being down—er—our communications being down.” Right. Daughter of Poseidon here. “So the oracle had to outsource to Hermanubis to deliver a message. That got to Walt, a host of—”

            “A child of Hades,” Annabeth translated for me.

            “Of Hades?” a girl with golden eyes and cinnamon hair said in surprise. She and a girl with a long back braid and eyes possibly fiercer than Zia’s (my brother’s girlfriend) exchanged a glance. (What, Carter? It’s not like I can measure it with a staring contest.)

            I ignored the whispers around the table and wary glances. “And that message got to me. So, ta-da!” I held up my scroll. “Good to know your g—our gods talk in riddles,” I corrected.

            “We’re getting a prophecy now?” Percy sounded annoyed. “We just sent out two sets of questers.”

            “Usually the gods are a bit more punctual than that. Like, by several millennia, right?” Commander Leo asked.

            “If the gods are all arguing amongst themselves and communication is down, they are a bit pressed for options right now,” the girl with the long braid said. “And I wonder if Apollo had a difficult time with predictions because two Mayan princes were involved.”

            Mayan princes? Great. MORE gods.

            The Greeks were lucky their gods still chatted with them. All of our gods weren’t allowed back in the world right now, least they’d bring chaos with them, another end of the world, and some other nasty nonsense. I had a calling card for Bes, the ugliest and most wonderful dwarf god you’ll ever meet, Anubis and Walt were sharing a body in the mortal world, and my Uncle Amos could chat a bit with Set, but our options were limited compared to before.

            “That’s not the end of it,” I said. “My Uncle Amos has an action figure board in the First Nome that tracks the movement of all mag—all demigods—”

            “All demigods?” the handsome blond asked.

            “How?” a girl with a feather in her hair sounded just as shocked.

            “Action figures?” Commander Leo asked, which I think was the most important question of the bunch.

            “Let her finish,” Annabeth said.

            Seriously, I wasn’t going to get anywhere with this annoying charade of being a demigod, but I kept going. “Anymore questions I can’t answer right now? No? Alright. So Amos’ magical board tipped us off to some activity in Phoenix, Arizona. And being a host of… a child of…” I glanced to Annabeth helplessly. I had no idea what Set’s equivalent would be in Greek mythology. “Chaos?”

            “Eris,” she said absently. Then, her mouth hung open like something brilliant had clicked.

            “Another one?” one of two twin girls said on the far side of the table.

            “Maybe Pax will have to fight to be counselor of the Eris cabin,” said her sister. “A real competition.” The thought of competition seemed to excite those two a bit too much.

            “Anyway,” I said. “Amos is better at keeping track of… other children of Eris. He thinks it has to do with a host of chaos, and a rather nasty one at that.”

            Although Annabeth’s eyes were already narrowed from exhaustion, they further slanted, making me fear she’d fall right to sleep. “I’ll bet that’s Lapis Pax.”

            “That person I heard arguing with Eris? Eris said that henchy is guarding Hemera,” Percy said.

            Annabeth nodded. “We know Hiro is in New York. I would guess Lapis is in Phoenix, Arizona. I just wish I knew why Lapis chose that spot to hide Hemera.”

            I had a few ideas, although I couldn’t give it away without revealing the whole Egyptian thing. From what I knew about Greece, they didn’t have many deserts, so I could guess their home goddess of chaos didn’t have desert affiliation, unlike our lovable Set. (Yes, Carter. I know there aren’t any deserts in Greece! Give me more credit.) If this Lapis was hosting Set, then Set would be far more powerful in his natural environment.

            “We still don’t know how Hemera is connected,” a tough looking boy with a rainbow tattoo pointed out.

            “You said that you have prophecies?” the girl with the long braid and purple cloak said, “They might give us a clue as to the connection.”

            “Right.” I unrolled my papyrus scrolls. When I saw the first, tiny slip of papayrus on top of the second, I almost tossed it away in embarrassment. It looked ridiculous compared to the other one, but Walt suggested it likely important. “Well, there’s actually two. The first is a haiku.”

            “That would be Apollo,” Percy grumbled, slumping into his throne.

            A groan resounded around the ping pong table. At least I knew the gods weren’t trying to pull a prank on me. I still felt awful silly clearing my throat to read out loud:

            “If you read this note,

            It means I will be captured.

            S. O. S! Send help!”

            If possible, the campers looked more annoyed.

            The girl with cinnamon hair and golden eyes frowned. “Last Thalia said, Lord Apollo was locked in a competition with Lady Diana to see who can capture the Teusmessian fox. And he’s been captured too? Or will be?”

            “Another sun god,” the girl with reddish hair muttered.

            “What about the second one?” the boy in the purple toga asked.

            This one would be much more of a pain to read, but at least it felt official.

            “Sand slithers to noon; bells do chime,

            To announce chaos’ course, and sun’s decline.

            Theft: essence of day, then erode to night.

            Parapets decay to beckon the wight.

            Two will leave; five and quart’ return.

            Death of a god, their hearts do yearn.

            Prevail! Trials of Psyche, led by Desire.

            Without arrows of bliss, these pilgrims expire.

            Growth is death and death is growth.

            Cycles again, love phoenix to loathe.

             Sprout ashes of rancor, a new blossom to flower.

            Hearts of the ancients, these youths shall devour.

            End of an era, before night is done.

            Sacred tears and gods fear the day to come.”

            This one got more of a stir.

            Annabeth paled. The red-haired girl put a hand to her mouth. The campers exchanged uneasy glances at the last two couplets.

            “What’s a parapet?” one of the twins asked.

            “It’s a low, defensive wall, sometimes used for concealing troops,” the girl with a braid said. She glared at the scroll, like her scowl could threaten the verses into revealing their riddle. If it could, we could certainly get her a well paying job in the First Nome.

            “I think the second verse is referring to sunset, when Phobetor will keep the Mist barrier down and allow Melinoe, a wight, into the camp. But those next few lines…” Annabeth trailed off, looking troubled.

            “Calex was supposed to go with them,” the redhead said. 

            My head spun. That name sounded familiar. In my adventures, Carter and I had traveled all over the world, in its many layers, but that name wasn’t common enough for it to stick out without importance. We didn’t have any new initiates by that name…

            Annabeth nodded grimly. “In the Trials of Psyche, Eros, or Desire, pulled Psyche from her sleep, brought her to Olympus, and made her immortal. Euna has Joey’s quest box, the last item from the Trials of Psyche. Calex, a son of Eros, must be connected.”

            “It could also refer to Reyna,” Percy pointed out.

            The girl with the braid, Reyna I presume from the way her killer stare made an attempt to scowl Percy out of existence, demanded, “What?”

            Percy shrugged sheepishly. “I meant for Axel. Ignoring how you feel about him—”

            “Wisely,” the boy in purple said and leaned back into his chair, like he was getting ready to duck.

            “—Axel is the one leading them through the labyrinth. And he also received two of the trials, between the whole cereal thing and the ice water. If he’s really into Reyna, maybe having her around will stop him from going crazy and killing everyone.”

            The way Percy said it felt a bit too routine for my taste. Did Greeks often go raving mad? Not to say magicians were much better, but it was good to know who you were working with.

            “Still doesn’t explain how Hemera or Apollo is connected,” Mr. Rainbow-Tattooed said.

            “I’ll bet we can get some answers if we go to Phoenix and beat the snot out of this Lapis person,” I said, rubbing my hands together. It had been awhile since I’d had a good battle. Granted, my magic wasn’t the best suited to combat, but maybe it would give me a good excuse to have Bes visit.

            Percy grinned. “Eris said warriors couldn’t go after Hiro. She never said anything about Lapis.”

            “And while Eris does seem to act haphazard, there must be some reason she kidnapped Hemera,” Annabeth said. “Saving her could disrupt Eris’ plans.”

            “And it is way better than sitting around here without a solid plan,” the girl with cinnamon hair and golden eyes said. She blushed. “Oh—sorry Percy—”

            Percy gloomily waved it off. “It’s okay.”

            “What else can we do to help you with Lapis?” Annabeth asked and it suddenly occurred to me that neither of them was going with me. Annabeth looked exhausted and Percy kept fidgeting, like he couldn’t get out of that chair.

            My heart sank. When I’d come to Camp Half-Blood, I’d partially hoped to repeat some of our adventures—not the Setne trying to take over part, but I wanted to enjoy some quality time with these two.

            I shrugged, trying not to show my disappointment. “Not much, unless you have someone who is lightning proof.”

            Everyone at the table turned to the handsome blond boy with the scar on his lip.

            “Gods of Egypt,” I cried. “Are you really? Fancy that. I’ll take two of him please.”

            “The other ‘one of me’ just left,” he said.

            The beautiful girl with the feather in her hair frowned. “Jason, are you up to—”

            “Yes,” he said in a way that told me whatever might prevent him from going had an embarrassing origin. I’d have to worm that out of him later. “But why lightning? Pax can turn into people, but he can’t use their powers. I assume Lapis will be similar.”

            “Sadie will give you the full explanation on the way over,” Annabeth said, eyeing me meaningfully.

            “Right,” I said. What luck to have someone lightning proof. “Any chance one of you is fireproof too? I assume that would be too much luck for the gods to grant?”

            Commander Leo stepped forward, looking more like a child in a military elf performance than a dangerous ally, and saluted. “Flaming Valdez, here to report. Felix is up and running and I could use this quest to take her for a test drive.”

            His eyes flickered back towards camp. I got the feeling there was something he was hiding from back there.

            Jason frowned and glanced from Percy to Reyna, to the other boy in purple. “Are you going to be okay here without us? If we leave, we might not make it back in time for sunset.”

            “Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said. I’d had to do some ridiculous stuff to get here quickly—tying ancient artifacts to birds and sending them out when you’re hoping no one is looking with strict instructions to fly over a mythical Greek camp. However, getting from New York to Phoenix should have been much easier.

            “You guys go have fun,” Percy said with a weak grin. “Sadie, Jason’s a big tough guy, but don’t bully him too much. And Jason, if you know what’s good for you, I wouldn’t let Leo and Sadie plan any pranks together.”

            Leo glanced over at me. For that moment, the spark erupted in his eyes again. “Pranks? Me? Never.”

            “And I’m a respectable lady,” I chided Percy. “You shouldn’t spread rumors like that.”

            Jason paled slightly, though I honestly couldn’t imagine why. I’m sure this Commander Leo was a reasonable person and I would go easy on him if it was Percy’s request.

            Everyone said their quick goodbyes. Jason gave the girl with the feather in her hair a quick kiss and some minor reassurance. Leo stood beside me, fidgeting with something in his utility belt with one hand as he saluted a goodbye with the other.

            Jason joined me beside Leo and I grinned. “Right, now that all that is sorted,” I said, “how do you blokes feel about jumping into a roaring vortex of sand?”

Chapter Text

Twelve: Calex

Why You Shouldn’t “Bet Your Life” on it

(or: I Gamble with Death (Again))

            When Calex came back to hear they’d had a prophecy and a surprise visitor, he was livid.

            He knew he was supposed to quest with the others. Every part of his body had screamed to race after Thalia and Axel as they had left. Part of him hoped—when he’d snuck around with that tosser, Pax, to help him set up the farewell—that Axel and Thalia would stop their preparations, pop their heads up, and say, “Hey! The Lieutenant of Artemis and ex-Lieutenant of Kronos need someone who specializes in love advice and slogging Chelsea fans in the face,” and Calex could dash in with his bow ready, cheerily saying, “Here we are!” and go about their merry way like a bloody children’s tale.

            As they’d disappeared into the Labyrinth entrance, the thought kept gnawing at the back of his mind: the rule that three campers were the perfect number for a quest, the fact that Axel needed someone else who knew him after what Ares made him do to Pax, the memory that Calex had been assigned his first quest with Euna, and that he’d given the poor girl her first kiss with a full, godly audience and—according to Aphrodite’s ranking—“a very boring first kiss.”

(In his defense, being a son of Eros, he knew exactly how to have made that kiss more enjoyable, but he didn’t want to traumatize Euna with an aggressive, public snog nor put the bar too high for any future boys or girls that might fancy her. As her mate, he did care about her future.)

Some insistent nag in the back of his mind kept saying Axel and Thalia would die without him there.

            But who was he to question Annabeth, Percy, or Axel’s decision? Calex had abandoned his family in the past, and he’d been worthless to save Joey. With such absolutely brilliant heroes running around, what was he supposed to do? Other than maybe remind Kally, with Axel and Merry gone, it was his moral duty to shoot Alabaster or Pax in the foot if either dodgy bloke got too close to her, and he could sense that Alabaster already had.

            This would have been easier with Merry here. Over the last few months, he’d grown to rely on her audacious—if not frequently insulting—humor and absolute disregard for status quo. It was bad enough she had to go off on her own. He was terrified for her. They’d talked about her peaceful philosophies before, and seeing that mad twelve-year-old’s creepy grin when Merry said she wouldn’t defend herself…

            And here he was, doing nothing, watching as his mates left to risk their lives, watching the people he cared about taking so much action, while all he could do was twiddle his thumbs, wondering how Arsenal had faired against Newcastle and whether Vinyl Scratch or Mrs. O’Leary would win in a race where both unicorn speed and shadow travel were permitted.[1]

            He’d been degraded to the same helplessness he’d felt when he watched his brother and mum die at the hands of a violent disease.   

            Which is why—as soon as he heard Thalia and Axel did need him or Reyna on their quest (due to some prophecy from a Sadie Kane? Where had he heard that name before?)—he came up with a plan, one that started with him asking Kally, “Where did the children of Apollo and Romans put the dead?”

            After telling them about his idea, he and Reyna went to a small tent that was set up a few meters away from the Roman barracks, with Kally, Pax, and Alabaster following after. Pax claimed that he needed to be near a spot of potential ruin—a lovely confidence boost—and neither Kally nor Alabaster trusted Pax to be by himself right now. Rather wise, thought Calex, considering Pax was just as likely to burst into tears as he was to spray paint obscene pictures of Zeus into the strawberry field like a new set of Peruvian Nazca Lines. Though, depending on the picture, Zeus might fancy that idea.

            Also, after a few brilliant tweaks to his plan from Reyna and Alabaster, Calex needed something from Pax.

            “Are you sure about this?” Reyna asked. She wore her full set of golden imperial armor, billowing purple cloak, and held her pilum tightly in one hand. The fanboy in Calex squealed to realize he’d be going on a quest with her. The part of him that realized Reyna was terrifying said to hide back in the Aphrodite cabin.

            She hadn’t liked the stakes in his plan, but he knew it was necessary. Some part of him screamed that Thalia and Axel would die if they didn’t do this, and they’d lose three close friends, Euna include, forever.

            Pax bobbed his head and said, “Either this is going to work… or Calex will lose his soul, you two won’t be able to get through the Labyrinth in time, the quest will fail, and camp will probably plunge into chaos.” Pax shrugged. He withdrew two golden items from his pockets and tossed them to Calex. “And here are the gifts that cause only strife.”

            Calex caught the two apples. He swallowed. “Thanks, you pillock. When you say it like that, it makes me feel all fuzzy inside.”

            “It’s going to work,” Kally said. She reached up to clap his shoulder, a familiar motion from his football practices. What shocked Calex though: she actually believed this would work. Something about her confidence made him both feel better and nauseous. Now, he had someone to disappoint, instead of Pax, Reyna, and Alabaster all nodding in agreement with his presumed undeath.

            “Assuming Pax’s apples can inspire the same envy as Hippomenes’ or Eris’,” Alabaster said.

            “They can,” Kally said. “Pax… did something to one before. He distracted the entire camp so Axel could kidnap the Oracle.”

            Reyna gave Pax a side-glare. “Why do they keep letting you back into camp?”

            Pax shrugged again, his devilish smirk looking more bonkers than usual. “Ignorance? Pity mostly. Look at these pathetic baby panda eyes.”

            Kally wisely pulled Pax an extra step away from Reyna. Although the praetor hadn’t moved a muscle, Calex could tell she’d dislocate his shoulder all over again if he kept the behavior up. Pax’s absolute disregard for respect meeting Reyna’s utter confidence of command: an unmovable object hit by an unstoppable force.[2]

            “I remember that,” Calex said. “But these just look like shiny apples. These… aren’t just shiny apples, are they?”

            Leave it to Pax to get him killed in a stupid way: thinking he’s holding something mythologically important when he’d really spray-painted pieces from the fruit isle. 

            “You’ll know soon, won’t you?” Pax’s aimless cheerfulness faded into a frown. He shuffled forward, and Calex got that same distinct vibe he’d been getting off Pax.

After they left Santiago’s horrible home and ended up in New Rome, the feeling Calex got off Pax was had gotten worse and worse—like Pax’s brain was melding with the feelings of shame from the Silver Tongued Snake’s Helm. Suggesting that this tiny Belizean always felt a bit lunatic was like saying Dionysus had a slight drinking problem, but Calex knew it had been getting worse, pieces chipping away, starting with Santiago bleeding Pax and continuing with each disaster. Calex almost felt sorry for the mad bloke.

            Pax leaned in close, something that normally would have made Calex check his cash card to see if Pax had nicked it. “I don’t like doing this. But it looks like I can’t act fun and fancy free if I want to make the world that way,” Pax whispered.

            Calex hated the idea of leaning down to listen to Pax, for fear of Pax headbutting him just to see which one of them would get knocked out first, or kissing him… because Pax was Pax. To hear his next line, he had to lean down.

            “You’re still an imperialist prick, but… don’t let yourself die easily in Tartarus. That would make an awfully boring story. And make sure you make the last-minute-valiant-save for Axel and Thalia awesome. I’ve got everyone covered here, and you know how trustworthy I am.”

            Calex did not like Pax’s smile, the idea that Pax had just wished him well in his weird Pax-way, or that Pax had everything “covered.”

            Pax lifted an apple out of Calex’s hand. Loud enough for everyone to hear, he said, “Once I’m done scribbling on these, no one look at them unless you really want a good brawl over something from a granny’s orchard.”

            Calex didn’t want Kally or Pax to enter the tent with him. Pax seemed too off-kilter. And Calex didn’t want to feel the emotion drained out of Kally, like earlier, when the cold necessity of apathy took over so she could perform her doctor duties. But he needed to know who had died most recently. At least he could keep Pax out and tell Kally to stay back.

            When they pushed the tent flap out of the way, the tent felt abandoned compared to the exterior bustling of camp defenses. Although it was almost midday outside, the interior was unlit other than the soft glow of sun coming through the cloth walls.

            The body bags were neatly organized in a row on the floor. There were five, each black, each with a tiny name tag attached in the corner.

            In Kakata, when his mum’s patients began to massively perish, they didn’t have enough body bags. Between switching IV bags in a vain attempt to keep people hydrated, he’d screamed families away from the pile of corpses he’d lined up behind their shack, hoping desperately that the families wouldn’t come to steal and hide them or to burn down his mum’s clinic for disrupting their values.

According to local traditions, the family members would want to do an informal burial, one that would include touching and cleansing the body to connect the newly deceased with their ancestors and assure the person’s soul wouldn’t come back to the mortal world. But Calex knew, and Tiwa had warned before she gave to delirium, that the bodies were most contagious when they were freshly died.

All he’d had in Kakata was a tarp to keep away the flies, animals, and mask the reek of rotting flesh. Here, their feet didn’t peek out the way they had at his home during summer holiday, but…

            Calex shook his head, his eyes feeling warm. He couldn’t think about Tiwa and Tom, his dead mum and brother. He’d kept pushing their memory off for months.

            While Calex had stood at the door, Kally robotically walked in and pointed to one black bag. She didn’t need to read the label.

            Calex knew the soul should have departed long ago. Some deeper part of him also knew, though, what else would be waiting there.

            Kneeling beside the bag’s base was a man with teakwood skin. He was muscular, wearing a simple linen shirt and long pants. The beautiful facial features were as elegant as the indigo and ebony wings sprouting from his back. His expression held a regal, calm air, yet his golden eyes blazed with a patient hunger, like those of a vulture—something that hadn’t existed before Calex’s arrows poisoned him.

            The Mist must have masked him from Kally. She didn’t see him until Calex froze and stared.

            Kally gasped and scrambled backwards, clutching her golden Argonaut statue. 

            The terror Calex felt every night made his heart pound. The nightmare reeled through his mind: Tiwa and Tom withering to nothing, Shopona, the Yoruba God of Infectious Disease, collecting the souls of the locals in their clinic, Thanatos coming for his mum and brother, Calex refusing to accept it… but then abandoning them due to fear of this god.

            Calex wanted to ask, Why appear now?

            He’d been around death. Although he’d been too bollixed to remember it, he’d watched Joey get pushed into a fire. He’d been nearby when Jack beat Will to death and when Phobetor sliced off the limbs of the people in this room.[3] But Thanatos didn’t seem to like a public appearance. He liked solitude. If Calex had to guess, it was because the moment Thanatos took someone’s hand was an intimate one, the first experience of death and the last experience of life.

            As though in response, Thanatos’ soft, soporific voice said, “I knew you’d come back to me. Everyone must.”

            Calex trembled. Last time, he’d shot Thanatos in a desperate attempt to keep the God of Death from collecting his family. Not knowing how to use his powers, Thanatos had become obsessed with… collecting him, to keep him on the precipice of death, so you can never leave my side.

            “Dad—Eros—said he calmed you. But… but I want to make a bet with you. I have a bargain that I think you’d fancy,” Calex said.

            While looking at this god, a cold serenity hushed Calex’s worries. He knew everything would be alright. If he put his bow, Soul Pain, down and reclined beside the other corpses and let himself go, life would continue on, Eris’ battle against camp would rage, lives would be lost, but that didn’t matter, since they would all fade one day, yet struggle would continue without him, as it always—

            Calex shook off the placid sleepiness.

            “Betting against Death?” Thanatos said.

            Alabaster and Reyna told Calex that Thanatos had been outsmarted and controlled before, by both Sisyphus and Hercules. He knew the Giants and Gaea had captured him to prevent death. But, looking at this horrifying angel, this tranquil reaper of souls, Calex swallowed. Every instinct told him to run away again.

            The beauty of his plan: that was exactly what he was going to do.

            Kally slowly backed out of the tent as Calex beckoned Thanatos outside. He tried to look aloof and confident. “My arrow still affects you,” he stated.

            Thanatos didn’t deny it. “Eros had never shot me before. For someone who sees the passage of seconds through the death of millions and can feel the ephemeral nature of time, waiting for your death has been… enlightening.” Thanatos stepped forward, his wings so large, they brushed the sides of the tent and blackened the floor of the already dark room.

            “I now understand why mortals think death is so distant. Your departure feels like an eternity away, when really it should be a blink of the eye. But, I am a patient god.”

            Calex’s stomach twisted at those words. He firmly decided he didn’t want to know how much time the “blink of the eye” was for gods, and hoped that was a metaphor or that Thanatos rarely blinked.

            “Right,” Calex said. He pushed the tent flap open, exited, and held the flap up for Thanatos to follow.

            Most people probably thought about the dying in closed rooms—hospitals and hospices. Since Calex had such a poignant memory of Thanatos chasing him through the open streets, seeing the god step into the direct sunlight felt more appropriate. Almost comforting in a creepy I-have-a-godly-fan-boy way.

            Outside, the others had done as he requested. Reyna had cleared the area of any passing Romans or campers and was patrolling the perimeter to keep curious legionnaires and campers out. Alabaster and Pax had set up three lines across the strawberry field. Two were painted with leftover white Pax had used when defacing Zeus’ Fist. The other was a stretch of glittering cloth Alabaster had produced from Lou Ellen’s cabin. The cloth and first line were separated by roughly 100 meters, about the length of his football field back in St. Albans, and the other painted line was about 15 meters beyond the first.

            A chill made Calex pull his black muffler closer to his face as Thanatos passed him. Absently, he dropped his hand into his pocket, where Pax’s two apples waited. The urge to withdraw them was painful to resist, his fingers shaking as he pressed the cool surface. Pax had warned him that the feeling would be maddening, but he’d also warned worse: the more people that looked at them, the more dispersed the effect, the less potent the absolute, thoughtless need for the apple. Like Calex’s arrows—when aimed at one person, they could completely consume the person, but, split into a crowd, the want would be weaker. For an uncomfortable moment, Calex realized how similar desire and strife really were.

Once Calex was certain Thanatos could see their set up, he released the tent and exhaled. “Now, on to our stakes.” Without realizing it, he could feel his hand lifting one of the apples. He released his muffler to shove that hand back into the pocket and hold it firmly, probably looking like a right tosser. How did Pax keep this power sorted?

            Calex shook his head. “You can go anywhere death goes, and you can take people along.”

            Reyna paused in her patrol to listen. They knew his plan hinged on this assumption. Kally stood beside Pax. She fingered her Argonaut statue as Pax analyzed  Calex and Thanatos with a scary intensity. If they all lived through this, Calex needed to chat with Kally more. Her clear willingness to attack this god if something went wrong was both mad and brilliant. [4]

            Alabaster stood by the finish line, seeming curious and untroubled by Thanatos’ presence. That psychopath was likely amused at the thought of Calex failing.

            “I escort spirits from everywhere, but I could escort the living depending on circumstance,” Thanatos said.

            Calex knew he should be relieved. Instead dread twisted his stomach further. There was no way to back out of this now. Calex swallowed again, wishing he could release his hand to tug down his beanie. If he let go, he knew he’d withdraw the apple and foil their plan.

            “I want you to take Reyna and me to our mates if I win. Alive, naturally,” Calex added, remembering some stories from his mental granddad about how specific you had to speak with gods.

            Thanatos stared at him, those golden eyes feeling as consistent and empty as the dead of space.

            For some reason, Calex assumed Thanatos would prompt him. Maybe because that’s how it worked on the tellie. Pax seemed clearly agitated that Thanatos hadn’t. However, Calex realized, Thanatos had eternity. Every second that Calex stalled went to the wheely bin.

            “If you win, I’ll…” Calex’s grip turned painful on his own hand. “I’ll go with you now and stay with you… forever.”

            Thanatos’ placid face cracked with a grin. “What’s the game?”

            Calex nodded to the track of torn up field. “A race. As you can fly and are a god, you start twenty paces behind me. If you catch me before I can pass the finish line, you win. If I make it past the finish line without getting caught, you take us where we want to go.”

            “No interference from Zephyrus, Eros, or other gods?” Thanatos asked.

            Calex thought he would bruise his hand with how tight his grip had become. Zephyrus saved him last time. “No interference from other gods.” But nothing about interference from demigods…

            “Deal,” Thanatos said.

            “Shall we?” Calex asked, hoping he sounded confident. His feet felt like they were being held down by Jason Grace on one leg and Percy Jackson on the other. He approached the starting line. Despite the cold, he was already sweating.

            The gentle rustle of wings signified Thanatos’ presence following to the line behind him.

            Once they were both ready, Pax and Kally standing a few feet away from him, Calex forced himself to release the apples to crouch into a sprinting position. His scarf slipped down to touch the ground.

            “On your mark,” Reyna said, lifting her pilum into the sky.

            Calex shouldn’t have looked back, but he glanced. The dark figure of Thanatos loomed behind, his wings outstretched but untroubled with any other preparation. Calex swallowed. Thanatos had never lost a race.

            Calex was the fastest member of his football league. He was faster than any bloke he knew. But faster than a god of death that can fly…?

            “Get set.”

            But Calex had to do this. If he and Reyna didn’t help Thalia and Axel, Calex knew they would die, or suffer a worse fate.

            Calex just needed to outrun death. Again.

            “Go!”

            As Calex launched forward, his trainers tearing into the mud, he could hear the whisper of Death’s wings hiss behind him. Then Death’s shadow blotted out the sun.

Thanks for reading! I hope you’ve been enjoying! Tune in next week for, Don’t Take a Strange Death God’s Hands.

[1] Mel Betacomment: “I JUST REALIZED CALEX’S ANIMAL COMPANION IS A UNICORN! AHHH! SO FUCKING BRITISH!”

[2] Melbeta comment: “They’re going to make GREAT in-laws.”

[3] And in this sentence, Jack realized he could never write a young adult book that could be published.

[4] Mel Betacomment: “Now I can’t stop imagining Kally in knight’s armor defending a damsel-in-distress-dressed Pax from a dragon or something and Pax being very happy about the whole thing.”

Jack’s response: “The theme of the follow-up series Pax and his Shit Eating Grin.”

Chapter Text

Thirteen: Calex

Don’t Take Strange Death God’s Hand

            Before Calex had accepted his own mad scheme to bet his life for a trip to the monster underworld, Alabaster (after some prompting from Pax and Kally) and Reyna told him the story of Hippomenes and Atalanta.

Hippomenes was some poor bloke that had taken quite a fancy to a huntress named Atalanta, quite a lovely girl that deserved an A-list movie of her own. To win Atalanta’s hand, Hippomenes had to beat her in a race. This was all fine and well, except that Atalanta had sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, defeated the hero Peleus in a wrestling match, drawn first blood on the Kalydonian Boar, and would kill any suitor she caught before he reached the finish line and had already written “good luck” in the blood of previous racers at the start.

So, unfortunately for Hippomenes, the first time she would try to tackle into him wouldn’t be for a snog.

            It would be with a hunting knife.

            How did he win this terrifying woman’s hand? Aphrodite gave Hippomenes golden apples so distracting that Atalanta would have to pick them up if thrown during the race. The same kind of apples that Eris used to inspire the insane catfight that started the Trojan War.

            The difference? Hippomenes had three of these from a goddess.

Calex had two from a dodgy bloke that might have bet quid that he’d trip on his trainers.

Hippomenes wanted to marry the scary woman with a knife chasing him.

Calex wanted to set Thanatos up on Match.com to find someone already predisposed to Thanatos’ creepy undead preference. 

            Lastly, and surely most important, Hippomenes probably didn’t need to use his first apple within 20 meters of the starting line.

            When Thanatos’ shadow blocked out the sunlight, Calex’s stomach decided it would need to find new residence sometime within the next ten minutes. His entire body trembled with the flash-back to Kakata: he could perfectly envision the rundown 80’s trucks, white walls, and thatched roofs, all bogged down with heat. A race without a finish line—one he couldn’t win.

            Had he not heard the cheers from his mates, Calex wasn’t sure he would have remembered the plan. The icy whistle of a New York breeze snapped him out of panic.

            “APPLE HIM!” came as one of the oddest shrieks of encouragement Calex had ever heard, but he’d have to give Pax a solid slap on the back for it later.

            Calex fished into his pocket, reminding himself to do the thing he’d so desperately resisted. He withdrew the apple, careful not to look at it. Out of sheer reflex, he kissed the chilled surface, feeling a secondary tugging in his gut, like he did when Calex powered up his arrows with desire magic.

            Then he tossed the apple as hard as he could behind him.

            For an instant, Calex was sure that Pax, that dodgy idiot, had screwed him, and he vowed, whenever he was Thanatos’ companion and Thanatos eventually went to collect Pax’s soul, he would give Thanatos a brief chat about which underworld Pax should be delivered to.

            Before he could draft his arguments on why Pax should go to Tartarus, the sunshine warmed his face again. Although he dared not turn around, the rustling of wings was far enough away that he couldn’t hear it over the wind. All he could hear was the gleeful shouts of his mates and Pax’s much more alarming, “Oh, dude! It actually worked!”

            Calex released an exacerbated cry of excitement. He was half-way to the finish line, where Alabaster stood, arms folded, smirking. If nothing else, Calex needed to win this race to shove it in that creepy bloke’s face, like a, “nah-nah-nah-nah-nah! I didn’t die!”

            Sweat dripped off his brow, soaking his sweatshirt. His feet pounded into the mud. He fingered the next apple, chiding himself not to pull it too preemptively. His heartbeat thudded in his head.

            The thud was offbeat to his heart’s.

            The cheers of encouragement turned to shrieks of warning.

            The beat of his wings, Calex realized half a second before he felt the air to his left grow colder.

            Calex could sense Thanatos. A quick glance proved it right: a hand mere inches from his arm—

            Calex threw the second apple.

            One mistake.

            To his horror, he tossed it too close and too late.

            Thanatos didn’t catch it immediately. The black-winged angel twisted into a spiral to the side, snatching the fruit before it hit the ground. But, he didn’t need to double back, like Calex imagined he did last time and was confirmed by the gasps coming from Kally, Reyna, and Pax. This time, Thanatos maintained his forward momentum, and Calex hadn’t gained enough meters to make up for the mis-throw.

            I’m not going to make it, he thought. All of Calex’s nausea returned. Despite needing to run another 10 meters, his legs felt like they’d turned to clotted cream. All his instincts from football told him to keep his eyes forward, to focus on how Alabaster was shouting at him.

            He glanced back—

            —felt his trainer twist on a bit of uneven turf—

            —and pain erupted in his wrist and shoulder.

            Calex didn’t let himself stop. He rolled into the fall, knowing he was meters from the finish line. As he fumbled, he heard a frustrated grunt from above. Thanatos’ feathers fluttered against his ear like licks from an iceman. The God of Death overshot him.

            On instinct, Calex reached for the one thing he had left in his pocket: the pencil pouch that contained his pieces for Soul Pain.

            He didn’t have time to assemble the bow as he stood up. He could pull out his bowstring and one of the top spindles. With it, he made the world’s most ad hoc, terrible lasso.

            Thanatos had flapped to reverse direction, but hadn’t quite turned around. In his hands, he clutched the two golden apples—the only thing that had likely saved Calex from being snatched up when he flew overhead.

            Calex then did the dumbest thing that could come out of his brain.

            He threw the lasso at Thanatos, encapsulated the tips of his two wings, and Calex pulled the God of Death closer to him.

            It was almost comical to watch this elegant creature get yanked backwards, completely taken off guard, like a cartoon swan getting sucked into an airplane’s jet.

            Thanatos plummeted out of the sky, the ends of his wings tangled together.

            Calex twisted with all his strength to redirect Thanatos’ fall. He knew Thanatos couldn’t grab him with anything more than a bear hug while holding the two apples, making the God of Death’s task slightly more difficult. But Calex knew getting “tagged” would still count and Thanatos was still between him and the finish line.

            Or he had been.

            Calex pivoted as hard as he could, swinging the God of Death by the wings. In a sweeping motion, a very confused Death God went from in front of him, to the side. Calex released, using the force of the spin to propel himself forward.

            Although not much estimating had gone into this horrific plan, he may have overestimated the weight of a god.

            When he released his bowstring, the momentum was too much.

            Calex lost his footing again.

            He also lost sight of Thanatos and the finish line. This time, his balance was too far gone to properly spring back to his feet. He crashed onto his side, eating dirt and whatever other horrible things were on the bottoms of camper’s shoes.

            Hands latched around his arms to stop him from rolling.

            Fear choked Calex.

            Thanatos—how had Thanatos—his mum—his mum and brother—if Thanatos took him, he’d never see Tiwa and Tom again, Axel and Thalia would die, and Euna would—

            Before he could get his bearings, Calex thrashed once. He knew he’d made a bargain, but he couldn’t go without a fight. Not when so much was at stake. Not when he’d be disappointing so many, not when he’d never see his mum and brother—

            His fist connected with someone much too small to be Thanatos.

            Then his fist was on fire along with his arm. “Holy Mother of Zeus!” he yelled.

            “It’s me, you idiot!”

            Calex shrieked and shoved the flaming limb into the mud, slapping it with his opposing hand. When he looked around, he saw Alabaster flopped on the ground beside him. One hand clutched his face, the other a rune on his sleeve.

            Alabaster? Why had Alabaster—

            “You made it!”

            Fortunately, Kally’s call announced her presence enough that Calex didn’t also punch her in the face. She and Pax must have been running alongside him and Thanatos (as best they could) to see their progression. Kally slapped his shoulder, grinning, then blinking in confusion at the singe marks.

            As soon as he’d put the fire out, Pax tackle-hugged him.

            “Calex!” he cried cheerfully. “You got Alabaster to use his rune! It takes him hours to recharge that—thank you! Oh, and you survived and stuff and can help my brother!”

            “Are you thick?” Calex asked, shoving Pax off. Maybe he was feeling a bit soft, but he didn’t hit Pax as hard as—

            “What did you nick?” Calex asked, patting his pockets. There hadn’t been anything left but his pencil pouch. Instead of that being gone, he found something additional in his back pocket.

            Pax pinched Calex’s wrist when he tried to withdraw it. The tiny Belizean winked. “You don’t have anything worth stealing except the time you’ll be spending with my brother.”

            Calex wanted to ask what in Hades that meant, but also realized he likely didn’t want to know and that Pax may have just shoved a magical box of weasels into the pocket of his trousers.

            Despite being set on fire, completely out of breath, and likely prey for manic weasels, Calex laughed. Something about the return of Kally’s grin, the way Alabaster rolled his eyes, and how Pax giggled, and the fact that Calex’s soul was still his. His afterlife still belonged to him.

            Now, he could continue to try his hardest to get into the Elysium Fields to see Tiwa and Tom again.

            He and Reyna could save—

            “Reyna!” he said, sobering up.

            Two figures approached their cheery group

            Reyna had helped disentangle the god from the pieces of Soul Pain.

            Thanatos looked more curious than irritated when he and Reyna stopped in front of Calex. Reyna seemed a bit queasy from assisting the God of Death to his feet.

            The four of them scrambled up to meet the god and praetor.

            Thanatos handed Calex the bowstring and spindle from his bow. “That was… innovative,” he said, no hint of resentment in his soothing voice. Calex had been nervous the god would shrug, throw Calex over his shoulder with a, “Still a god,” excuse, and fly them both off to wherever death gods festered—Sunderland? No, it would be in America. Detroit, maybe?

            Instead of asking where death gods gathered for tea, Calex said, “Thank you.”

            That patient excitement made Thanatos’ eyes gleam. “You never cease to surprise me, child of Eros. You’ve given me so many new experiences.”

            That was something he didn’t want to hear. “So, uh, no hard feelings then?” Calex asked.

            Thanatos’ lip twitched. His wings quivered; Calex had to wonder if wings could bruise or get rugburn and if it would be rude to offer an icepack for a potential wingburn. “No mortal can avoid me eternally. As I said, I’m a patient god. But, the experience of waiting has been… thrilling.”

            “Glad I could be of assistance,” Calex said. He hoped Thanatos could tell that meant Let’s never do that again. However, Calex wanted to point out, if Thanatos enjoyed the experience of waiting so much, he could start a real professional business of holding people’s place in queue. “Now, about our wager…”

            “Lord Thanatos, would you be able to take us straight to the daughter of Demeter, Euna Song?” Reyna asked. Her cloak billowed gently and Calex had to wonder if the praetorian armor came with a winter edition for cold-climate fighting.

            Calex tensed. That hadn’t been the plan. He supposed it made more sense—cutting out the Labyrinth rubbish and going straight to Euna. But then Thalia and Axel would be wandering around the labyrinth for someone elsewhere. And something about that felt off.

            Thanatos shook his head, saving Calex the worry of arguing with Reyna. “That would be unwise. Euna is too close to my mother’s realm, and she has been quite unsettled over my sister’s kidnapping and the ensuing threats.”

            Calex felt a bit thick on mythological knowledge exterior to the Olympians. He didn’t know Thanatos had a sister, let alone who his mother was. Silly Calex and his mortality—thinking death had always existed.

            A pop sounded beside Calex. He, Kally, and Alabaster caught a glimpse of Pax’s cheeks deflated. “Ah, um, Uncle,” Pax said to Thanatos, “Uncle Death?”

            Thanatos nodded. “According to Hesiod.”

            Excitement flared in Alabaster’s green eyes. “Wait—wait—that means your sister—the kidnapped one—is Hemera?

            Thanatos nodded. “I tend to keep out of family matters, but rumor has it that someone reforged Kronos’ scythe. The kidnapper is threatening to use it to dispel Hemera if Nyx doesn’t comply to their wishes.”

            Pax hopped from foot to foot. “That’s why Mom wanted to share the scythe! How else are you going to threaten a goddess but with something that can kill gods?”

            Thanatos shrugged. “You think Eris is behind the kidnapping? That would not surprise me. Eris has always been jealous of Nyx’s favoritism to Hemerua.”

            “Favoritism?” Kally echoed.

            Calex was glad she looked as baffled as he felt.

            “They argue every time they see each other,” Thanatos said, like it was obvious.

            “So every day,” Pax said.

            Thanatos nodded. “Yes, being the goddesses of day and night. And Hemera has always been different. The sort of… white sheep of the family. You can tell how much Nyx cares by how much she worries about Hemerea cleaning up the family image and how often they bicker.”

            Kally frowned and hugged herself. Pax took a step closer to her to enlace their fingers. From what Calex knew of their two family situations, it was strange to think how favoritism could hurt these two so differently, Kally with negligence and Pax with obsessive abuse.

            “Nyx doesn’t know that Eris doesn’t have the scythe,” Alabaster said to himself, staring off thoughtfully.

            “Why would Eris need to threaten Nyx in the first place?” Reyna asked.

            “I don’t know,” Thanatos said. “But that is why I should not take you to Euna Song. She’s too close to my mother and that realm is unpredictable currently.”

            “Then we’re to go to Thalia Grace and Axel Pax,” Calex said. Relief flooded his system at the thought. What an odd thing to be relieved by: going on holiday to a different part of the Underworld over another.

            “They’re on the boundary line of my territory, but I can still take you,” Thanatos confirmed.

            Calex didn’t think the Labyrinth would have areas excluded from Death’s influence, but he decided not to ask.

            Reyna pivoted to the others. Wisely, mostly to Kally. “Kally, I’m entrusting you to tell the others about this confirmed information.”

            Pax swung Kally’s hand back and forth enough that Kally pulled it back. “I need to do a quick errand, but we can tell the others you had a talk,” Pax said.

“And the contents of the chat,” Reyna said in her best I know how to kill this bloke and get away with it voice.

Kally and Alabaster gave Pax a wary glace at “errand,” but Kally nodded her head. “I’ll make sure to tell Percy.”

Once that was sorted, Reyna returned her gaze to Thanatos. “Lord Thanatos,” she chose her words carefully, “I would never want to rush you, but would we be able to leave now?”

Thanatos didn’t respond with words. He extended a hand towards Reyna and one to Calex.

            Every atom in Calex’s body squealed at the thought of touching Thanatos. He’d spent so long running from Death; touching him sounded like insanity.

            As Calex forced himself to reach out, he also forced himself to sound confident with a joke, “What, Reyna? It’s been… ten minutes since the others left? How much trouble could Axel and Thalia be in?”

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed :D And remember, don’t make deals or take bets with Death.

Tune in next week for Ajax: I Set Up a Play Date in Exchange for a Canadian.

Chapter Text

Fourteen: Ajax

I Set Up a Play Date in Exchange for a Canadian

            As soon as Thanatos vanished with Reyna and Calex in his comforting, Slenderman, trust-me-this-isn’t-the-first-time-I’ve-abducted-children-way, Pax searched around their makeshift racetrack and the Roman’s body-collection tent. Pax had to wonder if Slenderman could shadow travel—what he assumed Thanatos had done. You know that situations are desperate when taking a creepy stranger’s hand and getting into his metaphoric car is the best options.

            It was a good thing Pax’s apples worked. Having the damnation of Calex’s soul and his not-death on Pax’s consciousness would have probably been added to Pax’s Daily List of Traumatizing Experiences. He wondered if the death counter on the Silver-Tongued Helm would have gone up if the plan had failed, or if Eris and Phobetor would have popped up with a fireworks display to celebrate the failure.

            “An errand, Ajax?” Alabaster asked as soon as Thanatos, Reyna, and Calex melted away. “What are you planning?”

            “Planning? I never plan. I just get ideas.” Pax stepped in a sweeping circle, glancing around. His brain chattered in broken sentences, the way he imagined Ares would if Axel ever got his hands on him again. Had to be here. Too good a show not to watch. “Ideas that involve me being in a place of potential ruin, where I’m about to make a likely dumb decision that could result in a lot of mischief.” 

            “This sounds like a shitty idea,” Alabaster grumbled.

            A hand touched his shoulder.

            Pax yipped before he realized it was Kally. She gave him a worried smile. “Ajax, what is going on?” she asked, holding one hand out like Pax was the wild, cute baby panda he was.

            Why did he always tell his lovers his weakness? That he had a hard time speaking indirectly when they called him by his first name and looked at him like he wasn’t just comic relief? That and bullets, but he figured his weakness to celestial bullets was pretty general knowledge.

            “With Jason, Thalia, Leo, Axel, and now Reyna off doing hero things, we’re missing five heavy hitters—Calex doesn’t count. What happens if they don’t make it back in time for the party?” As Pax spoke, he ruffled his hair. He hoped the sweat and grossness of a hero’s shower schedule and constant pain would act as Hair Gel de Natural. “We need as many fighters as we can get, since Percy is—ha ha—benched and Annabeth is spreading the kissing disease to the table with how much she’s napping. Plus… I want leverage if the Romans decide to take vengeance on the Triple A Chimera. It’s always good to have a little blackmail.”

            Important father-to-son life lessons.

            “Leverage?” Alabaster asked, his glare softening.

            Kally took a careful step towards Pax. Amazing to think that the one time she wanted to hold his hand again, he would have to shriek and run from her if she did. “A lot is going on. I—Axel wouldn’t want me to let you do something…”

            “Stupid?” Alabaster supplied.

            “Rash.”

            As if that was the magical summoning word, Pax saw Atë.

            He puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

            A chill went down his spine as the smoke twisted up off her clothing. She lay, stomach down, on the ground, kicking her legs behind her. A black tarp—an empty body bag?—acted as her picnic blanket. Points for unnerving creativity. Pax just hoped there wasn’t an annoyed ghost in the tent, wondering where its deadtime blankets went.

            Her white T-shirt’s sleeves hung off her shoulders. That and the cloth’s looseness let her shirt collar hang away from her skin and rest on the ground. Several chain necklaces encircled her neck and dangled against the ground atop the material, except one cord that clung tightly to her skin, running taunt down her chest, like a divider for her black and red, very noticeable, bra. That chain must have been attached to her belt. Her shorts were black and white checkered. Fishnets ran down to her muddy, bare feet.

            As per Atë mode, her skin was smudged with dirt. Her jagged, black hair had streaks of red, magenta, and white. In one hand, she held Frank’s stick, pressing it against her lower, crimson lip, so the lip jutted to one side.

            Pax swallowed. Amazing how he could forget that his super hot sister wanted to seduce him.

            Like the best cockblocking knights from a heroic tale (or, from what Pax had heard, like teachers at a school dance), Alabaster and Kally stepped between where Pax was standing and Atë lay.

            “Ajax…” Atë cooed, leaning to see around where Kally had withdrawn her Argonaut statue.

            “Don’t call him that,” Alabaster snarled as he withdrew the deck of cards from his back pocket.

            “You’re fraying around every edge,” Atë said.

            “You’re not wanted here, Atë,” Kally snapped.

            “I don’t want you to unravel,” Atë continued, those lifeless, red eyes giving their most expressive I told you not to come back to camp look that lifeless eyes could manage. Under Lapis’ command, she had warned Pax, not to come back, but there was no way for Pax to know it was to prevent some good ol’ fratricide.

            Pax swallowed again. He forgot a pivotal point in his plan: his ability to talk with words and sentences. That, and his ability to speak to her without his cockblocking knights preventing him from a potentially terrible decision.

            Hoping Atë could do some cool god thing to fix this, Pax summoned the best devilish smirk that he could, sidestepped more into Atë‘s view, winked, and nodded towards the death tent. Perfect romantic location.

            Pax cleared his throat. “I found Calex’s potentially suicidal ultimatum with his godly stalker inspirational.”

            Pax liked to think Kally and Alabaster both made sounds of disapproval: Alabaster’s hopefully sounding like a stuffy, old British gentleman. That’s how Pax would write Alabaster if he could write fanfiction.

            The sounds came out muffled.

            During one breath, smoke twisted in front of him, icy fingers touched his hand, then he was sitting down in a dimmer place. The sun warmed the tent walls like God decided to catch some humans with a Styrofoam cup the way a child might catch an ant or a tiny leprechaun. Pax stayed firm: if centaurs existed, then so did tiny men with golden pots that shot marshmallows. Kouta could never lie to him otherwise: that the marshmallow thing was an ad campaign for a cereal company. That was just what the leprechauns wanted you to think.

            The tent flap was shut, cutting off the view of the outside. The sunlight that glowed through the fabric felt smothered. A few real rays shined through the poles of the tent.

            Pax couldn’t decide what was worse: that Atë chose an occupied bodybag as a picnic bench or that she’d smoked into existence, sitting close enough for their knees to be touching.

            If Atë could just teleport, Pax wondered why she bothered with any of this fighting stuff since she could relocate all of her enemies into far away cruise ships or convenient wood chippers. Pax shouldn’t ask that though, since that might give her idea—

            “Why don’t you magic all your enemies into romantic hovels?” he asked.

             Atë kicked her feet against the dirt. She stared at the two corpses in front of them. Leave it to a child of Eris to pick the center of the room, so they could be surrounded, from both sides and below, by corpses. Now Pax was waiting for Thanatos to deposit one from the ceiling for good symmetry.

            Outside, he could hear the muffled voices of Alabaster and Kally as they panicked.

            “I can’t. It’s easier with you, because you wanted to come in here and you’re more god than mortal,” Atë explained.

            “Yep, that totally checks out in my book of not-lazy godly physics.”

            Atë leaned back, so she could put one hand behind Pax. With the other, she tapped Frank’s stick against her off-sleeve shirt.  “You’re asking me to trade Frank’s stick… for a date with you,” she said, those glassy eyes boring into him.

            “I’m touched by how easily you read me,” Pax said. He tried to think of how he would treat this if Atë were Kally or Alabaster, but the scenery was a little distracting. “A playdate. Yes.”

            “What kind of date?” she asked. Pax couldn’t tell if she was playing coy. He supposed it fit the “mischief” part of her moniker.

            Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them. He had decided this was it: his moment for inspirational character development, where he took control of his life, where he stopped being protected and became a protector. He didn’t have Axel’s strength or courage, but he was skilled. He’d earned the name Silver-Tongued Snake for a reason, and it wasn’t just because of that paint-eating incident in Alabaster’s laboratory.[1]

            He just wished it happened somewhere sunnier with… cuter surroundings.

            Only one thing had to happen before he acted on his epiphany.

            “Off the corpse,” Pax said. He slipped one arm under Atë’s and slipped the other under her knees. Repressing a shudder at the chill of her legs and back, Pax carried her a few feet away from the bodies, sat down on the ground, and kept his arms around her. He whined at the pain in his right hand.

            Atë blushed and stared at him with those unblinking eyes. Either that or she’d smudged some blood on her cheeks. Probably the latter, from puppy corgis? As Pax watched, her typically blank face cracked into a small smile. He remembered how much fun he had with her when they searched Rome’s files to discover the identity of Mount Othrys’ spy. She said that he was always nice to her. In her thousands of years, had Atë never been romantically carried by someone before?

            “Your dad and our mom used to flirt a lot while seated on corpses,” she giggled.

            “Atë, you know that little voice inside your head that tells you stories like that don’t need to be said out loud?” Pax said.

            “I don’t have one and you don’t either,” she said, then repeated, “What kind of date?”

            Ideas for how he’d treat Kally or Alabaster raced through his mind. “We can start by playing some video games. We’d go get ice cream, of course.”

            Atë cocked her head to the side. Chains rattled against her neck.

            Right. Child of Strife. Goddess of Mischief and Ruin. He didn’t need to pretend.

            “We can dress up as monsters and scare kids walking home from school,” he said.

            Atë rocked in his arms with a laugh. “We can recruit the weasels to help us wreak havoc.”

            Pax sat up in excitement. “We could ride Hunnie into battle and Baller could—wait—no—I mean, yes to weasel recruitment. But, let’s leave specific weasel anarchy idealization until later.”

            “What happens after destroying children on their way home from school?” she asked.

            Pax chose to ignore her choice of verb. “Afterwards, we could find some local church picnics and pass out pamphlets on the good word of Discordia.”

“In wizarding robes,” she said.

 “Pointed hats and brooms included. And lastly…” Pax wasn’t great at doing that whole think before you speak thing, but this next part needed to be worded carefully. “I’ll take you back to my place and we can watch Deadpool, use the hot tub… get to know each other a little better.”

Atë stopped laughing. Her expression went blank again. “The Paxmobile doesn’t have a hot tub and Axel would never leave us alone.”

            The sound of Alabaster and Kally’s voices were getting closer.

            “Holy Kronos—we should install a hot tub in the—right, sorry!” Pax struggled to keep focus. The idea of a mobile hot tub complete with trick telekhines was distracting. Percy could do water tap-dancing for Alabaster’s entertainment. “I meant my place my place. Not the Paxmobile.”

            Atë didn’t respond. He had hoped she’d dramatically repeat his line in confusion, but Pax guessed he’d have to continue explaining without theatrical prompting.

“The temple/club/house/building that the Pax boys are about to inherit from our Dad’s will. You know… once we get Axel’s name cleared up with the police for that whole ‘kidnapping me’ thing. You and I would have to follow house rules for the date, since that’s what we’d be using, like don’t run by the hot tubs.”

            Pax remembered how hard Lapis worked to be able to go out with… would it have been Sapphire? It happened right before he and Axel ran away the second time. Pax felt nauseous about moving back there, to his room with a blank, bare corner, designed so Dad wouldn’t get blood everywhere when he beat and whipped Pax for acting out.

            At least his father had been considerate to the cleaning staff.

            “But yea, it has a fancy hot tub, lots of private rooms, and a labyrinth of back passages that would leave Axel’s head spinning for hours. We could make it into a game. How many places we can…” Pax tightened his grip on Atë’s legs and dug his nails into her back as best he could with the ruined tendons. He leaned his forehead against hers. The musk of dried blood was—surprise—not a cure for his nausea. “Do stuff without Axel being able to catch us.”

One of Atë’s hands clutched his neck, where she’d bit him. Despite the rapid healing from his extra godly blood, and Kally’s attempts with her Apollo magic, the discoloration remained. Perks or curses of fooling around with a goddess: eternal hickies. Pax wondered what Ares’ neck looked like after a good Aphrodite fondle and vice versa.

            It was like a mark of ownership, like how the tattoo on Pax’s hip made him feel like—even in death—his Dad still owned the part of Pax that could have been happy.

            Pax felt his eyes watering. Focus, he snarled at himself. He had to make sure Atë felt the sunshine and rainbows, or, in her case, bunnies with chainsaws. He tried to think of how giddy he would be to hold Kally like this—albeit gentler—or be held by Alabaster.[2] The hand on his neck and the cold, red eyes made it hard to imagine Kally’s caring, shy smile and touch or the glint of knowing humor behind Alabaster’s expression and caress. Either one perfecting the balanced look of adoration with simultaneous annoyance in their green eyes.

            With Atë’s other hand, she pressed Frank’s stick into his chest. Pax felt compelled to remind her that he wasn’t a vampire and there were, in fact, easier ways to kill him. Maybe his vulnerability to celestial bullets was less well known than he thought.

            “Do you swear on the River Styx to all the terms listed above?” Pax asked.

            Thinking about the others brought on an icy flash of Flynn. How he held her like this when she was sobbing over Jack’s chopped up corpse, about how she wished she could have seen Jack one more time to say goodbye.

            Pax swallowed the memory. His mouth moved without his mind, saying what he knew he should be saying, since his brain was preoccupied with the whole trauma thing. “I’ll even give you a private tour of my room. Only Kally’s gotten that.”

            He winked, giving Atë a devilish smile. Tiny Baby-Panda Pax marveled at how his body didn’t feel like his own, the smooth confidence of his exterior belonging to some other, darker, older Ajax.

            Atë rubbed her fingers along his neck. “We could always make a tent in there and turn it into an exclusive slumber party.”

            “Shake on it, and we’ll make it binding. All that and all you need to do is give me Frank’s stick as a forward payment,” he said, releasing her legs to offer his hand.

            Atë pouted, an expression uncomfortably similar to something he’d practiced in the mirror to adorable perfection. “Kiss on it,” she said, biting her lower lip.

            Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

            He felt cold and numb, watching a movie reel that some other person had already acted. Internally, he wondered exactly what consent Atë thought kissing gave, since she seemed to think a hug consented to making out. Externally, Pax tilted his chin down, pressing his mouth against hers.

            Atë went still. For a horrifying moment, he feared she’d poofed away and put one of the corpses in her place as a practical joke. Ha-ha! Made you kiss a dead person! Then she sat up with a soft noise, so she could lean more into him. Atë dropped Frank’s stick.

            This was opposite how he expected her to react after how aggressive she’d been the night she tricked him into a romantic prelude to decapitation the night before. Her words fluttered through his head, You’re always nice to me and you’re fun. Most people are really mean when I’m around.      

            No one had been nice to her. No one had made her feel special. Maybe, she only knew to mimic the way their mom flirted with his dad, like making out near corpses and sending cards that pre-apologized for future abuse.

            Sympathizing with a tiny psychopath like Atë was dangerous. But, for a few dizzying seconds, Pax softened his touch to make the kisser proper to what he thought a kiss should be, instead of what he assumed Atë wanted.

            When the panic mounted to the point where he wanted to ask Atë if she’d eaten nuts before their kiss, he firmly removed Atë’s mouth from his own.  

            “Atë,” he said and slipped Frank’s stick into his pocket, “Big Sis. You know how children of Strife always hurt those we love the most, especially the more we’re around them? And you know the definition of ‘cruel irony?’”

            Atë’s small smile flattened. “What?”

            Pax stood up and gently set his half-sister down. Relief made him add a dance to his step as he backed towards the exit. “I should have warned you, my dad had a lot of rules. Like, no messing around in the house. No one was allowed to touch a Pax kid without Santiago’s direct permission, and he’s dead now, so that’s a little difficult, huh? You’d have to ask the next head of the house, Kouta—oh no.” Pax tilted his head pensively to the side, crossed his arms, and tapped his chin. “He won’t do—oh! I guess that would be Axel. According to the terms of our agreement, we’d have to get direct permission from Axel to do anything physical or too romantic. Shucks.”

            Pax snapped his fingers, like he was disappointed.

            Atë opened and closed her mouth. “You tricked me.”

            “Yes and no.” Pax shrugged. “I’m still really excited to have a play date with my half-sister where I get to wreak havoc and get to know her better and spend time with her as a friend.”

            He gave her a gentle smile. Pax knew what it was like to feel like the whole world was a cruel place. If Axel and his other siblings hadn’t been there to show him protection and kindness, Pax would have probably turned out a lot less fluffy. “Just because I’m the first person to be nice to you, doesn’t mean I’ll be the last. And you don’t need to express appreciation of that through possession or forceful cuddles. We’re siblings. And yea, we’re children of Strife so, we’re pretty fucked up, but I think we can work together to have a healthy, fun friendship.”[3]

            Atë didn’t seem to know how to react.

            Pax nodded at the sentient. “But seriously, you touch me sexually once and the date is over.”

            Pax pivoted to push open the tent flap, only to slam into Alabaster. Alabaster’s Stygian staff was drawn, and he was prepping spells under his breath. He grabbed Pax’s arm, like he feared Pax would dematerialize again.

            “Pax!” Kally shouted in relief behind him. She fingered her Argonaut statue. “We thought Atë kidnapped you.”

            “Aw, it would have been much more dramatic and movie-like had you showed up when Atë and I were making out,” Pax said. All that water that he’d stored in his eyes glistened to the surface. Seeing these two made him want to collapse in a puddle on the ground, Phobetor conscilepsy style. But, Pax reminded himself, he was Strong Pax. In-Control Pax. Pax that Waits Ten Minutes to Start Crying Pax.

            Pax snuffled back a few tears.

            When Atë stepped out of the tent after him, he almost screamed. Instead, he held Frank’s stick aloft. “We need to go shove this in the face of the others, so we can tell them that we have blackmail on Frank.”

            “You mean that the concussed Canadian can fight in the battle tonight?” Kally asked warily. She pulled both boys further from the death collection tent, towards Percy’s fancy light up sign and throne.

            “That’s what I said,” Pax said, like Atë had just vanished as she should have in his internal plans.

            “Mom was going to use that stick to light the Big House on fire. Something about using the fires of life to start the wave of death?” Atë said, stepping with them towards the ping-pong table.

            After Pax had his whole family-time-happy-speech, he didn’t feel right telling Atë to get lost, but she was kind of on the wrong side of their fight. “Very poetic,” he admitted.

            “We thought so too. Frank would have probably been the first casualty.”

            “Pax,” Kally whispered, taking the hand not holding Frank’s stick. Her touch made Pax feel all gooey inside, encouraging those tears that he kept trying to repress to come to the surface. “What did you do?”

            “And why is she still here?” Alabaster growled.

            As they got closer to the ping-pong table, Pax could see it was mostly empty. The other campers must have been tending to defenses. Annabeth napped on a pillow beside Percy. He held her hand on the table, glaring at the sand timer. Piper sat a few feet away from him.

            “Uh—guys?” Pax could just hear Percy say with some panic in his voice. He held up the sand timer.

            “Atë, you can go back to Mom,” Pax said, knowing it would be much simpler if he only had to manage two-sort-of-not-ex-lovers.

            Atë put her hands in her black and white checkered pockets, tilting her head back to look at the sky. “Mom never left. Why do you think everyone has been so unproductive and argumentative?”

            Alabaster rolled his eyes. He focused on whatever was happening at the ping-pong table. “I thought Eris was best for inspiring people to productivity,” he said sarcastically.

            The sarcasm seemed to miss Atë. She removed her fingers and flexed them. A tire iron appeared in one hand and a baseball bat with nails appeared in the other. “Jealousy, spite and strife are excellent motivators. But the productivity doesn’t matter anymore. You’re out of time.”

            Pax blinked. His stomach twisted as he felt some sort of shockwave ripple through the air. “Uh, no,” Pax said, “Mom told Percy she’d be back when the sun comes down.”

            “And it’s noon now,” Kally said.

            Children of Apollo: better than any clock.

            A buzzer sounded.

            Party poppers popped.

            The neon sign above Percy’s head flashed wildly like the ball drop on New Year’s Eve. A digital timer went to zero in the colorful mix.

            Hiro’s mirror still floated beside Percy. From what Pax could see, Hiro ran to the edge of the mirror, pressed his face against it, and looked up in excitement.

            Clouds darkened the sunlight.

            Kally screamed and, in the distance, Pax could hear a chorus of children of Apollo joining in the cacophony.

            When Pax glanced up to stare directly at the sun—something Axel had tried to stop him from doing dozens of times—he didn’t find himself blinded. Apollo’s sun chariot was too close, easily observed by the fact that everyone could see his Sun Chariot. The image blurred between a Lamborghini Diablo and a cart drawn by four horses. From what Pax gathered from science books and mythology, Apollo was supposed to have a fairly set path.

            He had altered it.

            Pax choked.

            A wave of darkness descended from the east. The rapid approach gave Pax vertigo as it engulfed the landscape like an apocalyptic cloud.

            Despite Apollo’s attempts to either step on the accelerator or spur his horses on, the blackness was gaining.

            When Pax squinted, he could see what it was: a woman. A terrifying woman with her own chariot and horses. She was so void of color and substance, Pax would have thought her a churning swirl of ash and smoke. Her chariot seemed to suck the light from around it. Her indigo wings and whirls of black locks trailed madly behind her, twisting into coils of blackness that cast the net of her cloak. That blackness asphyxiating the landscape was her cloak.

            Terror shook Pax. A deep sense of wrongness made him want to hide in the Paxmobile and refuse to come out.

            Nothing would have changed though. None of their heroes would return in time: Jason, Leo, and Sadie wouldn’t have had time to fight Lapis yet, Calex and Reyna would have just met up with Axel and Thalia in Tartarus, and Merry had likely just gotten to Hiro and Percy’s little sister. That meant Percy also wouldn’t be able to fight. Annabeth could barely lift her head off the table.

            It was just them, a concussed Canadian, a recently plague-ridden daughter of Aphrodite, and a daughter of Pluto that was probably frantically trying to keep her unconscious brother out of the shadow realm. 

            The primordial goddess of night’s chariot intercepted Apollo’s.

            The sun fell out of the sky.

            They were enveloped in darkness.  

            As Pax’s eyes adjusted to the sudden blackness in the middle of the day, he panted with panic. He almost laugh-cried when Alabaster set a hand on his shoulder, until he realized it wasn’t Alabaster.

            “Oh, my little Terror Muffin,” Eris whispered sweetly into his ear. “It’s beautiful isn’t it? How much a mother will do for one of her favorites when that favorite is threatened with annihilation by execration or Kronos’ staff?”

            That joker-like hysterical laughter filled the air.

            “Now that Nyx has taken care of the sun…” A light flickered beside Pax. He could see his mother toss a lit Molotov Cocktail up and down, “Let the festivities begin!” 

Sorry for the delay, guys! I hope you enjoyed the Pax family madness :D They could probably benefit from some family counseling. May your Fall festivities be as mischievous as Pax’s, but, you know, without the trauma.

Tune in next week to Axel: If you’re tired of being electrocuted, clap your hands! (or: On the Shore of Two Underworlds).

Extra note for those of you on AO3: I almost accidentally posted the next 10 chapters on here, unedited, because I was fumbling and in a hurry. To that, Pax stuck his tongue out at me. XD

Footnotes:

[1] Alabaster said we had to put a warning label out here: do not eat paint. You are not Pax (unless you are Pax) and you will not survive an acrylic slurpee (and even if you are Pax, stop trying to eat paint. Alabaster is tired of cleaning your throw up).

[2] Though not frequently the other way around. Pax has done everything in his power to pretend he’s physically weaker than Alabaster, including frequently fainting into his arms when they were younger. One problem with this: Alabaster opted out of catching him.

[3]Public service announcement where Pax and I differ: if you have a family member that is acting sexually aggressive to you, tell someone and take action to prevent anything further from happening to you or to others. If the person you tell doesn’t believe you, keep telling people until you find someone who will listen. Whether or not you know the aggressor, even if they’re a family member, you owe them nothing. You definitely don’t owe them silence. But, you DO owe yourself and you DO deserve a safe, healthy environment. And, you owe open communication to others in to the aggressor’s path to assure that the aggressor won’t hurt anyone else. 

And, regardless of what anyone else might tell you, including other family members, you don’t need to keep talking to the aggressor, as Pax decides to do. Blood-related doesn’t mean indebted. It doesn’t mean an annulment of wrongs. It means you’re supposed to keep each other safe and healthy, and taking advantage of someone’s trust isn’t safe or healthy.

Now, if you’ll excuse me for this bout of seriousness, I have a baby panda to catch to tell him to talk more openly with his friends. *chases after Pax*

Chapter Text

Fifteen: Axel

If You’re Tired of Being Electrocuted, Clap Your Hands

(or: On the Shore of Two Underworlds)

            When the ahuitzotl’s hand-tail released Axel’s leg, he knew what game this monster wanted to play. It hoped he would thrash towards the underground river’s surface for a desperate escape. Although Chiich’s horrific stories about the creature rattled his concentration the same way stories about Ronald McDonald might terrify Pax, Axel flicked out the obsidian stilettos attached to his wrists and dove straight towards where he sensed the monster’s movement.

            Under the water, with nothing but the eerie gas light trickling down from the cavern above, Axel couldn’t see anything. His mouth and nose were clogged with muck. He couldn’t use his lighter for a spell. If he didn’t end this fight quickly—

            Something wrapped around his neck before he could jam his blades into the monster.

            The ahuitzotl’s fingers tightened—it was going to snap his head to the side if he didn’t act quickly.

            Axel grabbed the tail’s “wrist” with one hand and jabbed his blade through the tendons.

            The ahuitzotl writhed.

            Pain twisted his stomach. Claws dug in—

            Then, a brilliant burst of light sparked through the water in the cavern, illuminating the ahuitzotl’s terrifying frame: its massive jaws lingering a few feet away, the twists of murky blood coming from its front paw and trailing to Axel’s abdomen, Axel’s obsidian stiletto sliced clean through the hand that was strangling him—

            When Axel startled out of his typical nightmare—the way the Leonis Caput systematically disarmed his little brother, so it could break Pax to pieces and eat him—Axel couldn’t move. His body wouldn’t respond. Voices came in dulled murmurs around him.

            Everything kicked back in at once.

            He tried to cough, choked, and rolled to sputter out the water in his lungs. His sight was blurry as he searched around. The world smelled like a swamp on fire. As much as he could get himself to move—his entire body tingled like Leo had misted him with gasoline to only sort of set him aflame—he fumbled around.

            His weapons were gone. So was his armor, including the lion pelt.

            Someone took his hand.

            “Axel! Hey, Cat’s Breath, relax,” a girl said, though the voice sounded wary.

            The fuzzy shapes around him slowly came into focus. He leaned on his side, gasping.

            Someone standing over him giggled. “Does he really have cat’s breath?”

            “I don’t know, but look at those claws! And those ears!”

            “They’re so fuzzy! It’s cute! He must be one of those Mesoamerican shifters!”

            More giggling.

            Axel reflexively reached up to rub on his Mist mask.

            The effort almost made him collapse.

            “Axel, I told you to knock it off,” someone hissed. “And you guys can shut up!”

            When Axel glanced at the person kneeling beside him, he could see a Blink-182 band shirt. Thalia’s face was bright red as she scowled at the people standing around them. Her typically spiky, black hair was plastered to the side of her face. She was soaking wet.

            After feeling himself shiver, Axel realized he was too.

            The sound of rushing water made him search for the ahuitzotl, wondering what could have happened.

            They were on the shoreline of a cavern river, a few feet from the water. Axel could see footsteps and lines where Thalia must have dragged him. There were three giggling girls around them, holding lanterns.

            On the cavern wall of the opposing shoreline, there were painted glyphs and wall reliefs. The brilliant blues, turquoise, and green stuck out beautifully against the browns. The characters in the depiction wore ornate headdresses and loincloths. Although Axel couldn’t see enough to know the art piece’s story in the dim lighting, the reliefs reminded him of his father’s temple.

            Their side of the cavern was also painted with frescos, but these subjects were either naked or wore chitons. The composition was foreign to Axel. The clash of art styles made his nausea worse.

            Instead, he tried to focus on the girls standing over Thalia and him. Was there a polite way to ask if they were daughters of Chak that would turn into snakes and chase them away? Or would it be rude to assume they’d sprout reptilian tails and try to kill them to amuse the gods? Axel was uncertain of the etiquette, considering he’d last been greeted by a slimy fluffball’s firm handshake around the neck.          

            Despite the Mayan reliefs on the far wall, and the previous battle with the ahuitzotl, these girls looked Mediterranean—ancient Mediterranean. Their dark hair was plaited and they wore loose-fitting tunics with decorative belts, golden jewelry, and sandals.

            Axel tried not to wince at the rancid scent of perfume in the air. He hated perfume.

            A teenage boy, dressed similar, with short, curly dark hair, stood slightly behind the others. He held Thalia’s silver parka and examined her a bit too carefully. “Oh, don’t be so upset, daughter of Zeus. They’re just excited. We rarely get visitors from Hellas anymore—”[1]

            “America,” she snapped.

            He looked confused. “I’m less knowledgeable of that city-state—”

            “Country—”

            “But it is uncommon for us to see, Hellenes, like yourself, and even rarer to get a jaguar warrior, like your friend.”

            Axel noticed something uncomfortable: other than the bow and quiver strapped onto Thalia’s back, her supplies was gone. No backpack. No mace. No hunting knives. Even her Aegis shield bracelet was gone.  

            These people must have disarmed them.

            Axel sat up, grunting at a spike of pain in his abdomen. Thalia steadied him, glaring at the boy that was probably about her age. Or, apparent age.

            “You’re not going to get far in either Tartarus or Xibalba with those injuries and no weapons,” one of the three girls said. She stepped closer to the boy, giving him a knowing grin.

            If Axel had to guess, these two were siblings. Their features were too similar and the smile they exchanged looked a bit too close to when tiny Lapis, Hiro, and Pax decided to team up to “ambush and contain the colossus” (and, when Kouta also smiled like that, it meant Axel had to explain to their carnival’s contortionist how he ended up tied in a box backstage).

            Axel cleared his throat, finding his voice functional. “Where are we?” he asked, forgetting to properly introduce them.

            “And when are we?” Thalia demanded. The hairs on his arm stood up, and Axel could feel the air turn static. Axel had a sneaking suspicion she’d electrocuted him to get to the ahuitzotl and wanted to remind her that if she did it again—in fact—he would NOT go X-ray and happily skip away like a cartoon character. If the ache of his body was any indication, he’d end up unconscious in the best case scenario, with two burned lightning bolt on his forehead so Pax could chase him around calling him the Boy Who Lived: Two Bolts Edition.

            The two other girls with lanterns giggled and scampered off, towards the frescos on the cavern wall. One touched a depiction of a gimp man holding a blacksmith’s hammer. A hidden door swung open.

            They glanced back over at Axel, giggled one last time, then disappeared inside. Axel frowned. Those girls looked like they could be related to these two as well.

            The boy’s eyes flashed in the light of his sister’s lantern. She propped her elbow against his shoulder like an armrest.

            “We have a question before we answer you. What you say will help us decide if we’re going to heal you and give you back your things or chop you into pieces and throw you back in the river,” the boy said, still beaming like this was on their typical hospitality check list. Axel doubted his prior assumption that these people were Mediterranean instead of Mayan. A normal ancient Mayan problem: one moment you think you’re going to a banquet, the next moment you are the banquet.[2]

            The sister nodded enthusiastically, her dark eyes tracing Axel from head to toe, likely looking for any other weapons he’d hidden. “A very important question for our polis. Do you, or do you not…”

            The siblings leaned closer to Axel and Thalia, as though they could sniff out any lies. The combined scent of their perfume and cologne made him struggle to maintain his composure.

            Once closer, the girl finished, “Like the goddess, Aphrodite?”

            That was the last question Axel had been expecting, like he’d gone to Disney with his little siblings and been asked how many automatic rifles he would like to check in the hotel lobby.[3]

            There was no way he could lie. He had already made a disgusted face at the goddess’ name, and he could never say something remotely neutral about that wretched deity. With what little Axel knew about Thalia’s background with romance, he wondered how she was going to answer.

            “I’m a huntress of Artemis,” Thalia said in way of explanation.

            “Aphrodite and Ares bewitched me to kill my little brother,” Axel said, hoping that was enough of a diplomatic answer.

            The boy’s face lit up. “Oh, a huntress of Artemis.”

            The way he said it reminded Axel of the way his older brother, Kouta, said, “Oh, a challenge” when he met a girl that didn’t buy the whole Pax-boys-are-sexy thing.

            Not that he thought Thalia couldn’t take care of herself—she could probably rewire the electrons firing in this boy’s body to make him do the hokey-pokey (a tactic he’d have to ask her if possible)—but he didn’t like it when anyone looked at one of his friends like that. Exterior to a soccer match. Or a friendly brawl.

            The girl tilted her head towards Axel warily. “Do you… like your brother or dislike your brother?”

            Axel glared. He wanted to just respond, “It’s my brother,” like that would answer everything, but when you had brothers like Kouta…

            “I’ve spent the last five years of my life doing everything in my power to keep him safe,” Axel said.

            She looked relieved. She glanced over to her brother and he gave her a thumps up. “Okay, second question: how much do you know about mythology surrounding Aphrodite?”

            Back at Camp Othrys, Axel relied on Alabaster to debrief him on their enemy’s history. With the Traitor’s Seven, he had Merry’s uncomfortably detailed stories. He knew nothing—short of a quick Google search on Has anyone successfully rejected the goddess of love? Quick summary: it did not go well for Adonis.

            He glanced to Thalia, feeling like the lack of information was a weakness.

            Thalia was giving him the same hopeful—albeit very annoyed—glance.

            The girl giggled. “Excellent!”

            The boy clapped his hands. “We’ll be sure that you have a very relaxed um--respite here.”

            The girl ushered them towards the door in the wall. “Welcome to the island of Lemnos! And our piece of Hephaestia!”

            Judging from their uncomfortable excitement, Axel hoped this was really their home and not a prison or torture chamber. Considering their lack of weapons, supplies, and that he felt like he’d played a game of Touch the Socket after a shower, they didn’t have much of a choice about following them inside.

Thank you for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed! :D Is everyone ready for Halloween?! I hope you guys have a fun one!

Footnotes:

[1] What the Greeks called their land before the Romans came around.

[2] Just for clarification: there is evidence that some Mayan groups did eat people, but Axel wants to point out that it wasn’t an everyday occurrence, and it was a much more popular cuisine for the Aztecs.

[3] Mel’s Betacomment: “XD But that’s a real question for all of you!” Jack’s response: Only TWO of my siblings are crazy, gun-wielding wilderness-dwellers, thank you. The others prefer swords.

Chapter Text

Sixteen: Axel

A Spa Day on the Edge of Tartarus

            Axel wasn’t sure what to expect on the island of Lemnos. A rack of previous torture victims? A special pool of blood dedicated to the gods? A cat hoarder with a side project of collecting heroes that stumbled into their territory—he was sure it existed in some mythology exterior to internet mythology—but he wasn’t expecting a fancy resort. Though, from what little he did know of Greek mythology, he really ought to have.

            Debriefs about C. C’s island, the Lotus Casino, and Ogygia rattled around as he calculated the best way to escape if this was an ambush or trap. The inside didn’t look Grecian at all. The floor was made of thick, black rubber. The walls were metal sheets with weapons displayed in glass showcases.

            There were two pairs of metal statues flanking the entrance to the atrium and the end of the hallway, where a receptionist tapped away with a small hammer at her desk. Each of the four statues looked vaguely demonic: humanoids with odd ears, horns, ugly features, and puffed tails, though Axel wasn’t one to dislike such oddities. Each set had a boy and a girl. Each worked on different stages of a project: one was stoking the fires of a forge, one was striking a piece of metal with an anvil, one was cooling the metal, and the last one was polishing a finished shield.

            The weapons on the walls were all fantastically made. If he didn’t have limited movement from a sprained ankle, bleeding fingers, and abdomen gashes, he would request to test them out. At least he knew they had access to weapons if things got out of hands. Though, Axel had to wonder if these were just for show.

            “Are these…the Cabeiri?” Thalia asked, gesturing towards the sculptures.

            “Nice catch, Blue Eyes,” said the boy.

            Axel couldn’t see her expression, but he could sense her glare.

            Although Axel didn’t need as much help as he feigned, he allowed himself to limp so Thalia had to stay close. The boy walked on her side; the girl, on his. Axel didn’t want to let the siblings split them up.

            Thalia frowned. “But, there are only two Cabeiri, and they’re boys.”

            The girl clucked her tongue. “Ah, you Hellenes, always pretending there wasn’t a story before your people came and simplified it to oblivion.”

            “Hey Hypsi, Phil. Everyone ran past giggling, so I didn’t get to ask their advice. Do you think—“ The girl at the desk looked up from her hammer tapping. She dropped the hammer and her jaw. “Are those travelers? N-non-relatives?! And they’re heroes aren’t they!” She waved her hands in the air. “Look at how handsome and beautiful they are—did you two lay claim? Oh—no—you’re not dating are you?”

            Axel and Thalia glanced at one another, tried to jump away, then remembered Thalia was supporting him. Axel almost stumbled on his bad ankle and Thalia cried out in pain when he pulled her arm.

            A light jolt of electricity made Axel lightheaded.

            “No,” they said at the same time.

            The girl behind the desk made a high pitch noise. Between that and her star-struck eyes, Axel thought someone may have switched her out for a broken Halloween prop. Had he had less self-control or courtesy, he would have covered his ears.

            “Phraxa,” Phil said in his best I’m-an-older-brother voice. “Calm down. You’ll freak them out.”

            “Already done,” Thalia grumbled.

            Axel got the feeling Thalia liked this attention as much as he did. As he examined Phraxa’s features, he realized she also looked related to Phil and Hypsi. He didn’t like that they’d skipped over introductions or that these Lemnians hadn’t cared why they were down here, just that they were travelers. That’s what serial killers did.

            Phraxa picked up her hammer to fan herself with it, a very ineffective technique. “I guess you’ll want them set up for some appointments?”

            Hypsi nodded. “Let’s get the huntress of Artemis a massage for the shoulder she injured when she saved the cat-man.”

            Axel blinked. He glanced blearily down to Thalia. She’d been letting him lean on her without complaint, despite him towering over her by a near foot and doubling her in weight, and she was injured? Guilt constricted his throat. He’d been so dazed from the fight and these people, he hadn’t given real consideration that the daughter of Zeus might be hurt.

            “Shut up,” Thalia grumbled without needing him to say anything. “I’m fine, Cat Breath.”

            Axel sympathized with sparing her pride, but he tried to ease his weight off her shoulder and onto his injured foot. “Why do you keep calling me that?” he asked.

            Thalia went bright red and jabbed him in the side with two fingers.

            “And let’s get the jaguar warrior a soak in the healing springs for his fingers, ankle, and gash,” Phil said, looking concerned at their exchange.

            Phraxa clapped her hands together—probably painfully with the hammer—put the hammer in her mouth, then typed something onto the desk. When Axel leaned forward, he could see the counter itself light up with an imbedded keyboard. “Prepared when you are!”

            “Shall we get you ready?” Hypsi asked, one of her hands gracing Axel’s shoulder. He really didn’t want to see her try to lean on him the way she’d leaned on Phil. In his current state, he’d assuredly topple over and knock down Thalia in the process.

            “Look, the shoulder massage offer is really nice and all,” Thalia said, and—from the way she said it—her shoulder must have been in a lot of pain. “But, we’re not separating.”

            Phil clucked his tongue, as his sister had done moments before. He hopped onto the counter, leaning towards Thalia. Axel reflexively attempted a subtle sidestep so Phil couldn’t get too close. Something about this guy reminded him of Luke when Luke used to talk about Annabeth. “Huntress, clothing interferes with the healing properties in the springs.”

            “And it would be really hard to put healing salves on your shoulder with that shirt on,” Hypsi added.           

            “And you both want your injuries to heal up as fast as possible so you can continue on your journey, and we want to help you as fast as we can…” Phil said, leaving the ending open.

            Axel felt like Phil had hit him in the stomach with that hammer and brushed up his face with a heat gun. His face felt hot. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

            “Why are you helping us?” Axel asked, a little too quickly. This was stupid. He’d had a full conversation with Thalia about bathing. Why was he getting flustered?

            Hypsi grinned, bearing brilliantly white teeth. “You said you hated Aphrodite or at least don’t like her. She…”

            Hypsi and Phil exchanged a glance. Their shoulder slumped. Even Phraxa’s face fell and she tapped at something on her desk half-heartedly with the hammer.

            “She cursed us. Well, she’s cursed our people twice. The first time we disobeyed her accidentally—we forgot to give her an offering. Jason and the Argonauts helped break the first curse, the one on our entire polis. Then…” Hypsi glowered at the ground.

            Phil continued, looking just as hateful. “A small group of our polis refused to give her offerings from then on out. It’s her fault we were cursed. Why would we honor Aphrodite for what she did? Because we’re under threat of another curse?”

            Although he still didn’t trust the Lemnians, Axel felt a pang of sympathy.

            Hypsi nodded. “The group of us refused to do another offering, she sent us here. So, on top of the smell, now it’s even harder to meet people.”

            “Smell?” Thalia asked.

            Axel was wondering the same thing, though was too polite to ask. He’d found their cologne and perfume overpowering, but assumed they had chosen to wear it.

            Hypsi, Phil, and Phraxa laughed nervously. Phraxa accidentally punched her hammer through whatever piece she was working on.

            “Smell? I meant well. Like cenote. It’s hard living where two underworlds merge,” Hypsi said. “Now, can we please heal you? So you can return to your journey?”

            “And get your weapons back. We have a strict no-weapons policy for visitors, but we’ll give them back once we’re done with you, and you sounded in a hurry,” Phil said.

            Unfortunately, everything they said was true: Axel and Thalia couldn’t travel through Tartarus with these injuries—well, they could, but it would be slower and much more dangerous. They were in a hurry. If they really had a healing spring here, fixing their injuries could save them time.

            He glanced down at his two watches. The dials on his Kronos watch clicked at a tenth the second to his normal watch. They were in an area that moved faster than the outside world, so a quick pause here wouldn’t waste as much time.

            Axel wished they had the forethought to carry walky-talkies or two cups with a string attached. He bet that was something in Thalia’s supplies bag—the walky-talkies or awesome huntress equivalent, not the cups with the string attached. He didn’t trust the Lemnians. And he wished that he felt more confident about what to do. Since… Pax, something in his gut kept gnawing at him, warning him that he was going to make another wrong choice and someone else would get hurt.  

            He shook his head. “Thank you for your generosity, but—”

            “We’re really excited to take you up on it,” Thalia interrupted. “We would be screwed if we continued our quest in our current state.” She shot him a look, challenging him to challenge her.

            Axel bit back an amused grin. They would have fought constantly as Lieutenants of Kronos. He could imagine the headache they would have given Luke.

            Phraxa flailed her hammer around, something Axel thought needed to be addressed for everyone’s safety. Hypsi and Phil looked relieved.

            “Excellent,” Hypsi said, “Let’s get you two started then. Even if you’re in a hurry, after this, you’ll never want to leave.”

Thanks for reading! :D I hope you guys enjoyed! Stay tuned next week for Axel: No One Ever Knocks Anymore.

Chapter Text

 Note from the author: So, Jack is a derp, and forgot to post Chapter 11 of this book (Sadie: I Play trans-mythological messenger.) *Ehem* Please excuse my derpiness and I apologize for any confusion. Back to our normally forecasted show!

            After almost being drowned by Percy, then by the ahuitzotl, Axel expected to see a Tisigua—a women with backwards feet known for drowning unwary teenagers in the Chiapas—sitting at the edge of the underground spring, winking, and saying, “Third times the charm, no?”

            Instead, the springs looked more like the ancient Grecian bathhouse the boys had at Camp Othrys (and what the girls had as well, according to Pax after one of the times Mercedes caught he and Matthias “accidentally” going into the wrong entrance.)

            The air was thick with steam and scented with jasmine. At Camp Othrys, their bathhouse was made from black stone, with ornate mosaics of the Titans. Here, the baths were smaller. The floor and baths were grey, and there were mosaics of Hephaestus being cast from Mount Olympus and landing—Axel guessed—on the island of Lemnos.

            Axel couldn’t decide if it was creepier to have depictions of the gods or Titans watch him bath. After he and Thalia brought Euna back, if Kally was still up for making a third camp, they’d have to make a no-deities-watching-the-bathroom pact.

            No one else was in the bathing area, which relieved Axel. He wanted time to think and something about Phil bothered him. After leaving his clothing in a small changing room, he limped to the inset pool.

            Along the side of the water, there was a bottle, labeled Wash with Me, a pitcher of light pink liquid labeled, Drink Me, a large basket with a hoop labeled, Towel Me and Score a Point, and lastly, a spray bottle labeled, Cover Your Smell with Me with a depiction of two hideous men—Cabeiri?—spraying away a beautiful, angry woman on a seashell. Aphrodite, Axel presumed with a smirk.

            If the Lemnians weren’t acting so suspicious, he suspected he’d get along with the apparent blacksmiths.

            When Axel eased in, sitting on a step a few feet down, the pain in his ankle and fingers immediately dissipated in the warm water. The throbbing along his abdomen subsided.

            He felt stupid for freezing up around the ahuitzotl and his inability to decide whether or not they should trust these people. He was lucky his hesitation only cost them these injuries and Thalia’s bad shoulder.

            Axel frowned, glanced around the bathroom, then ducked into the water. Although there wasn’t much room, he wanted to splash around like he did when he was a kid, with Lapis, Hiro, and Pax trying to dunk him, and he and Kouta pretending to be water serpents or crocs that would attack them.

            Back when Kouta was alive and not a jerk. Back when Pax, Hiro, and Lapis only had to worry about avoiding Chiich’s wrath when she caught them stealing sweets from her kitchen in the morning.

            His mind wondered, as it had earlier in their trip, to what he would say to Euna when they found her. He’d only promised the others to bring her home safely. Nothing about stopping her vengeance against the gods. What would he do if Thalia tried to stop Euna with violence, her favorite tool to get things done?

            Axel surfaced, gasped, and leaned on the side of the pool. He didn’t bother with the cup beside the pitcher, but picked up the full container to sniff the liquid. It smelled sweet, with undertone of hibiscus. If the Lemnians were going to poison him, he supposed they could have with the healing waters, which had already closed the gashes on his abdomen and given his ankle full mobility.

            With the first giant gulp, the liquid tasted delicious and refreshing. Axel chugged some more down before getting a sickly cloy aftertaste, like inhaling gasoline.

            The door thumped softly from the bathroom entrance behind him. Feet pattered softly into the room. The scent of perfume filtered in with the jasmine.

            Axel’s head spun as he set the pitcher down. Get out of the water, you fool, a familiar voice hissed in his head. Find a weapon. They fight like her.

            Normally, the Leonis Caput’s instincts were correct, though he wasn’t sure what the “her” pronoun game was about. Whoever entered the room was almost upon him, but he could barely focus, making him wonder if the drink was drugged. If the intruder was Phil, and he’d come unarmed, Axel could probably beat him, but the Lemnians didn’t strike him as being foolish enough to fight unarmed or by themselves.

            “You look like you’re enjoying your bath,” a much lighter voice said.

            Axel choked.

            His mind threatened to freeze again, especially when a balled up towel flipped through the hoop and into the basket, making a ping sound of victory.

            A painfully feminine, bare leg dipped into the water beside his shoulder, brushing up against his skin.           

            Axel would never admit that he made a squeaking sound, but, had Pax been there, Pax would put that down into his books as the least menacing sound to ever come from Axel’s mouth.

            Hypsi’s distinct laughter filled the room. “Oh, you’re nothing like the stories I’ve heard of the Argonauts—”

            Axel covered his eyes with one hand and scrambled to the other side of the pool. “Hypsi!” he protested. “Listen, I’m not—I don’t—not that—”

            “You see, after Aphrodite cursed our women to temporarily smell bad, the men decided to take new wives. The scorned women killed all the men, there was a major deficient in the male population,” as she continued, Axel could hear the subtle splash of water getting closer to him.

            Axel scrambled out of the pool, his breath short in his panic. “Stop!” How did the Leonis Caput expect Axel to arm himself against this?!

            “And, when the Argonauts showed up, they were happy to solve the problem and lead to a new race of Lemnians. But, after we were cast down here, we have such a small population, that everyone is related by this point: Phil is my brother, Phraxa is our second cousin—”

            One last splash and Axel could hear Hypsi’s feet on the ground again. He stumbled backwards, trying to remember the layout of the room. At least his ankle was fully functional again: good for escaping—ehem—aggressive women.

            “—and it has been a long time since we’ve seen such—um—well equipped and attractive heroes like you and your friend—”

            Several emotions pierced Axel’s alarm at once. One was a horrible sense of exposure as he was, currently, outside of the water, without a towel, and apparently very on display. The other, more powerful, was a terrified sense of dread.

            Thalia.

            He knew she was down the hall, getting her shoulder massaged. He’d made sure they knew where the other one was. But—

            “Her masseuse is Phil,” he realized, anger making his face hot, possibly more than his embarrassment. Or at least he liked to pretend the anger was more powerful.

            Hypsi sighed. “Don’t worry. She’s been given the same dose of love potion you have. If you’d just open your eyes and look me in the eyes, it’ll kick in, you’ll calm down, and realize staying here and abandoning your quest really isn’t as terrible as you think it is.”

            Axel’s heartbeat pounded in his ears. This is what the Leonis Caput’s warning meant. “You fight as dirty as Aphrodite,” he snarled.

            Hypsi went silent.

            Then he heard the distinct slide of metal against metal.

            Axel’s breath eased.   He could fight a warrior. That was easy. Innocent, unrequited lovers? Different story. How did this keep happening to him?!

            “Once you look at me, you’re going to be very sorry that you said that,” Hypsi sounded near tears. If she and her family weren’t so creepy and deceptive, Axel might have felt bad that their desperation had driven them to act in the same manner as someone they hated. Except he was now realizing these guys were quickly raising rank in the creepy category.

            Hyspi struck something metal into the ground.

            Axel almost fell for it. He tilted his head towards the sound, glad he’d covered his eyes, else he’d have reflexively looked. Instead, Axel did the only thing he could logically decide upon as a tactician.

            He ran past her towards the exit with one hand slightly outstretched.

            “Wait!” Hypsi cried.

            Axel fumbled into the wall and found the doorknob.

            Hurried footsteps behind him.

            Axel rushed through, slammed the door shut, and opened his eyes to navigate the changing room. He’d hoped to swipe his clothes as he ran past the bench, but they were—of course—gone. There were extra grey towels stacked neatly in the corner. He swiped up two as he heard two things that made him throw the door to the hall open: Thalia shouting in anger and Hypsi opening the changing room’s door behind him.

            In retrospect, he should have barred the door.

            “Jaguar warrior!”

            As Axel continued into the hallway, thanking the interior decorator for not putting anything he could trip on in this hall, he tore one of the two towels he’d grabbed and tied the half around his head as a blindfold. Until he knew there was no way Hypsi was near him, he wasn’t really in the mood for any more Aphrodite-like magic. He wrapped the other towel around his waist, wondering how he would manage to keep it up if he had to fight.[1] 

            From his memory, Phraxa had led Thalia a few doors down when Phil led him to the changing rooms. If Thalia’s screams of rage weren’t an indicator that he was going the right way, the thick scent of ozone was.

            So was Phil’s distinct shrill of panic as he shrieked, “Help! We should have gotten that bow from her!”

            Despite Axel’s disgust and general horror at the situation, Axel was happy to hear that Thalia was showing Phil what happened when you messed with huntresses of Artemis.

            Someone had a sharp intake of breath ahead of him and, he could smell that reek of perfume and cologne—there were other people in the hallway. They cursed in Greek before one shouted, “Get the net gun! The jaguar warrior—“

            Axel swung the other half of his torn towel until it smacked something and wrapped.

            “Hey!” the person shouted.

            No ping of metal. Not a sword. They hadn’t reflexively parried. These guys weren’t expecting a fight, at least not until now.

            Instead of skidding to a stop, as he might have if they had weapons, he plowed forward, let go of the towel, and slammed the person off their feet.[2]

            The person yelped. “The net gun! Fire the—”

            “I’m sorry! We’ve never had to use this thing before!” the second person’s voice he recognized as Phraxa.

            Something mechanical thunked further down the hall.

            Axel ducked, knowing he couldn’t dodge a net in such a small space without seeing—

            A door to his side swung open.

            “AND STAY OUT YOU CREEPY PERVE!” Thalia roared.

            Axel could feel the air rush past him as someone was thrown into the hallway, intercepted the oncoming net, and slammed into the wall, likely now tangled.

            “PHRAXA!” Phil shrieked.

            “Oh, crap! Sorry, Phil!” Phraxa said.

            “Thalia—” Axel started to say.

            Who he assumed (and desperately hoped) was Thalia made a wild grab at his arm and dragged him through the open door.

            “Augh! What total creeps!” Thalia raved.

            Axel fumbled to lock the door. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake as last time. “Thalia, are there any other entrances and is there something we can bar the—“

            Something thumped against the door.

            Axel blindly felt to his side and grabbed the edge of some furniture—a table. With a grunt, he lifted the end by him to brace it against the door.

            The other end lifted as Thalia helped him. She sniffled. “There’s only one entrance. Just two massage tables, some um—augh, this is dumb!” her voice shook.

            They set the table down. Axel crouched behind it, hearing Thalia shuffle to do the same.

            The thumping against the door stopped. Whispers broke out on the other side.

            “Welcome to ancient Greece, where you can’t relax without someone trying to attack you,” Axel grumbled. “Okay, they have enchantments and it looks like they have some weaponry, but aren’t fully prepared for trained warriors. I didn’t see how many of them were out there but…”

            Under his assessment of the situation, he could hear Thalia sniffling again.

            Axel frowned. “Um, Thalia—”

            “I’m fine. I just got some oil in my eye; that’s all,” she snapped.

            Axel hesitated, his stomach tightening. He remembered everything they’d done at Camp Othrys to teach the younger ones to defend themselves, how many restrictions and regulations they’d put down to keep the infamously creepy monsters, like the centaurs, away from the demigods, and… he thought about what happened to Nilley, his mother.

            Axel untied his blindfold and offered the torn towel to Thalia.

            The huntress rubbed at her eyes furious with the back of one hand. Her shoulders weren’t shaking and she looked angrier than scared or upset. Maybe she really had just gotten oil in her eyes.

            After a dumb moment of realizing she couldn’t see, he gently pressed the torn towel to her hand. “Here, use this.”

            “Thanks,” she muttered.

            Guilt panged his stomach when he registered her green and white sports bra that read I like it Wild with a depiction of a deer running through moonlit trees in the background. He pointedly looked away, puffing up his cheeks and popping them.

            He glanced around the room for supplies, weapons, or anything to ward off the Lemnians long enough for them to make an escape. There was a cabinet with a door cracked open, revealing stacks upon stacks of towels and weirdly shaped pillows. Another massage table was pushed up against a corner of the wall. There were tasteful, simplistic decorations of metal sculpted flowers and a dim, electric lantern. Calming flute and harp music—what Axel guessed you’d hear at a normal spa that didn’t include complimentary abduction—played through some sort of speaker in the ceiling.

            Thankfully, Thalia’s bow and quiver sat on the floor by their feet. They probably hadn’t taken it from Thalia earlier because of her bummed shoulder and assumed the love potion would prevent her from using it after the massage.

            Maybe they could break apart the other table and make it into a weapon? At least long enough to access some of the decorative weapons that were in the front hall? But what would they do about that net gun, assuming Phraxa now knew how to use it? And they would have to capture someone to figure out where their supplies was.

            “I’ll admit,” Axel said, “When I offered to get Euna back from Tartarus, I was expecting fire and brimstone ordeals. Not desperate, apparently immortal teens.”

            On a small table in the center of the room, Axel swallowed to see a bottle of massage oil beside a pitcher of pink liquid and a half-filled glass.

            “Seriously,” Thalia said, “I’d rather be fighting a Cyclops at a masked costume party.”

            With their ability to mimic voices, Axel knew that would be a nightmare.

            He stared at the pitcher. His head felt light and fuzzy, like it had before the adrenaline rush of sprinting down the hallway to make sure she was okay. He should have been strategizing a way out, but what if…?

            “Um…” He had no idea what to say or even if there was an appropriate way to bring this up. He didn’t want to convince Thalia something happened if it hadn’t, but if she was uncomfortable…

            “You know, if something happened, I’m here to talk or listen,” he said, feeling unhelpful and uncomfortable. He was better at beating up the bad guys, not helping out the people the bad guys had hurt.

            Thalia snorted. “Nothing happened.”

            Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them again. Although he felt his cheeks burn with the words, he said, “Hypsi tried to get into the bath with me. She was very unwelcome.”

            There was a moment of silence, where Axel could hear the hushed whispers of the Lemnians on the others side of the door. He really wished he had a weapon. Or pants.

            There were at least five distinct whispers. Maybe he and Thalia could rush them if they were untrained.

            Thalia swore softly, hugged herself, and grumbled, “I explicitly told them I could only have a girl massage me.”

            Axel stopped looking around the room, and focused on what she was saying.

            “A few minutes into the shoulder rub, I realized it was Phil, and told him to get out. He wouldn’t. I tried to electrocute him, but they have some kind of… lightning rods in the tables. I feel so dumb—I even heard Phraxa inserting something into the table before I went in.  So I made him get out a different way, with knockout arrows.”

            Axel frowned again, resisting the urge to put a protective arm around Thalia, since a guy touching her was the last thing she probably wanted right now.

            “Thank you for telling me,” he said.

            He could feel Thalia roll her eyes. The scent of ozone dispersed some, so he could detect her earthy smell, like the forest after a gentle storm. It was so comforting after all the overpowering perfume, he had to resist the urge to lean closer.

            “These guys are such creeps,” Thalia growled. “Are you okay? I hope that didn’t ruin baths for you forever.”

            Axel was startled by the question, and appreciated the follow-up joke. “No—just—uh...” How did Axel explain how much he hated love magic and people trying to mess with his head without going into his whole ‘forced date’ thing with Aphrodite?

            His heartbeat hadn’t calmed down. When he felt Thalia glance at him, it accelerated more. He reflexively made eye contact. The silvery glow of her skin was more noticeable in the soft lighting. When her cheeks flared to bright red, the contrast was more noticeable too and really cute with how she crunched up her face in embarrassment.

            He puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

            Thalia scowled off to the side. “How are we going to get out of here?”

            “You’re not.”

            Hypsi’s voice came loudly from the other side of the door.

            Axel clutched the towel to his waist tightly, maybe less okay than he’d admitted.

            Hypsi’s voice quivering with emotion through some kind of loud speaker, “We locked you in. Within the next fifteen minutes, the love potions will kick into full effect, and you’ll be begging to come out here to spend some quality time with Phil and me. And even if you somehow resist, we can wait you out. The only water you have in there is more of the potion. You’ll die if you don’t have something else to drink. Though, if you keep being so rude…”

            Her voice choked off to a quick hiccup.

            There was a whisper, and then Phil must have taken the mic. “If you keep turning us down because of the smell, we’ll wait until you’re too weak to defend yourself, cut you up, and throw you back into the river.”

            “The smell is least of your bad traits,” Thalia grumbled. “What love potion are they—”

            Realization choked Axel. “Thalia, you drank the pink stuff—”

            She paled upon putting the words together.

            Remembering Hypsi’s words, he whispered “Did you look Phil in the eye?” His chest was tight with the thought of having to restrain Thalia from running out the door into Phil’s arms. Instead of choking up on embarrassment due to their current lack of clothing, Axel shuddered with rage at the thought of her wanting to be with Phil. He shook off the emotion, assuming it was part of his disgust with the whole situation.

            She shook her head, playing with her choker necklace, a motion he was pretty sure he’d never seen her do. “No, I couldn’t really see him through the oil in my eyes. I did a lot of blind shooting. That’s why I didn’t pull you in until I heard your voice…”

            She trailed off.

            In an unspoken agreement, Axel and Thalia scooted a foot away from one another. Axel felt like his cheeks were on fire. “You’re a huntress.” He wasn’t sure why he said it. They were fine. The potions must have been duds.

            “And you’re in love with Reyna,” Thalia responded.

            “Fifteen minutes…” he muttered. “We should, um, build two separate forts with the towels, sheets, and pillows. Just in case.”

            Thalia understood what he meant immediately. “On opposite sides of the room,” she said.

            He nodded gravely, like this was siege preparation. Well, it was, but a different kind. “We can flip the other table and use it as a distinctive divider for your side of the room and my side of the room.”

            “And we can plan how to get out of here while we build,” she said. “They must have overlooked something other than my bow and quiver. Maybe we can break off the table legs and use them as weapons, and—if we can break the table in half—we can each use one half as a shield against that net gun—and use the table against the door as a battering ram.”

            Axel had thought about the table legs, but not the shield or battering ram. He reached over to squeeze Thalia’s shoulder with an appreciative smile. “That’s an excellent idea, Lieutenant.”

            “Duh,” she said, blushing. “I’m the lieutenant for a reason.” She reached up to touch his hand, flinched, and, instead, hit him in the shoulder. Hard.

            Axel grunted and recoiled. “Thanks.” He said, reminding himself she was a huntress, that he was in love with Reyna, and that he didn’t normally notice how exquisite she was with battle strategy or how nice her archer’s muscles looked in the dim lighting.

            “Don’t mention it,” Thalia said.

            After making sure the door was secure—and Axel’s towel, and wrapping an additional towel around Thalia and his shoulders (separately, of course. Not that either of them needed the extra coverage or that they found the other’s lack of clothing distracting in any way shape or form)—they set to work separating the room and planning their escape.

            After catching Thalia’s beautiful blue eyes the third time, Axel frowned. “Thalia?”

            “Sup, Cat Breath?”

            “I kinda wish we had some backup,” he admitted. “Focusing under these—um—circumstances, in the heart of enemy territory when the enemy has all our supplies and is bent on waiting for some Stockholm Syndrome to kick in when the one exit we have is blocked… this is outside of my skill set as a tactician.”

            Thalia nodded sympathetically, pressing her lips together. Unfortunately, he already knew what she was going to say, “Axel, no one is coming to save us.”

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoy :D Stay tuned next week for Thalia’s Love Bites (But Not Literally!)

Footnotes:

[1] He means the towel, you creeps XD

[2] Mel Betacomment: “What a perfectly kids movie moment in a not-so-kids rated scenario!”

Chapter Text

Eighteen: Thalia

Love Bites (But Not Literally!)

            Saying Thalia’s insides felt jumbled would be like saying you might want to wear sunglasses if you’re going to look directly at Apollo’s chariot during his peek time.

            They finished up their separate forts. Axel had removed their door barrier and tried the door a few times to see how thoroughly the Lemnians had barred it. Considering they heard something being bolted into the door, she imagined facing these creeps was becoming more and more of a heroic task set out for two other heroes, maybe child of Hephaestus or Athena. She wished Annabeth were here. She could think of the tragedy the children of Dionysus would write about them now, titled: Lieutenants of Artemis and Kronos, Murdered by a fandom.

            They discussed pretending to have fallen in love with Phil and Hypsi. Thalia even tried, excited by the prospect of wringing the guys’ neck. Apparently, such inspiration made her flirtation come across as disingenuous and “homicidal” to Hypsi and Phraxa. Pft. They’d never flirted at a concert before.[1]

            So, Axel and Thalia sat on either side of half-a-massage table (that had been split in half for makeshift shields) with a sheet from the cabinet pinned to the ceiling as high as Axel—with his six foot Oh-My-Gods inches—could reach.

            Not that Thalia found his height attractive, but being around preteen girls didn’t lead to the most vertically advantaged tent making.

            Earlier, Thalia had been pondering out how to tell Euna that Artemis said girl-to-girl relationships were still a no-go, something that both made Thalia happy—since girl-to-girl romances should still be considered romances and taken seriously—but also disappointed, since Thalia was interested in Euna and wasn’t sure how she felt about potential loopholes. That already left the Lieutenant of Artemis questioning her feelings on being a huntress.

            Of course, she was terrified for Euna. Euna had seemed… broken when they spoke at Camp Half-Blood, and—despite Axel’s assurance that time moved differently here—time could also be moving differently on whatever path that psychotic talking head was taking Euna.

            “Time,” Thalia demanded.

            There was a small tear in the sheet where the ends met the top of their table divider, making a tiny hole in their oh-so-impenetrable wall. Axel hesitated, then slipped his hand through, so his wrist was visible.[2]

            Like last time, she kept telling herself it was to check to see how far away Euna could have gotten. It was, she growled angrily, eyes flicking to that stupid half-empty glass of pink liquid before looking back to their divider.

            This was not to look at his hand or touch it.

            His index and middle finger were missing most of his nail. Although the healing springs must have cleaned up the blood and wound, it was weird to see a fingertip with scarred skin instead of a nail, especially with how long, sharp, and feline his other nails were. (When checking the time previously, she’d made him lower the Mist on his fingers, since she accidentally cut herself on one.)  

            That must have hurt way more than he feigned.

            Thalia took his hand to twist his wrist into better view. She wanted to annoy him, to make him complain that she was being childish or bratty, to get into an argument and agree how much they disliked each other.

            He was in mid-comment, “—ventilation shafts are way too small to squeeze through.” He did little more than grunt when she bent his arm further. “No secret passages found on your side?”

            Stupid Axel with all of his stupid plans and ability to stay focused.

            “Nope, fresh out of secret passages. Any other brilliant ideas?” she snapped, hoping it sounded mean instead of desperate.

            Eleven minutes had passed. Thalia’s head felt like it was swimming. This feeling could get worse? Hypsi said this would become unbearable in fifteen minutes!

            His laugh sounded pained. “Thalia—”

            “Lieutenant,” she tried to distance their names, but felt like her comment had come out weaker than she wanted.

            “Maybe it’s because Luke told me how you used to flirt with him, but you’re really bad at pretending to hate me.”

            Thalia growled in anger, “I told you that I didn’t drink that stupid potion—“

            Axel squeezed her hand. Her heartbeat skipped to see that they’d enlaced their fingers, without her even realizing they were moving. His calluses were rough, like hers and the gentle pinch of his remaining claws was comforting, reminding her of the cute paws on Artemis’ silver wolf pack.

            The wolf pack.

            The Hunt.

            A dulled sense of panic made her tremble.

            “Thalia,” Axel said gently, “Even without… current circumstances—” She could hear him squirm on his side of the table. “—we’re still friends. You pretending to hate me or be mad at me isn’t going to help. Though… you might undo the healing spring’s work if you keep bending my wrist like that.”

            He tapped his two fingers without nails against the top of her hand.

            “I don’t have to pretend to be mad at you,” she whispered, glaring at his hand. She tried not to think about how he was seated on the other side. They’d agreed to stay on opposite sides of the rooms. That worked when they were searching around for other potential exits. Also without intending to, they both sat as close as possible once they were done searching.

            Thalia clenched the grip on her bow with her other hand. Axel had instructed her to shoot him with a knock-out arrow if he tried to come to her side of the room, with the warning that he’d had much more of the potion than she had. But, what if she came to his side of the room? Would he be able to fend her off when he’d run away from Hypsi like a little kid?

            Not that she would admit to drinking any of the potion. Or having any problems. She just wanted to go over there and sock him in his dumb, ruggedly handsome face for almost dying by the hands of a hidden monster and almost drowning and getting them into this mess.

            “Axel,” she said.

            “Leonis Caput,” he offered.

            After hearing his chuckle, she realized he was teasing her for the “Lieutenant” thing. “Shut up,” she said.

            “Yes, Lieutenant.”

            “I’ll break your wrist.”

            “I’m sure you will.”

            She rolled her eyes. “You asked about why I didn’t side with you guys, uh, during the Titan War.”

            “Yes…” his voice was soft again.

            Thalia frowned. She wished she could play with her choker, but knew she should keep her hand on her bow.

            “When I woke up from being a tree, Percy was the first person I saw. He brought me back. He and Annabeth updated me on the years I’d missed and taught me how to be a person again. They told me about how Luke had sold his soul to evil or whatever. Camp Half-Blood was the first safe place, outside—outside of being with Luke and Annabeth… that I could call home. It was safe. Before that, I was always running and hiding, either from my mom or other monsters…”

            She took in a shaky breath. “Even if I wanted to fight against my dad, or how the gods treated their children, Luke’s path wasn’t the way to do it, and I couldn’t turn my back on my new family. How would you feel if Pax joined Camp Half-Blood?”

            “I’ve been trying to convince him to for months now,” Axel said, sounding defeated. “As he’ll tell you, he’s like a parasite that’s impossible to get rid of. And he knows I’ll never join Camp Half-Blood.”

            “You guys are so weird,” she said and sighed. “You won’t join Camp Half-Blood, but you’d become a hunter or join the legion?”

            “The legion was different…”

            Thalia felt a spike of resentment tighten her chest. She knew for whom Axel wouldn’t mind compromising his beliefs. Normally it made her happy to think of Reyna finding a guy who properly cared about her…

            “And I still think being a hunter would be incredible,” he said.

            She snorted. “How long before you fell in love with Lady Artemis?”

            “With you around?” he teased. She could see the sheet tremble as the shadow of his other hand traced the cloth. Then he flinched and withdrew his hand. “Sorry. This is…” He cleared his throat. “Difficult.”

            Thalia felt her cheeks get red. “At least our wall has a hole in it.”

            “Yes, so we can plan our escape,” he said with that same hint of amusement from earlier.

            “Our super successful escape that doesn’t result in us being captured by non-combat creeps,” she grumbled. “Augh, this is just embarrassing.” Thalia checked the time again, groaned, and pressed her face against their enlaced hands.

            Axel let out a soft noise. “Thalia, don’t…”

            “Hey.”

            “Mm?”

            “It’s been thirteen minutes,” she said. While she knew time was moving faster in their section of Tartarus—or the Labyrinth?—than outside, it felt like Kronos was making each second take forever as one last middle finger to Thalia—or at least a slow moving “second” finger.

            Axel swore under his breath. She could hear him pop his cheeks, a cute, self-conscious noise. His nails dug into her hand for a tense moment, piercing her skin, before he released her and stood up. His silhouette loomed behind the sheet, the shadow of his ears perked and alert.

            “Axel?” she asked uncertainly, lifting her bow.

            “I’m going to try to get them to open that door,” he said, lowering his voice. He picked up the second half of the table—propped alongside the one they’d been leaning against—and lifted it up as a shield. Thalia flinched as a piece of their boundary line disappeared. “This is around the time they thought we’d break, and, even if they don’t believe you with Phil, Hypsi seems to think I looked at her.”

            Axel took a step forward. With the second half of the table gone and the sheet too short to touch the floor, his feet and the animalistic arches of his calves came into view. Thalia could feel her heartbeat pounding in her head. She thought about the humanoid monsters she and the other girls tracked down.

            Before she could stop herself, she asked, “Axel, do you think you could survive if a huntress hunted you as prey?”

            He stepped to the edge of the sheet and half-peered around with a devilish smile. “After we get out of here, you’ll have to find out, huntress, won’t you?” His golden eyes glistened. “I should warn though, it’s hard to force a predator to stay prey.”

            Axel began to push the sheet back and froze. One of his towels was coiled around his shoulders, the other wrapped around his waist. Now that she was looking at it, the spa garb and table-shield made him seem weirdly domesticated, like Disney decided he looked too militaristic with his lion pelt and leather skirting and replaced them with some last minute, bad CGI cover-ups. She found herself staring—as she’d struggled not to before—at the horrific scarring along his hip and that annoying V indent of muscle along his abdomen.

            Stuff Thalia might have typically observed with the same interest as a math review book, at least as a huntress. That’s what she kept reminding herself, though his presence made it difficult not to think about how attractive she’d found Luke or Apollo before she joined the Hunt.

            Axel cleared his throat, puffed up his cheeks, popped them, and looked away. The hand he had on the sheet trembled. “Tha—Lieutenant. I need your help making this sound convincing.” His voice was low as he took a difficult step away from her, towards the door.

            Thalia reflexively leaned forward. She was terrified to realize that she’d let go of her bow upon seeing him. She scooped it back up, slung her quiver over her shoulder, adjusted the towel she’d wrapped around her chest for extra coverage, and approached him as casually as possible.

            Each step felt like it came with little Huntress of Artemis chastity road signs of Danger this way! and Hot Man Ahead! Proceed with Caution and maybe speed readers that just said SLOW DOWN in place of a mph.  

            Was he having as many problems as she was? He looked so calm.[3]

            Keeping her bow between the two of them made Thalia shake with effort. This whole thing was so stupid!

            “How can I help?” she choked out.

            Axel was trying to keep his eyes on the door. His shoulder and back muscles quivered as much as his hands. He walked up to the entrance. “Assuming they open the door, we need to strike fast—”

            “Yea, I know the combat plan, Cat Breath. How can I help with Hypsi?” she hissed.

            “Stand here.” He vaguely gestured to the wall beside the door. A good tactical spot for sniping anyway.

            Thalia complied, trying her hardest not to touch him as she got into position.

            He chuckled painfully. “Normally, I don’t let emotionally compromised people go into battle.”

            She rolled her eyes. “Are you serious right now?”

            Again, Thalia told herself to wait on pummeling Axel until after the potion wore off. She had so much excess, pent-up energy, she was in perfect condition to wreck Phil and the Lemnians. Smashing people’s faces in was the perfect distraction from… this. Something to use as a strength and not to mark her as “comprised.”

            “You’re not the one I’m worried about bursting into Mayan love poetry,” Axel said.

            Thalia choked on a laugh. “You have Mayan love poetry memorized? Who are you? Apollo? Is there even that much of that?”

            Thalia pictured Axel reciting a romantic haiku and giggled.

            Axel mumble something in Mayan before saying, “Shut up.” His cheeks were bright red as he glared at the door. “Hypsi!” he called, much louder.

            “Axel!” Thalia hissed wearily. He never said what else she could do to help.

            Axel balled his fist, pressed it firmly against the doorframe closest to her, and leaned down until his head was about six inches from the door. With how he’d leaned down, if he turned to her, their faces would be at the same height. If he took one sidestep to the right, or if she ducked under his arm to tiptoe left, Axel’s arm would be positioned perfectly at the crook of her neck, and his face…   

            Thalia went silent. If her cheeks could get hotter, she was pretty sure they could melt the door down.

            While they still weren’t touching, this was the closest they had stood since taking the potion. They’d agreed to keep more distance…

            Thalia was annoyed to catch his cinnamon-chocolate scent.

            “Don’t hit me until this is all over with,” he whispered, “Me crying out in pain or being interrupted might shatter the illusion.”

            Shuffling sounded outside the door. There was some whispering. Thalia wondered what the Lemnians had been doing this whole time, though couldn’t focus on it while staring at how Axel had braced his arm.

            “What?”

            Hypsi’s voice was shaky, like she’d still been crying. If Thalia could have broken her eyes away from Axel, she’d have rolled them at the Lemnian’s tears. Sure, get really upset that a guy you tried to force to love you didn’t really love you. (Shocker.)[4]

            Axel took a deep breath. “I know… we haven’t known each other well for very long,” he said, loud enough to project through the door, but quiet enough not to blow out Thalia’s ear drums. “And I know these emotions are sudden, and that… that I shouldn’t want you, that I shouldn’t feel this way… and that they’re coming from… from magic…”

            Thalia wanted to flick Axel’s nose. Maybe she’d been out of the romantic business for a long time, but this didn’t sound the best way to woo a girl. When they got back to camp, she’d have to tell Piper and Calex to give him pointers, else he was doomed.

            Then she noticed how his eyes kept trailing to her.

            He wasn’t talking to Hypsi. Thalia swallowed. His arm was straining against the wall to keep from touching her, just like he was struggling not to keep eye contact.

            “You were right. This… is unbearable. I’m slipping. I just want to touch you, to give you the hugs you never got when you were feeling insecure or vulnerable. To remind you of how amazing you are for handling all the incredible things that you brushed off as being part of your family, or being who you are. I know you don’t need me, and you already know you’re strong, but I…”

            Axel’s voice broke.

            Thalia’s stomach felt like it decided to dive into a trampoline park without her permission.

            “Sorry,” Axel whispered to Thalia. His jaw clenched. While keeping his fist firmly against the door—as another barrier, Thalia realized—Axel leaned his head to the side, pressing his forehead to her shoulder.

            Her breath caught. Thoughts clogged to a halt. She tried to think about Artemis, about her huntresses, the wolves, the camping, the wild, Luke—she tried to think about how much it hurt to have someone she loved so much betray her and become a monster—

            She tried to remember this was one of her friends, someone Reyna had a thing for, someone she didn’t want the troops of Artemis to hunt down in vengeance and that didn’t need her death (by the hands of a vengeful goddess) on his conscience. What would she do if this were happening to a friend? Maybe one of her sister-huntresses reaching out for emotional support to get through some horrific trickery?

            Thalia awkwardly patted Axel’s shoulder, in the best, most platonic there, there motion she could muster. And to not curl against him and ask for that hug, since she definitely didn’t want or need that.

            And he’d been talking to Hypsi to get out of here. Not her.

            Thalia glanced at his wrist. They were at the fifteen minute marker. For a startled moment, she realized her eyes felt warm and wet.

            “Yes?” Hypsi said softly on the other side of the door.

            “I need out of this room right now,” Axel’s voice was still soft, but it was enlaced with an inner, threatening growl.

            Whispers erupted on the other side of the door. With how close she and Axel were, and how excited the Lemnians were talking, she could make out what they were saying.

            “Phil! Phil! It worked!”

            “I don’t know, Hypsi. What if he’s faking it like the girl?”

            “No—that’s almost verbatim how Medea’s How To pamphlet said he’d feel. I mean—yea, he knows he drank the potion, and it came with the warning of amorous side effects may vary—“

            “I don’t know…”

            “You’re just sad the girl’s potion ended up being a dud.” That was Phraxa.

            “Either that, or she just realized you’re too gross to like even with a love potion,” Hypsi’s voice was lighter, the tears were gone. She sounded hopeful.

            Maybe this would work.

            “Come on,” Phraxa continued. “The lightning rods are installed in the hallway, so the girl can’t hurt us. If he’s a Mayan sorcerer, he can’t perform magic without any fire. We’ve got the nets all set up. If they end up still rejecting us, we’ll just hack them into pieces and toss them into the river—”

            Axel punched the door, making a thud loud enough to make Thalia jump.

            “Hypsi, let me out. I can’t handle being in here any longer,” he said. The undertone of his voice took on that gravely quality.

            Hypsi giggled. “Oh! He sounds impatient!”

            “I’ll get the drill,” Phraxa said.

            Thalia guessed the noncommittal grunt came from Phil. “Okay, fine. Everyone else, stand by to decapitate a hero if they come out fighting.”

            There came a cheer from at least five or six other voices.

            The door shuddered with the sound of some power tools.

            Axel and Thalia released sighs of relief.

            He turned his head to look up at her. They should have been getting ready to rush the Lemnians. They may have been outnumbered, but both Thalia and Axel agreed these weren’t exactly primed warriors. Even if they were, they’d rather go out fighting than be captured (again).

            Ready to be decapitated? Axel mouthed, nuzzling against her shoulder. The hairs of his goatee tickled her skin, making her heart leap.

            She wanted to tease Rather that than hear your Mayan poetry, but she couldn’t bring herself to tease him. Maybe to knock his lights out for all those… nice and horrifically inappropriate things he had said (though, only to trick Hypsi, right?) but she couldn’t do that yet since she needed him conscious for this fight.

            The door gave a loud thump as it came loose from some exterior barrier. The knob jiggled.[5]

            “Oh, jaguar warrior, you locked the door,” Hypsi sang.

            Axel stood up straight, his eyes glistening with excitement. He squeezed Thalia’s shoulder and picked up his table-shield and makeshift table-leg-club.

            Thalia felt like a normal girl would be offended by how easily he’d withdrawn from her shoulder, since the love potion must have taken full effect. However, Thalia could sense the same thing he could while she prepped her bow with an arrow: beating the snot out of these jerks would be the most romantic outing either of them could possibly go on at that moment.

            Axel carefully unlocked the door. “Ready for me to take you, Hypsi?” he asked.

            Thalia could see him choke back a laugh. She did the same at the double entendre.

            What they saw when they opened the door was not what they were expecting.

            One moment, they could see Hypsi standing there—looking relatively normal in her chiton, though she was now armed with two daggers—with two people in imposing mechasuits behind her. One held a crossbow trained on the door, the other held a net gun. Phil grumpily leaned against the wall, almost out of sight, gripping a sword.

            Looking at the suits, their table-shields felt a little unprepared.

            Before the door was open enough for Axel to lunge forward, someone down the hallway screamed in alarm.

            A familiar voice let lose a crazed, boisterous laugh. “Trying to use love spells on me?”

            The person in the mechasuit with the net gun repositioned to whatever bigger threat was down the hall.

            Axel didn’t have a chance to take advantage of the distraction. A silver greyhound with ruby eyes slammed into the mechasuit, knocking Ms. Net Gun to the floor.

            Before the person with a crossbow could fire at Argentum, Thalia shot a knockout arrow at the second mechasuit. While it didn’t damage the armor, it did ruin their aim, their cross-bolt harmlessly slamming into the wall.

            The second mecha suit didn’t have a chance to reload as a golden greyhound knocked them to the floor. 

            At the same time as this onslaught, a golden bolt struck Hypsi’s shoulder from down the hall. She went rigid, noticed something, and sprinted out of sight, all while shouting, “Wait—fly! Your wings are so beautiful! Nothing could compare! My love for you, I must declare!”

            Thalia was ecstatic that Axel hadn’t burst out like that.

            Phil was half-way through drawing his sword when a tall boy with a black scarf and a red-and-black beanie nailed him over the head with one of the pink punch pitchers. The glass shattered, spilling the love potion all over Phil’s head. Before waiting to see if that was enough to take out the creepy Lemnian, Calex followed through with a solid punch to the side of Phil’s head.

            Phil crumbled onto the floor.

            Calex dusted off his hands on his Camp Half-Blood sweater and unslung his golden bow from his back. He beamed at Axel and Thalia. “Hallo! Lovely day to be seeing you in an inter-dimensional plane.”

            He poked his head back into the hall to shout, “I win! You’ve gotta get rid of this rubbish.”

            Clatters and panicked shouts came from the location.

            Reyna just sounded annoyed when she spoke back. “There’s a lot of it,” she sighed, then, louder, “Aurum, to me! Argentum, stand guard!”

            The golden greyhound took off down the hallway while the grey one stood by the door like one of the Lemnian sculpture sentinels. From the looks of it, one mechasuit wearer was unconscious and the other had crawled away.

            Calex returned his grin to them. “We had a running bet on who would find you first and who would need to find your gear. The first bloke we threatened at the front said they were in two different places.”

            Axel clapped Calex’s shoulder, beaming with—Thalia blinked—pride? Thalia suddenly felt like she was intruding on a moment where a commanding officer distinguishes a soldier for his bravery, or, really, a moment of bromance.

            “Thanks, Calex. And you used to be worried that you wouldn’t be a commendable hero.”

            Calex glanced away in pleased embarrassment, noticing Thalia. His eyes widened, and he glanced from Thalia to Axel. He took a step back, pointing between the two of them in confusion.

            Thalia felt her chest constrict again. Yea, it was taking every fiber of her being not to walk up and bump her shoulder against Axel, but it shouldn’t have been that obvious. There was no way Calex could tell—

            They were both mostly naked.

            Thalia felt her cheeks go bright red again. Another boy on the Eye Gouging to-do list.

            An understanding hit Calex, making him snap his fingers. “Ah, right. Love potion. But, how did you two—and why—?”

            The smile fell off Axel’s face. “Fix us,” he hissed with more desperation than she’d ever heard from him.

            Thalia felt dumb for forgetting who Calex’s father was.

            Calex put a hand to his beanie, examining them. “Um, I’ve never… taken away someone’s—” 

            “Do it,” Thalia snarled, taking a threatening step towards Calex. The motion brushed her shoulder against Axel’s, sending a tingling sensation down her spine. Axel went rigid.

            “Can’t you two…” Calex shrugged. “Wait it out?”

            “No!” they both said at once. If they tried that, Axel would be spouting out Mesoamerican sonnets and she’d end up killing him, since there was only so much punching he could handle once she resorted to that to avoid hugging him. And to save his self-respect, since no one should know love poetry.[6]

            Calex tentatively touched his bowstring, giving Axel a critical stare. “Aphrodite tried to seduce you, mate,” he said skeptically, “and you can’t handle a love potion?”

            Thalia was about to yell at Calex to hurry up, but paused.  “Is that why she cursed you?”

            Axel frowned. “Better story to tell when we’re not under the influence.”

            He turned back to Calex. “I hated Aphrodite, and she wasn’t a brave, beautiful punk warrior that I’d been told amazing stories about since I was fourteen,” Axel hissed. “And the Leonis Caput wanted to murder Aphrodite, not go on some weird date-hunt thing because he knows she’d be into it.”

            Thalia’s head spun, trying to gauge how old Axel was and exactly how often he had conversations with a murderous cat-creature in his head. Good reason to join the huntresses of Artemis—when all the guys you like end up being partially possessed. “Luke had been telling you stories about me since you were fourteen?” she asked.

            Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them. When the jaguar warrior blushed, Calex looked like he couldn’t decide if this was hilarious or disturbing. “Right,” Calex said, pulling back his bowstring. “Let’s shoot you two.”

            A burst of grey energy exploded to life on his bow. The volatile vortex tightened and solidified into a scarily thin, black metal arrow.

            Calex paled. Sweat broke out on his brow as he struggled to pull the bowstring to full draw. He took aim, point blank, at Axel’s heart and paused.

            Axel didn’t flinch. He kept his eyes locked on Calex’s. One of his hands slipped down to link a pinkie with Thalia’s.

            This felt wrong. Thalia suddenly wondered if they should be reversing the potions effects or if the potion just wanted her to think—

            “This is a bad idea,” Calex said, his arm shaking. “A leaden arrow might… might make you incapable of being friends. And…”

            Calex dipped his point to the floor. Slowly, he relaxed his arm. The black arrow dissipated into smoke.

            Argentum growled.

            “Calex,” Axel said in a tone similar to the greyhound.

            Thalia felt the same, wanting this over with. Not that it should matter, but the crashing down the hall had stopped.

            Calex shook his head. “We can’t have you two hating each other on this trip. Let me try something else. I think I can… hyper accelerate the effects? It might make you feel like rubbish for a bit.”

            Axel nodded. “Just… please don’t not shoot me this time.”

            This time, when Calex drew his bow, the bolt was fiery white and gold, sparking madly. There was no hesitation or struggle in Calex’s stance. This seemed natural for him. He drew his bow and immediately fired.

            Axel may have mentally prepared himself to be shot.

            Thalia hadn’t.

            The arrow split. The second half arched and struck Thalia in the chest.

            For a moment, she thought Calex’s arrow would be fatal. Because the arrow had glistened like a mirage of light, she thought it wouldn’t hurt.

            The force of the impact made Thalia stumble back. Her chest felt like someone had jammed a knife into the impact spot and twisted it to crack open her ribcage. Instead of going through her or vanishing like she thought the arrow would do, the arch of light liquefied and burrowed into the wound, like a flaming snake that wanted to fill her insides until they splintered.

            Everything shook. Thalia felt like she’d been hit with a falling anvil. Emotions stuck on fast-forward: the months of seeming isolation with the huntresses, the guilt and shame of wanting to betray Lady Artemis and abandon the way she honored Zoe, her once-tranquil solitude turning into a maelstrom of loneliness and ache, finally reaching the catharsis of getting over Luke’s treachery while crumbling under the distance between she and Axel and the fact that they could never be together and the pain of knowing he only wanted her because of some stupid love potion and what could have happened if she’d joined Luke’s side of the war and the confusion and—

            Thalia could hear Axel collaps to his knees.

            She crumbled soon after.

            Tears streamed down her cheeks. Thalia clutched at her chest, wishing she could tear the liquefied arrow out.

            “Holy Maiden Artemis,” she gasped, “Love bites.”

            From the brief glimpse she got of Calex, he had slung his bow over one shoulder, leaned against a wall, and folded his arms. “You two still want to thank me?” he asked, watching them—with some concern—withering in anguish.

            Axel had curled into a ball, but managed to withdraw one hand for a thumps up. “Thank you,” he choked out.

            Thalia nodded in begrudging agreement. She couldn’t imagine living all of that in real time.

            The pain eased. Her breathing returned to normal as did her heartbeat. When she glanced over at Axel, she no longer had that annoying butterfly feeling or empty wanting. Instead, she saw an embarrassed friend straightening out of a crouched position with as much dignity as he could muster.

            And fumbling to grab his towel when it slipped to the floor.

            Thalia was relieved that her genuine reaction was, “Axel! Gross!”

            Axel gave her a relaxed smile once he was covered. “Sorry to offend your eyes, huntress.” He stood fully and offered her a hand. “Things don’t need to be weird between us, right?”

            Thalia snorted. She glanced at Calex, who had respectfully become engrossed looking down the hallway. She took Axel’s hand—glad again that it felt no different from taking that of a huntress—and said, “Just don’t tell anyone I gave you CPR, and we’re good.”

            Axel blinked as he helped her to her feet. “You gave me CPR?”

            Thalia scowled, feeling her cheeks redden form embarrassment that had nothing to do with the potion. He was joking, right? “You didn’t know!? Between the drowning and the electric shock—why do you think I’ve been calling you Cat Breath all day!”

            After Hypsi and the others completely disarmed them, Thalia hadn’t trusted Hypsi or the others to touch Axel and her electrical surge was what made him need CPR. But—she thought he’d politely pretended not to remember.

            “Is… my breath that bad?” Axel asked, cupping a hand over his mouth to check. He frowned self-consciously.

            Thalia remembered his soft scent of spices and chocolate, but she wasn’t about to admit to that, especially after the day’s events. “Yes,” she said firmly.

            “Leonis Caput, you need a tracking device on your clothing,” someone said from the doorway.

            Thalia jumped when Reyna jammed Axel’s clothing, lion pelt, and weapons into his arms. He startled.

            Reyna turned to Thalia. “Huntress,” she greeted, offering Thalia her clothing and weapons in a much gentler fashion. Aurum trotted up, proudly shouldering their supplies packs.

            There was no anger in Reyna’s voice, but, from the scarily controlled tone and hardened expression, Thalia suspected Reyna knew everything that happened, or Reyna thought she did.

            Thalia took a deep breath. Reyna wasn’t an idiot. If Thalia judged her humor correctly…

            “I had to give Axel CPR because he got his ass kicked by a slime pup. Would you say Cat Breath is an appropriate nickname for him?”

            A terrified moment of silence passed, but Thalia knew Reyna was awesome. There was no way—

            Reyna’ face cracked into an appreciative smile. She looked relieved.

            Axel looked mortified, clutching his towel to himself as Calex choked back a laugh. “I—um—”

            “Get dressed, Cat Breath,” Reyna commanded. “We need to make up time in our hunt for Euna.”

            “I—” Axel started.

            Calex patted the stunned boy’s arm, then dragged him out the hallway to find a different changing room. “Looks like you’ve got a new name for the rest of the trip. Let’s see if it catches on the surface world.”

                The moral of this story is, don’t consume food or drink from strangers in their creepy Grecian bathhouses. Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

So many footnotes!

[1] Jack disclaimer: Depends on your concert. Metal heads? Utter gentlemen and gentleladies that know how to have a good brawl. Punk concerts? Prepare to be punched in the dick.

[2] Mel immediately called out what play-within-a-play this is referencing. Our conversation, “A lion keeping them apart.” “Despite wanting to be lying on each other!” Pax *cry laughing* Jack *applauds Mel’s pun*

[3] MelBetaComment: “Just don’t look too far down.”

Jack: *ehem* “I can neither confirm or deny Mel’s assumption until I’m several oceans away from a certain Mayan warrior.”

[4] I’d like to think, “Shocker” is one of Thalia’s favorite expressions.

[5] Definitely wrote “the door knob giggled” in my original draft. Mel took it literally and was quite confused.

[6] False. Jack should know love poetry *wink*

Chapter Text

Note: For those of you who saw missed my derpiness, I posted Sadie's first chapter (10?) reallllllly late. I'm sorry about that! I would suggest reading it though (if you haven't) before you dive into this one! As always, thanks for reading!

            Sadie here. I feel like Jack must’ve made you knackered with that obtuse side story.

Jack is offended and says it is a Homeric style prose and a tribute to Percy Jackson’s early epic tale before the Romans got involved. Huh. I must have missed why that was important while reading my Egyptian Mythology is Better memo.

            I needed to have a serious chat with my cat before we jumped off a metal dragon and into a swirling vortex of sand.

            Ah, yes. That was a fun part of the story: Leo had “fixed” the silver, scaly monstrosity that I had almost used as a landing mat earlier.

            “Eh, ‘fixed’ enough that she won’t be homicidal for another like… thirty minutes,” he said with a shrug. “Felix is a little temperamental. You know dragons.”

            “At Brooklyn House, we’re lucky if our resident griffin didn’t go homicidal every thirty seconds, so I like those chances,” I said.

            Jason looked at us like we were both mental. “Or we could take public transportation or pegusi.”

            Leo and I both scoffed at him.

            “Bro, where is your adventuring soul?” Leo asked and clapped the larger boy’s shoulder.

            “Back by the word ‘homicidal,’” Jason sighed.

            “Come now, it’ll be a bit more discrete tailing Merry’s taxi in a dragon than public transportation,” I teased. “And I don’t fancy learning to ride a pegasus on the fly.”

            “As opposed to on the ground?” Leo asked, his eyes darting to me. He really did look like a madman with all that nervous energy.

            I enjoyed this crazy elf. What was sad though—I wasn’t being sarcastic about dragon stealth: it would be harder to see us coming after Merry in the air. The magic that kept the mortal and immortal separate—I think the Greeks call it the Mist?—would do what it could to mask our scaly flight.

            We knew we couldn’t follow Merry all the way in, but we wanted to make sure the daughter of Dionysus got to the right general area without excess mischief from Eris. I was a bit disappointed to hear her cabbie wasn’t a Greek god of dwarves. (If there is a Greek god of dwarves, I’m sure he’s the best Greek god.) Without such protection, Jason, Leo, and I agreed it best to escort Merry into New York City, then we could veer off towards Cleopatra’s Needle, one of the closest portals to hop to Arizona. A tad roundabout, but I enjoyed going back towards my home turf in Brooklyn.

            And, I enjoyed the image of little children in the city, pointing at the dragon like, “Oh look! A parade balloon that could absolutely murder us! Cheers!”

            Unfortunately, Leo vetoed my idea of hooking up a chariot to Felix’s back for our ride. “Unless you like crash landings taken to a whole new level.”

            Instead, we hopped directly on the silver monster’s back and we were off.

            And I do mean off. Shockingly, I found myself missing Freak, our resident griffin, for providing such a smooth ride, and if his name doesn’t indicate enough, his rides are not smooth.

            “Right, one of you chaps balance me. I don’t fancy almost tumbling to my death twice in one day, thank you,” I said, concentrating on my Duat storage locker. The Duat was like a deeper version of reality, a swirling mess of magic underneath our swirling mess of not-magic. When I concentrated, I could pull out things that I had stored inside.[1] 

            Leo’s maniac laughter whistled as the breeze blew my hair around. Jason sat in the very back, doing some bit of fancy wind-Shu magic to keep us from freezing under the icy battery. Leo whispered something into the dragon’s ear—Do automaton dragons have ears? Or just little holes with microphone inputs?—and gave Jason a thumps up over my shoulder. Leo asked, “You’re not feeling too winded are you?”

            Really, Leo must have made those jokes all the time. The son of Jupiter didn’t flinch. “I can keep us from dying if she bucks,” Jason said.

            Bucking dragons. Add that to a sideshow attraction.

            As they talked, I realized that I really needed to clean out my Duat locker. There were empty bags of chips and failed homework assignments and—was that some fungus that would make a petri dish squirm? I dug deeper, wondering how stupid my hand miming would look to the boys.

            Leo seemed assured that Felix wouldn’t go haywire if Leo helped me, or at least Jason could make it so they wouldn’t die if Felix did. In the normal layer of reality, I could see Leo turn to face me, grinning like a lunatic with his goggles covering his eyes for wind resistance. This was how he was supposed to exist: flying in the sky, littering jigsaws and hydraulic pumps to all the blacksmiths and mechanics lucky enough not to be crushed by them. A grease monkey Santa.

            He slid past and behind me to wrap an arm around my waist for stability. This was only for business, naturally, but I would have to apologize to Walt and Anubis later. Would dead and death-god boys be the jealous type?[2]

            “Stability? I thought you liked skydiving, oh daughter of Graceful Entrances,” he teased.

            I found my bowl and thermos and withdrew them. Yep! A thermos. Just screams “Egyptian magic,” doesn’t it?

            “Sorry! I’m going to need you to hold that thought while I make a call.” This probably wasn’t the smartest form of communication, considering I would need to balance this bowl and its sloshing liquids on a dragon flying at least half a mile over New York, but I’d done worse.

            “Wow!” Leo said, “Where did you get that stuff from? Do you have a magic tool belt too? Does it function the same?”

            The magic tool belt would explain where he was getting lots of mischievous bits. “I’m not sure. I’ll have to dip my vision into the Duat and check out your belt when all this is over,”
 I called over my shoulder as I set up my scrying bowl. Even with Jason’s magic preventing the winds from biting us too deep, my fingers were shaking and I can’t pretend I didn’t appreciate Leo’s warmth on my back.

            “Jeez, forward much, aren’t you, lady?” he asked with a laugh.

`           “Leo,” Jason said in a warning tone.

            Leo’s laugh cut off. I could feel his humor die.

            “Your older deity-girlfriend the jealous type?” I asked sympathetically, remembering his comment about having a girlfriend at camp. “She wouldn’t want you joking with little ol’ me?”

            Leo sighed. “Yea.”

            I felt a pang of camaraderie in my chest. It wasn’t everyday you met someone else that suffered the difficulty of dating godly perfection. After all this was over, I decided Leo and I would have to swap stories.

            Before I could suggest it, an image appeared in the trembling, black oil of my scrying bowl that I wasn’t expecting.

            “Auck, this isn’t milk,” a female growled.

            “Bast!” I cried for joy. I hadn’t talked to my cat in ages! Well, not literally ages since that was possible being a magician and all, but it had been an awfully long time.

            “Oh, Sadie, my little kit,” she cooed.

            In the violent ripples, I could almost make out the form of a woman with sharp features, golden eyes, and black hair. Although the image wasn’t clear enough to see her expression, I could imagine her amused smile. I choked back some tears, not wanting to break down in front of the commander or the son of Jupiter.

            “Oh Bast, it is good to see you,” I said, struggling to remember why I called. The icy breeze and bobbing dragon helped. “I was expecting a much uglier face.”

            That might sound awfully rude to you, as it should, but Bes, my lovely dwarf god, was mighty proud of his hideousness. And Bes promised he could come back to the mortal world more often than the other gods…

            “Ah, yes.” Bast sounded almost embarrassed. “I agreed to take all of Bes and Tawarit’s calls and prayers while they were on vacation. Sort through offerings. Water some of his best outfits to make them moldier for battle. The usual kind of Duat keeping. I owe it to Bes and Tawarit for… lost time on my part.”

            I held back a smile for the happy couple. “So they’re on holiday, then.”

            Bast must have nodded. “He and his… honeycakes have a millennia of catching up to do. But, I doubt you called to hear such stories.”

            I absolutely would have had I known it an option.

            “Sadie,” Bast chided. “What are you doing with an imp? I thought Anubis was allowed to stay in the mortal world to be your tomcat.”

            Leo leaned slightly over my shoulder as much as the short demigod could. He waved a hand, making me wonder how we were staying stable on Felix. “Sup,” he greeted. “Don’t worry. I’m taken by a Titan sorceress. And Jason’s got a beauty queen as a girlfriend.”

            Leo must have pointed behind us.

            Jason grunted in irritation.

            Bast made a purring sound.

            This was getting off topic. “Bast,” I said, frowning. “Their home is in danger. It’s like Brooklyn House, but for Greek demigods, a place called Camp Half-Blood.”

            “Chiron’s camp for heroes,” Bast said. She didn’t sound happy about it or particularly surprised. These gods had an annoying knack of leaving out vital information.

            “Right, well that saves a lot of time. I don’t suppose that couldn’t have come with the How to be a Magician pamphlet? That Egyptian mythology is real, as is Greek, right beside the column on the existence of monsters and SpongeBob Bloody SquarePants.” I couldn’t help the bitterness from seeping into my voice.

            “Sadie.” I could hear her frown. “You know why we couldn’t tell you… What god is this SquarePants?”

            I ignored that last bit.

            Bast was right, of course. As per my usual brilliant nature, I handled the existence of the Greek gods with fair ease when I discovered them. Why not? At least the Greeks weren’t animal headed. But, had I found out at the same time as Egyptian mythology, when my father was locked in a sarcophagus by a god of chaos…

            Leo was saying, “—and he hangs out with a starfish—”

            I cut into Leo’s explanation of sea sponges. “Location,” I demanded from the boys.

            Jason, though sounding wary, said, “Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141, Long Island. Only for assistance, of course.”

            “Thanks, Superman,” I said before returning my attention back to the rippling bowl. “They’re going to be under some heavy battery and I’m not sure the three of us—”

            The dragon dipped slightly and my bowl almost toppled. Leo managed to balance it with little more than a few milliliters of liquid spilling out.

            “Bad manners,” Leo said. “Felix has feelings too you know.”

            I sighed. “Four of us will make it back before sundown, when they’ll be invaded. I was going to see if Bes—or, I guess you—could do me a favor and check up on the camp around then. You know, just to see if there are any campers on fire or anything.”

            “Would you like me to set them on fire if they aren’t?” she asked.

            “Erm, no. Not setting them on fire would be good. Helping them would be best.”

            I could feel Leo’s discomfort and Jason’s regret at giving her the address.

            “Yea, misbehaving Egyptian gods will be attacked by harpies,” Leo said to Bast. In my ear, he whispered, “Is your talking bowl really going to help everyone back at camp? Or are we going to have a psycho cat lady on the loose?”

            I elbowed him.

            “Mmmm, harpies,” Bast said. I could tell she was licking her lips. “I haven’t eaten a harpy since—well, never mind that now. We’re really not supposed leave the Duat currently, especially not to infiltrate—”

            “Help.”

            “—a Greek encampment. Egyptians and Greeks haven’t always gotten along. It would be obvious if I left with Muffin and I’m not sure if I would be allowed inside unless invited, similar to Brooklyn House; however… if you could have a host waiting there to invite me in…”

            “Do you have any cats at camp?” I asked the two boys.

            I could feel Leo shrug. “Fresh out of cats.”

            “Right,” I said, “So we need to mail order a cat to the camp from one of the local farms. Shouldn’t be hard.”

            “Uh, I wouldn’t. Delivery guys tend to get lost,” Jason warned.

            I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed. Bes could transport into the mortal world so easily. I forgot Bast had more restrictions.

            Bast must have noticed my discouragement. “You must understand, Sadie. I want to help you and your friends. I always love a good battle, but I must be careful how I pussyfoot around Ra. I’ll keep my eyes and ears on Camp Half-Blood. If they’re in need and you get a cat on the premise, I’ll be sure to help.”

            Felix banked hard on a current of wind. The bowl popped out of my hands and tumbled off the dragon’s back, continents spilling as it fell. I really hoped it would harmlessly hit the pavement instead of shattering on a pedestrian so the poor bloke would have to write Death By Flying Bowl on their tombstone.  

            “Pussyfoot?” Leo asked.

            “She chats like that. Meant to be completely unironic,” I said.

            “She’s not going to attack the camp, right?” Jason reaffirmed.

            If there was one thing I knew about my Muffin, it was that she’d do whatever she wanted. But Bast was a brave warrior and would always help a friend. “As long as Camp Half-Blood doesn’t attack her.”

            I suddenly wished I still had my scrying bowl to send a quick Excuse me. Percy, dear, could you be a good boy and not kill my cat?

            “So, I’m going to assume your communication device lacks any kind of circuits or wings..?” Leo asked, glancing where it fell.

            “No, we sort of do things old school and I forgot to make adjustments with shabti aviation abilities,” I said.

            “Ah, that’s cool. I dig antiques,” Leo said.

            Jason sighed.

            After that, we spent the rest of the trip explaining the whole Egyptian Magician thing. I’d say that they handled it well. No one jumped screaming off the dragon (not yet anyway) and none of their heads exploded quite the way Annabeth’s did.

            [Jack says this is an amusing metaphor because of what happened to Annabeth’s mother. What—did her head explode? Her grandfather’s head? Huh, and I thought baboons playing basketball was odd.][3]

            When the streets below became overcrowded with cars and pavement, I became nostalgic for London and Brooklyn House. Sure: a camp in the middle of an abandoned farm lot with an old man supervising a bunch of preteens without any real restrictions was grand and all, but I rather found myself—shock and abhor—missing the madness of the Nomes in comparison to the rural countryside.  

            Once we were far enough into the city, but still a few minutes walk from the Cathedral, Sam’s taxi-van pulled off to the side of the road, earning a cacophony of honks that added to New York’s midday din. For a moment, I feared we’d mixed it up with the other cabbie-vans and some poor bloke was panicking about a dark shadow following him since Long Island.

            Then, Merry poked out of the van to wave us on. Or, at this distance, she might have been doing the hokey-pokey. Jason and Leo said either was equally possibly with the daughter of Dionysus.

            With little more than a wave back, we continued forward. Leo and Jason’s attitudes turned grim and I had to wonder what her part of the plan was, considering it was just her and a mortal. (Though, mortals can be quite useful. My mates, Emma and Liz, are quick to help in a fight.)

            The rest of our flight to Cleopatra’s Needle was uneventful. Cleopatra’s Needle is an Egyptian obelisk displayed in Central Park. Compared to all the other tall buildings in the area, this ancient monument looked pathetic and small, though Carter blabs on that it was quite impressive to the ancient Egyptians. Since this is a set of three and one is in London and one is in Paris, it is an excellent anchor point for holiday.

            Each time I go there, I can’t help but think about how my mother died freeing Bast from her imprisonment. Cheerful thought.

            “You blokes ready?” Sadie asked.

            I have to give Commander Leo and Jason credit: they jumped into a winding sand vortex with minimal fuss.

            Unfortunately, Felix did not.

            Leo later explained that the sand would have destroyed her gears and pistons and bla-bla-bla-robot parts. At the time, he was too busy cursing and shrieking in Spanish and Greek—Spreek? Granish? Augh, no easy combo for those two unless you’re a griffin or a farmer—as we spit onto the other side of a portal, dragonless.

            Had Jason not acted immediately, we likely would have broken a few bones. Not because I dropped us several meters up—no, I was paying better attention this time, despite being bucked from an unruly giant lizard into a sand vortex. We only fell about two meters. However, instead of landing on soft sand, we crashed onto pavement.

            A gentle burst of wind prevented us from making the impact terminal.

            Leo still provided some elegant Hispanic poetry about our descent before snapping, “Listen, Combat Hermione, you cannot force us to join the skydive party without a warning.”

            Jason asked the more relevant question while glancing around the desert of Phoenix. “How is there… a pyramid here?”

            I couldn’t answer either of them initially. Hopping up from 4 degrees Celsius to 20 degrees and going from the shadowed gloom of New York to the blinding radiance of a mid-day desert can completely bollix your head. I blinked a few times before I could sort out my surroundings.

            About a meter behind us, there was a small, white pyramid, only six meters tall, but a pyramid nonetheless. The rocky geographic formation behind the pyramid looked like a glorious pile of camel dung. Really, if you’re going to build a place of rest, at least assure the surrounding landscape is pleasant, like by a lovely resort or beautiful river, not something that looks like the collateral from Hindenburg (Walt’s amulet camel) after sneaking 17,000 burgers.

            On the other side, the desert expanded into red nothingness with blots of stubborn shrubbery.

            There was a wrought iron fence encasing the pyramid. A black, engraved door to the pyramid read The Entombment of George W. P. Hunt and some other nonsense about pioneers and statesmen.

            “A popular politician decided he wanted to bury his wife Egyptian-style and followed suit after,” I explained, struggling to keep the grin off my face. I loved crazy Americans.

            “And… that works? As an official portal?” Jason asked.

            Before I could educate Jason and Leo on the intricacies of how a pyramid derives its power from its shape, the quest took a turn exactly as you’d expect it to: poorly.

            “TAS!”

            That was one of my least favorite words to hear someone else say.

            As ribbon snaked around my mouth, I muffled out a scream, but my spell didn’t take effect. A red hieroglyph burned above me in the air. The ribbon expanded, squishing my wand and staff against my body until I was nothing more than a Sadie cocoon that flopped back onto the pavement.

            Jason reached for the gladius at his side only to have a bolt of red lightning smash right into his chest.

            The son of Jupiter blasted backwards, through the iron gate, and into the desert landscape beyond the pyramid, like a little shooting star across a red cosmos.

            I’m not sure what I was expecting from him. I suppose I thought he could use the lightning to reenergize or something, and laugh it off like a cocky superhero, and not get eviscerated in the first few seconds of combat.

            A half a second later, while Leo withdrew a sledgehammer from his tool belt, a bolt nailed Leo. Not a lightning bolt. Your typical, pointy, stabby kind.

            Leo yelled and clutched at a wooden shaft now sticking out of his shoulder. A split second later, the bolt ignited into a miniature explosion of flames.

            One thing was clear: someone knew we were coming.

            When I looked to the origin of the spell, a mirage shifted in the corner of the fence. Red sand trickled to the pavement, melting away an illusion to reveal a girl—not much older than me—standing there. In one hand, she held an Egyptian-style axe pointed to where Jason had been blasted into next week. The other held a crossbow—now reloaded—aimed at Leo.

            Although he’d patted out the flames on his shoulder, blood spilled between Leo fingers where he gripped his smoldering shirt. Demigod Leo: Fireproof. Not piercing proof.

            “Watch it, lady!” he snarled.

            Admittedly, I liked our enemy’s style far more than our previous villain, Setne. Setne just looked like a creep. This person—she—or he? I wasn’t quite sure now—wore a button down burgundy shirt with a punk style, sleeveless vest overtop. The shirt sleeves were rolled up to show off the glint of golden, hieroglyph engraved bangles, and likely because it was bloody hot. Her hair poofed out into a blue-streaked mohawk.

            [No, Carter, I didn’t miss the irony that she had the color of Ma’at and Order in her hair and I had a shade of Chaos.]

            The magician glowered at Leo. “Holy Hun-Batz. It’s ‘sir’ to you,” he said in a voice that could be that of a preteen boy or girl with a lower pitch.

            When his gaze turned to me, the malice in those dark, kohl-encircled eyes looked familiar. “Sadie Kane.” This time, a second voice, the deep thrum of a man’s voice, could be heard enlaced with the first. “Long time no see.”

Footnotes:

[1] Mel Betacomment: “So, what you’re saying is, Riordan has Merry Poppins purses everywhere?”

Jack’s response, “Yea. Didn’t you know she was a magician?”

[2] Judging by Nico….

Though Anubis and Walt certainly got over each other real fast. Anyone else find that a tad bit weird?

[3] So, it got too wordy for the sentence, but her original comparison was: “And I thought it was weird that Isis had to temporarily resurrect her dead husband and imbue him with a magical golden phallus to conceive Horace. Yes. It is as gross as it sounds. Osiris was cut into tiny bits and she was able to find all of him except—er—It was a rubbish time for everyone and she had to improvise to defeat Set. Things you don’t want to remember when you meld heads with someone”

Jack the author’s comment: Yes, this is a real thing. Osiris, in mythology, has a gold dick.

Chapter Text

            The god, Set, took a step toward us.

            I had several choice words that I wanted to share with Carter’s and my old frienemy. Unfortunately, all I could do was go “MMMM!” and feel far more sympathetic to mummies than anyone ever should feel, Egyptian or otherwise. I squirmed in my wrapping but I knew it was useless.

            “Oh, I do suppose you’d like your mouth back, wouldn’t you?” Set asked in that uncomfortable double voice. Set—or really, the boy that Set was possessing—smiled wickedly as his dark eyes shared a knowing look with Leo. “She’s such an amusing chatter.”

            I appreciated that Leo attacked Set instead of agreeing with him. I didn’t appreciate that the demigod must have forgotten everything I told him on the flight over: Leo held a hand up and blasted a stream of fire at the god of disorder and storms that could control fire.

            As the flames enveloped the leather vest and burgundy dress shirt, Set laughed. “Oh, that tickles!”

            In retaliation, Set did something I wasn’t expecting. He bit his Egyptian battleaxe. A trickle of blood dripped down the boy’s chin as he spit the concoction of body fluids at the stream of flames. Gross and, I thought, ineffective.

            “K’aak’t; Elel chi’bal!” the first, high-pitched voice of the boy hissed.[1]

            My ears popped, like I was in Ra’s sun boat when it decided to take a nosedive off a waterfall.

            The flames touching Set rippled from orange to a vibrant, whirling turquoise. The effect started to spread—well—like a wild fire, infecting Leo’s flame until the attack reversed course and overtook Leo’s hand.

            Leo shrieked, his eyes widening with panic and disbelief. He dropped the sledgehammer in his other hand and slapped at his arm. “Ay! Oh—ow! Ow! Oh! Fire hot!”

            That wasn’t a standard Set move. And trust me, I knew Set, down to his secret name.

            I rolled my eyes. If I wasn’t in these blasted wrappings, I would have pat Leo’s back and said, “Ah, yes, fire is hot.”

            But then, I remembered why Leo had come: he was fireproof. Leo’s next comment drove the point home. “This is what burning feels like!?!” he yelped.

            “Nicely done, little Lapis,” Set bellowed with laughter.

            Lapis must have been the name of Set’s host body. Anytime Isis took over my head, we communicated through our weird mental bond, like polite members of society. Leave it to Set to be bombastic about it.

            From my memory of our homicidal enemy, he wasn’t the type to let a host talk, let alone compliment them sincerely. Uncle Amos was the most powerful magician in the world and he still struggled to control Set when they shared power.

            “Dude, not cool on the weird fire,” Leo said, glaring fiercely and nursing the scorch marks on his hand. “How did you burn me? The only flames that can burn Admiral Leo are the flames of love.”

            I wanted to ask Set the same question—about the flames, not about his love life—but all I could do was go “MMMM!” still and do my best attempts at the worm dance move.

            Despite discovering a new weakness, I had to give Leo some credit: his eyes were scanning our surroundings like he was examining the blueprints of a car, looking for something to help us.

            From what I understood of Leo’s powers, he needed to be near machinery to be properly useful. He had the tools in his belt, but there weren’t a lot of machines around. Meanwhile, as Leo had summed up from my lecture on the flight over, the desert was like a Cookie Mart of Evil for jerks like Set. If it came down to a Leo versus Set fight, Set was in his element.

            “Oh.” Set waved a hand. “As I learned from some of the other gods that played with Sadie’s friends, you can become much more versatile when you intermix and play nice with others. I may not fully understand the methods for illusion and alteration, but Lapis is quite the Mayan sorceress.”

            His face contorted into a scowl and his posture altered to shift his weight onto one foot. “Sorcerer, you over-inflated ball of hot air!” the boy snarled to himself. 

            This god-to-host-chat was weird and complicated to follow.

            Leo glanced down at me for answers. As my most valuable skill had been taken away from me—my ability to be a brilliant orator—I furiously nodded towards Set, wishing Leo and I had some telepathic link to chat.

            From Leo’s immediate understanding, he must have fought plenty of big-and-tough guys before. Or actually had telepathy.

            “Sadie said you’re supposed to be in the Duat!” Leo protested. He understood: when in doubt, keep the arrogant megalomaniacs talking.

            Lapis’ weight shifted back to two feet to indicate Set had regained control. His vocalpitch dropped. “A god of chaos ignoring the rules? Tsk, Sadie Kane.” Those darks eyes peered down at me with amusement. “I thought we were closer than that. You know there is so much fun to be had in the mortal world.”     

            Something seemed off. The thick rings of charcoal around the boy’s eyes and the wild wideness of them, as though startled, reminded me of someone, and not Set.

            I’ve made a lot of people miffed in my life—I’m quite skilled at it actually—and I found myself wondering where I knew this young magician from. Set had said, “Long time no see.” Maybe that wasn’t just Set talking.

            “What are you doing here?” Leo asked. “A god of deserts and storms in a desert without a storm, beating up tiny demigods. Sounds suspicious.”

            Set belted out a boisterous laugh. “I would never miss one of Eris’s parties! Oh, does that Greek know how to party!” He twirled the Egyptian battle axe in one hand like a staff and pointed it at the unfortunate pile of rocks nearby. “I heard we’re going to execrate a goddess of day and I’ll get to feed off her dying powers. I do love a good picnic on a nice day.”

            “You hid Hemera in Camel Dung Mountain?” Leo asked.

            Either Leo was going to keep surprising me with how much we thought alike, or he really was telepathic. Considering how often I thought about Walt playing basketball shirtless, I was uncomfortable with the latter possibility.

            Set folded his arms and pouted. “It does not look like that.”

            “It really does,” Leo countered.

            “It’s a beautiful desert feature.”

            “Of camel dung.”

            Set glanced down at me again. “Really, Sadie, your friends are so rude. Let’s give you one chance to speak up for them, and if you go to cast a spell, I’ll spill sand into your lungs so fast, you won’t be able to say the word, ‘asphyxiate.’”

            To my surprise, he snapped his fingers. The wrappings shrank away from my mouth. It took every milliliter of my willpower to avoid saying something about camel dung. Instead, I said, “Lapis! Set is using you. He always uses people and will take full control of their bodies at the first chance. Fight him!”

            A devilish half-smile slid onto Set’s countenance. In a two-toned voice, they said, “What makes you think I can’t be a team player?”

            “Um, because you’re Set, god of evil and rockin’ red reaping and white pawn-eating. Remember the whole ‘I don’t do second-in-command’ thing you said to Menshikov?” I said, though my voice seemed to be losing conviction. Funny when that happens.

            Set waved his hand.

            The boy shifted his weight back onto one foot, signaling Lapis was in control. He glared with those terrifying, startled eyes. “Arrogant, rule-poppin’ Kanes think only your stupid family and initiates can come to equilibrium with a god. I mean, Holy Hun-Batz, how many times did that lie-mongering snake, Isis, tempt you to backstab the Sun God and put your brother and Horus on the throne? You don’t think she’d try to take over if she thought she could?” 

            I was rather offended. My initiates may have followed Ma’at and order, but we were quite a mischievous bunch and I wanted to defend our willingness to break rules, not “pop” them like Tic Tacs. Well, except Carter. [Sorry, my dear brother, you’re quite hopeless in the rule-breaking department.]

            On account of Isis, I couldn’t do much to defend her. She, ehem, wasn’t always the most loyal to Ra, having once poisoned him and all that.

            “See?” this time, Set spoke. “I’m rather fond of this little Pax child. Lapis occasionally lets me filet people. A much more enjoyable host than your Uncle Amos.”

            Lapis’ voice resurfaced, fluidly slipping away from Set. I was quite appalled. No one could get along with the god of evil so well and not be evil themselves.  “And I had real reason to be here, before that double-crossing Ajaxamamma neglected to protect Tuft Ears or Ajaxapax against Ares.” Lapis kicked at the ground in anger. A mini swirl of red sand whirled up from his foot and spiraled away in a tiny dust storm. If any ants were about, they would surely need to sound the alarm for a tornado warning. 

            “This is getting confusing. Can you please stop with the voice alteration and the nicknames?” Leo asked.

            Lapis scowled down as though he hadn’t heard him. “I just want the Paxes to stick together and maybe kill that tree-romping hippie, Euna. Now, Tuft Ears and Ajaxapax are fucked up and my littlest brother, Dart Face, is well on his way to becoming a sociopathic baby killer.”

            “Yea, you’re setting a great example for him,” Leo said. He took a small step towards my cocoon. I wondered if he had some kind of mythical blowtorch that could cut me out of here without making a roasted Sadie dog.

            Lapis half-heartedly pointed his crossbow at my cocoon and said, “I wanted to meet the stupid person whose cursed, dead-boy boyfriend killed my mom, but Ms. Kane Swaddles is a bit underwhelming in person.”

            To be clear, I am quite impressive, but presentation is a bit difficult when you’re rolled up like a burrito. 

            But, dead-boy boyfriend? That was clearly in reference to Walt and Anubis, unless there were a lot of other dead-boy boyfriends running around. [Jack wanted me to clarify that I was not talking about a bloke named Nico Di Angelo. Apparently the Greeks do have their own supply.]

            “Your mum?” I asked, baffled.

             Lapis’ startled eyes fell onto me. Looking more exhausted than angry, he said, “Sarah Jacobi.” 

            For an instant, I didn’t understand. Lapis’ skin was chocolaty, so much that I would think him a pale African or a tanned islander. To my disgust, I realized my moment of hesitation was the same one people experienced when they saw me with my Dad and brother, because I was so pale and my brother and father were so dark. All those times people thought I couldn’t be related to them. And here I was. I had no idea what her father looked like, but, just because Sarah Jacobi’s skin was milky pale didn’t mean that wasn’t this boy’s mother.

            Shame choked me.

            During the battle in the First Nome, Walt had mummified Jacobi while she was alive and dragged her into the Underworld. But Jacobi had a child? Someone had loved that schizophrenic Wicked Witch of the West enough to have a baby with her?

            Jacobi would have killed me if Walt hadn’t stopped her, but knowing we’d left someone motherless, like I had been motherless, didn’t settle well in my stomach.

            Lapis’ startling eyes were just like hers and I could almost hear Jacobi’s laugh, like metal scrapping through sand. Try to imagine that as a lullaby. No wonder Lapis was a bit mental.

            “Yep,” Leo said, “That’s another name that means nothing to me.” He sidestepped close enough that he could have nudged me with his foot.

            “Sorry,” I said, suddenly unsure of what to say.

            Lapis didn’t look mad at me. Just frustrated with the situation. Although I didn’t know much about it, from what he was saying and what I had gathered from Leo and Jason, he and his siblings lost a lot in the last few months. Weirdly, I found myself feeling sorry for this crazy bloke.

            “You know, rule-poppers—“

            “I am NOT a rule-popper!” I snapped, unable to take that slander any longer.

            “—I don’t even care about this Hemera or any of Eris’ stupid ‘not’ plans anymore,” Lapis muttered, almost to himself. His gaze peered through me, and I had a feeling he wasn’t peeking into the Duat.

            “Then maybe you could not try to kill us, Desert Dude?” Leo suggested. He was right beside me now, two fingers in his toolbelt, hopefully looking for a magical jigsaw to get me out of these stupid restraints.

            Lapis’ expression went blank. He studied us.

            Gods of Egypt, could something that simple have actually worked?

            Then Set took back over. “I have a splendid alternative. See, Lapis did promise I’d get a chance at eating the power of a primordial goddess.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let’s have a fun little gamble. If you can survive me for five minutes and get Hemera, then—ta da!—you win. We’ll even get you a ride to the closest active portal.”

            “Do we need that?” Leo asked, glanced down at me.

            “Em… I may have forgotten to mention that portals have a twelve hour cool down period,” I admitted, a minor overlook. Though there must have been another portal somewhere nearby. Everyone was so obsessed with Egyptian artifacts, I never worried about there being an obelisk or pyramid in proximity, even if it was just an oddly shaped ice cream truck.

            “And if we lose?” I asked.

            “Why, I get to rip you limb-from-limb of course,” Set said with a good-natured laugh. “Lapis can execrate Hemera and I’ll get to feed off her power as the goddess fades to nothing.”

            “So, you’ll try to dismember us either way?” Leo asked.

            “Exactly!” Set exclaimed.

            Leo knelt down beside me.  The wind kicked up sand around us, like a storm was approaching. I had an uncomfortable feeling that Leo and I would not be able to stall much longer.

            “You know why you Egyptian gods are just like Greek ones?” Leo asked, the Latino elf’s face crunching into a grin.

            Set smirked, putting his hands on his hips. He licked his lips, like he was considering switching Leo’s and my head like the tops of canopic jars. “We both have gambling problems?”

            Leo’s grin turned smug.

            “You both like to talk too much.”

            By now, the wind was whipping Leo’s hair all about his eyes and kicking sand into my nostrils. I assumed Set was getting ready to obliterate us, but Leo must have known what was about to happen instead.

            A tornado blasted horizontally through the broken section of the iron fence. Had I been a mortal, I might have thought it hit Set. Instead, through the swirls of dust and sand, I could see Jason Grace propelled at the end. His fist slugged Set’s face.

            Set flew backwards, knocking another hole through the iron fence on the other side. A whirl of red sand followed him. The crossbow clattered away. He skidded to a stop with one knee in the sand, the other leg posed to rise. From the expression, I guessed Lapis was the one glaring at Jason’s hovering form.

            Lapis wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. He smirked. “You’re mine, Pretty Boy.”

            The red sand around him thickened, until there was a swirling vortex of desert, debris, red sparks, and smatters of flame encasing the magician: Set’s combat avatar. Although I could barely make out the image of Lapis’s hands, he twirled the Egyptian battle axe around him.

            “Go get Hemera,” Jason ordered, scowling.

            The son of Jupiter didn’t have to tell us twice.

            Leo scrambled to heft me up into his arms as Set’s spitting red storm thundered into Jason’s white tornado.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D

Footnote:

[1] “Roast the fire; burn with pain.”

Chapter Text

Twenty-One: Sadie

I Go to Press the Big Red Button

            For looking as unimposing as Leo did, the bloke was due more credit than I’d originally given him. He threw me over his shoulder and bolted towards Mount Camel Dung faster than a shabti would try to kill its master if it had all its appendages. Maybe those demigod genes gave him a natural, muscular edge. Maybe it was lugging all the metal to build homicidal, giant lizards.

            Either way, I owed the son of Hephaestus an apology for assuming he wasn’t as strong as his friends.

            Lightning exploded behind us. Harsh gusts of wind tore pieces of the iron fence down and threw sand into the air. The path forward was rapidly becoming a cross between a battlefield of inanimate objects and an obstacle course. Sunlight dimmed as clouds quickly spiraled into a net across the sky.

            Set’s gleeful laughter boomed through the cyclone of stuff.

            The rock formation was further away than it originally appeared. That was the problem with deserts: a lack of kilometer posts.

            At the first batch of red rocks jutting out of the ground, Leo took cover. He dropped me rather ungracefully on the sand.

            “Hey!” I protested, shouting over the wind.

            “Sorry, Lady Sadie,” he said. He lifted up one finger and a burst of flames hissed out like a mini blowtorch. “We’re keeping up the tradition of ungraceful landings.”

            If he was about to do what I thought he was about to do, I was about to tell him to shove that finger somewhere not very nice. Sure enough, he tilted that mini-blowtorch toward my bindings.

            “Are you mad?!” I demanded, not quite in the mood to be set ablaze.

            I’m sure there was some irony in my asking that question, as I rather enjoyed doing mad things, but all I could think about was coming out as a toasted Sadie marshmallow.

            “Trust me, I’m an expert in pyromania,” he said, giving me that crazy elf grin. “Now, inhale deep and exhale when I tell you. The Flaming Valdez is gonna set you free.”

            As he had me inhale, then exhale, he squirmed his other hand between the bindings and my skin, so he could use his own hand as a heat shield for my skin. I couldn’t help but feel like he looked nervous. Normally, it took a bit of magical work to undo a binding spell. I remembered the time my wand turned into a Celestial bronze dagger when Annabeth touched it and wondered if Leo’s magical flames acted like the Egyptian words of power for Bollix Your Binding Spell.

            Once he freed my hands, I withdrew my wand to help dispel the rest of the binding.

            In the last moment, the weather went from partially overcast to pitch black.

            My skin shivered. The temperature dropped at least five degrees Celsius.

            You know how you’re not supposed to look directly at the sun? Both Leo and I abandoned that notion to glance up.

            There was no dispersed glow behind the clouds or circular silhouette off in the distance. It was like Apophis had swallowed the sun all over again.

            “Is that a normal power of your Superman?” I asked, feeling a bit queasy.

            “Uh, no. I’m going to put that solidly in the list of NOT-Jason powers,” Leo said comfortingly.

            We peered over the rocks to see how Jason was doing against Set. Probably a good idea before leaving him on his own to fight a god. I knew we had to find Hemera and we were wasting valuable moments, but my mind kept flashing to how far he’d flown when Set first blasted him.

            All we could see was darkness at first. Leo kept a tiny flame alight in his palm so we could dodge debris caught up in the wind. Some tourist must have discarded an empty can of suntan lotion in the desert; the now-projectile almost took Leo’s head off.

            Off in the distance, there was the soft glow of a city—Phoenix. 

            Closer, lightning gave eerie bursts of illumination to the massive dust storm outside of Governor Hunt’s tomb. Each red streak would make the fog look like a dispersing firework before dimming back to the roaring nothingness.

            In the last burst, we could see the outline of a muscular boy on flying horseback. The horse itself seemed to spark and flare with static. The rest of the horse blended into the mass of debris. Jason must have found his gladius—more sparks exploded outward as the golden blade parried a strike from a flaming battle axe that spun around him. The red sand of the desert swirled higher and higher, as though reaching to drag the stallion down. A mass of it—Set’s avatar I presumed—loomed in front of the Roman horseman, cackling with thunder and laughter.

            Jason looked like he was fighting the desert itself.

            “Em, is he going to be alright?” I asked, withdrawing my wand. I had fought Set on more than one occasion and Lapis seemed quite the powerful host for the god.

            “Yea, this is a normal party for our Golden Boy.” Despite his confidence, Leo looked worried. “What I wouldn’t give for a bulldozer or a wrecking ball though. Can you magic those out of your little Do-a locker?”

            I could envision Leo singing that old Miley Cyrus song, “I came in like a wrecking ball,” while actually riding atop a wrecking ball. I’m not sure how it would help us, but the thought was quite entertaining.

            I was about to inform Leo that I didn’t store demolition equipment in my locker, other than some fireworks that Carter doesn’t need to know about, when I saw a blue burst of light from up Camel Dung Mountain.

            My brilliant reflexes saved us. “Drowah!” I shouted into the wind. The hieroglyph for boundary shimmered into a wall of golden light behind us. The blue wave slammed into it before dissipating.

            For that instance, I could see the silhouette of a man in linen robes with a staff and a small shack behind him.

            “Hemera’s shack!” I cried.

            “Hey! No fair—Set can’t add another creepy dude to the mix,” Leo said.

            The image of the shack and man shimmered under some kind of cover.

            “Creepy magician with powers,” Leo corrected.

            Another flare of blue light shot toward us.

            This time, Leo deflected it with a small blast of fire. We dived to the next closest rock, realizing we couldn’t take shelter from both he and Set at the same time. We needed to get up there.

            “He has the higher ground,” I said. “Can you lob a fireball up there?” I didn’t want to kill the other magician; I didn’t know what Nome he was from, if he was possessed by an evil god, or if Set had threatened him with cheese magic, something that inspires great terror in the Egyptian world. Still, I figured a ball of flames would keep him occupied.

            “I might burn the shack. I doubt it would kill Hemera, but we’d have one pissed off goddess on our hands. I guess you can’t toss over some Egyptian voodoo, Lady Sadie?”

            I deflected another wave of blue. I could fly up as a kite, the bird, not the children’s toy, but I would be a sitting duck—well, kite—for any attacks. “I was hoping for a bit more of a distraction so we could make it up the Mount Dung without being under fire.”

            Leo reached into his tool belt. His eyes blazed like those of a maniac, and I couldn’t help but think that I could get used to seeing that expression of pure madness. “Oh, I’ve got an idea that will leave you spinning.”

            A minute later and Leo fashioned a tiny fleet of rubber band-and-paperclip helicopters to drop nails, tacks, balloons filled with motor oil, miniature failed-shabtis, and anything else we could quickly rig from my Duat locker and Leo’s tool belt.  I gave them some honing magic. [Leo later said we’d have to call Coach Gleeson to eat up the mess. I have a different respect for Camp Half-Blood, knowing one of their counselors is loony enough to eat metal.]

            Despite the heavy wind, his tiny contraptions flew brilliantly.

            Our cue to run up Camel Dung Mountain came about ten seconds later, when the enemy magician started screaming.

            The bursts of light and tremble of thunder continued at the base of the rock formation as we climbed. I hoped this Jason fellow was as accomplished as Leo claimed he was. I hadn’t heard Set gleefully giggling about ripping someone’s limbs off or turning Jason’s skeleton into a puppet, so that was a good sign.

            Climbing the mountain wasn’t easy. All we had was my wand and Leo’s flame for light, and the rock formation didn’t seem to like being compared to a camel toilet, as it kept trying to trip us, though from Set’s magic or our clumsiness, I wasn’t certain.

            Once we got close to the top, I shouted, “Sun-ah!”

            The hieroglyph for reveal appeared in the sky, and the shack and magician came back into view.

            “Wow,” Leo said.

            I seconded the notion.

            Leo’s fleet had worked marvelously.

            Two tiny helicopters still sputtered in the air. One dive-bombed the magician, dropping a wad of chewed gum into his eyes. [And Carter says I need to keep my locker cleaner. Imagine if I hadn’t.]

            As the magician was blinded, he shouted a spell to explode the other airborne helicopter. This released Tabasco sauce shrapnel everywhere, something Leo claimed was vital for any dragon workshop.

            The magician had just withdrawn the gum from his eyes when the spicy condiment struck his face.

            He screamed again. I almost felt bad for him.

            Now that we were up close and I had dissolved his invisibility spell, I could see he was roughly in his thirties. (As far as magicians go, that means nothing. The bloke could be 564 for all I cared or knew.) He was tall, with a traditional forked beard, and caramel skin. His white linen robes were edged with blue.

            This magician must have been a bit confused about the colors of Ma’at and chaos.

            One of my failed shabti creations had landed on his shoulder. It was a blobby humanoid shape without legs, something I imagined would crawl up from under my bed one night to take revenge for its creepy existence. It kept bludgeoning the magician with its deformed, flobby arms, shrieking, “die, bipedal swine!”

            As the poor magician frantically conjured milk to wash out his eyes and blast the shabti off his shoulder, something about him seemed familiar. I hoped this wasn’t someone else’s displaced, distant son or nephew of someone Carter and I had once fought.

            Either way, he had to go. He was standing between us and the ten by ten, rickety shack that shuddered violently in Jason and Set’s storm. Quite charming as godly penthouses go.

            “Sadie Kane!” the magician roared.

            Not sure how he detected us, but Leo and I exchanged a glance to claim KO rights. I won, of course.

            “My name is Mel!” the man said.

            “There’s a magician named Mel?” Leo asked, sounding amused.

            Mel continued, ignoring the mockery. “I’m from the First Nome and guarded it for centuries before the Kanes caused the death of Chief Lector Iskandar and Desjardins, put a minion of Set as the new Chief Lector, and turned Zia Rashid traitor. You escaped me once, but this time—“

            “That’s lovely and all. Goodbye, now,” I said.

            I blasted him with a spray of green light. He was so disgruntled, having been both sprayed with Tabasco sauce and milk, he didn’t have the awareness to counter.

            I envisioned Mel as something much more containable: a tiny, green lizard. Within seconds, I had asserted my will over him. The magician shrank in size until he was a cute, confused-looking gecko that slithered out from the linen robes.

            “Dude!” Leo said. Within seconds, he’d created a cage from scattered paperclips and quick finger-welding. He snatched up our transformed friend. He leveled the cage with the trapped lizard to his eyes. “I know you’re saying, ‘I-guana go now,” he said to the trapped lizard. “But we can’t have you escaping. Hey, Lady Sadie, what was that stuff he was talking about?”

            Leo attached the tiny cage to his tool belt and stepped towards the shack.

            We’d have to clear up all those lies later. I was still rather upset about the deaths of the previous Chief Lectors, especially since Iskandar had been nothing but kind to me and Desjardins died to save Carter and me. What he was referencing were lies that Sarah Jacobi had spread to make my family look like rubbish. It was amazing how much damage someone could cause after death, though, after stopping a poorly-dressed ghost from taking over the cosmos, I shouldn’t have been surprised. 

            “Oh, just some gossip our enemies spread to make us look like Big Bad Guys. You know how it goes.”

            Leo nodded sympathetically. “I was possessed by an eidolon once and it made me attack our friends’ camp with a warship. One ballista fire led to another, and then all the Romans are saying Greeks stink. So, uh, yea. I know a thing or two about bad press.”

            Although it sounded like that had happened awhile ago, Leo’s smile lost its brilliance.

            “We should have a chat about that over some ice cream,” I suggested, knowing some solid camaraderie over possession might lift his spirits. My Uncle Amos was an expert in such matters.

            Leo stopped walking towards the shack. He glanced over his shoulder in confusion and disbelief, like he thought I had chatted up one of the tumble weeds, which—with Set and Jason’s storm—were twirling in the air like startled goldfish.

            “Trapped goddess, “I reminded Leo, “Your friend fighting for our lives so Set doesn’t make us into finger puppets?” I dispelled a booby trap around the shack: sloppy and simple ones with easy-to-find hieroglyphs. Really, they don’t make clever, monomaniacal villains like they used to.

            The poor boy’s cheeks roughened. I do have that effect on people sometimes, though usually it’s because I’ve utterly humiliated them with my verbal wit. Although the scene of chaos around us was terrifying—what with the crashing debris, the flashes of lighting, and the dim glow of fire on Leo’s face from his lit hand—Leo looked quite cute.

            [What, Carter? Yes. I said it. Yes, I know Walt and Anubis can listen to this recording. Give me more credit than that.]

            As he ran to catch up, he said, “Careful. I’ve melted the heart of an Ice Goddess once. I’m dangerous around ice cream.”

            “We’ll have ourselves a double date, shall we? We can invite our godly boyfriend and girlfriend,” I suggested. I was going to say “to keep things from getting too hot,” but caught myself before those horrid words came out of my mouth. I really didn’t mean anything by that.

            I blame my embarrassment for almost doing something incorrigibly stupid.

            Leo and I busted our way into the shack door, which, really, we didn’t need to do. The shack almost fell over when we came through the entrance. Inside, the rattle of the ceiling as it strained against the storm was more alarming than the storm itself. Refer back to “don’t make monomaniacal villains like they used to” and add, “don’t make godly traps like they used to.”

            The wall and ceiling boards looked just as rickety and dilapidated inside as they did out. Talk about horror cinema center. There was a rusty, metal control board, like something out an old radio station, with levers and a giant red button that said Release and a giant green one that said Capture.

            A woman lay in the center of the red sand floor. Her dusty blonde hair rippled dimly, like sunlight filtering through a dirty window. The remains of a tattered sundress clung to her body, the color indiscernible in the glow of Leo’s fire. Heavy chains linked her hands and feet to the floor. Red wires ran from the chains to the control board.

            I’ll admit it: I walked right up to the control board to hit the giant red button.

            Obviously a trap? Highly likely.

            Did I care? I might have been a bit too flustered and distracted. Besides, I’d rather press first and handle consequences later.

            Leo grabbed my wrist before I could make contact. “Woah, Ladie Sadie, seriously? The Big Red Release button set up by two gods of chaos?”

            “What’s your plan instead?” I asked.

            The goddess drearily lifted her head at our voices. This Hemera looked downright knackered and I had the queer feeling Set had already started to picnic on her powers. She was lovely, as most goddesses tended to be. (If you can make yourself look like anything, why look any less than gorgeous, like my stupid boyfriend Anubis.) Her eyes appeared black in the darkness.

            “Who goes there?” she asked weakly and quite delayed.

            “Professional heroes. Saving the day and whatnot,” I said.

            “Just make sure you give us a Five Star Rating on RateMyHero, Madam Daylight,” Leo said. He sounded distracted as he looked over her chains. “Huh,” he said and snapped off a piece of the wire connecting the chains to the control panel.

            “What are you doing?!” I demanded. That, supposedly, was the way to unlock those chains.

            He grinned and popped the wire into his mouth and began to chew.

            Any previous attraction I felt for this demigod zapped away. Had he been switched out with a monster without me noticing? Or were all Greeks secretly this loony? Or was magical wiring secretly delicious?

            “It’s pieces of Twizzlers, the kind you can peel apart,” he said. “These chains aren’t actually hooked up.”

            Leo examined the control panel. He withdrew a screwdriver from his belt. With a few quick flicks of the wrist, he’d removed the front, metal covering to reveal a stack of dynamite underneath the Release button. He pointed to the wires connecting the button to the dynamite. “Those,” he said, “are real wires.”

            I blinked at the dynamite. The sight was so foreign, it almost looked cartoony. Despite being around so many ancient weapons and dangerous spells, it suddenly hit me how rarely I had seen modern-day weapons. We didn’t really do the gun thing in Britain and we didn’t have any modern weapons at Brooklyn House.

            “Ah, explosives,” I finally managed, “Well, that’s not very… magical or demigodly.”

            He withdrew the panel beside it to reveal some kind of net-system under the Capture button, something that looked primed to latch around a mammoth.

            “At least they’re honest about their advertising,” Leo said about the names of the buttons. “Eris doesn’t really seem to play on the normal demigod or magical level.”

            “So, if we’re not going to use the Big Red Button to open the chains, how do we open the chains? I don’t see a keyhole or even a break in the metal,” I asked, running through a list of spell words. Without a seam in the metal, the word “open” wouldn’t do anything. I had a few ideas, but, judging from how sturdy the shack was and the dynamite a few feet away, I feared I might blow us all up. I was good at that.

            “You can’t!” Hemera said. Her voice was weak. I had the distinct feeling she would put the back of her hand to her forehead if she had the strength. “The Spartans made these to trap Ares.” When she tried to lift a hand, the chains shimmered with red Greek writing. “He never found a way out. Sparta had to be destroyed to release him!”

            “Yea, well, I have something Ares didn’t,” Leo said. He tapped the work goggles out of his hair and over his eyes.

            Hemera looked Leo up and down skeptically. “The strength of Hercules?” She sounded hopeful.

            I choked on a laugh. As much as I liked the Latino Elf, he definitely didn’t have that.

            Leo reached into his magical tool belt and withdrew a circular saw with a glittering black blade and what appeared to be a massive battery packet. He grinned, snapping the battery packet into the saw, looking like a crazed serial killer. “Power tools.”

            Ah, the grand words of greatness from Admiral Leo. Some people make speeches about freedom. Some about justice. Leo about garage implements.

            [Carter thinks Leo was mental for thinking power tools could work on magical chains, but has Carter given real thought to magical power tools? Besides, Leo said he’d done this before on a different goddess’ cage. Carter just thinks Leo said that to chat me up.]

            As Leo’s saw whined to life, I fished through my supplies to withdraw a minor healing potion that Jazz, our healer, had made me. I popped off the top and offered it to Hemera, partially because she looked like she’d been through three of my brother’s lectures on the importance of dairy in Egyptian mythology, and partially because it kept her from staring in horror at the maniac demigod sawing so close to her skin.

            She was too weak to reach out. I propped her up in my lap to give her the potion and so Leo wouldn’t accidentally decapitate the poor woman in his power tool mania.

            I wasn’t sure how a magician’s potion would heal a goddess, but she seemed to perk up.

            “So, when we’re done releasing you,” I shouted over the whine of the saw and the scream when it touched the metal, “You can god your way over to Nyx and sort this kidnapping nonsense out? And maybe tell your godly mates to help Camp Half-Blood?”

            One of the shackles fell away from Hemera’s wrist. Apparently Ares’ chains were no match for the Valdezinator. Take that as a point towards brains over brawn.

            Hemera’s skin seemed to glow a bit brighter, though her head stayed lolled off to one side. She mouthed something, but her voice was too weak to be heard over the sawing.

            When the second chain fell and Leo went to shove his saw back into his tool belt, I could hear her say, “I can’t, young heroine. I don’t have the energy. Set has been feeding off me for too long. Alas, since I am no longer worshipped, I can’t recover my powers in a timely manner.”

            The last part sounded more like an apology for bollixing a dinner party invitation. I thought about the gods that I had seen at Sunny Acres Assisted Living Community, how their memories would fade with the memories of their worshipers, falling into senility as they were forgotten. I envisioned this pretty goddess in a smock with a walker and I felt a bit nauseous. Watching something immortal dying is nasty business.

            “Let’s get you out of here,” I suggested. I could give her a pep-talk later.

            For now, I slipped one hand under her arm to pull her up. Leo got her other side so we could drag her out of the shack. Not the most efficient way, having two tiny godlings lugging a goddess around, but we managed.

            Just in time too.

            As we exited the sad excuse for a building, a boy-and-horse-wrecking-ball catapulted into the roof of the shack. Instead of stopping there, like a good ball of destruction, it continued through, taking the roof and walls with it. The dynamite-rigged control box and chains were shockingly still intact, sitting out in the open as the rest of the building smashed into the side of Camel Dung Mountain. It exploded up in a poof of dust that got swept away by the storm. Hopefully that puff didn’t also contain scattered Jason particles.

            Dark laughter echoed around the desert.

            The flashes of lightning grew closer, brighter. A massive vortex of sand rose to our level on the mountain, making it look like the mountain itself was crumbling into the sandy floor. Because the light from Leo’s fire only extended a few meters, the storm look like it had encompassed the world.

            “Oh, that was fun, Pretty Boy!” Lapis and Set’s voices combined into one. They twirled the flaming battle axe in an arc around the dust storm. “Tossing you is almost as much fun as tossing Tuft-Ears!”

            Jason groaned out an answer. His horse had dissolved into a burst of lightning and was sparking back into horse shape further up the mountain. It didn’t look excited to be tossed again.

            Jason drearily dragged himself from the wreckage. He was bleeding from his mouth. His shirt sleeve and half his shirt had been burned away, and—in the dim lighting—it looked like the skin under had some nasty blisters. As he fished his gladius out of the debris, his left arm dangled uselessly behind him.

            Tenacious bloke, that one.

            Set’s host didn’t look like he was going to win a beauty pageant anytime soon either. Lapis’s eye was puffy from being hit. Blood soaked his right pant leg. His face had grown ashen and, despite the laugh, he grimaced in pain. Sand stuck to his face with the beaded sweat.

            This reminded me of when Uncle Amos tried to control Set: Lapis was struggling.

            “I’m ready to kill you now, if you don’t mind,” Set said, seeming not to notice his host’s pain.

            Last time I fought Set, I opened a portal to transport us out of the desert and plop us in Washington, D. C. And I had his secret name. However, last time, he hadn’t made an agreement at the start of the fight.

            I crossed my arms like an irritated mother—something I’d learned scarily well from Isis. “That would be a bit fussy, don’t you think?”

            “Killing you? I count on it!”

            “No, going back on a promise,” I said. “I’d say it’s been five minutes.”

            I had no proof, but clamoring up Mount Camel Dung in the dark felt like an eternity.

            A smirk slid onto Set’s face. “And how would you know, Little Sadie?”

            “We timed it,” Leo said.

            I thought he was reaching into his pocket for a watch and wanted to hug the demigod for his forethought. Instead, he withdrew two screws, a silver disk, a chain, some wires, and a small, flashing light from his tool belt, keeping his hands partially inside so only I could see the components. His fingers flashed overtop and, within seconds, he was presenting Set the most garage-style pocket watch ever invented.

            Fortunately, Set was not the god of super vision.

            Leo pointed to the blinking light. “See Ol’ Blinky here? It means the timer went off.”

            I wanted to hug Leo for a trait I valued much more than forethought: quick-thinking.

            “A deal is a deal,” I said.

            Set pouted. “Oh, come now, Sadie. At least let me rend the flesh from one of their bodies.”

            “Nope!” I put one finger up and waved it back and forth. “No flesh rending. Bad Set. Taking us back to our friends? Good Set.”

            He bellowed a laugh. “Assuming your friends are alive. Now, why do you think I picked five minutes?”

            The fire on his Egyptian axe poofed out. The dust storm started to die, lowering him several inches closer. Now that I was able to hear a little better, I could tell Lapis was panting.

            “You wanted enough time for a commercial break?” Leo guessed.

            “Because that’s exactly the amount of time it would take me to burn through Lapis’ life force if I didn’t give her enough extra power,” Set grinned. “Good luck getting to your friends in time.”

            Then his face went slack and his eyes closed.

            The dust storm collapsed.

            Lapis, and our chances of a quick ride out of here, fell out of the sky and plummeted to the bottom of Mount Camel Dung, unconscious.

Sorry for the missed chapters, guys. Admittedly, I’m trying to figure out the end of the series right now and none of my characters (or my own writing) is cooperating, so I lost some steam to get chapters out.

Regardless, i hope you enjoyed!!! I will try to be back to our normal output next week!

Chapter Text

            Reyna and Calex were able to strongly encourage their previous hosts to give them directions off the resort. They left the pervs of Lemnos and stumbled into an uncanny, underground jungle.

            From what Calex understood of Axel’s plan, they were supposed to end up in the Labyrinth as a cut-through to Tartarus. Without ever having been in the Labyrinth, Calex could sense this wasn’t right.  This wasn’t the Labyrinth he’d read stories about. 

Axel’s Mist mask evaporated as soon as they entered the jungle. If anything, his cat features seemed to grow more prominent, the black, patterned fur creeping along his scalp, the gold of his eyes even brighter. His ears twitched violently at every sound. He and Thalia scanned their surroundings with the routine and attention of a referee monitoring their home-team in a shootout. The huntress and guide took to the front, clearing a small path.

            Calex and Reyna brought up the back, him with his bow ready to fire at any crazed lemurs that might jump in their path and Reyna with her spear, also scanning their sides and behind them, to assure they weren’t being followed.

            “So, what is all of this?” was the only feigned courage that Calex could bluff after several minutes of crunching foliage. “And how will it get us to Euna?”

            No one answered at first, though Calex swore he could hear Axel swallow as the Mayan clenched his fist.

            Calex had seen the Liberian rainforest. During the two hour drive from Robert’s International Airport up the Monrovia-Kakata highway, the rainforest was interspersed and looming amongst rubber plantations, farms, and marketplaces.

            This was different.

            There was no warmth of the African sun. There were no villages tucked away in clearings or dilapidated roads. Just an ominous wrongness telling Calex he didn’t belong here. The canopy above and the foggy horizon in the distance glowed with an eerie turquoise light, like they’d stumbled into a cavernous Atlantis. 

            At least part of him felt attached to Liberia’s rainforest, even if the attachment was resentment. Here, the soft, sporadic rustling of the branches and foliage seemed to hiss, “Yoruba pup, Helen spawn, bastard of two continents, join us for some afternoon tea. See who will end up in the biscuits that we put on our table.”

            This jungle would swallow him whole.

            As if the others could sense the same thing, everyone stayed uncomfortably quiet.

            Calex was annoyed. After saving Thalia and Axel from the shag of many consequences (he decided, despite his dislike of Pax, that he’d cheer Pax up with that story later), he deserved that question answered.

            He was glad that Reyna cleared her throat to repeat his question, “Axel? You really think Euna went this way?”

            None of them wanted to doubt Axel’s true sight through the Labyrinth, but Calex couldn’t help the nagging sensation that something was amiss. His eyes kept drifting from the jungle to the helm latched along Axel’s beltline.

            Earlier, all of the shame that Calex had previous sensed in the Silver Tongued Snake Helm had been seeping back into Pax. Calex gently extended his senses. It was invasive, but Calex reminded himself this could be necessary. Though, by not asking Axel’s permission to search his emotions, this would make Calex as bad as their hometown dodgy creep, Pax.

            Typically, Axel exhibited a practiced composure. That meditated calm was gone, replaced with a cacophony of emotions: anguish, defeat, remorse, confusion. As Calex feared, underlying it all, the hatred and malice of the Leonis Caput was cracking away at Axel’s reserve. The lines separating what made Axel what he was and what made the Leonis Caput a monster were deteriorating. With each little crack, as Axel struggled to control that animosity, he turned the hatred inward.   

            Yet, as Calex’s unbearable primary teacher would have said, Axel bore “a stiff upper lip.” Calex always loathed that saying. As if someone could switch out their lip for that of an android.

            Axel shook his head, like he could feel Calex prying into his emotions.

            Calex wrangled his Eros senses back in, returning his attention to the forest floor. He wondered how many seconds had passed while he searched.

            Axel said, “Euna didn’t go this way. If we wanted to follow her directly, we would have to…” For an instant, Calex could see a visual representation of Axel’s cracking as the older boy paled. “We would have to go through the Princess Andromeda, and she has too much of a head start. My true vision says this is the fastest way to go—a shortcut.”

            Ahead, Calex could see the canopy break into a small clearing. The ground quivered enough that he felt like he was under a motorway. He might have assumed there should be water ahead, but the increasing din sounded more like the continuous slide of falling rocks.

            “How long a shortcut, Cat Breath?” Thalia asked, using her daggers to push vines and branches out of the way.

            “Sorry, the glowy path my true vision provides doesn’t have an estimated time bar,” Axel said and Calex could envision his half-smirk.  “But, if I had to guess, it’ll take us fifteen to thirty minutes as opposed to the hour or two if we descended through the Labyrinth. We just need to cross one of the rivers to get out and get back to the Labyrinth, but, uh, not this one.”

            “So, we’re not in the Labyrinth?” Reyna asked carefully.

            Calex hadn’t processed Reyna’s question. He was about to ask “why not” about the river.

            The trees opened to a clearing, and he could see the river moving slowly and seeming to bubble.

            But, it wasn’t bubbling, and the substance inside wasn’t water.

            All of them stopped to stare from ten meters away.

            When Calex realized that the narrow river was made out of thousands of scorpions crawling atop each other, he could handle that. At least a bit. Admittedly, he got a tad queasy. But, his mum made him eat a scorpion once at a Chinese restaurant down the street from their flat. (Tom had teased him until Tiwa said it was his turn). And, they’d chased an emperor scorpion or two out of the clinic every summer holiday.

            “Guaba,” Reyna cursed. When Calex glanced at her, he found that he wasn’t the only one looking queasy.

            At their stare, she straightened her posture. “Tailless whip scorpions. They’re… spiders in Puerto Rico. Not my favorite arachnid,” she said stiffly.

            Remembering all the other times Calex frantically smashed various arachnids and insects in the clinic, Calex wanted to inform Reyna that he sympathized, but figured it wisest to bring as little attention to her discomfort as possible.

            “So,” Axel concluded, “Not crossing Xibalba’s Black River.”

            “That’s an understatement,” Thalia said. “How about setting fire to the Black River?”

            Axel led them back into the undergrowth, using his sword to cleave a path. Thalia helped along his side while Reyna and Calex resumed their vigilance from behind. “This one isn’t as bad as the White River,” Axel muttered.

            “What’s in the White River?” Reyna asked gravely.

            Calex considered what albino creepy-crawlies could make a river--

            “Pus.”

            Upon hearing it, Calex wasn’t sure he could get his emotions sorted.

            Fortunately, neither could Thalia. While Scorpion Creek seemed Reyna’s downfall, Thalia stopped hacking to stare at Axel. “Cat Breath, why does your underworld have a river of PUS?!” she demanded.

            “Why doesn’t yours?” he seemed to mean it as a genuine question, not pausing to look at her. Sweat dripped from his chest onto the crisscross of roots and vines and, likely, snakes below. In the oppressive heat and lack of sunlight, Axel opted to stash his shirt into his rucksack.  “I always wondered why it was a river of fire instead. Isn’t fire holy to Hephaestus? Shouldn’t a river of fire be holy to him and, therefore, by his workshop instead of in Tartarus?”

            “Other options beyond river crossing? Perhaps a trolley?” Calex asked, not wanting to think about how many pimples needing popping to make that river a thing. Or that Axel had admitted they were in Xibalba, whatever that meant.

            Axel shook his head. “We either cross a river, take a road, or pass through one of the houses. I fear any movement on the roads will alert the Lords of Xibalba to our presence—”

            “Bad?” Thalia guessed.

             Axel nodded. “And to cross through a house, you need to stay there overnight. While time passes differently here than outside—“ He gestured to two watches on his wrist. One still had a pink permanent marker heart drawn on and a Leminian citizen’s phone number. “—that’s too long a gamble. So river.”

            Ahead, the dense foliage appeared to part again. Calex relaxed to hear the sound of sloshing water. However, the closeness of another river didn’t make sense. They couldn’t have walked more than half a kilometer. True, geography in the Underworld was likely to be a bit dodgy, but two rivers that close ought to converge, right?

            Calex held down the urge to vomit at the thought of a pus-scorpion river. That would be the end. The gore or horror wouldn’t thwart him: a weak stomach would.

            “That’s the White River, innit?” Calex asked, wondering if these heroes would boot him from the group if he lost his lunch.

            Axel shook his head. “The Red River. It’s the one we’re crossing.”

            This time, Calex smelled the river before he saw it. While the mugginess still choked him, the wet scent of the forest gave way to a metallic bite.

            Calex had smelled this scent a lot at the clinic. He’d smelled it in the infirmary. But this was overpowering. By the time the trees and shrubbery parted, he already knew what to expect, but the amount felt overwhelming.

            This river slugged along. In the perpetual turquoise twilight of the jungle, the continents looked like black sludge or dirty motor oil. Judging by the slow slosh along the shoreline, it was highly vicious.

            Cartoon-red bubbles foamed along the shoreline and in leisurely-spiraling eddies. This river was wide, far wider than the White River, maybe the width of the Thames. Any sand or foliage that snaked into the river was stained a dark pink.

            Calex shivered as he stared at the two-toned water, dominantly black with a glistening crimson hue.

            For a sick moment, he remembered a picture from one of his history classes, something about Mayans shooting captives, intentionally inflicting nonlethal wounds to bleed them and let the blood drain down the slants in the execution court. Calex envisioned hundreds of bodies strung in the above world to make this river.[1] Then, he thought about his patients in Kakata, and the way they hemorrhaged from the eyes, ears, and nose. Some vomited blood. Would they have contributed to this? How many people needed to be killed to make this river?

            “I need a rabbit to cross,” Axel said.

            Calex didn’t realize he was staring. He shook his head, unable to get his voice box to work.

            “A rabbit?” Reyna repeated, sounding hollow.

            “Yep, a rabbit,” Axel affirmed.

            “Do Mayan rabbits make excellent, river-hopping mounts?” Thalia asked.

            More mythological transport. If Calex wasn’t going to throw up before, he definitely would make some pavement pizza now.

            “No,” Axel said, “But it will make crossing easier if we can find one. Huntress, Praetor, would you mind catching one for us?” Axel didn’t look at Thalia. Although Calex could tell Axel had carefully picked out the words, the question sounded more like a command.

            Thalia seemed annoyed and suspicious. “What? Do jaguars have trouble catching widdle wrabbits?”

            “No, I need to make preparations,” Axel said, walking towards the river.

            Reyna’s lips pressed into a thoughtful frown. Her gaze narrowed as Axel knelt in front of the river, a little too heavily. “Leonis Caput,” she said coldly, “the Lieutenant and I are here to assure your continued… cooperation.”

            Considering Axel could easily lead them to one of these “houses” and shove them in with little more than a, “ta-ta!” and run off without them ever hoping to find their way back without a guide, Calex found their concern unwarranted if not comical or a bit offensive. “Hey—” Calex began to say when Reyna made a whistling noise.

            Aurum and Argentum, her automaton guard dogs, appeared at her side. Argentum strolled up to Axel, his tail wagging. The Mayan gave the silver hound a tired smile and rubbed the dog behind the ears.

            Reyna’s frown turned to irritation at the dog’s trust. She bent to pet the warier dog’s head. “You know they can tell when you’re lying. What kind of preparations and why don’t you want us here?”

            Axel froze. His ears flattened against his head and he puffed up his cheeks to pop them. “I need to remember the diction used in the Popol Vuh—”

            “The Pope’s view?” Calex asked.

            “Our ancient book,” Axel said. “It’s been awhile since I’ve looked at a physical copy and, in order to get out of here, I need to meditate to remember how they speak—”

            Aurum began to growl.

            Argentum nipped at Axel’s hand in warning.

            Axel rapidly withdrew from Argentum’s range.

            Reyna scowled. “Axel?” She folded her arms. “What are you hiding from us?”

            His face went red. He glanced at Reyna, then looked away.

            Thalia drummed her fingers along the mace on her belt.

            Calex set a hand on Axel’s shoulder. “Come on, mate—”

            “Your presence,” Axel said, his voice stiff, “is distracting me.”

            He didn’t mean Calex.

            Calex choked on a laugh. Instead of squeezing Axel’s shoulder to show him it was okay, Calex patted Axel’s back twice in amusement. “Right,” Calex said.

            Nether dog growled to signify that Axel was lying.

            “Ladies,” Calex said, “Mind if I borrow Axel to have a nice chat long this lovely shoreline?”

            Thalia went red. Reyna looked confused, before her complexion took a similar dive towards the warm spectrum. They exchanged a glance, and Calex saw Thalia start to form the words, “which one of us?” to Axel’s comment before realizing how rubbish a question that was.

            Instead, she withdrew some kind of hunter’s snare from her pack. After a split second to collect herself, she rolled her eyes. “Boys. Come on, Reyna. Let’s go hunt while the boys talk about their feelings or whatever.”

            Reyna couldn’t manage a proper retort. Calex blinked at seeing this amazing warrior that he read so much about during summer holiday, seeing her… well, be as speechless as any other teen might have been. And Axel, whom Calex admired for his bravery and stoicism, reduced to clumsy diversions. He remembered something Annabeth once told him: that all gods feared Eros as the most powerful primordial. Apparently all heroes were at his whim too.

            Reyna nodded after a moment. “Aurum, stay and make sure they don’t do anything…” She fumbled for a word. “Suspicious. Argentum, help me flush out the rabbit.”

            The silver dog perked up and trotted over to his master. Aurum sat down on his haunches, examining Axel intently with its ruby eyes.

            After a moment of silence where no one knew what to say, Thalia and Reyna started back into the jungle.

            Axel cleared his throat, straightening his posture. “Stay close to the river. Then, you can find your way back without me coming to get you. Don’t go near any fruit trees or decapitated heads hanging off fruit trees. And if you do, don’t let them spit at you.”

            “Why would we—”

            “Wasn’t planning on it, Cat Breath!” Thalia called over her shoulder. She took Reyna’s arm and hurried the praetor out of sight, cuing Calex into how uncomfortable Thalia still felt with that whole love potion incident.

            Once they were in the jungle, Axel collapsed onto his haunches. He exhaled heavily and leaned back, placing one hand behind himself to keep propped up.

            Aurum mimicked the movement, lowering himself down to the ground while keeping his ruby eyes on them.

            Calex sat beside Axel, only two meters from the bloody shoreline. Some of the bubbles were so viscous, they didn’t pop, but caught along the bank to bob in the current like a scene from It.

            The nausea threatened to return at the reek of metal.

            “So, you’re having trouble being around two girls you fancy?” Calex teased, trying to get his mind off their surroundings.

            Axel sighed. He slipped a hand past his leather skirting, into his jean pockets, and withdrew a box of cigarettes and a lighter. “I’m having trouble being around myself,” he said, tapped out a cigarette, slipped it in his mouth, and cupped his mouth to light the tip.

            Calex frowned. “Those things will kill you, mate. And I don’t think Reyna or Thalia will much care for the smell.”

            Axel exhaled a line of smoke. “I’m trying to quit. Normally, Ajax switches all my cigarettes out with gum, but he won’t get close enough to steal them right now.” His voice sounded distant as he examined how the blood leisurely slugged along the riverbed.

            Calex remembered Pax slipping something into his pocket when the dodgy prick hugged him earlier. Calex reached inside to withdraw a box of cherry-mint gum. Calex tapped Axel’s leg with the box. “He’s a clever bastard, I’ll give him that. Outsourcing help nowadays.”

            Axel’s blank countenance broke, his lip curving up. He sighed, took one last long drag, then pressed the tip of the cigarette into the pinkish shoreline. Smoke twisted up, into the bluish-green mist of the canopy.

            “It’s amazing how annoying he can be from such a distance,” Axel said. He puffed up his cheeks, popped them, then slipped a piece of gum into his mouth.

            “You won’t be needing this, mind you,” Calex said, picking up the box of cigarettes.

            Axel’s ears flattened further against his scalp. He shook his head.

            Without thinking, Calex pitched the box of cigarettes into the bloody river. The box floated for a moment before getting slurped under.

            Axel paled.

            Aurum sat up.

            Calex paused. “That was sacrilegious, wasn’t it?”

            Both glanced around, waiting for a Mayan god to string them up and add their blood to the river.

            When nothing happened, Axel’s shoulders relaxed again and Aurum rested back down. “I guess not. Just, uh, don’t litter in my holy rivers again.”

            “Noted,” Calex said. He thought about how jumbled everything had been, and that they hadn’t gotten a break. Sure, he’d been ready to tease Axel about Thalia and Reyna—Axel didn’t seem to be handling the love potion thing as well as Thalia had—but there was a lot more going on than just that.

Even if they successfully made it through this Underworld to get to Euna, then somehow convinced her to come back to Camp Half-Blood, they’d either be coming back in the middle of a battle, or to a destroyed camp. According to Axel’s Kronos watch, they had time. And maybe they would return home to find everything all tea biscuits and sunshine, but maybe they would find another friend had been tossed into a fire or someone else had been beaten to death.

            Even if everything went well, Axel, Euna, Pax, and Alabaster were still wanted by the Romans.

            They weren’t through the hardest part yet, and, from Calex’s sneak peek into Axel’s head, Axel wasn’t well.

            “You know,” Calex said softly. “A wise leader once told me, if I was emotionally compromised, not to push my luck. He also reminded me that even the bravest and most loyal warriors have their moments of doubt and weakness.”

            Axel cracked a smile. “First Alabaster, now you.”

            “Pardon?”

            He shook his head.

            Calex snorted. He remembered hanging out with his cousin after a football game, his cousin going on about some girl or another, and how much his cousin would pretend to be confidence before begging for advice, despite being older and “wiser.” Until then, Calex hadn’t noticed how much he missed his cousin or the taste of a sandwich from Café Rouge.

            Thinking about what Axel said to the girls, Calex laughed.

            “Is there something funny, child of Eros?” Axel asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “I’m thinking of the look on Merry’s face if I told her that I need her to step away for a moment so I could meditate on the Qur’an.” He wanted to mime the way Axel had staggered to the shoreline, but thought that would be a bit much. “She’d obliterate me for that one, wouldn’t she? ‘Specially if a magical dog told her I was lying, right?”

            Aurum huffed at Calex’s chuckle.

            Axel frowned. “I do need to replicate the Popol Vuh’s speech patterns to cross the river. The lie was about the meditation. Chiich, Frasco, and Santiago all made sure I could quote that book by heart.”

            The more Axel spoke, the more oblivious he sounded. Calex shoved his shoulder. “Mate, I can’t imagine you survived the whole of the Titan War if you get that flustered each time the praetor is near you. Did Thalia’s thing really shake you that much? Aurum and Argentum didn’t say you were lying about the girls flustering you.”

            Aurum snorted from where he’d relaxed again.

            Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them. His exhale turned into a sigh of defeat. “Calex… I’m worried about what will happen when I get near Backbiter.”

            “Luke’s sword?” Calex asked, unsure he’d heard him correctly. This was about to become a much more complicated, unpredictable love triangle if Axel was daring to go where Calex thought he might be.

            Axel nodded. “When Leo reforged it, and I stepped on it, the Leonis Caput took over and I almost attacked Kally.”

            Despite wanting to help Axel out, Calex felt an overwhelming urge to slog him across the scruffy goatee. For some reason, he always associated all the lying and manipulation that lead up to Joey’s death as Pax’s fault. He forgot that the Pax brothers had jointly forced Leo into recrafting the blade, and, apparently, put Kally into a compromised situation. “Might have been nice to know a fortnight or two ago,” Calex said tightly. “Anything else you care to share with the team?”

            “The Leonis Caput is very interested in Reyna. With everything that happened with Ajax…” Axel’s fingers fished into his pocket, then glared out at the river, where his cigarettes were. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and cross his arms to rest his chin there. “I’m mentally exhausted. My resolve has run down. If the Leonis Caput challenges me, I won’t be able to fight it. Reyna can take the monster. I’m not worried about that. But, if it happens when we need to talk to Euna… and she’s holding Backbiter…”

            “What are you getting at, mate?”  Calex asked.

            “I can’t tell Euna not to take vengeance for her sister or to stall her vengeance by helping the camp. If I could punish Ares and Aphrodite right now…” Axel swallowed. The grip he had on his own arms became tight.

            He sounded mad.

            “Are you, Axel, disappointed in yourself that you couldn’t take out two gods?” Calex asked, hoping Axel would hear how ridiculous that sounded.

            “Yes,” he said without a hint of sarcasm. “And I’m hoping Euna can succeed where I failed. I can’t—in honesty—try to change her path. I just want to make sure she’s safe, since I feel like I’ve failed so many in that regard. I can still get us to her, but Calex…”

            Axel’s golden eyes narrowed to thin slits as he examined Calex, like he could sniff out any of Calex’s weaknesses.

            “Reyna and Euna don’t know each other. Thalia and Euna haven’t had the time to get super close. It’s going to be up to you if you want to stop her: someone bent on revenge for a dead sister with a god-killing scythe and a droplet to enhance her powers to godliness. Plus Jack, who will really be egging her on. Once I get you to Tartarus and we find Euna, I can’t help you, even if I wanted to, and I don’t think Thalia and Reyna will be able to either. You’ll be on your own.”

            Calex swallowed. That wasn’t too much responsibility or anything.

            As he heard the crunching of Reyna and Thalia as they returned from the hunt,[2] all he could croak out was, “Brilliant.” And, after a pause, “We can go back to talking about the girls. That’s something I specialize in and—”

            “I’ll push you into this river,” Axel said with a crooked grin.

            “Noted.”

Thanks for reading guys! I hope you enjoyed!!!! :D And I hope you had a lovely Saturnalia and various other winter breaks! <3

[1] Check out more info on this when Pax and Axel get their stand alone series XD Since I’m sure blood, pus, and scorpion rivers are your favorite. Hold on. Pax is crying saying his neon bathing suit will get stained if he has to go near any of these and he knows someone will throw him in. He’s probably not wrong.

[2] When I first wrote this, I put “return from the foods.” We still don’t know what was wrong with Jack that day. Except that Jack loves rabbit ragu because he’s a monster.

Chapter Text

Twenty-Three: Thalia

Rabbits with Ratbbitude

            Axel must have lost his mind. And not in the “a god drove me mad and now I’m trying to kill my loved ones” kind of way. In the “I finally cracked and see the white rabbit” kind of way.

            At least, that was the only conclusion Thalia could come to when Axel started berating the rabbit she and Reyna caught.

            Fortunately, they found a rabbit quickly after leaving Axel and Calex to their heart-to-heart. This must have been a gift from Tyche, since Thalia didn’t want to stray too far from the river and the boys, and she also didn’t want to walk in awkward silence near Reyna for too long.

            After a tree branch caught Reyna’s breastplate and made a sound worthy of a horror movie, Thalia had Argentum and Reyna fan out to the side, to scare animals towards Thalia instead of away. After all, praetorian armor and shiny dogs weren’t exactly designed for stealth. They had more of the “look at me; I’m important” ring to them.

            They weren’t gone for long before the praetor and hound helped corner a rabbit straight into Thalia’s net.

            “Not bad for a praetor.” Thalia grinned. Reyna might need some stealth work to become a huntress—if she’d ever have interest—but definitely not bad. When Thalia thought of how easy Reyna had escaped Thalia and the huntresses’ confines before, Thalia should have expected no less.

            Argentum held his head high with pride, his tail darting back in forth happily. Thalia wondered how often Reyna’s guard dogs got to hunt and whether or not Reyna would want to set up a doggy play date with the wolf pack. Although Thalia knew Reyna did the whole bath house things with her female comrades, she felt like Reyna didn’t spend nearly enough time with the girls.

            As they walked back, no longer having the hunt as an excuse for silence, Thalia debated on all the questions she wanted to ask Reyna. Things still felt kind of weird with the whole Axel-threatening-her-with-Mayan-love-poetry-thing. (Axel was SO weird.) But she got the vibe Reyna didn’t care, didn’t feel threatened, or was amused by the whole thing.

            If anyone was acting awkward, Thalia figured it was her; despite the love potion, Thalia felt guilty having thoughts about any boy, never mind it being Axel. With Euna, Thalia hadn’t known if there might have been a loophole in her huntress vows, but the Boys Have Cooties Rule was pretty well established.

            Which bought Thalia to the things she was really worried about: one boy in particular and her huntresses.

            “How were the huntresses before you left? And how was the camp?” Thalia asked. “Eminent destruction still on hold for the day?”

            With all the time Thalia spent on the hunt, Jason often, shamefully, slipped her mind. With everything that happened between Axel and Pax, she was passively worried about him. He was powerful, but she didn’t want a god taking her little brother from her again. Er—he was her big brother now, right? Being a huntress was confusing and made aging stupid. Major downside to immortality: no more birthday parties.

            Thalia also felt guilty for encouraging two huntresses to leave their pursuit of the Teusmessian fox against Artemis’ direct order to continue, and Artemis wasn’t always known as a forgiving goddess. Thalia wondered if Artemis and her sisters were still locked in a challenge they could never win, like catching the Energizer bunny.

            “Lesedi and Christiana were still scouting for the camp when I left. No contact from the gods, as support or enemies, other than the ‘near-Death’ experience that Calex had.” Reyna shuddered and Thalia thought about what it must have been like for Calex to race Death. While they had been going through the jungle, the Brit had been double checking everyone else’s movements, like he was scared they were going to grade his forest-traversing skills on grace and coolness. Despite his insecurities, she had to give him some kudos for racing death and winning. Grace and coolness points earned regardless of jungle-traversing skills.

            “That rabbit looks… strange,” Reyna said, changing the subject and making Thalia wonder if Reyna was also nervous thinking about her own troops in the upper world.

            Once the rabbit froze up in Thalia’s net, she stopped paying it much attention. Thalia held her net up to peer at the tiny mammal in the turquoise lighting.

            He was a cute little thing. For some reason, she strongly felt it a “he.” His ears were long, twice as long as the average rabbit in the United States, except maybe the jackrabbits Thalia had hunted in the desert. His fur was the color of the desert, a light brown. Admittedly, Thalia—in her years as a huntress—had never seen a rabbit look so annoyed and put upon. This rabbit combined both expressions flawlessly. It was like Nico in tiny rabbit form.

            Then she noticed the weird thing: this rabbit had a long, curled-up tail, like that of a chinchilla.

            “I really hope this is a rabbit,” Thalia grumbled, lowering her net so she could more easily dodge around hanging vines and would-be snakes.

            “How do you think this rabbit is going to get us across the river?” Reyna asked.

            Thalia rolled her eyes. “Like I have any idea what Cat Breath is thinking. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming with instructions. He didn’t even specify dead or alive.”

            “One is slightly more amendable than the other,” Reyna muttered. She used her spear to push away a snake dangling in Thalia’s path.

            Thalia really didn’t want this quest to go from “hunt the rabbit” to “rabbit resurrection,” so she had to agree. “We should name him,” Thalia said, carefully hopping over a tree root that poked up from the soil.

            Argentum made a soft clang when he jumped to the other side alongside his owner.

            “He doesn’t look like a Cottontail,” Reyna snorted at the rabbit’s long appendage.

            “What about Bugs?” Thalia said. The sound of the blood river was getting closer. They would meet up with the boys soon. She held her net up again to see if the rabbit reacted to the name.

            He glared at her apathetically.

            “And what are you going to do if Axel needs to kill Bugs?” Reyna asked, the humor thinly veiled in her voice.

            Although Thalia had hunted down and killed plenty of animals, beasts, and monsters during her time as a huntress, these wide, black, vaguely irritated eyes suddenly felt a bit too personable, like he was a little punk rabbit. Thalia heard stories of the augury readings at Camp Jupiter, where they sacrificed stuffed animals for various ceremonies.

            With her spare hand, she made a tiny spark. “He can try.”

            They laughed as the forest broke to reveal the shoreline, where Axel and Calex were still seated.

            “Axel,” Thalia held up their catch, “You can’t hurt Mr. Bugs.”

            For a moment, no one moved but the dogs. Aurum sat up, alert, then rose to join Argentum at Reyna’s side. From the way Axel’s jaguar ears were flattened into his hairline, and the way Calex smirked, Thalia got the impression that Axel just shushed Calex. Ugh, boys, Thalia thought.

            Axel closed his eyes and exhaled. His ears twitched up, seeming to contradict the forlorn expression. “Thalia… I’m sorry.”

            The mire in Thalia’s chest died. “What?” She held Bugs up higher and realized, with horror, what he was talking about.

            “I’m going to have to cut out and eat his heart,” Axel said.

            Calex’s jaw dropped. “Are you bloody serious?”[1]

            Queasiness overtook Thalia. Had Axel eaten rabbit hearts before? Had she given someone mouth-to-mouth that had eaten a raw bunny heart before?!

            “Gross!” she said. Thalia glanced to Reyna, to see if Reyna would support finding another way across the river and, maybe, sympathize over her mortification of exchanging saliva with this guy.

            Reyna’s face was twisted up, like she could barely repress a laugh.

            Axel’s serious face cracked into a smile.

            “Augh.” Thalia rolled her eyes. “Could you at least pretend at something less gross next time?”

            Axel rose. He dusted the dirt off his leather pteruges and the pants under and then stood straight. He coughed into the back of his hand. “Thalia, let me see Bugs.”

            Calex stood up beside him, picking his golden bow up from the ground. He reached up, like he wanted to grab the black scarf he usually wore around his neck, only to remember he’d put it in his bag, since it was way too hot down here for winter wear. “Mate, you’re not actually going to eat his heart, right?”

            Axel tried to give Calex a blank stare, but couldn’t quite manage to repress his smile. “Give me the rabbit.” He walked over to remove Bugs from the net.

            That was when he held the rabbit at eye level by the scruff of its neck.

            And shouted at it.

            Everyone jumped. Aurum and Argentum growled. Without realizing it, the four of them had been speaking hushed voices, only slightly raised to keep over the slurp of the river. Axel’s yell was so unexpected and loud, Thalia feared whatever monsters lived here—or those Lords of Xibalba—would show up to complain about noise code violations.[2]

            He didn’t stop. In some staccato, foreign tongue, he snapped at the rabbit.

            The rabbit, if possible, looked more annoyed.

            “Axel, what the Hades?!” Thalia said.

            “You’re giving away our position to anyone within this underworld and the next three over!” Reyna snarled.

            Axel waved them off with his free hand without breaking eye contact with the rabbit.

            Calex blinked in confusion. “Axel, have you gone mental? I don’t think the hare cares. Leti antal t’u’ul—”[3]

            “You can understand him?” Reyna asked.

            Calex’s confusion turned towards them. “Of course—Right.” He seemed to realize Thalia and Reyna were in the dark about his I apparently speak obscure languages thing. “Yea, ‘love speaks all languages.’ It’s an Eros thing. He’s repeating himself a lot. Let’s have a look see…”

            Axel hadn’t paused in ridiculing this poor bunny, and Thalia had a suspicion he might bore the tiny thing to death. If pushed, it might break and jump for the blood river. Maybe that was Axel’s plan: to force autosacrifice the way teachers induced sleep during horrible lectures.

            “Uh, he started something with… giving this rabbit lots of titles. They’re a bit posh. ‘Father of all Hares,’ ‘Child of None,’ and the likes. Then something about, ‘To you, one who stole my father’s boat, one who stole my uncle’s boat, thief of my family’s property,’ and ‘then, you shall undo it therefore, it shall be returned again,’ else…”

            Calex tilted his ear to the side, and began to translate, at almost the same time Axel was moving his lips to shout,

            “’I will pull it,

            I will rip it off,

            The way our fathers did before me,

            And their grandfathers before them,

            Ending the tail of the taleless rabbit,

            Beginning the tale of the tailless rabbit.’”

            Thalia’s head spun at that last verse. This reminded her of stories about the sphinx, though she heard they had upgraded from riddles to pop quizzes.

            The rabbit rolled its eyes. “Okay, fine. Would you just stop? No one has talked like that for, like, a thousand years,” the rabbit said.

            “Okay, fine. Would you just stop—” Calex started to repeat.

            “The rabbit spoke in English,” Reyna told Calex, her eyes wide.

            Axel and Calex seemed as shocked that the rabbit spoke in English as Thalia and Reyna were that it spoke at all.

            All of them stared at the fluffy bunny.

            Thalia had met plenty of talking monsters, though, she suddenly realized, very few talking animals. Thalia wasn’t ready for her little Bugs to speak and braced for a, “What’s up, doc?”

            Its accent was a bit too Hispanic to pull the typical Bugs Bunny voice, though she assumed there was some Spanish Looney Tunes voiceover.

            “You’re not supposed to be able to speak,” Axel said, “Your flesh was condemned to be devoured and homes be left to wander, thus spat by the Framer and the Shaper, by She Who Has Borne Children and He Who Has Begotten Sons, because you could not worship them with words.”

            Thalia glanced over to Calex, who shrugged. “No idea.”

            “Holy K’an Ti! Do people still address the creators like that?” the rabbit asked. “We other animals may not be as longwinded as man, air bag, but we got words.”[4]

            “Santiago and Frasco’s boat…?” Axel growled. “The boat—”

            The rabbit shuddered. “Please, just don’t start talking with repetition again. I’d rather you rip off my tail. I’ll get Frasco and Santiago’s boat. I’ll talk to my friends for help. Augh, you sound like my great-times-one-thousand grandpa. Now, let me go.”

            Axel glared, then gently set the rabbit down.

            Bugs shook himself out, used his back leg to itch behind his ear, then examined Axel. “What jackass told you to address us like that anyway?”

            Axel’s entire body tensed. Thalia had taken more notice of his muscles at Lemnos Resort than she was willing to admit, and she was happy he hadn’t done that motion while they were under the love potion. His knuckles went white around his sword hilt.

            “The boat,” Reyna reminded the tiny rabbit.

            Bugs snorted and hopped off into the jungle, this time along the shoreline.

            Aurum and Argentum watched his movement like they were barely resisting another hunt.

            Reyna made a whistling noise, and they dematerialized. Thalia really needed to ask what happened when they did that. Did Reyna carry a spare Pokeball around that none of them had noticed?

            “So,” Thalia said, “Your family has a boat.” Although watching the rabbit berate Axel was fun, she was mad. “You couldn’t just tell us that we were crossing on a boat, instead of freaking us all out like a jerk?”

            Axel’s muscles slowly relaxed. He released his sword hilt and raised an eyebrow at Thalia. “Huntress, if I’d have told you I needed you to catch a rabbit with a tail, so I could yell at him until he fetched my uncle and Santiago’s boat, when all of you already think I’m lost geographically and losing my mind, how would you have reacted?”

            Thalia crossed her arms. Earlier, she’d removed her parka and stuffed it into her backpack, so she could feel the cool touch of her Aegis bracelet. “I would have caught the rabbit.” That previous urge to hit him across that dumb goatee returned.[5]

            “Lieutenant,” Reyna said.

            Calex stared at her.

            Thalia didn’t realize until then that her fingers had sparked.

            Calex cleared his throat. “Right. So, chatting with rabbits..? How did you learn to chat with a rabbit like some old chap? That uh, family business? Typical Pax tradition?” He sounded eager to avoid a fight.

            Axel tilted his head towards Thalia in confusion, like he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong.

            In Thalia’s rulebook, openness with the team and trust were necessities. Although Luke would have never wanted to worry Annabeth or the others at Camp Half-Blood, Thalia often wondered if things would have been different if he’d voice his opinions more openly, if he could have gotten help.

            They needed to get across the river and work as a team to get to Euna, but Thalia sparked her fingers one last time, for good measure and to remind Axel she was here to keep him in line.

            “Axel,” Calex said.

            Axel sighed and nodded to Thalia. “I underestimated you, huntress, and for that I am sorry.”

            “The rabbit is right,” Thalia said, almost more annoyed he apologized, “You speak like the representative of an ancient geriatrics ward.”

            Reyna choked on a laugh. Calex let his escape.

            Axel sighed and shook his head, smiling softly.

            He turned to Calex before remembering that Calex’s question had also revolved around how he couldn’t talk like a person from the 20^th or 21^st century. Thinking that meant a lot from Thalia: some of the girls she hung out with referred to Jesus as “that youthful upstart.”

            “Uncle Frasco told me to talk to the rabbits like that if I ever ended up in Xibalba,” Axel said. His lip twitched, like he couldn’t decide to smile or frown. “He was kind of like… a more willful Ajax—”

            “So willing to jeopardize people’s lives for a practical joke,” Calex said.

            Axel decided on a cross between the two expressions: a sad smile. “Still pranking me from the afterlife.”  

            Reyna took a step forward to touch Axel’s shoulder.

            Without looking at Reyna (or, if Thalia had to guess, thinking through any consequences) he slipped a hand up to enlace their fingers.

            “Hey, praetor, huntress.”

            Reyna almost kicked the rabbit that seemed to materialize at her feet. Reyna and Axel released their hands to go for their weapons.

            Bugs itched behind his ear with his foot, careless of his potential incoming obliteration. “Come on. We got his boat ready for you.”

            Reyna and Thalia exchanged a look.

            “For us?” Reyna asked.

            Like Hades Thalia was hopping onto some ancient Mayan boat to cross a river of blood without their guide.

            “I mean, Prince Longwinded and the Yoruba pup can come along, but you two are the ones who captured me. It could have saved you a mouthful and me a headache if you would have just asked for the boat instead of Prince Longwinded.”

            Calex grinned. “Cat Breath, Prince Longwinded. You’re acquiring quite the list of titles, mate.”

            Axel sighed. His smile turned crooked as he bowed to Thalia and Reyna and swept a hand towards the shoreline. “Ladies first.”

            Thalia rolled her eyes. Reyna snorted. They took the lead after the rabbit, Calex and Axel keeping their eye out for attacks from behind.[6]

            Bugs hopped into the jungle bordering the river. His path paralleled the banks from the safety of the canopy. Thalia had seen other animals do this: a safer way for typical prey to travel.

            “So you’re trying to get to Tartarus,” Bugs said as he hopped along. With the way he faced away from them and the slurping din of the river, his voice sounded small.

            Thalia frowned, trying to remember if she and Reyna had discussed Tartarus around the rabbit.

            Reyna resumed using her spear to push extra foliage and vines out of the way. “You were following us before we captured you,” she guessed.

            “The forest has ears,” he said. “I’m getting the boat to shut up Prince Longwinded—”

            Axel grunted behind them. Thalia almost hoped he’d speak up in protest and further prove Bugs’ point.

            “But, you never asked anything in return for releasing me and christening me with the name, ‘Bugs.’”

            “You’re keeping the name?” Reyna asked in surprise. She shoved some wisps of stray, black hair out of her face. Sweat stuck the pieces she missed to her cheek. She must have been boiling in her praetorian cloak.

            The rabbit paused to glance back at them with what Thalia could swear was an incredulous look.  “Of course,” he said. “How am I supposed to know what to be called if I’ve never been named?”

            “The longer we stay here,” Calex muttered from behind, likely to Axel. “The more you and that dodgy prick of a brother make sense.”

            Ahead, Thalia could see something long, narrow, and colorful through the trees. There was movement around it, and the closer they got, Thalia could make out four deer. Their fur was a chestnut brown-red, except for a grayish portion near the heads. Their front legs looked shorter than the typical deer Thalia had hunted in North America or Artemis’ sacred stag. The single stag present had horns that protruded backwards, like a gazelle’s, instead of branching out into a network, like an elaborate keyholder.

            Similar to the rabbit, Thalia blinked to realize these deer had long, red tails that curled into a question mark behind them.

            Thalia clenched her bow, wondering if Calex was doing the same. Yes, these were just deer, but deer could trample an unwary hunter, and maybe Xibalba deer liked to nibble on trespassing demigod flesh to prepare for winter. This could have been a trap. How would that look on a gravestone: death by startled deer.

            “Free advice in exchange for releasing me,” the rabbit said, “Different underworlds often exist in one place at one time. It can just depend on who is guiding you as to what the underworld looks like, and how you make it from one underworld to another.”

            As they got closer, Thalia thought she could hear a conversation happening ahead. When Reyna’s armor clanked softly, the conversation abruptly halted. The deer all froze, staring directly at them.

            For a disorienting moment, Thalia had to wonder if all animals could talk, including animals in the upstairs world, and if their feigned silence was the best orchestrated hoax of the mythological world.

            Bugs didn’t mind the deer’s attention. He continued hopping forward. “You will not make it across the Red River. No one has. The Lords of Xibalba don’t make it so easy to dodge the Houses of Torment. The Pax princes before Prince Longwinded, they didn’t make it across. Just ask Lord Santiago how he hurt his leg.”

            Thalia could hear Axel puff up his cheeks and pop them. One more piece of information to beat out of Axel later.

            “You’re close to the heart of Xibalba, which means you’re close to the heart of Tartarus. If you want to get to Tartarus, you need to be the one that takes charge.”[7] Bugs’ ears twitched towards Thalia.

            The deer bolted further down the shoreline.

            “Why me?” Thalia asked, wiping some sweat off her brow. She was glad they weren’t going to be lunch for a pack of ravenous deer.

            “The Mayan prince can get you there, assuming everything goes right. But, if he panics, his homeland will grab him and hold him here, as he will be fighting against his nature to leave this place. I’m unsure the Yoruba pup has an afterlife or how strongly the Orisha would pull him. Praetor, you have a similar chance to the Yoruba pup, since I don’t know if you have any remnant connection to Coaybay and the op’a from your Taino descent.”[8]

            Thalia glanced to Reyna. The praetor looked as confused as she felt.

            She could hear Calex gulp behind them.

            “You, huntress, are almost full Greek. If you come to a place of in-betweens, a place where the worlds converge, and you take the lead, you will naturally find your way home,” he said.

            “To Tartarus,” Thalia corrected, uncomfortable with the assertion that Greek Hell was home. If she was about to come upon some new property, she would need to do some major redecorating.

            “Whatever,” the rabbit said, hopping through the break in the trees onto the bank.

            The long, narrow object the deer had clustered around was a canoe. It must have been carved from one tree, as there were no seam lines signifying separate pieces of wood.  Along the exterior, there were colorful depictions of warriors and animals dancing. The bottom, unfortunately, was stained with blood.  Here and there, jade, obsidian, and pearl were imbedded into the decorations. There were perfectly four paddles waiting to be used.

            “She’s beautiful,” Axel muttered.

            When Thalia glanced back, she saw Axel’s expression had gone slack. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them wistfully. For some reason, the reaction gave her the uncomfortable feeling that their guide had never been here before.

            A rabbit giving directions and a guide who had never been to the place they were leading them through. Great, Thalia thought.

            “Yea, your dad and uncle put a lot of hard work into carving and painting this thing. Why do you think we had to steal it from them?” Bugs asked. He stopped hopping beside the boat, and sniffed the exterior.

            Axel scowled.             “Rabbit, I was only half-joking about eating your heart.”

            “Yea, yea. I heard your friends. They don’t have the gut for you to do it. Yellow-livered colonizers.”[9]

            “Are you complaining that our presence is keeping you alive?” Calex asked.

            The rabbit didn’t respond to him. Bugs turned and hopped back towards the jungle, like something had spooked him. “Just uh, when you fall in, don’t drown.”

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoy and I hope you have an awesome New Year’s Eve!

Footnotes:

[1] I resisted ALL the jokes I could have made with the Britishism. It was difficult…. But I persevered. Though Calex is mad they need to cross that bloody river.

[2] Little does Thalia know, this is what happens in the real Popol Vuh.

[3] Yea, the grammar is awful in this one, and I really need to actually sit down and study again, but it is supposed to say, “He’s a rabbit.”

[4] “If we couldn’t talk, then the louse couldn’t have delivered a message to Hunahpu and Xbalanque from their chiich.” “Who?” “Eh, you’ll read about it in Jack’s stand alone novel. Don’t worry. It’ll be a lot less confusing when you get the whole story.”

[5] Get in line, Thalia.

[6] Between his years of crushing on Reyna and his recent interest in Thalia, I think it dangerous to expect Axel to focus on their surroundings if he’s bringing up the rear.

[7] Mel’s betacomment: “Wait… is the underworld… racist?”

Jack: huh…. Apparently? XD

[8] Because our lovely lady is from Puerto Rico.

[9] What’s something that Romans, Greeks, and Brits all have in common? XD

Chapter Text

Twenty-Four: Thalia

Bug’s Unfriendly Neighbors

            Axel’s family canoe was a few feet from the Red River. Before any discussion could happen, Axel got into a pushup position with the canoe’s back end as a hand rest. Reyna shoved him slightly to the side, taking position beside him.

            He grinned at her.

            With a grunt, they took a step forward, pushing the canoe towards the water.

            Calex and Thalia raced to the front of the boat to help drag it, though walking backwards felt disorienting. From her days at Camp Half-Blood, she was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to put a canoe in water like this, but this canoe also looked as heavy as Mrs. O’Leary.[1]

            “I don’t know if we can trust that rabbit,” Axel said through gritted teeth.

            “That, mate, is a sentence I didn’t think I’d ever hear,” Calex said.

            Thalia laughed, trying to ignore the massive weight of the canoe. Her foot splashed into the water.

            She glanced back and felt her throat constrict.

            Normally, her grey combat boots were caked with mud. The blood had slopped up her grey and slate pants, smattering them with stains.

            “Thalia, Calex, get into the canoe,” Axel instructed.

            Thalia didn’t know what was wrong with her. She’d been in battle. She’d hunted (though, granted, mostly monsters that turned to dust). She had been around blood.

            But, when her foot stepped into the squishy shoreline, the magnitude of the river, with its vast expanse of dark, viscous liquid, seemed to draw her forward. There was no way of knowing this river’s depth. It could have continued downward for miles, or had a shallow layer of bodies between it and the coagulated blood at the bottom.

            Thalia shuddered. She couldn’t get her lips to form a protest against Axel.

            “Lieutenant,” Reyna said softly.

            Thalia shook her head. She kicked her boot at the dirt, though the tinted-pink ground did little to remove the blood. “I’m fine,” she snapped.

            After one more attempt to clean her boot, Thalia hopped into the canoe without further fight. The front two feet of the canoe were in the liquid. She hesitated, realizing someone was going to have to stand in the river to push them fully offshore.

            Calex immediately hopped in beside her, seeming relieved that her compliance made his okay. “You sure, mate?” he said warily. His eyes locked on the dark liquid.

            In response, Axel and Reyna continued to push the boat. Calex and Thalia sat down, grabbing the paddles. The front end began to float, and the immensity of the river appeared to grow the further the canoe went in.

            When Axel and Reyna reached the river’s edge, Axel paused and nodded. “I would hate to rust your grieves, Praetor.”

            Reyna snorted. Despite looking pale in the sickly turquoise glow of the jungle, she gave him a grin and whispered something in Spanish.

            He quipped a response.

            They took the last step together, both their ankles submerging in the Red River. Thalia waited to see if hands would rise up to snatch them.

            Nothing happened.

            Other than her stomach turning at the overwhelming, metallic smell.

            “What did they say?” she whispered to Calex.

            He averted his grey eyes shamefully and quoted in cadence:

            “What kind of praetor would I be,

            If the monsters I fight show more bravery than me?”

            With a lighter voice, he continued, “She was mocking how he spoke earlier. And Axel responded, ‘You’re sounding more and more Mayan each day.’”

            Thalia took a second to realize the monster Reyna was referring to was Axel, since Reyna had previously fought Axel as the Leonis Caput. By implying Reyna had to have the same bravery as Cat Breath, that meant Thalia and Calex were lacking. No one had ever questioned Thalia’s bravery before and she knew Reyna hadn’t directed the taunt at Calex and Thalia. Thalia wanted to get mad. However, there were now two things in her “nope” list: heights and rivers of blood. That seemed a respectable “nope” list.

            Axel bowed slightly to Reyna, holding the boat steady for her with one hand and offering her his other. “Praetor?”

            She said something harsh in Spanish, but accepted his hand. With her addition, the canoe rocked hard enough to make Calex grab the edge.

            Reyna helped Axel in right after. When they settled into the back, Thalia could see how their footprints left little blood splashes. Thalia felt nauseous when she registered all the previous blood splashes coating the bottom of the boat.

            Neither Reyna nor Axel looked down, and Thalia got the feeling they were pretending that none of it was there.

            Axel, Thalia, and Calex took up a natural stroke. The only one who needed a moment’s explanation was Reyna. As she put it, “Rome isn’t exactly known for its navy.”

            That seemed weird to Thalia. When the huntresses visited camp, they always competed against the campers in canoe races. The huntresses had traversed massive rivers in boats, their wolves sometimes sitting obediently, staring off in the distance, other times darting overboard after a fish.

            This ride was different. Each stroke felt like she was pushing her paddle through thick mud. Watching the blood drip off the edges of the paddle, into the foaming pink eddies underneath, made her stomach feel worse. The jungle seemed to go silent other than the slurp of their boat as it progressed further across the river.

            Blood is thicker than water. Thalia kept thinking about the last time she, Nico, and Percy went into the Underworld, how Melinoe pretended to be her mom, how she couldn’t do anything to fight the goddess. Melinoe was topside right now, but what if the goddess tricked her all over again once they got back up there?

            “Shall we sing a camp song?” Calex asked. His voice was tight.

            “No,” Axel said.

            “Maybe we should sing a camp song,” Thalia agreed.

            Axel sighed. “We’re not singing a song to praise the Greek Gods while rolling across a Mayan River with the former lieutenant of Kronos in the boat.”

            “Songs are good to boost a troop’s moral,” Reyna said.

            “Fine, we can sing Green Day,” Axel said.

            Calex made a noise of annoyance.

            Thalia would hit him with her paddle if he dared disagree with Axel’s band choice. However, she was too relieved the Brit had broken the silence to be mad at him for a poor taste in music.

The width of this river seemed to elongate with each stroke, leaving them dead center in a pool of blood. The further center they went, the turquoise hue of the sky stained it a deep wine color.

            Thalia wanted to check Axel’s watch, to make sure time was actually passing. Since she couldn’t get her voice to sing, she asked, “We’re out of Xibalba after we cross this river, right?”

            “From what Lapis explained to me—”

            “Your evil brother that drugged me and Merry?” Calex asked.

            “Yes,” Axel said, “She said rivers are liminal spaces. In-betweens. The river might fog over a bit, and we’ll end up in the closest substance in Tartarus.”

            “You don’t actually know,” Reyna said, sounding annoyed.

            “The trail of light I see in the Labyrinth with my true sight is the same thing that directs me through here. It stops a few yards ahead. The rivers probably switch over there.”

            As though on cue, the turquoise light dimmed above them, like someone had wrapped a black cloth over an invisible dome. Thalia paused in her strokes to pull a small lantern from her backpack. She didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to the boat—maybe a giant catfish would splash up to swallow them—but the darkness was eerie, making the shoreline look like nothing but a mirage.

            “Uh, guys,” Calex said. He stopped rowing too and was looking up. Thalia followed his gaze.

            “Axel, are you telling me this detour was guess work?” Reyna was in the middle of asking, not hearing Calex’s concern.

            “The sky is moving,” Thalia said and felt immediately stupid for saying it that way. But, that’s what it was. The sky had darkened, but specks fluttered back and forth above, changing it from a soft glow to pitch blackness as they darted.

            Reyna and Axel stilled behind them.

            “The sun isn’t supposed to set,” Axel said. His voice shook.

            “OW!”

            The boat rocked when Calex swatted himself across the face.

            Something darted away from Calex and into the sky.

            “Sodding knobhead!” Calex snarled. He brandished his paddle towards the retreating blur, his other hand grabbing his face. “You come back here and I’ll take the piss out of you!”[2]

            “You get way more British when you’re mad,” Thalia whispered.

            “Shut it,” Calex said. “That complete dickhead took a knick out of my cheek.”

            When Thalia squinted, she could see blood seeping between his fingers. She swallowed, watching the blur fly up from the boat and smear into a swarm of entwining darkness in the sky.

            “Be quiet and be still,” Reyna commanded.

            The boat continued to rock for a moment after Calex silenced. The swarm looked like it was getting closer.

            “That’s Camazotz,” Axel said in his typical this-is-how-you-explain-everything-and-reveal-nothing. “This is bad.”

            Thalia didn’t need to ask what Camazotz was. She recognized the high pitch repetitive squeak that echoed across the river and the flight pattern of the flock above them.

            But, she thought their shadows looked big because they were far away. The closer they got, Thalia realized, they were much bigger.

            “They’re supposed to be in The House of Bats,” Axel said.

            “How did the heroes of the Popol Vuh defeat them?” Reyna asked. Thalia glanced over her shoulder and saw Reyna also estimating the distance between the shoreline and here. All of them knew the inevitable though: they could never make it back to shore before the swarm descended on them. Despite all of Thalia’s thinking the river would never end, they somehow made it to the half-way marker.

            She trembled at what Axel said earlier. The trail of light ends here.

            Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them softly. “The hero twins didn’t. They hid. One of their heads got cut off and hung up on a tree by a ball court.”

            “Oh my gods,” Thalia hissed, “Is that why you told Reyna and I not to go near spitting fruit trees?!”

            “Different decapitated hero, but yes.” Axel set his paddle into the boat as quietly as he could. Reyna, Thalia, and Calex followed suit. “The head’s spit is fertile and… I—uh—didn’t want you to become the next Callisto.”[3]      

            “You can get PREGNANT from a decapitated head on a tree?!” she snapped. That seemed in the Necessary To Know category. As she fumed, she strung her bow. Calex reassembled his out of his pencil pouch.

            “You’re a daughter of Zeus. How are you surprised by ANY form of conception?” Axel whispered, though Thalia wasn’t sure why he bothered keeping quiet. The bats could probably detect the only boat in Xibalba that was dumb enough to cross the Red River.

            The squeaks were getting louder. The swarm looked denser and closer.

            “We need a plan,” Reyna said with a firm everybody-shut-up undertone. “A flock… How did Hercules slay the Stymphalian birds? He scared them with a rattle—and killed them with hydra blood?”

            “Fresh out of those,” Thalia grumbled.

            “Percy, Percy got them!” Calex cried, sounding hopeful for a split second, then breaking to disappointment. “He scared them to flight with Chiron’s music, then the Apollo archers picked them off. Those won’t help, and, uh, I hate to point out the obvious, mates, but we’re not winning a race back to shore against these blokes.”

            Judging from how much louder the chirping had become, Calex was correct.

            As the main bat, Camazotz, approached, his size became uncomfortably real.

            His wingspan was larger than an eighteen wheelers. The gleaming white boning in his wings glowed like an x-ray. His ears stretched out like two humans riders perched on either side of its head. Thalia really didn’t like that its fangs were visible from their boat, and, if she had to guess, they were longer than her body

            Thalia suddenly felt claustrophobic despite being in the middle of the outdoors. They were trapped. They weren’t equipped for this. And they didn’t have a plan.

            Then, the dark swarm blurred out the image of Camazotz.

            And the bats descended upon them.

Thanks for reading! i hope you enjoyed :D Tune in next week for, Thalia: I’d Rather Be in Tartarus.

footnotes:

[1] Don’t think I forgot this series’ common unit of measurement.

[2] Technically, this is a misuse of this phrase…. But Jack doesn’t care tonight XD

[3] Huntress who was raped by Zeus (he pretended to be Artemis to get close to her) and Artemis was so mad that Callisto was with child, she either kicked Callisto out of the huntresses or, according to Hesiod, turned her into a bear. Soooo, Axel just doesn’t want Thalia to unintentionally be with child and incur Artemis’ wrath. 

Chapter Text

Twenty Five: Thalia

I’d Rather be in Tartarus

            Thalia didn’t have enough arrows to shoot them all. There was no way to recover the arrows when the flying rodents plopped into the river and were sucked under. The smaller bats struck first, tearing off any exposed skin.

            Other than Reyna, everyone had shed their unnecessary jackets and shirts in the jungle heat. Pain flared up along her arms, her face, her neck, and her shoulders as the swarm clawed and bit her, darting in and out so fast and in such numbers that she didn’t see most of the attackers.

            Every time she shot one down, they were replaced by a dark blur of five more sets of fangs, short snouts, long ears, and leathery wings.

            The twittering was incessant, echoing off the river like a horrible boom of thunder. Normally, Thalia enjoyed thunderstorms. Not this. There was a much deeper thrum that grew louder, shaking her inner core.

            If Camazotz got here before they figured something out, they were bat guano.

            Her friends were screaming. Calex yowled in panic. Axel and Reyna cursed in Spanish. The boat rocked violently.

            Thalia didn’t have much to fight bats. No holy water or bat repellant. Huntresses didn’t really do swarm animals, more giant beasts.

            We’re going to be eaten by Dracula, Camp Half-Blood will be destroyed, and I’ll never get to hear Blink 182’s reunion tour, she thought.

            The rocking gave her an idea.

            “Everyone to the port’s side!” Thalia shouted, hoping she could be heard over the incessant squeaking and hoping a bat wouldn’t decide to explore her windpipe.

            “Are you nutters?! That’ll flip the canoe!” Calex shrieked back.

            “She’s not crazy! She’s a genius!” Axel shouted.

            “Port side!” Reyna ordered. Something glowed on her arm—her tattoo.

            A surge of bravery hit Thalia. These were just bats. They could take bats.

            Thalia released a burst of electricity. A wave of aerial rodents[1] went down, but she wouldn’t be able to do that for the full swarm.

            To her horror, the smaller bats collapsed into the water, leaving a gap to see the Camazotz.

It was maybe twenty feet away, in mid-dive.

            One of their heads got cut off, was what Axel had said.

            This monster was large enough to decapitate all four of them in one go.

            Its wings were fully extended. Its mouth was open, revealing an abyss blacker than anything Thalia had seen, framed by fangs that were stained red on the tips and rotting back on the tops. The stench, even from twenty feet away, was gag-worthy. Rot overpowered the smell of the bloody river.

            Thalia lunged to her right, crashing into Calex. The Brit fumbled, trying to catch himself, but put his full weight against the side of the canoe.

            She caught a glimpse of Axel lunging from his side of the boat, towards Reyna. In a split second, his claws ripped a bat about to bite Reyna’s cheek, just as her spear impaled a bat going for his chest. Although all she could think was, ugh, weird and gross, she was pretty sure he leaned in to kiss Reyna in the moment the canoe tipped.

            Their grounding failed.

            The boat flipped, pitching them over and down.

            When Thalia hit the liquid, she forgot it wasn’t water.

            Her throat clogged.

            She gagged at the intense stench.

            When she resurfaced, she was under the flipped canoe, gasping for breath. The air tasted just as metallic, just as stale. Each stroke took double the effort it normally did. Although an excellent swimmer, she was barely able to tread water.

            She couldn’t see anything until Reyna surfaced.

            Reyna’s tattoo of Bellona gleamed brightly in the darkness. She held her arm aloft, like a beacon, gripping the edge of the boat with her other hand.

            Everything seemed to eat that light. It didn’t reflect into the liquid or illuminate beneath the surface. Instead, it painted the blood black, like they were swimming in ink.

            Calex surfaced next beside Thalia, spitting and swearing. He couldn’t stop saying, “Why?! Bloody why?!”

            Axel came up from the blood near Calex.

            Just as he bobbed up, something struck the canoe in a direct hit.

            The entire boat slammed downward.

            Despite the whole hull being carved of one piece of wood, a giant gash tore out from the center. The echo of bats amplified inside their confinements.

            Camazotz had landed its first bite.

            The boat wouldn’t hold up under a second hit.

            Thalia knew what they would have to do. With the four of them gasping there, waiting for another hit, this next one sure to leave them bobbing helplessly and exposed… the others wouldn’t like her idea. But, the rabbit said she would have to lead. Axel’s true vision said this was where the path ended in Xibalba. Maybe, he couldn’t see the next step.

            Maybe the next step was below the surface.

            “Form a chain! Someone grab hold of me, and then make sure the next person grabs them. We’re going under and I need to lead,” Thalia said.[2] “Reyna, c—c—can you make sure we don’t lose resolve?” She had heard rumors of the children of Bellona’s power.

            Thalia glanced to the praetor, hoping there would be no hesitation.

            Reyna’s dark eyes looked skeletal in the dim lighting. They darted from the hole in the canoe, down to Thalia.

            The thrum of the Camazotz’s scream grew loud again. It was preparing another dive.

            “Yes,” Reyna said.

            They had a split second to consider.

            Calex didn’t protest. He made a noise, then grabbed her backpack. “I’ve got you,” he said, his voice stronger now.

            “I have Calex,” Reyna said.

            “I have Reyna,” Axel said.

            Thalia swallowed, wishing she could get the metallic taste out of her mouth.

            “Okay,” Thalia said.

            They dove under the blood and swam straight down into the blackness.

Things definitely not on my to-do list: swim in the Red River of Xibalba. Still preferable to White or Black, but I’ll just take a hard pass on any of those XD

Thanks for readings! I hope you enjoyed, despite things getting batty—sorry, Pax made Matthias steal my keyboard. Anyway, join in next week for a Reyna chapter!

Footnotes;

[1] Bats, in fact, are not related to rodents and are from the order chiroptera. Pax would be ashamed of Thalia’s misuse of the rodent family. But he’s mostly still hung up on the fact that people think weasels and ferrets are part of the order of rodents too. He wants me to remind everyone that they are not. Now, away from Jack’s exhaustion-induced classification detour and back to your chiroptera-filled fanfic.

[2] Mel betacomment: “this sounds like an adorable kindergarten line. ‘Everyone hold hands!’”

Jack: and now I challenge someone to draw chibi Thalia, Axel, Reyna, and Calex all cheerfully holding hands in this bloody river XD

Chapter Text

Twenty-Six: Reyna

Salvation by Wet Ones

            The blood was thick and only grew thicker the further they swam downward. Reyna had to keep reminding herself that they were, in fact, swimming, and not thrashing, which is how she felt—a victim on the border of drowning.

            In their current condition, Reyna couldn’t truly swim. She had one hand enlaced with Axel’s and the other clasping Calex’s quiver, which she hoped was attached to a person. The occasional pull of it might have been from a monster instead of her comrade, and she reminded herself that she might need to retaliate at any moment.

            All she could do was kick downward, further into this nightmare river. There didn’t seem to be a bottom and the pressure around them kept building. Above, there was certain death by being shredded by tiny teeth, then rendered apart by larger ones. Down here…

             Axel’s kiss, that he stole as the boat flipped, told her a horrifying piece of information: he didn’t think this plan was going to work and he was scared they were going to die without getting to talk things out. He’d run out of ideas or—from what she gathered about the fight with the ahuitzotl and what she’d felt of him when she lent him her bravery—he felt overwhelmed by childhood fears. The recent shattering of his confidence took away his reserves.

            Calex surprised her. While near panic when she first lent him her courage, he’d calmed in this vicious dive. Away from the bats, he seemed confident this Let’s Dive into the Mysterious Blood River and Hope for the Best plan would work.

            Thalia was similar, desperate and determined. Exactly what Reyna would expect out of the Lieutenant of Artemis.

            Reyna wanted to know how Thalia found out that Reyna could lend her strength to troops. Few people knew of that, and she doubted Nico or Axel would have shared the information. The huntresses, however, knew the Amazons. Could Reyna’s sister, Hylla, have betrayed that information?

            Unfortunately, Reyna might never find out. Her lungs burned. The pressure inside her head and along her body was splitting. Although her eyes were closed, white spots began to fleck her vision.

            Similar to how she felt when transporting the Athena Parthenos back to Camp Half-Blood, she could accept her own death on a quest. But, she couldn’t accept letting her troops down in the upper world.

            When she felt the strength ebbing from her kicks, the world lost all orientation. The blood grew cold. Reyna couldn’t be sure she was swimming down anymore. The heaviness of the blood alleviated, like they were propelling upwards. She wondered, foolishly, if she accidentally breathed the blood into her lungs, would she contract any blood born diseases. That shouldn’t be the concern, considering all the open injuries they sustained from the bats. All she could do was fight for survival and consciousness, and pray the Mayan gods had really good infrastructure to keep their rivers from getting polluted.

            The disorientation and nausea felt familiar. Less like drowning and losing oxygen, and more like—

            Someone coughed and gasped.

            Another gagged.

            Reyna thought these must be auditory hallucinations, or tricks of Xibalba. They were still swimming—weren’t they? They had never broken the surface. Though, the liquid no longer felt as thick as blood. More like…

            Gravity had flipped. Reyna felt something wonderful scrap her knee: solid land.

            Thoughts failed her. With how weak her limbs were, and the blurriness of her vision, pure survival instinct took over. She kicked off and onto what she assumed was shore, though the heavy thickness around her didn’t dissipate.

            Reyna’s willpower let out: she gasped and anticipated an irony liquid to flood into her mouth.

            The air she inhaled was heavy, thick, and cold. Not warm blood. No bats swarmed her.

            “Did we just shadow travel?” Thalia asked. She sounded like she had swallowed a live miniature faun and was regretting her decision.

            “None of us should be able to shadow travel,” Calex said between rugged coughs.

            A moment of panic squeezed Reyna’s chest, in a way it hadn’t since they’d arrived in Xibalba.  Not everyone was accounted for. During her thrash to get to land, she’d released Axel’s hand and Calex’s quiver. She sat up, feeling for her knife so one of them was armed. It was still there.

            Reyna opened her eyes to search beside her, but was blinded when the blood dripped from her forehead and eyebrows into her eyes. They stung. She fumbled with her cape to wipe her face, forgetting momentarily she was completely covered from the swim.

            “Praetor?” Axel’s voice came tight and concerned from somewhere beside her. She could hear him sniff, then gag at the metallic reek. “Reyna?” he called again.

            “I’m here,” she said. Her breath and pulse slowed to a regular rhythm. She couldn’t let herself indicate that she was worried or let them process what had just happened. “Is your true sight back?” she asked.

            “I can’t see to tell. There’s too much blood.”

            “Here,” Thalia said.

            After a moment, someone—Reyna assumed the huntress—pressed something cold and wet into her hands.

            Thalia said, “Use these. It’ll sting. But… uh…”

            Reyna gratefully pressed the cloth to her face to clean the vicious liquid from her skin. After a few moments, she could blink enough to look around. Her eyes stung, yes, but she could make out her environment. Or, thought she could. It was dark.

            Flint struck stone.

            Axel held up his lighter.

            The flame was small, and looked even smaller in the massive blackness.

            Reyna’s eyes finally adjusted.

            As far as the light extended, in all but one direction, there was nothingness, a barren wasteland. The ground had black, rocky crags sticking out of a stony floor like a giant witch had died and been buried up to the fingertips. The rock slabs were perfect vantage points for an ambush and Reyna wondered how many new enemies were in this land.

            Behind them was a rocky wall of sorts, reaching up out of the light’s radius.

            When her eyes fully adjusted, Reyna saw there was some natural lighting, but it took a moment to process, like her mind knew processing this world all at once would be like taking a full spoon of pure salt: immediate aftereffects of regret and prolonged discomfort afterwards.[1]

            The ground extended eternally out of sight one direction. In the other one, it ended into abrupt darkness. These spikes of rock jutted out at various points, making it impossible to set up a defendable location without threat of a surprise attack.

            “This looks a bit like a section of Tartarus that Percy and Annabeth described. The one outside of Nyx’s place, where they met the goddess of poison,” Calex whispered.

            When she glanced at her friends, she frowned.

            Despite Calex’s comment, he stared at his hands. They were shaking.

            Thalia held a container of Wet Ones and was desperately trying to clean the blood off her bow.

            Axel crouched low. His ears were down. His reflective eyes looked demonic as he held the lighter like the cheesiest of tour guides on a graveyard tour.

            Reyna needed to keep everyone moving, to distract them before they realized they were covered in blood. Someone or something’s blood. Reyna wondered if the blood only came from violent deaths, and if some of it belonged to her father.

            She shook her head.

            “Thank you for the cloth, Thalia,” Reyna said.

            Thalia gave her a shaky grin and shook her huntress backpack. “It’s waterproof. Like, deep-river waterproof. So, it can handle a dip in another liquid.”

            She seemed to regret it as the words came out. Instead of dwelling on it, Thalia went to handing out the clothing people had given her, giving Axel his shirt and Calex his scarf. She slipped on her parka, which calmed Reyna. Although it wasn’t as obvious on Calex’s ebony skin, or Axel’s deep bronze tan, the smeared blood made swirls along Thalia’s arms, where she’d tried to remove it.

            Calex reached out, but hesitated about his beanie. “I don’t want to get it dirty. It’s the last thing I have left from Mum.”

            Thalia shoved it back into her bag without a word.

            Calex wrapped the scarf around his neck and pressed it close to his mouth. His breath came out in miniature bursts of fog.

            “I’ve read about this place,” Reyna said. “The home of Nox.”

            “Nyx,” the other three reflexively corrected.

            “Graeci,” Reyna muttered.[2] “This is where her Palace of Night is, where her children reside. We should be close to Chaos.”

            After a pause, Axel cleared his throat. “My true vision is back. I think we were too deep in Xibalba to end up in the rivers of Hades. Having Thalia lead must have really changed which Underworld we were in. We’re just lucky we didn’t crawl out of the River Acheron.”

            “Yea, Cat Breath, but how did that whole thing work? Think Bugs had a lucky foot?” Thalia asked.

            “You’re asking me to explain the physics behind trans-underworld travel? I’m a strategist, not a theologist. That’s Dr. Claymore’s department.” Axel said. Reyna could hear the fragile humor in his voice. He handed Reyna his lighter for a moment, his fingers unnecessarily brushing against hers. He slipped his shirt back on.

            Axel took the lighter back.

            “You’re giving away our location, mate,” Calex said.

            Reyna wanted to be proud of him, but she also didn’t want them to lose their main source of light.

            “Trust me, if something is waiting to kill us here, it already knows where we are,” Thalia said and frowned. “I wish I hadn’t lost my lantern in the river. It fell into the river when the boat flipped.”

            Reyna frowned. Her spear had also disappeared into the depth when the boat flipped and was probably close friends with Thalia’s lantern at that moment.

            “Where does your true vision lead us?” Reyna asked, trying to keep them on track. They’d had enough time to catch their breath. They needed to move. She dared not ask Axel what time it was on the outside world.

            Axel pointed towards a bend in the cliff side beside them, one leading in the direction of sudden blackness. Wouldn’t be a quest without walking towards the Danger Here signs. “There.”

            “At least we know we’re in the right spot,” Calex said, “Euna’s been here.”

            Reyna followed his gaze behind her. Almost outside of their bubble of light, along the cliff face, there was a massive hole in the wall. This could have been a natural formation, except stairs, almost identical to the ones that breached Camp Half-Blood, lead upwards. Vines with beautiful white flowers bloomed along the outside, like decoration to trick children into an old woman’s house that was secretly a cannibal. Children’s stories were weird.

            “It’s like a horror movie,” Thalia said.

            “A very pretty horror movie,” Calex agreed.

            They formed a quick grid, archers in back, Axel and Reyna in the front. Once their eyes adjusted, Axel clicked away his lighter. The uncomfortable, dim grey glow of the world was enough to dodge the occasional pools of muck or smaller rocks jutting up. There was no way to see around the claw-like structures that Axel lead them through.

            Thalia’s silver bow and Calex’s golden one glowed softly behind them, casting a ghostly mixture of light onto their immediate path. Reyna fingered her knife, wishing her spear hadn’t ended up somewhere in the blood river.

            “I’m sorry, praetor. Twenty-four hours ago, I would have been carrying plenty of weapons from which you could have chosen,” Axel said without making eye contact.

            She didn’t like him sensing her discomfort so easily. Though, any warrior might have known she would dislike the lack of range.

            “This is strange,” Calex said, making it so she didn’t need to answer. “Euna and that mad bloke, Jack, must have caused a ruckus getting down here. Percy and Annabeth’s accounts made it sound like this was a popular spot for monsters. They said Nyx was a tad protective.”

            “So where are the monsters and the Goddess of Night?” Reyna said.

            For whatever reason, Reyna got the feeling Nyx wasn’t in. This place felt empty. Queasiness hit her stomach. What if they were too late and the sun had already set? Plus, the lack of aggression down here made Reyna feel like they were about to be ambushed.

            “What time is it?” Thalia asked aloud for everyone.

            “On the outside world? Roughly noon,” Axel said.

            That made Reyna’s head whirl. It felt like they’d been gone for days.

            Axel shot a hand out and crouched. Reyna froze and crouched beside him, hoping the others did the same. She didn’t see anything, but she assumed that Axel’s cat-slit eyes gave him better night vision.

            “I think it’s a body,” he said, “On the ground, up ahead. Partially behind a rocky crag, twelve o’clock, about 30 feet.”

            “You don’t think it’s Euna?” Calex asked, his voice tight with concern. 

            “Too hard to say,” Axel said.

            “Could be a trap,” Reyna pointed out.

            “Let’s proceed with caution, since every step takes us closer to getting out of this creepfest,” Thalia said.

            Each step probably took them closer to the heart of Tartarus, but Reyna knew it wasn’t the time to point that out.

            They advanced slowly, cautiously, keeping low to the floor. If this was an ambush, there was no way to defend against it. The light from Thalia and Calex’s bows was too strong. Axel and she could let them go forward alone, and flank around the sides, or scout, but a monster with better sight could easily outmaneuver Reyna in this dimness. Splitting up would only leave them more vulnerable.

            Her heartbeat thudded in her head, and she thought about the first time her cohort was pinned down by Saturn’s army. When a feline, skeletal monster led an ambush that took her troops by surprise and gave her a vicious scar across her thigh.

            She shook her head, promising herself to figure that out after this was over.

            As they got closer, Reyna could see something peeking out from behind the rock: the silhouette of a hand and head, with some covering over the head. Neither moved.

            Something about this didn’t feel right. They were in Tartarus, yes, but Reyna didn’t remember this enlisted in the Fields of Punishment’s Guide to Hospitality.            

            A few more steps—the patter of which was silenced by the sheer thickness of the air—and she could discern more details: the delicate, ghostly-white hand was feminine. Its nails were stuck in the dirt, like it had tried to crawl away. Red splayed out around the head in a halo: the person’s hair.

            Ropes tied its head, facedown, into a pool of muck.

            Something made a clipped, throaty noise.

            The hand twitched to life. It violently clawed once at the ground.

            Then, it went slack.

            “Oh gods,” Calex whispered.

            Another throaty, choked noise.

            Behind the first body, there was a second.

            This one was tied to another black rock jutting out of the floor. It was a girl—or Reyna thought it was a girl. Her lower-half was completely wrapped against the rock, up to her chest. Her hands were free, repeatedly and absently, touching where her ears should have been.

            Reyna felt nauseous to realize the redness wasn’t just the natural color of her hair.

            The remains of this girl’s ear were at her feet. Her hands were covered in blood.

            The soft, throaty sound erupted from her open mouth again.

            “Oh my gods,” Thalia said, “Are those demigods? We have to help them. They’re still alive.”

            “They’re empousa,” Axel said. “But we are going to help them.”

            “Are you for real?!” Thalia demanded. She sounded offended by his calm.

            “Calex, Thalia, stay a few feet further behind us,” Reyna said. If someone was waiting behind the empousa’s rock, she wanted to make sure Calex and Thalia would have enough time to react. If nothing else, she wanted Thalia to be able to shock everything in front of her, accepting Reyna and Axel as collateral damage.

            A few more feet, and Reyna could see the empousa features. The earless one’s eyes were red, matching the stains on her arms. There were fangs in her gaping mouth. The donkey and brass legs weren’t visible under the binding.

            The empousa’s eyes didn’t follow their movement as they got close. Reyna was so used to seeing this monsters snarling with a sadistic grin. The blank expression was disturbing.

            “Why would Tartarus punish its own?” Reyna asked. She tightened her grip on her knife, glancing around for any potential torturers. “I thought monsters came down here to respawn.”

            “They do,” Axel said. They paused a few feet away from the bodies. Axel frowned and knelt down beside the one twitching in the puddle. “Monster-on-monster violence does happen, but I’ve never seen or heard of anything like this.”

            His claws reached for the ropes around the grounded body.

            “Don’t touch those,” Calex hissed.

            Axel froze.

            Reyna, Axel, and Thalia glanced at him.

            Calex looked pale. His grey eyes were wide and glistened a silvery hue in the bows’ illumination. “That’s poisonous. In Alnwick Castle, back at home, they had this poison garden. Gretchen and Tom used to make me take them there with their mates. That stuff was in the poison garden.”

            “He’s right,” Thalia said. She stepped past Reyna to kneel down beside Axel. “This is a poisonous vine. It’s one of the first things we’re taught to avoid as huntresses.

            Reyna gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to say it, but someone had to. “This is the work of a child of Demeter.”

            “Why didn’t she just kill them?” Thalia asked, baffled and, maybe, scared. “I’ve killed a lot of monsters, but, I mean, I just kill them. That empousa looks like she ripped out her own freaking ears.”

            Axel’s frown deepened. “That must have been Jack’s doing. He never liked the empousa, but they were under Alabaster and Hecate’s protection at camp.” He stood from his crouch and walked to the mutilated monster tied to the rock.

            “I’m sorry, Kelli,” he said, and thrust his gladius into her throat.

            “’Ey!” Calex said, his voice quivering. “I thought you wanted to help them! You even know their names and—”

            The throaty noises stopped. For a split second, those blood-red eyes focused on Axel. The empousa’s expression eased and her body scattered into dust.

            “I am,” Axel said. He puffed up his cheeks, then slowly popped them. The pop felt like it should echo in this vast space; it died in the cold. “They’re tied up and dismembered. They can’t starve. If they die, they at least have the chance to come back fully formed, instead of prolonging this state.”

            Part of Reyna knew it wisest to leave them like this. That way, the empousa couldn’t come to the top world, to attack them. They’d be trapped here, withering. But, if she did that, she felt like she’d be no different than the monsters.    

            She stepped over to the empousa whose face was permanently half-drowning in a puddle of muck. With a calculated thrust, she stabbed into the empousa’s exposed temple, the area with least resistance from the skull.

            The claws scratching at the dirt stopped moving.

            The empousa crumbled into the muck.

            Axel gave her an appreciative nod and she had to wonder how many of his own troops he’d had to dispatch as an act of “mercy.”

            “We need to keep moving,” Reyna said, rubbing her blade with the ends of her cloak, before realizing she was smearing crusted blood from the cloak onto the blade. If they survived this, she would be cleaning her armor for weeks. And probably take bathes neurotically for the next month.

            Axel nodded.  He wiped his gladius off on his shirt. “I get the feeling we’re close.”

            Reyna glanced at Calex and Thalia. Their bows were lowered, completely unprepared for an ambush. At least Thalia still had her fingers on the bowstring from where she was crouching.

            She looked mad.

            Calex seemed terrified. “I don’t think Euna did this,” he said.

            Reyna had seen that look of distress on new recruits before: the disbelief at an act of horror or violence.

            “Debating whether she did or didn’t isn’t going to do anything,” Thalia snapped, “Let’s find her and she’ll tell us that she didn’t.” The huntress rose to her feet. “Which way, Cat’s Breath? I wanna get Euna and get out of here.”

            Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them. Slowly, he continued past the rocks. “Remember that Euna killed Santiago and his men by making saplings burst from their insides. Not that I think it was the wrong decision; it was the only decision to get rid of an evil.”

            “What’s your point, mate?” Calex asked. They took up the grid formation again, with Calex and Thalia in the back.

            A division felt like it was forming between them, and Reyna realized her presence might not just be to keep Axel from betraying them. “He means to say that Euna isn’t well and might not be the same person you started traveling with. She’s been through a lot, and hasn’t received proper—”

            “Shut up. She’s going to be fine,” Thalia snapped. The gleam of Thalia’s silver bow flickered violently. From what Reyna could tell, the huntress was scanning around them erratically. “We’ll just get her away from Backbiter, get that creepy talking head away from her, and she’ll be fine.”

            Axel paused. He turned his head, frowning again. “Thalia—”

            “Shut up,” she snapped.

            “Lieutenant of Artemis—” Reyna began, but another noise cut her off.

            A metallic squeak came from behind.

            Axel collapsed to one knee, grunting.

            Everyone else whirled to look back. There was nothing there. Just the darkness.

            Another metallic squeak from behind their new position.

            Thalia jumped forward. “It’s on my back!” she said, her hand fumbling at her backpack.

            “It’s the Leonis Caput helm,” Calex said, grabbing Thalia to steady her. He untethered the helm from her backpack, careful to only touch the ties and not the helm itself.

            Sure enough, the helm itself made a soft squeak of… it sounded like panic. Its fierce jaws and feline features glinted wickedly in the dim lighting.

            Axel clutched his head, stumbling back to his feet.

            Reyna gripped her knife. “Axel?” Although she accepted it as a real possibility, Reyna didn’t want him losing control down here.

            He shook his head. Despite the cold, sweat intermixed with the blood on his brow and dripped off, onto his shirt. “It says… something is wrong in the upstairs world. One of my brethren is in danger…” Axel’s voice took on a gravely quality towards the end. He quivered. “Something happened to Alabaster or Ajax. I think the attack started.”

            The helm made another creaking noise.

            Reyna felt her heart thud louder. Axel had said it was noon. Had he lied about the time? More likely, the goddess of Chaos had lied about when she would attack.

            “Uh, could you kindly shut this thing up?” Calex asked, holding it away from him, understandably, like a bag of legionnaires’ used socks.

            Axel reached for the helm, looking queasy.

            “No,” Reyna started to say, but Calex already moved it away.

            “I meant from a bit of a respectable distance,” Calex said.

            “Sh,” Thalia muttered. Her eyes focused ahead.

            Calex gave her an incredulous look.

            Reyna understood though. Thalia’s tone had been different from her prior rage. She crouched and held a hand for silence. Then she pointed in the direction they had been traveling.

            The creak of the helm must have covered the secondary, sharper sound. Reyna could hear it clearly now, like someone made an orchestra of tortured, squealing animals, likely tormenting them with Apollo’s haikus.

            The squeals jointed together to make a horrific voice.

            “What was that? Euna, oh Euna, thou, my beautiful, terrifying Euna.

            Does thy heart not quiver at the whispers of this eve, forever glistening?

            Why does this dismembered fool even bother, you’re not even listening.”

            They crept forward. Reyna had a hand on Axel’s arm to steady him. He shivered violently under her touch. Calex tied the quieting Leonis Caput helm to his belt. He and Thalia kept their fingers on their bowstrings.

            “Didn’t really think this far ahead,

            Fuck up now, and we’ll wind up dead.

            Here: a lazy couplet,

            From your poetic pet.”

            They crept around a few more rock spires and halted abruptly.

            There was Euna, standing maybe fifteen feet away.

            Calex and Thalia both gasped, and Reyna understood why.

            What Reyna had mistaken for blackness was the edge of a cliff. Euna stood at the edge, quarter turned towards them, gazing into the void before her. One hand balanced a giant sickle beside her, more like touching the shoulder of a fellow soldier than steadying a weapon. Her other hand fingered something small and glistening, likely Persephone’s box. Along her belt, there was a flash of red hair—the Plague Bringer’s decapitated head, chattering away.

            Her clothing was in tatters. Her black hair wiped violently about in an updraft from the cliff. It looked longer then Reyna remembered. She’d only met this girl a few times, but she didn’t remember Euna’s hair alternating between shoulder-length with strands that went down her back—vines and flowers, Reyna realized. A gash split open one of her sleeves, and the material fluttered in the gusts of air, exposing the curve of one of her breasts. Euna didn’t seem to notice or care.

            Her tan skin had its own glow. She looked beautiful, powerful, and indifferent to her surroundings.

            For a horrified moment, Reyna knew that Euna looked like a goddess.

            An awful, scraping sound, that must have been laughter, came from the head hanging off her belt. “Oh, hello quartet, bienvenue. Are you pleased to hear, we’ve been waiting for you?”

Eh, I’m sure Euna is just fine >>’’’’

I hope you enjoyed! Thanks for reading :D

Footnotes:

[1] So, Jack may have done a lot of those “chug a gallon of milk under an hour,” and other challenges growing up. 

[2] Greeks.

Chapter Text

Twenty-Seven: Axel

Organic Situational Awareness

(or: The Wrong Time for Pride)

            Jack went from sinister to hysterical within one breath. Axel could imagine his surrogate father shift from a generalized glance, to narrowing in on him. This usually preceded an embarrassing story. Instead of an embarrassing story, Jack came near a sob. “My boy! Axel, my boy! We saw her, we saw my wonderful Flynn! That militaristic bitch-god of war, and Flynn’s fashionist ice cleft of a mother—they have her!  They have my amazing Flynn!”

            Axel clenched his teeth. He didn’t consider that Jack must have gone through the Princess Andromeda on the way down here. It would have destroyed the maniac to see Flynn and do nothing to help her.

            If Euna could hear Jack’s rambling, she gave no indication.

            Thalia snapped out of her surprise first. “Euna!” she called over Jack’s continued ramblings about the Ballad of Descent and Snack Breaks. The latter, something Axel’s stomach said they should have taken more of.

            “Wait,” Reyna whispered.

            Before she or Axel could grab Thalia’s arm, the huntress stepped forward.

            Axel could imagine Reyna’s complaint later, Don’t any of you know how to formulate a plan? I would have better luck attacking Russia in winter!

            Axel didn’t dare step after Thalia. A closer proximity to Kronos’ scythe might cloud his already foggy thoughts. He had never heard, had never felt, the Leonis Caput helm, itself, scream. It sent a jolt of terror through him. Pax had been through so much; Axel trembled to think of what might be happening topside to make the helm itself worry.

            At least everyone had heard the helm make that noise. That was new. He didn’t want to tell the others, “Oh, normally my helmet just talks in my head.” Out of the people here, only Reyna might have the slightest idea of what that meant, and he really rather she didn’t.

            When he tested the proximity to Backbiter, leaning towards Euna, reaching a hand out after Thalia, his mind sharpened. The Leonis Caput’s internal panic softened in the presence of its commander.

            It helped him comprehend what happened next.

            Thalia slid her bow onto the back, briskly closing the distance between she and Euna. “Hey, Euna, I’m talking to you! I didn’t swim through a river of blood—”

            Something made a crunch under Thalia’s boot when she was about five feet from Euna.

            “Wrong step, huntress!” Jack taunted.

            Axel had enough time to realize that Jack must not have been able to make out Thalia’s features in the dark, else her moniker would have been something much less polite and something that would incur a reprimanding from Axel since he’d grown to like Thalia.[1]

            Several small somethings exploded from the dirt at Thalia’s feet.

            “Styx!” was all she got out before those things wrapped around her and dragged her to the ground.

            A small burst of electricity temporarily freed the huntress, so she could fumble an arm out, before the snake-like forms entrapped her again. Within a breath, she was cocooned on the floor. The cocoon rocked slightly, emitting the occasional muffled swearwords. The swearing, at least, meant she could breathe.  Vines, Axel realized. Hopefully not poisonous ones this time.

            Calex took a step backwards in dismay.

            Reyna fingered her knife. Axel felt like he could sense Reyna calculate how dangerous Euna was and the quickest way to take her down.

            Euna’s head twitched. She glanced over her shoulder at the organically and all-natural, mummified Lieutenant of Artemis. “Hm?” she said, reaching up to pull something from her ear. Plants curled out of her hair and towards them, like they were tiny, environmentally-friendly radar guns. Her eyes looked like absent pits of blackness, similar to the cliff’s edge.

            Maybe Axel shouldn’t have felt it, but pride lifted his stomach. Euna had listened and learned. “Now that is a way to deal with a lack of situational awareness,” he muttered.

            Reyna shot him a look, then her eyes glanced from Thalia to the daughter of Demeter.

            “Oh,” Euna said, like they stumbled upon each other outside an ice cream shop. “Hi Calex, Axel, Praetor chick.”

            Calex gave her an uncomfortable wave and slung his bow over his back. His eyes darted from Thalia, back to Euna.

            Axel nodded his head to her. Then, he registered her shirt was torn open and immediately adverted his gaze. He wanted to scold Calex, but the Brit wasn’t reacting like he’d noticed her tattered state. For a bewildering moment, Axel had to wonder if Calex secretly saw everyone naked all the time. He could imagine Calex’s explanation now, “It’s an Eros thing.”

            Reyna frowned at Euna. “Daughter of Demeter, we came here to talk, as friends and allies. That—” She gestured to the squirming cocoon. “—is a friend.”

            “She’s safer in there,” Euna said, the comment indicating she knew Thalia’s exact identity. “Jack droned on a lot about things he’d like to do to some of the people he doesn’t like. I’ll need him singing soon and, until I no longer need him alive or can focus on shutting him up, she’ll be safer in there.”

            “Euna said she’ll let me keep my tongue if I’m a good boy,” Jack said. The pride with which he said it indicated that he thought he’d earned the appendage.

            “Or,” Calex said, his voice trembling, “We could toss that mad bloke’s head over the side of the cliff there, and we can head topside, out of this nightmare.”

            Axel needed to know how she would respond. He made a mental note to apologize to Euna later and glanced up at her face.

            She shook her head. “No. Jack said you’d come—”

            “Lucky, prophetic guess,” Jack hummed.

            “—and I need your help. Well, really Calex’s help, I think. Though, the two of you are supposed to be here.”

            Calex pressed his lips together in concern.

            Reyna clenched her fist.

            Looking at Euna, something was very clear: she didn’t need saving. Axel wasn’t sure she needed them at all. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them, exhaling deeply. He’d feared she had died in the Labyrinth, and they’d find her corpse. This was no corpse. This wasn’t the Euna he’d first met on the quest to Howe Cavern to save Rachel Elizabeth Dare, but this was still Euna.

            Judging by her resolve—the way she’d casually trapped a girl she had a crush on—Axel knew what was about to happen next. He glanced at the Leonis Caput helm latched to Calex’s belt. The imperial golden gleam made him nauseous still, but he’d need to don it. His eyes trailed to the scythe at Euna’s side.

            Hello Lieutenant, came the cold greeting of Kronos.

            He tried not to flinch and to focus on the tension unfolding before him.

            “Euna, we are here to help you,” Reyna said. Axel got the feeling he and Reyna shared another flaw: they weren’t great at gentle negotiation. “Put Saturn’s scythe down and the Plague Bringer’s head. Leave them here. We can travel back to the surface world. Our other friends up there are in danger. They need our help.”

            Euna looked annoyed.

            As Axel suspected, the daughter of Demeter had probably zoned out while Reyna was talking and just realized she was expected to respond.

            “Euna…” Calex said.

            Euna’s eyes flashed over to him, then returned to Reyna. “You don’t want me taking a piece of Kaos,” she said. “Backbiter told me.” Euna shrugged. “I’m going to kill your gods, Praetor. I can the others in a bit, but it would be dumb not to do this first.”

            “I’m a protector of New Rome. I can’t let you do that if your intention is to kill the gods,” Reyna said. She took a step forward. Reyna was at a major strategic disadvantage and she knew it.  Euna brought a small army of plants with her, and they didn’t know where else Euna had planted—Pax would laugh at that one—traps.

            Axel grabbed Reyna’s wrist.

            “And I can’t let you stop her,” he said.

            With his other hand, he withdrew his gladius and tossed it to the side. As he’d learned before, the blade wouldn’t help him in a fight against the daughter of war.

            Reyna’s glare was icy. “Axel,” she said. Her muscles tensed under his grip.

            “Mate?” Calex asked warily.

            Axel flicked out the stiletto attached to his wrist: a Mayan weapon, one he hoped the Roman goddess wouldn’t be able to influence or control, especially in the depths of Tartarus. Knife to stiletto: a very intimate fight.

            “What did the gods just do to my little brother?” Axel asked. Tears threatened to choke him when he thought about Pax pinned to The Princess Andromeda’s deck, withering in pain, sobbing, and screaming at Ares, unable to do anything as Axel—his protector, his older brother—lifted Pax’s head up to execute him. The way Pax quieted to spare Axel’s feelings, like getting his own dagger shoved into his throat was no biggie. The way Axel let all of his pride crumble, begging to be Aphrodite’s sex slave in exchange for his brother’s life, only to plea to apathetic ears.

            “I was too weak to dethrone an unjust tyrant,” Axel said, his voice trembling. “If I think someone is stronger than me, strong enough to succeed at bringing justice to the world where I failed, I have no other option but to help that person.”

            “Thanks, Axel,” Euna said, though Axel couldn’t look to see her expression now. “I really don’t want to have to kill the praetor. I know you like her and stuff.”

            By now, his and Reyna’s arms trembled as Axel tried to hold her wrist in place and she tried to withdraw. He thought about their time in the tent, about how she’d almost stabbed him through the heart. He wondered if this would be it, if they’d never get to “spar” again.

            “Attempting to tear off a piece of Kaos could kill her,” Reyna said through gritted teeth.

            Axel didn’t turn away from Reyna when he raised his voice to ask, “Euna, do you accept this could possibly kill you?”

            “Duh,” she muttered dully. For a faint moment, he could imagine Joey scolding her sister for stealing the little sister’s typical response.

            Despite everything, it made him smile.

            Reyna twisted her wrist, breaking his grip.

            She shoved him off.

            Axel took a step backwards, closer to Calex. He kept his stiletto in a defensive position.

            Calex flinched away. “Axel, have you gone mental?!”

            Quite the contrast, Axel felt uncanny clarity. He reached backwards, grabbed the Leonis Caput helm, and slit the tethering off Calex’s bag.

            “Sorry. I’ll be needing this,” Axel said.

            This was the one place they, the Leonis Caput and Axel, might be able to beat Reyna: in Tartarus, away from her mother’s realm, with his master’s blade so close.

            Reyna’s dark gaze flicked from him, to Calex, to Euna. Strands of hair had escaped her braid. Some stuck to her face with the dried blood from the river. Some was caught in the updraft, fluttering around like her purple cloak. Despite all of that, she still looked beautiful. However, with the nothingness behind her, Reyna looked smaller and less prepared than she usually did.

            She had nowhere to go. Strange to be cornered in the middle of an open abyss.

            Reyna exhaled and narrowed her gaze. “Calex, go get Euna,” Reyna said. Axel could see the tension run through her body as she prepared for an attack. They had battled and danced so often, he and the Leonis Caput could practically sense her wind up for a lunge.

            “Yes, Calex,” Axel said, feeling a slight grin tug on his lips as he lifted the Leonis Caput helm back to his face. “Go to the Sickle Wielder.”

            Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed seeing that Axel is about as trustworthy as Italy during a World War. <3 you Italy. Stay tuned next week for Calex’s chapter, “If All Your Friends Jump Off a Cliff…”

Footnote:           

[1] Definitely still views her as someone who betrayed Luke. Eh, what’s a best friend to do?

Chapter Text

Twenty-Eight: Calex

If All Your Friends Jump Off a Cliff…

            Calex wanted nothing to do with this. He wanted to be back at home, at his flat in St. Albans. There, he would be sipping a cup of tea, eating some of Winston’s terrible attempts at supper that he made when Tiwa was running late at the hospital, and hearing Gretchen complain about boys and Tom tease her.

            He wished he’d never learned who his biological father was, never read about the adventures of Percy Jackson and the Heroes of Olympus, and never stepped foot in America.

            He didn’t know what he was to do.

            Then again, both Reyna and Axel had directed him to the same task: go to Euna. Just what to do when he got there eluded him.

            Before he could mutter something about how Axel may have bollixed his chances with Reyna, he stumbled away from their fight.

            The two warriors clashed into each other, a scrambling mess of golden armor blackened by dried blood to a dull mustard, like they’d decided to have a good ol’ scrum in a pool of black pudding.

            He didn’t know which one of them to help and doubted he could help regardless. Their movements were so fast, so brutal that he knew he would just get in the way. Besides, especially with his Eros gifts, he knew their fight was a tad personal and not something he’d want to interrupt.

            He walked towards Euna, careful to step around the vines linked back to her. He edged around Thalia’s swearing, shifting, angry cocoon. He didn’t want to know what kind of butterfly he’d emerge if these vines captured him.

            Euna pocketed Persephone’s box and held a hand out towards him.

            The updraft was violent. His scarf fluttered up and smacked him in the face as he approached. The roar was deafening, though he thought he heard a crackled hum alongside it.

            Despite their surroundings, or maybe enhanced by the bleakness of their surroundings, Euna’s loveliness was distracting. She looked older, colder. Her skin glowed faintly. Red, spiky flowers, trumpeted purple ones, and tiny, white bell ones dangled from her hair and clothes, tenderly brushing against her skin. Dark purple berries, and clustered brilliant red ones formed a crown along her head. From what Calex vaguely remembered from the Alnwick Gardens, all of those were toxic. Vines were the only thing keeping her tattered outfit together, and Calex had an uncomfortable moment of wondering whether Euna was puppetting the vines or they were puppetting her.

            “Right, Euna. Hey,” he said lamely, taking her hand, hoping he wouldn’t immediately pass out from the poisons. How his journey would end, unconscious by the pit of Kaos: There and Not Back Again: a Story about a Dumb Prick by Calex Rupin McKenzie.

            Her hand was rough.

            He remembered her distant gaze when he’d given Euna her first kiss and how taken aback she was with their godly audience. (And, how he’d been more than a bit mortified that she’d taken a fancy to a woman right after, though Calex knew it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Thalia.)

            Before, her dark eyes were always distant, bored. Now, they were focused, radiating hatred.

            He’d been more than a bit worried about her since Santiago killed Joey. But he never knew how to help.

            Now he could.

            “We’re going to jump,” she said.

            Calex swallowed. “I don’t follow.”

            Her gaze shifted over the cliff.

            Calex looked down. “Vertigo” was too weak a word to describe the rushing sensation he felt, the loss of self when confronted with the reality below him. This was like comparing a glance down a faucet to a glance over a cliff off Mount Everest. Except, in this case, Mount Everest was the faucet.

            It was like the world just ended. When Calex thought about what he learned in Camp Half-Blood’s mythology classes, the world did end here, like those silly old illustrations of ships finding the edge of the ocean and tumbling into nothing.

            At first, Calex thought the thing beneath him was black and dark. Upon blinking, slowing his breathing, and tapping into his demigod focus, he knew it was all colors, swirling and colliding so violently and rapidly as to blur and appear a swirling vortex of nothing: a cycle of existence and destruction. A creature that—with each exhale—created and eviscerated with the same attention as Calex paid to blinking.

            The updraft and abrupt suction of air wasn’t any wind. Kaos itself was spawning new particles.

            No wonder Hera had screamed when Zeus hung her over Kaos. Nothing like forcing an immortal to face its own unimportance.

            “We’re going over the edge,” Euna reiterated.

            Calex squeezed her hand. He was glad she had offered hers to him. Had he not been holding her, he was scared he’d slip over the edge, gawking and forgetting, by comparison of the gargantuan thing beneath him, that he even existed or mattered. If he did at all.

            “Did you have to put it to words?” he whispered. Cold sweat broke out on his brow. Calex swallowed again. He forced his eyes away from the eminent evisceration and rebirth, glancing at Euna, who seemed unaffected by the gravity of Kaos. “Wait,” he said, “Euna, before we get ripped to pieces by that… thing beneath us, can you promise me something?”

            Her cold eyes examined him curiously. Unlike the others, it was clear she wasn’t on a time schedule. He guessed a godly killing spree didn’t need a special date or RSVP.

            Calex felt like he was supposed to say this isn’t what Joey would have wanted, but this was EXACTLY what the overdramatic girl would have wanted. Except, maybe, with a musical number with the pit of Kaos as a DJ scratch booth. Not—as Calex finally identified—the hum of a decapitated head dangling off Euna’s belt.

            He shook his head. “Assuming we live through this and all that unlikeness, we’re going topside to save the camp, slog Phobetor in his stupid piggy face, make sure Kally, Merry, and the others are okay, and then we’re going to get some pizza afterwards and have a long chat before you decide to jump off any other cliffs,” he said, “There are other ways to mourn.”

            Euna’s sternness broke at the mention of lunch. Although it had to be his imagination with the roar of Kaos, he could have sworn he heard Euna’s stomach growl. She pulled his hand in, so she could touch her belly. She frowned. “I really should have eaten more before this. And taken a nap. Add napping to the end of that list.”

            If Euna threw fists when members of Cabin Four tried to wake her from training, he’d be terrified for the poor bloke that tried to wake Euna after a plotting-the-destruction-of-the-gods nap.

            “We’ll have to get you another shirt along the way, least you kill Axel and Thalia with embarrassment.”

            “My shirt?” Euna asked, confused.

            “Is torn,” he said.

            Euna glanced down. “Ah.” She shrugged. “So it is. I don’t know why that would bother either of them.”

            Calex shook his head, almost smiling from her aloofness. This was still their Euna. “Shall we then? Lovely day for a dive. Or night. I have no real concept of what time it is.”

            Something slithered up along his legs to his hips. For a horrified moment, he thought he’d miss-stepped onto one of Euna’s traps. Then the vines pushed him against Euna.

            “If we get separated, you die,” she said as the vines laced their legs together. He was grossed out that Jack’s humming head bumped his thigh.

            Not that there aren’t 50 other things that will make me die here, he thought.

            Calex was already scared of tripping over the edge. Now he frantically struggled to keep his footing. For an absurd moment, he wanted to protest that he was covered in blood and would get Euna dirty, since that was clearly high on her priority list. Euna was shorter than him, and their proximity brought the poison berries to his chin height. Her hair tickled his throat and he got lightheaded when he inhaled the sickly sweet scent from one of the white flowers. Angel’s Trumpet, a devil of a flower, he remembered an Alnwick tour guide warning.

            She released his hand to hold up the rosewood box from her pocket. “Calex, I need you to make a tiny portion of Kaos fall madly in love with this box. Jack—” She glanced down, her face brushing Calex’s chest. “I need you to keep the rest of Kaos from getting near the box. Or us.”

            Jack had been humming Poison by Alice Cooper. A real oldie Calex knew from Winston. “Aye, aye, Captain Euna! That sounds like something I might be able to do.”

            “That’s it then? Make the primordial god of creation fall in love with a small, wooden box?” Calex asked, trembling. He swallowed a third time. His head already felt like it was spinning, though he couldn’t tell if that was from the toxic fumes, the terror, the continued vertigo, or the annoyance of remembering Jack was a real person and not a Halloween decoration. “I’ll need use of my bow, then.”

            He was too close to Euna, and he didn’t think he could wrap his arms around her and shoot behind her back. The scythe might also get in the way once they were falling. He unslung Soul Pain from his back and awkwardly held it to the side.

            “I’ll make us tied back-to-back once we’ve fallen and we know the vines are secure. You’re going to want these.” She placed something gooey in his free hand, then tapped her ear.

            When he stared down, he could see something that resembled plant goop.

            “I’ve got some lungs on me. Well, I don’t anymore, but I’m still a loud Jackie-boy,” Jack explained, and Calex could hear him grinning.

            Earplugs? Calex hoped these earplugs weren’t also poisonous, though at this point, he more hoped that Thanatos would still collect his soul here before it got turned to particle rubbish and that the god of Death wouldn’t chicken out since Calex would die so close to Kaos.

            When Calex pressed some of the goop to his left ear, the liquid seemed sentient, sliding in and clinging to his eardrum. The roar of Kaos, Jack’s humming, and the shouts and clang from Axel and Reyna’s fight dulled to a muffle. He pressed the remaining gunk onto his other earlobe, on standby. He wasn’t quite ready to lose all hearing.

            “Ready?” Euna asked, her dark eyes burning.

            Calex knew he was missing something vital. Euna had said mad love. Calex didn’t know mad love. He knew the fan-boy love he had for Percy and Annabeth, but there were healthy limits to that, despite Pax’s claims. Dare he call his feelings for Merry love? If it was, it wasn’t mad. He’d been careful not to let his feelings for her get out of control, out of respect that she didn’t fancy him quite the same way or at least wasn’t at a point in her life where she’d want the kind of love he had to offer.

            He’d accidentally imbued Thanatos with mad love, but that was a whim of survival. Maybe he could do it again, or maybe he’d flop and be screaming, “Bollix!!” as Kaos shredded them.

            No, Calex needed a solid example to pull this off.

            Another shout and clang came from the darkness near them, and Calex understood why Reyna and Axel were necessary for this quest.

            “I need to borrow something from you! Sorry, mates!” he said.

            Calex closed his eyes and expanded his senses. Everyone turned to colors and he glanced past Euna’s fury, Thalia’s irritation, and Jack’s excitement.

            A tugging hit his gut when he felt it: the irrational combination of respect, frustration, anger, passion, insecurity, wistfulness, benevolence, and desperation. Like a chemist listing off ingredients, Calex knew the missing element that kept the combination so volatile: trust. The perfect instability for what he needed.

            Calex mentally reached out and grabbed.

            Although he couldn’t hear them or see them, he could feel Axel and Reyna crumble as he robbed them, concentrating what was theirs into the palm of his hand.

            The emotion burned there, along the tips of his fingers. When he opened his eyes, he could see his fingers glowed a violent shade of red.

            “He’s got blood in his eyes,” Jack sang and Calex knew his eyes were the same shade.

            Calex nudged his palm against his ear, shoving the rest of the goop into his ear canal. The noises around them faded to murmurs. All he could hear was his own heartbeat and feel the thudding of Euna’s against his chest. Calex clenched his fists, one around the volatile emotions, one around Soul Pain.

            “Let’s go take part of Kaos,” he whispered.

            Euna stared at him steadily.

            Then she lifted Kronos’ scythe. The weapon was the only thing balancing them. They tumbled over the edge of the cliff, towards the swirling gap underneath the world, to steal a sliver of a primordial god, or get shredded in the process.

Thanks for reading guys! I hope you enjoyed :D Tune in next week for Calex: When Your Spell Works Too Well.

Quick Mel betaedit reaction to the chapter title: "NO! CALEX! NO! THAT SAYING IS TO DISCOURAGE YOU FROM JUMPING!"

Chapter Text

Twenty-Nine: Calex

Arrows of Love Rain Down from Above

(or: When Your Spell Works too Well)

            Calex would shamelessly admit: he was glad Euna’s ears were plugged, because, when the first vine snapped, he screamed like a small child. Plunging over the side of the cliff towards certain evisceration could make any chap tremble in his trousers. He was sure Hercules himself would have called out for his mum.

            So, when their organic bungee cord snapped, and he felt their decreased descent spiral into a freefall, Calex panicked.

            The vortex beneath them oscillated tumultuously. The skin on his face felt like it was flaking. Any dried blood tore off and sucked into the eternity of nothing below. His scarf fluttered violently in the maelstrom, twisting and tangling with the other assorted vines dangling off Euna. He was scared he’d drop Soul Pain and wondered if it even mattered anymore, since he and the bow would hit destruction at the same time. Gravity worked that way, right? A simultaneous fall into certain death?

            “Euna!” he shouted.

            Another vine snapped. For some reason, he had a feeling she wasn’t panicking the proper amount.

            Calex could barely breathe between the scent of poisonous flowers and his own hyperventilation. Somehow, he thought he was ready to die when they jumped.

            He’d been bloody mental. He absolutely wasn’t ready.

            And he had no idea how to stop their fall.

            Another tug at his legs as another vine snapped.

            Their descent slowed more. Wait—slowed? Calex vaguely remembered something in physics about letting things snap under the strain of deceleration to relieve the burden or—or—whatever. Was that right? At the moment, he wasn’t thinking about ringing up his tutor to see if that was right.

            He frantically glanced down—up? They were inverted, so up?—at their feet. He caught a glimpse of Euna’s face: the sweat beading on her forehead, her brow furrowed in concentration, and her mouth open in a scream that he couldn’t hear. He could see Jack’s head spinning along Euna’s belt and assumed Jack must have also been shrieking. More vines shot from their feet, connecting with the edge of the cliff—

            Calex wished he hadn’t looked up. It was worse to see the cliff they had jumped from attached to nothing. Their foundation was a sliver of rock that seemed to hover, ready to crack off into the same nothingness they were trying to avoid.

            More vines shot from their legs, plunging into the underside of that jut of rock. Four more snapped. Their plunge slowed more, so Calex could better comprehend how little would be left of them once they hit.

            His black scarf tore from his throat, was caught in a wind tunnel downward, and tore into scrap fabric before those scraps ripped into particles too small to conceptualize.

            His mouth was moving. Shrieks—apologies—he was apologizing to Gretchen and Winston, his stepdad and half-sister, for not calling home to say he was safe, for being too ashamed to contact them, for not letting them know what happened to Tom and Tiwa, for not being there to set up the funerals, for not supporting them during the hardest time in their life and reminding them what Tiwa would have said: Mum would say they would make it through this—that, one day, they would remember how to smile with sincerity and mirth.

            The fifth, sixth, and seventh vines held.

            Euna, Jack, and Calex came to an abrupt halt.

            There was no time to celebrate. He wanted to exhale in relief, but Euna grabbed his face to look at her.

            Her face was contorted in pain from the effort of keeping them stationary. She mouthed one word. More likely, she screamed it, but everything sounded like a dull echo with his earplugs in.

            “FIRE!”

            Then she shoved him away.

            Their leg entrapment severed. He almost screamed again when he spun away from her, twisting uncontrollably without her stabilizing the vines that connected his legs to the cliff.

            Nausea hit him hard. He thought about all the times he’d ridden on Vinyl, his unicorn, and needed to spill the contents of his stomach onto the pavement.[1]

            Calex swallowed. He couldn’t do anything to fix his stomach now.

            What he could do was release Reyna and Axel’s emotions that he had clenched in his fingers.

            Now that he was away from Euna, he had space to fire. Calex held Soul Pain out. With the smearing colors around him, all exploding and smudging into blackness, his bow’s golden sheen glistened more radiantly. Despite the spinning, the weapon focused him, like the bow could aim more than an arrow. He gained control of his nausea.

            He was a son of Eros. Primordial god of desire. The god that could bring other gods and full nations to their knees with a whim. According to that mythology, he was a direct grandson to this massive existence beneath him.

            Here, dangling about fifty meters over a cliff near collapse, held by a couple of vines and roots that could snap any moment, with all sound dulled to a subtle din, and the circulation in his legs cutting off, Calex felt a sudden calm.

            He was going to prove himself a worthy hero and do something no hero had done before.

            Calex focused on the vortex under them. Everything slowed down. He didn’t feel like he was spinning anymore. Kaos itself seemed to quiet as he drew his bow. He visualized Persephone’s rosewood box, either in Euna’s hand or pocket, dangling maybe three meters from him. He concentrated on the violent desire tingling across his fingertips that he’d stolen from Reyna and Axel.

            A crimson arrow blazed to life, notched along the golden arrow rest, painting his fingertips a deep shade of mahogany.  

            Calex fired.

**

            The arrow flew downward.

            For a horrified moment, Calex thought it might shred, like his scarf had.

            But the arrow made contact with something. The red shaft did dissolve in a way familiar to Calex.

            Anything for that box, he thought, trying to contain the feeling to a portion of Kaos.

            A splitting headache struck him.

            The nausea returned.

            He could see it—for a split second—how Kaos thought, if you could call it thoughts, and why those god droplets had ruined Euna’s head. Time lost all meaning. The existence of others, even the gods, too much to conceive—

            Calex fought back, remembering his mother’s face, Merry’s laughter. He focused his power just on that box, and just a tiny section of Kaos. The anchor point. Something ephemeral that mattered.

            This wasn’t enough.

            Another crimson arrow burned along his bow.

            He fired.

            Kaos was like Thanatos. A living being that needed to learn the beauty of the temporary, despite experiencing centuries as seconds. And, if Calex failed in convincing this creation god and forcing Kaos—her, he realized, it was a her—to love another, they’d all die.

            Another arrow.

            He fired.

            His body felt like it was on fire. Pain crushed his chest. Normally, his bow felt natural and light in his hands. Pulling the string felt like dragging a boulder with a lasso of floss.

            Everything shook.

            Calex felt lightheaded when Kaos took form. His last arrow struck, and Calex could feel the fire ignite in Kaos. Out of the swirling mass of nothingness, a cluster appeared, like the constellation of a hand.

            It was a hand; it was the size of a building.

            That hand was reaching for them.

 Thanks for reading! I hope all of you enjoyed! :D After all this is over, I feel like Calex needs a day to go home, drink some tea, and watch an Arsenal v. Manchester United game with Kally. Too much bungee-jumping over a vortex of death for one person.

Stay tuned next week for Calex’s chapter, Power Naps and Why I Don’t Like Them.

[1] Mel betanote: “I was hoping it was going to be a badass scene of them holding onto each other, straing and concentration faces to the max, and Calex cooly shooting his arrow while she held them stable.”

Jack: I will never let my characters look cool without consequence. Also, that is going to be the name of my next garage band XD

Chapter Text

Thirty: Calex

            Power Naps and Why I Don’t Like Them

            Calex had done his part. He’d caught the primordial god’s attention.

            Now, they were going to die because of it.

            Calex wished he’d been able to watch one more Arsenal game on the tellie with blokes that actually cared about football or knew what sport he meant when he talked about football.

            Everything surged around them. The nausea was maddening. The air exhaling out of his lungs felt like it was dissolving as Kaos’ massive, star-dust hand reached to crush them out of memory.

            “JACK! JACK! NOW IS A GOOD TIME!” Calex screamed.

            He knew the kind of love he’d given Kaos.[1] He knew it would smash them to pieces, defying logic, to force that box into its presence. 

            Calex had begun to spin on his vines again. Similar to how he hoped Kaos had a heart that he could affect, he hoped Kaos had ears that Jack could offend.

            Calex frantically glanced to his side as best he could while he spun.

            About four meters away, Jack dangled off Euna’s belt. His mouth moved.

            Despite the plant goop earplugs, the pressure in Calex’s ears increased. He couldn’t tell if Kaos’ presence was filleting them, or if Jack’s cacophony had erupted, or if the Angel’s Trumpet had finally gone to his head and—if he were lucky—he’d wake up staring at the skies of Alnwick Castle with his family teasing him about this rubbish nightmare.

            Although he couldn’t make out the words, the force of Jack’s song was deafening. The feeling of being deafened without being able to hear? Utterly horrid. Calex would recommend crossing it off one’s bucket list without real attempt.

            His skull felt like it was being crushed by Hercules’ hands. Meanwhile, the gravity of Kaos’ presence tore at his sweater and skin, threatening to rip him to pieces.[2]

            The next time Jack’s mouth moved, Calex felt like he’d been tackled by Mrs. O’Leary.

            One of his earplugs cracked.

            Calex screamed in pain.

            He suddenly understood why the ground parted for Jack. Anything—anything would be better than this, better than the mounting intensity in his own skull, threatening to shatter his bones and muddle his brains to goo. Calex had half a thought to cutting lose the vines along his legs. Then he wouldn’t need to experience—

            The blurry form of Kaos’ hand eroded as it approached Jack, like Jack’s voice shook the particles and nonmatter apart. [3]

            Just one finger reached for Euna, still large enough to poke both their heads off if it made contact.

            And it was about to.

            Euna’s skin gleamed eerily amidst all the chaos. Her vines suddenly righted her, so she could heft her sickle to full height, upright. Her hair and tattered clothing wiped violently about her. Backbiter’s shaft seemed to grow in her hands. The two-toned blade glistened fiercely with all the colors flickering around them.

            One vine held Persephone’s rosewood box out towards the approaching finger, like the tiny bait light of an angler fish, playing chicken with a megalodon.[4] 

            Euna’s vine opened the box.

            The pressure against Calex’s skull suddenly vanished. Euna’s vines—Calex’s included—swayed towards the magnitude of that box, pulling him closer, maybe two meters away.

            The gap of nothingness under them seemed to hold its breath.

            Kaos’ finger stretched against Jack’s voice, desperate for that box. The closer it got, the more the exterior shaved down against the song. Despite that, Calex could feel the first layer of his skin start to tear off at Kaos’ proximity.

            Euna lunged, making their vines swing towards the vortex. Sweat dripped off her brow, smattering into nothingness below. Her body trembled.

            Kaos was a meter away.

            Euna swung at the finger from the side.

            She brought her sickle down.

            For an instant, Calex held his breath. He waited to see Backbiter dissolve, to see Euna sucked into this primordial god and spat back out as angry, lunch-seeking particles.

            Backbiter maintained its shape.

            Euna didn’t explode into the maelstrom.

            Instead, her sickle cleanly sliced the finger in half.

            The half closest to them exploded forward, caught in the suction of Persephone’s box. Without its anchor to Kaos, the box’s gravity won. The vine immediately snapped the lid shut.

            The other half of Kaos recoiled back into the vortex below.

            Dogs Bollix! Calex thought.

            Despite all the nausea, horror, and panic, Calex wanted to laugh. They had actually done it! They had cut off and borrowed a piece of Kaos! He was going to vomit a good four times, tidy himself up, give Euna a proper hug, maybe try to snog Merry when they got back (after a good teeth brushing) and make Kally come back with him to the UK to attend the next Arsenal vs. Manchester United game.

            “Euna!” he called, knowing she probably couldn’t hear him but unable to help himself.

            The daughter of Demeter glanced in his direction. Backbiter shrank back to sword size, and she shoved the blade back into its sheath. She snatched Persephone’s box from one of her vines and jammed it into her pocket.

            She wobbled.

            Her eyes fluttered open and shut.

            The earplugs fell from Calex’s ear. Jack must have stopped singing. All Calex could hear was the roar of the vortex under them and the pound of his heartbeat as Euna went slack.

            She flipped upside down, caught on her vines, and dangled limply.

            Without her stabilizing them, Calex swung the extra two meters into her. As he crashed against her, he wrapped her up in his arms. Pain swelled along his legs. Gravity—of the Earth and Kaos—tugged him downward; the plants were no longer readjusting to accommodate his movement.

            “Euna!” he shouted hoarsely.

            No response from Euna. But a snide jingle from Jack’s head, still dangling from her belt:

            “Remember my warning? Careful how we tread.

            Without proper heed, we’ll all wind up dead.”

            “Oh, shut it!” Calex shouted. He frantically searched around for anything to help. There was no way Calex could scale up the twisted vines and roots back to the cliff face, not while carrying Euna and Jack. (Not that he needed to carry Jack. Now was, in fact, the prime time to go Jack-free.) What if he knocked the vines loose?  Or, gods forbid, he dropped Euna into the pit under them?

            He gently tugged on the vines and had a harsh reminder: he’d just made a primordial god fall in love; his arms had the same consistency of jam. There was no way he could climb with how exhausted he felt.

            Everything rumbled violently.

            Although all the blood couldn’t physically drain from Calex’s face, being upside down and all, it would if it could have.

            Kaos surged towards them, apparently not pleased about being short a finger.

            “JACK, SING!” Calex shrieked.

            “ASSHOLE, CLIMB!” Jack said.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Good to see Calex and Jack form a work relationship. XD Stay tuned next week for Reyna’s chapter: Between Evisceration and a Hard Place.

[1] In my re-read this sounds SO dirty >>’’’

[2] Mel asked, “Are they going to appear top side MORE exposed afterwards? OH MY GOSH! IS EUNA GONNA HAVE CLOTHES WHEN SHE GETS OUT??”

Jack, “Alas, TOO I-IV needed to keep its current rating, so I couldn’t have hot child of Demter and sexy child of Eros running around naked. It would have changed the course of the battle upstairs, especially when Axel gets flustered and tries to run away without looking at Euna, trips, and falls into the pit of Kaos, and Thalia gets flustered, trips and falls into ANOTHER flower trap.”

Past Jack, “Wait—but Pax got to be naked in book 2!”

Jack, “Yes, and it left Kally catatonic for two weeks. That’s why she actually passed out between book 2 and 3. It had nothing to do with Phobetor. It was delayed shock.”

[3] Mel note, “That… is one powerful demigod head.”

I don’t know WHICH one of us said it, but beside the note on my hardcopy is a scrawled, “I’m sure his dick is also powerful.”

[4] An encounter, Jack needs to clarify, that could probably have happened. Angler fish can go down to 3,000 feet, and various sharks, like the Greenland, goblin, Frill, and Cookiecutter have all been found at depths much lower than that. It is quite possible that megalodons feasted on the tiny angler after the angler lost a chicken fight.

Chapter Text

Thirty-One: Reyna

Between Evisceration and a Hard Place

            A horrific noise startled Reyna to consciousness. She remembered an intense, searing pain. Although she felt it uncharacteristic for her—she never struggled to face the trials and training for New Rome or any of her other challenges—the magnitude of whatever had happened must have knocked her out.

            The dank cold around her smelled of blood.

            Reyna opened to eyes. Axel lay a foot from her, his Leonis Caput helm knocked from his head, his Nemean Lion pelt bunched up around his shoulders. His obsidian stilettos were in a sloppy pile beside her knife, near their heads. His facial scars and goatee were streaked with dirt from landing on the ground so hard.

            His muscles flexed as he shifted and stirred.

            His golden eyes fluttered open, his brow furrowed in confusion at that terrible sound in the background. When he saw her, a small, pained smile came to his lips.

            Reyna understood his expression. She felt like something complicated had been lifted out of her life, only to have her realize it was still lurking there, like a senate meeting had been canceled only to be rescheduled on a holiday.

            The more she looked at him, the more nauseous she felt, an uncomfortable mix of butterflies in the stomach and hydras spewing acid at those butterflies. A stupid feeling, one that had betrayed her on multiple occasions before, yet she couldn’t remember—

            Blood seeped from a gash on his collarbone.

            Where she’d slashed him with her knife.

            Reyna snatched up her knife as she scrambled to her feet. Her leg burned from where Axel—the Leonis Caput—had stabbed her again. Her upper arm stung from where he’d sunk his claws into her during a grapple. Her head ached from the terrible song coming from over the edge of Kaos’ cliff.

            Axel’s eyes widened with realization.

            “WHY DO YOU NEED TO WEIGH, LIKE, THREE HUNDRED POUNDS!” someone complained loudly.

            Reyna took a calculated step away from Axel, scowling at him. If she rushed him now, he would be defenseless, but—

            Reyna risked a glance to the side of the cliff, where a huntress, her silver parka smeared with green plant gunk and dried blood, was struggling with something.

            “There’s no need for us to continue fighting. Something went wrong,” Axel said. He snatched up his obsidian stilettos and took a step towards the cliff. Axel stumbled on the ankle that he had injured during their grapple.

            Reyna knew what he meant: Thalia couldn’t have gotten out of her swear cocoon if Euna was alive, or at least conscious. No one had cut off a sliver of Kaos before. What did they expect? Axel had asked Euna if she was willing to die for this madness and Calex had gone over the edge willingly.

            Axel limped heavily over to Thalia’s side.

            “WAKE UP! WAKE UP! YOU CAN’T GIVE UP NOW! I NEED TO HIT YOU IN YOUR STUPID FLOWERY FACE!”[1] Thalia screamed over the edge. Her fingers were curled around several vines, and she struggled to pull them up and over the edge.

            Axel grunted and grabbed the vines a few inches back. “Here, Thalia.” She shifted to give him better leverage on one side. “Calex can’t die until I punch the Briticisms out of him,” he growled.

            Reyna thought Axel should be proud of Calex. After all, the son of Eros had done what the Leonis Caput wanted, hadn’t he? But Reyna knew what Axel meant. Everything had felt so simple when they woke up. The longer she warily examined Axel, the icier her insides felt, like her feelings had been freeze-dried and were now thawing. The work of a child of Eros.

            “Reyna, help us!” Axel shouted. His muscles strained as he pulled. Thalia made a grunt of effort. Between the two of them, they were able to drag the vines a few feet back, presumably, pulling Calex and Euna up slightly. That horrible singing of the Plague Bringer increased in volume. The ground under them trembled. “You can capture us and bring us all to Rome’s corrupt court, but you can’t do that if we’re dead!”[2] Axel said to her.

            “WHY IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION RIGHT NOW!” Thalia demanded.

            They pulled the rope a few more feet. Axel and Thalia were heaving from the strain. He almost stumbled on his bad leg.

            Someone screamed on the underside of the cliff.
            Reyna twirled her knife. If this were a Senate hearing, they would have voted that she cut those vines and destroy a threat to New Rome before it had a chance to attack. They weren’t in a Senate hearing. This was up to her.

            “I can’t lose them too!” Axel shouted. His brow furrowed in concentration. His jaguar ears flattened against his head from the exertion. “Reyna, please! Help my troops.”

            “Please, help my troops.” Those were some of the first words he said to her after the River Tiber tried to kill him and his brother. She’d known that he and his little brother were likely from Saturn’s army. He hadn’t tried that hard to hide it from her.

            When she thought about their meeting with the other campers before he and Thalia left on this quest, Axel had never said anything about stopping Euna. He’d carefully stated that he would get her home safely.

            But what if he, Euna, and Calex turned on Thalia and Reyna again as soon as they were on the cliff.

            “REYNA!” Thalia shouted.

            Reyna twirled her knife, walking towards the vines.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Stay  tuned next week for Axel's chapter: Solidifying a Bromance.

Footnotes:

[1] Mel betacomment, “I GOT SO CONFUSED BECAUSE I READ THAT AS I NEED TO HIT ON YOU.”

Jack, “The Graceful Song ship is still strong somewhere!”

[2] Melbetacomment, “Well, she can. It’ll just be less effective that way.”

Senate meeting, “Um… Reyna, why did you bring us a toe?”

Reyna, “It was all that was left.”

Chapter Text

Thirty-Two: Axel

Solidifying a Bromance

            Axel had an uncomfortable feeling that he and Euna were about to learn the true wrath of a woman. Thalia’s blue eyes blazed with anger; she swore under her breath about hurting the daughter of Demeter once they dragged Euna over the cliff’s edge. Although Axel couldn’t see her muscles under the parka, he could hear the strain in her voice.

            When he had first glanced over the edge of the cliff, to help Thalia pull the vines up enough to get their footing, he had been stunned. The vast expanse of Kaos swirled around a dangling cord of people. From what Axel could see, Calex had an unconscious Euna draped over one arm and was brandishing Jack’s head like a torch.

            Axel didn’t let himself gawk.

            Save the Sickle, the Leonis Caput howled.

            He stumbled to find solid footing with his injured ankle.

            And now, Axel was begging a woman he had betrayed for help.[1]

            For once, Axel wanted to take a page out of Pax’s book and point out it wasn’t really betrayal. He’d never promised Reyna that he’d fight on the same side. Now probably wasn’t the best time to point that out.

            “Reyna,” he said, clenching his teeth.

            Thalia and he wouldn’t be able to do this on their own. They were making progress, but not fast enough. And the more they pulled up, the louder Jack’s voice got, the harder it got to will that sound closer.

            But Jack’s metallic scrape of a song was keeping the others alive, assuming the others were alive still. They would have to bear it and not collapse in pain and terror of the cacophony.

            Reyna walked towards them, twirling her knife.

            This is it, Axel thought. Axel could handle that Reyna would never forgive him. He’d assumed that was the case when Frank Zhang came to arrest him during their stay in New Rome. But, he couldn’t handle the idea of Reyna killing him (and by proxy, Calex and Euna) when he was so close to saving his friends. All the traits he loved about Reyna wouldn’t allow her to kill someone who had dropped their weapons to save another.

            His breath eased when he felt the rope’s slack tighten behind him.

            “Pull from back here!” Reyna commanded.

            He glanced back. Reyna had severed the vines’ roots from the cliff—a risky move to take away their failsafe if they lost their grip. She took the extra length that they pulled thus far and wrapped it once around a rocky spires jutting up from the ground, creating a pulley.

            Titans, ever the innovative strategist in a panic situation, Axel thought. He said, “Thalia, reposition yourself to the pulley first. Reyna and I will keep them stationary.”

            Thalia nodded. “On it. Don’t let those jerks fall until I’ve had a chance to pummel them.”[2]

            Once Axel reaffirmed his footing, Thalia let go. With Reyna and the pulley set up, he barely felt the extra weight.

            “Your turn, Cat Breath!”

            Axel let go. He dashed to the others as fast as he could with his limp. Reyna had one foot braced on the rock to help her pull. Thalia was right behind her. He took up the vine behind Thalia.

            “PULL!” Reyna commanded.

            All three of them yanked at the same time. With the organization and the pulley granting them better stability, they were able to drag more of the vine at a faster rate.

            “PULL!” Reyna called again with the practiced ease of a drill instructor. For a second, Axel had forgotten she probably did similar things to this during her time as a pirate.

            Jack’s voice was getting louder, like someone had dropped a can of rusted nails down an old lead pipe as a maraca.

            The singing made Axel want to cover his ears and collapse. Pain made him clench his jaw. He focused on Reyna’s voice, on the silver of Thalia’s jacket framed by the Roman purple of Reyna’s cloak.

            The ground rumbled under them and Axel thought about how easily Jack had carved a tunnel to Tartarus by singing. He hoped Jack wasn’t about to destroy their landing.

            Under Jack’s shrieks, he could hear Calex, desperately howling at Kaos.

            “PULL!”

            Axel lost count of how many times they’d pulled. His arms burned. His head throbbed with the increase of Jack’s volume. The earth tremors under them threatened to knock them off balance.

            “AXEL! REYNA! THALIA! ANYONE! HELP!”

            Calex’s shouts made Axel look back to the cliff.

            Calex’s shoes had popped over the edge. If they pulled again, and he was facing the wrong way, they might break his legs or crack his skull into the ground.

            “Go help him up!” Reyna shouted.

            Now that Jack’s head was so close to the cliff’s edge, the cacophony was deafening. It was worse when Axel recognized the lyrics that Jack was singing, “Walk out the door! Just turn around, now, you’re not welcome anymore. I should have changed that fucking lock, I would have made you leave your key—”

            Axel gritted his teeth and stumbled towards them. He missed Jack’s old voice, the melodic tenor that could move the coldest-hearted monster to tears, not the current chorus of screaming foxes that learned how to use dental drills on train tracks.

            “Oh, now, go! Walk out the door—Axel! Axel, my boy!”

            Axel was relieved that Jack had stopped singing. While collapsing on the edge of the cliff had been easy, since all his knees wanted to do was be useless, Axel was pretty sure that was as useful as he could be with Jack’s paralyzing awfulness.

            “Axel! Hero of Othrys! Give a friend a hand when the friend has no hands to use!”

            Considering he could only see Calex’s shoes and the very tips of Euna’s, he had no idea how Jack knew he was coming.

            “Hand me Euna!” Axel said. He leaned over the edge, reaching out. As much as he physically could, he focused on his friends, trying not to comprehend the gap of nonexistence surging under them. Focus on the task.

            The ground rumbled again. Kaos didn’t appear to be reaching for them. She tumultuously roared, if Axel had to guess, in contempt for Jack, wary of incurring another song. Kaos’ anger might make the whole cavern shake apart.

            “I can’t,” Calex choked out.

            Axel couldn’t see Calex’s face, or clap his shoulder. Instead, he clapped Calex’s foot, currently poking over the edge. In retrospect, that probably terrified Calex, as it would have made the Brit feel like he’s falling. “You can and you will.”

            Axel didn’t want to tamper with the vines keeping Euna and Calex together. He feared what would happen if anything came loose.

            Calex made a noise.

            “Calex, if you don’t, I’m going to tell Annabeth you stole her signature off one of her thrown away pieces of homework!” Axel snarled, “And, that you’re keeping it laminated to add to your scrolls back in England!”

            Another sound of effort, then a shout.  This time, Calex did a curl up, hefting Euna as high as he could. “Son of a bollux, I hate you! How did you even come upon that?”

            Axel grabbed Euna and dragged her onto the ledge. Jack’s decapitated head grinned at him from Euna’s belt. “Thanks, Axe!”

            He nodded to Jack, then returned his focus to Calex. “Ajax has blackmail on all of you, thus, so do I,” Axel said. Once Euna and Jack were securely on the cliff, he reached back down.

            Calex curled up again, enough that they could clasp hands.

            Axel dragged him up.

            Calex collapsed beside Euna.

            Tears streamed down Calex’s face. He trembled violently. The scarf was gone from around his neck and—Axel realized after a moment—his face wasn’t just cut open from the previous swarm of bat bites; pieces of his skin, hair, and clothing looked like they had dematerialized off with the proximity to Kaos.

            When Axel glanced down at Euna, he saw she was in the same condition, though the vines and flowers seemed to take the brunt of it for her. Jack…. Jack still looked like a dismembered corpse’s head. Which he was. One that was humming, “Don’t Worry About a Thing.”

            “Is it alright—if—f you don’t mind, leaving out the part where I vomited my guts out?” Calex asked, “When… when we tell the other what happened?”

            Axel hadn’t seen him throw up. It must have happened when they were pulling Calex up, with the Brit bobbing and swaying above an infinite vortex and Jack screaming in his ear.

            Now, Axel could clap his shoulder. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve seen few warriors keep composure as well as you did, considering the feat you just accomplished.”

            A powerful quake hit the cliff side, one that almost pitched them back over the side. The ground under them groaned. They were going to fall off.

Thank you guys for reading! I hope you enjoyed! And i also hope you enjoy my longest footnote yet >>’‘‘‘‘

[1] Mel betacomment, “Your guy’s lives are so complicated.”

Wedding coordinator: So… you didn’t fill out the section on the son-and-mother and father-and-daughter dances. Do you want to—

Reyna and Axel: Skip them.

Coordinator: Looks like one of your wedding party is getting both a suit and a dress tailored for them?

Axel: We’re still fighting over which side gets Thalia.

Reyna: We will decide in combat the morning of.

Coordinator: Oh… kay… Says here that you need a podium where the Best Man would stand?

Reyna: I can’t believe you’re letting that decapitated head into the wedding party.

Axel: It’s either that or he sings the opening hymn. I can’t switch him out with another groomsman now. My little siblings would fight if I picked one of them, Euna doesn’t even know what month it is anymore, I can’t show favoritism between Alabaster and Calex, and Jack already set up the bachelor party.

Reyna: You know we’re doing a sting operation on Horizontal Monster Mash next week, right?

Axel: Thanks for the tip off. You can try, but we’ll be waiting.

Coor: Uh… why do your invitations say “Super Secret, NOT-so-Secret Wedding?” And why are there instructions on half of them on “sneaking in through the labyrinth.”

Reyna: I wanted to get married in New Rome—

Axel: And this perfect warrior gets the wedding she wants—

Reyna: But Axel is a convicted criminal there as are most of his wedding guests. We’re at war right now.

Coor: So, this wedding will likely result in a battle between the sides?

Both: *sigh and lean into each other* It’ll be so romantic.

Coor: I don’t think I’m the right person for—

Axel: Is there a problem? *Axel with claws out*

Reyna: *Reyna with knife in table* The last three coorindators quit.

Axel: Two had a mental break down

Reyna: And we REALLY need one. We’re generals on opposing sides. We don’t have a lot of time to look at flowers.

Coo: *swallows* No—no problem. Um… I just need to make a few adjustments to my contract… and my will.

[2] Mel was wondering if Calex would be screaming, “Pull us up! Pull us up!” then, when he hears Axel and thalia commiserating to kill him and Euna, shouting, “lower us down! Lower us down!”

Chapter Text

Thirty-Three: Axel

Stairs: The Real Villain in This Series Part II[1]

            “Move!”

            Someone grabbed Axel’s arm.

            Reyna dragged him and Calex away from the cliff. Axel hardly had time to snatch up the Leonis Caput helm. Thalia was a half second behind, slashing the vines off Calex and Euna’s legs with her two daggers. The huntress, with a grunt, lifted Euna in a fireman’s carry, with the daughter of Demeter slung across her shoulders.

            Axel wanted to protest that he or Calex could help, but Calex could barely stand and Axel almost tripped on his bad ankle.

            They stumble-ran from the edge, rushing past rock spires without checking for hidden enemies, splashing through muck pools, disregarding any form of stealth for what speed they could manage. With each time the earth quivered, Reyna egged them on, shouting at them to continue.

            The cliff, the Leonis Caput growled.

            Yea, shut up. I know, Axel thought back.

            Axel could imagine it now: Euna successfully slicing off a piece of Kaos, them successfully pulling Calex, Euna, and Jack out of that horrible hole, and then all of them dying. The culprit? Faulty architecture.

            Pain ignited along his leg each time he stepped. His breath came in short gasps and the air felt icy in his lungs.[2] Axel struggled to focus on the darkness ahead of them.

            Maybe it was the lack of tactful movement, or maybe it was because the floor could fall out from under them at any moment, but the trip back to Euna and Jack’s tunnel felt like it took way less time than getting to the cliff.

            “There!” Thalia shouted when the flowery cavern became discernible in the dimness.

            Another tremor hit the earth hard as they reached the entrance.

            Calex staggered onto the third step. “Just a sec,” he said. He hunched, gasping for air.

            Thalia didn’t complain. She dumped Euna, unceremoniously, on the next step down.

            “Watch it, huntress,” Jack growled from Euna’s belt, his voice muffled by the way her stomach currently crushed him.

            Axel and Reyna stared out into the abyss, with its layers of black spires that reached from the ground, and ended—the cliff and the entire world—at the drop off to Kaos. A quote that Alabaster used to say surfaced in his memory. Axel glanced down at the Leonis Caput helm in his hand, thinking, Whoever fights monsters should see to it that, in the process, he does not become a monster.

            They held their breath, waiting to see if the edge of the cliff would crumble away into Kaos’ nothingness.

            The ground stopped trembling.

            A hush suffocated the sounds of Tartarus.

            They all glanced at each other uncertainly.

            Axel puffed up his cheeks and popped them. In the cold dankness, the sound was soft.

            “Huh,” Jack said. “That was kind of disappointing. When we get back, we should tell everyone the cliff collapsed. That’ll make a better story. I’m telling Pax that the cliff collapsed.”

            Thalia scowled down at Jack with disgust.

            “Kaos isn’t chasing us,” Axel said. His mind had been floundering for a plan if she did decide to chase them.

            Calex choked out a strained chuckle. “I couldn’t make her fall in love for long, mate. She probably doesn’t even remember that box exists. Sorry for borrowing your emotions and all that. Should be back by now.”

            Axel and Reyna glared at him.

            Axel cleared his throat. “Calex, my emotions have been messed with a lot in the last day, between the love potion and what Ares and Aphrodite did to me. I know why you did what you did, but, when we get out of here, I’m hurting you. And I won’t go easy.”

            Calex opened and closed his mouth.

            Axel was annoyed, though understanding, that what Reyna said next seemed to scare Calex more.

            “So, you’ve decided to side with them?” she asked, nodding her chin towards Axel.

            Calex’s eyes widened, something that looked painful once Axel saw the broken blood vessels in Calex’s eyes, tinting the white a pink. “No! That’s a bit of a jump, innit? I’m on the side of saving the camp,” he spoke quickly, without certainty. “Euna promised she’d come topside to slog Phobetor in the face.”

            Axel thought about the Leonis Caput’s scream, One of my brethren is in danger, something it had never done before. “We need to get topside,” he said.

            He examined the sheen on the helm. It needed a good polishing after its literal blood bath. The thought that something had happened to Pax was too much. He wondered if the helm could always sense when the other helms were in danger and if it knew whether or not Pax was alright now.

            “The trip up will be much quicker than the trip down,” Jack said cheerily. “I couldn’t exactly shake the earth apart with my voice without a few breaks. These vocal cords aren’t what they used to be, and we didn’t exactly have throat-coat-tea. But, the path is already cleared for us now.”

            Thalia rolled her eyes at him. “Oh my gods. We are not taking that thing back to camp. And we’re not carrying Euna either. I’m waking her up.”

            Axel and Calex flinched. They reached for Thalia.

            “Stop!” Calex said.

            “Don’t—” Axel started.

            Thalia didn’t do what Axel expected. Axel figured the huntress would shake Euna awake. If Euna punched Axel before she had demigod training or enhanced god powers, he was terrified of seeing what Euna would do to Thalia upon waking now.

            But, Thalia didn’t shake Euna.

            She zapped her.

            A bolt of electricity shot from Thalia’s fingers and arched into the slumbering daughter of Demeter.

            Highly effective.

            Euna sat up, eyes wide with fury. She lashed a hand out, and, mimicking her movement, a vine swatted around in a circle.

            Calex had already wisely hit the deck.

            Axel and Reyna ducked.

            Thalia stuck a hand out and grabbed the vine. She didn’t even flinch at the, likely, immense pain that rattled down her arm.

            Euna’s scowl narrowed on her.

            “Oh my gods! Euna—NO!” Thalia said, “You’re not allowed to get all huffy on me after jumping off a cliff. Do you know what I had to do to get here?! I had to swim through a river of blood! I had to let a child of Eros shoot me! I had to be locked in a room with Axel when he was naked for 15 minutes!”

            Euna’s expression softened to sleepy confusion, like she was about to roll back over and hit snooze on Thalia’s very valid complaints. “Isn’t that last one a good thing?” she asked. Her gaze lazily drifted over to Axel, and he could tell she was thinking about lying back down and would say anything to go back to sleep. “I mean, aren’t a lot of people into you?”

            Calex burst into laughter.

            Thalia went bright red.

            Heat flared in Axel’s face. He opened his mouth to respond only to discover that he had never, in all his years as a trained tactician, prepared for a comment like that from Euna. Axel refused to look at Reyna’s reaction, though he heard her snort.

            Jack chuckled. “You should have seen it at Camp Othrys. All the monsters wanted his Mist tail. To think of why he turned them down.” Jack tutted his tongue towards Reyna. “You should hear the story of how he reacted when someone stole his first kiss—”

            “We’re leaving. Now.” Axel grabbed Euna and Calex’s arms. “Euna, Calex, up. Jack, shut up. Thalia, Reyna, start going up.”

            The hike up was exhausting, mentally and physically. For some reason, Axel kept thinking going to Tartarus would be harder, with navigating the Labyrinth and the impromptu side tour of Xibalba.

            At least Xibalba had diversity that kept them alert, like whether or not a passing rabbit could talk or would end up being a psychiatric, bloodthirsty, bunniac. Ascending the stairs that stretched from the surface to Tartarus was dull.

            Everything smelled dank and stale. Air hardly moved down the corridor. The tunnel never curved. It continued at a consistent, steep 50 degree angle upward. The glow off their weapons and armor made the world sombrous. The walls altered from different types of clay and rock. Occasionally a pretty gem would show up. Calex chiseled three out of the walls on one of their breaks, claiming he wanted Glad You’re Not Here souvenirs for Kally, Merry, and Pax.

            Otherwise, Axel felt like he was on an escalator going the wrong way.

            At least, after this, their thigh muscles could be used to crack nuts from the World Tree.

            After the first twenty to thirty minutes, his ankle behaved more regularly and the ache ebbed.  They had taken a quick pause to patch up everyone’s cuts and bruises, though Thalia didn’t have nearly enough bandages for the number that Kaos had done to Calex’s skin.

            The worst part: Jack literally couldn’t stop making noise, whether it be singing, humming, talking, or raving.[3] Although Axel had spent many nights with Pax and other recruits around a campfire, listening to Jack’s multitude of never-ending, entertaining (often longwinded) stories, this was much more extreme.[4]

            “Orpheus’ curse,” Reyna muttered, the third or fourth time that Calex told Jack to shut up and Jack hummed louder.

            Reyna and Axel ended up ahead of the others. Whether that was by Calex’s design or not, Axel was unsure.

            Axel had a lot he wanted to say to her. In this eternal climb, where the repetition of the walls became hypnotic, and Jack finally settled into a soft, whispered drone, instead of tales—sometimes teasing and humiliating, sometimes horrid and grotesque—from Mount Othrys, Axel had nothing but his thoughts. Nothing could be done for Pax, Alabaster, or Kally until they reached topside. There was no way to plan a more effective way to climb the stairs.

            His gaze kept slipping to Reyna, how her purple cloak swayed behind her, how she’d undone her braid since it was falling into such disarray, how her armor gleamed in the darkness.

            With real curiosity and little thought to her reaction, he asked, “If Kronos had forced you to kill Hylla, and you had one last chance to get a real weapon to defend yourself from him, would you have made the same choice I did back there?” 

            Reyna pressed her lips together and said nothing.

            They continued in relative silence—Jack was still humming and Thalia’s anger could he physically heard in the form of tiny crackles and sparks that flared up every so often.

            Axel decided—if he, Kally, Alabaster, and Pax really made a new camp—punishment for skipping out on chores or training would be climbing a set of Jack’s-voice-crafted stairs.

            “Axel,” Reyna said, “We should focus on the up incoming battle and how to defend the camp from gods.”

            “Yes,” Axel agreed. Each step felt easier. Reyna had called him by his real name, not his helm’s moniker. Her comment also left the doors open for discussion.

            An indiscernible amount of time and number of steps later, something strange happened that cut their tactical discussion to a halt.

              While Axel frequently fought the Leonis Caput’s whispers and growls, their presence was natural in his head, like a gravely echo of his own mind.

            A voice, one he had never heard before, but that felt so comfortable and welcoming, chimed and reverberated, Hello, Tomcat.

            From a quick glanced around, he could tell no one else heard the women’s deep, sensuous alto. Reyna was in the middle of discussing Eris’ potential weaknesses through comparison to Bellona (a goddess Eris was often intermixed with).

            The female voice purred, I’m doing a favor for one of my kittens and you’re the first feline I’ve found in a half-a-mile’s radius. My warriors can be easily spooked by the presence of ghosts and ghouls, but you’re a brave enough warrior to fight off the terrors of the night, aren’t you, Tomcat?

            “Axel, are you okay?” someone asked beside him.

            Axel struggled to nod in a convincing way. He thought, I don’t appreciate anyone breaking into my mind.

            I can’t break into something that is already mine. Her tone wasn’t controlling, like Aphrodite’s. It was almost… gentle, endearing like the voice of a commander that cared for her troops. Axel remembered shouting to his soldiers, riling them for battle, reminding them their souls were already pledged to Kronos, so what did they have to lose?

            Axel chose to let it go for now. Ghosts, ghouls, and terrors. You speak of Phobetor and Melinoe?

            If those are the gods attacking the Greek demigods, then yes, she continued, I think we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement. So, my handsome Tomcat, shall we make some intra-cosmic magic?

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D

Footnotes:

[1] Part one is chapter 35 which was named first. It felt rude to chapter 35 if I made that Part Two when it was the original XD Don’t mind my feverish politeness to chapters.

[2] One of my all time favorite betacomments from Mel, since she answered her own question, “ARE THERE GHOSTS ABOUT??

….

….

Well, that was a ridiculous question considering where they are XD”

[3] Mel betacomment, “I know you mean the raving conversation, but I just imagine Jack performing a one-head-rave

Jack, “They’ll use my head as the beach ball.”

[4] Oh… oh, Jack knows….

Chapter Text

Thirty-Four: Maari

Last Minute camaraderie (or Parenting..?)

            Merry was worrying. Merry was morally opposed to worrying. It was bad for one’s health and bad as a prayer and offering to her Dad.

            They rode through the clogged streets of Manhattan with the wind whipping against Sam Datta’s windshield. She alternated between reviewing Sam’s notes on how to use fundamental probability to track the trends in polio outbreaks in Syria and the Congo and updating Sam on their plan of action.

            By now, Sam definitely preferred hearing about the jazzy-spazzy mythological side of things instead of his midterm. Merry would have wanted it the other way around because she thought Athena and studying where the sexist, jazziest-spazziest things in town.

            “So this whole plan pivots on the assumption that Mr. Stoic, who has betrayed you before, won’t betray you again, Poison Ivy, who’s losing her mind, stays sane enough to help, and your spineless friend has enough of a spine to keep a stubborn sociopath and a well-meaning idiot from destroying some camp,” Sam summed up her explanation of Axel, Euna, Kally, Alabaster, and Pax.

            “Psychopath, honey. No need to be polite here,” she hummed. She tapped her burgundy, music-playing jacket sleeve, absently flipping through various songs.

            Merry still wondered exactly how Kally had “taken a fancy” to Alabaster, as Calex had warned. Pax made sense. Pax was a well-meaning bad boy that had a nasty combo of being gullible AND unlucky.

            Alabaster, as far as Merry was concerned, was just a dick.

            With the chill leaking in through the windows and Sam’s heating system deciding to kick out at the same time, Merry wished she had her Teddy Bear here to keep her warm. Or Leo Valdez: the spiciest of space heaters. Calex might be offended by that one.

            “And there’s some punk kid up in a tower, threatening to kill someone’s baby sister, Series of Unfortunate Events style? You know, I have a tire jack with a removable metal pole in the back. I could come upstairs with you and give him a proper greeting,” Sam offered.

            His excited, dark eyes glanced over to Merry with the same skepticism that Axel’s had. Maybe seeing them in a big group made this life-and-death stuff all fun and fancy free. Seeing Merry by herself (all five foot ten inches of apparent helplessness) going up to chastise a kid younger than her half-brother (“Bad! Bad Pax baby! No more kidnapping!”) for attempted infanticide… that seemed to inspire doubt in people. Though, from what Merry remembered of Hiro’s tiny form, she could defeat him by sitting on him if he stayed still long enough.

            Assuming he didn’t shoot her or cut off Percy’s little sister’s fingers or send the baby on a 300 foot roller coast ride with an unfortunate, sudden stop.

            “I would prefer you remain Sam Datta: the most Epic of Bystanders,” she said. After a pause, she gave him a shaky smile. “But, call the cops if I’m not down in forty minutes, would you, honey? This girl plans to have summa cum laude written on her gravestone, and I can’t do that until I’ve graduated university.”

            The closer they got and the more she recognized buildings, like the Greco-Roman columns and lion guardian statue outside the New York Public Library (where she had occasionally taken Nikhil to study when their mother decided to throw a raucous party on a weekday) the queasier her stomach felt. 

            Merry wanted to goad Sam into chatting with her in Tamil, a language she could understand with ease, but that sounded like a woodchipper coming from her unpracticed lips (much to her adopted appa’s irritation, she and Nikhil tended to respond to he and Am’ma in English). Since no one could speak it at camp, she missed hearing it, but the thought of Am’ma’s silky, buoyant voice made Merry miss her mother and worry that the social workers had already come to Am’ma’s house.

            That made her more nauseous. Yay!

            “We can listen to a song for more than thirty seconds, you know,” Sam said.

            Merry lifted her finger off her parka. She didn’t realize she had still been sifting through songs. “I wanted to assure you had a full comprehension and appreciation for jazz throughout the 20^th and 21^st centuries.”

            The statue of Atlas came into view on the next turn. Merry’s stomach gave serious thought to emptying here. Then, it wouldn’t have to go into the Cathedral.

            “Music Theory 210: A Crash Course,” Sam said. He pulled up next to the Cathedral, ignoring the blare of horns behind them. His energetic eyes examined her. “So, uh, you don’t have any weapons.”

            “A clear and sharp mind is the most powerful weapon, honey,” she said.

            Her eyes fluttered to the icon Sam kept on his dashboard of Sarawati, a four-armed goddess playing a lute. Merry offered a quick prayer to this goddess of wisdom and knowledge and another one after to Athena. They were good ones to pray to, right? This was like a test, one where people died if you failed.

            They needed Percy and Annabeth in the upcoming fight. She thought about the campers that might perish at camp, her friends, and her half-brother on the god-side. Realistically, Percy wouldn’t be able to sit by and watch as people died. Percy would stand up to fight and Hiro would murder his little sister in response.

            So, no pressure if she failed corralling Hiro.

            Merry unclicked her seatbelt robotically. “Nanri,” she said.[1]

            “Parkkalaam,” Sam said,[2] “I mean it. You come back down here in ten minutes, you hear?”

            Merry paused to examine Sam. This might have been how it would feel to have responsible adults in her family, the kind of parenting she had missed out on. She never could explain to other kids how jealous she was when they got grounded. Getting grounded meant that your parents cared. It meant they were present in your life.

            Sam seemed like someone that would ground a cousin if a parent wouldn’t. Though, judging from his maniac interest in the world, you’d have to majorly mess up to get grounded.

            She suddenly realized how helpless this boy—man several years her senior—felt.

            “Shouldn’t you be worrying about your biostats midterm instead of little ol’ me?” she asked, batting her eyelashes as she opened the passenger door.

            Sam smiled and gave her a shrug. “I already missed it. It was early this morning.”

            Merry hopped out of the car, shutting the door behind her without a word. As cheerfully as she could, Merry waved her hand at the taxi-van and forced a bounce into her step as she walked on the concrete sidewalk towards the Cathedral. That way, she hoped Sam wouldn’t see that his kindness had broken her.

            Merry choked back tears as she proceeded forward, alone, to stop one of the world’s tiniest psychopath from mutilating and killing Percy’s little sister.

Sorry I’m running late! I hope you guys enjoyed this quick chapter :D Tune in next week for Maari’s chapter: Stairs: The Real Villain in This Series Part I.

Footnotes:

[1] Thank you.

[2] See you.  More leaning towards, “I better see you.” Unless I have the wrong one. Someone yell at me if I have the wrong one!

Chapter Text

Thirty-Five: Maari

Stairs: The Real Villain in This Series

Warning: Exposure to twelve-year-old psychopath and his antic imminent. Some mature themes.

            Merry learned a useful tip when hunting down wary Pax boys: follow the candy wrappers.

            She wondered if all Pax boys were as tidy as little Hurricane Katrinas. From what little she remembered of their house, she guessed each Pax room had its own private cleaning crew, and that certainly wasn’t to the benefit of the boys.

            Merry didn’t find the candy wrappers immediately. There was too much foot traffic around St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

            The white, gothic structure seemed designed to make Merry, who already felt pretty small, feel microscopic. With the sharpness of the cathedral’s many pinnacles, jutting to the sky like a knife rack, and the ominous, narrow windows, like those in a jail cell, Merry understood why cathedrals were often used in horror movies. If this thing were put on its side, it could be an intimidating battering ram.

            When Merry walked in, she was dizzied by the number of tourists, the brilliant lighting, and the gold and marble walls. One woman—a tour guide or an usher, Merry didn’t know—gave Merry a violently reproachful look, pointing to Merry’s jacket then making a cutting motion.

            Merry wasn’t sure what she meant, until she registered the lyrics,

            “And if you want a doctor,

            I’ll examine every inch of you.

            If you want a driver,

            Climb inside.

            Or, if you want to take me for a ride—“

            Merry sheepishly turned off her jacket’s music, guessing the Cathedral didn’t like to party Michael Buble style. She gave the woman a careless grin. 

            The times she’d spent the night at Kally’s house, Kally always offered to take Merry to service—or was it called Mass? The Kassands’ church met up in a local middle school’s cafeteria. Merry wondered how those humble parishioners would feel about this church’s hubris.

That was back when Merry was sad she could never tell Kally that Merry’s father was actually Dionysus. Merry frowned. Now, Kally was attending a party that someone else was throwing at Dionysus’ house, one Merry really hoped Kally would survive with little more than a sober hangover.

            My Teddy Bear and Kallybae will take care of each other, Merry assured herself. Kallybae can keep the Paxbaby in-line, and Calex can shoot Alabaster if anything bad happens.[1]

            Organ music replaced Merry’s jazz. People were filing into the massive doors and, she realized for a surreal moment that it was the weekend.

            Merry did everything she could to dodge around the uncomfortable holiness of the place, excusing herself and improvising several stories to dodge around Mass…. staff? Is that what they were called?

            One man, someone who crossed himself as he came into the Cathedral, gave her a compassionate smile and Merry realized that she probably looked like a homeless person with how dirty she was.

            Some confused wanderings, lots of blatant lies, and many Jesuses later, Merry found some back stairs that seemed off limits from the everyday chap.

            The real demigod killer: stairs.

            With a groan, Merry started up. No elevators in the house of God.[2]

            For the first half of the climb, Merry twitched to reactivate her jacket. Children of Dionysus: not designed for stealth missions. The glory of the church disappeared to dark walls. All she had for sound was the hallow echo of Mass happening a few floors below, and the reverberation of her footsteps.

            The second half started fun, (as much as climbing stairs could start fun) but made her choke up. There was graffiti all over the stairwells. Some of it was carved into the walls, some of it was painted. Much of it was dated to the 1920’s, with people claiming fame to graffiting a famous cathedral. One depicted two towers in white, one on fire, with the words, “2001” Bad Year. Never forget.

            Merry frowned and took a break at the next window. Below, she could see Atlas, holding the world up, at least a hundred or two hundred feet below.  He looked small.

            If viewed from the right angle, Merry theorized Atlas might look like he was challenging God with a capital G, saying he’d been here first, and no matter what the big man did, he’d preserver after. He might even heft his world at the Cathedral, just to see if he could topple it.

            Bells chimed, making the whole tower shudder.

            Merry covered her mouth so she wouldn’t scream. She knew the Cathedral’s bells went off at noon. She’d heard them in town before, but she’d never been so close.

            While the bells sang, someone seemed to pull a curtain over the window.

            At first, Merry thought there was a massive cloud, or maybe an airplane off course. But the darkness didn’t go away. Atlas had disappeared with the lack of street lamps on. Windows glowed ominously on the streets of New York. Some street lamps began to flicker.

            Merry’s stomach twisted.

            From what Percy said, Eris would come back “when the sun comes down.” Merry’s mind blazed through all the elements—of Hemera’s kidnapping, the reports of Nyx being upset, Eris wanting the Golden Net to capture a goddess.

            The attack must have started.

            As fast as she could, Merry ran up the stairs.

            By the time Merry found the trail of candy wrappers, dodged around some bell ringers, and made it to the landing where the candy wrappers lead (more stairs continued upward), she didn’t hop onto the landing with her shoulders confidently back, her hands on her hips, and a smile on her lips, like the Indian Wonder Woman she wanted to be.

            She almost collapsed on it.

            No amount of training could have prepared her for those stairs. She wished Dionysus had a bikini setting on her parka. Her sweat made her clothing cold and wet, and she knew—though on fire now—once her body temperature regulated, the world would be freezing.

            A child’s giggle made Merry choke back her gasps.

            She stumbled forward, unprepared to immediately confront Hiro and Percy’s little sister.

            The room was smaller and far more intimate than she’d been ready for. The jury-rigged baby roller coaster—a mash up of ropes strung across a buttress in the ceiling—dangled an empty crib out a shattered window.

            Merry frowned at the colorful glass still littering the floor. She wondered if Hiro had made one of his little talisman bubbles to contain the sound and if he was as skilled as his siblings with the Mist to conceal his hideout.

            There was a giant mirror against one wall. Well, Merry knew it wasn’t a mirror. It reflected an image of Camp Half-Blood, of Percy sitting on a throne with a light-up, neon sign above his head, grinding his nails into the chair’s armrests, moving his mouth in a noiseless scream at something happening beyond the mirror’s edge. His features looked ghastly in the queer mix of lighting.

            Merry forgot that they’d soundproofed Hiro’s mirror, so Hiro and Lapis couldn’t eavesdrop on their meeting. She almost wished they hadn’t, so she knew what was going on.

            Overall, she was happier they had.

            She needed to keep her mind on the task at hand.

            There was the twelve-year-old boy with Asiatic features, darted suspenders, a burgundy button down, long, flowing black hair, and a revolver wedged in either shoulder holster. He held both of the baby’s hands, keeping her upright as though the baby walked on her own. Hiro was slightly hunched as he inched their way across the room. The baby giggled with delight at the game.

            When he noticed Merry walk in, Hiro moved the baby’s hands in a wave. His smile twisted from one of wonder to one of devilish delight.   

            “You know, you don’t need to live this life of crime and kidnapping,” Merry reminded him between gasps. “You drop the threats, and you could make a great Hiro the Babysitting Hero, LLC.”

            She wanted to have more time to plan and collect herself. This would have been better if she seemed calm.

            Between the darkness outside, the camp’s timer being cut in a quarter, and the likelihood of peril for her friends there, she felt a tiny bit stressed.

            When Merry managed to stand up taller, putting her hands on her hips, she towered over Hiro. He would have looked like a cute Pax baby if she didn’t know that he was a tiny, evil thing.

            Hiro whisked the baby up. He danced her over to the crib, gently set her down, and rolled the crib a foot inside the window.

            The movement caught Percy’s attention. His mouth moved. Merry tried not to notice how the son of Poseidon was begging her to act. To remotely focus on the problem at hand, she’d have to convince herself Mr. Water Muffin wasn’t able to see them.

            When Merry tried to take another slow step forward, Hiro withdrew one pistol, aimed it at the baby, and held up a hand in a “stop” motion.

            Merry froze. “Sorry there, honey buns. I didn’t mean to give you the heebie jeebies. See? I’m little ol’ me. I’m not a rough and tough meanie. I’m a pacifist that doesn’t even kill mosquitoes. I bear no weapons.”

            Hiro’s eyes seemed to flash. His grin turned crooked and—for an instant—he looked like a younger version of Pax. Well, maybe the anime version.

            Hiro holstered his gun again. He pointed to her, then shook his vest with the other hand. He mimed removing his vest.

            “Oh, my parka?” Merry asked, innocently. Her ragged breath almost clogged in her throat. Her jacket was her one defense. She’d never looked at it as a weapon, but—if Hiro had and Lapis had been watching their movements, or seen the video of how she’d made the Heroic Handsomes of Olympus dance—he knew better.

            Merry gingerly took off her jacket, hoping he couldn’t see how much she was trembling. She had to look calm. Remembering all the times her adoptive father had lost it, she had to keep him calm until she was ready. She wasn’t ready yet.

            Merry tossed her parka into the hallway. She still wore an inverted SPQR shirt and a pair of jeans.

            When she tried to take another step forward, Hiro held his hand up again.

            Merry paused. She forced another careless smile. “What now, sugar plum?”

            Hiro reached up with one hand to pick up the corner of his button down shirt and shake it.

            Merry stared at him. There was a major flaw in her plan: the whole not speaking ASL. Maybe Hiro wouldn’t mind if they paused to phone a friend for translation.

            When Hiro made the same motion again, his expression impatient, Merry felt her mouth move to form the “oh” shape.

            Although she towered over Hiro by at least a foot, Merry felt as small as when she’d entered the church.

            He made another motion, putting one hand flat in front of him, and miming grabbing from it and throwing it away. He grabbed the collar of his shirt again, shaking it.

            Merry swallowed. “Well, don’t you demand a lot?” she asked, hoping her voice didn’t shake and hoping she wasn’t about to look like a total moron due to misunderstanding him.         

            Slowly, Merry pulled her SPQR shirt up. She paused to make sure she understood Hiro’s command.

            His lips twitched. He redid the “toss away” motion.

            Merry took her shirt off the rest of the way and tossed it into the hall beside her parka. She forced herself not to cross her hands in front of herself or to cover her Lane Bryant bra. She immediately regretted wishing for a bikini version of her parka. Drafty bell towers in New York winter: not a warm place for an un-dress rehearsal.

            Hiro burst into giggles. He covered his mouth with one hand and slapped his knee with the other. His dark hair spilled forward. The locks covered the darts lining his suspenders and the guns, so Merry could pretend this was a horrible prank from one of Nikhil’s friends, not demands from a budding psychopath. She’d caught Nikhil’s friends watching her change once and then assured some nasty rumor warfare the next day to teach basic human decency. Merry assumed Nikhil found out as well, since those friends had some busted lips and black eyes.

            She felt nauseous to remember Hiro was even younger than Nikhil’s friends.

            “See? No place to hide weapons, sugar plum,” she hummed, trying to keep her smile.

            Hiro wiped tears from his eyes. When he looked up at her, those dark spheres glistened with playful glee. He put his hand flat against his legs, then moved them up to grip his belt. Then he made the same “toss away” motion. 

            Merry felt her chin jut to one side. This one was a little demon. “Alright. Full dis-clothes-sure. That’s it, though,” Merry said, her voice cracking against her will. “I’m not so clever as to hide weapons anywhere else.”

            She just hoped, in all the time that Hiro and Lapis had spent spying on their group, they never noticed she did, in fact, use her chest as a cell phone pocket, though it was currently in her back pocket.

            Merry tried to look calm as she unlaced her boots, set them to the side. Even the smiling Hello Kitties on her socks looked worried. She undid her jeans, shimmied out of them, and then tossed them with her parka and shirt.

            Her trembles became uncontrollable. From fear, humiliation, or the icy draft coming in the window, she wasn’t sure, but some nice internal heating or—again—a Leo Valdez or Calex to keep her warm—that’s what she would ask her Christian friends for Christmas this year. That and the whole world peace thing to actually happen.

            Yesterday, when they had to flip their SPQR shirts inside out to hide the logo from the monsters inhabiting club HMM, she was pleased to have on one of her flashy, jazzy bras. Calex had been carrying her and she knew it drove the poor Brit bonkers. Merry knew that she had made a son of Eros blush. That was one way she hoped she could convey the, I may not be ready for kissies and cuddles, but I do trust you more than the average homo sapien.

            Now, she wished she were wearing the set of underwear that she kept at her dad’s house, simple and conservative. Not that it ever made a difference, she thought. Her step father was never rainbows and kittens for Merry no matter what she wore.

            Hiro had burst into giggles again. He motioned her inside before skipping over to the mirror.

            Merry forgot Percy could see them.

            The son of Poseidon looked furious. His mouth moved to shout at Hiro. His eyes darted from them back to the camp.

            Hiro tapped the top of the mirror twice and the screen turned into a reflection, showing the twinkling eyes of a demented twelve-year-old and a sixteen-year-old Indian girl, mostly naked, shivering, whose smile was so stiff, it could have belonged to a Bharatanatyam doll.

            Judging by Hiro’s reactions, that’s what the child thought of her: he was allowed to play with the world for the first time without familial or adult intervention and wanted a new toy.

            To swallow her panic, Merry reviewed her plan. Step one: get the baby to the most remote, safest part of the room. Keep Hiro calm.

            “Hiro, can we keep the baby in the room while Auntie Merry is here? Wouldn’t want her catching a cold while we’re having all our fun, now would we?” she asked, trying to sound lackadaisical. She didn’t want Hiro to think she cared too much about Percy’s little sister. If Hiro was developing the acute narcissism that she suspected, then that would make him jealous. “And, so she doesn’t get in the way of any of our games? I want all my focus to be on you.”

            Hiro thought about this for a minute, then nodded his head vigorously. He wheeled the crib further into the room, to the end of its pulley, closer to the exit.

            Then, the younger boy skipped over to Merry’s side, grabbed her arm, and tugged her closer to the window, where he had a pizza box, baby food, puzzle, and some other games set on a spare altar.

            Good to be away from the baby. Bad to be closer to the window. Merry’s shivers became uncontrollable. Step two: try this the easy-peasy way.

            “Alrighty, tiny, fierce one,” she said. “I like your puzzle. You like, jaguars, eh?”

            The puzzle had a black jaguar depicted with its cub.

            Hiro nodded his head, putting another piece into the corner.

            Merry bobbed her head approvingly. Her mind filtered through jazz songs to keep calm. She ached for her parka or a boom[3] box. She’d even settle for elevator Muzak. Augh. “You know, it looks like you’ve made quite a pickle. You got the tiny Jackson all bundled up. It seems like you like her though, right? Or, at least playing with her?”

            Hiro nodded his head again. He fished inside the pizza box, revealing some pepperoni slices.

            “You wouldn’t want to hurt her though, would you?” she asked.

            Hiro shrugged, withdrawing two slices. Merry wished she knew ASL. Or telepathy. Though, really, telepathy might just disturb her right now.

            “What makes you want to do this then?” she asked gently. She struggled to remember what Lapis had called Pax and Axel. “Is it because of Ajaxapax and Tufted Ears? I heard you were pretty mad at your big brothers. They were meanies to leave you with your father, weren’t they?”

            Hiro slowed in his movements. His cheerful expression soured. He frowned up at her. In an uncertain motion, he nodded his head.

            Hiro offered her a slice of pepperoni pizza.

            “Thank you, sugar plum, but I only eat veggies. No meat for me. Though, that was considerate and lovely of you,” she said, trying to make her smile sweet.

            Hiro shrugged, putting one piece down. He munched the other, eyeing her suspiciously.

            “No one trusts a vegetarian,” she remembered her little brother teasing.

            Merry shook the memory off. This little one was nothing like her brother. “There are other ways to get their attention, you know. Lots of other alternatives and some fun ones—”

            There were lots of alternatives she’d brainstormed on the way over. She wanted to suggest some pranks—Paxes seemed to love pranks. Lots of ways to end this peacefully, so Hiro could skip out of here with her, she could convince Percy not to murder the twelve-year-old, they could send Hiro home to Grandma Chiich for some solid, Mayan scolding, and they could set Hiro up for some major rehabilitative therapy. They could piece the broken Pax family together into a ball of furry mischief.

            Merry never got to say any of her suggestions.

            Hiro withdrew his handgun and pistol-whipped her across the face.

Thanks for reading!!! We have one more encounter with this psychotic little shit. Tune in next week for Merry’s chapter: Things are NOT Fun and Fancy Free.

[1] Yea, I super forgot that Merry doesn’t know that Calex isn’t with Kally anymore. She’ll definitely destroy him psychologically for that later.

[2] False. Lots of Cathedrals have elevators nowadays.

[3] First accidentally wrote, “Bomb box,” then “boob box,” and finally caught it correctly the third time. -.-

Chapter Text

Warning: Child abuse themes. Graphic depictions of violence.

Thirty-Six: Maari

Things are NOT Fun and Fancy Free

            Pain stung her cheek.

            Merry found herself staring out the window. The spotted blackness outside wasn’t what she saw.

            For a split second, Merry was in her room back in Virginia, nine-years-old, with Fairy Odd Parents and Teen Titans posters on the wall. The weekend had been exciting. Scary, but exciting—Merry and her mother had gone out to purchase her first trainer bra. Without thinking, when Merry went to her father’s house for the week, she’d tossed it into the laundry hamper.

            Her father had hit her before, but she had always told herself that she deserved it, because she had acted out.

            That was the first time he’d beaten her.

            He’d stumbled into her room, drunk, shoving the bra into her face. “What the fuck is this?”

            She stepped backwards, already shaking in anticipation of the strike. “A—a—a trainer bra, Appa. I—I’m sorry. I promise I’ll wash it on my own—”

            “Lingerie. Already with the lingerie.”

            Merry didn’t understand. The bra and underwear set had ducklings on it. She and Am’ma thought it was cute.

            He slapped her across the face with a bottle of Kingfisher.

            The reek of beer from the bottle and his breath was overwhelming.

            When the pain spread across her jaw, she said nothing. She learned that protest could earn a second slap.

            But, when she felt her lip bust open under the third strike, she covered her head. The bottle switched to a fist as he screamed, “Whore! Just like your mother! Whore like your mother!”

            She cried all she could remember how to say, “Mannikkavum! Baba, Nil! Ennai taniyaka vitu! En?! [1]

            But he was too drunk and too far gone to hear Merry or to even think that he was calling his nine-year-old daughter a whore for something she couldn’t control.

            That was the first time Merry had identified madness and mania, the first time she’d learned how to lie so cheerfully. That was when she vowed never to do that to another, never to make them feel like that, never to hurt someone physically.

            But she was going to do much worse than that to Hiro.

            Merry embraced the mania, her panic, her fear, her delirium.

            A tugging sensation hit her gut. Before she let it overtake her, Merry focused her thoughts.

            Stick to the plan. Remember the steps. Still trying things the easy-peasy way. Keep Hiro calm. One last try.

            Merry looked down from the window, away from the smattering of store lights, back to Hiro. He still held the pistol, scowling at her. He looked tense, ready to defend himself if she struck back.

            She clucked her tongue, feeling blood dribble from a busted lip. Her voice shook. “That was unnecessary, Hiro. We’re here to talk. Aunti Merry wants to be your friend. I want to help you—“

            Hiro cocked his head to one side. A thought struck him, and his eyes widened with glee. Although her lip-reading was definitely on the rusty to nonexistent side of her skill set, she thought he mouthed, “Pacifist,” while spelling something out with his other hand. Then, “won’t fight back.”

            With his empty hand, he slapped her, almost experimentally.

            The sensation of panic welled in Merry’s stomach, rising to her chest, twisting her gut. She may have been a full foot taller than Hiro, but she suddenly felt very small.

            Hiro giggled in curious delight. A toy. A toy that doesn’t hit back.

            He slapped her again.

            And again.

            Her mouth tasted like iron.

            Easy-peasy way had failed.

            And Merry thought what she’d want to say every time to her father, Enough.

            She reached out, gently, and touched Hiro’s temple. She had never done this before, so needed the proximity to assure it would work. As Merry touched him, she exhaled, feeling the horrific tugging sensation in her gut transfer, feeling the years of panic, paranoia, mania, and terror drain out of her fingertips.

            For a moment, nothing seemed to change. Hiro took a step backwards from her, swatting her hand away.

            She gave him a sad smile, glancing up at the ceiling, then back down to him.

            Hiro stumbled another step backwards, almost knocking over his altar. His breathing accelerated. His eyes dilated.

            “A group of pirates once rescued Dionysus in disguise from an island and offered to take him home. However, all but one secretly agreed they should sell him as a slave,” Merry said. Her voice had stopped shaking. Instead, her tone felt slow, almost slurred. Her whole body felt warm, despite the cold and her lack of clothing. “Do you know what the oars turned into for those meanie pirates?”

            Hiro twitched violently. He swatted himself, like he felt a bug bite. There were no bugs. His eyes wildly searched around the rafters, like he sensed something was up there.

            The whirl of cars and noises of the city warped. They raised pitch and seemed to accelerate into a consistent sibilation.

            His eyes darted suspiciously to her, but he aimed the gun upward.

            From his reactions, Merry could tell he’d completely forgotten about baby Jackson.

            “Snakes,” she said. “They turned into snakes. Tufted Ears told me that you don’t like snakes very much.”

            The sounds solidified into a chorus of hissing.

            Snakes dangled from the rafters like streams for a party. Colorful ones, with red, black, and yellow stripes. Brilliant yellow vipers with prongs jutting out above either eye. Some were brown, with diamond patterns down their backs and a single horn protruding from the ends of their faces. Merry had never seen them before, so didn’t have more to work off of than Axel’s descriptions. But that didn’t matter. Her mind wasn’t doing most of the work to create the madness.

            Hiro’s was.

            He screamed, his voice coming out hoarse, like a record player forced to play for the first time in years.

            The twelve-year-old dropped the gun.

            Merry winced, waiting for the revolver to fire. Instead, it clattered onto the floor, harmless other than creating a cacophony with Hiro’s shriek. It was loud enough to make baby Jackson cry.

            At least Hiro put the safety lock on before he beat someone with his gun.

            He scrambled backwards, smashing into the mirror. The glass shattered, exploding all over his back. As he glanced back at what he hit, the mirror shards morphed to thin-legged black spiders with red blotches, fuzzy, massive, fat ones, furry flies with stingers the size of their bodies, and long, creeping scorpions.

            Violently, Hiro swatted at his back, his fingers returning bloody from their “stings.” Really, from the glass.

            Merry’s breath was ragged. Step three: corral Hiro to a corner of the room. Use his own fears, paranoia, and terror to make him create one of his fancy talisman bubbles. Trap him with his own mind.

            Merry felt the tug in her stomach increase. Her body tingled like it was on fire. The madness was flaring and she struggled to restrain a nauseating sense of euphoria. She understood now—why her real father, her biological father, always laughed when he retold the tales of how he punished people.

            Hiro tore off his dart suspenders and shoulder holster, ripping his burgundy shirt away to stomp on it. The spiders and scorpions crunched with the same tune of glass.

            By now, baby Jackson was sobbing and squealing too.

            “Hiro, little honey cakes, you can be safe if you just go in that corner,” Merry said. She took a careful step towards him, her body feeling light and wobbly.  “It’s like that lava game. All you have to do is step in that corner.”

            She tried to clear a small segment of his mind, to lull him there, but the hiss of the snakes grew louder. A rattler dropped from the ceiling and fell onto Hiro’s arm.

            He sobbed and slapped the viper off, retreating beyond his tumbled altar table, closer to the outer wall.

            Merry couldn’t sort through it. She couldn’t understand Hiro’s mind, only see his madness.

            Vital addendum to step three: don’t lose control.

            Merry was quickly losing control of the situation.

            Rapid creation of step four: catch this little, crazy shit and sit on him until the cops—that her most Epic of Bystanders must have called--showed up. Then figure out how to explain how Merry was the victim, when she was mostly undressed, crushing a sobbing, apparently helpless, crazed twelve-year-old.

            Merry took another step closer to Hiro, reaching towards him. “Hey, Hiro honey—”

            Hiro saw something else above her. His screaming abruptly halted, despite another snake dropping down to rest across his shoulders. His jaw dropped open.

            Merry didn’t dare look up at the rafters to see what scared him so much, what horror his mind had manufactured. She needed him to look at her. She needed him to focus. She needed to focus, so she didn’t get lost in his madness, so she didn’t begin to believe these creepy crawlies were real, so she could gain back control or at least give him a bear hug that he couldn’t escape.

            But Hiro’s eyes had gone wide and blank. He took two more absent steps backwards, straight towards the drafty breeze from the broken window.

            Then it was Merry’s turn to scream.

            As Hiro slipped on the shattered, stained glass—

            --and she reached to catch him—

            And missed. 

            The hissing disappeared.

            Spiders and scorpions flickered back into glass shards.

            The blare of a cop siren whirred outside as the city panicked in the sudden blackness. Baby Jackson shrieked and screamed.

            Merry’s limbs no longer felt on fire. She felt cold and numb.

            Trying to keep her breathing even, Merry glanced around the room. The communication mirror was shattered, so she couldn’t tell Percy his little sister was safe. If she had to guess, the others wouldn’t have time to pick up a phone call from her or check a text, Unit Poseidon, cleared for action.

            Weakness and queasiness sapped the hum out of her. With the industrial din of the city, she did the one thing that she felt like she shouldn’t: she stumbled to the window to look down.

            In the glow of the headlights and flickered-on street lamps, she could see Hiro’s broken body mangled around one of the pinnacles a dozen feet down.

            He made sputtering, horrifying noises.

            Merry took a step backwards.

            The whole time she robotically dressed, picked up the sobbing Jackson, used a mix of Mist-work, lying, and Dionysus-play to direct the EMTs and cops that Sam Datta called up to save Hiro’s life, she wondered how else that could have ended.

            The thought stole the song from her until she was in Sam Datta’s taxi van, and he gently put a hand over hers—still gripping a crying baby Jackson—and said, “Hey. I don’t know what it was, but you did what you had to do to save this baby.” He swallowed and continued, “Let’s get her home safely, and let’s get you back to camp.”

            Merry didn’t realize she was crying until she blinked away tears. Her cheek burned and felt four times larger than it should have. She probably looked half-chipmunk. “Yea,” she croaked, clicking the music on her parka on. “We have another party we need to crash.”

Written to/inspired by Arai Tasuku’s Alice (Full EP) with the majority coming from Speak Roughly To your Little Boy and Jackal, Don’t Come Near Me; I am a Monster.

Thank you for reading! Don’t worry. Merry gets a much better resolution in the epilogue. I would not leave out bodacious girl hanging. <3

Footnote:

[1] I’m sorry! Wait—stop! Leave me alone! Why?!

Chapter Text

Thirty-seven: Ajax

I am No Longer A Baby Panda

            Later, Pax would say he admired his mother’s stylish entrance.

            At the time, he was just horrified. And maybe a little annoyed. He’d been proud of himself for getting back Frank’s stick and not having to sleep with his sister (something, he realized, really ought to cue him in that he had hit an all-time-low) and now the Goddess of Night had to steal the limelight—haha, steal the light—and tackle Apollo out of the sky.

            Everything happened at once.

            As the sun fell, ghostly silhouettes groaned out of the blackness. The lingering ghosts spilled from the forests, out of the shadows they’d been watching, and cackled with gleeful war cries.

            Rotting corpses staggered towards Camp Half-Blood, an army at least four times larger than the one the Romans had been holding back earlier. Melinoe, her half-mummified, half-fireplace fabulous carcass, led the charge.

            The piercing notes of a pipe echoed through the fields and a huntress, a Greek, and a Roman[1] standing guard at the border collapsed.

            A suction of warm air eased away from the camp, and Pax knew the Mist shield—if it had been recovering—was completely down again.

            The ground rumbled. Pax hoped, but doubted, that it was Nico or Axel to the rescue with a secret, giant mole army.

            Instead, a massive black serpent exploded from—if Pax had to guess—that hole in the ground that Jack had voice-activated outside Hera’s cabin. You know, the major weakness of their defenses in the center of the camp that really ought to have a Welcome, Python, sign, We Forgot You RSVPed.

            By now, the screams were omnipresent.

            When Python collapsed onto the Apollo cabin, Pax liked to think there were as many screams afterwards as before Python decided to use the once-golden structure as a back scratcher.

            Romans spilled out of the barracks. Greeks scrambled out of their cabins, er, the cabins that were left.

            “Turn on the field lights!” Frank shouted from somewhere by the barracks.

            The Canadian’s orders came to light and brought the ghastly attackers to high definition. The thump of the field lights echoed around the strawberry field. Pax had to wonder if substitute sunlight could weaken ghosts, and, if so, whether the Romans should seriously consider adding horticultural LED grow-lamps to their infantry.

            Michael Kahale and Butch were with half-a-dozen demigods towards their edge of the strawberry field, apparently having been planning defenses for this evening. Well, surprise!

            In a breath’s pause, Butch looked towards Python and Kahale blinked at the advancing ghoul army. The debate on whether to help with Python or guard the border lasted all of Michael Kahale ordering the troops to stand strong on the strawberry field. “To arms! Defend our barrier!”

            What a mighty battle cry Michael missed out on; Pax would have said, Defend our berries!

            Pax felt like he was watching an old family movie as his mother tossed her Molotov cocktail up and down. The flame flickered, making the malicious zeal in her eyes glitter. She wore black tactical pants, a torn up red and black shirt with a circled and slashed A, a black bandana to conceal half her face, and—

            When she launched her Molotov cocktail, everything became too real.

            Pax wanted to say, Nice throw, since he’d forgotten his mother was a goddess and lobbing a bottle of alcohol was as easy as tossing rice at a wedding, though that probably was what she tossed at weddings. The bottle went clean over half the strawberry field, far beyond where Percy was cursing Eris at his throne of Saturnalia.

            The glass shattered.

            Michael Kahale went up in flames.

            There were more screams.

            He dropped to the ground, rolling, tearing at his armor.

            Two other soldiers dropped beside him. One went to rip Michael’s armor off, the other frantically shoved dirt onto him.

            Watching the fire and screaming centurion, Pax clutched Frank’s stick to his chest. He felt like the stupid thing could burst into flames by sheer peer pressure.

            A laugh with the same giggling mania as the Joker’s filled the battlefield along with the flick of a match.

            Eris jumped up and down in excitement as she tossed another bottle from hand to hand. “Terror Muffin! Come paint with me! I’ll bet I can make my masterpiece more vibrant than yours!”

            Pax, stupidly, went to shout a warning, like Michael Kahale and the others might be confused or capable of defending themselves from the whole “flaming bombs” thing.

            As he opened his mouth, something much louder made an inhuman wail about ten feet behind him.

            There was a crunch of metal and bone.

            At the same time, the Silver-Tongued helm attached to his waist shrieked.

            One of our brethren is in danger!

            Really, Pax wanted to ask the helm why it didn’t open up more often. He was offended by the lack of weekly coffee chats—Axel’s helm talked to Axel all the time--but now wasn’t the time.

            The shriek left him confused, with a lovely punched-by-a-minotaur-in-the-stomach sense of dread.

            One horrifying thing at a time.

            When he looked up to see the Molotov cocktail’s destruction, a blinding flash of light arched over the demigods.

            The bottle hit something, exploded along the arch, and burned out, leaving the split second image of a brilliant, mini rainbow.

            As the beams of colors faded, Pax could see Butch, the giant child of Iris, scowling hatefully in their direction. His arms were raised, one with a mister bottle, the other with a flashlight.

            Rainbows were some powerful shit.

            Pax wanted to slowly back up, put his hands in his pockets, and walk away whistling.

            But he had to stop his mother from withdrawing a grenade from her utility belt.

            He needed to chastise her: utility belts were definitely something that shouldn’t be used by evil. Only comic book heroes.

            “Mom! Stop!” Pax cried. The shock faded enough for Pax to sprint towards her.

            Her grenade didn’t even have a pin in it. From what he could see, it was held together by a hair band.

            As she slipped the hair band back onto her wrist and cranked her arm for the throw, Pax slapped her hand.

            The grenade tumbled out of her grip. While in mid-air, he kicked it as hard as he could towards Farm Road.

            In the last few moments, he tackled his mother away—

            An explosion popped his ears. Dirt sprayed his back.

            Before the dust had settled, his mother was already squirming to shove him off. Pax wished he could hug the homicidal out of her and have them all go on a nice, non-violent family picnic after this, whatever was left of his family. Merry wouldn’t hurt Hiro, but he’d watched Jason kill someone Pax loved before. He hoped Lapis and Axel were okay.

            “My Little Terror Muffin, what’s the matter?” she cooed, digging her talon-like nails into his recently-fractured shoulder. “The Greeks and Romans massacred all your friends and hunted you into hiding. This is the perfect opportunity for you to have a little fun. Don’t you want to honor your friends and let Momma have a nice Bring Your Son to Work Day?”

            Pax whined in pain. He fumbled to withdraw a dart from his belt with his hand with functional tendons. He feared he didn’t have the dexterity with the other. Pax didn’t know if his darts would knock out a goddess, or if he had any Morpheus dust left to do the trick.

            His belt wasn’t there.

            Axel had shredded it and Pax left the remains in the Hermes cabin. All he had was Frank’s stick and the Silver-Tongued Snake helm on a rope around his waist, because he feared the Hermes little ones would play with it.

            Pax wanted to cheerily brush his mother’s comment off. Instead, his mouth worked on its own. “Stop pretending all the messed up stuff you and Dad do is for me!” he snarled.

            Pax meeped when his mother lifted him up like he was a small child. When she stood, they were several feet higher off the ground than they should have been. She was feeding off the chaos around them, growing. He trembled to think she’d be more powerful with each second of this battle.

            But, Pax realized, he was her son. It ran in the family.

            Although he felt small and baby-panda-like, Pax could discern the delirious sensation coursing through his limbs, like it had during the pandemonium when the Heroes of Olympus collided with the Traitors from Mount Othrys.

            The feeling normally made him nauseous. Normally, he wished desperately he could get a high off a party, like Merry, or off two people in love, like Calex, or a song, like Kally.

            This time, Pax didn’t try to stop the tugging in his stomach. An uncomfortable acceptance settled over him, putting him at ease with the surrounding screams and mayhem: Greeks and Romans were going to die during this battle, he and his brother were never going to be the same after what Ares and Aphrodite did to them, his family was in tatters and needed major therapy, everyone in this camp would die if he, Kally, Alabaster, and a handful of fighters didn’t level up, and if he kept pretending his family was a pack of misunderstood puppies.

            Axel or Jack or someone else always came to the rescue. If Pax could let go, maybe if he stopped acting like a baby panda, he could protect other baby pandas still in Camp Half-Blood.

            “Terror Muffin, I only want you to experience life and glee as fully as I do,” Eris cooed. She was about to toss him, he could feel her winding up. But Pax was the Silver-Tongued Snake, the former spymaster from Kronos’ army, and known for weaseling his way out of everything. “What is that silly saying they have? Be the change you want to see in the world? I’m setting a good example for someone I love.”

            She nuzzled the top of his head with her chin. Her body tensed for the throw.

            In a motion Hunnie, Baller, and Nietz would have been proud of, he latched onto his mother, digging his functional fingers into the skin above her kidney and chomping down hard with his teeth.

            Eris lost her grip on Pax.

            He thrashed and squirmed his way out, springing off her to land on his feet.

            Pax stood a foot taller than the highest field light, his breath was ragged, and a hysterical laugh spilled from his lips. “I am not a baby panda!” he cried triumphantly.

            Eris touched her back, her fingers returning with golden ichor smearing them. “Terror Muffin?” she asked, her serial killer grin one of amusement.

            “Sorry. Internal monologue. It’s a main character thing,” he said. “Now, for the reprise. You and Dad always say you do this stuff because you love me.” Pax doned the Silver-Tongued Snake helm, feeling the warm enhancement of strength slither through him. He cracked his neck and withdrew Frank’s stick like it was one of his daggers. “If this is love, I don’t want to be loved!”

            Pax really hoped this battle would be over soon, else he wasted a kick-ass line.

            Eris’ wide, excited gaze turned adoring. “Your tricks won’t work on me, Terror Muffin. There’s no one you can turn into that would make me stop. You can’t puppet me the way you did the little Valdez. We have the same powers. You’re my son.”

            “I’m not just your son. And I’m not letting you, or anyone else from our family hurt these baby pandas,” Pax said. He wished he would have pickpocketed her lighter off her, but he hadn’t felt one when he weaseled away. Instead, he focused on Frank’s stick, hoping it was as easily influenced as he thought. He also hoped this thing had a “slow burn” option or an alarm that would flash with, Destruction of Canadian: Imminent.

            The tip burst into flames.

            Pax bit his tongue, whining at the blood dribbling out—how did Axel do this every time without complaining?--and said the incantation he’d only ever successfully recited during the battle for Mount Othrys, something he’d heard Frasco do before he died. “Xma’su’tal Xib, Liik’il Ch’iich’!”[2]

            Pax spit his blood into the flames. The red glow flared a brilliant turquoise. Pain flared as he felt his limbs elongate and his bones alter. What he was excited to say, and had rehearsed a few times in his head, was, “I’ll show you why you don’t mess with a Mayan warrior-prince!” but what came out was more of a, “Aye! Aye! OW! How does Axel do this all the time?!”

Sorry for some of the bravado, I’ll admit, I’ve been watching WAY too much anime recently.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D

Footnotes:

[1] As Mel pointed out, excellent start to a joke, “A huntress, a Greek, and a Roman were standing guard…”

[2] “Abandon the man, ascend the eagle/bird.”

Chapter Text

Thirty-Eight: Kalypso

Join Our Club; We have Hats

            All Kally could do was stare for a moment: watching her father get knocked out of the sky, seeing the dead encircle the camp, gawking as Python smashed her cabin and any of her half-siblings still inside, hearing Phobetor’s dreaded flute, tensing when Atë turned to cut off her and Alabaster’s path to Pax and his mother.

            Kally swallowed. Why had they let Atë walk with them from the tent? Kally wanted to tear off Pax’s ear for whatever deal he made to get Frank’s stick back, since she guessed Atë wouldn’t accept Pax doing Atë’s chores for her for a week, or—if she did—those chores would involve a few more bodies than Pax would want. Kally just hoped Pax was joking about making out with Atë, but the twist in her gut and the fact that he’d referred to his deal as “rash” made her know otherwise.

            “Out of our way,” Alabaster snarled. He put the Cloven Terror’s ram skull helm over his head. Magical power sparked around him. The runes on his pants and shirt glowed to life and smoke seemed to trail out of the sleeves. He flicked out a Mist card and hissed a word.

            A two-pronged staff appeared in his hand.

            Something exploded over Atë’s shoulder.

            Kally’s stomach dropped to see that someone had been set on fire in the strawberry fields.

            Atë cocked her head to one side, those red eyes examining Alabaster like those of a doll. Her wild magenta, red, black, and white hair tussled with the movement. She fingered her baseball bat with nails shoved through it, and Kally wondered if the Goddess of Ruin and Mischief preferred that over her tire iron.

            “So rash, Alabaster, assuming everything is logical. Assuming you can predict life,” Atë said. Her eyes darted to Kally and she smiled in a hollow way that made Kally think of a mannequin.

            Kally stiffened, clutched her Argonaut statue, and prepared for an attack.

            Atë poofed into a puff of black smoke.

            Alabaster’s eyes went wide so Kally could see the emerald color. He reached for Kally, his mouth moving to cast—what Kally assumed to be—a protection spell.

            But, Atë didn’t reappear beside Kally.

            Smoke puffed into existence beside Alabaster’s head. Atë materialized in the air near him, her tire iron in mid-swing.[1]

            Kally shouted.

            The tire iron caught him square across the jaw.

            Bone and metal crunched.

            An unearthly wail erupted from him, one that sounded less like a scream and more a gargling of panicked noises.

            Alabaster tumbled away from the goddess, like the whole thing had been a puppet show; and he, just a pile of rags and string.

            Kally wouldn’t have time to wind up her discus. Instead, she sprinted towards them.

            Alabaster continued to make that heaving gargle of noises. He tried to crawl onto all fours, but collapsed.

            “Tell me, child of Hecate, how does a spell caster still cast spells without a tongue?” Atë asked, kneeling beside him. She reached towards him with her nailed bat, like she wanted to poke his face.

            When Kally was within half a second of punting Atë in the head, smoke shuddered around her silhouette.

            The Goddess of Ruin and Mischief vanished.

            Kally held her Argonaut statue ready—whether as a shield or a weapon, she didn’t care—for Pax’s half sister to reappear. The goddess poofed back into existence half a soccer field away, beside Melinoe, advancing towards the camp.

            Kally didn’t want to sob in relief. She feared the goddess would notice and return to flick Kally and Alabaster into the next state. For some reason, she knew Atë wouldn’t. The goddess didn’t like straight forward destruction.

            Kally dropped to her knees beside Alabaster.

            He kept making that choked, gargled sound. His whole body trembled violently.

            Once Kally got close enough, she could see that Alabaster still had a tongue. That wasn’t the problem.

            Despite all the bodies she’d attended to, Kally felt nauseous. The lower corner of the Cloven Terror helmet had been smashed off, leaving the bottom right of Alabaster’s face exposed. Blood dribbled from his mouth and down his neck. Alabaster’s jawbone protruded out through his skin along his right jaw, with more blood oozing from around the jutting bone. The mandible was neatly broken, like Atë had snapped it in two before reinserting it into his face. From his open mouth, Kally saw the back half of his right molars caved down with the snapped bone, while the others stayed in line with the rest of his face.

            Kally couldn’t believe he was still conscious. She needed to get him away from the battle. She needed to sit him up, so he wouldn’t choke on his own blood.

            “I’m sorry,” she whispered, then grabbed him under the arms to drag him back towards the Roman’s death tent. She didn’t think they’d walked that far when they were following Atë and Pax back towards the camp, but, with each pained gag from Alabaster, she felt like it was through Tartarus and back.[2]

            Her own breath went ragged with panic. As she approached the tent, she tried not to think about the screams behind her, or the laughter, or how her ears popped and the barometric pressure dropped the way it did when Axel used Mayan magic. She wished Axel were here and capable for battle. He knew how to lead them.

            Once they reached the tent, Kally propped Alabaster up against one of the tent’s poles.

            Kally floundered in her messenger bag for an ambrosia square. She thought she’d restocked and almost jumped for joy when she found one pressed between the pages of her journal.

            Kally popped it into her mouth, chewed, then withdrew it. She didn’t realize that she was repeating, “I’m sorry,” as she carefully slipped the mashed up medicine towards the back of his throat, past his ruined jaw line.

            Alabaster choked again. The entire lower half of his face was bruising to a deep purple. His emerald eyes couldn’t focus.

            Kally didn’t know what to do. Her instinct said she would need to wire his mouth shut, that she might need to perform surgery to fix him up and that she needed to calm down to check if his jaw was dislocated on top of being broken.

            But, Kally knew the camp needed her.

            Alabaster made the choice for her.

            His hands trembled violently as he raised them to his head. A garbled squeal of pain erupted from his mouth as he dislodged the Cloven Terror helm.

            He motioned her closer.

            As Kally leaned in, Alabaster gently set the helm atop her head.

            Hello, Child of the Sun, a voice deeper and darker than Alabaster’s hissed inside her mind, Welcome to the Triple A Chimera. Let’s seek vengeance for my fallen master and my cracked face.

Kind of been a weird last week or so, but this is still coming out! thank you guys for reading and for all of your support! We have a few more twists and turns before the show is over and it isn't just of people's limbs or body parts :D I hope you enjoy!

Footnotes:

[1] Mel betanote: “Don’t you dare kill Alabaster, Jack!!!”

[2] You know, just not the creepy “spa” kind of Tartarus.

Chapter Text

Thirty-Nine: Kalypso

I Argue with an Inanimate Object

            Kally almost slapped the Cloven Terror helm in surprise, but realized exactly how dumb that would look since she was wearing it. “You can talk?” she said out loud. “Um, to me? You’re alive?”

            She glanced towards the battle and felt a horrific sense of vertigo. As her gaze went to the peripheral of her vision, it expanded, showing everything on either side of her: the way Percy screamed on his throne, the two giants battling near them. Maybe near? Her depth perception failed.

            Disoriented, Kally returned her gaze to Alabaster, where his pale face stared back, patiently letting her get adjusted. Her vision returned to normal.

            Not all of us. We reflect the monsters they want to be. Ajax thinks silence is terror; Axel, the calculated insertion of an intelligent beast; Alabaster…

            There was a wry laugh.

            Besides, I was the first. I needed to come with an instruction manual.  

            Everything hummed. Kally could feel energy surge through her body. Green sparks erupted from the broken corner of the helm.

            Alabaster reached a hand out, pressing one of his rune pouches into her palm. He weakly gestured towards her Argonaut statue in her other hand.

            We made something for you, but, with my master in his current state, you must cast the spell. We had no time to test it.

            Kally wanted to inform the talking helmet that this was epic and cool, but they picked the wrong person. She wondered, if she had known this was how things would turn out, would she have followed Axel and Pax out of her school a few months ago?

            Without hesitation, she knew the answer was yes.

            “I can’t use magic,” she said.

            All creatures possess the ability to use magic. It’s whether you have the aptitude to excel. Now, cast with me.

            The words raced through her mind. Later, she would need to demand when Alabaster had the time for prepping this spell and exactly why he hadn’t done it before. She took Alabaster’s hand and the spell pouch, and pressed it against the Argonaut statue. If she had to guess, that statue was giving her the most skeptical look possible. When her mouth moved, she couldn’t tell if it was the voice of the helm or her own.

            “Incantara: revertetur,” Kally said, the helm’s darker tone whispering in harmony with hers.

            The statue glowed green as the rune pouch melded into the metal. Kally wasn’t sure what was supposed to happen. She didn’t feel any different, though Alabaster now looked paler. Knowing her luck, she just used all of Alabaster’s magic reserves to make her weapon cuss in squirrel instead of anything useful.[1]

            His quivering hand pointed behind her. His eyebrows furrowed, but that could have been from the pain. The ambrosia didn’t seem to have much effect on his broken jaw, though she guessed he would need a bit more than a godly pain killer for that.  

            She didn’t like the idea of leaving Alabaster by himself, barely conscious, and unguarded. As though he could read her mind—maybe he could with the helm on—he withdrew his pistol and set it on his lap.

            “Okay,” Kally said, her voice cracking, “Okay. I’m going to go help the others. But, uh, I need you to protect this.” She took off her messenger bag and set it beside him. “Make sure no one else reads my journal,” she said lamely, since she couldn’t get herself to say, Yea, don’t die while I’m not looking. Or while I’m looking. Just don’t die.

            Alabaster rolled his eyes. Then, looked like he might throw up from the motion.

            As gently as she could, Kally kissed his forehead.[2]

            Then, she stood up and turned to face the battle. Preparing for the nausea and disorientation this time, she glanced to the edge of her peripheral, feeling her vision expand like a panorama photo.

            There was another monster on the field she hadn’t seen before. She didn’t remember anything in Greek mythology like this; it was huge, towering over the Roman’s field lights, matching the size of Eris. At first, her stomach clenched to think they’d have to fight another god, but it slammed into the goddess of Chaos with a, “Sorry. Didn’t mean to ruffle your feathers.”

            “Pax?” Kally said stupidly.

            The creature was humanoid, but it looked nothing like her not-really-ex-boyfriend. Talons busted through the back of both the monster’s combat boots. Its fingers were twice the length of a normal human’s or demigods, with black more talons further extending the digits. His forearms and thighs seemed twice as thick as usual. 

            Poking through the Silver-Tongued Snake’s helm, which had also grown, the face under was narrowed and pointed, not squishy.

            When he struck Eris, Kally couldn’t follow the speed of his movements, like seeing a snake or bird wind up for an attack, then only seeing the aftereffects.

            Ah, a feathered serpent. How utterly appropriate, the Cloven Terror muttered.

            With each slash of Pax’s talons, Eris giggled hysterically, regardless of whether she successfully blocked or not. Ichor splattered her clothing; Kally couldn’t tell if it was from Eris or Pax. Each time Pax drew close, she’d lash haphazardly out with a jagged knife coated in some black liquid and a smattering of his glittery blood.

            Every time they stepped, the ground shook.

            If Kally were looking at them with her normal eyesight, Pax would appear to be gaining the upper hand: Eris was rapidly losing ground. With the expanded vision, Kally could see Eris backing them towards the strawberry fields, where one misstep from their knife-talon family squabble could squish a stray camper or ghoul.

            Eris wouldn’t mind some flattened comrades. Kally suspected creepy eagle-snake Pax might be a bit traumatized if he had to pick demigod skeletons out of his boots.

            Behind them, the camp was in mayhem. Clarisse La Rue, several other Ares campers, and one or two Apollo children tried to corner Python. The massive drakon snapped around, swallowing one camper in a single strike.[3]

            The Romans were fighting their way through hoards of ghosts and ghouls to form a single rank and protect their sides. There were so many undead, several ranks were isolated and couldn’t make it to the conglomeration around the barracks or strawberry field.

            Some of the Greeks rushing out to help collapsed onto the ground, unconscious. Certain ones would stagger back to their feet, then turn on their allies.

            In the distance, by the cabins, Phobetor tried to keep piping on his flute for his sleep-hypnosis, but Hazel Levesque and Lou Ellen prevented him from gathering a sleep army. Each time one of the magic-users blasted or slashed him, he lost one of his sleep walkers.

            Although Greeks and Romans had been unprepared and several were dead, Kally felt like they were doing pretty well without the main heroes helping.

            In her counting of the gods that had been present at the Pax Tree Growing Party, she realized she was missing one: Atë.

            A puff of smoke whirled into existence by Clarisse La Rue’s legs. Kally didn’t see Atë fully materialize, just her tire iron smashing into the daughter of Ares’ calf.

            Clarisse crumbled to the ground.

            Kally clenched her Argonaut statue, focusing her vision on the smoke, allowing the panorama to narrow to her normal vision. Somehow, someone needed to stop Pax’s half-sister. How was she supposed to predict Atë’s movements to hit her? The goddess of Ruin and Mischief only seemed to appear at the least convenient place possible. (Something to add to the list of uncannily similarities between Eris’ children.) Otherwise, her victims were randomized.

            Don’t take aim. Just throw instinctively. Don’t even look, the Cloven Terror helm instructed.

            Yea, throw blindly into the middle of an active battlefield. What could possibly go wrong? Kally thought, disliking the helm’s ill-timed sense of humor. Knowing my luck it’ll miss, fly several hours away and clock Jason Grace in the head so the others can’t save Hemera.

            You are a child of prophecy. You predict the rash and unpredictable ruin of others, it responded, seriously.  And, on the Jason Grace comment, I’m not seeing a downside.    

            Lou Ellen must have told Hazel to help the Roman ranks. The child of Pluto had turned to race towards where the Romans were about to be overwhelmed by a troop of undead, despite a friendly rhino’s attempts to mow the enemy down. As animal choices go, Kally winced at what Frank had picked with his recent concussion.

            As Lou Ellen moved her mouth to prepare a spell, something to deflect Phobetor’s oncoming hatchet attack, smoke vortexed near her.

            Kally took a step backwards to prepare a throw with her discus.

            You’re too late to save the daughter of Hecate. Accept that you cannot save everyone, then blind throw. Being the Cloven Terror, you must embrace that the end will justify the means.

            But if there’s a chance—

            She wanted to argue, but a surreal sense of disassociation stunned her mind. Kally felt like her thoughts had detached from the battlefield, from knowing Lou Ellen as Alabaster’s quirky half-sister, from caring that a demigod could die if she didn’t help them.

            A tugging sensation pulled at her stomach as her eyes fluttered shut. While Kally stepped forward into a full rotation, building up the power of her throw, she pictured Atë’s terrifying red eyes.

            Power surged from her body’s swing, from her step forward, up her spine, through her arm as she arched it, and finally, releasing through her fingertips.

            A hissing sound left her hand.

            Kally opened her eyes, searching for Lou Ellen.

            Her discus steamed and glinted gold in the field lights, but it wasn’t going anywhere near Lou Ellen.

            It hissed straight towards the rhino smashing through enemy ghouls.

            Oh gods, I’m going to hit Frank and give him another concussion, Kally thought.

            When the helm said she needed to accept she couldn’t save anyone, she didn’t think it meant she’d be murdering a Canadian.

            In a split second, she glanced over to Lou Ellen, across the battlefield. The child of Hecate lay on the ground, unmoving.

            Rage filled Kally. “Why did you make me do that?!” she shouted, wondering who was wearing whom.[4] She went to tear the helm from her head in a panic.

            A black wisp of smoke puffed out ahead of the rhino.

            As Atë went to strike Frank’s skull with her tire iron, Kally’s discus smashed into Atë’s arm. The tire iron flipped harmlessly into a ghoul’s head.

            Atë vanished again.

            The rhino stopped short, looking very confused, or Kally imaged that’s how a confused rhino would look.

            The discus—instead of slamming into the ground—did something very odd. The hissing golden metal sizzled green. It slingshot back towards them.

            Kally froze as the helm laughed darkly. If I wanted you to kill the praetor, I would have made you do far worse. Hecate’s Helms are more powerful when we work in harmony with our masters. Why do you think the Leonis Caput has weakened so? Now, I suggest you either duck or catch.

            The discus was closing in, fast. All the times Kally had hit people with it, she never thought about how much it would hurt to be on the other end. Maybe Alabaster’s spell was the most extreme of rejection letters, Uh, sorry, it isn’t going to work out. I’m too awkward to say that, so I decided it would be easier to kill you with your own weapon. It’s me though, not you.

            Kally sidestepped and extended her hand. As the discus passed her, she grabbed it, spinning with the momentum to decelerate the metal without ripping off her arm. In a weird, reverse spin, she stumbled to a stop.

            Kally’s breath felt ragged. She tentatively touched the helm. Yea, it had been right about Atë, but she did not like that moment of forced battle apathy.

            We’re not done here. Now, fight in the same manner you threw.

            “I say when we’re done. I’m wearing you, not the other way around!” Kally said, though her mind was focused on, In the same manner I—?

            Confusion gave way to a horrific sense of dread.

            Reflexively, Kally lifted her discus to be level with her throat.

            As she did, nails made a screeching sound against it. Something struck her discus, hard.

            At least it was that instead of her neck.

            Kally stumbled backwards, alarmed to see black smoke swirling on either side of her and unprepared to fight a goddess.

Sorry I’m running so late! My brother and my new sister had their Nikah yesterday, so we were celebrating that alongside Easter and it has been a crazy busy month. Hope everyone had/is having a great Easter/Passover/return of Persephone!

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoyed :D I feel like Kally needs to find a partner with better communication skills….

Footnotes:

[1] Magnus might say this is very useful.

[2] Mel’s betanote, “AWWWWWWWWWWWW HOW GENTLY DOMESTIC!” Jack, “Alabaster would resent that comment.”

[3] Mel’s betacomment was just a picture of Meg from Disney’s Hercules from the moment he was eaten by the hydra <3

[4] Bought to you by the accidental alliteration association.

Chapter Text

Forty: Kalypso

The Gentle Touch of Sunshine

            Atë landed a foot away. Her right hand dangled limply, but her left was already redirecting the baseball bat at Kally’s ribs.

            This was not what Kally had in mind when she said she wanted to help the others. Throwing her discus from a distance? Definitely. Helping Pax make Get Well and Don’t Kill Us cookies for the Romans and Greeks? Yes.

            Going toe-to-toe against an immortal?

            Kally trembled.

            In that moment, the overwhelming scent of blood and rotten flesh made Kally’s stomach curl.

            With her empty hand, Atë plucked her fingers towards Kally in her hi, I want to rip your organs out greeting as she swung the bat. “Child of Prophecies, how good is predicting my actions if you’re too weak to stop them?”

            When Kally blocked Atë’s second hit with the discus, Kally almost flopped backwards onto the ground. Her mind scrambled to remember everything Mr. Paine and Axel had taught her about fighting, but, like the day of any typical chemistry test, all it could come back with was, Yea, failing could be bad.

            Kally didn’t have anything to properly counterattack a bat with nails. She wasn’t used to balancing the weight of the Cloven Terror helm, and the only weapons she had was her discus—

            You have more than your discus. The Silver Tongue Snake has taunted you into using your birth right. Focus it yet again.

            You want me to sunshine her to death? Kally demanded. She scrambled backwards, trying to buy herself time to think. That parlor trick worked great on ghosts that eviscerated in daylight naturally, but—

            Sunshine isn’t so gentle on Mercury.

            Did you talk to Alabaster in riddles and metaphors? Kally thought in irritation.

            Yes. He is smart enough to understand them.                    

            Atë leisurely approached. “The perfect someone who doesn’t learn.” She cocked her head to one side, those red eyes glassy. “Letting Axel and Ajax trick you over, and over, and over again. Ignoring that Alabaster was damaged long before I touched him. Trusting people that are stupid to trust, just like your mother did, because you can’t squeak out a line of protest.”

            Kally choked.

            She stopped retreating.

            The Cloven Terror’s laugh resonated in Kally’s mind.

            Atë raised her bat. “Do your mom and you share the same flaw? A family of mice. Too shy to squeal? The flaw of the doormat.”

            Atë swung.

            Tears stung Kally’s eyes, making her glasses fog up, but it wasn’t from fear or sadness.

            Kally put a hand out. The tug in her stomach made her whole body quiver. She wanted to throw up. But, she also wanted to blast Atë’s head off. The energy radiating off her hand was so brilliant, she winced. If she could have considered it, she would have been thankful for the shade the Cloven Terror helm afforded her gaze.

            When the bat impacted Kally’s outstretched hand, she barely felt it. Unlike last time, she didn’t stumble under the strength of the hit.

            Kally felt heat buildup under her fingers. The bat caught fire. The nails melted out of the wood. She enunciated each word through her clenched teeth, making sure Atë understood her, “I. Am. Not. A. Fucking. Doormat.”[1]

            She tore what was left of the bat from Atë’s hand.

            Atë grinned, squinting through the radiance and heat emanating off Kally’s hand. “Like Ajax. So full of surpri—”

            Kally slammed the discus into Atë’s face. There was a loud thunk. Maybe not the same resonance of when Atë hit Alabaster, but Kally could hear the Cloven Terror’s raging laughter.

            It wasn’t just the helm. Kally laughed in two-toned harmony with the Cloven Terror, as the Cloven Terror. 

            There was a sweet satisfaction from the fact that Kally’s brilliant light had blinded Atë from predicting her attack.

            Atë stumbled backwards.

            “Oh, Goddess of Mischief and Ruin,” Kally felt her mouth move with the Cloven Terror’s words, “Could it be that your fatal flaw is picking the wrong people with which to fuck?”

            With which? Kally thought.

            We’re not ending a sentence in a preposition. I’m a monster, not a savage. Now, focus.

            Kally had a lot of questions to ask Alabaster about how the helms formed their personalities.

            In the meantime, she honed her thoughts on what Atë was: someone who preapologized for abuse, someone who watched passively as a step-father-of-sorts was torn from the insides by a tree, someone who hopped from the distraught to distraught, watching them take their last plunge into a fatal decision without helping.

            After stumbling, Atë hadn’t made another move. She stared at Kally, one red eye still wide with curiosity. The other was swelling shut. From Kally’s Apollo senses, she could tell Atë’s cheekbone was fractured, but rapidly healing. “My fatal flaw…” Atë echoed.

            The sunlight intensified in Kally’s hand; Kally could smell burning flesh, but ignored it. She needed more than a blinding source.

            Mold it. The way the son of Poseidon can weaponize one essence of life, you can weaponize another.

            Kally exhaled. The tugging in her gut was becoming unbearable. To dismiss it, she concentrated on fueling her fury and honing it, like she honed the brilliance in her hands until it shaped into a glistening javelin.

            “Stay away from my friends and stay away from this camp,” Kally hissed, “Or we will show you the wrath of the Triple A Chimera.”

            Kally lunged.

            Smoke sizzled in front of her.

            Atë vanished.

            The javelin tore through a ghoul yards behind where Atë had been and another after that, then proceeded on it path, blasting through ghost after ghost. As it flew, the ghouls ignited into flames, screamed, and were eviscerated.

            Black mist curled over Kally’s shoulder, and she could feel Atë lean down on her shoulder, sliding a hand under the end of the Cloven Terror’s helm to stroke Kally’s neck. “You will have a moment of weakness again where I’ll get to figure out your flaw. You and each of your friends,” Atë said, “When it happens, I’ll be there for you, waiting. Because I love doting on your kind.”

            With that, Atë was gone.

            Kally wanted to curse in frustration. Tears of anger streamed down her cheeks as her knees turned to jello. The Cloven Terror helm suddenly felt tremendously heavy. One of her hands burned like she’d shoved it onto a stovetop and counted to thirty.

            The screams around the camp came back into focus. There were less of them.

            Kally collapsed to one knee, clutching her Argonaut statue in her good hand.

            She had assumed she could predict Atë‘s movement logically, the same way Alabaster had. Atë made her waste a lot of energy on a hit that didn’t land on the right target. When Kally glanced to her peripheral, and her view went panorama, she didn’t see Atë reappear on the battlefield. But, Kally couldn’t feel like she’d won a victory. Python was rampaging, trashing cabins. Phobetor had amassed an army of sleeping Greeks to assault the already overwhelmed Romans.

            Kally clenched her fist, pain spreading through the seared flesh. She forced herself to her feet.

            Without backup, this is a losing battle. Statistically, you won’t make it out alive if you don’t retreat now, the Cloven Terror warned.

            The chilly, winter air flushed the camp with a breeze, temporarily pushing away the scent of blood, metal, rot, and sweat. For an instant, Kally remembered how nice this camp looked when she first showed up in the Pax mobile, when she’d been claimed and her tiny hologram healed everyone around her. She wished Apollo could be useful, for once, and do that again.

            Anger boiled in that knot of her stomach.

            Are you ready to try to kill another god? the Cloven Terror asked knowingly.

            Without needing to answer the baited question, Kally walked towards the battle.

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed! :D Tune in next week for Hazel--When Your Mom Scolds the Hope Out of You.

[1] To be added to the list of “sweet,” fair-haired heroines that use “fucking” for a dramatic ending. Thank you Mrs. Weasely and Rachel Keller.

Chapter Text

Forty-One: Hazel

When Your Mom Scolds the Hope Out of You

            While Hazel rolled between the legs of two battling giants—Eris and some weird chicken-lizard thing—she stabbed a ghoul through the ribcage. She came to a stumbled stop at the horrifying sight of Melinoe and wished Nico was here to help her fight.

            Of course, she also hoped he was safely away, somewhere that hadn’t been crushed by Python or raided by creepy sleep-walking puppets. But, really she would rather he was strong enough to stand with his Stygian iron sword and do some ghoul puppeting of his own. She’d never been as good at controlling the dead, and, if it were up to her, she’d have Miss Half-Mummy-Half-Charcoal doing the Charleston dance.

            If this ghost was Melinoe.

            “Poisoned child!” Queen Marie Levesque stood and screamed where the Goddess of Ghosts had been moments before. She stumbled towards Hazel with a knife.

            Hazel almost dropped her spatha.

            When Gaea manipulated her mother’s voice, Gaea slipped into her own gravelly tone. Here, this creature had the same look of anger, frustration, desperation, and disappointment so familiar to her mother. Here, Melinoe frowned and screamed identical to Queen Marie. Although Hazel hadn’t had one in so long, she thought she was lost in a flashback, one she’d deeply repressed. But, she couldn’t be. This was real.

            While Queen Marie staggered forward with a knife, four other ghosts came closer in Hazel’s peripheral. In her shock, she probably would have been overwhelmed had a blast of water not slapped her in the face.

            Confusion interrupted her terror.

            When Hazel shook the droplets out of her cinnamon hair, she caught the distant glimpse of Percy. He had pulled Annabeth into his lap on the throne of Saturnalia and dragged Piper close—to protect them. One of his hands outstretched towards Hazel. Even from where she stood, she could tell his face was tight with rage as his mouth moved to shout. Tears streaked down his cheeks while he watched his home get ravaged.

            Over that and the chaos, she couldn’t really hear Percy, but, she assumed he was saying, “THAT’S NOT YOUR MOTHER!” and not something about “boar smother.” Likely not the latter—though Phobetor did seem to enjoy morphing into a giant boar.

            Ah, Hazel thought, Eris said Percy couldn’t fight her people. She didn’t say anything about slapping sense back into his friends.

            A voice much louder and clearer, almost too high-pitched for comfortable listening, shrieked beside her, “Tiny child of Pluto, make like a dough lump and ROLL!”

            Hazel dove to the side.

            A giant combat boot with a talon poking out the back and several in the front smashed the ground she had been standing on. Marie Levesque had also dodged to the opposite side, but the four ghostly figures hadn’t moved. Three that should have been smashed instead dissipated and reemerged on either side of the foot. The one that got impaled by the ankle talon poofed, making Hazel wonder if that talon were coated with Stygian iron.

            The giant eagle-snake raised its combat boot up, slammed it back down for better footing, and shoved Eris away from the strawberry field.

            Hazel pushed off the icy dirt, snatching up her spatha. She wished Arion was here, so she could run away from her mother and reevaluate everything from a distance.

            Now that she had broken her line of sight from Melinoe, her childhood terror quieted. She could focus enough to see five Romans and the counselor from Iris’ cabin in a small defensive circle around two downed bodies, one a centurion and one a soldier. They slashed through oncoming ghosts, but there weren’t enough of them to make a proper defensive circle. They wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer, or keep the ghosts out of the camp.

            From their other side, the God of Nightmares and his sleep-walking troop were about to flank them.

            Hazel’s stomach twisted when she thought about what must have happened to Lou Ellen. The daughter of Hecate, who had promised Hazel that she could handle Phobetor alone, was nowhere to be seen. Hazel hadn’t considered that Lou Ellen might have been bluffing and was running low on spells. She had recently pigballed a god after all, and might have fallen easily after Hazel left.

            Hazel would have to thank Percy for snapping her out of it later and the giant bird-thing for… warning her? First, she needed to bust these ghosts, defeat Melinoe, and wrangle Phobetor.

            An army. Two gods. No biggy?

            Hazel quivered.

            Another troop of ghosts were almost upon her, carrying cleavers, pitchforks and a traffic cone. Marie Levesque—no-no—Melinoe stalked towards her.

            Hazel reached a hand towards the sleep-walking campers that were about to attack Butch’s troop. A tug hit her gut. With a flick of her wrist, she disarmed the sleepwalkers. Their weapons spun from their grasps, whipping towards Hazel, until she redirected them to slam into the oncoming ghosts and Melinoe.

            The ghosts shrieked and dissipated under the holy metal. Marie screamed and almost made Hazel freeze up again.

            Her mother stood there, a scowl and wrinkles marring her beautiful face. She clutched where a celestial dagger had imbedded into her saffron robes. “Poisoned child!” she yelled. “Worthless. The main gift your father gave me, and it ended up being a worthless child that would kill her own mother twice!”

            “No! You’re gone! You’re in the Fields of Asphodel!” Hazel choked back tears, struggling to remember that wasn’t her mother she just stabbed. Right? Melinoe couldn’t actually conjure her mother, could she? Hazel didn’t sense the Mist around her.

            “And who put me there?!” Marie demanded.

            Hazel stumbled backwards from the goddess, repositioning her spatha into a defensive stance. With her other hand, she battled with herself to maintain control on the floating celestial and imperial blades. The other ghosts she’d struck had dissipated. Marie had not, and Hazel wasn’t sure she could bring herself to attack her mother again. [1]

            When she saw someone else help the Romans beyond them, Hazel’s tears turned to relief.

            On Butch’s other side, an elephant stampeded the ghosts that were about to flank their allies. Her heart warmed to see Frank tossing the more corporeal ghouls left and right. Some sleep walkers even stirred as he and the giants’ steps made the earth shake. Maybe Phobetor was stretched too thin with keeping the Mist barrier down and controlling a sleep-walking army.

            Seeing Frank gave her hope and reminded her not to listen to this wretched woman—this wretched goddess.

            Butch and the others cheered at his presence.

            The raging elephant morphed into a swarm of wasps—causing some not-so-sleepy sounding cries from the sleep walkers, now jumping awake in shock—then morphed into a gorilla mid-lunge at Phobetor.

            The creepy minstrel raised his piccolo-hatchet to pipe in staccato.

            The few sleepwalkers still asleep collapsed to the ground as—Hazel assumed in horror—Phobetor released them from his spell.

            At the same time, the gorilla face-planted.

            Frank morphed back into a human.

            “Frank!” Hazel cried. She lost control of the imperial and celestial weapons. They cluttered to the strawberry field. Her hearted pounded inside her eardrums.

            During the distraction, Hazel’s mother withdrew the blade in her stomach. She grinned maliciously and lunged at Hazel.

            Hazel barely blocked the attack with her spatha and retreated. Nico had once said he’d met Melinoe, but wouldn’t talk about it beyond that. She understood why now. Hazel felt like she’d forgotten how to control the Mist, how to fight, and how to do anything more than be a scared child, split between watching her friends be attacked and defending herself. Where had this terror come from? How could it return so quickly?

            “Cursed girl. Can’t save your friends. Can’t save your soldiers. Can’t save your love!” Marie Levesque screamed between attacks that Hazel could hardly counter. “All you do is bring misfortunate to everyone around you!”

            Beyond the Goddess of Ghosts, Hazel saw Phobetor grin down at Frank. “Ah! This one shall do nicely!” he said before piping out a few notes.

            Frank jerked to his feet, but his posture was off. Hazel knew his eyes would be closed.

            The previously sleepwalking, now confused Greeks were defenseless when the ghosts turned to attack them. Hazel had taken away their weapons. They scrambled for a way to defend themselves and the Romans tried to join their rank.

            This was too much. The undead army seemed never ending. Every one they took down, more shadows seemed to pour in. How many had snuck out from the Underworld? How many had used her brother like an EasyPass fast lane? How long before her friends fell to panic and exhaustion?

            Hazel needed to save the camp and all of her friends. She’d won impossible battles before, but this was different. She felt alone. Percy couldn’t fight. Annabeth and Piper were too sick. Neither Jason nor Leo had returned. They’d wasted so much of their energy and magic fighting the Triple A Chimera the night prior, and she was the only one who came out mostly unscathed.

            Hazel fell to pieces at the thought of Phobetor making Frank kill the Romans that he’d just saved.  She wondered where Clovis was, if the son of Hypnos was still alive, and if he had the strength to help her wake Frank.

            Her insides quivered to think that this time, without her friends and without the gods to help, Hazel might be about to die again. They all might be about to die. Hazel didn’t mind sacrificing herself in Alaska to stall Gaea. She did mind failing this group of Romans and Camp Half-Blood. She minded not being able to save Frank.

            Something made her shakes become violent.

            Although the ground had been rumbling with each of the battling giants’ steps, the vibration became more consistent, almost rhythmically so. Hazel could sense the ground shifting a few yards away, further outside where the Mist barrier should have been.

            At first, she thought Python was about to make another hole for a second grand entrance. But, it couldn’t have been her; the massive drakon had paused by the cabins, as did a figure running towards the draken, the sinister gleam of the Cloven Terror.

            Even the ghouls seemed to hesitate.

            It was a song coming from the ground.

            When the sound became loud enough to distinguish a terrible cacophony of words, Hazel gritted her teeth, wondering if this song was one more way for the gods attacking their camp to dishearten them.

            “Heartbroken, we found a gleam of hope.

            Hearken to the sound, a whistle blows.

            Heaven sent a reply, however small.

            Evidence of life beyond these walls.”

            Hazel couldn’t tell if it was the shaking ground or the pressure in her eardrums that sent her to her knees. Others, ghosts and allies alike, fell near her. Even the two giants faltered, though, one laughed in squawkish delight. “My favorite lyrical maniac!”

            “We dream of jailers throwing down their arms.

            We dream of open gates and no alarms.

            Look to the day the Earth will shake.

            These weathered walls will fall away.”[2]

            Right as the dissonance became unbearable, the earth itself seemed to give before anyone else.

            Outside the strawberry field, and just outside camp, the grass sagged downward.

            The singing abruptly stopped.

            “K’oop!”[3]

            A male and female voice cried in harmony.

            Then, a greenish, glowing fist smashed through the weakened earth’s surface.

            Something massive crawled out of the hole.

            At first, it looked like a holographic projection—a twenty-foot-tall glowing greenish-turquoise woman with the head of a bestial feline. The semi-transparent warrior had claws as long and sharp as Hazel’s spatha and fangs the same length. At first, Hazel felt herself despair. How were they supposed to fight this along with all the others?

             A familiar voice shouted, “ROMANS! FEAR DOES NOT CONTROL US! WE CONTROL IT! LIKE WE WILL TAKE BACK CONTROL OF THIS BATTLEFIELD!”

            Hazel almost sobbed to hear Reyna. Her terror dissolved.

            When Hazel blinked through the tears, unsure why she had been in doubt before, she could see four figures riding on the cat warrior’s shoulders. In the center of the greenish avatar, a man’s body hovered. When it braced forward, the avatar mimicked his movement and did the same.

            “What in Tartarus is that?!” Phobetor demanded, apparently forgetting his control over Frank. His kiwi bird skull twisted to look at Eris, now shrinking in the lack of continued mayhem.

            “I’m starting with him,” said a girl balanced perfectly on the outside of the cat warrior’s right shoulder. The familiar daughter of Demeter had a faint glow of her own. Euna gestured towards the God of Nightmares with a scythe. With her other hand, she tilted her head back and appeared to drop something into her eye.

            Phobetor huffed. “I beg your pardon?!”

            “Thalia, let’s you and I give the Cloven Terror some cover fire. Don’t want that dodgy prick getting all the glory,” said a hulking figure crouching by the cat’s neck and grabbing on for dear life.

            “Oh my gods!” The huntress’ voice shook with rage from the other side of the neck. “Python wrecked Artemis’ cabin?! Let’s crush him!”

             If Hazel hadn’t been so close, she might not have heard Reyna’s finalizing strategy. Her imperial gold armor glinted in the hologram’s glow like a halo, though splotches of the metal looked tarnished and her cloak tattered. “Are you ready to make good on your debt? Help my troops as I have helped yours,” she said to the cat warrior.

            “Yes, Praetor. Then we’ll go to—” the male and female voice separated from harmony as one said, “my” and the other said, “his” before uniting to say, “brother.” With each pronoun, they split again. “Remember, I/he’s not used to this form. I/he can’t hold it for long. We need to do this fast.”

            Hazel, thankfully, didn’t see the Plague Bringer up there, but she could hear the scratchy singer from earlier howled with glee, “You heard the man-lady! Let’s kick some ass!”

Thanks for reading! Sorry this isn’t my cleanest chapter, especially at the beginning. Things kinda went to Hell in a hand basket between some work and family stuff, so I’ve been struggling to find time to clean these up. >.< Regardless, I hope you enjoyed! Stayed tuned next week for Calex’s chapter: A Boycott on Falling.

Also, hot damn. We only have 10 chapters left and two epilogue chapters O.o It's really weird to realize I've been working on this story for years and it's coming to an end soon!

Footnotes:

[1] Hazel, the level 3 Ranger, casts Blade Storm! Then she rolls a 2…

[2] Thrice. “The Earth Will Shake.” Vheissu 2005. This song is WAY older than I thought it was >>’’ (Mel, I might change the song choice later. I couldn’t find a more recent one that fit so well.)

[3] “Strike” in Mayan.

Chapter Text

Forty-Two: Calex

A Boycott on Falling

            All of them acted at once. Euna wrapped a vine around the avatar’s shoulder like something out of Tarzan. She swung down, taking Phobetor off guard and kicking him in the face. Quite an alright sight, if you where to ask Calex.

            Calex jumped off the avatar’s shoulder, holding his breath to see if Thalia followed through on her side of the bargain. It would be right rubbish if he made it through Tartarus and all this madness only to flatten into a Shrove Tuesday pancake.[1]

            Sure enough, as he dove towards the ground, he could see the huntress of Artemis lunging off the other shoulder. She had both her hands outstretched and—

            And her eyes were tightly shut.

            “GRACE!” Calex shouted at her.

            As he said it, a blast of air exploded out of her hands. The gust hit the mashed strawberry field and flooded up toward him. His descent slowed so, by the time he blundered to the mud, he could do a break fall without shattering his body.

            Not exactly graceful, but not dead either.

            Without losing momentum, Calex rolled into a sprint. He fumbled to withdraw his pencil pouch so he could assemble Soul Pain.

            “Did you just do that with your bloody eyes closed?!” Calex couldn’t believe he was using that tone with the Lieutenant of Artemis, but recent events left him a bit more willingness to defend his right to survive long enough to snog Merry.

            “No! Shut up!” Thalia snarled. Her face was paler than he’d seen in their entire trip through two underworlds. “Giant snake. Destruction of camp. Focus!”

            This was almost as angry as he felt when Euna explained her plan to capture Kaos while they were ascending out of Tartarus—the trial their group called The Eternity of Tortuous Stairs: The Nightmare of a Couch Potato. Then, Euna explained that she had intentionally made shorter vines to snap when he and she were falling towards oblivion, to decrease the burden of deceleration towards Kaos’ pit, and conveniently forgot to tell Calex that they were supposed to snap, leading Calex to believe they were in an uncontrolled fumble towards death.

            Now, while Calex dug his trainers into the mud, he grumbled, “Being a demigod: taking life one unnecessary heart attack at a time.”

            Calex didn’t dare look back to see how cat-avatar-Axel and Reyna faired. [2]They had other worries.

            They raced toward the cabins, where the world darkened without the proximity of the Roman field lights. Now that they were beyond the horrified mass of ghosts, he could better see how massive a problem they had there. Despite the darkness, it would be hard to miss the destruction.

            When Calex had seen Python inside of Howe Caverns, he froze up. All he could do was drag his friends to safety when they got knocked out. Then he hadn’t even seen the entirety of Python. However, after saying a quick, “How do you do?” to Kaos, the sight of Python in her whole was much easier to swallow. 

            The drakon’s body was enormous, her diamond shaped head at least twenty feet off the ground. Her serpentine form balanced atop the totaled Apollo cabin, wrapped several times around the central hearth to consume the flames, then crossed the cabins to rest atop of a pile of silver rubble. With the flick of its tail, it smashed through the walls of the Athena and Demeter cabins.

            One of its eyes was swollen shut. The other—

            Calex averted his gaze, remembering something Joey and Pax had discussed right before Joey had stabbed the drakon’s eye like the crazy hero she had been. “Don’t look it in the eye. It’ll—”

            “—paralyze you. Duh,” Thalia said, giving Calex an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu.

            “We can’t let it destroy the rest of Hera’s cabin,” he said. Though he couldn’t see much of the half-wrecked structure, he hoped Joey’s statue was safely standing. If there was any hope of changing her back, he assumed the statue would have to look like a proper Greek statue instead of a post modern one.

            “Hera’s cabin isn’t really high on my to-do list right now,” Thalia snapped.

            “Right,” he said. “Let’s just crush the snake fast.”

            At Python’s tail, he could see several small forms darting around. Miranda Gardener and another one of Euna’s sisters were trying to unsuccessfully restrain the tail with a few vines.

            By the head, they could see a group of Greeks armed with scattered weapons and PJs, all ducked behind a gigantic metal shield where the Hephaestus Cabin once stood.

            The drakon snapped its jaws at the shield, hissing in frustration. Whatever the material was, it was strong enough to hold up against a direct bite, and it was large enough that Python couldn’t get his jaws around it. The drakon either was too thick to think of going around the side of the shield, or the shield was enchanted to confuse it.

            Dead ahead, the sickening greenish glow of the Cloven Terror’s eye sockets bobbed as Alabaster’s figure approached Python, far closer than Calex and Thalia.

            “Mad bloke is going to get himself killed,” Calex muttered after his quick glimpse of the helm. Although he knew how powerful the child of Hecate was after seeing the fight with Phobetor, this fight seemed a bit different in magnitude.

            As Calex finished assembling his bow, Thalia handed him one of her Artemis arrows. They closed in and Calex saw more movement that made his stomach drop.

            It was from the rickety, old cabin at the edge of the original twelve.

            If Calex counted right, there weren’t many of the original cabins left standing on this side. Poseidon’s was still fine, but Ares’ bunker and Apollo’s cabin were in shambles. Next was the shield left in Hephaestus’ place. Last was the Hermes cabin.

            And five figures were sprinting out of it towards the shelter of the Hephaestus shield.

            Calex almost choked.

            Camp Half-Blood’s three youngest campers, Harley, an energetic child of Hephaestus, the daughter of the sea storm goddess, and two tiny Hermes campers were scurrying behind a slightly taller figure. Drew Tanaka ushered them along in proper Auntie Drew fashion.

            “Oh my gods! I know you little thieves and brats can move faster than that!”

            Calex could barely hear her. But, Python definitely had.

            Calex understood the gamble. If Python was making her way down the cabins, the Hermes cabin was next in line for destruction, and they’d put their youngest in there during all the insanity earlier. But could they make the run to the safety of the Hephaestus before—

            Python’s tongue flicked out towards the children and a horrific laugh filled the air. She reared her head back to strike.

            Those children would be helpless.

            “You don’t want to smash us! We’d be icky to get off your scales or pick out of your teeth! We don’t taste good!” Drew shouted. “Harvey farts A LOT.”

            For a disorienting moment, Calex full-heartedly agreed that the running campers were quite nasty and would be difficult to pick out of scales if Calex had scales.

            Python also hesitated.

            Calex shook off the charmspeak enough to aim an arrow and fire.

            Thalia followed half a second later.

            Their arrows clinked against Python’s forehead scales and ricocheted off. Python barely seemed to notice.

            It dove at the four children and daughter of Aphrodite.

            Calex frantically snatched another arrow from Thalia’s quiver, unsure what good it would do. He’d forgotten those scales would be so thick.

            Regardless, he and Thalia took aim.

            The children screamed.

            Something hissed and gleamed through the air, intercepting Python before she could snap her jaws around the campers.

            It thunked into the drakon’s good eye.

            Python shrieked and recoiled.

            The ground rumbled as the drakon withered.

            The children and Drew raced into the shelter of the shield.

            “Nice throw, Kal—” Calex began to reflexively shout, until something glowed green by the drakon’s head and reversed spin towards the Cloven Terror. The monster—the Alabaster kind of monster, not the serpentine one—caught the discus as it went past, spinning with the weapon’s trajectory to decelerate it.

            Horror sank Calex’s stomach to think what could have happened to Kally for Alabaster to have her weapon.

            When Python made another horrific hiss, Calex could see its other eye was now tightly closed.

            “We should get to that shelter. We’re sitting ducks out here if its hide is too thick to pierce with these arrows. Let’s see how we can back them up there,” Thalia said.

            “Right!” Calex agreed.

            They continued to race towards the shelter.

            Calex’s mind raced alongside with ideas.

            When they fought Python last time, Kally had used some kind of solar explosion to ward Python off, and the drakon might have only let them go to fulfill the first part of Eris’ plan. From what he remembered of Annabeth’s monster fighting courses, it took Apollo’s full quiver of arrows to slay Python.

            Currently, the sun was down, Will—one of the most powerful children of Apollo—was probably still dead and nearby Nico’s semi-solid body, Phobetor had killed Kayla, Calex hated to know if there were any Apollo children inside the cabin when it got smashed, and he hadn’t seen Kally since they got here—what? 10-45 seconds ago?

            Had Python been methodically destroying the few campers that could put up a proper resistance?

            For the moment, Python appeared to have forgotten the Hephaestus shield. Its tongue flicked towards the Cloven Terror.  “I smell no demigod here! You have the scent of a monster and not that of the foolish Cyclops welp—”

            A burst of hope spread through Calex’s chest. Cyclops welp? Was Tyson still here somewhere?

            Whatever reason Alabaster had to keep throwing himself into the front of battles, Calex was cheered they could at least use his stupidity as a cover. He and Thalia were close enough to the shield to see several campers frantically motioning them closer.

            “—why do you help defend this camp?” Python demanded of the Cloven Terror.

            Before Calex dove behind the three-feet-thick metal shield, he caught a glimpse of Alabaster doing something he’d never seen Alabaster do: hesitate.

            Somehow, the Cloven Terror looked smaller than usual, though maybe that was due to his proximity to the drakon. Now that Calex had slowed his pace, he saw something else odd. The flare of the green torches along Hecate’s cabin gleamed off something spilling down the Cloven Terror’s back: rosy-gold hair.

            Calex’s stomach knotted to ice.

            That wasn’t Alabaster.

            He skidded behind the metal shield, having too much forward momentum to stop.

            Thalia rolled in half-a-second behind him. Already, the word, “Update,” was out of her mouth.

            Calex might have tripped and fallen over had a giant Hispanic not steadied him. He looked into the dark, scared eyes of Chris Rodriguez, a son of Hermes and friend of Pax’s. Clarisse La Rue lay at his feet, clutching her leg—one bent at an odd angle. For a moment, hope flooded Calex at seeing Austin, a child of Apollo, laying beside Clarisse, but the boy was out cold, the lower half of his body mangled like a building had dropped on it. Calex frowned; it probably had.

            Jake Mason, a child of Hephaestus, was putting aerospace-looking blankets around the shoulders of the four children and Drew. Nyssa and Matthias, two other children of Hephaestus, were stationed at either end of the shield wall. At the center, there was a giant wheel crank—to move the shield wall back and forth, Calex assumed, judging off the massive rollers on the bottom and the circular track on the ground. There was a ladder up the center to a small slit in the shield, where a gigantic stun-gun-thing was positioned.

             Tyson and a child of Ares, whose name Calex couldn’t remember, were positioned by the crank, ready to turn it.

            “Do we change positions now?” Tyson asked.

            “No! He’s talking to the Witchboy. Hold up!” Matthias called.

            Calex didn’t realize the shield itself had been pivoting. That would explain why Python struggled to turn the lot of them into afternoon biscuits—well—nighttime biscuits?  After being underground for what felt like days and exiting into a starless, moonless black sky, Calex could guess the time about as well as he could guess the Queen’s favorite pair of socks.[3]

            “We have to do something! That’s Kally!” Calex said, scrambling for a plan.

            “Were you going to just let him die if it was Alabaster?” Chris asked, looking pale.

            Calex was alarmed by his own, unhesitant response. “Yep.”

            Matthias nervously tapped his fingers together. “Imagine Pax’s whining though.”

            “Matt! Eyes outside!” Nyssa scolded.

            “Yea, shut up,” Thalia said, “Whoever is outside will need our help and we need to know what’s going on.”

            Clarisse growled in agreement. “We’re not sure. I think Clovis is keeping us awake. Phobetor can’t seem to keep all of the campers asleep and puppet people as sleep walkers at the same time.”

            “Clovis is napping now. I heard he’s more powerful when he’s sleeping,” Harvey, the eight-year-old, said quickly, “So he can better take on that nightmare meanie.”

            “Pipsqueak might be right,” Clarisse said, “Last we heard, the Stoll brothers, Will, Nico, Chiron, Sherman, and Pollux were in the Big House’s infirmary by Clovis. We’re not sure where everyone else is. No one was prepared for the sun to go down early.” Her voice quivered with fury. “Stupid, overgrown snake—”

            “The sun only went down a few minutes before you showed up on… um—” Chris hesitated.

            “A glowing, giant Axel,” Thalia said.

            Chris looked even paler. “That’s terrifying.”

            After helping to shove Harvey tighter into his blanket, Drew stumbled over to Calex. He prepared—unwittingly—for her to hit on him despite the circumstances, so was surprised when she clutched his shoulder. Tears rimmed her eyes. “It ate Mitchell.”

            Calex’s mouth went dry. Mitchell was one of his cabin mates, a surprisingly shy son of Aphrodite with a good heart.

            No words surfaced to comfort his crying aunt. His mind threatened to wander to the bodies lined up under tarps in Kakata. He squeezed Drew’s hand, swallowed, then walked alongside Matthias again to peak out and see if Kally was already eaten or if they could grant her any tactical advantage.

            The Cloven Terror was still at a standoff maybe ten meters from Python. The snake’s size seemed impossible next to Kally. Somehow, Python seemed even larger since Calex knew it was her and not Alabaster out there. In the distance by the Roman barracks, a glowing avatar slashed through the ranks of ghosts. Calex didn’t see Phobetor or Euna and only noticed a blur when he tried to focus on the two giants battling outside the boarder.

            “Have you no words?” Python demanded.

            Kally took a step back, one Calex recognized as a first step to winding up her discus. “I am a child of light,” her voice rang two-toned with a deeper one. It started uncertain, but continued with a scary determination. “Here to reap the scythe of the lion’s labors. And I welcome YOU with this embrace!”

            “What trickery is this?!” the drakon demanded. “A child of Apollo—”

            Calex balked as Kally wound up and lobbed her discus at the drakon. That girl had more bollux than an unneutered bulldog.

            “Holy spirit of Ares,” Matthias muttered. “That’s not Ajax’s meep-squeak, not-girlfriend, right?”

            Kally’s discus slammed into Python’s busted eyelid. It hissed in fury, though didn’t look further injured.

            They needed to act now.

            Calex put two fingers to his mouth to make a piercing whistle. The chances were low but he should have been around—

            The drakon snapped downward towards his mate.

            A rainbow blur blasted between the drakon’s open jaws as they crushed into the ground.

            Calex whooped in excitement. 

            “What is that?” Nyssa asked from the other side of the shield.

            “The best damn unicorn you’ll ever set eyes on!” Calex cheered.

            A crimson and black blur galloped to a sudden stop about five meters from their hiding spot. Atop a magnificent stallion with a gold and silver horn sputtering rainbow sparks, Kally sat upright, her helm focused on the incoming green glow that hissed behind Python’s head.

            Her discus spun back towards them and Kally snapped her hand out to catch it.

            Calex thought he heard something crack, but couldn’t be certain when Vinyl took off back towards Python. The drakon had dislodged its jaws from the dirt and flicked its tongue towards Kally.

            Python lunged again.

            The unicorn and rider darted under the giant snake. From its blur, a golden discus spun out again.

            Once again, the hit seemed to only annoy the drakon as it withered in anger.

            “We need to help her find an opening,” Calex said. His eyes flashed around their shield and what they had. “Clarisse, you defeated a drakon before, right?”

            “I electrocuted it from the inside of its eye socket,” she growled. “If you didn’t notice, I don’t have an electric spear.”

            Calex pointed at the giant stun-gun thing mounted at the top of the shield. “It’s broken, innit?”

            Jake frowned. “Python knocked out our backup power and our backup, backup power. We’re working on getting it back online, but we would need a lot of electricity to…”

            Thalia grabbed his shoulder, giving him a grin. “How much electricity is a lot?”

            Jake’s mouth hung open then crooked into a grin.

            “You still need to find a way to pierce the hide,” Clarisse reminded, scowling.

            The hope in Jake’s eyes crushed. “The first time we tried, when Python knocked over Ares’ cabin, the prongs just bounced off.”

            Calex thought it over. After the stunt he pulled with Kaos and climbing all those stairs, his body felt weak and shaky. An image flashed in his mind: the black, metal arrow he’d almost shot Axel and Thalia with. He’d been scared to shoot them. The two dumb blokes were so naturally compatible, the strength it took to force disinterest or dislike had been horrible. But, to enhance some of Python’s utter disgust with Apollo children? An arrow like that would be easy, right? He thought about Thanatos and Kaos and his confidence grew.

             “I can make arrows,” Calex said, “that can piece into anyone’s heart. Even a primordial god’s.”

            Thalia’s face went red with rage, but she nodded to affirm this. Her hand reflexively clutched at her chest, where his golden arrow had struck her.

            Their shield wall rocked when Python smashed into it.

            Vinyl shrieked in pain.

            “That’s cool and all,” Matthias said. He’d abandoned his post by the outside of the shield, hands already fumbling with some wires on the ground. No one needed to direct his siblings. Harvey had already thrown off his shock blanket to help him and Jake and Nyssa scrambled over half a second later. “But, can we attach cables to said arrows?” Matthias asked.

            Calex already had a hand on the ladder to the turret. He gave Thalia a grin as the sparks erupted at her fingertips. “Let’s find out.”

Hey guys! I’m getting this out before midnight this time XD Still haven’t had a chance to do proper edits on these (I’ll hope to get back to more edits later!) but, I hope you enjoyed regardless!

I’m enjoying Vinyl as a battle unicorn. What do you guys think?

Stay tuned next week for Kally’s chapter: I Get to be Python’s Piñata, where I feel like the writing gets a bit smoother for the ending XD

 Footnotes:

[1] A celebration preceding Ash Wednesday where you consume pancakes.

[2] Mel betanote: “Is she going to ride him into battle? That sounds so wrong but I meant it entirely in the form of battle!!!!”

Jack, “( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)”

[3] Apparently I didn’t think Calex was British enough in this chapter.

Chapter Text

Forty-Three: Kalypso

I Get to be Python’s Piñata

            All Kally needed was an opening to attack Python.

            She clutched Vinyl’s black mane, terrified of being bucked off. When the blur of color had charged her, Kally hadn’t been sure if it was for a rescue or a mercy kill, either of which were equally likely from Calex’s volatile friend. Fortunately, she hadn’t been gored on the broken horn in a mess of bloody rainbow sparkles.

            The problem was—she’d never ridden a horse before, let alone a unicorn at stop-and-go hyperspeed. Once, at her old Bible camp, a pony had relieved itself all over her duffle bag at their orientation, but that was the extent of her horse whispering. All she could do was cling on.[1]

            As Python hissed and darted at her, the gust of breath was noxious, reeking of rotting corpses. Spittle struck her cheek and she didn’t want to think about apologizing to Alabaster for getting snake goop on his helm.[2]

            Vinyl shook his mane, clearly displeased. The motion shook up the scent of horse sweat.

            Another problem: Kally had no way to spin her discus for deceleration.

            When she saw the green glow incoming behind the drakon, she squeaked internally, Uh, helm, do you speak unicorn? We might need to dodge.

            Of course I can’t speak fucking unicorn. What do I look like, a Disney princess?[3]

            As Vinyl dashed them away from Python’s jaws, Kally realized dismounting would be suicide. Python was intent on having a Kally-and-unicorn chaser after whichever demigods the drakon had swallowed. But, if Kally couldn’t dismount to decelerate the discus, she didn’t know how to stop the discus. If it hit her full speed without her catching it, the metal might break a bone or knock her unconscious.

            When Vinyl had pivoted to avoid Python, the discus had readjusted its trajectory, proving she couldn’t trick it away. It would hit them full speed.

            She wondered if the discus would turn back into an Argonaut statue in the last second so it could make a face while crushing her skull.

            Even if Kally could redirect it, she needed a weapon. Vinyl wasn’t going to slow down enough for her to pick one up off the ground. There wasn’t enough energy in her to do more than a few fancy Apollo light blasts. The missed shot at Atë left Kally with second degree burns. She needed to find a weak spot so those attacks weren’t wasted deflecting off Python’s scales. Python’s enflamed eye didn’t look like it would work again, other than to distract the drakon. Kally couldn’t really pry its eye back open with a, “Hey, could you hold that pose so I can hit you again? Thanks.”

            Kally’s heart thudded in her chest.

            She didn’t have enough time to form a plan. Buzzing through Vinyl’s blinding sparks, the green, hissing discus was about to hit her.

            Reflexively, Kally’s hand snapped out. She tried to catch it early, so she could decelerate it by giving her hand room to move backwards.

            No! You—

            When the metal smashed into her fingers, her miscalculation became clear without needing any scathing comments from the Cloven Terror.

            Something in her arm cracked.

            Kally choked on pain, forcing her fist to keep tight around the discus. The names of bones and ligaments streamed through her head, but she forced that part of her brain to shut up. She clenched her other fist in Vinyl’s silky black mane, the ache of her scorched fingers becoming more apparent.

            “Child of Apollo!” Python roared after her.

            Kally wondered if gods and monsters would forget about demigods if they didn’t always announce them by heritage. Likely, but that didn’t make it any less annoying.

            The drakon lunged again.

            Vinyl snorted. The unicorn dashed to the side. Kally could feel the rush of air more than see the blur of Python as the drakon’s mouth came within inches of their retreat. She gagged at the stench. There was one nice thing: the rainbow sparks sputtering from Vinyl’s horn cooled the searing pain in her fractured forearm and the burns along the hand clutching Vinyl’s mane.

            Time slowed as she had to make a choice. In the split second that Vinyl dug his hooves into the ground to pivot and Python’s head was mid-raised, Kally squeezed her legs on either side of Vinyl’s body. She released Vinyl’s mane to take the discus from her broken arm to her burned one.

            There wasn’t any space to wind up for a real throw, but maybe the return recoil would be less. Python was only a dozen feet away.

            Kally twisted her torso with a throw. Pain erupted in her burned fingertips and tender opposite arm.

            The discus hissed to life.

            Kally gripped Vinyl’s hair again with her burned fingers, barely managing to stay mounted. She lifted her fractured forearm up to get as many healing sparks as she could. That arm needed to be as stable as possible so it wouldn’t completely shatter under the next discus return, and she couldn’t waste her energy on sing-healing it. As she’d say in Dungeons and Drakons, she needed to be a striker right now, not a support character.

            The golden gleam smashed into Python’s underbelly, where the neck would have been if the creepy monster wasn’t just one continuous wormy neck.

            “I will devour you and your siblings!” Python screamed, though Kally was satisfied to hear she might have hit its larynx, assuming drakons had those. Python’s voice sounded scratchy.

            But, as she feared, that had done little other damage. They needed a plan.

            “You’d have to catch me first!” she said, feeling like Pax would tease her for such a cliché, stupid taunt. At Python’s mention of her siblings, she feared the drakon would remember the other campers trying to seek cover around them.

            Her stomach fell when the discus gleamed green again on the return spin. When Alabaster’s jaw was fixed enough that she could hit him without him passing out from pain, she was going to give him a proper thank you for this very complicated gift.

            While the world blurred with Vinyl’s speed, every muscle in her body shook when she prepared her fractured arm to catch the discus again. Although the sparks soothed the ache, pain still made her arm quiver. But, it had to be this arm. She couldn’t risk breaking her throwing arm too.

            Right when she thought the discus was about to impact her and make her scream, Vinyl did something she wasn’t expecting.

            The psychotic unicorn dashed under Python’s rearing form—taking them within inches of the shield-like, massive scales of her underbelly.

            Kally shrieked, leaning low on Vinyl’s back, really wishing the helm spoke unicorn to ask a simple, “WHY!?”

            Python dropped, trying to crush them. Kally swore she could hear Vinyl’s tail swoosh against the scales.

            But, at the same time, she heard Python let out a frustrated hiss and the thunk of her discus.

            She looked back in enough time to have the discus bounce over Python’s massive body and practically plop into her hand. Although clutching it hurt, the now-Argonaut statue had lost almost all its momentum when it struck Python on the return swing.

             Vinyl, Kally realized, was a genius. Either that or very lucky to time out a second hit on Python with the discus’ return honing.

            They couldn’t keep this up though. They needed a plan other than Be Bait.

            A little help? She thought loudly to the helm that wouldn’t shut up earlier.

            I already told you. You seek the wrong target. We should help the Silver-Tongued Snake with his quarry.

            While Vinyl pivoted again for another dash, Kally couldn’t help but imagine this was the same frustration that Axel felt when arguing with Alabaster. This was the most stubborn helmet she’d ever met. When she first trudged towards Python, the helm had informed her that it was designed for use against gods and demigods, not giant squamates,[4] but she guessed survival instinct would kick in and make it help her.

            She was wrong.

            Its words echoed in her memory, Hecate’s Helms are more powerful when we work in harmony with our masters.

            They could probably work in tandem, and with Pax, to take out Eris. But, she couldn’t abandon the fight against Python. From what she could see, she was the only child of Apollo left standing. Python would likely go back on its rampage to destroy all the cabins in search of any living members.

            Her fingers tingled with heat at the thought.

            You’re letting her wind you like mice in a laboratory.

            Enough with the metaphors! Kally wanted to scream.

            You’re a child of the poetry god! it countered.

            Hoping she wouldn’t lose her balance with nausea, Kally glanced to the corner of her peripheral. With how fast Vinyl raced, the disorientation was worse when her vision went panorama.

            She expected to see how the Roman troops were fairing or see if the huntresses of Artemis or daughter of Demeter had used her distraction to get away from Python.

            Instead, she saw what the Cloven Terror meant.

            Python had removed her tail from the other side of camp and slammed it down to encircle them. Vinyl must have realized it to. He let out a burst of speed, racing towards a rapidly closing opening—

            That Python’s body now obscured.

            They were trapped and the coils were rapidly constricting like… like—

            Like a python? Did you forget who you were facing?! We should have fought Eris!

            Not helping! Kally shouted at the helm.

            With each twist of a coil, Kally’s throat constricted too. She remembered her nightmares—being crushed by a smothering, squeezing darkness. Panic began to mount. Could she make another light burst and shake Python off if the snake smothered her again? She wasn’t sure. And what if Python only left them last time to enact Eris’ plan? Maybe—if Python swallowed her—she could explode the drakon from the inside, though that didn’t have a smilie mark on the list of ways to live through this.

            Vinyl didn’t rear and freak the way she suspected.

            The unicorn continued its dead sprint, building speed, at the rapidly enclosing wall of Python’s body. Maybe Vinyl thought it was better to die in a high-speed collision than by digestion.

            Right when Kally started screaming, Vinyl lunged.

            Kally gasped, scared of having hope. They were going to clear the coils. Unicorns could jump.

            In mid-blur and mid-air, something moved again in her peripheral.

            That something had the consistency of a brick wall when it smacked them out of the air.

            Vinyl shrieked.

            Kally yelled in pain, losing hold of Vinyl. Her broken arm burned with agony.

            They tumbled down to the ground, crashing hard. Python’s tail continued through on its strike, smashing into the metal shield-wall a few feet away.

            The disorientation was intense. Kally feared she couldn’t move her body. Her mind wouldn’t—

            Focus, the Cloven Terror commanded.

            A wave of concentration seeped out like the helm was made of ice instead of metal and bone. She shot up, the pain in her broken arm going cold. Vinyl withered and floundered to get to his feet about a yard away. Kally didn’t know where her discus went.

            “Hey Python!” a voice with diva-like quality called somewhere above Kally. “You don’t want to look at that ugly, little child of Apollo. You want to look here where the real stars are and pause to admire them.”

            Everyone froze.

            Without wanting to, Kally felt her eyes trail upward. From the corner of her vision—that went panorama with the movement of her eyes—she could see Python also pause in lunging to eat her and stare at the figures at the same height as the snake’s head.

            In a slit in the shield, Drew Takana leaned out. Her eyes were red and puffy, but her voice projected with the confidence of someone who regularly treated hoards of people like steps on a stairway. Although Kally didn’t need further convincing on the point, Drew’s conviction was so strong, Kally—and Python—both paused to look up at the daughter of Aphrodite, someone Kally knew was more of a star without her needing to hear it.

            To the side of Drew, Calex stood tall. His bow was propped on some weird stand, like his bow was, instead, a ballista. Even in the dimness and distance, Kally could see that something was wrong with him. His scarf was gone. The material of one of his sleeves looked like particles of it had been sucked away. Calex’s muscles flexed as he drew his bow back.[5]

            Two arrows glistened to life on the string, one a thin, glistening black, somehow darker than the night around them, and the other a sparkling, blinding gold, sputtering in and out of control.

            “Ready!” Calex called with gritted teeth.

            Something clinked into place behind him. “Ready!” someone said.

            Both Kally and Python realized what was happening around the same time. However, Kally didn’t need to dodge the way Python would have.

            Calex released his bow.

            Kally thought the arrows would ricochet off the scales, like everything else had. Instead, they pierced into Python’s raised body. Cords whirled out with the arrows, lodging between the thick scales.

            Calex slumped over, Drew darting to catch him.

            Kally heard the sparks before she registered their effect. There was a crack, then Python screamed, as—Kally found out later—electricity surged through the snake.

            The drakon’s mouth dropped open so Kally had a perfect view of its fangs and the skin attached to them, the way the forked, black tongue dangled out, the strange tunnel-like structure just before the throat opening.

            The entire coiling body withered.

            This is the opening we needed, the Cloven Terror shook her from the charm speak.

            Whatever Calex and the others were doing to stun Python, Kally doubted it would last or that it would kill the beast. She’d been so focused on distracting Python from attacking her friends; she didn’t think that her friends could cause the best distraction for her.

            Kally thought about her destroyed cabins, how many of her half-siblings were dead, how none of this would have happened if her monster of a father might have stepped in to help or listened to his children or be useful for once in his immortal life.

            She harnessed that rage and frustration. Her already burned palms singed with heat before going completely numb. A blinding light exploded by her fingertips, honing in to the tip of a javelin.

            Kally took a step back, then raced forward, feeling the energy start in the leg she used to ground herself, running up her thigh, through her back muscles as she twisted her upper torso. The scent of burnt skin intensified. The energy flared through her arm when she released the glaring shaft of light from her fingertips.

            The bolt of pure, burning light flew upwards, straight into the roof of Python’s mouth.

Hey guys! As always, thank you for reading! By the number of footnotes, you might have guessed that I had real time to actually edit this week XD I felt like this chapter was much smoother and I’m finally getting the hang of things again! :D

I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned next week for Reyna’s chapter!

Footnotes:    

[1] I personally love Worf… for the 1% of you who got that… I’ll show myself out

[2] Mel betanote, “Knowing Alabaster, tho, there’s probably worse on that helm from him.” Jack, “Accurate. Boy dissects bodies for fun. Imagine when he thinks it needs to be cleaned.”

[3] Mel betanote, “Sir! This was originally a PG-13 series XD …. Originally.” Jack, *looks at death by electric base, implications of incest, and other traumas* “It…. Can still pass!”

[4] Cute, crawly, scaly things. This is Pax’s technical definition.

[5] Mel betanote, “Meow?” Jack, “I can now that that Calex is canonically the most attractive male demigod in the series.  Feel free to argue in favor of a Pax boy instead XD”

Chapter Text

Forty-Four: Reyna

I Ride a Cat into Battle[1]

            Seeing her comrades almost overwhelmed made Reyna’s throat constrict. For a moment, Reyna remembered her old nightmares, about the earth overtaking New Rome and the villas and temples of her bloved home crumbling. When Axel punched through the earth that the Plague Bringer’s voice had weakened and she saw the destruction of Camp Half-Blood, Reyna had to wonder if this was Percy’s version of that nightmare.

            While riding on the green avatar’s shoulders, she could tell Thalia and Calex had tensed at the sight of the camp. Despite seeing Kaos and everything else they had been through, she wondered if either of them was prepared to see their home in rubble. From their height advantage, they could see everything.

            When Reyna saw her scattered troops succumbing to the chaos here, she had to hope Calex and Thalia could stick to their plan as they and Euna had hopped off.

            Now, after calling out to her troops and commanding they keep their resolve, she couldn’t think about Euna’s, Thalia’s, or Calex’s fight. She had to focus on her own.

            “Hold on,” the two-toned voice of Axel and the goddess said.

            Reyna wanted to hang on to the avatar’s neck for stability, but couldn’t. She needed to keep in sight of the Romans. She had mustered what was left of her strength and courage to spread it to the others below. Her tattoo burned. They needed to see her as a symbol of power and hope.

            Instead, she crouched, clutching on to the wide collared necklace that stretched across the avatar’s shoulders.

            Axel—Reyna decided she had to think of the female avatar as Axel still and no one else—lunged a step forward. She dug her fingers into the jewelry, feeling the rush of air whip her hair and cloak about. Despite the size, Axel pounced with the same agility that he normally did. Only, this time, he smashed a line of ghosts that were descending on her troops in the strawberry field.

            A cheer started from below.

            “Thank the gods! It’s on our side!” one Roman called.

            A relieved smile touched Reyna’s lips when she saw Hazel with a handful of Romans.

            “Praetor Reyna has a new pet!” another laughed.

            Reyna wondered if they would have the same enthusiasm had they known the Leonis Caput was inside.

            She also wondered if Axel would appreciate being called her pet.

            “I am no one’s pet,” Axel and the goddess said. The goddess continued with a savage grin in her tone, “Though, I do enjoy hunting a nest of mice.”

            Axel leaned down, making Reyna brace again. He wracked the massive saber-like claws through the next line of ghosts. The glowing green blades shredded through the ground and destroyed a dozen ghouls along the way.

            “Romans! To the barracks! We regroup now to make a defense!” she called.

            The Romans rallied by Axel’s feet, following the order with continued cheer. Between the reinforcements and her imbuing them with hope and courage, the Romans quickly turned the tide in the mayhem.

            A piercing whistle echoed throughout the camp. Two figures, looking like distant comets, blurred across the camp’s boundary line. Reyna almost shouted a warning into Axel’s ear until one of the approaching figures slowed down enough for Hazel to throw her arms up around it.

            Arion—her amazing horse—had arrived. Hazel mounted and she and Arion crossed the battle field to help a rather groggy-looking bear fend off several ghouls.

            Axel took a careful step forward, toward the barracks. With another sweep, he slashed a dozen more ghosts. The distance to the barracks, which had seemed so far and bulging with violent spirits, now looked easier than one of Frank’s training exercises.

            Although Reyna had been skeptical to accept help from the foreign goddess whose avatar Axel wielded (especially considering Axel was typically paranoid and hateful towards any gods—he had trusted this one with suspicious ease)[2] Reyna had to admit she liked the Egyptian cat goddess’ style. Slapping enemies into oblivion? A+

            Another cry of joy erupted from below as the troops by the barracks met up with the stragglers from the strawberry field.

            Before they got too distracted by their minor victory, Reyna shouted, “ORBEM FORMATE!” Her troops followed instruction, the archers forming a line behind the loose circle of infantry. There must have been one or two Greeks down there, as some of her soldiers shoved a confused demigod into the proper formation.

            Somewhere down below, she heard a scream of rage.

            About twenty feet away, the goddess of Ghosts, Melinoe, stumbled to her feet. Whatever ghost she had mimicked now melted away to reveal her creepy half-charred corpse, half-mummy body. Axel must have swept her aside without realizing he’d even tossed a goddess.

            At Melinoe’s cry, the chaotic mess of ghosts formed a line near her. They stumbled away from the rest of the Greek encampment, flooding towards Reyna’s troops.

            Further in the distance, Reyna heard a squawk-like squeal from one of the giants battling on the edge of the strawberry field.

            “I need to help my brother,” Axel said, “I cannot sustain this form much longer.”

            Despite his size, Reyna could hear a tremor in his voice. Axel might have been nervous—he hadn’t been around Pax much since Axel had almost killed his little brother. Or, maybe, this form took more energy out of him than he let on.

            Reyna sucked in a breath. She would be fighting the ghost of her father again. Melinoe would inevitably call upon him, or turn into him; she wasn’t sure what the goddess’ power entailed. But, she would rather it be her burden than that of her troops. At least she’d faced down her father before. She could do it again.

            “Go,” she said, “We can show them the skill of New Rome.”

            One of his hands—almost the size of her body—lifted to her foot height. Reyna jumped onto it, grabbing hold as he knelt and gently lowered her to the ground.[3] Her archers covered their movement, taking out a few scattered ghouls that were making their way over. With his free hand, Axel flicked another one, sending the ghoul flying through the air.

            Once Reyna stepped off, he used a finger to gently caressed her cheek—quite alarming considering any mishap in pressure could decapitate her or knock her over in front of all of her troops. Plus, the avatar’s giant cat head made the interaction really weird. She was scared Axel would pick her up and lick her, a motion that might have been cute if he were normal cat size, but would just leave her in a gross, slobbery bath.

            Instead, Axel rose to his feet and cracked his neck—did the avatar’s neck crack too?

            “The glamour of Rome better not disappoint,” he teased.

            Then he lunged towards Eris and Pax, taking out five or six ghosts with each step.

            Reyna accepted a sword from Butch, one of the Greeks who had joined her troops. She turned to face the oncoming Goddess of Ghosts, watching Melinoe’s features twist into those of her father: Julian Ramírez-Arellano.

            Reyna forced herself not to shake. Her troops would be nervous now that their giant cat mascot was gone. She channeled her calm and courage to the rest of them, feeling the tattoo on her forearm burn with a harsher intensity. “FOR ROME!” Reyna cried.

            She and her troops charged forward.

Hey everyone! Thank you for reading! After this chapter, the battle should smooth out and be a little easier to follow. (I promised myself that I would do a big battle at the end, a la Riordan, but—uh—you might have noticed I’m shaky writing them T.T) Thank you for your patience with it and I hope you’ve enjoyed regardless! I hope everyone is enjoying summer break :D Stay tuned next week for Euna’s chapter, A Dream Catcher Would Have Been Easier.

Footnotes:

[1] Meow?

[2] Mel betacomment, “What? Can he say it’s a cat thing? XD” Jack response, “Cats know to be suspicious of each other. The ones that don’t get side-tackled. Why do you think cat owners are so paranoid?”

[3] Mel betacomment, “AWWW! What a gentleman!

Thalia, in the distance, “COULDN’T HAVE DONE THAT FOR US CAT BREATH!”

Jack response,

Calex, “Thalia! Quiet! They’re having a moment!”

Chapter Text

Forty-Five: Euna

A Dream Catcher Would Have Been Easier

            Unlike the last two times Euna took Hemera’s god-enhancing droplets, Euna didn’t try to shut out the noise.

            She listened very carefully.

            As her feet struck the mud, she could hear the dying cries of the trampled grass and strawberry plants, some too mutilated to scream. She could hear the plants being crushed under Pax’s, Eris’ and Python’s foot—er—feet and snakely bodies? Yea, whatever. Those.

            The transition to god mode was much smoother this time. The first time, all the plants screaming had been deafening and overwhelming. 

            Now, Euna could hear, with clarity, Miranda, her sister, praying for vines strong enough to hold down Python’s tail and the cries from the plants. She could sort through those prayers.

            It reminded Euna of how she had tuned out years of her father’s scolding and Joey’s desperate mockery; Euna let her brain unfocus. The screams of demigods—those were outside her head, right?—those faded as easily as the hisses inside.

            This must be how it is for Mom, Euna realized when her emotions for the demigods turned to apathy, and she stalked towards Phobetor.

            Inside,             she knew all these things—people, plants, whatever the difference—needed to die, because life relied on death. No animals could live without killing. No plants could prosper without taking the territory of another, without weeding out the trash.

            That’s what Euna was going to do. Weed out the trash. Though, that made it sound like a chore, and Euna hated chores.

            “Euna, oh Euna, my fair maiden—mf!”

            Euna shoved a white, blooming flower into Jack’s mouth, tired of hearing him talk. She didn’t need him right now.

            Phobetor stood ahead of her, a tall humanoid with a weirdly fused kiwi-bird-skull-plague-doctor-thing going on. He had recovered from where she drop-kicked him. He huffed and adjusted his Renaissance-style lord’s cap. “I beg your pardon?” Phobetor demanded again, hands trailing to his pink-and-green pokey-doted bowtie. “You’ll ‘start’ with me? Young demigod, I am the great Ikelos—“

            Traitor to the Second Titan War, Backbiter hissed in her hands. She swept the scythe to the side, rotating it. Although familiar as a farming tool, she wished it was more balanced for fighting or executing.

            The god seemed flustered when Euna didn’t break stride, though Euna couldn’t tell if that was from their proximity or if he’d heard Backbiter’s bitterness.

            “Kronos?!” Phobetor blundered, proving it was the latter. One of his hoofed feet took a step back and he put his piccolo-hatchet to his beak. “I’ll show you your worst fear—” he started to say to Euna, and—if she was correct—he sounded desperate.       

            “I’ve already seen that,” Euna said. With each step, long grass sprouted at her feet, exploding up to her hips. Strawberry vines slithered around the ground, slinking towards the God of Nightmares.

            Phobetor’s cheeks puffed and a high-pitched note pierced the air.

            A wave of exhaustion hit Euna but, the joke was on Phobetor: she was always too tired and in need of a nap.[1]

            Phobetor retreated another step. “Why aren’t you sleeping? You’re not a child of Hypnos[2] or Hecate.” He huffed, then raised the piccolo back to his lips as they curled into a smile.

            Another note.

            Euna didn’t care. She was almost upon him. The grass and vines had expanded to surround them. She stroked the rosewood box in her pocket once before settling both her hands on the cool shaft of her scythe.

            “Dunno,” she muttered, “Kinda hard to trick me when I know what you’re doing.”

            Hemera’s god-droplets probably didn’t hurt either.

            Shuffling nearby barely caught her attention. She didn’t need to look. The grass and strawberry vines alerted her to the presence of several sleepwalking campers.

            Phobetor’s smile crumbled when the strawberry vines snaked up and the grass bent to drag the campers into their thicket.

            Everything was so much quieter now with sleepwalker’s shambles silenced, so much more peaceful.

            Something leaked from Phobetor’s jester sleeves: aphids, beetles, caterpillars, and cabbage maggots. Things that were bad for the garden. “You are a demigod—one of Eris’ pawns! An upstart!” he cried, flinging them towards her.

            Desperately, she thought.

            Euna ignored them, doubting they were real, and not caring if she was wrong. Instead, she plucked a handful of seeds from her berry crown, things she’d been gathering during her and Jack’s trip, and tossed them at Phobetor.

            She closed her eyes, sensing his movements through his steps on the smashed plants and the pollen in the air.

            He turned to tar, assuming her attack was immediate.

            It hadn’t been. She’d been trying to learn from the whole “tact” thing that Axel taught her--the way Joey would analyze an opponent to find their weaknesses during a dojo match.

            Euna settled her hand back onto Backbiter’s long staff. She exhaled, concentrating on where her plants felt Phobetor’s presence and commanding her seeds to take root and grow. She needed Phobetor’s focus on her, so these seeds could expand. She couldn’t have them explode out like the walnuts trees in Santiago’s pyramid.

            Phobetor went to raise his piccolo-hatchet.

            Then she lunged, swinging her scythe in a wide arc.

            Her blade, Backbiter’s two-toned, blade vibrated with a solid strike.

            Phobetor screamed.

            When she opened her eyes, she saw Phobetor standing several feet back. His form was half-melted. Tar dripped off a vaguely humanoid figure, the colorful minstrel adornment unraveling into shiny dribbles. There was no face underneath the kiwi skull as it clattered into the grass.

            One gross, rippling hand held the stump of another. Snakes, spiders, and bugs spilled from it alongside golden ichor.

            In the grass, Euna could sense his dismembered tar-puddle limb and splintered hatchet.

            Ikelos, did you forget that I can permanently cut up a god, as I did Uranus? I told you my vengeance would be swift for traitors to my cause. Backbiter laughed. You coming here bodily was your end.

            Phobetor stood there, stunned. When he finally recovered from his shock—that Euna had something that could really hurt him—he tried to take a step backwards.

            His tar feet stuck fast. He glanced down in panic at the two splendid pitcher plants holding his feet in place—carnivorous plants with deep cavities in the shape of pitchers, dripping with sticky, digestive acid.[3] Massive flowers—stinking corpse lilies—sprouted all around the pitchers, reinforcing their weaker walls with two foot long red and white petals.[4] Tree roots erupted from the ground, twisting the petals together, pushing them up to Phobetor’s hips, sewing the pitchers and petals together like they were making a bodily cast for Phobetor.

            Although hard to tell with an overdramatic puddle, Euna thought he might be shivering. Rippling? Whatever.

            “You’re the one who gave us nightmares for months. You made my sister relive her death over and over again,” Euna said. With barely a tug in her gut, she commanded more corpse lilies to grow, encasing Phobetor’s waist and trapping his tar into a tightly-wrapped, leak proof, biodegradable package. Satyr-approved.

            “Demigod,” Phobetor said, his voice trembling, “This is most unwise! My father will hear of this!”

            She could feel Phobetor try to slip away. He abandoned his legs, letting the upper half of his body melt over the petals.

            She expected he would try to run. Gods didn’t need their full bodies to exist, after all.

            Euna waited patiently as part of his body sludged backwards over the corpse flowers and pitcher plants, dripping onto a larger, thinner leaf. When his melting torso made contact, the massive 10-foot wide gunnera leaf enclosed around him, making Phobetor release a muffled cry.[5]

            Vines and tree roots encased the trap, reinforcing it. At her command, they lifted the wiggling gunnera leaf up, plopping it on top of the corpse lilies to make another vaguely humanoid thing. He looked funny with pitcher legs and a wiggly leaf for a body. Joey would have called it gross.

            “The other gods will hear!” his muffled cry came through the leaves. “The Olympians will never rest until they know Backbiter is destroyed! Anything you do to me will get their attention—”

            “You talk too much,” Euna muttered. She knelt down plucking a smaller pitcher plant from the larger ones, and scooped up the tarlike essence of his dismembered hand before it could crawl away.

            “Getting their attention will save me time,” she said, setting Backbiter down. She withdrew her rosewood box and popped the lid open with her thumb.

            All the vines and flowers entwined in her hair dangled towards the opening. The vortex of Kaos inside greedily suctioned everything around them; the background din of screams and battle seemed to hold its breath. The waist-high grass rustled loudly towards them.

            “After I’m done here,” Euna said absently as she poured the essence of his hand into the swirl to nothingness. The Phobetor cocoon squealed, apparently able to feel his detached limb shatter into nonexistence. “I’m coming for the Olympians next.”

            Euna clicked the lid closed, tuning out his shrieks like she’d tuned out the plant and gardener’s prayers. The air around them seemed to let out a relieved sigh. She put the rosewood box into her pocket, then lifted up the scythe and groaned in annoyance. If only Persephone’s box had been bigger. Cutting the God of Nightmares into pieces to shove each limb into oblivion? This was going to take forever.

            Frowning, she hefted up her scythe to lob off a chunk of his head. Calex and the others better have something good planned for dinner, because after this mess she was going to be starving.

Thank you for reading! I’m sorry it’s running late. Things have been crazy *sweat drop* I hope you enjoyed despite the lateness! Stay turned (hopefully next week) for some back-to-back Ajax chapters, Keeping it Holy.

[1] Mel betanote: She’s the hulk. She’s always mad! XD

Jack: sleeptime hulk.

[2] I mixed up the god and the Pokemon for a shamefully long period of time. I got really confused when “Hypno” kept coming up as an incorrect spelling.

[3] So, I’m a huge fan of carnivorous plants. Big pitcher plants are known for eating mice, bats, and rats. These can only be found in East Malaysia, but you can get cute, baby ones in lots of other areas. (Being a fan of cute rodents as well, I prefer the smaller ones that like to snack on mosquitoes and gnats).

Mel betanote: “Oh, okay. This is based on your interests. XD All I could think about was the pokemon version because of your last note.”

Jack response, “No Victreebel for you! Only hoards of tiny Oddishes!”

[4] Corpse lilies are the biggest flowering plants in the world and one of the strongest. Also, one of the worst smelling, emitting the unnerving stench of rotting flesh. It doesn’t help their reputation that they look like something from Little Shop of Horrors.

[5] Enormous plant from Brazil, also known as “dinosaur food.” Gunnera plants are thought to be 150 million years old.

Chapter Text

Forty-Six: Ajax

Keeping it Holy

            Really, it was Pax’s fault for getting floored.

            He had been so wrapped up in the excitement of his surrogate father’s horrifying voice ringing through the battlefield and Tony the Egyptian Tiger punching through the ground that Pax may have forgotten the whole near-death family feud going on.

            But now, at least he understood Calex’s fanboyism over Percy and the others. Pax was ready to storm over and ask for autographs of their reinforcements. That way he could jack up the price and sell them to Romans later.

            During all this, Pax had to remember not to crush anyone when he jumped for joy. Flattened Romans: not good for positive demigod relations. 

            Plus, Pax was shrinking and weakening as some of the fighting slowed, bringing him closer to cute panda size. By laws of familial mythological powers, that meant his mom was losing powers too.

            By the time Pax realized this, he also realized how much he’d screwed up by taking his eyes off his mother.

            Something swept one of his legs.

            Pax flopped backwards, crushing something. He hoped it was a ghoul, otherwise he’d have to add someone to the Nightmare Counter.

            He slapped his hand against the strawberry field to break his fall, but a squawk—oh gods, did he really squawk when he was in eagle form? Hawkward[1]—erupted from his lips. Despite the hot, muscly bod his Mayan magic granted him, the impact spread pain through his recently fractured shoulder and recently healed hand.

            Pax expected stickers, lollipops, and kisses-to-make-it-better for months after this.

            Though a queasy weakness made his limbs shake, he had hoped he would keep the whole demigod super speed a little longer.

            He didn’t.

            His mother jammed her stiletto high heel into his injured hand before he could move.

            Pax screamed. For an instance, he could remember the Leonis Caput lurking closer as Pax squirmed and withered to escape his own dagger. The smell of blood and smoke was too familiar. Panic bubbled in his stomach. Or maybe that was bile. Could never be too sure nowadays.

            Pax thrashed. His now-talons tore into his mother’s ankle, shredding some of the leather boot.

            His hand felt like it was on fire as she twisted her heel deeper.

            He wanted to scold his mother and say Kally had just fixed that, but all that came out was, “What do the Fates have against my hand!?”

            Eris released her fashionable Joker laugh. She leaned down. He’d torn the bandana off her face during their fight, revealing a smeared mash of reddish-black lipstick stretched into a crazed grin. It complimented the maniac glint in her eyes. “Oh, my little Terror Muffin. I would hope that you would do the same to me if I got in your way.” Her long, black plaits slipped from her shoulders to dangle in his face.

            Tears wheeled up in his eyes. “No! I wouldn’t! I really wouldn’t!” Ichor spilled all over his fingers from where he clawed at her ankle. Why wouldn’t she get off? “I can’t balance in high heels tall enough!”[2]

            Definitely impressive, but more horrifying at the moment.

            When she leaned more onto that leg, Pax heard something crunch in his hand. He squealed. Not again! His fingers had barely been able to move from having a dagger shoved through the tendons—

            “Now, come along. Join us! I’d have so much more fun fighting alongside you instead of against you!” she said with a huge grin, like none of this was weird.

            Not for the first time, Pax became queasy at wondering how his parents had flirted, especially if this was his mother’s version of a Bring Your Son to Work day. He was also frustrated to remember his mother knew exactly how he fought: she’d kept her stance wide enough that he couldn’t tie her boot laces together.

            He was about to point out that godly social services might not like this, but a ball of glowing, turquoise fur beat him to it.

            Something their size smashed into Eris’ side.

            Eris toppled backwards, down Farm Road’s hill.

            Someone’s hands grabbed him, claws pinching his skin. The momentum happened so fast, he barely registered the plan before it started. “Smile for the audience.”

            More tears threatened to well in Pax’s eyes, not that he had stopped crying recently. If these last few weeks kept at their current rate, he could probably team up with global warming to flood all coastal towns in the world.

            That was a phrase Frasco used to say back in the circus whenever one of them fell or forgot their part. As Frasco explained in private, Frasco never cared about the mistakes they made during the performances, just that they had fun and were safe at the end of the day. Frasco said those words when lifting them for a quick recovery flip, so they could hop out of the flip with more excitement and pride than embarrassment or shame.

            The same way this person lifted Pax for an assisted flip, apparently realizing his shoulder and hand were less than functional.

            Pax landed back onto his feet, digging his ankle talon into the ground for stability.

            Even though everything was not Reese’s Stick and Weasels, Pax still grinned with nostalgia. He glanced to the side at the glowing cat-headed avatar beside him.

            For some reason, seeing Axel as a giant cat-chick didn’t scare Pax. Yea, this giant cat-chick was terrifying. But this could be any terrifying giant murder machine, not the special kind of PTSD-forever terrifying the Leonis Caput inspired.

            While nausea did hit Pax’s stomach with the renew pain in the new hole in his hand, he didn’t flinch away from his brother.

            A sense of giddy hope calmed Pax. While they couldn’t erase how Ares and Aphrodite had forced the Leonis Caput to give Pax How to Fillet a Demigod lessons, maybe he and Axel could be fine after this. Maybe he could still have one healthy, happy familial relationship.

            Pax wanted to share his calm with Axel and comfort Axel after whatever ordeals he had to suffer going—apparently—to a magical, Egyptian Halloween store that landed Axel with the new outfit. He needed to say something that would make all this chaos and madness feel normal and easy. Something for a real heart-to-heart—

            “Nice rack,” Pax said.[3]

            Eris had regained her footing and was making her way up the hill. She hummed happily, like things couldn’t have been going better.

            Axel growled deep in his throat as he shifted within the cat warrior. The avatar mimicked his defensive stance. “I’m twisting your ear off as soon as both our trauma settles,” Axel said.

            “All I heard was, ‘Ajax, you have a free pass to harass all your friends and be inappropriate for the next few years,’” Pax said.

            The cat avatar’s weird W mouth tweaked into a smirk. “Use it well. And know I have an excellent memory for when that pass runs out.”

            The brothers stood side-by-side, one with claws out, the other talons, as Eris leveled with them.

            This wasn’t their usual fighting stance. Normally, Pax practiced more of the hiding-behind-Axel-style, but he liked the change. It wasn’t like he hadn’t trained for it.

            Eris’ serial killer, black eyes glistened with glee. “Santiago would be so proud of you both—”

            Pax didn’t want his mother to finish the comment, since he guessed it wasn’t going to end with anything about his pranking glory. Clearly, Axel didn’t oppose some quality interruption either.

            The brothers attacked at the same time, moving in harmony the way they might have if this were a circus performance with Frasco, Hiro, Lapis, and Kouta cheering them on.

            Eris may have been able to handle Pax alone and even given him some nasty knife kisses, but alternating attacks between Axel and Pax sent her retreating.

            As soon as Eris went to stab at one of Pax’s quick kicks, Axel would rush at her open side, slashing his claws out. She couldn’t block them both.

            There was one major disadvantage of Axel’s new form: sword fighting and grappling were a little difficult when you had Mrs. O’Leary-sized-toothpicks for nails. At some point, Pax would need to make a haiku with that: Axel finally gets rid of his curse on swords. Gains sexy cat-lady form that will never need swords.

            Pax, meanwhile, could barely use his hands. His fingers wouldn’t respond where his mother had smashed the ligaments again and where pain racked his shoulder with every movement. Plus, Pax had to admit, he hadn’t really wanted to hurt his mother. Until this point, he’d been mostly stalling to keep her from attacking the rest of camp.

            They combo-ed everything they knew—using acrobatic and fighting, tumbling around her, kicking, attempting grapples. Each attack sent Eris stumbling backwards with more ichor smudges to her makeup.

            The nice thing: Axel wasn’t here to save him or let Pax reduce to his cute fluffy self. Axel was here to fight beside him. Axel’s presence made it less chaotic. The attacks were methodical, designed to force Eris to focus—something Pax guessed was a deficit for his whole side of the family.

            She could wear them down. Pax knew his Mayan blood sacrifice would run out, and he guessed Axel’s Tony the Egyptian Tiger suit would fail too, and, if it didn’t, Pax had a million questions he wanted to ask Reyna about her attraction to his brother. Regardless, they would need to end this fight fast.

            Eris laughed hysterically, her form shrinking with each step backwards. Pax hadn’t realized it, but he was shrinking too, now smaller than Axel’s flickering avatar.

            Flickering?

            Eris let Axel’s next slash hit, grabbing his clawed hand and jamming it further into her side.

            Axel growled and wrenched to withdraw, sensing the trap.

            Eris spun, positioning herself between Pax and Axel, leaving her back completely open to Pax when she tossed something between she and her son.

            A flashbang.

            Sometimes, Pax really hated how much he was like his family.

            “Stop—”

            The last thing Pax saw over his mother’s shoulder was her knife digging deep into Axel’s avatar chest.

            Then everything went white.

            His ears rang.

            Having super-eagle vision super sucked when you’re staring at a miniature sun explosion. A pop and flash left Pax stunned and disoriented.

            His heart pounded in his head. Pax rubbed at his eyes, slashing a claw forward to snatch at his mother or find his brother’s avatar or a magical rewind button hovering in the air.

            “Axel!” Pax screamed.

            “I’m fine!” Axel said, sounding very not-fine. He sounded weak and raspy. His voice came from somewhere near the ground. It didn’t resound the way it had with the cat warrior suit. Tony the Egyptian Tiger was no more.

            Pax should have seen this coming. This was his usual tactic: when outnumbered, drop a smoke bomb to confuse the enemy, take out your biggest opponent, do the world’s shortest victory dance, then run away to pet your weasels for another day.

            While Pax still reached out blindly, something powdery puffed into his face.

            Pax realized he should have held his breath after the first inhalation.

            His lungs felt like they were burning. Chokes and cough racked his chest.

            Maybe his Mom’s utility belt was a lot more dangerous than his. The grenades should have cued him in.

            One thing was for sure though: Eris had not retreated to pet her weasels for another day. Her knee slammed into Pax’s diaphragm. Whatever breath he had left in him deflated as he collapsed to his knees.

            He couldn’t even grab something from her utility belt or tie her shoes together. His fingers wouldn’t react enough. His mind was fuzzy from whatever she’d thrown in his face, now making him wheeze worse than a hippopotamus with bronchitis.

            Eris pulled off his Silver Tongued Snake helm and pinched his cheeks together with her thumb and fingers, probably making him look like a fish. “Oh, little Terror Muffin,” she cooed. “I think you’re out of steam.”

            She was right. Pax could feel a numbing, icy tingle as the Mayan power surge left him. Pain pierced his fingers, ankles, and arms. He wasn’t sure why until he managed to lift one hand to claw at her grip.

            One of his finger talons snapped off. Although Pax knew they weren’t permanent, the rip felt very permanent. His arms felt weak and gangly, not nearly hot enough for his normal sexy, runaway acrobatic look.[4]

            She patted his head, smearing some of her own ichor onto his skin. If Pax hadn’t already been conditioned to feeling sick, he might have thrown up a satyr.

            He tried to look for his brother, to make sure Axel was actually okay, but everything was still too bright and blotchy. He felt too weak to turn his head.

            “Darkness’ end: pax or chaos,” Eris muttered, reciting the last line of the Traitors of Olympus prophecy. “Such an odd thing for an oracle to say, almost too ambiguous. Your sister thought your choice of involvement would alter the end. After all, Axel would have never led his crew to help Euna if not for you. Some of your friends would have never found the courage to stand up the way they did today, to stand up and fall. My inspiring little hero.”

            Eris tickled him. Normally, Pax would pretend to be ticklish when she did that. Now, he batted her hand away, mind reeling for a plan, but Pax had always been weak in the planning department.

            “You take a nice nap here,” Eris said, “Now that I’ve taken care of you and your brother, I’m going to kill all of your friends while they’re distracted playing with the other gods.”

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! Stay tuned next week for another Ajax chapter, Two out of Ten Stars on the Monologue.

[1] Mel betacomment, “Pax! How have you survived this long! Right.. Axel.”

[2] False. He totally can and he knows it. One of the few actual lies Pax tells in the series.

[3] Mel was very concerned about whether or not cat avatar had boobs. Canon. Boom.

[4] Mel, “It’s like a delirious and sick Pax trying to do the sexy arm on a door thing to Kally and Kally scolding him.”

Jack, “I need to draw this now XD”

Chapter Text

Forty-Seven: Ajax

Two Out of Ten Stars on the Monologue

            Before Eris could set him down, something took her completely by surprise.

            A tree exploded out of the ground beside Eris and slapped her across the face. She lost her grip on him.

            Pax toppled away into someone else’s feet.

            This certain someone sprinkled another powder over his face.

            By this point, Pax’s instinct should have said Foreign Powder: Bad, but he didn’t have much choice in breathing. His mother’s concoction had left him gasping so heavily, all he could do was gulp up the flowery-scented air.

            Breathing became a lot easier. The fuzziness erased, so the world became a lot less weeeeee! and a lot more Oh, right, I’m in immense amounts of pain.

            When Pax looked up to see who he had to thank for this revelation, he remembered that he was a bit blind from the flashbang.

            Everything was still too bright. The flashbang should have warn off by now. Could it really be—

            “I LOVE LOW-CUT SHIRTS!” someone shouted from far above. The voice was so distant, Pax wasn’t sure if he’d imagined the spectral perv and wondered if demigods heard spectral pervs before they died instead of God. That seemed to fit Greek mythology to a T.

            When Pax blinked a few times, he could see the curtains of Nyx’s cape parting in the sky. As he’d been told not to many times before, Pax stared straight into the sun.

            While his eyes weren’t super fond of this decision, his brain was throwing a party: someone was driving the sun chariot.

            Pax had to wonder if Apollo had been released, but wasn’t so sure when he heard a figure from far above shout, “Looking good, Daughter of Demeter!”

            Apollo was creepy. But, usually, he was a bit more subtle.            

            However, Pax had to admit, Euna did look pretty awesome and terrifying.

            She stood over Pax, strawberry plants and grass growing wild around them, curling around Pax like a protective shield. She held Kronos’ scythe to one side. Her hand rested on it more like a hand on a friend’s shoulder than a hand holding a weapon that would sever Pax in half if her finger slipped.

            Black tar dripped off her arms and smeared her shirt.

            “Ew,” Pax said, “Is that Phobetor goo? Did you turn him into costume supplies? Oh titans, that’s not the powder you dumped on me, is it?”

            Real questions with disturbing answers.

            Pax tilted his head to glance at the camp. Sure enough, there was a weird sheen forming around the barriers. Normally, Pax couldn’t see the Mist at work, but apparently Mist repair was a bit more visible.

            The God of Nightmares had been keeping the Mist shield down. Euna must have defeated him. And then made motor oil out of him.

            A roar sounded in the distance. With Phobetor’s sleep magic gone, Pax had to wonder if a very confused dragon, Peleus, realized he’d been teepeed by campers during his nap.

            In the background, ghosts and ghouls screamed along with the roar. There was probably a massive Thriller retreat back to their graveyards with all this sunshine.

            Hope lifted his core and made it feel all feathery until Euna took a step towards his mom.

            Eris clapped her hands together, the flat edge of her knife pressed between her fingers. She tilted her head to the side and leaned her cheek against her hands like a giddy school girl. Eris didn’t look right in full daylight. In it, he could see the amount of damage that he and Axel had done to his mother: the way she could barely balance on her shredded ankle, how her torso curled towards the ichor spilling out of her side. The injuries didn’t match her expression as she said, “Oh, this is wonderful—it’s beautiful and perfect.”

            “You lost,” Axel wheezed out from somewhere nearby.[1]

            “But, I never had an objective to lose,” Eris giggled. Her round, dark eyes analyzed Euna gleefully. “Remember, I don’t really plan. I just set bombs and watch them go off. And you, my lovely darling, are a nuclear missile without a honing device.”

            Euna twisted the scythe in her hands. “I’m killing you now,” she decided.

            Before Euna could step out of his reach, Pax managed to grab her ankle. Upon registering Jack’s head—still mumbling angrily into a flower gag—Pax remembered last time he frantically grabbed Jack’s ankle to prevent Jack from killing Will Solace. That time, he epically failed in the preventative killing measure. “Please don’t make me an orphan,” Pax begged. Despite all of this, his stomach twisted at the thought. “I know those are the first steps to becoming a Disney princess, but I’ll give up that dream if it means you won’t kill someone else in my family.”

            Underneath his grip, he could feel Euna violently shaking. Regardless of her resolve, Pax wasn’t sure if she would have the strength to live through fighting his mom. Yea, they were both injured, but Pax imagined killing one god a day would earn a powernap. Killing two..?

            “We didn’t get to kill my sister, Hemera, and that’s a bummer,” Eris said, her gaze surveying the carnage around Camp Half-Blood, seeming satisfied. “But we got something much more fun: we get to find out whether parents really appreciate their children more when they’re gone—” Pax assumed she meant the dead demigods in camp, but Eris gestured to the black gunk on Euna. Huh. Hypnos baby. Gross. “We got a godly assassin that wants to murder all the gods. We got the seeds—” Pax wanted to giggle as his mother nodded to Euna again, but he felt a little too queasy. “—to make a third demigod group that neither of the others will trust. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you three sometime soon.”

            She winked at Axel, Pax, and Euna.

            And with that, Eris slowly stalked off down Farm Road. She didn’t even use a flash bomb or laugh manically. Pax gave her a zero out of ten for dramatic exits or proper villain monologues—a major let down since she and her gang had been doing so well.

            Euna’s shakes, meanwhile, became worse. She collapsed backwards. Her butt crushed the air out of Pax’s diaphragm, making pain explode in his shoulder. Jack made a mumble of protest through his gag.

            Pax squeaked when Kronos’ scythe sliced into the ground right beside his head.

            This felt suspiciously easy and anticlimactic. And he didn’t like his mother’s “this isn’t over” type speech. When Pax squirmed, the pain in his shoulder intensified. His opposite hand wouldn’t respond. He wanted to complain to Euna, but a loud snore signaled how thoroughly she’d listen.

            While taking a massive, mid-day nap sounded appealing—

            Panic seized him when he remembered Eris’ knife digging into the avatar’s chest. Axel was lying somewhere close, potentially dying, and he was concerned about his mom’s proper villain etiquette. Pax didn’t even know where his brother was.

“Axel, help. I’m being crushed by a beautiful, hot woman,” Pax said, figuring that was the best way to gauge how Axel felt.

            In the moment of silence that followed afterwards, Pax assigned an Axel rating system.

“Don’t objectify her” would be somewhere between 8 to 10.

“Ajax, shut up” would be a between 4 to 10.

A grunt: 2 to 4.

No response…

            “You’re a sore sight for tired eyes, Leonis Caput,” someone said before Axel could.

            Pax released a massive sigh of relief, something he never thought he’d do around a Roman.

            Reyna strode towards them. With that hint of amusement in Reyna’s tone as she approached, she couldn’t think Axel was too hurt, and Pax knew that comment wasn’t for him.

            Pax squirmed to look around when he heard Axel’s weak, slow response, “I take it it’s time to party?”

            Pax immediately stopped squirming when Reyna said, much more serious, “I think it’s time to finally arrest you.”

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed! I know this battle sequence might feel a little anticlimactic, but Mel and I agreed that if felt proper for Pax. Stay tuned next week for Calex’s chapter, A Punch of Home.

[1] Mel beta, “I just imagine him popping up with leaves in his hair and looking all frazzled and confused like a guy just popped out of the forest.”

Chapter Text

Forty-Eight: Calex

A Punch of Home

            After Calex shot Python with a split arrow of desire and abhorrence, he figured he would die the most respectable way for a hero: falling flat on his face off a two story shield, screaming swears that would make his hooligan cousin blush.

            All he could remember from the fall was thinking about how dumb it had been to stand on the edge without any sort of net or rope. Then the world had gone white.

            When he first heard voices, especially considering what they were talking about, he thought he was dreaming.

“Wait, are you dating Anubis or Walt? Are you dating two guys?”

            After months in the states, he had finally become accustomed to waking in an unfamiliar surrounding with foreign accents. That’s why he was so surprised when he heard a crisp British accent responding, “No. And yes? Anubis is inside Walt’s head.”

            “And babe, I thought I had problems.”

            Calex’s body felt heavy, like he’d run a marathon while giving Frank Zhang a piggyback ride. The room smelled sterile, like he was back in his mother’s clinic. Someone had a hand clutching his tightly.

            That’s when it hit him: this was the first time in months he’d woken so calmly. No nightmares. No panic.

            The British voice continued, “Oh, us special pharaoh children have all lost our minds, what with the voices of gods in our heads.  Some people say it’s because of the incest in our lineage.”

            Calex really wanted out of this chat. He tried to roll onto his back and only managed a grunt.

            “I think the teddy bear is up,” someone hummed beside him. The grip on his hand loosened. He could hear water splashing into a container. The familiar scent of black tea gave him the strength to blurrily open his eyes.

            Merry smiled down at him. When she leaned forward to inspect him, the scent of her shampoo mixed with the bitterness of the tea: something sweet and raspberry. The sunlight trickling through a window made the auburn in her hair more prominent and her honey skin glow. She wore a clean Camp Half-Blood T-shirt.

            Her face had deep bruises. Two pieces of medical tape were stretched across her cheek.

            She waved a cup of tea under his nose, like a wake-up elixir. Her smile was playful, but didn’t stretch as far as it normally did.

            “Merry,” his words came out as a croak. He tried to smile back, and found half his face hurt to move. “How did I deserve to end up in Elysium?”

            “Wow there, Teddy Bear. No Elysium for you yet.” She set the tea cup down to squeeze his hand again. His gut wretched to recognize the extent of her bruises. “Just setting a world record on making an anti-worrier worry. You’ve been asleep for roughly twenty hours.”

            Twenty hours? Calex’s eyes widened. He glanced around the room. He was on the floor, in a sleeping bag. Merry knelt beside him. On Merry’s other side, someone else was tucked into a sleeping bag with strawberry blonde hair spilling across the pillow.

            Calex breathed in relief to recognize Kally.

            The IV stand beside her made his stomach twist further.

            On Kally’s other side, someone was burrowed in a ball in their sleeping bag—presumably Pax. Last in the corner was a sickeningly pale figure with wires sticking out of its mouth, like a Frankenstein contraption. Another IV stand loomed there, making Calex think about Kakata.

There was a chair at the foot of that sleeping bag. A disgruntled middle-aged man sat in it, reading a book with a pistol in his lap. Dr. Howard Claymore didn’t look up once as he turned the page.

            Before Calex could roll to look at the other side of the room, someone appeared beside Merry and smacked him across the face.

            Calex made a muffled sound. Getting assaulted first thing when you wake up was unpleasant. Maybe worse, Calex felt the skin on his forehead crack. A scab he didn’t know he had busted.

            “You, Calex Rupin McKenzie, are the thickest bloke I’ve EVER met!” a tiny blonde with pink streaks in her hair exploded at him.

            Calex wanted to give her a proper greeting of, “How do you do? Please piss off,” but he was stumped with the strange sense that he knew this girl.

            Merry wasn’t reacting like the girl was a threat. She looked more amused as she moved out of the girl’s way.

            The name popped into his head. “Sadie,” Calex said, stunned, “Sadie Kane.”

            She was obviously several kilometers ahead of him on the think train. “Yes! Sadie Kane. Do you have ANY idea how much you’ve freaked out Gretchen and your dad? They both think you’re dead! Since we were kids, I always assumed there wasn’t much a brain behind that stupidly handsome face, but, seriously! How could you be so thick? Not a word? Not one bloody phone call?!”

            Calex’s mind was scrambling. Sadie Kane. He vaguely remembered it. Before they moved to St. Albans out of London, his little sister, Gretchen, was in the second stage of her primary education. She had three annoying little schoolmates, Sadie, Emma, and… Liz? Was Liz the one that almost fainted every time he walked in the room? Or was that Emma?

            But that had been years ago. Gretchen only saw Sadie every few months, and that had become sparse to almost nonexistent since—

            “Emma and Liz gave me a ring and told me to check on Gretchen. And here we have the Jerk of the Year all fine and well—”

            “Uh, Lady Sadie, dude still looks like he was stampeded by a pack of Party Ponies,” someone said. A hand appeared on Sadie’s shoulder to pull her back a little.

            Calex could see Leo’s crazy hair sticking out. He didn’t look amused when he made eye contact with Calex. The glance turned into a frown when his eyes trailed to where Calex assumed Pax was curled into a ball.

            Calex’s wanted to vomit. Gretchen? His Dad?

            Another sight made Calex’s stomach pitch even further down, potentially proving it had stayed with Kaos when the rest of him left.

            There was another occupant in the room behind Sadie and Leo. The person sat in a chair by the door and a small table. Despite being chained to the chair and gagged, the sight still gave Calex shivers. The boy was probably 15 with a blue-tipped Mohawk. His burgundy dress shirt and leather vest were covered in dirt and dust. Blood soaked his right pant leg and one of his eyes was swollen shut.

            Lapis Pax flicked Calex off in greeting as best he could with his restraints.

            Before Calex could panic, Sadie huffed, “He’s about as dangerous as a piece of lint right now. I’m the one you need to worry about.”

            That could only mean one thing: Sadie, Leo, and Jason must have successfully rescued Hemera from Lapis. Eris’ plans must have crumbled.

            But, if they put Calex and his friends in the same room as Lapis, that also meant…

            Calex glanced at the other side of the room. Axel was passed out in a sleeping bag beside Calex. On his other side, there appeared to be a mini garden lot. After a moment of scrutiny, he could discern Euna’s form, curled up on a mound of moss and flowers. Kronos’s scythe was tied tightly to her hand with vines.

            In that far corner, there was a shuddering, towel-covered bird cage.

            Other than Euna, everyone was unarmed.

            Calex swallowed to finish the thought, If they put us in the same room as this crazed bloke, they still don’t know if we’re allies or enemies. Leo and Sadie are probably here to keep us in cue. They should have been over this ally vs. traitor thing, right? Though, Calex had just helped Euna steal a piece of Kaos, and, judging by his lack of nightmares, he guessed—and really hoped—she’d used it to fight Phobetor. Was God murder illegal?     

            “Gretchen and Mr. McKenzie had to move in with your granddad and nan since they couldn’t afford the flat in St. Albans. At least they had some closure with Mrs. McKenzie and Tom.” Tears rimmed Sadie’s eyes and Calex felt the emotions that he’d repressed for months threaten to crumble him. “But your body was never accounted for. All they heard was your other, daft granddad ranting that you’d be taken by an angel.”

            Your body…

            Calex could hardly breathe. With Tiwa and Tom slowly succumbing to death and the nonstop madness that ensued, Calex hadn’t though as much about what had happened to his living family. Just that he was ashamed of facing them after he abandoned—

Calex swallowed and corrected himself. Not after he abandoned his Mom and brother. After he tried to save his family from an inevitable fate. His biological father, Eros, and Axel had reminded him he wasn’t a coward for failing and running from something as unstoppable as Death.

            Still, how could he forget what that would do to Gretchen and Winston? He really was that thick? Shame clogged his throat.

Calex focused on the one good thing in that rant. “Grandad’s alive?” his voice shook.

The idea of that crazy old man poking him out of bed with a walking cane and an anecdote about how laziness doesn’t bring prosper…

            Tears streamed down Calex’s cheeks. He didn’t realize how bad they were until he felt Merry’s hand clasp back over his. He tried to keep them quiet, but a hiccup choked his throat.

            “Maybe you’d know that if you’d have given them a call!” Sadie snapped, though, her anger seemed to break at his demeanor.

            Calex wished her anger wouldn’t go away. He deserved her rage and so much worse. “Oh gods, I missed their funerals,” he choked. The hole in his stomach felt like it was expanding to encompass his whole body. If it kept going, there would be nothing left of him.

            “Hey,” Merry said. She raised a hand towards Sadie that Calex knew to be threatening Shut up, or I’ll have you doing the hokey-pokey. Gently, she pulled Calex up and dragged him against her. Calex burrowed his face into her skin and let the sobs go. He’d been holding so many for so long, mad at himself and at Death itself. Now, he could just be sad Tom and Tiwa weren’t here and never would be here. With Sadie around, everything felt more real. Someone who knew his parents and siblings personally. Someone else cared—really cared—that two wonderful people had left this world to go to Elysium.

            “Teddy Bear,” Merry hummed into his hair. “We had a lot going on here. Remember? Getting kidnapped by Santiago. All our quests. Being on the run. From what I heard Thalia say, you’ve even been busying yourself with two different Underworlds.”

            “That doesn’t matter,” he mumbled, thinking of Gretchen sobbing as she and Winston went through his, Tom’s, and Tiwa’s stuff as they left the flat Winston and Tiwa had been so proud to live in with their combined salaries. Their home. How Gretchen and Winston’s life would have been collapsing around them, losing their family, their home, probably Gretchen’s school.

            “I know it doesn’t make it any easier,” Merry whispered, her own voice breaking. “But, we can’t change what we’ve done in the past. We can’t pretend it didn’t happen. We should let ourselves cry. But, we can’t get consumed thinking about what we could have done differently. We need to focus on what we can do in the future. And, you, your sister, and your dad will still have a future together.” Her tone took on a distant quality and Calex could feel her shake.

            Calex was horrified to realize he hadn’t asked about her quest to save Percy’s little sister from Hiro. Had he really been that dense all over again? He didn’t know if Merry succeeded in rescuing the baby or if Hiro had given her those bruises. He’d even forgotten, in all his stupidity, that Merry didn’t like to be touched by men.

            Calex choked back some of his sobs and tried to withdraw.

            “Uh-uh,” Merry said, clutching him tighter, “You’re staying right here. I need a Teddy Bear, too.”

            Sadie cleared her throat. Her voice was quieter and gentler. “They had memorial services. Last I heard, your granddad was quarantined in Kakata, but, I’ll admit, that was a bit ago.”

            Calex managed to twist away from Merry a little, to see Sadie’s expression. Her face had puffed up from tears. Leo turned away from them, awkwardly toying with some wires in his lap. Mr. Claymore hadn’t looked up from his book, but Calex also noted that he hadn’t turned a page during the whole conversation.

            Calex had expected Lapis to be rolling his dark eyes. Instead, he saw Lapis’ eyes were also red rimmed. His hands had tightened into fists. If Lapis could have cast magic with his gaze, his glare would have melted Merry from existence.

            “I need to head back to Brooklyn House, but you’re making me a promise before I leave. Once you get all this nonsense sorted, really, by the end of the day, you’re going to contact Gretchen and Mr. McKenzie,” Sadie informed him.

            Calex tried to speak. At first, his throat felt too thick. After a few swallows, he managed, “I’ll do you one better. By the end of the week, I’ll also make sure I can see them in person.”

            Merry flinched.

            Calex pulled one hand out of his sleeping bag to squeeze her shoulder. “I’m not gone for good, but I need to do this.” What exactly, he wasn’t sure. There was no way to make up for disappearing without explanation. Despite Merry reminding him about all their trials, he could have called. Hell, he could have written them a bloody letter in that timeframe.

            “Thank you,” was all he could find for Sadie.

            His heart was still a torrent of emotions, but—if he was really leaving Camp Half-Blood soon—he needed to keep it together a little longer. Calex sat up, taking most of his weight off Merry. He hadn’t realized until then how much she’d been struggling to keep them both up. Any longer, and they likely would have collapsed back onto Kally’s sleeping bag and this wasn’t that kind of slumber party.

            Sadie huffed, rubbing the back of her hand under her eyes. “Look at you, Mr. Calex McKenzie, thinking you’re so important. You’re not the only one in here that I need to chat with.”

            What she did next made Calex blink, wondering if he was dreaming or if Sadie was a total lunatic.

            Sadie stood up, withdrew a can of Fancy Feast from her pocket, cracked it open, and set it beside Axel’s sleeping bag. She took a step back, folded her arms, and tapped her foot impatiently.

            Leo spun back around, grinning. He stood beside Sadie, and Calex couldn’t help but think there was a bit of malice in his grin.

            Their leader was flopped on his face, sleeping much more peacefully then Calex had ever seen. Axel’s tufted ears were visible at the edge of his sleeping bag. They twitched.

            Calex was about to say that the Fancy Feast can seemed a bit rude when Axel rose in a very feminine, un-Axel like stretch. He made a low purring noise that Calex had never heard him make.

            “Mmm, Sadie, you do know how to provide a balanced breakfast,”[1] Axel said. When he sat up, Axel winced and touched his chest. When the sleeping bag slipped down, Calex could see bandages stretched across the skin and a blood-soaked blotch towards the center. Axel looked quite pleased. “That was quite a close call. I’ve never had someone literally rip my host out of me before.”

            Axel reached out to pick up the can of Fancy Feast.

            Sadie and Leo exchanged a glance.

            Merry made a face.

            “Mate,” Calex said, “No.”

            Even Lapis coughed a laugh into his gag when Axel started chomping down. Giggles erupted from the balled form of a supposedly sleeping Pax.

            “You two… know each other?” Calex asked, glancing to Sadie and the bizarrely acting Axel.

            Sadie sighed. “I do tend to know everyone important. But no. I know the goddess that’s highjacked your mate’s body. One that was supposed to leave once we got the battle sorted.”

            Axel licked his lips, then the back of his hand, using it to wipe off the rest of his face and behind his ears.

            By now, the laughter from Pax’s balled form was unrelenting.

            “Dude, this is great!” Leo cheered. “We should have brought a camera. You think the Romans will be scared of the Leonis Caput if they see this?”

            “You should know, napping and hygiene are sacred for cats,” Axel said, “It’s not a joking matter.”

            “Bast, drop him,” Sadie chided like Axel was a mouse the goddess had proudly kidnapped. “He doesn’t belong to you. He’s not even Egyptian.”

            “I’ve told you before. I’m a cat; everything belongs to me,” Axel said with a coy grin. 

            Some of Calex’s anguish cracked. He couldn’t help but choke back a laugh. This was the weirdest thing he’d ever seen, and he was a demigod. That was definitely not his mate and he could only image how Axel would feel when he found out what was said or that he’d demolished a can of cat food.

            “Besides,” Axel—Bast continued, “He is still a cat, at least in some manner, so he does belong to me, as he is part of my domain. And…” Axel raised one hand to stroke his goatee, then rolled his fingers across the part of his chest that wasn’t covered in bandages. “I’m very fond of this host body.”

            Axel held out his hands and admired his missing claws with the same fondness a Jersey shore girl might admire her nails.

            Someone cleared their throat from the doorway.

            Calex felt his jaw drop. Even Merry jumped.

            Will Solace stood there in a long doctor’s lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck. He looked exhausted. Dark circles encased his eyes and he was pale. In a towel bundle in his arms, mewing kittens squirmed.

            “Hi,” he said with a tired smile.

Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed! Stay tuned next week for another Calex chapter, Not Enough Lollipops.

[1] Yes, it’s cute that Riordan has Bast eat Fancy Feast. But this is not a balanced diet for your kitty.

Chapter Text

Forty-Nine: Calex

Not Enough Lollipops

Tension eased in Calex’s chest.

            “Oh titans, it’s a zombie,” the pile of Pax blankets squeaked. Pax’s head popped out of his bedding, looking a bit too close to the squirming kitten pile in Will’s arms. Calex could only see from Pax’s nose up, as he kept the rest of him buried thoroughly. His black and golden eyes were gleaming with hope. The crazy spikes of his overgrown fauxhawk spiraled out in wispy swirls. “You’re alive! I think! Please tell me you’re alive and not a ghost with a dead kitten! That would be way worse. Does that mean Ghost Boy isn’t spokes and shadows?!”

            Although everyone said that Will had died, Calex never saw the body. The idea of him being dead never really solidified and Will looked very much alive right now.

            “You,” Will growled. Pax squeaked and disappeared back into his pile of blankets. “You should be sleeping on your back. The position you’re in is going to disrupt the healing of your shoulder. You’ve already permanently lost mobility of one hand, do you really want to lose mobility of your whole other arm?”

            No response came from the Pax pile. Calex had to wonder if that dodgy prick was pretending to sleep.

            But the words hit hard. Permanently lost mobility.

            Calex tensed each muscle on his body. Although he was sore, he could feel how painful it was to move all of his limbs. When he glanced beside him and Merry, he saw a stack of bloody bandages, clean ones, and a pinkish tinted bowl of water.

            Will’s tired blue eyes narrowed at Leo. “This isn’t for a prank, is it? I have a lot of patients to tend to.”

            “Kitten cannons,” Leo said, “We’re testing new defenses since our old ones failed.”

            Will sighed and handed him the bundle of mewing kittens. “You’re lucky Chiron told me I needed to get out of the infirmary for fresh air.”

            This crowded room, Calex assumed, shouldn’t qualify as fresh air. He feared what the infirmary looked like.

            “Our party pony is up?” Merry squeezed Calex’s shoulder and said the question his mind was too slow to put together.

            “Yes, he’s been busy tending to the wounded.”

            Will did a quick examination of Lapis’s leg. Sloppily, he cut the pant leg away, revealing a deep gash that was stuffed shut with red sand. Will made a face, giving Lapis a look.

            Lapis raised an eyebrow and glanced to Sadie.

            Sadie cleared her throat. “I, uh, may not have thought to tend much to him. Being a villain and all.”

            Will sighed.

            A reverence quieted the room as Will cleaned and bandaged Lapis’ wound. Calex noted how Will didn’t hum or sing. Calex wondered if his healing powers didn’t bode well with Will’s resurrection. Calex assumed it had more to do with the number and severity of the wounded. Will probably couldn’t waste his powers healing minor cuts and scratches or dodgy blokes like Lapis.

            After Lapis, Will started at one side of the room and went down the line. He widely skirted the covered birdcage in the corner, glanced over Euna’s slumbering form, gave Axel a confused glance, then paused by Calex.

“You’re going to have some serious scars,” he said, gesturing to the pile of bloodied bandages beside Calex. “Merry’s been at your side cleaning your injuries for the last day, but it’s like something sucked your skin off your face and parts of your arms and legs. For you, bed rest isn’t as vital, but you will need to keep your wounds clean. Once you’re well enough, I expect you to report to the infirmary to help me. Your experience at a clinic is invaluable since we’re down so many healers.”

            The words were hollow: a doctor’s report. Calex remembered the shattered structure of the Apollo cabin and wondered if anyone had gotten out alive.

            Will’s blue eyes examined Merry. Their intensity softened. “Merry, are you—”

            “I’m fine, Doc,” Merry said, her voice shaking with the thinly veiled lie. “We’ll talk about that later. Not ready for that downer yet.”

            Before Calex could ask, Will had already moved on to Kally. He knelt down, delicately lifted the sheets around her arm.

Calex glanced at Merry. She touched her cheek and mouthed the word, “Later.”

Merry might open up more in private. He hoped so. Calex swallowed and sat up to inspect Kally.

Kally’s arm was wrapped from her elbow down.

            “No one is allowed to touch this arm. Assuming you two are leaving like you planned…” Will glanced at Leo and Sadie.

Leo gave him a thumbs up. “You got it, medic. Don’t you worry. The Valdezinator will be right back.”

            “Some of my mates from Brooklyn House can clean up this camp as fast as you can say the word, ‘Order,’ and we have a healer,” Sadie said. “And I want to see my brother panic when Leo comes with me to pick them up.”

Will looked back to Merry, Calex, and Axel. “With them gone, you’ll need to make sure Kally doesn’t touch her arm or move it when she wakes up. She has two broken ribs and her opposite hand is fractured, so she won’t want to move much anyway, but the third degree burns in her right hand required a skin graft from her leg. Don’t let it smudge.”

            Calex swallowed. He and Merry nodded. Merry began to tremble.

            Will pointedly skipped Pax and walked to Dr. Claymore. The middle-aged man set his book into his lap and raised his eyes to the healer.

            Will frowned at Alabaster’s still form as he replaced the IV bag. “He should have been up.”

            “Oh, he was, for a period of time,” Claymore agreed. He pulled the edge of his jacket open, revealing several syringes beside a pistol. “Do you really think he’d let himself get bed rest here?”

            Will sighed, closing his eyes. “Fine. Just let him wake up next time. Sherman, Clovis, and the Stoll brothers all wanted to talk to him.”

            “Alabaster will not appreciate their idea of streamers, get-well cards, and singing balloons,” Dr. Claymore warned, tilted his book back open.

            “Take that up with the Stoll brothers,” Will said. Then, he added, “Without using your pistol.”

            Dr. Claymore snorted something about the art of subtlety.

            The son of Apollo walked to the door, paused, reached into his pocket, and stepped back to Pax’s sleeping bag. He set a lollipop at the edge of Pax’s bed. “I found an extra one,” he said.

            Something poked out of Pax’s pile of blankets. It took Calex several seconds to recognize it as a hand. There was a massive blacken spot in the center of the palm, fading to gruesome greens and purples. The rest of the hand was swollen to the point of looking like a poorly made jello-prop. Pax didn’t grab the lollipop like Calex was hoping. Instead the dumb bloke used the side of his hand like a rake, dragging the lollipop into the depths of his nest.

            “Thanks,” Pax said from the inside. “Now I don’t need to sing the lollipop song for the next ten hours.”

            Will sighed again. “I’ll be in the infirmary if you change your mind about treatment.” He returned his gaze to Leo and Sadie, who were fawning over the kittens. “I’ll let the others know you’re heading out soon.”

            As soon as Will left, Sadie folded her arms across her chest and smirked at Leo. “We only needed one kitten.”

            “Yea, but who doesn’t want a blanket full of kittens to lighten the mood?” he asked.

            Axel nodded his head. “Kittens can add a certain amount of happiness and mischief to any situation.”

            Sadie carefully scooped a kitten from the pile and held it towards Axel. “Bast,” she chided.

            Calex flinched when Axel inhaled sharply. One of his hands clutched his chest wound while the other fumbled back onto the sleeping bag to catch himself from falling backwards. 

            Meanwhile, the orange and black kitten in Sadie’s hands grew. Sadie gentle set it onto the floor. At almost the same time the paws touched the ground, they had shifted into hands and feet.

            A woman knelt there. She was beautiful, with black hair and caramel skin. Her eyes were similar to Axel’s, glistening lamplights with slits down the center. A leopard-print leotard clung tightly to her gymnast body. Her gaze was both amused and concerned as she examined Axel.

            “Will the real Mr. Stoic please stand up?” Merry whispered playfully.

            “Don’t move too much,” Bast warned. She leaned closer to Axel, nudging his head and shoulders around to investigate his wounds. Calex remembered Axel trying to decapitate Aphrodite for less, but their leader moved obediently. He looked confused, disoriented, and a little sickly. His eyes flashed around the room, taking in everyone’s position. His chest fluttered.

            “I partially stayed to assure you had strength to recover. You’ll have more scars as honoraries for being such a seasoned warrior. But please, do take care of yourself. Our kind isn’t designed to process the burden of guilt for so long.” Bast ended her investigation by curling a finger behind his tufted ears.

            Axel shook his head, his eyes focusing on her. With a grimace, he sat up, squared his shoulders, and raised his chin. “Thank you.” His mouth tried to form a word, but didn’t seem to know what to say. “That was a massive gamble, but without your help—”

            Bast’s smile turned exclusively to amusement. She leaned forward and licked along Axel’s jaw line, ending at his ear. Sadie gasped and Axel went silent.

“Let me know if things don’t work out with that praetor,” Bast said, “And, regardless, don’t be a stranger.” She took his hand and used her finger to write several glowing hieroglyphs on his palm. “You can use this to contact me if you want to make some more intra-cosmic magic, my handsome Tomcat.” She ended by booping his nose with her finger.

            Axel’s face flared to bright red.

            Leo let out a low whistle. Merry, Calex, Pax, and Lapis all choked on laughs.

            When Bast rose to saunter to Sadie’s side, Sadie swatted her arm. “Bast!” she said gleefully. “You ruined the poor boy! How have I never known you to be so devious?! How have you not told me stories!”[1]

            “I try to keep my kittens out of that part of my life, but you should know all cats are mischievous,” she said with a massive grin.

            Sadie rubbed the remnants of tears from her eyes. She managed to stop smiling when she returned her gaze to Calex. “You better keep that promise. If you haven’t given Gretchen a ring by the time we get back, I’ll add you to Leo’s new lizard collection.”

            She pointed to a paperclip cage at Leo’s waist containing a tiny gecko.

            Calex nodded his head. “Right.”

            Bast, Leo, and Sadie left with that parting salutation. Considering they were in a room with Lapis Pax and the Triple A Chimera, he couldn’t believe they would leave them unguarded.

            “You’re up,” Leo said to someone in the hall. “And let me know if you need me to make some special restraints for our friends. I’ll make sure it smells bad and plays annoying music.”

            Two praetors and a centurion walked into their room. [2]

            Calex tensed. He could feel Merry do the same. He could see Axel pale. All he could think about was everything they’d been unjustly blamed for over the last few months. But, was all of it really unjust? Axel had confessed he and Pax had tricked Leo into recrafting Kronos’ scythe. Euna had killed a dozen mortals. The Triple A Chimera had worked for Kronos. Alabaster, Euna, and Axel didn’t do much to hide their disdain for the gods, and Calex, Kally, Merry, and Pax had actively been protecting them.

            “Time to finally decide what we’re going to do with you,” Reyna said, unsheathing a knife to twirl it between her fingers.

Okay, last time I have Reyna twirl a knife for dramatic-end-of-chapter-effect, I promise XD Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! :D Stay tuned for Kally’s chapter, Satyr Butts and Catching Up.

Footnotes:

[1] So, Bastet wasn’t just the goddess of protection in Egypt. She was also a goddess of fertility and physical pleasure, something Riordan—in his middle grade series—understandably skirted around. During Bast’s festival, women were freed from all social restraints to sing, dance, drink, and—yes—lift their skirts to show off their genitalia with pride. One of my former housemates worshipped Bast and loved doing just that no matter how often it sent one of our more reserved housemates into a panic.  

[2] How many Romans jokes start like this?

Chapter Text

Fifty: Kalypso

Satyr Butts and Catching Up

            Kally was happy they waited until she was awake to fill in the group about what happened. Frank wanted to wait until everyone was up, but Axel and Calex did a convincing job dissuading him from waking Euna.

Clovis had gently beckoned Kally out of her surprisingly peaceful dreams and Chris Rodriguez and Matthias Severe Hanson very ungently pulled Pax from inside his nest. Hazel was even generous enough to give Alabaster a white board and some dry erase markers.

            Kally feared the first thing he’d write was, My helm or your first born child.[1] Considering the ingredients he kept for his spells, she wasn’t sure what he’d want if she’d lost something of his that was so important.

            All of their possessions were gone when Kally woke up: her notebook, messenger bag, and his Cloven Terror helm. Even her clothing was gone. Instead, she woke up with an IV drip in her hand, a surgical smock, and pain with each breath. She had barely been able to pick up her glasses from the pillow beside her.

            It was creepy to think someone had changed them. The only people Kally knew well at camp had also been unconscious. For the time being, Kally would just pretend that was one of Will’s powers: magically poofing people into surgical-friendly clothing.

            The only person in the room who was allowed to keep their weapon—and Kally guessed “allowed’ was a strong word—was Euna.

            Instead of asking about his missing things, Alabaster scribbled down, Why? and pointed to the balloon beside his sleeping bag. It depicted a satyr on one side and the satyr’s ass on the other with a note that said, “Poke me; I sing!” There were also streamers strewn off his IV stand.

            “Apparently this is how a certain child of Hermes decided to thank you for saving his brother,” Dr. Claymore said. He never looked up from the book he was reading, though the smile that he cracked said he’d watch the Stoll set up everything while Alabaster slept.

            Alabaster’s fingers flashed over the board to write, Ajax. No.

            Pax, meanwhile, pouted.

Axel sighed. “His arms are too messed up to throw anything at it. Trust me. He tried.”

            Frank and Reyna sat in foldout chairs they’d managed to stuff into the room, moving Lapis’ closer to the weird bird cage in the corner. Hazel stood ready by the door like the most unassuming of guards. None of them wore armor, just SPQR sweatshirts and workout pants. Hazel’s fingers tensed around her spatha’s hilt. Reyna twirled her knife into the edge of her seat. A sword hung at both her and Frank’s sides. Every time Euna mumbled in her mossy cocoon, they would startle and go for their weapons.

            While nibbling on some microwave breakfast sandwiches, Reyna got them up to speed.

            “Apparently, after Prometheus brought Axel and Pax back here, he contacted Helios—”

            Kally felt her jaw drop along with a piece of egg. “Wait—that creepy, former sun god that used to work with Hemera?”

Kally remembered Helios and Eos, the Goddess of Dawn, dream-messaging her to say that Hemera had been taken.

            “Creepy is a forgiving choice of word,” Reyna said, looking utterly unamused.

            Frank coughed off to the side. “Reyna may have brought Helios up to speed on the last few decades of equality on gender treatment.”

            “With her fist,” Hazel said with a giggle. Whatever transpired must have been intense. Hazel was fanning herself.

            Axel smiled, looking impressed. Although Merry and Calex had informed Kally about his flirt-session with a cat goddess, Kally had a feeling no one could distract Axel from this praetor.

            Reyna cleared her throat and continued, “Prometheus contacted Helios—”

            “And said there might be an open job listing for Sun Chariot Driver,” Pax filled in, bouncing on his haunches.

            Apparently, before Kally woke up, Pax had been refusing treatment. She forced him to take some ambrosia with a Reese’s Stick. Now, she was wondering if the extra sugar before real food was a bad idea. Though, with the barely convincing smile on his face, she wondered if Pax was acting as peppy as possible to distract everyone from how he actually felt.

            Reyna nodded, looking a lot less like she wanted to strangle Pax than Kally would expect. “If Nyx wanted Hemera to come back alive, Eris told Nyx that she had to wrap Apollo in the Golden Net and keep him there, but didn’t mention anything about the chariot. When Nyx’s old business associate showed up to borrow the Sun Chariot, she didn’t try to stop him.”

            “How did Helios know where to find them?” Calex asked. He leaned up against the wall, sitting on top his sleeping bag. Kally winced anytime she glanced at him. Half his handsome face was covered in some vicious scabs that cracked when he talked. The bandages peaking out of his clothing indicated that wasn’t the only part of him that was cracking.

            Merry, sitting between them, would occasionally frown and apply pressure with a clean cloth when something bled too much. Her face was marred with bruises, and when Kally had tried to put a thumb at neutral position to see how Merry was feeling, Merry had shaken her head and mouthed the words, later, sweetie.

            Frank snorted and leaned back in his chair. “Augh, you should have heard Helios. ‘I helped find Persephone when Hades kidnapped her. You think I can’t find someone as high on his own sun fumes and flamboyant as Apollo?’’

            Hazel frowned. “They really don’t like each other. After Sadie, Leo, and Jason got Hemera and Lapis back and Lady Nyx let Lord Apollo go, he stormed back here. Helios had come back to get rid of Python’s corpse—”

            “Corpse?!” Calex and Kally echoed.

            Her head spun. She had put her everything into the last light javelin she threw, but… corpse?

            Calex slipped a hand past Merry to offer Kally a high five. “Nice play, Kassand,” he said.

            Kally struggled to raise her arm that didn’t have the skin graft. Every move made her ribs burn. On the list of reasons she found her powers stupid, having the ability to conjure the heat and brilliance of the sun without being fireproof topped everything else.

Seeing her slow movement, Calex leaned the extra way to tap her hand.

“Thanks for the assist, McKenzie,” Kally said, sincerely hoping they’d be well enough and the chaos would settle enough that she and Calex could scrimmage each other on the soccer field. Every time they high-fived, it made her long for a fun, normal-seeming soccer match.

            “Python will reform one day,” Reyna said. “Until then, Helios pried out her fangs for the two of you. Thalia already called dibs on one of the eyes to add to her Aegis shield.”

            “Thalia’s okay?” Axel asked, his ears perking up at the name.

            Reyna nodded. “Once Lady Diana saw the sun fall, she returned to check on everyone. Thalia is with Lady Diana now, assuring that Lord Apollo doesn’t skip out on details when they explain everything to the other Olympians.”

            The squeak of a marker brought everyone’s attention to Alabaster. He held up his white board. If his jaw wasn’t wired shut, he looked like he might have been smirking.

            Helios and Apollo didn’t get along?

            Kally suddenly wondered whose side Helios was on during the Second Titan War and why Prometheus, who apparently had been hiding since Mount Othrys’ fall, had been comfortable going to him for help.

            Hazel continued her story from where Kally had interrupted. Kally felt her cheeks get red, realizing how much she’d derailed them.

“Helios’ actions helped save the camp, but Lord Apollo was furious the older deity had borrowed the sun chariot. And Helios began shouting at him for neglecting his employees. He demanded Lord Apollo give Hemera, Eos, and Astraeus more benefits and more days off during the winter solstice. I thought they were about to start brawling, but that’s around when Artemis showed up and calmed her brother down. It was…” Hazel smiled softly. “Kinda sweet. You could tell Helios really cared. He only left to check on Hemera and make sure she and Nyx were okay.”

            “At least he had some redeemable features,” Reyna grumbled. She flexed her hand and Kally noticed the bandages around Reyna’s knuckles. “And Lord Apollo helped a little with the healing before he left. His song saved Lou Ellen and Michael Kahale.”

            Alabaster made a noise.

            Kally glanced over to see him covering his stitched jaw, where she knew a bone had been sticking out a day before. Judging by his pallor, he must have tried to talk.

            Kally didn’t have the heart to ask which people Apollo hadn’t been able to heal. A moment of silence passed; everyone seemed to be thinking the same thing.

            Pax stopped rocking on his haunches. “So, two of the Special Seven are here.” He pointed to Hazel and Frank. “I’m going to guess Piper and Annabeth are still doing some massive sleep marathons to get rid of the kissing disease and the buboes. Commander Valdez just left, and his good mood means he’s got his blond Superman around. Where’s your Aquaman?”

            The tone of his voice was a little too careful. Kally didn’t understand the seriousness of the question—she assumed Percy had other important things to do now that he wasn’t glued to a chair—then she saw the way Merry jutted her jaw to the side.

            “After Jason assured him that he’d focus on reconstruction, Percy went to spend the day with his parents and little sister,” Hazel said, “I think the whole family is coming to help out tonight. He’s a little rough though. Um… I think the early stages of mono are setting in.”

            Kally held her breath as Pax, Axel, and Lapis all turned their gaze to Merry. Even Calex frowned in concern, showing she hadn’t told him about anything yet.

            Reyna cleared her throat, sitting up.

            Merry waved the diversion off before Reyna could begin. “I guess I can’t really avoid the Debby Downer anymore,” she said. The buoyancy vanished from her voice. “I…”

            Her gaze had sunk to the floor. Reflexively, she tapped her collarbone, like she expected the music dial on her jacket to appear. After sucking in a shaky breath, she looked back up, glancing from Pax, to Axel, to Lapis. “Baby Jackson is safe… but, by the time the EMTs got there...” A silent tear rolled down Merry’s busted cheek. She withdrew her hand from Calex’s reach when he tried to touch it. “Hiro is paralyzed from the waist down.”

            Kally froze. She could hear the sound of three different cheeks popping.

“He fell onto one of the parapets… I shattered his mind. It was all I could think to do when—he’s at Mount Sinai hospital.” Merry’s breath was so short, she sounded close to hyperventilating. “I-I’m sorry.”

            Kally felt her mouth hang open in surprise. Iciness in her stomach made her set the half-eaten breakfast sandwich down. Her appetite was gone.

Merry hated violence. She wouldn’t even hurt bugs. Shattering someone’s mind? Was that even something Merry could do?

            Tears streamed down Pax’s face.

            Axel closed his eyes.

            Lapis choked into his gag. His chair thudded on the ground as he thrashed.

            Pax shot up from his bedding.

            Frank rose to intercept him, but Reyna shook her head.

            Pax scurried to Lapis. With a whimper at moving his arm with the injured shoulder, he tore off Lapis’ gag before anyone could stop him.

            That mustn’t have been what the praetor thought Pax would do. Maybe a hug. Not giving a psychopath their most dangerous weapon back.

            Hazel, Frank, and Reyna all tensed. Kally expected Lapis to cast some kind of Egyptian magic and send everyone’s faces smashing into the ground.

            Instead, Lapis sobbed, tearing making black lines as they mixed with his charcoal liner. “He’s alive. Our stupid grime-licking Dartface is still alive. You hear that, Tufted Ears?” Lapis looked up, his expression one of crazed glee. “There are still four Pax boys! Eat garbage, world! You can ‘t eradicate us that easily!”

            Pax and Axel released broken laughs. Pax snuggled, as best as he could, against Lapis.

            Axel muttered something back to Lapis in a staccato language that Kally could only guess was Mayan. The Egyptian barked something back that made them burst into more sob-laughs.

            Merry looked understandably speechless. She hugged herself and huddled further from Calex’s worried glance.

            Axel exhaled slowly and opened his eyes. “Merry, we expected you to do what you needed to do. Hiro babysat Percy’s little sister for days and was willing to cut off her fingers without a moment of hesitation.”

            “His mind was more like a mirror hanging out at a skeet shooting lounge,” Pax croaked.

            “But he’s alive,” Lapis repeated, rubbing the coal-tear streaks against his sleeve. “Our crazy bastard is alive.”

Lapis sat up to glare at Reyna. “I’m going to hug my brothers,” he announced. He muttered something in Egyptian and his bindings disintegrated.

            The Romans clutched their weapons tightly as Lapis rose. He half-dragged Pax, half-limped over to Axel’s sleeping roll and collapsed beside him, dragging Pax down on his other side.

            “We’re going to be a Facebook-friendly, snot-happy family, and we’re not losing any more of us. But, I’m still kicking both your sorry asses for all this shit later,” Lapis said, rubbing his face on some of Axel’s bandages. His scowl darkened when he pointed to where Merry was now sobbing into her cupped hand. “Don’t think you’re off the hook though, Wine Babe. You’re coming over all the flippin’ time to try to fix up Dart Face’s messed up head.”

            Merry didn’t complain. She nodded her head feverously. With that tiny hint at forgiveness, she leaned toward Calex.

            Despite all the terrible things Lapis had helped put them through, Kally felt her own eyes warm. Axel and Pax looked so much more relaxed with their family member beside them, like neither cared what was going to happen next. For a moment, she could picture some of the stories Pax had told her, about them playing in the school yards of Belize or pranking the carnival with Frasco. Her gut twisted to realize there really were only four members left when there used to be seven in their Tumbling group.

            Like Reyna had read a book on how to ruin family moments, she twisted her knife deeper into her chair and said, “We need to talk about that.” Frank and Hazel’s expressions fell. Alabaster made a low growling sound, closer to something Axel might make. Dr. Claymore shut his book and examined them carefully.

            “Merry being a Wine Babe?” Pax choked through hiccups.

            Reyna ignored him. “Frank and I discussed matters with Chiron and Annabeth. Considering Merry’s father’s position at camp and her importance in saving Percy’s little sister, we believe the Olympians will overlook her involvement with the Triple A Chimera,” Reyna said.

            Kally felt her stomach make a valid attempt to punch its way out.

            “We believe Calex will also be absolved of any crimes, as well as Kally, especially considering their prominence in taking out Python. However, Euna is a different matter. Her declaration and continued vehemence towards the gods will make her a target for Olympian ire and they’re going to be looking for a target after this humiliation.”

            Kally glanced over at Euna. The daughter of Demeter snored softly in her moss and grass cocoon. Despite the scythe in her hand, Euna looked peaceful, in a weird feral dryad sort of way.

            Any relaxation Axel might have felt about having another sibling close must have tensed away. He sat up, away from Lapis and Pax, pulled his shoulders back, and raised his chin. “You’re not taking Euna without a fight,” he said.

            Reyna sighed. She stood and walked over to Axel’s sleeping bag. When she knelt down, his gaze remained firm. Then, Reyna pressed the butt of her knife into Axel’s bandages.

            Pax and Lapis exchanged a look and a short conversation in Mayan. One of Lapis’ hands shot up and Pax shoved it down.

            Axel’s face paled at the pressure on his wounds. He collapsed backwards with little more than a grunt.

            “Will says that you’d be dead if that goddess hadn’t helped you heal,” Reyna said, sheathing her knife. “And Euna’s not the only one we’re worried about. The Triple A Chimera isn’t safe. New Rome has wanted to hunt you down for years, and I assume the gods want the same. Look at what Ares did as an unofficial punishment. Image what it would be like with a full consensus.”[2]

Kally could feel the saliva building in her mouth and she swallowed back the urge to vomit. The thought of Pax’s fresh injuries and both brothers’ internal turmoil flashed through her head. She still couldn’t believe the Greeks and Romans worshipped gods that would force people to kill their own family members. She knew Axel and Pax had screwed up in the past—they’d even betrayed her—but nothing warranted what happened to them.

“None of you could defend yourself right now. The spellcaster doesn’t have a mouth to cast a spell. The thief can't use his hands to throw a smoke bomb or plan an escape. The tank isn’t strong enough to hold up against the gentlest press from the butt of a knife,” Reyna said, her tone tight.

            “You said butt,” Pax whispered, though his face was still pale.

            No one laughed at Pax’s joke. None of them were in a condition to help the Triple A Chimera or Euna escape, except maybe Euna herself. Even then, maybe not. Tearing one god apart left Euna comatose for a day. What would Euna do if they summoned her to Olympus with the twelve gods?

            Squeaks interrupted the ominous hush. They glanced over to Alabaster as he flipped his white board over, What are you saying?

            His scowl was intense.

            “I’m saying that we’re grateful that you helped save camp, but that doesn’t make up for your crimes in the past.” Reyna’s sternness didn’t break under his glare.

            Merry, Kally, and Calex exchanged a terrified glance. This wasn’t right, and they all knew it.

            Frank cleared his throat. “But, we are also saying there is a lot of chaos happening at camp right now and it’s hard to keep track of who is here and who leaves and who was supposed to be guarding the Pax Mobile. Hazel, wasn’t it supposed to be Dakota?”

Hazel coughed and became very interested in something outside their room. “I’m not sure. I thought Dakota had a sugar crash and Bobby was supposed to take over for him? It’s kind of hard to say.”

After dealing with Axel and Pax for so long, Kally was relieved to see that Hazel was a terrible liar.

            Tension eased from Kally’s chest. Merry squeezed Kally’s shoulder. Calex chuckled.

            Axel still looked concerned as he struggled to sit up. Although they made it as subtle as possible, Kally could tell Lapis and Pax were helping him, especially when Lapis rolled his eyes. “Reyna?” he asked, like he was looking for affirmation.

            Although Kally usually looked at Axel as a leader of sorts, she wanted to hit him with a, shut up and accept it speech.

            Reyna folded her arms across her chest. Her face was unreadable. “If I didn’t want to face the Olympian’s wrath, I wouldn’t be here when the sunsets. That’s as long as Thalia suggested she could stall the Olympians, if there was a need. But, also, I would get out of here as soon as possible, in case any guards decided they wanted to change how vigilant they were being. Speaking of which, Zhang?”

            Frank sat up, and Kally got the feeling he often forgot he was a praetor. It made him a lot less intimidating and made Kally feel even worse that she’d given him a massive concussion during one of their… misunderstandings. With the Triple A Chimera on the run again, Kally wondered if any of those misunderstanding would be cleared up, or if the Triple A Chimera would go down in the history books as exclusively monsters.

            “We should decide who we wanted to post here, since Leo and Sadie might consider leaving early for their trip without telling anyone and there might be a gap in the guard,” she said. There was a hint of humor in her tone as she turned to step out the door.

            As Frank went to stand, Axel said, “Wait, I’ve been meaning to say something to Praetor Zhang.”

            Reyna continued out the door with little more than a wave. Apparently she was done with Pax nonsense for the day.[3]

            Frank paused. His expression twisted to one of trepidation and Kally couldn’t blame him. Out of all the heroes of Olympus, this shockingly nice son of Mars had taken the brunt of the injuries from their group, both mental and… emotional.

            “I’m sorry about your ear,” Axel said. The comment felt almost like a casual formality and Kally contemplated whether maiming apology letters were a thing.

            Frank reached up to touch the bandages still plastered to the side of his head. He frowned. “Yea, I’m still pretty mad about that. But… um… Sorry my dad made me interrupt your date. I would have at least waited until you were alone to arrest you. Do you guys… know what happened to it? My ear, I mean? Will said we could have reattached my ear if we had it…”

            Frank looked a little queasy. Kally had to wonder: if someone ripped off her ear, would she rather they had eaten it or the ear just been lost?

            Alabaster and Pax exchanged a glance. Axel’s face remained blank, but he puffed up his cheeks and popped them.

            The son of Hecate tapped his white board to draw attention to him. After an uncomfortable period of marker squeaks, Alabaster held up his board, No. It would be weird if we took it, right?

            Frank’s shoulders slumped. “I just wish we hadn’t lost it,” he said.

            Calex cleared his throat. Kally made herself look anywhere but at Frank. Merry glanced at all of them with a disapproving, confused hum.

            Before anyone could stop him, Pax let out a nervous giggle. “Oh, we didn’t. It’s in a tube of formaldehyde in Alabaster’s basement.”

            Frank paled. His mouth moved a few times in horror. Hazel’s eyes went wide.

            “I just wish we’d lost it,” Frank corrected forlornly. If possible, his shoulders sank lower.

            “Oh!” Pax said, “Speaking of not losing things that could emotionally destroy cute Canadian boys.”

            From within his blanket nest, Pax withdrew a charred stick and balanced it on his busted hand like he was presenting a baby lion.

            Hazel reacted first. She snatched the stick from Pax’s palm and held it close to her chest. “When did you get this back?!”

            “We thought Atë still had it!” Frank said. He rushed to Hazel’s side, slipping a hand to hers to touch his stick.[4] “Thank—wait, were you the one that set it on fire during the fight? I felt that.”

            Frank scowled at Pax.

            Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them. “If I said that I gambled your life force for a good cause—Aye!”

            “What Ajaxapax is trying to say is that he’s sorry for stealing your piece of ugly kindling in the first place,” Lapis said. His fingers were pinched tightly around Pax’s ear. His charcoal-lined eyes narrowed as he gave Pax a devilish grin. “Just ‘cause Tufted Ears traumatized you doesn’t mean you get an easy pass.”

            “But—but my year of consequence-free pranking!” Pax squeaked, squirming to break Lapis’ hold.

            Hazel tucked the stick neatly into Frank’s pocket. “When did you get it from him in the first place?” she asked. “Frank is really careful with his stick.”

            Lapis released Pax so he could give a proper explanation.

Heat rose in Kally’s cheeks. With everything going on, she couldn’t remember why she was so enraged by the mention of that stick, but she knew it was something that made her furious.

As they watched, Pax’s features shifted. His skin darkened several shades as his hair lightened to a cinnamon. His black eye lightened to match the hazel one. His frame shrank. Within a few seconds, there were two Hazels in the room. Fortunately, his hand stayed busted and bruised as a dead giveaway in the event that they decided to play a quick round of Ring around the Rosie. Pax-Hazel altered the way he was sitting, mimicking Hazel’s shy demeanor.

Frank’s jaw dropped.

Real Hazel gasped.

            Hazel-Pax batted his-her eyes at Frank and fanned her face. When he spoke, his accent mimicked her slight Louisiana one. “Oh, the day after we arrived in New Rome? It was just a little detour that Frank and I took on our walk to the training fields.  I needed you two to be too flustered to communicate, so no one would realize there were two Hazels walking around. And I needed a centurion that the praetors would trust to go into the principia on their own.”

            “Wait, what?” Axel demanded, scowling at Pax.

            “You dodgy perv,” Calex said, putting the good half of his face into his hand. “Do you want these blokes to go back on letting you go?”

            Frank looked like he couldn’t decide if he was going to be sick or if he was going to turn into a rhino and gore Pax. Hazel looked horrified. “You were mean to Frank? As me?!” she asked, sounding genuinely hurt.

            Kally remembered why she was in the let’s hurt Pax party.

            “Yea, ‘mean.’” Hazel-Pax lost the act. At real Hazel’s appall, he gave Frank an endearing smile. “She’s so cute and innocent.”

            Frank seemed to decide on goring Pax. He stood back to full height and Kally could see him tensing for an attack.

            Lapis twisted Pax’s ear again. Pax shrieked while morphing back into his raven-haired, hazel-and-black eyed, Hispanic self.

            “Aye! Okay! Okay! I’m sorry I impersonated your girlfriend and rocked your morning!”

            “We’re giving you this head start because you saved the camp,” Frank told him, shaking with rage, “But, once we help rebuild the camp, I’m fulfilling my father’s quest and dragging you before the Olympic council in place of your brother.”    

            With the threat, Frank stalked off down the hallway.

            Hazel paused. She walked up to Pax and punched him in the face.

            Pax squealed again, pressing his ruined palm to his face. “Well deserved punches are the most painful!”

            Hazel’s mouth moved a few times. She blushed. When she couldn’t think of the right words, she stormed off after Frank.

Although Kally knew Pax’s words were light, the tone was choked, like all his obnoxious bravado had met its match. For an uncomfortable moment, she wondered if Pax had been intentionally a jerk to let Frank and Hazel focus on that, instead of going easy on him after… everything.

            Kally shook off the feeling. She was still mad at him for doing whatever he did with Frank while they were almost-not-really-dating. She was also mad that she couldn’t decide if she did or didn’t want to know what it was or if that even mattered. There had been so much going on, and so much almost dying, that Kally hadn’t had a chance to think about her feelings for Pax, or that Alabaster had kissed her in the infirmary, or that Alabaster and Pax had dated, or that Pax had locked himself into a hopefully platonic date with his half-sister. There was still too much going on to acknowledge that train wreck.

            New rule: no flirting until at least one month after the most recent traumatic event. Preferably with everyone in safe locations with fewer gods trying to kill them.

            Kally glanced at Pax, wondering how long he’d make it before—

            “What did you do?” Axel demanded again, his voice tight.

            Tapping emitted across the room and Alabaster pointed to his board. And why did you need access to the principia? Unlike Axel, Alabaster looked amused.

            “Yep, still illiterate,” Pax reminded him, though Kally suspected he’d dodge that question regardless. “Let’s just say that Frank might know these hands better than Alabaster or Kally. And really, that—in itself—is a crime.” Pax held his hands up and winked at Kally. He blew a kiss to Alabaster as best he could. Although he was trying to look playful and cute, the way his shoulder slumped and the discoloration of his hand almost distracted Kally from the obscenity. Almost.

            Axel sighed. “Lapis, can you hurt Pax for me?”

            Pax didn’t squeak fast enough when Lapis snagged his ear. There was a split second where Kally could see Pax examining his hand. His forearm twitched with movement, but only his thumb folded to the bruised skin. A sickness returned to Kally’s stomach when she realized he was trying to move his other four fingers. All their hard work reattaching Pax’s tendons had been undone. She wondered if he’d ever be able to move his fingers again.

            In one way, that felt like karma, with how much of a sneak thief and pickpocket Pax was. But then Kally remembered how much Pax liked to paint and sew and bake for others. She remembered how he used his pickpocketing to help his brother combat his nicotine addiction.

            That moment of Pax’s silent recognition past, then he was whining under Lapis’ grip. “Aye! Okay! I lied! Kally still knows this hand better!”

            Merry shoved Kally’s shoulder while humming Let’s get it on.

            Kally felt like her face had caught fire, her head scrambling to figure out what he was—

            “Because I cut it open for surgery?” she half-asked, half-explained. That’s the only thing he could—  

            Something made a loud thump. Kally jumped. Pain exploded in her ribs and she inhaled sharply. That’s when she remembered there was an adult in the room, listening to this whole conversation.

            Claymore had slammed his book shut, which Kally didn’t even remember him reopening. “As charming as this teenage idiocy is, it might be prudent to follow the praetors’ suggestion of haste. The Triple A Chimera and Euna are on a timeline. I don’t want to see what will happen if they change their minds.”

Thank you for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed :D Stay tuned next week for Kally’s chapter, A Stalling Resolution. And, afterwards, stay tuned for the Part One/Part Two epilogues the following weeks! We’re so close to being done!

[1] Pax would like to say that Alabaster probably wants to say this regardless, but not with the same intention that Kally fears.

[2] I just had to note the amount of swearing and anger Mel wrote in her betanotes about this. XD

[3] Mel beta note: “BUT YOU LOVE ONE PAX’S NONSENSE, RIGHT?! THERE’S STILLL A CHANCE, RIGHT?!”

[4] I will leave this how it sounds and judge all of you for saying anything between this cute Canadian and sweet New Orleans girl could be dirty.

Chapter Text

Fifty-One: Kalypso

A Stalling Resolution

            Their sneak escape, if they could call it that, was the most pathetic, obvious one in the history of stupidity. They would have had better luck transporting a stack of cymbals on top of an elephant.

            That’s exactly what Pax wanted: the cymbals specifically, but Kally assumed he would also want an elephant. Thank the gods Frank had left in a huff before Pax came up with any ideas.

            Calex’s job was to reroute Reyna so Axel could get a proper goodbye with her, then ask Chiron to use the camp phone so he could call his parents. Axel disagreed with the first part of the plan, but liked that Calex could keep an eye on Chiron while contacting his step-dad and sister. If that didn’t take enough time, Calex would ask Chiron to come with him to check up on Vinyl’s healing process from being tossed by Python.

            Merry’s job was assuring Frank wouldn’t change his mind. And keeping Frank away from Axel and Reyna. And, really, making sure Frank was the happiest Canadian he could possibly be.

            Kally was supposed to escort them until the last minute, to make sure they only left the camp and no one incited unnecessary havoc.

            Calex and Merry said their goodbyes in their recovery room.

            Calex and Axel shook hands. They agreed with Kally: when everyone was better and Calex came back from Britain, they would have to have a proper soccer match. Pax tackled Calex into a forced hug, which left Calex frantically checking all his pockets, until he withdrew his Arsenal beanie. No one knew when or how Pax had gotten that from Thalia or how he could reverse pickpocket with a gimp hand. Maybe Kally shouldn’t have been, but she felt relieved to know he could still enact that terror on the world.

            After a few threats from Lapis, Merry confirmed she’d come wherever they were hiding to help out with Hiro within the next two weeks. She would also deliver news on how Sam Datta did on his makeup final. Lastly, Merry patted Pax’s head. “Don’t go kidnapping Kallybae, now,” she teased, “I need her here, at least for a bit.”

            “No promises,” Pax said with a grin.

            Then Merry and Calex were off, leaving Kally to wonder, casually, if she really was about to be kidnapped again. The others weren’t in any shape to do a proper kidnapping, but she wasn’t in any shape to resist.

Pax was brainstorming theme music for their slow, slow walk. There was a ramp down the Big House’s porch for Chiron’s wheelchair, but the rest was a trudge through grass. Every jostle made her scared of ruining her skin grafts. Will had strictly told her to lay off her powers for a bit, but she couldn’t help investigating how bad her burns were. They were gross.

 “Then we’ll have a heavy guitar riff that rolls with the motion of Axel’s wheelchair wheels. The double-bass drums would be thumping along to Lapis’ limp. All heavy metal. Then, during our trailer, the camera will pan out and words will flash!”

            Pax put his hands on his hips and said with his deepest bravado, “Hospital Heroes: coming to save your town... Eventually.” He waved a hand in front of him to simulate the length of time.

            Eventually was correct. Lapis had to push Axel in a wheelchair while Alabaster pushed Kally’s. Axel had the weird birdcage with a blanket rested in his lap. The ride was bumpy and Kally felt stupid and silly having Alabaster silently walking behind her. Claymore got the glorious job of dragging Euna behind them in a bright red wagon with a squeaky wheel. Pax—with his maimed hand and sore shoulder—skipped happily alongside the others. Without any responsibilities.

            Everyone was surprised when another wheelchair raced from the cabins to intercept theirs.

            Pax leaned close enough to Kally for her to feel wisps of his hair and whispered, “Wheelchair duels. Let’s do this! We have an injured Axel, and can probably get a trash can lid and yard stick for jousting. We’re sure to win.”

            She swatted him away with her good arm, trying to hush him, especially when she saw Miranda Gardener pushing Sherman Yang towards them.

            “Hey! Wait! I have a bone to pick with you!” Sherman shouted. For a moment, Kally froze up, thinking he was talking to her. As they got closer and blocked off their path toward Farm Road, Kally realized the child of Ares’ dark eyes were narrowed above her at Alabaster.

            Miranda looked calm and… maybe relieved when she brought Sherman to a stop.

            Their noisy caravan paused.

            “He might need to wire you a message, since Alabaster can’t really talk right now—aye! What was that one for?”

            Kally glanced back to see Lapis releasing Pax’s ear. “Lazy and out-of-date word play, Ajaxapax. I expect better.”

            Squeaks erupted behind Kally. She glanced back to see Alabaster holding up his whiteboard. They’d tied it around his neck for the sake of ease. The white matched his medical smock.

            He wrote, What?

            Although his expression was difficult to read, since he had to move his head as little as possible, Alabaster’s emerald eyes appeared annoyed. Maybe they always looked like that.[1]

            Sherman inhaled and puffed out his chest. “Thank you for shooting me in the legs four times,” he said. His tone was neutral, eyes intense.

            Lapis choked back a laugh. “Holy Hun-Batz, Ajaxapax, you said this sissy-gorged camp was only for hair braiding.”

            Kally glanced down at Sherman’s legs. From what she could see under his lap blanket, both were fully wrapped in bandages.

            Alabaster raised an eyebrow. He wrote on his white board. It was my pleasure.

            “No really,” Sherman said.

            Miranda smiled softly and set a hand on Sherman’s shoulder. “He’s not being sarcastic.”

            Sherman reached up to take her hand. “I don’t know what would have happened to Miranda, Matthias, or Stoll otherwise or… or if I would have killed Clovis. I know we fought on opposite sides of the war but… you’re alright.”

            Both of Alabaster’s eyebrows rose. He nodded his head stiffly and wrote. Alabaster looked away as he held up the white board. I’m glad you’re both okay.

            With her good arm, Kally reached back to touch Alabaster’s side. Pax had shuffled closer to lay a hand on his arm.

            Alabaster shrugged them both off.

            Sherman cleared his throat. “Yea, well, the Stolls left a surprise for you in your Paxmobile. As a heads up, that Praetor chick just showed up there to supervise Matthias and Tyson.”

            “And she was not happy about it,” Miranda added. “She came from a weird direction and looked pissed. I hope they haven’t changed their minds now that Percy is gone.”

            Kally wasn’t sure what Percy had to do with this or what Matthias and Tyson were doing by the Paxmobile. If Matthias had his way, she was sure the son of Hephaestus would be painting the van pink.

            At the mention of Reyna, Axel shuffled in his wheelchair. He sat up, and for a terrifying moment, she thought he was going to try to stand. Lapis, seeming to sense the same thing, poked him in the chest bandages. Axel collapsed back. Sweat glistened on his brow as he fought to control his breath.

            At Percy’s name, Alabaster’s expression turned to a glare.

            “This is heartwarming and all,” Dr. Claymore growled, “but, if we get one more interruption to this happy promenade, I’m going to leave this wagon stranded here.”

            “He’s just sad we didn’t attach the balloon to his wagon,” Pax explained to Sherman, holding his hands out in a what are you going to do? gesture.

            Dr. Claymore shot Alabaster a look and Kally had to wonder how much Alabaster had warned Dr. Claymore about Pax’s… Paxness. Alabaster’s shrug looked exhausted and defeated.

            “Hardly,” Dr. Claymore finally said.

            Miranda gave them a soft smile, gave Euna’s slumbering form a worried glance, and pushed Sherman back towards the cabins. He nodded stiffly in parting.

            “If Doc gets tired of pulling Euna, we could make a sleigh. Tie Axel and Kally’s wheelchairs together with Euna’s wagon at the back. Then we could lasso Mrs. O’Leary and—”

            “I swear Alabaster. I’ll shoot him before the day is over,” Dr. Claymore grumbled, dragging the red wagon ahead. Kally hadn’t noticed until now that their escape was even more obvious than she could have imagined. Everywhere Dr. Claymore pulled Euna, a trail of flowers sprouted in their wake.

            Something about seeing Dr. Claymore with a flower trail made Kally choke on a giggle.

            They made it to the Paxmobile without anymore interruptions. A few Romans and satyrs saw them while they went through the fields. One of them—Ric?—scowled and looked like he was going to approach them, but another—Erin? A newer recruit Kally remembered being nice—dragged him away. Most of the Romans were pretending not to notice the caravan.

            Kally wondered how this felt for the boys. She knew how much Alabaster hated the Romans and Greeks and how terrified Pax had been of them. Despite Pax’s attempts at cheeriness, Alabaster and Axel’s faces had gone red with each Roman’s glance. Even Lapis’ mood darkened. They were leaving their former enemy encampment beaten and broken, as heroes running like villains, with their only reward being a chance to flee. Even that was treated like a favor.

            This wasn’t a joyful escape towards freedom for Alabaster, Axel, and Pax. It was a walk of shame.

            With everything they’d done and how much they’d risked, her insides burned at the thought.

            Before she could say anything, they crested the hill above Farm Road.

            Luke, the automaton golden donkey that pulled their van at mythological hyperspeed, shined in the sun. He munched at a bucket that must have contained motor oil. Someone had attached a This ass welcomes you banner around Luke’s neck.

            There was a new contraption on top of the Paxmobile. It was made out of celestial bronze and looked almost like a bike rack, but the bars came down the sides of the van, more like a cage. Her throat constricted until she saw Tyson helping to move something huge off a makeshift fork-lift and onto the top of the rack.

            Although it was tightly wrapped in protective coatings, Kally caught her breath, sharp enough that her ribs hurt. It was Joey’s statue. They’d reinforced the van structure to bear the weight of the stone.

            A blond chubby boy stood beside Reyna, appearing to argue with her. When he caught sight of them, he bolted forward. Kally had a surreal sense of déjà vu as Pax broke into a run towards Matthias Sverre Hanson.

            “Ajax Pax, here to relax!” the Nordic boy called as he collided with Pax in the gentlest collide Kally had seen. Matthias carefully lifted Pax around the waist to spin him.

            Through Pax’s laughter, his voice quivered. “Dude, you gave us ramming power. Now Joey can fight, even in statue form.”

            “We figured you guys would want her, and that Hera wouldn’t want her in her temple,” Matthias said. He set Pax back on the ground. The first time she saw these two hug, Matthias had been way bigger than Pax. Pax must have gone through a growths spurt in the last few months. Matthias had struggled to move him.

            The son of Hephaestus tapped his fingers together.            “I heard you were doing everything you could to get the Zhang man to change his mind about letting you go. Without Percy around to argue for you guys, I’d be careful of that.”

            “Percy?” Kally echoed, though immediately regretted it. Without turning around, she could imagine Alabaster’s scowl and could feel some of the hatred radiating outward.

            “Yea. Something about how the gods promised Percy that they would forgive all the children that fought on the Titan’s side, and how New Rome needed to respect that promise. He said it was Pegasus dropping that the gods back out on that promise by omitting you three. He was really pissed when they found out that they banished you, Witch Boy.” Matt pointed some finger guns at Alabaster.

            Tyson hopped down from the top of the van. The vehicle made a terrifying crunching noise. “Yes! Percy made me promise his friends would get away safely!  Mattie said he make sure you leave safely from here!” He patted Matthias’ arm.

The son of Hephaestus almost flopped onto the ground under the motion. “You got it!” The cyclops gave everyone a huge, happy wave before walking back towards camp.

            “Say hi to your chicken for us!” Pax called after.

            Kally desperately wanted to know how Alabaster was reacting. He’d shown nothing but contempt for Percy, someone he blamed for the murder of many of his siblings. Kally would have to ask later. Reyna was approaching their group. Miranda had been right: Reyna did look pissed.

            Her dark eyes were icy as she examined Lapis. “You weren’t part of the deal.”

            Lapis snorted and would have taken a step forward had Axel not shot a hand out to block his path. Without turning from the praetor, Lapis said, “Hey, Witch Boy, Doc, can either of you drive stick?”

            “I’m a Mist form. I could dissipate at any second,” Claymore said, without truly answering. He set the red wagon’s handlebar down. Euna mumbled and tried to roll in the wagon, only accomplishing tilting it slightly.

            Alabaster scribbled onto his board. He’s not wrong and I don’t have a license.

            “Witch Boy is too good to drive himself places. He had sexy, Hispanic chauffeurs for that,” Pax said, brushing off his shoulder, then Axel’s.

Lapis put his hands on his hips, leaning heavily on his good leg. “Ajaxapax’s hand looks like a yeti’s chew toy and Tufted Ears is about to exhaust himself from breathing too heavily in your presence.”

            “I’ll remember this next time we’re all hanging out with Sapphire,” Axel growled softly. Kally glanced over at him. Axel managed to keep his chin up, but his ears were flattened against his hairline. His face was tinted red from embarrassment. One set of claws dug into the wheelchair’s armrest while the other gripped the blanket overtop the birdcage.

            Reyna examined the birdcage in Axel’s lap, not seeming to notice his humiliation in her anger. “That wasn’t part of the deal either.”

            Kally’s skin felt cold as she realized who, not what, was probably gagged inside the birdcage. 

            Dr. Claymore cleared his throat. “As thrilled as I am at the thought of getting rid of that thing, do you really want him lounging around one of your camps? If he’s under Orpheus’ curse, you can’t kill him. You know the other children will underestimate how dangerous he is. We were doing a fine job keeping him under control before some of your people attacked one of his wards in front of him.”

            Kally held her breath. That was the most direct she’d ever heard someone be with Reyna. Though, most people she’d seen interacting with Reyna were other teenagers, not angry middle-aged men. Kally had a feeling Dr. Claymore could have been talking to the Queen of England and had the same level of reverence.

            Reyna frowned and went to open her mouth, but Matthias raised his hand and waved them. “Yea, whatever. Reyna and Axel can go argue over who gets custody of the Plague Bringer. Meanwhile, uh, Lapis, if you’re the driver, I’ll need to talk to you about some adjustments I had to make to the Paxmobile for optimal statue awesomeness. And Doctor Dude, you’re the adult, so I wanted to go over some stuff with you too. Pax, Alabaster, and Kally can check out the gift Chris, the Stoll brothers, Sherman, and Clovis left for Alabaster.”

            Lapis snorted and jammed one hand into his pocket. With the other, he hooked his fingers around the birdcage to lift Jack out of Axel’s lap. “You could have just said you wanted to give Red some time to fondle Ajaxapax and Witch Boy before they say goodbye.”

            The words resonated in Kally’s head. Say goodbye. Although she had Alabaster behind her and Pax and Axel beside her, emptiness clutched her chest. Calex would be flying home to Britain soon. Merry still didn’t know where she and her brother would end up once the courts were done sorting out their family. Even if Merry were emancipated, she would have to live in New York, at Camp Half-Blood and Kally still didn’t feel like she could live here and pretend to worship these gods. Would she have to go home to Virginia, alone, and go back to school and pretend nothing happened? With all the struggles everyone else was facing, she felt guilty feeling sorry about it, but… She had no idea where the Pax boys and Alabaster would end up. Sure, Kally needed to get home and tell Mr. Paine and her family that she was alive, but would she really be—

            “We are not going to fondle,” Kally said, belated. Her face felt like it was on fire.

            By the time the words came out of her mouth, Alabaster was already pushing her wheelchair down to the van.[2] Matthias, Lapis, Dr. Claymore, and Jack’s birdcage were strolling further down Farm Road. Well, Lapis was awkwardly hobbling. Kally remembered Pax once telling her that you needed two feet to operate a stick shift. She wondered whether or not the boys would end up stranded a mile away after Lapis’ bravado ran out.

            “You two can talk in the back of the van,” Pax called to Reyna and Axel as he hopped alongside Alabaster and Kally. “You know. If your fight needs to get private—”

            Alabaster tugged Pax forward, cutting his words off. Assuming the truce between the Romans and the Triple A Chimera really was temporary, she knew who they were hunting down with a gag and a forty hour seminar on polite conversation. And, if Frank had his way, a grizzly bear.

            The ache in Kally’s chest grew the closer they got to the van. The beat-up white vehicle shouldn’t have made her feel fuzzy on the inside, considering how many times she’d almost died since stepping into it. Now, she knew the logo Pax had painted over belonged to his father’s pharmacy company, and she better understood the nearly burned-off, bright, kindergarten-like letters:

Pax Extraction Team

Ajax, Axel, Alabaster

Discounts on Protection Today!

            They would need to paint over the scratch-out and re-add Alabaster’s name properly.

            Alongside the van, there was a red satchel that bulged awkwardly, like Santa decided to give them explosives this year. Her heart sank even further to realize Christmas must have been a few days away.

            Alabaster stopped her wheelchair alongside the van. All she could do was look at the red satchel to ignore Axel and Reyna’s voices as they disappeared inside the back doors, and ignore how warm her eyes were beginning to feel. If she wasn’t careful with the teary-eyed thing, she would end up looking like a puffer fish had rolled all over her face, and she really didn’t want that to be the last impression Alabaster and Pax had of her before… before…

            How long would it be before she saw them again?

            Kally swallowed and went to open her mouth.

            Pax held a finger up to her lips. Really, he put a hand up to her face since he couldn’t curl the other three fingers back. He gave her that devilish smirk and winked his hazel eye.

            With his functional hand, he pointed to the cracked passenger window of the van.

            Alabaster rolled his eyes and leaned against the side. Although he tried to look nonchalant, Kally could tell he was either resting from being out of bed too soon or getting closer to the window to listen to the conversation inside.

            Kally knew she shouldn’t. Part of her insides squirmed to think of Axel and Reyna finding them eavesdropping and what the two powerhouses would do, even with Axel in a wheelchair. Hades, Axel would probably offer for Reyna to throw him and the wheelchair as violent ammo.

            But, Reyna’s voice came through the cracked window so clearly, and Kally really wanted a distraction.           

            “—pretending not to realize it, but it’s only a matter of time before some of my enemies in the senate start asking about why my father’s ghost was haunting me. They’ll use it to get me exiled or worse.”

“That doesn’t mean you need to resign due to a suspicion. Your soldiers love you.”

A sigh. The van shifted weight as, Kally guessed, Reyna sat down somewhere. “That might change once everyone hears the Triple A Chimera escaped from the custody of two praetors. One of us will have to take the fall, and I won’t let it be Frank.”

“I won’t—” Axel cut off abruptly. He swallowed audibly before his voice came out much gentler, almost fragile. “You know, if something happens, there’s this small group of friends of mine that are thinking about starting a camp. We’re kinda rag-tag right now, but there’s a position open for a weapons instructor.”

            Alabaster rolled his eyes, not pleased with that prospect. His hands clenched into fists. Instead of continuing to listen, he knelt down beside the Santa bag and dared to blindly open something from the Stoll brothers. Kally or Pax should have warned him what the Stoll brothers were like, but the singing satyr butt balloon was probably as much warning as Alabaster needed.

            Pax, meanwhile, pouted. “That sounds a disappointing amount like they’re not going to make out. I heard Axel got the title of Cat Breath while they were in Xibalba. Imagine Reyna’s reaction if she smelled the Fancy Feast on him.”

            Maybe she should have been more indignant on Axel’s behalf, but she was too excited about something he had said. “You’re still going to make the third camp?” she asked, trying to keep her hope from making the question too high-pitched. She’d been scared to ask about it, especially around the Romans and Greeks.

            “We’re still going to make the third camp,” Pax said. “You can’t get rid of us that easily. Like I told Axel, I’m like a parasite. Besides, you owe me too many drachma and Reese’s Sticks for me to just leave, Cyclops.”

            Alabaster made a startled noise and Kally guessed it didn’t have to do with her debt.

            As he stood up, he pulled the Cloven Terror helm from the red satchel. The Stygian iron enlaced in the ram’s head seemed to radiate darkness. Those eyes looked so hollow without the familiar green glow. Creepy as the helm was, Kally wanted to touch it, to see if its cold, taunting voice would greet her. For a startling moment, Kally wanted to wear it.

            When Kally shook off the feeling, she found Alabaster’s emerald eyes examining her. With that look of understanding, Kally knew she had shared something with Alabaster that he’d never shared with anyone else.

            Pax jumped gleefully and scurried to investigate everything else in the bag. Within a second, he recoiled from the next helm.

            The Leonis Caput helm, the Silver Tongued Snake helm, Axel’s Nemean lion pelt, Alabaster’s spell elements, and the pieces of Pax’s utility belt were all inside as well.  There was also a note that Alabaster snatched from Pax so Kally could read it aloud. “Please don’t use these to kill us. Love, the Stoll Brothers.”

            Pax mimed wiping a tear from his eye. “Weapons of murder. Such a sweet peace gesture. I wonder if we can recruit the Stolls to join our future pranking squad. I mean, camp.”

            With how much the Romans feared these, Kally was genuinely impressed that the children of Hermes had stolen them back. She considered all the people and items now expected to fit into the Paxmobile: Dr. Claymore, Euna, Joey on the roof, Lapis, a half-paralyzed Hiro, Alabaster, Pax, Axel, Backbiter, this satchel with the three darker alter egos of the boys.

            “Do you guys have somewhere to go? While you’re—um—we’re planning out the next camp?” She had no idea how that was going to work. This was too big a group to live out of the Paxmobile like the boys had been doing when she met them, let alone take a few hour drive without Clamore shooting Pax. If the Romans really did decide to hunt after the Triple A Chimera, they couldn’t go back to Alabaster’s ruined house. The Romans knew its location and Kally assumed his HOA wouldn’t appreciate the pieces of dragon strew across the lawn.

            “After we drop by the hospital for Hiro, I have an idea.” Pax gave her his devilish smirk. “I don’t really plan but—”

            Pax stopped talking. His mouth opened for a second as his eyes went wide. Then, they narrowed and his smirk took on a different quality that Kally wasn’t sure she liked. “I do plan. I am the schemiest of anti-hero schemers that has ever schemed. I do have a plan. And, it starts with this.”

            Kally flinched when Pax leaned directly to her eye level, his face close enough to smell his chocolaty scent.

            Kally glanced at Alabaster, panicked. This was Pax, right? Pax who never planned and was proud of it? If Pax could turn into other people to cause mischief, could Atë or Eris? Kally had no weapons on her. She didn’t know if she had the strength to conjure another sun javelin and would definitely melt off her skin graft if she tried.

            Alabaster’s eyes also went wide. One of his hands had hesitantly strayed into the red satchel.

            “Kalypso Kassand, I, Ajax Pax, hereby absolve you of any oath you have to me on the River Styx. You no longer need to keep my secrets under threat of an eternally damned soul, just under the threat of this sad panda face.” He reached to touch her chin. Without the ligaments to control his fingers, his caress was rougher than usual.    

            Kally had seen Pax’s puppy pout at least a hundred times over the last few months. This time, it felt different. The cute, happy innocence didn’t extend to his eyes.

            Kally couldn’t focus on that with what he said. Her mouth fell open. The tears she’d been trying to fight back threatened to surface. All this time, she couldn’t freely talk to Merry or anyone about everything. She didn’t always know what Pax considered a secret and had to wait for his permission to tell people things, things that could have probably saved lives. The freedom, something she just accepted she’d lost forever, made her heart thud.

            “Thank you,” she said. Kally choked back the tears. Her face would be lobster colored in no time. If she let herself cry, the ache in her ribs said it would hurt a lot. “However, since you tricked me into it in the first place, I want you to call off our drachma/Reese’s debt off.”

            Pax’s pout morphed into a smile. “You’re wising up, Cyclops. How about we cut it in half?”

            “Down by a quarter,” Kally said.

            “Deal. Alabaster, what’s a quarter of a lot?” Pax asked.

            Alabaster scribbled on his board. For a moment, Kally wondered if he actually remembered her debt and was doing the math. Then Alabaster flipped his board, revealing that he’d taken the time to draw a middle finger instead of just flicking Pax off with his hand.

            “Aw, Alabaster, the time you took to draw that shows that you care,” Pax said.

            Kally could hear the back door of the van open, letting Reyna hop out and adjust her braid in a way that made Pax do a giddy My brother got to make out and is probably unconscious because of it dance. By now, Lapis, Claymore, and Matthias were walking back towards them with the birdcage. The ache in Kally’s chest increased; their time was almost out.

            Kally felt stupid asking when she would see them again. Plus, she didn’t need to leave that to their hands. As Merry and Atë had pointed out, Kally wasn’t a doormat anymore.

            “You guys are Catholic, right?” she blurted.

            Alabaster went to write on his whiteboard.

            Pax swiped his marker.

            Alabaster scowled.

            “As Catholic as a Mayan-Greek demigod can be,” Pax said. Although Pax had answered for all of them, Kally had a guess as to how the god-hating child of Hecate might feel. That would need to be a discussion for a different day.

            “Come over to my parents’ house for Christmas,” Kally said. Her face felt like it would melt off if it got any hotter, but she didn’t care. She was taking a stand here.

            Pax’s expression softened. The darkness melted from his eyes so he could relax into a much more genuine Pax puppy face. “So we can scare your racist brother again? Kally, that’s the best holiday gift you could have given me.”

            The last time she was home, Axel had terrified John, her brother, and his drunk friends with a trick of the Mist. Had that really been the last time anyone from her family had seen her? She was terrified for the inevitable “I told you so”s about getting into a white van with two random guys and disappearing for a few months.

            Even Alabaster seemed to calm at her proposition. Either that or the exhaustion was getting to him. She wouldn’t know until he finished erasing and rewriting whatever he was doing on his board.

            “There’s a really tough conversation I need to have with my mom about my real dad,” Kally said, trying to keep her voice even. “And it would be nice to have back up in case she gets too mad to talk to me during the holidays.

            After rewriting one more thing, Alabaster finally held up his board.

            We’ll be there.[3]

            Kally’s heart skipped a few beats.

            Lapis, Matthias, and Claymore walked back over with the birdcage. Matthias and Reyna stood on either side of Kally’s wheelchair as the boys put the red satchel into the back of the van. Fortunately, Euna woke up enough to groggily stumble out of the red wagon.

            Euna paused, glancing at her sister’s statue attached to the top of the van. She reached up and touched Joey’s stone foot. Also fortunate, she didn’t seem to notice Lapis, who carefully avoided that, “damn, psychotic grass hippie.”

            Kally wanted to give Euna a hug or to ask her what happened when she disappeared down to Tartarus. She wanted to tell Euna that Calex had demanded she give him a phone ring as soon as she was feeling up to talking, and that Thalia said she’d hunt Euna down to slap her for the “flower cocooning.” Whatever that was.

            But, Euna’s dark eyes were so glassy, Kally wasn’t sure if Euna even knew she was awake. The eerie glow to Euna’s skin, made her look surreal and Kally was suddenly nervous to approach her friend. She wondered if Euna was aware enough to tell her father about what had happened to Joey.

            Not that the Pax boys, Alabaster, and Claymore wouldn’t keep her safe, but they weren’t the most comforting.

            Before Euna could disappear into the van, Kally said, as loud as she could with the ache in her chest, “Euna! Let’s get milkshakes sometime soon!”

            Despite everything they’d been through, Kally knew uncomfortably little about Euna except that she liked food. Kally hoped that would be enough.

            Euna’s distant gaze found hers. She gave Kally a thumbs up. “I like milkshakes.” Then she slipped into the van with Backbiter in sword form.

            Lapis hopped into the driver’s seat and put Jack’s birdcage in the passenger seat. Axel made Matthias roll Kally closer so he could give her the gentlest hug from where he was propped inside. The glance he shared with Reyna made Kally wonder exactly how their conversation had ended.

Alabaster reverted Claymore to a Mist card to conserve on car space, and to prevent him from shooting Pax. Alabaster squeezed Kally’s hand.

Then, Alabaster and Pax were hopping into the van.

            Pax paused in the doorway with the doors almost shut. Baller, his crazy weasel, scampered up his clothing to rest on Pax’s shoulder. He gave her a devilish smile and winked his yellow eye. “Just remember kids,” he said to Reyna, Matthias, and Kally. His gaze lingered on Kally. Reyna sighed in annoyance and Kally, similarly, had to wonder if Pax had rehearsed whatever he was able to say.

            He sucked in a deep breath. “The moral of the story is: if you’re cute enough or pathetic enough, you can get away with anything. The system is broken and villains get to walk free.”

            With those uplifting words, Pax shut the doors.

            Reyna walked behind Kally. Kally’s throat constricted, wondering if it would be worse to have Reyna—someone who still terrified her—or Matthias—someone known for pranking—push her back to the Big House.

Reyna made the decision when she rested her hands on Kally’s wheelchair. Kally wanted to watch the van drive away, if nothing else than to make sure Joey’s statue wouldn’t flip off. The older girl didn’t seem interested in such sentimentality.

            “Wait,” Matthias said when Reyna went to wheel her.

            They paused and looked at the Paxmobile. 

            The Paxmobile made a few revving noises.

Then made a pathetic puffing noise.

            Luke the donkey snorted once, seeming unimpressed with the van’s epic failure.

            Another rev.

            “Hansen?” Reyna asked.

            Matthias grinned. “Oh, I disconnected the battery to fuck with them. I’ll give it three more tries before Axel—”

            “HANSEN!” Axel roared from the inside. “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY VAN!?”

            “And with that, I’ve made Axel angry enough that he’ll allow Pax to come back and prank me.” He withdrew a wrench from his pocket and walked towards the Paxmobile. Matthias cheered, “Now we’ll have to see them again.”       

Kally grinned. Even without Matthias’ disconnect and the promise of a chaotic, crowded Christmas, she was sure they would.

Okay! So I’m going to refrain from a long-winded, soppy author’s note until the second epilogue is out. For now: thank you guys for reading! T.T You’ve all been so nice and supportive, especially those of you leaving such encouraging comments and asks! I really hope you enjoyed!!! Stay tuned next week for Epilogue Part I.

I can’t believe this whole thing will be out and done at the beginning of August O.o T.T

Bonus:

            Leo was definitely digging Brooklyn House’s set up, with the giant albino alligator, Sadie’s annoyed boyfriend, and Sadie’s panicking older brother. It was nice knowing Calypso was at camp, helping Chiron in the healing center and that he’d never need to see that creep, Pax, again. He just wanted time to figure stuff out, between Calypso’ trickery and how Pax had messed with his head. However, as he helped craft a massive carrier for all the healing vials Jazz, Brooklyn House version of a child of Apollo, had made for them, he couldn’t fight off the nagging feeling that he’d forgotten something else.

            On the plasma TV hanging above a fireplace that was large enough to park a car inside, he caught the words of a local news anchor.

            “—unsure if this is a runaway Christmas float, or a well crafted-prank drone—”

            Leo almost dropped his contraption. “Uh, Lady Sadie?”

            “Yes Commander Valdez?”

            “Uh, we may have left a homicidal, flying metal dragon loose in New York City.” 

            “You left a what?!” Carter almost screamed from another room.

            “Nothing brother dear!” Sadie called sweetly.

Footnotes:

[1] Mel betanotes, “Maybe it’s Maybelline.”

[2] So, in the first rendition of this, I put, “Alabaster was already pushing her down to the van.” And I realized that wording might be a bit forward/unbalanced considering how much of an audience they have and how he can’t move his mouth.

[3] No, the epilogue is not a Christmas special. XD that was Mel’s first guess.

Chapter Text

            As they exited the courtroom for recess, Kally wished she hadn’t worn a skirt. Everything was miserable enough without having uncomfortable clothing on the list.

            Nikhil, Merry’s little brother, looked terrified. His gangly limbs looked awkward and stick-figure in his charcoal suit, like someone decided to stuff a scarecrow with dowel rods. Although Merry was pretending everything was fine, there was too much talk of foster homes. Neither sibling wanted to be split up again. With Merry’s emancipation, it was looking more and more likely. If Nikhil stayed at his Mom’s, then Merry would be close by and could do some proper mothering from a distance. But, Mrs. Blythe had missed out on too many court dates concerning Merry’s abusive stepfather.

            When Nikhil went to use the bathroom, all of Merry’s feigned confidence deflated. She collapsed onto one of the benches in the eerily sterile, white hallway. Kally had to wonder why all government buildings thought white was a good idea. What a comforting color when you’re settling a violent family dispute.

            “They’re not going to let me take care of him,” Merry said.

            Her voice was as hollow as her expression. No humming. No “sweetie” or “bae.” Even her outfit looked really… not Merry: a conservative business suit that couldn’t cover her curves and her wavy hair twisted up into a bun.

            Kally wished she knew what to do. Pax would have cracked a joke, but she hadn’t seen him since their chaotic Christmas dinner. Calex probably would have known best, but he hadn’t been able to come back from Britain. He’d fought hard to scrounge up enough money for a flight, but his side job didn’t make enough extra to helping his father with the funeral debts, contribute to rent, and pay for a ticket.

            Merry had teased him on the phone, had told him it was fine.

            Now, Merry’s face was pale. There wasn’t a trace of a smile on her lips. Kally could tell she hadn’t been sleeping. 

            “I did a lot of research with Malcolm about the laws for this,” Merry continued, her eyes distantly staring at the sunlight trickling through the window. A beautiful backdrop of a parking lot. “If an older, emancipated sibling can provide for their younger sibling, they’ll sometimes let them live together, but, I disappeared when he needed me… They’re going to keep him in permanent foster care. He doesn’t even like his temporary foster family.”

            Merry’s eyes glistened.

            Kally took Merry’s hand and squeezed it. “Hey, we’re going to make sure you can see Nik.”

            Merry’s eyes focused. She forced a smile. Although Kally hadn’t seen Merry nearly as much as she would have liked—something about being grounded for eternity as punishment for “running away” for a few months and drowning under makeup school work—Kally could tell Merry hadn’t been taking any of what happened well. Not that any of them could, but what happened to Hiro haunted Merry. Merry did not like that she had the power to drive people insane. It especially terrified Kally when Pollux gave her a call on the camp phone to say that Merry was second guessing whether she could have driven her own father to beat her.

            With the two months of distance between them and the Battle of Saturnalia, Kally almost wished these monsters were the kind she could hit with a light javelin.

            Then, the recess ended, and everyone was allowed back into the courtroom. Kally made sure not to look Merry’s adoptive father or her mother in the face. She was afraid she’d punch both of them for what they’d done to their children and that didn’t seem like a great idea with so many deputies patrolling the halls.

            The judge, an elderly, possibly senile Hispanic man named Justice Jose, shuffled back into the courtroom. For the entire proceedings, Kally had feared he would pass out. He and his two deputies had been glistening with sweat and clearly sick.

            Now, however, he looked much better. Color had returned to his wrinkled complexion. She’d heard Nikhil make a half-hearted joke about the judge really needing to go to the bathroom when he called recess so close to the final hearing. Maybe Nikhil had been right. No upset stomachs allowed in the courtroom.

            There was something different about him though, something Kally probably shouldn’t have even noticed because it was so subtle: he was wearing thin, black gloves.

            When Kally glanced at his two deputies, something else weird happened. Already, she couldn’t really remember what they looked like. Now, she struggled to look them in the face at all, and not because she’d broken the law several times in the last few months.

            Each time she did look at one, she immediately forgot his features, beyond the fact that the deputy was tall and a male. Hadn’t one of them been a female before?

            Kally was so distracted, she didn’t register the court formalities. She was so conditioned to standing and sitting at mass, the motions blurred past.

            But, her mind sharpened when Jose said, “I think we’ve heard enough from the different parties. Normally, I might go through an explanation to Mr. Sukumar Priya and Mrs. Blythe as to why I find them unfit to raise Nikhil, but I believe we have covered that amply.”

            Merry blinked and glanced over at Kally. This judge had been very wordy, like Homeric epic wordy, before.

            “From her financial records and the amount of maturity and responsibility that this merry girl has illustrated—”

            Merry’s eyes widened. During the entire proceedings, they’d been referring to her by her legal name, either Maari or Ms. Blythe. The judge looked like he’d held off a smile at the comment.

            “—she clearly is the best option to take care of her little brother. We will set up another home inspection and check in the next month after.”

            Kally almost didn’t hear anything else.

            Merry’s jaw dropped. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

            Kally felt the same happen to her. She didn’t even catch the judge delegating the decision’s write up to a clerk, who looked confused and skeptical. Jose signed a paper and said, “This court is adjourned.”

***

            They were celebrating as they left the courthouse. Kally’s older brother, John, would be driving around to pick them up, and she knew she could bully him into taking them for dessert. He’d been a lot more protective and attentive since she’d been back, especially after the massive fight that Kally had with their mother. And the fact that Kally could barely move the first month with her broken ribs.

            When they turned to the parking garage, Kally froze.

            On the sidewalk, facing away from her, there was a person wearing a silk burgundy suit. His hair was gelled back into a perfect, short ponytail.

            Reflexively, Kally’s hand shot into her messenger bag. Her chest constricted, and she felt her rib pain return with her panic.

            She stepped in front of Merry and Nikhil, withdrawing her Argonaut statue.

            There was no way—she wouldn’t be able to—he couldn’t be alive—

            “Kall! Merry!”

            Kally’s vision had tunneled. She had noticed two figures standing on either side of Mr. Burgundy Suit, like henchmen, but she hadn’t registered them beyond the matching dress shirts.

            One of the two henchies—the tallest one—had broken off, rapidly walking towards her with a broad grin.

            There was no muzzle or straight jacket, but Kally still took a step backwards, horrified this might be a trick.

            His black hair had grown out. Instead of the military style cut he used to have, the bangs hung long, and would have concealed his dark eyes if the bangs weren’t so fluffy. The once-neatly trimmed goatee was longer too, giving him a look crossed between a disheveled, adventurer and a rock star. The scarification gleamed on his bronzed skin.

            Mr. Burgundy Suit whirled towards his rogue underling. “Axel! This isn’t the dramatic reunion we agreed to! We’ll never get this valuable opportunity back!”

            Axel ignored him. He also ignored the way Kally squeaked when he picked her up by the waist for a bear hug.

            Kally felt her cheeks warm up. The suspicion dissolved and she hugged Axel back tightly. “You guys are okay,” she whispered.

            Axel nodded. He held her for an instant longer, then slowly lowered her feet back to the ground.

            There had been no word from them since Christmas. Lapis hadn’t even come after Merry like he’d promised. They had no idea if the Romans had captured them, other than a quick message from Nico and Will assuring her that Frank had no progress on his hunt. But, she’d been wondering if the Romans and Greeks were covering things up or if any gods with a taste for Pax vendettas had achieved vengeance or if the Pax boys had disappeared into the forests of Belize like a bad folk tale monster.

            Kally was genuinely torn between giving each of them a kiss on the check or slugging them hard in the diaphragm. She’d probably have to do both.

            Axel gave Merry a warm smile. “It’s good to see you, Merry. And you must be Nikhil. I heard you two just had a major victory.”

            Nikhil had taken a step behind his sister, practically vanishing. He made a grunt noise. Kally felt bad. He’d gone through too much today to meet these maniacs. Though this was pretty tame compared to the first time she’d met the Pax brothers. Not enough flaming cars.

            Not that we need flaming cars, she thought, in case any Fates were listening.

            Merry’s eyes went glassy again. This time, though, she swayed softly to a tune she was humming. “You dodgy, wonderful works of nature.”

            Kally didn’t quite understand until Pax came over. Her stomach twisted to see him in that familiar burgundy suit with his hair slicked back. One resilient lock still popped out in the front, like a flag that said, I will never be tamed!

            Then, she saw what Merry had: Pax wore a pair of thin, black gloves. The same ones Jose had been wearing.

            There was no way for them to know about the verdict unless they were in the courtroom itself. Well, unless they had threatened the first person out of the courtroom, which is something they would do.

            Pax stopped a few feet away from Kally, giving her his most devilish smile.

            Behind him, a tall, gangly figure approached in a similar burgundy dress shirt with black tie.

            Last time Kally saw Alabaster, he’d been sickly pale and trying to hide his want as everyone else shoveled Christmas food into their mouths. Everything he ate had to be puréed.

            Although Alabaster was still pale like her—he’d always burn within ten minutes of sun contact—there was more color to his freckled cheeks. A thin scar traced where his jawbone had protruded the skin a few months ago. His wry smile looked far less painful as he said, “It’s good to see you Kally.”

            He could talk. Kally didn’t see any wires or anything.

            When he turned to Merry, he merely nodded his head and said, “Ol’Sissy.”

            “Proof that Kally has questionable taste in men,” Merry retorted, folding her arms and looking him up and down like the most disappointed of matchmakers.

            “Aw, Merry! I think Witch-Boy looks hot in a suit and tie,” Pax said with a wink.

            Both Kally and Alabaster blushed. Pax wasn’t wrong. They all looked good in a creepy Santiago’s men wore these when they were being evil way, and it made Kally want to slap them harder and demand where they’d been.

            “Who are these guys? They look like Agents of Shield villains,” Nikhil muttered from behind Merry.

            “We’re the psychopaths that kidnapped your sister and her hot friend,” Pax said.

            “So, demigods,” Nikhil said. He’d been taking some time getting used to the new knowledge of the world, but Merry, Dionysus, and Chiron agreed it was necessary if Merry wanted to have any hand in her brother’s life.

            “Fifty percent,” Pax agreed, gesturing towards Alabaster and himself. He pointed a thumb to Axel, and waggled it between them. “The other fifty is primordial awesome.”

            Axel shook his head, smiling.

            “You’re weird,” Nikhil said. His shoulder relaxed a little and he took a timid step out from behind his sister.

            She completely sidestepped to leave him fully exposed. Merry: ever the coddling caretaker.

            Pax wiped a fake tear from his eye. “We only just started talking and he already knows me so well.”

            “You must be Pax,” Nikhil said, pointing a finger.

            “I was story worthy?” Pax asked. If he were an anime character, his eyes would have sparkled.

            “You were warning worthy,” Merry said. “I know you didn’t just wear those to give Kally and me a heart attack.” She gestured at Pax’s suit and Axel and Alabaster’s burgundy dress shirts.

            “We’re rebranding,” Pax said.

            The stiffness of his smile made the unease return to Kally’s stomach. Something inside Kally said that Pax shouldn’t have been the one to answer that question. He hated those suits. He had sobbed to her when his father made him jell his hair back for their violent family reunion.

            The unease turned to nausea when she realized how much Pax really did look like his father. The more his face had matured from cute to handsome, the closer it got. With the stiffness of that smile, the way his shoulders were held back, and the disquieting confidence—

            Kally shook off the thought.

            Another one immediately clouded her mind. He was answering for Axel and Alabaster. They stood on either side of him like a pair of bodyguards. Pax also hadn’t tried to hug her or touch her at all. Weird to think that boundary respect would be foreboding but—

            “There are a few changes we’re excited to—”

            Merry’s eyes went wide. She held up a hand to cut Pax off. “Stop everything.” She took a step closer to Axel, rising on her tiptoes to examine him thoroughly. Kally wondered if she’d picked up on the same oddities and was about to call one of them out on it.

“Your neck.” She pointed a finger into his chest. “What beautiful creature got a hold of it?”

            Kally feared she meant that someone had strangled Axel. When she saw what Merry meant, Kally’s hand shot up to cover her lips, a habit that she’d been trying to break.

            There were at least four bruises, two just under his ear and two peeking out from his collar, with skin discoloration speckling the skin beside it.  Kally couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed them before. They were—

“Are those hickeys?” the words blurted out of Kally’s mouth before she could choke them back.

Really. Obvious. Hickeys.

            Axel’s smile turned to a cocky smirk. He cracked his neck and glanced innocently off to the side. He didn’t even blush.

            “Witness his open defiance of societal standards,” Pax said, making a grand show-man gesture.

            “No,” Merry said in clear disbelief at Axel’s shamelessness. Her grin was enormous.

            Pax pouted and folded his arms across his chest. The perfect posture caved as he slouched gloomily. “He won’t spill. The worst part from this devious fiend? Yesterday, I was gone all day on boring business stuff, and he had a peace meeting with a praetor in the afternoon, and went to a Green Day concert with Grace at night. And Bast has constant access to the house. Could have been an actual empousa for all I know.”

            “I know who it was,” Alabaster said, feigning disinterest as he checked over some spell pouches along his belt.

            “You’re bluffing,” Pax said, “You just want something to hold over my head.”

            “You’re upset because you have no way to find out if I’m bluffing and can’t make me talk if I’m not,” Alabaster said.

            From the way Alabaster and Axel exchanged a glance, she could tell how much they enjoyed dangling this in front of Pax.

            The youngest whined and huffed.

            Kally’s worries melted at their ridiculousness. This was still them. Though, what had Pax meant by business stuff? Alabaster may be capable of becoming a reasonable member of society, but the Pax boys had spent most of their time training and doing street performances before she met them.

            “Oh Mr. Stoic, don’t you go thinking you can hide this from Auntie Merry,” Merry said and folded her arms across her chest. Unlike Pax, she looked more like a mob boss or a proper Queen of Gossip with the motion. Kally was always terrified of how Merry could twist people’s personal info—or assumed personal info—against them.

            Axel pulled out a packet of gum from his pocket. He gave her a grin as he withdrew a piece and slowly folded it into his mouth. “Gentlemen,” Axel said, “Do not kiss and tell.” He looked so proud of himself.

            He offered the gum out to the group.

            Nikhil timidly reached forward and took a piece. “Looking at your neck, I don’t think the person you’re interested in wants anything to do with someone who is gentle,” the kid said.

            Merry gave the most genuine laugh that Kally had heard since everything happened during the Festival of Saturnalia.

            A slight blush finally lit up Axel’s cheeks. Maybe he had to hear it from a fourteen-year-old.

            Kally could tell her face had gone bright red. She often forgot Axel was a Pax boy. When she first met them, Axel was always restrained by the stress of running from their psychotic father and New Rome, of struggling to keep his little brother safe and fed, of crumbling under the guilt of a failed army. He looked so much more relaxed, so much… younger, and, with the new hair, almost wild.

            She never considered how much of a terror Axel could be without those worries. Especially if he put all of his efforts towards charming over one girl. Kally had always assumed it would be Reyna, but Pax’s grumpiness and Merry’s conniving grin made her wonder.  Thalia hadn’t revoked her vows, had she? Not like Kally would have heard about it. She didn’t even know if Thalia and Euna had been talking.

            Anger threatened to bubble when she realized they had been keeping in touch with some of their other friends and not her.

            “Merry, lunch is on me if you can weasel information out of him. That’s usually my forte, but, alas…” Pax glared at his brother. “I’ve been a weasel failure.”

            “You can try,” Axel said. He pinched the gum between his front teeth and pulled it forward with his pointer and middle finger, the same way someone might hold a cigarette, then slipped it back into his mouth.

            “This guy is cool,” Nikhil said.

            “You’re forbidden from looking at him as role model material,” Merry said. “And don’t think you can distract us from the fancy get-ups with this information, at least not for long.”

            “Can’t I?” Axel asked, raising an eyebrow.

            “It’s dangerous when these two agree to work together,” Alabaster said, voicing exactly what Kally was thinking. “Shall we move this conversation to a restaurant? We passed an acceptable-looking ramen house on the way here, and I think Ajax just offered your celebratory lunch on him.”

            That felt too smooth. That ramen house was a spot Merry and Kally enjoyed visiting when they had spare cash from birthdays and could con one of their parents or Kally’s siblings into taking them. They hadn’t been able to go with Merry pooling all her extra cash to get a place for Nikhil. Mr. D was helping, but they all knew it would look suspicious if Merry didn’t come across as financially responsible on her records.

            Merry clucked her tongue. “As suspicious as ever boys.”

            “We’ll need to invite John,” Kally warned, desperately wanting to go, even if this whole thing felt weird. When it came to them, when did anything ever not feel weird? Plus, she still needed to punch all three of them for keeping out of contact for so long.

            “Augh, your brother is an ass,” Nikhil grumbled.

            “Language, sweetie. Remember the rule? SAT hot word with every cuss,” Merry said.

            “Fine. He’s a supercilious ass,” Nikhil said.

            “There’s my smart boy,” Merry said. She tried to pinch his cheek. Nikhil batted her away, clearly embarrassed around the older boys.

            Pax stood up straighter with excitement. “We’ll just have Alabaster talk to John. He’s white. White people like white people, right?”

            Considering John was a walking stereotype of racism, this was a scenario that Kally couldn’t scold Pax for saying that. It still made Kally cringe with secondhand embarrassment. She wanted to point out that John thought that Alabaster was a city-slicker pansy. The only thing that pissed her brother off more than race was the amount of money someone had.

            “I would like to think that Merry can do an exquisite job of broadening his horizons without my assistance,” Alabaster said.

            Merry’s jaw jutted to the side. Both she and Kally cringed at the old discomfort they felt whenever Kally brought Merry to her house. “That stubborn hunbun—”

            “Supercilious ass,” Nikhil said, looking proud of himself. Kally couldn’t help but notice that he’d put his hands into his pockets the same way Axel had.

            “—has commented that he doesn’t view me as Desi anymore, like it’s a compliment,” Merry’s voice was tight. “Though, I think it’ll do him some good to spend more time with you two. I heard he has a certain respect for Mr. Stoic.”

            Axel looked amused. The first time Axel met John, he’d sent John  running faster than a drunken centaur in fear. Kally had to hope, with Axel’s presence demanding respect, Merry’s wit, and Pax’s playfulness, John would become more open-minded over time.

            Alabaster, Axel, and Pax offered to escort them to the designated space that Merry, Nikhil, and Kally had agreed to meet John. They ought to start moving anyway, considering the matching style of the boy’s dress was drawing attention from the deputies just inside the courthouse.

            “So whose nicked money is paying for our lunch?” Merry hummed as they walked. Kally was ecstatic to see a slight dance in Merry’s step again.

            Pax inhaled sharply. “Merry, the person who this money belongs to is a perfectly respectable member of society. They would be offended that you insinuated otherwise.”

            Everyone laughed, though the ones coming from Axel and Alabaster sounded dark.

            Kally swallowed. At least for today, she wanted to have a “normal” lunch with them, as normal as they could handle.[1] Merry had her brother. Kally knew the boys were alive. Would they run out of conversation if they avoided anything serious for this round? Between Merry trying to worm information out of Axel and Pax teasing John, Kally felt the normalcy of the conversation was fabricated.            She wondered if they could keep it to normal conversations, if they could make it through a meal without having a dragon attack. By the end of the day, Kally was shocked to find out that they could.

One chapter left before the series is done T.T Seriously guys, thank you so much for reading this far and dealing with all of my nonsense. *Pax sniffles* Okay, okay, saving it for next week. Tune in for the last chapter, Epilogue Part II!!!!

Footnote:

[1] Melbeta note, “I’m imagining as she says this a monster just bursts through the shop and causes destruction.” Jack, “That’s the movie version.”

Chapter Text

            Their lunch went over the amount of time Pax had allotted, but there was no way he would cut it early. The appreciation on Merry’s face and the relief on Kally’s were worth every second of catch up he had to play, even as he bantered into the phone.

            “Are you suggesting this meeting is more important than my own affairs?” Pax let the iciness slip into Santiago’s voice. The other end of the line went into panicked silence. Everyone thought Santiago had disappeared for good, but he couldn’t yet. Not when there were so many unresolved legal issues to attend to and so many people Pax could mess with.

            Other than his phone argument, the van had been marked with uncomfortable silence. Alabaster spent the time doing his jaw stretches and exercises. Pax wanted to make a comment about a few other ways to work out Alabaster’s jaw, but—after one very awkward bathhouse incident where Pax forgot who he was—Pax had promised to check the mirror before he tried hitting on anyone. Or give tackle hugs. That had ended well with Axel.

            Axel couldn’t stand to look at him when he did this. He didn’t even like hearing Pax talk. Some disturbed part of Pax enjoyed it, like Muahahha! This is how if feels! But, Pax knew that was about as fair as betting against Prometheus or Tyche.[1]

On the note of feeling vindicated about triggering Axel’s trauma and why, Pax admitted, it was unfair, Pax had chosen to hang the Triple A Chimera masks in their throne room. That way, he would cringe every time he caught saw the Leonis Caput helm and had to rub the stump where his hand used to be. Call it the espresso shot of incentive for whenever he wavered on their cause or thought about painting weasels instead of going to one of Santiago’s business meetings.

            Axel didn’t choose to see Santiago again the way Pax chose to see the helm. Axel had voiced his opinion on the matter very thoroughly and with a lot of violent gum chewing. If Pax kept this up, and they found a way to attach an electrical plant to Axel’s mouth, Pax suspected they could power the entirety of Camp Othrys (Remastered) with his vehemence.

            As their white van pulled alongside the other pharmaceutical vans, Pax ended the phone call. He grinned at the others, shuffling to his feet. No matter how often he turned into Santiago, he never got used to the limp.

            “Good news everyone!” he said.

            Curiosity sparkled in Alabaster’s green eyes. He sat up on the opposite bench. “Did you get a dead body?”

            “I got a dead body!”

            Axel didn’t say a word or react as he exited the driver’s side. He didn’t wait for them either, going ahead through the back entrance’s hidden doors.

            Pax tried not to let Axel’s anger dampen his spirits. Instead, he focused on this opportunity: Axel had left Alabaster to his mercy.

Pax rose to his feet, almost stumbling on the bad leg.

            Alabaster hopped out of the van. He sighed and extended a hand to help him.

            Pax fished around his suit jacket—it became easier wearing the same clothes his dad did when he was morphing this often—and nipped a bite of his golden apple. He didn’t need to anymore. He had morphed into Santiago as soon as they dropped off the girls, but he enjoyed the sensation. Before Alabaster could withdraw, Pax morphed again.

            That way, when he staggered down and leaned against Alabaster for support, Pax looked like a voluptuous, hot chick whose curves barely fit in the now-tight business suit.

            Alabaster had a hard time looking at him. “Ajax,” he growled, though in threat or complaint, Pax wouldn’t know until Alabaster set him on fire.

            Pax grinned up at him. “The corpse is super fresh, only an hour dead. It’s the right height, weight, race, and age. How much time will you need to give him a proper, evil gimp leg and some Iago fangs?”

            That had been a fun experience. When Alabaster set to work making a mold of Santiago’s mouth from Pax’s morphed one, Pax had a hard time not trying to eat the bubble-flavored molding. Eventually, Alabaster switched the flavor to something much less delicious.

            Pax tightened his—her? Unlike Lapis, who demanded a certain pronoun, he never really cared what pronoun he used, even when his family jewels turned into… that didn’t seem fair that girl’s parts weren’t also called family jewels. They were as precious. Maybe family pearls? He’d have to consult Urbandictionary later. Regardless, her for now. Pax tightened her hand around Alabaster’s tie. The bracelet that Alabaster had made for Pax glinted along her wrist in the sunlight.

Witch boy had a much harder time rebuffing her when Pax was a girl.

            Alabaster swallowed at their proximity but didn’t withdraw. He looked exhausted, probably from hot-girl-overdrive from seeing Kally earlier. “To trick a mortal, a few hours. If the coroner identifying him ends up being a demigod…” he shrugged.

            Pax had forgotten, for a second, they were talking about altering a body. She nuzzled her face against Alabaster’s shoulder, her longer hair spill out the ponytail and across the two of them. Although the child of Hecate’s spell pouches were all by his belt now, his scent still hinted at the herbs he carried.

Other than that bathing house incident, Pax had been an upstanding gentlelady… gentleman… gentle person? Whatever. Which really meant she hadn’t had time to disrespect anyone’s boundaries, or so Pax kept telling himself. That and she feared she’d breakdown if she let herself get cuddly with Alabaster. She had to be strong. Strong Pax baby that used all that bottled up fear, pain, and anger to scheme. Muahaha.

            But Pax wanted hugs after not touching Kally the whole meal. And Pax had been so well-behaved recently. So much so, that Alabaster hadn’t set him on fire in months. Maybe…

            “So, I see you get hot and bothered by corpse talk. If I keep chatting about it, will you let me give your neck a makeover? Look at Axel. It’s all the rage these days,” Pax said. It had been so long since she properly flirted, she almost forgot to make her eyes super wide when she blinked up at him.

            “Ajax, I appreciate that you’ve kept to your promise for the last two months,” Alabaster said. “Don’t—”

            Someone cleared their throat by the back entrance of the temple.

            Axel must have doubled back from inside to give Lucius the automaton donkey a bucket of oil. He leaned against the door, arms folded, glaring, though Pax couldn’t tell if it was more at her or at Alabaster.

            Pax pouted.

            Alabaster tapped Pax’s bracelet.

            Pax’s Mist hand dissolved. The glove collapsed into nothing, leaving the red scarring of a stumped wrist.

            All his concentration faded. Pax morphed back into a boy, clutching his stump and empty glove against his chest.

            That was meaner than anything Alabaster could have said, but Pax carefully kept his pout. Making Alabaster question his sexuality for a few seconds: a victory that trumped all other loses, including that of a functional limb. Probably.[2]

            “Even if the Belizean coroner is a demigod, he isn’t paid enough money to pay attention to something like that,” Axel said, like his little brother hadn’t been trying to seduce his friend and use a van with sleeping bags the way teenagers were supposed to use a van with sleeping bags.

            Alabaster fixed his tie. The skin under his freckles was bright red despite the way he tried to glare. “If we can properly set up the body in the swamps of Belize, it’ll look more like a suicide than a murder.”

             “See, that. That’s exactly the kind of violence I want. Good ol’ autosacrifice!” Pax kept his smile strong. He refused to puff up his cheeks and pop them while thinking about autosacrifice: the amount of blood that he and Lapis had shed to contact the Vision Serpent recently. This time, he wanted to proceed as carefully as possible and get all the supernatural, visiony approval as possible before things went wrong. No more rash Pax baby.

            He led the others towards the backdoors of the temple. He was pleased to see some new recruit had graffitied kittens around the door entrance. The next hallway wasn’t nearly as cheerful—Matthias had been focusing so much on restructuring the new housing that he’d only managed to put up posters of bands for this area of redecoration.

            “Santiago is making a huge point to say he’s traveling to his home town for something important next week,” Pax said to and winked at Axel. “After that, Mr. Soon-To-Be-Legally-Pax-Patriarch, you and Lapis will never have to look at him again. Except in family photos. We should burn all our family photos.”

            Axel clenched his jaw in his best illustration of I can be hot, mysterious, AND mopey. “I don’t like that you’re doing this.”

            That was a conversation that Pax wanted to hear again about as much as he wanted to watch Alabaster cut off his useless hand again. Sure, in a few ways, he’d asked for both, but that didn’t mean he needed another bonding experience with a hatchet or a grumpy older brother.

            Nausea threatened his stomach as he thought about how much easier it could have been with Kally there. She wouldn’t have let the procedure continue without him being sedated. But, she wouldn’t have let a lot of things happen that Pax knew needed to happen.

            He shook off the feeling, jamming his stump harder into his ribs to force himself to focus. They got to the elevator at the end of the hall. It was already opening with the auto sensor Matthias had installed.

“Yea,” Pax said, “And I don’t like that my brother got attacked by an empousa and won’t tell me about it. You said you were going to find a way to easily change the subject from our updated style. You didn’t say you were going onto Vampire’s Anonymous. Did you at least give as good as you got?”

            Axel sighed. When he rubbed his bruises, his expression turned wistful. They got inside, and Axel pressed his finger into the scanner for a quick blood sample to get to the top floor. “Ajax, I’m pretty sure I’d kill someone if I tried to do this to their neck. And, I would never give you a lead that obvious.”

            Pax grumbled in Mayan. If Axel was leaving territorial marks, he could have looked into whether or not Reyna or Thalia had gotten a sudden propensity for scarves.  Pax couldn’t believe he’d been so busy that he didn’t even have a guess as to which girl was Axel’s new best friend and which was his nibble buddy.

            “When she’s ready for it to become public…” Axel trailed off. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them. “Then you’ll know. I’m not exactly fond of keeping our relationship a secret.” There was a hint of bitterness.

            Pax huffed. “Augh, that’s no help either! Is it secret because of Thalia’s connection to the huntresses or Reyna’s position as praetor? You wouldn’t violate Thalia’s vows, but you also wouldn’t want to jeopardize Reyna’s already shaky claim as praetor. And I don’t know whether or not you thought relieving sexual tension through neck play was a way around Thalia’s vows—”

            “Ajax,” Axel warned. “Girlfriend or friend, I don’t even let Jack speak disrespectfully of someone I care about.”

            “Does Jack know?!” Pax demanded.

            Alabaster cleared his throat. “I think Lapis may have let it slip.”

            Which meant Lapis knew. Dude, Axel sucked at keeping secrets. “Ha! You didn’t mention Bast! Besides, if it was her, she’s not one to get catty with the other girls, but would be prideful about her including Axel in her pride.”

            “Not necessarily,” Alabaster said. “She’s supposed to be in the Duat. She’s been sneaking off to visit us.”

            Axel’s cheeks grew red.

            Pax’s eyes widened. “Oh?”

            “It’s not Bast,” Axel said curtly, eliminating one. “She’s a bit too… maternal and and—um—aggressive for me.”

            Pax shook his head. “Ah, having a hot familial figure that wants to bang you. Now you know how I feel when I go on lunch dates with my half-sister.”

            Before the elevator dinged for the complete stop at the top floor, something phased through the shiny metal. It scurried up Pax’s pant leg, tiny nails tearing into the silky fabric, saving Pax from Axel and Alabaster’s glares.

            Between the “Aye! Aye! Aye!”s, Pax laughed. Baller, his weasel, burrowed into Pax’s sleeve, nesting into his armpit. Once the door opened, two more weasels scurried about their feet. Axel knelt down to pet Hunnie on the nose and accepted when the weasel wrapped around his hand in a battle strike. Alabaster tossed Nietzsche, the albino, something.

            All three took off after whatever the dark object was as it scuttled further into the atrium. Obsidian doors were in the wall across from the elevator doors, one ajar to allow the rodents to enter. Pax wasn’t sure what to do with remodeling the atrium yet. It was imposing, as he felt like it should be, but they also lacked something fun, like bean bags and a dartboard with Jason Grace’s face.[3]

            He really wanted Matthias to design a twenty story slide or fireman’s pole from this room to the bottom of the temple. Matthias said that would kill too many new recruits. Pax argued that it wouldn’t if they made it end in 20 feet of feathers. Alabaster said Pax didn’t understand the science of impact, but that Alabaster would see if he and Lou Ellen could make some kind of Mist buffer to accomplish the task.

            Giggles interrupted Pax’s thoughts.

            Just inside the doorway, he could see three girls duck out of sight. The sunlight in the room had glinted off their crimson skin so they looked like vanishing demons or, as Pax preferred, ethnically-ambiguous cartoon characters.

            “Huh, Euna must be tending to the—” Alabaster started.

            Pax gulped and sprinted for the door. “Cho!”

            Axel immediately caught up along his side as they busted through the doorway. “What?!”

            “I let Hiro loose!” Pax said. He’d meant it as a kind gesture—honestly, his littlest brother needed to get out from time to time, but Hiro and Euna hadn’t been in the same room since—

            They skidded to a stop inside. Everything sounded peacefully quiet. In Pax’s not-peaceful life, he knew that meant everyone had probably killed each other. The sound that shredded the peace was a blade sliding against another blade.

            Comforting.

            More giggles erupted.

            Axel and Pax scanned the room. There had been a lot of adjustments. The massive walnut trees expanded to form a canopy over the front section of the enormous throne room. Light could still come from the square dome at the top of the ceiling, especially with the mirrors they added to optimize the amount of sun, but the atrium was still dimmer than pre-forest times.

            In the center of the room, where Eris’ pithos once sat atop an alter, was Joey’s statue, still smiling with pride. That and the throne were lit magnificently. Pax had made sure of it. Both to honor Joey and to annoy her if she could still sense the brightness.

            The two tables that had once been used for meetings had been removed, leaving the throne in the back as the only piece of real furniture.

            In a maze across the ceiling, Pax had added metal bars, like monkey bars constructed by a maniac, with ladders installed on either side of the wall to reach them.

            That’s where they found the chaos.

            A fourteen-year-old half-Japanese boy dangled from the bars beside a tree that was further from the rest. His legs bobbed uselessly under him as he scrambled to catch one of the crimson nymphs.

            Pax knew there would be sixteen of those monstrosities in total, but he only spotted about a dozen in the branches, playing Keep Away with his littlest brother.

A crimson nymph curled up in a softly sobbing ball away from the others. Near her, Pax caught sight of Euna. She was, Pax assumed, pruning some of that nymph’s branches. Although most of the branches were thicker than her arm, Euna snipped them off with single strikes.

            He knew the last nymph would be by the former fire pit, and was too small to play with the others. Euna had already named that dryad Resilience since it was a sapling stubbornly sprouting from Santiago’s tree stump.  

            The walnut trees had red leaves, like the color of the nymph’s skin, hair, and eyes. Something about not having enough light for typical photosynthesis—bla-bla-bla—chemistry—bla-bla-bla—child of Demeter. All Pax cared about was the fact that Euna had NOT decided to prune Hiro’s functional limbs.

            Axel and Pax sighed in relief. Alabaster strolled in behind them, unconcerned.

            At their hurried entrance, some of the nymphs disappeared back into their trees. Euna set her shears down, then touched the snipped off sections. The bark rippled, healing over the nubs to leave little more than a scar. She knelt down beside the sobbing dryad, gently brushing away her tears with her work gloves. “Your branches were criss-crossed. We had to pick the strongest branch, since they would have been sickly if we kept both,” she said.

            The nymph sniffed and crawled up to lean into Euna’s long, black hair that hung over her shoulder.

            Euna awkwardly patted her back. Then, she gently set the nymph back into her tree.

            Once done, she brushed her gloves on her jeans and walked towards them. The vines and leaves dangling from her hair and limbs seemed to whisper with each step. Pax loved the fact that she hadn’t learned to control the whole “god glow” thing. It meant he wouldn’t trip over her when she found odd areas to nap or that he could use her as a nightlight.

            At Alabaster’s raised eyebrow, Euna shrugged. “It’s not their fault that they’re full grown and have the mental capacity of toddlers.”

            As much as Euna looked disinterested, she had been tending to these trees, and the former-fire-pit-new-garden, religiously. Axel and Pax had been worried about their favorite homicidal Korean until they brought her into this room and the dryads flocked to her like creepy, Satanic ducklings to their mother. When they were a little more developed, he was sure they’d run shrieking, “Mom’s home!”anytime Euna returned from missions.

            The creepy blood-born babies brought Euna peace and purpose beyond murder. Plus, it sort of solved the satanic dryad infestation. Still there, but at least they were more like pets and Hiro’s playmates than unwanted rodents. (Pax heard that most people didn’t want rodents in their houses, which he thought absurd.)

            Euna smiled at Axel as she tossed something at his head from her pocket. “Happy early birthday.”

            Axel caught it, flashing a fanged grin. They’d been playing a lot of “surprise” catch to work on her situational awareness. He held up the glass vial with something gold and fleshy inside. Attached to the lid were a pair of familiar sunglasses that seemed to glow with an internal fire. “Is this—”

            “A trophy from our fight last week?” she said. “Yea. Congrats. One down. Eleven to go.”

            Axel looked ecstatic. He hugged the heart-jar close to him with one hand, then held out the other in a fist. “Pound it,” he said.

            She fist bumped him. Her dark eyes searched around in lazy confusion. “Why isn’t Kally with you?”

            “Yea, Ajax, why did we deviate from the plan?” Alabaster asked, shooting him a side-glare.

            Pax had been hoping to avoid this conversation for as long as possible. At least now he had the perfect illustration as to his reasoning. “Because you just gave Axel a heart in a jar as a birthday gift.”

            “I thought it was very considerate and sweet,” Axel objected. He stepped around the group, walking towards the back wall. As he crossed paths with Joey’s statue, he nodded a greeting, then he continued forward, to put the jar in the section they’d designated for trophies.

Pax pondered over installing a modern art piece on the back wall. They already had the Triple A Chimera helms mounted there and Phobetor’s piccolo-hatchet. If they were going to have a menagerie of random godly item and organs, you might as well shape them into a weasel.

“Where’s Lapis?” Pax asked, watching Hiro snatch at a dryad. The girl giggled and hopped to a different branch. He swung down from the monkey bars, onto the tree, not realizing how hard he’d smashed his knees into another branch. They needed to buy him shin guards or a riot shield for his legs.

            “With the new recruits,” Euna said. “How’d the talk with Reyna go about the soldiers defecting from New Rome?”

            Axel snorted. “We’re protecting defectors and her reputation is on the line. How well do you think it went?”

            “So it was the huntress!” Pax said and snapped his fingers.

            Euna gave Pax a confused glance. “Do you mean Thalia? She hasn’t been a huntress for… um…” Her eyebrows furrowed. “The middle of the sweet potato harvest?”

            The fact that time had become difficult for their sprouting godling wasn’t the part of that sentence interested Pax.

            “A month,” Axel supplied, patiently “You and I celebrated her physical sweet sixteen with her, Percy, and Annabeth about a month ago.”

            “Holy Titans,” Pax whined, “So she—”

Before he could start guessing, Euna waved him off, sprinkling him with dirt from her gloves. “It didn’t have to do anything with me or Axel.”

            Axel shook his head. “The prophecy she was trying to prevent is over and she has paid proper homage to her fallen friend. She had some other reasons, but they didn’t have to do with any current romantic intentions.” The way he said it labeled the topic clearly with Off Limits.

            “Hrm, and an argument between you and Reyna could easily end in a nomnom fest. Augh!” Pax ran a hand through his hair, messing up the gel and pulling more out of his ponytail. “How have I become such a terrible information gatherer?”

            “I don’t know. You were gone on one of your ‘business’ meetings,” Axel said.

            The first month had been insane. Pax had to meet with a lot of contacts, both in the pharmaceutical world and mythological one, to prove Santiago wasn’t dead. He and Claymore had spent many a torturous session on how to conduct a business meeting without discussing anything serious, so Claymore could handle emails that involved real dealings. And, there had been the rebranding. Pretending Santiago had found God or whatever they decided to change some of the “business” practices.

            Technically, Pax supposed, Santiago had found some god.

            Pax’s stomach clenched to think of some of the stuff that happened to him when Axel was too “busy” during their time at Camp Othrys. One glance at Axel’s bitter glare, and Pax calmed.

            “Hey,” he protested at Axel and Alabaster’s scowls, “I got this. You promised me. Six months. I know that’s an insanely long time for neither of you to have an aneurism, but I have four more months of unquestioned Pax tyranny and I think I’ve been taking pretty good care of us so far. Reese’s Sticks for everyone!”

            “Yea, but how much of that time have you spent as you?” Axel asked. His ears flattened against his hairline.

            Alabaster nodded. “You haven’t pulled a single prank in a month or worked on any art projects. Matthias has a calendar recording it.”

            Euna made a face. “How does Matthias have time for that?”

            Pax puffed up his cheeks and popped them, swearing prank vengeance on Matthias as soon as he had time to conduct a proper prank. He pressed the stump of his hand into his ribs. His eyes drifted to Joey’s statue, to what Hera had done to her, and to the Leonis Caput helm and to what the god of war—former god of war, he corrected gleefully—and the goddess of love had done to Axel. That was why he had to do this.

            That’s also why he couldn’t break down in front of the others. They needed a strong leader, else Alabaster wouldn’t be able to focus on cracking the curse of Joey’s statue, Axel wouldn’t be able to finally relax enough to play bump in the night with the girl he liked or set up the training regiment for their newbies, Euna… Euna would probably do whatever Euna wanted to, but he liked to think she’d have a harder time focusing on her new god-powers and sanity without him putting forward some effort.

            And, he wasn’t ready to admit to them the problems he was still in denial about, like the times he’d gotten stuck as Santiago and called Atë in a panic as he scratched and clawed at his own face. At Santiago’s face? Pax looked too much like the photos to glance in mirrors anymore. That’s when the private lessons started of How to Be a God 101. Atë had taught him how to alter a single feature on his face, so no one would notice the gashes. She had taught him a lot.

He forced himself not to tremble.

            Pax gave them a devilish smile, realizing he must have missed a response from Axel. “If I fail, you’re allowed to pull my ear off. If it works, I’m punishment-free for another six months.” He winked at Alabaster. “Then I can coddle Witch boy without interruption.”

            Alabaster sighed. “Ajax, don’t make me sabotage Camp Othrys to maintain my dignity. I will.”

            “I will be allowed to court him in polite, gentlefolk fashion,” Pax corrected. “Girls can court people too nowadays, Witch Boy.” He winked again.

            “You’re not a girl,” Alabaster said, not looking at him or Axel. Axel made the terrible mistake of thinking Alabaster was the older of the two, so would blame anything that happened on him.

            “I can if I want to be,” Pax said. This was when he was supposed to bump Alabaster’s hip if he was acting normal, but he couldn’t bring himself to, not when he had been Santiago so often. He wished he could pretend, like he had for that second by the van.

            “Kally hits hard now,” Axel observed, saving Alabaster a response. He rubbed his shoulder, the same spot that Kally had given each of them a solid welt.

            Pax refrained from touching his with his stump. He and Alabaster exchanged a glance before Pax glared at Axel. “I know your vetting process for Axel’s List of Requirements for Taste in Sexy Ladies. Don’t get any ideas.”

            Axel laughed, clearly not catching onto Pax’s threatening tone or the way Alabaster had set a hand on his spell pouches. “I’m just saying that she must still be training with Mr. Paine,” Axel said, “She must be bored, or even scared having to deal with monsters on her own. You said you were going to bring her, Ajax, and tell the others about this.” That bitterness returned to his voice. “And I think Lapis is going to kill you if we don’t have Merry start sessions with Hiro.”

            “Look at him. He’s as happy as a condor with a deer carcass,” Pax said, gesturing to where Hiro had latched himself to one of the braches and was biting at the bark. They really needed to get him down before he fell again. Hiro didn’t need the lower half of his body when he was doing the horizontal swing of the monkey bars, but he struggled more with the vertical jumps on the trees.

            Hiro, as they discovered, did not like looking up. It sent him into a fit. So, Pax reasoned, they would just make it so Hiro could move all around the temple without much up to look at. That didn’t work though when one of the more malicious dryads tricked him to the lower branches and he couldn’t boost himself up to climb and couldn’t use his legs to jump down.

            “For now. You know he’ll fall apart when his medication wears off,” Alabaster muttered.

            Pax couldn’t argue. “We do need a healer…” he said softly. “I just don’t know if Kally is ready for… this.” He gestured widely to Santiago’s throne room with its demonic dryads and eerie gloom and doom.

            “Are you trying to make sure someone is comfortable?” Euna asked skeptically.

            “No, I live to discomfort others,” Pax said.

            Alabaster sighed. He reached into Pax’s pocket to withdraw his phone and set it into Pax’s hand. “We need a healer in more ways than one.”       

            Axel’s shoulder slumped. “And maybe someone to keep us in check. If it ever gets to the point that you don’t feel like you can have Kally here, maybe we’ve gone too far.”

            Pax wanted to say Exhibit A and point to the heart in a jar, but he knew they were talking about his recent fad for dress up. Just one more week though. Then some poor Belizean tourists would find “Santiago Pax” dead in a swamp and his will would divvy up his fortune with his recently acquitted son, Axel Pax, as the executor.[4]

            Would that change anything for Pax though?

            There was still so much to do. Others could do it so much better than Pax, well “Pax” as himself. It had been so much easier not being himself. 

            If Kally were here, he would have to do things a different way. She could read all of them like a book. Stupid authors and their assumptions on people’s—haha—character. She wouldn’t let him do his weekly visits with his half-sister, or sequester himself in his room under the guise of business meetings, or talk to the new recruits as Santiago because Santiago was so much better as a leader than he was.

            Maybe she could help him find a balance between serious, tyrant Pax and that soft child-prankster. What he normally was. If nothing else, her presence would get Alabaster and Axel off his back. Kally would probably be so lost adjusting the first week, she wouldn’t be able to keep track of him and his movements or who he was. If he set Alabaster up as her tour guide, then they’d both be too distracted—

            What was Pax thinking?! He had to be there if Alabaster and Kally would be battling for cutest and most oblivious flirt.

            Axel had thought this through too well.

            Pax sighed heavily. He shoved the phone back into his pocket, squared his shoulders, and tried—as best as he’d learned with one hand—to smooth his hair back into a tighter ponytail.

            Alabaster tapped the bracelet on Pax’s wrist.

            Mist emanated from the silver and gold band and twisted until it formed a hand. Pax still got phantom limb spasms, but at least the Mist hand worked. He smoothed the gel back down. His stray hair, this week he took to calling it One Who Dodges Hair Ties, popped out to curl down his cheek.

            “Can I at least make an official announcement?” Pax pouted.

            Axel stepped out of the path to the throne. After a split second of her staring off into the trees, he dragged Euna out of the way too.

            Pax walked through the room. As he passed Joey’s statue, he gave their marbled friend a quick kiss on the cheek, something he’d done every day they moved her here. Had he found out that she had a crush for him before she died, he’d have teased her relentlessly, and decided to make up for it during her stone age.

            “I bought you a pre-released recording session for EXO,” he said, “I heard Suho’s vocals can crack any girl’s hardened heart.”

            He set the CD at her feet. He still couldn’t believe people bought CDs. That was supposed to be for creatures that walked the earth hundreds of years ago. Later, they would have to pull the old CD player they’d salvaged out of Santiago’s room to give her some easy listening.

            Pax continued forward, forcing himself to look at the Leonis Caput helm on the back wall. It felt right to have a heart in a jar nearby. The sight made him wonder if Alabaster had put Pax’s severed hand in a bottle of formaldehyde and it was now floating somewhere in the Witch Boy’s laboratory. Pax wished he could still move the limb despite being severed. Then he’d make it wave to Alabaster every time he knew Alabaster was in his lab. Questions to ask Atë when next he saw her.

            Finally, Pax leveled with the throne of bones that was sewn together with tendons. He’d thrown a smiling panda car seat over it. Baby steps in remodeling.

            When he sat down—bones were very uncomfortable; Pax didn’t know what his father had been thinking—he saw Alabaster mid-eyebrow raise, Axel trying not to avert his gaze, and Euna staring off at Hiro as he chased a dryad around the canopy.

            He cleared his throat. “I promise to kidnap Kally—”

            “Bring Kally with parental knowledge and consent,” Axel corrected.

            “Hey.” Pax glared at the interruption. “We’re not shooting for gold and diamonds here.”       

            Euna shrugged, proving she was paying attention. “It went well with my dad.”

            All three boys shifted uncomfortably. “You call that ‘well?’” Alabaster asked.

            “Your dad hits really hard for a mortal,” Axel said, though Pax couldn’t tell if it was a compliment or a complaint.

            “He kept up with his military training,” Euna said, “I think he’s supposed to be visiting sometime this week.”

            Alabaster and Pax groaned. Mr. Song had a very strict expectation for his daughters’ livelihood and Camp Othrys II didn’t meet it.

            “Anyway,” Pax said, “I hereby say that Kally shall come here, but under one condition and one condition only.” He pointed a finger at Axel. “You tell me which girl got your neck.”

            Axel’s jaw started to clench, but his lips curved into a tired smile. “You know what? Deal. You bring in Kally, I’ll leave hints that any capable spymaster should be able to figure out.”

            “Ah, a challenge,” Pax said. He couldn’t decide if he was thrilled or annoyed. The fact that it was a question between the two emotions made Pax wonder if Alabaster and Axel were right: he needed to relax and smell the puff pastries.

            “Assuming you have the time to take said challenge.” Axel examined his claws on his right hand. His pointer and middle finger barely had new growth from when they ripped off in the Labyrinth. Pax decided not to ask, since it was so inappropriate—

            “Is it easier to court your girl now that those fingers have become more versatile?” Pax asked.

            Alabaster choked on a laugh.

            From somewhere in the trees, Hiro whistled.[5]

            Axel’s face deepened to crimson. Those fingers curled into a fist. “Ajax, you have four months left before I can rip off your ear.”

            “Allegedly,” Alabaster said.

            “I think it was a reasonable question,” Euna said, “Those claws have gotta get in the way.”

            Axel tried to keep his expression neutral as he changed the subject. “How are we going to tell Kally about this?” He gestured to their trophy wall: trophies from the minor gods that they had killed—two tiny gods and now one major. Ta-da! Pax was really proud of them for sticking to their New Year’s Resolution. Some people went to gyms. Some people slew a deity per month.

            “Maybe we should ease her more into this,” Alabaster said.

            Pax had to agree. Glancing from Joey’s statue to the Leonis Caput helm, he felt a smile crawl onto his lips. A malicious glee made him tap the armrest of his bone throne. In an instance that made him realize just how desperately they needed Kally to keep them in check, he leaned forward and asked, “The real question is: One down. Eleven to go. Who are we going after next?”

All the Author’s Notes!

This concludes the Traitors of Olympus series. For those of you who have made it through all of this madness, I can’t thank you enough for taking this journey with me, and it has been a crazy journey. (Pax is sobbing behind me. I think I saw Axel wipe a tear away too. Nope. Nope, that’s just him showing off his claws…) I hope you were able to enjoy this ending (it is VERY different than its original conception) and I really hope you’ve enjoyed the ride! As always, I’d love to hear any of your thoughts on the series, favorite ships, favorite scenes, favorite characters, or even for you just to say a quick, “Hi!” XD You guys rock and made this possible! (I’m not crying while writing this, I swear XD)

By September, I’m aiming to have the first short from Tales from Mount Othrys out, the prologue to this series, so you might not be rid of me just yet. Hold onto those pitchforks!

Thank you so much to Mel, my betatester and close friend, for inspiring me and encouraging me to keep going (and doting on my babies while I traumatize them). I would have crashed and burned forever ago without you. <3

And, lastly, I wanted to write a quick dedication to my Merry: I know you’re never going to read this, but this is how I wish things could have gone for you and your Nikhil. I’m sorry everything didn’t turn out like a storybook ending—you did everything you could with what was given to you. Please, remember that, and remember to take care of yourself. Nikhil, I hope you’ve found your favorite place to jam to comedy R&B in the Elysian Fields, hanging with the other heroes, like you, who are so good at bringing a smile to people’s faces.

Footnotes:

[1] Tyche vs. Prometheus. I think Tyche would win, because luck always destroys careful planning.

[2] Yea, I know Pax hit on him as a girl. Pax will still consider that making Alabaster question his sexuality, since Pax believes Alabaster’s sexuality is exclusively dedicated to his laboratory.

[3] Some things never change. Though Jack does think Jason Grace and Axel are now friends much to Pax’s pouty distaste.

[4] In Mel’s betanotes, she read this first as the Pokemon, “Exeggutor” and thought of an Axel version of that. I mean… Axel is both a psychic and nature type….

[5] Melbeta note, “HIRO FUCKING WHISTLED YOU GO YOU SMOL CHEEKY LITTLE PAX GET YOUR KICKS WHERE YOU CAN GET THEM XD XD … OH GOSH THAT PUN WASN’T INTENDED AND WAS MEANER THAN I EVER MEANT I’M SO SORRY!” Jack, “I couldn’t stop laughing at this. I think you understand why I needed to put this in here XD”