Oh my god.
I am so ashamed of my update rate.
I stood in front of my laptop for thirty minutes, and when nothing came to me, I whipped up this piece of crap that's been floating around my head for a while.
Oh well.
Review?
Disclaimer: I do not own Class of the Titans.
||"How can they say my life is not a success? Have I not for more than sixty years got enough to eat and escaped being eaten?" ~Logan P. Smith||
Archie's POV
"Why are we being called to a meeting?" I asked as I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. It was 4 in the morning and my vision was still blurry. We were all sleeping when our PMRs rung with an emergency call from the gods. It had to be important, but couldn't they at last wait until the sun had gone up?
"Archie's right. Cronus hasn't been doing any major attacks lately," Atlanta agreed. I threw on a sweatshirt and followed the rest of the group out to Herry's truck.
"Maybe he's getting prepared for a major attack," Jay suggested as we all piled into the van. I took a seat near the window.
"Not likely," Odie chimed in. "I've been tracking down any suspicious behavior with Hermes. So far, we haven't found anything that could lead a potential attack.
"They're probably being paranoid," I said as I leaned against the car seat to try to catch some sleep in the ten minute ride to the school. An emergency call was probably more important than paranoia, but it was four in the freaking morning and my mind wasn't working straight.
As I closed my eyes, I could feel my consciousness slowly slipping away until I was in a peaceful, dreamless sleep.
"Archie? Archie! Wake up!" a voice shouted into my ear. I sleepily used my hand to bat the person away.
"Archie, wake up!"
When I didn't answer, the person jerked me forward and to the left by the shoulders with way too much force. I was sitting by the door, so the top half of my body fell out before the seatbelt violently jerked me back and slammed me hard against my seat.
"Ow," I complained. I looked up to see Atlanta smirking.
"We're at the school. Get up," she commanded before leaving. I glared at her back as I got out of the car and made my way to the "janitor's closet".
Neil inserted his key into the lock and we entered the secret wing of the school.
When I stepped into the halls, the gods we already anxiously waiting for us. Hermes was flying around in circles and the other gods were pacing. Hera stood calmly, but her expression was urgent.
"Hello, children," she greeted us. "Could you please come into my office?"
We followed her and all of the other gods into her office. Even the animals looked anxious. I'm not sure how, but they did.
"Why did you call us Hera?" Jay asked. Straight and to the point.
"Have you children noticed much of Cronus lately?" she asked. I had a feeling she knew the answer.
"No, he hasn't attacked since last week. Weak for him," Theresa said.
She closed her eyes for a few seconds before replying. "We know where he is."
"What?" Atlanta asked, leaning forward in anticipation.
Where he is? Did that mean he was hiding out somewhere.
"Where?"
"Greece," Hera deadpanned, giving us all straight looks. "He's after the Golden Fleece."
"Wait a second, like the Golden Fleece. Like with Jason and all?" Odie asked incredulously.
"Yes, Hermes had sensed an unusual amount of power in Greece. Looking farther into it, it happened to be the Golden Fleece. We fear Cronus might be out looking for it."
"Why would Cronus want the Golden Fleece?"
She sighed again. "We didn't tell you this on your first day, because we didn't want to scare you -"
"Oh yes, because being told that you would have to defeat the immortal god of time with his army of brain dead giants and save the world isn't scary enough."
She sent a quick glare my way. I cringed and sank lower in my seat.
"We didn't want to tell you so we wouldn't scare you, but," she put extra emphasis on the word, daring me to put in some wiseass comment. I didn't. She smiled, satisfied. "Cronus hasn't reached full power yet. Ever since he's escaped from Tartarus, he's been… weaker than he should be."
"And how should he be?"
"A lot to handle." She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "He's definitely holding back on his powers. Or maybe holding back isn't the right term. He… can't use his full powers." Hera sighed yet again. "We fear that Cronus may be looking for the Golden Fleece in Greece to restore himself to full power."
"It can do that?"
"It can fix— or restore — anything. Including powers."
I sucked in a breath, Cronus was supposed to be weaker than he should've been.
It seemed to me like he was pretty powerful as is.
"So you want us to go after the fleece before Cronus gets it?"Jay asked.
Hera nodded.
"Details?" I asked. "Exactly where in Greece is it?"
"Well the thing is..." she trailed off for a second. "We aren't really sure."
"What!"
"We've been trying to pinpoint an exact location, but so far all we know is that it's in Greece."
"So we just stroll through random parts of Greece hoping to stumble on this magical wool?" Neil asked, incredulous.
"Fleece," Hera corrected, ignoring the actual question, which gave us a pretty clear answer.
"So we just take a portal to Greece to find the fleece?" Theresa asked.
"Well… we're afraid portals aren't working for us as of now," she said.
"What?" Odie asked. He was leaning forward from her seat in anticipation. This was getting more and more interesting.
"Hermes' portal isn't working and we contacted Iris; her portals aren't working either."
"Iris? Like the eyes?"
"No, Iris the rainbow messenger goddess."
"Come to think of it, last time Cronus attacked, He flew away on this winged thing instead of cutting a portal," I said.
"I wish we could give you more details," Hera stated somberly. "We have plane tickets for all of you, but you have to be careful. Cronus wants this badly. He'll probably send monsters out to pick you off."
This just kept getting better and better.
There were more talk of arrangements and plans but it all boiled down to this: we had to find the Golden Fleece in Greece before Cronus did or we'd be in some deep, deep trouble.
…
I threw my extra pair of sneakers into my carry on and zipped it up. Then I grabbed my backpack and began to fill that up with various objects.
Jay had told us to pack light: mainly a carry on for clothes and other travel necessities and a backpack for more survival and fighting things.
I filled my backpack with things I absolutely needed for survival: rope, some granola bars, a bottle of water, a knife, a lighter, some money, drachmas (just in case we went to Hades the hard way), an t-shirt, one pair of jeans, my iPod, and a bag of Cheetos.
"You ready?" Atlanta asked as she poked her head into the room.
"All set," I announced, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and grabbing the carry on off the bed. I grabbed my PMR and my whip and stuffed it into m pocket.
Everybody was waiting for us outside, leaning against Herry's car. Herry was throwing everybody's luggage into the trunk of his truck.
"Hey! Careful with that!" cried Neil as Herry grabbed as light blue piece of luggage. "There are mirrors in there."
Herry gave him a look, grabbed the luggage, held it high over the ground, and dropped it.
Neil let out his signature shriek as he went to check on his oh-so-precious mirrors.
"Hey, Jay," Theresa cut in. "These tickets say the plane is leaving at 8:30."
"What do you mean? It leaves at nine… he trailed off as he looked at his own ticket. "Crap. Herry the plane leaves in ten minutes. Can you make it to the airport in time?"
"Got it."
We all piled into the car with our backpacks, since the trunk couldn't fit any more luggages.
"So where do you think we should check in Greece?" asked Theresa as we raced down the highway at eighty miles an hour.
"Museums?" Herry suggested from the front seat.
"I highly doubt museums would showcase a bunch of fleece looking like a kid spray painted it." Atlanta said.
"We'll figure something out," Neil said nonchalantly as he leaned his head against the seat.
I raised an eyebrow at him. "You so sure?"
"Yeah, we're the good guys. We always win."
It'd be nice to think that. So far, we've had more than our fair share of victories, but they've all been harder than the last one. Soon enough, it was going to get too hard for us.
"Don't stress about it. I hear Greece has some great beaches and-"
"Herry! Look out!" Theresa screamed. The truck swerved a hard left which would have flipped me over had I not been wearing a seat belt. My head slammed against the window so hard, I was surprised it didn't crack.
I turned my head to look out of the rear window. Nothing.
"What the hell?" I half-asked, half-yelled at Theresa. My heart was still thudding because of that turn.
"Up there!"
I directed my gaze upwards and saw it: two giants flying on things that looked like pterodactyls with feathers and beaks. What's more? The giants were loaded with grenades.
"Oh my god!" Herry gunned the accelerator so that we were going at a hundred twenty miles an hour. Luckily, there weren't that many cars to honk at us.
A loud Bang! Went off behind us.
Now Herry was zigzagging across the roads to avoid any grenades thrown our way.
"How much longer until we get to the airport?" Jay asked hysterically, holding onto his seat like a life line. Heck, we all were. If we let go, we'd be thrown out of the truck.
"At this rate, a minute."
"Herry, slow down the car and roll down the sunroof," Atlanta ordered
'"Are you freaking crazy?" Herry exclaimed. "Take a good look at those giants. They're holding freaking grenades."
"Just do it!"
This time, Herry obeyed and slowed down the car so that we were going about seventy. Atlanta poked the front half of her body through the sunroof. I couldn't see what she was doing, so I look out of the window to look at the giants.
One was doing 360s and swooping around in the air. Was it mocking us?
On closer examination, he was actually dodging little purple blasts of laser beams. Go Atlanta!
Another loud explosion went off this time; it was so close to the car, I think it might've burned part of the door.
Suddenly, a giant exploded midair. I was confused. Last time I checked Atlanta's crossbow did not have bombs. Then I realized: she had shot the grenade on the giant. She wasn't called the huntress for anything.
The entire truck shook as four loud explosions in quick succession went off all round us.
"We're at the airport!" Herry announced with excitement.
We were right next to the parking lot when a grenade had found its mark. A loud explosion ripped through the car, the sound rendering me deaf for a few seconds.
"Out of the truck!" somebody screamed. Like I needed that motivation to escape from a flaming truck that was bound to explode in any second now.
I scrambled out of the truck and prepared for battle, taking the whip out of my pocket.
"Archie! No time for fighting! We have to get on that plane now!" Jay hollered. Ten minutes for the drive. The plane was leaving now.
I followed his directions and sprinted towards the airport. People were in hysteria, running around screaming, but our main goal was to get onto that plane. Get to Greece. Find the Golden Fleece. Defeat Cronus.
I kept running as fast as I could. I was almost to the gate. So close.
I didn't know if any of the other people noticed all of the giants outside; they probably thought were just running because we almost missed our flight, which we were.
"Hi, Miss. We need to get onto the plane for Greece right now," we told the lady at the gate.
"Congratulations," she said with smile that was just a bit too forced. "You just caught the plane."
She checked our passports and tickets. We were right about to board the plane when, in my peripheral vision, I saw a giant rushing in, holding what looked like a grenade in his hand.
Before I could say a thing, it threw the bomb onto the floor. We all dove.
But it wasn't a bomb.
It was a flash-bang, a grenade-like device that used deafening sounds and extremely bright lights (try the sun, only ten times brighter) to disorient victims.
It worked. I was lying on the ground, shades of blue and red were exploding before my eyes and I could barely make out the outline of some things. A hard ringing was sounding in my ears, like a professional boxer was punching the liberty bell inside of my head.
I felt something hard underneath my cheeks and realized that I was on the floor. I tried standing up but my legs collapsed under me. I tried adjusting my eyes, but everything was blue and green tinted.
I slithered around on the floor until the ringing in my ears subsided enough that I heard screaming. I blinked a few times to clear my vision enough to see that a giant was stumbling around a bit, heading in my general direction. I took a second for me to realize that the idiots had been affected by the flash-bang too, just not as much as us.
Another thought hit me: the plane. Even with all the chaos going on, it would still take off any second now. The giant was still coming towards me.
I got up, my knees wobbly, and I headed towards the entrance
Somebody grabbed my arm. My instincts immediately made me jerk it and send a punch it that direction, but my fist met air. I looked up to see a frantic Theresa. Her gait was weak and she kept blinking. I guess I probably looked worse off than her.
"Archie, the plane already left," she paused for a second."The rest of the group was on it."