Hey, this is my first story, but I'll try to do my best.

This takes place at the end of The Burning Maze.

So please, do yourself a favor and don't read this until you have read The Burning Maze.

Remember, this is Fanfiction, so only some of what happens is canon.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, Rick Riordan does.

Chapter #1

I'm not Joking

Apollo POV

I fixed my eyes on the twin cyclones, hoping that Jason and Meg had somehow escaped. They had not, but strangely, as if by silent agreement, they seemed to have switched roles.

Rather than raging in response to Piper being struck, Jason now floated deathly still, his eyes closed, his face like stone. Meg, on the other hand, clawed at her ventus cage, screaming words I couldn't hear. Her clothes were in tatters. Her face was crosshatched with a dozen bleeding cuts, but she didn't seem to care. She kicked and punched and threw packets of seeds into the maelstrom, causing festive bursts of pansies and daffodils among the shrapnel.

By the imperial dais, Medea had turned pale and sweaty. Countering Piper's charmspeak must have taxed her, but that gave me no comfort.

Reverb and his guards would soon be back, bearing the hearts of the emperor's enemies.

A cold thought flooded through me. The hearts of his enemies.

I felt like I had been backhanded. The emperor needed me alive, at least for the moment. Which meant my only leverage…

My expression must have been priceless. Caligula burst out laughing.

"Apollo, you look like someone stepped on your favorite lyre!" He tutted. "You think you've had it bad? I grew up as a hostage in my Uncle Tiberius's palace. Do you have any idea how evil that man was? I woke up every day expecting to e assassinated, just like the rest of my family. I became a consummate actor. Whatever Tiberius needed me to be, I was. And I survived. But you? Your life has been golden from start to finish. You don't have the stamina to be a mortal."

He turned to Medea. "Very well, sorceress! You may turn your little blenders up to puree and kill the two prisoners. Then we will deal with

Apollo."

Medea smiled. "Gladly."

"Wait!" I screamed, pulling an arrow from my quiver.

The emperor's remaining guards leveled their spears, but the emperor

shouted, "HOLD!"

I didn't try to draw my bow. I didn't attack Caligula. Instead, I turned the arrow inward and pressed the point against my chest.

Caligula's smile evaporated. He examined me with thinly veiled contempt. "Lester...what are you doing?"

"Let my friends go," I said. "All of them. Then you can have me."

The emperor's eyes gleamed like a strix's. "And if I don't?"

I summoned my courage and issued a threat I never could have imagined in my previous four thousand years of life. "I'll kill myself."

(This is where chapter 31 ends and continues to chapter 32 for those of you who are still confused on where this is taking place)

OH, NO, THOU SHALT NOT, buzzed a voice in my head.

My noble gesture was ruined when I realized I had, once again, drawn the

Arrow of Dodona by mistake. It shook violently in my hand, no doubt making me look even more terrified than I was. Nevertheless, I held it fast.

Caligula narrowed his eyes. "You would never. You don't have a self-

sacrificing instinct in your body!"

"Let them go." I pressed the arrow against my skin, hard enough to draw blood. "Or you'll never be the sun god."

The arrow hummed angrily, KILLETH THYSELF WITH SOME OTHER

PROJECTILE, KNAVE. OF COMMON MURDER WEAPONS, I AM NONE!

"Oh, Medea," Caligula called over his shoulder, "if he kills himself in this

fashion, can you still do your magic?"

"You know I can't," she complained. "It's a complicated ritual! We can't

have him murdering himself in some sloppy way before I'm prepared."

"Well, that's mildly annoying." Caligula sighed. "Look, Apollo, you can't expect this will have a happy ending. I am not Commodus. I'm not playing a

game. Be a nice boy and let Medea kill you in the correct way. Then I'll give these others a painless death. That's my best offer."

I decided Caligula would make a terrible car salesman.

Next to me, Piper shivered on the floor, her neural pathways probably overloaded by trauma. Crest had wrapped himself in his own ears. Jason continued to meditate in his of swirling shrapnel, though I couldn't imagine he would achieve nirvana under those circumstances.

Meg yelled and gesticulated at me, perhaps telling me not to be a fool and put down the arrow. I took no pleasure in the fact that, for once, I couldn't hear her orders.

The emperor's guards stayed where they were, gripping their spears.

Incitatus munched his oats like he was at the movies.

"Last chance," Caligula said.

Somewhere behind me, at the top of the ramp, a voice called, "My lord!"

Caligula looked over. "What is it, Flange? I'm a little busy here."

"N-news, my lord."

"Later."

"Sire, it's about the northern attack."

I felt a surge of hope. The assault on New Rome was happening tonight. I

didn't have the good hearing of a pandos, but the hysterical urgency in

Flange's tone was unmistakable. He was not bringing the emperor good news.

Caligula's expression soured. "Come here, then. And don't touch the idiot

with the arrow."

The pandos Flange shuffled past me and whispered something in the emperor's ear. Caligula may have considered himself a consummate actor, but he didn't do a good job of hiding his disgust.

"How disappointing." He tossed Meg's golden rings aside like they were worthless pebbles. "Your sword, please, Flange."

"I—" Flange fumbled for his khanda. "Y-yes, lord."

Caligula examined the blunt serrated blade, then returned it to its owner with vicious force, plunging it into the poor pandos's gut. Flange howled as he crumbled to dust.

Caligula faced me. "Now, where were we?"

"Your northern attack," I said. "Didn't go so well?"

It was foolish of me to goad him, but I couldn't help it. At that moment, I

wasn't any more rational than Meg McCaffrey—I just wanted to hurt

Caligula, to smash everything he owned to dust.

He waved aside my question. "Some jobs I have to do myself. That's fine.

You'd think a Roman demigod camp would obey orders from a Roman

emperor, but alas."

"The Twelfth Legion has a long history of supporting good emperors," I

said. "And of deposing bad ones."

Caligula's left eye twitched. "Oh, Boost, where are you?"

On the port side, one of the horse-groomer pandai dropped his brush in alarm. "Yes, Lord?"

"Take your men," Caligula said. "Spread the word. We break formation immediately and sail north. We have unfinished business in the Bay Area."

"But, sire..." Boost looked at me, as if deciding whether I was enough of a threat to warrant leaving the emperor without his remaining guards. "Yes, sire."

The rest of the pandai shuffled off, leaving Incitatus without anyone to hold his golden oat bucket.

"Hey, C," said the stallion. "Aren't you putting the cart before the horse?

Before we head off to war, you've got to finish your business with Lester."

"Oh, I will," Caligula promised. "Now, Lester, we both know you're not

going to—"

He lunged with blinding speed, making a grab for the arrow. I'd been anticipating that. Before he could stop me, I cleverly plunged the arrow into my chest. Ha! That would teach Caligula to underestimate me!

Dear reader, it takes a great deal of willpower to intentionally harm yourself. And not the good kind of willpower—the stupid, reckless kind you should never try to summon, even in an effort to save your friends.

As I stabbed myself, I was shocked by the sheer amount of pain I

experienced. Why did killing yourself have to hurt so much?

My bone marrow turned to lava. My lungs filled with hot wet sand. Blood soaked my shirt and I fell to my knees, gasping and dizzy. The world spun around me as if the entire throne room had become a giant ventus prison. And I collapsed on my right side, legs and arms tucked in as if I was going to go to sleep on my bed at The Me Cabin.

VILLAINY! The Arrow of Dodona's voice buzzed in my mind (and now also in my chest). THOU DIDST NOT JUST IMPALE ME HEREIN! O, VILE,

MONSTROUS FLESH!

A distant part of my brain thought it was unfair for him to complain, since

I was the one dying, but I couldn't have spoken even if I'd wanted to.

Caligula rushed forward. He grabbed the shaft of the arrow, but Medea

yelled, "Stop!"

She ran across the throne room and knelt at my side.

"Pulling out the arrow could make matters worse! " she hissed.

"He stabbed himself in the chest," Caligula said. "How can it be worse?"

"Fool," she muttered. I wasn't sure whether the comment was directed at me or Caligula. "I don't want him to bleed out." She removed a black silk bag

from her belt, pulled out a stoppered glass vial, and shoved the bag at

Caligula. "Hold this."

She uncorked the vial and poured its contents over the entry wound.

COLD! complained the Arrow of Dodona. COLD! COLD!

Personally, I didn't feel a thing. The searing pain had not, in fact, lessened in any way, and my eyelids grew increasingly heavy.

Medea slapped my face. "Can't have you dying on us yet Apollo," she glanced at my chest and scowled.

Incitatus trotted over. Or, at least I assumed it was Incitatus-it was hard to focus on anyone's distinguishing features. "Whoa, he really did it. That's a horse of a different color." Yep, definitely Incitatus.

"He wasn't kidding," Medea growled. "He pierced his left lung. My serum should keep him alive for a bit more, but not enough for us to get to the maze with and complete the incantation in time."

DOST THOU THINK I WOULD FAIN TO ALLOW MY GLORIOUS PARSONAGE TO BE EMBEDDED IN THE DISHONORED AND DISGUSTING HEART OF LESTER? The arrow intoned from within my rib cage. NAY, I HATH SWERVED AND WEAVED AND AVOIDED THE UNHOLY MUSCLE. HOWEVER, I DOST FAIL TO AVOID EVEN THE SECOND MOST DISHONORABLE OBSTACLE IN MY PATH!

I made a mental note to give the arrow a lesson on the muscle structure of the human body if I got out of this.

Medea glanced at Caligula, "I have a more powerful potion, it won't heal the wound, but it will postpone his end for maybe half an hour at best. But there is a side effect."

"What type of side effect?" Caligula glared at me with such determination in his eyes, it was as if saying "If you don't die my way, you're not dying at all" He said another thing, but I could only make out "I don't want him to…." before the rest of his words turned jumbled and unrecognizable.

You're dying. The thought raced through my head like an arrow. Medea won't be able to heal you. Your friends won't be freed. Your death will be for nothing. I swallowed back the bile taste in my mouth which lead to a painful fit of coughing.

My vision was blurry, my breathing turned ragged. Everyone around me were just blurry silhouettes. I wished I didn't hit my lung. It was a scary thing, to have something you've been doing your whole life taken away from you.

I tried my best to make out what Medea and Caligula's silhouettes were saying, but my ears betrayed me and only gave me. "Sight…aware...mind awake…had gorgons blood...heal...gone...do it."

The last one sent shivers down my spine as their tones then turned angry and louder. I glanced at my friends. I knew where their blurry silhouettes were, but couldn't make out their expressions. I offered them a dry smile that probably looked more like a grimace. I focused on where Jason, Meg and their cyclones should be. But I only saw one of the two.

It would seem as if Medea's argument with the emperor and trying to heal me took too much out of her concentration and forgot about keeping my friends imprisoned. But instead of helping out Piper, or getting their weapons, they were just standing there, not doing anything useful.

I looked at the blonde silhouettes, which I assumed to be Jason. I tried to tilt my head in the direction of Crest and Piper, but I substituted it for meeting the silhouettes of his eyes and glancing meaningfully in the direction of Piper and Crest briefly.

I looked back at my friend. "You need to leave now. Help them, Jason, help them." I wispered.

It was unbelievable how he could've heard me at such a distance, with the argument going on above me, but he seemed to understand and the silhouette of his head bobbed up and down.

I looked once again at Medea and Caligula, who, unsurprisingly, had ended their argument and then proceeded to rub a golden substance on Medea's right palm.

One of the few things saw that would stay with me forever was Jason picking up Piper bridal style and Meg helping Crest to his feet and helping him over to the exit. There was no one left to stop them after all. The only ones left in the room was Incitatus, Medea and the emperor, who were all focused on me.

I once again gave them a smile, hoping that they wouldn't be idiots and do something to attract the enemies' attention.

Medea knelt in front of me, blocking my view of the others. She took her dripping with golden hand and pressed it on the area around the arrow.

WHAT HATH YOU DONE WITCH? PLACED MINT ICE CREAM AROUND ME? THOU KNOWEST THAT IT IS VILLAINY TO PLACE THE MOST GLORIOUS THING SO CLOSE TO ME, YET DOST NOT PROVIDE A WAY FOR ME TO CONSUME IT!

I wondered if an arrow could even 'consume' anything. Or why it would make that connection to mint.

You know how when you eat mint, and it has a bit of burning to the flavor?

That's what it felt like.

I let out a groan as the burning intensified. "That should start working soon, but we should probably finish up with the other…" Medea stopped abruptly. I heard her gasp and whip around, probably expecting to find my friends, swords drawn, ready to fight.

Ha, I thought My friends aren't that big of idiots.

It was hard to describe what happened next, but I'll try my best.

A blast of wind blast Caligula, Medea and Incitatus and threw all three back. Or, at least Incitatus was pushed back. He kind of tripped over my body and kept sliding across the floor. And by my body, I meant my head.

Without Medea blocking my view, I finally got a clear view of my friends.

There, looking tired, hurt, and ready to fight, were Jason, Meg, Piper, and Crest. Weapons drawn, and glaring daggers at the villains behind me.

Well, I thought at the world around me turned black, My friends are that big of idiots.

Ok, Thank you for reading all of this, it's my first Fanfiction, and I will warn you that I have no tolerance for unkind comments or questions and if I find any, I will either turn off coments or stop writing (typing?) altogether.