The Flame of the Universe Chapter Three: Rivers of Ash

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Point of Views in this chapter, Veritas, and Victoria

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Victoria POV

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After I had opened up the door for the psycho mail lady my brother dispatched with what appeared to be luck. Though he didn't seem fazed until we had actually dispatched whatever that creature was.

"What was that?" I demanded angrily. After all, my brother's utter lack of surprise pointed at the fact that he had pre-knowledge about the mail lady/monster.

My brother stared down at the dust left over from the monster and spoke, "Well it wasn't an alien."

I scowled, "I never said it was. What is IT?"

He shuddered while sinking unto the floor, "You mean what was it, not what is it. Past tense, Victoria, it's dead now."

I sighed exasperated, "Then what was it?"

"An Empousa," My brother said securing the Bowie knife to his waist and looking down at his watch.

My scowl deepened, Emp-what? "WHAT is an Empeloosa?

He frowned, grinned, and then shrugged his shoulders, "Empeloosa? Never heard of those, so sadly can't tell you what they are."

I face-palmed.

"Don't crack your skull!" My brother told me heaving to his feet.

"What-ugh you imbecile-what is an Em-p-ou-sa?" I asked greatly frustrated.

He inwardly seemed to be debating something before saying, "If I tell you you'll smell worse."

I gaped, "I most certainly do not smell bad so I couldn't smell worse!"

This time it was his turn to sigh, "I don't think this is the time to tell, let's wait until mother can tell you."

I scowled then crossed my arms, and snarled, "Fine!"

He clapped his hands together and said, "Goody! That's settled then, let me get my stuff then we'll be on our way."

"On our way? Where are we going?" I blurted. Since when were we going anywhere? First he wouldn't tell me wh-wait a second, that mail lady called us demi-gods before she went all monster look alike.

"Demi-gods?" I asked my brother.

He had turned to go out of the room but stopped, "Yeah."

"Demi-Gods?" I repeated just to clarify.

He looked over his shoulder and frowned, "Yup."

Either the mail lady and my brother were delusional or we really were demi-gods. Frankly I wanted to believe they both were crazy but after seeing what that mailperson turned into…I believed.

"Children of gods and um, humans?" I asked making sure Veritas understood exactly what I meant.

My brother smiled and said, "Uh huh."

The world spun and with great effort I kept from blacking out. Finally after several long seconds I choked out, "So which gods? Venus, Neptune, and Jupiter? Those gods?"

He nodded but looked a little disturbed by my use of the Roman names, "Yes, you figured it out faster than most. And that would be the form the Romans preferred to refer to them as. Personally I prefer the Greek versions such as Aphrodite, Poseidon, and Zeus."

Huh? Greek and Roman versions?

"What's the difference?" I asked with puzzlement.

Veritas looked at me as if gauging how much to tell me, "Generally speaking, their Roman version are more stern, unforgiving, and on some occasions think things out more."

I raised an eyebrow, "Speaking from experience?"

Veritas blanched, "No, not at all. That is what I have…gathered from others."

I dropped the subject of the Roman personalities sensing that it wasn't something that Veritas wanted to talk about.

We were quiet for a few more seconds before Veritas spoke again, "I am actually surprised that we haven't been found already. After all, my scent increased after I learned about our heritage."

I frowned, "Found by what? Vampire donkey mail deliverers? And what about our heritage?"

He grinned and replied to the first point, "there are worse creatures out there then this one but it's not wise to blurt out their names."

"Why?"

A puzzled expression crossed his face as if he was trying to remember something he read years ago, "I believe it gives them more power and draws them in."

I frowned, I suppose that made sense.

"You still didn't answer about out heritage," I reminded my brother.

Suddenly he sobered up, the stupid grin melted of his face, "I haven't discovered yet."

"What do you mean?"

"I, and by likely extension you, are fireproof-" He started but I cut him off.

"Fire-proof?" I screeched.

"Fire proof," He assured and whipped out a lighter from his back pocket. I had no idea he even carried a lighter. Nevertheless my brother flicked it and out his finger right into the flames.

"What are you doing?" I yelled seeing him torch his own hand.

He pulled a finger back, a nimbus of flame trailing from it. Veritas shook his finger forcefully and the flame dissipated.

I rushed forward and grabbed his hand inspecting it for burns, after a second I let go satisfied that my brother was unharmed. If I wasn't convinced before, I was now.

I shook my head, "You were saying?"

Veritas scrunched up his brows in thought for a second before brightening then dimming again, "Despite our, ahem, my abilities and affinity to fire I have no clue who our parent is."

"Wasn't their some Olympian that had an affinity to fire, Vulces or something like that?"

"Vulcan?" Veritas scrunched together his brows again as if asking why I kept on using the Roman names, is it that important what name you call them?

"You mean Hephaestus?" My brother nearly stammered, "Yes, he was the god of fire, crafts, and blacksmiths. Or essentially the forge god. I already discarded him as a possibility."

"Why?" I asked curious, not that I really wanted to be the child of a deformed god.

"Um," My brother replied, "We don't tinker well."

What does that have to do with anything? Unless all his children were exemplary at building stuff on account of Hephaestus being fascinated with forges.

I spoke up preventing my brother from leaving, something that he kept on trying to do, "If we were, you know, his children were we supposed to be good at building things?"

"Yes," Veritas replied curtly, "Follow me, I'll explain more as I gather the stuff we need."

"Stuff? For going where?" You never answered my question before, where are we going?"

He looked at me and smirked, "Camp Half-blood, my dear sister."

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Veritas POV

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I, Veritas, child of an unknown, strode out of the room after telling my dear sister our destination. She worried me slightly with her constant fall back on the Roman form of the Greek gods.

I wonder whether our godly mother or father did the same thing that Zeus did with Thalia and Jason Grace. It wouldn't be too inconvenient to me, I could probably exist in either camp but I greatly preferred Camp Half-blood over Camp Jupiter.

Despite my resistance to heat I didn't have pyro-kinesis. I have no idea whether since I can already endure the flames whether or not I would eventually be able to make flames appear at will. I noticed that I was more then capable of holding something that was burning for a long time.

I attempted to kick start any pyro powers I might have by focusing on remembering the sensation of the flames when I held a flaming log. The most I ever got was a tingling feeling in my hands as they went maroon red in color. I picked up a coin while my hands were like that and it melted into slag.

Pity. It was my only half dollar coin. By this time I knew for sure that we most be related to god with a strong connection to fire, which kept on bringing me back to Hephaestus which made absolutely no sense. If my sister and I were children of the forge then we should be professionals at building stuff.

Sadly to say but we both are pitiful at building. Most of the things or models I build look like they came out of a junk heap with mismatched parts and are barely functional. Shortly after I found or discovered I was a demi-god I attempted to build a repeating crossbow.

Sadly to say that went well. Sarcasm intended. First off I looked like somebody glued a piece of wood to a lump of plastic and metal. Secondly it wouldn't even repeat and thirdly, when it finally fired it fired backwards, thankfully not into my shoulder, but I almost nailed my sister in the head.

After that incident my sister has always knocked on my door before letting herself in.

As of the moment I was on a search for weapons, I was betting that somewhere our mother had weapons stored for fighting off monsters. I had never seen anything but the celestial bronze bowie knife but I doubted that it was the only weapon in the house capable of killing monsters.

I arrived at the top of the stairs and walked forward to our mom's door and eased it open. The walls were a warm red color and her bed's covers were an orange color. I got down on my hands and knees and looked under her bed.

Nothing there I mentally snarled angrily. Where would mother keep weapons? Hopefully not in a gun safe, that would be most…unfortunate for us. That was an outcome that might actually kill us.

There! I noticed a cabinet made out of what looked like rosewood. I stepped over to the cabinet, which was about four feet tall set in a depression in the wall two feet of the ground. I tried the metallic gold handles. Unfortunately the cabinet was locked so I pulled out my celestial bronze bowie knife out of its sheath and slowly slid it in between the cabinet doors.

I heard a small snap of a lock being cut by something metallic, Bowie knife, and I pulled the knife out of the crack between the doors and opened them quickly.

What I found shocked me to say the least, there was two celestial bronze swords, two of them done up with flame engravings. The third was completely plain.

I grabbed the two engraved swords and read the faint red letters on the side, Hearth-fire and Western Flame. After a brief couple seconds of eternal debate I took Hearth-fire for myself, leaving Western Flame for my sister. That's when I noticed a wrapped object in the back of the cabinet. I moved aside a few strange rods and grabbed the object wrapped in red cloth. As soon as my fingers made contact with the sword a chill went through me.

With growing apprehension I swiftly tore the cloth away from the object. I inhaled at this process revealed a pure black metal sword. I shivered at the sight of the cruel looking great sword. Of course I knew an inanimate object can't really be cruel but this sword felt like it had its own personality. Shivering I made to rewrap the obviously Stygian Iron sword when a tag caught my eye.

It plainly read in ancient Greek, "To: Hestia, as a gift From: Hades."

I staggered backwards in shock. Hestia must be our mother. The question was whether she broke her oath or…perhaps she made me and my sister out of the Hearth. I recall many stories, Fan fiction mostly involving Hestia making children out of the hearth.

Though, I should have realized this sooner, especially with one of the swords being named Hearth-fire. Though I really wonder what Hades was doing giving a Stygian Iron sword to his peaceful sister.

With shaking hands I wrapped up the sword and placed in on the floor alongside the sword for my sister. I wasn't actually going to let my sister carry a sword of that potential; she probably would end up lopping MY head off with it.

I reached back inside the cabinet and picked up one of the strange rods. Within seconds it elongated into a spear. A warm red engraving of a hearth flame adorned the spearhead. I thought off it returning to its previous form and it did so, quickly returning to a metallic rod. I grabbed two of the rods and carefully picked up the bronze sword and then the Stygian Iron sword, which was rewrapped by the way.

I turned to leave but a small cloth bag on top of the cabinet caught my eye. Making a mental note to come back and check it out I went to my room to retrieve an olive green backpack that I had convinced my mother to buy for me. She, um Hestia, had wanted to buy a red backpack but I convinced her to buy the green, I had explained that the red stood out to much.

She had agreed after I informed her of that. I grabbed my backpack from my closet and opened up my dresser, digging through it until I found what I wanted. A pair of young adult battle dress uniforms that I had bought with my own money online. I had anticipated that we would end up on the run so I thought it crucial to prepare as much as possible.

That being said I rapidly changed into my camouflage and dropped the two rods into the backpack. I carefully secured the Stygian Iron sword to the backpack afterwards, keeping it carefully wrapped up. I attached my sword to my backpack, under my right armpit, in such a way that I could easily pull it out with my left hand.

I detached the Bowie knife and Western Flame in preparation to hand it over to my sister who was still downstairs. I stuffed the camouflage that I had got for her into my backpack in case she wanted it later. Then I grabbed my sunglasses and hooked it onto my shirt.

That done I quickly retraced my ground back to my mother's room and grabbed the bag on top of the cabinet. As I suspected it was full of golden drachmas, I put that into the backpack as well.

My main plan was to hike the distance to the border of New York and then utilize the Taxi of the Gray Sisters. Thankfully I still remembered the words to summon them from my time reading The Sea of Monsters. Also Thankfully it was only about thirty to forty miles from our point in New Hampshire to the border of New York, that was of course if we went west. We could probably hitchhike or something until New York.

I turned to walk down the stairs when I heard an animalistic snarl from the downstairs and my sister screaming something unintelligible about monster rhino dogs.

Great, I thought, there must be a Hellhound in the dining room.

Next on Flame of the Universe: the Hunt of Artemis