Hey guys! Here's chapter 3! Dimitri will make new friends and learn more about his lineage! (Actual demigod stuff starts to happen!)


The sun shone down on Dimitri as he stood on the mid morning sidewalk before the Banker's United store, reading a little sign posted in the window.

"Now hiring bankers!" it read in red all caps at the top with handwritten notes below: "Exact financial calculations needed! Ask an employee behind the desk for further information!"

Dimitri smiled, holding his jar of pennies a little closer. He knew exactly what he needed to do. He pulled his emo hoodie over his head farther as to look professional, and tried to wipe the dirt stains off of his pants from living on the streets the past few days.

He braced himself, and then opened the door, where there were several booths in perfect, terrifyingly precise rows, where bankers sat, making deposits, calculating interest, and making change. Clients sat in several chairs at the booths, most on their phones. A few watched.

Where do I go now?

Dimitri looked around, lost, when he heard an old woman's voice.

"Are you looking for something, dear?" she drawled.

Dimitri turned around, alarmed, to see an old lady sitting at a dark wooden desk, with her wispy white hair brushed straight down and her expression severe.

"Yeah, uh, I'm looking to be hired as a banker, you know?" he answered, shifting from one foot to the other nervously, and tugging his hood further over his head.

She gave him a disapproving look. Dimitri couldn't fathom why.

"Yes, that hiring business would be with Jim, of course." she said, as if this should be obvious.

"Jim!" she yelled to the back.

"HEYYYY!" yelled a guy in a neon sports shirt that looked like he was probably in college.

"Please use your indoor voice." said the old lady, wrinkling her nose.

"WHAT'S UP, FEFE?" he said, trying to give her a high five.

"No, no, no, I am Ms. Chase to you, young man." she said, dodging his high five attempt rather deftly for her age.

"HEY, WHO'S THIS KID?" asked Jim, looking at Dimitri.

"I'm Dimitri!" said Dimitri.

"WELL, I'M JIM!" he said, turning to give Dimitri a high five that Dimitri totally missed. So much for his career.

"Jim is our manager." Ms. Chase said. It was clear from his tone that she was not sure how he had made it to this position.

"YEAH!" Jim said, pumping his fist.

"I'm looking for a job." said Dimitri.

"COOL!" he yelled "SO, LIKE, SHOW ME YOUR BANKING SKILLS AND STUFF!" He looked to Dimitri expectantly.

"Uh." Dimitri said, feeling a little lame, "I can count pennies. Watch this." He opened his jar of pennies, and counted them as placing them onto the table.

"One, two, three, six, fifteen and a half…" he said, furrowing his eyebrows in thought.

"ALRIGHT!" declared Jim, "YOU'RE HIRED! GO SIT AT A TABLE AND DO STUFF!"

Dimitri grinned. He was a banker! He simply could not wait to go scam some customers.

He sat at a table with his jar of pennies, and looked around.

When he glanced back at the table where Ms. Chase was, she was gone.

Well, that was weird.

"Excuse me." stated an important-sounding voice.

Dimitri looked up, and there was a man in a suit there with a million-dollar bill in his hand. "Will you please give me change in ten dollar bills?"

The man actually used to be an intern who heated up ramen noodles for FBI agents. However, one day, he accidentally poisoned the head director of the Secret Agent Department of the FBI. Ever since, he has been on the run, trying to keep off the radar of the government, which wasn't easy. The million-dollar bill in his hand at the moment actually was something he had picked up in the hall of the FBI when he was being chased by heavily armed guards.

"Quickly, please," added the mysterious man, "I am going to be late for something very important." he said, checking his watch and looking over his shoulder, and trying not to look sketchy.

"Yeah, sure!" said Dimitri eagerly, taking the million dollar bill, and pulling out his penny jar. He counted out the sum very carefully, placing each penny on the table with painstaking care. "One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight…"

The man gaped at Dimitri. "Are you counting it out in single pennies?!"

"Yeah! It makes the whole process much more accurate!" said Dimitri.

Dimitri paused, and looked down at his pennies. "Darn it, I lost count. Looks like we will have to start all over from the beginning again!" He sounded strangely cheerful about that.

The man began to break out in a cold sweat. The FBI could find him any second now… But that wasn't all he was worried about. He suspected that the million dollar bill might be bugged or even have a millennia-old plague virus might be cultivated on its surface. You could never know. After all, it was a top intelligence agency, and million-dollar bills aren't just lying around without a purpose. This one, he feared, might be a trap.

And so, if he just got some money he could continue to run on without the danger, that would be great.

"Eighty-one, Eighty-two, eighty-three, eighty-four...eighty-five, eighty-six…"

He fidgeted.

"One hundred. Wait, where was I again?"

"A hundred!" exclaimed the man, trying (and failed) to not look frantic.

"Right, right. One hundred, one hundred and one, one hundred and two…"

"How about you just, like, do the math, and give me the change?!" asked the man. "Please." he added, to be polite.

"Yeah, yeah, um, sure, here!" said Dimitri, handing the man two ten dollar bills, which the man took without looking, and sprinted for the door.

That was easy. thought Dimitri, feeling rather accomplished as he slipped the million-dollar bill into his pocket.


Later that afternoon, Dimitri was walking down the street with the million dollar bill in his pocket. He was eating a cinnamon roll he bought from the Cinnamon Roll Café with his first salary, which was actually a good sum, especially when you added what he got from cheating his customers. He was feeling pretty good about life as he walked down a dark alleyway, munching on the wonderful sugary bread dripping with sweet icing.

Dimitri turned the corner and something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He turned left and saw reflections of flames flickering across the walls ahead. Curious, he started walking towards the heat and after a while he heard voices chanting. The sound echoing across the barren alleyways.

Oh, it must be the homeless kids again! He thought brightly, peeking around the corner.

There was a large pentagram drawn in chalk on the pavement around the fire of purple and blue flames. They were chanting unintelligible words, while lowering a relatively new copy of Moby Dick into the fire. It was skewered on a spit, piercing straight through the neck of the whale on the cover. The poor whale had a shocked expression on its face, as if to say Why me?!

The children began to hold hands and perform a ritual dance around the fire, their voices rising in the chant.

What the heck…? Thought Dimitri, leaning on the brick wall of the alleyway, and trying very, very hard to figure out if this was a dream.

But he didn't have very much time to think, because suddenly something in his pocket began to heat up very fast.

The dollar bill...?

Confused, he pulled it out, and looked at it scrutinizingly, trying to understand what had happened to it.

He dropped it on the ground as it became too hot to touch, and suddenly began to glow slightly.

Dimitri took a step back, and watched it carefully, not sure of what it might do next.

It exploded.

KABOOM!

The deafening roar echoed in Dimitri's ears as the bright inferno suddenly gave way to the shell-shocked and dark night.


Huh?

The confused thought ricocheted across the mute darkness that was currently Dimitri's consciousness.

He was aware of voices, sort of, and slowly a dull light was showing through his squinting eyelids. There were multiple people—kids? They peered into his face in concern and curiosity. What was going on?

He blinked repeatedly and tried to sit up, but there was a pain against the back of his head, sharp and dull at the same time and very disorienting.

What the…

Another guy leaned forward, his messy auburn hair fell down and brushed against his face. Did Dimitri recognize him from somewhere?

Can you hear me?

The world warped and twisted.

Dimitri was suddenly aware of more faces looking at him, and the full picture was suddenly coming into focus. The lines and edges became sharper.

He could see their faces now. The guy with the brownish-reddish hair was becoming increasingly concerned, the skin between his eyebrows creasing. He began waving his hand in front of Dimitri's face as if to try to bring him back to reality. Dimitri supposed he wasn't in reality, but it was so hard with this ringing pain in the back of his head.

"Is this dude okay?" the auburn guy said concernedly.

A girl behind him leaned forward. "He's breathing," she stated, tilting her head in confusion.

Behind them there was a guy— Wait, was that Jim?!—yelling about something.

"DID YOU GUYS SEE IT WAS LIKE A EXPLOSION KABOOM WOW WITH THE BIG SMOKE AND IT WAS SO COOL AND THE—" Jim stopped when he saw that Dimitri was looking straight at him.

"Uh, sorry, are you okay?" Jim said, in an indoor voice (for once).

"Yeah, um…" Dimitri blinked, he was still struggling to adjust to his surroundings. It was dark in the alleyway.

"What happened?" asked the girl who was leaning forward.

"Who are you?" asked the auburn-haired guy.

"OH, AREN'T YOU THAT DIMITRI KID AGAIN?" asked Jim uninterestedly (yet loudly).

"Dimitri Pieson?" asked the guy, with a disturbed look in his eyes.

The others leaned in a little.

"Uh, um, yeah… Except there's a special emphasis on the final i… Do I know you guys from somewhere?" he asked, worried.

Clearly they had heard something about him. In a town like Zucchiniville, news traveled fast, and he had just been disowned.

"Who are you people?" he asked, looking around at the group.

"I'm Salsa." said the first girl. She had red streaks in her dark brown hair, and a serious look in her dark brown eyes which did not match the statement she just made.

"Uh, is that a stripper name or something?" Dimitri asked.

Clearly, this was a question she has often heard from her expression. "No, just very creative parents." She grimaced.

"Oh, uh, nice." said Dimitri, trying not to come off as a complete jerk.

"And I'm Joe." said the guy with the tousled auburn hair.

"I'M JIM!" stated Jim proudly.

A quieter girl near the back with minty green eyes, pale lightly freckled skin, and light brown hair spoke up. "I'm Gayle, but everyone calls me—"

"Guac." finished Joe, Salsa, and Jim.

"Yeah. I like guacamole. Guacamole pie, guacamole burrito, guacamole pizza…" she smiled a little, and looked off with a dreamy expression.

Well then.

"You don't have anywhere to stay, do you?" asked Joe. "We have an extra sleeping bag." Salsa nodded.

Dimitri didn't like accepting charity, but these people seemed to be in similar situations. Maybe it would be alright….

"Okay." he said, managing a smile, as Salsa helped him to his feet.

The alleyway was dark and slightly grimy but silvery light poured in from the large moon, which hung beautifully and regally from the sky. The five of them walked on towards the Dumpster through the abandoned parking lot, past brick walls covered in colorful and often obscene graffiti.

"So," began Salsa, turning around, "Who's on for breakfast tomorrow again?"

"Me, I think." answered Guac quietly.

"Yippee, another guacamole breakfast." mumbled Joe sarcastically with a grin on his face.

"Oh, shut up, we know you like it." answered Salsa playfully, whacking him over the head.

"WE SHOULD BRING DIMITRI!" said Jim enthusiastically.

"It is, after all, a cult tradition." said Joe reasonably, "It's fun to show outsiders."

A cult tradition?!

"Uh." mumbled Dimitri.

"Oh, that's a great idea!" said Guac in excitement before walking forward to lead the way.

They all turned down a narrow alleyway between a warehouse and beat-up wire fencing that separated them from the Dumpster. A smell wafted over the area that smelled disturbingly of month-old lasagna and dead fish, coming clearly from the Dumpster. Joe wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"I know." mumbled Guac comfortingly as she ducked through a large human-sized hole in the fence after Joe and Salsa.

Dimitri crawled through next, making sure not to get his emo hoodie stuck on the old exposed wires.

Between the little hills and mountains of trash, there was a small abandoned shed, once again decorated in graffiti. Dimitri could hear sounds of talking and laughing coming from it, and the lights were on. They shone through the boarded-up windows. The walls were concrete, and over the door there was an old dictionary that was duct taped to the wall with a big red X drawn over it.

Joe saw Dimitri looking at it. "That's our cult symbol. Like it?"

It was fairly...interesting. Dimitri nodded his head in appreciation. "What do you guys have against books anyways? Weren't you, like, stabbing Moby Dick earlier?"

"Reading is corruption, so we remove it from society." said Salsa practically.

"You could call us an illiteracy cult, I guess." said Guac softly, walking into the shed.

The first thing that Dimitri noticed was that the room was crowded. It was filled with many different people, all talking and messing around.

At the far end of the room, there were many assorted sleeping bags laid out, and in a corner, a gigantic bean bag with a soccer ball pattern that Jim immediately ran to and promptly threw himself upon. On the bus stop walls, there were demonic looking symbols in spray paint, and more poor books duct taped up and vandalized. By the right side of the room, there was a rusty rack where old ripped blankets that had been painstakingly etched with demonic symbols. Someone was burning a copy of The Hunger Games in the center of the room, and people were doing a line dance in a circle around it, and chanting in unison. From the ceiling hung books in nooses.

This room was every librarian's nightmare.

But none of this really caught Dimitri's attention. All the chaos had fallen silent in his ears, and he only saw one thing in the middle of the room.

Hanging from the ceiling there was the most beautiful thing Dimitri had ever seen.

It was a hand-sized golden triangle.

"There's a story to that, you know." Guac said, from behind him, quietly.

Dimitri turned around to face her.

"The older members say that a long time ago, Apollo himself came and brought this triangle with a prophecy. He said that whoever was able to play this magical triangle would be fit to rule the cult. He also said they were going to do… something great and awesome?" She shrugged. "No one actually remembers. Legend says the great god Apollo wrote it down on a post-it note, but none of us could read it, of course, we are purely illiterate, so Jim just recycled it after a while."

A god hands you a post-it note with a prophecy, and you recycle it?

Dimitri stared at her in alarmed confusion.

"Oh, and it's supposed to be made out of some magical thing." she said, as if just remembering, "Im-pearl goods? Impair gold? Im—"

"Imperial gold." finished Dimitri automatically.

Wait, how did I know that?!

Guac looked at him strangely, as if trying to solve a puzzle. "Yes, that's it."

Dimitri nodded along but he was no longer listening. All he could see was the triangle. He started walking slowly towards it, his body compelled forward as if under a spell.

Just as he was about to reach it he was pulled back violently.

Dimitri immediately tried to push back who has grabbed him but they're grip was strong and other hands joined them.

After a moment he fell out of his trance to see himself on the floor in the arms of Jim and Salsa.

Huh? What just happened? Why am I being hugged on the floor?

"Uh, guys?" He looked at the two confused before looking up to see everyone has stopped what they were doing to stare at him.

Dimitri suddenly felt very self conscious.

Salsa let him go and spoke up first. "What in the name of tomatoes do you think you're doing?!"

Dimitri was even more confused.

"Um, what do you mean?"

Joe and Guac looked at each other before Joe spoke up. "You were walking toward the pit of lava."

WHAT?!

"What?!"

Dimitri turned around, now that Jim let him out of his bear hug.

He couldn't believe it, but Joe was right. He had been walking straight towards a pit of lava.

How the heck did I not notice that until now?

He looked down in amazement at his own stupidity, speechless.

"Um." he said, looking straight into the bubbling lava. A human arm bubbled up briefly, then fell back below the surface.

All of the illiteracy cult members had fallen silent.

"Oh #$&$," mumbled some guy in the back.

Salsa broke the silence. "Well, if you want to get to the triangle so bad, you can just use the drawbridge."

She picked up one of the floorboards, where there was a lever that she turned. A rusty griddle extended across the lava moat.

Is that safe?

Dimitri looked down at it in horror.

"Awesome, huh?" said one of the dudes in the front. He wore a dark blue shirt that had a book with an x spray painted on it, and his dark brown afro curled slightly past his chin. "Joe found it in the dump. We use it to toast sandwiches sometimes."

Dimitri turned back to Joe, someone he considered perhaps one of the most sane people he had met in this insane cult.

Joe grinned at him crazily. "Why don't you go ahead? I'm pretty sure it's safe!" he said brightly.

Who are these people that I associate with? Dimitri thought, shuffling carefully over the rusty, bent griddle suspended over a moat of lava filled with dismembered human limbs.

He felt a rush of relief as his feet found the once-again sturdy concrete floor, and he looked up at the shining triangle. It must have been one of the most majestic things he had ever seen.

Cautiously and carefully, he picked up the little metal baton, lifted it before the graceful golden instrument, and with a stroke of his hand, brought it against the fabulous triangle with a little ding.

It was the purest noise he had ever heard. In that one little note, he heard worlds of joy. Every wonderful thing in life, reduced to one note. Listening to the reverberations against the walls of the abandoned warehouse, he could hear fabulous windchimes and smell tasty bacon.

Everyone looked at him in shock.

Or more specifically, they were looking at his forehead.

Right over Dimitri's head, there glowed a golden bow and arrow, the sign of the gods.

Or more specifically, one god.

Dimitri was the son of Apollo.


DUN, DUN, DUNNN! We all know that things can only get worse from here on out (monsters are bound to show up sooner or later). I hope you've enjoyed this chapter! More should be done later this week.

~PJOandHP4life