Hitting the brakes on his motorcycle, Archie pulled over at the front of the school. Atlanta released the grip she had on his torso and stepped off of the vehicle. She had somehow managed to stay awake for the remainder of the drive. They quickly made their way into the high school. Thanatos had not managed to find them yet, but they didn't really want to take any chances.
As they approached the door to the Janitor's closet Atlanta motioned to pull out her pendant. After searching for it for a few seconds, it dawned on her that her double still had it. She sighed audibly in frustration. "Remind me to get my pendant back the next time we see that bitch." Archie just laughed at her, having already opened the door with his own pendant.
Seeing that the door was open, Atlanta raced in, eager to get answers from her friends and the gods. After entering the portal, she found herself being greeted by none other than Herry. As soon as he caught sight of her, he froze. "Hey Her-" Her sentence trailed off as Herry began walking towards her, the expression on his face looking far from pleased to see her. "Herry? What are you…"
Before she could react Herry gripped his hand around her neck. With immense strength he slammed her into the wall, holding her body slightly above the ground. The grip on her neck was tight, not enough to fully suffocate her, but it still made breathing rather difficult. Let alone talking. "Herry…Please! Stop!" She wheezed.
"You attacked us! I thought you were our friend!" He hissed, his voice sounding pained.
She opened her mouth to explain, when a flying fist disrupted her vision. The hold on her neck immediately vanished as Herry was knocked out of the way. Her body collided with the ground with a soft thud. She quickly began gasping for air, finally able to breathe normally again.
After her breathing returned to normal, she was able to identify who had saved her. Archie was standing opposite Herry, his fists clenched in anger. She noticed Herry was also sporting a black eye from where he had punched him.
"Archie what the hell!? She attacked us!" Herry yelled.
"You idiot, that wasn't Atlanta!" Archie hissed in response. "Didn't Jay explain it to you!?"
"No… Explain what? What are you talking about!?"
"The Atlanta that attacked you wasn't Atlanta! It was some fake one sent by Cronus! This is the real Atlanta. The very same one you knocked out and threw into the back of your truck!" Herry froze. His brain had just received a lot of information, which was rather difficult to process. But finally, after realizing what he'd done, his head snapped up.
"Oh god…" Immediately he ran towards Atlanta, and before Archie could stop him, pulled her into a strong bear hug. "I'm so sorry! I can't believe I was such an idiot!" Atlanta just laughed at him.
"Calm down it's okay, it's not your fault." She responded, her voice still hoarse from their previous encounter. Herry quickly pulled apart from the hug.
"Shit are you alright?"
"Yes, I'm fine! Frankly by the looks of things you took more of a beating than I did!" She pointed at Herry's bruised eye.
It was then that Archie stepped in. "Come on then, we need to get you to Chiron." Atlanta frowned at him. "Like I just told you, I AM FINE!"
"Uh, Atlanta, Herry may not have hurt you, but I know I definitely can't say the same about Cronus." He retorted. Atlanta glared at him for a few seconds, only to sigh in defeat. "All right, fine! Let's go." The three of them made their way towards the centaur's office, Herry spouting a constant stream of apologies along the way.
Upon entering the small room, they were greeted by their remaining team mates.
"Herry! There you are, I never got the chance to expl-" Jay immediately froze when he caught a look at Herry's bruised face. "What the hell happened to you!?" As he finished his sentence Archie and Atlanta walked in after him. Herry gingerly pointed a finger at Archie.
"I wouldn't have had to if you had actually told him the Atlanta that was about to walk through the door wasn't going to kill him." Archie responded, catching the devil stare Jay was sending him.
"Did you really have to punch him?" Jay complained.
"He was strangling her! You really think I'm going stop and think, Oh, maybe I should go easier on the guy who's about to kill my girlfriend?" Jay sighed.
"I guess I'll let you off just this once, considering you found Atlanta. Wait, I thought you said Theresa was with you?"
"She was, but we got her to distract Thanatos for us."
"You WHAT!?" Jay cried.
"Calm down Jay, I'm sure she'll be fine! Once Thanatos works out we aren't there he'll leave her alone." Atlanta reassured. Jay sighed once again. "Alright… Oh, and Atlanta, you're not still mad at me for thinking you were the fake?"
"Yes." Atlanta replied irritably.
Almost on cue Chiron walked in. He flinched at the sight of Atlanta, his mind taking a few seconds to register that this one was not going to attack him. "Ah, I see you managed to find her." Seeing the horse man enter, Archie quickly steered Atlanta away from Jay. "The others told me you might be needing some medical attention." The young girl sighed, seeing the glare Archie was sending her way. "Yes…"
"Alright then, come sit here and I will ensure everything is in order." He spent the next ten minutes or so examining Atlanta's physical health. Archie stood nervously next to the seat, eager to find out if there were any negative side effects of the amount of time she'd spent with Cronus. He eventually took a step back.
"Is she gonna be okay?" Archie asked.
"She has one of the most serious cases of malnutrition I have seen in years, but yes, she will be fine. As long as she gets plenty of food and sleep she will be back to normal in a few days."
"See I told you." Atlanta said, mocking Archie's worry for her.
"But, I would recommend you take it easy over the next few days. Your body is extremely drained of fuel, and any athletic activities could have drastic consequences. So it would be best if you would take a break from any training or battling Cronus, unless it was essential." Atlanta's face fell.
"Seriously? Awww…." She complained. "Honestly Chiron I'm sure I'll be…" She paused as her mouth gaped open into a wide yawn. "Atlanta, you may rest on the chair if you wish." Chiron replied, seeing how tired the girl was. After darting her head around quickly, to make sure no one other than Archie was around, she muttered a small thank you, and lay down across the small chair. She was fast asleep in a matter of seconds.
Archie couldn't help but smile at the snoozing girl in front of him. Without sounding like a stalker, he'd always enjoyed watching her sleep. She was just so, peaceful. For that short period of time he knew he didn't have to worry about what Cronus could throw at them, because he knew she was safe. And he also didn't have to worry about Atlanta getting angry at him for fussing over her. He would have liked to stay there longer, but he could already hear Jay calling him over. Turning away from the girl, he made his way over to the leader.
"Is she going to be alright?"
"Yeah, she's gonna be fine." Jay nodded in response. He opened his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by another red head appearing behind him.
"Hey, I'm back."
"Theresa! There you are, are you alright?" Jay asked, clearly still not approving of her decision to distract the god of death.
"Yes, I'm fine- Oh my god!" She gasped as she caught sight of Herry. "What happened to you!?" Herry rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "I kind of tried to strangle the real Atlanta, thinking she was the fake one…"
"That still doesn't explain the black eye Herry…" He pointed towards Archie.
"Normally I would complain about how stupid of you that was, but right now I frankly am more worried about Atlanta. Where is she?" Theresa asked. Archie pointed behind him, towards the chair she was sleeping on. The older of the girls gasped audibly. "Oh my god what happened?" She cried. Archie stared at her, clearly confused by her reaction. "Calm down, she's fine. She's just taking a nap…"
"Oh…" Odie stepped forward.
"So what are we going to do about this whole two Atlanta's issue?"
"Well, considering that copy Atlanta now knows the location of the gods, she'll probably be heading straight for Cronus. Wherever he is it'll take her a while to get there on foot." Jay explained.
"So what do you suppose we do?"
"We'll need to find her, and take her out before she gets the chance to tell him. But how we do that, I'm still not sure." Odie looked up again.
"Actually, I think I might know how to do that. After we rescued 'Atlanta'," Odie made small quotation marks in the air. "From Cronus, she was missing her PMR so I gave her a new one. I doubt she would have thought to get rid of it."
"Odie you're a genius!" Theresa said, smiling wildly. Archie turned around, glancing at Atlanta.
"What do we do about her?"
"She should stay here. Like Chiron said, she needs rest. And her being there would just confuse us all. Now let's get going." Said Jay.
"Should we wake her up?" Archie asked.
"Yeah, may as well let her know what's going on."
Archie made his way over to the sleeping girl. He gently shook her awake. He didn't really want to disturb her, but it was better than leaving her alone and confused. Her eyes fluttered open and she groaned loudly.
"Why are you waking me up?" She complained.
"Sorry." He replied. "We're going to stop your evil twin. You can stay here with Chiron. Just wanted to let you know before we left." Atlanta shot up from where she was sitting.
"Oh hell no. There is no way I'm staying here while you guys go kick that bitches ass!" She protested loudly. "I wanna give that faker a piece of my mind! And my fist!" Archie sighed.
"I know you do. I would too. But you can't. You heard Chiron! You need rest! You can't fight, not like this."
"I feel fine!" She cried.
"Atlanta you passed out in the middle of the street last time you fought Cronus!" Archie was quickly beginning to lose his temper.
"That's because I was tired and hungry! I've had something to eat and now I feel much better! Just let me come with you!"
"Even if we did, how the hell are we supposed to tell you apart from 'her' in the middle of battle?"
"Because I'll be the one kicking major ass!"
Atlanta was not going to step down. Archie could see this. She wanted revenge, and she was going to get it. One way or another. She had the little look on her face. The one where you knew you had really pissed her off. If you didn't back down you were going to get a fist to the face. And for some odd reason, he found himself smiling at this. It was just so, Atlanta. He never realised how much he had missed her little quirks, and how much of a terrible actor that doppelganger had been.
"Alright… Fine. You can come with us. But only because I know you'll just end up following us anyway…" Archie responded, a wide grin on his face. The girl's scowl quickly faded away into a smile.
"Thank you."