A/N: so finally found the time to get this done, sorry, but I started downloading old anime series like Bt' X, Patarillo! and Rose of Versailles and my head decided to assault me with story ideas…till now I managed to hold the Bt'X ones on planning range, but I was forced to do the first chapter for a Patarillo fic and a two-shot for Rose of Versailles and post them up on my other story account on another site, not sure if I should put them up here also seeing how people kind of seem not all to pleased by my problem of to many ideas…
…or hoping for some suggestions in reviews…by the PJO one I get them of course, the only problem is that people ignore what I write in the Author's note in the beginning and ask the same thing even if I gave an answer to that almost three times, so I'm sure that this note will be also ignored. Maybe I should start with what I saw by some fics that the author waited for a certain number of reviews before updating?
P.S.: completely forgot that I have my Name's Day today…my mom reminded me
X. Has someone a bug spray?
"Bast Goes Green" Jaz read, when she remembered what this chapter will be about she quickly did a mental note to ask Set if there is someone at camp who knows how to deal with venoms, she would be glad for some restocking in the case of antidotes to be ready for anything.
"Huh…if I remember right is Bast not green." younger Julius said, well maybe if she gets sick in her human form, but he had never seen anything which showed the Goddess with that colour.
"Right, that would be the God you host." Desjardins mumbled to himself before turning back to the book, the faster they are over the better chances they have to get back home and prevent the idiocy of the other magician before he destroys the lives of his family.
[Sadie, stop it! Yeah, I'm getting to that part.] Sorry, she keeps trying to distract me by setting fire to my—never mind.
Everyone turned quizzically to the two siblings who were fidgeting in their seats from all the looks they were getting.
"Sadie, what did you try to set fire to?" Ruby asked her daughter while mentally groaning, she could only pray that she would not turn out to be a fire elementalist or the apartment will also need to be made fireproof.
"It is not what you think." said hurriedly when she saw some of the looks by a few guys and Horus looked as if he would ask something which would mortify her for the rest of her wonderful life and maybe even afterlife. "I was just getting impatient and wanted to check if I could hit one of his notebooks with pea sized fireballs." she explained at which those whose mind had gone down the gutter sighed in relief.
"Good, I was al…" though Anubis clapped his hand over Horus's mouth before he could say something which would surely make them feel sick to the stomach, and he had unfortunately witnessed what his father had eaten before getting here and it was already enough to make his stomach turn to think about it, no need to make things worse.
Where was I?
We barreled off the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan and headed north on Clinton Street.
"They're still following," Sadie warned.
Ruby groaned, she had not needed that info.
Sure enough, the carriers were only a block behind us, waving around cars and trampling over sidewalk displays of tourist junk.
"We'll buy some time." Bast growled deep in her throat—a sound so low and powerful it made my teeth buzz.
"Remind me to ask Hermes how he covered this up if the mist left out something." Set said gleefully, she had wondered why the carriers looked as if they would have made some type of marathon through a field with thorns.
"What do you mean?" Shelby asked, this was one of her favourite parts of the book.
"Easy, he is the one responsible for the hidden communication between Olymphos and the mortals, he kind of helps them make sense of the mist. Why do you thing he invented the internet." Thoth elaborated for the other God while those who knew what the internet was started gaping.
"He invented the internet?" they asked in shock, yep one learns everyday something new when surrounded by mythology.
"He did." Set said, the other had been pleased to give a lecture about how he did it and made the mortals believe that someone other was at work who did not have divine powers.
"I will be from now on kind of cautious when surfing on the net." Carter mumbled to himself.
"That is all nice and good, but what will be happening now?" Ruby asked and Jaz went to continue so that the woman's question gets answered.
She yanked the wheel and swerved right onto East Houston.
I looked back. Just as the carriers turned to the corner, a horde of cats materialized all around them.
"Hoard?" Amos asked disbelieving.
"It was more like a large wave of fur." Carter told him with a shrug, it kind of teached him to not mess with cats.
Some jumped from windows. Some ran from the sidewalks and alleys. Some crawled from the storm drains. All of them converged on the carriers in a wave of fur and claws
"Forgot about the last one." Carter said while Ruby smiled, those things would not get to touch her children.
—climbing up their copper legs, scratching their backs, clinging to their faces, and weighing down the sedan box. The carriers stumbled, dropping the box. They began blindly swatting at the cats. Two cars swerved to avoid the animals and collided, blocking the entire street, and the carriers went down under the mass of angry felines.
"What an embarrassing way to go down, beaten by a bunch of fur balls." Horus said when he realized that Set was looking at him with a wicked grin on her lips.
"I will remember to tell her that." she told Horus who gulped and looked at Amos pleadingly to stop him, but the man only mirrored his God's grin.
"I may need to go shopping for some food for our feline guests, they will probably all be hungry after playing with Horus." he said in a thoughtful tone.
"Carter! Help me!" Horus yelled pleadingly while Narmer was glaring at this brother who looked more than amused as Julius leaned over to his brother.
"Amos, I hope that you remember that I always loved you no matter our differences." he whispered to him, something told him that he didn't want to get on either's bad side.
We turned onto FDR Drive,
"Wasn't he Zeus kid?" Thoth asked in a thoughtful tone, he remembered that Washington had been Athena's and that the current President was Hermes's kid, but he was not sure about Roosevelt.
"Yes he was." Set replied.
"Wait, what?" Sean asked blinking.
"Roosevelt had been a demigod son of Zeus, technically could one see World War Two as a type of family feud between cousins seeing how Churchill had been Poseidon's kid while Hitler's father was Hades."
"Uhuh…really nice to know, I will be later asking about a list of historical demigods." Carter said carefully, it was a bit scary to know when you find out that some rather prominent historical figures had a God as one of their parents.
and the scene disappeared from view.
"Nice," I admitted.
"It won't hold them long," Bast said. "Now—Central Park!"
Bast ditched the Lexus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"We'll run from here," she said. "It's just behind the museum."
When she said run, she meant it.
"I felt like I was taking part on a marathon." Sadie said, she had always seen herself as in good shape, but that run made her realize that it had been not the case.
Sadie and I had to sprint to keep up, and Bast wasn't even breaking a sweat.
"She is used to be fast." Osiris said as he tried to hold out the guilt in his tone as he saw some of the faces darken while his wife shifted guiltily in her throne.
She didn't stop for little things like hot dog stands or parked cars. Anything under ten feet tall she leaped over with ease, leaving us to scramble around the obstacles as best as we could.
"Are demigods also good in track?" Sadie asked then if yes will she have a hard time babysitting her baby cousin, and she was determined to play with the baby once it is there.
"They have obstacle training at their camps, it is part of their training to survive." Set said, they will really need to look over the junkyard around Brooklyn House to see if it could be useful.
"So nice to know."
We ran into the park on the East Drive. As soon as we turned north, the obelisk loomed above us. A little over seventy feet tall, it looked like an exact copy of the needle in London. It was tucked on a grassy hill, so it actually felt isolated, which is hard to achieve in the center of New York.
"It is Egyptian and that part of the city is Greek, so not surprising." Horus said with a shrug.
here was no one around except a couple of joggers farther down the path. I could hear the traffic behind us on Fifth Avenue, but even that seemed far away.
We stopped at the obelisk's base. Bast sniffed the air as if smelling for trouble.
"She probably was, that park has some dryads living in its trees and they would have immediately alerted the Olympians that another God stepped without invitation into their territory." Isis said while both Sadie and Carter shuddered, they had at that time enough trouble with the one Goddess coming after them into the Park, no need for more.
Once I was standing still, I realized just how cold I was. The sun was directly overhead, but the wind ripped right through my borrowed linen clothes.
"I wish I'd grabbed something warmer," I muttered. "A wool coat would be nice."
"No, it wouldn't," Bast said, scanning the horizon. "You're dressed for magic."
Sadie shivered. "We have to freeze to be magical?"
"The cold is not bad." Felix said enthusiastically while Set leaned over to Amos.
"I think I may sometime introduce him to Khione, those two would get along just fine." she whispered to Amos who turned to her.
"Only when he is over eighteen, looking how he loves ice and cold I would not want a fourteen years old teenage magician trying to raise a demigod baby with ice powers." he told her and fortunately Set nodded that she understood, mostly that with Felix having an affinity to create ice and snow would the child be probably two times as powerful as it should be in the case if the father would have been a mortal.
"Magicians avoid animal products," Bast said absently. "Fur, leather, wool, any of that. The residual life aura can interfere with spells."
"My boots seem all right," Sadie noted.
"Leather," Bast said with distaste.
"My new ones are out of synthetic leather now." Sadie said, they were not as bad as she had first thought that they would be.
"You may have a higher tolerance, so a bit of leather won't bother your magic. I don't know. But linen clothing is always best, or cotton—plant material. At any rate, Sadie, I think we're clear for the moment. There's a window of auspicious time starting right now, at eleven thirty, but it won't last long. Get started."
"A little help would have been great at that time." Sadie mumbled to herself while Isis squirmed in her throne.
Sadie blinked. "Me? Why me? You're the goddess!"
"She is terrible with them." Set said with a snort as she remembered one incident which ended with them giving Sobeck almost a heart attack as the two of them landed in his bathtub right as she wanted to get in, they crashed in, spilling out some water and bubbles before running out apologizing, their eyes covered.
"I'm not good at portals," Bast said.
"Nice understatement." Set said again as the others wondered if they should ask Amos to try getting the story out of him or Sadie should try her luck by Bast.
"Cats are protectors.
Everyone noded at this.
Just control your emotions. Panic or fear will kill a spell. We have to get out of here before Set summons the other gods to his cause."
"The last sentence didn't exactly help me with calming down." Sadie said while Iskander looked down guiltily, Thoth on the other hand was trying to get his throne farther away from the other's without being noticed.
I frowned. "You mean Set's got, like, other evil gods on speed dial?"
"Those would be the demons, in the case of the other Gods was it more like, angry Gods who wanted revenge on the treacherous House of Life." Set said smiling.
"We kind of got that later on." Carter said, sometimes he really wondered what would have been would the magicians not have turned their backs on their Gods, the Greco-Roman ones show pretty well that there was a way, though most of those still believing in them are ether their kids or mortals who found out that they had attracted a God.
Bast glanced nervously toward the trees. "Evil and good may not be the best way to think of it, Carter. As a magician, you must think about chaos and order. Those are the two forces that control the universe. Set is all about chaos."
"A much needed chaos." older Amos said as he threw a dark look first at both Horus and Isis and then at Narmer. Set on the other hand did her best to not blush because of the comment, it had been really long ago that someone had taken her side.
Jaz caught the look Sadie was giving her and hurried on reading before someone could comment, but she kind of noticed the small tinge of pink on Set's cheeks which made her hold back a smile at how in some strange way cute that looked that the God felt embarrassed for Amos sticking up for her.
"But what about the other gods Dad released?" I persisted. "Aren't they the good guys? Isis, Osiris, Horus, Nephthys—where are they?"
"Let's see, Nephthys was kind of put out of full motion" the Goddess gave an apologetic smile to Zia, the fact that she was a fire user while she a Water Goddess had been not the most fortunate combination for either of them, if not for the spell they would have ended up hurting each other like by the first time her hus…ex-husband took over his host. "Osiris and dad have some unplanned vacation in a sarcophagus and the other two are stubbornly keeping shut." Sadie listed while both God and host flinched at the memory of their coffin, the other two Gods on the other had were busy shifting uncomfortably in their thrones.
"Also, I would not exactly call all of them the good guys." Carter whispered to the others with him.
Bast fixed her eyes on me. "That's a good question, Carter."
"I think at that time she was trying to not glare at me." Horus said, though that had not stopped the shiver running down his spine at that time.
"So nice that a good deal of Gods we met wanted a chat with you." Carter told the God who smiled at him sheepishly.
A Siamese cat broke through the bushes and ran up to Bast. The looked at each other for a moment. Then the Siamese dashed away.
"The carriers are close," Bast announced. "And something else... something much stronger, closing in from the east. I think the carriers' master has grown impatient."
"It was more like that I could not believe that it took them so long to get their hands on two untrained magicians, hosting my two least liked relatives, at that time I did not know that Bast was with them." Set explained while the others nodded.
My heart did a flip. "Set is coming?"
"I was kind of busy at that time drawing plans." Set told the group.
"Plans for what?" Ramses asked the God.
"It will be in the book in a couple of chapters." she said remembering Carter's little ba trip as the others bit back groans that they will need to wait.
"No," Bast said. "Perhaps a minion. Or an ally. My cats are having trouble describing what they're seeing, and I don't want to find out.
"Neither did we, but did anyway." Carter said while his parents and uncle paled.
Sadie, now is the time. Just concentrate on opening a gateway to the Duat. I'll keep off the attackers. Combat magic is my specialty."
"I'm better." Horus mumbled to himself while Anubis rolled his eyes at him.
"Like what you did in the mansion?" I asked.
Bast showed her pointed teeth. "No, that was just combat."
The woods rustled, and the carriers emerged. Their sedan chair's shroud had been shredded by cat claws. The carriers themselves were scratched and dented. One walked with a limp, his leg bent backward at the knee. Another had a car fender wrapped around his neck.
"I was kind of wondering about that one also when they got back." Set said with a shake of her head, getting competent work was unfortunately hard in every era.
The four metal men carefully set down their sedan chair. They looked at us and drew golden metal clubs from their belts.
"Sadie, get to work," Bast ordered. "Carter, you're welcome to help me."
The cat goddess unsheathed her knives. Her body began to glow with a green hue.
"Well, that explains the title." younger Julius said as Desjardins rolled his eyes, biting back a sarcastic remark when catching the look the old Chief Lector was giving him.
An aura surrounded her, growing larger, like a bubble of energy, and lifting her off the ground. The aura took shape until Bast was encased in a holographic projection about four times her normal size. It was an image of the goddess in her ancient form—a twenty-foot-tall woman with the head of a cat. Floating in midair in the center of the hologram, Bast stepped forward. The giant cat goddess moved with her. It didn't seem possible that a see-through image could have substance,
"You two really should have had at least some education about our world." Ruby said while massaging her forehead, at lest she knew that they will survive.
but its foot shook the ground. Bast raised her hand. The glowing green warrior did the same, unsheathing claws as long and sharp as rapiers. Bast swiped the sidewalk in front of her and shredded the pavement to concrete ribbons. She turned and smiled at me. The giant cat's head did likewise, baring horrible fangs
Horus nodded wholeheartedly at this while Ruby let out a thankful prayer that at the time hostile other Gods did not react to the trouble in Central Park.
that could've bitten me in half.
"This," Bast said, "is combat magic."
At first I was too stunned to do anything
"Which is not good when a fight is going on." Amos said, he would have preferred by the fight in the Hall of Ages when the children had come in that they would have not stood there like statues as he and Set tried to defeat the enemy and when they finally moved was it already too late.
but watch as Bast launched her green war machine into the middle of the carriers.
She slashed one carrier to pieces with a single swipe, then stepped on another and flattened him into a metal pancake.
"I think that grilled chicken may have stepped on that one and got thrown into the wall." Set whispered to Amos who grinned in amusement at the mental thought.
The other two carriers attacked her holographic legs, but their metal clubs bounced harmlessly off the ghostly light with showers of sparks.
Meanwhile Sadie stood in front of the obelisk with her arms raised, shouting: "Open, you stupid piece of rock!"
"Well, that was certainly a new way to formulate a summon." Hatshepsut said in amusement. "I believe it didn't work." she said while looking at Sadie who shook her head in the negative.
Finally I drew my sword. My hands were shaking. I didn't want to charge into battle, but I felt like I should help.
"At least one of them has self-preservation." Ruby mumbled to herself.
"There is nothing wrong with charging into battle." Horus said in a firm tone, but the others ignored him.
And if I had to fight, I figured having a twenty-foot-tell glowing cat warrior on my side was the way to do it. "Sadie, I'm—I'm going to help Bast. Keep trying!"
"I am!"
I ran forward just as Bast sliced the other two carriers apart like loaves of bread. With relief, I thought: Well, that's it.
"Not exactly." Carter said while his mom grabbed her husband's arm.
Then all four carriers began to re-form. The flat one peeled himself off the pavement. The sliced ones' pieces clicked together like magnets, and the carriers stood up good as new.
"Carter, help me hack them apart!" Bast called. "They need to be in smaller pieces!"
I tried to stay out of Bast's way as she sliced and stomped.
Then as soon as she disabled a carrier, I went to work chopping its remains into smaller pieces. They seemed more like Play-Doh than metal, because my blade mashed them up pretty easily.
Another few minutes and I was surrounded by piles of coppery rubble. Bast made a glowing fist and smashed the sedan into kindling.
"That wasn't so hard," I said. "What were we running for?"
Inside her glowing shell, Bast's face was coated with sweat.
"Her host may be compatible with her, but the fact that it is a normal animal, the fact that she had for some years not used her magic and the amount of energy an avatar takes up can be exhausting for anyone." older Amos explained, keeping Set's avatar up had been not easy, mostly that it had been his first try at that time of the attack, not that he wasn't grateful for it, but it had still been exhausting.
"I can agree on that." Carter said, it really made him tired to use his avatar for a long period of time with many movements.
It hadn't occurred to me that a goddess could get tired, but her avatar must've taken a lot of effort.
"Now I know better." Carter said with a small nod of his head.
"We're not safe yet," she warned. "Sadie, how's it coming?"
"It's not," Sadie complained. "Isn't there another way?"
Before Bast could answer, the bushes rustled with a new sound—like rain, except more slithery.
A chill ran up my back. "What... what is that?"
Everyone tensed in their seats, mostly those who didn't know what was coming.
"No," Bast murmured. "It can't be. Not her."
"I found where she had been first, it was who comes first can attack first." Set said with a shrug while those who didn't know whom he had sent exchanged nervous glances with each other.
Then the bushes exploded. A thousand brown creepy-crawlies poured from the woods in a carpet of grossness—all pincers and stinging tails.
"No…from all Goddesses it needed to be that one…" Ruby said paling while Iskander looked again down in guilt, it had been his decision which had brought the wrath of the Gods on them all.
I wanted to yell, "Scorpions!" But my voice wouldn't work. My legs started trembling. I hate scorpions.
Horus nodded his head vigorously, he had once tried getting her on a date, it ended pretty bad and embarrassing for him to say at least.
They're everywhere in Egypt. Many times I'd found them in my hotel bed or shower. Once I'd even found one in my sock.
"Sadie!" Bast called urgently.
"Nothing!" Sadie moaned.
The scorpions kept coming—thousands upon thousands. Out of the woods a woman appeared, walking fearlessly through the middle of the arachnids.
"It is not good if a God fears their subjects." Cleo stated.
She wore brown robes with gold jewelry glinting around her neck and arms. Her long black hair was cut Ancient Egyptian-style with a strange crown on top. Then I realized it wasn't a crown—she had a live, supersize scorpion nesting on her head. Millions of the little nasties swirled around her like she was the center of their storm.
"Technically she was." Anubis muttered, not wanting to upset Sadie's mother.
"Serqet," Bast growled.
"They kind of had a disagreement the last time they had seen each other." Set said, she did not know what it was bout, but Bast had been pretty enraged and ordered him to spar with her till they needed to get on the Sun Boat.
"The scorpion goddess," I guessed. Maybe that should've terrified me, but I was already pretty much at my maximum.
"At least you won't feel scared anymore, just great." Ruby groaned, these books and her hormones were doing no good for her.
"Can you take her?"
Bast's expression didn't reassure me.
"Carter, Sadie," she said, "this is going to get ugly. Get to the museum. Find the temple. It may protect you."
"What temple?" I asked.
"And what about you?" Sadie added.
"I'll be fine. I'll catch up." But when Bast looked at me, I could tell she wasn't sure. She was just buying us time.
Sadie leaned against Walt, she had been so worried about Bast at that time, she had also felt useless about the fact that she had not been able to open a portal and gotten them into safety.
"Go!" she ordered. She turned her giant green cat warrior to face the mass of scorpions.
Embarrassing truth? In the face of those scorpions, I didn't even pretend to be brave. I grabbed Sadie's arm and we ran.
"At that time it was the best thing you could have done." Jaz said reassuringly to Carter while handing the book over to Julian who flipped to the next chapter, before snorting.
"Sadie, I hope that you are fireproof." he said with a snicker while Sadie paled as she remembered her more then unflattering thoughts about Zia, well it was her shabti, but still.
"Oh, Gods." she groaned while burying her head into Walt's shirt as she mumbled something along the lines of an apology.
"What is with her?" Zia asked while Carter also remembered what will be coming, well he kind of had now a clue why Sadie was acting so strange.
We Meet the Human Flamethrower
Everyone stared at the book in confusion before Zia turned to Sadie with raised eyebrows.
"Excuse me?" she asked the other girl while her parent's paled.
"Sorry, I now kind of really like you." Sadie told her earnestly, while also giving her brother a look that he should please put his arms around his girlfriend and hold her back if needed.
To be continued…