Short End of the Stick
By PrincipessaBel

Chapter 9 : Off to Ema's Tia


"Anyone hungry?" Jason asked, feeling a bit lightheaded from all the commotion with Julia's first premonition.

"I'm famished!" Julia answered a groan. "I thought no one's gonna ask that question!" The idea of dinner had made Julia's mind crazy full of food she'd like to eat.

Sammi nodded at them. "We could talk about the premonition over at dinner."

"Nah, let's just chill out for a moment." Will said, standing up with his hands on the back of his head.

"Wait- I'm just gonna change the course of our ride, since were clearly going back to Greece." Leo said gloomily.

Julia raised an eyebrow and asked, "What's it with Greece and you all think you'll die?"

Jason shrugged at her, "That Chimera in your house last time-?"

She grunted, "-Don't remind me, Sparky."

The son of Jupiter continued, disregarding the nick, "There's more of that where it came from, Feo." [T: Ugly girl]

"REALLY?!" With that, Julia's eyes widened and her eyes literally sparkled with excitement, also disregarding the nickname. Jason got a bad hunch that Julia's up to something.

Unsure, he nodded slowly, "Yeah-"

"Then, on to full speed, Leo!" She stomped towards her cousin, a pointing finger up in the air as if that's the direction they're going. "We're not wasting our precious fucking time!"

"She seriously wants that revenge for her house, huh?" Will whispered to Nico in a loud voice for the girl to hear.

"Hn. .?" Julia turned her head towards the two and Will quickly moved away from Nico, pretending he didn't say anything. Sammi and Nico snickered at Will's antic in the background.

"Oh, alright, Festus, full speed towards Macedon."

Her eyes wide, Julia moved away from Leo comically, one step at a time, "Is he-?" She whispered to Jason, with that common cliché gossip girl pose – a hand infront of her mouth, eyebrows up, judgemental eyes.

The guy moved away from her, clearly weirded out. Piper stifled a laugh from the reaction her boyfriend had.

Creak. Creak.

It was heard from the whole ship, as if this 'Festus' fellow was part of the ship. Julia suddenly blurted out of ADHD, "What kind of sorcery is this?!"

Leo ignored her and answered the ship, "Hm? Yeah. Okay." The son of Hephaestus clapped his hands together and walked to where Julia and the rest are. "We'd be in Greece in two days since Nyssa had nicely upgraded the boosters! Man, I really have to thank her for this, you too, Julia." He said, clinging his arms on her shoulders, earning a punch on the stomach from the girl. "Ugh- S-She'd be thrilled to meet you, seeing that I'm her favorite." He said, regaining his stature after that one-hit blow from his cousin.

Julia rolled her eyes, "Man, I didn't know you're as cocky as I am." The gang laughed, and Nico mumbled, "You got that right."

Leo laughed whole-heartedly, "Runs in our blood, I guess?"

"Oh, shut up."

Will suddenly asked, "Hey, what would Clarisse think of her if we did come back to camp?"

"Oh, Clarisse would be totally pissed off." Piper nodded in sympathy towards Julia's future meet-up.

"Who's Clarisse? Is she some hot-shot demi like you guys?" She asked, the others looked away from her. Cackling evilly, she cracked her knuckled the way when she threatened to screw up Nico and said, "Psh, I'd take her down any day!"

Sammi shook her head. "She's your half-sister."

The girl's eyes nearly popped out of her head and screamed outrageously, "SAY WHAT?!"

"Your father's got a lot of kids, aside from his immortal kids with Aphrodite." Will said to her, as if it's a common thing to know you've got half-sisters in other parts of the world.

"Wait, you tell me that my father's married to Aphrodite-"

Leo knocked on her head, "Aphrodite's married to my father-"

Tilting her head to the side, she exclaimed. "WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!"

"Oh my gods, your reaction! Yessa that's-" Nico was stopped from laughing when Julia pinched his cheeks hard.

"Shut up, Nics!" She ordered, then pointed at each and every one of them, "Explain, you peasants!"

"Demanding much?" Jason blurted out.

Sticking out her tongue, "Bleh." Julia said.

"You have to listen carefully, then Julia." Sammi said, remembering a nostalgic event in her life; namely something like this.

Will nodded at Sammi, then looked at Julia seriously. "Alright, imagine this. Jason's father, Zeus – or Jupiter, the king of the gods, is married to Hera, queen of the gods. Ther daughter, Athanasia is Leo's girlfriend-"

"Ooh~" Julia teased, her eyes boring into Leo. "You've got some taste, Leo~ Gave up your V-card for her?" She wriggled her eyebrows, but failed comically.

"What the Tartarus?! Says the one who's gave it up to Nico!"

"Hey, we did nothing by the likes of those, neh, baby~?" Julia said, batting her eyelashes at Nico. There was a howl of laughter in the Argo II.

Will stifled his own laughter, continuing his explanation. "—A-Anyway, Hephaestus, Leo's dad, is a son of Zeus and Hera. Aphrodite, Piper's mom, is one of the oldest gods, a rumored adopted-daughter of the king and queen of the gods. She and Leo's dad got married for some weird reasons-" Julia's mouth opened but before she could say something, Will stopped her. "-don't ask why. But since Hephaestus is known for his appearance- no offence Leo-"

"None taken, dude." Leo said.

"Aphrodite made her love affairs a bit too obvious for Hephaestus to know, and her favorite has been your dad, Ares."

Julia nodded slowly. "So, Piper's mom, is cheating on Leo's dad, with my dad?!"

"Got it right. And Jason's half-sister is Leo's girlfriend."

Julia sighed. "Your family is so screwed up."

Sammi laughed. "Our family is so screwed up."

"Tell me about it."


Digging into the salad she magically willed to appear infront of her, Julia said, "Itadaikimasu~" [T: Thanks for the food]

Sammi looked up, in recognition to Julia's words and smiled at her, "Itadaikimasu." The daughter of Poseidon said, too.

Leo blurted out, "What language is that?"

"Japanese, it is! Pasalamat ka-"Julia caught her words, changing from English to Tagalog. "I mean, be thankful I didn't went Italian on you guys!"

Nico started laughing his ass out from remembering Julia's awful attempt on Italian. "HAHAHA, oh my gods, you totally sucked on that, Yessa, don't even try!"

"Stai zitto, Nico!" The girl glared at him, hurting his sensitive ears from the awful Italian accent of his friend. "Sono Julia Valdez, decimo capo di Vongola." She finished. [T: Shut up, Nico! I am Julia Valdez, Vongola's Tenth Boss!(guess what anime. ;))]

Jason said, "What the heck's with that accent?"

"It's nowhere near Italian!" Will said, clutching his stomach.

Leo stopped eating, saying, "Who cares?! HAHAHA!"

Sammi pretended to act gloomy and saddened by Julia's words and shook her head. "What has been heard; cannot be unheard."

Julia acted to be offended from all the laughs she's getting. "Hey, I went some serious shit through Google Translate on that!"

Piper asked, "How many languages are you fluent in?"

"Tagalog, English, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish." She said with a straight face, letting the whole gang know that she's not joking this time. "And I've noticed I kinda understand a tinge of Greek, too." The others literally jaw-dropped from the revelation.

Nico shrugged. "That's multi-lingual Julia Valdez for you!"

"Wow. How have you been able to learn all that in the span of fifteen years?" Sammi inquired, curious.

"I learned Spanish and English first, and then when we came to the Philippines, I had to understand Tagalog. When you're fluent in two to three languages, learning a fourth and fifth is easy as one-two-three."

Leo nodded, then asked, "Where does the blunt language came from then?"

"Oh, you shit's talking about this bullcrap?" Julia asked, raising an eyebrow towards her cousin. Another set of laughter can be heard from the dining room as they eat and laugh and joke around while they have the time.

"You'd be nicely accepted in the Camp at that attitude!"

"Enough about me, you guys had been seriously welcoming these past few hours, what happened to that?"

Jason shrugged nonchalantly. "You proved to be nicer than you are, that's all. Aside from the screaming about us losers." Piper laughed at this.

"Whoops?" Julia said slowly, acting innocently.

Nico patted her back, "Told 'ya they'll hear it."

"Anyway, has anyone of you gone to Macedon already?"

Sammi said, "None, I'm not even sure if Emathia is still in the modern map."

The others knew it was hard to go to Greece because it was a big mine, waiting to explode by the time they set foot to it. Leo tried to lighten up the mood, though, "Oh, so we're going to Ema's Tia" He said, wriggling his eyebrows comically.

Julia grunted in agitation. "Shut the hell up, Leo."

Piper nodded, sympathetic for her friend. "How corny, that is."

"Don't remind me of the food or word called 'corn'." Nico grunted, face-palming.

"Why?"

"A tragic incident I shouldn't mention."

Julia smirked, leaning towards Nico. "Corn? Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn. Corn." She said repeatedly.

"SHUT UP, YESSA!"

"HAHAHAHAHA, cutie~" She said, pinching Nico's cheek again, then noticed that everyone's looking at her. "Ehem, I mean, this is serious."

"Says the girl who's been making us laugh for nearly a whole hour already." Will jeered.

"What? No time to be serious as fuck, we might die over this Golden king's sword or something."

"Well, since you and me's gonna lead this operation, what's our plan, ma'am?" The son of Apollo said, saluting at Julia.

"Let's play Just Dance 4! I saw Leo's Xbox on the living quarters~" Julia said, clapping her hands together, eyes sparkling.

Leo groaned, "We are not going to stay idle here!"

"I train every single day, how 'bout I get to relax as an incentive? Pu-weaaase~"

Sammi thought for a moment then said, "Seeing that the muse of dance and music came to you, perhaps it will be alright?"

Piper suddenly became inquisitive and asked, "But, a talent you shall outrun, are you sure it meant that it's focused about music and dance?"

"I brought my flute and violin for this! AHAHA, told 'ya they'll be proving their existence in this trip, Nics!"

Nico said defensively, "You didn't tell me anything."

"So, you sing?" Jason asked the daughter of Ares as she drank from her orange juice.

"I'm alright, I guess."

"Knowing Tia Fe? Psh, don't push your luck. . . OF COURSE SHE'S GOOD! Haven't you heard of her?" Leo said, as if they have to know her whether they live on rocks or not.

"Fe?" Piper asked, a bit familiar with the name.

"Fe Valdez!"

The daughter of Aphrodite snapped her fingers, "Oh, of course! She's an international singer and a good musician! One of the best there is!"

"No wonder Julia's stinking rich!"

"Hey! We lived in a rundown apartment, how can mom be an international singer?"

The son of Hephaestus shook his head, "You seriously had been lied at the whole time!"

"Oh tell me about it!"

"Tia had lots of reasons for that. Mom did, too. She always tell me 'You'll meet you father sometime.' I didn't realize she meant that as having my father as an Olympian god." Leo said it in a way that made Julia feel happy about the situation. Despite the serious hatred and annoyance she have for her cousin, he'd still be nice.

"We seriously have many things in common and I do not know whether I'd be happy or disgusted about it." She said, making a face.

"Oh tell me about it." He said, mimicking Julia's past statement.


Chapter 10 : Stave One

"WHOA! Sammi, that ugly shit's you're half-brother?" Julia half-whispered, half-exclaimed as they hid behind the big rocks of the swampy cave.

"Percy's going to be pissed at you." Sammi shook her head, laughing a bit, remembering the time she and Percy had a long talk.


Wanna see what Julia looks like when she gave the Prophecy? Check out my DA account! Link is on my profile. ;)

Thanks to those who support this story~ Lovelots, PB