Aphrodite's POV:
I sat on my throne, giddy with excitement. I turned to face my half-brother, Hermes, and started to chat with him and my Uncles.
"So, Hermes, Poseidon, Hades," I mused. "How would you all like the reality show to go?"
Hermes and Hades shrugged like it was nothing. Poseidon was tapping his open-toed sandal impatiently on the marble flooring, giving sharp glares to whoever was looking his way. I felt for him, I really did—seeing his expression made me think of the children I'd lost. I felt a pang in my heart at the mental mention of Silena, causing me to take an interest in my French manicure.
The screen burst into fire then fizzled to show off Aaron and Kayla. She was singing when Nico walked in. "You sing?" He asked, unbelievably.
"As a matter of fact, I do," Kayla replied.
Aaron whined for them to hurry up. I had to hold back my smile.
Everyone held his or her breaths when she began to sing If Today Was Your Last Day by Nickelback. Apollo had put his hands in front of his mouth in order to not start belting out verses of the song, since we'd warned him not to sing since Poseidon was clearly pissed.
Nico had begun singing with her—and I swear to us—they were perfect together. I started to mentally coo in my mind like a dove.
She started to tell the guys about her song choices, causing most of us to grin. We knew the songs—and most of the bands were kids of Apollo.
After a while, she strolled away from the camp and into the woods. Now we were antsy. We always told the campers that they shouldn't go into the woods because of the monsters and such, but we had never told Kayla. We thought that if we'd read the books that she'd know what was right and what was wrong—and going to the woods all alone was definitely wrong.
We watched her sketch a picture in her sketchbook. Hermes's eyes grew wide as he took in the picture. It was a picture of his son… dying. She was above him, trying to revive him, but whatever she tried, it fell on deaf ears.
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. We all watched as a wolf waltzed over to Kayla, ears perked and tail swishing. It sat down across from her, and began to morph into a human boy.
"What's that?" He asked, like a curious young child.
"The product of boredom, I guess." Kayla shrugged.
"Why did you decide to draw that? A person dying?" The little blonde Jacob Black asked her.
She ignored the question. "Who are you? What are you?"
The kid smiled. "There are plenty of them in the forest."
I watched Artemis smile slightly, probably because the wolf looked like one of the wolves that she took to her Hunts. Except they were always white, and this one was blonde.
"A hybrid?" Kayla asked.
Everyone narrowed his or her eyes. We weren't very fond of hybrids.
The kid smiled, morphing into a wolf and then into a human. He told her his name was Hunter.
"Hunter?" Kayla asked.
"Yeah. What's your name?"
"Kayla Wes—" an excited yip cut off Kayla.
"Oh my gods! You're … Kayla West? The Pandorian?" The wolf asked excitedly.
"Yeah. Am I famous or something—"
"Famous or something? You're like a freaking idol!" Hunter exclaimed.
"An idol? But, it's not like I've done anything extraordinary—"
Hunter started to spaz out about how awesome she was and about how she was going to stop 'you-know-who'.
He stopped suddenly, causing us all to shiver, as if someone had just turned down the dial on the heating. The air turned normal again and the Big Three shared a glance.
Hunter promised Kayla he'd come back to talk to her later at the arena with the pups. He left, causing her to look confused. "What is this—Twilight?" She asked, causing us all to chuckle.
A shadow passed beside her and we all grinned, knowing who it would be.
We all watched Kayla and Nico fight in silence, and a word popped into my brain. Jealousy. Nico di Angelo was jealous of Aaron Striker.
Kayla stalked off after they cussed each other out. Tears were streaking down her cheeks and she didn't try to wipe them away as she heard Nico screaming after her to come back.
She wept against the mossy bark of a tree. And, you wouldn't believe the nerve. She looked up and snarled under her breath, "Show's over."
I felt myself fume as the screen blackened.
The gods watched me warily as I stood from my throne, curling my fingers into manicured fists. I jabbed a finger toward Hephaestus, my husband, and said, "Honey. Can you try to bring the show back on?"
Hephaestus snapped his fingers and a blue hologram appeared before him. He began to swipe his fingers against air, pressing buttons and flipping switches. He looked up, exasperated. "No good. She wiped the signal clean. We might not be able to get it back for a few days, a week at the most."
"What?" I asked, feeling my face grow red.
Zeus stood from his throne. "Aphrodite, it's alright. We'll just tell the camps that we're having technical difficulties and that they will be settled later this week."
"WE DON'T HAVE A WEEK!" I screamed. "If we do not get that freaking show back on, do you know how much hate mail I'm going to receive? I'm not even hateable! I'm loveable and cuddly and people should adore me! But, if this show doesn't go on, I will just be another one of you."
Artemis raised her hand. "Aphrodite, why don't you put on a show to keep the rest of the world entertained? I bet Apollo would love to host it."
"I would!" Apollo gushed. "We could do some singing show! I know—Olympus Idol! I can see it now!"
"NO!" I screamed, causing Apollo to look genuinely hurt. I looked over at my him, and said, "No offense, Apollo, I just don't want people to get all pissy when they ask who Simon Cowell's going to be. Oh my us—did you guys know that Simon isn't even on there anymore? They have these … nice, frilly non-British people on there now."
Ares groaned. "I hate nice people, almost as much as I hate puppies."
"You hate puppies?" I asked, mortified.
"Only the small ones. They aren't real dogs. You know what a real dog is? A Doberman," Ares explained, and I slammed my hands over my ears.
"I can't hear you! La la la la! You said you adore toy poodles and terriers! La la la la!" I started to scream and ignored the eye rolls of the rest of the Olympians.
Poseidon slammed the butt of his green trident on the marble flooring, causing us all to hush down. He looked exasperated, as he said, "Look. Would it be a problem if I went to Camp Half-Blood to see how Percy is taking this? You all know how much he cares about his family, and I'm afraid that if anything happens to her … he's going to do something downright stupid."
All of the gods and goddesses (including myself) began to talk about it, asking Zeus for permission if we all could go.
"Please, Dad?" Hermes and Apollo chorused, turning up the charm. "We haven't seen our kids in so long! And, we need to keep our promise about seeing our kids—it was an oath on the Styx!"
Zeus thought about it. "Fine," He caved in, causing us all to erupt into hoots and hollers. "I suppose it is for the best."
We all snapped our fingers and vanished to appear a little ways from the camp.
Percy's POV:
I slumped down into my seat at the picnic table for dinner. Annabeth walked over and gave me a hug. "It's going to be alright, Seaweed Brain," she soothed, while giving me a quick peck on the cheek, "Kayla's a fighter. Before you know it, she'll be back at camp, safe and sound."
I shrugged, giving her a smile, while she walked back to her own table. Thalia was eyeing me worriedly, like she always did when I acted this way. Even the Stoll brothers looked worried, but it was probably just because they were worried about the scarce amount of change in my pockets.
Tyson sat across from me, almost as heavily. His big brown eye stared into my emerald green ones. "Are you okay, brother?" He asked, taking a bite out of a peanut butter sandwich.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Just … worried," I said, taking out my pen and drawing a trident onto my palm in utter boredom.
"Kayla will be okay, right Percy?" Tyson asked me, his brown eye starting to become red and wet.
"Of course she will," I said, looking him over. "I mean, she's our sister. She's going to be okay. I won't let anything happen to her."
I was basically reassuring myself, but Tyson seemed to take the bait and believed me.
I heard a familiar voice say, "Hey, sons." A hand gripped my shoulder, and I met my father's melancholy gaze. His eyes were a mixture of swirling blue and ocean green, mixing into a treacherous sea of emotions.
My father and the rest of the gods were here, which could only mean a few things:
I'd gotten Annabeth pregnant and was about to get my ass kicked by Athena.
They were just visiting their kids like normal parents. (Yeah, right.)
Something had happened to Kayla.
Olympus' renovations had been destroyed by a random monster/warrior/god that hates me, so now Annabeth was going to talk my ear off about it and how it was my fault.
Wait, look up at number 3. I think that's the most logical thing up there. Whoa, wait. Me being logical? Someone call the police or a therapist—Seaweed Brain's making sense!
Hey, people who are reading this story! What's up?
(WHAT YOU'RE THINKING: I'm reading your story… DUR.)
You know what just hit me? The fact that (SPOLIER) Nico is still missing from The Son of Neptune—that happened didn't it? I haven't read it so long… I just cracked the book open and skimmed it and couldn't find whatever happened to him in the back of it. Ugh, now I'm going to worry about him for a couple of months…
Also, my birthday is in … hmm, 17 more days if you include today. By then I will officially be 13 (and a teenager). You know what would be an amazing present? If Rick Riordan decided to come here for a book signing for his latest addition, The Serpent's Shadow, and my story like, came to life. Even though I know what would happen at the end (if I ever get past the singing thing first! I need to hurry up and post more!), it'd still be awesome. And, one of the best birthday presents ever.
Darn, now I got my hopes up. But, I doubt this would ever happen. Percy and the gang have so many better things to do—like blowing up national monuments and whatnot. But, hey, I'll still hope a little bit—fingers crossed! XD
While I'm on here, I might as well fill the page up with randomness before I get kicked off the computer. So, let's see…
Well, I'm on Spring Break. I have major boy trouble, because I haven't dated anyone, can't flirt even if it cost me my life (because I feel really stupid when I act all frilly and girly), and like a guy who I've been friends with since forever. Wow, I need to remember to breathe.
Also, I have way too many crushes on fictional characters. I just noticed that while looking at Deviant Art Memes. There's Luke, Nico, Anubis, PEETA! (YESS!), Apollo, Hermes, Travis Stoll, Will Solace, Dakota (yes, the one who gets drunk off Kool-Aid. What? Don't judge.), and this list could go on, and on, and on.
Oh. My. Gods. I need to do my Science project for school, and I haven't even started. My friend, Lexi, and me are doing it on Tornadoes (because they interest me and scare the living crap out me) and it's like an ad. It needs to be up to three-to-five minutes long, so I'm just going to use a voice-over voice like Caesar Flickerman from the Hunger Games, and see where that gets me. I'll make a poster and glue some pictures on and see how it goes.
WHAT YOU'RE THINKING: Why aren't you doing that now? Jeez, this isn't Facebook; stop telling us about your problems!
Oh, and, I've been obsessed with drawing Luke Castellan and Nico di Angelo these days. Two sketchbooks are full of their faces and a few OC's I've made—like Kayla and Aaron, for example.
If you actually read this far, give yourself a pat on the back. I actually zoned out when I was typing so this is just the irritated fangirl on the insides, who needs her damn Percabeth reunion before she hops on a plane and knocks down Rick Riordan's door and demands the copy of it Right. This. Millisecond.
Are milliseconds faster than seconds?
YOU: How should I freaking know!
Hmmp. I should ask Kronos, but since he's currently under millions of piles of rock and decayed animals and godly chains, I'll just ask Google.
All right, I've bothered you enough.
Review!
He l