Just five more chapters after this! I'm terrified I'm gonna ruin this BUT let us continue!
The room was dark and smelled faintly of mildew but it was the only place the two gods could meet without Zeus' prying eyes. Torn banners from long ago hung on the wall alongside some cobwebs that gave Athena the chills, not that she'd ever admit that to Ares.
Speaking of which, where was the overgrown child?
Athena had been waiting for the war god for over thirty minutes. It was as if the god of war thought that ignoring her would make her go away. How he could still be such a child this close to the apocalypse, she would never know.
Finally, she heard the stomping of boots on the stone floor indicative of Ares.
"Where have you been? You're late," she griped.
Ares waved his hand in annoyance hoping it'd make her shut up for once. Apparently, it worked for once as the goddess of wisdom merely sighed in frustration before dropping the issue.
"Fine," Athena grumbled. "Look, we've got forty-six hours before Apollo rises from the depths of Hell to destroy the world. My hero has already completed his quest and will receive a worthy battle scar from fighting otherworldly monsters. What has your hero done?"
Ares glared at his rival. "My hero put up with that kid Pedro Johnson and read pages - pages - of Apollo's poetry. Your 'hero' got hit by shrapnel from a bomb your daughter threw carelessly out of a tree. "
A beat of silence. Athena didn't have an argument there. What could she say? That Peter Johansen was an annoying pest and even one verse of Apollo's poetry was enough to drive a man insane.
"Anyways," Athena said, changing the subject, "we didn't expect the child to enter into the equation. I thought at best, he'd be the last step of the apocalypse. That child could destroy everything we've worked so hard for."
That had been worrying about that, too. They couldn't kill the kid since he was about as powerful as any god they had ever dealt with. Their only other option was to convince the child to help them but judging by the Winchesters' previous attempt, that wasn't going to be easy with Crowley and the kid's distrust of demons.
"We could leave it to the heroes to figure out," Ares suggested.
The look Athena shot him told him her answer.
"Okay, okay, sheesh," Ares rolled his eyes. "Then what's your idea, Smart-ass."
With a long suffering sigh, Athena replied, "We have to take out the King of Hell. Which means, our partnership isn't over, yet."
Ares barely resisted making a face.
(***)
Lou Ellen was fairly certain the high-pitched scream echoing across camp was not her's. And if it was then who could blame her, considering the fright she had just gotten.
A constipated angel, a car salesman turned demon, and a fading di Angelo had all materialized in front of her without warning. The angel was holding Nico's hand tightly with both of his as the demon stared at Lou Ellen with the same confused and terrified look she was giving them.
"Aren't you supposed to be in California?" Lou Ellen asked when she found her voice.
"Nevermind that," Castiel ordered in that deep commanding voice that made Lou Ellen want to sass him back to Heaven. "This child needs medical treatment before he fades. I'm doing my best but these campers will probably know more of how to combat this than I."
Lou Ellen led the way to the Apollo cabin. "Did he shadow travel across the United States? Dear gods, Will's going to kill him."
Castiel shook his head as he followed behind her, practically dragging a half awake Nico di Angelo behind him. "No, I got us here. He merely shadow traveled us two inches to the right."
The Apollo campers rushed Nico off to the infirmary. Kayla was mumbling something about stupid, selfless idiots as she passed them by with Castiel following closely behind ready to offer his assistance if needed.
Crowley dragged Lou Ellen of to the side, out of earshot.
"Well? The spell? Is it coming along?" Crowley hissed.
Lou Ellen flinched away from the intensity of the demon's question. "No, I need the pieces to even remotely be ready. I saw Angel Boy got the lyre but we've got two other items still gods only know where."
"We have to be ready when…" the demon king paused. The look of baffled terror that fell on his face sent chills up the demigod's spine. "What is that doing here?"
(***)
Dean had done a lot of weird shit in his life. Fought Lucifer? Check. Received mail from an old western cowboy from the past? The mailman still stared at Bobby's house as if it were magic. Explained porn to a centuries old angel? Yeah, that still made him feel awkward.
But watching Percy distract a flaming horse by discussing the obvious failures of modern-day vehicles. The horses apparently believed that the only reliable form of travel across the sky was chariot, anything else was just a fad.
Meanwhile, Will was attempting to remove a hair from the distracted horses with the vague hope that they wouldn't burn him alive because of who his father was.
Jesse Turner was playing on the floor with some action figures he'd conjured up at some point while Dean waited patiently for their plan to blow up in their faces. Literally. They'd already caught the kid up to speed on what was happening, so far he didn't appear very concerned about the whole "end of the world" thing.
"Why am I here? And what are they doing?" Jesse asked without looking away from his fighting G.I. Joes.
Dean glanced at the kid. "Well, I honestly don't know why you're here. But they're trying to get a hair from those horses without dying because without it the world will end. Basically, the world's ending again and the only thing that can stop it is a freaking horse."
"Oh, you mean like this?" Jesse said as he picked up a long strand of hair that lay beside him. "They're all over the place. Or do you need one off the horse? Wouldn't taking it from the horse be counterproductive, though, if you need it on the horse? I mean, I don't wanna tell you how to do your job or nothing, but I just don't think you thought this out."
Dean finally looked around at his surroundings. Just as the antichrist had stated, amongst the piles of hay were fiery strands of hair. He resisted the urge to slap himself for his stupidity.
"Hey, kids," Dean said nonchalantly. "You can keep doing that or we could just use this."
Percy and Will turned to see Dean holding a strand of horsehair between his thumb and index finger.
"Well, I mean, we could," Percy scoffed. "If you wanna do it the easy way, I suppose."
Will rolled his eyes at his fellow demigod. "You're a stubborn ass, you know that?"
"At least I don't go around cursing people to sing in rhymes or whatever, could you be more gay?"
"Are you saying being gay is wrong? I got news for you, Percy, we're Greek! We're all fucking gay," Will shouted.
"That's not what I meant," Percy yelled back.
"Gods, what did Nico ever see in you?" Will grumbled.
Percy sighed in defeat, all the anger seemed to drain from his body. "Hades if I know."
Dean coughed to get the demigods' attention. "Right, well that wasn't awkward or anything. Now, how do we get back to camp? From what I can tell we've got a little over a day to save the world."
Jesse shot up like a rocket with a huge grin covering his face. He started jumping up and down with his hand raised like an excited kindergartener who really needed to go to the bathroom. "I know! I know! There's this really cool looking chariot I found!"
The really cool looking chariot as it turned out was little more than rotted out coffin on rickety old wheels. That didn't seem to put a damper on the antichrist's excitement, though.
"We can hook this up to those horses and ride this baby into the sunset!" Jesse said in awe.
"Actually, we will be the sunset," Will corrected.
That just made the kid even more excited. Before they knew what was happening, Jesse used his freaking voodoo magic to harness the horses to the ancient relic.
Percy and Will were ushered onto it with gusto by the overly enthusiastic antichrist. Dean, however, stood glued to the spot. There was no way in Heaven, Hell, Tartarus, or whatever damn Norse hell existed was he going to get into that coffin on wheels and take off into the sky.
"My car is here and that thing can't be trusted and… and… and… NO!" Dean cried.
"Oh, fine," Jesse rolled his eyes. Percy and Will sighed in relief before the kid continued, "You and your car can go on back to this 'Camp Half-Blood', the three of us will ride this chariot across the horizon!"
He pointed valiantly at the large barn-like doors to the horse stables which proceeded to open at his command. The view nearly caused Dean a heart attack. There was nothing below but the open sea hundreds of thousands of miles below them.
Before either of the demigods could argue and before Dean's heart gave out, the world went blank.
Sorry this came out a couple days late, I was working some insane shifts. But I hope y'all enjoy! We're nearing the end!