Jet
I stand atop Temple Hill, watching the chaos unfold. I see near the Caldecott Tunnel, waves of Romans (and probably my friends) have gathered near the entrance, just before the river. The figures were so small and so far they looked like ants.
What. Is. Happening.
The wolf that had urged me to follow him was now gone, no idea where he went but that doesn't matter. Right now Camp Jupiter was looking like a scene out of Lord of The Rings… a bad one. I should probably join up with everybody else. I take one last look at the Temples of the Gods and sigh. Now's not the time for crying. I need to know what the heck is going on.
I start walking back down the hill and towards the Caldecott Tunnel where everyone else was gathering. As I cross the bridge back onto the Camp Jupiter side of the Tiber, I notice the Argo III idly sitting in the wind.
"Petra and Killian oughta get in on this too," I tell myself.
I reach the Argo III and enter the behemoth sized ship, it really was massive. I walk through the corridors and the rooms once more, and again hearing the sound of clanging coming from the engine room. There still here. I walk to the sound of the noise and find myself in front of the door to the engine room. I swing it open, causing a loud bang that catches the two's attention.
"Jesus, Jet. First you punch a hole in the wall — now you almost break the door!?" exclaims Petra.
"Yeah sorry about that, but now's not the time. We need to go, now," I tell them.
"Why? What's going on?"
"I don't know… everyone's gathering near the Tunnel."
Killian raises his eyebrow, "Probably something to do with that gunshot."
"You heard it too?"
He rolls his eyes, "Of course I did, it's a gunshot."
I decide not to argue, even if it was possible that you could not hear gunshot and also the fact that they're in a metal box, inside a huge ship, making lots of noise. Instead, I tell them the same thing as before:
"Let's go!"
"Take Kill with you, I'm almost done here, I'll finish up the rest," says Petra.
Killian groans, "Why do I have to go, I can finish up the rest too."
"Sure you can..."
Before Killian could start complaining to Petra, I grab him by the collar and drag him with me, I wasn't going to sit around all day hearing these two squabble. I let go once I could no longer feel him struggle. He told me to wait for him to get his things and I reluctantly oblige. I wait for about 5 mins, until I see him walk down the hallway with his gear.
"Alright, I'm good," he says.
"Why do you need a fanny pa— you know what, nevermind let's just go."
Once outside of the Argo, we start heading towards the Caldecott Tunnel and already I hear another gunshot. The sound makes me and Killian jump. I hope no ones getting hurt, though I doubt that'll last. We were near the barracks as we hear an explosion set off, this time coming from behind. We look to see that smoke was coming from New Rome and a building was on fire. Then another set of explosions blow off and soon enough, the whole city was in flames. This isn't good. This is bad… really — really bad.
"Holy Hephaestus, what the heck is going on!?" screams Killian, over the sound of explosions.
"I've been wondering the same thing!"
I look back in the direction of the Caldecott Tunnel, then back to New Rome, then to the Tunnel, then New Rome. This cycle continues until:
"We're going to New Rome," I state firmly.
"What? I thought you said we needed to go the Tunnel."
"I know, but back then, New Rome wasn't experiencing doomsday. People could be in danger."
"Yeah I know, but all our friends are at the tunnel."
"They'll be fine. They've got Diana, no one can beat hear."
Killian thinks for a moment, "Fair enough… alright, let's go."
I nod and we both start running to the fires of Rome.
As we reach the entrance to the city, I see a statue barking orders. It was like your classic Roman statues you'd see in a museum; no hands or legs, just the torso and the head. As I get closer I could see writing on the stone he was fixed too: "Terminus". Of course, this must be the Roman God of boundaries… yes, I know my mythology. I could hear him screaming loudly at Romans that were scrambling around. As soon as he saw us, he got even more mad.
"What DO YOU want!" He yells.
"I just want to help," I say, "What happened anyways?"
He looks at me like I had just insulted him, "WHAT HAPPENED!? You can SEE what happened! The whole city is on fire!"
"Well how did that happen," Killian asks.
"Yeah," I add, "Aren't you supposed to stop anything like that from happening?"
If statue's could turn red, Terminus would be as bright as a tomato, "Listen boy, you don't tell me how to do my job and I don't tell you how to do yours."
"Look, just help us out here," I sigh, "Did anybody enter before the incident?"
It took him a while to register the question and I had to repeat it a couple of times. Probably because he couldn't hear me over the constant burning and yelling of Romans.
"Well, yes," he says, "one boy, Rex I think his name was — but he had no weapon, he was completely clean."
Rex? What's he doing here?
Terminus' attention gets caught by something to his right in which he then starts screaming out orders again.
"Did he say where he was headed?" I ask.
"I don't know!" Terminus yells, "I only ask things for safety reasons, not ask about their whole day!"
"Fine. We'll figure it out ourselves."
Me and Killian both start running into the city. We could hear Terminus screaming behind us about how we were running in with our weapons but he quickly forgot about it, considering he has more pressing matters to attend to.
We reach the city Forum and it looks even worse. The red of the roofs blended with the spreading of the fire, half of the buildings had collapsed and people were running for their lives. We could barely even see through the smoke and the smell was horrid. I see Killian reach into his fanny pack and grab out two pieces of cloth.
"Here," he says giving me the cloth, "Wrap it around your face, it'll protect you from the smoke."
I do as he says and wrap the cloth around my mouth and nose. He was right when he said it'll protect me from the smoke. The coughing stopped and my throat started to feel better, but the smell was still there.
"We should split up, find the culprit and hopefully stop all of this."
"Wait, what are we looking for?" Killian asks.
"Rex. Curly long hair and purple shirt. He should stand out as younger than most of the people here," I reply.
"Anything else?"
"Yeah… if you can, try and help the civilians."
We both spread ourselves out in the Forum, searching for Rex and helping people along the way. I assisted people with directions back to where Terminus was and also helped lift up some debris that was on top of someone. It was a mess.
Rex was nowhere to be seen, I keep looking and looking but there was no sign of him. The smoke didn't help either. I tried looking for Killian but he was gone too.
"Jet!" I hear someone call out.
The voice calls out again and I realise it was Killian on the other side of the Forum.
"Over here!" he says, "I found something!"
I run over to him, jumping over fallen debris and trying not to get smoke in my eyes. I had to dodge a couple of fire patches as well. Once I met up with Killian he immediately started leading me somewhere.
"Where's your fanny pack?" I ask noticing it was missing.
"I… lost it."
Weird, nobody just loses a fanny pack, especially when it's strapped to your waist. But, I continue following him inside one of the buildings in the forum. It seemed like the only one that wasn't completely destroyed. Once inside, Killian takes off his mask and so do I. The air seemed cleaner in hear, but still really bad. The room was fairly empty, like most of the furniture had been moved to the side. It was the same deal with the other buildings, the walls and floors were marble, though no longer white.
"Look what I found," Killian says and points to something in the middle of the room. It was some sort of box with some weird machinery on it. A red light was flashing and wires connected it to the other side of the box.
"What is it?" I ask.
"I don't know," he says.
"Well your the son of Hephaestus, figure it out!"
"Just because I'm the son of the blacksmith God, doesn't make me an expert on everything related to wires!"
I sigh, "Whatever, just figure it out. I'll go and find Rex."
"Wait, you should figure it out."
"What? Why me?" I ask, "You have better chance at solving it. Son of Hephaestus, remember?"
"Yes, but you're a son of Athena. They're pretty dang smart too. Plus, I just usually just made things… my brother knew how things worked."
I was in the middle of walking out until that makes me stop. I turn around and look at him weirdly.
"Your brother? Don't you mean your sister?"
"Oh, uh… right, right. Sorry this smoke is messing with my head."
"It ain't messing with me," I say, very confused.
Something's not right here.
"Whatever, Jedediah, just go."
OK. Now, it's getting really weird. First of all, nobody calls me that and I don't even think Killian should know that.
"Uh… ok," I reply, very hesitantly. This... this isn't Killian.
I start walking back outside, as if going along with Killian's order. I look to my left and see a wooden pole leaning on the wall. Just as I walk past it, I grip it in my hands and turn around, throwing it at Killian. To my surprise, Killian moves to the side and catches, proceeding to then snap it in two with his knee. Killian just sighs and something even weirder happens. He starts… to change.
His facial features start shifting, turning from his usual blacksmithy-oiled-covered look into a skinnier, blue-eyed, blonde-haired man with a beard. He would be a perfect Hemsworth, like their long lost brother or something. His clothes changed too, instead of a Camp Half-Blood shirt and overalls, he wore a buttoned up black shirt with long sleeves that were rolled up to his elbows. The man just smiles.
"Was it something I said?" He asks, in a different voice now. It was more smooth and manly.
"Who the hell are you?"
"I'm… everyone."
This is probably the guy that started all this, not Rex. I mean, he probably just made himself look like Rex.
All of a sudden he starts shapeshifting again, his hair became brown and messy and his eyes turned grey. His face turned younger in age and his clothes turned into a leather jacket and jeans — he was me.
"I know this is supposed to be a really trippy moment right now," I say, "but damn I look good."
"I get that a lot."
Oh gods, he even sounded like me. I'm kind of amazed, actually.
"That's pretty coo—"
I get caught off guard when I see a wooden stick being thrown right at my face. I manage to duck in time thanks to my demigod reflexes. When I look back at the man — Jet — me — myself — he starts charging towards me with two daggers, one in each hand. I activate my cestus gloves and get ready for a fight.
He brings both daggers down on me but I manage to sidestep to the left, causing him to miss. I then punch him right across the face, leaving a mark, but for the most part, the guy seemed completely fine. I swing again at his head but he ducks and kicks me in the chest, causing me to get knocked back into a table. He tries to stab at me again but I roll out of the way, getting one of his daggers stuck on the table. He tries to budge it out but I tackle him to the wall making him gutter in pain.
I try to punch him in the face again with my right hand but he stops it with his left, then twisting my wrist. I yell in pain causing me to lose my grip on him. He then stabs me on my left shoulder. The strike sends a shock through my whole body. That hurt more than it should've. The evil Jet then knees me in the stomach, the dagger still in my shoulder. The hit knocks the wind out of me and I lie on the ground, wheezing in pain.
"Oof," he says, laughing, "That was a pretty nasty hit."
He pulls the dagger out of my body with zero care, which shocks my whole body.
"And look... here's another one."
I feel his foot collide with my face, almost completely knocking me out. My head started spinning, feeling delirious. All I could hear was the faint whistling of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" as evil Jet toys with me.
"Real valiant effort, what you're trying to do," he continues saying, "Helping the people of New Rome… trying to stop us."
Us?
"...but you can't. Still, a valiant effort."
I clench my fists, my body starts to move again. My senses were coming back, and I was mad.
"I would even go as far as to calling you a —"
He gets interrupted as he falls on the ground after I swept his leg. He doesn't get up immediately for he is still surprised by what just happened. I seize the moment to jump on him whilst he is still down, mounting him and locking his arms down so he couldn't move. I activate the spikes on my Cestus, fully aware of what I intend to do next. I position my fist, ready to strike. The man looks at me in shock — or I see me look at me in shock… it's confusing.
"Jet? — Or... Jets?"
I look to my left and see that Killian stood there, wrench in hand and in utter confusion. This causes me to loosen my grip in which the evil Jet escapes from my grasp. We both stand up, side-by-side and look at Killian.
"It's him!" the evil Jet says, pointing at me, "He's an imposter!"
I moan, "Oh… we are so not doing this."
Killian scratches his head, "Please don't do this to me gods."
The other me speaks up again, "Then don't, the choice is easy, fight him!"
"Hold on, just a minute. It is not me!"
Killian looks at me, "Oh yeah? Prove it."
"Seriously man? Okay, um… ask me a question."
Yikes, that's really cliche.
Killian thinks, "Okay… what's my sisters name?"
"Really?" I ask, "out of all the question you ask —"
"Petra!" the other me shouts out.
Killian looks back at me, "you're on thin ice buddy."
You have got to be kidding me.
"Okay, um… look!" I point at the owl symbol on my jacket, "See this? This was burned into my jacket when I got claimed. Look at his jacket," I point at the other me, "it doesn't have it."
"Are you serious? You're just making that up!" the evil Jet says.
"He's right," Killian says, gripping his wrench, "I wasn't actually there when you were claimed."
"Oh, come on!"
"One more chance, buddy."
Okay, Jet think. How can I convince my stupid friend that I'm the real Jet. It's gotta be something concrete… something real… something that can't be… remade… that's it.
"See these?" I lift up my Cestuses, "you made them for me, you gave these to me and you only made one pair."
I start showing the different settings, from normal gloves — to normal cestus — to spiked cestus — then to shield — then back to the normal gloves.
Killian looks at the other me now, "He's right. I only made one pair."
I could see the panic in the man's eyes, "He's wrong! That's just a copy. Look, I have the same gloves!" He holds up his hands and… it has the same exact gloves as I'm wearing. Black, leather and fingerless gloves.
"Activate them," Killian says.
"What?"
"If there the same gloves, turn them into Cestuses, now."
He starts looking at both of us, hesitating, he knows he can't switch them into Cestuses. He can copy clothes but not weapons or complex mechanisms. Killian and I start moving in on him. In reaction to that, evil me pulls out something from his pocket and slams it on the ground. A big bang flashes in my eyes, blinding my vision for a few seconds. By the time my vision refocuses, the other Jet is gone.
I look around me to see that the man was no longer Jet but back to his normal self. He stood all the way at the exit door, ready to leave.
"Well, it was fun playing that little game with you boys," he says holding something in his hand, "but I think it's time we end our little masquerade."
"What are you doing?" Killian shouts out, still rubbing his eyes.
"You want to know what that little box in the room does, don't you?"
We both turn to the box that was about 5 feet behind us, still flashing red.
"Well allow me to demonstrate."
He hovers his finger over some sort of red button on the thing he was holding, which I now realise is a detonator. This isn't good. My body suddenly kicks into action, completely rejecting all reasoning, ignoring the pain in my stomach and the pain in my bleeding left shoulder. I push Killian forward as far as I can from the bomb, knocking him behind a table. While I activate my shield, knowing good and well that this could be it. I turn behind me, shield in front and face the fiery explosion that awaits me.
Everything goes black…
"Jet!... Jet!... Jet!" I hear a very muffled voice call, "Get up!"
My eyes open, extremely blurry from all the smoke in my eyes. The ringing in my ears was the most dominant sound I could hear. I see a face in front of me but I couldn't see who it was. I was coughing but I couldn't even feel it.
"Jet! Come on, Petra's here!"
Petra? Why is she here? What about Killian… Killian… Killian. My vision starts to clear and the memories start flashing back: The shapeshifting man, the explosion.
I could finally see the face in front of me as well, it was Killian. His face was covered in all the ash and his hair was charred. Then my sense of feeling came back, though I wish it didn't. The pain surges through my whole body, like I had just been stomped on by a minotuar 60 times. I didn't notice at first but Killian was actually slapping me on the cheek continuously in which I told him to stop. The pain in my shoulder came back and it was unbearable, I couldn't move my left arm.
I struggled to get up and I had to limp on one leg but Killian lended a hand. My whole body felt like it was on fire and my head felt like it was currently being dipped into a pool of boiling oil. I look down at my clothes and realise half of one leg of my pants had been completely burned off and the left sleeve of my leather jacket was completely ripped off, exposing the wound on my shoulder even more. Well that's $250 dollars down the drain.
I look at my surroundings and see that we're outside, the sky above us, filled with smoke. The people still running and screaming, some trying to extinguish the fires.
"Weren't… weren't we in a building?" I struggle to ask.
"We still are," Killian grimaces.
I suddenly realise that we were in the building… or what's left of it. The rubble we stood on was all that remained of the building, the whole structure was completely destroyed.
"How — how — how the hell did we survive that?" I manage to speak.
"I don't know," Killian replies, "but I wouldn't have made it without you, so thanks."
I try to chuckle but it just causes my body more pain so it sounded more like a cough, "don't mention it."
I honestly didn't know why I did it, but I did.
All of a sudden a small platform appears out of nowhere, completely materialising right in front of me. I then look up, which was also painful to do by the way, to see the Argo III hovering above us. The platform was connected by some sort of pulley system to the ship. I could see Petra's little figure on the deck. Nobody else seemed to notice the giant ship in the sky, probably because they were busy worrying about their lives.
"Do you expect me to get on this thing?"
Killian just rolls his eyes, "It's fine, it'll pull us up."
I reluctantly get on the platform with Killian, still leaning on his shoulder. Just like he said, the platform pulls us up and levels with the deck where Petra waited anxiously. Once we stepped onto the deck, Petra ran straight for us and brought us into a tight group hug.
In response I wince in pain.
"Oh, oh sorry," Petra apologises but I wave the gesture away telling her it's fine.
"So you got the ship up and running?" asks Killian.
"Yep… and we need to get to the Tunnel, like right now."
"Why what's happening?"
Petra hesitates, "I — I don't know, I saw a glimpse of the battle and it's not looking good. We need to get them out of there."
"No!" I manage to say, "We still, gotta — gotta — help these people."
"Are you kidding me?" Killian says, "your half-dead."
"No, I'm half-blood and I'm fine, come on, they need us. Just pick some up with the ship."
"They'll be fine Jet, Terminus will evacuate them safely."
I ignore their comments. I have to help, I'm not screwing up this time. I try to move without Killian's support but that just leads me to collapse on the floor. The pain stuns me and I pass out.
I hope you guys liked this part and I hope I did the drama of it correctly.
I sometimes worry that my drama isn't good enough or it's needs more time.
Also, I hope you liked the action in the previous chapter and yes... it was very intense. What did you guys think of the new enemies? Are they intimidating? Can you guess any of their godly parents? ... or pasts? They are all OC demigods as well, just older.
Also, please tell me if theres anything I need to improve on.
Give me some of your feedback in the reviews! and thanks in advance :).
