CHAPTER 1: A 10-FOOT-LONG WOODEN BASEBALL BAT.

APOLLO POV

After being alive for 4 millennia I thought I had seen everything. A hot guy with a talking sword check, a falcon headed sore loser check, a horse that swears like a sailor check, an old man driving a bad version of my chariot check and a hammer no one can lift except for a guy who uses it for catching up on his TV shows check. But for the life of me I never imagined I would see a 10-year-old smack a cross breed horror and its mother with a 10-foot-long log of wood like it was a baseball bat.

I was having a bad day after another stupid meeting where nothing really happened. Ares and Hephaestus were arguing while Aphrodite didn't pay any mind to either of them, Demeter was educating Hera and Artemis on the importance of cereal, Hermes was minding his own job while checking out new ideas for pranks, while the waste of space called a wine god was sleeping. I never really understood why Hestia gave her seat for that living furniture. I along with Poseidon and Hermes were the only ones who tried get her back on the council. Hera argued her case with us in the start but gave up. I really like Aunt H. She was kind to me and my sister in the start.

Uncle P on other hand seemed to be lost. He wasn't retorting to Athena's taunts nor was he irritating his brother the king of Olympus and his father Zeus who was being chewed out by his wife Hera about how he was flirting with a Nymph yesterday. But my father seemed nervous about something. Suddenly my sisters' interest was prickled by something and she commanded Iris to open a message to the hill of Camp Half-Blood. What followed was a battle in between a ten-year-old boy and the minotaur. The boy managed to snap one of the minotaur's horns of and use it to stab him. Electricity coursed out of him and sparked the monster up and killing the Minotaur. Realization dawned upon every council member's faces and so did it on everyone who was on the hill overlooking the fight. Zeus claimed the kid and the council room broke into an uproar.

Ares grinned expectantly waiting for a fight, Aphrodite said something about a very interesting love story, Artemis scowled at father while Athena adopted a thoughtful face. Hermes tensed up which was understandable since his son's fate was connected to the great prophecy. Dionysus said something along the line of "great another brat." Surprisingly, Poseidon was very quiet but Hera went ballistic. She threatened to castrate Zeus with her spear. I was not the only one who noted Poseidon's calmness. Athena, Artemis and Hermes did to. Poseidon got up from his throne slammed his trident into the ground. But that less of anger but more of sorrow, hopelessness and melancholy. He was not calm he was very sad. He flashed away from the throne room leaving it quiet.

The meeting after that was just normal, with Hera glaring at Zeus the whole time while everyone went about their business.

Finally, after the meeting was done, I left and went to my palace after changing into something more comfortable. I left for a pub to get shit faced and maybe get laid. Hermes, Ares and Aphrodite were accompanying us. Even in the pub my time was bad as Dionysus showed up cause of party time throwing everyone of their game by his pathetic complaining.

I wasn't properly drunk, I wasn't getting laid, my father was being his usual self and causing problems and probably set about events that could quiet literally destroy the whole world. In all I was in bad place.

This led me to take a walk in Central Park to clear my thoughts. My brain was stuck on Uncle P. What was bothering him? As I walked pondering on these things, I heard a roar. I recognized that roar well. It was the only monster my sister was not allowed to hunt since my father kept it and her psycho mother around as a challenge for demigods. More like a method to have his brothers' children killed for his amusement. I followed the roar to a wide-open space somewhere in the west side of central park. That bitch and her mutt were facing a kid who could be no older than ten.

The kid was tall for his age. He had tan skin and unruly long black hair. His eyes were vibrant sea green with a few specks of black. He looked skinny with hardly any muscle on him and looked close to exhaustion.

The mutt breathed fire onto him and he dodged the fire by jumping to the side. The ground around him got scorched and by looking around the ground I came to the conclusion that he had already dodged a few of these flame throwers.

The Mutt who was the Chimera was ten feet tall. It had a head of a lion and blood red mane. Its skin was brownish red like that of dried blood. A goat head was sticking out from somewhere on its body while a head of python was sticking out of what could be called its butt. I briefly wondered if the snake had any issues with smell but quickly pushed it out of my mind.

Echidna looked just as ugly as I remember. She looked like a fat middled aged lady who we couldn't differentiate if she was a woman or a man. Her hair was a horrible shade of neon green that made me gag and she had green scales on her skin.

Echidna spoke suddenly,

"Be honoured, Son of Poseidon, it's not everyone that can have a stench that can attract me the terrible Echidna the mother of Monsters."

Poseidon broke the pact. I honestly thought he would not. I mean sure he had a lot of kids during the ancient time but he became better and more loyal to his wife after Rome and the whole Neptune fiasco. I mean having more then three children in his cabin was a sight to behold. He went a whole century without children before the whole Arthur fiasco. I decided to let that go and concentrate on the kid. Maybe he was the reason Poseidon was down. Ever since his children were lessening in number their strength and skill only got higher and higher. They became more powerful and unpredictable. At first, Zeus was losing to Hades while Poseidon sat out the second world war since he was loyal to both his king and his saviour all those years ago -Zeus and his bigger brother who stood up for him sometimes who helped - Hades. Hades and Poseidon almost had a brother like relation meeting once a week and playing pranks on each other and helping each other out, but during the war one of Hades's kids killed one Poseidon's sons and he lost it. He joined Zeus and the war shifted in their favour.

Even now Hades tries to make amends but Poseidon won't have it. I was broken out of my thoughts when the kid said something that I would remember for the rest of my life.

"You had sex with Typhon, right. How did you two pull that off?" he asked.

I had to hold a hand over my mouth to prevent myself from breaking down into hysterics.

Echidna shrieked and said, "Kill him sonny."

The Chimera also seemed angered by the way the demigod spoke to his mom and attacked him. He swiped him with his paw breather fire rammed his goat head and tried to bite him with his snake head but he dodged all of them.

He spoke in between a dodge "I guess it was stupid of me to think you would be a challenge. I mean if your name is shared by an anteater, it says enough about your capabilities."

I didn't know if the kid was suicidal or just plain crazy. Considering he was Uncle P's son a bit of both probably. His children tend to be a little reckless and act before they think.

Echidna screamed at the top of her lungs and joined the fray.

"I hate you and I hate Australia. Kill him sonny. We will cook him and have him for dinner." She shrieked.

But Echidna joining the fray did not help them. In fact, it made it more difficult for them. She was slow, fat and stupid. It was cramping up Chimera's attacks and giving the kid breathing room.

That was when I realized the kids plan. He had made them restrict each other and the Chimera was frustrated and this made it sloppy.

The kid dodged a badly aimed paw swipe to his left and uprooted a ten-foot-long wooden log stuck to the ground and smacked the Chimera on it's face. It gave out a hiss of pain and backed away. Some part of the ground came uprooted with the log and the kid was holding it like it hardly weighed anything.

He smacked a home run with Echidna making her fly into a bunch of trees to his left. She smacked through a few trees before coming to a rest at the base of another tree. The Chimera came back to attack the kid but he spun around with lightning fast reflexes and smacked the Chimera on it's side so hard the log broke into two parts. The Chimera whimpered away while Echidna managed to pull herself back to the opening.

The kid turned around and threw the log like it was a javelin and it stuck the mother on monsters in her chest and impaled itself to the ground killing her.

But he had his back turned to the chimera and the mutt recovered faster than expected and bit him in his shoulder.

Someone uttered a gasp of shock from behind only for my eyes to land on Hermes. He looked to be comfortable in a pair of jeans jogging shoes that sprouted wings and a sweater that was zipped up with his symbol on the front.

I turned back to fight cause the kid grunted in pain. I could talk with Hermes later. I had to see what the kid was doing. He caught the snake head and tried to shake it off but it wouldn't budge and sunk its fangs deeper. In a act of super human strength pain endurance the kid ripped the snake head into two by pulling it's jaws apart.

The Chimera Roared in pain and turned to him with murderous eyes. It breathed fire but the kid ran straight towards the flames.

"What the hell is he doing?" Hermes all but screamed.

I was confused to but I knew better something told me the kid knew exactly what he was doing. Even the Chimera seemed surprised.

And I was proven right when he performed baseball slide under the fire and caught the other part of his improvised weapon. He used it as lever and pulled himself up and jumped and stuck the log into its mouth by gaining a little elevation and throwing it. It went a long way into the Chimera. The monster chocked and the lack of air and the deepens of the log stopping its flames chocked and killed it.

The kid looked at the monster remnants and scowled and said "You looked better in the children's book."

He collapsed after a few seconds of standing straight. The effects of the poison taking over.

Immediately myself and Hermes rushed to his side. We knew we couldn't interfere but something drew me towards the kid.

I knelt at his side and started to treat the poison while Hermes checked him for other injuries. The poison was going to far and what I was doing wasn't enough to help him. I needed to take him to the medical ward in my palace but that would be to long or I needed another healer. Immediately something stuck me. Hermes had a minor domain of healing and medicine.

I turned to Hermes and said "I need your help. I can't heal the poison myself."

Hermes looked at me and said "how would I be able to help. I can't do anything with poison."

"You can't but you have minor domain with healing and medicine. It should be enough to heal him or give me enough time to take him to my palace and get him started on the proper method."

Hermes nodded and moved over and placed his hand over my hand and sent his pulse along with mine. The poison was starting to be battled and slowly the kid was regaining his colour. I had to say this kid had an impressive healing ability. After ten minutes of exhausting work, we managed to heal the kid.

I picked him up and told Hermes "Meet me in my palace. I will set up the kid in a bed."

I vanished with him to Olympus and went into the medical ward and placed him on a bed and put a few pulses of healing while I set up a pool of salt water for healing like the one, I used for Triton to heal him.

I moved him into that tank and sunk him inside. I wiped sweat of my fore head and realized that my clothes were completely soaked with sweat. I snapped and changed into a sleeve less T-shirt and pair of shorts.

As soon as I changed Hermes showed up in a jogging short and a plain white T-shirt. He looked from me to the kid floating in the salt water bed pool and asked

"How is he?"

"For some one who had Chimera poison coursing through his blood pretty good." I answered

"Why did you place him in the tank then?" Hermes asked bit of suspicion, bit of concern for the boy but mostly just curious.

"He is exhausted. If my guess is right, he has not eaten for nearly five days. The pool would reenergize him." I replied.

Hermes nodded and beckoned me to follow him as he left the clinic.

We walked for a little until we reached the hall and he settled on one of the recliners. I sat down on the couch and looked at him expectantly.

He took a deep breath and said "You do realize who he is, don't you?"

I nodded "Uncle P's child. This is not good. He broke the pact too."

Hermes nodded and sat bent back and massaged his temple and said "What do we do?"

"Well, the loyal thing would be to tell father" Hermes scowled at that. He knew as well as I did the kid had less chances of surviving that encounter than Ares had at beating Athena in a fight.

"The right thing according to the Ancient laws would be to give him to the social services or something." Hermes was not impressed by that idea but nodded nonetheless.

"The good thing would be to help him get to camp and maybe break the laws." He perked up a little at this idea.

Suddenly multiple things clicked together. The bad meeting, Artemis finding out about the killing, out utter failure in even getting drunk and me choosing the Central Park and Hermes being around at the same time. The last option came to me which probably was the best.

"The best and the most dangerous thing for us to do would be to keep him hear and train him for the prophecy." Hermes suddenly jolted upright from his seat and looked at me with wide eyes.

HERMES POV

When I woke up this morning, I didn't expect my day to turn out like this. First my prank on Dionysus didn't work and then we had a stupid meeting where we got to see Peter Benet, son of Zeus, kill a minotaur and then my father get threatened to be castrated by Hera (that brought a smile to my face) and most weird of all Uncle P's behaviour. I expected him to explode the most but he didn't. He was less angry and just sad. He just disappeared from the meeting.

Then came the absolute failure for getting drunk out my mind to forget my headache due to this Peter due to Dionysus and his party time. I just wanted some fresh air and hence went around for a walk which led me to central park. Then what I had seen in Central Park kind of just made it all seem insignificant.

A boy no older than 10 had defeated the strongest monster in out pantheon and its mother. We didn't know his name but Echidna confirmed him to be a son of Poseidon. His strategy to coax Echidna to join the battle and using her slow and sluggish nature to frustrate the Chimera into making a mistake was plain brilliance. A plan worthy of Athena you could say, I guess. But what really made that special was his method of pulling her into the fray. They were some interesting things he said to her which told me he was a sarcastic rule breaking trouble maker.

Then came his neigh incredible strength where he used a ten-foot-long wooden log like a baseball bat and smacked the monsters and killing them with it. But what really caught me off guard was Apollo's presence that I came to know off after he ripped the snake's head into two.

After killing the Chimera, the kid collapsed and almost died before we managed to save him. When Apollo took him away, I managed to stand up. It might not have been as exhausting for Apollo but it was really exhausting for me since it was a minor domain. I looked around and realized that the kid's spoils were left and I collected them. A pelt, a pair of gloves that looked like lion paws and the snake's fangs.

I took them and kept them in my palace to give the kid later and changed and went to Apollo's clinic in his palace on Olympus, where the kid was resting in a salt water tank. The tank had a golden base with a see-through glass surrounding it. He was floating peacefully inside it with no real problem with problem and regaining. If he was a son of Poseidon the sea water will be good for him.

Now Apollo dropped the biggest bomb since the Hiroshima incident.

I managed to reel in surprise that seemed to amuse Apollo going by the smirk on his face.

I asked "So he is the kid of the prophecy."

Apollo narrowed his eyes in concentration "It has been a little foggy since the start of the meeting and. I am not sure I wasn't even aware until a few seconds ago but I am sure he has an important role to play in the prophecy. He also needed us to help him that was why we were drawn to the park."

I nodded than asked a question "Can he help….

Luke. I don't Hermes. I am not sure of his role but he is important to the prophecy that much I am sure off and he needs our help that also I am sure off.

I didn't say anything. I was hoping against hope that what May had seen about Luke was wrong but it turned out it was right when I asked Apollo. The most horrible thing was even if we were all powerful beings, I couldn't help my son because it would only make it more difficult so I had to turn a blind eye to most of his problems and prayers. This helplessness was eating me up and the fear and anxiety were killing me.

I didn't know if he could help or not but I decided if this kid had something important to do with the prophecy that said my son would have a horrible fate, I decided I would help him at all cost. Maybe the kid could save Luke.

I looked at Apollo with determined look on my face and asked "What is it we have to do?"

Apollo answered "Feed him some food because he looks like he would fly away if his father sent a strong gust towards him" with a small smile.

I let out a small chuckle.

He than continued "We will have to train him. Prepare him for the day of the prophecy and hope he is ready to do all he has to save Olympus."

I nodded.

"We also might have to bless him cause then he would our champion and allow us to interact with him with breaking the Ancient laws."

A though popped into my head

"Hey, Apollo, are we sure this kid wants to do any of those things. I mean for all we know he might just want to live and have nothing to do with these things. I mean he might not want to die for us."

Apollo frowned at that and said "I don't know Hermes. Maybe he doesn't want to. He might not even be the prophecy child. But this is the right thing to do that much I am sure of."

I wasn't comfortable with that uncertainty but nodded nonetheless.

"What do we tell the kid?" asked Apollo. "I mean it looked like he knew what he was doing as in he wasn't confused. Definitely scared but not confused."

"Maybe he did but we tell him nonetheless. We will also explain to him about the Pact and a little about the prophecy and hope he understands the gravity of the situation." I answered.

Apollo nodded and went back to his thoughts. Even though he hid behind his goofy personality and jokes Apollo was very smart and very calculative. He was also very dedicated and serious when he had to be. But for the life of him he could not read a room and understand situations. This caused him to totally branded as an idiot.

I remembered something else about the kid. His inhumane strength and pain endurance.

"Hey Apollo, why do you think he was able to lift that log so easily?"

Apollo broke out of his thoughts and looked at me confused and asked "I am sorry what?"

"I asked why do you think he has super strength. I mean I have not seen a demigod do something like that since Hercules. What could be the reason?" I repeated each word slowly and carefully just to annoy him and by his expression it seemed to work.

Apollo scowled but answered nonetheless "I don't know but now some Uncle P's children are making Hercules look like a joke. I mean the amount of raw power Shen Lun had was crazy. Who knows what it causes to his children? Super strength might just be a side effect of that. Look at it this way he didn't have kids for almost 70 years before he had Joanne and she could do archery and control Horses and other member of the Equidae family. A century for Arthur and he started healing using the moisture in the air and could control ice. Calico Jack managed to cause lightning strikes for his 50-years break. Now this kid had another 70. Who knows what it gave him?"

I nodded that explanation seemed plausible but my gut told me that was not it. I could see it in his face to he didn't want to think of any other possibilities because it would make matters too messy.

"We will have a difficult time explaining even if he knows some of the things that are happening around him." Apollo told me.

I nodded. It was indeed true. Some times even I had complications understanding the heart of the west or whatever it was and I was one of the smarter gods.

"Get some sleep Apollo. We will tell the kid tomorrow. We have a long day to go through."

He nodded and headed out while I flashed to my palace. I changed into some pyjamas and went to sleep thinking about tomorrow's conversation with the kid and what this could mean for the both of us and Olympus.