Warning: the second part of this chapter has characters talking about some stuff when it comes to religion and mythology. I do not mean to offend anyone with my writing, just talk about various myth systems and religions from the perspective of someone living as part of one. No clue if this warning is needed or not, I just want to be safe and let you all know beforehand.
Despite how much I hated her, I had to admit, Medusa knew how to make good food. That simple fact made it much harder to leave the emporium than it should, but Grover somehow managed to pull us away from the place where so many had died.
Using money stolen from Medusa's sales(because of course we had to loot the place, it's the first rule of survival), we managed to get ourselves tickets to St. Louis, where we would dismount and find tickets to Denver. At least, that was the plan. And, surprisingly, it was working.
The only hiccup occurred during the four hour layover in St. Louis. Annabeth had wanted to visit the Gateway Arch, claiming the inverted catenary was a miracle of architecture and that she could use it as an inspiration for various designs she was coming up with. I shook my head at her enthusiasm, there were more important things to be done.
"But why?" she begged. "We're right here and there's still three and a half hours until our train! There's no point in not going!"
"Nope," I stood firm. "We're staying here. I don't want to risk any unneeded conflicts."
"Oh come on!" Annabeth protested. "What are the chances that a monster's going to appear?"
"Pretty high, actually," I grumbled. "We're in a populated city with two demigods, one of which is a child of Poseidon. We're going to get attacked if we leave."
"Fine," she sighed, sitting down. "I'll stay."
"Good," I nodded, closing my eyes as I leaned against the train station's walls. Inky blackness overtook my vision as I focused my senses elsewhere, trying to find the water around me. Two abnormalities were nearby, my blood and another. Wait… only two?
"Annabeth?" I called, looking around. Grover was sitting on a bench next to me, cap leaned over his face and hiding his horns. I desperately looked around for a sight of golden blond, before noting I had probably lost her in the crowd given her short stature. "Gods dammit!"
"Huh- wha?" Grover sleepily mumbled as I shook him awake, blearily wiping sleep out of his eyes. "Percy? What happened?"
"Annabeth ran away," I answered, letting go and looking around.
"Okay," he muttered as he leaned back. "She's responsible. She'll be back. G'night."
"Grover no!" I yelled, but the boy had already leaned back, returning to Morpheus's realm. Gritting my teeth, I looked around for a place to stuff him while I ran to the arch, where Annabeth was sure to be.
Eventually settling on leaving him here, I just left him and ran out, squeezing through the crowd and worming my way outside. Breaking into a full sprint as I burst free, I ran to where I saw the gleam of a metal curve in the distance.
Great, there was a huge line.
Looking around, I couldn't find the blond hair of a fellow demigod anywhere, until I looked to the front and saw her getting in an elevator car with an overweight lady and her much-too large chihuahua.
"Shit," I cursed as I stepped back, about to do something crazy. Manipulating the Mist around me as I made an ice platform elevated above the ground, stepping onto it and finding myself freezing my shoes to the floor to avoid falling off. "I am a bird, I am a bird. I am a bird. I am a pigeon. I am just a regular pigeon flying through the air, and nobody can tell otherwise."
Surprisingly, it worked. Only a few people actually looked up to see what I was doing and none of them noticed me, probably just seeing a pigeon flying strangely. That was the one thing I got from my very brief look down, after which I became nauseous and decided never to do that again.
Chances are I'd have to do it in a few minutes.
Annabeth hadn't reached the top yet, so I waited a couple minutes for her to appear, scanning the surroundings in the meantime. Vapor traveling in was easy, making sure nobody noticed decidedly wasn't. The cameras probably picked up something suspicious, but it was still barely visible to the rest, thanks to the Mist.
"The view is incredible!" one woman gasped a stroller next to her as she idly rocked it back and forth.
"That it is," the man on the other side of the stroller agreed, taking a picture with the camera he had strapped around his neck. A loud flash and a bright stream of light made me blink, and the elevator made it to the top. Looking anxiously at where it was, I braced myself for a fight, searching for golden curls and a rabid dog.
Gold curls stepped out, a woman with a dog did not.
"Percy?" Annabeth called out once she saw me, voice carrying over all the commotion and drawing a lot of attention to ourselves. "When- no, how did you get here?"
"Secret, but we gotta go," I warned, stepping closer and warily looking around.
"What? But I just got up here!" she protested, trying to step away.
"Annie, no!" I ordered, and she flinched before turning to me, venom in her voice.
"Don't call me that," she growled, and I took the opportunity to grab her and teleport back to the station, ignoring the girl's surprised shriek and the approaching security. At this point it was useless trying to cover anything up, even the mist wouldn't save us.
"What the Hades?" Annabeth questioned once she observed her surroundings, realizing that we had just teleported a small distance back to the station. The bench where Grover had sat was empty, and I mentally cursed, before noting that blondie was trying to slip away again.
"Not this bull again," I muttered as I grabbed her arm, a strong grip enough to keep the crowd from pushing us apart.
"What. Do. You. Want?" she asked, punctuating each word with a poke to the chest.
"We have to find Grover, dammit," I hastily explained, before closing my eyes and searching for the very distinct shape of goat legs.
"Oh yeah? Well, how?" Annabeth questioned somewhat sarcastically. "There's got to be hundreds of people here, none of us can see each other through all the bodies."
"Do you want to find him or not?" I asked, gritting my teeth as I found the specific shape I wanted. Annabeth hastily nodding in front of me. "Good. Then let's go."
"Wha- where?" she shrieked as I pulled her through the crowd in the direction of the signature, trying to keep a lock on it through all the bodies moving around me.
"Ow," I cursed, having walked straight into a wall, the concrete not having registered in front of me.
"Good going," my companion muttered, still being dragged behind me.
"Yeah, you try and navigate through a crowd sensing only water and avoid running into things," I rebutted, and she stared at me like I was crazy. Then again, I probably was, so I shouldn't have spoken up.
"What does that even mean?" she asked, confused. "Where are you going?"
"I'm going…" I responded, pausing for dramatic effect. "Here!" I proclaimed, jumping out to where there was… nothing?
"Wow, you really know your stuff," Annabeth stated. "We gonna get going or not, you dragged me all the way here for nothing."
"I swear, Grover was right he-" I tried to say, trailing off as the tail of a snake slowly faded into existence, writhing on the ground as green scales contrasted beige walls. The form of a woman spouted from the midsection, a goat's hooves becoming apparent right after.
"Hello, Persssseusss Jackssson," Echidna, the goddess of monsters hissed, voice fading in with her frame. The heads of her and Grover became apparent, the Satyr held in one clawed hand as he struggled to breathe.
"Hello Echidna," I greeted, ignoring Annabeth's tiny squeak and shifting the girl slightly behind me. "How's Australia this time of year?"
"I'LL KILL YOU!" she roared, dropping Grover and lunging forward, forcing me to grab Annabeth and spin out of the way. "Thossse Ausssie pigssss will pay for ssstealing my name."
"Pretty sure the Rainbow Serpent is gonna stop you but semantics I guess," I shot back, uncapping Riptide as the bronze blade glinted in the light. "I've got thirty mintues so you better make this quick, scaly bitch."
"Your insssolence truly knows no bounds," she hissed, before lunging again, a simple claw strike that I was able to phase through by liquifying my body for a short period of time. Confused, the goddess moved through me as I materialized behind her, sword in hand as I took a swing with the aim to decapitate. Echidna seemed to sense it and quickly leaped away, showing immense agility despite her lower body's form.
"Yeah, I know," I told her, getting no response as we started to circle each other. "And by people a lot stronger than you. Even so, they couldn't kill me, what makes you think you have a chance?" Okay, that was a lie. I had died to people stronger than her hundreds, and possibly thousands of times. Still, it worked out well.
"Die!" Echidna roared, lunging forward and landing a flurry of claw swipes that would've overpowered nearly anyone without the same speed. Riptide deflected or blocked each strike halfway between us, bronze and silver blurs as we fought.
"Gotcha," I muttered as a small opening showed, the goddess swiping slightly too high. Allowing the cut to brush past my shoulder and tear open some of my sleeve, I thrust forward at a much closer distance than before. It was quite the feat that the sword missed the heart of the goddess, but it still dug deep into her side. I ducked under a swipe from the opposite side and landed two quick jabs with knife hands into Echidna's side, before stepping back.
"A thousssand painful deathsss upon you, Perssseusss Jackssson," Echidna cursed, slithering backwards as I righted myself. A small kunai of ice formed in my sleeve, ready to be thrown at a moment's notice. Riptide was tossed away as Echidna took it out of her side, the wound starting to close at a slow rate as golden Ichor dripped from the wound.
"Yeah, that already happened," I not so sarcastically let her know, savoring the confusion on her face. "Twice actually, hoping not to make it a third time. Anyway, where were we?"
"Sssomething isssn't right about you," Echidna observed slithering to the side. "I will sssavor thisss kill, there will not be another like it for a long time."
"Maybe lucky number 69420 can take the bounty," I teased. "Get in line, it might take a few centuries but I think I've pissed off enough gods to where Olympus might actually have a price on my head."
"You talk too much," Echidna mentioned, before lunging forward, claws outstretched. I let the icy knife fly, the goddess ducking to the side with a victorious smirk on her face. It might have been deserved, for all she knew, I was out of weapons. Riptide should've been behind her, I let my one blade go, and I couldn't form another in time. A mad grin appeared on my face as the claws drew near, centimeters away from my eyeballs as I finally decided I should act.
Vapor traveling to the kunai, more specifically swapping places with it, I appeared behind Echidna with the blade in front of her, flying into her hands. Echidna let out a shriek of pain as it impaled itself in her hand, left arm out of commission for now. Riptide was drawn from its pen form, having appeared in my pocket seconds before. The god-killing metal was swung in a backwards arc, blade colliding with a scaly neck as water started to reinforce the swing, powering my strength and adding to the weight of the blade.
The first few inches of the neck gave way easily, and it seemed like absolute victory until I reached the spine, at which point it stopped moving so easily. Echidna had started choking on her own blood at this point, but she could still live if I stopped now, so I continued the swing, ice spawning in a pillar behind me so that I had a pivot point. The additional force generated from the swing was enough to break through, bones cutting cleanly as Echidna's head was separated from her body, a look of anguish on her face as her skull was sent flying. The separated body parts landed on the floor before they started to turn to dust, golden particles floating upwards with no particular force of wind as the goddess died, sent to Tartarus for the next few years.
"Where's the Chimera?" I asked nobody, confused as to why the dog hadn't showed up. Perhaps it was the same reason Echidna kidnapped Grover: stuff had changed. Maybe I wouldn't have to get poisoned today, that'd be great.
"The what?" Annabeth worriedly asked, mouth finally catching up to the thoughts I knew were racing a mile a minute. "Percy, you just killed a god. How-wha- what kind of illusion was this?"
"Not an illusion," I responded, walking to where Grover was still lying limp on the ground. "Good, he's alive," I muttered, noting an active pulse as I picked him up in a bridal carry due to the bride he was supposed to be for that one cyclops. Polyfetus was his name? Eh, didn't matter, I'd kill him next year anyway.
"Wait," I realized. "I can just go and get that now."
"Percy, get what?" Annabeth asked. "You have to start explaining things, beginning with why you can kill a god. You just realized your powers two weeks ago, what kind of training-"
"Annabeth, there are things beyond what you know," I cut her off. As I saw her mouth beginning to open, presumably to rebut, I held a hand up. Begrudgingly, she let me speak. "Look, I've known I was a demigod for longer than you've been alive. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I'm not twelve, and I haven't been for a while. In fact, I'm older than Grover here."
"That makes no sense!" she protested. "How did you survive that long without being at Camp Half-Blood?"
"I was powerful enough to," I explained quickly. "You don't have to be at camp in order to live, there are probably hundreds of us out there who live their whole lives without knowing they're a demigod and don't get attacked by monsters. There are even those who can fight off monsters and do so."
"Why do you look like a twelve year old?" she asked again. Finally, it was the right question.
"Yeah, I don't know," I honestly explained. "Probably some godly time bullshit. Best not to think about it too hard, niece."
"That's not how relations work," Annabeth unhelpfully replied.
"Really? Well, by all means, enlighten me," I implored, starting to walk back to where our train was going to be.
"We don't get DNA from the gods, which is why we bleed red," Annabeth explained. "As such, because we don't have any genetics from our parents, rather only mythological powers that can't be explained with science, godly children aren't related."
"Then why do we have segregated cabins?" I asked. "Why can't anyone just stay in the same cabin as anyone else, if there's no real relationship between us?"
"Because it's sorted on the basis of godly parent," Annabeth responded. "Whichever one claims you, you get to stay in their cabin."
"So then why am I seeing children of Hecate or Hypnos in the Hermes cabin?" I asked.
"Because they don't have cabins," she responded.
"Why not?" I pressed.
"Because they aren't important enough," Annabeth explained.
"Kinda discriminatory, don't you think?" I commented, and she looked at me, silently asking me to explain. "You're ruining a kid's chance at happiness because of who their parents are. Hasn't that practice through things like the caste systems been regarded as morally dubious?"
"This isn't about morals, they are objectively less important," Annabeth frowned. "They aren't as strong as the major twelve gods, so their children can't be either."
"You are aware that Hecate is a titaness and Thanatos is a Protegenos, right?" I confirmed.
"Well, yeah," she agreed, voice quieting down as she realized my point.
"Exactly," I explained. Lightning flashed above me, despite a distinct lack of clouds, and I knew it was a signal from Zeus to stop but I couldn't be bothered. "The entire hierarchy is founded on the basis of parent, and it's pretty fucking stupid if you ask me."
"Percy!" Annabeth warned, looking around. "You can't say stuff like that!"
"I can and I will," I resolved, the train pulling forward. "I'm on the quest to get Zeus's lightning bolt. If he doesn't want it back, he'll strike me down. If he does, he won't. It's that simple."
"You're playing a dangerous game," my companion noted, the doors of our train opening.
"Oh, I'm aware," I confirmed, before returning to the original topic. "Right, isn't it a bit strange that on the Olympian council, there are four of the original gods, one daughter of a primordial, and everyone else is a child of Zeus?"
"Well, that's because they're the strongest, right?" Annabeth asked. "And they hold the most important domains?"
"Nope," I shook my head. "In fact, Zeus is the weakest of the elder six, and there are plenty of other gods and goddesses with more important domains than several of the Olympians."
"But Zeus has always been the leader, and the leader always has to be the strongest," Annabeth frowned.
"Do you not remember the Argonauts?" I asked, and she shook her head in the negative. "Well then you know that Heracles and Orpheus were on the voyage that Jason led?"
"I see your point," she admitted.
"Yep, Zeus isn't the strongest god, and not even the strongest on the council," I continued. "In fact, he'd be seventh overall and fifth on the council."
"Seventh?" Annabeth questioned. "The other five elder gods, and who's the last?"
"Aphrodite is undoubtedly the most powerful on the council," I explained, much to her shock. "Born from two primordials, and holding the domains over love, the second strongest emotion, and beauty, allowing her to appear as your 'ideal woman', so to speak."
"Then why isn't she the ruler?" Annabeth questioned. "Would it not be best to have someone with an understanding of emotions in power?"
"Two reasons," I noted. "First, nobody ever sees her that way. As a result of her appearance, I can only assume that she's had several attempts to sexually assault her occur, leaving her shy and withdrawn. Those experiences probably resulted in her current personality, where she tries not to draw attention from those she is wary of, particularly the gods and their habits of sticking their dicks in everything with a hole that moves.
"Second, and perhaps more importantly, thunder thighs would throw a hissy fit if anyone disrupted his reign."
"Have you no fear?" Annabeth questioned, looking at me with wide eyes.
"Nah, he ain't gonna kill the guy that gets back his powerful weapon," I explained, the two of us now comfortably seated in our own cabin for the overnight ride. Denver was a while away, so I had gotten the three of us comfortable beds for the night with a decent amount of the funds stolen off Medusa.
"It still isn't a good idea," she persisted. "They could kill you afterwards, or curse you."
"Let them try," I waved off. "Anyway, yeah, Zeus is a pussy. The guy had the least power of all of the elder gods, and survived only by luck and his mother's ingenuity, and yet somehow managed to become so disillusioned with himself that he thought he was the reason that they all won the war. He never made his own plans, he never fought alone, all he did was follow orders and execute a finishing blow."
"That's-" Annabeth started to say, but I cut her off.
"Exactly what you were taught," I informed her. "Just, not with those words. They wouldn't let him alter the story, so he worded it carefully. I can see where today's lawmakers get their writing from."
"So he was the least powerful?" Annabeth confirmed. "And he only got to his position due to a lot of luck?"
"Exactly," I nodded. "But something still makes no sense. Why is nobody accounting for the Demeter kids when talking about the current Great Prophecy?"
"You know about that?" Annabeth questioned, eyes bugging out of her head as she started to turn pale.
"Hey, relax, this ain't something you could've controlled," I reassured, Grover's snores in the background filling the silence. "I've known about it for a while."
"Okay, but what did you mean about the Demeter kids?"
"Exactly what I said," I explained. "She was the third eldest, older than Poseidon, Hera, and Zeus. She's an elder god, so why isn't she in the running?"
"Because she isn't male," Annabeth tried. "It said 'god', so Demeter, Hestia, and Hera aren't part of it."
"Isn't 'god' used to refer to both genders?" I asked.
"Not in this case," she explained. "A demeter kid turned sixteen last year. If Olympus was going to fall, it would've a while back."
"Well isn't that reassuring," I muttered, rolling my eyes at how horribly the godly society was organized.
"Enough about that, how do you know all this?" Annabeth cut in. "You're only twelve years old, how are you this knowledgeable?"
"I could say the same about you," I deflected, not seeing the point in that statement. "You're younger than me, how do you know this stuff?"
"Because I've been studying it since I was seven," Annabeth explained. "Also, I'm a daughter of Athena. So, again, how are you this smart?"
"I've been interacting with the mythological world for longer than you've been alive," I stated. "Also, what does Athena have to do with this?"
"Goddess of Wisdom?" Annabeth explained, as if it was obvious.
"Yeah, Wisdom," I emphasized. "Not knowledge. If you want knowledge, you go to Apollo. Wisdom is about acting using that knowledge, not obtaining it."
"Is it not a shared domain?" Annabeth asked.
"No such thing," I shrugged. "It may sound like it, but the domains have been simplified so that it's easy to remember. Athena and Ares are both gods of war, right?"
"No, Ares is war but Athena is strategic war," Annabeth explained.
"Exactly," I continued. "Just like the Ares vs Athena, Apollo vs Athena on knowledge has always been a big problem. The difference is that while Apollo is knowledge, Athena is the use of knowledge. By proxy, it means that her and her children easily learn a lot, but it doesn't mean that she has it. Apollo kids are good at knowing and retaining, while Athena kids are good at retaining and using."
"Then why don't we associate it with them?" Annabeth asked.
"Because Athena threw a hissy fit," I explained, and Annabeth looked ready to explode but she kept quiet. "She's always been prideful, remember Arachne?"
"Yes," Annabeth quietly answered.
"She can't stand people being better than her, so Apollo offered to not use the domain," I explained. "This led to the end of the association of knowledge with Apollo. Instead, he became focused on prophecy, archery, poetry, and the sun."
"That makes way too much sense," Annabeth admitted.
"However, you can't stop using a domain once you have it," I continued. "So, Apollo is still the most knowledgeable of the gods, and his children are the most knowledgeable demigods."
"Then why don't they act with it?" Annabeth asked. "Surely, having the capabilities would mean that they would use it, right?"
"For the same reason that Apollo doesn't use it," I answered. "They aren't aware that they can, and so they don't."
"Okay," she relented, seemingly having run out of questions to ask. "Who was that Rainbow Snake you mentioned earlier?"
"Rainbow Serpent," I corrected. "And that… guy? I think he's a guy. That snake is the progenitor of the world in the mythology of the Aboriginal Australians."
"Wait… there are gods that aren't Greek out there?" Annabeth frowned. "Why don't I know about this?"
"Because every time that people do, there are inter-pantheonic wars," I shrugged. "It's complicated, but essentially each of the pantheons wants to be the dominant one. Right now I think that the Christian one is the strongest, if only because it's extremely well known."
"But Christianity is a religion," Annabeth countered. "Those don't count."
"Of course they do," I explained. "Mythologies all started as religions, and then turned to myths once people stopped believing in them. It's why Hinduism is regarded as both, because it was big, then died out, then came back strong again."
"But aren't Christians monotheistic?" Annabeth continued.
"Yeah, but there aren't any problems with that," I added. "Christians believe in capital-g God as a single omnipotent being. If God were to have a counterpart to us, I would say that God would be about the same as Chaos."
"You mean the creator?" Annabeth questioned.
"Exactly," I nodded. "It varies from myth to myth, but each system has a creator, from whom everything else came. Normally, this figure is gender neutral and nigh-omnipotent, and I'm pretty sure they all meet for drinks at every turn of the century."
"Do they interact with other gods or humans?" Annabeth asked.
"They can't," I shook my head. "Just being in their vicinity would make a human instantly die, and a god would barely be able to hang on for longer."
"Isn't that lonely?" Annabeth asked.
"Not really," I noted. "Even if they only interact with others once a century, a century for them kind of feels like a week does for us. The perception of time is skewed when you've been around forever, after all."
"Then how do you know about all this?" Annabeth asked. "Wouldn't the simple fact of knowing all this be impossible without talking to them?"
"Well, I'm kind of a special case," I explained. "First off, I've been around longer than most of the gods have, and before you question me on that let me finish my explanation first." Annabeth nodded, though there was a slight frown on her face.
"Okay, essentially, they can't interact with us, but they can send messages, kind of like how you receive demigod dreams. You know how they're so vivid? It's exactly like that, just kind of a voice in the back of your head or an image implanted in your mind. I can't explain it very well, but it's just… there.
"The second way they will interact is through vessels that they lend a tiny amount of their power to. And I really mean tiny, like one trillionth of their total power. Anything more would make someone spontaneously explode because their body just isn't a proper vessel. The strongest god, Hestia, might be able to take around a billionth of their total power, but she probably couldn't use it without damaging herself permanently. Jesus might be the best example of a vessel for one of these beings, using their power to create miracles such as turning water to wine or healing the blind and paralyzed. I don't know if there are any Greek equivalents to this, but perhaps it is just a result of the creators being extremely picky and only choosing those worthy of their power, a completely realistic idea. One blessed with that small fraction could easily upend the world as we know it."
"What did you mean when you said you were older than the gods?" Annabeth blurted out, not being able to contain herself anymore.
"I mean that I have lived for around 8 thousand years, give or take a few centuries," I casually replied, ignoring her starstruck expression. "However, those years all passed between 2006 and 2011."
"How does that make any sense?" Annabeth asked.
"Time travel," I shrugged. "I know only a little more than you do about it, I just keep looping the same five years over and over again. However, all the loops have one thing in common: it resets when I die."
"So then…" Annabeth trailed off, face paling. "You've died… 1600 times?"
"Nah," I shook my head. "2001."
"But then- oh, not every loop makes it to the five year mark," she realized. "Sorry, I shouldn't talk about this so freely."
"No, it's fine. I don't have any problems with it," I explained. "There's no point dancing around the subject. In fact, I could use another brain to help me with it. So, wise girl, what do you think?"
"Don't call me that," Annabeth blushed, fidgeting slightly. "But, do you remember how you died the first time? Maybe that has something to do with it."
"Me and Kronos traded killing blows," I explained, and Annabeth's face paled even further, something I didn't think was possible.
"Then- that means- you- we-" she muttered, curling in slightly as I winced.
"Probably shouldn't have told you the titans were rising, right?" I rhetorically asked.
"Yes!" Annabeth shrieked. "Wait, no! Wait- urghhh, I don't know." I forced myself to stifle a chuckle at her reactions. "It's good that you told us, so we know what's coming, but I didn't want to know and now I'm going to be worried for the next five years."
"Any ideas?" I prompted, and she shot to attention and started talking as if she had a million of them.
"Well, the answer's obvious:" Annabeth explained. "Kronos used his power over time and pushed you into the past."
"And this happens every time I die?" I asked.
"Well, yeah," she explained. "Every time you die, Kronos sends you back in time because he wants a redo and can't use his powers on anyone else."
"You're assuming Kronos is with me," I noted. "I've killed him and then died to another Titan several times before."
"Oh," she bluntly put, sitting back. "Maybe it's the Fates?"
"Maybe, though I don't think so," I shrugged. "It's getting late, why don't you get some sleep and we talk about this in the morning."
"I- okay," she agreed, mind still racing as she climbed into the bunk atop Grover's. The cabin contained four beds, two at each height, and it looked like I could choose top or bottom bunk. The other thing on my mind kept me from climbing into my bed as Annabeth started to fall asleep, though.
"She's asleep, you can come out now," I informed the person looking at us.
"How did you know?" Hestia asked, stepping forward from her place in the shadows, eyes twinkling.
"It's always easy to sense the presence of Hades when he's nearby if you know what to feel for," I explained. "Hey uncle, want to come out now?"
"If you insist," a much deeper voice agreed, stepping forward. Hades joined his elder sister in sitting across from me in the train car, though he looked like he could be her father based on the appearance of their age. Upon pointing it out to break the ice, the god of the dead laughed while Hestia pouted, the expression quite cute upon her eleven year old face.
"One mustn't joke about such things," the hearth goddess hissed, glaring at the two of us laughing boys.
"Relax, Hestia," I told her. "I know you're much older than him anyway."
"Perseus Jackson!" the tiny goddess roared, standing up to her full height (which wasn't much), fire in her hair as she glared at me, Hades's laughter increasing in the background.
"Yeah, aunt?" I responded, pretending not to care about the display in front of me while I subtly tried to keep the car from catching fire or awakening my two friends.
"No more," she ordered, and I nodded, sarcastically saluting the girl as she sat down.
"Oh, we need to talk more often," Hades commented. "I haven't seen her that angry since Zeus decided to kill my lover."
"Maria Di Angelo, right?" I confirmed, much to his shock. It was Hestia's turn to grin as the room darkened considerably, taking on a colder temperature as the shadows swirled around the room.
"How do you know that name?" Hades asked, Hestia beginning to shiver, but she soon lit a fire in her hands that warmed us past negative degrees.
"Because I've lived lives where I've talked to your children," I admitted. "I thought you knew that since you heard me explain it to Annabeth."
"Right, sorry," the god admitted, proving just how different he was from the rest. "I simply forgot it. Do you know how hard it is when you just see someone die in front of you, knowing that you could've saved them?"
"I can't imagine," I drawled, staring unimpressed at him. Hades had the decency to wince, recalling that I had died before, several thousand times. "But, anyway, since you both are here, I was wondering what you wanted to talk about?"
"Can't I just take my favorite brother to visit my favorite demigod?" Hestia asked with a cute tilt of her head.
"Don't let my other uncle hear you say that," I warned. "He'll throw a fit. But yes, you can."
"Good," Hestia nodded, before a beat of silence took place in the cabin.
"Well, I did have something to discuss," Hades continued, looking straight at me. "As you might be aware, my Helm of Darkness is missing."
"Yep, and I know where it should be," I affirmed once.
"Then can we get it now?" Hades asked, seemingly excited.
"Not a chance," I shook my head. "If we do, it risks tipping off your dad that we know what his plans are."
"Oh dear," Hestia sighed, seeing her brother go pale. "You shouldn't have told him that."
"Yeah, maybe not the best choice," I winced. "But, as I mentioned, dear old granddad is rising, and we gotta kill him. Anyway, I know that he stole the Helm and the Master Bolt on the last Solstice, but I don't know who has it at the moment as I normally just go kill the Titans without giving a shit regarding this issue. But, since aunt Hestia decided that she would forbid me from doing that again, I'll just wait it out and return them before the next meeting in order to keep up appearances. Always better to not let the enemy know our capabilities."
"You seem to have put a great deal of thought into this plan," Hades observed, still white but regaining color(not that he had much of it to begin with).
"Nah, just quoting some books," I shrugged. "Anyway, anything else you wanted to ask?"
"No, and so I believe my business here has concluded," Hades stated, before standing up and dissolving into the shadows.
"And you, 'Tia?" I asked, the goddess blushing slightly golden at the nickname. "Got any more brothers to introduce to me?"
"I don't believe so," she responded. "Goodnight Percy, and stay alive." Saying so, she stood up and kissed me on the cheek before disappearing, leaving me stunned where I sat with the smell of my mother's blue cookies in the cabin.
"Wha-" I muttered, before noticing the box left behind and reading the note on it.
Enjoy! - H, it read, the paper attached to a sixteen pack of cookies that looked absolutely delicious.
Gods I love that woman, I told myself as I took out three, biting into one as the train continued on the journey west. She better do this again sometime.
No clue if I'm making the ship Percy/Hestia, but I really do like the idea of a partnership consisting of a menace that can kill anyone and get everyone on their side with Percy. Jokes aside, I think the dynamic would be nice, and Rick really needed to give us more interactions than just the wise mom in the body of a twelve year old during a war.