All's Fair in Love and Hate: Chapter 7

Jay sat at the desk in his room, furiously scribbling on a pad of paper. The table lamp that sat next to him, lighting up the room dimly but providing enough light for him to see, had been on for a while now. The darkness of the night penetrated his thin curtains, and the moon shone directly on to the head his barely rumpled bed, casting white light on the alarm clock next to it which clearly read 3:25 AM.

The boy reached into a desk drawer, taking out a straightedge, and tried to draw a triangle with the plotted points balancing on the graph paper he had just taken. He set the straightedge down, staring resignedly at the scalene triangle. The leader sighed, throwing his pen down, and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. The team - or what was left of it - had attempted a practice of technique in the school gym, but their hearts were evidently not into it. After Atlanta had let one of Neil's half-hearted parries catch her on the neck for the fifth time, Jay called the whole thing off, leading them back to the brownstone.

He would not be so concerned, however, if it wasn't his fault. Yet again, Jay felt too strongly that if he had not made them work so hard, if he had not pushed them - maybe Odie would be alright. Maybe Herry would be sleeping in his room right now, huge arms wrapped around that teddy bear of his.

Of course, there was still something in the back of his mind that tried to assure him that everything was alright, that it was not his fault. After all, he hadn't really pushed them all that hard at all. He sighed again, trying to listen to this voice, but his mind eventually strayed back to his bad leadership skills.

Jay picked up the pen again, twirling it as he stared distantly at the graphed points and the blue squares that represented New Olympia. His eyes narrowed, boring a hole into the pen cap perched on top of the pen, and in a sudden fit of rage, he threw it violently to the floor. Turning his chair around, he looked at the pen that sat on the carpet, then buried his face in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. Did Jason ever let down the Argonauts? he wondered to himself. Did he ever let them break apart?

"No, he didn't," a voice answered his thoughts. He looked up, startled by his visitor's silent entrance. Theresa stood, leaning against his doorframe, and she smiled at him. "But you didn't let us down, either."

Jay raised an eyebrow. "How'd you do that?" he asked, reaching for the pen he had thrown on the floor. "I though you said you couldn't read minds," he added suspiciously.

The redhead made a face. "You get this really weird expression when you're thinking about the myths," she answered cheerfully, "and you don't look so happy, either."

The boy only gave a tired smile. "You should get some sleep for tomorrow," he muttered, turning back to his graphs and notes. Theresa rolled her eyes behind him, and stood to tap him on the shoulder. "Wake up, mister hypocrite," she replied, slightly annoyed. "I though we proved you need as much rest as we do?"

Jay waved a hand dismissively, now poring over patterns in the hate attacks he had methodically recorded. "I have a lot of stuff to plan," he said vaguely, tracing a circle around a sequence of words. "You should go."

Theresa stood there for a moment, then scowled at the back of his head.

All of a sudden, Jay's papers lifted up in front of him, jumbled into a pile, and happily ripped into quarters, dropping back down on to Jay's desk. Jay stared, stunned, at the mess, then looked angrily at Theresa, who held a smug grin on her face. "That was four hours' work!"

Theresa shrugged. "You need to get yourself in bed and asleep," she retorted. She let him mutter a few half-hearted protests before pushing him over to his bed. He sat down of his own accord then painstakingly settled under the covers, lying on his side openly with his arms above the fabric. She raised her eyebrows at him. "That wasn't so hard now, was it?"

Jay smiled fondly at the redhead, quietly murmuring his thanks before she turned away, flipping off the table lamp so that the only light that shone in the room was the bright moonlight streaming through the window.

"You know," Jay said as he watched her move past his bed, "you haven't got a reason to still be awake."

She hesitated, looking directly at him. Wrapping her arms around her own nightgown-clad body, she finally answered quietly, "yes, I do." She stood there for a little longer, the silence in the room slightly uncomfortable.

Eventually, the redhead quickly turned and fled the room, but not before bending over to gently brush her lips against his cheek.

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The next morning, Jay, Theresa, Neil, and Atlanta were up early to visit their two comrades still under the watchful gaze of the gods. Predictably, Archie jumped up from his bored seat on one of the beds as he saw them enter. "Thank god!" he muttered again, ignoring the disapproving stare of the centaur. "I was wondering when you'd come to bail me out."

Jay looked pointedly up at Chiron, and the centaur sighed. "Oh, alright," he said, turning away, "but don't expect me to help if he hurts himself!"

Archie rolled his eyes. "So, what's up?" he asked, rather cheerfully considering the brutality of the attacks spreading over New Olympia. He himself was still sporting a bandage over the scratches on his face, and his gaze was very forcefully ignoring Atlanta. Her glance was blatantly concentrated on the ceiling.

Jay sat down next to him. "We need Odie's help," he said. "I've got an idea about how we can corner Erida, but I need him to help me track her down."

"You forget who I am," Odie weakly countered. The group stared at him with a mix of surprise and relief. Already, he was looking much better - his eyes were as bright and alert as they usually were, and he could manage a smile much better.

Chiron bustled over to him, a golden goblet in his hand. "Ambrosia and nectar," he answered Jay's questioning glance. "It is only fitting he should be allowed the food of the gods."

"It's made him feel a lot better, obviously," Archie observed dryly, reaching a hand up to touch his bruised face. "I didn't get any at all."

Odie smiled and drank deeply from the goblet, a healthy colour flooding to his cheeks with every gulp. Once he finished, he looked back at Jay with another wide smile. "You forget who I am," he repeated mischieviously.

Jay grinned. "So you can help us?" he asked, a much more encouraged tone in his voice.

"Are you kidding?" Odie retorted, looking somewhat offended. "Jay, I can do it for you. I just need data."

Archie leapt to his feet, his gold brace glinting. "I'll get it," he immediately cried, eager to get some air and some room, and sped out of the doors. Jay yelled after him, "They're on my desk!"

Odie grinned at Archie's speedy retreat, then added, "Did you bring my laptop?"

Jay mentally hit himself for forgetting it, and looked towards Atlanta. "Can you catch up to Archie and tell him to get it as well?"

She shrugged uncomfortably. A strange sheen in Theresa's eyes as she glanced at the other girl made Atlanta flush slightly. "Oh, alright," she muttered, and ran out of the room.

It didn't take Atlanta long to spot Archie, her long legs pounding against the floor at a pace unsurpassable by other people. She easily caught up to the boy, slowing down to fall in step beside him. She was silent for a moment, before awkwardly muttering, "we need Odie's laptop, too."

Archie nodded coolly, still walking as she stopped. Atlanta watching him go, fidgeting slightly with her hands, then said softly, "I'm sorry."

He stopped, then, some ten feet away from her. She could make out his hands stuffed in the pockets of his sweatshirt, and his shoulders pushed slightly forward. She had thought about him a couple of times since Theresa's night-time visit, but only fleeting thoughts about how to make it up. She hadn't imagined a stiff apology to be her words of choice, the offence committed being a feline-like scratch across his pale face and a giant purple swelling on his rather oversized nose. One would think a big box of chocolates or bunch of flowers would make up for something like that.

The violet-haired teenager turned quietly, looking at her feet for a very strained moment as she examined her toes as well. Archie finally replied stiffly, "it wasn't your fault."

He raised his eyes to look at her in the eye, and she shifted her weight from foot to foot as he awkwardly reached his hand back to rub the back of his neck. "Um, so..." she trailed off, staring back down at her clenched hands. "About - you know -" she started, then hesitated, biting her lip nervously. After a second of thick, uncomfortable silence, she chickened out. "Never mind."

Archie blinked, then his eyes narrowed. "I should get the stuff," he said, grouchy as ever. She saw the flash of hurt in his eyes as he turned and called behind him, "don't wait up."

She watched him walked down the hall and around the corner, and sighed. Atlanta turned back in the other direction and walked back through the janitor's closet through the portal, all the while feeling more than a little ashamed. When she reached Chiron's room, they looked at her expectantly. "He said he'll get it," she muttered.

Odie's face held some sort of pity for her as he looked at her for a moment, then glanced at his friends. "Where's Herry?" he asked.

Jay's face grew stony, but he hastily answered, "he's... out doing something."

The black boy's eyes roamed around the room, watching Theresa's discomfort, Neil's uncharacteristic slouch, and Atlanta's forced, obviously fake smile. Odie's eyebrows shot up in disbelief. "Uh-huh," he said, his sharp eyes sensing their untruthfulness.

They stood there, silent, until he burst out with clenched fists, "Tell me the truth." His eyes glittered coldly as he regarded his friends. "Or do you think I can't handle it?"

Neil sighed dramatically and slumped his shoulders. "He left, okay?" the blonde said, blowing up the strands of hair hanging over his face. "He went all psycho and he was like, it's all my fault, and Jay was like, no it's not, and he was like, yes it is, and then Jay was like, fine then, don't bother coming back if you're - oops."

Theresa smacked her forehead, muttering something about idiots. Neil glared at her, Atlanta glared at Neil, and Odie glared at Jay, who was very uncomfortably shifting from foot to foot.

"Uh, okay," Archie's voice drifted in front the door, obviously somewhat unnerved by the frozen tableau played out in front of him. Odie's laptop was in his hands, a pile of ripped paper on top of the computer. Odie raised an eyebrow at Archie, and he shrugged forcefully. "Don't ask me why it's all ripped!" he protested. "It was like that when I found it!"

Jay glanced at Theresa, who was trying to hide a grin. He shook his head. "Well, do you think you can work with it?" Jay asked Odie nervously as Archie deposited the materials next to his position on the bed. Sitting up, Odie picked up a few of the pieces of paper and looked through them. Odie shook his head, picking up his computer and flipping it open.

Even with his injured arm and cracked ribs, Odie's fingers flew over the keyboard as he typed. In a matter of minutes, the smallest boy of the group had found the time, place, and severity of every one of Erida's attacks, and programmed all of the data into a neat little map. "She takes breaks from the attacks," Odie said, after turning the laptop around to show them his work. "Every three hours or so she disappears, then reappears for a couple more hours."

"What can that be for?" Jay pondered.

Neil snickered, drawing attention from his friends. "Beauty rest!" he burst out, and erupted in a fit of giggles. Atlanta rolled her eyes and urged Odie to continue.

Odie turned the computer back around to face him, free hand flying across the keyboard again. "She covers a pretty wide area, but it seems most of her attacks are concentrated around the heart of the city, in back alleys - it should make sense, then she won't be spotted by anyone - and she never attacks twice in one spot. If I can find a pattern from the spots she's already hit..."

Jay looked on edge as he waited for Odie. His hand was already instinctively covering the handle of his xiphos, and his face was stony.

"...her next attack should be here." Odie finished, a grin on his face as he flipped the laptop around again. A pulsing red dot had appeared in the middle of the simplified map of New Olympia, amid other green points which represented her previous attacks.

"So what can we do?" Neil drawled. "It's not like we can trap her in a net or something."

"No..." Jay said distantly, his mind far away. "No, we can't trap her..."

"Well, we don't have that much information on her, other than that she probably likes sparkly things." Atlanta piped up.

Jay turned to her, frowning. "What d'you mean?"

"Well, she starts attacking, then the apple of Discord disappears," Atlanta said, looking very much surprised that none of the others appeared to have formed this connection. "Don't any of you guys, you know, see any relation between the two?"

Theresa grinned gratefully. "Atlanta, you're a genius!" she cried. "Now we just need something to use as bait, and we can -"

Before she could finish, her sentence was interrupted with a satisfied sigh - one which almost certainly came from only one person.

Slowly, all eyes turned to Neil, who was examining his reflection. He brushed an elegant hand through his silky blond hair, smiling smugly at himself in the mirror, and looked back at the others. "I am gorgeous!" he exclaimed.

Pausing, he looked around at them, an identical gleam in each of their eyes, and a less-than-comforting smile present on their faces. "Hey!" Neil said, eyes narrowing suspiciously. "What're you all staring at me for? I mean, I know I'm perfect, bu - oh. Ooooh. Oooh, no you don't! I've have enough of being used as bait, thank you very much! No way and that's that!"

"C'mon, Neil," Archie wheedled pathetically. "We need you!"

"Uh-uh," the blonde said, turning away, sticking his perfect nose in the air and crossing his arms over his chest. "There's no way you are getting me to do anything."

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"I can't believe I'm doing this," Neil grumbled for the fourth time, leaning against a dirty stucco wall, protected by an invisible cage forged by Hephaestus. The sun, peeking out from below the horizon, was quickly setting, and even with Odie's very accurate estimations, Erida was nowhere to be seen. Jay, Atlanta, Archie, and Theresa were hiding behind various dumpsters crowding the shadowy alley, weapons at the ready. Jay had quickly briefed his plan, handing each of them their tools and leaving them to find a suitable hiding spot. Unfortunately, that had been half an hour ago, and the team was tired of waiting.

Archie sighed, relaxing against the giant recycling bin he had chosen to hide behind. "Shut up, Neil," he muttered tiredly, and Theresa gave a murmur of dissent. The handsome blond rolled his eyes, pulling out his mirror and examining his teeth.

The team was just becoming restless when Jay perked his ears, hearing the flap of what seemed like a dozen very large birds flying closer. He shushed his friends and muttered quietly into his mouthpiece, "D'you see that, Odie?"

With barely a crackle, Odie replied from his position on his bed. He had begged to come along, but his injuries were too severe for any physical activity. Eventually, he had hooked Jay up with a tiny mouthpiece and earpiece, so Odie could at least help in some way. "She's coming," the voice from Jay's earpiece sounded, "and she's coming fast."

"Get ready, guys," Jay told the team, and he tensed up, turning his face up to watch the sky intently. The others followed, scanning the soft pink and blue hues of the sunset for a sign on the goddess.

Atlanta was the first to see it: a flash of fiery light quickly approaching above the soft glow of the setting sun.

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A/N: Expect the next chapter to be chock-full of action! This chapter was double the size for your pleasure, with double the romantic fluff and double the awkwardness. As always: reviews very much appreciated! (And sorry about the lack of normal dividers. They aren't working for me, for some reason...)