The screen suddenly switched, eliciting protests from gods and goddesses, both major and minor, and even nymphs, all over Olympus.
"Now, why would he cancel the show that had been made in my honor?" Athena shook her head, frowning slightly. 'So You Think You Can Weave Better Than A Goddess' was one of Olympus's favourite shows and Athena made an effort to tune in only because weaving was her specialty. Heck, she invented it. Besides, she wanted to view the nincompoops who dared challenge her try and fail.
A Hephaestus TV Special, live from Waterland! Featuring: Ares and Aphrodite!
"Not this again!" Demeter complained. "Can't Hephaestus just eat his cereal and forget about that love goddess?"
"Mother, do you really have to mention cereal in everything you talk about?" Persephone, who was spending the summer with her, sighed in exasperation.
"Haha!" Apollo grinned as the words flickered across a small screen in his Maserati. "This is going to be good. I'll have to record it."
In her palace, Hera had her face in her hands. "My sons, my sons, why?" she grumbled.
"This gets old, but I guess it won't hurt watching it again," Poseidon muttered to himself, in his palace in Atlantis.
"Those messages can wait," Hermes said.
Aphrodite, enjoying a treatment by her favourite nymphs at their spa, looked up in surprise. "But I'm not even there!" she muttered, absent-mindedly holding out a hand to a nymph who began preparing her nails for a manicure.
The screen flashed to life, but there was no sign of the god of war nor the goddess of love. Instead, water washed across the screen like it was a live tsunami broadcast. The water roared into a pool, sweeping away a hoard of metallic insects with eight legs.
"Ugh, spiders," Athena muttered, but her eyes widened at the next scene.
Percy Jackson, that son of Poseidon whom almost all of Olympus had branded 'The Lightning Thief', was pulling Annabeth Chase, the daughter of Athena into a boat, and fastening her seat belt just as a tidal wave crashed against the boat, drenching both of them and sweeping the spiders away. The boat turned, lifted in the flood and began spinning in circles around the whirlpool.
"What is that boy doing with my daughter?!" Athena yelled, outraged.
"Plot twist! Best episode ever!" Apollo exclaimed. He thought of his sister. "Oh, Artemis, if only the forests had televisions..."
"Percy! It's my boy, Percy!" Poseidon gaped at the screen. Nearby, Amphitrite and Triton scowled. "And isn't that an Athena girl?" His eyes took in the amount of water swirling about, and he smiled to himself. The apple never falls far from the tree!
"What's going on?" At his forge, Hephaestus scowled at the screen. "The location hasn't been changed..." His face grew red at the thought of his brother escaping this one.
"It's that thief!" Zeus fumed.
Down in the Underworld, Hades glared at his screen as well.
Aphrodite clapped her semi-manicured hands. "My new favourite demigod couple!"
The boat was turning. Poseidon noticed his son's grim expression and knew he was trying to control it. "Go, Percy!" he cheered. Then the boat's nose turned towards the tunnel and the two demigods rocketed through it. They disappeared from sight, but all the gods and nymphs could clearly hear the screams coming from the tunnel.
Then the cameras panned, and all the viewers were treated to a view of the boat shooting straight out of the tunnel and barrelling towards the exit- the Golden Gates of Love. But the gates were closed, and chained.
"They're going to crash. Annabeth, think of something!" Athena spoke to her screen as though her daughter could hear her. At the moment, she didn't care that Percy was in the boat as well; Annabeth could get injured if that piece of wreck slammed into those gates.
Percy Jackson strapped a shield to his arm. Aphrodite raised an eyebrow. That looked a lot like Ares's shield. The boat was hurtling fast towards the chained gates. "Simple physics!" Annabeth could be heard yelling. "Force times the trajectory angle-"
"That's my girl!" Athena beamed.
The two demigods were thrown into the air as the boat smashed. All of Olympus held their breaths. Percy and Annabeth soared straight over the gates, over the pool, and down towards solid asphalt.
"Annabeth, no!" Athena cried.
"Percy!" Poseidon yelled.
But then the two demigods appeared suspended in mid-air. The cameras panned a little to reveal a satyr with flying shoes (Hermes raised an eyebrow), grabbing them and trying to pull them out of a crash landing, but they had all the momentum. They went down fast, and smashed into a photo-board, the satyr's head going through a hole. the other two demigods tumbled to the ground, banged up, but alive.
"Thank goodness," Athena sighed with relief.
"They did it!" Poseidon beamed.
Apollo shouted with laughter. "That satyr-dolphin! I need to make a gif for this."
Spotlights rained down on the demigods and the satyr, who had gotten to their feet. Percy Jackson looked up. "Show's over!" he yelled. "Thank you! Good night!"
"Aww!" Apollo pressed a button a small remote and the words 'RECORDED' flashed across the screen. "I'm giving this episode the highest ratings!"
"Well, that was refreshing," Demeter stated, as the screen cut to a commercial break advertising a new restaurant run by dryads (Be one of our first 50 customers and receive a package of ambrosia and nectar packed in a tree-bark thermos, for FREE!). "I bet those kids eat cereal. Maybe I'll actually take some time to give it a good rating."
Persephone groaned.
"My new OTP! This is wonderful!" Aphrodite squealed with delight. "Did you see that, girls?" she shot at the nymphs serving her. "They make such a lovely couple!"
"He'd better be on his way here to return my lightning bolt," Zeus growled.
"That's my boy!" Poseidon was humming to himself, completely oblivious to the dark looks on Amphitrite and Triton's faces.
"Now, what was my daughter doing with that sea spawn again?" Athena scowled.
"Oh well," Hephaestus sighed. "But next time, brother Ares is not getting away from me!" He glanced at a computer. "Wow, look at the ratings..."
(The whole ratings thing was because Percy wondered about them :-D Thanks for reading!)