Chapter 4; Annakeyla
"Pull it up just a little higher, sweetheart," Artemis said as I had my bow and arrow pulled up, ready to shoot and hit the target. All the other arrows had landed in the 9 points region (one landed in the 8) and I was determined to get a 10.
Snap, release, THWAP! Was the sound the arrow made when I shot it. A perfect 10!
"Oh ya! Beat that suckas!" I said jokingly to my three demigod friends, Kara, daughter of Zeus, Travis, son of Apollo and Alec, son of Hermes. Artemis hugged me as I told her thank you; and her long silvery blonde hair tickled my shoulders.
"Already am sucka!" Alec mocked me when I looked over. He was about to shoot his last arrow. Artemis winked at me and I ran over and shoved him as he released the arrow.
"And... now you're not," I said as he completely missed because I shoved him. Artemis was hiding a smile and stifling a laugh, as Apollo, too, smirked and rolled his eyes as he watched us from behind.
"That would be cheating," Alec said with a smirk to me, "Ustolo," he said, causing a water balloon to appear. I loved some of the powers we demigods got, like being able to perform some of the same cool things like the gods by saying the Latin word and thinking it, though we were limited of course. Some demigods, like Alec, should never have been taught any of them though.
I started running from Alec and his freezing cold water balloons. I tried to throw them off, you know, with my Poseidon water powers, but still ended up getting hit by a lot of them. I chucked some I made back at him. I loved learning all the tricks we can do from Athena, but there were some tricks Alec should never have been taught. I mean his dad was the god of thieves and was very mischievous and all, so how do you think Alec was? Go figure—he's the same way.
When I was running past Kara who was shooting her last arrow she said so only I could hear "Fuh-lirt alert," all mockingly to me. I stuck my tongue out at her and threw another water balloon at Alec, which hit him in the face.
"Oh, sorry!" I said, putting my hand up to my mouth. I ran over to him to see if he was okay.
"I'm sorry! I didn't get you in the eyes or anything did I?" I said.
"Just give me a sec," he grunted.
I bit my lip from laughing at his grunting voice. This kid totally like just went through puberty. He definitely never sounded like that before.
Suddenly I felt ice cold water dripping down my back and saw Alec grinning triumphantly at me, holding a hose. I screamed because now my back felt like it was turned to ice and redirected the water at him saying, "I hate you!" through my laughs and screams. That was so a lie though, and it was pretty damn obvious, yet Alec still didn't get it. Guys are completely oblivious, I tell ya.
"Okay Romeo and Juliet," Kara said, coming over after she shot a 10 that was only about a millimeter off of dead center.
"Shut up," Alec and I said together, sitting down in the lounge chairs next to Kara. Travis came over and told us how he got perfect 10's the whole time. Kara beat me to whapping him on the back of the head.
"Anyway," Kara said with an eye roll and smile which disappeared as soon as she brought up this subject, "About your quest."
Oh, great. I love Kara, and she is my best friend (and cousin), but she should know when I don't wanna talk about something. And my stupid unknown quest is definitely one of those things.
Kara was a daughter of Zeus, and was an all-around athlete. She was a blonde, but far from the stereotypical 'Like, ohemgee, I need a manicure!' pink-loving blondes. She was a snowboarder, soccer player and gymnast. She did the crazy flips in the air like Olympian snowboarder Shaun White (who is by the way a descendant of Zeus, though I have know clue if he knows that or not. He's like Zeus's great-great-great-grandson or something like that). She could flip higher in the air than anyone in gymnastics (partly because her dad is the Lord of the Sky and she can manipulate the air, but I didn't just tell you that), and during soccer, nothing could get past her to the goal. She's training for the Summer Olympics right now, with me a little too, since I'm training for the Freestyle Medley relay for swimming and any other freestyle swim races I can get in the Olympics, but she's training to be an Olympic Gymnast on the U.S. Gymnastics team, but she vowed not to use her powers to win. She wanted an honest win. That was Kara's way—unless you pissed her off. Then she could shock you with lightning. She can't smote you like her dad can, but she can definitely cause some permanent damage if you piss her off too much. She always wears her black and lime green sweatpants or shorts, a white v-neck shirt (always with the American Eagle symbol, since Zeus's sign is the eagle) and her thousand of different colored Nike Sweatshirts (since Nike is the Goddess of Victory). She had eyes that almost literally gave off an electric vibe, they were light yellow/blue-ish(depending on her mood), like the lightning of a thunderstorm.
I sighed. "Ugh. What about my stupid quest that will probably involve an actual Titan?" I said, trying to laugh about it. Being nervous is not one of my usual characteristics, but this quest that everyone was talking about for me was giving me a bad feeling. Like it was going to be really really difficult or deadly or something.
She rolled her eyes at me. "Funny, Water Woman. No, it doesn't. But it's not gonna be easy. And what's worse is that we only have partial info on it. My dad says it's 'not something I should worry about'," Kara said, mocking her father's voice. One of these days, our dads are going to smote us to Hades. We are so terrible to them.
"Great," I said sourly. "So what've you guys got on it?"
I watched Kara exchange nervous glances with Travis and Alec.
I raised a questioning eyebrow. "What? What is it?"
"Um," Kara said, looking over at Apollo, Artemis and Hermes who were talking amongst themselves on the other side of the archery field. "How 'bout we go over by the pool?" she said.
I could see that she did not want them to overhear us talking about this, which meant that Alec must've found a way for them to spy on Zeus and Poseidon's conversations about it. It surprises me that the gods haven't smoted all of us, come to think of it.
"It has to do with the Artemis possibly being un-virgin problem. That's the biggest info we got," Kara said once we were in the pool room. Olympus had everything I promise you. And it was all done in amazing architectural styles with combinations of all three types of columns and statues of all and every god, goddess, demigod, demigoddess, hero, etc. Plus, everything was state of the art top of the line. Like this pool for instance. It was like three pools combined: one for laps, one with a waterfall running into it that was for relaxing, and one fore fun, normal but huge and with three different heights of diving boards, a water slide and beach balls all over.
"Oh gods," I said in regards to the quest.
I knew very little about the Artemis problem. Nobody knew the exact story. It was top secret, yet it involved too many of the Olympian gods to count. None of them would comment on the matter; not even Aphrodite which was extremely surprising, since she usually dished out all the good gossip.
From what I know, Artemis was rumored to have had a child with Hermes's other older demigod son, Lucas. So if you're really bad at Greek 'mythology', then you wouldn't know that Artemis had told her father that she wanted to be a virgin, unmarried, young and free, forever. And so Zeus granted her that wish because Artemis was always a daddy's girl. So you can see why Zeus might be upset about this.
Anyway, Zeus had Poseidon sink the ship that the poor (and innocent, according to Artemis herself, who I completely believe) Lucas was on. He also made Poseidon cause Hurricane Katrina, because that's where this was rumored to have all gone down and where Artemis 'fell in love' with Lucas. I swear that Zeus doesn't know his own daughter. My dad did all this with a heavy heart (though he tried to seem proud and all about it, he had an armored heart like mine, never showing true emotions), but had to do what Zeus told him, because he's already sort of on Zeus's bad side. He chained him up one time a long time ago and made him agree to be a better ruler of the gods, blah, blah, so Zeus is now always a little more cautious, wary and demanding of his brother. But I can honestly tell you that my dad didn't appreciate drowning all those innocent people to please his brother. I'd be dead if I ever said it aloud, but the gods take their vengeance out on the mortals a little too much.
So if my quest had to do with that whole mess of drama that happened when I was like 8, then it was gonna be harder than I even anticipated or could imagine. Because then I could be used. Not that I already wasn't sometimes, but this time I mean really used. And I wouldn't betray Artemis to please Zeus.
"I know what you're thinking," Kara said, "I know you're thinking about trying to find a way out of it."
"Finding a way out of it is an understatement of what I want to do Kara. I mean, you're dad made my dad cause Hurricane Katrina over this! Do you really think I wanna be involved in something that totally goes against what and who I'm for?! I'm on Artemis's side, you know this," I said heatedly, "And they are really going to ask me for my help after I'd begged my father to not listen to Zeus and not slaughter all those innocent people in New Orleans for no good reason! I will not do anything to aid your father in seeking vengeance over something that isn't what he thinks!" I practically shouted, fuming as I walked over to the laps pool. I touched the locker with my name Annakeyla on it in Greek writing style in the color blue and was changed into my Nike zebra diving swimsuit. I jumped in the water, ignoring my friends worried stares and sighed, sitting at the bottom of the pool for at lest ten minutes.
I was fuming. I couldn't believe that my dad was letting Zeus push him around like this and trying to drag me—and my brother—into this mess. He knows I'm on Artemis's side for gods and goddess's sake! And as much as Zeus used to like me, at the moment he isn't speaking to Artemis or me. That ticks us off even more.
Ya, I know the true story of what happened vaguely too. Artemis didn't give me all the details, because she's not like that, but she gave me the basics of what I need to know. That she had Aphrodite, Hecate and Athena involved to help take her eggs and fertilize them in some pea tree dish type thing. I was never great with science words, though I seemed pretty good at science, sorry.
"ANNA!" I heard Travis yell at the top of his lungs. No, I had not been ignoring my friends for the past ten minutes. Alright maybe I have, but it was for their own good so I wouldn't lash out on them. I tended to do that when I was really pissed off.
Popping out of the water, leaving my hair and face dry since I'd forgotten to take of my makeup and I didn't want to have to fix my hair (yes, I could do this, demigoddess daughter of Poseidon here), I looked up at my friends with my 'what the eff do you want?' look.
"Don't give us that," Travis said with an eye roll.
"What do you want?" I groaned.
"We're trying to help you," Kara said.
"Just what?" I said in annoyance, gritting my teeth.
"I have a quest to the Underworld. I'm going with my dad," Travis said slowly, looking at me like somehow that statement should explain itself to me.
"Great for you. Have fun," I said with no emotion in my voice.
"Anna, listen. So Artemis's daughter was rumored to kill some deformed person the other day, right?"
"Uh-huh," I said, drying the rest of me off by using a flick of my hand and muttering the Latin word for dry.
"Well, I could talk to him in the Underworld. He might have some details or something."
I snorted. "Thanks," I said, "But you don't have to do that. I'll probably be in the middle of my quest before you go. Thanks though guys. I'll just suffer on my own?" The last sentence turned into a question when I saw Artemis, Apollo and Hermes standing by the entrance to the pool room.
"Nobody's mad," Artemis said in regards to my last question. The scowl on her face could've fooled me.
"Could've fooled me," I accidentally said out loud, popping my hand over my mouth as soon as I said it and then grinning innocently at my favorite gods and goddess.
Artemis smiled. "Truly, sweetheart, we're not mad. Well, at you anyway. My father on the other hand..." she said, trailing off into thought and her scowl returning.
"I'm sorry!" Hermes yelled.
"Now did she blame you?" Apollo said.
"It is my fault, though. I told Dad. I didn't know everything, and I told dad that Aphrodite was pregnant with Artemis's kid."
"No it's not," Artemis said, "Dad just flipped out. He didn't know all the facts either, he just freaked out, as usual. His stupid temper tends to blind him. It's not your fault so cut it out. You would know if I was mad at you, believe me," Artemis said with her eyebrows raised. "Anyway. Anna. Your quest your father is going to force you into. I will help you when needed. You know I will. This is my daughter you're dealing with. You have to befriend her. Simple as it sounds, it will prove to be uneasy. But I will help you. The only reason I support this quest is because it could prove that I am innocent to my father's eyes. I believe that is the only reason you're father agreed to it so easily, also. You'd be a good friend to my daughter, Anna, so please. Try. For me. I know you were against it for my sake, but this could help me. And you, too. If you succeed, your father might be able to get Zeus to find a way to bring your mother back."
I looked at her with disbelief. Sure, everything she'd said before the last sentence was encouraging and all.
But the idea of my mother being able to come back? That was a dream come true. I missed my mother. There were times I needed her and I was left with no one. I wanted her to help me again. To show me the right way to do things, to watch the sappy teen love movies with me, to tell me I was a great person, to tell me I could do the right thing, to help me do my best in school (though Athena did that well).
I was trying to tell myself there were many reasons why I now agreed to this quest when my dad asked Leo and I back at his palace. However, I knew the main and real reason.
My mother
"Pippy Longstocking," my brother called me as we grabbed our stuff to go on a trip with my dad and Artemis to see Artemis's daughter I had to befriend. He called me this because when I was a little kid, I always wore my hair in braids on the sides of my head, like a Pippy Longstocking with blonde hair.
I whirled around with my sword pointed to my brother's throat. "What did you just call me, Fish Breath?" Kind of a weird insult, since I was a Poseidon person too, but this was how my brother and I did things.
Some of the fish swimming by looked hurt. Oops.
"Hey, just messing with my brother," I told them, "You guys are cool."
They smiled weakly at me.
"You heard me. And genius move with the fish back there," Leo snickered.
"Imbecillus," I mutter as I picked up my Sapphire gemstone necklace Aphrodite had given me., She said it brought out my eye color, but Aphrodite isn't as blonde as you all may think. She also gave it to me because it improves your overall well being, and mine has been pretty unstable lately.
"What was that, Annakeyla?" My father said sternly as he came in with Artemis.
"Bust-ed," Leo whispered to me with this huge cocky grin on his face.
I smirked. "Not quite," I whispered back. Two can play at this game, cocky brother. And for the record, I tend to win.
"Nothing, Daddy, sorry, just practicing some of the new spells and stuff Hecate and Athena taught me," I said normally, not giving anything away or even sounding like I was lying. After all, I had learned from Hermes, the god of thieves. Thieves generally had to be good liars.
He looked at me and nodded slowly. "Very well then. We should be off. I shall show you your new apartment in New York City after we show you Adriana Lee."
"Okay," I said. Artemis grinned at me when my dad turned around muttering "Nice," to me and trying not to laugh at Leo's shocked face.
"Take that, sucka," I told him turning on the heels of my new Nikes. They were lime green, orange, and neon blue. They were great for track too. I ran sometimes, but not for the track team. I was a total swimmer sports wise, but I generally tend to do a little bit of everything. Plus my Nikes were awesome in combat. I could spin, flip, jump, kick, whatever.
"You're evil, truly evil," Leo said to me.
"Ya, ya," I said, "Let's go, I wanna sleep."
"You always wanna sleep. You practically hibernate."
"Oh well excuse me for not being freaking nocturnal."
"You're excused," he said with a grin. My brother had a real talent for getting on my nerves.
"Shut. Up."
"I'm surprised you didn't say that in Latin, you usually say everything in Latin."
"Ohmygodsandgoddesses!" I yelled, "Artemis, Dad, let's go now, please, for the love of the gods!"
Leo laughed as I glared at him and we disappeared into the night and out of the sea.
Pop!
The air made a little popping sound as Artemis, Poseidon, Leo and I appeared in a tree next to a very dressed up, frilly looking house. It was a light baby blue with white cutesy shutters. It was huge though, with a pool and everything. I'd kill to dive in that right now.
"Uh, this is not New York City," I said to them.
"Anna, shhh!" Artemis said.
"Oh sorry," I whispered, "Where are we exactly?"
"The Bronx," my dad said to me, "I would really like to kill that person who just threw his McDonald's cup in the bay," he growled, looking across the street at the sidewalk on the bay.
"Don't," Artemis, Leo and I all said at once.
"I wasn't actually planning on killing him, I was just saying," Poseidon said. I raised an eyebrow at him. "Anyway," he said severely in regards to my look, "This is—
"—Adriana's house. Well, she lives here with her foster family," Artemis said. Poseidon gave her a nasty look which she promptly returned and said "My daughter, I get to tell."
"Very well," Poseidon sighed angrily. His sea eyes turned a darker blue and I could see that the ocean in his irises started to get rougher with his anger. While Zeus's temper was worse than my dad's, sometimes I questioned that fact with how mad my dad go over virtually nothing.
"She's very... er, punk like so to speak. She has a motorcycle. Hates pink. Very into—oh, sh, she's on the window ledge!" Artemis gasped, ducking down and forcing the rest of us to.
I looked up at the ledge of the window. I pulled out my phone and saw that it was 2 o'clock in the morning. Gods, how and why was this girl awake? She must be crazy or something.
I watched her hang up her cell phone and place something silver on the window sill—a silver sharp bladed knife. I looked at her and I had to keep myself from gasping at the similarities between her and Artemis.
She had sliver-blonde long hair just like Artemis. Almost the same moon colored eyes, except hers weren't as bright and shiny as Artemis's were. She had the same pale features and kind face, though hers look scarred with sadness, but mostly hidden with anger—no doubt from what had happened to her family. She wore black skinny jeans and a silver tee-shirt with a black sweatshirt over it to help conceal her in the night's darkness. I saw a black rose ring on her finger. It was very beautiful, but something about it made me fear it.
I looked at Artemis who smiled weakly at me and I knew for sure that was Artemis's daughter. I watched Leo get a good look at her and he said "Oh shit," in a pretty loud whisper.
"Shut it!" I hissed as Poseidon and Artemis looked uncomfortable at his comment.
"What?" I asked in a whisper. Both Olympians shook their heads at me. I scowled and looked at Leo hopefully, knowing my chances were slim at getting information out of my brother but she said softly "I'll tell you later."
I raised my eyebrows and was about to say thanks when my dad said. "Now you know her. But we must get to your apartment now. You start school on Monday which means you have one day to get settled."
We were about to disappear when Adriana's eyes accidentally met mine. My eye's widened and I mouthed something like "Uh, hi, sorry!" right before we disappeared into the night again, bound for our new apartment.