VI
"WAKE UP!" Hermes shouted, effectively waking up the whole house.
"What the heck?" asked Artemis groggily as she raised her head slightly from her pillow.
"SHUT UP!" Ares and Triton roared from their rooms.
"Hermes!" the boy's parents (parent. His father is Zeus but his mother isn't Hera) shouted.
"Stupid, insolent, ignorant…" Athena growled, lying back down and closing her eyes.
Dionysus raised his head ever so slightly, opened an eye, and then went immediately back to sleep.
"Hello!" Hestia called cheerfully.
Then, Demeter appeared. "The boy is right, people. Wake up! It's Christmas!"
"I have a name!"
"Everybody, listen to the boy and WAKE UP!"
"I HAVE A NAME!"
After an hour of groaning and complaining, Hermes and Demeter managed to haul everybody out of bed. All the kids, that is. The adults woke by themselves.
"Unbelievably," Persephone said quietly at breakfast, sipping a cup of coffee, "I fell asleep last night."
"You were tired, dear," Hades put a hand around her shoulders.
"Why is that unbelievable?" Apollo asked blankly.
"DAD!" Dionysus hollered from the kitchen. "WHERE DID YOU HIDE THE WINE?"
Zeus ignored him and said to his other children. "You have to finish your breakfast before you may go get your presents, understood?"
His children heard him, but pretended to ignore him.
Hermes, quickest as usual, finished up first and ran to get his presents. Apollo was the second but when he went to search under the Christmas tree, he exclaimed, "I don't have any presents!"
"Nothing?" asked Artemis, following her twin into the living room.
"Nothing," Apollo confirmed. What the twins didn't notice was Hermes, sitting behind the coach, chuckling deviously.
Artemis started searching and successfully found 12 boxes with her name on it. She smirked and wriggled her eyebrows at her unfortunate twin.
"Did everyone decide to gang up against me and not get me any presents this year?" Apollo complained. At this, there was suddenly a snort from behind the coach. Piecing together the puzzle, the younger twin realized what Hermes had done.
"Hermes, give it back!" he shouted, lunging at the coach. Hermes shot out, incredibly quick, a bunch of boxes in his arms and sprinted upstairs.
"GET BACK YOU LITTLE SON OF A-"
"Language!" Demeter shouted from the dining room.
"-WITCH! DAMN YOU TO HELL! FU-"
"Apollo!"
"-DGE YOU! GIVE THE GODDAMNED PRESENTS BACK!"
"It's just a few presents," Athena sighed.
"A few presents?" Apollo asked disbelievingly. "That was all of my presents!"
Ares rolled his eyes when he came in. Triton followed him shortly, grinning widely. "Though I have to say I'm impressed when you manage to change the swear words at a split second notice."
Hebe nodded. "Apollo's quick," she murmured. "But Hermes is quicker."
Apollo scowled.
The rest of the children gathered and began opening their presents while Apollo slumped on the coach, scowling, with his arms crossed in front of him. When Hestia came in and saw his defeated, annoyed look, she sighed sadly.
"Hermes!" Hestia called. "Please bring your brother's presents down."
After a minute of two, Hermes finally emerged, carrying a bunch of presents. He handed it back to Apollo.
"Apologize," Hestia demanded.
"Sorry, Apollo," Hermes mumbled.
For the umpteenth time starting from 6 years ago, Apollo and the others wondered why Hermes was always so obedient to their nicest aunt.
They have a feeling they'll never find out.
"It's snowing!" Hebe suddenly shouted from beside the window. All the children went up to see.
"The storm's becoming bigger," Athena noticed. "At this rate there'd be enough snow for us to have a snowball fight by noon."
Ares and Triton rubbed their hands together in anticipation, their eyes gleaming hungrily and evilly. They exchanged glances that said, 'Oh, we are definitely slaughtering this lot of children.'
Athena, observant as usual, gave the two boys a warning glare before going upstairs to her room to read.
Artemis and Apollo began having a dart throwing contest, the two of them tying, much to their displeasure.
Ares and Triton went back to Ares' room to play video games or talk about comics.
Hephaestus and Hermes were setting up traps around the house, mimicking Home Alone 5.
The adults were mostly still at the dining room, save for Hestia and Demeter, talking in hushed voices about that.
Θνητός αθάτοι
Hades shuffled a few papers. "Yesterday night I did some research about Firestorm's history," he said. "Apparently it was started sometime after World War 2, though that might not be accurate. After all, during the two world wars, the world was in chaos and things like this might not actually be noticed. Not only that, Firestorm would've been extremely weak if it existed during the world wars."
"Something I also found out is that Firestorm's training system is very brutal and strict and you could die during training."
Hera sucked in a breath.
"Also, Firestorm was the one that trained the World's Most Wanted Assassin: Anastasia Jaden."
"The World's?" Amphitrite asked in disbelief. "Are you kidding me?"
Hades shook his head. "Best fighter ever known in history. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration but some people say she would be able to take down a whole army by herself."
Poseidon took a few deep breaths. "So my daughter is going to become a dangerous person?"
"I doubt she's going to, Poseidon. She's disappeared for 5 years, officially announced dead. I think she already is dangerous. But again, we're not sure. She might've died, or she's just going to be another one of Firestorm's thousands of assassins. You have to be really good to be recognized," Hades said.
"But what about Anastasia Jaden?" Zeus asked, leaning back on the chair and crossing his arms. "Why did you mention her?"
"Well, Jaden was a good fighter, obviously, but 3 years ago, she was captured by the GIS."
The GIS was the counterpart of Firestorm. But unlike Firestorm, GIS is extremely naïve and stupid, giving them zero to negative chances of defeating Firestorm.
"But the GIS is stupid!" protested Persephone. "How did they possibly capture her?"
"I don't know," her husband admitted. "I had an insight about it but it seemed absurd."
"If the girl was captured 3 years ago," Zeus pointed out, "shouldn't she already be executed by now?"
Hades shrugged. "I have no idea what had happened to her."
"What point are you trying to make here, brother?" Poseidon asked.
"The point I'm trying to make is that if Jaden was so powerful, then the others might be similar."
"But Jaden was special, wasn't she? She's the World's Most Wanted Assassin!" Poseidon protested.
"However," Hades said coolly, "even though she's the World's Most Wanted, there is someone more powerful that her."
"Who?" asked Persephone.
"It's pretty obvious, isn't it? The head of Firestorm! If Anastasia is the best in the world, then she could take over Firestorm! But she didn't! So that means the head of Firestorm is even more powerful!"
"So?"
"Okay," Hades said, annoyed. "Let's say the head of Firestorm's abilities are 100% and Anastasia Jaden is 99 or 98%, other Firestorm fighters would be 50 to 96%. The GIS, however, their average abilities are 20 to 45%. We have no hope of getting our daughters back even if we call on the police or the GIS!"
"But if they try to escape…" Poseidon pointed out weakly.
"They'll be killed," Hades replied immediately. "And that might not be happening. Firestorm assassins could be quite loyal."
"Don't they have their own families to think about?" Hera asked.
Hades sighed. "Well, that's the problem. Either Firestorm takes their siblings and kills the parents or they killed them all."
Θνητός αθάτοι
"THAT IS STUPID," Artemis said, fuming.
"It's the truth, dear sister," Apollo growled back, adding extra sarcasm and venom in 'dear sister'.
"So?" Artemis demanded. "Just because mom-"
"DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT MOM!" Apollo shouted.
Artemis narrowed her silver eyes, which was flashing dangerously. "And why not? She is as much as my mom as she is yours, Apollo. If-"
"Because," Apollo growled. "If it wasn't for you, she would've still been alive!"
Artemis froze and her eyes widened in shock.
Hermes, Hebe, Athena, Ares and even Triton gasped. That was pushed way out of her borders.
Silence, tenseness and hostility filled the room, making it so thick the others could've cut it with a knife.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Artemis whipped out a knife, which she sliced toward her younger twin brother. Hebe screamed, while Apollo dodged narrowly, the knife just nicking his face. Then, his sister threw it at him, but out of fury, she missed (narrowly) and then Artemis stormed (quite literally) out the house.
They heard the backdoor slam shut before the living room settled into silence.
"What was going on here?" Hestia suddenly appeared. She noticed the cut on Apollo's face and the knife laying a few meters away from him.
Her eyes widened. "What did you do, Apollo?"
Apollo didn't say anything, just glared at the knife.
"Apollo," Hestia said in a stern voice. "Look at me. Tell me what happened."
Apollo obeyed, though he didn't talk. It truly feels strange to stare at a seven year old (or somebody who looks seven years old) and know that she has more power over you than your siblings that look 16.
"We were playing darts," Apollo said bitterly. "And started arguing about who won. Then, I-I said…" He trailed off.
"He accused Artemis of the death of their mother," Athena finished for him.
Hestia sighed. "I wasn't talking to you Athena but its fine. Apollo, who started the argument?"
"She did," the younger twin said almost confidently. "She was a sore loser."
Hestia raised an eyebrow and then turned to the other children. "Is that true?"
The others hesitated for a moment. "Well," Hebe said thoughtfully. "It's half true. Artemis lost but she wasn't a sore loser…"
Before the others could say anything else, Hestia said, "I thought so. It didn't seem like Artemis to be sore loser. Apollo, did you taunt her?"
Shamefully, Apollo lowered his gaze and nodded slightly. His aunt sighed. "So technically it was your fault. Shouldn't you go after her and apologize?"
Apollo's head snapped up. "But it's not my fault!" he raged. "She-"
Athena rolled her eyes. 'We just confirmed that it was your fault…'
"Who made Artemis mad and storm out?" Hestia cut Apollo off.
"Me," he grumbled.
"Who won yet taunted her for losing?"
"Me."
"Right," Hestia said cheerfully. "Why don't you go and apologize? Do me a favor and call her in. its cold and snowing outside and I think Iris and your Aunt Demeter is making hot chocolate!"
Apollo nodded and gave her a small, abashed smile before sprinting out, grabbing his jacket along the way.
Iris brought out a tray with cups of hot chocolate, marshmallows and biscuits, and the children began stuffing themselves as they awaited the return of the twins.
But they never came back.
Right! Could you guys please review? Just because I'm trying and almost succeeding in updating everyday doesn't mean I don't appreciate reviews!