Cara does Apollo a favour
Disclaimer: see chapter one.
Summary: Connor and Travis are plotting revenge on the ultimate prank, Morpheus is pestering Cara about ideas for the perfect nightmare and Apollo has a major problem. Naturally, Cara chooses to deal with Apollo first, with some interesting consequences…
…
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"Morpheus I'm trying to sleep, Dammit!"
Morpheus pouted and I took my frustration out on a passing cloud.
This was the 3rd time in as many nights that Morpheus had been bothering me. He'd hit a wall and wanted to create the perfect nightmare and, because most of my time before summer camp was spent with dead people, he'd come to me for advice and I wasn't having any of it.
What? How would you feel if godly visits happened on a regular occurrence and the result was a severe lack of sleep?
Seriously even the dead aren't that annoying, and that's saying something.
"I'm out of ideas!"
"Well how do you think I feel?" I snapped in response, "I'm tired; I haven't been sleeping because you keep bothering me and apparently Apollo has a job he wants me to do tomorrow."
"That busy huh?"
"Trust me, this is a good week."
Morpheus snorted and flopped down on a sofa-shaped cloud, "I don't even want to know what a bad week's like then."
"You really don't," I replied, "Can I get back to sleep please?"
"Sure," Morpheus waved his hand and I was out like a light.
…
Next morning, straight after breakfast, I was effectively dragged to the big house – which would've been scary enough believe me – to see Apollo.
The reason why I was nervous? Apollo and I had a major argument about Paramore and Hanna Montana last time I saw him and the end result was that the Apollo cabin was (I influenced this but didn't actually put them up, I swear) covered in Paramore posters.
Apollo also said he'd fry me to a crisp if he ever saw me again.
I love how polite the gods are.
Fortunately, Chiron, Poseidon and Dionysus were sat in to prevent any recurrences of that little incident.
"Well, well," Apollo was glaring, "If it isn't little miss doom and gloom,"
"I'm not even going to dignify that pathetic little remark with a retort," I replied evenly, flopping onto a chair on the other side of the table, "I won't stoop to your level."
Apollo was itching to vaporize me, I could tell, but it wouldn't work because Hades made me immortal (even if I'm not a goddess) and, even if it did, Hades would guarantee that all Apollo's kids for the next 500 generations would get fields of punishment.
"Before this erupts into another little lovers' tiff," Poseidon deliberately chose those words, "We have important business to discuss."
"It's not a lovers tiff!" I protested, "I'm too busy with work to even think about sick stuff like that! He's the dad of some of my best friends for goodness sake!"
"For once we actually agree on something," Apollo added, "Who'd want to be her boyfriend?"
"Excuse you!" I retorted, "I seem to remember a time when you kept asking me to go out with you whenever I was working."
"I was drunk,"
"You hadn't been anywhere near alcohol or drugs,"
"Shut up,"
"Charming," I snorted, "I can see why so many women had kids with you,"
"Thank you,"
I stared at the smug Apollo, "I was being sarcastic."
The smirk became a glare; I smiled sweetly back.
"Anyway…" Poseidon interjected again, "Apollo, you have a job for Cora?"
"My Lyre has been stolen."
I blinked, "What?"
Apollo repeated the statement.
"And what am I supposed to do about it?"
"We've received information that suggests that it's being sent to the underworld," Poseidon explained, "So, seeing as you're the only one who knows the whole of the underworld by heart, we hoped you could locate the thief,"
"Slightly impossible because I'm barred from the underworld until my training's complete," I replied, "But I'll try, if –" I smiled evilly, "Apollo swears on the river Styx that Paramore is better than Hannah Montana."
Apollo grumbled something.
"Didn't catch that," I replied.
"Alright!" more grumbling before he finally said; "I swear on the River Styx that Paramore is better than Hannah Montana,"
The sky rumbled.
"Can I take people with me?"
"Only 2 people,"
I pouted; "I'm gonna go see the Oracle,"
"You do that,"
Apollo was being more sarcastic now that I'd scored a point against him.
I ignored him and skipped up the stars to see Rachel.
"Hi Rachel!" I called, poking my head around the door at the furiously doodling Oracle, "'Sup?"
"Apollo's Lyre," Rachel replied, "you're going after it?"
"I don't know that's why I'm asking you,"
"Well, you'll have to take Percy with you," Rachel replied, "And Nico."
"What about Annabeth?"
"She'll be jealous for a while," Rachel replied, "But it's you, the eldest son of Poseidon and the eldest son of Hades, which is technically Nico."
"Even though he was trapped in the lotus casino for seventy years," I nodded, "Anything else I should know?"
Rachel's eyes turned a glowing green.
"Oh no," I pleaded, "Rach, don't – you know it freaks me out."
Instead of hearing me, she carried on with the scary green-eyes thing, which meant she was well and truly possessed. Great.
"To begin your quest you shall go below ground,
By the eldest of Hades, the Lyre will be found,
The first son of Poseidon shall lead thee from dread,
And a lost son of Hermes you shall return from the dead."
I'd like to say I took it all in my stride and acted like this was normal, but I didn't. In all honesty, I checked to see that Rachel was okay; made sure she had a drink of water and then had a major freak out session.
What? How would you feel if your best friend suddenly went all scary on you and said that some corpse was going to come back? Anyone who works for Hades (or is one of his kids) would tell you that the very idea of that is enough to terrify us – it's simply not natural.
So when Nico and Percy came running in to find Rachel laughing and me sat in the middle of the room, rocking like I'm in a straightjacket and humming an old lullaby one of the accountant ghosts liked to sing, they were evidently wondering what the hell was going on.
Neither I nor Rachel was in any fit state to explain, so they waited for a few minutes to see if we'd calm down.
"What the hell did you mean by 'return from the dead'?" I suddenly burst out, shocking everyone into silence, "It's bad enough that you go all evil-eyes on me but 'return from the dead'? WHY?"
"That's what the prophecy said?" Percy asked; I glared at him.
"Would I be sat in the middle of the room humming a lullaby if it wasn't?" I snapped; Nico frowned.
"That's impossible," Nico decided, "unless there's a soul who's cheated death, and even that's risky."
"Not quite," I replied, finally standing up, "When I was organising the files on resurrection I found something rather interesting."
"Which was?"
"There are four ways of bringing a soul back from the grave," I told them, flopping onto the bed next to Rachel and counting on my fingers, "The first is by Lord Hades' consent, which is how I got my second shot, the second is to let them escape through the tunnels leading to the upper world, the third is replace the soul with the soul of one who has cheated death," I tried to take a deep breath before mentioning the fourth one, which I somehow knew was how this guy was going to come back to life, "and the fourth is if a person has been resurrected, they get injured and a spirit comes into contact with their blood –"
"Gods," Nico also said something else that was slightly more expletive, "You can't go,"
"I have to," I replied, "I can't go downstairs and say, 'guess what Apollo, I can't go after all because I don't want to be responsible for an accidental resurrection' can I? Besides; you two are coming with me."
"What?!"
"The prophesy mentioned you two," I insisted, "So you're coming. End of discussion. Thanks Rachel,"
"No problem," Rachel grinned at me, and I could tell that the fact that I'm terrified of resurrection, despite the fact that I was resurrected myself, was going to travel around camp while we were gone.
…
We got suited up and, after Nico and me yelling at Percy and Annabeth to get a room, because we didn't want to see them making out, we set off.
Not, however, before Annabeth told me that if anything bad happened to Percy, she would hold me responsible.
"I'll be a good babysitter and look after him," I promised; Percy stuck his tongue out at the pair of us.
"Cora!"
I turned to find Apollo walking towards us.
"Do you know where you're going first?" he asked.
"Underground," I replied, "So I'm thinking I'll go to Hades and ask him if he can give us a hand,"
"You're crazy,"
"I'm following my instincts," I replied, "even though at the moment my instincts are also telling me to run around screaming in panic,"
Apollo laughed, "Something Rachel said?"
"That and the green-demon routine," I replied, "Guitar Hero tournament when I get back?"
"You're on,"
I grinned and turned to Nico and Percy, "Let's move out."
…
I didn't have any magic items when I entered camp; all I had was my backpack that could store anything including a kitchen sink (we've tried this, it works) and still be light as a feather. Oh – and a black star-sapphire vines-and-flowers hair clip that Persephone gave me as payment for organising the re-planting of her garden. I have absolutely no idea what that's for except to look nice, but I never take it off all the same.
"So," Percy asked, "where to first?"
I took my hair clip out and looked at it.
"Underworld," I said, "There's something I need to ask Hades."
The flowers and vines suddenly glowed and we were sucked into the earth.
…
"Well," I said, standing up and dusting myself down as if I'd been expecting it, "That was unusual," I put the hair clip back in my hair and looked at the two boys, who were in a tangled heap on the floor.
"Could you warn us next time?" Nico demanded, "That scared the hell out of me!"
"Sorry, Nico," I grinned and hauled them both up, "I didn't expect that."
We walked up to Cerberus, who growled at Percy first.
"Hey, bug guy!" I called, pulling a giant red rubber ball out of my bag and throwing it to his heads, "sorry I missed your birthday!"
Cerberus barked excitedly and started playing with the ball. Percy, Nico and I walked past without incident.
Well, until we reached the gates to Hades' palace. Then there was a major incident with the guys who guard the place.
"You cannot pass," they said in their scary unison voices as they brandished their weapons.
"It's kind of important."
"You cannot pass,"
"I am Cora, assistant of Hades; this is Nico, son of Hades and Percy, son of Poseidon,"
"You cannot pass,"
"Are they the only words you know?"
"You cannot pass,"
"Fine," I pulled out a paint grenade I'd found in my pocket, "unless you want to be blown to smithereens, you'll let us pass."
"You cannot pass,"
I sighed and decided to try a different tactic; "The way is shut, it was made by those who are dead, and the dead keep it, the way is shut."
The gates opened, but the guards wouldn't let us go, so I tried something else.
"Cover your ears," I whispered to Percy and Nico.
"Why?"
"Unless you want your eardrums to explode…"
They hastily covered their ears. I took a deep breath, threw my head back –
And screamed like a banshee.
The guards rather quickly backed off and we ran through before they knew what was happening.
Normally, I would timidly poke my head around the door and ask to speak to Hades, but I didn't really think I had the time, so I burst in just as he was about to zap a visiting camper; coincidentally it was Mitchell Heeley, who'd gone on a quest a few weeks back and had subsequently gone missing.
"Cora?" Hades and Mitchell were both surprised and (much to my dismay) I heard stunned gasps from Percy and Nico, meaning that my jeans and T-shirt had magically changed to a long black dress, and my hair had magically tied itself up in a bun (except for a couple of little locks, which were curling around my face).
"My lord," I strode forward and bowed, as I always did, "Firstly, why are you zapping Mitchell Heeley?"
Hades glared at the offending son of Zeus, "He has killed some of my guards,"
"That's not a good enough reason to zap him." I replied, "your guards were dead anyhow."
Hades waved his hand and Mitchell Heeley vanished.
"Where to?"
"Back to his camp," Hades responded to my question, "Anything else?"
"Yeah," I fidgeted for a bit, "We kind of need your help,"
"With what?"
"Apollo's Lyre got pinched," Nico explained, "We're trying to find it."
"I would know if it had entered my domain," Hades replied.
"We need to talk to someone who was good at thieving," I continued, "If he'd stolen the Lyre, where would he put it?"
Hades waved a hand and a blonde guy with a scar on his face, aged about 23 or so, suddenly appeared in front of us.
"And who are you?" I asked him.
"Luke Castellan," the ghost responded, "son of Hermes."
I somehow managed to resist the urge to panic.
"If you'd stolen Apollo's Lyre," Percy began, "Where would you put it?"
"That's easy," Luke replied, "Apollo wouldn't look in the really obvious place – a music store."
"Right," I closed my eyes and thought about it for a moment, "Hickies," I decided, "There's one in Elysium isn't there?"
Luke nodded; "I could take you guys there if you like,"
"Sure," Percy shrugged, "why not?"
Why not? Maybe because the person who's meant to be resurrected is a son of Hermes, and this whole thing is steadily driving me insane.
Hades sent us all to Elysium and Luke started leading us down streets of partying people to the Hickies store.
"Okay, let's have a sniff around to see if the dratted harp's here."
"Cora, it's a Lyre."
I stuck my tongue out at Percy, "pedant," I accused; his response was to shrug and laugh.
"Can I help you?"
"Cripes!" I yelled, whirling round to face one of the furies (the one known to Percy as Mrs Dodds, but known to me as Bernard), "Do you have to do that?"
The fury shrugged, "What are you looking for?"
"We're just browsing," I replied, "I need to get a present for one of the other campers, and he's kind of musical."
"Well, you'll probably find something useful," Bernard the fury replied, flapping out of the shop, "just leave the money on the desk."
"Thanks," I replied, slightly unnerved by the sudden and random appearance of Bernard.
"Hey guys!" Nico yelled from a corner of the shop, "I think I've found it!"
We all flocked over to where Nico was holding a glowing, golden Lyre.
"That's it," I grinned, "Well done, Nico, let's get out of here."
"You will never leave this place alive" a voice hissed behind us. I turned to see a dracinae guarding the door.
"Oh hell no," I sighed; trust us to not have an easy trip.
Percy uncapped Riptide and approached the dragon woman, who laughed nastily and lunged at him.
Luke tackled her to the ground and gave Percy the chance to cut off her head, but before he got the chance, it changed into Percy's mum.
"You wouldn't kill your mother would you, Percy?" it asked.
"Percy?" I asked, "It's not real,"
Percy was frozen. The thing, whatever it was, produced a snake tail, which slithered towards the frozen demigod. I decided to go for the traditional approach; I slapped him across the face.
Turns out I didn't need to; Nico hacked off the tail and then decapitated the monster, which vanished in a puff of yellow sulphur.
"Okay," I sighed, "can we leave now?"
We practically ran from the shop and down one of the routes to earth.
…
It was several hours and several more monster attacks later that we finally admitted we were lost.
"I swear it keeps changing," I sat on a rock and buried my face in my hands.
"Can't we use your flower thing?" Nico asked desperately.
"You can only use it once every 24 hours," I replied, "Luke; your dad does this all the time right?"
"Right," Luke nodded, "but I don't have a clue how it works."
I groaned and hit my head on the rock wall behind me.
Wait – rock wall?
"Oh hell," I muttered and jumped forwards as the "wall" struck the rock I'd just been sitting on, revealing a tunnel behind it.
"Run!" I yelled, pushing everyone towards the tunnel. Luke, not wanting to be the last, half dragged me in as the wall retracted. We were sealed in.
"This way," Percy suddenly walked towards the wall again.
"What are you doing?" I asked; Percy just uncapped Riptide and used the light to reveal a detailed map of the underworld."
"Nice," I nodded.
Percy looked at the map for a few more minutes before leading us to the right, through a long winding route of tunnels to a large golden gate.
"I can see where they get pearly gates from," I commented, "thanks Percy."
"No problem," Percy replied.
"Actually, there is."
"Aw, hell," I grumbled as yet another monster rose out of the pit separating us from the gate.
"I am the demon of the gate," it rasped; I held my breath as the stench of rotting corpses exuded from its mouth.
"Really?" I asked sarcastically, "I thought you were the Trix rabbit."
"I demand a sacrifice" the thing continued its speech.
"I think he… she… it… wants a life," I commented.
"I'll do it,"
"Luke," I reasoned, "in case you didn't notice, you're not exactly alive."
"Neither are you," Luke shot back, grinning.
"Touché," I raised my eyebrows at the son of Hermes.
"I'll –"
"No!" Luke and I yelled at Percy and Nico, who decided not to volunteer after that.
"I'm more alive than you are, ghost boy," I pointed out.
"You're more valuable to Hades than I am," Luke countered.
"So I'm the logical choice," I replied, "I can't die so I can easily cut myself out."
"I am dead so I'm already a sacrifice." Luke replied.
The thing chuckled.
"What's so funny?" I demanded.
"I don't want one life," the thing informed us, "I want all of you!" it lunged toward Nico.
"Cripes!" I yelled, grabbing Nico and Percy and yanking them out of the way – the thing crashed into the rock and sealed off the tunnel.
"You two get back!" Luke yelled, drawing a half-steel, half celestial bronze sword from his belt and standing in front of Percy, Nico and me, "And you, Cora!"
"And let you have all the fun?" I asked, snorting, "Not likely." I drew my stygian iron sword and slashed a large chunk out of the things side.
"If I get destroyed it doesn't matter," Luke replied, parrying a strike from the thing's tail as I slashed its stomach, "You three aren't expendable."
"I'm not going to sit back and let you get obliterated on your own," I replied, "If we're all gonna go down, I want to go down fighting, thanks." I hacked off the thing's tail as it whipped round to strike the two living half-bloods. Obviously, it failed.
Luke decided that there was no point in arguing with a crazy ex-dead girl; either that or he was too interested in staying in one piece to care about whatever I was doing.
The pit thing suddenly lunged at Percy and Nico, who only managed to get out of the way in time because guess who happened to be in the way?
That's right; me.
Naturally, I ended up bleeding from a rather nasty gash in my side and being slung across the cavern in a broken heap.
In the end, it was Percy who killed the dreaded monster of doom; he found a skeleton with a Javelin, nabbed the weapon and threw it into the thing's neck in such a way that it speared its brain.
The thing, whatever it was, disintegrated into Sulphur.
"Ow," I coughed and tasted something tangy in my mouth, "Ow,"
I only realised that I'd bitten the inside of my mouth when Luke handed me a tissue.
"Thanks" I said, pressing it to my lip, "let's scram before anything else materialises,"
I think the only was to describe how fast we ran is the old cliché, "like bats out of hell"
…
Paperwork.
I risk my life to get a flipping instrument for a god and I still have to do the paperwork.
Still; at least Luke insisted on helping, which made my life a whole lot easier.
If you ever try to get a job, don't get one with Hades, doing his paperwork. It's one of the most boring bits of my job.
"So, you do this often?" Luke asked as I stamped several pieces of paper and put them in a pile.
"All the time," I replied, screwing up a blank piece and throwing it over my head into the paper bin at the far wall.
"Nice shot," Luke commented.
"I've had a lot of practice," I signed the top piece of paper on a new pile before handing it to him, "second drawer on the left," I said. He took the papers and turned to the filing cabinets.
"Ow!" I jumped, cursing as I looked at my finger.
"What did you do?" Luke asked, having just put the papers away.
"Paper cut," I replied; Luke laughed and grabbed hold of the bleeding hand.
"I'll get a band-aid," he chuckled, pulling a plaster out of the drawer on my desk and sticking it to my finger.
Hades suddenly came bursting in.
"There's someone living in here," he announced, looking at the plaster on my finger, "Again?" he asked.
"There's plasters on the shopping list for a reason," I replied, "And the living person is me."
"No I mean another…" he looked at Luke, "you touched the paper cut didn't you?"
"Probably, when I was putting the band-aid on her finger," Luke replied, "Why?"
"Dammit!" I yelled, hitting my head on the table, "Damn you, Rachel! Damn your Oracle-ey powers!"
Hades chuckled, "You know what this means, Cora?"
"More paperwork?" I despaired.
"No, I'll get one of your assistants to deal with that," Hades replied, "It means that Camp Half-blood has gained another camper. I'm sending you both there now."
We vanished in a puff of swirly black smoke.
…
"Cora!"
"Oh my gods! It's Luke!"
Everyone was fussing over us like we'd done something incredibly heroic; I resisted the urge to ask the ground to swallow me up.
Eventually the crowd was dispersed by the appearance of Apollo, Rachel, Percy, Nico and Chiron.
"How?" Nico asked with a grin on his face.
"Paper cut." Luke and I replied. Percy grumbled and gave Nico $20.
"I'm not even going to ask," I rolled my eyes.
"Yes, yes, yes," Dionysus, surprisingly good at ruining parties given his title, spectacularly killed the mood by interrupted, "The Kronos servant is alive again and doubtless has an even bigger ego –"
"Shut up," I don't have the faintest idea how I got the courage to stand up to the scary fat man of questionable fashion sense, "He stopped Kronos, in case you forgot. Not his servant."
"He was," Dionysus growled, "do you want me to let you stay human or would you rather be a chipmunk?"
I shrugged and stared at him levelly; "Face, sodding, your, shut." I informed him calmly, "construct a sentence out of that."
Everyone was staring at me in shock; usually I was a quiet, demure kind of girl who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Apparently; clearly they forgot about paintball.
Dionysus took one look at me, decided he wasn't going to win against a girl who spends most of her time with dead people and poofed off somewhere.
Everyone was silent.
"Do you two want to play guitar hero?" Apollo asked Luke and me, "Best of three?"
I grinned at him, ignoring the other campers who were staring in shock.
"You're on."
…
Tada!!!! *Dodges flames* okay it sucked but I wanted to update! Quit complaining! XD
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