Christina:
"Christina?" asked Logan.
"Yeah?"
"I wanted to ask you something." It was two days after we had fought the Hyperborean Giant and we were now traveling across West Virginia state. The day before we had taken a taxi as far as we could into West Virginia. We didn't want to waste anymore money after that so we just got off.
"Go ahead," I said.
"I know this may sound weird, but, have you ever had a voice talking to you in you head? Like a man's voice or a women's voice?" he said.
"Yeah."
"Same here," cut in Lillian.
"Why do you ask?" I said.
"Because the night that we played Capture the Flag and you knocked me down near the river, a man's voice said in my head, 'Go to the water, Logan. It'll heal you and give you strength.'"
"Really?" I said curiously.
"Yeah. Do you know or have any idea who the man's voice was?" he replied.
"It was Poseidon's voice. He was guiding you. Why he would tell you before you were claimed, I don't know."
"Oh."
"Poseidon also guides me and so does my mother, Athena, if you didn't know," I told him.
"And Athena just guides me," said Lillian.
"Once in a while, Apollo does that to me. But he jokes around a lot. For a while, he was purposely doing it just to screw me up. Especially when I was sword practicing! It was hard to concentrate and was so annoying!" Liam said, recalling the moment as he rolled his eyes. We continued walking, and by noon, we were worn out because we had been walking since seven this morning. We sat down and talked about what we know so far.
"We know that Alethia has been taken which is a given, Lynch is missing, the enemy is trying to gain some allies like Hades and some other person and that we can't contact them completely," said Lillian.
"Yep. Anything else?" I said.
"I don't think so," Lillian answered.
We sat there in silence. After a while, we played Hacky Sack, a game where you bounce a object off any body part and then you pass it to the next person. Logan could bounce the apple off his knee, head and elbow. Lillian was better. She could bounce it off the same parts plus her ankle and wrist. I could bounce the apple off all the parts that Logan and Lillian accomplished and one more part. The shoulder. At one point, Logan bounced off his ankle so high, looked for it and said, "I think its stuck on one of the branches", and then was about to say something else when it came down and hit him square flat in the head. I could've sworn that I heard a THONK when it happened. Me and Lillian cracked up at that but we cracked up even harder when he bounced the apple off his knee and it came straight up like a bullet and smacked him in the forehead. Lillian and I figured he had gone cross-eyed. We were correct when we asked Logan if he had and admitted that he had.
"You know what I think?" Lillian replied.
"What?" demanded Logan rubbing his forehead and smiling.
"I think the apple hates you," she laughed.
"Whatever," answered Logan, smiling like crazy.
"You know its probably true," I said. We all laughed. After what seemed like hours of sitting there, Lillian and I stood up and told Logan that we needed to go. As we were about to start walking, a brilliant flash appeared in front of us. It was so bright, we had to avert our eyes. Once the light had died, we turned back only to find a beautiful woman standing there. She was wearing a long, flowing pink dress that was a V-neck. She had gold armbands that circled up on her biceps, gold necklace, bracelets and earrings. She was also wearing make-up. I saw Logan staring at her. I knew this woman. She was very, very pretty and that could only be one person. Some of the kids at camp kind of looked like her. The ones from Cabin 10.
"Aphrodite," I said. "Your looking as pretty as ever."
"Good to see you Christina and Lillian and Liam. And this is Logan Moore I see," she observed, looking him over.
"So, Aphrodite, what exactly are you doing here? I thought the gods were suppose to act indirectly and not show up to see demigods," I said.
"Oh, I just came down to help you guys after getting permission from Zeus. Took me quite a while though. Anyways, I have information and gifts. The first gift-,"
"Why are you helping us? We're doing fine so far," I interrupted. Aphrodite stopped and looked at me.
"Dear me. Logan and Lillian, are you hungry? Here." she waved her hand and a table with delicious foods appeared. "Help yourselves to it. In the meantime," she looked pointedly at me. "I want to talk to Christina." She steered me away from the table until we were out of earshot.
"Why are you helping us?" I repeated.
"Why? To help you get to your destination faster. To help you save Alethia and Lynch." I froze when she said his name.
"But why help us get there faster? We have no deadline."
"You may not realize it or not, but you do have a deadline. Two actually. The faster you get to your destination, the better," she said seriously.
"Why the better? If you know why, then tell me," I replied.
"I think you know why." I stared at her blankly.
"Why?" I said.
"You really don't know do you? It's better because deep down, I know that your scared for Lynch and Alethia. But mostly Lynch. It's better because you want to save Lynch and you feel a surge of protectiveness. You want to defend him. Also, you want to impress your parents so they recognize you," she answered.
"I'm not scared. And yes I want to save Lynch, but no, I do not feel a surge of protectiveness. I kind of want to defend him. I know he can defend himself, but if something were to go wrong, then yes I would defend him. And if you think I'm also doing this so my parents can recognize me, your completely wrong. My parents don't care for me. They took my memories from when I was little so everything feels complicated, that nothing make sense, and that my whole life is a joke. You know that. You've seen the fights before. I'm not doing to impress them. I'm doing this quest to save my friends."
"Well if that's what you think. But I know that's what you feel," she said sighing.
"You know what? You go on believing that I'm scared for him, I feel a surge of protectiveness for him and that I want my parents to recognize me. But I know that I feel none of that. So-,"
"Christina I know-," she started
"END OF STORY," I finished sternly. She was quiet and didn't try to argue. I turned heel and headed back to the table. I wasn't hungry or thirsty. I wasn't angry. I wasn't sad. I was confused? No. I was disturbed with old thoughts. Aphrodite followed me to the table.
"Well before I go, I present a gift to each of you and another gift for all of you to share," she said. Logan and Lillian stopped eating and looked up.
"What? Really?" Logan replied astonished.
"No, she came here to give us food. Yes Logan," Lillian said sarcastically.
"The first gift is to Logan." She opened her hand and a bronze closed shield appeared. She gave it to Logan. Logan slipped it onto his arm. There was a clicking sound and the shield expanded outward like camera lens. It was a four inch wide round shield with scenes of sea disasters and decorations of conch shells, seashells, clams and other stuff underwater. In the middle of the shield was a picture of a kingdom with waves behind it and around it. Poseidon's underwater palace. Logan stared at the scenes and decorations in awe.
"If you lose this shield, it will always appear to you on your arm."
"Thanks Aphrodite," he said. She nodded.
"The second gift is to Lillian," she said turning to my sister. Aphrodite opened her palm again and this time, a small crossbow appeared with a set of small arrows that had silver tips instead of celestial bronze.
"This is a crossbow that can be used to put mortals to sleep if needed. This also kills certain monsters who can't be killed by celestial bronze," she said.
"How do I know if the monster can be killed with this only?" Lillian inquired.
"You will know when the time comes," Aphrodite responded. Lillian nodded as if she realized what Aphrodite was saying.
She turned to Liam, face grim.
"You're time is coming Liam. But don't fear though. You will be in for a surprise but you must not speak of it to the others on this quest. As for the others, they will be in surprise also but the camp has been informed already of you and the surprise. So here, I will give you this memory sealer. When the surprise happens, this memory sealer will come to mind and seal that surprise and remind you to not talk about it so you don't Iris-message or have any contact with 'them'," Aphrodite said, handing him a vile filled with white liquid. "Drink it when the surprise happens."
Liam nodded, taking the vial.
"Now the last gift goes to Christina." She turned to me. In her hand was a shiny gold bow, and arrows that had golden points inside a quiver.
"What kind of bow and arrow is that?" I questioned. It disturbed me because it looked peculiarly familiar.
"It's an important bow that you used a long time ago. I think you know," she said darkly. All of a sudden, something weird happened. My eyesight went blurry, tinged with red and my brain started to hurt. It was a shred of memory appeared in my mind of that particular bow and arrow set. It was a very faint memory. I pressed my fingers to my temples. I gasped. My vision began to clear and my brain stopped hurting. Lillian had her hand on my back. I was breathing hard. I looked up at Aphrodite.
"Wh-what was that?" I gasped.
"A small part of a memory that is missing," was her only reply.
"That's crazy. I…when did I use it?"
"I will leave that to you to figure out. Now the last gift is to all of you." Inside her hand was a flickering ball that kept flickering with different colors. The colors were red, green, blue and gold. She handed it to me. As soon as it touched my hand, it changed into a huge marble that surprisingly light with a mixture blue and sea green swirling around inside.
"What…exactly is this?" I asked Aphrodite looking at her.
"It's a Morph Sphere and is something you can you in battle. You can launch it at an enemy willing it to be soft, hard, fast, slow or anything else. It can appear to anyone who needs it desperately or when its needed. The only thing it can't do as far as I'm am concern is take the shape or anything. For example. It can't take the shape as a shield, sword, arrow or anything else. It stays in that shape. And it appears to you. No enemy can take it because if you use on the enemy constantly, it will recognize that enemy so that if the enemy tries to take it, the sphere will disappear and appear to you."
"Whoa. That is amazing. But what if all of us need it or only two of us need it?"
"It will transform itself so that all of you or two of you have it," she said.
"That's even more cool." Aphrodite smiled. "Use it well. And oh yeah, please don't use it on one another. That would be my fault for giving it to you."
"Thanks Aphrodite," Logan said.
"I must go now. Good luck and may the gods be with you." She began to get brighter and brighter. I averted my eyes and made sure that Logan and Lillian were. There was a brilliant flash of pink and when we looked back, she was gone. Logan looked at his shield.
"Now what?" he asked.
"How about…we keep traveling," Lillian said.
"Fine by me," I answered and with that, we kept walking.
A/N: Shortest chapter ever probably out of my book, amazing! AHAHA! ^_^