Logan:
After Christina had jumped into battle, I began to feel a little hope. I had been fighting helplessly against Hades. At one point in the battle, I and Christina got surrounded by enemy demigods. I pressed my back up against hers and energy began to race through my body.
"Ready?" Christina whispered.
"Yep. Don't worry, I've got you're back," I whispered back.
"Same here. Good luck Logan," she wished.
"Back at you," I answered. Then we attacked. I thought I did pretty good. I used some moves that I seen Christina use and some that I had been taught. It felt like I was fighting endless demigods. We finally defeated them and jumped back into against Hades, Lynch and monsters.
Hades was still using fire but he had a new weapon. A wicked sword. It was about four feet long and as black as night. As Alethia and I fought him, I could see Alec fighting a few monsters. He looked horrible. I didn't know where he got all those scratches but some looked pretty bad.
Hades launched a ball of fire at me and everything seemed to go in slow down as the fire came at me. Christina trying to defend me the best she could from other monsters and demigods. Lillian fighting Lynch. Kyra and Acacia fighting hellhounds. Alethia constantly slashing at Hades and Lynch if he attacked. As the fire hurtled toward me, I raised my sword and swung at the fire baseball style. It went flying diagonally, killing a few monsters.
"Hey! Filthy dead god! You just killed some of your allies! You losing your control over you're fire?" I taunted. He hurled fire so fast, I couldn't defend myself in time. I got slammed in the chest and I hit the ground hard. I heard Acacia scream. The small battles around us stopped.
"I usually don't kill demigods out of mere annoyance or jokes but I'll start with this brat of Poseidon," Hades sneered as his palm filled with black fire. I couldn't move or get up. Well, that's it, I thought. But just then I heard a snarl. I saw something huge jump past me, circle back and stand over my body. It was Christina in black panther form. She turned into a human.
"Over my dead body," she snarled. I stared at her in disbelief. I could tell everyone else was too. Hades sneered again and Christina growled, her lip curling in to a nasty snarl.
"Come on animal girl. Fight and die like a brave little hero. But I'll make sure you go to the Fields of Punishment along with Logan," Hades said. That's when something weird happened. Christina began to glow with blue light.
"Testing my abilities aren't you? That was a bad idea. I'm not letting you take my brother."
The other five demigods gathered around me. Christina brought her fist down onto the ground. As soon as it touched, blue light exploded around us and started swirling around until we were encased in a blue ball.
The enemy demigods opened fire with the arrows but all of them bounced off. It was a shield! I stared in amazement at Christina. However I realized something. She was already shaking, slowly paling in the face. It was taking too much of her energy. She stepped outside the ball of blue light and the enemy demigods stopped firing as she began to fight her way to Hades. As soon as she was in striking distant, she lunged forward.
They began to fight in a whirl of black and blue until I heard a scream. Christina came rolling away from the battle. She stood up shakily just as Hades appeared out of the gloom. Christina backed away slowly. Then she whipped out a silver hunting horn and blew it. Just as Hades attacked her, a silver chariot came riding into view, pulled by two lovely reindeers. The chariot landed and out jumped Artemis herself, her silver knives drawn.
Hades brought his sword down on Christina's head but she met his attack with her own sword. Hades pushed more pressure on her sword and Christina's arms began to shake. Then as hard as she could, she kicked Hades in the chest with a yell and he fell on his bottom. As she had yelled, our shield shatter like glass and Christina collapsed, passing out. I jumped up and ran towards her.
"CHRISTINA!" I screamed.
"Attack you fools!" Hades roared. But the enemy demigods were staring at Artemis in awe.
"I SAID ATTACK!" he roared, the ground shaking. They came to their senses again and lunged forward. I gathered Christina in my arms and stumbled forward, fighting enemies. Artemis did a great job killing monsters. She jumped back into the chariot and we got in after her. As we flew away, I could see the enemy archers trying to fire long distance. But nothing hit us. Soon we were out of their view. I looked at Acacia as she began to check Alec's scratches.
"Where did you get all of those deep cuts?" I asked him.
"From an army of hellhounds. Christina saved me," he answered looking at Christina. I stared down at my sister.
"She saved us all thanks to her shield." As we continued to ride east, Christina began to wake up.
"Ugh. Where are we?" she questioned, sitting up and looking around.
"Whoa. Take it easy powerful one." She didn't listen but raised a questioning eyebrow, waiting for me to answer her question. "All right. I guess you're fine. Anyways we're in Artemis' chariot riding east," I said.
"Sweet. So now we know who's the enemy. And how many deadlines we had." I nodded.
"Yep. Deadline one: Save Alethia before she is killed. Deadline two: Try saving and reasoning with Lynch before he tried to kill us, which we failed at," I listed. Christina, Alethia and Lillian glared at me.
"Deadline three: Return Alethia by the summer solstice which we are doing right now," I continued, ignoring the three girls that were giving 'The Look'. The others nodded. We rode in silence.
"Almost there," Artemis informed.
"Finally. Jeez, what a quest," Christina said.
"Yeah. Nearly dying. Nearly fighting most of the time," I added. We looked ahead of us. As we flew over New York state, I could feel Acacia, Alec and Kyra's mood shifting from relief to nervousness. We landed in Central Park, freaking out a few mortal adults. One of the adults said, "Santa Clause!" but he screamed and ran with the other adults when Artemis got out of the chariot.
"I will leave you here and see you on Olympus my heroes. I must go now, the council meeting is about to start. She began to shine and we averted our eyes as she assumed her true form. Then she was gone; reindeer, chariot and all. Christina, Lillian and Alethia guided us until we found 5th avenue.
Home. It feels so nice to be home, I thought. We walked and Christina pointed out a pile of rocks and said, "That's the Door of Orpheus. It's a small entrance to the Underworld and you need music to open it. We continued to walk but we didn't hail a taxi because we thought, just for once, it would be nice to have a stroll without worrying or coming close to dying.
My sister, Lillian and the other demigods walked into the lobby of the Empire State Building, feeling anxious. It was getting late and we needed to get to Olympus before it was too late. Christina walked up to the security guy sitting behind the desk. He looked up as we filed in behind her.
"We're getting ready to close so you'd better leave," the security guy said. Christina didn't budge.
"We need to go to the six-hundredth floor," Christina answered.
"Kid, there's no six-hundredth floor so move on and leave."
I was pretty sure we were going to get arrested.
"Today's the summer solstice and we need to get to the meeting with Zeus. Do you really want to get blasted to bits by him?" Christina threatened, leaning across the desk and looking him in the eyes. He paled a bit.
"I know you. You look familiar," he said, scrunching his eyebrows.
"I would hope so. Now, are you going to let us up?" she asked.
"All right. Elevator on the right," he said, handing her a key card. "Slip the key into the slot." Christina laid a golden drachma on the desk and headed for the elevator, us following. When we got in, Christina closed the door and put the card in the slot. Above all the other numbers popped a red button which said 600. We waited and I began to sense that Christina's emotions. They were anxiety and uneasiness. I could also feel anger boiling up in her. I knew why. We were going up to where she would see her mom and dad. Finally there was a ding and the doors opened but what I saw made me nearly faint. I heard Acacia, Kyra and Alec gasp in amazement.
In front of the elevator doors was a tapered stone walkway floating in midair. It wounded its way into a cloud and at the end was Mount Olympus itself. The mountain was covered in snow however on the side of the mountain was mansions and dozens upon dozens of palaces. They were all made of white-columned doorways. Terraces and bronze braziers with hundreds of fires were covered completely in gold. Everywhere I looked, there were roads that wounded their way around all the way up the mountain until they reached a huge palace. Before the palace was gardens that had olive trees, flowers and all kinds of neat stuff. There were also opened markets and little shops along the huge, paved roads. On one side of the mountain was a stone amphitheater while on the other side happened to be a coliseum. Everything was new, vibrant and clean.
I don't get it. How could mortals not see a hanging palace six thousand feet in the air above the Empire State Building? I considered.
We walked along the roads and finally, we reach the gleaming white palace. There were steps that led up to the entire courtyard but past that was a huge throne room. All of us walked in to see twelve chairs arranged in a U just like the cabins at camp. Each seat was occupied by a fifteen-foot tall god or goddess. Zeus sat in the middle of the U and on his immediate right was Poseidon. Right next to Poseidon sat a man with a misshapen head and wild beard that flickered with occasional small fires. One of his legs was in a steel brace.
"God of Forges. Lord Hephaestus," Christina whispered, as if she could tell I was looking at him. Next to Hephaestus sat Dionysus, our Camp Half-Blood director.
After him was a huge guy that made pro wrestlers look wimpy. He had the most brutal, cruelest face I had ever seen. The guy's cheeks were scarred and he was wearing red shades. I exactly knew who it was. It was Ares. Just looking at him made me angry. I could feel bitterness and resentment building up inside of me. So I decided to look at the guy who was sitting next to him.
The guy was sitting in a golden throne and was wearing headphones, listening to his IPod. I didn't know who he was but he looked pretty cool. I recognized Hermes right on the spot, sitting at the end of the row of male gods.
On the left of Zeus, sat a beautiful woman with a dress that flickered like a bunch on peacock feathers. She had silver hair that had been braided down her shoulder. I knew it was Zeus wife and sister: Lady Hera. Next to Hera was a women that had green robes and brown hair that looked like wheat. She was sitting on a throne that seemed to be woven out of apple branches. I remembered stories talking about a woman who sat on a throne like that. It was Demeter who was the Goddess of Harvest. After Demeter sat a gorgeous woman in a white dress and had gray eyes that sparked with energy and seemed to thinking a million miles per hour. It was Lady Athena, Goddess of Wisdom and Battle Strategy. Last but not least, on her right sat a stunning woman with perfect makeup and everything. I'd met her before; Lady Aphrodite.
As we reached the middle of the throne room, I glanced nervously at Poseidon who was studying me intently. I looked away but I could tell that he and Athena watching Christina nervously. She tensed. I could tell she was trying hard not get too angry with her parents. Christina and Lillian walked up to Zeus and bowed. We followed her example.
"I see you have gone through with your quest and have succeeded in saving my daughter," Zeus said, breaking the silence. "You have done well."
"You have done excellent my lieutenant. You have used your hunting skills and wits to defeat the enemy. For that, I shall award you. But separately and with the other Hunters," Artemis said to Christina who bowed.
"Thank you my lady," Christina answered. She turned to the other Olympians.
"We had help from three new demigods and it would've been very difficult if we didn't have them fighting next to us. Also, Hades doesn't seem to be cooperating anymore with the rest of you."
"Hasn't he always been that way?" Zeus grumbled. Christina didn't answer.
"My daughter, I sense that you have something more important to tell us about Hades," Poseidon said.
"If he hasn't cooperated, then what is more important about him? If he doesn't cooperate with us, then since when has he been?" Zeus cut in. Poseidon looked at his brother pointedly.
"I would like to hear my daughter out and I'm sure Athena would be agreeing with me, despite recent events. I'm also sure that the council would too," Poseidon answered calmly. Christina stiffened.
"Then so be it. What is so important about Hades?" Zeus agreed kind of irritated. Christina took a deep breath.
"What I meant is that Hades has stopped cooperating is, he has chosen to turn against the rest of you Olympians. He has sided with several people who have betrayed Camp Half-Blood. I don't know if they're working for someone but I do know this. Hades said he'll overthrow most of you Olympians, starting with you, Lord Zeus. He then said that if he got Alethia to join his side, she would be enough to overthrow you. If Logan, I and Lillian joined his cause, Logan would be stronger and could get rid of Poseidon. Lillian could do the same for Athena and I would be able to do both and would be more powerful," Christina explained. The gods shifted uncomfortably.
"And who are the several demigods that he has sided with?" Hermes asked. Christina glanced at Ares.
"I will name the two main ones. One of them happens to be the son of Ares. His name is Dominick Martin and he's the assistant to the other demigod who happens to be the one leading all of this. The other one he…," her voice trailed off.
"Christina this is important. Who is the other demigod?" Athena said. Christina turned to the guy who used to be listening to music but now was carefully listening.
"The other demigod is Lynch Fuller, son of Apollo," she announced. There was silence.
"My son?" Apollo asked. "Lynch has done this and he's the leader?"
She nodded.
"Now wait a sec. Why would my aggressive son join the scumbag Lynch?"
"Are you calling Lynch a scumbag you-," Apollo started.
"Whoa! Guys, this is serious. No your son isn't a scumbag but he has decided to betray Camp Half-Blood," I interrupted.
"Yeah, yeah. But why would my aggressive son join?" Ares answered.
"Gee, I don't know. You just said so yourself," Christian answered sarcastically.
"You'd better watch your tongue little girl. Just because your dad and mom are my uncle and sister, doesn't mean you can talk to me like that. Talk to me like that again and I shall turn you into a rodent," Ares growled. Christina snorted.
"Like you could have the power to do that. I could turn back."
"I would make it permanent."
"Yeah and get told off by all the other gods. Have fun with that," she retorted. Ares rose from his seat.
"Ares sit down! I will not have you attacking my daughter because of one little saying! It is true that you said it yourself," Athena defended. Ares sat down automatically, obviously surprised by Athena change in mood.
"I didn't need your help in this, mom," Christina said.
"I was only defending you for something that his son has done," Athena answered.
"I would've done fine," Christina told her through clenched teeth. Athena's gray eyes flared. I seen the same look a Christina a million times which I thought was scary enough but seeing it on her mother was ten times scarier. It was like an angry cat getting ready to attack the prey without giving any mercy.
"Anyways," Christina continued, "Lynch Fuller intended to follow up with the plan until we stopped him. He will find another way with Hades no doubt."
"I see. And as you said earlier, he was trying to recruit you guys because you would become more powerful to overthrow your parents. Aren't you already powerful enough?" Dionysus pointed out, looking at Christina. "I mean, you're a child of the gods."
"Yes. But he said that I would be so powerful, that I wouldn't need Camp Half-Blood's training," Christina said.
"You are powerful enough to not need Camp Half-Blood training," Poseidon said. She turned on him, anger in her eyes.
"Well that's not my fault is it? I was born because of yours and Athena's mistake. How many times am I going to have to say this? I wasn't meant to be born," she growled.
"Now wait just a moment Christina, you said because of Athena and Poseidon's mistake. What do you exactly mean?" I asked nervously.
"I'm not explaining this to you right now, Logan. Later," she answered, her tone a little different.
"You were meant to born," Poseidon said.
"Then prove it! Both of you!" Christina yelled, glaring at her mother. They were silent for a second.
"My daughter, you were meant to be born. However, we can't tell you why. Your time hasn't come to tell your destiny. Your destiny is-," Athena stopped herself abruptly. "All I'm saying is that you were meant to be born because of your destiny. Your fate lies in the hands of the Fates. I am sure that your father would agree."
"Well no duh. That's why they're called the Fates. Don't tell me my destiny is different from any hero's destiny because if so, then what's the point of it? Most heroes die because of their fate. A hero's fate is never ends good. That's exactly what you told me Poseidon," Christina growled, facing him.
"She's got a point you know," I put in. A few gods looked at me.
"A hero's fate may never end well but you're a child of two powerful gods. You're a Hunter of Artemis, immortal unless you fall in battle. You're a hero but a different kind of hero," he answered. I could tell he was getting mad. "Your brother would tell you the same I am sure."
"Don't drag Logan into this! The last thing I need is for him to be in this kind of situation. Lillian was already a part of this and you dragged her in farther but I'm not letting you put this on Logan. He's my brother and I respect what he has," she shouted.
"Lillian wasn't already apart of this situation. She was pulled into it," Poseidon said with steely calm voice.
"No she wasn't and you know that! Both of you do! You left us undefended when we were on the run. The night the monster attacked and we ran away, the only god who helped us was Zeus. While we were on the run, not once did you send any major help. When I pleaded to the gods for help, not one of you guys helped. Only the other gods helped. When we were attacked by the Furies, who helped? Hera did. What kind of parent is that?"
"We helped you in ways that you don't know about. We spoke to you in your minds," Poseidon answered.
"Yeah, a couple of times. But not when we needed help or when we were fighting. It was only until we met Lynch and Alethia is when you and Athena wanted to help. By then, I had wanted to block you completely. When I reached Camp Half-Blood and was claimed by both of you, not only did I understand what was happening but Chiron began to hide things from me and didn't tell me until I was older. The Great Prophecy…," Christina stopped and shuddered. "Anyhow, Chiron asked me what I knew about my past and I told him I didn't know anything because of you and Athena! I have never known anything about my past. I don't even know where I was born because you both took my memories!"
Sadness and pain filled both her parent's eyes.
"We had to take your memories for a reason," Athena explained.
"Why did you have to? Why? See this is another example that you don't care for me. You can't even tell me why you took my memories or much less give them back!" Christina yelled.
"Christina we do care! How many times am I going to have to say this? We can't tell you because of your destiny. If we did, it would completely affect what you would do in the future," he mom answered in a stern tone.
"Fine then. You could've said that. But if you care so much, how come you never showed up all those years? How come you didn't send any major help and how come you didn't tell Chiron exactly who I am?" Christina shouted raising her voice.
"Christina Blake!" her mother shouted. She stared at her mom in horror.
"You know full well that I don't use the surname at all. It's not even my surname. You know full well that I hate my stepparents," Christina hissed. Athena sat back and I had a feeling that Athena knew she had gotten under Christina's skin.
"Your father and I care very much for you but in ways that you're too blind to see! If you were a lot smarter, then you would know and stop blaming us for everything. Maybe most of this is your doing and your father agrees with me!" Athena continued, yelling.
Christina opened her mouth to object but closed it with disbelief in her eyes. The other gods seemed to realize what Athena had said and they sat back in their thrones. Aphrodite had her mouth covered. Athena's startling gray eyes were blazing with anger. I could tell that she wasn't going to take that back.
"Maybe this actually is your fault if you think about it!" I defended. "You've been pinging on Christina about this but have you ever stopped and thought about how this is maybe actually your fault?"
"This is not your fight Logan Moore! Do not defend her because she got on our case about this long before you even knew her! She knows what she's doing if she can prove us wrong she may. But I have lived for three millennia and I'm the goddess of wisdom. I know that I am right along with your father!" Athena growled, turning on me. I knew better than to answer because I was afraid she was going to blast me to a million pieces.
"Is that what you guys think of me then? That I'm blind to anything that you've done which is nothing? That I'm not smart enough to know that maybe this is actually all of your doing? That I'm not smart enough but don't need Camp Half-Blood training. Yeah. Right. I already know that a little bit of this is my doing from trying to shut you out. But if you think hard, what major thing have you done for me that's made a huge difference?" Christina answered instead. No one answered but Athena was so angry that I thought she was going to zap Christina. I could tell my dad was also angry with her.
"You have nothing to say do you?" Christina said. "Then fine. If that's what you really think about me, don't even try to make a connection with me." She turned to Zeus.
"My lord," she continued. "I hope you will forgive me for this late excuse. Your daughter has been returned just as you requested. May we return to our camp?" Zeus looked at the other gods and they nodded as if they didn't want something bad to happen to us.
"You may go," Zeus said. "But don't expect Lynch to change his tactics and lay off any of you." Christina bowed and we followed her example. We were halfway out of the door when Poseidon spoke.
"Christina, don't you expect any help from me or your mother. You've chosen what you wanted to say and do. That is what you expect of yourself and not what you want of us."
She curled her lip.
"I don't even want your help. I've been doing fine by myself all these years. So don't you expect me to apologize because I have nothing to apologize for. If you knew what I've been through and if you even cared, then you would've done something all these years to at least make a difference," and with that, she stormed out of the throne room with the others on her heel. I took a deep breath and looked at the other gods. I was about to follow but Poseidon stopped me.
"Logan. I'm sorry that you even had to hear this. I'm not angry with you. You have done well my son." He smiled and I smiled back. Then I left, feeling less nervous and uneasy.
A/N: Please review and subscribe if you have been reading this book so far. Thanks!