It was a little eerie how quiet it got all in an instant. Jillian was looking at me with some emotion on her face that I couldn't recognize. Betrayal or anger. Actually, knowing her it was probably anger. A lot of it. Hopefully, she knew that I wasn't being honest in this situation, but I guess there was no way she could know.
"You want to…You want to join us?" Samantha asked, tapping her knife on her hand. "So…what? We're supposed to believe you?"
"The only reason I stuck around that camp was because it was better than that stupid school I was going to." I said, rolling my eyes. "Now that I have the place where I actually belong then I think I'd like to stick around a while."
"And we're to believe that this isn't a ruse, so that we don't kill you." Samantha said, still brandishing her knife. I took a breath then looked over at Anya.
"Anya, you saw what I did to Lee, right? My brother, Lee." I said, playing with the toothpick in my pocket. I looked at Jillian for a long moment. Samantha looked at me then at Anya who nodded softly.
"Oh, another lava bending hothead. Great." She said with a chuckle. "We can go without one more."
"He can control storms, Samantha…" Anya said quietly. "And…earthquakes…maybe…too…" She mumbled, shrinking under the glare of Samantha.
"Okay, so you're more than a one trick pony, but you know what? That's not good enough. You want to join, then you have to prove it." Samantha said, turning the knife around and holding the handle to me. She looked at me then looked at Jillian tied to the chair.
"What? You want me to kill her?" I said in disbelief. I looked down at Jillian who was hard to read. I had no idea what it had to feel like to watch helplessly as your life was bartered and talked about deciding on who was going to take it. "I'm…uh…I just thought you would know better." Samantha looked at me, her brow furrowing. "Look at her. A daughter of Ares. You know Ares. Prideful. Stubborn. Arrogant. You've already defused her and beaten her. She's in pain from your lackluster attempt at torture, but she's already reserved herself to death and she wants to die." I said, taking the toothpick out of my pocket. I looked at Samantha who was looking at me like she was about to rip my face off.
"I…you…" She stammered angrily.
"Throw her back in jail and let her sulk in her inadequacy." I moved close to Samantha and then held the toothpick in her face. "And let me give you a lesson in torture." I turned to Jillian and freed one of her hands. I looked her in the eye, trying to convey as much sympathy as I can muster, but I'm not sure how much she believed me. Especially as I jammed the toothpick under her fingernail. I heard her screams and I tried not to cringe, but I knew that she needed the weapon a lot more than I did and she knew how to use it a lot better than I did. I just wish that I could have given it to her in a less gruesome manner.
"You…bastard…" Jillian muttered at me as I pulled away from her. "I…I trusted you…"
"Well, I certainly don't know why. You knew I wasn't one of you." I said, wiping my hands off.
"Titus. Shane. Take her away." Samantha said quickly. Titus and Shane, the tall guy with the staff, muscled their way forward and untied Jillian, hauling her to her feet. They dragged her out of the room, Jillian glaring at me the whole time.
"Now, I'm not convinced. I'm keeping an eye on you, Peter." Samantha said, jabbing me in the chest with the butt of her knife. "But I'm going to let someone else deal with you. I don't have time for this. Come with me." She said, grabbing my arm and dragging me out of the room. She led me down the hallway again then right down a small corridor leading into a large set of double doors. They opened before we got there and it opened into a large room. At the end, facing the door were thrones lining the back wall. I didn't really take the time to count how many and all of them were empty except three.
There was a man on the far left. He was seated and speaking to someone, but as soon as Samantha and I entered, he glared at the door and looked like he was going to run straight at me and kill me. He was dressed in armor, just like everyone's was, but his seemed somewhat sloppy. It was in disarray and it had a hole in the front from what looks like a spear. Off to the right was someone, but as soon as I looked for them, they were gone.
Then in the middle was a man dressed in plain clothing. He had white hair that was strung out in all directions. He wasn't very tall, but he was built like a football player. Despite his size he didn't dress the part. He wore slacks and loafers with a dress shirt and a brown sweater vest. I wouldn't be surprised if I saw a tie under there. He turned as we approached and I jumped a little when I noticed the large ram horns sprouting from his head. He had a pair of wire glasses barely balanced on his nose that did little to hide his large eyes or his long nose.
"Samantha, your father is over there. I'm sure he wants to speak with you, but introduce me to this person first." He said, removing his glasses and turning to us, taking a few steps forward.
"This is—"
"I'm Peter, sir." I interrupted. "You must be the man in charge." I stood at attention as best I could for someone who didn't pay attention to anything ever.
"Peter. Is this the—" He looked at Samantha who nodded.
"I was interested in joining you, sir." I said with a nod.
"Lee's brother. They already had an altercation." Samantha said.
"Oh, and now you're ready to join?" He said with a bleating laugh.
"He was very convincing, sir." She mumbled, looking a little embarrassed.
"Samantha! Get your ass over here!" The guy in the armor shouted. Samantha looked at the man in front of me, which I couldn't blame her for. He had ram horns coming out of his head.
"Go, Samantha. I'm quite capable on my own." He said, shooing her away. He then turned to me with a small smile. Samantha nodded then hurried off.
"So, you are the man in charge?" I asked, looking around the room.
"Well, I'm one of them. And probably the best option right now." He said, stroking the long white beard coming from his chin. "On top of that, I'm your grandfather. What an interesting twist, huh?" He produced a clipboard from thin air and scribbled a few notes on it. "So, you and Lee had a bit of a tiff? What happened?"
"I knocked him on his ass." I said with a chuckle. "…sir."
"Well, that's a good thing. Lee thinks he can strut around town like this because—" There was a chime and the man produced the clipboard which turned into a small screen. "Later." He said quickly before vanishing it again. "Look, this room is getting stuffy. Let me show you around camp." He gestured toward the door and I followed.
"May I ask who you are?" I said, looking up at him.
"Oh, of course. My mistake. I'm Krios." He said, tapping on his ram horn. "It takes some getting used to." He led me out of the throne room and back into the camp. "Now before we get too far, let's get you a weapon." He turned out away from the black building around between two tents where a rack of weapons stood. They were all the same ivory handled and grey-bladed, but they came in varieties. Swords, daggers, spears. I sighed a little bit, thinking about my experiences with the sword back at camp before I hesitantly grabbed a sword off the rack.
I expected the sword to crumble, but it didn't. It seemed to hum almost. Like it was made for me. I swung it a couple of times and it swished through the air perfectly.
"What do you think, kid?" Krios asked, looking at me a little unimpressed.
"It's perfect. This doesn't look like the sword they gave me at camp." I said, sheathing the blade.
"Well, that's because this isn't Celestial Bronze." He said, straightening his glasses. "This is flint. Titanic Flint. Mother Gaia gave my youngest brother a scythe made from this stuff to castrate our father. "Your great grandparents, I suppose." I looked down at the sword then nodded.
"Sir, can I ask you a question?" I said, placing a hand on my sword. "Why would you give me a sword after I attacked your camp members and then suddenly had a change of heart? Why in the world would you give me a sword?"
"Well, because if you were going to run, you would have by now." Krios said, standing up straighter. "On top of that, if you did run there are plenty of people here who could kill you at my order. Heck, I could kill you before you get too far. And if you ran we're in the middle of the woods and you wouldn't survive past the monsters guarding the perimeter." Krios finished then adjusted his glasses. I looked around the camp for a long moment then nodded.
"Where to next?" I asked, not wanting to ask too much more about escaping.
"To your tent, I'd say." Krios said with a nod. "Then you'll be trained before the evening meal." He started leading me toward some of the tents, but a girl ran up and talked to Krios. They stepped away from me for a moment and spoke which gave me a moment to look at her. She was about my height and had short blonde hair and bright blue eyes. She reminded me of Lindsey, but I tried not to think about that fact. Her skin was somewhat tan, but it wasn't the tanning bed tan. It was a tan that showed she had been outside for a long time. It didn't take long for the two of them to walk back over to me.
"Peter, it seems that I'm need back in the castle, so Polly here will finish your tour." Krios said with a curt nod before vanishing. The girl moved in front of me and smiled. She had really nice teeth.
"Hi, I'm Polly, if you couldn't guess." She said before gesturing in the direction of the tents. "You must be Peter, right?" I nodded. "So, you're the one that was at the other camp and now you're here?"
"Wow. Word travels fast." I said quietly. "Can I ask what all that was? Everything in the cave?"
"Well, thanks to you, we'll need to find another door to Tartarus." She said with a sigh. "We were trying to gather the Titans." I looked up at her in slight confusion. She shrugged. "When the titans are defeated, they're scattered throughout Tartarus. We were collecting the pieces."
"And if you had managed to get all the pieces?" I asked a little nervously.
"Well, then we would have more than three Titans in that throne room." She said, pointing toward the castle. "We currently have 5 free. You met Krios and if you're lucky, you haven't met Menoetius. The one that was hard to see is Lelantus, Titan of hunting and going unnoticed."
"So, invisibility." I shrugged as I followed close next to her.
"Not exactly." She looked around for a moment then nudged me. "Hey, Lake!" She shouted. All of a sudden, I noticed the other girl from the cave standing only a few feet near me. "They're not invisible. They're just…they're able to alter your senses to not notice them."
"Like a perception filter." I said with a nod. They both looked at me confused. "Obviously, you're not Whovians…" I mumbled, looking down at my shoes. "So, what can you do?" I asked Polly. She nodded toward Lake who walked off and then she handed me a pair of sunglasses. I raised an eyebrow and then slipped them over my eyes. Polly stepped back then snapped her fingers. Like a flashbang, there was a bright flash of light that dazed me a little bit through the sunglasses. I assumed I would have gone blind if I didn't have them on.
"Daughter of Hyperion. Lord of Light and father of the sun and moon." She said, taking my sunglasses off. I looked at her with a bit of a shocked smile.
"Do I have like a tan outline of the sunglasses now?" I asked with a chuckle. She laughed and shook her head. "Thank goodness. So, who are the other two Titans?"
"Well, of the Titans that would actually help us or are available, we have the three I mentioned then Prometheus—"
"Okay, didn't he already get killed? Err…defeated? Sent to Tartarus?" I asked, confused. She sighed.
"Well, when you're the Titan of foresight, you tend to be able to be in the right place at the right time." She explained, stopping in front of a large pair of tents. "He doesn't have any kids here, however. And he's been underground since he got out." She pointed around the camp. "The infirmary, mess hall, and additional armory are all in the castle. The stable is behind it. That's where we keep our griffins and the pegasi that we take from the demigod scouts." I flinched a little at how casually she said that. "Just ask somebody and they'll point you in the right direction. In here is where we have General's meetings."
"General?"
"When you're the leader of your family or your tent, then you become a general. Every couple weeks there's a General's meeting to discuss current enemy positioning, tent status, training schedule's, etc." I nodded. "For Hyperion, I'm the general which doesn't say much because there aren't many of us. For Lelantus, it would be Harvey. You'll meet him. For Krios, it'll just be Krios. He doesn't have any kids. Coeus has Shane, you met him. He's the guy with the big staff. Don't mess with him or Titus. Titus is the general for Atlas." I nodded again then looked up at Polly. "For you, you'll need to pay attention to Lee, unfortunately. You don't have much of a choice. Perses only had three kids." I took a small breath as I realized that was my father's name. Perses.
"The titan of…?" I mumbled, looking down at my hands.
"Destruction, decay, and peace." I looked up at her and chuckled nervously. Great, so not only was I the son of a Titan, but I was the son of the Titan that broke everything.
"Destruction AND peace. That's nice." I said quietly. She moved a little closer to me.
"Did you not know?" I shook my head. "Well, at least you don't have to meet him. He's never around. He and Krios are, to an extent, in charge of this."
"I thought Kronos—" She clapped a hand over my mouth.
"Kronos isn't included within this. He's too far scattered at this point, and beyond that, he had his chance. Two of them, in fact. Krios and your dad didn't want him included." I nodded, slightly relieved. I had heard stories about Kronos and let's just say he wasn't exactly a mall Santa. "There are rumors of Kronos having a kid out there, but nothing has materialized."
"Isn't that a scary idea…" I mumbled, taking a deep breath. She laughed and then started walking toward a larger circle of tents.
"Hey, I should go get back to training. Your tent is the one with the orange flag in the front." She said with a smile. "It was nice meeting you, Peter. If you have any more questions, come and find me." She smiled and I nodded before heading to my tent.