As soon as my senses recovered, I envied New York City for their lack of crime. If you know anything about Illinois, you've probably already figured out that we had appeared in Chicago. Luckily, the alley we had appeared in didn't have any drug deals going down in them.
"So, where are eating dinner tonight?" I asked. "And no Nico, we aren't going to McDonald's."
Nico looked visibly disappointed.
"Look, there's a Firehouse Subs down the road," Alexis pointed out.
"Not as good as McDonald's but I'll live," Nico replied. I rolled my eyes and we walked to the Firehouse Subs. As Nico went to pay, I slapped his card down and handed him a twenty from my wallet.
"We don't another New York situation again," I joked. He pocketed the card and paid for our meal. The lady taking our order seemed a bit jumpy, but not like the cashier at McDonald's. I kept an eye on her, but I didn't confront her. We ate in silence until four police officers entered the door with their weapons trained on me. I put my hands up with a confused look on my face and half a sub hanging out of my mouth.
"Are you alright ma'am?" one of the cops asked the lady working the cash register. She quickly nodded.
I looked at Alexis with a confused look and she looked at the gun that was no longer concealed. I almost choked on my sub. As soon I could recover from choking, I was cracking up. There was no doubt that I looked mentally insane.
"What the hell is so funny?" one of the cops asked me.
"Long story, but that doesn't matter," I replied. "Oh, you also probably want this." I said, turning around, showing them the visible gun protruding from the top of my jeans. One of the cops looked at me warily and approached me to take the gun. As he removed the gun, I ripped his gun from his hand and knocked him out with, right before throwing the gun into another cop's forehead, effectively rendering him unconscious. I then slid across the ground, knocking over a cop, and I jumped up and slammed the last cop's head on the nearest table. Nico and Alexis were immediately out of their chairs and running out the door.
"Sorry," I yelled to the only conscious cop as I followed Alexis and Nico out of the restaurant.
Using our training from camp, we scaled fences and other objects until the sound of sirens were barely audible.
"Remind me," Nico said between pants. "Never to get on your bad side."
"So, where are we going to sleep tonight?" Alexis asked.
"We could just find a vacant house to sleep in," I replied. "I imagine there's a few around the area."
"Not a bad idea," Nico agreed. "I can sense when people are sleeping, we'll find a house that I don't sense sleep in," he replied. We walked around a run-down neighborhood for less than a minute before Nico found a house. It was on the second floor of an equally run down apartment complex. Nico and Alexis equipped their swords, ready to enter.
"We really need to get you a sword," Nico remarked. I smirked and made the sword I had fought Zeus with appear in my hand. Both Nico and Alexis were stuck staring at the glowing sword.
"My eyes are up here!" I joked. I opened the door and took in my surroundings. The apartment was very large, with only three doors visible from the entrance. There was still furniture in the house, which I was thankful for. We checked corners and furniture until we reached the first door. I breached the door and cleared the room. No occupants. We inched our way over the second door, which led to a bathroom. Also no occupants. We reached the third door and entered. Due to my skill in combat and my sharpened senses, I parried the sword and disarmed the attacker in under a second. With my sword lighting up the room, I could see my attacker was a boy who couldn't have been older than 10, who had stormy gray eyes and jet black hair, and a young girl who looked to be about 7 or so with sea green eyes and dark brown hair in the corner. If this didn't raise my suspicions enough, I looked at the sword I had been attacked with and realized that it was celestial bronze. I imagined my sword becoming a watch on my right wrist, and my sword shrunk into a digital watch.
"Hey it's okay, we're not monsters," I said to the children in a soft voice.
"Are you sure?" the girl asked.
I let a small laugh. "Of course we're not, we're actually like you," I replied.
"What do you mean like us?" the boy asked.
"Have you familiar with Greek Mythology?" I asked.
"Yes, but my mommy kept saying it was true," the girl in the corner replied.
"Well," I replied. "Your mommy was right then. And I think both of you are children of the gods." I'll skip the explanations, as those were lengthy. "Well anyways, I'm Eric, and those are Nico and Alexis."
"I'm Chris," the boy said. "and that's Jessica."
"Well Chris and Jessica, we're all sleepy, so we'll stay with you for the night, and we'll take you to someplace safe in the morning," I told them. They nodded and fell asleep almost instantly.
"I'll take first watch," Nico said. I nodded and fell asleep almost immediately.