Chapter 22

Two for the price of one: double-publication in one day!


18th of September 2007
Labyrtinh, Geryon Farm

Thoas took another drag on his fag. He didn't trust this guy. Definitely not.

"Ma, Mamamia, welcome, my friends!" grinned Geryon, the guy with six arms and three bodies. Mmmh. Thoas had been a con-artist in his youth, before settling into the quiet and (almost) ethical middle of the night, with its clubs, its drugs - he'd run a cartel for two years -, and its denizens of the night.

"I'll show my sta…Wait…Grandma?", Geryon stopped, recognizing Medusa once she had taken of her mafioso hat.

"Longtime no see, Motherfucker. I heard you were being a naughty boy", she whispered dangerously.

His two headed-hold Orthus growled at the strange lady, before Eurytion, immoral son of Ares and Geryon's errand boy, slapped him on the snout.

"And naughty boy are being punished…Because Daddy Dio, who is definitely not your new great-grandfather, asked us to take over this farm. And because you've basically asked for it. Treating Apollo's cows like cattle, and selling their meats…I don't care about that! I'm proud of you for that, little shit".

Thoas took another breath of smoke. Clearly, Medusa was a bit crazy. And Bellatrix too - she had started playing with the freaking two headed dogs, and was scratching him on the belly while telling him about nice little doggy.

"Wait…You're proud? But you're here to take over my farm?"

"AVADA KEDAVRA!", answered Bellatrix, and the green light harmlessly splashed against the torso of Geryon.

"You…You…Attacked me?" Screamed Geryon. "Eurytion! Kill them!"

"Uh?", answered Bellatrix.

Thoas calmly explained : "Because Geryon has three torsos, he also has three hearts which means he can not be defeated unless all three of his hearts are destroyed at the same time. Destroying one or even two at a time will weaken him, but he will reform within moments…".

Hehe.

He read it from the little screens. He did not know where the new function came from, this "Observe"...Maybe it meant his dad's domain was growing ?

Eurytion
Immortal Son of Ares and Employee of the worst Boss
Lvl 112/150

He then dodged Eurytion's club, who had started attacking them when his stupid bosse screamed "They are traitors! Grandma is a bad girl" - and Medusa corrected her saying she had been a good girl, if a bit naughty.

And then, she took of her glasses. Geryon transformed into a statue, and Grover did a "DYNAMIC ENTRANCE" on it, breaking it into piece.

Your party have defeated :
Geryon
Mini-Boss
Lvl 175

Dungeon Completion Rate : 6%

"Uh…"

Eurytion looked like he was a bit lost. He raised his hand in the air, trying to appear harmless when Medusa approached him.

"I surrender! I swear! He was just the worst boss, so it's not like I'm going to avenge him! There wasn't even dental insurance!", he begged.

Medusa sweetly smiled. "Have you ever heard about the Hit Squad of Lord Dionysos? We're recruiting and you've been chosen!"


19th of September 2007
?

Kronos brooded in seething frustration, the echoes of betrayal reverberating in the air. The past two years had hinted at a waning commitment from his once-loyal subordinate, and the depth of this treachery left Kronos fuming. But think Luke would stop answering to his calls? Unbelievable!

Rhythmic echoes of footsteps reached his ears, drawing his attention. Turning abruptly is ethereal sight, Kronos found a demigod, approximately twenty years old, standing before him. The young figure exuded an undeniable strength, and his grey eyes seemed lifeless. He knelt in front of the Titan.

"Greeting, Lord Kronos. I am Eudoros XIX, son of Athena. I was instructed to come and serve you in any way I can. I am a bearer of the curse of Achille, proficient in strategy, leadership and swordsmanship".

A smile played on Kronos' lips.


22th of September 2007
Camp Jupiter.

Life went on as usual at Camp Jupiter. Fauns begged, legionnaires trained and patrolled. Or almost. Octavian, claiming a "blessing from Bacchus on this night" - more of a curse, he thought, but he'd always been an ass-kisser of the gods - had declared an Omerta on the evening following the games. The night when half the campers had slept with each other, when the Praetor and Augur had repeatedly puked on himself while calling for his mother, and when everyone had discovered a hidden talent for dancing.

Hazel fidgeted with her thumbs, before resolving to go and see Dio. She thought she forgot something about the night and Dio...but, well. No matter. She'd enjoyed sleeping with the young probatio immensely, but she'd been brought up in the early twentieth century in a Puritan atmosphere and...out of wedlock? With someone she hardly knew?

"Hi, Dio! Well, I wanted to tell you...It was very cool! And I loved being your bitch! But...", Hazel stammered a little.

Dio smiled at her, "Don't worry, I get it! And indeed, it was seriously cool, I loved your sweet little pussy!", Hazel blushed to her ears. "But then, that didn't commit us in any way to making it regular! Nor to anything more happening - unless you're interested?".

"I'm…Well…If…"

They were interrupted, however, by the appearance, in a deluge of flames, of a god in the middle of New Rome. All the legionnaires ran after hearing the detonation and...Mars? What was Mars doing here? Jason rushed forward and, like all the legionaries, bent his knee before the second most powerful Roman god.

Mars
Roman God of War
Lvl - 2,997/ 3,000

All the campers had bowed - except one.

Dio would never bend his knee to anyone.

As Mars had begun to speak, he did a double take as he identified the legionnaire who wasn't bowing, creating a rare loss of control in public for the god of war.

"Legionnaires! Bow before your god! I have come to...Uh?..."

Dio - whom Mars identified as Bacchus - winked at the god, and motioned for him to be quiet. The second more powerful god of the roman Pantheon shrugged inwardly: the god of wine could occupy himself as he pleased, after all, and he certainly wasn't going to antagonize the god of madness by revealing the deception. He was there with a mission: send the legionnaires to sort out this little problem with Alcyoneus, who was starting to get a bit restless, and take the opportunity to give his son a nepotistic opportunity. He didn't yet have any feats of arms to his name, but Mars could sense his potential. Unless... Ah. Perhaps that would increase the chances of success? And if it contravened the Ancient Laws, Bacchus would take the fall. Hehe. He was so smart. Take that, Minerve!

"O, Great Mars! What can we, humble legionnaires, your most faithful and devoted servants, do for your August self?" shouted Octavian. Fucking piece of shit, playing warlord without knowing the horrors of war.

Mars pulled himself together as he saw Dio put his hand on the buttocks of a cute legionnaire who'd been whispering in his ear just seconds before.

"Legionnaires, Romans. I've come to entrust you with a quest".

The assembly burst into murmurs. A quest? Directly from a God?

"Go to Alaska. Here, one of our mortal enemy is stirring in his sleep".

His sharp gaze saw that one of the campers looked guilty. He identified her as one of Pluto's daughters - interesting.

"And for that, three demigods will be sent and led by my son. Step forward, Frank Zangh. My son!"

The murmurs doubled. Frank Zangh? Of the fifth? A son of Mars! And he wasn't even a Centurion! He couldn't lead a quest - which Octavian was quick to point out.

"O, Mars, greater and..."

"Silence", spoke Mars, and silence came. He furrowed his brow. His son looked overwhelmed by the attention and the sudden revelation of his parentage. This wasn't going to do it. A good officer had to keep a cool head under all circumstances, and never be emotionally overwhelmed.

The god pointed at Hazel, the suspicious-looking one, and Bacchus.

"You, and you, would accompany her." Hehe. One of his sons was going to be able to give orders to a god.

"But, Mars, you need a prophecy and..they all are members of the Fifth, maybe…"

"Here you have it, your prophecy: go to Alaska. Take a look. Fix the problems if there are any. Come back, alive if possible."


23th of September 2007
Playboy Mansion

"And maybe, if we combine them conceptually..."

Prometheus nodded at Daedalus' proposal. There was no denying that he had done the right thing in accepting Dionysus' offer. For his freedom, of course. Having his liver eaten every day by vultures wasn't the height of luxury - and it was much nicer to live in a Mansion and enjoy the pool when the weather was nice.

What!?

Even titans were allowed to relax!

But that wasn't all Prometheus was grateful to Dionysus had never been in such a stimulating environment! For the company first: The Titan of Human Arts and Sciences loved spending days with Daedalus, the most creative and ingenious mind he'd ever met, not to mention the creative Roman and the artistic Orpheus. But most of all, Dionysus' lively, original mind impressed him every time he spoke to him. Where did he get all these ideas? Smartphones? Scenarios? VR headsets? Screenplays and video games? Cryptocurrencies?

Above all, the resources he now had at his disposal were incredible, enabling him to carry out an enormous number of projects at once. He'd never have guessed that Dionysus' fortune was so great - probably the third largest on Olympus behind that of Hades, god of precious metals and gems, and Hermes, god of commerce. But what he loved most of all was the freedom he had to create, experiment and test!

So, even though he was technically free to refuse, having never swore fidelity and loyalty on the Styx, Prometheus would have gladly accepted Dionysus' orders...if he'd given them more often. But he didn't. The God told him to create and have fun. Most of the time. So when Dionysus asked for two services, Prometheus threw himself wholeheartedly into them. And what's more...he would have gladly done them anyway, the challenges were super interesting. The first had been the creation of a "Mythological Internet", and the second...

"Still no sign of the Ophiotaurus, anyway. Might as well wait to find it before continuing with the ritual design, right?"

"Yep…Ah, quick question…Wasn't Thoas mother Japanese?"

"His grandmother. Why do you ask?"

"For nothing, for nothing…Let's just do some adjustment to his birth certificat in the US government database, I think it's still used between immortals to..."


24th of September 2007
Halfblood Camp

"Shoot faster, you little shits," Clarisse yelled at her troops, who complied. She speared a harpy who had escaped the semi-automatic machine-gun fire Charles Beckendorf had installed every twenty meters on The Wall. She passed Luke, the eponymous Archon, who was motivating - in a slightly less virulent way - the campers while firing an assault rifle at two cyclops who had passed through the minefield surrounding the camp. Behind him, Thalia, his girlfriend and the daughter of Zeus was firing a railgun whose power she was amplifying with her powers.

The daughter of Ares smiled. Since the force field had fallen with Thalia's healing, every two or three weeks a wave of monsters attacked the camp. So far, they'd suffered no casualties - Beckendorf and that guy, "Dédé", whom Dionysos had brought back for a week to inspect and improve the wall - had done a bloody good job. And she loved these assaults. She'd been born for it! She lived for it!

Above, Festus, the mechanical dragon crafted by Beckendorf, effortlessly ensnared another harpy in its talons before descending upon a marauding group of cannibal centaurs from the west. A sense of urgency permeated the air.

"Reinforcements to the East! Teams B1 to B4, get your fat asses moving!" she roared, her voice cutting through the chaos.

Swiftly, she sprinted towards the eastern wall, responding to the distressing alert about an unprecedented horde of monsters converging on that side. It was a threat of a magnitude rarely witnessed within the camp's history of attacks.

"Luke, I'll head east; you assume provisional command!" With a fearless leap from the seven-meter-tall wall, she landed gracefully on the ground and covered about five hundred meters in a determined sprint. Scaling a ladder, she ascended the eastern tower and finally laid eyes on the approaching menace.

"Ah, there you are," Pollux greeted her.

In the midst of the monstrous assembly, the Minotaur, clad in formidable armor and wielding a towering double-edged axe, led a cohort of Cyclops. To make matters worse, he rode atop the formidable Lion of Nemea.

"Fuck…"

"Fuck! It's fucking broken!" Ethan, son of Nemesis, exclaimed in frustration.

In what seemed like an unfortunate coincidence—Clarisse couldn't shake off the suspicion of sabotage, recalling Dionysus' warning—the heavy machine gun in the east tower jammed.

She looked at Pollux, who had just put on his helmet, as he took a sip of whisky.

"No choice, let's go." Teams B1 to B4 - Twelve Demigods - steeled themselves and climbed down the wall to face the monsters, led by their two leaders Clarisse and Pollux.

"Let's go, Motherfucker", screamed Pollux…and charged the Minotaur, dismounting him from the Nemean Lion with a high kick. What the fuck? Drunken-fist? He nearly dodged the axe - evading being cut in two halves.

"I will be you opponent, motherfucker!", she screamed to the Minotaur. Even if she had two boyfriends, she needed both of them alive! For kisses!

With a flick of her spear, she parried the Minotaur's double axe. She gritted her teeth as she was bested in a contest of strength.

"Yare Yare Daze". Pollux, for his part, had started...wrestling with the fucking Nemean Lion. His muscles pulled. And pulled. They were going to be torn. But he wasn't going to let go! No, he wasn't going to let go.

"YARE YARE DAZE," he would fucking hold. His arms gripped the neck of the Nemean lion, which was roaring and trying to throw him off. HE WOULD HOLD! HE WOULD HOLD! He gritted his teeth so hard, a little blood trickled down his lips. He suffered, he was in pain BUT HE WOULD HOLD! He didn't see the strange thing floating in front of him, so focused was he, so alive, so much a part of the present and what he was doing.

HE WOULD HOLD!

You are becoming more and more yourself !

HE WOULD FUCKING HOLD!

"STAR PLATINUM," he shouted, as his muscles expanded and his skin took on a purple hue.

You have lived a defining moment !
You have awakened (Awakening I)
Level Cap 100 → 200

"I'M GOING TO CHOKE YOU TO DEATH, LITTLE KITTY"

Beside her, Clarisse ignored a similar screen in front of her eyes, as, wounded, having lost so much blood that she should have fainted, but standing by the sheer force of her will, her fucking will, she pierced the Minotaur's heart with her spear.

You have lived a defining moment !
You have awakened (Awakening I)
Level Cap 100 → 200