Chapter Title: Worries Of What Is Yet To Come
(A/N: Welcome to the sequel to Ares' Chapter in the first book, and one that is completely dedicated to Galatea-Green-31 . Not going to say why, since that would give spoilers to her fanfic, but just know that this chapter — and some parts in Part II — were inspired because of her fanfic.)
Hey, my name is Demeter. The Greek Goddess of harvest, grain, and fertility. You probably also know as the mother of my children in the Demeter Cabin, who I do adore and believe me, it honestly hurts that I can't be with any of my Greek kids (apart from Persephone for 6 months) right now — nor can my Roman counterpart be with my Roman kids. Well, she doesn't mind it all that much — but I do. Thanks a lot, Zeus.
Yet, honestly.. my displeasure over not currently being able to help my children other than claiming them whenever I still could was only one of the many things in the world that currently causes me worry. I'm not kidding when I say many here, mind you.
For starters, there's Hera.
Yeah, I heard. The woman managed to go and get herself captured by Gaea's forces, which is bad. It's no secret that despite her.. despicable tendencies, she was the force that kept the Olympians from descending into pointless and near fatal inactivity and bickering. So with her gone, the Council runs the risk of descending into that with the Winter Solstice approaching. But more than that really, there's also the matter of my concern over her plan to unite our Roman and Greek children in the fight against the forces of both Gaea and Porphyrion, who as of right now, are tearing into each other even as Gaea's forces attempts to raise more of her children.
I'm not kidding. Hermes has been bringing in reports for weeks from our servants — mainly the hunters — of evidence of bloody, violent clashes between monsters from these factions occurring all across the U.S. and with the Great Prophecy starting now, I fear it is likely that it will get much, much worse.
And in the middle of all of this, after switching Lily and Rose so that Rose went to Camp Half Blood and Lily went to Camp Jupiter, what does Hera do? She goes and basically takes Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan — god I find it so hard to believe that after all he did in Kronos' name, he's once again fighting for us — plus Colton Reynolds, the Monster King for dear sake, and Michael Yew to heavens know where, for even I am not sure of where she has taken those four. In their place, she brings Jason and three other demigods from Camp Jupiter — and also holds possession of the memories of all 8 demigods she has switched now.
To say that Ares, Poseidon, Hermes, and Apollo are not happy with Hera right now is honestly a gross understatement to be clear. I'll let you in on a secret, all four of them are utterly pissed off right now.
Especially Ares and Poseidon, because I mean.. to believe that this.. this stunt that Hera pulled.. was all that they needed for both of them to put aside their differences and agree to help each other during the coming fight against the Giant factions and to help each other find their missing children.. it is just unbelievable honestly. Then again, Hera hasn't always been the most logical woman when it comes to plans.
Apollo — I believe his temper needs no introduction here. It's bad enough to have to find out that the Queen of the Gods has taken one of your kids to wherever they currently are now, but to find out that she took both one of your own kids and a honorary child of yours and left another one of your kids understandably upset and angry, like.. I feel so bad for him. That has to hurt on a whole another level altogether.
Hermes is hurting too. He's really been trying to care more for his kids, despite the fact that apparently he knew that Hera had been plotting something and decided to not really tell anyone about it. That's eating him up inside just as much as Luke being missing. The fact that the only person that could tell him where exactly his son was had as previously mentioned, been captured — did not really help matters at all here either.
It really did not at all.
To his credit, Zeus for once is also rightfully annoyed at Hera too, and it is not just because she got herself captured. As much as he dislikes Luke for all of the things he did in Kronos' name, he made Thalia happy as her boyfriend, and for that reason, he was tolerant of Luke. But now that he was missing, he was angry at Hera for making his daughter unhappy.
Hephaestus too is also annoyed at Hera for roughly the same reasons. Jake's been suffering without Michael around, and for that reason, Hephaestus has been more irritable than usual right now.
And then, out of all the affected parties, there's.. Athena.
I have no clue what even goes through that woman's brain honestly. You would think that this woman would even show her daughter an ounce of sympathy for her boyfriend being missing and be annoyed at Hera because of it. But no, you would be wrong. She may have changed towards Percy a bit, but apparently not enough to even do that. Something something feud with Poseidon.
I can't even understand it myself.
I just can't.
I'll admit this as I say this, I bet since I mentioned Colton, you might be wondering exactly what I think of him, and by extension, his relationship with Kayla.
Colton honestly in my opinion.. he's unlike anything I have ever even had the chance to watch. I will admit, when I first heard of him when Hermes mentioned his case in a conversation I had with him a few days after Colton arrived at Camp Half Blood, I was in disbelief that a kid who was so traumatized by having to watch both of his mortal parents die in front of his own eyes in such a horrible fashion was even an Ares kid. I truly felt pity and also felt sorry for him dearly.
I didn't exactly expect he would do much to be honest. I certainly didn't expect at all that he would become.. well.. what he ended up becoming. When Ares said at the Winter Solstice meeting that Colton was actually training to become stronger now, I figured that he would follow the path that most Ares kids took. Boy, was I wrong. The minute Colton had accepted the Whitworth rifle Hephaestus' son Charles Beckendorf had found in Virginia on that one mission of escorting demigods to camp that the satyr and now Lord of the Wild Grover Underwood took him on that one time, my perceptions of him were proven wrong.
Sure, by now — I thought of him as odd, but I didn't think it could become anything more than that. Then came Percy Jackson and the Second Titan War, and all of that went completely out the window.
Out of all us Gods, I believe Hermes is the only one who even has an idea of what was said in that conversation between Percy and Colton that fateful day that kickstarted their rivalry with each other, and from what words he had said about it, the conversation had been at the start about how misguided Luke had been in following Kronos, but then devolved into an argument over "a vision". That's all he really said of it.
Just that, believe it or not.
Yeah, not much. I still wonder what exactly he had even heard from them. Anyways, the prophecy that Colton had received that night during Percy's first quest.. I hadn't really paid it much attention to be much. If anything, I just found it of minor concern — prior to Luke's betrayal of camp that is. After it, I paid a little more attention to it, but not much.
At least I did.. until next summer, when Kayla Knowles stepped into the picture. That was when Colton Reynolds, for lack of a better mortal phrase as they would say it and in my own opinion, "went on an absolute tear". For all that he did that summer and the next two summers after that, protecting my Greek children for the most part from pain, death, and suffering, I'm grateful for Colton — just much as I am grateful for Percy Jackson.
I won't really sugarcoat it — Kayla Knowles deserves just as much credit here as Colton and Percy and Annabeth do for the fact that currently, all of my children that fought in this war — save a few who truly sided with Kronos and died by the forces of the Monster King (Colton)'s hand — are still alive now. She provided the spark for Colton going on that "absolute tear" that I mentioned earlier. Their relationship is a bit of an unusual one if I had to be honest about it — but then again, it's one that's led to far better outcomes for the Gods on our (Greek) side of things than otherwise might been expected to occur. I might not be Athena, but even I could see that had Colton and Kayla had not been around — even if one of the two wasn't around — things would have been less gracious to us.
I mean, I know that past wielders of the Monster King had been more or less against the Gods due to Typhon's purpose as a child of Gaea made to oppose us, but while I do find it odd that this time, Typhon would choose a demigod loyal to us Gods, I don't really mind how beneficial it has been to us at all, regardless of whatever reasons Typhon had in choosing Colton to be the Monster King, and by extension, making Kayla the Monster Queen.
Which perhaps brings me to the major thing I hold concerns with Hera over.
The absolutely major gamble she's taking with what she just did. I won't lie, I find the risks involved with what she did — taking Luke, Colton, Percy, and Michael to who knows where + plus wiping Jason, Alyssa, Bryce, and Clara's memories and sending them to CHB — pretty significant indeed. In effect, she runs the risk of undoing pretty much all the progress we've made with having the Monster King faction for once on our side if this plan of hers backfires on us.
Which is why that I am really hoping right now that both Nike and Tyche favors us and not the other side, if I had to be completely honest here. I really am hoping right now, because if not.. things are going to get real horrific for our cause real fast.