Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter.
The Ever Twisting Wind: The Gaean War
Chapter Four: Dreaming of the Sky Father - Part Ένα
Beta: *Beta Wanted*
As a goddess, Andi didn't really need to sleep. However, perhaps because she was new to being a divinity, she still found it refreshing and did it regularly. Not every night, like when she had been Human, but she still slept almost every night when she could except for a few exceptions created by circumstances. And with all the stress that she was feeling lately due to the outbreak of the Second Gigantomachy, the revival of Porphyrion, and her recent defeat by the freshly resurrected Gigantes King, she desperately needed some sleep to take a breather from everything. A break that she had hoped would give her a pleasant dream that would help her relax. Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed.
"Oh! Come on! Give me a break!" Andi groaned as she looked around her at the intense storm that blew all around her. A storm with churning, pitch black clouds; greater than hurricane winds; and driving rain that altogether reduced visibility to almost nothing. "All I wanted was a nice dream! Maybe one about me getting it on with Will, why did it have to turn out like this!? What the heck, Morpheus!?"
How did she know this was a dream? Well, her divine awareness told her this was a dream. That and the fact the last thing she remembered her main instance and the current seat of her primary consciousness doing was falling asleep. So she was absolutely sure this was a dream. Even more annoyingly, it wasn't even a normal dream! If anything, it felt like a demigod dream that she used to have when she'd been a Half-blood.
"Morpheus is not the one responsible for this dream, little one." A voice boomed from the storm. No, not from the storm. The storm itself had spoken. The sounds of the howling winds and beating rains mixing together to articulate the words. "I was the one who reached out to your dream."
"And who the heck are you!?" Andi asked, glaring into the storm.
"What gumption!? I knew that about you, but seeing it for myself is refreshing indeed." The storm said in lieu of an answer with a chuckle that came in the form of booming thunder, even as its churning clouds shaped itself into the vague form of an ancient looking man, who was riding on another bigger man. "Truly, I made the right choice reaching out to you, Andromeda Aurae."
"You know who I am," Andi said, her eyes narrowed at the man but with more calm than she previously felt. It was clear that whoever was speaking to her, he was powerful and it behooved her to avoid offending whoever he was. "But you have me at a disadvantage."
"Sharing my name at this time would do us no good." The ancient man replied with a smirk that was visible despite his form being otherwise unable to make out "But if you wish to know then seek me out."
"Yeah, no!" Andi said with a roll of her eyes. "You expect me to go looking for someone that I have no clue about just to satisfy my curiosity?"
"Of course not. You are hardly that foolish." The mysterious man said, still sporting that damnable smirk. "No, you will seek me out because I can offer you power. Power enough to fight and defeat Gaea."
To punctuate this statement, the mysterious man flared his power. Power that sent Andi crashing to her knees. It was power that dwarfed anything that she had ever felt. This man was more powerful than Father. More powerful than the Crooked One. More powerful than Porphyrion.
In the face of such power, Andi could believe that this being could offer the power she needed to defeat Gaea. Now, normally even with that, she wouldn't even think about entertaining it. However, after being unable to prevent Porphyrion's revival and her subsequent defeat by Father's Bane, she felt like a failure. She was thus tempted. Sorely tempted.
"I can sense that you are interested." The mysterious being said with a satisfied smile as he reined in his power, allowing Andi to get back onto his feet.
"You might say that…"
"If you are, gather up a series of items and bring them to the Queen of the Phantom Isle so that she may use them to show you the way to me. After which, bring them to me. In exchange, I will grant you the power to defeat Porphyrion."
"I haven't decided to help you yet." Andi insisted. "But what do you want?"
His smile shifting back into the damnable smirk of his, he answered. "I require three things from you. First, the prized dress of the Storm Giant's consort. Secondly, the greatest stolen prize of the simian brothers. And lastly, the gem of power held by the Germanian barbarians."
"What's with the ambiguity? Is this a demigod prophecy or something!?"
The being just chuckled. "It is close to it, I suppose, little goddess. Have fun on your Quest, Great Granddaughter!"
"Great Granddaughter!? Who are you!?"
Instead of answering, the being just laughed and in an application of his will, expelled Andi from the dream. This caused the goddess of the wild to abruptly sit up in her bed with a gasp.
"What the crap was that!?"
"And so that was my dream." Andi said as she finished recounting her strange dream to her lieutenants and Alice as they had breakfast in her palace's conservatory. "What do you think? Who was the guy who came into my dream? And is it worth entertaining his offer? If so, what are the things he wants?"
"Whoa! Slow down there, Andi!" Alice said with a chuckle and an exasperated shake of his head. "Let's tackle one question at a time."
Ida nodded in agreement. "So you asked what we think? I think it is very convenient that this being reached out to you just after your defeat at Porphyrion's hands and does so to offer you with power that will allow you to avoid another such loss in the future."
"Yeah, Andi. I agree with Ida." Katie said as Wendy nodded her own agreement. "It's awfully convenient."
"That's true but we can't deny that whoever the dream is from, it is probably wise for you to follow through on what it requests, Andi." Alice said with a frown.
Ida nodded in agreement. "Whoever possesses the power to actively reach into a goddess' mind must be powerful indeed and thus might just truly offer her the strength to defeat Gaea."
"Yeah~ Guess that answers my first and third questions. But does anyone have a clue on who that guy was?"
"Some." Ida said with a frown. "But that is based entirely on what they showed you and could have just been attempts at misdirection. Even if that's not the case… Well, I wouldn't dare make any assumptions. Not without more evidence."
"Can't you at least tell us your hypothesis?" Katie asked, sounding curious as she fed some bacon to Brick.
"I'd rather not. It would unnecessarily impact our actions, perhaps even undermining our efforts if I'm wrong." Ida said with a shake of her head. "It's not worth the risk."
Katie and Wendy looked ready to continue arguing the point, but Ida received help from Alice as she cut in.
"You think it might be Ouranos, don't you, Ida?"
"That's what the imagery Andi recounted suggests but…"
"Shouldn't Great Grandfather be scattered?"
"Yes, his essence was scattered to such an extent by Kronos when he was dethroned that he should not ever be able to form a consciousness again, let alone a body. However…" Ida cupped her chin, deep in thought.
"That was eons ago." Alice pointed out. "It's entirely possible that over that time, enough of his essence has gathered back together for him to reform."
"Or it might be a trick someone is using for whatever reason, right, Ida?" Wendy asked as she thoughtfully tapped her chin. "And if that's the case, we'd need to handle things entirely differently than if it was really Ouranos."
"Not entirely differently. In both cases, we would have to approach this matter with caution but yes, we would need to take different measures depending on this being's actual identity."
Andi nodded. "That's true. Ida, could you see if you can figure out for sure who is really sending me out on this Quest? And work out what the other items I'm supposed to get too? Hopefully, you'll figure out where I need to go next after I'm done getting Echidna's prized dress,"
"I see you've figured that one out already." Ida said with a smile.
Andi shrugged. "It wasn't hard."
"I suppose not." The Oread allowed. "The Storm Giant is one of Typhon's epithets and as his wife, Echidna is clearly his consort. And the identity of the owners of the next item isn't difficult to decipher either. The Kerkopes are the only monkey thieves in our mythos."
"That's true." Andi agreed with a nod. "But determining what is their "greatest stolen prize" won't be easy, much less hunting down where those monkeys stashed it. That's why going after Echidna makes more sense. We know what we are looking for from her and can just summon her to pressure her to give us what we want."
"That's a good plan. Count me in."
"I wouldn't expect otherwise, Alice." Andi said, offering her friend a smile. "We'll get going as soon as we're done with breakfast. No rush though. Since we're summoning her, Echidna isn't going anywhere."
Alice and Wendy, who of course was coming with them, both nodded and turning to their meals, began digging in. Andi smiled at that and followed their example.
They were about to deal with the Mother of Monsters. It was best to do that after a good meal.
Alice stood watching Andi, already clad in her Storm Mail, fly over the ritual circle that the goddess of Wizarding Magic had drawn in the Kansas grass field in Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve for the ritual to summon Echidna. A place that they hoped would be remote enough that if things went awry, no innocents would be put at risk. They after all weren't risking going to her home in Tartarus. Considering he was the consort of Gaea, he was clearly the enemy.
"I'm telling you, Alice! I did not conjure this ritual out of thin air!" Andi protested as she did one final inspection of her handiwork. "I have a rolodex of all Wizarding Magic in my mind, I just fished it out of there."
"Seems pretty close to coming up with this out of nothing to me." Alice said with a teasing grin. "More importantly though, why in the name of all that is good would your Wizards have a ritual to summon the Mother of Monsters!?"
"Like all mortals, Wizards can be dumb sometimes." Andi said with a shrug as she finished her inspection and landed beside Alice as she stood in front of the ritual circle. "Especially when the promise of power is on offer. The fools who came up with this ritual got it into their heads somehow that summoning Echidna and making a deal with her would be a good idea."
Alice just sighed. "Mortals are stupid. Haven't they watched or read Faust!? Making deals with fiends never ends well."
"Considering these are Wizards we're talking about I don't think they even know that Faust exists." Andi admitted with a grimace. "My people are kinda backward when it comes to these kinds of things."
"I'd say they are backward in general."
"Hey! That's not fair! They make up for a lot of it with their own magic and culture!"
"But not all of it. Or else why would they be a dwindling people who can only hide away in the shadows? Why do they lose more of their kind each year to the non-magical world? Why have their development stagnated, to the point that they haven't invented anything worth talking about in centuries?"
Was Alice biased against the Wizards? Definitely. She was a Technodjinn! A goddess of the information age! Of course she'd be decidedly unimpressed by a bunch of luddites who thought their magic and traditions exempted them from entering her and her family's sphere of influence. But bias aside, it was irrefutable that the Wizards' insistence in doing so meant they were rapidly being left behind by the rest of the world.
A fact that not even their goddess could deny, not when Andi did not have a rebuttal to any of Alice's observations. Instead, she just sighed. "Let's just start the ritual. You ready, Alice?"
Summoning her gun and holding in a ready position, the Conscience of the Technodjinn nodded. "Ready."
Andi nodded and began chanting in Latin. "Echidna, Mater Matris et Typhonis Uxor, vocate exaudi! In nomine meo veni nunc coram me! Andromeda Aurae, ferae dea, aurae, magus poscit! (Echidna, Mother of Mothers and Wife of Typhon, heed my call! In my name, come before me now! Andromeda Aurae, goddess of the wild, breezes, and wizardry, demands it!)"
Normally the ritual would have invoked a whole host of gods but that was when it was cast by mortals. Since Andi was a goddess and a goddess of magic at that, she simply used her own authority to empower the ritual. Alice had suggested adding her own power to it but had been shot down, which she understood. She was a god of technology and was somewhat antithetical to the Wizardry based ritual. Taking that into account, her power might have destabilized the ritual. So she'd left it all to Andi even if she felt a little like she wasn't pulling her own weight.
A pillar of dark flames erupting from within the ritual circle pulled Alice from her frustrations and she turned her full attention to the matter at hand. Just as she did, the flames dissipated and revealed Echidna, the Mother of Monsters, in all her grotesque glory. No, to call her grotesque was to do her a disservice. If one were to overlook that she had the lower body of an immense serpent, she was beautiful. Her humanoid upper body had a figure that Human supermodels would kill for, a perfectly sculpted face, and radiant crimson hair. Except, her inhuman features simply could not be ignored. Between her scaly hide, her defensively bared fangs, sideways slit eyes narrowed in angry confusion, and the forked tongue she used to scent the air in agitation, there was simply no mistaking her as anything but a monster!
"Why have you summoned me, little goddesses!" Echidna hissed angrily as she glared at them with such furious intensity that if she was Medusa, they'd have been dead stone long ago.
"We want your most prized dress, Echidna." Andi demanded, summoning Skyline and leveling an already nocked arrow at the Wife of Typhon. "Hand it over!"
"Hah! You do realize that I'm working with Gaea, don't you?"
"No, but now we do." Alice said, unimpressed. They were at war with the Earth Mother! Did Echidna really assume that name dropping her would make them back down!?
"Then you should know that there is no way I would help a god of Olympus."
"Not even for a deal?" Andi offered.
"There is no deal you could offer that would tempt me, Andromeda Aurae!"
Andi frowned at this and looked ready to continue trying to convince the monster to accept a deal. Alice though could tell such efforts were futile.
"Andi, you are wasting your breath. She won't listen." Alice told her friend bluntly. "We need to defeat her. The spoil for doing so will be what we want."
"There is no guarantee of that." Echidna said smugly.
"Only if Andi was a demigod." Alice corrected with a shake of her head. "She and I are goddesses. The odds are stacked in our favor from that alone. Plus, Andi is a friend of Nike and she has influence over what spoils are distributed after a monster is defeated."
Alice's words infuriated Echidna and she threw herself at her with her arms reaching forward, her claws extended with clear intent to rip her to shreds. Sadly for the Mother of Monsters, Andi hadn't scrimped on the ritual's safety features and her lunge just had her bouncing off the invisible containment field that was part of the magic circle that had summoned her, and she crashed to the ground in an ungainly heap from the impact.
Ignoring her, Andi turned to Alice. "Okay, I've just checked in with Nike telepathically. She said she'd give us the spoil we need, but only if we beat Echidna in a fair fight."
"Define fair." Alice asked. She knew better than not to verify the precise terms of any agreement she made, particularly ones she struck with other gods.
"I clarified that with her. She's fine with us taking Echidna on two-on-one. She just wants us to actually, you know, fight her. Not kill her whilst she's still stuck in the containment field."
"How charitable of Nike." Echidna hissed as she finished recovering from her meeting with said field. "Or perhaps it is foolishness? The moment I am free of this accursed barrier, I will tear you two to pieces and feed you to my children."
What's with that confidence? If we can trap you, don't you think we can kill you just as easily? Alice thought with a shake of her head even as she addressed her friend. "Ready when you are, Andi."
"Gotcha." The goddess of the wild acknowledged. "Dropping the containment field now!"
The moment she finished speaking, the air around the magic circle occupied by the summoning ritual's containment field shimmered as said barrier shut down. And as it did, the Mother of Monsters responded immediately by lunging towards Alice and Andi, her vicious claws outstretched in eager preparation to rend them.
Perhaps as to be expected considering that Andi, and Wendy by extension, was airborne, Echidna targeted Alice and surged towards her. Moving so fast that she looked like green lightning, the Mother of Monsters closed the distance in a blink of an eye and swung her claws at the Technodjinn. Considering her speed, she would've caught most opponents by surprise. Fortunately, Alice was not most opponents. With a highly advanced android for a body, she had reaction speeds that even most other gods would have found impressive. Something that was even further enhanced by the Chronometron built into her eyes that allowed her to exist slightly out of phase with the natural flow of the space-time continuum.
Thus, Alice gracefully leapt out of the way of the snakewoman's attack and fired off a barrage of her toxic green energy beams at Echidna. Surprised by the Technodjinn's speed, the Mother of Monsters failed to react in time and the beams hit her dead on. The gauss energy of the beams sheared apart the atomic bonds of Echidna's scales, literally stripping them apart atom by atom and molecule by molecule.
"Argh! That hurts, you damnable tin can!" Echidna howled as she recoiled from Alice's attack, sections of her body covered in numerous burns that were literally smoking.
That's quite an impressive set of scales she has to withstand my gauss beams that well. Alice thought as Andi joined the fight by raining down a barrage of her wind arrows, each of which exploded into cutting gusts as they either hit Echidna or slammed into the ground around her.
Very impressive indeed. Alice corrected as she saw how Andi's attack, which would render most to a bloody pulp, did little more than cover Echidna with shallow cuts and that was when her winds even managed to get through the serpentine monster's scales. Most simply scratched them.
"Did you forget you're fighting me too, Echidna?" Andi taunted as she fired off another salvo of her wind arrows.
"Hardly!" Echidna scoffed as she slithered out of the way of Andi's barrage, managing to keep just ahead of the rain of wind arrows that exploded into cutting winds in her wake.
"Well, it certainly seems you're forgetting you're facing more than one opponent." Alice quipped as she teleported ahead of Echidna and leveling her already fully charged gun at the monstrous woman, fired off a massive beam of gauss energy.
"Hah! You underestimate me if you believe that!" Echidna countered confidently as she breathed out a torrent of what Alice's sensors identified as dragonfire. Draconic flames that clashed with Alice's gauss beam in what could best be described as a beam clash, one straight out of an anime, before the two attacks negated each other in a massive explosion.
It obscured Alice's view of Echidna for a second. And in that momentary opening, blurring forward with speed that trumped even the enhanced speed granted to her by her Chronometron, the snakewoman all but teleported so that she shot past the Technodjinn.
Wha- Alice began to think before the Mother of Monsters provided the answer to her unfinished question as she looped around the robotic goddess, her long serpentine body coiling around her. Before the Technodjinn could react, she found herself being constricted by Echnida's coils.
"Alice!" Andi cried in alarm but on her own part, Alice wasn't actually all that fazed by this development.
Echidna really didn't do any research on what I can do, did she? Alice thought as she activated her Lightning Field. The defensive device surrounded her in bolts of crackling, incandescent, emerald lightning that proceeded to shock the Mother of Monsters.
The aforementioned snakewoman hissed in pain as the gauss energy created by her Lightning Field burned away at her body but in an act of almost laudable determination, she ignored the pain and began tightening her coils. In response, Alice's body began getting crushed. A state of affairs that caused the edges of her vision to become flooded with warnings of the damage she was receiving.
Well, I can't have that. Alice thought as she activated her Dimensional Destabilisation Matrix and simply phased out of the normal space-time continuum for a few seconds and simply slipped out of the Mother of Monsters' coils.
"What trickery is this!?"
"Advanced technology." Alice answered glibly before she fired off a high powered gauss beam right into Echidna's face.
"Argh!" The snakewoman screamed as the gauss energy burned away the Mother of Monsters' perfectly sculpted eyebrows and beautiful hair, causing her to reel back in pain.
"Have fun reforming in Tartarus, Echidna!" Andi shouted at the beleaguered monster as she fired an arrow of spiraling winds glowing with the green energies of the wild and was shot through with rainbow lightning formed from Wizarding Magic energy at her. "Eat my Trifacted Arrow!"
Echidna turned her badly burned face upward towards Alice's friend as she hovered above her, just in time to receive Andi's new spell combining the powers of her three domains. An arrow of energy that pierced her right where her humanoid upper body met her serpentine lower body and pinned her to the ground before exploding in a detonation of the mixed energies combined by the spell. An explosion that literally blew the Mother of Monsters in half, sending her upper body flying one way and her serpentine lower body in another.
The latter collapsed into gold dust almost immediately, but Echidna's upper body lingered. A fact that allowed the Mother of Monsters to shoot a glare up at Andi as Alice's friend flew in for a landing in front of the dying monster.
"You are a fool, Andromeda Aurae." The monster hissed as the remaining portion of her body steadily continued to collapse into gold dust. "You have no idea what you're doing by seeking out what you do."
"I do know the risk." Andi insisted. "I'm just willing to take the risk of dealing with Ouranos if it means we have a better chance against Gaea."
"Then you are even more of a fool!" Echidna accused angrily as she finished collapsing into gold dust and was sent back to reform in Tartarus, leaving behind a shimmering dress seemingly made out of churning storm clouds. A dress that radiated a powerful divine aura that had Alice feeling deeply unsettled.
"Thanks, Nike!" Andi said honestly as she released her Storm Mail, allowing Wendy to return to her normal form and leaving her in the simple but fashionable polo and culottes outfit that she was thankfully sporting for the day, as she skipped over to pick up the spoils for defeating Echidna and the item that they wanted to acquire from the Mother of Monsters.
"That's it?" Wendy said, looking at the dress nervously as Andi used her divine power to send the dress back to her palace where it could be stored safely.
"Yup. I'm pretty sure it is." Andi said with a nod. "Alice?"
"I would agree. It certainly appears like it is linked to Ouranos and it fits in with the hypothesis that he is who we are looking for."
"Lady Andi!" A voice cried out suddenly as an Aurae that looked like a young girl with elfin features and brown hair in a pixie cut that was wearing a diaphanous dress blew in like the breeze that she was. "We've found the location of the next item on the list of things that you have us looking for!"
"Already? Good job, Emily." Andi said, shooting her servant a smile and causing the Aurae to preen both at her goddess knowing her name and the praise offered her.
"How did you figure it out? And so fast too?" Wendy asked, looking at her fellow Aurae skeptically.
"We just brute forced it. Ida drew up a list of all the possible options and sent out Aurae like us to check which one was what we were looking for."
"And we're sure that you've found one of the things that we are looking for?" Alice asked with a worried frown.
Emily shrugged. "Ida is sure."
"That's good enough for me." Andi said with a decisive nod. "So where is this thing?"
"Inside one of the Kerkopes' vaults in their current base of operations in Bologna, Italy."
Andi, Wendy and Alice followed Emily's directions to the letter, teleporting right into a warehouse on the edge of Bologna, Italy. A warehouse that apparently doubled as one of the stashes of the Kerkopes.
As soon as they finished materializing, Andi began using everything she could to double check for any mundane or magical traps. Next to her, Alice was doing her own scans just to be sure. Considering the Kerkopes's reputation as master thieves, it was a prudent precaution. After all, what thief didn't set up at least some security for their stash?
Only when her checks came back clear and Alice nodded back to indicate the same did they feel it was safe to enter. Even then, Andi made it a point to go in first. With her Storm Mail, which she had already donned, she was more prepared for whatever surprise the simian thieves might have in store for trespassers that got past the doors of their stash. Opening the large doors to the warehouse, they found it full of all kinds of objects that ran the gamut from what looked like trash to priceless artifacts and in its center was a pedestal, which clearly held the pride of place, atop which stood a large statue.
The sculpture looked like a tall and buff man with longish white hair, dressed in nothing but a loincloth in an Ancient Greek style. A sculpture that was seemingly made of swirling clouds. More importantly, it radiated the familiar divine essence as the dress they had gotten from Echidna.
"Alright, so it feels the same. This must be it." Andi concluded as she didn't know why looking at the statue made her feel so uneasy. It wasn't to her taste but it certainly had a nice loincloth. Oh, yeah, and the statue as a whole wasn't too bad either.
So why was just looking at it making her skin crawl?
You're not the only one creeped out by that thing, Andi. Wendy told her with a mental shiver.
Glad to hear I'm not alone in that department.
"We should take it now and leave." Alice suggested as she kept her eyes peeled, her head on a swivel. "If we loiter, the probability that we may run into the Kerkopes will only increase."
"Oooh-ah!" A voice shrieked as a thumping noise signified that its owner had landed in front of them.
"Hey hey, we don't condone thieves!" Another voice shrilly cried out as another thump followed as something landed next to the source of the other voice.
"Yeah yeah, we're the only thieves allowed here!"
Having swung down from the supports that held up the warehouse's roof were the stash's owners, the Kerkopes. The two were a pair of humanoid monkeys complete with long prehensile tails and which were covered in red - Clearly Passalos - and brown - Which would make him Akmon- hair respectively with comical faces with large eyes and snub noses. Both of which were dressed in simple, rustic clothing.
Passalos took a sniff and his eyes bugged out, "Whoa whoa whoa, what's this? Divinity, here? And not just de Half-blood kind, but full gods? "
"Oh geez, what did we do now tuh piss yuh fellas off?" Akmon snorted with some annoyance.
"Yeah yeah! We ain't do nothin' tuh budder yous guys!"
"Well, gentleapes, we're here for that statue over there." Andi addressed the two, smiling sharply towards them and gesturing at the statue they were here to get.
"Eh! Wait a minute, ain't yuh dat new blood." Akmon shifted on his prehensile feet. "De one dat took ovuh fawh Pan?"
Passalos turned to his partner in crime and jumped a little. "Yuh aren't jokin'? Dat's Thunderhead's newest kid?!"
Smiling, Andi nodded and clapped her hands. "That I am. So! Why don't we talk? See, I need that "
"Well! Yuh can't have it! Okay? It's ours! Ours!" Passalos shouted angrily.
"That's right! Ours! Not yawhs!" Akmon agreed with an angry hiss.
Andi sighed. She had hoped they could avoid violence this time round. The Kerkopes might be monsters but they weren't exactly Echidna. They were just a pair of thieving monkeys, not maneaters. It didn't feel right to beat them up to get what she wanted.
Well, we can go for something in between, can't we? Wendy suggested.
What do you have in mind?
They can't fight if they can't move, right?
Oh! Wendy, you're a genius! Andi praised as acting on her partner's suggestion, she reached out to the winds and using her authority as the goddess of breezes, conjured tornadoes right where the Kerkopes stood.
"Too bad then." Andi spat at the simians. "'Cos I'm taking it regardless of anything you have to say."
Passalos and Akmon hooted and hollered in anger but Andi ignored them and floated over to the statue, Alice following after her.
"You sure it's a good idea to not send them to Tartarus, Andi?" Her friend asked, eyeing the two trapped monkeys with a frown. "Won't they come after us if we just take the statue without killing them?"
"It's fine." Andi assured her as she examined the area around the statue, wary of traps. "The Kerkopes aren't a threat. They're just pests. We don't have anything to worry about. At least not from them."
Besides, considering how hard they are trying to get out of those cyclones you've trapped in, they might end up killing themselves anyway. Wendy opined, causing Andi to glance back towards the trapped Kerkopes and found that they were trying to force their way through their tornado prisons, earning themselves cuts all over their body in the process.
Andi rolled her eyes at the monkeys' stupidity. If they do then they deserve it.
"Well, if you're sure." Alice said with a shrug. "Oh, and I've scanned the statue and the area around it, it's safe. There aren't any traps."
"I'm sure. And thanks for confirming it." Andi said as she tapped the statue and disapparated it back to her palace where Ida would keep it safe until she needed it. "Okay. We're done here."
"So where should we go now? Back to your palace to await news on where we can find the next item?"
Before Andi could reply, an Aurae with raven black hair in a ponytail and dressed in a dress in the diaphanous style that the wind nymphs seemed to favor blew in with a cry of her name. "Lady Andromeda~!"
"Pamela, what's up? Did Ida figure out where we can find the next item already?"
"Yup, my lady." The excitable Aurae said with a nod. "The last item is owned by a clan of wizards in Germany."
Andi turned to Alice. "Looks like we're going to Germany."
"Looks like."
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless as always!
And so the hot or not woman that is the Mother of Monsters has returned! Man it's been a hot minute for her, huh? Back when Andi was all mortal and stuff. Ah, good times. Good times.
Nameless: So we're finally properly introducing the major change that we intend to use to make our take on the Heroes of Olympus storyline original. It's quite clear what we mean but since we haven't explicitly spelled it out yet, I will refrain from spoiling things for the few of you who might not have figured it out yet.
Yeah, it's going to be a trip going through Heroes of Olympus from a divine perspective. It's a lot more interesting than I originally thought it would be due to all the divine politics and actions. So I hope you all join us for the ride! Not to mention what villains Andi will be facing, some of which we have foreshadowed.
Nameless: Regarding opponents, particularly those that we had Andi and co. fight during this little Quest of hers, we decided to use some rarely used/obscure canon antagonists. We know they might not look like how they do in canon, but do keep in mind that monsters and other non-mortal individuals of the Riordanverse can seemingly quite easily change their appearances. That should account for any discrepancies. ;)
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!