The S.S. Olympus -under refurbishment

Chapter XVI: Serpens Mulieri

You cursed my soul, my mind is dead. Eyes like a weapon, snakes on my head, priestess I was, the pride of Athena. Now I'm banned to live the life of a beast

A smirk slithered it's way across Cornelia's face as she heard an epithet of cursing issue out of Hades' mouth as they ran for the bridge through the noxious blaring of the alarm, some things never change. He disappeared inside the bridge, but Apollo lingered. 

"You know I would steal a world-ending fiery crystal vase for you, Cornelia," Apollo gave her a playful nudge and wink. "I just would be smart enough to not open it."

"Really?" Artemis groaned, "do you ever learn anything, ever? Every day you give me a reason to loathe the fact that we share genetic code and birthday. Its a blessing that we look nothing alike."

"That still throws me," Cornelia interjected, "how is it you two are related? You are quite possibly the most disparate looking siblings I have ever seen." 

Apollo shrugged, "I am grateful every day that I do not look like you." 

"Do you want me to hit him, or do you want the honors?" Cornelia asked Artemis with a smirk. Part of her was really opening Artemis would let her.

Artemis laughed, and lashed out narrowly missing Apollo's face, "Oh I will hit him, but he will not know when or how its coming. Watch out little brother, my fist will haunt your dreams."

"You are two minutes older!" 

"That's right," She smirked at him, "first at everything." She made another feigned attack and he winced. 

Cornelia laughed, the first one in a long time. "You are right, this is way better." 

Artemis and Cornelia linked arms and waltzed into the bridge leaving Apollo to pick up the pieces of his pride. 

They entered the bridge giggling conspiratorially "Are you 'ladies' about done? We have work to do, and in this particular case we do not have time for the idle prattle." Zeus spoke with a perfunctory roll of his eyes and typed a code into his console with more brute force than necessary, "I need warriors, not courtesans."

"Yes, father." Artemis' gleeful expression wiped clear of her face. Her typical stoicsim took its place. 

Cornelia's shoulders slumped and she took a deep breath. The last one of these 'adventures' will haunt me for the rest of my days and I can never look at my friends the same way. what will this one do to me? Then an inquisitive internal voice broke through her self deprecating thoughts, wait, did she just call him father? The question dissipated before it found its way to her lips, because of what appeared before her. 

A  glowing green hologram of a pulchritudinous woman appeared in the center of the room.  The maiden's eyes were closed and heavy white lashes sprawled like small fangs across her high-boned cheeks. long thick coils of multi-patterned hair acted as her only clothing as it constricted around the curves of her voluptuous chest. Her hands clasped before the bottom of her spade-shaped hips, coyly concealing the center. Like that helps, Cornelia rolled her eyes and turned to face Apollo expectantly. 

His face reminded her of the stark reality they faced. Even this curvy nymph of shimmering speckled Blackstone and emerald skin.  Apollo, as if he had been struck by venomous cobra his sun-kissed skin had shed all of its natural color, and he shook like the end of a rattler's tail.

"She's pretty," Cornelia offered reluctantly. "What is so scary about her?" Cornelia's personal latent sexism shocked even her, but she continued. "There's nothing too terribly hard about capturing a pretty girl." Hades scoffed and changed the direction of his attention to anywhere but at Cornelia.