"Listen up, guys," Renda said. "Our mission is to kill the dictator of Planet Androgen, Leopoldo Havens."
"With a name like that, no wonder he's a dictator," Justin commented.
It had been seven minutes since Benson had given Renda a file containing all the information we needed to finish the mission. We had then walked back to our dorm, and now the rest of us were getting briefed by Renda.
"Where does he live?" Miranda asked. "A castle?"
"That would've made sense," Renda told her, "but like all dictators, he's paranoid. He built a castle to house all of his meeting, but lives in a secluded forest in a mansion with nothing except seventy-three guards, and a bar."
"That's easy," Tammi snorted. "Miranda can just shoot an arrow through his window."
"Exactly why we can't kill him that way," Renda replied. "He's supposed to die of 'natural causes,' meaning Percy's going to have to go in, disguised." She shifted her attention to me. "You think you can do that?"
"Is collateral damage allowed?" I asked.
"Probably not," supplied Miranda.
I sighed dramatically as thought they had denied my request to get ice cream. "Fine. It'll be boring, but I'll do it."
"Perfect," Renda said. "You'll be disguised as a guard. Nobody will know the difference, since—"
"Do you have a picture of the dictator's room?" I asked.
"Yeah," Renda replied. "Part of the scouts' job. Why?"
"That's all I need. I can use my powers to teleport—"
"You have powers?!" Miranda exclaimed. Everybody looked at me incredulously, as though this was rare.
"What are we waiting here for?" Renda put a photo in my hand. It was of a huge villa that was completely surrounded by trees. Not a place the I would want to live.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Normally, we wait for one of the Generals to come—" Wesley started.
That's all I needed to hear. I immediately mist traveled into the clearing, bringing them there with me.
"Woah . . ." Tammi said. "Your power is cool."
At the same time, everybody realized we were out in the open where any guard who had eyes could see us, since the lamps on the house illuminated a thirty-foot perimeter around the house. We ran towards the mansion, taking shelter below windows.
"Can you give me the picture of the bedroom?" I whispered to Renda, who was next to me. She reached into her pocket and withdrew what I needed. I muttered a quick thanks and immediately mist traveled into the room . . .
Only to realize I appeared right next to Havens, who was looking out of his window to the forest. He was a tall and skinny man who I would have no problem in taking down. His room was at the back of the house, while we had appeared at the side, meaning he didn't see us.
But now, he definitely saw me. I tensed up, ready to attack him the moment he started shouting. "Why are you here, Guard?" he asked me in a deep voice that was obviously not his natural one.
I was taken aback, but quickly recovered. "I came here to check on you . . . er . . Milord."
He seemed to buy it. "Well, you can see I'm fine," he dismissed. "Now go."
I bowed and went to the door. I opened then closed it without going through the doorframe, making him think I left, while I was still in his room. Now, I crept silently behind him masking my footsteps.
When I was close enough, with one fluid motion, I wrapped my arm around his throat, and squeezed. He tried shouting in surprise, but the only thing hat came out of his mouth was a weak gurgle. Then, he started struggling, trying to bean me on the head while also trying to wrest out of my grip.
The only thing I had to do to make him shut up was knee him in the groin. He gave a pained groan, then fell unconscious.
I dragged him to the bed, then arranged his body underneath it as though his lungs had just suddenly failed. I looked at his prone body and said, "Sorry about this."
Then I started choking him again until his heart stopped. I immediately mist traveled out of there, to my comrades. I didn't feel bad about killing a dictator, since it would definitely save countless of more lives.
When I appeared next to Renda, she asked, "Did you do it?"
"I don't think the guards are going to be happy in the morning," I said. Then, on her signal, I mist traveled all of us back to our dorm.
Renda patted me on my back. "Your power is going to help us so much, buddy."
"So, what?" I said. "Are we number nine now?"
"Unofficially, yes. Officially we'll be announced tomorrow morning," Renda replied. "I gotta tell Benson. You guys get some rest."
That's when we all realized we weren't the only people in our dorm. In fact, there was a beautiful woman a few years older than me leaning on the closed doorway, who had masked her aura.
"So I guess I got woken up for no reason," Eon said dryly.
Everybody immediately paled. "W-we're very sorry for this inconvenience, General Eon," Renda stuttered out.
Eon in response merely let out her aura, which almost made me stumble back in shock. It was as powerful as two primordials combined. "Let's all go to Lady Void, shall we?" She phrased it as a question, but everybody knew it was an order.
But before anybody moved, I spoke up. I didn't know what talking to Void entailed, but it was probably nothing good. "Anything that just happened was directed by me. It's my fault."
Eon paused in the midst of stepping through the doorway. After an agonizingly long pause, she motioned for me to follow her. Everybody else let out a silent breath of relief, but then looked at me in worry.
Justin mouthed, It was nice knowing you.
I hurried out of the door, hanging a few feet back from Eon. We walked in unnerving silence down flights of stairs, doorways and rooms.
Having gathered my courage, I was about to ask where we were going, but the words died in my throat when we went down one more flight of stairs. The walls suddenly turned to dark, forbidding, and uninviting stone as though we had entered a new dimension. Instead of fluorescent bulbs, there were torches on either sides of the walls, that seemed to be burning eternally with no fuel.
At the end of the hallway, there was a door made out of metal. It had an aura, indicating it was enchanted, making me deduce that it wasn't made of mortal steel. The two guards on either side bowed upon seeing Eon and opened the door. She walked in, and I gulped before joining her.
Before the door slammed shut behind us, I observed that the metal was at least seven inches thick, probably to keep whatever was inside from getting out. I only had a second to observe the area—which I quickly deduced was a dungeon—before my back was violently slammed against the bars of a cell by Eon.
Her eyes were ablaze with anger. "Listen here," she hissed. "I want to know the real reason for why you're here."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," I said, barely covering my desperation from leaking into my voice.
"If you wanted to fight for Void, you would've came years ago," she said, while I noted the lack of respect for Void, indicating she knew Void well. "Why did you come yesterday? And four days before our plan?"
Instead of answering that tricky question, I tried steer her off topic. "Look, I get you're in charge of everything here. But you can't just punish your soldiers for waking you up. Being a leader means you have to sacrifice—"
"I know what to do," she said sharply. "That was bait to get you alone."
Huh, I thought. Should've thought a bit more before lecturing the more powerful and older person. Then I got struck by a thought. "This wasn't ordered by Voi—Lady Void herself. You're doing this on your own time—not because you have something on me, just because you have a bad feeling about me. Now tell me, how is that fair?"
Void smiled sinisterly, and before I could react opened the cell door and threw me into it. I landed on the weird metal floor painfully, and before I could get back up to my feet the jail door slammed shut, locking me in a ten foot square box with only an uncomfy bed and a toilet.
"Lady Void will hear about this!" I shouted at Eon's retreating figure, giving my best Carson-is-a-spoiled-brat imitation.
Eon stopped and turned towards me with a small smirk on her face. "Funny, that's who I'm going to get," she said, then waved at me sardonically. "Happy escaping." Then she turned on her heel and exited the dungeon.
I immediately rushed towards the bars the moment she was out of the door. I uncapped Riptide, and swung at the metal, expecting to see the sword slice through the metal easily, like a knife through butter. Instead, the Celestial Bronze blade bounced off as though it hit a trampoline. a solid metal trampoline.
I was so surprised by what happened that the impact knocked me back onto the ground, on my butt. I quickly got up, relieved that nobody else was there to see it. I paced around the room, trying to think of how to escape the cell. If Void came, I was probably as good as dead.
My mind drifted back to the mission I just completed, giving me the idea I needed. Would mist travel work through these enchanted bars?
I dissipated into particles of water easily, but when I tried to force myself through the gaps between the bars, there was this invisible wall blocking me. When I tried to resist, it felt as though my spread out atoms would split apart into nothingness. Fearing for my life, I solidified myself back into my regular human form.
I uncapped Riptide again, and stuck it through to the other side of the bars. Weirdly enough, I could feel the invisible wall—and more importantly, the hole that my sword created in order to get to the other side. My excitement disappeared when I pulled my sword back into the cell, and the hole disappeared after half a second.
This gave me another idea. I put Riptide in the same position—the hilt facing my direction, while the pointy end was outside of the cell—and threw it vertically up. It created a thin and temporary slice in the magic wall, and in that half second I turned myself into mist particles and forced myself through.
When I appeared on the other side, I couldn't believe it worked. I then reached back into the cell and collected Riptide. I didn't know if it could magically reappear in my pocket through the magical wall. I capped my sword and headed towards the door, planning to find a way out.
But then I wheeled around, struck by a thought. Could Alina be in one of these cells?
I hurried through the damp hallway, checking every cell for occupants. At cell 153, I began to lose hope. The hallway stretched for what seemed an infinite amount of time. At cell 247, I was about to turn back when I saw movement two cells down.
I immediately rushed there and peered through the bars, seeing a body lay prone underneath a raggedy blanket, on the bed. "Alina?" I whispered to the body. "Is that you?"
"Who's asking?" A feminine voice said. It came from behind me, as though it was from the cell facing the one I was looking at, which I thought was empty. The voice held bitterness, but also had an underlying tone of command to it, giving me the sense that the owner of it was Alina.
"A friend," I said, while slowly turning around.
"Who are you?"
Instead of a crummy cage, the cell behind me had turned into something one could count as an actual room, as though I was looking into a different dimension. The bed actually looked comfy, and the room actually had an area with a shower, toilet, and sink separated by walls and a door. (The only reason I could see into the bathroom was because the door had been left ajar.) Instead of the floor being made out of the strong godly metal, it was made out of wooden flooring. Everything looked brand new and cleaned. It looked similar to the dorm I was sleeping in with my partners, except it had a bunch more space.
I was so amazed by the magical appearance of this room, it took me a moment to realize a woman with a form about my age was sitting at a table a short distance away. Even though all immortals had an unnaturally stunning form, this woman was one of the most beautiful females I had ever seen. I could see the vague resemblance between her and Chaos. She's almost as beautiful as Artem—
I cut that thought off, only to realize Alina was still waiting for an answer. "Er . . . Chaos."
"You don't look like my dad to me," she said suspiciously.
"I'm supposed to get you out, since Chaos doesn't have his powers."
She made no move to get up. "Unless you can get into my cell, there's no way . . ."
Using the same strategy I had used to get out of my cell, I went into Alina's.
" . . . never mind, then." She gracefully got up, flaring her aura at the same time.
"What are you . . ." I trailed off as her aura became as strong as half of the primordials, making me fall to my knees. She walked towards me and set a hand on my forehead. I could only helplessly watch as I felt her conscious intrude into mine and sift through all my memories.
A few seconds later, she took her hand off my forehead and stepped back, lessening the amount of energy she released into the world until I could stand up again.
"Percy Jackson, huh," Alina mused, while looking at me. "Lead the way."
"You already trust me?" I asked, unable to help myself.
"I searched through all of your memories. You're the purest hero I've ever seen."
"I don't think that's accurate, but thanks, I guess." I then used Riptide and my abilities to get us both out. We started walking towards the door. "Can you escape now?"
"Unfortunately, no." Alina gave a sigh. "Void's castle is enchanted: one can teleport in, but not out. In addition, one can't teleport out of the dungeon either. Can you lead me to an outside area?"
I didn't know the layout of the castle very well, since I had merely been there for less than a day. "I'll try. Behind that door, there are two guards on either side."
We stopped a few feet away from the door, and Alina dropped her voice to a whisper. "I'll take the one on the left, you right."
She suddenly opened the door, hitting the guard on the left with the heavy slab of metal, stunning him. Before he could shout, she was on him, uppercutting him so hard that he sailed all he way towards the end of the hallway and painfully collapsed in a heap, out cold.
Meanwhile, I had no element of surprise on my guard. Before he could reach for his sword, I grabbed him by his shoulders and slammed him against the wall, knocking the breath out of him. Then I slugged him in the face, breaking his nose and knocking him out cold.
Note to self: Never get uppercutted by Alina, I thought, noticing the guard a way's away. We hurried up the stairs up until I remembered my abilities again. I exclaimed, "Oh!" and mist traveled us into a hallway I had walked through. It was devoid of life, since everybody was sleeping. The hallway ended at two glass doors, which technically was the last obstacle before we were out of Void's castle. We pushed through the doors, arriving on a balcony which appeared to be on the fifth floor.
"Does this work?" I asked, looking up, in awe at the beautiful view of the stars.
"It sure does. Thanks for saving me."
I waved this away. "You just needed a bit of help. It was all you."
"Ever the humble one," Alina said, with a smile on her face. "You coming with me?"
I considered that question for a moment. "Actually . . . no. I have to do something first. See you at Chaos' castle."
Then I mist traveled back into the dungeon. Before I regained my senses, I crashed into a body.
My inner gentleman kicked in. "I'm sorry, are you okay . . ." I trailed off as my eyes met silver ones. "Artemis?! What are you doing here? Come on, We have to go!" Not waiting for an answer, I grabbed her hand and prepared to mist travel to the same hallway that led to the balcony.
Only to be pinned with my back uncomfortably resting on bars. "Perseus Jackson," said the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life. "How nice to meet you."
"What do you mean?" I asked, panicking. "Artemis, are you okay . . ." I suddenly realized that a very powerful aura was emanating from the woman, and felt different than Artemis'. "Unless . . . no. It can't be." I stared at her, horrified.
"You should've escaped when you had the chance," Lady Void said.