Chapter 41
Damon
After Freya's departure I teleported back to my room at Haven, I was still needed here. I just needed to figure out how. Freya would love The Academy. They would roll out the red carpet for her. Once she accepted their offer, I didn't know where that left us. Everything she would need The Academy would provide; housing, food, education, men.... Anything.
I pondered that over as I took a quick shower. Once finished I dressed myself in black sweats, a white tee and tennis shoes. As I opened my bathroom door, steam drying my hair with my element, I saw Leo sitting on my couch.
"What's up?" I asked walking over to him.
"I think I should be asking you that," he said turning around to face me. He was dressed simply in a Nike hoodie and blue jeans. "Where have you been? You had The Elders and everyone else worried. That's not like you, to disappear for days on end and not tell us what's going on."
"I know, I'm sorry. I was taking care of Freya. We were attacked on the beach and long story short, I had to ask Roman for help." More like barter. But all that mattered was Freya was okay.
Leo stood up with a twisted look of confusion, "It must have been bad for you to ask him for help." I nodded yes.
The way her body convulsed and shook was heartbreaking. I didn't know if she was actually going to wake up. I went into more detail and told Leo everything; the beach, my old childhood house, Roman and The Academy. "So, you've been busy."
"You have no idea," I said throwing myself on my bed. I didn't sleep much last night; I was too wired. I had this urge to stand guard over Freya.
"Hercules is taking us to Olympus sometime in late December," Leo blurted out.
My head popped up off the mattress, "Taking you."
"And you. You don't say no to the Gods. Look I know you're Bonded to Freya and you want to believe she can handle this, I want you to. But Hercules is Hercules. He's a warrior, son of Zeus and the God of strength. He seen countless battles and won. I'm not putting down Freya's achievements, she's done a lot, but nothing on this level. We need a real leader," he said walking over to me.
"I'm not giving up on her. We can't do this without you. Without everyone," I emphasized.
"I know, but we need some kind of plan. Can you honestly say she has one? Because Hercules does. The Gods are taking this seriously and they're calling it the war to end darkness. Can you honestly say you're going to put that much faith and trust in Freya?"
"Yes, and it's not because we're bonded. But I know what's in Freya's heart. The Gods are taking you to Olympus, not to The Underworld, they're not even keeping you on Earth. So, Erebus and Nyx have to go through The Underworld, destroy Earth and then move on to Olympus. What happens if you defeat them? You have nothing to go home to. There won't be any Brotherhood because there won't be any Earth. The only way you win is by dying. We took an oath to protect those that would use their abilities against the innocent, that we would live and die by our actions and our cause, right now is the time to put our oath into action. Like Freya said, this war will kill us all indiscriminately. I know no one wants to give up their spot in Elysium, but I'm asking you for you to be patient. If you're going in December, at least give Freya a deadline. Either we have a plan and we're all going, or we divide ourselves and die."
Leo was never one to be finicky, but clearly whatever Hercules has been feeding him was working.
"Fine," he exhaled, "But we need you too. Come to training-"
"Awww how sweet," Aphrodite said sitting on my couch in a tight crop top and black yoga shorts with... a cup bearer? He was hairless, lightly spray-painted in golden glitter wearing only metallic gold Go-Go's shorts, and wore a full face of make-up that would have most drag queen jealous. "You two going to fuck and make up? Is he why you can't commit? Because I'll admit, I never saw that coming."
I shot up in disbelief, "You clearly don't know him or me." Leo's like my brother. "Besides eavesdropping, did you need anything?"
Leo kicked my feet, "Respect the Goddess."
"Thank you. If you get lucky tonight... " she waved her fingers in front of her making a glass of wine appear, "You can thank me," she started to guzzle her wine down.
"Aphrodite did you need anything? Or did you just come here to start trouble?" I asked.
"Actually, I'm looking for Freya. We're going out. She's hot and needs a good lay," her manservant nodded his head yes in agreement. Leo laughed covering his mouth, "I know, right! What's the world coming to when beautiful people can't get laid. It's not like they're a renewable resource, I can only make so many." She stood up with a sway in her hips, "I'm just going to be honest with you... " because she's never been before, "The state of that pink cookie is appalling. You and the other one need to step up your game because honestly you're disappointing everyone."
"What?"
"What do you mean 'what'?" Aphrodite said throwing her long black hair back crossing her arms and rolling her eyes.
"I've never heard it called the pink cookie before," Leo chimed in. What?
"Oh my gods, Andrew, I can't even. Explain," she said refilling her glass quickly and drinking it down.
In a polite valley accent, the man said, "Love button, penis glove, cock sock, JJ, hoohah, bajingo, cum dumpster, sperm bottle, goop chute, love rug, poontang, poonanie, cooch, cooleyhopper, vertical smile, lovebox, jewel box, cupid's cupboard, Holiest of Holies, Brazilian caterpillar, dick rack, boy in the canoe, flesh tuxedo, Mound of Venus, penalty box, ground zero, bait, birth canal, holy grail, fuzz bucket, bubble gum by the bum... " Well, I was thoroughly embarrassed, and Leo was dying of laughter.
"PUSSY!" Aphrodite shouted at the top of her lungs. And clapping out each syllable she said, "You're not doing your due diligence and spreading those legs?"
"It's really sad," the man said nodding his head in disappointment as Aphrodite took his hands and nodded in agreeance.
"Like, so sad," she added.
"Awful," the man said playing off her.
"The worst," she continued, "I just feel like I did something wrong. It sucks when it happens to a friend."
"Absolutely. I hear you," the man said patting her hands.
"Maybe, I mixed them up? Cecilia should be with Damon and Freya should be with the other one."
"I mean, you are perfection, so I don't think so," he stated.
Squinting her eyes hard as if she were trying to think of something Aphrodite said, "I may have to give that a try."
"That would be fun for Tuesday!" The man said with a clap.
"Tuesday's don't work from me," She said with a roll of her eyes, "You know I have to hang out with Hephaestus."
"Who are you?!" I exploded.
"I'm Andrew," the man said like that took care of everything.
"And? Are you a God? Descendant? Gifted? Why are you here!?"
"Tinder," he said making Leo laugh to the point where tears were pouring out of his eyes.
"What?" I said feeling like the odd man out.
"Oh, that's so cute. See it's a hook up app for sex and I swiped right on her and she swiped right on me we started talking. We're both into BDSM and exploring our quirks. So, Aphrodite was telling me about this girl... Freya, right? Right. And we got to talking and it was just really upsetting. She clearly wants you but you're denying her that dick. Like, girl has a body, and she sounds so sweet. I've never been with a black girl," he lowered his voice, "Asian, like Aphrodite normally do it for me. But I could try with her," taking a deep breath and putting his hand over his heart he looked passed me to Aphrodite, "You, me, her Wednesday."
"If you as so much touch a single hair on Freya, I will burn you alive," I said as my heart rate spiked and my blood begin to boil over.
Leo continued dying of laughter, but I had enough. If Freya and I had problems we would solve them ourselves, we didn't need Aphrodite to get involved, "Enough! I get it!"
"Don't get upset," Aphrodite's said coming to stand on one side of me while Andrew took the other. "We understand, working with virgins is hard and-"
"Messy," Andrew said leaning on my shoulder. "Women have all these high expectations: silk sheets, candles, romantic storm going on in the background-"
"Heavy breath on your neck as your lover pulls your hair and stripes you down and forces you against a wall-"
"Bitch, too much. That's us," Andrew spoke to me now, "We're just saying, if you don't treat your girl right, somebody else will. Dinner and a movie goes a long way. Just a night out with no other distractions. Just remember if you're good to her in the day, she'll be sucking your dick by night."
"He did do dinner but then Hercules fucked it up because he wants her. I keep telling him to fuck off, but does he listen? No," Aphrodite said dropping that little unknown fact.
"Hercules wants Freya?" Leo said engaged.
"Duh, why else would he be hanging around this dump instead of in Olympus or in his Realm? Now, is he sexy? Yes. Have I fucked him? Yes. But Freya isn't for him. And his hero act is frustrating. It may have worked on a lot of other girls but it's not going to work on Freya," Aphrodite said exhausted.
"Since when?" I questioned.
"Since he gave her that thigh band," Leo said, "It would make a lot of sense. He was a demigod and I've never seen the Gods take interest in something they didn't plan to own."
"Save the world then get the girl," I mumble to myself.
"That sounds like a lot of work," Andrew blurted out.
"But worth it in the long run," I added.
"You have nothing to worry about, even if they fuck around," Aphrodite said trying to reassure me, "Your bond is tighter than her snatch."
"I'm dead bitch," Andrew laughed. "You have to pick a side and stick with it. Are you on this guy's side or are you on Hercules' side?"
"Of course I'm on... " she trailed off, "Don't tell me. It's uhmm... you look like a Paul? No. Matthew. No, it's Gareth! Gareth."
"Damon," I said making a mental note.
"You're a mess," Andrew chimed in.
"Why do you keep changing it!? You should just stay Theo-"
BBBOOOOMMMMM!
An explosion went off. It couldn't be far from here, it shook the entire Mansion to its core. Leo and I wasted no time teleporting outside. We quickly scanned the campus. "Over there," Leo pointed to the apartment building.
"Shit," I knew only one person that lived over there.
Cecilia.
Please let it be a gas line explosion. Please let it be a gas line explosion.
We immediately teleported to the rubble. Black smoke covered the area making it impossible to see or breathe. Old nails fell and glass cut through the air. Wood of all sizes rained down on us, "We need put it out," I said pulling at the center of the flames trying to suffocate it out.
"Let me worry about that. People could be hurt on the inside," Leo said trying to bend what little water was in the air onto the fire.
But before I could even take a step forward, the black smoke started to move and pull the fire back with it. There was an eerie silence that followed the dying flames, "Did you do that?" I said turning to face Leo.
"No," he said, just as shocked as I was. We weren't the only people here. I didn't know any one person capable of putting out a whole apartment building. The only thing that remained was a thick cloud of black smoke.
I heard a scream behind me. I turned to see Aphrodite taking a knee with her hand over her heart. Her head bowed low.
A scream ripped through the silence. It made my hairs on the back of my neck stand straight. It was the loudest, most piercing scream I had ever heard, like a scream of wild panic. A scream of hysteria, pain, and disbelief, bordering on terror.
"Freya?" I heard metal bending as her screaming continued. I ran blindly into the smoke following her voice. Poisonous smoke filled my lungs and burned my eyes. Choking, I still moved forward. I could barely breathe and even though I had only taken a few steps into the smoke, I was confused. I couldn't pinpoint exactly where Freya's screams were coming from. I stumbled forward keeping one arm around my nose while the other was outstretched to guild me. I tried to light my hand on fire only for it to immediately burnout. It was as if there was no oxygen in this cloud of smoke, "Freya! Freya!"
She wasn't even supposed to be here! How did she get in?!
The more I stumbled around in the rubble, the softer Freya's voice became until it died out completely with a whimper. I stopped as fear took over my body. "Freya?"
Silence.
It was unnatural, void, thick and heavy, interlaced with the stench of death. Sadness flowed through my veins and deadened my mind. It was a poison to my spirit, dulling me like a flowing river, cold and unending. It washed all the goodness out of me and left me as a mere shell. My heart dropped into my stomach, "Freya... " the smoke slowly started to disappear, and a man's silhouette came into view. I rushed towards him only to find that the smoke seemed to pool around him. A breeze kicked in, pushing the smoke away, and as the first beams of sunlight came in, I saw her. Limp, beaten, covered in blood in the man's arms. He started to walk away.
"Hey! Hey!" I sprinted forward screaming. Each step I took the world around me started to change, but I didn't care. The only thing I focused on was Freya, who was quickly disappearing from view, until I ran full force into Anson.
"The fuck is going on?" He said pushing me away. I didn't have time to question what was going on, I had lost sight of Freya.
"Cecilia! Cecilia!" I heard Alaric yelled just as panicked as I was.
"I didn't do anything! Let me go!" Aphrodite complained.
The more I looked around, the more I started to realize everyone was here: Milo, Leo, Bash, Ezra, Callan, Daniel, and Lucas. This was our team, minus Hercules.
As the smoke started to clear, it became more evident we were not at Haven anymore. I wasn't sure we were even on Earth. We stood in the foyer of a grand castle covered in ethereal Onyx marble. The flying buttresses overhead, alongside black chandeliers that gave only a flickering amount of light. There were six large stone pillars evenly spaced to keep the castle standing. Each one was elegantly carved. And in the far distance I heard a woman singing a melancholy song. Marching passed the stairs I followed the song, "Leo stay with Ezra," I was on a mission.
"We should stick-"
Milo was cut off by Aphrodite, "Get back here!" I ignored her. I moved through the dark hallway with my hand on the wall to guide me forward.
She teleported in front of me, "Don't be stupid-"
"Where are we?" Anson said curious somehow in front of me.
"Fuck where we are! Where is Cecilia?!" Alaric said pushing pass both of us.
"Doesn't matter if you find her and we don't know where we're at," Daniel said coming up behind us too followed by Ezra and Leo.
"None asked you," Alaric snapped.
"Guys, seriously, we just need to go back in the waiting area and hope we haven't pissed off our kidnapping host," Aphrodite's said going back to the foyer.
"And who are you?" Anson said with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Someone with enough common sense to know we're not supposed to be here. You know what happens to gods that come to the Primordial Void. They don't come back to the light of the universe ever again. You guys aren't important, but I am the Goddess of love. Do you know what happens to a world without love?"
"Whoever you're trying to pretend to be is not working. Isn't the Goddess supposed to be a traditional bombshell blonde with hair, blue eyes?" Anson said rolling his eyes as Ezra pulled at Leo who ignored him.
"First of all, fuck you! I can be any ethnicity I want to! I am a God born of Zeus, king of the Gods, and Dione the first mother goddess. You disrespectful little-"
Ezra ran up to Alaric who immediately gave him his attention, as he pointed forward, "And who the fuck are you?"
That caught everyone's attention as we all stared down the hallway to see, "My lord, I rarely associate myself with Descendants and beg not to be punished for their insolence and rudeness," Aphrodite's said to the person at the end of the hall who none of us could make out. Throwing up her hands, she quickly started to make her way back to the foyer.
"I know," the voice said. I had heard it before, but I couldn't place it, "You are as Zeus made you," the man stated calmly making her freeze in her step. "Just as the world has made them."
"And you would be?" Leo asked.
"The first, the Gap, the origin of everything, the empty, unfathomable space at the beginning of time, The Gaping Void, Chaos," he said as tea light candles appeared on the ground, flickering dimly. He stepped forward slowly, "Do any of you know why demigods were created?"
"Because the Gods like reproducing like rabbits. What's your point?" Alaric interjected only to have Anson slap Alaric on the back of the head. If he didn't, I would have.
"That made them plentiful, but not the sole reason I created them. They were supposed to be deities beyond the spectrum of gods or humans. They were what the world needed at the time. Justice, kindness, courage, sacrifice, selflessness and leadership. Morals the world forgets sometimes, things the gods have forgotten to be. When you all were children, you were inspired by stories of knights, cartoons, super men, and courageous people who did wonderful things and changed the world around them. They were your heroes. You looked up to them, admired them. Weren't you inspired by their courage and hoped you could grow up brave and strong? Weren't you thrilled by their exploits and their charisma?" He stopped only a few feet in front of us still covered in darkness. "Out of me came some of my most precious creations. My children may have made all of this possible, but I believed man would make it better. Whole. But you didn't. You all are as petty as the gods you idolize."
"And who are you to judge the will of Zeus? The Gods protect those that protect themselves. You talk of heroes when you've done nothing worthy of critique," Aphrodite's said in a challenging tone, "I give love and beauty to an ugly and harsh world. I find love for the loveless. And watched as their kind killed my daughters."
"You could have done something. But by Zeus's decree you let your children die. You all did. And no one questioned why. You are as much to blame as anyone else that stands in this hall."
"Including you," Aphrodite barked in a tone I had never heard from her before. "My king fights for the good of Olympus."
"Yes, I waited too long to interfere, and now we're all about to pay the price. I will forever hold that burden. But I won't pass it to the next generation. The last two will not die in this war Zeus started."
"Zeus didn't start this, Nyx did," she placed her hand on the wall and faded right through it, disappearing from view.
Words left me. Not Alaric, "That's all good and fine. But I'm looking for a girl I think you may have kidnapped. Cecilia Green? Stands about this tall, brown hair, big blue eyes- "
"You know the one with no abilities," Anson mumbled ready to start a fight with Alaric.
"Go fuck yourself. Aren't you with some plain ass human chick?" Alaric said storming passed Anson with Ezra on his heel.
"What did you do to Freya?" I demanded. I knew I should never raise my voice to a god, but at the same time, I needed to know what happened to her.
"Cecilia is having her eye looked at and Freya is a little worse. She's in Gaia's Healing Waters. Only The Fates know if she will make it. That is why I brought you all here." He said stepping forward into the light.
You've got to be fucking kidding me.
"It's time for you all to start acting like a team, fully united around each other. Because if Freya never wakes up, it may be you that has to step up to stop this crisis," Gareth said.