Michael POV
I was woken up by someone opening the door I was leaning on. I almost tumbled out but my seatbelt caught me. Good thing I had picked up that habit.
I was hanging upside down and frowning at Lee, who was laughing at me. I hauled myself upright and shook Bianca awake.
"What?" she mumbled.
"Where are we, Lee?" I asked.
"Knoxville, Tennessee." He answered.
"We drove all that way?"
"Yup. Dad didn't stop for anything."
"Sounds fun."
"And we slept through that?" Bianca asked, sitting up and smoothing out her hair.
"The whole time since we had switched," Lee said. "Dad didn't sleep at all. I did for a couple of hours but Dad kept driving."
"Why'd we stop?"
"We're filling up before heading to Nashville," Lee said. "Dad says he feels something powerful there. So we are going to follow it."
"Sounds dangerous," I said. "Let's do it."
I unbuckled the seatbelt and hopped out of the car. I closed the door after Bianca had crawled out, and looked around. We were at a gas station and dad was filling up the car. He smiled at us.
"Someone's finally up," he smirked. "How was your nap?"
I stretched, popping my back, and said, "It was nice. You weren't overly loud for once." I stretched my arms out. "I'm sure you and Lee had a fun time conversing. Especially after you were stopped by the police."
I smirked as he paled. "You know about that?" he asked. I shook my head.
"It was a guess, and a pretty good one, it seems," I said. "You better not have lost my car anything. And what were you stopped for?"
"Speeding."
"Should've seen that coming," I muttered. "Doesn't matter. How far away is Nashville?"
"Almost an hour, depending on traffic," he answered.
"Nice," I said. "I'm going to use the bathroom and grab some drinks from the store." I walked off to do my business.
Once I was done in the bathroom, I was looking through the drinks in the store. I was deciding between soda and Gatorade when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whirled around, ready for a fight. But it was only Bianca.
"You scared me, B," I breathed. "What's up?"
"I ditched Lee and Apollo to come see you," she said. She propped her head on my shoulder. I felt her hand intertwine with mine. "It's hard keeping this a secret when all I want to do is be with you."
I smiled. "Well, since you're here, what do you want to drink?" She reached into the cooler holding all the drinks and dragged out a soda. "Cool. I'll get this one." I grabbed a different type of soda, and then two others for dad and Lee. We walked up to the counter to pay. I took out the necessary money and then we were walking out of the store, holding two drinks each. I handed one to dad while Bianca handed the other to Lee.
"Who's driving?" Lee asked. I eyed dad.
"Do you want to keep going?" I questioned. "You know where we are going, not me."
Dad's blue eyes slid to mine. "I'll drive," he said. And that was that.
We reached Nashville in under an hour, and the sky was beginning to darken.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"One of the only places that have to do with Greek mythology in Nashville," dad answered. "The Parthenon."
"Doesn't that have a copy of the Athena Parthenos?" Lee asked. "Travis was telling me the other day that Annabeth had to look for that during the Giant War."
"Es definitely a copy," I said. "The real thing is hidden in Rome. I've seen the real one. It's menacing, to be honest."
"Athena is menacing," dad commented. "And Nike is an annoying B-list goddess."
"That's a little rude," I said crossly. "What'd she do to you?"
"She's one of the ones who started those cursed games," he explained. "The Olympics. Named after Olympus because mortals wanted their own, I guess. Or they wanted demigods to compete to see who was the best. The whole thing was a mistake, either way. Too much bloodshed for me and Artemis."
"Bet Ares loved it," I said.
"He was one of the Romans' patron gods. The other being Jupiter, or Zeus."
"Where's Hestia in all this?" Bianca asked. "Or my father?"
"Hestia was...downsized because of the Romans," dad explained carefully. "Vesta was never a big part of the Romans. She was mainly prayed to by the wives who cared about their families. In Greece, every house had a hearth in honor of her. Family was important to the Greeks—still is, for the most part. Hades...his Roman name is Pluto. He's an outcast of the gods, only feared by the Romans. But he's at least worshipped more the Poseidon, or Neptune. The Romans feared the sea, for some reason. They aren't the brightest bunch."
"And Greeks are?" Lee asked.
"Athenian and Spartan strategies won wars," I argued. "You've seen the Athena children plan with the Ares and Apollo cabins. The Romans are all logic and fact, except for when it comes to their mythology. They need someone in charge to fight. With us Greeks, someone could just shout, 'let's fight stuff' and we'd be good to go. I always disagreed with Jason about this. He thinks the Greeks have no plans whatsoever, but I think that we Greeks are better strategists than the Romans. I might be a little biased, though."
"No, I think you are right." Dad helped me. "In that final battle against Gaea, as Hermes tells me, Percy literally said, 'let's fight stuff' and every Greek immediately understood what to do. The Romans needed Reyna to shout orders at them for them to know what to do. They need their centurions."
"So Greeks are better?" Bianca summed up.
"The Greeks have been around longer and have more experience," dad corrected. "Neither is better in every way like the Roman think they are."
We stayed quiet until we found the Parthenon. Dad parked the car and we waited until it was closed. Then we filed out and looked up at the building.
"The original is better," dad muttered before walking up. Lee and I shared a look before following with Bianca.
We snuck inside and began to look around for any clues. I stopped to stare at the Athena Parthenos, which dominated the room we were in. I walked over to it and checked it out. I walked around it in circles, looking it up and down. Eventually, I decided to climb it to see if there was anything we couldn't see without a bird's eye view. I crouched on top of her crown/helmet thing and looked around.
"Anything interesting?" I heard a voice say from beside me. I shrieked and accidentally jumped off the statue. Smooth, huh? I didn't think so.
"Shit!" I screamed as I plummeted downwards. I grunted when I hit something soft and plastic-y. It disappeared from underneath me and I hit the ground with a louder grunt. I stared up at who had scared me off of the statue.
It was a boy with white hair. He was wearing pure white clothes, which was unusual. He disappeared, seemingly melting into the statue, only to walk out of the statue a couple of seconds later.
"Who are you?" I heard Lee ask from behind me. He must've had a bow out and an arrow notched because the new kid raised his hands and stepped back.
He opened his mouth but before he could speak a whirlwind of snow flew through the hall. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to snow in Tennessee, but I've never been here before so I had no idea.
Another guy, about 14 looking, appeared. This one had black hair, in contrast to his pale skin, and icy blue eyes. He wore a fuzzy jacket with jeans and boots. He had no weapon but held his hands out in front of him threateningly.
"Don't fire," I told them all as I stood up. "Who are you, kids?"
"Why should we tell you?" The black haired kid challenged.
"I'm Michael," I said. I gestured to the others as I introduced them, "This is Lee, Bianca, and Will." I faked dad's real name as to not freak them out. "Lee put your bow down. Now." He hesitated but listened. I turned back to the two young kids. "Now, who are you two?"
"I'm Luca," the white-haired kid said. "And this is Theodoric, Theo for short."
"Nice to meet you, Luca and Theo." Bianca smiled. "What are you doing here at this time of night?"
"We could ask you the same thing," Theo shot back.
"To put it simply," Lee said, "we are looking for a goddess." They stared at him.
"Which one?" Luca asked. He seemed to be the nicer one of the pair.
"You don't seem to be surprised that we are looking for a goddess," dad stressed the last word. "Those are typically myths."
"Well, a lot of 'myths' have tried to kill us," Theo snarled. "A big guy with a spear and a lady with a spear and shield almost obliterated a park a few days ago with their fighting. Luckily, Luca and I worked with a few other people like us to get everyone out and minimize the damage. In the end, the guy with the spear won and took the lady and disappeared off of the face of the earth."
"Wait, other people like you?" I inquired. "Can you lead us to them?" Luca and Theo shared a look.
"Wyatt will have a fit," Theo said.
"But Brooklyn would be delighted." Luca finished with a small smile. "Come on, it'll be a walk." They walked past us, Theo eyeing us, and began to lead us out of the building. Lee and Bianca followed but dad caught my arm before I could as well.
"What?" I asked.
"Do you know who their parents are?" Dad whispered. I shook my head. "Khione for Theo and Melinoe for Luca. Melinoe is the goddess of ghosts, which explains why he was able to almost phase through the statue. And Khione—"
"Is the goddess of snow, which explains the blizzard," I finished. "That's certainly new."
"It also means the other gods and goddesses that didn't usually have kids are," he whispered. "That's very dangerous."
"Or advantageous." I corrected. "Just let me work my charm." I strolled away before he could say anything.
We easily caught up with the others. Lee and Luca were talking adamantly while Bianca walked behind them silently. Theo was leading the group stoically.
After ten minutes, we reached a run-down building. Theo took out a key before unlocking the door and walking inside.
"Delightful, really," I muttered as I held the door open for everyone. I had moved up and walked beside Theo most of the way.
"Be nice," Bianca hissed as she passed. I rolled my eyes before closing the door behind me and dad. We stood in the entryway, waiting for an invitation.
Luca appeared from behind a door a minute later. "Come in," he said. "We're all ready." He opened the door and we all shuffled into the room, which I supposed was a living room, only to be greeted by seven kids, including Theo and Luca.
"Introduce yourselves," Luca encouraged us.
I cleared my throat and said, "I am Michael. This is Bianca, Lee, and Will. It is a pleasure to meet you all."
"The honor is all mine," said a skinny but tall guy with bright blond hair and unsettling, ruby red eyes. "I am Wyatt. This is Brooklyn," he gestured to a girl with black hair, colored with purple highlights, and calm, golden eyes, "Alexia," an innocent looking girl with dark hair, tan skin, bright, amber colored eyes, and pink-colored makeup, "Nora," another girl with blonde hair, hers shiny and smooth, with bright, yellowish-orange eyes, "and Everett." Everett had short cut dark hair and his eyes were clear. Not clear in the sense that we could see through them, but in the sense that we could see the pupil, and the outline of the iris, but no irises. Almost white, I suppose.
"Quick question: do you know what you are?" Dad asked.
They all shared looks before Alexia said, "I guess we don't. Enlighten us?" She batted her eyelashes at him.
"You're demigods," he said bluntly. "I've been told that you have seen mythological creatures and deities already. Do you know what Pantheon they are from?"
"Greek?" Everett guessed.
"Correct," I said before dad could say anything else. "And since you are demigods, you each have a godly parent. Would you like to know who?" They all nodded. "Will, would you like to tell them?"
"Sure," he agreed. He pointed at Wyatt, "You are a son of Momus, the god of mockery," he pointed at Brooklyn, "you are the daughter of Astraeus, the Titanness of dusk," he pointed at Alexia, "you are the daughter of Astraea, the goddess of justice," he moved to Nora, "you are the daughter of Alectrona, the goddess of mornings," he pointed at Everett, "you are the son of Lelantos, the Titan of air and the unseen," he pointed at the two boys who led us here, "you, Theo, are the son of Khione, the goddess of snow and blizzards, and Luca, you are the son of Melinoe, the goddess of ghosts." They stared at us.
"No wonder Alexia is always so law-abiding," Nora muttered.
"And no wonder you're always up so early," Alexia shoved her playfully.
"Aren't the Titans the bad guys?" Everett asked.
"Some, yes," Lee answered. "But one of our friends is the son of a Titan, and we trust him."
"There are more of us?" Brooklyn breathed. I nodded.
"A camp full," I told her. "You all can come back with us. We can protect you and keep you safe."
"No," Wyatt said immediately.
"Wyatt—" Brooklyn tried.
"I said, no." he snarled. "We barely know these people, how can we be sure that they aren't lying?"
"How about the fact that I'm the son of the god of truth," Lee suggested. "Son of Apollo, god of truth, the sun, archery, and prophecy. I can tell truth from lie, and I can tell you that we aren't lying. I swear on the River Styx that we can protect you at our camp." Thunder boomed.
"A promise on the River Styx is the best way to make a promise," I explained. "If you break it, or are lying, the river will claim your soul and kill you." Wyatt still seemed reluctant.
"Where is this camp?" Nora asked.
"New York," Bianca said. "It's home to some of the best people alive. It's basically a summer camp. Some stay year-round, some go back to their homes at the end of each summer. At the end of each summer, you get a bead to put on a necklace to mark how many years you've been going." She pulled out her own, which had one bead with a carving of Thalia's pine tree on it. Lee pulled his out of his shirt, showing off three beads.
"We don't wish for more demigods to die," dad said truthfully. "And we don't want any going over to the other side."
"'Other side'?" Theo raised his brow.
"An enemy of the gods who wants nothing but the destruction of the world is rising," I explained. "He's persuasive and will kill whoever doesn't join his side. It doesn't matter if you stay out of this war or not," I added as Wyatt opened his mouth. "He and his goons will hunt all demigods down. They'll make a game out of it. And even if it pains me to admit it, we need all the help we can get. We can help you train and learn to protect yourself."
"We've done a good job of that already," Alexia remarked.
"Alexia," Luca hissed. She gave him an apologetic look. He turned to us expectantly.
"I'm sure you have," I continued. "But it won't last forever. I heard that you helped people get away from the battle between two deities. That's very admirable. But what if you had to fight one of them? One of them is a Titan who is not afraid to kill you. The other is a goddess who is skilled in battle. I'm sure you could hold your own against monsters, and maybe even a lower level Titan or minor god together, but what if a Titan like Krios or Iapetus comes sniffing?" They looked unsure, even Wyatt. "I am confident that you are all powerful in your own right, and even better together, but with all the other demigods back at our camp, you can become even stronger. I am not sure if you have any siblings, but I'm sure a lot of the older campers would love to help you figure out your powers. Luca, Bianca here could help you with yours. She's a daughter of Hades, the king of the underworld. Nora, my friend is a son of Aether, the god of light and upper air. He can help you figure out your powers. So can Lee. Wyatt, the children of Aphrodite have this thing called charmspeak. You might have it as well. And the Ares cabin can help you train better. We all can. What do you say?"
They looked at each other. Then Brooklyn looked to me.
"I hear you're looking for a goddess," she said with a bright smile. "Care for some help?"