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Chapter Text

“Milord, we have some… discomforting news,” Clotho told me, having approached me at my palace. Which was unusual, to say the least. The Fates normally didn’t leave their spinning room unless I called for them. For one of them to come to my palace of their own accord was unheard of. 

“What is it?” I asked. I wasn’t so foolish as to ignore Fate, unlike some other members of my family. They always ended up on my side in the end, even in cases like with the supposedly undying Frank, who the Fates ensured died just after my wife attempted to save him, in order to drive home how futile it was to go against my orders, how they carried the weight of Fate. 

Of course it appeared that Frank had made some miraculous recovery, but I knew better. It was only a matter of time until the impostor made themself known. 

But why would Frank’s thread be intact, and glowing gold–

A trick, obviously. It had to be. 

I shook my head. Best to concentrate on the problem in front of me. The impostor was a demigod problem, not a godly one.

“I believe it would be best to show you,” Clotho said. “Our spinning room has been rendered… inaccessible.”

Inaccessible? For one of the FATES?!

The room with every living being’s threads?

The one with even godly threads?

I wasted no time teleporting to the room, or at least, to the entrance of it. I could not teleport inside, though thankfully opening the door was still possible. Stepping through the doorway was not.

Looking at it, I saw why. Sickly purple gas coiled around the room, much like the serpent I was certain was responsible for this. While such gas wouldn’t do much more than irritate a god such as myself, the fact that it was winding through this room showed Python’s claim over it, over the future. I could not step foot in another god’s domain without their permission, and now, that included even the Fates’ room.

“We cannot enter the room either, Milord,” Clotho said, her sisters Lachesis and Atropos joining her from wherever they’d gone off too. I did not make a habit of keeping track of what they liked to do in their downtime, I spent only as much time around them as I had to. A tendril of dread always curled around my stomach when I was around them, especially Atropos. 

“Clear the room. Reclaim your domain,” I told them, turning to leave. If I commanded it, they’d find a way to do it. That’s how it always worked. Even if the other gods protested, they always found some way to do what was required, despite their whining beforehand about how hard it would be.

“We cannot,” I heard Clotho say. “I am afraid that is down to Apollo.”

“Oh?” I turned back. 

“Prophecy is Apollo’s domain,” Clotho stated. “Python’s influence has been able to seep in due to his residency in Delphi, and Apollo’s current lack of dominion over his usual godly duties. In order to free Fate from Python’s coils, Apollo will have to reclaim Delphi.”

I nodded. “I see.”

Apollo failing at completing his duties allowed Python to reassert his claim over Delphi to begin with. It made sense Apollo would have to clean up his own mess. This was simply another trial he’d have to pass if he wished to be a god again. No one could fault me for not interfering in his struggles – the Fates themselves had decreed that he’d have to be the one to retake Delphi. 

If he actually succeeded at doing so, then surely he would have been appropriately humbled by then. The Fates would not allow him to reclaim godhood unless he’d demonstrated sufficient deference towards those above him and a commitment to fulfilling his duties. 

This was just another way the Fates had arranged for Apollo to be tested. 

In the morning, I headed to the Throne room, as usual. Hopefully Apollo and Meg made progress towards returning to New York and thus, to entering Nero’s tower soon. I was getting tired of watching them slowly traipse across the United States. 

At least it shouldn’t be too long now. They’d made it to Washington, D.C. after all. They only had a couple hundred miles left to go.

An amphisbaena in a suit boarded the train with Apollo and Meg. They were pretty alarmed at the development. The amphisbaena seemed too dead inside to notice or care.

At least, I assumed that until the snake stared directly at Apollo, its four eyes all glowing yellow. 

Meg continued to insist that the snake was just sitting there nonthreateningly, not doing anything.

“I’m surprised that Meg, of all people, is the one insisting on restraint,” Athena commented, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m not,” Hermes said. “He’s always been unfairly prejudiced against snakes, he’s even nervous around George and Martha, and they wouldn’t hurt a fly! I mean sure, if Python was a RAT, that’d be a different story. It’s so unfair, just because Python’s a snake, doesn’t mean all snakes are evil. Most of them don’t even like the guy.”

Meg ordered Apollo not to start a fight. Which Apollo seemed set on circumventing by wandering close enough for the amphisbaena to make the first strike, as he promptly walked down the train corridor, strolling right by it.

The snake promptly attacked, wrapping his fake arm around Apollo’s wrist, preventing him from moving.

“Seems that Apollo’s instincts were right after all,” Hephaestus observed. 

“I don’t know about that…” Hermes mused, taking in the scene. “If he’d wanted to hurt or kill Apollo, there were a lot more effective ways he could’ve accomplished that. I think something else is going on.”

“You believe a random amphisbaena simply wanted to have a chat with a wandering teenager?” Athena asked. 

Hermes simply hummed.

“The son of Hades, cavern-runners friend,” the amphisbaena hissed.

“Must show the secret way unto the throne. On Nero’s own your lives do now depend.”

“Of course! That makes sense,” Hermes exclaimed. “As a snake, an amphisbaena is naturally aligned with the prophetic domain. He must’ve been compelled to deliver the prophecy to Apollo!”

I narrowed my eyes. That seemed likely, yet… this snake was not an Oracle, as far as I was aware. He shouldn’t have any natural tie to prophecy at all. 

Was Python’s hold over prophecy so overwhelming, it was spilling out from him and into all of snakekind, even against his will? Or…

I examined Apollo. He looked as mortal as ever, and yet… could he have induced the snake to spit out a prophecy? Even with Python’s hold over Delphi?

It shouldn’t be possible. But little of what Apollo had done should’ve been possible.

Perhaps this was just a favor the Fates had arranged for Apollo in order to get him to Python as quickly as possible.

 Yes, that seemed right. They’d done something similar in order to allow Leo to obtain the Physician’s Cure, compelling Nike to tell Leo exactly what he needed in order to make it. They simply wanted to make sure Apollo got his shot at dislodging Python before his takeover became complete.

Of course, Apollo’s success would still hinge on him learning his lesson. But there were ways of having him succeed at defeating Python, or at least freeing prophecy from his grip, without earning the right to become a god again. They both could perish in the struggle. 

That may be why Apollo’s godly power was leaking into him – so that he stood a fighting chance against the beast, enough to slay him, even if it wasn’t necessarily enough for Apollo himself to survive. 

How foolish I was not to see it earlier! The Fates had arranged everything to work out as it should, as they always did. I had nothing to worry about.

Everything would be fine.

“I do not like the sound of that prophecy,” Hades grumbled. “Nico’s been through enough.”

I didn’t particularly like it either. Hades’ children had been far too involved in events from the past few years for my liking. But there was no quarreling with Fate. Things would always work out in the end.

The amphisbaena broke out of his trance, worrying about his wife being upset at his missing his stop, getting back home late. He was saved from that particular worry via getting dusted by a couple of crossbow bolts to the necks from a nearby Germanus.

As the camera turned, it became clear that the snake was not the only target. A different Germanus had a sword to Meg’s throat.

The crossbow shooter, a hulking woman who Meg seemed to recognize, calling her “Luguselwa,” motioned for Apollo to come over to her, or she’d shoot him as well.

“Yes, sapling,” Luguselwa responded to Meg, “now put away your weapons before Gunther is obliged to chop off your head.”

“How dare she!” Demeter seethed. “How dare she threaten Meg and then have the sheer gall to use such an intimate, precious, and sacred nickname as ‘sapling’ with her! The impudence!”

“I think Meg has bigger things to worry about right now,” Hermes pointed out.

Chapter Text

Who did this “Luguselwa” person think she was?! Getting so familiar with my daughter while threatening her, souring what should be a sacred, affectionate nickname. I bet she didn’t even garden!

Lu stated that Gunther, who was apparently the Germanus currently holding my daughter at swordpoint, loved decapitating people, so they should play nice. 

“Lu, why?” Meg asked, sounding betrayed. 

There was definitely some history between this “Lu” person and my daughter…

“Do you remember what I taught you about duty, Sapling?” Lu asked.

“Yes,” Meg replied after a moment. Her voice sounded thick.

I bristled. That nickname again. And the way Meg sounded when talking with her… I wanted to make “Lu’s” clothing erupt into cotton burrs. If I was lucky she’d be wearing cotton underwear instead of that nasty synthetic stuff…

But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t. I’d prefer not to get stuck to my throne like Artemis had been. Sure Zeus may have freed her eventually, but I’d rather not go through that predicament. Some of my crops would die if I wasn’t able to tend to them for a week.

Apollo seemed as leery of Lu as I was, a rare point of kinship between us. But Meg stopped him from attempting to fight back, not that he stood much chance without her taking the lead.

The Germani allowed Meg and Apollo to reclaim their gear, which seemed awfully overconfident of them. 

Lu told the two of them to head to the exit, where others were waiting, whatever that meant.

Before they could enter the next car, Lu told Gunther to check the bathroom for infiltrators. While he was gone, Lu quietly talked to Meg and Apollo. “When we go through the tunnel to New York, you will both ask to use the toilet.”

Athena raised an eyebrow. “Lu may not be as firmly on Nero’s side as it first appeared,” 

“She still shouldn’t be calling Meg ‘Sapling’,” I grumbled. As her mother, I should have the sole privilege of bestowing such a nickname.

Gunther returned, confirming there was no ambush waiting in the restroom.

Lu herded the two of them into the next car. She ordered them to sit at a certain window booth. As they waited, she informed them that surrendering had been the right choice. Every passage into Manhattan had Nero’s forces covering it. They were always gonna be caught.

I scoffed. “So? Meg would simply bust through whatever forces Nero sent. She really thinks his pitiful soldiers could stop her?”

“Meg and Apollo could likely find some weak point to enter the city,” Athena conceded. “But doing so undetected would be another matter. They’d risk being swarmed.”

“My daughter would find a way out regardless!” I boasted. 

Athena didn’t bother to retort. She obviously knew what I said was true.

“So how is it YOU’RE the one who found us, Lu? Just luck?” she almost sounded hopeful.

“I know you, Sapling. I know how to track you. There is no luck.”

Who did this woman think she was, speaking to my daughter in such a familiar way, and even acting like she knew her! Not just casually, but as if she knew how she thought! If I was down there I’d give her a piece of my mind!

Meg and Apollo both said they needed to pee, as per Lu’s instructions. Lu made sure to remind Apollo to grab his gear before heading to the bathroom, which still seemed strange. Most villains confiscated the heroes’ weaponry instead of reminding them to take it. Then again, Meg was doing most of the work anyway, Apollo just might not seem like that much of a threat in comparison to the inconvenience of needing to haul around his stuff.

Once Lu, Meg, and Apollo were out of sight of the others, she had Meg run off while ordering Apollo to block the door and decouple the coaches.

More importantly, however, was Lu’s sudden summoning of swords, her lunging at my daughter.

“I KNEW IT!” I shouted. “I KNEW SHE WAS A VILLAIN! SHE’S TRYING TO KILL MEG!” Not that she’d succeed, not against my daughter.

“That looks more like sparring to me,” Athena observed.

I scoffed. “Really? Sparring? NOW, of all times? While trying to escape?”

“I doubt it’s just for training’s sake,” Athena said. “The walls in the train aren’t exactly soundproof, it’d be suspicious if there wasn’t some sort of fighting going on. This allows them to pretend that there’s an actual battle happening. But it doesn’t seem like either Lu or Meg are trying to hurt each other.”

“Hmm. True. If Meg wanted Lu injured, then she would’ve wounded her already,” I mused.

Apollo looked around, searching for something. Eventually, he found it – a hinged metal flap in the floor Lu had kicked open, exposing what I was guessing was the coupling beneath it.

He shot the coupling. The first shot missed, the second shot connected but didn’t do anything except bounce off, which made sense given that it was metal, but the third shot broke it. Just in time too, as the Germani broke through the door. They could do nothing however, as their section of the train sped away, leaving Lu, Meg, and Apollo in the dust. 

“Took you long enough, Lester,” Lu said, verbally jabbing at him. “Now let’s move before my men come back. You two just went from ‘capture alive’ to ‘proof of death is acceptable.’”

“I’m not sure why they even bother trying to capture alive anymore,” Hermes said. “That might be possible with Apollo, but Meg? She’s not usually one to give up. Plus she always has her plant teleportation power.”

“Nero may be hoping that Meg would surrender more easily to him, since he’s played himself up as being her guardian,” Athena noted.

I grit my teeth. That horrible, awful man… I hoped Meg would make him reap what he’d sowed.

Hermes’ mention of Meg’s supposed plant teleportation power reminded me – if Meg was in a pinch and out of sight of Hestia’s screen, I could always save her myself. Well, so long as a plant was around. I needed to keep up the ruse of my children having that power. Even for Meg’s sake, I couldn’t afford to expose the truth. Not if I wanted to be able to help my future children.

Even as Apollo followed Lu along the tunnels, he was still confused over whether they were her prisoners or not.

“Dense for a god, isn’t he?” Lu asked Meg.

“You have no idea.”

Athena snorted. “If she was still acting as their captor, she wouldn’t have tried to separate from all the other Germani. Mind you, this could still be a ruse of some sort, with Lu pretending to be on their side so as to better keep an eye on them. The best way to stop captives from escaping is to make it so they never realize they’re captives at all. It’s what I’d do.”

I clenched my fists. If Lu tried that with Meg, I’d– I’d–

Well I didn’t know what I’d do, but she’d regret her actions.

“I knew you weren’t bad,” Meg glomped Lu.

“Hmm,” Lu patted her shoulder. “I’m plenty bad, Sapling. But I’m not going to let Nero torture you anymore. Let’s keep moving.”

“Oh, but you were fine with Nero torturing her before?!” Honestly the NERVE of this woman!

“To be fair, it can’t be easy to slip out of Nero’s grasp, and the consequences of failure are quite steep,” Athena noted. “She may not have had an opportunity before this that seemed safe enough. Even if she was willing to risk herself, she may not have been willing to risk Meg.”

“Just a few minutes ago, you proposed Lu was faking this whole thing! Now you think she’s had Meg’s safety at heart this entire time?!” Honestly, what was Athena playing at?

“Wisdom means considering all the options,” she replied calmly. “I think both her duping them and her being completely sincere are both plausible right now. I will re-evaluate which I think is more plausible, or even look at a new option entirely, when I have more information to go on.”

I rolled my eyes. Athena with her “evidence” and “information” – all just an excuse for her wishy washiness. I already knew what I thought of Lu.

Apollo and Meg continued to follow Lu through the subway tunnels, with her supposedly leading them around Nero’s search grid.

Lu noticed Apollo’s hesitance towards her. “Apollo, if I wanted you dead, you’d already be dead.”

I snorted. “And if, say, you wanted to bring him and Meg back to Nero alive?”

“Judging by how she’s suddenly sped up and not given him time to argue, I suspect she’s seen that particular hole in her argument,” Athena observed.

As Lu hesitated at a junction, Apollo concluded, “You don’t know where we’re going.”

“I told you. Away from the–”

“Search grid. Cameras. Yes. But where are we GOING?”

“Somewhere. Anywhere safe.”

“Of course she’s incompetent at being a traitor,” I muttered scornfully. 

“Do you mean traitor to Nero, or traitor to them?” Hermes asked, gesturing at the screen.

“Both! Neither. I don’t know, she just sucks,” I complained. 

“I think you might be a little biased,” Athena said, condescending as always. As if she didn’t have biases of her own. Always believing she was above the rest of us, so self-righteous, acting as if she’s the one god who’s totally logical. She’s more ruled by her emotions than half the council! She’s the reason our Roman and Greek children constantly tried to kill each other!

Luckily, Meg recognized a particular tile on the subway wall, which allowed her to lead the group to an exit. Of course I wasn’t surprised that my brilliant daughter was the one to guide them out, but it was always good to give a reminder to the other gods of how intelligent and perceptive she was.

A storm greeted them as they exited, thunder rumbling, lightning flashing, rain pouring down.

My eyes flickered to Zeus, along with the eyes of most of the gods in the room. 

“New York City was due for some rain,” he explained.

I nodded. “The dryads in Central Park were looking a little dry.”

Lu had an umbrella on hand, which she promptly pulled out to give herself and Meg shelter. Apollo, not so much.

“I walked right into that, didn’t I?” Apollo asked.

“Yep,” Meg replied.

“Yes, yes you did,” Ares snickered, Hermes joining him.

I was not so enthused. Perhaps those two simply found Apollo’s misfortune hilarious, but I could see the sinister plot beneath. Lu’d purposely brought along a too-small umbrella, all so she could keep herself and Meg dry and in good condition, while Apollo got sick from exposure to the elements, leaving herself as Meg’s only backup. A risky plan, but one that’d clearly paid off. No one else even seemed to realize the gravity of the situation!

Apollo attempted to protect himself from the rain via using his backpack as an umbrella, with very limited success.

Now they needed a place to regroup. All of Nero’s properties were off the table, as they’d be extensively monitored.

Apollo took the opportunity to question Lu some more about her motives. “So if you’re on our side, why all the pretending on the train? Why kill that amphisbaena? Why the charade about escorting us to the bathroom?”

“First of all, I’m on Meg’s side, don’t much care about you.”

I snorted. While that was fair, Meg was far more important than Apollo after all, I highly doubted she was on my daughter’s side either. Of course, it’s possible she was so brilliant that she even persuaded a Gaul to change allegiances, but I wasn’t ready to give Lu that much credit yet. She’d need to prove her devotion to Meg far more clearly than she’d done so far.

Lu explained that the monster would regenerate eventually, so killing him wasn’t a big deal. As for the pretending on the train, it helped sell her cover, that she was still out to get Apollo and Meg, meaning she might be able to go back to Nero and work as a spy against him. 

“Those are fair reasons,” Athena stated. “Ones which Apollo should have come up with on his own. Though it doesn’t eliminate the possibility that this is all a ruse to implant her as a spy in Meg and Apollo’s team.” 

Meg seemed to have some idea of where the three of them could go, with Apollo catching on as well, but not being happy with the idea. I was sure whatever plan Meg had was brilliant, Apollo just refused to see it.

He proposed asking the Arrow of Dodona what to do, pulling it out of his quiver.

“O great Arrow of Dodona–”

“Is he talking to that arrow?” Lu asked Meg.

“He talks to inanimate objects,” she replied. “Humor him.”

“Has she not figured out that the Arrow of Dodona genuinely can only be heard by my brother?” Artemis asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I think Meg’s just taking any chance she can to make fun of him,” Hermes responded.

I wasn’t so sure. It also served to help conceal the truth of Apollo’s abilities from Lu, making her think that Apollo was just being silly or stupid. Perhaps Meg didn’t trust Lu as much as she pretended to?

“We need your advice!” Apollo told the arrow. “Where should we go for shelter?”

Pause.

“Uh, yes. We need a place to hide out and regroup – somewhere nearby, but away from Nero’s surveillance cameras and whatnot.”

Pause.

Apollo grimaced, putting the arrow away in his quiver.

“What did it say?” Meg asked.

“Fine. We go to Percy Jackson’s place,” Apollo responded, sounding rather unhappy about the prospect.

“I don’t understand, he seemed happy there the first time,” Hermes commented.

“Well, I’d prefer he not go back there,” Poseidon declared. “Not with the target he has on his back. If Nero decides to target Sally’s home…”

“I suspect that’s the reason he doesn’t want to return,” Artemis mused. “He seems more aware of the risk to the people around him these days.”

Chapter Text

I had mixed feelings about Apollo returning to Sally’s home. 

On the one hand, I’d get to see her again. It’d been awhile since I’d done so, what with being cooped up here in the throne room for the past few months, and then immediately needing to put out (metaphorical) fires when I finally got to return to my undersea palace while Apollo slept. Seeing her again may also help to soothe pain from Incitatus’s untimely death. My glorious stallion may have been violently torn to shreds, but Sally, the most glorious of mortal women, was still very much alive.

On the other hand, she may not remain alive if Nero caught wind of Apollo taking shelter at her house. The idea of Sally being torn apart like my beloved Incitatus was… I wouldn’t be able to bear it.

The group arrived at Sally’s home, Apollo asking her whether Percy was there. Sally ushered them inside, explaining that Percy had gone with Annabeth to New Rome University. 

“Oh dear,” Apollo muttered. “I suppose that means they haven’t heard–”

Meg quickly covered up what he was about to say with a cough, and the two of them avoided explaining what Percy hadn’t heard, despite Sally’s curiosity over the matter.

I winced. Percy and Jason had been rather close, from what little I’d seen and heard of them. His death at Caligula’s hands, during a quest Percy had skipped out on, left for others to participate in… he’d have a lot of misplaced guilt over it, I was sure. 

At least he was with Annabeth. She was good at keeping my son centered.

Sally got the three of them fresh, dry clothes, and fed them some of her world-famous lasagna. For once, I was jealous of Apollo. I’d take being turned mortal for a few hours if it meant spending those hours in Sally’s house, eating her cooking.

Paul, Sally’s husband (who I’d covertly given a rather stern talking-to before he married Sally, to ensure he was worthy of her. She deserved only the best after everything she’d had to put up with), handed Apollo a T-shirt for the high school Percy’d graduated from, AHS. 

“What does AHS stand for?” Apollo asked.

“Alternative High School,” Paul replied, wrinkling his nose. “It was the only place that would take Percy for just his senior year after… You know.”

I turned to glare at Hera. 

She sniffed, looking away. “It’s just school! The fate of the world was at stake! I didn’t see anyone else coming up with any bright ideas for getting our children to not kill each other, at least long enough to put Grandma dearest back in the ground.”

“They nearly went to war because of your interference!” Zeus retorted sharply. “If you’d just left things be–”

“Then we’d all be faded by now!”

“HOLD YOUR TONGUE!” Thunder rumbled as Zeus bellowed.

Hera growled, but didn’t provoke my brother further.

I had not been fond of Hera kidnapping Percy, stealing his memory, upending his life, as had happened to my son far too often. But I couldn’t argue with the results. I doubted it was truly necessary to go as far as she did, but her plan did kind of work, until Gaea scuppered things at any rate. I wasn’t too angry at her as things stood, but if she tried to drag Percy into another quest without even giving him the possibility of saying no, she’d learn why you don’t want to upset the God of the Sea.

“You didn’t approve of the situation, or the school?” Apollo asked.

“I’m an English teacher at another high school,” Paul replied. “AHS was… not the best. For kids who are struggling, at risk, you want a safe place with good accommodations and excellent support. You want to understand each student as an individual. Alt High was more like a holding pen for everybody who didn’t fit into the system. Percy had been through so much… I was worried about him. But he made the best of the situation. He REALLY wanted to get that diploma. I’m proud of him.”

As was I. I’d surreptitiously attended Percy’s graduation myself. Personally, I didn’t care much whether my children graduated or not, the modern school system was a rather abstract concept to me. But it meant a lot to Percy, so it meant a lot to me as well. 

I was glad Percy’d gotten Paul as a stepfather. He’s a good man, and an excellent father. I had no worries about little baby Estelle’s upbringing. She’d be surrounded by some of the nicest, most devoted family you could ask for, and if anyone tried to harm her, Percy would turn them inside out.

“Paul… aren’t you worried about having us here?” Apollo ventured. “We might endanger your family.”

“I was at the Battle of Manhattan. I’ve heard about some of the horrible things Sally went through – fighting the Minotaur, being imprisoned in the Underworld. And Percy’s adventures?” He shook his head. “Percy has put himself on the line for us, for his friends, for the world, plenty of times. So, can I risk giving you a place to catch your breath, some fresh clothes, and a hot meal? Yeah, how could I not?”

“You are a good man, Paul Blofis.”

I had to agree with Apollo. While I’d met (and fathered) many heroes over the course of my life, the sort of kind, dependable types like Paul Blofis? Those who weren’t slaying minotaurs or defeating armies, but instead just helping whoever they could, however they could, even if it was risky, because people needed clean clothes, food, and a place to sleep? Those were some of the greatest heroes of all. It’s one of the reasons I’d been attracted to Sally, and I was glad she’d gotten a husband who matched her bravery and compassion.

Paul left, scooping Estelle up and taking her with him. Apollo, meanwhile, took his shower, which we were thankfully spared from watching.

Once Apollo was done, he tugged on Percy’s old shirt, joining Meg and Lu, who also had new clothing, in the dining area, where she’d laid out a nice spread of salad, lasagna, and garlic bread.

As they ate, Meg laid out the whole story of the adventures they’d had since they’d left the Jackson household all those months ago, though skipping over the more tragic deaths.

Paul wondered how they could defeat Nero, whether it’d be another full-scale clash of armies, like what happened during the Battle of Manhattan. Apollo didn’t want to ask that of Camp Half-Blood after seeing how Camp Jupiter had been decimated from fighting Caligula and Commodus. Lu shot it down more definitively, revealing that Nero’d planned for a full-scale assault from Camp Half-Blood, was hoping for it, even. That he’d cause massive collateral damage if they went that route.

“There has to be another way,” Apollo concluded. “I won’t let any more innocents suffer on my account.”

I raised an eyebrow. Apollo hadn’t exactly been shy about asking for help during his quest previously. Percy and Sally, Camp Half-Blood, the Waystation, Aeithales, Camp Jupiter – he’d had no qualms about approaching them. 

With how badly Camp Jupiter had been hit, though, it made sense he’d be more wary than he’d been before. Percy and Sally had gotten off scot-free, and while some of Apollo’s children were taken at Camp Half-Blood, ultimately no harm came to them. Same thing at the Waystation. As for Aeithales, while many dryads had suffered greatly, that didn’t appear to be directly connected to Apollo asking for help. Poor Crest though, would likely still be in the mortal world if he hadn’t chosen to sacrifice himself to save Apollo. Jason’s untimely fate, while less directly linked to Apollo, still likely would not have happened without Apollo’s presence.

Camp Jupiter had obviously been the most affected, though Apollo’s actual presence hadn’t factored into it much – it’d been decimated long before he arrived for other reasons. But I doubted it mattered much to Apollo, he didn’t want to see more people die.

“You’ve grown up,” Sally concluded. “The last time you were here, you were so lost. So… well, if you don’t mind me saying–”

“Pathetic, whiny, entitled, selfish,” Apollo finished for her. “I felt terribly sorry for myself.”

“You STILL feel sorry for yourself,” Meg pointed out. 

“But now, you’re more… human, I suppose,” Sally said.

“Thank you.”

Ares chortled. “He actually admitted how pathetic he is. In front of everyone!” He rubbed his hands together. “I’ll be rubbing this in his face for millennia!”

I was more concerned with Sally’s declaration of Apollo seeming more human, and Apollo sincerely thanking her for the observation, treating it like a compliment. I’d seen Apollo gradually change over the course of the past few months, becoming more… responsible I guess? Definitely less over-the-top and vapid, or at least dropping the appearance of being over-the-top and vapid. 

But more human? I wasn’t so sure. What did that even mean? It almost seemed like Sally and Apollo thought of being a god as a bad thing. 

I’d known Sally always had reservations about many godly trappings – such as staying at my undersea palace, like I’d offered in order to keep her and Percy safe – but I hadn’t thought she’d actually thought negatively of gods!

Maybe this all came back to Apollo’s bad decisions a few millennia ago as a god coming back to bite him, especially the ones regarding his treatment of Harpocrates and the Cumaean Sibyl. He’d seemed to be associating his own treatment of them with his own status as a god, with that being responsible for his behavior towards them. So now he was thinking of being human, not a god, as being good.

I glanced at Zeus. Hopefully Apollo didn’t go too far down that line of thinking. My brother did not take kindly to anything that upset the natural hierarchy.

He barely seemed to react. I wasn’t sure he even noticed. He’d seemed a bit distracted lately.

Sally wanted to know how she and Paul could help. They couldn’t do much to fight against the Emperors, but they were still able to provide aid by allowing Lu, Meg, and Apollo to stay over until morning. Lu apparently had some sort of plan that involved getting seen by Nero’s surveillance cameras, so waiting until morning, when it’d be lighter, worked out well.

Paul was confused about how Meg and Apollo knew Lu in the first place. All three of them put forward different explanations.

“Lu held us hostage on a train,” Apollo volunteered.

“I saved you from capture on a train,” Lu corrected.

“Lu’s my guardian,” Meg said. She clarified that Lu’s her legal guardian, since Nero didn’t want to have to constantly be signing stuff for Meg, or generally look after her.

“Better than Nero, I suppose,” Demeter said begrudgingly. “Not that that’s saying much.”

“If Lu’s truly looking out for Meg–” Athena started.

Demeter cut in. “Which I doubt.”

“–then this makes Lu the obvious choice to look after Meg if they manage to take down Nero. Lu even has a legal claim to her.” 

“She taught me… well, most stuff,” Meg continued. “When I lived in the palace, Nero’s tower, Lu tried to help me. She was… she was the nice one.”

Apollo turned to Lu. “You were the good cop,” he guessed.

“Call me what you like,” Lu replied. “I didn’t do enough for my Sapling, but I did what I could. She and I trained together for years.”

“Lu’s becoming more suspicious by the minute,” Athena remarked. “Having someone who served as the ‘good cop’, who Meg would naturally gravitate to, suddenly out of nowhere try to rescue her, to get to stick around both of them and potentially report on their position and plans… I have trouble buying her sudden crisis of conscience.”

“I thought she was rotten from the start,” Demeter muttered.

“You were Meg’s legal guardian,” Apollo noted, glaring accusingly at Lu. “You could have taken her out of that tower. You could have relocated. Run with her. But you stayed. For years.”

“Hey,” Meg interjected.

“No, he’s right,” Lu replied, not meeting Apollo’s eyes. “I owed Nero my life. Back in the old times, he spared me from… Well, it doesn’t matter now, but I served him for centuries. I’ve done many hard things for him. Then the sapling came along. I did my best. Wasn’t enough. Then Meg ran away with you. I heard what Nero was planning, what would happen when you two came back to the city…” She shook her head. “It was too much. I couldn’t bring Meg back to that tower.”

“You followed your conscience,” Sally said.

That was certainly what Lu was trying to make it sound like, but her story seemed a little too good, too convenient to be true. Sadly, it seemed like Sally was buying this. I loved her compassion, but she could be too trusting, too willing to see the best in others for her own good. 

If Lu brought harm onto Sally… well I’d normally vow to destroy her, but I doubted much would be left of her after Percy avenged his mother. 

Apollo remained skeptical. Lu accepted that skepticism, but stated that if they didn’t work together, then Nero would win. Sally, for her part, believed Lu. As did Meg, but that was no surprise. Apollo agreed to hear Lu’s plan.

Lu stated that there was a way into Nero’s palace from underground, implying that that was how he visited Python. Neither Lu nor Apollo seemed terribly excited about the prospect. Her plan was for a small group of brave, underground-adept demigods to infiltrate Nero’s tower from below while Apollo and Meg surrendered to distract Nero up above. Lu believed that once she returned to Nero, he’d issue an ultimatum to Camp Half-Blood to turn over Apollo and Meg or else New York City would be obliterated. Only if Nero believed he’d won, would he relax his guard enough for a sneak attack from below.

Apollo was pensive about the strategy, especially since it required Nero to not suspect that Lu’d turned on him. Lu had a solution to that: throw her off a building.

“First good idea in this plan of hers,” Demeter declared.

“It could work,” Athena put forward cautiously. “It could also go horribly wrong. That being said, I’m not hearing any better ideas.”

“She’d better not drag Nico into this insane plan,” Hades growled. 

“Judging by the prophecy from before, I think the chance of Nico being left out of this is roughly nil,” I said.

Hades sat back in his throne, arms crossed, muttering mutinously to himself.

I was just glad Percy was gone. He deserved a break. He hadn’t gotten much of one… basically since the Battle of Manhattan, what with Hera kidnapping him, needing to fulfill the Great Prophecy, and then getting caught up with those Egyptian kids and doing quests for various gods in order to fulfill Zeus’s mandate for three recommendation letters to apply to New Rome University, WHILE completing his senior year of high school. 

Chapter Text

Ugh, I couldn’t believe I’d have to wait until tomorrow morning for Apollo to push Lu off a building. I wanted that to happen NOW, before she could corrupt my daughter’s mind further, or worse – lead Nero right to my daughter. Which might happen tomorrow if her “plan” was just a ruse, but I hoped Apollo would carry through with her stated plan regardless.

After the usual intermission we all got while Apollo slept, we all filed back into the throne room for the morning’s events. At least if Lu did, in fact, get pushed off of a building, it’d make missing out on tending my barley and lentil crops for most of the day a little more bearable.

After having breakfast, Lu, Meg, and Apollo broke into a ten-story apartment building, making their way up to the rooftop.

Lu outlined the plan: Since she knew Nero had a surveillance camera pointed at this office building, they’d be able to stage a scene so it looked like Lu was chasing after Meg and Apollo, trying to kill them.

This didn’t seem to sound unusual to my daughter. “We can do it,” Meg told Apollo proudly. “You saw us on the train, Lester, and that was with no planning. When I lived at the tower? Lu would help me fake these incredible battles so Father – Nero, I mean – would think I killed my opponents.

“Kill. Your opponents,” Apollo echoed in shock.

“Like servants, or prisoners, or just people he didn’t like,” Meg explained. “Lu and I would work it out beforehand. I’d pretend to kill them. Fake blood and everything. Then after, Lu would drag them out of the arena and let them go. The deaths looked so real, Nero never caught on.”

“So she’s avoided actually murdering people even while under Nero’s control,” Athena said slowly. “Or at least thinks she has. If Lu was able to stage fights in such a way that even Nero was fooled, then she could’ve fooled Meg as well. There’s no guarantee she actually managed to free everyone she attempted to ‘rescue’, even if Meg’s account turns out to be entirely accurate.”

“I’m sure my daughter would’ve been able to see through any tricks Lu attempted to play on her,” I scoffed. Honestly, when were people going to stop underestimating my daughter?

“That would mean Meg’s account of Lu helping her IS accurate, and that Lu really is a kind of decent person,” Athena pointed out.

“That’s– well– she still should’ve gotten Meg out of Nero’s clutches sooner!” 

“Mmm.” Athena gave a slight nod, a shocking admission from her. 

I still didn’t trust Lu at all, but perhaps I could trust in my daughter’s perception of her. Nero may have fooled her, but she’d been able to see through him once she was out of his area of influence. Yet she still clung to Lu, even though she’d been separated from her guardian (I nearly gagged at that thought, Lu didn’t deserve the title), for longer than she had been from Nero.

Lu laid out more of the plan. She and Meg would do most of the actual fighting. When it looked like Lu was about to murder Meg, Apollo would scream, charge at her, and fake a godly burst of strength to send her careening off the rooftop. Lester was a little concerned about this plan, considering it involved Lu falling ten stories onto hard concrete, but Lu was reasonably confident that she’d survive.

I let out a low growl. As much as I wanted Lu out of the picture, if she died here, in these circumstances, her death would just hurt Meg further. She didn’t need that. She’d better be correct in her assessment of her survival chances, though I wouldn’t say no to her breaking a few bones. If she managed to traumatize my daughter further by making Meg complicit in her death, I’d finagle my way into getting Hades to let me into the Underworld (or persuade Persephone to help) so I could personally hurt Lu in the Fields of Punishment.

Before going through with this plan, Apollo wanted to know more about what Nero had in store for them, what they could do to stop him. Lu let him know that Nero had a massive stockpile of Greek Fire, the most that anyone had ever amassed in one place most likely, and a delivery system. Once he pushed a button, KABOOM! New York City would be toast. That’s why taking Nero by surprise was so important, they couldn’t afford to give him the opportunity to set it off.

Once Apollo and Meg were captured, they’d be thrown into the holding cells, which happened to be near Nero’s fasces. Lu would break them out, and then the three of them would take down whatever was guarding those fasces and destroy the objects.

“Placing your holding cells anywhere near the objects that hold your power and immortality seems like a rather stupid idea,” Athena noted. “That seems unusually dumb for Nero.”

“Maybe he just made Lu think that he keeps the fasces in a nearby room,” I speculated. “I could see Lu falling for that.” I had some faith in my daughter’s ability to judge people’s characters, but that didn’t mean I had any such faith in Lu’s own resistance to trickery.

Athena nodded, brows furrowing. “That seems likely from what little we know.”

I blinked. Athena, agreeing with me? Again? With an idea I came up with? Would wonders never cease!

Lu advised that the two of them should go directly to Camp Half-Blood after they were done with this little stunt, so they could put together that demigod infiltration team as quickly as possible. Lu also gave Meg one last present, some item in a little pouch that Meg seemed to recognize, and was really excited about.

“My rose was better,” I muttered. I’d have to give Meg a new one when I got the chance. It'd be far, far better than whatever Lu had just given her, that was for certain.

The fight began, with Lu attacking the two of them. It sure didn’t look like play-acting, Lu even slashed Apollo’s forehead.

“I swear if she does the same to Meg…” I muttered.

No. She wouldn’t. Lu might have been Meg’s teacher, but Meg was stronger than her, better than her. Even if this all turned out to be a ruse to attack the two of them without having either of them fight back at full strength, Meg could still beat her. She was better than her. She was my daughter!

Meg protected Apollo from Lu’s attack, forcing all her attention onto her, leaving Apollo to attempt to recover.

Then Lu stabbed Meg in the thigh.

“NO!” I screamed, dread pooling in my stomach. Playacting didn’t involve inflicting serious injury like that. Sure, it wouldn’t kill Meg, she was far too resilient for that, but it’d leave her vulnerable to another stab somewhere far more vital. 

“This could still be playacting,” Athena suggested. “Lu can’t afford not to sell this fight. That includes inflicting moderate injuries.”

“ARE YOU SERIOUSLY WATCHING THE SAME FIGHT I AM?!” I bellowed, sweeping a hand towards the screen. “DO YOU NOT SEE THE WAY MEG’S BLEEDING? The BLOODLUST IN THAT GAUL’S EYES?!”

“Sure I see it,” Athena said calmly. “But that just helps to sell the bit.”

I sneered at her in disgust. I’d thought she’d started getting on the same page as me, but no. She was still the same old Athena as always, putting on airs of being “calm” and “logical” and acting all superior, right until something offended her or threatened something or someone she cared about. She still refused to see what was right in front of her eyes.

Apollo bellowed, rushing Lu as planned, though the way he lifted her over his head with little effort indicated that instead of needing to pretend he’d gotten a surge of godly power, he instead obtained a very real surge.

I took my eyes off the scene just long enough to glance at Zeus, who surprisingly enough did not take credit for Apollo’s sudden strength. I supposed he was hoping that all of us would just assume that since faking a surge was part of the original plan, that we wouldn’t be able to tell when a real one occurred.

Lu went flying into the distance, with a metallic clunk and a car alarm going off being the only indicators of her eventual fate.

Apollo apologized to Meg for throwing Lu so far. He really thought she was going to kill her, so he got scared. Meg took it in stride, asserting that Lu would be fine, though she seemed to be trying to reassure herself more than Apollo.

Meg dragged Apollo back down to ground level, pulling out the object she’d been gawking at in the pouch: a golden drachma.

“A golden drachma?” I asked, puzzled. “What’s so great about that?”

Honestly if that was all Lu gave her, outdoing her gift would be child’s play. Heck if Meg really loved gold so much… hm… you know, Aphrodite wasn’t great at securing her golden apple…

“What now?” Apollo asked her.

“Now, I summon a ride.”

“Oh, no. You can’t mean them. Not them!”

“The Gray Sisters,” Hermes declared. “Always fun to hang out with!”

I wrinkled my nose. Of course Hermes would enjoy their antics. I, on the other hand, did not. None of the three had any appreciation for agriculture, they just kept wailing about me sitting on their eye. They didn’t even want to hear about the reproductive cycle of wheat afterwards! 

Still, at least Meg could find pleasure in spending time with them. Somehow. Perhaps she could even spark some botanical interest in them! If anyone could, it’d be her.

Chapter Text

The Gray Sisters were always a hoot! Driving like madmen, or well, as if they were blind and had no concern for anyone’s safety, making a racket the entire time – of course most of the other gods wouldn’t appreciate them. My sons Phobos and Deimos were fond of them though, and their ability to inspire terror, dread, and panic in their riders. Judging by some of the recent advances the Sisters had made towards Deimos, the feeling was mutual.

As Meg’s coin fell on the pavement and disappeared, a taxi erupted near where it’d fallen. Tempest pulled down a window, asking for the passengers. Sunbutt greeted her as unenthusiastically as he possibly could.

Tempest, for her part, wanted to know who was talking to her.

“It is I, the god Apollo,” he told her.

“Don’t sound like Apollo. Don’t smell like Apollo. Let me bite you.”

I sniggered. “I wouldn’t do that! He probably tastes awful.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they like the awful taste,” Aphrodite mentioned, wrinkling her nose. “It’d match with their awful appearances.”

My girlfriend did not share my appreciation for the Gray Sisters. They’d turned her down every time she’d offered to give them a makeover, a fact that’d greatly offended her.

Wasp, who had the eyeball, took a look at Sunbutt, concluding that he was “some mortal boy with a blood-soaked bandana on his head. Not interesting. Not a god.”

“That’s just hurtful. It is me. Apollo.”

“He is certainly Apollo,” Owl Face agreed. “But she is right that he is not a god. I do not understand why he claimed such a thing, even with their blindness, they could tell the difference between a mortal and an Olympian.”

Sunbutt started telling them things that only he could know, which was enough to convince them. Mostly because they wanted him to not spill the beans on who they liked now.

“Let me in, and I’ll shut up,” he offered.

They let him and Meg in.

“Now if only he’d make that offer as a god,” Moony said wistfully.

“I doubt we’d be so fortunate,” Killjoy said. I could tell she was grimacing beneath her mourning veil.

I turned away. They might complain loudly about Sunbutt, but I’d seen how they’d reacted when he was hurt or in danger – they’d been more concerned about him than I was sure they’d been about me, even as I was actively wasting away into nothingness in that jar. 

Not that it’d been enough to prompt anyone except for Moony to actively break Zapbrains’ rule about not interfering. In the end, it was every god for themselves, even for someone like Sunbutt.

“Who do they like now?” Meg asked.

‘Tell you later,’ Sunbutt mouthed.

“Unfortunately, Deimos,” Aphrodite’s lips curled downwards. “Why they think they have a chance with one of my sons, I cannot fathom.”

Few secrets stayed truly secret on Olympus, and in matters of love, good luck hiding anything from Aphrodite. And anything juicy she found out, well, she was hardly going to hide it from her boyfriend.

Anger hit the gas, and away they went towards Camp Half-Blood (or some sort of camp at least, Sunbutt didn’t get to finish what he was saying before she took off.)

As they traveled, Meg explained how she was familiar with the Gray Sisters’ cab service. If Meg did really well in training sessions, Lu would take Meg for a ride as a treat.

“Doesn’t seem like much of a treat,” Mr. Ugly grumbled.

“What, can’t handle the whiplash?” I taunted. Mr. Ugly didn’t like anything involving rapid starting or stopping, he refused to even go on rollercoasters, preferring more sedate rides. Aphrodite presumed it was something about them reminding him too much of when Killjoy threw him off Olympus. I presumed that he was a wuss. What, you get thrown off a mountain? Big deal, not like he was close to actually dying. Embrace the pain! Only a coward let a bit of pain and fear affect them for millennia. 

The Gray Sisters excitedly told Sunbutt about their new payment system, which allowed them to receive digital payments as well as cash. He was uninterested, so Wasp complained about Anger’s prediction being wrong. Wasp herself had predicted they’d stop for Sunbutt, a fact that interested him.

The three of them immediately decided to be cagey about whatever prophetic visions they’d had, though it was clear they were dying for an excuse to tell Sunbutt all about them.

“Normally I’d say their predictions are likely to be irrelevant and pointless,” Moony said, “Apollo’s complained about them to me on several occasions. However, given how he received the previous portion of a prophecy, it would be prudent to hear them out. Perhaps the prophecy chose to speak through them. They ought to have greater prophetic power than a random commuting amphisbaena, after all.”

The Sisters acted as if they would never, ever tell Sunbutt their predictions unless he threatened them grievously. Meanwhile, Sunbutt backtracked on his previous spark of interest, making it very clear that he had absolutely no interest in what they’d supposedly gleaned. 

Wasp took out their collective eye, fumbled it in a way that was very obviously intentional, throwing it into Sunbutt’s lap. She screamed that he’d stolen the eye and would smash it unless they told him what they knew, which he protested against. And also protested against the presence of the squishy eye on his lap.

Meg, meanwhile, was having the time of her life as the cab swerved around, now with no sighted being guiding it at all.

I burst out laughing. The Gray Sisters were the best! At least Meg had a proper appreciation for chaos.

The three of them recited some verses:

“A dare reveals the path that was unknown.”

“And bears destruction; lion, snake-entwined.”

“Or else the princeps never be o’erthrown.”

“So they did have some useful info after all,” Moony mused. “I’d guess the ‘Dare’ would refer to Rachel Dare, most likely. The other two lines, I’m not so sure. I doubt my brother will enjoy whatever the ‘lion, snake-entwined’ part means though.”

He might not, but I would. It’d been awhile since Sunbutt’d wet himself.

Meg scooped up the eye and returned it to the Sisters just in time to arrive at Camp Half-Blood.

I snorted at Meg’s declaration of “wimp” when Sunbutt refused to handle the eye with his own bare hands. Honestly, you’d think a healer wouldn’t be so squeamish.

Chapter Text

Of course Father found time to send me back to this accursed place. I’d thought he’d forgotten about me, what with being busy punishing someone else for once, but no – somehow he found time to drop by my palace and let me know my time was up. He didn’t even allow me a last drink! So of course I’m stuck back in this hellhole again, no wine, no wife, and no decent pinochle players around. 

At least I was doing better than Apollo. I might not have been forced to go to the Council meetings, but I’d heard rumors of what he’d been put through. He’d always thought I’d overreacted when I’d lamented the awfulness of my punishment, but now he knew what it was like to be a disappointment, instead of the perpetual golden boy. 

I sensed him traipsing towards Camp. Good. I’d still been on my reprieve the first time he stopped by, so I’d missed seeing his reduced form. I’d heard about it, but I couldn’t properly relish how much better I had it without seeing him in person.

After a moment, Apollo and some other girl walked close enough to get within mortal hearing distance. I’d heard something about my brother being enslaved to a young girl, which I guessed might be her, but I hadn’t cared enough to pay much attention. 

I examined Apollo, noting the brown hair, lack of six-pack abs, presence of acne, and general humanness of his appearance. Oh he must be suffering , he loved flexing his abs and showing off his shiny, golden locks. Unlike me, he hadn’t chosen his appearance either, dear ol’ dad forced him into this. At least I looked like crap because I chose to look like crap. The snot-nosed campers didn’t deserve my effort.

“So it’s true, what Father did to you,” I told Apollo. “That cold-hearted gl á mon. Poor, poor Apollo.” I hugged him, appreciating how insubstantial he felt. He wasn’t small by human standards, but normally he had a lot more bulk and just general presence. 

I pulled away, smirking at him. “Now you understand how miserable I’ve been. Finally, someone got punished even more harshly than me!” I couldn’t believe it when Ares, who allowed a thief to get away with Zeus’s Masterbolt, still got to go free, while I remained confined. Of course I always knew Zeus punished me most unfairly, that just confirmed it.

“Yes. Hello, brother. This is Meg–”

I cut him off. “Don’t care.” She was just another snivelling demigod in a camp full of snivelling demigods.

“Hmph. Where’s Chiron? I like him better,” that girl, Mel or something, said.

“Who?” Oh yeah, the centaur guy, who actually liked looking after the brats. I couldn’t possibly damage his sanity, he was already as insane as you could get. “Oh, him. Long story. Let’s get you into camp, Apollo. I can’t wait to show you off to the demigods. You look horrible !”

I got to introduce Apollo to all the new campers as we walked by. “This is Mr. A,” I explained, “he’s my assistant. If you have any complaints or problems – toilets backing up or whatnot – talk to him.” I’d been forced to deal with the humiliation of helping campers with their petty little problems for decades, about time another god got the same treatment. Though I doubted I’d be so lucky as to have a backed-up toilet situation for Apollo to deal with while he was here, Tyche’d never liked me much. 

None of the new campers seemed interested in recruiting Apollo to help with any of their problems, disappointingly enough. They didn’t even mock him! I had to get all the fun out of Apollo’s situation myself.

As we rounded the corner, I spotted Nico and Will on the porch. 

“Dad!” Will jumped to his feet, racing over to hug Apollo. 

Was– was Apollo crying ? Over getting a hug from his son? Yeesh, being mortal for so long really cooked his brain. Then again, he’d always been the weepy sort. It’s not like Will’d been in any particular danger in the past few months, his boyfriend made sure of that. Or more like, Will attempted to keep Nico out of danger (with limited success).

Nico hurried the girl over to a chair, since apparently she’d hurt her leg at some point. I guess it did look a little nasty, but demigods were getting into scrapes all the time, damn mortals were way too fragile. Glad I wasn’t one anymore!

“Yes, fine, sit,” I agreed. “I was attempting to teach Will and Nico the rules of pinochle, but they’re hopeless.”

“Oooh, pinochle!” the girl exclaimed. “I like pinochle!”

I regarded her – what was her name again, Meg? – with newfound interest. She didn’t look like the sort of person who’d be a talented pinochle player, but then again, I knew something about being underestimated. People might think you’re a pushover, that kidnapping you or killing all your followers would have no consequences, but they’d rethink that after getting turned into a dolphin or being driven mad to the point of murdering their own family (not that I hadn’t been tempted to engage in some familicide at times myself.)

“Is that so?” I noted. “Will wonders never cease.” I’d have to draw the girl into a game later, somehow none of the demigods could ever even get the hang of the rules, much less master the actual game.

Nico asked about Jason’s wellbeing. He’d confided in me how he felt something happened to the boy, that he thought his friend had passed over into his father’s domain. I’d never been much interested in him, but unfortunately Nico wouldn’t stop brooding over him, so I was forced to hear all about him anyway.

Nico stumbled away, excusing himself from the situation. I imagined he didn’t want to completely fall apart in front of everyone, though I dunno why, it couldn’t be worse than any breakdowns Apollo’d had, from what I’d heard.

“That boy has had too much bad news already,” I noted. Which I had to be the one to help him with, of course. Damn demigods. Damn mortals. They were way too squishy, way too easy for others to kill.

Aaaand Apollo was tipping over. Great. Only been here a few minutes and he was already turning to unconsciousness as an escape from this nightmarish place. See, I couldn’t get away with passing out like that, otherwise I would’ve slept away the century of my punishment. 

“I’ll take him to his cabin,” Will offered, hoisting Apollo over his shoulders. 

I waved him off. “You do that.” I had a prank to plan. If Apollo thought passing out would let him escape for long, he was very much mistaken.

The rest of the day passed in boring fashion, with Will moping over Apollo’s continued unconsciousness periodically. Honestly, he’d be fine , he didn’t need this level of fuss. At least Nico managed to drag Will away from his dad long enough for me to plant Seymour’s head beside Apollo. We’d all be aware the second Apollo awoke.

Sure enough, a couple hours after leaving the leopard’s head beside Apollo, a high-pitched scream emanated from his cabin. Will immediately raced over. I traveled over as well, but refrained from fully materializing just yet.

“Oh, you’re awake!” he exclaimed. Then frowned at Apollo. “What’s wrong?”

Seymour growled. 

“Seymour?” Will questioned, picking up the leopard head. “What are you doing here?” He turned to Apollo. “I swear I did not put him in your bed.”

“I did,” I announced, materializing the rest of the way. Apollo jumped back another several inches, much to my satisfaction.

“I thought you might like some company,” I smirked. “I always sleep better with a teddy leopard.”

It’d been far too long since the last time I pranked Apollo. Hadn’t gotten the chance since Father sent me to this gods’ forsaken place. Even without Hermes to help plan the prank, I’d say it was successful. I’d get to relish the expression on Apollo’s face for decades to come.

“Very kind,” Apollo glared daggers at me. If he was a god and I was still a squishy demigod, his glare would have fried my brain. As it was, it did nothing but make me smirk wider. “But I prefer to sleep alone.”

“As you wish. Seymour, back to the Big House,” I declared, transporting the leopard head back to the Big House with a snap of my fingers.

I looked Apollo over. He was as grimy as when he’d first arrived. Ugh. AND he was only wearing his underwear, a sight I did not need to see this early in the morning. Or ever.

“Well, then… feeling better after nineteen hours of sleep?” I asked. 

“Feeling great,” he grumbled.

“Excellent! Will, get him presentable,” I ordered. “I’ll see you both at breakfast.”

“Breakfast…?”

“It’s the meal with pancakes,” I explained. “I do love pancakes.” With his having such a fabulous time up in Olympus regularly, he must’ve forgotten what breakfast was. We gods didn’t have to partake in that kind of sustenance regularly if we didn’t feel like it, though I’d gotten a taste for certain breakfast foods myself.

I teleported to the dining pavilion to oversee breakfast, as usual. Nico was already here. 

That took me off guard. He usually waited until Will was here before venturing over to my table, but I supposed that might take awhile, given how he was helping Apollo get ready. Nico’d had it rough lately, what with the voices and all. If a mortal’d been hearing those I’d say it was all in their head, but with Nico being a demigod… tough to say. He’d certainly been through enough to prompt a spot of madness, I’d known many others who’d been through less turmoil than that boy had and escaped with far less intact sanity. But something calling Nico from the depths of Tartarus… while that could certainly be the product of some misplaced guilt, it was true that it could be real. 

Though even if it was, the likelihood of the voice’s owner being someone Nico should actually rescue was slim. I’d never been to Tartarus, but I’d heard from the gods who had. The number of beings down there who’d want to call Nico down in order to do him harm was far greater than the number who might genuinely just want to be rescued without having any ill will towards the boy. Even the person he thought might be calling him, Iapetus… Nico seemed convinced that the Titan had turned over a new leaf. And with amnesia, sure, maybe he had. But how long would that amnesia last down in the Pit? Without that memory loss… 

Immortals don’t change. That’s just how it is. However much you might hope they would. 

But Nico wouldn’t hear it, and I didn’t have the energy to try and stop him, if I even could. He’d sneak out somehow-or-other. They always did.

Welp, enough grousing over Nico’s situation. Time to deal with a different situation instead!

I tapped my spoon against my glass to get everyone’s attention before rising to my feet. 

“Mr. A and Will Solace, report to the head table,” I announced. 

Nothing happened. Everyone remained frozen.

I rolled my eyes. Demigods couldn’t figure out anything for themselves. “That’s all. Honestly, do I need to tell you how to eat breakfast? Carry on!”

The four of them headed over to my table. I slid the mail I’d received from Nero over to Apollo to read. He quickly read over it. 

“Forty-eight hours from last night,” he observed. 

“Yes. I’ve always liked Nero. He has panache.” Guy threw some great parties too! He knew how to crank up the chaos and madness. Several of my Maenads swore that Nero’s parties were the best they’d attended (aside from my own). Most of them disagreed, pointing to Woodstock as the best instead, but there was a lively debate within the group. Lots of fistfights and hair-pulling, it was great!

Will, Nico, and Apollo attempted to figure out what the prophecy fragments received so far meant. Meg guessed that the part about “two alone ascend” referred to Apollo and Meg surrendering, since that was Luguselwa’s plan.

“Apollo, please, tell me you’re not going to trust a Gaul,” I cut in. “You haven’t gotten that addle-brained, have you?” Sure they could be fun to party with, Gauls could really hold their liquor, but trusting one? You’d have to be madder than me to do that.

“Hey! We can trust Lu,” Meg objected. “She let Lester throw her off a roof.”

“Did she survive?” If she didn’t then all of this was moot.

“I mean–”

“Yes. She did,” Apollo interrupted, recounting the dream he’d had about her and Nero. 

“Ah, yes, Python. If you survive Nero, you have that to look forward to.” I wasn’t sure how Apollo planned on killing him, but hey, mortals had surprised me before. Maybe he’d even survive the encounter!

Apollo frowned at me. “You could always, oh, I don’t know, decide to help.”

Oh, please.I might be low on the godly pecking order, but I wasn’t that low anymore, I’d long since graduated past needing to participate in this sort of thing. “You know as well as I do, Apollo, that quests like this are demigod business. As for advising, guiding, helping… that’s really more Chiron’s job. He should be back from his meeting… oh, tomorrow night, I would think, but that will be too late for you.”

“What meeting?” Meg questioned.

“Some… joint task force, he called it? The world often has more than one crisis happening at a time. Perhaps you’ve noticed. He said he had an emergency meeting with a cat and a severed head, whatever that means.” And I thought our pantheon was bizarre.

I didn’t see why Chiron thought a joint task force between pantheons would help. Sure, I’d gone out for drinks a few times with gods outside of the Greco-Roman pantheon, but there was a reason we generally all avoided each other. Best for everyone to stick to their own corners if you didn’t want a fight, that’s why we’d had to separate the Greek and Roman demigods. And those weren’t even completely separate pantheons! But of course Chiron was optimistic about the odds of being able to successfully work together even with people from very different systems. That centaur was far too naive.

“So instead we get you,” Meg observed.

“Believe me, child, I would rather not be here with you delightful rapscallions, either. After I was so helpful in the wars against Kronos and Gaea, I was hoping Zeus might grant me early parole from my servitude in this miserable place. But, as you can see, he sent me right back to complete my hundred years. Our father does love to punish his children.” 

I smirked at Apollo. Sure, I’d gotten punished, but at least I was still a god. I hadn’t been reduced down to being a mere mortal again. I was better off than Apollo!

The demigods continued debating about whether Meg and Apollo should surrender, and what would happen if they didn’t. That Nero would almost certainly burn down New York with Greek fire either way.

“But these fires wouldn’t extend as far as, say, Camp Half-Blood,” I pondered. 

“Dude,” Will said.

“What? I am only in charge of the safety of this camp.” Sure I’d miss New York City’s delightful chaos and parties, but it’s not like I’d get to take part in them for a few more decades, and by then they’d likely have rebuilt it anyway.

The mortals continued talking over the plan, seeming to settle on following Lu’s directions, as dubious as it was. The topic then switched to the prophecy again, particularly some bit about the “son of Hades” which Will had chosen not to inform Nico about. Poor move, hiding information rarely led to good outcomes in relationships. 

“Hold on. Nico, do you know what those lines mean?” Apollo asked.

Nico nodded. “The cavern-runners are… new friends of mine.”

“They’re hardly friends,” Will grumbled. 

“They’re experts on subterranean geography. I’ve been talking to them about… other business,” Nico explained. 

“Which is not good for your mental health,” I interrupted. I actually try to help a demigod, and they go and set themselves back of their own free will. This was why I usually sat back and just let demigods do whatever, helping them wasn’t worth it.

Nico was set on visiting those creatures, over Will’s protests. 

“Well, that’s settled, then,” I said. “Since Mr. di Angelo seems intent on ignoring my mental-health advice and going on this quest—

“That’s not fair,” Nico protested. “You heard the prophecy. I have to.”

“The whole concept of ‘have to’ is strange to me,” I said. Sure, the Fates can say one thing, but who says you have to listen to ‘em? Prophecies are never as clear-cut as they seem anyway “But if your mind is made up, you’d best be going, eh? Apollo only has until tomorrow night to surrender, or fake-surrender, or whatever you wish to call it.”

“Anxious to get rid of us?” Meg asked.

I laughed. “And people say there are no stupid questions.” Sure I’d love for Apollo to experience this misery for awhile longer, but I was growing tired of his company. Besides, there were other concerns. “But if you trust your friend Lululemon–”

“Luguselwa.”

“Whatever. Shouldn’t you hurry back to her?” She’s actually able to spend time with her loved one, unlike myself. Demigods didn’t cherish the time they had with the people they cared about enough.

Nico and Will decided to gather supplies for visiting the cavern-runners. They thought they’d have everything they needed in place by the end of today, so Apollo and Meg could leave tomorrow morning.

Apollo wasn’t eager to set out. “I, uh… I thought a quest had to be formally authorized.”

“I formally authorize it,” I said.

“But it can only be three people!”

I looked over at him, Will, and Nico. “I’m only counting three.”

“Hey! I’m coming too!” Meg said.

I ignored her. Didn’t matter if there was more than three people, if I only counted three of them. Classic loophole.

Will interpreted the line about a Dare revealing a path to mean that they needed to visit Rachel Dare. Glad that was settled, I wanted to get on with eating my pancakes already, assuming Meg would stop hogging all the syrup.

Chapter Text

Turning himself in to Nero… not my brother’s brightest idea, but I couldn’t see any good alternatives, either. Nero did not need any incentive to rain down destruction on others. 

At least Zeus would allow some sort of interference if Apollo was truly in mortal danger. He let me go to save my brother from Tarquin’s poison, after all. Surely he’d allow some sort of help to reach Apollo if he was endangered again. He didn’t want my brother dead.

Apollo wandered around trying to find somewhere to be. No one had anything in particular for him. He decided to go to Sherman Yang, one of Ares’ children, in the hopes that he’d have some sort of intel on Nero’s fortress.

“It’s a fortress. A frontal attack would be–” Sherman started.

“Suicide,” Apollo finished. “No secret entrances?”

“Why does he think Sherman , of all people, would know of secret entrances to Nero’s tower?” Athena demanded, wrinkling her nose. “If anyone would know that, it’d be my child, Malcolm, not Sherman .

“Apollo knows how much more useful and competent my kids are than yours!” Ares cheerfully replied.

“Those are not the words I’d use to describe your children,” Athena muttered.

“Not that I know of,” Sherman said, responding to Apollo’s query. “If there were, they’d be heavily guarded and set with traps. Maybe motion-activated flamethrowers. That would be cool.”

Note to self: only ask my Hunters to infiltrate the Ares cabin if I wish for some of the new recruits to get some training on trap detection and dodging.

“Is it possible,” Apollo continued, “that Nero could have a doomsday weapon in place? For instance, enough Greek fire to destroy New York at the push of a button?”

“Whoa…” I wrinkled my nose. The expression on Sherman’s face as he pondered that question reminded me of those of lovestruck teenage girls about to fall into the trap of romance. “That would be amazing. I mean bad. That would be bad. But… yeah, it’s possible. With his wealth and resources? The amount of time he’s had to plan? Sure. He’d need a central storage facility and a delivery system for rapid dispersal. My guess? It would be underground – to take advantage of the city’s pipes, sewers, tunnels, and whatnot. You think he’s really got something like that? When do we leave for battle?”

“That’s a surprisingly astute analysis,” I observed. Then again, given how knowledgeable one of Ares’ other children, Ellis, had been last time Apollo visited, perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that another one of his children showed similar depths.

“That’s a basic analysis,” Athena muttered. If she didn’t think it was beneath her, I was sure she’d be crossing her arms and pouting, like a petulant child.

“You’re basic!” Ares retorted, as erudite as ever.

Athena rolled her eyes.

Next, Apollo stopped by the Athena cabin to talk to Malcolm to ask him the same questions.

“I could do some research,” he offered. “We could come up with a solid intelligence dossier and a plan of attack.”

“See, that’s what Apollo needs!” Athena said smugly. “That’s way more useful than Sherman’s ‘analysis’.” She made air quotes with her fingers, which surprised me. I wouldn’t think it would fit the image she typically tried to project.

“That- that would be amazing!” Apollo stammered.

“It’ll take us about four weeks. Maybe three, if we push it. When do you have to leave?”

My brother burst into tears.

“Oh yeah, real useful,” Ares jabbed, smirking. “At least Sherman had some sort of analysis to give.”

“If Nero hadn’t set such a short deadline, Malcolm’s intelligence-gathering and analysis abilities  would trounce Sherman’s.” Athena muttered, actually stooping to crossing her arms.

“Shoulda, woulda, coulda– doesn’t matter what the situation coulda been, only what the situation is . My kid beat yours in this reality, that’s what counts.”

After eating lunch, Apollo apparently decided the situation was dire enough to resort to asking the Arrow of Dodona for advice. After telling it everything that’d happened lately (and making sure to update it on the new prophecy verses he’d recently received especially), he asked it what he should do.

Pause.

“Meaning Luguselwa,” Apollo said. “Meaning I should surrender myself to Nero, because a Gaul I barely know tells me it’s the only way to stop the emperor.”

Pause.

“And seest thou– Can you see what will happen after we surrender?”

Ares sniggered at my brother’s temporary slip into fake Shakespearean English. 

I was more concerned with the actual content of what my brother had said. Surrendering himself to Nero… that was risky business. He’d risked himself quite enough lately.

I took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. If things got bad enough, Zeus would find some face-saving way to allow me to save my brother. He’d done it before when Apollo was poisoned, he’d do it again if Apollo would truly perish otherwise.

“Maybe if I brought you back to the Grove of Dodona?” Apollo suggested.

Pause.

“So… are you just making horse sounds now?”

Pause.

“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t realize–”

Very long pause.

“I have used you poorly,” Apollo declared. “I’m sorry. Once we’ve succeeded in our quest, I’ll return you to the Grove of Dodona, and you’ll be welcomed back as a hero.”

Hm. it sounded like the Arrow’d told Apollo something that caused him to suddenly be a lot more sympathetic to it than he’d been previously, though what that thing may be, I had no idea.

Pause.

“What is it?” Apollo demanded. “You’ve seen something in the future? Something bad?”

Pause.

Apollo returned the arrow to his quiver.

I frowned. If the Arrow’d seen something bad, it didn’t seem like it’d divulged it. Which likely meant Apollo couldn’t, or shouldn’t, do anything to avoid it.

Probably not Apollo’s death then. Such a thing would have to be avoidable. There was no other option. Possibly Meg’s death though. If she died, he’d be devastated, as would I. She’d shown herself to be a true warrior, worthy of being one of my Hunters, if she was willing to join. But all mortals died eventually, and even my Hunters didn’t last forever. If Meg was killed, I would ensure she quickly got sent to her final rest in Elysium, or was quickly shepherded to be reborn, if that was her choice.

Apollo wandered towards the woods, where Meg was conversing with a bunch of nature spirits, including Peaches. The nature spirits were engrossed with cooing over how adorable Peaches was. I didn’t see the appeal – I’d delivered many babies, including my own twin brother, most notably, but I’d never been all that taken with their looks.

After a few moments, the dryads noticed my brother. They didn’t stick around long after that.

I winced. It’d been many millennia, but still some dryads blamed Apollo for Daphne’s fate. Admittedly, mocking Eros had been an idiotic move, but ultimately Eros had chosen how to respond to Apollo’s provocations, and he’d chosen a path that involved making poor Daphne into collateral damage. 

I had never been fond of romantic love. Eros’s punishment of my brother, and by extension the nymph he’d compelled Apollo to chase, had not endeared me any further to the concept.

Apollo pulled up a rock as Meg regaled him with a story of making a potato grow in some kid’s pants, lamenting that they couldn’t stay at camp longer. Apollo offered to face Nero alone, but Meg quickly cut him off.

“You say that because you don’t trust me?” she asked.

“What? Meg, no, that’s not–”

“I betrayed you once. Right here in these woods.” She sounded disbelieving of her own statement, like it was something so far removed from what she’d do now, that it was as if someone else had committed the deed entirely.

I grimaced. She had, but given her age and Nero’s manipulations, I could hardly blame her, and I knew my brother didn’t either. Since then, Meg had grown quite a lot, much like my brother had, breaking away from the lies her kidnapper had told her, from the grip he’d had on her.

But now, returning to the lion’s den… this would be hard on her. She knew Nero’s manipulation, his abusive tactics, for what they were, but that didn’t necessarily mean she would be able to stand against him once she was actually in his grip again.

Still, this was Meg. She’d never been one to give in easily. She may have betrayed Apollo in these woods… but she turned against Nero in these woods as well. If any demigod could return to Nero’s stronghold without losing their convictions, it was Meg. I only wished she didn’t have to.

“Meg, we’ve both changed a lot since then,” my brother stated. “I trust you with my life. I’m just worried about Nero… how he’ll try to hurt you, use you.”

As was I. Meg turning against Apollo, actively trying to hurt him, seemed unlikely. She hadn’t even done that when she’d only known my brother for a few days, short of mind control I couldn’t see any way Nero would be able to get Meg to actually harm my brother – at most, he may be able to succeed in getting her to hesitate helping Apollo.

But Nero hurting Meg, using her… that was more of a concern. Nero was not known for his compassion. If he truly believed Meg was a lost cause, he’d almost certainly try to have her killed, probably in an exceedingly painful, brutal fashion. The psychological threat Nero posed to Meg was great, but the physical threat was even greater. 

Not that I thought Meg would make such a thing easy on him. Even if she was disarmed, she was hardly powerless.

“I have to go back,” Meg insisted. “I have to see if I’m strong enough. Maybe I’ve gotten stronger. But then I go back to the palace, will it be enough? Can I remember to be who I am now and not… who I was back then?”

“Okay, I’m worried,” my brother admitted after a few moments. “About you. About me. I don’t know the answer to your question.”

I’d never been in Meg’s situation before, but I understood. Many of my Hunters came to me from abusive situations. After travelling with me for a few months or even years, they often went back, just for a day or two, to stand up to whoever’d tormented them. They almost always found their abuser to be small and pathetic compared to how much they themselves had grown, to the point they’d scarcely believed they’d ever been under that person’s power. And in the few cases where the abuser still had some sort of grip over them… well, their Sisters were hardly going to let that stand.

Meg and Apollo vowed to face Nero together. Peaches, however, was going to stay behind in camp. 

Apollo prepared his equipment for the next day, before singing at the campfire, and then going to bed. I hoped he would sleep well. It was likely to be the last bit of peace he’d get before everything came to a head.

Chapter Text

It had been many months since I’d last seen Rachel Dare. I hoped she had some useful intelligence to bring to the table. She’d brought some much-needed info last time she and Apollo had discussed the Triumvirate, she may have more. The art of gathering and synthesizing information into a usable form was sadly underappreciated, but absolutely key to winning a war. Swords, bows and arrows, and other forms of weaponry were certainly helpful, but ultimately useless if they were deployed in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Rachel opened the gate to her family’s ostentatious mansion. It wasn’t quite as impressive as those that my daughter had designed for Olympus of course, but that was no insult to the architect. Few could match Annabeth’s architectural knowledge.

Apollo, Meg, Nico, and Will entered the mansion at Rachel’s behest, but not before she’d given them an ominous (and unusual) warning: “Come in quickly. The cows are watching.”

All eyes turned towards Hera. 

Her face was hidden beneath her veil, but I was fairly certain she was flushing underneath the fabric. “I had nothing to do with this!” she protested against everyone’s unspoken accusations. “Why would I even want to send a herd of cows after that girl?!”

“You have never needed much reason to be awful to others in the past,” Hephaestus grumbled.

“I still had a reason at least!” she retorted.

“This does look like your handiwork,” I pointed out. A couple years ago, Hera had sent herds of cows to defecate near my daughter, Annabeth, after she’d ticked her off. While I couldn’t think of anything Rachel had done that would have motivated Hera to cover the mansion’s grounds in cow manure, Hephaestus was correct that it did not take much to set Hera off.

Inside the mansion, several canvases stood, commemorating events Apollo had experienced during his journey,such as griffins flying, the Labyrinth burning, and… oh. Jason’s funeral pyre.

A loud sob echoed from my right. I glanced over at Hera. I’d always thought that Jason was no more than a pawn to her, a consolation gift, but these past few weeks had crushed that assumption. She cared about her champion more than many other gods cared about their own children. Not that she was necessarily great at caring – Hera had never been very good at relating to others, and Hephaestus could testify to how poor her maternal instincts were.

Hera’d even seemed to care for Apollo’s wellbeing, which was truly shocking. Normally Hera was the one endangering Zeus’s affair children, not the one advocating for saving them. 

“You’ve started having visions again,” Apollo noted.

“Only glimpses,” Rachel clarified. “Every time you free an Oracle, I get a few moments of clarity. Then the fog settles again. It’s like Python is inside my brain, toying with me. Sometimes I think…”

She trailed off for a moment. “Just tell me you’re going to take him down. Soon.”

So freeing the Oracles was having some effect on Rachel it seemed, even though Delphi was still captive. Python’s grip must lessen for a few minutes after an Oracle fell back into Apollo’s hands. But the fact that such freedom only lasted moments… Python’s grip on Fate would be hard to dislodge.

I frowned. It had been nearly a year since Python first ousted Apollo from his prophetic perch. It was astounding it had not had worse effects than simply denying demigods access to prophecies.

I glanced at Zeus. Then again, even if the Fates had been heavily impacted, it was doubtful the rest of us would know about it until the effects were undeniable. The three sisters took their commands directly from Zeus. If he ordered them to keep quiet about any difficulties they’d started encountering, they would.

The group changed subjects, discussing the mysterious bovines instead. The cattle cars had arrived yesterday. No one appeared to know the company they came from, nobody came to check on them, no one would come out to look at them, no one even gave them food or water.

Meg advocated for freeing the cows. Nico, quite sensibly, pointed out that if no one else knew they existed, then they couldn’t be ordinary cows, so just freeing them without knowing more would be a bad idea, especially since they’d just wander around Brooklyn. Best to leave them as they were.

“But that’s mean!” Meg protested.

“It’s sensible,” I muttered. Meg had never been one to think things through. At least Nico was willing to be the voice of reason here. I knew how underappreciated such a role could be.

“You just hate cows,” Demeter sniffed. 

I rolled my eyes. She was just saying that because Meg was advocating for freeing the beasts, otherwise she’d balk at the prospect of the cows wandering around everywhere, trampling flowers underhoof and eating all the greenery.

Apollo got everyone back on track, tabling the cattle discussion for later, after they’d decided what to do about Nero.

Rachel had somehow gotten ahold of the actual blueprints for Nero’s tower (even emperors still needed to file those it seemed. Though I worried about how accurate they might be). She concluded that the most likely room to contain Nero’s fasces happened to be on the same floor as what was likely to be a holding cell, so if Apollo and Meg could get themselves captured and then break out, they’d be in a good position to find and break the objects.

“Lu was right,” Meg announced triumphantly. She turned to Apollo. “I told you.”

“Who is Lu?” Rachel questioned.

Apollo filled her in on everything he’d been through with the Gaul, and the plan she’d laid out.

“Okay…” Rachel stated, clearly annoyed. “So if you’ve already thought of all my ideas, why am I even talking?”

“No, no, you’re confirming,” Will assured her. “And we trust you more than… er, other sources.”

I nodded. “Confirming the veracity of enemy intelligence is invaluable.” Misinformation was worse than no information at all. Having a second person, one more clearly trustworthy, bring the same info was a good indication that Lu hadn’t lied at least. Though it was always possible that both of them had been tricked by doctored blueprints, intended to give anyone who went searching a false idea of the best course of action to take. What better way to get your enemies to give up, than to make it look like it was their best chance at taking you down?

Even assuming that Lu could break Apollo and Meg out of captivity, there was another problem: Rachel had had a vision, just a glimpse, of what was protecting Nero’s fasces. Some sort of man with a lion’s head and snakes coiling around his body.

“The Leontocephaline,” I breathed. “I’d thought he’d have faded.” 

Then again, a lot of ancient beings had re-emerged lately, even after I’d long thought them gone forever. And his existence, at least, had been foreshadowed. I doubted the stanza about a ‘lion, snake-entwined’ could refer to anything else.

Not that it helped much. I’d never had much interaction with Persian gods, or their servants. This being had served a god named Mithras, but I never knew exactly how, much less what his weaknesses were. Apollo most likely had even less knowledge of the Leontocephaline than I did. I doubt he’d even interacted with any Persian gods or their entourages, unless it was for copulation purposes, which would probably not help. I doubted Apollo would be able to seduce the lion-snake-man in his present form, especially with his tendency to cringe at the sight of serpents.

With the way Apollo’d screwed up his face in thought, he’d likely run into the Leontocephaline before, as a god. Sadly, he did not appear to actually be able to conjure up the memory, though I doubted it would help much even if he could. 

Nico questioned why Lu didn’t just get rid of the guardian, if she was such a strong warrior. Meg didn’t know, but stated that there must be a reason.

“Lu would not be able to defeat the Leontocephaline,” I stated. “Any more than she could defeat one of us. He is beyond her capabilities.”

“Hopefully she’ll try anyway and die in the process,” Demeter grumbled.

Nico proposed that they assume Lu’s plan works as intended, that Apollo and Meg are captured, she’s able to free them, they kill the guardian, and destroy the fasces. Even after that point, they’d still need to get past all of Nero’s security and to the throne room to actually kill Nero himself. Plus, he’d mostly likely have a panic switch easily accessible to blow up New York if he felt endangered, something they’d like to avoid.

Thankfully, the plans Rachel’d obtained included what appeared to be several giant, underground vats, connected to NYC’s different distribution systems, which seemed likely to hold the Greek Fire Nero had threatened to burn the city down with. According to the plans for Nero’s tower, it’d been designed to withstand exactly the sort of fire he planned to unleash, so even as everything else in the city burned down, it’d still be left standing.

“Can’t they just let the city burn down a little?” Ares said longingly. “Come on, so much Greek fire in one place… can’t they just let a few fireballs loose?”

I let out a deep sigh. “Ares, they are not going to let millions of people burn to death because you want to see an explosion of infernos.”

“But it’ll be so cool!” he whined. “Come on, people kill each other all the time, at least this way’ll look awesome!”

I gazed up at the ceiling. The things I endured from my family…

Will and Nico looked over the plans closely, trying to determine how to access and neutralize the vats. The regular access points were heavily guarded and under constant surveillance, but Nico concluded that if you could tunnel into the vats from underground,you could sabotage the entire delivery system with Nero none the wiser. An observation Will was not pleased with, given that it solidified the need for the tunnelers Nico had mentioned before.

Apollo asked Nico to explain who these cave-runners were.

“A few months ago, I made contact with the Troglodytes,” Nico declared.

I snorted. “Those don’t exist,” I declared. “If they did, I would have known about them. Aelian made them up.” 

Honestly, I’d thought Nico was one of the more intelligent demigods, but if he believed in fairy tales like that of the Troglodytes, then perhaps I should reassess my opinion. 

“You’re just bitter someone else knows more than you about something,” Ares grinned.

“They. Do. Not. Exist.” I forced out through gritted teeth. I may not be all-knowing on all subjects (though I certainly knew more about any subject of importance than my brethren did), but to miss the existence of an entire species? Preposterous.

Apollo was just as skeptical. Nico pointed out that a subterranean race like the Troglodytes would have avoided him, and that he’d never looked for them, anyway. Will confirmed that Nico had indeed found the Troglodytes.

“See!” Ares smirked. “Even Will agrees!”

“That just means they were both fooled by the same con,” I argued.

Nico was confident that he could find the Troglodytes again, and perhaps even convince them to help. “Maybe. If they like the gift I got them. And if they don’t kill us on sight.”

“I like the sound of these Troglodytes!” Ares declared.

“Of course you would,” I grumbled.

Rachel insisted on coming with, something Apollo protested, given that she was mortal. But the prophecy called for her, and likely for more than simply some blueprints, so she had to join. Plus, if Apollo didn’t defeat Python soon… well, as the Delphic Oracle, it was unlikely to end well for her.

Suddenly Rachel started choking, green smoke billowing out of her mouth. She spoke in a strange voice, one I’d only heard once before, many months ago when Apollo and Meg stumbled into Python’s lair.

Python’s voice.

She recited five more lines of the prophecy:

“Apollo’s flesh and blood would soon be mine. Alone he must descend into the dark, this sibyl never again to see his sign, lest grappling with me till his final spark. The god dissolves, leaving not a mark.”

“No,” Artemis declared, shaking her head. “Apollo will not dissolve. Prophecies are often deceptive. It must mean something else. Apollo will make it out of this intact.”

I wasn’t so sure. Prophecies rarely went the way they sounded, nor were they often as bad as they seemed – though they could still be quite bad – but with Python’s coils around Fate, he may well have been able to influence Apollo’s future to be worse than it would be otherwise – and Apollo had already had quite a harrowing journey. 

Nico’d sensed a strong aura of death around Apollo when he first arrived at Camp Half-blood all those months ago. I wondered whether that aura had strengthened or diminished.

A crashing sound interrupted whatever thoughts the group may have had about Rachel’s prophecy. Nico ran up to the window to check what was going on, as Will examined Rachel.

“Hey! We have to get out of here now.” Nico declared. “The cows are attacking.”

All eyes turned to Hera once more.

“I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS!” she bellowed.

Chapter Text

Of course cows were after my brother now. Just add it to the list of beings coming after Apollo’s life.

I wasn’t entirely convinced by Hera’s denials of culpability for the cattle. I still remembered being stuck in the womb with Apollo, kicking and pushing against him, desperately trying to get some space, because Hera refused to allow mother to give birth. She’d been playing nice with Apollo lately, but I wasn’t entirely convinced she’d turned over a new leaf, especially when my brother was so vulnerable.

I shook my head. Honestly, sending cows after Apollo, of all things? He loved cows! Well, his sun cows at least. Though it’d been awhile since I’d last seen them. I’d have to ask my brother how they were doing after all this was over.

All the cows had busted out of their cattle cars and were currently stampeding towards the Dare Mansion, flattening everything in the way.

Meg questioned whether they should fight. 

“Fighting would be no use,” Apollo informed her. “Those are tauri sylvestres – forest bulls, the Romans called them. Their hides cannot be pierced. According to legend, the tauri are ancestral enemies of Nico’s friends, the troglodytes.”

“So NOW you believe the trogs exist?” Nico asked.

“I am learning to believe in all sorts of things that can kill me!”

I nodded sagely. “That does tend to cause one to reassess a being’s realness.”

“Just because the tauri sylvestres are real, doesn’t mean the troglodytes are,” Athena pointed out.

“You just don’t want to admit you don’t know something,” Ares sneered.

“Because I’m right!” Athena fired back.

I let out a sigh. These two just couldn’t stop going at it. One of many reasons I preferred to keep my time spent on Olympus to a minimum. Troglodytes may well exist. I wasn’t so arrogant as to believe that I’d seen every being or monster in existence. My Hunters had discovered several over the millennia that hadn’t been documented at all previously. But of course Athena, holed up in libraries and at schools, liked to believe that every bit of reality had already been discovered and widely documented, and that anything that couldn’t be independently verified must necessarily be a hoax. Not that she’d admit to such a thing – she knew about fallacies better than anyone – but that didn’t stop those fallacies from impacting the way she viewed the world, even if she’d never admit it.

The group ran, Will carrying Rachel. For a nonfighter, Will was shockingly strong.

The cattle couldn’t climb up the stairs to reach the five of them, but with the way the cows were taking out the structural support of the mansion, they didn’t need to – the five of them would be sent crashing down to the ground soon enough.

Thankfully, Rachel knew a different method to get down to ground level. Another set of stairs led directly into the garage, handily enough. Even better, that garage contained two Ferraris. 

What it did NOT contain, however, were the keys to those Ferraris. Eventually they gave up looking and just ran (or in Rachel’s case, hobbled, since she’d regained consciousness.)

“This is why all demigods should take lessons from my children,” Hephaestus proposed. “A lack of car keys wouldn’t slow any of my children down at all,”

Hermes nodded. “Learning how to hotwire a car is a basic demigod survival skill. Most of my children learn how to do so before even arriving at camp.”

Athena hummed. “I suspect that’s because your children like to steal cars, but I see your point. That does sound like a reasonable proposal. Chiron really should have been teaching all campers different ways to acquire and drive any vehicle or mode of transportation they might come across. His curriculum is lacking, to say the least.”

I nodded. Most of my Hunters quickly learned how to commandeer and drive any vehicle or ride any animal for this exact reason.

The Dare residence crashed to the ground only a couple of minutes after the group had exited the building. The cows, now done venting their anger on the residence, switched to tracking down the group once more – and sadly, the five of them were not as fast as stampeding, pissed off cows.

Meg suggested fighting them, but Apollo shut that down, pointing out how they’d destroyed the mansion. 

“So what’s their weakness?” Rachel asked. “They have to have an Achilles’ heel?”

“Oh, Apollo’s not going to like that,” I muttered. To this day, Apollo still held a grudge against that man for killing one of his sons, Prince Troilius. Even after guiding Paris’s arrow to Achilles’ only vulnerable spot, his famous heel, killing him, that still wasn’t enough. Nothing would be. Achilles’ death wouldn’t bring Troilius back.

Alas, Achilles ended up being one of the most famous Greek heroes, specifically for the weakness Apollo exploited, ironically enough. So Apollo was forced to hear about him far more often than he’d wished to. He’d complained about it to me repeatedly, unfortunately for me.

“I remember them having one particular weakness,” Athena said. “Though I am not sure whether they will be able to exploit it, even assuming that Apollo remembers it.

Apollo vaguely remembered Ethiopian farmers using pits in the ground to fend off tauri, but as Athena alluded to and Rachel commented on, that was not a weakness they could currently exploit.

…except that Nico had apparently spotted a nearby luxury-apartment construction site, which might be able to fulfill the “pit” requirement. They would be trampled by cows otherwise, so it’d have to work.

All of them had to jump eight feet from the edge of the pit onto a crane’s arm. In Apollo’s normal form that’d be no problem, but currently? Apollo, at least, wasn’t sure he could make it.

“He’ll make it,” Athena said. “If he doesn’t he’ll die. He’s managed to navigate far more absurdly dangerous and difficult situations than this even just within the last few days. When push comes to shove, he always comes through.”

“I dunno, maybe this time he’ll go splat on the ground! Blood and guts everywhere!” Ares grinned.

I scowled at him. “My brother is not going to die, especially to something as mundane as a missed jump in a construction site!” Even if he did somehow fall, something would happen to ensure he survived. Zeus would allow me to find an excuse to heal him again, or some dryads would happen upon Apollo and save him with their own healing powers, or SOMETHING. Death was simply not a possibility.

As expected, Apollo made it onto the crane safely, though I doubted he was proud of that belly flop. A few of the bulls toppled into the pit before they could stop, but the rest braked in time, opting to moo angrily at the edge of the pit.

The handful of fallen cattle appeared unhurt by the drop, getting up and pacing around. 

That didn’t mean they were alright. Their mooing grew angrier and angrier, their eyes swelling and mouths foaming until they finally fell over, their flesh dissolving into the ground.

“What just happened?” Rachel asked shakily.

“They choked on their own anger,” Apollo informed her. “I– I didn’t think it was possible, but Aelian got it right. Sylvestres hate being stuck in pits so much they just… gag and die. It’s the only way to kill them.”

“If only other raging brutes could be killed the same way,” Athena commented, side-eyeing Ares. 

His face darkened, but for once, he had nothing to say to that, which was far more disconcerting than anything he might have blustered about. 

I shifted uncomfortably. I still remembered how Ares had gone off to fight the Giants who’d tried to make Hera and I their brides, how we’d just blown off the fact that he hadn’t returned, and how reduced he’d appeared when Hermes had finally rescued him. The idea of Ares withering away entirely because he couldn’t handle the imprisonment… it was not a subject I wanted to think about, much less joke about.

Will suggested Apollo shoot all the remaining tauri. Apollo demonstrated how ineffective that was, shooting several of the cows in the head, only for the arrow to bounce right off. They couldn’t wait out the cows either, given that the cattle had already demonstrated their ability to wait for over a day without food or water or laying down for a nap. Besides, Apollo and Meg were running up against Nero’s deadline.

Nico proposed they climb down to the bottom of the pit and use some of the shadows down there to shadow travel.

“That should work,” Athena mused. “The cows can’t get to the five of them unless they are willing to fall in themselves, and given how much they detest being trapped in pits, that seems unlikely. They should have a straight shot out of here.”

“Nico is not yet fully recovered,” Hades reminded her. “I doubt he can take all five of them safely out of harm’s way.”

“Making multiple trips ought to do the trick then,” Hermes said. “If there’s no threat that can reach them, then Nico taking his time should be fine.”

“Don’t tempt Fate,” I muttered. Apollo was generally on good terms with the three sisters, but they could have nasty senses of humor.

As everyone crawled to the center of the crane so they could climb it down, Rachel asked Apollo what’d happened while she was in a trance. He recounted to her how she’d channeled Python and dropped some more lines of the prophecy. It didn’t sound great, but Rachel thought that maybe since Python himself had spoken it, they weren’t really part of the prophecy.

“I wish you were right,” Apollo told her. “But the longer Python controls Delphi, the more he can poison the future. Whether he twisted your words or not, they are now part of the prophecy. What you predicted WILL happen.”

This was the major reason we NEEDED for the Oracles to all be reclaimed. While it would still be possible to, perhaps, overthrow whatever forces took the power of prophecy from us, took the future from us, it would be a lot more difficult, and likely come at great cost. The future could not be tamed or controlled, but some guidance was possible. For millennia, it’d been guided to allow us, the Olympians, to remain in power. I feared our Fate if it was taken from us. So many of our peers from ancient time had faded long ago, without the power to guide the future to their benefit. If other beings were guiding Fate with the aim to actively destroy us, I doubted we would last very long. 

Apollo may be the first of us to dissolve, but I doubted that he’d remain the only one of us to meet that Fate for long.

No. That would not happen . Apollo had reclaimed several Oracles already, had reclaimed portions of the future already. He would be fine. Even with a prophecy as dire as that one coming true. Prophecies could have many meanings, it was almost certainly not as bad as it sounded.

My brother would be fine .

They all eventually climbed to the bottom of the construction pit. Unfortunately Nico needed to take a breather before teleporting them out. 

Which would be fine, if the jostling cows at the top of the pit hadn’t inadvertently knocked one of their own over the edge and into the pit. It was unhurt, like the others had been, and didn’t particularly seem keen on dissolving its own flesh in anger, instead glaring at the group.

“Um… it’s in the pit, why isn’t it choking on its rage?” Will asked.

“I-I think it’s because we’re here?” Apollo surmised. “It wants to kill us more than it wants to choke to death?”

“That does seem likely, based on their behavior,” Athena noted. “Quite inconvenient.”

Ares rubbed his hands together, grinning. “Do ya think there are any more of these cattle lying around? Apollo might have had the right idea about cow herding after all…”

I let out a long sigh. I sincerely hoped Ares couldn’t find and “acquire” some forest bulls of his own. I doubted he’d treat them well, though they might not care about their living conditions much so long as they got to kill people and destroy buildings, judging by how they’d stayed nicely in that trailer for so long.

Meg demanded Nico shadow-travel them all away, but Nico couldn’t move that many people at once, not after being depleted by needing to transport the Athena Parthenos across the world last year.

“Take Will and Rachel,” Apollo proposed. “Return for Meg and me when you can.”

Nico did as he asked, after some protesting, leaving Meg and Apollo to face the Sylvestres alone.

Apollo was putting others ahead of himself, letting himself remain in danger so others could be safe. At one point, this would have surprised me. Over the past few months, however, Apollo had done this so often it barely warranted a thought. 

And of course, he wasn’t alone. Meg also remained behind. She’d demonstrated her fighting prowess and high power many, many times. I wasn’t sure she’d be able to kill the Sylvestres, but if anyone could find a way to stop it, it’d be her. 

Apollo shot at the Sylvestre over and over again, aiming at the usual weak points, most notably the eyes. Unfortunately, on the bull, there was no such thing. Meg also tried to slash and stab at the Sylvestre, but in just as much vain – her swords slid right off its hide.

The bull couldn’t decide which one of them it wanted to kill first, which kept them alive – it kept turning from Apollo to Meg to Apollo again before it could start charging.

And then a second bull tumbled over the edge, landing on a portable toilet, crushing it.

“I’ll take Potty Cow,” Apollo told Meg. “You distract our friend here.”

Ares let out a guffaw of laughter. 

Athena rolled her eyes. “Honestly, so juvenile ,” she muttered disdainfully.

Apollo charged at the first cow, reached back into his quiver for an arrow to shoot, realized he only had one left (which I presumed to be the Arrow of Dodona), and instead yelled “Hey! Blah blah blah, go away!” while waving his arms. I did not understand what he hoped to accomplish with that. Maybe confuse the cow into exploding?

The bull charged at him. My brother barely managed to jump out of the way in time. 

It turned around, startlingly quickly for such a large animal, and charged again. Apollo grabbed a blue tarp as he rolled out of the way, holding it up like a shield.

Again, I was unsure what he was hoping to accomplish with that. Did he think matadors held up red cloth as protection against charging bulls? I’d have to take him with me next time I shut down a bullfighting event, show him how well that cloth actually worked as protection against angry bovines.

Predictably, the bull jammed a horn through the tarp, though Apollo again managed to jump out of the way in time to avoid being skewered. Luckily, that meant the bull now had a tarp on its horn, impeding its visibility and mobility.

“Clever plan,” Athena murmured respectfully.

If I thought Apollo had intentionally set this up, I’d agree. Judging by the expression on his face, I suspected that this was more of a lucky break born of desperation than anything else.

Apollo yelled at Meg to retreat back to the ladder so they could climb to safety. Unfortunately, a cow was between them and that ladder. Apollo ran at it, strumming his ukulele, singing, “Cowie cowie, cow! Hey, cow! Bad, cow! Run away, cowie, cowie, cow!”

Not my brother’s best work. It didn’t even make the cow budge.

As Apollo reached Meg, the tarp cow threw off the tarp, taking advantage of its newfound freedom to charge at them. 

“Go,” Apollo told Meg, his voice shaking. “J-jump the cow and climb the ladder. I’ll–”

Thankfully I didn’t have to find out just what Apollo would have done (presumably get a sudden burst of divine strength to allow him to throw the cows into the upper atmosphere? I wouldn’t be surprised if he managed to make a cow jump over the moon).

“Gotcha,” Nico said, reaching a hand out from the shadows.

Then Meg and my brother were gone.

Ares pouted. “Leaving the cows already? They’re the best thing they’ve come across in months!”

“You just want to see them gore someone,” I pointed out.

Ares grinned, completely unapologetic. “Guilty!”

I could not let him near any Sylvestres. The bulls themselves would probably be okay with it, but the local populace would end up with a few too many horn wounds through the chest. Normally I’d be fine with it if I thought they deserved it, but letting these cattle loose on innocent people was not to my taste.

And if some of my Hunters ended up victim to these bulls… well, I wasn’t opposed to testing whether their hides could stand up to divine arrows with the full fury of a goddess behind them.

Chapter Text

I had to get the cows. 

I mean, come on , those raging bulls were practically made for the chaos of the battlefield! The way they knocked over buildings, tirelessly pursuing their prey, consumed by hatred so strong they’d melt their own flesh if trapped without a target to vent it at? We were a match made in Olympus!

I glanced at Zapbrains. I doubted he’d let me down to Earth to abscond with some cattle, not so soon after Sunbutt had left. Hermes might be able to sneak around under a godly nose and steal some cows without getting caught immediately, but as much as it pained me to admit it (not that I would ever admit it. I knew better than to show that sort of weakness), I could not rely on being able to pull off the same sort of stealth. 

You need me to yell and scream and murder guys with explosions and the chopping off of random body parts? I’m your guy. You want subtlety and quiet? Go to Hermes, or maybe old Owl Face, she ate that kind of thing up. Something about “planning” and “strategy” and “you can’t just kill your way to solving every problem”. She was such a boring DM. I mean, come on, you introduce an NPC and you expect me NOT to chop off his head? Really?

I’d have to sneak off during the night. I could conceal even the most desirable of illicitly obtained goods! …so long as I obtained them while no one was watching.

“Jump the cow?” Meg demanded once the camera had traveled to Sunbutt’s new location. 

“I was improvising,” Sunbutt countered. “I didn’t want to see you die.”

“And I didn’t want to see you die, dummy. Did you think of that?”

“Dying’s a part of life,” I stated dismissively. “You’ve just gotta make sure you’re death’s cool. If you gotta die, then die with style! Preferably soaked in the blood of your enemies!”

Owl Face rolled her eyes. “How you didn’t end up with the Norse gods, I’ll never know,” she muttered. 

I grinned. “See, those guys know how to have fun.” I’d sneaked into Hotel Valhalla for their daily battles a few hundred times. Why couldn’t we have something like that? I kept on sending picture after picture to Corpse Breath of plans for a Greek version, but he’d never responded. I’d put a lot of effort into my stick figures of dead people stabbing each other with swords! 

Nico passed out from the effort of shadow-travelling. Will declared that he’d need at least half an hour to recover. In the meantime, he handed out Kit-Kat bars to everyone to help them recover from the events of the last few minutes.

As they waited for Nico to wake up, Meg started musing. “Those forest bulls were amazing. If you could train them to carry…”

“It was bad enough when you weaponized the unicorns,” Sunbutt groused.

“Yeah. That was great.”

“Hm, unicorns and forest bulls trampling a battlefield together…” They’d cause utter chaos, mowing down everyone and everything in their way, spearing monsters and mortals alike with their horns, leaving beautifully mangled corpses in their wake.

“I doubt the forest bulls would get along with unicorns,” Seaweed commented drily. He shot me a sharp look. “I will not allow you to get any equine close to those cattle unless I’m reasonably certain the equine won’t be harmed in the process.”

I snorted. “Like you could stop me,” I muttered. He wasn’t the boss of me.

“I concur,” Moony said, adding her own frosty gaze. “While I am not opposed to deploying animals against our enemies as a form of enrichment for them, their wellbeing comes first.”

I grimaced. Getting on Moony’s bad side could be a pain in the ass. Sometimes literally. “Alright, alright. Fine. You can help introduce them to each other. You and your followers train creatures all the time, right? You can train ‘em to cooperate.”

Moony looked pissed, but a moment later, she changed to a more thoughtful expression. “I suppose so,” she said slowly. “That would be an interesting challenge.”

I grinned. Moony rarely lost challenges. Unless they were against me of course. Just don’t ask her about her take on those challenges, she’s lying.

The group started talking about what would happen once Nico woke up and was able to take them to the troglodytes. Rachel asked what they were like. Will was unable to describe them.

Meg noticed a tail sticking out of Will’s bag. He pulled it out, showing off the long, desiccated lizard. Sunbutt informed Meg that according to legend, troglodytes considered lizard to be a delicacy.

“For not believing in them, Apollo remembers an awful lot of details concerning Troglodytes,” Owl Face observed. 

“What, jealous he remembers more than you?” I teased. 

She flushed. “Of course not! I remember everything I’ve ever read on them, which I’m certain is more than Apollo ever has. But who knows how accurate any of that is? Best to simply observe them without bringing up any old info that may have been formulated from mistaken preconceptions.”

“Suuuuure,” I drawled. She just didn’t want to admit she hadn’t read as much on something as Sunbutt had.

“So if we find the trogs, we give them the lizard and they’ll help us?” Meg asked.

“I doubt it will be that simple. Meg, has anyone ever agreed to help you simply because you gave them a dead lizard?” Apollo asked.

Meg pondered that for a few seconds. “I guess not,” she concluded.

“...how many times has Meg given people dead lizards?” Hermes asked, a morbid expression on his face.

“I’m sure she has given them the proper number of times,” Demeter stated primly.

Apparently this dead lizard was extra rare and special, making it the perfect gift for the trogs. 

I was shocked Moony hadn’t chimed in with any objections over the killing of a rare lizard. Usually she cared a lot about “conserving all manners of life” and all sorts of other treehugger nonsense.

I glanced at her. She squinted at the screen, examining the lizard closely. 

Oh no. I knew the look on her face. As soon as she identified the species, she was gonna launch into some long-winded tirade about how mortals were killing the heavily endangered pink-scaled Wallatootoo or whatever this thing was, and THEN try to get us to care about it enough to try and protect it.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy nothing more than tormenting mortals for amusement, but trying to keep some other creature safe while doing it? Bo~ring. What’s violence without a bit of collateral damage? But nooo. She didn’t even want one measly little endangered animal to get squished in the crossfire. Totally unreasonable!

Nico woke up. Will fed him a Kit-Kat and some nectar to help him recover. Once he was as refreshed as he could be, he started giving instructions on what to do when they meet the troglodytes. “Keep your hands away from your weapons at all times. Let me go first and do the talking. The troglodytes can be a little… jumpy.”

“By ‘jumpy’,” Will specified, “Nico means ‘likely to murder us with no provocation’.”

“That’s what I said!”

“Oh, that clears everything up. Ares is a troglodyte,” Owl Face declared smugly, barely hiding her smirk.

I returned her smirk. “Can’t get enough of me, huh? You’re hoping there’s an entire race of me!”

Her smile turned to disgust. “That is not what I meant.”

“Sounded like it to me~” I called out in a sing-song voice.

The group headed down, down, and down some more through some sewers so disgusting, I was sure Cloacina had forsaken them. Maybe send Percy down to clean them, he didn’t have enough to do. 

Eventually, they emerged in a large circular room, which was apparently their destination.

“Is this part of the Labyrinth?” Sunbutt asked.

Nico shook his head. “Please don’t mention the Labyrinth. The trogs detest Daedalus’s maze. They call it shallow. From here on down is all trog-built. We’re deeper than the Labyrinth has ever gone.”

“The Labyrinth is not shallow,” Owl Face remarked stiffly. “It is a marvel of engineering! It is dangerous and deadly, but that makes it no less worthy of respect.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I think the trogs know what they’re talking about,” I needled her. “At least they know other trogs exist. I’m sure they know more about underground architecture too.”

“Not possible,” she muttered, but I detected a hint of doubt in her words.

After some more traveling through difficult passageways, Nico stopped everyone, wanting to pull out some new source of light. The trogs wouldn’t be providing any light since they didn’t need it, and all the weapons that had been providing the group with light had been put away in preparation for the encounter.

Nico requested that Will “do his thing”, whatever that meant. 

Will stripped off his overshirt, revealing a tank top underneath. He took a deep breath. As he exhaled, he started to glow. 

“I’m so proud,” Sunbutt told him. 

“Dad, I’m just glowing. I’m not graduating at the top of my class.”

“I’ll be proud when you do that too,” Sunbutt told him. 

I rolled my eyes. I never understood how he could be so proud of every little thing his kids did. Sink or swim! Don’t acknowledge your kids unless they did somethin’ worth acknowledging. Toughen them up. Survival of the fittest. 

‘Oooh my son is glowing, what an accomplishment!’ Give me a break. You couldn’t even stab someone through the gut with that power.

Nico announced their presence to the troglodytes. Within seconds, thousands of them filled the cavern, having run at speeds so fast, they rivaled even that of Hermes.

Most of them wore hats. Not just a single hat, but several, stacked on top of each other.

Aphrodite wrinkled her nose. “No wonder they can’t stand sunlight. If I had their fashion sense, I wouldn’t expose the world to myself, either.”

“I bet you could make even the least fashionable trog fit for the runway,” I flattered.

She gave me a seductive grin. “Oh, I know I could,” she purred. “You, however, need no such help.”

“Can you carry this on somewhere I don’t have to see it?” Mr. Ugly muttered.

I snorted derisively. Of course he’d rather not listen to the two of us, he’d rather just watch the troglodytes. Seeing their looks for the first time, there was clearly some sort of relation between them and him. But even Aphrodite, as amazing as she was, couldn’t make Mr. Ugly fit for a fashion show.

The trogs announced their recognition of Nico, and asked whether his guests were the sacrifices he promised. The trogs were hungry.

“I don’t think that lizard will be enough to feed them all,” Hermes noted.

I grinned, rubbing my hands together. Maybe the trogs would tear someone apart and eat them alive! 

Chapter Text

I wrinkled my nose. 

Trogs. Ugh .

I hadn’t known they existed, but even just hearing about the concept of them… any species that would want to hide from my glorious sky was beneath my interest. Let Hades deal with them, they seemed worthy of each other. Or let Hades’ child deal with them, I suppose.

Nico had evaded my lightning bolt back when I had tried to kill him and his sister decades ago. He should pay me back for the debt of his continued existence. Dealing with creatures that were beneath me was a good step towards that. Perhaps if he continued being useful, I may not even require him to perform extra errands for other gods to earn recommendation letters, as I demanded from Percy. That mercy ought to keep Hades mollified. He’s always cared far too much for his children.

Nico clarified that his companions were not sacrifices, instead bringing the dead lizard out – a five-lined skink, according to Screech-Bling.

Artemis hissed. “I knew it! That skink had better have already been dead when Nico and Will ran across it, or they’ll be as endangered as that lizard.”

Hades looked at her sharply. “Nico has been through quite enough. He does not need you going after him.”

“Then he shouldn’t be presenting endangered species to others as a gift!” she shouted.

I allowed myself a small smile. So long as the other council members were busy with their petty squabbling, they’d be unable to mount any sort of unified front. None of them stood a chance against me individually. 

Of course, their lack of cooperation was part of the reason I had to be ruler to begin with. Only I could bring all of their power to bear against the proper enemies. Only I could see who our true enemies were to begin with – and which enemies were beneath us, as gods. Many were more suitable for our children to fight. They served as useful proxies for our own strength, without the destructive potential when we gods fought each other directly.

Naturally, my children were always the strongest. Even when they died, such as Jason did, their heroic deaths bolstered their legacies – and mine. Everyone inexorably tied their achievements to myself, as was right. The respect those heroes received added to the respect I received. That respect bolstered my power, both socially and physically. My children almost always paid me back for their creation, in the end.

Screech-Bling accepted the gift, declaring that they’d make a soup out of the lizard so that all the trogs – all the shareholders, as he called them – could taste it. He graciously declared that because of the gift, they would not kill and eat Nico, nor his companions. He did, however, inform Nico that “no hatless species could be considered civilized,” which was a bit of a problem, considering that none of the humans or demigods were wearing hats.

Aphrodite considered this, humming thoughtfully. “The way the trogs wear hats may be atrocious, but I admire their dedication to fashion,” she conceded. “They know how important it is to look your best.”

Nico proposed an agreement, one that would, supposedly, produce everything the trogs desired – hats, reptiles, fine clothing, and rocks.

Screech-Bling chatted with some other trogs, reaching an agreement with them – they’d take Nico and his companions to corporate headquarters to discuss this agreement and to cook the skink soup. The trogs promptly picked Nico, Will, Rachel, Meg, and Apollo up, racing off into the darkness with them on their shoulders.

“These guys are awesome,” Meg declared upon reaching the Trogs’ headquarters. “They eat snakes.”

“That’s not a point in their favor,” Hermes grumbled. “I realize that Meg hasn’t had the best experiences with snakes, but many of them are quite nice! Maybe if she got to feed George and Martha a couple of rats…” he trailed off, muttering.

“Maybe they can eat Python!” Ares suggested enthusiastically. I suspected he cared less about Python being killed, and more about getting to see a swarm of lizard-people eat a giant snake alive.

“Apollo must be the one to take down Python,” I growled. Only then could he reclaim Delphi. He could not rely on others to destroy Python for him. Apollo must prove his worth as a god on his own. The Fates would only allow him to succeed if he’d truly learned his lesson.

If he didn’t succeed… well. Other gods had taken over faded gods’ domains before. I was sure the Fates had a plan for that eventuality if it occurred.

Nico was led away to talk to Screech-Bling on his own, leaving Apollo to talk with Rachel.

Rachel suggested to Apollo that when he and Meg surrendered to Nero, he’d have to buy as much time as possible for the trogs to sabotage the Greek Fire delivery system. Sending Camp Half-Blood against Nero in order to incentivize him to wait until all the campers were within range of the greek fire seemed like the best option. Apollo couldn’t just bluff and claim that reinforcements were coming, since Python, with his future sight, would know he was lying. Since Rachel was mortal and not susceptible to technology blowing up in her hands like demigods were, she could contact Chiron easily, even with such short notice, to inform him of the plan.

“Rachel, I’m scared,” Apollo told her. “It was one thing putting myself in danger. But the entire camp? Everyone?”

She took his hand. “I know, Apollo. And the fact that you’re worried about other people? That’s beautiful. But you’ll have to trust me. That secret path to the throne… the thing I am supposed to show you? I’m pretty sure this is it. This is how we make things right.”

“I wouldn’t think that Rachel would be the one showing Apollo the secret way to Nero’s throne room. The way the prophecy’s constructed implies that Nico would do that,” Athena commented. “Then again, prophecies are often purposely obtuse. The Great Prophecy certainly didn’t go the way it implied.”

I grimaced. I’d assumed a “child of the eldest gods” was the person spoken of throughout the entire prophecy – and thus, Luke flew under my radar. I could not make such a mistake again. This prophecy did not appear to pose any threat to my power, unlike that one, but I could not allow myself to become complacent. Perhaps the “secret way to the throne” didn’t refer to Nero’s throne room, as would be expected, but instead to something far grander – Apollo’s own throne, or even…

No. No. If my throne was at risk, the prophecy would be more upfront about it, or the Fates would have warned me. Destiny itself knows that I am the rightful ruler. 

Then again… maybe this was the method by which the fabric of reality was warning me. By arranging things to cause me to ask these questions. 

I would continue to carefully monitor this situation, with an increased focus on Rachel and Nico. Both of them were allied too closely with Apollo for my liking, especially with Rachel hoping they could “make things right.” In my experience, what others considered “right” was often far removed from the true rightness I worked towards.

“I trust you,” Apollo told her. “I’ll make things right. Or I’ll die trying.”

Now that was a sentiment I could agree with. Either he’d make things right, learning his place, finally quelling his rebellious tendencies, or he’d die. The Fates would ensure it. 

Chapter Text

I was not pouting. Such a thing would be undignified, beneath a goddess of my stature. So Troglodytes existed. So what? Even the most learned people in the universe couldn’t know everything, otherwise there would be no discoveries to be made. You simply had to modify your understanding of the universe based on the evidence you find. I hadn’t had good evidence for troglodytes’ existence before, so I hadn’t believed in them. Now that I could see them with my own eyes, I had sufficient evidence, so I believed in them. It would be bad science to believe something before having sufficient evidence to support your hypothesis, even if that hypothesis turned out to be correct. Especially since you can be right for the wrong reasons. Sure, my hypothesis was wrong, but I was right to hold off on believing in Troglodytes, in altering my view on their nonexistence, until now. 

Ares simply didn’t appreciate the scientific method. He didn’t have the brainpower to comprehend the nuances of it.

The trogs served the skink soup to everyone – including the demigods and humans. Apollo put his cup against his lips, though I noted that the level of the soup hadn’t noticeably decreased when he lowered his cup again.

“Mmm! Your culinary skills astound me!” Apollo declared. “Partaking in this soup is a great honor. In fact, having any more of it would be TOO much of an honor. May I give the rest to someone who can better appreciate the succulent flavors?”

Hermes snorted. “Clever.”

I had to agree. Apollo was quite talented at knowing what to tell people in order to get them to do what he wanted – a useful skill for anyone, god, former god, or mortal. There was a reason Zeus feared Apollo overthrowing him – Apollo had the manipulation skills to put together his own supporting faction, if he should choose to seriously pursue it. 

Screech-Bling began a speech, thankfully in English so Apollo and co. could understand it. 

I’d have to study the Trogs’ language, now that I knew it actually existed. I didn’t like relying on other people translating for me. Now if only the other Olympians cared as much. We all needed to learn Portuguese, and soon. Brazil was far too important to just ignore. All of us need to know how to speak their official language. I didn’t want to be dragged around to translate for everyone later on, that was such a pain with English. Everyone else just kept on ignoring the British Empire’s growth, until suddenly, it was everywhere. And then I got dragged around to translate for everyone until they could get up to speed.

Not this time . They’d all learn Portuguese before Brazil becomes a major world power, for the sake of my sanity.

Screech-Bling told all the Trogs that Emperor Nero had installed massive vats of Greek Fire underground – something they’d already been somewhat aware of, from the racket all the digging made. Nico had requested they disable the vats’ ability to distribute the fire, but Screech-Bling would rather just let the crust burn, since the fires wouldn’t reach the Trogs’ home, this far underground. 

Will objected to that since a lot of people would die, but Screech-Bling didn’t care. There were a lot more humans than there were Trogs, and the humans didn’t even know Trogs existed, so it wasn’t like humans would help them if the roles were reversed. 

“That’s a bit unfair,” Hermes observed. “You can’t expect help from people who don’t know you exist, that’s a different situation.”

I nodded. “The rest of it though… Screech-Bling has a point. They do not have a lot of reason to care about what happens on the surface, at least on this level of destruction. If Nero was planning on dropping a nuclear bomb on New York City, that might affect even the Trogs enough to matter, but simply a fire, no matter how destructive, is unlikely to significantly decrease the quality of the Trogs’ lives, and trying to stop that fire endangers them, at least a little.”

Screech-Bling clarified to his guests that they had no malice against their kind, but they also didn’t care whether they lived or died.

Nico brought up that a lot of animals the Trogs enjoyed eating would also perish in the fire, a good argument that gave the Trogs’ pause. Will also argued that many hats would burn.

I nodded approvingly. Appealing to the Trogs’ self-interest, particularly with something as vital as their food supply… that could get results. Though a lot depended on where, exactly, they hunted, and how far afield they could reasonably go to obtain new food. They seemed to be very fast runners, so their foraging range may be far larger than any area that Nero’s fire could impact.

The hats were far less vital, and seemed more silly to me, but they were clearly important to Trog culture – perhaps even more important to them than keeping their food supply secure. Unfortunately, like with the food argument, they’d simply need to forage a little outside of the city, and things should be fine.

Trogs grumbled, but not much more than that. While Will’s and Nico’s arguments resonated, they weren’t enough.

Apollo stood up. He flattered the Trogs by proclaiming them civilized people, saying that they saw value, honor, and worthiness. That they saw things how they were. He told them how he didn’t used to value human lives that much, but that now, he saw their value – value aside from producing hats. He strummed his ukulele, singing about his mortal journey so far, trying to get the Trogs’ to value humans like he did.

Screech-Bling thought the music was horrible (or so he said – his expression told a different story), but the words of the song resonated with him. Apollo turned to Rachel, having her verify that the things he’d said were true. 

Rachel told them that if Nero wasn’t stopped, he’d eventually come for the Trogs as well. And with Python strangling the future, things would get even worse. Nothing would happen unless the giant snake decreed it.

Mothers hugged their children, scared. Many Trogs trembled. 

I hummed. “Appealing to the potential loss of some of their favorite resources – even if within a limited geographic area – emphasizing that civilized people see value in each other’s lives, and emphasizing the potential of a threat to Trogs’ own lives and futures with Nero and Python? All of those together seem likely to sway the Trogs.”

Especially with their horror at the mention of Python. I suppose that since they ate snakes, the idea of a snake being in charge of their fate was not a happy one.

Screech Bling asked Lester-Apollo (as he called him), what he wanted him to do. He requested that Screech-Bling dig underneath the fire vats, taking Will, Nico, and Rachel with him. Meanwhile, he and Meg were going to surrender to Nero in order to drop his guard.

A moment later, the Trogs froze, hearing something overhead. Screech-Bling declared that Tauri Sylvestres were approaching. Nico let them know that they’d fought the bulls on the surface, but they shadow-travelled away, so they couldn’t have been followed.

Grr-Fred called him foolish, telling him that the bulls could track their prey anywhere, and they’d brought their enemies to their headquarters. He commanded one of the other Trogs to take the Trog children to safety.

Grr-Fred asked whether they should kill the crust-dwellers or leave them behind with the bulls. Screech-Bling declared that he should take Apollo and Meg to Nero’s tower. He was cut off before he could stipulate what Rachel’s, Will’s, and Nico’s fates should be.

It was a good thing Apollo’s group had managed to convince the Trogs that it was in their best interest to help with defeating Nero, otherwise they’d almost certainly have left them to their fate. Goodwill towards them was rather low at the moment. Just another reason why it was best to appeal to someone’s own needs when trying to convince them to help you: compassion might sway people to your side, but it was far more fickle of a motive than self-interest was.

Chapter Text

For as well as my brother often did with bringing animals over to his side, the tauri were beyond his taming capabilities. Unless he managed to serenade them into letting him and Meg go, like he had with the Myrmekes. I still hadn’t forgotten how he’d persuaded the ant queen to adopt him. And even accepted her as ‘Mama’ in turn! 

I’d refrained from telling our true mother about that incident. She’d been stressed enough about Apollo’s trials without letting her know that her son had temporarily replaced her with a giant ant. 

How did the tauri even get down here in the first place? Could they teleport? Ugh, if they could teleport, it’d make corralling them even more difficult than it already looked like it would be. With the way Ares had been eyeing the tauri, I had a feeling I’d have to figure out how to herd the cows sooner rather than later. I doubt he’d keep tight control over them. Ares was the “let slip the dogs of war” type of commander, or in this case, “let slip the cows”.

Tauri dropped out of the ceiling. Trogs fled as quickly as they could, trying to escape the beasts. Apollo managed to jump over a couple of cows, reaching Meg and Grr-Fred before anything could happen to them.

I raised an eyebrow. Humans could leap a decent length, ten feet with some training – but that was only horizontally. Vertical movement was different. The world record for a standing vertical jump was eight feet. While technically the cows were within the leaping range of a human, it was on the outer edges of human capability.

Could my brother be using a little divine power? He’d been exhibiting more of it lately. They were small boosts, but they were sustained.

I hoped so. He needed every bit of divinity he could muster. I hadn’t forgotten that ultimately, he’d have to take down Python. 

Somehow.

One little trog hadn’t been evacuated with the other children, instead running after his ball, right into the path of a charging bull.

Apollo reached for his quiver, hesitated (presumably having remembered that he only had the Arrow of Dodona left), instead picking up a nearby dagger, yelling “HEY!”, and jabbing it into the cow’s nostril when it whirled around to face him.

“My ball!” the child yelled.

“I’ll get it back to you!” Apollo called out, as it rolled between the bull’s legs. “Run! Get to safety!”

Reluctantly, the child ran off.

“I can’t tell whether that kid’s brave or stupid,” Hermes said.

“I know which it is,” I muttered. Honestly, how had their species survived this long? With the tauri being their ancestral enemies, you’d think this kid would automatically be terrified of the raging bulls, but no, he was more worried about his ball! That wasn’t brave, that was just stupid. Some fear was a healthy thing, it could prompt you to take action to keep yourself or those you loved safe. It only became detrimental if it stopped you from taking those actions.

If this had happened several months ago, I might’ve been surprised that my brother had willingly acted as a distraction for a stranger, that he would endanger himself that way for someone he’d never met before (and on whom he had no romantic designs).

I’d seen him act as a distraction for Percy and Meg only hours after Zeus had stripped him of his godhood, and his acts of self-sacrifice had only become more extreme since then. Something as small as Apollo distracting an angry cow in order to let a child escape? No longer had the capacity to surprise me.

The bull snorted the dagger out of its nose, then charged. Apollo stepped backwards, tripped on a cooking pot, and fell.

Fortunately, at that moment, glowing mushrooms erupted all over the bull’s head, blinding it. 

My eyebrows shot up. “Fungi?!” I asked, disbelieving. “Meg can control that?!”

Demeter puffed her chest out. “Of course! My daughter can–”

“I know, I know, your daughter’s amazing,” I interrupted. “But most of your children have plant-based powers. Mushrooms aren’t plants, they’re fungi. Totally different part of the tree of life. What other things can she control? Bacteria? Animals?”

“More likely animals than bacteria,” Athena observed. “Animals and fungi are both under the eukaryote domain. Bacteria have a domain all their own.”

I shook my head. “Maybe she should test her powers, check the limits of it.” If fungi somehow were under her domain, I wouldn’t be surprised if bacteria were, too. 

Perhaps it had to do with what she thought might be under her control? For a long time, fungi were thought to be plants. I doubted Meg had had the broadest of educations, she may have simply assumed that since mushrooms kinda grew like plants, that meant they actually WERE plants.

The limit to what she could control may only rely on what she assumed she could.

Meg’s powers… in some ways, they seemed to work like a god’s. Based off of belief.

I glanced at Zeus. Thankfully, his eyes were glued to Apollo. Meg seemed to be slipping under his radar.

I let out a quiet sigh of relief. If he decided Meg was a threat…

No. She’d be okay. He only ever considered his brothers’ children to be threats, not those of one of his sister’s. Meg would not be subject to his close scrutiny.

I wasn’t sure how Apollo would live with himself if Zeus turned his attention to her.

Meg and Apollo took off, Apollo having snatched up the child’s ball, like he’d promised. Grr-fred made them jump in the nearby river, since they’d have better luck outswimming the Tauri (especially with the current doing a lot of the work), than outrunning them.

Apollo and Meg plummeted down the river. I saw both of them surface for breath repeatedly, so they didn’t appear to be drowning at least.

After a couple of minutes, Grr-Fred fished them out, dropping them on a ledge. He fed them a piece of some sort of jerky-like substance. It really perked Apollo and Meg up. I might have to track down the recipe for whatever that was, my Hunters might be able to make good use of it…

Grr-Fred turned to the nearby stone wall. He started scooping and digging the rock out as if it was no denser than whipping cream, crumbling into bits as he tossed the pieces into the river.

“I think trogs must be able to change the physical properties of the substances they dig through,” Athena noted, squinting at the screen. “The way those rocks are crumbling apart… they shouldn’t do that, no matter how strong the force being applied to them is.”

“So the trogs may not be as strong as they appear, they might just be able to weaken rocks to the point that they can break them anyway.”

“They’re still not weak, Grr-Fred was able to pull both Meg and Apollo out of the river easily,” Athena pointed out. “Besides, changing the composition of whatever materials they touch is arguably a more terrifying trog ability than simply having super-strength. Super-strength is a lot more predictable and easy to work around. Altering material composition… without knowing the limitations of such a power, it’d be hard to guard against.”

“The power couldn’t be used to fly or otherwise break into Olympus?” Zeus asked, his eyes straying from Apollo to Grr-Fred for the first time.

“I do not see how it could. It appears to work via contact. In any case, the trogs do not appear to have any desire to venture to the surface for reasons other than hunting,” Athena assessed, clearly choosing her words carefully.

I heard her unsaid message: We have nothing to fear from the trogs, you do not need to worry about them.

Judging by the way Zeus sat back in his throne, his eyes drifting towards Apollo once more, that message was received, loud and clear.

Apollo and Meg traveled through the newly created tunnel as Grr-Fred sealed it shut behind them. After he’d finished that, he led the two of them through a series of tunnels and caverns up to the surface. 

“Honored guide,” Apollo said respectfully, “what of our friends? Do you believe Screech-Bling will keep his promise and help them dig to the emperor’s fire vats?”

“Did the CEO make such a promise?” Grr-Fred sneered. “I did not hear that.”

“But-”

Grr-Fred interrupted him to explain that they were here, and that if they went above ground now, they’d be within fifty feet of Nero’s tower. “I have done my duty,” he stated. “What happens to your friends is up to Screech-Bling, assuming the CEO is even alive after the destruction you hatless barbarians brought to our headquarters. If it was up to me…”

I had the feeling that Grr-Fred wasn’t particularly inclined to help most surface-dwellers right now.

“The timing of the cow attack was unfortunate,” Athena noted. “That may well have destroyed the goodwill Nico had worked to generate. But there’s still a chance the trogs will help anyway, since Apollo gave some good reasons why it would be in their best interest. That’s always the best way to get others onto your side. They don’t have to like you so long as the outcome you’re aiming for would benefit them as well.”

Apollo fished the trog child’s crystal ball out of his backpack. “Please, would you take this back to its owner?” he requested. “And thank you for guiding us. For what it is worth, I meant what I said. We have to help one another. That’s the only future worth fighting for.”

Grr-Fred took the ball, his expression unfathomable. “Good digging,” he said, then vanished.

“Clever gesture,” Athena noted approvingly. “I doubt it’ll completely offset the loss of goodwill from the attack, but it ends the interaction on a nicer note. The kind gesture of returning the ball, keeping that promise, might sway a few doubting trogs. That foolish child losing their ball might have been a good thing for human-trog relations.”

While Athena’s analysis was likely correct, I didn’t think my brother had been making any careful calculations of likability. I believed he was sincere here. That he meant what he said. It lined up with everything I’d seen of him over the past few months. If he hadn’t believed that helping others was necessary before – and judging by his actions within just the first few days of turning mortal, he likely did - then he certainly believed it now.

Chapter Text

I sneered at Nero’s tower. Somehow it managed to be gaudy and plain at the same time, nothing like the masterpieces on Mount Olympus. But of course, Nero was merely a wannabe god, not a true god. Naturally, his dwelling place would be inferior to my own.

Apollo and Meg just walked into the building, stated who they were and that they were surrendering, and after the guard checked their IDs (Apollo’s “Lester” driving license, much to my pleasure, and Meg’s rings, for some reason), he told them to take elevator nine to get to their destination.

A dryad greeted them on the new floor. Quite a pretty one, actually, named Areca.

“What does he have over her?!” Demeter hissed, her eyes narrowing. She gestured to the nymph. “Look at her eyes! There’s no way she’s here of her own free will.”

“I am afraid that blackmailing dryads is the least of Nero’s crimes,” Poseidon commented dryly.

“The least to you , maybe,” Demeter snapped. “But I care about the dryads you oh-so-mighty greater gods overlook. They’re not just collateral damage in the wars of others. They matter .”

I considered chastising Demeter for her less-than-respectful tone towards gods like myself and my brothers, but decided it wasn’t worth it. Everyone already knew how Demeter complained about meaningless things, how much of a fuss she put up about the smallest matters. She’d once tried to kill the world with famine merely because Hades had taken her daughter. I’d given my approval for the pairing, that should have been enough for her. But no, she remained hung up about it to this day.

Lecturing Demeter was not worth having to engage with her exhausting obnoxiousness. Not yet, at any rate. If her insolence grew too loud, if she started fomenting rebellion, then she would force my hand. I had to maintain order for the good of all. That was simply the way of things.

Areca guided Apollo and Meg to Nero’s room. Eleven demigods, none of whom were adults yet, surrounded the emperor. Lu stood by Nero’s side, injured, but alive.

“The impertinence–!”

I doubted it was a coincidence that, including Meg, Nero would have twelve demigod children under his control. Twelve children, just like the twelve Olympians. I suppose that Nero didn’t count himself as part of the group, thinking himself above them.

No demigod group could possibly be at the level of us true gods. Once again, Nero exposed what an insecure, pathetic wannabe of a god he was. The fact that he would believe, even for a second, that he could build anything close to what I had built showed Nero’s high level of hubris. If it wasn’t Apollo’s job to neutralize Nero, I'd have struck his children down in front of him, one by one, just as Apollo and Artemis did when Niobe insulted their mother. 

Areca announced Apollo’s and Meg’s arrival. 

Nero questioned why they actually surrendered. 

“You threatened to burn down the city,” Apollo replied simply.

“Oh, come now,” Nero scoffed. “You and I have both stood by and watched cities burn before. Now, my precious Meg here… I can believe SHE might want to save a city. She is a fine hero. But you, Lester, no… I can’t believe you’ve turned so noble. We can’t change thousands of years of our nature so easily, can we? You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think it would serve… you.”

I had to admit, as foolish as Nero could be, he was shockingly wise to Apollo’s tricks. He’d fooled far too many of my compatriots, but Nero? He didn’t buy Apollo’s supposed compassion for a second. 

Apollo was here because he believed it was the best way to take Nero down, to prove that he deserved my mercy, to regain his godhood. Like Nero said, he’d watched many cities burn before. I doubt he’d just now started caring for human lives, as much as he’d tried to persuade his compatriots of that fact. 

Nero ranted for awhile about how the Romans loved that he’d killed his mother and burning Christians alive was justified because they were all secretly terrorists and how many subsequent rebel leaders pretended to be him reborn, and how he’d bring back traditional Roman values.

I started tuning Nero out. I’d heard these sort of megalomaniacal ravings all too often over the years, especially recently. Ugh. I couldn’t even escape Trump’s ramblings by going to another country, he was too pervasive throughout international media. Honestly Nero’s rants were on the tamer end of things. At least he was mostly coherent, I couldn’t say that about most of Trump’s rants lately.

This was why I had to be in charge. People like those rebel leaders were such ignorant sheep, only someone who could recognize true evil for what it was should be in charge. Otherwise you end up emulating an evil matricidal emperor.

Nero suspected that Apollo’s “good act” of surrendering was actually bad, so he called up Luguselwa, questioned her on why she’d let Apollo and Meg go. Lu denied his statement, but Nero didn’t buy it. He laid out his speculation: That Apollo and Meg had surrendered in order to get him to drop his guard, an army of demigods from Camp Half-Blood would march to the tower, and Lu would manage to free Apollo and Meg from their prison so they could somehow kill Nero.

Nero laughed at Apollo’s devastated expression, declaring that he must’ve guessed right, and that this was the expression of someone who realized their life was over.

“Nero, don’t!” Meg yelled. “F-father!”

“Oh, my dear sweet daughter,” Nero crooned. “I am so sorry you decided to be a part of this. I wish I could spare you from the pain that is to come. But you know very well… you should never anger the Beast.”

A chill ran down my spine. Something about what Nero’d said, the way he was phrasing what he was telling Meg… it seemed familiar. The way he was subtly blaming Meg for what he was about to do, seeming apologetic, even sympathetic, when he had the power to just… not do what she was begging of him… it made something ring in the back of my head. 

I didn’t like it. 

“Next time he gets too close to a vine, I will make it grow around his neck and choke him to death,” Demeter stated. Something about the calm, factual way she stated it… it was so different from her usual demeanor, it made my hair stand up even more than Nero’s manipulations had.

“No interfering,” I reminded her. 

She looked back at me, her gaze as unwavering and steady as her voice had been when she stated that she would murder Nero, if given the chance.

I broke eye contact. She must have gotten the message. No need to hammer it in more. 

Nero called forward the youngest of the demigods, a boy named Cassius, apparently. He ordered Cassius to cut off Lu’s hands. Cassius looked horrified.

“Now, boy,” Nero ordered, with the same sort of calm Demeter had displayed in her murder threat a minute ago.

Cassius chopped off her hands. 

Screaming erupted through the room, but from who, I wasn’t sure. I faintly heard Nero order for Lu’s wounds to be bound so she wouldn’t die.

“Now, Apollo, let me tell you the new plan,” Nero said after Lu was attended to. “You will be thrown into a cell with the traitor, Luguselwa. And Meg, dear Meg, we will begin your rehabilitation. Welcome home.”

I expected Demeter to react to that… but she didn’t. She just stared at Nero unflinchingly, her gaze boring through whatever passed for his soul. 

She wouldn’t dare defy my orders. So I didn’t need to confront her if any plant-related weirdness occurred. Meg would probably be the one responsible for such chaos, anyway. 

No need to prompt Demeter to turn that gaze on me. Not that I was scared, or anything. I just didn’t want Demeter to unleash her rage against humanity again, that’s all. I was doing the world a service. 

Chapter Text

Nero would die.

I did not know how. I did not know when. But he would.

I wouldn’t rest until he did. 

The boiling rage of my anger had gotten so hot, become so intense, that the red hot flame paradoxically turned into a cool blue. I felt oddly serene, a sea of tranquility disguising the fierce currents beneath. 

Nero would not get away with hurting my daughter. Not again. He underestimated her, as everyone always underestimates my children. She would not fall under his grip again.

And if she needed some help in physically getting away from him… well. I had a lot to pay Nero back for. That poor captive dryad…

Zeus had made his wishes known. No interference. While I would not go out of my way to antagonize him, some things were worth the risk. Even Zeus had not dared to stand in my way when I made my displeasure over Persephone’s kidnapping known, when I made sure the whole world felt my anguish. 

Now, another one of my children was in peril. Either she would rescue and avenge herself, or I would .

Apollo was escorted to a luxury cell, a room that looked more akin to a five-star hotel room than to a prison. 

He paced and screamed, making a commotion, demanding to see Meg – a demand I agreed with, though sadly he had little leverage with which to obtain it. 

After some time a couple of guards appeared, dragging Lu between them. They quickly shoved her in, then snapped the bars shut behind her. Apollo examined her. “She needs a doctor!” he yelled.

“Aren’t you a healing god?” One of the guards snorted derisively before leaving.

“Not right now, but he is a doctor,” Artemis muttered. “But there’s only so much a doctor can do without the right tools.”

I gazed at Lu, taking in her pale, sweaty face, her bandaged stumps, her shivers and blood spatters. The degree to which she’d been injured, the amount she was suffering… that wasn’t faked. For Nero to have been so certain of her deception, even with the amount of effort she put into making it look real, to the extent that he’d mutilate her and throw her away… she’d had no choice but to do her best to make Apollo act convincingly, for everyone’s sake.

I’d been wrong about her. She was truly Meg’s ally, even if she’d failed her in the past. 

A piece of me calmed at that thought. Lu might not be able to hold a sword anymore, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t stop her from doing everything she could to rescue my daughter, once and for all. Meg did not have only one ally in this tower, but two. Nero’d made a mistake when he threw them in a holding cell, instead of killing them immediately. 

My daughter was truly powerful. Everyone had seen that. Who’s to say whether somehow, a tiny seed might have fallen out of Meg’s pocket, and into Lu’s or Apollo’s? Who’s to say whether that seed, responding to my daughter’s explosive emotions, might not just grow enormously, fracking the walls and ceiling of the cell? Could anyone really say it wasn’t her doing?

I just needed Apollo and Lu to remain in the cell long enough for Zeus to dismiss us. If I tried to perform such a major divine act in front of everyone, he might catch on. 

I would do what I had to do to ensure my daughter’s rescue. But exposing my involvement unnecessarily would only put a target on Meg’s back. 

If only the camera would follow Meg instead. If I knew where she was located, I could break her out. I’d just need to pretend that Meg had hidden a seed on her person well enough for her to have been able to make it grow and allow her to teleport. 

But again, I wouldn’t be able to sneak off and explore the tower until Zeus allowed us to leave this infernal place. I’d never been the sneakiest at splitting myself. Hermes? Sure, he could do that no problem, he was the god of thieves, after all. I tended to be a lot more… direct in how I dealt with problems, so it’d never been a skill I’d needed to hone.

I was deeply regretting that right now.

Apollo took out the med kit Will had made for him, which the guards hadn’t confiscated, amazingly enough. He tended to Lu, giving her medicine, cleaning and re-bandaging her wounds, doing everything he could to ensure she’d recover – recover as well as was possible in her condition, at any rate.

“Cauterize,” he muttered as he looked at the bleeding wounded stumps of her arms. “I need–”

His right hand burst into flames.

“Lu is a noble warrior. She does not deserve to die,” Zeus declared loudly, glaring at each of us gods in turn, as if challenging us to defy his words. 

I did not believe he was responsible for Apollo’s sudden burst of power. I doubted anyone did. 

I also did not care. So long as it allowed Apollo to save Lu, to keep a powerful ally for Meg, it didn’t matter whose power was used to do so.

Apollo cauterized the wounds, preventing Lu from losing any more blood than she already had. He rebandaged her wounds, then checked her pulse. Judging by the relieved expression on his face, it must have felt steady. 

Satisfied, Apollo stumbled to the sofa and passed out.

“Last time Apollo passed out on a sofa, he was out for several hours,” I reminded Zeus. “Who knows how many hours he’ll be unconscious this time? I’ve got wheat fields to attend to! Cereal to promote! Can’t we take a break?”

Zeus shook his head firmly. “We are too close to the end. Everyone shall stay until this is over, one way or another.”

“But–!”

Thunder crackled as lightning flashed. “ I will brook no arguments ,” Zeus hissed. His voice sounded almost… scared?

Reluctantly, I let it go. For now. Neither Apollo, Lu, nor I suspected Meg were in any immediate danger – though the less time my daughter spent around that Beast , the better. I may not have to intervene at all. Meg was my most powerful, amazing demigod daughter, and Apollo had proven himself surprisingly resourceful. 

A few minutes later, Lu woke up, somehow leveraging her abdomen muscles to pull herself up, without any help from her arms. She got to her feet, dragging herself over to the couch opposite to Apollo’s.

Apollo awoke only moments later, likely jolted awake by the sound of Lu moving. 

“You alive?” Lu asked him.

“I– I– should be asking YOU that question,” he responded hoarsely. “How’s the pain?”

She lifted her arms, showing off her bandaged stumps. “What, these? I’ve had worse.”

“Oh, I like her,” Ares chuckled. “I bet I could get Harley to make her some flamethrower arms. Or rotating saw arms. Or both! I just need to make her an offer…”

“She’s my daughter’s guardian, which puts her under my protection,” I growled. “Keep your dirty hands off her!”

Hermes raised an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t like Lu?” 

“She’s proven her commitment to Meg,” I said simply.

Hephaestus rolled his eyes. “All it took was losing her hands and nearly dying,” he muttered.

“Who cares about that,” Ares waved dismissively. “I’ve played Final Fantasy VII Rebirth , I’ve seen Barret Wallace. Stick a machine gun on one of those arms and we’re in business!”

“Not everyone wants to shoot things all the time. Some people have more intellectual hobbies,” Athena pointed out loftily.

“Yeah, and those people are boring,” he countered dismissively. “Lu’s a warrior! She’ll get bored if she doesn’t chop off other people’s limbs or explode their heads on a regular basis. I can offer her that.”

“You’d better not endanger my daughter further,” I warned him testily. “Or else you might want to stop wearing cotton underwear.” 

He glanced down, his face twitching as he eyed his crotch. 

I smirked, satisfied. Ever since I’d made Apollo’s underwear explode into a sea of burrs, many gods had grown wary of truly enraging me – especially male gods.

Lu asked Apollo where Meg was and how to find her, a line of questioning I approved of. Unfortunately, Apollo didn’t know, and at the moment he was more concerned with Lu getting her strength back, as he couldn’t carry her.

One of the guards delivered food, before informing them that they’d both be tortured tonight before the city was burnt down.

My heart sank. I’d have no opportunity to interfere, not without Zeus finding out. I’d have to either openly defy him, or hope that Meg could pull through without my intervention. 

Apollo and Lu were doing well, weren’t they? Lu was up and joking, and Apollo’d managed to summon a fireball earlier. They were being underestimated. They’d find a way out, especially with such a strong incentive to do so.

And Meg… she was strong. She wouldn’t buy Nero’s pesticide-contaminated toxic words. She’d overcome him, even without my help. 

They’d succeed. I believed in them.

Lu and Apollo discussed their current situation, specifically how to get out of it. She was dismissive of the one camera watching them, as it was easy to evade. The residential areas, on the other hand, were coated with cameras, microphones, and motion sensors. 

Apollo fed Lu some of the food, but after a few bites, she asked him to set it down on her chest and let her figure out how to feed herself, as she’d have to learn at some point anyway.

They got back to discussing surveillance. Lu doubted there were any microphones in this cell, as Nero didn’t care what prisoners chatted about.

“The emperor didn’t seem to know about the… other thing,” Apollo said cautiously.

“You mean the other thing is happening? You were able to arrange it?” Lu asked excitedly.

“I hope so, assuming everything went according to plan. But let’s be honest, so far things have not gone according to plan.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’ve got Nero exactly where I want him,” Lu joked.

Ares burst out laughing. Several others chuckled, though none as enthusiastically as him. Even I had to crack a smile at that.

The smile quickly faded though. What were they talking about? I scowled. Why did they have to be so cryptic?

“Does Lu even know about the Troglodytes?” Athena questioned. “Apollo and Meg didn’t last time they met up with her, so they could not have told her.”

Relief flooded through me. “She must be. Nero never mentioned them in his ‘guess’, he doesn’t know about them!” That could give Meg an edge. Troglodytes were strong. I may not be able to understand their hatred of the life-giving sun, but if they could turn the tides for my daughter, they’d earn their way into my good book. I could give them some cereal! That was far better than a smelly old skink.

They continued talking cryptically about the thing Nero didn’t know about, before moving on to Nero’s fasces, something Apollo had apparently discussed with Jason in his dreams. Mithras’s servant was the guardian, according to him. 

Zeus raised an eyebrow. “Can the dead reach the living through dreams?” he questioned Hades.

“Not normally,” Hades grimaced, eyeing Apollo apprehensively. 

“And yet, my son appears to have done so,” Zeus noted, a hint of smugness tainting his voice. “Perhaps he’s more powerful than you’ve accounted for.”

Hades bristled. “The veil between life and death has been porous in recent years, in case you forgot,” he retorted testily. “Sometimes things slip through. I’d like to see you do better.”

“My son isn’t the only one who’s managed to escape your domain, if only by dream,” Zeus said airily. “Many of your workers deserted you, as we saw only a short time ago. Tell me, have you brought all the eurynomos to heel yet, or have they snuck off once again?”

“I don’t need you telling me how to run my domain!” Hades barked. With the way the muscles in his forehead twitched, I could tell Zeus had gotten under his skin.

Zeus merely smiled, the picture of calm. 

Lu remembered Mithras, but didn’t know how to beat his guardian. They’d need more information before trying to take him on. She suggested Apollo gather more information via his dreams, since they’d been useful for recon so far. He simply needed to take charge of his dreams, steer them to show what he needed to know. He appeared skeptical, but agreed to try.

Lu promptly went to sleep herself, perhaps showing Apollo the way. Or more likely, she was just sick of hearing Apollo doubt her idea.

A few moments later, Apollo went to sleep as well.

Lu awoke a couple hours later, when a guard came by to drop off more food – food with silverware, to Lu’s delight. She fumbled with the surgical tape, somehow securing the fork and knife to her stumps.

“Oh, she’s perfect ,” Ares said, his voice filled with awe. “Imagine what she could do with some of Harley’s devices strapped to her arms.”

I held back a shudder. Nature could be brutal, but whatever Ares was daydreaming about sounded gorier than the dryad massacre after Agent Orange started being sprayed on Vietnam.

“Leave my son alone,” Hephaestus muttered tiredly. 

Ares laughed. “You think he won’t come to me.”

Hephaestus let out a bone-weary sigh. Based on what we’d seen of Harley, I doubted Ares would need to put much work into enticing him to his side.

Lu requested that Apollo attach the fork and knife more tightly, since she’d need to use them in combat. As he did so, Apollo recounted what he’d found out, including the location of the fasces, his talk with the leontocephaline – and most importantly, his visit to Meg, who so far didn’t seem to be buying Nero’s indoctrination attempts, though she was struggling.

I let out a sigh of relief. Meg hadn’t been hurt – not physically, at any rate. Even mentally and emotionally, she was managing (of course, I always knew Nero wouldn’t manage to brainwash her again. She was my daughter, after all.) There was time to save her, or to allow her to save herself.

Lu cryptically asked whether there was any sign of the other thing. Apollo said no, but that there was still time. Thankfully, they both had plans to escape this cell, though neither of them thought the other one would like it.

Apollo’s plan was in regard to negotiating with the leontocephaline. In order to give up another person’s immortality, they demanded to be given someone’s immortality in return. Apollo planned on giving his own.

“NO!” Artemis snapped. “He can’t! Besides, he has no immortality to give!” She turned to Zeus. “This exchange is impossible, right, Father?”

Zeus stroked his beard. “I have granted Apollo access to portions of his godhood in the past. If he wishes to be a noble hero, to make a heroic sacrifice on par with Jason’s – who am I to deny it? Even without immortality, he can still slay Python.”

“But–!” 

Zeus turned and glared at her. She shut up, looking quietly down at her knees for a moment, before glancing hopefully at Hades. Hades seemed to be doing his best to ignore her. I still caught the moment when his eyes flickered to her.

Artemis had better hope Hades didn’t take a fancy to Apollo. I had to nearly kill the world with my grief before Zeus reluctantly agreed to help pressure Hades into returning Persephone, and even then she still had to stay with her kidnapper for half the year. Though Artemis might welcome the peace and quiet of her twin’s absence for six months of the year.

When the guard from before came back to retrieve them, Lu taunted him into coming into the cell and tying them up for transport himself. The taunt worked, successfully baiting him across the entranceway, where Apollo had spread some slippery burn salve. The man slipped, meaning that he was still laying across the entranceway when it attempted to close – something they were unable to do with him in the way, though it gave it its best shot. Apollo took the guard’s sword as he and Lu raced off.

“That’s why brains are important – they allow you to defeat your opponents even when you are at a disadvantage,” Athena declared smugly.

Ares didn’t seem to care much about what Athena said, instead opting to continue starting at Lu. “I wonder how she’d take to a pirate hook?” he murmured to himself.

Athena rolled her eyes. 

Lu guided Apollo to the confiscated weapons area so he could retrieve his gear. Next, Lu proposed they split up – she’d go after the fasces, while Apollo went after Meg. Lu had some sort of plan for negotiating immortality with the leontocephaline, something that didn’t involve her dying, judging by her reaction to Apollo’s horror.

Artemis visibly relaxed. Gratitude shone in her eyes as she watched Lu. “If she wishes for immortality once more, Lu is welcome to become one of my Hunters,” she declared warmly. 

I glanced at Zeus. His face drooped slightly, making him look almost disappointed.

At Lu’s request, Apollo unsheathed a dagger and placed it between her teeth. Because apparently she thought it’d look cool.

Ares let out a low whistle. I had to admit, as much as I wanted him to stay away from Meg, that may be impossible with how much my daughter adored Lu, and how compatible Ares and Lu seemed.

I held back a growl. If he put Meg in harm’s way…

Apollo raced off, taking down guards along the way – including a couple he immolated with more summoned fire. Unfortunately, in his race to find his way to Meg, Apollo ended up kicking in the door to a control room, one which overlooked some massive vats.

A control room full of guards.

“You heard the emperor’s order,” A man who appeared to be the chief guard said. “Light those fires NOW. And, guards, kill this fool!”

I glanced at Zeus again. He looked eager, even hopeful as he looked at the room of armed guards, all set to throw themselves at Apollo. 

If I was charitable, I’d assume that Zeus had faith in Apollo’s ability to take down the room of guards, especially after summoning fire again, powerful enough fire to instantly cremate the men, at that (he hadn’t bothered to state that he was definitely the one giving Apollo the power again, presumably thinking that we’d simply believe he’d done so, since he’d taken credit for Apollo’s earlier use of it.) 

But I knew my brother. He was not that charitable. 

I, on the other hand, was far more hopeful about Apollo’s survival. He needed to, if he was going to help my daughter. 

Chapter Text

NICO!

I winced, before quickly rearranging my expression into an impassive mask. Ugh. Bob would not shut up. 

At first, I’d only heard him when I was back in my realm, and even then, only when I was near Tartarus’s mouth, or occasionally a little further away if Bob let out a particularly painful scream. 

But over the last few days he’d been getting louder and louder, to the point that coming back to this council room was actually a relief. As loud and annoying as my family could be, at least they weren’t as shrill as Bob’s screams.

(Unless Demeter got worked up about something. Her tirades could wake the dead. I would know.)

His voice was muffled up here, to the point where I could forget about it most of the time – until he let out a particularly cacophonous scream.

At this rate I’d have to invest in earplugs.

“STOP! IN THE NAME OF LOVE!” Apollo sang to the room of mortals and Germani. He then proceeded to bow-punch a guy in the face, and shoot, jab, and elbow just about everyone in the room, all while somehow avoiding getting shot multiple times at point-blank range. 

“GET OUT OF HERE!” he yelled at the mortal technicians, but even with Apollo’s whirlwind of destruction, they still seemed to be more terrified of the Germani than of him.

“Do your job!” the leader of the Germani growled, not fazed as much as you’d imagine he would be from an arrow in his leg. The technicians lunged for the buttons that would unleash a tsunami of Greek Fire on New York City.

I groaned, just thinking about the sheer number of new dead who’d suddenly be entering my domain. Bad enough that I’d had a surge in deaths with Covid wreaking havoc, now Nero wanted to kill everyone in one of the most populated cities in the world? The Underworld was already overcrowded as things were, the backlog unmanageable even on a good day. 

I dearly hoped Nero would die soon. Sentencing him to fill out paperwork for every soul he killed sounded like a fitting punishment.

“Yeah, kick him! Shoot him in the face! No not the arm! The face! Honestly, do I need to teach the former archery god how to shoot?!” Ares yelled at the screen.

I rolled my eyes. Ares had been cheering and jeering all throughout the fight, treating it like a sporting event. Of course, HE didn’t have to deal with the paperwork afterwards. 

The Germani leader finally managed to knock Apollo over the head. He collapsed, too exhausted and injured to continue fighting. 

“Enough,” the Germani leader declared. “START THOSE PUMPS!”

“DON’T DO ME LIKE THAT!” Apollo sang shrilly.

The leader pulled out his sword and pointed the tip at Apollo’s throat. “Sing one more word and I will cut out your vocal cords.”

“Please do,” I muttered. Bob’s yelling was bad enough, Apollo’s yelling and shrill singing on top of that was likely to give me a headache.

The techs couldn’t get any readings from the tanks. Turned out a cord had gotten unplugged during the fight, which one of them swiftly fixed. The techs all punched the release buttons, sending hundreds of gigajoules of energy cascading into the city.

I winced, bracing myself for the sensation of millions of people pouring into my domain.

And waited.

And waited.

…why wasn’t anything happening? Did the Trogs actually…?

The techs and Germani were just as perplexed at the lack of fireworks. The fuel wasn’t going anywhere.

“What did you do to my fire vats?” the Germani leader demanded. “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

“Me?” Apollo giggled. “Nothing!”

“Technically true,” Athena observed. 

“The best kind of true!” Hermes chimed in, grinning.

I had the feeling I was missing some sort of joke. I often felt like that when talking with Hermes. He tended to forget that a lot of us had better things to do than to browse the internet all day. The internet speeds in the Underworld were atrocious anyway. I’d called Hephaestus and asked him for a quote on how much it’d cost to upgrade the cable capacity, but the number he’d given me was so ridiculously high, I dismissed the Iris call in disgust. 

“Now, I kill you,” the Germani leader declared.

He raised his sword to do so, froze, then suddenly shriveled up and died, his skin, clothes, and flesh crumbling and decaying, leaving only a bleached-white skeleton, still holding the sword.

“That’s better. Stand down,” Nico ordered, suddenly visible behind the defleshed Germanus.

The skeleton obeyed, lowering his sword.

“Run away,” he ordered the mortal technicians.

They ran.

The other gods stared at my son, several of them gaping. 

I smirked. Percy and Jason may have gotten more attention lately, but my children were no less powerful. 

I was surprised at how much Nico’s powers had, in fact, recovered though. Skeletizing someone with a touch took a lot of energy. For Nico to still be upright, not looking the worse for wear… he’d recovered a lot from his stint transporting the Athena Parthenos. 

Bob let out a particularly shrill scream. I winced.

Hmm… 

Nico’d been hearing Bob’s screams for nearly as long as I had, and had even taken steps to try and find a way back to Tartarus to help him – or whoever he thought was crying out for his help. He was clearly going to go on this quest whether I approved or not. I’d never had a lot of luck in keeping Nico from helping others anyway, despite my best efforts. 

What if I just… let him?

I’d been concerned about him attempting to re-enter somewhere as hostile to life as Tartarus, but with his strength restored and Will, someone he loved, at his side, he would be able to survive. 

I winced as Bob yelled again. 

Nico could stop his accursed screaming. 

I glanced over at Zeus. To a casual observer his countenance was as stony as ever, but I’d had millennia to get to know my brother. The way his eye twitched… Nico was stronger than he expected. With the way he’d been insulting my ability to keep control of my realm, it seemed like he’d begun to doubt the strength of my children as well.

The gears turned in my head. That assumption went both ways: strong demigods helped impress how strong their godly parent must be. Percy’s and Annabeth’s ability to not only survive the fall into Tartarus, but journey through it with minimal injury, had helped to bolster Poseidon and Athena’s statuses. Not as much as would normally be the case, since Percy and Annabeth had already accomplished many impressive, heroic feats (as much as I was loath to admit it), but it still raised their profile.

My children were still disrespected, and the other gods liked to downplay their strength when they could. Liked to forget about them when possible, shunted them to the outskirts of society.

But Nico… he defied that. He refused to be forgotten, ignored, or neutralized. 

If he and Will managed to not only venture into and return from Tartarus safely, but to bring back the Titan who had given his life to help Percy and Annabeth escape, he’d have accomplished a feat more impressive than even they had. Their names would live on forever in stories as the demigods who conquered Tartarus. 

The fame and rise in status wouldn’t only help smooth over the small… issues I’d been having in the Underworld as of late, it’d benefit Nico as well. Zeus had tried to assassinate him and his sister all those decades ago because he believed they might be a threat. Nowadays, he definitely qualified as a threat, but like Percy, he was also too powerful and well-connected to kill without something others would consider due cause. Raising Nico’s status, enhancing his legend, would make it even harder for Zeus to do away with Nico without consequence, even during the times when I was distracted or unavailable. 

But if I provided too much help to Nico in his journey, some of the impressiveness of the feat would be lost. It’d be viewed as being more of a godly accomplishment, than a demigod one. While venturing into Tartarus was deeply unpleasant for me, I had survived the journey before. If I held Nico’s hand throughout it, his success wouldn’t have as great of an effect.

No. I didn’t have to stand in Nico’s way, but I wouldn’t assist him, either. This would be his accomplishment – his and Will’s. 

But I could reward him on the way back. 

I smiled, thinking through what I could give him when he got back. What he wanted most. It might require bending the rules a little, but so long as no one else knew, I might just be able to get away with it.

Nico deserved a reward for what I knew would be a successful quest.

Chapter Text

I breathed a sigh of relief.

Apollo was okay. He had help. In a few minutes he might face down one of the most infamously cruel emperors in Roman history, but for now, he was safe. As safe as anyone could be within Nero’s stronghold, at least.

I took a close look at Nico. He didn’t appear any paler than normal. He wasn’t swaying at all. His eyes weren’t even drooping. Even after that display of power, he seemed fine. 

Apollo’d gained a powerful ally. 

Apollo leaned against Nico, punch-drunk from his injuries. “Where- where’s Will?” he stammered.

“Not sure,” Nico told him. “He suddenly said ‘I am needed,’ and darted off in another direction. We’ll find him.”

I blinked. Will’s healer powers were even stronger than I’d thought. Only the most finely attuned healers could sense injuries from a distance, especially injuries of someone they’d never even met. 

Apollo’s strongest healer demigod children could sense the flow of life itself through a person’s body, perceiving even the most minute threat to their health. Few could consciously understand what they were sensing, but the gut feeling it gave them was vital to snap diagnoses in the middle of battlefields. If something went wrong, they’d know it immediately, and have an intuitive grasp of what they needed to do to fix the issue. Or at least to make the patient less likely to die on the spot.

I was concerned about Will heading off on his own. He may be one of my brother’s strongest healer children (behind only Asclepius), but his fighting skills were on par with those of my greenest recruits. He’d survived major battles before - the Battle of Manhattan came to mind - so he must have some skills to survive warzones. I just hoped his drive to heal the injured didn’t override his survival instinct. Apollo took his children’s deaths HARD, and he was closer to Will than most. I doubted he’d go as far as he had for Asclepius, but if he took his anger out on anyone or anything Zeus cared about…

No. Will COULD NOT die. He would not. 

I glanced at Nico. Will wasn’t the only one who could sense when someone’s life force wavered. Instead of sensing life, Nico sensed death, but those were two sides of the same coin. If he was willing to let Will leave on his own, then Thanatos was not close at hand.

I forced myself to relax. Will would be fine. My brother would be fine. 

Everything would be fine.

“What about you?” Nico asked. “How exactly did you… uh, do all this?”

“Just lucky?”

“Nobody’s that lucky. I think your godly powers are coming back more. Like, a LOT more.”

“Yay!”

“Apollo needs his godly powers to even have a chance of succeeding in his quest,” Zeus said, taking on a defensive tone. “I am a fair and merciful god. Do not forget that.”

I frowned. For months now, Zeus had quickly and loudly taken credit whenever my brother exhibited power beyond mortal capabilities. His tone, his body language… they all screamed he was lying. 

But that had to be wrong. Father had been fair and merciful, hadn’t he? He’d let me save my brother all those weeks ago at Camp Jupiter. Before that, he’d even known that my brother wasn’t truly going to kill himself with the Arrow of Dodona, that it was a ruse to distract Medea. I needed to have more faith in Father. I may not agree with him on how merciful he truly was, but he’d demonstrated that he knew what he was doing. I still thought he was putting Apollo through more pain and suffering than warranted, but he wouldn’t let Apollo actually die . He had to be letting Apollo access his godly powers, he’d have perished several times over otherwise. 

My perception of Zeus had to be off. That was it. He was telling the truth. He had to be.

Apollo told Nico that he had to get to the southeast wing, where Meg was. Nico was able to help with that, informing Apollo that he was three floors too low. They’d have to fight their way past the many, many battles taking place around them.

Nico took Apollo to the Camp Half-Blood landing zone. “Pretty much everyone came to help,” he informed Apollo.

“Even Dionysus?” my brother asked.

“Well, no, not Mr. D,” Nico admitted. “You know how it is. Gods don’t fight demigod battles. Present company excepted.”

Zeus nodded approvingly. “As it should be.”

I’d never been comfortable with simply letting demigods fend for themselves. I wrinkled my nose. I preferred to fight alongside them, not laze around in some Olympian palace all day. 

But of course, this was Dionysus. He’d rather sit back, drink wine, and chase after nymphs, than actually fight himself. Unless someone offended him, of course. Then no force on earth could stop his fury.

Though his attitude since becoming Camp director seemed… odd. He hated being trapped there, as expected (and as he took every opportunity to remind the rest of us of.) Yet he did sometimes try and help campers with their mental health problems, like we’d seen with Nico. I’d even heard he’d cured a Hermes’ kid’s insanity a couple years ago. But he still wouldn’t help fight to protect the campers under his care. He’d only help if the camp itself was threatened – something that he was responsible for. 

It’s like he couldn’t decide whether to care about the people in his charge or not. Or that he did care, but refused to admit it to himself. Physically going to help them might be too obvious a declaration of his feelings. 

And… there was the other side of things. Zeus didn’t care much about gods talking to demigods, not when those demigods were explicitly under the care of that god at least. But leaving camp to help them, going so far beyond his explicitly designated duty? There was some risk of Zeus disapproving of such a move. Dionysus was already low on the totem pole, he may simply not be willing to risk doing anything to upset him – especially with Apollo demonstrating how much worse Zeus’s punishments could get.

They stumbled across another battle, this one with Chiron, several demigods, and some freed dryads fighting against Nero’s forces.

“Come, sisters!” one of Nero’s formerly imprisoned dryads called out. “We have nothing to lose but our potting soil!”

Demeter fist-pumped. “Tear them up! Stab them! GET YOUR REVENGE!”

I grinned. I always enjoyed getting to see oppressed women get their revenge.

A boy named Ben raced around in his decked out wheelchair, blades jutting out of the wheels, mowing down anyone who got too close. 

“Fine craftsmanship,” Hephaestus nodded approvingly.

“Let me guess; Harley’s work?” Hermes speculated.

“He was quite proud of the design,” Hephaestus confirmed. “Though his siblings had to get him to scale back the weaponry. Flamethrowers would have been nearly as deadly to allies as to enemies.”

“YOU FORCED HARLEY TO GIVE UP ON A FLAMETHROWER WHEELCHAIR?!” Ares shrieked, jumping to his feet.

“Hephaestus is right, such a long-range, chaotic weapon would likely have hurt as much as it helped.”

“BUT HURT IS THE BEST PART!” Ares wailed. “It would’ve looked AWESOME!” He pointed at Hephaestus. “You don’t deserve to have Harley as a son.”

Hephaestus narrowed his eyes. “Stay away from him,” he warned.

“Hmmph.” Ares sat back in his seat. Somehow, I doubted he’d do as Hephaestus asked. Hephaestus had better start creating another net…

Kayla raced up to greet Apollo and Nico and more importantly, to ask what happened to Will. Nico took the opportunity to hand Apollo off to Kayla while he ran off to search for his boyfriend. 

Kayla rummaged through her med pack, treating Apollo’s wounds as best she could, under the circumstances. As she did that, she informed him that the Trogs had hit the tanks while Camp Half-Blood invaded the tower, overwhelming security. Chiron took some of the newbies on this expedition, telling them it was a training exercise. They had to learn sometime.

“True, but they should get more proper training first,” Athena complained. “Simply throwing children into battle before they’re prepared is a waste. That’s how you run out of soldiers.”

“They look well-prepared to me,” Hermes noted, watching the chaos. “I haven’t seen any dead campers yet.”

Athena grimaced. “For now.”

The young campers seemed to be enjoying themselves at least, though I had to agree with Athena. Best for them to train awhile longer before fighting well-trained, well-armed forces like Nero’s. 

Kayla gave Apollo some Mountain Dew to drink, which cleared up his concussion remarkably well. 

“Meg. I need to find Meg,” Apollo stated.

Kayla gave him some extra arrows she’d brought, in case he needed them. She took him through a few more rooms, including one with a Taurus Sylvestres chasing several young demigods. 

“There’s another one?!” Ares yelled, sounding both delighted and… offended?

“We don’t know how many Nero has,” Poseidon pointed out. “For all we know, there could be thousands.”

“Thousands…” Ares gazed off into the distance, a smile slowly growing on his face.

I made a mental note to keep my Hunters even further away from Ares than I was already planning to – at least until I managed to relocate the cows away from Ares’ grip. I had a feeling he’d already acquired some of those cows. I did not want them to be caught in the crossfire when Ares inevitably wanted to test out the cows’ destructive capabilities. 

Kayla handed Apollo off to Austin while she lured the bull away. Austin agreed to escort Apollo to Meg, three floors up, though it’d be difficult since those floors weren’t cleared of enemies yet.

They successfully got through those floors… until they arrived at the elevator. Austin was no son of Hermes, and couldn’t pick the lock. 

Luckily, he didn’t have to. 

The door opened on its own, revealing young Cassius, eyes swollen with tears, twitching. He had two familiar golden rings on his hands. 

“I– I didn’t want–” he stammered. He pulled off Meg’s rings and handed them to Apollo. “Please…”

Apollo glared at him. For a moment, I thought he was going to shoot the child.

But the anger drained from his face. “Go.”

“Yeah, but first… how about that key card?” Austin asked. 

Cassius fumbled with it, finally getting it off, handing it to Austin, and fleeing.

“Poor kid,” Hermes murmured.

I had to agree with him. I was not normally overly fond of boys, but Cassius hadn’t deserved what was done to him – what he’d been forced to do. 

Cassius may have been the one holding the blades that had taken Lu’s hands, but only Nero was guilty of dismembering her. Cassius had merely been a tool used in the process.

I’d seen something like this before, with the fate of Halcyon Green. He’d broken Zeus’s rules by warning a demigod girl of her fate, and as punishment, Zeus had decreed that Hal would be forced to stay in that mansion for the rest of his life, his voice used to lure other demigods to their doom, to make up for the one he’d saved. And my brother would be the one forced to enact it. If he didn’t, then Zeus would punish Apollo’s other sons in retaliation. 

Even back then, I’d thought such a punishment was unusually cruel.

Thinking about the similarities between the way Zeus and Nero had forced their children to commit punishments against others, under pain of being punished themselves if they disobeyed… something about that made me sick to my stomach.

I had to stop thinking about it. Nothing good would come of pursuing that train of thought.

Chapter Text

Soft classical music.

Nero was using soft classical music for his elevators.

What, he thought Muzak was too good for him? It just showed what a try-hard he was. The truly powerful didn’t spend much thought on what music played in elevators – the grandiose surroundings when the elevator doors opened intimidated any visitors enough on its own. Generic elevator music was fine. 

Austin and Apollo took the opportunity to chat. 

“Hey, if we don’t get out of this–” Austin started.

“None of that talk,” Apollo chided.

“Yeah, but I wanted to tell you, I’m glad we had some time together. Like… TIME time.”

Of course a demigod would be in awe of getting to spend time with their godly parent, as they should. Our presence was a rare blessing in their life. I remembered how Jason looked when we fought side-by-side, how it seemed like the best thing he could dream of had just happened to him. Being in my presence made his life complete.

Austin did not seem quite as enamored with Apollo as Jason had been with me back then, as was proper – I was a far superior god to Apollo, and Apollo wasn’t even a god right now. 

The two of them arrived at a party room full of Nero’s guests and followers. They had to cross it in order to get to where Meg was being held, so Austin served as a distraction to draw away most of the crowd, while Apollo slipped through. He frantically ran from room to room, calling out for her.

Until something called back.

“Hello?”

Nero’s head appeared on a laptop computer, clearly a live video call.

Apollo shot an arrow at it.

“Oh no, you got me,” Nero said sarcastically, his image now cracked and pixelated.

“I’d take any satisfaction I could get,” Hermes muttered.

Demeter nodded. “If I had my way, the screen wouldn’t be the only thing of Nero’s that cracked,” she murmured darkly.

Apollo questioned Nero about Meg’s whereabouts. He revealed that Meg was in the throne room with him, but that he’d like to talk about Apollo’s situation – something which Apollo tried to make sound better than it was, with Camp Half-blood having stormed the building, and threatening Nero with death if he harmed Meg. 

Demeter smiled at the threat.

Nero laughed, asserting that the situation was different than Apollo thought. He had his entire tower below the throne room hooked up to Sassanid gas, and unlike the Greek Fire delivery system, this was fully operational.

“He has no proof that what he says is true,” Athena noted. “This could easily be a bluff. It’s what I’d do.”

“Can Apollo afford to gamble on that assumption?” Hermes asked rhetorically. “This IS the kind of thing Nero would do.”

“No, I suppose not,” she conceded.

“Your own people are down there!” Apollo yelled.

“It’s unfortunate, yes,” Nero said, almost sounding regretful. “But you’ve forced my hand. At least my darling Meg is here, and some of my other favorites. We will survive. What you don’t seem to realize, Apollo, is that you can’t destroy bank accounts with a bow and arrows. All my assets, all that power I’ve built up for centuries – it’s all safe.” He laid down a deal: if Apollo came to the throne room alone in the next fifteen minutes, he wouldn’t release the gas.

As much as it galled me, I had to admit, I was impressed at Nero’s level of planning. Setting up a system to gas his own tower ? That took some guts. Also could have been very exploitable, if anyone else found out about it, since one of the lower floors could have been gassed while he was on it.

Hm. Maybe he had gas masks stowed away all over the tower. Certainly not enough for everyone in the building, however. Perhaps enough for his closest, valuable, and most loyal followers, but no one else. Not that he’d need more than those – knowing Nero, he probably culled his employees regularly – even the ones who’d been with him a long time, like Lu. Best not to let any of them get too comfortable in their positions, or they might feel secure enough to stretch the limits of his compassion.

“And Meg?” Apollo asked.

Nero appeared baffled. “As I said, Meg is fine. I would never hurt her.”

“You- you do nothing BUT hurt her,” Apollo snapped.

Demeter quivered in her throne. “Nero will not survive this day,” she said, her voice even, but with an undercurrent of rage.

That was not unlikely. Two of the Triumvirate had already died. While killing Nero would be no mean feat, it was doubtful this day would end with both Apollo and Nero alive – though both dying was the most likely outcome. Even if someone killed Nero, Apollo would still have to face down Python on his own.

I glanced at Demeter. If some rogue plant ended up choking Nero to death, that would definitely be Meg’s doing, and there would be no reason for me to investigate it. We’d all seen how powerful she could be, no one would question my decision.

Apollo accepted Nero’s terms, for as much choice as he had. One of the Trogs asked Apollo whether Nero was bluffing. Apollo thought he was not, that Nero followed through on all of his threats. He’d release the gas as soon as Apollo was in the throne room. The Trog declared that he and the others of his kind would disable the gas. Apollo left for his agreed meeting.

After a short walk and an elevator ride, Apollo arrived. The room was as opulent as ever, with only the personnel changing.

Most notably, several of Nero’s Olympian stand-ins were holding torches near dryad pots, threatening to burn them alive.

Demeter let out a low hiss, her fingers tightening against the arms of her throne, but had little other reaction. I supposed she had maxed out on anger – at least, until irrevocable harm was actually inflicted against those she cared about.

I knew she could get more angry than this. I’d learnt the extent of her rage after the Persephone incident. She hadn’t reached that level yet.

I hoped she never would. Surely, Meg would enact her vengeance on Nero before Demeter could reach that kind of anger again.

Apollo demanded to know where Meg was. Nero pretended not to know who he was talking about, before dropping the act – that part of it, at any rate.

“She’s close,” he told Apollo. “But first, weapons on the floor. I am taking no chances that you will harm my daughter.”

“You–”

“And the ukulele. And the backpack.”

Apollo did so, despite his anger. 

“Meg, my dear, it’s safe to come forward,” Nero called out.

“It’s only safe because you won’t hurt her now,” Artemis muttered. “If she’d come forward earlier, she would have been in danger – but from you, not my brother.”

“If you lie blatantly enough, often enough, without anyone having the power to challenge your depiction of reality, it can alter people’s view of the situation,” Athena explained grimly. “People have a natural tendency to listen and agree with other people’s statements, or at least to try to fit them into reality. If you make audacious, blatantly false claims, and have the ability to trap the people around you into agreeing with you even though they know it’s a lie… eventually your mind will try to convince you that it’s true, just to resolve the cognitive dissonance.”

I held back a snort. Such a noise would be unseemly for the King of the Gods. 

Still, it was hard. That might be true of mortals or demigods, sure, or even of lesser gods, but no one as powerful as myself would ever fall victim to such manipulation. I’d grown up in Kronos’s court, surrounded by his lies, and I never had difficulty remembering any truths. 

It seems Athena thought that she’d succumb to such pressures in those circumstances. But of course, many gods may do so – there was a reason why I benevolently took charge, after all.

Meg stepped forward, looking far prettier than she normally did. All the grime had been scrubbed off her, her hair had been cut into something more fashionable, and she’d even changed into a beautiful purple gown. 

I had to admit, Nero may be an awful person, but he knew how to clean someone up – or at least who to order to give a makeover.

“Finally, someone puts her in a half-decent outfit!” Aphrodite cried approvingly. “Even the haircut’s an improvement.” She wrinkled her nose. “Though why he let her keep those awful glasses, I CANNOT understand. At least decorate it with actual diamonds, not those tacky-looking rhinestones.”

Artemis shook her head. “She looks pretty, I’ll give you that,” she said, her words laced with disgust. “She also looks utterly unlike herself.” She shot a glare at Aphrodite. “It’s more important for people to be happy with their own appearance than to look attractive to others.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Aphrodite rolled her eyes. 

Artemis didn’t take the bait, instead opting to turn back to the screen.

Meg sat down, though not where Nero had indicated, much to his displeasure.

Nero requested one of his servants to bring the remote for the Sassanid gas. Apollo protested that he’d said he’d let Meg decide. 

“Well, of course she will!” Nero smirked. “Meg, my dear, you know the situation. Apollo has failed you yet again. His plans are in ruins. He has sacrificed his allies’ lives to make it this far–”

“That’s not true!”

“No? When I warned you that this tower was a death trap for your demigod friends, did you rush down to save them? Did you hurry them out of the building? No. You used them. You let them keep fighting to distract my guards, so you could sneak up here and try to reclaim your precious immortality.”

“I– What? I didn’t–”

“If he’d tried that, Nero would have gassed the tower immediately,” Athena said. “Not that Nero cares to be truthful about what would have happened.”

While Athena was probably right, I thought Nero was on the right track. Ultimately, as much as Apollo pretended to care about the lives of his colleagues, it was all a ruse. Nothing mattered more than immortality. The others were transient mortals after all, they mattered little compared to a god.

Nero knocked a fruit platter over, interrupting whatever Apollo was going to say. “You are a user, Apollo! You always have been. You leave a wake of ruined lives wherever you go. Hyacinthus. Daphne. Marsyas. Koronis. And your own Oracles: Trophonius, Herophile, the Cumaen Sibyl.” He turned to Meg. “You’ve seen this with your own eyes, my dear. You know what I mean. Oh, Lester, I’ve been living among mortals for thousands of years. You know how many lives I’ve destroyed? None! I’ve raised a family of orphans. I’ve given them luxury, security, love! I’ve employed thousands. I’ve improved the world. But you, Apollo, you’ve barely been on Earth for six months. How many lives have you wrecked in that time? How many have died trying to defend you? That poor griffin, Heloise. The dryad, Money Maker. Crest the pandos. And, of course, Jason Grace.”

“How DARE he!” Hera seethed. “He is not worthy of speaking Jason’s name. And he has the gall to chastise Apollo for his death?! If not for the Triumvirate’s forces, all of those beings would still be alive!”

“Mixing audacious lies with twisted truths – always a powerful combination,” Athena noted grimly. “The kernels of truth give the lies more substance, and the fusion of the two makes it difficult to pick apart the two of them – especially if your opponent doesn’t give you time to go through every point.”

Such tactics were especially effective when the lies were so minor. Nero was right about all the lives Apollo had ruined, both when he was a god, and since I had made him a mortal. Nero’s only deception was pretending that he was some perfectly kind, compassionate ruler. His cruelty showcased how kind and compassionate my own rule truly was, despite some gods entitled whining.

“Don’t you DARE,” Apollo snarled.

“Should I go on? The deaths at Camp Jupiter: Don, Dakota. The parents of that poor little girl Julia. All for what? Because YOU want to be a god again. You’ve whined and complained across this country and back again. So I ask you: are you WORTHY of being a god?”

“The ships were on their way to Camp Jupiter before Apollo ever turned in that direction,” Artemis glowered at Nero. “Those people would have died either way. Apollo’s efforts prevented the massacre from becoming complete.”

She let out a long, weary, bitter sigh. “But of course, it’s not as if Nero cares about what actually happened. Merely on what kind of narrative he can craft, and whether he can get his audience to accept it.”

I was more concerned with Nero’s last question: whether Apollo was worthy of becoming a god. I still did not know the answer to that. I had not seen the level of deference I would expect if he had truly learned his lesson, but the Fates would know better than I on that matter. If he reclaimed his godhood, then the Fates must have determined that Apollo had learned his lesson, that his recalcitrance had been reformed. They would not allow Apollo to become a god again otherwise.

Apollo shouted that Nero was twisting everything into lies. Nero jabbed at how poorly Apollo had treated his own children, before turning to Meg.

“My dear, you can choose, as I promised,” he declared. “Which of our nature spirits should have the honor of killing this pathetic former god? We will make him fight his own battle for once.”

“I– I can’t,” Meg stammered.

Nero took this as an excuse to decree that all the dryads would have their chance to tear Apollo apart. Nero’s “adopted” children held their torches close to the dryads’ pots, threatening them with death if they didn’t do as Nero had said.

The dryads attacked.

“It’s a shame Leo isn’t here,” Demeter said evenly. “He could give Nero the perfect gift: knowing what it’s like to be burned alive .”

“If Leo set the room on fire, the dryads would be in even more danger than they are now,” Athena pointed out.

Demeter raised an eyebrow. 

Athena re-examined the situation. 

“Alright, they might actually have a better chance of making it out of this alive if Leo was throwing around some fireballs,” Athena conceded. “Though probably with some burns. The chaos might help them to get away. Assuming that the Sassanid gas is disabled or does not exist, of course.”

Chapter Text

I ground my teeth. 

Meg would jump in and stop this. I’d seen her do it before. There’s no way she’d let her… I didn’t want to dignify Nero’s family connection to Meg by referring to the other demigods as her “siblings”, but I supposed they were her peers, at least. 

She’d take them all down, prevent them from harming the dryads any more than they already had been, kill Nero, and then all the plants would be safe and everyone would recognize my children’s power. 

I just needed to have patience. 

Several of the dryads were clearly only pretending to attack Apollo, much to my pride. They couldn’t fight back directly right now, but that didn’t mean they had to try their hardest to obey Nero’s orders. 

One of the dryads, a fiddle-leaf fig, hung back, not even pretending to attack. The demigod at her pot lowered his torch onto her plant, burning her to ashes.

“NO!”

I reached out, desperately wanting to save her.

But it was too late. 

I sucked in a breath. Nero would pay for this. My daughter would make sure of it.

“Stop it!” Meg screamed. And screamed it again as more of the dryads attacked Apollo, knowing the consequences if they refused.

“Oh, let them try, my dear,” Nero told her languidly. “They deserve their revenge.”

The dryads surrounded Apollo, choking him. He managed to croak out one word: “MEG!”

“STOP!” Meg screamed.

The dryads stopped, backing away.

“That’s my daughter!” I bragged.

Of course Meg was able to disobey Nero, even while in his clutches. Of course she was able to get the dryads to back off – though some of that was them merely being able to read the room. Nero’s focus was on Meg – not on them. 

As it should be. Meg was the true threat to his power. Even he could tell her strength. Otherwise he wouldn’t try so hard to persuade her to be on his side. 

Meg ran over to Apollo, scanning his body for injuries.

“Meg,” Apollo said.”There’s only one person here you need to listen to: yourself. Trust yourself.” He pressed her gold rings into her hands. “You are stronger than he is.”

“YES! YES! LISTEN TO APOLLO! YOU’RE BETTER THAN THAT HERBICIDAL PLANT-HATER NERO!” I cheered. 

I’d had my doubts about Apollo early on, I’d admit it. But he’d really stepped up, becoming the best slave my daughter could ask for. He knew to trust her, even when she didn’t trust herself. She just needed to realize her own power, her strength, to believe in herself as much as Apollo believed in her. 

“Oh, my dear,” Nero sighed. “I appreciate your kind heart. I do! But we can’t interfere with justice.”

Meg stood and faced him. “This isn’t justice.”

Nero conceded… by saying that the dryads hadn’t had the courage to do what was necessary. He motioned for the demigods to incinerate all the dryads. 

“NO!” 

Pollen exploded from Meg’s body, coating everything in the room. The dryad’s plants began to grow, healing previous injuries, making it harder to destroy them.

“Go heal,” Meg ordered the shivering dryads, huddled together. “I’ll keep you safe.”

They vanished, relieved sobbing barely audible before they winked out of sight.

Hermes blinked. “She can produce pollen too? And that much of it?!”

“She’s my daughter,” I pronounced warmly. “She can do anything she sets her mind to.”

I may have given her pollen production a slight boost, just to ensure a sufficient distraction. She was so amazing, I doubted any of the other gods would notice. Besides, she was well on her way to being able to do that level on her own – maybe even more, if you gave her a few more years.

The dryad growth, however? That was all her. She needed no help from me on that front. 

Meg was truly an amazing daughter.

Nero tried to tell Meg to control herself. Meg protested that this wasn’t fair, but Nero cut her off, saying they didn’t HAVE to surrender Apollo to Python – but for that, he needed Meg, and her powers, on his side. For her to be his daughter again.

“She was never your daughter, she was your prisoner!” I shouted. “But no longer!” 

Try as Nero might, he’d lost his power over her. Meg knew who she was. As did everyone else.

She was my daughter.

Nero sighed. “Everything becomes much, much harder when you wake the Beast. You don’t want to make the wrong choice again, do you? And lose someone else like you lost your father?”

“I didn’t kill my father,” she said quietly. “I didn’t cut off Lu’s hands or enslave those dryads or twist us all up inside.” She gestured to the other demigods. “You did that, Nero. I hate you.”

Nero put on a sad expression. “I see. Well… if you feel that way–”

“It’s not about feelings,” Meg snapped, cutting HIM off for once. “It’s about the truth. And I’m not using your weapons to fight my fights anymore.”

She tossed her rings aside.

Nero chuckled. “That, my dear, was foolish.”

“For once, I agree with him,” Artemis said, her nose wrinkling in disgust at her own admission. 

“You’ve seen Meg’s plant powers, if she thinks she doesn’t need weapons, then she’s right,” I countered. “She’ll win with the power she inherited from me, rather than what she got from Nero. That’s plenty to take down that– that toxic pollution pile of a person.”

“I still would have advised she keep the rings in case her swordfighting skills are needed, however skilled she may be at growing and controlling plants,” Athena said evenly. “It cannot hurt.”

As Nero’s Germani guards hoisted their spears, the blast doors crashed inwards. Behind them stood an emaciated red bull… and Nico di Angelo.

The reason for the bull’s emaciated state soon became clear. No flesh remained on its bones, only skin. It’s eye sockets stared emptily around, empty of both eye ball and soul. The bull was following Nico’s will, and his alone.

“Kill that one,” he declared, pointing the bull at Nero.

Nero yelled for one of his subordinates to bring him the remote for the Sassanid gas, his voice higher than normal.

Hades smiled smugly. “Meg may be strong, but so is Nico,” he reminded everyone. “Don’t ever forget that. Nero did, and you can see how that’s turning out for him,” he waved at the screen.

I rolled my eyes. Yes, yes, Nico had desiccated a nearly unkillable Taurus Sylvestre and bent it to his whims, so what? He didn’t have plant power on his side. 

Apollo chatted with Nico during their reprieve. Nico confirmed that Rachel had sent him here, and that the Trogs were working on disabling the gas. Camp Half-blood knew about the gas, but they weren’t going to leave until Apollo and Meg were out of there as well.

“That’s foolish,” Athena chastised. “Better to retreat to fight another day than to risk the entire population of the camp.”

“They’re risking themselves to save my daughter , I say it’s a risk worth taking!” I reminded her.

“Your other children are also in the line of fire,” she reminded me sharply. “As are mine.”

I waved her off. “You’ve seen what my daughter’s accomplished. She won’t let anything happen to them.”

“Even Meg can only do so much,” Hera spoke, her eyes glinting behind her veil. “Or have you forgotten what happened to Jason.”

“She’s stronger now than she was back then!” I countered. “Between her, Apollo, and Nico, Nero doesn’t stand a chance.”

Athena still looked skeptical, but Hades gave me a nod of approval.

I turned away. I didn’t want his opinion, not after he stole Persephone from me.

During the chaos, Apollo managed to nab his supplies, while Meg attempted to steal a sword off of one of the other demigods.

With her bare hands.

While said demigod was trying to kill her with it.

“...Did you check Philip’s bloodline before you got with him?” Hermes asked, impressed. “Because that’s an audacious theft, even by my standards.”

“Nah, she’s gotta be descended from one of my kids, you do all that sneaky-sneaky stuff,” Ares grinned. “Meg though? She just goes straight for it! None of this ‘waiting around for the right opportunity’ nonsense that Athena likes to go on about,” Ares jerked his thumb back towards the fuming goddess.

“She’ll get herself killed if she keeps being reckless,” Athena retorted sharply.

“Nah, she’ll be fine,” Ares waved dismissively. 

I nodded. “You should have more faith in Meg. She’s certainly earned it.”

Athena turned away, muttering something about how having faith didn’t mean letting go of all caution.

Nero continued hunting for the gas remote, while Apollo was busy getting stabbed in the side by one of the demigods. Judging by Artemis’s scrutinizing gaze and lack of panic, I deduced that it must not be a fatal blow. Apollo poked him in the eye, getting him to stagger backwards.

Unfortunately, that was when Nero finally found the correct remote. 

“It’s over! Death to my enemies!” he cheered.

He pushed the button.

…the shades of the windows lowered.

So not the correct remote after all.

More importantly, Meg had successfully disarmed the demigod girl with her bare hands, and was now using her stolen sword to fend off the other kids.

“You know, it would have been easier if she’d just kept her own swords to begin with,” Athena said, exasperated. “She’s more comfortable with using them, and either way, she’s using Nero’s weapons.”

“No, this way she’s using a weapon that’s stolen from Nero, totally different,” Hermes corrected her.

I didn’t care either way. Meg had clearly pulled off her theft, so what did it matter? 

Chapter Text

I had to applaud Meg on her stolen weapon. Ill-gotten gains were often more satisfying to wield than gifts. Though the best tools represented the best of both worlds, like my staff. I’d received it as a result of a perfectly legitimate trade, but only after I’d stolen Apollo’s prized cattle. That bit of mischief leant some spice to my acquisition.

I still wouldn’t have thrown away a perfectly good gifted weapon in the middle of a combat situation – even if it was gifted by an enemy – but I admired Meg’s gumption.

Apollo fought as best he could, considering the stab wound in his side. He even managed to shoot Nero, not that it accomplished much. It just shattered when it hit his forehead, annoying him, but not doing any damage.

Nero kept trying remotes. His next one activated some giant TVs, but no gas.

He growled in frustration. “Apollo, stop fighting me! You will DIE anyway. Don’t you UNDERSTAND that? It’s me or the snake!”

I frowned. “Doesn’t he mean him and then the snake? Apollo will need to kill both.”

“He seems convinced that even if Apollo manages to kill him, he won’t be able to kill Python,” Athena remarked thoughtfully. “I admit, I’m still not sure how Apollo will manage that one. Even being in Python’s proximity is lethal for mortals.”

I frowned. That was true, but… Apollo was seeming less and less mortal as the hours wore on. Mortals couldn’t typically light their hands on fire without getting third-degree burns.

That still might not be enough to save him from Python. He’d lied to everyone with a smile on his face, telling the world how he’d taken down the giant serpent with just a bow and arrow, bragging about how easy it was… but I could sense the strain in his smile and the tiniest, almost indiscernible quiver in his voice. 

I was the god of cunning and trickery. He could not fool me so easily.

Python had nearly won.

Nero tried out another remote. A disco ball lowered. He tossed it away, leaving only one for him to check.

“Nico!” Apollo cried.

Nico broke away from the Germani surrounding him, leaping to cleave Nero in two.

Nero caught the blade with his bare hands. Nico leapt at him, presumably to strangle him, but Nero merely backhanded him across the room.

“You fools cannot kill me! I am immortal!” Nero gloated.

Hades glowered at the Emperor. “Nero is not the first would-be immortal to find himself in my domain, and I doubt he will be the last,” he said icily, his glare skewering the man. His eyes narrowed. “I believe that Nico should get to have a say in his punishment. Perhaps he will be more merciful than I would be.”

I shivered. Hades was not known for letting bygones be bygones. Decades ago, he’d blamed one of Apollo’s oracles for reciting a prophecy that led to Zeus attempting to murder Nico and Bianca. Maria, their mother, had died instead. As vengeance, he’d cursed the Oracle instead, forcing her to continue doing her job even after death had claimed her, until the day his children were accepted. And anyone who tried to take her job in spite of his curse…

I shuddered, remembering May’s screams. 

I did not envy Nero. Hades was not a good enemy to have, especially if you’d hurt the people he cared about.

Nero pressed the button on the remote. Nothing happened, which Nero took to mean that this was, in fact, the correct remote. “That’s it! That’s the one! All your friends are dead now. HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!”

Hades’ eyes gleamed. “And yet, I do not feel any more people dying in this tower than normal,” he noted, a grin slowly spreading across his face. It was frightening. There was a reason none of us had been particularly interested in holding a “get grumpy-pants Hades to smile” competition – not after first time, at any rate.

“Perhaps the trogs succeeded?” I suggested. They certainly worked fast.

“Either that, or that remote was also somehow the wrong one,” Athena said. “Or the battery’s dead.”

“Considering his luck with remotes so far, those do seem like probable answers,” I conceded.

Meg lay prone and disarmed on the floor, surrounded by her “siblings”. Other Germani grabbed Nico, dragging him to the throne.

“Excellent!” Nero beamed. “But first things first. Guards, kill Apollo!

The Germani rushed at Apollo. 

They only got a few feet before a voice rang out. “STOP!”

Everyone turned towards the entryway, where Will stood, Lu on one side with her bandaged, cutlery-laden stumps, and Rachel Dare on the other, holding Nero’s fasces.

“No one hits my boyfriend,” Will declared, glowing menacingly. “And no one kills my dad!”

I let out a low whistle. “Didn’t know the kid had it in him.”

“Never underestimate the ferocity of a combat medic,” Athena said sagely. “Even the bravest of warriors know when to submit to their demands.” She frowned. “But even Will could not have menaced the leontocephaline into turning over its treasure. What did they trade for it?”

“EVERYBODY FREEZE!” Nero screamed. A wise move, given that Rachel was holding his immortality hostage. 

Will promptly seized the opportunity to grab Nico and drag him out of the room.

I snickered. I was not the only one.

“Like I said, even the bravest of warriors know not to go against a determined medic,” Athena said, bemused.

“Or get between a lover and his injured boyfriend,” Aphrodite added.

Nero identified Rachel as the Pythia, wondering why all of them weren’t dead yet. Screech-Bling appeared from behind Lu, showing the batteries he’d filched from the detonators. 

Nero moved onto asking how they’d acquired his fasces – something I, too, was quite curious about.

Lu revealed that she’d simply traded what the being had required: her immortality for Nero’s immortality.

“But you don’t have…” Nero trailed off as his eyes bulged in realization.

Apollo laughed. “Lu has immortality because YOU’RE immortal. The two of you have been connected for centuries.”

“But that’s my eternal life!” Nero whined. “You can’t trade my life for my life!”

“It’s a little shady, I agree,” Lu shrugged. “But the leontocephaline seemed to find it… amusing.”

Athena blinked. “That is clever, I have to admit. I am surprised that the guardian allowed it.”

“The guardian must’ve been as sick of Nero as we are,” I suggested.

Athena thought that over for a minute, and nodded. “It’s the same principle as the malevolent genie. Even if the other being is bound to obey certain orders, someone who’s intent on hurting their order-giver can almost certainly accomplish it.”

Nero could hardly believe Lu would willingly discard her own immortality just to kill him. She confirmed she would in a heartbeat, and once Nero’s fasces were destroyed, he’d be a regular mortal like her.

Unfortunately, killing the other emperors had allowed their power to flow into Nero. Nero realized that no one had destroyed his fasces yet because they COULDN’T, his power was too strong. Even if they could, the released power would incinerate whoever did it. And if his fasces WERE destroyed, all of his power would just go into Python, making him even more powerful, a prospect that terrified even Nero.

I frowned. “Would that actually happen?”

Athena grimaced. “Most likely. The Triumvirate all seem to have attached their powers together with Python, sort of like how Nero was able to attach Lu to himself in order to give her immortality. Of course, it’s tricky to say how it would specifically work, given the nature of immortality, but if Nero believes that Python would inherit his power, then he probably will.”

I couldn’t refute that. A lot of our powers were fueled by belief. Even if that wasn’t how it worked before, the fact that Nero believed it worked that way meant it was now. 

On top of that… well, I didn’t know as much about how divinity and immortality transfer worked as I would like. Sure, I could grant some of mine to someone else, but taking it back… that was another story. Artemis could manage it because she didn’t truly gift someone immortality to begin with, she merely allowed her Hunters temporary use of her eternal youth, like how Lu had temporary usage of Nero’s immortality. Actually transferring immortality in whole, though… that was another matter.

There was a reason everyone feared Zeus’s ability to revoke immortality. No one could work out how he’d done it, so they didn’t know how to undo it if it was done to them.

Nero tried to bargain with Rachel for his fasces back, claiming that he could convince Python to return her powers. She didn’t believe him, so he moved on to appealing to Meg’s kind nature to spare him.

She responded by asking her “siblings” to stand down, to rebel against Nero.

“Ungrateful child,” Nero hissed. “The Beast–”

“The Beast is dead,” Meg declared. “I killed it. Surrender, Nero. My friends will let you live in a nice prison somewhere. It’s more than you deserve.”

“She’s overly optimistic about the fate her friends have in store for him,” I remarked. “I doubt they’d leave him alive if they can help it.”

“They might not be able to help it,” Athena pointed out. “As Nero said, they don’t appear to be able to destroy his fasces, so imprisoning him is the only option.”

“Who cares about that,” Demeter said impatiently. “Meg just gave one of the most iconic quips in history!”

I rather thought she was overselling Meg’s oratory skills, but I had to admit, it was pretty nice. Still didn’t top ‘My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.’ though.

Nero screamed “KILL THEM ALL!” sending dozens of Germani charging at Apollo.

“Thirty drachmas that Apollo dies!!” Ares declared.

I hummed. Apollo seemed to be doing well at the moment – relative to how he was usually doing, at any rate – but the worst was yet to come. A betting pool would keep the atmosphere light. 

“Any more specific predictions?” I inquired. If everyone had their own prediction, it would make things far more interesting.

Ares grinned. “Sure, why not? I got it right with the sneezing statue!”

He looked up, thinking for a moment. “I bet that Apollo’s limbs are gonna get ripped off, one by one, leaving him helpless on the ground until he bleeds to death!” Ares said enthusiastically.

I should have guessed something like that, Ares always did like the graphically violent and gory deaths.

“Alright, I’ve got you down for it,” I noted. “How much you wanna bet?”

“Thirty drachmas!” 

I wrote that down as well.

After a moment, I looked around. “Any other bettors? This will be rather boring if it’s just Ares.”

“I would like to join in,” Aphrodite said, raising her hand. “I believe that one of Apollo’s former lovers will show up suddenly to claim revenge on him, slaying him in a fit of passion.”

I raised an eyebrow. “We’ve seen no sign of that so far.”

She shrugged. “Many things in life are unexpected.”

Fair enough. Apollo had enough ex-lovers that the Emperors may have recruited a few unknown ones to their cause, in addition to Commodus himself having been one of Apollo’s lovers in the past. I noted it down.

“And how much are you betting?” I inquired. 

“Ten drachmas.”

“Not very confident, are you?”

“Perhaps not,” she admitted. “But it would be amusing, would it not?”

I wasn’t feeling in the mood for a soap opera, personally, but Aphrodite loved the things. Apollo’s romantic endeavors were prime entertainment for her.

“I, too, have a bet,” Hephaestus said. “I believe that Apollo will win the fight against Nero, even managing to destroy his immortality, but ultimately fall to Python.” The last part he recounted in a low, resigned voice.

“I take it that’s not the outcome you’re hoping for?” I inquired.

He shook his head. “I believe it’s realistic to expect Apollo to destroy Nero. He shouted Commodus into dust just a few weeks ago, after all. But killing Python, a being far older and stronger than any of the Emperors, is likely to be beyond his capabilities. Just because I do not like my evaluation of Apollo’s chances, does not mean I will delude myself into thinking he’s more likely to succeed than he already is.”

“How many drachmas?” I asked. 

“Five,” he said. 

I wrote his bet down as well.

“Meg will destroy the fasces AND Python!” Demeter declared. 

“Won’t the explosions from destroying the fasces kill her?” I asked.

“Meg’s my daughter, she can survive such piddly little things as an immortality explosion,” she scoffed.

Honestly, she was probably right. I wrote it down. “And your bet?”

“One hundred golden drachmas!” 

Bold, but unsurprising. I put it in my ledger.

“Is now really the time for this?” Artemis asked, disgusted.

“Now’s the perfect time for this,” I told her. “We’re in the final stretch now. Best to relieve the tension. Betting is a good way to do that.”

Artemis muttered something about how we should feel as much stress as her brother was, but she settled down.

“I believe that Apollo will succeed in his quest, yet still die,” Poseidon volunteered.

I quirked an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Nero will be killed, though I don’t know how – perhaps Apollo will do it, perhaps one of the demigods will do it, there are many possibilities there,” Poseidon said. “I am more concerned with Python. I believe Apollo can, after a long, hard battle, slay him, but that he will die in the process.”

“Does no one believe my brother can succeed?!” Artemis asked, desperation and anger warring in her voice.

“I do,” Athena declared. She turned towards me. “Hermes, put me down for Apollo successfully destroying Nero’s immortality, slaying Python, and ascending to Olympus.”

“You are betting that I will judge his efforts satisfactory and gift him his godhood again, correct?” Zeus asked, narrowing his eyes.

“Is there any other way Apollo could ascend?” Athena asked, smiling sweetly.

You could cut the tension with a gladius. On the surface, Athena had merely agreed with Zeus’s clarification. But she had not actually said as much, and with her intonation and her smile… 

She believed Apollo could ascend on his own, and was challenging Zeus about it, while still maintaining a veneer of plausible deniability.

If she was right, if Apollo was really able to accomplish such a thing, it would send a powerful message to Zeus. That she had a better grasp on Apollo’s situation than he did, and that he’d better not make an enemy of her. That she was an indispensable ally, and that if she stopped being an ally, she’d be an insurmountable opponent.

“How many drachmas?” I asked quietly, trying not to draw too much attention.

“Two hundred.”

I wrote it down. Such a large bet indicated the strength of her convictions. 

She was gambling far more than some coins. If she was right, Zeus would be forced to rely on her evaluations even more than he already did, for fear of missing some crucial insight that could lead to him being overthrown. If she was wrong, Zeus would lose faith in her predictions, and likely find some subtle way to punish her for taunting him.

I’d been trying to defuse some of the upcoming tension, but it seemed I’d added even more.

“I have my own bet,” I said, holding back a wince as several pairs of eyes flickered to me. 

I’d already been inclined to bet more favorably towards Apollo than the others had, but Athena’s bold prediction had made me want to do so even more. I was not, however, as willing to flout Zeus’s authority as she was.

“I believe that Apollo will win his fight with Nero and nearly succeed at killing Python,” I said cautiously. “But that Apollo will be so grievously injured during the battle, that only Zeus’s merciful interference allows him to prevail.”

Artemis stared at me, her eyes softening. She could see what I was doing.

“I have no intention of interfering with Apollo’s trial,” Zeus reminded me.

I bowed my head. “I know, Father, but I still hold out hope. I know how fair and wise you are.”

He didn’t speak, but sat back, pondering my words. 

I hoped I’d nudged him towards showing Apollo mercy.

“How much are you committing?” Poseidon asked.

I blinked. In the tension of the moment, I’d forgotten I needed an amount. “Fifty drachmas,” I proposed. I was not so confident in my prediction – in my hope, really – as Athena or Demeter, but I still needed to toss in enough to show some belief in my own words.

I could only hope that one of the more optimistic predictions became reality.

Chapter Text

The nerve of Athena! Undermining my authority, implying that I alone was not the arbiter of Apollo’s ascension. She had the good sense to not state that position outright, at least.

I closed my eyes for a moment, calming myself down. Whatever happened, it would only be because the Fates allowed it to happen. They would only allow an outcome that left me in power. Even if Apollo ascended without my personal interference, the fact that such an ascension occurred would mean that Apollo had fully internalized my status as king and would no longer engage in any… undesirable behavior. 

If Apollo’s ascension occurred in such a way that Athena’s bet won, then her winning must not be as much of a threat to my rule as it seemed. And if she lost, then her position would be weakened, and few other gods would consider risking the humiliation of challenging me and losing.

Everything would be okay.

Apollo turned and ran over to Rachel, demanding the fasces. He wasn’t sure whether he could destroy it, much less without killing himself, but he had to try. Lu and Rachel covered him while he attempted to pull the fasces apart, Lu with her cutlery and Rachel with some expert hairbrush-throwing.

Aphrodite smiled proudly. “Never underestimate the power of a pissed girl with a hairbrush.”

Ares nodded enthusiastically, which made me suspect that he’d been on the other end of Aphrodite’s hairbrush more than once.

Apollo tugged and tugged, but the fasces weren’t budging. “Come on,” he muttered. “If you need another immortal life as a sacrifice, I’m right here!” He took a shaky breath. “I can do this. I just need to concentrate. How hard can it be to destroy myself?” 

He attempted to break it over his knee, to no avail.

I scoffed. As if he would really do such a thing. He didn’t have an immortal life to trade in the first place, and he’d never willingly destroy himself. Now, doing so by accident through his own stupidity – that was another matter. Apollo had demonstrated his propensity for that just last year.

This was all a show, meant to convince his allies that he had tried his hardest. One of them would ultimately take the plunge and destroy the fasces, just as Lu had given up her own immortality to obtain it in the first place. He’d be able to put on a sad face, wail that it should have been him, all while his allies reassured him it wasn’t his fault.

As much as his behavior disgusted me, I had to admit, it was effective.

Nero lost patience with watching his minions bumble around, attempting to kill Apollo and his allies. “Do I have to do everything myself?” he shouted. Do I have to kill you ALL? You forget I AM A GOD!”

He began glowing as he marched towards Apollo.

I snorted. “You are a fake, wannabe god, with divinity only by technicality.”

“Maybe so,” Athena stated grimly. “But that does not stop him from being a threat.”

I shrugged. To mortals, sure, but they were on death’s door anyway. At our level, the level of true gods, Nero’s boasts of power were just pathetic.

“Get out of the way!” Apollo yelled to Lu and Rachel. “RUN!”

They ran just in time to avoid being plowed over by Nero.

The wannabe god stopped in front of Apollo. “You lose. Give it to me.”

“Take it if you can.” Apollo started glowing as well, though more slowly than he did in Indianapolis. That had been a solid burst. This was a slow uptick in intensity, the fasces he was carrying pulsing along with Apollo.

“Nero is a threat to us all,” I loudly proclaimed. “In such circumstances, it’s prudent to grant Apollo some of his godly power again, if only temporarily.”

Artemis’s teeth gritted as she watched Nero and Apollo tug the fasces back and forth, their glowing increasing more and more, until most mortals would have been blinded by the light. She turned to me, eyes blazing. “Couldn’t you grant him more power?” she asked. “You want him to win, do you not?”

I growled. She was getting uppity again. “He must still succeed or fail on his own merits,” I told her sharply. “I evened the playing field. I will not hand him victory.”

She glared, but turned back to the screen, unwilling to wrench her gaze away for more than a few moments.

“You–cannot–take–it, Lester,” Nero cried out, his voice strained.

“I am Apollo,” he declared. “And I–revoke–your-divinity!”

The fasces exploded, sending Nero hurtling backwards.

Apollo remained unharmed and unmoved, with only the smoldering of his clothes and a burn mark on the carpet to show that anything had happened.

I shuddered involuntarily. The way Nero had been thrown backwards while Apollo remained standing, glowing defiantly… it brought back memories of my own failed attempt to drain his divinity a few weeks ago. 

Of course Nero’d never stood a chance. If Apollo’s divinity was strong enough to prevent a god as powerful as myself from revoking it, then a wannabe god like Nero stood no chance of preventing Apollo from doing such a thing to him.

This was the expected outcome. This was the outcome I wanted, in fact. Nero needed to be taken down so as not to trouble us true gods later. Apollo was merely doing what he needed to in order to earn my favor again. His being good at it, being this powerful, merely showed how eager he was to show his remorse for his past arrogance.

The sinking, sick feeling in my gut must simply be from eating some bad ambrosia last night.

Nero sobbed. “What have you done? Don’t you see?”

His body crumbled, his toga turning to smoke. Nero’s fragments streamed downwards, vanishing into the floor. “You’ve given him victory,” he whimpered. “You’ve–”

He finished dissolving, leaving no trace that he’d ever existed.

“Is it over?” Lu asked.

“Not yet. Not even close,” Rachel replied.

Apollo toppled over, passing out in Rachel’s arms.

“This is the most critical time,” Athena stated. “He is perilously close to failure.”

Everything would hinge on whether Apollo could defeat a powered-up Python. In retrospect, that was always Apollo’s true challenge – the emperors were all wannabe false gods, while Python was truly divine. If he was going to fail, it was always going to be against his oldest enemy.

“Hmph,” Ares said, crossing his arms. “I wish he’d get on with it then. I’ve got twenty drachmas riding on this.”

“That is so callous,” Hermes chided. “Besides, it’s thirty drachmas, and I gave you very good odds.” He pulled out his notepad and pencil. “Any final bets, people?”

Again? Really? 

“Stop,” I declared. “We must wait for the final battle. The worst is yet to come.” I was tiring of the other gods treating Apollo’s trials as some sort of game, not seeming to take them seriously. I’d assembled them to watch with the expectation that they’d learn not to repeat Apollo’s mistakes. If they simply saw it as entertainment, it may not affect them as much as I’d been hoping for.

“Hasn’t he proved himself already?” Artemis demanded. “He’s suffered more in these last few months than even you could have expected! Whatever lesson you were trying to teach him, dear Father, he’s learned it!”

The nerve of her! Even after all this time, she hadn’t learned to hold her tongue. Whether Apollo had learned his lesson was not for her to judge: it was up to the Fates. 

I glowered at her. “You do not understand all the forces at work here, Daughter. Apollo must face the final challenge, for all our sakes.”

“And if he fails, what then?” Hephaestus asked. “Eleven gods? That’s a terribly unbalanced number.”

I didn’t see how that was a problem. Multiple gods could fill that twelfth slot. Perhaps Hestia could regain her old place. If I needed to extend some sort of olive branch to Hades, perhaps I could offer it to him instead.

…After Apollo’s trials were over, one way or the other, I needed to spend less time with Athena and Demeter. One of their most favored expressions had infected even my thoughts.

“It could work,” Aphrodite said thoughtfully.

“Don’t you start!” Artemis snapped.

Aphrodite batted her eyelashes. None of us were naive enough to buy her innocent act. “What? I’m just saying some pantheons have way less than twelve. Or we could elect a new twelfth.”

“”A god of climate disasters!” Ares suggested enthusiastically. “That would be awesome. He and I could work well together!”

I held back a groan. Ares and Kymopoleia had already had far too much fun together since he remembered she existed. He didn’t need any more encouragement. 

“Stop it, all of you,” Hera spat. “This has gone on long enough. Too much loss. Too much pain. But if my husband insists on seeing it through, the least you can all do is not talk about Apollo as if he’s already dead!”

Again, Hera took it upon herself to declare how the rest of the Council should act. She shamed me in front of the other gods. She should be grateful I hadn’t dangled her over Chaos again after her stunt last year, interfering with the prophecy. 

But I’d show her my continuing mercy. All who doubted me would learn better once Apollo’s trials were over. The Fates would not allow an outcome that weakened me.

I wouldn’t have to wait long now.

“Nonexistent,” Athena corrected Hera. “If he fails, his fate will be much worse than death. But whatever happens, it begins now.”

Death was easily reversible. Many minor gods had been former dead mortals whom one of us greater gods took a liking to. 

Nonexistence was far more permanent.

Either Apollo would get on board and behave himself, never again defying me, or he’d never have the chance to defy anyone ever again.

Chapter Text

I watched my brother blink awake. He appeared okay, for the most part – as okay as he could be under the circumstances, at any rate. His arms sagged, and I saw lots of cuts and bruises all over him, but nothing that would impede his ability to fight or move. 

It wouldn’t matter much even if he had been seriously injured. He would still have to fight.

Father had left him with no choice.

What Zeus was making him go through was cruel and disproportionate. Apollo had learned anything he was going to learn. Making him fight Python and risk not only death, but complete nonexistence…?

I took a deep breath. Father HAD to know what he was doing. I’d feared that Apollo was going to die many times in the last few months, yet he hadn’t – in one case, because Father let me heal him. 

If Apollo was in mortal danger, Father would do something to help him, or let someone else do so, like he did back in Camp Jupiter.

I had to keep believing that.

Apollo mumbled something about dreaming. A moment later he shook it off, requesting nectar and a restock on supplies. He needed to defeat Python.

Nico and Will raced off to grab his bow, arrows, and ukulele. 

In the meantime, Apollo took the chance to chat with Lu. “Lu… You’re good people. I’m sorry I mistrusted you.”

“Eh,” she replied, waving one of her dagger-hands. “That’s okay. I thought you were pretty useless, too.

“I– I didn’t say useless…”

Ares burst into laughter. “She got him pegged the second she saw him!” he howled. “Just looked at him and thought ‘wow, this guy’s a useless twink’!”

“And within minutes of meeting her, he managed to decouple a train car by just shooting an arrow at the link,” I reminded him testily. “My brother may be less powerful in this form, but if you think he’s useless, then WHEN Apollo gets back to Olympus, he needs to check you for a head injury. Nothing else could explain how poor your memory is of everything Apollo’s accomplished.”

He put up his hands. “Hey now, I’m just joking.”

I let out a low growl. Ares’ jokes were rarely funny to anyone but himself.

Apollo alternated drinking Mountain Dew and nectar while Meg bandaged him up.

“I’m so proud of you,” Apollo told her. “You were so strong. So brilliant. So– Ow!” 

Meg had poked the dagger wound in his side. “Yeah, I know. I had to be. For them.” She gestured towards her “siblings”.

“Apollo has fully realized my daughter’s greatness,” Demeter proclaimed, smiling smugly. 

“She didn’t break apart Nero’s fasces,” Hermes pointed out. “You’ve lost that bet.”

She bristled. “She would have if Apollo had had the sense to hand it to her!”

On the one hand, I believed that breaking those fasces apart must have required a level of divine power that demigods simply didn’t have.

On the other hand… this was Meg. She’d already done several things that she really shouldn’t have been able to do, like producing pollen out of nowhere and making mushrooms grow on animals. It should be impossible for her to break even the most minor of gods’ symbols of power, but I doubted she’d care much for whether such a thing was “possible” or not, if she felt it needed to be done.

“They’ll need time,” Meg continued, still talking about her “siblings”. “And a lot of good support, like I got.”

“They’ll need YOU,” Apollo replied. “You showed them the way out.”

I smiled. Even at her young age, with everything she’d been through, and all the manipulation Nero had attempted against her, she knew right from wrong. But she hadn’t done that entirely on her own – Lu had helped her maintain her sense of morality by faking kills for her, letting her know that her discomfort with killing humans was warranted. Traveling with my brother, getting out from under Nero’s thumb, had allowed her to blossom further, as Apollo helped her to come to terms with what kind of person Nero was.

Her siblings would need lots of help – she was right about that. But so was my brother. One of the biggest dangers in this circumstance was that Nero’s kidnapped children wouldn’t know what to do with themselves after his death, and potentially seek out another abusive father figure just to feel something familiar. Meg had at least shown them that living after Nero was possible. 

“You were right,” Apollo admitted. “About trusting Luguselwa. I was wrong.”

Meg patted his hand. “Just keep saying that. I’m right. You’re wrong. Been waiting months for you to realize that.”

“Apollo’s learned all that he needs to,” Demeter proclaimed.

“That will be up to the Fates and myself to judge, not you,” Zeus countered sharply.

I had to wonder whether Apollo’s realization would extend to his older sister, instead of simply his younger adopted one. Alas, that would almost certainly take more than half a year to realize, even a half-year as eventful for him as this one.

Apollo insisted on fighting Python alone, without anyone else’s help. Meg understood. “Just come back to me, dummy. That’s an order.”

“Well, that bet’s completely fallen through,” Hermes noted.

“Meg could defeat Python single-handedly if she went,” Demeter grumbled, but without much fire behind it. I suspected she was secretly glad her daughter wouldn’t be put in that level of danger.

I bit my lip. Her daughter might be safe, but my own brother was not. He’d come a long way, and his divine display a few minutes ago indicated that he had some of his old power back, but would it be enough to take Python down.

I glanced at Zeus. It had to be enough. If it wasn’t, then he would’ve found an excuse to send me down to help Apollo. 

Somehow, Apollo would defeat Python again. Meg had given him an order, after all.

Apollo ran into Chiron in the elevator and decided to ask about the joint task force meeting the campers had mentioned he attended. “Something about a severed cat’s head?” he questioned.

I shuddered. I certainly hoped not. I was rather fond of Bast, I’d even offered her a place with my Hunters if her Pantheon ever faded, like I had to Britomartis. While she’d never taken me up on that offer, we had hung out a lot, to the point where some Greeks started equating us together. Thankfully, neither of us had faded as a result.

I should check up on her, I hadn’t seen her in quite a long time.

Chiron chuckled. “A severed head. And a cat. Two different… uh, people. Acquaintances of mine from other pantheons. We were discussing a mutual problem.”

“Do I want to know?”

“No, you really don’t. Good luck, Apollo.”

I grimaced. Best that Apollo stay out of whatever Chiron had going on. He would have enough difficulty with his own fight without concerning himself with whatever this interpantheon task force was dealing with. If– When– he defeated Python, he could find out more about it and see whether he could help. But not before.

Apollo ventured downwards, the passageway shrinking as miasma filled the air. It finally ended in a crawlspace, meters from where Python was resting.

I sucked in a breath. Python was far bigger and more abhorrent than I’d thought. I’d never gotten to see the monster that had chased my mother, but looking at him now, I understood why she hadn’t fought back, and why Apollo had had nightmares about him for centuries. His massive form, his constantly shape-shifting body… it was almost beautiful in how grotesque it was.

Apollo couldn’t shoot Python from where he was. He kicked forwards, dropping down, flipping in midair as he attempted to shoot the snake.

Naturally, he missed. I wasn’t sure that even I could nail a shot like that while flipping like he had been.

“Five points for style, negative five points for execution,” Ares quipped. 

I glared at him. “Now is not the time.”

“Now’s the perfect time! If he’s gonna die, he might as well give us a show.”

I growled. “My brother is NOT going to die!”

“Says you,” Ares countered. “I’ve got thirty drachmas resting on this.”

I looked away in disgust. This was why I avoided Olympus. Too many gods caught up in petty squabbles, simply using others’ lives for their own entertainment. Even the lives of their own family.

“And here we are,” Python said, his eyes roaming over Apollo. “I have not quite finished digesting Nero’s power, but I suppose it will have to do. He tastes like dried rat anyway.”

Hermes raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that make him delicious? George and Martha LOVE rats – even dried ones.”

Aphrodite grimaced. “You carry around dried rats?”

“You prefer I carry around non-dried ones?” Hermes countered. “Dried rats are a lot less messy and smelly than regular dead rats are.”

“Or you could just not carry around any rats,” Aphrodite suggested, wrinkling her nose.

“And let George and Martha starve?” he shook his head. “No. If I need to take them somewhere without food for them to hunt, I’ll bring food with me or I’ll leave them behind. I’m not going to make them go without food just for my own convenience.”

I gave Hermes a respectful nod. I made sure to take good care of all the animals I and my Hunters allied with. I’d always appreciated that Hermes did the same.

“Slither away, snake,” my brother declared. “While you still can.”

“Amazing. You STILL haven’t learned humility? I wonder how you will taste. Like rat? Like god? They are similar enough, I suppose.”

“It is not Python that Apollo needs to learn humility to,” Zeus said sharply. “And comparing god to the taste of rat, saying they’re similar! Does that foolish serpent truly think he’s above us?!”

“Perhaps you should put Python in his place, Father,” I proposed. 

He glared at me. “Do you think I am really so easily manipulated? No. It is Apollo’s destiny to attempt to subdue Python. If he fails, then I shall have Python pay the price for his hubris. But not before Apollo takes his shot.”

I bit my lip. It had been a long shot, I’d known that. Appealing to Zeus’s – or any god’s, really – sense of pride was one of the most consistent strategies to get them to do or not do something, but even that didn’t always work. 

Apollo fired another arrow at Python. It bounced off his face. 

“Stop embarrassing yourself, Lester,” he hissed. “I control Delphi. I would have been content to rule the world through my puppets, the emperors, but you have helpfully cut out the middlemen. I have digested the power of the Triumvirate! Now I will digest–”

Apollo shot him again, this time in the throat. It didn’t penetrate, but it did shut up the serpent for a moment.

“I see,” Python grumbled. “Won’t go quietly. That’s fine. We can make this hurt.”

“I doubt he has thought this through,” Athena noted. “Middlemen exist for a reason. Python has never shown much ability or experience with managing an organization, much less entire countries. He may be able to vaguely shape the direction the world moves in, but anything more detailed would be difficult without a command structure firmly in place. In practice, he wouldn’t be able to truly “rule” more than a small area, maybe a city, a county at most.”

“It hardly matters,” Zeus scoffed. “If Apollo fails, I am sure one of the demigods will finish him off instead.”

Of course Zeus would send in a demigod rather than interfere himself.

No. I shouldn’t worry about that. Apollo would not fail.

He could not fail.

When push came to shove, if Apollo was going to die, Zeus would do SOMETHING to make sure he survived. He’d proven that. If there was no other way, then he’d let me go so I could fight Python. 

He would not allow Apollo to die. He just wanted to scare everyone into thinking he would.

“Ah… Delphi speaks,” Python mused. “Would you like to know your future, Lester? It’s very short.”

Python breathed out green fumes, his voice taking on the weight of prophecy. “Apollo will fall–”

“NO!” my brother interrupted, firing another arrow, this time at one of Python’s legs. Somehow, this one actually penetrated the monster’s hide.

“NEVER INTERRUPT A PROPHECY!” Python bellowed. He attempted to strike Apollo, but my brother’s small size made getting a hit on him difficult. “You heard your fate! ‘Apollo will fall’. It’s not much, but it’s enough! You cannot escape your destiny! I have spoken, so must it be!”

“If Python truly thinks that, then he is a fool,” Athena said contemptuously. “Even more detailed prophecies often have unusual meanings. A prophecy as vague as the one Python’s started to give is nearly meaningless. Even assuming that past events, such as Apollo’s fall from Olympus, do not count, it could still refer to many different sorts of falls. A metaphorical fall is possible, but so is a literal one. At any rate, a metaphorical fall still wouldn’t necessarily refer to Apollo’s demise, but instead merely a setback, something he could come back from.”

“Python seems dead set on ensuring that his own prophecy is fulfilled in exactly the way he wants it to be,” Hermes said drily, watching Apollo continue to dodge the reptile’s attacks.

As Apollo danced around Python, he stumbled, dropping his bow down a chasm. 

“NO!”

I reached out, as if I could snag the bow. But it had long since tumbled into darkness.

My brother had lost his most formidable weapon. Only his combat ukulele and his arrows remained. But without a means to deliver those arrows to their target, they were worse than your average dagger.

How could he kill Python now? SIng him to death?

I blinked. That… might actually be possible. My brother had disintegrated Commodus by screaming in his face really loudly, after all.

I didn’t relax, exactly, but my panic lessened. Apollo wasn’t sunk yet.

Apollo limped off to some cover, where he pulled out the Arrow of Dodona.

Pause.

“Doething great,” my brother wheezed. “I gotteth him right where I wanteth him.”

“Where are you, Apollo?” Python roared. “I can smell your blood!”

“Hear that, arrow? I forced him to call me Apollo!”

“He’s going through the same arc as all the emperors did,” Hermes noted. “Jeering at Apollo and mocking him by calling him ‘Lester’, only to drop it when he turns out to be more of a threat than they thought.”

Pause.

“What?”

Pause.

“You did too.”

Pause.

“Okay. …Wait. That won’t work. You don’t have legs.”

“What did the arrow just propose?” Hermes questioned, bemused. “Competing in a dance-off against Python?”

Ares grinned. “Nah. I bet ol’ fake Shakespeare here proposed that he grow massive legs and stomp on Python until his guts spill out of his mouth!”

“If the arrow suggested a plan as ridiculous as that, I think my brother would have a far more incredulous reaction than just reminding it that it doesn’t have legs,” I said drily.

“YOU CAN’T HIDE!” Python bellowed. “YOU ARE NO GOD!”

I blinked, examining my brother closely. Steam wafted around him. I’d thought it was simply the miasma in the air clinging to him, but examining it more closely, it seemed to be emanating from him instead. And… was it just me, or were small flickers of light glowing from beneath his skin?

I glanced at Zeus, trying to discern whether he’d caused it. Whether he’d even noticed it. 

I saw no signs of his involvement.

“I won’t hide,” Apollo muttered. “I won’t cower. That’s not who I will be.”

He grabbed his ukulele. “CHARGE!” Bolting out of his hiding place, he ran up to Python’s throat. “Die!” CLANG! “Die!” TWANG! “Die!” CRACK-SPROING!

His ukulele shattered on the third strike.

“Where has that energy been for the rest of his enemies?!” Ares complained. “Just run up and hit them! Don’t stand around ‘waiting for the right time’ or ‘retreating so you can fight again later.’ Just pick up anything you have around you and beat them with it while screaming at them to die!”

“That was… SO stupid…” Athena gaped, watching as Python coiled around Apollo, lifting him into the air.

“If my brother dies because of that move, I will resurrect him and then kill him again myself for his stupidity,” I gritted out. I wasn’t sure which emotion was stronger right now: my worry over Apollo’s fate, or my incredulity at his foolishness.

“Enough now,” Python said calmly, staring Apollo in the eyes. “You fought well. You should be proud. Now you can relax.”

Python’s hypnosis trick didn’t work on Apollo. He continued to squirm, trying to free himself from the snake’s coils. He stabbed Python with the broken fretboard of the combat ukulele, actually managing to draw blood.

It just pushed Python to squeeze tighter.

“Has anyone ever told you that you are annoying?” Python hissed.

“All the time.” “Everyday.” “Five times a week.” “No, but I think about it during at least half of our conversations.” The Olympian Council chorused with agreement.

“Well, no matter,” Python sighed. “We have reached the end, you and I.” 

He squeezed even harder. I was amazed that Apollo hadn’t been crushed yet. Any normal mortal would have been.

But he wasn’t a normal mortal, was he? Not anymore. Not with the way the light moved underneath Apollo’s skin, brighter than it was just a few minutes ago.

Still. There was only so much that even a god could take.

“Hopefully he squeezes Apollo so tightly his limbs pop off!” Ares grinned excitedly.

I gaped at him. “My brother’s being crushed, and that’s your take?!”

He shrugged. “I have thirty drachmas on the line.”

I groaned. Why Hermes thought this infernal betting was a good idea, I’d never understand. 

Apollo pounded on Python with his fist, even wriggling the combat ukulele around in the wound it’d created, unwilling to give up even now.

“Wh–?” he wheezed. I wasn’t sure whether he was actually trying to ask something, or whether it was an involuntary noise produced from Python squeezing the air out of his lungs.

The Arrow of Dodona moved on its own, rotating so it pointed directly at Python’s face. 

“No,” Apollo croaked. I wasn’t sure whether he was referring to whatever was going on with the arrow, or was trying to defy his death. 

With the look of sorrow and grief on his face, I was betting the former. My brother had demonstrated over and over again these past few months that he was more upset at the prospect of others impending deaths than his own.

“What is that?” Python mocked. “Does the little rat beg for mercy at the end?”

As Python moved to strike, Apollo sobbed, jabbing the Arrow of Dodona into his eye.

“Yes, finally, some carnage!” Ares cheered. “Grind that arrow in there, mince that eye into jelly!”

“I thought you wanted my brother to get his limbs popped off,” I shot back at him, still irked at his earlier comments. “Don’t you want your thirty drachmas?”

“So? Apollo can turn Python’s eye to mush and THEN Python can tear Apollo’s limbs off! The more violence, the better!”

“Quit talking about Apollo’s limbs getting torn off!” Hera hissed. “If you can’t take this seriously, then be quiet!”

I regarded Hera with a level of respect I didn’t think would have been possible six months ago. I still didn’t understand why Hera suddenly cared about my brother so much, or any of Zeus’s illegitimate children, but I couldn’t deny her sincerity. Somehow, Hera had become my ally in protesting against my brother’s mistreatment.

Python howled and lashed out, his coils uncurling, dropping Apollo on the ground. 

He rose to his feet, light bursting out of his mortal form. There was no mistaking it anymore.

“Apollo must succeed,” Zeus declared. “Without some divine assistance, he would stand no chance, as he has already demonstrated.” He fixed his gaze on me, and then on Hera. “I hope this is satisfactory. Do not expect more.”

“Of course, Father,” I said hastily. 

Hera’s lips thinned into a line. “How merciful,” she sneered.

Zeus either didn’t notice the sarcasm in her voice, or pretended not to.

I frowned. Apollo’d started glowing several minutes ago – before Zeus seemed to have noticed. 

Had Zeus truly helped Apollo? Or was he just pretending?

…did it even matter?

So long as Zeus was willing to interfere when necessary to keep my brother alive, or to allow others to interfere, then what did it hurt if he lied about giving my brother power? It meant he’d be less likely to punish Apollo for illicitly gaining that power. 

Best to let Zeus continue with his act. Rocking the boat would only cause unnecessary trouble. 

Apollo didn’t need any help with getting into trouble. It was my job as an older sister to try to get him out of it.

“PYTHON!” Apollo bellowed, so loudly that it reverberated throughout the throne room. I thought I saw Zeus jump a little, but he composed himself so quickly, I wasn’t sure that I hadn’t just imagined it.

“You will NOT live,” Python declared.

“I’m fine with that, as long as you die, too.”

My brother grabbed Python’s tail and lunged for a nearby chasm.

“What are you doing?” He roared. “Stop it, you idiot!”

Apollo dragged the both of them over the edge.

“NO!”

Before I even realized it, I was on my feet. 

“Father, you have to stop this!” I pleaded. “At this rate, both of them will die!”

Zeus looked on coldly. “The Fates have been prevented from spinning their thread for long enough. They decreed that he must be the one to defeat Python, alone . And so it must be.”

“But–!”

“Do not anger my bolt, girl, or force me to put another one of my children through misery.”

I sat back down, gripping the sides of my throne. I could do nothing to help Apollo. Zeus would not allow it.

If he wouldn’t allow it, then it must not be necessary. Apollo would pull through. Zeus needed him to succeed as well, for the sake of the Fates’. He wouldn’t condemn my brother for the sake of some petty grudge. He had to be confident of Apollo’s success and survival.

That thought was not as reassuring as I would have liked it to be.

Apollo and Python tumbled downwards for several minutes, bouncing against each other and bashing into walls, all while Apollo still attempted to punch and kick the snake. Despite the amount of damage Apollo’s body must’ve been suffering, he didn’t falter.

After the eternity of those few minutes, both of them crashed down in a river - one that I’d only seen a handful of times, on the few occasions when I had needed to visit Hades, but I recognized nonetheless.

It is hard to forget the River Styx.

I bit my lip. Six months ago, my brother had broken an oath on the River Styx. So far in his journey, I hadn’t seen any sign of her punishing him – every bad thing that had happened in his proximity seemed likely to have occurred regardless.

If Styx wanted to take vengeance on my oathbreaker of a brother, now was the perfect time.

While both Apollo and Python still fought, their movements grew less energetic, more sluggish. Apollo, at least, was able to conserve some energy by periodically riding Python like some snake float on a waterpark river, much to my satisfaction.

Hestia’s feed started glitching, cutting out or stuttering slightly, static appearing across the screen. At first it was mild, quick enough that I wouldn’t have been able to perceive it without godly abilities. But as the two of them were swept further and further downstream, the feed glitched out more and more, until Python and Apollo went sailing off the end of a waterfall and the feed cut out entirely.

“Re-establish the connection!” I demanded, glaring at Hestia.

She shook her head. “Apollo’s now beyond the reach of the gods – even myself.”

“He can’t be!”

But I knew what she said was true. All Underworld rivers emptied into Tartarus. For Apollo to go sailing over a waterfall like he just had, he must have reached the Pit.

I roamed far and wide, over the highest mountains and into the deepest valleys. But I had never been to Tartarus. It was not a place one traveled to lightly. Even the elder Olympians had only traveled there once in order to free their uncles, the Cyclopes and Hekatonkheires.

I doubted Apollo had ever been to Tartarus before, either. Whether his affinity to light would make him more vulnerable to the suffocating evil of the pit, or less, I did not know. But in the state he was in, with the opponent he was facing, even falling into a nice, calm river staffed by a friendly river god would be treacherous.

In. Out. In. Out. I concentrated on my breathing. I could not help Apollo now. Not even Zeus, as powerful as he was, stood a chance of interfering in time – not in Tartarus. 

Whatever my brother’s fate, he would have to face it alone.

“Aw, seriously?!” Ares complained, breaking me out of my reverie. “How are we supposed to know who won the bet now? I can’t just pop down into Tartarus to check that Apollo’s corpse was appropriately mangled!”

I opened my mouth, outraged.

Hera beat me to the punch.

“SHUT UP!” she screamed. “You’ve been treating this like some sort of game. Apollo, one of your brethren, might be lost forever. The least you can do is to quit acting like his demise is some sort of entertaining spectacle you’ve been deprived of!”

“What, now , all of a sudden, you care about one of Zeus’s bastard children?!” Ares screamed back. “Where was this millennia ago, when I was trapped in that fucking jar? When I was the one withering away? Did you change your mind and decide, oh wait, actually, gods’ lives matter now?” He let out a crazed laugh. It sounded almost like sobbing. “You’re wearing a veil to mourn Jason’s death, another one of Zeus’s bastards you’ve inexplicably decided to care about, but you couldn’t even be assed to send back-up after I, your own son , was kidnapped, when you were the one who ordered me to fight the Giants in the first place!”

Hera stared at him, lost for words.

I looked away. I’d never had much to do with the other Olympians (aside from my brother of course), so I hadn’t cared much about Ares’ fate. I’d just assumed he’d get free eventually on his own, or one of the other gods would bust him out. Ares wasn’t my responsibility.

I’d regretted my indifference a year later, when Hermes released Ares from the jar. I may not have liked the guy, but he didn’t deserve to waste away like he had. I’d taken solace in the fact that none of the other gods, aside from Hermes, had intervened either – and even Hermes had taken months to finally start searching for him. 

Now I saw that incident in a new light. I’d seen many other gods worry over Apollo, cheer him on, even try to help him in a few cases. Ares hadn’t had that, even from his own parents. 

No wonder he was unsympathetic to Apollo. As much as I hated the way he made light of Apollo’s speculated horrible demise, I could understand his bitterness and jealousy.

As the throne room continued to look on in silence, I noticed something odd. Was it just me, or was a strand of light rising up from the floor?

Another joined that strand, and another, and another, forming a glowing mesh of gold.

I gasped, recognizing the presence. How could I not? I’d known him since we were both in the womb. “Apollo!”

His form grew brighter and brighter, light weaving together until it was one solid structure – and then dissipated, leaving the tall, bronze, godly form of my brother lying stone-cold unconscious on the floor.

I jumped off my throne, kneeling at his side. “He’s exhausted, but otherwise unharmed,” I reported. As I’d told Apollo a few months ago, I may not be a healer god, but I knew enough to still take care of him. “I suspect he will be fine with a bit of rest.” 

“I know,” Zeus declared, attempting to sound confident and in control. He failed. “Apollo proved that he’s learnt his lesson. I saw no need to punish him beyond that. I have restored his godly status.” He fixed his gaze on Apollo’s prone body. “I should hope he never does anything to lose it again.”

I had my doubts as to his level of involvement in Apollo’s ascension, but now was not the time to voice them, with my brother being as vulnerable as he was. I bowed my head. “Thank you, Father. It appears that Apollo may be out for quite some time. May I take him to my chambers?”

He paused, thinking it over. I held my breath.

At last, he nodded. “This session is adjourned. Be ready to reconvene when Apollo reawakens, whenever that may be.”

I snapped my fingers, teleporting Apollo to my palace a moment before I myself did. As I was leaving, I heard Athena’s voice calmly state “So, I believe I won the betting pool–”

Apollo stayed fast asleep, shifting slightly every now and then or occasionally letting out the odd moan or grunt, but otherwise remaining motionless and silent – not a state I was used to seeing my brother in. After a few hours I remembered that Apollo’s mortal companions would be nearly as worried about my brother as I myself had been, so I took advantage of their sleeping state to notify them of Apollo’s success – I sent them all a dream of the sun rising over a snake carcass. Even if a few of them mistook it for an ordinary dream, so many people sharing it would make its divine nature clear.

Two weeks later, my brother finally stirred, opening his eyes. I surreptitiously sent a message to Zeus to let him know Apollo was awake. Best not to anger him with any delay.

I smiled down at him. “Took you long enough.”

He sat up with a sob and hugged me tight.

“Whoa, there,” I awkwardly patted him on the back. “Okay, little fella. You’re alright. You made it.”

Part of me expected Apollo to start protesting at being called “little,” and to declare (lie) that he was the older one (despite me being the one to deliver him), but he just clutched at me harder. I had to gently extricate myself from his embrace. I could understand his need for comfort, but the close contact was making me uncomfortable. I opted to still allow him to hold my hands, however. It allowed me to better monitor his shaking.

Apollo looked down, examining his body. He almost looked disappointed at his gleaming, bronze, flawless skin and his eight-pack abs.

After a moment, he choked. “How long?” He sounded like his world had ended.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I didn’t understand why he sounded so forlorn.

“How long was I out? What century is this?” he demanded.

I blinked. Suddenly his despair made sense. He sounded like his world might have ended, because he was afraid that the world Lester Papadopoulos and all his friends had inhabited was long gone.

“Not to worry, Brother,” I assured him. “Since you fought Python, only two weeks have passed.”

He let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“But what about my friends?” he questioned, throwing off his sheet. “They’ll think I’m dead!”

I locked my eyes on the ceiling. I had no desire to examine my brother’s naked form any more than was necessary. “Not to worry. We– I– sent them clear omens of your success. They know you have ascended to Olympus again. Now, please, put on some clothing. I’m your sister, but I would not wish this sight on anyone.”

Apollo grunted. “I, um… Yes. Is there a closet, or…?”

I laughed. This was the Apollo I knew. Always forgetting the obvious. “A closet. That’s adorable. You can just wish yourself into clothes, Little Brother.”

“I… ah…” he stammered.

I took pity on him. “Oh, fine. Allow me.”

I waved my hand, clothing him in an attractive silver dress and thigh-laced sandals, a beautiful tiara making the whole piece come together. I may not like Aphrodite or agree with her priorities, but that did not mean I didn’t care about aesthetics at all. 

“Um. Perhaps something less Huntery?” he requested.

“I think you look lovely,” I told him, suppressing a smile. He really did, Apollo could rock most dresses on the rare occasions he wore them, not that I’d tell him that. “But very well.”

I waved my hand, changing the outfit to a simple white men’s chiton. Honestly, I didn’t see the reason for the fuss. Chitons were not that different from gowns. I made sure to change the tiara to a crown of laurels. He deserved a symbol of victory after his triumph over Python.  

“Thank you,” he said gratefully.

I nodded. “The others are waiting in the throne room. Are you ready?” Truthfully, it didn’t matter much whether he was or not, we could not keep the council waiting long. I could not delay his presentation for more than a few minutes without angering Zeus.

“In a moment. Would you mind…?”

I nodded. I could buy him a couple minutes. “I’ll let you compose yourself. I’ll tell them you’ll be right in.” I kissed him on the cheek. “I am glad you’re back. I hope I won’t regret saying that.”

“Me, too,” Apollo agreed.

I teleported to the throne room. My brother was shaken, but otherwise seemed in good health, physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

Things would be alright. Apollo just needed to get through this council meeting, and everything would be back to normal again.

Chapter Text

I visited the Fates’ weaving room as soon as I adjourned that day’s meeting.

The miasma was gone. The Fates were at their workstations, busily spinning their threads. Evidently, whatever Apollo had done had fixed the problem.

I approached Clotho, much as she’d approached me a week ago. “Apollo has returned,” I declared, in case they had any doubt. “I trust that everything is well here?”

She nodded. “The miasma disappeared half an hour ago. Prophecy once again falls under Apollo’s domain.”

That rankled me a little, but I didn’t let it show on my face. Better for it to be under Apollo’s control than Python’s. “So Apollo has passed his test?” I questioned. “He has learnt what he needed to?” 

Obviously they wouldn’t have let Apollo ascend if he had not learnt his place, but I still wanted to hear them say it.

She gave me a mysterious smile. “Oh yes, these lessons will stick with Apollo for the rest of his life. They have altered who he is on a fundamental basis. With how he is now, the future looks bright.”

I nodded, satisfied. If not for the trials I set for him, Apollo may have foolishly continued with his rebellion, destabilizing all of Olympus and dooming not only himself, but anyone moronic enough to ally with him. My actions, though they may seem cruel on the outside, were ultimately the kinder option. I would suffer the hatred of my subjects in silence, knowing that I was doing the right thing. One day, they would thank me for my firm hand, but until then, I would continue to guide as I had always done.

As I waited for Apollo to wake up so I could officially welcome him back to Olympus (and assess how much he’d changed for myself), I made sure to send a message to Dionysus, warning him that he must be ready to travel to the throne room at a moment’s notice. Best that ALL Olympians witnessed this meeting, even those in disgrace – especially those in disgrace. If Dionysus’s current punishment turned out to not be enough of a deterrent against disobedience, seeing the aftermath of Apollo’s punishment ought to be.

After two long weeks, Artemis at last sent the notice of Apollo’s awakening. I immediately called everyone to the throne room. None of them delayed – not even Ares, who normally arrived only barely on time.

A few minutes later, Apollo appeared in the doorway. He paused at the entrance, looking into the room. His eyes locked with Artemis, who nodded at him.

Was she conveying some secret message, or was she simply encouraging her brother? 

She must just be encouraging him. I’d made sure Artemis knew her place. Aside from a few unfortunate… outbursts , she was a good girl.

I still kept an eye on her, just in case.

At last, Apollo entered the room. As he strode across it he grew in size, until he could comfortably sit on his throne. He looked each of us in the eye, as if assessing us. 

I did not like the sensation. I was not the one who had been on trial. I had nothing to prove to him.

“You have returned,” I announced. I suddenly felt the urge to move things along.

“Yes, Father,” he said bitterly. He smiled, looking around the room once again. “So, who won the betting pool?”

I blinked. He knew about that? Come to think of it, he did pass out right after defeating Python. I vaguely remembered some of the gods discussing the bet while he was unconscious. He must’ve astral projected up to Olympus. 

I hadn’t noticed.

I was not fond of the way others traveled around in dreams. It was difficult to guard against such intrusions, if I even detected them in the first place. The fact that I, King of the Gods, could not prevent such a breach of privacy was… concerning . If people watched me at the wrong time, they could gain knowledge that was dangerous in the wrong hands. If anyone had been watching when I leeched out Apollo’s divinity…

No, no. This wasn’t the time to think about that. I had no evidence that anyone else knew that secret. I could watch out for signs that people knew more than they should, but until I saw something, I needed to put that out of my head. I didn’t want the other gods to think I was paranoid.

“Hey man, that was just something to keep our nerves under control,” Hermes protested. “We were worried about you!”

Ares snorted. “Especially because of the way you were fumbling around down there. I’m surprised you lasted as long as you did.” His face turned red with embarrassment. “Uh… I mean, good job, man. You came through.”

I supposed that even with his outburst a few weeks ago, Ares was not actually angry with Apollo. They had historically gotten along better than some of the other gods. 

I was just glad Ares hadn’t targeted me with his ire back then. I would have been forced to do something about it, much as I would not have wanted to. Ah, the burdens of leadership. I suffered my followers’ lack of understanding in silence. I knew best, even if they believed otherwise.

“So you lost a bundle,” Apollo guessed.

Ares cursed.

“Athena won the pot,” Hermes told him helpfully.

“Really?”

Athena shrugged. “Wisdom. It comes in handy.”

I held in a growl. After Apollo manifested after his fight with Python, Athena had smugly claimed the pot. She hadn’t outright said that she’d won via Apollo manifesting on his own, but the way she’d smiled… she knew. 

I calmed myself. That was fine. The Fates would not have let Apollo ascend if he was a threat to me, nor would they have allowed Athena to make the bet she had if it would lead to my losing power. The Fates had determined that I was the rightful ruler for all time, and had warned me in the past when someone might threaten my reign, even making sure I knew of the threat Metis’ son would have posed to me so I could eat her before such a troublemaker could be born.

As much as Athena’s insubordination rankled me, it could not actually signal her being a threat. Best that I simply endure it. 

“So…” Apollo spread his arms wide.

“Well, I think you did a marvelous job,” Dionysus complimented. That surprised me. He’d kept quiet in council meetings ever since I sentenced him to Camp Half-Blood, and his complimenting of others was rare even before that. “I think, in your honor, any god who is currently being punished with a stint on earth ought to be pardoned immediately–”

Ah. There it was. I’d let him have several months off, and yet he was still wheedling to be let off the hook entirely. 

“No,” I snapped. He best not push it, or I’d add an extra decade to his sentence.

“I agree with Dionysus,” Demeter said, putting the basket she was weaving aside. “Apollo should be commended.” She smiled warmly. “He made a wonderful slave to my daughter. True, it took him a while to adjust, but I can forgive that. If any of you need a slave in the future for your demigod children, I recommend Apollo without hesitation.”

“Thanks?”

She blew him a kiss. His nose wrinkled.

Add that to the reasons the other gods couldn’t govern themselves: Demeter didn’t even have the social awareness to realize how insulting she’d just been. You needed a better grasp on others perceptions of your words and behavior than that if you wanted to rule.

Hera lifted up her veil. Somehow, her eyes were STILL red and puffy.

Ugh. She had to be faking it. Jason hadn’t even really been her child, she’d barely even known him! No way she could be this deeply affected by his death. Demigods died all the time! It was what they did!

She glared at me. “At least Apollo did something.”

Seriously? Still? “Not this again,” I told her, holding back a groan.

“My chosen. Jason Grace. Your son . And you–”

“I didn’t kill him!” I snapped. “That was Caligula!”

“Yes, and at least Apollo grieved,” she countered. “At least he got vengeance.”

Ugh. Jason’s death was meant to happen. It was his destiny. I was faultless! Couldn’t she see that?!

But of course not. I was the only one who understood. The Fates would guide everything to how it was meant to be – including my desire to interfere or not. My annoyance with Jason meant that I was not inclined to save him, therefore he was meant to die. I had wanted Thalia to survive, so my turning her into a tree must have been of the Fates’ design. Simple as that.

“Whatever the case,” I grumbled, moving the conversation along. “It does appear that after two weeks, Apollo’s fix is permanent. Python is truly gone. The Oracles are free. The Fates are once again able to spin their thread without encumbrance.” I had checked that myself.

“Yes, Father. Python is gone. The Oracles are free. I hope that meets with your approval?”

Ah, there was the deference I was looking for, the understanding that I was the final arbiter, that nothing was completely settled until I’d settled it. 

I relaxed. “I am satisfied,” I pronounced. The Fates had done their job. Apollo had learnt his lesson.

“Super,” he replied.

“Yes.” I cleared my throat. “Welcome back to godhood, my son. All has gone according to my plan. You have done admirably. You are forgiven and restored to your throne!” The fact that he was already sitting on his throne was of no consequence. Nothing was official until I said it was.

The rest of the council clapped. 

“What’s the first thing you’ll do now that you’re back?” Hermes asked eagerly. “Smite some mortals? Maybe drive your sun chariot too close to the Earth and smoke the place?”

“Ooh, can I come?” Ares asked.

Of course he wanted to come with. He enjoyed seeing people’s skin burn off. 

Apollo shrugged. “I think I may just visit some old friends.”

“The Nine Muses?” Dionysus guessed. “Excellent choice.”

They had missed Apollo. I hoped he went to see them soon. They'd cut down on the number of performances since Apollo had gotten in trouble, and what performances they had given were on the morose end. Their hearts just weren’t in it. Seeing Apollo again ought to lift their spirits and get them back to performing like usual. I’d missed Terpsichore’s singing and dancing. How Lavinia could be her daughter, I’d never know.

“Well then,” I said, scanning around the room in case any of the other gods had something more to say. They didn’t. “Council is dismissed.”

All the rest of the council teleported away, leaving Apollo and I alone. 

I coughed into my fist awkwardly. I’d done the right thing, but talking to someone after their punishment was often still uncomfortable. “I know you think your punishment was harsh, Apollo,” I tried to explain. “But you must understand, only you could have overthrown Python. Only you could have freed the Oracles. And you did it, as I expected. The suffering, the pain along the way… regrettable, but necessary. You have done me proud.”

I had just given my highest praise. Despite everything, Apollo had done well in his mission, to the point that it looked like I must have intentionally set up everything to work out as well as it did. 

Now, hopefully he didn’t say or do something to use up the good will he’d earned, unlike the last time I’d praised one of my sons.

He nodded. “I understand, Father.”

Something about the way he said it… It felt like he was talking about something else. Like his understanding was different from mine.

No, it couldn’t be. I needed to stop my paranoia from running rampant. He just sounded off because of how long it’d been since he’d talked with me. That was all.

“Very well,” I continued. “So… welcome home.”

Apollo stood up. “Thank you. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

He dissolved into golden light, leaving me alone in the throne room with no one but my thoughts.

An hour later, I visited the Fates’ room once again. I wanted to check on Apollo’s string, just to see what it looked like. 

It was glowing warmly, brighter than I’d ever seen it before. I approached, wanting to check its strength. 

The warmth increased more and more, brighter and brighter, as I got closer to Apollo’s string, and those of the rest of the gods. What had started as a warm, gentle glow turned hotter and hotter the nearer I got. By the time I was a few feet away, it felt like I was burning.

I looked down at my hand, my eyes wide. It was pink, as if it was being burned. As I reached out my hand, it visibly started to smoke.

I pulled back, my hand still aching from the burn.

I could not touch Apollo’s string. I could not even touch those of the other Olympians, with his glow creating a barrier of sorts around them. Not without burning up.

I walked away, still cradling my hand. This was fine. If I could not access Apollo or any other Olympian’s string, it simply meant I’d never need to do so in the future. The Fates would not have allowed this otherwise.

Everything was alright. With the exception of Apollo’s string, everything was back to normal again.

Now if only this terrible feeling in my gut would agree with me.