CHAPTER XLI:Preparations.

For a second my whole life flashed before my eyes. I saw my first day at school, my mother taking me to the Underworld, several fights I had won over the years, and so much more.

The longer I fell, the more I understood Seth's fear of heights. I thought to myself that I was going to die here, and I started thinking of all my regrets (not being able to finish this quest was one).

Any sound outside of my thoughts was lost in the rush of wind. I felt everything stop in an instant, and I heard a calm silence.

My eyes were shut tight, by instinct, and I called out for the Underworld's ferryman "Are you there, Charon?".

"Well that's not a kind thing to call your savior." A woman's voice said.

I looked up seeing Artemis holding me. She had a sweet smile, which was oddly placed, and kind eyes that didn't make my body turn to ice like the times I had seen her on the archery range. I looked up past her, and saw Apollo looking over the cliff edge ready to jump after me.

"You're lucky my brother always sets his clock an hour behind because you certainly would've died child." Artemis said In a tone that made it sound like she was ready to kill me for almost dying while setting me down on the snow covered ground.

"Do not!" Apollo yelled over the cliff edge.

"It is eight thirty brother! What does your clock say!?" Artemis yelled back.

Apollo checked his watch "Eight….thirty…." he answered.

"Praise father that you're immortal brother." Artemis joked turning to me "Penny arrived at the school this morning, you also have first period off. Maybe you can show up to school with my brother." she smiled.

Artemis walked away seemingly vanishing in the storm around us. The only thing left of her presence was her footsteps, which were more of footprints, since she didn't wear shoes. Something most huntresses did, and sometimes it didn't work in their favor (which was evident with how many huntresses wore bloodied bandages on their feet daily).

Apollo jumped down from the cliff, landing gracefully immediately melting the snow around us, and double checked on me to make sure I was ok.

"I'm fine sun lord. I promise." I said.

"Well technically speaking you're my responsibility, medically and spiritually." Apollo replied, "Ready to go princess?" I nodded, and he lead me out of Elysium.

The trip to the school was relatively boring considering everything that happened the past few days, and my near death experience. The school was unnaturally quiet considering how it looked on a normal weekday. With most of the legions gone, and the rest joining Morpheus, the hallways were sparsely filled with the makeshift demigod war council. Children of Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, and Dionysus mainly.

I walked through the hallways to see all of the classrooms empty under the imposing threat. Poseidon was under siege in Atlantis, Ares was extremely busy answering prayers and drafting battle plans (same with Athena), Hades was buried in paperwork, and Zeus was commanding all of the gods still loyal to Olympus.

Garrisoned troops moved hurriedly through the hall. It was mainly Mars' troops getting gear ready, and getting prepared for any deployments. The whole school was on alert with good reason, they were scared of being caught unprepared for war. I moved to our quest room to see a sign, written in a beautiful light blue cursive lettering, to report to Athenas war room immediately.

I sighed heavily "wish someone told me that sooner." I muttered to myself walking away.

I walked down the hall, and outside to the archery field, to see Artemis and the huntresses' practicing archery while Apollo cracked jokes like always. I saw a silver flash move past Apollo as he ducked, and Artemis covering the bottom half of her face definitely hiding a smile. I could tell she enjoyed Apollo's company, even in war he was optimistic, and Artemis needed that comedic relief.

In the mix of huntresses' I saw Luna, and she looked just like her mother. The clothes, her silver eyes, light brown hair with beautiful silver streaks, and fair white skin that made her look like a mini clone of Artemis. Luna shot arrow after arrow, not missing the mark a single time, better than any other huntress on the field. She always sought to impress her mother, and for that she trained endlessly for days trying to keep up with hundreds of years of training other huntresses' had.

I finally moved past the field as Artemis and Apollo started to spar (no matter how badly I wanted to watch the fight). I moved to a large building separate from the school, and walked in and felt the energy completely change.

Athena and Ares were in front of a large table with a map of the world, "We need to reinforce Poseidon!" Athena yelled pointing to the map enlarging the map over the Atlantic Ocean.

Athena's clothes had changed from casual to war ready. She wore Athenian battle armor over her white dress, with her blonde hair neatly tucked away in her helmet.

"With what forces?! Everyone that is trained to fight underwater has been deployed!" Ares yelled back clearly frustrated.

He hadn't changed, except putting a helmet on that covered his full face. His eyes glowed like two embers in a fire through the helmet that had a fiery red plume.

"Pluto's Guard? The dead don't need air." Athena suggested.

"Pluto already deployed them. Unless I can replace them, but we'd need to talk to his wife, Cora." Ares said calming down slightly, his eyes dimming.

Athena rolled her eyes, and walked away. Ares examined the map more as it went back to normal, and demigods moved about the room calling in deployments and battles.

Off the left I saw Seth talking to Alex Garner. Alex wore his typical white button up, black slacks, wine colored tie, black shoes, and his gun holster. The black straps were easily visible against his white shirt. Two bronze daggers stuck out, and glimmered in the blinking lights along with his gun holstered on his left side. His light brown hair was neatly kept, swept to the right with gel keeping it in place, and his emerald green eyes were calm and mannered.

I walked past them, not wanting to disturb the conversation, and moved into a large open room. Maps were tacked onto walls, weapons were mounted on the walls next to the maps, and reinforcement cards were on the table. Those would help if we ran into more trouble than we could handle.

I picked a reinforcement card, and felt the cold steel surrounding the glass marker in the middle. The mark was Athena's, and it held her energy in the card. I set it down, and sat down in a wooden chair at the end of the table.

Penny and Olivia were already in the room, waiting for Seth, Adam, and Me to show up. Penny moved through the room quickly doing inspections, and Olivia sat looking at a reinforcement card with Poseidon's mark.

The room was quiet, but on the table I could see a map marked with a seal of Athena. Under the seal, in black bold letters, read 'DO NOT OPEN UNTIL THE TIME IS RIGHT -ATHENA'. That was the map of Daedalus, a map that when opened would make a path into the labyrinth anywhere in the world.

I grabbed the map, and broke the seal, opening it. I saw a map of the United States, and it circled in on a location. Next to the mark it read Chicago, Illinois, and the mark of the Labyrinth burned over it (a maze with bulls horns in the middle). We officially had our next location, and it would be the most difficult yet.