ALEXANDER

I headed back to my cabin, preparing for our arrival to Hephaestus' forge. Getting these supplies was vital to the success of the quest, so I needed to be at my A-game.

First matter at hand was getting ready dress-wise. I went to change my clothes, opening up my cabinet to consider my options. I hadn't brought many clothes with me, just what I was wearing now, a plain white shirt, my tuxedo - the one I wore at Arthur's funeral - and a buttload of jeans. I decided to trade in my stained orange Camp Half-Blood shirt for a plain white shirt. Over the shirt I put on a pretty cool aviator jacket I had gotten from my Uncle Steven on my sixth birthday.

Wearing the jacket reminded me of how close my Uncle Steven and I used to be. In fact, out of all my terrible relatives, him and my mother were probably the nicest to me. He gave me that jacket after he retired from his pilot job, hoping I would grow into it. Of course, I grew far past it. The jacket barely reached my hips, and the long sleeves ended far before the wrists. On top of that, it was torn up in several places and wasn't the best at keeping you warm.

However, I still wore it. I still felt bad about leaving him and my mother all those years ago. Those two deserved much better, but I still don't regret my decision to run away from my awful family. I mean, if I hadn't run away, I would've never met Kai or went to camp.

Anyways, I saw a lot of Uncle Stevens in Oman, though minus the southern accent and obsession with vehicles. By wearing the jacket and picturing Oman as Uncle Stevens, I felt like I was honoring all the sacrifices my uncle made for me and truly commemorating him.

I picked out one of my many plain blue jeans - the one with the most tears, of course - and wore a pair of large black sneakers to round out the outfit. I then dusted off my shields, Slammer and Jammer, and morphed them into small, Stygian iron sticks so they could fit into my pockets.

The shields had been a gift from my father, Ares, aka the war god. I had received them two years ago for my birthday, and even though I didn't want to use them since my dad's the worst dad in the world, I had this strange, nagging feeling that I needed to use them, as if the weapons were constantly calling to me. That ominous calling seemed to be gone nowadays, but given how useful my shields are, I continued to utilize them to protect myself and my friends alike.

Better yet, I got to smack my terrible father in the face with those shields three months ago when Amethyst brought me on her quest. That was a pretty awesome moment, serving as some fantastic revenge for what he did to my mother and I.

Continuing the long venture down memory lane I seemed to be taking, I remembered Arthur, my deceased pal and buddy. I went on this quest primarily because Rose asked me to and I loved quests, but I also went on this quest because I wanted to redeem myself. I couldn't help but feel guilty about Arthur's death. The same feeling was shared with all my friends, especially Geneva, who seemed to be groaning in frustration in her room. I assumed she was trying out her shapeshifting, given all the different animal sounds I kept hearing from her room.

I couldn't think about Arthur now though. The quest was still very much my main objective and I didn't want to get distracted. Still, I'd beat down Erebos and his puny GHOSTs as some sort of retribution for what happened to Arthur, even if they had nothing to do with what happened at Times Square.

I pocketed a singular drachma and a canteen of water before leaving my cabin and meeting up with the others in the training ground.

"So Amethyst, what exactly does Hephaestus's forge have?" Rose asked after I took a seat next to her and Kai.

"Probably a bunch of pieces of metal labeled exclusively based on whether they're worth being cursed or not," Kai responded.

Amethyst sighed as she reluctantly said, "From what Jake told me, the place is stocked with all kinds of metal and materials. Hephaestus recently transformed the place from a volcano into a smaller forge. I'm absolutely sure we can find all the necessary materials to fix the ship."

I looked at Kai with a smile on my face, the prospect of teasing Amethyst about her definite crush on Jake too great to pass up. However, he didn't seem to notice my gleeful look as he was just staring up at the roof angrily and seemed quite distracted. The joke would be a lot less funny without Kai's efforts, so I just ignored the notion, no matter how much dopamine I would've got from making fun of Amethyst's love life.

I couldn't blame Kai for being distracted though. He was about to travel to the forge and workplace of a god who cursed him with imminent death, and, if things go wrong, confront the man who is responsible for all the death dreams he keeps on having. He had held an eternal grudge on Hephaestus for the longest time, so this behavior is pretty justified.

"Hold on," Geneva said. "Is Hephaestus just going to let us waltz into his workshop?"

I nodded in agreement. "Yeah, didn't he once erupt a volcano nearby with just one sneeze?"

Everyone looked at me strangely.

"My point is, he has one fiery temper, and he's quite powerful," I continued. "Also, I'm pretty sure he did that. Sherman told me, and since he's a son of Ares, he'd know."

Kai snorted. "Yeah, right. If he tries to stop us, I'll slap his disheveled body upright and send him all the way to West Virginia."

"It'll be okay, friend," I said, trying to cheer him up.

Kai gave me a small grin and turned to Amethyst. "Anyways, what's our plan here? Like Geneva said, I don't think he'll be too happy if we just sneak in unattended."

Amethyst shrugged. "I seriously doubt Hephaestus is going to be there. He has millions of other forges across the world. Let's just try not to break anything, take the stuff we need, and go."

Oman's voice came from the speaker. "Y'all, I think I spotted the forge."

We ran up to the top deck and saw the forge from the outside. It stood alone on a small tropical island filled with trees and surrounded by lots of coconuts. The forge was about two stories tall and pretty dang beautiful. It was a ruby red color with intricate designs all over and a large balcony with golden railing overlooking the front yard. The front doors were made out of celestial bronze, glittering in the fierce sunlight. There was also a glowing gold insignia on the doors that looked like the symbol of the Hephaestus cabin, red hammers crossing one other.

"Yup, that's it," Amethyst said.

Rose raised her eyebrow and joked, "Are you absolutely sure that isn't Devon's favorite vacation spot? The emblem kind of looks like the West Ham symbol."

"Nah, Devon's family couldn't afford a place like this," Kai said. "I'll give it to the guy; Hephaestus knows how to design abandoned forges in the middle of the sea. Still, he's an absolute piece of crap, and no one can change my mind."

"Considering that he gave birth to some of the most insensitive pricks at camp, I wouldn't even try to," I replied, quickly turning to Amethyst. "Sorry, but Jake's one too. Don't care if he's your boyfriend or not."

Kai and I fist bumped as Amethyst groaned in frustration. Oman soon docked the ship right by the island, and dropped down some stairs for us to climb down onto the island.

"Hey, make sure to keep Timmy in his cell," Kai said. "The guy is a lot smarter than he looks."

Oman nodded his head. "I will. Let me know if y'all find anything good."

With that, we headed towards the forge. The area around it was covered in palm trees and sand, making the place look like some sort of resort. Some broken coconuts were scattered across the ground, as if a horde of monkeys had come by the forge recently and left quite a large mess.

I pushed open the bronze doors of the forge and we entered one by one.

Inside the structure, the place was compact with machinery and conveyor belts. There was a large blacksmith table and a furnace, as well as a bunch of random inventions and tools. In the very back of the room was a wide forge, a half-completed, hot tipped Celestial bronze sword lying on top of it.

"You guys sure this place is empty?" Kai asked.

Rose shrugged. "We have to hope so. I'm not really in the mood to fight a ticked-off fire god or whatever lovely inventions he left to play defense here."

We began looking around the place for materials, looking everywhere we could. On a relatively basic search, we found nothing, so we inspected further. I searched the conveyor belt, trying to see where the materials derived from.

"Hey, guys, the materials are coming from another room!" I announced.

Amethyst raised her eyebrow. "Another room? Where?"

"Oh gee, I don't know," Kai said. "Maybe the huge doors in front of us."

The doors were made out of Imperial gold and had the emblem of Hephaestus on it - or the West Ham logo. Honestly, I don't know the difference anymore. They towered over us and for some reason, gave me a very bad and ominous feeling.

We walked over to the doors and tried opening it, but the second I grabbed the handle, it burnt me.

"OW!" I yelled. "Bad doors!"

"Wow. Hephaestus definitely put some security here," Rose said.

Kai laughed. "This is his idea of security?"

He nonchalantly yanked the handle down as the doors opened to the next room.

I gave him a pat on the back as we entered the next room. Kai was really good with sizzling hot stuff. No wonder he was able to eat those jalapenos so easily at breakfast. I'd get there though, even if that meant eating jalapenos for breakfast, which I found to be a strange breakfast choice.

Before I could truly survey the area, Amethyst exclaimed, "Quick, hide behind the table!"

We all did as she instructed as we followed her behind a long, dusty table. It was a tight fit, but we managed to squeeze in, avoiding the sight of whatever Amethyst had warned us about.

I peeked over the top of the table and found that, inside the room, two droids were zooming around erratically and whirring loudly. The two looked strikingly similar to a relatively iconic duo of droids from a pretty famous franchise.

"Am I going crazy or are those two droids R2-D2 and C-3P0?" Kai whispered.

Amethyst rolled her eyes. "Nope, you're just going crazy."

"Guess I'm crazy, 'cause I definitely see the resemblance," I added.

I peeked over the table yet again to get a better idea of what else was in here besides the two bots. Other than the droids, there was the same conveyor belt from the previous room with materials on it that lead into a tunnel and further into a mine. The mine was probably where the materials were being imported from.

Amethyst nodded. "Yeah, Alexander's right - GET OFF MY TOE, KAI!"

"Woman, I'm not even on your toe! That's Geneva's toe!" Kai replied.

Rose shook her head. "Nope. Geneva's toe is on mine."

I wanted to tell them to shut up, but we were suddenly surrounded by a bunch of droids.

"Nice going, guys," I said. "Your argument about toes has suddenly alerted all the droids of our presence."

"Alexander, don't even try to act like you wouldn't have some random, weird, disgusting conversation about toes at any given time or place!" Amethyst shot back.

"I'm not denying that I wouldn't, but certainly not when we're on a stealth mission! That goes against everything I stand for!"

One of the droids began whirring. "Intruders, intruders!"

It rushed at me from the side of the table, a saw retracting from its arm.

I formed my weapons into shields and smacked the droid away. It crashed against the wall as electric sparks flew out all over its body, buzzing and whining like a textbook Star Wars droid.

Kai jumped on top of the table and sent a wave of fire at some of the droids, slaying a whole row of them with him. This was subsequently followed by the rest of us coming out from behind the table as the battle ensued.

Amethyst stood on top of the table and started shooting multitudes of arrows at the droids, ranging from basic wooden ones to explosive ones. Seriously, where did that girl and Jake find the time to make all those types of arrows?

Rose cast several water and lightning spells at the droids, making them either go haywire or explode. Geneva dashed around the room, slicing the droid's bodies in half and carefully avoiding their attacks while Kai shot waves of flames and sliced the droids down. Within a short span of time, we had taken down all the droids.

"Nice job, team," Rose cheered. "Let's continue for-"

Suddenly, lines upon lines of droids and robots sped out of the tunnel, all of them carrying weapons and aligned in phalanx formation like some military regime.

We backed up into the wall as the droids circled us.

"I have a bad feeling about this," Kai and I said in unison.

The droids began to light up, all of them about to shoot us with their blasters.

As the five of us cowered away in fear, the bots whirring came to a stop as a voice yelled, "Eh, leave them alone!"

When we turned around, we saw one of the most hideous human beings time has ever recorded.

He was about six feet tall and had bushy eyebrows as well as a wild brown beard. He had a misshapen head that was bulging and covered in welts. His two shoulders were uneven, and one of his legs was covered in a metal brace. He was also wearing a jumpsuit, covered with oil and grime and with the name, 'Hephaestus', embroidered on the pocket.

We had just broken into a fire god's workplace and now he was here to probably end us.