ALEXANDER

I cowered away in sudden acceptance.

This was it. We were going to get burned alive and buried in the weird cave where no one would ever find us.

Just as I expected to get hit by something or get yelled at, I heard Kai say something all heroic or something, dash at Hephaestus, and get hurled to the wall, a groan of pain subsequently following. I turned around, and low and behold, Kai was slumped against the west wall of the room and Hephaestus stood still, unfazed by whatever Kai had attempted.

"Calm down, lad. I'm not here to hurt you or your friends."

Kai stood up. "Yeah, right. Didn't you just see what your robots tried doing to us?"

"Sorry about that. They don't like it when people rifle through my stuff," Hephaestus said, scowling at Kai.

Kai's eyes turned red with fire. I don't know what it was but suddenly, the temperature in the room got way warmer, as if someone had cranked the AC to its fullest heat.

"Kai, stop!" Amethyst exclaimed.

Kai's eyes gradually returned to normal as the tension dipped ever so slightly, though he still looked as equally as annoyed as he did before. With Hephaestus, well, he always looked angry so it was really hard to tell. Man could be smiling and no one would know about it, going with the general assumption he was peeved after a long day of work, a guy flipping him off, and spilling his precious cup of joe all over his pants.

Maybe I was going a little in depth about the scenario, but you get the picture.

Hephaestus walked over to the table and put his arms down. "As you can probably guess, I came here 'cause I got an alert that someone had broken into my forge. When I realized it was you guys, I remembered that I had a proposal for you."

I scrunched my face up in disgust. "Ew, I don't want to marry you! Aren't we technically related?"

"That didn't stop Hades and Persephone or Zeus and Hera or - the list goes on," Rose said.

She was right. Gods were a different level of weird.

"Not that type of proposal. I mean that I need a favor."

Kai snorted. "Like we'd do anything for you."

"This is serious, boy," Hephaestus said.

"Fine then, what's your favor?" Geneva asked."

Hephaestus turned around. "Well, recently I noticed that my materials and machines have been going missing. I believe that my son, Caucus, has been stealing from me, so I need you guys to locate him and bring the materials back."

"In return for what?" Rose asked.

"I can help repair your ship and give you some information for your quest," he bargained.

Amethyst frowned. "That sounds great, but why can't you just do this whole Caucus thing yourself?"

Hephaestus scowled. "Because I don't have time to try and locate my treacherous son. I need help setting up the summer solstice, and searching for my son would be a waste of time."

"Well, thanks for dumping your problems on us. Classic Olympian move," Kai responded.

Hephaestus glared at him. "Shut up, kid. Are you doing this or not?"

Kai rubbed his chin. "Well, I'm still deciding whether or not I should help some grumpy, ugly, Tower of Pisa-looking gremlin-"

Amethyst kicked Kai in the back of the leg to shut him up. "We'll do it. Do you know where your son might be located?"

"No, but he must be close if he keeps continually stealing my materials. My inference is that he's somewhere around this forge, in some secret underground lair of some kind. Last few times this has happened, he's always been in a lair."

Rose nodded. "Okay then. Let's go, guys."

We exited the forge, Kai giving Hephaestus a dirty stare to mark our exit. We climbed up the stairs to the top deck and met up with Oman to report our findings.

"So, what did y'all do?" Oman asked.

Kai shrugged. "Not much. We just broke into the forge, got attacked by a bunch of droids and almost died, encountered Hephaestus, who I hate even more after getting a good look at his punchable face, and now we need to seek out his crazy klepto son, so we can repair the ship and get info on where to go next. You know, the usual."

Oman blinked. "Wow, that's certainly a lot of info. Where is his son though? Is he close to here?"

"Hephaestus said that his son is around the general proximity of the island, so yes," Amethyst responded. "Is the ship good to go?"

"Well, it can take y'all a tad bit farther, but it's definitely too damaged and out of fuel to make it across the Atlantic," Oman said, his expression a bit more serious.

Rose nodded. "We'll have to make do with what we got. Amethyst and I will stay on the top deck and monitor the islands around us while you three keep watch of Timmy. If this takes too long, we can alternate and take shifts."

With that in mind, Oman manned the wheel while Amethyst and Rose took watch on top the deck. Kai was in the training ground, beating down a dummy while Geneva was in her room, again practicing her shape-shifting. She seemed to get more frustrated every time and took a long pause, followed by more frustration.

And as for me? I was trying my best not to retch my guts out.

Naturally, I had to be seasick. Even the littlest rivers or ponds gave me a bad feeling. I was also partially airsick, another curse that I, Alexander the klutz, was born with.

Eventually, I couldn't handle the urge anymore and rushed to the bathroom. After about an hour or so of barfing my guts out, I walked out of the bathroom and headed on the top deck, hoping that we had found Caucus.

But Amethyst was still searching, her face looking worried and getting gradually more dispirited by the second.

"Ugh, he's impossible to find!" she complained. "Where could he be?"

I headed back to my cabin in which for the next two hours, I traded off between going to the bathroom to vomit or going to the training ground to practice with Kai, who was extra spirited and very focused on taking it to the dummy.

Eventually, I got bored, and a little tired from training, so I headed over to Timmy's cell. I only really did so, again, out of boredom, but also out of obligation given what Rose instructed.

Y'know, while Timmy seemed kind of bad on the outside, I saw some good in him, especially after he helped us escape from the pirate city. He'd be such a great help to us if simply gave us info on his accord and desire to help us, and maybe talking to him would be the correct way.

I was determined to find out more about the greatest comedian I had ever met.

Unless I followed the belief that saying 'shut up, Timmy' was actually what was funny about Timmy, in which case I'm the greatest comedian I've ever met. Either situation works.

"What do you want?" Timmy asked as I made my entrance. "You just interrupted my beauty sleep. In fact, I would hardly call it a beauty sleep considering I only got to nap for 3 hours before you began banging on the door."

I chuckled. "Y'know, Jimbo, for someone as potentially kind and funny as you are, it doesn't make any sense why you would join the GHOSTs. Care to explain?"

Timmy glared at me. "Why? You want me to give you info or something?"

"I mean, technically I'm holding weapons and you're stuck in a cell with nothing, so I could just force you to spill," I said.

Timmy shook his head, muttering, "Nuh-uh. Goodnight", and tried falling asleep again, but I turned one of my shields into a staff and poked him in the arm.

"Do you mind?" Timmy asked, perking up.

"I do. Spill," I said, reaching my staff right in front of his chest.

Timmy still wouldn't budge. I then poked him in the chest again and he finally gave in.

"Jeez! Can you not be so annoying? If you want to know, then fine. I'll tell you why I joined the GHOSTs."

I smiled. "Yay!"

As Timmy took a breath to prepare himself, I pulled up a rather uncomfortable metal chair and sat down.

"Look, it's simple. I had just run away from home, and had nowhere else to go. The GHOSTs offered me someplace to stay, so I took the opportunity out of desperation. And from there, I just stuck with them. Is that what you wanted to hear?" Timmy said.

"Sort of, but I have another question; why exactly did you keep helping them? I never ever hear you talking about fleeing the cell and going back to the GHOSTs."

Timmy shrugged and said, "I had to. While I hated the whole operation after only a little bit and being stuck behind those two idiots, I was in too deep. I only joined them because of the fake things they promised me, and after a while, I realized what a scam it was. The GHOSTs were never really my friends or my home. They were just terrible placeholders to excuse my desperation and loneliness."

When he realized he had just spilled all that information, he closed his mouth with his hand and muttered, "You were not supposed to hear that."

I laughed. "Ha-ha! My plan worked. You really do hate the GHOSTs. What kind of stuff did you do for them?"

Timmy scowled. "I'm not giving you any more information. I've already said too much." When I raised the staff up at his head, he laid his head on the back wall. "You know this is technically torture, right?"

I moved the staff down a little bit further as it was now an inch from his chest.

"Fine," he said. "Gods, you're needy. I didn't really do much for them, okay? I just set up stupid ruses to get materials for them-"

After he said that part, something clicked in my brain.

I turned towards Timmy, who was mid-rant about the GHOSTs. "My gods, you're a genius."

"What?" he asked. "Please don't tell me I just helped you?"

I yelled behind me, "Shut up, Timbo!", as I ran up to the top deck and convened with Rose and Amethyst.

"Guys, I think I know how we can find Caucus," I said.

Amethyst rolled her eyes and jokingly said, "Sure you do."

"No, seriously! We know that Caucus likes gold and stuff, right?" I said.

"Yeah, it's the only thing we know about him," Rose said. "The guy's like a complete ghost in Greek mythology. Most of our enemies are, frustratingly enough."

"Well, I think we can try and bait him. If we set out a bunch of gold and rare items, he'll get baited by it and want to steal it."

Amethyst bit her lip. "Actually, that could work. Why didn't we think of that before?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. You're usually the smart one."

"Is that all you guys know me for?" she asked again.

"No," I said. "We also say you're the nerdy one, the planner, the book girl, and you're also the nerdy one. Did I forget to say we think of you as the nerdy one?"

Amethyst bit back a response as we informed the others of our idea. Within thirty minutes, we had set up the plan.

We were currently hiding the ship behind a big rock in the sea and keeping watch of the supplies we laid out on the small island in front of us. In the large stack of valuables were all of our weapons, some of the girls' jewelry, and any spare parts Oman had lying in his dusty office.

"My gods, why isn't he coming?" Kai asked. "Doesn't the guy love stealing stuff, especially when it's just onshore and completely unattended to? Dude's like Lex Luthor if you just replace his addiction with Kryptonite to an addiction with metals and shiny stuff."

"Just be patient, Kai," Amethyst said. "He'll be coming soon."

Sure enough, a ten foot-tall man walked onto shore, gradually heading towards our weapons. He had curly orange hair, freckles, pale skin, and his face had a permanent pout, like he was upset and angry at the same time. He was for sure Caucus, based solely on the facial similarities between him and Hephaestus. Like father, like son.

He had arched eyebrows, wide eyes, and wore a red housecoat that was kept open. He was also wearing boxer shorts and a pair of slippers that matched his coat.

Behind him was a huge line of cyclopes, all of them smiling maliciously. It was hard to be scared by them though, as they still looked like wacky trolls. Caucus and his cyclopes grabbed the gold and the weapons from the stack and began heading back the direction he came from.

"Wait, that guy just stole my shields!" I exclaimed. "Wait, that was part of my plan. Nevermind."

We watched carefully as Caucus jumped onto a boat parked near the small island and began sailing towards another nearby island.

Amethyst turned towards Oman and nodded, signaling him to start tailing Caucus' ship.

Oman caught onto the signal as the BBB followed the ship's path, being careful not to get too close but not get him out of our sight.

Caucus' boat eventually stopped after a bare minute of sailing as the god and his cyclopes unloaded their haul and dragged it onto their island. Oman carefully docked our ship behind a big rock near the island as we waited for the cyclopes to disappear.

When they did, Oman docked the ship on shore and we got out of the vehicle.

The island was far from a typical resort, as the ground was made out of black rock and there were no trees in sight. There was a large cavern in the distance where the cyclopes seemed to have gone, and outside of that, the island was mostly bare.

"No wonder we missed this place," Geneva muttered.

As we walked over to the cave, we tried to avoid the fallen, broken coconuts on the ground. I assumed that they had been using them as their main source of food. Personally, I couldn't live a day eating just coconuts, let alone eating it for weeks on end as the only viable food resource near me, so more power to the Cyclopes and Caucus, I guess? It didn't really matter, because I was about to demolish these guys for taking my shields.

Oh, wait. That's part of the plan. I don't know how I keep forgetting that.

We walked inside of the cave, which was unsurprisingly barren considering the rather bleak complexion the island had. It was very dark, with only the glimmer of the gold and silver visible. It was clear that they had been hoarding lots of metals and materials, based on the stacks of loot they had around the cave.

In the back of the cave, there was a large stack of coins that led up to a throne on top. The throne was made out of several metals, giving it a dreadful sheen, and was facing backside to us. Our recently stolen loot, containing Kai's sword and my two shields, was at the very foot of the throne.

Alongside our loot was a surplus of deconstructed droid parts seen on the bots we had faced in Hephaestus' forge, affirming the idea that Caucus was stealing from his father.

Then the throne turned towards us, a man sitting on it. It was Caucus, the same red robed, ten foot-tall giant from earlier.

"My, my, if it isn't the pesky demigods from earlier," Caucus said dramatically.

I blinked at him. "Are you trying to do a villain bit? Because if so, you're performing miserably."

Caucus' face turned cherry red. "Shut up, demigod boy! I will show you my true power!"

"Still with the bit, dude," I muttered.

Out of the shadows of the caves, lines of cyclopes and fire-breathing horses came out of nowhere.

The horses looked freaky as all hell. They were big, about the size of the pegasi at cam, with laser-red eyes and flared-up nostrils that let out fire when it breathed.

"Attack!" Caucus yelled, getting up out of his throne.

The monsters ran at us, all with hunger gleaming in their eyes.

Several groups of cyclopes targeted me, all carrying hammers. One swung at my head, leaving me with barely any time to dodge his attack. I kicked him in the chest and finessed his hammer. If I couldn't use my shields, I could at least use the hammer. I began swatting the cyclopes away, trying to get through them as swiftly as I could. Despite this, I was quickly cornered, lines of cyclopes lumbering towards me.

I looked around, realizing that I had no way of getting out of this mess.

As the cyclopes got closer, now only an arm's length away from me, I jumped up, putting as much into my leap as I possibly could. I was at least six feet above them and as I descended downwards, I raised my hammer above my head and looked to land in a clean spot of rock to maximize the damage. I picked my spot right in the middle of all the cyclopes and once I landed, I slammed my hammer into the ground, sending a wave of dust into the cyclopes' faces and knocking them backward with monumental force.

Across the cave, Kai was taking on Caucus one-on-one, Geneva and Rose were struggling against a large horde of the fire horses, and Amethyst stood from afar, sniping down cyclopes with pinpoint aim and accuracy.

Things then got worse as Caucus yelled, "Commence Order Sixty-Six!"

Wait, no, he said Order Six. I just presumed that he'd say something as cliche and unoriginal as that.

A bunch of droids and drones flew out from the stacks of metals, and began racing towards us.

How we were going to get out of this situation, I didn't know.

A gang of those droids and drones began shooting at me, but I quickly evaded their blasts and took them out. But I wasn't able to stay untouched for long as I was soon pinned against the walls with my friends. The fire ponies, some cyclopes, and all the droids now encircled us.

"Well, this was nice guys," I said.

"End them," Caucus commanded, gleeful giggles being let out after the saying of the last word.

Just as the monsters prepared their finishing blows, a large wave of fire slayed them all and shot Caucus to the back of the cave.

Kai, who had been carrying Scorcher, was standing up and painting heavily. Sweat dripped down his body like a waterfall.

He then suddenly collapsed onto the floor, his eyes closed.

"No, no!" Amethyst yelled. She kneeled down to Kai and checked his pulse. She then started breaking down, crying into Kai's shirt.

Rose's complexion was one she'd have after seeing a ghost, as if she'd seen this scene play out in her head multiple times. She placed her hand over her mouth as tears now began flooding down her face. Geneva's face was static and unmoving, fixated on Kai's lifeless corpse without ever once blinking or looking away. Then, like Rose had, she began sobbing, though very quietly, as if her body couldn't muster a more powerful response.

Realization struck me. Kai was gone. My best friend, the person who had completely changed my life, was gone. My emotions failed me as I reacted very similarly to Geneva, too hurt to force an emotional response from my body. The negative thoughts of the past, the ones that had been mostly suppressed after knowing Kai and being brought to camp, began rolling in my head like a movie, hurting me even more.

Caucus rose up from the floor of the cavern, and limped his way toward us.

He cackled, as he inhaled the air, preparing for a final, fire-breathing strike.

A white light appeared next to us and Hephaestus popped out of thin air.

At the sight of his father, Caucus ran out of the cave, blasting a hole in the ceiling and jumping out. Hephaestus just let him go, as he turned to see Kai's limp body.

Anger surged through my veins as I turned towards Hephaestus. "What the hell are you doing here? You know this is because of you, right?"

Hephaestus raised his hands up, surrendering. "I'm sorry. I've never been one to apologize, but I realize I was clearly in the wrong. Sending you here was a mistake."

"Oh, really?" Geneva asked, tears streaming down her face. "Did you figure that out yourself?"

"If it's any consolation, I fixed your ship and I'll give you this information; seek out Euterpe in Lisbon. She's a smart gal, and I'm sure she'll be able to help you on your quest. You'll probably be able to locate her at a concert or musical of some sort."

Hephaestus then vanished in another flash of light, leaving us with our emotions.