ALEXANDER

I limped down the sidewalk, a large bruise on my leg and bloody red splotches on my knees and elbows. My face was covered with mud, as were my hands. My aviator's jacket, the one my Uncle Steven had passed onto me, was covered in mud and torn up in several places. Tears streamed down my face rapidly, as I groaned in pain and agony. Another day, the same result.

Why does this keep happening to me? Just because I couldn't understand a few English questions? And therefore that made me the easiest to pick on? It was almost a daily routine, like pummeling me to a pulp was up there on the list with brushing your teeth and changing. No matter what day it was, Liam and his two friends always targeted me.

As I reached the corner of the street, I decided that now I needed to take some emergency provisions to cover up my bruised up leg and my bloody knees and elbows. My mom already had enough to worry about with Aunt Patricia and Jasmine.

Gods, I hated acknowledging them as my aunts. Not once in my entire life did they feel like true family to me. Everywhere they went, drama rose up from nowhere and my entire family would go at each other's throats. It really baffled me how two rude, disgusting women were related to my mom, who was the sweetest and kindest person that I knew.

But they had really done it this time with their drama, deciding to target my mom on the spinning wheel of familial targets, randomly spun once a few months to spice things up. Essentially, my two aunts are arguing with my mom about this sacred family heirloom - a large box of jewelry - passed down to my mom by my late grandma, and how they deserve to lay claim to the heirloom and not my mother. It really wasn't something they should be arguing about, especially because it was my grandma's last wish that the box be given to my mom for safekeeping. But as mentioned earlier, my aunts were professionals at making drama out of literally nothing for no good reason.

I arrived at the infamous shed and traveled to the back of the structure, a process I did quite a lot on days like these, and changed into my second set of clothes. I used my white shirt as a rag of some kind and began dabbing at the blood on my knees and elbows. The blood was still fresh, so my white shirt quickly became stained with blood. After I finished cleaning the blood off myself, I grabbed my scrunched up, half-full Niagara water bottle from my backpack and poured it onto my face, trying to wash off the mud. Lastly, I took a little time to try and stabilize myself, trying to slow down my breathing and stop crying. All of this was second nature to me, really, so it didn't take long to make myself look somewhat decent. I still donned my aviator's jacket, needing it so as not to get cold in this December chill.

I got out from behind the shed and continued the trek home, thinking of some excuses I could make about why I changed, why I was limping, or why my jacket was torn up. The triumvirate had decided to not only attack me after school, when I had less time to prepare, but also go extra hard this time, all because I was the only kid who failed the English test and therefore we don't get ice cream on Friday. Boo hoo.

The excuses at the top of my mind were that I fell into a big mud puddle at recess, injured my leg, and had to change my clothes. The jacket one wasn't as easy though. Maybe I could say I tripped on a sharp bush and it punctured the jacket. I'd figure out something better when the time came. What was important was that my mom or other family never suspected a thing.

When I began walking again, my leg roared in defiance, every crevice, ligament, muscle, tissue, and bone working against me but I powered through.

I arrived at the house, and heard faint yelling and arguing upstairs. One of the many things I'd come to expect in my days, I suppose. I grabbed the empty pot, which was sitting atop the outside windowsill, and took the maroon key out from the bottom. I inserted the key into the door lock, jerked it to the side, and pushed the door open.

I entered the house, making sure to close the door behind me. My relatives all tended to get on my case about leaving the door open accidentally, especially because we live next to a large wasp nest and my prissy aunts had a crippling fear of wasps that they basically made their whole personality every now and again, so I made sure to do it every time I entered the house.

From the upstairs, I could hear my Aunt Jasmine say in her excruciatingly loud voice, "Forget about your dang kid, Avery! He's clearly a screw up! I mean, just look at him! He's the biggest disappointment on God's green earth, and your life would be better off without him!"

"Mhm," Patricia agreed. "He's not worth your time, Avery. And you, deep down, know it to be true."

"Stop it, you two!" Uncle Stevens yelled. "What the hell is wrong with y'all? Alexander is no disappoint-"

Whatever he said next I didn't hear. I had already bolted out the door, leaving the house key and my backpack behind.

I wasn't taking any more flack from my family. I wasn't going to take getting bullied by my family and peers anymore. I was done with it. Done with it all. I was going off on my own, wherever that led me.

I felt bad leaving my Uncle Stevens and my mom behind with Patricia and Jasmine, but they would probably be fine on their own. In fact, maybe they would relish me being gone. That'd be one less thing they'd have to worry about.

"Alexander!" someone yelled. "Buddy, wake up!"

I felt like my eyes traveled through all of time and space as I returned to reality, Kai at my bedside. I was sweating and breathing very heavily and my adrenaline was through the roof. Neither of the two occurrences shocked me though. What nightmares are nightmares without some kind of negative side effect?

"Oh, gods almighty," I groaned, hastily pulling my covers off my body. "What time is it?"

Kai shrugged. "I have no idea. I just know that you've been asleep for like, 12 hours. Even Rose, the self-proclaimed daughter of Hypnos, woke up before you."

"Self-proclaimed?" I asked, now getting off my bed.

"Something along those lines," Kai replied. "Don't really know what that phrase means anyways. Right now, we're stopped in Turin for a fuel stop. Everyone's waiting outside and eating breakfast while Oman refuels the ship. I'll be waiting for you there."

Kai left my room, making sure to close the door behind him. I then got out of my pajamas and into my casual, quest attire, wearing my faded Camp Half-Blood shirt underneath my aviator jacket, with long pants and sneakers finishing the look. I picked up my two shields and transformed them into small metal batons so they could fit in my pockets.

Once I was done, I exited my cabin, made my way up to the top deck of the cabin, and walked down the steps on the side of the ship. All my friends, except Rose, were gathered around in a little circle, eating from Ramen noodle cups and talking.

We were parked in an airport fueling area, which looked relatively old and abandoned.

Abandoned. How I loved that word. Big, strong, and there when you needed him.

Those are my thoughts on Tommy Wiseau.

No, but on a more serious note, finding abandoned places was a very commonplace activity we had done plenty of times over the course of the quest, and it was definitely a vital part to our survival so far.

On the topic of abandoned places and more specifically this very airport, there were yellow cylindrical poles that stuck out from the ground and that barricaded a large area filled with machinery, long black tubes, and red canisters, with Oman operating the machinery and hooking up the tubes to the BBB. Outside of the area we were parked in was a few small pick-up trucks that carried jet fuel and more yellow poles blocking off some areas. The rest of the area was vacant, with patches of grass breaking through the pavement and giving off a pretty bad stench.

I took a seat between Kai and Timmy in the circle, and Amethyst scooted a freshly made, hot cup of noodles for me to eat.

"Uh, where's Rose?" I asked, now digging into my noodles.

Mhm. Just as good as the last time I ate noodles, which was very recent. 6 days recent. Maybe 3 days recent. 1 day recent? 5 minutes recent. That can't be possible, but maybe I picked sleepwalking up from Sherman and dug into our frankly massive stash of noodles.

"Oh, she's taking a shower right now," Amethyst answered. "She should be done soon."

Kai slurped loudly. "It's really strange that she woke up this early. She never wakes up this early."

"Maybe she had a bad dream or something," Timmy suggested.

It was weird seeing Timmy sit around with us as if we did this commonly. Not that I was opposed to spending more time with Timmy, who I've always kind of liked since I forcefully kidnapped him, but it was strange seeing him converse with everybody like Arthur used to at our squad hangouts.

The two demigods certainly weren't the same in any aspect and Arthur's dynamic in the group was irreplaceable, but it was nice to think that maybe Timmy could potentially repair that hole in our friend group. Of course, that'd take some time. Right now, we have other things to worry about besides interpersonal group relationships and whatnot, so I gladly put those thoughts on the backseat.

"Maybe," Geneva said. "Knowing her, it's very likely. Maybe we should take some time to look over all the info we have?"

"That's a good idea," Amethyst said. "So firstly, we found out from Rachel and Epimetheus that Erebos and his forces are awaiting us in Athens."

Geneva nodded. "Rose and I also found out from Aphrodite that Hecate is trapped in Erebos' lair underneath the Athens Tower."

"Epimetheus also said something about a signal or event that would occur that would allow us easy passageway into Athens," Kai added.

"He also said multiple times how much his back hurt," I said. "And he smelled."

When everyone gave me a strange look, I muttered sorry and shut myself up.

Timmy rapped his knuckles. "And while I couldn't put my finger on it in palma, I remembered just yesterday that the GHOSTs are planning a big weapons raid they barely mentioned to my posse. I don't know where they've planned on raiding or when, but my guess is that on that day, whatever day that is, we're supposed to make our move."

"So, with all the info we've accumulated, we wait until this massive supply raid before making our move to Athens and ultimately freeing Hecate," Amethyst summarized. "Sounds kind of wild."

"It wouldn't be a proper quest if our plan wasn't wild," Kai said.

"Very true," I said.

"What's going on down here?" Rose asked, making her way down from the top deck to the pavement we sat on.

Her long black hair was tangled and unkempt, wet from the shower she had just taken. She was wearing a long sleeved black hoodie with ripped blue jeans and white tennis shoes.

She took a seat next to Kai and Amethyst as she began digging into her cup of noodles. She ended up spilling some noodles onto the ground in the process, something Kai made sure to make fun of her for.

Man, those two weren't as slick as they thought. For a daughter of a Mist goddess, Rose was pretty awful at concealing when she had a crush. Same for Kai, but I always knew that to some degree.

"So Rose, did you get a good sleep last night?" Amethyst asked curiously, almost expecting a yes from Rose.

Rose's smile faded a bit as her gleeful expression quickly turned serious. "As if."

She subsequently began explaining everything that happened in her dream, from the weird artist woman who had the mental strength to date a child eating Titan to her weird-as-hell mother having a casual conversation with her while in a metallic, power draining cage.

I can't tell you everything she said because frankly, I was too focused on slurping down noodles to care. That's just the stuff I heard.

"Well, you still didn't answer the question," I said after Rose was done. "Did you get a good sleep?"

Rose proceeded to give me the fakest smile ever seen, replying, "Yes, Alexander. I got a pretty good sleep."

"Philyra…" Timmy muttered under his breath. "I've most certainly heard Olivia or Ivan bring up her name before."

Geneva rubbed her chin. "So that means one of two things. If Philyra accepted Erebos' offer, then she is most certainly involved with the upcoming raid and is likely in Athens awaiting our arrival. If she rejected it, Erebos and the GHOSTs might be looking for her help once again, which might explain why Olivia or Ivan were talking about her."

"The first scenario does seem probable, but considering what I know about Olivia and Ivan and how determined they are not to fail Erebos, especially now they're in hot water, the latter is less likely," Timmy said.

"So what you're saying is that it's more probable for Philyra to have accepted their offer than not?" I asked.

Timmy nodded.

"Okay, so we know that about Philyra," Kai said. "But what about the other stuff Rose dreamt about, like how Erebos is sacrificing the GHOSTs in some kind of ritual to raise his army or the surprise Nyx has for us?"

Rose put aside her now completely empty noodle cup. "I can say without a doubt that whatever Nyx is planning on surprising us with, it's not going to be good. But Timmy, is this ritual thing unheard of to you or has it been around for a while?"

"It's for sure unheard of," Timmy answered. "No one was supposed to know what Erebos was doing to build his army, just that it was a dangerous process. I sure hope none of my friends were involved in that."

"That just generally seems like such a terrible process for any person to go through, GHOST or not," Amethyst said. "But I'm really not surprised that Erebos would stoop so low to reclaim power for the Titans and Giants. For millennia, Titans and Giants have been united in their goal of world domination, usually falling behind some kind of leader to do so. In recent times, that was Kronos, then Gaea, and now Erebos. The servants of those three were truthfully just pawns that could be expended at any time in any way. Kronos made young children below the age of thirteen fight in his war for the sake of his ultimate purpose, and Erebos seems to be following suit."

Everyone nodded in agreement. Kronos and Gaea had committed so many atrocities against Olympus and Earth as a whole, so it was only natural that another of their family would want to do the same.

For the next minute, we ate in quietude, finishing up our noodles and cleaning up some of the stray noodles left on the floor.

"Darn!" Oman shouted, winning our attention. He was covered in grime and rust and looked exhausted, but he still seemed to be in his normal jolly mood. "That took far longer than I wanted it to take, but the refuelin's been done! We're ready for liftoff!"

I heaved a sigh of relief as I began climbing aboard after Geneva and Kai.

Just as I was about to go down the stairway to the lower cabins, I heard Rose say, "Guys, stop. I'm pretty sure we're being surrounded. Be wary."

"Wary of what? What are we being surrounded by?" I questioned.

"Wouldn't you like to know, Alexander Celtic?" A raspy voice asked.

I quickly brought out my shields and began going on the lookout, scouting our surroundings.

Then, out of nowhere, winged, clawed creatures spiraled through the air, charging at us with immense pace.