AMETHYST

Timmy had been right all along. The whole Rome expedition, the weapons, all of it had been a ploy set by Erebos and one that Timmy had warned of us but we ignored him. And he paid the price for our ignorance and foolhardiness.

We currently sat upon the couch in Oman's cabin, staring with defeat at the roof and floor. We had lost Arthur a month previous, we thought we had lost Kai only a few days ago, and now we lost Timmy, who had been so essential to our quest's success up to this point.

"What's wrong with y'all?" Oman asked curiously. "Y'all look like you've seen a ghost."

"Lookee, I just made a pun. Still so clever, I tell ya," Oman added on, a jolly smile on his face.

None of us bothered answering his question, finding our time better spent blaming ourselves and staring mindlessly at our surroundings.

"Well?! One of y'all gonna answer me?"

"Look around, Oman," Rose said, too pained to outright tell him the answer.

Oman nodded slowly and confusedly looked around us. "Y'all talking about Arthur?"

"No, Oman, Timmy died!" Kai exclaimed.

"...Oh."

Oman put his hand over his mouth and muttered, "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay, Oman," I said, trying to comfort him.

It was hardly Oman's fault that he didn't remember Timmy. He'd spent most of the trip up here, flying us around while Timmy spent most of his time in his cell downstairs. Plus, he had a notoriously hard time remembering people.

"I'm-I'm confused," Alexander said, his hands covering his face. "What happened?"

"What do you mean 'what happened'?!" Geneva snapped. Her voice was tense and quaking as the pain of two back-to-back losses of her friends struck her like a wrecking ball. "Timmy just died, is what happened!"

Her voice bounced off the walls, echoing as the room fell into a deep silence. Only the whooshing of the ship and the turning of the engines were audible.

"Do we know that he's dead?" Oman asked quietly.

Rose nodded. "I felt his death as we were leaving - he's gone."

Even without Rose's confirmation, I'm sure we all doubted the likelihood of Timmy making it out of that building alive and well. Not to say he wasn't a powerful demigod, but no average demigod survives something like that.

Kai spoke with sorrow in his tone. "I could've - should've saved him."

"What?" Rose questioned. "Kai, this isn't your fault in the slightest."

"How is it not? The building may have been on fire, but I can get through fire. I-"

I shook my head profusely. "No, Kai. You would've died too. The GHOSTs were armed and the supplier - Philyra - was by their side. You wouldn't have been able to save Timmy and fend a goddess and her goons off all at one time."

"So be it. Timmy would still be alive."

I bit back a response, not wanting to continue the argument any longer. Rose seemed to go through the same thing, as she also seemed to stifle a response.

A long pause occurred, allowing us to sit in soundlessness and further contemplate what happened.

What now?

"Kai, do you… remember on Epimetheus' island in Palma, when he told us about the signal?" Alexander asked, putting his detective face on.

"Yeah, what about it?" Kai replied after a heavy sigh.

"Epimetheus stared at Timmy in some brief glance when he was telling us about the signal," Alexander continued. "Do you remember that?"

Kai nodded slowly, confused as to where Alexander was going with it but still playing along.

"What if… Timmy dying here was the signal to us?" he finished. "What if right now, our goal is Athens and this is the perfect time to attack?"

"That would... make sense," Rose said.

I lifted my head out of my hands. "Also, notice how through the duration of this quest, we always had some obstacle in our way, another destination to investigate for clues? Now look at us currently. We have nowhere else to go except Athens. It's almost as if the Fates themselves… made it this way. I think Alexander is onto something."

"If that's the case, then we can't waste any time," Geneva said, the timbre of her voice a lot more confident and less shaky than before. "We need to go to Athens. NOW."

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The trip to Athens, according to Oman, was an hour flight. An hour flight to the city where we would meet our fates in a final confrontation with Erebos and whatever surprises were up his sleeve.

So what did we know?

Well, I recall that Aphrodite told Geneva and Rose after the pageant that beneath Athens Tower was where Hecate was imprisoned. I also remembered that Ourae, the powerful mountain gods that serve Gaea and now Erebos, will be another problem for us to deal with, as all it takes is for one of the massive chunks of land they throw to connect with the BBB and we'd drop dead. A group of GHOSTs would likely be awaiting us, probably stacked with weapons, while the countless other monsters Erebos had recruited would be there too. Nyx, Circe, and Pasiphae would be the major goddesses fighting alongside Erebos and would present an even harder challenge.

What were our odds, if I had to guess?

I don't know. But I don't like them either way. This would be an uphill battle and one that was most certainly in favor of Erebos now that we were demoralized and stricken with grief. Plus it was just five of us against all of them.

Oh gods.

"Hey," Kai greeted, his voice kind of raspy.

"Hey."

"Are you ready? This is what it all comes down to."

I nodded. "I think so. Are you ready?"

"Physically and emotionally, no," he answered. "But this has to be done. Timmy and Arthur's death cannot be put in vain."

"We got this, Kai," I said. "All our training at camp has been for this. We can do this."

I was of course lying, as the extremely unfavorable odds stacked against us were still high on my mind, but I'd be more than willing to keep the façade up if it kept Kai motivated.

"I really hope so."

We shared a quick embrace, for what might be the final time.

"Let's meet with the others. According to Oman, we have like, twenty minutes, more or less," Kai suggested.

I followed him out of my cabin and closed the door behind us slowly, gazing at any cabin and admiring the effort Oman had put into making my cabin before turning away.

The two of us found Geneva, Alexander, and Rose sitting around the training ground and joined them.

"So…" I said. "How are you guys-"

A small chunk of rocks and dirt blasted through the training ground windows, throwing glass around as we all stumbled back.

"Y'all, we have a big problem!" Oman shrieked through the speaker. "About a twenty foot tall one in fact!"

"Ourae," I muttered under my breath. "Everyone get away from the window!"

They did as I instructed and we clambered up to the top deck. Another massive chunk of land came flying at the ship, but it thankfully missed the BBB by a good margin. I caught a glimpse of what the Ourae looked like and the surroundings around us.

We were flying over a long stretch of sea about fifty feet above the water, with mountains to our left. These mountains were hard to see though, as the twenty-foot tall Ourae were blocking my sight. There were about three or four of these Ourae, and they all wore plain white tunics over their dark, rough skin. They were muscular and had long white beards accompanied with messy hair and wild eyes.

"Y'all got any ideas what to do with these fellas?" Oman yelled.

I shrugged. "Just keep going forward and maybe they'll be out of range of us!"

Oman clicked some buttons and the ship accelerated forward at a very fast rate, but my theory clearly hadn't been true. One of the Ourae chucked a tiny piece of land directly in front of the BBB that would've connected with the front of the ship if not for Rose's telekinesis pushing aside the danger.

"These darn things still aren't off my back!" Oman exclaimed angrily. "What do I do? Should I turn on the cannons and start blastin'?"

"No, Oman, we always lose that fight," Rose said. "Just try to move east and away from them. They don't seem to be the fastest movers, so our choice is always to run here."

"Fine, but they were really askin' for it," he said with reluctance. "Look, they hit one of the thrusters! We're gonna need to repair that soon if we want the ship to fly!"

Still, Oman abided by Rose's instructions as he steered the ship east and away from the Ourae's general direction. After a minute of flying, we experienced no rock hurls and land throws and were in the clear.

"I think we lost them," Alexander said.

"I think so too," Geneva agreed. "Oman, how long till we reach Athens?"

"About fifteen minutes," he replied, checking one of his monitors to make sure. "Now I'm gonna need you guys to find a seat or something 'cause I'm gonna have to put the ship on the water."

We complied with his demand and sat down in his cabin as the BBB slowly dropped down and into the sea, looking just like a normal pirate ship to anyone in the general vicinity of us.

The anticipation and anxiety I was feeling as the ship slowly moved across the sea was immense, to the point where I nervously went to the minibar and rifled through the food to relieve my stress. We had gotten a large assortment of food in the time between the two monkeys invading the BBB and the GHOST facility in Venice, from basic necessities like milk and water to snacks like protein bars and goldfish.

My friends mostly stayed put, except for Rose, who was pacing the room in true me-fashion. Kai cleaned his sword and gazed mindlessly at the ceiling, Alexander kept changing his weapon constantly and Geneva just sat in silence, her eyes closed as if she was taking a nap.

Oman then said, "Y'all, I think we're close."

I turned to see what he meant and in the far background made out a city, the city of Athens. A pillar of light was coming from high up from somewhere in Athens, which was likely either the Athens Tower or some really high mountain.

A solid thirty seconds later and more of the city came into view. Some kind of black hole-esque storm was in the sky above the city and thunder boomed loudly around the pillar of light which sat atop the Athens Tower. What I saw in front of me was a far cry from the pictures of Athens I had seen in books and on the web, as this radiated horror and intimidation. At the front of the city was a docking area where a few yachts and such sat in the water.

"No way this is Athens," Kai muttered.

"Oh gods," Rose said, biting her nails.

Oman slowed the speed of the boat as he very gradually parked the ship next to one of the yachts at the docking station. He parked it sideways so we could just stretch over and make our way onto the dock easily.

"Do me proud, y'all," Oman said, turning to us.

Kai nodded and made his way down onto the top deck, followed closely by Geneva and the others. I stayed behind briefly and hugged Oman before joining up with everyone on the top deck.

I placed my arms on the railing and hoisted myself up, taking the first step on enemy lines.