Aphrodite's Curse

Jason slept terribly. The nightmares kept coming and coming. Although demigods always had nightmares, these were the worst of the worst. The dream changed and Jason prepared himself for what was to come. Blinking, he noticed himself standing the the throne room of Mount Olympus. Piper's mom, Aphrodite, was speaking. "Aw come on now, Hera had her turn manipulating people and wiping memories. Now it's my turn!"

Ares grunted, "If you ladies get to do that, I might as well start World War III."

"Enough!" Zeus roared, and the room plunged into silence. "There is no wiping memories, no manipulating demigods, no nothing!"

Jason's least favorite of the goddesses stepped up, "But my dear, haven't you wiped that poor girl Piper's memory?" Hera asked.

Aphrodite tensed. "You dare wipe my daughter's memory?!" Jason felt confused, how did Aphrodite not know about Piper's missing memory? She took a step forward and hissed in Zeus's face, "You dare?"

The king of the gods stood his ground, "Yes, I dare."

Aphrodite sighed, "I guess it must be, I mean, this threat is worse than Gaia, but if you say a my girl can defeat it..." she paused, "I won't object."

The gods broke up, and stormed back to their rooms. Jason followed the goddess of love for no particular reason. She sat in front of her vanity, thinking hard. After what seemed like hours, Aphrodite muttered, "I curse the son of Zeus, the future son of Zeus, for he shall never be loved, and never be seen."

Jason was frozen with shock, did she just curse HIM? No, he shook his head, it can't be, she said future son of Zeus, so it couldn't possibly be him. He thought the lines over, they may not sound very harmful, but a son of Zeus, not being seen? Well, the guy might go insane, and not finding love? That shocked him the most, he didn't know what that meant. No loving family, no awesome girlfriend, or no feelings! As he thought about what the gods had mentioned, Jason's eyes snapped open, and he was back in Cabin 1. Quickly taking a shower, he ran outside to warn Annabeth of what he had seen.

"Well, it does make sense," Annabeth muttered when Jason had told her everything. "I wonder what threat she means. If this is worse than Gaia," she shook her head, "I'll go talk this over with Percy." and with that, she was gone. Jason let out a breath he had been holding. Turning to look back at Piper, who was trying to sort things out with Drew, he sighed. How will we ever get her memory back?

"If this is worse than Gaia, I wonder what it is." Percy commented as Annabeth searched the web on D's laptop. "It's gotta be another god or something." she responded, eyes glued to the screen. He nodded, "But I can take it on." Percy smiled and mimicked the arm movements just the way you behead someone.

"We'll need a group of demigods, and a prophecy."

"Well, Rachel did give us a prophecy a few weeks ago before Chaos's army arrived."

"That's true, what did it say again?"

"I'm dyslexia and ADHD, how do you expect me to remember?"

"I guess it was something about slaying the heart."

"Yeah, where do you think those monsters came from?"

Annabeth stopped typing, and looked up, worry and fear clouding her gray eyes. "I remember I saw a flash of black wings the other day. They reminded me of something I've fought before." Percy's eyes widened as well, "Oh, I think we fought those things in Tartarus." He shuddered remembering Annabeth stumbling around unable to see him. "Which means..." he paused, for the sentence he was about to finish was too terrifying."

Annabeth completed it for him, "That means Tartarus himself is rising to destroy both camps."