Chapter 33: I battle one of my jerk family members

"I still can't believe you burnt down the house," I told Kai. We had gotten far away from the now burnt down house and had now set up camp at the edge of the forest.

Kai grinned. "Hey, I'm doing San Francisco a favor. Never will they have to deal with a ghost goddess who tries to take mortal souls and calls through the night to weak and pathetic demigods."

"Makes sense, I guess. Anyways, Arthur, I don't want to pry or anything but...what happened back there?" I asked.

Arthur looked off in the distance.

"Melinoe turned into someone that I used to know when I was younger. His name was Kendry, and for the longest time, he was the only person I could depend on."

"What about your mother?" I asked gently.

Arthur paused for a while before speaking.

"My relationship with my mom has always been complicated. It always seemed that her commitments to the company exceeded my own needs."

I looked at him sympathetically. "Oh, I'm sorry. I understand the feeling of an empty household, my father was always away from my home and my sister and I had a complicated relationship."

"Seems that demigods and happy childhoods don't go together very well," Kai said.

We all grinned in response.

"Well, we better get a move on before we run out of time," Arthur said.

Kai shook his head. "We should probably crash, I'm dead tired."

I nodded. "Same here."

"We don't have the time. We sleep now, then we will somehow have to make a 10 hour drive to the next Iris pocket and get back to camp within the span of one day. All this assuming we don't run into trouble."

Kai groaned. "Fine. But don't expect me to be a happy camper. Pun intended."

"But how will we drive to the next Iris pocket? We're literally in the middle of nowhere," I said.

"We'll just pay off another guy for his car," Arthur said simply.

The three of us packed up camp and headed into the city, walking past the burnt-down house. After about twenty minutes of walking, we made it into downtown San Francisco.

Arthur took out his wallet and walked up to a woman getting out of her car. "Excuse me ma'am, may we borrow your vehicle?"

Before she could say no, Arthur handed her a crisp stack of hundred dollar bills. The woman looked hungrily at the money and snatched it out of his hands.

"Sure, son. I'll let you keep the car if you give me another stack of those."

Arthur reluctantly pulled out another wad of hundred dollar bills. The lady smiled at him and walked off with the money.

"That's one greedy lady," Kai said. "I swear she would've eaten a child if it meant she could have more of your money."

We entered her car as Arthur started the car and opened up the GPS. "The next one should be in Yuma, Arizona. That will lead all the way to Central Park in New York."

"Arizona? Are you sure it'll only take ten hours?" I asked.

"Assuming we don't face any interruptions and traffic's on our side, yes," Arthur answered.

With that, we began driving through the streets of San Francisco, admiring the view as we passed through. About a minute or so into the ride, I began hearing snoring noises.

"Kai's not asleep, is he?" Arthur asked.

I turned around, Kai passed out in the back. "Yup. And he's drooling pretty hard too."

We continued driving, listening to the radio and trying to avoid cops since Arthur only had a permit. After about an hour or so of singing along to the radio and talking with Arthur, I fell asleep.

Of course, I can't go to sleep without having weird visions. My vision was probably the worst dream I had ever had with it showing me terrible images of Camp Half-Blood.

In the vision, I saw Sherman Yang and Haden Tiskner screaming in pain as a large group of Germani ganged up on them with their spears. Across the field, the Apollo chariot, driven by Amethyst, was being pulled down by ropes.

Hounds pounced on weak campers and groups of boars and vultures swarmed the forest, chasing demigods to their deaths. Chiron was raining down arrows on the enemies from the deck of the Big House.

Nemesis was taking on a group of campers all by herself as darkness shrouded the battlefield. Rockets were being fired at the camp as fire burnt onto the rooftops of the amphitheater. Hypnos waved his pendant around, putting a couple campers to sleep.

Dionysus was busy facing Ares, as grapevines sprouted from the ground and latched onto Ares's bike. Ares roared in anger as he cut himself free with his sword and charged Dionysus on his bike.

I woke up with a start, looking at the dashboard to check the time. It was five in the morning and the sky was a dim blue with streaks of orange in the distant horizon.

"Hey there, Sleepy," Kai said. "We're about three hours away from Arizona."

Arthur read my expression. "What's going on, Rose?"

I quickly told them about my dream, giving them all of the details about the battle.

"That can't be happening right now. Doesn't Ares arrive at camp later today?" Kai asked.

"It's possible that he may have gotten there earlier than we expected," Arthur said.

"Then we need to hurry," I said. "If he's already at camp, then we've got to get there."

Arthur nodded. "I'll try my best, but if he's already there then there's not much we can do."

We kept driving onwards. Thankfully, as it was 5 am, the streets were relatively empty, so we were able to navigate faster.

After about an hour or so on the road, the car's engine began to sputter.

"Oh no," Arthur said, repeatedly stepping on the gas pedal. "The car broke down."

"How unlucky that happened to you," a voice slurred.

Behind us, a group of three teenagers walked towards our car, all carrying weapons and wearing armor.

At the head of the group was the girl that I had seen in my earlier visions, with the same curly blonde hair and navy blue eyes. She was glaring at me profusely, her Stygian iron sword raised.

To the left of her was a tall boy, with buzz cut hair and icy blue eyes. He was carrying a pair of half-Imperial gold, half-steel swords. To the right of Olivia was a short, Hispanic boy carrying a Celestial bronze sword.

"Who are you three?" Kai asked distastefully.

Olivia nodded towards me. "She seems to already know who I am. But for your sake, I'll introduce myself. My name is Olivia Blossom, and these two morons are Ivan Markov-" she pointed to the boy on her left. "-and Enrico Jenkins, and we're here to kill you."

"That's really pleasant," I muttered.

Kai ignited Scorcher. "Try me, Vanilla Latte."

Enrico swung his sword at Kai's head. Kai ducked easily and got a kick on Enrico's side. Enrico got up quickly though, and the two of them were locked into an intense sword fight.

Meanwhile, Ivan shot a ray of darkness at Arthur, knocking him backwards. Arthur thrusted his hands forward, a gust of wind hurling Ivan onto the pavement.

Olivia pointed her sword at me, as I was suddenly levitating above the ground. She then threw me to the side, my back hitting the hard pavement.

"Let's see who's the better daughter of Hecate," Olivia taunted. Of course. She just had to be my half-sister.

I got up quickly, Merlin and Marianne raised. I ran at Olivia, jabbing at her chest with Merlin. She parried my strike with her sword and kicked me square in the chest, throwing me backwards.

I came in again, delivering a folly of strikes and swipes. Olivia was level with each one, blocking them with ease. She then slashed at my head. I was narrowly able to duck.

Before I could counterattack, she conjured up dark energy in her hands and shot it at me. I was blasted backwards, hitting the hood of our broken down car. Across the street, Kai had taken down Enrico and was helping Arthur against Ivan.

I quickly rolled off, now more ticked off than ever. I would not lose to this blonde, vanilla latte girl, not when it meant losing this quest.

"What's wrong? Too scared?" Olivia mocked, strutting towards me.

"No, but you should be," I said. I conjured up a time spell, slowing Olivia down gradually. I then got a few strikes on her armor as she was helpless to counterattack. I kicked her backwards and cast a fire spell, hitting her armor and catching it on fire.

Olivia quickly took off her armor, revealing a black, short-sleeved shirt that read "GHOSTS". She pointed her sword towards me. "That wasn't bad, Rose. But not good enough."

As she came at me, a fireball hit the pavement in front of her. Kai then jumped in. "So, Vanilla Latte, are you ready to get burned?"

Kai and Olivia locked blades, resulting in a large clanging sound. Kai then dodged under her second strike and kicked her in the side. Before she could recover, Kai shot a stream of fire at her, knocking her back further.

Meanwhile, I joined Arthur, who was locked in an intense fight with Ivan. Their swords made dents in the pavement and beams of electricity and darkness flew across the street.

Before Ivan could go in again, I lifted my hands upward, levitating him above the ground. Arthur then struck him down with a ray of lightning. Ivan swiftly got up off the pavement and wiped blood off his forehead.

"Good old LionsWorth," he said. "Always trying to act like the good guy."

"What are you even talking about?" Arthur asked.

"Don't play dumb with me, LionsWorth. People think your company is so pure and nice, but really, it's just a ponzi scheme meant to take down good businesses."

He lunged at Arthur again, clashing his weapons into Arthur's sword. Arthur pushed his swords backward and shot a blast of light with his other hand. Ivan deflected the strike with his swords, blinding me as a result.

I staggered around, panicking as the world around me was now completely dark. I could hear Ivan maliciously attacking Arthur in the distance, as I fell down to the pavement.

When my blindness passed, Kai had knocked down Olivia and Ivan and Arthur were still clashing. Ivan dodged under one of Arthur's strikes and slashed at his side, blood trickling down Arthur's shirt.

That's when everything went wrong.

Arthur roared in anger. His skin turned golden and his eyes were now a glowing blue. Electricity danced around his body and he began floating above the ground. The sky turned a stormy gray and the winds became more intense.

Arthur pointed his hands toward Ivan, streams of lightning hitting the pavement. From above, a thunderbolt struck Ivan down. Suddenly, the winds became even more intense as rain poured down. Arthur then began striking electricity at nearby trees, even hitting our broken down car in the process.

I glanced worriedly toward Kai. How are we going to stop him? I mouthed.

He turned towards Arthur. "Hey, buddy, you need to stop! Try and remember the good times!"

Arthur remained unphased as he struck a bolt of lightning down at the pavement.

"Come on, Arthur!" I yelled. "Focus on us. We're your friends, not your enemies, so you need to stop!"

But once again, it didn't work. Instead, Arthur just growled. He pointed his sword at me, shooting an arc of lightning. I narrowly dodged, the attack plunging into a nearby tree.

I had to think.

The last time Arthur had something like this happen, Kai and I had convinced him by making him remember the good things in his life. However, Kai and I had already tried that. Mentioning his family or his business, the only two things I really knew about the guy, would just trigger him further.

That's when it hit me.

"Hey, Arthur!" I shouted. As he craned his body towards me, I used the Mist to change my appearance into that of Geneva's. I really had to hope the Mist had changed my appearance or else I had just given him the heads-up to zap me to pieces.

"Stop!" I shouted. At the sight of me, or should I say Geneva, Arthur levitated down to the ground. His golden skin disappeared as the clouds returned to normal. Arthur collapsed onto the ground and I reverted back to my normal body.

"Hey, are you okay?" I asked Arthur, helping him off the ground. He rubbed his eyes as he looked at me and Kai.

"I..I'm so sorry guys, I don't know what happened," Arthur said.

Kai patted him on the back. "Hey, it's okay. At least you got rid of that Ivan guy."

"Yeah," I said. "But now we need to get to the next Iris pocket."

"But how? Our car broke down and the next Iris pocket is two hours away," Arthur said.

"Here, you two go figure it out," Kai said. "I'm gonna get some snacks from that convenience store."

Kai ran off towards the convenience store, leaving me and Arthur baffled.

"Did he just?" Arthur asked.

"Yep."

We stood in silence for a few seconds before Arthur said, "Anyways, let's think up a solution."

"Maybe we could signal for a ride," I suggested.

Arthur shook his head. "It's not a bad idea, but it's 5 am and no cars are around."

"Good point. Maybe we could send a message to Hermes, and ask for some kind of ride."

"Hermes is probably busy. Plus, gods can't interfere with demigod affairs."

The two of us contemplated an answer before we heard a crashing sound near us. Behind us, Kai was sitting at the wheel of a Ford Fusion having crashed it into the curb.

"Quick!" he shouted. "I just stole from this one big Russian dude and I don't know how to drive!"