Crossroads(Riordan)-4

"This is our ride?" I couldn't help the exasperation in my tone as I looked at the van in front of me. This was the great chariot we were being given in order to save a literal goddess? Di immortales, if it hadn't been for the Mist then Argus would have been taken in by the police for being a potential child kidnapper with a ride like this!

"We do have a budget you know." Chiron said with a sigh, not openly admitting that he was thinking similarly to me but it was clear.

"Couldn't any of our... sponsors just wave their hands and make more money than we can comprehend appear?"

"Money falls under the domain of the lord of the Underworld, and he rarely has time to actually think about the camp." The ancient teacher of heroes said with a frown and I had to keep myself from commenting on the fact that he wasn't being represented in the Camp or in Olympus may have something to do with that as well. Still, at least we did have a ride. It would have been rather lame to start this quest by hitchhiking after all.

Speaking of quest, there comes the noble questers who would be risking their lives with me in order to save a goddess; consisting of Thalia, Nightshade and…

"You picked the rookie?" I asked with a twitching eyebrow as I looked at the fidgeting form of one Bianca di Angelo. The hell, I thought that giving Nightshade only one companion choice and taking Jackson with me from the start would have eliminated her from this quest and stop her from dying in a desert due to being an idiot!

"She has potential and if you actually have any complaints, take them to your fellow campers that doused Phoebe's shirt with centaur blood!" The head of the Hunters hissed at me with a glare and I started to think about how exactly I should deal with the Stoll morons. Why the hell did those two pull this stupid trick again anyway? I was taking Jackson so there should be no reason for Aphrodite to 'set the stage' for our dear hero to go after Chase.

So the question was: Did they do it out of their own will or was this merely a case of Aphrodite being that petty?

"We're here!" My possible conspiracy theories were left alone as the final two members of our group arrived, Jackson and... Grover.

"Thalia, when you said you knew a Satyr, I had hoped that you meant someone other than the local equivalent of Courage the Cowardly Dog."

"He's good at what he does and is dependable when you need him. Not like you have anyone else either." I had to admit that the punk daughter of Zeus was right, I didn't since my favored Satyr, Gleeson Hedge, was away on an assignment and it likely wouldn't have been a good idea to put that overly aggressive goat in an enclosed space with Nightshade anyway.

Meaning that my team for saving the goddess of Hunt from an army commanded by Atlas, the general of Titans and their greatest warrior, was one Satyr that was doing a very good imitation of Cowardly Lion; two powerhouse demigods, one bitchy hunter and a rookie hunter who was greener than the moss growing on Poseidon's beard. Great.

"Well, everyone seems to be here." But trying to interfere with this line up felt a bit too much like sticking my nose into the Fates threads so what the hell. "So everyone get on, we are leaving in five minutes."

"Shotgun!" Thalia immediately yelled and ran towards her preferred seat.

"I should be the one driving." And Nightshade tried to convince me to hand over the keys but when put between the fifteen year old looking girl driving and the person who could manipulate the way mortals saw things, aka me, driving; I decided to choose myself, much to her increasing displeasure.

"This is going to suck."

"Quite a pessimist one, aren't you?" My eyes widened as I immediately turned around with a dagger materializing in my hand, ready to be thrown, only for them to widen even further as my own green eyes meeting a pair of same color belonging to a woman of moderately tall height with pitch black hair done in a ponytail looking at me. A woman that I had seen only once before but could never forget. After all, she was my...

"Mother."

"It has been a while, Alpheus."

"It's just Al." I instinctively corrected her. "And yeah, somewhere around ten years. Closer to seventeen if we don't count your small appear and disappear trick you pulled when I left the orphanage."

"Which is about one appear and disappear more than most campers would have with their parents."

"Yeah, you're the mother of the year." I scoffed, my body tense. I had no idea why Hecate was here but I did not like it. She was dangerous, even for a goddess. "Whelp, it was nice catching up with you but I kind of have some urgent business so I have to leave." I said with a fake smile and tried to turn around, only for an unseen force to keep my rotation up and make me face my mother's amused face.

"You do not have to worry about that. If you only paid attention to your surroundings, you'd realize that you have plenty of time." She said with a chuckle and my brows furrowed as I tried to understand her meaning. Then my eyes widened as I realized that the trees that were swaying in the wind and the birds in the sky were all... in slow motion.

"Slowed down time in an area?" I asked myself as I looked around. "No, even you wouldn't pull something like that in Camp with the Scythe Bearer trying to raise back and the Olympus keeping a lookout." I muttered and after a few more moments, my eyes widened with realization. "No, not slowed down in a small area, but accelerated in a smaller area! Only around the two of us! Smart, really smart."

"Yes, it's almost like I'm the goddess of magic or something." Hecate's voice was amused as she looked down at me. "It's nice to see you being able to figure it out as quickly as you did though."

"So, what? Is this supposed to be some sort of test before the quest?" I asked with narrowed eyes while my mother simply kept smiling at me.

"Nothing so asinine. I honestly couldn't care less about your quest to save that spoiled cousin of mine." Cousin? Oh yeah, they were both granddaughters of Koios weren't they. "I'm just here to give you this." She then snapped her fingers and a red bead necklace appeared around my neck, the kind that you would see on the neck of a monk.

"...seriously? Your son is about to go to a quest that could very well lead to his demise and you're just giving him an ugly bling." I said with a mocking smile, knowing that there was likely some sort of enchantment on the necklace but kind of afraid to know what. Especially considering the fact that it belonged to another faith and Olympus' stance when it came to other pantheons were very clear. Denial of their existence and the smiting of any possible evidence about them near their kids.

"Fufufu, your demise? Don't make me laugh, there is no way you'll die on an insignificant journey like this." Hecate declared with a chuckle and I could feel myself shiver at how she had labeled a quest to save a literal goddess as insignificant. "No, your destiny is much grander than that Alpheus. Let me tell you this as the goddess who saw her daughter Circe learn the basics of transfiguration, the one who saw the magics of our pantheon take shape and find it's roots in history and helped the creation of the barrier that keeps mortal world apart from ours." With each of her words, I could feel Hecate's presence become more and more grand to the point where I started to understand what it meant to be a god; to understand the insurmountable difference between us. Then she placed her hands on my face and gave me a smile that was somehow both motherly and yet deranged.

"You, are to be my greatest creation." And then she disappeared.

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