The Goddessy II: The Trials of Zeus

Chapter Seventeen

"They're not anywhere," Rainbow sighed. "We've searched as far as we can go."

"We've only looked through the pyramids we can actually go through," Jacob pointed out. "I seriously think you're overreacting."

"Well, considering this is the second time they've been captured and nearly killed, I think I have justifications," she snapped.

He could tell she was stressed. To the point where he didn't dare say the wrong thing for fear of getting attacked or something.

Then he remembered something his mother used to do whenever he was stressed like this, even though it was weird for a guy. She said that she learned from some creature that if you braid your hair and imagined the braid trapping all of your worries, then you could focus on the bigger picture instead of those things. That was actually how he learned to braid himself, even though he never revealed that ability to his father, because Poseidon would quickly reprimand him or erase the knowledge of it or something.

"Hey, so uh, my mom used to do this thing," he said. "She liked to call it a 'worry braid.' She said this creature told her that she pretended that it was trapping all of your fears and worries and stuff like that, and then you weren't so stressed out then."

"You really think it would work?" she raised an eyebrow.

"It wouldn't hurt to try," he shrugged. "You just gotta think about letting go of it all."

She sat there frozen still for a moment before nodding.

Marie did a quick sweep of their forming army before going to work on her anomaly she was doing on her own.

She had to find out why Poseidon was trying to do all of this.

She noticed Frida Khalo and the other Latinas holding a bunch of paintbrushes.

"How is this supposed to help with anything?" one of them asked.

"Let me show you," Frida said, taking a knife and shearing off the bristles. "If we replace them with fake bristles that are razor-sharp, we can use it to fool the enemy, then stab them before they figure out anything."

That sounded pretty smart.

Meanwhile, George Washington was leading a group in basic cannon skills, and Ameratsu was teaching another on how to fight in hand-to-hand combat. Nelson was busy building the ships while Grace explained how to man them. Joan of Arc taught sword skills to peasants who weren't helping to supply the cause with their skill. Charlemagne and Aethelred were watching over a map with moving figurines on it, trying to track where Poseidon and his armies would be heading. Constantine was working with his Roman soldiers to use a battering ram for any type of barrier in their way. Ghandi was leading the Chinese-Indian unit with Confucious on how to fight peacefully... that is, Gandhi suggested that they just sit there and refuse to do anything until their demands are met, because it worked for him. Confucius mostly worked on gracefully fighting, which Marie didn't know was a thing.

That's when a small piece of parchment landed at her feet.

Your presence is requested in the surveillance room.

-Apollo

"Poseidon is heading out to the area they're in," Apollo said, and Marie watched as a large group of men and women, along with Poseidon, moved away from the seas. "If they attack them now, then they won't stand a chance. Which means they have to get the girls before Poseidon comes, which is in about a day."