Daughter of Ykaia

7

"So you guys are Roman demigods," I concluded.

"Yes," The Roman demigods said together.

"And you have a message from....?" I said.

"Praetor Reyna and Frank," Annie told me. "But we can talk about that later. Who are you guys? And what happened?"

"You know what eidolons are, right?" Leo said. "Also I'm Leo."

"The guy who blew up New Rome," muttered Mike. "We know you."

"And we know who eidolons are. Did they possess us?" Annie shivered.

"Yes," Piper said. "And I was able to get them out. I'm Piper."

"I'm Clarisse, daughter of Ares."

"I'm Annie, daughter of Venus, goddess of love. Mike and I were sent to watch Neka because we thought she might be a strong Roman demigod. So that's how we know each other."

"I'm Mike, and I'm blessed by Minerva, and my grandfather is Mercury." Mike twiddled with his thumbs.

"Great," Piper said. "Now that we're done with that, I need to go and meet with Shel, my girlfriend. Have fun."

She stood up and walked out, so then there was only me, Leo, Clarisse, Annie and Mike.

Once she left, everyone started talking.

"Be quiet!" I yelled. Once everyone was done with their little lets-talk-over-each-other-and-see-who's-the-loudest game, I smiled. "Can you just tell us the message?"

"Praetor Reyna and Frank have been suffering some... problems. They haven't been able to send people to communicate with Camp Half-Blood, and we can't send messages to you. It's like we're cut off. We also haven't received any word from the gods or goddesses. It's like we're being surrounded to be butchered and then killed."

"By Gaea..." I mused, and then explained. "We think she is waking up again. Last night, we got a prophecy saying,

'Gaea rising in the south

The earth's daughter,

dead by her mouth.'"

"Very optimistic," Annie muttered.

"So who's the daughter of Gaea?" Clarisse asked. "Is it you?" She stared at Annie for a second, and Annie shook her head.

"I already told you, I'm a daughter of Venus, goddess of love. Gaea is definitely not my mom." Annie frowned. "How could Gaea even have a daughter? She's been asleep for a while, until only recently. And now she's supposed to be awakening again?"

"So many people died to stop her," muttered Mike in a saddened voice. He must had lost someone. "and now we have to do it again."

"I know." I sighed, my mind running through different scenarios. Should I tell them or no? Mike and Annie were obviously part of this quest, but do they even want to go on it? "I had a dream about Gaea rising in New Orleans. We should probably go there." I decided not to tell them.

"Wait, wait." Leo started tapping the table. "Annie and Mike are obviously part of the quest. But shouldn't we like, confirm it?" he turned towards the two Roman demigods, his face straight, but after doing that for a second, he broke into a smirk. "Do you guys want to go on the quest with us?"

Annie and Mike looked at each other, and they must had come to a silent agreement. "I guess we kind of have to." Annie smiled, but then she frowned. "But we have to tell Reyna and Frank, or else they will think we are dead."

I twiddled with my thumbs. "We can figure that out later."

"Can we get back to the point of figuring out who Gaea's daughter is? It's not me, it's not Annie, which leaves Neka." Clarisse looked at me. "So do you have something to confess?"

I looked down in embarrassment. "I got claimed while fighting Percy during Capture the Flag-"

"Capture the Flag?" Mike said in confusion. "What is that?"

"Nothing you need to worry about now," I told him. "But I thought that if I told everybody, they would get mad or something. I don't know. So then this prophecy happened, and.... Yeah. I'm a daughter of Gaea."

"I still don't understand how that's possible," Leo said after a moment of silence. "She was asleep for years and years. She can't have children when she's asleep, can she?"

"No, stupid," Mike rolled his eyes. "Maybe Gaea wasn't as asleep as we thought."

"That's what I concluded too," I told him. "Maybe there was a time when she could become kind of human 13 or so years ago. Maybe she then had me? I have no idea though, so your guess is as good as mine."

"Does it even matter how you were born?" Clarisse asked. "Right now, all I want to do is take revenge on Gaea. She killed so many Ares children..."

"I'm sorry," I told her, which was awkward, considering a girl a lot bigger and older than me was about to cry.

"So. We need to get to New Orleans. How are we going to get there?" Mike frowned, wheels turning inside of his head.

"We could go by a flying boat," Leo suggested with a smile. I gave him a confused face until I realized what he was talking about. ARGO II.

"No." Annie shut down the idea. "What about driving there?"

"That would take too long," Clarisse also shut down that idea.

"So. . . by plane?" I said our last option. Mike shook his head vigorously.

"I have a bad history with planes," He said, and I decided not to ask. Demigods were weird.

"Then how are we supposed to get there?" I asked, going through any ideas to get to New Orleans. "It's what, 17, 18 hours to get there by car?"

"21 hours, and that's without stopping," Mike told me.

"So the only option is a car," Leo summed up. "Which will take a while. And how do we get a car?"

"Wait," I said, an idea forming inside my head. "What if Nico Shadow Travelled us there?"

"Please no," Clarisse and Leo muttered together.

"What's shadow traveling?" Annie asked, confused.

"It's teleporting from one place to another, except only children of Hades can do it and it takes more energy," Mike explained, then smiled sheepishly. "I like to read a lot."

"Shadow traveling is also known as Tartarus," Leo explained. "And Nico isn't that strong, is he?"

"He has a point," Clarisse agreed, and then frowned. "I can't believe how I agree with you."

"Well, what else are we going to do?" I asked, impatient. "Right now we're wasting time, and I have officially run out of ideas."

"Let's just go with the car," Mike suggested, "Wouldn't that work? It would take a while, but we'd get there."

"I don't like it," Clarisse said. "What about the Labyrinth?"

"The Labyrinth?" Annie asked, somehow knowing what that was. Maybe Mike told her. "Too risky."

"So our only option is the car. Can we stop trying to come up with new ideas and just go with the car?" Leo started taping the table even more vigorously.

"So how will we get the car? Or should we go by taxi?" I asked.

"We'll figure it out on the way," Leo hopped up. "I need to start moving." He walked out the door, and Clarisse followed. Then Annie followed them. Then I left, and then Mark.

Once we got to the bottom of Half-Blood Hill, we stopped. "Now we need to figure out the car stuff," Leo told us.

"We could go by taxi," Annie suggested.

"That would take too long. And I don't have any mortal money," Clarisse objected.

"We could rent a car," I suggested. Everyone paused, considering the idea.

"Where would we rent the car though?" Mark asked and I brightened.

"I think there's one down the road," I told them

"You think?" Leo said

"Yeah. That's what I said. We should at least try," I told them, and I walked to the road.