DEMIS (A Clash With Lightning)

4

Ban could visibly see their faces drop. He felt a tinge of embarrassment in his stomach, but he buried it deep down. He wouldn't allow himself to care about what these people thought. "Instead of worrying about who my father is, why don't we start coming up with a plan to get off this island?" he said, sounding a bit more annoyed than he would have liked.

"Please don't be offended!" Rose said, grabbing his hands. He looked down at her hands holding his. She was so friendly, and she barely knew him. "I just never expected Hades to have a human son. I thought he was in love with Persephone."

Ban cringed at the mention of his stepmother. He pulled his hands away from Rose, getting a good look at her. She was clearly a stunning woman. He figured out she was the daughter of Aphrodite before she'd even said a word. The blonde guy seemed so bright and cheerful, he had to be the son of Apollo. His eyes moved to the girl with straight black hair and electrifying eyes. She obviously had the strongest energy of the three, which meant she had to be Poseidon's daughter. He didn't even need them to introduce themselves.

He turned back to Rose, who now smiled at him warmly, trying to make him feel more comfortable after their strong reaction to his father being Hades. Ban wanted to cringe at the tension he'd caused, but he refrained. His pride wouldn't allow him to apologize for his reaction.

"We can't stay on this island forever," Ban continued. "We need to find a way out of here."

"It all comes back to Hecate," Keith said, scratching the back of his head. "She dumped us here without any kind of instruction on what to do next."

"Honestly, it's a miracle we were even able to find each other," Jasmine pointed out.

Ban couldn't argue with that. Hecate seemed more than reluctant to help them, as if even the suggestion of it was beneath her. How she expected them to survive on this island without any type of training was beyond him. He was not able to use his powers at all, and from what he had seen from his so-called teammates, they had no idea what they were doing either.

"I want to know why our piece-of-shit parents aren't here to help us." Keith shook his head. "They made sure to recruit us to fight their battles, but didn't even bother putting in the work to train us."

He may have been a bit dramatic, but Apollo's son had a point. If the entire fate of humanity rested on the shoulders of a few college students, why weren't the gods putting in more effort to make them strong? Why weren't they telling them what the threat even was?

"We can figure this all out in the morning," Rose said. "I think we're all tired, and to be honest, this is the last thing I want to think about right now."

Everyone began to mumble in agreement, emotionally and physically drained from the long day. As everyone started lying down and falling asleep, Ban found himself tossing and turning, unable to settle down. He stood up quietly so as not to wake the group and headed toward the cave's entrance. Thankfully, it had stopped raining, and he could get some air and clear his head. This was all too much for him to handle.

His mother loved Hades, and from what she told him, he loved her too. His mother vaguely explained that he was her star-crossed lover, and just because they weren't able to be together didn't mean they didn't want to. However, his mom had never told him that his father was quite literally the god of the underworld. Ban always knew he was different. He was never able to make friends in school because all the other children thought he was scary. Everyone just steered clear of him. He clenched his fist as he looked up at the sky, covered in the night's stars. It made sense now. He carried the aura of Hades... of death. When he began training, he would have the powers of death.

The thought left him both excited and unsettled. It was confusing to hate something about himself but also crave the power that would manifest from it. He felt like he was going insane. His fist clenched tighter as his nails dug into his palm. He was stressed beyond any point he'd ever been before. A new group of people thought he was weird and scary, and the worst part was, they knew who his father was. They knew why he was different, why he was scary.

"What are you doing out here? You should be resting with everyone else," a soft voice called to him.

He turned toward Rose, who had grabbed his clenched fist and slowly extended his fingers. She kept her face blank as she looked at the crescent-shaped marks in his palm. He furrowed his brows. What is wrong with this girl? She's the daughter of Aphrodite, which he could guess by the pull of her energy. She was the opposite of him. She drew people in, and he pushed them away.

Yet here she was, holding his hand and now staring at him expectantly. Ban shook his head. "I could ask you the same thing," he responded.

"I was sleeping peacefully, but you were so loud you woke me up stomping out here," she said with a playful smile.

Ban felt his cheeks heat up. He had tried so hard to be quiet. "Did I wake everyone?" he asked, cringing.

"No, just me," Rose said, finally releasing his hand as if she'd forgotten she was holding it. "I understand how stressed you are. We all do."

It really was an incredibly unfair situation for a bunch of people in their early twenties to be in. Ban turned away from her, feeling embarrassed at being caught acting so dramatic. "We'll get through it," he said simply.

The next morning, Ban awoke to a strike across his face. "What the fuck?!" he shouted.

Standing over the group was Hecate. She seemed disappointed as she looked at the demigods below her. "I can't believe you all survived the night," she said with a scoff.

"You!" Josh shouted angrily. "You left us here to die!"

Hecate looked him up and down with disgust. "I left you here to make sure you were all competent enough to survive on your own for a night," she said, rolling her eyes. "Now the real challenge will begin."

"Challenge?" Jasmine asked curiously.

"Today, you will all begin training. It's about time you learned how to use your powers properly," she said.