Book 2: Oaths and Victories.

Chapter 13.

Not me double-checking the discord to make sure I'm doing the phonetic names right. Still not over how y'all pronounce Piper's name.

Also me, having to correct the word 'football' every time bc I keep forgetting y'all call it soccer.

Chapter 13: No soccer balls were harmed during the making of this film.

Χέιζολ

They're flying over Germany when it happens.

A sudden force hits the Argo II, forcing them to land in the stands of a currently near empty softball field. The only thing within is a single figure in the very center.

Somehow, she gets the distinct feeling this is gonna be the one encounter of this quest that none of them will ever talk about again. Or maybe they will, but under a codename, and never elaborate.

Which is probably not a good thing, but she's always wanted to be involved into a 'the incident' thing. So, you know, silver linings.

Maybe, she should clarify, that it's not in fact fine, and she is very much freaking out, especially because she's sent into the field with Percy, Frank and Leo. Which, there probably was a reason why demis always went in groups of three, maybe four was bad luck? There were so many numbers that were bad luck that she wouldn't be even a little surprised.

Once, during a particularly awful stretch of the journey where they couldn't fly, Leo had tried to distract her from boat sickness by giving her an in-detail explanation of how real ADHD worked. It had been surprisingly effective, and right now, it also served as a comparison for how she felt.

If this was what Leo's head was like permanently then she needed to give him so many apologies, and probably a gift basket.

The figure in the center of the field turns out to be a woman with sparkling golden wings, she's dressed entirely in sports-wear, and keeps changing features like she's not yet decided which facet to show.

And it's, honestly kind of weird, actually, because as far as she knows, there's no real difference between Victoria and Nike.

Περσι

They are made to play a soccer match.

According to the goddess who's responsible for this, the only real way to pull a winner out of two equally footed forces is to have them compete in something neither knows anything about. Which is how she figured that none of them had a single lick of sports in them.

So, yes, soccer match, Greeks versus Romans.

Normally, he'd call bullshit because Frank is built like a brick wall, but he has seen Valdez, in all his 5' glory, toss that brick wall across a field. It was a wild thing to watch, but considering he's also seen Valdez break solid wood, and bend metal without heating up, it's probably his demigod thing.

Especially because, unlike the rest of them, Valdez can't swing a sword for shit. Not that it matters in soccer.

To say the 'match' is good would be stretching it, like, a lot. The match is a mess, the ball goes everywhere because no one knows how to move it right, or at least they don't know how to keep it in line to the goal zone. It's kind of funny actually, specially because the goddess keeps groaning every time they fail to score.

There's also, a point where they all silently agree to just fuck around, and start bullshitting new ways to make the ball move, which are all probably way against soccer rules, but Nike says nothing of it.

It's all surprisingly enjoyable, which is about the exact moment where it goes to absolute shit, because of course it does.

So, there may or may not have been some powers involved in the incidentTM, maybe a few robots, say a sword or two. But the important bit is that the ball went from decidedly rolling in the floor, a slave to gravity, to flying in the air, as balls can sometimes achieve, and crashing directly into his face.

More specifically, his nose.

His nose which is now bleeding.

Blood that mother earth needs to wake up.

"Fuck"