Heliophile - Apollo

1.17| Ares Has Pissed Off Ana. Not A Great Idea

A Coast Guard boat picked the four up, but they were too busy to keep them for long or to wonder how four kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. There was a disaster to mop up. Their radios were jammed with distress calls.

They dropped the demigods off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around their shoulders and water bottles that said I'M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! and sped off to save more people.

Their clothes were sopping wet, even Percy's. When the Coast Guard boat had appeared, he'd silently prayed they wouldn't pick him out of the water and find him perfectly dry, which might've raised some eyebrows. So he'd willed himself to get soaked. Sure enough, his usual waterproof magic had abandoned him. Percy was also barefoot because he'd given his shoes to Grover.

Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of them was barefoot than wonder why one of them had hooves. After reaching dry land, they stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. Percy and Ana felt as if they'd just returned from the dead-which they had. The backpack was heavy with Zeus's master bolt. Percy's heart was even heavier from seeing his mother. "I don't believe it," Luke said. "We went all that way-"

"It was a trick," Percy said. "A strategy worthy of Athena or Hermes."

"Hey," Luke warned but with no bite or malice.

"You get it, don't you?"

He dropped his eyes, his annoyance fading. "Yeah. I get it."

"Well, I don't!" Grover complained. "Would somebody-"

"Percy ..." Ana said. "I'm sorry about your mother. I'm so sorry...."

Percy pretended not to hear her. If she talked about his mother, he was going to start crying like a little kid. "The prophecy was right," Percy said. "You shall go west and face the god who has turned.' But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want war among the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and Hades's helm, and framed me because I'm Poseidon's kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And I'll have caused it."

Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?"

Percy stopped in his tracks, looking down the beach. "Gee, let me think." There he was, waiting for them, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red.

"Hey, kid," Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see Percy. "You were supposed to die."

"You tricked me," Percy said. "You stole the helm and the master bolt."

Ares grinned. "Well, now, I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power-that's a big no-no. But you're not the only hero in the world who can run errands."

"Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice."

The idea seemed to amuse him. "Doesn't matter. The point is, kid, you're impeding the war effort. See, you've got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus's master bolt so that Zeus will be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this ..."

From his pocket, he took out a ski cap-the kind bank robbers wear-and placed it between the handlebars of his bike. Immediately, the cap transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet. "The helm of darkness," Grover gasped.

"Exactly," Ares said. "Now where was I? Oh yeah, Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon, because he doesn't know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice little three-way slugfest going."