Tempestuous Sea

𝐈𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐀𝐧𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐬 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐑𝐡𝐞𝐚... 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐞'𝐬 𝐰𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐡𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰𝐬?

Fierce god of battle,

Ares fills me with disgust,

I taunt back.

***

"No surprise there. You have a hobby of angering all the gods and goddesses you meet." RJO Nico commented.

"And making an enemy out of them," RJO Grover continued.

"Sup bitches and bros and non-binary hoes, her majesty has graced you with her presence," Rhea smirked as she looked at Annabeth and Grover.

"Rhea!" Grover hugged her.

"What happened up there?"

"Nothing important, killed a Chimera here, and Echidna there," Rhea said.

Annabeth opened her mouth.

Rhea raised a finger. "Don't ask questions I will not answer, now if you'll excuse me for a moment, I shall do something quick." She said as she walked to the Mississippi River. "Yoohoo for the messenger Nereid that is in the river, I shall meet you at the beach in Santa Monica, see ya!"

The said nereid was confused.

"SO! My dad wants me in Santa Monica! Let's go." Rhea started to walk while humming under her breath. "War plotted and planned to lead them to doom,

But she knew and saw through his gloom,

Against all odds, they returned with might,

She defeated the trickster and won the fight."

"You ever wonder what's going on in her head?" Annabeth asked Grover.

"You don't wanna know," Grover said. "I don't wanna know and let's keep it that way!"

"Is it normal for her to start spouting rhymes all the time?" Annabeth asked.

Grover thought about it for a moment. "Sometimes? But never this much, I'm surprised she finds the right words."

Annabeth decided to keep her suspicions to herself.

"The poor nereid!" RJO Stoll twins cracked up. Almost everyone had an amused smile on their face imagining the nereid's confused face.

"What did the nereid tell you exactly?" PJO Piper asked Percy.

"She told me that I must go to Santa Monica and that I should not trust the gifts and that my father believed in me" Percy quoted the words he remembers the nereid saying to him in the water.

"Gifts? You mean Ares' pitiful charity?" RJO Grover whispered to Rhea to which she just nodded her head.

"So you had your suspicions before she told you?" PJO Annabeth asked her counterpart.

"She didn't tell me like. I figured it out. Admittedly it took way too long for me to realise it and I'm ashamed of that, but I figured it out. Though I'm pretty sure she was making it more obvious so that I would find out." RJO Annabeth replied.

***

"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your father's summon."

They wandered through downtown for about half an hour, the air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humidity of St. Louis.

Finally, they found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. They veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars.