The Trials of Apollo: The Dark Prophecy

Chapter Three

I am the third wheel
Leo, those seats hurt my butt
Leo's on fireeeeeeee
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     I lied. There was something stopping us. What was it, exactly, you may ask? Two words. Hunger and pain. Well, actually that's three words altogether, but who cares. Oh and the piranha-eating-like elves that were rejected by Santa Clause were also a big problem, but I'll get to that later.
Anyways, I'm not quite sure how long we had been in the air, but we took a "pit stop" as you humans say, in New Jersey. I disagreed and insisted we continue journeying, but the "cushioned" seats Leo had included onto Festus' back did not feel cushioned at all. My tush was definitely hurting and I did however need to get up and walk around, but of course I was incapable of that if we were thousands of feet in the air riding on a dragon, so I then agreed to take a stop. I'm not sure how or what the Mist manipulated humans to see, but I'm assuming it was a gigantic bird because we had passed a plane and the kids near the window seats were fascinated when they saw us. Their fascination and happiness ended when Festus chose that moment to randomly spew the fire from his mouth, terrifying the children immediately and causing them to cry.
Afterwards, Festus slowly descended from the cold sky to the ground, listening to Leo's commands that totally made no sense at times. Calypso unwrapped one of her arms from Leo and pointed down to a nearby grocery store where she wanted to stop at. Festus then headed in the direction of it, shortly landing on the building's roof, surprisingly not destroying it in the process. The bronze dragon shook a little for brief seconds, pointed to the sky to shoot fire, then returned back to normal. For a dragon, at least.
As we hopped off the dragon carefully and landed onto the roof of the building, I questioned whether or not we would need our weapons but before Calypso could precede to answer my question, Leo interrupted and insisted we wouldn't need them.
"Don't worry, Apollo,"Leo assured me with a safe smile."I can protect us all! I mean, come on, I'm the Leo Valdez. I literally defeated Gaea in a few seconds. What could possibly be in a grocery store that would be so difficult to fight? A box of flying Cheerios shooting pieces of cereal at you, commanded by Demeter? Come on Apollo, loosen up. Besides, if you are scared of that possibility, she's on one of the good guys."
Although it did occur to me that that was indeed possible(old little, ah, "argument" that sparked between the goddess and I), I didn't let the thoughts get to me and like usually, ignored them. I was hesitant on whether or not to disobey Leo and take my bow, but before I could, Calypso stopped me immediately from retrieving it.
    "I do admit, the Mist works in mysterious ways and believe it or not, it's powerful enough to make mortals believe that flying, bronze dragons are birds,"Calypso informed me, her braid blowing forward due to the winds."But a bow and arrow is a regular weapon used by mortals, so I'm pretty the Mist won't manipulate that into anything. So unless you want us to get kicked out of the store and get the police called on us, which would only delay this quest, you should leave your bow up here."
I wanted to ignore Calypso's warning, but I sighed, because she was right. Although I was more than certain that mortals were allowed to carry around their firearms(or if not, they did it anyways) I did not want to risk it. No, I wouldn't be afraid of getting "arrested", but I did fear that it would delay this quest, and we could not afford that.
    After finally deciding that Calypso did have a point, I set my bow back into its place on top of Festus' back. I hopped off, however, before I did, I reached for my ukulele and then got off the dragon's back, now standing next to Leo and Calypso.
    This time Calypso wasn't able to protest because as far I was aware, there was no strict prohibition on bringing in musical instruments, especially if you were very talented in using one(me being the one with talent, obviously).
    I do admit, I was expecting applauding from both Leo and Calypso, and even a roar from Festus, but before I could even pull a string, Calypso rolled her eyes and zipped up her sweater.
    "Apollo, I'm surprisingly already being able to tolerate you. Please do not become more annoying by playing that outdated instrument with your so-called, talent."Calypso demanded, her voice being full of annoyance. She smirked at the end and then smiled at Leo.
    "She's right, Apollo."Leo shockingly agreed with Calypso, making me feel a bit angry inside."Unless I invented an instrument you use, please don't bother. We all know I'm the one with the talent, okay?"
    The two of them laughed and then began walking towards the edge of the roof of the grocery store and stared down at a rusty, old ladder that was attached to the side of the building, leaning against the bricks that made the store.
    "Stay up here, Festus!"Leo called out."We'll be back."
    I then walked over to the two and stared down the ladder as well, questioning the safety of it. It seemed rather old and on any different circumstance, I wouldn't care about a silly little ladder that wasn't even that tall, just a few feet high, but in this pesky, mortal body, I did have to worry about things. What if I fell and died? I, the famous, handsome, strong Apollo, didn't want to die by falling off a ladder on the side of a grocery store. If I was going to die, I wanted it to be while fighting the most famous monsters to give even more glory to my name. Well actually, I didn't want to die at all. So instead of stating all of my thoughts to Leo, I just shrugged and asked for reassurance if the ladder was safe.
"Relax, it's alright."Leo declared as he broke the silence and began making his way down the rust-covered ladder. Every time he put his foot on one of the bars that acted as steps, a loud clang vibrated in my ears. As he reached the bottom steps, he hopped onto the ground and called Calypso and I down.
Calypso went first and I was the last one to go down, now knowing that although the ladder was rather shaky and wobbly, it was somewhat "safe". Now being on the ground, we stood in an alley created by the grocery store and some sort of building with a red worn-down wall made of bricks that had graffiti vandalism on the side of it. There was a dumpster at the end of the alley and a few puddles of water were made on the cracked, cement ground.
With a cold breeze in the air, this reminded me heavily of where I first started in my mortal state only a few days before. It seemed as if Zeus was mocking me by having us end up here, somewhere nearly identical to my first encounter in that beaten-down alley posing as Lester Papadopoulos. The thoughts that spun in my head were making me angry, but then one particular name came to mind and I was more saddened: Meg.
    It was in that first state where I first met her, and now Zeus really was making me feel even worse. Despite the scene at the Grove of Dodona, I still lost Meg to Nero and although he lied to her, she would more than likely still return to him if she wasn't already. I hoped that she hadn't told Nero the prophecy we both had heard the trees say, but I couldn't stop her if she did or didn't. Meg wasn't a bad person, but she was on the bad side, and I had to get her off of it.
I was stuck in my own thoughts for a few mere seconds until I realized that Calypso and Leo were making their way out of the alley and heading towards the entrance of the store. I jogged quickly up to them, stepping in a few of the puddles and found ourselves stepping out of the dim alley and into the open parking lot full of cars. It was a cloudy day and the sun was hidden behind the large, white, cluttered clouds.
We began to walk to the entrance of the grocery store as we passed people pushing grocery carts full of bags with items in them. I looked up to the building's front and read the name made out of huge letters that seemed to be a bit worn down: Sunny's Supermarket.
    As the three of us entered the warm market, my ears immediately began to fill with sounds of people chatting, cashiers scanning items resulting in beeps, and the typical grocery store music that mortals tended to play in the background. I was tempted to pull out my ukulele and play a tune or two to drain out the wretched sound of horrible music that the store had decided to play, but Calypso's dark-almond eyes shot me a warning look. My eagerness to play my instrument then simmered down.