It Started With a Game

23. Or Else You Will Certainly Fail

"Mom?!" Darrell blurted out, a little too loud.

Chandler's eyes widened as he quickly put his hands over Darrell's mouth. "Shh! Listen!" Chandler whispered. Aphrodite on the other hand frowned, looking towards the windows, and causing all the demigods to look down.

Please say she didn't see us, please say she didn't see us, Sybil thought, crossing her fingers. Lucky for them, a minute passed and nothing happened. Assuming the best, they crouched back up and looked through the window. Luckily, Aphrodite was focused on Piper again.

"Mom, I told you! I can't do it! They're my friends!" Piper protested angrily.

"So what? Us gods do stuff to each other all the time, but it's all in good fun!" Aphrodite said.

"Mom, you don't understand. I'm. Not. A. God. I won't do it! I refuse," Piper said, crossing her arms stubbornly.

"You know, your siblings would never hesitate to take up my offer and do as I say! But I chose you, not them. Drew would have been perfect for this, no doubt! But you're special, Piper! I want you to do this, out of all of your siblings! Stop being so stubborn!" Aphrodite whined like a little kid that wanted candy.

"You're the stubborn one! Why can't you understand that I want nothing to do with controlling my friends and your stupid shenanigans built on your need to have quote unquote 'fun,'" Piper said, her eyes flickering with utter anger.

"Because it makes no sense! You're my daughter, you should want to be a queen, you should have the same hilarious sense of humor and fun as me," Aphrodite said.

"Well I don't," Piper snapped. She turned around. "Not so good-bye, Aphrodite." She took a step forward about to walk away, when Aphrodite's voice cut through the air like a blade.

"Piper, stop," Aphrodite growled. Charmspeak. Out of everyone in the entire universe ever, Aphrodite was by far the most skilled at charmspeak. She could tell an entire country to kill themselves with a single command, and they'd do it without hesitation. "You really think I'd let you get away that easily?" Aphrodite laughed coldly. "You most definitely thought wrong."

"So what? You're going to charmspeak me? They'll find out right away, I know they will," Piper said.

"Oh no, that's far too easy. Didn't you hear me before? I want to have some fun!" Aphrodite said.

"Fun?" Piper said warily. "How will you do that?"

"Oh, by possessing you," Aphrodite smirked, "Simple stuff like that."

Piper's eyes widened in horror as she tried to run away, but she was still frozen in place. Meanwhile, Aphrodite closed her eyes, exploding into a large cloud of pink, glittery smoke. The cloud began to make it way towards Piper, slowly yet surely.

"We can't let Aphrodite possess Piper! Or else we've failed!" Sybil said. The other six demigods nodded in agreement, bursting up and storming into the Aphrodite cabin, shouting for Aphrodite to stop.

To their surprise, the pink cloud that was Aphrodite stopped in it's place. It morphed into Aphrodite's solid, human form, which was definitely a weird sight to see (a weird pink cloud turning into a beautiful woman). She wrinkled her nose when she saw all the demigods.

"Darrell? Dove? You other demigods? What are you doing?" Aphrodite said.

"We could ask the same thing!"  Marcel said.

"Trying to possess your daughter like a total creep. I mean, that's low, even for you," Dani said.

"At least I'm not hiding a huge fact about myself from my two siblings," Aphrodite said.