Alexis
“So, how are we getting to Camp Jupiter?” Alexis asked.
“With magic.” Sadie pulled out her wand with a flourish.
“Oh good, you’re going to boomerang us to America,” Alexis said.
“Not a boomerang,” the boy called Carter muttered.
“It’s a wand, dummy,” Treya told Alexis.
“If I’m such a dummy tell me what a sleeping bag is.” Alexis crossed her arms triumphantly.
“A bag, in which one sleeps?” Treya guessed.
“It's this.” Alexis turned around to show Treya the bag that hung from her pack.”
“Oh please, like you didn’t learn what that was five hours ago,” Castiel said, rolling their eyes at Alexis.
“Hey! Betrayal!” Alexis cried.
“Ha,” Treya said. “Plus, knowing what a wand is, like, much more impressive.” Alexis was still shaking her head at Castiel.
“So speaking of wands,” Sadie interrupted. “Where are we going again?”
“The Oakland Hills. California.” Castiel told Sadie. Chiron had reminded them that Camp Jupiter, the Roman version of Camp Half-Blood, was in Oakland, California. Alexis had never been to Camp Jupiter and she was excited to see it for the first time. She’s always been curious to meet the descendants of the people they’d been fighting in the war so long ago.
“Cool. Come with me.” Sadie led their little group to a nearby statue of a sphinx. Apparently, those were necessary for portal making, and as Castiel and Alexis had learned earlier, the Cairo airport was full of them. As they walked, Alexis pulled Treya behind the group again. Castiel slowed to join them.
“So, what’s with you and Sam?” Alexis asked.
“What?” Treya looked at her friend confused.
“You know,” Alexis raised her eyebrows and nodded her head in Sam’s direction.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Treya replied.
“Really? You actually don’t?” Alexis giggled.
“What?” Treya asked, more forcefully this time.
“Well, if you really don’t see anything…” Alexis mimed zipping her lips shut. Treya gave her an annoyed look, but Alexis just winked back.
Sadie tapped the sphinx with her wand and muttered a couple of words, and where the sphinx stood grew a swirling vortex of sand. Carter stepped through it without hesitation, followed by Sam and then Treya. Alexis shared a look with Castiel, who looked as apprehensive as Alexis felt, and then she walked through the portal.
Alexis’ stomach dropped and all she could see was sand. When they appeared in California, Alexis was worried she would be sick. Castiel looked very similar to Alexis. Sam, Sadie, Carter, and Treya, all looked perfectly fine. After Alexis straightened up and regained her composure, she stared at the road in front of her. Cars, as Alexis recalled, zoomed in two directions on a massive road. Beyond them were massive buildings in the distance, as impressive as the New York skyline had been. The noise alone was impressive.
“So mortals really did all that without magic.” Alexis wondered out loud.
“Yeah,” Carter said. “I keep forgetting you guys are from the past.”
“So what now?” Sadie asked.
“Chiron said the entrance to Camp Jupiter is under an overpass. In a tunnel.” Alexis explained.
“Cool. What’s an overpass?” Treya asked.
“I would assume it’s some type of door.” Alexis mused.
“Good guess, but no. It’s that.” Sadie said. She pointed to a large hill. In the hill was an opening. The road continued along through the opening and under the hill.
“Hmm. Interesting.” Alexis looked at it. “I, for one, think a door would be much more suitable as an entrance.”
As they walked to the entrance Alexis, Treya, and Castiel continued to talk. They had so much to learn about each other's lives. Alexis couldn’t believe it had really been 152 years since they had last seen one another. Treya had little to tell about her imprisonment, and she was suspiciously quiet about her time with the Egyptians as well. What she did share made Alexis grateful for the little she’d had on Ogygia. It had been hard work, and frustratingly isolated, but even on the island she’d had things to do and other people to talk to.
Castiel had had the most freedom of the three. While they hadn’t been able to leave Hotel Valhalla, they could interact with people who did. They’d even had a boyfriend. Alexis and Treya pressed Castiel for as many details about Morpheus as possible. Castiel seemed a little flustered, but told them everything they wanted to know about him. And even though it sounded like it had ended poorly with him, it was still more interesting than any story Treya or Alexis could come up with.
“So where do we go from here?” Sadie interrupted their talk. They had all stopped walking as they reached the tunnel.
“See that entryway?” Alexis asked, pointing to a small alcove, no more than a shadow in the wall of the main tunnel. Everyone in the group nodded. “Apparently, there are two guards there. They should lead us into camp.”
“You’re sure that they will let us in?” Carter asked.
“Well, seeing as none of us know the Romans at all, no.” Alexis shrugged. “But, once they see this, they should.” She unzipped her leather jacket to show off a Camp Half-Blood t-shirt. Castiel and Treya fell into step behind her, and the rest of the group followed suit, letting Alexis’ orange shirt guide the way. They reached the alcove, which stretched into a small tunnel (Chiron had called it a service tunnel), and walked through. It was filled with yellow signs and snake-like wires. It looked as normal as anything in the modern world. The only things that were out of place were the two guards at the end of it. They wore breastplates and helmets with jeans and purple t-shirts. They held long wooden spears and were clearly prepared for an attack. Alexis put her sword in a scabbard that hung from the loops on her jeans. She instructed everyone to put any weapons they had out of sight.
“We don’t want them to see us as a threat.” She reminded everyone.
“So what do we do?” Castiel asked. “Do we just walk up there and say hi?”
“I don’t see why not,” Treya said. She and Alexis lead the group up to the guards.
“Good day. We don’t bring harm, we just wish to speak to your leaders.” Alexis said calmly.
“What are you, Aliens?” The guard on the left laughed. Alexis figured by his voice that he was male.
“I’m sorry. We can’t just let anyone in. Who are you?” The guard on the right, a female, said.
“I’m Alexis Ricci,” Alexis said. She gestured to her friends to introduce themselves. The guards still looked uneasy. Alexis remembered what Chiron and Percy had told her. She spread open her jacket to give them a view of her t-shirt. “I come from Camp Half-Blood. I’m Percy Jackson’s sister.”
This changed the whole mood. “Percy has a sister?” The male guard asked, lowering his spear.
“Hazel and Frank will want to know about this.” The female guard told him. “Alright you can come through, but if you pull any tricks…” She said, her tone making it clear that the group would be watched closely.
The guards opened the door and everyone filed through. For a while, the tunnel just continued. Then it opened up into a large valley. The floor of the valley was filled with large stretches of grassland, forests, and hills. In the center of the valley was a lake. A river wound around the valley and ended in the lake. Next to the lake was a city of white marble buildings. Some buildings looked similar to the towers of Cairo, but others looked like those of ancient Rome. There was a plaza with columns, fountains, statues and even a race track. Across the lake from the city was a grouping of impressive temples. At the bottom of the Valley from where everyone stood was what looked like a military camp. There was a fortress and watch towers, kids were walking about holding armor and weapons.
“To get into camp we need to cross the little Tiber.” The female guard said. She pointed to the river straight ahead. Treya looked around.
“Where are the boats?” She asked.
“What boats?” the guard questioned.
“The ones that get us across the water?” Treya asked like it was obvious.
“There are no boats. We’ll wade across.” The guy explained to everyone. No one looked very happy at his explanation, except Alexis. She was perfectly fine and stepped right in. Treya grumbled about Alexis’ dry clothes as she attempted to dry her clothes with tiny palmfuls of fire. By the time everyone had waded across the water, two people stood watching them, a boy and a girl. They both carried a sense of authority with them. They wore purple cloaks and metals decorated their chest plates.
The girl spoke first. She had dark skin and a head of crazy cinnamon-colored curls. “Quinn, Dior? Who are these people?” The guy standing next to her folded his arms and looked over everyone. He was tall with broad shoulders, but his eyes were kind and soft.
“They told us they came from Camp Half-Blood.” The female guard, Dior, said. “That one,” she pointed to Alexis, “says she is Percy Jackson’s sister.”
The leader girl frowned. “That can’t be true. Estelle is less than a year old.”
“Well maybe if you cared to introduce yourselves, you would know that her name isn’t Estelle,” Treya said indignantly.
“I know it’s confusing,” Alexis said. “But we can explain everything if you let us. Is there a place we can talk?”
The leaders, who introduced themselves as Hazel and Frank, led everyone to what they called the Principia. It was a two-story building made of white marble. Purple banners with the words SPQR hung from the second story. Inside the building was more purple. The walls were draped in velvet and the ceiling was a mosaic of Romulus and Remus. Frank and Hazel sat down in high-backed chairs behind a long table. The guards, Quinn and Dior, stood so Alexis assumed everyone else was to stand as well.
“So, explain why you claim to be the brother of Percy,” Hazel said.
Their story took the better part of an hour to tell. Sadie, Carter, and Sam had to explain how the Egyptian realm of gods worked, and Castiel explained about the Norse gods and their afterlife. Hazel had questions every few minutes. Once they had explained all that, they got into why they were there.
“Ok. Let me get this straight. There are Roman and Greek gods. Then, totally unrelated, there are Egyptian and Norse gods. And this time, they’re all in danger at the same time?” Frank asked once the story was over.
“Yup.” Treya nodded.
“I have a few questions,” Hazel said. After a moment of thinking she asked them. “First of all, what makes you all so special? Percy is also a son of Poseidon, but he was not locked away. Why are you so much more powerful?”
“To be completely honest, we aren’t fully sure,” Alexis said. ”It was always theorised that it’s our connection to multiple worlds. Castiel had the blood of Norse and Greek gods, Treya has the blood of Egyptian pharaohs and she’s the daughter of Hephaestus.”
“And you?” Hazel asked.
“I’m the daughter of Abundantia,” Alexis told them.
“Abundantia, as in the roman goddess?” Frank looked shocked. “But that would make you a goddess.”
Alexis sighed. “It would. In another universe perhaps I am a goddess, and certainly, that would be fun, but Abudantia is not my birth mother. I was abandoned at only a few days old in Florence, Italy. Abudantia found me and raised me as her own for a time, during which I lived in the gods’ world.”
Hazel nodded. “My next question is this: what do you want us to do? Why did you come to us?”
Treya shared a look with Alexis before taking over. “It’s like we said, gods are disappearing. But besides that, we have been locked up for over 150 years. Why now were we all released? Both the Greeks and Egyptians have noticed these abnormalities, and we agree that it can’t be a coincidence.” Here Treya looked to Sadie and Carter for support.
Alexis would have expected Carter to chime in, as the older sibling, but Sadie was the one who spoke. “It’s true. The Egyptian gods and demons work in cycles, following patterns. The release of powerful beings usually means the start of a war.” Sadie sounded serious for the first time since Alexis had met her.
“We want to have a meeting with representatives from each group to discuss these problems and find a solution,” Alexis jumped in again. “And seeing as you’re in charge here, you’re the obvious choice.”
“Alright. I will go with you to Camp Half-Blood.” Hazel said after a brief pause. “Frank you should stay here to protect the camp.” He started to protest but she shushed him. “I’ll be back soon, and I can handle myself, don’t worry.” He nodded.
“I don’t think you should go alone, though.” Frank looked over to the two guards standing nearby. “Quinn? Will you accompany Hazel to Camp Halfblood?”
“Yes, I would be honored,” he said. The guards hadn’t said anything, but they had listened to the whole story.
“We still have to go to Hotel Valhalla before we can return to Camp Half-Blood, but it is almost night now. Could we stay the night here and start traveling tomorrow?” Alexis asked.
“Yes. Quinn and Dior, will you show everyone to the fifth Cohorts?” Hazel asked. “You can spend the evening there.”