Dragon and Dreams
Thud, thwack, crash.
Those were the noises made by Kassandra as she fell down several flights of metal stairs and onto a conveyor belt. Well, she thought it was a conveyor belt, the darkness made it a guess. Where had the king sent her? He said where her friends were, but even she didn't know where that was.
A factory or something clearly, she could see a very faint outline of machinery everywhere. But no demi-gods.
Cracking her nuckles, she jumped off the belt and began to look around. The place was long abandoned it seemed, with trash everywhere and the place in a state of disrepair.
Walking through, she made her way over to a huge door where a little light broke in. Forcing the doors open, she was greeted to the light of day. The sun was slowly coming down, but she would've guessed it to be 5pm.
Looking out, there were even more warehouses and factories along a single street. Everything looked pretty run down, and everything was covered in snow. She might as well explore if the three demi-gods were here.
Taking a step out, she trudged through thick layers of snow to several of the buildings in hopes of finding them, but all attempts proved unsuccessful. Just trash, waste and machinery. She could imagine Hephaestus loving this place.
But she definitely didn't. After about an hour of searching, she decided to wait and see if they'd find her instead. She made snow angels, built a snowman, had a snowball fight with herself; anything to escape boredom.
At one point she buried herself neck height in snow and just sat there thinking. Who exactly was that guy back there? Or more importantly, what was he? She could tell he wasn't a demi-god, but at the same time there was just no way he was a monster. He was something... different. And he had a brother looking for her?
But he had to be the one the prophecy had mentioned, the monster summoner. She couldn't think of any other character to fill the role. But what she really didn't like was what he said. How was he an associate of her father, now and previously? Surely he'd never help someone like him, right?
And if King Boreas was right about her father being kidnapped, was it possible he was being forced against his will to help him? Too many questions.
She erupted from the snow and marched back over to one of the warehouses, the largest one she could find. Rummaging through boxes, she eventually found exactly what she was looking for; a massive container of styrofoam peanuts. It was decently big, big enough to fulfill her needs.
Ripping the top open, she poked a couple holes in the side with her dagger and climbed inside. She curled up, closing the top on herself. She'd seen one kid named Connor Stoll get locked in one of these by some Ares kids after trying to pull some joke on them and always wanted to try it.
It wasn't all that bad, almost as good as the couch she slept on most days. Enough leg room, good ventilation, probably better than an apartment in New York. (Percy Jackson had told her horror stories about the apartments some people had to endure in that city.)
It wasn't long till she fell asleep. It's not like she meant to, she was just prone to it.
"...sandra? Kassandra? Are you there?"
Her head hurt and she felt a little dizzy. She could tell she wasn't in the box anymore, her limbs spread out free. There was a soft tickle of grass on the back of her neck and the bottoms of her feet. Where were her sandals?
"Come on Kassandra, you're going to be late!"
She wiped her eyes of sleep and sat up. She was facing a hedge, one with several targets attached to it. Was this...
She stood up and spun around. It was! The garden of her home. Everything was where she remembered, from the campfire to the Etruscan design pillars that decorated the path up to the house.
Her eyes followed the gravel path up until the doors that led in. They were wide open, with two tall figures waiting for her at them. It couldn't be... but somehow it was. They really were here.
"Filia, if we're any longer the ceremony will be called off!" shouted down Bellona.
"What your mother said!" followed up (Y/N).
Her heart was beating way too fast. Her mater and pater were here. With her.
Sprinting up the path with the crunch of gravel underfoot, she reached her parents and practically threw herself at her father. When she slammed into him, he barely moved, a surprised look on his face.
"Hey, are you ok? You hit your head pretty hard back there, do you need a little bit of the stuff?" (Y/N) asked, his palms glowing gold.
"No, I'm fine. It's just... no matter. So what ceremony are we going to?"
Bellona rolled her eyes. She and (Y/N) were dressed in pretty formal wear, ceremonial armour and the lot. Kassandra was also wearing highly decorated armour that she'd never seen before. If she was going to a prestigious event, shouldn't she wear a dress?
"Honey, I hope you're joking," said Bellona. Then she realised her daughter wasn't.
Luckily, her father was a little more patient. "Your godhood ceremony dear. The most important event of your life."
Of course, how could she forget her... what! Was this really happening?
The god of endurance looked her up and down with a frown of his brows.
"You can't go present yourself to the fates like that," and he jazzed his hands, a warm feeling travelling down her body. Her armour glistened a little brighter and green stains on her knees and hands vanished. A pair of sandals appeared on her feet. "All better."
Her mother smirked and waved her hand. "Come on then, we have places to be."
(Y/N) clapped his hands, and the three vanished from their home. They reappeared in a huge hall with marble flooring and the constellations themselves in the ceiling. Thrones inhabited by massive figures stood in a semi-circle, the sheer power radiating from them enough to kill pure mortals.
"The throne room of the Olympians," marvelled (Y/N). "I remember my ceremony, the third best day of my life. Just behind your birth and fighting your mother that one time."
Bellona rolled her eyes, but she could the corners of her mouth turned up.
"Enjoy it honey," said the goddess of Rome, kissing her daughter on her forehead.
Holy Hades this was really happening.
As her parents left her in the middle of the hall to join some other figures she'd never met nor seen before, a thunderous voice spoke.
"Kassandra (L/N), daughter of (Y/N) (L/N) and Bellona, the patrons of Rome. You are here today to ascend to godhood. Before we begin, would anyone speak against such actions?"
There was silence in the room.
"Very well. Kassandra (L/N), do you prepare to take the full responsibilities of godhood?"
"I do."
"Will you remain loyal to the state of Olympus for as long as you roam the land of the living?"
"I will."
"Do you plan on fighting against those who have wrongly assumed power in the absence ?"
"Uhm, yes?" she said, phrasing it as more of a question. Something felt wrong.
"And will you serve the Lady Terra for the rest of your life?"
Huh? She didn't respond. This wasn't right. Was she hearing things?
"Can you... can you repeat that please?" she squeaked out.
Looking back to her parents, something was off. Her mothers face was covered with a mask and her father... something was covering his eye. A flower?
"I said, will you serve the Lady Terra for the rest of your life."
"Lady Terra?" asked Kassandra, shuffling on the spot now. Surely this wasn't normal.
"Yes child," said Zeus. His face began to crumble. The whole room began to crumble, the roof caving in and pillars collapsing.
"Submit!" boomed a voice, powerful yet sleepy. Everyone in the room crumbled to dust as vegetation sprouted around the throne room, except for her and her father who stood still.
"Dad! What's going on?"
Her pater took a step towards her. That really was a flower in his eye.
"Father?..."
He kept marching forwards. She was frozen in place, whether with fear or from an outside source was debatable. What was happening?
When (Y/N) got within arms reach, the father and daughter stared at each other. His good eye was still blazing gold as she remembered it to be. Then it all happened so fast.
He threw a hand up, and golden light blinded her. Then twisting vines wrapped around her legs, pulling her into the floor. A venus fly trap grew in front of her, its mouth wide and somehow roaring. (Y/N) grinned. It felt wrong, that wasn't her pater.
"I look forward to our meeting."
Before she had any more time to think, the plant chomped down on her.
She practically flew out of the box she had been sleeping in, getting out so fast she crashed through a concrete wall. Rubbing her head, she got up with a little bit of pain, but it was really shock. What the Hades was that?
"Woah, Kassandra is that you?"
It was Leo, with Piper and Jason following. They looked pretty beat up.
"Oh, hey you guys. You look pretty beat up."
"Yeah... monsters... reforming... eat us," panted Piper, who was carrying Jason for some reason.
Monsters reforming? Shouldn't they be returning to Tartarus? Was this the doing of the summoner guy? She wouldn't be surprised if he had tracked them to be honest.
"So, where are you guys headed?"
"Festus," said Leo proudly. His fingers were a little smouldered as he pointed over to the door.
"The dragon?"
"The dragon."
The smartest decision would be to just go with them. All this teleportation was probably bad for her or something. Besides, who didn't want to ride on a dragon?
Holy Hera the dragon was cool. It swooped through the air like a jet, the night air refreshing. Ahead, the stars were just as clear as she saw in the fake throne room. The constellations were clear in the sky, one looking like a huntress in particular watching her as she swung back and forth on the talons of the bronze dragon.
"Is that safe?" called down Piper, who was busy holding an unconscious Jason by the waist behind Leo. She could barely hear her over the rush of the wind and her own heartbeat, but scrambled back up anyway.
As she sat cross legged behind the three, she rocked back and forth. She may not have the standard demi-god ADHD, but she was still young.
"So, how about you tell me a little more about yourselves?" invited Kassandra. "Because I know nothing about any of you. Pretend we're meeting for the first time."
Piper spoke first. "Well, I'm Piper McLean, a daughter of Aphrodite and 15 years old, nearly 16. I'm of Cherokee descent and my father is Tristan McLean. I'm vegetarian and before coming here I went to Wilderness School."
"Wilderness School?" asked Kassandra.
"Yeah, it's a place for kids who are a little... different to say the least."
"Sounds pretty typical to be honest from what I've seen."
"I'm Leo Valdez," said Leo, "Son of Hephaestus and I'm also 15. I was born in Texas. I know morse code and Spanish, and before I went to the Wilderness school I worked in a machine shop."
"Pretty fitting for a son of Hephaestus," said the daughter of (Y/N).
"Yeah..." trailed off Leo. There was something he wasn't telling her, but she was never one to push too hard for such things.
"What about you?" asked Piper, "If you're joining us we should know more about you too."
"Fire away," she responded, shooting little finger guns.
"Annabeth said you're a special case, what does that mean?"
"CYCLOPS!" yelled a now awake Jason, snapping up from his slumped position.
"Whoa, sleepyhead," said Piper.
"D-Detroit," Jason stammered. "Didn't we crash-land? I thought-"
"It's okay," Leo said. "We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?"
"How did you- the Cyclops-"
"Leo ripped them apart," Piper said. "He was amazing. He can summon fire-"
"It was nothing," Leo said quickly.
Piper laughed. "Shut up, Valdez. I'm going to tell him. Get over it."
And she did—how Leo single-handedly defeated a Cyclopes family; how they freed Jason, then noticed the Cyclopes starting to re-form; how Leo had replaced the dragon's wiring and gotten them back in the air just as they'd started to hear the Cyclopes roaring for vengeance inside the factory and found Kassandra.
Kassandra didn't know whether or not to tell them about the monster guy, but now decided to keep quiet about it. These three needed every win they could get.
But then Piper told them about a kid the Cyclopes claimed to have eaten, one in a purple shirt who spoke Latin. A son of Mercury... The Romans and Greeks were getting dangerously close, and she didn't like it.
"I'm not alone, then," he said. "There are others like me."
"Jason," Piper said, "you were never alone. You've got us."
"I- I know ... but something Hera said. I was having a dream..."
He told them about a vision of Hera, trapped in a cage and something about an exchange to solve millennia worth of hate.
"An exchange?" Piper asked. "What does that mean?"
Jason shook his head. "But Hera's gamble is me. Just by sending me to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way-"
"Or save us," Piper said hopefully. "That bit about the sleeping enemy- that sounds like the lady Leo told us about."
Leo cleared his throat. "About that... she kind of appeared to me back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge."
"Did you say ...Porta-Potty?"
"Yeah. I don't know if she's completely unkillable," he said, "but she cannot be defeated by toilet seats. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, 'Pfft, right, I'm gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.'"
"She's trying to divide you," said Kassandra.
"Well it's a good thing it won't work!" grinned Leo.
Piper slipped her arms around Jason's waist.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
"I just... Why are they toying with us? Who is this lady, and how is she connected to Enceladus?"
"Enceladus?"
"I mean..." Piper's voice wavered. "That's one of the giants. Just one of the names I could remember."
Leo scratched his head. "Well, I dunno about Enchiladas-"
"Enceladus," Piper corrected.
"Whatever. But Old Potty Face mentioned another name.Porpoise Fear, or something?"
"Porphyrion?" Piper asked. "He was the giant king, I think."
"I'm going to take wild guess," he said. "In the old stories, Porphyrion kidnapped Hera. That was the first shot in the war between the giants and the gods."
"I think so," Piper agreed. "But those myths are really garbled and conflicted. It's almost like nobody wanted that story to survive. I just remember there was a war, and the giants were almost impossible to kill."
"Heroes and gods had to work together," Jason said."That's what Hera told me."
"Kind of hard to do," Leo grumbled, "if the gods won't even talk to us."
"Hey!" Kassandra whined, the three turning around to look at her.
"What is it?" asked Leo.
"All this god slander, I'm here helping you guys!"
"You-"
"You mean you're a god?" said Piper, her eyebrows as high as they could go.
"Yeah, that's me!" she grinned with her pearly whites.
"Like... like a god god?" questioned Leo.
Kassandra looked down.
"Well, I'm not ascended, but genetically yes I qualify for being a god. Want to go back to questions?"
"If you're a god, you must be really old," said Leo, "So are you like thousands of years-"
"I'm 7 or 8 months old."
There was silence on the dragon as they all stared at her. She hated being a young god sometimes.
"Next question?"
They talked as they rode west, mostly a session of just asking Kassandra whatever came to their minds. Some were a little odd (Leos questions) but most were pretty standard. But after a while they reached 'that' topic.
"So who's your dad?"
Should she just lie and say
"A man named (Y/N) (L/N)."
"Oh, I heard about him!" said Jason, "He's the one who's missing, isn't he?"
"Yeah, that's him."
"What happened to him? Annabeth told me he was gone and just kinda fazed out of our conversation after that. And when I asked Chiron he excused himself from talking about it."
"It's some sort of secret," said Kassandra, staring off into the clouds, "They won't even tell me. Apparently something happened up on Olympus during the battle of Manhattan that the gods want to be kept a secret."
"So you haven't seen him since..."
"Since I was two weeks old. He and my mother sent me off to train with the hunters of Artemis for a while whilst they waged war on the titans. Then a few weeks later I got sent to camp half-blood and never saw either of them again."
"The who's your mother?"
Big question there. She didn't tell the Greeks because Romans and Greeks were a bad mix, but now that Jason was in the equation were things different? He was a known son of Jupiter, so surely Roman heritage was all good now?
Maybe she'd just tell these three for now. They seemed trustworthy enough.
"My mother is Bellona."
Leo and Piper looked confused, clearly having no idea who she was, but Jason was shocked.
"Your mother is the patron of Rome and goddess of war?"
"Yes, that one."
"How did that even happen? Isn't (Y/N) a god of healing, so wouldn't they be polar opposites?"
Kassandra shook her head. "Look, what I'm going to tell you is secret and you can't tell anyone back at camp, alright?"
There were nods all around.
"Okay. So a year or two ago, my dad ascended to godhood after being a pawn of Olympus for three thousand years. He was granted the titles as god of divine healing, endurance and demi-gods-"
"Demi-gods?" interrupted Leo, "So he can like control us, or he's our king?"
"I don't think so, it's more of like a parental thing where since he was the closest god to the demi-gods themselves as a father figure, it was just a role he inherited. But anyway, he was also given the titles of patron of Camp Half-Blood and patron of Camp Jupiter."
"But shouldn't that be Bellona? How'd that work?" asked Jason.
"That's the thing; it didn't. Bellona hated my father for intruding on what she believed to be her city, so they fought for who would be the true patron. Kind of like Athena and Poseidon's contest for Athens. But their battle was interrupted by the Olympians, specifically Jupiter. Since Bellona was his daughter and (Y/N) an extremely important part of the war and had the favour of just about every demi-god alive, he didn't know how to resolve the conflict."
Something inside of Jason was going off like an alarm. He knew this story, he'd heard it before passed around like a legend in some place he just couldn't put his finger on. He knew a (Y/N) from somewhere else, he could hear his voice in his head. And a daughter of Bellona? Didn't he already know one of those?
"Eventually though, Jupiter came to a conclusion; the two would marry."
Leo spluttered like a faulty machine and Piper put her hands to her face.
"Enemies to lovers!" she awed, before looking down at herself in confusion. Her Aphrodite side.
"Yeah, sort of. Well, apparently my mother initially hated my father for it, despite him also having no say in it. They married nonetheless, and after a few months she actually warmed up to him. I guess it was inescapable. Eventually they had a child, and yours truly came to be."
"So you really are a god," mused Jason.
"Well, that's the thing. Gods born into godhood have a ceremony where proper titles are given and there's a huge party. But the thing is I don't have either of my parents around for the ceremony, which means that I'm a non-ascended god."
They all just stared blankly. It was a little complicated, she couldn't blame them.
"So how does the 50/50 Roman and Greek stuff work? Do you like... hate half of yourself?" asked Valdez.
"No, quite the opposite. The fates were there at the declaration of marriage between my parents, and there was some sort of prophecy about their child. I don't know what it was, but it was something to do with the two pantheons."
"Down there!" interrupted Jason.
As the dragon dove through a break in the clouds, he pointed to something below them. There, glittering in the winter sun, was a city at the edge of a massive lake. A crescent of skyscrapers lined the shore. Behind them, stretching out to the western horizon, was a vast grid of snow-covered neighbourhoods and roads.
"Chicago," Jason said.
This place supposedly had really nice pizza.
"One problem down," Leo said. "We got here alive. Now,how do we find the storm spirits?"
There was a flash of movement below them, small, dark and fast. The thing spiralled toward the skyscrapers, weaving and changing shape- and, just for a moment it became the smoky figure of a horse. Just like the ones at the grand canyon. She was still itching to fight one.
"How about we follow that one," Jason suggested, "and see where it goes?"
The air spirit moved like... well it moved like the wind.
"Speed up!" Jason urged.
"Bro," Leo said, "if I get any closer, he'll spot us. Bronze dragon ain't exactly a stealth plane."
"Slow down!" Piper yelped.
The storm spirit dove into the grid of downtown streets. The dragon tried to follow, but his wingspan was way too wide. His left wing clipped the edge of a building, slicing off a stone gargoyle before Leo pulled up.
"Get above the buildings," Jason suggested. "We'll track him from there."
"You want to drive this thing?" Leo grumbled, but he did what Jason asked.
After a few minutes, they spotted the storm spirit again,zipping through the streets with no apparent purpose- blowing over pedestrians, ruffling flags, making cars swerve.over pedestrians, ruffling flags, making cars swerve.
"Oh great," Piper said. "There're two."
She was right. A second spirit blasted around the corner of the Renaissance Hotel and linked up with the first. They wove together in a chaotic dance, shooting to the top of a skyscraper, bending a radio tower, and diving back down toward the street.
"Those guys do not need any more caffeine," Leo said.
"I guess Chicago's a good place to hang out," Piper said."Nobody's going to question a couple more evil winds."
"More than a couple," Jason said. "Look."
The dragon circled over a wide avenue next to a lake-side park. Storm spirits were converging—at least a dozen of them,whirling around a big public art installation.
"Which one do you think is Dylan?" Leo asked. "I wanna throw something at him."
Kassandra focused on the art installation. The closer they got to it, the more confused she got. It was a public fountain with two five-story monoliths rising from either end of a long granite reflecting pool. The monoliths seemed to be built of video screens, flashing the combined image of a giant face that spewed water into the pool. The image on the screens changed to a woman's face with her eyes closed.
Somehow, she could tell who that was. There was an aura to the image itself.
"Leo..." Jason said nervously.
"I see her," Leo said. "I don't like her, but I see her."
Then the screens went dark. The venti swirled together into a single funnel cloud and skittered across the fountain,kicking up a waterspout almost as high as the monoliths. They got to its centre, popped off a drain cover, and disappeared underground.
"Did they just go down a drain?" Piper asked. "How are we supposed to follow them?"
"Maybe we shouldn't," Leo said. "That fountain thing is giving me seriously bad vibes. And aren't we supposed to,like, beware the earth?"
"Where's the glory in that?" joked Kassandra, mockingly punching Leo in the arm. The son of Jupiter however seemed to actually consider her words.
"Put us down in that park," he suggested. "We'll check it out on foot."
The bronze dragon landed in an open area between the lake and the skyline. The signs said Grant Park, and Kassandra imagined it would've been a nice place in the summer; but now it was afield of ice, snow, and salted walkways.
The dragon's hot metal feet hissed as they touched down. It flapped his wings unhappily and shot fire into the sky, but there was no one around to notice. The wind coming off the lake was bitter cold.Anyone with sense would be inside.
They dismounted, and the dragon stomped his feet. One of his ruby eyes flickered, so it looked like he was blinking.
"Is that normal?" Jason asked.
Leo pulled a rubber mallet from his tool bag. He whacked the dragon's bad eye, and the light went back to normal.
"Yes,"Leo said. "Festus can't hang around here, though, in the middle of the park. They'll arrest him for loitering. Maybe if I had a dog whistle..."
He rummaged in his tool belt, but came up with nothing.
"Too specialised?" he guessed. "Okay, give me a safety whistle. They got that in lots of machine shops." This time, Leo pulled out a big plastic orange whistle."Coach Hedge would be jealous! Okay, Festus, listen." Leo blew the whistle. The shrill sound probably rolled all the way across Lake Michigan. "You hear that, come find me, okay?Until then, you fly wherever you want. Just try not to barbecue any pedestrians."
The dragon snorted- hopefully in agreement. Then he spread his wings and launched into the air.Piper took one step and winced. "Ah!"
"Your ankle?" asked Jason
"What happened to it?" questioned the daughter of (Y/N).
"Nothing terrible, just a little accident back at the warehouse. I had ambrosia, it'll be fine."
"Can I get a look at it? I think I can help."
Piper hobbled over to a park bench and sat down. She hauled her leg up and pulled off her shoe, revealing a relatively swollen ankle. But like she said, nothing too major.
Kneeling down in front of her, Kassandra squinted at the injury to get a better look. She'd had the ability to tell how bad a wound really was, examine it as if she had x-ray vision and give a very very loose diagnosis. All she'd really done is tell if bones were broken, but she had given herself an idea earlier.
Rubbing the palms of her hands together, she poured all her strength and power into the action. She had practised it possibly once or twice. Soon enough though, they glowed golden.
"One of the gifts from my father. I'm no expert, but something little like this I can try."
Leo and Jason exchanged looks.
Placing both palms around the ankle, she took a deep inhale, followed by a long exhale. She prayed she didn't accidentally blow the girl up or something like that.
Energy flowed from Kassandras palms and into the girl, raw energy. Piper took a sharp breath in, but then a soothing wave washed over her like a shower. In that moment, all her problems and insecurities and fears disappeared. Even if it was just for a second, she could'be stayed in that second forever.
It ended when Kassandra withdrew her hands, the golden glow slowly fading away. The ankle wound vanished, now perfectly healthy.
"Hey, that went better than expected!" beamed the daughter of Bellona at the daughter of Aphrodite.
"Wow, so you can do that for any wound?" asked Leo. The cold wind had begun to pick up
"Not many. In all fairness this is the first time I've properly tried to heal instead of just diagnose, but I'm sure I'll get plenty more practice."
"We should probably get out of the wind," suggested Jason.
"Down a drain?" Piper shuddered, standing on both legs with ease now.
The demi-gods wrapped up to face the cold, the goddess walking behind them.