The Rise of Erebos: The Chained Goddess

ALEXANDER

I cowered away in sudden acceptance.

This was it. We were going to get burned alive and buried in the weird cave where no one would ever find us.

Just as I expected to get hit by something or get yelled at, I heard Kai say something all heroic or something, dash at Hephaestus, and get hurled to the wall, a groan of pain subsequently following. I turned around, and low and behold, Kai was slumped against the west wall of the room and Hephaestus stood still, unphased by whatever Kai had attempted.

"Calm down, lad. I'm not here to hurt you or your friends."

Kai stood up. "Yeah, right. Didn't you just see what your robots tried doing to us?"

"Sorry about that. They don't like it when people rifle through my stuff," Hepahestus said, scowling at Kai.

Kai's eyes turned red with fire. I don't know what it was but suddenly, the temperature in the room got way warmer, as if someone had cranked the AC to its fullest heat.

"Kai, stop!" Amethyst exclaimed.

Kai's eyes gradually returned to normal as the tension dipped ever so slightly, though he still looked as equally as annoyed as he did before. With Hephaestus, well, he always looked angry so it was really hard to tell. Man could be smiling and no one would know about it, going with the general assumption he was peeved after a long day of work, a guy flipping him off, and spilling his precious cup of joe all over his pants.

Maybe I was going a little in depth about the scenario, but you get the picture.

Hephaestus walked over to the table and put his arms down. "As you can probably guess, I came here 'cause I got an alert that someone had broken into my forge. When I realized it was you guys, I remembered that I had a proposal for you."

I scrunched my face up in disgust. "Ew, I don't want to marry you! Aren't we technically related?"

"That didn't stop Hades and Persephone or Zeus and Hera or - the list goes on," Rose said.

She was right. Gods were a different level of weird.

"Not that type of proposal. I mean that I need a favor."

Kai snorted. "Like we'd do anything for you."

"This is serious, boy," Hephaestus said.

"Fine then, what's your favor?" Geneva asked."

Hephaestus turned around. "Well, recently I noticed that my materials and machines have been going missing. I believe that my son, Caucus, has been stealing from me, so I need you guys to locate him and bring the materials back."

"In return for what?" Rose asked.

"I can help repair your ship and give you some information for your quest," he bargained.

Amethyst frowned. "That sounds great, but why can't you just do this whole Caucus thing yourself?"

Hephaestus scowled. "Because I don't have time to try and locate my treacherous son. I need help setting up the summer solstice, and searching for my son would be a waste of time."

"Well, thanks for dumping your problems on us. Classic Olympian move," Kai responded.

Hephaestus glared at him. "Shut up, kid. Are you doing this or not?"

Kai rubbed his chin. "Well, I'm still deciding whether or not I should help some grumpy, ugly, Tower of Piza-looking gremlin-"

Amethyst kicked Kai in the back of the leg to shut him up. "We'll do it. Do you know where your son might be located?"