𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚕𝚢 || 𝙿𝚒𝚙𝚎𝚛 𝙼𝚌𝙻𝚎𝚊𝚗

𝕋𝕛𝕦𝕖 𝕥𝕠

Chapter twenty two

(Music teachers can be "pick me" idiots who always play the victim)

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"I don't understand," Piper said. "If demigods and gods have to work together to kill the giants, why would the gods stay silent? If they need us -"

"Ha," said Coach Hedge. "The gods hate needing humans. They like to be needed by humans, but not the other way around. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before Zeus admits he made a mistake closing Olympus."

"Coach," Pretty girl said, "that was almost an intelligent comment."

Hedge huffed. "What? I'm intelligent! I'm not surprised you cupcakes haven't heard of the Giant War. The gods don't like to talk about it. Bad PR to admit you needed mortals to help beat an enemy. That's just embarrassing."

"Getting help from others is showing weakness," Thea mumbled, but everyone heard. "I meant among the gods, of course," she clarified. Most of them accepted the answer, but she could see Piper's concerned gaze from the side of ehr vision.

"There's more, though," Blondie said. "When I dreamed about Hera in her cage, she said Zeus was acting unusually paranoid. And Hera - she said she went to those ruins because a voice had been speaking in her head. What if someone's influencing the gods, like Medea influenced us?"

"Bet you ten bucks it's Khione," Thea said.

"Oh no, she was a weaker one, right? I bet you ten bucks it isn't."

"Leo, Thea, don't you have more important matters than betting on the end of the world?" Jason interrupted.

"Later," The shrugged before getting up slightly to shake Leo's hand. "It's on, hammer boy."

"Be ready to lose, Theadora."

"You know... I'm starting to get concerned for your wellbeing," Jason interrupted, and they all went into silence after that. Thea just ever so slightly shifted Piper in her arms so as to not annoy the sword cut she still hadn't properly healed. Or tried to do anything at all.

"Back to the theme, no bets involved," Ally spoke up. "The gods might be manipulated? Aren't they above all else?"

Leo set hamburger buns on the skillet to toast. "Yeah, Hephaestus said something similar, like Zeus was acting weirder than usual. But what bothered me was the stuff my dad didn't say. Like a couple of times he was talking about the demigods, and how he had so many kids and all. I don't know. He acted like getting the greatest demigods together was going to be almost impossible - like Hera was trying, but it was a really stupid thing to do, and there was some secret Hephaestus wasn't supposed to tell me."

"The gods have many secrets," Thea said. "It would be no surprise if Jason was a part of it- without him remembering, of course."

"Chiron was the same way back at camp," Jason said. "He mentioned a sacred oath not to discuss - something. Coach, you know anything about that?"