Roman Chronicles: Book 2, Gatherings: Chapter 1: Oh, Gods.

All the gods and goddesses were crowding in the throne room, fitting onto their seats. It was the one day Hades was allowed there. He sat on a stone chair in the corner. Zeus was stroking his thunder cloud-grey beard, thinking, and avoiding the murderous gaze of Hades. Poseidon did the same, except he was staring into Hades' eyes. Hades had a black Stygian spear clenched in his hand. His other hand was a tight fist. Hera was passing stony gazes to everyone. Hermes texted on his phone, quietly, while Hephaestus twirled an oily gear in his hand. Ares was sharpening his sword. Aphrodite was staring at her reflection, applying a glob of blood-red lipstick. Dionysus sat quietly, waiting for people to start talking. Artemis sat upright, two hounds by her sides, and one on her lap. Apollo was polishing his ray-bans. Hestia was breathing, making the hearth's fire larger and smaller. Demeter was simply staring at everyone. Athena was looking at an unrolled scroll. Artemis then spoke up. "Father, uncles, and my siblings. We came here to discuss that.... Roman. A could-have-been Hunter, and the daughter of my paternal great-grandfather. I say she is a threat. Who says to eliminate her?" All hands were raised except two. Hades spoke up. "I say no. She is a help. I say we must eliminate this 'Ian'. And she is a very close ally with my son, Nico. I will not stand for any death except the son of Gaea." Athena stood up. "I need her. She has a vital part in the determination of my daughter's life. You all heard the prophecy! Why stop now? We must help her!" Zeus sighed. "I guess we can postpone her elimination. But she is the hero, unless the small chance we are wrong."
A laughter erupted from the ceiling, though the gods and goddesses could not hear the person's laugh and words. "Everything is going to plan. I, Coeus, will soon be the supreme titan!" His maniacal laughter erupted into the heavens. But still, the gods were unaware of his presence. Thought nobody knew it, the war had just started. But the question was, who could he possess?

I walked around. The Underworld was nothing like I had seen it before. I saw gobs of fire everywhere, stakes, and bones. What about the Isles of Blest? Nico looked up. "Oh, holy Zeus. We're in the Punishment." He took out his sword and held it in front of his face. I reached for my sword in the scabbard, but it wasn't there. Nico laughed. "It's right here." He pulled it from behind him and threw it to me. I caught it by the blade. "Dude! Seriously! No throwing it to me by sword point, okay? It's a good thing I'm a shot in baseball catching." Nico and Jamie looked at me. They both spoke in unison. "What's a baseball catching?" I did a face-palm. "Baseball's a sport... a mortal thing." They nodded. Jamie was searching her bag frantically. I looked at her strangely. "What? Are you missing something?" She nodded and said, "Yeah! I could've sworn on the Styx I packed it... ah! Here." She pulled a tiny thing of lipstick out. Nico gawked. "You were looking for lipstick? For serious, we're in the punishment, you ungodly Aphrodite kid!" Then a monster came from behind Jamie. Me and Nico were too far to get it, so I threw Harpe at the monster. I missed. Nico was searching his black mock-leather bag he'd brought. He shrugged. "Not in here." He threw his sword too. He also missed. Jamie turned around and looked up at the monster. She reached for her lipstick casually and took off the cap. But, instead of lipstick... it was a sword. A beautiful, straight silver sword that gleamed like the summer sun. The hilt was completely white, and had dove-shaped diamonds on the edge of each cross-guard. [Author's Note: I say sword anatomy stuff a LOT, so just look up anatomy of the sword and look at the pictures to see what i'm talking about. I think it'll work. Now, back to the story.] She slashed the Atherial Chrome [Author's Note: I'm such a genius!!! The second godly metal I've come up with. I love myself.] across the monster and it exploded into poo-brown dust. My jaw dropped to the fire-inflamed floor. Jamie took out a comb and started on her hair. She brushed for an extremely long time. Then she tied her hair up into a braid. She looked in the mirror, applied a few several coats of blood-red lipstick, put on blush, three rounds of black mascara, some purple eyeliner, a clear coat of lip gloss, and another coat of lipstick. She took a look in the mirror again, then rearranged her necklace. She sighed a fell back on the floor. "Seriously. I can't believe this is happening to me of all people. Oooohhh, I hope I can beat Piper when I come back... I hate her as a counselor. She's always with that rude Zeus boy who despises me just because i'm old wood-mouth's sister. Ugh, the judgementalness." She put the golden lipstick cap back on and I saw it was carved with a small, neat dove and heart-- the symbol of Aphrodite. The sword turned back into lipstick and she put it back in her bag. Nico sat back onto a black rock. He held his stomach. "I'm so hungry. Roman, you bring any food? You are my uh... second aunt...? Okay, that's just creepy... I'm older yet you're my aunt... wow I can't--" I kicked Nico. "Be quiet! No, I don't have food. I'm hungry too, uh... second.... Oh... that IS pretty weird..." Jamie perked up. She rummaged in her bag and brought out a six pack of coke and two family-size bags of cool ranch Doritos. Me and Nico dived in.

A half-hour later, Nico was eating the last chip from the first bag, and I was finishing my second coke. I now had three very, very, very, very, VERY interesting questions to ask about Nico.

• Who knew a Hades kid could gorge that much??? 
• Even in the fields of Punishment?
• Isn't Nico the one who is usually fasting?

Just asking. They were pretty good questions. So I asked Nico. Instead of staring, he just shrugged. "First- That is extremely stereotype, but I guess I'm hungry. Second- well, my dad does own this. Third- Hey! That was just when I was trapped in the jar, and on the uh........ what was that Titanic-of-a-thing called? Agum? Aesop? Argentina? Oh, yeah. The Argo... II or III? I think it's II." I nodded. Quite logical answers. Jamie was redoing her lipstick, IMxing, (I guess you could call it that. She was kind of doing a cross between IMing and texting.) She held a piece of rectangular glass, the exact size of a iPhone. It had a rainbow shining on the sides, and instead of a place, it showed Greek letters. I was pretty sure she was typing 'Totally, girl. But L8ter. On the quest right now.' I asked her, "Um. What are you doing?" She barely looked up. "IMxing. She touched Psi and Alpha. 'Ya'. She put it in a white case and tucked it in one of her back pockets. Then something fell out of her pocket. As she and Nico walked forward, I picked it up. It was a picture of three girls, one was Jamie, and two boys. The girl on the right of Jamie had medium-length black hair in a tiny ponytail, and Asian skin. She was wearing a long-sleeve black and white striped T-shirt and black shorts. She had small black ballet flats. The girl on the left of Jamie had no smile, incredibly long brown hair, (it looked like) seventy billion coats of red lipstick, a long sleeve black shirt and long black jeans. She was barefoot. The first boy looked evil. He had midnight-black hair and orange-gold eyes. He wore a dark grey shirt that had a skull on it. His black jeans' pockets were embroided with red flames. He had gold bangles running from his wrist to his elbow on his right arm. The second boy looked really layed back, with brown hair, brown eyes, tan skin, and beach clothes. I ran to Jamie and asked her about it. She glared at me and said, "That's Blaise Acheron, child of Nyx. She went... M.I.A. on her first quest." She pointed to the gloomy brunette. Then she pointed to the grin-y Asian girl. "That's Mae Lin. She's a daughter of Hecate that was five zillion times happier than her mom." Then she pointed to the boy. "That... is.... Jacob.... Jacob Ahrimanes. He's the son of Chaos. He wasn't that much of a friend, actually... more like a torture device that followed you around..." She took it back and put it in her bag. We walked... and walked... a walked...

Then I saw something. I sand-colored and green backpack. I went over to it and zipped it open. It had a thermos of nectar... this belonged to a demigod... a squeaky bone... uh, not going to ask... and... and... a glass tin of hollow Hydra teeth, with a bag of cookies and brownies. This was Ian's. I yelled to Jamie and Nico, "Guys! I found Ian's thingamabobs!" Nico and Jamie came over. Nico rummaged in his pocket for something, then slumped over. "Darn it." Jamie went into her bag, and found a hot-pink pouch of drachmas, and a giant glass screen the size of two of my faces. Nico and I's jaws dropped. Then Nico sighed. "We don't have any--" He was cut off. Jamie pulled an automatic spritzer out. She turned it on and it started squirting water. She set up the glass in the right way, then looked in her bag again. She took out a gigantic flashlight, and positioned it perfectly. She pushed the on button, and I nearly fainted. Against the white rock (We escaped the punishment) she had aimed it at, there was a beautiful rainbow that was perfectly round. It was a literal circle, with the middle filled in. She took a drachma, (Which was freshly polished), and threw it. It pressed against the middle of the rainbow circle, then sunk into the rock. Nico put his hands prayer-style and said, "Roman, Jamie, I'm best with the Iris messages. Especially in the Underworld." Jamie shrugged. "I'm not gonna argue." I shrugged too. "Me neither."  He knelt and said, "O, Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, show me Ian Zain Mackenroth." I didn't ask how in the world he knew Ian's name. I just hoped it'd work in the Underworld. The rainbow flickered for a second... then it showed Ian. He was somewhere really dark, red, hot, and deathly. Even from here, I could feel vibrating pain. He was lying on the ground, passed out. Then it flickered off. Jamie squealed. "What?! That wasn't the slightest bit close to five minutes!" I put my hand on her shoulder. "I know. I think I know where he is... somewhere dark..." Jamie continued. "Evil..." Nico said the next word. "Muggy and Humid..." We all spoke in unison this time. "He's in Tartarus."