The Ambassador of Athena

“Goooooodmorning Argo II!!”
The wakeup call was definitely unexpected. In my case so unexpected I fell out of the bed and hit my head. Ten minutes later everyone was on deck, ready to fight twenty centaurs, two gorgons and a really creepy man in a suit. A table was moving around between us, mugs with hot chocolate and coffee together with toasts and jam on a plate on top of it.
“So, where is our exact destination? – Thanks, Bufford.” Leo asked and took a bite off his toast.
“Since the Argo has pretty good wireless internet and my phone miraculously survived the whole journey I could look up some things.”I said and grabbed a mug of hot chocolate. “Our destination is the Halemaumau crater, a pit with a lava lake on the bottom of it, and also one of the most active spots on Hawaii.”
Jason still looked concerned. “How are we gonna fight them? I mean, we can’t just walk up to them and fight them one on one?”
I pointed with my toast at him.
“Good idea, but that wouldn’t work. I thought about an ambush. I spoke to Chiron yesterday evening, and he pointed out that they don’t know about the Argo II. All we have to do is go off board out of sight from the crate, climb up, and at the right moment we will attack, while the Argo is giving us covering fire. All we have to do is send enough of those centaurs back to Tartarus and the Gorgons right after them while they are overwhelmed. We just have to be quick and hope for the best.”
Percy nodded slowly. “This idea is so crazy it could work. But what about Jessy?”
Everyone’s eyes turned to him. He looked confused, but how he looked made clear what Percy meant. He was pale, his eyes were bloodshot and he was limping, short, without the ambrosia and the nectar he wouldn’t be standing, if even awake.
“He should stay aboard the ship.” I agreed.
“What? Why? I am totally fine!” Jessy said loud and wanted to pull his sword, but it fell out of his weak hands.
“That settles this argument.” Leo said plainly. “But who joins them? There have to be three on a quest, and that tuxedo guy will expect three.”
I stayed silent, since I’ve decided not to tell them about my dreams from the night.
“What about you Percy?” Rachel suggested. He just shook his head.
“I will be no good up at a mountain made of fire, son of the sea god, good with water…”
Leo sighed. “Looks like a job for the hot stuff over here.” He said and finished his coffee. I almost choked on my toast. Percy laughed and patted my back.
“Leo is good with fire.” He said to me.
“I’m fine with the ‘Hot Stuff’” I said breathless. Johanna nodded.
“I’m ok with him too.”
She still looked beaten up an exhausted, and she seemed to avoid my view, but I handled that with the mantra I used to keep myself together for the last few years: I got other problems at the moment.
Leo returned to the helm and looked at the navigation device. “We’ll arrive at the Volcano in 20 minutes. It is smoking pretty strong today, and the wind comes from South-West, so we will come in from North-East. Let’s ready the ballistae and suit up.”

They set us down on the side of the crate, each one of us dressed in Greek battle armour with helmets, breastplates and shields. Johanna changed her weapon to a spear, I kept to my bow and the sword and Leo had a hammer. I thought that was pretty stereotypical, but he just said it was the only weapon he didn’t hit himself with. It was a 20 minute walk through sulphur steam, burning lava streams and terrible heat. Leo walked first since I nearly stepped on a lava rock still hot enough to burn straight through the soles of my sneakers; he had kind of a sense for the volcano and could tell us exactly where we could walk.
“The volcano is disturbed, it will erupt soon.” He mumbled constantly while we walked up the hill. We crawled the last few meters up to the edge so they would not spot us immediately. We peeked over the edge, and what we saw wasn’t good at all. The statue still rested on the platform with wheels on it, surrounded by centaurs with ropes connected to her body. The rest of the Centaurs stood around the pit and watched the progress of their comrades. Mr. Tuxedo stood between the statue and the pit, a space that got narrower and narrower every second.
“You give the signal for charge.” Leo whispered. I took a last deep breath and started to count:
“On three: One, two, …”
“Three trespassers, how nice.” A voice snarled behind us. Leo and Johanna whirled around, but I just let my head fall in the ash of the volcano.
Of course, the Gorgons, I forgot about the gorgons. Now these two little details tied our hands together and pushed us down to the pit. The tuxedo guy looked not amused when he saw us.
“I have to admit, Stheno, you were right.” He said and walked towards us. “Somehow they managed to escape the fox. But anyway, now they have to stay and watch.” He gave the pulling centaurs a sign and the platform got another few centimetres closer to the edge.
“Now I finally get my revenge to Zeus, for punishing me so terrible.”
Leo snorted. “Yeah, whatever, but who are you?”
The man looked at him strangely. “Why should I tell you, you will be dead in 20 minutes?”
He hissed but I didn’t listen. I went through every Greek story I knew, looking for the name of this guy. There were enough hints, all I had to do is put the picture together. When a name popped up in my head I shivered, but there was no doubt about it.
“I know who you are.” I whispered. He glared at me and smirked.
“So tell us, who am I?” I took a deep breath.
“You are Ixion, king of the Lapites; son of Phlegyas, the evil-doer.” The face of Ixion slipped, but I wasn’t finished yet.
“You are the father of Peirithoos, friend of Theseus; you killed your father-in-law and have been punished by the gods for that crime; Zeus forgave you, but you repaid that favour by persuading his wife Hera. But instead of hugging the goddess you hugged a cloud, and the offspring of this encounter were the Centaurs.”
Ixion stared at me in terror. Everyone was silent, even the centaurs were staring at me.
Then Leo started to laugh. “What? You did the nasty with a cloud? Hanky-panky with vapour?”
Johanna next to me grinned too, and when I saw Ixions face I had to laugh too. I’ve never seen such a serious-looking guy with the expression of pure terror and fear in his face. He looked like a tomato in a suit that was told it will be ketchup in an hour.
“Silence!” he screamed. “I am sure you also know about my punishment in Erebos?” he whispered. I gulped.
“You were strapped on a burning wheel that spun around eternally. Forever, no chance of release.”
“You are a witty one.” Ixion said and took a step back. “But my patron Gaia released me during the giant war, but she held me back as a backup plan in case these foolish demigods with their little ship would succeed in beating her. They succeeded by mere luck…”
Now it was Leo’s turn to become a human tomato, but he turned into vegetables out of anger.
“Foolish demigods? Little ship? Mere luck? I’ll show you mere luck!” He closed his eyes, and the next moment columns of lava shooting out of the ground fried the centaurs pulling the statue.
“Throw them in the pit!” Ixion screamed.
The centaurs holding us started to pull us over to the lava lake, even though we resisted the best we could.
“Leo!” I screamed. “Do that kaboom-thing again?”
“The what?
“The lava columns!”
“Oh, that!”
The next moment I stood between two columns of hot molten rock, singing my hair and making my skin burn.
The centaurs next to us turned towards us, but they were impaled by bronze arrows before they reached us.
“Nice shot Percy!” Leo screamed up to the ship.
Then Tartarus broke loose.
Jason flew down to us, carrying Percy with him, and the 5 of us even stood a chance against the Centaurs. We quickly got separated, each one of us fighting off two or three centaurs at once. I found myself back to back with Percy who grinned broadly while fighting off a horned.
“You’re doing good for a beginner.” He said and deflected the club stroke aimed for his head.
“Thanks, I am a quick learner under pressure.” I answered and ducked. The slash aimed for my neck missed me by a few centimetres, giving the plume on my head a new stylish haircut.
“Good, but we have to work on your defence.” Percy replied while stabbing the centaur in one of his legs.
“Oh, shut up, salted herring.”
“This was a bad one.”
“Sorry, but I am little bit… Duck!”
The club missed us both and brought the centaur out of balance which allowed him Percy finished him with a simple slash. My own centaur made more problems, but he stood no chance against the two of us. But we didn’t do well at all. Even though Leo shot fireballs and his hammer was on fire and Jason’s gladius was sparking with electricity we could barely fight the centaurs off. We all met again in the middle, back to back, deflecting the attacks. Percy was attacked by both Gorgons at a time which made it even harder for us to stand our grounds. And then Jason was hit in the shoulder by a spear. We only slashed four centaurs at that time, but without Jason we could only last for seconds.
I really started to question logic and what the fates were thinking when a new party joined the fight.
“Go get them!” a voice called from the ridge. On the edge of the caldera more centaurs have appeared, but these looked different. They wore baseball caps, shirts with slogans like “you got a nice hoofy” or “whinny if you love my looks” and were armed with foam baseball bats, paintball guns and hay forks. A tall one with a beer hat carried a pole with a flag that read: “Party Ponies Section Hawaii”
“Sweet!” Jason groaned and pulled the spear out of his shoulder. “They would never miss a chance to party.”
Ixions centaurs were caught off guard. The party ponies really knew how to bust a party. Within half a minute they blasted the remaining centaurs to dust while we took care of the gorgons. We just got rid of Stheno who died with a scream straight from Tartarus when Ixion yelled:
“Stop or she dies!”
Everyone turned around and, and what I saw was the worst thing I’ve ever seen, even up to now. You will understand later.
Ixion stood at the edge of the pit; his suit torn and covered with burnt holes, his hair messy, his eyes had a crazy gleam. But that wasn’t the worst thing: the bronze knife in his hand was pressed against Johanna’s throat. I have no idea how he got hold of her, but I didn’t care at that moment. I dropped my sword and activated my bow. Ixion turned towards me, his eyes like a maniacs’.
“Don’t you even dare to get an arrow out of your quiver.” He yelled and laughed hysterically.
“Now, If you would be so kind and push that statue over?”
No one moved. He narrowed his eyes.
“Move! Or…” He tightened his grip around the knife. I slowly walked over to the statue, gripping one of the ropes attached to it. I gestured the centaurs to help me, and when they picked up the other ropes I had a plan figured out.
“I will push” I said and walked behind the statue. “Leo, come over here and help me.”
When we were both out of sight of Ixion I whispered to Leo:
“When I count to three, can you make the lava pit erupt, or something big that distracts him?”
Leo nodded and pushed his shoulder against the statue. I took an arrow out of the quiver, one with a pointy bronze tip, and pulled back the string.
The statue was now right at the edge, only one push away from being destroyed.
“One”
The centaurs tightened the rope again.
“Two”
Ixion grinned, the knife loose in his hand.
“Three”
I jumped out from behind the statue and aimed straight for Ixions head. Thankfully he was bigger than Johanna, but still, it was a million-to-one chance to hit him. I once heard that 9 out of 10 shots that had a million-to-one chance hit, but I wasn’t sure about that.
Then the lava pit behind him exploded. Lava was flying straight up, making everyone retreat a few steps, but not Ixion, he just looked up.
“Say cheese, Ixion!” I yelled and let the arrow fly.
He could only turn towards me before the arrow hit him right in the forehead with a quiet ‘thump’.
Ixion screamed as if he was on his wheel again, which he probably would in a few minutes. His knife hit the dust and Johanna broke free.
But the fates were playing a tricky game. Ixion fell backwards, but he could get a hold of Johannas wrist and pulled her with him down in the bubbling lava lake at the bottom of the pit.

In a crappy movie I would have yelled “Nooooo”, or dived after her, but I just stood there in terror seeing the person I once loved and learned to love again, I actually never stopped loving her.
And now she was gone.

Notes

I hope you like it, its a long one, but I couldn't split it.
Tell me what you think, and stay tuned ;)