The Runner

Step two: find and defeat Aeolus.

As we left the ground inside our bubbles of rising air, my mind was in a whirl of thoughts. The most prominent being a swear word. The second most outstanding being hopes. Hopes that we wouldn't fall out of the sky. Hopes that we could reason with the for-some-unknown-reason furious wind god. Hopes.

"There!" Jasmine shouted, pointing towards and especially churning space of air and debris. "He's in the eye of the storm!"

We maneuvered our bubbles with a struggle through the whipping tornado and into a surprising circle of calm. He stood in the middle of it, his suit painted with a storm that echoed the one around us and wind spiraling from his fingertips and into the wall of tornado around us.

"Aeolus!" Chris shouted over the fierce roar of speeding air.

The stream of wind broke off and he looked at us in surprise. "What?"

"Can you maybe stop destroying our home?" Alyssa asked, "Please?"

He sighed, "But it's so much fun!"

"Why would you even want to destroy our camp?" Jasmine asked.

"Because demigods annoy me." He said. "They're always so needy and pathetic."

"Don't you have any demigod children of your own?" I asked.

He frowned in disapproval, "No! I'm far too busy for that!"

"And yet you have time to come and destroy our camp?" I asked in confusion.

His frown deepened, as if that had only just occurred to him. "Hold on a second. Lissie!" He yelled.

A beautiful women in a flowing white dress stepped out from the tornado with a clipboard in hand. "Yes?"

"Do I have anything else that I'm meant to be doing today?" He asked.

"Yes, sir. You've missed all of your weather updates and an audience with Zeus." She said curtly.

"And you didn't think to tell me this before I set out on a rampage?" He asked. I noticed that the winds around us had calmed.

"No sir." She replied, "I thought you wouldn't appreciate my intervention."

"YOU'RE FIRED!" He roared, and there was a sudden rush of howling gale strong enough to pop all our bubbles before the air turned still.

The last thing I saw as I fell was a clear blue sky.

Notes