The Pantheon

by Pylon Constructor

5. I Stepped Into a Warzone?

I was only asleep in the car for about two hours, so I didn’t miss a whole lot going on. Wild explained to us that we are the daughters of a greek god, or goddess in Fluttershy’s case, and that a ton of nasty stuff wanted us dead just for that reason. That was why we had to go to this camp place, to learn how to survive and fight the monsters out in the world. Because if we didn’t, we wouldn’t live very long.

It was a rather depressing revelation really.

I had asked Wild if he knew who my father was, getting a look from my mother in the process that I sheepishly looked away from, he said he had his suspicions but it wasn’t his place to say anything. Apparently if he told me he could possibly offend the god and get himself smited. While I was a bit ticked that I still couldn’t get to know anything about my father, I didn’t really want one of my friends blasted to crispy goat chunks because of my curiosity.

The rest of the drive was mostly spent in silence and flooding the car with the radio. The biggest thing of note as we passed through New York on the George Washington bridge was the weird weather that nobody seemed to notice. I could hear and feel the thunder rumbling in the clouds, even through the rock and roll music in the car.

I was not the only one looking up at the sky in curiosity, Wild seemed to be eyeing the thunderous clouds in apprehension as we drove through the city. I didn’t ask about them right away, instead I just kept staring up into the sky. Curiously it didn’t seem to be raining, and the longer I stared up at the rolling mass of black clouds the more it seemed to be growing.

---

The rest of the drive through the city was kinda boring, disregarding the occasional swearing of the road-rage drivers in the heavy traffic. That made me laugh. Soon enough the imposing and tall buildings and skyscrapers made way for various smaller and more familiar types of buildings. Not to mention the occasional farm or stretch of forest. I looked out the window and boredly stared at a small pasture of cows grazing.

“It’s not too far from here Ms Dash,” Wild said, pointing out a spot on a map for my mother to see. I couldn’t help the sigh of relief from escaping my mouth.

My mother chuckled, “I know you’re getting restless dear. Just try to have a little more patience.”

Easy for her to say, she’s being kept busy with driving. I’m been sitting in the back without anything to do. I didn’t want to go back to sleep, the strange dream I had a few hours ago was still ever present in my mind. I looked over to Fluttershy and she seemed to be enjoying herself enough, poor girl never got to travel much so all the new sights were keeping her occupied.

I was distracted from my thoughts about Fluttershy by something colorful flashing in the corner of my eye. I turned my head away from my friend to look back out the window. A long, colorful feather was stuck in the crevice where the window rolls down into.

“Is that a peacock feather?” I couldn’t help but ask.

I thought Wild’s head would do a three sixty with how fast he whipped it around to stare at me. My mother looked at Wild, concern evident on her face, “Should we worry?”

“Oh yeah. Big time,” was his ever hopeful and upbringing reply. “Hurry plea- look out!” Wild stopped himself short in order to bellow out the warning, pointing a finger forward dramatically.

My mother slammed on the brakes without hesitation even as she was starting to look back at the road. The car’s tires screamed in protest as my mother swerved around something that was blocking the road. Even as I slammed into the car door, I caught what was blocking the road.

A freaking cow.

Now, I might not be the scholarly type. And I might just take things as they come and not think too much into them. But even I knew that something was messing heavily with my life and the lives of everyone else in the car with me right now, and that was something big.

Something godly.

I actually paid attention in my greek studies class, it was, ironic now that I think about it, the only class that managed to keep my interest long enough to truly glean information from. So guess which god has peacocks and cows as their thing?

Well, it’s actually a goddess not a god, but if you guessed Hera anyway then congratulations, you’re a winner!

But you might be thinking, ‘But Rainbow! What if this was just a big coincidence! Peacock feathers getting stuck in car windows and cows blocking the road are super common!’. Well I would just like to point out that in the short time I have been introduced to this world of greek mythology, two of its monsters have already tried to kill me, a friend of mine for the past year is half goat, and Fluttershy and I are, apparently, half god. Coincidences might not be as common as I have been led to believe all my life.

And besides, despite not being the scholarly type, and preferring sports to books, I’m not dumb. I know that big witchhunt Hera had against Heracles (and that she really dedicated herself to ruining his life) and anyone else that offended her. That only begs the question of why she would want anyone in this car dead or just have their life generally ruined. Somehow I doubted she would want a random satyr dead, unless he has some secret past he hasn’t told us of yet, so that leaves things between Fluttershy... and me.

It hasn’t even been a full day and everything in this new, magical world wants one or the both of us dead. Forgive me if I don’t quiver in excitement at these turn of events.

Anyway, as much as I wanted it to at the time, the car didn’t actually hit the cow. Instead, we veered off the side of the road, crushing some unfortunate road sign in the process, and skidded a dusty trail into the dirt before coming to a full and violent stop into a ditch. I groaned from my spot in the back seat and pushed myself into a more comfortable position.

“Are you three alright?” my mother asked us.

“Just peachy,” I replied, massaging my neck.

Fluttershy mumbled that she was fine and Wild gave a shaky thumbs up with his free hand, his other hand was grabbing his nose to try and stop his newly acquired bloody nose. My best guess was that he managed to smack himself in the face sometime during our little crash and not-burn.

“Ah’m Fwine,” he nasally replied, muffled slightly by his hand.

“Good,” my mother popped the trunk open with the clutch under her seat. She looked back at Fluttershy and I, “Grab your things and follow Wild you two. Getting to camp is a priority.”

“But what about you?” I asked. A perfectly logical question as we were just part of a godly assassination attempt.

“I’ll be fine. I’m just a mortal, they won’t bother me. Besides, I’m unable to enter the camp anyway. Don’t worry sweetie, you just need to be safe, that’s all that matters to me.” She gave me a motherly smile and I couldn’t help but blush in embarrassment.

I mumbled an ok, despite wanting to argue more, and we all got out of the car, thankfully we didn’t end up on the side but there was no way my mom was going to be able to get the car out of that ditch without help. She said she would call a tow truck to help lift it out so I didn’t worry. Once we had all of our stuff my mother gave me a kiss goodbye, placed the brownies in my hands so that Wild wouldn’t eat them all (much to his protest), and sent us on our way after making sure Wild had his nose plugged up.

I eyed the cow warily as we walked down the road away from the pasture. This time the trip was uneventful as we just walked down a road with trees everywhere you looked. Wild and Fluttershy seemed to enjoy it, I just wanted to finally see civilization. We passed our time eating the brownies in the bag and listening to Wild nasally tell us even more about the camp. It’s beautiful landscape, the forests, the view of Long Island Sound you could get from “The Big House” and all of the many activities and buildings there.

I personally didn’t really believe that they had a huge rock climbing wall that shook and spewed lava from its top, at least not until I see it for myself. But an armory full of tons of wicked weapons and armor sounded pretty cool in my opinion.

“Oh, I hope I can make friends with any of the animals there. Camp sounds so lovely with all the nature,” Fluttershy wistfully said.

Wild grinned, “Oh yeah, they’ll love you Fluttershy.” He leaned in and nudged her arm, “I’ll even put in a good word for you with the chipmunks. One of my best friends is one.”

I didn’t bother asking how he could be friends with a chipmunk, I just want to finally be able to have a break for once. Everything that has happened so far is starting to catch up to me and I’m feeling tired. A nap would be wonderful right about now.

We finally reached a boring hill with some tall grass, the evening sun shining down on it.

“This is it,” Wild said. “Just over this hill is Camp Half-Blood, your new home this summer.” Wild waved his hand in the air dramatically, the sun shining over his head in a way that might've made him look cool but the bloody nose plugged up with napkins ruined the image.

“Finally, let’s go!” I admit I was a bit enthused to finally be able to see the camp Wild has been raving on for the past hour.

We jogged up the incline of the hill. As we reached the apex of our climb I couldn’t help but notice the plume of smoke slowly getting bigger the closer we got. The three of us exchanged worried glances at each other and we sped up our jog until we were all but sprinting. The last bit of climb disappeared and we took in the state of the camp Wild has been going on about.

“Oh no…” Wild whispered, a haunted, horror filled look slowly inching its way across his face. Fluttershy didn’t look too good herself, I was just staring at the scene before us dumbstruck.

Oh no is right. One of the buildings, a cabin if the group of odd buildings surrounding the new makeshift bonfire Wild told us about was correct, was caught on fire. Many kids were running around trying to put it out. I couldn’t say what the burning cabin looked like, we were too far and it was covered in heavy flames and smoke, but I could hear the yelling and screams of campers down in the cabin area. If my eyes could be trusted, two groups in particular looked to be heavily armed and were the cause of most of the shouting.

“It’s already escalated this quickly? But Chiron said that…” Wild cut himself off, unable to continue speaking.

I stopped looking at the arguing campers and the burning building to stare at Wild and ask, “What Wild? What’s going on? What’s escalated?!”

Wild’s haunted look turned towards Fluttershy and I and said, “I don’t know the full details myself so don't take my word for it, but it seems Ares and Athena are having another one of their arguments up in Olympus again. It's become extremely heated so far and it looks like their fight has spilled towards their children...”

I looked back to the camp as I heard battle cries, it looked like war was about to happen down there any second. It seemed the situation was getting even hotter than the burning building.

Author's Note:

Ah, this'll be fun.

Comments

[SeventhBrony]

And I just put on the lastest Kung Fu Pnda movie to! Oh well, back to reading

[Pylon Constructor]

7374906 Lol

[SeventhBrony]

7374946 Hey, I haven't had the time to watch it yet!

[Pylon Constructor]

7374969 The third one right? I haven't seen it either, I should get around to it too. I love those movies.

[Dinokid11]

Good chapter can't wait for more

[SeventhBrony]

7374975 Had the blasted thing since it came out and this is the first time I've had the time.
Oh well, and four words for you
Baby Pandas
Stripey baby

[Pylon Constructor]

7375049 I'll have to watch it tonight then

[Bazing]

We need a scene next chapter of Zeus telling the two the shut the fuck up lmao. Discipline his two children.

[Pylon Constructor]

7376661 Haha, that'd be funny

[Bazing]

7376711 Do it, just at the start have him yell "Shut the fuck up!" as the two are arguing or something.

[Pylon Constructor]

7376902 It'd be funny, but this part of the story is suppose to be in Rainbow's perspective. It'd be a pretty jarring shift. Maybe I could add something similar as a demigod dream sometime, but no promises.

[Bazing]

7377669 Aww okay