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Waverley didn't at all mind third-wheeling with Marco and Emily; she was a hopeless romantic, just as many artists are, and the two of them shared one of the purest loves she'd ever encountered. She liked to think that even simply being around the pair, she'd somehow absorb some scrap of their adorably sappy vibes like some sort of love sponge, which might later fuel her musical creativity. The cheery smile that had rested contently on her lips on their way to the Augery, however, faded as they stepped inside, immediately greeted by a floor filled with the remains of stuffed animals who looked as though they'd been torn asunder by an angry deity as a punishment for their hubris. She didn't even see the painting at first, instead still horrified by the intestines of stuffing that littered the ground.

"By God is right..." Waverley agreed as she kneeled to the ground, picking up a bit of stuffing and feeling it between her fingers like some stuffed animal homicide detective. The girl had a bad habit of anthropomorphizing things, and it definitely didn't help that stuffed animals were made to be anthropomorphized. She couldn't help but try to patch up some of them. Plus, she told herself, it would be good practice. So, while Em studied the painting and Marco went to wake up Alexandra, Waverley began to softly sing under her breath.



Waverley was more surprised by the fact that she still knew even a snippet of the Care Bears Countdown than she was by the fact that it didn't work right away. She pouted for a moment, before repeating the countdown. Her second try was much more successful, and she watched with a grin as the bit of stuffing she held wiggled out of her fingers, finding its way back to the stuffed animal it had been torn out of. By the time they were done repairing themselves, a good half of them were in pristine condition. Waverley got back to her feet, and only then did she see the painting the sleeping psychic had painted. "Oof, that's...that's grim," she commented, before pulling out her phone and taking a quick photo of it, just in case they needed to take a look at it later.

Arthur Stanford

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Location:Argo III: Upperdeck
Skills: N/A

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Arthur exhaled knowing he'd have to be on watch soon. Hopefully that would be a lot more relaxed than what they just went through, he didn't want things to constantly be on fire all the time. There were two ways he could have taken to this whole demigod business, either swinging or flailing, and ever since he was knocked down, it felt like he was flailing horribly and he had no idea how to stop. Looking out over the edge of the Argo III, he rested his hands on the rail, trying to relax and center his mind on the horizon, putting himself anywhere but here. He didn't think he was going to run away, but with each passing moment, it felt like that was what he wanted to do.

Turning back to look at the people around him, he at least found comfort in the knowledge that they weren't horrible people. It seemed like they just took to all this so much better than he did, somehow able to weather the storm of misery and strike that battered them constantly. It was like a Stockholm syndrome, maybe, when you're a demigod long enough, you stop seeing all the bad things, and only pay attention to the good ones. That made sense to him, but he didn't know if he wanted to break like that. He wanted to be happy not in spite of bad circumstances, but in absence of them.

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Rebecca nodded, smiling and looked quite pleased as Mary showed interest in the various eras of her undead soldiers. "Thank you, I find it quite fascinating myself. Even as we believe we are becoming more advanced as a society, time is an illusion. The warrior of today is just as effective, perhaps even less so, than the one of yesterday," she said cryptically. The soldiers who fell in battle and served for the losing side of each war were indebted to Ares, so Rebecca's pool largely came from the victors of war. They were under Hades' dominion of course, but given that her mother was the Goddess of Ghosts, she could 'borrow' those soldiers from time to time. It helped that Hecate was so close with Demeter and Persephone as well.

"I suppose it's about my turn to take watch, then. I'm hoping the skies will be clear, it would be nice to gaze up at the heavens some, perhaps see if I can divine some information about our journey... At the very least, I could purify some water with moonlight and starlight, there are so many beneficial properties to water prepared under a celestial body's influence that it's such an invaluable and key resource. I wonder if you might find the same should you sprout different plants at the witching hour?" Rebecca suggested. Her stomach grumbled and she quickly went down to the crew deck, fetching herself a plate and a goblet - pad see ew and apple cider. It was an odd combination but she adored it and her preference, absinthe, sadly wouldn't have been possible.

She took her plate and goblet, along with a pair of chopsticks, and retreated back up to the upper deck and got ready for watch duty. She sat down, balancing the plate on her knees and the goblet was off to the side. "What is everyone's star sign?" she asked. "I was born under Taurus, the bull."

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Leda grinned, realizing that the shift schedule meant that she could spend more time with Kiera. She happily went down to the crew deck and grabbed herself a plate and a cup, sitting down next to the ginger. "Oi Mary, come join us!" Leda invited. Her cup filled itself with her favorite drink - grape Koolaid + Sprite. It was like a grape fanta but even better. Fish and chips appeared then on her plate, one of her favorite meals from back home, something that she really missed. No one in America could make them properly. She picked up one of the chips and bit into it, enjoying the soft texture of the potato.

"If you call these fries, I'll have to throw you overboard," Leia warned Kiera, as she bit into another chip. "It would be considered a hate crime against my people." She smirked a bit, before tearing into one of the bits of fried fish and enjoying how delicious it tasted. She was convinced that the plate had to have come from a local place in Bristol or something, it was that heavenly. They had a while until it would be their turn to take watch and Leda knew that practically, they'd probably want to get some shut eye beforehand.

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When they got to the Senate House and Madalyne pulled the bell to signal a meeting, Nancy stretched her arms out. "How much do you want to bet this meeting will somehow take an entire hour?" she asked Madalyne and Niah. If she could drastically reduce the number of meetings required for the Senate, she would have considered it her finest achievement in her time as praetor. She perked up a bit at Niah's mentioning of all the things that could happen on the adventure, her expression only souring when Niah mentioned the death of friends. The slaying monsters was amazing and fun. Losing one of her best friends... Nancy couldn't fathom that sort of pain.

Hopefully the Senate largely would be present soon. She didn't want to have to wait around forever just for people to show up. They needed to get this small trip approved, set out to check up on Atlas, and return in time for the Greeks to show up and ruin everything. And assuming they were still alive after that, their next stop would be the Underworld - well, actually, they'd go there next even if they died so she supposed that was a bit of a moot point. "I'd tell you to lighten up Niah, but you're right. We might die. And we're definitely headed to the Underworld before the week is out."

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"So glad that someone else gets to sit around keeping an eye on things, Demetri was driving me insane," Mary commented with a bit of an eye roll. The guy was insanely annoying, and she was glad that she didn't have to be in the same area as him anymore, at least for long periods of time. Now she could just relax on their flying ship (as much as possible) and do whatever the hell she really wanted to on board of the ship. She glanced over at Leda when she heard her call out to her, inviting her along it sounded like, and she waved at her slightly, before following along.

"And here I thought you'd forgotten all about me," she teased her friend slightly with a bit of a smirk, knowing perfectly well that she had it bad for Kiera. Mary couldn't help but laugh slightly at Leda's outburst about french fries and whatever like that, it did make some sense, as someone who wasn't really born in the US, she could understand what it meant to have things be called different things then what you were used to. "Be nice about it Leda, they are french fries to most everyone else in the country, just not you."

Jason looked over at Alannah when she mentioned who was next in the watch lineup. He wasn't too sure about being in a group with the two kids, since he still wasn't even sure if they should have been going along on this little trip, but he didn't have a say in that sort of thing. Considering what had happened a while ago with Hecate, Rebecca's mother, he wasn't too sure how they'd feel being around her right now. Hopefully nothing horrible would really happen, and that things would stay relatively calm during the whole time standing around on watch duty.

He went straight up to where they were going to be keeping watch and waited around until others started popping up. The others having seemingly gone to go get some food, but he personally wasn't all that hungry, when Rebecca decided to ask a question about star signs, and he shrugged slightly at the question, "I 'ahnestly dahn't care all too much about dat sahrt o' din, so I dahn't really know and dahn't really pay attention to it," he responded to her, not all too sure what else to say to respond to the question.

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"Dat's a laht o' defferent ways to 'ave chicken," she commented with a bit of a laugh as she thought for a moment about what sort of food she wanted. Thinking about it, she figured that she might have just a standard chicken sandwich to make things a bit easier, and it sounded like something good that she'd want to eat. "Just de standard chicken sandwech fahr me... Never really cared much fahr chicken nuggets," she said finally in response to what Kristin had been saying about what she typically preferred at the restaurant. That was just how she felt regarding food.

Hearing Zeke's words regarding the potential need to run was not exactly a good thing in her mind. Constantly having to run around was not exactly something she wanted to do. And if she was being perfectly honest, it wasn't exactly something she could really do all too easily. This was getting a bit more complicated every second that she was on this quest, and she wasn't too sure if things would calm down or become more hellish as she went along, "Let's 'urry up den and get mahvin alahng den if dat's de case."

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Kiera started to eat her dinner enjoying what she had and leaned back a little bit seeing Leda coming over and sitting next to her and smiled some more seeing the food appearing on her own plate. "I'll be sure to call them chips then when we are together." Kiera said giving a slight smirk as she took a bite out of her dinner, she looked over at Mary as she came over and joined them as well. "That was actually really funny seeing you as a cow and sitting on him, I wished I could have taken a picture of that." Kiera said laughing a little bit as she took a drink from her soda as well.

She was still eager to have her own shift on watch duty later, as she looked over at Leda again and smiled some more as she thought of something that they all could do in the meantime to keep them entertained. "So should we play a game or something to pass the time?" Kiera asked, she didn't really bring anything with her that could keep her entertained. She really did hate having nothing to do, she then felt the entire ship shake slightly having a feeling that it was the Argo III taking off again, and they would be on their merry way again.

Over on the top deck of the Argo III Alannah turned to look at Andy when she asked what she could do while on watch duty. "You could watch the monitors in the wheelhouse if you'd like, it's on auto pilot right but keep an eye out on the radar. She gave Rebecca a slight smile for a moment, as she thought a little bit. "I'm a Leo if you were curious." Alannah said, giving a slight shrug she turned around when she noticed something and quickly took a few steps to the side seeing a Gryphon suddenly crashing onto the deck with a loud thud. Alannah took out her weapon cautiously and approached it, seeing what looked to be a large spear imbedded into it's left wing.

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Over at the augury Alexandra let out a really annoyed groan as she sat up, it was the second time something had disturbed her from her little nap. Alexandra crossed her arms over her chest looking rather annoyed and stared at Waverly seeing her using her magic to repair the stuffed animals that she had gutted. "What can I do all of you for?" Alexandra asked as she leaned herself against a nearby counter seeing Emily staring at the painting. Which she couldn't really find out what it was about aside from having to deal with the prophecy that was mentioned over at the café. "That is the next great prophecy." Alexandra said towards Emily.

Inside of the Senate Building Madalyne took up her seat in her usual Praetor's seat, she looked over at Niah for a moment mentioning possibly their friends could end up dying. Though it was a fairly common thing quests prophecies were always really dangerous as well, she looked between the two of them both Niah and Nancy were really good friends to her. "The important thing is we are all in this together right?" Madalyne said, as she waited a little bit longer until she saw the door finally opening seeing the senators all slowly starting to come in.

"I am sorry for calling you all again for another meeting." Madalyne said as she stood up, and the senators all started to take their seats again looking at all of them. "As you all know we had the next big prophecy to come up, Alexandra had a vision as well to confirm what Nancy had seen. I have come up with an idea to possibly seek an audience with Atlas, hoping that he would have some information and would like a vote on it." Madalyne said, hoping that Leandra wouldn't end up showing as well hearing the senators starting to talk amongst themselves.

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"Eww, i'd rather gouge out my eyes if I had a picture of you." Kristin said sarcastically as she dug into her pockets and handed the wad of cash that Chiron had given them for their quest. [color=yellow["Here you go Zekey don't spend it all though."[/color] Kristin said as she turned to look around she didn't see anyone there at all either, the woman had quickly disappeared from Zeke's sight. "I don't see anyone." Kristin said as she looked down at her watch they had a few minutes left before they had to reach the bus station again and they could continue with the rest of their quest. Kristin thought for a moment on what she wanted to eat.

"I'll just have their Mac n Cheese and their nuggets." Kristin said, she hadn't tried their Mac n Cheese before and figured that she might as well give it a try as well. "So should we just make it to go then or something?" Kristin asked both Zeke and Janelle figuring that they should just eat while they were on the move would be better in her opinion right now if someone was stalking them.

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Ezekiel frowned when the woman disappeared before his eyes. That was frustrating. Now Kristin was going to bug him about seeing the woman of his dreams or something ridiculous. He looked back at Kristin and nodded. ”You’re right, it wouldn’t do me justice,” he said seriously in comment to Kristin about the picture. He turned back to the counter and ordered their food to go and paid for it with some of his and Kristin’s money.
Once the food was ready, Ezekiel grabbed the bag of food and handed them their drinks before heading out the door, divvying up the food as they walked. They only had a few minutes to get back to the bus anyways.
”She was just standing there, looking at the three of us...There! She’s right… there…” The woman was just in front of them again before she quickly disappeared and Ezekiel frowned again. ”Is there someone we should know that can become invisible,” he asked Kristin.
Ezekiel was getting this eerie feeling and he felt tight all over. There was something off about this. He didn’t like the uncertainty of this woman and how she kept disappearing. Ezekiel tried tracking her when they reached the spot where he had lost her in the crowd and he was able to track her to a nearby alleyway. He munched on his food, debating it. They really didn’t have the time to go on wild goose chases but he was feeling off about this entire situation.

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Demetri made his way into the cafetería portion of the ship. Getting a large portion of Filet Mignon and cutting half of it for his father. This was the first offering he had ever made where it was just bones and fat, hoping this might make their sailing go smoother and his sides less likely to be struck by his fathers instruments. A tankard of water appeared, as well as a side of mash and asparagus. He watched as the others began to click together and sit with each other, his sister and Andy heading to the control room which left him with no one but himself. But that was fine, he had other plans for his dinner. He grabbed his tray and made his way out of the dining hall, into the upper decks where he ran into Alannah, asking her if he could have a Drachma for use. She willingly gave him the coin before he continued on his way, hearing a loud thud behind him and electing to ignore it.

As he scoured the ship for any form of light, he found himself wandering down to the lower decks, illuminated and bright enough for what he had in mind. Demetri took a massive swig of his water, his cheeks filling like a chipmunks mbefore he sprayed it all out into a fine mist, creating a rainbow with the lights help and tossing a Drachma towards it. He could see Kristin in the mist and was glad this actually worked. "Man am I glad to see you mate! Hows the quest been going? You doing ok? Janelle ok? Oh and I guess Zeke too if that matters at all. So sorry you got stuck with him but glad I'm not getting cabin fever with him amiright? Oh! This is an Iris message i...don't really know how it works but you can respond to this message...i think?"

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Rebecca asked what everyone's sun signs were. Andy wasn't certain what that meant at first but then Alannah said she was Leo and it clicked. Andy didn't know which one she was, but she did know the birthday the system had given her. She didn't like to think about her birthday too much as it was a bit of a sore spot. The government had assigned one that made sense with her age at the time she was found at the hospital but they couldn't be certain.

"I don't know my real birthday, but I've celebrated it on July seventh. I don't know what sun sign that is." Andy gave a bit of a shrug. She didn't want to make a big deal out of her birthday. It was too much of the day that kids growing up in the foster care system focused on. It was the day their real parents were supposed to visit, and Andy's never did. Now she understood why her father never visited, but what about her mother? Why didn't she seem to care?

Andy watched the screens. She was glad the ship was on auto-pilot she hadn't played a lot of video games so she didn't really know how to use the controls.

[hider=roll request]Perception for Andy if she spots anything in the monitors[/color]



Niah winced as Nancy even agreed with her. She had gone a bit dark, but at least she wasn't gifted with prophecy. If she had been she would just keep her mouth shut. "Sorry." She said to Mads but gave a nod in agreement. At least they would be together. Together they made a good team. They had been best friends since the fight with the dragon because of that. She rubbed the friendship bracelet.

Counting heads among the senate as they gathered was a bit nerve-wracking. They'd probably wait a few more minutes to give all the senators that were going to show up time to show up, then the vote would be cast. Obviously, with the Praetors and Niah they had three votes in the bag, and there were a few senators that tended to just agree with them. But since this would take both Praetors out of New Rome at the same time it was likely that some of the senators would fight it, and demand other people go in their stead or just the fifth cohort kids. That would also be fought, gods above. Couldn't have a team of just the fifth cohort. Niah mentally rolled her eyes.



Emily smiled as Waverly healed the stuffed animals. The tragic part was it just meant Alexandra would use them again, but it was sweet and told her a lot about Waverly. Emily frowned at the painting. She didn't really understand it and that was almost as terrifying as understanding it. She sighed slightly and turned to Alexandra "We need a prophecy for a quest, please. We three are going with the Praetors and Niah to see if Atlas can give us any information about what this is about." She pointed to the painting.

Emily had never sounded so sure that she was going on a quest before. Not that she had been on a lot, and certainly never with the Praetors. The end of the world is a weird time to be living in. They needed answers though. They needed to have an idea of why and who was involved in this Great Prophecy. Without some information, they would certainly lose.

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Marco had been a little bit surprised that Waverley had decided to use her magic to repair the stuffed animal, since he was fully aware that Alexandra would just use that freshly mended stuffed animals as sacrifices right again. At least thankfully none of them were doves this time... he wasn't sure he could tolerate seeing another dove being taken apart by Alexandra again. He was already pretty unnerved by the painting they were looking at. He gently took Emily's hand and then rubbed it softly as she spoke.

"Yes, there are going to be six of us on the quest, and we are aware that is... not a good number. But Nancy was rather.... specific about this." His arm moved from holding Emily's hand to wrapping it around her waist and held her close and sighed a bit at that point. He was not wanting to look over at the painting again at that point, since it was just unsettling him more. He still had... nightmares. The day he had witnessed the end of one of the last Wars...

He didn't like talking about it. That had not been a great day. Everyone on the Isle of Manhattan had been asleep, well all the mortals. The creatures that had been flying through the air, the giant gods fighting... it still haunted him sometimes.

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Waverley had been so focused on the painting that she jumped when Alexandra spoke up. Her head spun to look at the painting's creator, only to find that Alexandra was glaring directly at her. It didn't take much to intimidate Waverley, so as the intense artist stared her down, she felt like she was shrinking. She gulped, giving an awkward smile in response to the hostile eyes being thrown in her direction. Waverley loosened up a bit when Emily spoke up, cutting straight to business, with Marco following suit. She felt a little bad for skipping over the small talk and pleasantries that usually start conversations, but she guessed there was a pretty good chance that Alexandra wasn't a fan of such things anywho.

"Um, yeah, that's the main reason we're here. The ladies in charge sent us over to check in, see what you could tell us..." she explained, her eyes flitting back to the painting. When she saw it again, though, she couldn't help but feel sympathy for Alexandra. Constantly having people come in and out, all of them seeing her paintings as utilities rather than art. Waverley couldn't imagine how she'd feel if people only cared about her music because of the magic it could do. So, with her uncomfortable grin still plastered across her lips, she looked back over to Alexandra. "I like the painting, though. You did a good job on it. Do you, um...take commissions?"

Arthur Stanford

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Location:Argo III: Upperdeck
Skills: N/A

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As Rebecca queried for their star signs, a thought crossed Arthur's head. Were star signs actually relevant now? He'd admit, he had no idea what his own was. He didn't want to start turning to faith in that way to get him through things, but if it was somehow possible to glimpse the future through something like that, he'd be willing to try it. He needed some certainty in his life right now, and if star signs or fortune telling could get him that, he'd take it. Pausing for a moment, he said, "The Twelfth of September, I'm not sure what that makes me though." He admitted, turning away from the horizon and looking at them.

He wasn't particularly hungry still, mostly not wanting to eat after everything they'd been through today. Walking towards the group though, he tried to get himself to not go all lone wolf on them. He wanted to ignore all of them and escape, but he new that wouldn't be healthy or good, especially if he ended up actually leaving them all at some point. He'd need to get self sufficient, and if monsters were going to be hunting him, he wouldn't be able to be that in the state he was in. Self defense was the most important thing for him to master, and he knew that the people here could get him there.

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Rebecca was slightly disappointed to hear that Jason was unaware of his star sign. "They're rather revelatory. Of course, star signs are hardly an exact science, but they are excellent for exploring one's strength and weaknesses... I often think of them as advice from a friend on where my talents are and what I could strive to approve upon." She thought of tarot readings rather similarly. The gift of foretelling the future was rather rare and as far as Rebecca knew, it was restricted to the Oracles of Apollo. She was about to think about the interpretation of Alannah as a Leo when there was a crash and a magnificent beast landed on the ship. It was wounded, a spear in its side. "Excuse me, I believe there's someone in need of our assistance," Rebecca apologized. Andy and Arthur hadn't seemed to notice the beast.

She hurried on out and emerged onto the deck proper. Once outside, she began to move a lot more slowly and carefully. Yes, griffins were monsters but the poor thing had been wounded and crashed onto their ship. "Do not be afraid - no harm will come to you," Rebecca promised softly, moving forward. She held out the back of her hand, the way she would for a dog to sniff. The griffin sniffed her hand and it didn't seem to be hostile. "You're wounded. May I help you? I can treat and dress your injury, nurse you to health... My name is Rebecca."

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"It doesn't make a lick of sense to call them French fries though, they're not even from France - which is a bloody waste of a country, if you ask me," Leda argued. She was very much proud of her country and a large element of national British pride was hating the French. She would rather see the London Eye than the Eiffel Tower any day. She liked to imagine that the Greek gods had spent a longer time in England than they did in France as well to add legitimacy to the nationalistic rivalry. She snorted a bit as Kiera turned the conversation back to the Cow!Mary. "Maybe we'll have to see about a recreation in order to snap a photo."

The ship shook slightly and Leda had to force herself to breathe out steadily. She wasn't a huge fan of turbulence. She had flown to the United States after a satyr had found her and she hadn't been a fan of the plane shacking at seemingly random intervals. She had to wonder if Zeus did it on purpose to terrify those who chose to travel in his domain. It seemed like a Zeus thing to do - that and seducing a flight attendant. "We could play Truth or Dare," Leda suggested.

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Nancy took her seat next to Madalyne. Sometimes, it caught her off guard how drastically her life had changed. It still felt incredibly recent, running away from home on the Vegas Strip and stumbling into the Lotus Hotel. Her time there had passed in the blink of an eye, with only the deep and enduring trauma proving that she had been there at all. Some scars never healed, never faded. She had been a victim of sexual assault - but also a survivor. And each day, Nancy grew a little bit more powerful. She'd never allow herself to be the victim of men again.

Madalyne was always more diplomatic with the Senate than Nancy would have been. She stood up as well, being a bit more blunt about things. "Every piece of information we get is lives saved. If we don't talk to Atlas, then we can't prepare as effectively, and there will be more death. More innocents. If you don't want to see New Rome painted red, then it's what we have to do. Mads and I have the best team we can put together. Any other team and we might as well not try at all."

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"Yeah but to me it makes no sense to call them chips since chips are something completely different in the US, though I can get the whole having to try and deal with people calling things different names, it just doesn't make sense to me, but eh, that's how things are," she said to her friend with a shrug, not saying anything else on the subject. Just because things were called one thing to you, didn't mean that everyone else was right or wrong, it just meant that things were called different things to different people.

She giggled slightly at the suggestion to potentially reenact the whole cow incident. "If he bugs me I would most definitely not be against a reenactment, but that's just my personal opinion," Mary said, still giggling slightly at the thought. It had been hilarious. Leda suggesting a game of truth or dare caused her to just shrug a little bit, "I'm all for playing a round of truth or dare, who wants to start it off or whatever? I vote Leda since she's the one who suggested it in the first place."

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Jason wasn't too sure what really to do at this point as people kept talking about their birthdays. "If you celebrate yours ahn July 7 your birthday is two days befahre mine, mine's July 9," he said towards Andy before she decided to go off and keep an eye on the monitors. Now the question was what to do, since they were supposed to keep watch, make sure they didn't crash or were attacked, that sort of thing. Hopefully things would stay relatively quiet, but based on their luck so far that didn't seem very likely.

He looked over just in time to see a Gryphon hit the deck of the shift with a crash. "...Ahkay, where de 'ell ded dat comb frahm?" he couldn't help but ask, looking at the creature as Rebecca went up to the creature. He wasn't too sure that going up to the Gryphon was a good idea considering their many many problems and how most creatures he has so far encountered have more or less tried to kill them. "Maybe you shooehld be a lettle bet careful Rebecca, ahkay?" he said to her.

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She couldn't help but laugh slightly at Kristin's comment towards Zeke about what she'd do if she ever had a picture of him. It was something that amused her, and she was someone who kept pictures around just because she could, not necessarily so that she could see them and look at them. "Who is it dat you saw? What ded she look like?" Janelle asked Zeke, more then a bit confused, as she couldn't pay much attention to someone following them unless she heard them, since she couldn't exactly pay much attention to anyone in particular since she couldn't see anyone.

Janelle took the food that Zeke handed her and followed along after him, making sure that she kept up so that she didn't get separated or lost or something. That definitely would not be a good thing, getting lost in a city she had never been in and being blind. It was not something she wanted to happen at all. Especially when there were monsters or whatever constantly chasing after them. She really did not want to have to deal with monsters again based on what they've been dealing with so far. Trouble would not be a good thing.

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Argo III Upper Deck:

"Not every monster is considered bad, though a lot of them are ones like Pegasus, or Gryphons are more neutral for the most part." Alannah said as she quickly made her way down into the infirmary of the Argo III, grabbing what supplies she had in her arms Alannah quickly dashed back up to the upper deck. "I found some bandages and alcohol as well." Alannah told her as she walked over to get a better look at the spear in the creature's chest. It remained calm for the most part she looked over towards Jason and Arthur as well waving them over to get a little bit of help.

"Okay, so heres the plan Arthur help Rebecca with what she needs, Jason I will need you to help me pull this out as well." Alannah said, over at the wheelhouse Andy wouldnt see anyone in the radar, but she would be able to see the others tending to the Gryphon and Alannah about to get ready to pull out the spear she'd also notice that the creature was being calm still as well.

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Kiera looked up at Demetri as he came into the room, seeing him drink some water before he eventually spat it all out making a little bit of a mist and did an Iris Message. "Well thats one way to make some water." Kiera said shaking her head slightly, that was a little bit to nasty in her opinion as well. But she watched the Iris message start and saw Kristin and the others as well which was a bit of a relief as well to. Kiera turned her attention over towards Leda and giggled slightly at her argument they did call soccer football over there as well to while they called football here was completely different.

Kiera giggled a bit at the thought of trying to reenact the whole Mary Cow sitting on Demetri again would be really entertaining to watch at some point. "You guys call soccer, football over there dont you right?" She asked teasingly and gave her a slight nudge as Kiera nodded towards the idea of a game of Truth or Dare was a lot of fun. She thought for a moment as she looked over at the others wondering which they would do if it was their turn. "I'll go first." Kiera said as she looked over at Leda and smirked a little bit. "So, Leda truth or dare?" Kiera asked.

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Alexandra looked over at Waverly asking if she would take commissions for her artwork and gave a slight shrug towards her. "Maybe, depends." Alexandra answered turning her attention over towards Emily and Marco asking for a prophecy she closed her eyes letting out a slightly annoyed sigh. She was actually on the same boat as Nancy and hated seeing prophecies some came to her on their own like their current major prophecy.

"Alright then." Alexandra said as she turned around and then grabbed one of the newly repaired stuffed animals looking over at Waverly and smiled. "Thanks by the way, saves me from having to go shopping for more stuffed animals." She said going over to the alter, muttering something in latin as she reached out for her imperial gold dagger and gutted the poor stuffed animal.

She started to pull pull out all of it's stuffing and spread them over the altar, her eyes suddenly rolled to the back of her head as she got a vision before stumbling back slightly looking at the three of them. "I couldnt really get a good look, but you will find someone talking to Atlas once you get there, there will be some monsters there as well to.."

Madalyn gave Nancy a slight smile gently resting a hand on her friend's shoulder as she turned to look over at the Senators who were all there. "I would like to put this up for a vote now." Madalyne said knowing that Nancy and Niah were already in the bag right now which was a good thing she already had her hand raised. They just needed a simple majority and they could actually go on their quest and get sometime away from Camp Jupiter looking at the seven other senators. There as they spoke amongst themselves. Four of them raised their hands leaving only three to not go on the quest she looked at the three that didnt want them to go and saw Leandra amongst the no votes.

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Kristin followed shortly behind Zeke and looked at him then over her shoulder towards the alleyway that their stalker had gone down, she didnt see anyone. She gave a slight shrug towards Zeke, she was drawing a blank on that right now as she looked over her shoulder there wasnt anyone there. "Non that I can think of at the moment." Kristin then jumped slightly when an Iris Message appeared in front of them, and then saw that it was Demetri who was on the other end.

"We are okay, we are in DC right now." Kristin said towards him on the other end as she turned and waved for Zeke and Janelle to follow her. "C'mon we need to get back to the bus station." She said as she looked around still couldnt really see anyone at the moment. "It's not like its the first time that we have been on a quest together." Kristin told Demetri as she continued to make her way back to the bus station. "How are you guys doing?" Kristin asked Demetri.

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Ezekiel hesitated just outside the ally way for a moment longer and replied to Janelle. ”I didn’t get a good look at her face but she was blonde and had a black hoodie on. Not that that helps any of us,” he grumbled. He knew hundreds of blonde haired people. He bit into his chicken burger and sighed before walking forward when he bumped into Kristin who just stopped. In front of them now was a rainbow, complete with Demetri’s face. How fitting. Ezekiel smirked at the irony of the situation and took another bite of his burger.
He leaned over towards Janelle and explained what was happening. ”We can send messages to anyone in the world thanks to the help from the Goddess Iris. All you need is some water to make a rainbow and a drachma. Then you can visually communicate. Kind of like Skype or Zoom but with more colour,” he very briefly explained.
”Nobody asked you to check in on us mini Zeus, so how about you curb the ‘who cares about Zeke’ attitude, ya? Why are you contacting us anyway? Did something happen?” He shoved around Kristin, suddenly worried. He did try to warn them all earlier that they might not make it to their destination because of the very person they were chasing down.

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Demetri could see Kristen, a smile forming as his idea worked. They were ok, good. That was always a good thing to hear. It appearer that she was keeping the other two in line and on schedule. And from what he could tell there wasn't any immediate dangers. "Everything seems to be going smoothly for now. There was an attack earlier but they were a piece of cake, left before we even started really. Then we made a pit stop to fight a monster sponsored by poseidon and Starbucks, that...was less fun. Got a nasty bolt struck at my side and maaaan whatever they gave me tasted great and helped tons. Aside from that Marys a cow, Rebecca seems cool and wonderful with kids keeping Andy and Artie busy, Des has been a bit MIA but I had first watch in the wheelhouse so I haven't really seen much of anyone. Oh! And Jason and I got into a spat but he seems to of cooled off and apologized. He's seems real sweet, and he's doing great!" Demetri tried yelling the last bit out so Janelle could hear him. He wasnt sure how this worked but hopefully if he's loud enough another can hear the message.

Demetri's attention was briefly caught by Kiera, commenting on his rainbow skills before heading back to her party. He wasnt sure how much time was left on his payphone so he opted to ignore it for a later time. Now looking towards Zeke with his familiar playful smirk."I may be a mini Zues but at least I don't have a mini something else like you" He stuck his tongue out at the golden boy to punctuate his message. "Alright fiiiine so I was a smidgen worried for you wonder boy, but that doesn't mean anything. You're practically my nephew regardless of how others want to view it. So ofcourse I'd be a bit worried you knucklehead. But other than what I said earlier nothings happened. All we have to do is speak to some Roman kids, you're the ones going into a dragons lair so to speak." He wasn't sure if Zeke was thinking about the girl from before still. But something told him that he was genuinely worried for the others.

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Andy heard the scuffle and saw nothing on the monitors. She saw that Alannah was working on pulling a spear out of a monster. Had the monster come to them knowing they could help? Was it a nice monster? Andy decided to keep her distance she wasn't the help the monster type of person. Her experience so far had been defend against and fight monsters.

She was worried about Arthur. He had good reason to be sad, but she wanted to make it better. She thought about his birthday that she now knew and how Jason had a birthday close to her paperwork one. She reached into her pocket and pulled out the slightly damaged candle that was there. It had never been lit and was in the shape of the number eight. That had been the night she ran away from the foster home.

It was one of the reasons she hated her birthday. She had had a fight with the foster parents and she had blown up the microwave and several fuses. Her power had been so out of control that in her anger she had almost burned down the house. Andy took a deep breath and put the candle back in her pocket. She went back to watching the monitors.

If everyone on deck was distracted by taking care of the monster there wasn't anyone watching the sky for danger. She could at least help by doing that. If something had attacked the monster it might be still after it, meaning this could be a trap. If something hadn't attacked the monster it meant it was a trap. Andy didn't like the situation one bit.





Niah wasn't surprised at how the vote landed but was thankful they had just enough votes from the present senators to move forward with it.
She couldn't dismiss the meeting, but as soon as Nancy did she stood and joined them. They all had separate quarters so they wouldn't be able to walk together long.

"Off to pack then. I'll get my armor." Niah smiled as she mentioned the armor. It had been an accident that they had found it, but she had become fond of it. The armor allowed her to essentially fly. It also was armor that they had found as a group and had gotten them to Mount Rushmore. It had saved so much travel time for them. With six people she doubted they'd be able to pull off the same set up they had for that trip though.



Emily smiled at Marco as he rubbed her hand. She loved those little things. The moments of brushed attention meant more to her than any loving outburst. It was the small acts. The tiny things. Those were like skywriting for her heart. She returned the gesture. But as Marco wrapped his arm around her something seemed off about him. She looked and could see worry and a bit of fear in his features. She couldn't blame him, and though it would make sense for the fear to be about the future Emily knew Marco as well as her own mind. He was remembering the Battle of New York. All the talk of previous prophecies was forcing those memories forward. He had been so young and had no idea who he was then. No one could blame him for the trama or his reaction to it.

She, however, did not pick up on Alexandra's stress. Emily was a kind person, when not provoked, so she said. "Thank you very much for your assistance. I hope you're able to get a good break. Sorry for disturbing you." She didn't want to push for more answers about who was talking with Atlas, but at least they had something.

"We should go pack and prepare to meet the others." She said and with her arm around Marco started out of the Augury and to the barracks. It was nice that all three of them were in the same cohort.

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Waverley gave a nod when Alexandra answered her question about commissions, as if she were satisfied with the answer given. She wasn't, of course; 'depends' was only ever a helpful response if it was followed up by an explanation as to what it depended on, which Alexandra had unfortunately left out. Still, Waverley didn't want to upset the girl. She didn't seem like she was having a great day. Honestly, she didn't seem like she'd had a good day in a long while. Waverley was happy to see the smile that the girl flashed her way, which she took to be a sign that her attempts at kindness were helping. Though that didn't stop her from wincing when she tore into the stuffed animal.

"Yep, no problem. Happy to help," she replied, though she didn't sound as happy as she claimed to be, watching the stuffing get pulled from its body. She could almost hear it begging for its savior to save it once more. But Waverley held herself back. When the psychic painter began to read the animal's fuzzy insides, Waverley let out a nervous laugh. "Monsters, great. Good thing they're sending New Rome's first line off defense, eh?" the musician joked, giving a thumbs up to the gardener and the barista she'd walked in with. Clearly they were the fiercest warriors Camp Jupiter had to offer. She then nodded in agreement when Emily when she mentioned meeting up with the others, but before she followed them out, she gave a wave to Alexandra. "Thanks for the help! We'll try to bring you back a souvenir!" With that, she pranced out of the Augery, following behind her two companions.

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Marco could sense Emily move into his arm, and knew that she could pick up what was going through his mind, and it made him smile a little. Em sometimes knew him better than he did himself, and he was thankful for they had. Sure, he sometimes got eyerolls from his siblings about what he and Emily had, and he knew full well how his mother felt about relationships in general. "Better to have love and lost, than to have never loved at all." What a load of crock that was to Marco sometimes.

Waverley's voice pried him right out of his own thoughts, which he was thankful for. First dwelling on the Battle of New York, and then his mother were not the things his mind needed to dwell on for the moment. "I am guessing we will need to be mindful of Atlas's guest then, as well as the monsters. That was not unexpected. Isn't that tree there with that creature in it?" Marco had remembered hearing about the golden apples once, or reading about them before. Hercules had been tasked with getting one if he remembered right. "Thank you for your help, Alexandra. I guess it is time to pack. Shall we head back to Cohort 5 and pack up ladies?" He gently took Emily's hand again, as it would be easier to walk hand in hand rather than arm in arm.

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"The poor thing is wounded and means us no harm, Jason," Rebecca chided him softly. It was understandable for him to be extraordinarily cautious, he hadn't learned that not all monsters wished to harm demigods. Some cyclopses wished to feast on their bones, yet others served in the forges under the ocean in Poseidon's dominion. Gryphons were multifaceted creatures and until proven otherwise, Rebecca was determined to treat the poor thing as a wounded ally and not as an injured foe. Alannah came back up with a variety of supplies for tending to the gryphon, as Rebecca did her best to examine the wound cautiously without disturbing the spear.

"Arthur, if you go into the cargo hold, there should be some healing herbs in the barrels. We'll need those," she directed. "As long as we show the gryphon we mean no harm and behave as non-threateningly as possible, all should be well," she instructed. If she could take those herbs and apply them as a salve of sorts to the wound, then bandaging it up ought to be sufficient. The poor creature would likely need a few days to rest, but there was plenty of space on the Argo so she doubted that would pose an issue. "We should then set up a space for the gryphon to rest. It should have a place to sleep and recover."

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Needless to say, Leda hadn't exactly approved of Demetri using his own spit to send an Iris Message. He could have asked her to summon a rainbow for him or at least done something more sanitary than asking a goddess to carry a message via spit. She shuddered on her mother's behalf. It was probably for the best that Iris was a peaceful goddess, as some of the other gods probably would have cursed Demetri for using spit to summon them. "If you mean we call football football, then yes. It's you yanks that got cross eyed and decided to call it soccer. What you call football hardly even involves feet!"

"And I'll take a dare. Can't have you learning all of my secrets on day one, luv," she said with a smirk. Besides, dares were infinitely more entertaining. Truth questions tended to lead to tearful confessions and drama, both of which she loved, but Leda had a lot of pent up energy that she wanted to let out. She was moving her knee up and down rapidly, enough to be felt through the table by the others. For a demigod, Leda had an extraordinarily hard time keeping still. For a normal person, her attention span was basically zero.

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Nancy raised her hand as well, voting in favor of the quest. There was no way she was going to vote against it. Her eyes narrowed as she saw Leandra stupidly clinging to open defiance. She made no sense at all to her. The vision Nancy had indicated Leandra was going to be there when this all went down - so why wouldn't she want more information? She was jeopardizing her own safety. She opened her mouth to chew out Leandra, but decided against it. She had wasted too much time on her today anyways. "How very," she instead said brightly to Niah. It was no secret that Nancy loved Niah's armor - it was like having their own personal Peter Pan around.

"I'm so excited to change out of this," Nancy then added, pulling a bit at her purple praetor's cloak. She didn't wear it when she went out on quests and whatnot. It was fun to have a purple cape, but it got in the way. She had watched the Incredibles while at the Lotus Hotel and had come to agree pretty strongly with Edna Mode - capes were a recipe for disaster when it came to actual combat. She knew that there were some magical threads or something in them, but she preferred to wear her own clothes. She felt more like herself anyways.