Percy Jackson: The Firstborn

Chapter 182: Chapter 182: A day full of surprises

Olympus

Back on Olympus, our red-haired protagonist had just left Medusa at her temple. Grayfia would take care of teaching her everything she needed to know, which reminded Damon that, for some reason, the silver-haired woman had lately started taking very seriously the idea of learning exactly what a Greek servant was actually supposed to do. Damon wasn’t entirely sure how that would end, but as long as Grayfia was comfortable with it, he had no problem. Maybe she would even end up being a good influence on Medusa during her first few days on Olympus.

At that thought, Damon couldn’t help making an amused expression. Having one servant who was completely serious at all hours was already more than enough. Having two would probably be overkill.

As he calmly walked along one of Olympus’s long roads, the god noticed a female figure running directly toward him in what looked like sportswear. Damon didn’t even need to think about it much. There was only one goddess who sometimes ran around Olympus as if she were a human competing in a marathon, and that was Nike.

”One of Styx’s daughters, huh...” Damon murmured to himself.

He could still remember when Styx had brought Nike along with her sister Bia and her two brothers, Kratos and Zelus. Damon had never bothered interacting with them much, at least not on the same level as he had with Chiron or Iris back then. A big part of that was because all four of them had spent most of their existence around Zeus.

And for good reason.

Damon had never really understood why anyone would need to keep the Goddess of Victory permanently nearby just to feel more confident about winning a battle, but Zeus clearly thought differently. Because of that, he had maintained a fairly close relationship with Nike and her siblings, while also keeping the promises he had made to them after Styx sided with him.

To be fair, that was one thing Zeus had actually kept his word on. Although Damon had a feeling Styx had quite a lot to do with that. After all, Zeus had been far more inclined to respect agreements and rules during those days.

Damon was pulled from his thoughts when he sensed the goddess come to a stop several meters in front of him. ”Uhh... Lord Damon,” Nike said, clearly surprised to find him there.

”Likewise, Nike. It’s definitely been a long time,” Damon replied while briefly looking over the lesser goddess.

He had to admit that the years had treated her well. It wasn’t as though gods aged the same way mortals did, but they could improve their bodies through training, personal care, and simply shaping their appearance over time, and Nike had clearly taken all of that quite seriously. She was a woman with black hair, hazel eyes, and tanned skin lightly touched by the sun from her long outdoor training sessions. Her athletic body made it clear that she didn’t simply run for fun; her legs were strong and well-developed, while the rest of her figure perfectly reflected a goddess devoted to physical training.

Nike shifted slightly under his gaze, mostly because she had no idea what exactly she was supposed to say. She had never really taken the time to get to know Lord Damon, and he wasn’t exactly known for spending much time around lesser deities like her.

”I-I... hope your reign is going well,” she finally managed.

Damon smiled as he immediately noticed how nervous she was. ”Haha, you don’t need to worry so much, Nike. I was just passing by. Give your siblings my regards, alright?”

Nike grew even more nervous at the mention of her siblings, knowing perfectly well that none of them were particularly happy with the new King of Olympus. Fortunately for her, Damon didn’t seem interested in pressing the subject.

”Good luck with your training. I wish you victory,” the redhead added with obvious amusement. A moment later, Damon disappeared in a golden flash.

Nike remained still for several seconds before finally releasing the breath she had been holding. ”Whew... that was close.” But then Damon’s last words echoed through her head again.

The Goddess of Victory’s eyes seemed to light up immediately.”Don’t worry, Lord Damon!” she shouted with complete seriousness toward the place where he had disappeared. ”I’ll run a hundred marathons in your name!”

And without wasting another second, Nike took off at full speed through the streets of Olympus.

XXXXX

Several hours later, Damon stood beside Hades in front of a massive casino in Las Vegas. When he had seen the God of the Underworld a few hours earlier, Damon had assumed his brother had come specifically to take him to the Underworld and deal with whatever problem was happening down there. So he could imagine his surprise when Hades instead told him about demigods belonging to other pantheons.

And well... all of that had led to this. Damon raised his gaze slightly toward the enormous sign above the entrance. Lotus Hotel and Casino.

”Seriously, the Lotus Eaters went way overboard with this casino,” Damon commented while slowly shaking his head. A place where your sense of time practically disappeared and visitors ended up losing themselves among games, food, and every kind of entertainment imaginable. More than one human, and probably even a mythological being or two, had no doubt ended up completely ruined here... assuming they had managed to leave in the first place.

”Wait until you see Hotel Valhalla,” Hades replied with complete seriousness.

Damon immediately turned toward his brother, clearly surprised. ”Wait, what the hell is—?”

But Hades had already started walking toward the entrance, cutting the subject off right there as if he hadn’t just said something that very clearly required an explanation.

Damon stared after him for a couple of seconds before letting out a sigh. ”Of course...”

Not bothering to push the issue for now, the redhead followed his brother, and the two finally entered the Lotus Hotel and Casino.

The moment they stepped inside, lights of every color filled the enormous lobby while sounds from machines, music, laughter, and conversations constantly blended together around them. Humans moved back and forth with drinks in their hands, some sitting in front of slot machines while others took part in games Damon didn’t even recognize. There were no windows to tell whether it was day or night outside, and the deeper they went into the building, the more obvious the influence covering the entire casino became.

Damon could feel it perfectly. The place simply made worrying about the passage of time seem unnecessary. There was always another game, another meal, another room, another distraction waiting only a few steps away. For an ordinary human, it would be terrifyingly easy to convince themselves to stay five more minutes until those five minutes somehow turned into years.

That said, the two gods simply continued walking as if none of it could affect them, passing completely unnoticed by everyone around them while Hades guided Damon through several hallways before finally entering a much quieter section of the hotel. After a few minutes, they stopped in front of a room, and the God of the Underworld opened the door without bothering to knock.

Two children were inside..... Damon immediately noticed that the girl seemed to be the older one, though she was still quite young, looking around twelve years old. She had slightly messy brown hair and fairly pale skin that she had no doubt inherited from Hades. The younger boy, on the other hand, looked to be around ten. Both immediately looked up when the door opened, though their bodies relaxed a little when they recognized the God of the Underworld.

”Father,” Bianca said, getting to her feet first.

Nico practically jumped up from where he had been sitting. ”You came back?”

”Yes,” Hades replied with the same seriousness he used when speaking to practically anyone. At the same time, the god stepped slightly to the side, allowing both children to see the red-haired man standing behind him. ”And I brought someone with me.”

Damon raised one hand in greeting while looking at the two of them curiously. ”So you’re Hades’ famous children.”

Bianca narrowed her eyes slightly. She didn’t seem particularly worried by her father’s presence, but the stranger standing in front of them was another matter. Almost automatically, she took half a step to the side and positioned herself slightly in front of Nico, making it perfectly clear that if anything happened, she would be the first one to put herself in the way.

Damon noticed the gesture and a small smile appeared on his face.

How adorable.

There was something very genuine about the way Bianca protected her brother. It was probably a natural reaction born from years of relying on one another and staying together no matter what happened around them.

”You don’t need to worry,” Damon said calmly as he lowered himself slightly so he wouldn’t have to speak to them from such a height. ”I’m Damon. Technically, your uncle.”

Nico blinked several times before looking toward Hades. ”Does that mean he’s your...?”

”My older brother,” Hades confirmed.

Nico’s eyes widened considerably while Bianca seemed to process the information with much more seriousness. Damon couldn’t help finding the difference between them amusing.

”So...” Nico began while looking him up and down. ”Are you a god too?”

”Something like that..... Though I’m much better than your father,” Damon replied with a small smile as he ruffled the boy’s black hair.

Nico’s eyes practically filled with stars immediately. ”Whoa! Then you’re, like, super cool.”

Hades simply stared at the back of his brother’s head while rolling his eyes..... Damon, in true Olympian fashion, completely ignored Hades’ gaze.

After a few minutes of conversation, the initial tension gradually faded. Hades had already visited his children before and explained enough about their situation that neither of them panicked simply from being around Damon. Even so, Bianca continued staying close to Nico, positioning herself almost naturally at his side.

Big-sister instincts... Damon supposed. After all, he probably would have done the exact same thing.

Without thinking too much about it, he held out both hands toward them. ”Come on. Your father and I have a few things to investigate, but you’re coming with us. I’m not leaving you here.”

Nico accepted immediately with a huge grin, while Bianca hesitated for barely a second before doing the same. Damon took one of their hands in each of his own and began walking beside them while Hades guided them through the hotel once again.

”Out of curiosity,” Damon asked after a few moments, looking down at the two children, ”how long have you been here?”

”A few months,” Hades answered before either of his children could.

Damon raised an eyebrow. ”Okay... but how many months?”

Hades continued walking as if there were nothing unusual about the answer. ”From their perspective, only a few,” the God of the Underworld clarified. ”Outside, approximately seventy years have passed.”

Damon stopped dead when he heard the number. While seventy years could feel more like seventy days to him, for a mortal it was an enormous amount of time. ”Seventy years, huh...”

Damon lowered his gaze toward the two children while gently tightening his hold on their hands. For them, practically no time had passed at all. They were still the same ages and probably still considered everything that had happened before entering the Lotus fairly recent. But the outside world had changed enormously over seven decades; Damon imagined the experience would be somewhat similar to what he himself had felt when he returned to the Greek Pantheon after being gone for so long.

Bianca looked up at Damon, noticing the complicated expression on his face. ”Is that bad?”

Damon remained silent for a second before shaking his head. ”It’s not something either of you needs to worry about right now.”

Without saying anything more, Hades continued guiding them until they reached another section of the casino. However, long before they crossed the next doorway, Damon could already sense the divine energy.

It was definitely nothing comparable to the presence of an actual god, but he could detect dozens of small concentrations mixed together, each carrying different traces of divinity. Damon narrowed his eyes slightly before following Hades into the next room.

There were easily between twenty-five and fifty children scattered throughout the enormous space. Most looked to be somewhere between ten and thirteen years old. Some played at arcade machines, others ate, several talked among themselves, and a few simply sat around enjoying the countless distractions the Lotus placed in front of them, from televisions to whatever game happened to catch their interest.

Damon picked up the spiritual scent of blood and corn almost without trying. He didn’t need to investigate much to recognize where that essence came from. There was only one major group of deities in this part of the world whose spirituality was so deeply tied to corn, ritual blood, and ancient Mesoamerican sacrifices that such traces would remain this obvious even within their descendants.

”Aztecs...” he murmured.

Hades nodded.

Damon slowly swept his gaze across the room, examining the different presences more carefully. Most seemed to share the same origin, though definitely not all of them.

”If you’re wondering how they ended up here, I asked myself the exact same thing,” Hades explained while observing the children. ”The most likely explanation is that several were guided north by their parents or by people connected to them and eventually crossed the border between Mexico and the United States. It has become fairly common over the last several decades.”

Damon nodded slowly, still examining the different presences.

”There’s also the possibility that some were conceived directly on American soil,” Hades continued. ”After the Mexican Cession of 1848, several regions that had previously belonged to Mexico became part of the United States. The Mesoamerican deities never completely lost their influence over those lands.”

”But that would be risky,” Damon pointed out.

”Exactly.” Hades narrowed his eyes slightly. ”I’m fairly certain they understand the problems that could come from siring demigods within another Pantheon’s territory without any kind of warning. That’s why I doubt that explains every child we’re looking at.”

Damon was about to respond when he noticed Hades directing his gaze toward another part of the room.

”And besides...” the God of the Underworld continued, ”they aren’t the only ones.”

Damon followed his gaze... In one corner, a blond boy around twelve years old was completely absorbed in an arcade machine. Unlike the previous group, not only was his divine presence different, but his appearance was as well. Everything about him clearly pointed toward northern Europe.

His clothing didn’t exactly help hide it either. It was obviously outdated for the current era, with garments that looked as though they had come straight out of another generation. Damon raised an eyebrow as he studied him.

”Does that kid look like a Viking to you, or am I imagining things?”

”He’s Norwegian,” Hades replied with complete seriousness. ”Or at least I think he is.”

A brief silence fell between them as Damon continued staring at the blond boy. He was about to comment when a much younger voice suddenly appeared practically from beneath his arm.

”I can help you, sir!”

Damon looked down and noticed that a boy no older than ten had suddenly appeared in front of him. He had brown skin, messy black hair, and large dark eyes filled with energy. He wore an old, ragged brown toga along with a straw hat that looked as though it had survived more adventures than the boy himself.

”My name is Marcos López,” he introduced himself proudly, placing both hands on his waist as though he were ready to receive a mission of extreme importance. ”And I know this place like the back of my hand.”

Damon simply stared at the boy... Marcos stared right back with a huge smile.

Then he immediately started talking again.... ”Well, not all of it, all of it, because there’s one place they don’t let us go into and weird noises come from there, and then there’s another place where a lady yelled at me because I broke a machine, but I didn’t break it on purpose, I just pressed all the buttons at the same time because I wanted to see what would happen, and then smoke started coming out, but that wasn’t really my fault because if the buttons are there, they’re supposed to be pressed, right?”

Damon blinked. While Hades slowly turned his head away.

Marcos continued with the same endless energy. ”I also know where they keep the good food, where they hide the candy, which machines give you the most tokens, and I know almost all the kids here. Well, some of them don’t speak Spanish and some say weird stuff, but I talk to them anyway until they understand me.”

Bianca looked up at Damon while Nico seemed completely fascinated by the newcomer. ”So you can help?” Nico asked.

Marcos immediately gave him a thumbs-up.

”Of course I can!”

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