Nico

When I woke up, the room was still dark. My one arm was still wrapped around my baby's neck while the other was resting below his belly button on the middle of his happy trail. I started to wake up more as I slid my hand up his stomach to his cut abs. That was when I realized that the ship was rocking from side to side and rain was slamming against the hull. Normally, I could sleep through anything, but tonight's storm seemed to be an exception. I was actually surprised that Will didn't wake up before I did. I tried to pull my arm out from behind his neck without waking him up. If Will could sleep through this, I didn't want to wake him up unless I needed to. I almost had my hand free from the back of Will's neck when he woke up.

"Angel," he said still half a sleep, "what's wrong?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a torrential downpour in the middle of the night. I was going to go see if the ship was alright and I didn't want to wake you."

Will got up and rested his upper body on his elbows, fully releasing my hand. Then, he leaned over and gave me a kiss in the dark. "Thanks babe, but I think I'll come with you."

We got out of our nice warm bed and Will stumbled across the room to turn on the light. We both threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt before walking out into the hall. Trying to walk with the ship rocking was starting to get a little nauseating. We headed down the hall to the stairs when we saw Jason standing beside the door to the laundry room. He was soaked from head to toe and only wearing his now saturated boxers. Any other time I would think that he looked extremely hot like this, but this was an emergency situation. Jason looked somewhat relieved when he saw us approaching.

"Do either of you guys have any idea how to get into the control area when it's sealed off," Jason asked. "I know there's a secret access panel around here somewhere, but I can't find anything resembling a door or a ladder."

"I guess that's why it's a secret."

"Funny, smart-ass," Jason replied.

"Guys," Will said, "this is no time to mess around. I don't think that he would put the panel in the hallway, it would be directly under his chair. It would have to be in the laundry room."

The three of us went into the laundry room and started looking around. There wasn't any clear indication that there was even a ladder or latch in the room. I did manage to find Jason a dry towel in one of the storage cabinets though. All of the walls in the room were lined with cabinets and shelves for storage. All of them were full with the exception of the one beside the door. For some reason that set of shelves barely had anything on it. I looked around for a hidden switch or button, but I couldn't find anything. I was just about to give up when I saw an outline of a dragon's head further up the wall beside the shelves. It was too high for me to reach it, but about the right height for Leo's long arms.

"Can one of you guys come over here, please?"

Jason just happened to be the closest of the two near me, so he made it to me first. His hair was still damp from the rain, but the rest of him looked pretty dry. He had the towel I gave him wrapped tightly around his waist.

"Did you find something," he asked?

"See that dragon head picture up there? I can't think of any other reason for it to be there. It has to be a button or something."

Jason replied, "guess we'll find out."

Jason reached up the wall toward the picture. He put his finger right in front of it and hesitated a second before pressing it. "Better step back, just in case."

I took a few steps back from the shelves until I was standing beside Will. I must have been staring more at his arm with its defined muscles, light blonde hairs, and 'SPRQ' tattoo on his forearm. I didn't even notice him press the picture when suddenly bars slid out from the front of the shelves forming a ladder. A square opened up in the ceiling as a panel came down and slid off to the side. The three of us stood there for a minute looking at the newly found opening. As nobody else was moving, and I was getting tired of waiting, I walked up to the new ladder and slowly climbed up. When I peeked my head through the opening, I found myself inside the control area right beside the chair that Leo was sitting in. He was too busy trying to control the ship to even notice that I was there.

"Is everything alright Leo?"

"Fuck no," he replied, "get up here before you fall."

I climbed the rest of the way up and sat down on the floor with my legs dangling through the opening. "I didn't think that we were going to be hitting a storm like this."

Leo replied without taking his eyes off the screens in front of him. "That's just it, it was supposed to be clear sailing the rest of the way. The ship was approaching the coast of China when this storm came out of nowhere."

From the bottom of the ladder Jason said, "maybe it's Notus, the God of the South Wind, trying to stop us."

"Or help us by hiding the ship in a storm," Will added.

Leo said, "if he's trying to help us out, he could be a little gentler. The ship's stabilizers are barely keeping us upright. The strange thing is, according to the radar, the storm is moving in the same direction that we are. We have no choice but to ride it out."

"How long until we reach Beijing?"

Leo replied, "since we're getting a pretty good speed boost from the tail wind, we'll be there in less than a hour. I'm trying to keep us on course for the landing spot that I picked out. Just hang tight below deck and hopefully we'll be on the ground soon."

Jason said, "preferably in one piece Leo."

He replied, "she'll make it just fine Grace."

I patted Leo on the leg and climbed back down the ladder.

...

I wish that I could say the rest of the night was uneventful, but it really wasn't. By the time the ship landed, everyone except Will and Leo had motion sickness. Will was giving us all ambrosia to chew on, but even its magical healing effects were useless. It was just coming right back up with everything else. Shortly after the ship landed, the storm ended as fast as it began. I was inclined to agree with my husband that Notus was indeed helping us sneak into China. Of course, none of us would really know the truth. Since we've already been up all the night I was hoping that I could take a nap before we set off through the city. However, I knew that it would be dawn soon and the guys would want to get an early start.

After my stomach finally settled down, Will and I went back to our cabin to get dressed for the day. Leo told us that the weather showed today's high to be in the upper 90's. We dressed as light as we could, but still made sure we would have some protection in case we had to fight. Armed with our weapons, we went up to the deck to meet up with Jason just before dawn. The early morning light was just starting to cast its reddish hue on the deck of the ship. We found Jason leaning up against the middle mast with his arms wrapped around Piper. Leo was running around the deck checking the side cannons that were now sticking out of their storage boxes.

"Ready to head out Jason?"

He gave Piper one last kiss before responding. "Yeah, let's do this!"

The three of us went over to the side of the ship and climbed down the ladder. Leo parked the ship in the middle of a small clearing. There was just barely enough room for the ship to fit between the trees. We headed through the trees with our weapons in hand just in case we were attacked. Beyond the trees, the rest of the park was an open field. The field and playground equipment was all empty at this early hour of the morning. As we were approaching the street, two figures were quickly approaching us. When they got closer to us, it quickly became evident that they were dracaena. From the waist up they appeared to be normal human females. However, from the waist down they serpent bodies where their legs should have been. As they slithered their way toward us, we readied out weapons. They were almost upon us when we noticed that they were carrying white flags. Will, Jason, and I each looked at each other, each confused as the next. That was when I remembered what Zephyr had said to us in the bathroom. I lowered my sword, but still kept it ready at my side. They stopped a few feet in front of us and didn't make any moves to attack.

"Demigodsss," the first dracaena hissed, "we were hoping that you would come."

"We need your help," said the other. "Thesssse humanssss are making it too hard for usss to feed. All of the rioting makesss it too dangeroussss even for monsterssss."

Will asked, "do you know where the leader behind the riots is?"

"We do," replied the first one, "we will sssshow you where he issss. Follow usss and be quiet."

We followed the two dracaena through the streets of downtown Beijing. We were use to seeing some weird stuff, but this was definitely a new experience. Of course, I've been helped by some monsters in the Underworld that I wouldn't expect, so I just shrugged this off too. If they turned on us though, they were going to be dust. As the city began getting busy in the morning hours, we tried to look like tourists following the two monsters. Once we were in the heart of city, the two dracaena led us through the allies. The dracaena stopped in front of a steel door. There was nobody else in the alley except us.

"He issss insssside here," the second one hissed, "good luck demigodssss."

The two dracaena slithered their way down the alley away from us. Leaving us standing outside the steel door by ourselves. Will and Jason didn't seem to have the balls to do anything, so I turned the knob on the door. I thought for sure that the door would be locked, but the knob turned and it opened right up. I walked through the doorway with Will and Jason following behind. Behind the door was a long hallway with dim light bulbs barely lighting the hall. The three of us slowly went down the hallway with our weapons readied. The hallway led to a room with a square mat in the middle of it. The only lights in the room were directly above the red mat. In the middle, a man was sitting Indian style on the floor. He didn't even seem to notice our presence. We slowly walked up to the mat, trying not to make any noise. When we got to the edge, the three of us stopped directly besides each other.

"You should not have come here," the man said. "This is no place for you." The man was bald, so it made it hard to guess his age. However, from the sound of his voice, he was no spring chicken.

"We have come to find the person behind all of the recent violence."

"Found him," he replied, "you have." The man stood, and turned around facing us. His face appeared to be just as old as he sounded. He was a little shorter then me and didn't look and bigger. His robe was clinging to his thin body and his feet were bare. "Put down your weapons and I will consider letting you live."

"Dude," Jason said, "in case you haven't notice, we have you outnumbered three to one. Besides, you're smaller than Nico."

I guess that was completely the wrong thing to say. Before I knew what hit me, I was flat on my back gasping for air. I could feel Will and Jason's arms touching mine, but my chest hurt too much for me to move. I knew that we were going to be in deep shit if we didn't do something soon. Just as I started to get up, I was stopped by the old man's foot on my neck. I could feel the pressure from his foot cutting off the air through my wind pipe. Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew above me and knocked the man over on the other side of Will. I looked to my other side and saw Jason struggling to hold himself up. It must have taken all of the energy that he could muster to pull that off, especially indoors.

Will got up before pulling me up from the floor. The little man seemed disoriented on the floor beside us. I picked my sword up and stood ready beside him. We didn't come here to kill a mortal, but, it didn't seem like we had much of a choice. Just as I pointed the tip of my Stygian Iron sword at the back of his neck, he rolled over and swept our legs out from underneath us. I landed on my face and busted my lip. Will landed partially on top of me. I'm not sure what hit where, but he groaned in pain immediately after. This guy was definitely skilled in martial arts and it was starting to piss me off. I think that he was having fun with us, we'd be dead already if that's what he wanted. As I rolled over and looked up, I saw his foot coming down at my head. Another gust of wind blew the old man back on to the mat in the middle of the room. At this point I have had enough of old ninja man. One way or another, this prick was going down.

At this point, I didn't really care what I had to do to bring this fucker down. Will and I approached him as Jason stood back up. We picked our weapons back up and slowly walked toward the old man across the mat. Will had an arrow ready and my sword was ready to strike. The old man stood and faced us once again. He put his hands up and was just about to strike against when I did what I told Will I wouldn't do. I closed my eyes and melted into the shadows. When I reappeared, I was behind the old man. He looked extremely confused and I took this as the perfect opportunity. I took my sword and smacked him with it on the side of his head. As he turned toward me with a pissed look on his face, Jason hit hit with another blast of wind. The old man flew into one of the cement columns just as Will's arrow went through the the top of his robe. He was now attached to the column and looked like he was dazed. Jason and I approached him, both with our swords in hand. Standing in front of him, Jason nodded at me. We both raised our swords and hit him in the head with the broad side of our swords at the same time.

The old man went limp, hanging in his robe help to the column by Will's arrow. Jason and I still stood in front of him with our swords ready. I was tempted to finish him off when a black mist came of out of his body. The mist swirled around and disappeared into the darkness around us. The three of stood there dumbfounded as the old man still hung unconscious on the pillar. After a few minutes, Jason walked up to the man and gently poked him in the chest with the tip of his sword. He started to slowly open his eyes and blankly stared at us.

Groggily, he said, "who are you and why am I hanging here with a pounding headache?"

"My name is Nico, this is Will and Jason. You were corrupted by the God Chaos. He had you causing all kinds of riots and stuff. We were sent here to stop you." I wiped the blood off of my chin before continuing. "You definitely put up a pretty good fight, it took all three of us to stop you."

"My name is Feng," the old man said. "Would you mind helping me get down? Then we can continue this conversation."

Fend thanked us as he sat back down on the mat in the middle of the room. We tried to explain everything to him as he held his head. We even explained the whole Gods thing and that we were all demigods. When we were done, Feng told us the he was the leader of the biggest mafia group in China. He didn't remember anything that he had done in the past few months. I still wasn't sure why this powerful guy was unguarded in this room. However, he seemed to be able to take care of himself quite well. If it wasn't for our powers, we wouldn't have had a chance against him.

"Thank you," he said, "for chasing the evil spirit from me. My business is to make money and from what you said, what I was doing doesn't sound very profitable. I will call for my Lieutenants and stop the rioting at once. The three of you should get going before someone comes."

Jason said, "Feng, our prophecy said that we'd find our next stop after freeing you. Any idea where that may be?"

He replied, "I am sorry, I do not."

Feng stood and bowed to us. We returned the bow to him before leaving the room. Just before we opened the door at the end of the dark hallway, Will stopped me and turned me toward him. He leaned in towards me and gave me a nice long kiss. I could feel his healing power pouring into my lips as he did it. When he finally broke off the kiss, I reached up and felt my lips. The cut on my lip was gone.

"Thanks Sunshine."

"Anything for my Darkness, and don't shadow travel again without asking first."

I could feel my face blushing as I opened the door and walked into the alley. The three of us walked in silence as we tried to mingle into the crown on the sidewalk. A few blocks before we reached the park where the ship was parked, I stopped in front of an electronics store. There was a tv in the window playing the news. Of course, none of us had any idea what the Chinese words on the screen meant. However, the image on the screen looked really familiar. I wasn't positive that I knew where it was until they showed and aerial shoot with the opera house in the background. We watched as people were rioting in the streets and the local police were trying to stop them. This had to be our next place to go.

"Looks like we're heading to Australia."

Will put his long tan arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. "Yup, looks like we are."

Jason said, "I've always wanted to go to the land down under."

"Isn't that what you do with Piper?"

Jason gave me a light shove on the shoulder and the three of us started laughing as we headed back to the Argo III.