“So now that we’re here, we need to find Nereus, right?” Marina asked.
“Yeah. I’ll let Kyle lead the way on this one.” Hunter turned to Kyle and punched him in the arm. Kyle took a deep breath.
“Alright then. Let’s go find him.” Hunter, Marina, and Will all followed Kyle as they searched the coastline. They had been searching for a few hours when Kyle started sniffing the air. “Something smells…fishy…”
“Really? Fishy? Well, we’re right outside of a fish market, Kyle, so yeah it should.” Marina said rolling her eyes. Kyle started looking around. He had only been looking for a minute, seemingly following the smell, when he came tiptoe-ing back to the group. ”Wha—“ Kyle shushed Will as before he could get a word out.
“He’s right over there. The one in the fisherman’s vest.” Kyle whispered in a very low register, pointing behind a storage container. All four of them leaned over to look behind the storage container to see a dirty-looking man with a messy beard and glasses. He looked like he was sleeping. Marina smiled and then started digging in her bag. She pulled out her makeup case and started examining it.
“Now really isn’t the time to be touching up your makeup, Marina.” Hunter said, still whispering making sure that Nereus didn’t wake up. He had just stopped talking when the makeup case transformed into a large cannon that Marina held in both hands. Hunter had seen her practicing with it in the arena, but he still stared as Marina made adjustments to her hand cannon. She finally finished with the adjustments and took aim at Nereus who was still sleeping soundly. She pressed a button on the side and a second later THOOM! A large net made of metallic cables came flying from the end of the cannon right towards Nereus. The noise the cannon made was a not exactly quiet. Nereus had heard the noise and dodged around the oncoming net. He was now making a run for it. Will quickly dropped his stuff and started chasing Nereus. He jumped on to his back.
“AAAGHH! Get offa me!” Nereus screamed as he tried to shake Will from his back. Orion ran over and starting barking at the screaming Nereus.
“Hold on just another second, Will!” The whole time Marina had been making adjustments again to her cannon. She aimed and fired again. THOOM! Another net came flying out towards Nereus and Will. It hit its target and trapped both of them.
“Get this net off! He smells awful!” Will screamed as he tried to pry his way out of the net. Nereus, now trapped, started transforming into various sea animals. Every time he transformed the net gave a little bit of electric shock. Just enough electricity to shock Nereus into his original shape. Every shock though made Will scream in pain. Nereus struggled in the net for about 10 minutes, then he finally gave up.
“I’ll answer your question just get this net offa me?!” Marina walked over and pressed a button on her cannon, then changed it back to the makeup case. Hunter and She pulled the net off of Will and Nereus. Kyle dragged Will away from Nereus and tried to wake him up. The electricity had rendered Will unconscious. Nereus was lying on the ground, defeated and breathing hard. Orion right next to him, growling. “What…What do you want? I don’t…have all day.”
“You get to ask him Marina. Technically, you caught him. Will’s unconscious so it’s up to you.” Marina thought for a little while and then took a deep breath.
“Where is the source of the curse that is affecting the gods?” Nereus stood up. And dusted off his pants.
“Simple. The Underworld. DOA Recording Studios.” With that, Nereus ran and jumped into the water turning into a seal in midair.
“That seemed like a lot of trouble for not that much information.” Kyle said. He looked back at Will who was just coming to. Marina knelt down and started hugging him.
“I’m so sorry!! I didn’t mean to get you in the net, too. I couldn’t let him go or he wouldn’t have told us where to go. And that meant getting you caught in there too. I’m so sorry!” Will opened his eyes.
“It’s okay, Marina.” Will said through pained laughing. “I knew what I was doing when I jumped on his back.” Will slowly stood up and stabled himself on Kyle’s shoulder. “Ugh…I can still smell him. Gross.”
“So what’s the plan?” Kyle asked.
“Well, fish-man said we needed to go to the Underworld in a place called DOA Recording Studios. I don’t know where that is.”
“That’s simple enough. Chiron would probably know, right? We’ll just Iris message him. And he’ll tell us.” Will explained, now standing up on his own.
“That’s…not a bad plan.” Hunter shrugged and started walking toward the beach. He found a beach shower and turned on high enough to create a mist. “Goddess, accept my offering.” He dropped a drachma into the rainbow. “Chiron. Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill, Long Island, New York.” Soon after Hunter could see Chiron sitting in the Big house. Hunter could hear yelling in the background. “Chiron!” Hunter shouted into the picture.
“OH! Hunter. How are things going?” Chiron put on a forced pleasant smile. Hunter had known him too long to be unable to tell when something was worrying Chiron. “What can I help you with?” Chiron was obviously hurrying.
“Well, Chiron. We were wondering if you could tell us where DOA Recording Studios was. Apparently, it’s an entrance to the Underworld, which is our next destination according to Nereus.”
“I’ll be right back.” Chiron trotted away from Hunter’s view. Hunter could hear his calm voice resolving some issue with a couple of other campers. Everything got quieter as the other campers left. A few minutes later Chiron returned. “The only location I have is Valencia Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. It’s a pretty clearly marked building, though. It’ll be hard to miss.”
“Los Angeles? That’s like 6 hours away. How are we gonna get there? We don’t have a car.”
“Wait where you are. I’ll send help. Now if there is nothing else. I really need to be going.” Chiron then waved his hand splitting the connection.