Chapter Text
3 hours before
Apollo and Meg had been receiving nerve-racking prophecy lines for their final quest, to defeat Python and Nero, some lines made no sense at all, some were very clear and they both had already fulfilled them, apart from this 1 stanza....
With one sight lost to their own shot
The other must be the missing vision
Guilding the ray to a victory with a cost
They were confused at what those last lines meant, especially the last line, with a cost at what cost? They did say it in the prophecy that someone's sight will be lost, but it seemed like that one's vision is not enough to pay for the sweat victory, Apollo was worried, there was only two person on this quest, since when they'd received the last line of prophecy from Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the two left immediately, preventing anyone from foolishly volunteering to go on the quesst with them. And, on their way to Camp Half-Blood, Apollo and Meg had to slice and dice (For Apollo, is shoot and... Ok I give up) through a hord of monsters, probably Nero's army, trying his second attempt on attacking the Camp, Apollo wanted every demigod defending their Camp, not wasting their time on a stupid quest, that's his and Meg's job.
"Where do you think this Tower is?" Meg asked as they ascended up a hill, Apollo frowned and look at his companion. "On top of this hill maybe? I dunno..."
"You don't know anything do you?"
"I know something!"
"By the way, that last line of the prophecy, 'Guiding the ray', lemme guest, it's referring to you?" Meg asked, her eyes sparkled with true curiosity.
"I have many names," Apollo said. "But my full name is Phoebus Apollo. Phoebus meaning 'ray',"
"Ohhh," Meg grinned, like Apollo just told her a funny joke.
"What's so funny?"
"I was just thinking if Zeus had every called you by your full name when he's mad,"
Apollo rolled his eyes, of course not! Ok, maybe once... Ok maybe alot of times... But those times were in the past, now rarely anyone called him by his full name or just straight out called him 'Phoebus'
" If you start calling me by my full name I think I would rather get Python to kill me instead of having to hear that name ever again,"
"Yeah, whatever, Phoebus,"
"I hate you,"
By the time they arrived, the sky was turning orange, the sun was setting, and in front of them, a column of rocks towered up high beyond the clouds.
"Don't tell me we'll have to climb that," Apollo said with annoyance in his voice, he already hated climbing hills, and from his previous experience of climbing a radio tower to free a silence god and getting attacked by ravens, he really hated climbing now, not just hate.
"Well, I don't see an entrance to this monstrosity," Meg said, summoning her golden swords, they shone in the darkness that was now covering the city and forest below and was slowly creeping on to them.
Apollo walked to the stone tower, he tried pressing the stones, just in case there was a secret entrance to the place, it seemed to him that there was a room in there, probably room guarded by monsters like a video game where you have to beat them to go to the next floor, the tower's width was just large enough to fit a very very big creature in it, probably like a dragon's tower or something, or a big giant snake that once had tried to kill the Sun God.when.he was actually... Well... A God
Meg walked around the tower, scanning every perimeter, trying to find an entrance, until she'd stopped and squinted at one of the stones, Odd... she thought, the stone in front of her was big and black, it sticked out from the other stones like a sore thumb. She pressed it and suddenly, the stones infront of Apollo started to shift, he jumped back in surprise as an entrance was made infront of him, the two would've been amaze if there weren't any monsters in them, there were 6 wolf headed men inside, they slowly turned to Apollo, probably thinking What. The. Heck before it changed to Oh snacks!
The wolf men charged at Apollo, but Meg came to the rescue and sliced them to pieces, more wolf men came out to play and now the Once-God was prepared, he nocked an arrow and let go, nocked an arrow and let go, it was so fast that Meg didn't have a chance to even walk a step to them, when all the enemies were dead, she glared at Apollo. "You stole my kills," She said like she was playing a video game, which made Apollo smirked in satisfaction. "Too slow,"
They ascended the tower, up the stairs that poked out from the wall, spiralling up to floors and more floors, the two god and demigod slowly made thier way up due to the amount of monsters they had to kill, Apollo was running out of arrows and Meg was running out of energy by the time they got to the top, infornt of them was a big golden door, carved with pictures, the most noticeable were snakes.
"This just screams 'Python'," Meg said.
"Yes it does," Apollo pushed the door, it opened easily since his godly strength was slowly returning, inside wasn't what any of the two would expected, but a man in purple stood only a few feet from them, his grin cruel and full of mischief, he clapped slowly, as if he just saw a terrible performance but didn't want to be rude. "Well done Apollo," He said.
"Nero," Apollo nocked his last arrow, wanting his last shot to do the trick, Meg readied her sword, although she was a little shaken up, facing her step-father wasn't something she could just do without any disturbing thoughts annoying her.
"Wow, how rude, you came all the way up here just to kill me? I prepared a tea party and everything!" Nero sounded hurt, sarcastically of course.
"Guess the tea would be replaced by your blood then, Lester," Suddenly, in the shadows behind the emperor, a low hiss cut its way through the air, frozing both Meg and Apollo in place, Python slithered into the light, he towered over Nero, his reptilian eyes shined of hunger, his forked tongue flickering in and out of his snout with the hisses of doom. He spoke, his voice low and harsh.
"Indeed Nero, and the tea would be delicious,"