The Raise of the Raze: Chapter 20

Global's POV
The gerbil disappeared. That is too bad. A teenage boy with golden hair and golden eyes appeared before us, with a slightly disgruntled look etched on his pale face. He was smaller than me, what I recognized as pituitary dwarfism. Hippolyta obviously knew him, because she rushed forward and hugged him, lifting the boy a few feet from the ground.

Josh. This was the legendary hero who goes through impossibly difficult quests. Demeter had revived him....from the dead? Isn't that against the laws?

The boy didn't look to happy to be back in the surface world. Demeter looked grim.

"Why did you revive me?" He asked, turning his head to each of us with this very stern look.

Hippolyta became confused. "But-but....I thought...."

Josh started to glow harshly. "I am already peaceful, happy in Elysium! And you took that away from me? Hippolyta, haven't you listened that I'm fine being a soul in the Underworld?"

Demeter looked at me. "I'll better get going." She whispered and disappeared into wheat, which broke into golden dust.

"I'm so sorry, Josh!" Hippolyta was saying. "It's just..... you're a good friend and I want you to live. Is that so wrong?"

Heart and Annabeth watched them like an interesting tennis match. Josh seemed to calm down, and he nodded. "Okay. I'm sorry."

After everything seemed settled, Annabeth asked "So, what's next?"

Hippolyta shrugged. "Ares in the North Pole." She said. "I can't transport you there, it's ice, not earth."

Josh's eye twitched and he said, "I could take you there."

Hippolyta clapped her hand into her forehead, a force that might be able to knock off a cart horse. "Right. Josh, can you take us there, please?"

"Sure."

We clustered behind Josh, as he glowed like a miniature sun. There was this poof sound, and we disappeared from Chernobyl, Russia.

And landed, immediately freezing, next to the North Pole.