"A GOD EMPEROR? You mean a delusional ex-emperor" Apollo scoffed. Nero arched his eyebrows. "What made you a god Apollo… back when you were one? Wasn’t it the power of your name, your sway over those who believed in you? I am no different" He glanced to his left. "Vince, fall on your spear, please" Without hesitation, Vince planted the butt of his spear against the ground. He braced the point under his rib cage. "Stop. I changed my mind" Nero said.

Cassidy bristled at the casual tone of his voice as he gave the command. Vince betrayed no relief. In fact, his eyes tightened with faint disappointment. He brought his spear back to his side. The grin Nero wore only made Cassidy feel sicker. "You see? I hold the power of life and death over my worshippers, like any proper god should"

"The Germani were always crazy, much like you" Apollo curled his lip. Nero put his hand to his chest. "I’m hurt! My barbarian friends are loyal subjects of the Julian dynasty! And, of course, we are all descended from you, Lord Apollo" Meg moved to stand next to Cassidy. "Wh- what do you want, Nero?" She asked, a tremor in her voice despite the steadiness she tried to force into it. Nero’s eyes gleamed. "Straight to the point. I’ve always admired that about you, Meg. Really, it’s simple. You and Apollo will open the gates of Dodona for me. Then these seven with the Dionysus spawn" he gestured to the staked prisoners then to Paolo and Cassidy "Will be released.” Apollo shook his head. "You’ll destroy the grove. Then you’ll kill us"

The emperor laughed again. "Not unless you force me to. I’m a reasonable god-emperor, Apollo! I’d much rather have the Grove of Dodona under my control if it can be managed, but I certainly can’t allow you to use it. You had your chance at being the guardian of the Oracles. You failed miserably. Now it’s my responsibility. Mine… and my partners’"

"And who are these partners?" Cassidy asked. Nero shrugged. "Good Romans. Men who, like me, have the willpower to do what is needed" he said. "Triumvirates have never worked. They always lead to civil war" Apollo argued. Cassidy was mostly lost in the conversation. Nero simply smiled "The three of us have come to an agreement. We have divided up the new empire… by which I mean North America. Once we have the Oracles, we’ll expand and do what Romans have always done best, conquer the world"

"You truly learned nothing from your previous reign" Apollo stared at the emperor. "Oh, but I did! I’ve had centuries to reflect, plan, and prepare. Do you have any idea how annoying it is to be a god emperor, unable to die but unable to fully live? There was a period of about three hundred years during the Middle Ages when my name was almost forgotten. I was little more than a mirage! Thank goodness for the Renaissance, when our Classical greatness was remembered. And then came the Internet. Oh, gods, I love the Internet! It is impossible for me to fade completely now. I am immortal on Wikipedia!" Nero exclaimed.

"The fuck's a Wikipedia?" Cassidy whispered. But Nero was now on a roll, he continued before Apollo could speak "Yes, yes. You think I am crazy. I could explain my plans and prove otherwise, but I have a lot on my plate today. I need you and Meg to open those gates. They’ve resisted my best efforts, but together you two can do it. Apollo, you have an affinity with Oracles. Meg has a way with trees. Get to it. Please and thank you"

"We would rather die" Apollo snapped. "Wouldn’t we, Meg?" No response. Cassidy glanced over at Meg. A tear glistened as it streaked down her cheeks. "Meg?" Cassidy asked gently, in a different situation they would have moved over to her side but they couldn't afford to leave themselves so vulnerable to attacks.

Nero clasped his hands. "Oh, my. It seems we’ve had a slight miscommunication. You see, Apollo, Meg brought you here, just as I asked her to. The demigod was just an unfortunate bonus. Well done, my sweet" Meg wiped her face. "I- I didn’t mean…"

Cassidy's heart turned to lead and dropped in his chest. No, no, no... The traitor. They'd barely had a moment to stop and think about it since they'd first learnt of it. Ofcourse it was Meg. Twelve years old or not if they'd thought logically Meg would be the greatest suspect. All the signs would point to her. The Roman weapons and fighting style, the absolute control over her powers, not to mention she'd just happened across Apollo while he was getting attacked by Nero's thugs. And nobody in camp would dare turn on other demigods because of their hatred of the gods again. The Titan War made sure of that.

Cassidy's least favourite thing about being betrayed was the fact that you couldn't see it coming, couldn't defend yourself against the hurt. But this time who did they have to blame but themself? The signs were all there, clear as day, they'd just chosen to ignore them because they were fond of Meg.

"Meg, no. I can’t believe-" Apollo reached for her. Peaches snarled and inserted himself between the two. He wasn't here to protect them from Nero he was here to defend Meg from Lester and Cassidy. "Meg? This man killed your father! He’s a murderer!" Apollo exclaimed, a hint of desperation in his voice. "She's been on his side the entire time" Cassidy murmured. Meg stared at the ground. "The Beast killed my father. This is Nero. He’s- he’s my stepfather" She sounded so pained as she spoke that Cassidy wanted to go over and pull the little girl into an embrace, take her far away from Nero but they banished those thoughts as soon as they had them. The sting of the betrayal was still fresh. Nero spread his arms "That’s right, my darling, and you’ve done a wonderful job. Come to Papa"

"Meg, we are friends" Apollo sounded hurt and somewhat petulant, Cassidy couldn't blame him. "How could you do this to me?" He asked. Meg looked down at her sneakers "I tried to tell you, to warn you" she warned. Nero smiled "She has a good heart but, Apollo, you, the Dionysus child and Meg have been friends for just a few days and only because I asked Meg to befriend you. I have been Meg’s stepfather, protector, and caretaker for years. She is a member of the Imperial Household"

Cassidy didn't trust themself to speak. "I risked my life for you" Apollo murmured, staring at Meg in disbelief "And that actually means something, because I can die!" Nero clapped politely. "We’re all impressed, Apollo. Now, if you’d open the gates. They’ve defied me for too long. Oh and tell your friend to put away his weapons" Cassidy glared at both Nero and Meg. The latter stubbornly avoided their gaze.

Apollo turned towards the trees "Nero, what have you done?" He asked. Cassidy followed his gaze and saw that the trees had several damage marks like burns and axe markings. "Oh, a number of things!" Nero's tone was far too jovial for his words "We found a way into this antechamber weeks ago. The Labyrinth has a convenient opening in the myrmekes’ nest. But getting through these gates-" 

"You forced the palikos to help you You used a nature spirit to destroy nature? Meg, how can you tolerate this?" Apollo snapped. Cassidy balled their fists, resisting the urge to charge at Nero and the Germani. Peaches growled. Cassidy had the feeling he agreed with them. Meg’s expression was as closed up as the gates. She stared intently at the bones littering the field. "Come now" Nero said. "Meg knows there are good nature spirits, and bad ones. This geyser god was annoying. He kept asking us to fill out surveys. Besides, he shouldn’t have ventured so far from his source of power. He was quite easy to capture. His steam, as you can see, didn’t do us much good anyway"

"And the other demigods?" Cassidy demanded. "Of course! I didn’t plan on luring them here, but every time we attacked the gates, the grove started wailing. I suppose it was calling for help, and the demigods couldn’t resist. The first to wander in was this one" He pointed to Cecil. "The last three were Paolo and your children Austin and Kayla. yes? They showed up after we forced Paulie to steam-broil the trees. I guess the grove was quite nervous about that attempt. We got three demigods for the price of one!"

Despite Cassidy's innitial impulse being to attack it didn't take an Athena child to know that they were outnumbered. They looked at Peaches first. Special as he was to Meg he was still a grain spirit and they didn't have much qualms against fighting him but if Meg joined the fight? They couldn't hurt Meg, they doubted they'd be able to bring themselves to do that. Ofcourse they had difficulty recognising what they would or wouldn't do after Claire's death. The Germani were a maybe but he didn't know anything about them. However, amputating Nero remained an incredibly tempting idea.

Apollo had no such reservations. He snapped and charged at Nero. Or atleast, he tried to. Cassidy took hold of him before he could get far and kept a firm grip on him despite his attempts to struggle against them. "Come on, now is no time to be suicidal sunshine" they snapped impatiently. "Just stop and think for a moment" Lester stopped struggling and turned to Meg "Don’t you understand who your protector is? He’s a monster! He’s the emperor who-"

"Don’t say it" Nero warned. "If you say ‘who fiddled while Rome burned,’ I will have Vince and Gary flay you for a set of hide armor. You know as well as I do, Apollo, we didn’t have fiddles back then. And I did not start the Great Fire of Rome" he said "But you profited from it" Apollo retorted. "Meg, your stepfather watched as seventy percent of Rome was destroyed. Tens of thousands died"

"I was thirty miles away in Antium! I rushed back to the city and personally led the fire brigades!" Nero snarled. "Only when the fire threatened your palace" Apollo argued. Nero rolled his eyes. "I can’t help it if I arrived just in time to save the most important building!" Meg cupped her hands over her ears. "Stop arguing. Please"

"Or compromise argue about something that I've actually heard of" Cassidy said. "After the Great Fire, instead of rebuilding the houses on Palatine Hill, Nero leveled the neighborhood and built a new palace. The Domus Aurea" Apollo continued. Nero got a dreamy look on his face. "Ah, yes… the House of Gold. It was beautiful, Meg! I had my own lake, three hundred rooms, frescoes of gold, mosaics done in pearls and diamonds. I could finally live like a human being!"

Cassidy let out a loud scoff at the description of the extravagance. "You had the nerve to put a hundred-foot-tall bronze statue in your front lawn! A statue of yourself as Sol-Apollo, the sun god. In other words, you claimed to be me" Apollo snarled. "And you didn't smite him?" Cassidy asked, surprised. They weren’t sure what was more surprising, the fact that Nero was standing in front of them or that anybody belived him. Sure not everybody had seen the gods and they appeared however they wanted but the family resemblance between Nero and Apollo was far from apparent. "I should have" Apollo admitted.

"Even after I died, that statue lived on. I understand it became famous as the Colossus of Nero! They moved it to the gladiators’ amphitheater and everyone began calling the theater after the statue, the Colosseum" Nero puffed up his chest. "Yes… the statue was the perfect choice" Cassidy narrowed their eyes, something was off about his tone. "What are you talking about?" Apollo demanded.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing" Nero checked his watch. "The point is, I had style! The people loved me!" Lester shook his head. "They turned against you. The people of Rome were sure you’d started the Great Fire, so you scapegoated the Christians" The arguing was pointless, Cassidy knew but it gave them time to think of a way out. They weren't having much luck. Nero waved dismissively. "But the Christians were terrorists, you see. Perhaps they didn’t start the fire, but they were causing all sorts of other trouble. I recognized that before anyone else!"

"He fed them to the lions. He burned them as human torches, the way he will burn these six" Apollo stated. Meg’s face turned green. She gazed at the unconscious prisoners on the stakes. "Nero, you wouldn’t-" She began "Yes he would" Cassidy interrupted "They will be released as long as Apollo cooperates" Nero promised. "Meg, you can’t trust him. The last time he did this, he strung up Christians all over his backyard and burned them to illuminate his garden party. I was there. I remember the screaming" Apollo said.

Meg clutched her stomach. "My dear, don’t believe his stories! That was just propaganda invented by my enemies" Nero said. He was a good liar, Cassidy had to give him that. Meg studied the face of Paulie "Nero… you didn’t say anything about making them into torches" she murmured. "They won’t burn" he strained to soften his voice. "It won’t come to that. The Beast will not have to act"

"You see, Meg? It’s never a good sign when someone starts referring to himself in the third person. Zeus used to scold me about that constantly!" Apollo wagged a finger at the emperor. Cassidy gave him a weird look "Why would you- nevermind" they sighed. Vince and Gary stepped forward, their knuckles whitening on their spears. "I would be careful" Nero warned. "My Germani are sensitive about insults to the Imperial person. Now, as much as I love talking about myself-"

"And suddenly the family resemblance has become all too apparent" Cassidy said dryly. "-We're on a schedule" Nero continued as if Cassidy hadn't spoken. He checked his watch again. "You’ll open the gates. Then Meg will see if she can use the trees to interpret the future. If so, wonderful! If not… well, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it"

"You mean those trees?" Cassidy asked. In no way were they fond of whispering trees that gave them hallucinations and lured in their friends and drove people mad but the blame couldn't be put on just the trees. If they had to guess, the Chimera that had attacked them had been a result of Nero trying to open the gates to the grove. "Meg, he’s a madman" Apollo warned. At her feet, Peaches hissed protectively. Meg’s chin quivered. "Nero cared about me, Apollo. He gave me a home. He taught me to fight"

"You said he killed your father!" Lester argued "No! No, that’s not what I said. The Beast killed him" She shook her head adamantly, a look of panic in her eyes. "Meg they're the same-" Cassidy began. Nero snorted. “Oh… you two understand so little. Meg’s father was weak. She doesn’t even remember him. He couldn’t protect her. I raised her. I kept her alive" Suddenly, Meg's situation became all too apparent to Cassidy. How had they not realised it sooner? They were reminded of Alice and Gregory. "Meg" they began gently "It's not your fault, you don't trigger the beast-"

"Enough!" Nero’s voice turned as hard as bronze. "Now, my dear, if you would be so kind, open the gates. If Apollo objects, remind him that he is bound to follow your orders" Meg swallowed. "Apollo, don’t make it harder. Please… help me open the gates" Apollo shook his head. "Not by choice"

"Then I- I command you. Help me. Now" Meg struggled with the words. "You control him, but not me" Cassidy put themselves between Meg and Apollo and the grove. "And I won't let you take the grove without a fight"

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[Edited?: Partially]

[Author's note: The next chapter is going to be a struggle to write]
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