Chapter 25: The enemy of my enemy.

(Jason's POV)

I was pretty dumbfounded by what I just heard. Lazarus, the guy who crucified my friend and his own brother, aided in bringing Tartarus into the mortal realm, and caused me and my friends more trouble than I could even think of, was saying that he wanted to help us. I looked at Piper and Leo and then back at him.

"What are you talking about?" I questioned. "We don't want to destroy the Egyptian gods." As I said that he sighed and rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms.

"No, maybe not now. But you will." He said, matter of factly. He sheathed his sword and continued. "The Egyptian gods do nothing but cause loops, they do the same thing over and over again with no nuance, often with cataclysmic results, and we get caught in the crossfire." He then pointed at the beginnings of the pyramid we had seen earlier. "That being one of them."

"What's your point?" Piper questioned.

"What I'm saying is, nothing good can come out of having two pantheons of gods around, if anything the Egyptian gods will pose nothing but a constant and tedious threat." Lazarus elaborated. "Now that being said, I think the most pressing issue here is Set and that pyramid, so why don't we put our little confrontation on hold until this is resolved?" He suggested, holding his hand out.

I nodded, this guy did have a point. "Yeah, I got you. Like the old saying goes, the enemy of my enemy…"

"Is my friend." He finished as we shook hands.

(Meanwhile back in DC, Nigel's POV)

After a short trip through the travel caverns we arrived at DC, where the Kanes had previously been. And now we were making our way to the airport to take a plane to Memphis. Apparently we had to go there to meet with the Egyptian god of knowledge, Toth. Which made me really glad that Annabeth decided to come along, because Zeus knows we're gonna need her.

Chiron also came with us, which was honestly great because if there's one thing that knew, we were gonna need a mediator to help us with talking to the Egyptian god, no doubt, not to say Bast wouldn't have worked it's just, I wasn't sure she'd really explain the situation with us that well if you catch my drift.

Getting on the plane wasn't a problem, Bast disguised herself with a red pantsuit and Chiron was able to get us a few tickets. Then we got on the plane, and boy, when I say things were awkward on the plane they were awkward. We had given Sadie and Carter each a set of jeans and a pair of Camp Half Blood shirts, but unfortunately the regular mortals on the plane looked at us as if we were aliens from Star Trek or something.

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. That's when Reyna laced her fingers with mine and smiled at me. I returned the gesture by squeezing her hand, I still wasn't sure if it was by just sheer luck that we were able to not get smited by Artemis when we became a couple or if Aphrodite actually did what she said she was gonna do, but either way I was happy about it.

Carter had been asleep for awhile, apparently trying to fight off the Set creature like he did before he got to camp took a lot out of him, poor kid.

Bast had mentioned that apparently sleeping without some sort of headrest, at least for magicians, would cause them to have experiences similar to how us demigods do in dreams. I honestly didn't understand most of the mumbo jumbo she was spewing but Chiron certainly did.

Speaking of the centaur, he and Bast were actually talking about what exactly did kinda catch attention, apparently some Egyptian god, Set, was planning on creating some sort of storm to recreate the Sahara desert in Phoenix. I really didn't like the sound of that.

Just then, Carter had bolted awake after what I assumed was a bad dream. He Sadie talked for a moment before I decided to see what was going on.

"What's up?" I asked. The guy turned to me and told me about the dream he had, about the red Pyramid he saw and about their dad being in the center of it. By this time Bast and Chiron also listened in too, can't say I blame 'em, it was pretty heavy.

After Carter finished we soon arrived in Memphis and Chiron got us a ride while Bast drove Sadie and Carter in a Sadan. We drove for awhile before we arrived at the Memphis university.

We entered the building and followed the Kanes through the building until we reached its gym, all us demigods were caught off guard when we saw two Baboons playing basketball in the gym.

Both Sadie and Carter looked surprised as they saw one of them, one wearing a Lakers jersey. I stifled a laugh as they called it's name. "Hufu!" I heard them yell as the monkey stopped what he was doing and came up to us.

The two then proceeded to talk to the primate, with Bast (who apparently spoke baboon) translated for them. That was when Carter decided to start play shirts and skins with the monkeys. And what followed was the most hilarious, pitiful and ridiculous game of basketball I had ever seen. After which carter had apparently been so winded that he passed out on the ground like Mob from Mob Psycho 100 after a light jog.

Both Bast and Sadie helped him up as all the baboons started howling in what I assume was their form of laughter and the baboon the Kane's knew, Hufu, looked absolutely ashamed.

Bast soon left after that, leaving us to go to the office of Toth with Hufu leading the way, wherever that was. Chiron walked in front of us while following the baboon as we looked for the correct office, passing several, including one that was inside a broom closet. We kept walking until we saw a door that read: "Dr. Toth" on it.

Chiron knocked on the door as we all entered and his centaur form became visible, the room was impossibly huge and had ibises tapping away on laptops. I honestly couldn't stop myself from getting a headache as I rubbed my forehead, this was gonna be a huge pain, I just knew it.

(Meanwhile in Phoenix, Jason POV)

I tried my best to follow Lazarus up camelback mountain, both Piper and Leo being right behind me as we neared the top. Lazarus looked back at me and gestured up with his neck.

"Come on, It's just over this ridge." He informed me. We kept climbing until we both reached the top and I helped the others up, all of us were panting except Lazarus who didn't seem affected at all as he scoped out the horizon. "There, that's it." He stated, pointing forward.

I looked at where he was pointing and my eyes widened. What stood at the center of the mountain was a giant blood red pyramid that looked halfway done, I thought it was big before but now that I saw it up close, it was massive! I heard Piper gasp in horror as she grabbed my hand tightly. I held her close as I looked at her, and then back at Lazarus.

"What is that?" I asked.

"That, Jason Grace Son of Jupiter, is the Red Pyramid." The second Son of Tartarus told me. "And it is the key to our goal of destroying the Egyptian gods." He added with a slight grin as we all watched as the pyramid was being built right in front of us.