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Chapter 7: Convincing Stacy


Jay and his friends leave the janitor's closet just as the bell goes off, signaling the end of first period. Suddenly, as though on cue, students come pouring out of the classrooms into the hallway. As the six teammates jostle their way through the thronging crowd, they turn the corner and instantly spot Stacy at her locker. She is just opening it in order to retrieve her other books for the next class.

"There she is. Come on." Jay whispers to his friends. So saying, he leads them down the hall until they reach Stacy. At first she does not notice them, and one of the teammates, Theresa, steps forward and clears her throat.

"Hey, Stacy," the long redheaded girl chirps cheerfully as a way of greeting, "How are you doing?"

Hearing someone calling her name, Stacy is startled and turns quickly around to see who it is. Upon seeing the young heroes, she recognizes them right away and frowns.

"Oh hi, it's you." Stacy says with a tired sigh. Jay is about to say something but Neil's former girlfriend turns her back abruptly on him and his friends, grab the rest of her textbooks, and stuffs them inside her backpack silently. After a while she looks up and realizes they have not left her alone. Now she is looking irritated. "What do you want?" She says rudely, turning away once again.

"Well, ah...you see...it's not easy to explain so we are just going to say it." Jay stutters, scratching the back of his head nervously. Stacy glances over her shoulder at him, raising one eyebrow in mild interest.

Jay clears his throat before continuing. "Um, you may have noticed that Neil hasn't been at school for almost a week now..."

"Oh really. And you think I hadn't really noticed, do you?" Stacy snaps at him angrily. "I've been too busy, you know, picking up pieces of my broken heart!"

Theresa looks at her sadly. "Look, we understand how you feel," she says in a gentle voice, "Neil is our friend, though, he became very sick the same day you two broke up."

"So...? It's suddenly my fault he's sick?" She spins around to face the young teenagers squarely. "To bring you up on current events, Neil broke up with me! If you ask me, hearing him getting a cold is just Karma's way of getting back at him!"

"Well, that's the thing...He doesn't just have a cold. It's a combination of different kinds of flu, pneumonia, and bronchitis...uh..." Odie tries to explain, but his voice trails off when he saw Stacy's exasperated expression on her face.

"Again, what does this have to do with me?" Stacy explodes. "Don't get me wrong. On one hand, I do feel bad that he is that sick, but on the other...I just don't care! He hurt me; perhaps he will learn not to hurt anyone else after this!"

"Look, girl, we believe he may have been cursed," Atlanta shoots back, her temper flaring up, "...by you!"

Stacy stares at her. "What? You think I put a curse on him?" She exclaims angrily.

"Well, perhaps not intentionally." Herry replies in a sheepish voice.

Stacy shakes her head rapidly, becoming very upset over this conversation. "What are you freaks talking about?" The teen girl cries out, waving her arms in frustration.

"Freaks...?" Atlanta growls, her eyes narrowing dangerously.

Archie quickly steps up and places a calming hand on his hot-tempered teammate's shoulder. He says, looking steadily at Stacy, "Ah, what we are trying to get at is that if you just happened to talk to anyone..." he fumbles for a moment, "...like, say, a strange looking woman or something, about your break up with Neil?"

At this Stacy seems to do a double take. Now she is staring suspiciously at the young heroes. "Are you guys fallowing me? Keeping tabs on who I talk to?"

Herry looks at his friends. "Perhaps we could take that as a yes...?" He says, scratching his head. Jay steps forward and takes a deep breath.

"Stacy, listen, we are not here to attack or accuse you," Jay says, holding his hand up as though to placate Stacy, "We just want to say that if you did talk to a strange woman, you may probably have said something that caused this person to put a curse on our friend."

Stacy raises her eyebrow skeptically, then shakes her head slowly and lets out a chuckle.

"You guys are crazy. That's all I got to say!" The teen girl waves off the young heroes and starts to walk away without looking backward. She manages to take two steps, however, before Theresa's voice stops her.

"Stacy, wait!" Theresa cries. She strides over to Stacy and turns to confront her, looking at her face to face. "This is important. Neil is..." The strawberry-blond heroine tries to find the right words to explain, "...well, ah, sort of special to us."

"Why...?" Stacy glares at Theresa, "Are you dating him, too?"

"What...? No...!" Theresa blushes with embarrassment, and takes two steps back. She glances up at Jay briefly before look back at Stacy.

"Oh please, don't tell me you haven't fallen for his charm and appeal!" Stacy bursts out. "I-I-I mean, who's to say maybe that redhead hussy here is dating him as well?" She jerks her thumb in Atlanta's direction and continues on a frantic, jealous manner. "Maybe every girl in this school is or has dated him at one point!"

"Hussy?" Atlanta mutters under her breath. With his hand still resting on her shoulder, Archie snorts loudly. "Heh, trust me. Neil really isn't the type to be dating much," he says with a smirk, "Let's just say he is too involved with himself to be dating many girls."

Just then the bell goes off, alerting the young teenagers that the next class is about ready to begin.

"I have to go," The amber-haired young teen growls, backing slowly away from the six teen heroes. "You guys are a little too weird for me!"

"Gee, that went well..." Archie groans, watching Neil's only chance to survive his mysterious illness runs off to her next class.

Herry shrugs and glances at Jay. "Now what do we do?"

Jay runs his hand through his hair, looks at his teammates and tries to act hopeful. "For Neil's sake, we can't give up!" the team leader declares encouragingly, "We'll try talking to her again during lunch hour. That will give us more time to figure out how to explain the situation we are in without giving out too much information about the Gods!"


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Stacy is sitting alone at a table near the corner of the cafeteria. Still being somewhat new to the school, she had not made many friends at Olympus High. Sighing, she starts eating her sandwich slowly and at the same studying her history book for a test she will be taking later in the afternoon. Suddenly she notices six shadows moving across the pages and looks up. She immediately frowns as soon as she realizes who they are.

"Ah, geez..." Stacy groans with annoyance. "You guys again? What do you want from me?"

"Stacy," Jay sits down on the other table across from the young teenage girl and looks at her apologetically. "We just want to apologize for the way we came at you earlier."

Stacy sighs and rolls her eyes skyward. . "I'm sure you are," She says sarcastically. She points down at her text book, "Now if you don't mind, I have to study for a history test!"

Theresa takes the seat next to Jay. "Look, Stacy, you may not realize it, but Neil is really sick and we could really use your help." The redheaded girl says pleadingly.

"What do you want me to do? Make him some chicken soup?" Stacy spits angrily at her, "If you ask me, Neil got what he deserves! He was a major jerk to me!"

"Don't forget annoying at times too." Herry adds, not being able to resist.

Odie rolls his eyes and slaps his forehead with his hand. "Herry, you're not helping!"

Now Atlanta moves forward and fixes her eyes on Stacy. "Believe me, Stacy, under any other circumstances I would agree with you. But in this case...well..." she trails off, unable to figure out the right words to explain any further.

Jay takes a breath and decides for once to stop beating around the bush and gets to the point. "I guess what we are trying to say is have you heard of...Nemesis?"

Stacy stares blankly at him. "Who...?"

"She's the Goddess of Vengeance." Odie replies, pushing his glasses further up his nose.

Confused now, Stacy shakes her head at the dark skinned teen. "What does this have to do with Neil being sick, again?" She asks, waving her hand impatiently in a circle to indicate she wishes for this conversation to get to a point so.

Jay leans forward and says carefully, "We believe you may have spoken to Nemesis and may have unintentionally wished Neil to become sick."

Stacy slams her textbook down on the table with a loud thud, making the other teenagers jump a little. "You guys are crazy, you know that, right?" Stacy snaps angrily.

Archie tries to soothe things over. "Look, Stacy, we just want you to try contacting Nemesis again and ask her to take back your wish, so Neil can start getting better." He asks as politely as he can.

At this point, Stacy leans back, feeling as though she is being cornered and bullied by her former boyfriend's friends. She shakes her head again, not believing what she is hearing. "Tell you what," she begins with a snarl as she stands abruptly from her seat and grabs her books and her lunch bag, "I'll think about it."

Before anyone else could open their mouth to say something, Stacy storms away. The gang watches her go, completely at a loss now. They glance at each other, feeling as though they had lost a battle with Cronus. Jay is especially crestfallen, but he has not given up hope...not yet! Somehow, he vows silently, they must convince Stacy to get in touch with Nemesis in hopes Neil could get better and be a part of the team again as before...


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It looks as though the team's luck has run out. For the rest of the day Stacy has been deliberately avoiding them at all costs. No matter what, they can not get hold of her in order to try and convince her to help Neil. Feeling discouraged now, Jay and the others shuffle in though the front door of the dormitory after the school, their shoulders sagging low. To their surprise they are greeted in the main hallway by a familiar figure which is none other than Hera, the Queen of the Gods herself.

"Hera...?" Jay gasps, startled at the unexpected sight of her.

Just by looking at the expression on the Goddess' face, Theresa can sense something is up. "What is it?" She asks tentatively.

Hera sighs deeply. "I'm afraid Neil is getting worse, children. At the rate he may not have much time." She says with a hint of regret. She watches as the young heroes' faces fall at the grim news. "Did you get to talk to Stacy?"

"Yeah," Archie sighs. "But she didn't believe us."

"In fact, she is now avoiding us!" Atlanta huffs, crossing her arms and frowning crossly.

Hera shakes her head in disappointment. "Then there is a problem." She says quietly. So saying, she turns around and walks slowly upstairs.