Hill strolled into the mess hall as if it was nothing big, most likely since there were no rookie agents staring at her in wonder due to her being third in command of the agent side of SHIELD. Usually, with the big wigs in places, people tend to crowd them, making them not exactly that confident in public spots. Also, spies tend to try and stay in the background, not stroll straight into a room confidently. Then again, unless you have something really important to deal with, you do not come to the mess hall at 5:45 am on a Friday morning in summer, even at SHIELD. So, there was only us two in the mess hall, other than one person working in the kitchen and two older agents discussing things in the corner. Kitchen Dude wouldn't be able to see her, Agent Uno and Dos were intimately discussing a mission, so all of us were pretty distracted.
When she sat down at my table right then at 5:45 in the morning, it made my top ten most awkward moments of SHIELD. That is a hard list to get on top of, since I have had a lot of awkward moments at SHIELD. If your handlers/mentors are giant superstars among people at the place you work, there is bound to be plenty of extremely awkward moments. Anyway, there was an extremely awkward silence, as the two older agents conversation paused as the began to discreetly watch us and neither I nor Hill began a conversation. The older agents failed at the discreet part though, it was painfully obvious that they were watching us.
Being ADHD and out of practice of dealing with people, I only could manage the awkward silence for so long before I would break it. Despite me being used to silence, there was never awkward silences. Especially since the moment things were getting awkward and silent, Blackjack would ask for donuts. Usually, I complied in order to get us out of whatever the situation is. Today, during the beginning of my getting used to awkward silences again, I only lasted five seconds, ending it by blurting out, "What's the deal with Natasha and Clint?" That most likely was not a good idea, as it definitely would gain the attention of anyone that could hear, no matter the situation. It definitely did today, Agent Uno and Dos didn't even bother to be discreet anymore and Kitchen Dude poked his head out to watch.
She looked at me strangely, as if she didn't expect me to care that much, or maybe she thought I would ask about what she was doing here first. That or she was mad for bringing even more attention to us. There was definitely nothing discreet about my statement. Hopefully, it wasn't a test, 'cause if that was a test on my patience, ability to be quiet, and discreetness with questions, I failed. Epically failed. Flunked with an absolute zero out of one hundred, no chance of not getting an F. All answers wrong, with the least likely answer on each and work that made no sense at all. If they kicked me out, I would be dead. Dead, dead, not even afterlife dead. I'd be to far dead to go to an afterlife. "They are on their way," she finally answered. "I locked them in a room together at 500, telling them I wouldn't let them out until they came to a consensus and apologized to each other." A moment later, she asked, "Would you like to check on them?"
My head bounced up and down like a bobblehead, nodding so much I thought it would fall off. Of course, what she did was not what I wanted. I wanted to actually see them, but she brought out a tablet, one which was connected to a video camera in their room. That must be how she would know when they made up. You know what, not having technology at camp was a pretty good idea. We demigods are not phone and other technology addicts, we actually have face to face conversations with each other. Our only way of communicating long distance costs a big piece of gold, so that is not used that much. Only a few calls a week. Also, we play outside. Being stuck in an area that I can use technology and there is a bunch of advanced new technology being created is going to be odd for me. Really, we aren't seeing them, we are watching them through security cameras. Seriously, that is definitely messed up in my point of view.
Looking at the fairly large black tablet in front of me, all I saw was them staring at each other. There was literally just a staring contest between the two of them. If they are not being violent, why don't we just visit them? If for some reason they aren't allowed to see us, there is probably one-way glass, so we can look through a window. There is definitely something very wrong in this technology dominated world. "They just came to a consensus a minute ago," Hill whispered, distracting me from my mental rant about the horrors of technology. "Now, they just got to do is apologize." Eventually, one of them had to blink, and Natasha did so first. In a mumbled matter, she apologized for taunting him, then Clint quickly did the same thing she did for throwing one of his throwing cards at her.
Smiling a very odd smile, that looked strange on her face, Hill pulled the tablet away from me and messed with some of the buttons on it, unlocking the doors. I still have no clue how she did that, and the younger generation like my own is supposed to be the tech savvy people, not the oldies. Whatever, I was raised with no electronics at all and she is high in command of a highly technologically advanced government agency, normal does not exist. Two minutes after Hill messed with the buttons, Natasha and Clint came barreling into the mess hall, Natasha vaulting over the table and sliding into the seat next to Hill, Clint sliding into the one next to me. "What did we miss?" they asked in unison, panting heavily. They must have printed.
"Nothing." Hill turned to look at me, noticing that I went back to scribbling in my notebook, along with the bag next to me. Moments after she had taken the tablet back, I had gotten bored and went back to planning. This was a life or death situation, with very bad odds for me, I want to have as much prep time as possible and use it as best as I can. "But I have a feeling Agent Jackson has something to tell us." All of them turned to look at me, staring.
Slamming the notebook shut, I began to form a response. Telling SHIELD about the gods would be a bad idea, but so would be going into this situation without help. With them going to be in the blast zone, they should no ahead of time if possible. Building a plan to tell them about the monsters, get help, and not let anyone know about the gods was going to be tough. Maybe even fun, that is, if you are part of the Athena or Hermes cabin. Athena for strategy, Hermes for deceiving. But I'm Poseidon, I'll need to do something different. "I had a dream," I began, stalling for extra time to prepare my speech. Thankfully, Clint decided to give me some extra time while Natasha and Hill stared at me weirdly. Though, I'm not sure if I like Clint's way of buying me some extra time, as it is sort of insulting too many, such as Hazel.
Clint was buying me some extra time with quips, scathingly asking me, "Who are you, Martin Luther King Junior in a different tense?" That got him harsh glares from Natasha and Hill as they berated him for insulting an important historical figure in the civil rights movement. Guess they don't like quips like that in the government. That, and Fury is African American with eyes everywhere, so that might have not been that good of an idea on Clint's part. Then again, Clint has always rubbed me as the person who would be insulting their superiors constantly. Sort of like me, except insulting people closer to his level than I was. Thanks, dad for Zeus not smiting me fifteen times already.
"Dad and all of my family on his side are dead," I stated bluntly, continuing with my story. "All that is left from that side of the family is me. And we've got enemies. A lot of them. For some reason, SHIELD is a safe zone, somewhere they can't get into. But, our enemies stand 15,000 strong and are going to attack the moment I exit the area. Before you say just to stay here, I'm gonna say that I'm not gonna leave normal humans to be attacked by them. The rest of SHIELD couldn't do it while I stay here either." Pulling out a golden dagger, I elaborated on that point of them not being able to kill them, saying, "They only can be killed by weapons made out of special materials. But if I could access a forge, I could smelt down all that I got to make new weapons."
Natasha decided to get it all moving instead of waiting five seconds for me to fully catch my breath. My act first ask questions observation of her was accurate. When not on a mission, she wanted all the information and fast. She was not one to wait around and stall for time. "And?"
Picking up both my bag and the notebook, throwing them onto the middle of the table, I started to mentally finish my response. They wouldn't be able to understand my notes or access the backpack anyway, so it being in a spot they can access wouldn't make that much of a difference. Then, before they tried to understand my notes or access the bag, I physically said my response. "And," I gave Natasha a quick look glance, "after that we've got to train every fighter to be able to fight them. Guns won't work, bows will. Though, ammo would be very annoying. We could set up a group of snipers using bows. Clint, you would be in charge of that. Everyone else, it is either hand to hand or melee. They can be hurt by blunt force from your body, but that wouldn't be suggested. We will want to use swords, spears, knives, and daggers. Shields can be made of normal materials, as they are not weapons. Powers affect them as well. I can not count how many of them I had drowned."
For some reason, they all nodded, as if this was not anything strange. Maybe they had watched too many movies where things like this happen. Actually, what if Men in Black was an introductory film for SHIELD agents? That would explain why almost nothing surprises them and why they have such high spy standards for themselves. Hill went ahead and dispatched orders as if this was a normal day at SHIELD. Like gigantic threats that can only be killed with special things and their normal weapons wouldn't work happen at least once a month. That is kind of crazy. Seriously, is there alien invasions almost every year? At this rate, I'd believe it. "Barton, pick fourteen other snipers to train as archers. Romanoff, gather every other agent who does not have powers and begin to train a third of them on using daggers. I will deal with spears and Coulson will do swords. Jackson, I'll bring you to the forge and then you are to give them all your metals and show them how to make arrowheads, spears, swords, and daggers. Once they have that done, go to the mess hall, all agents with powers will be there. You do what you want with them." Clint ran off to handpick his fourteen archers while Natasha went to Fury's office. Hill began to lead me in the direction of the forge.
Over the loudspeakers, Fury's voice echoed throughout the halls and rooms. "There is an impending attack on the world. There are fifteen thousand of these villains, and they can only be killed by specific materials." Once his short explanation was finished, which managed to shrink my whole long story into two sentences, he began to doll out orders. "Snipers, head to the range, Hawkeye will pick fourteen of you out to be trained as archers. If you have powers, go to the mess hall. Our new recruit is an extremely powerful mutant who has experience with these villains. He will train you. If you know how to work the forge, go down there to help. Our recruit will bring the materials and show you what to make. Every other agent, head to the gym. Once there, split into even groups with even amounts of all genders, races, ages, and clearances. Black Widow, Agent Coulson, and Agent Hill will explain things from there. Rejected snipers should also meet there after heading to the range."
Crackling, the loudspeaker turned off. As it did so, there was a mass stampede through the halls. Hill told me she would have to try and get to the gym, so follow the crowd to the forge. As the impending stampede came closer, I prepared to be run over. It was a little stampede, hundreds of agents running through the halls. It sounded loud as well. I'm sort of sorry though, as I made them wake up at 5:50 on a Friday morning in the summer, but I can apologize later. Though, the agents were a little too excited and chipper for this early. Despite purposely waking up this early, I was almost asleep on my feet. These agents were woke up by a warning on the loudspeaker and are acting as awake as one would be at noon. Guess SHIELD agents are really trained for everything, from handling underwater earthquakes, to alien invasions, to economics, to waking up early
Following a random guy who looked a bit like most of the Hephaestus kids, I ended up in the large forge meant for only fifty people at once with one hundred other people. Guess that there would be two to each station, once I get my butt out of there. One guy grabbed me and shoved me into the middle of the room. "That is the recruit," he grunted. "The young one." Being in my teens makes it very easy for myself to be spotted as the guy who caused this mess. most likely that would not end well for me. Great.
All of them looked at me expectedly, so I grabbed an empty bin made for scrap metal and dumped all of my gold, bronze, silver, steel, ivory, weapons or otherwise, into it. Once I showed them how to make one arrowhead, spear, sword, and dagger from each material, I high tailed it out of there to the mess hall, which was most likely not going to be that much better.
Entering the mess hall, I saw about thirty people staring at me. Thirty older people. Despite being able to manage about three hundred other teens with crazy powers at once, I wilt in front of only thirty older people, whose powers are most likely weaker than mine or an average demigod's. "You the recruit?" one asked me gruffly when I ran in. I nodded quickly, a little unnerved. "Good. Show us how to kill these creatures with our powers."
Quickly responding to move the attention off me, I began with, "Each of you, tell me your name and power or powers. An example would be great if you are willing and it won't cause to much damage."
Author's Note: Here we are with the end of another chapter in The Last Demigod. Hope you liked how Percy decided to handle the situation, but as we all know, I can not please everyone, the plot, and myself. So, I hope you liked it at least a bit and understand my mental reasoning without me spelling it all out. Sorry if there are too many SHIELD agents, but I got a feeling with this situation they notified everyone and all the agents are coming. There is a lot of people there, plus, I imagine SHIELD as a very large operation. Anyway, we will get to see Percy dealing with older super-powered folks, trying to lead and teach them. Spoiler alert, while he can do it with other teens, he is either fine or great, but with older people, not so much.