It's almost adventure time, boys and girls. I can't wait to share this next part of the story with you.
AAHHH I can't wait.
And leave a review!
Happy Reading!
-c.c.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything you recognize (Riordan)
It wasn't too long before Percy came into Poseidon and began knocking on the door to the bathroom. He begged and pleaded with me to open the door so we could talk, but I was stubborn just like my father. I was on a roll anyway. Nico had taught me a little bit about poetry and I'd been practicing. I definitely emulated Nico's prior works in my own, but it was just too beautiful not to think about. I wrote a little about how I felt but it slowly morphed into a rhythm of things I loved. Like reading and words and the water and sword fighting. Believe me, it works together better than you'd think it would.
I heard the bell ring for dinner in the distance and I finished my last thought and shut my book. I attempted to open the door to the bathroom, but it didn't open very far. I heard shuffling and then the door opened with Percy standing over the threshold. I looked at him, expecting something snotty.
Instead, he signed: "I'm sorry."
I set my notebook on the bathroom counter.
Please, no more, Percy.
He signed back: "No more, Katrina."
I forgive you.
I picked up my notebook and pen in one hand and reached to take Percy's in the other. I walked with him to my bed and laid my notebook in my small box of collectives, then we walked out the door and onto the courtyard toward the pavilion. We talked some about what was for dinner and our plans afterward, and before we reached the mass of campers Percy pulled me into exaggerated side hug and I laughed and pushed him off playfully.
Things would be okay, I hoped.
I saw Will walking towards us and I looked toward Percy and smiled. He smiled back sadly and stepped back, showing me the sincerity of his promise earlier. I saw him mouth 'no more' as I walked away from him and over to Will, taking his hand. Will and I went through the line first, because Percy was waiting for Annabeth.
"Well," Will began, scratching the back of his head, "do we want to talk about earlier today?" I looked up at him and shrugged, then shook my head.
"No?" Will said, moving in front to stand in my way. "Wait? Am I in trouble?"
I gave him a sympathetic look.
"No, Will."
An embarrassed smile flashed across Will's face as he stepped to the side of me.
"Oh okay good," I chuckled and walked passed him.
"We can talk about it later, then?"
I shrugged and mouthed, "Sure."
We went over to the group table, I was please that Will was willing to leave the Apollo table for today, and sat down. I was doing okay, I really was. But the more people that gathered at the table, the more anxious I became. The chatter droned on and my thoughts flooded with the questions I had been battling since returning from New York.
We stood up to dump trash, when Leo reminded us that we had a bonfire tonight. This was music to my ears. Distraction, happiness, songs and laughter. That sounded really good at the moment.
But as soon as Percy and I turned to walk back to Poseidon, I had an awful feeling in my gut that things were about to not be so good, that something bad was about to happen.
I broke away from Percy halfway to the cabin, telling him I forgot to get my whiteboard back Will this afternoon. But I didn't bother with that and instead I went to the practice ring. I had about an hour before the fire and I was confused.
So I set Annabeth up on a pedestal and made a mental note to take him in for repairs after tonight. I uncapped Riptide II and went to town. Annabeth didn't put up much of a fight. Sometimes he would try escaping or running off of the pedestal. Once, all of his guts spilled out and he thought it would stop me. Let me just tell you, he was mistaken.
But that night he was kind to me, he let me slash and slash and think. I wasn't done. I wasn't, I had known it since we came back. I had the feeling I had to do something else. There was a reason I was still here and not home with mom and dad I knew it. But what else is there? I round kicked over Annabeth's head to distract him. I can't possibly have any more influence over what's happening with this hole, right? Isn't this a figurative hole? I parried and circled around Annabeth's stick. I can't even see figurative holes so that's no good.
Once I was behind the post, I took the opportunity and snuck in a side attack from behind, piercing Annabeth's guinea sack surface and letting the straw spill out over the dirt floor.
I took a step back to evaluate my work. With a deep breath, I realized that nothing I could think of would ever fully prepare me for what might be in store for me. I flicked Riptide II back into feather form and put it away. The tension remained, and I was uneasy. But the gong sounded in the distance and it was time to gather together in front of the blaze.
Reluctantly, I bent down and gathered the straw from Annabeth's insides. I felt the presence of campers walking behind me as I plucked Annabeth's limp body off of the pole and strode into the weapons shack.
"Katrina?"
I heard Will's voice from the outside. I shoved Annabeth in the back corner and walked out to meet him.
He smiled as I approached.
"I figured you might be here," he handed me my whiteboard and pen which I never bothered to pick up.
I smiled back and shrugged. He put his arm around my shoulder and walked me passed the dining pavilion. Leo came up behind me and attempted to tickle my sides, but I'm not really ticklish so he was pretty disappointed. Calypso cocked him over the head from behind and we all laughed. Together we walked to the blazing fire and I was hopeful that the night would be pleasant.
"Hey! It looks like the fun started without us," Leo interjected, pointing over to a large crowd beyond the fire.
A small frown started across my face and Will could feel my unease.
"Leo, that doesn't look like fun to me," Will spoke, Leo's eyes narrowed and the four of us wordlessly picked up our paces. Eerie shadows cast in the darkness by the flames danced among the crowd gathered. Those on the outsides of the mass whispered to each other and I caught snippets of conversation as Will and I broke through the line of people.
I hope she's alright.
What's happening to her?
This isn't normal, guys.
The voices grew still as we neared the middle of the pack, campers staring towards the center, looking over each other's shoulders in a worried silence.
"I see Chiron," Will whispered to me as we pushed ever farther into the mess of limbs and bodies.
Soon enough, I could hear a muffled cry. It sounded strained. Someone else was standing near, trying to get the victim to breathe.
I could see slightly over shoulders, standing back about three rows in, that it was Rachel who was in pain. She rolled and writhed on the ground, fighting the urge to clench her head and her stomach at the same time. Her eyes were sealed shut and her cheeks were stained with tears, most likely from whatever pain she was in. Annabeth was kneeling over her, trying to hold her still and whisper soft encouragements. Percy stood a short distance away keeping everyone from getting too close.
"Has anyone seen Will yet?" Chiron shouted into the crowd of whispers. I latched onto to Will's hand as he responded and began making his way through the rest of the crowd. We moved easily now, with campers getting out of our way knowing that Will was finally here to help.
But everything changed within a moments notice.
Will let go of me to run ahead to meet Rachel and Annabeth, but I continued to push myself through the gap that had since closed. I had reached the final ring of campers and took the last step into the inside of the circle.
Rachel's body shot up into a sitting position and her head whipped around to face my direction. The crowd began to move restlessly in reaction to the surprise and I wasn't sure what to do.
Rachel's eyes were pitch black and when she opened her mouth a dark grey and black smoke fell from her parted lips. Suddenly, she spoke and her words thundered across the campgrounds in a wheezy, cough-afflicted voice that was not her own.
"See the pawn of creation return," Annabeth, Will, Percy and Chiron backed away as she rose to stand.
"Watch the doors of Olympus then burn," She walked in a broken and crippled way towards our side of the circle.
"One by one those who enter will fade," the campers around me stepped back and my whiteboard and pen fell from my fingertips, "Until only the chosen remain."
"When the sun goes down breathing its last," Rachel slowed her pace and approached me dead on. She stopped less than a foot away from me. I tried not to look at her face that was clearly not under her own control. I stared past her, to Will and Percy and Annabeth, who stood watching, horrified.
Rachel reached her arms out and took a hold of my head, bringing it so her lips brushed my right ear.
"Rival's Daughter will rewrite their past." My eyes grew wide as those words echoed around the camp and I had barely a chance to grasp what had occurred when I felt Rachel's grip loosen and quickly caught her before she fainted.
I looked around me. I had become the center of the circle, with Chiron and Percy even pressed to the edge of the ring. I knelt on the ground in the dissipating smoke with Rachel in my arms for what seemed like an eternity until she fluttered her eyelids open and tried to sit up, asking about what had happened. The camp was quiet.
Percy stepped forward, keeping his distance still, and asked:
"Katrina… what just happened?"
I signed back to him the exact words I was thinking:
I think it was a quest.
"What?" He responded, "No, no the quests come with the green smoke and not—"
Percy, I know how they come. I rose to stand and walk closer to him.
"But what the hell? Why was it black? What's going on?" Then my life flashed up in aqua-marine light
"I don't know, Percy, but you can't deny it was for me and now I have to figure it out!"
This was the first that the camp heard from my side about what was happening, and boy did all hell break loose. I did have an idea of what had happened, but it was only because of the things I knew that they didn't. Even if I told them what I thought had just happened, they wouldn't have sat still or kept quiet long enough to hear it. Everyone erupted, questions, comments, whispers that developed into screams and poor Rachel who just crawled quietly behind Annabeth for protection. Percy and I just stared into the mass, trying to figure out who was saying what. Chiron trotted toward us, shouting at us to see him in his office immediately.
That was when the sprinklers broke.
High pitched screams from girls and boys alike sounded as the campers were doused in beads of cold water. The fire sputtered and sizzled in contact with the mists. Then, behind the crowd and towards the wood, an image began to form in water and a voice was coming through. It was a iris message. Everyone turned and stopped all their sounds to make out the audio from the other end.
"Chiron! Chiron are you there?" The voice came hazily through static.
"Dionysus?" Chiron called, moving closer to the spray. "Dionysus, yes I am here."
"Chiron! There's little time to explain. I had to patch my voice in through Hephaestus TV to show you what has happened." There was some static to follow and an image slowly came into focus through the spraying water.
"I… I don't understand," Chiron mumbled as the campers around gasped at the sight.
In the sprinklers was an image of the Empire State Building burned to the ground. Fire trucks littered the streets around it, but the blaze burned on.
"Olympus is burning. A quake erupted from the top of Mount Olympus," Dionysus spoke hastily through the static. "We cannot access our physical forms, and we do not understand what is going on!"
"No…" Chiron muttered.
"Chiron, it's the girl, Katrina. She is the only hope we have. We don't know who she is or where she came from but she is here for a reason and we believe she may be able to save us. The doors connecting us to you have burned and we are trapped. Please, we are begging you, save us."
The audio connection was reduced to static, but the coverage of the Empire State Building remained in the air until the sprinklers were shut off as quickly as they turned on.
Once again the mob resorted to chaos. Partly from being wet and partly from the horrible news received. I stayed standing, looking off to where the image from the iris message once flashed, as I felt the blue fade from my arms and my eyes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Chiron speak with Clarisse and Jason, but I was suddenly whisked away by Will, Percy, and Annabeth who guarded me from all sides as we pushed passed the campers.
"Jason and Clarisse are clearing everyone out and sending them back to their cabins," Annabeth relayed to me as we walked.
"We are waiting in the Big House for Chiron to come back after making sure everyone is back and safe," Will added as he gripped my arm tightly.
Percy, who walked in front of me, just glanced over his shoulder at me and kept marching forward. All I could think, was:
I'm not done yet.
