Chapter 4: The Great Prophecy… Part Two!

The three pegasi landed on Half-Blood Hill, and the five demigods dismounted. Blackjack and the other two pegasi took off to go do who-knew-what gods-know-where.

I turned, feeling the evening sun on me as we crested Half-Blood Hill.

"So, you guys are going to be just fine here." I said, leading Jordan down towards the common area. "This is where half-bloods go to train, to survive, and to pretty much live. But it's awesome here, and you'll make so many friends."

As if to prove my point, our group was noticed, and several campers rushed up.

"Percy! Welcome back! New campers?" Will Solace said, doing a quick rundown of the other campers. "What the—there are absolutely nothing on them! Not even a few scratches!"

"Yeah, we got here pretty fast." I said, making sure that Rose and Jordan would get a nice tour of the Camp. "So, I have something to talk with you about—"

"Yeah, ok, but first I have something to tell you about. And it's happening, like, right now. Come on, we gotta hurry."

Will led me, Annabeth, and Thalia to the Big House. Suddenly, we noticed what was going on.

Apollo was hovering in the air, visible to me and Annabeth and Thalia, but surely almost invisible to everyone else.

But that's not what was grabbing most of my attention.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare. She was standing in front of the Big House, arms spread like she was trying to embrace something, or maybe like she was waiting for someone to throw her something. Even I could feel the intense aura emanating from the old house.

"What on earth is going on!?" I shouted over the din.

"Rachel just walked right through the barriers, right past the dragon, and past everything, and she just began talking to the Oracle or something!" Will shouted back. "But the craziest part is that the Oracle then began responding!"

I nearly began to rush forward, realizing what Rachel's plan was, when I saw Apollo simply gesture for me to wait. Even though it was against my better judgement, I stood, though my thoughts were racing.

'She'll never get past the curse of Hades. She's gonna go crazy. She's gonna…' I began thinking, but struck on an idea.

I stepped forward, and felt myself begin to disperse even wider than I had felt myself spread before. I felt like I was about to just float away, but I kept dispersing myself. I was like a figure made of air.

I could hear surprised shouts behind me, mostly Will's and various other campers, but I had one focus in mind.

I walked in front of Rachel, and walked up to the house. Apollo watched me carefully, but did nothing to try to stop me, like he wanted to see where this was going.

Just as I reached the door, it swung open, and the ancient mummy of Delphi met me, face to face. I had to repress the urge to gag, but I reached out my hand, and grabbed the mummy's arm. She leaned on me as I helped her walk over to Rachel, pouring my power into the ancient figure. With any luck…

Rachel stood at attention. Even though she couldn't see me, I got the feeling she still knew I was there. I felt Annabeth's and Thalia's powers flowing through me as well, and into the mummy.

"Rachel… Elizabeth… Dare…" the mummy whispered, green smoke pouring out of its mouth, speaking as though it took a great amount of effort to do so.

As the words were spoken, I suddenly saw dark shapes swirling in my peripheral vision. Hags taking form, with leathery wings. Those definitely did not look good.

Suddenly I saw Nico among the crowd. He could definitely see those dark spots too, but it didn't seem like anyone else could. I almost began to wonder how, when it hit me. I heard Annabeth's voice in my mind.

'Yeah, Percy. Those are arai. Spirits of curses. They're probably here to prevent Rachel from taking control.'

'That means we gotta stop them.' I thought.

I reached for my pocket before realizing that Riptide was nothing more than incorporeal plastic right now. I scowled. We had no weapons to fight this time. How were we gonna keep them from finding Rachel?

Nico drew his own sword, seeing the expressions on Annabeth's and Thalia's faces. An unspoken plan was drawn between us.

The arai formed and came out screeching towards Rachel. I could feel Apollo become visible to everyone else now, including Rachel. But I wasn't focused on him. I was focused on the arai. They swooped down, and instinctively I reached up and grabbed one by the throat. It exploded into powder the minute I applied pressure.

The reaction was instantaneous. I felt a sudden spike of pain through my side, but I dismissed it easily. The wound closed up before I even heard whose curse it had been. Another arai flew towards me, but I blasted this one with a burst of light. This was actually pretty easy as a god.

In the back of my mind, I could hear Apollo swearing in Rachel or something, and I heard Rachel replying. I knew somewhere in the back of my head that the most delicate part of the ritual was fast approaching.

One arai stood back, looking like she was trying to conjure up something or other. Tiny winged demons or whatnot. I knew that they were bad, and that was enough.

I felt the Oracle's ancient presence behind me, and glanced towards it. A green snake of light was slithering from the mummy's mouth into Rachel's, and I knew now that this was its most vulnerable. I couldn't let the arai get to it.

Three arai decided to try to attack at once, but Nico was suddenly there, swinging his dark sword through the air, drinking in a few of the arai essences. Apollo looked disgruntled for a moment, before he finally seemed to notice the arai.

"What the—" he began, before waving his hand. Nearly all the rest of the arai dissipated, except our friend the summoner. She was steaming, but still faithfully chanting who-knows-what. "Percy, you have to defend Rachel from the manias!"

Suddenly, right on time, it seemed like hundreds of ghosts were flowing out of the arai's hands, flying towards Rachel and cackling. The snake seemed aware of the spirits and began to slither back out of Rachel's mouth.

"No!" I shouted to the snake, grabbing a fistful of spirits and vaporizing them. "Keep going!"

The snake seemed to hear me and kept slithering into Rachel's mouth, who seemed like she was beginning to feel trouble creeping upon her. I could feel Annabeth and Thalia beside me, taking down as many spirits as they could. The arai locked eyes with me, and grinned as she knew there was no way my three friends and I could stop all the spirits.

Well, almost no way.

"Watch out everybody!" I said, pulling my pieces back together again. "LOOK AWAY!"

The arai's eyes widened as I pulled my particles together from across the world. My skin glowed brighter than almost anything I had ever seen. Manias disintegrated into dust like someone had used a confetti/glitter cannon. Even Rachel had turned away in time, the tip of the Oracle spirit's tail flowing into Rachel's mouth.

I reappeared as a solid entity once again and, ignoring the other campers who had seen me disappear and reappear at will, crouched down. Rachel was convulsing, a universally bad sign, but I had no idea why.

"Stand back, Percy. This is the most critical stage." Apollo said from his perch in the air. "Either the Oracle will take hold, or it won't."

I looked up at him. To my left, I heard Annabeth say, "And if it doesn't?"

"Five syllables." Apollo said, counting them out on his fingers. "That would be real bad."

Rachel spasmed a few more times, before quietly settling down on the grass. Despite the warnings Apollo had given us, Nico, Annabeth and I all rushed towards her. Her eyes eventually opened.

"Ow." Was the first thing she said, rubbing her head. I gave her a hand, helping her to her feet.

"Rachel, I could see your life-force fading. You… you were dying." Nico panted, breathless from the arai attack.

"Will?" I asked, and he came running over, checking Rachel.

"Are you feeling okay?" he asked, doing a quick once-over, occasionally stealing a puzzled glance at me. Not many demigods knew of my godhood even yet.

"Just… my head now hurts. Soooo much new information." Rachel said, wobbling slightly. "And I don't even know if it worke—"

Suddenly, Rachel's eyes began glowing serpent green. Her mouth opened, and a familiar green snake wormed out of her mouth. The Oracle's voice began chanting.

"Seven heroes will answer the call,

To storm or fire, the world must fall,

An oath to keep with a final breath,

And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death."

And having delivered her prophecy, Rachel slumped forward. I held out my hands and caught her, before helping her into a few of the Apollo campers' arms to carry her to the medical cabins. After once again making sure that she was alright, I caught sight of a somewhat astonished Chiron lying on a stretcher nearby.

Oh right. He had only seen me healing some people. He had no idea I was a god until now.

I walked up to him, before gently kneeling down. "Hello Chiron. Are you doing okay?"

Chiron broke into a smile, though even I could see it was still pained from his broken legs. "Yes, and I was about to ask the same of you. That is, before I saw you disappear and reappear in front of my eyes."

I grinned.

"Yeah, Dad made me a god. Hold still, I'll try to help you out a little…" I said, reaching out to his legs. They tried to shift nervously, but Chiron managed to keep them relatively still. A soft glow went through my hand, flowing into his legs. I could feel a little of the bones knitting back together. I couldn't heal it all the way, but I did what I could.

"Many thanks, Percy." Chiron said, relaxing a little. "You've gotten the hang of this quickly."

Before I stood up to leave, however, he grabbed my arm.

"Percy, I want to ask you," He said, looking me dead in the eyes, "what are you planning on doing with this newfound godhood?"

"Well, the others. The demigods that Kronos used in his armies, promising them what they really wanted, or revenge on the Olympians. That could have all been stopped if the gods had just paid more attention to their children. If they had just claimed them as their own, for some. Some had to figure it out the hard way, and others just wanted a normal life. I think that if I can help fight for their cause, by addressing this issue, maybe it won't happen again. So I figured that if I can bring most of the unclaimed half-bloods to Camp, maybe they can have something resembling a normal life." I explained.

To be honest, I hadn't given too much thought to this plan of mine. I rarely did. That was Annabeth's thing. But this was my element, serving others. This was supposedly my fatal flaw, but who said that loyalty was a bad thing? Besides, if I could save those lives, maybe I could… I don't know, somehow get the gods to hear my case.

"That is a good course of action, Percy. I wish you well." Chiron smiled. Then he seemed to notice something behind me, and his face fell a little. "I just wish they were still here to see you carry out this mission."

I turned, following his gaze to the line of shrouds standing next to each other, ready for the ceremony later tonight. My own expression fell. All those lives lost at the Battle of Manhattan. Silena, Castor, Michael, just to name a few. It began to hit me, truly hit me, that they were actually gone.

Their loss stabbed my soul as easily and painfully as any sword ever could.

I held a moment of silence with Chiron, before Annabeth and Thalia ran up, towing Grover along behind them.

"Aw, c'mon, Annabeth! I gotta get back to Juniper or she's gonna kill me!" Grover complained.

"Not really possible anymore, bro." I said, standing and putting on a smile. Though I would forever honor the deaths of this battle, I couldn't get lost in despair over it. Their souls had each reached Elysium. I was sure of it. "What's up?"

"We've been hearing some kinda strange whisperings. Don't you hear them too?"

I tilted my head. I had to focus a little, but eventually, I could hear them too. Screeches, screams, shouts… What the Styx was this?

"It sounds like… other half-bloods?" Thalia said, eyebrows knitting in confusion. Can all gods do this?"

Now Annabeth's eyebrows knit too. "Surely not. I mean, given that nobody here is screaming, that means that they must be the unclaimed demigods. And what kind of sick godly parent is going to sit back and drink nectar when they can hear this the whole tim—"

We all just looked at each other.

"Uh, probably most of them." Thalia scoffed. "But that then raises another question."

"What?" I asked.

"Why can we hear it?"

Silence fell between us four.

"Um…" Annabeth said, but it was clear that this was new territory for her. I saw her eyebrows knit harder, but no answer came forth. "I… got nothing."

"Thalia, call the paramedics. Annabeth doesn't have all the answers." I joked.

"Well, we could ask the resident god about it, y'know." Thalia suggested.

"Oh crap." I said, realizing, "I still haven't told any of the gods that I made you guys gods too. Dionysus might not know."

"It's hard not to know when you four are always blabbering so loudly about it." Mr. D's voice said, suddenly next to us. "And really Peter Jordansill, how many times must you hear it that names have power?"

"He's got you there, Percy." Thalia said.

"So… does this mean that everyone's cool with them being gods?" I asked Mr. D.

"Well, that's not how I would describe it. More like nobody knows yet except for me, and I already had my suspicions about it." Mr. D sighed boredly. "I fully expected you brats would start throwing immortality around like loose change, but I was still grateful my throne wasn't entirely destroyed by the Titans, so I let it slide for now."

"Oh." I said.

"Mr. D, what are these voices we're hearing? When we focus a little, or sometimes not at all, we can hear shouts and screams of what sounds like surprise, or…" Annabeth began, but Mr. D. interrupted her.

"It means, Ann Betty, that either you four somehow already have demigods of your own, Zeus forbid, or somehow you've managed to link yourself to an aspect of nature. Whose cries are they?"

We looked at each other.

What kind of question was that?

"You mean… gods can differentiate the sound of someone's scream?" I asked. Dionysus rolled his eyes.

"It's no different than knowing someone by their voice, Pedro Jimsol."

"Fair enough." Thalia muttered. "So why can we hear them?"

"Well, a god or goddess can hear voices if it's one of three things. Prayers, the voices of their children, or the voices of their followers. Usually, the first and third things coincide with each other, and aren't considered separate. But when a god is connected to a force of nature, followers and prayers can be considered different. I don't know how you four managed to connect yourselves to an aspect of nature, but since I'm assuming you haven't been getting prayers yet, and you have no children, that it is the third. Now if you're done, I have elsewhere to be."

"Just one more thing, sir." I said, perhaps subconsciously just wanting to see how far I could push it. "Why are you being so helpful?"

Dionysus scowled. "Your father had the foresight to know that you would have some questions about being a god, and made a deal with me. He would plead my case a little more with Zeus to shorten my sentence in this miserable camp if I answered your questions. Now as you undoubtedly have an eternity of questions, but none at the moment that you can't figure out on your own, I'll be taking my leave now."

And with that, he disappeared.