"This is gonna sound weird at first but… I've been having these dreams."
Cole spoke as he had Dante, Regina, Andrew, and Donna all sitting with him in the amphitheater. There was a campfire going on with numerous campers, satyrs, and nymphs, all coming together to enjoy their time altogether. Some were singing songs, others were chatting away with their friends, and a few were getting too close to their significant others while roasting marshmallows.
After waiting for the time to really see them all together at once, he couldn't help but feel nervous as they looked at him. He's not used to speaking in front of a group, his camp t-shirt was clinging to his chest as he felt his armpits warm up. Meanwhile, Andrew and Regina were already looking at him like they wanted him to get on with it.
"I'm on this building back home, and I'm in this storm. I mean, I'm not in the storm itself but in the eye."
"The what?" Regina asked as she gave a confused look.
"The Eye of the Storm," Cole said quickly, "it's the calmest part of a major storm and always in the center. Anyways, I used to see these feathers fall from through the eye and I'd try to catch them. They're all different colors: red, blue, gold, and green..."
"Wait hang on…" Andrew muttered softly but Cole continued as the latter didn't hear the former.
"And I see these feathers flying down but lately they've turned done this weird thing where they turn into-"
"Us?" Donna cut in as she glanced at the others and then back at Cole, "we're the feathers, aren't we?"
"Yeah," said Cole as he looked at her in surprise, "how'd you guess that so easily?"
"Common sense. Also, I've been having dreams that I was a feather floating through a storm."
"Oh, thank gods," said Dante as he let out a relieving chuckle, "I thought I was the only one so I ain't say nothin'."
Cole blinked as he looked over at Dante. It was a surprise to see that Dante and Donna were both having these dreams but what was more surprising was that Dante didn't tell him about it. Something about that didn't sit right with him but he decided now wouldn't be the time. He glanced at Andrew and Regina.
"How about you two?"
"Yeah, same," Andrew said with a nod as Regina gave a quiet nod and looked a little uneasy about the revelation.
"Okay, so then I guess we all had the same dream. Sort of. It's part of the prophecy."
"About that," said Regina, "what's the prophecy exactly? Like, the words?"
"I… uhm…" Cole hesitated, he didn't remember all the words from the prophecy. Maybe he should have written it down but who has time for that? "I forgot. BUT, we can ask Rachel can hear it."
"If this is a joke…" Regina started as she started to frown.
"Why the fuck would he joke about this?" Dante asked her as he stared.
"I dunno but I also don't like the sound of this. How you bring us all here to tell us that we have the same dream and have a prophecy but don't know the prophecy?"
"Dante, no. She's right," it hurt to say it especially since Cole felt like a massive idiot, but it was the truth. He could only sigh at himself, "I should've like, done better to remember it. I just know that the five of us are supposed to come together, just like the ones before us were."
"Before us?" Andrew asked, "you mean this happened before?"
Cole would go on to explain the concept of Recyclable Readings, the prophecy being one of them, the story of Zeus and his Enforcers, and how the last group from the prophecy was led by Phillip II and Alexander the Great. Once he was done, he checked for their reactions. Dante already knew as they'd spoken about it before while Regina, Donna, and Andrew were just blinking as they tried to take it in.
"It's kind of a lot, isn't it?" Cole asked, "I didn't wanna like, hide this from you guys you know? I think it's fair that you know as much as I do."
"I mean, I'm glad you told us but what are we supposed to do about it all?" Andrew piped up as he looked at Cole, "Prophecies can take years to pass, we can't run from it, but we can't just push it forward either."
Cole sighed, Dante and Regina both shrugged, and Donna nodded. Andrew had a point, what could they really do even if they knew what was coming? They were best off sitting and waiting for it to happen, and it might be a simple one-off thing. But something about what he said really struck Cole. An idea sprang into his head as he looked back at Andrew.
"You sure about that? I mean, maybe we can't go into the future, but we can at least do something." He exchanged glances with all four of them, he was getting that feeling again, the sense of confidence. "I don't know about you, but I've done enough waiting. I was in the Hermes Cabin for two years and I didn't have shit going on, now I know I'm the son of Zeus and I've got four other people that I need to lead as part of a prophecy… and I don't really see how we can't make some noise around here."
"You've definitely made enough noise for me."
The five of them looked around. Sitting close by them was a satyr who looked to be in his twenties. His horns protruded from his curly dark hair, goatee only slightly longer than the rest of his full beard, and his horn-rimmed glasses sat in front of a pair of heavy-lidded eyes.
"Hi Ash," Donna said in a kinder tone than her usual dry one, "have you been listening this whole time?"
"Eh, I've been in-and-out, but it sounds a bit like you kids wanna go and whoop some ass for clout." Ash the Satyr smoothly turned to face them and leaned back. He seemed extremely casual about it all, he even had a warm smile. Nothing could bother this guy. "Don't tell the Council or anybody about this buuuut… if you want something to do so badly then you can probably start by handling some monsters that have been clogging up the Woodland Route."
"The what?" All five of them answered at the same time and all five aside from Donna cringed a little.
"It's this route that the satyrs use to sneak demigods through Long Island to get them to camp. Kinda complicated but it's how we get them to camp safely and not all out in the open. Real covert stuff, y'know?"
"Now I'm not saying that it's the only way, but I will say that y'know, you'd be doing us a real favor by clearing out those dens. Easier passage for keepers to bring in new demigods, less dying. We'd all really appreciate it. Lemme know if you're up for it."
Ash turned away and got up to go look for everything to eat. Meanwhile, the five demigods were exchanging glances after hearing what he just said.
"He had to be kidding," Cole said in a hushed voice, "about us doing it I mean. I don't think he was kidding about the route though."
"It might be a real problem," said Andrew with a shrug, "I dunno if we're the people to solve it though."
"We gotta start somewhere," Dante chimed in, "every hero does, right?"
"Uhm… y'all know that dude was high as Hell, right? Or am I the only one that noticed?" Regina asked the group while looking at them all like they might be crazy.
Donna nodded to Regina, "yeah, he likes edibles. I saw him take one when we were on the Amtrak to camp."
Cole didn't have all that much experience with drugs and whatnot so he couldn't really tell that Ash was high. He figured that Ash was just in a decent mood and wanted to offer them a chance to help the camp's keepers.
"High or not," he said, "I wouldn't mind helping out. We should see if he's legit and then maybe if we find a way out of here and back without being gone for too long…
"Dude, we're not allowed to leave camp without permission since like, leaving the camp is fucking dangerous," said Andrew in a skeptical tone. Cole was not liking this energy.
"Yeah, but we literally train to handle danger, we can figure it out."
"Yeah," Dante said as he straightened up a little and looked right at Andrew, "don't be a pussy."
"I'm not a fucking pussy," Andrew turned away as he replied, almost mumbling his words, "and I'm not your bro either."
"Hey," Cole cut in quickly while looking between Dante and Andrew, "chill. Look, this idea is probably super dangerous and might get us in a shit ton of trouble, so everybody is gonna need to be all in on this."
He's not sure where the conviction came from, but he could feel his chest fill with confidence. Sure, this seemed like a bad idea, but something told him that he didn't need to worry about all of that. The others must have felt it too as they looked at him.
"Andrew, I saw you hold back the entire rock wall and stop it from crushing you. I've seen Dante fight harder and better than half of the camp here combined. Regina can copy people's best moves and make them her own. And Donna… okay I don't know what you can do but you seem smart, and you're clearly meant to be a part of this too."
"I'm down," said Dante with a small smile after a couple of seconds of silence.
"Me too," said Regina as her expression softened a little from the acknowledgment.
"I'll follow you," said Donna, "also my counselor said that I'm a savage."
Some more silence, between them as they could hear the rest of the camp sing songs. All eyes were on Andrew.
"…alright," said Andrew quietly.
Cole let out a sigh of relief, glad to see that everyone was on board. All they needed to do now was get some more information from Ash and plan. As he walked away to go get Ash, he felt his sense of confidence start to decline. Doubt started to sink in, thoughts about how stupid he is to do this and how reckless this plan was were rolling through his head. Isn't there also a mantra or something about how any quest should have no more and no less than three people? The gods were probably watching, and they were probably wondering just what kind of dumb shit this kid was up to.
"Hey, Ash." Cole found the satyr as the latter was getting up and turning in for the night, "we talked it over and… well, we wanna help you out. If the offer is still up."
"Of course, it is," said Ash, "satyrs, dying and all. I can hand you the map of the route before curfew. Can't help much after that though, Council will get all pissy about camp interference or something like that."
"Yeah, man. No worries… just, yeah. I'll be here. Thanks for this, seriously."
"No problemo, you Big Three kids are cool."
Ash would them trot off to retrieve the map and leave Cole in awkward silence at the edge of the amphitheater. He looked around, finding Chiron over on the other side of the area raising an eyebrow at a dirty joke as well as Dionysus who was drinking a Cherry Diet Coke and wondering how the god never thought of slipping fermented cherries in his drinks. Soon enough, Ash had returned with a folded-up map.
"Here it is," Ash said with a smile, "Cole. Good luck!"
"Thanks, Ash. We won't tell anyone that it was from you."
This whole prophecy and quest thing was way too easy. Unfortunately, "too easy" is never a good thing for demigods.