Okay, before we start, I just want to tell you that this story has absolutley nothing to do with a prophecy, I just needed an excuse to get Rachel to camp so they would have to revoke the border :) Thanx to everyone who comments on my stories.
Ch. 5
Two hours later, I'm lying in the underbrush about thirty feet from Camp Half-Blood's border, in full wolf form. All around me, the other twenty-nine members of the strike force are hidden in various ways, all of us silently waiting, watching, tense and eager.
On Half-Blood Hill, the demigods are restless. They know we're here, but they can't see us. Hawkeye has strengthened and manipulated the Mist to the best of his ability, and we're all but invisible, even to the demigods. The Oracle girl might still be able to see us, but that's a chance we have to take. The demigods are in great need of their oracle, since controversy about the next prophecy has risen, and no one seems to know much about it. Some new demigods had made it across the border before we had started picking off the newcomers, and had caught the attention of everyone. Some people thought they might be the subjects of the next huge prophecy. Personally I didn't care for them much unless they were dead, but oh well.
Beside me, Damian kneels in the loam, tapping his fingers against his leg and looking impatient. He has ADHD like most demigods, and all this waiting is killing him. He glances at me, and we exchange understanding nods.
Many of the hellhounds are waiting further back than the rest of us, because they are the fastest overall, and have a better chance of making it to the border from a distance than anyone else. Up ahead of me by about fifteen feet the slowest of the strike force--the other two demigods, a couple of mutants, and the dracaenae--are skillfully camouflaged into the trees. Damian and I are about halfway between the two groups, along with Zane and Hawkeye, the empousa, the giant scorpion, and a few hellhounds. A skinny, brown-haired boy with a huge pair of midnight black bat wings sprouting from between his shoulder blades, a mutant like myself, crouches on the other side of Damian.
Up on Half-Blood Hill, an old man in a wheelchair approaches the border. A tall boy with black hair and striking green eyes walks beside him, fingering a ballpoint pen. I stiffen unconsciously and Chiron and Percy Jackson join the sentries beneath the pine tree.
"Are they still there?" Jackson mutters to Chiron, who nods.
"Yes," the centaur says calmly.
"You can't see them though, can you?"
"No Percy, I cannot," Chiron says. "There is little I could do even if I could see them."
Jackson paces back and forth, looking beyond stressed. "You're sure there's no other way to get Rachel into camp?"
"Rachel is a mortal, Percy. In order for a mortal to gain access into Camp Half-Blood, the border must be revoked. If there was any other way, you know I would try it. Unfortunately, this must be done. We need Miss Dare to decipher the prophecy."
"But does it have to be now? Can't we postpone it?" Jackson asks.
"Prophecies don't wait Percy," Chiron reminds him. "You of all people should know that."
A pretty girl about my age with grey eyes and golden blonde hair appears out of thin air beside Jackson, shoving a Yankees baseball cap into her back pocket. No one says anything, but her eyes begin to scour the underbrush we are hidden in.
Silence reigns again on both sides of the border as we all await the arrival of Rachel Elizabeth Dare. The demigods pace and fidget anxiously, while the rest of us barely dare to breath in fear of giving ourselves away.
And at eight-twenty-eight on the spot, a tall man with eyes all over his body and a girl with frizzy red hair and marker-decorated jeans begin to approach us from the bottom of the hill.
Dare's eyes immediatly fall on us, and she freezes. "Chiron . . ."
"Keep walking," he tells her calmly. "If they were after you, I suspect that you would already be dead." He sure got that one right.
Dare licks her lips nervously, but continues up the hill beside the many-eyed security guard, if a little timidly. At the border, the demigods have formed a defensive line, shoulder to shoulder. I recognize Nico Di Angelo, Connor and Travis Stoll, and the Ares girl form my chase with the Demeter twins the week before, the one who killed Kronos's drakon. Underwood is there too, along with many others I don't know.
"Chiron . . ." Dare whispers again as she walks by our hellhounds. "I don't think we should do this."
"Can you see them?" Chiron asks her.
"Not well," she whispers, "but kind of." Her eyes half-focus on me, and I bare my teeth experimentally. She bites her lip and chokes down a yelp.
"How many are there?" Jackson asks.
"I don't know," Dare says, looking over her shoulder as she approaches the border. "I can't see them very good. I've never encountered Mist like this before."
If I could have patted Hawkeye on the back right then, I would have.
"Chiron," Dare begs, "please don't do this. There's still time to stop it. This . . . this isn't right, I mean, I've seen something about this, I--I had a dream about it . . ."
There's some eloquence for you, huh?
"Thirty seconds," the grey-eyed girl with the Yankees cap calls out, looking up from her watch long enough to draw a long, celestial bronze knife. To her left, Jackson uncaps his pen, and it grows into a long, glittering sword.
"No!" Dare exclaims. "Chiron, you can't do this. Something—
"My dear," Chiron interrupts, looking sympathetic, "we will be facing a bigger threat in the long run than the present one. Our second major prophecy may be upon us, and if that is the case, then this is the least of our worries."
Dare opens her mouth to argue, but the blonde girl cuts across her. "Fifteen seconds," she yells. Along the border, the line of demigods draws their weapons. I raise myself several inches off the ground, my legs bunched like springs.
"This is wrong," Dare whispers, but if anyone hears, they don't let on.
"Five seconds," says the girl. She's not looking at her watch anymore. "Four, three, two, one. . ." A sizzle like dumping water on a hot fire splits the air, and something seems to leave the atmosphere. It isn't an obvious change or a big one, but it is noticeable.
The border is gone. Our six second opening has begun.
Right on cue, Mokkan's chilling howl echoes from behind me as our strike force surges out of hiding. Hawkeye releases the Mist, and we are revealed for who we really are, visible for all to see. A dracaenae and an empousa explode instantly into dust as celestial bronze arrows hit them, but we don't pause. The hellhounds and I have outstripped the rest in only a few bounds, kicking up grass, and the giant scorpion, surprisingly, is beside us. A hellhound at my side dissolves, a knife between her eyes, and I pull out in front with Mokkan, only moments from bursting out of hiding. When we're five feet from the now nonexistent borderline, I leap forward, leaving Mokkan behind and—WHAM—hit a demigod archer in the chest with all four paws, latching my jaw around her throat. She topples backward and we roll down the hill into the camp, throwing dust and clumps of grass and droplets of blood in every direction.
I toss the body to one side and leap up, following a gravel path into the heart of the camp, unchallenged since all the demigods are either down in their cabins or engaged in the furious battle now raging on Half-Blood Hill.
I don't slow as I come to a rectangle of cabins, all different shapes and colors, and without hesitation, burst through the wall of the nearest one, making a wolf-sized back entrance. Aphrodite kids scream and send designer clothes and makeup flying everywhere as they scatter. I grab somebody's ankle in my teeth and make a bolt for the door, not bothering to open it since smashing it off its hinges is just so much more fun.
Dragging the Aphrodite kid out into the open, I shake my head vigorously, relishing the fresh wave of blood that floods my mouth. Several demigods from another cabin approach from behind, but before they can come close, I slam the Aphrodite brat viciously into a wall and run for it. I pass our giant scorpion trashing the Apollo cabin, a human arm in one giant claw, a bed mattress in the other, stomping out a wall and throwing around clothes and iPods and haiku books. A hellhound races by me, chasing down a shrieking tree nymph. So far we seem to be the only three to make it into the camp, not counting the fighters on Half-Blood Hill, but that's alright.
I race down the line of cabins, almost colliding with an Athena camper as he leaps out in front of me, and I barely manage to save the tip of my nose from getting shorn off. I hit the dirt and roll backwards for all I'm worth as he lunges forward and stabs down, the spear tip sinking into the ground where I had been standing. I leap to my paws and strike a defensive stance, my lips drawn back to reveal my yellowed fangs.
The boy takes a lightning-fast step to one side and brings the spear in from the right, forcing me to fling myself back. I dart forward and grab the spear handle as it flashes by, ripping it from his grasp and throwing it to one side. I come in for an attack on my defenseless victim, but he whips a small pocketknife out of nowhere and brings it down into my shoulder. The blade and half the bone handle completely disappear into my flesh, inflicting a deep, painful stab wound. Snarling, I leap forward and slam into the boy head-on, using my bodyweight to shove him off balance. He staggers back several steps, and I flash forward and grab his hand in my teeth, rearing up on my hind paws and body-slamming him into the dirt. He struggles strongly against me, bruising me in several places, but I hold him down long enough to get a good grip on his neck. Rolling quickly to one side, I jerk my head to the left, snapping his neck and throwing him over me. He hits the ground ten feet to my right, and does not rise again.
I get back to my feet and return to reality. Up ahead of me, a hellhound is giving an Ares demigod a run for his money, picking him up and throwing him against a cabin even as I watch. The giant scorpion has moved on from the Apollo cabin to the Hermes one, and is now tipping tables and shredding blankets and pillows. Feathers and bits of fluff from the pillows drift through the air for twenty feet in every direction, like snowflakes. Another hellhound, arrows sticking out of his back like oddly placed porcupine quills, is stomping some unlucky satyrs into the ground.
A daughter of a minor god jumps down off of the roof of a nearby cabin and lands beside me, sword drawn. Before I can kick her butt however, a cry like a hawk echoes through the air, loud and sharp and impossible to ignore. Hawkeye's retreat signal. My five minutes are up.
I shoulder the girl out of the way and race for the borderline. But before I can go more than fifty feet, a hellhound bounds up beside me and pokes me urgently in the ribs with her nose.
"What?" I demand sharply, screeching to a halt. The thirty-second retreat time is ticking by.
The hellhound, Katrina, pokes me with her nose again and runs over to a cabin, the Hades one, I think. She raises a paw and scratches at the wall. I stare at her, quite convinced she's gone insane.
Katrina glances back at me and registers my confusion. She whines and touches her nose to the wall. My eyes narrow. Not the wall. A torch of green flame, one of the two placed on either side of the doorway. Beyond the destroyed doorframe, more of the torches of the Greek fire are visible, lining a short entrance hall.
A torch.
"You're brilliant," I breathe to Katrina. She'd noticed the torches immediately, but judging by the claw marks scored deep into the dark stone, had not been coordinated enough to remove them from the wall.
I morph into human form, ignoring my screaming shoulder, and pry both troches from the wall. The giant scorpion and the other two hellhounds, who had noticed Katrina and I pause and had come back to check out the action, stand eagerly behind me. I place the handle of one of the torches in Katrina's mouth, and give the other one to the giant scorpion. I step into the cabin and take down the other three, distributing them to the hellhounds and keeping one for myself.
"We're gonna miss the retreat," I mutter, "but it'll be worth it."
The scorpion and the two hellhounds run off to the cabins, touching every one they pass. I throw my torch into the air and morph back into a wolf, catching the torch in my teeth again as it falls. Katrina glances delightedly at me, and the two of us bolt for the forest. Tree nymphs spot us from a distance and, guessing our intentions, begin to scream.
Katrina and I run to the edge of the forestry and touch the Greek fire to every tree we can reach. The result is instant: a smoking, reeking green forest fire, spreading faster than I can run and sending satyrs scrambling for water, tree nymphs withering helplessly on the ground as their tree is the next to burn.
I toss my torch into the greenery and leave it there to smolder; Katrina follows my example, and we charge back through the camp, howling to draw our three partners in crime back to us. They immediately drop their torches on the nearest flammable object and run to us. The five of us haul tail back up to Half-Blood Hill, leaving our fiery destruction to burn away, until Jackson puts it out, at least.
The problem now was that, as I had expected, the rest of the strike force had abandoned us minutes ago, and we were on our own. Also, there was nothing to distract the demigods, so we were now coming under extreme attack as we flee. Shouts of "There's some more!" and "Get them!" ring out as we approach Half-Blood Hill.
The hellhounds and I run erratically, trying to avoid the arrows, knives, rocks, pinecones, and an assortment of other odd projectile missiles that rain down on us in torrents. The giant scorpion is the only one not worried about that; everything just bounces off his shell. Behind us, Underwood the satyr raises his pipes to his lips and begins to play. Roots erupt from the ground beneath my feet and tie themselves in knots around my paws, creeping up my legs, trying to drag me into the earth. It takes all my waning strength and momentum to escape them. One hellhound is too weak to fight off the roots, and they wrap around his ribcage, crushing him. Arrows erupt from his body, and we have no choice but to leave him there to die.
The remaining four of us are hard-pressed as we reach the top of Half-Blood Hill. Nico Di Angelo, blood oozing from a cut above his right eye, notices us, and a determined look flashes across his face. Without warning, a dark crevasse opens fifteen feet in front of us, and ten or so bare skeletons crawl out, turning to watch us approach. I glance at the others; the giant scorpion shows no sign of exhaustion, scuttling along at a good pace, but Katrina and the other hellhound are getting weak fast. If they take on the skeletons, they might not make it all the way to the border.
Making a snap decision, I pull out in front of them, leap over the carcass of a demigod, and plow into the skeletons head first. Bones fly everywhere and pale fingers claw at my fur as the skeletons try to slow me down. Behind me, the other three run in my wake, avoiding the worst of the attack.
We jump the crevasse and close in on the last twenty feet between us and the border. I shake one of Di Angelo's skeletons off my back, weave between two demigods, take a kick in the ribs, dodge and arrow, shove Connor and Travis Stoll out of my way, and throw myself across the border in eight seconds flat. I hit the ground and roll, somersaulting head over tail down the hill and closer freedom. A large rock nails me in the ribs as I go. Leaping up at the bottom of the hill, I continue to run until I am beyond the range of missiles.
Katrina, the scorpion, and the other hellhound stagger up behind me, panting and gasping, drenched in blood and sweat. "Wait," I say quietly, and all four of us stay still, waiting for the pin to drop. For several seconds, there is nothing; and then—
BOOOOOMMM!!!!
Laughing and jumping around in joy despite our fatigue, we watch delightedly as a thick column of black smoke hundreds of feet high curls up from Camp Half-Blood, and we can feel the heat from the explosion even from a distance. You see, some people forget that Greek fire has a late discharge. If allowed to burn freely long enough, it will explode violently. We had set all the cabins and half the forest on fire, and they hadn't been fast enough to put it out, unfortunately for them.
We had destroyed half the camp.
Howling our victory to the darkening sky, my companions and I disappear into the distance, running for New York City, as the curses and screams of the demigods ring out behind us.
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Finally, after three hours of trudging through the all too familiar NYC streets, we arrive at our camp. The hellhounds, who, after an exhausting fight, three unsuccessful attempts each at shadow travel back to camp, and a seemingly endless walk through the city, look ready to pass out with relief.
I pat Katrina on the shoulder, which is as high as I can reach, when the tents come into view. "You did great," I tell her. "That idea with the Greek fire was amazing. They'll be repairing it for months."
Katrina gives me a tired doggy grin and wags her tail weakly, in a you-didn't-do-too-badly-yourself kind of look.
A Hyperborean giant on guard spots us as we approach, and sends word ahead via telling a telekhine what's going on and then throwing him across camp. As expected, news of our blowing up the forest had traveled faster than we had, so as we arrive, we get lots of congratulations and admiring looks from the night guard.
"Where is everyone?" I ask an empousa, noticing that the camp seems nearly deserted.
"They're up celebrating," she simpers, sounding more than a little annoyed. "Over by the stage they built for Zane to talk on earlier. And I'm stuck here, on night guard."
"What are they celebrating?"
"Oh, I suppose Zane will want to tell you all about it himself," the empousa says, flipping her shockingly bleached blonde hair around and sticking up her nose. "He's been quite full of himself tonight, giving that little rat better living space than good, loyal soldiers. It's ridiculous!"
Katrina and I exchange a look. "Demon, what in Hades' name are you talking about?"
She's about to reply when Damian and Predak appear from the darkness, grinning hugely. "Christine!"
Damian runs forward and shamelessly flings his arms around my neck in a hug, surprising me. "Where have you been?" he asks. "We've been worried sick. We knew you guys set off the explosion, but we didn't know if you ever made it out or not."
"Yeah, well, we had to hoof it through town," I tell them. "Nobody was up for shadow travel."
"I would say so," Predak comments, trying to pry an abnormally large pinecone out of a chink in between two pieces of the scorpion's shell. "You lot look terrible."
"Tell me about it. You're not even the one that got ambushed by skeletons," I say.
Predak grimaces. "Ouch. I wanna hear all about this escapade of yours later on, remember. It sounds like I missed all the fun. You'd better go check in with Zane first, though. He'll want to show off his prize to you, I'll bet."
The empousa makes a high pitched "humph!" noise in her throat, and turns her back on us.
"What's up with her?" I ask, following Damian and Predak through the camp.
"You'll see," Damian says. "If I was an empousa, I'd be ticked too, I guess. Anyway, Zane and Hawkeye apparently had this planned out a while ago. It's a great way to get under Jackson's skin."
"The girl?" I exclaim in disbelief. "They actually got her?"
"Hey, how did you know?" Predak asks indignantly. "Let me in on the act next time you eavesdrop on powerful people! I'm good at that."
"No, Hawkeye told me. He was acting weird before the mission, and I asked him what was up."
"And he actually told you? Wow."
We had reached the center of the camp, where the majority of the camp's occupants were gathered, chatting to each other. A huge fire burns at the center of the crowd, near the stage. Damian and Predak lead the hellhounds, the scorpion, and me over to Zane, who is speaking to several dracaenae with a very superior, almighty look on his face.
"Ah, Christine," he says upon our arrival. "Good to have all of you alive. Your survival means we only lost seven soldiers during the mission; quite a few less than I originally predicted. And we are all quite impressed with your stunt with the Greek fire as well. Quite ingenious, Katrina."
"Good gods, Christine Savage, what happened to you? Fall off a cliff lately?"
And there was Hawkeye, ruining the moment right on time, as usual. How pleasant.
"Thank you, Captain Obvious," I mutter as he walks up. "I never get tired of your polite and encouraging comments."
"Anytime," he says as Predak and Damian fight to keep a straight face.
"So I hear your plan worked out better than expected, huh?" I ask Hawkeye feigning disinterest.
He smirks, his silver eye glittering spectacularly. "Come meet our guest, Christine."
Over by the fire, bound to a street lamp and being harassed by some telekhines, a figure stirs weakly as I approach. On closer look, I realize that it is indeed a person. A pretty girl about my age, with grey eyes and golden blonde hair.
Annabeth Chase.
