Hello all. Just finished the profile update, so here I am updating mah story. Another good chapter, I suspect.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Chapter 7

The Prophecy is given

The next day I was the first to wake up. I looked around the cabin and it was still dark. I could barely make out the sleeping figures and desks and such. I got up feeling fully rested even though I probably slept for a couple of hours. Nevertheless I got up and changed into new clothes, which ironically looked the same as the previous ones. After I decided that I would go watch the sunset, which was something I hadn't seen too many times before.

I headed out with Sophia's hilt in hand. I didn't want to chance another run in with a monster. All the Greek style buildings seemed to glow faintly, by I knew that was just the very early morning light. It was gradually getting lighter, so I had a feeling that I would have some time to kill before the sun actually came up. I slowed my pace and admired the serenity of a quiet camp.

I almost jumped out of my jeans when I saw a figure sitting on the beach. I tapped Sophia and slowly and carefully walked next to the figure. Before I came within five feet of the person they turned around to look at me. I sighed before I said, "Oh, Lyra. You had me scared for a minute." She half-heartedly smiled before turning back to look at the horizon. "Um do you mind if I sat with you?" She nodded still not facing me and I sat next to her putting away Sophia.

We sat in silence, but it wasn't awkward or hostile. It was really peaceful. The only background noise was the sound of the waves lapping on the shore, creating white foam. I took my shoes off and felt the sand in between my toes. It was really neat being at the beach. I wished I went there more often.

Finally I broke the silence by asking Lyra, "So what are you doing up this early?"

She kept her eyes on the horizon and said, "Couldn't sleep."

I could tell she didn't want to talk about it, but I could tell that wasn't the real reason. It might have been part, but not the full. I sighed and laid down to gaze up at the slowly fading stars. I spotted several constellations such as a hunter, Scorpio, and Hercules. It was getting progressively more difficult to see them because Apollo was just about to come around in his sun chariot.

"What are you doing up?" She asked me quietly.

"I don't know really. I just woke up and decided to watch the sun rise. I haven't seen it many times so I thought seeing it again would be nice," I told her.

"Why haven't you seen it a lot?" She turned to face me as she asked.

I looked back at her sea green eyes and said, "Well, when I was still living with my dad I usually slept in a lot and in the city you really can't see the sun. Then when I learned I was a demigod I was whisked away here. That was the time of the battle for Olympus. I really didn't have time then just to sit back and enjoy my surroundings. Now that everything has calmed down I've been getting up earlier to try to see the sunrise, but I end up waking too late and missing it."

She seemed to have sympathy and softened a lot. "What was your dad like?"

This caught me off guard. I waited for a bit deciding whether or not to tell her. I really didn't like to talk about him because, well, he sucked as a parent. As I was deciding she said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked you that."

"No, it's okay, really. I just…" I took a deep breath before continuing, "My dad wasn't the best parent in the world. He honestly hated me. I asked him one day why he hated me so much and he… he punched me," I said looking away as I could feel the tears start to rise. "I had to learn to cook by myself and pretty much lived on my own while he was too busy watching his stupid work. I sometimes wouldn't go home and just walk around Central Park because I didn't want to see him. Then when I'd come home he'd yell at me and threaten to… to b-beat me." I really wanted to let it all out, but that would show that I was weak, and there was no way I'd do that after I just became the best swordsman. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and looked back at Lyra. Her eyes were filled with sympathy and sorrow and some anger.

"Oh, that's terrible. I would assume you don't go back to live with him?" She asked still looking at me.

"No, I lived with my friend for a bit. She had a kind family and they let me live with them if I wanted to go to school. I ended up going to the same school as her after the winter break. I honestly can't remember what my dad looks like, not that I have a problem with that. Sometimes I wonder how my mother could have fallen for such a jerk." There was a slight rumble in the distance, which I knew was Athena getting mildly ticked off at what I said. "Yeah yeah, I'm sorry." Lyra was glancing at the sound nervously and I reassured her, "Don't worry. That's just the gods getting annoyed at what you say. They won't do anything unless you really say a bunch of bad things and don't give them more offerings."

She nodded then looked back at me and said, "You know, you should be thankful that you had at least kind guardians."

I caught where she was going, but I was inclined to ask for some reason. "Why did you ever have a normal life?"

She shook her head and stared at the horizon. I focused on watching her trying to get an answer. I had the feeling that she was debating whether or not to tell me like I was before. Finally I looked into the distance and said, "I'm sorry. If you ever want to talk, though, I'm here."

She nodded and started to speak, "Well, I can't remember what my life was like before I came here, except for one thing. I remember having a fight with my mom while she took me out to go on a cruise. I can't remember the details, but I got really mad at her and I… guess I started a storm and capsized the ship."

I just looked at her. Her eyes were just… so deep. I hadn't known her for long, but I could already read her eyes like a book. "Well I'm sure it your mom couldn't have been all bad. You probably had one of those fights were it gets a little out of hand. You didn't intentionally start a storm, so it's not your fault. I'm sure you probably had a great mom."

She smiled and stood up. I followed her lead for some reason and she turned to face me. Then she hugged me and I hugged her back. Why does this feel so weird? I thought to myself. Must've been the lack of sleep.

She pulled away and then we stood there next to each other watching the sunrise. It really was beautiful. "It's so beautiful. So much better than I remember." I said out loud. Lyra smiled and then she said, "Well, I'd better get back before Percy starts to worry or something. I'll see you later Aran," and then she ran towards cabin three. I continued to stand there and enjoy being at the beach.

A little while later I heard a clip clop from behind me. I prayed it wasn't a psycho centaur and turned to face the noise. Thank the gods it was only Chiron. "Hey Chiron, is something wrong?"

He was wearing a dark blue silk dress shirt, which I thought was a bit weird, and he had taken out his tail curlers. "We need to talk about your quest and get you your prophecy."

My mood dropped dramatically at the last word. I really wanted to go on a quest, but I would've preferred it be something like pick up a package from Hermes or something and not go save the world.

"Um, when?"

"Now." I took a deep breath before he continued. "We need to get you to the oracle so you can receive your prophecy. When you get back we will have a meeting then you will set out with your party and fulfill the prophecy."

I sighed, "Ok, so how do I meet the Oracle?"

"I believe I can help with that," an unknown voice said. Then out from shadows came Mrs. O' Leary and Nico. "Just hop on my friend's back here and we'll be on our way. I'll come along to make sure you don't end up in China, although it wasn't so bad when I went there by accident. But that's not the point. We need to go before the sun gets higher or else it'll get harder to shadow travel." My mouth didn't close the whole time he was talking.

"How did – she – What?" I was dumbfounded.

Nico laughed and said, "Just jump on. We'll be there and back before you know it."

I really didn't trust Nico, but this was the only way to get to the Oracle, so I didn't have a choice. I jumped on Mrs. O' Leary's back after she stopped jumping and chasing her tail. We walked over to the forest after waving goodbye to Chiron and I asked Nico, "So how exactly does this work?"

"Well, all shadows are made of the same substance, and underworld creatures can use this darkness as a portal to other places. So because of this –"

"We could go wherever we want," I finished. It seemed simple enough. I just had to hold on to the hellhound's collar really tight.

"Ok, I'll meet you there. I'm not sure of her exact address, but just tell her the home of the Oracle, New York," he instructed.

I nodded and bent down to Mrs. O' Leary's ear and said, "Um hey. Could you take me to the home of the Oracle, New York?" She sniffed the air and ran straight into a tree. At least it looked like she was going to, but before we hit we became surrounded in extremely cold darkness.

We popped out somewhere in upstate New York. It was colder than on Long Island and rockier. We were on a summit overlooking a big city. A blimp was flying over the city with a banner that said something like RDEA NTRIZEERPES. In the center of the city were a couple of skyscrapers that were taller than the rest. I jumped down from the hellhound's back and she curled up into a ball and went to sleep. I stood there admiring the city and waiting for Nico until I was sent flying to the ground. "Owww."

"Heh, oops. I didn't expect you to be standing there. Well anyway, we're here." Nico said.

I got up and rubbed the back of my head while my vision cleared up. "So where exactly does she live?" Nico pointed to the biggest building in the center of the city. "Ah, so how do we get in? There's no way they'd let us into that kind of building.

"GET OUT!"

We ran out of the building as fast as we could until we made it back to our summit with our sleeping pet. I said, "I told you. Now what do we do?" while panting.

We stood up when we caught our breath. "Well I thought that would work. But now I guess we have to shadow travel into her room. Luckily I got her number, so we should be able to go in no problem."

"Yeah, that's what you said last time. But if it's the only way, then let's go," I said while grabbing his arm. We started running into the mountainside and the darkness engulfed us again. A couple thoughts later we landed, hard, into a dark room, making as much noise as a stampede of elephants.

"Ow," I said again.

"Well it was the only dark place in the room, so deal with it." He sounded a bit tired but nonetheless I opened the door.

"Oh my gods."

Turns out the closet we landed in connected to the bathroom. And on top of that there was a girl with short, frizzy red hair and had a white towel wrapped around her that decided to scream at the top of her lungs. I turned crimson red as I quickly turned around and ran back into the closet and left Nico out there to more or less get killed. I definitely heard Nico say, "Um hi Rachel. Uh, I'd better let you get, uh dressed before we uh ask anything." Rachel stopped screaming and I heard a loud smack! "Yeah, I'm gonna go hide in the closet again." He whipped open the door and I saw that his face was bright red and the girl looked like she wanted to murder us.

"Dude I think we'd better get out of her before that mortal calls the police on us." I told him quickly and quietly.

It was too dark to see him, but I had a feeling that he was still bright red. "No, that's… she's the Oracle. I just wish we could have met, you know, better."

My mouth was hanging open after he said that. "Well, you can go out first. I've got a quest to go on and I don't want to get killed before I start it."

"Oh no. It's your quest. You should go out first."

"Oh I couldn't. Remember? Ladies first."

"Then by all means go out first."

"No, you're going out second."

"No way buddy, I'm going out first!" I laughed after that. "Oh Styx!"

After a long time, at least it felt like a long time, there was a knock on our door. I elbowed Nico and he opened the door. The first thing I saw was a hand slap Nico, and then it grabbed him and pulled him out. I heard her start screaming her head off at Nico about coming in when she only had a towel on. I quietly made my way out to see Nico hanging his head and Rachel pointing and yelling at him. She must've gotten bored because she remembered I was there too, but when she turned to face me she said, "Oh, I've been expecting you. And was it your idea to go out first?"

Nico's eyes were pleading me to say yes, but I didn't want to deal with the Oracle's wrath, so I played it safe and said, "No, Nico pushed me out the door, but I was planning on going out first, so yes." In one sentence I said yes and no, so therefore she couldn't yell at me or Nico. Nico mouthed Thanks and Rachel sighed and calmed down. She was wearing blue shorts and a pink t-shirt. She led us out into her room – at least that was what I thought it was – and gave us a seat on a bean bag. Her walls were covered with paintings and pictures of monsters and places.

"Well, I've been having a bunch of visions lately, so I think you need a prophecy." She told me. I nodded and then she opened her mouth and green smoke billowed out while her eyes turned a bright green. It sounded like three Rachels were speaking at the same time. She said, "I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. Approach, seeker, and ask."

I was stunned for a second, but stood up and asked, "What is my destiny?"

Four shall go to the isolated land

Where the Titan recruits an awful band

One shall become a legend

Only after he is abandoned

With their hearts filled with sadness

They will give up hope and fall to the badness

One shall reignite their passion

And return home in a timely fashion

But that legend will be forgotten

Until discovered at the home

She closed her mouth and started to fall forward before Nico caught her. He set her down on her bed and wrote her a note saying that we were leaving. We left via shadow travel and returned to our summit with our friendly hellhound running around and chasing her tail. Neither of us spoke until Nico said, "We better get back to camp. It's probably close to breakfast time." I nodded and jumped onto Mrs. O' Leary's back and told her that we needed to set back to camp. She sniffed the air and ran into the darkness.

A couple of cold seconds later we were back in the familiar forest of Camp Half-Blood. I slide off our pet's back and she went to sleep again. Nico said it tired her out, and he looked pretty tired as well. I bade them farewell and went back to my cabin.

I arrived as my sisters and brothers were starting to wake up. Annabeth was just coming out of the girls' bathroom in her usual clothes and was tying her hair into a ponytail when she caught sight of me. I walked over to my desk pretending like I was going to do work and Annabeth followed. She bent over so that I could talk to her. "We need to talk to Chiron after breakfast. Tell Lyra and Percy too." She nodded and walked off.

Breakfast seemed to take forever to arrive. When the conch horn finally blew I sprinted to the pavilion. The dryads brought out our food and then we offered to the gods. I was at the front of the line because I needed to talk to Chiron fast. I noticed that he wasn't at his usual table, so I figured that he was in the Big House. I gave all my food to Athena, then went back to my table to set my plate down. I wasn't really hungry for an omelet, so I had no regrets about giving it all to my mother. I saw Percy and Lyra on the way out and nodded to both of them and they did the same. I overheard some campers complaining about how much money they lost from betting on Percy. I smiled at that and continued my way to the Big House.

The council room was empty except for Chiron who sat in his wheelchair. I walked over to him and pulled up a nearby chair. "Good to see you back my boy. Now, what exactly did the Oracle say? Wording is important."

I nodded and told him what the Oracle had told me. I did leave out the last two lines because I was honestly scared of them. Even though this "legend" would be found it still means that he'd get lost.

"Hmm. I see. Well, let's talk about it when… Ah they've arrived."

I turned my head to see Lyra, Percy, and Annabeth walk in. They pulled up chairs around me and I told them what the Oracle told me, leaving the last two lines out again.

Their minds were going into overdrive. Annabeth explained most of it to us. "Well, the four is obvious, but the destination we need to go is not clear. It could either mean Alaska or Hawaii."

I thought about it for a second then said, "Hawaii. The Titan's name is Krios, Lord of the South. He would be as farthest south as possible, so that's Hawaii."

Everyone nodded in agreement, then Annabeth continued. "We will probably fight many old and dangerous creatures, but whoever defeats these will become the legend." More nods. "He will probably get separated from the group and he will go in solo." More nods again.

Then I spoke, "The next two lines probably deal with the groups' response to the abandoned legend, but one of them will remind them of home and they'll go back."

"Yes that seems very true. Well, this was a pretty straightforward prophecy. When do we set out?" I asked Chiron.

"Well, I would like you all to rest here for another night, but that doesn't seem likely. If there is a Titan on the loose then we will need you all to set out as soon as possible. I would suggest you start getting ready. As soon as you're done meet at Thalia's Tree and Argus will drive you to Percy's house." He told us.

"Why my house Chiron?" Percy asked.

"Well, you and Annabeth both have your licenses, am I correct?" They both nodded. "Then you both can take turns driving until you reach California. Then you can take a boat or ship or what have you to Hawaii, and then take it back." He explained. We all nodded then started to leave to get ready.

Alright, so I hope you enjoyed and don't forget to review. Remember, review!