Mattias
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When Chiron arrived, my stomach dropped. Tomorrow then. Mana and the others would be leaving tomorrow.

I hated that thought. My first quest had been just Mana and me. I was twelve. The two of us had saved each other countless times. Then Mana went on a solo quest and almost died.

Now she was going on yet another quest with a pair of rookies. At least her solo quest, all she had to do was worry about herself. Now she had to look out for two more people, and I knew that if either of them died, she would never forgive herself.

Not that I wanted the girls to die. The Poseidon kid, Glynn, was super fun to mess with. Mana had discovered that if you step on her shoes, she flips out. Guess what I spent the rest of the week doing? If she died, my fun would be gone.

I watched as the three girls and Chiron head to the big house. I felt like cursing, which I would do the second there weren't a bunch of people around. Mana had survived on her own for years, she was a councillor at camp. Heck, several times I made her come visit me during the year to make her help me with my math homework (for some reason, she always got annoyed by this). Clearly she wasn't an idiot (most of the time). So the fact that she was being so stupid was driving me insane.

"Mattias." I turned around and came face to face with Devin. I knew she felt the same way I did about the quest. I'd heard her telling Mana how stupid it was several times. Her sister was right beside her.

"What?"

"We need to talk. About the quest. Someone needs to do something."

I frowned. "And what, you want me to do something about it? You think Mana is going to listen just because I tell her not to go? Come on, Devin, we both know that when she has her mind set, she's too stubborn to back down. Especially if I'm the one telling her to. If I tell her not to go, that will just encourage her."

"No, idiot, that's not what I'm getting at. I know perfectly well that nothing we say is going to change her mind. The only one that even has a chance would be Chiron, but I doubt he will even try. He's more of a 'let heroes make their own choices' type of guy. I'm talking about sneaking out of camp."

For a second, I thought I was hearing things. "Wait, what?"

Lexis butted in, "Sneaking out of camp and going with them."

They had gone crazy, clearly. "Look, we're all against this, but we need to at least attempt to keep our sanity. Do you even hear yourselves?"

"We need to make sure that those other two don't get her killed!" Lexis exclaimed.

"You guys just want to go on a quest."

"Yeah, that's part of it," Devin admitted. "But she's our friend too. And this quest is clearly important. They can't fail. So if she has no good back-up, the chances of her quest failing is much greater than it could be."

As much as I knew it was wrong, I was slightly tempted. But then I shook my head. "Three people. That's the rule for quests. Unless the prophecy says otherwise, it's always three people. Sending more could just give them bad luck. I won't do that to them. Besides, JJ isn't that bad of a fighter. She can handle herself. We just have to trust them."

I didn't believe a word I was saying.

The second Mana exited the Big House, I jumped her. Literally. I jumped on her back, which caused her to fall over.

"Mattias, you jerk!" she shouted, shoving me to the side.

Feeling proud of myself, I smirked and stood up. I held out my hand to help her up. Luckily for me, she took it. That was the first sign that her mind was elsewhere. Normally she wouldn't trust me. I used that to pick her up (which she hates it when I do that) and fling her over my shoulder. It really wasn't hard. She's lighter than a bag of flour.

"PUT ME DOWN!' she yelled. I ignored her protests and carried her into the woods, her hanging over my shoulders. I'm fairly certain I developed several bruises on my back on the way there. She was pounded her fists into me, trying to get me to let go. But she wasn't struggling as hard as she normally would. Another sign.

Once we were deep enough to be out of ear shot, I let go and she sprang out of my arms. Which resulted in her landed ungracefully on the ground.

She glared at me. "I'll get you back for that. Remember the dog?"

Yes, I remembered that stupid undead dog. She used it to mess up my entire cabin on inspection day. "Remember the chicken?" That made her frown even more. She still has a scar on her forehead from that. It's a very faint scar but it's there nonetheless. For some reason, she wasn't very happy when I put a chicken on her head to wake her up as pay-back for the dog.

"What are we doing here, Matt? I doubt you carried me here for nothing."

I sat down beside her. "What did Rachel say? What was the prophecy?"

Her face went pale, and considering she has almost no colour in her skin anyway, it was slightly alarming. "It doesn't matter." She started to stand. Yep. That's what had been distracting her.

Before she fully got to her feet, I tackled her back to the ground. Then I sat on her so she couldn't get back up. "Tell me!"

"Get off, you fat boy! Why are you so heavy?" she complained loudly.

"Because I'm a regular demigod, not a stick like you. Now tell me."

She clammed up and refused to tell me. But I did have one advantage. She's ADHD, which isn't uncommon for half-bloods. In fact, we both have it. But she had it much worse than I did. Within an hour, I was sure she would crack. We've been in situations like this before. She's the most stubborn demigod I know, but that doesn't change the fact that she simply can not sit still.

Of course I was right. I know her too well. Although she managed to last two hours, not one. By that point, she wasn't the only one getting fidgety. "Fine! I'll tell you! Just get off."

So I did, but I was ready to jump her again if she tried to make a break for it. "Ugh, I can't feel my legs. Or arms. Or…other places." She took a deep breath and started mumbling so I couldn't hear.

"Louder or else you're getting sat on again."

She gave me her best glare. I almost wanted to back down, but this wasn't my first time getting the death glare, so I held my ground and stared right back.

She suddenly became very interested in the ground, as she quietly recited the prophecy. By the time she got to the last line, I felt like committing murder.

"No."

"Hey, you asked."

"What kind of prophecy is that?" I yelled. "Oh by the way, one of you are going to die. No. That's just…NO!" I swung my fist and punched a tree.

I noticed Mana flinch, and I cursed in ancient Greek. Of course, her step-dad. 'I'm such an idiot.' Quickly, I sat down beside her and gave her a quick hug.

"Crap, I'm sorry. I just…"

"Yeah, I know. Believe me, I'm not exactly happy about this myself."

"It might not be you."

"And that's supposed to make me feel better? I don't want anyone to die. But I have a bad feeling about this. A feeling like it might be me that the prophecy is talking about."

"You think you're going to die."

"We all die eventually."

"Mana quit being a pain for once in your life."

"Fine." She took a deep breath. "Yeah, I think I might."

I felt like hitting something again. In fact, I probably would have if my knuckle wasn't already split from punching the tree. Plus I already hugged her once because of scaring her and that's my maximum quota for one day/week/year. Neither one of us are exactly touchy feely and I do have a reputation of tormenting her. How can I keep that up if I'm being nice?

"Matt, calm down," she snapped. I whirled around to face her.

"How am I supposed to calm down knowing that my sister is going on a quest that is destined to have one member die? And oh yeah, the daughter of Hades is fairly sure it is going to be her."

She punched my gut. I probably needed that. I fell on my side and just laid there for a few seconds, taking a deep breaths in attempt to calm down.

"Knock it off, okay? Look, prophecies are never clear. They always have some kind of double meaning. And I was sure that you were about to die when we were twelve but yet here you are sitting next to me," she reminded me. I shuddered at the memory. That had been way to close.

I looked at her and pulled my best death glare. "You're not allowed to die. If you do, I'm ransacking your cabin."

She laughed and rolled her eyes. "Of course you are. Luckily for me, I'm a demigod that lives in Camp Half-Blood so I don't really own many valuables."

The dinner bell rang in the distance. "I better get back. My cabin is going to start a rebellion pretty soon, I keep making them all late for dinner."

"Of course. Typical. I'll meet you at the mess hall." She ran off in one direction and I took off in another.

Naturally my cabin was one of the last ones to dinner. Again. Oops.

After dinner though, that's when I formed a plan. As I led my cabin back to our room, I saw the Ares/Mars cabin walk past us.

"Viktor, lead them back. I need to go take care of something," I told one of my friends. He didn't look happy about it, but he nodded. I ran over to Devin.

"Tonight. Meet me at the edge of the woods just after curfew begins."

She stared at me. "Are you crazy? You want to go into the woods at night? We'll be killed, and that's if the harpies don't get us first. They eat campers that break curfew!"

Unfortunately, she's not lying. "Maybe I'm a little crazy. But if I am, it isn't because I'm breaking curfew. I've done that several times."

"Then why?"

"Because of the reason I'm meeting you. Bring your sister and anyone else that is coming."

I could see the truth dawn on her. She nodded. "Fine. We'll meet you. But if we get eaten, I'm not going to forgive you for that."