Chapter 4: Let's Write a Prophecy on a Used Napkin
Earth, the Milky Way Galaxy
Chiron watched the three soldiers that sat in front of him with deep brown eyes filled with interest. The greenish skin warrior wearing a brown bandanna was currently conversing in another language with the blue girl. The girl had blue skin and long violet hair to match her bandana, looking almost like a beautiful water naiad. She was as stunning as she was dangerous; Chiron had no doubt her amethyst eyes could trap many preying men to their doom.
Beside them sat a male, who silently fiddled with a strange watch on his wrist, reminding Chiron of many demigods in the camp with ADHD. He wore a blue bandana and what looked to be sunglasses (which were so crazily big that they even covered his eyebrows), so the centaur could only make out his tan forehead and his wild dark hair.
They all sat around the ping-pong table in the basement of the Big House as they waited for the rest of the Camp Half-Blood Council to come downstairs. After so many new cabins were built and hundreds more campers came since the Second Titan War, the war council began to come too crowded for every counselor from each cabin to join. Instead, Clarisse and Chris created a democracy system that would allow each camper to elect twelve officials each summer to represent as leaders of the camp.
Clarisse cleared her throat from beside Chiron to call attention to the soldiers as they conversed, "So, uh," she began awkwardly, "Do you punks want anything to drink?"
The conversation ceased between the brown bandanna and the blue girl while the sunglasses boy looked up from his watch. "Maybe," the blue girl wondered, "Do you guys have anything with a buzz?"
The sunglasses boy slapped his covered face, "You do understand that this is a camp for children, right? They aren't going to have alcohol at a children's camp."
"The closest thing we have to a buzz," Chiron explained solemnly, trying not to think about the stash of alcohol he knew was hiding in a secret underground bunker beneath Hermes Cabin, "is coffee."
The blue girl shrugged, "We'll take it."
Clarisse took that as an exit ticket as she walked upstairs to brew them coffee, leaving Chiron in a room alone with three highly dangerous soldiers.
After a few moments of silence, he could feel the brown bandanna's eyes on him as they seemed to study him in interest. "Are you a centaur?" they asked him finally, the voice suggestively feminine.
He nodded, "Yes, my name is Chiron," he told her, "I am the Director here at Camp Half-Blood. The woman that just left to get coffee is Clarisse, the Activities Director."
She acknowledged his statement with a nod, "Chaos gave me a report on Earth last night, but there wasn't too much in it about Camp Half-Blood."
Chiron decided to explain to the Warriors the system at camp. He spoke of how the camp was once small and how they began to build it over time. They all sat attentively as he spoke of how the demigod's relations with their parents are not always so kind and the many tragedies that have occurred over the centuries.
Once he had told her all of the camp's history, the Council members were finally beginning to make their way downstairs. They all gathered around the table: Max, a son of Athena; Bethany, a daughter of Zeus; Matthew, a legacy to Hermes and Hecate; Aaron, a legacy to Ares; Tori, a daughter of Nemesis; Maria, a legacy to Apollo and Hebe; Jack, a son of Demeter; Mateo, a legacy to Hades; Amy, a daughter of Aphrodite; James, a legacy of Nike; Eric, a legacy of Dionysus and Eris; and Ada, a daughter of Hephaestus.
They went in turn and nervously told the trio their names when Clarisse entered the room again with three streaming mugs of coffee. She handed one to each of the soldiers before taking her seat next to Chiron again.
They watched as the blue girl looked from her coffee mug she held to the soldier wearing sunglasses. "Didn't you just drink this as we were walking to the Cryst-room?" she questioned him.
"Yep," he said simply, surprising the rest of the room. He moved his bandana off his nose and took a gulp of his coffee while the brown bandanna turned and stared at him, "How do you know about cultured drinks from Earth?"
"Hey," he said defensively, "What makes you say humans invented coffee? Maybe it was another entirely different planet in an entirely different galaxy with an entirely different name."
"You've been to Earth before, haven't you?" she deadpanned.
He stirred uncomfortably in his seat at all of the attention, "A few centuries ago, give or take," he answered her, "But, yeah."
Chiron leaned forward in his wheelchair with interest at his declaration, "You are immortal?"
The brown bandanna answered for him, "Everyone who joins the Warriors of Chaos becomes an immortal of sorts," she explained, "We are quite like your Hunters and Godly Bounty-Hunters, we can still die in battle, which lately has been happening quite often."
"Because of Order."
She nodded gravely, "About three centuries ago Chaos announced the return of her brother. There was once a time when the siblings ruled all of the known universe together. They would have occasional children on different planets, such as Earth, and they both carried twin blades, said to be the most powerful swords in the known universe. But then Order grew greedy and swung his blade at his sister. When Chaos parried, it is said there was a huge explosion of light and when Chaos could see again, her brother had been banished to the void and Order's sword was flung far out into the universe, never to be seen again.
"Chaos claims that her brother broke the Ancient Laws by attacking her. She says that they are forbidden to fight one another and that the only way to kill the other is if a champion challenges them to a duel and kills them with the twin blades."
Chiron's brain was still processing the newfound information when Clarisse spoke, "So pretty much what you punks are saying is that Chaos just needs to give one of you her blade and send them off to fight Order? Doesn't sound too complicated considering Order lost his own blade."
The girl's eyes flashed dangerously above her brown bandana, "That's just it," she told them, "A few decades ago, Order's mercenaries managed to raid our compound and while Chaos was saving a soldier, someone took her blade. And as I said before, the champion must challenge the god with both twin blades. The twin blades are to be combined in order to kill either of the gods permanently."
"Oh," Clarisse muttered, "Well, that's unfortunate."
Chiron scratched his beard thoughtfully, " And I find it even more unfortunate to assume why you three are here now. Order is now coming to Earth, I might humbly suggest, to look for allies to help him in the war effort."
There were a few mutterings and awkwards movements from the Camp Half-Blood Council, likely showing their unease at the idea of a primordial of that power coming to Earth.
The brown bandanna's hazel eyes darkened, "Somehow," she said, "I can see Order convincing all your friends down in Tartarus to help him, on the word that he'll help them overthrow the gods."
"So what do you suggest we do?"
"We must warn the gods," she told them, "and help you as much as we can. It is our duty as Chaos's Warriors to protect and help anyone we can."
Chiron was smiling at the three warriors gratefully when Bethany blurted out, "Then why are you just helping us now?"
Our heads all snapped towards the daughter of Zeus as she swatted down Max's hand and continued, "I mean, there have been plenty of wars before that you never bothered to help us in."
The brown bandanna warrior nodded thoughtfully, "I remember Chaos watching as your two wars played out all those centuries ago. She doesn't dare to interfere with prophecies and fate, though—that could break many Ancient Laws dramatically—instead she must let them play out the way they are meant to play out." She paused for a moment, drawing her finger in circles around her palm, "Though I must say, now that I think of it, I do remember her being quite nervous about the throne room battle between Kronos and that one demigod."
Memories of the Second Titan War immediately resurfaced and Chiron caught Clarisse's eye to see that she, too, was recalling what had happened.
The council broke out into murmurs and Chiron's brown eyes widened as he remembered that he never went into detail whenever he told them about the wars around the campfire.
The gods had decreed certain details of the war to be shunned and forbid Chiron and Clarisse from telling any half-bloods how close Kronos had gotten to destroying Olympus. Some things just weren't meant to be told; Olympus nearly destroyed by Kronos was one of them. If not for a single demigod that had saved them all… well, the gods were still prideful enough not to want to admit how close they were to defeat.
Chiron now felt their questioning gazes on him as Max, son of Athena, asked, "What throne room battle?"
The centaur closed his eyes with a sigh before deciding to explain the final events of the Second Titan War to them despite the Olympian's rules. "As you know, the gods were busy fighting Typhon, so the only thing in between Kronos's army was the nature spirits, the Party Ponies, the Hunters, and forty of the bravest demigods I ever knew. After days of fighting and many losses, Kronos had us surrounded at the Empire State Building. I was knocked out, so I can only tell you what I heard, but a son of Hades managed to convince his father to help aid the cause. In all of the chaos, Kronos slipped into the elevator leading to Olympus with his lieutenant. Luckly, three demigods and a satyr followed them to Olympus where the connection was beginning to break."
"Woah," Mateo, legacy of Hades, widened his coal black eyes, "So how did they manage to stop Kronos?"
"Well, Thalia Grace, Artemis's lieutenant," the demigod's eyes widened in recognition as Chiron continued, "Was one of them, but a statue of Hera fell on top of her. The rest continued and interrupted Kronos from destroying the thrones. That's when the craziest, most loyal demigod I have ever met challenged Kronos to fight him."
"Hades!" Max exclaimed, "Is he insane?"
"Possibly," Pj muttered under his breath while Clarisse snorted, "You have no idea."
"So he somehow managed to win?" Ada asked the centaur.
"It was a very long battle that I have still yet to have heard the full details of, but yes, he somehow managed to not die and save Olympus with the help of his friends."
"Have we ever met any of them?" Maria wondered.
"Why, yes," Chiron was eager to get off the topic of Percy, "The satyr is the Lord of the Wild, Grover Underwood, and I'm sure you have all seen many of the other heroes from the Godly Bounty-Hunters that occasionally travel to camp."
"Holy Hera," Jack seemed to struggle to process all of the information, "And what about the demigod that fought Kronos? Do we know him, too?"
Chiron lowered his head. To this day, Percy was one of the greatest demigods the centaur had ever had the pleasure of teaching. The campers seemed to sense their teacher's pain on the subject and didn't question him further about it.
"Too bad," the brown bandanna warrior spoke, eyes held in sympathy for the loss, "We could've used someone as crazy as him right about now."
The blue girl motioned to the warrior still strangely wearing his sunglasses, "Coffee lunatic over here is up for the job, I'm sure."
The sunglasses warrior seemed too distracted looking down at his feet to answer.
The general shook her head, "I apologize for getting so off topic there, Chiron. Shall we get back to warning the gods of Order's likely comings?"
"There is a solstice meeting tomorrow," Chiron informed her, "There, you can inform the gods of all you wish to say."
"Wait." Clarisse abruptly shifted forwards from her chair causing all attention to turn towards her.
Chiron raised an eyebrow, "Yes, child?"
"But there is a prophecy, so why are you helping us now?"
A number of responses to her words occurred, from frozen forms to gasps, but likely the most humorous one was seeing the blue bandanna and sunglasses warrior begin to choke on his coffee mid gulp. Flashes of wars and death passed through the incognito demigod's mind in a single second.
"A prophecy?" he coughed, pulling the blue bandanna back over his mouth, "What prophecy?" How did I not know there was a prophecy? I thought I'd seen all the cards on the table, he thought panickedly. That's what he got for avoiding Earth along with his past.
They looked at him skeptically before Chiron spoke, "It's been around for centuries, but I can sense now that it is about to come true. Its words… they come to be rather unsettling."
The brown bandanna warrior pondered what that meant. Chaos always told them which planets they were allowed to aid based off of fate alone, which was why Earth had always been off limits, but was Order so much of a threat that the primordial was not afraid to break the Ancient Laws or did she have a different reason? "Maybe we're supposed to be involved for it to come true." she conspired, "What does it say?"
Chiron looked at Clarisse, "Have you memorized it?"
She nodded before she began to recite:
Son of the controlled wields the rings of warp,
Warriors of havoc abscond from inevitable siege,
Of deception and candor, the ghost confines the answer,
Read of beginning and end to discover the lost epic,
Days of destruction approach with omissions of loyalty.
Sounds of joyous yelling and cheering of the campers outside could be heard outside the Big House. Today was their weekly volleyball tournament.
"I fucking hate prophecies," the male warrior muttered. He was considering the words he heard stoically, before he pulled a random napkin from off the ping pong table. "Anyone have a pen?"
The room blinked at him.
"What do you need a pen for?" Avalas asked him incredulously. Chiron could tell the two mysterious warriors knew each other well just by how comfortably rude the tone of her voice was.
"Uh, to like, write the prophecy down?"
Next to Chiron, Clarisse gave the blue bandanna warrior her best Are you shitting me? face. "You seriously don't have the prophecy discussing the "days of destruction" memorized?"
He shrugged, "I've heard worse." And he also knew prophecies well enough to know each individual word has a specific meaning. Mistake one word for another and you might have yourself a whole different prophecy.
"You've heard worse…" Clarisse repeated slowly. She really did not like this guy.
The brown bandanna warrior sighed, handing her colleague a writing utensil from her uniform pocket. "Don't you dare lose it."
The room watched as the warrior grabbed the pen from her hand and scribbled down the words of an ancient prophecy onto a napkin someone had used to wipe orange dust off of their mouth from cheese puffs.
The woman wearing the brown bandanna tapped her head in consideration, "What was the third line again?"
"Of deception and candor, the ghost confines the answer," Max repeated for her helpfully.
The woman shared a look with the blue girl and the sunglasses boy. "The ghost," she repeated the small part of the line Max had said distastefully.
"Do you think that the prophecy is referring to The Ghost?" the blue girl whispered, as if it was a matter that could not be talked of too loudly.
"Let us hope not," the other murmured in response.
Chiron raised his eyebrows. He was not used to being the one that information was withheld from. "There's a 'ghost' that is a person?"
The brown bandanna warrior shook her head, "Not 'a ghost,' Chiron, The Ghost."
The half-bloods of the room blinked in confusion while the male warrior sighed in his chair, "Stop being so dramatic, Brown," he said, and Chiron noted the fact that he called the warrior by the color of her bandanna. The woman's name was Brown. "I'm sure The Ghost is a real person."
The look in the purple bandanna warrior's amethyst eyes made Chiron wonder, though, if this ghost really was.
"Who are they?" Ada, the daughter of Hephaestus, wondered.
"That's the thing," Brown said conspiratorially, "Nobody knows. There's this league of people throughout the galaxy that do work undercover. We don't know all of what they necessarily do exactly, but we've crossed paths of missions with them many times before. We call them ghosts, people that work in gray cloaks as barely whispers of air. Sometimes we can catch them, hold onto them a bit before they escape, but there is one that seems to always slip through our grasp like almost water."
"The Ghost," Chiron guessed.
The warrior nodded, "They're more of a ghost than any of them. The supposed leader of them, in fact. Chaos once even tried to make it her personal mission to catch them, but she said that she never saw more than the shadow."
"And The Ghost is apparently the one in the prophecy that confines the answer," the sunglasses warrior concluded, "So isn't that just peachy? We get to go catch what even Chaos herself can't catch!"
"I've seen you manage to shoot an arrow backwards," the violet haired girl told him, "So I really wouldn't judge Chaos's catching skills."
"What does my archery skills have anything to do with this?" he sniffed.
The woman—Brown—sighed, "The matter of The Ghost is out of our hands. They are a person that will be found only if they want to be found."
Clarisse frowned, "So that's the only thing you got out of the prophecy, the line about The Ghost?"
"No," Brown disagreed, "That was just the first line I found to be easily decipherable."
"The first two lines," Chiron added thoughtfully, "they sport many similarities."
"Warriors of havoc abscond from inevitable siege," the blue girl recited the second line of the prophecy, "Havoc could just be a pseudonym. For Chaos."
"Warriors of Chaos," the sunglasses warrior murmured. "I'm not sure how I feel about the inevitable siege."
"If anything," Brown concluded, "that officially means that the Chaos Warriors are tied with fate to your prophecy, Chiron."
"I'm afraid we are now allies in a war effort," the centaur agreed gravely.
There were solemn nods from the collective demigod council. While they had never fought in a war themselves before, they had spent their whole lives training and preparing for one.
"The first line…" Max, son of Athena started after some thought, "Son of the controlled wields the rings of warp. You said it was similar to the second line. If havoc was referring to Chaos, then does that mean the controlled is for Order? The Son of Order wields the rings of warp?"
Brown exchanged glances with her comrades, though Chiron wasn't sure what exactly she was expecting to see from the male when his whole face was covered with his bandanna and sunglasses. While the centaur could only see her eyes, he could tell by their widened gaze that the woman appeared almost frightful. "The thought of a child of Order concerns me more than The Ghost," she admitted finally.
"Well, it fucking freaks me out." the blue girl said with few qualms.
The whole room turned to the final warrior to hear his thoughts, but he seemed to just be staring down at his shoes with an eased body resting across his chair. "Could be worse," he just said nonchalantly.
Clarisse seemed to agree with him, "What's the big deal about if Order has a son anyways?"
"Children of the Creators are not to be trifled with. Mortal or not, they might as well be gods themselves." Brown responded, "A son of Order would be a powerful force to be reckoned with."
"Someone who could change the tides of war," the blue bandanna warrior added, "Or maybe, say, become Order's champion and battle Chaos herself if Order is successful in his endeavors to hold both twin blades."
The blue girl glanced at him, "I thought you said that a son of Order 'could be worse'?"
"I mean, it still could be. Order could've had multiple sons."
Brown rubbed her temples tiredly. Chiron could sense how the long days of fighting Order throughout the Universe had taken its toll on her. "Chaos was right," she said, "The final battle is near."
"Days of destruction approach with omissions of loyalty." Bethany, daughter of Zeus, spoke the last line.
"War is almost upon us." Chiron stated.
Clarisse nodded tightly, "Good thing the Hunters are coming tomorrow, then. We'll alert the gods during their Solstice Meeting and prepare the campers for battle."
Chiron turned to the three warriors in their seats who may have dramatically changed the outcome of everyone's life at Camp Half-Blood. "Will you aid us?" he asked.
Brown's eyes crinkled and perhaps if it weren't for the bandanna over her nose, the centaur might've seen the woman smile. "Helping people is kind of in our job description," she answered.
Demigods looked appreciatively at the warriors as they began to filter out of the room and prepare the camp for whatever inevitable battle was to come. There was much to do and no one was sure how much time anyone would have left before Order was upon Earth.
The young man hiding behind the blue bandanna and shades watched them all sadly. It hurt him very much so to be at Camp Half-Blood once more, and to see both new and old faces still roaming the camp.
A sinking feeling in his stomach told him that it was his fault that he had brought this war to them.
Author's Note: Worldbuilding is sooooo time consuming. This fic takes so long to write because there is so many new people and places and ideas I have to create and explain.