Chapter Title: Hope On The Horizon
(A/N: Back to Colton's POV for the remainder of this book! Also, rather ironic chapter title in a way given what is discussed here.)
Mid September 2009
Percy went back to NYC to continue his time in high school after this prophecy was done with. He hadn't been happy about having to come back out for another prophecy, to be honest. I didn't blame him one bit at all for the way he felt about this, I'll be real here. I totally did not blame him, despite our rivalry status.
To be perfectly honest here, all of us were kinda sick of all of these prophecies at the moment, no doubt about it. But hey, the fates seem to enjoy toying with us way too much currently — a trend that would unfortunately continue down the road until mostly after I had demolished the fucking asshole Roman emperors who had it out for my girlfriend's biological — if Apollo can even be called such due to not having DNA — godly parent and his kids, including my girlfriend — and also after Apollo had taken care of that double crossing snake bitch Python. In case you're wondering why I call a fiendish snake such as Python double crossing, you'll find out later on down the road. For now though, all we could do was just wait. For now, the Gods kept honoring their promises — though like with just about every fucking good thing that we had going up until after the third war in five years we had to fight, it wouldn't last too much longer unfortunately for all of us.
Thanks a fucking lot, Zeus.
In the meantime, however, Camp Half Blood for a lack of a better word — flourished. The day after the fight with Porphyrion, Travis and Connor — with Luke, Annabeth, Thalia, Malcolm Clarisse and Chris tagging along — took the entire Hermes Cabin down to the temple to start the process of collecting the valuable items that might be in there. Both Annabeth and Malcolm had created lists of exactly what certain groups of Hermes Cabin campers were going to be looking for, and where certain groups of items went. Needless to say, with Luke and Chris there to help supervise their siblings alongside Annabeth who was keeping things orderly with the help of Malcolm, things over this day and the next few days went off without a hitch.
I suppose I should tell you all the items I swiped for me and Kayla from the vault, because even though the Typhon Cabin did receive some items from the vault, these were more of decoration value than anything else. So without further ado, I'll get started here. Actually, I'll just describe the items that looked most valuable out of the ones I did take.
For Kayla, it was a bow. I know, I know.. it sounds stereotypical, but hear me out on this one. There's a thing we have here at Camp Half Blood where some people have magical weapons and items gifted to them by their godly parents, or such weapons are obtained by visiting Hephaestus' forge.. which reminds me, I never really found out if the god of the forge has his master forge now - since you know, the labyrinth was destroyed. But moving on, the thing about this bow was - it also was magical, somehow. Yes, it was a magical weapon despite being in a temple.. from Japan. It had an iridescent shimmer to it that flowed like waves in a rapid frequency across its hardwood limbs with what looked like bamboo in the middle of it, as well as with its "bamboo" backing too. Its string was what looked like a mixture of two materials woven together to provide a bowstring that would last longer - I wasn't sure of what they were actually made of, I'll be honest here.
For me, it was a scepter. Again, I don't know how exactly a scepter with a clearly Greek design ends up in a temple over thousands of miles away from Greece in a Japanese temple that then surfaces after years of being missing on Long Island, but this was exactly the case here as bewildering as it sounds. It was of celestial bronze infused with stygian iron, creating a swirling design of alternating bronze and dark iron rings that wove their way up the scepter. Like the Greek design, this was tipped by a metal ornament. However, the ornament used for this scepter.. was what for the most part looked like a miniature copy of my crown as the Monster King. It was quite remarkable to even look at, to be honest here.
So yeah.. quite the catches, if you ask me honestly. Trust me when I say, the amount of items we took from the place made camp transform in a way — actually yeah, transform would be the correct word to use here since that's really what transpired because of what we took for ourselves and camp. The place has basically gotten a massive upgrade.
Many of the cabins sparkled more than ever, looking more like festive resorts than mere cabins now. Even the Ares Cabin looked more like a rear service area rest stop now than camp's equivalent of Fort Knox. It was really weird to look at my former cabin like this now. I will really admit, I feel like I'm looking at a different planet just looking at my former cabin now.. it's so weird. Apollo Cabin, on the other hand, looks like absolute paradise now in comparison - that or the Ewok village at the end of Return Of The Jedi, I honestly do not know which one it even is at all at this point. So to put it bluntly, there was a whole lot of readjusting that everyone who was used to the old way their cabins looked had to do, to be honest. Well.. the people that were both that and were here at a time where there were just twelve cabins, not this.. at the moment rapidly expanding number of cabins. You get the idea.
It wasn't just camp that was being transformed by what we took from the temple. Relationships were also forming more and more with each passing week. Apparently, Katie had been so shaken up by the fight me and Kayla had with the giants that she had a nightmare during the night that followed the brawl. Travis, who just so happened to be taking a midnight stroll in deep thought about what he would take for himself from the temple, heard Katie's screams and ended up spending the night in her bed after Travis — and I don't even know how he even did this — somehow managed to climb up the wall of the Demeter Cabin, at least 15 feet up — to get to Katie's open window. He didn't hurt himself climbing up or getting in her room, before you say anything. Needless to say though, during the heartfelt conversation that followed, they ended up confessing their feelings for each other and kissed. So now they are a couple, which to be honest it all caught me by surprise when I heard about it — because I honestly hadn't expected there would even come a time where I basically was the catalyst for another romantic relationship kicking off, even if my role was indirect at best.
Guess this all just goes to show that change truly is constant, if you ask me. Was I happy with it? Yeah. Camp was finally becoming more inclusive instead of rigid and exclusive, so that was a positive. An absolutely really good positive.
It just sucked that all the downsides of this time coming up were because of the very same fucking people that were the reason why things were bad prior to this point. That would be the gods themselves, and this was all as if the fates had decided to say "Want a sequel of the Olympians not caring about you?" and then proceeded to force this on us, whether we wanted it or not. Yeah, we didn't know it at the moment, but another rough patch — no scratch that, two of them — still lay ahead of us, as if knowing you're already at war again wasn't fucking enough. It's honestly absolute bullshit how a single directive from the King Of The Gods can virtually erase all the progress you've made in a flash and leave you and camp basically back at square one.
But enough ranting for now. I have better things to talk about than rant about how Zeus managed to take whatever progress we had made in getting the gods to care more about their kids and essentially flush it all down the drain.
In the middle of all of this that was going on at this time, Kayla and I.. we just enjoyed life to say the least. Even with the reality that we were all once again at war, it didn't stop me from spending as much time as I could with her, even with well.. the new-found distractions that came with being the Monster King. There were quite a few of those that came with being that, believe me — but they weren't without their upsides that would greatly benefit me down the road.
Aside from my usual training that I did every day, which only intensified now given that like I said earlier.. because of the clash with Porphyrion's rogue giants, we were now basically at war again.. I spent at least a couple of hours, along with Kayla, everyday with the heralds at the castle training to harness, learn and unlock the many powers that came with being the Monster King and Queen.
I mean.. I'm pretty sure that the Hecate Cabin would collectively lose their fucking shit if they found out about any of this. Magic spells, elemental attacks.. basically it turned out that as long as we had enough energy, Kayla and I didn't just have to rely on whatever physical weapons we had any time one of us — or both at the same time — turned into the Monster King and Queen respectively. It was incredible really — all of the training from the heralds and what that revealed to us, that is. You would be correct if you figured that I definitely was thinking about using some of these new-found powers the next time that I transformed into the Monster King. I was actually and truly thinking about doing it, you can be sure of that. You honestly can't blame me for thinking that at all either — I mean, who else wouldn't? A bunch of new ways to take out your frustrations on what would be essentially the next piece of shits you would have to fucking defy all odds in order to make sure everyone survived the war against them? Like come on, it was basically a non-brainer to be honest with you all here. It absolutely was that.
But, and apologies for lying earlier when I said that I had better things to talk about than how Zeus essentially erased the progress that we all at camp had made in getting the gods to act like better people (I do really, but I need to get this out of the way now), the warning signs of what was to come now presented itself.
Annabeth had went to NYC to be on a date with Percy over the weekend, and when she had come back to camp, well.. the fact that instead of talking to Chiron first about how it went, she immediately went straight to me and Kayla was the first clue I had to what was coming. Because believe me, at this point.. if Annabeth was coming straight towards a person like me looking like she had something that she knew that she wanted me and Kayla to be the first ones to know about it, you know something is very wrong. The look on her face did absolutely nothing to dissuade that perception on this occasion, believe me.
She told us about how Hermes had lost his staff, and he had tapped her and Percy to retrieve it, which they did successfully. The end of it, though, was where the hints that something was amiss both outside of the NYC area and on Olympus made themselves painfully evident. Apparently, the dude who had stolen the staff, this fire-breathing giant named Cacus, hadn't come up with the idea to even steal the staff in the first place and he hadn't revealed exactly whose idea it had been in the first place. He simply went along with the idea since he just wanted to cut the Gods' communication lines. When she and Percy had told Hermes about it, that's where things had gotten even more weirder.
Hermes had simply said in response that it was ironic that Cacus wanted to cut the Gods' communication lines since Zeus had apparently been threatening something, but what exactly it was that Zeus was threatening.. Hermes refused to say. When they asked about who would want to steal the staff, Hermes was apparently annoyed and simply stated albeit a bit cryptically that the Gods have many enemies. Though to be fair, I had a fairly solid idea as to exactly who could have put Cacus up to such a scheme. Gaea.
When me and Kayla had talked to Kelli about what Annabeth had said later, she didn't hesitate to say that it all sounded exactly like something that Gaea would do. And to be fair, it reminded me eerily of Kronos. Appearing in people's dreams, getting them to do what you want.. it was a chilling reminder of how much indeed Kronos had been like his mother in a way.
There was one more thing about all of this though.. that none of us understood. Annabeth had mentioned this cryptic thing that Hermes had said to them while he was handing out their reward for successfully completing the quest. The god of thieves had mentioned that he might not see me, Percy, Luke, and Michael for a while.. for some reason. He didn't stick around to explain, and that had left both Annabeth and Percy puzzled.
Safe to say, neither me, Kayla, or Kelli could make any sense of it either. It just seemed.. out of the ordinary and unexplainable at all for now. Even as things took a turn for the bad, that line from Hermes stayed with me, as I devoted a small portion of my time trying to figure it out. Little did I realize, that come December, I would find out exactly what Hermes had meant. I don't think any of us at all could even imagined exactly what the God of Thieves meant by that statement.
