Chapter Title: Bakersfield Is The Land Of Unknowns, Just Like My Life Now

I'll admit, I didn't expect that this Cháris dude was able to drive — that definitely caught me off guard for sure. And on the subject of Cháris, I will admit.. he's pretty intimidating. And to be fair, that pretty much describes about half of what the past three days have been for me — finding out new things that have completely shattered what I know about the mythological world and being introduced to people and mythical beings that make Jason, Reyna, and the other major demigods in camp now and in the past look like they've been playing on the easy mode of a cartoon game.

Like, I'm not exactly kidding much at all here — that is generally how I have felt the past three days have been for me. I thought Jason was intimidating, I thought Nico was intimidating just from how cold the Ambassador of Pluto was to everyone, but these four.. they just about made everyone else pale in comparison to them.

It's absolutely scary to know that these four could probably steamroll over the entire camp combined without breaking a sweat — and the fact that all four of them worked well with each other too, despite the rivalry between Colton and Percy, only made the fact even more horrific to know. Obviously, I am well aware that out of the four of them, Colton is the most scary of the four, but that doesn't mean that the other three are scary in their own individual ways.

I mean, first off, there was Luke — the man who had started the last war in the first place. Being an honorary son of the guy you worked with and also manipulated you to help him destroy the Gods was scary enough, but to combine that with also being one of the best, if not the best, swordsman in 300 years is even scarier. Add the fact that he retained his abilities as a son of Mercury too.. and you got possibly one of the most scariest demigods ever imaginable, exceeded only by Percy and Colton.

Michael was in the same boat as Luke. To be fair, being an honorary son of Mars while also a son of Apollo at the same time seemed very ironic if you think about it. He was basically a battle medic with a temper — someone that you probably wouldn't want to piss off.

And then.. there was Percy. He might have been a son of Neptune, but his power was no laughing matter. He seemed to be a natural fighter, even if hamstrung by amnesia. The fact that he could turn the water cannons against the way that he did was amazing to watch, believe me — and also scary to watch. I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of something like that, that's for sure. The amount of feats he had under his belt were nothing to laugh at either. Even if Colton had ended up robbing him of some of them in the end, he still had done some incredible things that not even Jason could have claimed to have done. Defeating the Minotaur as a twelve year old with your bare hands, helping to recover the Golden Fleece, holding up the sky to save Diana.. Percy had gone through hell and back in ways that none of us at Camp Jupiter ever have been through.

The same could be said for Colton in a way. I mean, I wouldn't want to be sent down into the labyrinth by myself — even if it was meant to gather weapons for the defense of your home. The fact that he got off so easy in there thanks to Typhon is almost bewildering to even believe, let alone accept that it happened.

That being said, the way this brown haired juggernaut of a semi-immortal sixteen year old let that mask of seriousness, aggression, coldness, and rage drop whenever he remembered the trauma that brought him into the demigod world or thought about his girlfriend.. it was.. almost like those were the only two things that were a reminder to you that he was still human.

That he wasn't totally a heartless monster like General Grievous.

It was a real wonder, honestly, to know that Kayla Knowles was the lady who kept that rage inside of him in check. How on earth did fate decide that she would be the one to heal the hole in Colton's heart, I have no idea and likely will never know.

All in all, everything that I knew about these four — and Cháris — just had me confused, flabbergasted, and reeling. It was a heck of a mind readjustment that I was going through thanks to them, that was for sure. The one thing I did know was that I was in deep with Greeks that probably would tear apart anything in their way to protect their family and loved ones, and I was going to make sure that hopefully, that family could include us in Camp Jupiter.

Because seriously, as much of an unknown variable as these four were, they weren't like what the ancient legends had depicted Greeks as. They weren't evil, they cared for each other, and they all were warriors in their own right — even if in the past war, three of them had fought against the remaining member that had been in the wrong.

It was.. to put it simply.. a literal and complete rebuttal of those legends, breaking every myth we had about Greeks. Of course, it wouldn't stop Octavian from persecuting them anyway, but I had a feeling that with Colton as the Monster King, he likely wouldn't get very far.

Either way, this is what was all floating in my mind as Cháris calmly drove down I-5 past a consistent but then ever increasing gaps between scene of lines of cars stranded on the side of the side of the interstate, all having ran out of gas thanks to the magic in place on the gas station. I was in the back seat on the passenger's side of the vehicle, while Michael was in the seat behind Cháris. Colton was in the passenger's seat, and you could tell, he was as focused as ever.

Focusing in on what needed to be done indeed.

Our gear was in the back of the car in the bag, and honestly, I was just happy to be sitting in something comfortable again. After all, it wasn't exactly easy sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor of a gas station for someone who had been used to sleeping in first my own home and then inside the barren, torturous walls of the barracks of the Fifth Cohort.

"So how many more miles from here to Bakersfield, Cháris?" Colton asked the flaming herald at the steering wheel of the car. Despite being on fire, the dude in flaming armor wasn't setting the car on fire at all, suggesting to me that he was using incredible restraint on himself right now. At the time he had said that, we were now just passing the exit to State Route 145 between Fresno and Coalinga.

"Just under 110 miles, young master.." Cháris replied in response to Colton's question, speeding along I-5 south at between 70 to 80 mph. By now, the stopped cars on the side of the road had for the most part stopped completely now, with a single car left on the side of the road coming up every now and then after a mile or two now.

Along the way south, you could see scattered groups of monsters lurking in the hills and valleys to the west and east of the Interstate, always in small numbers of 10 or less, a far cry from the force that had ambushed us yesterday at the Shell gas station. It was both an ever present reminder of just how dangerous the world outside Camp Jupiter was for demigods and how more numerous the monsters had become in recent months.

It was also a reminder that if those in the Prophecy Of Eleven didn't close the Doors of Death, all these monsters would simply be able to resurrect themselves from Tartarus without spending any significant amount of time at all down there. I shuddered at that thought.. of thinking of that dark prospect. Watching my friends, my comrades, my family be whittled away by endless, constantly resurrecting monsters on the orders of Gaea.. like it seemed horrific to even imagine, or try to imagine at that.

Never mind that the possibility of Porphyrion using the power of the Monster King to lay waste to Camp Jupiter, causing the same result, was also on my mind. Now that I think about it, I couldn't really help but pity Colton, Michael, Percy, Luke, and the other Greeks now to be put in all of this, especially with all the new information I knew about the last war thanks to Colton and Michael. They didn't ask at all to get thrown into another war after going through hell to defend Olympus and their home from Kronos on multiple occasions in the past three years, none of them had - not even Colton.

The Fates, however, had not listened. Neither had the Gods, it seemed.

I will admit though, the more they had explained the last war on their end of the country and what bullshit the Gods, especially Jupiter's Greek counterpart had done, the more their own actions at Camp Jupiter even while amnesiac made a lot more sense.. even the parts that weren't related in any way to stuff that the Gods did now made a lot more sense.

All four of them weren't exactly big fans of Jupiter for very good reason. After all, few words can describe my shock, pain, and horror at his Greek counterpart for what he did to Percy, and his questioning of Colton's loyalty when it became known that he was the Monster King. No wonder then that Colton had agreed to the deal that Mars' Greek counterpart, Colton's own father, had offered him and no wonder that he also swore Michael to keep the knowledge about Colton being the Monster King a secret the night after he made the deal.

No wonder then that both Colton and Percy had teamed up, putting the rivalry they had aside, to force the Gods to swear the oath to be better people that thanks to Jupiter's Greek counterpart, a lot of them had basically broken. When it came to the Gods, the Greeks had essentially gotten the short end of the stick when it came to decent versions of Gods - despite being the side that had the more laid back summer camp.

Well, 'laid-back summer camp' was how I saw Camp Half Blood right now based on what Colton and Michael had said about it, despite the fact that it was also a historical site too given that the Battle of the Labyrinth had been fought on the very grounds of the camp. It did sound like a very nice place, a sort of paradise that differed completely from what Camp Jupiter was. I'm not kidding here at all. It sounded sort of similar to Camp Jupiter, but with enough differences that it didn't sound like a Greek version of Camp Jupiter.

I mean, look.. Camp Jupiter was good and all, but when you're stuck in a place full of dread and misery such as the Fifth Cohort's barracks, it's hard for many to even think that the place was good.

The fact that Jason lived in this place and still rose to Praetor before he disappeared was a miracle to be honest, something that honestly gave me hope back then that had faded by the time that Colton, Michael, Luke, and Percy basically walked - no, more like ran - into the lives of me and everyone else at Camp Jupiter.

As the car continued to speed down I-5 towards Bakersfield, I had to admit something else after thinking about it for a long while. Greek demigods - especially ones like Percy, Michael, Colton, and Luke - were different from us Roman demigods in many ways that it almost felt like cheating.

Yeah, I mean.. part of that is obvious when you think about it. Being a full demigod and getting powers from your godly parent - or other honorary parents in the cases of Luke, Michael, and especially Colton - meant that you could be blessed with game changing powers that might as well upset the balance of power here in Camp Jupiter. I mean, even though I had been away from Camp Jupiter for a while now, in the time I was there after what had gone down at War Games two nights ago, it was safe to say that the winds of change were already starting to make their presence felt there.

You could hear the rumors about maybe the Fifth Cohort was coming back to prominence begin to make their way through the ranks.

But, the differences went much deeper than that. Greeks were not as strict and nuts about tradition as much as the Romans were. They were so carefree - Percy especially, so emotional at times, so much more likely to speak up than others here might have - it was like 4 more versions of Lily had come into camp, only unlike Lily, these were four that those who would probably like to maintain the status quo at Camp Jupiter definitely couldn't ignore.

Nor could I really. Not after all the time I had spent with them.

In that time, I had come to understand that all of those stereotypes about Greeks that people like Octavian clung to like glue were just wrong. They weren't the enemy.

They were people with goals, morals, experience, and motivations just as real as anyone here at Camp Jupiter. People with stories that like my initial reaction to what Colton and Michael had told had gone on over on the Greek side of the last war, seemed incredibly hard to believe but had indeed actually happened.

Stories that by and large, should probably never have to happen to anyone growing up. I mean, it's a bit hypocritical for me to say that given that like them, my innocence as a kid was also stolen away from me when I came to Camp Jupiter, but you get the idea. Percy and Colton - they might as well have had it rougher than anyone else I have ever heard of.

I mean, by all accounts, given what both of them had went through, both of them should have been broken, traumatized and thoroughly PTSD-ridden shells of themselves. But neither of them did. Instead, one of them turned into a hero of legendary proportions, only eclipsed by a girl and her boyfriend who although briefly going into a traumatized wreck, proceeded to turn into an unstoppable killing machine that was capable of curbstomping Roman demigods that normally would have wiped the floor individually with most kids from the Fifth Cohort. Even more amazingly, both of them had developed a sense of compassion and devotion to fixing things that were wrong on a moral level that drove both of them just as much as the devotion to protecting those that they cared about, or in Colton's case up until the end of the war against Saturn, getting revenge on the monster that traumatized him in the first place.

And maybe that was why, with a growing sense of optimism while sitting in that car as the miles ticked away, I felt that even in the face of the coming storm, that there was hope for everyone - for the Gods, for Camp Jupiter, for Camp Half Blood, and for the whole world.

- — - — - — -

Other than my thoughts to myself, the whole car ride to Bakersfield was pretty much very uneventful to be perfectly honest with you. Apart from conversations between Colton, Cháris, and Michael at times, none of us really talked much. I mean, given what the circumstances of the situation was, it probably wasn't really surprising for that to be the case now, is it?

Either way, despite Colton and Michael's obvious disgust at the part about having to be in another war after already moving heaven and earth for their loved ones, their siblings, the Gods, and their home in the last war, both of them seemed to be laser focused on doing what had to be done. Not even their ADHD seemed to distract them from doing so, which seemed amazing, given that my eyes were constantly looking every which way and that from time to time.

I have no idea how either of them could remain so focused right now. That type of concentration just seemed beyond my own capabilities at this point. It was purely ridiculous to put it bluntly.

These two were head and shoulders above me. I mean, one was basically a healer and archer at the same time and the other was literally a walking juggernaut that basically took everything stated in the old legends about the Monster King and just made them obsolete. What could I do while on the same team as these powerful demigods?

Yeah, I have some self - esteem issues. It's what happens when you spend a lot of time in "solitary confinement" as Michael likes to call the Fifth Cohort's barracks, which the more I think about it, is a very accurate name. Either way, I was currently a troubled mess right now even as Cháris drove the car off I-5 and turned left towards Bakersfield, since we were now at the Bakersfield exit.

From here, it was now only a half hour or more to the Tehachapi Mountains. It almost seemed too easy.

Given what was to occur next however, in retrospect, I think I probably should not have had that kind of thought. Not at all.