Days of Boom: Chapter 8

Nolan Swift

VIII

Kind of Weird

I took the first watch while everyone else took a nap. Every so often I would get a bit jumpy, but it was normally just someone rolling over in their sleep. I watched as April tossed and turned a bit, accidentally hitting Dan right in the shoulder. He let out a small yelp, but kept quiet to not wake the others. I was trying my hardest not to laugh as he gave me an annoyed look from the other side of the door. Instead of facing him however, I turned forward and did exaggerated look-out motions, like placing my hand over my eyes as if I was looking far into the distance or something.

“So, do you see anyone all the way over at the other end of the train car?” Dan said as he slipped out of the cabin, before closing the door behind him to make sure everyone else wasn’t bothered by our conversation most likely.

“No sir, all clear on the western front,” I said as I continued to look, half joking by this point.

“That’s east,” he said in a deadpan voice, so I gave up the act as I lowered my hand.

“Hey, I may be good with directions, but that doesn’t always mean I know which direction I’m going in,” I told him as I relaxed a little bit. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Sore,” he said as he rubbed it and even though the cut had stopped bleeding, I still saw some red on the bandage as he rubbed it a bit. “But the medicine seems to be working for the most part.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said as I thought about the last few hours of our trip. “You know, it is kind of weird when you think about our trip so far.”

“What do you mean?” Dan asked as his eyebrow went up in interest.

“Well, it seems like all we’ve been doing so far is going from one battle to the next. I mean you guys fought a bunch of guys and disarmed a bomb, I got lost and fought a few guys in the bell tower, Joe fought a bunch of guys at the train station, then a bunch of ninjas up from an organization I have never heard of. I thought we were fighting Bunnies Sun, or Burning Sun, or whatever it is called, not the Ninja Vengeance troops.”

“You know we talked about those guys in orientation to the Olympian League,” Dan said with a sigh, most likely already knowing I had slipped out during orientation to have a race with the local wood nymphs. New trees had been planted all over the camp and I wanted to make sure the nymphs were still fast enough to cause problems for the next generation of heroes. Hermes had asked me to help train the next generation after all, but going on missions wasn’t part of the job description so I had slipped out before learning that we had to fight ninjas. I almost laughed just thinking about it, I mean who expects having to fight ninjas?

“I must have missed that part,” I shrugged and I watched as an irritated look crossed his face. Then his face shifted to an almost amused look, something I rarely saw on him.

“So, what scared you so bad at Notre Dame?” he asked with a smirk and I instantly tried to avoid the question.

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” I said as I started to shift uncomfortably as I leaned against the cabin wall.

“When you regrouped with us, you had a look on your face like you had just seen a ghost or something. It was only for a second, I don’t even think the other noticed as they were too busy talking about how badly they beat up those Burning Sun guys, but it was there,” Dan said, looking straight ahead of himself and for a long time we just kind of sat there in silence.

“Don’t worry, I’ll deal with them when it comes time,” I finally said after what felt like an eternity.

“You know you don’t have to. We are a team after all,” Dan said as he patted me on the shoulder and headed back inside, maybe to try and get a bit more sleep before it was his turn to stand guard. The door slid shut and I was once again left alone in the hallway of the train car.

“I don’t know about that, we kind of seem like a bunch of show offs,” I said out loud to no one.

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive