The Legacy of the Sky, Book 1: Chapter 6

Chapter 6: My Dead Great-Grandfather Breaks into my Mind
We all let that wonderful new news sink in. It was a good two minutes until anyone spoke again, which is pretty impressive for eighteen ADHD teenagers.

It was finally Annabeth that spoke up. “But… but why would they bring back Ouranos? He would hate the Titans; it was Kronos that killed him.”

“True Annabeth, but Kronos is already dead, so who would he take revenge on?” Chiron countered.

“His brothers and sisters!” she exclaimed. “Why take out Kronos’ immortal children?”

“The children of the Titans would hope that Ouranos would want to take revenge on who killed him before he did, and that he would want to get Zeus out of the way and take his spot as the sky god again, and without their king, the Olympians would be thrown into a mass panic. That’s what they’re hoping for, isn’t it?” Percy asked, and I realised that he was a whole lot smarter than he looked.

“That’s probably exactly what they’re counting on, but that’s still a lot to bet on. It seems a big risk to take,” I put in, and several people nodded in agreement.

“After their parents defeat, the demi-titans, or whatever you want to call them, would do anything that would get them revenge, even if they had to make a big risk,” added a boy who I recognized from being on my capture-the-flag team last night, George Plume, son of Nemesis.

“That’s exactly the way a Titan would think, and I’m guessing their children would think the same way,” said another person from last night’s team, Shawn Cooper, son of Apollo.

“Okay, we’ve got their plan down, but how are we supposed to combat them if they have monsters and Titans and gods and the Earth on their side? We’d need a huge army to fight against that,” I said.

“He is right. That is why you need to form a great army,” said a disembodied female voice coming from nowhere in particular. Then, a bright light came from the door and a woman appeared. She was seven feet tall easily, and she had long black hair braided down her back and startling grey eyes that reminded me of Annabeth’s. She simply wore jeans and a white top, but she still managed to appear militaristic and ready for battle.

“Lady Athena, this is a great surprise,” Chiron said, and everybody in the room got up from their chairs and bowed.

“I have not visited this camp in quite some time, it is true, but I have important matters to discuss. This one,” she pointed at me, and I took a step back, “the son of Zeus must be given a quest. He must find the Titan base camp, and return. He is a most powerful demigod, a son of the sky and branded with the mark of fire and the wolf, and he comes with an interesting destiny, therefore, I am tasked with giving you these,” she said, and she opened her palm and a ray of flight flew towards me. I opened my hands and out dropped very deadly and very powerful… jewellery. In my cupped hands, sat a gold and bronze ring and a leather bracelet with a stone tablet on it.

I gave Athena a questioning look. “What are these, My Lady?” I asked her.

 She grinned. “Trace your finger over the lightning bolt on the ring, and flip over the tablet in the bracelet and you will see,” she instructed, but before I could do so, thunder rumbled across the sky, louder than from in my cabin. “I must leave you now, and beware; you will receive little help from the gods from now on. I am sorry, but this is not my decree,” and with that, she left in a flash of light. It took me some time before I realised that everybody was watching me. It took me some more time to realise they were waiting to see what the objects in my hands would do. I looked down at them. They both had Ancient Greek writing on them, and I somehow knew what it said; the ring said Κεραυνός: Thunderbolt. The tablet on the bracelet said Kηδεμόνας: Guardian. As instructed, I ran my ringer over the lightning bolt design on the ring. Within seconds, the ring was no longer a ring, but a six-foot long spear, with a bronze shaft with the lightning bolt shape and the word Thunderbolt in Ancient Greek, but it had a golden spearhead. I stared at it in awe with the rest of the room staring at it to. I set it down on the ping pong table and looked at the bracelet. Again, as instructed, I flipped the stone tablet over and out emerged a shield. It was oddly shaped, not of Greek design, but it was about the same size as the one I used the night before, maybe a little smaller, but it was like an upside down rounded triangle, but with a pointed top. It was primarily bronze, but it had a golden eagle on the front, and it had a one inch wide lining of silver or steel on the outside:



Everybody stared in awe at my new equipment, mostly because of the weird metals and designs that were used.

“So, uh… Athena said I need a quest?” I asked the room at random, shocking then out of their ‘Ooh, shiny object!’ trance.

“Yes, she said look for the Titan children’s base camp. You should probably look around Mount Othrys on Mount Tamalpais in San Francisco. That’s where the original Titan’s headquarters was,” Annabeth told me.

“Was? That’s not very reassuring. Are you sure they’re gone?” I asked, worried that I might run into a distant immortal relative or something if I ever ventured to the mountain.

“No, the palace of Kronos crumbled when we destroyed him. The only Titan there now is Atlas, and he’s too busy holding up the sky,” Percy said, and he cringed and rolled his shoulders as if he knew what that felt like.

“So I find this base camp, then what? Infiltrate it and find out their plans, or just come back here?” I asked mainly Chiron.

“Find the camp, then Iris message us back, then we will tell you what to do next,” he instructed. “In the mean time, you need to pick your companions for your quest. You are allowed two. No more or no less than three must go on a quest,” Chiron said. I considered the possibilities for a moment. I knew right away that I would want Elissa out there with me, but I didn’t know who else I would take. Maybe I would want Percy, or Annabeth, or perhaps Rebecca or Arthur, or maybe even Gregory.

“Well? Who will you take with you?” Chiron asked.

“I’ll take Elissa Matheson, daughter of Apollo, but I don’t know who else,” I answered honestly.

“Hmm, I don’t really want to go, I have bad memories of Mount Tam,” Annabeth told me, and Percy nodded in agreement. “I’ll go if you really want me to though.”

“No, I won’t force you to do that, but I don’t know who else I would take,” I complained. Everybody else looked a little uneasy, like they were afraid I would take them with me, then something horrible would happen to them.

“I’ll go,” said someone in by the door. Everybody turned around to see who it was; Lily Pierce, daughter of Demeter.

“Lily, really? You want to do this?” asked the Hecate girl, Megan, in bewilderment.

“Yeah, when was the last time you heard a child of Demeter do anything useful? I need to do this for all of my mother’s children,” she announced confidently.

“She’s got a point. Demeter’s always stayed behind in these things. You got spunk Lily,” said Clarisse from Ares. Everybody then looked at me.

“If you feel this strongly about it, then by all means, thanks for coming along!” I said, and she grinned.

“It is decided. Matthew, you, Elissa and Lily will leave tomorrow after breakfast. Until then, you need some supplies,” Chiron instructed.

“But Chiron, they need a prophecy,” piped up the impish girl from Dionysus.

“No Natalie,” said Rachel the oracle, who had been so quiet since the prophecy I had almost forgotten she was here. “My second prophecy is meant to be their prophecy. It was like it was premature, too important to keep that long,” she explained. I nodded. Even though I didn’t like the sound of the prophecy, what Rachel was saying made sense.

Chiron bowed his head. “Meet me at the camp store after asking Ms. Matheson. You two especially need to stalk up on supplies,” Chiron informed us, and with that, the war council was adjourned.

I found Elissa at the basketball court with her siblings, shooting baskets. She was great at basketball; was on the award winning school team. Well, used to be on the award winning school basketball team.

“Hey. You all done?” Elissa called when I approached.

“Yeah, listen. I need to ask you something,” I told her when I got closer, and she looked puzzled. I took her aside to a bench off to the side.

“What’s up?” she asked. I sighed.

“I need to go on a quest, and I get two companions. Lily from Demeter is coming, and I wanted you to come, but if you don’t want to, I’ll understand,” I explained.

“Yes,” she answered, and I looked at her, surprised. “Sounds like fun. So when do we leave?”

“Tomorrow after breakfast, but we need to go see Chiron at the camp store to stock up on supplies for the trip. She nodded and followed me up the hill to the camp store where Chiron gave us backpacks to fill up for the journey. He issued us extra jeans and camp shirts and windbreakers, along with nectar and ambrosia, the drink and food of the gods that would heal us, but burn us up if we ate too much. I went around the store, picking up a few water bottles and juice boxes, then some granola bars and other snacks. I also took some practical stuff, like a lighter and a Swiss army knife, some mortal money and Greek money, golden drachmas. When our backpacks were finally full, we went back to our cabins to drop them off, and then Elissa went back to basketball while I went over to the pegasus stables. When I was at one of the only good foster homes for the summer, they would let me go out to the local ranch and ride around on the horses. I knew pegasi weren’t the same, but they would do. I walked into the stables and found someone else there. Arthur was tending to the pegasi, throwing grain into their pens, petting their noses, to which they would nuzzle him back. I smiled as I drew closer, and he returned the grin.

“Big burly guy is the son of the rainbow goddess and tends to flying ponies. Doesn’t really fit the picture huh?” he joked, and I laughed.

“No, it really doesn’t. Are riding pegasi any different than riding horses?” I asked.

“Kind of, due to the fact that you’re in the air, but seeing as you’re some of the sky god, it probably won’t bother you. Why, you ride before you came to camp?” he asked innocently.

“Yeah, I did. One of the only highlights of my summer vacations,” I told him.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Well, if you come back alive, maybe we’ll get you back on that horse,” he promised.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Yeah, if I come back alive,” I muttered.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">That night, I had a weird dream. I was standing in the sky. Yes, standing in the sky, but there was an invisible surface underneath me that behaved and moved like water when walked on. It was bright blue, the same colour of my eyes, and clouds drifted carelessly around. I looked around and noticed that I wasn’t alone. Standing before me, was a tall, older man, dressed in rust-red robes. He turned to look at me and I could feel power radiating from him. Eyes the colour of storm clouds bored into my own sky blue ones, like he was reaching into my mind. Most of his face was hidden by a long beard and long hair that looked like the puffy clouds around me.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“So, you are the son of my successor,” the man said. I could feel him reaching into my mind, pulling things forward and examining them. I stared at him, trying to keep him out of my mind.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Ouranos,” I said. “What’s my dead great-grandfather doing inside my head?”

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Seeing your plans child. I have not yet returned to power. In fact, I am still dead, but my consciousness still lives in some form. Even after all these millennia, I have watched over your civilization, able to do nothing, for I had no form to take. I have watched you puny humans build amazing things over my former wife’s domain, but still, I could only watch. I was torn apart, my immortal form taken and ripped to shreds, my soul even, destroyed and cast to the depths of Tartarus, but I was still able to watch over my domain, for I am the embodiment of the sky. If the sky remains, I remain, my consciousness to faint for Zeus or any other gods to detect,” he went on and on. “Oh, what is the expression? ‘The sky has eyes?’ Yes, it most certainly does. Oh, and by the way, if you try and stop the demi-titans from resurrecting me, you will fail. Divided, you don’t stand a chance against their forces. True, I hate them, but I hate you demigods more. I will strike you all down for your insolence. I will overthrow the Olympians and rule the world alongside Gaea once again!”

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Uh-huh. Good luck with that. In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re dead, and there are less demi-titans than there are demigods. We know how to beat Titans, so I think we know how to win against their children,” I countered.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“I wouldn’t be so sure half-blood. The children of the Titans have both Fear and Terror on their side, and the aid of their parents, not to mention my wife. With a force that great, you can not hope to defeat them,” he said with fake sympathy.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“So we’ll build our army. We have the favour of the Olympians, and they rule this world, not the Titans. So don’t get to comfortable with the prospect of coming back to life,” I glared. Ouranos smiled.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Hmm, there is only one other group that can come to your aid, and if you do find them, they will tear you to shreds,” he laughed, and the sky around us rumbled.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Just get out of my head scum-bag, and maybe I we won’t kill you even more,” I spat, and he grinned with satisfaction.

<p style="text-indent:36.0pt">“Fine, I have no more business here, I have your fatal flaw and your weakness, so I will leave you to your little dreams. Farewell son of Zeus. I hope you get used to the idea of losing your father again,” he taunted, and then my dream went black.

Chapter 5: I Get a Whole lot of Unwanted Attention