Chapter 5: Prophets and Headaches

Chapter IV

Mark

As I regained consciousness, first thing I noticed was my head hurt. A lot. I must have groaned because I heard someone laughing in the background.

“The tranq’s tend to do that,” a feminine voice said. I opened my eyes, immediately regretted it, and closed them again. In that brief instant of opened eyes I saw Thalia and Jason standing in the room.

“Why the hell were their tranq’s?” I grumbled.

“New trick we developed for hunting in populated areas. If mortals start to get in the way we knock em out. It is supposed to be one per person, and not leave you with the headache or lost time. For some reason the girls hit you with five.” Oh great, I’m popular.

“If you hadn’t blocked those two with your shield you may have died.” Jason said. “As it is, Chiron has currently forbidden the use of these arrows again. But they win today.” His voice sounded annoyed.

“Don’t take it so hard, and I am going to work on getting them back in, it is not generally dangerous. I’ll talk to the girls about multiple uses.” Her footsteps on the wooden floor indicated she left the room. Wooden floor. I was in the infirmary at the Big House.

“How is Alex?” I asked. Jason grunted in amusement.

“I had to get some of your bunk mates to hold her back from going after the hunters for hitting you with that many Tranq’s.” Good ol’ Alex.

“The Nolan kid?”

“Ah, so you knew his name?” Jason asked.

“Yeah, just wanted to give him a hard time. He rides a lot on that speed thing.”

“He deserves it.”

“True enough, how is he?”

“He got one, but his metabolism is quick enough that the Tranq didn’t do anything to him. Still lost though, he got caught in a hidden net just in front of the creek. Thalia carried the flag across.”

“Thought you were taking care of her sir.”

“I was going to, but they got my team with the arrows too.” I couldn’t help but laugh at that. I painfully opened my eyes and worked my way to getting up.

“You should probably rest more centurion.”

“Sorry sir, you know how it is. Sitting still doesn’t work for us.” I staggered to my feet and stumbled through the door. Alex was being held back by a couple of my cousins. She stopped struggling as I got out and I got down the steps. The hunters were in a bunch in front of the house, getting yelled at by Thalia. Since my goal was to head straight to the sword arena for some practice, and they were in the way, so I headed straight towards them. Alex and my cousins froze in shock as I moved forward.

The girls stared at me as I moved forward and Thalia turned and watched me.

“Listen up, because my headache is only going to let me say this once.” A couple of the girls snickered. “The arrows are brilliant. They are beautiful pieces of work that will help you out in your hunts. “ The girls shut up at that and stared at me in shock. “But too many of them are damn lethal. If you ever, EVER, try that again, I will hunt you down and give you the same treatment, blessing of Artemis or no.”

I then started forward again, and the girls moved aside to let me through. All except Jane. She stood in my way and looked angry. I didn’t stop moving forward, and she just nodded at me then moved out of the way. I continued on to the Sword Arena.

The Arena is a big open space where campers can practice with their weapons, not just swords. Supposedly a big friendly hell hound named Mrs. O’Leary lives here, but I don’t know about that. What I do know is I felt sore, I had a headache, and I wanted a workout. I started with some basic slashes, following up with thrusts, then practicing basic disarms and things like that. Not too long after I started I noticed Alex sitting on one of the bleachers. Once she figured out I noticed her, she was tossing rocks and such at me, I slapped them out of the air as part of my practice.

Another thirty minutes pass and I heard Steve and Jackie talking to her. I couldn’t catch what they were saying, but I think they may have been talking about the Capture the flag game. This went on for a few more minutes when I heard a gasp. Being a Demigod, in a camp for Demigods, we know better than to gasp at useless moments. I turned to look at my observers, and saw them staring at one of the entrances. I followed their gaze and saw Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the prophet. She had been working on avoiding me ever since the last time, when the Oracle vacated her body to travel a goodly distance to mug me with a prophecy. When her eyes fell on me she said, “Not again.” Then the green mist began to swirl around her.

“Not again!” I cried out as a figure formed in the mist and tackled me, its hands going into my head. A spirits hands in your head, not a barrel of laughs. The Oracles hands in your head, a really not good time.

In my head I saw an image of the city of Olympus, but if it was made of grey stone instead of gold like it was.

''“Three from the West and Four from the East, Where the second home is unreleased”'' The image changed to my old foe, Caligula. This time, in addition to various scars and burns on his body and his one white eye, his face had a few new scars including one that made half his mouth look like the Joker from the new Batman movie. Creepy. He opened his mouth.

''“The City of Gold shall start to keel, the Emperor shall show his Steel”'' The image flickered again, this time to show something big, and ugly, and made of metal

''“A daughter of war shall be rearmed, From the Legionnaire of Travelers shall the Forger be harmed”'' Then I saw what looked like thousands of legionnaires made from...was that clay? They started yelling

''“The child of Martius shall enslave, Two sides must join or meet the grave.”''

The Oracle removed its hands from my head and, I guess because it didn’t like me, sent me flying into the wall behind me. My head rebounded off the wall and I fell to the floor in a daze.

“Mark!” Alex and Jackie were running towards me while Steve went to check on Rachel.

“What did I ever do to the Oracle?” I muttered out loud as I held my pounding head and tried to get up. Jackie knocked my hands out of the way, put hers in their place and started muttering something in Greek. My head started to feel a lot better, so I didn’t pull away. Alex was putting her hands on the back of my head as if checking for more damage, and brushing the dust off my coat.

“What did the Oracle tell you?” Jackie asked after she let go of my head. I felt a heck of a lot better. I got up, still a little dizzy.

“Oh, and we should get you something to eat.” She mentioned. Food sounded wonderful at the moment.

Once Steve joined us I told them of the prophecy and asked if they would join me. Alex and Steve agreed right away, as I was pretty sure they would. Jackie looked at me for a couple of seconds.

“Why me?” She asked. Normally that would be a darn good question. Up until last month, she was looking for any excuse to pepper me with crossbow bolts because she believed I was out to betray the camp to the forces of whatever darkness was trying to take over at the moment. But instead of running for the Oracle, whom she was a self proclaimed protector of, she came to help me. I guess I trusted her.

“You want to protect this camp as much as I do,” I said. “Since if we fail it ends with us all in the grave, I figured you might have a personal stake in this, also I have come to trust you this past month since our return from the Underworld.” She continued to look at me, then nodded.

“Good, so it is a quest.” Came a voice out of the shadows that mad us all jump a few feet in the air.

“Chiron, you gave me a heart attack.” Rachel said.

“Sorry child, but Apollo let me know what the prophecy said, and I took the liberty of having some things packed for you children,” he lifted three bags and one backpack. He handed the backpack to Jackie. “Once the rest of your group gets their things together I will meet you on the Hill for some last minute advice.” Then he turned and galloped off.

Figuring that we had that stuff taken care of, so we split up to get our gear together while Jakie went to the hill to wait for us with Chiron.

Chapter 6