*Earlier that night*
Virord:
I didn't sleep that well at camp. Nightmares had plagued me in my last days in New Rome before I came to New York. That combined with the new environment, sleep had not been an easy thing for me to come by.
That is how I found myself flipping through Felix. That was the name I'd given to the spellbook my mother had gifted me on my 13th birthday. Felix was pretty useful for storing stuff, now helping me to perform spells? Yeah no that's not a strong suit of mine. It's still pretty cool when I randomly summon like a frog or something. Not that that was ever what I was actually intending.
I flipped to a new page, depicting the spell I had shown at the Big House not that long ago. I now realized how mistaken I had been about the spell. I pushed against the door, being careful to not push too hard. The Hecate cabin was made of a bunch of different materials engraved in magic, so you had to make sure to treat it right if you didn't want to wake up as a frog one day.
On the page I was looking at, a picture was drawn stretching across the page and even weaving around the text. The creature was labeled as an Ogre, but growing up watching Shrek that is not the way I would describe it to anyone. The long tail reminded me of a dragon, but the face took on the shape of a horse. The scales along its body were a light blue, although its claws and eyes were a deep purple.
I made my way across camp, heading towards the dense forest. I had been meaning to explore it more, but I hadn't gotten the chance to other than Capture the flag. Considering my only given task that game was to make sure Zon got nowhere near the action, I didn't get to do much exploring.
That was one thing I had learned quickly at Camp Half-Blood. For some reason my siblings and mother heavily resented the guy. I didn't get it much. Sure there was some family history trouble or whatever, but it didn't seem like the guy was able to even hold a bow properly. He'd been put so far from the action I wasn't sure if he'd actually be a scout or if they just wanted to tuck him somewhere out of the way.
To an extent I felt bad for him. I think that's what prompted me to stand up. That and camp is boring. While the strict nature of the legion was so far from anything I really could keep going with, I needed more action in my life. Now get myself involved in an oath between a goddess and a demigod? Sounds like a good way to make things quite interesting.
I'd heard all the stories about the seven. The adventures they went on. While I know they were terribly dangerous I couldn't help being envious of them. To be able to go out into the world, fight monsters, have the gods know your name? Now that was a spot I hoped I could get to one day. Something told me that Zon might just be my ticket. 8 years at camp without a quest. He has to be overdo? I wasn't actually sure how often they were given out.
It wasn't long before I entered the forest. The sound of the leaves ever so gently brushing against each other and the calls of different distant animals were all I could hear. I closed Felix and tapped the spine of the book. It opened with a small puff of green. I reached into the book and pulled out a flashlight.
After turning it on, I continued venturing into the forest. I had no idea where I planned to go, but being surrounded by the trees felt more like home than being cooped up in a cabin. I was careful to not touch the trees, I didn't want to risk it being a Dryad and getting a harsh talking to.
I also kept glancing towards the sky. I'd heard about the harpies at camp, but I had yet to actually see one. I'd been walking for a while when the sounds of the forest all ceased. Everything seemed to pause except for the dull thump of footsteps approaching me from deeper within the forest.
I clutched Felix tightly. I moved behind a tree, but couldn't pull my eyes away from the direction of the footsteps. Finally a creature stepped into view. My whole body froze, as I gazed upon the monster. At first it looked like a giant rooster, but it was made of stars.
Its feathers were pitch black except for the small twinkling spots pepped across its body. Its eyes felt infinite. I stared into them, and my whole body felt useless, I slid to the ground as all of my regret in my life, my doubts, came flooding to the surface. As the beast approached me, I didn't even flinch.
It moved its head down close to mine. My memories flashed before my eyes so fast all I could do was whimper. I didn't react when it raked a sharp talon across my chest. All I could feel was regret. The whole universe seemed to be pressing down on me. I regretted everything. How was anything I had ever done right? I never should have come to camp. I shouldn't have abandoned my legion. I shouldn't have left my father.
"Get away from him!"
Celestial bronze daggers buried themselves in the rooster. It let out a deafening caw, and suddenly all my senses returned. With it the overwhelming pain. I forced myself to my feet as the rooster turned away from me to find the dagger thrower. It was not a good sign that it hadn't yet crumbled away.
The burning of my chest seemed to intensify. I looked down and instantly felt nauseous. The rooster had cut my chest, and the wound festered with a black goo. The goo seemed to be slowly soaking deeper and deeper into my chest. I glanced back up to see the rooster throwing its head towards a boy. I could feel the same power radiating from the wound that I felt radiating from the rooster.
I recognized him from the capture the flag game. And in the Big House. He had blond eyes and the all telling gray eyes. I couldn't recall his name, but I did know he was the head counselor of the Athena cabin.
Sparks flew as he deflected the rooster's beak off of one of his blades. He carried many of them which made me realize they weren't daggers but rather celestial bronze throwing knives.
"You could keep watching or you could use that magic to help make sure this oversized chicken doesn't kill us!" He said.
I scrambled with Felix, flipping through the pages until I found a spell that might work. It was supposed to turn the target into an octopus. While not optimal I figure octopus would be much better than super deadly giant rooster.
I read the latin words from the page quickly, green smoke rising off of the page. I saw the boy barely dodge the rooster's sharp beak. While he was a good fighter, it was obvious he was losing steam. I chanted the words faster, the green smoke turning purple before there was a sharp bang. The smoke vanished and tentacles emerged from the pages.
Now is a good time to remind you that I suck at magic. In fact I have never once correctly cast a spell from Felix. Based on the octopus tentacles that wrapped around me while the rooster continued to try and slice the boy to pieces in the background, that was not changing anytime soon.
The rooster finally got a strike on the boy, cutting his left arm. The boy hissed, but didn't back down on using a blade in each hand. He'd been wearing glasses at the beginning of the fight, but they were now lying crushed in the grass.
I realized this must have been a very recent event because it was obvious he was having trouble accurately pinpointing the precise place the rooster was aiming for. I knew he would be toast if I didn't figure out how to help somehow.
I struggled against the octopus tentacles, pulling at them to get the suctions to release me. They held firmly to my skin. Some even sought out the cut in my chest, making the pain worse. I felt small spikes of pain all across my body. I realized the suctions were all sharp. Blood soaked into my clothes as it ran down my body.
That was it then. Even with a demigod rushing in to help me by some luck of the gods, I was going to die because I was awful with magic. No quest to my name. No recognition by the gods. I doubted my mother would even realize that another one of her children had fallen.
Flashes of bronze appeared, and slowly the tentacles melted away. Celestial bronze throwing knives fell to the ground from where they had hit the tentacles.
I glanced at the boy realizing he had thrown the last of his knives to free me.
My body was a mess of wounds. Most of them still bled, and the one across my chest was getting darker by the minute.
"The mist!" The boy yelled, as he ran from the rooster in my direction. "Hide us."
His words rang in my ears. I tried to make sense of them. The mist couldn't help us. We were doomed, couldn't he see?
The boy grabbed me once he was close enough. He wasn't careful with the wounds, causing me to yell out in pain.
"Come on. Think. Think through the pain. I need you to hide us. If you hide us I can get us help. Please hurry," he said. His hands shook where they held me. I could see the infinite eyes of the rooster as it ran towards us.
I closed my eyes, focusing on the sounds, the smells, the feeling of the world around me. Time felt like it slowed around me as I felt the everpresent thick mist pushing against my body, pushing against my mind.
It felt eager, ready to shape my mind to see whatever it is that it wanted to to make sense of the killer rooster. I denied this, pushing the mist away, molding it to surround the boy and I like a second skin. Using the last of my strength I pushed the boy and myself to the side, clinging to the cloak of mist.
As the rooster ran past, I felt the talon on one of its feet dig into my arm. I didn't have the energy to react. All I could do was hold onto my control of the mist, not letting it go. I then promptly passed out.
When I awoke, I felt like one hundred fire ants were crawling under my skin. I groaned, trying to jog my memory of what happened and where I was. The ceiling above me had a fan dangling from it and the wall was decorated with a bunch of pictures. Based on the orange shirts and beaded necklaces worn by the people in them, I assumed they were demigods. Looking over the pictures was Chiron. He was in his wheelchair as he looked over the pictures.
"It is not wise to go into the forest after dark. That being said... no monsters should've been able to reach you within the bounds of camp. Not unless another demigod summoned it," Chiron said.
"Why would anyone do that? What even was that thing? I didn't expect the forest to be populated with oversized stary roosters!" I said. Raising my voice caused my chest to ache.
The events of what happened were starting to come back to me. The rooster, the bot, the tentacles. I looked at my chest to see all that remained of my wound was an angry red scar. I glanced around and was relieved to find Felix sitting on the table next to the bed I was in.
"That wasn't a rooster. Or a chicken. It was a creature made out of mortal regrets. It was molded by the primordial goddess Nyx and gifted to her daughter Nemesis," Chiron said. Thunder boomed outside as he spoke their names.
"I'm not gonna lie, I can barely keep the roman names straight. I'm still getting used to the Greek ones so I have 0 clue who in Hades those two goddesses are. And frankly I don't care much. All I know is that they have a killer rooster that was trying to peck me to death with some evil goo thing or whatever," I said.
Chiron looked surprised by my words. "It is risky to speak about the gods as you do. I do find much concern with what happened. I wish to know all you can recall of the attack."
I recounted the events to him- I left out the part about me summoning the tentacles from my book and chalked those wounds up to the rooster- and he silently listened. His face grew more and more concerned the more I went into the story.
"What was that thing anyways? I know you explained it, but I feel like something as dangerous as that I would know the myth of," I said.
"I believe it is a more recent creation. I don't know exactly when, but the first spotting of it was about 200 years ago. It went on a rampage killing a bunch of demigods. According to reports they were all children of Tyche or as you may know her, Fontuna. To have it reappearing now, I fear the implications," Chiron said. "That is something we will have to delve into later. What I need to know more about is the fact that you saw Malcolm there. When I arrived it was just you."
I frowned. I'd had this whole story built up in my head. I had believed it was the boy, Malcolm, who had brought me to the big house. I hadn't really given too much thought to the fact that he wasn't here.
"He was injured. He couldn't have just waltzed away. Why would he anyway? How did the rooster get taken care of..." I pondered.
"The harpies," Chiron said. "I had been trying to figure out how they had found you and the Obscura Poenitet. If Malcolm was there, he must have used his head counselor whistle to call for them. I assume your trick with the mist must have bought him the time to do so."
"That's cool and all, but that doesn't really explain where he went," I pointed out. "Maybe the rooster got to him."
"We would've still found him even if he was no longer with us if that was the case. You need rest. The harpies are making sure all campers know to stay in their cabin until further notice," Chiron said.
Right as he finished, a sharp knock came to the door.
"Who is coming here at this hour? The harpies should've kept everyone inside," Chiron said, going to the door.
Once the door was open, I could see a girl just past him on the other side. She wore a tank top that said 'keep shining' with a pair of yellow shorts. Her blonde hair with dyed green tips was a mess, somehow defying gravity and standing at the oddest of angles.
"Kayla, what are you doing here?" Chiron asked.
"It's Zon. He woke up all shaken and weak and he insisted he needed to speak with you. He wouldn't say about what," Kayla said.
My interest was quickly piqued. I threw the covers off of myself and got to my feet. I still had the awful feeling of fire ants biting across my body, but I could stand without feeling nauseous which by demigod standards is a gold star for being healthy.
"Um, should he be standing?" Kayla asked, pointing at me.
"I probably shouldn't, but this sounds interesting and you bet Pluto's pants I'm not going to miss it," I hummed, making my way over to the two.
Kayla looked skeptical, but she didn't protest. Chiron didn't either. He seemed to be used to demigods choosing the unwise decision.
Chiron headed to a door on the other side of the room that I realized led to an elevator. He clicked a button and the doors slid open. Kayla turned to go back down the stairs and I quickly followed.
There were two people in the living room of the Big House. One was the head counselor of the Apollo cabin, Will. The other was Zon. My eyes were instantly drawn to him. I'd always had a special ability since I was young. The ability to feel magical auroras. I'd heard of a few other children of Trivia with similar abilities. Zon's was very particular, I felt as though I'd gotten a hint of something similar before, but I couldn't recall where I had felt it.
Zon and Will looked very similar. Tan skin, blond hair and the same serious expression. The main difference was their eyes. Will's eyes were a soft blue. His aurora was pretty strong although it felt dormant. Zon's eyes felt almost like fractures. They were a very light yellow that was almost white, but snakes of a dark almost gold snaked through them.
I saw Zon's gaze move down. I glanced at where he was looking and realized that my sleeve had fallen victim to the tentacle attack, exposing my SPQR tattoo. I glared at Zon and he quickly moved his gaze.
"You look like you got to be used as a hellhound chew toy," Zon said.
I couldn't help but smile at that. Such an offhand greeting, I could appreciate that.
"Now that would've been an experience. Not one I'm keen on experiencing, but it was nothing quite so hilarious," I said.
The door to the Big House opened and Chiron came in.
"I must admit, I was not expecting such a big group at this hour," Chiron said.
"It was important," Zon said. Every Time I'd ever heard him speak, I swear it always felt like he was expecting the world to end at any moment.
My exhaustion was starting to get the better of me, so I went and sat down next to Zon. Zon gave me a once over before turning his attention back to Chiron.
"Well then, let's not delay any further. What is it?" Chiron asked.
"I got a prophecy," Zon said.
There were no two words I'd ever wished to hear more in my life.