°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ ENDGAME} act iii. . .
. . .true love, that doesn't exist
CHAPTER TEN°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
— 'new powers?"
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･Rayn°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
We'd arrived on the outskirts of a little ski town called Cloudcroft, New Mexico. The air was cold and thin. The roofs of the cabins were heaped with snow.
As we walked, Thalia told us about Apollo visiting her and telling her to seek out Nereus in San Francisco.
Grover looked uneasy. "That's good, I guess. But we've got to get there first."
I tried not to get too depressed about our chances. The deadline was coming. The Winter Solstice was Friday, only four days away.
We stopped in the middle of town. You could see everything the small area had in it.
"Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."
"There's a coffee shop!" Said Grover.
"Yes," Zoe said. "Coffee is good."
"And pastries," Grover said dreamily. "And wax paper."
Thalia sighed. "Fine. How about Zoe, Grover and Percy get us some food. Rayn, Bianca and I will check in the grocery store. Maybe they can give us directions."
We agreed to meet back in front of the grocery store in fifteen minutes.
Inside the store, we found a few valuable things about Cloudcroft: there wasn't enough snow to snowboard, they sold rubber rats for a dollar each, and there's no easy way out of this town without your own car.
"You could call a taxi from Alamogordo," the clerk said doubtfully. "That's down at the bottom of the mountains, would take at least several hundred dollars."
The clerk looked so lonely, I bought a rubber rat. Then we headed back outside and stood on the porch.
"Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has a suggestion."
"But the clerk said—"
"I know," she told me. "I'm checking anyway."
Bianca and I stood together awkwardly. I wasn't sure what to say, especially now that she was a Hunter and everything.
"Nice rat," she said at last.
"Thanks," I put the rat in my pocket. "So... how is being a Hunter?"
She pursed her lips. "You're not still made at me for leaving Nico, are you?"
"Nah. If you're happy then I can't say much."
"Can I ask you for a favour?" She uttered out.
"Sure."
"Please, take care of Nico for me. I'm not sure how he'll do without a big sister." She looked down. "Maybe you could replace me for him. Just so he has somebody."
I wasn't sure what to say. "I cant replace you." I smiled at her. "Besides, I'm sure you'll be able to visit him from time-to-time."
"Thanks," she smiled at me. "By the way, being a Hunter is awesome. I feel calmer. Everything seems to have slowed down around me. I guess that's the immortality."
I stared at her, she was so confident and at peace now. Her face wasn't covered by a green cap now, but pulled back into a braid.
I shivered at the thought that Bianca would look the exact same five hundred or a thousand years from now.
"Plus, Nico will be fine at Camp Half-Blood." I said. "I was younger than him when I got there."
"You came to camp with, Thalia, Annabeth and Luke, right?"
"Yeah," I cringed at the name Luke.
Bianca nodded. "I hope we find her. Annabeth, I mean. She's lucky to have a friend like you."
"Lots of good it did her."
"Don't blame yourself. You and Percy risked your life to save Nico and I. I wouldn't have felt okay about leaving Nico there if I didn't meet you."
The compliment took me by surprise.
A couple hundred yards away, Grover, Zoe and Percy came out of the coffee shop loaded down with pastry bags and drinks.
"I got you a croissant," Percy gave me a croissant with butter and jam put into it messily and it was a bit flattened.
"Did you murder it?" I asked.
"I did my best, but... it looks a bit 2D," he laughed and I couldn't help but join in.
"We should do the tracking spell," Zoe said and gave us a death stare. "Grover, do you have any acorns left?"
"Umm," Grover mumbled. He was chewing on a bran muffin, wrapped and all. "I think so, I just need to—"
He froze.
I was going to ask what wrong when a warm breeze rustled past, like a gust of springtime in the winter. That made me think of my mother.
"Beware," a feminine voice said inside my head.
"Did you hear that?" I asked.
"Hear what?" Percy looked at me like I was going crazy.
"Never mind."
Zoe gasped. "Grover, thy cup."
Grover dropped his coffee cup. A few birds swooped down low then flew past us.
Grover collapsed next to his coffee. We gathered around him trying to wake him up. He groaned, his eyes fluttering.
"Hey!" Thalia said, running up from the street. "I just... what's wrong with Grover?"
"No idea," I said. "He just collapsed."
"Uuuuuhhhh," Grover groaned.
"Well, get him up!" She had her spear in her hand like she'd been followed. "We have to get out of here."
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･Percy°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
We made it to the edge of town before two skeleton warriors appeared. They stepped from the trees on either side of the road.
They drew their handguns. I'll admit I've always wanted to know how to shoot a gun, but now that a skeleton warrior was pointing one at me, I changed my mind.
Thalia tapped her bracelet. Aegis spiralled to life on her arm, but the warriors didn't flinch.
Rayn and I drew our swords but I wasn't sure what good they would do against guns.
Zoe and Bianca drew their bows, but Bianca had trouble because Grover was leaning against her.
"Back up," Thalia said.
We started to but then three more skeletons appeared on the road behind us. We had been surrounded.
I wondered where the rest of them were. I had seen a dozen back at the Smithsonian. Then one of the warriors spoke into a cellphone but it just sounded like clattering and clicking.
"He's calling for help," Rayn said. "I think..."
"It's near," Grover moaned.
"It is here right now." I said.
"No," he insisted. "The gift from the Wild."
I wasn't sure what was going on with the team, Rayn had heard stuff than nobody else did and Grover was talking about a gift. Maybe this quest was cursed since I came along.
"We'll have to go one-on-one," Thalia said. "Five of us, five of them. They'll ignore Grover that way."
"Agreed," Zoe said.
"The Wild!" Grover moaned.
A warm wind blew blew through the canyon but I kept my eyes on the skeleton.
"Please say you heard that, or am I going crazy?" Rayn asked me.
"I can't hear anything." I looked at her. Did she whack her head?
We all charged the skeletons at the same time. The skeleton fired at me but I could feel its path. I deflected it off the edge of my blade and kept charging.
The skeleton drew a baton and I sliced off his arms at the elbows, then I sliced him in half.
Almost immediately the bones started to reassemble themselves.
I thought I was doing pretty well, until two other skeletons shot me in the back.
"Percy!" Rayn screamed.
I landed face down in the street. Then I realised something... I wasn't dead. The bullets just shoved me. My coat was bulletproof.
I turned around and saw a skeleton standing above me with a baton about the whack me with it. I started praying that the coat was also whack proof.
"Stop! No!" Rayn yelled.
Immediately, all the skeletons froze in place.
"How did you do that?" Zoe asked.
"I have no clue," Rayn said nervously. "Maybe they were being nice?"
"Well tell them to do something else!" Thalia yelled.
"Like what?"
"Like, drop their weapons, maybe?" Thalia said.
"Drop your weapons." Rayn sounded unsure so I wasn't sure it would work but the guns and batons fell to the floor.
"Awesome!" I said. I thought I sounded like Nico for a moment.
The trees behind the skeletons were shivering. Branches were cracking.
"A gift," Grover muttered.
And then, with a mighty roar, the largest pig I'd ever seen came crashing into the road. It was a wild boar, thirty feet tall and very angry.
"REEEEEEEEET!" It squealed. It raked the skeletons aside with its tusks.
Then the pig turned to us.
Thalia raised her spear, but Grover yelled at her to not kill it.
The boar grunted and pawed the ground, ready to charge.
"That's the Erymanthian Boar," Zoe said, trying to stay calm. "I don't think we can kill it."
"Any chance you tell it to sit and be a good boy?" I turned to Rayn.
"No chance!" She walked backwards slowly, then the boat charged at us and we ran in different directions.
"It wants to kill us!" Rayn said.
"Of course," Grover said. "It's wild!"
"So how is that a blessing?" Rayn asked.
It seemed like a fair question to me but the pig got offended and charged her. She was faster than I remembered. She rolled out of the way of its hooves before she got pulverised.
"Keep moving!" Zoe yelled. She and Bianca ran in different directions, Grover danced around and played his pipes. Rayn had ran off somewhere I couldn't see. Thalia and I got the bad luck.
When the boar turned to us, she held Aegis up in defense that made the boar outraged.
We only managed to stay ahead because we ran uphill and we could dodge trees but the boat had to plough through them.
"This way!" I grabbed Thalias arm. We ran as fast as we could until we reached the edge of a bridge. Below, the mountain dropped away into a snow-filled gorge about seventy feet below us.
The boar was right behind us.
"Come on!" I said. "It'll hold our weight, probably."
"I can't!" Thalia yelled. Her eyes were wide with fear.
The boat smashed into the covered tunnel, tearing through at full speed.
"Now!" I yelled at Thalia.
°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･Rayn°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･
I watched as Percy and Thalia sledded down the hill on Aegis. The boar couldn't really turn so it kind of just did rolls down the hill.
"We must go get them," Zoe said.
We all walked down to where they had crash landed. When we got there Percy's face was in the snow and an annoyed Thalia was still sitting on Aegis.
"I wish I had a camera right now," I laughed.
"That's so not funny," Percy muttered.
We stood watching the wild boat struggle in the snow.
"A blessing of the Wild," Grover said, thought he looked agitated now.
"I agree," Zoe said. "We must use it."
"Hold up," Percy said irritably. He still had snow on his face and in his hair. "Explain to me why you're so sure this pig is a blessing."
Grover looked over, distracted. "It's our ride west. Do you have any idea how fast this boar can travel?"
"Fun," I muttered. "We're like pig cowboys now."
Grover walked over to the boar and jumped onto its back. The boar started to get up and walk west. Grover played tunes on his pipes and an apple floated in front of the boars face.
"Automatic steering," Thalia murmured.
"Great."
She trudged over and jumped on behind Grover, there was still room for the rest of us.
"Wait a second," Percy said. "Do you all know what Grover is talking about—this wild blessing?"
"Of course," Zoe said. "Did you not feel it in the wind? It was so strong... I never thought I'd feel that presence again."
"What presence?"
Zoe stared at him. "The Lord of the Wild. Just for a moment, in the arrival of the boar, I felt the presence of Pan."
I felt kind of upset that it wasn't my mother, but I also wondered who had been whispering to me what to do. The voice was definitely a woman.
It's my last day on spring break and I'm so sad I cannot go back to that actual prison
Anyway, thanks for reading<3
©️gracexeo , 2024