Chapter 27: More freaky nightmares…..

Of course, we had to go through the forest again. Why me?

We quickly exited the maze, but I couldn't wash off my paranoia that there was another one of those man-eating bugs in the forest.

As we ran up to the eighth floor, a thousand different questions swarmed through my head.

"How did Enceladus know our fears?" I asked. "It seems awfully convenient."

"He couldn't have guessed our fears, so I'm guessing that it was some sort of magic or something. Sorceresses like Pasiphae have been known to use magic like that," Amethyst guessed.

"Whatever kind of magic that was, I really don't like it. That's some dark magic kind of crap," Kai said.

I nodded in agreement. "Probably, but whatever the case, we need to get back to Artemis and the rest of the group."

We kept going up, reaching the seventh floor where the rest of our friends were still facing the horde. On the eighth floor, I heard arrows whizzing into walls and large strikes shaking the very walls of the building. How long had we been underground?

Geneva saw us out of the corner of her eye. "A little help here?"

We joined the fight, taking on a large group of blue-haired women, with talons for feet and large wings attached to their forearm area. Overall, they looked as if they were born from Tinkerbell merged with a human bird. (Yeah, a bit of an exaggeration but they were so weird looking, I didn't really know how to describe them.)

Arthur blasted some down with arcs of lightning. Honestly, standing around him when

did that was scary, especially because of how he lost control in the cave.

"Did you grab the mask?" he yelled.

Amethyst gave a quick nod as we took down the rest of the bird women. "Yeah. Now let's go, Artemis is waiting for us."

We ran up to the eighth floor, Artemis in the middle of shooting arrows at Enceladus as he pounded on the floor.

"Let's go, quick!" Arthur shouted. We jumped into the action, slashing at Enceladus at every opportunity and knocking him down with our powers. However, after we knocked him down last time, he seemed angry and hellbent on killing us. Our attacks were rendered useless, with Artemis being the only one that could successfully damage him.

Enceladus exhaled fire onto the ground, Kai trying to rival it with his own flames. However, his fire was overpowered and he was knocked back by Enceladus's foot, slamming into a row of boxes.

Artemis shot beams of moonlight at the giant, who merely deflected them back. "Heroes, we must overwhelm him with our powers. That is the only true way to slay a giant."

"On three!" Amethyst instructed, nocking an arrow into her bow.

"One!" We prepared ourselves.

"Two!"

"Three!" We shot everything we had at him, fire and lightning sparking off the giant's bronze skin. The combination of all our attacks knocked Enceladus down, turning him to dust.

Before we could celebrate, Artemis scanned the roof. "We must go quickly. The tower is about to collapse in on itself."

We heeded her advice, sprinting down the stairs. Alexander carried Kai down the stairs as the roof of the eighth floor fell down, crushing the seventh floor immediately. We reached the third floor, the roof quickly collapsing ahead of us.

"Hurry!" Arthur yelled. "We don't have much time until the entire tower goes!"

That's when Alexander did something unexpected. He threw Kai's body over to Arthur as he put his hands upwards. He caught the falling roof, halting it in its tracks.

"Go!" Alexander said. Despite wanting to save him, Amethyst pulled me along as we ran out of the tower. We took a quick glance back at the now crumpled tower, looking for any sign of Alexander.

"No, no, no," Kai muttered, his eyes watering. "Not after all of this!"

Amethyst touched his arm gently. "K..Kai..he's gone." She was also starting to get teary as well, trying not to cry on the spot.

Kai's eyes were filled with rage. I swear his eyes were made of flames or something with how intensely they burned.

We all stood in silence, mourning our lost friend. Alexander was maybe one of the dumbest, silliest people I'd ever known but at the end of the day, he was still our friend. He'd saved our lives countless times, from the sea serpent to the battle with Otis and Ephialtes. The fact that he was gone saddened me even more, because without him, we would've never still been on this quest.

Kai slumped to the ground, his sword ignited. "I...if I had done something more...h..he could be alive."

A hand patted him on the back. "I know. Steve Jobs was such a great man. If only I could've done...Mmm! This is one tasty banana!"

We all turned around with shock. Alexander was patting Kai on the back and slowly munching on a banana.

"A..Alexander?" Kai asked, stuttering.

Alexander nodded. "That's me! Did I tell you that this is one, really good banana?"

Kai punched him in the arm. "Dude, we thought you were dead!"

"Why? Oh, was it because of the banana? Such a bad banana…" He threw the banana into the ocean, muttering a few curses under his breath.

I stared at him, my mouth gaping. "How did you get out? W..we thought you got crushed or something."

"After you guys left, I threw the roof up and escaped from the window," Alexander explained, all of us still staring at him. "Was I not supposed to break the glass?"

Geneva blinked. "Well, it's good to have you back and..not dead."

He nodded enthusiastically. "I know! Hey, where'd that Artemis lady go?"

"She teleported away. She probably had something else to do," Arthur answered, Alexander's face full of disappointment. "Now, let's go."

As we began leaving, I saw Amethyst pocket a small blue card. I couldn't read out what the words were entirely (no thanks to my dyslexia), but I was positive the card said something about Artemis. I'd need to ask Amethyst about that later.

Geneva then yelled across the lake, getting Oman's attention as he picked us up. He seemed a little dazed, having his Southern-word spasm again.

Arthur looked at Kai, just realizing that Kai was half-shirtless, barefoot, and had a wrapped-up ankle. He blinked. "What happened to you?"

Kai pursed his lip. "Long story short: there was a maze of challenges in front of the mask, as per usual, which is how I became the world's weirdest looking man."

Before anyone could respond, Kai ran to his room and shut the door, presumably changing.

"Okay, buckeroos," Oman said woozily. "Take a hike in those bedrocks of y'alls, now scat!"

We quickly head to our cabins, not wanting to get reprimanded by a woozy, Southern-speaking Oman.

Before I crashed though, I headed to Amethyst's cabin. It could've been considered prying if I asked her about the card, but my curiosity was too great to ignore.

"Knock, knock," I said, knocking on her door.

"Come in," Amethyst said.

I opened the doors. Her cabin was about as organized as usual, bar the stacks of books she had next to her. She had some scattered papers on her bed, and her book collection had only increased in size.

"Hey," I said.

"Hi, what do you need?" She asked.

"Nothing, how are you doing?"

Amethyst smiled. "I'm doing better, talking with you about my nightmare really helped. Thanks again."

"No problem. Anyways, um, I couldn't help but notice that you slipped a blue card into your pocket. Did Artemis give it to you or something?"

Amethyst nodded. "After we escaped the tower, I found it in my hand."

"And what was on it?"

"Well, she apologized for leaving so early, but she also gave me an invitation to join the Hunters of Artemis."

I felt a bit taken aback. The Hunters of Artemis? I hadn't known Amethyst for very long, but over the course of this quest, I had begun getting closer to her. I'd be happy if she accepted and got the chance to travel around the world with Artemis, but I would miss her.

"So are you going to accept?" I asked.

"Maybe," she said. "I mean, I've always wanted to travel the world, and going with Artemis on her travels would be amazing, but as great as it all sounds, I'd have to leave Kai and Camp Half-Blood."

Amethyst seemed to read my expression. "Don't worry, Rose. I don't think I'm really going to do it."

"Really? It sounds like a really big opportunity."

"It is, but I don't want to leave camp. The time I've spent there has been some of the happiest days of my life, so to leave camp would be saying goodbye to the only family I'd ever known."

I smiled. "That's nice to hear. Well, I'll let you get back to it. I am in major need for some sleep."

I waved her goodbye before heading for my cabin and crashing on my bed.

Naturally however, the one time that I finally got some good shut-eye, I had to get a vision.

I was floating in the air, right above the same room that Ares had his speech to the monsters in.

"Silence!" Ares bellowed, the crowd going quiet. "Nemesis, what is the situation with our reinforcements?"

Nemesis gave him a crooked grin. "We have them all, sir. In less than two days, we can launch a full attack on Camp Half-Blood."

The crowd exploded in roars, hounds barking crazily and seven-foot men cheering. In my mind, I was going crazy. Camp Half-Blood? Ares trying to attack it? What the heck was happening?

I wanted to shout No. We'll stop you but my voice refused to work.

"And what is our situation on the demigods? Have you been able to kill them yet?" Ares asked.

"Well," Nemesis hesitated. "None of us have been able to kill the demigods, not even Enceladus, and they've gotten three of the masks."

Ares growled. "This is not good. Our lord will be very angry. Okay, Nemesis, I want you to hunt them down. Meanwhile, I will need to shore up defenses on the last mask, so the rest of you, be ready to be drafted. Dismissed!"

Lord? Who was their lord? As my vision began to shift to normal, I realized something.

Camp Half-Blood's a target, along with the masks of four. The God of War leads the way, six demigods must keep the attack astray.

Based on my vision, the prophecy had meant that we would be targeting the masks of four while Ares would be targeting camp. We were the six demigods meant to keep Ares's attack away.

I suddenly woke up, quickly getting changed and heading outside. Overnight, Oman must've changed the ship into a plane. We were parked in an abandoned airport, Oman replenishing the fuel of the ship. The airport was abandoned, so there was vegetation everywhere. There were a multitude of trees surrounding the area along with a river and a couple bushes. Everybody else was outside, sitting in the parking lot.

I got out of the airplane and sat down next to my friends. Amethyst handed me a bowl of Krave cereal and a coat as the weather outside was pretty cold.

"Where are we?" I asked dazily, rubbing my eyes.

"We're in Frankfort, Kentucky," Amethyst answered. "Oman stopped here for a quick fuel stop."

Alexander yawned. "I wish I could drink oil. That would be so cool."

"It'll happen one day," Kai said, reassuring him. His ankle looked much better than it had yesterday, as it was no longer wrapped up.

Geneva seemed to read my stunned expression. "What's going on, Rose?"

I had almost completely forgotten about the dream. I was too busy chomping on my cereal to remember.

I filled them in on the dream.

Arthur's eyes narrowed. "Two days? We don't have enough time to grab the last mask wherever it is and stop Ares's attack simultaneously."

"So what do we do?" Amethyst asked.

"I think we have to split up," Arthur told her. "Half of us find the mask and the other half go back to camp."

"I don't like the idea, but we do have a deadline," Amethyst agreed. "I'll go back to camp. I think I'll be better help there than finding the mask."

"Then who else should go?" Geneva asked.

Amethyst racked her brain. "If I remember correctly, the last mask we haven't gotten is the Face of Fate. Similar to the Face of Power, it was locked away by Zeus himself after being deemed too dangerous."

"By that rationale, I have to go," Arthur said. "We're going to need a kid of Zeus to grab the mask."

Kai raised up his hand. "I'll go too. After being babysat like a little toddler yesterday, I am in some dire need for some action."

"I'll head back to camp," Geneva said. "We'll need more numbers there."

"Alexander, do you want to go?" I asked hopefully.

Alexander was playing with his cereal, digging out all the chocolate bits. "What?"

Amethyst rolled her eyes. "Rose, I think you should go with Kai and Arthur. California is notoriously dangerous and they might need someone who can bend the Mist."

"Yeah, I guess," I said. "Hold up, Oman can't take both groups."

Arthur pulled out a map. "My mother taught me how to use Iris pockets, which will help us get from place to place."

I completely forgot that Arthur was both a descendant of Iris and a son of Zeus. The guy was seriously well connected. It was kind of freaky to be honest.

"All right then. When will we be leaving?" I asked.

"As soon as possible," Oman said, walking back to the ship. "The ol' Gatsby is charged up, so we can leave now."

Amethyst turned towards me. "Before we leave, we're going to need the masks."

Arthur pulled out the Mask of Power from his backpack while I grabbed the Mask of Endurance from mine. I really wasn't going to miss that mask. It was surprisingly heavy and tended to drag me down like a bag of rocks.

However, before we could hand them to Amethyst, the sky suddenly got dark. We turned around cautiously, our weapons now raised. The plane was then suddenly blasted away by a large beam of darkness, catapulting it all the way into a nearby lake.

"Who's ready to die?!" Nemesis screeched, suddenly standing in front of us.