Heart Pierced - Kayla Knowles (1)

XLII. Returning To Camp A Hero Never Felt So Good (But..)

Alternative Chapter Titles: ..We Find Out The Fates Aren't Done With Us Yet; I Channel My Inner Schroeder; I Come Clean To Camp About What I Know (Again); Beginning Of The Second Giant War Arc, Part One

(A/N: Shout-outs to -JASONSGRACE  and Morro11  here, as well as AO3 User liminal for their fanfic "oaths cracked lengthwise (don't let it go)" which is as one tag puts it, "a requiem on the gods' broken promises" and is another fanfic that realistically depicts that after something like the Battle Of Manhattan, the demigods are very much traumatized teens now. Thanks to this user for helping me be inspired in writing at least part of this chapter.)

If one has to wonder when I started to be called the "Sniper Of Olympus", it was in the aftermath of having Rachel's prophecy come to past and becoming alongside my girlfriend, the two most powerful demigods of the campers at Camp Half Blood.

Somebody - I think it was Tyson - shouted 'Hail Colton Reynolds, the Sniper Of Olympus!' during the start of the celebrations on Olympus before we demigods started to head back to Camp Half Blood and the moniker simply spread like wildfire.

Contrary to what probably everyone else had in mind when it came to the two of us, with a simple nod from Kayla, the two of us booked it out of Olympus and headed to the elevator, Kelli deciding to follow us.

It was a bit of an awkward silence that pervaded a while between the three of us as we descended towards the ground floor of the Empire State Building, Manhattan once more hustling and bustling below us with reconstruction efforts going on to repair damage from the battle that had been fought. Eventually, Kelli broke it.

"So are we going to tell them about what's coming..?" she asked worriedly. Kayla sighed, and I just fidgeted with my hands.

"Yeah sure.. but we'll try to do it on our own terms, not those dictated upon us by other forces.." I told them, and they simply nodded in agreement. Oh how naive I was then..

Kelli changed back into her human form so as to not arouse suspicion from mortals. "So.." Kelli started again. "Rachel's prophecy has come to past, hasn't it?"

I nodded, and Kayla did too. I could feel power surging through me like I was made out of nothing but electrical circuits all pulsing with major surges of electricity. It was weird, to be honest. "Yeah it has.." I told Kelli. "Honestly.. I feel like I'm on a whole another level right now."

"Same here.." Kayla said, just as the elevator dinged for the ground floor a few moments later and the doors then opened.

The three of us simply darted through the mobs of dazed mortals once we had exited the building until we came upon the demon horse I - as the Monster King - had used as my mount in the final stages of the battle in an alleyway, simply snacking on hot dogs from a hot dog stand it had dragged over. When it saw me, it let out a low, affectionate neigh, stopped snacking and just walked over to us. It lowered its head and huffed, not doing anything when Kayla came up and petted its head, avoiding its spikes, gently.

It shook itself, and a rope ladder with metal steps unfurled itself on the side of the very tall horse, allowing each of us to climb on. Kayla wrapped her arms around my chest firmly from behind, while Kelli did the same thing.

"To Camp Half Blood, my steed!" I told it, and gave a shake of the reins, and like that, we were off. I'm not sure what we looked like to the mortals, but judging from the fact that basically everyone who looked at us didn't have any horrified looks on their faces and just turned away in boredom, I think the mist made the horse look something more like a double decker bus or something.