Commander Alpha

Chapter 22

Emma' POV

By the time we were done catching up with Chiron and talking about the prophecy, there was only half an hour left until dinner.  I headed back to our cabin.  Although speaking with the centaur had been a welcome distraction, my line of the prophecy was still bugging me, and had been since Rachel had delivered it.  "The fire blessed one must win no matter the cost, for if she loses against Night, all will be lost".  Great.  "no matter the cost", "if she loses, all will be lost".  What was the cost?  I'd just lost one leg, and I hoped that I wouldn't loose the other.  In fact, I hoped that I wouldn't loose any other limbs.  And, if I lost against Nyx, a titan, then all would be lost.  Why couldn't Percy get that part?  I mean, yeah, he'd already been part of too many prophecies, but still!  At least he had experience and a knack for beating the odds!  He'd saved the world twice, and what had I done?  I'd taken a knife for his girlfriend and gotten my leg blown off because of my fatal flaw.  Thinking of my leg, I decided to go down to our cabin's private training room and check out the grappling hook feature that Beckendorf had put in my prosthetic leg that I'd yet to try. 
The leg acted just as a normal leg might, responding to my brain's every command, but it still took some getting used to.  I carefully made my way down the stairs to the training room.  Smack in the center, there was a rock climbing wall three times the height of the one that camp had.  It had many options for difficulty levels in the obstacles, but I didn't need those so I turned them off.  I bent over and pressed the button on the side of my leg that would supposedly turn it into a grappling hook.  Instead of fully coming off like it did when I pressed the other button, only the part from the mid-calf down popped off.  The rest grew until it was the length of the leg normally, just not as large or sturdy-looking.  I examined the part that had come off in my hand.  I found a perfectly-sized slot for my hand and held it.  A mix of the Celestial Bronze and Chaos Silver strapped my hand into place.  I aimed the contraption at the top of the wall and pressed a button that lined up with my thumb.  For a second, nothing happened.  Then, a thin wire shot out of the device so fast that my eye could barely follow it.  It reached the top of the wall within a second and a claw opened up, grabbing the wall.  The machine started pulling me up so fast and abruptly that my arm nearly popped out of its socket. 
In less than two seconds, I was hanging from the top of the several hundred foot climbing wall with no idea how to get down.  I examined the device as thoroughly as I could while I was hanging from it.  I couldn't see anything clearly marked, and I didn't want to press the wrong thing and fall.  I wouldn't get hurt, thanks to Chaos's blessing of partial immortality, but it would hurt like Hades.
'Uh, Beckendorf?' I mind messaged.
'Yeah?' Was his immediate reply.  I sighed, happy that he answered so quickly.  I didn't want be stuck hanging helplessly from this wall for much longer.
'Um, I've gotten myself into a... situation in the training room.  Can you come down?  Quickly, if you don't mind.'  Beckendorf laughed. 
'Yeah, give me a minute though.  I'm at the forges.'
After a few minutes of waiting uncomfortably, all I had managed to do was turn myself around so I wasn't facing the wall. Beckendorf entered the room.
"Emma?" He called, not seeing me.  I cleared my throat.  Beckendorf looked up in surprise.  "What are you- oh." He broke down laughing.  "Let me guess, you tried to use the grappling hook?"
"Yeah."
"Without asking me how it worked,"
"Yeah."
"And now you're stuck."
"...yeah."  Beckendorf laughed some more.  "Hold on."
"Don't have to tell me twice."  Beckendorf retrieved something from his pocket.  From the distance, I didn't recognize it.  Only when it flashed brightly did I realize what it was.
"I WILL MURDER YOU!"  I screeched in response to Beckendorf taking a picture of my embarrassing moment.  He always carried around his camera, it was the size of a thumbnail, but the quality of its pictures were amazing.  He took pictures of funny, cute, nice, or beautiful moments that happened.  I was sure that 90% of his pictures were of Silena because she was, and I quote, "funny, cute, nice, and beautiful!".  True love makes me want to vomit.
After a few minutes, and Beckendorf's constant coaching, my feet, or my foot, was on solid ground once again.  It turned out that there was a knob on the side of adjusting the speed that the hook brought you up (it was only at 50%...), a button for lowering you down (the speed of this was also controlled by the knob), and a button to make the hook let go of whatever it was gripping onto and retract (I was very glad that I didn't press that button accidentally).  I detached the mechanism from my hand and reconnected it to my leg.
"Thanks." I told Beckendorf.
"No problem." I could just hear the conch horn sound for dinner.  "Let's get going." He said.
"I'll be a little late." I said.
"Okay." Beckendorf headed up the stairs and back into the main cabin.  Lunch would have to wait, I owed a certain goddess of the hearth a visit.
When I emerged from the cabin, Hestia was stoking the flames, just as I knew she'd be.  I sat next to her like had so often done all those years ago.
"Hey." I greeted.
"What's the matter?" Hestia asked, not even looking up from the fire.
"I got stuck hanging from a grappling hook hanging a few hundred feet in the air." Hestia laughed.
"As funny as that sounds, I don't think that's it." I sighed, there was no use in hiding anything from her.
"We got a prophecy." I recited it for her, and explained as much as I could about who each section spoke to.
"The fire blessed one must win no matter the cost, for if she loses against Night then all will be lost." Hestia repeated under her breath.
"Sounds fun, right?" I said.  Hestia looked over to me, her expression nervous, yet comforting.
"That's a lot of responsibility."
"Tell me about it." I leaned my head on the goddess's shoulder.  "I mean, I kinda wish Percy got this part, even though he's been through more than enough prophecies in his life.  But, he always seems to beat the odds."
"If this line was given to you, it means that the fates think that you can do it.  And if they believe in you, then so do I." Hestia smiled.
"Thanks." I mumbled.  We sat there for a bit, goddess and Chaos Warrior, certainly making a very odd spectacle.  Our moment was stopped by a tap on my shoulder.  I turned expecting to see one of the Warriors, or maybe Chiron, but I certainly didn't expect a very nervous Annabeth Chase before me. 
"Uh, Suzuki... can I talk to you?" She asked.
"Sure." I tried to hide the coolness in my voice but must of failed, as Annabeth flinched.  I looked at Hestia who looked back at me calmingly.  Go, her expression seemed to say.  I tried to control my emotions, but it only worked on others.  I wished I could use the powers on myself.  I was under the very Athenian belief that emotions just got in the way.  Annabeth led me to a slightly secluded area behind the climbing wall.  She kept nervously fingering a gold locket she wore alone with her camp necklace that I hadn't noticed before.  As far as I remembered, she'd never worn a locket before.
"What's that?" I asked, my curiosity getting the best of me.  A wave of guilt rolled off of Annabeth, so powerful that it made me want to cry.
"I wear this every day." She said.  She popped the locket open and I gasped.  Inside her locket was a small picture of me.  It was me pre-Chaos years, and by the large smile plastered on my face, I could guess it was taken early in my stay at Camp Half-Blood.  I tried to mask my surprise.
"Who is that?" Annabeth looked at the picture.
"Actually, I have to ask you a question." Annabeth introjected.
"How about this, you tell me about the picture, and I'll answer your question." I offered.  I was curious to see what Annabeth thought about me before I answered her question, and I had a pretty good idea as to what it would be.  Annabeth considered my offer, then nodded.
"This is, or was, Emma.  She was a camper here a few years ago.  She made friends with Hestia, and got her blessing.  This was a few years after Percy disappeared, but I was still completely torn up about it.  I don't know why, but I was so mean to her.  I had no reason to be, but I... I don't even know.  She'd been here only six months when there was an attack on camp.  She snuck from where the younger campers were hiding in the amphitheater and took a dagger meant for me.  I.... never got to find out why she did it..."
"And your question?" I prodded, her emotions making me uncomfortable.  Annabeth made direct eye with me.
"Are you Emma." It was more of a statement than a question.  Annabeth, being a child of Athena, had probably put lots of thought into this claim, so much that it would be useless to deny it.
"I believe I owe you an explanation." I dropped my hood for the second time that day.  Annabeth's hands flew to her mouth in shock.  Her eyes welled up with tears.
"Emma, I-" she couldn't continue.
"Shh, it's fine," I explained to her how I had made her feel angry at me, and that I didn't know why I'd taken the knife.  Annabeth thanked me and apologized what must have been more than a hundred times, and much to my displeasure, hugged me.  I comforted the girl.  I had to say that I was glad I took the knife, because the love she and Percy radiated when they were around each other made me want to gag.  True love is gross.
Annabeth wiped her eyes.  "I should get going back to the pavilion of lunch.  Are you coming?"
"Sure." I flipped up my hood.  "Why weren't you there to begin with?" I asked as we walked.
"My original plan was to ask you during lunch, but because you didn't show, I came down here.  I figured that you were Emma, you'd be with Hestia, and that's where you were."
"Do you think that anyone else has figured out who I am?" I questioned.  Annabeth thought for a moment.
"No, I don't think so.  But why didn't you reveal yourself to the camp with Beckendorf, Silena, Castor, and Bianca."  I shrugged.  It'd never really occurred to me that I could've revealed myself.
"I didn't really have anyone to reveal myself to.  The only friend here I made was Hestia, and I did reveal myself to her, privately."
"Words can't express how sorry I-" I growled.
"People keep on apologizing and feeling guilty around me, and it's horribly depressing!" I figured that Annabeth didn't know what I was talking about.  "Part of Hestia's blessing was sensing emotions and controlling them to a certain extent."
"I figured as much." Oh yeah, she was an Athena kid, like me.  It'd been so long since I'd hung out with one.  By this point, we'd made it to the pavilion.
"Nice talking to you." I said.
"Really nice getting an explanation from all those years ago." Annabeth replied.  I winced.
"Yeah, sorry about the wait.  I was going to tell you, but then I, ya know," I drew my finger across my neck and made a sound for dramatic effect.  Annabeth laughed, and I headed towards the Chaos table, and she went to the Athena table.  We received quite a few odd stares, but I easily brushed them off.  I got used to odd stairs after only a few days back at camp.  When you were a mysterious cloaked, oddly powerful, nine-year old being, what else could you expect?