GG, Kronos, But I Have Foresight

Chapter 4 - Your Friendly Neighborhood Horseman
Punching Nancy so hard that I broke her nose was very, very cathartic for all of two seconds. Then my hand smarted terribly, and I pulled back to shake it off with a yelp. I heard Percy gasp, and I looked over to see his jaw touching the floor. Well, not really, but it was hanging so far it might as well have been. The water was also now flowing normally, although the rim of the fountain was now slightly wetter than it had been before.

"You..." Percy searched desperately for words. "You just punched Nancy Bobofit in the face. And broke her nose."

I looked back at Nancy, who was so shocked it seemed like her brain had stalled. Hey, been there, done that, got the T-shirt. Blood ran out of her nostrils, and some of it stained my fingers. I casually wiped this off on my school uniform. "Why, yes, yes it appears I have."

Percy gaped. "Okay," he decided, blinking rapidly, "Eve, you are out of your mind."

"Welcome to Yancy, kid," I said with a shrug. I considered that statement and amended it. "Actually, welcome to New York City."

Unfortunately, I didn't get any further chance to trade sarcastic remarks with my new friend, because I could feel Mrs. Dodds's glare on me. Nancy also chose that time to shake out of her shocked stupor, clutch her broken nose, and scream. I winced. My poor ear drums! Yes, she was a girl, but did her scream have to be thathigh-pitched, especially when it was being done barely a foot from my ears?

"Eve punched me!" Nancy bellowed, her voice warped from lack of a proper nose.

Talons crunched cement as Mrs. Dodds swept over to us, about as calm as your average neo-Nazi. "Eve," she said, the word twisting in her throat in a way that made my spine shudder. This wasn't going to end well. "Come with me. Now!"

"Wait!" Percy said, leaning forward and reaching out like he wanted to go in my place, but I shook my head.

"You're on probation with the school, remember, Perce?" I said. "Don't try anything. I'll be fine on my own." No, I won't. Send help!

Percy blinked in confusion. I turned and walked up to the demonic form of our Math teacher, not wanting to wait for her to draw closer. If I was going into the lion's den, it would be on my own time! Or something like that. Trembling, biting my lip, I made my way up to Mrs. Dodds, whose stern, terrifying eyes glowered down on me like I was a glass of curdled milk she'd just tried to drink. Nancy looked at Percy, then at me, and finally ran off quickly, rubbing her broken nose and crying like a baby the whole way.

Then again, I would probably have some tears in my eyes if I'd just felt my nose get broken.

"Come with me," said the Fury, and she grabbed my arm so tightly I swear it almost cracked my bone. It took all I had not to scream out in pain, and I limply struggled to keep up with her as she stomped to the museum and yanked me inside it. She took me to the bust of Kronos eating his children, which was ridiculously disturbing, by the way, and shoved me against it.

"Ow!" I cried. "Watch it!"

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" Mrs. Dodds snarled. "Are you the thief? Or are you an accomplice? Tell me!"

"The thief? Wha--?" It clicked in my mind that she must've thought I was the one who stole Zeus's bolt and Hades's helm. It only made sense that she'd think that after my sudden appearance, and everyone suddenly gaining false memories of me. She'd probably been itching all day to get me into a position where she could interrogate me alone. Luckily for her, there was no one else in the same room as us in this museum, otherwise she'd be looking like a lunatic. "I never stole anything! If you want a thief, look at Nancy -- she literally got in here for being a kleptomaniac."

She pressed me harder into the bust, and I choked as she bared her pointy teeth. "How do you know that!? You weren't in this school at all until this morning!"

Yesterday, actually, I thought, but that would've been plain stupid. "I d-don't know what you're t-talking about," I choked out, because I was starting to get really low on air, and her hand against my throat was getting really painful. I clawed at her arm, tried to get it off of me. "P-Please... let me go...!" The Fury didn't like that answer one bit. Instead of letting me go, she squeezed my throat tighter, actually choking me now.

"WHAT HO, EVE!"

I was just about to ask who the hell said 'what ho' anymore in this day and age, but a metallic gleam caught my eye. Shining bronze spun through the air, and my eyes widened in relief. Anakulsmos, better known as Percy's sword, Riptide! I stopped trying to claw at Mrs. Dodds's -- actually, can I call her Alecto now? Would that be alright? I'm gonna say that would be alright and just go with that. -- Alecto's hand and reached an arm out to catch Riptide.

And gasped as the sword stabbed right into my hand.

"YAAAAAAAAaaaaaarggggggh..." I cried out, my voice slowly dying as I realized that... I didn't actually feel any pain. Yes, I now had half of a bronze sword blade buried in and through my hand, but it wasn't hurting me. Actually, there wasn't even a drop of blood on the part of the blade that had already pierced through my hand! Alecto, Chiron (who was wheeling himself into the Greek mythology exhibit with our favorite satyr yrotting behind him), Grover, and I all stared dumbly at my hand.

...At least my species was now confirmed. I was still one hundred percent mortal, squishy and easily breakable.

I gulped. As they say in 2017, dat's not good. My survival chances in this world had just got immensely lower, especially since I'd just failed to so much as properly catch the first sword thrown at me. The one thing I seemed to have going in my favor was that I appeared to be one of those rare mortals with the ability to see through the Mist. Like Rachel, or Percy's mom. Sadly, I didn't have a lot of money or the knowledge of how to cook blue food, so I was still largely fucked.

I looked from the sword in my hand and up to the surprised (and a little confused) Alecto. Then back at the sword in my hand. A smirk turned my lips up, and I hummed, "Ohhh? What's this? Do you need a hand, ya batty freak?"

The Fury paled. She was at point blank range, and she knew it. "Wait...!"

"TOO BAD, SUCKER!" I cackled, thrusting my hand, palm forward, at her, and the pointy end of the sword, stabbed her through her eye before she had time to try and block it. I grimaced at that; I hadn't been expecting to make things that grotesque. Anyway, the moment the tip of the wickedly sharp blade pierced through her brain, she burst into dust like a really nasty piñata.

The exhibit was silent as Chiron, Grover, and I stared at the grains of Alecto's remains. That had been... a bit anti-climactic. I sweatdropped, but my attention was drawn away by a suddenly appearing Percy, who had just dashed into the exhibit, panting and sweating.

"There you are, Eve!" Percy gasped, wiping sweat from his brow. "Are you alright? I was worried and ended up following you and Mrs. Dodds in, and then I heard shouting... IS THAT A SWORD IN YOUR HAND!?"

I blinked. "Um... yes?"

"WHAT!? WHY!? HOW!? And where's Mrs. Dodds!?"

I ignored him. My head tilted back up to gaze at Chiron and Grover, who looked like they didn't quite know whether to jaw drop or facepalm. "I don't suppose you have a janitor handy?" I asked, yanking Riptide out of my hand.

They facepalmed. Chiron then coughed into his fist. "Erm, in any case, Eve, I would like to speak with you alone after the end of classes today."

Crap. That couldn't be a good sign. "Um, okay," I gulped.

"Can we go back outside now?" Grover asked worriedly. "This place feels... uncomfortable now."

"Alright, then. Come along, Eve, Percy."

Swallowing, I jogged to catch up with the satyr and centaur as they turned and started to head back out. Percy hung behind, flabbergasted. He blinked rapidly, rubbed his head, and stared as I jogged past him and tripped thanks to my center of gravity. Blushing, I pushed myself to my feet using the hand not holding a sword in it, and continued after Chiron and Grover.

"Hey, wait up!" he called after us, hurrying to catch up with me. "What the heck's going on, guys? Why was there a lot of dust in front of Eve? Why did she have a sword stuck in her hand, and why wasn't it hurting her? Where's Mrs. Dodds!?"

Hm... should I say something? I probably shouldn't say anything. Fuck it, I'm saying something.

"You'll understand when you're older," I told him.

He desperately wrung his hands through his hair. "Phwah... Wha...? Huh!? That doesn't make any... GAAAAH!"

Heheheh! Kids were so fun to mess with!

The rest of the school day passed without incident. Percy hounded Grover and me for info on Mrs. Dodds and the sword that had been in my hand, but I played dumb under pointed looks from the two secret Camp Half-Blooders. The new math teacher hired from gods-know-what method did give me detention, which really sucked since that meant I was in trouble on technically my first day of class. Everyone else saw Riptide as a pen save for the still very confused Percy, Grover, and Chiron, and I was able to hand it back to the horseman without any weird looks. After lunch ended, we looked at a couple more exhibits, then headed home to Yancy on the same bus as before.

Chiron had me come with him, alone, to his room once we got back. It was the end of the school day, and therefore I didn't have to return to any classes.

The man wheeled himself into the center of his classroom as I shut his door behind me carefully. My face was pale, and I was a bit sweaty. What did Chiron want? How would I be able to answer him without making him more suspicious?

"Eve Gamble," he said, sounding out my name carefully and tapping his fingers against his armrests. "Who exactly are you?" He looked me directly in my eyes. "Please tell me everything."

My hands trembled. Somehow, this conversation with a nice, coffee-smelling, Latin-teaching centaur was scarier than facing Alecto. Gritting my teeth, I decided to relax myself a little and sit on one of the desks. Not the chair, but the actual schooldesk itself.

My mouth opened, and words spilled out before I could stop them. "I'm a boy from another world where the adventures of Camp Half-Blood and everyone in it over the next four years are chronicled as a fictional book series, and nothing relating to the Greek myths are real," I said. "I don't know why, but yesterday, I was randomly brought from my world to this one. I have no idea who did it or what their intentions for me are," I added, gripping the fabric of my pants, "but I wasn't even originally a girl. I used to be a guy."

Several moments passed. Chiron stared at me. "Well... that's new," he managed at last with a shake of his head. "Still... you punching Mrs. Dodds... she would've tried to attack Percy instead, and you put yourself in his place. That's why you warned Grover about her true nature, right?"

I nodded numbly. Why had I said all that? I hadn't meant to tell him the truth. It had just come out.

Chiron considered that carefully, closing his eyes. He rubbed his beard in deep thought, and I blinked as I realized that was the first time I'd seen someone who actually had a beard -- even if Chiron's was just stubble -- do that. Finally he said, "How would you feel about staying in Camp Half-Blood until at least the end of summer?"

My jaw dropped. I leaned forward so quickly I almost fell off my schooldesk. "What, seriously!?" I demanded, gaping. "Just like that?"

"I'm a good judge of character, and I don't sense any malice or ill intentions from you. Furthermore, if you do happen to have knowledge of future events as you claim to do, then you are going to have many enemies looking to capture you and force you to spill your secrets in the near future. It would be safest to keep you at Camp Half-Blood, out of the way of any greedy monsters, gods, or.." Chiron's brow darkened. "Other things."

I stared for several moments before finally resetting my jaw. I mulled over his offer. It was true -- Camp Half-Blood was definitely the safest place for me to end up right now besides Camp Jupiter, since I currently amounted to an immortal's punching bag. It would also give me the opportunity to escape having to suffer through more school when I'd just graduated high school. Chiron or Grover or somebody could allow me to cross the borders of the camp, like they'd done with Rachel in the books. Furthermore, I could use the extra time at Camp to train in weapons and at least become a little more than an ant in a world of giants.

I licked nervous perspiration from my lips. "I'm in," I said.

Chiron smiled. "I thought you would be," he admitted. "Allow me some time to contact Camp and get someone to bring you there safely. Pack up anything you may have; you'll be leaving very soon. And in the meantime, please remain keeping Percy in the dark about all of this. Monsters will be coming for him soon regardless since he is now twelve, but the less he knows about his identity, the better."

"Of course, Chiron," I said, pushing off the schooldesk.

Chiron smiled again, his stubble twitching up with his mouth and skin. "You are dismissed," he said. "Have a nice evening, Miss Eve."

I sighed in relief. That hadn't been as bad as I'd thought it was going to be. "Thank you, sir," I said gratefully, bowing and making my way back to the door. I opened it and jogged out into the hall, my mind reeling.

Notes