The Gathering

Chapter Nineteen

We walked around all day, guided by Riley and Kat. After we left Felicity's room, Bex had said she wasn't feeling good and left, even though she probably was just upset. We met all sorts of people, with all sorts of names. Diamond. Chartreuse. Shine. Ray. Glimmer. Etc... Wow. When it was dinner time, we all crowded into the mess hall and we were all served dinner by these winds that the Iris kids conjured up. I looked for Bex, but she was still nowhere to be found. Poor girl.

We all were served Hawaiian punch in blue solo cups and a variety of foods: green beans, corn, carrots, eggplant, and blueberries. All the colors of the rainbow, no surprise there.

After dinner was over Felicity brought us aside, suddenly serious. "Could you come with me please?" She asked.

Confused, we all followed. Strangely enough we even went as far to exit the arch. Was there a zombie problem? Were Chris and Adrian back? Or had Jayden decided to come directly for us?

As we stood out in the bitter cold, Felicity stood, inspecting the each of us in deep detail, her purple eyes piercing into our souls.

"Come with me Vande. Don't worry, he'll be down soon and I can explain.

James looked about to protest, but I held up a hand, stopping him. "It's no problem. Wait here for me" they stood uncomfortably, but complied all the same.

Felicity led me to the service stairs, and the pair of us walked up the metal steps, a resounding bang with every footfall. Soon we found ourselves at the very top, and I took a moment to take in the beauty, yet resounding doom that the scenery gave off. There was both, and they went hand in hand in this instance.

The next thing I knew though, there was the point of an arrow in the small of my back. "Woah woah. Whats wrong" I said, suddenly alert and very, very frightened.

"I got some useful information from a friend about some not so friendly people that were going to come here. I can only assume he meant you. You may have acted kind and virtuous around us, but I cant let you endanger the lives of my people" Felicity spat out angrily.

"Wait, Jayden told you this? And you trust him? He killed my best friend and pretended like it was nothing" I spat back angrily. Jayden was the only person with a personal vendetta against us, so it must have been him.

"You dont know him like I do. I trust him with my life" She said, wavering slightly in her defense.

"You said it yourself. I acted virtuously tonight, and i did so honestly. I do not intend for any harm to come to Riley and Kat"

"Did he really kill your friend?" Felicity asked, now lowering her bow so that the point was now in the ground between us.

"We only asked that he help us in our endeavor and he killed Danny because he though he was saving us from disappointment in the future when we would ultimately fail" I explained.

At this, Felicity was distraught. "You were right Vande. He's not the kid I once knew. We grew up together but a merman came and took him from our camp, so I took up residence here and never heard from him again. When he contacted me now, I hoped he was still the joyful kid I had once known, but he is no more. Truly, I am sorry Vande"

"Come. Let's go back down and feast again, yet this time with pure hearts" I said in thanks.

"One more thing Vande. Jayden may be a changed man, but he still has his roots inside of him. Remind him of this and you may not find him to be as much of a willing villain"

"Ill keep it in mind" I said honestly, descending back to the ground. Upon returning I was greeted with a myriad of odd looks. "Felicity was just showing me a growing zombie horde from the north. We''ll want to depart quickly" I encouaged. Maybe they did see our roof top encounter, but I wanted to make sure what was said stayed between us.

"Thanks to your leader, I now trust you with a well kept secret among that of Iris' children"

"Please, do tell" Lindsay said, using a slight bit of charmspeak.

"Before Iris left the mortal world, she gifted us with one last Iris message. She told us we would know when the time was right to use it... I think that that time is coming near and you will be the one in need of it" Felicity said.

Wow, this was incredible. We could use it to contact Chris and Adrian when we pick up the Apollo kids. "Thank you so much, this is amazing!" I said.

"Now why don't you all go back inside and finish your meals. I forbid you to leave without a full stomach" Felicity said with a laugh. Chucking, we all filed back into the arch, but as I looked back at her, I saw the full weight of hearing about Jayden weighing on her. I couldnt blame her either, after all he was her childhood friend, killer or not.

After eating through several more courses of food, we gathered our belongings and set off into the night. We didnt want any more attention than needed for the Iris children and the sooner we drew the zombies away, the better.

At about lunchtime we stopped to eat some lunch outside of an abandoned city. After a couple minutes we began to hear screams coming from the city. We all jumped up and put on all of our gear, preparing for the worst.

We sprinted into the city, probably into a trap and subsequently our deaths but none of us were going to let another innocent mortal, assumingly, die with so many others dead.

We ran past tons of buildings, with the screams getting louder, and we could now hear the clank of weapons. Good demigods possibly? But that would mean they were facing a group of bad demigods...

We passed a river as we ran through the city... Wait, a river... In the middle of the city?! Oh well, no time to think about it now.

We finally approached a clearing where the battle was going on. We his behind some fallen debris and tried to figure out who the good guys were, and if it was worth it to show ourselves.

There was about three boys dressed in black cloaks facing off against four others. These men in black clothes frightened me as much as the man from the woods. Could there be more?

The others clothes varied. One was inside a machine, operating unit like a robot, another was in a baby blue and white tshirt with jeans, one had stars and a picture of the moon on her shirt, also with jeans. The last wore a knee length white dress, but still fought effortlessly against her opponents. All seven of the fighters looked to be in their young twenties.

Who had screamed... Certainly not any of these people. They seemed to be too professional for that.

We continued to watch the fight in silence, unsure if what to do. All of their attacks seemed to bounce off each other's skin, so they certainly weren't demigods, unless they had some sort of special spell. Nothing much happened until the girl in the baby blue and white made and mistake and cost dearly for it... One of the boys in the black cloak stabbed her and she crumpled to the ground. At this, the others realized they were outmatched and ran off.
As the boy stabbed the girl, though, his hood came down and I recognized him as the man from the woods outside of North Carolina where we split with Adrian and Chris.

I looked back down to the dead girl just as I saw her crumble and she turned into a countless number of pearls.

"What's this, brothers?! I smell demigod!" The man said. "Maybe we should bring out a little bait!"
At this, one of the men stepped into a neighboring building an brought out a seemingly ordinary middle aged man, but Riley tensed up at the site of him.

"Dad" he whispered.