Ladan: Noooooooooooooo

Eric: What?

Ladan: My chapters are probably going to be getting shorter now so I can keep up with my upload dates.

Eric: How short are we saying?

Ladan: I don't know, but I'll try to keep them over 1000 words at the least.

Eric: At least not as short as Delilah.

Ladan: OMFGs hahaha, she is really short. Which is weird because her parents are pretty tall... I think. Haven't seen her parents in a while.

Eric: Anyways, on with the story!
~~~~~~~~~~
Mari's POV

I woke up to the sound of movement in my cabin. I turned over in my bed as the weight was shifted on it. I slightly opened my eyes to see Adrien lying down next to me.

"Morning Purrincess" He purred as I snuggled into him.

"Why are you in my cabin kitty?" I asked.

"You slept past breakfast, so Alya, Nino, and I came looking for you" He purred in my ear, pulling me closer to him. He was nice and warm this morning.

A minute later, Alya and Nino burst through the door. "Alright dude, that enough snuggling time for you?" Nino asked as we groaned and sat up.

"Come on, Eric's threatening us to get our buts to the training field" Alya practically yelled at us.

"Okay, okay. Get out so I can get dressed" I said as I got out of my bed and walked to the dresser. I heard the door close behind me. I put on my normal clothes with tennis shoes and grabbed my hairbrush. There were no mirrors in my room so it was a bit tricky to brush my hair. I turned around to see Adrien still on my bed, softly looking at me. "What 'cha doin'?"

"You seem to be having trouble, maybe I can help." He said and I handed him the brush. I sat on his lap as he brushed my hair. "All done M'lady" He said as he kissed the side of my neck. I giggled as I put my hair up in a messy bun.

"I'm ready." I said as we walked out. Alya and Nino were outside the door and we walked to the battle field where Eric was waiting.

"Finally you got here. Let's get this over with" Eric said with a hint of annoyance in his voice. Ladan wasn't with him today for some odd reason.

"Where's Ladan?" Alya asked what we were all thinking.

"Busy today, but she made me a list of things to train you in" He said and took out a piece of paper. "First thing says to tell Llea to start training the kwamis, whatever that means" He rolled his eyes. "Then more fighting and battle training, and apparently she wants me to help you get faster at transforming."

"I think I know what ladan means about the kwamis and I accept this challenge." Llea said then called to the kwamis. "Kwamis, follow me!" All the kwamis headed to a nearby tree and stayed out of sight.

"I still haven't gotten breakfast" I stated as my stomach grumbled.

"I almost forgot, I grabbed this from breakfast" Alya said and handed me a banana from her bag.

"Thanks" I said and quickly consumed the fruit.

"Okay, lets get started" Nino cheered.

3rd Person POV

"Okay kwamis, I want you to give me 50" Llea shouted to them.

"50 what?" Plagg asked. "And what are you doing anyways?"

"50 push ups. I'm training you to get strong so you can achieve human form faster." The lion kwami said.

"No way! No living thing could go through such excruciating pain" Plagg whined.

"Done!" Trixx shouts, getting up from finishing her 50 push ups.

"How?" Plagg groaned, thinking that phisical excersise is a nuisance.

"Push through it, then you all got to do 100 sit ups" Llea barked the orders as all the other kwamis did as told.

"Can we have a break?" Plagg asked, panting and tired.

"Trixx, Tikki, and Wayzz, you can go take a 5 minute break. Lazy bones here on the other hand, must repeat our warm up again." Llea smirked.

"THAT WAS ONLY THE WARM UP?!" Plagg shouted.

"Yes, was it to easy? I can make it double if you want" Llea asked, getting all up in Plagg's face.

"No Ma'am" Plagg saluted and Llea floated away.

"Good. Now you have to finish the warm up by the time their break is over" Llea said with a smug look on her face.

"Why are we doing this again?" Plagg asked.

"Because Ladan isn't here and put me in charge of training your sorry butt." Llea smirked.

Mari's POV

We had practiced training with our weapons against training dummies so we could attack harder. I accidentally managed to wrap the yo-yo string around one of them and cut it in half. I guess the sting is sharper out of transformation.

It was lunch time and we were planning to work on our transformation after we get some food in our system.

I had sat down next to Alya and this adorable little kid named Harley. Across from us was the boys, Llea, and a few other people. 

"Your blue hair is cool, is it natural?" Harley asked me.

"Yes it is. And thank you." I replied as he started to talk to the person on the other side of him.

"So how's the next part of training going to go?" Alya said. "We can't exactly do it out in the open can we."

"Of course not, we'll be in the basement" Llea said, teeth biting into an entire salmon, RAW! bones and all!

"How can you even eat that?" I asked.

"What can I say? I have a unique appetite" she said as she brushed her arm a bit over her hair, revealing her ears.

"Llea! Put those away!" Eric whisper-yelled to her. "Fates knows who's looking our way"

"Fine," Llea sighed as she brushed her arm over her hair the opposite way, making the ears disappear.

"I didn't know kwamis could do that" Adrien said in awe.

"You didn't know kwamis could become humans until a few days ago so its no suprise" Llea sassed.

"Eric, your kwami is really sassy" Nino said which i agreed to.

"I know, isn't it great?" Eric said and I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

Everyone in the dining area got quiet all of a sudden and I saw Mr. D was standing up and made an announcement. "Will Marionette Duty-Chene, Ally Ceasar, Nina Lefou, and Adriana Agario please go talk to Rachel in private." He called in a loud, booming voice.

"That'll be you. And if i know Rachel, she might spit out a prophecy. Better bring a pencil and paper or a phone just in case to take note." Eric said.

We followed a red-head girl who was right next to the big table all the way near the creek before she started talking. When she opened her mouth, a green mist came out and she had a deep voice.

"One old and six new demigods must go far east,
To find the one that was lost with the Chinese
And defeat the one who someone calls their family,
Or else the gods will have a new enemy"

Her mouth shut and the mist disappeared. "Welp, have a good day and good luck figuring out what that means" She said goodbye and ran off.

"Did anyone get that in writing?" i asked since i hadn't.

"I sure did!" Alya squealed, showing us it written on her phone.

"What do you think it means?" Nino asked.

"Well, the last line is obvious, we have to prevent the enemy from becoming too powerful" Adrien said.

"Agreed" I said. "Let's go tell Eric"

When we got back to the dining area, lunch was about over. I went back to eating my food since I was hungry after not eating breakfast.

"Did she spit out another prophecy?" Eric asked. I looked up to reply but my mouth was full of food and I just made weird noises instead. Adrien was able to translate for me.

"Yes she did, we don't have a clue what it means though"

"That's expected. They're meant to be weird and twisted." Eric said. "Ladan will help decipher at least part of it when she gets back"

"When will she get back anyways?" Alya asked.

"She'll be back around 4." Llea said. "proably"

"Why? What do you mean about probably?" I asked.

"Without the sanctuary of CHB, she could get attacked by monsters. Big deal, she can handle herself" Eric said. "Now, is everyone done? I still have to finish training you"

We all cleaned up and went to the basement in the Athena cabin. The kwamis flew off to on top of the fridge to keep training as we stood in the middle of the large area.

"I think Ladan wants to get you to transform faster. When you shout out your transformation words, visualize the costume just replacing your clothes as quickly as you can detransform." Eric said as we tried. He brought out his phone to time us.

We did this for what seemed like hours. I had managed to shave 3 seconds of my transformation time and Alya and Adrien shaved off 2 and Nino shaved off 1. We would have gone longer but we saw something strange.

The water from the kitchen-like area floated over to the bed and rose up to ground level. A minute later, it came back down in the form of a spiral staircase and Ladan walking down it. She didn't give us a second glance as she moved to the fridge and grabbed yogurt and sat on the couch. She was on the phone.

"No Amber, you can't warm up grapes in the microwave. They'll explode." Ladan said, pausing to hear whoever was on the other end's next words. "How do I know this? I just do. You should know by now that I don't know how I know these things...Ok bye, talk to you later" Ladan hung up. "Sorry guys, that was Amber, a ditzy co-worker of mine."

"You have a job?" Nino asked.

"Yes, I work in retail. How do you think I pay for all this stuff? Camp funds can only go so far" She said. "Anything happen today that I should care about?"

"They shaved a few seconds off their transformation time" Eric said. "And they got a prophecy"

"What! Lucky. can I hear it." Ladan said and Alya showed her the prophecy on her phone. "Gods, I wish I'd been there. I just love it when Rachel spits out the green mist."

"So what do you think the prophecy means?" I asked.

"Hmm....I think I got some of it. Looks like you'll need to go to China." Ladan said.

"But what does the first line mean?" Nino asked.

"6 new....new....new. Well, there haven't been any newly joined campers in months other than you so that can't be it. Kwamis, you're supposed to be wise. Have any ideas?" Ladan said as the six kwamis flew down to us.....Wait, SIX! It suddenly clicked in my brain.

"I think I know" I shouted, grabbing everyone's attention. "There are six of us, and weren't you saying yesterday how miraculous holders are a fairly new concept?"

"I see what you're thinking girl, and I totally agree. But who'd the old going to be?" Alya asked.

"How hard do you think it's going to be to hide our identities from them? I mean, won't Hawkmoth send out more akumas since we will all be near each other." Eric said.

"Yes, so just in case, it has to be someone we can trust." Ladan agreed.

"Or someone who already knows" Nino stated noncholant.

"Of course" Ladan squealed. One by one, it clicked in all our minds.

"Kaden has to join us." We all said in sync.

"Okay, lets leave tomorrow." Eric said.

"Good, I'll have time to tell Kaden" Ladan said.

"Do you think he will agree to it?" Adrien asked.

"He's my twin. If he doesn't agree, I'll make him agree" Ladan rubbed her hands together and mehniacally laughed. After a minute of this, she started to creep me out. I was inching away ever so slightly when Alya asked what we were all wondering.

"What are you planning to do if he doesn't want to go?" She asked. Ladan just blankly stared at her with an expressionless face.

"I'll expose his biggest secret." Ladan replied then muttered, "Even though I only have half of it..."

Is it wrong that I wanted to know what the secret was? 

"Now, I believe it's time to clean up our cabins for cabin inspections." Ladan said, checking her phone.

"Cabin inspections?" I asked.

"Every Friday, two head counselors are chosen to inspect the cabins. The messiest cabin has to clean the dishes after dinner." Eric said.

"Then we better go prepare our cabins." Adrien said as we all shuffled onto the bed and Tikki hit the button. Once we were on ground level, we left to clean our own cabins.

Ladan's POV

When they left, I remade the beds, reorganized my books, and fixed my desk up. I also cleaned up the crumbs of food on the ground. Once I knew I was done with my room, Aquaa turned human and we went out into the main room to hear Malcolm barking orders.

"-Bella, your room is a mess! Clean it up...hey Ladan. Aquaa, go help Bella. Her room is horrendous." Malcolm shouted.

"Yes sir!" Aquaa saluted and followed Bella.

"Ladan, help Kaden with his room."

"Sure" I replied and went into Kaden's room. It wasn't too messy. Only the bed and clothes everywhere as well as other minor things, nothing we couldn't manage.

Together, we remade the bed, put the clothes nicely in the drawers, and tidied up his desk. We had about 15 minutes before it was time for inspections and dinner so now was probably the best time to ask him.

"Kaden, how would you feel about going on a quest with me, Marinette, Adrien, Alya, Nino, and Eric?" I asked.

"Wow, I've never been on a quest before" He said out loud. "I mean, I'll do it. I so want some experience on a real quest."

"Cool. We leave tomorrow morning after breakfast. I'll tell the others to pack what they might need so I can put it into the bag and I think you should too." I said and he nodded.

"I can't believe on my very first quest tomorrow!" He paused. "...What is the quest anyways?"

I told him and his reaction was priceless.

"So we're going to China. I've always wanted to see it...where in China though? It's a pretty big country" He said.

"I forgot about that part...eh, we can figure it out on the boat." I answered, shrugging.

"Boat? What boat?" Kaden said. We don't really have a lot of boats at camp so I can see why he's asking.

"Don't know yet. I'll see what we have at our disposal in the morning"

Malcolm then came in to tell us that cabin inspections were starting and it was time for dinner.

3rd Person POV

It was now time for the sing-a-long with the Apollo cabin leading everyone.

"Austin, you man the guitar. I'll lead the song." Will said to his brother and Austin grabbed the guitar.

"What song should we sing?" Kayla asked.

"How about 'things couldn't be worse'?" Nico asked and Will just chuckled and nodded. He signaled to Austin who started the beat then Will started to sing to it.

(A/N This song is a parody of the one at the top of the chapter)

WILL(spoken)
Everyone grab a snack, and let the cider flow!
ALYA(spoken)
Why is everyone scraping part of their plate into the fire?
Is the food here really that bad?
NICO(spoken)
Offering to the gods. It's not enough that their omnipotent and all-powerful,
they need to feel appreciated.
WILL(shouts)
To the gods!
EVERYONE (shouts)
To the gods!
NICO (sung)
Oh, things couldn't be worse
WILL(sung)
When your parents run the universe
EVERYONE (sung)
Oh, things couldn't be worse
When your folks run the universe
WILL (sung)
My dad is Apollo
He shoots and he sings
You'll know his sign by his lyre with the strings
I'd wait by the phone, but the phone never rings
Oh no
[EVERYONE makes sounds of agreement]
When your dad's a god, life can be tough,
I met the guy twice, but once was too much
(spoken) Twins?
KADEN and LADAN
Our Grandma's Athena
She's smart and she's wise
She's sworn off gluten and she's sworn off guys
But if she came to camp, it'd be a surprise
Oh no
WILL and NICO(spoken)
Oh no
LADAN(sung)
Oh, and our half-brother, he hates us, and our mom's busy all day
So we left Cali and we went away
NINO(spoken) Wait, is that true?
ERIC (muttered) Eh, somewhat, seeing as I was there as well.
WILL(spoken) Everybody!
EVERYONE (sung)
Oh, things couldn't be worse
When your parents run the universe
Oh, things couldn't be worse
When your folks run the universe
WILL(spoken)
Alright, who's next?
MIRANDA(spoken with hand raised)
Oh! Okay, let me see...
(sung)
My mom's Demeter
Goddess of grain
She gets excited when it starts to rain
MEG(sung)
But planting and planting and planting's a pain
Oh no
Everyone (sung)
Oh no
MEG(spoken) Right?
MIRANDA(sung)
For their sixteenth birthday, my friends got a car
MEG(sung)
But you got a fern in some dumb mason jar
GROVER (spoken)
Ooh, ooh! My turn!
(sung)
I'm a child of Pan
God of the wild
For those who love nature, they're often beguiled
He's not really my dad, but I'm sort of his child...
Oh no...
EVERYONE(sung)
Oh no
He went for a hike to explore new frontiers
And he has died after thousands of years
EVERYONE(sung)
Oh, things couldn't be worse
When your parents run the universe
Oh, things couldn't be worse
When your folks run the universe
MARI(spoken) Chiron! Who's your dad?
CHIRON (spoken)
Oh, well
(sung)
My father is Kronos
Remember my lecture
He ate his children
NICO(spoken)
...Chiron wins
[EVERYONE makes sounds of agreement]
How about you Valentina?
VALENTINA (sung)
The goddess of love
My mom's Aphrodite
She tries to be cool but mainly she's flighty
I'll bring her a boy, and she's there in her nightie
EVERYONE(shouted)
Oh no!
VALENTINA(spoken)
It's so embarrassing, guys!
MITCHELL(sung)
We tried to seek help from even the fates
VALENTINA (sung)
Cause she steals my mascara and all of my dates
WILL(spoken)
Alright Harley, it's your turn
HARLEY(spoken)
If I tried to sing, it'll probably cause an avalanche
KAYLA(spoken)
It's okay, we're all family here. Give it a shot.
HARLEY (sung)
My mom's name is Laura
She loved silly movies
And places with flora
And-
MEG(spoken)
He's doing it wrong
VALENTINA(spoken)
Yeah, who's your godly parent?
HARLEY(muttered)
Oh... I've never met him in reality. I've only been claimed by him.
WILL (spoken)
It's alright a lot of half-bloods never directly meet their godly parent. Just give it a try
HARLEY (sung)
So my dad is Hephaestus,
That's great I guess...
Does he not want me? Or not want the stress?
Too bad he's not here, and our lives are a mess.
Oh no
[EVERYONE cheers]
When he shows, even a trace,
I'll have some choice words to throw in his face!
EVERYONE (sung while swaying)
Oh, things couldn't be worse
When your parents run the universe
Oh, things couldn't be worse
WILL (side hugs Nico while singing)
But I don't care where our parents may be
As long as you are here with me
EVERYONE(sung while swaying)
We don't care where our parents may be
As long as you are here with me
As long as you are here with me!

End of song

The song was over and everyone was happily swaying to the music that was still being played by Austin and some people were hugging or kissing their significant other. Mari, Adrien, Alya, and Nino were talking to one side of the campfire. Ladan, Kaden, and Eric were joking around on the other side. Miranda and Meg were fighting nearby. Mitchell was congratulating Harley for not causing an avalanche which they both laughed at. Valentina was talking to Bella. Grover was talking to Chiron, saying that Meg summoned him to sing and Juniper was begging her to. Will was trying to get Nico to smile by tickling and kissing his boyfriend. Everyone loved the song and seemed to be in good spirits, if the fire was anything to say about it. It was golden and about 50 feet high! That was a new record for anytime after summer ends.

That night, as everyone was falling asleep in their cabins, 7 people were wondering the same questions.

What would the quest's events be? What monsters would we face? What does the prophecy even mean?