Chapter Text
"Sugawara what are you doing!"
"Don't try to stall them!”
The young teen turns to his friends with a scowl, "I can stop them for a few moments, you guys can take that time to run."
"No way we're leaving you," Daichi answers, limping forward and grabbing Sugawara's arm and tugging him back. He can see Suga pale as the wound on his shoulder is disturbed, but doesn't try to loosen his grip.
"I can keep them off you guys long enough to get to the camp! Just go!" Sugawara replies in a strained voice, managing to jerk his arm out of Daichi's grip in a quick movement.
Oikawa stumbles to his feet, looking even worse than Sugawara as he tries to join the other demigod, "I can help him, there's no way he can do it on his own."
"You can't do much anymore either," Iwaizumi growls, keeping a firm grip on Oikawa's shoulder to keep him from going more than a few steps, easily succeeding since the other was so weak.
"Well either way, the camp is just on the other side of the hill. If we all make a run for it right now then no one will have to stay behind.” Kiyoko snaps.
Echoing her words are howls that turns their blood to ice. Kuroo pushes away from Asahi, who'd been helping him stand back out of the way, and leans against one of the large oak trees that were widespread in front of the camp. After a few moments, a hellhound bounds from the shadow cast by the tree. Its eyes seem to glow murderous icy hue as it stalks in front of their group, growling at the unseen monsters.
"He can hold them off, we can run," Kuroo pants, looking completely exhausted and fighting just to stay standing, "He can't stay more than a few minutes."
Sugawara looks indecisive, but Daichi chooses for him, grabbing his arm and dragging him towards the hill. Iwaizumi doesn't have to try to convince Oikawa, the other easily following behind. Kiyoko leads the way up the hill, glancing back on occasion to ensure that they were all still following.
Once the camp comes within view, all their energy seems to just abandon them, leaving them fighting to keep conscious as they pass through the border of pine trees that signal the entrance to the camp.
The howls that had been tailing them are completely cut off, and they all collapse on the ground in relief. Faintly, they register the sound of horns are being blown, and those still conscious see the nymphs emerging from the trees and running over to them.
"Out of the way, prepare beds at the house!"
Kiyoko breathes out a sigh and squints up at the figure standing above her, immediately recognizing who it was with the smell of smoke, "Hey Ukai, did we all get here safe?" She manages to ask in a shaky voice.
"Yeah Kiyoko, you all made it here safe."
Kiyoko nods and allows her head to fall back on the ground. Now that they were definitely inside the camps borders, she could rest.
Daichi finds himself looking at a wooden ceiling when he wakes up. He sits up quickly, regretting that decision immediately as he gets lightheaded. After letting the room settle from its erratic spinning, he realizes that he's not in any danger or else he'd probably feel a whole lot worse.
Finally thinking to examine the room, he glances around. He realizes that there's another bed, occupied by Sugawara who still seems to be asleep, which Daichi inwardly smiles at because usually it's Suga who wakes up early. Although, considering everything he’d done, he would be one of the most worn out of their group.
"Ah, you're awake."
Daichi jumps at the voice, turning to see a familiar man standing in the doorway. The guy tilts his head in greeting and gives him an almost smile, "I’m Ukai, the director of the camp, and you’re Daichi right?"
Unknowing how to really respond, he just nods.
"Well, I must say we are all surprised you seven made it here," Ukai continues, walking into the room and moving to stand at the end of the bed, "Your other friends have explained their parts of the situation."
"Are they all alright?" Daichi asks anxiously, sitting up straighter and leaning forward, "Is Kuroo ok? And Asahi?-"
Ukai holds up a hand to keep Daichi from saying anything else, "Yes they are, Kuroo has yet to regain consciousness, but as a child of Hades, he used far too much energy and has to get it back somehow."
Daichi relaxes a bit but still doesn't feel completely at ease, he knows all of them overextended themselves, but it was clear that Kuroo had done the most. He had been able to keep the hellhounds off them the most by summoning his own after all.
"Would you mind telling your part?" Ukai asks, leaning back against the wall and crossing his arms over his chest. "How you got here," he elaborates when Daichi looks at him in confusion.
"Oh, yeah of course," Daichi answers, taking a deep breath before beginning to recount what had happened to them the past week.
"Think we're going to have that test tomorrow or will she put it off for another day?" Sugawara muses, keeping his gaze on the sidewalk as they walk to Daichi’s, "I don't think we know enough."
"Well she's already put it off for a week," Daichi answers, "Maybe she'll not have us take it at all."
Asahi shakes his head, "Remember she said she needs the test grade for our grades to be finalized. If she cancelled it then she would just end up testing us over something else."
Sugawara groans in annoyance, "No fair, why can't we put it off for another week?"
"Because grades are due at the end of the week," Daichi replies logically. Sugawara glares at him and smacks his arm. However after that action he stops walking and turns around, looking behind them with a confused expression.
"What is it Suga?" Daichi asks, joking at first, but dropping his smile as he sees the concerned look on Suga's face.
"I thought I heard something," Suga says slowly, sounding unsure, "Maybe it was nothing."
"Was it an animal or something?" Asahi asks, nervously looking around. The three of them were now standing right outside of the entrance of a rather shady looking alley. He pales when Sugawara hesitantly takes a few steps inside the alley, peering into the shadows.
Daichi follows him, but only to grab at his arm and try pull him back, "Hey hey, it was probably just a stray animal or something."
Sugawara jumps at his touch, scowling after he shakes off Daichi's grip, "Ow, you shocked me Daichi, and what if it's hurt? Let me look a bit more then we can leave."
Daichi takes a step back, glancing at his hand in confusion and frowning, "Ok, but we need to get home to study, don't take too long." He walks out and rejoins Asahi on the sidewalk, glancing at his hand every few seconds as if trying to get it to tell him why it decided to use static electricity to his advantage.
After a few minutes Sugawara yelps in surprise, making Asahi and Daichi jump out of their bored dazes and rush back into the alley to see what had happened. Sitting on Suga's chest is a very angry looking little dog, something between a chihuahua and a Yorkie. Suga's sits paralyzed as it snarls and bares its teeth at his neck.
"Oh! You've found my dog!" A woman squeals from behind them at the entrance of the alley.
Daichi and Asahi spin around quickly, startled by the sudden new voice. The woman just pushes between the two of them and hurriedly scoops the dog off of Sugawara's chest. She clutches the dog to her own thin chest, scrawny arms pinning it there. Sugawara sits up, staring wide eyed at the lady.
"Thank you so much honey's! I am so glad I found you!" Her smile seems to become sinister, and Daichi can't help but take a step back at the dark look in her slitted eyes.
"Y-you're welcome ma'am," Sugawara stammers from behind the woman, now standing and brushing at the dirt on his pants and shirt. The woman turns with a sort of sneer, tilting her head at Suga.
"Ooh, lucky! He likes you! But don’t worry, he likes your friends plenty too. Go on honey, three demigods on the house."
Their minds go blank as the chihuahua pushes off the woman's chest with a yip and bounds towards them, growing larger with each step until it's twice as tall as they are.
"Guys! Run!" Sugawara manages to find his voice, sprinting forward as he sees the dog snap at Asahi's head. He ducks and twists around to grab Daichi's arm before beginning to run. Sugawara stops running as the dog disappears around the corner, turning back around. The woman cackles, clapping her hands together in glee.
"Oh he loves it when they run! Come now child, go join your friends," She licks her cracked lips eagerly. Sugawara isn't sure what he should do, he glances between the woman and where the dog had gone chasing after his friends. The entire situation is unbelievable, like a dream almost.
"Call off your dog," He decides on saying, inching backwards toward the entrance to the alley. Although the lady was significantly smaller than he was, he didn’t think that he could take her. There was something about her that didn’t seem human. And besides that fact, he couldn't hear the barks anymore and it was almost more concerning than hearing them. The lady just tilts her head and smiles. "Call off your dog right now!" He shouts, growing more angry as she just stares at him with that creepy smile.
She takes a startled step back, eyes going wide at his tone, "W-what?"
"Get your dog!" He yells again, seeing her pale, mouth opening and closing wordlessly before he hears her stammer out a few words in a different language. A sudden rumbling sound reaches him and he instinctively ducks as something sails over his head. The dog had come running from the street, shrinking in midair to land on her shoulder and growl menacingly at him.
"Curses! This won’t save you demigods! I'm not the only one hear!" She screeches menacingly before whirling around and fading back into the shadows of the wall. Once she was gone for good, Sugawara’s legs weaken and he falls to the ground, his heart pounding with the adrenaline still rushing through his veins.
"What was that?" He murmurs to himself, feeling tired for some inexplicable reason. The sound of pounding footsteps reaches him and he manages to get standing again as Daichi and Asahi run into the alley, looking panicked. After ascertaining that they were all ok, they stand there in bewilderment. Although each of them are clearly trying to come up with some sort of explanation for what they’d just seen, none of them say anything.
"Never speak of this again?" Daichi finally says after a long while.
Both Sugawara and Asahi nod in agreement.
Daichi stares unseeingly out the window, tapping his pencil against the desk in a poor attempt to burn the nervous energy that was coursing through him. His mind was still racing over yesterday. They'd agreed not to talk about it, but he couldn't get over how weird that had been.
He looks over to Suga, who seems pale, like he hadn't gotten enough sleep, and is also not paying attention to the lesson. He seems to be doodling something in the margins of his notebook, but Daichi isn't close enough to see what it is. He glances back at Asahi, who's actually taking notes. At least he knows they can both get a copy of them.
Outside a storm is brewing, dark clouds and the occasional lightning flashes. Just as the teacher is about to end the lesson, a crash of thunder rocks the school, and the lights flicker out. A few screams ring out, but the teacher quickly calls for everyone to be quiet. Rain begins pattering against the building in the silence that follows.
"The lights will be back on in a moment, just be patient," She says calmly, walking over to the door to grab the emergency flashlight. She shines it around the room to make sure everyone is okay before walking over to the windows, peering through the rain spotted panes.
Daichi sends a glance over at Sugawara, who is staring outside with concern etched on his face. When he meets gazes with Daichi, he shakes his head and mouths, 'too many weird things happening'. Daichi nods in agreement.
"I'm going to see if any of the other teachers know why the power isn't back on, please remain quiet till I'm back," The teacher says after ten minutes has passed of them all just sitting in the dark staring out the windows at the ever approaching storm. The moment the door closes behind her, everyone is up and moving around, most of them going to stand by the windows and watch the storm. The rain increases, tapping violently on the windows as it’s chased by gusts of wind. Daichi goes to stand by Asahi and Suga, who're nearer to the door than the rest of the students in the room.
"This is weird," Suga says first, "There wasn't any calls for storms today, and especially not bad ones like this." As if solidifying his words a crash of thunder makes the entire building shake once again. There are shrieks as people duck down and hurriedly move to the edges of the room, away from the windows.
The teacher runs in, still looking calm despite the chaos, "The generators are down and the storm is going to get much worse, we've been told to move to our take shelter positions." Students begin filing out of the room, joining those already in the hall, but as almost everyone is out, a third shock of thunder makes the windows shatter.
Glass scatters over the room, sending those still in the room running and ducking for cover. The three of them are still standing by the back of the room, leaving them almost completely unprotected. Sugawara hisses as his arm is scratched, moving to cover the shallow cut quickly. Once the initial din dies down, Asahi hesitantly moves towards the window, followed by Daichi, to make sure that there wasn't anyone directly beside it when it happened.
"Hey you two! Get away from there it's, dangerous!" The teacher yells, but chokes on her words in surprise and steps back. They look up to see what had caused her shock, and are startled themselves to see a teen is standing on the very edge of the window, clothed in grey and sparking with what would appear to be condensed energy. His eyes are glowing the color of the lightning in the air, and he himself is almost completely transparent.
Daichi can only stare in shock as Asahi gets knocked back into the desks by the figure. Lighting flickers around him as he groans and tries to sit up, a hand going to his head. Daichi doesn't have much time to worry about Asahi though as the teen launches himself towards him, and he's only able to bring his arms up defensively as he's blasted back to the wall by a huge gust of wind.
"Daichi!" Sugawara yells, seeing Daichi grimace and fight to stay standing, using the wall as support. Suga turns to the teen made of storms in apprehension, mind racing. This was exactly like yesterday when they'd been attacked by that strange woman.
"Stop it!" Suga hopes that he can make this guy listen to him too. But by the way he's looking at him it doesn't seem to be likely.
"Daichi, Sugawara, Asahi! Get out here right now!" The teacher yells from the door, drawing their attentions away from the strange teen for enough time for him to make a move. Sugawara gasps as he thrown out into the hallway, crashing into the wall with enough force to knock the air out of him for a few moments. Daichi stumbles to his feet, joining Asahi by the door, but the teen made of storms is quickly moving to block their path.
"Don't just stand there!"
Daichi jumps as he recognizes the voice, glancing over to see Kiyoko standing in the doorway with frustration staining her normally calm features. She’s standing with Sugawara behind her, who is grimacing but looks no worse off than they are.
"Come on we need to get out of here!" She reiterates, jerking her head to the side in a way to say 'follow me'. She doesn't even wait to see if they actually do follow, instead just leading Sugawara down the hallway. Asahi and Daichi look at each other in shock, before looking at the teen in front of them.
"Think we can just run through him?" Asahi asks, noticing how transparent the guy seems.
"We need to follow Kiyoko, and I don't have a better idea," Daichi replies. "On three?"
They catch up to Kiyoko as she and Sugawara are running through the courtyard. The rain is still pouring down, but they manage to not pay attention to it as they sprint down the rain slicked streets.
"Kiyoko, where are we going?" Daichi asks as they follow the girl through a series of streets.
"To a safe place," Kiyoko responds, back to her more quiet self. Daichi frowns, not really liking the vague answer, but deciding that drilling her for more information could wait until they get to whatever safe place she was leading them too. Kiyoko stops in front of the little storefront that the three friends usually pass everyday on their way to school, and back from practice. Although the little sign said 'closed' on the door, Kiyoko just barges in. In all consideration, the door was unlocked.
The clerk organizing shelves straightens up in surprise, "Hey can't you read? It's closed!-" He shouts before realizing who it is. "Huh? Kiyoko? Why are you...oh." He looks at the three of them with something similar to distaste before sighing. His form seems to flicker as he just walks away from them, disappearing into a back room.
Daichi glances at Kiyoko out of the corner of his eye, seeing that she seemed completely unfazed. The clerk returns with towels in hand, tossing them at them. Once again a flicker seems to pass over him.
"You're dripping all over the place, I'm going to have to clean the floor later now," He grumbles, toying with an unlit cigarette. "Why'd you bring them here?"
"Thuellai were after them," Kiyoko explains as she squeezes water from her hair, flipping it back over her shoulder, "Yesterday I saw Echidna and her Chimera scurrying away in a hurry. I figured it's around time to take them to camp if they're starting to garner attention."
The clerk mutters under his breath and lights the cigarette, "Yeah yeah I get that," He flicks the ash off and looks at the three of them in annoyance, "I hope you're not going to make me escort them, this hologram won’t go much further than a foot outside the store.”
"Of course not Ukai," Kiyoko assures, "I'll escort them, I just have a feeling we’ll need some supplies.”
Daichi decides that he's had enough of being out of the loop, "What the hell are you talking about, escorting us? Thuellai? Echidna?"
Kiyoko glares at him, "It will take a long time to explain and I would rather us be on the road when I start."
"Can you at least tell us where we're going?" Asahi asks quietly.
"It's a camp," Ukai says before Kiyoko can say anything, "But you need to be on your way before the Thuellai catch up again." He moves off into the back room again, coming back with a bag and handing it to Kiyoko.
"That's enough to get you to camp, I’ll be expecting you guys." Ukai says, looking past them to the window. They all glance back and see that the storm is once again worsening. "You should probably hurry."
"Thank you Ukai," Kiyoko says, smiling as she grabs Asahi and Sugawara's arms, "We'll be on our way now."
Kiyoko doesn't answer any of their questions until they're well out of the city and on a train heading even further out, towards a different city.
"Will you tell us what's going on?" Sugawara asks, somehow managing to stay calm despite the situation.
Kiyoko discretely glances around, then shrugs. The only other people on the train weren’t paying attention anyway. "I think we're a fair enough distance away." Her expression grows more serious, and the air around them seems to grow even more tense.
"First of all, the three of you are demigods. Secondly, one of you must be a major demigod because those monsters going after you sure aren’t wasting time, and thirdly, we’re going to a place called Camp Half-Blood."
There's a pause as they contemplate what she just said, and she allows them to think on it before Sugawara says something. Honestly to them it seemed like she was explaining some twisted joke.
"Demigods, like from Greek myths?" He asks, tilting his head slightly as he continues to think.
"Glad someone paid attention during history, yes as in Greek myths," Kiyoko responds, her uncharacteristically sarcastic edge coming back as she relaxes back into the less than comfortable plastic seats.
"What do you mean we're demigods, and what's a 'major demigod?” Asahi asks nervously, remembering some of the lessons they went over for the Greek section. They really only briefly touched on the subject before moving onto Roman times, then into medieval so it was hard to remember much.
Kiyoko sighs, looking like she was mentally preparing herself for the explanations she would have to give, "Demigods are children of both the Gods and a human, half and half. Each one of you has a godly parent, as well as a human parent. And a major demigod is a child of either Zeus, Hades, or Poseidon. They’re usually called a child of the big three but that’s a mouthful."
Daichi frowns, "So one of our parents isn't human?"
"Yes, for example, it's my mom that is my godly parent, she left me with my dad after I'd been born," Kiyoko says, "For you it would be your dad since your mom raised you. Same logic with the both of you," She glances at Asahi and Sugawara.
After a few beats of silence in which they were all just thinking again, Sugawara is once again the one to break the silence.
"So where and what is Camp Half-Blood, and what is coming after us?"
Kiyoko closes her eyes for a second, looking more tired by the second, "Camp Half Blood is a protected place where demigods can stay safe from the monsters that are after you. All demigods attract monsters, and especially so when they're inexperienced and don't even know about their own identity. The ones after you are particularly nasty, which is why I think one of you is a big three." She gives them a scrutinizing look, "But the three of you do seem to be pretty powerful regardless."
After saying that, she looks out the window briefly, keeping a watch on the storm before turning back to them, "We have a few hours, you guys should get some sleep."