'It was a normal day for Justin as he lounged lazily on the thick field of green blanketing the parks ground, the angry hum the bee hive that perched just a few metres above their heads wrapping him in its song. Alexa continued to pluck grass from the crumbling dirt in front of her, bending countless blades in half underneath her stomach as she sprawled out over the flattened terrain. He had never thought he'd seen anything more beautiful - not just the serene day that rarely graced the suburban town they both resided in, but her. He couldn't get the niggling question out of his brain on why on earth she had picked him. Even at the meek age of fourteen, he knew he loved her. He also knew that if she wasn't aware of the real him and had - thankfully - accepted that, he wouldn't have gotten the opportunity to develop such strong feelings for the brown haired beauty that graced him with her presence everyday.
The only unnerving thing that disrupted their daily routine was the grime-soaked Adidas shirt that attempted to blend into the trees, and the equally as dirty owner of the garment glaring at them. Justin had succeeded at his efforts at ignoring the obvious staring, but Alexa was less keen on showing her outrage of being observed.
"Why is he staring at us?" she blurted out loudly, letting her distaste sink in to each word. The track-pant and sneaker clad man lip's tightened as her voice echoed into his hearing range, and he cocked his head to the side in an attempt to intimidate her even further. Alexa looked to Justin for an answer to her question, which was actually more rhetorical than curious. He responded with a simple shrug, - not wanting to embarrass the man even further by ganging up on him - the sharp rising and falling of his shoulders offering a simple 'I don't know' kind of vibe.
"Excuse me, I was wondering if I could speak with you for a moment?" a voice asked loudly from behind them, and Alexa bolted upright. Her hand immediately found Justin's arm as she crawled closer towards him. She didn't like surprises, and Justin was always the safety-blanket she looked to when she was in an uncomfortable situation.
"Relax Alex - what can I help you with?" Justin asked politely, squeezing Alexa's arm gently with his fingers in an attempt to comfort her. She had a bad feeling brewing at the pit of her stomach, and when she looked to the strange man on the park bench the bad feeling only intensified into terrified suspicion when her eyes told her that he was no longer perched there. She'd glanced away for a moment - how could someone move that fast? She recalled no flash of red that would appear in her peripheral vision if he had run into the trees, and he was stood nowhere in the maze of playground equipment that consumed half of the park in itself.
"We need you to talk to Chiron." the black-suit-clad man requested bluntly, the only sign of secrecy in his appeal showing when he glanced at Alexa with a look of distrust swirling in his light grey eyes. He looked almost like one of the business-men Father's of the squealing three year olds that sprinted around the park in games of tag, scraped their knees on the concrete basketball court littered with pant-sagging teenagers, slid down the squeaky bright green slide and receiving carpet-burn-like wounds on their decent.
"No, I think we're okay where we are. But thanks anyway-" Justin attempted to protest with a forced grin, smiling at Alexa in an 'I told you to trust me' sort of manner. Alexa instantly saw through the mask, noticing the restrain he maintained as his eyes avoided hers. How did he know? No, no - he didn't know anything. Myths were make believe. Centaurs weren't real... or were they? After all, he was real. He couldn't really refuse the logical knowledge if he was living proof of another world, now could he? She ignored him, and glared up at the man - her heart beginning to beat faster and faster. It quickly became apparent, however, that the man didn't appreciate his deception as he yanked Justin painfully up by the wrist and stared him dead in the eye. Alexa snarled from Justin's side, but remained on the ground - intimidated by the tall man towering over her. "What the hell?"
"I apologise, I didn't make myself clear. You are going to talk to Chiron, Justin. So drop your little act and follow me out of here because the Fates are watching you - and don't pretend like you don't know who they are. They've been tracking you for weeks now. Just be thankful we got that guy in the red shirt out of here before he got to you, because he would have ripped your pretty little girlfriends head right off her shoulders before you two even knew what was happening. And you would have been next." the man spat his words harshly, and nodded for Alexa to stand.
"What's a Fate?" she whispered in Justin's ear as she jolted to her feet, - pronouncing the name atrociously - her previous suspicion of the observing man now developing into a life-and-death experience in her mind. She grasped Justin's arm tightly and attempted to regain his attention, but he was distracted by how the man was limping away from them.
"There's no time, I'll explain later." Justin said, surveying the area around them as he began to trail behind the man who had just practically threatened his girlfriends death. The hunger for answers that always filled him when people confronted him with other species consumed his entire body, and he shoved the 'stranger-danger' crap that had been drilled into him as a child right out of his mind.
"Whoa, whoa! You're not actually going to follow him are you?" Alexa asked, yanking him back a few paces and forcing his eye to hers. She trusted him, but she didn't trust the whirl wind decisions he made when he became interested in something suspicious. One time they'd ended up in a drug-warehouse with fifty guns pointed to their skulls, countless other times they'd been locked up in a cell for trespassing until their care-givers picked them up. He possibly the worst influence she could ever meet in her life - and that was mainly because she blindly listened to every word he said. But she loved the craziness he delivered into her otherwise squeaky clean and boring life. Even if that meant getting arrested in the process.
"Come on you two, we cant stay in the same place forever. I caught a whiff of you a five miles south of here, and believe me; Fates will run a hundred to catch a demi-god." the man called to them impatiently, and Justin resisted the urge to shush him. He didn't like the words 'demi-god' being shouted around in public. It would raise too much suspicion - and then the freaks and nerds of the town would investigate him in their own creepy manner. He may not have liked the casual shouting of his being but he did like the mystery this man provided, and he tugged Alexa behind him as a smile lit up his face. She groaned loudly in protest, but didn't stop her feet from trailing behind him.
"Where are we going?" Alexa demanded.
"A camp." the man said. Unwillingly, Alexa followed the man.
"Who are you?" Justin asked as though reading Alexa's emotion. He sometimes did that very well. Alexa could sometimes do that too.
"I am Dionysus, please call me Mr. D." Dionysus proclaimed. "I sense you two have an empathy link."
"What is an empathy link?" Justin and Alexa asked in