CHAPTER 1: RAPUNZEL

A shriek pierced through the forest at the darkest hour of the night. Our present hero, Flynn Rider, turned quickly towards the noise. It wasn't far ahead - a couple hundred meters maybe - but he stayed still, gritting his teeth in regret. The rest of his team was missing, and he was enough injured from the fight before. Did he really have to save some virgin in distress or whatever they called it? He was supposed to lead his team to California, pick up some lost Celestial Bronze Hephaestus decided to throw into the wild, and get everyone back to camp. Some leader he was. Up until now he'd managed to get them all to California in his car, get everyone else trapped by evil Cyclops, got himself into a fight just to get blacked out afterwards and waking up some other place he didn't know where was, in a forest – alone.

He cursed in Greek and went after the sound. If he had gone by himself, none of this would have happened, but no – Chiron had to be a pain in the ass and say he had to pick two companions. Gods, why was it such a big deal anyway? No monsters had ever attacked him before unless he was… let's see… surrounded by more smelly demigods! For some weird reason, the monsters didn't take a liking in him smell, which made him even more awesome in his head. Flynn had never given it much thought, why he was special in this case I mean, because why doubt something that gives you a great advantage? Nope, not gonna do that. It might get on nature's bad side, and that was the last thing he needed.

He ran for the screams as they became louder and more terrifying the closer he got. If he had been completely sane, he would run in the other direction, obviously. Screams means trouble, and even though monsters where out of the way, he had enough of bad guys after him – some immortal gods as well. But he was still dizzy and his thoughts were cloudy from the fight with… what had they been again? Oh yeah, monsters. Some kind of monsters, no more details saved. But he had been in this protective/grumpy 40 year old mother mood since they left the camp and still wouldn't let anyone die on his watch. Lots of shaming later would not be avoided after that. But who knows, maybe it's Astrid? It's obviously a girl, though Astrid letting out such a sound almost made him laugh. Sandy was out of the picture, seeing him being mute and not able to make a sound. Flynn dodged a root on the ground by centimetres and kept running. The ground was wet and muddy from a rainy day not too long ago and it almost made him trip. He started to feel seriously uneasy about this, but there was no way he could back down now. Whatever it was that scared this girl had probably heard him already, he was already breathing heavily.

Flynn jumped through some bushes and approached the screams. HE stood in the outside of the clearing in the dead of the night, taking in the scene before him. Indeed, it was a girl – a pretty one too, for that matter. She wore a purple dress with an odd pattern sewed on the edges, a pink corset that made her look more like a teenager than a woman, and she wore no shoes nor had a backpack. She had freckles and emerald green eyes, but there was something really special about her: Flynn watch her hair grow, like, he saw her golden locks grow down her shoulders slowly, but visibly fast. And she was terrified. The girl clung to the side of a stone hill she was pressed against, narrowing her beautiful eyes at the monster before her.

She had to be a demigod. Monsters won't just approach mortals like that, and besides, the Mist won't allow her to see the thing if she didn't have godly blood. How old could she be? Sixteen? But that didn't matter right now, she'll get killed if he don't –

The monster made a chiming sound, like a bell. But not just a bell; it was Sandy's bell. The monster was one of the Cyclops who had Astrid and Sandy. Flynn leaped forward, setting himself between Goldie and The Face, his Celestial Bronze sword ready in his hands as The Face launched at her.

Flynn had never been really good with swords, seeing as he had never bothered to go to sword fighting classes because the monsters didn't want him. Hah. Now he wished he had done that. He managed to chop off the Face's arm and send him trembling back a few metres. It was like slashing butter. From the monster's shoulder dripped golden liquid, the blood of immortality (because technically, you can't kill a monster for good, they keep coming back after a while).

"Who –?" a tiny voice said behind him. He glanced back and gave her a quick heroic smirk before launching at the Cyclop, still not having the slightest idea of what he's doing.

"What –?" said the monster confused, caught off guard by the sudden attack.

Flynn slashed The Face's left leg and he bent forward. The demigod put the tip of his sword at the cyclop's nose and snarled, determined not to let his fear creep into his voice. "Where – is – my – friends?" He spit each word at the monster's face.

Then the ugliest thing happened. He – or she, it was hard to tell – smiled grotesquely, making Flynn think of most horrible scenarios.

"I…" said Goldie back at the stone hill. "I-I saw them! I know where they are! I've been there!"

Flynn felt bad for not trusting a pretty girl, but he didn't know anything about her except… that she was a demigod! That's all he needed to trust her. "Are you sure?" he called back to her, still keeping his cool at he stared at The Face.

"YES!" she shrieked a bit hopeful.

Flynn gripped his sword harder and used the Cyclop's stupidity to his advantage as he pushed his sword into the skull of the monster, making it explode into a cloud of golden dust. Flynn stood there for a moment, calming himself down while staring at the dust. A breeze went through the clearing, and Flynn didn't waste any time. He kicked parts of the dust into the wind. You know, just to be on the safe side. But even though he had little to none experience in fighting monsters, he couldn't shake off the thought that it had been a little too easy to kill the Cyclop.

He turned to the girl, whose hair had now reached her waist. Man, that wasn't normal, right? "You okay, Goldie?" he asked her, but judging from her torn dress and several injuries that made her stand in that weird angle, the question wasn't needed. She panted small huffs and finally let herself relax a bit as she slid down the mountain side and sat down at the point where stone met muddy grass. It made her dress dirtier but it didn't seemed like she cared one bit after what she's been through. Goldie let go of something Flynn hadn't noticed before, a black old fry pan, to bring her hands to her face. A fry pan, Flynn thought sarcastically. No wonder.

She sobbed once, still holing her face. "Why do they… keep coming after me? What are they?" Flynn walked over to her and sat down. She was still afraid. She looked up and narrowed her eyes at him in the dark helplessly. "Why can't other people see them?" She obviously knew nothing about anything in the world they lived in, and was desperate to know why all this happened to her, and why it was her exactly. Flynn couldn't really relate, but he had seen new campers doing the same thing over the years at camp.

He really didn't want to take the teacher role. It's not like he didn't care about her well-being and everything, but if he was to explain all this to her it's sound like 'uh… well, you see, Goldie… these things want you dead because they want to eat your godly flesh, by the way, your mommy or daddy is a Greek good. Cool, eh?'

He inhaled sharply. "I can't really explain it all to you myself, but I can take you to a place where you'll get to know everything. What do ya think?"

He could see it in her eyes that she believed him as she calmed down and started breathing normally. She nodded. After a moment of awkward silence, she shifted and flinched. "Could you… do me a favour?"

Flynn clapped his lap. "Sure, Goldie. Just not anything involving a horse, and we're good."

The girl smiled at him. "Rapunzel. Rapunzel Nightflower." She held out her small hand that looked rough after small injuries from like sewing.

He took it and shook it a couple times. "The name's Flynn Rider."

She let go and blew some hair out of her face. It had now started to pile up on the ground. Well, he couldn't really say anything after seeing Merida. Her massive explosion of red hair strands beats everything, even insanely fast growing hair.

She sighed. "I will show you where I last saw your friends. One skinny blonde who smash things to pieces with a bronze ax, and a little sweetheart who can't talk, right?"

"That's them, alright."

"But can you carry me?"

"Of cour- wait what?" His very handsomely eyebrows shot up his forehead. "Princess, I'm no horse you can-"

"I know!" She averted it with rapid hand gestures. "I know and I'm sorry. It's just that I can't walk. The monster gave me pretty bad wound on my right leg and well…" She pulled up her skirt for him to see. Even from the blood strain on her dress, he would never have thought it would be this bad. The deep wound went from her knee to her ankle like the skin was ripped open purposely. Fresh dark blood was still running down her leg, overlapping the dried old blood.

Flynn whistled. "That's some scratch, Goldie. Okay then." He stood up and crouched down with his back to her. "Climb up."

She hesitated. Then, by using support from her left leg, she climbed unto his back and they went back to where Rapunzel had come from, and where Flynn's friends would hopefully still be.