Tense silence.
"What are you guys doing here?" Drew asked.
"Looking for you, apparently." Mayu crossed her arms. She used her elbow to nudge their male friend. "Kenta here needs to see you."
"Mayu-chan?"
Mayu nodded to Shuhei. "Hello, Shuhei. How are you?"
Bless Mayu for diverting Shuhei's attention. Kenta's eyes zoned into to Drew. "I got worried."
"As you can see, I am fine." Drew smiled. "You need to go home."
"We need to go home." He corrected.
"Drew needs to help us first." Pharos chimed in.
But the world suddenly cracked.
Kenta opened his eyes.
Surroundings? No longer in the same sterile hospital room.
Huh? Sterile hospital room…? What am I talking about?
"Hey!" A voice called from behind.
"Kenta, wait!" Footsteps. Hurried ones. "G'morning." Shuhei greeted. He was still his blond self, hair pulled back by a headband. He had the same striking features that made him look like a delinquent. (Wait, Shuhei is a delinquent?) He had his schoolbag slung over the shoulder and he wore their school uniform properly. Err… semi-properly.
"Er… you should zipper up your blazer, Shuhei." Kenta found himself saying.
Morning…(?) They were walking on the way to school…(?)
The school entrance…has it been this spacious and well-kept?
"Ah, yeah. My bad!" Shuhei quickly zipped up his blazer and adjusted the bowtie-like ribbon on his neck. "Mou~ I'll just not wear my uniform properly today." Removing his ribbon bowtie, Shuhei made a disgruntled sound, "We've been going to school since our freshman year, but I can't say I've gotten used to this onee ribbon."
Kenta tilted his head.
"Not in proper uniform again Shuhei? Why am I not surprised?" A new voice came as they entered the school premises. The voice was female, icy and utterly sarcastic. It sounded endearing though.
"You know it!" Shuhei raised a thumb as they entered the school premises.
"I'm from the disciplinary committee, Shuhei." Mayu crossed her arms. "You know I can't let you enter looking like that."
Shuhei groaned. "So early in the morning!"
"Precisely!" Mayu countered with equal annoyance.
"Guys! Guys!" Kenta wanted to but in, but the fiery Shuhei and the icy Mayu have entered their cat-and-dog zone.
"What the hell is going on here?"A fourth voice came over to them. Kenta realized that they had drawn in quite a crowd – Mayu and Kenta had drawn in quite a crowd.
"Oh! Kaichou!" Mayu said, surprised.
A teen with slicked-back hair came into view. "I have a meeting with the student council president later, Mayu, what is going on?"
Drew opened her eyes.
This is… Camp? Camp Half-Blood.
She was in her bed. The same one by the window that she got after using her Charmspeak to the girl who used to sleep here.
"Oh, Drew! You're awake." It came from one of her followers – Belle? A brunette with a love for winged eyeliners.
"Morning." Still disoriented, she blurted out a rather affectionate greeting.
"My-my, Drew… didn't think you had it in you." Another voice came. From Piper's faction of followers: Amy or Amanda, or something.
Drew chose to ignore the jab and proceeded to sit on her bed.
"What day is it?" Her head was pounding, but not like a headache, and definitely not like she was at that time of the month. It was like-
"Don't you remember? Today's Capture the Flag, remember?"
She ignored that info, head throbbing and all, because she had the sneaking suspicion that something wasn't right.
After a long-winded verbal thrashing from the head of the Disciplinary Committee, in front of the student body no less, the bell rang.
Kenta let out a sigh of relief when he finally got to sit down on his seat.
"I know you both go through this almost every day at this point," Mayu fixed her hair in a loose ponytail, "But I don't understand why he included me in his tirade."
"That's part of the youthful aura of high school."
"I don't want to be part of it."
Mayu and Shuhei sat near Kenta. Shuhei to his front, and Mayu beside Shuhei. They sat by the windows, which had an overlooking view of the sports complex outside.
"Woah~ Looking at that never gets old…" Kenta said to himself.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Shuhei turned his head to look at his friend.
Mayu giggled. "You're such a jock, Kenta."
Kenta couldn't help himself from grinning. "Well everything here is state-of-the-art, especially the sports facilities. For heaven's sake, we have an indoor pool. That's some next level-shit."
Shuhei laughed heartily, earning a few disapproving looks of his classmates, but not like he cared.
Mayu titled her head, "Now that you mention it, our last school was…are~?"
Something nudged at the back of Kenta's mind.
Breakfast at the Dining Pavilion was always an annoying affair, stereotypes all around: Apollo's kids were doing Apollo things and were hyper already, Hermes' kids were all over the place trying to be funny with their pranks, and Dionysus' kids were already drunk (or high) from their Kool Aid.
Stereotypes all around. Drew wanted to laugh, but who was she kidding: she was surrounded by vapid, high-maintenance, backstabby, whiny ass bitches that she called her followers.
Too negative, that is wrong. They're nice people.
From the side, a fellow sibling made a big deal when she broke a nail she was filing.
But they make it very hard to like them.
Chiron then made an announcement that the Capture the Flag activity later will proceed as planned: sometime after lunch, and that they are mostly free to do as they pleased for their prep time.
At the end of the morning announcement: the campers were abuzz.
"So, like, what do we do later?" Carrie, one of the people on her side of the Cabin asked. In her thick valleyspeak accent, Carrie was all that you'd expect from her blonde, blue-eyed exterior.
Drew didn't want this aura of hate surrounding her, especially with the headache. Besides, Carrie may be ditzy but she likes taking care of the new Aphrodite campers. She's got that mother hen vibe once you get past her airheadedness.
"Well, I know Piper over there's gonna want us to participate but can we not?" Another girl, Delilah – Dely for short – said, checking through the mirror of her pressed powder if her make-up is still on point.
"Dely, you look fine." She said, which earned gasps from the people around her.
"What?" She met their gazes.
"Are you complimenting me?" Dely asked, snapping her pressed powder shut.
"It's the truth, why would I lie?"
"Today's a weird day." Carrie summarized.
But Drew ignored it. The headache was still there.
The assembled gods were looking at the [Anomaly]. "Definitely supernatural in origin." One god summarized after looking at it.
They were at the edge of the phenomenon. A group of volunteer gods, armed to the teeth decided to enter but was immediately repelled by it – no, that was wrong: when they entered the phenomenon, they also left the phenomenon. Like the entrance was both the exit.
"Well, at least it's not harmful." The Buddhist said as he finally decided to check the [Anomaly]. "We just can't enter it."
Drew entered the Medical Bay, hoping that a demigod of Asclepius could help her.
"My head is just…" Drew started but recognized someone on one of the beds.
"I… I know him."
Dark hair, pale complexion. His normally unexpressive face was relaxed; giving him so much expression if that made sense. His sleeping face made him look… like a teenager.
"Minato-kun." Drew recognized in a breathy voice.
Then the headache was gone: and all the memories flooded into her.
The Persona, the darkness, her friends. Her friends!
What happened to her friends?
This was a dream, right? Can't be real. Can never be real.
Last thing she knew she was in Japan.
"Mom!" Her voice powered with Charmspeak, with all the [Authority] and power she could pour into her voice, she asked for help.
Braaaagggg!
A loud bang.
The campers outside would have noticed it. Chiron and Mr. D, probably Hestia too, would notice that something was very wrong here. But this was a dream. They were not real.
Her mother did not appear. Instead the entire world became black. As if swallowed by darkness. Again swallowed by darkness.
She ran toward Minato, realizing that she was tasked by the Persona Pharos with something important.
"Minato!" But as she ran closer to the boy, the farther she got away from him. It was as if she was running but was rooted on the same spot.
"Minato, wake-up!"
But her Charmspeak was left unheard because before she could finish her sentence, Minato got swallowed by the darkness.
It was already time for lunch. The morning classes were too much: math followed by history.
Kenta found his math-loving professor's afro cool, but his history teacher, with a samurai helmet of all things, was the epitome of epic meme-ness.
"Goddamnit, Kenta, you're so slow! I'm leaving you behind." A hungry Shuhei is an angry Shuhei. With much vigor, as someone who has yet to consume his daily nutrition, Shuhei slid the door open, stepped out and hastily slid the door closed.
Bang.
Typical of Shuhei though. "I don't understand how you two are friends." Mayu said as she grabbed a slice of sandwich from her bento box. "I also don't understand how I'm friends with you both."
Mayu looked like something didn't sit well with her, "Now that you mention it, we three rarely interacted during middle school."
"Shuhei was a yankee too, in middle school."
Mayu shook her head, getting out of her funk, "It was a miracle that he got in such a prestigious school like this."
"Hey, that's our friend there."
Mayu tilted her head, "Good point, but… I understand you're on an athletic scholarship, and I'm here because of a recommendation, but Shuhei…" Mayu sighed. "Let's just drop it. My head's starting to hurt."
"Want me to ask the school nurse for a remedy for that? It's a little far from the lunch lady but it's not too much of a hassle for me."
Mayu shook her head, "And drink his weird concoctions? No way. No way am I letting that quack doctor help me."
Kenta laughed, "Well, I'm off to lunch." He then stood up from his seat, checked if his phone and his wallet are in his pockets, and made his way to the door's entrance.
Just as when he slid classroom door open-
"Ooughff~"
It was a girl. A girl ran over him.
With straight black hair, fair skin and a slender-like body, you'd think he'd be unaffected.
Kenta fell onto his butt, knocking an unoccupied desk.
Kenta's first though was, who the hell was running at top speed just to enter class?
His second thought was:
"Drew?"