Before the battle of the labyrinth

Lee put his hat straight. 'Alright, first day on the job.' He felt a push in his back. 'Castor!'

'What? You're being sentimental!'

'One of our first jobs is at Disney World and that is how you react?' The son of Dionysus shrugged.

'Oh, it's cool, but it won't last forever. Come, last go find out what we have to do.' Lee opened his mouth, but decided not to argue with a son of the god of madness on the first day. He had to make sure he got everything right.

'Oh, I think I might have put down the wrong times,' Lee said. Castor rolled his eyes.

'Again? The show starts Ten 'O clock, remember?'

Lee nodded. 'Yeah, yeah.' He looked at his watch.

'There is two hours until the next show and there are probably not going to come a lot people to buy tickets. We could go get something to eat,' Castor told him.

'Are you kidding? Mark will kill us!'

'Mark is secretly a monster anyway. Let's go, there is a sandwich in my bag screaming my name.'

Lee rolled his eyes. 'We took this so much more seriously a few months ago.'

'Correction: You were far more serious a few months ago. Now let's go.' Lee sighed and walked along. He made sure that they walked quickly, so that the ticket booth wasn't abandoned for long. 'How is your life going?'

'Fine. I miss my brother, but he'll be here in the weekends. One of my sisters has the flu, but she'll be better. And you?'

'I am in Disney World trying to earn money, but my coworker wants to break the rules. Same old, same old.' Castor shrugged.

'I can also collapse on the street.'

'Yeah, yeah, whatever.' They reached the closest employee building, where they had left their bags. Lee tapped his foot on the floor while Castor took way too long to get his sandwich out of his bag.

'I got it. Let's go back. Before Mark realises that we are gone and will devour us in one bite.'

'Mark doesn't feel like a monster, Castor.'

'He is just that good at disguising himself. Let's go.' Lee grinded his teeth and decided that it wasn't worth arguing over.

Lee made Castor run back to the Indiana Jones show. They waited for a few minutes, but nobody came to complain. Not Mark, not a guest, not a god, nobody. Castor grinned. 'Told you.'

'Remember last time?'

'Vaguely.' Castor unpacked his sandwich and moved it to his mouth to take a bite, but stopped halfway through.

'Lee. Right over there.' He nodded to the right. Lee pretended like he was writing something down, while looking in the direction he was pointed at. He saw a weird looking woman pushing a stroller. Her eyes were scanning the area in a way no regular human could do. Lee shuddered. He felt something weird in the air.

'Some sort of monster, right?' He asked. Castor nodded.

'Of course she is. We have to do something about it. You carry your bow around, right?' Lee nodded. 'In my bag. So in the backroom.' He swallowed. 'Stay here. Make sure Mark thinks I am sick, or something.' He stepped away from the gates that lead to the show and started walking towards the place they left their bags.

The monster woman followed him with her eyes. Castor took a small bite out of his sandwich. Her eyes were like those of a cat at noon. He swallowed, but had trouble doing so.

The monster walked further, slowly inching towards the stand. Castor put down his sandwich. It seemed like the monster thought he was easier to kill than Lee. Castor felt a familiar heat behind his eyes. He shook his head, reminding himself that he couldn't drive people mad, just confuse them slightly, and that he could do very little against most monsters...

'I'd like a ticket for me and my baby, please,' the woman said in a hoarse voice that definitely wasn't human. Castor swallowed and told her the price. The monster opened her mouth to say something else, but she was stopped by another woman shoving her aside. 'I need tickets!' She screeched.

'How many, ma'am?' Castor answered, on autopilot. From the corner of his eye he saw Lee coming back with his sword hanging by his side.

'Doesn't matter! Just give me them!' She sniffed. 'Hurry up!'

'Ma'am, I'll need to know how many people there are in your group in order to give you the tickets...'

'That is private!' Castor sighed deeply. This truly was one of the most stupid people he ever met. He randomly pulled out seven tickets and gave them to the lady. She huffed.

'That is two too much!'

'Sorry, Ma'am. You can give me the tickets back, so I can give them to this lady...' he looked at the monster and put a step back. He eyes were glowing. She stretched out her arm. Castor couldn't pull his eyes away from what was happening. The monster slammed a claw onto the woman's' head. 'I got him first! Move away!' She hissed. Dracaena, Castor thought.

The entitled woman screamed. Castor jumped over the counter and punched the dracaena in the face, which might be one of the more stupid things he did. Lee came running up to him - together with a manager. 'What's happening!?'

'Sir, this guest hit another guest in the face. I was protecting her.' The manager opened her mouth, but the entitled woman nodded angrily. 'She is right! This *redacted* almost killed me!' Lee and Castor looked at each other. The woman was right, but as far as the woman could know, she just had a hand placed her head. They didn't complain while the manager called the police, though.

With some nice help of the mist, the whole ordeal was over twenty five minutes later. 'Thanks, Hecate,' Lee whispered while they were back behind the counter being bored. They gave out tickets, made some small talk, munched on a couple of sandwiches and got even more annoyed by the music that played each day, all day.

Nine 'O clock rolled around. All the people were inside the theatre, meaning that Lee had to stand guard by the stairs and Castor had to tell latecomers to move along. As two people who had worked at the same show for over four months might call it: The most boring part of the job and at the same time the most stressful one, because it was the part where monsters would get out to attack the viewers and actors.

But not today, apparently. After the show was done, Lee waddled out of the theatre, towards his friend. 'I am so, so tired. Let's clock out, it is half past nine, we can...'

'Castor! Lee! Towards the Cinderella castle, right now!' a manager commanded. Lee and Castor blinked, while the manager ran further to bring a similar message to the people working one ride over.

'... I mean I guess it can wait...' Lee slowly continued. Castor yawned.

'This better be important,' he mused, while he slowly started to waddle towards the castle.

Standing guard at a castle because a bunch of rich kids have a part which they hired main street for? Blast, right? Castor and Lee wandered around the place, sending kids that didn't follow the rules away and almost being kicked in the shins multiple times by entitled rich parents that were a lot more annoying than the woman who had demanded tickets that evening.

Lee's stomach growled. 'Ughhh. My sisters are waiting at home. They made dinner.' Castor sighed deeply. 'Sounds like Christmas. My warm bed is waiting in the employee village.' Castor looked at the floor. His head felt heavy and hot. He looked at his hands. They were shaking a little.

'Cas? Eh, you might want to look out.' Castor looked up. Lee was slowly looking around. He walked a little wobbly. Castor shook his head. 'Oh, I am sorry. I have trouble controlling this stuff.' Lee looked at him.

'I am going to sneak you home.'

'What? You know that is impossible! And weren't you the one who complained about me...'

'Doesn't matter!' Lee tugged on Castors' arm. 'You driving people crazy isn't going to help!' Castor just nodded a bit, before letting Lee pull him along.

'We'll get fired. I'll have to go back to North Dakota,' Castor whined.

'Cut it out. I already told you what we are going to do.'

'So when I have dangerous ideas, I am a 'menace to society,' but if you do it, suddenly it's fine?'

Lee stopped walking. He turned around so he could look Castor dead in the eye. 'How many hours did you sleep tonight?'

'... fair enough. The car is in the third row, I believe.'

'From which side?' Lee couldn't help but sound a little desperate.

'The back.' Castor sighed and cursed, even though Lee did enough cursing for three quests of a year.

'Mark definitely has noticed our absensence by now,' Castor remarked, when they had finally found the car.

'Cas, if you have anything ramming down your door at midnight, I take half of the blame.

'Thanks, that is worth nothing if I am dead.'

'I know.' They got into their car (it was technically Lee's, but they had decided it was cheaper and safer to drive together). Lee turned on the engine. 'Now we are going to slowly drive to your home and it will be great.' Castor swallowed.

'Keep repeating that and we might start to believe it.' Without answering, Lee drove off.

They got five metres out of the parking lot before a speck of slime landed on the glass window. Both boys screamed. Lee smashed his foot onto the speed paddle. The car was over the speed limit within a few seconds. 'This is not safe! This is the direct opposite of safe!' Lee screeched, while going even harder. Castor didn't say anything. He tried to get his sword out of his backpack (Which they had thought about snatching along, luckily) while trying to push away the warm feeling behind his eyes.

He turned around when he had the sword. 'Alright, slimy monster that goes scarily quick and looks exactly like Mark, right behind us.'

'If it gets into the car, kill it with whatever means necessary. If it stays behind us, we'll kill it when we reach the buildings.'

'Might look a little wild to kill a manager right in front of the people who work here.' Lee shrugged. 'We'll stay in the forest. We'll let the mist hang up a sop story. Whatever!'

'Hey, that's my word.' Even though everything was quickly spiraling out of control, Lee laughed.

It wasn't far to the residents of the employees, but it was far enough for Mark to catch up with them. With only one corner left to turn, Lee violently pushed on the brakes. Castor pushed himself back into the chair and held on to the safety belt. Mark flew past them.

Quickly, they threw open the car doors. Castor had his sword ready. He didn't mind the heat. Lee aimed at where he supposed the monsters' heart was (You can never be sure). When the thing turned around, Castor let the heat go. The thing screeched. It's eyes shot around, like it had forgotten where it was or where it should go or what it was doing.

Lee let the shot go. With another screech, it went up to dust, back to Tartarus. Lee lowered his bow and sighed. 'I am starting to regret this.' Castor got his bag out of the car.

'I am going. See you tomorrow.' Lee nodded somewhat.

'Yeah. I'll go back to the park, I don't think mark will... you know what, nevermind, I am just going to go home. See you tomorrow.' Lee stepped into the car and sped off.

Castor stepped into his house. 'Hey! I can smell the smell of your awful instant noodles! Why didn't you get some for me?' Pollux looked around the corner.

'You weren't home, brother.'

'Couldn't you feel me coming?' Pollux laughed and pulled him into a hug.

'Tell me, are there many monsters in the happiest place on earth?'

Castor grinned. 'Well...'