2. Three Old Ladies Knit The Socks Of Death

When you are a shinobi, you expect for the occasional weird experience to happen at least ten times throughout your life. Having lived a lot longer than most shinobi, I've had the pleasure of witnessing quite a few of those. However having a new math teacher that I had never seen before in my life just get on the bus with no one else acting like she just appeared out of thin air was definitely up there in the top twenty weird events of my life. Whoever had covered up Mrs. Dodds, or whatever her name was, had did some really good work.

The only other one who didn't seem affected by whatever Genjutsu like effects the guys upstairs just used was Grover. He wasn't obvious about it, but on the way back I heard him muttering something about Mrs. Dodds and Kindly Ones. I decided to act like I hadn't heard him even as I filed the interesting bit that like me Grover wasn't exactly what he seemed to be in the back of my mind.

The freak weather continued, and if anything, got worse. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

None of this helped me keep my cool when it came to Nancy Bobofit and her friends. Here I was expecting the academy to suddenly be torn apart by some freak weather accident that probably no one else could see and that girl decides to become even more annoying. Unfortunately, all of the other teachers took her side as usual and the headmaster finally had enough and sent my mother a letter telling her that I would not be invited back to the academy next year.

When he had called me into his office to tell me that, I had rolled my eyes and said that I was surprised it had taken him this long considering how all of the teachers seemed to have rose tinted glasses when it came to that girl. He obviously wasn't amused although I did get him to admit that my grades were better than hers. Although that's not hard considering I kept them all in the A's while she barely scraped out a single C- on last semester's report cards. Hey, the classes may have all been boring as hell but there was no way I'd do bad on a test.

Still, I have to admit that I'll miss this place next year. The view of the woods out of my dorm window reminds me of the Village in my previous life and I'd definitely miss Grover, who'd been a good friend. Sure others would call him strange but let's face it, to a higher ranked shinobi that can be seen as a compliment. I was worried how he'd survive next year without me though. I'd definitely miss Latin class, that's for sure.

Speaking of which, as exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I found I could actually study for. All of the other subjects were so far beneath my level I felt like the exams would feel like I was helping a son or daughter with their homework instead of taking a test that would determine my end of the year standings.

The evening before the exams were to start, I decided to take a break from Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology and practice using sage mode in this world before my brain shut down from forced studying overload. While I could still go into sage mode easily enough considering the fact that I was on a completely different planet than where I learned the art, I still practiced it every once in a while when I was by myself since it felt so different than how if felt back home. There the world had seemed so full of life, here it felt like the world had some kind of weight on its chest. Not something that would make it hard to breath but definitely noticeable none the less.

As I allowed myself to synch with the environment around me and began to draw in natural energy the pupils of my green eyes went bar shaped and red pigment surrounded the sides of my eyes. I took in a deep breath before I let it out. As I exhaled my senses expanded out of my dorm room until I could sense every living thing on the campus. Suddenly I sensed something strange and I frowned before I focused on Mr. Brunner's office where there were two presences that were definitely NOT human. My eyes snapped open and I got up from where I had been sitting cross legged on the floor. If there were more monsters in the school I needed to take care of them before they could harm anybody.

I walked over to my room's door making sure that no one was around to see my unusual features before I slipped out into the hall and made my way downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.

I was three steps from the doorway with a plan to take out the lights in the office and take the two monsters out before they knew what hit them when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "…worried about Percy, sir."

I froze as that little bit about Grover not being what he appeared to be was suddenly back in the front of my mind while at the same time I was remembering how Mr. Brunner had been awfully close to the area where I had been fighting that Fury. What I couldn't get though was that I had gone sage mode at least four times before while I was at Yancy and every time I did those two had felt human. What the hell was going on?

"…alone this summer." Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him." Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

I gave a mental snort at that. I was one hundred and ten years old. How much more mature did they need me to be?

"But we may not have time. The summer solstice deadline-"

"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."

"But sir, he saw her. You said he even made a sword out of wind and took her out with seemingly no problem. Doesn't that mean…"

"I'm not sure what it means. I had been sure that I was right about who his father was and that he was ignorant of who he really was but then he uses the wind to stab her right through the heart like a professional." Mr. Brunner's voice had a frustrated edge to it, like he still couldn't believe what he had seen back at the museum. "And the Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him that it was his imagination."

I mentally snorted again. Mist huh? Well at least I now knew what they had used to make everyone forget about Mrs. Dodds but it seemed like it didn't affect me.

"Sir, I…I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed Grover." Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"

My head cocked to the side as I fought hard to keep myself from laughing out loud at the prospect of needing protection just to maintain the ability to breath. I had fought in the Fourth Shinobi War against a man who wanted to make everyone his slaves by casting the ultimate Genjutsu on the moon when I was sixteen, what was the occasional monster now and then compared to that? Still mentally chuckling to myself I slipped back down the hallway heading back to my dorm room. I had heard enough to know that those two weren't a threat to everybody else and seemed to be on my side even if they weren't going to tell me anytime soon.

Once I was back in my dorm room I allowed my sage mode to fade away and picked my Latin book up from the floor where I had placed it beside me when I started meditating. Hopping over my bed and turning in the air to land on my back, I cracked the book open to where I had been reading and soon lost myself to stories about Chiron and Charon.

About ten minutes later Grover slipped into the dorm room and grabbed his Latin exam notes before he flopped on his bed. I watched him out of the corner of my eye but otherwise didn't comment on where he had been. We both called it a night an hour later and I fell asleep dreaming of a village nestled next to a large mountain that had seven faces carved on it and surrounded by a forest.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three hour Latin exam, translations of Greek and Roman symbols still swimming through my head, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. For a moment I was worried that he had used those radar ears of his last night and somehow knew that someone had been outside his door last night and he suspected me. Fortunately that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Percy," he said "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's…It's for the best."

My eyebrow shot up at that. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. From the corner of my eye I saw Nancy Bobofit smirk at me and make sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. I simply gave her the finger as I kept my gaze on Mr. Brunner which made little miss Nancy stutter and the other kids try to keep their laughter down.

Mr. Brunner decided to ignore the interaction including the possible innuendo that was in there as he said "I mean, this isn't the right place for you. You were meant to be somewhere different. Somewhere greater than this."

My eyebrow remained raised as I said "Thanks sir, if you'll excuse me, I need to get ready for my next exam. Although for what it's worth, you were an awesome teacher." I was out the door before he could open his mouth to respond.

On the last day of term, I packed my clothes into my suitcase and chuckled as I remembered how Sakura would always get on my case for just shoving clothes into a pack when we would take missions together. Meanwhile, the other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like I supposedly was, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. Meanwhile, I was the supposed nobody from a family of nobodies. I didn't care though, I'd had enough adventures in my previous life to last me halfway through this one. A lot better ones than just going for a walk in a foreign country too.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them that I was going back into the city with plans to finally make a full map of all of the tunnels underneath it. I had managed to get the subway system including all of the maintenance sections done last year but the sewage lines were a bit harder considering I couldn't exactly walk through those. What I didn't tell them was that while me and a bunch of clones were going to be going over city plans, another clone was going to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions. I had a bank account where I was storing up money for if the shit really hit the fan and I needed to have a way to access money if I had to fund a small war.

"Oh." one of the guys said. "That's cool."

And then they went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed causing me to shake my head at them.

I didn't have to have an awkward moment saying goodbye to Grover who I suspected would have followed me since he booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had. However, once we were on the bus, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It was just one more time that I could say that he acted nervous and fidgety since we left Yancy for whatever reason, and now I knew that he was on the lookout for something.

I was planning on not saying something about it but I finally couldn't take anymore of it. His constant head swiveling to try and see everything at once was worse than a second year academy student's observation abilities. Putting up a small hearing disruption Genjutsu to prevent ease droppers that I could now perform thanks to the fact that I no longer had Kurama messing with my chakra control, I said "You keep swiveling your head around like an owl and your target is going to know that you're on to them."

Grover jumped and said "Wha-what do you mean?"

I rolled my eyes and said "Please Grover, even an academy student can keep better track of his surroundings without being so obvious about it. Just chill, I don't think that there are any Kindly Ones here."

Grover's mouth dropped an inch before he hissed "Where did you hear that term?"

I unconsciously cracked my neck to release some of the stress that came with looking down at paper and pencil for almost a full week straight and said "You and Mr. Brunner need to take better precautions when you're talking. Like not have a meeting where his office lights would be the only ones on during the middle of the night. Seriously though, you guys should have told me that you were here to protect me. I could have saved you a lot of time by telling you that I don't need protection from something that's about ten times slower than I am. If the rest of the monsters are going to be like that then I don't think they're going to be much of a challenge."

Grover's eye twitched as he said "How much of that meeting did you hear?"

"Oh, not much. Just enough to be sure you guys weren't going to go killing everyone in the school when I sensed that you two weren't human. By the way, what's the summer solstice deadline?"

He winced. "Look Percy, I, wait a minute, what do you mean when you sensed that we weren't human?"

I gave him a flat look and said "You're trying to change the topic Grover. But to answer your question, just as its obvious to me now that you're not human, I've got a few things that separates me from the masses as well. Now what is this deadline?"

Grover flinched and said "It doesn't really concern you. You should forget even hearing about it."

"Uh-huh." I said making it clear that I didn't believe him.

Grover squirmed in his seat before he fished out a grubby business card from his shirt pocket. Handing it to me he said "Listen, you should take this in case you need me this summer."

I took the card and my eyebrow rose as I read the fancy script that said Grover Underwood, Keeper on one side and Half-Blood Hill, Long Island, New York, (800)009-0009 on the other. Looking back at Grover I said "Half-blood?"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um… summer address."

My eyebrow stayed raised as I said "You really need to learn how to lie better Grover."

His ears turned pink but before he could say anything there was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoked poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else and I took a good look at my surroundings.

We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric blue yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. And all three were staring at me. The hairs on the back of my neck began to rise as did the meter on my shinobi senses. Those ladies weren't human, I was sure of it. And the way they were sitting there sewing like that, it reminded me of-

I looked over at Grover to see if he noticed them and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching. That instantly put my body on full alert as it only seemed to confirm my thoughts.

"Grover." I said lowly getting ready for anything including a flock of Furies dive bombing us from the sky.

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath and I strained my senses to pick up any other presences nearby that could be even the slightest bit hostile.

Grover opened his mouth to say something but paled even further if that was possible when the middle one cut the yarn. I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric blue socks, leaving a tiny part of my mind wondering just who they were for. The rest of my mind was wondering just what the hell was going to be coming after us soon. Grover meanwhile looked like he was about to faint from fear as his eyes kept cutting from me to the three old ladies.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and then roared back to life causing the passengers to cheer.

"Darn right!" The driver yelled as he slapped the bus with his hat before he said "Everybody back on board!"

We all filed back to our seats and the bus got back on the highway. As we did, I noticed Grover start shivering and his teeth began to chatter. Frowning, I put my Genjutsu back up and said in a calm voice "Grover."

His eyes snapped over to look at me and I could see them dilating from fear. I frowned at him and said "I can understand that you're scared and I have a pretty darn good idea why, but you need to calm down before you have a heart attack. And don't go telling me that it's not possible to stop your heart with just fear. I've seen it happen before. Heck, I've even made people do it before. So calm down already, if anything comes at us I'll take care of it."

Grover stared at me for a moment before he said "Percy, how can we be calm, they were looking right at you when they cut the cord. Wait, what do you mean you've made people's hearts stop by fear alone?"

I gave a grin that Anko would have been proud of that caused Grover to lean away from me as I said "Let's just say this isn't my first time on this ride and leave it at that."

Grover stared at me before he closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself but seemed to be something much older. I rose my eyebrow as I heard him begin muttering about how his charge wasn't making any sense and why did they all have to die before they got past sixth grade. Shaking my head, I let the Genjutsu around us drop and turned to look out the window to make sure no monsters were coming for us.