Chapter Title: Are The Son Of Neptune And The Son Of Mars Rivals?
Alternate Chapter Title: Two Amnesiacs Butt Heads
The first time Hazel had seen the legion assemble, she'd been so intimidated, she'd almost slunk back to the barracks to hide. Even after being at camp for nine months, she still found it an impressive sight. And yet somehow even now, on this night, she found it just as much as intimidating as it had been the first time, simply because of Colton, Luke, Michael, and Percy.
She would admit, those four simply made everything a lot more intimidating for anyone to even be standing near them, with Colton currently being an absolute loose cannon ready to ignite at any moment. Hazel had no clue why so many things at camp were ticking him off, let alone how Michael ticked for that matter. It was remarkable in her opinion honestly, how Colton and Michael acted as if they had been in the thick of action much more intense than anything Luke or Percy had ever been through.
Right now though, Hazel could only wonder at exactly what the four of them had gone through in the past as roll call started.
The first four cohorts, each forty kids strong, stood in rows in front of their barracks on either side of the Via Praetoria. The Fifth Cohort assembled at the very end, in front of the principia, since their barracks were tucked in the back corner of camp next to the stables and the latrines. Hazel had to run right down the middle of the legion to reach her place.
The campers were dressed for war. Their polished chain mail and greaves gleamed over purple T-shirts and jeans. Sword-and-skull designs decorated their helmets. Even their leather combat boots looked ferocious with their iron cleats, great for marching through mud or stomping on faces.
In front of the legionnaires, like a line of giant dominoes, stood their red and gold shields, each the size of a refrigerator door. Every legionnaire carried a harpoonlike spear called a pilum, a gladius, a dagger, and about a hundred pounds of other equipment. If you were out of shape when you came to the legion, you didn't stay that way for long. Just walking around in your armor was a full-body workout.
As always however, the sight of the four newcomers, specifically Colton and Michael, made everything even more intense. Colton was dressed in a suit of what looked like Greek armor, with Michael partially dressed in the same sort of armor, only lacking a helmet on his head, and even though the odd set of armor made many of the campers glare at the two of them, what else the two had on them made any thought of tearing into them for the armor choice seem like a death sentence.
Compared to both Percy and Luke — who seemed to have acquired a sword with an odd sort of handle that was currently upside down and secured in a sheath with straps wrapped around his body, Colton and Michael looked like they were armed to the teeth.
Michael also had a sword sheath along with what seemed like a long narrow box on his back both held by a strap, plus a sheath full of arrows strapped on his back. He carried two ammo boxes in his right hand and held a bow with his left.
Colton, however.. he looked like a soldier from three different eras at the exact same time. He carried another ammo box in his left hand and the Whitworth Rifle in his right hand, with a belt strung and latched around his waistline over his armor that contained multiple things one would need to use a Civil War weapon and function as a Civil War soldier — cartridge box, cap pouch, canteen, plus bayonet scabbard with an actual bayonet that looked really sharp in it — plus two swords — yes.. two, not one — sheathed on his back along with what to Hazel seemed like a very odd gun that looked more recent strapped across his back.
All in all, the duo looked like they were about to take on an inferno of enemies all at once, and Hazel couldn't help but shiver at the sight of them.
Hazel and Nico jogged down the street as everyone was coming to attention, so their entrance was really obvious. Their footsteps echoed on the stones. Hazel tried to avoid eye contact, but she caught Octavian at the head of the First Cohort smirking at her, looking smug in his plumed centurion's helmet with a dozen medals pinned on his chest. However, that smirk vanished once Octavian caught sight of Colton staring him down like the heavily armed demigod was some sort of giant monster with purely white eyes ready to cause destruction.* The augur of Camp Jupiter tried to hide it, but even Hazel couldn't mistake the second of fear that crept into Octavian's eyes.
Hazel was still seething from his blackmail threats earlier. Stupid augur and his gift of prophecy—of all the people at camp to discover her secrets, why did it have to be him? She was sure he would have told on her weeks ago, except that he knew her secrets were worth more to him as leverage. She wished she'd kept that bar of gold so she could hit him in the face with it.
She ran past Reyna, who was cantering back and forth on her pegasus Scipio—nicknamed Skippy because he was the color of peanut butter. The metal dogs Aurum and Argentum trotted at her side. Her purple officer's cape billowed behind her.
"Hazel Levesque," she called, "so glad you could join us."
Hazel knew better than to respond. She was missing most of her equipment, but she hurried to her place in line next to Frank and stood at attention. Their lead centurion, a big seventeen-year-old guy named Dakota, was just calling her name—the last one on the roll.
"Present!" she squeaked.
Thank the gods. Technically, she wasn't late. That was a relief.
Nico joined Percy Jackson, who was standing off to one side with a couple of guards. Percy's hair was wet from the baths. He'd put on fresh clothes, but he still looked uncomfortable. Hazel couldn't blame him. He was about to be introduced to two hundred heavily armed kids. Well.. him, plus Luke and the insanely armed duo next to them were about to be introduced to the other kids at camp.
The Lares were the last ones to fall in. Their purple forms flickered as they jockeyed for places. They had an annoying habit of standing halfway inside living people, so that the ranks looked like a blurry photograph, but finally the centurions got them sorted out.
Octavian shouted, "Colors!"
Colton simply snorted.
The standard-bearers stepped forward. They wore lion-skincapes and held poles decorated with each cohort's emblems. The last to present his standard was Jacob, the legion's eagle bearer. He held a long pole with absolutely nothing on top. The job was supposed to be a big honor, but Jacob obviously hated it. Even though Reyna insisted on following tradition, every time the eagleless pole was raised, Hazel could feel embarrassment rippling through the legion.
Colton and Michael though stared at it as if both of them knew why. Hazel figured that both of them had already connected the dots faster than Percy and Luke had, since both of the latter two were still looking on in wonder at the eagleless pole.
Reyna brought her pegasus to a halt.
"Romans!" she announced. "You've probably heard about the incursion today. Two gorgons were killed by one of the four newcomers, Colton Reynolds. Juno herself guided him, along with Percy Jackson, Luke Castellan, and Michael Yew
here, and proclaimed them to be a son of Mars, a son of Neptune, a son of Mercury, and a son of Apollo respectively."
The kids in the back rows craned their necks to see the four of them. Colton and Luke simply just observed the kids staring back at them, while Michael looked like he was staring off into space. Percy meanwhile simply just raised his hand and said, "Hi."
"They all seek to join the legion," Reyna continued. "What do the auguries say?"
Hazel could have sworn that she saw Octavian gulp before he started speaking. "I have read the entrails!" Octavian announced, as if he'd killed a lion with his bare hands rather than ripping up a stuffed panda pillow. "The auguries are favorable. They are qualified to serve!"
The campers gave a shout: "Ave!" (Translation: Hail!)
Frank was a little late with his "ave," so it came out as a high-pitched echo. The other legionnaires snickered, though they all shut up when Colton growled audibly. There was something scary about the aura that boy was giving off most of the time, Hazel was now realizing that perfectly.
Reyna motioned the senior officers forward—one from each cohort. Octavian, as the most senior centurion, turned to the four of them.
"Recruits," he asked, "do you have credentials? Letters of reference?"
Hazel remembered this from her own arrival. A lot of kids brought letters from older demigods in the outside world, adults who were veterans of the camp. Some recruits had rich and famous sponsors. Some were third- or fourth-generation campers. A good letter could get you a position in the better cohorts, sometimes even special jobs like legion messenger, which made you exempt from the grunt work like digging ditches or conjugating Latin verbs.
Percy shifted. "Letters? Um, no."
"What is this?" Michael simply said back in response, snapping out of seemingly staring off into space. "The Ivy League or something?" Luke just looked at Octavian in a similar way. Hazel had to admit, it was uncanny at how similar Luke resembled Octavian.
Octavian wrinkled his nose, not really paying attention to Colton who looked like he wanted to simply murder the man then and there right now, but was also holding himself back from doing so. Seriously, the look on his face.. Hazel couldn't bring herself it to look at it.
Either way, it was bullshit, and she knew it. Unfair! She wanted to shout. Percy had carried a goddess into camp, and Colton had killed both Gorgons. What better recommendation could you want or even ask for from these guys?
But Octavian's family had been sending kids to camp for over a century. He loved reminding recruits that they were less important than he was. Even so, these four — they didn't seem to be fazed at all by this. Wherever they came from, it seemed like they all had put up with way more bullshit than this.
"No letters," Octavian said regretfully. "Will any legionnaires stand for them?"
"I will!" Frank stepped forward. "Colton saved my life!"
Immediately there were shouts of protest from the other cohorts. Reyna raised her hand for quiet and glared at Frank.
"Frank Zhang," she said, "for the second time today, I remind you that you are on probatio. Your godly parent has not even claimed you yet. You're not eligible to stand for another camper until you've earned your first stripe."
Frank looked like he might die of embarrassment.
Hazel couldn't leave him hanging. She stepped out of line and was about to speak up, when Colton lost it. "Really? What the hell is even wrong with you?" he said all of a sudden, catching everyone else — except Luke, Percy, and Michael — by surprise. Reyna looked on, taken aback at what Colton had just said. The boy in question didn't stop there, he just went on. "Just because the dude is probatio or whatever doesn't mean you automatically get to dismiss his testimony just like that. He and Hazel are both witnesses to the fact that along with my buddies, I saved their lives while Mr. Son of Neptune over here carried Juno to camp."
Colton was about to say more when Percy just shot back, "Mr. Son Of Neptune? Really? That lame comment?"
Colton's head turned and even though Hazel couldn't see what Colton was expressing on his face, the next words that came out of his mouth made it perfectly clear what he was feeling. "You want to fucking go, fish boy?" he taunted Percy, and Percy just fell silent.
"That's what I thought.." Colton said, before turning back to Reyna. Hazel was just in bewilderment at what had just happened. She couldn't help but think that there was definitely some bad blood brewing between Colton and Percy right now, almost as if — despite Percy's kind of aloof response — the two of them were rivals with each other.
Frank glanced at Colton gratefully, but the other campers started to mutter. Hazel was barely eligible. She'd only gotten her stripe a few weeks ago, and the "act of valor" that earned it for her had been mostly an accident. Besides, she was a daughter of Pluto, and a member of the disgraced Fifth Cohort. She wasn't doing them much of a favor at all by being labeled as a witness to what Colton had done, regardless of that actually being true.
Reyna wrinkled her nose, shocked at the outburst she had just received from Colton, but she turned to Octavian. The augur smiled and shrugged, like the whole thing that had just occurred between her and Colton amused him, despite the fact he seemed to be anxious and fearful of Colton too. Either way, he seemed like he was all for the idea honestly.
Why not? Hazel thought. Putting them all in the Fifth would make them less of a threat, though to be honest — it would barely make Colton and Michael any less of a threat due to both boys' seemingly volatile unpredictability — and Octavian liked to keep all his enemies in one place.
"Very well," Reyna announced. "Hazel Levesque, you may stand for the recruits. Does your cohort accept them?"
The other cohorts started coughing, trying not to laugh. Hazel knew what they were thinking: Another group of losers for the Fifth. Another angry growl from Colton though, and all of them were back to attention. It was seriously amazing how all of camp seemed to be anxious because of him.
Frank pounded his shield against the ground. The other members of the Fifth followed his lead, though they didn't seem very excited. Their centurions, Dakota and Gwen, exchanged pained and nervous looks, like: Here we go again.
Colton simply muttered something to Michael as this went on, and Michael simply nodded in agreement. Luke simply stared in total indifference at all of this and Percy just looked on in wonder.
"My cohort has spoken," Dakota said. "We accept the recruits."
(** Monster King cameo theme starts playing **)
Hazel could swear she could the outline of a massively large figure briefly appear in the sky for a few moments before disappearing at this point.
(** Music stops **)
Reyna looked at the four of them with pity. "Congratulations, Percy Jackson, Colton Reynolds, Michael Yew, and Luke Castellan. You all stand on probatio. You all will be given a tablet with your name and cohort. In one year's time, or as soon as any of you complete an act of valor, you will become a full member of the Twelfth Legion Fulminata. Serve Rome, obey the rules of the legion, and defend the camp with honor. Senatus Populusque Romanus!"
The rest of the legion echoed the cheer.
Reyna wheeled her pegasus away from them all, like she was glad to be done with them. For their part, Colton and Michael could only give Reyna looks of contempt in return. Skippy spread his beautiful wings. Hazel couldn't help feeling a pang of envy. She'd give anything for a horse like that, but it would never happen. Horses were for officers only, or barbarian cavalry, not for Roman legionnaires. She noticed Colton's eyes shift towards her, and Hazel simply froze. For a brief moment, she could see empathy creep into Colton's eyes before they turned more towards their thoughtful state, as if he was thinking up something.
"Centurions," Reyna said, "you and your troops have an hour and a half for dinner. Then we will meet on the Field of Mars. The First and Second Cohorts will defend. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth will attack. Good fortune!"
A bigger cheer went up—for the war games and for dinner. Even though the amount of time for dinner was longer than normal, none of them really cared. The cohorts broke ranks and ran for the mess hall — well, some of them did while others who hadn't gotten their equipment including most of the Fifth went to the barracks.
Hazel waved at Percy, who made his way through the crowd with Nico at his side. To Hazel's surprise, Nico was beaming at her. Colton and Michael were simply staring off at somewhere else as they walked over, and Luke just looked like he was deep in thought at the moment.
"Good job, Sis," he said. "That took guts, at least trying to stand up for them."
He had never called her Sis before. She wondered if that was what he had called Bianca.
One of the guards had given the four of them their probatio nameplates. Percy strung it on his leather necklace with the strange beads. Colton, Michael, and Luke meanwhile simply put in their pockets.
"Thanks, Hazel," he said. "Um, what exactly does it mean—your standing for me?" Cue Colton smacking Percy on the head yet again. Nico just let out a chuckle at that for some reason.
"What the hell is your problem with me, man?" Percy hollered.
Colton didn't say anything back.
"I simply guarantee good behavior from you all — though two of you need to work on it a bit," Hazel explained, not hesitating to call out Colton and Michael, both of whom simply just shrugged in response. "I teach you all the rules, answer your questions, and make sure you all don't disgrace the legion."
Colton snorted again. "If anything, it's people like Octavian and the jackasses in the First and Second Cohorts who disgrace the legion.." he muttered, and Luke and Michael simply nodded in agreement with him.
"And...if any of us do something wrong?"
"Then I get killed along with you all," Hazel said. Luke looked alarmed, Michael looked angry, and Percy really looked concerned.
Colton, however, simply snorted yet again in response, turning his head away. "They try that, they're as good as dead.." he said, the seriousness of what he said causing all of them, even Nico, to sweat a bit. Colton meant business, no doubt about it.
Hazel at this point decided to defuse the situation.
"Hungry? Let's eat."
Fortunately for her, all of them agreed.
- — - — - — -
At least the camp food was good. Invisible wind spirits—aurae—waited on the campers and seemed to know exactly what everyone wanted. They blew plates and cups around so quickly, the mess hall looked like a delicious hurricane. If you got up too fast, you were likely to get beaned by beans or potted by a pot roast. Michael and Luke simply looked on in amazement at the sight of it all.
Percy looked like he just wanted to eat and Colton was too busy thinking again to even notice it at all.
Hazel got shrimp gumbo—her favorite comfort food. It made her think about being a little girl in New Orleans, before her curse set in and her mom got so bitter. Percy got a cheeseburger and a strange-looking soda that was bright blue. Hazel didn't understand that, but Percy tried it and grinned.
"This makes me happy," he said. "I don't know why...but it does."
Colton simply snorted in laughter along with Michael. Luke just looked on in confusion, like he had seen it before but didn't really understand it at all.
Just for a moment, one of the aurae became visible—an elfin girl in a white silk dress. She giggled as she topped off Percy's glass, then disappeared in a gust. Michael and Luke were amazed, and Colton.. he just looked like he was watching a sci-fi film.
"What even was that?" Michael muttered.
No one replied.
The mess hall seemed especially noisy tonight. Laughter echoed off the walls. War banners rustled from cedar ceiling beams as aurae blew back and forth, keeping everyone's plates full. The campers dined Roman style, sitting on couches around low tables. Kids were constantly getting up and trading places, spreading rumors about who liked whom and all the other gossip.
As usual, the Fifth Cohort took the place of least honor. Their tables were at the back of the dining hall next to the kitchen. Hazel's table was always the least crowded. Tonight it was she and Frank, as usual, with the guys and Nico and their centurion Dakota, who sat there, Hazel figured, because he felt obligated to welcome the new recruits. The minute Colton looked at the table, he instantly looked ticked off again. Hazel sighed — it seemed that everything here was making him mad. She didn't understand why.
Dakota reclined glumly on his couch, mixing sugar into his drink and chugging it. He was a beefy guy with curly black hair and eyes that didn't quite line up straight, so Hazel felt like the world was leaning whenever she looked at him. It wasn't a good sign that he was drinking so much so early in the night.
"So." He burped, waving his goblet. "Welcome to the Percy, party." He frowned. "Party, Percy. Whatever."
"What are we, chopped liver?" Michael said in annoyance.
"Um, thanks," Percy said, but his attention was focused on Nico. "I was wondering if we could talk, you know...about where I might have seen you before."
"Sure," Nico said a little too quickly. "The thing is, I spend most of my time in the Underworld. So unless I met you there somehow—"
Dakota belched. "Ambassador from Pluto, they call him. Reyna's never sure what to do with this guy when he visits. You should have seen her face when he showed up with Hazel, asking Reyna to take her in. Um, no offense."
Michael simply looked like he was trying very hard to picture that now, even as both he and Colton sat down and just started eating their meals faster than anyone at camp did — while being clean about it of course. They had left their stuff they carried in their hands on the floor — while Michael had simply used the strap on his bow to let it rest on his back with the strap wrapped around his body.
"None taken." Nico seemed relieved to change the topic. "Dakota was really helpful, standing for Hazel."
Dakota blushed. "Yeah, well...She seemed like a good kid. Turned out I was right. Last month, when she saved me from, uh, you know."
"Oh, man!" Frank looked up from his fish and chips. "You all should have seen her! That's how Hazel got her stripe. The unicorns decided to stampede—"
"It was nothing," Hazel said.
"Nothing?" Frank protested. "Dakota would've gotten trampled! You stood right in front of them, shooed them away, saved his hide. I've never seen anything like it."
Colton and Michael simply looked at each other, as if each of them were thinking of something in line with what the other was thinking as well. Luke just looked on in wonder, and Percy was amazed.
Hazel bit her lip. She didn't like to talk about it, and she felt uncomfortable, the way Frank made her sound like a hero. In truth, she'd been mostly afraid that the unicorns would hurt themselves in their panic. Their horns were precious metal—silver and gold—so she'd managed to turn them aside simply by concentrating, steering the animals by their horns and guiding them back to the stables. It had gotten her a full place in the legion, but it had also started rumors about her strange powers—rumors that reminded her of the bad old days.
Percy studied her. Those sea-green eyes made her unsettled. Then again, Colton and Michael combined were even more unsettling.
"Did you and Nico grow up together?" he asked.
"No," Nico answered for her. "I found out that Hazel was my sister only recently. She's from New Orleans."
That was true, of course, but not the whole truth. Nico let people think he'd stumbled upon her in modern New Orleans and brought her to camp. It was easier than telling the real story.
Hazel had tried to pass herself off as a modern kid. It wasn't easy. Thankfully, demigods didn't use a lot of technology at camp. Their powers tended to make electronic gadgets go haywire. But the first time she went on furlough to Berkeley, she had nearly had a stroke. Televisions, computers, iPods, the Internet...It made her glad to get back to the world of ghosts, unicorns, and gods. That seemed much less of a fantasy than the twenty-first century.
Michael's eyes lit up with X's again, but he didn't say anything at all — and no one else noticed.
Nico was still talking about the children of Pluto. "There aren't many of us," he said, "so we have to stick together. When I found Hazel—"
"You have other sisters?" Percy asked, almost as if he knew the answer. Hazel wondered again when he and Nico had met, and what her brother was hiding.
"One," Nico admitted. "But she died. I saw her spirit a few times in the Underworld, except that the last time I went down there..."
To bring her back, Hazel thought, though Nico didn't say that.
"She was gone." Nico's voice turned hoarse. "She used to be in Elysium—like, the Underworld paradise—but she chose to be reborn into a new life. Now I'll never see her again. I was just lucky to find Hazel...in New Orleans, I mean."
Dakota grunted. "Unless you believe the rumors. Not saying that I do."
"Rumors?" Percy asked.
From across the room, Don the faun yelled, "Hazel!"
At that moment, as Don the faun came over, both Colton and Michael just stood up, grabbed their stuff, and started to walk off.
"Where are you two going?" Percy asked him. Colton simply stopped, turned around, and glared at Percy.
"None of your business, eel biter.." Colton replied, walking off as Percy said, "HEY!" in response.
Hazel just sighed. She was now certain the son of Mars and the son of Neptune really were rivals with each other, even if both of them were amnesiac at the moment. She didn't know how or why, she just knew that they just were. It was bizarre to even comprehend, yet this seemed to be reality right now. Whether it was genuinely for real - when they regained their memories - remained to be seen.
- — - — - — -
Colton and Michael both approached the Fifth Cohort's barracks, ignoring the variety of looks they got from both members of other cohorts and lares as they approached the bare looking barracks. As to what exactly the two of them had ditched the others to come down here for, it was really simple. When they and Luke had discovered the rest of their gear waiting for them outside the bath house after they had taken a bath alongside Percy and Carlton had admitted that someone else from the Fifth Cohort had been keeping the items up until now since they - along with Colton's Whitworth, cartridge box, cap pouch, and belt - had all appeared mysteriously at camp back in late December, Colton had discussed it a bit with Michael while they had been walking to the mess hall and the two of them had agreed that it would be worth checking out the Fifth Cohort's barracks now rather than later, since the two had a feeling that they might not get another chance to do so for a long while.
Standing in front of the place, both of them felt an aura of resignation, embarrassment, sorrow, and agony emitting from the building as if they were standing right beside an open Pandora's box. Michael trembled slightly upon feeling it. It felt like someone was close to dying and it hurt inside for him. Even though this wasn't really the case here at all, it still felt like that for him regardless.
"So remind me again.. what our working theory on why this place feels like absolute hopelessness is?" Michael simply muttered to Colton.
"The theory we have is that the reason why this place is what it is currently is connected to the Great Prophecy.." Colton simply said back to him, and Michael nodded.
"Yeah.. that would make sense honestly.. given how static they seem to be, I wouldn't be surprised if we're correct.. and it did have something to do with that.." he replied, as he then felt an odd sense of fate creep over him, like something or someone was waiting for him inside the building.
"You feel that?" Michael asked Colton, turning his head towards him in confusion. "Feels like something has been expecting us in there."
Colton simply nodded back in reply now. He could feel it as well right now too, and while it made him feel a bit tense as he didn't know for certain what exactly awaited them inside there, he was dead certain that whatever was inside there would prove extremely valuable to their efforts - both to figure out exactly why the Fifth Cohort lived in this sense of shame and despondence and to getting their memories back.
"We're going in.." Colton said at last, and the heavily armed demigod started up the steps of the front porch of the building, Michael right behind him. Leaning the Whitworth gently up against the wall, Colton simply turned the knob to the door and opened it, using his foot to keep the door from closing as he then grabbed the Whitworth again and walked in, Michael right behind.
The door slid shut with a mostly quiet noise as they observed the interior. If the outside had looked bare, the inside might as well have looked like the interior of solitary confinement - as much as one could make it look like that while having at least up to 20 kids in one place with weapons and armor and so forth also inside. Hooks, stands, and a few other places that looked like they used to have trophies and awards - all bare, gathering dust.
"This is just.. fucking depressing, man.." Michael muttered. "..my heart goes out to Hazel, Frank, and the other poor kids that have to live like this." He wasn't really wrong at all. Even though he didn't remember much at the moment, he definitely knew from what little fragments of his memories he currently had, that he had come from somewhere that was far more grand, luxurious in comparison, and bright than.. the mental institute of a barracks he and Colton were currently in now.
Colton didn't say a word. He simply just froze a few moments later, and Michael bumped into his back, not paying attention until he had done so. "Hey, Colton.. why did you.." Michael started, before he saw a portion of pink hair peeking out from the edge of Colton's right arm. Michael tilted his head and body to the right, looking around Colton.
In a moment, he instantly knew why Colton had stopped - for he could feel the aura of fate that they had felt outside the cabin more intensely than ever before - so he had a good idea that they had found the source. Looking back at the two insanely armed demigods was a girl, sitting on one of the bunk beds in the barracks. Dressed in armor for the most part, both Colton and Michael could see that she had pink hair, pink eyebrows, and brown eyes. She also had long limbs and a long neck with a pendant of a star around her neck. She was beautiful, yet appeared to be a good bit nervous and fearful.
An awkward silence lasted between the three of them for a while, since they were currently the only ones in the barracks at this time. Then, the girl in front of the duo broke that silence, saying a few words that would forever set her on a life-changing course.
"Light and the Monster King, you both are finally here."
(* - Reference To The Movie Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack!)