Wendy knew about gods. She knew her whole family were descendants of Pluto. They had a gnarly Stygian iron sword in their basement, for ’s sake.

It was a well-kept family secret. She was trained from a young age to see beyond the Mist that shields every mortal’s eyes from seeing monsters and the like.

Of course, the Fates had to make it even worse. After finding out that she was the daughter of another Olympian, it seems that said monsters found her even more delicious. It made her smell stronger to monster that they can track her easily. She was attacked left and right, leaving her with no choice but to train whenever she was free from schoolwork.

Being Pluto’s legacy and Apollo’s daughter .

Listening to audio versions of her textbooks as she practices, soon enough she was good enough to take down monsters ten times bigger than her using a small dagger (she had yet to inherit her grandfather’s Stygian sword) while solving equations in her mind.

The birds were uncalled for, in her opinion. They hurt like a .

It was a normal day at school. As normal as it gets for a high school senior demigod, that is. She knew some ‘people’ at school weren't actually people and they knew she was not a regular mortal.

She was minding her own business, literally just struggling her way through a particularly difficult equation, when she heard something metal bump into the classroom window.

She was determined to ignore it as it was repeated a few times. Let it be something normal, she chanted in her head. Of course, that wasn't the case. It never is.

Wendy simply sighed, already tired at 10:47am, when the screams broke out as the window shattered. Glass flying everywhere, she stood calmly while her classmates ran in panic. She wasn't sure what they were seeing but whatever it was, it was probably better than what she was seeing.

Stymphalian birds.

Wendy groans. She had read about them. Man eating birds with bronze beaks and metallic feathers.

Damn, she thought as she starts to run, I guess Calculus could wait another day. The birds zooms in on her, clearly aware that she was of celestial descent.

“To me!” She called out to them when she saw some of them flying to one of her mortal classmates. “I have literally two godly relatives! I'm sure my flesh tastes better!”

She ran out of the room, straight to the gymnasium knowing it was empty at this hour. She unlatched her bracelet and it immediately transformed into a beautiful ornate gold bow, a gift from her father. Reaching into the quiver, disguised as a poster tube strapped to her back, she launches arrow after arrow at the birds.

It was useless, she thought. Even though her quiver was impossible to empty, the arrows simply bounced off the bird’s metallic feathers. “Damn it,” she yelps as the monster starts to tear at her flesh. She tries to fight them off but there was easily three dozen in front of her. She knew Hercules battled the same birds but she couldn’t recall their weakness. “.”

“Wendy!” a voice calls to her and she’s one of the non-mortal boys from her class. Chanyeol. “Here!” the tall boy slides a heavy speaker on the floor that Wendy stops with her feet. “Loud noises confuses them!”

She nods at Chanyeol before they both press play on the boombox. The birds shrieks at them as the floor vibrates with the loud bass of Catch Me If You Can by Girls’ Generation. “Perfect. Listen to my queens!”

The birds all scramble to fly away, some even bumping on the walls.

“Yeah, that’s right!” Wendy taunts. “You want a piece of me? Just fly away, Feather Fawcett!” The boy chuckles as Wendy continues to insult the birds.

“Wendy, look out!” He yells, eyes widening.

Of course, with Wendy’s luck, she had a chance to turn her head before one of the confused metallic, very heavy, concussion-worthy bird flies straight to her forehead.

---

Wendy vaguely remembers being dragged by the tall boy, Chanyeol. She tries to fight him off but she only manages to groan before passing out again.

---

The next time Wendy opens her eyes, she was greeted by blurry figures. Trying to call for their attention, she raises a hand only for it to be grabbed.

“What the heck are you doing?” a feminine voice asked, blurry figure turning to her. “You almost grabbed my ing .”

The demigod squints at the stranger, waiting for her vision to clear. “Pretty,” she mumbled.

“What?” the stranger questions.

“Am I dead? Are you Aphrodite?”

The pretty stranger scoffs. “Has that line ever worked for you before?”

Another figure joins in and lets out a strange, almost ahjumma-sounding laugh. “Joohyun-ah, calm down. She’s clearly very sick.”

Wendy turns to the owner of said weird laugh. She looked strangely familiar.

“Anyway, nice to meet you, Wendy,” she said, smiling kindly. “I’m Taeyeon. That’s Irene. You’re in a camp for demigods.”

“Oh,” Wendy simply replies as she tries to sit up. “How did I end up here?”

“Chanyeol, one of our satyrs brought you here after the bird problem at your school to get you fixed up.”

“Oh, thank you,” she tells them, bowing. The two women stared at her as she stands fully from the bed to look for her shoes. “Um, what?”

“You don’t have any questions?” Irene asks, brow raised. “New campers usually never shuts up.”

“Well, no,” Wendy shakes her head. “I already knew I was a demigod and also about this place. I just didn’t know where it was. Since, you know, the camp shifts from place to place to avoid being detected by mortals.”

Taeyeon smiles again, a dimple appearing in her chin. “Great! One less to orient, I guess. Do you know who your godly parent is?”

“Apollo,” Wendy answers as she ties her shoelaces. “Also a Pluto legacy.”

“Omo, I’m your unnie, then,” the older girl tells her. “I’m the head of the Apollo cabin.”

“Nice to meet you, Taeyeon unnie.” The girl smiles genuinely for the first time before bowing. “I’m really sorry but I have to go.”

“Oh but you can’t go,” Irene stops her with a hand on her arm. “You’re not safe out there.”

“Um,” Wendy starts. “No offense, really, but I can handle myself.”

“You barely got out this morning,” Irene huffs.

“Joohyun-ah,” Taeyeon interrupts, “we can’t let her stay if she doesn’t want to.”

“I’m just looking out for her safety, unnie!”

The older girl smiles at Wendy. “You can go, Wendy. Just tell Chanyeol if you want to come back. He can lead you back here. You can also Iris message me.”

“I will. Thank you so much for your help.” Wendy bows at the two again. Irene just eyes her warily as the newcomer smirks. “I’ll see you again, beautiful.”

---

Wendy runs, she runs until her legs are about to fall off then she runs some more. She trips on a protruding tree root and falls headfirst to the ground, the taste of blood in . Ahead of her, she can see Irene and Joy looking back. She waves them away. “Go!”

“You’ll die!” Irene yells, running back to her. “Besides, it’s me they want.”

Wendy falls again as she tries to stand. “You’re an idiot, Bae! Just go and cross the border with Joy,” she points to the younger girl, who was looking at them with wide eyes. “She’s scared.”

“We all are,” Irene points out, she hooks her an arm around Wendy’s waist. “Come on, get up, you’re an even bigger idiot than I am.”

“Thanks, I get that a lot,” Wendy faintly says. The ground was spinning and she was struggling to open her eyes.

“Just run,” Irene growled as they limped towards the camp. “Why the hell did you leave your sword?”

“It's with the weaponsmith!” Wendy yells. “I wanted to make it more practical to carry, you know like a pen that turns into a sword.”

“A Stygian sword just about sounds very, very practical right now!”

“I’m too pretty to die!” Joy shrieked, making Wendy laugh weakly. “Unnies, hurry up!”

“Just go,” Irene replies, “and call for help! The first wall of defense should be ahead.”

Joy disappears from Wendy’s blurry line of sight as Irene looks around for any sign of their enemies. Satisfied, she lets Wendy sit on the ground and rummages through her pack. Pulling out a zip lock bag, she hands shoves a small cube into Wendy’s mouth unceremoniously.

“Are you trying to choke me?” the other girl asked, chewing the ambrosia slowly. The wound on her forehead stops bleeding almost immediately.

“Well, our team healer is injured,” Irene mumbles, referring to Wendy as she continues going through her bag. Finally, she pulls out a small plate. “A-ha!”

“Great, time to eat dinner, I guess,” Wendy says, clearly gaining enough strength to be sarcastic.

Irene glares at the younger girl. “Do you ever stop talking?”

“Only when I’m being kissed by a pretty girl,” Wendy quips.

“Idiot,” Irene mumbles, trying to hide a blush threatening to crawl out from her neck. She tinkers with the plate in her hand until it turns into a full sized shield.

“Whoa, what is that?”

“It’s a video shield,” Irene tells the other girl. “It basically allows us to see anywhere with natural light. If I can concentrate enough, that is.”

“Okay,” Wendy nods seriously. “I’ll try not to be too devastatingly cute and distract you.”

Irene rolls her eyes before closing them fully. She concentrated on the forest around them to locate the arachnids on their tail. Why didn’t anyone tell a daughter of Athena that the nearby forest was full of giants spiders? She really was going to set the camp on fire once they get back.

It was supposed to be a standard recon mission. The camp had received reports of monster sightings in the city, that’s why they sent the three to see if the reports were true. It turned to be very, very true as said monsters started to chase them back to camp.

“They’re right behind us,” Irene says urgently. “Can you get up?”

Wendy tries and promptly sits back down. “I might have a concussion. ,” she says, slightly out of breath. “Just leave me.”

“Stop being dramatic,” Irene clicks her tongue. “I think we can figure something out between the two of us and a horde of giant spider coming to eat us.”

Wendy nods, “I can try to camouflage us with the trees. Your turn not to be too distractingly pretty,” she says with a chuckle that the other ignores.

“Okay,” Irene agrees easily, mind already thinking about a thousand ways their plan could go wrong. “I’m going to borrow your bow, okay?”

“Only if you know how to use it.”

“I’m the child of the goddess of war, of course I know how to use it.”

The nearby rustling of the trees alerts them of their eight legged enemies. Irene quickly goes to Wendy’s side. The latter laying a hand on the former’s arm, closing her eyes in concentration as she tries to bend sunlight in order to hide them.

Both trying not to breathe too loudly, waves and waves of arachnids the size of a cow pass by them pretty quick. Irene tries not to let her fear show as she unknowingly moves her hand to hold Wendy’s. The camouflage falters for a second at her touch but it was enough for the spiders to notice the change in the air.

“I told you not to be distractingly pretty!” Wendy yells as the creepy crawlies turn to them.