Too-tooooo-too-tooooh!

A sound of a far away trumpet sounded, filling up their room with murmurs of tiredness and melodies of yawns.

They’d all been thrown into the dame dorm, which was shared by various other estranged demigods they didn’t know. Even if they did, they were distant memories for Baekhyun as he kept it close to his circle, only knowing his friends. In fact, he was positive he’d never even met these demigods, meaning they’d all come from the mortal world straight to the resistance.

He could understand why. They were all resentful at their god parents for leaving them out in the mortal world alone, afraid and feeling like they were going crazy. All these people here weren’t being possessed by any potion the way Chanyeol was, they all genuinely wanted to fight for this resistance.

After hearing the horn sound, Baekhyun woke up his friends, shaking them awake to get dressed. Today was their first day-of-you could call it acting class. They were to blend in, act like they wanted to be here, act like they wanted to murder their god parents. That was going to be easy...right?

Baekhyun reached into his duffle bag and retrieved his only new set of clean clothes. An oversized brown hoodie and black adidas track pants. It wasn’t really his style, but he’d only really brought it for emergencies. He could already feel the clothes he’d been wearing for a week crumbling and ripping on one side. Since they had been underground, the dirt and humidity had made it hard to conserve his clothes.

As he took out clothes, he noticed his bag was slightly lighter than it usually was. He rummaged through it’s contacts and realized he was missing his nectar.

“Has anyone seen my ambrosia?” Baekhyun emptied the contents of his bag.

Underwear, bandages, a pocket knife, toothbrush, his reading glasses...all fell to the floor, his hands patted around like a blind person attempting to find his ambrosia bottle.

Mina came to help him look, checking the side pockets of his bag.

Kyungsoo seemed skeptical so he ran over to his bag and rummaged through it, 

“I can’t find mine either,” He said speechless.

Then Mina went to her own bag and found that her ambrosia bottle was missing. 

“What the hell-”

“Don’t be shocked,” Someone came to stand in front of them.

It was a girl who had been watching them freak out about the ambrosia for a while now. Her eyes looked playful as she watched the newer recruits desperately figure out where their ambrosia had gone.

‘I’m not an ex-camper, but from what I know that magic potion stuff disappears automatically after a while,”

“What do you mean...it disappears?” Baekhyun asked.

“Well...since ambrosia is a blessing from the gods, it only makes sense that they make it disappear when you join an entire organization against them,”

“Right,” Kyungsoo nodded slowly, “Kai was saying that he’d never even seen ambrosia.”

“You guys must be the new recruits.” The unknown girl smiled.

It was only the four of them left in the cabin, everyone had already dressed to leave for their training session. This girl however, seemed nice and outgoing.

“I’m Harmonia,” She reached out an excited hand.

Baekhyun took it first, although hesitant. When their hands met he felt a chill travel down his spine. 

“Uh yeah, we’re the new recruits. You don’t mind showing us to the training camp right?

“I was just about to offer,” Harmonia smiled.

She had, by far, one of the whitest and dazzling smiles the demigods had ever seen. Perhaps she was a model in her past life. Her dark curly brown hair reached her shoulders. Her eyes were a glowing green, nose sprinkled with freckles. 

Out of all the demigods here she seemed the nicest and most approachable.

“This is where we keep all our weapons,” She pointed at the barracks far from them, which had several sheds lined up, one small bulb attached to the top of the door to give a little light since they were underground, “We have the essentials,” She brought them into one shed which was lined with bronze, silver, iron, steel-pretty much every metal to exist sword. 

“I’m more of a dagger kinda gal,” She picked up a bronze one from the top shelf.

The rest of the demigods looked blankly at this action.

She turned to them and hid her laugh, “Go on, you guys get your weapons. We’re training today.”

“Oh we have our own,” Kyungsoo declined, showing her his black obsidian sword.

“Well, you see...we can’t have personal weapons while we’re training,” Harmonia explained, “Everything has to be fair and square. After all, personal weapons hold different powers that some demigods may not have.”

They all nodded and scattered to find their preferred weapon. Mina came back with a bronze sword-similar to the one she’d been using at camp. Kyungsoo got a silver sword and Baekhyun came back with an arrow.

“Hm...archery. Haven’t seen that in a while,” Harmonia tapped her chin, “You must be good to pick that type of weapon,”

Baekhyun could only smile, “Should I be afraid?”

“Most certainly. No one  ‘round here uses arrows much, save for a few. When general Chanyeol sees you using that he’ll for sure pick on you,” She laughed, looking over to the side as if to recall a memory. 

Baekhyun almost froze. It was going to take a long time to get used to the fact that people were saying Chanyeol’s name aloud and putting ‘general’ in front of it. It was weird. Weirder than he thought. Afterall, he always remembered Chanyeol as this goofy and naive sixteen year old who had forever changed his life three years ago. 

In this underground resistance, he was a leader, someone in command, vigilant and powerful. Perhaps this is what Zues had always wanted for his son-just as he had others.

“Alright, let's go,” Harmonia led them out of the barracks.

They all stood at the gate of a huge pit. This was the same bit that Baekhyun had come across trying to find Kai. It was just like an underground colosseum. Except, instead of everything being made out of white marble stone, theirs was made out of hard clay. Still, it was magnificent and beautiful. 

Standing at the centre were a huddled group of campers in which Chanyeol stood out the most.

The tall man had his arms crossed over his chest, chin up scanning over the recruits around him. Some people talked amongst themselves. Some showed their weapons and sharpened their blades. This reminded the demigods of the pre-huddle before a capture the flag tournament. 

“New recruits,” Chanyeol came to stand in front of the estranged demigods, “ Say your full name and god parent.”

The four demigods looked between each other, wondering why this was the second time they were being asked who their god parent was. After all, wasn’t the whole point of this resistance to dissociate from your toxic god parents. Wouldn’t all these demigods here feel pain to admit who they were the child of?

“Do Kyungsoo, son of Ares,”

“Mina Satori, daughter of Zues,”

“Byun Baekhyun, son of Aphrodite,”

All the demigods immediately began to snicker and murmur amongst each other. This was to them...an interesting set of demigods. They had Kyungsoo who was a foot shorter than Chanyeol who claimed to be the son of strength and war. Mina, who was supposed to be a daughter of the big three, but could barely even hold a weapon straight. 

Then Baekhyun...who looked like he could kill someone with his stern gaze being the son of love and beauty. They were to say the least, the opposite of what the stereotype their siblings would be. Perhaps in a sense it made sense that Baekhyun could kill with his looks.

Chanyeol flicked his head to the side, which made another demigod from behind him hand him a clipboard and pen.

He scribbled some notes on them before encircling around them, checking what Baekhyun assumed were they're stats. 

Stats weren’t always done at camp half blood, but usually when there would be  yearly training or an undercover mission, the demigods would need to go through certain tests and body capacity procedures.

Baekhyun glanced at the clipboard and noticed Chanyeol was first writing down their estimated weights and heights. 

“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” He said without explaining why.

Then he came right in front of Kyungsoo, looking down at him, “ State any special abilities,”

“Uh-” Kyungsoo sputtered, perhaps awestruck by this ‘new chanyeol’ demeanor, “Super strength, earthquakes…” He trailed off.

Then he stood in front of Mina, tilting his head in curiosity, “Has Zues blessed you with anything?” He asked her.

To which she replied with a timid shake of the head. Chanyeol looked stressed after that response. Baekhyun knew that look-a look of frustration that he’d need to train a demigod who didn’t know much about combat, nor held any elemental powers.

Baekhyun waited to be asked what his abilities were, but to his surprise Chanyeol handed his clipboard back and only glared at the son of Aphrodite. Then he resting his hand together and marched back into the center of the crowd.

“What the hell was that,” Kyungsoo looked at Baekhyun.

Harmonia pursed her lips, “He doesn’t seem to take a liking to you,”

Baekhyun opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. In this alternate universe Chanyeol hated his guts. This was going to take a while to get used to. 

“What did you do to make him hate you so much?” Mina asked.

“Nothing...I was just trying to find Kai when I woke up and...I kinda ran into him. He almost killed me-though I was trespassing.” Baekhyun pouted.

“Enough talking!” Chanyeol bellowed into the ground, but clearly directing his anger to Baekhyun.

Everyone stood up straight, the hairs on their backs standing up. This Chanyeol was scary. However, Baekhyun could see right through his little facade. Perhaps it helped that he knew Chanyeol at a time where he was the opposite of this.

“Grab your weapons and line up, first person to hit the top of the bottle cap moves on to the next training regimen.” Chanyeol clapped his hands only once.

The demigods all rushed to find a space in line.

Well, this wasn’t going to be hard, Baekhyun thought. He had a pretty bearable bow and arrow and from the looks of it the bottle cap was about 4 meters away. It was pretty standard. All the people he had sword were probably out of luck considering they were going to have to throw their weapon to hit the cap.

It seemed straightforward, but when Baekhyun watched the first person try, his mouth was almost on the floor.

Not because they’d missed, (Although they had), but that while they had to throw their sword, a million other weapons were being thrown at them.

It was like a baseball bat-hitting-place, where balls would be continuously thrown at you. Baekhyun had seen one in NewYork with Chanyeol, but he’d forgotten what it was called.

Instead of tennis balls there were arrows, spears and small daggers being thrown at you simultaneously as you were attempting to aim for the bottle cap. 

This was going to be harder than Baekhyun originally thought.

“Next,” Chanyeol pointed his pen at Kyungsoo who was standing in front of him.

He scribbled something down on his clipboard before signalling the other end to start throwing weapons straight at the demigod.

Kyungsoo thankfully dodged them all, but with no luck trying to get the bottle cap off. He cursed under his breath. Being quite a competitive demigod it irked him that he couldn’t reach the bottle cap.

Mina was next, but he quickly turned around and gave Baekhyun a look of absolute fear. He sighed, grabbing her and forcing her to stand behind her so that he could go first.

Sure, he didn’t like that he was going next, but Mina and a bunch of sharp objects being thrown at her wasn’t a really good situation.

“Next,” Chanyeol called.

Baekhyun turned to make eye contact with ‘general’ Chanyeol. He almost made the stern man change his expression at first, but he kept it pretty neutral most of the time.

Turning his head forward, he gulped as he watched the weapons that were ready to be flung by other demigods on the other side. He knew there was no way he’d reach the bottle cap yet.

When the first spear was thrown his way, Baekhyun ducked, and then slightly kicked it with his foot so that it would veer away. Before he could even try to recover from that attack, an arrow was heading his way. 

Fast, like his reflexes were in hyper-active mode, he dodged that arrow, and then another, and then a spear and then another arrow. It was non-stop. At one point, he realized he needed to take a shot before the timing of five minutes on the clock ended.

Baekhyun took out his arrow. It didn’t even take him more than five seconds to notch the bow to the arrow and fling it across.

All the demigods watched with anticipation.

He’d missed the bottle cap.

Baekhyun cursed under his breath, but before he could take out another arrow to try again, time was up.

He’s only lightly scratched the side of the bottle with the head of his arrow.

Baekhyun’s eyes naturally found Chanyeol's, who could only raise an eyebrow while quickly looking back at his clipboard to scribble something down.

He was hard to read now that he had a mean facade.

Baekhyun imagined this is what it was like for Chanyeol when he first met him.

“Next,” He said lamely.

Baekhyun wanted to throw an arrow and launch straight at him, but instead kept his careful eyes on Mina because it was her turn next.

The daughter of Zeus, formed her lips into a tight line. Her knuckles turned white as she grabbed her sword.

She drew it up as soon as Chanyeol queued the weapons.

Baekhyun held his breath.

Thankfully, she dodged the first arrow that was aiming right at her chest. Then, when a spear came she yelped before jumping up just inches away from the ground where it fell.

From there, it was just a running game. Mina tried her best to focus her attention back on to the bottle cap, but she was so busy trying to save herself from the upcoming weapons, the time was slowly running out.

Baekhyun could only watch in agony as Mina attempted to stay alive.

Come on, Mina you can do it, Baekhyun thought to himself.

Suddenly, an arrow launched that Mina was not aware of. It was like a surprise attack. While she delt with a spear that was coming from the side, she had dismissed to look to her other side, the right.

Everything happened so fast that Baekhyun was convinced it was pure reflex.

He remembers briefly glancing at Chanyeol who looked disappointed in Mina’s ability to say the least. Just as he began to write something down on his clipboard, Baekhyun jumped.

The demigods ran towards the impending danger and notched an arrow high enough.

Without listening to the many other demigods that were telling him to stop, he flung it at the oncoming danger from Mina.

The arrow made a crack noise and fell to the ground, broken by Baekhyun’s impeccable aim.

He breathed deeply, closing his eyes. Mina was safe. 

Baekhyun looked around to find all eyes were on him. The demigods looked between each other, speechless. Some whispered amongst each other, while others looked on the side: the table where Chanyeol was seated. 

It was as if everyone knew what had happened but didn't want to say it aloud. 

He'd broken a sacred rule.

The general frowned upon seeing Baekhyun had been the one who threw the arrow.

Chanyeol clenched his jaw and ordered Kai to fall back as he began to follow him.

Baekhyun braced himself. He watched in fear as Chanyeol clambered down in his robes, anger raging in his eyes.

“How dare you!” He pointed a finger at Baekhyun.

“I was just-”

“I don’t want to hear any of it. I don’t want to hear your measly excuses you imbecile.” Chanyeol raised his voice.

Baekhyun's eyebrows scrunched together, the way they did when he was angry. This time, his lips were upturned in a quivering frown. The old Chanyeol would have never yelled at him like this. Baekhyun was so hurt, he wanted to cry right then and there. 

“She was going to get hurt-” Baekhyun’s voice was shaky.

“Kai, bring him into my office, I need to finish this training session without distraction,” Chanyeol ordered.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Waiting in Chanyeol’s supposed office was like hell. He knew that he was going to get for stepping in to help Mina with her training routine, but what was he supposed to do? Stand there and let her get hurt? Mina could have seriously gotten injured and then what? They would have used their non-existent ambrosia to heal her?

No, Baekhyun was standing by his decision. 

He paced around the room, passively looking at his surroundings. On the very end of the room was a large mahogany desk where there were really only a few clipboards and pens placed. 

Above his desk was a picture frame, with an abstract painting of what seemed like metal and fire. Perhaps an homage to Hephaestus?

The walls around him were plastered with wood and wall paper. Overall, the room didn’t look so primitive to the others. Meaning it had been renovated for at least six months, about the time Chanyeol had disappeared from camp.

Around the walls were wooden chairs, Baekhyun couldn’t find himself to even sit on them. He was too worried about what was to come.

Around the one hour mark he found himself sitting down because his legs started to wear out. Just as he sat, he heard the door creak open.

Baekhyun turned and saw Chanyeol looking like he’d just finished a hard day at work. He almost jumped when he saw Baekhyun silently looking up at him in curiosity.

“What are you still doing here?” Chanyeol barked.

The son of aphrodite looked at him in disbelief, “You told me to stay here,”

Chanyeol pushed his hair back in frustration, “Right, right,”

He slumped into his large chair at the deks, opening a cabinet and throwing a clipboard he had in his hands. 

“Your behaviour was unacceptable at training,” Chanyeol said.

“I beg to differ,” Baekhyun argued.

“You’re one heck of a demigod saying all of this in my presence, in my office,” 

“I don’t care if you can make pigs fly, what I did was the right thing,” Baekhyun said, feeling proud that he’d used the same line Chanyeol had the first time they’d reunited.

Chanyeol leaned his neck back and let out a raggedy breath, clearly frustrated with Baekhyun.

“Listen, if you interrupt someone’s one-on-one training they are bound to never learn how to fight properly. This all makes sense, why is that girl so weak? She’s had you protecting and babysitting her every step of the way,”

“You act like we are all going to be alone in battle. We need teamwork. Ever heard of that?” Baekhyun crossed his arms over his chest.

“We don’t practice teamwork here...that’s for people who can trust each other. In this place, no one is your friend, naive demigod. Think of everyone as your enemy. That is the only way you’ll get ahead in the resistance,”

“This is absurd,” Baekhyun was speechless.

Everything that was spewing out of his mouth was so anti-camp half blood, so anti-chanyeol. It was like he was a completely different person. He couldn't bear to even speak to this new Chanyeol any longer. It felt like venom was coming out his mouth with every word he spoke.

“You don’t seem to understand this, do you,” Chanyeol laughed mockingly, “We don’t have special ambrosia nectar that you ex-campers have. We can’t just magically recuperate like all you weaklings did. If you need to survive here, you need scratches and bruises.” 

Baekhyun clenched his jaw. He knew he shouldn't be so angry, but his mind kept flashing back to Chanyeol back in the summer. He was a man who would do anything for his friends. He had an inexplicable sense of camaraderie you would not find in any other camper. Now, he was going on about how you couldn’t trust anyone.

Of course he wanted to fight. Explain to him that he’s not from the resistance, that he has a life back at camp, but he knew blowing their cover so soon would only cause them harm.

“Very well, there’s not much changing your point of view,” Baekhyun said, standing up and leaving his office. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Chanyeol called back.

Baekhyun stopped in his tracks,waiting to hear what else Chanyeol had to say.

“You are not to be rooming with that girl anymore, as well as that son of Ares. You will be transferred to a different dorm effective immediately,”

“You’ve got to be kidding me-”

“The preparations have already been made. Go to unit B486 dorm, your stuff should have already been shifted there.”

“You’re a tyrant,” Baekhyun sneered.

“I’m your worst enemy.” Chanyeol said.

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Authors note: I know! I know! I went on a lonnng hiatus. But I'm back I promise. And yes right now there doesn't seem to be much going on romantically between Chanyeol and Baekhyun but don't many things are to come!