Chapter Text
“I sure do love these nature walks we take.. Completely surrounded by 𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦!” Sadie said sarcastically as she motioned to the various kiosks around her in the Gateway Center Mall.
She watched her brother sigh as he prepared to give her answer, “I know there’s not so much ‘nature’ but come on Sadie, the kids have been training since Spring Break started. It’s good to give them a bit of freedom before going back to school.”
“You say that like it doesn’t include us. We both go to school like normal kids now, you know.” She pointed out.
“You’re impossible. I thought you liked shopping!”
Sadie hummed, “I do..”
“Sadie.” Carter’s tone softened, “I know everyone in Brooklyn house is a little on edge right now. But Freak’s recovering, and there’s been no sign of that rogue magician.”
With a bit of a huff, Sadie started speed-walking past her brother. She had been a bit worried for the past few days, but how dare her brother catch onto it so well. It had started, she received a text from her friend from across the river, Annabeth Chase, telling her to simply be aware of possible threats that might arise on either side of New York.
But demigods couldn’t use phones, because of course they couldn’t, so she couldn’t ask for any more clarification.
And then on the evening of the same day, her brother comes home with an injured griffin. Freak, the unofficial mascot and slightly deadly pet of Brooklyn House, had been injured by a 𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 white tiger. Why a magical tiger? Well because her brother had reported the bloody thing was glowing bright blue. And when they went to revisit the scene, there was not a trace of magic there!
So yes, Sadie may have been a 𝘵𝘢𝘥 paranoid about a random attack happening. But she also might have wanted to check out what the Hot Topic had to offer in the way of non-animal hide clothing. And in her foul mood, she had been pushing away Walt, her boyfriend (and by proxy the Egyptian god that she wasn’t in a relationship with but did live rent free in her boyfriend’s body).
She was just about to turn the corner in search of the store, but saw a penguin waddling around through the Old Navy and sighed.
“Felix, what have you done this time?” She switched course and discreetly disabled the penguin shabti, only to find another one hiding in the clothes racks. Sadie really did hate converting the now-eleven-year-old’s penguins without his knowledge, but Cater was so much better at the ‘no summoning penguins in public spaces’ talk than she was.
Within another few aisles, she had located the young magician, crouching in a rack of clothes near the changing rooms.
“Felix!” Sadie called out, but realized Felix wasn’t alone, and quickened her pace.
As she approached, she got a better look at the other kid sitting next to Felix. They both had similar blonde hair, but while Felix’s was more spikey, the boy had it styled smoothed. And in place of Felix’s blue scarf, the boy wore blue overalls. It looked like the strange boy was a little older as well.
Upon her arrival, Felix looked up and saw that his eyes were pink, as if he’d been calming down from crying.
“Oh hi Sadie!”
“Are you feeling alright Felix, goodness, what happened— And who’s this?”
Felix stood up and answered the last question first, “This is my new friend Kenji. He helped me out a lot after I got kind of… um.. Upset.”
This statement was met with a nod from the other boy, “Hello! I was walking and found Felix. It looked like he needed to breathe, so I helped!”
“Thanks again, Kenji.”
“No problem! Everyone needs help sometimes.”
“Wait, Felix, who was your buddy?” Sadie asked. The system for Brooklyn house field trips used the buddy system, always pairing younger with at least a few years older to prevent these kinds of situations.
Felix’s face scrunched up a bit in response, “It was Walt.”
Sadie’s heart fell with that new knowledge. She didn’t know exactly how to ask what happened with a non-magician in proximity, she just made her question more specific.
“Er, did he start… dissociating?”
Shaking his head ‘yes’ Felix continued, “Pretty badly. I thought it might have been my fault. Then he went into the changing rooms… But he didn’t come out, so I sort of started freaking out a bit.”
“And that’s when I found Felix,” Kenji finished for him, then added something that surprised Sadie, “I have a few siblings who have episodes sometimes too. I think in English, it’s called PTSD? When they happen, all we can do is be there for them. Even the strongest trees bend in hard winds. That’s why you plant them together!”
Surprised as she was by that mature commnet from someone a few years younger than her, she had to agree.
“Exactly Felix. Walt will be just fine. We’ve just got to… er,” She stuck with the nature theme Kenji had started, “Wait for the storm to be over. But I do have a bit of good news for you Felix.”
“Huh?”
Sadie passed him the two penguin shabti she’d grabbed earlier, “Your penguins.”
The kid practically lit up at the sight of his beloved birds, “Thank you, thank you Sadie! I promise I won’t release, I mean— Lose them again!”
It seemed the good news would continue, as Walt stepped out from out the changing rooms. Sadie was excited to see him, but noticed he was carrying himself a little differently, and that he’d put his jackal amulet in the front.
After seeing those signs, Sadie edged closer to him and whispered, “Anubis?”
The body of Walt nodded, and whispered back, “Sorry about that. Walt is—” He motioned to the back of his head, “Recovering. It’s a bit of my fault, but I’ll explain later. Could you catch me up on the situation, it’s a little blurry from my point of view.”
“Field trip to the mall, Walt was buddied up with Felix, something triggered you to swap in and he rushed to the changing rooms of this Old Navy,” Sadie quickly caught him up.
Anubis scrunched his eyes closed for a second, “Ah, yes. The Blessed from earlier.”
It was Sadie’s turn to be confused, “Oh-Kay, let’s put a pin in that weirdness for now.”
They turned and stepped back to Felix and Kenji, who now had matching penguin amulets.
“Wow! Neat!” Kenji said with genuine enthusiasm.
Felix smiled, in a much better mood than he’d been when Sadie had found him, “Of course! Now that Walt’s back, I’ll help you find your sisters!”
“Thanks! No matter how long I spend in cities, some things still get me a bit turned around.”
Sadie’s brows cinched together, “Kenji, were you lost this entire time?”
“Yup! I have no idea where the people I came here with are. But then I found you guys, so it’s perfectly alright! Speaking of which, when someone from an American city is lost, how do you all find your way around?”
“I might be a little out of touch as well,” Anubis suggested, “But I think we should go to the check out and ask them to make an announcement?”
“Great idea, Anu-Walt. Wonderful idea. We can go ahead and take you there until your family comes to collect you.”
“Thank you!” Kenji said as they started walking. “I don’t think I would be able to read the signs very well. I’m a bit rusty at all the letters, even though I practice speaking it a lot!.”
Felix shrugged, “That’s fair. It’s the opposite for my friend Cleo. She’s a pro at reading and writing in English, but sometimes she gets flustered and goes back to Portuguese.”
“Say, do you mind if I ask where you’re from, Kenji?” Sadie asked.
“I’m from Japan! For the past few years I’ve been living in Yokohama, but I used to live outside of it in a smaller village.”
Anubis tilted his head, “So then you are Blessed.”
Sadie made a noise in the back of her throat and hissed to Anubis, “I don’t even know what that is! Don’t weird the kid out!”
On the contrary though, Kenji brightened at the comment, “Yup! Most of my family is. And you guys remind me of Shamans! Except you, Mr. Walt. You’re like, really powerful!”
That actually made Sadie stop in her tracks, “Excuse me? How did you—”
Kenji beamed at her, “I’m a detective Ms. Sadie! That’s why I'm in America. For work!”
Seemingly obvious to the conversation, Felix butted back into the conversation, “Felix, are those your sisters over there?”
Sadie followed his gaze to a woman with bobbed black hair wearing a business casual outfit and a butterfly clip, standing next to a short, blue-haired girl in a long red skirt and white button down.
“Oh yes!” Kenji said, “Kyoka even got a new outfit, awesome! Kyoka-chan! Yosano-ani!” The boy waved the girls over, and offered what seemed to be an explanation in rapid Japanese.
The younger girl quickly took Kenji’s hand and told him something that Kenji then translated for the magicians.
“Kyoka wants to thank you very much for helping me!”
“Er… No problem,” Sadie responded.
Felix looked down at the other penguin amulet he had, took it off and passed it to Kyoka, “For protection, and luck! If you guys are here on work, maybe this will help!”
Kyoka looked at Felix gratefully and attached the penguin to her flip-phone case, and said something else that Kenji translated.
“She said she owes you a blood debt now!"
That was when the older woman stepped in, “Thank you. But we must be going.”
“Wait—” Anubis stepped forward, and hovered a hand in the space between him and Yosano. The rest of the Old Navy fell away for a moment, and Sadie had to look through the Duat to see as Anubis’ classic Jackal headed form appeared, talking to Yosano. But something changed around the Japanese women as well, if Sadie looked at her through the Duat, she looked at if she was made of butterflies. Which was weird… because it was almost like when she saw someone use magic, but somehow it was different. Never before had she seen the shape of the magic so precise.
With that realization, she dipped back down into the Duat to look at Kenji and Kyoka. They, too, had strange auras. A sword wielding demon and a cloud of snow surrounded the blue haired girl, and Kenji was protected by a strong tree, ghostly rain pouring all around him. Oh. ‘𝘉𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥,’ Anubis had called Kenji earlier. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵, Sadie thought.
She looked back to Yosano and Anubis, who looked like they had finished their chat. Sadie took that as her que to pop back through the layers of reality. Once she had, it was just in time to say goodbye to the three pseudo-strangers. Sadie made sure they were well outside and out of sight of the Old Navy, and the ‘Blessed’ before she hissed to Anubis.
“What the fuck was that?”
Anbis shrugged, “Those two were blessed by death gods. Not me, but the residues were enough to spark me out in control. Especially since that butterfly woman was so distraught about it. I may not have been the death god that blessed them, but I think my intercession will do them 𝘣𝘰𝘵𝘩 some good.”
His eyes went a bit unfocused, “Apologies Sadie. I might have to sit down, Walt is getting closer to the front. Be a dear and catch him up to speed if he…”
“Gotcha.” Sadie said as Walt’s body sat down on a crappy mall bench. Felix seemed content to sculpt another penguin out of clay for the moment, so got out her phone.
She immediately checked her messages from Annabeth Chase, who it seemed had finally responded to her request for clarification.
<𝘚𝘳𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 '𝘉𝘭𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥/𝘊𝘶𝘳𝘴𝘥' 𝘥𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴
𝘪𝘯 𝘕𝘠𝘊 𝘳𝘯. 𝘖𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦.
>𝘞𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘗𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘰 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸.
𝘜𝘯𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘭𝘺, 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘺𝘧𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘥-𝘪𝘯-𝘭𝘢𝘸 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘢 𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘳-𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘴.
𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘴.
.
.
>𝘞𝘈𝘐𝘛 𝘈 𝘛𝘐𝘎𝘌𝘙?? 𝘓𝘐𝘒𝘌 𝘈 𝘞𝘏𝘐𝘛𝘌 𝘛𝘐𝘎𝘌𝘙?
Sadie bit her nails, knowing that Annabeth was unlikely to respond anytime soon. But thankfully, she wouldn’t have to deal with too much alone, as Walt just tapped her on the shoulder.
“Question, could I get a bit of an update?”
“Give me a moment. Anubis was only in control for a few minutes, but boy were those minutes bloody weird.”