Regulus felt it the moment the sun-brat did... whatever it was he did that had them being flung across a sea of screaming chaos the likes of which he'd never seen before, and that was saying something, because throughout his existance as both a mythical terror of Ancient Greece and the power behind a Longinus after that, he'd seen a damn lot.
And by it, he didn't mean the method or the power the snarky punk used to pull off that stunt - and make no mistake, he had questions there - but the other, more eerily hackle-raising sensation he'd clocked a second too late to call out in warning.
Nestled deep in the brat's soul, just a split-second before they leaped into something Regulus wasn't even going to pretend to understand, Incinerate Anthem... jolted, almost.
Jumped.
Or maybe just acted up in general.
He couldn't tell for sure.
Couldn't be helped - He'd only come across that semi-sentient and almost always embarrassing hissy fit of a Longinus a few times over the years, and it was always trouble to put up with.
It's wielders?
That much more annoying, with all the charm of splinters lodged in his nigh-invulnerable paws.
Case in point?
Daniel Winchester.
Kill-stealer?
Him?
Hah.
Regulus would teach him some manners and feed him enough dirt that he'd grow roots and thank him for the opportunity, but in his own good time.
Until then, priorities - The kind he could already tell were shaping up to be dangerous in a way that had his soul stirring and rumbling in the confines of his recreated vessel.
This quest...
The centaur had warned him about what to expect, but only in the vaguest sense, their brief conversation toeing the line between interesting and irritating with precision the old horse had probably honed down to an art form.
Brace yourself. Give your expectations room to breathe... and prepare.
At the time, Regulus had only narrowed his eyes at the immortal who'd trained the fool who'd gone on to kill him and growled in acknowledgement.
Not that he held a grudge there, mind you, because he didn't.
His pride was beyond that kind of pettiness, and a win was a win. The only anger leftover from that story was because he never had a chance to get a rematch at his peak afterwards.
Still, he'd known full well that pushing the point wasn't going to get him a straight answer.
If that was on the table, the Trainer would have just come out and said as much, and he hadn't cared enough to press for one either.
That was supposed to be the point of this, wasn't it?
A surprise? A change in routine?
A little fun to step over the crippling boredom he felt outside the spars he had with the other brat, Sairaorg.
Apparently damn-well not.
He'd had just a split-second's worth of sharp warning when Incinerate Anthem's presence flared subtly, the feeling pinging straight up to and off the backs of his teeth and throwing him off his game just enough to make a difference, and then everything careened off the rails and his expectations for the day went off to die in a ditch in hilariously violent ways.
Only Regulus wasn't laughing.
First the fall, if the trip could even be called that.
Really, he wasn't sure it should - falling made sense, after all.
That hadn't.
Then, one after the other, the plot twists started hitting like they had something to prove, starting with that thing in the void they tumbled into, human-shaped but as blatantly overwhelming in sheer existence as any god could ever hope to be, but not one itself.
Himself.
Whichever way that coin landed, if it did at all.
However that played out in the end, he knew one thing for sure - that creature wasn't divine, or even right in any sense of the word.
When he'd stared up at those crimson eyes, somehow immobilised just the same as both brats despite the difference in power, Regulus had felt something so utterly other leering down at him from that perched throne that, had he burst free right then and there - and he had been trying - he would have gone for its throat without so much as blinking.
Not out of anger, or offence - just pure instincts, and his had been screaming in a way that demanded action.
How long had it been since anything had triggered that kind of fight-or-flight response in him?
A genuine threat, the kind that didn't just rile him up and make him itch for a good fight?
He could barely remember.
Then it moved, casting them out of the incomprehensible void of realm with a wave of its hand and a burst of kaleidoscopic light that seared Regulus's eyes in a way he found mildly infuriating - or maybe that was just the frustrating whiplash, either or - and away they went.
When the lights faded and the concept of space itself stopped playing Twister like a human toddler on a nasty sugar rush, they were somewhere else, and again, they appeared somewhere far outside of his frame of reference.
The enclosed garden spreading out around them and towards the walls of the mortal construction was nothing special, and the faint pressure of paper-thin magic didn't raise its value any, but the air itself...
Hmm.
It felt stale - nearly dry in a way that had nothing to do with moisture. As though something critical, fundamental, was missing from the world itself.
Another surprise that felt unflinchingly wrong - and then there was the company this time around.
"Do not fear, master."
The boy who stepped out of the latest light show and couldn't have been that much older than either of Regulus's brats - physically and in appearance, at least - spoke, and there was geniune power in his words.
Enough that the two nuisances in his life shifted to ready stances at once.
"I am Saber, a servant who will protect you. Against any and every threat."
His eyes flickered over the three of them meaningfully, before looking past them to track down the other one the sun-brat had blasted away on sight - and of course, Regulus had already sensed him recovering and getting back to his feet, and that was telling all on its own.
Both of them... they looked like young humans, and felt like it too, but only vaguely.
There was a presence to them that ordinary mortals didn't and couldn't have, and no, it wsn't about the fact that the blue-haired spear wielder was some flavour of demigod, or the more pressing issue in front of him.
Regulus's pupils dilated as he growled warningly at the would-be-knight in shining armour, who, credit where credit was due, met his gaze and his warning flare of power unflinchingly.
But he had good reason too, didn't he?
He would recognise that kind of scent anywhere.
Dragon - at least in part. And that invisible weapon he was brandishing...
Dangerous.
Very dangerous, even by his standards.
"Woah." Sairaorg suddenly raised one hand and kept the other curled into a deceptively loose fist, just enough to imply harmlessness without lowering his guard. Good. "Not a threat. We don't even know who any of you are - or where we are."
True.
"What he said." The sun-brat muttered, but he was angled away, keeping a wary eye on the spearman who'd gotten to his feet between one blink and the next, face assessingly blank even as his red eyes burned with battle-honed intensity. "Just took a hell of a wrong turn at Albuquerque."
The knight's eyes narrowed, but his gaze shifted over to the spearman again, who kept up the blank facade for all of a few seconds, before his expression broke out into a mask of pure bloodlust right after Regulus's own heart.
"I am a threat." He declared, and the knight's face hardened in response. His gauntlets tightened audibly around the grip of his hidden weapon "But not tonight - I know when I've missed my shot."
His gaze darted past the knight, towards the girl who'd been all but cowering behind him in qual parts fear and stunned disbelief. Regulus could tell that she was the weakest person present, and by far.
So completely outstripped that she should have been insignificant in comparison, only a step or two above a bog-standard mortal, but the spearman still looked towards her and she all but trembled as their eyes met.
"Looks like you get to live another day, little lady."
"Hold. Your. Tongue."
The knight stepped forward, just the once, and the air charged with power.
Enough that Sairaorg's aura rippled as his Touki surged closer to the surface, and the sun-brat's presence shifted as his spear's glow began to flicker warningly, like live ordinance about to blow.
Come to think of it, the spiteful little thing was probably reacting to the feel of dragon in the air as well.
For his part, Regulus just watched, and waited in a way that would have had most anyone with anything resembling a brain heading for the door.
After all, he was loud when he wanted to fight.
He was silent when he wanted to kill.
The spearman didn't seem concerned - if anything, his answering grin was delighted.
"So you're the Saber of this Holy Grail War, eh? And you have some fire to you as well." The grin sharpened. "Good. I want this to be fun. Here's hoping that you don't disappoint when the time comes."
Holy Grail?
Then he turned back to the sun-brat, the puzzling words already left behind.
"You."'
The fiery spear rose an inch.
"Me?"
"You're not a servant." Those red eyes flickered to Sairaorg. "And he sure as anything isn't."
"What's a servant?"
"Heh. Nice try, but lying to me is worthless even if you put in the right effort to try." He twirled the spear in his grip, and everyone shifted in preparation - bar the girl, who was still a friend, but Regulus wouldn't expect prey so feeble to move in a field where any errant swipe of an attack could likely utterly eviscerate it. "I've been around enough demigods and druids in my day to recognise them on sight - or anything close enough to count."
His eyes narrowed some more.
"Thing is, I thought people like you - like us - weren't supposed to exist anymore. Not in this pansy era. You especially...what kind of absurd circumstances do you have going for you that the World would have allowed you to be conceived, much less continue to exist?"
Regulus stayed silent, even as the words settled and prickled in his mind.
What was any of that supposed to mean?
"Dude, we have no idea what you're talking about. Sai?"
"What's a demigod?"
"See?"
For a moment, Regulus resisted the urge to huff in exasperation.
Why did he let himself be saddled with these idiots again?
The spearman seemed unbothered.
"Fine. Have it your way, for now. I'll drag the answers out of you when I get back at you for that cheap shot." Then, without another word, he turned back to the knight. "Til next time, Saber."
Then he moved - not fast enough that Regulus couldn't track the motion, but at a speed that was more than respectable for any mortal as he leaped and rocketed towards the roof, bursting through it without an ounce of resistance and an explosion of dust and crumbling debris.
The girl whimpered even as her protector stepped in front of her neatly and swung out a single arm, shielding her from the worst of it without a single word.
"My home."
Regulus saw the knight twitch, like he wanted to give chase - only that would have meant leaving them behind with the girl, and he had yet to take more than a single threatening step away from her.
"So in case that didn't make it abundantly clear, we're not with him."
"..."
"..."
Seriously?
The knight's gaze was stony in silent answer.
"What business do you have with my master?"
"None." Sairaorg offered. "We don't even know who your master is."
"And while we'd love to find out, I have just one question first." The sun-brat, a cheerful smile on his face that was about as genuine as any well wishes Regulus would ever offer him. "You're Arto - Arthur Pendragon, aren't you? The King Of Knights."
...
What?
"What!?"
"What!?"
The girl and Sairaorg voiced the incredulous thought in his place, only just, and the knight stiffened, his stunned silence answer enough.
"You... how?"
Regulus shared the sentiment, looking over the knight - and wasn't that a more fitting title, now - with new eyes.
That power. That presence.
It tracked.
But how... a spirit inheritor?
No, that wasn't it.
What fresh clown show was this?
"I'm going to take that as yes." Oblivious to his thoughts, the sun-brat just kept smiling. "And on that note, I'm going to thoroughly prove that we aren't your problem... by getting right the hell out of your way. Sai, grab the kill-stealer."
And of course, Sairaorg did at once, trust in the loud mouth absolute even in the face of this absurdity.
Regulus almost tore his hand off as it brushed against his mane on sheer principle, but even that fleeting touch was enough.
"Ciao!"
The knight - Pendragon, because why not? - made an aborted move towards them.
Or at least tried to.
His expression cracked upon with more shock, but before he could so much as open his mouth, much less move again, the sun-brat latched on to Sairaorg's shoulder.
Space shifted-
And then they were gone.
...The second they dropped down into Dan's home over at Maple - the place they'd planned to end up in in the first place, Sairaorg was rounding on him with enough questions to play competitive bingo like a professional.
"What-?"
"Hold that thought."
Naturally, his best friend didn't answer any of them.
Instead, he stumbled, shook his head, and immediately turned the corner around the living room, stepped into the kitchen, and went straight for the fridge.
"I need a soda pop."
He didn't come back with a soda pop.
Instead, he came back with an entire six-pack, which... honestly?
Fair enough.
Sairaorg grabbed one too... and if his grip was a little unsteady, and his heart was beating loudly enough that he could hear the rhythmic backdrop over every other sound from and around them...
Well, that was his business.
"What was that?"
He winced.
Regulus had beaten him to the punch, and his voice was quiet, which is how Sairaorg knew that he was really unhappy.
Dan didn't answer until he'd cracked open a can of coke and downed it all in one go.
Then he shrugged.
Crap.
"Who knows?"
"Talk."
"You heard me ask for a minute, didn't you?"
"You can have an entire afterlife if I rip you in half, how about that?"
Yikes.
Sairaorg didn't think for a moment that Regulus actually would, but his voice was just a little too sharp for comfort.
That last ten minutes... they hadn't been fun.
Or made sense.
For any of them.
Did I just meet King Arthur?
What even-?
"I'm taking a minute, kill-stealer. Trust me, we just dodged a bullet the size of a tank shell." Dan stopped and tilted his head to the side. "Or a nuke, probably. Yeah, nuke sounds better."
Then he grabbed another can and almost exploded it in his grip.
Somehow, that didn't help his mood any.
"Stupid unreliable power. Stupid magic old man. Stupid sword of mass destruction - why does everything always level up when I'm not looking?"
The words were a hissed whisper, tinged with as much raw panic as Sairaorg had been pushing down from the moment they'd seen... that man, sitting on his throne in the middle of very literal nothingness, but he heard them just fine.
That didn't mean he understood them.
"Dan."
He looked up, face carefully calm in a way that told Sairaorg that he was having a fit and a half beneath the surface, and for good reason too.
Which, again, was perfectly cool. He was in the same boat and everything.
He just didn't know where that boat was sailing too, and Dan did - somehow.
Another son of Apollon gimmick?
Or was it something else?
"...I'll tell you later." His eyes flickered to Regulus, and then he grunted grudgingly. "The kill-stealer too. We can bring him up to speed on everything else on the way, too."
"Why not-?"
"Sai."
His voice stopped that question dead in its tracks.
"Sai, we're here."
He sucked in a sharp breath, cold realization replacing incredulity as the reminder came rushing right back.
Dan saw it for what it was pretty much instantly, and he grinned.
"It's quest time, buddy. First things first, though."
He dropped down to a knee, let his spear drop as he sealed away his armour and unslung his backpack... and then he pulled out a flip phone.
If he wasn't having a teensy bit of a crisis at the moment, Sairaorg would have probably snorted at how anticlimactic that was.
"Somehow, I don't think we're living up to the classic Greek hero questing manual."
"Of course we're not." Dan didn't look up as he punched in the numbers they'd both memorised by heart, just to be safe. "Most of those guys usually had prophecies, ominously disturbing deadlines, and had, like, two to three violent and tragic detours per quest. At minimum. My modern-day relatives around here aren't that much better, either."
This time, Sai's lips did twitch, just a little.
"Guess we're not following the script, then."
Obviously, and he already knew it, but their goofy back and forth always helped centre his nerves.
"Duh." Dan's eyes gleamed almost manically as he grinned back up at him, before putting the phone to his ear as it started to ring. "Screw all that noise. We're speed-running the hell out of this thing."
...Gleeson Hedge startled awake as his phone rang, kicking up racket in his coat pocket so loud he nearly pitched halfway across the street away from the bench he'd been using to catch some shut-eye while he had the chance.
"Damn..."
Fumbling with it was a trial and a half as it was, and he already looked like he'd been through two dozen of them and some change.
His head hurt. His horns and hooves ached. His limbs felt worn and his clothes made him look like he'd been homeless from birth, but that's just what happens when you spend the better part of a week dodging hungry monsters who thought that Satyr was a great source of protein.
The bags under his eyes alone were practically a cry for help - Not that he needed it, really.
He had his trusty baseball bat - spiked through with celestial bronze nails, naturally - and he'd shown that sleazy dracaena and a good bunch of her friends that he wasn't afraid to use it.
Mama Hedge didn't raise no wimp!
... course he'd bolted after more of them showed up, but if they weren't going to fight fair, he wasn't going to stick around and give the dozen or so ravenous snake women with terrible breath and uglier teeth a free meal.
Mama Hedge didn't raise a suicidal moron, either, no matter what the stunts he used to get up to back in the day.
Still, as stiff as his spine was and as clearly capable a satyr he was... It had been a rough few months.
Ever since David Winchester had called, half out of his mind and begging him of all people for help...
Damn it.
He hadn't thought he'd see the day when Evelyn's brother called him for anything, ever.
He didn't like David. David didn't like him.
Or, actually, that's how it used to be.
These days, it was more that he didn't like David, and David hated him with so much fury it was a miracle he hadn't ended up dead the last time they'd met.
He'd even gone into the thing expecting to be stabbed at least, because he knew that Evelyn had given him some celestial bronze keepsakes over the years.
Some worst stuff too - and he wouldn't have blamed him that much for trying, especially not on that day.
After what had happened... what he'd had a hand in causing...
He swallowed roughly even as he hit the call.
Years later, and the guilt still rolled like poison in his gut, and when David had called and told him that Evelyn's son was missing...
Well.
He'd made a few calls, dropped everything he was doing and - after making sure he wasn't looking for a dead kid in a way he was never thinking about again, ever - came running right over.
And now...
It had been a rough few months, but he could have a depressing spiral over coffee and enough banana bread to send him into a food coma as soon as he could get his hands on it.
For now, though... he had work to do.
He grunted and accepted the call.
"Hello." The voice on the other end was young, but confident like it had no choice but to be. That was standard fare around these parts. "Is this Gleeson Hedge?"
"That's me." His voice sounded raspy and out of use even to himself, and he almost winced before pushing past it and licking his dry lips. "Who's asking?"
Then his brain finished waking up, and he sniffed suspiciously.
"And how did you get this number?"
He didn't hand this one out to just anybody. Phones were a tricky business in this gig.
"My uncle gave it to me."
Unc-?
And suddenly, Gleeson was wide awake - so wide that his eyes nearly popped out of their skull, and his heart scraped against the roof of his ribcage with how furiously it jumped.
No.
He was never that lucky.
No damn way-
"I'm Daniel Winchester. I think you knew my mom?"
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Hello?"
Too late.
The phone had already slipped out of his grip and clattered against the pavement.
To Gleeson, the small impact may as well have been a meteor strike, and it echoed in his head in way that was three times as loud and cataclysmic.
"Hello? Anyone still there? Cause I just dropped a super dramatic one-liner, and I'm going to look real dumb if things don't pan out the way I planned."
...
...
..
Oh, what the Tartarus was this?
....
Dan, realizing he's landed in the Nasuverse, met Zeltretch and wound up in an opening scene to a grail war in under ten minutes:
View: https://imgur.com/PtV0PI6
Dan's Family and Hedge realizing he's not simply inherited his mother Chaotic genes... he's exceeded them: