Chapter Text
Rosa Vasquez’s apple pie, Billy decided, was a masterpiece. Between the fluffy crust and perfectly sweet filling, it was almost as if some deity had graced her with the ability to make such...amazingness.
God, that stuff was good.
It was a real shame that it would all be gone by the time he got home. After all, that’s what hungry siblings did: eat all of your rightfully deserved pie.
Billy sighed from his spot, hovering above the street in full Captain Sparklefingers mode. There was literally nothing going on beneath him, and it was driving him crazy. Usually, there would be some sort of monster or other strange, supernatural creature out by now!
The house was so, so close. Maybe a slice of that pie was still there? Just one piece? Why did he have to be the one patrolling that day?
Then he noticed the giant dog below him.
Well, shit, he thought.
He flew down to street level to deal with the dog when a spear, of all things, struck the dog in the side, knocking it down to the street.
That wasn’t even the weirdest part.
People were just casually walking around the dog like nothing was there, despite the fact that, clearly, there was a giant fucking dog just sitting in the middle of the street.
The dog growled, and stood up, shaking as if to get the spear out of his system. But the spear must have been electric, or something, because the dog kept jerking, as if struck by lightning.
He liked to think that he knew electricity pretty well by this point.
The dog fell down to the ground, again, and crumbled into dust.
What the actual, literal fuck.
Well, great, Billy thought, a huge-ass dog just appeared on the street, got speared, and crumbled into dust like this was the end of Infinity War or something. Cool! He’d just go about his day, now. There was pie waiting for him at home, since the dog problem was taken care of. He might as well leave now.
But then he looked down again.
A girl and a boy stood by the pile of dust, in front of another giant dog. The boy held up a sword, of all things, like his life depended on it. Did this guy seriously think that was going to do anything?
The dog lunged, and the girl grabbed the spear off of the ground, and stabbed it into the dog’s belly with a cry.
The Dog whimpered and collapsed, only to rise up again, growling.
Billy flew down.
“Yo! Dude! Did you seriously just try to kill a dog?”
The girl and the boy looked up at him, open-mouthed, like they had just seen something spectacular or unreal.
Billy might have been a superhero, but he didn’t think that was too weird by now. There were plenty of other ones? Why were these people staring at him?
“What? What are you looking at?” Billy asked.
The dog growled at them, and then pounced.
And then, all of a sudden, he knew what to do. He knew how to defeat it.
“SHAZAM!”
Arcs of lightning shot down from the heavens, but instead of striking him, they hit the dog, vaporizing it.
The two kids with weapons looked up at him, faces weary, but still edged with shock.
Billy waved at them.
“So… what was that about?” he called, floating down beside them. In most cases like this, he would fly down and try to comfort the people in the area as best as he could, but he knew these kids wouldn’t need comforting. They just had that sort of look to them, the look that showed Billy that they had seen too much in their time.
After all, he saw it every day in the mirror.
“Hello?”
“We have to bring him back to camp, Clarisse! He’s the Champion! We can’t just leave him here!”
Billy looked at the two armed kids suspiciously.
“Wait... Camp who what now?” he said, confused. “And Champion of what now? What the hell are you guys talking about?”
The girl with the electric spear hit her forehead in exasperation.
“No. No fucking way. Do you seriously not know about the Wizard’s Champion?”
Wait, he thought, hold up. What?
“Hey!” Billy said indignantly, “I’m pretty sure I am the Wizard’s Champion. Cause, like, I was chosen by this weird old guy who lived in this rock place and said he was a wizard. Sound familiar?”
“I think he’s right,” the other kid interjected, “I mean, didn’t Chiron tell us that the Champion of the gods appeared in a suit with a lightning emblem, and only came in times of great change?”
“He did. But -”
“But what, Clarisse? There’s solid proof in front of you that this guy is the Champion. After all, he did summon lightning to kill those hellhounds! And there is a crisis on the horizon - ”
“No way in Hades,” Spear girl scoffed, glaring at the guy beside her with a look that could set grass on fire if she tried hard enough. “He’s too much of an idiot. The Romans would squash him in an instant!”
“Wait, what about Romans?” Billy interrupted, “I’m right here, you know! And besides, didn’t I just say I was the Champion?”
“You could just be another son of Zeus faking it. It’s happened before.”
“A son of who what now? I’m pretty sure my dad is in prison somewhere. And isn’t Zeus a myth?”
“Are you a myth, stupid?”
“No?”
She sneered.
“Then why can’t Zeus be real if you are?”
Billy sighed.
“Okay, fine, you have a good point. Now can we get on to the finer points of this conversation, such as why the hell there were freaking giant-ass dogs after you? And what’s with the spear? Pretty sure those went out of fashion, like, 3,000 years ago.”
“Well, do you want the long version, or the short one?” The camper with the sword asked.
“Uh... will I be back for dinner by the time you’re done?”
“Oh, what the hell,” Spear girl replied, “Take him to camp. Drag him if you have to. Just - get him out of my sight!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Wait! You didn’t answer my question!”
“Just. Shut. Up!” Electric Spear girl yelled, slamming her spear on the ground.
“Geez! Okay, okay, I’ll shut it. Jesus Frigging Christ.”
The two kids trudged on, and Billy floated behind them, lost as to what to do. Should he go back to the Vasquezes, eat dinner, chill with Freddy and Eugene while playing Halo, and then fly around Philly? Or should he follow these weird kids, who knew about the champion but looked so bedraggled and tough that he didn’t know what to do. Help them, or not? He had encountered those types of kids before, on the streets, and they always relied on themselves for help. He probably didn’t need to help them, even.
But, his brain and heart told him to help Spear girl and Sword boy, even though his instincts told him to go home before he got in trouble. And when he was on the streets, between or even in foster homes, he learned to always trust those instincts. So why was he doubting them now?
Maybe it was because these tough, ‘we-don’t-need-your-help’ type kids were basically asking for help, in their own gruff way.
Maybe because he was different, now.
“Alright,” he said, interrupting the silence, “I’ll come with you guys. But first, can I use the restroom real quick?”
Spear girl glared at him, and then sighed.
“Fine. Just hurry up, or I’ll spear you.”
“So,” Billy said, climbing out of the restroom, “How far away is this camp, anyway?”
“It’s in New York, stupid,” Spear girl replied, “Now shut up and walk.”
Billy stopped in his tracks.
“What? You’re just gonna walk there?”
Spear girl gave him another venomous glare.
“Maybe we will, if you don’t shut up!”
But Billy wasn’t done.
“Like, why not take a bus or something?”
“Didn’t I tell you to shut up already?”
Billy sighed.
“Okay, fine. We’ll just avoid the bus, and hike for 3 days and then let me get in trouble or whatever. I only told my folks I’d be gone for one evening, you know.”
Sword guy whispered something like “We didn’t say we were actually avoiding the bus,” but Billy ignored him.
“Your ‘folks.’” Spear girl sneered.
“Uh... yeah?”
Clarisse scoffed, and stomped onward, Sword guy trailing after her timidly.
Billy kept floating behind him, but he couldn’t fathom why these two kids were trying to take a Greyhound Bus of all things to New York. He could understand why, sure, but he couldn’t help but to wonder why their camp thingy didn’t have transportation there. Did the camp management seriously not give two shits about these guys?
He decided it was better not to question these strange kids and just to go along with them for now, but that didn’t mean he had his own ideas about their situation as well.
“You know,” he said, “Since I have super strength and flight powers and stuff, I could carry you guys and fly you there. Would that be easier for you guys, or do you just wanna keep killing your feet?”
Sword guy looked at Clarisse, and whispered something to him.
Clarisse made some sort of inhuman growling noise, and then nodded at her comrade, glaring at Billy all the while.
Billy shrunk back at her glare. He might be the champion of the gods, but damn that girl was scary!
“Fine,” Clarisse said, walking up to him, “We’ll do it your way.”
She grabbed onto one of his arms while sword boy grabbed onto the other, their weapons somehow gone.
“Whoa! Where the hell did the weapons go?”
Clarisse growled again.
“Fly. And shut up, before I decapitate you.”
Billy didn’t dare waste any time.
He would remember, later, that the first time he had ever seen Camp Half-Blood was from above.
Billy remembered looking down, and seeing its sprawling field of little cabins, dotted here and there by pieces of Greek architecture. Seeing the people in orange shirts flitting everywhere like little ants, or, at least that was what he thought they looked like from so far up.
Spear Girl pointed at a certain spot by some sort of columned pavilion with a bunch of tables by it and he floated down slowly, mindful of his passengers.
Billy Batson could always recall his first sight of the place that would forever change his life. But what he truly remembered later in life happened afterwards.