Nika snickered but got to her feet, stretching out briefly. "Alright, looks like I need to go gather up Dawn. We need to get going."

Seth looked briefly relieved when he wasn't smote. Ha! He won, this time.

"Good." Seth smiled a little at her and stepped away from the cabin. "Good luck."

Jason nodded.

"She's probably in our cabin," he said. "Go on in."

"Thanks," Dawn said. Making sure she had everything, she stepped out of the cabin and looked around for Nika.

Nika nodded and headed for the cabin. She wanted to go so they could get this over with.

When she spotted Dawn, she relaxed a little bit. "You ready to go?"

Dawn nodded, shifting her quiver on her back.

"Yeah," she said. "Let's go see how bad things have gotten and how much damage control we'll have to do."

Nika nodded, squishing the guilt that rose in her. She walked over to Dawn's car silently, settling herself in the passenger seat. This was going to be a long couple of days.

Dawn looked at her friend. Nika was being uncharacteristically quiet.

"It's not your fault, you know," she said as she started the car. "The Mist is supposed to protect us, and it didn't. That means something else is wrong somewhere."

"Yeah, but I let the guy get away," Nika said quietly. "I saw him, I knew he saw me, but I still let him get away." She was kicking herself for that.

Now she just wanted to fix everything, hopefully.

"There was nothing you could have done without breaking the rules," Dawn pointed out. "Besides, the Mist would normally have taken care of it and shown him something else." She glanced around at the intersection she was stopped at and took a right. "There's somewhere I want to stop first... I know a couple of demigods who stay strictly out here on the outside, I want to see if they've noticed anything strange."

Nika shrugged. "Alright. You want me to stay in the car?" She knew that some demigods were touchy about being identified, and she didn't want to screw up any more than she already had.

"You don't have to," Dawn replied. It probably wasn't a bad idea, but she wasn't going to make Nika stay in the car. Not when neither of them knew what was going on yet, at any rate. She pulled into the plaza that held the strip-mall where she worked. She could already sense the two demigods that worked there, and pulled into a parking spot in front of the store that they worked in.

Nika got out, but she wasn't going to talk to them unless they knew something. She would just let Dawn lead on this one. Always a good way to go.

A few people gave them odd looks when they walked in, her sword strapped to her back, and she got more nervous when they didn't look away immediately.

Dawn was also getting stares for the quiver of arrows on her back, but she was more interested in the calculating looks she was getting from the twin guys standing behind the counter. They were the demigods she'd been sensing earlier.

"Gentlemen," she said softly, nodding to them as she got to the counter. They had the same general facial structure of the Demeter kids she knew, so she had a vague idea of their parentage. "I think we have a problem."

"We are not being Clouded anymore," one of the guys said, nodding in agreement.

"We've noticed," his brother said.

"We intend to investigate and take care of it," Dawn said. "All I'm looking for is information. One of us to another, and then we'll leave."

The twins looked at each other, nodded, and looked back at Dawn.

"We've noticed in the last couple of days that what we call the Cloud hasn't been shrouding us anymore," the first one said. Dawn nodded.

"The Mist has failed, yeah," she agreed.

"Aside from that, we have tried to keep our heads down," the other brother said. He glanced across the store, and then back at Dawn. "Until today, that is. You and your friend are drawing attention."

"Unless we get more information, I'm sure there will be much more attention on all of us," Nika said quietly, looking at the two of them. "Tell us what you know and we'll leave, alright?" She could bargain and be nice when she wanted to.

Of course, it helped that she was already in a very subdued mood.

The twins looked at each other again, and then looked back at the girls.

"That's all we know," they said together.

"We can tell something is wrong," one started.

"But we don't know anything aside from the fact that the..." his brother trailed off.

"The Mist, she said," the first twin supplied.

"Right, the Mist is failing," the other finished.

Dawn looked at them both critically for a moment, before sighing and nodding.

"They're telling the truth," she murmured to Nika. "They don't know anything else." She looked at the twins. "Thanks. We'll go now and leave you be."

The twins nodded, obviously glad not to be asked personal questions. They'd been able to live for so long on the outside by keeping their heads down and not interacting with any other demigods.

Nika nodded and let them be, leaving the store. Okay, two more people who had no idea what was going on. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know, now.

"Alright," she said quietly. "Where are we headed now?"

"Two doors down," Dawn replied as they walked out of the store. She gestured to her left, where the sign two doors down said 'Guitar Center.' "Terese should be working today, she might have heard something different." Terese was a regular mortal, and would have heard different things. Dawn started down the strip, towards the store she worked at.

Nika followed her, flexing her fingers nervously. Something was wrong here. Very, very wrong. She was getting nervous as she looked around, noting the mortals that looked at them for too long or who looked startled by them.

Dawn walked into her own store, and was immediately pounced upon.

"Dawn, did you hear?" Terese asked excitedly. She didn't even ask why Dawn was back early. "Apparently there are monsters out there, like legit storybook monsters, and people killing them--" Terese paused to take a breath, and stopped. Her eyes widened. "Dawn," she gasped, "you're one of them!"

"Terese, what are you talking about?" Dawn asked warily.

"You're one of the monster-killers!" Terese said. "The... What'd-they-call-'em... Demigods."

Nika managed to contain her irritation and her moment of "oh shit" and snorted at the girl.

"What are you rambling on about?" she asked Terese, managing to look both bored and annoyed at the same time.

Terese just looked at the two of them with wide eyes, as if she'd never really seen Dawn properly before. Dawn desperately wanted to deny it, but she was an abysmal liar, and she knew it. She looked at Nika.

"This just tells me that the village idiot went and blabbed," she said in a low voice, praying her co-worker didn't hear. "People know enough to call us what we are."

Nika nodded slightly to Dawn, looking at Terese. She was hoping to cover their asses for just long enough.

"Don't be silly," she said with a snort. "You know she works at summer camp, yeah? I work with her. She's the head of the archery range, and I'm in charge of letting people whack each other with wooden swords. It's just part of the camp. That's all." And she shrugged, as if it were perfectly normal.

Terese almost looked like the would accept that answer, even as Dawn inwardly cringed at the thin lie. The girl looked between the two, and her eyes fell on their weapons.

"If it's just for a summer camp," she said slowly, "then why do you have those? Those don't look fake." She pointed to the sword and the bow. Dawn glanced at Nika, not confident in her own ability to spin a lie on the spot. At the lack of immediate answer, Terese's eyes widened a bit, although she didn't say anything else.

"I said she was a flake, I never said she was stupid," Dawn whispered to Nika. "I can talk to her, make sure she doesn't say anything to anyone... I do have to work with her again come fall."

Nika stepped forward, glancing at Dawn and shaking her head just a little. Not quite yet.

"These are real. You can't get away with a fake bow, after all." She shrugged. "Besides, this sword was a gift from my father. I carry it with me whenever I'm on camp business, although it doesn't bring me to a shopping mall very often. Dawn just wanted to come by and talk to you guys."

She shrugged. "Besides, who believes in the old gods anymore? And demigods? Really?" She snorted. "That's kind of insane, you know?"

Dawn shot Nika a look that said 'you'd better pray they don't hear you.' She knew that the gods would have a few things to say about a demigod saying things like that, even as a cover. Regardless, she watched as Terese's expression shifted from outright awe and disbelief to more muted confusion.

"When you put it that way..." she said uncertainly. She looked at Dawn. "What did you want to talk about, again?"

"You mentioned monsters," Dawn replied carefully. "I heard something about it, but you know how radios get out in the boonies sometimes... I figured you would have heard more than I would."

This time, Terese nodded and looked less off-balance. She could do gossip.

"I heard something about a tabloid printing a picture of this giant chicken-thing, and someone trying to kill it," she said. "I did a little digging around on the internet, you know, things like Huffington and all, and it's not just around here, it's all over the place. Pictures and all, there was something that looked like people dressed up as Medusa, but that one looked kinda Photoshopped to me, and but the pictures kept getting clearer and clearer, and it's weird, they stopped looking so Photoshopped after the first few." Terese paused, thinking. "It's only been in the last couple of days, though."

Nika nodded, praying that Terese hadn't seen the picture of her. That would be just fantastic.

"Weird, huh?" Nika managed to grin. "I'd only heard a little bit about that. Maybe I should go do some research myself." She shook her head. "Hey, thanks for the info."

Now she was more worried than she had been. And really, really hoping Ares hadn't been listening.