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Danny Fenton was exhausted. Mentally anyways, his parents were in the middle of yet another Santa Clause argument. And so Danny got himself out of the house and flew out to the forest just outside of town. What was normally an hour trip (Town traffic, winding roads) took him just a couple minutes. One of the good things that he got out of the accident that gave him his powers 6 months ago. He sometimes regretted his powers, other times he was happy he got them. Like today.
He wondered if Superman ever regretted having powers.
Danny did not realize how cold it was outside. Not until it started snowing anyways. He had forgotten to grab a jacket, but to his surprise he realized that he did not feel cold. He held out his hand and caught a snowflake and held it there for what felt like a really long time. He had time enough to study the intricacies it held in its form and in that moment he felt a new sense of wonder for the interactions of natural forces. He was uncertain as to how long he stared at the snowflake, but was brought out of his revelry by the sound of horses.
There were 7 horses. Upon these horses were 3men and 3 women and 1 he was uncertain about. All of them were wearing the fanciest suits he had ever seen. With them were a pack of dogs that could also have been wolves, but Danny was never really sure about canine species. One of the men had dark black, almost blue hair, and he carried upon his person a long rifle strapped to his back. By his side was a beautiful middle aged woman with pale skin and brilliant red hair who leaned over to whisper into his ear when they saw him. These two were at the back of the group. At the front was a gray haired man with one eye covered with an eye patch, the other a bright blue. He was a large man, not fat, but he seemed to be one who hit the gym regularly. He bore a spear. The last two women looked like they could have been sisters having olive skin, black hair and both carried a bow. Only two carried no weapons that Danny could see.
The man in front spoke to Danny “Ho young man, I am Fjolnir, what brings you out here?”
Danny blinked at the odd sight before him. He suddenly felt very under dressed, which is an odd thing to feel out in the middle of the woods. “I just needed to get out of the house for a bit. Get some fresh air.”
The red haired lady spoke next “Do you live nearby?”
Danny said“Just a few minutes away.” Which was an honest answer, for him. After all it only took him a few minutes while traveling almost 200 miles an hour or around 320 kilometers an hour for those of you who use metric. Not that he told any of them how far he could cover in just a couple of minutes. “What brings you guys out here and do you live around here?”
The old man answered “We are from out of the country, here on a bit of what you can call a working vacation. I had heard there were monsters in the area and wanted to hunt one or two.”
OK, so the old man was a bit nuts Danny decided. Rich people, go figure. Hopefully they would not be like Vlad he thought to himself.
The last man, whose Danny's eyes kept sliding off until now, spoke to draw Danny's attention. “You should return home child, if we are right about what is out here it is not safe for you.”
Danny, who had faced several undead monsters in his home town by now, scoffed a bit to himself. But he kept a front of deference to the people in front of him. “Sure, I'll scram.” He did not need to pick a fight here, he came here to get away from fighting.
This is when the something got close enough to trigger Danny's ability to detect undead. Danny did not know what the thing was, but knew it was a bit north of his current position and drawing closer. Making himself look like he was taking the advice, he moved to intercept.
After Danny got out of earshot, one of the sisters spoke to the other “ I don't remember any houses being in that direction.” To which the other said “Not for a hundred miles.”
“We should follow him, he seems interesting.” said Persephone.
Hades Sighed.
Inana and Irishkigal smiled at each other and turned their horses in the direction that Danny went. Oberon rolled his eyes as Odin and Loki spurred their horses to follow.
Danny had not transformed by the time they caught up with him, but the undead monster Danny had felt was also there. It was a zombie bear. Danny had been unaware that he could sense things other than ghosts until this moment. Danny, thinking that the people who had decided to follow him were just ordinary rich people, told them to run and forewent his transformation as he charged the undead bear. Hades was expecting a new customer in about 5 seconds, but Persephone just smiled.
Danny's fist connected with the bear's jaw and sent the beast roiling back.
“He didn't die.” remarked hades.
“We are in a new age of heroes, dear husband.” Persephone responded.
The bear recovered before Danny could really capitalize on throwing it off balance. He was not used to fighting in human form, but still had no small amount of power at his disposal.
“He is a Liminal,” Inanna said. “I have not seen one since the fall of the bronze cities of man.”
Danny was ducking under the bear's skeletal paw strikes and punched up into it's ribs. He then whirled out from under it at which point Odin, who called himself Fjolnir earlier, tossed his spear to Danny shouting “Catch Boy! Stick it in the skull of the beast!”
Danny caught the spear with one hand and turned back to the bear which was charging to close the short distance he had created between the two of them in the last exchange. Danny thrust the spear forward aiming for the head of the bear as suggested and to his surprise it worked. The zombie bear fell and did not get back up. Danny pulled the spear free and gagged at the foul ichor and pus that flowed out from where should have been brains. Odin laughed as Danny staggered away “The mighty warrior fell the beast, only to be felled in turn by its rot!”
Odin dismounted his horse and walked towards Danny who was finishing up his gagging having finally staggered far enough away from the monster he had felled. “Care to join us young lad? That beast was only the first that roam these lands.”
Danny took a breath to steady himself before standing upright. “More like this one?” he asked.
Loki spoke up “The boy is too young to join in our usual escapades.”
Persephone decided to speak up “We had to leave my own daughter at the lodge, even though she wanted to join the hunt this year.”
“And I still say you should have brought her along,” Odin returned to her, “A hunt could have done her some good. Besides, the real party won't get started until the longest night anyways. We should be able to contain ourselves until then.”
“We have others that we should be joining up to, Fjolnir.” said Oberon.
Loki had argued against bringing children along because both Oberon and Odin had a reputation of starting orgies at parties. While he knew Odin could control himself around others when it suited him, he was uncertain if Oberon would and he was uncertain if Zeus would show up, he might just because Hades was here, and that guy had no self control to speak of. Maybe if he knew Oberon better, but the faery king had been in hiding as far as anyone could tell until the end of the last century, he might not have been against having kids along.
Danny remembered just now that it was almost the winter solstice, which was kind of why he was out here to start with. It was always the worst time of year as far as his parents argument was concerned. Not that the argument would actually cool until the day after Christmas. His parents would still be arguing right now if he knew them half as well as he thought he did.
They were still arguing, Jack was saying he could go out and catch Santa and Maddie was saying he would just wind up catching some poor grandpa trying to put on a show for his grand kids.
Danny had zero desire to return home at this time.
Now a bit about the deities currently here. Back in their heyday of worship most of them were down right asses to humans, having no idea as to how limited most of them were. Over time they found it was not worth either the humans time nor theirs for humans to spend time bowing down to them. Oberon never got the attraction, having considered humans stupid and brutish things. All of them had mellowed out over the centuries to some extent, but they still liked to enjoy themselves. The Wild Hunt had not been done in several centuries at this point and Odin was feeling a bit nostalgic when he had suggested it as a way to get to know one another. They all hoped that Zeus would just stay put at home though, or off planet at a minimum, as he had never learned to chill.
“Lets meet up with them then,” spoke Hades. He then addressed Danny directly “You would probably be better off headed home, where ever that is, than accompanying us. I will not stop you either way.”
Danny handed 'Fjolnir' back his spear. “You know, I think I will come with.”
Odin slapped Danny on the back hard enough to knock down most men and Danny only staggered “Excellent! Welcome to the Hunt!”