This is Your Hero?
Summary: Artemis's view of Orion and Zoe's on Heracles. Two shot.
Written in Artemis POV
Orion.
The name struck anger into her heart.
She had been cheated.
She had been lied to.
In the end, she had been tricked by her own younger brother.
Who was he to decide things for her, even if she eventually agreed?
Who was Apollo to make her kill the one she loved, or thought she loved.
In truth Orion was a jerk.
He didn't deserve the stars.
He didn't even deserve the depths of Tartarus.
He deserved worse for what he did to her and her hunters.
This hero that everyone makes him out to be makes her sick to her stomach.
This hero that everyone thinks so highly of tried to rape not one, but multiple hunters.
He tried to flirt with practically all of them, unsuccessfully she might add.
If only her hunters had told her sooner, before he died.
She would have tortured him instead of the tricked into painless death he got.
She hadn't even loved the arrogant jerk, she realized.
She was in love with his skills. His archery abilities matched if not surpassed her own.
His hunting skills? Forget it.
After that incident was over she returned to her hunters even more faithfully then before she had met Orion.
She remembered that day clearly, every detail. It was a rare occurrence in her never-ending immortal life.
*FLASHBACK*
It was a fairly windy day in the forest, she was alone.
Her hunters were off after a small pack of Hellhounds, about 3.
She was confident they could handle it.
She was going after a bear for dinner, they hadn't had bear meat in a while.
She had been tracking it for about half an hour, her patience beginning to wear thin.
She was about to give up and just go after a few deer she had seen grazing by a clear, refreshing spring.
That was when she first saw him.
Through a break in the trees, there he was.
She was in an oak tree, fresh with light green leaves consistent with the month of April.
It was a perfect temperature out, she thought. Cool, just a hint of humidity in the air, not enough to make her auburn hair frizzy.
There he was, through a gap in the leaves, standing directly under a ray of sunshine, silver bow in hand, aimed at the chest of a big brown grizzly bear.
The grizzly had multiple arrows sticking out of his chest, each one splitting the next, not there before she started looking.
"This is for you and your hunters Lady Artemis." The man said.
Artemis did not trust him. A selfless man? There had never been one in history.
She cautiously hopped down from the branch she was perching on, and took a step towards the man.
He was clad in a white toga and golden sandals. The toga had a crescent moon clip holding it together at his right shoulder, leaving the rest of his chest bare.
This revealed half of his set of abs, a six pack.
Most would have found that attractive, including several hunters, but Artemis thought nothing of it.
"How did you learn to shoot with such accuracy?" She warily asked the man.
"Mostly practice." the man said.
A humble man as well? That shocked Artemis to the core.
This man was proving wrong everything she thought of his kind.
She knew that accuracy such as what he had just shown could only come from both a lot of practice and a lot of natural talent.
"Why do you offer me this bear? It is your kill."
"It is the nice thing to do, you were after it first anyway."
"I need no pity or help from the likes of your kind." She replied, slightly angered.
"I take no pity on you or your hunters my lady. It was simply the nice thing to do." The man said, bowing as he realized he had not yet done so.
"What is your name young hero?" Artemis said.
The man turned to the bear, taking out his arrows. Artemis wasn't sure as to why but she used this time to transform to her 18 year old self.
He turned back, unsurprised she had changed form and uttered "I am the hero Orion. Hunter of all Earth's creatures and one of the greatest archers to ever walk mother earth, some say."
She was astounded, not by his titles but by the way he subtly disclaimed them, as though they were exaggerations, which she was sure he was.
Needless to say she was impressed with the man.
She walked with him back to her hunter's camp, where she bade him goodbye and thanks, already thinking about him as he left.
*PRESENT TIME*
Artemis still could not believe she had fallen for his acting.
She was supposed to be more perceptive than that.
He stuck around for a while after that, seeing Artemis in secret.
All the while he was a perfect gentleman, except for a few arrogant times he tied her at archery.
One day of course, the hunters found them and she had to explain or else her love be killed.
The hunters were not happy, to say the least.
They refrained from mutilating him however.
He hung around the hunter's camp for a while after that.
He took every advantage when Artemis was not there to try and rape or flirt with her girls.
She wished her girls would have told her what was going on. He would have been dead before his heart could even utter half of a single slow hate-filled beat.
In the end, her brother had tricked her into an archery contest, saying he was better.
He had Artemis go first and shoot a random speck in the distance.
Turned out it wasn't so random.
She put three arrows, split each time a new arrow was fired, into the heart of a tied up Orion.
She was furious with her brother to say the least. She had almost made him fade.
That was until she remembered through the haze of anger she blamed that prick Ares for she remembered that he was her twin brother.
Later, after granting him the honor of being put into the stars instead of the underworld, she learned of what he did to her hunters.
She was so angry that she put the one thing the jerk was afraid of and had never been able to beat into the stars with him, to torture him for eternity.
A scorpion.
She got her satisfaction that day when she learned he was a son of Poseidon.
She had caused the god of the Big Three to cry.
He actually cried real, sad, tortured tears for the fallen hero.
This is your hero? She thought to no one in particular.
This arrogant, rapist jerk was who everyone admired for his great hunting skills and acts he had done in his too-long life.
She learned afterwards that he had been cast out of a kingdom and a marriage cancelled for raping a king's daughter.
She wanted to add another scorpion to the sky for that one, and she did. It only made the previous scorpion star brighter, having combined them.
Artemis sighed, and looked to the rising sun. Her hunters were asleep, it being very early in the morning.
She was happy, the prick Orion was dead and she hadn't lost a single hunter in 300 years.
She had had her revenge, and was grateful to Apollo for tricking her, if only this once.
"Thank you." She whispered to the large, pale yellow disk coming slowly above the horizon.
She meant it. For the first time in her entire life, she actually felt grateful for having an arrogant, flirtatious, overly-protective younger brother.