Percy P.O.V.
I'm an idiot, it has been proven time and time again, this is just one more time.
I had challenge Atlas to a fight, the greatest of the titans warriors, this was a stupid thing to do, but I needed him to be weak so we could put him under the sky again, this plan quickly went to tartarus, it went especially bad because I had been curse by Ares to have my sword fail me when I need it the most. Meaning now.
I raised my sword, which felt like a ton. I went to attack Atlas but he used his javelin against me, I tried to dodge, but the javelin caught me in the chest and sent me flying like a rag doll. I slammed into the ground, my head spinning. I looked up and found I was at the feet of Artemis, still straining under the weight of the sky.
"Get away from here, boy" she said "You must leave".
I could barely move, my sword had gone down the cliff, I could see Thalia fighting Luke, they were like demons, lightning crackling around them. Annabeth was on the ground, desperately struggling to free herself from her chains.
"Look around little hero, this is where you die" said Atlas.
He raised his javelin to strike me.
"No!" Zoe yelled, and a bombardment of silver arrows sprouted of Atlas armpit.
"Argh!" He cried in pain and turn to Zoe.
Zoe needed help, Annabeth and me were out of the question, so that left… "Lady artemis, the sky, give it to me".
"No" she didn't look too well, her forehead was full of metallic sweat "You don't understand, it will kill you".
"Annabeth survived"
"Barely, you may not be so lucky"
"You know what, screw it" I took the repaired riptide from my back pocket, uncape it and broke the chains that were holding Artemis. I got in one knee and pushed her out of the way, the moment she got out, I got in. I could try to describe how it feels but it would be in vane, the weight was so much that I couldn't think, I couldn't move, it was pain like no other.
Fight back! A voice said inside my head. Don't give up!
I concentrated on just staying conscious, breathing if I could. I just needed to keep the sky aloft a few more seconds. I thought about Bianca, who had given her life so we could get here. If she could do that, I sure as hades could hold the sky.
With the short strength that I had left I force myself to open my eyes, I go a glimpse of a silver light somewhere in my left hand, but as soon as it came, it went. Concentrating harder I could see the battle in front of me. I could see Atlas in his full battle armor, spinning his javelin like a madman, I could also see Artemis, but she was moving so fast I could only see her as a blur of silver. She had her hunting knives at hand, each of them as long as my arms. As she maneuvered thru Atlas attacks, I could see her changing form, she was an eagle, a tiger, a gazelle, a bear, a jaguar. Or perhaps that was just the weight of the sky causing hallucinations. Zoe kept shooting arrows at her father, aiming for the gaps on his armor, he roar each time one hit their target, but the just seemed to anger him more.
"Yield!" I heard Thalia yelled. "You never could beat me, Luke."
I turn to look at them and I could see him bared his teeth. "We'll see, my old friend."
The two of them were still fighting, spark flying each time their weapons meet.
I turn my sight back to the immortals, each time Attlas tried to pierce Artemis she moved to the side and he end up planting his javelin on the round.
Get ready, said Artemis in my mind.
I was so tired I couldn't even think a response.
"You fight well for a girl." Atlas laughed. "But you are no match for me."
He feinted with the tip of his javelin and Artemis dodged. I saw the trick coming. Atlas's javelin swept around and knocked Artemis's legs off the ground. She fell, and Atlas brought up his javelin tip for the kill.
"No!" Zoe screamed. She got between her father and Artemis and fired an arrow straid into Atlas left eye.
He screamed, this time not in anger but in pain, golden ichor pouring from his eye, he fix his good one to Zoe. "Ungrateful child" He then used the back of his hand to smack her to the side, she got a direct hit and went down the mountain, but I couldn't see exactly where.
I wanted to go help her but knew that I was stuck with the sky for now. Atlas took the arrow out of his eye "The first dead in a new war" I heard him say with joy.
Atlas then sent another strike to Artemis, but she craved the tip of the javelin and it hit the ground next to her, she then used the javelin as a lever, kicking the Titan Lord and sending him flying over her, I saw him coming down on top of me and I realized what would happen.
I let go of the sky and the weight of Atlas was was on top of me instead. I moved to the side leaving only Atlas on the sky. He got to his knees, trap in his curse again.
"Noooooo!" He gave a loud roar so hard it shook the mountain. "Not again!" Although the last bit was more of a child like whine.
I tried to stand and fell back again, drowning in pain. My body felt like it was burning up.
That fight was over, but the battle was not, the fight between Luke and Thalia was still ongoing. Thalia had manage to back Luke to the edge of the cliff. Stunned from Atlas defeat he was easily unarmed by Thalia. Thalia put the tip of her spear to his throat.
Everything was silent for a moment. "What a situation we are in, eh?" said Luke.
"Shut up" hissed Thalia "You betray us, you deserve to die".
"Thalia, NO!" screamed Annabeth who had finally free herself from her chains.
Thalia turn her head to Annabeth "He betrayed us, he is a traitor"
Luke looked genuinely sad at been called that from Thalia "Let me do this easier for you".
"What are you gonna do?" I asked.
"This…" He then took a step back and Fell of the cliff.
"LUKE!" Annabeth screamed and ran after him, I had to hold her back she wouldn't fall off the cliff too.
We stood there waiting for the thud to tell us that he reached the bottom, but it never came. "Earlier I saw harpies on Luke's ship, maybe one saved him" I said.
"Yeah maybe" said Thalia in a tone that showed no emotion.
I look around us and realised that not all of us were here "Artemis! Zoe! We need to go help her" I stood up, ignoring the pain all over my body and ran the way that I had seen Atlas toss Zoe.
We found them close to the garden of the Hesperides. "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no" I kept repeating all the way there. When got close enough I yelled "Artemis!".
The goddess looked up, her face almost as grief-stricken as Thalia's. Zoe lay in the goddess's arms. Ladon was close to them, some of his heads were close to Zoe like an old dog who missed his master.
Zoe look awful, she was breathing, her eyes were open, but still… "The wound is poisoned," Artemis said.
"Atlas poisoned her?" I asked.
"No," the goddess said. "Not Atlas."
Then I remembered that Zoe had being attack by Ladon on our way up the mountain, getting between the dragon and the hunter I hissed "Get away from her, you caused this, you are responsible".
The dragon got away from her, shame and regret written on all it's 100 faces.
The Hesperides came close to us, their expressions on the other hand did not have a drop of sadness or regret in any of them. "She will die soon" one said, "Took her long enough" said another.
"How can you say that, she is your sister!" Thalia yell at them.
"She is no sister of ours" Said the first one.
"Please, she was your sister, if you ever loved her, if you ever cared for her, please help her now" I beg to them.
The Hesperides didn't seem to care at all for what I had to say, but Ladon did. He did the last thing anyone even the Hesperides -excuse me- especially the Hesperides would had expected. He used one of his heads to take one golden apple and handed it to Artemis "What do you think you are doing? You stupid dragon!" yelled all the Hesperides at the same time.
My jaw dropped, wasn't ladon's job to not let anyone get an apple, I thought. "Thank you" is said to it.
We heard some growls, hisses and howls, the army of Kronos was just below the rise. Even Artemis was too shocked to stir. We might've met our doom right there, but then I heard a strange buzzing noise.
Just as the army of monsters came over the hill, a Sopwith Camel swooped down out of the sky. "Get away from my daughter!" Dr. Chase called down, and his machine guns burst to life, peppering the ground with bullet holes and startling the whole group of monsters into scattering.
"Dad?" yelled Annabeth in disbelief.
"Run!" he called back, his voice growing fainter as the biplane swooped by.
This shook Artemis out of her grief. She stared up at the antique plane, which was now banking around for another strafe. "A brave man," Artemis said with grudging approval. "Come, we must get Zoe away from here and feed her the apple".
She raised her hunting horn to her lips, and its clear sound echoed down the valleys of Marin. Zoe's eyes were fluttering. "Hang in there!" I told her. "It'll be alright!".
Zoe was getting weaker by the minute, it was clear in her eyes and how she was mummering about stars. Once we were safe from the monster army I said to Artemis "Stop now. She does not have much time she needs to eat it now"
Artemis gave me a nod and took the apple close to Zoe's mouth "Please eat it" she said.
It looked like it took Zoe a lot of effort but she was able to bit the apple, with the first bite her strength began to come back, with the second one her wound started to heal and when she was finished she was the image of health itself.
Seen that Zoe was completely healthed Artemis get her a rib-breaking hug "I'm just glad that you are ok"
Zoe return the hug and buried her head in Artemis shoulder. After a minute and not breaking the hug she looked up and said to me "Thank thee for convincing Ladon, not just anyone would have done it".
I smiled at her "Any day". Just them plane went summing on top of us.
Annabeth looked at the plane with amazement "That's… my dad!".
We didn't have time to admire his flying. The giants and snake women were already recovering from their surprise. Dr. Chase would be in trouble soon.
Just then, the moonlight brightened, and a silver chariot appeared from the sky, drawn by the most beautiful deer I had ever seen. It landed right next to us.
"Get in," Artemis said.
We did as she said without any argument.
Seeing us safely away, Dr. Chase turned his biplane and followed us like an honor guard.
As we left the mountain we could hear the army of Kronos roared in anger as they gathered on the summit of Mount Tamalpais, but the loudest sound was the voice of Atlas, bellowing curses against the gods as he struggled under the weight of the sky.
I didn't pay much attention to what happen after wards, but I do remember that we landed at Crissy Field after nightfall. Annabeth and her dad hugged, talked and he explained how he had made celestial bronze bullets (very impressive).
Zoe was basically broken every ruled she ever lived by hugging me, telling me that I deserved Riptide and that I was more of a hero like Heracles had ever been.
After saying goodbye to Dr. Chase, Artemis left saying that she couldn't take us with her, and instead she summoned 4 pegasy to take us to Olympus.
As I said before I wasn't paying much attention, because I stayed concentrated on a silver ring on my left hand. I did not know how it had gotten there, but I did know when.
I remembered that I had seen a silver light when I took the sky for Artemis. I had also seen that when I first arrived to Mt. Othrys, Artemis did not have a ring but when she left she did, she had taken notice of this too and before she left she had given me a fearful look she thought I did not notice.
When they got to Mt. Olympus it was almost the crack of dawn, the pegassi left us outside of a pair of silver gates, before we could even knock, the gates opened by themselves. So we went inside.
Twelve enormous thrones made a U around a central hearth, all of the seats were occupied. Each god and goddess was about fifteen feet tall, and each was looking at the four of us.
"Heroes," Artemis called.
The goddess looked much better now, in the time that it took us to reach New York she had obviously rested and gotten her strength back. She slid down from her throne and turned to human size, she was in the form of a 14 year old with auburn hair gathered back in a ponytail, cold and bright eyes as silvery yellow as the winter moon, and her face was of such beauty that it made me skip a bit.
"The Council has been informed of your deeds," Artemis told us "We have voted to act."
"A vote of what? My lady" asked Zoe.
"It will be explain in a moment" Artemis said to Zoe, then turn back to the rest of the Gods "These half-bloods have done Olympus a great service. Would any here deny that?"
No one dared to raised their hands.
"I gotta say" Apollo broke the silence "these kids did okay." He took of his shades and look at me with mischievous eyes. "Especially where Percy and Arty got m—"
"Um, yes, first class," Hermes interrupted, like he was trying to hide something. "All in favor of not disintegrating them?"
All hands went up, with the exception of Ares and Athena. "Well it seems we won't have any deaths in this quest" said Zeus.
I look down to the floor in shame "Actually lord Zeus, there was, it was Bianca, she was killed by a Talos prototype on Hephaestus's junkyard" I couldn't even begin to think how will Nico react.
Hephaestus shrunk on his seat "Er- actually she did.. not"
"WHAT?!" Everyone that had been there screamed.
"Well... when my robots alerted me that someone had stolen from my junkyard, I went to check it out, when I got there you all were gone and I found the girl half dead inside the Talos prototype" Hephaestus began to explain in a sheepish tone "So I did the only thing I could, I took the girl to Apollo to get her healed"
Zoe turned to Apollo "Is it true? Did thee was able to heal her?"
An awkward look appeared on Apollo "You know how I'm an awesome god of healing?" We all nodded "Well… the poor girl was so wounded that the best I could get was healing her body but not her mind, so she is in a coma" he finished with sadness.
Gasp was heard though out the room "Is there anything there can you do Lord Apollo?" asked Annabeth.
"The best thing to do is to leave her in my temple for a couple of years, I'm even sure when she could begin to wake up" he said.
I was so happy that Bianca was alive that I was on autopilot for the awhile in the meeting, they wanted to kill Bessie so I stopped them, Thalia became a huntress of Artemis and was made Zoes new co-lieutenant in the hunt so she could escape the prophecy, Hera wanted Zoe dead for eating one of her apples but was stopped by Zeus and they wanted to kill me just-because and I wait-for-it stopped them.
I thought that we were finish with the meeting but Zeus called me "Percy Jackson". I did not know where this was coming from but I step forward nonetheless. "Now that all the most kill-or-not-kill decisions have been made, there is a more sensitive matter to attend"
"What is it, uncle?" I asked getting uneasy.
"It's about the ring you have on your hand" he said awkwardly. "Even if you don't know what it represents the council does"
I waited for him to continue and notice the various expressions on the faces of the gods, my dad looked pleased with himself, Hera looked like she just won the lottery, Apollo looked proud, Aphrodite was bouncing in her sit out of excitement, the rest of the gods looked amused and Artemis was… Blushing?
"So what does it mean?" I asked stopping the silence.
"You are aware that when Artemis was born she requested that she could be unmarried and a maiden forever?" Asked Hera, still with the happy look on her face.
"Of course we do, it is common knowledge" Said Annabeth, I still did not understanding where this was going.
"We accept her request, but with some conditions, Athena if you please" Hera gesture to Athena to read an old looking scroll she had with her.
"Artemis goddess of the hunt, the Moon, chastity, animals, and the wilderness will forever be unmarried until a respectful, loyal and noble male of olympian blood performs an act of rescue to said goddess, this act of rescue should be on moment decisions and without the intention of self gain. The moment this act of rescue to Artemis is accomplished the two parties should be instantly married by the unbreakable ancients laws." Read Athena, with a smug look on her face.
Yes I edit it to change a couple thinks and correct a few spelling mistakes, but wasn't able to find one (is instead of I), and if you find it be sure to tell me. That will be all for now.