This story is kind of AU, because it ignores Heroes of Olympus and everything after, but also Percy doesn't have the Achilles Curse. Just so you know.

Lycaon's Prey

1

Looking back, I can safely blame Thalia Grace for pretty much single-handedly ruining my life. To be fair to her, it wasn't on purpose (which tells you just how much our relationship has improved in the years since we met) but a lot of things which went wrong could easily be traced back to the April morning when she woke me up by bursting into my cabin and saying "Hey, Kelp Head, get up. We need to talk."

"Do we?" I asked, rolling over to shield myself from the daylight in the doorway.

Unfortunately, in doing so, I left my feet sticking out from the end of the covers, presenting Thalia with an opportunity to electrocute me as she said "Yes."

It was an opportunity that she wouldn't have passed up in a million years, and I flew about a foot in the air. If anyone ever asks me about it, I'll deny that I shrieked at a pitch and volume I didn't know I was capable of, but, just between me and you, it was a sound that could probably have shattered glass.

"Get dressed, Percy," she said. "I'll meet you at Zeus' Fist in five minutes." And with that, she turned around and left, leaving a smell of ozone in the air and one very disgruntled son of Poseidon: me.

Part of me really wanted to go back to sleep just to teach her some manners about waking people up, but the fact that she hadn't tried to shock me again before leaving (which I'd have been totally ready for, mind you) told me that whatever it was might actually be important.

So I got dressed. Jeans, Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt, and a brief spray of deodorant to ward off that sweaty teenager smell I was beginning to worry would haunt me until I was an old man. I'd grab a shower later, but with the time limit Thalia had given me, there wasn't really time to have the soak I normally enjoyed. Honestly, I'd had to start having baths again at home to stop me from blowing Mom's latest advance on a massive water bill, so it was lucky that the stuff at camp was literally a gift from the gods.

The walk to Zeus' Fist was no different from normal, which was a shame; it would have been nice for someone to come and tell me that the plans I'd made for the future, vague and flexible though they were, were about to go straight out of the window.

"Hey, Pinecone Face, what's happening?" I called up to the black-clad figure atop the pile of rocks.

Thalia turned to look at me, and even from my position down below, I could see the wry smile on her face. "Come on up," she said. "And sit down. This could take a while to explain."

I obliged, scrambling up the rocky mound towards my cousin, where I took a spot on the boulder to her left. "If I have to be sitting down, it must be bad," I said. "Break it to me gently, will you?"

She sucked her teeth in. "I'm afraid you've got a nasty case of chronic stupidity. It's probably fatal. There's nothing the doctors can do. I'm sorry."

"I said break it gently!" I protested.

She shrugged. "When the news is that bad, there's no such thing as gently. Anyway, that's not why I called you here."

"I figured: you tell me I'm stupid in public enough that I can't understand why you'd need to call me out here this time."

"Reminding you probably stops it from getting worse," she said. "You've really got no idea how many times I've saved your life with this."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," I told her. "Although of all the bullies I've had, you're the first to claim that it's secretly good for me."

"I've just got class like none of them had. Besides, I'm trying to get in your good books; I need your help."

"I'm sorry?" I asked. "Did I mishear you? Did you just say you need my help? And if so, can I get it in writing, for proof?"

"Ha ha," she said sarcastically, like she didn't find me hilarious or something. "For real though. I do."

"Yeah, I'm listening," I said. "What's up?"

"You know we're under-strength after the war. Normally we'd be digging in, picking new recruits carefully to replenish the losses, that kind of thing. But then, a few months ago, one of the new girls went missing. We never found her again. The month after, another one vanished, but we found her soon enough. Werewolves, or something similar, had got her. Ripped her throat out." She paused and breathed in deeply.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Well. It got worse, gradually. Lady Artemis ordered that none of the recruits went anywhere alone, and next time we found one of the senior Hunters. Then two of the recruits. Last month it was three girls. We find most of them, or the remains, anyway, but… some of them are still missing. All of the ones we find are werewolf victims, though, so there must be some kind of group targeting us. But we haven't found them yet, and we're down to nineteen Hunters apart from me and Artemis. Less than half what we were a couple of years back."

I nodded, but something still wasn't making total sense to me. "Why've you come to me?"

"Ar-" she began, but cut herself off, as though not wanting to attract the goddess' attention by saying her name. "My Lady," she said instead. "She won't admit that there's a problem, not to the other gods, at least. I think there's a part of her that thinks she can still sort it out by herself, but even if there isn't… she's proud. She couldn't stand losing face in front of Apollo especially. So you can't tell anyone about this, alright?"

By this point, I could more or less tell where this was going, and I didn't like it one bit. I wasn't fully aware of how badly it would go, but I was pretty confident there would be alternative ways for me to spend my day that involved significantly less risk of grievous bodily harm. Even so, I gave Thalia my word. "I won't."

She gave me a tired smile. "Thank you. Normally I wouldn't dream of going against her orders, but… it's hard, Percy. I thought with the war over we'd be able to settle down, but we're dying faster than ever, and she's forbidden us from even asking for help. We're fish in a barrel. So, I need your help."

"Go on."

"Have you ever had any run ins with werewolves?"

"No."

"That's probably for the best. It's a pretty simple plan. The way I see it, there are basically just two steps: find them, and kill them."

"You make it sound so simple."

"It's not as bad as it sounds. We figure there can't be that many of them, otherwise they'd have attacked all-out by now. We're not exactly as intimidating as we used to be. So we head out into the woods. We shouldn't have to go far to get noticed, and it shouldn't take long before they decide to attack us. So we get ambushed, but as long as we're careful not to get out of earshot of the rest of the Hunt, we'll have back-up to clean any wolves up. If all goes to plan, it should be simple."

"When does it ever go to plan?" I asked.

She gave a brief laugh at that. "True. But I figure it's better to have a plan that goes wrong than none at all."

"Fair enough. So what am I, bait?"

"No. I mean, I'd never ask you to – I'm the bait. I'm the one they'll want. You're… my bodyguard, in a way."

I might have laughed at that, if I'd been in a worse mood. I wasn't going to be the bait; I was just going to be in between the bait and the hungry werewolves who wanted it. But I could tell that for all the jokes and jibes, Thalia was stretched almost to breaking point, and pointing out that detail was unlikely to make her relax. She'd come to me for help, and I was going to do my best to provide it. "So why do you need me?" I asked. "Surely there are others the rest of the Hunt would be happier with?"

"Ideally, I'd be taking one of them with me, but none of them are close combat specialists. They'd be a liability. And it's true they won't think much of you, but I trust you, and it's me who'll have your back and whose back you're going to have. I figured two of us have a better chance of surviving it than just one, and I picked you because you're one of the strongest demigods I know, and because they won't be expecting you. If you've never met them before then they might underestimate you, and seeing the Lieutenant of Artemis with a boy could confuse them, but what it really comes down to is that it's suicide to do it alone, but too many people will scare them off so the plan won't work. And I think you're the best person for the job."

"Why not Annabeth?" I asked.

"Knife fighter," she explained. "To stab any of the wolves she'd have to be in jaws' reach. You've got more reach. You'll need a silver sword instead of Riptide, but you still seemed like the best choice."

I thought for a moment to consider what I knew. Riptide was the only sword I'd ever really felt comfortable using, and throwing myself head-first into mortal danger was hardly sensible, even by my standards. On the other hand, this was Thalia – my cousin, my friend – asking for my help, and desperately too, to save the lives of people she cared about.

I know I said earlier that she was the one who ruined my life, but at this point, having told you this much, I should admit it: I walked into this with my eyes open.

"Give me a few days to sort the new sword out," I said. "But yeah, I'll do it."

It didn't take long to get everything organised. The Hephaestus cabin were only too happy to help craft a silver sword, a challenge they'd never had before. A couple of them wrinkled their noses when I asked for it to be weighted similarly to Riptide, but agreed that it was probably necessary.

Considering that it wouldn't be designed for duelling, and would likely only be used once in anger, they reckoned it would probably just take a couple of days to forge. That time passed painfully slowly, but once it was over, I stood in the centre of the forge, balancing my new weapon in my hand while Jake Mason explained the process.

"Seeing as Riptide is magic, it was hard to replicate the weighting exactly," he said. "It's pretty unique, as far as I'm aware. I think we've got about as close as we can, but you'll need to practise a little with it to familiarise yourself."

I swung it experimentally. It felt a little on the heavy side, but remarkably close to my normal sword. "That's great, thank you," I said.

And then it was down to the arena to try it out on some unsuspecting dummies.

The dummies, being inanimate objects, didn't stand a chance, but that didn't stop me from getting a certain satisfaction out of slamming the sword in and out of them. Clarisse stopped by for a quick spar that ended as a draw and confirmed what I'd already suspected: the new sword wasn't as good as Riptide, not nearly.

But it was still a fine piece of work, and that was all it needed to be.

Inevitably, the hardest part was going to be telling Annabeth that I was leaving her, so I took Thalia along for support when I went to break the news.

"Are you serious?" my girlfriend asked, mouth half-open in disbelief. "Oh my gods, you are serious, aren't you?"

"It's just for a day, maybe two," I protested. "It's in, out-"

"Shake it all about," Thalia unhelpfully interjected.

"And we're done," I finished, which might not have rhymed, but definitely made more sense. "I'll be back before you notice I've gone."

Annabeth took a deep breath, which might have been interpreted by someone less optimistic than me as an attempt to stop herself from throttling me. "I understand that this is important and that you need to go and help Thalia, alright? But your head is even more full of seaweed than I thought if you expect me to stay here and play Penelope while you go off to war. I'm coming too."

"Woah, woah," I said. "I don't want you putting yourself in danger."

She gave me a look that said she could take care of herself, thank you very much.

"Besides," I carried on, "too many of us will scare them off, right Thalia?"

"True," said the daughter of Zeus, who seemed to have forgotten she was there to be supportive and was instead browsing through some of the notes on one of the Athena kids' desks with a look on her face like it was a pile of manure.

"So I'll hang back with the other Hunters," said Annabeth. "If that's what the plan needs, it's fine, but I'm not letting you go off on this thing unsupervised."

"I'll be there," pointed out Thalia.

"Unsupervised by anyone responsible," clarified Annabeth. "Besides, I trust the Hunters as little as I trust the werewolves, where you're concerned, and I'd quite like you back in one piece. I'll be out of harm's way, but close enough to keep an eye on you both."

I tried to find a good argument against that, but couldn't, so I looked over at Thalia for some help. Thalia herself didn't seem to notice, so I coughed loudly and said "Thalia?"

She looked up and shrugged. "Seems reasonable to me."

This was exactly the opposite of what I'd wanted her to say, but unfortunately for me, it pretty much settled the debate.

And so, only four days after Thalia had originally burst into my cabin, the three of ourselves sat in the back of the camp van for three hours as Argus followed Thalia's directions to find the rest of the Hunters of Artemis.

On being dropped off at a roadside that didn't look like it was near anywhere in particular, there was another hour's trek deep into the woods, until we finally found ourselves in a small encampment of silver tents.

Up until that point, I'd been feeling pretty comfortable with this mission. Obviously I was putting myself in mortal danger, and that was never exactly fun, but at the same time, I'd defeated titans and survived a prophecy that seemed to explicitly tell me I was going to die. After those, how hard could a few werewolves be?

In all my adventures up to that point, though, no-one had ever looked at me in quite the way the group of Huntresses were looking at me right then. At least, no-one who was supposed to be on my side.

"This was part of your plan, Thalia?" asked one of them.

"Some of you will remember Percy and Annabeth," said Thalia, either not noticing or choosing to ignore the glares coming in our – well, my – direction. "They played a major role in saving Olympus, and also in rescuing Lady Artemis from Mount Othrys before that. They've come to help out with the werewolf problem."

"And why do we need a boy's help?" came a voice, but I couldn't see who said it.

"So that when we spring the trap, I've got a full set of Hunters ready to kill wolves as best they can. Percy's coming with me, he'll be there to hold them up while you close in. Annabeth's going to hang back with you to spring the trap. Any problems?"

There was some grumbling, but no-one seemed in the mood for an outright confrontation. Secretly, I suspected, they were all so tired and ground down by the last few months that they were more interested in fighting off the wolves than in pursuing a vendetta against all men.

"You ready?" Thalia asked, as the Hunters dispersed.

"Yeah, I think so. Should I put my armour on?" I asked, but Annabeth shook her head.

"It'll clue them in that something's up," she said. "But that doesn't mean I give you permission to go and get yourself killed, alright? Be careful out there."

"Yes ma'am," I joked. "Would it be suicidal to kiss you goodbye in front of the Hunters?"

"You'd survive it if you were lucky, but I'd definitely die of disgust," said Thalia. "You can kiss to your little heart's content when this is over and you're back at camp, but until then I'm limiting you to hugs."

Annabeth and me – wait, Annabeth and I, sorry – exchanged a look, but decided to humour the daughter of Zeus, considering I was likely to be relying on her to keep me alive in the very near future. We held each other for a moment, and then it was time to be going.

"How are things with Annabeth?" asked Thalia as we picked our way through the undergrowth.

We'd been dating for a while now, and around each other we were about as comfortable as we ever were, but I still got a strange kind of thrill when other people acknowledged that we were a couple. I grinned without meaning to as I said "Good."

Thalia took one look at me and rolled her eyes. "Gods, spare me the details," she said. "How's the whole architecture gig?"

"Also good, I think. I mean, you know she hates sharing until the plans are all finished, but she's getting very invested in the on-site stuff. Last time she went up to Olympus she came back with complaints about pretty much every god I've ever heard of and a few I haven't."

"So, that's four gods?"

"I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that I make sure to know a god's name before pissing them off."

"Oh Hades, that's about ten thousand then?"

"Much more accurate," I smirked. "How about you? We didn't actually get that much chance to catch up last time I saw you, what with the world ending and all. How've you settled into the Hunt?"

"Well, by and large. I'd have thought there'd be problems with others Artemis passed over for the Lieutenant spot, but they all respect her so much… it's incredible, really, this bond there is. They're my friends, my sisters, but they all trust me to lead them well too."

"You sound happy."

It was her turn to smile, and I was pretty certain that she too didn't even realise she was doing it. "Yeah," she said. "I am."

Any further conversation was cut off by a rustling sound in the bushes to our left. We both swung around to face it, Thalia drawing her spear – silver tipped, I now noticed – and my hand going straight to Riptide until my brain registered that I needed the sword sheathed at my other side for this particular monster.

Unfortunately, that reflex was all that was needed to kill the plan off pretty much entirely. And tear it to pieces. And throw every piece into a fire. Because my immediate reaction being to draw the wrong sword meant that I was totally unarmed when the wolf that had drawn our attention sprang out of the bushes, leaping towards me with its mouth open and teeth bared in an angry snarl.

Thalia gave a wordless yell as she speared another that came towards her with her spear, letting the others know we had our wolves, but I had to dive out of the way to avoid having my throat torn out, landing awkwardly and trapping the sword beneath my body. More wolves emerged, and Thalia swung her spear out in an arc to ward them off as I rolled over to avoid another snap at my heels.

I finally managed to wrestle my sword out from its sheath, cleaving through the air towards the wolf which had been pursuing me. It jumped backwards, avoiding the blow by a whisker.

I got to my feet and, sword out to protect myself from the snarling wolves, made my way carefully over to Thalia. There were about eight wolves surrounding us, all wary enough of our silver weapons to stay out of our reach, but clearly aware that we had no real means of escape. Fortunately, all we had to do was hold them up until the Hunters arrived to wipe them out. So I stood there, back to back with my cousin, waving our weapons as threateningly as we could and occasionally swiping at any monster which crept too close to us.

"Where are the others?" I asked. It was hard to judge time in a situation like that, but I was sure we'd been standing there too long.

"I don't know," she said. "They should be here any second."

Noticing a wolf edging forwards, I lunged forwards and caught it in the leg, drawing blood, but it wasn't a killing blow. The wolf yelped and stumbled back, out of my reach.

"If they didn't hear, we need to do something," said Thalia. "Is there any water nearby?"

There wasn't, but before I could answer, a silver arrow flew through the trees, piercing one of the wolves through its snout. More follows, and that animal and two others were killed in an instant.

Thalia screamed a wordless warcry and leapt at the remaining animals, which snapped but turned to run as I did the same, swinging my weapon and yelling. The wolves scattered before us, a couple of them outright fleeing but the other few backing towards the bushes they'd come from. If they made it in, we would never be able to catch them, so I attacked again, finally snagging a kill and making my way towards another until, suddenly, there was an agonising burning sensation in my calf.

I gasped in pain as I fell to one knee, but the wolf in front of me noticed my moment of weakness, and lunged for my face. I raised my free arm to protect myself, and the wolf's teeth sank straight into the forearm, blood spurting from the instant holes that appeared in the skin. Its teeth stained quickly red.

Seeing Thalia arriving from my side and the Hunters behind me, the wolf let go and fled into the bushes. Arrows pursued it, but none made contact.

I looked around, seeing another couple disappear into the distance, but most of the pack had dissolved into the monster dust that covered the clearing, peppered by Hunters' arrows and wounds from my sword and Thalia's spear.

The danger over, the adrenaline started to subside, and I began to realise just how much my injuries were hurting, to the point where I found it hard to focus on anything else. For some reason, they were affecting my vision, which was turning gradually fuzzy with little black spots appearing out of nowhere.

"Percy!" I heard a voice call, and turned to see Annabeth running towards me, a look of panic on her face.

Then everything went dark.

Lycaon isn't in the character list? Well, then. He's gonna be here, as you may be able to tell from the title.

I would like to promise that there'll be regular updates for this, but I know better than to make promises I can't keep. I promise to try for regular updates. I have already written the next chapter, though, so I'll definitely (maybe) put that up next week.

Apart from disregarding HoO and the Curse of Achilles, I think the only important thing you need to know about this AU is that Percy no longer has the set of armour that melds into his clothes that he had in that one short story.

Sorry Percy. It would have come in handy here, but it would also have meant there was no story.

Aside from that, I hope you enjoyed this opening chapter, and while I realise there's not exactly a lot to judge the story by yet, you should still feel free to review if you have any burning thoughts/ideas/questions/constructive criticism, because feedback is always exciting for me to read.