What's up people of Fanfiction. So ever since I finished the Blood of Olympus I've wanted to write another fic, so here it is. It's been far too long since I wrote one. If any of you remember some of my old stories here's an update: I honestly don't know if I'm going to finish them because I was such a NOOB back then and I think I'm a little bit better now, I repeat, I think :). So I'm not sure what's happening with those. But I have my heart set on giving it my all with this one. For that reason I'm trying to make it like a legit novel with introductions and new characters and everything. That is the reason that you'll see a few introduction chapters and seemingly useless characters, but believe me, they definitely have a role in the story. Without further a do I invite you to please read, and hopefully, enjoy my story.
Thalia Pov
Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus, Hunter of Artemis, eternally fifteen year old girl, walked back up the hill to where it all started: Half-blood hill. It was summer, a few months after the second giant war, the sky was blue and there were a few clouds in the sky, giving the sky some contrast. The trees were all luscious shades of green and the birds chirped happily until the group passed under them. The sun beat down on the hunters of Artemis, on the apparent twelve year old girl leading them but finally on the three demi-gods lacking a little while behind the party.
She remembered the day they had stumbled across them. They were hunting in the rich and rolling hills of Texas, near Austin. The monsters they were chasing were a rogue pack of dracaena led by two empousai in their attractive human disguises, but not attractive to her of course. At first they were hunting them in the forest but as the afternoon slowly progressed and the shadows got steadily longer, they left the forest and entered the meadows, stocked with hills, of Texas.
They ran and ran and slowly but surely the pack began to slow. The hunters were able to keep a fast pace for far longer because that tends to happen if you're immortal and they were hunters, naturally able to chase prey in the wild so they slowly started to rope them in. Mile after mile went by but they caught up to them eventually in a small town not too far from Dallas.
They were so close to them now that they could see the ends of the monster party around every street corner and road they turned. Most of the hunters were running along sidewalks, trying to ignore the looks that the mortals gave them, while others were trying to be a bit more inconspicuous; running on the roofs of buildings alongside the road, like something out of Assassin's creed game.
They caught up to the pack at a warehouse on the outskirts of town. They were so close that some of the hunters, especially the ones on the buildings, were able to loose a few arrows. The monsters entered the warehouse and right as they were about to rush in Artemis held up a hand for them to stop.
"I want to scout it out first, this could be an ambush waiting to happen." She said. "Why refuge here when they could hide in the city? There's plenty of other spots." She said as an afterthought.
"Thalia, take Tyla and get me information. Do not engage." She warned. "Tell me what they're doing, if there's an ambush and ,if you can, try and figure out what is so special about this particular building."
"Yes my lady." She said obediently
"Oh and Thalia…"
"Yes?" she asked
"Do be careful, I'd hate to lose my Lieutenant... again." She murmured the last part.
Thalia smiled. "Yes my lady." She said again.
She and Tyla entered the building. Tyla was a small girl at the age of ten. She had a slim build and black hair so dark it would've made coal look light. She had a mouse like face with beady emerald green eyes, looking back and forth, always alert, searching for danger. But it was her scar that drew people's eyes towards her. She had one long, centimetre wide, scar, forming a curved line that connected her left side of her upper lip to her left eye. However besides the unnaturally dark hair and disturbing scar there was one other distinguishing factor about young Tyla; she was an expert knife thrower.
Sure she was as good as any of the other hunters with a bow and arrow but her skill with knives was not only uncanny and unparalleled, but disturbing as becoming a hunter gives you expert archery not knife throwing. When she first joined the hunters many had asked how a ten year old girl had learnt such a thing. She never responded. Speaking of disturbing, how she was found by the hunters was also disturbing and possibly the reason she had her scar, but that's a story that Thalia didn't really feel like thinking about.
They decided not to enter through the main entrance.
'Too obvious' Thalia thought.
Artemis ordered the hunters to give them a boost as they climbed the crumbling wall to a window on the second story. As the warehouse was old and the wall they were climbing was particularly dilapidated, there were plenty of small handholds to the window. Thalia looked down gave Artemis a quick nod of her head and she disappeared into the window.
She flung herself through and looked both ways down the dark passage. Nothing. The coast was clear. She kept looking as Tyla climbed through.
"Which way?" She asked
"Doesn't really matter I suppose." Thalia responded
"Left?" asked Tyla
"Why not?" she responded. But she knew from experience that a decision like this could mean the success or the failure of a mission, but it wasn't like they had any clue as to which way.
They crept towards the end of the hall, the soft padding of their boots masking most of their noise. They got to the end of the hallway without any taps or incidents. They peeked around the corner and saw a cyclops and a dracaena hiding around the next corner, crouched, and ready to strike at anyone who came from the entrance around the bend. She gave Tyla a nod and they both leapt out from the cover of the hallway. Before the monsters were able turn around they both gave disgruntled cries of pain as both impaled by two missiles, one spinning end over end, the light glinting of it, a split second faster than the silver missile that followed behind it.
Tyla smirked at her.
"Too slow." She stated
"Yeah, yeah." She said "We'll have a real competition when we have an actuall fight on our hands hotshot."
They moved on, running down the stairs and entered onto a railed terrace overlooking a big square room. The stairs to the terrace, from the floor, were on the opposite corner of the room. Below them three demi-gods were huddled together pinned to the wall. Two empousai were in front of them but were arguing with a female cyclops of about their height. They were followed by a horde of dracaena and finally a huge cyclops standing by the entrance, his head brushing the ceiling, his eye closed.
Thalia and Tyla crouched in the shadow of the corner eavesdropping on the argument below.
"You can't eat them now." One of the empousai hissed. "The hunters are on our tail and we can't run for any longer, we need to fight. If you try and boil them in that huge pot you have hidden around somewhere the hunters will shoot you down long before the demi-gods are ready."
"No, why should we help you? You led Artemis and her hunters straight too us!" the short female cyclops responded. The empousai that spoke slapped herself on the four head and breathed out a long sigh.
The other said "We would've had to fight them near here anyway, then they would've noticed your tracks as well and would've put arrows straight through you!" The cyclops frowned and nodded her head, thinking.
"Fine, we'll help you, but let us cook our dinner first." Said the cyclops
"No, you half-wit! By that time the hunters will be on us already." The first empousai said
The cyclops sighed. "Okay. Bruton, tie them up." she ordered the large cyclops.
Bruton opened his eye and started silently moving towards his job, head down so it wouldn't hit the roof, depressed about the effort he had to make.
Both empousai let out a loud groan of frustration. 'Who wouldn't?' thought Thalia. 'These cyclops are dumber than Percy, and that's saying something.'
"No! At least kill them first so that they don't turn on us in the middle of the battle." One of the empousai said. Thalia had lost track.
"Never, we cyclops like our meat fresh. We can either help you, and we tie them up, or we'll take them and be on our way." She said with indignation, even though she wouldn't have known what that word meant.
"Fine, fine. We'll do it your way." The empousai hissed.
"Awesome, now you make the plan, we're not very good with those." The cyclops said sheepishly.
The empousai mentally slapped herself for getting blackmailed by this idiot.
"Ok." She said "You and- what's the big cyclops name?"
"Bruton."
"Right Bruton. You and Bruton tie up the half-bloods. Do you see the pile of timber and materials in the corner?"
"Yes."
"Once you've tied them up, you and Bruton pick up as much as you can and get ready to throw them at the entrance of the room when the hunters come through. I'll also assign some dracaena to shoot arrows in their direction when the hunters get there."
"Sounds like a plan." The cyclops said cheerfully.
The cyclops and the dracaena moved to do their respective jobs.
"Tyla. Go and tell Artemis what's going on here about the ambush at the-." Thalia whispered
"Yeah, yeah I know about that." She interrupted
"Fine, also tell her to try and get as many archers up onto the terrace as she can, that way we can try and ambush the ambush." She gave her a wink.
Tyla smiled "Ok." she responded. And off she went, silent as the three demi-gods who were trembling in fear.
"Wait we have another cyclops standing guard by the window. He could help throw the stuff." the female cyclops said to the empousa.
"Excellent. Martha!" she called. An extremely strong looking dracaena came over to her and stood attention.
"Go and call the other cyclops, but tell Jill-"
'Wow these things have weird names.' Thalia thought…
"to stay there and guard the window entrance." The empousa ordered Martha.
Martha started to walk up the stairway and proceed onto the terrace
'Shit.' She thought to herself
"What are you two going to be doing? The cyclops asked
"You were to dim-witted to notice the secret passage behind the entrance to this room. Once you and our forces are engaged with the hunters we'll spring out from behind. Should be a nasty surprise." The second empousai chuckled.
'Fuck. I shouldn't off told Tyla to go so soon. I have to warn'- but her thought were interrupted as she discovered, to her horror that the second dracaena was only around the next corner. Her heart rate immediately picked up as she frantically thought about what to do and her palms slowly got moister. She realised that she couldn't back away to the shadow, and refuge, of another corner as she would have to cross the terrace, where the horde of monsters would surely notice her.
Under normal circumstances she would have been able to easily kill a dracaena, even one as strong as this, but she had to do this sneakily so that the empousai think that Martha reached the guards or the empousai would find out that the window entrance into the warehouse would be unguarded because otherwise she wouldn't of been able to get into the building in the first place and then the hunters and Artemis wouldn't have a safe entrance into the building. Plus she had to find a way to prevent the empousai from reaching that secret door or some of her long term friends would be massacred when some of them entered through the main entrance.
She drew her dagger and held it close with both her hands, tip pointing towards the ceiling.
The dracaena was now five metres away…
Her breath was frantic…
The empousai were almost at the entrance….
A single drop of sweat slid down her face…
The dracaena was three metres away
Her heart was pounding…
The empousai about to leave the room…
The dracaena one metre away…
She closed her eyes, steadied her breath and in that moment she knew what she had to do. She pictured the dangerous thing that had to be done, and felt as she became the dagger and it became her. It was now a mere extension of her arm. Her eyes opened and she pounced.
As the dracaena slithered past her, and saw her with surprise in its eyes, she swept it with her left leg, causing it to trip and as it fell, face forward, she brought up the dagger clutched in her left hand and plunged it straight into the beast's right eye, directly to the brain. She rotated quickly on her heal and caught its mouth and brought its head into her shoulder, as it let out its dying breaths, to mask and noise.
Martha was no more.
She leaned the corpse against the wall, so it was sitting with its back resting on the corner she hid behind.
'Now to stop those empousai, well here goes nothing. So much for Artemis telling me not to engage.' She thought and adrenaline pumped through her veins as she leapt the three metre high terrace and landed right in the middle of the horde of monsters.
The empousai turned around at the noise.
"What's up, fuck faces!" she asked as the two empousai transformed into their true forms.
Anyway, hope you liked it. I'm hoping that the next chapter will be up in a week. Sonyvaio.