Chapter 2: The Hunters of Percy

Camp Half Blood

Percy POV

I woke up the next morning in a terrible mood as I recollected what happened the other day. I really don't know how I'm going to approach Annabeth anymore. But then again I don't really know whether she wants to even see me again either. Then I smacked my head as I remembered my plan. It was simple. I was gonna swear off women forever. They've given me nothing but heartbreak. But even if I forgot about Annabeth completely there was no guarantee that I wouldn't fall in love with another woman. There were so many attractive and charming demigoddesses and minor goddesses out there. Even if I ran away from this camp and tried to eke out an existence in New Rome or any other demigod place there is still the possibility of meeting women and falling in love with them. And they would break my heart! So I wanted to avoid that forever.

My plan was simple. I would form a group of male celibates called the Hunters of Percy and we would adventure around the world and do tasks for the gods. Yes, unfortunately we would still have to do tasks for the gods since they'll never leaves us alone. As a group of celibates moving around the world we need never fear contact with women and can put up safety measures. Sort of like how those hunters of Artemis do to men. Yeah I was copying Artemis big time. I don't know if she would be fine with that but I don't care for now. I just wanna escape from heartbreak.

I stretched my legs and went to brush my teeth. Today was gonna be a long day indeed. And it was gonna be great. Right after I'm done with my ablutions I'm going to make a dramatic and emotional exit from the camp shouting 'This is the last you are going to see of Percy Jackson, the hero of Olympus'. I grinned to myself as I thought of my exeunt. Then I smacked my head. Before going anywhere I needed my hunters along with me of course. I massaged my temples and thought carefully. First I would need to recruit some hunters under me who have reason to join me. It was best to start recruiting some of them from here since I was most familiar with the guys in Camp Half Blood. I sighed. This was certainly gonna be a long day.

I decided to hand out pamphlets to all boys in the camp whenever I came across one. The pamphlets detailed what being a Hunter of Percy was all about. The basic requirements to join were just being male and swearing off women. While I was going along a girl picked up a pamphlet that accidentally fell down. I snatched it from her hands immediately. Not like she needed to know about it. Some guys took a look at the pamphlet and just put it aside. Clearly they were not interested or probably had a girlfriend. A few others gave me a puzzled expression but said nothing. I wasn't interested in telling them about what happened between Annabeth and me so I left them puzzled. However, a few others could take a pretty good guess at what happened. Travis and a few other guys came up to me and started laughing.

"Haha Percy who would have guessed", said Travis trying hard not to laugh while speaking. "The Hero of Olympus is such a weak-hearted male who can't hold onto his girl. Hell I'm having sex with Katie every day and I've been with her for much lesser time than you've been with Annabeth. Haha!"

A few of the Ares' kids passing by started laughing too when they heard what Travis said. I just ignored and went towards the dining hall. I was above dating and girls now. I didn't care if a few lowlifes laughed at me. Ok who am I kidding, I did care. It still hurt like hell when I thought of Annabeth. I sat on a chair in the dining hall and sighed. Clearly none of the guys here were interested in joining. When a few guys came up to me after a while however, I realized I was wrong. Connor, Malcolm and a few other boys came up to me.

"Percy!" said Connor grabbing my shoulders. "You gotta take me in! Katie is the only one I've ever loved but she refused me for Travis. I wanna get away from them."

"I can never attract women no matter what I do", said Malcolm bitterly as he held up a small bottle. "See this bottle? It's my nifty invention that I show to try and impress them. One drop of this smells worse than skunk spray and lasts longer too. You see I discovered a new compound - "

"Uh... all right that seems a valid enough reason to join right there", I said. "Just keep that darned bottle away from me!"

The other guys said they were all heartbroken too and got dumped by Aphrodite girls.

I stood up and addressed them, "Very well. Out of my infinite sympathy I shall allow you all to become my hunters. But you still have a lot to learn from me, your leader. You are all so heartbroken and desperate for women. I, on the other hand have gone beyond your lowly human passions and base desires and decided to dedicate my life towards a higher cause. I hope you all learn to be the same in due time."

I faked a confident smile and turned around.

Who am I kidding, I thought. My heart still pines for Annabeth day and night and I still really wanna have sex with her.

I led them out of camp in a single file as Travis and the other guys came to laugh at us. Chiron came to sing a goodbye song and the lyrics were about how I came to camp as a boy and became the heroic savior of the world twice but still couldn't get laid. When we stepped out of camp I decided to have our first meeting and get to planning what we were going to do.

"Well Malcolm", I said. "Since you're the smart one here you're going to find a way to set up bugs all around Mount Olympus so that we can spy on the gods and get to know what tasks they want to get done. I imagine it's useful to spy on the gods anyway."

I turned to Connor. "As for you Connor, you're going to be on the watch out next to Malcolm to make sure no one discovers what we're trying to get done. As for the rest of you, you're coming with me to buy weapons in this new demigod weapons center I found out about near Manhattan. Here's the address."

I gave Jacob, one of the other guys a paper where I wrote the address of the shop. "Riptide is fine for me but you guys have got shitty crap with you since Rick Riordan doesn't really concentrate on you in the books. We're all going to meet again after we're done with our work in front of the Empire State Building."

I whistled for Blackjack and then turned to my hunters again. "Well I'm flying there now on Blackjack. I guess you guys can walk or hitch or ride or whatever. Just get there."

"Hey that's not fair!" said Connor. "You get to go on Blackjack and leave us to ourselves."

I gave all of them a sharp look. "Who's the leader here?"

"You are", they all said.

"Who's the one who got heartbroken and ditched by the hottest girl in the world here?" I asked.

"I am", they all said together.

"Shut up!" I screamed at them. "It's me! Annabeth is the hottest girl and your girls are shit compared to her. Remember that! So if you don't listen to me then it means that you don't have any respect for your leader AND you have no sympathy for a heartbroken soul."

Saying that I leaped up on Blackjack and headed towards Manhattan. I met with the guys after two hours and we entered the shop. It was called Dean's Tools. To mortals it just seemed like a normal hardware store but to a person who could see through the mist it was clear that one of the guys at the counter had two small horns on his head. We stepped up to him and I gasped for moment. He looked exactly like the buff guy who was with Annabeth. I just hadn't noticed the horns on him before.

I regained my countenance and said, "We've come here to look at the demigod weapons."

He looked as austerely at me as I looked at him. I found that strange because even though I'd seen him before I was sure he hadn't seen me.

"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about", he said not changing his expression.

"Let me rephrase that", I said. "I can see the horns on your head and we want to take a look at the weapons you've got."

He paused for a moment and then said, "Follow me, sirs."

He took us to a door which said 'Staff Only' and let us in. At the corner of the room there was a counter and an assortment of weapons in the shelves behind it.

He went towards the counter and then addressed us. "Hi, I'm Dean. Those silly mortals I've hired help other foolish mortals with the stuff that they want. I manage the 'backend' jobs here which is not too much stress considering that few of you demigods actually come here."

Just the tone of his voice along with the fact that he might very well be the guy with Annabeth was starting to infuriate me. "We'll just take a look at the weapons then."

We decided to buy a few shields, some swords, an axe and a crossbow for each of us. I looked curiously at a flimsy staff he had. It didn't seem like much of a useful weapon to me.

"What's that for?" I asked him pointing at it.

"This here", he said picking the staff up. "is called a staff of love. My invention really. With a simple knock on a female's head it makes her stop fighting with you and start making love to you.

He turned to me and looked me in the eye. "I didn't actually ever need it myself of course. I thought it just might be useful for ah, a type of guy who is a sore loser when it comes to women. It wouldn't be of use to any of you now would it?"

"Certainly not!" I exclaimed angrily. "We're hunters and have no use for women!"

I turned and whispered to my team, "Let's get out of here before I impale him."

I heard Dean sniggering from behind as we left. I wasn't sure if he was the same guy with Annabeth or not but he was certainly pissing me off a lot. And he acted as if he'd seen me before. I might pay him a visit later to confirm. No wait, I'm over Annabeth. I don't need to think about her anymore or about her horny fuck buddies. Get it? Horny fuck buddies. Oh well forget that. We met Malcolm and Connor near the Empire State Building.

"Bugged the whole place skipper", said Malcolm as I came up to them. "The gods were busy having sex the whole day today because they were really bored."

"Terribly bored I tell you", Connor cut in excitedly. "I mean even Zeus was saying 'Oh gods, I must be so fucking bored if I'm actually having sex with Hera right now'. That was just hilarious! Man I should've recorded that!. And oh, Ares was chasing Athena around since Aphrodite was on vacation. Man I should've taken a video of that!"

Malcolm sighed and continued, "Well anyway since they were really involved in that we didn't have any trouble getting everything set up. Not just that, we overheard Apollo saying - "

"While he was having sex with an overgrown muse", Connor cut in.

"That he needed to call the hunters for a particular task", continued Malcolm. "He was obviously referring to the hunters of Artemis."

"So Apollo wants hunters to do a task eh?" I said. "Well I hope he's not going to be picky about the fact that the hunters might have dicks and not pussies this time."

All of us grinned and ran to find Apollo. After we came to Mount Olympus we found him near a fountain.

I bowed before Apollo and announced, "Here we are. Hunters at your service!"

Apollo looked at us quizzically. "Last I heard the hunters were supposed to be females."

"So you're saying that males can't be hunters?" Connor asked Apollo pointing a finger at him. "You sexist pig!"

Apollo narrowed his eyes at Connor. "Watch your words boy. I'm a god and I can snatch your mortal life in an instant!"

Connor huffed. "I'm a hunter now so I'm immortal now. Isn't that right Percy? I mean I'm a hunter now and since Artemis' hunters turned immortal that means Percy's hunters turn immortal too right?"

"Uh...", I said hesitatingly. "Well, um, actually it doesn't exactly work like that. I don't really have Artemis' powers."

"Oh", said Connor and his face instantly fell.

Connor grabbed his head and groaned. "I knew that a male hunter's life would be full of discrimination and sexism. We don't even get equal rights!"

Apollo laughed wickedly. "Well that was mighty fun. Percy and his jokers came to serve me as hunters. This is rich. Man this is just so funny that I'm gonna let all of you get out of here now in one piece."

Before I could do anything Connor grabbed Apollo and started shaking him.

"So you won't give us your task eh?" said Connor furiously. "You're saying that we can't do a woman's work? Is that what you're saying? I'll sue you for discrimination do ya hear? Wait, I'll complain to your girlfriend about this discrimination too. That'll certainly set it right!"

Apollo looked like he was about to impale Connor but then froze for a moment and shivered. "My girlfriend? What do you know about her? What'll you tell her?"

Connor smiled triumphantly. "I know about Maria's sense of justice and I know how much you value her. Deny us this task and I'll tell her all about your cruelty! As well as the fact that you're cheating on her."

"No!" yelled Apollo. "Look you can have any of my tasks. Just don't tell her anything. Please!"

Connor grinned and came up to me. "We got a task skipper!"

I didn't even bother asking Connor how he knew that Apollo's girlfriend was his weak spot. Sons of Hermes usually find out about everything.

No one's POV

A blond girl entered Artemis' tent and gave her a letter. Artemis read it and crumpled it up furiously and growled menacingly. The blond girl was surprised at Artemis' unusual loss of composure.

"I'll get them!" Artemis growled under her breath. "Stupid men!"

Well that's all for chapter 2. From now on if you have any ideas for the story you can write them down in your review and I might consider them based on whether they'll be feasible for the storyline or not. But please do post your ideas for it.