Love's Meddling: Revelations 11/29/2016
AN: Well then, I wasn't expecting nearly as much support as I did get for the first chapter, so I'm pretty excited. And yeah, thanks to all of you who followed/favorite this, means a lot. Also, please leave reviews so I can know what you guys think.
Disclaimer: Rick Riordan owns the Percy Jackson series, not me.
The next day
Percy woke up to feeling a presence in his cabin. When he opened his eyes, he found a pair of silver ones staring right back at him. Artemis made an uncharacteristically girlish "EEP" when she made eye contact with Percy. She scrambled backwards until she hit the wall. "I-I uh, cametowakeyouupforsomearcherypracticesomeetmeinthearcheryrangein30minutes," she blurted out before running out the door like she was being chased by Kronos himself.
"What just happened?" Percy asked to no one in particular. He wasn't expecting someone, or something, to answer him, especially not the voice of a dead girl in his head.
"I'm not sure," said the voice of Zoe Nightshade.
Percy did a pretty good impression of Artemis when he heard the voice of the dead Huntress. He looked around frantically, trying to find the source of the voice. "Z-Zoe? Are y-you haunting me for letting you d-die?" he asked aloud to thin air.
"Ha, you should have seen the look on your face! Haunting you?" she replied, and Percy could have sworn he heard her wipe a tear out of her eye. "You might be a good man, but you are still a stupid boy. You might want to take a look at the sword I left you, I made a few adjustments."
When he took out his trusty pen-that-turns-into-a-sword, what he saw wasn't the Riptide he was used to seeing. Instead of a regular, disposable pen, what he took out was what looked to be an expensive bronze pen with silver lining, that had the word 'Anaklusmos' engraved on its side in black. 'Whoa, it looks so cool.' He thought.
"Yes it does, now why don't you uncap it?"
When he did, Percy's jaw dropped to the floor. While it kept its original shape, the sword got a makeover. Before, it used to be a plain looking bronze xiphos with a leather grip and gold studs on the hilt, but now it was much flashier. On the guard was the word 'Anaklusmos' in bronze. Just above that, on the base of the blade itself was a small triangle with a trident on it. The edges of the blade were now lined with silver. On the upper half of the blade, with stars of glowing silver, was the newest constellation, 'The Huntress', which could also be seen on the pommel. To finish it all off, the entire sword had a swirling aura of sea green and silver. To Percy, only one word could describe Riptide. "Epic," he whispered. He then noticed the shimmering translucent form of Zoe Nightshade in front of him. He instantly thought that what he was experiencing was a dream, not letting himself hope against hope that his friend that he saw die less than 24 hours prior was really in front of him, fearing that if he did, she would disappear forever. He tried pinching himself, but when he looked back up, Zoe was still there. "Okay definitely not a dream."
Zoe rolled her eyes. "Of course it's not a dream."
"This is great! Artemis will be so glad to see you!" Percy exclaimed, getting ready to go tell the goddess, but the sad look on Zoe's face stopped him.
She looked at him and shook her head. "Percy, you are the only one who can see me, the only one who can hear me, that is the limit of what I did."
Percy's face deflated. "Oh. What did you do anyway?"
"When Artemis brought my essence out of my body to put me in the stars, I infused some of myself into Anaklusmos, thus anchoring me to this world through the sword. I definitely would have gone to Elysium had I just simply died, but by doing this," she gestured to her shimmering form, "I might be able to help you in this upcoming war with the Titans."
Percy started tearing up. "You sacrificed Elysium just to help me? Thank you, Zoe, this is just..I just don't know what to say to that." He tried to pull her into a hug, but his hands just passed through her.
Zoe just smiled at him. "I'm just a spirit, Percy, so you can't touch me. As for sacrificing Elysium just to help you...well, I'd prefer to be spending my afterlife doing something rather than just lazing around. Anyways, back to what it is that I did. Thanks to what I did, Anaklusmos, and by extension, you as its owner, is much more powerful. A great deal of my soul is infused into that sword, Percy. I can also take control of your body you for a short period of time, in case you get knocked out or need some help, kind of like possession, I suppose."
Percy was a bit confused but didn't let it show on his face. "Oh, cool, I think. Where did you learn to do this anyways?"
Zoe blinked at the unexpected question, and she looked a bit confused before answering. "I-I'm not exactly sure, really. When Artemis took my soul out, I had a great desire to help you Percy, and I think...I think my soul did what it could to accomplish what I wanted. As for how I know all about what I did, I just do, kind of like the information came to me when I anchored my soul to Anaklusmos."
"Huh, anchoring your soul to an object...that sounds like something from some book Annabeth was telling me about before." Percy just shrugged. "Oh yeah, Artemis said something about meeting me in the archery range for some practice, right? At least that's what I think she said, spoke to fast for me to be sure. Is she always like that?"
"Artemis? No. In fact, in all the many years that I have been her Lieutenant, she has never acted in a manner that is remotely close to that. Something's wrong here, so I suggest you keep an eye out. But in the meantime, you should get ready, and fast. I remember this one time when I was still new to the Hunt, I was late for training and Milady made me do all the chores and hunt for food for an entire month! It was absurdly tiring, and from that point on, I made sure to never be late for training with her, ever."
Percy gulped. "It's not like she can do anything like that to me, right?"
"Maybe, I don't know. She might just turn you into a jackalope. Just get ready, fast. You have about 15 minutes to take a shower, freshen up, change into a new set of clothes and get to the archery range," Zoe replied, looking at the clock on the wall.
"Shit!" Percy yelled while he hurriedly took off his clothes, forgetting that Zoe could see him. She blushed and looked away.
'Damn it, I shouldn't be feeling like this, I'm dead. He has that Annabeth girl, and I'm just some ghost that only he can see,' Zoe thought.
With years of practicing getting ready quickly, the ability to control water, making showering quick, fear making his legs go faster than normal and probably a bit of luck, Percy made it to the archery range with less than a minute remaining. He found that Artemis and Thalia were waiting for him there. He was about to greet them when he looked into their eyes. He could see many thing in their eyes, most of which he couldn't identify, but the ones that stood out to Percy were what appeared to be love and lust. He thought he was seeing things and really looked into their eyes, only to find them right into front of him. He stumbled back a little, trying to put distance between them. It was then that he noticed other unusual things about the goddess and her Lieutenant. Artemis was in the form of a beautiful 14 year old, the same age as Percy, whereas before she looked much younger. She was also wearing clothes that accentuated her curves and her hair was loose over one shoulder. On the other hand, Thalia was not only wearing make-up, she was also wearing rather revealing clothing.
Percy gulped, not sure about how to handle the situation. "Um, you know, I could just practice by myself, right?"
A slight frown adorned both girls' faces. "Nonsense, why practice by yourself when you can have the best archer in the world to teach you?" Artemis asked him while pulling him closer.
"What? Don't want to spend time with me, cuz? I thought that maybe training together would make this easier for both of us," Thalia said.
Percy realized that they had a point so he decided to go with it, pushing the odd things he noticed into the back of his mind. Percy spent the next hour trying, and failing, to shoot the target properly. Interestingly enough, this wasn't due to his legendarily abysmal bow skills. In fact, most of his shots nearly hit the target that he was aiming for, instead of the usual situation where his arrow ends up hitting somebody behind him or a target somewhere else in the range. He was failing to shoot properly because he couldn't concentrate properly. The reason for this was because his 'instructor' kept on adjusting his posture and aim by pressing her body, especially her breasts, against his and making him mimic her stance, as well as subtly caressing his hand as she adjusted his fingers. Not to mention Thalia, his 'training partner', seemed to have clothes that were either defective or too small. The straps on her tank top would slide down her shoulders and her shorts were much too small.
After Percy's hour of torture, he was to tired to protest when both girls decided to latch onto one of his arms as they went to breakfast. Percy tried to make conversation with them, but even that proved to be tiring, what with all the innuendoes and teasing from the goddess and semi-immortal demigod. All that happened was all very confusing to Percy, and it made Zoe become very suspicious. Despite the improbability of it all, things got even weirder mid-way to the pavilion. All of a sudden, Artemis blushed bright gold all the way to her ears, with Thalia following behind her with her own red blush. They swiftly let go of Percy, made hasty excuses that Percy couldn't understand and proceeded to run away.
"That was beyond odd. Something is up," the voice of Zoe said directly into Percy's head. He nearly jumped, having temporarily forgotten about her, distracted as he was with the strange behavior of the two daughters of Zeus. Zoe grumbled. "You do realize that I can hear everything that you think, right?" Percy donned his own blush at that. "Speaking of which, I don't exactly appreciate some of the things you thought of during your little 'training session.'"
"HEY! Such thoughts are perfectly normal, if not mellow, for a growing hormonic teenage boy such as myself!" Percy thought back defensively.
Zoe sighed and Percy thought he could hear her shaking her head. "Whatever, I suppose it is excusable, considering how those two acted. Still doesn't mean that I like it."
"What are we going to do about their behavior anyway? Tell someone?"
"Hmm...No. We should just watch out and gather information for now. I have a guess as to what's going on, but I'd rather learn more about whatever this is before saying anything."
With that, Percy made his way to the pavilion. When he arrived, he noticed that the other hunters were there, and they looked right at him. When he looked in their direction, they all lightly blushed before looking away. Shaking his head with a sigh, Percy sat down at the Poseidon table and began to eat. Every now and then, he would catch the hunters looking his way when they thought he wasn't looking, and whenever he looked in their direction, they would look away. Deciding to just ignore them, Percy looked around the pavilion and noticed that Annabeth wasn't around, which was unusual for the strict daughter of Athena. He just passed it off as her needing more sleep after what she went through.
Annabeth Chase was lying in her bed in the Athena cabin, contemplating something that her mother would most certainly not approve of. 'How do I tell Percy that I love him?' is the question that has been constantly repeating itself in her mind since she woke up from a rather interesting dream. She could still remember it clearly.
Annabeth opened her eyes to find herself in a room that was all pink. The furniture was pink, the walls were pink and even glass windows were pink. Also, there were hearts, everywhere. She felt that strange feeling she always got at the start of a demigod dream. She felt sluggish, her movements were slow, as if there was something constantly pushing against her movements. Everything she saw seemed to be blurry and abnormally bright. She was lightheaded and feeling a bit of vertigo. Annabeth took deep breathes to focus herself. When everything returned to normal, she looked around once more and decided that she was probably in Aphrodite's palace and that the goddess herself called her into this dream. Not knowing what the goddess of love would want with her, she started exploring. As she suspected, most of the doors wouldn't open. When she found a door that would actually open, she wasn't surprised to find that she was in what looked to be the master bedroom and that Aphrodite was there waiting for her. The goddess smiled at her, but she had a mischievous and knowing look in her eyes that put Annabeth on edge.
"Welcome to my humble abode, Annabeth Chase," the goddess said, her voice soothing. Annabeth relaxed a little before realizing that there was magic at play. She became tense again and glared at the goddess. Aphrodite chuckled. "Now, now. No need to be so suspicious. You know, being so tense all the time is seriously bad for you. Relax, I'm not going to be doing anything to you, I just want to talk." When Annabeth didn't move or relax, Aphrodite sighed. She snapped her fingers and the room changed to look like a psychiatrist's work place. Aphrodite motioned to the bed where a patient would usually lie down on. Annabeth carefully walked over to it and laid down. She then made a 'go on' motion with her hands. "Annabeth, I know that you love young Perseus." Annabeth choked a little at this. She was about to protest when Aphrodite put up a hand to silence her. "You might not realize it, you might not believe it, but you do love him. The two of you have been best friends since he got to Camp Half-Blood, you have fought together, you have fought each other, you have travelled together and you have hurt together. The two of you have grown incredibly close over the past couple of years, so close that you, without knowing it consciously, have developed feelings for him far beyond those of simple friendship."
Annabeth finally found her voice to protest. "I don't love Percy!"
"Deny it all you want, but deep down, you know it's true. You've slowly started to realize it yourself, haven't you? When you found out that he was coming to save you, didn't your heart leap in joy? Weren't your thoughts of him the fuel that let you withstand the burden of Atlas' Curse? When everyone was fighting, wasn't he the only one you were worried about?" Annabeth was speechless, for she knew that the goddess' words held some truth. "Ah, but these feelings go back far longer, don't they? You really did want to dance with him at that school, didn't you? Weren't you overjoyed to get to see him again when you left for your quest? Doesn't he invade your very thoughts during your every waking hour? Tell me, Annabeth Chase, tell me! Do you love Percy Jackson?"
"I-I...I don't know." Annabeth's head was swimming, her mind trying to comprehend and deny all the things that she was just told. When she calmed down enough to think properly, she was scared. After all the things she has been through, Annabeth Chase was rarely scared of anything. But the thought that she had such feelings for her best friend, had her absolutely terrified. It was made all the more scary as she realized that she didn't just have a crush on Percy, she loved him, truly, honestly loved him. All the things that Aphrodite told her, they were true. Now that she had such valuable information, for the first time in a long time, she didn't know what to do. She looked back at Aphrodite and swallowed hard. "I do love him." She had said, and now there was no going back. A fiery determination lit itself inside of her and burned away all her unease.
Aphrodite smiled. "Good, now I suggest you make your move soon, or else some other girl will snatch your boy up. He is developing quite a fanbase I hear." And with that, Annabeth vision blurred and she saw a wide smirk on Aphrodite's face before she opened her eyes to find that she was back in her room.
Back in the present, Annabeth was contemplating what food Percy liked when her stomach growled. 'Eat food first, then make Percy mine forever' she thought. After getting freshened up, she headed to the pavilion for breakfast with a smile on her face.
END OF CHAPTER 2