Chapter 3: Rescue or not rescue?
Percy froze, unwilling to put her in danger. Silly boy, he should figure out that if the man truly was an assassin, once the two of them knew about his plot he wouldn't just let them go. But it was still so sweet of him, so- Percy. That was one of the things she loved about him. But before anything could happen, before they could say anything, a voice called through the woods, calling "Percy! Annabeth!" she could have danced, she was so relieved. Couldn't have, actually. The dagger was still on her neck. The cry came again, and with it, the sound of running feet. A moment later, help burst into the clearing, in the form of Piper, Leo, frank and hazel, who stopped short at the scene ahead of them. "What the Hades?" Leo sputtered. "Annabeth, what's going on?" the assassin spoke. "This girl, Annabeth you called her? is being held hostage until I have certain information." They stared, dumbfounded. "Don't tell him anything!" Annabeth shrieked, earning herself a second of absolute terror when she suddenly felt weaker, as if her energy were being sucked into the dagger. She felt herself go pale when she realized that it wasn't only her energy, but her very soul being sucked out. She abandoned any plan of escaping. The assassin spoke again. "Where can I find the demigod called hazel levesque?" Annabeth groaned silently when the other three turned to hazel, who took an unconscious step forward. "You are hazel levesque?" the man said, looking at her intently, and slightly loosening his hold on her. In that instant, Annabeth made her move, throwing herself forward to the ground and at the same time she threw her knife at him, a perfect throw, but one which he dodged easily. As if she had broken a spell, the others drew their weapons and charged the man in perfect sync, hazel thrusting to his stomach with her broadsword, frank lunging at his legs with his sword. Leo, the only one without a weapon, pointed his hands forward and blasted a fireball at the man. That turned out to be a mistake. The man hurled his dagger at hazel, striking her in the shoulder and knocking her to the floor. He raised his arm, which had some kind of glove on it, and Leo's fireball stuck the outstretched palm. But instead of melting the glove and burning the hand, the ball of flame somehow stuck to the assassin's hand, which he whipped around to point at frank, and the fireball shot out at him. The instant before it engulfed him, frank vanished. On the floor where he had been standing stood a small tortoise, which suddenly grew into a snarling leopard. The man pointed his arm at the cat, which shrank back into being a tortoise, which suddenly flashed with a dark purple light. Without wasting another second, the man swung his red bladed sword up between himself and the demigods, leaving a wall of dark, opaque ash hanging in the air. When it dissipated a moment later, the man was gone. A quick scan of the clearing found him standing, sword in one hand and dagger in the other, ready for the next combatants. Annabeth struggled to process what she had seen, for future knowledge. This man was a master swordfighter, judging by the fact that he had fended off Percy for more time than it took Percy to defeat his entire class in training, and escaped unharmed from her initial thrust, from hazel's thrust, and from frank's swing. He also seemed to be impervious to fire, and also to have some control over it. She still hadn't understood what he had done to frank, but the tortoise was still a tortoise, and moving slowly toward a tree. His sword and dagger each seemed to have magical properties. Just thinking of the vampiric dagger made her shiver. Besides, if his claims were true, he was a deadly assassin from a city of deadly assassins, and thrived there, although she had never heard of a place called Calimport. Added together, the result was either an extraordinarily powerful demigod, who had survived to adulthood and become an assassin, or a monster of some sort, but she doubted the second theory, since lately she had been getting better at sensing monsters, and he had no aura of the sort the monsters did.
Snapping back to the present, she saw that nothing had changed. The assassin still stood at the ready, and the others were getting themselves off the ground, with the exceptions of hazel, who was unconscious, and frank, who was still a tortoise. She dusted off her dagger and stood up, joined the others. "Well? What are you waiting for?" the assassin mocked. "If you're still brave or foolish enough to attack me, why not do it?" That did it. They charged, each selecting a different side to attack from. The assassin chuckled, and exploded into motion. He lunged forward, kicking high. Like watching a action movie in slow motion, Annabeth watched with a sick feeling, as his foot slammed into Leo's head, crumpling him, while at the same time, a flash of red as the flat of the assassin's sword bashed into Percy's skull. Piper tried to stop, but the assassin didn't let her. Mercilessly, he kicked her hard in the chin, and followed it up with a devastating smash to the top of her head with the pommel. Then, just as Annabeth lost all hope, the clearing was lit up with a flash of silver. Her heart leapt as she recognized one of the Hunters of Artemis' exploding arrows. Surely not even this warrior could escape an arrow. But she was wrong. The assassin whirled and and his arm flashed. The arrow fell to ground, cut neatly in two at the middle. Annabeth gasped. This man was incredible! But she knew that no one could escape thirty arrows at once. And to break free of the ring of Hunters now surrounding him, that was what the deadly Artemis Entreri would have to do.