Perseus watched from the woods as the small pack of pups followed loyally behind their mother, it made his heart ache since he himself had not been able to experience much time with his own mother, thanks to that horrible goddess of the hunt and her pack of mongrels.
He got up from his resting spot under the leafs of an old oak tree, the nymph that lived in the tree had been happy for his presence, stating that him being there prevented annoying critters like squirrels and wood pecker from going into her home.
As he walked back to the old path he always used, his nose low to the ground as he sniffed for new scents, his mind began to wander to back a few days ago. When he saved the distressed goddess of the hearth from a vicious hellhound.
His paw still ached a little from when the monster had gotten a lucky shot on him, it was a moment in time that had bruised his ego slightly. You see as a Loyale, he was supposed to be top of the food chain, the undisputed most feared beast in the land, and to be wounded by such an insignificant monster such as a hellhound was embarrassing.
He started thinking of the goddess next, he still didn't understand why he had rushed from hunting to help a god of all people. His very basic instincts screamed at him that she was an enemy, yet he still saved her.
Pan thought it was because of her lack of fighting in the great war, the war that his mother and her brethren had fought in. but he didn't think that was it, even as he helped drag her unconscious form out of his old cave, he still felt the urge to rip her guts out.
The path came to a crossroads where he turned left, back towards Pan's clearing where Pan and his group of Satyr and nymph follower were busy trying to heal the resident goddess. Apparently something had happened with her source of power, causing her fall into some sort of deep sleep.
he couldn't bring himself to care very much about the goddess no matter how much Pan seemed to. He only had one goddess that he gave two licks about and that was Artemis and her hunters for obvious reason.
As he continued walking, his nose suddenly picked a strange, earthy smell he wasn't used to. He was in the part of the woods that Pan had warned him never to go into claiming it was filled dark, evil magic. Perseus had listened to him only because he himself sensed something deeply disturbing about the place.
Unlike most of the forest, this part was made almost entirely of dead trees. Their gnarled bark and winding branches made it an intimidating sight, even to something like Perseus, who while big and strong was still really young.
Then there were the ghostly shapes that haunted the place, shifting and morphing with the wind, walking through trees and rocks as they were not there at all. The nymphs had told him that they were the spirits of the fallen soldiers and monster from the great war between Kronus and his children.
All this went through his mind as he started to follow the scent into the misty, unknown forest, immediately he felt the presence of things all around him, hidden within the confines of the mist. His keen ears could pick small snapping and crackling sounds. As if whatever was out there was speaking some sort of language, one he could not understand.
The earth beneath his feet turned from solid to soft and sticky, making it hard for him to lift his massive paws up and down. Suddenly he stopped, the unknown beings had stopped making noises as well.
He crouched down, nearly laying down in the muddy ground and walked off the path he had been following, hiding under a medium sized bush that had somehow managed to survive in this desolate area. He had watched the wolves of Pans forest enough to know when he was being stalked, and sure enough a few seconds later a group of six six armed being walked up the path, counter the way he had been.
They were easily twice his height from head to toe, had six muscular arms, three on each side of their torso. Percy realised that it had been their scent he had been following, they hadn't seemed to notice him yet but it was only a matter of time before they noticed the massive indents he had left on the ground, clearly showing where he had went.
In a split second he made his decision, tensing his leg muscles he sprung from his hiding place and back onto the path and started to run back the way he came. The strange monster gave chase but were far too slow and clumsy to catch him as they stumbled over each other in their haste.
All was well until he made a fatal mistake, he looked back quickly to see whether or not they were still giving chase. This gave a new one them, twice the size of the others to somehow get in front of him and block his way with it's massive belly.
Perseus shook the mud from the collision from his face and stared at his new opponent, like said before it was twice as tall as the other ones behind Perseus. Another new feature was the six large clubs that it held in his six clay hands, which the monster had already started to bring down in an arc towards his head.
Perseus jumped back a good six feet to dodge the massive reach of the clubs that struck the ground so hard, they sunk so far into the earth that they almost disappeared completely.
The monster roared loudly as it struggled to wrench its weapons from the the earth, Perseus to this opportunity while it was distracted, to run up on of it's massive forearms and onto its back.
Again the monster roared and tried to pull the Loyale off with each of it's six hands, dropping it's weapons in the process.
In response Perseus sunk his claws even farther into it's back which seemed to only make it angrier, demonstrated by the fact that it now started to shake violently side to side in attempt to shake him off.
Perseus plunged his canines into the monster neck and started to wrench back and forth, a movement that would have left any normal monster in a disintegrated pile of golden dust. But to his surprise instead of dying the gollum started to morph around, causing him to lose his footing and fall, crashing back down into the mud.
When he got back up the gollum had already placed one of it's massive hands to the ground, which started to bend to it's will, going up it's arm and healing all the damage Perseus had done to it.
Perseus started to back away and the gollum, realising what he was doing started to laugh in triumph. His six friends were close behind, Perseus could already hear their massive footsteps as they ran to their much larger brother.
Perseus looked around for an escape but found none, he was beginning to regret his decision to come here, a decision that seemed to be resulting in his death.
"Yesssss." hissed a voice, "give up little hound. There is no hope for you, not here."
Perseus looked around frantically.
"Who said that?" he growled.
The voice just laughed, a completely bone chilling laugh that sent shivers down Perseus's spine.
"Who am I?" the voice asked, "I am the one who helped create your kind. The one who made your mother the alpha of the pack. And I am the one who will end you, unless you agree to join me."
Perseus looked at the large gollum in front of him, the voice was definitely coming from it, but the voice felt much farther away. Glancing behind him he saw that the six earthborne had stopped and were now staring at him with their hollowed sockets.
He didn't know what monster or god the voice belonged to, but he knew that if he were to survive his current predicament he had to play along with this mysterious voice.
"Why should I join you?" he asked.
The voice sighed, "your kind was never very smart. It's why I liked you lot so much at the beginning."
"What happened?" he asked, he had already sent a mental message to Pan telling him of his current situation. Now his only hope was to distract this voice long enough for him to arrive.
"At first you were nothing more than mindless beast that killed anything in your way. You didn't have a single ounce of loyalty in your bones." the voice continued bitterly, "but then my husband decided to change something. Now you're loyal to my son Cronus and all his children until the end of time."
Suddenly an old memory triggered in Perseus's mind, an old story his mother had told him when he was a pup.
"Your Gaia aren't you?" he exclaimed, "I heard that you fell asleep long ago."
"Yes child I am the earth goddess Gaia. I have returned to this world because of my grandchidrens betrayal of their father."
"In fact." the voice continued, taking on a more seductive tone, "I have already captured to goddess Artemis. I know what she did to your mother Perseus. Join me and you can have your revenge for your mother's death."
Perseus's mind came to a screeching halt, how'd did she know his name and his past.
"She must have read my mind." he thought to himself, "she's testing me to see what'll do."
he sensed that if he wanted to he could outrun the earth goddess's minions and make it back to safety. But he had been dreaming of revenge on the goddess of the hunt for well over a year now.
"You make a tempting offer." he started cautiously, "but what do you expect of me for such a great offering."
Gaia responded with one word, "Pan."
Instantly the gollum exploded into tiny pieces of dirt along with the six other earthborne behind Perseus. And walking out from the mist behind the destroyed Gollum was none other than Pan himself, walking staff in hand and a look of pure rage on his face.
He looked down at the decapitated head of the gollum that still remained intact on the ground.
"You dare show yourself here Gaia." Pan seethed, "you create your creature in my forest and expect me to do nothing."
The goddess's voice laughed.
"No old friend." she replied, "I expect you to DIE!"
Instantly tree roots shot out from the earth wrapping around my body and pulling me to the ground. I wrestled with them but only managed to get myself further tangled with them.
Pan on the other hand just stood there as the roots came towards him and closed his eyes, raising his staff and pointing at the oncoming threat. A green ball of energy formed at the end of the staff and when he opened his eyes again the ball of energy shot forward, hitting the oncoming roots directly, causing them to wither and die instantly in the air.
The voice of Gaia continued to laugh until Pan took his staff by the end of it, and swinging it underhand struck the gollum head so hard that it sailed far away into the mist. Next he pointed his staff towards the roots that held me and they too withered and died.
I got up and shook myself off.
"Thanks for the help Pan." I said, :I thought I was as good as dead."
Pan looked at me with disappointment, "you shouldn't have come here Perseus." he scolded, " now come, we should leave now before she returns with more of her creatures." he said turning around and walking away.
I followed, my head hung low from shame. With my mother gone and my father an unknown to me, Pan was my only real parent in my life and I had disappointed him.
/
A/N: wow time flies, what's it been like two months since I last updated this story? Well I guess that's what going to school and working a job will do to a story. But fear not, with winter break upcoming I PLAN on updating as much as possible while also spending time with family and studying for upcoming finals for school. So hopefully I update at least once or twice during that time. Anyways be sure review and tell me what you think. At the moment this is young perseus that's still learning his place in this world as the last of his kind, so if you notice him being kind of inconsistent in future chapters that's why.