Yo, I know what I said last time but BLAME MY FUCKING SCHOOL... sorry about that. My upload schedule is still going to be on Mondays or Tuesdays normally, BUT I might miss some weeks just cuz of all the shit going on in my life right now. Last week was bad for me, I had a math test on a unit that I learned in 2 days(because that's how math works in a fucking quadmester) that I was really stressed about and a computer science test, so I was quite stressed. Nonetheless, I am feeling a bit better this week things are more chilled out. I was thinking I might start doing a biweekly upload for a few weeks until summer comes around, the problem with that is I have 3 and a half weeks left so these will be the most jam-packed with days I'll have. For example, if I was to do bi-weekly my next chapter would be the second last week of school so that would be exam prep time, which won't work too well for me. So my plan as of right now is to post the next chapter on the 10th of June. Yes, I know that a pretty long time but I think this is the only way I'm gonna be able to get through this without shooting myself, figuratively.

Short form: Life's being a bitch, my next post most likely won't be till June 10th or 11th

Anyways enough of that shit onto Percy.

Disclaimer: Sadly I own nothing, Percy Jackson is owned by Rick Riordan

No one's POV

Percy walked through the halls following Cole to wherever he was taking him. His feet felt heavy, his breath felt forced, his emotions felt vacant. No, that wasn't true. His emotions didn't feel empty, most just felt like they were sleeping due to the presence of his anger. The emotion boiled so hotly it felt like it was searing its presence into his mind forever. The anger was giving him a familiar feeling. his thoughts felt so loud in his head 'Cole and Gabe, these men were filth simply staining the earth with their presence'.

His mind was made up far too quickly, Cole needed to die. So he made his plan, not the plan to kill Cole, killing Cole would be easy as he had two things that made it easy. 1 he had Coles trust, 2 he had a gun, enough said there. His planning consisted more of how to deal with people depending on their reaction, how to get his stuff together to have a quick getaway. The moments as the 2 walked through the halls seemed to stretch into eternity as he thought through his plan. They reached the door, the plan was made. Cole sat at his desk and started to talk to Percy. Not a single thing he said was heard by Percy, he simply nodded his false understanding. Cole sent him off and Percy started going to work.

Firstly he packed his thing up. After dashing to his room he collected everything he would need. Clothes, pictures, his shield, his guns, his/Israfils guitar, Israfils sword and shield, his throwing knives, his ammo, the potions to cover up his scars, and whatever else he needed. He made sure Pistos was with him then he ran over to Layla's lab and knocked on the door.

Percy POV

The door swung open and Layla looked at me with an almost sad look in her eyes once she recognized me. "Hey Perce did Cole send you," she asked?

"No" was my simple response.

She looked me in the eye before starting to laugh lightly to herself. "His stupid plan finally backfired didn't it. You're supposed to be emotionless because that's one of the things they train into you during the mental training. You hate him though don't you?"

"Yes. I simply came to ask what will you do if I kill him" I said, my tone almost waring her if she were to say anything I'd dislike.

"I'd be upset that I couldn't focus on my experiments anymore but I would probably become the leader here and get rid of that stupid final test," she said. I looked at her surprised and she seemed to understand what I was thinking. "You're surprised I disagree with the final test?" she confirmed" I nodded in response. "I'm not a good person, never have been. When Cole explained his plan two of the others agreed 2 disagreed. I could have tied the vote and gotten rid of that test. But I didn't care, I just wanted to be able to do my experiments. Percy... Everybody in this world is a slave to something. For me it's my gluttony of knowledge, for Cole it's his extremism and his control over people. I think it's time I did something right and helped someone other than myself for once." she said smiling.

"You're not a good person, I won't say that you are. But don't think you can't change, you're not far gone enough yet." I said before turning around and walking back in the direction of coles office. I felt a giddy little hop to my step my anger coercing me to move faster, to get my revenge. I walked to the door and almost went to kick the door down but figured this would be more satisfying. I knocked on the door and heard cole ask who it was.

"It's Percy" I replied. The door opened and cole asked me what I needed. I walked up to him and finally really got a look at the man. Cole was definitely on the older side with a few gray hairs starting to poke up. He had a smaller build more runner-like than anything else. He was a rather pale man with a gross scar running down the left side of his face. His teeth were mildly crooked and his hair was unkempt. I hated every detail I noticed.

I walked right up to Cole and placed the barrel of my revolver in his mouth. His eyes went wide as he was about to start screaming. If you asked me what I felt while shooting Cole you may expect me to say disgust or rapturous, all I felt though was the recoil. My anger that had boiled so hotly, now both wasn't there and hadn't subsided, people always said revenge wasn't the answer but those people could kiss my ass. Even if I didn't feel too much better the world was a better place without a man like him.

I left the office and made my way to the cafeteria. I walked into the cafeteria and noticed it was rather lively, perfect. I fired two rounds into the ceiling to get everyone's attention, safe to say it worked. Everyone stopped and immediately looked at me.

"Hello there everyone, as of about 4 and a half minutes ago I put a bullet through the head of Cole Richards. For those of you who haven't gone through the testing yet, you probably don't understand why. You see the ever so secretive final test happens to be killing your partner and therefore killing your emotions. Clearly, this didn't quite work for me.

What you care to do with this information means nothing to me I am simply going to inform you that Layla, the last of the six original founders of the foundation will be stepping up to run this place. That's all I care to say," and with that, I ran. I ran for the testing area knowing there was a staircase that led outside, I'm sure there was a brawl going on in the cafeteria due to my little speech but I didn't care to take notice. I simply ran.

The hallways turned into the testing room, into the stairs, into the forest, from the bright day into the starry night I kept running. Finally, I stopped to catch my breath. My muscles felt like they were transforming into cement and my lungs felt like they had a glowing hot knife being traced across them. I sat for a long time waiting to catch my breath. As my breath slowly normalized I looked to the moon to try and figure out what time it was. It looked to be around 3:15 am so I figured I should get some sleep.

I started to set up my hammock but heard something moving about 700 to 815 meters away, northeast of me. 'Well, Cole's fucking training is going to come in handy after all, Whaddaya know' I thought to myself bitterly. kept my stuff packed up and started moving in that direction with Pistos. As we got closer I noticed an unusual abundance of monsters, and by that I mean there was a camp of the fuckers. I started strategizing then set to work.

Ones that we on the outskirts and alone were the first ones to die. A swift throwing knife and a quick chomp from Pistos and they were dust. Next, we started getting a bit riskier, taking on small enough groups that we could kill them before any could make noise. It got hard from here though. while I waited to pick off a few that separated from the pack all that was really left was the main encampment with most likely the strongest and most intelligent monsters here.

I made my mistake at just about 4 am when I didn't see a cyclops that was about to turn around to look at me. I had jumped on a group over weaker monsters hoping to get them all before a scream could be heard. The cyclops had seen me through. It had made its war cry and charged I pulled out my shield and detached the halves before chucking it at the incoming cyclops hitting him square in the stomach and chopping him in half 'No one expects a sharp shield' I thought to myself. I waited a moment to see if the cyclops had been heard by anyone else.

My rather sensitive hearing was quick to inform me that many things were jogging in my direction. At that point, I thought 'fuck it' and brought out the revolver. I took out the first few as they rounded the corner confusing the hell out of most of the monsters as they had never dealt with a gun before. both them being stunned and the distance between us allowed me to get two more reloads in as I drilled the monsters right between the eyes.

I reached into my bag and pulled out Israfil's scimitar and readied my shield in my other hand. There were probably 200 monsters closing in on me. My rational brain told me to run and stay safe, the angry side of my brain said take out some of my rage on these monsters. The angry side won. I chucked my shield and one and started shredding some of the monsters with the serrated chain of the shield. 'This is going to be fucking therapeutic' was the last thought that ran through my head.

Unknown POV

2 minutes ago

I was asleep peacefully in my tent when all of the sudden*BANG*BANG*BANG*BANG*BANG*BANG* rung through my ears. It was definitely the sound of a firearm meaning it was most likely a human getting attacked by a wild animal but in the occasion that it is a monster I should probably go check it out. Either way, I'm sure the gunshots woke up all of the hunters so we would probably all check it out together.

As I suspected when I walked out of my tent multiple hunters walked out of their tents shortly after. We were all in our proper hunting gear and once I made sure that all the hunters were there we started heading directly east towards the sounds of the gunshots. As we got closer the first thing we noticed was the smell. Typically monsters only left a very faint scent that blew away with the dust they turned into. However, when the dust accumulated the scent became incredibly strong. Judging by the scent the dust pile must have been massive at this point.

We got closer and closer to the center and I noticed some of the dust was actually still in the form of monster blood meaning a massacre had occurred here. I informed the hunt of this information and warned them to be careful, then continued on. we walked for thirty seconds more when I saw a boy kneeling in the blood, arms down by his sides, his head facing the sky. I was going to begin questioning who he was but he quickly shuffled over so that his torso was facing us then proceeded to bow placing his hands into the blood and his face very close to it. "Apologies Lady Artemis, I didn't mean to disturb you," said the boy in a reserved tone.

"you're wise to bow your head boy. Tell me what happened here," I asked?

"... I was going to set up camp nearby to rest for the night, as I was unpacking my hammock I heard strange noises coming from my northeast and came across this camp when I went to investigate," he explained.

"So you're telling me what exactly that you, a boy, killed all these monsters by yourself, you're no older than 10 so I'm finding that very hard to believe," I said.

"As hard as you may find it to believe I swear I am telling the truth, though I technically didn't do it alone, *Whistling*, I have my wolf." He said. Moving through the dark forest was a wolf. He was black, with glossy and thick fur. His paws lightly press the ground as he moves with lightness and confidence. There is a dangerous look in his dark eyes as he scans the area recognizing that the boy, his master, is no longer alone. While the wolf quickly assumed a more defensive stance near the boy I couldn't help but take photographs with my eyes of the wolf, It was what my brother would describe as 'awesome'. I got past my episode of looking at the wolf and had another question for the boy.

"We woke up to the sound of a loud bang, almost like a gunshot. Assuming you were the one who took these monsters down you should know something about this." I questioned?

"Yes I do, the loud bangs were from my gun," he said pulling out his revolver.

"Boy, how do you use a mortal weapon against monsters," I asked.

"The gun may be mortal but the bullets I forged myself out of ancient metals." He explained.

"Very well then boy, it seems that there's a chance you are telling the truth despite being a deceitful male. You saved us the work of having to deal with these monsters ourselves so we give you our thanks and we will be on our way" I said, then turned to walk away. One of my youngest hunters ran at the boy, she was only 5 so I was very overprotective of her and in an instant, I was scared of what the boy might do to her if he was more unstable than I could see. Emma ran up to him and hugged him and I think my jaw may have hit the floor when I saw that. The boy was obviously as stunned as I was. I saw his hands start to move down and I immediately got into an attacking stance if he grabbed his weapon. *rip* He tore off a piece of his shirt and told Emma to step back a little bit so he could wipe the blood off of her. "Boy, what is your name," I asked.

"My name is Percy, Lady Artemis," he said.

I didn't notice it but one of my hunters stiffened when she heard that name. I felt a tap on my shoulder "what is it Tracy" I asked quietly?

"Milady, I know that he is a male and everything we hate, but he has saved us a great deal of trouble, we could at least offer that he stay for a night then send him off in the morning when well-rested," she recommended.

I was definitely going to say no and that was a ridiculous idea, but when I went to speak I realized I was saying that that idea was ok and that we might keep him for longer to see where he trained to be able to fight like that and where he got his wolf. While I wasn't happy that a boy was staying with us I agreed with the idea of figuring out where he was trained. "boy come with us we are going to let you rest at our camp then we will ask you more questions in the morning. A series of groans and complaints were heard from all of the hunters especially Zoë who was not pleased with this idea at all. The only two not complaining were Emma and Tracy and I was somewhat curious as to why.

No one POV

they brought Percy back to camp and let him have a bit of food and asked him some questions. Once a mattress was presented in front of him he promptly passed out fully clothed.

The next day he woke up and went back to the dining hut to thank Artemis then leave, but she insisted he stay and answer questions. He obliged and stayed to answer their questions. He avoided answering most of their questions, He explained most of his training but not who it was received from, he explained how he got Pistos but again gave no names. and honestly, it was starting to get on the hunter's nerves.

Zoë POV(not going to have her speak old English, I don't wanna try and write that so I'm sure it would be unenjoyable to read)

The boy's unwillingness to give names was beginning to piss me off. I thought of telling Artemis to turn him into a jackalope but I had a better idea. "Boy" I called out to him.

"Yeah" he responded as freakishly emotionless as always.

"You will be staying with us for some time, yes," I asked?

"According to Lady Artemis that seems to be the case," he replied as if a man staying with THE group of man-haters was completely normal

"Do you even know who we are boy?" I asked angrily?

"No" he responded bluntly.

"We are the hunters of Artemis BOY, we are a female-only group who hate men" I explained to the uninformed male.

"Ok," he said.

I hadn't wanted to throttle someone this badly in many moons "Ok, that's all you have to say after I explain to you, a BOY, that we hate your kind"

"Yes," he responded coldly.

At this point, I didn't care about my original plan my only thought was, 'how would his head look mounted on a spear... way better than on his body' was my eventual conclusion. However, before I could move to behead the male, Artemis walked in.

"Alright let's make this official, everyone silence." Artemis said then waited a moment "thank you. As you know we have a boy among us currently. Due to his demonstration of destructive power against that horde of monsters I have decided it would be beneficial to us to keep a tab on this boy, and as such he will stay with us for some time." she paused noticing some of the hunters starting to get antsy at the thought of a male staying with them "During his time here he will do all of the chores and if we can teach he to cook we can force him to cook as well." she finished, basically saying the boy would be our slave. I was decently ok with that idea, still not happy but pleased at least. "Do you understand all this boy?" she asked, turning to face the male.

The silence was screaming as the air seemed to grow stagnant. My head along with all of my sisters slowly turned to wait for the trash to answer a direct question from Artemis. He stood slowly and gave a tiny nod before making his way to the door. As he passed by Artemis he spoke softly. "My name is Percy" and with that, he was outside the tent.

I was out of my seat very quickly ready to chase the boy down and kill him for his disrespectful attitude. A hand grabbed my forearm and stopped me, then Artemis spoke, "let him go, there's something off about him like he's no longer even human, just a hollow husk." she said with a disgusted tone.

No one POV

Percy spent the rest of the day gathering his things and bringing them closer to the hunts campsite. After that, he decided to do some training with Pistos, take breaks to eat, and then relax until nightfall, appreciating the last day of freedom before hard labour.

The night sky shone beautifully as Percy sat there admiring the stars, he decided to grab his guitar and start singing.

The song chasing cars by snow patrol popped into his head

We'll do it all

Everything

On our own

We don't need

Anything

Or anyone

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

I don't quite know

How to say

How I feel

Those three words

Are said too much

They're not enough

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Forget what we're told

Before we get too old

Show me a garden that's bursting into life

He stopped halfway noticing the small crowd gathering nearby. "Can I help you hunters?" he asked.

The crowd quickly dispersed with only 3 hunters remaining. Those three were Zoë, Emma, and Tracy. The first to speak was Zoë who simply said "Not bad boy" before walking off. Emma seemed to be in shock from my singing while Tracy just smiled and carried Emma over to me. I raised an eyebrow at her somewhat confused by her calm attitude around me.

"Percy, Emma's enjoying the music so keep performing," she said sounding somewhat like a mother. I widened my eyes still slightly shocked by this hunter before a thought occurred to me.

"Did you ask Artemis for my name?"

Her eyes widened for a split second before she calmed down and answered "Yes, I asked her what your name was"

"Alright Tracy," I said before becoming confused again. "Wait why do I know your name?" I questioned?

again she stiffened up before answering "Umm, you must have overheard one of my sisters calling my name" she said.

"Ok," I said still unsure but satisfied with that answer for now. I pulled my guitar close to myself again and finished the song. When I finished Emma I saw that Emma was sitting next to me leaning back against Pistos.

"Tracy," Said a very sleepy Emma "can you tell me a story" Tracy walked closer to Emma and me and then looked at me.

"Is it alright if I tell her one here?" she asked.

"Hah, you know for being a member of a group of man-haters you sure are polite to me," I said.

"I have a better grasp of the fact that not all men are terrible than just about everyone else here" she explained "But you're alright with it?" she asked.

"Go ahead," I said leaning further back into my hammock.

"Alright, this is a story about a great knight who saved a kingdom but refused to take credit for his actions. Once upon a time, there was a boy with a very kind mother and a very bad father. The mother was always teaching the boy how to be the best person he could be. The father was always an example of what he would be like if he didn't listen to his mother." Tracy flicked her eyes to me multiple times during the story seemingly gauging my reaction.

"One day the boy and his mother decided to go on a trip. During that trip, the mother was captured by someone and the boy was left alone. The boy ended up finding a village of people who were like him, and they took the boy in and trained him. After some months an oracle delivered a prophecy that the king's crown possession had been stolen and that someone had to retrieve it. The boy along with two of his friends travelled out from the village into the monster's territory thinking they knew who could have stolen it. After a perilous journey through the monster's territory, they reached the home of the monsters. The boy and his friends went to confront the master of the house when it was revealed that the master of the house didn't have the King's Possession and that they had been tricked and the Item had been with them the whole time. After an epic battle, the Boy and his friends escaped the house they came across the real mastermind of the crime and the boy had to fight him in a one-on-one duel. He outsmarted the Mastermind by using the landscape and defeated him before venturing to the king's castle to return his Crowning possession. The boy was deemed a hero but refused to take all the credit saying his two friends had helped him so much during the journey. As a gift, the King had the boy's mother returned and the boy and his friends returned home to his village. As life settled down again the boy went for a walk with one of his friends and this friend betrayed him and left. Thus concluded the first of the boy's journey's." She finished. She turned and looked me in the eye and for some reason, I felt an extreme sense of familiarity with the story.

"Where did you hear that story?" I asked.

"A friend told it to me when I was younger, why?" she asked back.

"I don't know" was the only thing I could respond with.

With that Tracy and I both noticed that Emma had fallen asleep using Pistos as a pillow. Tracy smiled at the sight then carried Emma back to her tent so I could fall asleep and get ready for the days ahead of me.

Time skip-next morning

The next morning started abruptly at 7 am when Percy was woken up by an angry goddess of the moon holding a bucket that had been full of water. The bad part though was he had been woken up by a slap from said goddess not by the water. "Boy, how do you manage to sleep through getting water poured on you." She asked him?

"Practice" was Percy's honest remark. She scowled at him then told him his schedule for the day and from then on. Percy's daily tasks consisted of cooking all three meals, doing dishes for said meals, feeding the wolves afterwards, washing the wolves every other Friday, doing the laundry, sharpening the weapons, and a few other mundane tasks.

Time skip-a few weeks

As the days went by I kept to myself silently working my way through all the tasks assigned to me. I understood it was unfair, but I had little left in the form of emotions so I simply did as was asked of me. Strangely this didn't sit well with the hunters. Despite my politeness and obedience, they seemed to want me to be complaining and whining the whole time to appeal to their vision of a male. After a few weeks of doing the chores for the hunters, they decided I wasn't entertaining enough. After I had cleaned the dishes from cooking lunch one day I started making my way to the armoury tent to sharpen the weapons. I was stopped by Zoë along with two other hunters. They had shoved me to the ground and started beating me, knowing that if I complained to Artemis she would do nothing to them. I was planning on sitting there and taking it, it was an infinitely smaller amount of pain than everything else I had dealt with. Some part of me wasn't ok with it though, and so I cried out in pain. More hunters gathered laughing at the sight of the weak male being beaten.

I finally spoke "Please Gabe, no more... I don't want you to hurt me anymore"

The atmosphere grew dark and the beatings stopped. At this point, almost all the hunters had gathered around me and had heard what I said. Many of the hunters could relate to my situation though all of them to a lesser degree than mine. Finally, Zoë spoke, "You were beaten?"

I could only nod my head as I couldn't trust my voice. Artemis finally stepped in having only arrived to hear the last statement. She brought me to the medic tent to rest and left me there once I explained what happened.

Later that night Zoë walked into the tent. "Percy," she said to me seemingly checking if I was awake.

"Yes," I responded.

"I...I'm... I'm sorry, for what I did" She apologized.

"It's alright Zoë, Having the only male influences in your life be Hercules and a Titan would give anyone trust issues around men," I said when she froze.

"You... you know about my father?" she asked.

I smirked a little at her surprise, she made some really cute expressions... where did that come from back on topic Percy "I figured out a couple of things just from your stories, I'm not sure which one is your father but if I had to guess I'd say Atlas." I said.

"So how long before you tell me to get out of here?" she asked.

"what do you mean, why would I say that?" I asked.

"I'm a titan's daughter, everyone who learns that distrusts me for some time" she explained.

"hahahahahahahahahaha" I was laughing way too hard at that. Zoë gave me a look asking what I found so funny "If people were simply who their parents were almost every demigod would be a deadbeat parent who didn't care about their kids." I explained. That explanation left Zoë satisfied so we sat there enjoying a moment of silence. I slowly drifted off to sleep but heard Zoë speak just before I fell asleep.

"Maybe you're the only good male in the world," she said then walked off.

Percy POV

With the hunt now knowing of my past they were a bit kinder to me. The reveal had been the thing that allowed me to start worming my way into their little family. It had started with my cooking. My time spent with Sam and Darren had been quite useful, I had to remember to thank them at some point.

There is a saying which states, the quickest way to a woman's heart is through there stomach. While heart in this sense didn't mean romantic love and instead familial love, the same concept definitely applied. days turned into weeks into months as I grew closer to the hunt. I had become a big brother to Emma while Tracy acted more like her mother. I had heard more of Tracy's stories and they always brought up a sense of familiarity, whether it was happiness, sadness, anger or anything in between, the stories always seemed to hit me hard.

Speaking of happiness, sadness, and anger. About a month after the beating incident my emotions had suddenly returned. It was an incredibly sudden thing as I had laughed one night and had felt all of my emotions rush back to me, like a dam breaking. Actually, it was more akin to me becoming a different person. Nonetheless, I was once again happy where I was, surrounded by people who albeit weren't friendly at first, now cared for me like a brother.

Life was seeming ok again.

Alrighty then, that's a wrap for this chapter, sorry again for the sporadic chapter updates but lets just be happy i dont have multiple months in between the chapters like I did for the first few.

Anyways, have a lovely day, a pleasant evening, and a beautiful night.

See ya next time.