Okay. Fayden's got his own quest. Well, technically, it's Artemis' but to-ma-to, to-mar-to, ta-moo-to. That took too long to write.

But yeah, Artemis needs training. Will she have lightning powers? Will she keep her Hunter skills?

I tried to incorporate Fayden going to Camp Jupiter and Artemis getting her immortality back (if she gets it back), and I did it by making the quest officially start later, which kind of ruins the tension, being like: 'SAVE THE WORLD' and everyone's like 'Eh. Give it two months', but you win some, you lose some.

I feel at this point my writing techniques and ideas (not the quality, I'm a great writer ) can be summed up in one Lenny face:

¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯

Fayden's POV

"Good. Again."

The sword came down and clanged against Fayden's katana. Artemis' was breathing heavily as she ducked under an elbow strike to charge in with a front kick. It was strong, and Fayden absorbed the blow with difficulty. But the former goddess was tired, and she didn't snap her leg back fast enough.

Fayden grabbed her calf, twisting. Her body went with it and she flipped through the air. However, she still maintained her Hunter agility, and landed on her feet. She pulled the bow off her back and notched an arrow. Normally, Artemis knocking an arrow towards him would be terrifying, but now, it was like any other arrow – that is to say, still scary, but deal-able.

The arrow however sailed straight over his shoulder, and he could see the pain in Artemis' eyes as he advanced. She rolled under his swipe, running for her sword. Fayden quickly ran up behind her, but she rolled forward, dodging a blow she couldn't even see, before twisting and blocking a downward swipe from a kneeling position.

Quickly swinging her legs, she smacked into Fayden's feet, trying to sweep him. He stumbled, but stayed upright. As Artemis flipped up, Fayden swung, and while she was straightening her balance, Fayden's glistening katana quivered against her throat.

She eyed the blade, before meeting eye contact with the owner. He gave a barely noticeable shake of the head, and she sighed, pushing the blade away.

Fayden drew his sword back and pulled on the golden chain. Quick as lightning, Artemis swung her sword at the now defenceless Demi-Titan. He, however, wasn't a moron, and knew the goddess.

He may also have seen the near future. Shush, he was allowed.

He leaned back just enough for the blade to draw blood from the tip of his nose and used the forward momentum to slam a fist into her head. She crumpled instantly, falling into his grasp.

He laid her gently on the stone floor of the arena, looking around. Thalia was waiting for Fayden to finish so she could teach Artemis how to summon lightning, but having seen them fight, came over to watch.

"Don't you think that was harsh?" Thalia told him.

"She attacked me! And besides, that's for the past week and a half…she hasn't exactly been approachable."

Fayden flexed his shoulder. He still remembered the rock she'd thrown at him. All he'd done was say she was Zeus' daughter (she was, biologically) and she lost it during a session, picking up a stone and clobbering his shoulder.

Thalia rubbed the heavily bruised area and still frowned. "I know, but still. You wouldn't be the nicest to hang around, either."

"Ouch," Fayden held a hand to his heart, smiling. "That came from the heart."

Thalia rolled her eyes and punched his chest. "No, that did. Now wake her up."

Fayden blew her a kiss before focusing on the unconscious Half-Blood. Flexing his fingers, they pulsed, and he felt the swell in her head speed up in its healing, quickly reducing to nothing.

Artemis gasped and sat bolt upright. She rubbed her head, then turned to Fayden, glaring. "You knocked me out?! What the hell!"

"That's for the rock," he replied. "Now get up. You need to improve."

Artemis slapped his hand away and got up. "Thank you very much, Fayden, but I'm a ten-thousand-year-old goddess, with multiple millennia of fighting experience."

Her pissy attitude had been getting to Fayden, but he again ignored her. "Uh-huh. You look like it. Get up."

She glared. "I am! I just need to get used to your pathetic race's genetic vice for exercise – stamina."

Fayden glared back. "Yeah, well, you're one of the pathetic race now – get used to it or you'll die before you become a goddess again."

It was the only thing that motivated her – her becoming a goddess; completing the quest. Fayden knew she upset, but he thought they'd got past bitchy goddess stage of an Olympian's personality.

He was so glad she couldn't read his mind anymore.

Artemis walked dejectedly over to Thalia, who was pulling on her leather glove, the channel that pulled lightning from her to strike enemies. It was much easier to use this instead of summoning lightning storms over the camp, annoying everybody – Thalia just had to be careful.

It wasn't as though his girlfriend hadn't had the same problem – Artemis was being patronising, mocking, straight up mean, uncooperative…a real pain in the ass. Her training seemed to have heavily reinforced something that she thought might have been a bad dream – she was human. She sweated when she worked too hard. She bled when she was cut. She was prone to mortal mistakes, like missing an arrow. Having to actually fight someone had hammered home these thoughts, and she'd become a right mess to be around.

Fayden watched as Thalia demonstrated her powers, effortlessly making her fingertips crackle. Artemis flexed her fingers, but after five minutes the most that happened was a blue spark – the same level of progress as the past week and a half.

Even from here, Fayden could hear Artemis's cries of annoyance. "Ah! Why do I bother! I can't do this! That asshole disowned me. Why would I have his powers?!"

Thalia sighed, and tried to console her, but she pushed her half-sister away and stormed off. Thalia walked over to Fayden, dropping down next to him with a huff.

"Don't be too hard on her. What if you lost your lightning powers?" Fayden said.

Thalia just smacked his leg. "Shut up." Then she leaned back against him. "Seriously though, she's a problem. It's like…I don't even know."

"She's trying to not care," Fayden said. "About anything. Her Hunt, you, me. She's focusing on getting her powers back no matter what."

"Not a great quest mate," Thalia said. She looked up at Fayden. "Think about it. If she has a chance to save our lives or become a goddess again, what would she pick?"

Fayden stayed quiet. He knew the answer and didn't like it.

They stayed on the ground for a while, hugging each other and getting their breath back. It started snowing pretty quickly, and Fayden looked up.

"What the…?" he reached out for a snowflake.

"It's Christmas Day tomorrow, remember?" Thalia grinned. "Seems reasonable."

Oh yeah. Christmas Day. Was that a thing? God, the last year had been mad. What had happened last Christmas? Percy had been there, for one. Fayden seemed to remember exploding snowballs, and booby-trapped snowmen, courtesy of Travis and Connor Stoll, but not much else. The Christmas before that, well, that had been before the Titan War. Damn. He was nearly twenty-one and felt old already.

A sudden bang and a massive explosion of what looked like fluorescent colour came from the forest. Thalia and Fayden were on their feet instantly, running through the woods to where flashing red, green, orange and blue was seeping across the darkness of the trees.

"What the hell?" Fayden cried as he ran past a tree that had lit up with white light.

Then they reached Bunker 9.

And saw Leo panting on a sidewalk, Jason running in from the woods, and Piper dancing while singing things like 'Turn around! Hit your partner in the face! Sit down!'

And there was a large golden net, where around six nymphs were struggling to get free, screaming 'You're not Dionysus!'.

"What the hell?" Fayden repeated. Piper heard him, and blushed, looking around.

"Um…" she scraped her new daggers back into their necklace form. "This is hard to explain."

Artemis' POV

AHHH!

She punched the wall to her cabin in anger. She'd been pacing up and down the room ever since she'd stormed out of the arena, cursing in Ancient Greek.

But it had got too much. She slammed her knuckles again into the wall, really wanting it to break – wanting the building to crumble around her as she glowed back to full power. But no. All that happened was she yelped in pain and sucked her hand as blood steadily trickled down her fingers.

"Zeus, you malaka!" she shouted at the ceiling. "Why!" she broke down into tears almost instantly, sinking to the floor. "Why?" she sobbed, clutching her hand. "I was your daughter…I thought…why would you do this?"

No answer. This just induced more anger and she stopped herself (just) from slamming her hand into the ground again.

Storming off, and making sure to slam the door to the cabin as hard as she could, she saw six people leaving the forest. She saw Chiron, with Jason, Leo, Piper, Fayden and Thalia all laughing. Turning before they spotted her, she turned for the infirmary.

As she smacked the canvas flap of the tent away, a son of her idiotic brother looked up, shocked. She started rifling through the bags of medicine, and, technically, her nephew came over.

"Hey! You can't just…"

Artemis turned and glared so hard the boy turned red and hurried back to tending to someone else. Nodding satisfactorily, Artemis bit into a cube on Ambrosia. She couldn't even eat this stuff without dying. This was her food! She ate it daily! And now, if she had more than a few cubes, she would burn to ash. Thanks, Dad, you megalomaniac, tyrannical, abusive…ah!

She stormed off again, determined to find a way to blow off steam. She now sucked at archery. The climbing wall was just…no. She couldn't volleyball without another one of these pathetic campers, and she wasn't even good enough to fight in the arena!

So she just went back to her cabin, accidentally pushing the door the wrong when and snapped it off its hinges. As she entered, she picked up the door and lay it against the entrance haphazardly. There were bunks in the cabin, as her…she felt tears fill her eyes as she thought of her Hunters.

Sinking into the one at the end, where her lieutenant would sleep. Zoe. She was under the care of Athena now, because Artemis was too weak, too feeble to deserve being a goddess.

And so, after smashing everything and crying at the same time, she sank into the bed, unable to stop the tears soaking her pillow as she fell asleep – the sun still bright in the sky.

Fayden's POV

"What?" he choked through his laughter. "Leo, you started doing the Hokey-Pokey!"

The Latino boy half-smiled, half looked offended. "I happen to be a very good dancer."

"I'm sure," Piper cried with hilarity, "You're also a great diversion!"

Leo huffed good-heartedly as Jason clapped him on the back. "That has to be the strangest quest I've ever been on: Hunt down a walking table and capture some psychotic nymphs drunk on eggnog before Camp Half-Blood explodes. Wow."

Fayden laughed harder, and Thalia was struggling to walk straight as they came into the clearing by the cabins. Fayden suddenly spotted one of the cabins had a door ripped off and instantly stopped laughing. He drew his sword, much to the surprise of the others.

"Fayde…Woah! What are you…?"

"Look!" Fayden said, pointing. They all saw, and their eyes widened. Fayden jogged over, but Piper held his shoulder.

"It's a girl's cabin, moron. Look. Wait here."

Fayden saw she was right – it was Artemis's. So he, Jason and Leo hung back as Piper and Thalia peered inside. They seemed relieved as they stepped back out. Fayden raised his eyebrows and Thalia said,

"I don't know. She's fine. Asleep. I don't know why…"

"Look," Piper said. "The hinges are bent inwards. She must've broken it in anger. God. Don't mess with Artemis."

Fayden peered at the door and then eyed inside. Sure enough, a blanket was pulled so high up he couldn't see her, but there was definitely a person there.

"She's not exactly been happy recently, but…"

"Damn!" Leo whistled. "That is one angry chica."

"Tell me about it," Fayden said. "I'm still bruised."

"Wait, what?" Piper asked, turning to Fayden. "Why are you bruised?"

Fayden shrugged. "Training. It's…well…fighting. She doesn't exactly pull punches. Or rocks, apparently."

Fayden decided it was enough standing creepily outside Artemis' cabin. "So," he clapped his hands. "2 on 2 volleyball with a ref?"

"Done," Thalia said, turning to the others. Piper nodded, and so did Leo. It was no secret that Jason sucked at volleyball, so he sighed and nodded. Ref chosen.

Artemis's POV

"What the…?"

Artemis watched her hand.

It was now a couple more days since her freak 'anger sesh', and she was practising demigod powers in her spare time. Despite her anger during training, she didn't want to stoop even lower and not have powers – to be equal to mortal. Even half-mortal doesn't sound bad by that standard.

But a blue spark was not what she had just seen flit across her palm.

It was green.

Green?

She concentrated again, and to her astonishment, she was already improving. In two tries – several bright green spurs flickered and bounced across her hand, staying for a short while, before vanishing.

Where was this coming from? She pushed hard, and she could almost feel the sweat, despite not actually moving. It was worth it. A few sparks, then a flame, no larger than a dying candle, but there. It was lime green, flickering weakly on her palm. She could feel the heat, but it didn't hurt – rather, was pleasant. She flexed her fingers, and it vanished.

"What? No. No, no, no. No!"

She held out her hand, shaking it. No sparks. Nothing now. Her hand wasn't even feeling hot. Lashing out her foot, she kicked a bunk before howling in pain as her little toe smacked against the wood corner. Breathing deeply, a single tear escaping her eye, she glared at the bed. Being mortal sucked! Such tiny sources for pain everywhere! Their bodies are so weak!

She noticed how she still said their – not her body.

Shaking her head, she sat back and tried to think. Green fire. Why and how did that happen?

Thalia's POV (This is like, a paragraph of implied smut. I don't really know why, but nothing happens. I just wanted to see how comfortable I am with writing it. Also, Thalia and Fayden are in their twenties. Think they're virgins?)

"Come on," Thalia moped on the couch.

"Thalia…" Fayden watched her lean over the bed and stare at him with an expression that clearly stated what she was after.

"Fayden…" she mock-imitated him. "You were gone for ages…"

"Three days," Fayden corrected, and she rolled her eyes.

"Ages," she continued, "and I was lonely…" she pouted her lips and made her eyes go all big and cute and…oh, how weak the male mind is. She was taking her trousers off. He watched her, and she shrugged innocently. "It's hot in here."

Goddamn it Thalia. He was quite blatantly staring at her bare ass, and both of them knew it.

He stared down at his half-tied laces, then back up at his slowly stripping girlfriend. Training or sex? Obvious answer, but…well, no but.

In one final push of self-control, he tried to think of all the reasons he needed to leave. Train? Nah. Learn skills that could save his life? Meh. Didn't Chiron want to talk to him? Wasn't that why he was putting his shoes on?

Ah, fuck it.

He grabbed her suddenly and they fell onto the bed. Thalia's eyes held sudden arousal with a glint of triumph. Yeah, yeah, you won. You show your tits to a guy and they'll want to sleep with you – Basic Evolution 101, and Thalia got an A.

She giggled slightly as he pulled her shirt up over her shoulders.

(See? That wasn't…so bad. Also completely unnecessary, but I kind of wanted to portray that they are adults, in their twenties. What better way? I may have just wanted to picture Thalia nude…fucking sue me)

Artemis's POV

The following three days, it had slowly got easier, until she could hold a small, candle-like flame for a minute. Not huge, but a hell of a lot more than her lightning skills, where the spark wasn't even showing up much anymore. She was staring at the flame, trying to figure out how she could even summon it. There wasn't a god she was related to that had this power. Was there?

The green fire was a rather specific ability, but she'd tried and failed to perform anything else. Maybe she wasn't good enough yet? No. That answer was impossible. She was a goddess. She could do whatever it was perfectly. So, what was it?

She held out her hand, and the green flame burst into being, dancing across her palm – a ticklish feeling that made her smile. The flame grew larger, turning pale at the tips, the tongues of flame spreading across her fingers. The base was slowly spinning, forming a tiny circle. She eyed it, and it grew.

And grew.

And grew.

She was holding an actual ball of green fire. The fire had curled into a spherical shape, the flames still flickering and waving randomly, but along a curved line, keeping the shape.

She could already feel the sweat beads on her brow, but she chucked the ball in the air. It held, and came back down for her to catch.

She felt herself smiling, a rare facial expression, and she threw it again. Playing catch with the ball of fire, she threw it higher and higher until she accidentally lobbed it at the ceiling and it burst into action.

The flames splashed apart like a liquid, and rained down as sparks, evaporating quickly. But a large burn mark was no obvious on the ceiling of the Artemis cabin.

Trying to look as if she hadn't almost burnt a cabin to the ground, she exited and walked over to the arena, where Fayden had told her to meet about half an hour ago.

He found the son of Kronos idly swinging his sword around and held her head high, determined to not take any stick for lateness.

When he heard her walking, he turned and raised an eyebrow.

"Look who decided to show up!" he called. "Artemis, I asked you here almost 45 minutes ago."

"And?" she retorted.

Fayden raised an eyebrow. "And, Mrs Snarky, it's now 45 minutes later."

"And?" she repeated.

Fayden glared. "Your attitude is seriously getting annoying, Artemis. I thought we were friends."

Artemis was not backing down. "That was before you cost me my godhood!"

Fayden blanched. "You…you…what the fuck! I did it! Fuck off! How on earth is it even remotely my fault?!"

Artemis's eyes widened. Thousands of years' worth of reactions screamed at her to vaporise him on the spot, but she knew she wouldn't be able to touch him.

Well, she thought all this afterwards. Right now, she was running at him with her sword raised and her eyes glinting with anger.

He glanced her blow with ease, knocking her sideways. She spun widely, and he swept her feet out from under her. Artemis really didn't like fighting Fayden. She could see Athena's tactics in everything he did – analysing every tiny move she made and almost telling the future without even needing to use the power. And all these markers were so hard to spot herself, she did them before realising, and couldn't take it back. So knowing what he was doing meant nothing.

Artemis cursed as she glanced over Fayden's shoulder. As she swung at his waist, he knew he saw her gaze, and instantly responded. He darted inside her swing and elbowed her stomach, knocking the wind out of her. Gasping, she staggered backwards, but Fayden kept advancing.

His fist caught her shoulder, and her sword arm was instantly numb. She could barely flex her fingers. She dropped the sword and swung her own punches, but for every one she landed, he landed three, and his hurt a lot more. Across her chest; inside of her thigh, a backfist across her other arm. She staggered again, and her eyes burned with embarrassment and anger. This was a mortal. She was a goddamn goddess.

She swung a punch, and barely registered the pale green glow surrounding her knuckles before Fayden was flying through the air. He reached a height of nearly three metres, before descending, and Artemis internally winced as she saw his head smack hard against the stone, bouncing it against his chest before it lolled across his shoulder and onto the floor.

She wasn't worried. He'd probably get up in a few seconds. She was more focused on her hand. It had lit up with flames, and her punch had been ridiculous. Fayden was almost ten metres away, and still unmoving. He was hammering her again and again, and she'd won in one punch. Flexing her fingers, she saw the green appear once more, before a cry made it fade.

Thalia came running into the arena. Before Artemis could tell her Fayden was fine, and he was probably awake already, she had made a beeline to his body. Lifting his head, she shook his arm. Nothing. Artemis started feeling worried – Chiron wouldn't be very happy with her, not that she cared what Chiron thought.

"He's not breathing!" Thalia cried. "Someone! Medic!"

Artemis watched as three sons of Apollo sprinted into the arena, and started pressing various parts of Fayden, checking pressure points. Then they picked him up, and half jogged out, heading for the infirmary.

Artemis tried to say something to Thalia, but she interrupted, saying, "Later."

Fayden's POV

What the fuck was that?!

Seriously, what the fuck was that?!

He had been hit like a goddamn truck and launched into the air. For the brief seconds before he hit the ground, he registered that Artemis' hand had been glowing green, and seemed controlled – she had hidden it long enough to learn how to punch, that was for certain.

Then his head snapped against the stone, and he was out before the rest of his body hit the ground.

"Ow!"

Fayden's eyes were closed, but he had woken up, and instantly felt a throbbing pain on his temple. A hand suddenly left his, and as he opened his eyes, he saw Thalia gazing at him, worry etched over her face.

"You okay?" she said, lightly pressing the lump on his head.

He winced but nodded. "As good as I could be…what the hell happened?"

Thalia turned, and Fayden followed her gaze. Artemis was standing at the edge of the tent, unsure of whether to come forward or not.

"I don't know," Thalia said, eyeing the former goddess. "I'd ask her."

Artemis coughed and raised her hand. It caught fire, and Fayden watched in surprise as green flames spread from her wrists over her hands. They extinguished, and Artemis looked uncomfortable, before steeling herself and determinedly staring over Fayden's shoulder.

"A couple days ago, I found out that I could, you know, do that, with my hands. And with you punching me and everything, I lost control, and punched you with it."

She sounded almost apologetic, and she obviously thought so too, because she quickly followed up, "I'm not apologising. It was a fight."

Thalia was slowly grinding her teeth together, and before Fayden could say anything, she had stood, yelling. "What the hell was that, Artemis! I thought we were your friends! You nearly killed him! The medics had to give him a dangerous amount of ambrosia, and he still wasn't breathing!"

Artemis' eyes flashed. "So? He's been beating the crap out of me since I became mortal!"

Thalia's eyes crackled. "So?! So, you ungrateful, rude, whinging b…" Thalia breathed in and out. "I'll tell you so…" her voice was now quiet, but cold, something Fayden found scarier. "He never tried to kill you. It was training. To help you get your immortality back. After this," Thalia said, pointing at Fayden and Artemis' hand, "I don't even want to go on a quest with you."

Artemis' eyes widened and she rushed forward. "Wait, no, Thalia! Don't! I…I didn't mean to…I need my immortality!"

Thalia sneered. "Look at you. You don't even care that you nearly killed Fayden. You're just worried that it might screw up your chances to be Mrs Olympian. Why do you even want to go back there, after what our father did?" Thalia folded her arms, eyebrows raised.

Artemis blanched. "And be stuck human? Never! You're the weakest, most vulnerable, emotional little…ah!" she stomped her foot. "I hate every second of it! I can't wait to go back to Olympus and never leave!"

Now Fayden wasn't hurt by this, but it was still a blow. She didn't even want to come back? Before all this drama, Fayden liked her company – she was funny (sort of), charismatic, and generally amusing to be around. But…after this reaction, he was slowly siding with Thalia – going on a quest with Artemis was not safe for either of them when she cared more about regaining her goddess status over them.

Artemis walked out before anyone else could sleep, and Fayden couldn't stand keeping his eyes open any longer. He closed them, and the tension above his eyebrow relaxed, so much so he sighed, and he felt Thalia grab his hand again.

"What?" she asked. He hummed contentedly and pulled on her arm. Laughing slightly, she slowly lay down outside the blankets next to him as he fell asleep.

Hera's POV (Uh-huh)

Hera could see all of the most recent drama up from her throne in Olympus and frowned. She had tried to figure out her husband's plans for abandoning his daughter on the mortal plane. She just couldn't see any positive outcome.

She looked over to her left, but before she could say anything, Zeus, who occupied his seat of power, glared. In his rumbling voice, he said, "For the last time, no. I have my reasons. She can not come back up to Olympus until she earns it."

"What does that mean?!" Hera cried. "How do you earn something you already had? You took it off her! She had already earned it!"

For the first time, Zeus didn't immediately drop the subject by flashing away or just ignoring her. "She did not earn it. She was born with it. Look at her, Hera. Nearly killing a camper, not feeling regret, causing general discontent…she has not earned it."

"So what, she can be a goddess again when she plays nice?"

Zeus shifted in his throne. "I did not say that. She can return when she performs the task she must on earth."

And he disappeared in a crack of thunder, leaving Hera glaring daggers at an empty throne.

Basically, it's fucking hard to write 10,000 words on a half-baked original plot that has no planning in it. I'm making it up as I go along people, and that's hard to write long chapters with. So 5k is closer to what the chapter length will be for a while, but that means the chapters will come quicker, so win-lose…I think. Personally, win-win. But I don't know how much long chapters are appreciated.

And before the stream (like, two, but shut up) of reviews that hate Artemis, IT'S DELIBERATE.
It's all part of this story arc, which is very archetypical and obvious when you think about it (maybe not, I'm biased, obviously), but it'll be fun, and like I said previously, emotionally problematic for you people who follow the story closer – got some deaths, decisions and all-round 'I hate you Askinar' scenarios coming.

Hating Artemis cause she's a self-absorbed bitch will not be the final emotion, or I'll hate myself – I love Artemis, she's my…well, second favourite Olympian but that holds less oomph. She's one of my favourites.