Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HoO, Rick Riordan does. (Uncle Rick)

Chapter 2

Orion

It was any normal day. Artemis and I had gone on a hunt and afterwards we went alone together and played for a while. We went swimming in our favorite area. It was a nice forest that had a decent sized pond. The pond was clean and was rarely dirty. If it ever was, I would just make the water get the dirty stuff we didn't like out of it. It had been around twenty years since I first joined the Hunt. It was funny, I've always told everyone I was in it for a couple years when it's really been twenty. Time is short I guess now that I'm partially immortal.

Artemis and I were swimming around, splashing each other. We were laughing and having the time of our lives, as we always did. She had opened up way more since I became the Co-Leader of the Hunt, and it was pretty awesome. She was amazing, she just put on a disguise against others. It was kind of like a defense against other people. Others always questioned her. Even though she had her reputation, other gods and goddesses did what I said before: questioned her judgement and other things. Of course she would get back at them for it, but it was becoming harder because Zeus was getting more strict on how many people she was able to hurt.

Life was great, I won't lie. I couldn't have asked for anything better, this life was so good. Had Artemis never recruited me, I probably would be in one of those insufferable villages with stupid mortals. Most of the mortals around this time were just dumb. I'm not kidding at all. They acted as if their brains were made of grass. Mortals have come across our campsite before, and trust me, it generally doesn't end well. Actually, that depends. For females, generally they get away with it unless they act dumb, as I said before. Generally though the hunt scares them so they back off. Males, on the other hand, well, they would get away with it but they tend to flirt with the hunters. Idiots. Is the reputation of our untouchable hunt not affecting these people's decisions?

Nevertheless, males end up with the worst punishments. Let's just say it involves their genitals. The hunter or hunters they flirted with or insulted, or sometimes something else (that was a bad day) got to decide their punishment. Usually they went for the genitals but they've done other stuff too. It's honestly kind of scary. Glad they see me as a brother, or else I'd practically dead. The hunt didn't like the company of males for too long. It was to be expected because they had began their massive hate of males after males started flirting with them whenever they saw them. As I said, idiots. My main worry was that they were gonna started putting me into that category.

This all went through my mind as I relaxed in the pond, floating around with Artemis. We enjoyed just laying back in the water together. I made the water keep us up in the water as we floated, moving us around, occasionally bumping into each other jokingly. I had a bad feeling today, as if something was going to go wrong. I had shaken the feeling off, because I knew not much really went wrong in the hunt. We were always in control of situations, and things rarely got out of hand. The last time things got chaotic was when we were faced with an entire pack of monsters, which proved to be difficult. Hard to get your orders heard when the monsters are roaring their heads off.

Anyhow, as said before, this was all going through my mind as I floated around. Eventually, Artemis decreed that it was time to go back to the hunt. We got out of the water and I used my powers to make both of us dry. Walking back towards the hunt, we both laughed and joked around. I was a bit flirtatious, of course not always intentionally. It was hard when you were really good friends with the maiden goddess and had more than just the usual friend feelings. As we were walking, we heard a rustle nearby. Looking at each other and nodding, we drew our bows and snuck around. We got into hiding spots, not totally sure what was rustling around.

As it finally got in our line of vision, Artemis and I jumped out of where we were hiding and we had our bows drawn, arrows knocked, and the thing immediately took a defensive stance. He was a guy, and he looked similar to me. My eyes narrowed, and he jumped at me. I released my arrow and it missed when he jumped out of the way. Putting by bow back and drawing my hunting knives, I launched into combat with the guy as Artemis drew her hunting knives as well. This guy was good. He countered and struck back, and we were at a standstill, unable to land any hits when Artemis jumped in, and with our combined force we knocked him back.

However, suddenly he somehow summoned water and it began defending him, pushing us back. I fought for control of the water, and I managed to make it neutral so Artemis and I could fight the dude without him using powers to win. We fought for a while, him getting more and more water and using it against us, before I finally got annoyed and summoned water and hit him with a jet of it, sending him flying into a tree and causing him to lose his knives and fall to the ground. He looked up only to get a hunting knife to his throat. "Yield." I warned. He obliged, putting his hands up. I was about to kill him when Artemis said "Stop." I looked at her, confused. Whenever we fought a male we didn't know we always killed them.

"You're a pretty skilled hunter. How good are you with the bow?" She asked questioningly, and he drew his bow and shot some arrows at a tree. Each arrow hit the same mark, splitting the arrows through the middle. Bit of a showoff, but he turned to Artemis, smirking, who had a new light in her eyes. I didn't like that one bit. "We should just kill him and be done." I said to Artemis, but she shook her head. "We shall take him back to the camp, and if he proves his worth he will become a hunter." "Artemis-" I started, but she cut me off. "Silence, this is my will." I was dead silent. She never told me to be quiet or anything. The guy smirked at me when Artemis wasn't looking. Collecting his hunting knives, he introduced himself sweetly to Artemis. His name was Orion and it turned out he was a son of Poseidon, my half brother. Oh gods, I was so angry I could feel the water nearby getting rough.

We walked back to the camp, and the entire time Orion was chatting it off with Artemis. I was about steaming in anger. How dare he attempt to kill us, and then charm his way with Artemis after showing off? My main question is why Artemis was letting this guy live. Whenever we found a male that had good skill in hunting, Artemis still had him killed. Something wasn't right here. The hunters were shocked when we came back with a male, and Artemis was having a normal conversation with him. We walked towards Artemis' tent, and when I went to go in she said "Go outside with the other hunters, Perseus." I was stunned. She always had me in her tent we we got new hunters. She glared at me when I didn't move and said "Get out." I was even more shocked but I left the tent.

I was about glowing in anger, the water nearby was shaking and making a wreck around camp as the hunters came over to me. I got bombarded with questions, the biggest one being "What happened?" I told them everything that had happened on the way here, kind of lying. Nobody knew about Artemis and I hanging out together. I knew the hunters suspected but they never had any solid evidence to support it. I told them we were coming back from our hunt when we found Orion and fought for a while and how we defeated him. I told them how he started being nice and introduced himself as Orion, a son of Poseidon. I even told them about Orion and Artemis talking the entire way back. I was near the end of my story when Artemis and Orion came out of the tent. Zoe whispered to me, the Lieutenant of Artemis, basically the rank below me, "Come to my tent tonight." I nodded as Artemis and Orion walked up.

"I have found that this male is worthy of the hunt, and he shall be joining us." Immediately the hunters responded in outrage, but Artemis held up her hand and they fell silent. "He is worthy, I have heard his story and seen his great skill. I have deemed he is a worthy man." I snorted. If that wasn't minotaur shit I didn't know what was. Everyone looked to me, and Artemis gave me a glare. Great, second time today. What the hell was going on? I was starting to get mad again at this point when Artemis snarled at me, saying "If that's so funny to you, Perseus, maybe you should do the chores for today." My eyes widened. I never did chores. I gave her a look. "That isn't my job, why would I be doing chores?" I scoffed back, and she looked even madder. "Because, I have found another worthy male of joining the hunt, and if that's so funny to you, maybe you're losing your worthiness." She responded back snarkily. I was stunned by that, but it only took about five seconds before I nearly lost it.

The water around began to shake in my anger and I glowed a bit. The hunters backed away, nervous. I didn't even know what to say, so I made our water storages explode and stormed off. How dare she act as if another male was already better than me, and she had barely known him an hour?! I was raging through the forest, and monsters came to me and I easily destroyed them. It was easy when I was in a state of anger, I always found that out whenever something made me mad. It didn't happen often, because normally I blow it off but this time it was different. I felt personally insulted that Artemis would say I was losing my worth to the hunt. I had been in the hunt for twenty years, the Co-Leader, and she calls me unworthy?

My thoughts were interrupted as Zoe walked up, giving me a look of pity. "Come, Percy, let's talk." I forgot how formal Zoe had got, but I went with her and we sat down across a tree. "Percy, I'm going to be honest with you. I understand this makes no sense, but I think Artemis might be acting this way because she's developing feelings for Orion." I was stunned. "Impossible. She is a maiden goddess. She has never formed feelings before, how would she suddenly form feelings for a male whom she just met?" I countered, and she shook her head. "I don't know, Percy. But I know this must be difficult for you to think about." I frowned at her, and she explained "It's obvious, Percy. The older hunters suspect, and I know for a fact." I knew she figured me out. I pulled my knees to my chest and she put her arms around me comfortingly. She was right. Artemis and I were basically inseparable, and a male comes in and suddenly she's glaring at me like she would any other male.

I sniffled, and Zoe hugged me harder. I leaned against her for support. Not only was I tired from the fight with Orion, but emotionally I was exhausted. My day had been beautiful as always then suddenly gone to hell in the course of five minutes. I found myself dozing off on Zoe. Yeah, that was a big mistake. I groggily woke up the next morning, and I could tell because of the position of the sun peeking out behind the trees. I frowned, confused. What had woken me up? I looked next to me and Zoe was passed out on my shoulder, and that's when I felt the angry, and by angry I mean extreme anger, not just normal. I looked over to the source, and found Artemis looking like I just had a one night stand with a random mortal woman. No, I've never done that, it's an expression. She screamed at me, effectively waking up Zoe with a jolt. "HOW DARE YOU STAY AWAY FROM THE HUNT SO LONG AND SCOFF OFF FROM YOUR DUTIES? YOU WERE TOLD TO DO THE CHORES AND WHAT DO YOU DO? YOU GO AND SPEND A NIGHT WITH ZOE OUT HERE IN THE FOREST! YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED BY A MONSTER OR WORSE, CAPTURED! GET UP AND GET BACK TO THE HUNT NOW!" I'll be damned if they didn't hear that all the way on Olympus.

As Artemis stormed off back in the direction of the hunter's campsite, I noticed Orion smirking at her. He had been here the whole time? Suddenly my anger flew up. I was almost willing to swear on the Styx that he had rotted us out. To say I was furious was an understatement. I was about ready to grab my hunting knives and gut Orion where he stood. However, Zoe hauled me up and sending a glare at Orion, she dragged me back off to the hunt. Yeah. This day was already swell. As soon as we got back to the camp, Artemis grabbed me and practically dragged me to the nearest river and tossed me to the ground. She threw me a pile of hunters clothing I had to wash. When I went to get up, she kicked me towards the river. Why was she acting like this? Something was definitely up. She walked off and as I washed the clothes, I pondered what was happening. However, Lydia, a daughter of Hermes, snuck up to me quietly and said "Hi." I swear to the gods I would've reached Olympus height if I could jump super high.

"Listen, I think I've figured out an idea to figure out what's going on with Artemis." Lydia said and my eyes widened. I nodded, and she told me her plan. She helped me finish the laundry, and after we put it where the clean laundry goes Lydia led me into the forest. After a couple minutes of talking to her about how weird it had been, she put a finger to her lips as we quietly crept towards two voices. As we got closer, I realized they were Artemis and Orion. Orion was talking, and I listened closely "- I saw him going to the village last night again. Zoe must've gone out and grabbed him in the middle of bedding the pathetic mortal. I don't understand why you're such a close friend would do that." I frowned, not sure what Orion was talking about. Then I heard sniffling. I took a peek and saw Artemis tearing up, and she said "I don't understand either, he normally is such a great friend." She started telling him about all the times we had hung out together and I was furious. I was about to storm on the two when Lydia pulled me back and I assumed she knew I had heard enough.

We ran back to the campsite, and I called a meeting with the hunters. We gathered in my tent, assuming the liar and traitor would be returning soon. Lydia and I quickly told all the hunters about what we had seen, and they were stunned. Orion was a complete and utter liar, and he was actually fooling Artemis. We devised a plan to expose him in one of the coming nights. One of the hunters had seen him walking towards the nearest mortal town, and had followed him. Apparently he was getting cozy with some of the women there, exactly what he had been accusing me of. It was kind of funny how that was both hypocritical and ironic. After a while of talking, we had our plan: Zoe and I would follow Orion into the town, and when he was getting cozy Maria, another one of the hunters would alert Artemis that Orion had left the camp, shortly followed by Zoe and I. She would lead Artemis to us, to find Zoe and I whispering about how we needed to tell Artemis immediately how Orion had been deceiving her. The plan was perfect. I dismissed the meeting, it was at a good time too. Artemis and Orion had just been getting back to the camp.

That was the best night of sleep I had in a couple of months.

2866 Words.

AN: Yeah, longer chapter. Generally I don't write this much but I really got into writing it. Anyhow, I have to be quick with writing this author's note, so I hope you enjoyed the chapter, and see you in the next one! Thanks for the support!