I actually have another chapter planned out for this story, and I just updated for it last night. How cool is that? I think it's pretty cool. I'm also getting over the writing blocks for my other stories. I just need to get writing as fast as I can and think as fast as I can for them. Thank you all again and I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Who Let The Birds Out

Percy's POV

After the short rest that the Hunt had, which wasn't too long really, they took their camp down and were getting ready to leave. Artemis had offered us a ride back to camp, which we were more than happy to accept. I can't really say that the hunters were too thrilled about it though. They didn't seem to have much against Bianca, Annabeth, or Thalia. Nico, Grover, and I, especially Grover, on the other hand, they really seemed like they were going to kill us at any second. Again, especially Grover. He was still showing us his typical Grover moment. To make the matter worse, satyrs are always pretty attracted to Artemis for her being all into the wild and everything. I tell you, Grover is going to get himself killed any second now.

Just then, as we were all waiting for whatever it is Artemis was having us all wait for, a shining chariot that was flying in the sky like it was Santa's sleigh or some shit like that came into view and stopped right at the cliff. There was a guy driving the thing as if it was just a plain old car, who had bleached blond hair that was actually about the same length as Artemis' hair, blue eyes that were just as blue as the sky, he seemed to have lean muscular fit build for his figure, and he had a bow and set of arrows as well. Let me guess, Artemis' twin brother Apollo.

"Arty." The guy who I assumed was Apollo exclaimed happily.

"Shut up Apollo." Artemis said rolling her eyes.

Five points for me.

"Oh come on sis. You seriously go as far as to make sure that you and I pretty much only see each other during our meetings, and you can't even have the decency to give your own twin brother here a hug?" Apollo whined.

"Oh, don't be such a big baby Apollo." Artemis said.

"Sheesh, you have no family traits at all." Apollos mused.

"Yeah, whatever. Listen, I called you over here because we all need a lift back to camp." Artemis explained.

"So you need me?" Apollo asked playing the annoying dumbass card on the table.

"Brother, are you going to help us or do I have to start throttling you with my hunting knifes?" Artemis threatened.

This ladies and gentlemen, is basically a man and a woman being a typical brother and typical sister to each other. Well, maybe not exactly like that, maybe more, but somewhere along that line. Though I would assume this is the Apollo and Artemis version of the case. If this is how it is between Artemis and Apollo, I'd really hate to see what it would be like between Zeus and his sister/wife Hera.

"Apollo is hot." Thalia muttered.

"And he's a manwhore, just like your father." I muttered to her.

She seemed really offended by that. But before she had the chance to throw a comment at me yet again, that's when the conversation between Artemis and Apollo continued to play out.

"Alright, fine. Jesse, here I am trying to have a little fun, and you're here to just bitch slap me." Apollo said.

"Alright, everyone get in." Artemis told everyone.

Everyone just got on the chariot without really saying a word.

"Hello ladies." Apollo said while wiggling his eyebrows at Artemis' hunters

'Jesus Christ. And here I thought Grover was crazy about these chicks.' I thought to myself.

"Apollo, how many times have I told you to not flirt with the girls!?" Artemis raged at Apollo.

"1,258,056 times." Apollo answered.

"And how many more times are we gonna have to go through this cycle!?" Artemis raged again.

"Probably another million times. Or you can just stop overreacting and I can get funky on these babies." Apollo said.

"APOLLO!" Artemis shouted while really getting angry.

"Relax sis, I'm just messing with you. Lighten up and take a chill pill, will you?" Apollo said.

And Thalia thinks that I'm crazy? I don't think so mother fucker. Look at how this crazy asshole is acting. He's just as crazy as I could ever want to be. Anyways, no one really said anything as Artemis and Apollo were having their brother to sister argument. But as soon as it ended, at least for now, Apollo got the chariot ready to take off while Artemis made sure that everyone was in okay and ready. She also warned us that Apollo really sucks at driving and that he'll most likely eventually end up crashing his chariot into something. Apparently from what Artemis said, he's done it quite a number of times. Somehow, that doesn't surprise me even in the slightest. The Hunt sat in all the front rows of the chariot. Annabeth, Thalia, and Bianca sat in the last of them. Artemis sat in the very last row out of them all. She apparently wanted to keep a good distance between Apollo and herself. She had Grover, Nico, and I sit in the same row as her. She said if we sat with the hunters, they'd probably kill us. Again, no big surprise.

The drive/flight started off pretty boring to say the least. Grover was sneaking secret glances at Artemis. Nico sat close to me as if he were a small boy trying to shield himself from something terrible with his father. Me, well, I just kept quiet for the most part. I just wanted to get back to camp. During the ride, I just couldn't stop myself from feeling so anxious to see Clarisse again. I just hope Silena has been able to keep her out of trouble and make sure she hasn't broken anyone just yet. Because trust me, a woman having mood swings during pregnancy is not a pleasant thing to see at all. The only thing that I'm thankful is that when it comes to Clarisse and her mood swings, I'm never the victim of them. It's always someone else. Truth be told, some of the people who are the victims of Clarisse's mood swings don't really deserve it, but Clarisse has pretty much been going through a hard time. Just like me, the thought of something bad happening to our baby is not a pleasant one at all, and the more time goes by, the harder it gets to not think the worst. Kronos really knows how to get to a person's head in any way he chooses.

The ride was going okay, that is until I started to get a bad feeling. Something didn't seem right around here. I'm no hunter like Artemis and her hunters, but I could definitely tell that there was something off right now. Something was definitely not right at all. Ares isn't a hunter either really, but he has taught me that a true great warrior is one that always minds his surroundings, follows his instincts, keeps all of his senses up and running, and above all else, always know when and where there is danger nearby. And through my senses, I could definitely feel something dark close by. With this feeling slowly getting stronger and me being on alert, I slowly got up from my seat and looked around.

"Hey junior, you're supposed to remain seated until the ride is over." Apollo said looking at me through his rear view mirror.

"Yeah, whatever ass wipe. Just shut the fuck up." I said to him.

"Percy!" Grover shouted shocked.

"Grover, shut up, I'm trying to concentrate." I said looking into the sky.

"Percy Jackson?" Artemis asked getting up as well.

"Something's not right. I feel like something's following us right now. I can feel a sudden change in the wind. I can also hear a sudden breeze in the sky. And the clouds are all getting darker. Something bad is close to us." I said trying to figure out what it was exactly that was putting me on high alert.

Artemis just looked confused at first. But then she looked into the direction I was looking at, and judging by the way her expression went from confused to slightly and slowly becoming aware of the situation as of right now, I could tell that this wasn't just something playing a trick on me. There was definitely something happening right now or something was about to happen that wasn't supposed.

"You're right. I can feel it to. Though I can't tell exactly what or why." Artemis said.

"Can this piece of shit go any faster?" I asked referring to Apollo's chariot.

"Not likely, I'm afraid." Artemis answered.

"Hey, you two lovebirds, sit your asses down before I throw you two off." Apollo threatened.

'Is that seriously the best threat he can come up with? God, even Gabe can throw an insult and a threat that will make a buffed thug piss his pants. For a god of Olympus, he's pretty pathetic.' I thought to myself.

"Apollo . . ." Artemis started and was about to go further, but she didn't because she got interrupted.

As soon as the feeling got to what I considered its highest point, I knew we were in trouble. I began to hear a slight whistling sound in the air, and that was my que.

"GET DOWN!" I exclaimed bringing Artemis down to the ground with me just before the fly projectile could get her.

Just then, we were met with a huge impact that shook the chariot and startled and alerted everyone. I got up as best as I could to try to find out what the fuck that was. And what I saw was very bad news. Stymphalian Birds. The Stymphalian Birds are man-eating birds with beaks of bronze, sharp metallic feathers they could launch at their victims, and poisonous dung. They were pets of Ares. They migrated to a marsh in Arcadia to escape a pack of wolves. There they bred quickly and swarmed over the countryside, destroying crops, fruit trees, and townspeople. Long story short, they were very deadly creatures.

"STYMPHALIAN BIRDS!" I exclaimed alerting everyone and getting Riptide out.

"Girls, bows out now! Kill them all!" Artemis commanded while getting her bow out.

The hunters then got out their bows and were firing amongst the Stymphalian Birds. Apollo tried to focus on driving his chariot, but with how many Stymphalian Birds there were coming out of nowhere, swarming around us and trying to kill us all and everyone trying to fend them off, he was having a really difficult time. All those who possessed archery skills were raining on the Stymphalian Birds with arrows, and those who were left to fight with just melee weapons were only able to try to swing at whatever Stymphalian Bird that came near them and went in to try and kill us. The problem though was that these birds were moving pretty fast. A little too fast in my opinion. I mean, I've never fought a Stymphalian Bird before now, but I just had a very strong feeling that these things were a bit stronger than the average Stymphalian Bird.

"Milady, there are too many of them, and we can barely get a shot at them." The commander of Artemis' hunt, whose name I learned from Grover was Zoe Nightshade, said.

"Keep trying!" Artemis commanded.

Even Artemis was having a little trouble here. She was doing a lot better than all the rest of us, but she still struggled. I guess these birds were yet another group of creatures touched by Kronos to try and kill us. I took a good look around and saw that these thing were barely being hit with our arrows because they were moving so fast. I wanted to help, but as long as I was in the chariot, there wasn't much I could do. I wasn't too good with archery either, so I was pretty limited on options right now. That is, until what I considered what was without a doubt the craziest idea of my entire life came into my head. With this crazy ass thought in my head, I got Riptide ready for action and leaned against the edge of the chariot. I guess it's about time I put my training with Ares to a new test.

"Percy, what're you doing?" Grover asked turning his direction to me.

"Don't wait up for me." I said and then . . . I jumped out of the chariot.

"PERCY!" Grover exclaimed as I fell.

Doing a few flips in the air and getting prepared, I landed on the back of a Stymphalian Bird. It squawked pretty loudly at the impact on me landing on its back. Then I took Riptide and stabbed the Stymphalian Bird in the head. It froze and then turned into a pile of golden dust falling onto the ground. Before it was fully gone, I jumped onto the next Stymphalian Bird. I then wrapped my arms around the beast's neck and forced it to go higher into the sky, as well as get the damn thing to struggle with breathing and trying to get me off of it. I had it go higher up to the same level as the chariot and most of the other Stymphalian Birds were at. Being where I knew would work out for me was when I snapped the Stymphalian Bird's neck. And like last time, I jumped to the next one as the one I just killed turned into a falling pile of golden dust. I was about to take this one out next, but I took a good look ahead of myself and saw that a Stymphalian Bird was charging at me. Forgetting about the Stymphalian Bird I was about to kill, I raised my sword and struck as the bird that was attempting to strike at me. And in doing so, I cut the fucker's stomach open, and that bird died next. Just then, another one was trying to strike at me like the last one, only this one was going to strike at me from the side. I just got in a batter's position for the fucking bird. That Stymphalian Bird was throwing itself at me like a screwball, and I swung and went in for an out of the park hit. When it was in reaching distance and since it had its beak wide open, I cut this one in half at the mouth, or in other words, cut it in half, and killed it.

It seemed that my actions were doing a little more than what I was hoping. It seemed my actions were able to distract some Stymphalian Birds long enough for a hunter to shoot it dead. Apollo was still having trouble steering his chariot with the Stymphalian Birds still attacking us. A lot of Stymphalian Birds were moving their focus on me, which was more than enough to a hunter to get a shot at it. It was nice to see that I was actually making some progress here. As I let that all sink in, another Stymphalian Bird tried to attack me, but this one from right above me. I just raised my sword and stabbed it in the mouth. Riptide went through the thing's open mouth and from the angle I was in for it, through its head as well. Then I killed the Stymphalian Bird I was riding and jumped onto the next one. Another came out of nowhere and actually went for a different motive to try to kill me with. It floated above me and tried to kill me by pecking at me with that razor sharp beak of its. When it did though, I moved out of the way and had it stab the Stymphalian Bird I was on instead. That one died and so I jumped on the head of the one that attacked me and used my sword to cut its beak off. It screeched in pain at that and I just shut it up with cutting its head off. With that one joining its other dead friends as a pile of golden dust falling to the earth, I jumped to the next one. I landed on this Stymphalian Bird's head. At that, another Stymphalian Bird charged at me, only this one was using its talons. I just jumped back and had the Stymphalian Bird I was riding on go in as the new target. And with that, those talons went into the Stymphalian Bird's eye sockets and died. I then jumped onto the Stymphalian Bird that just attacked me, landed on its neck and stabbed it. At that, it died, and I jumped onto the next one.

Looking around, I could tell that what I was doing was definitely working. There were very few Stymphalian Birds left, and they were pretty much deciding if they should stay and fight, or just fly away and live. I was happy that I was able to make this victory possible. I just wished Clarisse was here to witness it. She would be thrilled. I went into killing the rest. Which I was able to accomplish. Riding on the back of the last Stymphalian Bird and when I was at where I could jump back onto the chariot, I stabbed the Stymphalian Bird in the heart and killed it, and then I jumped back onto the chariot with everyone else. Needless to say, there were a lot of shocked expression thrown at me by everyone, even a little from Artemis and Apollo.

"Percy." Thalia said shocked, not really sure how to reply to what she saw me do.

But before anyone could say anything else, a Stymphalian Bird came out from beneath us and tried to kill us, which made Apollo stop and park the chariot at where it floated. There was still one left. As this one was flying up to get ready for another strike, only this one would be from above, I just used my spear throwing lessons from Ares and threw Riptide like it was a spear at the last Stymphalian Bird. I hit it, though where it landed wasn't a good place to land. My sword went right up the Stymphalian Bird's ass. And I literally mean its ass. Not where I was exactly aiming, but I guess it'll have to do. But on the bright side, I did kill it, so that was good. But before it turned to another falling pile of golden dust, it let out a massive fart. I've never heard of a fart that loud or that big before, but its without a doubt a Stymphalian Bird version of the clear the room fart. What was funny about that though was that it also took a massive shit before it died. And the best part about that was with how were stopped and with where the Stymphalian Bird was at above us, Apollo was covered in bird shit, just like how Gabato was shitted on by a bird in the movie "Journey 2 The Mysterious Island".

"DUDE!" Apollo exclaimed and complained about what just happened to him.

Everyone else just laughed at him and his misfortune. I have to say, despite nearly getting killed twice today and being away from Clarisse and my baby, this was definitely a moment I was never going to forget. Best event with an Olympian ever.

So, the big question is, a side from what was your favorite part of the chapter, which I am very curious about, what did you all think of the chapter? Did you think it was good or bad? I thought it was pretty good. Not bad for a writer who isn't too good at writing fight scenes if I say so myself. I hope you all liked the chapter and that's despite the fact that I've update recently already, you'll still maybe review for this chapter and the one I posted yesterday. Thank you and goodnight.