VII

A stray truth comes to life

After my fitful, I was ready to beat the Hunters at capture the flag. It was going to be a rather small game: only thirteen Hunters, including Bianca di Angelo, and about the same number of campers.

But damn it if I wasn't looking for a good fight, and didn't get one, there'd be some problems.

Zoe Nightshade looked pretty upset. She kept glancing resentfully at Chiron like she couldn't believe he was making her do this. The other Hunters didn't look too happy, either. I for one couldn't wait to kick a few of their collective asses.

Unlike last night, however, they weren't laughing or joking around. They just huddled together in the dining pavilion, whispering nervously to each other as they strapped on their armor. Some of them even looked like they'd been crying. I guess Zoe had told them about her nightmare.

On our team, we had Beckendorf and two other Hephaestus guys, a few from the Ares cabin (though it still seemed strange that Clarisse wasn't around), the Stoll brothers, and Nico from Hermes cabin, a few Aphrodite kids, and Thalia and Percy. Percy told me it was weird that the Aphrodite cabin wanted to play. Usually they sat on the sidelines, chatted, and checked their reflections in the river and stuff, but when they heard we were fighting the Hunters, they were raring to go.

"I'll show them 'love is worthless,'" Silena Beauregard grumbled as she strapped on her armor. "I'll pulverize them!"

That left Thalia and Percy with me.

"I'll take the offense," Thalia volunteered. "You take defense."

"Interesting Idea, but I'll have to decline," I said because I'd been about to say the exact same thing, pulling my sword from its scabbard on my back, its silver metal glinting in the moonlight.

"Oh gods, not again…" Percy muttered from off on the side, a small smile of glee making its way onto my face.

Thalia already had Aegis on her arm, and even our own teammates were giving her a wide berth, trying not to cower before the bronze head of Medusa.

"Why? You're gonna run offense when you don't even know the layout of this forest? Or how the hunters fight?" Thalia asked incredulously.

"No, You're both good at what you do, but you can't keep up with me," Thalia said. "Besides, you're my backup."

"Yeah, no problem," Thalia said. I could tell she was lying, but she didn't sound malicious, just…. hesitant.

"Cool." I watched Thalia turn to help some of the Aphrodite kids, who were having trouble suiting up their armor without breaking their nails. Nico di Angelo ran up to Percy with a big grin on his face.

"Percy, this is awesome!" His blue-feathered bronze helmet was falling in his eyes, and his breastplate was about six sizes too big. I wondered if there was any way he'd looked that ridiculous when he'd first arrived, he probably had. I need some pictures of that.

Nico lifted his sword with effort. "Do we get to kill the other team?"

"Well… no."

"But the Hunters are immortal, right?"

"That's only if they don't fall in battle. Besides—"

"It would be awesome if we just, like, resurrected as soon as we were killed, so we could keep fighting, and—"

"Nico, this is serious. Real swords. These can hurt."

He stared at Percy, looking a little disappointed, and I guess Percy realized he sounded just like Sally. Whoa. Not a good sign.

Percy patted Nico on the shoulder. "Hey, it's cool. Just follow the team. Stay out of Zoe's way. We'll have a blast."

Chiron's hoof thundered on the pavilion floor.

"Heroes!" he called. "You know the rules! The creek is the boundary line. Blue team—Camp Half-Blood—shall take the west woods. Hunters of Artemis—red team—shall take the east woods. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. No intentional maiming, please! All magic items are allowed. To your positions!"

"Sweet," Nico whispered next to Percy. "What kind of magic items? Do I get one?"

I was about to break it to him that he didn't, when Thalia said, "Blue team! Follow me!"

Of course, as soon as that happened there was a gust of wind as I blasted forward into the woods ahead, leaving my team far behind as I beelined for the river.

It was only a few seconds after I reached the river bed that an arrow sailed from within the trees, it was slow, slow enough to easily hit out of the air with a casual swipe of my sword.

I looked directly where the air had come from, then about twenty feet to the left, "Oh come on, that can't be all you guys have, can it? This will be rather disappointing for you guys if it is."

Not a sound was made after my proclamation, but I could feel the two auras repositioning themselves silently in the trees.

I sighed, "If that's how you wanna play it…"

I pulled a compact cylinder out of my pocket, pushing it forward in front of me and watching as it extended into a compact bow, a miracle of work that I'd found in camp armory.

"Two can play at this game."

Quicker than lightning I pulled an arrow from thin air, perks of nature energy, and loosed it at the spot of one of the Hunters hiding in the trees, hearing a soft curse and a thud as it presumably hit its mark. It wasn't often that I missed.

The first aura retreated back, presumably to patch themselves up, and the other dropped to the ground and approached the river bed across from me.

The hunter who emerged, as I thought, was Zoe. Her aura was rather unique even among the hunters, reminding me of quicksilver almost, would be the best way to describe it.

I regarded her with slight confusion, "Really? You're going to fight me in close quarters? Instead of using a bow? You think you can keep up, Hunter?" I put the bow at my side, left-hand itching to grab the gilded blade out from its scabbard.

She spoke with the embers of battle lighting her eyes, "I'm the only one who can."

Ah, the only hunter well versed in swords then, interesting.

"You're like me, fine then," I collapsed the bow and put it away, my left hand grabbing the hilt of the blade from my scabbard and pulling it forth, my hands trembling, but not in fear, but anticipation at the fight ahead. "Then let's see how well you can dance for me!"

With a laugh and that proclamation, I threw a single knife in front of Zoe, who held a look of surprise on her face. Probably thinking I had missed when in fact I hadn't.

The knife had a bit of nature energy on it, letting me teleport right in front of her face, inside her guard.

I brought the blade down on her head, confident she would dodge the blow. Instead, she blocked with the flat of her sword, which in hindsight wasn't the smartest choice.

I have a small frame, yes, but I hit much harder due to my enhancements. So when I felt her knees start to buckle, I was almost disappointed. Almost.

She turned her sword diagonally, letting my blade slide down it and allowing her to twist out of the way of the blow. Aiming a kick for my stomach, which surely would have hit if I didn't grab it. I had thrown away my sword like I had with Thorn, it landed embedded in the river. Zoe seemed surprised that I'd had time to do that.

"Come on! That can't be it, can it? You hunters are so hyped up, so show me you deserve it!"

I'm sure my smile was bordering on manic at that moment, but It was the first time in a while that I had sparred this openly with anyone.

Punch after punch, jabs, and kicks, and Zoe was able to block them all, either with the flat of her sword or with her other hand, thanks to the perks of using a hand and a half sword.

She was sorely on the defensive the entire fight, until she struck out in an open spot in my form, my right side.

She got a good thrust under my arm, wincing as I was fairly sure she had grazed a rib, nothing unmanageable but it hurt like hell.

'It seems I have to kick it up after all.'

"Do you yield, godling?" Zoe held the sword at arm's length, but it seems she had forgotten my early stunt. I smiled at her, a little dribble of blood sprung from a punch that had landed on my nose earlier.

"It seems Hunter, I'll have to take this up a notch, after all, I was hoping I could save this for another person but, I suppose I can just butcher you instead."

"What-"

Zoe didn't have time to finish as I disappeared in another flash of silver, reappearing next to my sword and pulling it out of the river, and sheathing it back in its scabbard.

"For your sake hunter, I really hope you're good at evading."

Without letting her get a word in edgewise, I pulled out the one thing I had had with me since the beginning.

A compact bag of knives that I could throw and use as much as I wanted, with the bag always replenishing my supply and never running out. Hopefully, it didn't have a hard limit, or this would be rather anti-climatic.

I took ten knives from the bag and threw them, all landing in a rough circle around her. Getting a look from her that was quite hilarious, 'Really?' it was an amazing look to be sure. She tried to step out of the circle, only to be met with my smiling face as she was stepping forward.

"Ah, ah, ah, we're not going anywhere," I said sweetly before sending a punch into her face, sending her stumbling backward slightly. She tried to strike me blindly with her sword, only to be met with empty air.

"Over here, Idiot!"

It was amusing to watch her whip around to look at me, her face contorted with fury, she probably thought I was mocking her.

"Well, I guess it's time to take the kid gloves off then."

I kicked it into gear, teleporting from knife to knife, throwing punches and knives at her, this lasted for about a minute before she finally dropped her sword and dropped to a singular knee.

I walked up to her, slightly disappointed it was over so soon, "Man, that was great, wish had lasted longer though. Ah well, there's always next time-"

It was at that moment that two things happened.

A giant source of nature energy exploded in my mind, almost sending me to my knees, and even though it didn't, it gave me one hell of a migraine. The source was amazing, what was concerning was the direction, and the movement towards me.

At the same time, an arrow was loosed from within the forest and being in too distracted of a state to turn, It hit true.

I felt the nature energy closing on me, and the feeling of cold metal entering my hand, moments before the arrow found its target.

Going straight through my skull and out the other side, blood and brain matter spraying everywhere. A roar of rage was the last thing I heard before I saw nothing.

I saw red, I heard nothing else as I subconsciously sent out two tendrils of water as I ran towards Armani. The first batted Zoe away rather forcefully, not that I cared at the moment, and the other yanked the hunter who had shot the arrow, hard.

Oh, there were going to be words.

"Armani!" I dropped next to her, picking up her limp form and checking the damage. A strange sword was in her grip that I hadn't seen her with before, along with strange markings up her arms and face, and most likely the rest of her.

But I didn't particularly care at the moment, more stunned at the fact that she was dead, and… and…

I turned, setting her corpse down gently, standing slowly, and stalking over to the hunter, "You!"

Zoe tried to get in my way, even with her copious amounts of injuries, "Percy, Stop!"

I growled, "Get out of my way, or I'll make you.

Zoe continued to stand in my way, 'Percy, listen-"

"Oh, we're way past that now. I could kill you and not even bat an eye. So, move, now."

"Percy, you can't just-"

"I CAN'T WHAT?" At this point, I was way past staying calm, with her trying to brush aside- to ignore what had just happened like this.

"Your friend just killed my sister! I don't know about you, Zoe, but that seems like something that needs to be dealt with!"

"That wasn't supposed to happen! She should have dodged it! She was too fast to be hit by any others, so we thought-"

I held up my hand to stop her, "You thought?"

I stepped past Zoe towards the other hunter, only to once again be met with two others in my way, Chiron and Thalia.

"Perce, I know you're angry but you can't just-"

"Just what, Thalia? You act like I'm gonna kill the girl."

A low thunder boomed overhead, it couldn't storm in camp-half blood, but Percy's powers had always been stronger than he realized.

It was Chiron who spoke to him next, "Percy, maybe you should step away from this situation, come back with me to the big house, we can discuss-"

"Discuss? Discuss?!" I screamed, "What is there to discuss?! Armani is dead, and you all are-!"

A large crack of thunder and a bright flash overtook the area, even Percy, who was looking away from the source of the flash felt momentarily blinded by it.

And it was all followed by a voice that Percy had thought he might never hear again.

"Ohhhhhh gods, what hit me? I feel like I got run over by the sun chariot… actually knowing Apollo, that's completely plausible…"

Everyone not already facing the voice whipped around to look, including Percy himself, and gaped in slight awe and horror at the sight before them.

Armani, slowly making her way back to her feet, with nary a scratch where the arrow had pierced and exited her skull, looking completely fine, if not somewhat annoyed.

She turned to face the rest of them, "What are you all staring at me for? Did we win or something?"

I gaped at her, riptide dropping to my side as I stared at her with complete surprise. She had been dead, and now she was acting like nothing-

Thalia grabbed my shoulder tightly and whispered into my ear, "Percy, we have a problem."

I looked back at her out of my peripheral, "What?"

"In case you haven't noticed, you might want to look… up." Thalia pointed slightly upward, to a spot above Armai's head, he didn't get what all the fuss was abou-

Oh.

Oh.

This is bad.

Above her head was a symbol of claiming, normal for a demigod at most times, but this one… this one was something no one in history had ever seen before or even expected to see.

A flaming silver bow with gold-tipped arrows running through it, all fitting with a flaming outline of a wolf's jaw.

A symbol that was, presumably, meant for one goddess. A goddess that should not have a child, but one Armani and I had theorized on nonetheless. "All hail Armani, The first daughter of Artemis, goddess of the hunt, the moon, and chastity," Chiron said, shaking in surprise as he was, along with the mixed reaction from the others around us.

Armani stood there speechless, her mouth opening and closing but now sound came out, only to then look up, look at the sword in her hand and groan loudly.

"Just once, just once I couldn't have any luck."

No one spoke for a moment, Armani and I were the only ones who expected what came next. A yell of outrage rang through the forest and Armani suddenly had a fist in her face.

Author's notes:

Short notes today, first, I want to apologize for the long wait. College exams really kicked my butt but now I have some free time to update this more.

So for visuals, if you want to imagine what the scene with Armani beating up Zoe with teleportation looked like, imagine Spider-Man vs Thanos on titan with the portals, but sped up by 3x and with Armani teleporting to the knives she threw over and over.

Also, I'm not sure how many people expected the reveal of Armani's heritage, or how it would be revealed when Artemis would most likely never claim her at all. Well, you'll have to wait until the next chapter to get more info on that. ;)

I really hope people enjoy this all so far, I know this chapter is much shorter than the others, but I really didn't want a chapter that was 8k words. So I split it up, the next chapter should be much longer.

As always I like to hear everyone's feedback, so if you have any, feel free to tell me!

Also, last thing here, I'm hosting a poll on my profile page, just for upcoming stories and what people want to see, if you want to have some input, feel free to put a vote or two in. If not, I'll see you guys next time!

-Dredgen