Chapter 3: (Percy POV)

My eyes widened, as my stomach felt like it fell off of a cliff.

"What?" I asked

Mom looked down as tears threatened to spill out of my eyes.

"She was captured. She sent us a message, but it cut out before she could say anything. She just said that they knew she was there. Then it cut out."

A horrible feeling started building in my chest as I felt fire erupt all over me. Who dares lay a finger on my best friend!

I was about to explode when Bryan put his hand on my shoulder.

'Relax Brother. We can go get her. It will not do us any good if you let your emotions control you,' he said in my head

I sighed. Bryan is always calm, always thinks before he does anything. The fires that had erupted on my shoulders burned out and I slowly walked and sat on my throne. Then I shot an enormous column of fire to the sky, calling the gods into the council chambers for a meeting.

They all teleported in and saw Hestia, Bryan, and me sitting on our thrones.

"Nephew, why have you called this meeting?" Zeus asked

I nodded toward Mom, and she told the council about what she saw. Lightning struck around Olympus as Zeus roared to life.

"I KNEW IT WAS A BAD IDEA TO SEND HER ALONE!" he roared.

"She wouldn't have let us go with her anyway," Bryan said.

"WHY DID WE LET HER GO IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Apollo yelled

I sighed. Hopelessness was settling through the council. Mom and Bryan, who unofficially took on the role of the peacekeepers of the council, were sitting silently in thought. Every second we sat here and did nothing, that was more time where Artemis is missing. I stood quickly.

"I'll go," I said

Everyone's eyes turned to me. Zeus looked like he was going to refuse, but something in my expression must have stopped him because he sighed and said,

"Alright, nephew. However, I do not want to make the same mistake twice. You will go with Bryan, and some demi-gods as well."

I nodded. "We won't let you down, Uncle,"

He smiled, "I don't think you and Bryan have it in you to let me down,"

The gods all flashed out, and Bryan and I left to prepare for our journey.


(Artemis POV)

My back shook from pain, my arms felt like they were falling off. I struggled against the weight of the sky as Atlas and that traitor son of Hermes stood in front of me.

"Yes, this will work well. We know that 3 of the gods are not bound by the ancient laws. We've got one here, and I guarantee that the other 2 will come." Atlas said "Well, Artemis, aren't you happy that your friends are going to come to save you? They will walk right into our trap, and then there will be nothing stopping us from taking over Olympus." he grinned

"You…" I paused, just getting one word out was difficult. "You won't win,"

Atlas laughed, "You're too sure of yourself, after all, you are the one stuck holding the sky now, not me."

I took in a breath, as my thoughts were spinning. It's hard to think because all I can think about is how bad my arms and back hurt, how much I want Percy or Bryan, or Apollo to save me. It's pathetic, me, a goddess, wishing someone would come to help me.

I struggled against the weight of the sky, 'Percy, Bryan,' I thought, 'help, please.'


(Percy POV)

As we got ready to go to Camp Half-Blood for the first time, I turned to Bryan,

"Hey, Bryan, do you think it would be a good idea to keep the fact that we are gods a secret?" I asked

He paused, "Yeah that would be good. Since we are going to be working with demi-gods, the fact that we are gods might make them wary to work with us, since they might be afraid of disrespecting us or something like that." he said

"Yeah, so I'll ask Zoe to keep the fact that we are gods' secret. We can still tell them our names though." I said, and Bryan nodded.

We flashed ourselves outside of camp borders then walked into camp. It looked nice and peaceful inside. We saw the hunters practicing their archery over to the side so we walked to them.

"Hi," I said

They all turned towards us, then relaxed when they saw it was us. Zoe walked up to us and bowed her head,

"Lord Perseus, Lord Bryan, where is Lady Artemis?" she asked

I was surprised, for sure. The fact that she actually said our names and didn't call us males was a nice change.

"Please, drop the lord, it's just Percy and Bryan," I said, "Also can you do us a favor and not tell the campers that we are gods?"

She nodded and I smiled choosing to ignore her question about Artemis, she'll find out eventually. Bryan and I left and kept walking toward the big house. We had never been here, but we saw it from Olympus and we knew where we were going. When we got near the big house, we saw our old friend Chiron teaching some campers sword-fighting.

"Chiron," Bryan said, "How have you been?"

Chiron turned to us and his eyes went wide, he started to bow, but I spoke in his mind first,

'Please do not reveal that we are gods. We need to go on a quest with some of the demigods, and if they knew we are gods it could change things.' I said

Chiron nodded and said,

"Oh, Perseus and Bryan, how are you two?" he asked

"We are good Chiron thank you for asking," Bryan smiled

"Who are they?" One of the demigods asked, "I've never seen them here before."

I turned to her, she was a girl, with silver eyes and blonde hair. Must be a daughter of Athena.

"We are demigods too," Bryan said, "We came here recently because until now, our mother kept us with her on Olympus."

It wasn't a full lie. We weren't demigods, of course, but mother did keep us on Olympus, except for when we were with Artemis and Apollo. Even then though, we mostly stayed on Olympus.

"You stayed on Olympus? How? I thought the gods aren't allowed to be in contact with their demigod children." she said

That was new. Since Bryan and I are pardoned from the ancient laws, we didn't learn too much about them, so we did not know about this.

"Well, our mother made an exception," I said, trying to think of something.

"Okay, well I'm Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena." she said, "and you are…?"

I paused, if I just said Perseus and Bryan it would cause problems. I remember listening to this mortal singer, I'll just use his last name.

"Perseus and Bryan Jackson," I said, "Sons of Hestia."

Bryan looked at me questioningly when I said Jackson but didn't comment.

"Sons of HESTIA?" Annabeth asked, "I thought she was a maiden goddess?"

"We were created by the Hearth, because our mother wanted children, being the goddess of family," Bryan said

"I don't believe you," She said

I sighed, this was to be expected. Our mother was, of course, a maiden goddess and she still is.

'Mother, do you mind claiming us?' I asked her, 'We are posing as demigods and they don't believe you are our mother,'

(So from now on, unless I specify that it is a flashback, italics mean mental conversations)

Suddenly a gasp rang out through the demigods. I looked up and smiled. Above our heads was a red symbol of a hearth, the symbol of Hestia.

Chiron dropped to his knee, "All hail Perseus Jackson and Bryan Jackson, sons of Hestia," he said

All of the campers dropped to a knee. It felt weird, even though we were gods, and every Satyr and Dryad and Nymph we pass bows to us, no matter how much we tell them not to.

'Dude I will never be comfortable with people bowing to us,' I said

'I know man, this is weird,' he said back

Thankfully our discomfort ended, because the campers stood up, and continued their sword practice.

Chiron took us inside the big house so that we could properly talk. Once we got into a private room he bowed to us,

"My lords, to what do I owe you the pleasure?" he asked

"Please Chiron stop with the formalities, and how many times do we have to tell you not to bow to us?" I smiled

"My apologies Perseus," he said

"Anyway, we are here because Artemis has been captured at Mt. Tam, and we want to join the quest to find her," Bryan said

Chiron nodded. "I shall tell everyone about this at the campfire in about half an hour. If you wish you can stay in your mother's cabin while you wait?" he said

We nodded then walked out of the Big House together. We passed through the camp and saw a training area similar to the one on Olympus. Bryan nudged me and motioned toward the training area. I smiled and nodded.

There were already 2 people training. There was a girl with black hair sparring with that Annabeth girl. Another guy walked in after us, while we were watching the two spar. The girl with black hair was using a spear, while Annabeth fought with a dagger.

The fight ended with the girl with black hair spinning her spear and blasting Annabeth with lightning.

'Lightning huh? Must be a daughter of Zeus,' I said

'You're not wrong," Bryan said

'Maybe she's the demigod of the prophecy,' I said

'Yeah,' he said

The girl helped Annabeth up then turned to us. She had blue eyes and her hair went up to her shoulder.

"Well, you guys are new," she said, "I'm Thalia, daughter of Zeus,"

"Bryan Jackson," Bryan said, "Son of Hestia."

"Percy Jackson," I said waving

The other kid who came in turned to us and said, "I'm Nico di Angelo, son of Hades,"

He looked pretty young compared to the rest of us, Thalia looked like she was almost 16, Annabeth looked 13, and Nico looked like he just turned 10.

"I want to watch you guys spar!" Nico said

Bryan nodded at me, so I said, "Why not, Thalia, I saw you just beat Annabeth here, so I'll fight you,"

She grinned, "Ready to get your ass handed to you?"

"You bet Thalia," I said "But I'm not going to be the one who gets beat,"

We both stood in position. I thought about summoning my sword, but I paused,

'Yo Bryan can I have your spear?' I asked

'Okay,' he laughed

Bryan summoned his spear and threw it at me. I grinned and got ready to fight.

Thalia ran at me and instantly jumped in the air. I saw the lightning bolt coming, so I started to spin the spear faster and faster until a ring of fire surrounded me. Then I jumped to the side as the lightning hit the ground where I was a second ago.

I swung the spear around, throwing the fire at Thalia who rolled to the ground after getting hit, only to have a knife pointed at her neck.

I grinned, "Yield?"

"I yield," she sighed. I threw Bryan his spear and helped her up.

"THAT WAS AWESOME!" Nico yelled, "I've never seen anyone beat Thalia so fast!"

I shrugged, "I'm just cool like that," I said

Thalia lightly punched me then smiled, "Good spar Percy," she said, "I'll get you next time,"


We sat around the fireplace, waiting for Chiron to come so that we could get the details to the quest.

When he finally showed up, it was loud. Like 100 campers talking loud. Chiron stamped his food for literally 2 minutes to make everyone shut up.

"Campers, we have some grave news to share. Lady Artemis, the goddess of the hunt, has been captured at mount tam. There will be a quest to find her.

"I shall lead the quest," a voice called out from the back

All of us turned and saw that Zoe Nightshade had stood.

"This quest is to find our mistress then it makes sense that I should lead it."

Chiron nodded, "Very well child, go speak to the oracle." Zoe nodded and walked into the big house.


Zoe returned and said, "there are 6 members of this quest. 2 hunters, 2 demigods, and 2 gods."

Everyone started yelling. We could hear things like, '2 gods? But there aren't any gods here!'

I sighed, 'Well Bryan, I guess the jig is up. We can't pretend we aren't gods anymore.'

'Yeah, I guess it's time for the big reveal!' he said

Chiron looked at us questioningly, and we nodded at him. He stamped his foot and said, "Well, that is where you are mistaken. We do have two gods here.

Bryan and I teleported to the front with Chiron.

"Hi, to everyone who's met us already, my name is Bryan, I didn't lie about that. The only thing we lied about was that we are demigods, we are gods. However, we are born from Hestia's hearth and...yeah," Bryan said

"This is Perseus, the god of fire, swordsmanship..." Chiron started,

"It's actually all forms of close-ranged combat," I interrupted. When people started looking at me weirdly I continued, "It got changed a few years back, I don't know why."

"Right, my apologies, god of fire, close-ranged combat, and loyalty," Chiron said, "and Bryan, who is the god of fire, battle strategy, and loyalty,"

We all waved, and slowly all the demigods started bowing. I sighed,

"C'mon guys, we're chill. Don't bow, it's super weird and we get uncomfortable." I said

Slowly the demigods stood and sheepishly smiled at us. We grinned back. Then we turned to Zoe,

"So, you need to pick another hunter to go with you and two campers," Bryan said,

She nodded, "Well, I suppose I could take our newest hunter Bianca di Angelo, and for campers," she paused, looking around, "Thalia Grace and Annabeth Chase."

They walked forward out of the crowd. I grinned, definitely not surprised she picked 3 girls. She's probably mad that she has to deal with two guys anyway. Then, an idea came to mind. Yeah, I know what I'm going to do if she gets upset about our gender.


We left that night. Bryan and I would've teleported us to the mountain, but that would get us caught because Atlas can easily sense us if we teleport. It's easier to hide our aura if we walk and impossible to hide it when teleporting. So we teleported about 3 miles from the base of Mount Tam.

"Alright. Let's camp in for the night, we'll go up in the morning," Bryan said.

I nodded and started helping everyone set up their camp. When I got to Zoe, she snapped at me,

"I don't need your help BOY," she growled.

I sighed, this was happening a lot, and was slightly annoying at this point. Time to put my plan into action.

"Ok, so how about this. What if I was a girl?" I asked

She looked at me weirdly, "What do you mean?"

"I mean what I said. What if I was a girl?" I said

She frowned, so I grinned and walked into my tent. Once I was out of the view of the others, I changed into my female form. I basically never use it, and only learned it for the pranking opportunities.

Once I walked out everyone except for Bryan's jaw dropped. Bryan just chuckled. They probably didn't expect a girl to walk out of that tent. My girl form had long black hair that went down to my waist, but thankfully my eyes were still the same dark red.

"So, Zoe, how's this?" I asked, my voice was soft

She froze, obviously not knowing how to respond to that. I laughed then turned back into my normal form, my hair was back to normal, black and messy, and it fell slightly over my forehead.

"Exactly," I said, "Good night guys, Bryan, wake me for the second watch,"

He nodded. I went to my bed (it was a magical tent, so bigger on the inside) and fell asleep. Since I'm a god I don't actually need sleep, but I still enjoy it, so do most other gods. So we still sleep. Imagine always being awake. It would be torture.

I didn't have any dreams, so it felt like I was asleep for 5 minutes when Bryan came and woke me up. I sighed and went outside, looking at the stars and the moon. I heard someone next to me and turned to Bryan.

"The moon is slightly dim tonight huh?" he said

"Yeah," I said, "It is."

He turned to me, "Don't worry, we'll get her out of there,"

I smiled and nodded, "You should get some rest, dude."

"You know I don't need it,"

"Maybe not literally," I said, "but we sleep every night almost. At this point, it's basically a necessity. Go to sleep dude, I'll wake you in the morning."

He nodded then went back into his tent. I stared at the entrance to his tent before turning back to the moon.

Suddenly I felt something, something was approaching, and fast. I looked towards the mountain and saw a bird flying toward me at very, very fast speeds. I pulled out a throwing knife and threw it towards the bird, who dodged it. Then I started throwing the knives one after the other super fast so that it would die. Sure enough, one of the blades went right through its mouth, coming out of the back of its neck. The bird fell at my feet.

I picked it up and felt a shock run through my body. How did Atlas get his hands on one of the stymphalian birds?


In the morning, I woke everyone up. I ran into Bryan's tent and threw him off of his bed, laughing like a maniac. Then for the other girls, I wasn't going to be rude, so I just sort of yelled from outside their tents.

"Why do you have to wake us up so early?" Thalia groaned, "It's like…8:00,"

"That's early for you?" Zoe asked, coming out of her tent as if she's been awake for 2 hours, "I've been awake since 6:00,"

Oh, ok. She has been awake for 2 hours. Well, that explains a lot.

"Really, Zoe?" I asked, "How come I didn't hear you?"

"I just stayed in my tent," she said, I could tell that she still wasn't very comfortable around me, which I guess was understandable. It's better than her being actively hostile towards us.

"Ok, Bryan can you make breakfast for them?" I asked

He nodded and got to work, using some other powers we got from mom to make food. Thalia asked for pancakes, Zoe was a little upset about asking a guy for food, but she got pancakes too. Annabeth just laughed and got the same thing, so now all of us have pancakes. I'm not complaining.

We started to walk up the mountain when I decided to bring up the bird from yesterday night.

"Guys, I got attacked yesterday night," I said

"By what?" Bryan said

"Stymphalian bird," I said

"How did Atlas get a stymphalian bird?" Bryan wondered out loud

"Exactly what I was thinking," I said, "Really, I just can't think of anything, except for Kronos is starting to reform, since he has access to Tartarus, where the birds are."

Bryan nodded at me, and said, "That's something we can worry about later. We've got a job to do,"

I grinned, Bryan would make a great army general. With his insane affinity for making the best strategies ever, and his ability to inspire the people who fight with him, he is the ideal general for any army.

Bianca, Thalia, and Annabeth smiled at us and nodded. We all continued on our trek up Mount Tam.


We neared the top of the mountain, so I signaled for them to be silent and follow me. I led the way and when I got to the top I saw something that made my blood boil. Artemis was holding the sky, and a demigod was rubbing her cheek mockingly while the titan Atlas watched on in amusement. Artemis couldn't even defend herself, and I could see her face contorted in pain.

I was still hidden, so I turned and quietly explained the plan Bryan and I made with them.

"Okay, so listen, here's what we're going to do. Bryan, you fight Atlas, I'll take the sky. Zoe, I need to you take care of Artemis, and Thalia, Bianca, Annabeth? I need you to fight off any demigods or monsters Atlas sends." I said

They all nodded, so I jumped out of the bushes and threw a knife at that demigod's hand, which was starting to move down Artemis' neck. To my shock, it bounced off his hand and didn't even make a dent. The demigod winced and pulled his hand back though, so he felt it.

Atlas turned to us, "Perseus and Bryan! We've been expecting you," he boomed

"Nice," I said snarkily, then ran to Artemis, while Bryan started to size up Atlas. Bianca, Thalia, and Annabeth looked around warily, ready to fight if they needed to. Zoe ran behind me, ready to defend Artemis, who probably will be unable to fight for a while.

"Hey, Artemis, I'm here. I'm gonna take the sky from you okay? You can relax, you'll be fine." I said.

Artemis was clearly out of it, she nodded, so I got to her side and braced myself. Artemis slid out from next to me, and the full weight of the sky fell on my back.

I thought I was ready. I thought I knew pain, getting accidentally stabbed through the stomach during a spar, getting beaten up by Ares because I didn't want to fight back, yeah, I've felt pain. This was worse. Way, way, way worse. My back felt like it was going to break. My arms felt like jelly, and I've only held it for 30 seconds. I looked up and saw Bryan running at Atlas, who had his sword ready.

Bryan swung his spear and their fight began. A titan, vs a god.

Well then, I hope yall enjoyed this chapter!

IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR FUTURE CHAPTERS: So in this story, I thought it would be interesting if gods/titans/giants could make each other fade. So if a god is fighting a titan or a giant, it's basically like 2 mortals fighting each other. If they get injured badly enough, then they fade. Just to keep it interesting and to make fights feel like they have actual consequences for winning/losing.

Anyway, leave feedback in the reviews if you want, drop by my PMs if you wanna talk.

I love yall, cya later!