I'm baaaaaaack!
So I moved in to college, everything's great, etc, etc.
So I thought I'd take some time and post a new chapter before the classwork buries me.
Thanks to all who have reviewed. I really appreciate it.
I'll take some time to answer them.
In general: Well, pretty much all of you told me to make longer chapters, and welp, who am I to argue? Longer chapters you seek and longer chapters you shall receive.
The Argonauts: Yes, the gods do both misogyny and bestiality. Given their shape shifting abilities, it's quite difficult to find the line.
As for the Greek gods being copies of the Egyptian gods...kind of but not really? I mean, the Greeks definitely drew some inspiration from the Egyptian gods. But also the Mesopotamian, Minoan, etc, etc. It wasn't really copying as much as cultural diffusion. Like, archaeologists think that Hermes and Pan used to be the same god, and that god came from some sort of proto-Indo-European religion that was the root of the Norse, Greek, and Vedic mythologies. Ovidand the Romans, on the other hand...that was pretty blatant copying, yeah, haha.
As for Erictonius, it's true that some mythologies depict him as the child of Hephaestus and Gaea. From what Percy Jackson's Greek Gods told us, I kind of saw it Gaea as the incubator, essentially, while Athena was the actual mother. As for Orion, there are some versions in which he was a giant, and there was that one obscure version where he was very technically born of the earth. Something about a bunch of gods peeing into a bull's hide. Greek mythology is not known for its continuity.
Lancelot-07: That's four women XD. But I know what you mean. I'll consider putting them in. Oh, and don't worry. The plot is coming. It's just getting off to a slow start.
Siegfried Slayer: You want conflict? Oh, it's coming. *Smiles ominously*. As for the hunters relying on magic and being untouched by nature, I don't think that's entirely true. Sure, you have the nice tents and stuff, but you also have the gritty murdering stuff, and you can bet that they have survival skills packed under their belts. And they worship Artemis, who's a nature goddess, so it wouldn't make sense if they don't do nature stuff. As for Orion, I don't think he's really completely immersed in nature, either. Remember, the first time he showed up in The Blood of Olympus, he was carrying a compound bow. Which is modern, so he was close enough to civilization to keep up with the times. And as you'll find out in this chapter, there's a very good reason the hunters didn't have heat signatures.
Illuminatishadow: Thank you for the encouragement! You bring up some very good points. But a tiny correction: celibacy isn't an option if you're a Greek mortal, but if you're a Greek goddess...loophole found.
As for Artemis being asexual, Rick Riordan pretty much confirmed it over Twitter, and I kinda like that interpretation.
Artemis and Orion: it's true that there are versions that portray them as romantic, but as I've said in the first chapter, I don't want to ship them. Romance isn't really my area, and I kind of want to take this opportunity to have some badly needed AceAro representation. Basically, I intend this to be a friendship fic.
Well, I hope I haven't bored you too badly.
Warnings: anachronisms, mild language, gratuitous foreign language, far too much internal monologuing to be healthy.
Without further interruptions, the next chapter.
Disbelief.
He couldn't believe the day he was having.
His first instinct was that of a hunter: crawl out, confront the monster, kill it before it killed him.
Then he remembered the homicidal girls outside and decided that perhaps staying put and letting them handle it might be safer. He was still on their hit list, after all, and even if he took care of the more immediate problem for them, he had no idea how they're going to react to him killing a monster that they could have potentially taken with ease and claiming that he "saved" them from it. So he'd just watch and only step in if they began to struggle.
"So you are the Hunters of Artemis," it growled, "I expected better." It had a strange accent. Persian, maybe. Orion frowned. Could it be…?
"Foul creature," a girl's voice rang out. "You are not welcome here."
The creature snarled, "My name is Xâr! And I will not be threatened by a group of pre-ARGH!"
The first arrow had been shot.
While the battle began in earnest, he got a glimpse of the monster. It was as he suspected: a manticore.
Well, that changed things.
Manticores were notoriously difficult to kill. Not only did they like to eat people whole, bones, skin, and all, they also had an unfortunate tendency to shoot vemenous projectiles out of their tails.
In other words, it was more than a match for the hunters' ranged weapons.
Their only advantage as of this moment was their numbers, which in this case would mean nothing because of the sheer speed the manticore could shoot thorns. Greater numbers generally meant lower mobility, and if they couldn't dodge in time...
...He was going to have to step in, wasn't he?
There was a cry of pain: someone had been hit, and it wasn't the manticore. He risked another peek and saw two hunters help their fallen comrade, who had been hit in the shoulder with a spike. It wouldn't kill her, but the venom would make it excruciatingly painful within the next few minutes.
Oof.
Making a decision, he shimmied back out of his hiding place, ducked behind a tree, and started playing defense, shooting down the spikes as they came flying.
One of the hunters turned, trying to see where the arrows came from, but apparently couldn't find anything. She gave up on searching when a spike flew by an inch from her face.
He had calculated its trajectory, of course, but still. Far too close for comfort.
The hunters picked up the slack fast enough. Within a few minutes, the girls had shot the manticore with so many arrows that he resembled a porcupine.
The manticore collapsed, dead. The hunters turned to their unexpected ally.
Orion kept hidden, wondering if they'd try to kill him again now that he'd helped them kill a monster.
Silence.
More silence.
…...
Feeling distinctly unnerved, Orion stole a glance back at the hunters.
He blinked.
The hunters had vanished.
He frowned, then proceeded to go through every setting he could find with his eyes, hoping that at least one of them would let him catch a glimpse of him.
Nothing.
He looked towards the body of the fallen manticore on infrared. A dull orange, with the body slowly turning dark. He looked back towards where the hunters were supposed to be. Not even so much as a vague outline. What was going on?
He turned back to the visible light spectrum, and scanned his surroundings. Maybe they'd managed to move away? It seemed unlikely. His time without eyes had sharpened his other senses: he would have heard something. Besides, the infrared vision would have shown some residual heat coming from the clearing.
Either the hunters had camouflage so advanced that they could pass undetected through the entire light spectrum, or…
"They were never there at all," he realized. "It was the Mist."
Part of him was impressed. Another part of him was confused. The biggest part of him was pissed off.
He did not like being played for a fool.
He was going to have a word with a certain goddess. Possibly two goddesses, if his suspicions were correct.
Right after he cleaned up, of course. He had some manticore venom to harvest.
Aw geez. The author's notes are longer than the actual chapter.
So this was Artemis's plan, way back in chapter 4. Why did she do this? Find out in the next chapter.
As for the manticore, this is, in fact, Dr. Thorn. He called himself Xâr, which is "thorn" in Persian (aka Farsi). At least, that's what Google Translate told me. Someone confirm, please?
Also, I think I figured out the reason Dr. Thorn had a French accent. Sort of. Manticores aren't technically part of Greek mythology. They're Persian. So if America had the Greek gods, and they spoke English...what country is just across a small body of water from the British Isles, with which they had gone to war at some point?
I thought I'd make a parallel between Orion and Artemis involving the hunters and the manticore. Because parallelisms make literature good. At least, that's what my English teachers told me.
As always, reviews are appreciated. Thank you for making it this far.