Artemis POV:
I was just getting out of bed when I heard a knock on my door. Probably another one of those disgusting, drooling suitors that come to my door every morning. I groaned, got up and changed into my hunting clothes, before stalking to the front door and looking out the peephole. The man I saw standing there surprised me. Perseus was outside the palace with a little girl in his arms.
I immediately swung the door wide open. Perseus looked a little nervous, no doubt thinking that I would kill him for showing up at my palace without notice.
"Hello, Artemis, this is my little sister Ashley. I saved her from her abusive uncle and brought her to my home to care for her. Ashley, say high to Artemis," He coaxed. The girl he had called Ashley
"Hello, Artemis. Percy said that you are a very nice person. He also said that you are not a man," She said giggling lightly. I raised her eyebrow at Perseus and he blushed a deep red.
"Hello Ashley, my name is Artemis and I am indeed not a man,"I said. He put Ashley on the ground and I held out my hand for her. She take my outstretched hand, I lead her into the house.
Before I could make it very far, Perseus called out,"I'm going to need to leave right now. I have to attend some business that needs to be taken care of. Would you please take care of her for a few hours while I am gone?" I nodded. How hard can it be to take care of one little girl. I had 20 before my hunters died. I suddenly remembered my fallen hunters and grew sad at the thought. On the outside, it may seem like I have fully recovered, but it still hurt me every time I thought about them.
I shook of the thoughts and continued to lead Ashley into the kitchen. We continued walking down an adjoining hallway and into my training room. I planned to teach her archery as it was a fundamental skill if you are little girl like Ashley.
"Ok Ashley, do you know what a bow is?" I asked.
"She nodded," Yeah. Percy has one that he carries around with him sometimes. He told me that you gave it to him after you finished your training with him."
I pulled out a small practice bow from one of the closets and asked," Try this and tell me if it's too hard or too easy to draw back." She tested it before grinning and giving a thumbs up.
"I guess that means it's alright. Ok, first I'm going to teach you the correct for to draw the string back," I said," Watch me." I demonstrated pulling the string back without the arrow. When I gestured for her to copy me, I was stunned at how perfectly she executed the drawback.
"Wow, that's excellent. You're much better than your brother was when he started learning." She beamed at the complement, showing her perfect white teeth.
"Now we're going to work on actually shooting the arrow." Artemis proceeded to teach Ashley how to shoot the arrow and when it was time that she released, Artemis stepped back. She had already learned from experience, that when you are teaching a child of Poseidon archery, it's best to stand as far back as possible. It's not a matter of will it fly towards you, it's a matter of will you have enough time to dodge it before it pierces your jugular. You can imagine my surprise when the arrow didn't fly in my direction, but towards the target.
I watched it sail and it was almost as if it was in slow motion. The arrow flew straight on her first shot and landed right in the center of the bulls-eye. I gaped in awe at how good this little girl was. Hmmm... It might have been luck. I have never known a single child of Poseidon that was able to even fire the arrow straight on their first shot.
"That was amazing! But can you do it again?" I challenged. She looked at me with determination in her eyes and nocked another arrow onto the string. I stepped back again just to be safe, but it turned out I didn't need it. The arrow flew true again and struck the center of the target yet again. This time my eyes almost bugged out of my head. This girl was so great at archery. The first two shots of her life and she had already hit two bulls-eyes.
I had her train more and more, again and again she hit the bulls-eye. Not a single one strayed from the center. By the time we were finished, I would end up with one hundred split arrows littered on the ground beneath the target.
Suddenly, while I was instructing her on how to shoot while moving, I heard a shout in the back of my brain. Help, Artemis! I could tell that it was Percy and he was in distress.
"Ashley, I'm going to need step out for a moment. Can you just wait here for maybe ten minutes?" She relented and sat down on the floor against the wall of the training room, waiting patiently.
I quickly flashed to Perseus' location and paled at what I saw.
Percy POV:
I barely managed to unsheath my sword and bring it up to block, before the blade of the man's sword slammed into mine. I retaliated and stabbed at his stomach, catching him off guard. We fought at an even match, before I managed to find an opening in this defense. I quickly took advantage of it an slammed his blade out of his hands. I held Frostbite beneath his chin, drawing a thin line of blood.
"Who are you!" I demanded," Why have you come to kill me?!"
"You should know who I am," he said, pulling his hood of his head. I gasped in shock at who I saw under.
"Nico?" I asked in disbelief,"What are you doing?"
He just smirked and used the opportunity to catch me off guard. A skeletal hand rose out of the dirt and wrapped itself around my leg. I tried to yank it free, but more and more started to emerge from the ground, making it impossible to fight them off. Before long, I was trapped by ten different sets of hands, being held down to the ground on my back.
Nico slowly got up and grabbed his sword.
"Why are you doing this Nico? I thought we were friends?"
"We were, before Master came to me with an offer that I just couldn't refuse. Also, You were the one that got my sister killed. If it wasn't for you, Bianca would still be alive right next to me. My name is Nico di Angelo. You killed my sister. Prepare to die. (Reference to 'The Princess Bride')"
"Who is this master of yours?"
"I will now give you any information. It will not matter anyways, you will be dead before you can even process it."
I desperately tried to fight back and find some way to free myself, but to no avail. Suddenly, I had an idea. Help, Artemis! I prayed to my goddess friend. I hope she heard me, otherwise, I'm sushi. Nico sneered at my feeble attempts to escape and raised his sword to deliver the final blow that would send me to his father's realm.
Just before his sword touched my exposed neck, a bright flash erupted behind me, blinding Nico and making him stagger back, losing his grip on his sword. Artemis blasted a bolt of silver energy at him, but he seemed to shimmer out of existence, letting the bolt pass right through him.
"You are far too late, Perseus. You will not be able to stop Master if you can't even defeat me. I will retreat for now, but this is definitely not the last time you will be seeing me." he laughed hysterically as he sunk into the ground along with his sword, before the ground covered up with no trace that there had been anything there in the first place.
I stumbled up and made my way to my sword, picking it up and putting back in its rightful spot.
"Perseus! How do you manage to find so much trouble? And wasn't that Nico? Why would Nico be attacking you all talking about a so called 'master'?" she demanded.
"I will tell you after we get back. Could we go back to your palace? I think we should go somewhere that is a little less prone to eaves droppers."
She narrowed her eyes, but nodded and grabbed my shoulder, flashing me to her palace. I had forgotten how terrible flashing was. After I recovered from the travel, she led me into some sort of training room where I saw Ashley sitting by the wall. The moment she saw me, her face lit up and she ran over to me with speeds I didn't know was even possible for an 8 year old. She hugged me with vigor before letting me go and looking up at me questioningly.
"Why were you gone for so long, Big Brother?" she asked.
"I was just going to visit my mother. I hadn't seen her for more than two years and it was about time that I go to her apartment."
She accepted the answer with a nod, before Artemis rounded on me and asked me the same question she had before we flashed.
"I was talking with my mom for a while before I had to leave and pick up Ashley. Before I came to your palace, I went to my cabin to put away my gear. Nico suddenly appeared on my porch and said something about his master. He started attacking me and I barely managed to defend myself. I was able to disarm him, but he held me down with his skeletons. He was about to kill me before you showed up and then from there you know what happened," I explained," I still don't know why Nico of all people would betray me and Olympus. He was such an innocent boy, but now he seems corrupted. I'm not sure who or what could have caused it."
"Typical male doing anything he can just to gain a little bit of power," she said, then noticing my slightly hurt look she said," I'm sorry. You're the only male that is different from the rest. I know that you wouldn't do that, Perseus."
I nodded gratefully at her correction and thought about who this master of Nico's could be. I still couldn't believe that he would do something like this. I mean, he was like the little brother that I never had. Why would he just suddenly turn on me like this?
"I think you're going to going to need somewhere safe to stay for the night. You're cabin is obviously not the most hidden place anymore," she said.
I thought about it, realizing that she made a good point. Where could I stay that nobody would dare attack. Oh, I knew just the place.
"Would it be possible if Ashley and I could stay here? I mean if you don't want us then I could always ask Poseidon, but I just feel a little more safe here."
I was nervous for her answer. I had just asked the man hating goddess if she would be ok with me sleeping in her palace. Probably not the best idea, but hey, when do I ever have good ideas. Geez, Percy. That type of thinking will get you killed one of these days. It's already endangered you more than once.
"That would be fine with me. As long as you stay on the other side of the palace and don't step foot anywhere near my side of the palace. You can have one of my guest bedrooms down that hall," she said, pointing to a long hallway on the other side of the training room.
"Thank you, Artemis. Ashley, you can stay with Artemis of with me," I said.
"I want to stay with you Percy. When I'm with you, my nightmares go away and I'm able to sleep well," she decided.
I nodded and walked down the hall that Artemis had indicated, pushing into one the rooms that had the door unlocked. It was simple, with a king sized bed pushed into the corner and a closet on the other side. There was a bathroom that connected to the bedroom with a shower and a bathtub.
"I'm going to take a shower ok? You can go wait with, Artemis until I'm done."
She nodded and scampered off towards the other side of the palace in search of Artemis. I stripped and hopped into the shower before turning the water up to the highest heat. I was a son of Poseidon so the heat didn't bother me as much as it felt relaxing. When I was done, I wrapped one of the towels around my waste and realized that I hadn't brought an extra pair of clothes to change out of. I mind-messaged my father and asked him for some extra clothes for the night.
With a poof a neat stack of sleeping pajamas appeared on my bed in a cloud of smoke. I silently thanked my dad before dropping the towel and pulling on the underwear and pants. Before I could put on the shirt, the door suddenly opened to reveal Artemis with a pile of clothes in her arms. She almost dropped them when she saw me standing there without a shirt. Her cheeks turned flushed and she looked like she was having a hard time breathing.
"I-I'll just l-leave the c-clothes right here," she stuttered, before rushing out of the room, slamming the door behind her. My cheeks were flaming and they felt almost hot to the touch. I knew it was completely red from embarrassment. Well that was unexpected. Oh gods, she'll probably kill me. I tried to force those thoughts out of my head and put my shirt on.
Ashley came barging through the door in an adorable pajama outfit, ready for bed.
"Artemis helped get me ready for bed. She left to give you some pajamas to change into, but when she came back, her face was as red as a tomato. Do you know that that was about?"
"N-no! I mean, no I don't. I wonder why her cheeks were so red?" I quickly covered up. She didn't notice and snuggled into the covers before pulling me onto the bed with her. I switched off the lights and cuddled up to my little sister for the second time.
That night, I fell asleep, still red and flushed from the incident.
(End of Chapter 10)
Draconic King: If you mean the relationship between Percy and Ashley then I agree with you. I'm trying to make them as close as possible and have a really strong brother sister bond.
Axccel: 1. I know right xD! Artemis is too prideful for her own good. Maybe Percy beating her into the ground was a good lesson for her!
2. Thanks! Tell me if you want me to tone the speed down a little or maybe even pick up the pace. I'm glad you're enjoying the story and thanks for the review, favorite, and follow!
A.N: It's getting a little hard to manage posting a chapter a day so I might update a little less from now on. I'm going to try for a chapter a day, but there are no guarantees. Anyways, for those of you who wanted some more pertemis action, there's a little for you. I know it's going a long a little slowly, but I'm going to try to bring their relationship into it a little more.
P.S: Sorry if there are some grammatical errors throughout the story. Some times I don't catch a lot of them as I am not the best at editing my writing.