The Everyday Life of Artemis
I hate it when my girls fight. I also hate my brother, and monsters that I can't kill. I could go on all day about stuff I hate, but you would get seriously bored.
My hunters do okay most of the time, except for when a boy comes along or if a disagreement occurs. Having a bunch of virgins traveling in one group is surprisingly difficult. They always find something to disagree on. I give them treats; catch them up-to-date with the mortals a lot, but things seem to never go right! When I brought them to a baseball game, Thalia and Phoebe got into an argument over who was better: The Giants or the Red Sox. When I took them to a Lakers game, Thalia's favorite team, an unfair foul was called on the Lakers and Thalia actually got onto the court and slapped the referee! It took a lot of mist manipulation to get her out of that one. I even turned one police officer into a jackalope. Good times, good times.
My brother is just about as annoying as a boy can get. Every now and then he comes to "check up on me", which is code for him checking out my hunters. The first time, Thalia blushed when he came around. I gave her a stern talking to, reminded her that she was a virgin, and that cured her. Now she is just as disgusted by boys as the rest of my hunters are. Apollo always calls me his little sister, which annoys the Hades out of me more than anything else. Just because I look thirteen doesn't mean I'm younger. Actually, if any of you know the story, we are twins, I was born first and as a newborn I helped my mother deliver my brother! I usually want to tell him that but I don't think it's best to mention that in front of my girls.
The third and final things that I hate most are monsters that you just can't seem to kill. I mean, it's not that I'm complaining about actually having a challenge because these laistrygonians and hellhounds are just getting old after a couple thousand years, but come on! We've been searching for this thing for weeks! It's the chimera, pretty hard to kill with just arrows. Hunting it day after day is just nerve-racking! The serpent tail is poison, the goat body is armored, and, of course, the lion head just has to breath fire. To top it all of, this thing's got moves. It can move fifteen feet per second! Let's see you do that.
Now that I'm done rambling to you about the things that I hate I had better get a move on.
I sighed and got ready for the hunt. I snapped my fingers and my bag started packing on it's own, with my tent going in first and the rest of my possessions on top. When it was nothing but a backpack that weighed about three pounds, I slung it over my shoulder and began walking around the camp. First I stopped in Thalia's tent. She was rocking out on Guitar Hero 3 (Yes, my tents have electricity), playing The devil went down to Georgia and whooping some virtual boy's butt. Every now and then her silver circlet in her hair, the mark of the hunters leader, would threaten to tip off. She was bobbing her head as if in tuned to the music. I rolled my eyes and smiled, thinking about how Apollo would have done the same thing.
As soon as the song was over, I cleared my throat to get her attention. She turned to me and bowed. "Hello, Lady Artemis."
"Good morning, Thalia," I answered. "Start packing up the tent, we're going after the chimera, again."
Thalia groaned and looked around the room. Since she was not a god, she would have to pack up herself. I looked around the horribly dirty room. Scattered on the floor was a lot of her anime books. It turns out that Thalia is a freak for Death Note, always watching it on her TV and reading the books and all of that. She even started her own Death Note, starting with Kronos, then Luke, then Phoebe, and a lot more people that she has problems with. She also had a bunch of video games, dirty clothes, and some stuff I am not comfortable mentioning on the floor. I shuddered and walked out of the tent.
After visiting the rest of the tents and spread the news that we would be leaving, Thalia came up to me, struggling with her pack, and handed me a piece of paper. "Will you put this in Hermes overnight express for dad?" she asked
I nodded. I didn't send letters to our dad often, but I guess Thalia had something important to say to him. I went to the other side of the camp, where none of the girls could disturb me, and called for my half-brother, Hermes.
Hermes came down on his flying shoes and said, "Hey, Artemis! I haven't seen you since the solstice. How you been?"
"Oh, fine. A chimera's getting kind of annoying, but I can handle it."
"That's good to hear," said a voice from Hermes' pocket. It was Martha.
"Rats are delicious," said another voice. George was almost as annoying as Apollo. Just like any other boy.
Hermes pulled out his cell phone and glared at the snakes. "I thought I put you on vibrate," said Hermes.
"George hacked the system and took us off vibrate," said Martha. George shot a glare at Martha, which must have been harder than it looked considering they were tied together.
Hermes flicked George in the head and put the phone in his pocket. Then he turned to me. "What can I do for ya, sis?"
I handed Hermes the letter and said, "Message for dad."
Hermes nodded, but didn't leave. "That'll be three drachmas," he said to me.
"Family discount?" I asked hopefully. Hermes thought it over. Since I was in a little girl's body, I figured that I might try the "cute look". I stuck my lower lip and got my eyes to shine as best I could.
Hermes tried to look away, but couldn't. He struggled in the air. "No, not that again!" he said.
"Oh, just give her the discount!" came Martha's muffled voice.
Hermes sighed and said, "Fine!" He turned around and flew away.
I smiled, very pleased with myself, and went back to camp. It was about noon, so I figured that we should leave.
When I got to the tents, I called for all of the girls to come out. The seven of them got in a line up like an army. It started with Thalia, then Phoebe, Claire, Minerva, Holly, Mandy, and at the end was the newest recruit, a seven-year-old named Miranda who was afraid of catching cooties. I gave the girls a little pep talk, handed out some sandwiches for lunch, and then we got a move on.
As we walked, I told Phoebe to think up some plans on how to attack this monster. She pulled out a notepad and an old, withered pencil. Thalia eyed the pencil suspiciously. "Does that have lead in it?" she asked suspiciously.
Phoebe looked towards Thalia. "Yes," she said cautiously.
Thalia raised an eyebrow. "You do know that they stopped using actual lead in pencils, like, two years ago to prevent lead poisoning, right?"
Phoebe shrugged and looked back down. I walked some more, keeping a sharp eye out for the beast.
After half an hour of hiking, there was loud growl and a serpent came out of the trees and snapped at us. We all had our bows out in ten seconds flat. The serpent looked around for the weakest link, and then spotted Miranda. He lunged for her, opening his large mouth wide. Instead of crying and running away like a regular seven-year-old would do, Miranda shot her arrow straight into the things mouth. It stopped mid-attack and just hovered there in front of us, frozen in disbelief. Thalia and Phoebe exchanged confused looks. After about ten seconds of awkward silence, the girls started shooting a volley of arrows. I looked to my left and realized that there was the head of a lion watching the fight. The chimera's tail hit the ground and disintegrated into dust.
This probably really ticked off the chimera, because the lion head roared and jumped at us, revealing its goat body. I signaled my hunters to fire at it, but their arrows only bounced off of him. He landed and smirked at us, then started roaring. "Phoebe? Thalia? Anyone got a plan?"
That was when Thalia jumped in. She had that bright look in her eyes that told you she had an evil plan. "Phoebe," she shouted over the roar, "give me your pencil."
"What are you going to do, write a will?" asked Phoebe sarcastically as the lion closed his mouth.
"Just hand it over!" yelled Thalia, as the chimera got ready to charge. Phoebe tossed Thalia pencil. Then Thalia notched it onto her bow.
"What are you doing?" I asked, as the monster came at us barfing up fire.
"Something Percy taught me," replied Thalia. She let the string go and the pencil flew right into the fire. The wooden pencil part caught on fire, but the lead on the inside just melted and passed into the chimera's stomach. It smiled at us as if to say, "Oh, that was your plan?" but then his face got a strange look. It began to whimper and it threw itself against the dirt. It had been poisoned by the lead in the pencil. It kicked a few more times, but then it got very still and just laid on the ground.
"It's dead?" asked Minerva.
Holly nodded. She turned to me and said, "Lady Artemis, we should skin the beast before it disintegrates. These bigger monsters may take longer, but our time is still limited.
I nodded in agreement. "Bring out your knives, girls, we have some dirty work to do."
An hour later we were making our way to the nearest clearing proudly carrying a bloody pelt. We had decided not to take the meat in fear that we would get poisoned, but the pelt could become helpful when the winter struck. Even though it was early, we started a campfire to celebrate our victory. I brought out some hotdogs on sticks and handed them to each of the girls. As we drank our nectar, we toasted to Thalia and decided that the pelt should go to her.
"Great," she said, "another thing to clean up."
I decided that we would all take the night off from hunting and have sort of a party. We all went to Thalia's tent and had a guitar hero match, roasted some marshmallows, and just sat back and had at least one normal night. I called lights out around midnight. Tomorrow we would be going after the Loch Ness Monster.