I glared at the little grayish-black wolf in front of me, its yellow eyes were staring at me, and if I was being perfectly honest, it was probably winning our little stare down.
The wolf really hadn't done anything to me, well besides biting my hand, chewing on Riptide, and it had eaten about six of the fish in the little moat thing surrounding my palace. The six it ate also happened to be my favorite, the poor things couldn't even defend against the stupid wold.
I would have gotten rid of it the day I got it, but it was a gift from Artemis, and I didn't want her to kill me for killing her wolf. Although, I still blamed her for Bessie, a fish that looked like a cow, dyeing, it was to bad too, because Bessie was my favorite.
"Percy, don't tell me your still glaring at her." Artemis said as she walked into the clearing I was in. We were on a mission for Lord Zeus to scout out all of Greece and see if we could find anything on Gaia's plans, we had been through the whole southern side now and we still hadn't found anything. Well, we had found the stupid wolf, but it was of absolutely no help. Really, all it had done was slow us down since I had to go back to Olympus, and stop it from eating my fish.
"It's a little she-demon!" I exclaimed, and smirked as it blinked.
"Percy, it's an animal, and it's young. How is it suppose to now that it's doing something wrong?" the way Artemis said that made me feel pretty stupid, but I was relentless in my glare-down with the little devil.
"Because, I told it that it was doing something wrong, duh." I heard Artemis sigh, but didn't bother to look over at her, I was going to show the wolf who was boss. "Plus, it ate Bessie! It deserves to die." I growled, and the wolf barked in defiance, as if it could understand me. The thing was much to stupid to understand me.
"We've already wasted more than enough time, settle your problems with the wolf later, and let's go. Lord Zeus wants us to be back by tomorrow, we may be fast, but if we don't leave now we're not going to make it." Percy glared at the she-demon for a few more second before standing up, and turning to Artemis.
"So, what if we don't find anything?" I asked, and wiped my hands on my toga, which was already dirty from the few times we had run into monsters, I was a God of course and I could easily change my clothing, but I didn't really want to get another toga dirty.
"Then we expand our search, whatever Gaia is planning is bound to be big. She cannot hide it forever." Artemis stared straight ahead, and I could see her jaw clenching and unclenching with anger. Artemis wasn't use to not being able to find her prey, and I really wasn't either, being the God of tracking and all, but I had nothing to focus on, nothing to go by, not even a scent.
"Perhaps, but she doesn't need forever, she just needs enough time to finish whatever she's doing. I'm sure she has a monster army to protect whatever she's doing." I wanted to say more, but stopped as I saw her silver eyes brighten.
"That's it! A monster army..." she trailed off, and looked down at the ground, before swiftly looking up at me. "Is there any large encampments of monsters nearby?" she asked, and I shrugged.
"How would you expect me to know..." I trailed off as I realized what she was talking about, and she rolled her eyes. "Right, right. Just give me a second here." I said, and closed my eyes in concentration.
A mental map appeared, showing me essences of monsters, Gods, and demigods alike. Artemis' silver dot was right next to me, and it seemed to be a little bit bigger than it normally was, but perhaps I was just imagining that. Red dots glittered across the map, monsters of different kinds, some in packs some by themselves, but there was something peculiar about all the red dots.
They were all moving, but that wasn't the peculiar part, they all seemed to be moving towards the same destination. Which, if I had to guess, was the huge dot about six or seven hundred miles away from where Artemis and I were.
For a second I thought the dot was my father, but as I concentrated on that one essence I found it wasn't anything close to my father. My father's essence was blue, representing the sea, and so was this one, but it was almost a sickly shade of blue, and poison green flecks ran through the dot.
I hesitated slightly, before latching onto the essence in hope of figuring out something about it, but as I tasted the power that ran off of whatever it was, I felt my body seize up and my blood run cold. Something about whatever the creature was, was awfully familiar. It sort of felt like the sea, but something about it made me feel weird, and something like fear rose in my stomach.
For a second, I was able to see feel whatever the creature was feeling at the moment, but when whatever it was felt me there I was suddenly blown backwards, both mentally and physically.
"Foolish Godling." a deep voice said in my head, and I opened my eyes and collapsed to the ground, clutching my head as I did so. I groaned quietly, and coiled into a ball to try and redirect the pain, but it didn't work.
"Percy?" I vaguely heard Artemis' voice ask, and I managed a groan in response. "What happened?" I didn't say anything, but I did roll over so I was on my back. It made me feel at least slightly better.
"Water," I moaned, and clenched my teeth. Whatever that presence was had made my throat feel dry, and pain course through my head. It took a few seconds, but I suddenly felt a cold moisture on my head, and my body automatically relaxed.
My breathing was hard, but I felt about ten times better than I did earlier. "Thanks," I gasped, and wiped the water off of my face. As God of Tides I couldn't really control water, but it still made me feel better when I was in and around it. Seawater really did the job though.
"What happened?" Artemis asked, and I slowly opened my eyes so I could look at her. The sun blinded me as soon as I did though, and I immediately shut my eyes once again.
"I don't know how I didn't notice it earlier, but there was this huge essence a few hundred miles away from us, it was evil, but it reminded me of the sea." I told her, and rubbed my eyes as I sat up. "I almost thought it was Lord Poseidon for a second." I slowly opened my eyes again, the back of my head protecting me from the sun so I could open them without going blind. Well, I probably couldn't go blind, but you get what I mean.
"Well, was it?" Artemis asked, and I quickly shook my head. It couldn't have been him, because I was keeping tabs on all the Olympian Gods as we went.
"No, Poseidon's essence is like a deep, ocean blue, mixed with a variety of other colors, but this one was the same blue, with this poisonous green color, and it was evil. So evil, it felt worse than Hades' essence, ten times worse actually." I stared down at my hands, as I recalled the power coming off of whatever that thing was.
"Is it possible that it was Hades?" I felt my teeth clench as Artemis said this, and I quickly shook my head once again.
"No, Hades is a black-ish gray color, and you can't just change the color of your essence, it's physically impossible, sure you can hide it, but you can't change it. Plus, this one was way to powerful to be any God, Olympian or no. It was almost like the Big Three combined." I looked over at Artemis then, her eyes were more of a gold color now, and I got the feeling that she really wasn't happy about this new information.
"Should we go check it out?" she asked, and I thought about it for a second, before nodding.
"Yeah, but the she-demon can't come with us, it's much to dangerous." I looked down at the silver wolf, which had cuddle into my leg at some point, and couldn't help but smile slightly. When it wasn't being a demon it was rather cute.
"Of course, give her to me, and I shall bring her to my palace." Artemis commanded, and held her hands out for the little wolf that she had given to me as a present.
"Yeah, at least she can't eat any more fish at your palace." I said, and picked her up by the scruff of her neck, resulting in a low growl from the wolf, but otherwise it didn't object. Artemis grabbed the wolf from my hands, and as I watched, it relaxed and fell asleep again, and was that a purr I heard?
"Oh, the wonders of being the Goddess of the Wilderness." I said sarcastically, and rolled my eyes as the wolf nuzzled into Artemis' neck.
"Don't be jealous, Percy." Artemis shot back with a smirk, and I glared. I wasn't jealous, I was just stating a fact.
"I'm not jealous!" I exclaimed, but continued glaring at the silver ball of fur. Artemis laughed, and I froze as I barely ever heard the beautiful sound, I wasn't really interested in Artemis in a romantic way seeing as she was my best friend, but I still loved to hear her laugh.
"I'll be back." she said, before releasing her Godly form, and disappearing in a silver light. I looked down at the ground as she disappeared, and set my hand on it softly. I hadn't mentioned this to Artemis, but I could feel slight vibrations running through the Earth. I had noticed it was in somewhat of a pattern, like rumble, rumble,rumble, stop, then rumble, rumble, stop. If I didn't know any better I would say Gaia was laughing, but I did know better, and even though I didn't know exactly what it was, I figured that Gaia was down there...working on something.
I frowned, and was about to lean down and place my ear on the ground to see if there really was a pattern, but then I remembered what had happened two weeks earlier.
The mud, sinking, and finally Gaia talking to me...
I didn't want that to happen again, especially since I was still digging dirt out of my ears. Actually, just the day before I had picked some out, and there was worms in it. I know, gross right?
I forced my thoughts onto more pressing matters, such as the powerful presence that was able to kick me out of its head or whatever it was that I grabbed onto when I latched onto someone's essence. I had done the very same thing to a few of the other minor Gods, Hades, I had even done it to a few of the Olympians. None of them had noticed, well, I did it to Ares, and Zeus knows that he isn't exactly the brightest God in the Pantheon.
Anyways, I knew for a fact that, that thing, whatever it was, hadn't been there just a few hours ago. In fact, none of the other monsters had been there either. Sure, there had been a few here and there, but I was pretty sure that there wasn't any more than maybe six or seven.
I had never seen a pack of monsters that had more than ten or eleven members, and if my theory was correct, and they were all moving towards one main spot then that would be hundreds of monsters together. My eyes widened as I realized what was going on.
They were creating an army, and whatever that thing with the massive amount of power was, was going to lead it...
I was brought out of my thoughts by a bright flash of light, and Artemis appearing. I stood up as she appeared, and ran a hand through my hair.
"I think they're creating an army." I said, and Artemis stared at me with incredulous gold eyes, as if what I had just said was obvious.
"Percy, you realize that we already figured that out, right? We're going into a war, of course they're going to create an army, they have to have someway to distract the demigods." I stared at her as she said this, slowly beginning to feel like I had been left out of the loop.
"What? Then what the Hades are we searching for?" I asked, and Artemis rolled her eyes exasperatedly.
"Sometimes I really wonder how you can be a God of the Hunt." she ran a hand through her auburn hair in an annoyed way, and shook her head. "We're searching for whatever Gaia is going to send to fight us, you know, the Twelve Olympian Gods?" once again, I felt like I was left out.
"Hey, I'm just as powerful as any of you, 'Mighty Olympians'." I complained, and above me thunder boomed, as if the Olympians weren't happy that I would dare compare them to a minor god.
"Are you? Are you really?" she asked in such a way that I hesitated.
"Okay, well, maybe I'm not that powerful, but for a minor god I'm pretty high up on the power scale." I amended, and Artemis shrugged in consent.
"Perhaps, but we must get going, time is not on our side." she said, and I nodded as I felt the familiar sensations running through my legs that told me I needed to get hunting.
"Alright, follow me, Milady." I said, and took of running towards the northeastern corner of Greece.
It took us a little over six hours to reach the place where I had felt whatever it was, which was fine seeing as we didn't have to search the rest of Greece anymore. Now, we may have been Gods, Hunting Gods to be exact, which when it came to stuff that involved hunting we had a lot of energy, but we still had to stop a few miles before the actual destination so we could get a little bit of rest.
I took a canteen-type thing off of my belt, and took a swig of nectar before tossing it to Artemis, who also had a small drink.
"So, what do you think it is?" I asked as I took a rather large chunk of ambrosia from the tin she had handed me.
"I don't know, but guessing by the scent, and the monsters we have faced, it's powerful." she said as she popped her own square of ambrosia into her mouth. I was tempted to say that I already knew that, but decided against it seeing as it would do us no good to fight at that point.
"Yeah," I said, and wiped my hands on my toga. "You ready?" I asked, and looked up at her.
"Yes, let us go." she said, and jumped into the trees once again. She lead the way, she had caught the scent of whatever it was, and now we were more worried about what it was, rather than how long it took us to get there.
Our footsteps were light and quiet, just as they always were, but I still felt nervous as we got closer and closer. I knew something was going to happen, I just didn't know what, and judging by the way Artemis' steps got slower and quieter as we got closer, she did too.
I could hear the sounds of monsters up ahead, the hisses, roars, and growls, which only increased my nervousness. I didn't have to use my sense of tracking to know that the army was huge, and I felt my hands get sweaty as I dropped onto the ground.
Artemis would be staying in the trees, moving through them so she could get a better view, but I was stuck on the ground, giving me the disadvantage. Even with my enhanced senses I wouldn't be able to catch everything, and if somebody just spotted me out of the blue, well, let's just say I would be in some deep Pegasi poo.
My breathing got shallow as I ducked down behind a bush, and my eyes were immediately drawn to a figure sitting above everything else.
He, because it was obviously a guy, was about thirty feet tall, with legs that resembled some kind of dragon, perhaps a Komodo. From the waist up he had blue-green armor with a breastplate shaped with the faces of monsters. He had a human face with wild green hair that had basilisks hanging from it.
He smelled of the sea, but it was more like the deep, polluted part of the sea, and for some reason he scared me. In his right hand he held a trident that glowed with a sickly green color, and in his left hand he held a net, I didn't know what he could do with that, but I figured it was dangerous.
He was smiling, showing off crooked yellow teeth, and I swear that for a second his eyes settled right on my position.
"Monsters!" he yelled in a deep, bass-like voice, that seemed somewhat reminiscent of my very own father. "The time has come to start our march to the mighty, Mount Olympus!" he rumbled, and his monster army roared with approval. "Mother Gaia wants revenge, and revenge is what we shall give her, is it not?" they cheered again, banging their weapons on the ground, and roaring loudly.
"But first," he said, and I swear his eyes settled on my once again. "Come on out, Sea Spawn." I felt my eyes widen for a second, how had he known I was here? I hesitated for a second, if I began running now, or changed into my Godly form I could escape, but I couldn't just leave Artemis, could I?
"We have special barriers, Son of Poseidon. You can't flash away." so that plan was out, but I could still run. "Come, Poseidon's son, and prove that the mighty sea God does not have cowardice in his genes."
I slowly stepped out, hoping that Artemis would at least leave, but as I checked my mental map I saw she wasn't, which just made me even more determined not to back down.
"Who are you?" I asked as I walked through the aisle the monsters had made for me.
"Me? I am the mighty Polybotes, born to destroy the second son of Kronos, first Gigantes of Gaia. I, little Godling, am your destroyer."
Okay, the ending was a little cliché, but I wanted to add more, and that was all I could think of.
You'll notice that this chapter is a little bit longer, that's because this story is starting to flow easier for me, I usually right 5k a chapter, which this story has not lived up to.
Anyways, you guys had some questions, so here's the answers...
First, the war will be happening pretty much right away, but it'll be really spaced out, like one or two Giants attacking at a time. Since I want to focus on one part of the war each time.
And second, Artemis might not fall in love with Orion, but if she does, she won't know that he raped somebody. This might change up their myth slightly, but it won't be a lot, and I'll try to keep it as original as possible.
And to Avardsin, Dude! Stop giving me ideas, haha jk, every time I read your two reviews a whole buncha ideas pop into my head, and I completely change the story cuz the ideas I get are like ten times better then the original. So feel proud. Oh, and you reminded me that I needed a reason for Gaia to want Percy, it's nothing romantic, but all I've come up with is because she's foreseen how big of a part he'll play in the war. And Percy isn't going to leave with Gaia, but it'll be something along the lines of that.
Anyways, thank you for your reviews, they make me happy. All I have to do is look at them, and I get inspiration, so keep reviewing and I'll keep updating.
-The Produca