Regrets and First blood

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HoO

Artemis POV

Before I came to the council meeting I told the Hunters to go to camp half blood as I do not know how long the meeting will take. And I would rather not leave my hunters open for an attack. At first they were reluctant, they still hated being at that, not that I can blame them, but it was no time to argue. What was worse was that not even Thalia would be left as she is also part of the meeting. I sighed then flashed to the council room..

When I got to the council room I saw father looking around the room wistfully. He did not hear me coming in behind him. "What's the matter father?" I asked and he turned in a startle.

"Ah…Artemis, I did not notice your presence." He said.

"Sorry about that," I said, "I did not intend to startle you, but why is it that you look sad?"

He sighed and went over to sit down. "I am not sad daughter," he said. "I am merely admiring this city. It my not be as Opulent as Olympia, but the truth is, I think it's simplicity make this city desirable to live in. Perhaps we over designed Olympus a bit, or perhaps Olympus is more sacred. I don't know"

He said it with much present in his eyes. That it made me sad to see the proud and often arrogant king of the god being reduced to this. A sad old man who looks like he is tired of life.

"I am tired Artemis," he said, "tired of all the wars over who should be in power. The Olysians do it right the king and queen have no special privileges. And the council is only a vice for the opinion of their respective domain. But I am still tire of it all."

I felt tears well in my eyes. "I know father." I said "There is always some lunatic who wants all the power."

He sighed. "I should have let fate take its course and swallowed Métis"

"Don't say that father" I said to him. "What if the son you were going to have Métis was going to be worse than Kronos? What were we to do then?"

"Those are maybes Artemis" he said "What if he lead Olympus into another golden age?"

I sighed knowing that he was right about that. I was doing is speculating.

"You know child that mortals with all of their faulting have a far superior sense of family than we do or at least did" he said. "Take you Uncles and me for instance. Hades hates my guts, Poseidon neither like nor dislikes me and I was suspicious of the both which caused me to hate their children. Hades was and still is bitter, because of what I did to him, so he tends to take it out on my kids. Poseidon is the best of the three of us, not that he is a saint. He would rather confront us directly rather than allow his family to suffer in his stead."

I nodded. Uncle Poseidon may be as vicious as Hades and Father at times, but he would rather kill those who have offended him and not curse them to a life of misery like the other gods to myself included. "Yes, I agree Poseidon my be no saint, but he doesn't like cursing people" I said.

As I was talking to father Dionysus flashed in looking terrified. "The camps are being attacked by a massive army of monsters" Dionysus said. "We need help"

I summoned my symbol of power and father did the same. "Council!" I shouted and moments later the entire council was here. " The camps are being attacked."

Athena came to me. "Not just the camps. The mortals are also being attacked and I fear it is a ploy to draw us out" she said, "but we can't sit by and do nothing."

"Delian and I cannot join come to their aid" Percy said grimly. "I fear that it us they want to draw out and I they get the twins I fear what we might do to save them, so it is better to protect them and prevent total destruction of everything"

I nodded knowing that Percy would go to any length for those she loves and Apollo would follow anywhere.

"I think it is a wise choice" Ananke said. "Use your true power if you have to"

I didn't not know what she was talking about, but Percy nodded unenthusiastically at her. "Apollo protect your family." I said and he nodded. "We must go"

I flashed myself to camp half-blood and the level of destruction I was seeing was mind numbing. Half of the trees were burn or still burning. The cabins had been destroyed, half of the campers had been slain, my Hunter were not faring any better.

There were a two thousand monsters, consisting of Five hundred hell hounds, a thousand Dracaenae, fifty Drakons, two fifty empousa and two hundred Cyclopes. I knew that long ranged attacks would not stem the tides, so I summon my hunting knives and charged at the monster at full speed and I was surprised that little training I did was truly paying off I was five times faster than I was when I had started. So this was what Percy was talking about. I decided to fight the Cyclopes first. I lunged at a Cyclops that was about to strike down one of my Hunter from behind. As he was about to swing his massive club I leapt and stabbed him in the skull and he turned to dust. I then decided to summon animals of the wild to help with fight and went over resume that fight.

We have been fighting for two hours now and there were only a hundred campers alive and I knew that they would last any longer as most of them were badly injured. Suddenly I saw all of the remaining camper being flashed away. "Apollo we need help" I prayed to my brother and I few seconds later was a bright flash and I was Percy and she looked angrier than I had ever seen her. "Percy are the kids safe" I asked and she nodded and soon after that she disappeared and a second later there was a cloud of dust and she came out of it and flashed out. I was beyond shocked. She had managed to kill all the monsters in a second. While I have been fighting for three hours. Sure none of the monsters could touch me, but I was far from winning. I flashed myself to Olysia and I saw Percy and Apollo hold their kids looking concerned.

"This is only the beginning you know." Apollo said to Percy and she nodded. "The war has begun and now the mortals know of our existence again."

"This was a small scale attack" she said. "I fear that there size of their army my number in the millions. If that is the case, we need to train harder and we will have to train them as soon as they are strong enough. They should be able to be able to defend themselves if we are not with them"

"That bad?" I asked and the both turned to look at me and they nodded.

"Hope I am overestimating they numbers rather than underestimating them" Percy said. "There is thin line between success and failure for both sides."

The council flashed in and all of the older council members looked the same as they left, while Athena looked like she was some crazy professor who stayed up all night conducting experiments and only just realised that it was morning and had to go to work and only just managed to arrive.

"How is the other camp?" I asked and Athena wore a grim expression

"There is not much left of Camp Jupiter." She said "Only about a hundred and fifty campers are left. The building have all been completely destroyed. I also went to Manhattan and it did not take as much damage structurally, but the death toll was worse half of the people lie dead or injured. The bulk of the attack was on Manhattan, but we managed to destroy all of them."

I looked over at Percy and she smiled to indicate that her mortal parents are safe and on the city. "What is a plan of attack?" I asked

"We have to destroy Tartarus as soon as possible" Athena spoke up. "Ananke has informed me that every monster in Tartarus is bound to it. Tartarus is destroy then so would they"

"It a very risky plan, but we may not have a better option" Hestia said and everyone looked at her. "I do not condone violence, but this threat must be stopped and I am not like iris. She is a coward who hides behind that hippie nonsense. I will fight if I have to. I will not stand by while people die and expect to celebrate with those who were willing to risk themselves."

"Now we need a way to destroy him" said Erebos. Almost looking forward to it.

I nodded at in agreement and so did the rest of the council.

"Hermes call the Olympians, not just the council all of those who have taken the oath of loyalty and new gods" said Percy. "They will be need in the preparations"

And after Hermes was given his order he flashed out and I sat wondering "what have we go ourselves into?"

Please read and review and next Chapter will be Athena's POV on the war at Camp Jupiter and Manhattan. I will update Tomorrow or Saturday