Disclaimer: You want me to write a disclaimer? Fine; I guess I don't own Percy Jackson (sulks in a corner).
Chapter 4: The Golden deer?
"Yes girls, that's right. Perseus Jackson will stay with the Hunt for some time in the future, until my father is convinced of his sincerity." This announcement was met with a stunned silence, except for a squeal of "Percy!" from one of the youngest hunters, Christy, who rushed up to greet him. Percy smiled and hugged her, "Hey, you are looking good. Have you been practicing fighting, like I told you?"
"Yes Percy. I am the going to be the bestest best hunter when I grow up." Artemis remembered that this girl had joined the Hunt only about a year ago, and she was also saved by the mystery man; who was Percy, she corrected herself. Due to her young age, she was not a full part of the Hunt yet, but would truly be a very good Hunter when she grew up.
"Hey, that's not right." Shouted one of the members. "You told us that you don't know who rescued you; how do you know this male?"
"I said I didn't knew his name; I knew him, and now I know his name too." Christy fired back.
Before the argument proceeded further, Artemis cleared her throat, "Alright girls, you can save your questions for a later time. Now go, set up camp." Turning to Percy, she ordered, "And you; come with me."
"Where will we be going?"
She smirked, "To feed the Hunt's wolves. You can't expect that you will stay with us without contributing anything, can you?"
As Percy walked towards the designated place, he was aware of the Hunt's eyes on him. He had never felt quite so awkward and out of place. He could only imagine what kind of revenge was going through their minds. Now, where was Thalia when you needed her? Oh yes, she was out measuring a safe perimeter. Great.
His train of thought was broken by a sharp whistle. That was the cue for the wolves to come out, and they did; in huge numbers. They stood close by, watching the new member to their pack with calculating eyes.
"Who are you?" Percy could suddenly hear a voice, strong yet firm, addressing him. It was the alpha of the pack. Percy grinned; having empathic powers, strong enough to communicate with animals might just be very cool.
"My name is Percy Jackson. I am a member of the Hunt now."
"You lie. You don't smell like a Hunter."
"True. But I am a Hunter at heart, just like you all. I will protect them to the best of my ability, and will not let them come to harm if I can stop it."
The leader stiffened, and slightly nodded his head towards his pack. They started to move towards Percy and encircled him. Then they started to sniff him one by one. After all of them seemed satisfied, the alpha asked, "Very well. We sense the truth in your words. Can you prove your claim as a huntsman?"
"What will I do?"
"Look behind you. There is a palm tree there. The Hunters practice archery on it. Can you hit it from this distance, stranger?"
Percy nodded and strung his bow. His movements were a blur as he shot one arrow after one. After he finished, there was a neat pattern there, and his last two arrows had split the previous ones.
The wolves stared at him. Nobody spoke for a few moments. Suddenly, a cub asked, "Can you bring me a rabbit? I have not eaten it for so long." Now, from his puppy dog eyes, you could understand that truly dogs were a close relative of the wolves.
Percy grinned, "Why not..."
Artemis was watching this whole scene with amazement. This wasn't supposed to happen. The wolves were supposed to intimidate him, not chubby up with him. Artemis was slightly jealous of the way he seemed to understand the wolves' thoughts; even she couldn't do that, even if she was their mistress. Quite a bit annoyed, she set out, leaving him alone with the wolves. Time to look at the Camp site.
Just then she saw it; an animal with antlers like branches, with a gilded skin. There were golden spots on its body, with a smooth texture. It looked like a child of nature, with its ethereal beauty. It was a golden deer!
The prey sensed its predator, and rushed off, leaving Artemis to chase it...
"Milady, where are you going?" shouted the returning Hunters who were missing earlier, Thalia among them. Artemis barely paid them any notice and increased her sprint, with only a shouted instruction about not to follow her, leaving them behind. Thalia was worried; it wasn't like her to rush like her, especially when they couldn't see what was she chasing. She made a snap decision on the way back to the Camp; if she set out with some of the girls to help her and if it was pointless, Artemis would be very cross, but one person had freedom from Camp chores. Percy could do this easily, she mused.
After a struggle to pull him away from the wolves, and a not-too-gentle reunion between the cousins, Thalia told him about his worries. Percy didn't seem too concerned, until he came to the spot where Artemis had spotted the deer; he rigidly stood and whispered, "Oh no." Then, he took off in the same direction with a rush, leaving a gaping Thalia behind. Well, she would have been concerned about Kelp Head's reaction, but she knew there was nothing that could trouble her mistress and him together.
Artemis pranced through the woods in a determined chase. The glory of this hunt would be hers. She could see its trail on the forest floor, the broken branches and the rustle of the grass. She could not be stopped. Nobody had ever seen such a majestic creature before, nor had they witnessed swifter foots from any animal. The golden deer fled in a piteous chase, but couldn't outrun her. They were now in a clearing of the woods. With careful aim, Artemis let loose an arrow to impale the deer's hind leg. It struck it's mark, but that was when everything started going wrong.
A scream pieced the surrounding area, but that was punctuated with a hollow laugh. Before her very eyes, the deer changed to a horrendous monster, which seemed to be drawing its last breaths. Yet, he chuckled; "Silly goddess of the Hunt...you managed to hit me, but you're too late. Your fate is now doomed."
The rest of his words were cut off by a knife slamming directly into his chest; however, instead of dissolving, he seemed to age like a thousand years and suddenly dispersed into nothingness. Artemis realised she acted too foolhardily and probably should have pushed him for more information, but the taunt was too much; besides, what was so interesting about it anyway, other than that it was capable of transforming into an animal?
There's a saying: Be careful what you wish for.
With the sounds of a great splash, the water in the nearby lake rippled apart. A great serpent rose from the lake's depths, looking ready to devour any soul daring to oppose it. It was gilded and green, and as it uncoiled itself, it only grew larger; it looked at Artemis in a cold, merciless glare, and lunged at her; she was petrified with shock and failed to move, though it should have been an easy dodge; there was only one thought running through her mind; she cannot win against this enemy who made monsters like Charybdis and Scylla seem friendly.
Suddenly a body slammed into her from the side and removed her from the deathspot. She only looked hollowly at her saviour; surely there was no hope yet. She could feel herself feeling tired and could hear the snake's voice in her head; it urged her to give up the fight, and embrace death.
Percy Jackson had no such constraints binding him. He glared defiantly at the snake who took in his new enemy with a guarded stance; with opening his mouth wide, it spit a deadly poison at Percy.
"Shit! Acid" were the thoughts in Percy's mind as he rolled away from the spot. He tried to remember about this snake; this memory transfer thing wasn't exactly smooth. Yes, this snake was the son of the sage Kashyap, who had thirteen wives; from one of his wives, the snake clan had taken birth, and from other, Gaduda, their mortal enemy, who was forced to steal the nectar of immortality and give it to them to save his mother's honour, but had outwitted them and managed to chunk the nectar deep into the ocean of milk, Khessersagar. The snakes were strong, valiant and mobile on all terrain other than air; their eldest brother, Ananta Nag, had, after all decided to renounce their evil ways and retreat to the seventh layer of netherworld, Patala, and stabilising the earth's bond with the cosmic ocean and its infinite energy. By the look of things, this snake could only be Pratihasta, the cruellest of them all, and who had defied their king Basuki to try and lick the innocent blood of a child spread on grass; from then on, all snakes were cursed to have forked tongues. So he was to fight an enemy who was nearly invulnerable, large and mobile than him.
The snake lunged at him, forcing him to dodge. He feinted to the left, but the snake was too fast. It's head whipped down and its teeth barely missed Percy's forearm. He rolled away in the nick of time and tried to run in a circle and confuse the snake. Its head came down again and again to engage Percy in the dance of death. Percy was feeling tired, and knew he would have to do something soon.
He dodged a few more strikes and then leapt high into the air, only to disappear and reappear right on the snake's head. He brought Riptide down right on its hood, but it slipped over the snake without causing much damage; the snake hissed in pain and tried to shake Percy off, but he held on tenaciously; mongooses aim for a snake's head for the same reasons. He felt strengthened in vicinity of the water; forming ice around his fists, he brought them down strongly on its head. The strength of Bheema coursed through his veins, and the snaked shrieked loudly; with a mighty shake, it finally dislodged the human on its back, and tried to close in, only for Percy to grin and vacate the spot again. He rushed around the water without sinking more than his souls, just like Atalanta. The snake, despite its larger reach, was now being hit from all directions; Percy was smashing his sword against his coils, firing a few arrows, and generally getting the snake worked up; he had a plan. The snakes prehensile tail caused a whirlpool in the lake water, but that was not stopping him. He was now seeing the snake's attacks and dodging it easily.
His plan worked. The serpent, now truly tired, opened its jaws again to spit poison; Percy, precisely chose that moment to invoke the Varunastra and fired it right into his wide open mouth. He had learned his lesson against the Nemean Lion; even if an enemy was invulnerable, it didn't guarantee its internal body was. The poison dissolved on contact with the weapon of the water god, and gushed a torrent of water right inside its mighty body; now, drinking a large amount of water tends to cause you discomfort, and this snake wasn't an exception; it immediately focussed away from Percy and tried to retch out the water in its body.
Percy wasn't having any of that. As his sea green eyes hardened to a deep ocean blue, the water responded to his mood. The snake had made the mistake of challenging a son of Poseidon in water. The water inside the snake's body started to freeze up, as did the river water pooling around it's entire body. The water rose up in a vortex behind Percy and slammed into the snake's body. It couldn't free itself from the aqua bonds Percy was subjecting itself to. It failed to notice Percy's next arrow, which ironically took away it's eye. It screeched in a final fury and blasted its whole head downwards to get Percy who expertly rose on a column of water before it could touch him. As its whole body went underwater, Percy started freezing the lake. Hermes had told him once he didn't knew his whole powers, it was time to see if he had enough to freeze a lake.
He had. The whole scenario suddenly looked anti-climatic; a serpentine body rose in parts above a frozen lake, whose head was under a mast of ice. Its closing eyes were still showing some sign of resistance, but Percy wasn't having any of it; another gesture of his hand saw the ice splitting into shards and impaling itself on the previously conceived invulnerable scales. As greenish-blue blood poured out from its body, the life in its eyes faded; no cold-blooded snake can survive long in a icy climate. Percy, finally tired of this game, allowed the ice on its head to defreeze; and as it raised its head again, buried Anaklusmos right into its lower jaw with all his might. With a final shudder, the whole being dispersed from the world of living.
Percy now turned to Artemis, who still hadn't moved a muscle. He muttered, "There's no way I am taking Lady Artemis back to the Camp in this catatonic state." Screwing up his courage and trusting his memory, he attempted to teleport; again without seeing, and without the permission of Artemis...again. He prayed that he would not be castrated repeatedly once she recovered.
A/N: Hope you liked the battle. It was long, and not much action packed, but I wanted to expand a bit on Percy's thoughts during the battle. You really don't kill a giant snake at close quarters without some diversionary tactics. Trust me, Percy will fight much more heroically and in his usual style once we progress further into the story. If you are confused about Artemis not joining the fight, trust me everything will be explained in detail next chapter.
Key: Varunastra-Weapon of the sea god, Varuna, equivalent to Poseidon. Is used to summon or create a large mass of water or bring rainfall. The counter to Agneyastra, or Agniastra (weapon of Agnideva, god of fire).