Chapter 6

Vanish

FWISH, THUD! An arrow flew through the door, past Percy's head and into the floor by Jason's hand. Immediately everyone was on their feet and turned to face the door. Thalia whipped out her spear and shield Aegis, with the Medusa head in the center of the shield, while Jason and Luke brought out their swords and Jason swung his backpack over his shoulder. Percy and Annabeth hid behind them, Annabeth pulled out the bronze dagger Luke gave her, ready to defend herself, and Percy held the butterfly knife Jason gave him on the train. They all ran outside.

That was a mistake.

They found themselves surrounded in the clearing outside the door by 15 girls in silver parkas with bows at the ready, aimed at them. Right in front of them was another girl, coppery skin, long black hair, obsidian eyes, and the same outfit as the hunters. The only difference was the silver circlet around her head like a tiara making her look like a princess.

"Drop your weapons." She said. The three older ones looked around cautiously as the lead girl started to lose her patience. "Now"

They did as they were told as all of them dropped their weapons. Jason kept his hidden blade unnoticed but felt it would be little help in this situation.

"Who are you?" Luke asked them

One of the girls aiming at them answered. "We'll be the ones asking the questions, boy."

'Typical' Jason thought, he started reaching for the bottom of his backpack, hoping no one noticed. If he could reach what was there they could all escape.

"So since we're asking the questions here who are you?" The lead girl asked Thalia, already getting tired of the conversation. Thalia however had already noticed what Jason was doing and decided to by him some time. "You know it's polite to introduce yourself first, right?" She wouldn't end up with an arrow in her throat.

The leader was annoyed but decided to roll with it. "I guess so, after all we don't want to seem as barbaric as your 'friends' over there now would we?" she said as cast a glance towards the others, something Luke was annoyed at and Jason ignored.

"My name is Zoe Nightshade, leader of the Hunters of Artemis," as she said that she motioned to the girls around her, "we travel across the country hunting monsters and recruiting other maidens to join the hunt. We also save girls from the abusive hands of men, since all of them are pigs. Is that enough of introduction for you?"

"Yes, but what brought you here?" Thalia glanced over at Jason who had just about reached his bag, thankfully all attention was on her and Zoe but he still needed a bit more time.

"One of our trackers had found signs of a large group of monsters so we decided to follow them and hunt them down. We followed the tracks to here, so where are they?" Zoe asked still puzzled by it, How could some many monsters just vanished, there had to be at least 74 monsters in that pack.

"Oh they uh, um…" Thalia said as she was trying to find an excuse all the time she was glancing over at Jason, "got bored and left." Was the best she could come up with quite a sheepish smile.

Zoe was about to deck her in the face when she looked at it and realized something, she was looking at something. Following her gaze she was met with the sight of…

"Hand back up in the air now!" She yelled as all the girls aimed their bows back at Jason, who had two round objects clenched in his hands. "Drop what you're holding, DROP IT!" another girl yelled at him.

He just smiled "Well, if you insist." He opened his hands and all hell broke loose in that forest clearing.

A bright flash went off from the first grenade that blinded all of the hunters as well as Luke and Thalia, Jason was prepared for it and Percy and Annabeth were hiding behind they're friends. A few of the hunters were so surprised they fell out of the trees they were in. Just as the flash died down the second grenade went off releasing huge amounts of thick white smoke into the clearing.

Jason grabbed Percy and made a break for it, but not before helping Luke and Thalia get their bearings and telling them and Annabeth to, "Get the heck out of here!"

The trio ran out of the clearing to the left, heading north, while Jason and Percy ran back to the train station to catch the train to California leaving behind several confused and infuriated hunters behind in the clearing.

However the smoke was starting to disperse to fast and the hunters would soon be able to see Jason and Percy and give chase. Jason new this and looked back when he noticed something strange, the shadows had moved to hide the path they had taken. He made a mental note of that and kept running.

When the smoked cleared everything was silent, until…

"Damn it!" Zoe yelled so loud Iowa probably heard her, "this is humiliating. How are we supposed to explain this to Lady Artemis?"

"Explain what, exactly, Lieutenant?"

AN:Sorry I couldn't come up with a better title name it seem kinda lame to me. Anyway it might be a while for me to update since i have school to worry about. If anyone has any ideas for the story let me know and i might put them in. Happy Thanksgiving.