AN: Now, I don't usually type this callous, but in this chapter I released a lot of pent-up malice.

Ward and I sprang apart, and he quailed under my dad's furious glare.

"You must be Mr. Wolf. I'm Ward." Ward said, sticking out his hand awkwardly to shake.

My dad looked at him coldly, and Ward quickly retracted his hand. Which was probably a good idea because my dad looked like he wanted to bite it off.

"So, how do you know my daughter?" my dad asked, crossing his arms and glowering at Ward.

I probably should have done this a while ago (like, last chapter), but here's a brief description of my father.

Richard Wolf is a 5'11, brown haired, blue eyed professor at NYU. He travels about an hour to work, and he works late, so it's rare to see him more than a couple of hours a week. Reading is something he enjoys, and he's the smartest person I know. Except, he has a bit of an anger problem. When he gets mad, he attacks with words, viciously, and his eyes build up so much fire that you can feel your temperature rising.

And this is Ward's first introduction to the (more) rational side of my family.

I frowned apologetically at Ward, who looked really, really uncomfortable.

"Sir, we went to school together. She was attacked by a dragon, but luckily Willow and I intervened in time. I escorted her to camp, where Artemis took over. But we did play a pretty sweet prank on the Ares Cabin." he grinned at me, and we high-fived quickly.

It hurt, and not because he swung too hard. It hurt like the first time Artemis had-

"EMILY MARIE WOLF!" To my horror, Artemis appeared and stood next to my father. "You..." she said, summoning her bow and aiming an arrow at Ward.

"Artemis, stop!" I ordered, jumping between her and Ward.

"I take a nap for one hour and you bring a boy into the house? Unacceptable! I will not have groping in my house!" my dad yelled, spittle flying from his mouth. Seriously, it's like he didn't even listen to Ward's story!

Artemis turned to look at him and then she turned the approximate color of lava.

"'Groping?' I'll kill you boy!" she roared and tried to shove me out of the way. I'm surprised she didn't just explode again.

I quickly scowled at my dad and hurried to explain, "We weren't groping! We were just

hugging!"

"You think you can come into MY house and make-out with my daughter? She's only 13!" my dad yelled, looking like he was going to hurt something. I pity the fool who makes my daddy mad.

"I'm 15! Come on, dad!" I said in exasperation. "We weren't even kissing!"

There were a couple moments of silence, and Ward slowly backed away from my angry

parents. Somewhere in the confused tangle of my mind it occurred to me that this was the first time my dad and Artemis were agreeing with each other. Unfortunately, they were agreeing to maim one of my only friends. Man, I'm pathetic.

And then it all went downhill.

"Richard! How could you let this happen? The second I step out of the house you let a boy in? I thought fathers were supposed to protect their daughters! What are men good for anyway?"

I sighed, recognizing the beginning of a fight, a real doozy too.

"What?" my dad asked incredulously. "Before you came and screwed everything up,

everything was normal! Now she's bringing boys over and seeing ghosts in movie theaters! Why couldn't you pass on your vow of chastity to her instead of your flagrant rule-breaking?" he yelled, pounding his hand on the table, probably bruising his hand.

"Oh gods," I heard Ward mutter as Artemis looked at my father. Artemis looked beyond furious. She started blurring around the edges, which I hadn't seen in a while, and I guess in her struggle with control, her grip on her arrow slipped.

The arrow flew, and struck me in the right shoulder.

I would repeat what I said next, because this fanfic isn't rated high enough for an endless stream of profanity. Plus, for you kiddies out there, SWEARING IS BAD!

Artemis screamed and grabbed her own shoulder, which didn't have a bloody arrow sticking out of it, so she had no reason to complain. I started thrashing around, trying to tear it out, until I froze, in time.

Actually, I was probably doing more harm by moving, so it was a good thing that Ward restrained me. Even if it did hurt my pride a little bit. Okay, a lot.

"Artemis! Stop writhing and do something!" my dad shouted, freaked out at the sight of blood.

Artemis narrowed her eyes against the pain, and walked towards me. I couldn't move my mouth but, rest assured, I was calling her names in my mind that would have made my grandmother turn over in her grave (not Hera. Oh carp she's my grandmother? Stupid family tree.)

She broke off the feathered end of the arrow, and pulled the other end out of me, leaving a nasty, gaping hole in my shoulder.

Ward's power must be truly incredible, because my blood was stopped from flowing out of the new, unexpected piercing. Maybe now I can hang out with the goth kids at school!

Artemis threw the arrow down, and passed her hand over my shoulder. The skin healed up, but my insides were still jacked up so no relief there.

Ward unfroze me, and helped me to the couch, where I collapsed in agony. Artemis fell right next to me, but I was in too much pain to swipe at her like I wanted to.

My dad ran off, and I thought he was going to pass out or something, but he came back with a bottle of Tylenol and a glass of water. He gave me two, and I chugged the entire glass.

Meanwhile, Ward was frantically looking around for something. He rustled through drawers and looked under the couch cushions.

"Where do you keep your drachmas?" he asked, turning to look at my dad, who was still looking at the bloody spot on the floor with a sick look on his face. "Mr. Wolf?"

My dad snapped out of the fog he was apparently in, and shook his head "We need to get her to the hospital."

Artemis growled something and I winced again. It felt like there was an icy knife twisting in my shoulder, which is not a good place for an icy knife to be.

Ward looked at my dad like he had gone crazy. "Sir, how on Earth are we going to explain an arrow wound that you can't see? We need Apollo for this, at least!"

"Well, well. what have we here?"

The room seemed to freeze as Ares and Aphrodite walked in, the bad kind of freezing.

Ares was dressed up in his battle armor. His bright red plume on his helmet made him look like the Devil's less cool younger brother, but his polished bronze armor was pretty sweet. In an "Oh gods not this nonsense again" kind of way.

"Who are you guys?" my dad asked, wondering why Artemis had jumped to her feet and raised her bow to aim at Ares's face.

"This must be your father. Pleased to meet you, unfortunate mortal. Oh please, let me introduce myself. I'm your worst nightmare." Ares said, his red glow swirling and flickering like fire with these two chains.

Images appeared in his aura, and I personally saw men get cut down left and right as one man went on a bloody rampage.

My dad shivered, but he had that sarcastic gleam in his eye that I normally would have appreciated, but worried me in this situation. "You are. If I remember correctly, you are the god of war."

Ares smirked and grew to about 9 feet in height. He thrust his chest out, and somehow he managed to swagger without technically moving. "That's right. I didn't know I was that famous among mortals."

"Isn't Athena one who actually knows how to fight though? How did the Trojan War turn out for you? And didn't you also die in the video game series named after you? Come on man, have some pride. Or have you been borrowing Aprodite's make-up too often?"

Even through my haze of pain, I laughed hard enough to make my eyes water. Ward was chortling heartily, and even Artemis chuckled, once.

Ares, however, quickly dropped his arrogant smirk and took on the "I'm going to murder you" look that Artemis had given my dad earlier.

"You just made your last mistake. No one insults me and walks off unscathed." Ares said, starting to undergo the Blurring of Doom.

Then, a lot of things happened very quickly.

Ward pulled out a single dice (die? dead?) and cupped it in his hand. It transformed into a silver sword with a golden hilt. He charged at Ares, and they started fighting, knocking over my bookcase and breaking half of our movies.

Aphrodite summoned pink armor and a golden, flaming whip. Artemis started shooting arrows, but Aphrodite made most of them dissolve. All of the Olympians started blurring, and I jumped up and pushed my dad into his room.

"Stay here!" I shouted, running back to the living room, not exactly sure how I could help with my jacked up appendage.

In the 10 seconds of my absence, all hades had broken out. Aphrodite was swinging and destroying furniture with every swipe, while Artemis was flipping and rolling to avoid her blows. For a goddess of prissy little brats, Aphrodite sure did cause a lot of damage.

Ward was an excellent swordsman (or maybe I'm biased), but Ares was cheating like I used to at candyland, shooting blasts of energy and changing heights. And then, whoosh!

My vision went dark, and from Ward's "Gah!" I could tell that the same thing happened to him. I heard a thud, and I guessed that Ares had knocked Ward out.

"Sorry-" Artemis gasped out, plainly having trouble fighting two other gods at once. "guys. We are- DIE SCUM!- in our. True forms!"

Something touched my leg, and I kicked out, trying to get whoever it was to relinquish his/her grip.

"Ouch! Emily, it's me!" Ward said, getting to his feet next to me and pushing us towards the general direction of the door.

"Duck!" Artemis yelled, and Ward and I hit the ground, a second before a sharp crack echoed across the space where we used to be. We jumped back up, and stumbled towards the door.

"Artemis!" I heard Apollo yell, as a gust of wind threw me backward, into an armored leg.

"Apollo! Where the-" (I'm editing the next few words for my younger readers (who probably shouldn't be reading a story this violent)) "flippity-flop have you been? Help me!"

"I suggest you lower your weapons," I heard Ares say as I was forcibly lifted to my feet.

Artemis started swearing (I'm guessing) in Greek, and I felt something cold against my neck.

"Where did you learn that kind of language?" Apollo asked, sounding like a disapproving older brother. "Are those Hunters a bad influence on-"

There was a sound like two boulders colliding and my left hand tingled, like I had just hit somethi- oooh. Empathy link. I get it now.

"So, Artemis, you lose yet again. Now, I'm going to kill your only daughter right in front of you, unless you surrender. Mortal forms. Both of you. Now."

"Son of a toad-licking camel! (Yeah, I maybe have edited that a little too)" I shouted, trying to break free. Then, I felt a cool air blow over me, and the blindness left my eyes.

There were gaping holes in my walls, which depressed me immensely, but far worse than that was the sight of Artemis and Apollo, standing there, leaking ichor out of several wounds, looking defeated.

I didn't turn to look at Ares, because I was sure that he wouldn't have changed back to "won't melt your eyes out" form.

"Good choice. Hmm. Hey Artemis, this daughter of yours is feisty. Maybe I won't kill her.

She could be fun to have around. All my other servants keep breaking." As if to prove his horrifying point, he lowered his sword and wrapped his arm around my shoulders, in a vaguely possessive way.

This was apparently just what Artemis and Apollo had been waiting for, because before I knew it, Apollo was shooting arrow after arrow, faster than my eyes could follow. Artemis, in the meantime, was chanting something, and I felt a tugging in my feet.

We looked at each other for a split second and then I disappeared.

-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

The first thing I became aware of as I looked around was the color white. Everywhere, white surrounded me, invading my eyelids giving me an instant headache.

It took several minutes of rubbing my eyes to convince myself that this wasn't a new type of blindness.

Then the crippling cold hit me.

Picture the coldest you've ever been. Then picture yourself stepping into a boiling pot.

If you aren't wincing right now, then you don't have the slightest inkling of how much pain I was in, with my t-shirt and cargo pants and no shoes.

I gasped in pain, and then suddenly I couldn't feel anything. It wasn't a numb feeling, more like something was preventing me from feeling the cold.

Looking around, I started running to what looked like a line of trees off in the distance.

My feet sank into at least 4 inches of snow with every step, but whatever was stopping me from freezing to death was still in effect and I didn't have too much trouble.

Then, a golden screen appeared in front of me, like a mirage. After a couple seconds, I recognized it as an Iris message.

"Emily!" Artemis said, and I could see my trashed living room in the background. "Where are you?"

"I have no bloody idea! All I can see is snow!" I said frantically. "And I can't feel anything! Something's wrong!"

I expected Artemis to frown at this and talk to Apollo in a worried tone. What actually happened shocked me more than anything that had ever happened before.

Artemis laughed.

"You are finally living up to your potential. Let me explain. I'm the Goddess of Hunters, and I'm used to hunting in all kinds of weather. It makes sense that, as my spawn- Daughter, you wouldn't be influenced by adverse weather conditions."

I smiled sarcastically. "Excellent. Now there's just the small problem of not getting eaten by a polar bear!"

Artemis's good humor vanished, and she frowned. "That might be a problem. How's your shoulder?"

I moved it around and didn't feel anything. "It's fine.

She nodded. "Okay, then I'll send you a-"

The screen rippled, and I lost sound. Artemis's face blurred, and the screen turned black.

Then, a new image appeared.

"Hello there." Aphrodite said, ruining my already awful situation with the appearance of her face. "You seem to have escaped. But, if my guess is correct, you are all alone. So, your life depends on who gets there first. PS: If it's Ares or I, your life will end. Painfully."

I half-expected (which doesn't make sense. Can you really half do something subconsciously? Is my inner self getting lazy?) her to dance around the threat, so my respect for her grew a tiny amount.

Which didn't take away from the fact that I was literally at the mercy of whoever found me first.

"And just to even things out, don't expect any Iris-messages anytime soon. Tootles!"

And the connection dissolved, leaving me alone in the howling abyss of white.

I started trudging again, until I heard a sharp Crack!

Overreacting for the second time in two chapters, I fell to the ground and covered my head.

Something dropped into the snow next to me, and I warily looked around for Olympians, or lynxes or other things hazardous to my health.

All I saw was a silver bow with a quiver of arrows, lying in the snow innocently.

I wrapped my fingers around it, and screamed when my shoulder exploded with pain. I couldn't move my arm, and even as I looked, my fingers lost the ability to bend. My arm didn't stop hurting, so I guess my weather protection only applied to, well, the weather.

I took a step back (mentally) and examined my situation from an impartial (yeah, right) point of view. I decided to make a pro-con list.

Pros: I was alive (for now). Artemis and Apollo were searching for me (eventually). I was protected from the weather (but not the excruciating pain of my shoulder).

Cons: Where to begin... Well, I am stranded in an Arctic tundra with no food, shelter, or support. Oh, and my only form of protection is useless because I can't bend or use my right arm. I have a couple of malicious Olympians that are hunting me for some asinine reason. And, I'm pretty sure I am starting to hallucinate. Unless that animal coming at me is real.

Then I'm screwed.

AN2: So, this chapter was a little short, but my writing spirit has been... Dang I'm tired. It's about three in the morning here, so I'll upload this, well, whenever you are reading it. Thanks for the reviews, and I'll update at 160. Yes, that is a ridiculous expectation. Yes, I am using that as a cushion so I don't have to type like a maniac. Yes, I'm ashamed of myself. Sigh.