Chapter Eight: Friendly Spats

Aion's POV

Aion bounded to his statue-resembling daughter. Each step seemed to only push him back, the opposite of what he wanted- needed.

No.

He reached her almost instantly, looking into her unchanging face: dark green eyes wide with surprise and her mouth open in an everlasting gasp of air that she would never receive.

"Artemis," he snapped his fingers in front of her unblinking eyes. Nothing.

He shook her shoulders, trying to shake her out of it, whatever it was. "Artemis!"

He warily gave up shaking her shoulders; it wasn't working, not one bit. He just stared into her unchanging eyes, her dark green irises. His sea green eyes mixed in with Zoë's onyx.

"Aion," Zoë's voice sounded from behind, a soft voice full of sadness that reminded Aion of cotton in the fields. "She's being taken ove-"

"Save it, daughter of Atlas," Artemis said, slapping her father's hands away from herself. A wild grin spread upon her face.

Zoë drew forward, hopeful to save her daughter. "Artemis, listen to me-"

"I said save it," she yelled, stepping back from them, sneering, "Or is it too much for your species to understand?"

Zoë backed down and Artemis turned to her father.

"I've always hated you, father," she glared hard at Aion. "Ohsosupreme and almighty you must be," she narrowed her beady-looking eyes.

"Well I've had it," she hissed, mouthing something indistinguishable. Her expression turned back to its normal calm, but the disgruntling smirk was back.

"Someone has to do the right thing here, and it's obvious you two aren't." She forced the words out like they were a poison.

"Artemis-"

She covered her ears in a menacing gesture, wincing, but Aion wasn't sure about the wide smirk still on her face. His daughter didn't normally smirk a malicious smile.

"Don't call me that," she said. "I am the Protogenos of the Sky; the Father of the Titans; formerLord of the Heavens."

She cocked her head, narrowed her eyes, and smiled almost mockingly at them. "Call me Ouranos."

Not even a second after those words settled into the atmosphere, Aion's daughter's eyes turned a bright gold, and she charged at him.

Her- Ouranos's- movements were quick; he only appeared as a striking blur to the campers. But Aion was faster.

Artemis struck boldly at Aion, driving him back with each gained step. She kept low, giving Aion new marks and bruises each second.

Aion didn't register the pain, blocking the most powerful attacks that would sever him limbless, or worse, get him beheaded.

"You're not even a worthy commander," she- he- yelled at him.

"You're one to talk," he responded in the same tone, faking a right hook. "Taking over an innocent girl's body because you obviously can't accomplish anything with yours."

"I could kill you with my eyes closed," she sneered.

Aion sidestepped an incoming strike, and sliced at Artemis's feet, drawing blood immediately. He felt a wave of guilt wash over his body, residing deep in his heart. It struck him hard, to say the least.

This was Ouranos, he reminded himself. Ouranos; not Artemis. Not Artemis.

"Show me, then," he responded, keeping his wording harsh and short. "Show me, oh high and almighty god of the heavens."

Artemis paused in her movement, laughing a laugh that had never escaped past her lips before. It rose from her stomach, bubbling out of her mouth and into the air. "Oh, I will. Don't you worry about that. My wife will kill you anyway."

Aion took that moment as the perfect opportunity, kicking her to the ground and taking her weapon from her, not like she would need it anyway. He discarded one knife, laying both lethal instruments of destruction at her neck- knife and sword, in case she tried to run.

Artemis didn't even bother getting up from the ground, or even showing the faintest interest of getting off the grass.

"Get out of her body," Aion said through his teeth. The weapons started to shake nervously in his hands. Aion immediately steadied them. He'd never show weakness in front of Ouranos; not anybody. He wouldn't give Ouranos the pleasure of seeing him in pain.

"What's this?" Artemis smiled a mischievous smile. "The legendary assassin of Chaos can't assassinate a little girl?"

Ouranos was stepping over the line with that. It took all of Aion's willpower not to slam his knife through his daughter's neck, to get rid of Ouranos's voice once and for all.

Aion took a steady breath. Calm down. Think happy thoughts.

Happy thoughts? He couldn't help but question his own thinking. He didn't have many happy times in his life- lives.

That disgruntling smirk upon Artemis's face was enough to snap Aion out of his thoughts. "This great battle has just begun, Commander," her harsh words had echoed through the camp; he was sure of it.

"Enjoy your freedom while it lasts." And with that, the last vision of Artemis faded beneath the grass.

Aion growled under his breath, stabbing his knife into the exact spot her- Ouranos's- head would have been. He wished so bad he could have cut away his limbs slowly one by one, and finally behead him, making him remember the pain for eternity, as he would reform eventually. Then he'd bequeath to him a curse that Aion would make sure would last even after he faded.

One would only dream, for now.

"Aion."

"Aion, slow down."

"Aion!" Zoë's sharp, crisp yell made Aion halt his heavy, disappointed footsteps in their tracks.

He waited a moment. And another. Two more.

His wife paused by his side, staring at the scene in front of them: a particularly noticable rock that jutted out from the ground, the inside made hollow, sort of like a house, but at the same time not like a modern home. Its entrance was decorated with green beads that hung as a makeshift hippie-resembling door.

"The oracle?"

Aion resisted the urge to slap himself right square in his face. "I don't know," he sighed.

Zoë smiled, "Old habits die hard, you know."

"Yeah," he shook his head from desolate thoughts. "Yeah."

A female voice sounded about ten feet from them: "You need a prophecy, don't you?"

They turned toward the voice's owner to find a slim girl, five foot seven in height. Her red hair was as curly as ever, and just like many, many years ago, her jeans were doodled. Rachel Elizabeth Dare.

"No," Aion spoke, his voice as hard as steel. "We were scoping out the camp for remaining enemies."

Rachel sighed. "Can I tell you something?"

Aion silently tilted his head, giving her the 'go ahead'.

"We all saw that scene back there with... Artemis."

Scene? That wasn't a scene. Last he checked, the demigods weren't at all interested with him and his family. Looks like they were better actors than he gave them credit for.

"I've been alive for decades," she continued unsurely. "Looks to me you're planning to get her back. You need a prophecy for-"

"No thank you, Rachel Elizabeth Dare," he interrupted. "We're soldiers of Lord Chaos, therefore responding to him and only him."

"But- I've been getting dreams; of the future."

Aion smiled. "I'm sure you have. All demigods and oracles do sometime in their short lives."

"I saw you die!" she raised her voice. "At the hands of Ouranos!"

Aion couldn't die. That was the fairly amusing part of it all. "Wonderful," was all he said.

"Don't get Artemis back," Rachel pleaded. "Please, you'll die."

"Apparently to you I'll die anyway," he was dead serious. "I'm getting my daughter back."