A/N I'm not going to lie but I found it hilarious when I was checking both of my stories and saw that TLoA was the most viewed but this story is more popular XD, I guess it's due to the word count. Anyways this story just hit 100k views! 'Sheds tear' but in all honesty thank you guys for sticking with me through this entire story, no matter how long or how much I disappear. Thanks to an anonymous supporter for his suggestion. Reviews are always appreciated and now on with the story!
Percy POV
"What do you suppose they're talking about?"
I sighed before rubbing my temples. "Apollo, let's compare the distance from here to where Artemis is being held captive. I say we are about a thousand meters from the peak so unless Artemis and the titans want to yell for the world to hear I doubt I will understand anything."
"But can't you just read their lips or something?" Apollo asked while munching on a donut.
"Remind me again why I decided to bring you along?"
Apollo's brow scrunched up in thought before his face beamed in excitement.
"It is because…" He paused for dramatic effect, "I am… awesome!"
I smacked my forehead in annoyance. "Apollo look, I don't have the vision of a hawk nor can I hear things from miles away. If I knew what they were talking about I would gladly share it with you but for the moment, stay alert, we don't know when the hunters may arrive to rescue their mistress so I suggest you stop pestering me with your questions every five seconds and let me focus."
"Jeez who pissed in your cheerios this morning…?" Apollo grumbled as he began eating another donut. I could have sworn we finished all of our donuts a week ago.
Luke POV
I watched as Atlas threw his fourth beating upon Artemis today. Her back was hunched, bruises and cuts littered her body, ichor flowed in a constant stream from her mouth to the slick pedestal she was chained to, her clothes were in tatters from the constant amount of torture she had to endure.
When Atlas finished with his beating he spat on her face to which she barely even batted an eye to. Her expression was emotionless, her eyes glassed, it was as if her spirit had left her body and only left an empty husk behind. I would have almost thought she was dead if it wasn't for her pulse.
"Artemis!" I shouted, she weakly raised her head to look at me before she let it drop again. "Will you cooperate with us now?" No response came from her. Atlas rose again to enact his fifth beating but I waved him down.
"Artemis," I curled my finger underneath her chin and raised it until she was facing me leaving a two inch gap between our faces. I could feel her breath hitch as she stared at me.
"Don't make this harder than it has to be at the moment. The world is dying from the lack of sunlight the world requires. Your people, your hunters will starve as the animals they once hunted cease to exist. All you have to do is answer our small question."
"I told you…" Artemis answered in a small voice. "I don't know."
I sighed before withdrawing my hand. "You give us no choice, I guess we have to-"
"Wait!" a voice interrupted. I turned around to stare back at Artemis.
"Apollo… he… he felt sympathy for Perseus. I could tell… no matter how much he tried to hide it… I could tell… he disliked the way Perseus was treated."
I scowled, "This information is useless, what can we gain from what you just told us?"
"Perhaps he could've remained in contact with Perseus…" a demigod said watching from the side.
"That's not possible; Perseus told me personally that everyone hated him. That he was accepted and treated right by no one." I growled.
"It's just a possibility…"
"Even so…" I growled, "Why the change of heart? After hundreds of years, what would cause Apollo to suddenly become best friends with Perseus? What stopped him from helping out before?"
"Well if you convinced Perseus to join our cause again, perhaps he may open up to you about it?"
I could feel the entire room grow silent, I slowly turned to where Artemis resided to see her eyes widening in shock. I quickly strode across the room and grabbed the half-blood by his neck.
"How dare you… how dare you reveal that piece of information." I slowly began to squeeze and watched as his face became blue from the lack of oxygen. I dragged him over to the ledge of the mountaintop and let go. I could hear him scream on the way down only to end with a sickening crack.
My eyes were clouded with fury as Artemis's eyes filled up with an undistinguishable emotion.
"Perseus…? He does not side with the titans…?" I could hear the hope falling into her voice.
"Hopeful are you?" I asked. "Well you are a couple of centuries late." I began to walk around her, "Do you perhaps believe your son has seen the light? Has realized he should come running back to you gods with his arms wide open?" I couldn't help but laugh. "No, he still resents the gods very much, especially you. "
"You talk as if you were close to the boy…" Iapetus grumbled from the corner. "One would think that you were infatuated with him."
"Silence Iapetus! The boy merely interests me…" I snarled. I turned back around toward Artemis whom still had hopeful eyes.
"Deep down you cared for Perseus but you pushed it far away didn't you? You channeled all your love for the boy and funneled it into making him a laughingstock for your hunt and you tried your best to shape him into one of the worst males in existence. Well congratulations Artemis, you managed to get your son to side with a primordial goddess to end the reign of the gods. You Olympians believe yourselves to be the most powerful beings in existence but I just can't wait to see Perseus annihilate your entire council into oblivion. Then once he is finished and he and his primordial goddess are weakened from the fight, I will swoop in and destroy them both to help usher in a new golden era!"
I could feel Artemis deflate from my words. I beckoned Hecate who was standing alongside the titans to step forth. "You gods shouldn't have mistreated the minor ones either. They are all turning on you, one by one. Nemesis, Morpheus, Janus, Hecate and more all decided to join our cause and end your dictatorship of a rule."
I motioned Hecate to begin to which she began chanting in an old forgotten greek tongue.
"Since I am a fair man, I will give you a chance to win this war. The curse being placed upon you, only when you are able to truly love and accept Perseus as your son, will you Olympians win this war if Perseus would accept your love but knowing that neither will happen I guess you Olympians can say goodbye to your seats of power!"
A silver and black glow began to emit from Artemis glowing brighter and brighter to the point I had to shield my eyes and look away. As I averted my gaze I could see a glow radiate within the woods, glowing with the same intensity as Artemis.
Slowly my eyes widened in realization, Being how the curse only involved both Artemis and Perseus I could only deduce that Perseus was the source of the glow in the woods. When the glow from both Artemis and the one in the woods began to die, I quickly began to bark out orders.
"Iapetus! Gather a search party and scour the woods for Perseus! He resides there spying upon our base of operations! Capture him immediately!"
Iapetus quickly jumped down from the mountain top and down into the Garden of the Hesperides where he was quickly joined by a group of dracaena, telekhines, empousa and a hydra.
"I guess you will have a chance to speak to your son very soon 'Lady Artemis'." I began to laugh as I slowly walked away.
Percy POV
I did not know how to react when Apollo told me I was beginning to glow silver and black. At first I thought it was a joke but when I looked at my arm, I noticed waves of light pulsing and growing until I literally became an orb of glowing light, revealing my position. It felt as if pins and needles were poking me everywhere in my body. Memories of the past flew quickly around me. The most common being the abuse of myself by the hunters and most importantly Artemis. I could feel my fury grow at these memories. The memories began to swirl faster and faster until I became dizzy. As quickly as the glow came, it quickly evaporated into my body.
I stumbled around a bit before looking towards Apollo. "What just happened to me…?" Apollo just seemed shocked by the spectacle and just shook his head.
"To be honest with you, I have no clue. But what I do know is that the glow you just emitted was the same glow that came from the mountaintop."
"Are you saying whatever happened up there has something to do with me?" I asked
Apollo just shrugged, "Hey I am just telling you what I seen. But when we locate I can take a quick look at you to see what happened."
Thoughts were swirling around my head. What could have possibly happen up there that had to do with me? What could have caused this? My thoughts were quickly interrupted by a voice that seemed to get louder as it headed toward my direction.
"Fan out in every direction and search for Perseus! He must be found immediately!"
I took a quick look only to see a hydra staring right at me.
"Um Apollo…?"
"Give me a minute, I'm packing everything up!"
The hydra swirled its heads around until all six of them were facing me. Venom dripped from its mouth onto the forest floor which dissolved a patch of grass into nothing but ash.
"Apollo, I think we may have a bit of a situation here…"
Apollo looked up to where I was looking only to do a double take. "Perseus… don't tell me that that is a hydra staring at both of us."
"Okay Apollo a hydra is not staring at us wondering if we are its next meal. It probably is just some huge scaly reptile that we mistook for a hydra!" I replied sarcastically.
I withdrew my silver hunting dagger and studied its position.
"You are going to try to attack the hydra with that? Are you insane?"
"Apollo, I would very much appreciate it if you would not insult my weapon of choice."
At that moment the hydra thought it was a good time to strike. Everything seemed to fall into slow motion as one of the heads lurched toward me. I quickly rolled forward and slashed the neck of the hydra. I quickly gave it several more slashes to its body before rolling out of the way of its second head.
It's greenish yellow blood oozed out of several of its wounds and onto the grass - which slowly began to corrode.
"Great, I guess I don't want to go anywhere near its blood either." I murmured to myself. I didn't have that much experience with fighting monsters when I was in the hunt. Sure I had to spar forcefully against other hunters to provide entertainment for the hunt which had helped my fighting skills but I had never fought a monster of such great proportions.
The next couple of minutes were of me dodging, rolling and cutting the hydra. Apollo helped by shooting the hydra full of arrows to distract it from me, allowing me to inflict a couple of more wounds upon the monster before evading another one of its heads. Judging from the ruckus we made, I was pretty sure we had alerted everything within a five mile radius of where we were.
"Perseus!" Apollo yelled.
I quickly fended off a head before stabbing another head in the eye.
"We have to kill it with fire!" He yelled before jumping onto another branch as the hydra struck the branch he resided previously. I could barely hear him with the hydra roaring with all six of its heads.
I quickly stabbed the hydra in one of its heads before running it around a full 360 degrees around where I stabbed.
"What did you say Apollo?" I yelled.
I quickly took a small glance towards Apollo only to see his pale face.
Confused I turned towards what he was staring at only to see the hydra rear back as the head I cut off previously began to grow and sprout into two lumps before forming into heads making it a total of seven heads even angrier than before.
"Son of a-" I quickly somersaulted out of the way as three heads struck towards the ground I was previously at. Out of the corner of my eye I watched as Apollo grabbed one of his arms and began to mutter something incomprehensible.
"What do you think you are doing?" I yelled as I dodged several more of its heads before slashing at the ones that are exposed..
Apollo didn't respond but I noticed the golden tip of his arrow began to shine brighter and brighter before combusting into flames.
"Move!" he yelled before firing at the head lunging towards me. I dove behind a tree and watched as the arrow sailed through the air and into the hydra's mouth. I watched as the hydra's eyes widened before its entire mouth exploded into flames.
The hydra began to shriek as it waved its head wildly, breathing fire all across the forest, setting trees on fire. In sick fascination I watched its head slowly dissolved into ashes as the fire traveled farther and farther throughout its body, through all the blood caking its body from every single one of the wounds I opened.
Apollo jogged towards me with a smile while I stared in shock at the display in front of me.
"Its venom and blood are extremely flammable." Apollo explained as I watched the entire monster and trees around it burn.
When it was done, I walked towards the golden pile of ash that used to be the hydra.
"C'mon, we need to get out of here," Apollo said.
No later once the words left his mouth did a arrow pin my arm to a burning tree. I quickly looked towards Apollo to see him pinned to a different tree, except the one he was pinned to wasn't on fire.
Iapetus and a group of telekhines armed with a multitude of spears and swords stepped toward us. Dracaena slithered out from all different parts of the forest with bows nocked with arrows pointed straight at us.
"What an impressive show… but I am afraid that we require your presence." Iapetus stated. "You two are needed by the host of Kronos himself. I am afraid there is nowhere else you can go unless you two wish for an excruciatingly painful death which I would be delighted to give."
As soon as he finished a volley of arrows flew from the treetops and landed on several of the monsters in front of me along with the majority of the dracaena armed with bow and arrows.
Iapetus looked at the arrows before growling in anger, summoning his spear and arrow.
I looked at the arrows embedded in the ground and my eyes widened in shock and fury. A rustle came from the treetops between Apollo and I before three figures dropped down in front of Iapetus.
"Sorry, but I am afraid that both of them are coming with us." Zoe Nightshade growled.
Oh snap, OH SNAP! We got the hunters in this! What is gonna happen now? Oh no! Haha okay I been a bit busy know but I did promise another chapter so here it is! Anyway review and leave any suggestions you have for me in the reviews and I will hopefully try to update as soon as possible, perhaps during the next weekend?
