A/N I doubt anyone remembers this story it's been so long, but if you do go reread the other chapters because I've made major changes to them.
My heart was pounding furiously inside my chest. The monsters staring me seemed extremely confused as they watched me slowly back towards the door.
"Smells like... us... but also smells like one of them, a child of the-" I didn't wait to hear the rest of the sentence and dashed out of the room.
Holy shit...
Holy shit...
Holy... fucking... shit
I knew I had to go find my fellow quest members, and luckily demigods stink.
It only took me a few minutes to find them, wandering through a space exhibit in obvious frustration. Frustration which I had probably caused.
"Annabeth! Zoë!" Their heads whipped towards me as I shouted while approaching them.
"Monsters... a lot..." I panted, severely out of breath, "General... soldiers... we gotta go." Annabeth listened to me in confusion, but Zoë paled when the word General left my mouth.
"The general? But he can't be here... he's-" Her words were cut short when people's screams were heard followed by a thundering roar.
I let out a groan of frustration with the giant golden lion came dashing around the corner.
"Of fucking course... the Nemean Lion." Annabeth shot me an impressed look when I spouted off the name without thinking, while Zoë whipped out her boy and began to fire shots as she moved to higher ground.
Annabeth slipped on a baseball cap and turned invisible much to my shock, which left me and the lion staring each other down.
"Any chance you'd believe I'm just a monster and leave us alone?" I swear I saw it's eyes narrow at me before it started to bound towards me at tremendous speed. "Obviously not then."
With a quick dive to the side I dodged its massive maw and quickly scrambled back.
Zoë was firing arrow after arrow at it with no progress while an occasional irritated roar told me Annabeth was striking it as well.
A hundred thoughts flew threw my head while I thought about how to beat this thing. In my slight moment of hesitation, things went south fast.
A whip of its tail caught Annabeth, throwing off her cap and sending her crashing into a wall unconscious... hopefully. It started to make its way towards her, not paying any attention to Zoë increased efforts with her boy.
My breathing quickened while time almost seemed to slow, I wasn't going to let her die... I wasn't going to let this overgrown cat kill anyone.
Anger started to rise within me as I sprinted at the lion, a low growl building in my throat as I did that caught its attention.
It started to turn towards me, a roar escaping its mouth while I lunged at the beast. I was at least 10 feet away from it, but I lifted off of the ground higher than both me and the furball were expecting.
I grew closer and closer, one arm back with my claws shooting out of my hand. My growl turned into a roar that rivaled the monsters as my hand shot forward into the lion's opened mouth.
They hit the back of its throat and shot right through the other side with a satisfying squelch that sprayed blood on my arm and face that was forming into a giant smile.
The smell of its blood... my enemies blood... it was almost intoxicating.
In an instant the monster started to collapse and exploded into a cloud of dust.
I landed on the ground and rushed over to Annabeth, who was in fact not dead and actually conscious as well.
"Are you ok? It looked like you got hit hard, do you think anything-" She cut me off by slapping her forehead and letting out a groan.
"Of course! The mouth, why didn't I think of that?" I stared at her incredulously before laughing loudly, Zoë was now beside us and shooting me an almost scared look if I didn't know any better.
"You get swatted across the room by a giant lion and that's what you're worried about?" I asked through my laughter. Annabeth blushed while rising to her feet and checking the minor injuries she sustained.
"That's a daughter of Athena for you," interjected Zoë.
We all walked towards the remains and looked at the fur coat laying on the ground. Both their eyes turned towards me as I picked it up off the ground. It morphed into a black leather jacket that was extremely light but I could just tell it had the same durability as the lion's coat.
"Here," I said while tossing the coat to a surprised Annabeth, "You're gonna need this if you keep getting thrown across the room by monsters." I finished with a smirk.
She grumbled out a response while slipping the jacket on while Zoë shot me an odd look. Then a thought ran through my head.
"Wait... the general said something about soldiers... not just a lion." Both members looked at me when a loud bang rang through the air.
I lurched forward and looked down to see a bullet hole through the bottom right part of my torso. Annabeth and Zoë were both looking over my shoulder in fright and I risked a glance back to see a group of... skeletons?
We didn't waste much time in turning and sprinting towards the exit of the museum.
(I know I'm about to skip a part of the quest but I'm impatient and want to get ahead with the story)
After shooting out the back door Annabeth turned and made a beeline left, forcing me and Zoë to follow.
"I swear there's a train station over here, we can lose them on one." Annabeth shouted out confidently.
My bullet wound was already starting to stitch itself up, but the pain was definitely slowing me down. Luckily, Annabeth was right and we reached the train tracks shortly.
One was starting to pull away when we approached so we sprinted to catch up to it and flung ourselves into an open box on it.
I leaned back against the side of it and gripped my wound tightly as if that would help it heal faster. Annabeth laid sprawled out on the floor and Zoë stared back at the slowly fading skeletons.
"They won't be bothering you for a while now," All three of us whipped our heads around to the homeless looking man with a smile that was way to bright for a normal person.
"This train is taking you in the right direction much faster than a normal one would... Zoë," he addressed the hunter seriously, "I'm guessing you have know where to go now?" The huntress paled and nodded her head slowly.
"Good," stated the man with his smile returning, "I'm trusting you all to save my sister... don't let me down." And in a flash he was gone.
"Was that..." I trailed off and turned to see Annabeth nodding her head while staring at the spot he'd just been standing in shock.
"It seems Apollo is helping us on our quest."
Not long after that Annabeth got up to check out the rest of the train, leaving me and Zoë alone in the cart. She restrung her bowstring and I watched in interest. It didn't take long for the silence to start killing me.
"Why do you hate me so much?" My question causes her to pause her actions and glance up at me, only to ignore me and keep working.
"I mean almost everyone I've met lately seems to hold some level of fear or disgust for me but you... you truly hate me. I just don't understand what could-" I stopped when I noticed she had stopped stringing her bow and her hands were shaking slightly.
"You don't know what mutants are capable of." Her eyes met mine and I saw the anguish hidden in them. "Hunters... the girls I consider family... I've seen them ripped to shreds by your kind." She took a shaky breath and looked back down at her bow.
"The other hunters didn't even want me to go with you, even though Lady Artemis' life is on the line. We've seen monsters like you do... unspeakable things." The fact that she was grouping me in with them sparked a feeling of rage but I held me tongue and waited for her to continue.
"Our first encounter with one we didn't know what hit us. I saw it all happen, the others were more fortunate." If I didn't know any better I would say she was close to tears recalling the story.
"He reached a huntress, arrow imbedded in his left shoulder and right hand making both arms practically useless, so do you know what that monstrosity did?" She wasn't even looking at me but I still shook my head no.
"It lunged at her and bit her neck... I started shooting it as fast as I could as many times as I could but it stayed latched on, shaking its head and ripping her throat to shreds until its final breath." I listened in horror to her story, finally beginning to understand why everyone felt the way they did about me.
"Mutants... they're not like normal monsters. Normal monsters want to live, hell they'll even run when they know their outnumbered and don't have a chance." She finally looked back up at my again with a murderous glint in her eyes.
"Not your kind, they may be smarter but only one thing is on their mind... kill at all costs." My breathing felt shallow, my head spun, I couldn't wrap my mind around the fact that that's what people thought I was like... or feared I'd turn into.
"When you killed the Nemean Lion you were... you were smiling, you looked so happy when it's blood sprayed across you," I glanced down at my still bloody arm and thought back to the rush I had gotten killing the monster.
"I had an arrow notched ready to fire... fire at you, and I almost did when you ran at Annabeth," she paused and gave me a look I couldn't quite decipher, "but all you were concerned about was her well-being, as if moments ago you weren't just smiling almost psychotically while killing something."
A million thoughts rushed through my head, but I couldn't think of anything to say.
"You may have reeled in control that time, and actually somewhat convinced me you're different and could be trusted, but know this," she held up her freshly strung bow and pulled the string back while pointing it at me.
"One false move, and I'll find a way to put you down... permanently."
A/N: Got a little bit of Percy/Zoë progress in there at the end. They're still a long way from even being friends but there's some insight into why she's like that and how she feels about him.