Disclaimer: I don't own pjo.
Note: Sorry for the delayed update. I had a midterm for today that I was studying for and didn't have the time to write hence the short chapter.
I'll probably have another chapter out by Friday to compensate.
T-T
Eviane mindlessly followed the male. She didn't know what his objective was but didn't care for it any longer. It felt relaxing to breathe normally again. She felt suffocated back there, unable to say even a single word to Alexie.
Not even a sound. Like a coward.
It felt humiliating that she stood there taking it.
She might as well have put a "Kick Me" sign on herself.
Her body trembled with anger and frustration.
There was nothing stopping her from letting loose, but she didn't do anything.
Eviane hadn't noticed, but the male stopped walking, letting her body crash into him.
"What the-" She stumbled backwards.
"What the hell!" Just when she was about to yell at him more, Eviane noticed her surroundings.
This wasn't the camp.
It was familiar but not at the same time.
Then.
It clicked.
This was near the pack of hellhounds.
No wonder she recognized the area.
At first, Eviane wanted to yell at him but doing so would alert the hellhounds to their position.
The huntress saw him unsheathe his sword, preparing for combat.
She tugged on his jacket, angrily whispering, "You idiot! You're going to get us both killed!"
The male turned to look at her for the first time.
His sea green eyes startled her.
"Listen, you followed me by yourself. If you don't feel safe, you can leave."
His tone sounded like he was calling her an idiot. It also made her a bit angry again.
She was only trying to stop him from doing something completely reckless.
"Do you think you could take all of them by yourself? There's a reason why 8 people were assigned to do this!"
He was silent, presumably thinking it through.
"Eviane. Back there. You looked like wanted to say something to Alexie. Why didn't you?"
She was caught off guard by his question. Her brain froze.
"???"
Eviane didn't even process that he knew their names.
"I didn't-" Her voice faltered, quieting to a whisper.
His stare felt like it was drilling a hole in her as she was about to make up an half-assed excuse.
She wanted to avoid his look like a child getting reprimanded. She couldn't bring herself to look at him under his questioning gaze.
Percy roughly understood the emotions that she was going through. She couldn't explain her inability to do anything. The feeling of repression and the feeling of "holding back".
He quickly switched the topic to the subjugation.
Percy began muttering his plan to himself, but loud enough for Eviane to hear.
It was either she was with him or she wasn't.
From what he's seen, these hounds had a hierarchy. The largest one in the group was the leader. Its demeanor was arrogant and lazy, but none of the other hounds attempted to do anything.
It seemed to have terrified the rest of the pack to submission.
The easiest way was to get rid of the head of the pack. The strange thing was that it had guards. There were always five other hellhounds around it at all times. It was like it understood that it was the most important member of the pack and acted like a king, which was strangely human.
He said that out loud, but Eviane seemed to brush it off as animal behavior.
The "king" barked twice, which caused a small number to gather in front of it.
They then left in a direction that was somewhat near the direction of the hunt.
Percy thought it was a good idea to follow them because he wanted to thin their numbers.
If the ones that left were gone for long enough, more would be sent to check on them. This created a cycle that he could take advantage of.
Then, the enemy would be weakened to the point where it was easy to cleanup.
Perhaps, it would been easy for the hunters to just rain arrows on them, but he didn't have the luxury to do so.
He didn't know how strong hellhounds were and took this as an opportunity to measure how dangerous they were.
Something to note was that he had no experience with hunting large groups of animals. In the Isles, he hunted the bare minimum to have something to eat. It also couldn't really be called a hunt. It was more of a slaughter because the wild animals were rather weak and easy to hunt with a sword.
But, he didn't know how strong the animals here were. If they were weak that it would be easy for him, but if they weren't then he would've made a huge mistake by leaping directly into combat.
Percy figured that if eight people were necessary for this then it meant that each huntress could manage a few on their own. So gauging himself on a similar scale to the huntress, it would be suicide for him to face that many at once.
At first, he thought Eviane followed to help him, but he soon realized that it wasn't the case. If not paying attention to her surroundings and bumping into him was a tell-tale sign then he didn't know what was.
The incident seemed to weigh heavy on her mind as the observant, decisive image that he judged her as wasn't there. Clearly, she was not in a good mental space, but it was neither the time or place to talk about the topic.
After following the hellhounds for a while, he sprung out to see how they would react. His sudden movement surprised the two black dogs and Eviane.
Looking at them closer, they were massive. It made much more sense but confused him at the same time.
He questioned the strength of the bear-sized dogs.
Not that he had much more time to think about it before the two dogs lunged at him.
Their glowing red eyes reflected their murderous desire.
He effortlessly dodged their attempts and randomly swung his sword a few times.
It wasn't aimed to hurt them in any way but to test out their reflexes.
After a little back and forth, Percy was rather dissatisfied. It wasn't much compared to the wild dogs that lived on the outside of his village.
Those ones were much faster and fun to play with. These ones were a poor-man's version of them.
Percy swiftly cut at both their necks, causing them to explode in dust.
He, who was not expecting that to happen, jumped backwards a few feet away.
Their enormous bodies were gone with their ashes carried away by the wind.
Eviane was yet again dumbfounded. She rubbed her eyes to make sure they were still working, and to see if she was seeing things correctly.
To the average eye, it might've seemed like it was having trouble with the speed of the hellhound, but to her that could not be further from the truth.
Each dodge was precise, requiring the very minimum amount of space to dodge. His movements were as fluid as water as the coordinated attacks from the black dogs appeared nothing more than a pair of frogs jumping around.
The entirety of it seemed ridiculous and laughable, but she knew that just a single misstep would mean the end of everything. However, the look on the male's face showed on sign of anxiousness as if everything was under his control.
It ended very quickly.
Only around thirty seconds give or take.
Thirty might even be too much time. The only reason that it took so long was because the male was playing with his food.
It was both impressive and terrifying at the same time. If by any chance she got on his bad side, the things he could do to her she-
Nevermind.
She vowed not to anything that could possibly anger him.
While Percy was completely unaware of her thoughts, he was snapping his fingers in front of Eviane's face, trying to get her attention.
He found her frozen like an ice cube and there was no response from her.
Slightly annoyed, he called her name in a half-yelling voice, which seemed to do the trick.
She snapped awake and yelled, "Yes!"
Her body went rigid like a plank of wood, saluting, trying not to move a muscle.
Seeing this, Percy frowned and said, "Let's go."
The military act was dropped, and she chased his footsteps.