Chapter Text
“Your efforts are pointless,” Artemis informed them from the roof. “That wire’s celestial bronze, so there’s no way you're going to be able to cut it; and the bola themselves are enchanted to allow whatever they capture enough air to survive, barely, while also being impossible to unwrap.” She turned to Annabeth, silver fire blazing in her eyes.
“As for you, you ignorant child, do you really have such an inflated ego that you demigods are all that protects this world? Of course you do, you are a child of Athena after all,” she added with a mutter. “The prophecy wordings both said heroes not demigods, meaning it’s not just those directly born from gods you’re standing in the way of. The legacies at Camp Jupiter are being born without a connection to their godly blood, meaning they won’t be able to see the mythical world, the Egyptian are already noticing a downturn in new magic wielders, the Amazon’s are finding it difficult to get new hires, the Valkyries are becoming unable to create new Einherjar, and I have been unable to bless any new hunters. That is why I’m getting involved in this, as much as I hate it; because Percy is the first person that my powers have worked on since the acropolis.”
“Maybe this is what your choice actually was; either you accept the prophecy willingly or you piss me off so much I kill you.” Artemis clenched her left hand into a fist and the wire around Annabeth’s throat tightened to cut her air off completely. She started slowly rotating her fist and the wire continued tightening to match, beads of blood starting to squeeze out between the loops. “Choose girl; Acceptance or Death. Because I’m not letting my hunters end just because one mortal is too selfish to understand the world doesn’t revolve around her.”
Suddenly, there was an inhuman roar and the next thing any of the people on the ground knew something had slammed into the Goddess with enough force to send itself and her out of view in a blink of an eye. The hunters frantically looked around for any clues as to what happened but all they saw was a hunched over Annabeth, gasping down breaths and rubbing her injured throat, their second-in-command frantically digging through her pack for some healing salve, while Chiron was looking through his bag for some ambrosia, and a small crater in the ground where, a now mysteriously missing, Percy once stood.
A girl who, despite only looking 15, had pure white hair started stalking towards the group at the crater’s edge, and was about to start demanding they tell them what just happened when Artemis landed with a heavy grunt back in the middle of the Hunters Circle. The Goddess was sprawled in an uncomfortable looking heap for all her subjects to see and, as she partially rolled over with a pained groan, they all saw her cough up a glob of golden ichor; something none of them had ever seen her do after an attack before.
The white haired hunter, who was coincidentally named Hunter, snapped out of her shock when Artemis started trying to push herself to her feet, and started running to assist her. But neither of them were able to move more than a few inches before Percy landed between them and picked the Goddess up by her neck. He lifted her childlike form above his head with ease and thrust his other hand out towards the hunters that had started swarming towards him.
However, it wasn’t the fear of what he would do to their mistress or them that froze the girls, nor was it the auras of pure, unrestrained power and rage, though Hunter would be lying if she said a single one of those wouldn’t’ve given her pause, let alone all of them combined. No, it was simply the fact that one second the hunters had full control over their bodies and the next they were physically unable to move a muscle. Some of the girls found themselves stopped halfway between steps, and one unlucky hunter had been in the middle of flipping down from a cabin roof and was stuck upside down in mid-air.
“People always forget that humans are seventy percent water,” Percy said, still giving the Goddess in his hand almost all of his attention. “And you gods always fail to notice that the more power you give us, the more we’re able to do with the abilities we already possess.”
Artemis had overcome her daze and was now struggling, shifting between various different human and animal forms in an attempt to break free from his grip, but he managed to hold her no matter what form she was; his arm not even dipping slightly when she became a full grown bear. Eventually she seemed to admit the futility of her efforts by shifting into her adult godly form and silently glaring down at him.
“Percy,” Chiron warned, his voice calm but his horse half gave away that he was also feeling the effects of Percy’s power and anger; nervously pacing in place and tail swishing wildly. “Maybe you should put the Goddess down? I’m sure we can talk this out without anyone hurting anyone else.”
“I’m sorry Chiron,” Percy told his mentor, not unkindly despite what was currently happening. “But she’s basically a wild animal, and the only thing a wild animal knows to respect is a stronger beast. Surely you noticed how she hasn’t actually tried attacking me since I grabbed her.”
He was right, Hunter realised with a shock. Not once during her struggles did Artemis lash out with tooth or claw, nor has she tried to slash or stab him with the veritable arsenal of weapons she could’ve summoned with a thought. He didn’t even have so much as a scratch on his clothes.
“A shame, considering the stories we’ve been told about his body.” A not so small part of Hunter thought, though the huntress in her told that part to shut up. She shook her head to get rid of those thoughts and realised that Percy was still talking.
“...and she needs me a hell of a lot more than I need her. So she really should know better than to piss me off any more than she already has.”
As if to prove him wrong Artemis summoned her bow and aimed it towards Annabeth, who had finally recovered enough to get back on her feet, in a final act of pointless defiance. Percy just looked at her with a disapproving side-eye as he lazily reached to snatch the weapon from her hand, but his expression morphed into one of surprise as his hand passed straight through it. Artemis also turned towards the weapon still in her hand with a look of surprise, but hers quickly changed into a gloating expression as she started laughing.
“Why can’t I grab it?” Percy demanded, tightened his grip on her neck and shook her in an attempt to get her to stop, but she just let out more crazed laughter as he once again tried and failed to take the bow from her. “Did you really summon an illusionary bow to annoy me?”
“It’s not an illusion,” she choked out, whacking him on the top of the head to prove her point; with enough force that some of the hunters were hit by the air from the swing, but Percy didn’t even flinch. “You’ve got too much power now that you’re a God in everything but an official title, which means that the same rules that apply to us now apply to you, including the one where you can’t take another god’s symbol of power, like my bow. So there’s nothing you can do to stop me from firing on your girlfriend, and you know that my shots always hit my target no matter where they’re fired from.”
Percy growled at the Goddess and flexed the hand not around her throat, and suddenly Hunter and a few others found themselves being pulled through the air towards the arguing gods, stopping between Artemis’ bow and Annabeth.
“I may not be able to physically stop you from firing, but let’s see if you’re willing to shoot through your own hunters to reach your target; cause I can move them into the path of your arrow in the blink of an eye. Or maybe,” he paused, flexing his hand again, and all the hunters found themselves raised several stories in the air. Thankfully for Hunter, the blessing Artemis put on them enhanced their hearing enough to hear the rest of the threat. “Maybe I’ll give you an ultimatum; you can either drop the bow and I’ll bring the girls down safely, or you can shoot Annabeth and we’ll see just how far a fall your protection can save them from.”
“Not even a God for twenty minutes and you’re already acting just like us. Can’t attack me directly so you threaten to kill my champions, who are basically my children.” Artemis turned back to face Percy fully and barked out a dark laugh. “And you thought yourself a hero.”
An unreadable mask fell over Percy’s face at the Goddess’ words, and all was still and silent for several moments before Percy spoke again.
“You’re right, maybe I’m not a hero.” He said, in a voice so haunted that everyone there was hit with just how much he had endured in the past 6 years. “Maybe I never have been.”
At that moment they all saw a boy who spent 10 years with an abusive step-father, who thought his mother died in front of his eyes at 12, who almost lost his best friend the following year and his unadmitted crush not even a full year after that, who was forced to undertake so many impossible challenges that only the greatest heroes, or sometimes armies of heroes, had ever succeeded in so that others didn’t have to, who watched countless friends and people he respected die in such a short time, who lead many of them into the very battle that died in, who handed one of them the very knife they used to kill themselves with, who was told he could request any one thing of the Gods and have it honoured, and has already seen it ignored several times.
They saw a man who was finally starting to let himself feel genuine happiness, only to have everything but a single name taken from him, who was once again placed in a position where everyone was looking to him for guidance, who had to make the impossible decision between losing the love of his life and falling into literally the worst place imaginable, who fought his way through Tartarus with every intention of pushing Annabeth through the Doors of Hades and remaining in the pit alone to make sure they stayed shut, and had to face his greatest mistakes and fears while doing so, who faced down Nyx AND Tartarus and felt true dread for the first time in his life, not because of what he was facing but because he thought he’d be unable to keep Annabeth safe, who blames himself for Gaia awakening and everyone who died in the following battle.
They saw all this in a matter of seconds and when they snapped out of it they all realised two things; the first being that Percy truly doesn’t believe he should’ve gotten even a quarter of the good he’s had in his life, and that he should’ve gotten more than double the bad he’s had, and the second is that all of them, even Artemis and those who already knew all those events, had lines of tears running down their faces, more than any normal person should’ve been able to produce in such a short time
“You know,” Percy said sadly, gently lowering Artemis and the hunters to the ground and releasing his hold on them. “Your sister, and my once hoped mother-in-law, told me after I saved you from Atlas that my fatal flaw was one of the most dangerous there was, and that one day I may burn the world to save a person I cared about. But I realised that it isn’t the possibility of me being faced with actively having to choose between the world or a loved one, and being tempted to make the wrong choice, that makes it so dangerous; it’s the fact that if I were to turn away from the Gods I could, and would, succeed where Kronos failed. And it wouldn’t be a few Demigods fighting alongside a mostly monster filled army against you all, it would likely be the majority of all four pantheon’s heroes united behind me; because that kind of loyalty inspires others to follow suit.”
He looked over the Goddess’ shoulder as he said this and she whipped around to see what he was talking about, using her keen hunter’s eyes to take in every little detail of the surrounding area and what she saw surprised her. She saw that Chiron was standing in a way where he could’ve quickly intercept her arrow with his body had she actually fired it, she saw that a couple of her weapons dropped by her hunters when they’d been picked up by Percy were not angled in a way that would’ve made him their target, and most surprisingly that, prior to being stopped by Percy’s pain, Thalia had been mere inches away from grabbing her bow.
