The Son of Artemis Book 2

Chapter 2: I Get My Shield

Percy's POV:

My week of being grounded was entirely not fun. Now as you are aware, Zoë told me that part of being grounded for me was laundry duty, which for me basically meant all shirts, pants, and jackets, as from early on whenever mom assigned me laundry duty, I never did undergarments besides my own, which is still the case.

Now usually, when it's assigned my sisters are nice to whoever has laundry duty. But Noooooooo, when I get it from getting grounded, one time, they make it their personal mission to get their entire wardrobe dirty every single day. Do you know how long it takes to wash that much laundry...in a river...by hand...even with control over water. No then let me tell you, it's an all day affair.

Now, besides my sisters attempt at murdering me by laundry, the week quickly went by and I went from being grounded to not being grounded, where Zoe and I started working on the minotaur horn spear.

Now don't ask how Zoë and I did this but, we modified my the spear design a little bit...ok a lot a bit, but blame the original spear pole. So originally, we planed on it being a wooden pole with a simple spike on the other end, and the minotaur horn trimmed and attached to the the main end. But that changed as I picked up the shaft before we started working on it and did some basic spear moves against a dummy, at about half force, and the shaft broke in my hands, which made Zoë sigh.

So we ended up forging the Minotaur Horn into a celestial bronze spear shaft, and for the fun of it we forged the other end into a Spartan spearhead. 

Since my spear was made it only needed to pass the testing trials that Zoë, mom, Phoebe, Annabeth, and Annbeth's half sisters came up with to test, if it was a weapon worthy of combat, which it obviously destroyed.

As, we finished testing it, we began to put magical enchainments onto it, such as adding a hidden form and a return to owner feature, much like Anaklusmos possesses. So, one I don't lose it, and two I can have it out in front of a mortal and they shouldn't think much of it, well except that it's a collapsable bronze baton in it's hidden, easier, to carry around form.

Since this whole process only took two weeks between making, testing, enchanting, and testing again, it meant that I haven't even been back a month yet, and was only waiting for my shield from Hephaestus to be finished.

"So Percy, what are you going to call your new spear, lil bro" Zoë asked, now that we have finished testing the spear

"Nightshade" I responded almost instinctively, only to get her to glare at me. "What? You helped make the spear and I'm only recognizing that".

"I still think you're still defective" she said before leaving me in the training area we had set up.

Now some of you may be wondering, but Percy, how can Zoë and you make a spear faster than Hephaestus, the god of the forge, blacksmithing, fire, and some other things, can make a shield. Well, a little known secret, when the original Aegis was made it took him almost a year to make it. Though this time he said it should only be a couple of months or a little longer, because he already has the materials and Medusa's head was relatively fresh, which apparently made it easier to work with. His words not mine.

So, I began practicing my spear wielding against Phoebe, Annabeth's half sisters, and occasionally mom, though mom was more for instruction and how to throw it as a hunting spear even though it's design wasn't for that purpose.

Time skip

I've been practicing with my new spear for about a week, making improvements wielding it to about the point of having a 30-70 win loss ratio with Phoebe when using spears, which after hunting knives and a bow is her preferred weapon.

Today, however, was different. Hephaestus arrived shortly after breakfast only to get multiple arrows pointed at him, which he just decided to ignore, until mom came out of the dining tent.

"Hephaestus, you are aware it is probably wiser to ask me about coming into my camp, before coming into my camp" Mom said to him, as she noticed the arrows.

"well weren't you all expecting me" He asked, "I do have a shield to deliver after all"

"In all honesty, we were expecting Hermes to deliver it" mom said, as I ran up to her and Uncle Hephaestus

"Do you honestly expect him to remember the instructions for the shield" He countered

mom sighed, "You have an excellent point there, brother, as I don't expect him to remember any instructions if you were to send the shield with him, heck I wouldn't even expect delivery" she joked, causing Hephaestus to release a light chuckle.

"Which is exactly why, I am here to deliver it myself" he said before handing me a watch, and asking if he can take me aside to explain it, which mom gave him permission to do.

As we were beginning to walk out of the hunt's campsite, I looked down at the watch and almost instinctively went to look away from it as the dial, which had standard time markings, had Medusa's head as a background image behind the clock hands. I also noticed that it was displaying the month and date, correctly which is pretty cool.

"Ok now nephew, as you can see I made its hidden form to be a watch, so that it can hold a purpose besides just being a shield" He said after we were out of the hunt's camp site.

"An incredibly scary watch to look at, but yeah" I said, and he laughed.

"Yes now as you can see there are two crowns or hour makers, which ever you prefer, pull them out and twist them and wait a couple seconds and they'll retract back in and they work like anyone would expect. However if you were to push them in from their resting position you get your shield. The one with a T engraved on it will get you a greek shield and the one with a D engraved, will get you the other type of shield you requested" He explained

"Cool thanks Uncle Hephaestus" I said, which made him look at me in shock, "but I do have a question what does the T and D mean"

Hephaestus quickly shook the look of shock from his face, before explaining that "T is for Time, and D is for Date. I figured since the Romans initially made the calendar we all run off of today that it would be easy to remember which Crown gets you which shield"

"Thanks uncle Hephaestus and have a safe trip back to Olympus" I said, to which he just left and I walked back into camp, only to start getting swarmed with pleads to see the shield.

"Alright, alright, just don't blame me if you get scared" I said activating the Greek shield, since Annabeth was among those who wanted to see it. As soon as the shield sprung to life from with in the watch, the younger hunters all immediately moved behind the older one's, who actually looked scared for once, and Annabeth who was doing her best not to join my mom's younger hunters.

"Perseus put that away now, you are scaring your younger sisters" mom said to me and I pushed the conveniently label button for retracting the shield.

"Sorry mom, but they wanted to see it" I said, to which the older hunters nodded slowly in agreement.

"Well you shouldn't have done that with the young ones here" she said, which I reluctantly agreed with before asking if I could drag Phoebe off to practice using the shield and spear in a combo.

"Fine" Mom said, and I began dragging Phoebe off to go and spar with shield and spear, which she was all the sudden very reluctant to do.