Meeting the Moon at war

Chapter 20

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO OUR MISTRESS!?!?!!'' Phoebe shouted, glaring daggers at Percy and getting into a fighting posture. Her sisters were doing the same thing until they saw the shocked face on the males face too, telling  them that not even he had an idea of what was happening, though that didn't mean that they stopped dagger glaring his way.

Percy was, to say at least, shocked at the actions of the goddess. He knew that at a point in time that Lady Artemis would somewhat recognize him, but he didn't expect such a welcome, especially not by the man-hating goddess. 

He broke out of his shock and tentatively hugged the goddess back, patting her back in the mean time, as if that would break him out of this awkward situation. His mind was running a hundred miles per hour, trying to find the best solution to escape until Artemis would come to her senses and break every bone in his body. But seeing how the hunters had surrounded him he had no clue how to escape, especially in his tired state, form the war, the dogging all the hunters attacks and avoiding all of Artemis's blows. 

Artemis, once realizing what she was doing, broke away from the hug and awkwardly shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "It's good to see you Percy." she said with a smile. Percy responded with a nod and a smile of his own. Her hunters, she noticed, were in a full circle looking at her in worry and at Percy in disgust. She sighed at her hunters, but a proud look was seen on her face, knowing that her hunters were family that she couldn't live without and that they always had her back no matter what. 

"Hunters stand down." their patron said in a kind but strong voice. This lead to all drop their bows, half knowing that the arrows shot at the boy would be useless since he'd just doge them and the other half knowing to trust their mistress on this one. The only one that didn't drop her bow was the lieutenant of the hunt, also know as the person who's hated for men was on par of Artemis's. This was Zoe Nightshade, the oldest hunter out of all of them. She was still convinced that the male had done something to their mistress and she always trusted her gut when it told her something. 

Artemis, seeing this, sighed once again knowing how hard it was to convince Zoe out of something when she had put her mind into it. Percy noticed her sigh and slight shook of the head and turned towards what she was looking at. What he saw made his heart stop dead in his tracks. In front of him was the person that he had failed to save, the person that had stayed strong during the hard times in the quest, the person that he had started to like in a family sort of way. 

The goddess beside him felt Percy tense and was surprised when she found the war hardened soldier that had faced Kronos, multiple strong titans, Gaia, Tartarus and few of the strongest minsters without flinching openly crying, tears flowing down his face rapidly as he stared towards her lieutenant. Before she could ask him what was wrong, he did something that beats his other stupid things that he'd did by a hundred or so miles. He ran up to Zoe with speed that even she was having trouble processing, and hugged Zoe tight, leaving her and the rest of the hunt speechless.