Meeting the Moon at war

Chapter 24

The first thought on Percy's mind was to deny that he is injured so that they wouldn't be worried about him, but seeing as he's shirtless and all of his injuries and scars were showing it was hard to say that, so he just went for the simplest conclusion that he hoped that they'd buy it. "Well being chased by monsters does a number on a person's body." he said, ending with a chuckle, in hopes to lighten up the mood which unfortunately didn't work. 

The hunters all glare at him for that lame excuse, knowing that the real reason of those scars weren't all inflicted by monsters, the mythological kind that is. The hunters kept looking at him expectantly, giving their best 'tell us right now or else' glare. They smiled in triumph as he sighed in defeat. What they didn't seem to notice was how tense his muscles were, or how he was slowly sliding off the bed, slow enough to not attract any attention towards himself. As soon as the hunters were slightly distracted, by either smiling from the winning glare argument or fist bumping each other, he acted fast. Fast enough so that the hunters wouldn't have enough time to react. He jumped off the bed and ran full sprint towards the entrance of the tent. 

Unfortunately for him he was in a tent with the best fighter on Olympus, and she noticed his movements and locked the tent with a shield made of moonlight, meaning that Percy had just collided face first with which hurt as hell, but luckily he didn't have any broken bones. He glared at the goddess who was trying, and failing, to contain a smile. 

 The hunters registered this information a few seconds later. They were shocked at the mans speed, even though they'd never admit it, since he passed them without a single one of them seeing his actions or feel any breeze that would've been admitted if one were to go at that speed. Zoe felt a bit of jealousy of  the males speed. Even she, with thousands of years of training couldn't match his speed and if they were going to have a fight he'd be sure to win. She'd usually be wary and ready to attack the male in front of her since one he was a male and two he was a powerful, powerful enough to take advantage of them which made her scared for her and her sisters. The only reason why she wasn't like this now was because she saw her patron smiling and giggling, which is a very rare occurrence, at the man in front of her who was playfully glaring as he rubbed his head. 

The hunters looked over to where their leader was giggling about and they too burst out in a fit of giggles when they saw Percy's position. This made him scratch the back of his neck, as his face turned to a light shade of pink in embarrassment. As the noise turned down and everyone had gotten their breathing to a normal pace, Percy, with the help of Jackie, made it back on the bed. Percy felt all the tiredness return as soon as he sat on the comfy bed so he flopped down and tried to sleep but the piercing looks of the huntress and their mistress was too much for him to get a peaceful sleep, no matter how tiered he was. Sighing he stood up, rubbed his face to try and take the sleep away and faced the girls. "Why did you try to run away?" Artemis asked, using a calm and soft voice, opposite of her usual cold demeanor. "Cause..... I don't want to relive it again." he mumbled under his breath. 

Unfortunately for him they all heard this and understood the meaning behind it as it wasn't the first time a hunter had said those exact words. Half of the hunters had a haunted look in their eyes, knowing what tortures that he must've gone throughout his life as they've experienced the same thing as he had, but the numerous scars that littered his body shows that he had it worse than them. Artemis walked up to Percy, scolding herself internally for making him say something like that, and hugged him tight, to which he returned with full force which would've broken a normal human being in half but luckily he was hugging a goddess. Soon all the hunters joined in on the hug, meaning that a large doggy pile was in order crushing Percy and Artemis together, not being able to move, making a blush form on both of their faces. After a couple of minutes trying to get out from under all of her hunters she had finally succeeded and managed to get all of them off of Percy.

When she looked over towards her only male friend she saw that he'd stayed in the same position of when they were under the doggy pile, and that made her worry. Moving closer she sighed in relief when she saw the steady breaths coming from him meaning that he had fallen asleep. He must've really been tired to sleep under those conditions Artemis thought as she chuckled to herself. Following on that note she ushered all of her hunters out of the tent and told them to go to sleep as it was already one in the morning, way past their usual bed time. After some grumbling and complaining the hunters had finally walked towards their respective tents. Artemis checked once more on Percy, pushing him into a much comfortable position than he was then, with half of his body hanging from the side of the bed. Proud of her help, Artemis finally retired to her tent to get some shut eye, but a question had kept pondering in her mind, refusing to let her sleep, 'What happened to Percy Jackson?'