Dealing with Drama

Role Reversal: Part 1

AN: I have lived up to my promise. Here's another update, and no, the title doesn't mean a subby Percy.

Happy reading!

Time: A Month Later

Percy stood in the middle of the clearing, stretching to get all the kinks out of his body, slightly rusty from all the training and workouts he had missed in the last few days.

"Ah, monster hunting. Just like the good old times." He couldn't help the smile on his face, so wide that it threatened to split his face in half, as he looked around him at all the Hunters gathered in the clearing.

"You're probably the only one who is so enthusiastic about hunting monsters, Percy." Angela poked at the fire with a stick, making sure that there was enough ventilation for the crackling flames, and checking the boiling pot of stew and freshly hunted venison that she was cooking. "For us, it's just a chore."

The food gave off a sweet aroma that wafted through the forest, mixing with the invigorating smells of pine and cedar, strong with the early morning dew.

"Well, it might be a chore, but it's a fun chore, you know. It's as if playing video games was a chore." Percy tried to think of some analogies, but fell short, instead deciding to concentrate on the moment. He was always more physical than anything, and dwelling in the physical world seemed to be the best way to go about life.

The early morning air was slightly chilly- sending goosebumps up his skin, and a thin mist hung in the air, wisps curling between the trunks of the trees and giving the place an otherworldly feel. The crackling fire was the sole source of heat in the cold autumn morning, the bright orange glow chasing away the autumn shadows and blending with the few bright orange and red leaves that carpeted the ground, the only source of light with the sun still hidden behind the clouds and the entire world asleep. The forest was never silent though, even as it slept, full of white noise of chirping insects and the earliest of morning larks that he wouldn't otherwise notice, forming a comforting white haze in the background that melted into the dense fog. A light early morning breeze rustled the leaves of the trees, a beautiful sound that one couldn't get enough of, swaying the canopy, as high as any skyscraper, that faded into the fog above head, and playing with Percy's messy raven hair.

If he looked out between the trees, he couldn't see twenty feet past the edge of the clearing, lined by tall dark trees, silent and foreboding, and his heart beat in excitement at the thought.

He remembered his days as a weak demigod, even before he had been christened the Bane of Monsters, when fog had been his worst enemy and he had always trembled in fear at the thought of a surprise ambush waiting for him mere feet into the thick cover of mist, when every flickering shadow contained a monster waiting to drink his blood, when he was afraid of every sound that was out of place.

He had been terrified, and his heart had beat as fast as it was beating now.

But now, it beat for a different reason. No longer was he afraid, nor was he weak. With a shotgun in one hand and axe in the other, he was terror itself, nightmares given human form, death bound in strong flesh and warm blood. He was the Bane of Monsters, and every monster that saw him coming was as good as dead. Now, he was no longer the hunted.

The abominations and the children born of Tartarean toxicity were all afraid of him, feared him as retribution itself, trembled at his name. The predators who had once hunted him down so hungrily, were now the hunted. They were less than beings, they were mere targets to kill.

And Percy sought revenge for every demigod heart that had once beat in fear.

He suddenly zoomed back into the present moment, free from his musings and realizing that he was now heading towards the edge of the clearing. His feet carried him towards the fog, which held the allure of the unknown and a silent promise of bloody violence, his combat boots crunching softly against the dry, yellow, and red leaves that lined the soft earth, the fallen pine needles of the previous night soft and moist with the morning dew, stepping over roots and snapping old twigs beneath his feet on his aimless path towards an unknown destination.