Shattered

Horus

"Honestly, I'm dumbfounded. I know I'm new to the hunt and everything, but I'd thought I'd be able to leave you all to your own devices for two days?! Did I hear this right? Squirrels left you in this state?" Thalia chastised the other hunters.

Zoe and the rest of the hunters stood around, their eyes wandering, as they avoided both Thalia's bewildered expression, and Artemis' questioning glance.

"I am very disappointed with all of you," Artemis added, looking over the assembled hunters; all were rather scratched up and bruised.

"And here, I thought the hunters were all highly skilled and trained fighters. The elite of the elite. Now I hear you guys succumbed to an attack of squirrels?" Thalia placed her hand on her forehead, over-exaggerating her amazement by the story, snickering at the hunters' collective embarrassment.

"There were also Chipmunks.... Gods damned, nut lobbing devils...." Daphne trued to explain, which only caused the daughter of Zeus to burst into full blown laughter, which seehad clearly been trying to avoid doing up till that point.

Artemis on the other hand, wasn't as amused. "Squirrels. They were only squirrels. And you couldn't -"

"But-"

"No buts Zoe. No buts, any of you. You all were supposed to catch them, but instead you get defeated simple squirrels and chipmunks"

Percy decided to cut in, "-and sparrows. Oh, and don't forgot falcons." He smiled mischievously, earning pointed glares from multiple huntresses. The son of Poseidon laughed, before continuing to pet the Peregrine that had bonded with him and was currently perched on his finger.

"I go away from you guys for two days to pick up my stuff from camp, and you end up being attacked by squirrels," Thalia repeated, before choking from laughing too hard.

Zoe, in turn, glared harshly at the daughter of Zeus.

"Oh, they weren't attacked. Artemis sent them after us as part of our... Initiation, was it my lady?"

Artemis rolled her eyes at Percy's words, "Clearly a mistake on my part. Although I must commend you on your leadership skills in the guise of a squirrel, although the hunters couldn't understand you, I must say, that speech you gave was rather impressive for you."

Percy laughed good naturedly at that.

"Maybe you should have stayed, you wouldn't be laughing then," Zoe grumbled, stoically. This only caused the blue eyed huntress to laugh even harder, which in turn made Zoe glare harder.

"At least we finally managed to catch them..." Phoebe said.

Artemis stared pointedly at her. "And how long did that take?"

Phoebe grumbled under her breath.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you?"

"Four hours."

Thalia's eyes widened, "It took fifteen hunters four hours to catch two measly squirrels?!"

Bianca cleared her throat, clearly miffed at being called a measly squirrel.

"Er- Percy and Bianca turned-squirrels," Thalia rephrased, correcting herself.

The aforementioned daughter of Hades nodded her affirmation and continued to look at Percy's falcon with jealousy.

"Yeah, them and nineteen other demon squirrels from Hades."

Bianca glared at Siva, who had been the one who had spoken. The Indian girl ignored her younger half-sister.