The Broken and the Hunted (Percy Jackson Fanfic)

chapter 19

Thalia P.O.V.

I silently stalked behind the large buck I have been tracking for the past hour. It was currently grazing in a small clearing about thirty yards ahead of me. It turned slightly and gave me the perfect shot. I quickly drew my bow string to my cheek in one smooth silent motion. I aimed at the buck to take it down as quickly as possible. I softly exhaled as I released the string, it made a soft *twang* sound making the buck snap its head up.

The arrow flew true perfectly right behind the front leg. Before it hit thought it froze. I straitened up in surprise, I looked around and saw that everything was stoped, even a small humming bird by a flower frozen in mid wind flap. "Incredible isn't it?" A familiar voice said.

With a sigh I turned to see talon standing beside the deer I was hunting. "How are you doing this, and why are you talking to me again?"

He looked over at my direction, he had his hood up again so all I could see was his infuriating smirk. "Oh relax will you, life is so boring and stressful when your so uptight I mean just look at the gods for an example of that. However to answer your demands, this is just a dream. And as to why I'm talking to you... Isn't it obvious?" He said while stepping closer to me until his face was just a few inches away from mine. "Your special to me, so I want to be close to you."

My breath caught in my throat when he approached. As he said those words my heart almost skipped a beat. 'does he have feelings for me'. My thoughts were flying so fast through my head. 'is that why he saved me and has kept visiting me in my dreams'. 'does he love me?'. When I thought that I snapped back to reality as Talon traced my jaw with his finger his touch sending warm shocks through out my body. He gently pinched my chin in-between his forefinger and his thumb, slightly tilting my head up towards him.

My breathing got heavier as he smirked again, but it's different this time. It seemed kind of sad, it made me want to curl up in his arms and comfort him... Wait What! What in Hades was I thinking? My head cleared instantly after that and I brought my knee up in-between his, as hard as I could.

With a pained grunt he slid down to his knees clutching his nether regions. With out thinking about it I quickly slammed my knee into his face this time, putting some electricity into it for good measure. He flew back a few yards before crashing to the ground. As his body finally stoped I realised what I had just done.

I felt a cold sweat as I remembered he froze the gods on their thrones with a single glare. I felt a terrifying aura coming from the figure on the ground. The air around him darkened and a shadowy figure appeared behind him. He slowly stood up and glared at me, I saw an angry red flash in his eyes as blood ran from his nose.

Talon suddenly spun around and grabbed the buck by one of its horns. As soon as he touched it, the buck unfroze and started to flail around trying to get free. With a knife that suddenly appeared in his hand, Talon stabbed the bucks throat. As he ripped the dagger out blood gushed from the wound. Talon stabbed the deer again and again, blood was flying everywhere and the buck had long since gone still. Finally Talon flipped the knife around and stabbed it one more time, giving one hard pull he ripped the head off of the deers body.

With blood still pouring from the mangled head he threw it away with a roar. The head flew almost faster than I could see, slamming into a tree with a deffining crack. The tree slowly topped over behind him. He turned back to me, the front of his cloak splattered with blood. A few flecks of it also on his face. His breaths released steam in the cool air and he took a couple steps towards me.

Suddenly he stopped and i saw a soft green flash in his eyes as he turned his face to the sky with a sharp intake of breath. He breathed out with a soft 'tssss'. He looked back at me and he was completely calm. "What you did was an understandable reaction for what he did... But a deadly one. Ignus  is quick to anger and will lash out violently. I must apologize for him."

"What, who's Ignus?" I ask still wary of the figure in front of me.

"Ignus is like me, a fracture of Percy's broken soul. Each of us is a part of him that was separated when he was broken. None of us know how it happened, even the oldest of us, Akuma. By all right as soon as our soul broke we should have died." With a dismissive wave of his hand he moved on "but all of the is irrelevant it happened nothing can change it. We are here for a different reason."

He turned around and waved his hand in the air, and everything changed. One second we were in the middle of a forest the next we in a massive library with a small table and two chairs beside it. Talon calmly sat down and picked up a cup of what smelt like tea.

He motioned for me to sit. "Please make yourself comfortable this is your dream after all."

I was sceptical but I sat down anyway.  I glanced over at him only to see him calmly sipping his tea. "What do you want? Why are you here?"

"Simple. I want to play a game." He said looking at me dead in the eye.

Before I could say anything he started talking again. "With my skills and powers my contracts have become, boring. It's all to easy for me now. So I came up with an idea, how about you try and protect my next target. It will be fun, trust me all the details are in a folder by your bed when you wake up." With that he stood up and started to walk away. "Oh also before I forget, we play for stakes. If you win and I am not able to kill my target on the intended day, then I will owe you a favour, that you can turn in for anything at any time."