Percy of the Huntsmen

The New New Huntress

The Hunter's Camp
A few hours away from Long Island, New York

Percy woke up. Nico was asleep, thank God. That boy was a nonstop stream of irritating questions and battle stats for all the gods. To make things worse, Percy could smell that he was a son of Hades. The Huntsmen had long known about the Great Prophesy. That is, after all, the reason Kronos was paying them to send Percy to infiltrate this camp. It wouldn't be especially hard to keep an eye on Thalia, Justin, and Brayden. They were all predictable children of Zeus or Poseidon. He knew how'd they'd react to the whole prophesy thing. Even better, Brayden and Justin were seventeen years old. This ruled them out from being a part in the prophesy.
A child of Hades was different.
Children of Hades are almost always wild cards. Their reactions are sporadic, especially one without any sort of training drilled into him from a young age. Even if Nico or Bianca weren't the Chosen One from the prophesy, they were still kids of his "dad's" boss. They might think that Percy's their servant or something.

"Uuuuhhhh," the kid that could potentially save or destroy the world moaned as he woke up. Dammit. The quiet had been quite nice.
Percy excused himself to attend to nature. On the way over to the tree line, he noticed a faint wolf head carved into a tree. This was how the Huntsmen marked regions as theirs.
The monster world was like a group of semi-united gangs. They wouldn't have an outright war over most things, but monsters that weren't werewolves could expect death if they ventured into a wood on marked Huntsmen property. Same with werewolves on vampire, Minotaur, or Cyclopes territory. The best thing about marked territory in Percy's situation was that Adam had set up drop boxes in most territories around the country. Percy pressed his hand on the wolf's head, praying that it would actually work. It turned black. A square foot of bark slid to the side with a metallic hiss, revealing a small Blacktooth earpiece marked with the Huntsmen's wolf head logo.

"Boy! Are you back there?" A female voice pierced the air.

"Yeah, I'll be right out. Just taking care of business," he called back. Percy quickly slid the earpiece into his pocket and walked toward the sound of her voice. Upon getting closer, Percy recognized her as one of the hunters who tried to hold him down last night. "Hey, there are some weird tree carvings back there. Some sort of wolf head design is on those trees," Percy pointed back where he came from.

The hunter paled. "This is not good. We don't like being this close to the Wolves."

"The Wolves?" Percy asked. Of course he knew they were talking about his Huntsmen, but he liked how scared she looked of the pack.

"They're a group of werewolf mercenaries. No morals, no mercy, just fighting for money. Sadly, they're very good at what they do. Our hunt has never been able to find any sort of base of operations, any territories that many of us look into are completely deserted, and if a small party goes then they never return. We only have twenty hunters with us here, if they attack now we're toast. You'd best stay out of those woods."

"Will do. Those guys sound strong."

"They are strong. They are the only prey to avoid us. However, they don't pose a real threat to anyone other than their target, so we might as well just head back of camp. Lady Artemis has requested your presence."

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Percy and the hunter walked into the group of tents. Artemis, Annabeth, Bianca, and the other hunters were sitting around a large fire. Only Bianca looked rested from the events of last night as she drank coffee with the other girls, Annabeth looked very tired. The hunters had given them silver parkas, which Percy hated. They could keep their silver to themselves, thank you very much.

Tiara girl sneered at Percy. "Why is the boy in our camp?"

"Calm yourself, Zoë. I asked him here," Artemis replied. Anticipating the question on her lieutenant's lips,
she said, "I wished to speak with him about Thalia. I should know all I can before I pursue her trail."

"'I'?" Percy asked incredulously. "Thalia is our friend too. We're going with you."

"Foolish boy. You know not what it is I'm after. You could never fight a monster like this. Now tell me what you know of Thalia."

"Not much. I only met her a few days ago. All I really know is that she's a rock fan, she used to be a tree, and now she's gone."

"Pity, I was hoping for more than what Annabeth has said. But that is of no consequence. My brother shall arrive shortly. Pack your things." Artemis made a shooing motion with her hands.

Percy walked off to where he, Nico, and Grover had spent the night. Bianca followed to see her brother, but Annabeth still had more items to get out of her tent. Percy glanced down at the younger girl.
"I want some of that hunter coffee you had, I'm not really awake yet."

"Oh, it's not the coffee. I became a hunter last night." Bianca said easily.

Good thing Percy didn't have, any of that coffee, he would have spit it up. "You what? Why would you become a hunter?"

"I've been taking care of my younger brother for over a year now. Now I can finally escape the responsibility, send him off to camp and spend time with girls."

"In other words, ditch your brother for people you haven't known a full 24 hours. You're quite the older sibling." Bianca hung her head a bit at that.

"I just want to live a little."

"Well, please tell me if hunter life is worth living without those closest to you. Anyways, here we are! Have fun explaining what you've done to Nico."
Bianca cringed. She obviously wasn't looking forward to this.

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Five minutes later, Percy was set to go. He had a new plain black sleeveless shirt on, with matching black jeans and combat boots. The hunters had offered him one of their infamous silver parkas, but Percy had declined. He had been wearing a black jacket to complete the child-of-Thanatos look, but Nico had used it as a pillow the previous night and had yet to return it.

Artemis was long gone by the time Apollo pulled up in his sun chariot. He was apparently going with the Ancient Greek look today, when he stepped of the chariot Percy could see that he was wearing a bronze breastplate and sword belt over a yellow hoodie and jeans.
"Hello, hunters and demigods! I hear tell you need a quick trip back to camp?" Before anyone could answer, he continued. "Well, today is your lucky day! But first, a limerick." The hunters groaned. "Or is today more of a haiku day..." The hunters' groans increased. "By popular vote, Limerick it is! So,

The helpless ones call for aid
I ride to save them
I am so cool."

Zoë frowned. "I'm not sure that was a Limerick."

"Well, I guess today was a haiku day after all."

Percy finished counting syllables on his fingers. "That last line was only four syllables."

"Tough audience," Apollo muttered.

"We have a place to be," Zoë reminded Apollo.

"Ah, yes. To the chariot!" Apollo hollered and hopped on. Then, realizing that there wasn't nearly enough room for them all, Apollo snapped his fingers and made the chariot into a tour bus. "Come on in, guys!"

As he walked in, Percy noticed that Nico and Bianca were avoiding each other. And were Nico's eyes bloodshot? Percy sank into a seat in the back row of the bus. He'd have to talk to Nico later. He'd also have to decide whether he should tell Nico of his godly parentage. For now, he needed to continue planning his biggest challenge of this mission: how to take out Chiron.