The Hunter Becomes the Prey
Zoe Belladona, the name of the girl who gave the order to attack, gave Percy an annoyed look for a moment. "Who do you think you are to stop our hunt?" she said.
Percy didn't answer. Instead, he let go of his swords for a moment and raised one of his hands, grabbing the silver arrow lodged in his shoulder. He pulled it out without hesitation, without even a flinch, as if he didn't feel the pain at all.
His face, just a moment ago filled with fury toward the hunters, suddenly shifted into a coldness so pure it simply looked like he was staring at ants. The same look the gods give to humans. The same look Zeus had given him before.
Percy looked at the arrow for a moment, then his feet started moving. Suddenly, a suffocating heaviness fell over everything. A dangerous aura, like when you're standing in front of a massive beast.
And the first one to feel it was Grover, as his herbivore instincts seemed to warn him of something. And at the same time, the connection he had with Percy also seemed to scream, feeling all that fury rising like a tidal wave, even while Percy looked as cold as ice.
"Percy?" Grover said, looking at his friend.
"Grover, heal Clarisse before she dies," Percy said in a dry tone. And even though he said it so easily, his voice carried a command that made Grover tremble for a moment before reacting quickly, running toward Clarisse immediately to help her with healing magic.
The hunters watching him, through their instincts, felt the same thing. Trained for hundreds of years, some even thousands, under Artemis' command, they felt the danger. The same danger as the largest creatures they had faced before. The same danger of a great predator.
Percy's eyes, now locked directly onto Zoe, suddenly seemed to change slightly, losing much of their green color, growing darker, as the green faded into darkness, his pupils turning vertical.
While a faint blue and golden aura briefly surrounded him in a flicker before fading, showing a draconic figure that everyone felt like a fleeting illusion, because Percy was the only one there.
Percy took one step, then another toward Zoe, as the air grew colder and colder.
Even Thalia frowned as she looked at Percy.
"You… what—?" Before Zoe could even ask what the hell Percy was about to try, he was already standing right in front of her, staring directly into her eyes. And even though she could see his cold expression, she could feel the complete contempt, an absolute disgust she had never seen in any man she had met before. And for a moment, it left her in shock.
Before Percy raised his hand, the one holding the silver arrow, it was clenched so tightly in his fist that it actually snapped in half.
No one understood what the hell he was doing. Not until the moment when, suddenly, Percy's hand came down, using the arrow like a dagger straight toward Zoe's neck. No killing intent, no fury, no battle instinct. Just like when you're about to kill a fly or step on an ant.
Even Artemis, now disguised as a 12-year-old girl among the hunters, widened her eyes in surprise.
"Perseus Jackson, stop," she shouted instantly, her voice filled with authority. Suddenly, a golden aura wrapped around Percy at once, as if his entire body was being forced to obey. But it didn't last long. In an instant, that aura shattered like fragments of glass, completely freeing him, and his hand kept descending, while Artemis' eyes widened even more.
Luckily for Zoe, that millisecond Artemis gave her was enough to react quickly, moving to dodge the fatal strike toward her neck, while the silver arrow shot by the hunters pierced her shoulder and her blood began to spill.
"Ahh!" she screamed, feeling the arrow even pierce through her bone.
"Fire!" one of the nearest hunters shouted quickly, snapping out of her shock. They reacted immediately to save their companion, as she fired a quick shot to push Percy away from Zoe.
Percy barely moved his hand, catching the arrow point-blank, and spun it between his fingers before stabbing toward Zoe's heart, shocking the hunter who had fired. Luckily for them, the other hunters behind her acted fast.
One arrow flew straight toward Percy's wrist, piercing it just a millisecond before, and another arrow went straight for the arrow in Percy's hand, cutting off its tip.
Percy looked for a moment at the missing tip of the arrow.
While Zoe, still in pain, also reacted quickly, pulling a dagger from her waist and stabbing toward Percy's side.
"Watch out!" both Nico and Bianca shouted, even though they didn't understand what was happening. For them, Percy was their savior.
Percy still reacted quickly and, with his other hand, brought it down fast. The dagger pierced through his palm, while Percy closed his hand, trapping Zoe's, the one holding the dagger. Even with his hand pierced through, Percy tightened his grip on Zoe's fist, and a crunch was heard, like a metal claw crushing down on her hand, breaking her bones. Zoe let out a scream.
In an instant, several arrows flew straight toward Percy's arm, piercing it, trying to make him let go of Zoe's hand. And it worked. But at that moment, Percy lifted his right foot and drove a powerful kick straight into Zoe's stomach, sending her flying at high speed into the wall of a nearby house, which trembled as if it had been struck by an earthquake, the wall nearly giving in from the impact.
The air was knocked out of her lungs when she hit.
Clarisse, who was being healed by Grover, saw this and couldn't help but bring a hand to her chest, feeling the echo of the first fight she had ever had with Percy in the past.
Percy crouched down, hearing the sound of arrows cutting through the air toward him at high speed, and drove his hand straight into the ground beneath him. Then he pulled upward with force, and a large chunk of earth rose with that motion, flying straight toward the hunters, at the same time stopping the arrows that were heading for him.
The hunters jumped to the sides to avoid that attack and readied their arrows to fire again.
But Percy slightly raised his right hand, pulling the dagger out of his palm, while he moved his fingers just a little. And the black sword, lying on the ground not far away, suddenly flew straight into his hand using telekinesis. Even though he was really bad at that magic, in that moment it felt like every part of his body responded perfectly to him.
The moment he grabbed the sword with his blood-covered hand, he suddenly slashed the air straight toward the hunters, while a huge amount of power seemed to gather into that strike. His sword looked like it was shining intensely. Thalia recognized that attack for a moment; it was the same moment her lightning had clashed against Percy.
Suddenly, a wall of ice seemed to form in front of Percy, between him and the hunters, coming out from his sword, while electricity and fire collided, forcing the hunters to jump back again.
But it also separated Percy from them.
Zoe, who had fallen to the ground, tried to catch her breath while feeling like her chest had almost been destroyed by Percy's kick.
Percy walked toward her again, his footsteps sounding with each step he took, gripping the black sword in his hand, now covered in his own blood flowing from the gash in his palm, the same one that had been pierced through by Zoe's dagger.
Artemis frowned when she saw this, a slight irritation showing.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to do this to one of Chiron's demigods, but I can't let you keep attacking my hunters," she said in a serious tone, as she raised her palm for a moment, straight toward Percy, who kept advancing toward Zoe.