Chapter 16

I bet you weren't expecting this! Gotcha. Apparently, there is wifi here at camp in something called a yurt, so I'll be writing a little bit every day.

Previously: Percy and Artemis had begun dating. After a relaxing day in the park and then a busy couple of hours helping the poor by working in a soup kitchen, Artemis flung herself at Percy and kisses him for the first time in their relationship.

Day 160

Over and Over, Their Day Shall Go.

Over and Over, They Make it So. c

Together the Must, Their Lives Remold.

Together at Last, As Was Foretold.

On the Day of Love, Conjoin the Hearts Two.

Until the Are One, Their Day Shall Ensue.

Percy's POV

A lot has changed in the past two weeks since Artemis kissed me. For one thing, she started actively holding my hand while around the Huntresses, which earned quite a few squeals of glee, especially from Jessica, who had begun planning our wedding immediately. She had said something about it being the biggest event since the Great Opening of the Box (Clearly talking about Pandora here… Unless i was mistaken).

I'm gonna be real here though, if it comes down to it, of course I have no qualms against marrying Artemis, I'd rather have our future wedding be a small thing. Close friends and family, the Hunt, obviously… But I'm not sure how much I'd like Ares at my wedding. Or certain other Gods and Goddesses.

I dunno, but i'm sure that Artemis would rather have a small wedding as well.

Not that I was thinking too hard about a future with Artemis. I mean, I had made the joke about being with her for a millennia, but I wasn't exactly thinking too hard about it, you know?

Although I guess that maybe that's what i was doing now.

Anyways, as I contemplated these important matters such as my joint future with the Goddess of the Hunt, I was shaken out of my reverie as something came flying close to my face.

"Shit! Sorry Percy!" Nico said as he chased after the fallen streamer. I was sitting underneath the decorations that the campers were putting up for the dance party later on in the day, and I guess that put me in the blast zone, so to speak.

"It's alright Nico, just thinking about something that's been on my mind." I said, handing the boy the streamer. He paused while taking it from me.

"Is it a girl? You smell really nice, kinda like lavender, is that a new deodorant? You've also had this one really dreamy look on your face all day, ever since you… Hold on please don't tell me you got a thing for one of the Huntresses, the Lady Artemis will fucking kill you." He looked around, as if to make sure nobody was listening, before leaning in close.

"If it is though, you should probably just give up on it. You know how that Goddess is, fiercely holding to her convictions and shit. I have no idea how you managed to get into the Hunt, since you still won't tell me, but if you die by a hail of arrows, I'll make sure your mom gets your body."

I laughed loudly, drawing the attention of some of the other campers who had volunteered to help set up decorations.

"Not one of the Huntresses, per se…"

His eyes widened, and he bit his lip. He let out a shaky "Artemis herself?" in the lightest voice he could muster.

"Yeah." I whispered back to him, deciding not to let him know that we were already together. That would've been an interesting conversation, but I wasn't sure if the information would stay through the time loop, and I also wasn't sure if Artemis would be ok with me revealing it to my best friend.

"Shit bro. Shit!" He swore under his breath. "Definitely makes me feel better about my crush, at least Reyna isn't an immortal Virgin Goddess."

"Not yet anyways…" I said, before laughing. "You should ask her to come over for the dance, I know that Leo said something about long distance travel, maybe you could have him rig something up to bring her over here."

Nico laughed uneasily , shaking his head. "You know I don't have the guts to ask her out. She's just always there for me, and I don't want to ruin our friendship with my feelings."

"Didn't happen with us, come on what's the worst that could happen? She rejects you, you get over her, and get a crush on someone new. Maybe she'll say yes, and you'll live a long, long demigod life up to the ancient age of 24 together before one of you dies an untimely death, and you mourn her loss until the end of time, becoming the next great myth. Or better yet, a myth is made about how you never worked up the courage to ask her out, and she goes out with someone else, and she was always your biggest if-only-i-had-asked-her?"

Nico looked thoroughly embarrassed, and I had the shame to look bashful about what I had said to my friend.

"Sorry Nico, I shouldn't have said those things."

He relaxed, before his shoulders slumped forwards. "It's alright Percy, and you're right. I don't have the courage to ask out my crush. I just feel like it isn't like what we had, you know? Sure, I had a crush on you, but it was little more than an infatuation with a hero complex. This is more like, I know Rayna, and she gets me, on a more personal level. One that I don't even share with Hazel, and she's my sister! I dunno man."

I put a hand on his shoulder, and pulled him in for a small hug, before letting him go. Nico wasn't much for physical touch, but a couple of small reassurances were certainly better than nothing.

"Sounds like you've got her on your mind a lot. Just don't take too long to figure out your feelings bro, i don't want to see you get hurt."

He gave me a half grin, before it dropped into a frown. "Speak for yourself, Percy. It's been nice knowing you, especially considering who You're crushing on."

I waved him off, saying, "I'll be fine. Did you know that her favourite smell is that of lavender? She's told me that it calms her down and is super relaxing." I smile, and wait as he gives out a hearty laugh.

"You're playing a dangerous game, Percy. I'll see you in my dad's domain once you're dead." Nico shook his head as he walked away with the fallen streamer, and I chuckled to myself. Maybe not today, but one day Nico would build up the courage to ask Reyna out. Until then, i guess i'd have to make do with being a certain Goddess's boyfriend, supporting my friend from the sidelines.

Speaking of the Goddess in question, I suddenly had an urge to go and find her, so I stood up and began searching for her.

Artemis' POV

I was in the training grounds with a few of my Huntresses. Sophie and Ira were sparring with hunting daggers, and both showed signs of improvement from the last time they fought. They were my two newest recruits (Aside from Thalia), and it was hard enough work to get them to be good at archery, even with my blessing on them.

Phoebe and Atalanta were sparring with swords. They were two of my eldest Huntresses, what with Phoebe having joining early in the Hunt's days, she had been with me for over 2700 years. She was older even than Zoë, and had been there through the events of Orion.

Atalanta was only a couple hundred years younger, born around 500 B.C.E. She had been abandoned on a mountain by her father as a baby; She was a princess and her father, the king, had wanted a male heir. I had found her on the mountain and had a bear raise her. Later in her life, she had devoted herself to me, and since then she has been with the Hunt.

They've both been ferocious Huntresses, to which I assigned the most gruesome of tasks. Atalanta in particular had taken down the Calydonian Boar, which I sent to the lands of King Oienus for purposefully not sacrificing to me. Phoebe had taken down Orion in the events of the second Giant War, and was a skilled huntress and tracker.

Samantha was a newer huntress, having joined in the late 1800's. She had brown hair and green eyes, and was a daughter of Demeter. She wasn't so good at fighting, and Teresa was showing her techniques on tripping opponents, as well as how to keep your footing against trip attempts. Teresa was an older huntress, from the 3rd century, who came from Greece, and was a farmer's daughter, with no godly lineage. She and Samantha were good friends amongst the huntresses, considering that one was the daughter of the Goddess of Agriculture, and the other was a farmer's daughter.

Veronica and Thalia were fighting with daggers. Veronica was Roman, a daughter of Victoria, the Roman version of Nike. She had been born in 253 CE, during one of the greatest times of chaos in the Roman Empire. There were multiple factions vying for power, and Veronica's hometown had gotten raided multiple times during the civil wars that had spanned across the fifty years between 235 and 284.

Veronica had Black hair and blue eyes, and fought like a demon. She had joined one of the war parties under the guise of being a male, and had quickly reached the rank of centurion, and led a group of 80 men on all sorts of vicious fights and campaigns. Unfortunately, she was found out as a woman, and would have been subject to death by mutiny until I had shown up and inducted her into the Hunt. She was a good leader, but she preferred to let others be in charge, since it was draining to be in a position of responsibility.

She fought Thalia, who had taken it upon herself to learn from the older girl. Not just in fighting; but also the role of leadership, since she was my Lieutenant. Veronica was more than happy to pass on her wisdom on how to lead, mostly so she didn't have to worry about leading herself, and Thalia was thankful for the older girl's military experience.

That left Jessica and Sandra. Jessica, was a demigod daughter of Aphrodite. Her father had been a wedding photographer in the 50's, before his untimely death in a nasty mugging. Jessica had had an interest in weddings herself, but was never one for personal romance, considering that she was asexual, not that she knew what it was called back then, and had been an aspiring wedding planner before her father died when she was 17. She couldn't find work anywhere, and I had recruited her to the Hunt before anything unsavory could happen to her. She was a bright girl, if a little eccentric, as all daughters of Aphrodite were wont to be, but she could hold her own in fighting, and was one of my best archers in camp.

Sandra, however, was an absolute beast. Born in ancient Greece, her hair and eyes were brown, and sparkled with mischief and adventure. She had been young when she began following the path of Artemis, and had taken on the trials set forth by my old priestesses. She had slain a number of legendary beasts, among them a deadly Tiger in a trial of stealth, a large Bear in a trial of Strength, and an Elephant in a trial of Endurance. There were other trials, but Sandra had earned the right to talk with me personally, while I had been overseeing my hunt. Imagine my surprise when the beasts I had sent out as impossible trials to overcome had been taken down by a girl of thirteen years old!

Sandra was one of my most fierce Huntresses, with the ability to take down almost any monster single handedly. Over the course of the last two thousand years, she had purposefully injected venoms and poisons of small doses into her bloodstream, to have her blood build up an immunity to them. She was even able to fight hydras without succumbing to their poisons, and took pride in her ability to hunt down even dragons.

Jessica might be incredibly bright, but she was no match for Sandra, at least not in hand to hand combat. I watched as the older huntress took Jessica down with a dizzying flash of blades, forcing Jessica to block with her own, before spinning herself into a roundhouse kick that knocked the daughter of Aphrodite to the ground.

Impressive. I took a look over my other huntresses to see where they were at in their fights, before I noticed Percy approaching.

"Hey, Artemis!" The demigod called out to me, "Training your huntresses?"

I smiled at my boyfriend- the thought gave me some small amount of happiness- and called back, "I don't think that I'm training them so much as they are training themselves, currently. If I were training them, they'd be on the floor groaning about how harsh I can be."

It was true- to a degree. I was known for showing no mercy to my adversaries, including those in the Hunt. My personal close combat training regiment was the closest thing that a group of fit immortal girls could call a workout. I was similar to mortal drill instructors when necessary, and my huntresses had all decided that I would only give the training to those who asked, and only after they had been in the Hunt for longer than fifty years, to make sure they wouldn't 'die' of exhaustion.

Phoebe, Atalanta, Sandra and Veronica all went through the training about three times a year, however, just to continue to hone their skills, and to compete against each other in how long they were able to last against their Goddess.

"Surely you can't be that harsh, how long is the longest anybody has been able to fight against you?"

Percy smirked, and then it faltered as he saw my own smirk on my face.

"The current record-holder for the longest fight against me stands at an hour and forty seven minutes, and thirty two seconds, by Sandra. Would you like to try and beat that record?"

Our conversation had the attention of all of the Hunt, with many of them shaking their heads. Sandra smirked; she had held the record for seven years, the previous own being Atalanta. Atalanta was always bitter about the usurpation of the fighting record, but aside from actually trying to beat me, fighting against me for the longest amount of time was the best that my huntresses were capable of at the moment.

Finally, looking into my eyes, the raven haired boy gave out a laugh.

"Sure thing, why not? What do I get if I actually beat you in one on one combat, though?"

I was astounded by my boyfriend's audacity. Did he really think that he could beat me in one on one combat? When I've been training for over 400x the amount of time that he had, since the moment of me claiming my Domains and becoming an Olympian? It was absurd to think about. Only Zoe had been able to beat me, and that was after she gave up her own godly essence in the form of Anaklusmos.

Though, if Percy was using the blade, he might actually have a chance of beating me, considering Zoe's fighting experience prior to the events of Heracles coursed through the soul of the sword, which Percy had admitted to being able to tap into.

"If you beat me in one on one combat, I'll grant you one boon, as long as I am able to with the power that I have."

The demigod's face lit up like a christmas tree, before I pounced on him.

Percy wasn't expecting me to lunge at him so swiftly, so I quickly straddled his waist and pinned his arms to the ground above his head. His face was red from embarrassment, and I couldn't help but lean down and whisper in his ear.

"Your reflexes are far too slow to fight against me."

He whispered back, "You had the element of surprise, that didn't count. Or are you afraid of actually losing?"

I laughed aloud, and released my boyfriend's hands, before climbing off of him. We had attracted the attention of the other campers in the area, many of whom were whispering about how it was a miracle that Percy wasn't dead. I smirked, letting Percy get up and brush himself off, before I jumped him again.

This time, Percy was ready for me, and did a barrel roll to his right, popping out Riptide in the process. He was learning; My first combat lesson was to be able to avoid a surprise attack. It would not do for my Huntresses to be caught by surprise, and I wasn't about to have any of them die just because they couldn't dodge an attack.

"Lesson number one Percy, Always expect an attack, even if it's someone that you think you trust." Instead of attacking him, I circled him, like a beast wary of it's prey.

"I already knew that lesson. Had to learn it when I was twelve and almost got dragged into Tartarus by a pair of flying shoes, courtesy of Luke."

Ah yes, the Castellan boy. That made a lot of sense. Percy circled me as well, not wanting to fight since he didn't know the extent of my prowess. I hadn't exactly shown him my skills in fighting, and the only time he might have seen me fight at my full potential was against Atlas, when he had been preoccupied with the weight of the sky. He had no idea what he was in for.

He watched me intently, looking for some opening. I knew just what to do, and leaned forwards, letting him catch a glimpse of my barely there cleavage. He looked away in embarrassment.

Then, like a flash of lightning, I was upon him again, this time with silver hunting knives in either hand. My arms were a blur, and within moments, I had not only disarmed the man, flinging Riptide away by a couple of feet, but I held Percy on the ground, my chest against his back, holding one of his arms behind him so that he couldn't get away. I leaned over and whispered huskily in his ears once more.

"Looks like i'm coming out on top in these engagements. Lesson number two, don't get distracted."

The man beneath me struggled for a moment, before sighing as his body relaxed.

"How the hell am I supposed to not get distracted when my very attractive girlfriend does that?"

I blushed, golden ichor pooling in my cheeks. I knew that he thought I was beautiful, but it didn't help that we all had a crowd, and that he had said it out loud. Gasps could be heard from the campers, and whispers could be heard among them when I didn't immediately kill the demigod who insinuated that I was romantically involved with him.

I got off of him, realizing that I was entirely too comfortable with Percy in my arms in front of a large crowd, and walked away.

"Let that be a lesson to you, Percy Jackson, that us Gods are not to be tested. Maybe next time you try my personal combat regiment, you won't fail within a minute."

Suddenly, I was caught from behind, and in a wild scramble, I realized that my boyfriend had pinned me against a tree. His face was blushing, and his chest was flush against my own. A leg was stuck in between mine, and his face was barely a few inches away from me. His breathing was heavy, and I could feel his heart beating wildly against my own chest, and I assumed that mine was beating just as hard. He looked me in the eyes and said,

"If I win, I get any boon, right milady?"

I squirmed, but for some reason couldn't get out of his hold. "As long as it's within my power to grant, yes."

He gave me a warm smile, before brushing some hair from in front of my eyes behind one of my ears, and stroked his finger down my cheek. My breath caught in my chest.

Nobody existed in that moment, and when he kissed me, all of our tensions came out, the flirting, the thought of hiding ourselves from the campers.

I heard a low whistle of appreciation come from somewhere, but I didn't care. I was with Percy, and right now, he was way more important than what everyone else thought.

Oh how I had fallen.

'Sup fellows. It's me, ya boi, Remvis. I honestly wasn't expecting to be able to write at camp, but here I am. I've written for at least an hour or two every day while here so far, and this is what I came up with.

I had a couple of goals for this chapter, which I thought were necessary for the development of the story.

First and foremost, we see Nico. In my story, he's bisexual, not just Gay. From what I've read in the Trials of Apollo (Not much, just the first book), Nico's relationship with Will seems kinda really toxic, but maybe that's just me. Anyways, I really didn't like the vibes that I was getting from the relationship, so I decided that I was gonna switch his crush to Reyna. Creative license, since this is fanfiction. As you can see from this chapter, Nico still once had a crush on Percy, i'm not going to take that away from him, as it was a good source of character improvement in the story. But he has since gotten over the crush, and has moved on.

I plan on eventually getting Nico and Reyna together in this story, which will make sense later. Don't like my end game ships though, then don't read.

Next, we find the Hunt. I introduced each of the huntresses briefly in chapter 6, when I mentioned them all by name. However, I found that I hadn't exactly done any actual character development for them, even if Phoebe and Thalia are canon characters.

Side Note, in case I haven't addressed this previously: I started writing this fanfic Before Blood of Olympus came out. Didn't know that Phoebe was gonna die, so here I came up with a reasonable excuse for her being alive, which is that she's such a badass that she took down Orion instead of him taking her down.

I wanted to base Sandra a little bit off of Kassandra from Assassins Creed; Odyssey, but I didn't want to introduce a whole aspect to this fanfiction that was irrelevant. So I changed the trials of Artemis slightly, and fit Sandra into it as needed. She's a total badass, and possibly my favorite OC huntress.

The Hunt is still dwindled from dealing with Orion in BoO, however, so I decided that reasonably, the Hunt would not have grown too much since then. It stands to reason that the Hunt would be small, which allows me an easier time of keeping track of them all.

Lastly, who expected a fight scene between Artemis and Percy? I certainly wasn't; all I knew was that I wanted them to flirt while working out together. And then I remembered this one tumblr chain that was talking about how hot it was when a couple got pinned in different ways while fighting, and well.

Anyways, I hope you all liked it. Expect more in the future, as I have some plans.

~Remvis