Percy blames his lack of sleep for not immediately noticing what's happened when he gets to breakfast the next day. With Annabeth sitting to one side, Bianca sitting on the other, and Thalia and Clarisse both sat across from him, he's admittedly somewhat insulated by everything else. Feeling a little bit like a zombie, Percy is still busy mindlessly shoveling eggs into his mouth when he feels a presence behind him.
Luckily, the others aren't quite so tired. Pleasantly sore perhaps, but not so exhausted that they aren't fast to react. Bianca especially moves with lightning speed, causing Percy to blink and pause as she snaps out a hand behind his head.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Slowly turning around, Percy sees a woman standing behind him with a scowl on her face and an arm outstretched in his direction. It looks like she was about to grab him on the shoulder, maybe to spin him around, but obviously Bianca has stopped her in her tracks. And thanks to the Blessing of Athena, the Daughter of Hades is more than strong enough to keep her stopped as well.
It's a little interesting watching the scowl on the stranger's face slowly drop and be replaced by sheer puzzlement as she tries and fails to free her wrist from Bianca's ironclad grasp. Blinking slowly, Percy sets his fork down.
"Uh… can I help you?"
The woman growls, still trying to break free of Bianca, so Percy gives her a look and a slight nod. Bianca releases her grip, allowing the stranger to pull away and take a step back, though she doesn't fully retreat. Instead, after flicking a slightly impressed look in Bianca's direction, she turns her full focus back onto Percy.
In the meantime, Percy takes the moment to properly soak in this stranger's appearance. She's quite beautiful, he notices. Tall, graceful, and drop dead gorgeous. She has brown eyes, copper skin, and long dark hair that flows down her back. There's also a regalness to her expression, a cold and proud look in her eyes as she stares down her upturned nose at him.
"Perseus Jackson?"
Percy flinches at his birth name, especially after it was used by Kronos in his dreams the night before. Grimacing, he shakes his head.
"Yes but… call me Percy, please."
Scoffing, the woman crosses her arms over her chest.
"I would have words with you about Lady Artemis."
… Huh? The Goddess of the Hunt? Percy blinks slowly up at the stranger, not really comprehending what she was talking about. What did he have to do with Artemis of all people? Sure, she was one of the ones who had apparently openly expressed a desire for him to be killed, but other than that, Percy had nothing to do with the Moon Goddess.
Actually… it was kind of weird that this strange woman was in Camp Half-Blood in the first place, wasn't it? She sort of looked like she belonged… she had a slightly ethereal, inhuman nature to her that would make sense for a demigod. But if there was one thing this latest stay at Camp Half-Blood had resulted in, it was Percy learning everyone's names and faces. You kind of had to when you were organizing your fellow demigods to fight and kill monsters every day in an effort to help out Hestia and alleviate some of her burden.
That said, Percy didn't know this woman in front of him from Adam. And that… was weird, he was starting to realize.
"Sorry, uh… you know me but I don't know you. Got a name?"
The woman stiffens up, her jaw clenching at his question. Meanwhile, Annabeth suddenly leans in from the side, her voice sounding worried.
"Percy… did you really not notice? How much sleep did you get last night?"
Notice? Notice what? Looking at the other women at the table with him, he sees them all looking rather concerned as well. Clarisse finally gestures off to the side and Percy looks over… to see even more strangers he doesn't know sitting in another part of the dining pavilion. Every single one of them is female. And also, every single one of them is glaring at him for some reason.
"Uhh…"
"The Hunters of Artemis, Percy. They rolled in this morning apparently. Hestia made a small announcement like… twenty minutes ago?"
Even as Annabeth tries to jog his memory, she also looks at the woman standing there a couple feet away.
"I'm pretty sure the Goddess said you had all sworn to play nice as well."
Man, he really was out of it. It wasn't just the lack of sleep though, Percy was forced to acknowledge. He would have still listened to Hestia no matter how tired he was. No, the fact of the matter was, Percy had too much going through his head. He'd been so lost in his own thoughts that he'd barely been paying attention to anything happening around him. To be fair, it wasn't every day you got visited in the night and almost honey potted by the Titan of Time, now was it?
Focusing a bit more now, Percy actually takes in the state of the dining pavilion and the Camp beyond. The first thing he notices is a whole lot more activity near Artemis Cabin than there usually was, and also far more women than men in the dining pavilion for once. Normally it was a little closer to half and half, but because of that, their guests pushed it heavily in a more skewed direction.
While Percy is taking this all in and the Hunters of Artemis sitting at the nearby table are all glaring at him, the one who'd tried to grab his shoulder huffs at Annabeth's accusatory tone.
"This is me 'playing nice'. All I wish is to ask Percy Jackson some questions."
There's a pause at that, silence falling as everyone looks at her expectantly. Finally, she crosses her arms over her chest and scowls.
"Tch… I am Zoe Nightshade, Lieutenant of the Hunters of Artemis. I am Lady Artemis' second-in-command. There. Now, may I ask my questions?"
Percy looks around the table at the rest of his friends. There seems to be a mix of reactions. Bianca seems to dislike Zoe the most and is shaking her head 'no'. Annabeth has a similar disdain for the Lieutenant but doesn't advise him to say no directly. Meanwhile, Thalia is staring at Zoe with some interest and Clarisse with a hint of challenge and competitive lust in her eyes.
With a sigh, Percy rises from the table… and isn't remotely surprised when the four women sitting with him do the same. Zoe looks a bit nonplused by this share of solidarity but nevertheless leads them away from the dining pavilion. She even tells her fellow hunters to stand down in what Percy supposes they think is a subtle, surreptitious manner… but he notices the light headshake and hand gesture all the same.
Finally, in a bit more privacy, Zoe turns and regards them all for a moment before focusing her attention back on him.
"I would have you tell me what you have done with Lady Artemis."
Wait, what? That was the last thing Percy had been expecting. Still…
"Uh, nothing? What are you even talking about?"
Before Zoe can respond beyond scowling some more, Annabeth cuts back in with what Percy has to admit is a far better question.
"Did something happen to Lady Artemis?"
… Yeah, hold on a second. If the Hunters of Artemis were all here, where was their goddess? And if Zoe was having to ask if Percy had done anything to Artemis, didn't that imply something pretty bad?
Zoe Nightshade freezes up in response, looking like a deer caught in headlights for a moment before she quickly recovers and sniffs rather haughtily.
"That's none of your business, frankly."
Which of course, doesn't sit well with any of them. Its Thalia who takes a step forward though, the Daughter of Zeus bristling in response to Zoe's dismissiveness.
"Kind of sounds like it might be. Percy hasn't done anything wrong, I'm sure of it. Especially not recently. He's been too busy handling me!"
That last boast comes complete with Thalia thrusting her thumb back at herself and giving Zoe a shit eating grin that makes it impossible for Artemis' Lieutenant to misconstrue what she's talking about. Zoe's nose wrinkles in distaste as she looks between Percy and Thalia for a moment before seeming to finally come to a decision very, very reluctantly.
"Recently wouldn't matter. Lady Artemis… disappeared over a week ago. She went on a solo hunt as she likes to do, as she does multiple times each week… and she never came back."
Now that she's started, Zoe seems to have decided to tell them everything because it all starts spilling out of her now, her face and voice both getting more and more anguished, anxiety-filled, and worried as she speaks.
"We didn't think much of it at first. None of us are about to begrudge our Lady her hunting time alone. But when one day turned into three and no search party could turn up anything, we knew something was wrong. That's when we tried to contact Lady Artemis' brother Apollo… who in turn sent us here to Camp Half-Blood. That's how I KNOW you're involved, Percy Jackson."
Okay well… that was a lot to unpack. So Artemis really was missing. The Goddess of the Hunt and Moon, who Percy had just found out yesterday advocated for his death, had vanished without a trace from the sound of things. He could sort of get why that might make him something of a suspect but still…
"I'm just one demigod. Camp Half-Blood is a big place, but I feel pretty confident nobody here took Artemis. We've kind of been pretty busy recently just trying to fight off monsters and keep the Camp from dying. Why the hell would you think I'm involved anyways, just because you were told to come here?"
Zoe scowls and crosses her arms over her chest.
"Because Lady Artemis has spoken about you in length in recent days. She's talked about how you are not to be trusted, and how you are a threat to all we hold dear."
For the briefest of moments, Zoe looks hesitant.
"… Admittedly, she did not go into details. All I know is that she had a divine vision and afterwards told us to stay as far away from you as possible. But in light of her disappearance, I cannot ignore the fact that you drew my Lady's ire! And that enmity makes you a likely suspect for being behind her disappearance!"
Right. Percy sort of got where she was coming from. Or rather, he wanted to be kind because it was obvious she wasn't thinking very clearly and was feeling rather emotional about this. Plus, whatever reason Apollo had for directing the Hunters of Artemis to Camp Half-Blood, it had clearly given Zoe some hope that they would be able to show up, find Artemis, and be done with this whole situation right away.
… But that wasn't going to happen for numerous reasons. Percy decides to tackle this as gently as he can, if only because he doesn't want to start a fight with the Hunters of Artemis or something like that.
"Tell me… do you trust Lady Hestia?"
Zoe blinks at what probably feels like a non-sequitur to her. Frowning, she slowly nods.
"Of course… the Goddess of the Hearth is beyond reproach. Or rather… she has been for most of my last two thousand years of life. Admittedly, Lady Artemis did mention some things to the contrary regarding that as well, recently…"
Two thousand years old? Holy fuck. Percy blinks and takes a moment to parse that along with the rest of what Zoe had said before finally clearing his throat.
"W-Well… I'm sure she's already told you that Artemis is nowhere within her Domain. Unless you think Hestia herself is a liar…"
Scowling, the Hunter shakes her head.
"Of course not! I'm not calling Lady Hestia a liar… but tell me this… how many times have you left the Goddess' Domain in the past few weeks for the sake of 'hunting monsters'? Every single day, you went outside of Lady Hestia's purview! And not once did you dedicate any of those hunts to Lady Artemis! What do you have to say to that, hm?!"
… Sheesh, she was really invested in pinning this on him, wasn't she? Percy didn't honestly know what to do in the face of such zealotry either. How did you talk sense to someone who didn't seem to believe in it? How did you convince someone with logic when they didn't subscribe to the notion?
Percy knew he hadn't done anything to Artemis. But as far as Zoe was concerned, he'd somehow earned her Goddess' disdain beyond the normal man-hating, then Artemis disappeared, then Apollo told the Hunters to all pack up and head to Camp Half-Blood for answers… where Percy was.
So yeah, he kind of got it… but still, he knew he didn't do anything wrong.
"Trial by combat."
Percy and Zoe both blink and look to the side, where Clarisse has a hungry competitive gleam in her eyes and a wicked grin on her lips.
"There's a Capture the Flag game tomorrow to celebrate recent events. Sorry for your loss and all, but while you misplaced your goddess, some of us were busy saving the day, defending our territory… or even coming back from the dead."
Clarisse nods her head to herself and Annabeth at first, then to Percy and Bianca second, and then Thalia third for that final acknowledgment.
"We're due for some R&R, and Capture the Flag is always fun. Was going to be Campers versus Campers… but now you lot are here. You all talk a big game, heard a lot about you… seems like it'd be a shame not to have us compete against you. So why don't we make things interesting? Camp Half-Blood versus the Hunters of Artemis, Capture the Flag edition. If we win, you lot have to accept that Percy had nothing to do with your goddess' disappearance. If you win, well… Percy still didn't kidnap your dumb goddess, but he'll have to help you find her."
There's a long pause as everyone parses Clarisse's words. But she's not done. She looks to Percy hopefully.
"Of course, all depends on if Percy is interested or not."
On the one hand, its nice to see Clarisse have all of this newfound confidence from her successful quest. On the other hand… she has to realize that she just backed him into a corner. If he says 'no' now, he's just going to wind up making himself seem even more guilty of Artemis' disappearance.
… At the same time though, he can see in Clarisse's eyes how excited by this idea she is. The Daughter of Ares has a competitive streak a mile wide and Zoe and the other Hunters of Artemis are tweaking it something fierce.
Ugh. This was going to be a whole thing, wasn't it?
(Author Cambrian. Find him on Scribblehub!)