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Son of Kaos (PJO Chaos Gacha)
- Thread starter Bakkughan
- Start date
Arrowman
Versed in the lewd.
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Honestly, you would think the gods would go themselves or send an army in a quest this important?
Once again, Artemis proves to be the worst deity in the room.
That said room has Zeus, Hera, Ares and the Fates is..... impressive to say the least.
Wasn't Dyonisius the god of Theater?
Once again, Artemis proves to be the worst deity in the room.
That said room has Zeus, Hera, Ares and the Fates is..... impressive to say the least.
Wasn't Dyonisius the god of Theater?
XxExtremeSamX2
Just chillin’.
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Eh, it's not like the Gacha doesn't have some really big sticks.
En-men-lu-ana
The Sleep-Deprived "Divine" Horror
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Oh great, her.
obcorbino2146
Not too sore, are you?
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YESSSSS!!!
I mean the audacity for them to assume that they can cut the cords or decide fate of beings connected to Khaos. It is absurd. I don't think there's any thread for Gaia or any other children of Khaos like why would he be any different.
Lol everything I imagined and more but I wish he actually called them old ugly witches as well actually insult them.
I love it that you actually did my suggestion author, even down to it being a silver ticket the only thing missing was punching them in the face, the only thing really missing is someone acknowledging that even khaos agrees that they're out of line in one of the texts.
Oh she's not going to have a great time, she's going to have to quickly get over her sexism or she's going to be in a hell of a time trying to pick a fight with the son of KHAOS.
She is much lower on the pecking order then he is. Demigod or not he is still the son of Khaos and is in many ways, he's higher on the pecking order than even the Olympians, I wish that you acknowledge that maybe in the future when Gaia wakes up it'll be acknowledged that as a son of khaos they have no authority over children of Khaos, which now includes the MC.
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Bakkughan
Sir Charles Phantom, the Notorious Litton
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Yeesh, not sure even [Councelling Mastery] can deal with the aneurysm she'll get from that...Now we just need Zoe to discover that said boy is Techically higher up on the pantheonal ladder then even her Goddess and thing will get even more fun
The power of therapy triumphs yet again!
This was something I ran into when writing the quest, but then again, in canon Zeus lost the symbol of his power and a weapon comparable to a nuke in destructive power and instead of getting off his ass and scouring the land to find the damn thing, he instead let a bunch of twelve year olds look for it while he sulked in his throne room and threw hissy fits at his brothers.
Maybe it's a YA novel thing in general, maybe it's just because Riordan seems to have a hate boner for specific gods and Zeus in particular, but the man (god) is genuinely incompetent in the books to the point one genuinely has to ask how Zeus hasn't been overthrown yet. I mean it almost happened in one of the original myths when Hera tried to pull a fast one on him and despite his raping shape-shifting ways as told by the ancient greeks, he was at the very least a true King back then....
Correct. However, there is some overlap with Apollo's domain who is the god/patron of the arts in a more general sense, though with him it's more music/writing related.
As the previous chapter shows, even with direct proof not all of the gods are fully convinced Ethan was conceived directly by Kaos. The primordial void hasn't been very active since the beginning of creation to say the least, so him popping out another kid after untold millenia is already hard to believe, much less that his latest kid just looks like... well, like Ethan. Like just a dude. Primordial Kaos that gave birth to the literal Earth and Sky, from whom the first Night and Darkness itself came, now gave birth to... some random guy.
After this confrontation (and your comments was indeed one of many who made me realize said confrontation was sorely needed) the proof has become much stronger though.
Him granting the ring was basically his stamp of approval for Ethan standing up to them. Given how vast and ancient he is, I want to keep Kaos a bit in the background for now, present but sleeping, or perhaps with a conciousness so vast and alien that only a small part of it is focused on what's going on with Ethan.
I'm saving that for future chapters as Ethan grows more powerful, especially if I stick with my nebulous plan for now to have him be the Protogenoi of Free Will.
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Sebek
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It really makes sense, after the whole debacle their first children caused and how reality ended shaped, that, if the Primordial Void is going to bring a new child to existence, to be conceived at the lowest possible level while giving them the tools to claw their way up. So every scrap of power wasn't something they were born with, but earned through blood and tears.
Also, funnily, he should be able to apply Counselling Mastery to himself if needed, too. So he can look and treat his own possible current and future traumas.
Also, funnily, he should be able to apply Counselling Mastery to himself if needed, too. So he can look and treat his own possible current and future traumas.
Arrowman
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In this fandom, one has to quote the 'Ancient Laws', AKA Plot contrivance laws, to rationalize anything.
They are never fully mentioned, so it is difficult to determine what is a political agreement, a methaphysical law passed on from Khaos/the Primordials or a personal decision.
Kenainath and Antony444 have different takes on them, but their headcanons are interesting.
Their works are huge in size though, be warned.
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obcorbino2146
Not too sore, are you?
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I can't wait to see what you do cuz there's no way in hell that any of the Primordials after healing what will happen wooden yell at the god saying how higher on the totem pole the MC actually is he's technically Primordial or Demi-Primordials which means he's higher in the hierarchy than them they have no say over him. And I would love for Gaia or one of the other siblings to the MC to call them out on it and for them to realize that they're right and still try to overstep but get their asses kicked by Gaia or the Sky or Darkness or the literal void becomes more active than it ever have been just to scare them straight to show them that they don't have any say over the void and it's decisions.
And I can't wait to see the Primordials reactions when they try to Lord over another child of khaos. Concerning none of them have threads anyway and the Fates tried to have one of their siblings killed, oh that would be a fun talk for the fates of getting yelled and probably being spanked by literal beings higher than them and the Gods, a legit scared straight.
In the end I just want there to be consequences of how everyone was acting with the MC, when Gaia wakes when and if the skies in some way shows up or any of the other Primordials show up. Cuz you know they will have choice words for them when they learn what they tried to decide for someone who is their sibling and is undoubtedly higher on the totem pole than them even if he's still technically a mortal or demi-Primordial that's just how important Primordials are.
And here's a question will the MC at any point interacting with his siblings cuz he'd be funny if Gaia becomes protective considering he would be the first children of khaos since creation. Like all the Primordials becoming more and more interactive than they have been just because they want to interact with their younger sibling. Like I can imagine it now Gaia showing up with like a picnic basket with golden fruits and says let's have a meal together brother acting on protective and motherly lol.
Anyway sorry again for the word problem but I just love in the story I can't wait to see what you do when these other beings finally get on to the board cuz there's no way they're not going to get mad at the fates and the gods for how they acted with their younger sibling or when void becomes more active than he's ever been because they want to interact with their youngest or something like that.
Bakkughan
Sir Charles Phantom, the Notorious Litton
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I understand where you're coming from but that feels a bit too unserious for this fic. Most of the protogenoi are antagonists, or so vast and alien that they don't bother with humanity or inadvertently cause them harm. Also most of the primordials are either asleep or chilling in their own domains, most of which aren't on Earth or even the Underworld, but below in Tartarus.
There are romantic connections between some primordials, Gaia with Ouranos and later Tartarus, or Nyx en Erberus, but I wouldn't exactly call them siblings and I wonder how many of them would view Ethan in the role of a little brother. However, Ethan's status compared to the Olympians is a bit nebulous right now. As Ethan realized earlier, Thalia isn't like her fellow demigods because to about half of them, she's their aunt rather than another niece, literally one branch up the family tree and that's enough to matter. However, Ethan himself could not be closer to the root of the tree and that of course matters as well, it's just that he hasn't grown into his full power yet.
As the Gacha continues supplying him with more pieces of reality pulled from the non-existence that is the Void, Ethan's status will change to reflect that. Especially once he starts growing into his role as the Protogenoi of Free Will. But right now, he's just a dude with weird powers as far as most divine beings are concerned, though with one hell of an insurance policy.
obcorbino2146
Not too sore, are you?
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I can understand where you're coming from, but I still feel like once the other Primordials learn about Ethan and realize that the gods, especially the Fates, essentially overstepped their bounds with another child of Khaos they'd probably be angry. Not necessarily because they care about Ethan personally, but because the gods dared to try and lord over another child of Khaos.
I could see that being a major line they crossed. Ethan might not be strong enough yet to command their attention, but his status as another child of Khaos would still matter. It's less "we're defending our little brother" and more "who gave you the right to interfere with one of Khaos's children?" That distinction feels important when dealing with beings that old and powerful.
And well, it might be different depending on the Percy Jackson version of these Primordials, since many of them have shown that they don't really care about humanity and can even take actions that harm humans without much thought.
But even if Ethan is only partially Primordial and still mortal, I could still see the fact that he's another child of Khaos making them pay more attention to him when they learn about him. He's not just some random human or demigod he's their sibling, one of the first since creation. They might not necessarily care about him right away, but I could see some of them becoming a little protective simply because of that connection.
And even if their interest isn't necessarily because they care about Ethan personally, they might still want to interact with him because they're curious about why Khaos created another child after so long. Either way, I could see his heritage giving him a much better chance of getting a positive reaction from them than a typical human would.
Also considering it's the chaos gacha him receiving a trait or skill that makes them start to like him more isn't completely out of the question. Like if you was to somehow get the child of Gaia trait, I have no doubt in my mind that she'd be much more interested and more motherly with him like I said cuz not only is he technically her child, he's also the child of khaos, I feel like subconsciously she may be a little more protective like she has been of some of her children. In the end depends on his traits and how you write the story.
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Nameless Godless
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He should have pulled the ultimate strategy on them.
"I call for this case to dismissed on the grounds of discrimination. It is unjust to single myself out in this situation thus I call on my sister Nyx The Night and ask of her if the spawns of Kaos should kneel to the Loom."
Plan: Make the opponent their mother.
"I call for this case to dismissed on the grounds of discrimination. It is unjust to single myself out in this situation thus I call on my sister Nyx The Night and ask of her if the spawns of Kaos should kneel to the Loom."
Plan: Make the opponent their mother.
Yohnos
Experienced.
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I hope that the day he gets powerful enough, he goes all Old Kratos on Olympus
And she'll be the first to die
Chapter 11
New
Bakkughan
Sir Charles Phantom, the Notorious Litton
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CHAPTER 11
The ride down from Olympus was strangely mundane.
For all the pomp surrounding the throne room (the assembled Olympians, the prophecy, Zeus handing down a quest that would probably decide the fate of Western civilisation) we still ended up having to wait for the elevator.
When the elevator finally chimed and the doors slid open, a young satyr stood on the other side, laughing at something a pair of giggling nymphs had just said, one arm draped comfortably around each of their shoulders.
The moment he looked up and spotted Zoë, the laughter died in his throat.
She stood with her arms folded, her expression making it abundantly clear that whatever they'd been doing, she disapproved of it on principle. The satyr paled and his arms disappeared from the nymphs' shoulders so quickly you'd have thought they'd turned into red-hot iron. Both nymphs flushed scarlet, suddenly finding the floor fascinating. All three quickly bowed their heads.
"My apologies, Lady Nightshade," the satyr stammered, giving an awkward little bow from the waist that also somehow incorporated his horns. "We were just... ah... on our way to... to a book club! Right, girls?"
He looked desperately at the nymphs.
"Book club," one echoed immediately.
"Very educational," added the other almost pleadingly.
"Right. Well. We'd best not be late, don't want to miss... the educational value." The satyr finished weakly.
Without waiting for a response, the three of them sidled past Zoë with exaggerated caution, hugging the edge of the narrow walkway. The instant they were clear of the elevator, they abandoned every pretence of dignity and disappeared down the bridge at a pace that suggested 'book club' was about to start without them.
For a moment, Zoë and I watched them go, before I shot the Huntress a look from the corner of my eye.
"You usually have that effect on people?"
"Only foolish ones." She immediately shot back, stepping past me into the elevator without a further word.
I quickly joined her, pressing the button for the ground floor as I silently observed the woman. She stood with her hands clasped behind her back, staring straight ahead with the sort of perfect posture only someone with several thousand years to practise could manage. It occurred to me that this was the first time since we'd met that we'd been completely alone together.
It also occurred to me that my brain had picked a remarkably inconvenient moment to remember she was absolutely gorgeous.
I firmly informed that particular train of thought that it could kindly fuck off.
It ignored me.
"So, does that include me?" I asked jokingly, trying to get a conversation going.
Zoë shot me a look that clearly said that, just by asking that question, I had already answered it.
"Right. Good talk." I muttered.
The rest of the ride down was spent in silence.
It was a blessedly short walk from the Empire State Building to where I had left my truck, wedged between a delivery van and a battered yellow taxi. I was somewhat relieved that it still looked like a normal pickup rather than the mobile artillery platform I'd been afraid it would turn into when I wasn't looking thanks to the Hephaestus Cabin's modifications.
"Well," I said, fishing my keys from my pocket, "there's Arion. Hop in, and let's get moving."
Zoë stopped dead in her tracks.
"...Arion?"
I looked over my shoulder.
"Yeah?"
Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly.
"Thou hast named thy vehicle after Herakles' horse?"
"Uh, I named it after a horse that was at one point ridden by Herakles, I suppose. Why, that a problem?"
"Yes. It is an insult."
"What the- why?" I asked, baffled, but the beautiful woman just turned up her nose at me, her stance rigid.
"As a Huntress of Artemis, I will not ride a chariot that bears such a name. You should name it after a proud mare instead."
For a moment, we stood on opposite sides of the Chevy's hood as silence fell between us.
"Yeah, no." I said flatly, before unlocking Arion and hopping behind the wheel.
Zoë's eyes widened, clearly not used to such a casual dismissal, freezing for a moment before she threw open the passenger side door.
"What dost thou mean 'no', you would disobey-!"
"Alright lady, here's the deal. Better we hash it out now since we got about a twelve-hour road trip ahead of us. I'm not your subordinate. You do not give me orders. You're here because I need a tracker, so when it comes to tracking and hunting and camping in the woods, I'll be more than happy to take your lead. Anything else, I'll do what I think is best to complete the Quest and prevent a potential war between the Fates and my dad. ... or mom. Progenitor?"
I struggled to find the proper words for a moment before shrugging.
"And that certainly extends to what I call my stuff, least of all my fucking car. You hate it so much, you can sit in the flatbed for all I care." I said, venom creeping into my voice as I gripped the steering wheel.
Zoë bristled as she stood on the sidewalk.
"Thou foolish boy. Thou knowest not what thy idolatry of that man even means, for-"
"Yeah, that wasn't me." I interrupted, "that was Lily's suggestion."
"...Lily?"
"Eight years old. Hephaestus cabin. Missing her two front teeth. Big fan of refurbishing old Chevy trucks apparently."
Zoë blinked and I sighed.
"So here's what's going to happen. If this is genuinely such a grievous offence, I will turn this truck around, drive us all the way to Camp Half-Blood, find an eight-year-old girl who was just trying to do something nice, and you can personally explain to her exactly why her naming choice is so unacceptable."
Zoë's eyes narrowed.
"...That would be unnecessarily cruel."
"I agree." I simply shot back as I waited.
For a moment, the Huntress seemed to be locked in an internal debate, before she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin (even higher) and got into the cabin as well.
"The name was chosen in ignorance, but without malice," she declared with all the finality of a queen issuing a royal decree. "I shall tolerate it for the duration of our Quest. Once it is concluded, however, I shall seek out this Lily and properly educate her on the many proud mares of Greek history, that she might make a more informed choice in future."
I stared at her for a second.
"... I bet she'll be thrilled."
"Of course she will be: she's a girl." Zoë stated as if that settled the matter.
Still, she was in the truck, she wasn't trying to rename it anymore, and there was no immediate risk of driving twelve hours with an immortal Huntress sulking in the flatbed. At this point, I was counting that as a victory.
I started the engine, pulled out into the afternoon traffic, and pointed Arion west.
"So Huntress," I said as Manhattan began to disappear in the rear-view mirror, "care to explain where we're actually going, specific-like? The Great Lakes cover, what, ninety thousand square miles? We can't exactly wander around until we trip over the... whatever the Fates want me to find."
"We shall do no such thing," Zoë replied. "One does not simply stumble upon prey by searching blindly. One gathers information, narrows the trail, then hunts."
"Fair enough. Where do we start?"
"Chicago."
I shot her a sideways glance.
"Chicago? Why there? Last I checked, it wasn't exactly famous for its forests."
Zoë sighed, though whether at my ignorance or the question itself, I couldn't tell.
"Because it is the greatest source of trade in both goods and information in the area. Every major road and railway around the Great Lakes passes through it and they carry satyrs, nature spirits and monsters with them. If something has disturbed the wilderness surrounding the lakes, word will eventually find its way there."
She looked out of the passenger window as the skyscrapers slowly gave way to suburbs.
"The Great Lakes are surrounded by countless forests, both in the United States and Canada. We know only that our destination lies where 'endless forests meet inland sea.' That is insufficient to choose a hunting ground. Before we commit ourselves to weeks of searching the wilderness, we shall determine which wilderness deserves our attention."
I nodded.
"So we aren't hunting for the monster yet, we're hunting for the information that'll lead us to the monster. Got it."
Zoë gracefully inclined her head.
"Precisely."
That was apparently all the conversation she intended to contribute.
The silence that settled over the cabin wasn't awkward so much as... deliberate. Zoë seemed perfectly content to spend the next twelve hours saying as little as possible, her attention fixed on the passing landscape beyond the passenger window. She sat as rigidly as ever, one hand resting lightly against the door, the afternoon sun catching the loose strands of her dark hair as they framed a face that, despite my best efforts, remained profoundly distracting.
I dragged my eyes back to the road before my stupid subconscious caused a traffic accident.
'This is getting ridiculous.' I kicked myself.
I'd known Zoë Nightshade for all of two hours. She was older than most civilisations, possessed all the warmth of an armed border checkpoint, and had spent the better part of ten minutes arguing with me over the name of my truck. By any reasonable standard, I should have found her insufferable.
Instead, my idiot brain had apparently decided that aloof competence and impossible cheekbones were exactly my type.
'Traitor.'
Outside, New York slowly gave way to New Jersey, skyscrapers surrendering to warehouses, suburbs and eventually long stretches of open highway. Chicago still lay hundreds of miles ahead. If we were lucky, someone there would know enough to point us through nearly a hundred thousand square miles of lakes, forests and wilderness to save whatever the Fates had sent me to find.
It wasn't much of a plan, but sadly, it wasn't as if prophecies came with GPS trackers either.
We followed I-80 west, and spent most of the afternoon climbing through the wooded ridges of the Appalachians before the land gradually opened up as we crossed into Ohio. The roads straightened, the horizon stretched further with every passing mile, and before long the scenery settled into hours of asphalt, service plazas and enough cornfields to make me suspect the Midwest was secretly populated entirely by children of Demeter.
A trip from New York to Chicago will set you back about thirteen hours. Considering it was already mid-day by the time the Prophecy had been issued and Zoë and I had embarked on our Quest, we would have to find a place to spend the night and continue on the following morning.
Well, technically we could've kept on driving straight through the night by switching drivers, but I abandoned that idea the moment Zoë confidently informed me she'd mastered driving decades ago.
It turned out she'd driven exactly once, sometime in the late seventies. According to her, the experience had been enough to prove she understood the principles involved. After all, riding a car wasn't that different from riding a bicycle.
She clarified that she meant one of those Victorian monstrosities with the enormous front wheel.
Against my better judgement (and because she'd accused me of "wounding her pride" by doubting her) I eventually relented and let her demonstrate this supposed mastery on one of the many side-roads along the freeway.
After climbing behind the wheel, she took off without taking the handbrake off, confused the clutch for the gas pedal (several times) and frequently committed a sin usually reserved for BMW-drivers to the point I couldn't help but wonder what she would look like with slicked back hair and overpriced sunglasses.
'Nope, still hot.' I thought, before ruthlessly throwing that thought under the car.
"You didn't use your indicators." I pointed out instead.
"I assure thee, Mister Creed, I indicated my intention to switch lanes perfectly well."
"... by pointing an arrow at a minivan?"
"Towards the direction in which I intended to travel, yes."
"That's called a threat, Zoë."
"It's the clearest form of communication."
"That's not the problem," I said as the car bucked hard enough the back of my skull left an imprint on the headrest.
That one might've been intentional if Zoë's innocent whistle was anything to go by.
"The problem is that nobody knows what it even is you're trying to communicate."
"Then clearly the fault lies with them."
I quickly demanded we'd find a motel before she hurt someone (namely me) and the Huntress finally agreed with a pout that did irritatingly fluttering things to my heart.
By the time we'd lurched across an empty motel car park, narrowly missed a shopping trolley and mounted a curb that had done absolutely nothing to deserve it, I'd come to the conclusion that the greatest monster we'd encounter on our Quest was sitting in the driver's seat.
She still considered hitting a postbox "an unfortunate but isolated incident."
The motel itself looked like someone had copied and pasted it from the Official Shabby Motel Design Handbook: faded paint, cracked asphalt, a buzzing VACANCY sign with about a third of the letters missing and just enough neglect to make you wonder whether the place had changed ownership or simply outlived it.
It wasn't much to look at, but it had beds, a roof and, most importantly, would keep Zoë off the road for the remainder of the night.
"Try not to threaten anyone this time," I muttered as we climbed out.
"I never threaten without cause." The Huntress rebuked.
"You drew a bow on a Chrysler."
"I had no intention to fire... as long as he relinquished the right of way."
I decided that was as close to progress as I was likely to get.
A little brass bell chimed as we stepped into reception.
The lobby smelled faintly of stale coffee, cigarette smoke and desperate industrial-strength air freshener currently losing a war against both. Behind the counter sat a woman somewhere in her sixties with heavily permed grey hair, nicotine-yellowed fingers and enough jewellery to set off airport security while still standing in the parking lot. A cigarette rested lazily between two fingers despite the large NO SMOKING sign mounted directly above her head.
She looked up from a crossword, her eyes drifting from me to Zoë and back again before a slow, knowing smile spread across her face that immediately put the both of us on our guard as we approached the grimy window.
"Well now," she said, voice rough enough to sand furniture. "Ain't you two just adorable little lovebirds."
Every male instinct I possessed, passed down from man to man since the time we sat around in caves and invented fire, immediately told me everything about this conversation was going to be unpleasant.
"I assure you," Zoë said evenly, "we are not birds."
"We'd like two rooms for the night." I soldiered on as the old woman cackled.
"Uh-huh. 'Course you do, darlin'." The woman drawled, seeming to delight in dragging out every word.
She didn't reach for the register. She simply kept looking between us with the sort of expression normally reserved for grandparents who'd just spotted teenagers holding hands.
"One room'll do just fine." She eventually rasped.
"Two," I shot back automatically.
The woman snorted as she slapped a single key on the stained countertop.
"... two." I pleaded now in a small voice, intensely aware of the Huntress radiating her displeasure beside me.
"Sorry, darlin'. We're all filled up." The ancient crone shrugged.
Without a word, our eyes drifted up past the receptionist to the board of hooks behind her. More than half the keys were still hanging there.
"...You're full?" I repeated sceptically.
"Emotionally?" the woman shrugged. "Most days."
"...The motel."
"Oh." She glanced over her shoulder without bothering to turn around. "Guess I forgot to update the board."
Somehow, I doubted that.
"C'mon dearies, just take it. It'll be grand." She grinned with yellowed teeth as she patted the single key on the stained countertop.
"We really would prefer separate rooms-" Zoë now tried, but she turned out to be as ineffective as I was as the crone easily interrupted her.
"Oh dearie, no need to pretend around me, you know." She said with a slow wink.
"... pretend?" the Huntress blinked.
"That you're just friends." She leaned on the counter, lowering her voice conspiratorially. "You kids eloping?"
I very nearly swallowed my own tongue.
"What? No!"
"Relax, darlin'. Happens all the time. Daddy doesn't approve, Mama starts crying, the young lovers hit the interstate and wind up somewhere like this before Vegas."
"We're going to Chicago." Zoë corrected and the woman blinked at her, taking a long drag of her cigarette.
"... well, the casinos there aren't as exciting I suppose, but still, good for you. Takes guts."
"There is no 'you two'," I said, feeling my ears burn.
"Uh-huh." The woman hummed (or rattled, more like), clearly unconvinced.
"We're just travelling together."
"My, what a coincidence."
"On a... business trip."
"Honey, I've heard every excuse in the book. Business trip. Study partners. Cousins." She snorted. "That one was weird."
While Zoë and I were still trying to process that last one, the receptionist lit up another cigarette, blowing out a massive cloud of blue smoke that briefly obscured her from view.
"Anyway, when's the wedding?"
"There isn't going to be one." I shot back.
The receptionist mock-gasped, covering her nicotine-stained mouth with bony, liver-spotted fingers.
"Not even bothering with marriage? That eager, huh?"
"What? No! That's not what I—"
"Relax, darlin'. I ain't judging."
"There is nothing to judge!"
"Of course darlin', of course, you're quite right. Free country after all." She winked.
"...Can we please just have the key?" I begged, thoroughly defeated.
She slid it across the counter with a grin.
"Room fourteen. End of the row. Nice and quiet. Walls are thicker than they look."
I almost choked as Zoë slowly glanced from me to the receptionist and back.
"...Why would that matter?"
The old woman just smiled.
"Oh, honey. You'll learn, in time. Not too much time, I hope." She replied, shooting me a significant look that I bravely tried my best to ignore.
Beside me, Zoë looked between us.
"...I do not understand."
"Good," I said quickly, grabbing the key. "Let's keep it that way."
It wasn't a particularly restful night, though only in part due to the receptionist's constant badgering having left me with... impure thoughts. Sharing a room with Zoë wasn't inherently awkward. Sharing one with someone I'd managed to simultaneously annoy and become inexplicably attracted to within thirty seconds of meeting however, was.
Zoë claimed the chair by the window while I dropped onto one of the beds, each of us suddenly finding a dozen entirely fascinating ways to avoid looking at the other.
She checked the string on her bow, inspected her arrows with the kind of scrutiny normally associated with customs officers and tax audits and sharpened a broadhead that probably didn't need sharpening. I, by comparison, exhausted the list of things I owned worth maintaining in about forty-five seconds. Out of options, I folded Father Garcia's trenchcoat, unfolded it again five minutes later because I'd done it badly, then concluded I'd officially run out of productive ways to ignore the still-silent Huntress and gave up, spending an inordinate amount of time staring at the motel's popcorn-coloured ceiling.
Conversation never really got off the ground. We'd already covered the important subjects somewhere in rural Pennsylvania, and neither of us seemed particularly interested in discussing the weather.
Eventually we wished each other goodnight with all the warmth of two diplomats negotiating a ceasefire.
Neither of us slept particularly well.
The following morning found Zoë marching towards reception with the determined stride of someone who had spent an entire night preparing a rebuttal. Before I could talk her out of it she'd already reached the counter.
Except the woman from yesterday wasn't there.
Instead, a gangly young man barely older than me looked up from a dog-eared magazine, blinking as the bell above the door announced our arrival.
"Morning."
Zoë frowned.
"Thou aren't a nicotine-addled crone. Where is the older woman?"
"...Sorry?"
"The receptionist."
"I am the receptionist."
"The woman who worked yesterday evening." Zoë explained with mounting frustration.
"My dad closed last night." The kid countered with mounting confusion.
I stepped up beside Zoë.
"Grey hair. Enough jewellery to bankrupt a pawn shop. Smoked like she had a personal grudge against her lungs." I helpfully added.
His confusion only deepened.
"...We don't allow smoking in reception." He said slowly as he pointed to the no-smoking sign above his head, clearly wondering whether or not we could even read.
"Then it would seem thy establishment suffers from a serious staffing discrepancy." Zoë scoffed.
He blinked.
"...Excuse me?"
"An elderly woman conducted the check-in procedure yesterday evening. She smoked excessively, wore an unreasonable quantity of jewellery and repeatedly insisted we were courting."
At this, Zoë placed both hands on the counter as she loomed over the kid, her face set in determination.
"She was mistaken. Severely."
"I'm... sorry?" the kid squeaked.
"Not thee. But she will be."
The poor bloke looked like he was wondering whether he should call his manager or the police and I decided we'd probably reached the point of diminishing returns.
"Come on, let's get back out on the road. He doesn't know anything." I interjected, laying a hesitant hand on her shoulder (and being pleasantly surprised when she didn't slap it away automatically).
She looked as though she intended to continue the argument before eventually relenting with visible reluctance, muttering something under her breath about accountability as I ushered her back outside.
The morning air was cool enough to chase away the last remnants of sleep. I unlocked the pickup and slid behind the wheel while Zoë climbed into the passenger seat, still wearing the expression of someone who'd been denied a perfectly reasonable opportunity to win an argument.
The engine coughed to life but as I reached for the gearstick, something in the driver's side mirror snagged my attention.
The old receptionist stood beneath the faded motel sign, leaning casually against it as though she'd been waiting for me to look back.
For a heartbeat I almost wondered if the kid inside had simply been blind all along, but then the image shimmered for just a moment, almost like a shaft of sunlight flitting through an overcast sky.
The stained cardigan became a flowing rose-coloured dress. The cigarette between her yellowed fingers was gone, replaced by a single crimson rose held with effortless elegance. Every trace of the weary, chain-smoking motel clerk had vanished, leaving behind someone impossibly beautiful who regarded me with amused, knowing eyes.
She lifted the rose in a tiny salute and winked.
A lorry thundered past on the road beyond the motel.
When it had gone, so had she.
"...Huh."
"What is it?" Zoë asked, fastening her seatbelt.
I kept my eyes on the mirror for another second before putting the truck into gear.
"...Nothing."
Chicago proved remarkably adept at hiding what I was actually looking for.
From a distance, my [Hawk Eyes] were absurd. I could pick out aircraft lining up to land at O'Hare, follow freighters crawling across Lake Michigan and read motorway signs that wouldn't become relevant for another half hour. Give me an unobstructed horizon and I could see for miles.
Unfortunately, cities had an irritating habit of being full of buildings.
Every time I thought I'd found a decent vantage point, another office block, apartment complex or billboard jumped into view instead. [Hawk Eyes] weren't X-ray vision. The moment something solid got in the way, that was that. Chicago was less a city and more a maze of concrete canyons, each one creating another blind spot.
Zoë, meanwhile, seemed entirely unbothered.
"Slow down."
I eased off the accelerator as we rolled through a neighbourhood that looked like it hadn't seen fresh paint since the Cold War.
She studied the surrounding buildings in silence, her gaze lingering on boarded-up shop fronts, a narrow side street and an ageing public house with windows so filthy they bordered on opaque.
"...Nothing," she decided.
"You got all that from looking?" I asked in surprise, but Zoë casually flipped back her hair as she shrugged.
"The scent is wrong."
I nodded as though that meant something to me and pulled away from the curb.
That became the rhythm of the morning. Zoë directed, I drove.
We investigated a crumbling railway depot that smelled strongly enough of monsters for Zoë to wrinkle her nose before discovering it had apparently been hurriedly abandoned about a week earlier. An old cemetery produced precisely three ghosts, all of whom were considerably more interested in complaining about vandalism than discussing current events. A satyr waystation hidden behind an entirely forgettable florist yielded little beyond the revelation that Grover's species possessed an astonishing ability to gossip about absolutely everything except the thing you actually wanted to know.
By early afternoon we'd accumulated plenty of dead ends and absolutely no idea where to find a lead, which in itself was a clue. From how relaxed the satyrs were and the sudden disappearance of the usual monster watering holes, we quickly realized that something in the surrounding area had the monsters spooked.
What that something was though, and how it related to our Quest (if it even did in the first place) remained entirely unclear. All I knew was that every monster in Chicago suddenly seemed to have developed an overwhelming desire to be somewhere else, which was remarkably inconvenient considering I needed to find one.
"I'm beginning to suspect we're searching for a needle in a haystack." I sighed.
Zoë didn't look away from the window.
"No, that one is simple. Simply light the hay on fire and wait for the smoke to clear. This is worse."
"How?"
"We are searching for something actively attempting not to be found."
"...Right. That is... less than encouraging." I agreed with a sigh.
Traffic slowed as we crawled through another junction. I rested one arm against the open window and let my vision drift across the rooftops more out of habit than expectation. Looking down the streets was an exercise in frustration. Looking above them was another matter entirely.
A movement several kilometres away caught my attention, not on the pavement but on a rooftop.
I focused my eyes, the effect not too different from an overpowered camera lens zooming in as the distance shrank and the far-off building leapt into focus.
A woman cloaked in black stalked the edge of a seven-storey building with the effortless balance of someone for whom gravity was little more than a polite suggestion. Wisps of darkness curled around her feet despite the midday sun, clinging to her shadow like living smoke as she carried a burning torch.
"...That's interesting."
Zoë turned towards me.
"What is?"
"Some strange lady with a torch and a magical shadow doing parkour, I'm guessing."
Zoë's eyes widened the moment I mentioned the torch and she immediately followed my gaze for all the good it did her.
"Where?"
"About three kilometres that way." I jutted with my chin and the Huntress stilled beside me, shooting me a long, considering look.
"You can identify her from here?"
"I can identify the stitching on her sleeves."
The woman stopped mid-stride and slowly turned her head. Even at that distance I saw her freeze as our eyes met, surprise flashing across her face a heartbeat before she spun on her heel and disappeared behind the rooftop, ducking out of sight.
"...and she just spotted me. Somehow."
Zoë straightened immediately.
"After her!"
"Why, you know her?" I asked as I pushed down the accelerator, ignoring the honks from other drivers and breaking about half a dozen traffic laws in as many seconds.
"Not her specifically, but her kind certainly. She is one of the Lampades. Exactly what we're looking for." Zoë managed to bite out as she was thrown back in her seat.
"A Lampades?" I asked as I swerved around a busy intersection, [Novice Driving just barely preventing us from tagging a row of flower pots on the sidewalk.
"Children of Hecate, guardians of crossroads. Very useful, though slippery and difficult to catch. Interrogating her will be worth the effort though." she assured me.
"Really? Why?"
"They are pathological gossips, incapable of keeping secrets."
Arion's tires squealed as I rounded the corner close to the building where I had spotted the Lampad. It was a large street, but more importantly, it was ramrod straight and finally opened up the skyline enough for [Hawk Eyes] to fully expand my view.
Several hundred meters ahead, standing on the rooftop of an apartment building with her hands on her knees, the Lampad was catching her breath. Her eyes widened as I drove Arion onwards with manoeuvres that, if it hadn't been for the Hephaestus kids, would've caused the old Chevy to fall apart as if it had a main role in a Buster Keaton movie.
"Found her." I said grimly as Zoë tensed beside me.
The Lampad looked around once, clearly deciding that remaining exactly where she was had abruptly become a poor life choice, before vaulting onto the next rooftop and disappearing behind a taller building.
For a moment I lost her completely before my enhanced eyes spotted a glimpse of her as she emerged on the opposite side, sprinting along a fire escape.
"There," I said, already pulling into the next street. "She cut east."
"Thou can still see her?"
"When she's not behind a building, sure."
Zoë's eyes swept over the street layout only once.
"She is heading for the elevated railway."
"You sound very confident."
"They prefer shadows and overhead cover. She will avoid open intersections."
I took the next right without questioning it.
A few seconds later the Lampad burst from an alley exactly where Zoë had predicted, glanced over one shoulder and accelerated the instant she realised we were still behind her.
I kept my eyes on the rooftops while Zoë watched the streets below. On my own I'd have lost her the second she disappeared behind another building. Without [Hawk Eyes], Zoë would never even have known she was there.
Between the two of us, the Lampad never had a chance.
Zoë suddenly reached for the passenger door handle.
"What are you—"
"Hard left." She commanded without so much as a flicker of hesitation in her voice.
I yanked the wheel without further questions. Arion lurched into the corner hard enough for the tyres to protest, throwing Zoë against the open door before she used the momentum to effortlessly swing herself onto the cab and roll neatly into the flatbed, coming up with her bow already drawn.
"...Show-off."
The sharp twang of a bowstring was my only reply as yet another silver arrow hissed overhead.
With [Hawk Eyes], I watched it cover hundreds of metres in the blink of an eye before burying itself in the brickwork of the next building over with a crack loud enough to startle a flock of pigeons into the air.
The Lampad had already committed to her leap and only saw the arrow at the last possible moment.
Instead of sailing towards the rooftop she'd been aiming for, she twisted in midair with impossible agility, caught the edge of a lower building and disappeared into the mouth of a narrow alley.
"She changed direction," I called.
"I know."
A second arrow followed immediately. The shaft embedded itself halfway up a fire escape just as the Lampad reached it, forcing her to recoil before scrambling across an adjoining rooftop instead.
I quickly realized that these weren't missed shots thanks to my rough driving; Zoë wasn't trying to hit her, she was trying to herd her.
Every route that offered height vanished beneath another precisely placed arrow until the Lampad's options steadily narrowed, the rooftops giving way to balconies, the balconies to fire escapes and, eventually, the streets.
Meanwhile I kept on driving like I was auditioning for a remake of the Blues Brothers, my [Novice Driving] skill being pushed towards its absolute limit.
Chicago traffic parted less because people were being courteous and more because they valued continued existence. Horns blared behind us as Arion muscled its way through junctions that definitely weren't designed for enthusiastic interpretation, the old Chevy somehow remaining perfectly intact despite the abuse.
Building by building, the glass towers of downtown gave way to ageing warehouses and weather-beaten brickwork. The streets widened the closer we got the lakeside and the docks couldn't be far now.
"There," Zoë called from somewhere above me.
I saw it an instant later.
The Lampad darted between two derelict warehouses before skidding to a halt as a final silver arrow struck the brickwork just ahead of her, cutting off the only remaining escape route.
She hesitated for the briefest moment, looking panicked over her shoulder, before making the only decision she had left and darted deeper into the nearest alley, which unfortunately for her, turned out to be a dead end.
I stomped down on the accelerator and threw Arion sideways across the mouth of the alley. The tyres shrieked in protest as the Chevy slid neatly from wall to wall, sealing the exit. As I killed the momentum, the engine settled into an oddly contented idle purr that somehow reminded me of a cheetah sprawled in the shade after finally running its prey to exhaustion.
I chalked it up to whatever the Hephaestus kids had done under the bonnet and turned my attention to the panting Lampad as I climbed out, while Zoë vaulted smoothly from the flatbed with her bow already in hand.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, we probably cut an intimidating figure as we closed in on the wide-eyed nymph, with my black trench coat contrasting sharply against the Huntress' silver parka, and from the way the Lampad instinctively flattened herself against the brickwork, she seemed to agree.
"I'll never talk!" she blurted, pointing her trembling torch at us with considerably less conviction than she'd probably intended.
I didn't even bother to answer the fake bravado. Instead I stepped forward and drove my fist into the wall right beside her head.
Adamantine Fist didn't really understand the concept of warning shots. The brickwork detonated around my forearm, dust and fragments showering onto the pavement as cracks raced through the wall. When the rumbling finally died away, my fist was buried to the wrist in solid masonry.
The Lampad had gone perfectly still, her wide-eyed gaze travelling from the hole in the wall, to my arm disappearing into it, and finally up to my face. Her mouth hung open in silent shock.
"Just so you know," I said, jerking my head towards Zoë, "I'm the nice one."
The Lampad's eyes flitted over my shoulder to where Zoë stood behind me, bow still drawn and her sharp features set in that signature regal expression of hers, before she swallowed and shot me a brittle smile.
"...You guys got pen and paper?"
AN: As always, you can read up to five chapters ahead over on my Patreon
shadyshadow_1776
I believe in your capacity for good
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Hell yeah nice chase scene, also thanks for the chapter
ENDDRAGON
Well worn.
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The Type-moon version of Heracles is really good. If Riordan had done more research he would have done some research into Arthurian myths where it's revealed that King Arthur finds the sword of Heracles called Marmyadose which is even stronger than Excalibur. It took all 3 Command Seals for him to be corrupted by All The Worlds Evils. As a Berserker in his third Ascension he wields Hippolyta's Labrys which was blessed by both Ares and Artemis. Heracles took it from Hippolyta after her death and used it for an unknown amount of time until he gifted it to queen Omphale. For Heracles, who had gone berserk numerous times in legend, having beat his harp instructor to death when he was a child and many other episodes that involved killing people in rage without even hearing them speak, the Berserker Class is quite familiar and easy in which to adapt. After being Blackened by the Holy Grail in Heaven's Feel, he was able to halt the last strike of his Axe Sword before he died. He was able to do so due to the strength of his heart; a heart which suffered the pain of going berserk since his early days as a hero. He is identified as the most manly character in Fate.
EntropyEnginear
Well worn.
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The motel room thing was funny, I'm guessing Aphrodite messing around? Anyway on a side note. If the MC being free will thing actually pans out to be the truth. Then MC Yelling at the fates telling them he's not their subordinate but their Coworker would be funny.
Yohnos
Experienced.
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Missed the occasion to insult Zoe by remembering her of her goddess hypocrisy "So how does it feel that your goddess, protectrice of the maiden serve the worst rapist in mythology and never punished him? He could rape you and she would punish you."
I know that it's not time for that but still.
Great chapter.
I know that it's not time for that but still.
Great chapter.
Chaosfox13
Versed in the lewd.
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He is literally right outside Olympus, immediately after a very narrow victory at a trial to decide his death. Where Zeus was the judge.
That goes beyond hubris in the "acting beyond your cosmic station" sense to hubris in the "just plain dumb" sense
Yohnos
Experienced.
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In Percy Jackson name have powers, if you don't name mythological beings they don't necessarily notice you. But let say that the gods do. Nothing he said would be a lie. And personally I would rather die on my feet than serve that.
Luke Sky 001
Versed in the lewd.
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Which. Nice.
But you have a chaos gacha. Which means that one day you actually have a chance of doing something about it, rather than accepting servitude for the rest of your natural lifespan.
...so your choice would not only do jack shit, it would just restore the status quo. And as the post-Kronos story shows, even forcing concessions out of the gods doesn't magically make Olympus trustworthy.
Percy made the entire Olympian Council swear on the Styx; they did implement a lot of his reforms, but they still managed to conveniently "forget" Calypso and leave her imprisoned on Ogygia.
So what exactly does telling Zoë, to her face, that her goddess serves under a rapist accomplish?
You piss off Zoë.
You potentially piss off Artemis.
You potentially attract the attention of Zeus.
And then, assuming one of them kills you, congratulations. Olympus has successfully solved its problem and absolutely nothing has changed.
"I would rather die on my feet than serve them" sounds impressive, but dying isn't automatically resistance. If your death accomplishes nothing, you've simply removed the one person who had a literal supernatural lootbox capable of eventually giving him enough power, knowledge or leverage to actually challenge the system.
That's the entire reason the chaos gacha changes the equation.
Survival is no longer submission. Survival is investment.
obcorbino2146
Not too sore, are you?
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I mean the MC has the chaos gacha, so in the future when he has much more power I'd say he do it, especially if the gods get told off by the primonials that they can't have control over a demi-primonial, as he is in a hierarchy higher than them technically. That is if the author does what I mentioned before and have multiple primonials threatening or called out the gods saying they have no say over him. Not because they actually give a damn about him but for the audacity of them trying to lure over another primonial even if they're only half.
I would love in the future if the MC punches Zeus in the d!ck when he's strong enough to get away with it and call him out on his crap.
Now here's memes
Luke Sky 001
Versed in the lewd.
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This guy gets it.
Chapter 12
New
Bakkughan
Sir Charles Phantom, the Notorious Litton
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CHAPTER 12
"...You guys got pen and paper?"
I slowly pulled my fist free from the wall, dislodging another shower of brick dust in the process. The Lampad flinched at the sound and immediately raised both hands, nearly setting her own hood on fire with the torch she was still clutching.
"Right, no paper. That's fine. I can speak slowly. Or quickly. Quickly is usually better, actually, because otherwise I forget what I was saying and start thinking about something else, which is how Hecate found out Melinoë had been borrowing her chariot without permission, although technically I don't think borrowing is the right word when you bring it back with one wheel missing and a dead empousa wedged underneath—"
"Actually, I got something better than paper." I suddenly remembered as I reached into one of my pockets.
"Please don't kill me! Think of my children!" the nymph flinched.
"You don't have any children." Zoë frowned.
"But someday I might have?" the Lampad offered with a brittle smile while I rolled my eyes.
"Relax." I said, a bit more gently now as I pulled a Tarot card from my trenchcoat, number XX - Judgement.
I held it up in front of the nymph, her eyes briefly going cross-eyed as she took in the iconography on the front. Zoë shot me a questioning look as she glanced from the card to me.
"This is the Judgement card, granted to me by Kaos itself. It will compel her to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Well, the truth as far as she knows it, at least. Don't think we'll get anything useful out of her if we ask her for the meaning of life itself, for instance. Or whether or not Elvis is still alive."
"Oh that's easy, he's over in Memphis. It's close to his old home and he likes joining impersonation contests to mess with people. Last I heard he came in fourth," the Lampad said brightly and to all of our surprise, the swirling cosmic pattern on the back of the card began to spin before the card was swallowed up whole by a miniature black hole.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I could feel a sort of countdown start, 120 hours ticking down like an old grandfather clock.
I looked from my suddenly empty hand to the confused-looking Lampad.
"Huh. Go figure."
"You guys wanna know about celebrity gossip? Weird thing to chase me over, but that's okay, whatever you want! I heard Aphrodite's running a betting pool on Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston these days. Demeter says they'll make it another three years, Hera's refusing to participate on principle and Ares of all people keeps trying to fix the odds. Oh, and every time Celine Dion sings My Heart Will Go On, somewhere a nereid starts crying. Nobody knows why. Poseidon insists it isn't him, but nobody believes that either, and—" the nymph hurriedly blurted out when Zoë stepped past me, silver bow still held loosely in one hand.
"We are not after gossip. We need intel." She bit out sternly.
The Lampad blinked.
"Oh. Well, what kinda intel?"
"Something has disturbed the monsters surrounding the Great Lakes. We wish to know what."
"Ohh, that."
She lowered her hands, her fear giving way so quickly to enthusiasm that I briefly wondered whether we had accidentally threatened the only mythological creature in existence who enjoyed being interrogated.
"Yes, everyone's talking about that. Well, mostly everyone. The naiads near Erie aren't, but they never know anything anyway. Spend all day singing to fishermen and then act surprised when nobody invites them anywhere. There was this one naiad, Callianeira, who swore blind she'd spent three nights with one of Triton's sons, except everyone knows he was in Cincinnati at the time because he got arrested for trying to free the dolphins from an aquarium—"
"The disturbance surrounding the Great Lakes," Zoë repeated, with the quiet patience of someone trying very hard not to commit murder before breakfast.
"Right. Most of them come from around Lake Superior, actually. Strange business up there. Very strange."
The Lampad nodded solemnly, although the effect was somewhat undermined when she leaned closer and lowered her voice with obvious delight.
"Monsters have been disappearing."
Zoë's expression sharpened.
"Disappearing how?"
"Well, that's the thing. Nobody knows. Some are dead. Properly dead, too. Dust, blood, bits left hanging in trees, that sort of unpleasantness. A dracaena made it as far south as Milwaukee missing an arm and half her tail before she collapsed outside a monster tavern. Apparently she kept babbling about dogs."
"What kind of dogs?" I asked.
The Lampad shrugged.
"Big ones."
"That narrows it down, thanks." I rolled my eyes, and the nymph huffed defensively.
"Look, I didn't see her myself, ok? I only heard about it from a telekhine who heard it from a grain spirit who was sleeping with the dracaena's cousin."
Zoë closed her eyes for a brief moment.
"Continue."
"Most of the monsters weren't killed, though. They simply left. Packed up dens, abandoned feeding grounds, vanished from places they'd occupied for decades. The older ones went first, which is usually how you know something serious is happening. Young monsters are stupid. Old monsters are stupid too, obviously, but they're generally better at recognising when something larger is about to eat them."
That, at least, sounded useful.
"Where did this start?" I asked.
The Lampad's mouth opened.
Zoë lifted one finger.
"Answer only the question."
The nymph looked faintly wounded.
"Like I said, somewhere around Lake Superior. The western side, I think. Or south-western. Reports started coming through from spirits along the Wisconsin shore, then farther east. Ashland. Bayfield. The Apostles. Lots of talk about the Apostles."
"The Apostles?" I repeated.
"A group of islands," Zoë said without looking away from the Lampad. "Off the southern shore of the lake."
"Oh, they're lovely," the Lampad cut in. "Very picturesque. Sea caves, cliffs, little beaches. Terrible in winter, though. There was a boread who froze solid there once and spent two months pretending he'd done it deliberately as a meditation exercise. Nobody believed him, particularly after Hermes painted a moustache on him while he was thawing."
Zoë's grip tightened around her bow.
The Lampad noticed.
"Anyway... The islands. Something passed close by. After that, every monster with enough sense to listen to its instincts started heading south or east. A few tried hiding in the forests instead."
"And?" I prompted.
"They stopped sending messages."
The easy humour slipped from her face for the first time; even the torch in her hand seemed to dim slightly.
"Waystations went quiet. Monster paths emptied. Satyrs started abandoning their routes north of Green Bay, which is unusual because satyrs will walk directly into a cyclops' cooking pot if they think there might be an endangered shrub inside it."
"Did any of them see what caused it?" Zoë asked intently, but the Lampad shook her head with a shrug.
"Never directly, just some clues. Broken trees, tracks that just... disappear. A few monsters claimed something huge was moving west through the forests, but none of them agreed on what it looked like. One of the Kerkopes insisted it was a bear walking upright and carrying a bow, but that little gnome also sells bottled 'nectar' that's mostly maple syrup and paint thinner, so I wouldn't really trust that trickster at his word."
"A bow?" Zoë asked sharply.
The Lampad nodded.
"I think so. Or a spear. Something long, at least, but nobody agrees on what. Everyone who actually came close either fled before seeing much or didn't come back at all."
"Directions," Zoë demanded. "You said it was moving west."
"Last anyone heard. Along the southern edge of Superior, then inland again. There were rumours around Ashland, and more from the forests beyond Bayfield. After that, nothing reliable."
"Why?"
"No idea," the nymph simply shrugged.
Zoë stared at her with the expression of a woman who had spent two thousand years mastering the bow only to discover that patience remained the more difficult discipline.
"Ashland gives us somewhere to start, at least," I glanced at Zoë.
"It gives us a region," she corrected. "Nothing more."
"Better than ninety thousand square miles."
She inclined her head reluctantly at that.
The Lampad brightened, apparently sensing that she had survived the important part of the conversation.
"Is that everything? Because if you have another hour, I can tell you why Hermes is currently banned from three temples in Ohio. The official story involves sacred cattle, but the real reason is much funnier and possibly illegal in several states-"
"We are finished," Zoë said with a sense of relieved finality.
"Oh," the Lampad wilted a bit at the Huntress' brusque tone and the disappointment on her face was almost impressive.
I stepped away from the ruined wall and brushed brick dust from my sleeve.
"One last question though. Why did you run?"
The Lampad looked at me as though the answer should have been obvious.
"I mean, look at you. You would run from you. My guy, you stared directly at me from three kilometres away."
"... Fair." I conceded with a small cough.
"And then she started shouting."
Zoë's eyes narrowed as the Lampad pointed her torch accusingly.
"I did not shout."
"You did! You were all like: 'after her!'" the nymph mimicked, even dropping into a comically deep voice that saw Zoë's eye twitch.
"I issued an instruction."
"Very loudly." The Lampad huffed.
A muscle twitched in Zoë's jaw and I decided to intervene before our (overly helpful) source became the first Lampad in history to be strangled with her own torch.
"Go, get out of here. Get out of Chicago entirely if what you've told us is true."
The nymph did not need telling twice. She darted past us, paused long enough beside Arion to glance admiringly at the pickup, then vanished into the nearest patch of shadow with a final whispered promise to tell absolutely nobody about us.
Which, given everything we'd just learned about her species, meant most of Chicago would probably know exactly what we had for lunch before we even reached the motorway.
Zoë lowered her bow and looked towards the alley mouth. Her expression remained unreadable, but the slight furrow between her brows told me the Lampad's description had lodged somewhere uncomfortable.
"You thinking ancient monster?" I asked.
"Perhaps."
"God?"
"Unlikely."
"Then what?"
For a long moment, Zoë said nothing. She simply stared out towards the busy Chicago street beyond the alley as though hoping the answer might be waiting there.
"...I do not know."
"I take it that's unusual for you?" I raised an eyebrow at her, but the Huntress didn't react to my needling.
"I have... suspicions. Suspicions I won't voice, not yet."
"What, why?"
"Because I fear then they might come true," she said grimly as I blinked.
"Well, that's not ominous at all." I groused, but she ignored me and walked back towards Arion.
I followed, casting one last look at the empty patch of shadow where the Lampad had disappeared. We had a direction, a cluster of missing monsters and several thousand square miles of northern wilderness waiting at the other end of the road.
The drive north out of Chicago was a strange one. The farther north we drove, the quieter things became, and not just because of the change in scenery as we left the docks and high-rises behind us, replaced by vast expanses of wild forests.
No, the strange part was how… empty everything began to feel.
The occasional monster I'd catch skulking beneath an overpass or watching from a distant treeline grew steadily rarer until hours passed without seeing a single one. Even the satyr waystations the Lampad had mentioned felt abandoned. Twice we found small woodland shrines tucked away behind service stations, both unmistakably inhabited until recently. Blankets still lay folded inside, cooking pots sat where they'd been left. One kettle was still hanging above a cold fire, as though whoever had lived there had stood up halfway through making tea and abruptly decided they had somewhere infinitely more important to be.
Neither of us spoke much after that as every empty stretch of woodland and every mile of empty road quietly reinforced the same uncomfortable thought.
Whatever it was that had frightened this many monsters... it was still out there.
By the time we reached Ashland, even the scattered signs of panic we'd been following had disappeared, leaving us with little more than the Lampad's rumours and a few dozen islands spread across an inland sea. The town itself wasn't particularly large. A handful of brick storefronts overlooked the harbour, fishing boats bobbed lazily against wooden piers and the vast expanse of Lake Superior stretched northward until it dissolved into the horizon.
Or rather, everyone else's horizon.
Mine was somewhat farther away.
I rested my forearms against the harbour railing and the world rushed towards me as kilometres compressed into metres beneath the influence of [Hawk Eyes]. Tiny white specks became gulls. Fishing boats resolved into individual planks of weathered timber. Far beyond them, the Apostle Islands rose from the water, no longer distant smudges but sharply defined cliffs crowned with dense pine forest.
I swept my gaze slowly from island to island, zooming even further in, the world resolving into greater detail. Jagged cliffs resolved into weathered layers of sandstone. Pine forests ceased being an indistinct green blanket and became individual trees swaying gently in the wind. Gulls circled overhead in lazy spirals while somewhere on the westernmost island, a pair of black bears were busy arguing over the carcass of what looked suspiciously like an elk.
"...That's odd."
Zoë, who'd been studying a map spread across Arion's bonnet, looked up.
"What is?"
"There's fresh damage on one of the islands."
The Huntress frowned as she joined me at the railing.
"Damage?"
"Near the northern shore, about twelve miles out." I pointed across the water, more for her benefit than mine. "There's a strip where the treeline has been torn open. Whatever did it went straight across the island."
Zoë stared in the direction I indicated for several moments before she gave up with a frustrated huff and looked back at me.
"Can you determine where it went?"
I narrowed my eyes further, following the damage inland from the southern cliffs. What had initially looked like a handful of broken trees resolved into a narrow corridor driven through the forest, running almost perfectly from one side of the island to the other. Mature pines had been snapped or forced aside along the same heading, their pale, splintered trunks standing out among the dark green canopy like a line scored across the landscape.
The trail reached the northern cliffs and disappeared into Lake Superior.
Except the line itself didn't.
I held the angle in my mind as I slowly moved along the dockside, holding onto the weathered railing to steady myself. Moving while [Hawk Eyes] was active was disorienting almost to the point of nausea, but the balustrade helped in grounding me. Zoë quickly figured out what I was trying to do and moved closer, steadying me from the other side as she held on to my elbow.
I fought down the blush trying to rise over my cheeks at her sudden closeness and instead focused on pushing my sight beyond the island, crossing mile after mile of open water until the farther shoreline rose into focus. Dense forest covered most of it, broken only by stone beaches and steep stretches of exposed rock. For several seconds I found nothing. Then the light caught another scar in the trees directly in line with the damage on the island.
"...There."
"What?"
"There's another break in the treeline on the far shore. Same direction, almost perfectly aligned."
The damage there was less extensive, though still impossible to miss once I knew where to look. Several trees near the water had been knocked down, while a ragged opening cut deeper into the forest before vanishing beneath the canopy. Whatever had crossed the Apostle Islands had entered the lake again and continued on a remarkably straight course towards that exact stretch of shore.
Zoë's attention sharpened.
"Are you certain it is connected?"
"The island sits directly between us and the second trail. Draw a line through the damage and it points straight towards that section of forest." I adjusted my focus, picking out a pale outcrop near the broken treeline and a narrow inlet a little farther west. "Rocky beach beneath a red sandstone bluff. There's a creek emptying into the lake roughly half a mile east of it. Should be enough to find the place from the road."
Within moments, the Huntress had pulled the map from Arion's bonnet and flattened it against the railing, tracing a line north-east from Ashland towards the islands before extending it to the opposite shore.
"Here?"
"Little farther west."
Her finger shifted.
"There."
Zoë studied the map for another moment before folding it along the route.
"Whatever crossed the island was moving with purpose."
"Or running too hard to change direction." I offered and she inclined her head as she conceded the point.
"Either way, we now know where it made landfall."
I let my vision relax, and the distant shoreline collapsed back into an indistinct band of blue and green beyond the islands as Zoë was already walking towards Arion.
"We have our next stop," she said with determination.
The Hephaestus cabin had outdone themselves.
Calling Arion an old pickup truck at this point felt a little like calling the Argo a rowing boat. Sure, it still rattled a little over particularly rough ground, the bench seat still squeaked if I leaned too hard to one side and the dashboard looked as though it'd survived at least three separate decades entirely out of spite. Underneath all that, however, the thing had become something else entirely.
The blue Chevy handled the winding forest roads without complaint, its suspension absorbing ruts and exposed roots that should've had us rattling around the cabin like loose cutlery. Even once the asphalt gave way to gravel, and the gravel eventually surrendered to little more than old logging tracks, the truck simply kept plodding onwards with the same stubborn determination that seemed to define every machine touched by Hephaestus' children.
"Man, Liam wasn't kidding when he said Arion could barely even be scratched anymore. They must've used up nearly all their Celestial Bronze reinforcing this bad boy." I said with mounting awe as the old Chevy bravely conquered the wild forest.
Beside me, Zoë gripped the dashboard as though it were the only thing standing between her and an untimely meeting with the windshield, her expression suggesting that surviving my driving counted as a punishment detail assigned by the gods for crimes she had not yet been informed of.
"Perhaps they anticipated your complete disregard for the vehicle's continued wellbeing." She groused, but I just turned my nose up at her.
"I prefer to think they recognised ambition." I shot back, before focusing on the road again (or what little remained of it at this point at least).
"I have absolutely no idea what those maniacs did to you," I muttered, patting the dashboard affectionately as we bounced over what looked suspiciously like a dried-up stream bed, "but remind me to buy them a beer. No wait, of course not, they're kids. Uh, a bunch of candy then?"
The engine gave a contented little rumble.
"...I'll take that as agreement."
Eventually though, the road narrowed until even Arion reached the limit of what four wheels could reasonably be expected to accomplish.
A line of young pines had grown straight through the old wheel ruts, while a section of the hillside had collapsed across the track farther ahead and deposited enough rock to inconvenience a Roman legion. I briefly scanned our surroundings, hoping for a better path, even a goat's trail would do, but found nothing. The forest stretched away in every direction, dense enough that sunlight only reached the floor in scattered patches.
"We continue on foot." Zoë decided as I eased the pickup beneath the broad shade of a spruce and killed the engine, leaving us surrounded by the quiet ticking of cooling metal and the distant murmur of Lake Superior somewhere beyond the trees.
She had already stepped out and was moving smoothly through the underbrush by the time I shrugged on Father Garcia's trenchcoat. I huffed at the Huntress' impatience and quickly joined her, stepping into the thick tree line.
The difference was immediate.
One step beneath the canopy and the world seemed to exhale.
The wind lost its bite beneath the pines, replaced by cool air carrying the scent of damp earth, moss and resin. Somewhere high above us woodpeckers hammered away at unseen trunks while the distant rumble of Lake Superior faded into little more than a whisper carried between the trees.
Something warm settled comfortably in the pit of my stomach.
Zoë set a pace that would've been hard to match even under normal circumstances. She wasn't trying to lose me, exactly, but she also wasn't making the slightest concession to the fact that I'd spent most of my life (all two weeks of it) in cities while she'd been running through forests ever since Rome was still a collection of fishermen's huts. She moved through the forest with the quiet certainty of someone following a road only she could see, never pausing before changing direction and never placing a foot where it might slip or snap a branch beneath her. Fallen logs became stepping stones, steep slopes were crossed at exactly the right angle and thickets that looked impenetrable from a distance always seemed to contain some narrow game trail she'd already noticed ten seconds before I did.
I could practically feel her waiting for the inevitable crash behind her and under any other circumstances, I'd have been eating dirt inside ten minutes.
What she hadn't counted on however, were the effects of [Nature's Embrace] kicking in the moment the canopy closed above my head.
It wasn't shy about announcing itself either. Branches bent aside before they could catch my shoulders, then slowly rose back into place once I'd passed. Brambles loosened and pulled their hooked thorns away from Father Garcia's coat, opening gaps through undergrowth that had looked solid a heartbeat earlier. Exposed roots shifted beneath the soil with soft creaks of wood and earth, arranging themselves into firm steps whenever the ground became too steep or slick to cross comfortably.
A low-hanging branch dipped into my path laden with dark berries. I plucked a handful without breaking stride, inspected them out of habit and then remembered the Trait already knew considerably more about edible plants than I did. Of course they would be perfectly ripe.
"Thanks," I muttered around the first mouthful.
The branch bobbed once beneath my fingers before returning to its original height and I wisely decided not to question how a tree had just seemed to salute me.
'It's a good thing none of the satyrs at Camp have seen this Trait at work yet. With what Annabeth told me about them, they'd likely worship me as the next coming of Pan...' I mused with a small shudder as I popped another berry into my mouth.
A few minutes later, a fox emerged from a patch of ferns to my right, regarded me with mild curiosity and then trotted ahead along a narrow strip of firm ground. The path beside it looked identical until my next step sank ankle-deep into what turned out to be the edge of a concealed bog. I corrected course, following the fox around the marsh while it glanced back every few seconds to confirm I hadn't wandered off and drowned myself in three feet of mud.
Zoë finally looked over her shoulder.
I was perhaps six paces behind her, eating berries and being escorted through the woodland by a red fox.
Her foot caught the edge of a root.
She didn't stumble. Zoë Nightshade probably hadn't stumbled since bronze was considered cutting-edge military technology, but the tiny disruption was still deeply satisfying, though I tried my best to not let a smile show on my face.
With the way her (gorgeous) eyes narrowed at me, I didn't think I was very successful.
Her eyes moved from me to the fox, then to the branch that dipped obligingly so I could pass beneath it without ducking.
"You have travelled through these forests before," she said.
It wasn't phrased as a question.
"Nope," I shot back easily, grin now on full blast as I drew level with her and she craned her head as she kept staring into my eyes (which rather annoyingly, had a weakening effect on my knees, so I quickly looked away).
'... why do I get the feeling that fox is laughing at me?'
As I glared at the little critter, Zoë was studying me with the same suspicious intensity she'd previously reserved for the Lampad.
"Then you should be struggling."
"I find your confidence in me touching."
"The last demigod with increased strength who claimed wilderness held no difficulties for him ended up spending an entire afternoon tearing his way through a cedar grove because he refused to admit he had lost the trail."
There was something in the way she said it: the disgust came easily, while the memory beneath it remained buried beneath several thousand years of practised contempt. She didn't offer a name and I didn't ask for one. Given our earlier argument about Arion, I could make an educated guess.
"I'm not tearing through anything," I pointed out.
"No. That is precisely the problem."
I glanced at the path behind me, though calling it a path was generous. The forest had already folded itself back into place, branches settling, ferns rising and the disturbed carpet of needles smoothing beneath small movements of root and soil. Aside from my footprints in a few patches of damp earth, there was barely any sign I'd passed.
The fox sat beside my boot, gave my shoelaces an inquisitive sniff before deciding they weren't worth eating and bounded back into the ferns. Zoë watched it disappear before turning her attention back to me. Her eyes travelled over my coat, my boots and the completely untroubled stretch of woodland behind us, and I could practically see her adjusting several assumptions she'd made about me over the last twenty-four hours.
"The forest favours you," she said at last.
"Apparently."
"Why?" she pressed.
I lifted one shoulder.
"Kaos gave me a Trait called [Nature's Embrace]. The description said Mother Nature likes me."
"What, precisely, did it say?" Zoë asked, as her expression tightened.
"That I can officially call Mother Nature 'mommy'."
She stared at me for several long seconds.
"... Those exact words?"
"More or less."
"That is an appalling way to describe a divine blessing." She scrunched up her nose at that and I couldn't help but laugh at how cute it made her look all of a sudden.
"You should see what it says about some of the others. Not to mention, it's inaccurate. The Earth Mother is my sister. Or half-sister, I'm guessing." I said blithely.
A young apple tree growing in a patch of sunlight bent so sharply towards me that several apples swung within easy reach. I took two, tossed one towards Zoë and bit into the other. She caught it automatically, glancing from the flawless red fruit in her palm to the tree as it straightened itself again.
Zoë did not eat it; instead she held it as though accepting food directly from a tree might constitute some obscure breach of Huntress protocol.
"It also restores my energy faster while I'm around nature," I added as I took another bite. "So you can keep trying to run me into the ground if you like, but I'm starting to think the ground is on my side."
"I... was not attempting to... run you into the ground." She said somewhat sullenly and was that a trick of the light or was that a slight blush creeping over those perfect cheekbones?
"Oh, sure." I rolled my eyes.
"I merely saw no reason to slow myself down for someone whose principal technique to problem-solving appeared to involve punching whatever stood in his way." The Huntress elaborated with a huff, though something in her tone was distant almost, and something told me she wasn't really talking about me.
Or not just me, at least.
Zoë turned away before I could question her about it, though she no longer increased her pace at least. If anything, she moved with slightly more care, occasionally glancing back whenever a sapling bent aside or a cluster of birds gathered in the branches above me. The animals didn't crowd around in some ridiculous parade as if I was Snow White about to mooch off of seven vertically challenged miners, though the normal caution of the wild had disappeared. Deer watched us pass from between the trunks without bolting, squirrels moved along branches overhead to keep pace and twice small birds flew ahead before returning from the same direction, chirping urgently whenever the ground beyond became unstable.
The second time it happened, Zoë changed course before I could point it out.
She still didn't eat the apple, but she tucked it into her coat, which annoyingly made me smile like a loon as I followed behind her.
We continued upwards until the slope steepened and the trees began thinning beneath the lake wind. The smell of freshwater grew stronger, accompanied by the distant, repetitive crash of waves against rock. Eventually the forest opened onto a broad shelf of sandstone overlooking Superior, the pebble beach I'd spotted way back in Ashland sitting below.
It was a steep climb if we wanted to scale the cliff down to the beach and inspect the damage we could see from up here leading further into the forest, but Zoë and I weren't exactly… normal.
We just jumped. The ground rushed towards us and Zoë landed in a smooth crouch, her landing almost completely silent save for the rustle of her silver parka. My landing was a bit less… dignified, pebbles shooting up as the heavy impact shook the beach and the Huntress shot me a blistering look as I winced.
I mouthed 'sorry' at her and she rolled her eyes as she began to inspect the rest of the beach.
Whatever thoughts she'd been entertaining about me vanished behind the focused stillness of the Huntress. She crouched near the first broken tree and ran her fingers across the splintered wood, then moved several yards to inspect a gouge in the soil. From there she followed a sequence of crushed ferns and displaced stones that would've meant nothing to me if she hadn't traced them with such certainty.
I stayed out of her way and used [Hawk Eyes] to examine the broader scene. The line of destruction trailed off deeper into the forest, striking the first pine high on the trunk before veering away from the cliffside. Whatever had caused it had been large enough to smash through mature trees without slowing much, though the path lacked the deliberate straightness I'd expected, given the beeline it had made from the Apostle Islands.
One impact landed far lower than the previous one, as though the creature had stumbled and caught itself before continuing.
Zoë reached the same conclusion a few minutes later.
"It was fleeing."
I looked down from the scarred tree I'd been examining.
"What makes you sure?"
"The damage lacks purpose." She pointed back towards the forest. "Its course changes repeatedly even when the ground offers no obstruction. Here it struck the tree with its shoulder, there it dragged part of its body through the earth and farther back it almost lost its footing entirely."
She turned and walked back towards the beach, stopping where the disturbed shingle met the water.
"The trail begins here."
I looked down. Several enormous furrows carved through the stones disappeared beneath the shallows, while a scattering of overturned boulders marked where something immensely heavy had forced its way ashore. The damage wasn't confined to a single point either; it spread out across the beach as though whatever had emerged from the lake had been desperately searching for purchase before throwing itself towards the trees.
"Tells us we're moving in the right direction at least. The chase started on or near the Islands and continued here, instead of the other way around," I said.
Zoë nodded.
"It left the water at considerable speed." She added.
I glanced back across Lake Superior towards the Apostle Islands.
"That's... odd."
"Very."
She brushed a hand across one of the gouges before looking out across the lake herself.
"Had it merely wished to escape, it would've remained in open water. Lake Superior is vast and deep. A pursuer would struggle to follow a creature beneath the surface."
She pointed first towards the Apostle Islands, then towards the towering sandstone bluff rising behind us.
"Something forced it from the islands. It abandoned the safety of deep water and fled for the mainland, only to find the hunter intended to corner its prey against the cliffs."
She said grimly and I straightened at her words.
"A hunter? Not another monster?" I asked, surprised at her certainty.
"Another monster would've left a similar, uncoordinated trail. Instead, there hardly is one save for signs of tactics, planned pursuit." She explained, experienced gaze sweeping the surrounding forest.
I looked back at the wreckage, trying to see what she saw before giving up.
"Alright, so where is this second trail?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she walked away from the obvious destruction and back towards the tree line, moving slowly now as her eyes examined the ground ahead. I followed at a respectful distance, though even with [Nature's Embrace] keeping the brush out of my way I couldn't see what had caught her attention.
Zoë stopped beside a narrow gap between two pines.
Nothing appeared disturbed. No branches had snapped, no ferns had been crushed and the layer of fallen needles lay smooth across the earth.
She crouched and brushed two fingers lightly over the ground.
"There."
I moved closer.
At first I saw nothing. Then [Hawk Eyes] sharpened the tiny details near her hand: a faint compression in the needles, the edge of one boot print barely deeper than the surrounding earth and a sliver of pale bark missing from a root where something had placed its weight with exacting care.
"That's a footprint?"
"A partial one."
"There's almost nothing there."
"Indeed." She said ominously and it took me a second to understand what had her so worried all of a sudden.
Such a mad scramble past the cliffside in pursuit of something that big, fast and desperate... and still the hunter had barely even left a mark, barely enough for even Artemis' most trusted Huntress to pick up on.
"How many people in the world have such skill?" I asked, finding myself talking in a lower voice as I knelt besides Zoë, who remained silent for a long moment.
"Very, very few. And most of those are currently in the Twin Archers' retinue. I should know, I trained half of them. Those who aren't... the Huntresses have been hunting for millennia at this point."
Zoë rose and turned towards the western forest. Once she'd shown me what to look for, I could pick out a few more signs: another faint depression several yards away, a branch bent around an obstruction rather than broken and a patch of moss compressed at the edge of a stone. Each mark had been left by someone who knew precisely how to move without announcing their passage.
I looked back out across Superior, my eyes tracing the route from the distant Apostle Islands to the stretch of shoreline where we stood.
"...There's one thing I don't understand."
Zoë looked up from the tracks.
"What?"
"If the thing being chased came from the islands, why come ashore at all?" I gestured towards the endless expanse of dark water.
"You said it yourself; Lake Superior's enormous. If it's even semi-aquatic, surely it could've just disappeared into the lake. Instead it swims almost dead straight for this exact bit of coastline. Straight into an ambush." I frowned.
"How the hell do you herd something like that over open water?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she slowly rose to her feet and looked back across the lake towards the faint outline of the Apostle Islands.
"Few hunters could accomplish such a feat. In fact, only one comes to mind. Which, unfortunately, confirms my earlier worries." She said, balling her fists in frustration, letting out a huff as she shook her head.
"Now it all makes sense." She laughed bitterly.
"Really? 'Cause to me it doesn't." I grumbled as I crossed my arms and Zoë turned to look at me, an almost manic gleam in her eye.
"The prophecy! The line in the prophecy that appointed me to accompany you on this Quest! 'With she whose quarry roams free'! My quarry, the target I've spent centuries hunting, I know what it refers to!" she said hurriedly, almost panicked and I took a step back, bringing up my hands.
"Whoa, slow down there Zoë-"
Before I could ask what was going on, the stillness of the beach was broken as a shrill scream tore through the air.
'That sounded human... like a child!' I realized as ice seemed to settle in my veins, my eyes wide as our heads shot towards the forest.
It had come from further inland and I barely even registered Zoë's shout as I barrelled past the treeline and into the woods. I could hear the Huntress hot on my heels but [Nature's Embrace] combined with the strength from my One-Star Uniform saw me bounding through the forest with immense leaps at my fullest speed.
Two more times the panicked shrieks tore through the air as I pivoted to match the direction it came from, my mad dash pushing me on fast enough not even my Trait could compensate fully anymore, the underbrush tearing up beneath my boots.
In what simultaneously seemed as too long and an instant, Zoë and I skidded into a clearing containing a squat, old lodge. Circling around it was a pack of dogs, but larger than any I had ever seen before. Nimble and sleek, but each with enough mass to rival the Hellhound in Central Park that had greeted me on my first day in this world.
As one, half a dozen canine heads snapped towards us with pinpoint focus and something told me [Nature's Embrace] wouldn't help me pull off a Disney Princess impression on these guys.
From inside the cabin came muffled sobs and ragged, panicked breathing. Deep claw marks scored the heavy wooden door, making it painfully obvious whoever had barricaded themselves inside hadn't had much longer before the pack forced its way through. One particularly large shaggy specimen, standing nearly chest-high, broad-shouldered and with a muzzle criss-crossed by old bite scars, stalked to the front of the snarling hounds, its eyes fixed on us with startling intelligence.
Perhaps most surprisingly about the fierce creature was the collar around its neck, the tag hanging off it the size of a dinner plate and even without [Hawk Eyes] I would've been able to read the name proudly embossed on the front: Sirius.
Beside me, Zoë was as tense as the string on her bow, her eyes tracking every movement from the hounds as they peeled off from the cabin one by one, lining up beside their leader as she whispered at me from the corner of my mouth.
"That was what I was trying to tell you. The quarry that has eluded me for centuries, the one who now hunts what the Fates have charged you to protect, I know now who he is." She hissed, as across from us the hounds snarled.
"We face the Bane of the Twin Archers, the greatest male hunter who has ever lived: the giant Orion."
AN: As always, you can read up to 5 chapter ahead over on my Patreon.
En-men-lu-ana
The Sleep-Deprived "Divine" Horror
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I do not get why the MC is going to romance this annoying asshole, but fucking hell I'm not looking forward to it, good chapter otherwise.
Bakkughan
Sir Charles Phantom, the Notorious Litton
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Well, because it easily sets up the enemies-to-lovers trope which just so happens to be my personal preferred romance set up I guess?
(Well that and she's hot. Think Inde Navarette mixed with prime Cameron Diaz when she was a brunette for a little while)
I can't tell if you're talking about him in the Greek myths, in the Riordan verse or in the Type Moon lore. But yeah, for one of the "good" giants he got a raw deal
En-men-lu-ana
The Sleep-Deprived "Divine" Horror
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It's not even enemies-to-lovers at this point, this is just a masochist falling for the first hot person to insult them in a tone of voice that gets them off.Well, because it easily sets up the enemies-to-lovers trope which just so happens to be my personal preferred romance set up I guess?
Though I hope you have some give some actual reason for the MC to like her beyond "she's hot" and "I'm a masochist", and give some actual reason SHE would like him, because I liked this quite liked this fic before Zoe started being treated as a romance option.
Bakkughan
Sir Charles Phantom, the Notorious Litton
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That is... certainly a way to read that exchange, I guess...?
