Chapter Text
"You were there?" Grover asks Percy if he was there, but Grover remembers no males were there, and none of the demigods were hunters. There were also monsters between the monsters, the hunter's demigods he was with, and then *sigh* Lady Artemis*sigh* he couldn't be there as he didn't smell Percy.
"I was, and I was there when you left." Percy replied, not revealing that Thalia was invited to join the hunt, but refused as she did not want to leave the boy she had been travelling with. At the time, this confused Percy why she hadn't wanted to join the hunt, as the hunt was fantastic. You had to kill monsters, go camping, and, more importantly, you did not have to worry about stupid boys. Despite that, he was male.
"Then how did you come to Camp?" Grover asked before he could get an answer from the male demigod.
"We need to get off the bus." Percy said, grabbing his things and getting off, and the others followed him. The mortals must have sensed something was off as they got off the bus. Not long before, a cackle and a lightning bolt destroyed their bus, which surprised the trio. Even though Percy was not expecting a Lightning Bolt to ruin their only mode of transport, what the hell? He knows Lord Zeus does not like him, but to try to kill a Satyr and a Daughter of Athena? That was a new low for the king of the gods. Percy wants to yell out Step down as king you are unfit.
"How?" Annabeth asked the demigod. All three had wide eyes at this, which was not what Annabeth Chase and Grover Underwood signed up for when they joined this quest.
"Honestly, I was not expecting that. Maybe there will be some monster after those old ladies, but not this. Not only were we almost killed, but the mortals, too." Percy said, looking around to see if the said mortals had heard what they were speaking of. Luckily, they were more concerned with what happened to the bus than with paying the three any attention. "I just felt like we needed to get off the bus." Percy explains.
"This is bad then." Annabeth said to the two, and both agreed that something was seriously wrong. She knew the gods didn't care and was okay with that, but this was the new low, and she wasn't OK with it. How could her mother be OK with this? Did her mother want a war between the gods? That was not the wisest course of action. She did not mean that she would go against the gods or her mother, but killing them does not help the fact that they are on a mission, and maybe Jackson wasn't that bad. Perhaps they could have an understanding as two children of two of the three Maidan Goddesses; if there were a child of the third one, that would be weird. Annabeth did not like to admit she was wrong at all. Maybe it was her hubris showing, and she knew she must keep that in check.
"I agree." Grover said he could sense it would be wrong, and somehow, it seemed worse than when Thalia sacrificed herself to save Annabeth, Luke, and himself and was turned into a tree because of it. He knew he failed to bring a child of the big three to camp, not that Annabeth or Luke blamed him. No, it was the King of the Gods himself, Zeus.
"There must be more going on them, not just Lord Zeus' Lightning Bolt and war." Percy said, and the other two could not help but agree. What was going on here in Hades' name? They always figured that the gods were just too confusing for children. Even Percy, raised by one, was often confused by his mother. In how she acted, he knew she loved him and never regretted adopting him. But sometimes, while she was in the process of hunting solo, she would become a predator, almost primal. More often than not, that primal part of Artemis scared him like he and many humans were her prey.
"Like what?" Annabeth asked him, and honestly, Percy could have said anything the way the gods were. Some of them always looked for a reason for war. That is not counting the deities of war, even though most would love it.
"As the Kindly ones said, there was something else that their master had stolen. What if there is someone or something else messing with the gods?" Even though they contemplated that it wasn't good, Percy asked them what was so powerful that the gods risked the earth as their battlefield.
"So not just Lord Zeus but also Lord Hades? What is next, Lord Poseidon?" Annabeth asked out loud. When she put it like that, two of the big three had items stolen from them. What if Lord Poseidon's trident was next? Percy did not have much to do with the sea god; it was his mother's idea that he wasn't allowed near beaches even though he had viewed them from afar. Then again, his mother had tried not to have much contact with other deities unless it was his uncle, Apollo. To annoy his sister and spend time with Percy. But the sun god knew not to talk to any of his twin's hunters; he was there for his sister's only child, Percy Jackson.
"You'd have to go too deep down in the sea to get to Lord Poseidon." Percy said. "Unless they were all on Olympus when this happened?" Percy suggested it seemed likely to the trio, but what was happening here? Oh, who was stupid enough to steal from two of the big three? Or powerful enough to do it
"I hate mysteries." Grover moaned out and Percy agreed with that but Annabeth looked scandalised at that it seemed he had made a friend who loved mysteries.
"But you are friends with chiskren if Lord Apollo and Lady Athena one would think you'd be used to solving mysteries?" Percy asked the satyr in confusion as neither his mothers twin nor Lady Athena’s children knew to leave well enough alone.