Chapter 3: Nursing A Wound

I'm back again. So far, I've only got one name that I'm sticking with, so I need more suggestions. They won't actually become important characters until a bit into the story. For this first part of the story, before Percy becomes a dark lord, will be focused completely on Percy and Artemis' relationship and the forging of the weapons. I won't tell you what the next parts will be about, other than the fact that Percy goes rogue and becomes a dark lord.

Chapter 3: Nursing A Wound

Percy's P.O.V.

My dream faded away, and I woke up drearily. My head felt fuzzy, and I turned it, which was more like it slumping to the side. My eyes set upon a girl with black hair, her head in her hands. She was quiet, and it took me a moment to process that I was looking at Thalia.

She was either asleep, or just wasn't saying anything. I'll admit, I didn't try and get her to speak, since I was only half-conscious. I just turned my head to the other side.

I was surprised to see someone else sitting there, who I instantly recognized as Artemis. She was asleep, leaning forward with her head resting on one hand. I saw that it was still dark outside, since the tent itself was lit only by the orange glow of the campfire outside and a candle on the table next to me, along with some medical supplies.

As I regained feeling of my body, I became aware of two distinct feelings. One was the searing pain coming from my right leg. It sung a lot, and I looked down at it. The wound was obviously treated to, as it was bandaged up and the bleeding had stopped. I don't know what else they did, but I'm sure they'll tell me when they wake.

Speaking of which, the other feeling. I looked to my right again, but this time down at my arm, which lay flat at my side. A hand was resting on my arm, palm down, and I followed the arm up to realise it was Artemis' hand. The man-hating goddess was holding me while I slept.

I blushed furiously, glad that no one was awake to see me in such a way, but I didn't move my arm or remove her hand. I simply let her rest while I lay there quietly, looking at the ceiling.

After a couple minutes, I sighed, which caused Thalia to snap her head up. I looked over at her, and saw dried tear stains on her face. "Percy!" She yelled in shock, and immediately tackled me in a hug, which hurt my leg and shocked Artemis out of her sleep.

I groaned from the pain and hugged her back weakly as she sobbed into my chest. "I thought I was gonna lose you, Kelp Head. Don't do that to me again!" She sobbed, beating my chest with her fist. I groaned again, and nodded, though she couldn't see it.

"Sure thing, Thals. I'll do my best not to step into any bear traps next time." I joked, and she got off me, sitting back in her chair and mock-glaring at me for the joke.

I heard Artemis clear her throat next to me, and I turned to look at her. She smiled at me with a slight red tint in her cheeks, and I noticed her hand wasn't on my arm anymore. "I'm glad you're alright, Percy. We've stopped the bleeding and bandaged up the wound. Luckily, since you're a god, you have a slight natural regeneration ability. All it really does is speed up the time it takes to heal, and the only thing it instantly heals are small cuts and bruises, but it helped." She told me, and I nodded.

Then I did a double take. "Wait, I can regenerate?" I asked in shock, and the goddess nodded. "Yes, but like I said, it's that effective. It fully heals small things, and just speeds up the healing cycle. That's why you don't see gods with scars unless they choose to keep them, and why the gods are so hard to kill. They require enough to kill ten mortal men before they have to reform. To completely fade would require something a lot worse than mortal wounds." She explained, and I lay back, letting that sink in.

I wonder what else they didn't tell me about becoming a god.

"I'm glad you have that, Percy, because combine your leg with the hits I gave you, and I don't think you would've survived as a mortal." She said, and it just occurred to me now that I can only see out of one eye.

I held my hand up to my face in shock. "Where did my left eye go?" I asked, and Thalia cringed, while Artemis narrowed her eyes at her lieutenant. "Tell him, Thalia." She said, and my cousin rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly.

"Well, you have a thicker skull than I thought Kelp Head, and I may have hit you a bit too hard. Again, thank the gods you're immortal." She said, trying to make light of the situation.

I decided to mock her. "Whatever Thalia, you can't hit for shit. It was the rock that knocked me out." She glared at my statement, though she didn't argue, which made me smirk.

Thalia cleared her throat. "Anyway, I may have hit too hard, like I said, because your eye is... pretty fucked up." She said, and I frowned. "What do you mean by that? Did my eye pop out? Do I still have an eye?" I asked kinda worried, but they shook their heads.

"Thalia here hit you so hard that your eye started bleeding internally, so you will most likely be blind in that eye for the next couple days, maybe weeks." Artemis explained, and I instantly turned to Thalia, not really mad but still kind of annoyed.

"What the hell, Thalia? At least do it in one swing! Why did you even try and knock me out. I asked 'will it hurt?' not, 'please put me out of my misery.' That was a complete jump in logic to go from answering a question to beating me with some wood." I scolded her, and she looked down in shame.

"Sorry Percy. I just didn't want you to be in pain." She explained, and I sighed. I hated seeing her like this. She was supposed to be the strong one. I reached over and hugged my cousin, feeling her tense up as soon as I did, but almost immediately relax.

I looked over at Artemis, and she was staring with suspicion in her eyes at Thalia and I, though I reassured her with a wave of my hand. She calmed down after that, and we waited for Thalia to do so as well. After our five minute hug, she squirmed, and I let go.

Thalia stood up and brushed herself off. "I'm gonna go tell the girls that Percy's alright." She said, and Artemis nodded, waving her off. I looked at Artemis. "The hunters were worried about me?" I asked, and Artemis shrugged. "Well, yes, but they would probably never admit that. They'd just say they were worried about incurring my wrath or something. But yes, they were worried. You are the only male they respect, after all. Ever since you took the sea sky for me a few years go, plus the fact that you were Thalia's best friend and managed to befriend Zoe, who was the second biggest man hater after me."

I nodded, and looked at my leg. "Will I be able to walk?" I asked her, and she shrugged. "We'll find out in the morning. You will regain your eyesight and mobility soon. Faster than a mortal would. We'll get Apollo to come check you out tomorrow." She told me, and I understood.

I lay back in preparation to sleep, but I noticed she was still beside me. "Are you not going to bed?" I asked her, and she shook her head. "I'll get some sleep here, in case something happens in the night." She told me, and I smiled. It was nice to have a friend like Artemis. She may be a man-hater, but once you get past that, she was really nice and caring.

I shut my eyes as Artemis whispered to me. "Sweet dreams, Perseus."

I woke up when the sun started blaring light through the tent and into my eye. I squinted, trying to get used to the light, and it took me a moment to do so. Once I could open my eye without crying, I checked to see if Artemis was still here.

Indeed she was, although she was passed out in her chair. I smiled, thinking she probably went to sleep immediately after I did. My arm reached out and gently shook her awake. I smiled as she pouted while opening her eyes. It was kinda cute, the way she did it.

Surprisingly, she didn't object to my arm remaining on her shoulder for a bit longer than necessary, and just yawned. She smiled at me, stretching. "Good morning, Percy." She greeted, and I returned the gesture.

I yawned, getting up from the bed and setting my feet gently on the floor. Preparing myself for the pain of standing up, I took deep breaths and gripped the bed. Before I got up though, Artemis came by side and held onto me. I blushed as her arms grabbed me, and I noticed she did for a second, too.

She said to me. "Okay, Percy, this may or may not work. There's a good chance that since you're kinda new to godhood, it didn't heal fast enough and you're still crippled." She warned and I nodded, now more worried about standing.

"Okay. Three. Two. One. Go." I said, and stood up once I finished. She struggled under my weight, but eventually, I was able to walk, though Artemis kept her arm around my waist just in case, while I had my arm around her shoulders.

I limped outside, and I must say, they were quite bipolar in their reactions. The second we left the tent, the hunters sitting by the fire eating breakfast saw us, and they shouted with a happy tone in their voice. "Percy! You're okay!" I smiled at the thought that these man-haters were happy I wasn't dead, but that changed when their faces turned sour not long after.

I frowned. "What?" I asked, and a hunter I recognized as Phoebe snarled at me. "What are you doing to our Lady?" She asked, and I looked at Artemis and realized what we were doing. We both snapped our hands back from each other in embarrassment, and stood there awkwardly. The hunters didn't question it, and went back to their breakfast.

Artemis and I walked over, seeing that they had cut up some bear, and grabbed some for ourselves. We cooked it over the fire, and once it was cooked enough to eat, we dug in. It was kinda like steak, but a bit more soft, but that could've just been that we undercooked it. Still, it filled me up, and I didn't feel like seconds, unlike most of the hunters.

It seemed to be the Hunter's day off, as they didn't go doing anything for the entire morning, choosing to sit by the now defunct campfire and socialize with each other. I sat between Thalia and Artemis the whole time, making small conversation with some of the hunters. Most of my attention went to the people sitting on either side of me, really the only people here I knew.

I was talking with Artemis about random things, when a bright flash took us all by surprise. The hunters immediately grabbed their weapons, but lowered them when the saw it was Hermes, and it looked like he was on the job. He looked around and saw Artemis and I sitting there.

He grinned. "There you two are! Athena told me to tell you guys that she's going to Hephaestus to sort out the you-know-what." He said, covering his mouth with his hand so the hunters couldn't hear. He was bad at it though, and the Hunters rolled their eyes at his lack of subtlety.

"Anyway, Ares is going so you guys might as well go too, and get it all sorted today." He recommended, and the two of us nodded. When he flashed out, Artemis stood up, and I followed suit. She quickly explained to her hunters that she would be back later, and the two of us flashed to Hephaestus' palace.

We got there, but found a note taped to a door. 'At Mount Saint Helens' It read, and so we shrugged, and travelled there.

When we got there, we saw Hephaestus standing by a workbench, Ares and Athena standing at his side as they all looked at something on the bench. We approached and greeted the trio, after which only Athena greeted us back. Ares and Hephaestus just gave grunts of recognition.

We ignored them, and looked down at what they were doing. Hephaestus was drawing something on a piece of paper, though I couldn't tell what it actually was. It was most likely blueprints of some kind, but it didn't seem to matter anyway, since he rolled it up and put it away. "Thank you for that Athena. Anyways, now that the other's are here, we can begin." Hephaestus said, and he went over to a pile of stuff.

He fiddled around for a bit, and came back with something wrapped in cloth. He set it down on a table, and reached for some tools. "Many millennia ago, when the elder cyclopes forged the Big Three's weapons, they did so in a forge of high power, using elements of only the highest quality. They concentrated power through these weapons using the Big Three's domains, effectively making them as powerful as they are." He explained, and even though I barely understood, I went along with it.

Athena piped in. "So we need a very powerful forge, some strong elements, and to charge the weapons with our domains." She summed up, and Hephaestus nodded. "And we got some of those. There's only one problem, well technically two, but I'll get to that." He said, and continued before we could butt in.

"First thing, I high quality element capable of containing such power. As they are not stable enough, Celestial Bronze, Imperial Gold, and even Stygian Iron would all shatter if it came into contact with the amount of power we're going to be infusing with these weapons. Fortunately, I have a solution, though you're probably not going to like it." He said, and reached for the cloth bundle.

He unravelled it, and pulled out a small nugget. It was golden, though not shining bright like the Romans often had their equipment. It had a darker tint to it, and had a green and red aura surrounding it.

It presented a dark energy to me, but I couldn't tell if the other's were feeling it. I started seeing things I didn't want to see, and I had no idea what was happening. I backed up a bit, to which only Artemis noticed, and she frowned at me in concern.

Hephaestus wrapped the nugget back up in a bundle and put it in a locked box, one that looked really hard to break into. I looked around at everyone. Artemis still had concern written on her face and kept glancing at me, Athena looked indifferent, and Ares had a look of lust in his eyes.

The smith god wiped his hand on a dirty rag and then turned back to us. "Now that, friends, was a completely new metal I forged, a new element. I don't have a name for it, that can come later. You're not going to like how I got, nor how we're going to get more." He said, catching our attention.

"Well why not?" Ares asked impatiently, and the god glared at him. "Does anyone know where we are right now?" He said, and Athena answered. "Mount Saint Helens." Hephaestus nodded. "And does anyone know what Mount Saint Helens means to Olympus?" He asked, and for once, Athena was wrong. "It is your primary forge."

Hephaestus smirked. "Wrong." This seemed to greatly offend Athena, but before she could say anything, Artemis spoke. "Typhon is buried here." She said, causing Athena to gape and facepalm herself for her stupidity. Ares howled with laughter, causing the wisdom goddess to elbow him in the gut.

Hephaestus looked out towards the fires of the mountain, and sighed. "I lost a lot of good automatrons trying to get this. Until I tried it myself. It's how this happened." He said, holding up his arm. There were many burns running up his entire arm. Not like he'd accidentally touched the fire, more like he'd dipped his whole arm in it.

"The element is a compound of two things. The lava of Mount Saint Helens, which is easy to get, and something more harder to obtain. Typhon's blood." He said, making us all gasp in shock. We had to bleed Typhon himself, and risk waking him and invoking his wrath, just to make some metal.

"Is there no other way?" I asked, and Hephaestus shook his head. "If there were any other way, lad, I wouldn't have done it myself." He said, and I took some time to contemplate this.

Hephaestus walked over to his forge. "Even though it will be difficult, and will require... sacrifice. We could knock out two birds with one stone by doing this. I assume you know how a forge works. Basically, it is powered by the strength of the volcano itself, and the stronger the volcano, the stronger the weapon." He explained, and I think I knew where this was going.

"When collecting the blood, if we did so painfully, but not too damaging, we could slightly stir him from his slumber. Not enough to wake him, of course, Zeus would have my head for that. If we just make it hurt a bit, it might disturb him, which would increase Mount Saint Helens power, and through that, the power of the weapons." He explained.

We all remained silent, until I spoke. "Who will do it?" I asked, and of course, no response. No one wanted to do such a thing. It was a suicide mission. Hephaestus himself was seriously injured just from getting a nugget. We needed enough to make four weapons.

Seeing no one would volunteer, I sighed, and stepped forward. "Fine. I'll do it."

Wow, third chapter done already. Again, I'll need some names for Percy's three sons. Won't need them anytime soon but better now than never. I'm too uncreative to come up with any. Also, what should Percy's army be. Should I make up an entire species, or just use the same old monsters like Cyclops and Hellhounds.

Word Count: 3196