The Bronze Bracelets

End of Arch 2: Chapter 26: The Grand Battle of the Canyon

However, she couldn't dwell on it for too much as she had to roll to the side to avoid a diagonal slash from Perseus. She mentally cursed as she noticed that the doppelganger had her boyfriend's eyes but they were dull, void of life even if he was completed. 

"Come on Arty, why don't you come and give your boyfriend a kiss?" Perseus taunted as he twirled riptide on his hand. "I can clearly remember our first kiss at night by the beach at Camp Half-Blood. It feels as if it was just yesterday," He mocked nostalgia as he approached the mortal goddess. 

Artemis growled as she took another knife from her hip and brought her sword up. "You will die for what you did," She threatened as she felt a familiar yet foreign rush of power through her body. It had been over two years since she lost her powers and to finally feel a slight rush from them was foreign. 

"Yeah, it's not personal, Arty," She growled when she heard Perseus call her by the nickname that Percy use on her. "But you gotta understand that we have lived away from reality for so long... and to finally find a human as powerful as a god was just too good to let it pass. So, don't take it personally, Arty, just take it as a requirement that my job entails," Perseus had a sinister smile on his face that didn't abode well with Artemis. 

Even if she knew that it wasn't her Percy, the fact that they shared almost everything was a little unsettling if she was being honest. They had every feature the same except the eyes, which was one of his features that she adores the most. 

"I don't care. You took the person I loved the most in my entire existence and I will make you pay," Artemis snarled as she used that anger to make the godly power inside her increase. 

Perseus narrowed his eyes at her as he got serious for a second, which is even rare for Percy to be serious, now his malignant doppelganger was even rarer. "You don't understand godling," He snarled as his eyes turned from the dull sea-green color to completely white. "You were born as a goddess and had everything you ever wanted from the beginning," 

Artemis didn't know where he was leading with it, but she knew that it was the typical talk that the villain goes into to explain why they are doing what they are doing. So, in her better judgment to give her time to get more power and find a way to beat him, she stood quiet. 

"You had everything in life, even better than mortal. But me, US!" Perseus signaled to himself and the doppelgangers fighting the demigods. "We weren't even born with an identity. We were all the same and had no way of becoming an individual. Not even as someone as low as a punny mortal," 

Artemis felt a pang of guilt at that. She was reminded of the benefits that she had taken for granted when she was an Olympian goddess. Now, being reminded that she even had such characteristics that differentiated her from the rest of the mortals unlike the doppelgangers made her feel sympathy for the creature in front of her. 

"We were created with no other purpose than to all be equal and fight for whichever deity as if we were a tool," Perseus snarled but soon his composure came back and his malignant grin came back. "But, a deity so powerful and old came to us and gave us the opportunity to finally become real. All we had to do is kill you, punny demigods, before taking over the world," 

Artemis finally understood why they were doing what they were doing. Chaos had gone to them and offered them the chance to become individuals and finally be different from each other after being imprisoned for millennia. She really couldn't blame them for accepting such an offer, even less if it came from the mother of creation. However, they were targeting the innocent and wanted everyone dead, so she couldn't let it pass. 

"It's sad to hear that, it truly is, but-" She used her godly energy to power her next strike, moving at speeds that she shouldn't move unless she was a god.