Forgive But Never Forget [A PERTEMIS STORY]

Chapter 25

Percy POV

I rubbed my hands together, a giant grin spreading across my face as I thought of all the things I could do. But, I need to practice.

First, I concentrated hard, imagining the ground beneath the training bot rising up out of the ground and swallowing it up. The earth shaked a bit, a small crack appearing, and I could tell that I wasn't going to get anywhere.

Instead, I imagined me using my earth shaker powers, but this time the crack would be bigger. Now, I got much better results.

The ground shifted, before splitting open and creating a small pit where the bot fell into. The thing that's cool about what I just did, is that when I tried my earth powers I'd just gained, it got the same result as my earth shaker powers.

Basically, I just learnt how to upgrade my earth abilities.

I then tried to turn the spare dirt that I got from making the hole into a giant fist, and it actually worked, but it made me tired.

And before I knew it, I was fast asleep, without having a single dream to disrupt me this time.

When I woke up, the arena now had a few more people training, like Clarisse, or Annabeth. Just looking at her makes me remember when I almost died. If it wasn't for Artemis...

No. I can't think like that. I shook the thought out of my head, and got up off the ground, pulling my sword out again. Now it's too late to train with my new powers, but at least I knew how to use them.

But maybe, I might be able to get out of sight and use it. The only place I could think of was the woods, so that's exactly where I went.

"Alright, let's see what this power can do." I told myself.

I imagined the leaves slowing down, time only flowing around me, like a bubble of water. Slowly, the leaves stopped moving completely. I grabbed a leaf out of a tree, and dropped it.

Instead of falling, instead, it just hovered in the air, but I could tell it was still slowly moving downwards.

I concentrated on the leaf, imagining it completely still, hovering in the air. Surely enough, it became completely immobile, like a statue of sorts.

I laughed. I did it! I literally just learnt how to control time! After the adrenaline rush began to fade away, I could feel my bones getting sore, and I collapsed to the ground. I just laid there, regaining energy. I controlled the water from a nearby pond and moved it over towards me, and as soon as I touched it, I felt as good as normal, other than a few of my bones still aching.

Then I heard Artemis calling my name, and I knew it was time to go. As soon as I saw her, the events of yesterday came rushing back to me.

The stone, the mission and now the dreams? To me, it felt like something big was coming, and I intended to find out what it was.

The dreams I kept having were written in a small diary I had summoned, so that I wouldn't forget them, as well as the problem with the stone, and who I think the presence was. Could it be the guy from my dream? But that doesn't make sense. He said we would meet up when I was in need of his help, but everything's going alright for the moment.

We were only about a mile from our destination, when something happened. The other-me ran up from behind me and grabbed my shoulder. He was panting hard.

"Guys, you need to see this."

~~~

He led us to where he had been only about a minute ago. There, was a giant portal, much like the one he cane through fir the first time.

"Before you ask," he said, "I have no clue what happened. I was thinking of home, when it suddenly started to glow, and shot out this portal. I think this is my way out."

Oh man. I kind of enjoyed him being here, since we were the only males in the hunt, but now he had to leave.

"If you ever figure out how to use that thing, come back and visit sometime. It would be cool to have you around." I said.

We said our farewells, Thalia and I hugging him, and he jumped through the portal, saluting before he left. We chuckled at the gesture.

Now, we got one of the problems out of the way.

~~~

While we were walking, I caught up to Artemis and jogged slowly next to her to warm myself up.

"So, I uh, wanted to ask ifyoumaybesometimewantedtogoonadate?"

She blinked in surprise. "What?"

I blushed, "I wanted to ask if you maybe wanted to go on a date sometime? Obviously after we finish with all the stuff that's going on."

She smiled. "Yeah, I would."

We blushed, and turned away from each other, afraid of what the other would say.

"Hey lovebirds!" Thalia yelled in my ear.

I jumped in surprise.

Thalia grinned. "Doesn't this mean you have to change our oaths? I mean, if the goddess of the hunt is dating, doesn't that mean we're allowed to date too?"

Artemis sighed. "Fine." She snapped her fingers and the entire hunt began to glow silver. Then they went back to normal. She turned to the hunters.

"You may now date, but no bringing your date into camp, unless they are female and wish to join."

Most hunters cheered, but some of the older hunters weren't too happy about this new change, and I kinda got where they were coming from. It's like as if Camp Half-blood didn't teach you how to fight monsters, but just sent you back out there like,

Lol, have fun dying noob.

Wasn't the whole point of the hunt to swear off males forever? I felt like I was ruining everything simply by being with Artemis.

~~~

When we had arrived, we were gathered around a lake. I handed out special gadgets made by my dad that allowed them to breath like normal underwater, without having to worry about air running out, and even better, it was disguised as a bracelet wich you can wear.

Not only that, but it also somehow kept them from being crushed by the pressure of the water.

I sighed. Time for whatever the hades was down here.

And with that, I dove underwater.