Percy Jackson : Gods Annihilation

( Lola Jefferson, Same Time )

Lola was panicking. Her chest was heaving as she pressed her back against a tree, her hands holding a shaky bow. Never before had she been so utterly scared as she was now, almost alone as she watched several of her peers, the hunters, get picked off one by one along with the occasional Amazon that happened to have split with them.

Ever since the earthquake began, the Hunt had been collectively pulled further away into the thick of the trees. All of three seconds had passed before Percy appeared again, almost tauntingly close and predictably, Artemis had pursued the moment he dashed off.

With both their patron goddess gone and separated from the larger army, they'd been left with new opponents that stepped out of the shadows. Lola had instantly recognized two of them, having seen their projections in memories from the first attack in the Hunt.

Medusa and Lupa.

She'd watched as they drifted in and out of shadows, toying, probing, and testing out the Hunt as they were forced apart. Then it would happen. A wolf, smaller than Lupa, had lunged out of one shadow and bitten into the shoulder of an Amazon turned hunter and within the split second, dragged her into another shadow and disappeared with the hunter screaming in agony and panic the whole time.

That had been the start and Lola couldn't do a thing but watch. Pitch black arrows would come at random, never missing a mark whether it was something as simple as hand or foot to some arrows being buried up to the feathers in someone's neck.

They'd been over a hundred with Artemis recruiting them, plenty not willingly either such as Lola herself. She was raised to care about family after all, and was even a bit of a daddy's girl.

The thought of being pulled away from her father, her mortal side of the family, and her siblings in the camp horrified her. At the very least two of her sisters had joined as well but only after Lola had already been all but forced to join after Artemis saw her talents with a bow. She could only hope she was allowed to leave once this was all over … if she survived that is.

For now though all she could do was rapidly looked around, heart racing as screams and shouts rung out throughout the forest. There were also the sound of massive collisions farther off, savage shouts, and momentary sparks showing that several of the gods were fighting right now.

The Hunt was already down a dozen at the very least, some of them sporting various injuries on their person. One hunter had even managed to react in time and stab a wolf through the head as it bit into her leg, instantly killing it. It was an empty victory though.

Not even ten seconds later a black chain had come from the canopy of trees and wrapped around the hunter's neck. With a violent pull it tugged the hunter up and swung, colliding her body with a tree causing a sickening snap before the chain released and the hunter's broken body fell back to the earth. Lola had watched as the hunter took a last, agonized breath and then fell still. Some had panicked at that, turning tail as they tossed down their bows and strangely enough, they were left unmolested in doing so.

"MEDUSA!" the enraged voice of Artemis roared from somewhere within the trees, doing more to scare the remaining hunters and few other demigods amongst them.

Lola's eyes turned in the direction she thought it came from as another shockwave exploded from that direction, buffeting her hair as some of the trees groaned in protest around them. Another lightning strike made Lola jump as she glanced up, seeing Zeus through a break in the trees as he struggled to divert the onslaught of bolts.

It was next to useless though, given how widespread the army was now. Though, from what she'd seen, most of the bolts had been near misses or struck the chariots of the minor gods clean out of the skies, but very few demigod casualties. Had she been calmer she would have put that inherent wisdom to use and figure out the purpose of such attacks but at the moment she was strictly limited to observance and reaction.

Suddenly there was an explosion and shockwave behind her, sending her flying as dirt buffeted her before she landed on some shifting soil. She shook her head as she got on her hands and knees, looking back only to see Hera getting up out of the crater, her shield slightly dented but otherwise she looked unharmed even as she directed shaky eyes towards something. The close hunters and demigods looked in the same directly only to blink in confusion.

There stood a woman, a goddess by the air of power around her, dressed in a very dark green, nearly black, battle chiton with a green and golden sash around her waist. Golden-hazel eyes with emerald pupils, emerald bracers reaching up to just shy of her biceps, and similar greaves over closed leather boots. Her weapon was strange though, being a large staff made of a black metal mixed with the emerald held at the goddess' side as she stood at a ready stance, eyes trained on Hera.

"So even you stand with that council … mother," Hera said in a resigned and bitter voice as several of the demigods gasped, now knowing who the goddess was.

"You're no child of mine," Rhea growled back making plenty of the demigods to take a step back. "And that's Queen Rhea to you."

"Queen …?" Hera murmured before her eyes widened in disbelief which then made Rhea give a fanged grin with a faint nod.

In that moment a set of beautiful wings of earthen and golden tones burst from her back accompanied with the sound of shifting gravel.

"Another primordial," Aria, the lieutenant of the Hunt, muttered in distaste as she readied an arrow in her bow while others pointed various weapons at her.

"Do you honestly want to fight, demigods?" Rhea asked as she glanced around, getting several to shakily glance at their weapons while others only took more aggressive stances. Rhea sighed before almost whispering, "So be it."

Then she exploded into action, covering the distance between herself and Hera within a second while lunging with a thrust of her staff. Hera narrowly ducked, bringing up her shield enough to partly deflect the hit even as it grinded against the shield edge.

Hera responded in kind, her sword blurring towards Rhea's neck but the winged goddess barely glanced at it as she slapped it away with the back of her covered hand much to Hera's obvious surprise. In that opening Rhea pivoted around, the other end of the staff being pulled around and before Hera could close her guard, slammed into her breastplate.

With a collision like a cannon shell meeting solid stone Hera was sent careening back through several trees and out of sight. In that moment some hunters attacked with a few demigods charging in, thinking the goddess wasn't paying attention.

How wrong they were.

A hail of arrows flew towards her but Rhea merely spun as her wings flared out. Arrows that weren't buffeted away with the sudden gust collided with metallic clangs against the wings without leaving so much as a scratch.

Then she attacked them.

Lola's eyes could barely even track her, at most catching a blur of emerald and those golden eyes. Rhea appeared before two demigods, swing already in motion as they brought their shields up but it did them no good.

The staff collided with the shields and the bodies behind them, sending both demigods soaring into the trees in boneless heaps before Rhea turned and like a lion, swiped at the head of a hunter that hand lunged at her back. Like a hammer slamming into a watermelon, grey matter exploded around, the crude decapitation leaving a twitching body behind as Rhea turned her feral eyes on the rest.

None dared attack, eyes on the goddess' right, clawed hand still dripping blood before she snorted.

Turning her back on them her wings minutely extended before she dashed off in the direction she'd previously sent Hera, another collision soon coming from the distance. Lola felt as if she could finally breathe as she sank to her knees, her knuckles almost bone white as they gripped the silver bow in her hands.

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Don't forget to throw some power Stones, to keep the story going.

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