Silver Arrows - A Percy Jackson Fanfiction

3 - Lexi is a Creepy Lady

Amelia and Kyle dissolved. I saw my memories: Camp Half-Blood, myself in detention for yelling at Kyle's wimpiest friend and making him cry. I saw my parents agreeing to homeschool me, Artemis asking me to join the Hunt.
Then the vision faded.

'Mia? ERASMIA, ARE YOU OKAY?'
I was being carried around by someone. At first glance, it looked a little like Naomi, but as my vision cleared I identified it as Nerita Crowley, a two-hundred-year-old demigod and Poseidon's only surviving daughter. She's usually known as Rita.
A few Hunters were gathered around us, some checking my temperature or trying to feed me. Jamie kept asking me maths questions - maybe to work out whether or not I was thinking clearly, maybe just because she wanted to.

'I'm... fine,' I choked out. 'I had one of those visions, that's all.'

Claire twirled a stand of curly hair around her finger. 'Was anything interesting inside the vision?'
While she does speak English quite fluently thanks to decades of practice, Claire has a tendency to talk very directly.
'Um, no, not really.'
The Hunters sighed, and Nerita put me down. I noticed we were at a different campsite, and most of the girls were tending to minor wounds.

'We got rid of the Stymphalian birds.' Second Lieutenant Lina passed me a handful of feathers. 'Thou... er, you... may use these as darts.'
I took the feathers and dropped them in my quiver. 'Good idea.'
'It was Rita's.'

We spent several hours training, like Artemis planned before the birds showed up. Thalia blunted our arrows so that the wolves and hawks could carry targets around and we could shoot without hurting them.
Sierra, daughter of Hephaestus, gave us a lesson on crafting special arrows, and Avery attached different kinds of flowers to them to mark them out. I liked the ones that expanded into a net - they had red primroses on them. Sierra then informed Artemis that she wanted to show us a new type of arrow.

'Ellie, please move one of the dummies over there, then step back.'
Eliana dragged a scarecrow-like dummy over towards the nearby riverbank, and Sierra pulled out an arrow with a blueish metal shaft - it was covered with white mallow flowers. She nocked the arrow, aimed her bow and fired at the dummy. The arrow hit it in the chest and started to smoke.

'As you can see, this is an incineration arrow. The centre of the shaft is set on fire when it hits a target, while the thin metal coating...'
'It heats up, right?' I immediately regretted interrupting, but Sierra nodded.
'This heat makes it difficult for the target to pull out the arrow.'
The dummy started to catch fire. Nerita waved her hand and a splash of water from the river extinguished it.
'Since these arrows are very dangerous prototypes, I want to keep testing and reworking the design. You can each have one now, though.' She passed out the arrows, and we took them carefully.

The rest of the day went pretty quickly. We set up snares around the camp, played with the wolf pups (really, they're just domestic puppies with deadlier claws) and, in the evening, toasted s'mores. This was special, because usually we only get the food we hunt and gather. I was doing my best to savour mine and eat it slowly, but I was failing. Then Artemis held up her hand. 'Silence. I sense a presence.'

We stopped talking and put down our s'mores. The guard-wolves immediately ate them, which probably wasn't healthy.
Then Lexi started to scream. A dozen bows pointed at her, but none fired. We couldn't see anything to fire at.

Lexi's scream was cut off suddenly. She stood up straight and laughed - a deep, malicious laugh that was not her own.
'Hello, Artemis. It's been a while,' said the voice coming out of Lexi's mouth.
Artemis narrowed her eyes. 'Alas, a while is not long enough. I never wanted to see you again, Eris.'

Eris put her hand - Lexi's hand - over her mouth in feigned offence. 'Such rudeness!'
'You started a war with a silly argument fuelled by vanity.'
'I was not invited to an important occasion, so I got revenge. And how was it, Artemis, that no one suggested you should have that golden apple? That no one considered you the fairest?'

Artemis flinched, and the Hunters started to whisper angrily to one another. Eris walked Lexi's body towards Artemis.
'I - I did not care for their opinions. I have never cared for what others think of me.'
'Yet when King Oineus forgot to sacrifice some apples to you, you destroyed half his kingdom!' Eris cackled.
'That... was different.'
Lexi's body grinned evilly. 'Was it? I feel, Lady Artemis, that you and I have more in common than you know.'

Artemis shook her head and pointed her bow at Eris. 'Leave my camp. You are forbidden to harm my Hunters, and that means you are also forbidden to possess my Hunters. Let my attendant go or else.'

The possessed Lexi pulled Artemis' bow down.
'Oh, I wouldn't be so quick to shoot the messenger. I am immortal. The girl, while spared from the wrath of Geras, is not. I want to talk, Artemis, that is all. I chose a way to do it in which I could not be silenced.'

She turned around and wrinkled her nose at the campfire. With a wave of her hand, she extinguished it, leaving us in darkness. One girl screamed.

I slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my red Ray-Bans. Okay, that sounds dumb, but they're enchanted two-way sunglasses. They "both shield your eyes from the bright sun and help them to see when the sun is no longer there."
That's what I was told...

Eris didn't pay any attention to me as I put the sunglasses on while the other girls fumbled around for torches.
'You see, Artemis, the moon only shines in the darkness. And you are the moon goddess. Night can make it very dark indeed, Lady Artemis. She can give you monsters to fight. And she can make sure you always win. I can grant you freedom from your tyrannical father Zeus. In the world of Night, you can finally be the fairest. You can even kill off every mortal man if you desire...'

Lexi moved away from Artemis and glanced at Claire. 'That sounds nice, doesn't it?' She walked further along the circle to Millie, daughter of Thanatos, and tilted her head upwards.
'Ah, a daughter of Death! They are the best, I find. The Darkness could use someone like you.'
'I find that quite insulting,' Millie spat. I've never really got on with Millie, but in that moment I admired her. The possessed Lexi, on the other hand, sighed and shoved Millie to the ground. She turned back to Artemis.

'Lady Artemis, it is your call. The Darkness is rising. We have the might of Nyx on our side. Others shall join our cause.'
Eris raised Lexi's hand into the air. The Hunters started to panic and, as I looked around the edges of my sunglasses, I noticed that it was getting darker. With my glasses on, I could see strange winged creatures, too - most of which I couldn't identify. They growled and roared, and the Hunters heard them and screeched. Artemis drew her bow and aimed at the grinning Lexi-Eris' chest.

"And the truth will precede the first loss of life."
I guess I knew someone had to die. But not like this. Not killed by the goddesses who promise to protect us. I had to free Lexi and get rid of Eris.

I pulled out my incineration arrow and, before I knew what I was doing, shot it into the wood on the campfire. Lexi's body whirled around suddenly.
'What was that?' Eris' voice hissed.
The wood started to catch fire. Some of the monsters backed off. Eris turned Lexi's body back to Artemis, shocked. 'That was you, wasn't it? Trying to scare the Keres away!'

Artemis shook her head.
Eris sighed. 'Okay, I'd like a clear answer - do you support us or not?'
Pause.
'Hunters... close your eyes.'