Percy Jackson - Cursed to Forget

A Big Bunch of Mysteries

Artemis left the winter solstice meeting a little bit annoyed. Not only did it appear like someone was doing the hunts job for them, they have now been tasked with finding this seemingly imaginary figure. There's basically no solid evidence that this being even exists, just feelings, bad memories and a bunch of guess work. Finding someone who clearly doesn't want to be found, if they even existed, with this little to go on was basically an impossible task, even for the likes of her hunt. If her assumption that the monsters were moving in groups because they were scared of this being, then the most logical place to start looking for such a person, would be finding the biggest group of monsters they could and wait for them to show up. As fate would have it the hunt was tracking such a group at this very moment, so maybe this would be less annoying then she first thought.

Artemis appeared in a forest, a bit away from wear she felt the presence of the hunt as to make sure not to vaporize anyone of her members accidentally upon arrival. As she began walking she could see the clearing up ahead. Given that the sun was starting to set she expected to find her hunters setting up camp and other menial tasks that came with it. Instead what Artemis found really caught her off guard. It was basically a war zone. The clearing was scorched and there was clearly signs of a fight, a big one at that. Her first thought was that this was the fallout of the hunt taking out the group of monsters they were tracking. However, there was no one in the group that could have the power to do this. Maybe Thalia with her lightning, but even that was a stretch. The second thing that gave away that it wasn't the hunt was that they were all spread out searching for something, although she had no idea what it is they were looking for.

Walking over to the centre of the scorch Artemis could see that there was a patch of ground untouched by the fire, evident from the grass covered in frost. Thalia was crouched, back facing her, looking at something on the ground. Walking up behind her, barely making a sound as she moved, the burnt grass crumbled to ashes beneath her feet. Artemis stood casting a shadow over the crouched demigod. Straining her neck as to look behind her, Thalia stood and gave a small nod of her head when she saw who it was who interrupted her thoughts. "Welcome back my lady, how did the meeting go?" she asked.

"It was somewhat interesting this time, although far from as interesting as to what you've found here," Artemis replied scanning the area once again. "What happened here Thalia?" she asked, her gaze turned back on the lieutenant. "I'm not sure my lady. We were tracking that large group of monsters as you instructed but when we got here it was like this," she gestured around her before continuing. "From what I can tell someone was fighting the hoard when an explosion of some sorts came from this spot."

"Someone?" Artemis questioned, "not a group, from what I knew of the numbers there was a small army of monsters. Are you saying that one person is capable of all this." Thalia nodded,

"It seems hard to believe I know, considering nothing short of a god would be able to do this. But look at the footprints," she said as she crouched back down, Artemis followed suit. "They all come from the same shoe and all the exact same size. It's hard to tell with all the ash, scorched earth and monster dust but I'm fairly sure that the same prints are around the clearing in that direction," she stated while pointing her finger. "What I find even more strange though is that from what I can tell, whoever did this just vanished from this spot," she said while standing up and standing in the middle of the untouched ground. "From here there are no more footprints of the same kind anywhere. Nothing in the ash as they walked away and nothing indicating that there was fighting going on anywhere else. Only the faint sight sign of monsters scrambling towards their attacker underneath."

Artemis was still crouched, looking at the ground in thought. It didn't make any sense. If what Thalia had said was true, then a single being had fought a small army of monsters and won. If the numbers that the scouts had reported to her before she left for the solstice meeting were correct, then only a god could do that. Or a group of people highly trained in the ways of hunting monsters. The next thing was that this person clearly was able to use fire. Only a few gods would control fire and one demigod was known to be able to do it. To make matters worse, this had to be the same being that the council had now tasked the hunt to look for. Something had to have been missing from this puzzle that just keeps getting bigger and bigger. "Is everything alright my lady?" Thalia's voice sounded breaking Artemis from her thoughts. She looked up and found the daughter of Zeus staring at her blankly, it came to Artemis' attention that she hadn't said anything in response to Thalia. "Yes yes, I'm alright. Sorry, just thinking." Just as Thalia was about to press for more information two other hunter came running up to them before she could. The two hunters, who were a bit on the younger looking side and looked almost identical, nodded at Thalia and dipped their heads lower toward their patron goddess. "We found something my lady, lieutenant," a girl named Mira said excitedly.