Shattered

Mars

I would like to emphasize delays are on Josh. He's preparing for uni.
April 21st, 2013. It had been exactly four months and nine days since he had been sent back in time. Exactly four months since the death of his best friend, Annabeth Chase.

Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, councillor of the Athena Cabin in Camp Half-blood... His first crush.

The anniversary was truly bittersweet.

On one hand, his best friend and crush had lost her very life, but on the other hand two lives had been saved.

Firstly, his younger cousin and protege, Bianca di Angelo, the sister of one of his closest friends back before he was forcefully thrust into the past, Nico di Angelo.

The death of the daughter of Hades had been one of his biggest regrets. She was so young when she had lost her life, a year younger than himself. About as old as he was when he found Zeus' Master-bolt. But now - now she was alive and well - still a hunter of Artemis and was now his responsibility.

For the past three months, he had been training her, making her skilled enough to survive on her own without Artemis or the hunt to guide her. He had taken the younger girl under his wings, and with the guidance of Artemis, began training her to be the most powerful daughter of Hades to have ever lived.

Bianca was a moderately quick learner, certainly no prodigy, but not a lost cause either. She learned quickly, she picked up a hunter's stance with minimal tutelage and soon adapted the style as her own. With the raven blade that Hades had given her, the lilac trails that followed her blade as she swerved and weaved around the other hunters made her truly a sight to behold.

Percy didn't hold back on her in the slightest when they sparred to gauge her progress every week. He would spar with her as though she was though she was any other enemy demigod, the only difference being that he corrected her flaws when he spotted them, although he didn't always catch all of them, too lost in the moment to concentrate on such things.

That, was where Artemis came in, she would point out any mistake Bianca would make, but that was not all, Percy wasn't perfect either, the moon goddess made sure to grill Percy on any mistake he made or missed to point out.

In the end, both demigods would come out being better combatants by the end of their training - which would be in about a month and a half's time when Bianca would have to spend her summer. Their training would resume when she returned to the hunt at the end of summer.

And then there was the second life he had saved.

Zoe Nightshade.

The daughter of Atlas's timely demise had been his other greatest regret, and in this bittersweet second chance of his, he was blessed by the fates to fix both of these losses.

But all that had come at a price. This was the anniversary of the fourth month the daughter of Athena had spent in Elysium.

Ω

It was probably four in the afternoon when Percy was attacked by the hunters. He was surrounded on all sides by the girls clad in silver, each having their weapons drawn, all aiming at him, Zoe, Thalia and Bianca included.

"Girls, I really think that this is a bad idea..."

Percy missed the mischievous glints in all their eyes.

"No seriously, I have done nothing to deserve this!"

He attempted to placate them, failing miserably.

"If you throw any of those at me, I'll sic Horus on you!"

He tried bluffing his way out of his predicament, his falcon circling around him, high in the sky.

The hunters did not budge.

"You really expect those to work? I'm a son of Poseidon for crying out loud!"

"Oh, we know that Perce. That's why we asked that father of yours to help us out a little."

And with that, Percy Jackson was pelted with a multitude of water balloons, none of which he could control for whatever reason.

He prepared his counter attack, he willed the water from a nearby stream into spheres of varied sizes.

"Girls, I have a weapon and 'm not afraid of using it!"

He warned, making the spheres hover closer to the hunters.

He was hit in the back of his head by yet another balloon, startling him out of concentration, making him drop the water he was holding up, resulting in all the spheres crashing down in a harmless cascade that missed all the hunters.

"Overwhelmed Percy?"

The son of Poseidon growled at the moon goddess's taunt, turning around he glared at the goddess.

"I'm sorry, not sorry for this."

In about ten seconds, the entirety of the hunter's camp was flooded in about ten feet of stream water, with all the hunters and their matron goddess trapped under the deluge, who struggled vainly under his immense control over the water.

After fifteen seconds of holding the hunters underwater, he released his control over the water, manoeuvring it back towards its original course across the woods.

The hunters lay on the floor, sopping wet and sputtering, coughing and heaving from the sudden influx of water. Artemis, on the other hand hung from a high branch, laughing at the fate of her hunters.

"I told girls to not try ambushing him, even if you had the help of Poseidon."

Thalia rolled her eyes, coughing out some more water, she choked out, "You might have won this time kelp head, but you better watch your back the next time..."

The son of Poseidon simply laughed boisterously.

That was, until his obnoxious snorts were cut off by a golden flash. A tall man stepped out of the light and looked straight at Percy.

"Kid, I'm gonna need your help."

The man before him had a flat-top hair cut. His face was covered with knife scars and and he wore a pair of night vision goggles which glowed from the inside. The man wore the uniform of the Canadian Special Forces.

The man had a certain familiarity around him, yet Percy couldn't quite place where he had seen the man before that day.

Artemis dropped from her perch on the pine and looked gave the taller being, (probably a god because Artemis hadn't vaporized him yet) a perplexed look, her silver eyes glinting with confusion.

"Mars? What are you doing here?"