Mind over Matter

Hunt or be hunted

Percy POV

Running. That's all I could focus on right now as I sprinted, dodging low hanging branches and jumping over rocks or fallen trees. Why am I running you ask? Because I am once again the lone hunter, I have retaken my name of Shadow and have been constantly moving, tracking down monsters or running from vengeful primordials who want to make a Percy Kebab. I haven't seen any of them face to face yet but they've appeared in my dreams every time I sleep, their voices follow me through the forests and their loyal monster scum have been relentless in their attacks.

It was a group of these monster camps that I had found only twenty minutes ago, I wiped out every monster within the camp, leaving only one hellhound which was now running. This had been my life for the past 9 days. Run, fight, hunt and repeat. Every night after I had set up camp I would IM camp and relay the information that I had learnt. So far I had the names of one of the primordials that were fighting against us in this war. I remember uncle Hades telling me that there were three, one slain, one faded and one deceived. That's all that had plagued my head, over and over again every night. With every primordial I had identified they would then start to torment me. I remember when it had all started.

Flashback

I was crouching in a tree overlooking a particularly anxious group of monsters when two of them started fighting. A hellhound, smaller then Mrs O'Leary by the looks of it and a Dracanae were scratching at each other with everything they had, I couldn't understand the hellhound but the dracanae kept calling it a coward so I could only assume that it didn't want to fight. Well it didn't make much difference either way as before I knew it the hounds head had rolled away from it's body and was slowly turning into dust. An axe in the shape of an Omega was stuck in the ground and I heard a growl that I recognised all too well. I leapt to another tree quietly as I followed where the Minotaur was walking. I watched as he threw his nose ring into what looked like a puddle of shadows before the puddle shimmered into the face of a woman with midnight black hair and shadows for eyes.

It took everything in me to fight back the memories that were clawing their way to the centre of my mind but I finally managed to get my feelings under control and listen to the conversation.

"-tient. I told you that I will give the instruction on when to attack, get your vermin under control before I decide to give command to a more suiting monster." Lady Nyx said, her image disappearing with her scowling face. That was bad, if the primordial of darkness and shadows was fighting then that weakened the effect and power of fighters like Nico or Hades, and also meant that stealthy fighters were in a higher risk of being caught.

I quickly leapt down from the tree, drawing a knife as I did so and dove down on top of Beefhead. I remember when I was so scared of fighting him when I first made it to camp. How times have changed. I then used my power over fire to create a circle around the camp, making sure no one could escape I slowly closed in the circle, pushing power into the fire until I got the hot green flames of Greek fire. I quickly burnt down the camp and every monster inside before summoning some mist and IM'ing Chiron.

"Percy M'boy, what do I-"

"I'm sorry Chiron, no time to talk, I just found out that one of the primordials that will be joining this war against us is Lady Nyx, I will continue to search for the remaining enemies but for now that's all I have in terms of news. Good luck and keep the training going, this war will not be easy."

"Of course M'boy, of course. I will see you when the time comes. Good luck Perseus."

Flashback end

I finally caught up to the lone hellhound as it reached the new monster camp. See I had found out that the monsters had been instructed to go to the nearest monster camp in the case of an attack and so it always was best to save one survivor to lead me to my next destination. I instantly leapt to the trees again, watching the camp and it's movements, looking for any sign of information that I could grab when I felt something. I hadn't taken notice before but now it was painfully obvious. The trees were shaking.

The leaves were rustling as a soft wind was blowing in a swirling mess, every tree I moved to the wind went to the same point. A tent in the middle of the camp. That's where all the wind was blowing towards. I tried to use water to sense what was there but I couldn't see anything. Whatever it was it didn't have water inside, yet I knew based on instincts that someone or something was inside that tent. That's when I made my mistake. I figured with the wind all blowing that way anyway, no one would notice if I was to jump on the winds signal and observe it, in the same way that I used water molecules to sense things.

What I saw made every cell in my body shiver. A being made of pure wind and pure power. And what was worse? He was staring directly at me and was smiling, he knew I was here. I leapt from my tree and I began running as fast as I could, using my Hermes blessing of speed to help get away but I could feel him following me. I could feel him using the wind to slow me down and push against me creating as much resistance as possible. I knew I would have to fight him but I wasn't sure I was ready. I wasn't sure I had a choice.

I had identified the second primordial.

Ouranos has returned from the realm of the faded.