19 Poisonous Thoughts

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"What are your intentions for surveying the camp?" Artemis asked, finally speaking up after some time. "Surely your time would be better well spent learning to fight."

"Knowing the place you reside in, or rather the perimeter, is a form of combat in and of itself." Chion calmly rolled up his makeshift map and stowed it once again into his backpack. "The terrain, where to put defenses, properly position for an attack, where to run to safety. The more you know about your environment, the easier it is to combat whatever force comes your way due to a home field advantage. Or at least, that's the general consensus. Higher beings could easily negate this upper hand with raw power. But if it comes to that, one probably wouldn't have won it in the first place. Knowing the field is just as important as knowing ones enemy. Learned this against that stupid bull."

"Yes, the Khalkotauroi." Artemis nodded slightly. "You fought with it back at Canarsie."

"You really were watching me for a while, huh?" Chion didn't have too much to say on the matter. It's not like he could tell a goddess to mind her own business. "Seems everyone has a thing for me these days, even those whom I have no interest in."

"And which category do I fall into?" Artemis' voice turned dangerously cold, as if one wrong word would put the youth in a bad spot.

For some reason, Chion got the feeling that the young looking goddess didn't really care too strongly for him, which made sense since they had just met, but it felt like it went beyond that. He couldn't put a finger on it, but he reckoned it had something to do with him being a male. Such a theory wasn't without basis obviously since he had witnessed several reactions to way her followers, all females, reacted when they got within a few feet of any male camper. Judging by what Annabeth had said to him, the ladies were bestowed immortality in exchange for being with Artemis during her hunt, meaning they were most likely far older than anyone there.

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"A team of maidens who have vowed to serve Artemis and reject love for as long as they live in exchange for a sort of immortality. Some of them have lived hundreds of lifetimes and have seen countless battles."

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Rejecting love didn't necessarily mean reject men, but if they were solely hunting in the wilderness as what suggested and were only surrounded by women, a certain disdain or even fear of men could develop. If the person they were following held the initial feeling about men, it could also help fester those negative emotions. Chion wasn't a mind reader, though, so he was mainly doing guesswork based on the information he had and what he had observed. While Artemis seemed a bit off and kept her distance, she had been the one to seek HIM out when she could've just kept watching from a distance or sent one of her Hunters or a female camper.

He would need more information to actually get a conclussive answer.

"You're fine," Chion said truthfully. He wasn't afraid of ticking her off, just being honest. "Hard to say anything when I just met you. Might be a different story later down the line. For now though, a little company is always welcome."

Skitter! Skitter!

Before Artemis could respond to Chions' comment, a sound echoed through the forest, causing them both to turn in the direction it emanated from. Overly large pincers, pitch black exoskeletons, enormous tails dripping with some kind of corrosive acid or venom, sets of beady eyes, clicking mandibles. A trio of towering scorpions emerged from the treeline, now longer shy about where they treaded, knocking aside trees with their powerful tails.

"Those.....are some big bugs." Chion let out a cold breath as he pulled out Katavro from its sheath. Life never wanted to give him a single day of rest.

"Indeed," Artemis agreed as she pulled her own bow from the air itself. Materializing into existence, a set of arrows. "Let us hunt."

"Aren't you a goddess?" Chion got into a defensive stance as one of the scorpions began to skuttle forward, clicking its pincers. "Can't you just wave your hand and make them disappear from existence?"

"Where's the enjoyment in that?" She gave the youth a genuine look of confusion, a good way for him to know she was, in fact, not pulling his leg.

"Right. Enjoyment."

Chion quickly assessed the situation, blue hues flicking over the environment, the creatures, the goddess, everything. After taking it all in, he ran the scenarios through his mind in split second intervals.

(("Large and heavily armored. Moves quickly in short bursts? Possibly much quicker if they're after prey. Poisonous tail.")) The youth leapt backward, avoiding a swipe of the beasts pincers. (("No use escaping. Artemis could most likely handle them on her own, but I can't just leave her here. Too many to handle at once, need to split them up and give her room to properly pick one off. If I can buy time and act as decoy, she could maybe execute them."))

"Cover fire." Chion said as he leaned in and dashed forward. He wasn't worried about her listening to him.

The youth was almost certain the goddess was curious about what a young child was planning on doing against a trio of scorpions, especially since most probably would have turned tail and ran.

Sure enough, the moment one of the pincers descended in an attempt to smack Chion six feet into the dirt, an arrow flew in and knocked it off course, allowing the white-haired individual to keep it pushing. Sliding under the scorpion entirely, Chion dragged his blade across its underbelly as he slid across the fallen vegetation. Once he arrive at the other side, he quickly picked himself up, picked up a nearby rock and chucked it as the other scorpion, drawing its attention.

"Oi. Over here. Your mom drinks Pepsi and now has diabetes." Needless to say, Chion wasn't really good at insults.

But it still worked somehow as the two uninjured scorpions immediately turned to face him, clicking their pincers angrily. Without pausing, the young amnesiac spun on his heels and hightailed it into the opposite direction. Behind him, he could hear the twang of the bow and arrow, an indication that Artemis was taking care of the one Chion had somehow managed to injure. So far the plan was working out exactly as he intended. All he had to do now was take care of his pursuers and call it a day, and luckily, he had the perfect response to the situation.

Reaching into the pocket of his jeans, Chion pulled out the device Eon had made for him, a small circular metallic disk with a button in the middle and perforated holes in the top. Essentially, it was a sound grenade and a really bad one at that.

One could tell it was bad just due to the fact that it came with its own set of sound plugs. He quickly shoved him into his ears as he pressed the button and threw it towards the approaching beasts like a skipping stone.

Click! BEEEEEEEEEPPPPP!!!

It was like a dog whistle, only audible for everyone, not just humans. It was shrill and painful and, if Chion hadn't been wearing the ear plugs and covering his own ears, he probably would have died just from the sound. Or just went deaf from exploding ear drums. The scorpions didn't seem to like it much either as they immediately flew into a rage before trying their best to run from the sound. Unfortunately, this happened to lead one of them right into Chion while the other one ran in the other direction. So when the shrieking finally ended, the white-haired youth was still face to face with one of the beasts.

Only now, it was out for blood, not food.

WHAM!!

Chion rolled out of the way just in time as its tail darted towards the boy with incredible striking speed. Twirling his dagger, the youth quickly began a sprint, keeping himself as low as possible. Maneuvering through its strikes, he slipped past its large pincers and slashed through one of its legs, cutting it off as if it was made of butter. The detached leg immediately hit the ground and disintegrated into black powder. Letting out a cry of pain, the scorpion tried to move itself to get a better shot at Chion but he didn't allow it as he darted to the other side and sliced through its other leg, decreasing its mobility.

For some reason, battling this monster was far easier than the fight against the bull had been. Chion mainly attributed this to Katavro, his snow dagger which made slicing into the armor as easy as chopping up some vegetables.

Not that he would ever eat said vegetables.

As the monster stumbled across the field, unbalanced due to its missing legs, Chion wrapped around and slashed at its back leg, hacking at it quickly until it came off. With that, the beast crumpled to the floor.

"Yeah, the Hellhounds were far tougher than you." Chion avoided a final, futile strike from the scorpions tail before shoving his dagger into the downed beast forehead.

With a final howl, it collapsed onto the ground and began to disintegrate, leaving its armor behind. Compared to everything else, the fight had been the easiest one he had done. Probably because he wasn't getting tag teamed and now had some form of experience. Whatever the case, Chion won the fight without a scratch on him.

Or so he thought anyways.

When the youth rose to his feet, blood rushed to his head, and he immediately fell to one knee, his vision blurry and his heart pumping rapidly. He wasn't sure what was happening but he knew it wasn't anything good. Breathing was a struggle, and his body was getting heavier with each passing second. Regardless though, he needed to will himself up and get to camp. If he passed out here without knowing what happened to him, he was as good as dead. So, gripping the last bit of power he had left, he forced himself onto his feet. Something oozed down his back and onto his leg, but he ignored it. There was only one thing that mattered now.

Skuttle! Skuttle! Click Click!

The vague sound of snapping mandibles rang briefly through Chions failing senses. Annoyed, the youth waved a hand in the general direction.

"FUCK!!! OFF!!" It was the first time the youth had ever felt genuinely angry with somethingz enough to almost see red.

Luckily, after he yelled, he didn't hear anything else. Well, he didn't hear much of anything after that since he took a total of five steps before passing out. As the darkness took hold, he could have sworn he saw leggings and hunting boots step into his field of vision.

Everything then went black.

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Annabeth hadn't expected anything eventful to happen that day, at least not until the time came for them to begin a game of Capture The Flag with the Hunters. In fact, that's where she had been the majority of the day, setting things up according to the plans she, Chion, and the rest of the Athena Cabin had put together.

The plan wasn't too intricate, more underhanded and sneaky than anything else, but it was something that Chion assured them would work as long as the Hunters continued to underestimate them. Even though the blonde didn't want to admit it and probably would never say such a thing out loud, the new guy was quite a good strategist, able to look at the bigger picture as well as the finer points. He saw a pattern within the strategies the Hunters used and picked out a few countermeasures within a minute or so, even picking apart who their weak links were based on various things such as positioning, flag placements, routes traveled and so on.

If she was ever meant to go against him on the battlefield, she wasn't sure who would come out on top, even with her being the daughter of Athena.

That aside, since it was getting pretty late and nearing time for lunch, Annabeth had set out to look for the ice-making weirdo and see what shenanigans he had gotten himself into. That was when things began to take a turn for the worst.

When she saw a young girl carrying out the unconscious body of Chion Pagos out of the forest, a grave look on her face. Blood dripped down from his back, to his leg, and onto the ground, not a lot but a nice steady trickle that could easily become a problem if left to spill out.

Annabeth felt her heart drop into her stomach as she rushed forward.

"What happened?!" She asked quickly, wanting to feel for a pulse but also not sure if she could step close enough to Artemis. The girl was still a goddess after all. "How'd he get like this?!"

"Scorpion sting." Artemis laid Chion gently onto the floor. "There's nothing I can do for him, unfortunately."

"Why is there poisonous scorpions in the forest?" Annabeth questioned as she placed two fingers on Chions neck. "We never had them before."

"I put them in there." Chiron moved into the picture, his hooves hitting the ground with force as he moved to a stop. "It was meant as training for the older campers. I didn't expect any of you to wander so deep into the woods."

"I allowed him to do so," Artemis said. "He fought well. But I may have overestimated his combat abilities. I also couldn't find his knife since I had to bring him here. He probably dropped it somewhere."

"Annabeth, go fetch his weapon." Chiron lifted the youth off the ground and put him carefully onto his back. "I'll do what I can."

"Will he be okay?"

Chiron made a grave look. "I don't know

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