The past several months, or rather almost a year, were frustrating, incredibly so. Of course, she did not expect to find the next clue right away, in her hunt for the second Medusa. But she certainly did not expect to go a full year without any new traces of the monster. However, that was not exactly right. She did find some places that could have been stricken by the second Medusa, the signs were there. But that was that. There were only signs no hard evidence, she expected to find. This led her to the conclusion that there must have been some force proactively removing the traces of second Medusa's presence.
But that was not all. No, in fact, someone was removing the traces of the copycat monster, relatively recently. More precisely, only after she and her group started tracking down the new Medusa. For that exact reason, Artemis suspected a traitor in her group, but when the clues did not stop disappearing, even after several potential traitors had been made example of, she had to conclude that it was no one from her own group. Because most of the remaining huntresses were absolutely loyal to her or at this point knew better. And were given plenty of chances to confess without the threat of retribution.
This made her quite angry. She had already promised that she would bring the second Medusa to her Athena, but to keep this promise was becoming outright impossible. With the track fading out and no new clues discovered.
Though thinking of her Athena, she was contacted by her just a few hours ago. Her Athena told her that they would meet on Mount Athos in a bit, to wait there for her. Not that she didn't want to see her Athena in person after so long. But she had not captured the promised prize and because of that Artemis felt ashamed.
"Artemis!" her Athena said, striding towards her and pulling Artemis into a hug.
She had no idea that her Athena could be this straightforward. No, quite frankly it was surprising and unexpected, yet not unwelcomed. But what had gotten into her Athena to approach her in such a manner? It was not an impostor, she would know that. So something else was going on. How suspicious. That b*tch Aphrodite better did nothing to her Athena, or she would wright her neck!
"Athena, you are early, the second Medusa is still escaping me," she reluctantly explained herself, hoping that she did not disappoint her Athena too much. That would be terrible.
"I know. That monster is slippery. But thanks to Dad, I have a clue, where she was recently," said her Athena cheerfully.
"Really?" Artemis asked, perking up at the newest development.
"Yes! She was somewhere here on Mount Athos, several days ago. But that's not all, the spider monster, which hurt me, was with her," explained her Athena with determination.
"That is brilliant!" she said as she pulled her Athena into a tight hug.
"Yes and no. The spider monster managed to hurt Dad. It's nothing too serious, but we'll have to be extremely careful hunting them," said her Athena.
"We?" she looked confused at her Athena.
"Well, I was hoping that you and I could go hunting together. I don't want that spider monster to hurt you. Together we could take it out by surprise while having a higher chance of success," her Athena spewed all of her words as fast as she could, which was a bit hard to understand.
"Of course! Leave the tracking to me!" she said smiling at her Athena and pulling her by her hand, moving towards the place where the second Medusa was residing just a few days ago.
This way she would be able to collect Medusa's head for her Athena, with no problems. The hunt was on!
It has been a while since she had time just for herself. A few centuries perhaps? Must be, since she usually did some work in the Underworld for Hades or was taking care of her mother. Those two things took all of her time, leaving her with no time to do her own things. And now, she was given a perfect opportunity to stretch her legs, in more that metaphorical sense.
Alas, she was here not on vacation, but rather on a job. She was to find two "monsters", though the word monster was not exactly accurate. Rather they both were, partially uplifted humans, by the non-working formula for uplifting humans, which she helped Hades to develop. The testing end results were usually rather mentally unstable. With these two being exceptions.
That was why, she could not wait until she met them. She was so curious about them, to the point that she did not even mind doing more work while missing an opportunity to enjoy herself. But a work that she loved doing, could not be counted as work at all. Moreover, all she was supposed to do was to find them as soon as possible. At least given Hades's instructions. But there was no mention of bringing them to the Underworld right away. On the contrary, she was to earn their trust, while also protecting them from other Olympians, and only after that, should they agree, bring them back to the Underworld.
And how exactly would Hades know, when they agreed? For all she knew, it could have taken a month or a century. Yet, finding both Medusa and Arachne fast, was her priority for now. How lucky she was, that she came along with one of the best trackers the whole Olympus, or rather Underworld had at hand. Moreover, Orthrus was such a good boy.
With almost no time spent on the journey, and with the exceptional tracking skills of Orthrus, she soon found a small abandoned abode, high up on Mount Athos, which, as she knew from Phoibe's memories, belonged to Medusa. It looked so homey, even if there were some broken things around. She felt angry at Zeus, for making such a waste of all the nice things. What an oaf.
"You poor flowers, who had trampled over you?" she asked no one in particular, watching a completely destroyed flower bed, next to the Medusa's home.
If she got her hands on the nitwit who did that, she would have their neck. Unless it was Zeus himself, that would probably not fly. Alas, to her knowledge, Zeus was here a few days ago and the flowers were pummeled very recently.
Ever since the attack on her person, Medusa was in a state that could be described as shell shock. Or in more modern terms - post-traumatic stress disorder, which in her case showed itself as a complete inability to talk and nightmares almost every time she slept. As bad as it might sound, she was in a good state, compared to some cases of soldiers from my second life. And thus it was no problem for her to cooperate with my instructions, which was useful since we had to move from Mount Athos as fast as possible.
I knew that her mental state could later come and bite me in my rear, but as an ex-HR manager, ex-soldier and ex-businesswoman, I was very poorly equipped to deal with such a disorder, and the modern-day understanding along with the professional help, would not be available for several thousand years, should they develop in this world in the future. As such, she often woke up during the night screaming in panic. Alas, this was something I was used to from my time spent in trenches during my second life career as an aerial mage. At least Medusa's cries were not accompanied by artillery shelling, nor did she have a gun with which, she could in her confusion, hurt somebody. And seeing my familiar face, managed to calm her down every time, for some reason.
I did not know when the next enemy attack would happen, whether the attacker was Being X or god-pretender Zeus, but there was bound to be some retaliation. And every second it did not come, put me slightly more on the edge. Quite frankly a retaliatory attack would be welcomed, since I doubled that extensive use of mental enhancement formulae was healthy even for me, who was now a monster.
That was why I almost laughed when an arrow embedded itself into the ground next to me, as I managed to dodge it at the very last moment since it flew completely silent. It might not be a sound idea long term, but adrenaline is sure a nice thing to have in the bloodstream when the enemy enacts their ambushes.
"Ranged enemy attack! Weapons ready! You three, protect Medusa!" I shouted my orders, seeing as my troops were instantaneously ready for combat.
While Medusa was being led away from the active combat zone, the enemy managed to get a few good hits at us and there were some injuries since the arrows were flying, with almost uncanny precision. But that gave away enemy location and my troop, now quite skilled with slings retaliated with deadly precision. If the screams from the enemy were to be an indicator.
A small group of my troops, separated from the main body and went to flank the enemy. These were the women, who managed to out stealth the stealthy centaur. What a brilliant use of human resources, since everyone knew what to do at the given moment, best to their abilities. Though it seems a bit strange at times, how all of my new meatshields were able to just know what to do, even without constant radio communication with each other. Alas, this was an unreasonable world with monsters and false gods.
With the initial exchange done, and Medusa out of immediate danger's way, it was time for me to join the fray. I could not have my troops do all the heavy lifting, since it would be bad time management. Better, all able personnel to deal with the enemy as soon as possible.
And then she appeared. The familiar god-pretender, Athena. The one person who started all of this, at least in this life. So it was time I ended it. Once and for all.
"You hurt my father! Now you die, monster!" said the god-pretender with contempt in her voice, poising herself to strike at me.
"He attacked my acquaintance first, it was justifiable self-defense," I explained, knowing that, her responding to me, was unlikely.
After all, I knew, that god-pretender Athena was a highly unreasonable individual. The point in this case is my current state as a monster. Alas, fighting her this time, could prove to be troublesome as she seemed to appear in complete pristine condition. The hand, I destroyed in our first encounter, was uninjured, the same could be said for her torso, at which I was aiming during our second encounter.
Moreover, she was fully equipped for combat, the same shield that could reflect my optical formulae and the spear I remember embedding in Medusa's attacker. This would suggest that the attacker was Zeus, rather than Being X. In the end, wasn't Zeus supposed to be a father to Athena? It would make a terrible lot of sense, a young woman going for my neck after I hurt or killed her father. It seemed that Being X was running out of ideas in my third life since he plagiarized Mary Sioux.
Anyway, with the shield impervious to the optical formulae, I had to use a different approach. Athena as she was, had no ranged option on her person, and using her spear, she was limited to only mid-range combat. Thus, my options were not many. Either I somehow manage to get her from the distance, which was unlikely as the slung stones with explosive formula could serve at most as a distraction, or break through her effective range into the close combat and cut her with a mage blade, which was an option I did not prefer as it had the highest chance of fatal injury. But unless I found some berserker to attack the god-pretender, like the last time and finish her with one swift optical formulae, I had no other choice.
On the other side, it was Athena who was trying to close the gap between us, in order to land a hit on me. She was fast, that much I had to admit, and with the smaller body, she was also more nimble than I. Not to say anything about her inhuman strength, since she was clearly not human. This way, we danced around each other for several moments. Spear striking in my direction in hardly predictable patterns, while I retaliated with optical formulae, which sadly served as nothing more than distractions. Since Athena easily covered herself behind her shield, making the optical formulae useless.
But the distraction was all I needed. A distraction which would render her shield useless, at least temporarily. While explosive formulae, used with a rock had hardly the impact of an artillery shell, which a regular bulled had when the same spell was used. It would still create a noticeable shockwave, from point-blank range. This should stagger Athena for long enough, for me to get through her guard and finish her off with a combination of mage blade on one of my spider legs, followed by optical formulae for a good measure.
I quickly enacted my plan and changed the magnifying glass for the sling. This action left Athena confused for a short second. But the moment I sent a rock her way, she was already prepared, holding her shield in to protect herself. Truly admirable reaction time, if only it was not used against me.
Yet, she was not the only one with great reflexes, if enhancement formulae, providing me with adrenaline had anything to say about it. I was already moving when the explosion happened and the god-pretender's shield was pushed out of the way. With a mage blade on my front spider limb, I cut at her shield hand, in order to remove the main obstacle, while avoiding her spear. It was close and the god-pretender looked less shocked at the loss of her limb than the last time. Then the spear embedded itself into the ground, locking me in the position, between itself and the god-pretender
"Artemis, NOW!" the god-pretender shouted before I could react.