Chapter 1 – The Scent Of Cinnamon

Thalia Grace wasn't like other girls her age and even that was a hollow statement to make because Thalia Grace could never again age, never physically changing past fifteen years old. She was a Hunter dedicated to serving the Greek Goddess Artemis who was also her Godly sister.

Having lived in a camp centrally tied to the Gods and their children, Thalia had once found herself struggling to understand that her family tree was no simple matter, she had cousins and nephews, nieces and all sorts of people that all stemmed around the Gods of Olympus.

Thalia was the Demi-God daughter of Zeus, the king of Olympus who often ruled with an iron fist tightly clasped around a bolt of lightning that was always ready to be unleashed upon anyone unfortunate enough to get in his way.

Being a half immortal Hunter, Thalia found that her 'hunts' that she embarked on alongside her serving sisters were always varied, sometimes she'd hunted down monsters that populated the world and on very rare occasions she'd be hunting down a person, Hades, just a few years ago Artemis herself had been tasked with hunting down a Demi-God that had gone missing, none other than her own cousin, Percy Jackson, the son of Olympus.

It wasn't a surprise when she'd found out that they were the ones in charge of finding him, he was the saviour of Olympus after all. He'd stopped Kronos in Manhattan years ago and even stemmed the advance of Typhon after that. It hadn't even passed by a year before he was thrown back into another conflict, a war that had been waged on the Roman Demi-Gods by Gaea who had sought to revive the Gigantes and destroy Olympus, he was the one who had stopped Gaea in her tracks on that fateful day.

Percy Jackson was an extremely powerful Demi-God, a brilliant asset for Olympus, so what else could the Gods do when Percy Jackson had been declared missing?

Three years had passed since his disappearance after the third great threat to Olympus, yet another threat that Percy himself had been directly responsible for stopping: Pandora's Box. It had been opened and before Percy had closed it to seal the malevolent spirits and beings back inside, he'd been too late to stop a certain type from escaping the confines of Pandora's Box.

Ten ancient Dragons had been released and they in turn had birthed a new race of Dragons who had repopulated all over the Earth, none of them perceptible by mortal eyes due to the heavy lingering mist that constantly followed them around like a cloud of pestilence.

Thalia's thoughts about her cousin's disappearance had come out of nowhere, it had been officially ruled out after three years of searching that Artemis and her Hunters simply could not find the boy who had grown into a man in the time gone by. He would have just turned twenty one in the past couple of months.

Thalia looked around her surroundings with a slight sigh escaping her lips. The forest was damn and there were no sounds to be made out above the constant raindrops hitting the canopy that she was hiding in. Artemis had ordered her and the rest of the elite Hunters to follow the trail of something big, something that the mortals couldn't see yet they were clearly able to see the trail that it was leaving in it's wake.

Perhaps that was why Thalia had been suffering thoughts about her missing cousin? If the Hunt was tracking a Dragon then the first thing she'd be thinking about was where the legendary son of Poseidon had gone in their time of need though she wasn't sure about how much he'd be able to help her in a fight against a Dragon. He was strong but Dragons were famed for their sheer destructive capabilities.

A vibration worked its way through the tree she was squatting along the branches of. She had sensed it worming through the wood before the vibration had even reached her feet. Something far below her was moving through her area and it had to be big if it was sending this level of tremors through a tree as grand as the one she was in especially since she couldn't even see the culprit.

A silver flash appeared out of nowhere in the corner of Thalia's eyes, that was the first signal that a God or Goddess had teleported somewhere, a very vibrant ray of light that was created from thin air, the second signal was something that only Hunters and those of a similar discipline could perceive; the smell.

Artemis was constantly masked by a very faint scent of the forest but more dominantly she always seemed to carry the sweet aroma of cinnamon whenever she appeared somewhere.

"Thalia we're retreating, the beast stalking through the woods knows you and the other Hunters are here, you've become the intended prey to a beast of old." Artemis' words and her tone were very low and even hushed, she did not want to alert the monster to their location any more than it had already figured.

Thalia's eyes widened ever so slightly, they'd never given up on a hunt before and there hadn't even been any occasions that Artemis had willingly told them that the hunt had been reversed so just what in Hades was stalking along the wet forest floor?

"There's a Dragon tracking your scent, we need to leave, you cannot hope to kill a Dragon Thalia, not with the numbers that we have." Artemis told her sternly, her silver eyes were engaging and powerful, they seemed to promise that no matter how Thalia looked at the situation that Artemis would always be right, with their numbers they couldn't take down a Dragon even with Artemis fighting alongside them.

Artemis stopped with hesitations as her focus was placed elsewhere. At first she seemed to be gazing off into the distance below them but when Thalia took a minute to actually follow her Lady's line of sight she saw something that made a drop of sweat roll down her face. A sweat born of fear had taken it's place on her face when she saw a cloaked man walking across the undergrowth of the forest stopping ever few seconds to listen to the vibrations of the Dragon moving past all of the trees.

"That's no mortal, it can't be..." Artemis whispered to herself. She was determined to see how this all played out because the man on the forest floor was doing something that she wouldn't even had expected her best Hunters to do. He was reading the air, feeling the vibrations riding on the wind, matching them to the now faint tremors that spread across the ground.

"He's hunting this Dragon." She spoke a little bit louder, unsure of herself at first with how she should even approach this situation. "Thalia, evacuate yourself and the Hunters, make for the next campsite destination and I'll meet you there, I've got to find out who that is." Artemis never waited for an answer from the daughter of Zeus as she'd already moved onto an adjacent tree in absolute silence, the Hunter in her mind had appeared on the surface and she was in full concentration as she became one with the forest perfectly mirroring the actions of the man below her, feeling the air to find out where that Dragon had moved to.

She watched like a bird of prey, never taking her eyes off of the man who had so far not made a single mistake. He'd found a perfect cover in the darkness of night and he'd remained deathly silent while he waited for the Dragon to cross it's own tracks and return from it's search for food.

Artemis had finally found herself within earshot of the man and patiently waited to see what else he would do. He quietly sniffed at the air before muttering to himself, "Not an Ancient Dragon, just a whelp this time." He sighed. His voice seemed distantly familiar but at the same time she was sure that she'd never heard this man before, his tone was deep and help disappointment. He knew what an Ancient Dragon was and yet he was willingly hunting down one of the most dangerous creatures to ever exist, coupled with the fact that he had been able to distinguish two different species of Dragon apart just by the faint scent left behind made Artemis even more determined to find out who, or what he was.

"Hmm, unusual. Dragon, Human... No, not Human but... Demi-God? What are Demi-Gods doing in this fo-..." As if he'd been struck down by an unseen force he'd stopped talking instantly but Artemis couldn't sense why, the Dragon hadn't made any sudden movements, she could feel it half a mile from where they were at the edge of a large lake.

"It's drinking, peculiar." The man slowly got off of his knees and started to slowly and stealthily make his way towards the lake's basin at the bottom of the hill. "This whelp might still be in the nursing stage, must stay vigilant as a parent could be around. Possibly High Dragon perhaps? No, there would be a heavier pressure following this baby Dragon if it's parents were that powerful." He continued to list off the possibilities of what this Dragon could be and all the while he was doing that he was proving to Artemis that he was incredibly versed in the knowledge surrounding Dragons, she hadn't known anyone to be so perceptive of the Dragons, no one had ever even been anywhere near this level.

"More Demi-Gods... All darting around like flies to a lamp, most of them employing an impressive level of stealth, that must mean that... That scent, where have I picked that up before?" He asked himself before standing up straight and gazing at the few stray beams of moon light that had struggled to breach the canopy above.

"Cinnamon, scent of the forest... Only one person has ever smelled so sweet yet been so deadly." He whispered. Was he referring to her? She wasn't quite sure how she felt after hearing herself being referred to like that, was it a compliment or an insult.

"In a forest under the moon, hunting a Dragon and continuing to smell... That scent." His expression was one of lost focus like he couldn't sense the Dragon if he inhaled the aroma of cinnamon. "She knows I'm here, she must do, so..." The man paused before stepping directly into one of the only spots that clustered light from the vibrant silver moon above.

"Better put on a show for the beautiful Goddess, right; Lady Artemis?" His voice got louder when he'd directly called out to her but it was still hushed enough so that the Dragon wouldn't hear and pre-emptively come to investigate the new arrival to it's hunting grounds.

She knew he was there from the start but by process of elimination from the things he could sense and the things he knew, he had figured out that she was there as well, he was actually incredible at hunting, that much she already knew, so she decided that she'd at least give him a certain level of respect and show herself without aiming an arrow at his face, that wasn't going to stop her from having a concealed grip on a few throwing knives though.

Silently dropping from her perch, she stepped out from behind a tree that had blocked her from his sight. His head followed her body as she walked into a better area of light. "Who are you?" She began, "I can't let you leave without you telling me who you are. Everything you just did, tracking this Dragon from air wave vibrations then figuring out that I was nearby just by smelling the scent of cinnamon in the air, that is... It's frankly incredible." She admitted while she slowly strolled in a large circle around him, like a wolf circling an injured deer.

As she continued, she managed to finally get a real look at the man, he was covered from head to toe in black hunting gear, half of it looking leather and the other half looking like it was made from a material that could only be described as solid shadows. There was a thin longsword scabbard attached to his back, that already set him apart from most people as no one ever kept a scabbard of a sword that length attached to their backs.

"I'll take that as a compliment, the fact that I've managed to impress the Goddess of the Hunt, but I guess my game of solitude is probably coming to it's closure so I'll have to start praying to you again." He announced with a slight chuckle. His voice was easygoing and relaxed which she expected perfectly mirrored his hidden face.

She gasped slightly, start praying to her again? Surely that could only mean that he was... As if the man in front of her could read the Goddesses' mind, he turned to face her before pulling his hood and scarf away from his face to reveal vibrant emerald eyes that held the piercing power of a thousand sharpened swords. His thick raven hair only further confirmed what she now knew was true.

After three years, she had only found him because he had revealed himself to her but he was... Different. Something inside him was no longer the same, he held that crucial piece of immortal DNA that all Demi-Gods did but he didn't feel like a Demi-God.

"Percy? My Gods but... But... H-how is it that you can do all of this? How did you manage to hone your senses to MY level in the space of three years!?" Her voice was still a whisper and her words were hardly stringing together but he understood what she was trying to ask him. He continued to smile, a worn out and tired smile that no doubt acted as a facade over a lifetime's worth of pain and suffering that the son of Poseidon had taken upon himself as a lone burden after saving Olympus, and the world respectively, three times in his early life.

"I'll explain but I've got to sum things up because I came here to kill that Dragon and it's prone to moving erratically because it's still young." He told her quietly. Artemis nodded, allowing him to be somewhat short with her but after all this time she hardly had any ground whatsoever to be unhappy with at least some answers as to him being this capable with hunting.

"When I closed Pandora's Box with my own hands the blasted thing unleashed a self defence mechanism of the highest level of malevolence. It ensured that if I was to correct the mistake made by letting the Box be unleashed in the first place that it was to be my own kin I'd be slaying." His words hadn't exactly made that much sense to her but she understood the part about the Box doing something in self defence because of Percy closing it once again.

"Which means?" She was by no means a slow or stupid Goddess but Percy wasn't making things easy for her with his more than cryptic explanation.

"Artemis, the Box ensured that I had become one and the same with the released evil. The Dragons were the only thing that escaped so for me to be hunting them all down to correct my own mistake, Pandora's Box made me..." He waited to see if Artemis had finally understood what he was trying to tell her and judging by the way that her face had dropped in shock horror, she had definitely gotten it.

"That you're-" She pointed at him, her face turned even whiter than before.

"Yes. I'm a Dragon." Percy told her with a neutral expression, unsure of how Artemis would see him after finding out that he too had been transformed into a Dragon. It made sense to her, he could feel the vibrations in the floor and air because of his ultra sensitivity in his skin, he had smelled the Dragon and Artemis' own scent because of his unbelievable sense of smell and to top it all off, his analytical mind hadn't been something he'd had three years ago and it was well known that Dragons were gifted with a fierce intelligence.

Percy Jackson had returned after three years as an entirely different man, "I'm a Dragon but that's not it. I told you that I was correcting a mistake and through these past few years I have become the only person capable of doing it; Artemis... I'm a Dragon Slayer."

A/N: Review?