Bag of Depravity
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In Pursuit of Power: Chapter 30
🕑 Added 2025-03-15 05:48:52 +0000 UTCChapter 30
A Night of Surprises
Sometimes, all it takes is one look around to see that you’ve lost a battle before it starts. And that’s what I was seeing now.
Two hours had passed since the last of the Pandai’s troops beat a tactical retreat. They’d read us like a book. They saw exactly what our plan was, and crushed our only way out. Now, it was just a matter of whittling away morale and starving us out. It was possible they would win without another fight— if they waited long enough, supplies would run out, forcing the resistance to do something desperate. I wasn’t the only one who recognized this either.
People were huddled around fires, eating or just staring into the flickering flames. Lots of them had parts of their bodies wrapped due to injuries. There was hardly any talking, no smiles, and no jokes, not even from Leo. I couldn’t stand it, so I posted myself by the set of stairs I defended during the attack.
My pilfered bronze swords rested on my knees. Their blades were scratched and the edges chipped. Dracaena had no appreciation for proper sword maintenance. But having proper celestial bronze weapons in my hands for the first time since waking up still sent a thrill through me. I missed Riptide.
“You are wasting your time.”
“Hey Artemis,” I said, not turning around. “I know things went badly, but I’m not ready to give up just yet. I can still take down quite a few if they come back.”
“That is not what I meant. You are wasting your time because they will not be back soon. It would not make sense, and the Pandai are nothing if not cunning.”
“Ah. I get it.”
We fell silent. I still wasn’t looking at her, but I could sense her standing behind me, her arms crossed. She’d grown much weaker than she used to be, but there was still a divine spark inside making her tick.
“You do not seem interested in joining the others.”
“The mood’s a little gloomy,” I said. “I’d rather stay out of it for now.”
“I see. Come with me, then.”
My eyebrows rose as she walked past me. On the first step, Artemis looked back.
“Do not make me ask again,” she said.
I stood up, bringing my new swords with me.
“So what are we heading off to do?” I asked.
“To partake in a pastime I’ve denied myself for long enough.”
She didn’t explain anymore. We just walked through the station. No monsters popped out at us, and it wasn’t until we reached the city itself that we saw them.
It was more like a nest than a camp. The bottom floors of multiple buildings had been hollowed out in order to make room, and they’d been piled high with hunks of meat. Hydras growled as they prowled through it, illuminated by torches posted around the perimeter, each monster hissing and snapping at others as they competed for the tastiest snacks. Dracaena were further away, huddled on the fringes, but there weren’t many left. A crisp white command tent at the back must have been for the Pandai. You could tell because none of the monsters would willingly go near it.
They weren’t watching the subway entrance as closely as I expected them to be. Artemis and I were fast and quiet, but we slipped past the yawning Dracaena posted by the entrance with almost scary ease.
“It’s because they know I will not leave them,” Artemis said once we’d put a block between us and Hyperion’s forces. “I fought with my people for long enough that I refuse to abandon them, even in a situation like this one.”
“That’s pretty noble,” I said.
“I do not do it for compliments,” she said. “I do it for myself.”
She stopped at the base of an apartment building that was about seven stories tall and built like a block. Artemis looked at it, her eyes sliding from the first floor windows all the way up to the roof.
“Can you do it, or shall I carry you?” she asked.
I think she was trying to tease me, although the seriousness of her voice made it hard to tell.
“I can keep up,” I said.
“Prove it.”
Artemis took off like a gazelle. Even in this post-puberty form she was short, but somehow her strides were long. She bounded straight into the wall, then took off running up it. It was like gravity was turned off for her only. Her feet nestled in cracks and on window sills, propelling her into the air faster and faster. Eventually she disappeared over the lip onto the roof… but I saw her look back down at me, smiling, daring me to try and follow. I’m always game for a challenge.
I know my limits though. I’m pretty hardy, but I’ve never been all that graceful. To get up there, I had to do it my way.
Only the first part was the same— the running start. When I got to the building, instead of picking a delicate route like a mountain goat, I just jumped with all my strength.
The street fractured underneath me. I flew up, clearing maybe two stories before my momentum ran out. Before I could start falling, I gripped both my swords in a reverse grip and stabbed down with all my might.
Celestial bronze isn’t just special because it can cut monsters. There’s a reason weapons like Zeus’s Master Bolt and my dad’s trident were made with it. It’s pretty much impossible to break, unless you have a forge like Hephaestus’s and the skills to mold metal. If you have enough strength, celestial bronze can cut through metal, concrete, and moral apartment buildings as easily as it’ll pierce an unruly Hellhound.
My swords dug into the building. I hung there for a second, then flexed my arms like I was doing an extra-special pull-up. The swords slid out of the wall as I was propelled up to the next floor, where I repeated the process.
By the time I got to the top I was sweating. But I smirked at Artemis.
“Told you I could handle it,” I said.
She sniffed. “How graceless.”
I didn’t rise to the bait. Both of us walked to the middle of the roof. This must have been a swanky place to live before the Titans won. It had a wrecked garden that used to have plants, weather-beaten lounge chairs that were mostly just metal now, and a pool that was empty of water. Artemis and I went to the pool, sliding down the slippery edges until we were sitting in the empty bowl.
As soon as we sat down, it was like Artemis forgot I even existed. She leaned back, staring up at the night sky. She stayed that way for I don’t know, twenty minutes? Half an hour? Not saying anything. Just sitting, and looking. So I did too.
After a while, we realized that we were looking at the same stars— a constellation of a girl running with a bow, shooting arrows across the darkened sky. The Huntress.
“I have failed her,” Artemis said.
“Uh-uh. You don’t get to say that.”
“You would tell me what I can and cannot say?”
“Only about this,” I said. “Zoë wouldn’t let you talk that way, and I know she’d riddle my backside with arrows if she caught me sitting here silently letting you get away with it just because she’s not here.”
“It is true though,” Artemis said. “She was my finest attendant. She sacrificed everything to face her father, and I could not make her sacrifice count. Now all I am doing is hanging on, delaying the inevitable.”
“Where’s your pride?” I asked.
It wasn’t an insult or a taunt, and I think Artemis understood that. It was a serious question. The goddess I knew always held her head high, even when she might’ve been better off lowering it. But there was a charm in that kind of confidence. She was a goddess, she knew it, she made sure you knew it too, and nothing would ever make her admit defeat, even facing insurmountable odds.
But this Artemis merely shook her head.
“I have watched my people dwindle year by year. No matter what I do, they continue to die. Now, we are on the verge of extinction. Just because I’m willing to fight to my last breath does not mean that I want to. I’m scared, Perseus.”
I was so shocked that I forgot how to answer. Artemis was looking at the stars again, and this time I understood what she was really doing. She wasn’t just reminiscing about old friends and past hunts…
She was searching for a lifeline, burying herself in memories.
Without stopping to think about it, I grabbed her shoulder. Artemis jumped, pulling her eyes away from the stars.
“Don’t give up!” I said.
Artemis looked at me, her silver eyes wide. She smiled somberly.
“I see why Katie went to you,” she said.
I must’ve looked nervous, because she chuckled, although her heart wasn’t really in it.
“I’m not upset,” she said. “I’m glad you helped ease her mind in the ways I cannot. I call her my Lieutenant, but in truth, I’m too much a coward to tell her the truth. She already knows though, I think. After I lost my connection with Thalia, so soon after losing Zoë… I did not have the courage to make another one.”
So it wasn’t that she couldn’t forge connections with new hunters, it was that she was scared to. I wanted to tell her that Thalia was fine. I wanted to explain to her that things weren’t over, and we still had an ace in the hole. But before I could, Artemis was leaning in.
“Would you mind if I tried?” she asked, her face inches from my own. “I fear I will be in Tartarus soon, or perhaps somewhere worse. I… may not have my maidenhood much longer, no matter what I choose. So tonight, would you treat me as you did Katie?”
“You’ve changed,” I said.
She covered the last bit of distance, and suddenly we were kissing.
This wasn’t the direction I expected this night to go. But now that we’d arrived here, I wasn’t about to stop. The feeling I’d had since sleeping with Katie was telling me that I was close to something new, and that by sleeping with Artemis, something would change. I didn't know what that change would be, just that it was calling out to me.
In the moment, though, I couldn’t focus on anything but the goddess above me.
I pulled Artemis close. She kissed well for a four-thousand year old virgin. I guess gods are born with an intuitive understanding of some things, the way they can walk or steal cattle when they’re only a few hours old. She pushed me onto my back, straddling me as we kissed. I could see glimpses of the stars past Artemis’s auburn hair. I hoped Zoë couldn’t find a way to fly down and smight me for what I was about to do.
Artemis soon sat up, shrugging off her well-worn parka. Even with damage from burns and acid, the parka still represented something she was choosing to leave behind. Artemis shed the coat like it was hot to the touch, then kissed me twice as fiercely.
Her hips were starting to move. I kept my hands planted safely on her lower back, until she pulled her mouth away and said, “Is this how you treated Katie?”
“Not exactly,” I admitted.
“Do not be afraid to touch my body,” she said.
So I did.
My hands slid up her thin undershirt from beneath. They roved her back, sliding over her shoulder blades and along her smooth lats. I could feel that there was no bra, and soon my hands moved around to the front, cupping Artemis’s breasts. They were bigger than expected. It occurred to me that I was the first man to ever do this. The thrill gave me the confidence to slid one hand down her back, beneath her athletic pants, and give Artemis’s butt a squeeze.
I let go of her soon after, sticking my arms up so Artemis could pull off my shirt. She bent down to my muscular chest, biting my pecs while her hands slid across my abs. She trailed her tongue down to my nipple, then bit me there as well. I moaned. Even in bed she had the mindset of a hunter, tracking down and capturing every sensitive spot on my body.
I grabbed her shirt soon, removing it the way she had done to mine. This time, it was my turn to place my mouth on Artemis’s chest. I bit her nipples the way she bit mine, earning an even greater reaction. Artemis moaned loudly, driving her hips down as she grinded against my crotch. Perhaps to save face, she gasped, “Is that all you have? Zoë’s mouth was a thousand times more fierce.”
If she expected to goad me, her strategy was bad. All I could think about was the bombshell half-Titaness nude, entwined with her gorgeous goddess, servicing Artemis in a hot spring or tent. My erection began straining my pants to the point that I thought it might burst straight out.
Sensing a new sensitive spot to exploit, Artemis’s hands moved straight to my growing bulge.
At first, she felt it up through the fabric, pushing it about and wrapping her hands around the edges. She rubbed her thumb along the top, stroking the head of my penis. We were still kissing, my back flat to the pool’s stone floor. Artemis undid the last button in the way.
There was no need to fold back the flaps of my pants. As soon as the button was out of the way, my penis had burst out, slapping Artemis in the palms. Her fingers squeezed it with fascination, beginning to stroke it like a friendly songbird.
“Ooh,” I sighed.
“Is it bad?” Artemis asked, still petting my length.
“No,” I said. “Just… different.”
It wasn’t really a handjob, but it still felt good in a way.
As Artemis leaned down to kiss me again, her hands slid around my shaft, holding the back of it. That left the front rubbing against her crotch. I could feel her camel toe separating around my manhood like a bun on a hotdog.
It felt so good that my arms just moved, linking behind Artemis’s back and holding her down. Her nipples were pressing into my chest, sharp and a little bit rough. She didn’t object to having my arms around her, nor to the feeling of what she was grinding against. Her fingers wiggled where they were trapped between my penis and my stomach, stimulating me even more.
A girlish moan left Artemis’s lips as she felt my arms tighten. She opened her eyes, pausing our kiss to look surprised by herself.
“It’s natural,” I said. “You don’t have to hold back.”
The longer we kissed after that, the more vocal she became, honestly moaning her feelings for me to hear. The sounds were more addictive than I’d care to admit.
In a show of great flexibility, Artemis stretched her feet out at right angles to her torso, raising her ass in a middle splits position. Still kissing me, she hooked her fingers under the waist of her pants, pushing them down past her groin. When she got to the legs, she pitched her weight forward.
My eyes went as wide as Thalia’s shield. Artemis pulled a full handstand, her toes pointing straight up in the air, supporting herself with nothing but her hands on my chest and her lips locked to mine. Gravity pulled at her breasts. I couldn’t help noticing how light she was, as well as how deep her tongue was reaching in my mouth.
She used the toes on her right foot to hold her left pant leg and slid leg out of it, then did the same on the other side, tossing her pants away with her foot as soon as they were loose. Just like her lack of bra, there were no panties beneath her pants. No wonder I’d been able to feel her cameltoe.
Artemis settled her weight back down. And this time, with no clothes in the way, I could feel the protrusion labia nestling around my shaft.
“Olympians don’t do boring, do they?”
“I don’t understand what you mean,” Artemis said, shifting my penis with her hands again. “Did I behave unusually in some way?”
“...don’t worry about it.”
She shrugged and sighed, as if I was the weird one. Her fingers tilted my penis, moving it back and forth as she sought the perfect angle. When she was satisfied, she pressed herself down against me. I gasped, feeling her warm body crushing down on the tip of my cock. I could already tell that Artemis was going to a completely new kind of tight.
Artemis didn’t bother with any kind of fanfare, which was so in-character for her. She just dropped herself down, taking a man inside of her for the first time in her immortal existence.
The moment the last of my shaft slipped inside of her, Artemis let out a long moan like the call of an owl. She turned slightly cross-eyed, squeezing my chest for support. I reached up, slipping my arms around hers, and squeezed her arms to support her.
Soon she was moving. Her hips were brisk and fluid, as adept at sliding up and down as they were at running. Just like with kissing, she was a natural. Although maybe she had more practice kissing than I first thought, considering her admissions about what she and her attendants got up to. I wondered if Thalia got the same opportunities that Zoë did. Just thinking about it was enough to get me worked up.
The night was humid and warm. I felt myself getting sticky, while sweat broke out along Artemis’s body. The concrete beneath us was beginning to show hairline fractures, a sign of just how hard Artemis’s hips were coming down. But of course, I could take it.
At some point, I found myself just looking at her. She was so beautiful. Her body was more mature than it had been on the day we met in the sewers, and it occurred to me that she’d been this way all night, from the moment she approached me by the stairs. She planned all of this. She even cared enough to make herself look older, filling out her hips and chest slightly more.
“Is it as good as you imagined?” I asked.
“I’ve felt worse things,” Artemis said, a tremor in her voice giving away how shallow her composure actually was.
I felt her body begin to shake. It was centered around her hips, but the epicenter was definitely on the inside. Her folds tightened, squeezing my penis until I was starting to get a little worried. At the tightest point, all the tension snapped in a shower of arousal. Artemis’s hips missed a beat, her body going still as she came to terms with what she was feeling. Her first orgasm of the night.
“Didn’t Zoë ever give you one of those?” I asked.
“A great many,” Artemis said quietly. “But there was something… different about that one.”
Apparently that difference piqued her interest, because she was riding me harder than ever within seconds.
I could see the stars behind her head, just as beautiful as ever. When the pleasure became too great, and Artemis got embarrassed about the expression she was making, she leaned back, planting her hands on my thighs. Her chest jutted forward as she continued riding me, just at a slightly different angle. Her face was turned toward the stars now, looking at them just like I was— just like we both had been at the start of this.
“I am ready,” Artemis said quietly.
I guess she knew I had been holding it in for a while now. Her impossibly tight pussy slid down me again, and this time it didn’t pull up. Artemis grinded our groins together, keeping me as deep inside of her as possible, leaving only one thing for me to do. I released my load, cumming inside of the gorgeous goddess.
“By Ouranous!” Artemis said. “It— Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”
Her moan was so loud that I was worried it would echo across multiple blocks, alerting the monsters to our presence. She orgasmed from the feeling of my cum seeping into her. Greedily, her hips grinded down, trying to take me deeper even though there was no room left inside of her.
And that was the moment when I changed. There wasn’t anything external, I didn’t go into my true form and my body didn’t shake at all, but I felt it on the inside. Whatever had been building up in me, almost coming when Katie and I did it, was complete now, or at least more complete than it had been. Oblivious to this, Artemis pushed her hips into motion again, beginning another round.
We stayed like that, naked with her on top of me, for hours, until Artemis was too sore to go anymore. We got dressed again— everything but Artemis’s coat, which she left on the ground for now. Not feeling like going back yet, we sat there, leaning against each other. It wasn’t quite cuddling, because that was a bridge too far for Artemis, but there was enough contact to remind her that I was still there.
We spoke a little, but not much. Mostly we enjoyed the night sky, watching it until the sun started to rise, washing the stars away. I was about to suggest we head back when I felt Artemis stiffen.
As soon as dawn arrived, so did he. The gold figure was bigger than any man, floating unaided hundreds of feet in the air. His armor glistened, cape fluttering behind him. His arms were crossed until, slowly, he lifted one of them.
Artemis shot to her feet. “No!” she said. “It’s him!”
Above the man, fire appeared. It looked like thousands of flaming arrows, all pointed down the area where the station was. I spotted Dracaena slithering away as fast as they could, trying to escape the imminent blast radius. That’s why it was so easy to sneak out, I realized. The Pandai weren’t in that white tent— they had already left. The Dracaena and hydras had been left behind to keep us from escaping, but Hyperion didn’t care at all about turning them into casualties if it meant wiping out the resistance.
“It’s him,” Artemis repeated, the reflection of Hyperion’s amassing fire reflecting in her eyes. “Hyperion has come!”
And that was all she could say.
O-O-O
There were many beings Artemis loathed. Her grandfather. That awful hag Aphrodite. But recently, one being in particular had skyrocketed to the top of her list. Hyperion.
The Titan of the East was pathetic. He had immense power, yet behaved like a coward. He destroyed all nature in his domain simply because it frightened him. By all accounts, he possessed the strength to crush the resistance at any time. But he drew things out, bringing in hired help and raising foul monsters to do it for him, because he lacked the pride to even fight his own battles. He was a horrible man to his core, one that Artemis didn’t have a single shred of respect for. But the fact remained that she could not beat him.
She was a hunter at her core, and hunters were part of nature. Not only did she lose her throne, she had lived for years in the ruins of America’s largest city, hundreds of miles from the nearest trees. Slowly, it ate away at the power she had left, until she was barely stronger than one of her Hunters.
So she had run. For the sake of the people with her… and because she feared what would happen to her when she lost… she did everything possible to escape Hyperion.
It worked, for a while. But all things come to an end.
As she stared up at a sky full of fire, she knew that was what this was. What else could it be, if not the end?
“Are you scared, Artemis?”
She froze. Her silver eyes darted to the side, toward the boy with black hair and sea-green eyes who just took her first time. Willingly offered, because that was better than having it stolen should she be captured. She’d been grateful he was here with her, so that she need not face this alone, but she couldn’t help the way her anger bubbled out now.
“I am not scared!” she said. A lie. Had she not admitted the opposite to him, just hours earlier? “But what do you expect me to do? I cannot fight that!”
“So you want to give up?”
She gaped, speechless. All she could do was hurl a hand toward the sky, gesturing at what was certainly death waiting to descend upon their heads. Not her own, of course, but it would still scald her body. It would be the death of everyone she worked so hard to protect. It would be the death of this boy. Those flames wouldn’t stop until the very ground they stood above had been seared into a desert, and this boy thought to criticize her for not stopping it?
He wasn’t cowed by her anger. He grabbed both her shoulders, staring passionately into her eyes.
“I’m asking if Artemis, goddess of the hunt, wants to give up?!” he bellowed.
“Of course not!”
The words had left her mouth before Artemis properly recognized them. None of her doubts had changed. Escape was still impossible, and victory unthinkable.
But she also had no choice but to recognize a different fire. Her gut still burned with rage. She yearned to reclaim her glory and ride out to meet that ignorant Titan in battle, blasting him with her full might.
“I want to live, gods damn it!” she shouted, clenching her hands at her sides. “I want these people to live! They deserve to! I want to reduce that arrogant fool to an over-proud jackalope! I want to fight, even if it costs me the last breath I will take for a thousand years!”
That, more than everything, got under her skin. She couldn’t even stall the Titan this way, as he swooped in from above with his full might. She couldn’t claim one last battle and sacrifice herself to wound him, the way her dear Lieutenant found a fitting end. She was forced to sit and watch the cinders descend.
Only then did she realize the fierce expression on the boy beside her had disappeared. Smiling, he gave her shoulders a soft squeeze before letting go. Hyperion lowered his arm. Fire sank toward the earth, eager to eat away whatever hadn’t yet been destroyed by his rule. Perseus didn’t care.
“You can always do something,” he told Artemis. “The only way you lose before the fight is over… is if you give up.”
He jumped.
He didn’t merely go inches before falling toward the ground. In fact, he didn’t fall toward the ground at all. Artemis’s keen eyes, sharper than any other predator’s, picked him out in detail as he accelerated straight toward Hyperion’s flames. She saw the changes that came over him.
His body grew in size, until he was approaching the height of Hyperion himself. His limbs grew, while fissures appeared along his arms and legs, bright colors growing in these cracks. His head was the only thing that remained the same, just as handsome as it had been when he stood beside Artemis. His smile, though? Artemis could see how that had changed. It was angry; eager for violence. He yearned for what was coming.
When Hyperion spotted him, the Titan redirected his flames in Percy’s direction. An attack that should have immolated blocks upon blocks concentrated on Percy alone. Unable to dodge, Percy was struck.
Artemis flinched. She wanted to look away, but that would not have saved her from the worst part— his raw bellow as the flames enveloped him.
Artemis hated it. She wanted it to end, feeling powerless all over again. Yet it wouldn’t end.
Why wouldn’t it end?
Perseus should have burned away by now. Even a minor god would have suffered that fate. But the last of the flames burned away, and there he was still, even his clothes unharmed. Artemis forgot how to breathe.
He wasn’t just a god. He was a true god, at least on par with an Olympian. How?
Artemis didn’t know. She didn’t understand what was happening at all. But while she stood there, grappling with what was in front of her, Pandora’s last treasure came back to her, nestling in her gut after being absent for so very long. Perhaps, with him, they might be able to escape to fight another day.
“HYPERION!” Perseus bellowed, his voice audible for miles.
Something started to glow between his hands. It was brighter than any torch Artemis had seen, like a miniature version of her brother’s sun chariot. It grew in size until, without warning, Perseus released it.
A beam of pure heat — just like what struck him — cut through the night sky, striking Hyperion before the Titan had time to do more than shield his face with his arms. It enveloped him completely, lighting all of New York’s ruins with its glow. There was only one word for it.
Recompense.
“Percy Jackson,” Artemis said with wonder. “What have you become?”
Comments
snapg00
hell yeah! wish this got more votes in the polls
Lord Mehmeh
Yay
