October, 22th 2011

I don't own any of the characters, Rick Riordan does!

Beta for this Chapter: Mcat9905

A/N: Hello there, my loyal readers! :)

Okay, it's not as stressful as I thought XD. So here's the new chapter because you waited so freaking long for a Roman update. This one will answer some questions but also throw in some new ones that are even more exciting -at least I hope so xP. Guess you'll have to find out yourself! So yeah, this time no long talk, just enjoy the Roman-ness. :D

Now please enjoy!

Chapter XXXVIII

Dakota

No! This couldn't be happening! With horror, the daughter of Venus watched as Percy lost balance and slid off the side of the cliff, the painful way, when the hellhound hit him with full force. She wanted to go after him and punch these monsters to death, but in the next moment, she felt arms around her and saw Reyna behind her, keeping Dakota from running. She had sprinted to that cave to get Reyna here and help him, but even though she succeeded, it was still too late? This couldn't be! Why did he suddenly have such difficulty with hellhounds? He had been so fit when it came to sword fighting with Bobby and Reyna, why not now? Why didn't he just slice those monsters apart? It should be a piece of cake for a son of Neptune! Where did they come from anyway? If it was her, she would say they were the same ones they just killed this morning. But that couldn't be, right? She personally saw them crumble to dust!

"Percy! No! PERCYYYY!" the blonde screamed and tried to get rid of Reyna's arms around her. But the daughter of Mars was really strong, and her glare was imperious again when she whispered in Dakota's ear. The blonde felt how the grip started to make her bones hurt but she didn't care, struggled nonetheless.

"Dakota, calm down. That's an order. There's nothing we can do for him anymore… Hazel!" she let go of the blonde and turned to the daughter of Minerva, who had already drawn her throwing knives. But the now freed Dakota noticed that Reyna also seemed a little shaken by what she had witnessed. As always though, Reyna was the perfect actor and hid it from the other three girls and Bobby. Dakota just sobbed silently and hid her face in her hands, not able to look at the spot where Percy had slid off. The son of Mercury was the first one reaching the hellhounds and strangely, the monsters seemed to know their tricks by now. They dodged and tried to bite Bobby every time his guard was down.

Behind Dakota, there was a noise, and the demigod turned around just to see Gwendolyn. She came closer to the daughter of Venus and suddenly wrapped her arms around her in a hug. The teenager hadn't even noticed how she'd begun crying really bad. This couldn't be happening, right? He fell off that cliff… it was completely impossible to survive it. 150 feet into the ocean with all the rocks down below… no, not even the hellhound who fell with him could've lived through it. Why? First Jason and now Percy… she had begun to really like the guy, he was good looking, extremely strong, and even really nice. That was rare with the normal male soldiers here. She had dated many, and all of them were so focused on power and everything that the romance was practically nonexistent. Since she was in the first legion for some time now, the guys from lower legions tried to vow her so they had privileges. But she wasn't that simple, even if it seemed like that. And she had noticed how the other males seemed to kill Percy with their glares. They should just piss off. After all, Percy didn't ask for the attention. He even seemed uncomfortable with it. That was a little bit like Jason behaved when he was first suggested to be the leader. He didn't like the idea either. Lupa said it to them very often: The best leaders were those who didn't ask to become so. Percy didn't ask. Even if Reyna seemed to think that. He was just too stubborn, but that didn't mean he was obsessed with power. But that was all a bagatelle now, he was gone for good… and it seemed to Dakota as if she would drown in the sea herself, full of grief. Why did the gods hate the powerful and nice demigods that much? It was just so unfair…

In the meantime, Hazel and Reyna had reached the two remaining hellhounds and now delivered them some severe wounds. Reyna was about to finish hers when suddenly, a noise could be heard. Dakota loosened her grip around Gwen and looked up, searching for the source of the noise. It was irritating, like a waterfall but still somehow different.

That was the moment she spotted him.

Percy Jackson was rising from the ocean, his arms stretched out on both sides and around his legs… a-around his legs there was water… so much water. It seemed to carry him and created a giant pillar of ocean water stretched out below him. On top of that, Percy seemed just fine. How could this be, he just fell off a crazily high cliff! Though Dakota noticed strange marks on his throat and wondered where they came from. She hadn't seen them before... Still, now that Reyna, Hazel and Bobby saw Percy, their eyes went wide and out of nowhere, Reyna shouted:

"Out of the way!" in direction of the other two, who didn't wait long to listen to that order. All three of them leaped to the side and out of range for Percy and the hellhounds. Reyna's reaction had been just in time. The son of Neptune had landed on the ground, the water stretching out around him now. He had his sword drawn and the bronze gleamed with a golden light when he motioned his hand without the sword forward and the water suddenly began attacking the monsters. The green eyes of the demigod shone with a gleam Dakota hadn't seen before, and she was sure that it was rage, or maybe determination. In the blink of an eye, the two remaining hellhounds had crumbled to dust from the water and the slices of Percy's sword. And since the dust was in the water, Percy must've told it to return to the ocean, because in the next moment, the dust, plus hellhounds, vanished to nothingness.

Before any of them could react to this fabulous demonstration of his powers, congratulate him, or celebrate that he was still alive, the hero suddenly collapsed on the spot. His seagreen eyes closed and he let out a sound of pain before breaking down completely, landing first on his knees and then painfully on the back. Dakota gasped and she heard Gwen –who had let go of her by now- beside her do the same, clapping her hands to her mouth.

"Percy? Is everything alright? Hey!" the daughter of Venus gained control over her limbs again after the shock died down and immediately ran over. Although the other three were closer to Percy, Dakota was still the first one to reach him, her face extremely worried. What happened? Had the ocean protected him from dying when hitting the water? But why did he collapse then? Kneeling down beside him, she whipped the tears from her blue eyes quickly and grabbed him by the shoulder to shake him awake.

"Percy? Wake up, will you? Please?" she pleaded, and when he didn't react, looked up to the others, panic slowly rising in her chest. She had wanted to congratulate him on the win and cheer him on because he was alive, maybe even kiss him out of joy. But all of that was nonsense now, because she was afraid of experiencing the feeling she had just felt, the feeling of losing him. This must've shown in her eyes when she now looked at his unconscious body.

She squeaked and heretofore she hadn't seen what exactly the marks on his throat were. She lifted her hand now and stroked over them, Percy's face became even more painful and he took a shaky breath. It looked like the marks of a bite, the marks from the teeth of a hellhound. It must've been the one he received this morning, when the three hellhounds had attacked the first time around. But his skin was completely unhurt. Still, where the teeth had hit the skin, he seemed to have purple markings that were now becoming bigger while Dakota watched, starting to build lines that crept down his throat to the wishbones.

The others apparently daunted out of their trance, because Gwen now appeared in front of the blonde, and Reyna landed beside the healer, looking at Percy just as confused, and also worried. Wow, Reyna was actually worried? Yes, that was definitely a first. Well, if you subtracted the many times Bobby got himself hurt. Jason wasn't quite counting. He was after all her best friend. But that was not important right now.

"What happened?" the second in command asked, looking at Gwen who already started to study the marks. Percy's breathing was heavy and his face showed that he was in severe pain. Oh no… this couldn't be good.

"He's poisoned. This is strange… his skin isn't hurt, but it seems like the poison spread underneath it. I-I didn't know that hellhounds have poisonous teeth!" she stuttered and immediately started a chanting to her father, the hands spread out over Percy's throat.

"They haven't." Hazel stated solemnly. She stood next to them, but didn't bother to kneel down. The daughter of Minerva was behind Dakota so the blonde couldn't directly see her, but the voice of the brunette was clearly audible.

"There's someone extremely clever behind this. But I guess we were wrong, Reyna. If they poisoned him I don't guess he's on their side." She had crossed her arms in front of her chest and with her words, rage built up in Dakota's belly button. She had seriously thought that? While Reyna just nodded thoughtfully, Dakota rose from her knees, turned around and glared at Hazel with her blue eyes, hands at her hip. The blonde hair flogged around her face in the usually beautiful way while the daughter of Minerva had her long hair in a topknot, two pencils inside of it as if she was ready to take a note any time. Her anger against this stiff, strategy fixed girl began to rise in Dakota again. She had stopped to argue with Hazel a long time ago, it was pointless after all. But this was just… impossible!

"Of course he isn't! How could you think that, he didn't do you any harm!" she pointed at the daughter of Minerva and then back at Percy, who lay there with his teeth pressed together and sweat that broke out on his forehead. Hazel didn't seem to be in the mood to back down and so she countered, her stormy grey eyes throwing back the deathly stare she was so known for. Dakota didn't even flinch.

"Oh yeah? Well, maybe not yet! You can't say that you fully trust him, there are too many points that tell us he's not normal!"

"But I do! I do trust him! Why the hell shouldn't I, he saved my life!" she stated plainly but noticed how her statement had turned into a shout.

"Oh come on, that was some puny little sea monster! Just because you have that little crush on him, that doesn't mean he's a pure and good person!" Hazel gestured to the sea like it was a disgusting place to speak of, and now also had one hand at her hip, her grey eyes trying to stare Dakota down, even though she knew that the blonde demigod was one of the few persons her death stare didn't work on one bit. Right now, the daughter of Venus herself had a deadly glare on her face. If it came to love, there was nothing to argue with her, no compromises. She had always hated Hazel for her way of thinking about boys. It was almost like she agreed with her poor excuse for a mother who had sworn on virginity for eternity.

"My little crush you say? Well, if you want to be narrow-minded like this for the rest of your life, I swear by the name of my mother that I'll-"

"GIRLS! Will you shut up already? Gwen, is everything alright, you're really pale!" Reyna had interrupted them, kneeling beside the daughter of Apollo all the time and watched her heal. Bobby, who stood next to Hazel, gazed at the lying Percy with even more rage in his eyes than the daughter of Minerva, then shot a look at Reyna's hand that was again close to Percy's, back at the boy s face, and Dakota could swear that the son of Mercury would like to kick the black haired guy even now that he was obviously ill and unconscious. To be sure to protect him from that fate, Dakota again kneeled next to him and personally held his hand, pressing it tightly while she shot the really pale Gwen a questioning glance. She threw Hazel one last deadly stare which determined the conversation to be ended when they were more private before focusing her attention back on Percy.

"No, I'm alright, but…" Gwen paused, whipping sweat from her forehead. "It's just that the healing isn't helping as much as I'm used to… we need to get him to the infirmary, quick! He has a toxemia and I need to show the poison to my sibling Sybille, she's very good at mixing Antidotes. Bobby, could you please carry him, I don't think I can-"

"I'll do that. Guess I owe him one, it's my fault we weren't here early enough." Reyna interrupted Gwen and lifted Percy by grapping his hand, pulling him up and laying his arm around her one shoulder. The other arm was thrown over the other shoulder and she lifted him without much difficulty although Dakota could guess that with his many muscles, Percy wasn't the lightest person in the world. Bobby now seemed close to exploding. The son of Mercury gritted his teeth and glared at Reyna's hand holding Percy's wrist before she grabbed under his legs to lift him from the floor. Carrying him in piggyback, they all walked over to the infirmary, which was a long walk, like it seemed. They passed many soldiers who shot them curious looks on their way. Dakota kept glancing at Percy's face, which seemed more in pain by the second. She couldn't bear this… yeah, maybe she only knew him a day, but hey, wasn't there love at first sight? She was sure that her mother would say yes to that question.

They reached the infirmary after like it seemed an hour and finally, Percy could be laid down on one of the beds while Gwendolyn already disappeared to get her sibling out of tent 7. In the meantime, Percy was already taken care of by another Apollo child, who was from legion two and also a good healer. Dakota didn't know her name -she must've been new in the second legion- but the blonde asked if she could help her, desperate to do something productive. Sometimes, she envied Gwen for her healing, she herself could do nothing but vow as a special power, and she didn't know if that alone was that special at all. They took off Percy's armor and shirt -revealing his sexy upper half- and a necklace he had obviously been wearing, which startled Dakota a bit. Why would he be wearing a necklace anyway? She had already wondered that yesterday when he had taken off his shirt up in the main house. But the daughter of Apollo just laid the bead necklace on the nightstand with the comment that it was useless anyway, the hellhound that had bit him had torn the leather band and Percy was lucky to not have lost the thing until now.

When Gwen got back from her tent, she had brought Sybille and explained the problem. Sybille was a tall girl, also from the second legion and had long, straight blonde hair and almost golden eyes. Dakota knew that she was longing to become the praetor of her tent, and saw Gwendolyn as a tough opponent. In contrary to most of her siblings though, she liked Gwendolyn and could interact with her properly. But that didn't matter right now. Just when Dakota got out of her thoughts, Sybille said that they needed to take a sample of his blood to define the poison. Without that, there couldn't be any antidote made. Gwendolyn got out a syringe and wanted to inject it in Percy's skin. It didn't work. The needle broke right off and left the rest of the instrument alone, no harm done to his skin, as if he was wearing an invisible armor out of indestructible steel. Dakota had wondered since yesterday what spell did that to his body. It made him even more interesting, if you asked her. Sybille was completely shocked, staring at the spot where the needle broke off, but Gwen just nodded thoughtfully.

"Yeah, that's logical. He's unhurt by a sword, why should it work with an injection? But maybe…" she seemed deep in thought and next time, she pointed the needle directly above the spot where the tooth of the hellhound should've hit his skin. Suddenly, the needle sunk in as if Percy's skin was made of butter and just as sudden, blood, colored slightly violet started to flood the injection…

Dudun. Why did it sink in? What's wrong with the steel skin? Strange, right? We'll have to see what it is :D But I'm curious what you think of Dakota after this chapter. And about her fight with Hazel xD. I don't want you to see Dakota as a simple Aphrodite/Venus-b**, she has her qualities as well xD And It's not her fault she doesn't know about Annabeth XP. Anyway! Worried about Percy much? Well, you should be! :o

Please tell me what you think, I'm curious like hell! After all, you wanted a Roman chapter and here you got it! XD