January, 27th 2012

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

Beta for this Chapter: None

A/N: Hey there, loyal readers :)

I have a little present for you ^^ It's an extra long Roman chapter! :D Seriously, these are 4000 words or something x_x I decided to skip a little though I planned that anyway so I guess it's good for all of us xD Plus, I don't know if I can produce another chapter this weekend, maybe the next one will only come on Tuesday or something, I have a busy weekend ahead of me xO.

at saveme57 : Yeah, I actually planned something similar to that XD

at The others: Thanks so much, I'm really glad you appreciate what I write and write a review every time! I'm so thankful I could cry T_T

Now please enjoy :3


Chapter LIV

Percy

Somehow, his mind just wouldn't get around what that sleeping woman said. All the people in the Castra were in danger because of him? Didn't Reyna and the others mention that until the day he had arrived here, nearly no monsters had made it through their boarders? So that creep, whoever she was, was really after him. Slowly, Percy rose from his hammock and walked over to the small bathroom he had –strange enough to have a bath inside a tent. There, he washed his face and enjoyed the cold water pouring down his face and hair, trying to control his breathing.

When he looked up to see himself in the mirror, he stared himself in the face for quite some time. The teenager had little rings under his seagreen eyes that were still a little wide from the dream and the shock he just received. The grey streak in his hair was planted to his face and he stroked through it while he thought about what the creepy woman had said. Slowly closing his eyes, he looked down and breathed out hard. On the side of the basin, Percy discovered his old necklace with the four beads. He had put it there this evening because it was still broken and he didn't find the time or the place to fix it. Now he took it into his hands and stroked over the single beads with his fingers. The last one caught his eye and suddenly, even though he had only seen some strange letters before, he could read the words that were engraved in there. Silena Beauregard, Charles Beckendorf, Micheal Yew and many others, obviously names. They all rang a bell in his head and he had to grab the basin because this gave him even more of a headache than the weird dream had. Why was he able to read those signs? This was obviously no ordinary English after all.

Suddenly, he decided that he couldn't stay here. He put on a few clothes, stuffed the necklace inside his jeans pocket and his pen in the other. Then he walked outside and before he knew it, he was at the beach. More precisely, he was where Lupa had talked to him this evening.

How he got past the wolves? He had no idea. His instincts had led him since his mind was totally elsewhere and the teenager now sat down in the sand where the cold waves would splash over his feet and a stone would block the view so nobody would see him sitting there. The cold ocean water at his feet gave him a clearer mind and he breathed in the soft salty wind around his nose. The sea had just the same color as his eyes and he stared out on the water, his mind finally a little calmer.

Why had this dream caused him so much panic? It was probably really just a dream, no big deal. But no, Percy knew that his dreams seldom were just dreams. As Reyna had said, demigod dreams were something else. Especially when they were about evil women out of earth that wanted you to join them or die a horrible death. One thing was sure: Whatever he did, he would never want to join her. Maybe he didn't belong to this camp but for that was worth, he was pretty sure he hadn't been evil or worked for the wrong side before coming here. If that was the case though, why did he have his enemy-senses tickling when he reached the Castra? Right now, it had calmed down a lot, because he got to know the people around here a little. But when he had been on Lupa's back, riding inside this camp, there had been this urge to either run away or attack everybody he saw at this institution. But why? He was a demigod as well and they told him this was the only place for those to grow up and learn how to fight. So why did he feel like that was a lie?

"What are you doing?", asked a voice behind him and it startled him so much that he reacted on pure instinct and uncapped his sword so fast he didn't even notice before it was at the throat of the person behind him and he was standing, facing the intruder. In the bright moonlight –the moon was almost full- Percy now recognized Gwendolyn. She just stood there and didn't react to the sword at her throat despite the eyebrow that she raised.

"Oh, not in a good mood, are we?" she smiled as the son of Neptune quickly redrew his blade and capped the pen again. Then he sighed, looking down apologizing.

"No, sorry, you just stunned me." He said and Gwen turned around, sitting down at the stone near the water. Percy followed her and sat beside the daughter of Apollo. She was quiet for a while before she looked at him and shook her head.

"What are you doing out here that late?" she asked and Percy just shook his head as a response.

"Couldn't sleep." He said simply and looked away. One more thing to notice about him: He was a terrible liar. Gwen probably didn't buy it but she just continued talking as if that was normal.

"You truly have the reflexes of a Roman soldier. It's astounding you made it past the wolves and patrols and were able to attack so quickly. I wonder why you didn't show up here until now." Percy just shrugged.

"Dunno. Maybe I trained somewhere else. There has to be another place for demigods than this, right?" he asked. Gwendolyn was next to Dakota the only one Percy would talk to about this. None other would believe him about that feeling he had or would even consider thinking about it. He doubted that Hazel would even hesitate to imprison him just for the thought of it. Gwen on the other side just looked at him with a tilted head and when she finally spoke, her voice was full of doubt.

"I don't know…Reyna would say that there's just no way for such a place to exist. But you see…since you came here and the Oracle gave me those visions…I seriously think that could be possible. The question would be why we never heard of it, where it is and why you are here when you were trained somewhere else. Somewhere in between I even had the assumption that you came from the underworld or from another time or both. But that's just crazy." She giggled as if that thought was rubbish and Percy grinned along. No, he was pretty sure that wasn't it. The thing about the other training camp though...that somehow made sense to him. He nodded and began staring out at the ocean again before he talked, changing the subject.

"So…why are you out here that late?" he asked and looked over to her, studying her face. In her own way, Gwen had her beauty too. There were freckles sprayed all over her face and her dirty blonde hair had a strange tone in the moonlight. Her eyes almost glowed green when she looked over to him.

"I don't really know…I just somehow knew that I had to get here." She shrugged as if that was normal and even though Percy wanted to ask further, he didn't. That was just one of the things that felt strangely similar to him, like he knew another person that acted like Gwen, out of unnatural hunches or something. Finally, after another few minutes of silence, Percy decided to tell the healer about his dream. He didn't know why but he felt like Gwen could give him support, like she knew more than she let on and yet was willing to help him out. The blonde listened and nodded sometimes. When the son of Neptune was finished, she seemed to think about his words before she answered.

"I see…so she wants you to join her or she would send more monsters?" Percy nodded.

"Well then don't do it." She concluded simply and shrugged. Percy stared at her astonished and Gwen smiled, obviously amused by his expression.

"Yeah, you see…we can handle those monsters somehow. The Romans are a strong bunch, I'm sure Lupa will figure something out. Or Reyna will. And we'll get your memories back somehow. She's just trying to lure you in, don't listen to that crap. Though it makes me wonder who the hell she is anyway…" Now, Percy had to smile as well. Yeah, that was what he had thought of that dream. Or at least what he wanted to think. Still, these monster attacks were his fault. But it was nice to know that Gwen had such trust in not only the Castra but in him as well. It made him feel a lot better.

They kept talking for some time, mainly about stupid things, like Bobby's expression at his fight against Percy or the soldiers at dinner and how they suddenly changed their attitude towards him. Percy also told her how he could talk to horses, which made her first laugh and then understand what he had said this evening.

"What was that you said about mothers by the way?" he finally asked but immediately regretted it. Gwen's smile faded and she glanced to the side.

"Hey, I- I'm sorry. I didn't know it was that bad! Oh boy I'm so stupid sometimes.." he sighed and facepalmed but Gwen just looked back at him, smiling at his reaction.

"No, it's alright. I just….don't wanna talk about it, okay?" she said and Percy nodded, understanding that. He didn't know why yet but this sure had to be one touchy subject to her so he didn't press any further. If she wanted, she would tell him some day. Soon after that, Gwen suggested they should return to their beds. It was only three hours until wakeup and they had to at least get another few hours of rest.

In the morning, everything was quiet again at the Castra. Percy felt tired as hell but he could keep up with the march way better than yesterday. He almost got used to the healthy food and even got through his regular training plan for the first time. When you subtracted the time he had to help rebuild the destroyed stable and sword training arena.

Roman training was sure hard. But practicing his weaknesses was a great idea in general. It appeared that the son of Neptune had more of them than he was aware of. Of course archery was one of them. Gwen had to keep Percy from shooting her siblings with all her might but at the end of the day, he even managed to hit the target a few times, which caused him to have a little bit of hope though it could have been pure coincidence. In the evening, he practiced his special demigod skills with Lupa. The wolf didn't mention that essence thing again and Percy assumed that she wanted him to find everything out on his own. Though he sure could have used a hint or two because he had no clue. There was so much on his mind that he didn't have the time to make up something for Lupa, much less think about who that earth woman was. Whatever the Roman were, they were certainly not lazy and certainly not easy going. Whenever Percy was finished with one unit, he had to go straight to the other or he would be late. And being late meant running some extra times around the arena. And even if his stamina seemed to be bigger than for some of the lower legions, he still felt like dropping dead as soon as he was sitting at his table for dinner. That was when he noticed that the day had been monster free. There was no attack that he had heard of and no monster that had infiltrated. Was the woman giving him time to think or did she want him to be at ease?

Well that would certainly not happen! But the next two days were out of attacks as well. Percy began to feel better around the Romans and he even got used to the hard training methods. He barely had to make extra rounds around the arena and made great progress with his others skills. The passed nights had been dreamless though, at least there were no dreams of Annabeth and also none of the earth woman. It had disappointed him a little if he was honest – the part with Annabeth of course.

Concerning the training, Lupa was the only one not content with him. His water powers wouldn't improve to the extent they had been on his first day here and Lupa said they should give it a rest until he found out what she had said about the essence of his power. When he didn't find that out, her lesson would only tire him and bring nothing more.

So since the water training was cancelled, she had another suggestion for him. The wolf goddess told him about something they called the "mist". Everything she explained sounded reasonable and normal to Percy and some pieces of the puzzle that was his memory seemed to fall into place. What Lupa now wanted to teach him was to control the said mist. It would make mortals think what he wanted them to think. Somehow, he had the urge to snip his fingers when Lupa told him about this. Strangely, she really told him to do that when she told him the movement to the manipulation and Percy wondered if and why he had known about this before.

In his sixth night at the Castra, it was the night after the winter solstice, where they had a feast in honour of the gods (there was a strange chill in the air until then and Lupa had been away pretty often. After the feast, things had come down thought. Percy didn't know if he was the only one who had noticed the strange feeling in the air though), something really strange occurred. The horns were blown and suddenly, the whole Castra was filled with soldiers that had armor strapped over their pajamas. Percy, being a full member of first legion, still had no clue what the heck was going on, so he was only half dressed when Dakota knocked on his tent like crazy. The daughter of Venus had befriended with the teenager pretty well in the last few days but now her voice sounded eager, almost in panic.

"Percy! Come on, hurry, we need every soldier. There's like a whole army over by the forest!"

An army? Attacking the Castra? Why did that ring a bell? Faster than he had ever dressed, Percy got into his clothes and stormed to the entrance of his tent, fingering at his armor stripes. He said nothing to say to Dakota any further and just followed her when they stormed of in the direction of the noise. It was the middle of the night and since his training had been especially hard the day before – some Mars kids from second legion had challenged him at dagger training. They obviously didn't like him, nor did they like fighting fair and square. Plus, Lupa had drained all his strength by the extra stamina lesson he received. Man, that goddess sure knew how to make him tired -, Percy didn't exactly feel like standing up, much less like fighting in the middle of the night. He drew his sword and it gave away a slight glow as they walked by. Dakota was holding a lantern which had strangely bright red fire inside of it. Since he wasn't in the mood to ask about it, he just let it drop.

When they reached the fight though, he had to say something.

"Oh man…" he whispered and shook his head. Honestly, there were many monsters. He made out earthborn and giants, Dracanae, hellhounds, Empousa, … One of the latter was fighting especially hard. She had a one on one fight with Reyna and pushed the daughter of Mars away from her just as Percy reached the fight. The Soldier flew right into Percy's direction and he caught her just in time so she wouldn't fall over. She didn't thank him but cursed and got up quickly, glaring at the monster. The Empousa had dark skin and hair, her eyes were blazing red, she was obviously not going for charming any more.

"How can that bitch still be alive? I killed her just a few days ago! My kills normally last way longer than that..." Reyna said and glared at her enemy. Percy raised an eyebrow and eyed the monster. As soon as the Empousa saw him, her face lightened up and she transformed, suddenly she was a teenager with a beautiful face and dazzling dark eyes and she was coming closer to the small group of soldiers. Dakota was still beside him, Reyna stood half in front of him and Percy glared at the monster with recognition into his eyes. Suddenly, her name flashed through his mind.

"Kelli. Well, nice to see you took the wrong side…again." He said with a smug, pointing his blade in her direction. Now that she appeared like a teenage cheerleader, she looked very wrong between all those monsters but nobody attacked her as she kept walking towards them, smiling. The son of Neptune had no idea where the words came from but he spoke them with such certainty that Reyna and Dakota looked at him, astonishment in their faces.

"You know her? So she wasn't bluffing? I don't believe it…" Reyna said and shook her head in disbelieve. Finally, when Kelli was only a few meters away, she stopped walking. The fight went on around them but it was as if the group was in some kind of bubble because Percy just saw Kelli and his friends beside him.

"Oh yeah, I know him. How could I ever forget such a nice young man? Even if he's famous for slashing my allies, I guess he'd be worth a kiss. What do you think, Percy?" she asked with a sweet voice. His arms wanted to sink and he almost wanted to step forward even though the back of his mind told him not to.

Suddenly though, Dakota stepped in front of him and pointed at the Empousa with her sling. Her expression was furious and her blue eyes glared at the monster with such intend that it was almost scary. Now, seeing her, Percy felt a lot better. Kelli's aura had been so heavy, almost forcing his brain to work slower and lower him into her trap. Now that Dakota stood before him, he could suddenly see what had made her sparing partners lose every time they fought her. The daughter of Venus had a sphere of soothing warmth around her that made you feel attraction towards her. It got Percy motionless for a short moment before he caught himself again, reminding himself of the monster they faced.

"You're not going anywhere near him and most of all not his lips, you slut!" Percy was stunned by those harsh words from especially Dakota and Reyna seemed stunned as well, looking at her friend with wide brown eyes. Kelli just raised an eyebrow at her and then looked back at Percy, grinning.

"Oh, you got yourself a new girlfriend? How delightful. I guess you either really don't remember or you're just even sweeter than I thought…" she smiled her sweet smile but Percy wasn't affected any more. He just glared at her with his green eyes and didn't react to her hint about Dakota any further. When Kelli realized that her normal matters didn't work, she began attacking again, this time heading right for the son of the seagod. Reyna wanted to interfere but Percy shook his head.

"It's alright, I got this. I have the strong feeling I fought her before. Dakota, you better stay near me though…" Reyna seemed irritated but she nodded, attacking another monster close by. Together with Dakota and her bullets, Percy was able to withstand Kelli's spell. It was a lot easier when the Empousa transformed fully again so her appearance didn't startle him anymore. Around them, the other monsters were slowly drawn back, seeing as they had received further support from the wolves and even Lupa herself, which Percy really didn't expect. After a few minutes of fighting and Dakota beside him tiring greatly, Percy finally managed to land a severe hit on Kelli. The Empousa had a nasty cut across her chest and a hole in her metal leg. She wailed and then glared at Percy, obviously furious. Her voice was not louder, as if it was broadcasted all over the meadow and she had a slight victory glance in her dark eyes, even though her feet already began to dissolve into dust.

"Oh, you Achilles imitators think you're so great! Just you see, I'll get you one day. I'll come back from Tartarus to hunt you down again and again!"she now fully laughed, her brown-red eyes staring at him as she seemed to be lifted up into the sky while dissolving. Her voice could be heard all over the meadow while Lupa bit the head off a last monster.

"But maybe I don't have to. I just have to see what they do to you when they find out you're actually a Greek, Perseus Jackson!" she laughed loudly and evilly, until her face had disappeared from the face of the earth.

It didn't matter.

Suddenly, no monster mattered. Not that there were any more left anyway. It was of no significance anymore because when Percy lowered his sword, every Roman soldier present stared at him. And there was everybody present, even all of the wolves and Lupa. Every single eye was fixed on him as Reyna was the first one to move again and grab her swords tight while she walked over to Percy, looking like she was about to explode…


Yeah, they know it now. I had to pick Kelli as a monster again because 1. It's cool how Dakota gets all defensive and 2. because it's for the Romans to see how fast the monsters revive already. And yes, Percy finally learns how to control the mist! I always wondered why he never does, Thalia learns in the third book and Percy never mentioned it after that. I wondered if he already knew it but since it wasn't mentioned, I did it here instead ^^. So yeah, let's hope they don't kill him now that they found out about him..._

Please tell me what you think, there's enough to write about in this chapter I guess! :o I'd be really happy if you wrote something :3