A/N: update to fix the shifts in pov outside of dialogue in all three chapters.

Ch. I

There were very few things Percy could remember prior to waking up and seeing the blood matted fur of a wolf's snout, and moving my eyes upward were those malicious calculating eyes of something beyond my years. Those few things being a warm smile and misty blue eyes, and for some reason whenever he thought of those images the more distant, they became. But there was something more important at the moment, the snarling wolf in front of him.

"Hello, young one, it is time to make you Roman." It spoke in a voice that bordered on the line between feminine and masculine. Now, he was no expert, but Percy was pretty sure wolves are not supposed to speak English. Or any language for that matter, and the way its snout opened and closed to make the words… unnatural.

"H-h-hello, uhhh, talking wolf thing….?" He replied scared for my life and shaking in my socks.

"If you are to be Roman you will address me properly, sea spawn, you will call me Lady Lupa, do you understand me?"

The young boy, barely the age of four, by Lupa's estimate, gulped, fearing for his life at Lady Lupa's response. "Yes… Lady Lupa… where am I, and why am I here?"

Lupa sighed, after the last child of Neptune who leveled her precious city and caused her children to move to where New Rome now resided, she was adamant about not training this child. There was no way she would allow ruin to befall her city yet again and add on the fact that she was expected to train the very thing that would cause ruin… preposterous. However, when two Olympians, and two of the most powerful ones, ask something of you, you do it. So here she was, training a, rather young, son of Neptune who would undoubtedly help to disrupt the peace of her city if the Sibylline Books were to be believed. And they were to be believed. "I have already told you young one, you are to be trained to be Roman, and you will not leave until I deem you worthy of joining my city. You will learn to obey the command structure, and to be able to survive on your own should you need to." Came her stern reply.

Percy backed up and froze when he felt his back hit the wall of the empty pool, this would not be easy, or fun, he thought. What was the worst was the tone in which Lady Lupa spoke to him, it seemed resentful and angry, and it seemed to him that positive emotions were something completely unavailable to the wolf, though he decided to keep that thought to himself.

Over the years, Percy, who was now 10, saw more people like him come to the wolf house, ranging from his age of 7 all the way to 12. From these events he learned multiple things; one, Lady Lupa did in fact have access to positive emotions, acting like a mother to anyone who crossed the threshold of the Wolf House, two, they never stayed long, a few months at most, though there was one girl who had messy black hair and electric blue eyes, who looked about a year older than him, who stayed around a year, but he was kept separated from all of them, even her, and their only contact were passing glances but she too had come and gone, and third, he started to hate the way he was being treated by Lady Lupa, nothing he did was good enough and was dismissed like he was a child, and not a roman, and that made his stomach churn in anger, and with each day and another dismissive comment the loose stones of the Wolf House's burned walls would shake loose, even if he didn't know it himself. All this weighed on his mind as he kept training, desperately trying in some small way to gain Lupa's approval and entrance to New Rome until July 23rd of his 8th year at the Wolf house, on Neptunalia.

"You need to stop treating me like a child Lady Lupa! I have been here eight years now, when will I be good enough for you! Let me join the legion, give me your approval!"

As the yelling disrupted the peace and quiet of the forest, Lupa was growing aggravated, this thick-headed liability still did not understand what it meant to be Roman, maybe he never would, she was not the one who he needed to prove his worth to. To be frank the way he has been using her title of lady as a way to antagonize her over the years was truly making her reconsider her agreement with his protectors. "If you don't understand why you have not been permitted access to the legion yet, then you cannot leave until you do, is that understood Perseus Jackson?"

He started growing red from the neck up, whether it was from embarrassment, anger, or both, Lupa would never truly know, she was not mortal after all. "I told you… to just call me Percy, you know how I feel about my mother… aaaargh!" with an animalistic yell he lunged at Lupa with his training gladius and the ground shaking enough to catch her off balance. Of course, Lupa was a goddess and as such a little imbalance was not going to impede her that greatly, seeing Percy swing down his blade while still in the air, she allowed herself some moment to vent her frustrations and swatted him away while using some of her godly strength. As he landed, back first against a tree, blood immediately started seeping out of the gash she gave him, three individual scratch marks starting at the shoulder and converging to go down his arm and stooping at his wrist. As he laid there writhing in agony he screamed, pleading for someone, anyone to help, none came.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small creek, nothing important for the average person, but Percy was no average person. Percy was a son of Neptune, and after numerous long, and somewhat aggravating, lessons from Lupa he knew that the water would heal him and give him a boost to his strength. When he reached the water… not much happened, he still hurt, that much was true, and while he was no longer bleeding there in place of the bloody gash was fresh pink scar tissue. This day, the day of his father and his self-proclaimed birthday, for he did not know the actual day, he gained a lesson that would sit on his arm till the day he died: no matter how hard you tried, mortals were no match for gods, and with that he passed out.

When Percy woke up, he found the Wolf House seemingly deserted, and not being able to shake the feeling he was being watched. Seeing no one who could be watching them and thinking he was abandoned, yet again, he set out to find the legion. He had overheard Lupa telling a Demigod who passed her tests, Percy did not know how the Asian kid who still had his baby fat had gotten her approval, that he would find the legion at the Caldecott Tunnel in Berkley, so to Berkley he started walking, none the wiser to the two deities about to argue about his very training.

Once he was gone, Lupa came out of a shadowed corner in the ruins of the Wolf House looking noticeably much calmer. "Lady Vesta, how may I help you, am I to train another Roman?" she asked, extra careful to tread lightly in the presence of an Olympian, even a peaceful one. For some reason though Vesta started glaring at Lupa, and when Vesta started talking, she knew she was in trouble. "No, Lupa, we need to talk."

Author Notes: this is a bit of a darker and grittier take on a roman Percy while also exploring his fatal flaw. Let me know what you think, I am hoping to work on this little by little and get all the way to the last Olympian, pairing is undecided if one even happens. This might even stretch into HOO. Anyway, this is me signing off for the night, see ya!