*This chapter was written by Metal Pen with some minor edits by me

Chapter 9 – Doctor's Orders

Apollo had taken it upon himself to do exactly as Zeus had suggested and see to treating Percy's wounds. He may have attained an incredible sense of immortality but Apollo was still a God that directly governed medicine and by extension, the healing of nasty scars such as the ones that Percy had scored. All that aside, Apollo wasn't about to lose the chance to examine Percy, however brief it was he was still going to be able to at least ask him a few questions before he no doubt went off to fight his next big ass target.

"So how did this all start?" Apollo asked, looking at a medical clip-board while Percy was sat upright on a hospital bed in only his trousers and boots. Apollo had stopped the bleeding and caused the new layer of damaged skin to already knit itself together over the open wound but no amount of divine healing was going to render it as fresh skin, those three claw marks were going to be immortal scars on his immortal body.

Percy sighed, he rarely got the chance to have a humorous side these days so it was only natural that when Apollo had given him the chance, he was straight up going to take it, "For the sake of exposition I'll try and keep it short. It happened a certain amount of time ago when I recovered Pandora's Box." The conversation had gained speed like a ball rolling down hill and time became something that neither of them were taking any conscious notice of.

Eventually, Artemis had returned to Apollo's temple to see what was taking Percy so long as he'd agreed to help with the Hunt for a day, mostly to make sure that Zeus hadn't accidentally fried anyone while she'd been helping Percy to hunt down Dragons.

As she walked into the room, she heard what she was already certain was Percy pulling a prank on Apollo. "And there was one they feared!" His knack for dramatic flair was almost as impressive as most other things that he did, "He was, in their tongue, Dovahkiin!"

"What?" Artemis announced her arrival in total deadpan. She was wrong, she had no idea what Percy was doing as she watched him energetically leap onto a chair, thrusting his hands towards the ceiling as if he was speaking directly to a higher being. "DRAGONBORN!" His vocals shook the room from the sheer power and volume that only his voice was capable of. It was obvious to both of the divine archers that Percy wasn't being serious about any of what he'd told Apollo.

"No, I've played that game, you won't pull a fast one on me Percy. Come on, I've done you a favor with stopping your wounds from opening up again, you gotta tell me what's really going on inside your... Human façade, that is what I can only assume I'm looking at." Apollo told him, looking on in fascination. His words had hooked Artemis in, he'd caught onto that extremely quickly but then he had been able to examine Percy quite a bit today so she'd not been expecting anything else.

"I am what I am Apollo. I would say that I'm no longer a Demi-god but I still have all of my power that I did as a Demi-god but on the other hand I am pretty much entirely a Dragon, even physically." Percy shrugged quietly. He hadn't expected to have ever told anyone that yet here he was with the other divine archer, letting him in on the closely guarded secret of his.

Apollo took this in and regarded it as something that he'd have to think about another time as there was something far more pressing on his mind and now that Artemis was there, he'd get a chance to get a straight answer from it.

"OK, there's just one other thing that I wanted to ask." He said neutrally. Snapping his fingers together, the door at the end of the room closed with a small click. Artemis merely raised an eyebrow but in her mind she already suspected that she knew what was happening.

"Percy, when Aphrodite threatened Artemis, and there's no mistaking that is indeed what that succubus was doing, you fired off faster than I've ever seen anyone go to the defense of another, let alone the Hero of Olympus and the Goddess Artemis, which, no offense sis, speaks for itself."Apollo had put it out there, the thing that was on his mind ever since that meeting.

Percy wasn't really sure what he could tell the God in front of him, both himself and Artemis barely knew how to deal with the attraction they had both tried to fight off so what the Hades could Percy say to Apollo? He knew that Apollo had always held a pretty well hidden side of him that was nothing less than a protective older brother, not that Percy believed either one of them to be any different in age, they were twins after all.

"So what's going on? Whatever is said in this room stays in this room, doctor/patient confidentiality." Apollo grinned with a flash of his pearly white teeth.

"You... What? So because I defended the only other person that is hunting Dragons with me, you naturally assume that there's something going on?" Percy asked in confusion. Artemis could tell that Percy must've not known exactly what had happened when he'd nearly destroyed Aphrodite's throne because he seemed to be genuinely unsure of where Apollo's initiative towards the two of them was coming from.

"It's not just that Percy, you literally broke down Aphrodite's throne with your hands and told her to back off. The only thing that stopped you from slaughtering her was a single simple touch on the shoulder from Artemis. Now are you both going to stand in front of me and try to convince me that there's nothing going on between you?" Apollo smirked. This was the first time in their lives where Apollo wasn't jumping the gun to skin any man that tried to win Artemis' favor.

Especially after Orion, what she'd expected Apollo's demeanor towards Percy to be was nothing short of hostile and even so, since the time before Percy was the Hero of Olympus, Apollo had favored him over all others.

Apparently there WERE perks to being the God of prophecies. His damn foresight came in handy when he'd tried to hustle Ares through bets on whether or not Percy would survive all of his ordeals.

"You're right and wrong Apollo." Percy whispered with his head hung low and his eyes glued to the floor. "There is definitely something there but neither of us know what it is." His voice was almost inaudible. "So," He reared up, his brilliant smile and shining emerald eyes full of mirth and joy, "If you could just let it go until at least we figure out what it is, I'd appreciate that a great deal. Please and thank you. Also, please don't try to kill me, not that I'm sure I can die, but I still feel pain so that wouldn't be too fun." Percy frowned, lost in his own world. The mental and physical pain of still having superfluous nerve endings wasn't such a great thing when he was immortal.

"Fine." Apollo sighed heavily, "But it's about time that someone came along and brought Artemis back from her thousand year old depressive rut of hating men. She always steals all of the girls that are going to turn into the super cute ones." Apollo produced a frown of his own.

"I'm standing right here you know." Artemis announced loudly, not happy with the way that both Apollo and Percy had just continued their own personal conversation without her. She'd expected it from Apollo but from Percy? The one who couldn't stop his senses from going into overdrive whenever she was around him? She hadn't thought that he'd just blank her completely.

"Sorry Artemis, I'm sure the two of you have a lot of work to be doing. Oh, one last thing Percy." Apollo quickly ran to a desk on the far side of the whitewashed room and picked up yet another clip-board, this one looked far more like a results sheet.

"I've analyzed the way that your body recovers when I did a few tests. I can't let you leave this place unless you promise me that you'll have at least one full day of rest from this point onwards before you go hunting another Dragon. If you don't let your body recover then slowly the damage will start pilling up to the point you CAN be hurt and your mental health will start to diminish." Artemis' heart skipped a beat. So there was a catch, something that caused a huge explosion in the gap between Dragon and God. Percy COULD be hurt in a way that shadowed physical pain entirely.

"Artemis, I expect you to enforce the doctor's orders. You can do physical activity over the next day if you wish but nothing too strenuous on your wounds or you'll undo the last hour of my healing. A half an hour soak in a large body of water three times a day and you'll be more or less OK to take on your next target. That's all, see you guys next time you come to Olympus." Apollo waved before leaving through the door that had been behind him. Once he was gone, the door he'd locked when Artemis had walked in was re-opened and they were clear to leave.

"A whole day? That's going to be so boring, I don't want to sit at home for a whole day. I need to do something or I'll go insane from boredom." Percy sighed before reaching for his coat and clothing the majority of his chest, save for the centre where the coat wouldn't reach. The three fresh claw marks were on show as Percy had ditched the bandages as Apollo had basically forced new flesh to knit over the top.

"I need to check on the Hunt as my father is the one looking after them at the moment, if you behave then you can come with me and spend some time hunting with my girls. That reminds me, what exactly IS your next target?" Artemis asked, waiting for Percy to check that he had everything he needed.

"Um." Percy said with a totally dead-panned face, "I'll tell you later." He quickly grabbed his silver sword and slung it through the open hole in the back of his coat. He'd put the scabbard inside the back of the coat which meant there was little chance of him losing it.

Artemis thought it was a little strange that he'd so suddenly not tell her where they were going next but said nothing. He might not have decided where his next target was just yet. Artemis took a silent breath of hope that nothing went wrong when they arrived at her camp. Instead of just flashing into the centre of everyone, she took herself and Percy to the outskirts where she knew at least Zeus and a few of her older hunters would be able to sense the two of them.

Approaching the edge of the camp, she could already see the telltale signs that they were being watched by eyes unseen, yet judging from the way that Artemis could see Percy's eyes darting from spot to spot out of the corner of her own silver eyes, she believed that he had already found most of if not all of the hunters that had come to investigate.

Before she could do anything, Artemis saw the unmistakable sign of an arrow flying straight towards Percy's face. In the split-second that the twang of a bowstring had reached their ears, she witnessed something that she didn't think he could do while he was in his Demi-god body. He reared back for a brief instant before roaring towards the silver arrow that blitzed towards his open mouth like a platinum bullet.

A blazing inferno of hellfire, all perfectly contained within a precise cone, had shot out of his mouth. The roaring heat had singed everything around the displaced air that Percy had unleashed his breath upon. The only thing left of the arrow was a smoldering clump of near molten metal that had been misshapen from the sheer heat.

"Nobody fire any more arrows!" Artemis demanded immediately, holding her hands up in front of her with a scowl present. She looked at Percy who remained fairly casual all things considered. Smoke slowly billowed from his nose before he burped in surprise and covered his mouth.

"Excuse me, still not used to doing that." He shrugged with a slight smile on show. He was progressing much more than he thought he would. The two of them continued to walk further into the camp, most of the Hunters would be expecting an explanation for the reason why a previously missing Demi-god was right beside their mistress, poorly clothed for one in the presence of Lady Artemis.

"Now would be a good time to tell me where we're going next so that I can explain what's going on." Artemis muttered quietly, knowing full well that Percy of all people would have heard them. Zeus was sat on a log next to a fire looking incredibly relieved to see the two of them, if only to relieve him from his task of watching the Hunters only for a little while.

Artemis waved at him which meant he was allowed to go while she was there. A lightning strike and the King of the Gods was nowhere to be seen.

"Ah about that... We're going to Wales." He told her sheepishly. Artemis rounded on her heel with the speed of a fired bullet.

"Please tell me it's not what I think it is." She said with wide eyes. There was a fine line between myths and legends, and the things of reality when it came to the world of the Gods but what Percy was insinuating was just ridiculous.

"The Welsh Dragon is an Ancient Dragon from Pandora's Box, arguably one of the most powerful. Like... Four maybe five times stronger than Azazel the Dragon of death." Percy told her with a shrug and a guilty grin. There was a reason that he hadn't been planning on telling Artemis the next target because he doubted that she'd known about the reality of the Welsh Dragon.

"Put it this way," Percy's face had turned to that of stone, "He's so old and powerful that my species gained it's name from him. In our tongue, we are Ddraigs, but his NAME is Ddraig." Percy warned. Artemis' heart dropped, they were going to fight and try to kill the pioneer of all Dragons!?