Hope you all enjoyed the cliff hanger! Well, it was an extremely lame one but a cliff hanger none the less!

I love writing this story so much right now! My new policy due to the semi-successfulness of it is ten reviews = update. I hope it's not too much to ask, but I almost had five hundred visitors for chapter 5, so ten reviews shouldn't be too hard to muster up!

This chapter should satisfy, I spent hours on it!

Enjoy!

###

At first they couldn't find what was after them. At least until they stopped for a moment to breathe and a great shadow passed behind them. No one could find their assaulter.

Until Reyna looked into the trees. She saw it first.

The large reptilian monster was one Annabeth had hoped to never have to run into. Its head was boxy, it had eyes as big as silver platters, and scales that reflected the hints of light peeking through the dense clouds. Its eyes were the color of tar; same with its body. Gigantic claws protruded from its metallic paws, which oddly looked a bit like emo chicken feet.

But this creature wasn't anything like a chicken. It was curled around the base of a huge oak tree, its serpentine shape sent shivers down their spines as smoke curled up from its nostrils. Leo couldn't believe what he was seeing. He'd had a machine like this creature before, but he'd never seen a real one.

A real dragon.

Annabeth stepped back accidentally, her movement causing the great creature to lift its head and roar ferociously.

They gave up standing still and ran for their lives. Their feet moving faster than any of them ever believed possible. Reyna could feel the ground shaking as the great behemoth slid out of the tree and came after them. She turned around to see how close it was; she needed to know whether it was close enough that she needed to turn around and sacrifice herself to save the others. She couldn't risk all of them dying before the two demigods out here somewhere found out who they were.

What she saw was enough to make her stumble and smash her head into a large branch.

The dragon's eyes were glowing a bright and fiery red and its mouth was opening to reveal the flames caught on its tongue.

She scrambled up and added another burst of speed. She had no way of stopping it from coming after them. Her wimpy dagger strapped to her side had no way of saving them from this monster.

She pumped her legs even harder when she saw the body of water Annabeth and Leo were diving into.

But she felt the flames licking up her side before she could reach the water. She collapsed to the ground and slapped at the spot where she could feel her skin melting and sizzling away. The flames went out quickly, and the adrenaline pumped thick. But not thick enough for the pain to be dull.

She knew it would hurt much worse when the adrenaline ran out completely, but she couldn't help writhing in pain. The fire had coated for right side, from her hip to her breast. She felt self-conscious, she could feel that her shirt was gone from that side, same with most of that side of her bra. But the pain kept her decently in check as the dragon finally slithered directly in front of her, his head leaning forward as his eyes glowed crimson.

Suddenly a dagger was embedded in the dragon's right shoulder and it reeled back in pain.

She felt someone's hands slip under her armpits as she was pulled into the cool water. The water made the pain flare up her burns so dramatically she almost blacked out.

"Please, try to stay with me," she heard Annabeth whisper before she couldn't take the pain anymore and finally let her conscious drift off.

###

Jason hissed as he climbed over a log. His legs were burning. It wasn't from over exertion or even what he had thought was just being sore earlier. It was pain that would flare up every time he moved.

Percy glanced back at him. "You okay?"

Jason gave Percy a smile, but it was clearly strained. "Yeah, just a little sore."

Percy stopped dead in his tracks causing Jason to tumble into him. His balance was off due to the pain bursting through his legs so he fell flat onto his back causing his minor headaches and neck pain to ignite once again.

Percy swore softly. "Oh my god, sorry." This time Jason couldn't manage to keep his bravado up. He winced and dug both of his palms into his eyes to try to dull the pain exploding in his brain. "Jason? Oh my god, what is it?"

He grimaced when Percy's hand pressed hard against his thigh as he leaned over Jason to look at him. "My head. It's pounding."

Percy slid their backpacks off his shoulders; he'd taken Jason's when he noticed that he kept rolling his shoulders and rubbing his neck. Jason had protested, but Percy just blew him off.

He sat at Jason's side and placed his hand on his shoulder. "How bad?"

Jason gripped his fingers even tighter into his hair and tried to keep himself calm as the pain just intensified. He could feel his eyes watering. "I think it's a migraine."

Percy frowned. Jason had never had a migraine before, at least not any he was aware of, and the way he was shaking told Percy it was even worse than Jason was letting on. He'd had a foster mom who had to spend days in a cool, dark, soundproof room due to migraines. He was also fully aware of the fact that Jason tended to downplay things like pain until they became unbearable. Which meant that if he was acknowledging this…

"My foster mom used to have them. Here, relax and roll on your side. That always helped her." Percy pulled a spare shirt from his backpack and formed a makeshift pillow on his lap. Jason slowly lifted his head onto Percy's lap before curling up on his side. Percy ran his hand softly over the younger boy's shoulder and felt how tense he was. "You need to relax, trust me, I'll help…" He tried to keep his voice soft. Noise made migraines flare up.

Jason felt another wave of pain assault his senses and he hissed. He'd been beat up before, broken bones, concussions, everything imaginable. But nothing had ever hurt like this. Nothing. He felt like his head was imploding. He dug his palms further into his eye sockets, like he could rub the pain away if he could reach it.

He wasn't sure how often he drifted off into unconsciousness, or how much of it was just natural zoning off, but no matter what, the pain was present. Banging against his skull, making his eyes water no matter how hard he tried to stop himself from crying.

Percy was rubbing his shoulder, and thankfully he understood every bit of noise was like a hatchet being buried in his head and didn't say anything and made as little noise as possible.

After it had been half an hour, Jason was just wishing to pass out. Praying to whatever, whoever was out there to have mercy and either knock him out, get rid of the pain, or even kill him. Every shift of his chest caused pain, every breath, every twitch of his eyelids, every sound, and light was the worst. Thankfully, Percy also knew that and had compassionately placed one of his hands over the ones Jason was digging into his eyes to block out even the smallest rays of light.

Luckily, after an hour, he finally passed out.

###

I know… they both just felt like going out cold on me. XD Next chapter will be lots of cute hurt comfort along with some serious torturing of my poor babies!

So, I didn't intend for this to happen, but another pairing seems to be cropping up. It's pretty obvious what it is, so for those of you who see it coming, what do you think?

Next chapter will be up really soon. I love writing this story right now so every free minute will be devoted to it!

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

~Ann