Chapter Three: Praetors & The Coliseum
"The last centurion in coliseum today is centurion Piper Mclean daughter of Venus, centurion of first cohort!"
Right on the cue, a beautiful girl with chocolate brown hair and color changing eyes came into Percy's sight while observing the son of Vesta carefully.
"Drop your weapons and surrender." She commanded with so much confidence so that Percy had to use every single ounce of his strength to fight off the sudden urge to obey whatever she says. He felt exactly the same many years ago when he first met Piper's mother, Venus in her Greek equivalent as Aphrodite during the quest to rescue Artemis.
"I hope you are more than just a charm speaker and a pretty face." Percy commented, surprising Piper since nobody, nobody has ever been able to resist her charm speak before.
Piper snorted before unsheathing her Imperial Gold dagger and charged at Percy. She made a quick but dead accurate stab at Percy's chest, only to be blocked by Percy's own dagger.
The son of Vesta and the daughter of Venus went back and forth as they exchanged blows after blows. Piper is a very brave yet intelligent and lethal fighter with the great skills she possessed over a dagger that rivals, if not surpasses Percy's. She's so much like Annabeth when she fights with her dagger. Annabeth…
Piper thrust another jab at Percy's right side, only to be blocked by Percy with the hilt of his dagger. Piper tried to bring up her dagger again, but Percy's strong hold kept her dagger arm down.
Percy suddenly raised his dagger and slashed it at an opening on Piper's left wildly, making a small cut on her forearm before the daughter of Venus scowled and met Percy's next strike with her own.
Piper stabbed her dagger at Percy wildly, the son of Vesta took his chance and sidestepped the overextended strike, grabbing her wrist with his free hand and knocked the weapon out of his opponent's hand with the hilt of his dagger before Piper could recover.
Surprising to Percy, Piper extended her leg while Percy went to disarm her, sweeping the son of Vesta off his feet before pulling out a Gladius that was strapped on her belt.
She thrust her sword arm forward to point the blade at Percy's neck, only to have it colliding with the floor of the coliseum as the son of Vesta quickly regained his composure and rolled aside from the strike.
Percy jumped backed on his feet before Piper could attack again and unsheathed his own Gladius. Sparks danced wildly in air as metals clashed with immense forces. Percy locked blades with Piper, forcing the daughter of Venus backs step by step with his superior strength and unrivaled skills.
Piper purposely loosened her grasp on her Gladius as Percy suddenly forced the blade out of her hand with much energy. Taking her chance, Piper swept Percy's legs with her foot, only for Percy to jump up, out of her reach in anticipation.
Piper cursed internally when Percy pointed his Gladius against Piper's neck, after trying and failing charm speak one more time, Piper yielded grudgingly.
Percy gave Piper an impressed smile, the test has actually been more difficult than he'd originally expected. Piper is by far the most skilled centurion he'd sparred with, surpassing Gwen's skills by a little.
Reyna stood up from the main stand, holding her Gladius with her left hand while pulling out a Imperial Gold spear, staring at Percy with confidence and pride as she got into a fighting stance.
Percy's face morphed into a serious expression. Reyna is, no doubt the best fighter in the legion, even Jason himself admitted it earlier, he know what he's gotten himself into, the fight of his life.
He strapped both his Gladius and dagger back into his sheathes.
Percy then brought out Anaklusmos and Aegis respectively. His bronze sword is one of the most powerful blades ever created, and his shield rivals the original Aegis belonging to Athena herself.
Without warning, the son of Vesta and the daughter of Bellona both charged at the same time.
Reyna thrust her spear at Percy's chest while swing down her Gladius at Percy's head with a deadly arc. Acting on battle instincts, batted the spear away by its blunt with his own Aegis, the one he named as Egis in correspondence to Aegis. Just like he's done so many times before, blocked the Gladius with Anaklusmos.
Percy fainted a swing at Reyna's face which she had to block with her own, giving him a chance to get inside her defense. Percy pressed harder and harder, but Reyna managed to parry most of them.
The two demigods backed away from each other, catching their breathes as they circled each other, both seeking an opportunity yet neither willing to make the first move.
Then Reyna charged, swing, stabbing and slashing, giving Percy a good fight as he struggled to keep up with Reyna's movement. Reyna fought with great agility and strength yet she kept her stance in check, not exposing an opening even for once.
The daughter of Bellona stabbed her spear forward while Anaklusmos was battling over domain with Reyna's Gladius, giving Percy a good size of knock even Egis blocked her spear in time, his left arm temporarily going numb, causing Reyna to smirk slightly.
Reyna has some cuts and bruises under the chinks of her armor while Percy himself took a few nasty stabs and slices, had it not for the Curse of Achilles, he too would be covered with wounds.
Not wasting the chance, Reyna forced down her Gladius even harder while hitting the openly exposed side of Percy's sword arm with the blunt of her spear, knocking Anaklusmos out of Percy's grasp effectively.
However, before Reyna could even start celebrating, an immense amount of pain came from Reyna's right forearm. She looked down only to see a shield being slammed onto Reyna's arm while her arm was being forced down to a knee, yelling in pain as her arm was pressed from both sides with the flat of a hard shield and a knee, twisting as she was forced to loose her grasp on her spear.
With a loud sound of bump, Reyna's spear hit the ground. Before she could even register what happened, her legs were swept from under her. Quickly, the daughter of Bellona rolled aside just as the bronze sword she was certain she just knocked off her opponent's hands only a few seconds ago was plunged down, imbedding the coliseum's floor as a few strands of her long black hair were cut loose.
Faster than she thought possible, she pushed herself up while dodging another wild swing from Anaklusmos. Still holding her Gladius firmly in her left hand as she drew her dagger with her right hand.
Their blades met again as their movements were nothing but blurs.
They exchanged strikes for minutes, making the legionaries gasping, awed by the skills they possessed. Finally finding an opening, Percy delivered a hard kick at Reyna's stomach, making the daughter of Bellona stumbling backwards before putting all his remaining strength in his right arm and slashed Anaklusmos down, yanking the Gladius out of Reyna's hand by sorely force.
With a hard slam from Egis, Reyna dropped her dagger as well, but not giving up yet. What's left of her energy, Reyna thrust forward and launched herself at Percy. The two demigods kept rolling until the end of the coliseum.
Percy was on the top.
Loud cheers and applauses escaped from the legionaries' mouths and hands after they registered the fact that someone has managed to defeat Reyna in one-on-one combat for the first time for as long as they can remember.
Percy watched in excitement as Jason jumped off his seat right into the middle of the coliseum. Controlling wind, that's something new, but Athena has told him about children of Zeus being able to control both lightning and wind before.
Jason grinned when Reyna signaled the start of the fight. The son of Jupiter pulled out a golden coin from his pocket and tossed it into air. The coin transformed into a golden Gladius. Percy on the other hand uncapped his pen, extending it into his trustworthy bronze sword Anaklusmos.
Jason charged at Percy, both of them fought with great speed and accuracy, neither of them has been able to land a blow on each other and it's been five minutes since the two demigods engaged in the fight.
Jason smirked and jumped up, willing the wind to take him in mid-air. His smirk however, vanished as soon as two pairs of wings appeared from the sides of Percy's sneakers and brought him up to Jason's level in air as well.
Percy grinned, before saying, "I like your style."
Jason just shook his head and raised his Gladius, calling down a bolt of lightning before pointing the blade at Percy, redirecting thousands of volts of electricity at the son of Vesta, expecting to see him to fall, but quickly, his and everybody else's jaw dropped.
Percy just smirked and held out his hand, absorbing the bolt of lightning as electricity coursed through his body. Using the power of his namesake's sword, more electricity coursed through his right arm as a much larger and far more powerful ball of electricity formed in his right hand.
Without hesitation, he retaliated with his own blast of electricity. The powerful blast of energy slammed right onto the middle of Jason's chest, sending the son of Jupiter flying straight into a pillar, crushing it while legionaries jumped away from the falling complex.
Jason just stared at Percy in awe and shot himself back up, sending another powerful strike of lightning at the son of Vesta, only to be dodged and smashing another pillar into pieces.
Percy dropped lower from the air to avoid another blast of electricity, destroying a few rolls of seats on the second cohort's stand, knocking out a few legionaries in the process.
The son of Vesta led loose a wall of fire at his opponent, while Jason willed wind to push himself aside rapidly, burning his purple Camp Jupiter shirt in the process, causing a few Venus girls to scream or faint.
Jason growl in frustration before channeling his Gladius with another massive bolt of lightning as electricity danced on his blade. Then, he shot himself at Percy with his Gladius pointing at the son of Vesta with the propulsion of a strong wind that threw a few legionaries off the stand.
Percy ran his hand over the flat of his blade, summoning the energy of sunlight as Anaklusmos glowed in a powerful gold, raw power radiating from the legendary Celestial Bronze sword and everybody else gasped in shock.
Raising Anaklusmos, Percy met Jason in the charge with his own. Two blades clashed as more and more raw power were unleashed from both the blades and the demigods, while their aura only grew more stronger rapidly and glowed powerfully, infinitely closing to the level of their fathers, Neptune and Jupiter.
"Oh Pluto," Reyna's eyes widened in shock before hitting the dirt, "TAKE COVER!"
Some of the Romans were lucky enough to break out of their shocked states and threw themselves off their seats while most others just kept staring in awe and disbelief, unfortunate for them.
The two demigods' aura grew even stronger as all the sudden both glows on their blades died down. A moment later, a loud Bang! Was heard as an explosion came from the middle of the coliseum, blinding every single Roman with the enormous amount of light intensity as the power of the collision reached every single corner of New Rome, blasting both Jason Grace and Percy Jackson away from the middle of the explosion.
A few second later, the glow of the explosion died down and those who witnessed the epic clash between the son of Jupiter and the son of Venus coughed loudly, gasping for oxygen.
"Great," Reyna muttered as she scanned around the coliseum, or what's left of it at least, ashes and smoke covered everywhere as the visibility was still only a little above zero, "Here goes another coliseum."
Minutes later, Reyna's vision cleared and she jumped off the stand. The coliseum was mostly in ruins, almost all the pillars were destroyed, while the stand was blasted away. A huge hole was on the dome of the coliseum, but thanks to the magical enchantments, the coliseum still stood, well…. Only barely.
For the sake of Jupiter…
Soon, more legionaries got back onto their feet and regained consciousness. Many legionaries were dragged to the infirmary, but luckily no casualty was accounted for. Percy was announced to be the victor since he managed to stand while leaning onto a large piece of rock, probably from a pillar. Jason on the other hand, was unconscious after being knocked in the head with a brick of the coliseum during the explosion, but he will be fine.
Praetor's to-do-list of the day:
1. Gather enough Denarius to rebuild the coliseum
2. Pass an act in the senate to forbid the massive use of demi-godly power in the coliseum
3. Design a magical border to shield the spectators in the coliseum from further nuclear-bomb-sized explosions
4. Expand the infirmary
5. Recruit more medics
6. Set up emergency medical stations
7. Re-arrange all activities in the coliseum to the legion's arena
8. Upload the video of Percy and Octavian's fight on YouTube
9. Assign bodyguards for Octavian for his health
10. Build personal training arenas for both Percy Jackson and Jason Grace for the sake of Jupiter and safety of New Rome and its citizens
11. Arrange daily psychotherapy sessions and personal mental counselors for both Percy Jackson and Jason Grace
12. Give both Percy Jackson and Jason Grace a good size of smack upside the head