Hi guys. First of all, an apology. I think it's been over a month since I last posted even though I said I'd try to get the next chapter up soon. The reason is that I'm in college (yes, I'm old) and I work, which means that sometimes I don't have as much free time as I'd like. I am currently in the middle of my finals and the two weeks before this one were just crazy in tests and projects so I was completely out of it. And then I got four horrible reviews from this guy called Tenages that got me really mad and, after that, I kind of didn't feel like writing at all. That's all over now and I'm back. I'll be on holiday from college soon and I won't be working for a while so I'll have more time for the story.

Also, I'll be visiting the US in a couple of weeks, going to the harry potter theme park and then to NY. Should be awesome. Anything you recommend I see?

I haven't heard from Bornlucky101 in a while, hope you're still out there. Thanks to xFireStar, Katherine, FutureOlympian, scizor king, fayfazee, pennameless, wisegirl and tychus for the reviews and also all the silent readers out there.

Chapter 13 – Percy destroys the praetorium (temporary title)

"It's over," thought Percy as Dakota tied him to a chair, tightening the knot with way more force than was really necessary. The praetor looked absolutely furious and seemed ready to toss him into prison and throw the key into the sea. The girls behind her, Reyna and another girl he did not know, did not look any friendlier. They had their swords drawn and were pointing them at his chest, their expressions firm and unforgiving.

He had been taken to a dimly lit room that appeared to be an office. There was a grand wooden desk in front of him, littered with scrolls and parchments and the walls were covered with weapons and paintings depicting great battles and long gone victories. He studied these paintings carefully, until he found one that left him staring for a few moments. It showed the picture of a girl with blue eyes and black hair standing on a ridge and ordering her troops to advance. Until the day before, that picture would have meant nothing to him, just the recreation of another war like all the others in the room. Except that after his experience in the mountain, he thought he could recognize the girl and the setting. It was Rebecca, the praetorof Castra Roma in 1863, the one who had ordered him to fight their blue-clad enemies, and she was standing on the very ridge where Aeneas had taken him at the beginning of his test.

As he continued scanning the room he recognized something else. Right behind the grand desk in the office, there was a sword hung upon the wall, a long cross-shaped broadsword that stretched almost to the ceiling. That very same broadsword had been hanging at the Roman command centre in his test and, if he was not mistaken, the Centurion Zach had taken it to battle after he had shouldered him inside the camp's main tent. He wondered if there was any significance to the blade and to whom it belonged now.

Dakota finished tightening the ropes around his arms and stood up. She then brought another chair from a corner of the room and placed it very close to him before sitting down, her knees almost touching with his.

"Percy Jackson," she said slowly, "is that your real name?"

"Yes," he replied.

"What is Camp Half-Blood?" she asked again.

A strange feeling took over Percy, like someone had suddenly let loose a thousand butterflies inside his stomach. He had no idea what she was talking about but the answer seemed to be on the tip of his tongue, just outside his reach, like when he had tried to remember where he knew Vesta from. He racked his brains looking for the answer and he actually closed his eyes, trying to concentrate.

Dakota's voice broke his focus. "It's on your shirt," she said. "Camp Half-Blood. Is that where you're from?"

Percy opened his eyes and looked down at his shirt. He wondered why he had never done that before, when it seemed like such an obvious thing to do. But, really, he hadn't had much time to take in his appearance, ever since he'd woken up it had been one fight after the other, one risk followed by another adventure and his clothes had been the last concern on his mind. Now, looking down, he could see the shirt had once been bright orange, with letters branded on its front. The words were dirty, ripped and faded and you couldn't distinguish anything on it unless you looked for it. But once you did, you couldn't miss it, there on his chest, like he was a walking billboard for the world, were the words CAMP HALF-BLOOD.

"I… I don't know," he said honestly. "It's just a shirt."

Dakota's eyes narrowed, but she didn't say anything. She approached him slowly and stretched her hand forward. Percy tensed as she was about to touch him but she just reached into his shirt and, with a wrench she snapped a necklace from him, a string with four beads on it, a trident, a fleece, a maze and the Empire State Building.

"What is this?" asked Dakota, dangling the string in front of his face. Percy felt a desperate urge to take the necklace back from her and he actually pulled desperately at his bonds, making the knot ease a bit and the wooden chair groan in complaint. But he restrained himself in time and looked carefully at each of the small symbols he had carried along with him, trying to remember.

"I… don't know," he said again. "I don't know what they mean. They're just beads."

Dakota sighed and passed the necklace along to Reyna. "You know, you're not helping your case Percy," she said. Percy tensed and his chair made a strong creaking sound, as if it were about to break.

"What weapons do you have on you?" asked Reyna suddenly, eyeing his bindings. "That's twice you've sprung that sword on us and it won't happen again, I want you unarmed."

Percy decided that honesty was the best strategy for the moment, so he answered truthfully. "Just my sword and shield," he said. "The first takes the form of a pen and it's inside my right jacket pocket. My shield spirals out of my watch."

Reyna silently took his weapons from him and handed them over to Dakota. She uncapped the pen and watched it transform into the deadly three foot sword made of bronze and then activated the mechanism on his watch, making the large shield appear before them. The praetor laid the shield down on the table and examined the blade.

"There is something written on the sword," she said looking closely at one of the sword's sides, "Ava… something weird." She stopped for a second squinting her eyes at the words, before putting the sword close to Percy's eyes. "What does it mean?" she asked.

Percy saw the words written on the red metal. Αναζήτηση. The answer came to him like someone had hit him across the face with a bag full of quarters. "Anaklusmos," he said with the small jolt of happiness that came with every recovered memory. The three girls looked at him with blank expressions, so he continued. "It means Riptide."

"In what language?" asked the third girl.

Percy doubted for a second, but again the answer came with certainty from the depths of his mind. "It's Ancient Greek," he said simply.

Dakota frowned at his answer but didn't say anything again and she raised her hand to stop the other girls from questioning him further. She took his shield from the table and examined it, passing her hand over its surface, feeling the grooves and rises that created its images, like a blind person reading Braille, as if she could understand the shield's history just by touching it.

Suddenly, she threw the shield to the ground and, grabbing Percy's own sword, she bashed it with all her strength, right in the middle of the pictures she'd been admiring. The shield resonated with a large gong and trembled on the ground.

"What are you doing?" shouted Percy. "Are you crazy?"

Dakota kneeled and examined both the sword's edge and the shield before answering. "What are these weapons made of?" she asked. "This isn't common bronze. If it were, either the sword or the shield would have been dented by that strike, and they are both intact. There was no magic protecting them either."

Percy hesitated for a second. He knew his sword wasn't an ordinary weapon, besides the fact that it transformed out of a pen, but he had no clue what it was made of. "I don't know," he said again, thinking he must sound pretty stupid by now. "It's just special."

"So you just happen to be carrying a magical sword and shield that you can expertly handle," said Dakota, "but you don't know what they are made of? Where did you get them?"

"All right, listen," said Percy desperately. "The truth is, I don't remember anything. I woke up three days ago with Liam and Jamie at a school in San Francisco with no memory of where I came from. The only things that I had with me were the pen and the watch. So far, I have been able to survive out of instinct, not that I actually remember learning to fight with a sword, or remember how to read Ancient Greek."

"Amnesia," said Dakota angrily. "That's how you want to play this. Do you think we're idiots?"

"It's the truth!" said Percy, "I swear, you can ask Liam or Jamie, or even that satyr Garret if he's still alive. I came here to see if I could find out who I was. And I know I'm close, both Aeneas and Vesta told me they knew who I was, but they wouldn't give me any details, I know that if I stay here, I'll find out more."

"I'm done with your lying," said Reyna harshly. "You're going to tell me the truth." Then, without warning, she ran over and pushed him with such force that his chair fell backwards and he crashed on his arms and hit his head against the ground. She drew her sword and put it to his neck.

"Where is Jason?" she yelled.

"Who?"

"Jason! What have you done with him?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Stop lying! Where are you keeping him?"

Dakota tried to grab Reyna but she used her free arm to shove her away with incredible strength, making her crash against the desk. Percy struggled frantically against his bindings and felt them loosening slightly, if he could just get his hand out…

"Where is he?" she asked again. "You know something! Answer me!"

"I don't know! I swear…"

Reyna raised her sword, the tip hovering just six inches above his heart, as if she were about to run him through. He pulled at the ropes with all of his strength and he felt his hands coming free, he was almost there.

"I will run you through, Percy" said Reyna menacingly. "You have three seconds to tell me what you know. One… two…" she let the number hang in the air for an instant and then, "THREE!"

Reyna extended her arm with incredible speed, but just as the sword started coming down towards his chest, Percy's hand broke free from his ropes. As fast as he could, he swung his fist towards Reyna's face, hoping to throw her off of him and divert her sword. As he punched, he summoned all of his willpower and his determination to survive, and in that moment, while his fist charged towards her face and her sword flew towards his chest, he felt a huge tug on his stomach, stronger than the one he had felt when he had fallen from the cliff and he knew that he had called upon that incredible power that had saved his life once before.

But it was all too late. The golden sword came down faster than lightning in a strike that would kill him instantly. Percy held his breath and steeled his nerves, expecting the pain the strike would cause him. But the sword missed his body by a millimeter and sunk into the ground in the small space between his chest and his right arm. Too late, Percy realized that Reyna had wanted to scare the answers out of him and he looked up and saw that there were tears in her eyes, and disappointment.

But it was too late to stop himself. His fist crashed into the side of her face, throwing her off of him and sending her flying into an arm stand on his left, where she dropped to the floor, unconscious. At the same time, the ground started to tremble with the incredible magnitude of an earthquake. The shockwave caused by the earthquake threw the remaining girls to the floor. But the rumbling continued, gaining in power and destroying everything around them. Paintings fell from the walls, the floor cracked open, the desk overturned, all the weapons along the walls and on the various stands started falling and clattering to the ground, the bookshelves fell over, dirt and pieces of marble and stone started falling from the ground. And then, like it were happening in slow motion, the great broadsword that Percy had admired before unfastened and fell, point first, impaling itself in the middle of the desk in the middle of the room, a foot in front of Percy.

Percy felt a strong desire to wrench the sword out of the desk, but it seemed like the whole building was about to crumble to the ground and he realized they had to get out of there before they were crushed to death. He jumped up, freed his other hand from the chair and grabbed Riptide and his shield. Before the other girls could react, he grabbed Reyna and put her on his shoulder, holding her with his shield arm. But, seeing him taking their friend, Dakota and the other girl instantly sprang up and drew their weapons.

"Let her go," said the other girl.

"We need to get out of here!" yelled Percy.

Without waiting for a reply, the girl jumped towards him, brandishing her blade. Percy dodged and ran outside, hoping that the girls would follow him before the whole building collapsed. He ran down the hallway, avoiding rocks and portraits, with both girls close on his heels. He burst through the front door and turned just in time to see Dakota ready to attack him and he managed to raise Riptide in time to parry the incoming slash and then…

"ENOOOUGH!" bellowed someone behind him. It was a yell, or perhaps a roar, and it made Percy freeze in his tracks. It wasn't just the voice's strength that had made him stop; the order given to him had such conviction behind it that it had erased any thought previously held in his head, so that all that remained in his mind was the order and the drive to obey it. Everything stopped then, the fighting, the wind and even the earthquake ceased its rumbling, preventing the building from finally coming down. Percy turned around and saw who the speaker was.

Standing behind him, there was a huge, white and grey she-wolf, staring at him. She was at least seven feet tall while sitting down, with white hair and streaks of dark grey adorning her side here and there. She looked furious and was staring at him, straight in the eyes. Both Dakota and the other girl kneeled reverently, their heads bowed and looking towards the floor. Percy looked around and, for the first time, he noticed that a crowd had gathered outside the building, if it was because of the earthquake or because of the wolf's arrival, he couldn't tell, and that all of them were kneeling as well. Percy wasn't sure what to do, and he definitely didn't want to kneel, so he just stood there, staring back at the wolf. They remained that way for several seconds, neither of them looking away from the other, and Percy got the feeling that something was expected of him, that the she-wolf was giving him yet another test. He studied her and felt that, truly, some measure of respect was due to her, as mistress of Castra Roma, so he carefully placed Reyna on the ground, and bowed to her, without dropping his guard.

After that, the she-wolf broke eye contact and walked forward. As she made her way towards him, she was covered by a soft white light and she transformed into a tall woman, dressed in white. She had grey hair and a stern face, and she looked very similar to Roma, except she had wolfish features and she looked older, fiercer and stricter in character than the goddess had been. She walked slowly up to him and put her hand on his shoulder.

She studied him carefully for a second and said the words that would mark his whole stay in Castra Roma.

"You really shouldn't be here, Perseus Jackson."

Hi guys. Short chapter, I know. More soon, after I finish my finals (Monday). I know there were no claimings or propechies in this chapter, but soon, I promise.

Anyway, bye. Reviews would be very much appreciated.