Rise of House Neptune

Centurion

Chapter 18

When Percy opened his eyes again he had to blink out the bright light that nearly blinded him. His awareness returned slowly as he took in the white walls around him, and realized he was in the medicus. The son of Neptune had been here many times before, but never for anything too serious. He knew he was in one of the emergency operating rooms, and wondered how bad the injuries he sustained were. He didn't feel beat up. His head was hurting as if Mars were hitting him with a baseball bat, but other than that it wasn't so bad. As he took in his surroundings he noticed at the foot of his bed were a mountain of cards, assorted candies, and even a six pack of bottled cokes sitting there waiting for him.

As he began to stir and attempt to sit up the machines he was hooked up to started beeping, and not even a full minute later did a familiar beautiful brunette spill into the room. The girl's smile lit up as soon as she saw him, "Percy you're awake!"

Gwen was standing there in dark purple scrubs. Her blonde hair was pulled back, and she immediately went over to the machines silencing the call alarms. Going to work she wrapped a blood pressure monitor around his arm saying, "People have been holding off the celebrations for nearly three days. We knew you had overexerted, but the longer you were out the more serious we feared it was. Not many people have the kind of power you do, and when we questioned Jason about his overexertion he said he had never passed out from it before. What you did out there was nothing short of amazing. The Praetors, and the senate have both met, and the people are demanding you be given medals among other honors to thank you for what you did."

Percy looked around the room as he recalled his final stand off with the Trojan Sea Monster and the damage it had brought to the Golden Gate Bridge. Percy asked hoarsley, "How many did we lose?"

She quickly fetched him water, and her smile never left her face, "Percy we didn't lose anyone. All legionnaires fully accounted for."

He let out a sigh of relief, but knew it wasn't just them that had been affected by the battle, "What about the mortals?"

The smile slipped off her face briefly, "It wasn't good, but honestly it could've been a lot worse. No one blames you. In fact the death toll most people were guessing made people down right thankful for your intervention."

"How many was it Gwen?" Percy asked a little more snappily than he meant too.

She sighed pulling up a seat looking at him sadly, "Thirty five dead, three hundred injured. The only ones who died were ones that fell into the water where the Trojan Sea Monster's impact broke the bridge. Percy when the Cypress Street Viaduct collapsed in the 80's 42 people died. A monster came from Tartarus, and broke apart the bridge during seven o'clock rush hour and thirty five died. It's nothing short of a miracle, and honestly probably a bit of Olympian intervention."

Percy stared at her feeling a cold grip in his stomach. Thirty five people would never get to go home because he failed to kill the monster in his first attack. He wanted to be sick, but she put a soft hand on his arm, and leaned over giving him a kiss on the cheek, "Percy, what you did was above and beyond what anyone here would have expected. Jason, Bianca, and Mark told the story. You fought the creature in the waters, got smacked around, used all your energy, came back, and still had the power to finish it off. Had you not done what you did, and the monster had been allowed to breach the Little Tiber this death count would've been in the thousands. You saved New Rome. You saved us all."

Percy felt his cheeks warm at the contact, but said nothing for a few moments, "My trident...It broke during the battle didn't it?"

Gwen gave him a sad smile, "Broken beyond repair I am afraid. Jason took it to your fathers shrine, and left it on the altar."