57 Pain.

She was only twelve when she met Athena for the first time, five years later, when she was seventeen she became Athena's follower and the only person who Athena accepted to be close to her, and it had been a year since then and no one knew the reason behind Athena's choice not even Susan herself.

"Ok, Athena I'll do my best, I will surly join the fight and I won't bring you any shame." She said hastily.

"Of course you won't bring me any shame, after all you won't be participating in the war, I'll just take you with me to make you see what a real war is like, you will spend all your time next to me, you aren't allowed to leave my sight." Athena answered with her usual cold voice except that it had a hint of teasing.

"Ok I will" Susan said dejectedly.

Athena looked at Susan and sighed in her heart, if not for the happening and changes in the world she would never let Susan leave her sight or participate in a dangerous mission like that one, but she knew that the world had changed and that she may not be able to protect her forever and that the time when she would have to depend on herself will eventually come, so she had to start training her and showing her the true meaning of a war, after all she had to make sure that Susan will stay alive, even if she herself had to die while protecting her.

"You go and rest for now, we will be leaving the day after tomorrow, the meeting place with the other Gods will be on Lana's western continent after that we will head straight to the new and unknown Area." Athena explained a little bit about what was going to happen before finally chasing her away.

Lana was the name of the blond and green eyed woman; she was the God controlling what's known to us as America, her relationship with Athena wasn't that good.

***

"He's waking up." that was the first thing Dan heard after he opened his eyes.

He tried to turn his head and look around him to see who was talking but he felt a mind numbing pain coming from his neck.

The pain returned him to his senses and made him finally wake up and leave that stat of muddle headedness of his, as he finally returned to his senses he remembered what happened to him.

Smiling bitterly to himself he tried to use his eyes to look around him without moving his neck or any other part of his body, because even without trying to move he understood his body the best.

He knew that he was hurt all over and that his body was a mass at that moment, he didn't know what had gone wrong but almost every muscle in his body was destroyed when that thing entered his body, and they were still in a bad shape even though they recovered a little.

"Hey man just how did you end up like this?" Nero said, it was his first time seeing Dan so powerless like that, and he found if somehow funny as for most of the time he seemed in control of whatever was happening.

"I... Ehhh" Dan tried to talk but then he found out that even his jaw's and face's muscles were injured, and the pain surprised him.

"Don't try to talk and absolutely don't try to move, I think that every single muscle in your body is injured and every, or any movement you will do is going to be one hell of a painful journey." Katherine's voice sounded from his side.

Doing his best to endure the pain he said:

"G... Get me a ba... Bath, fi... Five dro...ps, put five drops in it."

Just saying those few words was so painful that he started sweating all over.

"You sure you want to do that? We found you like this because of a blood bath, who knows what will happen to you if you have another one?" Randy asked, after he heard Dan's request.

That morning just like the day before they all met for breakfast together, but it was then that they noticed that Dan wasn't there.

At first they thought that he was simply late and that he would join them soon if they waited for him, but after a while passed and no trace of Dan appeared they started worrying and decided to take a look at his room and see how he was doing.

They stood in front of his room and knocked the door for a while with no response.

It was then that they decided to just destroy the door, and what they saw after dog that was, Dan inside the bathtub motionless.

Seeing that they got a little bit better as they all thought he was just having a season of body tempering.

But looking closely they noticed that the water had no hint of red at all which meant that all the dragon blood was absorbed and that Dan should have awakened long ago, because as soon as the blood is entirely absorbed from the water the human body won't be able to stay under water and it would awake.

So they once again felt that something wasn't right, which made them to finally take him out of the bathtub where Katherine took a look at him and told them that he wasn't in his best shape and that his injuries were kind of bad.

And while they were wandering what happened to him and why he got such injuries he finally woke up, making them quite happy but also curious about what really happened to him.

"It wasn't the blood bath it... It was the Crystal." Dan said.

It was only then that Nero and Randy noticed that there was no Crystal inside the room.

"Man just what did you do?" Nero asked in astonishment.

Dan didn't say anything he didn't want to endure the pain just to talk with Nero about such unimportant things, he just looked at Randy and the others till Robin said:

"Ok I'll go bring it." Then he disappeared from his place before appearing there around a minute or so.

Then they filled the bathtub with water and as Robin was getting ready to throw the drop of water there he heard Dan's struggling words:

"No wait..." he first said those two words after a great effort before adding:

"Leonard he... Heat it, I want it boiling." his voice seemed weak and had a hint of struggle but it also showed his determination.

"What boil it, are you serious? That would only make things worst?" Katherine shoutedafter hearing his words.

"No it won't, just do it." Dan said weakly, he even started wandering if those people just wanted him to talk so he would suffer more.

"Just do as he said, after all he understand about this more than any of us, and he probably also understands his own body's situation more than any of us." Randy said to Leonard who looked at him and the others for an advice about what to do.

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What Randy said was true Dan really understood about the matter more than them, actually while having a body tempering season it would be better if the water was hotter as that would make the rate at which the blood power got absorbed way faster, but because they were only using one drop for the blood bath he never mentioned it, but that time because he was trying to absorb five drops for the first time he thought that he should do it.

"Ok I'll do it." saying that Leonard put his hand inside the bathtub, and soon after it stated getting redder and redder and as that happened the temperature of the water also started raising rapidly.

Just as Dan said before, Leonard's control over his power was astonishing and it was getting better and better as days went on, it was way better then Katherine's control over her power, but while Leonard had control, Katherine had power and growth, the speed at which her power grew was something Dan never understood.

After the water was finally ready Dan looked at Randy before saying:

"Put me inside it before dropping those five drops, remember you can only drop them after I'm inside we can't waste any of them, and also if while inside and after the blood bath becomes clear with no hint of red, I tap my finger on the side of the bathtub just add a number of drops, the number will be shown to you using my fingers, I will tell how much drops I will need by lifting some of my fingers so if I lift three fingers that means that I need three more drops, while holding one means one drop that's it, its simple."

Fighting the pain Dan said all of that, it was an important thing that he had to tell them about as there was a chance of him needing more than five drops, the chance of that happening was small but he still told them about it because who knows if they would be enough or not.

After he told them about all of that Randy finally held him and moved him to the bathtub if someone saw it from the side and he or she didn't understand anything about what was happening, they would totally think that Randy was trying to drown or cook a hopeless Dan.

After doing that, Robin dropped the five drops of dragon blood into the water.

Dan felt weird, the boiling temperature of the water didn't affect him at all instead it wasn't till Robin dropped the five drops that he felt the warm streams of energy entering his body, what he found weird then was that the speed at which they entered his body was hundreds of times faster than before, even if the heat of the water effected it, it shouldn't have been by that much.

At first he didn't understand if it was true or if it was just his misconception, but then when before even falling unconscious inside the bathtub he felt that the streams stopped he opened his eyes and what greeted him wasn't the red of the blood bath, instead it was the surprised looks of his friends around him who were looking at him, who was under water as if he was a monster

.

As soon as Dan entered the water and the blood was thrown in the group noticed that the color of the water started changing.

It first turned from the normal transparent color of the water to the red which always appeared after putting dragon blood in it, and then it started getting fainter till finally it all disappeared.

All of that happened in a speed noticeable for the naked eye, which was the reason why they looked at him like that.

Dan's eyes met with Robin for a while before he finally moved both his hands while struggling and enduring his pain he opened both hands, what he meant was that he needed ten other drops of blood.

After that one season of dragon blood he understood that only five drops or so won't do much of a different and that he needed way more, but he also noticed that he's wounded muscled reacted favorably to the blood bath.