Disclaimer: I own nothing except your souls…. Kidding, just seeing if you were paying attention. Read and enjoy. Tell me what you think.


Chapter 3

There was a girl, Reyna. She was praetor, which was like supreme boss lady, it figured. I think I've met her somewhere but that wasn't the strangest thing. I kept zoning out, like I was remembering something but there wasn't… there wasn't anything to remember.

I'd been here. A very, very long time ago but I'd been here. I didn't have any memories but I knew that this was a good place for me. There was that poking feeling in my brain again that I fucked off out.

Reyna and her lie-detector dogs weren't what bothered me, what bothered me was the auger. Hazel took me up to see him, to assess whether or not I could join the legion. He stole my panda bear pillow pet that I had been dragging across the country and sliced it open.

"General Fuzzikins," I cried in offence, "He was the sole survivor of the battle of Toys Or Us. Not even the fire breathing dragon could destroy him." They looked at me like I was high and he said I could join there army. Joy. Then the auger, Octavian made a comment about the sibylline books when I inquired if there wasn't an oracle.

"No good, they burned in Pompeii," I murmured in a dazed voice.

"What?" he cried. I snapped into attentiveness.

"Hmm, what did I say?" I said shaking myself. I did that sometimes, saying something that I didn't know what I was saying. I just moved on. Soon I was assigned to the fifth cohort. The ghosts that floated around, Lares, they looked at me strangely and started to whisper together.

They looked happy about something, really, really happy. I got the strangest feeling that it might be me. They kept praising Juno and whispering. Maybe I had been here before and they remembered me. Then I started, why would the ghosts remember me and no one else?

That was a question that I just didn't have an answer to. The nudging in my brain hadn't stopped. Why was that? What was that?

I didn't know what had gone wrong and it had to be wrong because my head…

"Time for war games," Hazel said cheerfully, nudging me in the shoulder. I snapped to attention.

"Like capture the flag?" I asked, she looked at me strangely, "I like capture the flag." The elephant that I had seen before, Hannibal came sauntering down to the field, covered in a bulletproof vest. "War games with the elephant?"

"Yeah, he gets upset if we don't include him," Frank said smiling, "The fifth cohort never wins, not since Jason disappeared."

"Oh sweetie, we're going to kick ass," I assured him, because if there was one thing that I could count on while my memories had gone down the crapper, my ability to deal massive amounts ouchies to anyone that wants to fuck with me had not.

"Oh, Frank," I said slapping him on the arm when he looked like he doubted me, "Frank."

"What?" he asked me slightly irritated.

"They've got water cannons," I said with a vicious smirk. He matched it and grabbed Hazel, whispering into our ears, forming a plan together. We followed Hazel through the twists of the underground and came up near the wall of the first cohort.

"Climb up," Frank said in a hushed whisper, "Perci get the water cannons, then we'll attack and drive them towards the rest of the cohort." It worked like a charm, I thought wickedly to myself.

I pushed the water to swirl dangerously around them and spin them around until they were so dizzy that they couldn't stand up properly. Unsheathing my sword I ran headlong into the onslaught.

The sound of metal clanging through the air calmed me, and something in me shifted into focus. This was good, a sword in my hand and an opponent to fight. This was right. All to soon it was over and then tragedy struck.

"No," I yelled as the spear impaled the young girl. Then things got worse… she didn't die. Gwen her name was and it was obvious from the blood-curdling scream she let out that she wished it had killed her. I could see her body shaking as she stifled sobs.

"What do we do?" someone asked, I didn't remember who. Whispers were breaking out through the crowd and it was heading towards a witch-hunt if someone didn't take control of it soon.

"Help me pull it out," I said turning to Frank.

"We can't she'll…" he trailed off in a panic as her glazed eyes focused on us.

"What? Die?" I asked humourlessly, "She should be dead already and if we can get it out I can try and fix it." He nodded and held her down while I ripped the spear out. She contracted and let out another scream.

"What's going on?" Reyna demanded. I didn't answer though I was busy. I pulled all the water I could to me. From the air, the earth, anything I could and reached deep inside myself to heal the damage.

The little niggling feeling in the back of my brain became more intense and it promised the power I needed to save Gwen's life. I tapped it and suddenly I was consumed, there was the radiating dry hotness of a desert, and bloodstained calm.

Who the fuck are you? I asked it ask I watched ruptured organs repair themselves, blood replenish and muscle knit together, as skin smoothly slipped back into place.

Perci, the presence thought desperately. Shock burned through me along with an, oh gods please, let it be.

Tony? I asked tentatively, hope practically flooding off me in waves. In the background there's a god. Mars. He starts talking, claiming Frank as his son. Everyone else is kneeling, but that's just to bad. I'm busy.

It's me, he reassured me, sending waves of relief. I'm not sure how to describe what happens next. It's as if my soul sighs in contentment and I slip myself around him as if it's a life long habit. I could see the skyline for what I somehow knew what was New York, we weren't two people anymore. We have to find each other, we thought in unison.

Then Mars demands my attention and Tony fade softly into the background. Still there and listening, but not the primary focus anymore.

"You kept saying we'd see you again," he mused, "I wasn't the only one that had started to think that it wasn't ever going to happen."

"I knew I'd met you before," I said and my vision was suddenly overtaken with the image of a field drenched in death and blood, he was standing next to me with a bloodthirsty smile that was matching. Heretic's my brain supplied. "You haven't changed a bit," I murmured.

"So you do remember something?" he asked with a steady glint in his eye.

"No, well yes, but then I automatically forget it again along with what ever I said in the two point five seconds I get to remember it for," I explained before my tone turned scathing, "Thank your mom for me."

"You don't remember anything then," he said before getting a wolfish grin, "So won't you kneel as befitting a child of Rome?" I laughed.

"You want me on my knees? And you haven't even bought me a drink yet," I shot back. Raucous laughter filled the clearing as the god tipped his head back.

"No, even completely amnesiac and you haven't changed a bit," he said smirking before becoming, "Romans, I come with bad news. The doors of death are open and Gaia's forces have captured Thanatos. With him locked up, monsters are returning quicker than they should, mortals long dead are back and people that should be dead are not."

"Obviously," I snorted to the collective gasp of around two hundred Romans and one elephant, "We noticed, now skip to the part where you tell us what you want. Uncle Jupiter wouldn't send you down here to confirm what we already know."

"If you were anyone else, you would have been incinerated by now," he commented breezily, "But the last time we tried that, you said bring it on…. To bad we need you."

"No, you don't," I replied candidly, "I think you guys would miss me cuz."

"Anyway," he said sending me a mock glare, "I am ordering a quest, go forth to the land beyond the gods and free Thanatos from his chains. Thwart the giants and their plans, beware of Gaia."

"Lord Mars, who would you wish to undertake this quest?" Reyna asked after doing the polite bowing and scraping thing. Octavian follows and I thought that if he kissed ass any more than he already was he'd lose his head up there.

I wasn't paying attention when he nominated Frank for the quest but when he turned around and said I must go I kicked him in the shins.

"Sweetie, your being a dick and so long as your demanding like a five year old, you…" I started before pausing to think of the appropriate way to phase what I wanted to say; fuck it I decided "Can shove it up your ass."

"I wouldn't mind shoving something up your ass," he retorted with a grin.

"Keep it in your pants," I replied with feigned disinterest.

"Your so mean," he pouted. I raised my eyebrow at him. "Haven't changed a bit, still drinking Venus's cocktails?"

"Are we flirting?" I asked baffled, "Is that what we do? Flirt."

"All the gods flirt with you," he answered with a shrug, "Most of the goddesses to. More of a game than serious, you humour us."

"Because I can see you needing humouring all the time," I responded smirking. Octavian interrupted before he could say anything else.

"We need a prophecy Lord Mars, for the quest," he requested. Grumbling he took out a scroll and changed on of his grenades into a pen, turning me around so he could scrawl down a makeshift prophecy.

"Don't you guys have an oracle for this?" I asked curiously, "There something about and oracle and red. Or is it R E D? Meh, it's gone now." Thunder boomed.

"That's my call to go," Mars said tossing Octavian the scroll, "Here, read it, keep it, engrave it into the mirrors in the girls room, I don't care. Just don't fail."

"Nice," I scoffed, "I'll miss you to."

"We did you know," he said with a wistful smile, "Miss you, everything is so much more interesting when your around." With that he exploded into a column of flame and pissed off back to Olympus. Peering over Octavian's shoulder I read the prophecy.

"Go to Alaska, find Thanatos and free him. Come back by sundown on June 24th or die," I read, "Well finally, a prophecy that I can get behind."


Done…. You know I really don't have anything to say except review and on with the next chapter.