A/N: Really getting a war feel on here. Battles and such should be starting pretty damn soon. Btw, in a previous chapter it was said that Sun (Hyperion) was already awake. I've had to go back and amend that since I planned for that to happen later on. Sorry! Anyway, enjoy!
Song: 'A Thousand Years' – Christina Perri (this is my Jeyna song, sorry).
Jason followed Reyna all the way down the road to New Rome. He followed at a walk, letting Reyna run on ahead. He wanted to talk, but he respected that she probably wanted to be alone for a little while. She was going to be alone for a while, since Terminus the OCD god stopped Jason at the city boundaries.
"No weapons inside the Pomerian Line!" Terminus declared.
"They're not weapons," Jason insisted. "They're jellybeans."
"Deadly weapons! You can blind someone by throwing them!"
"I'm not going to throw them, Terminus. I promise. And if I make a mess, you can make me measure the length of every blade of grass in the valley again."
Terminus thought for a moment, cocking his head to the side. If he had hands, Jason imagined Terminus would be using them to scratch his chin or the back of his head. Finally, Terminus sighed.
"Fine. You may enter."
Jason raced past him.
"Walk!"
He slowed his pace until he was around the corner, quickening to a run again.
New Rome was mostly empty. Jason passed several half-empty cafés and the empty college. The apartments and houses were bright with yellow lights. A couple walked past Jason, clutching hands and giggling.
He knew where Reyna would go. She and he shared a love for the Garden of Bacchus. It was their favourite spot in the whole of the valley.
She was there, like he'd guessed. She sat on the wall with her back to him, swinging her legs. Stray locks of hair that had fallen from her braid hung in her face. Her breathing was heavy, and his skin was drenched in sweat. Jason shifted from one foot to another before moving towards her and sitting on the wall beside her. She barely acknowledged his presence until he held out the bowl of jellybeans. She smiled and dipped her hand in.
"Comfort food," she mumbled through a mouthful.
"Peanut butter is mine," Jason said, fishing through for a Tutti-Frutti bean.
"Smooth or crunchy?"
"Smooth."
"Ew."
"You into crunchy?"
"Yep. Favourite ice cream flavour?"
He thought for a moment. "Hm… Mint."
"Huh. Mine's vanilla."
Reyna scooped out another handful of jellybeans and examined them under the silvery moonlight. "You know, I have a sister."
Jason nodded. Reyna hadn't been alone when she showed up at camp. Her sister, an older girl, had been with her, but soon left to go north and join the ever formidable Amazons. From what Jason heard around camp, this sister had defeated the Queen and become the Queen of Amazons.
"Hylla practically raised me," Reyna was saying. "Dad was always too high or too drunk to care. Bellona told him that she was a goddess the second time she came to him, when she had me. It drove him insane, knowing he'd been with a goddess. It does that to some mortals. That's why the gods keep their identities from them. Anyway, Hylla raised me until I was five years old. Then, she decided she'd had enough and bundled me away." Reyna chewed slowly on a yellow jellybean before continuing. "She managed to sneak us onto a ship."
"A ship?"
"We lived in Puerto Rico. Hylla got us on a ship. We hid in the cargo bay. The ship was heading to New York, and my sister hoped to find us a better life there. Instead… we got caught in a storm."
Jason shuddered. He hated the sea.
"My sister said it was Neptune," Reyna said, picking the blue jellybeans out of her handful and dumping them back in the bowl. "You know how he was in ancient times. The storm sunk our boat. We almost drowned, but we managed to get a hold of a piece of wood. We drifted for two days, before we washed up on an island."
A small smile crept onto Reyna's face. "It was like paradise. The patron was beautiful. She fed us and housed us. In return, we served her. The island was a spa resort, but only for women. Any men that showed up…" Reyna shuddered.
Jason frowned. "Doesn't sound like much of a paradise."
"We were girls, so for us it was a paradise, especially considering all that had happened to us."
"Who was the patron? What did she do to men?"
Reyna shifted. "The patron was Circe."
Jason's face drained of colour. "Not the Circe?"
"The very same," Reyna said with a short nod. "She was… kind. She treated us like daughters. And we were happy, despite the fact that she turned all male visitors into various animals. Then, Percy Jackson happened."
"Percy Jackson?"
Reyna's face was grim. "Five years after we arrived, he showed up in a life raft with a blonde haired girl, Annabeth Chase, I think. They were demigods, but… not Roman."
"What do you mean, not Roman?"
"Exactly what I said. Call me crazy but… they were Greek."
Jason blinked.
"Percy was a son of Poseidon, and Annabeth the daughter of Athena."
"Neptune and Minerva."
"Yes. Anyway, we greeted them kindly. Circe took Percy away and Annabeth was sent to me and the other assistants. She talked about architecture while I braided her hair. And Circe… Circe turned Percy Jackson into a guinea pig. But, Annabeth turned him and the other guinea pigs back into humans. It was a bad thing to do."
Reyna shuddered. "Several hundred years ago, Circe turned Blackbeard, the son of Ares-"
"Mars."
"Whatever. Anyway, she turned Blackbeard and his crew into guinea pigs and Annabeth turned them back into humans. Blackbeard decided to take his vengeance out on us while Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase escaped. He destroyed the island and tried to take us prisoner, but my sister and I stole their weapons and a ship and left.
"We sailed to Florida, and carried on from there. A scout from the Amazons approached us in Nevada and offered us a place in the Amazons. Hylla was interested, but I wasn't. We kept going until we reached the Wolf House, and we spent two months there. Lupa sent us on our way. We ran into several veteran warriors who told us the way and gave us letters of recommendation. Hylla left me here at camp while she went north to join the Amazons. And the rest is history."
Reyna grabbed another handful of jellybeans and picked out all the yellow ones. She turned to Jason with the half-smile that Jason loved. "So, what's your story?"
Jason shrugged and popped two green jellybeans into his mouth. "Don't have one."
"Everyone has a story."
"Mine's not that interesting."
"Tell me."
Jason sighed through his nose. "Well, uh… I don't remember my mom. She gave me over to Lupa when I was only two."
Reyna nodded. Everyone at camp knew how young Jason was when he arrived at camp. One only had to look at the ten lines burned into his skin to know just how long he'd been at Camp Jupiter.
"I had a sister. She was called Thalia. I don't remember a lot about her, but she used to take care of me. She was the one who looked after me day to day. She stitched me up after I tried to eat a stapler-"
Reyna choked on a jellybean. "You tried to eat a stapler?"
Jason went beetroot red. "Didn't you ever wonder how I got this scar on my lip?"
"I thought it was some accident at camp, not you trying to eat a stapler."
"Yeah well, don't tell anyone that. No one else knows."
"Your secret's safe with me. Now, carry on."
Jason shrugged. "There's not a lot to say. I've spent the last ten years of my life here."
"There must be something interesting."
"Not really."
Reyna sighed. "You're not much fun."
Jason smiled and turned his gaze to the slowly setting sun. For a few minutes, the duo sat in silence and ate jellybeans as they watched the sun sink lower and lower on the horizon, slowly turning the valley dark. The lights shone from the windows of the mess hall in the distance.
"Jay," Reyna said, making Jason jump. "Do you… Do you think we have destinies?"
Jason wanted to question where the nickname suddenly came from, but he instead decided to answer her question. "Yeah, I think we do?"
"Really?" Reyna glanced at him sideways.
"I've been a pawn before, and I'll always be a pawn," Jason said angrily, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms around them. "I've been told by my dearest stepmother herself."
"What?"
"Juno visited me on my seventh birthday. She said dad offered me to her when I was born as penance for cheating on her with my mom. He even named me after her favourite demigod to show how sorry he was." Jason was surprised at how bitter his voice sounded. "On my birthday, she showed up and gave me Ivlivs."
Jason pulled the golden coin out of his pocket and ran his thumb over the picture of the axe. "A few weeks ago, when I disappeared on the way back from Charleston, Juno appeared again. She told me my whole life was leading up to some battle with the Titans, but that I wasn't ready for it yet. She got angry when I said the gods always need someone to do their jobs for them. But, it's true. They can't fight the Titans themselves. They have to get their mortal children to lay down their lives for them because they're too weak."
"Jason." Reyna laid a hand on his arm as the sky thundered overhead.
Jason snorted. "As if he'd kill his own son. He's done pretty well with ignoring me for the last twelve years. Why stop now?" He ran a hand through his hair and turned to Reyna. "You ever spoke to your mom?"
Reyna hesitated for a second before nodding. "I hear her voice in my head a lot, giving me advice and telling me which path to take. She doesn't do it as often these days, though. She knows I need to find my own way. But, if I pray to her, she answers."
"He's never answered," Jason said, glaring up the grey clouds. "When I pray to him, he stays silent. When Smithy and Fiona and Ethan and anyone else pray to their parents or ancestors, they get answered. Not me."
"You're the son of Jupiter," Reyna said. "The most powerful god. He doesn't want to lead you along the right path like a dog. He wants you to lay down the cobblestones."
"I hope you're right."
They smiled at each other. Then, the world shook.
Jason grabbed Reyna by the arm before she fell off the wall and disappeared down the hill. He couldn't stop the bowl of jellybeans from falling. He watched it roll down the hill, jellybeans flying everywhere. Terminus would have his head for that.
Just as the tremors seemed to stop, they started up again, but with more fury. The fountain of Bacchus trembled, the water splattering on the limestone rim of the pool. Jason pulled Reyna down from the wall and crouched down with her, waiting until the tremors stopped. It took two whole minutes, but they finally stopped. By then, the whole of Camp Jupiter and New Rome was ablaze with lights. In the distance, clouds of black smoke rose into the air from San Francisco.
"Come on," Jason said, hauling Reyna to her feet. The two of them ran back to camp, where the fun times had stopped and the panic was rising. Everyone was still sitting in the mess hall. Well, sitting was the wrong word for it. Everyone was on their feet and was shouting at the two praetors and the eight centurions, who stood at the front as always. Jason and Reyna pushed through the crowd and stood alongside their fellow centurions as the Romans shouted.
"What the hell was that?" a girl shouted.
"We don' know!" Smithy shouted. His voice sounded hoarse, like he'd been shouting for a while. "We jus' don' know!"
"Well, find out," someone else called. Smithy opened his mouth to retort when the ground shook once more. Jason fell backwards into the chairs and Harrison landed on top of him. Fiona slipped backwards, but Smithy caught her before she went down. Jason saw Ethan disappear over the back of the couch he'd been stood on.
As everyone regained their footing, an orange light illuminated the world outside. Smithy vaulted over the praetor's table and ran out of the mess hall door, Fiona, Jason and the rest of the legion hot on his heels. They raced across the camp towards the edge of the perimeter, where Smithy brought them to a halt. The campers were joined by the residents of New Rome, who looked just as confused as the legion did. Jason and Reyna stood side-by-side at the front of the lines, their eyes trained on Mount Othrys.
The mountain had exploded. Or, a part of it had. Lava poured down the slopes and ash clogged the air. Down in the city below, the sounds of sirens and screaming was far too loud. People were panicking, of course. They had reason to. It wasn't every day that your mountain next-door exploded.
"What is it?" Yvonne asked from behind Jason.
"It's Sun," Harrison answered for her, pushing forwards so that he stood on Jason's other side. "Trivia warned me this would happen. He's been growing powerful for centuries. And now, with Saturn and the other Titans on the rise, he's back to full power."
"What do we do?" Jason asked Smithy.
The praetor looked lost. For all his power and leadership skills, Smithy was still young. His eighteenth was slowly approaching and he'd been hoping to go back to the city. Unfortunately, it looked as if he'd have to stay in the legion. Smithy ran a hand through his hair and scratched at the back of his neck, like he did when he was anxious. He took two faltering steps forwards, before he fixed his eyes on the mountain. Then, he turned back to the legion, his face hard.
"I wan' every qualified legionnaire back at this camp," he said. "This includes anyone in the city. Our numbers are down. We need the people. I'm sorry, but your studies an' jobs are going ta have ta wait while we're at war."
He marched over to Jason. "I wan' ya ta take Reyna, Harrison, Rebecca an' Theo from the Second out ta recruit veteran warriors. Or, drop off a summons. Let them decide if they wanna figh' for the place tha' housed them for a large portion o' their lives."
He raised his voice so that everyone could hear him. "We're at war, Romans. We are gonna train harder an' longer. We are gonna be a force even the gods canno' reckon with. Anyone not willin' to be a part o' this army, go now."
Jason turned to face the crowd. He expected everyone to stay, to defend their home and their kind, but, to his surprise, people began to turn away and walk, shedding their armour as they went. He saw several families leave, and understood why they left. They wanted to protect their own families before their camp. They didn't want a child to be motherless or fatherless or an orphan. He understood.
When all those not willing to partake had left, they were left with around two-hundred and fifty Romans to work with. Smithy opened his mouth to address them, but Terminus exploded into existence right before Jason, making the son of Jupiter screech.
"Jason Grace!" the statue thundered. "Why, if I had arms, you'd be choking under their grasp right this second!"
"What the-"
"Jellybeans! All down my hill! A hazard and a mess! What a mess! Clean them, Jason Grace! Pick every single one of them up. And, once you're done, you can measure every blade of grass in the valley."
Jason groaned.
A/N: Rate, review, favourite, do your thing!