"No friendship is an accident." , Heart of The West
000
Jeremy looked up, startled at the crack of thunder that came from directly above Camp Jupiter.
"What was that!?" He blinked up at the perfectly cloudless sky in mild confusion.
"A sudden cold wind in the lower atmosphere interacting with normally warm air creating a difference in pressure that collapses with in a loud sound." April, his patron into the third cohort, answered without missing a beat and taking another sip of her tea without looking up from the papers in her hand. He had a lot of academic work to catch up on since he'd shown up to camp a couple weeks late for the normal legion curriculum and she was nice enough to help tutor him. After training their evenings were typically spent at a local cafe run by a lovely elderly couple from New Rome who made the long walk out to the cohorts to serve them coffee and little sandwiches for a couple bronze asses—less than a denari, which April told him was quite the good deal (though he was still struggling to wrap his head around ancient Roman currency).
And right now, he was trying to wrap his head around the thunder that had startled him so badly.
"And this is… normal for Camp Jupiter? I assume that would be Jupiter then…"
"Yes and no," She said, frowning at the work he'd been showing her and checking off an incorrect answer for him to correct. "You'll learn the differences in thunder eventually. That one was a baby-boom, just a little mini one. Jupiter is far louder and can probably be heard in New Rome, but that one was for our benefit. It probably means Jason is pissed."
Jeremy blinked. "Jason is Praetor, is he not?" He made the connection. "He…"
"Is the only current son of Jupiter, so he's got a mini version of his dad's powers." April supplied easily, finally looking at him and smirking in amusement as his curiosity. "I've been waiting for that crack all day."
"Is something wrong to piss him off?"
"You obviously haven't heard then."
He frowned deeply. "Ah… apparently not, since nothing comes to mind."
She chuckled knowingly, taking another amused sip from her tea cup.
000
"He has to pull this crap now!"
"It may be terrible timing for us, but because of our distraction with the reveal to the mortal world, I assume he's counting on us not giving this much thought. Or thinking it's too much effort considering everything else we have to deal with." Reyna said reasonably, eyeing the blonde boy pacing in the Praetor tent like an irritated, caged animal.
She sat placidly at her desk, fingers folded in front of her and watching him walk back in forth in agitation.
The daughter of Bellona had once fancied herself in love with this boy, but when he'd returned from the Giant war it became clear it was not him she was truly interested in, but his power. She was a daughter of war, so sue her for the misplaced affection.
There'd always just been something grand about him, something a little larger than life that captivated her. He was also kind and patient and a willing listener, which of course made him near perfect.
He'd come back from war, and she'd realized he was… a bit too perfect. Too unreal to be real. Too powerful and yet humble, kind and strong, courageous and caring and just… blonde.
Jackson was that way too, but at least he had dense, sort of lost air about him. And he was quicker to anger than Jason was, quicker to block out reason and forge ahead in a distinctly un-Roman way if he thought his comrades were in trouble. Too irrational, to unpredictable for her tastes.
But both were strong warriors—two of the strongest seven demigods alive, or so the two mythical worlds were heralding them. She liked that much about them, but Jason's apparent perfection nearly irritated her and Jackson's blunt-headedness definitely irritated her, so there was no romantic interest anymore (not that she had a snowball's chance in hell with Piper and Annabeth in the picture).
As Praetors though, she enjoyed working with them immensely.
Jason thought like her, worked like her, and when he didn't agree he complimented her faults perfectly with his own opinions. He was more open-minded than she was, but also didn't push into her authority either, meaning the camp could go to him with their problems and he would translate them in a logical way to her that would allow her to figure out the best solution without getting attached or personally involved.
On the flipside, Jason was therefore personally involved in a lot of Camp Jupiter's dealings, so when they came under attack, he tended to overreact.
Jackson was also personally involved, but if anything when he was cornered he tended to under-react, like he was now.
As evidenced by the fact that Jason was pacing in frustration and the son of Poseidon was just sitting cross-legged on his cousin's desk across the tent from Reyna, also watching the blonde teen walk back and forth with a slightly baffled, partially amused look on his face.
"He can't do this," Jason frowned deeply to himself.
"Are you saying that because it's true or because you're just really hoping it is?" Percy titled his head, looking at Reyna now for the answer instead. She shrugged slightly.
"Well… it's not like there were many rules or guidelines to follow for having three Praetors in the first place. Normally, to impeach a Praetor, you would need a petition from the entire legion and a two-thirds majority vote in the senate. There would be a trial, witnesses, character evidence, the whole nine-yards. However since you are not only an unprecedented third Praetor and not a Roman citizen on top of it all, and considering what we know of Octavian… I would not put it past him to try and expedite this somehow. If he has backing in the Senate, all the worse." She frowned.
"This is the worst time for this," Jason muttered darkly. "We're already run thin at our borders with the mortals trying to find New Rome, we don't have the manpower or the spare time to spend a full day playing games with the Senate."
"They can't get in though, right? The mortals?" Percy lifted a brow at him.
"No, but they're attracting a lot of monsters." Reyna sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "There are always monsters wandering out there since they know New Rome is in this area, but with mortals pin-pointing our borders and trying to figure a way in for a picture of something, the monsters are getting cockier. And mortals started disappearing, probably because while monsters don't typically attack mortals, so many of them clustered around and not really doing anything makes them hungry. It's not a crisis but it is a problem and we're already a bit overwhelmed trying to kill monsters, save mortals, and reinforce our borders without ever being seen."
"Two squads have already been questioned by cops when they went off into the city for their days off." Jason chimed in, giving his cousin a wide-eyed look. "They're cracking down for some reason, trying to find demigods although I've no idea what they want with us."
"They're probably just curious," Percy frowned, not sounding entirely sure of that. "But if they aren't… the gods have promised to take action against mortals singling us out."
"The Greek gods maybe, but the Roman?" Reyna sighed. "We're just concerned over our people is all."
"And I understand that; it's what your focus should be." Percy agreed easily, looking back at Jason pointedly. "Let me take care of the Senate then. I'm still considered a Praetor, aren't I? You said Octavian normally would need a petition—well I can go get that petition from the cohorts in my defense instead, and get a feel of the waters out there. If they really don't want me to be a part-time Praetor than I have my answer from the source, not the likes of Octavian."
"And what? Stand for the Senate alone?" Jason finally stopped pacing and gave him an incredulous look. "Sure, memory-less you stood before them once, but can Greek you? Do you even know the proceedings?"
"No," He admitted a bit guiltily, but smiled anyway. "But Nico does, doesn't he?"
Reyna and Jason exchanged startled, albeit agreeing looks.
"He does," She blinked, not having noticed how many Senate dealings the son of Hades had attended when he was pretending to be the ambassador of Pluto in order to be close to his sister. She wondered belatedly how he'd known what to do, but quickly assumed he must've taken lessons from dead Roman ex-Senate members in his spare time to make his cover more convincing.
"So he can tell me what to do and I can work on the petition while you two focus on the actual important stuff," He decided with a grin, Jason still looking slightly uncertain while Reyna just mentally checked it off as another thing to do that wasn't her problem anymore. Now onto the one hundred and one other things she had to do.
But then, she remembered she had two partners here instead of just one, and smirked deviously to herself.
"Sounds fine to me." She agreed smoothly. "And on that note, while you're here Perseus, I was wondering if you could assist on some other matters…"
000
"Percy's not back yet?" Todd frowned, glancing into the Jackson apartment (whose door was open, like always) as he followed the Fleet twins down the hall to the Archstone study apartment. "He missed practice yesterday. As captain I'm supposed to yell at him, but I get it's a family emergency." He joked lightly as the twins cast him an oddly amused glance for their normal stoicism.
"I'm sure he would rather be at your practice," Stephanie said in a melodically monotone voice.
"Annabeth tells us he's being worked to death." Daemon chimed in, an almost-smirk on his lips.
"Right," Todd frowned. "What is he doing again?"
"Helping Thalia's brother." Stephanie explained, but went no further with it.
"And… why is Thalia not helping Thalia's brother?"
"Long story."
Again, no further explanation.
Todd gave a weary sigh. "Right. Well… he needs to come back soon, I want to hear his reaction to this Greek god hoax thing. Kyle went on a half-hour rant this morning about it and I can only imagine it's going to be funnier when Percy's back."
"You still believe it to be a hoax?" Daemon said quietly as they entered the study apartment and found a quiet table in amongst at least ten other kids who were quietly chatting/complaining about their work and/or napping to avoid it.
"There's no way it isn't!" Todd rolled his eyes as he sat down at the table. "I mean, people can claim all they want but it doesn't make it real."
Stephanie smirked. "You haven't been to the garden outside Goode yet, have you?"
"No, why?"
"Hm. No reason."