"Octavian, you'd best have something I want to hear," Reyna didn't try and hide her frustration, as she normally would attempt to do. The blonde hesitated, seeing what he could only describe as his superior drinking her morning coffee threateningly. They'd both been up for the past six days setting up an encampment in Central Park.
Originally, after…the incident happened, they'd tried to return to Camp Jupiter, but they were cut off, and herded back into the city. Seeing that the Greeks wanted to play on their turf, Reyna decided not to waste resources trying to escape, but rather to fortify themselves as much as possible, having chosen Central Park. At least from here, the Greeks wouldn't be able to attack from above (from the buildings), and it was the least populated zone in the city…though that wasn't saying much, considering hundreds, maybe thousands, of people a day passed them by. Reyna had no idea what they were seeing through the Mist, but she was sure glad they didn't try and stop them.
Thus, to set up the necessary fortifications it took a long time, and they couldn't afford a break lest the Greeks launch a surprise attack. However, only Reyna and Octavian stayed up the whole time.
Speaking of, the boy finally answered. "Well, the scout party you sent last night hasn't returned," he said.
"Mm," she mumbled a curse under her breath before drinking more of her wake-up juice. At first, she'd sent peace parties, those who were sent in the hopes that they could work something out; she sent two, over the first two days. When they never returned, she had to let go her oath to Jason and accept reality. Over the next four days, she sent two scout parties. They weren't given a proper look at that Camp Half-Blood before they were promptly kicked out, so she was hoping to find some kind of weakness to exploit. They didn't have nearly the amount of resources or manpower as the Greeks, so Reyna knew she needed to end things quickly if they had a chance at survival.
With this message from Octavian, that made the third party that hasn't returned. With a sigh, Reyna held out her hand. Octavian quickly handed her a pen, and she moved to it to the list of names she'd had him scribe when they first established themselves. She crossed off those names of the final party. Already, two of the six centurions, Hazel and Frank who'd gone with this most recent party, and twenty overall Romans had been taken out. With no way of confirming their status, Reyna had to assume they'd been killed. With a heavy heart, Reyna returned the pen.
"At least reinforcements will be here soon," Octavian offered. Reyna nodded. They'd sent two campers back to Camp Jupiter in order to request the rest of the force plus the Amazons. Reyna herself made sure they crossed the city boundaries, barely holding off thirty campers at its edge. Now, it was up to them, but they couldn't afford to just wait here…
"What do you advise?" she asked him.
"What?"
"I've not a mind to repeat myself," she warned, irritable as it was.
"Well, I would…um…" Octavian crossed his arms, quickly becoming deep in thought. She'd asked him that a few times before, which is a far reach from the duties she'd tasked him with in past (as they hadn't had any need for him to act as a war tactician), and he didn't have an answer. She'd been slightly less testy then, explaining how she thought through problems of this scale, and he began with her first step; what they couldn't do. "We can't risk anymore men on scouting. We can't just sit here, and we can't leave," he said, then moving onto the facts that they know. "The Greeks," he took out a map. "Have us trapped in the city; we've seen some of them lurking as close as the edge of the park. So far, no one has spotted them within the park itself," he then moved onto what they didn't know, and what they wanted to find out by extension. "We don't know how much of their populace is devoted to subduing us and thus their total number is unknown. We don't know how far they'll, quote, 'allow' us to go out of our encampment before they attack. We don't even know if they've set up a closer encampment than their home. It's likely that they could be simply defending their Camp Half-Blood, and keeping an eye on us otherwise."
"Romans do not assume about the enemy," Reyna reminded him. "We act as if they are out for our blood, no more and no less."
"Y-yes, ma'am…then…that's what we know," he said. The daughter of Bellona waited for a verdict. "I suggest we take up everything and move."
"Really?"
"The idea of Central Park seemed sound, but it puts us at a disadvantage. I believe we'd do much better in a warehouse of some sort, where we might be able to set up some sort of trap or alarm; as it is, we're relying solely on our eyes…and those have led us wrong very recently."
Reyna nodded knowingly, recalling her mother's form, of all things, butchering an innocent faun. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the thought. Taking a deep breath, Reyna opened them again. "I understand your point, but we've already established here. That's not an option, at least not until reinforcements arrive…if they arrive at all," she said the last part under her breath. Octavian nodded, though looked dejected to have been rejected. Reyna stood and put a hand on his shoulder. "Go and call a war meeting; we both be clearly too tired to come up with something. After you call it, get some sleep, lad."
"But-"
"No 'buts', it's an order," she said with finality, walking past him to go to their designated war tent. She waited a good ten minutes for everyone to arrive; there was some confusing in as to who should come from the Fifth, but they got one of the senior Legionnaires to do so.
Taking a deep breath, Reyna spoke. "Things are bleak, lads. I cannot lie to you. Here's the situation," she relayed everything Octavian summed up earlier. "He believes that the best solution is to relocate to a place where we can more easily fortify, but…I've a mind to disagree; we need to recuperate as it is, do we not?" murmurs of agreement rose briefly. "So then, I ask all of you. What do you think?"
Shock was evident; never before in their lives as demigods did the praetor ask the populace for help; they always knew what to do. But Reyna was desperate, and she truly didn't see any solution to this situation. Nathan, of the First, was the first to speak up.
"A full out attack; send a whole cohort as a scout party and take their attack in spades," he offered, and with it, ideas started popping up left and right.
"We could just wait for the others."
"Yeah, set double watch to make sure no one gets in or out."
"But then they could arrow us to death; they have way more archers and they know this place way better."
"Then what about Nathan's plan?"
"If we're sending one cohort, why not two?"
Reyna listened to them bounce ideas off of one another, almost in awe of their willingness. She'd gotten so used to Octavian, who (bless his heart) was so stuck to his rules that he wouldn't ever think to ask for help like this, that she almost forgot what it was like to have aid without excessive provocation. The daughter of Bellona turned around, still listening to their ideas, mind wandering about the possibilities for back home; they could have regular meeting like this, with all of the Centurions, to discuss possible tactics for war games, or gather the architects for joint collaboration, rather than having to ask someone for help on a biggest project. Her mind drifted back to Tempus, who had first spurred this type of discussion in her challenges to the Senate and to Reyna herself. "I am a novel, and you are a map…" Reyna recalled her saying. If that were the case, then she was tracing their eventual paths already.
However, as she thought about it, something caught her eye. It was innocuous to most, but Reyna knew she saw something. Looking to the corner of the tent, she saw the grass moving a bit, but…there was no wind, definitely not within the tent. Then she saw an even stranger sight; a grapevine, making her think of Dakota, but he didn't live anywhere close to here. She turned around, a crazy thought going through her head. She made a motion for them to keep talking, and then exited the tent, circling around to that same corner, but from the outside. Sure enough, grapevines and strangely moving grass were extended in a line from the edge of the encampment. As quietly as possible, Reyna moved to trace it back, getting to the edge of the camp before they suddenly all retracted in an audible "swish" sound.
Reyna broke into a run, drawing Tabula Rasa and cutting through the thicket in her path, revealing three teens, two around her age, and one looking but thirteen or so, wearing orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirts. Before they could run, Reyna had a blade to one of their necks. "Ah, ah…I wouldn't move if I were you," she said, to which they quickly obliged.
Reyna herded them into camp, where they were quickly stripped of their weapons and thrown into a makeshift cell, hands tied together and tied to Imperial Gold stakes which were locked into the ground. For now, that was where they'd stay. Reyna returned to the war meeting, announced that they had prisoners, and set for Nathan to write down all of the ideas for action that were discussed before dismissing them.
Now that it was quiet again, Reyna couldn't help but give into her own fatigue. Before Nathan left, she put him in charge until either she or Octavian woke up, and then, went to get some much needed sleep.
However, it didn't last long. Only three hours later, she awoke, head buzzing like she didn't sleep at all. Still drowsy, she sat up and stood, exiting, and seeing Octavian approaching her tent. "You praetorship," he bowed his head a bit. "I'd heard that you capture some prisoners, so I took it upon myself to get what I could from them."
Reyna blinked, unsure of what she'd heard. It took her a few minutes to remember his unique abilities. He's a distant descendant of Apollo, as well as a child of Minerva, so he was given a limited use of prophecy. It wasn't useful in the slightest; under most circumstances he could glean some information about a person by speaking with them. But it was basic information like their name and their parents' names and what have you. Not only was it not particularly useful, such as at Camp Jupiter, but it didn't even work half the time, such as with Luke; he had no idea who that man was until he told him outright.
"Oh, right…" she said finally, still exhausted.
"R-Reyna, are you…?"
"I'm fine," she said. "Fetch another coffee. Actually, make it four," she said. Nodding, Octavian handed her a clipboard with the information he got, before making her way to the makeshift cell. She entered, one hand holding the clipboard and the other one her blade's hilt, just in case. "Katie Gardner, Miranda Gardiner, both daughters of Ceres, nice one, and…Pollux, son of Bacchus…no last name…aye…" she muttered, eyeing the three; two girls and one guy, who she guessed was Pollux. The three didn't even look at her. "Avast ye," she kneeled down to look them in the eye. "I want to know what you were doing outside of my territory."
"Would you?" Pollux mocked. Without hesitation, Reyna slapped him, hard enough to knock him to the ground.
"You'd do well not to cross me, lest you be cast out to Davy Jones Locker," she warned as she stood. "Now, this be the situation; I want to know a few things, and you are going to be beaten until you tell me. I've not had my coffee yet, and so my anger might escalate quickly and violently. Is that understood?"
"You're going to torture us?" Miranda, the youngest, spoke up, her voice a mere squeak she was so scared.
"Aye," Reyna said, dropping the clipboard and drawing her sword. "I won't kill you, and doing this is more a blow to my pride than one to your body, but these be desperate times indeed."
"If you think we'll talk, then you're dead wrong."
"Well, then," she said, sticking her blade into the dirt and then removing her armor. "You've obviously never dealt with a pirate's punishment before, especially not the misses."
"What the hell are you-" Katie's voice stopped when she saw Reyna remove her shirt, let down her hair, and then close the tent's opening to block them from view.
Within a few minutes, Reyna exited the tent, shirt back on, cracking her neck. Octavian met her outside, along with the guard that was standing watch, stone-faced as he knew what she would do when she entered. "You, gag them," she ordered. If there was a rescue attempt, she didn't want them screaming for help; that, and she didn't want them chewing through the ropes; she'd seen that they'd started already by the time Reyna got to them. She then turned to Octavian. "Come, you need to scribe," she told him.
"Y-yes, ma'am…what did you do, if I may ask?"
"You remember back when I first arrived…with the Venus spawn?"
Octavian grimaced. "You didn't-"
"No, it didn't actually happen; they broke before I…had my way with them, but it was my intention."
"…You're a pitiful Roman, so dishonorable."
"Whatever it takes to survive, I'll endure for the Legion," she claimed, before they got her to tent. "Ready, lad?" she asked as she began tying her hair back into its normal braid.
"Of course," he said, pen to paper.
"They used their powers to listen in on our plans; they knew where and when we were sending out parties to intercept and destroy them. As well, our lads and lasses are alive and well, they claim; unharmed apparently. This group of three was the only party sent to spy on us, saying that they needed all three of them to reliably get the information and none others had the necessary skills at camp. The Greeks plan to attack in a week's time to snuff us out in one fell swoop," she said, taking out the map. "One attack from the south, a frontal assault. Meanwhile, they plan to send another horde from the northeast," she said, tracing the paths described to her with her fingers. Octavian, after writing down what she'd said, lightly traced the paths with a pencil.
"Do you think we can trust them?"
"Aye," she said. "Even if every nerve in my body is saying we can't, I know we can."
"You have an awful lot of faith in them…" Octavian mentioned.
"Trust me, they spoke true," she assured. "And if they didn't, and I find out, I'm going to finish the job. They were informed of that."
"R-right…so, what's the plan?"
"The plan? How about we relocate?" she suggested. Octavian shook his head, not following; the boy was still too slow on the uptake. "They can no longer know our plans ahead of time. They didn't send anyone else this close, and if we're careful, sending a few out at a time, we could easily relocate. Then, when they come here for their big attack, we can corner them instead, trap them here and overtake them on our turf."
"That's…I mean, it could work," he said, scratching his head. "What about reinforcements?"
"They'll be the ones first establishing the secondary base," she said, continuing to detail her plan as Octavian wrote it all down. Finally, Reyna felt as if she was getting somewhere.
xxxXXXxxx
Winona sighed, flipping a drachma up and down, a pool of water in reach, debating whether or not to call Bianca. She'd seemed really adamant about not fighting the Romans, but…she probably didn't have all of the information.
She'd been informed that the spies hadn't returned or called as scheduled that morning. Worried, she sent out a couple of Hermes kids to see what happened, and they could only tell that they'd been caught and are being held somewhere in the Romans' encampment.
Winona could only imagine what they were going through…if she'd been more sparing with their utilities, they might still be here, warm in bed, poor Miranda; it was her first summer here…the gods cursed her with her unique abilities…
Taking a deep breath, Winona tried to think through the next plan of action. The Romans seemed adamant on staying put. Good; they're staying where they could see them. The entirety of the Ares cabin was patrolling camp's borders, and Winona had been subduing each of the enemy search parties as she found out about them; all of the prisoners had been shoved into the Hypnos cabin; it induced sleep until a child of Hypnos lifted the spell. Essentially, they were put into a magical coma, safe until some kind of victor was announced.
Before she could think through much more, an image shimmered in front of her, without her calling for anyone. In a few seconds, Bianca's image appeared. "Hey, Win," she greeted, a grin on her face. The daughter of Apollo forced back a smile; it was so hard to hide the joy she felt from hearing Bianca's voice again. It'd been so long.
"Where the hell have you been?" Winona questioned. "I've been waiting three days for a call!"
Bianca reared back. "S-sorry, I…got a little caught up…"
"With what?"
"Well, Jason kind of…stabbed me…"
"Oh great, I get to kill him too when I see him, unless you've done it already."
"N-no, it's not like that. It was an accident."
"An acci- Bianca, how do you accidentally impale someone on a sword?"
"Or a spear; it could've been a spear," she reminded the younger girl.
"Answer the question!"
"Alright, alright…so, we went to Bologna."
"…Why?"
"Well, we're on our way to Epirus after getting the Athena Parthenos, but we have to go this really roundabout way because we got tipped off about getting help from some gods that are still over here for some reason, but we were ambushed. Some monster appeared as me, and Jason had to choose which one to attack. He got unlucky, is all. I'm good now…for the most part."
"Yeah, uh-huh," Winona crossed her arms, unconvinced.
"Hey, Hermes healed me, so I'm good," she insisted. "Anyway, Win, do you know what this means?"
"You were attacked by a shapeshifter. So?"
"So, that thing was what killed Grover!" she exclaimed. "It had to have been; it took Bellona's form and killed him to get the camps to fight!" Winona raised an eyebrow. Her silence rubbed Bianca the wrong way. "You…don't believe me?"
With a sigh, Winona let her arms down. "It just seems like you're grasping at straws here. There are plenty of shapeshifters, but not one has ever worked with anyone else I don't think. They tend to be alone, or be gods."
"What if it was a Giant?" Bianca countered. "They showed up suddenly with really weird, freaky, powerful abilities, right? Why can't this transformation thing be one of them?"
"Because it's too convenient!" Winona returned.
"Kind of like how someone 'conveniently' showed you what I guess was an Iris-Message of the exact moment that incriminated the Romans?"
That hit Winona like a truck. "…What?"
"Come on, you have to admit it's a little fishy. Was I right about how you found out, or what?"
"I…we were so caught up in what happened, we…" Winona considered the event. It was strange that an Iris-Message just appeared like that. She thought someone called it from the other side, maybe Leo or Grover called for help, but if that were the case…they probably would've done it right when they got to wherever they were, not when they were in danger. It wouldn't have made any sense. "O-okay, assume I believe you. How do you explain about Luke?"
"That was me; all me. Tell them that, that it was my mistake," she said, growing excited that she was getting somewhere.
"I don't…" the younger girl turned away. "I don't think anyone else will…"
"Winona, please," Bianca pleaded. "Please, you've got to tell everyone. You need to stop this war; we can't beat the Giants if we're fighting each other, you know that!"
"It's not that simple, Bianca," she muttered.
"Why isn't it?!" the older girl's voice rose.
"Don't yell at me!" Winona snapped, making her friend rear back again. Taking a deep breath, Winona figured she needed to explain a bit of the situation. "I can't stop it. Both sides have prisoners. Tensions are too high; no one will listen. No one wants peace right now, Bianca. Hell, I had to fight hard to keep the others from torturing information out of our prisoners," she claimed. "We…already have a plan that's been decided on, to kill the Romans. We need to do it fast, or else…they might get reinforcements. They might get them anyway. We think we'll still have more manpower, with me, but we can't afford to wait, or else we'll lose more than necessary…"
"Win…no, please, you have to do something!"
"Bianca…I'm not losing any more of my friends," Winona said resoundingly. "Ever."
"You…" the girl seemed on the verge of tears; after trying so hard to keep peace, they'd failed with no turning back. Even if the Argo II turned around and brought the artifact back now, they wouldn't make it in time. "You can't save everyone…"
"What?"
"Gods, you're as bad as Percy! Why can't you people just accept that people die sometimes and there's nothing you can do about it!"
"Don't compare me to him!" Winona slapped her palm down onto the counter in front of her. "He's…you're…bah!" she threw her hands up in the air. "At least I can think for myself! At least I'm not just a goddamn dog to some prick and all I care about is him and what he thinks and how he feels! What about me, Bianca? What about what I want and what I feel, do you even care?!"
"I-"
"You wanna lecture me?" Winona continued. "Give me a break! Who was it that had to coach you on talking to people, who had to break away your shell bit by bit over months so that you could even function?!"
The daughter of Hades was silent with mouth agape, dumbstruck at the ferocity of the words. Winona took several deep breaths, waiting for Bianca to respond. And she did, eventually. "…You've changed…after Michael…"
"I hadn't noticed," the daughter of Apollo said. That seemed to hurt Bianca more than the outburst, or maybe it was just the dam finally breaking. Tears fell from under her blindfold. "Oh, no…Bianca, don't be like that, come on…"
The daughter of Hades shook her head, hand trying to wipe away the streaks on her face. "I don't know what I was expecting…" was all she said before she wiped the message away, leaving Winona alone and letting her believe she'd ruined the best relationship she could've ever wanted.
"Damn it…" was all she could say. But it wasn't all she could do to sulk. She called a meeting, consisting of herself, Chiron, Ethan, and Clarisse; the oldest representatives minus the Stoll's. She relayed what Bianca had told her, and got about the reaction that she expected, with responses including from "it's possible," from Chiron to "they really expect us to believe that?" from Clarisse. Ethan was quiet, even as Winona attempted to argue in favor of the idea being true, and Clarisse especially pushing against it. More than anyone, she wanted revenge, both because, despite herself, she had immense respect for Grover (as without his and Pan's aid they would've perished last summer) and because they essentially received a direct challenge from a rival war god.
Dejected but not surprised, Winona made up her mind right then and there. Once the meeting ended, she pulled Ethan aside. "I'm guessing you're going to do something stupid?" were his first words.
"What? How did you-"
"Because I'm the trustworthy one that people doing stupid things go to so that everything runs smoothly when they're gone," he said, crossing his arms, not looking at her. She didn't mind; he was blind, after all.
"Well…it's not stupid," she said, though it came out weaker than she wanted. He smirked.
"If you act on your belief with Bianca, then the only thing at stake is your life; we're already at war, right?"
"Right," she nodded. "Oh, and…don't tell anybody I'm going to the Roman camp, alright?"
"Wait, you're what?" he questioned as she left. "That isn't what I thought you were thinking!" he called after her, but no one answered. Sighing, Ethan returned to his duties.
Author's Note:
Hey guys, writing this at eight in the morning my time, so I can just quick upload it later.
Not much to say about this one, other than that it was originally a lot longer. I ended up moving the second half of the chapter to chapter 56, to line up big moments of the three storylines all in a row, so for now, this is what you get.
Um...yeah, not much to say, but I'd love to hear what you all have got.
Until then, though, I'll see you tomorrow!
