Hi everyone! We hope you guys are all doing relatively well considering the various circumstances. However, it is the two year anniversary of this fic seeing daylight for the first time, and we figured we should commemorate it.

Just a few things to note:

- 2019 is going to be a long year; we're currently writing about three or four chapters ahead of what's published and we've only just reached May, so...
- This chapter re-introduces us to Marvel, as events from Iron Man 2 come into play. Like yeah we've already had Thor and Cap coming into the mix, but Iron Man 2 was the perfect outlet for what we needed.
- School's kind of killing us this month, but there should be one final chapter before we stop posting/writing for the Summer Holidays.

Reyna assigned a small girl called Hazel to show us around Camp Jupiter over the coming days whilst we waited for Jason to come and 'ratify the peace treaty'.

Hazel was young, but fiery; timid, yet a knowledgeable and brilliant guide; bold, and yet frightened of us both (although me in particular, I think). She was full of paradoxes, but didn't seem to be a conflicted or peculiar character, and I thought that she was great.

The rest of the legion also seemed pretty intimidated by her, as they gave her the widest berth they physically could whilst staying on the same road as her as we walked through the barracks and town. "It's because I'm the daughter of Pluto," Hazel said, gesturing to a glyph that had been burnt (?) onto her arm. "People don't really trust me here."

I didn't ask her if she knew Nico, but I did know that they were clearly polar opposites: Nico a quiet shadow, easy to miss, while Hazel stood proudly, full of life.

"At the moment, you're honorary members of the Fifth Cohort, which means that you'll eat with us, and at war games tomorrow you'll fight with us."

"War games?" Annabeth and I both exchanged a cautionary look; if this was a trick in order to blame us for beginning a war, we were in deep shit.

"It's a bit like Capture the Flag, but we use weapons, cavalry, etc., and it all takes place in a massive fortress on the Field of Mars." Hazel waved a hand across the camp towards the large plain that bordered the settlement to the East. "We build a new one every War Games; it means that the challenge is never the same."

That was alright then.

"Come on!" Hazel grinned at us. "We've still got to look inside of the temples. Like I know that our temples probably won't be as impressive as yours as you-"

I cut her off, "You have temples? We have a singular brazier to chuck food in when you remember."

Hazel paused. "I didn't show you guys the temples? Even from the outside? You should probably visit before the games. You know, for luck."

She headed off through the city, navigating the winding, European-style streets with the certainty of a local. Eventually we reached a collection of beautiful buildings each with their own unique style. I wondered idly which one was for Neptune, and figured that I owed Dad a visit while I was there, you know, for not smiting me during the Battle of Manhattan and his other kindnesses.

Hazel directed us to the temple of Mars for luck in the war games, before pointing out the two temples for Minerva and Neptune. Neptune's was a pretty depressing one, I'll admit. While all of the other temples were kept beautifully, his wasn't; it was dark and dingy on the inside, and smelled a little of damp. Hazel commented that the Romans feared Neptune for his unpredictability and the wild danger of the ocean.

No wonder they were afraid of me: I was the unpredictable ocean, the lack of order that filled their very worst nightmares, and all they had to go on in terms of my power was rumours that were likely blown way out of proportion.

Anyway.

We decided to get ready for the games, as they were starting in a little over an hour and we really had nothing better to do. I could probably get into my armour in less than five minutes if the situation demanded, but hey, sometimes you can take your time and this was that opportunity.

We were just getting ready to launch into action when, quite suddenly, the entirety of the beautifully-lit city of New Rome went pitch dark. A thin, high wail pierced the heavy silence that descended upon the group.

Something moved on the horizon, coming closer in the half-dark, before lighting up a thin line of fire over the city as weapons discharged, strafing into the peaceful centre of town.

The entire legion seemed to sit up, like some sort of enormous and deadly animal that had been quite suddenly woken. They slipped immediately into battle positions, lines and blocks of soldiers forming and slotting neatly into place as a single unit, despite the different colours of banners that the opposing sides of the war games held.

The deep sound of hooves thundered on the dry grass, and out of the darkness rode the praetor, dark hair braided, clad in gleaming armour and astride a gorgeous pegasus. With just a few simple shouted commands, suddenly the entire legion was in action, a powerful animal with a single rider at its head.

I grabbed Annabeth's arm and gestured down the slope, towards the back part of town instead of the centre, where the legion was marching.

We plunged down the hill and over a series of low garden fences into the back of the city of New Rome, struck into horrified inaction by the simple boldness of such a bald-faced attack on the civilian heart of the demigod civilisation.

The two of us positively flew through the back roads, in stride and in sync, each sure of our direction - apparently Annabeth was almost as good as me when it came to memorising street plans, because she didn't put a foot wrong either.

A faint whistle sounded above us, and we dived into an ornate porch in the very nick of time as whatever it was made another sweeping pass, bright fire lighting up the darkened streets as whatever it was firing struck the cobbles where we had been only moments prior.

The wan twilight glinted off a dull matt exterior as it flew past, and in that fleeting moment I made a few deductions. 1 - it was a drone. Boxy, humanoid, sure, but a metal drone nonetheless. 2 - it wasn't Iron Man, despite the similarities. It was just a little too crude, and not quite elegant (or shiny) enough.

Great.

I wondered if the Romans had a missile launcher. And where their armoury was, for that matter. (Also why Terminus had let us charge into the city fully armed, but that probably had something to do with the city being under attack and all that fun).

Well, we were standing in a doorway, so it was as good a start as any. I turned around and knocked loudly on the wooden door, staying pressed tightly into the porch in case the drone made another pass.

The door opened a fraction on a security chain, and the eye of a young woman was pressed against the gap. She looked terrified, and a baby cried in the background.

I tried to not look too frightening (probably unsuccessfully). "Do you know where the armoury is? I'm going to try and shoot that thing down."

Immediately announcing that you wanted to find a firearm admittedly wasn't the best way of introducing yourself. She swallowed hard, and rattled off a few panicked instructions, pointing helpfully towards the barracks on the other side of town. I thanked her, and Annabeth and I melted away into the darkness again, boots thundering against the cobbles in a perfectly-synced rhythm as we wove through the narrow Roman streets as if we'd lived there our entire lives, all the while scanning the darkening skies for the metal death-bot raining fire on the (mostly) peaceful city of New Rome, struck into silence for fear.

Turning a sharp corner, we barrelled into the entrance of the armoury, knocking before kicking the door in. Thankfully, it was empty. I grabbed a gold sword for Annabeth, as well as a couple of daggers that she could add to her belt, whilst I grabbed the assault rifle that was chained to the wall (not very well). I pulled it off the wall and opened the magazine to find it disappointingly empty. I spun around, inspecting the room; if I were a set of gold bullets, where would I be? Hell, even normal bullets would do at this point.

There was a locked filing cabinet tucked into the corner of the room, and I decided to place my bets there (assuming it wasn't actually filled with files, that was).

I looked at the lock on it for about three seconds before deciding to just brute-force it, slamming the door with the butt of the rifle until it was nice and dented, and I could prise the lock away from under the lip of the draw and pull it open.

Lo and behold, there were several boxes in there, each helpfully labelled with the caliber and even a little picture of the gun they went in. I followed the pictures until I found the case that matched the gun in my hands, and pulled the long piece of fabric out, clipping it neatly into the gun and walking back out, flicking up the scope and wondering if I would be able to see through it in this kind of light.

Step one: find a gun, was complete. Now for step 2: find a high place. Any would do, as long as I could get up there.

If I stood on the filing cabinet and jumped a little, I could reach the window, then-

Maybe not; I'd probably end up hanging out of the window like drone target practice. I needed somewhere with handholds. Or a grappling hook. Both would be ideal.

I scanned the armoury again. No grappling hooks.

Annabeth hovered awkwardly by the armoury door. "What are you looking for?" she half-whispered, arms folded in a mildly impatient manner.

"Somewhere high," I replied absently, calculating the risk of death if I jumped from the rafters.

"Well, you're not going to find that in here, are you?" she retorted, pushing the door open again on its now slightly-crooked hinges.

I sighed and followed. Maybe Architect Girl had an eye for accessible roofs.

Sure enough, within two minutes, she'd got her eye on somewhere and I was ducking furiously around corners with ever-lengthening shadows to try and keep up, until I too spotted what she'd seen: the gilded roof of the enormous temple to Jupiter that towered above the rest of the buildings in the city.

It was also just about close enough to the neighbouring temple to Mars, which had a high window that I could get at from the inside. Probably.

I hoped that parkour at altitude was like riding a bike, or I might be taking the short route back down to street level.

I turned to Annabeth as we reached the entrance to the temple to Mars. "Try and find the legion, could you? Tell them to try and persuade that thing to head for the Temple to Jupiter. Also to send the big guy a prayer so he doesn't smite me for standing on his roof: I'd appreciate that."

She nodded once, and melted into the shadows, light-footed and fast.

I took a deep breath, shouldered the rifle, and pushed open the door to the temple.

I gave Mars (Ares?) a whispered apology as I clambered up onto some sort of decorative… thing in order to gain access to the window, justifying my actions by saying that he would like a warlike act and I was carrying a rifle, wasn't I?

From the window, it got a little harder. First I had to shimmy out at a weird angle in order to grab the lip of the roof and haul myself up, and then I was faced by the uncomfortable realisation that it would be a sizable jump onto the higher temple's steeply gabled roof.

It would be fine. I sent off a quick 'prayer' to Jupiter/Zeus/whatever, asking not to be vaporised, then rose onto the balls of my feet and took a run-up, timing my strides until the toes of my left foot curled over the lip of the roof, and taking an enormous leap, landing with my feet right on the very edge of the roof and slipping backwards only a tiny bit.

Still had it, then.

I scrambled over to an edge in the roof and used it for leverage (the angle was pretty steep), until I was standing right at the apex of the golden roof, twilight swirling around me and feeling quite exposed before the eyes of the deadly machine that was somewhere that I couldn't see.

I was in its territory now.

Light wind played across my face, blowing strands of dark hair across my eyes. I squinted into the darkness, wondering idly if the drone (?) in the dark could see in infra-red, and whether or not that was such a bad thing.

I crouched, snapping bullets into chambers and otherwise preparing the gun until it was ready to fire, before standing again and taking a deep, slow breath, feeling myself slip into my sniper's headspace as comfortably as putting on an old jacket. Maybe I couldn't see far into the darkness, but my hearing was astute, and the only sound in the silence was the slight wind, then the softest mechanical whirring, getting steadily louder.

Carefully, so not to slip and fall from my somewhat precarious position (Clint was always better at balancing at height than me), I turned and dropped to one knee, pressing the barrel of the gun into my shoulder and steadying my hand, fixing my gaze into the murk down the scope.

Surely enough, a boxy silhouette appeared between my crosshairs, not-quite gazing at me through the lit vertical slit on its 'face'. I exhaled, and squeezed my finger on the trigger as the world exploded, tiny slivers of fire and death raining down all around, even I as I whirling to keep my aim, even though I realised that the damn thing was bulletproof and all I'd done was draw it to me, no armour, no weapons.

Just me, against the roof of a temple to the most powerful of all the gods.

I closed my eyes for a microsecond, sending Jupiter (or Zeus, whichever one was listening) the most pathetic of prayers; a Hail Mary, a final hope.

And then, I reached inside me as the drone turned to come for another pass, finding the power that swirled deep within my chest that I'd locked firmly shut to try and retain some control of myself.

I locked eyes with the thing, and I unleashed everything I had.

o0O0o

I came back to myself after what could only have been a few seconds, lying face-down on the cold tiles and completely soaked to the bone by freezing, needle-like rain that lashed down, seemingly only onto the temple to Jupiter, accompanied by the wind, which had increased to a screaming crescendo.

Even as I pushed myself to a kneeling position on the slick roof, the rain began to fall with reduced intensity. Thunder rumbled distantly, and the writhing storm clouds seemed to calm as I watched them.

I peered over the edge of the roof to see a slightly blackened-looking hulk on the ground beneath, lightning-charred and irrevocably killed by what could only have been the King of the gods himself.

I shivered slightly, and pressed my forehead to the roof, whispering a hoarse 'thank you' into the half-dark before forcing myself to my feet, feeling worrying light-headed as I clumsily jumped back onto the roof of the neighbouring temple, sliding my numb legs back through the window and landing in a clumsy heap on the floor.

After a minute or so just shivering quietly on the temple floor, I somehow managed to stand again, and stumbled out through the door just in time to watch Reyna come flying around the corner, army in tow.

Annabeth was already there, standing and just staring at the enormous drone that had just fallen from the heavens, before looking back again and seeing me, leaning against the doorframe and looking for all the world like a drowned rat.

One corner of my mouth twitched upwards in an exhausted semblance of a smile.

I cast my gaze back to Reyna, whose head was tilted slightly to the side, a pensive look on her face. Her knuckles were white on the reins of her pegasus.

Behind her, the entire legion seemed to shift, a shudder rippling through the ranks as if they were all one creature.

One creature (with a lot of swords) that was apparently deathly afraid of the guy half-slumped in a doorway (with no sword).

After a few moments of frozen silence, Reyna adjusted her grip on her pegasus' reins, and the beautiful animal stood up a little straighter, hooves clipping on the cobbles as loudly as a gunshot.

"Go and get out of your armour," she ordered, addressing the legion. "We will work to identify what attacked the city tonight, and how best we should react to this new threat. For now, I suggest you find your families, and check that they are alright."

The footsoldiers dispersed in all directions, booted feet drumming on the streets.

Reyna dismounted effortlessly and strode over to the fallen drone, crouching to look into the now-dead eye slit of the thing with a disdainful air. "Thank you both for dispatching this thing." She kicked it slightly before looking back up at us. "Our camps are now allies; your heroic act of bravery shows that you Greeks clearly have good intentions, and thus we will sign a treaty symbolising this soon."

Annabeth nodded in agreement. "We thank you greatly for your offered alliance."

I stepped forward, trying not to wobble (difficult when your legs feel like they're made out of rubber). "Guys, can we drop the political voices please. It's making it like ten times more difficult to process what's going on. I think that after 'heroically' destroying this, you can at least speak to us normally."

Reyna sighed. "Fine. However, we do need to do one more thing before our alliance is truly cemented." She rolled up her sleeve to reveal a tattoo. "Every full member of the legion, and our allied armies, receives a mark." She pointed to the set of lines underneath the symbol and SPQR. "These represent how many years you have served with the legion; the symbol denotes who your godly parent is; and the SPQR stands for-"

"Senatus Populusque Romanus." I cut her off. "The Senate and People of Rome."

Reyna faltered. "Yeah, how did you know-"

I grinned. "Well, a) I did do eighth grade Latin, and b) Jason mentioned it once on a mission. He didn't tell us what or where the tattoo was from, but he was insanely proud of it. He got asked to explain it like sixty times during basic training. Honestly, I think most of our class of SHIELD trainees knows what it means."

Reyna nodded, looking curious but unwilling to ask more. It was apparent that Jason and her were pretty close, and that she wanted to know more about what he did when he was away from New Rome. "Well, I would like to give both of you a mark, which would make you honorary members of the legion."

I glanced over at Annabeth, who just sort of shrugged. We were both old enough now that nobody could tell us off for having a tattoo, and it wasn't like we had anything to lose by showing our willingness.

She did the talking, and simply said, "Sure, if that helps you to strengthen the relationship between the two camps. Maybe that could wait until after we get to the bottom of why this thing was flying around and who sent it?" She sent a gentle kick in the direction of the drone, which was still smoking lightly after its lightning strike.

"It doesn't take long," Reyna assured us, "and it might help to improve morale after this blow. I suggest that we go ahead with the marking tonight or early tomorrow; as soon as we can get everybody gathered. For now, I agree with you. Surely this hunk of shitty metal will hold some clues."

"I'm down with getting a tattoo, especially if it will freak Jason out even more when he gets here."

Reyna pointed a finger at me and grinned. "Now that sounds like a plan, but we do need to actually figure this out."

All I really wanted to do right now was sleep off the woozy spinning that the world was doing, but that wasn't one of the presented options, so I'd just have to go with it. "Fine."

o0O0o

Helpfully enough, some extremely rich businessmen have large enough egos to monogram the parts of illegal (presumably) drones with the name of their company, so it was pretty quick work to narrow it down to Hammer Industries. However, not even Justin Hammer would likely be idiotic enough to make things like this at his headquarters, so we were still pretty much at square one in terms of location.

But, despite the setbacks, we did find some handy things whilst gutting the bulletproof shell. They were remotely switched on and off, the weapons systems were remotely armed, and they could probably be sent commands remotely, but their complex systems looked like they would operate pretty much by themselves.

This could be an issue, because shutting down the drone operator therefore might not mean drone shutdown, and I quite liked being able to stop things at their source.

As for any weak points, there were few. Even the 'neck' was pretty well armoured, so we were looking at armour-piercing rounds if we needed to kill any more of them. I wondered idly if there were any of the bullets that we'd need in the Roman armoury, or if that sort of thing was too unpleasant for them to even consider, and should be left to the sorts of degenerates that SHIELD sends you after who then shoot you in dark alleys.

By the time we'd made our meagre discoveries, it was well and truly dark. Really, really dark, since all of the lights in the city were out.

Wait.

"The lights haven't come back on," I realised. "Has someone gone to try and get them back online?"

Reyna's brow furrowed. "No, actually. Come to think of it, I don't even know why the lights went out in the first place."

"EMP?" Annabeth suggested. "I don't know enough about them to say whether the lights would come on automatically afterwards."

I didn't think that was it. "The drone arrived a short while after the lights went out. I wonder if whoever built it is relatively close; that might mean that when they activated the drone, it caused a surge that tripped the breakers. That would explain why the lights stayed off: they have to be manually switched back on again."

Reyna shook her head slightly, but didn't look like she was disagreeing. "The city operates mainly off the grid, so I guess that could occur. There's a transformer on the outskirts of town that probably has a big breaker switch in case of a surge: let's start there."

We trekked across the deadened city to the transformer, which did indeed have a primary breaker.

A breaker which had, in fact, been tripped. Reyna pushed the switch back to 'on', and we watched as the city came back to life, lights coming to life all over the metropolis and twinkling cheerfully in the night.

I grinned down at the city. "Wow, this is so beautiful. All of the city, and the houses laid alongside each other; I wish that we had something like this back in New York, where everybody could be a bit safer." I tore my eyes away from the city. "The trouble is us Greeks don't really live long enough to have families."

Reyna smiled too, slightly fierce and undeniably wild, but proud. This was her city, after all. "Then you will be honoured to become associated with our legion. I will call a senate meeting at dawn."

I grimaced. "How about eight? Dawn's a bit too early for me."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "What time did you have to get up on missions back at SHIELD, huh? Compared to that, this must be a lie-in."

I turned to her, mock-hurt. "It's the principle of the thing, Annabeth."

Reyna turned to leave, throwing back, "I'll see you at dawn," over her shoulder as she sauntered back towards the barracks.

Asshole.

o0O0o

It was quite disappointing when I woke up naturally just as the first rays of light were beginning to peek through the blinds. Trust my stupid body clock to wake me up when I needed to: I'd sort of wanted to sleep in to try and prove a point.

First things first, I knocked loudly on Annabeth's door to wake her up before trying to make myself almost presentable, picking out some clothes that were (shockingly) not too ragged and attempting (without much success) to tame the black mop that seemed to have taken up residence on my head.

She glared at me as she opened the door. "What?" She ran a hand through her bed head, as she stood hand on hip waiting for me.

"We need to eat before this ceremony thing, so I figured we could leave soonish, but if you're not ready I'll just head back to my room."

Annabeth just sort of blinked. "Can't we eat afterwards?"

I shook my head. "I don't know about you, but that tattoo looked a little more like a brand to me, and I don't want to pass out in front of the gathered Senate because my blood sugar is low."

Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Fine, I'll meet you at your room in ten minutes."

The door closed, and I took that as my cue to leave (and try to find some hair gel).

After about seven minutes, I gave up in my search and resigned myself to trying to make it look 'artfully windswept' instead of 'dragged through a bush backwards'. It didn't really work, but I decided to just go with it.

There was a slightly subdued knock on the door (if a knock could ever sound subdued) after about ten (maybe eleven) minutes. I opened it to see Annabeth looking fractionally more awake than she had been, and she'd even dragged a brush through her hair.

"Breakfast?" I asked, trying to inject a little bit of energy into the morning.

She nodded, and grumbled something about 'stupid assassins getting up stupidly early' that I pretended not to hear.

I won't say that I dragged her down the stairs to the mess hall, but I also can't say that she was particularly eager to get down and have canteen food for breakfast.

o0O0o

Once we'd eaten, we hurried to the ampitheatre that Reyna had pointed out to us exactly once ever. Why the fuck they had an ampitheatre, we'd never know. But hey, it was a great location to embarrass us in the name of making friends.

All of the Romans were wearing togas when we got in. Togas.

Should've just worn the goddamn bath towel, but I guess there's no way to show your lack of culture like turning up to a cultural event in combat trousers and a plain t-shirt.

Why didn't we have togas anyway? Surely the Greeks had some form of ceremonial wear.

Actually, nevermind. That wasn't important.

What was important was the crowd of legionaries that were seated around the amphitheatre, and the fact that all eyes were on us.

I hoped that this 1, wouldn't take too long, and 2, wasn't going to be too painful.

Something told me that my prayers (especially for the latter) were not going to be answered.

Oh, well.

We walked over to the very centre of the amphitheatre, where Reyna was sitting, draped in regal purple and generally looking very important.

We stopped just in front of Reyna, and I automatically stepped into the secret-agent approximation of parade rest (old habits die hard).

Reyna cleared her throat. "We are gathered here today to celebrate our newly formed alliance with the Greek camp. To cement this treaty, their legati have agreed to become formal members of the legion as a permanent token of amity and fidelity."

The weaselly blond that had stood on Reyna's right shoulder almost permanently since we'd arrived at Camp Jupiter stepped forward, clutching a Panda Pillow Pet in his hands. He swiftly ripped the head from its neck, and examined the stuffing. I have no fucking idea what he was doing, but clearly everyone else did. "There will be good omens this coming year; Fortuna has blessed our union."

He smirked as he beckoned me forward. "Perseus Jackson, Son of Neptune and Defender of Olympus; first year of service." He passed his hand over my forearm, and that was when the agony began. Fire lanced up my forearm, and all of my muscles tensed involuntarily as I fought to stay still and composed, but by the gods, it hurt.

After what felt like an eternity (but was probably only a few seconds), the pain let up, and I allowed myself to slowly relax. Reyna nodded, and Weasel Boy continued, gesturing Annabeth forward this time around.

I inspected my new tattoo. It had a trident placed directly above the letters SPQR, and a single black line, like the beginning of a barcode. I guessed that it wasn't so bad.

Once Annabeth had also stoically withstood the torture, she came back to stand next to me again. We didn't have to wait long before Reyna began to speak again.

"We welcome you into our great legion as one of us, and hope that you can extend a common courtesy at your camp as well."

Annabeth nodded respectfully. "Our doors will always be open to a Roman in need."

Reyna gave a small smile, and continued. "This, however, is not the sole reason that we are gathered today. Last night we were victims of an unwarranted and unexpected attack which came from an unknown source. Our newest allies have sworn to work with us, to try and find out who sent the drone last night, and why. Together, we will find out and bring the perpetrator to justice, but it may take some time."

The amphitheatre was drenched in an uncomfortable silence, but Reyna ploughed on nonetheless. "Finally, I have received word from Jason Grace, the second praetor. He will be here on leave early next week, his schedule allowing. That is all."

The spell that seemed to have been cast over the audience was lifted at once, and the entire stadium erupted into noisy chatter as people began to get up, walk around and generally shove each other out of the way to try and access any of the various doors.

Annabeth and I stayed where we were, waiting patiently as Reyna fended off a small crowd of well-meaning but irritating Romans in togas, all eagerly asking after Jason, and what all of this meant for the city, and whether anything was really being done and all that.

Eventually, she waded out past the throng and gestured for us to follow.

"Thank you so much for showing your loyalty to the legion; it's been very difficult to persuade most of the legion that you Graeci are trustworthy, especially considering that you're a son of Neptune. I mean, you've seen our temple to him, right? The sea is one of the few things the Romans feared after all."

I smiled slightly. "Not sure that last night's stunt helped my case, actually."

Reyna shrugged. "It certainly hammered home your unpredictability and power. If they weren't before, they are definitely scared of you now. But you didn't have to risk your life for us, so I think there is also a sense of awe and respect. I doubt anybody will try to challenge you any time soon, but you may be correct in your assumption that the legion are not going to be falling over themselves to make friends with you. You are as good as a god to them now."

Well, that wasn't intimidating at all. Maybe I should try not to trip over my own feet anytime soon.

We trailed after Reyna, who was making pretty impressive progress, given that she was wearing a full-on toga (honestly, I was surprised that she hadn't tripped on it yet).

She waited until we were within the sanctity of the town hall before turning back to us, speaking in a hushed undertone as if there were eavesdroppers. "We've found a homing beacon on the device that you brought down last night, and narrowed down the location to about ten square miles. It's not far away."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked cautiously, because 'not far away' could translate as just down the road, or within the western half of America.

"Just North of us; further into the Berkeley Hills. We could get there and back in a day, and it's local enough that it's probably on the same grid, which could explain why we felt the surge here when the thing was mobilised."

I waited for her to continue, but she didn't, and the silence sort of hung awkwardly, made worse by the crushing weight of the stagnant air in the vaulted ceiling, as still as if it was trying to listen to Reyna too.

"So, what are we waiting for?" I asked. "Why don't we just gather a recon party and get out there to see what's happening?"

Reyna pursed her lips. "I heard from Jason this morning, and he thinks that he can get away later today, arriving either tomorrow morning or late this evening. I'd like him to join us; having two assassins is always better than one on a delicate mission like this one."

Which to me meant that I didn't fully have her trust. "And you want to keep it all quiet," I guessed, "because Jason's arrival will send the whole city into an excitable spin."

She nodded, "So we just have to sit tight until he arrives."

I don't know what exactly possessed me in that moment, but I blurted it out before I had time to think about it. "I'll go this afternoon. Solo stealth mission; see if I can spot anything for us to target. I can't say I'll find the needle in the haystack, but I could draw the net a little tighter so that the whole party isn't traipsing around for days. Ten square miles is a lot of area, especially if you're trying not to be spotted. I do have a few skills left over from my SHIELD days after all."

Annabeth looked a little as though I had slapped her, or just grown a second head, but she stood in flabbergasted silence. Reyna, on the other hand, paused for just a second before nodding firmly. "Even if you cover less than half of the area, I think that will be incredibly useful. Just don't get caught."

I nodded, smiling slightly. "I'll do my best."

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