A/N: I write few of these but I wanted to post a warning that this chapter has another extremely dark scene. There are touching moments in it as well, but as the finale approaches the stakes get higher and the lengths people go to accomplish their goals become more drastic.
Northern Italy
Michael disappeared first. Gwen just a few days later. They're the only two other officers who know about the actual situation with Jason. Frank and Hazel know but they're too far away right now. Reyna thought about dispatching a rider to warn the two legates in Epirus, but she doubt Jason's forces would allow any messenger of hers through. In her mind their disappearance meant only one thing, Jason or rather the eidolon within him had figured out that someone within his camp had to have given information or insight for Nico di Angelo to discover their hostage and rescue her. I'm fucking next.
A part of her wanted to run. Another part of her felt like it was her duty to find the other two before running. Where would they go? Other parts of Rome would be denied to them as long as Jason the Puppet was imperator. They could run into the barbarian lands of northern Europe or east to the lands of the Persians and Parthians. The easiest answer was south. Percy would take them in. He may not be able to guarantee that his people would trust them, he may not trust them for a while, but he would guarantee their safety if they asked. The way Reyna broke down the situation she had four distinct tasks.
1. Find Michael and Gwen without alerting anyone she was looking
2. Get word to Frank and Hazel that their group is being attacked.
3. Escape the Roman camp and head for Greece.
4. Don't die.
Just after sundown Reyna sent her slave to find the personal servant of Gwen. She had never learned how much Michael trusted his, but knew Octavia had been used several times to deliver sensitive messages for Gwen. As soon as she arrived though, Reyna was certain she was not the only possessor of this information.
Athens
"Find me Nyssa." Percy ordered Thalia even as his wife and blood daughter embraced him. She nodded seeing the concerned look in his eyes.
"What is it, Percy?" asked Annabeth as Zoe ran after her sister.
"A voice. I hear a voice in my head when I fight in that armor." He pointed to the rack it hung on like it was a cursed thing. Annabeth seemed worried.
"What kind of voice?"
"A voice that tells me how to kill. I was always good Annabeth, but now? I'm able to predict attacks, use other's attacks to kill their allies, there's no mercy on the battlefield. Just the destruction of the enemy."
"Percy, I…" Annabeth stopped talking for a moment. "Wait, specifically destruction?" Percy nodded.
"Do you know something?" Annabeth pursed her lips.
"Maybe, but I need to ask Nyssa a question first." She paused and seemed unwilling to address the topic that she apparently felt needed to be addressed. "There's something else, Percy."
"Yes?"
"There, uh, is something that we need to discuss surrounding our daughters."
"What about them?"
"Have you noticed that they are aging? Or that you refuse to acknowledge them as daughters in their presence? You will be what a father should be, but you will not call them daughters. Other than Zoë."
"I can't say I have."
"Seaweed Brain. They all think of you like a father. But, they are all also going through puberty. Enjoy it." Percy grimaced instead.
Epirus
Frank was the first to notice the misty figure of Reyna in the Iris message. He quickly moved his wife from between his legs in the bath and hid himself beneath the water. Reyna was looking at the two of them but he could not decipher the look on her face.
"Reyna," squeaked Hazel and Frank was not sure how but her face turned beet red.
"There is no time. You must leave."
"What are you talking about?"
"Michael and Gwen have vanished. They disappeared after the primus pilus of Jason's twelfth tortured the information out of Gwen's personal slave. The poor girl is barely alive. He must suspect we are the one's that got the information for Piper to be taken."
"Oh my gods. Piper was the hostage?" A look of pure horror had come across Hazel's face. Reyna nodded solemnly.
"She was and it was not good when they found her." Frank's face was set stonelike.
"You think he'll come for us?"
"I do. If what they did to Octavia is any example, no one is going to not answer their questions."
"What about you?" Reyna clinched her jaw before responding.
"I put Michael and Gwen in this position. I have to get them out." Hazel appreciated her comments, Frank saw issues with them but understood. Hazel was still the one to speak out.
"That is dumb, Reyna. You have to leave them."
"What are you saying, Hazel?"
"I am saying that if they already have them it is too late. I am saying Rome needs a praetor when this is over. After Jason, you're the most celebrated military commander the Republic has. You have to stay alive to reshape the Republic after this. If we save Jason, he'll be a shell of a person when he learns the things he has done. What happened in Macedon, conquest, pledging to erase the Greeks from history," pointedly she looked at Reyna. "Sleeping with you and throwing you aside." The last statement was personal and all three knew it. "Rome will fall without a strong leader on the back end of this. Because the alternative of us saving Jason is that we bury him." Reyna's mouth opened.
"She's right, Reyna." Frank's voice was low. "We've discussed this. We do not think that Jason can beat Percy and if he cannot save him? He will put him down rather than watch Greece burn. If Jason wins? We will kill him ourselves if we have to prevent a genocide."
"You've wasted enough time talking to us, Reyna. Get the hell out of there." Hazel waved through the steam as she spoke.
Frank turned to his wife. She saw the pain in his eyes and she felt it in her heart. "I guess this is it, love. Just as we discussed." Tears fell down Hazel's face.
"It doesn't have to be this way, Frank." She saw the muscles in his face flex and relax.
"It does. Leave me you knife. I'll do that part myself." He placed his hands on her midsection. "The woman who is carrying our child does not need to cut up her husband." More tears fell down Hazel's face, she could see them in Frank's eyes but he was willing himself to control them. "I'll tell them you were the traitor. That I confronted you after seeing you Iris message with Reyna and you attacked me. It will be more believable that it was you since you traveled to Greece and are Percy's cousin."
"I don't want to leave you, dear."
"I don't want to watch you two leave, love. But I will not watch them hurt you or this one." He patted her abdomen again. "Leave for Athens. Do it now before Jason can send any messengers to our officers. Keep my line alive. Teach our child of me and the things we accomplished with our friends." He pressed his lips to hers. She desperately clung to him.
"Frank you sound like I'll never see you again." He held her hands in his.
"I will fall on my sword before I betray your safety. Now go." He gave her a light shove and reached for her knife that was laying in the pile of clothing next to the bath.
"Frank, no."
"Go. Now. I won't lose you, I definitely will not lose both of you. I love you more than anything, Hazel."
"I love you, Frank. I will never stop loving you." She turned and left as he pressed the blade of the knife against the skin of his face. She heard the gasp of pain as she walked away. "And I will see you again, that I fucking swear to the gods."
Athens
"Why did you want to see me, Kelp Head?" Thalia studied her cousin. It was the first time she had seen him one on one while he sat on his throne. With his and dark beard and hair he looked scarily like his father. All he needs is damned trident, she thought. His face looked troubled.
"To ask you a few things."
"Clearly." He stood and walked over to her. Thalia was tall for a teenage girl. She was only an inch below Annabeth's five feet and nine inches, her spiky hair nearly made up the rest. But Percy was still a head over her. She would swear he was at least six and a half feet tall and instead of the lanky thirteen year old she had met first, he was broad and far too close to godly looking. Both of his hands rested on her shoulders.
"Why did you take in my Zoë so quickly?"
"We're Hunters, we always help young maidens." He dropped his hands and laughed slightly.
"True, but this was different. There is sister as another member of a group, then there is sister the way you have been using it with her. Like a kid sister, one who has suddenly stopped catching you, Hunter, and Naomi in age."
"We don't know what is happening, Percy. One day we just started getting older."
"Why didn't you tell me? I've always had a way of getting words to gods, even when they don't want to be talked to."
"Because we were happy."
"Were?"
"Are happy. Even Hunter and Naomi as they bitch, even Phoebe. Definitely Zoë Nightshade." She paused, seemingly unsure if she should continue, but she did. "Percy, you show us every day what father's should be like. What a husband should be like. Hades, what godsdamn king should be like. We never had good fathers, any of us, and honestly you've been so much of one none of us wanted to leave it. You let us be daughters without telling us we were. If beginning to age is the cost of having a mother that loves us and a father for the first time, we'll all fucking pay it." She looked in his eyes. She could tell the man, because that's what he is now he's the boy son of Poseidon, he's the King of Greece, wanted to cry. He doesn't know how to anymore, after his daughter's mother, the children that were never born, the pain of battle and loss, he can't cry anymore. Percy reached out and Thalia readily accepted his embrace. She was not sure how long she stood there wrapped in the arms of her once cousin and now father.
"I love you all, daughter." Percy whispered the words softly. "And I promise you, I will do everything I ever can for you."
"I know, Father, we all know." She laughed slightly. "I think I will stick with Percy though." He threw his head back and laughed deeply.
"I think that will be better myself." They were still smiling as Nyssa entered. The daughter of Hephaestus was covered in soot from her forges.
"Nyssa," Annabeth spoke from behind her as she reentered the throne room. Zoe followed her. "Did a woman assist you with Percy's armor?"
Nyssa bristled at the notion. "Why?" she snapped, "Am I not good enough?"
"No, no, not that," Percy replied. "Since you provided this set of armor a voice guides me in battle. I could always fight, you know how it is for demigods, but this voice tells me actions beyond my physical abilities. When a threat is behind me, when a sword strike can be deflected into an opponent, it is something I cannot understand. Annabeth has a theory." Nyssa calmed slightly.
"No one helped me, though a woman did ask to bless the armor for her father. She looked like a daughter of Ares and I didn't think that could hurt."
"Percy, what was the term you used earlier?"
"Destruction." Annabeth pursed her lips and a look of concern played across her face.
"How well do you know about the fall of Troy and the shield of Achilles." Zoë answered.
"The Greeks razed Troy, which is why the Romans hate us. The shield had pictures of home life and the life Achilles wanted but never had."
"What else, Zoë?"
"The children of Ares. Phobos, Deimos, Eris, and Enyo."
"Enyo, the goddess of Destruction, sister of war. The one who inflicted terror and bloodshed on Troy. The one who refused to fight Typhon because of how destructive it was."
"Why would she bless my armor?"
"Because you against Rome is basically Troy again, patér."
"Are you sure she's yours?" asked Thalia with a mischievous smirk. "Way too smart."
Northern Italy
Reyna never had a chance to leave. Even as the Iris message with Frank and Hazel ended two thuds sounded from the entrance of her tent. She spun to see bound and gagged Michael Kahale and Gwen fall to the floor. Both were extremely bloody and Reyna could not determine the level of their consciousness.
Jason stride into the room followed by his primus pilus. "So you fucking betray me?" Jason said coldly. She was staring at him and did not see the primus pilus arc his fist back before slamming it into her kidney. A second rapid strike connected with her temple and she collapsed unconscious.
When Reyna came to her hands were bound to a beam running across Jason's tent. Michael and Gwen were in chairs and bleeding. Only Jason and the primus pilus were in the tent other than the bound officers. Gold flashed through Jason's eyes.
"I pity you, Reyna. To love a man so much, but never have him. To finally get into my bed," he smirked at her, "and instead of him, it was me."
"Fucking bastard!" Reyna screamed at him. Marcus Lucinius took a step forward and drove his fist into her kidneys. A flash of white light exploded in front of her eyes as pain spread kike electricity through her body. "Are you one of them too?" she hissed at Marcus.
"He is a servant of the Spear but is not an eidolon. He simply enjoys causing pain." As if to prove Jason's point, Marcus punched out and his fist drove into her midsection near her ovaries. Her body arced and she coughed as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth.
"Easy, Marcus," he paused, "never mind, hit her again." Marcus hit her in the face. She felt her cheek split open.
"Now Reyna. I know you helped the Greeks take her. What have you learned?" Her mind registered his choice of words.
"They rescued her from the titan. We found her." Gold flashed across the blue eyes.
"Then you know my lord. Where did they take her?" Reyna did not answer. Lucinius stepped forward. "No, hurt them."
Lucinius slapped the two of them awake. Before Michael registered what was happened the centurion gripped his ear and sliced it off. Michael howled in pain and Gwen and Reyna hurled vulgarities at the two.
"Hear no evil, see no evil." Lucinius moved toward Gwen and the girl's screams echoed through the tent as her feet kicked in a futile attempt to escape. His hands red as the primus pilus dropped the now removed eye ball into the lap of the girl with rust colored hair. The empty socket captured Reyna's gaze. Jason slapped her to regain her attention.
"Where are they? And what do you know?" Reyna glared at him.
"Cut Kahale's throat." Lucinius stepped toward Michael. Michael refused to give anyone satisfaction and his face betrayed nothing.
"No!" shouted Reyna. "No," she repeated softly. "I do not know where they are, I don't. But we know Iapetus took Piper to force Jason to accept an eidolon. We know that you plan to force Percy to kill Jason to cause a war between the gods." A vacant look came across Jason's face.
"Piper, Percy," he whispered and a flicker of hope appeared. Jason shuddered and the gold flashed in his eyes. Reyna flinched as he stroked her face. His hand suddenly gripped her jaw and forced her mouth open. Hatred colored his face.
"You bitch. Trying to draw him out." Keeping his hand in her jaw his fist connected with her ribs and she felt several crack. "Marcus. Speak no evil." Reyna recognized what was coming. She tried to fight against Jason. He hit her damaged ribs again even as Lucinius gripped her tongue and pulled it from her mouth. The knife stroke was mercifully clean. "Keep them for our master's arrival, he can entertain himself with them."
"Of course, imperator."
"Tomorrow we march for Epirus. We will find out if the Zhangs have betrayed us as well."