To RandomFanAuthor- My brother and I are like that too! Also involved with random smacks and over-exaggerated karate kicks! :D And As for Reyna POV, you're weeeelllccccooommmeee!

To all- as always, I've changed the chapters as much as I can, but it was a bit difficult with Reyna's and Nico's! Sorry in advance!


Reyna hadn't planned to dive-bomb a volcano the first time she went to Italy. Her first view of southern Italy was from five thousand feet in the air. To the west, the crescent of the Gulf of Naples, the lights of sleeping cities glittering in the predawn gloom. A thousand feet below her, a caldera yawned half a mile wide, billowing white steam.

"Nico!" She yelled.

"Pan's Pipes!" Coach cursed. Nico screamed and flailed, almost slipping from Reyna's grip. She held on as tightly as she could, grabbing the satyr by the collar of his shirt. They hurtled towards the volcano, the Athena Parthenos trailing behind them like a very ineffective parachute.

"That's Vesuvius!" Reyna shouted over the wind. "Nico, get us out of here!" His eyes were wild and unfocused. His dark feathery hair whipped around his face like a raven shot from the sky.

"I… I can't!" He yelled, gasping.

"Goats can't fly, kid!" Coach bleated.

"Nico, try again!" Reyna insisted. She gripped his hand. The symbol of her mother, Bellona, grew painfully hot on her forearm. Colour flooded Nico's face and he inhaled sharply. Just before they hit the volcano's steam, they slipped into shadows. The air turned frigid. The screaming of wind was replaced by a cacophony of voices chattering in countless languages. Her insides felt like a giant piragua, her favourite treat from her childhood in Viejo San Juan- cold syrup over crushed ice. Why that memory came to her now, she had no idea.

Her feet landed on solid ground. The eastern sky had begun to lighten. Doric columns lined an atrium the size of a baseball pitch. A bronze faun stood in the middle of a sunken fountain decorated with mosaic tiles. Crepe myrtles and rosebushes bloomed in a nearby garden. Reyna smiled sadly- those would for sure make Louisa sneeze.

Palm trees and pines reached for the sky. Cobblestone paths led from the courtyard in several directions. Reyna turned. The statue stood in the courtyard, taking up much of the space. The bronze faun of the fountain had his arms raised, seemingly cowering in fear at this new arrival. "We're in Pompeii." She announced.

"Oh, that's not good." Nico said and immediately collapsed. Coach scrambled, catching him before he hit the ground. He propped him up against Athena's feet and loosed the harness tying Nico to the statue. Reyna felt her knees give too. She anticipated backlash every time she shared her strength, but not like this. Raw anguish washed through her, sweeping from Nico to her. Her head swam from the force of it; it took some serious effort to keep her eyes open.

Coach rummaged through his supplies as she fought to steady her breathing. Around Nico, the stones cracked. Dark seams radiated outwards, seeping through cracks like ink. She gave silent thanks it wasn't like yesterday. An entire field had withered, skeletons clawed their way up from the earth. She shuffled over to him, offering a canteen.

"Drink this." She encouraged. It was unicorn draught- a mix of powdered horn and sanctified water from the Little Tiber. It seemed to help Nico more than nectar. Nico managed to gulp it down, chasing some of the paleness from his cheeks.

"What… was that… surge of energy?" He asked between breaths. Reyna looked down at her Roman markings.

"It's a gift from my mother. I don't like to talk about it, but I can share my strength with others." Coach looked up from his backpack.

"Really? Hook me up, Roman girl! I want super-muscles!"

"It doesn't work like that, Coach. I can only do it in life or death situations. It works better in large groups. When… when I command troops, I can share whatever attributes I have. Strength, courage, endurance, multiplied by the size of my forces."

"Useful for a Roman praetor." Nico noted. Reyna kept quiet. She had kept this power to herself, worried demigods under her command would think she controlled them or used her ability to gain power over the ranks. She could only share qualities she already possessed- she was of no aid to anyone not worthy of being a hero.

"Too bad." Coach grunted. "Super-muscles would be awesome." He returned to sorting through his pack. Nico swigged from the unicorn draught again.

"You stumbled just now." He told her. "When… when you use your power, do you… get some sort of… feedback, from me?"

"It's not mind-reading." Reyna assured. "Not even an empathy link. Just a… temporary wave of exhaustion. Primal emotions." She hesitated. "I felt your pain; I take on some of your burden." She glanced at him. He looked away, expression guarded. Reyna did not understand Nico di Angelo and marvelled at how different he seemed when Louisa was around, how much more open and… not necessarily relaxed, but less offensive with Louisa twisting his ear, sometimes literally.

Reyna looked at the fountain. She had picked up on more pain from Nico in that brief connection than she had done from the legion when they fought Polybotes. It had drained her worse than the last time she used it. With Scipio. Her brave winged friend, so loyal, so trusting, as his muzzle lay in her lap, as she raised her dagger to end his suffering…

She could not dwell on it. "You should rest." She told Nico. "After two jumps, even with a little help… you're lucky to be alive, but don't tell Lou I said that." She nudged him gently. Nico smiled weakly, sipping the unicorn draught. "We'll need you to be ready again by nightfall." He nodded.

"Pompeii is the last place I would want to land. This place is full of lemures."

"Lemurs?" Coach asked excitedly.

"Not the cute, fuzzy ones." Nico sighed exasperatedly. "Lemures. Unfriendly ghosts. All Roman cities have them, but Pompeii…"

"Vesuvius erupted in seventy-nine C.E." Reyna said gravely. "Wiped out the whole city, covered the town in ash."

"A tragedy like that creates a lot of angry spirits. I've sent out a message for them to stay away. It won't do much good when I'm asleep though."

"Don't worry, kid," Coach grinned, "I've got my baseball bat. And I'm going to line the perimeter with alarms and snares." He nodded at a contraption next to him, a tennis racket-knife combination.

"OK." Nico nodded, too tired to question the satyr's insanity. "Just… nothing drastic. We don't want another Albania."

"No." Reyna agreed. Two days ago, their first shadow travel experience had landed them in Albania. It was possibly the most humiliating episode in Reyna's long career and they had all agreed that what happened in Albania, would stay in Albania.

Nico shed his jacket, wadding it into a make-shift pillow before he flopped to one side and began to snore. Reyna marvelled at how quickly he changed, how much younger he looked. She had to resist the urge to drape her cloak over him like a blanket, but her chest ached as she thought of his pain, his past, of his journey.

"Hey." Coach said, waving to get her attention. "You should get some sleep too." Reyna nodded in agreement. The feedback from Nico had drained her, filling her limbs with concrete.

"I'll put Aurum and Argentum on guard duty with you." She whistled sharply. The automaton greyhounds raced from the ruins from two different directions. Reyna had no idea where they came from when she summoned them or where they went when she dismissed them, but the sight of them lifted her spirits somewhat. She addressed them each by name, patting their heads. "Guard us while we sleep," she instructed, "obey Gleeson Hedge." The dogs circled the courtyard. They gave the statue a wide berth; it radiated hostility to anything Roman. Reyna was certain it didn't appreciate being relocated to the middle of an ancient Roman city, but there wasn't anything she could do about it now. She lay down and pulled her purple cloak over herself. Her fingers curled around the pouch on her belt.

Annabeth had given her the silver coin. The Mark of Athena is yours now, she had said, may this bring you luck.

Reyna slipped into sleep, straight into a nightmare. She had trained her mind to begin all her dreams in her favourite place- the Garden of Bacchus. With dreams, with nightmares, she could contain the visions to simple reflections in the garden's fountain. This helped her to sleep peacefully and not wake up the following morning in a cold sweat.

Tonight's dream began well enough. She could see New Rome below her. Half a mile to the west, the fortifications of Camp Jupiter. The Little Tiber past that, tracing the edge of the Berkeley Hills. She held a cup of hot chocolate, her favourite drink. She sipped it, warmth tingling in her stomach. It tasted exactly like Louisa made it. Probably the only thing she could make in the kitchen without destroying it. Her hot chocolate always came out just that little bit sweeter, that little bit more chocolatey than Reyna could make it. She suspected it had something to do with her water abilities, but she never bothered to ask.

Suddenly, the horizon darkened. At first she thought it was a storm, perhaps brought on by her thoughts of Louisa. The girl was famous for her storms, intentional or not. Then she realised a tidal wave of dark loam was rolling across the hills, turning the skin of the earth inside out. Nothing was left in its wake.

The earthen tide reached the edge of the valley. Terminus ran a magical barrier around the camp, but it only slowed the destruction for a moment. Reyna flinched as purple light flared skywards, the barrier shattered like glass, and the tide crashed through. It shredded trees. Destroyed roads. Wiped the Little Tiber into nothingness.

It's a vision, Reyna thought, I can control this. She tried to alter the dream, tried to force it into the fountain's reflection. The nightmare ignored her. The earth absorbed the Field of Mars. Every trace of forts and trenches for the war games vanished in the blink of an eye. The city's aqueduct crumbled. Camp Jupiter fell. The screams of demigods rang in her ears; watchtowers dissolved into rubble. Walls and barracks disintegrated. The screams stopped. The earth moved on. It tore through the shrines and monuments on Temple Hill. The coliseum and hippodrome swept away like leaves in a river. The tide smashed over the Pomerian line, straight into the city. Families ran through the forum. Children screamed in terror.

The Senate House imploded. Villas and gardens vanished like crops under a tiller. The tide roiled, rushing towards the Garden of Bacchus. Towards Reyna. You left them helpless, a woman's voice leaked from the black terrain, your camp will be destroyed. Your quest is a fool's errand. My hunter comes for you.

Reyna wrenched herself away from the garden railing. Her hot chocolate fell from numb fingers. She rushed to the fountain, gripped the rim of the basin. She willed the nightmare to become a harmless reflection.

THUNK.

The basin fell in two parts. An arrow the size of a rake protruded from the split. She stared in shock at the raven-feather fletching. The shaft was painted red, yellow and black, like a coral snake. The Stygian iron point entrenched in her gut. She craned her head up, vision swimming with pain. On the outskirts of the garden, a dark figure advanced. The silhouette of a man whose eyes shone like tiny headlamps. They light seared Reyna's eyes. She heard the scrape of iron on leather as he drew another arrow from his quiver.

Then it all vanished. The garden, the hunter, the arrow in her stomach. She found herself in a deserted vineyard. Acres of dead grapevines hung in rows on wooden lattices. At the furthest point of the fields stood a cedar-shingled farmhouse with a wraparound porch. The land dropped into the sea behind it.

She knew this place. The Goldsmith Winery on the north shore of Long Island. Her scouts had secured it as a forward base for the legion's assault on Camp Half-Blood. She had ordered the bulk of the legion to remain in Manhattan until she instructed them otherwise, but Octavian had had his way. The entire legion was camped in the northern-most field. With usual military precision, they had dug ten foot deep trenches and spiked earthen walls around the perimeter. A watchtower loomed on each corner, armed with ballistae. Inside, tents were arranged in tidy rows of red and white. The standards of all five cohorts curled in the wind.

She should have been happy to see the legion, two-hundred demigods strong. But they had no business being so close to Camp Half-Blood. Reyna clenched her fists, envisioning herself punching Octavian repeatedly for his disobedience. Her vision zoomed to the porch of the farmhouse. Octavian sat in a gilded chair, a suspiciously throne-like chair. Along with senatorial purple-lined toga, his centurion badge and his augur's knife, he had adopted a new honour. A white cloth mantle over his head- pontifex maximus, high priest to the gods.

No demigod in living history had taken that title. By doing so, Octavian had promoted himself to a level akin to emperor. To his right, maps and reports were layered thickly on a low table. To his left, a marble altar heaped with fruit and gold offerings, no doubt for the gods. But it looked like an altar for him.

At his side, stood Jacob, the legion's eagle bearer. He stood at attention, sweating in his lion-skin cloak as he held the golden eagle standard. Octavian had an audience. At the bottom of the steps knelt a boy in jeans and a rumpled hoodie. Octavian's fellow centurion of the First Cohort, Mike Kahale, stood to one side. His arms were folded over his chest and he glowered with obvious displeasure.

"Well," Octavian said, examining a piece of parchment, "I see here you are a legacy. A descendant of Orcus." The boy looked up. Reyna felt her heart skip a beat, cold slithering down her spine. Bryce Lawrence. His mop of brown hair, his broken nose, his cruel green eyes and smug twisted smile. He hadn't changed. "I understand you were dismissed from the legion for, ah… disciplinary problems." Reyna tried to shout, but made no sound. Octavian knew, they all knew why Bryce had been exiled. Like Orcus, the underworld god of punishment, Bryce was completely remorseless. He had survived his trials with Lupa just fine, but was deemed untrainable when he arrived at Camp Jupiter. He had tried to set a cat on fire for fun. He stabbed a horse and sent it stampeding through the Forum- Louisa had taken personal offence at that one, hence his broken nose. He was even suspected of sabotaging a siege engine and getting his own centurion killed during the war games.

If Reyna had been able to prove it, his punishment would have been death. But the evidence had been circumstantial. Bryce's family was rich and powerful, they held a great deal of sway in New Rome. He had escaped with a light punishment of banishment.

"Those charges were unproven, Pontifex. I am a loyal Roman." Bryce smirked. Kahale looked like he was doing his best not to vomit.

"I believe in second chances." Octavian smiled. "You've responded to my call for recruits. You have the proper credentials and letters of recommendation. Do you pledge to follow my orders and serve the legend?"

"Yes."

"Then you are reinstated in probatio," Octavian smirked, "until you have proven yourself in combat." He gestured to Kahale, who reached in his pouch and fished out a lead probatio tablet on a leather cord. He hung the cord around Bryce's neck, glowering as if he wanted to tighten that cord. "Report to the Fifth Cohort." Octavian instructed. "They could use some new blood, some fresh perspective. If your centurion, Dakota, has any problem with that, tell him to talk to me." Bryce smiled, like he had been handed a sharp knife. Reyna wished she had let Louisa deal with him all those years ago.

Octavian tipped his chin up. "And Bryce." His face was ghoulish, his eyes too piercing, his cheeks too gaunt. "However much money, power and prestige the Lawrence family carries- my family carries more. I am personally sponsoring you, as I am all the other new recruits. Follow my orders and you'll advance quickly. I may have a little job for you soon, a chance to prove your worth. But cross me and I will not be as lenient as Reyna. Do you understand?" Bryce's smile faded. He nodded. "Good. Also, get a haircut. You look like one of those graecus scum. Dismissed."

"That's two dozen now." Kahale grumbled once Bryce had left. "Murderers. Traitors. Thieves."

"We need the extra manpower. And they are loyal demigods, they owe their position to me." Mike Kahale scowled. Reyna understood why people called biceps 'guns' when looking at Mike- his arms were as thick as bazooka barrels. He had broad features, a toasted-almond complexion, onyx hair and proud dark eyes. She never figured out how a high-school linebacker from Hilo had wound up with Venus for a mom, but no-one in the legion teased him about it. Not when they had seen him crush rocks with his bare hands. Reyna had always liked him, a good soldier, frequently sparred with Louisa when she got under Reyna's feet. However, Mike was extremely loyal to his sponsor. And that was Octavian.

Octavian stood and stretched. "Our siege teams have surrounded the Greek camp. Our eagles have aerial superiority. They won't be going anywhere until we're ready to strike. In eleven days, my forces will be in place, my little surprises will be ready. On August first, the Greek camp will fall."

"But Reyna said-"

"Reyna has forfeited her position. She went to the ancient lands, which is against the law."

"But the Earth Mother-"

"-has been stirring because of the Greek-Roman war, yes? The gods are incapacitated, yes? And how do we solve that problem, Mike? We take out the division. We take out the Greeks. We restore the gods to their true Roman manifestation. Gaia will not dare to rise with the gods returned to full power. She will sink back into her slumber." Mike shifted uncomfortably.

"You sound certain. Has your gift of prophecy-?" Octavian shushed him, holding his hand up in warning.

"Jacob, you're dismissed." He said curtly. "Go and polish the eagle or something." Jacob's shoulders slumped in relief.

"Yes, Augur. I mean, Centurion. I mean, Pontifex!"

"Just go."

"I'll go." As Jacob hurried away, the dream swirled and changed. Reyna groaned. She didn't need this.

She found herself in a forest. It was dark, the trees blotted out the majority of the night sky. They swayed in a gentle breeze, the moonlight flickering softly. She could smell pine, fresh dirt, could hear a creek trickling somewhere to her left. An owl hooted, leaves rustled.

Movement shifted in her peripheral. From behind a tree, armed with her bow, came Louisa. She was younger, maybe thirteen, fourteen. A streak of mud smeared on her cheek, her clothes hadn't fared much better, but she was unhurt. She scrutinised the forest, silently nocking an arrow as she crept forward. Reyna had seen Louisa hunting before, but she did not recognise this scene.

Trees shook to Reyna's left and there was a howl. Louisa pulled back the string of her bow. The glowing eyes of a hellhound glared at her from the shrubbery, growling low. Louisa took a breath.

Before she could fire, something crashed into her from above. The arrow was flung in a random direction. The hellhound snarled. It turned tail and ran. Louisa swore colourfully, pushing the something off. She turned to yell, stopping short when she saw what the something was.

Reyna felt her breath hitch with surprise. It was Nico. Smaller than she had seen him, olive-skinned rather than pale. His dark hair was trimmed, he clutched his jacket around him. He had to be about eleven here, but she couldn't tell. He looked up at Louisa, shivering. Tears streamed down his face, sobs racking his small frame. Louisa set her bow down carefully. The grass withered around Nico. Shadows darkened and swirled.

"Hey," she said softly, "where'd you come from?" Nico shook his head, gulping and sniffing. Louisa crouched and he flinched. "It's OK, I'm not gonna hurt ya." She promised. "Can ya tell me your name?"

"N-Nico."

"I'm Lou." She smiled, reaching out. When he didn't recoil, she put a hand on his shoulder. "How'd ya get out here, Nico?"

"I… I don't know." He dragged his sleeve across his face, staring blankly at the ground. Something in his eyes shattered and he doubled over. He wailed, screamed. It was as if his pain was washing through Reyna all over again. Tears stung her eyes. Louisa shifted closer, pulling the boy into a hug, shushing him gently. Nico clung to her, sobbing uncontrollably. Louisa looked around as she stroked his hair, looked up from where he fell from.

Nico squished his face in her shoulder. "B-Bi-Bianca's d-d-dead." He stammered. "Sh-she's d-d-dead a-and i-i-it's P-P-Per-Percy's f-f-fau-fault!" Louisa's expression tightened. She didn't know Bianca. She didn't know Percy. She hugged Nico tighter. The air darkened, shadows thickened. Reyna's breath fogged before her. The dead patch of grass crackled under her feet. "He was supposed to p-protect her…"

"You ain't gonna be alone, Nico." She said roughly. "You ain't gonna be alone, I promise." The dream faded.

"Hey, wake up." Reyna squinted. Coach was leaning over her, shaking her shoulder. "We've got trouble."

"What is it?" She demanded, struggling to sit up. "Ghosts? Monsters?"

"Worse." Coach scowled. "Tourists."