Please excuse me if I make mistakes in describing the battle, as I know very little about military tactics.
Enjoy the second chapter of this story!
As the 12th Legion Fulminata, led by Reyna the Praetor on her Pegasus Scipio, marched to the Fortress of the Titans on Mount Tam, Jason thought of the battle ahead. He knew they were expected by an army of thousands of Scythian dracaenae. In addition, the Titan Krios was also guarding the fortress. All this had been reported by the scouts of the legion to Reyna, who had passed this information on to the centurions in a briefing. In this briefing they had worked out a battle plan to destroy the palace of Othrys and to use this moment, when only one Titan was in the fortress, to defend it. Therefore, on the evening of 20 August, they marched to the fortress of Othrys. The plan was that the Dracaenae, who were still in front of the fortress to defend it, should be attacked from three sides. The third and fourth cohorts were to attack from the left and the first and second cohorts from the right. The frontal attack was to be made by the fifth cohort, led by Jason together with Gwen, with support from Reyna, the elephant Hannibal and the scorpion cannons. The task of the eagles was to repeatedly attack from the air in order to weaken the defenders. In addition, some of them were also to bring injured legionaries back to camp. If the Dracaenae were then overcome, the entire legion was to enter the fortress. Unfortunately, no one really knew what the situation was in the fortress, so there was only a rough plan for further action, which was that Krios should be defeated and the entire fortress blown up.
Jason was pulled out of his thoughts when the fortress of Othrys became visible for the first time. He had to admit that he was impressed. A few hundred metres away stood an ancient Greek palace at least twice the size of all of New Rome. It was completely black and therefore looked to Jason almost like an oversized palace of Pluto from the underworld. The entrance was flanked by two bronze braziers with green fire. In front of the entrance so many dracaenae were crowded together that it looked like a sea of green women with two snake legs from their hips. The 12th Legion was now splitting up, as per the plan. Jason shouted "5th Cohort: STOP!" and instantly the cohort stopped.
Jason, along with Gwen, turned to face his cohort, which was staggered in front of him in rows of four. As he let his gaze sweep over the cohort, he looked into many familiar faces, but also some new ones. He looked into the faces of long-time friends like Dakota and campers he barely knew. He looked into the faces of experienced fighters and of legionnaires who were still on probatio. But they all had the same determined look that made it clear they would fight for their comrades and for the camp with their lives. This also made Jason even more determined. He was not only fighting for his own future or for the future of his friends. He was fighting for the future of the whole camp. He was fighting for the future of all these different people. And not only that. These people before him were counting on him. After all, he was their centurion. He could not let these people down like his mother had done to him. He not only had to fight for them, but also lead them to victory. And he would be able to do that! After all, he was the son of Jupiter!
He turned to Gwen, who was standing next to him, looking at him with at least as much determination as Jason felt. They nodded to each other, giving the sign that they were both ready. They turned back to their cohort. Jason cleared his throat and raised his voice, "We will now begin the plan we have already discussed. The selected legionnaires will stay behind to operate the cannons. The rest will form the triangular formation." About ten legionnaires ran to the rear where the eagles had dropped the scorpion cannons. The remaining Legionnaires formed a triangle with Jason and Gwen at the head. Gwen and Jason looked at each other seriously for a moment and no one said anything. Gwen's auburn hair peeked out from under her helmet. Then Gwen reached out her hand to Jason and he squeezed it. "In case we don't meet again, it has been an honour to fight by your side, Jason." Jason had to fight back tears. He had known Gwen for a long time. They had fought together for years in the legion and although there had never been any romantic feelings between them, a deep friendship had developed between them. He did not want to lose her. He had to fight the urge to hug her at that moment, because he knew he had to be strong in front of his cohort and control his emotions. So he made an effort to say in a firm voice, "It was an honour for me too, Gwen. But I'm sure we'll both survive today." Gwen replied, "Let's hope so, Jason!" She then ran to the rear to assist the other legionnaires in operating the Scorpion cannons.
At the same moment Scipio landed beside him and Reyna looked at Jason with her obsidian black eyes filled with grim determination. "Is everything prepared here?", Reyna asked Jason. Her shoulder-length black hair shimmered a little under her helmet and she wore her armour over her purple Camp Jupiter shirt. In her hand she carried her usual weapon: a spear of Imperial Gold. "Everything is ready here," Jason replied. "Only Hannibal is missing." Reyna shrugged, "I guess he decided to open his own front." Sure enough, Jason could spot Hannibal not far from the 3rd cohort, ready to trample down a few snake women. Reyna continued, "The other cohorts are ready too. I guess we can start the attack now then!"
She raised her voice, "12th Legion Fulminata, let us destroy the Titans, the enemies of Rome! Senatus Populusque Romanus!" "Senatus Populusque Romanus!" echoed back from the entire 12th Legion. The other 4 cohorts were already starting to attack when Reyna gave Jason another determined nod, "We will win this battle, Jason!" Jason replied more confidently than he felt, "Absolutely, Reyna! And we'll both survive, too" Reyna dropped her grim mask and smiled at Jason for a brief moment "That's how I like you, Jason!" Then she put her grim mask back on and rushed away. Jason looked after her anxiously for a few seconds. She too, like Gwen, was an important, long-time companion and friend to him. He didn't want to lose her. He wished he was as sure that he, Reyna and his other friends survived as he had expressed to Reyna moments before. Jason tried to push that thought away. Fear was not a good advisor. Lupa had taught him that years ago. He needed to focus on the battle at hand. So Jason turned to his cohort, "Let's attack!" Others might have said something about glory and honour now in his place, but Jason hated the whole concept of glory. After all, the most important thing was to be able to save what was important to you. Before he could think about it further, the attack began. He tossed his gold coin Ivlivs into the air and it as it landed on Jason's hand it showed the side of its head. A moment later Jason was holding a full-blown gladius of Imperial gold. He then advanced with his own cohort towards the Sea of Dracaenae, which was barely 100 metres away.
As Jason approached the palace with the fifth cohort, he could see that it was not entirely solid, but that the walls of the palace seemed to melt into the shadows and reform elsewhere. 'I hope the palace doesn't collapse as soon as we go in there,' it flashed through Jason's mind. Jason pushed that thought away again. First they had to get into the palace and they wouldn't be able to do that if he didn't concentrate on the fight now. So he diverted his gaze from the palace to the green sea of Dracaenae again. It was now only 30 metres away. The Dracaenae now turned their attention to the approaching legionaries. When the first Dracaenae were only 10 metres away, they also began to rush towards the legionaries. Unfortunately, Jason was at the head of the legionaries and consequently these Dracaenae were charging towards him first and foremost. So he raised his sword of imperial gold and prepared to fight. The first Dracaenae were dust on the ground within seconds. Jason advanced with his cohort and pulverised more and more Dracaenae. But new Dracaenae just kept coming to replenish the enemy's ranks.
Jason's instincts now took control of his movements, which became a mixture of punching and stabbing. He was able to deflect most of the blows and dodge the others in time. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed his comrades from the fifth cohort advancing behind him in a triangular formation, destroying the Dracaenae who were attacking from the side rather than head-on. Behind them, the remaining legionnaires of the 5th cohort, led by Gwen, fired the scorpion cannons. About 6 metres in front of Jason, the Pegasus Scipio flew above the enemies and Reyna stabbed steadily with her golden spear to destroy Dracaenae. Jason could also make out some eagles that kept attacking the serpent women from the air. Jason could not see the other cohorts or Hannibal, but they were probably advancing as well. Jason also noticed that not all the dracaenae were attacking his cohort, but a small number were also wandering around in panic and disorientation. So the attacks from the air were apparently having an effect.
After several dozen minutes, Jason could finally see another cohort for the first time. It was the second cohort. There were still about 70 Dracaenae between them. But a plan was forming in Jason's mind. Therefore, while fighting, he called out, "Dakota, you take the lead of the cohort now. We must try to separate some of the Dracaenae from the rest." After a few seconds, Dakota fought beside him and said, seemingly soberly, "I'm ready, Jason!" Jason nodded in satisfaction and then focused on the winds around him. He got them to lift him a few feet into the air. From above, Jason had a good view of the battlefield and he had to swallow for a moment. Among the monster dust of killed snake women, about half a dozen legionnaires lay motionless on the ground all over the battlefield. From the far distance Jason could not tell who was lying on the ground and whether these legionnaires were dead or just injured, but still the sight almost broke his heart. His comrades, perhaps even friends, lay helplessly perhaps even dead on the ground. Jason wanted to fly over to them at that moment and take them all to camp.
Jason shifted himself. That was the eagles' job. Besides, he wouldn't manage to stay in the air long enough to transport the legionnaires all the way to Camp Jupiter. The most he could do to help them and the others was to help destroy the Dracaenae. And to do that, he now had to concentrate on implementing his plan. To do this, he first observed the entire battlefield and could see that he and his cohort had already covered about two-thirds of the distance to Othrys' fortress. The legionnaires of the fifth cohort who operated the scorpion cannons, led by Gwen, were slightly to the left of the rest of their cohort and from there they shot flames at the Dracaenae army, causing chaos and eliminating many serpent women. This was probably one of the reasons why the fifth cohort had already advanced relatively far. Not far from his cohort were also the first and second cohorts, with the second cohort having advanced in the direction of the fifth cohort and the first cohort led by Michael Kahale and John covering the second cohort. On the other side of the battlefield, the third and fourth cohorts had made great strides and were not far from the fortress entrance, thanks in part to Hannibal's help who seemed to have taken pleasure in trampling Dracaenae.
However, they were now hardly making any more land gains because new snake women kept pouring out of the fortress. In addition, Jason could also see that all the cohorts, including his own, had already been decimated. Jason estimated that all the cohorts had already lost about 10 legionnaires each. This worried him as there were still many dracaenae standing between the fortress and the legion and he did not know what awaited them in the fortress. He began to wonder more and more if they could even win this battle. Before Jason could sink any deeper into his gloomy thoughts, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a peanut butter brown pegasus flying towards him and coming to a stop beside him. It was Scipio. Jason lifted his head and saw Reyna looking at him curiously, "Jason, what are you doing up here?" Jason decided that enough of observing the battlefield for now and refocused on his plan. Dakota led the fifth cohort at the head of the triangular formation towards the second cohort, which was led by Larry and Ida, their centurions, towards the fifth cohort, also advancing in a triangle.
"We need to link the legionaries of the second and fifth cohorts to cut off part of the Dracaenae from the rest," Jason explained his plan in a nutshell. Reyna nodded, "Not a bad plan. It could actually isolate several dozen Dracaenae and then destroy them more easily." Jason said grimly, "Then we should help with that!" Reyna nodded decisively and together they dropped down to pulverise the Dracaenae currently still standing between the second and fifth cohorts. As he did so, Jason turned his gladius into a lance and stabbed side by side with Reyna at the Dracaenae, who struggled to fend off the aerial attacks and were sent back into Tartarus en masse. The second and fifth cohorts now began to move much faster towards each other. Finally, after a few minutes, a gap appeared in the Dracaenae ranks and Larry and Ida immediately took advantage of it to advance. "You should support your cohort back on the ground now," Reyna said beside him as she pulverised snake women on the side. Jason nodded. Dakota and the rest of his cohort desperately needed support to maintain and expand their link with the second cohort.
So Jason let the winds lower him back to the ground, directly between Dakota and Larry, shrinking his lance back into a gladius as he did so. Having created a small corridor between the two cohorts, they were now being attacked front and back. Jason attacked the snake women who were now cut off from the rest and Dakota took on the snake women on the other side and they fought back to back. All the legionnaires of both cohorts had now arranged themselves so that they formed a line of two legionnaires at a time, one demigod fighting on each side. At one end of this line, the legionaries of the second cohort met the rear line of the first cohort, which was arranged in a square and now tried alone to advance further in the direction of the fortress. The line of legionaries from the second and fifth cohorts had formed a semicircle around the dracaenae, who could only escape on one side, where there was only the dust of already pulverised monsters. But as some monsters tried to use this way out to escape, seemingly out of nowhere Gwen appeared with the scorpion cannons and the other legionnaires of the fifth cohort who were manning the cannons in this battle and blocked this way out for the snake women as well. The Dracaenae still tried to run back and disappear into the crowd of other monsters, but the legionnaires at the scorpion cannons prevented that and turned the monsters into ashes.
Unfortunately, the monsters now also knew that they could not escape on this side and now turned towards the legionaries of the fifth and second cohorts, who had formed a thin semicircle around the legionaries. Because this semicircle was so thin, the dracaenae could certainly break through the ranks of the legionaries in some places and thus escape. To escape this danger, they would have to tighten the circle as quickly as possible in order to reduce the circumference of the semicircle and thus be able to strengthen it. So Jason shouted in his best commanding voice: "The legionaries standing inside the semicircle: Advance! The others retreat slowly!" Jason doubted that the legionaries of the second cohort would follow his order, but in fact no one contradicted him and all the legionaries of the fifth and second cohorts who formed the semicircle put his order into action. For once, Jason was glad to be the son of Jupiter. Together, Jason advanced with the other legionaries in the semicircle fighting the encircled Dracaenae, making the semicircle around the serpent women tighter and tighter. As he did so, Jason kept hitting the snake women in front of him with his gladius, who were now desperately looking for gaps in the semicircle of demigods to escape. Unfortunately, some kept finding gaps to escape in between, but at least in such cases the demigods could always dodge quickly enough not to come to harm and close ranks again shortly afterwards. Jason couldn't see what was happening behind him, but from the sounds of battle he knew that there was also fighting going on behind him, and from the fact that luckily he hadn't been stabbed in the back yet, Jason knew that Dakota was still fighting behind him, protecting him from the dracaenae who weren't encircled. Over the next few minutes, the semicircle became tighter and tighter until finally all the gaps were closed and Jason was again fighting side by side with his comrades. By then, only about a dozen Dracaenae were left, and they were now completely surrounded. After a short time these were finished off, too and Jason, along with the other legionnaires who had taken part in the encirclement, was able to turn and fight on again at the right front. As he did so, Jason found himself right next to Dakota, who grinned at him as he was cutting up a snake woman, "Good of you to help us again. We're having trouble holding the front! But now we should be able to advance again!" Jason nodded appreciatively, "You did well!" He knew he could always rely on Dakota in an emergency.
Glancing up briefly, he also saw Reyna, again eliminating Dracaenae from above a few metres in front of him, causing confusion. She turned her head briefly to nod at him, expressionless. Jason had known Reyna long enough to know what this gesture meant. Reyna wanted Jason to lead his cohort back into the attack. So he shouted, "Format rectangulum!" His cohort formed a rectangle behind him and to Jason's surprise the other two cohorts did the same and so in total a large rectangle of over 80 legionaries from the first, second and fifth cohorts formed behind Jason.
Jason faltered. He didn't want to lead all three cohorts. It put him as close to the position of praetor as he had ever been in his entire life. But he never wanted to be a praetor because that was exactly what everyone expected of a son of Jupiter. Jason didn't want to be seen simply as the son of Jupiter, he wanted to be seen, simply as Jason Grace, one of many demigods. That was why he had spent his whole life in the Legion trying to prevent himself from becoming Praetor because everyone expected a son of Jupiter to become Praetor at some point. He did not want to become praetor despite all his efforts. He did not want his fate to have been predetermined from the start and there was nothing he could do about it. He almost gave in to the temptation to step down and let someone else lead. But he couldn't do that. The legionaries of the cohorts had obviously declared him their leader and were relying on him. He could not abandon them now. So he bit the bullet and led the three cohorts into battle.
He ordered, "Advance!", which the rectangle of legionaries behind him seemed only to have been waiting for. All three cohorts, led by Jason, advanced, slashing and stabbing at the monsters.
