A/N: Alright, so here's where I drop a hot take and hope you maintain interest. I don't like HoO. I think it's disrespectful the Roman Empire in that their history and culture are (even today) inseparable from their mythos. Rick Riordan might not have cared for the history, but I don't think he did a good job by just writing around it.

That being said, I love Greek mythology and loved the original PJO series. This is my endeavor, forced as it may be, to get some justice for the Ancient Romans and honor their legacy.

Pollux's Pub, named after its owner and operator, had become a staple of camp Half-Blood. Although these days it went by a different name: Parva Graecia, which was Latin for "Little Greece." The Roman government had, of course, resented the limited resources which had been brought in from their smaller and supposedly weaker ally and had opted to colonize them rather than suffer an alliance.

As Percy pondered this, walking into Pollux's Pub, he reassured himself with Annabeth's words. "All par for the course, seaweed brain. Don't worry about it." But this wasn't par for the course, not as he knew it anyways. Par for the course was the minotaur, Medusa in a stone garden, and having a cyclops for a half-brother. This was an invasion, even if it had been bloodless thus far.

Percy was far from alone in his thoughts on the matter, and his attendance of Pollux's Pub was by no means coincidental. In the waning years of Camp Half-Blood, Pollux had started a counter revolution of sorts. Where the Athena cabin had embraced what they referred to as "the barbaric attempts to approach civilization" that was the New Roman Empire, Pollux had assembled a sizable if inadequate collection of dissidents. Needless to say, they'd been outvoted.

"Percy!" Pollux called out to him. Percy feigned a smile, but he'd been anxious about making his presence here too well known. He doubted Pollux had missed that.

"Pollux," Percy replied timidly. Pollux had grown up in recent years, and the death of his brother had pushed him in the direction of drink. Dionysus, to his credit, maintained a vested interest in the well-being of his son. That being said, the party god was the last one who would reign in anybody's drinking habits.

Even still, Pollux was something of a small-time celebrity around Parva Graecia. He argued vehemently against Romanization, demanded priority status to what he called Hellacian businesses, and refused to serve the Roman legionaries stationed in what had once been the Big House.

"Now correct me if I'm wrong, Uncle P.J.," Pollux said through a wicked grin. "But I mark you as a rum man."

"Don't start with me Pollux," Percy groaned, sitting down at the bar. The whole room seemed to be quietly observing them, waiting to hear what treacheries they had planned. Percy couldn't afford to give them that satisfaction.

"Ah, I'm only teasing you Perce. D'you want a drink or not?" Pollux backtracked, trying to unruffle what feathers he could.

"Fuck it, Polly. Give me whatever's on tap and do it twice."

Pollux laughed boisterously, although Percy would give him the benefit of the doubt this time and say that this was genuine. The first round was quickly placed in front of him, and Percy could practically taste the bitter sweetness before it even touched his lips.

"What's your trouble, Percy?" Pollux probed, conversationally. "Nothing from the hill, I hope."

"Not really," he admitted amicably. Pollux scanned him incredulously, clearly hoping to glean something more. Percy took a deep swig, draining the pint by about half. It had been a day that warranted a heavy drink. "The Big House has been pretty exclusive recently. It's mostly just Annabeth and Dakota in there," Percy expanded.

As radical as Pollux was, Percy wanted him to win more often than he did. First it was changing the name of the Big House to "The Hill," then it was their being forced to trade and sell goods to Rome, and now they were being taxed. Did Pollux have some crazy ideas? Sure. But they were founded in reason and reality, as befit any proper Greek.

Pollux, to his credit, seemed to pick up on and appreciate Percy's use of the old name. He nodded and smiled while Percy killed the pint, only for Pollux to put another one right in front of him. The rapid consumption of alcohol had loosened his tongue a bit more, and he could feel a rant building in his stomach.

"You know, Percy, the Hellenes believed that alcohol was an enlightening drought. Of course, they might not have said it that way, but if they did, they would've been right," Pollux probed expertly.

"You don't need to be enlightened to see what's been happening, Pollux," he said with a soft tone and a hard scowl.

"Maybe so," Pollux replied. His having said so little seemed, to Percy at least, an invitation to go off. And oh how he wanted to.

But Annabeth was on her way to being the new governor, and potentially even a senator. To launch into the diatribe he'd buried so deep within himself could kill not only her career, but her in general. Roman politics were a fickle thing, and Percy was in no rush to go a-meddling.

"But even still," Percy backtracked desperately. They were in public after all. "Roman governance, however limiting, gives us access to higher education and safer travel. For the love of Rhea they built a road, Pollux!" He paused for a moment, allowing the tension to build. His grasp of Greek politics was matched only by his aversion for Roman ones, and his rhetoric had aged nicely too.

"For the first time ever there's a way for Half-Bloods like us to transverse the North American continent and go to college. That seems worth paying taxes for," he finished. Some of the patrons nodded their heads, heeding his words. But most of them simply scowled.

"That may be, Percy. But in the process of becoming Roman, will we still be Hellenes? Or just another slave state?" Pollux asked emphatically.

Percy sighed and sipped at his pint. He didn't want to agree, but he did. Camp had changed, and now it felt more like a Roman colony than it ever did like home. He forced a conceding smile and nodded. Pollux started to clean out the empty glass, looking at Percy from time to time with sympathetic but expectant glances. He clearly wanted an answer.

"I don't know, Pollux. But we're not getting nothing out of this."