I apologize for the long wait, I had to redo this chapter three times before it made any sense to anyone.

Chapter 3

When that mysterious warship was first spotted sailing towards the Den about six months after Percy had arrived, I knew it would be an interesting encounter. It was soon decided by the captains and Lupa that the Halls Minerva, Neptune, Mars, and Mercury would deal with them. Since Jason's disappearance I had become praetor of both the First and Second Legions, which I hoped would end before I lost it. Yet, unless Jason somehow returned before the Summer Solstice with a really good excuse for disappearing, I'd have no choice but to become Commander and appoint a new lieutenant. Though I was never too crazy about the idea, my hands were full enough before Jason vanished.

I was walking around the Den's halls, making sure the four halls were more than prepared for the upcoming encounter, when I ran into Percy. "What is it Jackson?"

"Sorry to bother you, ma'am, but am I also going to be in the fight?"

That was a pretty stupid question, so I replied with a stupider one; Percy usually stopped acting foolish for awhile. "Are you part of Hall Neptune?" he nodded. "Then that answers your question. It's been announced many times today that Halls Mars, Minerva, Mercury, and Neptune will be the ones to engage the enemy. Now get a move on, we don't know when the enemy is going to attack!"And with that he hurried off to prepare himself for battle. So he's finally obeying orders without a fuss? Excellent.

Then my walkie-talkie beeped, it was Venus' Captain Dakota, "Lieutenant, the spies have returned. Apparently our foes are fond of speaking in Ancient Greek." Greek, so then the enemy may be Percy's friends… "My Hall is requesting permission to assist the First Legion in dealing with them."

"Denied," I responded immediately. "Thanks for the intel, but I already have more than enough men at my disposal as it is."

And Dakota didn't bother arguing after that. Only a half hour after the trespassers were spotted, the First Legion was more as ready for the trespassers as they ever could be.

In the huge front room, the legion was neatly grouped into six centurias and all were armed with shields, javelins, swords, and full-body armor.

Then our mother wolf Lupa crawled in. She was huge with reddish brown fur and silver eyes; immediately everyone snapped to attention. She nodded to us all and began to speak. "Are all six centurias ready?" Each centurion raised their swords and shield high in the air in response. "You are the strongest warriors in the world. Fight like you have been taught and you will never die. For Rome!" This caused a roar of battle cries to be heard.

"Now march!" I said and the First Legion filed out of the front gate, which was over a third of the Roman Army.

We began are trek with muffled excitement and soon enough arrived at the shores to meet the Greek owners of that warship. I could only guess why the masthead was a metal dragon's head.

From up on the ship, a girl's voice rang loud and clear from a bullhorn. "Please don't attack us, we come in peace." She's charmspeaking. It would have been stupid for us Romans to allow these kinds of tricks to affect us, so Hall Trivia always casts a spell on all of the soldiers about to fight that counters it. Charmspeaking has caused soldiers trouble on far too many occasions.

Amused, Dereck shouted back in English, "stop charmspeaking unless you want to be blown to bits!" I hope he was able to see the glare I gave him. "Er, unless you surrender right now, of course, then less-" I cleared my throat loudly, "… actually, no harm will come to you." He's completely disregarding the required conduct when first engaging an enemy. I do not envy him during his next chat with Lupa.

Then a new girl began to speak, "look, we haven't come here to seek violence, we just want to talk to you all peacefully.

"Yeah right, peacefully. Then, when we trust you, you'll stab us all in the back, just like in the old days! I say we just kill them now!" someone shouted, hidden in one of the centurias.

Irritated, in Lain I shouted, "calm yourselves!"

But out of nowhere came something that almost changed my mind. It was a hellhound who jumped onto the nearest soldier, which happened to be Percy, and began happily licking him. Instead of immediately slaying her, I threw a small metal square at the mutt. It changed into a strong net that quickly trapped and restrained her. I motioned Percy and the other soldiers nearby to drag the she-dog out of the way.

"Quit fooling around or die by our blades!" Captain Bobby of Hall Mercury said.

The heads that had been peering down at us disappeared until the second girl began to speak again. "Alright fine, we surrender. Now you please speak with us peacefully."

"It was that easy? Lame!" Dereck muttered in Latin.

I sighed in relief; it was obvious that if we had actually attacked it would have angered the gods. I called the captains over and the four of us walked up the wooden plank that had been placed nearby to the warship's deck. We passed right by the dragon head and I got a good look at its flashing red eyes and bronze scales.

What I saw on deck was at complete surprise. There, was someone I had thought Juno had finally gotten sick of and destroyed: my old friend and Commander, Jason Grace.

Because of my shock, I didn't notice Dereck charging at him, shouting 'traitor' at the top of his lungs. Though I'll admit, if I hadn't been the one in charge I would have done the same thing. Jason deserved only the worst punishments for ditching the Army. Their swords clashed as they had many times before, though now Jason was fighting with a plain gladius and he was the one who had his sword knocked into the water.

Just when Dereck was about to deliver the killing blow, I came to my sense and told him to cease his attack. Dereck automatically stopped and dragged himself back over to the rest of us Romans. "Anyway, even though you said you wanted to talk, we really don't have the time or interest to stick around to listen for long. All we ask is for you to be gone by tomorrow before my army gets violent."

But before my comrades and I could exit, the second girl blocked our way. "We need to talk to you Romans about an enemy that could cause devastation around the world, especially for us demigods." She was blonde with stormy gray eyes and she meant business.

We all folded our arms and resisted the urge to yell at the girl or the large centaur that trotted over to us.

"Please, just listen to what I'm about to tell you. Then perhaps we can all come to a compromise." And he began his tale, "Long ago there was a war of gods against-"

"Hurry up horseman, we don't have all day!" Mercury's Captain said and my hand made it's way to my forehead.

The "horseman's" brows furrowed, "of course. Less than six months ago, your commander-" Dereck coughed 'former.' "Alright, your former commander fought against the giant Enceladus." Bobby and Dereck began snickering, mumbling 'fi fy fo fum', hopefully out of the half-horse's hearing range.

Their comments were bordering on annoying enough for me to have to order them to shut up. The other Romans are apparently completely unable to hold their tongues or attempt to take the Greeks seriously.

"Please listen Roman demigods." The others didn't try but I pretended to, though I was really just trying to figure out a way to calm them down. "Enceladus was defeated but only because of the combined efforts of Jason, two Greek demigods, and Zeus himself. Luckily no one was killed but there are far stronger giants then Enceladus and they are planning to attack Greece."

That caused all us captains to burst into laughter. I somehow managed to stifle it long enough to say, "Why should we Romans care about Greece, dare I ask?"

"Come on guys, this isn't the time to act foolish. If Greece falls it would weaken the gods," Jason had his fists clenched; he was more than ready to prove his point with force. Captains Dereck and Bobby, on the other hand, were barely keeping themselves from choking on their own incessant laughter at the foolishness of the Greeks. Minerva's Captain Hazel was attempting to calm them down with little success.

But Hazel was still the calmest of the Romans present. "Jason, you are officially no longer one of our soldiers and we want nothing to do with you anymore. You have affiliated yourself with enemies and abandoned the Roman Army. Never speak to us like that again, no matter how some of us are acting." She glanced back to the two Captains who were trying to rub the tears out of their eyes, forgetting that they still had their helmets on, which don't even have eye or mouth holes. "And, onto the subject of those giants, you do realize we Romans attacked Greece centuries ago, right? If the giant want to attack Greece, so be it," I nodded in approval.

"And the gods?" the blonde asked.

"They never have cared about us in any way beyond doing their dirty work and I doubt the fate of Greece will affect them very much in any case." Hazel kept her calm voice, even though many other Captains could never hope be so relaxed about the gods, who ignored us except when they had to claim us or needed favors. Then the sky began to thunder.

"What about the innocent mortals who will be killed while the giants are attacking?" the centaur was deathly calm when he said this.

"If your enemies are so strong than I doubt they'd waste their time attacking mortals and any mortal casualties would be almost impossible to prevent anyway." I had enough of staying silent, I was in charge and I had to set an example so things like Captains Dereck and Bobby laughing for little reason in front of intruders could be avoided.

The Greeks were getting fidgety now. A few bigger ones were eyeing their weapons; wanting to get us to help but probably also contemplating what would happen if we attacked. Jason was pretending to be looking for his sword in the water, but kept motioning with his head towards the mountains. I got the message: go before you do anything else you might regret later.

"Captains, we've left the legion unattended for too long, we should go." They all nodded, but before we left Hazel scrawled something into the notebook she carried with her at all times. How she is able to write in that bulky armor is beyond me. Then she tore it out and handed it to Jason. Whatever it was, it definitely troubled Jason.

The four of us hurried back to the troops and I announced that the army would be beginning its march back to base. No one protested; peaceful intruders will always bore the demigods of Rome.

Mercury - Hermes

Venus - Aphrodite

Vulcan - Hephaestus

Minerva - Athena

Mars - Ares

Neptune – Poseidon

Trivia – Hecate

war fire - Greek fire