So Chapter 4 already- I know the update progress is really erratic; it's harder than you'd believe, actually, since there are complications to the update, but that is NOT an excuse. So i'm updating this Tuesday, today, the 24th, and i'm going to update early, on this Friday coming up, the next Friday, so that I can update every Friday after that, so Friday is the update day. If I can't make it, I will make a quick post to reassure, then delete it, since i know how annoying it is when you think you have a chapter, but it's just some nonsense from me. Sorry. Still, this is a short chapter- they're also going to get longer, a lot longer, at least 5,000 words longer, so that'll be better- apologies on that again: I shall extend my writing hours duly, greatly so. Thankyou for the patience.

Jason

Jason and Piper walked down the streets pausing every now and then to look at items that attracted intrest of some form- or at least Piper did, and she did so while attached to Jason's arm. As they strode along, Piper secured to Jason's waist, he was assailed by the sudden feeling of being watched, feeling eyes probing at him. Eyes in the head of person who intended to cause him harm.

Feeling him tense, straighten and look around, Piper lifted her head to look into his eyes.

"Jason? What's wrong? Are you okay?" she asked.

"I just..." he shook himself. "No, no, it's probably nothing. Doesn't matter." He gave her a small smile, and she seemed satisfied, relaxing again. However, as soon as she shifted her gaze from his face, he looked around, trying to get a clear view of the area.

He slowed when Piper pulled her arms from around Jason's waist, and said, hand over her mouth, "Oh gods! Jason, look over there!"

She pointed, and Jason looked to where she was indicating. A wrecked chariot lay among the stone foundations of a long-collapsed building just beyond the outskirts of the Pomerian Line, a lone corpse lying over the remains of its skeleton.

Jason began to run towards the wrecked chariot, some 30, 40 metres from the road. Jesus, he thought, he must've been going pretty fast. As he neared, he saw the wheels scattered to the left and right of the main chassis of the chariot, spokes shattered. He saw two horses, once sleek and proud, flanks muscular, now matted with blood, limbs askew at awkward angles.

He leapt over rocks and bounded over ditches gouged in the grass off the road by chariot wheels, hearing Piper racing along just behind him; he then reached the body draped over a protruding rock, and crouched down.
"The chariot's completely destroyed," Piper called. "Wouldn't even be useful as scrap metal."

Jason looked at the corpse from every angle, making sure it was dead, which it undoubtedly was, covered in blood from head to shoulders.

He stood. "I guess, then," he said grimly, "we'd better tell a centurion about this. They'll get someone down here to get him out of here and remove the chariot."
As he spoke, he thought he saw the body moving, the back rising up as if a long-held-in breath had been quietly released. He knelt again. "Hey? Anyone there?" he said, unsure how to address a dead man. He reached forward and pressed his fingers to his neck, feeling around for a pulse. And as he found a beat, the corpse's eyes flicked open, revealing blue irises that focused on him sharply.
He began backing away with a startled exclamation, but the figure darted up and grabbed a leg, sending him flying to the floor, cracking the back of his head on stone half-buried in the floor.

Almost completely stunned, he summoned a gust of air to push him to the side across the floor, sending him hurtling, back pressed against the floor, away from Fake Corpse.

He heard Piper talking behind him, and he blocked out her words by thickening air inside his ears, for even as he heard her tones he knew she would be charmspeaking, and her enemies would be running from her in terror if she commanded it, kiss her feet, kill each other if she demanded it. Unfortunately, he could no longer hear anything, which meant he wasn't aware of Fake Corpse running at him until he planted a boot in his upper chest, Jason feeling ribs splinter and crack inside as the impact hit him.

Almost passing out with the pain, he managed to bring enough energy into his will to throw himself up into the air, withdrawing his gladius from its sheath on his waist, which he dad retrived from Terminus' assistant at the edge of the Pomerian Line, and swooping down, half-blinded from agonyresulting from his sudden motion, sword scything in a curved motion to his side at Fake Corpse. He felt a moment of relief as his sword cut through something, the momentary resistance of the human skin, muscle and bone reassuring him he had detached a part of Fake Corpse's body.

He saw, through blurry vision, another figure running towards him, and he crashed into the figure, using his momentum to tackle the would-be murderer back ten metres metres, thrusting his sword through the figure's chest. As he got up, he saw that it was a girl, judging by the shape of her body who he had just killed.

More so a sense of danger than his obstructed sense of sight of hearing warned him of the third attacker, who charged towards him, swinging his sword over his head and screaming a soundless, animal scream.
Meeting his blade, Jason cut one way and the other, finding, in the beginning, his attacks blocked, but eventually, with a feint to the side, he broke his defense and whipped the blade across his throat, making him fall earthbound, hands that had abandoned the gladius cluthing a ruined throat.

He threw himself into a jog with a herculean effort and lurched towards Piper's fight, which she was handling fairly well.

'Well' in that her enemies, three still standing out of the evident seven that had begun, from the bodies on the floor, were placing their weapons down with an utterly dazed expression on their faces, staring at her in awe as she delivered a kick in between their legs, whipped the hilt of her dagger across their faces, to send them to join their comrades already on the floor.

She held her dagger, Katoptris, in her hand for a moment, staring down at the losing side's victims.

"Piper!" Jason cried. "Are you ok? Did they injure you? You're alright? You sure?"

Piper's reassurances did nothing to seperate his relief at her well being and sense of victory from a feeling of guilt. He'd been attacked by people, however malicious their intent may have been, and had responded in turn, killing them- killing demigods, or legacies, people of Camp Jupiter. However much it had been a necessity, he still felt slightly guilty. They may have even been people he had known, put up to it by...by who? The first thing he thought was Gaea? Then he immediately realised that the effort she would have had to direct towards the camp to gain influence would mean that she wouldn't have been willing to place her followers' lives at risk- not out of concern, but for her future use. Octavian? He wouldn't be surprised. How to find out? Jason was a warrior, not a speaker. He didn't have the linguistical skill required to manoeuvre his way through senate members to find the information, so he would be direct. As direct as could be.

"Piper," he said, hands on knees. "Go back to the ship. Rest up there. I'll catch up with you soon, alright?"

"No! Jason, you're hurt! I'm not just to going to let you wander off to do whatever the hell it is you want to do? What...are you going to do, exactly?"

"Really," he breathed. "Taken worse wrestling with Clarisse." he gave a quick smile as he straightened up.

"Jason." Her voice was now irresistibly soft, silky even. Then she shook her head as if she was ashamed. "Please," she said, in a normal voice. "Come back- there's blood on the side of your shirt, please let's go and get some ambrosia!"

Jason hesitated. He wanted to go and get some answers, but how could he say no to her? Her emotion, next to her beauty, her desperation to get him some help- he couldn't resist.

"Alright then." He smiled, resigned.

Piper shouted up to the top of the Argo II. "LEO? LEO!"

A head poked over the side of the ship's hull- black, curly hair. The head withdrew immediately after seeing them, and a few seconds after, the ladder fell down to the ground, unfurling and rippling down to where Jason could steady it and haul himself up onto it.

Jason crawled out onto the deck of the Argo II, Leo helping him up. "Shit!" he gasped. "What the hell happened to you guys? Jason-oh dude, there's blood on your shirt!"

"I wouldn't even have come back here if it wasn't for Piper," Jason said. "If she hadn't been there I would've-"

"Been even more seriously injured than you are now?" Piper interrupted as she pulled herself onto the deck as well. "Jason, you would've died!" She crouched at Jason's side, and lifted up his shirt to peer underneath.
"Oh my god!" She cried, tears glistening in her eyes, dropping the shirt. "I can see your fucking rib!"

"What?" Leo said. He scampered round to where Piper was and lifted up his shirt to get a look. "Whoa, dude, that is fu-"

"LEO! Go and get some nectar right NOW!" she yelled, furious, though tears still shone in her eyes. As Leo turned, she looked down at Jason. "You ever tell me you're fine again, and i swear i'll charmspeak you here if i have to," she whispered, holding his arm.

"I'm going, I'm going," Leo muttered. "To be honest, you can only see the tip of his rib. You ok if i get my camera while i'm down there?" he asked as he went belows decks.

Piper said something under her breath in Ancient Greek. Jason got the feeling she wasn't telling Leo what his best attributes were.

Now that Jason could finally feel his earlier adrenaline rush fading, he could sense the pain in his lower torso. It was as if it was buried, deep under his past adrenaline surge, barely noticeable. Now, however, that web of safety was fading fast, and it was becoming more pressing by the second, gnawing at the skein of energy that was, slowly but surely, dissapating.

He relaxed, letting his head drop gently back onto the wooden floor of the deck, trying to ignore the growing sensation of pain. He felt Piper holding his hand, and would've shaken her hand off if he'd thought it wouldn't hurt her- it barely hurt at all, and she was acting like someone had just stabbed him. Well, it had come close, but it hadn't actually happened, was the point.

Eventually Leo came back upstairs, the flask of nectar in his hand-Piper supported Jason until his back was further up, far up enough for him to drink from. He held the flask in his hand weakly, and tipped his head back to drink. Barely had he time to contemplate the taste which he remembered from the other incidents that had forced him to ingest ambrosia or nectar before the drink was mostly gone.

Now, he felt in top condition, and stood, looking at down at his shirt to see a medium-sized, about 3 centimetres across, patch of blood on it. "I'm fine, Piper," he reassured her, grinning. "Now, i'm-"

"Woah, woah, take it easy, golden boy- you haven't told us what the hell happened to you guys!" Leo said, a hand raised in protest.
"Well, we were walking back here, and-"

"You where walking back here as well? So where exactly were you while i was on my way back, because i came straight back here. Almost." He added.

"Well, Piper wanted to go and check out some things Camp Jupiter has, you know, buildings and scenery...so we took a quick detour and ended up going the long way round. Next thing we know, we see a chariot, crashed and wrecked. And of course, it's a setup. We get attacked by a ton of people- most of them were wearing masks-"

"Masks?" Leo asked insistently. "Like, black ones?"

"Yeah, just covering their faces completely- well, except for the guy who was pretending to be dead. He gave me a bit of a bloody scare when he woke up, with me thinking he was dead. But more of them went after Piper- she's fine, no- and one of them caught me with a kick, so that must have been what splintered my rib. But the point of all this is-"

"The point of all this is that these pricks tried to fucking kill me as well!" Leo said angrily.

"What?"

"Yeah- he came in here after-um, yeah, so he came in and he was pretty messed up, he had cuts all over." added Frank.

"Yeah. Look at my jacket!" He hissed, pointing to the rips.

"Looks like you'll have to get someone to see about repairing that, then, Leo," Jason said with a smile. "Besides that, there's got to be someone behind this. And if i were to have guess, it'd be Octavian."

"Octavian..." Hazel looked thoughtful. "I guess so- but really? So soon after you arrived, and so soon after he was arguing with Percy in the senate?"

"Well, who else? It can't be Gaea, I mean we just got here!" said Piper. "And this guy Octavian doesn't seem to be the nicest around from what i've seen."

"My thoughts too. So, if you girls don't mind, we're going to go and have a word with him."

"Actually, Jason," Leo began, then was cut off by him.

"No, Leo, whatever it is. I'm going to get some answers from the goddamn creep, and no, we're not all going-"

"I think Piper," he interrupted, placing heavy emphasis on her name, "Might be able to help."

"Er...yeah. Damn. All right then, Piper, you'd better come with us. Thanks, Leo." he said. "We'll wait until a few hours until nightfall, actually. Might be good think about what to do."

Octavian woke as Jason shook his shoulder; his eyelids flickered open slowly at first, then shot open like he'd been tasered. Waking himself from his sleep, he sat up in his bed, set aside from the bunks of the other members of the First Cohort, to look suspiciously at Jason.

"Jason Grace. You know," he sighed, turning over as if to go back to sleep, "some people are ardent fans of their sleep. I think you could safely count me among one of those. So, if you don't mind, i'll be-"

"Octavian." Jason's voice was calm, but hard, like bronze. "I was attacked by a group of people tonight. They almost succeeded in killing me; and that was their goal, and if I had to point to one person to say, 'he did it,' it'd a person who's sitting pretty close to me right now."

"Someone-" he spluttered. "-tried to kill? You dare accuse me-"

"Hey, Octavian, isn't it?" asked Leo as he crouched down beside the furious Octavian. "You know, they had a pretty good go at me too. So if you're the bastard who sent those guys-" he leaned in for effect. "I think i'd like to have a little 'chat,' to be honest."

"Listen, Grace, i don't know what you've been taking- maybe Greeks have some kind of substance that addles their brains-"

"Octavian," Jason said. "One. More. Time. Tell me who it was."

"Please. One shout from me, and this whole Cohort will have their swords at your throats in a second." he snorted. "Besides the fact you can't threaten me, it-"

"Oh, I don't think so." Interrupted Leo with a sarcastic smile. Fruther towards the beds of the rest of the First Cohort, Piper walked up and down quietly, murmmuring to prone bodies to sleep, not to wake, to sleep deeply. Jason and Leo hemmed Octavian into a position where he could not see this, though, and for a moment he looked skeptical, then confused, then wary.

"Listen, both of you," he gestured with his hands, sounding a little more nervous, "I didn't have anything to do with this. I don't know whether you're trying to pressure me into doing anything, or making this up, but either way, I don't know why-" his voice faltered. "anyone would want to kill you."

"Octavian?" asked Jason cautiously. "Something you want to share?"

"I think you should share it," Leo added.

"Well, I can't really say that truthfully, because as we know," he said scornfully, "Gaea is at large, and i'm sure she'd be more than willing to slice your heads off."

Reading into Octavian sudden silence after that, Jason gestured in a 'carry on' gesture, a slow rolling of the hand.

"Well..." Octavian hesitated, looking around.

"What is it?" Jason said.
"Yeah, come on, man! Spill it!" said Leo, annoyed.

"We've had...i've heard...whispers of...vague rumours, no more...of a presence here in Camp Jupiter. Beginning about a year ago, this was. What was implied, heard, passed on... what i got the idea of was of a cult, worshipping a deity of sorts. Here, in Camp jupiter," he confirmed, in response to Jason's questioning look.

"What kind? Worship some kind of vodoo god? Well why would they want to-" Leo asked quizzically.

"Not a god. The rumours are mixed up, jumbled, confusing to say the least, but the one thing they all agree on is the nature of the cult, who they worship. Tartarus."

Silence echoed throughout the room, even down to where Piper was supposed to be keeping the sleeping Romans asleep.

"Tartarus?" Jason whispered.

"Oh, shit." Leo whispered.

"Are you joking?" asked Jason. "Is this some kind of way of distracting us?"

"No, Grace. Rest assured, I myself have seen enough of the traces they leave to be utterly confident in their existence," Octavian said in a manner that suggested his personal thoughts on the matter were the most important thing to them.

"Fudge." Leo whispered, looking down.

Jason knew the feeling. not only were they apparently the seven demigods who had to withstand Gaea's infleunce on a very personal lvel, not only were they the ones who were supposed to rampage their way through her hordes of monsters, not only were they supposed to send Gaea back to sleep, but now, as if that wasn't enough, they had to withstand Tartarus' attentions as well.

His head spun as he tried to connect the dots. He was no Annabeth, but he figured he'd picked up enough from her and had enough common sense and knowledge to work this out.
What's his connection, he thought. Why is he taking an interest? Think. Have I killed anything recently that is related to the guy. Even so, i'm sure he's got like, a million children. Is he connected to Gaea somehow? Didn't he have children with- Oh. Great. Seems like he's got a pretty good reason for trying to screw us over.

"The giants are Tartarus' sons," he whispered, a quiet whisper that was meant for Leo's ears, but it seemed Octavian got wind of his words, for he gave a slight, unpleasant upturning of the corners of his mouth. "So, you connect the dots. Given that you've taken for granted this cult exists now, you've got more to handle than you originally would, if you consider the fact that Tartarus, the spirit of the abyss is taking an intrest in you. I guess it isn't really surprising, given the fact Jackson killed another giant here, and apparently his 'friends' felled another during their quest. Though I find that hard to believe."

Jason was still too much buried in the shock to consider that two more giants had been killed.

"Well, gee, that's bloody brilliant," Leo said sarcastically, getting up. "I think i've heard enough from Mister Disaster over here," glancing at Octavian. "We'd better be heading back now we've had the good news."

"Yeah," Jason said numbly.

"I will not speak of this, Jason Grace-" Octavian began, sounding as if he was conferring a favour upon them.

"You're right you won't. You go on about us visiting in the night, no-one's going to believe we sneaked past the entire First Cohort. Anyway, you're still here. Maybe that'd tell people we aren't as vicious as you'd have us believe."

"You speak of them, we, and us. You're not making any sense. First you speak as if you were one of them, next you include yourself as a Roman," Octavian interjected conscendingly.

"I'm just a demigod," He replied, getting up. "I can share this world. There's enough room, even with the monsters."