Graduates of Olympus

In the archives of Camp Jupiter, there are the records of many past heroes and their daring exploits. These records are kept so that their stories might be remembered and honored, as is fitting for heroes of New Rome. This is one such story: three heroes and their desperate fight against an invading army and its near-immortal leader. Written after the fact by all three of the heroes, whose names shall go down in the annals of New Rome. From their writing, it appeared as though they were writing not only for the benefit of the Legion, but for normal mortals as well. Hence, some things that are obvious to a Legionnaire are defined at length, such as the existence of the Gods and so forth.

Set an unspecified time before The Lightning Thief.

Original characters are mine, but the setting, situation and most of the interpretations of Classical Mythology belong to Rick Riordan. As with all fanfiction, I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox.

Chapter 2: Willow

To start off, I have to make some clarifications. First, my brother is prone to overdramatize. It's not really all his fault, since our dad is the God of the Arts, but seriously, listening to Chris go on and on makes you think his entire life is some sort of tragedy. Yes, we've had some hard times, especially the last couple days, but come on! Our parents are Gods! We kill monsters! Life is pretty awesome, all in all.

Secondly, let me set the record straight: despite all my brother's doom and gloom in the last chapter, this story has a happy ending.

Well, mostly happy.

Well, I guess a lot of bad things happen, in retrospect, but it ends alright.

Ok?

So let me see where my brother left off…

Seriously? He gave you a cliffhanger? My brother is such a drama king.

Ok, so we were lost in the desert, heading towards a certain ambush. I'll pick up there.

We tromped forward, following our own trail of footprints that had somehow been moved around on us when we weren't paying attention. Cor led the group, with Chris right behind and me taking up the rear. We always walk through areas that leave footprints in single file, to disguise the number of our group in case we're followed (random fact. You're welcome).

We followed this path for about twenty minutes, until we were right in the middle of the rock formations that Chris had described to us. Our footprints stopped there.

In the silence, Chris sighed overdramatically and started counting.

"Five, four, three…"

At 'two', we were ambushed, which was pretty good timing considering he had almost half an hour to work with. With a sound that was a mix of a hiss and scream, about two dozen monsters sprang out of concealment and slithered towards us. They were indeed some kind of snake women, with normal looking torsos but two snakelike tails instead of legs. They all wielded swords and long shields. No doubt, they expected us to react with surprise and alarm, which would give them enough time to get within striking distance and quickly finish us. I'm pleased to say we didn't accommodate them. With a quick shrug, my bow was in my hand and an arrow nocked and aimed.

I was in pretty high spirits. First, we were in a fight, and I love getting into fights with monsters. I always get such a good feeling from killing them. My brother tells me it's an endorphin rush, which I shouldn't get addicted to; I tell him to be quiet and stop being such a downer.

And no, I don't recklessly rush into danger like some sort of adrenaline junkie. I'm just very aware of our abilities as a team.

First off, our group has been training together for years. We know the ins and outs of every strategy, every tactic and every plan out there. We've worked flawlessly together in tons of dangerous situations and we're all well aware of our strengths and weaknesses.

Take me, for instance. With all humility, my skills with my bow are Godlike. I should know; I've been around plenty of Gods. I've got the eyesight to see a fly at a hundred Roman Paces, and the skill to take its wings off from the same distance. At a few yards, putting an arrow into the head of the lead attacking monster was cakewalk. I probably could have done it blindfolded. I laughed out loud as I nocked and fired again, putting another creature down with an arrow to the head.

Chris, for a son of Apollo, is a little strange in that he doesn't use a bow too often. I don't know why, but he prefers a sword and knife combination. That said, he still puts his gifts to good use. When he fights, sometimes I swear his eyes are closed as he pays more attention to the future than the present. He moved through the monsters, literally a step ahead of them, reacting to the monsters movements before the monsters actually moved. When my brother fights, he looks like a dancer, moving to the beat of a song only he can hear.

On my other side, Cor is a sight to watch. He moves less gracefully than Chris, but he makes up for it in raw power. As muscled as he is, he's still far faster and stronger than he looks, and each time he punches or kicks it seems like a mini-shockwave pounds the air. He fights like a mix between Bruce Lee and a boxer, blocking blows on his cestus before blurring forward and pounding fist or foot shaped holes in his opponents. Add to the fact that he's usually on fire and it's a pretty spectacular sight to see. Most monsters only ever see it once. We caught each other's eyes and he grinned at me; he's not as vocal about it as me, but he enjoys fights nearly as much as I do.

Unfortunately for my "endorphin rush", the fight was over pretty quickly. Without Chris's warning we definitely would have been in trouble, but with ample time to prepare, we were unbeatable. The last few monsters tried to flee, but I caught them with arrows to the necks as they turned to run, and they shrieked in pain as they exploded into dust (By the way, that's what monsters do when they die; turn to dust while their essence returns to Tartarus, in the Underworld, to be reborn at a later date. Chris says it makes fighting them kind of lame, because no matter how many times you kill something, eventually it will return. I say it's convenient, because then we can kill it again).

As I surveyed the remains of the battle, I saw one monster had survived the fight. Currently it was pressed up against a rock wall, Chris's sword and knife on either side of its neck.

"Issss enough! Thissss one sssurrenderssss!" The snake woman spoke with hisses are well. I could see a forked tongue flick out whenever it tried to pronounce an 's'.

Chris's sword pressed in harder, cutting off whatever the monster was going to say. "Don't talk. I'm going to ask you a question. You will answer it. Make any sudden moves and I'll know before you do". Chris turned to us and said in an offhand manner, "Do you think this is part of the group we were sent out here for? I, for one, think yes".

"Yeah," I responded simply. Like I said, Drama King. It's like he's performing for an invisible audience.

Chris turned back to the monster, who was trying to breathe without moving its neck too much. "Ok, here's the question: Are you part of a larger group, and if so, where is this group? You can now speak". He eased his blades away from its neck a fraction of an inch.

"Ssss true. Ussss isssss not alone. We have whole army over ridge for invasssssion." The monster's face took on an expression of pleasure. "Issss too many for you to win! Our leader issss immortal! All heroesssss will die!" The creature's laughter was cut off as I grabbed Chris's arm and sliced the monster's head off with a clean sweep of his sword. The monster dissolved into dust, but its hissing laughter echoed around us. We all looked at each other.

"Well," I said, trying to maintain the cheerful attitude I had had during the battle. "At least we're not lost anymore".

I crept over the ridge and looked at the mass of monsters in the camp below us.

We were in serious trouble. There were hundreds of monsters in the camp below us, of all different varieties. I saw some familiar faces, like more of the snake women we had just fought, but some of the monsters were new to me, which was a little unnerving, since I had been fighting monsters for a while. The camp itself, however, didn't look like a normal fort for a marching army. It looked far more permanent, with the dominant feature being the huge, amphitheater-like structure in the middle of the camp.

Cor sidled up next to me. From this distance, you could always feel heat emanating off of him, which had been really nice during the cold desert nights of the past weeks. Sometimes I ended up sleeping a little closer to his bedroll than was strictly necessary, but hey; he's warm, both physically and personally. Looks aren't everything; he has a wonderful personality and he's an incredible fighter and…

You know what? This is being recorded for all history. You don't need to hear every defining reason why I like Cor. Back to the action.

Cor whispered in my ear. "What can you tell about the Amphitheater in the middle? It looks permanent".

So he had noticed too. Give him a point for perception. I looked harder at the amphitheater, and it seemed to zoom in my sight, like a more advanced sniper scope. Yeah, it's a handy gift.

"Eew," I drew back, repulsed at the sight. "It's made of skulls all cemented together".

Cor made a face as he turned and waved Chris up to where they were on the ridge. "That's gross. Thanks for that. What I meant was, does it look portable or anything?"

I took another close look, but it only confirmed my suspicions. "No, it's not going anywhere. Actually, I'm not sure any of the camp looks like it can be disassembled."

"So it's not a war camp, which means our prisoner was lying." Chris crept up and settled on my other side. "If it's not an army, what is it doing here?"

I simply shrugged and kept looking. As it was, that many monsters were definitely a threat to Camp Jupiter's safety, even if it wasn't an invasion army. I was about so suggest we back up and confer from a safer distance when Chris suddenly stiffened beside me. I looked over as he closed his eyes and I recognized him getting a premonition.

I turned to Cor quickly. "Get ready; something's about to go down".

"No time," Chris muttered through clenched teeth. "Happening now; get clear!"

Cor and I whirled around, but it was too late. As silent as ghosts, we had been surrounded from the rear. More snake women held bows all aimed at us, and several huge monsters I recognized as Laistrygonian Giants backed them up with large clubs. Our odds didn't look good.

One of the snake women…stepped…forward. "Ssssurrender, and you're livessss will be ssspared. Our Leader hassss need of you."

I exchanged an incredulous look with Cor. If a monster wants to spare a Demigod, it's usually because they have something more painful than immediate death planned for them.

I examined the odds again. Yeah, we were definitely in trouble. I could intercept arrows with my own, but I was leery about getting all of them; it only took one to kill you. I knew Cor could, on a good day, catch or deflect arrows, but that wasn't a given either. If he could get in close he could definitely beat the giants, but me covering him would leave me and Chris open…

See? I'm not reckless. I'm well aware of our group's limits. Reckless Demigods don't make it to adulthood like we have.

I was surprised by a sound of metal hitting rocks behind me. Chris had dropped his sword to the ground in front of him. In his eyes, I could see that he had come to the same conclusion as me; probable death later was better than certain death now. With a growl of frustration, I set my bow on the ground in front of me. To my left, Cor unbuckled his cestus and also dropped them to the ground.

The monster that had previously spoken seemed a bit taken aback by this. I guess Demigods didn't usually surrender to it. It hissed to itself for a moment before motioning three of the giants forward to take us into custody. The giants bound our hands with rope, attached a lead, and jerked us roughly to follow them down the slope towards the camp. As we walked to follow, I made a mental note of which of the snake women had picked our weapons off the ground behind us. These things, whatever they were, were going to get it as soon as I could get the odds back in my favor.

The path to the central amphitheater had been cleared of monsters as we walked through the camp. As we were half marched, half dragged through the camp, I noticed something weird going on with the geography. We were definitely still in a desert, but the heat started to really increase, and the packed mix of rock, sand and dirt under our feet turned into pure sand that made us stumble. Instead of being in a desert in the Southwest United States, it looked more like pictures of the Sahara or somewhere like that.

As we approached the amphitheater, I got another good look at its menacing structure. It was, definitely, constructed from skulls, and not all of them were human. On the top level of the structure, large banners were strung up, emblazoned with the symbol of a Trident.

Neptune. Most Romans didn't really like him, and I was no exception, but for all the lame stuff Neptune did, he didn't seem like one to approve something as grotesque as this.

We were dragged inside and through the dark interior. As we finally emerged back into the light, we found ourselves engulfed in the sound of cheers, boos, screams and roars. We had emerged to find ourselves in the main room of a large arena. All the hundreds of monsters from outside had packed themselves into the benches ringing the stadium.

Now that we were inside, I could determine the purpose of the amphitheater. It was an arena for combat. Imagine the Coliseum in all its glory, except the walls are made of bone instead of stone; you'll have a good idea of what we were in. The sand in the middle ground was stained red with blood. There was currently a fight going on between two Giants. I heard Cor gasp as he was dragged in besides me.

"It's a Pankration!" he yelled over the sound of all the monsters in the arena. "Like an ancient wrestling and boxing match!"

Figures he would know about something like this. He fights with a pair of gladiatorial combat gloves, for Jupiter's sake.

"If this is modeled after a typical Greek or Roman match, there should be a leader-" Cor's explanation was cut short by a loud shout from the arena, as one of the giants had successfully pinned the other with his arms behind his back in a move that I knew would be illegal in any wrestling match today. The stadium grew quiet, and all eyes turned towards us.

No, not right at us. Above us.

The three of us turned around and looked up. There, in a spectator's box fit for an Emperor, a giant lounged on a couch.

Giant doesn't really describe him well enough. This guy was huge. He looked about fifteen or twenty feet tall and about that wide as well. He was covered in swirling blue tattoos, but the skin underneath was dark, like he'd never been out of the sun. He was built like a brick wall, with muscles protruding from everywhere. I could tell, because the only clothing he wore was a loincloth, you know, around his loins. Yuk. Imagine a sumo wrestler with more muscle and three times the size.

Don't imagine too hard.

With all eyes on him, the giant lazily raised one hand, paused, and then gave a thumbs down at the arena. As the crowd roared approval, the dominant giant in the arena twisted the other giant's arms farther in the wrong direction until…

Well, I'm not one to shy away from violence, but even Chris and Cor looked away, so I didn't feel bad about looking down and pretending I couldn't hear the sound of arms slowly ripping off. Eventually the screams of pain cut out, and I looked back up to see the second giant finish dissolving into dust as the victorious giant stood above it, holding the dismembered arms up as spoils of victory.

With the fight over, the giant in the spectator box was again the center of attention. "Attention!" his voice boomed out over the arena. "We have some special guests this day! All welcome our new combatants!"

The crowd again went crazy, and it only took me a second to realize that he was talking about us.

"Heroes of Olympus, Demigods!" the Giant stood and raised his arms up, almost in a salute. "Welcome to my arena! I am Antaeus, Champion of the Pankration, The Scourge of Libya, the favored son of the Earthshaker, Poseidon himself! We always get plenty of entertainment from Demigods! And we'll start…" his finger stabbed downwards and pointed straight at me.

"With you."

A few notes about the chapter:

A Roman Pace is, very roughly, about 5 feet.

Antaeus is originally from Libya, so I wanted the desert to begin to show that as the heroes traveled to his arena.

For the sake of argument, this is set before Antaeus settled in the Labyrinth.