XXXVIII

Jason

Now that Jason looked back upon it, he wasn't so sure his impulsive decision was correct. The 2 days had passed in a flash, and before he knew it, he was suiting up in some specially designed armor. Although it looked pretty regular, the weight difference was very notable, and the armor was able to take a helluva beating before any sustained damage.

But other than that, nothing really happened. The Romans stayed well away from land, and resorted to blockading them from sea. Leo was on better terms with Jason, if still a little upset. The Greeks went about regular business—training, repairing, tending to the wounded and messing with the Roman "prisoners."

Jason sat down and watched of Athena's kids going at it with wooden spears. His mind wandered elsewhere, and he didn't hear someone sitting next to him until she said, "you know, beating yourself up mentally isn't really going to help."

Sighing, Jason replied, "I know, but I'm just… not used to how Camp Half Blood works. I'm too strict, to expectant of complete discipline, Pipes."

Piper replied, "Just relax and eat sandwiches. Everything'll be OK."

"I wish," Jason muttered, too quietly for Piper to hear. Before Piper could offer any cliché advice, he quickly kissed her on the cheek and stood up clumsily. If Roman armor had one fault, it was that the plates were way to big and were a pain in the arse to move around in. Literally, sometimes. Jason's armor always had a habit of pinching his bottom.

He grabbed a sword, shield and a pilum, and headed for where the ghost had told him to meet. A couple people gave him some encouragement, but other than that, nobody really seemed bother that Jason was headed for his death, pretty much.

Currently, his plan was to just play for time, try not to die, and hopefully find some weakness. But even if he got past the ghost, things were still very bad. In 2 days, Gaea was set to make a flashy appearance in Epirus, and that left Jason with yet another decision: Should he try to find the final piece of the bow, or attempt to wing it when facing the giants? Roman duty told him to find the bow, but if he wasted too much time, then they wouldn't be able to save Percy and Annabeth.

There was also the minor problem of a Roman fleet blockading modern Carthage (whom ships the mortals didn't seem to notice). All these problems were starting to give Jason a migraine.

Apparently, though, Jason's mind was rather slow, because as soon as he finished the train of thoughts, he had arrived at the location, roughly a mile from camp on a deserted beach. Jason decided not to wonder why nobody was on the beach on a hot, summer day.

A ghost was waiting for him—not the one he had met, but a female in a dress. She had striking features, and reminded Jason of one of the few mortal actors he knew about, Anna Kendrick.

As he walked closer, the ghost girl smiled at him, and held up a black sack of sorts. Jason immediately realized what it was: a blindfold. Apparently, these ghosts wanted to keep their location secret. Jason sighed and took it, putting it in his head. He felt cold, yet soft hands grab him by the shoulders and lead him to wherever.

After a minute or 2, ghost girl took the blindfold off. Jason turned around to thank her, but she had already disappeared into mist. He took in his surroundings. A plain, black room with no furniture, but several racks of pretty diverse weapons, from Chinese halberds to Macedonian pikes to European 18th century muskets to steampunk flamethrowers. Jason didn't know how the ghosts acquired this kind of heat. It was certainly enough to give any demigod army quite some fun.

"Impressed?" The all-to-familiar ghost voice asked him from behind. Jason wasn't surprised; he had seen enough movies to know the "bad guy" always surprised the good guys from behind. They then proceeded to tell a story before anything ever happened. Sure enough, the ghost told how he had acquired each of the weapons. Apparently, they were special made, yada yada.

Jason activated his story mode, where his mind knew when to nod and say, "mhm,' while his actual consciousness dreamt about Reddit and food. Soon, the ghost was done and Jason almost didn't notice it draw its sword and almost decapitate Jason. At the last moment, he snapped out of his dream and threw up his wrist guard. That was a bad move. If the ghost was using his full strength, that would've been minus 1 hand for Jason. Luckily, it wasn't and all Jason got was a nasty throbbing pain and scratched metal.

"I take that you want to start it?" Jason muttered.

The ghost extended his hands like it was awaiting applause. "All right!" He said in an oddly cheerful voice. "Conditions! Fight to the death, no unsportsmanlike combat. If you win, we give you the bow and you're free to go. If I win… well, you're dead, so it doesn't really matter what I do!"

"Hold it," Jason interrupted. "Aren't you already dead, which means I win right away?"

That took the ghost by surprise, and he thought about it for a second. That was all Jason needed. With one fluid movement, he lunged forward and decapitated the ghost's head. Or at least, that was what should've happened. Instead, the sword went through the corporeal being like it wasn't there. The ghost didn't seemed the slightest bit fazed. "Hmm," he muttered. "Well, I guess you'll just have to kill me again," he said and shrugged, raising his sword and shield, completely ignoring the killing blow Jason delivered seconds ago.

Before he could question killing a dead person was even possible, the ghost went full offensive, and Jason's mind went onto battle mode, blocking, rolling and jabbing. The ghost was a skilled fighter, there was no doubt about that. However, Jason had gotten in a few hits early on, though they weren't strong enough to pierce the armor. That is, if the armor was actually there. The first time he hit it, it went through the body again, like it wasn't there. Jason almost lost his life from the stumble.

The second time, he hadn't learned his lesson and again, he stumbled and barely dodged a killing blow. It was then that Jason really how one-sided the battle was. He was facing superior opponent who was basically saying, "F*ck off" to Jason's blows. Meanwhile, Jason was getting cuts and bruises from the constant beating from the ghost.

Jason growled. He had played right into a death trap, and now he had to find a way out. Suddenly, the ghost lunged forward and Jason, unprepared, he swiped his sword in a panic. His eyes widened in surprise when he felt his sword make solid contact. His swipe had caught the ghost's arm full, and was buried fairly deeply. Mist trickled from the wound. Jason's victory was short lived, however as the ghost used his shield arm and bashed Jason's skull with the edge. He went onto the ground, hard and the sword fell from his grip.

The shield was holding his arm in an uncomfortable angle, and suddenly he felt a spike of pain as the ghost stepped on it, twisting it. Any more pressure and his arm could break. Jason heard the ghost breathing heavily and he knew enough about Greek fighting tactics to know he had his sword in two hands, pointed down, ready to execute Jason. He also learned how to counter that.

He quickly kicked the ghost's knee with of his feet. Although he knew the angle wasn't good enough to cause it to fall, the sword missed and struck the ground centimeters from Jason. Next, he grabbed the sword's handle, twisted and pulled it. The ghost still had much of his momentum and weight on the sword, and when it lost ground, Jason's opponent went tumbling to the ground.

Quickly, Jason regained his footing and grabbed the pilum from his back, and in a fluid movement, threw it at the Greek warrior. He knew it wouldn't actually injure the warrior, that was never the point. Instead, a long, heavy spear buried itself in the shield of the ghost. Jason backed up and picked up his sword, lunging forward with his gladius. The ghost was attempting to pull out the twisted iron spearhead buried in his shield, and Jason took the initiative to strike.

This time, it didn't miss its mark. The sword buried itself and went through the body of the ghost, and said being hissed in pain. It attempted to twist around to hit Jason, but Jason bashed the ghost's head with his shield, and it collapsed. "The bow," Jason growled at the ghost. "Where is it?"

In response, a door in the far end opened. Jason headed for it.

Sorry, I'm late, busy, yada, yada, yada. Yes, and this chapter is the usual 1.5k, not 4k. I'm bringing back theses lengths, since you guys didn't seem to like the long ones.

To hopefully compensate, I'm going to throw 3 chapters at you guys, depending on how much I get done.

QOTC: If the is a finite amount of matter in the universe, how does Olive Garden offer unlimited breadsticks and salad?

EOTC: Pacific Rim. Seriously, you've got giant fucking robots swinging cargo ships and beating the shit out of giant sea monsters. What more could you ask for?

SOTC: Pacific Rim Main Theme by Ramin Djawadi