The raven-haired half-blood looked towards the east, watching the Titan Hyperion coasting boastfully into the sky. That should be Apollo, she intoned to herself, slightly bitter-sounding in her ear. When she stilled her thoughts and her body, she could hear the nearby river rushing over the coastline. She grimaced and huffed slightly, feeling homesick. Beside her, a peanut butter-colored pegasus whinnied softly, nudging her shoulder with his snout. "I know, Scipio," she said gently, petting the pegasus's nose absently. "It doesn't sound like the Little Tiber. Doesn't feel like home."
"It's because it isn't home, Praetor," a small voice said behind her. The half-blood froze for merely a second before gathering her mask around her, the mask that helped her lead her people. She turned, her dark eyes piercing as she stared at the senior centurion behind her.
"Dakota," she acknowledged with a nod.
The son of Bacchus crossed his arm over his chest in salute before speaking again. "Pluto's ambassador claims that he has something to tell you." She merely stared at him, silent to the information given to her. "He said that it was important. That it was something big."
She nodded shortly, but didn't say a word. Instead, she dismissed the centurion with a salute and a wave of her own hand, and she turned to the pegasus next to her. "Come Scipio. Let us see what the Greek wants."
The praetor walked her pegasus to the small collapsing building where the remnants of the half-bloods stored their horses and pegasi. Gently she stroked its nose while she fished an apple from the folds of her robe. "I'll be back soon," she whispered to Scipio before striding off purposefully, her robes billowing out behind her.
She walked the deserted streets alone, knowing that most of the half-bloods were inside at this time, and with good reason. Generally, half-bloods, especially half-bloods with weapons and armor, would be captured, and one of two things would happen: either be killed on the spot, or subjected to the Games. She sniffed hard as stale air entered her lungs, and it made her snort. When she regained control of her breathing, she continued to walk on. She was lucky, she decided. The only reason that their entire army hadn't been captured at this point in time was because the city that they occupied had already been razed almost to the ground by the Titans. She looked up at the remnants of the building she was going into, its top all but obliterated. Sons of Vulcan had gone in to determine how much of the building was structurally safe and had come to the conclusion that only the first 10 floors and the entire basement area were usable. Stepping into the building, she looked for the steps leading into the basement: that was where he stayed most of the time.
She took the steps down two at a time until she reached a door that read CAUTION: PROXIMITY TO THE DEAD. She barely managed to stop herself from rolling her eyes as she twisted the knob and pushed the door open.
Directly in front of her, there was a table littered with what at first appeared to be just junk, with papers and cups and Jupiter-knows-what. Studying closely however, revealed that some of the papers appeared to be maps of places like America and Egypt and even one of Antarctica. Behind the desk was a big leather chair that was swiveled so that the back faced the praetor. Just in front of the chair she saw a figure standing in front of it, appearing to talk eagerly with the person in the chair. Then it noticed the half-blood that entered the room and pointed at her silently. As the praetor watched, a pale hand waved gently and the figure shimmered before disappearing entirely. The chair rotated silently and she found herself face-to-face with a boy with unruly dark hair coupled with equally dark eyes. As she stared at him, he rose from his seat and strode to stand in front of the desk between him and the praetor.
"I see your centurion found you," the boy said calmly, but despite how at ease he was she shivered in his presence. Why is it always cold around him? Maybe if he took a day off from talking to the dead…
"He said you had something important to tell me," she replied with a straight face, crossing her arms.
He beckoned her over behind the chair, where the figure had been standing. "I've been getting some information from my friends," he said quietly. "There's big stuff going on in the outside world."
She huffed in frustration. "Well, of course there's a lot of stuff going on. The Titans have taken America by force! The entire east coast is gone! Everyone we had in the south is either gone or fled into Mexico! The west…" she wavered here momentarily, just for a moment, that only the dead that inhabited this space could tell that she was wavering. "The west was scattered…"
He blinked at the praetor, almost unflinching and unmoving, his hand unconsciously floating to the hilt of the pitch black sword he wore at his side, gripping the handle so tightly that his already pale hand turned white. "That's not what I mean, Reyna," he said hoarsely. "The dead have been going crazy. They haven't been agitated like this for a year. That only tells me one thing: the Games have started again."
Reyna sucked in a breath quickly through gritted teeth. "Again?" she asked him. When he nodded slowly, she seemed to get even wearier. "How bad is it?"
"Now that's the thing," he began, holding her gaze. "It seems the Titans are rubbing it in the Olympians' faces. They're using the prisoners of war from the War. They're using the children of the gods."
Her dark eyes flashed. "Then…that means…Jason?"
His head merely nodded slowly again. "He's in there, along with Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase and about twelve other half-bloods." Reyna looked at him with wide eyes. "The Games have been going on for a day already," he finished quietly, answering the question Reyna never asked.
"What about our augur? What about Octavian?"
This time the boy shrugged. "I haven't heard anything about him. I don't know if he's even in the Games. I can tell you he isn't dead…I've got his name out in the Underworld. When he dies, they will send a spirit to tell me."
"Great," the praetor muttered softly. "How are we going to get Jason out now? We need him if we're going to even have a chance to fight back."
The Greek's eyes clouded over briefly. "He isn't the only one worth saving from the Titans. Jackson was our leader, and nobody could strategize like Annabeth. Not to mention all of the other half-bloods in that arena that are left, or the ones that are locked up Zeus-knows-where! This isn't just about him. Besides, as far as powerful half-bloods go, did you forget the daughter of Zeus that we still have out there trying to give us a little breathing room on the battlefield? Or the son of Poseidon still trapped in the Games? Or the son of Hades in front of you who now has to lead the army of the Greeks and be the be-all-and-end-all for the Underworld?" The Greek huffed in frustration. "I mean, when Hades was captured, it was up to me to keep order in the Underworld! I had to call my sister from the Elysium Fields just to maintain order, especially now that I'm here." He stared hard at the praetor in front of him. "The Underworld is the last stronghold we still have against the Titans, and our grip on that is slipping. There is more to do than just bust out Jason."
"You're right," she said, clearly not happy that she had been thinking out of emotion and not logically or strategically. "So, what do you propose we do?"
The Greek gave a small smile, and it startled Reyna. She'd been leading their ragtag troops with this boy for maybe a year and a half, and she'd never seen him smile or anything. "Our Oracle has had a vision. She knows what we need to do in order to come out on top." He gestured to Reyna. "Come on, we need to go see her."
Lyca and Jason picked their way through the underbrush of the forest, both paying special attention to their surroundings. They'd immediately decided that the Titans weren't likely to play fair in the Games, especially if people weren't dying, and were on the lookout for any tricks that their captors might have in store.
Lyca chanced a quick glance behind her at Jason, whose gaze kept darting around from her to the trees to the hill on their left. His blond hair hung in his face, but didn't appear to bother him much. Before going back to look around for any traps, she noticed that his hand gripped the hilt of his sword tightly as they marched along. The half-blood didn't blame him at all; her own fingers were either hooked into her belt or wrapped around one of her clip-point knives. It was a means of grounding themselves: to make sure that they had something that was solid, that was real in their hands, anchoring them to reality. It was also for protection, though not necessarily from each other. At least, she wasn't thinking she needed protection from him. She may have been untrusting in the beginning, but she felt inside her for some odd reason that he had been telling the truth. She didn't know if he trusted her entirely, but he'd been the first to disarm himself when they first met, and he had been more cordial. She knew that this was only temporary; only one person could ever win but she sincerely hoped that she wouldn't need to be the one to end it all for him.
She looked up at the sky and noticed that Hyperion had driven his angry sun almost halfway across the sky. She glanced back at Jason, who managed to meet her amber eyes. "You wanna stop for a minute?" she asked him.
He looked her over for a minute, and she felt his gaze almost piercing with his blue eyes. "Sure," he said after a minute. "I could use some water, maybe even something to eat."
Lyca nodded slowly. "I think there's a river nearby," she said to him. "I've got two bottles. I can go fill them and bring you some back."
"Then that leaves me the task of trying to find something we can eat," he sighed. "What I wouldn't give for a cheeseburger right now."
The thought made Lyca smile despite herself, and she made her way to the banks of the river. She watched the river for a moment, watching for fish or other signs of life to prove that the water wasn't poisoned, since the river nymphs had all retreated deep within themselves after the fall of Olympus. She prayed that the Titans weren't that cruel, to let the fighters die of thirst in the arena. When she looked closer to the water, she could see fish swimming up and down the river; she grinned to herself and began to fill the bottles with water. Lyca set the water bottles aside and slowly peeled her gloves off before kneeling before the river and splashing her face with water. The half-blood used part of her shirt to pat her face dry and pulled her gloves back on, deciding that it was time to head back and see how Jason had been faring.
Upon her return, Lyca found Jason collapsed on the ground, dusty from the dirt he'd kicked up.
"What happened to you?" Lyca asked him.
"I went searching for something, anything to eat," Jason replied shortly. "I couldn't find any animals, but then I remembered that we didn't have anything to cook them with. Then I looked up into the trees," he continued, pointing up.
"Apples," Lyca uttered softly as Jason nodded his head in agreement.
"I tried climbing up, but I got halfway there before I fell out of the tree. I'm alright, just a little bruised."
Lyca nodded at him, tossing him a water bottle. "The water's good," she told him. As for the apples, well…maybe I can get them down." If I can work out throwing with hunting knives.
Lyca drew one of her knives, grabbing it between her thumb and forefinger and aiming at the apples hanging overhead. She took one last look at Jason. "You might want to move back, and maybe cover your head," she said. The half-blood moved back slowly, his eyes watching Lyca as she tossed the knife into the trees. He looked on as the girl drew the other knife and threw it up into the trees as the other knife came crashing down from above, bringing down with it a big, delicious apple. Lyca pulled her knife from the apple and started again as the other knife fell, eventually collecting a small number of apples for the taking.
When Lyca waved him over, Jason came back, picking up an apple and crossing his legs as he sat nearby. Lyca grabbed an apple and took her seat, drying one of the knives on her pants and sheathing it. She took the other knife and began cutting into the apple, breaking off pieces and popping them into her mouth. Jason grinned, staring at his own apple before taking a large bite out of it. "This has to be the best apple I've ever had," he mumbled around the piece of apple in his mouth.
Lyca smiled and nodded in agreement, although she remained silent as she ate. Jason swallowed what he'd eaten and held Lyca's attention. "You're pretty good with those things," he mentioned, taking another bite of his apple.
She looked at the knife in her hand and smiled a little. "Yeah," she said. "My mom taught me when I was growing up."
"Really?" he said, slightly shocked. "Usually parents are telling kids not to play with knives, and your mom just puts one in your hands." She shook his head playfully.
Lyca nodded. "Yup. But the thing is, she knew from the get-go that I was special. She knew what she'd be getting into with my father. She told me that was one of the reasons why he chose her." She looked at him when he remained silent, noting a brooding look on his face. "What about your family?" she asked him.
He sighed. "I don't know. I never really did. I remember a couple of things, but not a lot. I went to camp and they just sort of took me in. But enough about me. I wanna know more about the toddler that knife-fights." Lyca knew that there was more, but also knew that he'd just shut her out.
"Well," she started, picking up a second apple. "I'm half Native American, half Caucasian."
"How?" Jason asked her. "With your father being-,"
"I know," she replied. "I inherited my race from my mom. Her grandfather was Caucasian and her mother was Native-American. So she came out that way, and I followed suit. She kept close ties with her roots, and since she knew I was this special, she wasted no time in preparing me. I started with knives. It took some practice, but I got the hang of it. That's when I went to camp. And I found my true calling."
"What was that?" Jason asked her.
Lyca prepared to answer, but was cut short by a large roar. The demigods both looked to the hill, where what seemed like a centaur stood menacing. She noticed horns and a gruesome look on his face and immediately knew that this wasn't one of Chiron's more eccentric 'cousins'. Jason grasped his sword and drew it slowly as Lyca swore under her breath.
"You ready?" Jason asked her.
"Well, I was hoping to have seconds, but why not?" she retorted drily, drawing both knives.
Seeing the glint of celestial bronze must have drove the thing crazy, because it roared again and barreled down the hill and would've run the half-bloods over had they not rolled out of the way. It reared back and rotated, facing Lyca. Immediately she dropped low, ready to strike when ready. When it bellowed again, she thought it better to try and end it now by leaping towards it, blades held ready to silence it. Instead, she felt herself spinning out of the air and barely managed to catch herself, rolling into a kneel with her palm outstretched in front of her for balance. She gripped her knives harder and rushed the monster, managing to cut a gash in its side, which caused it to howl in pain. In response, its horse-half kicked out at her, which she jumped back to avoid, causing her to run into a sharp elbow from the monster. Lyca hit the ground hard, but forced herself to her feet, frantically looking for Jason and wondering why he hadn't been helping. She paled slightly when she saw that his hands were essentially tied as he fended off another of the same species that was giving her a lot of trouble. It tried to catch her off-guard and reared back, trying to slam its hooves into a demigod that wasn't there when it looked again. Lyca had ducked under, rolling away from the deadly hooves and carved another gash into the beast before perching on its back, trying to end it with a well-placed slash. As she set up for the finishing blow, she felt large hands grip her and fling her from her perch and into the ground. She looked up and saw the monster hovering over her, bellowing in pride before making its kill. Suddenly, its cry was cut short, and Lyca could only see gold sticking from the back of the monster before it began dissolving like all monsters did. Hitting the ground with a soft thud, covered in monster dust was Jason, gold sword where he had stabbed the beast through.
He shook the dust off and sheathed his sword before standing over Lyca, offering her his hand. "Anyone else sick of this place?"
A/N: Okay, not much to say this time. At least one more small reference to who Lyca's father is. I've only gotten one guess and I'm not telling you guys if it was right or not. But I've added Reyna and a new guy in...I don't know why I like to keep you guys guessing, but it works for me. Don't worry, I won't leave you in the dark there: if you don't know who he is by now, I'll tell you next time you see him. Hope you liked the action.
Reviews are appreciated!