A/N: Reyna's stay with Lupa was originally supposed to be five chapters, but… I sorta ran out of stuff to talk about. As a result, this is the SECOND TO LAST CHAPTER! Probably! Maybe third-to-last because I cut two of the Lupa ones. Hmm.

Reyna's parting with Lupa was much less emotional than her parting with Hylla had been. The pack had set her in the right direction, walking with her to start, then peeling off one by one until only Lupa and Reyna remained.

We will meet again, Daughter of Rome, although whether it be during peace-time or on the field of battle I cannot tell. Lupa didn't look at Reyna when she 'spoke', although Reyna glanced over at her. Once you cross the Tiber, you will be in Rome. Put down roots there and grow. And remember: feared rather than loved, but not hated.

With that, the she-wolf was gone, stopping and sitting on her haunches as Reyna continued walking.

She would indeed see Lupa again, but it wouldn't be for two years, and it would only sort-of be peace-time. When she next laid eyes on the she-wolf, Reyna would be standing on a marble platform, dressed in gold armor and a purple cloak, being inaugurated as praetor.

Six days later, Reyna was fed up. She had headed in the direction Lupa had sent her. She had faced off against monsters in the day and in the night. She had been running and hitchhiking and sleeping under bridges and raiding unattended grocery carts. But she couldn't, for the life of her, reach the damn camp.

She stood at the top of a hill, looking down at the tunnel entrance below her. That was where the gate to the camp was. If she was able to get down the tunnel, she could have reached it. Unfortunately for her, the area around the tunnel was infested with monsters, some using the mist to disguise themselves as policemen, some hiding in the trees, some actively seeking her out. It was exhausting and extraordinarily frustrating. She was so close.

Now she was crouched behind a bush, dagger out, eyes narrowed, watching two dracaena armed with spears cross the busy road. Drivers honked and swerved but it was clear that none of them saw the creatures for what they really were. Reyna wished she couldn't, either. But then she would be dead.

A loud snap!Crash!BOOOONG! sounded to her right. She whipped around, holding herself in ready stance, staring intently between the trees, listening hard for any other sound. As it turned out, she didn't need to strain her ears at all.

"Bobby! What are you doing?"

"I tripped, man, I tripped! I can't help it!"

"You knocked my shield into a tree stump. You just gave away our position to literally everyone in a ten mile radius."

"I'm sorry, Gwen. I really am. Just don't hold your shield so low."

"It's not her fault, Bobby. If you were less clumsy—"

"All of you! Be quiet!"

At the command all of the voices shut up. Reyna listened intently.

"Okay," the last person to have spoken said firmly. "Start moving out again. Quietly, this time."

"I hate being Fifth," grumbled the one of the other boys in the group. From the sound of rustling undergrowth, it seemed that they were moving around Reyna's hiding spot. "We have to do all the scouting missions. It's not like we're going to find any new recruits anyway."

"You don't know that, Michael," said the girl.

"Yeah, I do, Gwen."

"Antony said that the omens were favorable—"

"Well, screw Antony, and that bratty little helper of his. Octavian, or whoever," said another voice, also male.

"Bobby," said the boy who seemed in command.

"I'm just saying, I don't see why the gods would tell us about this one recruit who's supposedly hiding out here with all these monsters. Come on, Jason, you have to admit that's not normal."

"There are gazillions of monsters out here," said the boy with the deep voice, Michael.

"Maybe they're hunting her and she can't get to camp," the girl, Gwen, reasoned.

"What makes you think it's a girl?" asked Michael.

There was a pause in which Reyna could practically see Gwen shrug. "I just feel that any boy would have gotten themselves caught or run right to the tunnel by now."

There was an uproar as her male companions protested. Reyna decided that now was as good a time as any to stand up.

The scouting party, or whatever they were, was formed by only the four people. Or kids. Honestly, the oldest one, the girl Gwen, was probably fifteen, and the youngest, the boy who sounded like Bobby, was maybe twelve. All of them were decked out from head-to-toe in solid gold armor, which Reyna assumed was actually Imperial Gold and not regular, mortal gold. Gwen and a tall, broad-shouldered boy who, from a quick guess, Reyna assumed was Michael, carried shields and had swords at their hips. The one facing Michael, Bobby, had a spear. So did the boy next to him. That boy was the only one who saw Reyna stand up from her hiding place, and all Reyna properly saw of him before he attacked was a pair of wide, startled, and electric blue eyes.

His spear was suddenly a sword and it was coming at her from the side. Reyna ducked with centimeters to spare and, pivoting on her heel, planted a solid kick in the blue-eyed boy's chest. He stumbled back. The two other boys were turning towards them at this point, shouting, readying their weapons, until the girl Gwen gave a whistle so loud it would have made Reyna's fourth grade teacher proud.

Everyone froze, including Reyna, who gave her best effort at staring down all four of them simultaneously. She didn't relax her stance and didn't soften her gaze. It seemed to be working. Bobby and Michael were backing up slowly, and the blue-eyed one, Jason, had a hand to his chest plate and was staring at her in stunned silence.

"Jason, you almost took the head off of her," said Gwen irritably. She was clearly the oldest and shouldered her way between Michael and Bobby. She didn't extend a hand but gave Reyna a nod of acknowledgement. "You aren't a monster, are you?"

Reyna regarded Gwen warily. "Are you?"

Gwen seemed to take that to mean 'no' and handed her shield to Bobby. "Give me your hand."

Reyna didn't move. She was keeping one eye on the group of three in front of her and one on Jason, who was still hunched over to one side.

"Come on, if we were monsters we'd have killed you already," Gwen reasoned impatiently. When Reyna still didn't move, she added, "I suppose you've met Lupa?"

Something in Reyna's eyes must have been confirmation, because Gwen smiled. It was a warm smile, for someone who'd been cold seconds before. "We've all trained with her. Come on. Give me your hand. You can trust me."

Warily, Reyna extended her hand to Gwen. The older girl moved so fast Reyna barely got her hand out of the way in time. All the same, the blade nicked her fingertips and droplets of red blood appeared.

"What the hell!" Reyna exclaimed loudly. She took one menacing step toward the group of three. Michael and Bobby each took three steps back. Gwen held up her hands, looking genuinely apologetic.

"I'm sorry," she said, sounding sincere. "But if you came from Lupa you're looking for our camp, right? We can't lead a monster there. That would be a disaster. So we have to check." When Reyna looked confused, she added, "Monsters don't bleed. You would have disintegrated into dust if you weren't mortal. And you wouldn't have seen the blade if you weren't Roman." Gwen held out a tiny square of what Reyna recognized as ambrosia. She took it slowly. It tasted like a cold fresa piragua, especially one that Mercedes used to sell her. Even the texture was right, and despite it seeming cold, she started to feel wonderfully warm inside.

"Let's get introduced properly, without trying to kill each other," Gwen suggested. She pulled the two boys forward and gestured to Jason. "I'm Gwen. My grandmother is Ceres. This is… well…" She elbowed Michael hard in the ribs.

"I'm Michael Kahale," he said in a low voice. "My mom's Venus." He gave her a hard look, like he was warning her not to judge.

"I'm Bobby," said the smallest boy, almost before Michael was finished. "My dad's Vulcan."

"And I'm Jason," said the blue-eyed boy, stepping closed. He extended a hand, which Reyna shook. "My dad's Jupiter."

"That doesn't make him the boss," Gwen cleared up. "He'd like to be. But I'm the boss."

"Caitlin and Daniel are boss," Bobby muttered, but Gwen ignored him.

"I'm Reyna," Reyna said, relaxing the last bit and looking at Gwen without hostility. "My mother's Bellona."

There was a moment of stunned silence. Then Bobby whistled. "Well, that makes you boss."

"Be quiet, Bobby," Michael said, milliseconds before Jason said the same thing.

"I… wow. A child of Bellona. She hasn't had a child in… decades." Gwen looked thunderstruck. Reyna wondered if she should bring up Hylla for maximum effect. She decided against it. She had set that part of her life behind her for now.

"You should probably come back to camp with us," Gwen said. "If you want to, of course," she added hastily.

"That's why I'm here," Reyna pointed out. Every member of the scouting party seemed to let out an inaudible sigh of relief. With a clanking of metal and rustling of undergrowth, they were off.

A/N: I know that Michael isn't in the Fifth Cohort in BoO, but let's pretend he got a major promotion sometime in the next few years, probably because of a quest involving a drakon that was barreling toward the camp border that he almost single-handedly stopped.