Chapter 64 – The Storm: Part 1
Percy fell asleep on the flight to the east coast, feeling worn and tired from all the travelling they had already done that day. He was so exhausted that he was expecting himself to sleep peacefully.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
Percy found himself standing in a throne room, a large dais set at the back. The ceiling was black, reminding him vaguely of the darker colours and only faint light that Kronos so often favoured. The walls were covered in scenes of volcanoes erupting, natural disasters, and great storms. Percy's skin crawled as he recognised one as Mt. St. Helens when he'd caused it to erupt several years ago and released Typhon from his prison. Percy dragged his eyes away from the walls as he noted the distinct lack of windows in the room.
But oddly, Percy could feel the ground beneath him shift and rock and instinctively found himself recognising it as the gentle rolling of a boat on calm seas. He stored that information away, turning his gaze onto the dais with a faint frown.
The demigod's gut twisted. Percy took a step towards the dais, and as he did so he realised that there was a figure seated on the throne near the top. Looking young and slender, the figure nevertheless betrayed a facsimile of immortality through merely the faint glow to his tanned skin, the too sharp and cunning brown eyes.
Percy's eyes narrowed slightly. Vaguely, he heard a muffled whimper and frowned, casting his gaze around the throne room, but seeing nothing. The figure on the throne however twitched slightly at the noise, a smile flickering over his lips momentarily as if the noise had amused him.
"Your Sorceress is having problems with the Titan," a voice said from behind Percy. Percy jerked, immediately twisting sharply and reaching for Riptide, only to realise that the sword hadn't followed him into his dream-walking. Percy was surprised to come face-to-chest, eyes widening slightly as he looked up to find himself staring at a large stallion. The horse was pure white, a glistening and silky coat from muzzle to tail, each and every inch of the horse shining even in the relative darkness of the throne room. The stallion's mouth opened as it continued, much to Percy's surprise. He'd never met a horse which could open its mouth and talk like a human before, usually it was all mental between horses and him. "She says it's fighting her intensely. Hyperion's presence in the Maze makes it resist her control."
Percy blinked slightly. So Hyperion was in the Burning Maze which Jason and Piper were shortly going to venture into themselves. He was glad he'd caught Jason in time to warn them.
"Unfortunate." Percy's head snapped back around to the dais as the figure atop shifted slightly, a hand dropping to settle on one of the arm rests where it tightened slightly. "The Titans – they may regret this shortly if Hyperion does not cease his interventions."
The horse snorted, pawing at the boat's floor beneath his golden-shoed hooves. It's tail flicked slightly in agitation. "They don't even know he's missing yet," the white stallion complained as it shook it's head off fiercely and slightly tangled the mane. "How would they know to not intervene if they don't even know that?"
"Then have a message sent and inform them," the figure on the throne grumbled, frowning slightly at the horse.
"I'm surprised you haven't already," a new voice commented from above Percy, making him jump slightly.
Percy turned his gaze up, and was surprised when he saw only a boy. Younger than Percy, the other teenager had a severe case of acne and freckles dotted across his nose. Dressed in faded and shredded blue jeans and the remnants of a green polo shirt hanging off his skinny and malnourished frame, the teenager stared down in frustration from a cage hanging from the black ceiling of the boat's throne room.
The boy continued. "I mean, you've got yourself a valuable hostage for the Titans, provided he doesn't die. Now maybe if I could check him over and see if I can heal him-"
"No," the figure on the throne curtly said. As Percy watched, he shifted his position slightly so he could lean over the side of his throne and peer behind him. "He breathes," he said dismissively as he turned back around to frown at the boy hanging in the cage. "And you, Apollo, cannot even heal so much as a bruise on yourself right now, much less our immortal friend."
Percy's gaze jerked briefly back to the teenager – Apollo? He saw no sign of immortality in the former-god, the complete opposite to the figure sprawled across his throne before Percy. The demigod wished he knew his Roman Emperors, but for the life of him he had no idea whom he was seeing. It could have been Nero, whom was supposed to be at Camp Half-Blood, but Rhea hadn't given him the names of the other two god-Emperors. It wasn't surprising really, she only cared about herself and her Grove which was being threatened, but a little more information from her might have helped.
Apollo was glaring right back at the Emperor. "What you intend to do won't work if he dies."
"He will not."
Skin crawling, Percy slowly edged away from the horse as his eyes flickered towards the Emperor's throne and the darkness behind. The white stallion paused, twisting his head around and sniffing at the air in faint confusion.
"What is it?" The Emperor questioned, his eyes drawing together in a heavy frown.
"I smell the sea."
The Emperor looked baffled. "We are on a boat, my friend," he replied to the talking horse. "One can smell the sea everywhere on this yacht."
Percy had reached the wall and was skirting his way along it now, moving quietly but surely even as the horse's ears twitched and it turned its head in Percy's direction, cunning and intelligent eyes scanning the wall but seeing nothing. Coming from a horse, it was particularly unnerving.
Percy passed the Emperor's throne, his back now to the rest of the room. Beyond the throne, the walls joined to a point at the hull. Percy's heart seized in his chest, his stomach churning and threatening to throw up the meal he'd eaten with Jason's insistence at Camp Jupiter prior to them leaving. Half a dozen feet behind the throne, great celestial bronze bars stretched from the floor to the ceiling and encased the back of the throne room in a large cage perhaps a dozen feet deep until the point at the hull.
The demigod's gaze dropped further, reaching out one hand towards the bars as he stared intently at the crumpled immortal contained therein.
Percy clenched his fists, his gaze darkening in the direction of the Emperor. Percy reached out, and he pulled.
"Percy!" A hand grabbed him and Percy found himself shaken awake to find a worried Nico looking down at him. "Hey, you alright?" Nico demanded. "You were screaming." Nico paused. "And… your skin-"
Percy realised what Nico meant a split second before a sharp gust of wind rocked Aquila and he promptly threw up over Aquila's shoulder. The giant golden eagle immediately let out an alarmed and furious screech. "Sorry!" Percy gasped out, his eyes wide. His gut burned, and his skin felt feverish. It was the same feeling he'd got after accidentally blowing up Mt. St. Helens, when it felt like he'd done too much. Percy felt rattled, a chill rolling down his spine as he tried to straighten only to hiss in pain as his gut twisted and burned. "What did I do?" He rasped out.
Nico blinked. "What?"
"I – I feel like I've just exploded another volcano," Percy said worriedly, still crumpled over Aquila's back. "Sorry, Aquila," Percy added. He squinted into the wind, noting that Aquila's flight had become more unsettled again and he realised that Long Island Sound was rapidly approaching them. The sun had set now, the moon reflecting down off the ocean. "Swing past the Sound on the way and I can wash you off before we land," Percy suggested to the prideful bird. "Please don't throw us off."
Aquila let out an angry hiss, but banked slightly to the side to do as Percy had suggested.
"Are you alright?" Nico repeated tersely. "I – I don't think you erupted a volcano," he said. "I didn't notice any."
Aquila had probably been flying too quickly for Nico to have seen any volcanoes erupting, but Percy nodded his head anyway. "Okay," he whispered, his jaw tight as he stared across Long Island Sound. Percy had sensed it himself in his dream, but that Emperor had confirmed it whilst talking to the horse… which in itself Percy was trying to understand, because since when did horses talk like people?
Kronos was on a boat.
Percy's eyes narrowed at the sea spread out before them as Aquila lazily beat his wings to reach an updraft that lifted him across until he was over the ocean and began to descend. Though Percy didn't know which ocean the boat was on, he was still tempted to take a dive off Aquila and not surface until he found him. It was one thing between not seeing Kronos for ages, entirely another to suddenly realise that the reason he hadn't seen Kronos was because he was suffering and Percy hadn't even known. Percy grit his teeth.
He didn't even know if that dream had been occurring simultaneously, or if it had happened weeks ago.
"I dreamed," Percy said to Nico, still staring out across the ocean. "Saw Kronos."
Nico tensed slightly. "What?" He asked, surprise tinging his voice. "And… is he…?"
"I –" Percy said, swallowing tightly. Aquila's talons brushed the ocean's surface, and Percy quietly raised a tendril of seawater to thoroughly wash away the vomit from the bird's feathers as Aquila grumbled his displeasure with Percy. Percy's gut burned and his vision swam and blurred, but he forced himself through it until he could drop the water again, chest heaving.
Nico's alarm was obvious as he steadied Percy. "You don't look great."
Percy shut his eyes. "I'm fine," he said. Percy couldn't see Nico behind him, but his disbelief with Percy's words was still more than obvious. "Kronos… I – I don't know how, but... he's…" Percy struggled to come up with a word to say to describe what he had seen. He clenched his fists, gaze dark. The face of the Roman Emperor he'd seen was burnt into his mind. Percy would look him in the eyes and boil all his fake-ichor when he tracked that stupid boat down.
Nico only remained silent as Aquila beat his wings and rose gently back into the sky, approaching Camp Half-Blood from the open ocean with his soaring wings spread wide. His flight caused a wake on the ocean's surface at his passing, before the giant eagle settled down gently at the open area before the Big House.
Percy didn't miss the campers with weapons and bows pointed in the direction of the immortal bird as he and Nico dismounted, and neither did Aquila if his foul glare and furious hiss meant anything. The eagle angrily snapped his beak at them, Percy's throwing up over him clearly making him extremely foul-tempered. Percy quietly thanked the eagle and apologised again, before promising to organise for the bird's organ meal to be in his future.
Aquila just gave Percy a glare from the side of his eye, before he took off into the sky. Lightning struck the bird, and when the flash faded he had vanished.
Percy heard the clopping of hooves behind him and twisted slightly to greet Chiron's approach. "Hey," Percy greeted.
Chiron surveyed Percy with a faint frown. "You seem to have overextended yourself," he said as a greeting, sounding faintly surprised, before also greeting Nico, only far more pleasantly. It was one of the few times Percy had done such a thing. Percy still didn't know what he'd done, he only remembered that sharp and violent pull before Nico had woken him up. Chiron's tail flicked. "Come inside, both of you," he advised to Percy and Nico as the campers began to gather around them. "And you can tell me what you have found out in your journey to Alaska."
Percy cast one last glance towards the ocean stretching out into the horizon before him, noting the movement of a large hippocampus-like tail far offshore and a goat's head momentarily breaching the surface. Percy's eyes furrowed as he watched the creature disappear under the waves again before he sighed and nodded as he stumbled after Chiron.
Chiron quickly recognised that Percy had done some damage to himself with whatever he'd done during his dream, though Percy still didn't know what that even was. Chiron put his hoof down in the Big House, insisting that Percy should at the very least sit down. Percy had protested, but the way he was swaying on his feet wasn't helping much and Nico had firmly taken Chiron's side.
Percy told Chiron about everything that they'd been told in the Titan Camp and his dream on the way back, everything he could remember from Apollo to the talking horse, Kronos and a description of the Roman Emperor's cruel face. At the end, he sat in silence, Chiron's face pale and grim.
The centaur stirred then. "Nero…" he murmured. The usually calm centaur looked furious at the thought that the Roman Emperor had managed to infiltrate Camp. Percy could see the lineage of Kronos in Chiron's usually gentle brown eyes as he stared out of the Big House, across to the forest.
"I'll stop him," Percy fiercely said. He thought of his oath he'd made to Luke to keep his younger brother alive, of the other demigods who'd been kidnapped. All of them needed to be brought home safely.
Chiron immediately stopped Percy from standing, just in time since Percy's vision faded out briefly. "You are not capable of helping anyone like that," he scolded.
Percy grit his teeth. "I need to help them," he said darkly, his expression murderous.
Nico made an odd noise at him. "Percy, I want to help them just as much as you, but you can't like that."
Percy ducked around Chiron's outstretched arm, leaning on the table for support. "Oh yeah? Watch me," he snapped as he made his way around the ping pong table to the door.
"Perseus," Chiron said, "if you go and you do not currently have the strength, you could make things worse."
"If I don't go at all then Nero could win," Percy said darkly. He wanted to kill the Emperor, but not before twisting the fake-ichor in his veins until Nero told him where Kronos was. Percy struggled around Chiron, forcing himself on through the Big House.
Percy made his way to Hephaestus' cabin instead of straight to the forest. "Whoa, hey, Aquaman, you don't look too good," a voice said from in front of him when Percy had managed to stumble his way there.
Percy raised his head, squinting as his eyes focused in on Leo standing in front of him, the other demigod looking like he wasn't sure if he should risk helping Percy upright or not. Percy blinked at him. "Hey," he said. "Do you want to help me kill a Roman Emperor?" Percy asked.
Behind Percy, Nico snorted. "Percy…" But then Nico just sighed. "You sure you know how to find the Grove?"
"What Grove?" Leo asked, eying Nico warily before turning his gaze expectantly to Percy. "And what Emperor?" Still, Leo had quickly fallen into step with Percy's determined march towards the forest. "Is this about all the missing campers?" He added.
Percy smiled grimly. "Come on," he said to Leo. "I'll fill you in on the way. We've got to track down Grover again." It wouldn't be hard since Percy had his empathy link with Grover, but he wanted to find him quickly and hoped Grover would have an idea of where the Grove was to help them. Percy glanced back to Nico. "You've got the wind chimes?"
Nico immediately checked the pockets of his aviators jacket and firmly nodded. "Yes," he said.
"Good," Percy muttered as he surged forwards. "Then let's go kill a false-god."
The spear of Achilles glowed softly in the darkness of the maze. Jason's skin crawled as he kept inching forward, glancing to Piper next to him.
With the information that Percy and Nico had brought to Camp Jupiter, Jason and Piper had agreed to delve into the Maze sooner to see if they could find out anything else about the Burning Maze and how it related to the Triumvirate. With how rapidly the situation in New Rome was spiralling out of control, Jason wanted this dealt with before legionnaires started defecting to the Triumvirate – he'd already heard rumours about that before he left. He'd worried about leaving Reyna and Frank to deal with it while he was gone, knowing that as Pontifex Maximus and hence the head of the religious side of New Rome, his word still carried a lot of weight despite no longer being a Praetor, but they'd reassured him that they had everything under control.
The Burning Maze had clearly been aptly named, since all of the walls through the corridors they traversed had clearly been burnt. Jason quietly reached out with his left hand to the wall next to him, making sure to keep his hand on the shaft of his spear as he kept an eye on the corridor stretching out before him. His fingers came away covered in ash.
Next to him, Piper pressed her lips together. "This would be a good place for Leo to be with us," she murmured.
Jason nodded, but he recalled how much trouble Leo had had deflecting a single blast of Hyperion's white-hot flames before. Whatever had caused this burning along the walls seemed capable of rivalling the Titan Lord's intensity. Jason wiped his hand off on his jeans, adjusting the chestplate Reyna had insisted on him using, Piper wearing her own which had been fitted for her back at Camp Jupiter before they set off. "Come on," Jason said, adjusting his grip on the spear. The intricate engravings closer to the point of the legendary weapon glowed sharper than the rest of the weapon. It was great in situations where stealth wasn't necessary, but in the darkness of the maze it lit their position up like a beacon. Still, it was the only weapon Jason had access to, and it had been blessed by Rhea herself – he'd be stupid not to use it.
In the distance, Jason heard a rumbling of walls sliding and moving. The wall he'd kept at his left vanished, another corridor forming where it had been. Piper let out a long sigh, clearly also getting frustrated with the constant shifting and moving of the walls around them.
Jason just followed their new corridor instead. He recalled what Hazel had warned them before they left, that the Burning Maze seemed linked to the Labyrinth and the walls would shift and change. Jason knew how the Labyrinth worked, often leading someone to the most dangerous regions of the underground network – which he was guessing was exactly where they needed to go.
There was a heavy silence between Jason and Piper as they moved. It wasn't particularly awkward, since their breakup several months before had been from a mutual agreement, but there was still little to be said between them. It was best to be silent in the Labyrinth anyway – there was no telling what lay around the next corner.
The further they walked, the warmer it became. Sweat rolled down the back of Jason's neck, sticking his hair down. Piper didn't look any more comfortable than him. Jason kept moving forward, guessing that the rising warmth was a good sign.
Jason jumped when he turned a corner to find himself face-to-face with a wolf head sniffing the air, attached to a human's neck. Jason stabbed with the spear of Achilles, the point burying into the wolf-man's side. The monster exploded into dust, which danced and gleamed in the light of the spear's glow. Jason grimaced and stook motes of monster dust off the spear.
"What was that?" Piper murmured.
"Like the ones from the battle against Gaea's forces," Jason muttered. He frowned slightly, before stepping around the larger dust pile and moving on. Jason heard a sudden loud roaring noise in the distance, like a jet engine on full blast which lasted several minutes before stopping.
Eventually, the Labyrinth corridor flooded with light ahead of them as it opened out with the floor disappearing, the walls blackened and charred around them. Jason wordlessly gestured for Piper to keep low and follow him as he crouched, creeping closer to the exit from the claustrophobic corridors. The floor ended in a ledge a few feet away from the opening. Jason lowered himself onto his stomach so he could peer over the edge, his eyes immediately narrowing.
At the base of the cavern they'd found themselves in was a rolling maelstrom of fire. Churning much like a bubbling volcano, the flames seemed to lash out and strike at the sides of the pit which were charred and smoking. A low whistling hum rolled through the cavern, making Jason's head ache from the intensity of the sound. The gold-tinted flames hurt to look at, so Jason averted his eyes. He spotted the walkway across the centre, high enough above the flames that the constant churning didn't touch the base. Next to them, the ledge continued on around the edge of the cavern, dropping down slightly.
"What…?" Piper breathed out next to him. Jason was in agreement that this was where Leo would be very helpful to them.
Jason slowly shook his head. "I've never seen anything like this," he murmured. As they watched, the flames stilled briefly before rolling back on themselves and bursting up. Jason and Piper ducked back, tucking in their heads. A jet of fire streaked off and roared into one of the other exits. It was the same noise from earlier, only turned up a hundred times over. The golden-tinted flames seared the entrance of the exit black, turning the rock molten.
"That's the source of the fires over California," Jason said flatly once the surge of flames had died down and he popped his head back up. The cavern walls were glowing slightly, looking like threads of bronze woven into the rocks. Jason frowned, reaching down from his outcrop and touching one of the threads weaving between the rough rockface just beneath him. Jason's eyes narrowed. "Magic," he said, feeling the crackling energy which pressed back against his finger. The thread hummed at his touch. Jason's gaze flicked back to the rolling fire far beneath them, watching as it sputtered again. A burst of fire was spat out of the mass again, but it was not the same as the intense blast from before and barely reached up a dozen feet as the glow of the threads intensified sharply.
"I don't understand," Piper slowly said.
Jason just shook his head slightly. "Me neither," he quietly admitted. He edged back from the ledge. "Come on," he said as he stood, turning back to the corridor they'd come from, only to freeze.
The Labyrinth had seal over the exit behind them.
Piper tensed, her grip on her dagger, Katoptris, shifting uneasily. Jason adjusted his own on his spear.
"This way," Piper said, gesturing to the path along the ledge.
Jason grimaced, glancing towards the fiery pit before he nodded. "You or me first?" He asked as he eyed the ledge. Both would easily fit along it next to each other, but Jason would rather not risk it either way. Piper hesitated, so Jason stepped forward and took the lead with his spear.
His armour was heating up and he was intensely grateful for the undershirt he also wore which gave him some form of protection from the heat seeping into his chestplate. Jason moved quickly, trying to get out of the boiling cavern.
Of to their side, the mass of flames rumbled. Jason stilled, but he didn't dare turn to look at the glowing liquid fire. It spoke in a language he couldn't ever hope to understand, one older than Ancient Greek. The voice was clearly that of a male, faded and whispering as it was for a mere few seconds before fading out again.
Jason's jaw tightened. He glanced back at Piper, who'd also frozen in shock at hearing the fire speak. "Come on," Jason said, his tone tense as he continued on. Jason couldn't understand it, but he could certainly recognise the rumbling tone of the language – Kronos had sometimes spoken in the same rolling, steady language the few times he'd visited the Argo II during their quest. A language older than Jason's own father, Jupiter.
They finally found another exit out of the cavern along the ledge, Jason immediately ducking out of it. The heat was far less intense in the corridor. Piper was pale as they paused for a moment to gather themselves. Jason wasn't much better than her. "That's older than the gods," he said. "Older than the Olympians."
Piper nodded. "But what?" She asked.
Jason recalled the flowing, churning flames. The glow which reflected off the blackened cavern walls. "I don't know, but it's been there a while. Months, probably," he added. Jason grimaced.
"How do we stop a glowing volcano?" Piper frowned, glancing back to where the glow of the flames lit up the exit of the Labyrinth's corridor. "Leo couldn't stop that."
Jason agreed with her. Whatever it was, it was strong enough that it was burning California from this deep within the Labyrinth. He sighed, shaking his head slightly. "I don't know," he admitted. "But at the very least we need to report back to Reyna and Frank," Jason said tiredly. "After that, we can try to figure something out." The Praetors would need to know about this. The magic around the cavern too, that worried Jason. The way the threads had been woven into the rockface seemed particularly structured and intentional, criss-crossed like wire fencing. "It's keeping it in," Jason murmured.
Piper glanced towards him. "The magic?" Realisation dawned on her too then. "Someone's containing the fire."
"But not completely," Jason agreed. "It's bursting free occasionally."
"Causing the fires," Piper muttered.
Jason nodded. The scar on his lip twitched as he looked back towards the cavern. "But who? And why? What will happen if it gets free?" He added warily. A sound very familiar to Jason reached them, feet marching in unison. Jason spun, holding the spear out in front of him as a squad of a dozen armed men rounded the corridor. Piper immediately stepped up to his side.
They were armed with Roman spathae, cavalry swords. Garbed in simple hide armour to cover their limbs and torso with round shields in their off-hands, the men positioned themselves blocking the corridor in three rows of four men. Jason shifted his grip on his spear. "Ave," Jason greeted. The men didn't respond. Their swords formed a bristling wall in front of Jason and Piper. Jason narrowed his eyes at them. He took a deep breath. "We're heading that way," he said to the men. "Move aside."
"Germani!" A woman's voice called from somewhere down the corridor behind the men. "Impetus!"
Jason immediately lifted his spear at hearing the Latin command to attack, not a moment too soon as the men started down the corridor towards him and Piper. Jason planted himself in front of Piper.
Jason felt the familiar pull in his gut and the scent of ozone filled the corridor, before lightning burst from his fingers and through the metal shaft. It was harder to summon lightning with no sky in sight, but far from impossible, especially not with the spear bolstering his strength. The lightning punched out in the corridor, seeking out the Germani with deadly precision.
Germani had been the personal bodyguards of multiple different Roman Emperors from the Old Roman Empire. Initially mercenaries bought with money, they'd evolved over time into the most elite cavalry and infantry units with extreme loyalty to the Emperors, and the Emperors only.
Jason's lightning strike killed five of the elite bodyguards on the spot, the blinding flash making the others reel away as he took the chance to lunge. The spear pierced through the armour of one of the men without resistance, the man screaming as he fell. Jason backed up from the remaining six Germani. One of them lashed out at him, and Jason immediately knocked the stab aside. A second took the opportunity and lunged in low, within Jason's guard, but Piper was there to block him. She knocked the spatha aside and lunged, dagger cleaving open the man's arm. Jason had already taken a few more paces back and it was easy to thrust the spear through the man's throat.
Together, Jason and Piper backed up before the remaining five Germani.
"Claudio!" The woman's voice snapped.
Jason's eyes narrowed as the men stopped their advance. Behind them, an annoyingly familiar figure stepped around the bodies.
"Medea," Piper muttered, her tone furious.
She was different to how she'd been on the quest Jason had led to rescue Juno when he'd met her. Now, she held herself even taller, stronger. There was an ethereal glow to her skin, one resembling that of immortality. A pendant of Hecate hang around her throat. The sorceress smiled. "Jason," she greeted with a pleasant smile, completely ignoring Piper. "How lovely to see you again."
Jason tightened his grip on the spear. Behind him, he heard a low growling and hissing. "Piper?"
"Sun dragons," Piper reported worriedly.
Jason's blood chilled. "Both of them?"
"Yes," Piper said. Her back was pressed against his, and Jason scanned Medea and the five remaining Germani behind her. "Plan?"
"No," Jason admitted.
Medea smiled. "Come, both of you," she said to Jason and Piper. "Neos Helios will be most unhappy to find you both interfering down here, but I am afraid that I cannot allow you two to leave."
Jason narrowed his eyes. "Neos Helios?" He repeated. Jason didn't know who that might be, but it certainly didn't sound good.
Medea inclined her head slightly. "He's been particularly eager to meet one of the Praetors of New Rome… and Pontifex Maximus now too, or so we heard? Astounding, for one as young as you to have such an achievement." Her smiled faded, expression hardening. "Come," she repeated. "He will want to meet you two at first opportunity. He is currently absent, but when he returns you shall meet him."
A lightning bolt burst from Jason's spear again, flashing across to Medea, but it merely ricocheted into a barrier around her and collided harmlessly with the Labyrinth walls instead. Jason clenched his jaw. The five Germani behind her still had their spathae out.
"This is not a request," Medea stated, and raised her hands. A moment later, he heard Piper inhale sharply and Jason watched as twin streams of fire twisted around them both. A low, rumbling hiss came from the two sun dragons behind Jason, but further than that he could feel the heat from the fiery pit that Medea was actively controlling strengthen. Clearly, whatever it was, it was not happy with Medea controlling it.
"Walk," Medea instructed sharply, her tone clearly strained from the effort of controlling the flames.
Jason lowered his spear, gritting his teeth. He kept his voice low as he spoke to Piper. "We do as she says," he said. "Keep an eye out for a chance to get away."
Piper nodded sharply as they started to walk, the Germani in front of them and Medea and her two sun dragons behind. The fire remained twisting around Jason and Piper as they stepped forward. "How do we do that?" Piper asked.
"We will," Jason firmly said. He didn't know how, but he knew they would. They still had to get back to Camp Jupiter. The Legion and New Rome was in trouble, and as a Son of Rome, Jason would answer Rome's call.
Thalia Grace eyed the tracks before her. The tracks of the Teumessian Fox were larger than those of most hellhounds she'd encountered. She glanced back towards the other Hunters, all of them alert and watching the city around them. Of all things, Thalia hadn't expected the Fox to lead them into the heart of Indianapolis. It had kept to the edges of civilisation hunting any children whom crossed its path until suddenly swerving and heading straight to the city a week ago now.
The bloodied tracks before them leading through the street during the darkness made Thalia grimace. Clearly, it had found yet another victim out walking in the night during its own hunt.
The daughter of Zeus noted where the tracks led to and rose, one hand holding several arrows and in the other her silver hunting bow. "Come on," Thalia quietly said to the other Hunters.
It didn't take long before Thalia's skin crawled. Usually, the Hunters kept to the forests and other such regions out of cities, only rarely entering them when missions called for it. This was one of those times, but it still made her anxious as they jogged down the streets to try to catch the Teumessian Fox. The blood on the street had been fresh, not yet dry, and that made Thalia even more worried than she'd been already. It was close to them.
Thalia felt electricity crackle between her fingers, arcing up and down the bow in her hand. The blood trail led them across the city, and then tracked back and eventually crossed over a path they'd already taken. If anything, it was that that raised the tension even further.
"It knows we're close," one of the other Hunters murmured.
Thalia pressed her lips together. She looked her friends over briefly. "Spread out," she finally said. "Try not to bunch up." The Teumessian Fox was a larger monster than she'd expected when they first came face-to-face to it, and the monster had specifically targeted the largest group of Hunters and bowled straight through them. It was smart, probably the smartest monster that Thalia had ever had the misfortune of meeting and had already led the Hunters into multiple monster dens which they'd had to fight their way out of. The numbers of the Hunters had been decimated by the two recent wars, first against the Titans and then against the Earth itself – whom had disappeared with no trace whatsoever of Gaea's presence anywhere, aside from the way the forest seemed to have livened in the intervening months. Now the Teumessian Fox was adding to that problem with its ambushes.
And now it had suddenly changed directions and led them straight to Indianapolis.
The pair of bobbing red eyes down the street didn't make Thalia pause, but the clack-clack sound coming from that direction did. Every instinct screamed at her as she recalled the time when she'd found her shield, Aegis, and the prophetic demigod she and Luke had ran into. He'd been trapped by his own monsters for years to lure in demigods – monsters which had made those exact noises.
The clack-clack came again, and this time the body of a lion stalked through the edge of the streetlight's glow, with a twisted head and the hooves of a horse. "Leucrota," Thalia warned. Lightning crashed from the sky, turning the monster into a pile of dust. Thalia continued on over the smoking pile, frowning slightly. It had been a long time since she'd seen one of those around.
"I've never seen one of them before," Hunter Kowalski murmured.
Thalia slowly nodded. "It's been… a while since I've seen one too," she admitted. Last time had been with Luke, when they'd been on the street together when they were younger and just before they'd met Annabeth.
It was always Luke.
Thalia hadn't seen him in so long, and she didn't even know what she'd do if she ever saw him again. The likeliest option was punching him in the face for everything he'd done. She'd done that after Manhattan already, but even then Thalia was sure that one punch didn't make up for the massive betrayal that Luke had carried out. By Hades, his betrayal had driven her into joining the Hunters. Thalia wouldn't ever regret that choice, but even then she doubted she'd ever be able to forgive him for it. And then, more recently, he'd still followed Kronos and disappeared once again to gods-don't-even-know-where along with the rest of the traitorous demigods who'd joined the Titans for their war – that was after dragging Annabeth down into Tartarus with him and backstabbing her again.
There was a lot that Thalia still needed to punch him for if she ever saw him again.
It wasn't long then before Thalia realised something was wrong. The streets were too quiet, too empty even during the night. Thalia couldn't even hear any rats scurrying around the edges of the streets or in the alleys.
Footsteps against the concrete made the Hunters tense and spin around, but Thalia saw only a flash of a golden mask in the darkness, even her eyes unable to make it out beyond the resemblance to a gorgon and the face of Medusa on Thalia's shield, Aegis, before the figure seemed to vanish into water vapour before her eyes. It wasn't the reddish-bronze coat that belonged to the Fox and it was certainly a more human figure besides the mask, but it worried her all the same.
The Lieutenant of Artemis sighed. "Get ready, girls," she warned as she lifted her bow. The stupid Fox, it always knew where to go to lead the following Hunters on an ambush and lose them.
Still, Thalia and the others had a mission to complete in tracking it down since it escaped when the Doors were open and Thalia didn't want to disappoint Artemis despite the goddesses' current absence. In fact, they'd only seen the goddess once since last November, two months ago in January when Artemis had informed them that Apollo had disappeared and had instructed them to Hunt down the Teumessian Fox. Thalia continued on following the blood trail, leading the Hunters down the street.
Thalia tensed when she realised the blood trail ended up in a plaza, having turned the corner and finding a dead-end, the blood trail heading up the side of one of the buildings. Roof tiles and one of the gutters had been ripped from the buildings. Thalia scowled. "Great," she sighed as the Hunters all let out annoyed murmurs at the new development.
Thalia scanned the rooftops above them, just in case the van-sized Fox was lurking above them, but she spotted no sign of it's presence. Instead, the sound of armoured feet hitting the ground in unison behind the Hunters had Thalia spinning and narrowing her eyes as she raised her bow and nocked and arrow in the same instant.
At least thirty Roman legionnaires rounded the corner before the nine remaining Hunters, each of them dressed head to toe in Imperial Gold armour and wielding Roman pila with gladii sheathed at their waists, the sword slightly shorter than a Roman cavalry sword.
They were blocking the entrance the Hunters had just entered through.
Thalia was extremely conscious that the only thing she and the others were wearing in the form of protection was their silver parkas, the Hunters of Artemis not suited to face-to-face conflicts. Compared to the full set of armour each of the legionnaires were wearing, Thalia felt startlingly unprotected. Romans fully kitted out in all their military gear was always an impressive sight, even more so seeing more than twenty of them at once.
"Romans," Thalia greeted, raising her voice slightly and extremely conscious of the nervous movements of the Hunters behind her, each of them tenser than Thalia was. "Ave." Thalia hadn't been aware of the presence of any of Camp Jupiter's legionnaires so close to the east coast considering their almost exclusive presence to the west, but there was always a possibility that things had changed in the few months since she'd last been in civilisation. "Are you seeking the Teumessian Fox too?" Thalia questioned, though even as she said it, she knew that wasn't the case. In Indianapolis and so far east, only Camp Half-Blood would likely be the ones seeking the Teumessian Fox. "Did Reyna send you here?"
Camp Jupiter was also still in the process of outfitting legionnaires in suitable Imperial Gold armour following the war against Gaea, and the likelihood of seeing them here in such armour was extremely unlikely. The insignia over the chestplates of the armour was also nothing Thalia had seen before, a golden triangle imposed over a field of royal purple. Thalia shifted her grip on her bow.
The legionnaires shifted in response and a man with dark, curly hair strode casually through the four rows of Romans. "We are not from the demigod camps," he said, and Thalia raised an eyebrow. Greek. Very, intensely Greek. His accent was thick with a tone that wasn't modern either. It resembled the same tone that Thalia had heard from some of Artemis' more ancient Hunters, such as Phoebe or Zoë Nightshade before they were killed – that was the first thing Thalia noticed that had her tensing further.
The man set his feet, placing the point of his sword in the concrete at his feet. The ease with which he handled the sword reminded Thalia of Luke and that immediately concerned her. Thaila hadn't counted on meeting a master-swordsman in their search for the Teumessian Fox in Indianapolis. "I am Lityerses, Reaper of Man," the man said to Thalia. "And I serve the Emperor of Rome whom lives here in Commodapilis. You and the Hunters have trespassed in his city. You will surrender immediately to us so we may bring you to the Emperor, or you may fight and die here." The man raised his sword. "Please choose the second option."
The pila in the hands of the Romans were readied.
Thalia narrowed her eyes. Commodapilis? Zeus' underpants, what was he talking about? Clearly, someone had decided to rename the city. It hardly mattered what he'd called the city, since Thalia was more focused on his attempted threat. Clearly, he wasn't aware of who he was speaking to if he was giving Thalia the option of deciding whether or not she'd surrender.
Thalia had never surrendered before in her life.
Not on Half-Blood Hill when she'd given her life to keep Luke and Annabeth safe, and never to the Titans or the giants during the wars.
Thalia smiled. "If you tell us who this Emperor is, then maybe I'll mail him your head when I kill you," she said.
Out of the corner of her eyes she noted the large Fox which moved over the tops of the buildings around them, it's reddish coat not particularly visible against the shadows. A dozen or so roof tiles slid down to the plaza and shattered against the concrete, shifted by the Fox's movement.
Lityerses' expression twisted in anger, the man completely ignoring both the Fox and shattered roof tiles. "You're just like your brother." He spat out angrily. "You won't get the chance," he said. "Parati pila!"
The mention of Jason had briefly surprised Thalia – clearly this Lityerses had history with her brother – but she had no time to consider what he meant or how he might know Jason as twenty of the Roman legionnaires readied their pila.
"Pila iace!"
Twenty pila were thrown in an arc across the plaza, straight at the gathered Hunters.
So this is chapter 1 of 3 of 'The Storm', which are three chapters following the POVs of Percy, Jason and Thalia through a sudden and dangerous series of events. This chapter is also over 7000 words long and the next two are likely to rival this one. (I think that makes them the longest chapters for this fic so far?)
To join the discord server and join everyone else in there for chats about both TAW and CbT, the server code is : stJvYshE9t
On other news, I can now confirm that I intend to remake the Confused by Time series and actually write a decent series out of them instead of the trash it is now.
Thatgremlinbitch: Yup! We are entering the storm now! Great to have you in the discord server too!
Basileos: Great to have you in the discord server!