Epilogue

Chapter 3 - The Second Coming

"Holy fuck!" Annabeth shouted as she sat up in bed. Sweat poured from her body and her chest heaved under the plain white T-shirt she wore. Her blond hair was plastered to her forehead and neck. Her breath caught in her throat as she attempted to control her breathing rate. Nothing seemed to help.

As she stared into the darkness of the Athena Cabin, she could see flames of destruction and the wails of the dying. Centered in her vision she could see the Parthenon burning, the great statues of her mother being destroyed and taken away. Silhouetted against it all, the man in black armor. Percy. Damnable Percy, ordering it all. Killing a city. Killing our people.

For the life of her, she could not understand why in her mind any acknowledgement of the defeated Greeks populated was "our" people. Nor could she understand why her dreams were so lucid of an event which she could not possibly have witnessed. Well, she had one idea, but it was ludicrous. There was no way the Fates would have allowed Annabeth of Athens and Perseus of Corinth to live again together. No way they would allow the two reborn as them to… She shook her head, her breathing back to its normal state. Those were not the thoughts she needed right now. Annabeth's mind needed to be focused on finding the most powerful demigod to exist, because something was coming, and she did not want to face it without that level of power on her side. As quietly as possible. She gathered a change of clothes and made her way to the shower.

There, as the water burned her skin and the steam opened the congestion in her sinuses, the images returned to her mind. Death. Destruction. Pillage. Enslavement. Find what was stolen, a voice said in her head. "What wasn't stolen?" Annabeth muttered in response. The images kept coming, seemingly sent from a distant place or time even. She watched the devil himself give the orders that killed a city with the ease that Agamemnon killed Troy. A new image filled her mind's eye. A tall, nearly Germanic looking Roman, dispatching all in his path with a look of regretful determination. Given his eyes and her one encounter with Zeus, she suspected this must be the Son of Jupiter Annabeth of Athens fixated upon before her downfall. Hubris, Annabeth thought, my weakness as well.

Of late, at least since the bloodshed of the Battle of New York, her preferred method of stress relief involved another person. That person now passed the forty-eight-hour threshold of being missing. Now, she had nothing but the obsessive compulsion to find him. Because her greatest fear at the moment was that something dangerous was coming and the way they had treated him for so long had made him say "fuck it" and leave to do his own thing.

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The entire room glared at Jason Grace. Returned from the quest to California to free Hera, the assembly now knew of New Rome and Camp Jupiter. The revelation of the bunkers did not help either as it became apparent that enmity between the groups continued through at least the American Civil War, when the gods forcibly separated them. Jason had been shown the mosaic of Perseus destroying Athens, as had Piper in an attempt to steer her away from the Son of Jupiter. Thus far, she remained by his side. Leo, for his part, appeared so obsessed with the building of his flying ship that Jason was not even sure he recognized what was happening.

"It was bad enough with Perseus returned. Now we learn there's a whole camp of Romans who train for war, that I can only assume would love to wipe out Greeks once again. Plus fly boy here." Jason looked at the Daughter of Ares incredulously.

"The Twelfth died for you once!" he shouted. His dreams of late revealed the depravities of sacking Athens, but simultaneously revealed the great charge of the Twelfth to save the besieged Greeks at Taygetos. "Perseus nearly died for you once!"

"Yeah, in New York."

"NO!" he shouted again. He turned to Chiron. "Do none of them know about Taygetos?" Chiron's expression was puzzled.

Annabeth's sharp voice cut through the general uproar. "You mean the mountain where the Greek survivors were banished to scrape a living together after our first home and then Athens were razed by Perseus of Corinth and Lucius Cornelius Jason?"

"No, the battle of Taygetos, where Perseus and a mortal Athena held off a horde of monsters, until the Twelfth Legion attacked to end the siege." Silence greeted his proclamation. He turned back to Chiron, suddenly angry at the centaur. "You were there, do you not want them to know?" He watched as Chiron's face attempted to focus, yet it appeared he could not.

"I… I… I feel as if this story has been blocked from my mind, I know the story is there, but I cannot see it." All of the demigods looked at the ancient teacher, the anger of the Greeks forgotten as they watched Chiron attempt to put a puzzle together with missing pieces.

"None of the written records mention anything about Taygetos, neither mortal history nor the camp's records."

"The mortals would never have seen what it is they fought." Jason rubbed his face, attempting to collect his thoughts before continuing. Chiron's confusion reminded him of his own after the Grand Canyon. He immediately began to blame a god. Some higher power was purposely blocking the passage of the Roman part of Taygetos from the Greeks. If this generation and even Chiron did not know of it, how many generations of bloodshed preceded them due to this? Of course, he had a suspicion as the culprit. But one did not accuse Pallas Athena of anything without proof. "After the war, Athena walked as a mortal with the survivors to Taygetos."

"Why would our mom be a mortal?" asked Annabeth's brother, Malcolm. Gods, how much of the story has been hidden from them?

"Athena was punished for her actions in Athens. She attacked Perseus and Jupiter declared her sentence to be mortal." There were angry whispers, but Jason ignored them. "An ancient enemy of Athena learned this and marched on her for revenge." He looked at the children of Athena, "Arachne. She led many thousands against the settlement. Poseidon himself came to Perseus to aid them and he did. Percy, admittedly with several of his slaves, arrived first and held on. The stories say he and Athena fought side by side and none could escape them with their lives. But even they could not hold alone. Eventually as the walls were breached and all seemed lost, Lucius Cornelius Jason and the original Legio XII Fulminata arrived. Thousands of Roman demigods and legacies hurled themselves into the monsters in order to save the Greeks. Over half were dead or wounded. They are who we aspire to live up to, sacrifice for the good of others."

"Lies," snapped Annabeth. "How could we ever believe crap like that?"

"Because I was there," he growled in response. "You may claim to have Perseus reborn, which from the stories it wouldn't surprise me if he just abandoned your sorry asses. But he was not the only one in both places. My soul belonged to Lucius Cornelius Jason. I was at Athens, I was at Taygetos. I buried men I led into battle; I watched the greatest soldier of an age become the greatest emperor of all time. Do not question the acts in which I participated." Jason had never once felt so convicted in his belief that his soul had once marched beside Caesar. Throughout his life he suspected it, but here, seeing the disdain and the contempt felt for his people, he had never been more sure. "You've hated and torn at man for no other reason than you only knew half the fucking story."

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"I do not know what to do," the young woman admitted. She knelt before the god's shrine. "My compatriot has been missing for nearly eight months and only now do I know what he meant to me. I sense something is coming, but I know not what to do or if I can do what I must." They had spoken many times before, but always at times of his choosing. She knew that he possessed every right to hate her, she was a reminder of her mother's infidelity. Admittedly, as they were both deities, both practiced infidelity on a scale unheard of to mortals.

He was the God of the Legion, a natural consort to the Goddess of War. The young woman's natural father nearly poisoned her against men permanently. However, after following Lupa to New Rome, her new friend Jason showed her men were not all bad. It had been at her mother's temple, six days after her arrival in New Rome, when her consort appeared. He stepped from the shadows near the door, a white toga with purple trim covering his frame. A clean-shaven face with graying hair framed two piercing eyes. They had conversed for just a few moments and upon his departure, for the first time, she felt the semblance of what fatherhood should be. She considered him a stepfather, though she knew few stepfathers cared for their new-found children the way he seemed to.

His tone was mocking when he spoke, "Compatriot? Hmm, I would suggest a stronger term for the man who occupies some of your more, ah, choice private thoughts." She turned to find him upon a rough wood and canvas camp stool. His appearance matched the nature of his seat, a simple red tunic designed to be worn under legionary armor, a stubble covered face, and longer unkempt hair. There was a strain in his eyes that made no sense for a god, neither did the faint scars now showing on his exposed skin. He appeared haggard and that was not a good look for a god.

"How would you know my thoughts?"

"I am a god. I could read your mind," she stiffened, "but that is unnecessary. You are a teenager, a child of beings not conditioned for abstinence," now he smiled crookedly, "and there is the great redness now covering your face."

"Bastard," she hissed before realizing her mistake. Beside her, he only laughed. For a moment, he appeared as she usually saw him.

"I am one of those, I've produced a fair number too." Reyna knew this, but as her mother produced demigods as well, she did not hold it against him. He was always good to her, even when he dug into her love life. His last child, a daughter, now served as a Senator. Once, Erika Browning nee Kosov, had served as a praetor from the 1st Cohort. She argued against what she claimed, and was ultimately proven to be, a foolhardy quest. In response, they voted her out of her office, all done through the machinations of the quest's leader; Michael Varus had not returned, nor had any of the legionnaires deployed with him. Only afterward had the majority realized their cries of "You're only a woman" were erroneous. The god spoke to her, his voice calming, "What troubles you, my dear?"

"Something's coming, something terrible. Without Jason, without the Son of Jupiter, I don't know if I am strong enough to hold us together. The augur's influence…" He cut her off, his voice growing in strength.

"The augur's influence is nothing more than it was in his first life as an augur and cuckhold." Confusion spread across her face.

"What?"

"Souls are reborn, you know this correct?"

"I know they can choose rebirth, yes."

"Well, sometimes these reborn souls find similar people to their past lives, sometimes they do not. Your dear augur once lived as an augur in Rome. The woman who bore your soul was married to him. Which probably explains some of your irrational dislike of him, though there is plenty to rationally dislike, but that is neither here nor there. She and a certain young commander loathed Octavian Varus to the extent that for nearly fifteen years they cucked him. None of Varus' children, despite what the records may show, were his. They all belonged to this commander. Your namesake then rode to battle with this commander, again with Lucius Cornelius Jason in the first campaign of the Twelfth Legion, all the while masquerading as a man. If your soul did that over two thousand years ago, do you not think you could do more now? That you can outmaneuver that cunt of Legacy of Apollo?"

Reyna's inherent Roman-ness and adherence to orders shone through. "If she was not faithful to her husband, she broke some of Rome's most sacred laws. This commander betrayed what it was to be Roman." To her shock, he began to laugh. There was a twinkle in his eyes as he looked at her again.

"Ah, the things history forgets. This commander was no Roman when he started putting it to the auger's wife, he was a fucking Greek barbarian, yet they still made him Caesar." Reyna merely stared at him for a moment, shocked.

"That… that… that's…"

The god watched as the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. It appeared no one had informed her that her namesake gave birth to a future emperor's children, though he admitted not even history probably remembered it. Modern military historians and theorists tended to paint a far cleaner portrait of the second emperor's personal life. Paragon of virtue and all that, since he had not sired bastards while married to Julia. They ignored the ones that came before.

"The original owner of my soul… and an emperor? They… and she…"

"At least four times, given the number of pregnancies."

"How… how many?"

"Four that survived past the age of two. Five total." The god stated matter of factly. "Now, if you mean how many reborn souls are floating around, I know of at least three in New Rome. Yourself, your missing compatriot," he said the word with an intonation she recognized as mockery, "and our dear augur. It seems his soul is the source of being a cunt, unfortunately."

"Am… am… am I like her?" His face softened.

"In some ways. Daughters of Bellona, fierce, fierce fighters. Strong sense of duty. But you are less constrained by society, perhaps due to the times, I don't know. The biggest difference involves emotions, she revealed hers, consequences be damned. You hide them. I will not tell you to let them rule over you, but fear of an answer you don't want prevents you from getting the one you do." He closed his eyes for a second, as if he listened to a conversation far away. "A newcomer at the river!" she was gone and did not hear him continue, "A familiar one."

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