Previously:
Anybody with half a brain could recognize the symbolism, and anybody with half a brain could tell the effect it was having on the Legionaries around him. It truly was a successful night, and Percy simply wanted to enjoy it.
Presently
"You know I'm right, Poseidon" Hera said exasperatedly.
"It doesn't make me like it any more" Poseidon snapped. "You know how he's like..."
"Chaos deliver me" Hera muttered under her breath. She had been at this for almost two days now, and no matter what she did, nothing could get the two of them past the exact point they had just reached.
"Both of you know that this is the only thing that can help him. No matter what how much Latin I teach him, or how many generals I take him to, it will never be enough." Hera said, growing weary of making the same points over and over.
"Will Jupiter approve?" Poseidon asked, causing Hera to flicker to Juno for a moment.
"A better question would be whether or not Zeus will approve. My husband is more…accepting of these things when taking Perseus' service to Olympus into consideration. Aside from that, he'll see it as better than the alternative. I believe both of them will, come to think of it." Juno replied.
Poseidon just sighed. He saw sense in what Hera was saying, but he still didn't like it. Following her plan would upset many things, not least of all the power balance on Olympus itself.
"Fine. I'll talk to him, but if he says no you will have to convince him yourself." Poseidon said. Words that truly were music to Hera's ears. Poseidon was as stubborn as they come, a trait his son had clearly inherited.
"Thank the primordials." Hera said with relief lacing her tone.
"I must say, sister, when I asked you to assist Percy, this wasn't what I had in mind" Poseidon suddenly said, a knowing smirk threatening to split his beard.
"Oh shut it. I'm just trying to get it done quickly so I can go back to doing what I was before." Hera snapped. Poseidon simply nodded sarcastically, almost causing Hera to explode. However, having spent no small amount of time with Perseus had gotten her used to sarcasm. Almost, anyways.
"Take care of him, Hera. He's walking a fine line, and if he's anything like me, he'll struggle with accepting his Roman side. When Neptune popped out one day, me and him sank Atlantis." Poseidon said, suddenly serious.
"Isn't this Atlantis? Hera asked, confused. Poseidon just chuckled. Sometimes, his family knew less of his realm than they knew of Hades'.
"No, this city is much older. Rumor has it that this was once Pontus' seat of power, but the facts of the matter have been lost to the Sea." He replied. "I renamed this city in Atlantis' honor, as the destruction of that wonderful city still causes me guilt."
Hera got suspicion at his explanation. He was being very forthcoming, and while Poseidon may have been a laid back god, he still kept his cards close to his chest. And if Atlantis, or at least this version of it, was the Primordial deity's seat of power, than Poseidon had more power than she had initially suspected.
"Why are you entrusting me with this knowledge?" Hera asked.
"Because I can" comes the vague reply.
Percy POV
Percy just finished gutting his last empousai when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Without thinking, he flicked his sword to his other hand and jabbed at whatever was behind him, only to hear a yelp and a metallic clang. Realizing he almost killed one of his own, he quickly dropped his sword and spun around, grabbing the unfortunate probie by the neck and slamming him against a nearby wall.
There was one thing you never did when Percy was still pumped full of adrenaline, and that was touch him unexpectedly.
"Don't ever do that again, do you understand me?" Percy growled. The probatio quickly nodded, eyes as wide as dinner plates. Percy held him there a moment longer, looking into his eyes to ensure his message was received, before dropping him to the floor.
"What is it Jack?"
"Er, we found something you need to see" Jack said breathlessly. Percy simply nodded and gestured for Jack to lead the way.
Coming up on a Egyptian hieroglyph inscribed on a wall, Percy almost froze. What are they doing here? He thought. Last he heard from Carter, they were still up in Brooklyn. Since the First was currently on the Oklahoma-Texas state line, if the Egyptians were down here, then they were definitely a long way from home.
"Have you ever seen anything like it, Chief?" Michael muttered from behind him.
Percy had to pause at that. The Greeks and the Romans were now well aware of each other, and they got along well enough. However, he couldn't guarantee that Egypt and Rome or even Egypt and Greece would work out the same way.
And on a slightly more stressful note, he didn't even know if the gods wanted the three groups to be aware of each other. It wasn't as "simple" as the Greeks and the Romans, since the Roman pantheon was a part of the Greek pantheon. Egypt on the other hand was a completely different pantheon, with completely different gods.
And of course, he couldn't forget about the Norse.
Percy withheld a groan. That single damn symbol glaring up at him just threw his entire mission up in the air. He was too old for this shit.
"I can't say I have Mikey." Percy said. He couldn't let the Romans around him know about Egypt without consulting Hera. Which was slightly difficult, considering she refused to visit him whilst he was on campaign.
"Looks Egyptian to me " Jack muttered.
"Egyptian? What makes you say that?" Percy asked, surprised.
"History was one of my favorite classes in school. Ancient Egypt was the only time I got an A" Jack shrugged.
"Can you read hieroglyphs?" Percy asked
"Sort of. That one is a no brainer though. It's the eye of Anubis. Usually means something along the lines of "protection"" Jack replied.
"Well, let's hope it does us some good." Percy said after a pause. "Worst case is it doesn't affect us. Let's get back to the others."
With that he turned around and started marching back to their encampment. In true Roman fashion, it wasn't a simple camp. It was a fairly large rectangle built out of wooden walls. Inside were various wooden huts and shacks, the largest being reserved for the commanding officer, in this case Percy. Normally, such accommodations were simple tents, however Percy had planned to stay a longer period of time in this area, so he used the widely available trees around his chosen location to make things a tad more permanent.
The beginnings of gravel roads were showing, again a luxury they normally couldn't afford, and one of his legionaries put up a sign that read. "Olympus this way: 15k miles." He chuckled as he passed, and he idly wondered if it truly was a thousand five hundred miles to New York. Thinking of New York, he realized with a start that he never told his mother that he was in the Legion again. He resolved to send her an iris message that night.
Percy looked at his Cohort with barely disguised pride. He had truly come to care for their wellbeing, beyond the standard loyalty that was gifted to them by his fatal flaw. He was in command, but if he was doing something that was too extreme, they'd let him know. Not exactly Roman of them, but Percy was still learning the ropes of leadership.
This campaign had gone well so far. He had split the Cohort into various groups, based on the battle lines that they used during the war games. And it had quickly become a competition on which group could wrack up the most kills. When he had learned of that from Michael, he had quickly sanctioned it, promising the winning group a trip to Olympus to meet their parents. What they didn't know was that he had planned to take the entire Cohort to Olympus after this deployment.
Hera would have his head for bending the ancient laws, he knew. But he was also aware that he was extremely lucky to have regular contact with the gods. Most of the legionaries around him never met the gods, and had to rely on information from the Seven in order to get an idea of what their parents were like. So in return for a well fought campaign, and as a thank you for their patience, Percy was going to bring a Roman Cohort to the seat of the gods for the first time since the reign of Marcus Aurelius.
Walking into the what could be considered the command shack, as amusing as that sounds, he was somewhat surprised to see the rest of the groups already there. They must've stared at that damned hieroglyph for longer than he thought.
"So, what happened?" Percy asked, taking a seat at a table filled with maps and charts.
Instantly the hut burst into noise and wild gestures as every one of his group leaders began to tell their story. He calmy counted down before slamming his palm against the table, startling everyone around him into silence.
"C'mon guys, act with a little bit of professionalism. You are members of the First Cohort after all, not a random rabble clamoring for someone's head" He chided lightly, causing a murmurs of apologies to replace the pandemonium. He normally wouldn't deliberately stoke the First's ego, but occasionally it was the only way to get them to listen.
"Grace, you're up first." Percy said, turning to the group leader closest to him.
She began to give a very detailed run down of what she encountered. A little too detailed in Percy's opinion, but she was a legacy of Apollo, so he supposed she was simply bound by said deity's domain of truth.
Her lengthy explanation gave him a golden opportunity to allow his mind to wander to other matters. He still listened to her, and the information she was providing him still registered, however he wasn't giving it his full attention. It was a skill he had learned during his first, and so far only, Senate session. It had been a lengthy session, taking so long that they had to take a brief intermission to replace the poor stenographer, who had left grasping his spasming left hand.
He knew he would feel guilty about not giving Grace the attention she deserved, but his mind was still in a whirl about the whole "Eye of Anubis" debacle.
However, before he could think too much on it, one of his other group leaders mentioned seeing another strange symbol.
"What wait?" He exclaimed, quickly revising his question when he realized that he had mixed up the words.
"It was like… well I can't exactly describe it. It looked kind of like an n but it were the n curves, it had points. And the right side point of it was a little lower than the left point" Isir replied.
Percy thought about that a moment. His knowledge of symbols was severely lacking, so to him it might as well be an extraterrestrial language. He looked to find where Jack was, before cursing under his breath as the meeting was meant for group leaders only.
"Somebody go find Jack." Percy said, trying to hide the urgency in his tone. If it was another Egyptian hieroglyph, this was a more pressing matter than he thought.
"What's up Perce?" Grace asked, slightly alarmed at her Centurion's reaction.
"Was it carved into a stone wall? About two feet up?" Percy asked Isir, ignoring Grace's question for now.
"Er, no. It was carved, yeah, but it was on a wood beam. I can't remember exactly how high it was, but if I had to guess it'd be four to five feet up from the ground." Isir replied hesitantly. Percy held back the relief for a moment. Even thought it didn't seem like the same MO, he had to wait for Jack to confirm it wasn't Egyptian.
"To answer your question Grace, my group found an weird symbol too. Jack said it was a hieroglyph, so I want to see the one Isir found is another hieroglyph or if it's just meaningless graffiti." Percy said, carefully. Last thing he needed was to let the cat out of the bag before talking with Juno.
"You asked for me Perce?" Jack asked.
"Yeah, we need to know if….wait a second, Isir, can you draw the thing you saw?" Percy asked. That would save him a lengthy explanation.
Isir just took a pencil and started sketching out a rough outline similar to the one he had described. Jack took a long look at it before turning to Percy again.
"It's….not Egyptian, that's for sure. It looks vaguely familiar, but I can't say why. Could really be anything Perce" Jack replied slowly.
"Does anything similar exist in Egyptian?" Percy asked.
"There are over 700 hieroglyphs Percy, I don't know all of them" Jack said, rolling his eyes.
Michael rumbled a warning from Percy's right side, but Percy simply waved him off. He wasn't too concerned with decorum right now.
"Thanks anyways Jack. Now, does anyone else have anything important to say?" Percy asked, and seeing nobody speaking up, he then stood up. "Alright then, give me a couple hours to think about this crap and then we'll meet again."
This was one headache he really wished he could avoid. But first, a call to his mother.
AN: Now, Egypt isn't my strong suit. I much prefer Rome. But I'm enjoying the idea of wider political dilemmas beyond the all too common "Tartarus is coming! Quick, get Chaos' blessing and whoop his ass!" Of course, if done well, those stories are incredibly entertaining, but it's becoming a cliché at this point, so I can promise that this isn't one of those stories.
Also, if anyone could tell me what the Eye of Anubis means, I'll be forever grateful to you. A quick Google search couldn't tell me anything interesting.