Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter.
Consul of the Underworld: End of Disc 1
Chapter Twenty-One: Cloak and Dagger in New Rome - Fire and Plague
Beta: ShadowofAxios
"How is it, Mama, Mum?" Alkaid heard Gracie ask as she bit down on one of the chocolate chip coffee muffins that her eldest daughter had baked for her and Pyrrha.
"It's good." Pyrrha said as she swallowed the bite she had taken out of her muffin. "You've done a wonderful job, Gracie."
The daughter of Hecate smiled proudly before turning expectantly towards Alkaid. "What about you, Mum? Was it good?"
Swallowing the bite of the honestly quite delicious muffin that was in her mouth, Alkaid offered her oldest a smile and nodded. "Your mama is right. You did a wonderful job, Gracie. It's delicious."
Gracie practically glowed with pride at the praise before she turned to her sisters with an excited smile on her face, only to be greeted by twin thumbs up from Mina and Kura.
"Yay! Good job, Gracie." Kura said as she skipped over and pulled her eldest sister into a hug.
"Of course you did. You had a good teacher after all." Mina said whilst preening with pride.
"Yes, you were a great teacher, Mina-sensei~!" Gracie told Mina teasingly as she returned Kura's hug.
"Yup. Yup." Mina said shamelessly as she nodded exaggeratedly whilst smirking smugly. "Praise me more."
Alkaid giggled at her daughters' antics and exchanged an amused look with her chuckling wife.
"Well~ If you want more praise, Mina-sensei, then maybe you should go teach your sister a few more recipes?" Pyrrha suggested with a smirk.
"Oh! Definitely!" Mina said, skipping excitedly on the spot. "Come on, Gracie, Kura! I've still got lots more recipes to teach you."
"Yay! I can't wait!" Kura said enthusiastically as she let go of Gracie and skipped over to Mina's side. "I want to learn how to make more goodies for Mum and Mama to try!"
Gracie though looked conflicted and turned to shoot Alkaid and Pyrrha with a worried look. "Are we interrupting you, Mum, Mama?"
"No, Sweetie. Nothing of the sort!" Alkaid assured her little girl whilst she stood and pulled her into a hug and gave the crown of Gracie's head a reassuring kiss. "We're never too busy to spend time with you."
"You're sure, Mum?" Gracie asked, giving voice to the insecurity about her piety as a daughter that had plagued her ever since Alkaid's recent near death experience courtesy of the mob's Keres-infused cannonballs and her being the only one of her sisters who had failed to rush to help save her.
"I'm sure." Alkaid said confidently as she gave her apprentice a comforting squeeze.
"Your mum is right, Gracie." Pyrrha added as she leaned down and gave Gracie's cheek her own reassuring kiss. "We always have time for you. Your sisters too. Isn't that right, Mina, Kura?"
""Un. Un."" Mina and Kura agreed with enthusiastic nods.
"Do you understand, Sweetie?" Alkaid asked Gracie as she looked down at the girl searchingly.
"Yes, Mum." Gracie said with a hesitant nod. If Alkaid was to guess, the girl probably intellectually agreed with what she was being told but her heart was having a hard time accepting it.
The daughter of magic had an iron will though and applying that, she pushed her worries aside and taking a deep, reaffirming breath she pulled away from Alkaid's hug. "I'll go to the kitchen and learn more recipes from Mina now. I'll let you try the fruit of my labor when I'm done?"
"I'm looking forward to it." Alkaid told her with a smile. "We can have whatever you make for dessert tonight at dinner."
"Sounds like a plan." Pyrrha agreed.
Offering them both a smile, Gracie walked over to join the waiting Mina and Kura. "See you at dinner, Mum, Mama."
"Definitely."
"Absolutely."
Her smile growing more confident and brilliant, Gracie took her sisters' hands, activated her magic and teleported all three of them away to the kitchen. An act that left Alkaid and Pyrrha alone in the daughter of Hades' home office.
"These really are good." Pyrrha said as she finished the muffin she'd taken a bite out of to try Gracie's latest baked creations.
"Indeed." Alkaid agreed after she finished her own half eaten muffin and took a sip of her cup of tea. "Mina is a good teacher."
"Gracie has quite a bit of talent too." Pyrrha argued. "Kura has been learning baking from Mina longer than she has and isn't half as good."
Alkaid nodded. "I suppose Gracie's skill and her practice with potion making helps. There is a lot of crossover in skills."
"True. Though that never helped me." Pyrrha said with a laugh as she took a sip from her coffee.
"You never were that good with your brewing." Alkaid pointed out. "And your cooking isn't that bad."
"You only say that because you're just as bad." Pyrrha retorted teasingly.
Alkaid snorted and rolled his eyes. "Neither of us are bad."
"I suppose." Pyrrha said with a shrug. "We're just not good. Our daughters are better cooks than us."
Alkaid laughed but nodded. "True. True. But let's move on shall we?"
"Sure." Pyrrha said as she picked up the manila folder containing one of the intel reports that they had been reviewing before they had been interrupted when Gracie had arrived to ask them to try her muffins. "So it's confirmed? The Titan Army is making preparations to march on New York City?"
"Sadly." Alkaid said with a tired sigh as she looked towards the numerous reports indicating that the Titans were stockpiling supplies and mustering their forces around New York City in clear preparation of a campaign against the city and Olympus that floated above it.
"Any ideas on how to sabotage their efforts?" Pyrrha asked. "What about taking out some of their supply depots?"
"My thoughts exactly." Alkaid said as she gestured at a map of New York City and its surrounds that was pinned on a corkboard that she'd set up against one wall of her home office. "We'd need to coordinate with the Campers though. They're doing that already."
"Tell me about it." Pyrrha said with a frustrated sigh. "Remember that magical flying chariot that the Campers from Cabin Five and Seven got as a spoil from blowing up a big stockpile of their supplies? The one that they almost started crossing swords over?"
Alkaid frowned as she remembered that particular fiasco. "Don't remind me!"
It had taken a whole day of scolding of the Ares and Apollo Cabins to get them to come to a compromise over that particular spoil that they both seemed desperate to claim for themselves. They had adulted hard that day. The scolding was so legendary that it had Mr. D cackling like a mad god. Thankfully, the Ares kids had seen reason in the end and had handed the chariot over to Cabin Seven who with their superior skill with a bow could best use it as an aerial platform for their archers in exchange for the Apollo kids handing over all the other spoils they had received from the mission. There were still grumbles, but kids would be kids. Especially Half-blood kids.
"Sorry, sorry." Pyrrha leaned over and rubbed her shoulder. "You handled it like a champ though, 'Kaidy."
"Only because you knocked sense into Clarisse and the rest of your siblings in Cabin Five." Alkaid told her with a smile. "We handled it like a champ."
"We did." Pyrrha agreed. "Okay. So any ideas on where we and Black Team should hit? I'd think we should come up with some preferences before we present them to the Campers when we coordinate things."
Alkaid nodded and turned back to the map on the corkboard. "I'm thinking we can split our efforts geographically. The Campers can take the bases on Long Island and the north whilst we take everything to the west and south?"
"Shouldn't the Campers take more zones than that?" Pyrrha asked with a thoughtful hum. "They do have more manpower."
"No, best to have them familiarize themselves with the area around New York for the battle to come. Besides, the Titan Army is mainly massing in Yonkers and New Haven. So even though they'll be covering less area, they'll have to deal with more targets."
Pyrrha nodded. "And the Princess Andromeda? Last we heard, it's sailing towards New York."
"Leave it to Percy." Alkaid said with a dismissive wave. "He is a son of the sea after all, dealing with that particular cruise ship turned monsters' troop ship is in his ballpark."
"Let's hope squid for brains can handle a demolition job."
"Percy is smarter than he looks." Alkaid said with a slight chiding look for her wife.
"Tch." Pyrrha clicked her tongue in annoyance. "Whatever, you're too doting."
Alkaid ignored the jibe entirely and just continued like the daughter of war hadn't said anything. "Plus, if Percy makes any oversight, Annabeth will cover for him. I don't like that girl. Especially as his girlfriend, not that the two idiot lovebirds have made that official, but she is a daughter of Athena and has furthermore inherited her divine mother's wisdom."
"Mmmmhmmmm." Pyrrha said, unconvinced. "Whatever you say, 'Kaidy. I don't really agree, but if you think he can handle it then I'll trust your judgment."
"Thank you, Py." Alkaid said, offering her wife a grateful smile. "Now, shall we start writing up our list of preferred targets?"
"'Kay." Pyrrha said with a sigh, clearly unenthused about the idea of all the work that would mean.
Responding to that, Alkaid grinned. "I know it's a task but just be glad that we have Camp Jupiter handling most of the Western states. If we had to handle those too, we'd be swamped."
Pyrrha opened her mouth to reply but before she could say a word, a sudden gold blur shot through Alkaid's office. A blur that quickly transformed into the familiar form of Lord Hermes.
"Would have used the bell, but messages wait for no man." The messenger god said in lieu of a greeting. "But yeah, sorry to burst your bubble, Alkaid and Pyrrha. But you'll have to leave things in the New York area to the Campers and the rest of Black Team, or at least some of them. You might want to take at least some of them to New Rome with you. You might need some support."
"Greetings, Lord Hermes." Alkaid said as she and Pyrrha both stood and offered the god a curtsy in welcome.
"What's happened?" Pyrrha asked with a frown.
"Put on your togas, ladies. The Titans are up to trouble in New Rome."
The trouble that Lord Hermes had said was plaguing New Rome turned out to be a series of acts of sabotage which were undermining Legio XII Fulminata's war effort. Sabotage that at the gods' instruction, as told to them by the messenger god, they were supposed to stop. An effort that they were helped with by the Bertinellis, who with both being former Legionnaires were familiar with the city, whilst leaving Caelus and Peggy to handle the Titan Army's preparations to march on New York.
"So what exactly were the acts of sabotage that we're talking about here?" Pyrrha asked as she, her wife and the Bertinellis, sat down at the long table laden with maps, books, daggers, and a large jar of jelly beans inside the Praetorium, the Praetors' living quarters at Camp Jupiter after the customary pleasantries. "Lord Mercury didn't elaborate."
"They consist of a series of arson attacks." The female Praetor, Reyna Ramírez-Arellano, a young teenager with piercing black eyes, glossy black hair worn in a single braid, and brown skin. She was no doubt going to bloom into a gorgeous warrior woman in a few years. One who balanced her warrior nature with a regal bearing as demonstrated by the queenly way she sat in her chair across from her whilst flanked by her golden and silver automaton guard dogs, Aurum and Argentum.
The aforementioned Praetor shot Pyrrha with distrust. Unsurprising really. This was her first time visiting New Rome and while as a Diplomat of Olympus she had the support of the gods, that did not fully deal with the sense of suspicion that the Romans felt towards a fully grown daughter of Mars suddenly turning up out of nowhere. Especially when even with the protection of their rank, the Romans still sensed, at least subconsciously, her and 'Kaidy's Greek nature and felt a dulled version of the innate hostility towards them that it engendered.
Thankfully, the Praetors had enough control, both over themselves and their people, to prevent their unease towards Pyrrha, and to a lesser extent Alkaid herself, from growing into something more troublesome. Their mission in New Rome would have been all but impossible if that had not been the case.
"Yes," The male Praetor, Jason Grace, said with far less hostility. Helped along, Pyrrha imagined, by the fact that he had a Greek sister. According to what she knew, he didn't really remember her, but having the Lieutenant of the Hunters as a sibling probably helped his ability to deal with the presence of Greeks regardless.
Though that relation certainly did not factor into his looks. Jason was a young, younger than his fellow Praetor, boy with electric blue eyes, close-cropped blond hair, and a small scar on the corner of his lip. A boy with features akin to a Roman statue which made him perhaps the most attractive boy that Pyrrha had ever seen. If she wasn't a lesbian and happily married, his looks might have taken her breath away. Something which was a fair cry from the bland appearance of his sister.
"Fires? Wouldn't the number of spirits you have around Camp notice arsonists?" 'Kaidy asked curiously.
"You'd think so, but it seems they have means to bypass our security and patrols."
"Elusive, invisible and clever. The plot thickens." Helena said with a grin. It seems she was having fun with this.
"You should have installed security cameras." Michael said with a disappointed shake of his head. "You'd have some footage to review if you did."
"Hindsight is twenty twenty, Michael." Reyna said with a sigh. "We've already tabled a motion in the Senate to get funding for it, but for now we have to work with what we have."
"If efficiency has to be put to a vote, I worry about what New Rome is becoming." The man grunted in annoyance, but said no more.
"Let's get back on track shall we?" Alkaid said with a bemused shake of her head. "What can you tell us about these arsons?"
"Well, the first arson saw Camp Jupiter's armory being burnt down." Jason explained obligingly, causing the Bertinellis to look at the Praetors in alarm.
"Luckily we were able to put it out before it got out of hand." Renya added.
"We didn't lose any of the Imperial Gold?" Michael asked with a look of deep concern. "If the flames reached a high enough temperature, they could have gone off."
Pyrrha could understand. Whilst Imperial Gold wasn't actually as rare as Celestial Bronze, it was unfortunately still quite rare to the Romans. A result of one of their Praetors, Michael Varus, losing a good chunk of their supply during an expedition in the 80s to Alaska that he had led in the hope to find the true meaning of a major prophecy that hung over Camp Jupiter known as the Prophecy of Seven.
They were asking for it if you're asking me. Trying to figure out the meaning behind a prophecy before its time is just asking for things to backfire against you. The Fates like to keep the futures they've woven to their chests and won't appreciate anyone prying.
"We avoided that." Jason said with a reassuring nod. "Thankfully."
Both Bertinellis breathed sighs of relief.
"A good thing indeed. But could you tell us about the rest of the arsons?" Alkaid pressed.
"There were at least two other fires in New Rome's warehouse district, both of which and the fire of the armory were confirmed to be cases of arson." Reyna answered.
"Great. So let's go CSI on this." Pyrrha grunted. Seemed they would be doing detective work today.
Alkaid shot her an exasperated look. But Pyrrha just smirked. She wasn't wrong, was she?
Her wife just sighed. "I would not phrase things that way but yes, I think we need to inspect the scene."
"Of course." Reyna said as he stood, all of them following her lead and doing the same. "Let's head over to the armory. It's the closest."
Alkaid nodded in satisfaction. "Lead the way, Praetor."
"Dammit all! The whole place really burned down." Alkaid heard Michael hiss in shock as their small group arrived at the burnt remains of Camp Jupiter's armory. Ruins that were little more than a skeletal frame of a building made out of badly burnt timbers and mostly collapsed, cracked concrete walls.
"Whoever did this must have used a lot of accelerant to achieve this." Helena said with a frown.
"They did." Reyna said with a nod and gestured to the ruined building that was currently guarded by a squad of Legionnaires. "We managed to put out the fire in only a few minutes but in that short time, it completely destroyed the armory. Something they wouldn't have been able to manage without it."
"Do you know what they used?" Alkaid asked curiously.
The two Praetors shifted uneasily before Jason answered for them. "We don't know. We don't actually have something like Crime Scene Investigators here in New Rome, so…"
"I tried to get my dogs to get the scent of the perpetrator but they couldn't single out who was responsible." Reyna said with a frown.
"And the Augur? Did they- Who is it now, anyway?" Helena asked with a curious tilt of her head.
Both Praetors frowned.
"It's Aurelia, a daughter of Carmenta. And her auguries haven't produced anything useful. All they've revealed is that this is the work of the Titans." Reyna answered.
"A five year old could figure that out. Typical hit or miss these days. Augurs are all political now." Michael scoffed.
"I wish you were wrong." Jason said under his breath, only to be silenced by a chiding glare from his fellow Praetor.
Alkaid sighed. She could see why the gods wanted her to deal with this now. After all, serial arson wasn't exactly something that should have required her attention. Not to be too prideful, but she was too powerful to be wasted on something as trivial as this. However, if New Rome had no means to investigate the matter then it made a lot more sense to assign her this task. She wasn't just powerful, she was also versatile and investigating this case was indeed within her realm of ability.
"I see. Then leave things to us." Alkaid said before turning to Pyrrha. "Py, help me?"
Her wife nodded. "Sure. Appare Vestigium enough?"
"For a start." Alkaid agreed. "It should show us all the magical traces and if we filter through the findings we're sure to get a lead or two. Practically anything and anyone in New Rome has some trace of magic to them."
"And this is why having a magical division would be smart. Modernize already."
"Honey, shush." Helena smiled sweetly, which silenced her grouchy husband.
Shaking her head at the bickering between the Bertinellis, Alkaid and Pyrrha moved to either side of the burned down armory, the latter drawing her wand from the hammerspace inside the black diamond of Akoúo̱ (Listen) as she did.
Once in position, they both proceeded to work their magic.
"Appare Vestigium." The sorceress and witch cast at the same time.
Wisping clouds of gold dust shot from the hand that Alkaid had raised over her head even as the same happened from the tip of Pyrrha's similarly raised wand. Dust that as they both spun in a circle on the spot, fell all around them. Dusts that glowed in various different colors as it reacted with the various magical traces that they came into contact with.
The product of their magic drew gasps and other demonstrations of amazement from the Praetors and the Legionnaires, both those that were guarding the arson site and a small crowd which had shown up to observe things.
"Hmm… I think I could duplicate that spell." Michael mused. "Think you'd want to buy whatever device I come up with if I do, Praetors?"
"We'd definitely be interested." Reyna said with a nod. "But we'd have to raise the matter with the Senate. They'd need to approve the funding for it."
Michael snorted in displeasure but Helena put a restraining hand on his arm and replied more neutrally. "We look forward to discussing the terms of this potential purchase."
"Praetors, when was the fire?" Alkaid asked as she examined the findings created by her spell, which was showing thousands of different magical traces that trailed in every possible direction.
"Roughly two days ago." Renya answered. "Sometime around midnight."
"Hm," Alkaid hummed and nodded. With a thought, the gold dust sorted themselves, the wisps of dust melding into the ground so that only what showed the specific traces for the time window that the Puerto-Rican Praetor provided remained. "Sorting through the traces I've picked up…"
A sorting that revealed a specific set out of traces that stood out like a sore thumb. Namely a trail of cloven hoof prints that tracked from the outside the armory, through the ruins of one of the windows, before it made its way all over the armory.
"It seems our assailant came through the window sometime between an hour before and after midnight two days ago."
"More than one actually, 'Kaidy." Pyrrha said as she gestured with her wand at the other set of hoof prints that her own tracking spell had revealed.
Alkaid nodded at the correction. "Yes, it seems we have more than one perpetrator."
"Are those what I think they are?" Jason asked with a tight look on his face. It was so similar to Uncle Zeus when he was angry but was holding back a curse that if there were any doubts as to the boy's parentage, they would have been disabused by that look alone.
Uncle Zeus certainly had that look on his face during Alkaid's debut.
"Yes it is." Alkaid frowned. "It seems your arsonists are Fauns."
"Those flea ridden-!" Reyna snarled, looking thunderous as her hand rested on the handle of her blade that was sheathed at her hip.
"Great," Pyrrha pinched the bridge of her nose. "So where can we find the largest collective of Fauns?"
"Is it wrong that I almost feel sorry for these halfwits?" Alkaid heard Helena ask as she, her husband and the Potters marched step to step with the young Praetors and a squad of Legionnaires from the Legio XII Fulminata as they headed to the slum at the borders of New Rome, just outside the Pomerian Line, where the majority of the city's Faun population resided.
A slum that consisted of a cluster of insulae, blocks of grouped but separate apartment buildings. Buildings with walls whose plaster was cracked and flaking, were bordered by dirty, tiny cobblestone streets, and had innumerable strings stretched across the narrow gaps between the buildings upon which clothes were hung. A place that was horribly overcrowded if the teeming masses of goat-like humanoids known as Fauns, and the occasional Human and Lares guardian spirits, that seemed to occupy every single open space in sight was any indication.
"Is it wrong that I feel bad we're about to ax some Sa-Fauns?" Pyrrha muttered to Alkaid as they fell back a bit as their group began to advance into the slum and she tapped her labrys against her shoulder uneasily.
It made sense the redhead would feel some apprehension. Satyrs were widely known on their side of the country to seek Half-bloods, doing their best to bring them to safety in Camp Half-Blood. They were hard workers and skilled in many disciplines. Heck, they even taught survival courses at Camp.
Yet, here in Camp Jupiter? Fauns were nothing but burdens. They hoveled about, begging for coins and were jesters at best. They laid about, doing nothing productive to not only help the Camp they lived in, but, more importantly, took no steps to try and improve their own lives.
It is truly such a massive waste of resources! Alkaid thought with displeasure. Surely, the Romans could have come up with some way to better exploit it! We are at war Pit damn it!
"No." Alkaid sighed as she flipped through her Grimiore. "The Titans noticed a weakness in Camp Jupiter and exploited it. We are dealing with this threat. Just think of it that way."
Mayhaps that was an overly clinical way to look at things, but that was just how things truly were. And to carry out their mission, they would need to keep themselves firmly grounded in reality.
"Yeah, it still feels wrong though."
"I know." Alkaid nodded as she settled on the spell she needed. "But just ignore it for now."
Pyrrha frowned, but nodded and they moved to join the female Praetor who, unlike her male counterpart who was leading the Legionnaires they had brought with them as they forced the slum's residents to retire to their homes so they could carry out their operation to clear out the Faun saboteurs, was hanging back with the Bertinellis and looking down at her gold and silver dogs.
"The Fauns responsible are here." Reyna said with a frown as she looked down at her twin automaton dogs who were growling angrily at the slum around them. It had turned out that it had not been that her dogs had not been able to track the scents of the arsonists but rather a case of them being unable to single their scents out from the others that permeated the arson sites. After all, Fauns were everywhere in New Rome and without being able to single them out, something that she had been unable to do, her dogs hadn't been able to know which scent trail to follow. That was however no longer an issue.
"Did you doubt us?" Alkaid asked, looking at the Puerto Rican with a raised eyebrow.
"No. That's not what I meant." Reyna said with a shake of her head. "I was merely relieved that they were at the first place we looked. This is hardly the only place a bunch of traitorous Fauns could have chosen to hide themselves. And I am impatient to punish those faithless turncoats."
"We all are, Praetor." Helena assured her whilst Michael nodded in agreement.
"Indeed." Alkaid added, prompting Pyrrha to also nod. "I take it that we are going to begin hunting down the saboteurs once we finish imposing the curfew on the slums?"
Reyna nodded. "We risk too many innocent casualties otherwise."
Alkaid and Pyrrha both nodded in approval at the sentiment. It was good that the Praetor was concerned with the welfare of the people of New Rome. Such concern for their people was a sign of a good leader.
Sadly, it seemed like their enemies also shared Reyna's concern for innocent New Romans because it was as the slums around Alkaid and her group were cleared that they made themselves known. Without warning, windows all around them slammed open and dozens of Fauns leaned out of them with their bows raised and arrows nocked. Missiles that they loosed as soon as they had a clear line of sight, sending a rain of arrows flying down at our heroes. Arrows from which wafted toxic looking gray blue smoke.
Alkaid had however seen the possibility of such an attack so one of the spells that she had picked out of her Grimoire was a defensive one. However, it was not her which reacted first.
"Oh whirling storm of spring, bestow thine aerial protection upon us! Blow Forth, Wind Wall!" Pyrrha incanted before swinging her labrys around her as she spun in a circle, conjuring a dome of strong winds around their group that deflected the incoming arrows.
With them protected from the archers, it was up to Alkaid to take the offense, starting with the Fauns on the ground as they kicked upon a half dozen doors and surged out with their knives drawn - covered in the same wafting gray blue energy that the arrowheads of the arrows their compatriots had shot at them were - and their intent to kill our heroes clear. A mob that in a wise tactical move on their attackers' part had cut them off from Jason and the squad of Legionnaires further down the street.
"Axel Shooter, Phalanx Shift!" Alkaid cast, conjuring hundreds of emerald bullets of magic all around her that proceeded to shoot towards the Faun aggressors, taking down many, but sadly not all, of them. Being magical creatures, Fauns were resistant to magic and with how low yield the sorceress had set her spell's bullets to - to avoid causing too much collateral damage - the strongest among their attackers were able to shrug off the effects of her shooter spell.
"Watch out for their weapons! They are imbued with the energy of the Morbi! If you are wounded by them you will be struck down with deadly sickness!" Alkaid warned after a quick diagnostic spell over the enemy's clearly enchanted weapons, just as the the surviving traitorous Fauns rapidly closed into melee range.
"Right." Pyrrha acknowledged before adding a warning of her own. "Dropping my Wall!"
"Got it! I'll cover the archers!" Alkaid replied even as she drew a spell card from Grimoire and tossed it above them where it promptly exploded in a burst of light and discharging the Round Shield stored within, conjured a large circular barrier above them that acted like an umbrella that protected them from the still incoming shower of arrows.
The moment the light shadow cast by the translucent green barrier created by Alkaid's spell fell upon them, Pyrrha did as she had said she would and released the pent up winds of her Wind Wall. A move that sent cutting winds into the ranks of the closest Fauns. Winds that killed a number of them, both on the ground and among the archers who did not duck into cover in time to avoid the conjured squall.
"Helena! Alkaid! Deal with the archers, the three of us will deal with those on the ground." Reyna ordered, taking charge of the situation as befit a Praetor.
"Gotcha!" Helena replied as she finished equipping herself with Huntress' Crossbow after pulling it out of her Hammerspace Backpack and shot a few bolts up at the bravest, or most foolhardy, of the Faun archers who had popped out of their cover so soon after the scouring wind blast that Pyrrha had unleashed. Shots that easily found their marks and sent her targets back into the cycle of reincarnation that awaited all nature spirits like the goatmen upon their deaths.
An effort that Alkaid assisted with through her own wordless reply to Reyna's orders, which took the form of her silently casting another iteration of Axel Shooter, Phalanx Shift and sending a storm of magical bullets shooting up through the narrow confines of the slum's street to barrage the Faun archers. She might agree with the course of action that the female Praetor had requested of her but she wasn't about to tell her so. She was a Diplomat of Olympus and so outranked the younger girl. She would not demean her position by appearing to obediently follow her orders.
Pyrrha, bless her, despite Alkaid not saying anything seemed to get the memo too. Or at the very least she had followed the sorceress' lead and did not acknowledge the Praetor's orders, choosing instead to simply act on the reasonable course of action she'd outlined without affirming them. Something she did by moving to interpose herself between Alkaid and one of the Faun attackers who had been charging the daughter of Hades and proceeding to bisect the goatman with a tidal wave blade conjured by her Tidal Slash spell.
In contrast to their silence, Michael expressed his enthusiastic agreement with Reyna's orders. "Yes! Finally a chance to show off Kinetic Gavel!"
"Less talking, more fighting, Michael!" Reyna scolded the man as she ran a Faun through with her Imperial Gold spear before shifting it into its sword form as she pulled the weapon free of her first victim and spinning away so she could stab it through the heart of another of the attacking goatmen from behind.
"Right. Sorry!" Michael said contritely as he pulled a weapon out of a pocket of the jacket that he was wearing which must have been connected to some kind of hammerspace pocket. A weapon that took the form of a warhammer with a black finish with a two-meter long haft with a counterweight attached to the bottom end, one that was necessary to balance a large head with a hammerhead and a blade on the reverse side.
"The reason you don't get many chances to test that toy of yours is because, no offense Honey, you suck as a fighter and so I keep you out of them as much as possible." Helena scolded her husband as she and Alkaid continued to suppress the Faun archers with their crossbow bolts and conjured magic bullets.
"Hey! I'm not that bad!" Michael shouted indignantly as he swung his warhammer at one of the traitor Fauns only to prove his wife's assertion by missing the goatman entirely.
This left his guard wide open, something that the Faun he'd tried to take out was more than happy to exploit as he surged forward to stab him with his cursed weapon. A fate that he was only saved from by Reyna appearing at his side and deflected the knife with her spear, causing the goatman to stumble back and leaving it open to her dogs, who promptly tackled the Faun to the ground before proceeding to maul it to death.
"Michael! Focus!" The Praetor hissed irritably as she took a moment from killing their attackers to shoot the son of Vulcan a glare. "You're bad enough in a fight on a good day! If you don't keep your mind in the game, you're nothing but a liability!"
Michael winced.
"Sorry." The tinkerer said contritely as he swung Kinetic Gavel at one of the Fauns, caving the goatman's head in with a blow that was many times more powerful than it should have been. Clearly, as its name suggested, his warhammer must have some way to enhance, or perhaps outright manipulate, the kinetic force behind its blows. It would certainly be something that the son of Vulcan would work into his personal weapon.
"That's a cool weapon Michael's got there." Pyrrha observed as she danced around a swipe of a spear with a cursed spearhead wielded by the goatman she was currently fighting. "Why's this the first time we're seeing it?"
"Like Helena said, he rarely gets in any fights." Alkaid informed her with a shrug as she wordlessly cast another Axel Shooter, Phalanx Shift and used it to continue to suppress the Faun archers attacking them from the insulae apartments overlooking their position. "Plus, I'd guess it's less a weapon and more a tool. He probably uses it in his tinkering."
"He does." Helena agreed as she put a bolt from her Crossbow into the brain of one of the Faun archers. "Your intuition is as sharp as always, Alkaid."
"It wasn't that hard in this case. It's a hammer. Of course Michael wo-"
Alkaid's reply was cut off when there was a sudden boom of thunder and a bolt of lightning blasted a path through the ranks of the Fauns that had cut them off from Jason and the group of Legionnaires that had gone ahead with him. A path that the male Praetor led them down in a bid to rejoin with the rest of their group. Not that the goatmen didn't try to stop them. They certainly did. Rushing in and trying to desperately keep the two groups of Heroes separate.
"Why are you doing this?" Jason demanded from the Fauns as he twisted around to block a dagger to his spine from one among their number. "Why are you betraying New Rome!?"
Nearby, one of the goatmen, their apparent leader, bleated out a harsh laugh. "Why in the world would we be loyal to New Rome?! You treat us like garbage! We're nothing but beggars or mere amusement to you twisted children of the gods!"
"Isn't that because you choose to be like that? You've never done anything to better yourselves!" One of the Legionnaires pointed out as he cut the head off one of the renegade Fauns.
That seemed to be the wrong thing to say as his words just seemed to make the Fauns fight with even more zeal.
"That's because we're institutionally forced into these roles! What chances to 'better' ourselves did we ever have!" The Faun leader roared as he stabbed a Legionnaire repeatedly in the throat.
Institutional racism!? That's what the Fauns are using to justify their betrayal!?
"There are plenty!" Reyna shouted, voice clear and powerful even in the chaos of battle. "There are no limits on what you Fauns can be! That your people have not succeeded in life was your choice, a product of your lack of desire to improve your lot in life!"
"A false choice, Praetor!" The leader of the Fauns spat. "Look at the reality of things! Even if we have the freedom of choice on paper, that's nothing but an illusion! What choice do we really have? When we try to be anything else, we are rejected!"
"Really!? Then give me one example of that!" Reyna retorted even as she decapitated three Fauns all at once with one broad swing of her spear.
"Easy enough! No Faun has ever been a Legionnaire!"
"Fine, there haven't been any! But that's outside our control! Only Humans can join. No Dryads. No Nymphs. Only the Human children and Legacies of the gods! That's the rules as imposed by the gods." Reyna retorted. "Besides, are there even any Fauns who are children or Legacies of the gods?"
"There aren't any!" The Faun leader admitted grudgingly as he found himself dueling Jason. "But we Fauns wouldn't be allowed to become Legionnaires even if there were."
"You're rebelling based on a hypothetical?" Jason asked incredulously as he locked his Imperial Gold sword against the Faun leader's cursed short sword.
"So what if it is?" The Faun retorted as the two continued struggling against each other as they pushed their crossed blades against each other. "Does that change the fact that the discrimination that I and my followers suffer and are fighting against exists!?"
"Then you should have taken your case to the gods, not their children." Alkaid calmly told the Faun as fired off another volley of her Axel Shooter, Phalanx Shift, whilst redirecting a small shotgun spread of magic bullets to deal with a Faun attacker that had got around Pyrrha, blowing away the goatman and reducing him to grisly chunks.
"Hey, 'Kaidy! Watch where you are sending all that blood flying!" Pyrrha complained as she was showered in the gore whilst she was busy disemboweling another of the Fauns with her labrys.
"Sorry, Love."
Ignoring their byplay, the Faun leader laughed darkly in response to Alkaid's criticism. "That's exactly what we're doing by sabotaging your war against the Titans, aren't we?"
"And you expect the Titans, whose rule during the so-called Golden Age was little more than a living hell, to treat your people better?" Pyrrha rebutted as she sidestepped a reckless charge by a Faun armed with a spear and with a casual swing of her labrys proceeded to snap the goatman's weapon in half, effectively disarming him. This left him vulnerable and thus easily finished off with another almost absentminded swing of the daughter of Ares' weapon.
"We're willing to try our luck! What do me and mine have to lose when taking into account what we currently have to endure?" The Faun leader said as he disengaged from his duel with Jason and leapt away from him, barely avoiding a lightning bolt that the son of Jupiter shot at him and pulling the bow slung along his back into a ready position.
Alkaid scoffed. "You pampered fool. Do you honestly not know how privileged you are? How many would kill and die for the peace and relative prosperity you and your fellow Fauns enjoy in New Rome? How all of that will be lost if the Titans win?"
"That remains to be seen." The Faun leader said as he drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it before leveling it at the male Praetor of New Rome.
"Then you are a fool!" Jason shouted as he sidestepped the arrow that the Faun leader shot at him before leaping into the air and charging at the nature spirit. "Gambling the fate of your people on such uncertainty!?"
"Better than languishing in the discrimination we face now!" The Faun leader shouted defiantly as he tossed his bow aside and drew his short sword again to block Jason's blade as he closed.
He was too slow however. His cursed sword was still only halfway out of its sheath by the time Jason had finished getting into range and ran him through with his Imperial Gold sword.
"Argh!" The Faun groaned even as his body began to collapse into flowers. "Fight on, brothers! Do not let my death stop your fight for our freedom! Freeeeeeeeedooooooooom~!"
With that aping of William Wallace from the Braveheart movie, the Faun finally died. And as he did, contrary to his words, his death seemed to sap the confidence of his followers and they began to disengage from the fight to turn to desperately flee.
"Jason! Don't let them get away!" Reyna shouted at her fellow Praetor.
The boy frowned and looked hesitant.
"Jason!" The daughter of Bellona demanded.
This overcame the son of Jupiter's hesitation and with a frown, he proceeded to call lightning down on the retreating Fauns. Lightning that fell with such precision that it destroyed all the traitorous goatmen without harming anyone else.
Most impressive. Alkaid thought as she surveyed the boy's handiwork. Jason has much better control of his powers than his sister.
"Well done, Jason." Reyna said with a satisfied nod. "Louis, send a runner to get reinforcements and leave two men to look after your wounded and Sharon's body. After that take the rest of your squad and hunt down the surviving traitors. I'm sure at least one or two of the archers survived."
"Yes, Praetor." The leader of the squad of Legionnaires said with a salute.
"Reyna, is that necessary?" Jason asked, shooting Reyna a questioning look. "Shouldn't we prioritize tending to our casualties first?"
"Yes, Jason it is. You agree, don't you, Ladies Potter?"
Alkaid exchanged a look with Pyrrha and carried out a wordless communication in a few minutes before the daughter of Ares nodded, indicating to the sorceress to speak for the both of them.
Why, thank you, Love. Alkaid thought sarcastically with a sigh.
"I agree with Reyna on this, Jason. We need to root these traitors out and to do that we need to strike while the iron is hot."
"They're right, Jason." Michael added as he put away his Kinetic Gavel. "I know where you're coming from but we need to finish these traitors off before they can go to ground or we risk them launching another attack that might cost more lives."
Helena nodded. "Prioritizing preventing that is the best way to honor our fallen."
Jason frowned, but nodded and turned to the Legionnaires who had been standing there waiting for their leaders to finalize their decision. "Do what Praetor Ramírez-Arellano commanded."
"Yes, Praetor!" The Legionnaires said with disciplined unison and moved to obey.
In the aftermath, while the Heroes emerged victorious, it felt hollow in some regard. Particularly as the mop-up operation that the Twelfth Legion carried out in its wake had led to no less than a third of the Faun population detained for some manner of involvement in the betrayal of their traitorous fellows. Mostly this amounted to them simply turning a blind eye, but whatever the level of involvement in the treachery, that so many of New Rome's Fauns would assist the Titans at all left a bitter taste in the mouth. Their city was supposed to be the continuation of Ancient Rome, to be its essence perfected and transported into the modern world. Thus, to discover that a sizable portion of its population was disgruntled enough to turn against it… It stung. It stung deeply.
We will have to come up with some way to address the Fauns' concerns. Or we will just face more problems from them in the future. Reyna realized with a frown as she and her fellow Praetor, Jason, played host to a celebratory dinner with the Diplomats of Olympus over the successful handling of the Faun Uprising. Speaking of Jason…
The Uprising had proven to be a good learning experience for her newly promoted colleague. The boy had a kind heart and had wanted to put the welfare of their Legionnaires ahead of what needed to be done and had to be taught the foolishness of that, a lesson that Reyna was confident he would take to heart. Jason was capable like that. Beyond that, the only other good thing was that the threat of the Titans' sabotage had been put to a swift if bitter end.
"So do you think that this is the last trouble we will see from the Fauns?" Ambassador Alkaid asked as the meal concluded and the attending Aurae cleared the dishes.
Reyna frowned at the Diplomat of Olympus bringing up the very worries that she'd been considering moments before even as she replied. "We can only hope that it is the end. We still have many Fauns within New Rome."
"And what about their concerns? Any plans to deal with the things that set them off?" Ambassador Pyrrha asked pointedly.
"Firm plans, no." Jason confessed easily. Too easily in Reyna's opinion. Yes, the Diplomats of Olympus were their allies but they were not citizens of New Rome and so should not be so readily trusted.
That said, it was not like the Ambassadors would not be easily able to find out the information on this matter on their own. Thus, despite her misgivings about both women, Reyna nevertheless added on to what Jason had already shared. "We will speak to the Senate tomorrow and begin discussing what measures we can take to ameliorate the Fauns' grievances."
Both older women nodded at that, looking mollified as they did.
"Setting that aside," Jason said hastily, clearly eager to move to topics he was more comfortable with "The Lupercalia is going to be in a few days. Ambassadors Alkaid and Pyrrha, would you be willing to attend? We would be greatly honored by your presence."
The Potters exchanged a look before Alkaid smiled warmly at the son of Jupiter. "We will need to get back to you on that. We need to check with our daughters first and see if we can get a babysitter."
"But if we can, which shouldn't be too hard." Pyrrha continued where her wife left off. "Then we'd be happy to do so."
"We await your answer then." Reyna nodded respectfully,
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless and Axios as always!
And thus an internal threat was silenced. No matter how bitter it felt to do so for New Rome. The idea that came from this was because it felt the Fauns were just… there in the books. Like they were touched on twice and that's it. Once for being poor hobos in New Rome and then for acting as nurses after the finale in Son of Neptune. Like, I don't even remember them coming up again after that. So them being a weak point for the Titans to use to get at the very firm Camp Jupiter felt like a smart move. Camp Jupiter calls for a lot of loyalty and patriotism, so unless some Legionnaire was really wicked and evil, not many would take the Titans' bait unlike in Camp Half-Blood. So using the Fauns felt like the next best step to give New Rome a taste of being stabbed in the back.
Nameless: Alright, let's talk about us having the rebel Fauns use structural discrimination as a justification for their rebellion. To be honest, I am uncertain of the whole concept of structural discrimination. I, at least, have heard both sides of the argument and am not convinced it even exists. Structural inequalities seeming from past discrimination yes, but not current discrimination. At least not under the law. Not within the American system. Not compared to countries with actual structural discrimination like the racial quotas in countries like Malaysia. Why then did we include it? Well, that's because much of the Camp Half-Blood and New Roman culture is borrowed from contemporary American culture, so with the situation of the Fauns fitting the mold of what is generally considered structural discrimination, it fits that the Fauns would borrow the idea to justify their own dissent.
Also, yeah, we made Jason Praetor earlier than in canon. It just seemed the smarter thing to do than create a new character to fill his role in this arc that we would then have to retire. At least we thought so.
Anyways~! That's it for my ramblings. E4E sign us out~
E4E: You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!
