Chapter Title: We Meet A Dancer Who's Been Waiting For Me And Colton
(A/N: This chapter contains stuff from AO3 user dcninja's fanfic "The Prince Of Changing Tides". So just a heads-up here.)
The second those words left the girl's mouth, me and Colton simply turned to look at each other in complete confusion. Light? Monster King? What on earth was she even talking about?
Colton's eyes lit up with recognition when he heard the words "Monster King" come from her mouth, again as if that resonated within him somehow, but I still had no clue how or why this was even occurring at all. I was so confused, and judging from the expression on Colton's face, he was also struggling hard to figure this out too.
"Oh.. that's right.. you two don't remember.. silly me.." the girl muttered, and as she talked to us, we could both tell that she was fidgeting with herself, probably from being still for too long. My eyes glanced around at the barren barracks, and believe me, I honestly found it a miracle that the girl sitting in front of us wasn't going crazy as if she had spent a month in solitary confinement. She had apparently noticed me glancing, since her next words were undoubtedly directed towards me. "I was told that the inside of this place used to be a lot more vibrant on the inside once upon a time.." she said sadly.
"Before the whole incident with the Great Prophecy?" Colton asked. The girl simply nodded. "Very observant.." she muttered. "I'm Lavinia. Lavinia Asimov. I'm guessing you two must be Colton Reynolds and Michael Yew then."
We both nodded. "Nice to finally meet both of you.. and like I said, while you both may not remember what happened in the past, believe me when I say.. I have been waiting for both of you for a very long time.." Lavinia continued, causing me and Colton to once again look at each other confused.
"So why are you the only one in here if everyone else is out ready for War Games?" Colton asked, shifting the conversation away from that. The answer she gave us caused me to have a feeling that something wasn't right at this camp at all. "The War Games are precisely the problem, or rather.. the extent of the problems here. Since we're the attacking team, don't expect it to be fun. We in the Fifth Cohort always lose."
Colton thought for a few moments, and then he spoke. "Simply because the kids with the most potential get placed in the top cohorts because of the whole references thing, I'm guessing?" he asked and she nodded once more. I went from confused to angry in an instant. "That's bullshit.. absolute bullshit.. what the fuck is the deal with that shit anyway?"
Lavinia turned to me. "The thing about Rome you should know is that — it has been about tradition.." she replied. "Always has, and always will be. We place hierarchies on.. everything." I didn't really like how she dragged out the word 'everything' at all. "Even the order of the gods."
I turned to Colton, and he looked back at me. Both of us were remembering the stuff said about Neptune and what Hazel had said about children of Pluto. It now made sense as to why that was. Both of them were at the bottom of the hierarchy.
"A hierarchy that wouldn't just so happen to have Neptune and Pluto at the bottom of it, perhaps?" Colton said back.
"Bingo.." Lavinia said in response. "Above that is gods associated with nature, then gods associated with agriculture, then gods with more abstract domains like fortune, then minor gods of war.."
"..and on top is Olympians, even though Pluto and Neptune are both supposed to be gods on Olympus" Colton finished for her. Lavinia nodded.
"In theory.. yes. In practice, not so much.." she said back. "That's where the letters of recommendation by former members of the legion come in. The higher you are along the hierarchy and the stronger the letter, the higher you get placed."
"Whereas those with little to no letters and are on the low end of the hierarchy get put here.." Colton added, and she nodded. I will not lie to you at all, this all just felt wrong. "It was made even worse for us in the 5th Cohort after the 1980s with the whole Great Prophecy incident. Our praetor was blinded by greed, took the 5th Cohort into Alaska, got it nearly all wiped out. Since then.."
She didn't finish that statement, but I knew exactly what she was going to say. That it led to the 5th Cohort's barracks looking like solitary confinement. In a way, it really pissed me off. "Jason did much to reverse the damage, but now he's gone.." Lavinia continued.
"..and you all are right back to where you started.." Colton finished for her, as a horn sounded outside. Lavinia's face filled with dread and it honestly hurt to see her like that.
"Oh joy.." she said sarcastically. "Time for us to go take another loss."
"Another loss?" I asked, confused. "Why?"
"Fifth Cohort always loses when we're the attacking team.." she remarked, getting up from where she sat, taking her stuff, and starting out the door. Both me and Colton just stood there for a while, then Colton moved first after the door had slammed shut behind Lavinia. "We're helping them.." he simply muttered, moving towards the door. I didn't say anything, and just followed him.
- — - — - — -
We met back up with Percy and Luke as they walked with Hazel and Frank to where the War Games were held, a place called the Field of Mars. Sounded like Colton's home turf if you asked me. Colton simply made a gesture with his fingers and Percy and Luke walked over while Lavinia just chatted with Hazel and Frank.
"So where did you two sneak off to..?" Luke started the conversation.
"To solitary confinement.." I said back and both Percy and Luke looked at me, confused.
"We went to the Fifth Cohort's barracks actually.." Colton clarified. "Ran into a girl named Lavinia — the pink haired one — in there. Turns out the reason why Pluto and Neptune are treated the way that they are is because there is a hierarchy on the order of the gods and both of them are on the bottom of it."
"The fuck?" Luke spat. "That's just wrong."
Percy looked angry, like really angry to the point that it was almost scary. "There's more.." Colton continued. "Turns out my hunch about the barren barracks being connected to the missing item.."
"Eagle, actually.." Luke interrupted. "Yeah, we heard. You had a good hunch. Both of them were connected to the Great Prophecy. Hazel told us all about it."
He proceeded to explain the whole fiasco as she had told them. By the end of it, Colton was deep in thought. "So, what's our next move?" I asked him.
"Like I said before, we help them. Lavinia has apparently being expecting me and Michael for some time now.." Colton said, catching both Luke and Percy's attention. "..and I don't know what that is all about, but for now, we help them win this. Simple as this. Do what we have to do."
"So.." Luke said, turning to the north and gazing upon something in the distance. "We'll have to take out that."
The minute I saw what he was looking at, I honestly paled. Sitting on the north end of the Field Of Mars was a damn fortress. A literal one at that. A stone fortress with odd looking turrets, guard towers, what looked like water cannons, and who knows what other nasty surprises installed in and around there for the defenders to use.
The words out of Hazel's mouth did not help matters at all.
"They did a good job today," Hazel noted. "That's bad for us."
"Wait," Percy said. "You're telling me that fortress was built today?"
Colton's eyes grew wide, as did mine. There was literally no way they could have constructed.. that imposing mass in a mere day. It was just not possible.
Hazel grinned, and that did not help the unease and nervousness I felt about this whole thing at all. "Legionnaires are trained to build. If we had to, we could break down the entire camp and rebuild it somewhere else. Take maybe three or four days, but we could do it."
"Damn.." Luke muttered. "And here I thought you all were static."
"Static?" Lavinia chuckled. "Really?"
"Hey.. I just got here.. same as them.." Luke said back in response.
"Yeah.. let's not do that," Percy said. "So you attack a different fort every night?"
"Yeah.. like.. that just sounds like insanity.." I said, expressing my concern here.
"Not every night," Frank said. "We have different training exercises. Sometimes death ball—um, which is like paint-ball, except with...you know, poison and acid and fire balls. Sometimes we do chariots and gladiator competitions, sometimes war games."
Colton was simply staring at the objective, like he was formulating a plan.
Hazel pointed at the fort. "Somewhere inside, the First and Second Cohorts are keeping their banners. Our job is to get inside and capture them without getting slaughtered. We do that, we win."
Percy's eyes lit up. "Like capture-the-flag. I think I like capture-the-flag."
Something about that sounded very familiar to me. Judging by the expressions on Luke and Colton's faces, it seemed like both of them felt the same way about it too.
Frank laughed. "Yeah, well...it's harder than it sounds. We have to get past those scorpions and water cannons on the walls, fight through the inside of the fortress, find the banners, and defeat the guards, all while protecting our own banners and troops from capture. And our cohort is in competition with the other two attacking cohorts. We sort of work together, but not really. The cohort that captures the banners gets all the glory."
"No kidding.." Colton muttered. "I can imagine most of the time you all lose is because you all don't go at with a plan."
"And do you have a plan, Colton?" Frank shot back, a little bit annoyed. Colton simply grinned back at him in such a way that Frank trembled before it. It was.. a creepy looking grin to say the least.. but either way, it was clear that Colton.. had a plan.
Percy stumbled, trying to keep time with the left-right marching rhythm. Frank seemed to sympathize with him, while the rest of us did it flawlessly.
"So why are we practicing this, anyway?" Percy asked. "Do you guys spend a lot of time laying siege to fortified cities?"
"Teamwork," Hazel said. "Quick thinking. Tactics. Battle skills. You'd be surprised what you can learn in the war games."
"Like who will stab you in the back," Frank said.
"Especially that," Hazel agreed.
"Please tell me you don't mean that literally.." I muttered to Hazel. The look that she gave me in return simply told me that she wasn't kidding at all about that. Yikes.
We all marched to the center of the Field of Mars and formed ranks. The Third and Fourth Cohorts assembled as far as possible from the Fifth, though to be fair, I think on this occasion they all seemed more afraid of me and Colton than disgusted with the Fifth to want to be anywhere near us. The centurions for the attacking side all gathered for a conference. In the sky above us, Reyna circled on her pegasus, Scipio, ready to play referee. She seemed to have her eyes more on me, Colton, Luke, and Percy — particularly Percy — than on anyone else to be honest.
As we all stood there, Colton simply muttered under his breath, "Load in ten times.. load." Even with an ammo box in his right hand, he was holding the Whitworth up against his left shoulder, with his left hand holding it by the butt of the weapon. After the last word, without letting the gun slip from the position it was in, he bent down on his knees and placed the ammo box down on the ground next to my left foot, since I was next to him, before he returned to standing straight up at his full height.
Then, he lowered the weapon with the left hand being brought to full extension, with his right hand grabbing the weapon by the lower band about a quarter of the way from the percussion lock to the end of the barrel. At the same time, his right foot moved forward and his right heel was placed against the hallow of his left foot. Next, he used his right hand, sliding it along his left thigh, seizing it with his left hand above his right, and using his left hand to lower it to the ground, in such a way that the gun was touching his left thigh and the muzzle of the gun was opposite the center of his body. At the same time, he moved his right hand very quickly to the cartridge box on his belt and opened it.
"Handle cartridge.." he now muttered, as in a very quick fashion, he took out a cartridge held by his thumb and first two fingers and brought it up to his mouth, placing the paper at the upper end of the cartridge between his teeth.
"Tear cartridge.." he said while the cartridge paper was in his mouth. He then proceeded to bite down and tear the paper at the top of the cartridge, spitting it out of his mouth the next second afterward. He held the cartridge upright, holding it near the top with those same three fingers, as he moved and placed it in front of and near the muzzle, and with the back of his hand to the front now. I had no idea at all how he even knew this at all, but it was impressive to see. A couple kids down, I could see Lavinia looking on at what Colton was doing in wonder.
"Charge cartridge.." He said, as he looked down at the muzzle, quickly flipping the back of his right hand towards the body as he dumped the powder in the barrel, raising the elbow to the height of the wrist as he did so. He gave the cartridge a good shake, revealing the bullet and then squeezed the bullet into the muzzle, leaving his hand reversed and fingers closed, but not clenched. I couldn't really look away from what Colton was even doing at this point at all.
"Draw rammer." He dropped his right elbow smartly, and seized the rammer between his extended thumb and his bent forefinger, closing the other fingers into a fist. He drew the rammer upward by extending his arm, moving his hand to grab the rammer again at the middle with his hand in the same position, with his hand reversed, and palm to the front. His eyes followed the movement of his hand as he cleared the rammer from the pipe by again extending the arm. Then, he turned the ramrod by closing his fingers. As he did so, the bottom of the ramrod passed by my left shoulder, brushing me as it did so. He ended that part with the rammer parallel to the muzzle but not yet inserted, his eyes firmly fixed on the muzzle. He then pushed the butt of his ramrod down into the muzzle and forced it down until his right hand was at the muzzle.
"Ram cartridge." He extended his arm to full length to seize the rammer with the thumb extended and the forefinger bent, with the other fingers still closed. With force, he rammed home to the bottom twice and then seized the rammer at the small end between the thumb and forefinger with the other fingers closed and his right elbow touching his body.
"Return rammer." He drew the rammer briskly from the barrel, re-seizing it at the middle between the thumb and forefinger with his hand reversed and palm to the front. His eyes were following the band and he cleared the rammer from the barrel by extending his arm. He then turned the rammer again by closing his fingers, the rammer brushing the shoulder of the kid to Colton's left this time who just so happened to be Percy, until the ramrod was parallel to the pipe he had taken it out of, but not yet inserted with his eyes fixed on it. He inserted the ramrod into the pipe and forced it down as low as the middle band, raising his hand quickly and placing one of his fingers on the butt of the rammer and forcing it down too until his left hand was right above the muzzle in such a way that it was an extent of the arm without depressing his shoulder. Speaking of Percy, he didn't even make as much of a sound when the rammer brushed his shoulder, he was just staring straight ahead at the fortress.
"Cast-about." With the left hand, he brought the piece up vertically against the left shoulder, seizing it with the right hand at the small of the stock, and sliding the left hand down as low as the chin. He then made a half face to the right of the left heel, bringing the left toe to the front and the right foot behind and at right angles to the left. He brought the piece down with his right hand onto the left, which seized it at the tail band, the thumb extended on the stock. The butt of the rifle was under his right forearm with the small of the stock against his body, and about two inches under his right breast. The muzzle was at the height of his eye, with his left elbow supported against his body, and his right hand grasping the small of the stock.
"Prime." He placed the thumb of his right hand on the hammer, with his other fingers remaining under or against the guard, and half cocked the piece. His thumb and first two fingers moved to his cap pouch, and with his right hand, he took a cap from the pouch and placed it firmly on the cone by pushing it down with his thumb. He then seized the piece by the small of the stock.
"Shoulder arms." At this, he quickly brought the gun up, and placed it against his left shoulder, as his left hand slid down to hold it by the butt of the weapon again. His right hand had turned it so that by now, the barrel was facing the front once again. His right hand now dropped briskly and hung at his side, as he stood there emotionlessly now. He then bent down again, grabbed the handle attached to the ammo box with his right hand, and just stood back up, standing like he had before he had done all of this, staring straight ahead and not glancing to either side. It had been remarkable to see honestly.
Before I turned back to looking ahead of us, he said just a few words — whispering to me and Percy, "Guys, tactical meeting with Hazel, Frank, Carlton, and Lavinia once this begins." Percy and I simply nodded.
Half a dozen giant eagles flew in formation behind her—prepared for ambulance airlift duty if necessary. The only person not participating in the game that I noticed was Hazel's brother, Nico di Angelo, "Pluto's ambassador," who had climbed an observation tower about a hundred yards from the fort and would be watching with binoculars.
Frank propped his pilum against his shield and checked Percy's and Luke's armor. He didn't do the same for me and Colton for some reason. Every strap was correct. Every piece of armor was properly adjusted.
"You did it right," he said in amazement. "Percy, Luke, you all must've done war games before."
"I don't know. Maybe."
Luke didn't say anything at all, he was so confused now.
The only thing that wasn't regulation — at least to Frank's eyes it seemed — was Percy's glowing bronze sword. I didn't know why it seemed like that to him honestly.
But looking at it made him uneasy. Percy simply frowned. "We can use real weapons, right?"
"Yeah," Frank agreed. "For sure. I've just never seen a sword like that."
"What if I hurt somebody?"
I winced at that.
"We heal them," Frank said. "Or try to. The legion medics are pretty good with ambrosia and nectar, and unicorn draught."
Something about healing seemed to resonate within me. Probably because I was the son of the god of healing, that was the best explanation that I had so far but it felt like it went deeper than that.
"No one dies," Hazel said. "Well, not usually. And if they do—"
Hold on.. wait a minute, I screamed internally. What the hell do you mean by "not usually"?!
I didn't like that part at all.
Frank imitated the voice of most likely Vitellius — I honestly do not know who else that could have sounded like: "They're wimps! Backin my day, we died all the time, and we liked it!"
Hazel laughed. "Just stay with us, guys. Chances are we'll get the worst duty and get eliminated early. They'll throw us at the walls first to soften up the defenses. Then the Third and Fourth Cohorts will march in and get the honors, if they can even breach the fort."
Colton and I — we simply snorted. Both of us weren't here for that to be honest. "What's the fun in getting eliminated early when one can get in the thick of the action?" Colton said, catching Hazel by surprise.
"Are you sure you're normal?" she asked worryingly.
I chuckled. "Yeah.. this is normal for him.." I said back. She did not look any less worried at all.
Horns blew. Our centurions, by the names of Dakota — who we had already met — and Gwen, walked back from the officers' conference, looking grim.
"All right, here's the plan!" Dakota took a quick swig of what appeared to be kool-aid from his travel flask. "They're throwing us at the walls first to soften up the defenses."
The whole cohort, aside from me and Colton — and somehow Luke, groaned. A thrill ran through my body and Colton just grinned like an idiot. This was perfect, absolutely perfect.
"I know, I know," Gwen said. "But maybe this time we'll have some luck!"
If I had to wager, it seemed likely that Gwen was the optimist among this group. How she had managed to be that way considering that she along with the rest of the cohort basically lived in solitary confinement was beyond my own comprehension at this point though. Still, the campers grumbled and complained. Nobody believed in luck for the Fifth.
"First line with Dakota," Gwen said. "Lock shields and advance in turtle formation to the main gates. Try to stay in one piece. Draw their fire. Second line—" Gwen turned to our row without much enthusiasm. "You seventeen, from Bobby over, take charge of the elephant and the scaling ladders. Try a flanking attack on the western wall. Maybe we can spread the defenders too thin. Frank, Hazel, well.. just do whatever. Show them the ropes. Try to keep them alive." She turned back to the whole cohort. "If anybody gets over the wall first, I'll make sure you get the Mural Crown. Victory for the Fifth!"
The cohort cheered half heartedly and broke ranks. The adrenaline was running through me now and I breathed a sigh of relief. The waiting was over. It was time for battle.