216 BC.
"Could you repeat that?"
Perseus didn't sign up for this. He enlisted as was expected of him, but he never thought this would happen. Never once believed he would be in the presence of a god or goddess. Vesta was patient as he kept trying to come to terms with his situation.
"I want you to be my champion, should you accept," the goddess says with a smile. It was amusing to see him be so polite, attempting to be respectful despite the amount of information he now had to digest. "As my champion you would be granted a small boon of sorts. It is all up to you and your loyalties."
"I am loyal to Rome…I am loyal to my family." He repeated himself, it felt like he had said these words far too many times in one night. "Lady Vesta…Hestia…I would be honored to be your champion, but I am just a mortal man. I cannot fight like a demigod can, nor can I live forever in your service…I'm afraid I would not be the best candidate for this."
"Best candidate?" she questioned, her physical form shifting into a young woman again "You are Arcani, correct? The one who has faced Hannibal Barca three times and lived? The killer of the son of Mot, the God of Death? Would you have me choose the child of one of my brothers? My nephews? My sister or perhaps some minor god?"
"N-no milady."
"You, Perseus Julius, the one now dubbed as Caedis…Slaughter…I offer you the chance to fulfill your desires, to protect your family and your people. Do you accept?"
Perseus didn't know then why he was so hesitant. Maybe it was his mother coming back to remind him to think things through? Or more likely he felt unworthy when presented with this offer. "I accept," he says calmly "I will be your champion, milady."
"Good, give me your arm." Perseus blinked "Arm. The left one."
Perseus extended his arm. The goddess of the hearth grasped it, her hold of his forearm burning his flesh for a moment before she relinquished her hold. Perseus winced as he examined his arm, a glowing, orange image was now branded onto it. SPQR for the Senate, with a sacred flame surrounding the letters.
"My…my lady?"
"Consider this your mark," she said "As an Arcani of Rome you are known as Caedis, in your heart you are Perseus Julius, but to me you are my champion. You will do great things in the future, of that I need not the words of my nephew. You need rest for what is coming. You will have your chance to fulfill your promises, your desires, but for now you have more training to do. Being my champion grants you…certain talents that would put you in the same league as a demigod."
"Already slain one." He mutters under his breath.
"Quite and upset a god of death in the process." She responds, her eyes dancing like embers on a newly lit fire "You have a great loyalty to your family and a love to match it…I would like to see it put to good use. Control over my element of fire, not as great as my own but great enough to make you a force of nature. As well as a little extra for your journey."
"It will be an honor to serve you…my lady." Perseus bowed his head in reverence. One night. One last night. He would retire to his family's estate to rest before setting out into the countryside to train. Hannibal would have his day, and when they would meet again Perseus would give him a warrior's end. That much he had earned.
202 BC
Fourteen years. Fourteen years he worked, toiling away with his new abilities. Perseus sat atop his horse, watching the battlefield from a nearby hill. Scipio the younger, as he called him, son of Perseus' former commanding officer from that disaster by the river in the opening conflicts of the Second Punic War had come for Hannibal. By all estimates an army of thirty-five thousand would meet Hannibal today.
Roman strategy, Roman military might, had taken a beating in the last fourteen years. Roughly a fifth of the population that was eligible for military service had perished. Now it was time for the young to step up.
"Simple tactics…nothing too advanced," Perseus noted. From the looks of it the Numidian cavalry which had been used to devastating effect by Hannibal had turned their backs on Carthage and joined with Rome. "What will you do now? Retreat to Carthage and invite a siege? Face them with your numbers and slaughter them yet again?"
The Roman formation held its ground. Perseus could see the dust cloud kicking up as the cavalry on both flanks moved in for a skirmish. He pressed his heel into his horse's side, the animal moving forward down the hill.
Hannibal shouted commands up and down his army's formation. The Romans, this time it seemed, would not back down without a fight. Their lines were formed with the young up front, the more experienced soldiers behind them. Standard formation, something he knew all too well how to fight and win against. This time, however, something was wrong. He could feel it. Unlike all the battles before, Hannibal was short a few advantages. The Numidian's he had relied upon before had abandoned him. The loss of his demigod champion had crippled his arsenal of skilled fighters and left him with only his regular forces to rely upon. And then there was him.
The Arcani. That one shadow that haunted him throughout the war. The lone survivor of an order he knew of only by a vision from the gods. Arcani. The Scourge.
"You should not have come here," he muttered under his breath, stepping back from his honor guard. He was here, Hannibal could feel it. "Where are you!? Son of Rome!"
Perseus adjusted the straps on his armor. His horse was running off, back to the hilltop to rest and await his call, while he stood thirty feet from his target. "Hannibal Barca, son of Hamilcar Barca, leader of Carthage…this is where your war ends."
"Ends?" he laughs "Look around you Arcani, this is where Rome bends the knee to me and my people! You faced me once before and you lost with your brothers at your back…what makes you think that you alone can defeat me in combat?"
"Who said anything about being alone?"
Perseus ran forward. Hannibal smirked as he heard two of his honor guardsmen stepping forward to defend him from the Roman. With a quick flick of his wrist and five more feet covered, the two guards dropped clutching at their throats. Hannibal gripped his blade, steadying himself as Perseus approached. The Arcani lunged forward, parrying his foes weapon, and lashing out in retaliation for the years of suffering he had endured just for this moment.
"You fight dirty…tell me, are you even a true Roman!?" Hannibal pressed on, grasping Perseus left wrist, blocking the blade in his right with his own. "Using daggers? Cowardly of a warrior, of a Roman!"
"Not cowardly," he grits out "Smart!" Perseus brought his head back, then pushes forward, cracking his mask off Hannibal's head. "That…was for my brothers in arms. The next one will be for the Roman soldiers you slaughtered."
"Slaughtered?" Hannibal chuckles, wiping away the trickle of blood trailing down from his forehead "They were nothing but cattle, worthy only to feed the carrion birds! You…you were the only one worthy enough to face me and live…my greatest challenge."
"A challenge, is it? Then I better not disappoint you." Perseus came in again. Steel clashed as the two fought their greatest rival. The chaos behind them echoing their legacy. Men screaming, the sounds of shields and swords alike clanging off each other.
Without Hannibal to direct them personally, many of the Carthaginian forces were left ill-equipped to handle the Roman infantry. As Perseus and Hannibal clashed the battle raged on without them. Perseus found himself slipping into a bloodlust, a frenzied state of mind, as he and Hannibal fought. Every death. Every drop of Roman blood. It would all be repaid with victory and if not then…death.
Perseus rolled to the left, missing both Hannibal's strike and a javelin that had gone too far past it's intended target. As it was, the two warriors were not going to give in. Hannibal came back in, thrusting with his blade and only just barely cutting into Perseus armored chest. The shallow cut would have been much deeper, fatal even, had the Arcani not stepped back. He swats the Carthaginian weapon aside with his own, sweeping his leg and bringing Hannibal to the ground.
"Get up," he says, stepping away from his opponent.
"Not going to kill me from down here?"
Perseus twirled the blade in his left hand "I'd rather kill you when you have fought with your all. On your feet…or kneeling in the dirt. Never laying in it."
"You…you are different from the others," Hannibal laughs, a taunting chuckle as he retrieves his weapon "You would offer me this chance to take you as the challenge you are now? I hope your gods learn to never cross mine again boy, even in death you will never be allowed to regret enough of your life."
Perseus readied himself for another attack. The ground beneath his feet trembling, the sound of something large approaching fills his ears. A horn was blown, a sound that gave him the energy he needed to see this through. As the roman cavalry charged into the rear of the Carthaginian army Perseus attacked. Hannibal Barca, son of Hamilcar Barca, could only grit his teeth in frustration as he hit the dirt once again. Blades cast aside, head throbbing in pain from where the boy had struck him with the end of his own weapon.
Standing over him was one of Jupiter's chosen warriors. Even as the thunderous sound of hooves against the earth itself began to fade and the battle slowly ended. Hannibal knew the man standing over him was more than the fresh-faced youth he faced before. He was the sword Rome had been forging just for him to face.
Perseus allowed his horse to trot at its own pace. The battle had been over for a few days, but the celebrations would last for another week now that they had returned. People swarmed the streets. Father's and Grandfathers greeting their sons and heirs, mothers and sisters crying over the young men, young wives kissing their victorious husbands.
The many joys of victory, of triumph for Rome. Perseus ignored it all. There was no greater pain inside him now than to know that after all these years he had failed to do what he said he would. He did not kill Hannibal like he had hoped to, as he had promised himself silently before every battle in this war. After every loss, a silent prayer, after every kill another for the dead. For all his prayer, his worship, the only one to listen was Vesta and she alone had given him the power to defeat Hannibal. Not to kill in vengeance as he wanted in his sorrow but to protect his people, his family.
As the black cloaked young man rode on for home, he caught sight of the small few he had disappointed. The loved ones of the fallen. Widows. Parents who would not be able to bury their sons. Siblings who could not tease the kind of kin who would get on their nerves. It hurt to think of those he stood beside once upon a time and watched die.
The journey home was finished as he dismounted his horse. His gear, packed away in Vesta's care for the night, was all he had left of a life besides his family. Over the years his father had wed a 'proper Roman woman' as his late grandfather had once said when Perseus was younger. The children that union brought about were regarded as gifts by all in the family. To his grandfather and uncles, they were real Romans, true heirs to the Julii name and bloodline. To Perseus they were his family, innocent of the corruption his father had tried so hard to shield them from.
Gaius felt a weight slip from him as he heard the quiet footfalls of his oldest son enter his study. Documents meant for the senate floor were scattered about, his old eyes were weary of all that he had gone over in preparation for the future. "So, it is done then." He smiles, signing a proposal the family was due to put forward soon "Hannibal…is he?"
"Dead?" Perseus growls, fists clenching in frustration "No…but he is beaten Father."
"And Publius is avenged," the older man sighs, shoulders sagging "That boy always was dragging you off into trouble before the war. Now I find myself wishing he were here to do so again, if only to keep you here."
"I am here, Father," Perseus argues "I serve Rome, now and forever."
"And at what cost!?" Perseus stiffens, back straight as the years of service his father had given to Rome came forward "What cost is paid that my son looks no older than when he ventured off promising to see the Carthaginian dead at his feet…for a vendetta no less! What price Perseus, what price did you pay?"
Perseus was quiet at first, then he slowly exposes his left arm to his father. The markings, the image of the flame and the SPQR of the Senate clear for his Roman Father to see. "Service to Rome and an Olympian, Father. That is my calling, the price being my life…my life it will be."
Gaius cursed for the first time in Perseus life the man cursed his own father, his family, his people. "You swore yourself, your life, to the service of a goddess. If your grandfather were still alive…oh if he were still alive…" Gaius laughs "That old man would surely drop dead. The grandson he said would amount to nothing, now lives in service to an Olympian!"
"Father…you…are you…"
"Come! Come Perseus," he waves his son closer "This is glorious news my son, truly, it is the best news you have brought yet."
"Greater than when I embarrassed my loving uncles in front of their citizens?" Gaius chuckled at the thought of seeing stern Vibius being put on the spot in the market by Perseus when he was a young and fully mortal lad. "Or that time cousin Flaminius was dragged by his horse across the hippodrome?"
"Flaminius deserved that, the nerve he had to bring up your mother like that and just pretend as if he hadn't…" Gaius composes himself. What was done, was done. It was the past now, no sense in getting upset over something like that.
"Father…"
Or perhaps…what was dead and buried, was not so far away.
"I know what you will ask of me, Perseus, but what you ask of me is not some small matter."
"If he were here, I would be asking him personally." Gaius did not miss the growling edge on his son's words.
"At sword point no doubt," he sighs "You must understand first, everything that I did and everything that I am was all for your survival. A half-blood son, a child of both Rome and Greece is something that no Roman respects nor understands. Your grandfather and your uncles have all made it clear to me from the beginning how things were going to be should I pursue your mother and have a child with her. But seeing you for the first time, holding you in my arms and watching you take those first steps towards greatness…being Roman, being their type of Roman was the furthest thing from my mind in those moments."
"And yet that did not save her from them."
Gaius looks down at his hands, finding the old, calloused appendages to be the only part of him that he could blame. "Your uncles have much influence my son. I could not keep your mother here with us, not on the estate. When my father gave me a choice between her or you…she made the decision for me."
"She…she what!?"
"Melissa chose to return home. To Greece. To Athens. The city of her people would be where she would reside. If the Fates are kind, that is where you will find her one day. But until that day, until you are there in her lands and in the presence of her gods…know that whatever you may find does not change that she left to protect you, our son, from a man who would not care if blood was shared. Blood would not stop the blade of any loyal to your grandfather."
"And what of my uncles!? What of those who would call you brother and see you suffer alongside me?"
"Vibius has always been the muscle, Quintus the Charmer, and Lucius the schemer…I am just Gaius the Outcast, at least I am when they think I cannot hear them. My brothers have no love for anything not fitting of our father's image for Rome, they made sure that I never could get away from here…to find her." Gaius gives a dry laugh, eyeing his son "But you…in the service of a goddess…they cannot hope to confine you, can they?"
Perseus allowed himself to smile "No, they cannot."
"Good, no son of mine will bow to men like them."
146 BC
"The time has come, Son of Rome," Vesta gave her champion a sad smile. The flames of the hearth in her temple illuminating them in the darkness of these sacred halls "Rome has made its choice for war, and now you are needed once again."
"Again and again, as long as I am needed, I will answer."
"Perseus," the sound of his name makes his shoulders tense "You are my champion, are you not?"
"Of course."
"Rome has not called upon its Arcani, but…I have called upon my champion."
How long had it been? Time meant little to Perseus. He did not age. His family, what was left of it, did not recognize him any longer. He had grown far too used to his station as the sole Arcani of Rome. "What would you have me do?"
"Rome invades Greece," the seriousness of her tone was pure Vesta but the soft glow to her eyes was Hestia "Corinth will fall before you reach your goal, but if you hurry then perhaps you can stop a few foolish demigods from earning the immortal wrath of a goddess."
Perseus felt his throat go dry. "Which goddess?"
"The Goddess of Wisdom, Athena."
AN: Been a while huh? Life getting crazy, new games and shows coming out giving me a lot of new ideas over the years to work with (Mas Effect, Fallout, Gundam) So good luck to y'all who stick around and find out or are unlucky enough to wander into that insanity. But yeah, here we are...the end of the Second Punic War and the beginning of a new direction than I originally planned. Not to worry though, Perseus is still Perseus...its just his ending that is a bit more up in the air than my original idea. You'll find out in about...idk, 20 or so chapters, or however long it takes me to get there I suppose. Will mention, this is also on AO3 now along with chapter 4, do not expect one to be updated before the other going forward.
Now...lets get to the reviews, havent done that for this one yet I dont think.
Matthew w Marker: Far as pairing goes I suppose its also up in the air, no that isnt a hint to say it is with Thalia or Jason or the like. But do keep in mind that he is in the days of ancient rome, not in the modern era. So if anything does happen it'll take some doing given how he is right now.
GrayValkyrie: Apologies this wasn't as soon as you might have hoped. Just like with Matt above, not confirming anything just yet. The original plan I will say was a pairing no one would, or even did thus far, guess. You can thank the canadian for that one changing. As for the pairing being like a mirror for his parents due to his mother being Greek...lets just say there's plans for that detail though it likely is not the way you are thinking...or were thinking at the time of that review.
LesterJones66: Great! Because I am too and may have only a partial map to our destination...hope you dont mind the detours along the road.
ThatCat413: So I do plan to go into the canon time period, not time line (spoilers, cant say specifics) and man this makes...I think it makes two votes for Thalia and Reyna...hopefully next chapter is just as entertaining and gets some ideas flowing.
hawkeyestratos1996: The funny thing about your comment is...I have never seen or played ryse son of rome. I will say that this idea came to me purely because I'm a history and mythology buff who plays too much Rome Total War...and yes, Rome and Greece are my main factions used to conquer the ancient world.
Guest: ...honestly wish I knew how to leave a guest review if that's still a thing but oh well. Glad you love it, hopefully you come across this again now that it is updated.