━━ chapter two
greek and roman

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━━Fiona has learnt that Percy Jackson had a knack for asking stupid questions. As they made their way to the Principia, he had stared at all the ghosts that hovered around them━where one of them pointed at him, shrieked, "Graecus!" and turned invisible (which, you can see, put Fiona on edge because that's the second time she's heard the word Greek in reference to him)━and asked, "Am I seeing things? Or are those━?"

"Ghosts?" Hazel glanced back at him. "They're Lares. House gods."

(Here comes the stupid question, be ready for it). "House gods," Percy frowned. "Like ... smaller than real gods, but larger than apartment gods?"

"No," Fiona told him. "They're ancestral spirits. You have your Lares, and then you have your pantry gods, Penates or penus━" Percy choked at the way it was pronounced, going red, "━as well as Vesta, but she's the hearth, and then you have the Genius of the paterfamilias ... they're the head of the household ... well, that's just a few ..."

"The Lares are kind of like mascots," Frank continued, seeing the confused look upon Percy's face. "Mostly, they're harmless, but I've never seen them so agitated."

"They're staring at me," said Percy, glancing over at the ghosts anxiously. "That ghost killed called me Greggus. My name isn't Greg."

"Graecus," Hazel corrected. "Once you've been here a while, you'll start understanding Latin. Demigods have a natural sense for it. Graecus means Greek."

"Is that bad?"

Fiona narrowed her gaze at him. She looked Percy up and down, trying to figure out why they would call him Greek. He had a Mediterranean look about him; dark hair, strong jaw ... but Fiona had a feeling that wasn't it. Juno had said something to him. Said that he couldn't carry a Greek blessing through a Roman river. But that didn't make sense. Why would a new demigod such as Percy Jackson have a Greek blessing? But also, why would he have lived so long without coming to camp? He was a child of Neptune, the monsters would love him. He looked experienced, too, with his powers, like he had been weilding water as a weapon for years. Percy met her gaze, and suddenly looked uncomfortable.

Frank cleared his throat. "Maybe not," he said, and Percy looked away. "You've got that type of complexion, the dark hair and all. Maybe they think you're actually Greek. Is your family from there?"

"Don't know. Like I said, my memory is gone."

"Or maybe ..."

"What?"

"He's talking about the old rivalry between Greeks and Romans," said Fiona, her gaze still deadly as she tried to figure him out. "You know, Rome invaded Greece, took on their deities, turned them into their own. Sometimes, Romans use graecus as an insult for someone who's an outsider━an enemy."

"But, I wouldn't worry about it," Frank quickly added.

Percy didn't look reassured.

They stopped at the centre of camp, where two wide stone-paved roads met at a T. The main road to the main gates was labelled on a sign as VIA PRAETORIA. The other road, cutting across the middle of camp, was labelled VIA PRINCIPALIS. Under those markers were hand-painted signs like BERKELEY 5 MILES; NEW ROME 1 MILE; OLD ROME 7, 280 MILES; HADES (should be Pluto; Fiona has given multiple complains) 2,310 MILES which pointed straight down; RENO 208 MILES; and CERTAIN DEATH: YOU ARE HERE!

Certain Death was a pretty nice place. It was clean and orderly, where the buildings were freshly whitewashed, laid out in neat grids. The barracks for the cohorts had shady porches, where campers lounged in hammocks or played cards and drank sodas. Each dorm had a different collection of banners out front displaying Roman numerals and various animals. Along the Via Praetoria, rows of shops advertised food, armour, weapons, coffee, gladiator equipment and toga rentals (ugh, Fiona hated wearing togas). At the corner of the crossroads stood the principia━a two-storey building made of white marble with a columned portico. Roman guards stood out front (Fiona thinks it's Cohort Four's turn to give guards). Over the doorway hung a big purple banner with the gold letters SPQR embroidered inside a laurel wreath.

"It's the acronym for the state," explained Fiona before Percy could ask. She has made it her goal to know almost everything she can about Roman ways, politics, mythology and history if she wanted to one day sit on those thrones in a purple toga. Her mother said she must put in two hundred per cent or none at all, and Fiona has put in far more than two hundred per cent. "Senatus Populusque Romanus━the senate and the people."

Percy nodded, trying to take everything in. "Your headquarters?" he asked.

Reyna turned to face him, her eyes still cold and hostile. "It's called the principia."

She scanned the mob of curious campers who had followed them from the river. "Everyone back to your duties. I'll give you an update at evening muster. Remember, we have war games after dinner."

The crowd dispersed reluctantly. Some muttered comments about Percy's chances.

"He's dead," said one.

"Would be those three who found him," said another.

"Yeah. Let him join the Fifth Cohort. Greeks and geeks."

Fiona scowled at them. Her short tempter fused and she went to have go at them. "Yeah? I'll show you whose a geek, come here Julian! You're only in Two because your dad was a centurion but we all know you're a weak bakery god legacy mother━"

"Stop," Reyna cut her off, giving her a harsh glare. Fiona narrowed her eyes, but listened, stepping back in line. Reyna's harsh glare turned onto the campers, and they cleared off. "Hazel, Fiona. Come with us. I want your reports on what happened at the gates."

"Me too?" Frank stepped forward eagerly. "Percy saved my lie. We've got to let him━"

Reyna gave him such a harsh look, he stepped back. Fiona gritted her teeth. Only she can give her sweet and caring and too-good-for-this-world acquaintance harsh looks. "I'd remind you, Frank Zhang," she said, "you are on probatio yourself. You've caused enough trouble this week."

Frank's ears turned pink. He fiddled with his probatio tablet around his neck.

"Go to the armoury," then said Reyna. "Check out our inventory. I'll call you if I need you."

"But━" he caught himself, "Yes, Reyna."

He hurried off, and Reyna waved Fiona, Hazel and Percy towards the headquarters. "Now, Percy Jackson, let's see if we can improve your memory."

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━━Stepping into the principia made Fiona Midgrass's ambitions and competitive nature climb. It was a magnificent place built for the glory of praetorship. Built with precision with glittering mosaics and polished marble. The walls were draped in purple velvet, as if they stood in the most expensive camping tent. Purple stood for royalty, and that was what the Praetors were at camp. They were royalty; their say was final. Along the back wall stood a display of banners and wooden poles studded with bronze medals. In the centre, was one empty display stand, and shame mixed with anger clouded Fiona's mind. That was why she'll never become praetor, because the mistakes her cohort had made years ago. (That, and of course, other things. You know, her father).

But still, she couldn't help but dream what it would be like to sit behind the long wooden table that was cluttered with scrolls, notebooks, tablet computers, daggers and a large bowl filled with jelly beans. Fiona has only served three years in the legion. She has a few more years to reach until she can retire. Seven. She will get praetor in that time. She will win that seat. Just like her mother tells her to.

Reyna walked behind the table and sat in one of the two high-backed chairs, her dogs Argentum and Aurum (silver and gold) flanking the sides. Fiona frowned at the empty seat beside her. That seat belonged to Jason Grace. Everything went down hill once Jason disappeared, and it was affecting them all.

Percy frowned deeply at Reyna, "We have met," he decided. "I don't remember when. Please, if you can tell me anything━"

"First things first," Reyna held up her hand to silence him. "I want to hear your story. What do you remember? How did you get here? And don't lie. My dogs don't like liars."

Argentum and Aurum snarled to emphasise the point.

Percy told his story━from beginning to end. Well, at least of what he can remember. He told them he woke up alone at the Wolf House, with no memory. He trained with Lupa (the normal story), learning the ways of a Roman warrior until she decided he was ready to come to camp.

"No memory at all?" Reyna asked once they were done. The thought seemed to deeply trouble her. "You still remember nothing?"

"Fuzzy bits and pieces," Percy glanced at the greyhounds. Fiona narrowed her eyes. He was withholding information. She could tell just by the way he checked whether Reyna's dogs would attack him.

Reyna spun her dagger. "Most of what you're describing is normal for demigods. At a certain age, one way or another, we find our way to the Wolf House. We're tested and trained. If Lupa thinks we're worthy, she sends us south to join the legion. But I've never heard of someone losing his memory. How did you find Camp Jupiter?"

He told her about the last three days━the gorgons who wouldn't die, the old lady who turned out to be Juno, and finally meeting Fiona, Hazel and Frank at the tunnel in the hill. Fiona and Hazel took it from there. Hazel described Percy as heroic and brave, which Fiona would admit, seemed like the truth, but she had some dignity not to say that aloud. Or rather, maybe it's called pride.

Reyna studied Percy. "You're old for a recruit. You're what, sixteen?"

"I think so," Percy said.

A nagging voice in the back of Fiona's head raised her hand and declared, Oh my gods, I've just turned sixteen, too! Which was really dumb and uncessecary.

"If you spent that many years on your own, without training or help, you should be dead. A son of Neptune? You'd have a powerful aura that would attracted all kinds of monsters."

"Yeah," said Percy. "I've been told that I smell."

Fiona resited a smile. So he's sarcastic, too? But before she could smile, she stopped herself. Oh, stop it, Fiona! Stop acting like a school girl! He's goodlooking, so what? You can't trust him! You know nothing about him!

"You must've been somewhere before the Wolf House," then asked Reyna, and Percy shrugged. Fiona remembered Juno having said something about him slumbering, but he couldn't have been sleeping for what━sixteen years? No, that doesn't make sense either. Reyna sighed. "Well, the dogs haven't eaten you, so I suppose you're telling the truth."

"Great. Next time, can I take a polygraph?"

Reyna stood. She paced in front of the banners. Her metal dogs watched her go back and forth. "Even if I accept that you're not an enemy," she said, "you're not typical recruit. The Queen of Olympus simply doesn't appear at camp, announcing a new demigod. the last time a major god visited us in person like that ..." she shook her head. "I've only heard legends about such things. And a son of Neptune ... that's not a good omen. Especially now."

"What's wrong with Neptune?" Percy asked. "And what do you mean, especially now?"

Fiona and Hazel both shot him warning looks, but Reyna kept pacing. "You've fought Medusa's sisters, who haven't been seen in thousands of years. You've agitated our Lares, who are calling you a graecus. And you wear strange symbols━that shirt, the beads on your necklace. What do they mean?"

Fiona had been wondering that herself. She eyed the beads. There were four of them. One showed a trident. Another displayed a minature━is that the Golden Fleece? The third was etched with the design of a maze, and the last had an image of a building. Fiona thinks that it's the Empire State Building, which didn't settle well with her. Romans avoided the East. It's always synonymised with Greece.

"I don't know," he finally said, a little sad that he couldn't give them an answer. Fiona's harsh gaze softened for a bit, realising how terrifying this must be for him. He has no memories, and yet looks as though he feels as if he should know what these means, but he was coming up with nothing. Percy Jackson looked anguished that he doesn't have an answer.

"And your sword?"

He has a sword? Fiona arched a brow, watching him pull a pen out of his pocket. Just a normal ball-point, blue-inked pen. But then he uncapped it, and out of it sprang a glittering, bronze, leaf-shaped double edged sword. Her breath hitched. The greyhounds barked apprehensively.

"What is that?" asked Hazel, breathless. "I've never seen a sword like that."

"I have," Reyna said darkly. "It's very old━a Greek design. We used to have a few in the armoury before ..." she stopped herself. "The metal is called Celestial bronze. It's deadly to monsters, like Imperial gold, but even rarer."

Percy frowned. "Imperial gold?"

Reyna unsheathed her dagger and showed him the golden blade. "The metal was consecreated in ancient times, at the Pantheon in Rome. Its existence was a closely guarded secret of the emperors━a way for their champions to slay monsters that threatened the empire. We used to have more weapons like this ... but now, well, we scrape by. I use this dagger. Fiona uses a similar design. Hazel has a spatha, a cavalry sword. Most legionnaires use a shorter sword called a gladius. But that weapon of yours is not Roman at all. It's another sign that you're not a typical demigod. And your arm ..."

"What about it?"

Reyna held up her own forearm, showing her legionnaire tattoos. The letters SPQR, a crossed sword and torch━the symbol of her mother, Bellona━and under that, four parallel lines to show her years of service.

Percy glanced at Fiona and Hazel. "We all have them," Hazel confirmed, and the girs held out their own. "All full members of the legion do."

"Why do you have two?" Percy asked Fiona, pointing to her arm.

Fiona did, indeed, have two symbols. First, was the symbol of her legacy of Victoria, higher up her arm: two feathers with a victory laurel wreath in the middle. The second, was a black glyph like a cross with curved arms and a head: the symbol of Pluto. Beneath them, were three strikes.

"She is a legacy and a demigod," explained Raina. "Her mother is a daughter of Victoria, the victory goddess, while her father is Pluto, God of the Underworld."

Percy scratched his brow, confused. "Wait, so you're like a demigod-demigod? Or like three-halfs god?"

Fiona hadn't thought of it like that. She frowned, trying to figure it out, too. But before she could, Reyna continued. She pointed to Percy's bare arms. "So, you've never even been a member of the legion," she said. "These marks can't be removed. I thought perhaps ..." she soon shook her head, as if dismissing an idea.

Hazel leaned forward, "If he's survived as a loner all this time, maybe he's seen Jason," she turned to Percy. "Have you ever met a demigod like us before? A guy in a purple shurt with marks on his arm━"

"Hazel," Reyna's voice tightened. Fiona pursed her lips at the mention of their missing praetor. Jason Grace was nice to her, unlike a lot of others. She would almost consider him a friend. "Percy's got enough to worry about."

Percy touched the point of his sword, and the blade shrunk back into a pen. Fiona wanted something cool like that. She wanted a weapon like that. She might talk to the childen of Vulcan in the forges. "I haven't seen anyone like you guys before. Who's Jason?"

Reyna gave Hazel an irritated look. "He is ... he was my colleague," she waved her hand at the second empty chair. Fiona gazed at it sadly. "The legion normally has two elected praetors. Jason Grace, son of Jupiter, was our other praetor until he disappeared last October."

"You men he's been gone eight months, and you haven't replaced him?"

"He's not dead," Fiona said rather too quickly. But she didn't want to think that her perhaps-friend-praetor-nice-fellow-cohort-five-legionnaire was dead. "We haven't given up."

Reyna grimaced. They all knew Jason was more of a colleague to her. "Elections only happen in two ways," she said. "Either the legion raises someone on a shield after a major success on the battlefield━and we haven't had any major battles━or we hold a ballot on the evening of July twenty-fourth, at the Feast of Fortuna. That's in two days."

Percy frowned. "You have a feast for tuna?"

Fiona stared at him. Is he...? "Fortuna," she corrected stiffly. "Goddess of luck━you know, just in case you think she's the goddess of tuna, or whatever━" at the look on Percy's face, Fiona wondered whether he had thought that, "Anyway, whatever happens on her feast day can affect the entire rest of the year. She can grant the camp good luck ... or really bad luck ..." once again, her gaze returned to the empty banner case. This time, Reyna and Hazel joined her, all of them seething with humiliation and hatred.

"The Feast of Fortune ..." Percy looked pale suddenly. "The gorgons mentioned that. So did Juno. They said the camp was going to be attacked on that day, something about a big bad goddess named Gaea, and an army, and Death being unleashed. You're telling me that day is this week?"

Fiona's stomach churned once again. She shared an uneasy glance with Hazel. Nervous, her fingers reached up to her necklace, running along the skull pendant. Reyna's fingers tightened around the hilt of her dagger. "You will say nothing about that outside this room," she ordered. "I will not having you spread more panic in the camp."

"So it's true," said Percy. "Do you know what's going to happen. Can we stop it?"

Reyna pursed her lips. "We've talked enough for now. Hazel, Fiona, take him to Temple Hill. Find Octavian━do not━" her eyes flashed at Fiona, "━attack him this time. On the way, you can answer Percy's questions. Tell him about the legion."

"Yes, Reyna," said Hazel, and Fiona nodded.

"Good luck with the augury, Percy Jackson," Reyna said to the son of Neptune. "If Octavian lets you live, perhaps we can compare notes ... about your past."

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    a/n: I'm so excited for this book cue quick updates! ahh! and like omg Fiona is so ambitious and competitive she's like me in highschool drama

    (realises since I've finished highschool, I can say back whEn I wAs In—and now I wanna cry)

     Update: September 2021. I edited this, and watch there still be mistakes lol