Kat

Kat pushed through the sea of purple and orange and jumped the crowd barrier. She saw the sprawled bodies that were struggling to get up off the floor and barely stopped before tackling one of them.
"Oph!" He said. "Gentle please!"
"Sorry!" Kat giggled.
Nico laughed the deep, rich laugh she'd come to love before pressing his lips to hers.
Kat's head was giddy with pure joy. Nico had made it back just in the nick of time to stop the battle. He was safe.
Kat pulled away from his embrace slightly, taking in the scene around her.
A grumpy satyr and a pretty girl who's torn purple cloak had been pulled askew by the shadow-travel. Behind her was a huge statue, thankfully everyone had been staring at that instead of her reunion with Nico.
She decided that since their minds were on something else, she may as well kiss him again. And so she did, his arms pulling her tight towards him as if they never wanted to let go.
"You two just about done, there?" Coach Hedge asked them.
Nico and her laughed before disentangling themselves and helping each other to their feet.
Delia embraced the short satyr, kissing his stubbly cheek.
She let go of him to let Delia greet him as well. Kat had almost forgotten that she'd been in the arena the whole time.
She turned to the dark-haired girl she knew to be Reyna, the leader of the Romans.
"You must be Reyna," Kat held out her hand and the Roman shook it. "I'm Kat."
Reyna grinned, releasing her firm grip. "Oh, I know. I've heard a lot about you."
"Oh?" Kat raised her eyebrows. "Like what exactly?"
Reyna laughed. "I'll tell you later. But for now, I need to address my soldiers and reveal Octavian for the lying coward he is."
Kat grinned. "The stage is all yours." She guestured to the audience who were still gaping at the statue.
"Romans." Reyna addressed the crowd in a loud, clear voice. "I have returned from the ancient lands with the Athena Parthenos. Centuries ago our ancestors stole this relic from the Greeks while destroying their homeland, and now we return it to them and apologize for all of our past wrongs. We wish to offer you this as a treaty of peace, Greeks, and as an apology."
"How dare you!" Octavian shrieked as he clambered over the barrier, his face red. "You have no right! You have been marked as a traitor for crossing into the ancient lands and now you return as if you had never broken the ancient law at all!" Then he turned towards the armoured Romans. "Will you stand for this?"
There was silence, no one moved.
"Octavian," Reyna said formally. "Breaking the law was necessary to maintain peace when only you wanted a war. I broke that law for what was right, but you, you broke our most sacred law! You broke my direct orders for you to wait for my arrival to take action! You abused your authority and I hereby strip you of your rank as augur and leader of the first cohort. You must complete your years of service as a soldier."
For once, Octavian was speechless. No one in the crowd moved to help him as he was stripped of his badges of rank. He ran from the arena when Reyna was done, humiliated.
The audience disbanded and Kat, Delia, and Nico stood admiring the statue while Reyna and Kerri caught each other up on the Roman gossip.
"It's beautiful!" Delia breathed.
"Amazing." Kat agreed.
"But what are we going to do with something this big?" Delia asked.
"Annabeth said she wanted it on Mt Olympus. Something about building a new Parthenon?" Nico answered.
Kat and Delia nodded, they had recieved word weeks ago that Annabeth and Percy had been retrieved from Tartarus.
"How are we going to get it there?" Kat asked.
"I could help?" Offered a smooth, male voice.
A man with dark windblown hair and a smug smile leaned against the Parthenos.
"Hermes." Kat hissed from between gritted teeth. She had hated the god from the moment she met him on their quest earlier that year.
"Yes, 'tis I." Hermes examined his cuticals. "So do you want help or not?"
"Not from-" Kat began, but her sister placed a hand on her shoulder, silently cutting her off.
"Yes please, Lord Hermes." Delia smiled a sardonically sweet smile at the god.
"Please is all I needed to hear." Hermes disappeared in a puff of grey/blue smoke.
"I hate him!" Kat exclaimed, drawing her sword from her wrist and slashing at a dummy flr emphasis. "I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!"
"Yes," Nico took her blue sword off her and swung his arm around her shoulders. "We've noticed."
"Hey!" She protested.
But she couldn't help smiling as she walked out of the arena beside her sister and with Nico's arm around her.

Notes

Here's a chapter! Managing to get it done while I'm babysitting between classes!
And apparently I don't suck at synchronized swimming as much as I thought I did cos we won! Mills is hot hot hot! (Our house is called Mills and <- that's our chant)
So Nico is back! I'm going to skip forward a bit for the next chapter but it's not quite time for an epilogue yet!
Ok, I just want to give you some background on the character Kerri. She's named for one of my friends (her middle name) and based on her in attitude and spirit. My friend has gone through a lot and so has Kerri. My friend has survived depression, self-harm, anorexia and bullying while Kerri well... I might have to write Kerri's story another time. My friend is an inspiration to me in every single way and she makes my days worth living :)
This chapter's for her! (even though she has never even read a Rick Riordan book in her life but I'm working on that!)