The others were watching from the van windows in horror. I slid open the side door, well past tears. "It's safe now." I told the others.

"Tom..." Cindy said, unable to get any further before her voice choked with tears.

"Yeah." I said grimly. "Let's honour his memory and pulverise those Titans."

Those words seemed to light a fire in their eyes as they clambered from the van and began checking over eachnothers armour. More vans crested the kill, some with broken windows, some with humongous dents and others simply missing significant parts of the vehicle (such as wheels). It seems that we weren't the only ones ambushed. I pulled Hank aside and asked his quietly to help me move Tom's body from where the legion was expected to gather. Tears running down his face, the big guy agreed that it was a good idea.

Together we lifted Tom and carried him to the edge of the parking lot, nestling him in some long grass. He was painful to look at; far too pale with blood matting his chest and he was limp to carry, painfully limp. It was as if with every step the universe felt the need to remind me of the lack of life within his body. People always say that when you close a corpse's eyes they look like they could be sleeping but that's just a lie that they tell themselves because Tom was dead. Obviously dead.

"You rejoin the others." I told Hank, seeing the final van pull up, missing both bumpers and wing mirrors. "I need to talk to Reyna really quickly." He nodded and jogged off to take his place amongst the cohort while I headed in the opposite direction where I caught the unmistakable glance of a purple cape.

"Reyna!" I yelled and when she turned to me her eyes were hazed with fear and worry for a second before resuming their normal gaze of guarded obsidian.

"Kerri? What happened? I heard rumours that Tom..." She trailed off, probably catching a look of the anger or bitter sadness from me. "Oh..."

"We can't let morale get low." I told her. "A death is a life sacrificed for the better of our cause, not something that we have time to mourn over. Do you know if there have been any more deaths?"

She nodded. "Two. Gale and Frederick, third cohort."

The lump in my throat tightened. "Then let's make sure they had something worth dying for."

---

The Twelfth Legion Fulminata gathered at evening muster is a rather imoressive sight, but right then with everyone in full body armour weilding at least two deadly weapons each and grim expressions written across everyone's faces saying that they were able and ready to make the Titans pay, it made the muster look like a chess club meeting.

"Soldiers!" Reyna called, standing in front of the legion, the five cohorts in perfect pillars behind where I stood forwards slightly with the other Centurions. "Rome needs you! Rome needs you, our warriors, to defend its homeland and honour! These Titans have already claimed three of us before we have even made the call for battle to start. Three demigods have already died at their hands, but how mamy more? Our lives are worth something, but our deaths mean something too! Let's make sure their deaths weren't in vain and let's pummel these Titans all the way back to Tartarus!"

A roar went up from the legion and the rhythmic beating of shields started up the way it had done the night I was accepting into the first cohort. I turned to my soldiers. "For Tom!" I shouted.

"For Tom!" Was the echo, and then we steadied ourselves for the eminent attack of the monsters I could see making their way down to greet us.

How lovely, a welcome party.

Notes

-Phoebe :)