Resurrected

Tommy's POV

We walked in silence until we got back to the Roman pillboxes. That’s when things somehow got worse. It looked like mortal police, so we ducked behind cover. We heard some different voices talking, and the clinking of armor as it stepped over…things, and that’s when I started to get the felling that this might be the Roman QRF, or Quick Reaction Force.

How the hell they managed to find out about all of their Romans dying at once, I have no idea.

“Holy Jupiter,” I heard one of them say, a girl. “All of them. Slaughtered like cows, aw jeez!”

They obviously were friends of the dead soldiers. Maybe they were their brothers and sisters. I never realized how hard this day would hit me, but I realized that I had never thought about Alex’s mom and dad. They were probably sitting at home, thinking about how wonderful it was that Alex had found a home at a summer camp they didn’t have to pay for.

They never would worry about her dying by having two swords stabbed through her without remorse. I signaled Ethan and Clarisse to pull back, and when we got out of earshot of the Romans, I said,

“We need an IM right now. Nico is our only way out of here, and he might not even be strong enough to travel so many miles ith the amount of rest we’ve given him. But he’s our only shot. Do you guys have any ideas?”

“Here,” ordered Clarisse. “Take the bottle. Use this, it’s from the Iris cabin. It absorbs sunlight and contains it, refracting it at a raised temperature to produce a little steam. But the rainbow will be in the glass, kinda like a screen. They said it was magic.”

She handed me a triangular prism made out of the cleanest glass I had ever seen in my entire life. I could see my reflection in it, even though it was so clear. Then I realized, it was meant to do that.

I fished out a drachma, and it seemed to be magnetically attracted to the glass. So, I released it and offered the standard prayer:

“Oh goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering.”

The glass shimmered, the coin disappeared, and I whispered,

“Nico di Angelo, Camp Half-Blood.”

Suddenly, a weird scene appeared. Nico was in his room in Cabin 13, but there was another person there. I blushed, recognizing the person all too well. For he had healed Ethan and I many different times. Will Solace. And they were…gettin’ it on.

“Nico!” I whispered, trying to get them to notice the IM as they kept making out.

Both of them jumped like they had been stuck with cattle prods. Then, they both went redder than a Roman shield. Will left the frame and hid, while Nico just sttod there, looking betrayed, angry, and miffed that we had disturbed him in his moment of pleasure.

“Sorry,” I whispered, “but we’re kinda screwed. We needed an evacuation plan, like, five minutes ago. Can we carpool?”

“Right in the middle of a make-out session, Tommy. Wow. Okay, well then. Let me get ready for the jump. I might need to take some people to heal me when I get there because I haven’t had enough rest, but I should be fine. I’ll be there in—”

“Well then,” said a voice behind me. But I didn’t move. A Roman sword was sticking in the middle of the glass apparatus. I looked around slowl and saw Clarisse and Ethan were struggling against wrist bonds. I looked up, and saw a blonde, blue eyed kid, who was smiling like he’d just woken up early on Christmas.

“What do we have here?” I was faced with a pretty crappy situation. Clarisse and Ethan were lightly bound, but still held against their will. I could wait for Nico, but I had a feeling he’d be to slow, especially because hed have to run, after shadow traveling thousands of miles, to the top of a hill to defend us.

No, I’d have to get this one done on my own. My shoulder was slowly killing me, seeing as I hadn’t had any ambrosia since I had gotten stabbed by Cato. I think the blades had been poisoned, because the wound was pure black now.

The blonde, blue-eyed kid raised his sword so that it was under my chin.

“My question, seeing as I did not see you in my consultations with Apollo, is why in Hades is a Greek outside of Mt. Othrys, calling for reinforcements from an Iris-Message. Ugh, I hate those things. So…stealthy.”

“Uh, we were trying to rescue our friend, but she didn’t make it. We’ll be on our way now.”
“Who, the girl in here?”

The blonde snarled happily, and sliced open the cloth covering Alex’s face. Her head lolled to the side, her eyes closed. The boy seemed to almost smile upon seeing her dead face. Ethan, Clarisse and I started towards the guy to throttle him, but he moved his sword back to my neck.

I couldn’t draw my weapon, bothe from the pain in both my arms, one of which was smashed from holding the gate open, the other of which was stabbed. So, to protect me, Ethan and Clarisse had to play along.

There were about fifteen other Romans inspecting the situation and the bodies, like a police crime scene squad, but they paid us little attention.

“Don’t move, græcus scum. I am Octavian, the royal Augur at Camp Jupiter. I could have you hanged in the Forum in an hour. And now that you have supplied sufficient evidence of your plot to frame the Legion for an attack on the Titans, I shall escort you New Rome to be tried. Prefereably unfairly.”

“Well, that ain’t happening,” Clarisse said, and shoved her hands down. The Roman guard on her, who had been stupidly holding together her bound hands, slumped down with Clarisse. She stood up quickly, and her shoulder pads collided with the Roman’s face, leaving two considerable cuts.

That’s why they call them shoulder blades, I thought.

Ethan did a judo flip on his guard and stomped on his chest, forcing the poor kid to start coughing blood. While the blonde douche, Octaivan, was occupied in watching his comrades get dismantled, I swung my legs under his like a baseball player sliding and the kid fell flat on his rump.

Clarisse, in her brute strength, ripped through her rope bonds and cut Ethan’s. By the time the other Romans had drawn weapons and were running towards us, we all had weapons in our hands, and I had my blade, in my left hand, because it was the least weak with injury, pointed at the blonde’s neck, my boot proudly on his chest like a Captain Morgan ad.

But we knew we were outnumbered. I could see Ethan about to go total Kronos-Hulk mode, and I knew there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. Octavian seemed to see what I saw, and smiled devilishly. He hit my sword with his forearm greave and shouted,

“Romans, attack!”

I kicked Octavian in the face, knocking him out cold. The Romans were about to charge when a huge ripping sound boomed above us. But it wasn’t ripping, more like buffeting. I looked up to see a huge drakon, with wings, like from China, with two girls on its back.

One of them I recognized as the female praetor, Reyna, from one of the trips we had taken after Charlie’s wedding. The other girl, short with coffee-brown skin and…were those gold eyes? I didn’t recognize her.

The dragon landed, and after the girls slipped off its back, it propmptyl turned into the the bulkiest Asian high-schooler I had ever seen. My head was spinning, but I had heard Percy and Jason talk of a new praetor, Frank Zhang, who had that ability.

All three newcomers ran towards the Romans, shouting for them to stop. But these guys looked pretty loyal to Octavian, and not to the preators. They looked ready to charge again, and I didn’t realize that Ethan was now almost at full rage mode. He growled, and I had to drop my attention off of Octavian.

I leaped in front of him, trying to look my boyfriend in the eyes. But he looked right past me. When I turned around, a Roman was charging right at Ethan. I tried to step between them, still looking at the Roman, but then, my chest got cold. I turned around, and saw Ethan’s sword ripping through my chest armor.

I was dead….again. As I sunk to my knees, the pain overcoming me, I wondered whether Id get another chance or not.

Everything went fast after that. My body went numb, there weer some heated voices, but I saw no more death. I smiled at that thought.

No more death, no more misery.

Ethan screamed, kissing my cheek and trying to get me to stay awake. But I knew I wasn’t long for this world. I gripped his hand, and said,

“I’m sorry, Ethan, I guess I knew nothing could ever be perfect in this world. I mean, we couldn’t have saved her, could we?”

“No, Tommy,” He whimpered, tears in his eyes, “we just weren’t quick enough. We could have. We could have! Hey, stay with me. Tommy, Tommy!”

“Ethan,” I said, my strength waning, “burn it.”

He seemed confused by this.

“Burn my shroud,” I croaked, my throat filling with my own blood, “I want you to burn my shroud.”

Then I closed my eyes and sunk into the Underworld, for the fourth time.

Notes

Hey, so I have to leave until the 19th, but I'll be back on the 19th with a new chapter of this, and of the Aftermath, ad maybe a few others. Sorry for the long semi-hiatus, but GRADEZ AND SCHOOLZ. Oh and Tommy died, whatever.

Enjoy,
Grafon