THAT WAY. (c. stoll)

chapter one

"And another win for the Ares Cabin!"

Layla Gainsford grins widely, holding up the blue flag and waving it excitedly. She scans the group of demigods in front of her, desperate to find her best friend, Connor Stoll. She sees her other best friends, Poppy Smith, daughter of Hypnos and Maggie Jarvis, daughter of Nike, in the crowd, grinning up at her.

"The Ares cabin now has six consecutive wins, a new record!" Chiron exclaims, cantering up towards the group of campers.

Layla finally locks eyes with Connor, who is looking back at her with a sort of fond smile on her face.

The fond smile turns into something sour, however. Connor's beautiful blue eyes turn into a sort of ugly green, and he whispers something menacing to her.

"You cannot win the war against the Romans."

Layla frowns, opening her mouth to respond when she finds herself trapped. She looks down to see earthy tendrils wrapping around her, all while Connor sneers at her.

"Connor–" she tries to say, but Connor vanishes. All that's left is the form of Gaea, and Layla's scared.

"Your dear Connor won't make it very far, I'm afraid," the Earth Mother murmurs. "When I rise from my slumber, dear Layla, I hope that you'll at least attempt to save your precious camp."

...

Layla wakes up with a gasp.

She looks around at her Cabin Five siblings, all of whom are fast asleep. She takes a deep breath to calm her rapidly beating heart, before slipping out of her bed and pulling on a sweatshirt and some old Converse.

She knows it's late. It's far too late to be going to the Hermes cabin and finding Connor. But she needs to know if her best friend is going to turn to Gaea, just like Luke Castellan did to Kronos.

She avoids the landmines surrounding her cabin and quickly makes her way to Cabin Eleven, knocking gently on the door, praying that Connor will answer the door.

Unfortunately, he does not. His brother does.

"Layla?" Travis yawns, covering his mouth. "What are you doing here?"

Layla, despite her parentage, dances nervously on her feet. "Is your brother awake? I need to talk to him."

"A dream?" Travis asks tiredly. "Can it wait till morning?"

"No," she admits, pulling on her sweatshirt hem. "It's important, Travis, please."

"I'm here," comes Connor's voice, and Layla mentally thanks the gods that she doesn't have to deal with Travis being frustrating any longer. "Hey, Lay."

"Hey," she breathes out. "I need to talk to you."

"Okay," he says, a fond sort of look on his face. "Do we need the other two? Or is it just us?"

"Just us," she confirms.

Connor steps out of the cabin and the pair begin to walk to their little spot by the weapons shed, not before Travis calls out "be careful, lovebirds!" and Connor flipping him off in response.

They get to their spot by the weapons shed, and they sit down crisscrossed on the grass. Layla wrings her hands out gently, and Connor waits. Like he always does.

"I had a dream," Layla starts, breathing deeply. "About camp."

"What happened in it?" Connor asks softly.

"We were playing capture the flag," she explains, closing her eyes. "My cabin won, and I was looking for you. And then you smiled at me, but it wasn't like how you normally smile."

"Gaea?"

Layla nods. "Your eyes turned green, and you said, 'you cannot win the war against the Romans.' It was scary."

She doesn't add that Gaea showed up too, saying that he wouldn't make it far in this fight. She doesn't want to think about Connor not making it through the war.

"I'm right here," Connor assures her, and she opens her eyes to make sure that his are still bright blue. No signs of green.

"Okay," she whispers, unsure if she believes him. "I just needed to know if you were still here. That you're not going to turn to Gaea."

"I think you'd kill me if I did," he admits cheekily. "So would Travis."

"And Poppy and Maggie," she adds, a smile forming on her face. "We'd all kill you if you did."

Connor grins. "Exactly. I'd never do that to you."

Never do that to you. Never to Layla.

There's something else that he wants to say, Layla can tell. She's known Connor since she was nine. She knows his tells, his tricks, his quirks. The way that his mouth turns up slightly at the side when he's coming up with a prank. The way his nose wrinkles slightly when he has something else to say. She knows it all.

"What is it?" She finally asks. "What's wrong?"

He stares at her for a moment before responding. "Nothing. It's just... these Romans, they seem to be coming for us. But I thought that they were good. That they helped us unintentionally, like how we helped them unintentionally too."

Layla stops. She knows what he means. They'd fought Krios the Titan on Mount Othrys at the same time that the Greeks had fought Kronos in Manhattan. Jason Grace had seemed liked a good guy. Poppy had said that she'd seen visions of Percy with the Romans in her dreams. The Romans had seemed like good people. But now they wanted to attack Camp Half-Blood. It just didn't seem right.

"I don't know," she says helplessly. "Something's not right with this war. Usually I can guess who's on the right side of history, but something about the Romans is off."

"What do you mean, Lay?" he asks, frowning slightly.

She shrugs helplessly. "During the war with Kronos," she begins, "I had this feeling that we'd win. That we were going to lose people, but we'd still beat Kronos. With the Romans, it's just weird. Luke was being controlled by Kronos, right? Kronos is an upper power. With the Romans, it just doesn't feel like we're meant to be fighting them."

"We're meant to work together," Connor whispers. "Like that note I got from Annabeth in Tartarus."

"I still don't understand how she did that," Layla admits. "That shouldn't have been possible."

Connor smirks teasingly. "It's Annabeth. She'd always find a way."

Layla grins. "You're right. Her Athena genes."

The two collapse into quiet giggles after that, doing their best to keep quiet to avoid the harpies. Layla's glad for this moment with him. With the Romans coming to ruin the peace at camp, and the threat of Gaea coming to potentially destroy everything they've ever known, Layla knows that she's not going to get many more moments like this.

I hope that you'll at least attempt to save your camp. Layla will fight for her camp. And she won't let Gaea take her best friend.