The Beginning of the End (J. Grace)

XVI: Jason gets really mad

Jason

Who decided to shoot at us?

Honestly, I wasn't really expecting someone from the crew to fire a cannonball at Leo, Frank and I, but here we are, I suppose. Now I'm fighting off Romans I used to know as my siblings-in-arms and regretting each blow.

Dakota was before me, his Kool-Aid-stained lips so memorable, his wild eyes surfacing old memories that I had to fight to keep down otherwise I'd stop fighting and loose. It was wrong to be fighting him.

The tourists kept on shouting about this being a re-enactment, making me forever thankful for the Mist as Frank rampaged around the courtyard as an elephant and Leo dashed from portico to portico shooting fireballs at everyone. It's a miracle we weren't hurt in the crash-landing.

"Sorry about this, Dakota!" I cried, jumping over him and slamming the butt-end of my spear into the back of his head mid-jump, causing him to crumple to the ground.

"Jason!"

I scanned the battlefield wildly until my eyes landed on Annabeth, her hair a mess around her head and her grey eyes wild and frantic. She pointed to where the Argo II was docked. "Get the others abord! Retreat!"

"What about you?" I called.

"Don't wait for me!" And then she bolted before I could protest.

I groaned, then started running about, trying to get to Leo. Gods, if Elara were here, she'd tell me that I'm being too slow. With that thought in mind, I sped up. How long will it be before the others on board will start getting attacked?

Gods of Olympus: Elara's on board, isn't she? Probably not too happy about going on defence, but she's definitely on board.

Wait– No, no, no. They can't hurt her. They can't.

"Leo!" I cried, finally reaching him and grabbing his wrists, pulling him behind a low wall and ducking behind it with him. "We need to get back to the ship." Then I looked around, adrenaline pumping. "Where's Frank? I saw him a moment ago."

"Middle." He panted, looking around with me. "Yeah, there, among the tourists."

I followed his pointing finger to find a smaller elephant walking deceptively calmly among the tourists. That is, until another Roman came running at him and he shifted into a rhino, charging right back at them.

"Let's get him out of there." I decided and my friend nodded grimly, hoisting himself up and getting ready to throw another fireball.

Together, we jumped back up and ran at the gathering of Romans, dogging and weaving between panicked and confused tourists, heading straight for Frank. Someone advanced on us, but I swung my spear around, shooting them back to hit against another person, making them both fall down together.

"Frank!" Leo called at the rhino who swivelled around at his name, accidentally knocking about five Romans out of the way in the one motion. "We need to go!"

He nodded –or was I imagining that?– and started dashing towards the ship at the docks where ranks of soldiers were advancing, gold armour glittering in the sun. I could hazily make out the outline of my daughter fighting some of them off with her long sword, keeping them a good distance away, but there was only so long she could keep that up for. We needed to hurry up.

An eagle swooped down low; it's talons would have raked Leo's head if he hadn't thrown a fireball at it.

Piper was out there with Hazel, trying to get her charmspeak across the chaos, but it seemed to be having little affect over the noise. Hedge seemed more than happy with the fight, swinging his club around blindly and screaming at all the Romans to die. Percy was there too, blasting them with salt water and slashing with his sword.