Legacy of Asgard

So It Begins

Ch. 26

It took a few hours but Thalia and Jason managed to work with Cassie to put together a plan where the Romans and Greeks would divide up the entrances to Manhattan and keep the two groups separated for as long as possible. Things were tense in the initial encounter but after Thalia and Annabeth told them of the preliminary reports of the enemy army, all tension between Greeks and Romans was forgotten as they focused on the monumental task of defending Olympus with only a few hundred demigods with their combined numbers. Thalia mentioned possible reinforcements but it was clearly not help at the moment.

Scouts reported the enemy army to consist of mostly monsters with a couple hundred demigods who had betrayed their siblings and parents and taken up arms with the enemy. But it wasn't the kind of enemy they were tasked with defending Olympus from that worried the leaders of both the Greek and Roman forces. While it was disconcerting to be pitted against former friends and half-brothers and sisters, it was the number of the enemy forces that sent nervous shivers down the spines of any who knew what they were up against.

Their small forces of less than five hundred young demigods were up against a force more than ten times their size. It was decided to keep the number of the enemy confined to leadership amongst the Romans to avoid a dip in morale at the hopeless situation they seemed to be in.

The Romans were given the Manhattan, Brooklyn and 59th Street Bridges to protect while the Greeks would handle the smaller tunnels where they could funnel the enemy into narrow columns thus making their larger numbers useless. The Williamsburg Bridge no longer needed to be protected but Thalia told Cassie and the other Romans that the Greeks had blown it up to take that point of entry off the board.

Percy was grateful for that, trying to explain how he destroyed a bridge would have been a difficult thing even for a silver tongued son of Venus such as himself.

Percy stood beside Jason. In front of them was the Brooklyn Bridge. Cars littered both sides of the multi-lane passageway over the East River. The Romans had managed to pull out a good amount of the slumbering New Yorkers but were forced to leave some when the enemy appeared on the other end of the bridge.

The Fifth Cohort stood behind their two leaders in tight lines as they prepared themselves for whatever the enemy threw at them.

To their left, Percy looked over to see Reyna standing in front of her cohort. He was pleased to learn that the First and the Fifth were assigned to the same bridge. It was actually a slight against his cohort; pairing them up with the strongest in an effort of compensate for their less than stellar battle prowess but he was grateful nonetheless.

No one from the First seemed to have any issues fighting beside 'Jack' or Jason. Not after the battle at Camp Jupiter. Their skill in battle was talked about for days, though Percy was forced to miss out on that as he struggled his way through Tartarus with Reyna. But the attack on their camp seemed to have helped to dismiss some of the prejudices between the different cohorts. After they all suffered losses in the battle, their bond as a unit as a whole seemed have grown significantly.

Percy caught Reyna's eyes as they exchanged a meaningful glance. Her expression was stern but he could see the sadness in her eyes as well. He couldn't deny his own sadness either but tried not to show it. He had a duty to do and it had to put ahead of everything else; friendships, relationships and his own personal feelings. He was a child of Asgard, the son of the great thunder god Thor. Being one meant he had responsibilities that he could not ignore. It was his duty as an Asgardian to fulfill his destiny and his mothers had taught him from a young age the importance to taking care of his responsibilities, no matter how unfair or unjust they seemed.

He felt a soft elbow in his ribs as Jason nudged him. He looked up to see the enemy army advancing. They were a ways across the bridge but the front lines were visible even from this distance.