✔ 𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐂 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄 𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐍 ⋆ jason grace

xxii ━ the wild card

                      -ˏˋ°•*⁀➷

THERE was a war council the afternoon after, and it was nothing like Rebecca had imagined it.

At Camp Jupiter they had to be very profesional, very strategic and the spitting image of perfection.

At Camp Half-blood they served nachos and sodas, some people played ping pong just before the meeting.

It was relaxed, not as much tension as in New Rome.

Rebecca, Jason, Piper and Leo sat together. Rebecca and Jason didn't say anything but the other two noticed how something had changed.

"Let's come to order," Chiron said. "Lou Ellen, please give Miranda her nose back.
Travis, if you'd kindly extinguish the flaming Ping-Pong ball, and Butch, I think twenty pencils is really too many for any human nostril.
Thank you. Now, as you can see, Jason, Piper, and Leo have returned successfully... more or less. Some of you have heard parts of their story, but I will let them fill you in."

Everyone looked at Jason. He cleared his throat and began the story.

Piper and Leo chimed in from time to time, filling in the details he forgot. Rebecca didn't speak.

The silence was heavy, and for so many ADHD demigods to sit still listening for that long, Rebecca knew the story must have sounded pretty wild.

Jason ended with Hera's visit right before the meeting.

"So Hera was here," Annabeth said. "Talking to you."

Jason nodded. "Look, I'm not saying I trust her—"

"That's smart," Annabeth said.

"—but she isn't making this up about another group of demigods. That's where I," he looked at Rebecca. "We came from."

"Romans." Clarisse, a daughter of Ares, said.

"You expect us to believe there's another camp with demigods, but they follow the Roman forms of the gods. And we've never even heard of them."

Rebecca finally spoke. "Every time the two groups meet they try to kill each other."

"I can respect that," Clarisse said. "Still, why haven't we ever run across each other on quests?"

"Oh, yes," Chiron said sadly. "You have, many times. It's always a tragedy, and always the gods do their best to wipe clean the memories of those involved. The rivalry goes all the way back to the Trojan War, Clarisse.

The Greeks invaded Troy and burned it to the ground.

The Trojan hero Aeneas escaped, and eventually made his way to Italy, where he founded the race that would someday become Rome.

The Romans grew more and more powerful, worshipping the same gods but under different names, and with slightly different personalities."

"More warlike," Jason said. "More united. More about expansion, conquest, and discipline."

"Yuck," Travis Stoll put in.

Rebecca glared so bad at him he scooted his chair away.

Several of the others looked equally uncomfortable, though Clarisse shrugged like it sounded okay to her.

Rebecca liked Clarisse LaRue, type of girl to not take shit from anybody.

Annabeth twirled her knife on the table. "And the Romans hated the Greeks. They took revenge when they conquered the Greek isles, and made them part of the Roman Empire."