.・゜゜・——— I AM NOT A WOMAN I'M A GOD !
AN ARMY TO LEAD AND A WAR TO WIN
PERCY TOLD REGINA THAT HIS favourite thing about New York was the fact that they could take a quick taxi to wherever they needed to go, while a giant hellhound trailed behind them and no one said a thing. Regina told him it was probably because the mist shielded certain things from regular mortal's eyes. Mrs O'Leary was probably just another car in the road.
Regina decided that hunger was more important than a war at the moment, and dragged Percy to the nearest Burger King to fill the emptiness of her stomach.
They ate their burgers and chips in the taxi to meet the other camp mates. Regina slurped down her Coca Cola and threw fries down her throat like they were pills. She didn't realise how hungry she actually was until she got a hold on heaven's food.
"Hungry?" Percy asked with raised eyebrows and a teasing smirk on his face, as he watched her basically inhale all her food in the seat beside him.
"Why, am I just the most elegant person you ever ever seen?" She said between mouthfuls, scrunching up the burger foil and throwing it out the window, earning a rolling of the eyes from Percy (who always strived to be extremely environmentally friendly) and an annoyed growl from the driver who shut his glass window as soon as they both stepped into the car.
Percy scoffed, snatching her rubbish from her lap and putting the plastics, paper and card in one of the bags and the rest of the rubbish in the other. "Yeah, it's so sophisticated when you play with your food and pretend your ketchup covered fries are in a war against the mayo covered fries."
Regina shrugged, brushing off her hands out the window. "I'm preparing for later."
"Which ones are we?" He asked, the mention of the upcoming war making his heart sink to his stomach. He tried not to show how nervous he was, and Regina knew how much he tried to hide it: he'd sink back in his chair then adjust his posture to try and brush it all off. His eyebrows would twitch into a worried frown, but he'd swiftly recover by wiping his brow with his forefinger. He was an open book, no matter how hard he tried not to be.
Regina smiled reassuringly. "We're definitely the ketchup covered ones. Most of the mayo's got flung out the window."
Percy tried to frown at her recurring criminal act of littering, but he couldn't help but smile at her reply. She reassured him that she was going to stand by his side the whole way, and he knew she meant it. Besides, he didn't want to ever have to worry about where she was and if she was in danger because he wasn't with her.
Twenty more minutes passed and they hopped out of the taxi, the driver glaring daggers at Regina for leaving salt and ketchup all over the back seat. Percy apologised for her behaviour, while she stuck her middle finger out at him when he said he'd report her.
"You really need to stop causing arguments with people." Percy huffed as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket, Regina running her fingers through the ends of her hair to untangle it.
"Well maybe he should drive quicker." She said, giving a random and totally irrelevant excuse as to why she acted the way she did. Sometimes she just started arguments because she was bored, but most of the time it was just because fighting was in her nature.
They watched together as three large vans pulled up to the curb, and for a second Regina thought they were about to kidnap them. New York was sketchy when you went into the wrong areas. Then she saw Argus, the Camp security guard in the drivers seat and her breath let out of relief.
The doors slid open and campers began to flood out, all of them wearing the signature orange camp tee underneath armour and harnesses. For some reason, Regina never owned one. Maybe they had to go to Chiron and buy one, or hand in an application for one or something. She didn't mind that much: orange was not her colour.
It seemed that everyone she knew was there: Pollux, The Stoll Brothers, Michael Yew, Katie Gardner and more. She felt like throwing up a little when she saw Thomas jump out with Silena walking beside him, leaning on his arm as her face looked sunken and tired. Thomas quickly caught her eye, then dropped it even quicker. Regina didn't know if she wanted to drop to her knees and beg him to talk to her or beat him to a pulp until he spoke to her. They both sounded as worse as each other.
Annabeth also jumped out with her siblings, the new counsellor of the Apollo Cabin, Elio Gray trailing behind them in his usual clumsy manner. Regina knew he was Lee's best friend, and Thomas would rant a lot about how annoying he was. Regina tried to stay clear of him, but his ability to reel around everyone and insert himself into everyone's space and conversations was astounding; he resembled a wasp.
"M'lady." Elio muttered with a courtesy, his usual smirk on his lips. He swung his arm over Regina's shoulders and turned his head to look at her while Percy gave him a swift glance. "Haven't seen you in quite a while. You still look good."
Regina grunted then elbowed him in the stomach, Elio clutching it with his arms and letting out a breath with a blow of his cheeks. "You look worse. Don't know how you managed that."
"And still as sweet as ever." He choked, rubbing on his stomach like he was a pregnant lady. "Anyway, here's a bag full of stuff that will keep you from dying, like, a second fucking time."
Regina caught the bag the blonde haired boy threw into her arms as Percy approached Annabeth, Chiron and her siblings, discussing with them a plan of some sorts. The bag seemed light, so she opened it up and was surprised at how much there actually was. Elio packed the bag like he was Mary Poppins. There were bottles of nectar and wrapped foils of ambrosia. Bandages, medicine and plasters were in one ziplock, hair ties and small snacks in the other. On the side was water in a flask. She scowled at Elio when she saw that there were some personal possessions he shoved in there, knowing that he must have snuck into her cabin to take them. But she couldn't be too mad: he had brought her war paint.
"I knew you'd want that." He said with an accompanied smirk, nodding at the war paint. "I'm sure it would match your new emo look. What happened to the old eighties vibe?"
"I had a change of heart." Regina muttered, unscrewing the pot of charcoal, grabbing Elio's arms and forcing him to help her make a good pattern since there was no mirror where they were. She told him the certain pattern that she wanted, and as a son of Apollo, he had natural art abilities and made it cleaner and more precise than she wanted. So naturally, she smeared some of it around and Elio watched her with a big frown.
"My masterpiece." He muttered, screwing the pot lid back on. "That was practically at Picasso level."
"Picasso drew three stokes of paint on a canvas and called it art," she told him with a raise of a brow, stuffing everything back into her bag and swinging it over her shoulders. "I'm sure you'll live."
She glanced at the other students, and her heart sunk a little when she noticed a big group of people were missing. It seemed Elio knew what she was thinking. "Clarrise refused to join. Still pissed about the whole chariot thing. At first I was reluctant to try and truce with her, especially apologise to her. But ... Lee would have wanted peace."
"And I'm guessing she didn't." Regina muttered, adjusting her sword in the harness around her back.
Elio just sighed. "She's not like Lee."
"She's not like Lee." Regina agreed, and casted a quick glance over to Thomas, who was adjusting the straps on Silena's shoulder pads. She felt disappointed in both Clarrise and herself. Ares entrusted her with a mission and she failed. She basically forgot about her goal and threw it away when she joined Nico. Maybe if she had stayed behind, she could have convinced Clarisse to fight, or she could have gotten her other siblings to defy their camp leader, even if that was impossible. She kicked the ground in anger and leaned against one of the walls behind her, biting the inside of her cheek so hard she felt blood on the tip of her tongue. "She's a bitch."
"That, I can agree with." He said, pulling out a toothpick from the pockets of his shorts, balancing it between his teeth. "Doesn't matter, at least we don't have to waste chariots on them."
Regina nodded, feeling Elio pat her back in a kind of comfort then walk off to join the rest of his cabin. Everyone was speaking to their own families, their own siblings, and Regina just watched them all. She wasn't jealous, she was just angry, but then again, when was she not? She was angry at Clarrise for being petty and being stupid and being selfish. She was angry at Ares for telling her it was her job to convince Clarrise to fight and that he gave her no choice. She was angry at Thomas for ignoring her and she was angry at Annabeth for telling her she was jealous of Clarrise. And most of all, she was angry at herself for ... everything. She was just simply angry.
"Hey,"
Regina would have sucker punched whoever had the nerve to touch her shoulder during a fit of rage, but when she saw who it was, she calmed down a little. Percy's concerned eyes watched her as his hand held her shoulder, as if trying to decipher who she was mad at, hoping it wasn't him.
"Sorry," she muttered, trying to take a few breaths in and out to calm her shaking hands. "I'm just..."
"Mad?" He suggested with a slight wince, waiting for the shout. But she did not shout at him, and simply nodded with an embarrassed smirk.
"Yes, I'm mad." She told him, her fingers rubbing the bridge of her nose. "I'm really fucking mad."
"Because of Clarrise?" He said with clear bitterness. "She's a stubborn idiot. It's not your fault."
"She is a stubborn idiot." Regina laughed, feeling her heart rate begin to slow down into it's natural speed. "Refusing to fight the biggest battle of our lives because of a fucking chariot?"
"Not even you're that stubborn." Percy teased, glancing around at everyone, his eyes eventually making their way back to Regina. She watched as he continued to nervously look at the other campers and pretend like he wasn't when she caught him.
She sighed. "Stop freaking out about everyone else. We're here by choice, not by force. We're here because we've got your back. Okay?"
Percy nodded unconvincingly. "There are fourty three campers, Regina."
Goosebumps trailed down her arms in slight fear: that wasn't nearly enough people to fight even one Titan. But she just patted his arm in fake encouragement, "that's fine. We got this. It's what we've all been training for anyway, right?"
Another unconvincing nod. "Right."
But he wasn't moving. It was clear he had something on his mind. She pushed his shoulder as if that would do anything, and for some reason, it actually did. "What is on your mind?"
"One of them is a spy." He sighed, which made Regina's eyes widen in shock. He told her that a few of them knew that much, since they held a meeting about it before Regina came back. One of them was spying and reporting back to Luke. One of their friends was a spy.
"So what your saying is one of them is the reason Beckendorf died? Is the reason Castor died? One of them is the reason Lee died?" She said, her voice straining on the last one. "One of these motherfuckers is the reason a bomb blasted and killed me?"
Percy gulped like he wanted her to keep her voice down. "We don't know who it is. It could be anyone. But they're our friends, right? I can't just go around accusing anyone, and I can't let this take away from the bigger problem we have."
"But doesn't that worry you?" Regina asked frantically, now suspicious of anyone that even looked her way. "Everything you say could be reported back to Luke. Nothing will be a surprise to his army and he will know our every move."
Percy rubbed his face in his palms as if it would erase all his doubts and concerns. He had trusted a friend before, and he turned out to be the reason they were even here. She knew that he didn't want to be in the same situation all over again, but he didn't have the time to be obsessed over a spy in the camp: he had an army to lead and a war to win. "I can't dwell on all this. They're all my friends, and spy or not, we need everyone we can get."
Regina nodded as she looked at the anxious boy. "Okay. I trust you."
"You do?" He asked, like she shouldn't.
"Yes..." she said, then pinched his arm playfully. "But don't quote me on that. It's embarrassing on my behalf."
Percy either laughed or let out a sigh of relief, she didn't know which. Then he turned to Chiron who had made his way to everyone. The black haired boy spoke, "thanks for coming everyone. Chiron, after you."
They all looked to the horse man expectantly, until he smiled softly and shook his head. "I came to wish you luck, my boy. But I make it a point never to visit Olympus unless I am summoned."
Percy frowned. "But you're our leader."
Chiron smiled at Percy like he was his own son. "I am your trainer, your teacher. That is not the same as being your leader. I will go gather what allies I can. It may not be too late to convince my brother centaurs to help. Meanwhile, you called the campers here. Percy, you are the leader."
𝖆/𝖓
Let the war begin woooooo
Clarrise low-key pissed me off here, but whatever ares cabin supremacy?
#imissnico