THE MARK OF ATHENA

Hello all! This is RAfan2421. This is my very first fanfic, so I would love reviews and constructive criticism. No flames please.

I hope you enjoy the story.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, nor any of the characters in the book. They belong to Rick Riordan.

I Reunited

As the huge flying ship landed, Percy felt elated. He was going to see Annabeth again. His friends were going to be on board. Even with the threat of Gaea looming, he couldn't help, but feel completely happy and carefree. The ship landed in the middle of the field, and the ladder was lowered. About fifteen or so people climbed down. Most of them Percy recognized. There were the head counselors of almost every cabin. There were only three people that Percy did not recognize. They were a boy with cropped blond hair, sky blue eyes, and a scar on his lip, whom Reyna embraced the moment he stepped off the ship, and promptly received a glare from the girl on the boy's left. The third person stood at the steering wheel of the ship. He had curly hair, dark eyes, a cheerful face, and a mischievous smile. As Percy stepped up to greet them with Hazel and Frank hovering behind him, he saw the person that made his smile break out. Annabeth. She jumped off the ladder and ran full pelt at him. She even knocked an equally fast, but not quite so smart, Jake, into the ground. Jake had recovered from his dragon escapade well enough to accompany everybody else to Camp Jupiter. After Annabeth had gotten over her initial happiness at seeing Percy, she reverted to her old habits of annoying Percy and calling him "Seaweed Brain." Percy and Jason, Piper, and Leo, met each other for the first time. Percy was impressed by Jason, was unsure about Piper, and liked Leo, even though he told corny jokes and made tofu burgers.

Later in the evening, Percy and Annabeth sat next to each other in the dining pavilion, catching up. A lot of people came up to them, wanting to meet Percy's girlfriend. While Percy had made it public in Camp Half-Blood about his relationship with Annabeth, he still blushed whenever somebody asked him when he was going to "make a move" or something. At nine, Percy retired to the fifth Cohort's barracks after a "sort of" fight with Jason over who should sleep in the praetor's villa. Both had said the other deserved it, and finally Jason agreed to sleep in the villa. Percy got to sleep with his old friends in the Fifth Cohort. Frank and Hazel had been talking to him, and how he was so lucky to have such a beautiful girlfriend (at which point Percy had thrown a pillow at Frank, and the ensuing pillow fight could probably go down in the top ten most violent fights ever). They had all wore themselves out and now Percy was staring up at the ceiling thinking about the past few days. Also, he thought of Ella's chilling prophecy.

"Wisdom's daughter walks alone,

The Mark of Athena burns through Rome."

The next morning, he was awakened by Frank and they all went to have breakfast together. After the happy reunion day the day before, things immediately started going downhill. It started at breakfast, when the Second Cohort began mouthing off that the Greeks weren't "real" fighters and that Romans kicked their butts when they conquered Greece. This led to a challenge and then a riot, which took a full hour to calm down. Throughout the day, fights kept on breaking out. Fortunately for the Greeks, the Romans were cocky and mostly got their butts whipped, but still, Will Solace and Jake Mason needed to go to the infirmary for some minor injuries. Percy knew that there would have to be a way to bridge the hate. Percy and the other five demigods who were part of the seven got together in the praetor villa and talked. Reyna joined in on the conversation.

Piper was raving mad, especially since she'd endured an entire cohort's training while her cohort got the day off as long as they laughed and taunted her, which all of them gladly did. "Why the hell can't you praetors just stop them from doing things."

Jason replied, "If it was that easy, Octavian wouldn't be augur, we would've found some good Cohort heads, and Rome probably wouldn't be the same Rome it is today."

Percy said, "It was hard for me to be accepted when I first got here, so it'll be even harder for you, especially since I ended Octavian's dreams of becoming praetor. I'm pretty sure he was working to get the praetor's job for months while Jason was missing, and he was really pissed when I jumped in and took it from him."

"You're right, he was badgering me day and night for elections." Reyna said. "We can't just take his power away because he's augur. And he has the second and the fourth cohort under his wing. They'll obey his commands without question."

"Basically, we need a way of either getting rid of Octavian, or be able to sneak all the people out without anybody knowing." Percy said.

"There must be something that we can do to annihilate the problem of Octavian. Do you know anything of his past? Is there anything that would make him hate Greeks?" asked Annabeth, who joined in on this conversation a few minutes after the start of the meeting.

"We don't know anything about his past. We don't know where his mortal parent is. I highly doubt that his immortal parent knows what happened in his childhood, and even if they did, it's not like you could just say Hey Apollo, why don't you tell us what happened in Octavian's childhood?" Reyna said.

They all fell silent, thinking up ways to stop Octavian from preventing the seven to go to Greece. The meeting adjourned shortly thereafter, and Percy ended up with Leo on the beach.

"So, how's life?" Leo asked.

"Fine I suppose, although, I do wish that Hera hadn't messed with my mind."

Suddenly, a boy ran up to them.

"Senate meeting," he panted, "All praetors and Greeks must be there."

"We'll be there." Percy replied.

The boy nodded and ran off.

"Come on, Leo, let's go see what Octavian has to say this time around."

"Knowing him, it can't have anything to do with love and kisses could it?"

"Leo, you might find that girls would like you better if you stopped popping corny jokes."

"Hey! They're not corny, their funny, and all girls just adore me."

"Yeah, so why did that girl just take one look at you, and sprint off?"

"That's cuz she's going to tell all her friends about my amazing personality and my sexy looks."

"Shut up, Leo."

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