Chapter Text
“I’m just suggesting that you be a little nicer to Frank. He’s still learning what it means to be a praetor and I think he would learn faster if you didn’t… yell so much,” The daughter of Pluto rattled on for what had to the hundredth time in the last week alone.
At that moment Reyna would have sold her soul to get away from the five-foot-nothing girl standing before her. A titan rampaging through the countryside, Gaea rising up once more, Terminus going rogue and attacking New Rome, literally anything was better than listening to the sickly sweet innocent voice for another moment.
Mother, if you ever cared for me, strike me down where I stand.
But Hazel continued her defense of praetor Zhang with nary a bolt of lightning or pillar of flame in sight.
Thanks mom. You’re fucking wonderful…
“And please be more considerate about his eating habits,” Hazel continued, completely oblivious to just how close she was from being punched in the throat, “Frank is not used to his body yet, and we’re trying to get him used to a new lifestyle to maintain it. It would be a real big help if you could be more supportive instead of shaming him for taking two slices of pizza.”
Die! Die! Die! Shouldn’t Thanatos be hauling your ass back to the Underworld anyhow?!
Let’s take a moment to step back and examine why Reyna is plotting a murder-suicide against Hazel. See, it all started when her memory-wiped ex promoted one Frank Zhang to praetor, a move that she would admit made sense given the circumstances. What didn’t make sense though was the Canadian baby-man keeping said field promotion after their collective grandmother was laid to rest. Frank had been a shoddy centurion, so that translated into a shitty praetor on his best day. He was too lax on his troops, didn’t know proper protocol, could barely put on his own armor, and outside of being one of The Seven, he didn’t inspire those under him. And Reyna got it, she really did, it was all so ancient and stuffy and made anyone that took the mantle of praetor into an asshole, but when it came down to it, all that stuff was there to save lives. And Reyna would rather have Frank hate her for trying to shape him into a proper leader than have him live with the regret of getting his people killed.
People, that on average, were not old enough to drive.
And then there was the issue of praetor Zhang’s new and improved body. It was impressive, truly he looked like one of the marble statues that littered New Rome had stepped off its pedestal. It was even inspiring in its own way to the people that remembered Frank as the pudgy kid, that if he could shed the pounds and turn into a Roman god, then they could too! But the problem was, Frank didn’t earn his body, rather it was gifted to him by his father.
Or his father’s Greek counterpart.
Or both of the them.
Fuck, she didn’t know or particularly care.
But like anything that was given rather than earned, Frank’s body was starting to revert back to its natural flabby form. A damn shame really. See, by not working for his body Frank didn’t know how to maintain it. And it didn’t take a genius to figure out that seconds on desert and light cardio wasn’t enough to maintain that muscle. So she tried to help him there too, tried to discourage him from making bad dietary choices and making him run extra laps and perform extra drills with him to halt the degrade.
And yet, in Frank’s eyes (she thinks) and by extension Hazel’s, she was considered nothing more than a schoolyard bully.
Kind of wish I was. I’d punt both of their asses to Temple Hill…
“And remember, you attract more flies with honey, than you do vinegar.”
Jupiter’s jockstrap! Is she still talking? What could she still be talking about?!
“Frank will really appreciate i-”
The evening bell rang signaling the end of the day, the changing of shifts, and most importantly of all, her freedom. With a smile that would have made small children cry, Reyna undid the clasps that held her cape on her armor, removed her sword and sheath, and shoved them into the daughter of Pluto’s arms.
“Gee, that sounds great Hazel, and I’m sure I’ll implement your suggestions in the future,” she said, smile growing even more menacing. “But there’s just one teensy little thing.”
“What’s that?” Hazel asked, shifting the weapon and cloth in her arms.
“It’s not my problem anymore.” And with that, Reyna skipped out of her office into nearly empty halls leaving a befuddled Hazel behind. If she was a bit more daring and there were less people around, she might have been tempted to depart with a two-finger salute, but she didn’t want to burn any bridges or worse, be pulled in front of the senate for an inquiry on her professional behavior. No, leaving Hazel like that was fine, a perfect way to end the day and start the next two weeks of blissful relaxation.
As praetor of the Twelfth Legion, Reyna didn’t get a lot of time off. She may have on paper, but she rarely used those vacation days unless she was on death’s doorstep, which happened once in the last three years. But after the previous summer’s drama with Gaea, Frank’s complete incompetence, the lack of monsters, and Hylla’s insistence to come visit her in Seattle, Reyna decided to cash in all her allotted time off before she snapped, overthrew the senate, and crowned herself empress.
Two weeks of catching up on TV, reading, and cooking with the greatest company I could want: me, myself, and I! And maybe when I get back, if New Rome is still standing, I won’t look like such a bad guy!
“Where does one get vanilla paste?” she wondered aloud as she watched the contestants on the TV race against the clock to finish their dishes for the judges.
Reyna was seated on her couch with a carton of Chunky Monkey in hand and the remote and a pen and pad of paper in reach to scribble down any recipes that caught her eye. She was a shit cook, and a worse baker, but she still loved the act and the terrible shows that went along with it.
“Ricardo, you are a fool if you think you’re going to make ice cream in the next five minutes.” But as she took a bite of her semi-frozen breakfast, the food truck owner from Austin scurried over to the contest ender that was Chopped’s ice cream machine. “Idiot,” she scoffed, mouth half-full of ice cream. “You can kiss that ten-grand adios.”
It was the first morning of her vacation, the first Monday in years that she didn’t feel stressed to the point of ripping someone’s throat off, and the first day in a long time that she felt like a normal teenager. She slept in to six, took a bath, put her pajamas back on, and then spent the next three hours binging The Food Network. Her vacation was going better than expected, and Guy Fieri had yet to take her to Flavortown.
But Ben and Jerry has!
Was it hypocritical for her to criticize her co-praetor’s eating habits when she herself was eating like a pig? No! And she had the abs to prove it! Plus, she planned to go on a jog into the mortal world and pick up a few ingredients that she was positive couldn’t be found in New Rome. Just because she was off the clock didn’t mean her body wasn’t!
“And your ice cream came out as milk,” Reyna laughed, watching the young man fight back tears as his strawberry and avocado ice cream emerged as a liquid. “Loser…” She knew she was being hard on the TV contestants, but this was her way of venting months of pent up frustration without a sword and something to stab. Plus, it wasn’t like they could actually hear her. “That’s right, you’re not getting your second truck! All you’re getting is a one-way trip to-”
Her insult was cut off by an urgent knocking on her door to the tune of Shave and a Haircut. The knock told her that it wasn’t one of the senators, Jason, or even her landlord, as they were all business. Leaving her with but one possible intruder.
“Frank,” Reyna growled as she set her Chunky Monkey on the IKEA end table whose name couldn’t be uttered without summoning a demon before jumping up from the couch and walking to the door. “I swear to Jupiter that if the city isn’t on fire” -she threw the door open- “I will shove my fist so far up your-”
But standing on her welcome mat wasn’t the Canadian teen, but rather two other people she did not wish to see.
“Well, where are you going to shove your fist?” Piper McLean asked, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “You got me curious.”
Annabeth Chase, bit her fist to stop herself from laughing.
Fuck…
Reyna went to close the door, only for the daughter of Aphrodite to wedge her body inside. “Reyna’s not home right now!” she grunted, trying to push her ex’s new girlfriend out. “Please leave a message and never come-”
Piper slammed her shoulder against the door unexpectedly, knocking her off balance and allowing the two Greeks to enter like a couple of vampires that had been invited in. “Wow! Nice place you got here! So, this is what selling your soul to the legion gets you!”
Annabeth extended her hand out to her and smiled apologetically. “Hey Reyna, long time, no see.”
She scowled, but took the offered hand (though she did contemplate judo flipping the blond onto the loud daughter of Aphrodite). “What are you two doing her?” She asked, not even attempting to hide her displeasure at their arrival.
Piper flopped down onto the couch and propped her feet up on the tofteryd, before grabbing her ice cream and taking a huge bite. at that moment, Reyna was seriously considering rallying the legion, driving across country, and razing the Greek camp to the ground for such a serious transgression. “We heard you were taking a vacation,” her ex’s soon-to-be-deceased girlfriend said after swallowing the chunk of Chunky Monkey. “And Chunky Monkey? I never knew you were a woman of class, Reyna.”
“I’m still not understanding why you’re” -Piper raised the spoon to take another bit- “I will slaughter you like a pig if you take another bite!”
Piper dropped the spoon. “Geez… Sorry…”
Annabeth laughed softly and placed one hand on Reyna’s shoulder. “We came here with a proposition.”
“A really good one!” Piper announced as she proceeded to flip through the channels. “You’re a praetor and you don’t even have HBO? The fuck you have to do for that?”
Reyna’s stomach dropped. She was sure that this ‘proposition’ was really a quest with an attached prophecy that said all the rainbow pegasi would perish unless she left her apartment for exactly two weeks with the two Greeks that let themselves into her apartment. Yay! Two weeks of peril, villainous monologues, and confined with two people that everyone for some reason thinks I’m besties with! I’ll just go grab my toaster and take a bath now!
Annabeth, seemingly reading her thoughts (but probably not the suicide or the rainbow pegasi), smiled softly. “It’s not a quest, but rather a vacation of sorts.”
“Not even ESPN 8: The OCHO… what kind of cheap bastards are running this place,” Piper wondered aloud, squinting her eyes in disbelief at the lack of channels on her cable package. The daughter of Athena cleared her throat, and Piper sat upright. “Oh yeah! My dad is filming the third Warcraft movie in the UK for the next two weeks, and he said I could bring some friends to tag along. Naturally, Annabeth was number one on my list, and she figured we needed a third in the event something weird goes down.”
Reyna rolled her eyes. “Have you ever heard of tempting fate?”
The daughter of Aphrodite furrowed her brow. “No, are they new? Name one of their songs.”
“What Piper is trying to say is we would like you to come with us to the UK,” Annabeth said far more eloquently than the buffoon seating on her couch. “You were the first person we thought of-”
“Jason was busy, wasn’t he?”
“Yup,” Piper said, popping the ‘p’.
“What about Percy?”
Annabeth almost cringed. “He’s… busy.”
“Leo?”
“Shacked up with Calypso,” Piper chuckled. “Fully expecting a pregnancy announcement by the time we get back.”
That puts Calypso out of the question… “The big Ares girl?”
“Clarisse?” Annabeth asked. “Off touring colleges.”
I never would have expected that from the future war criminal. “Drew?” She asked, rapidly running out of names.
“Over my fucking cold dead body,” Piper growled.
Reyna snapped her fingers. “Hazel!”
The room went silent as Piper and Annabeth turned away from her. “Hazel’s... nice,” Annabeth began, “But she’s…”
“incredibly annoying,” Piper finished. “I swear to Zeus, I will break her wrists if she fans herself in front of me one more time…”
Huh, maybe McLean isn’t that bad afterall-
“Please Reyna?” Annabeth asked. “An all-expenses paid trip to the England is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Think of all the history we could see, Hadrian’s wall, Buckingham Palace, Stonehenge! And with no quests to hurry us along. Just two weeks the three of us sharing experiences.”
“I’m like, 90% certain, that those places you mentioned aren’t even remotely close together,” Piper mumbled. “But then again, the UK is like the size of LA…”
The daughter of Athena’s grey eyes made it hard to say no to her, especially with such a tempting offer.
Hard but not impossible.
“No thanks, but no thanks! I appreciate the offer and knowing I was in your top ten, but I have plans that I simply cannot break.” She shook her head and crossed her arms. “I just can’t break them again.”
“Like what? Dinner with yourself at six? Three hours of self-loathing at eight?” the daughter of Aphrodite snickered from the couch.
Reyna extended her middle fingers to the chattering imp. “Besides, how would we even get there? Not like we can take a plane.”
Annabeth blushed. “Actually-”
“Brainiac called in a favor from Zeus for saving Olympus on a yearly basis and got his blessing and protection for a round trip,” Piper grinned. “And to further tempt you, we’re taking my dad’s private jet. No coach for this chick.”
Reyna massaged her temples and briefly considered jumping out of her living room window. “Let me get this straight. You asked Zeus for a favor to cross the Atlantic, and he granted it?” Annabeth nodded. “Just walked right up to him and said I want to fly to England and the king of gods said sure thing?”
The blonde nervously tapped her index fingers together and blushed. “I, uh, actually wrote him a letter.”
“Awesome. Well you two have fun! Pick me up a T-shirt or something! Safe travels!” The praetor cried as she tried to shoe the two Greeks from her apartment.
“Please Reyna?” Annabeth asked, lower lip quivering and stormy grey eyes pooling with tears. That caught Reyna completely off-guard. The daughter of Athene wasn’t one resort to emotional manipulation (unless your name rhymed with Jercy or Rico), so to see her like that meant she was genuinely upset. That she really wanted, and needed, her to go. “I promise it will be fun.”
For the briefest of moments, Reyna considered the possibilities of the trip. She imagined herself standing in a replica of the TARDIS. Eating fish and chips at some pub that was older than the United States. Arm wrestling some soccer hooligan; and winning. Visiting Glastonbury and the grave that allegedly belonged to King Arthur. And walking across the vast open fields that her Roman ancestors had centuries before.
And it was the biggest mistake of her life.
For in that instant, the devil that was Piper McLean used her foul sorcery. “Come on Reyna, you totally want to go!”
Before the charm speak tore into her psyche completely, Reyna shouted, “Oh! You evil MOTHER-”
She couldn’t tell you what happened next, or how long she was under the effects of witch’s charm; only remembering a blur of colors and sounds. But when Reyna finally came to, she was on a train zooming across a vast green landscape, sharing a compartment with the foul Greeks with a clearly hastily backed duffle bag across her lap.
“-FUCKERS!”