From Mortal To Divinity

"So how do you want to do this?" asks Lucas to his fellow centurion.

Lucas, centurion of the fourth cohort, and Kyle, centurion of the third, are currently standing on the Field of Mars with their respective cohorts and Hannibal, the war elephant, standing a few feet behind them in formation. They are currently planning on how to win the upcoming game of siege.

The rules of the game are simple, one team, made up of two cohorts, defends a fortress while another team attempts to breach the fort, seize the banner of the opposing team, and take it out of the fortress. The defending team is given the fort along with an arsenal of weapons, including water cannons, scorpion ballistae, and iron portcullis, while the attacking team gets Hannibal the war elephant.

Today's game of siege is between the first and second cohort as team one versus the third and fourth cohort as team two, making it a very uneven match in the favor of team one. The situation is made even worse by the fact that team one is the defending team and gets to hide in the fortress. Usually the teams are far more evened out, however it seems that praetor Alex has something against the son of Neptune. Lucas doesn't know what it is, and frankly he doesn't care, he just can't wait for her to retire in two years.

"Normally I'd say to use one of diversion tactics, but ever since Azula joined the first cohort nothing has been able to let us get close to the fortress, especially when she decides to take inspiration from Jupiter himself and start throwing lightning bolts like they're going out of style. The field is just way too open for us to evade her storms." replies Kyle.

"That's it!" exclaims Lucas "Storm. We have our own stormbringer, we'll just have to count on him."

"Probatio Malphas?" questions Kyle "I don't mean this as an insult, but are you sure that he can compete with a child of Jupiter when it comes to summoning storms."

"It's the best option we have right now."

Turning to face his cohort Lucas commands "Probatio Malphas"

His call is answered by Ambrosius leaving his line and quickly approaching them. Ambrosius wears the standard legionnaire uniform of full roman armour, a short stabbing sword called gladius, a dart or heavy javelin called pilum, a pair of shoes with heavy metal cleats, a dagger called a pugio, the only thing missing is the thick heavy rectangular shield, which covers the entire body.

Stopping a few feet away from the duo, Ambrosius salutes before speaking.

"You wanted to see me sir." responds Ambrosius in a serious voice that Lucas has come to call his soldier voice.

How a ten year old can sound so serious is a question beyond him.

"When we spoke earlier this week you said that you've known Azula since you were kids and that a lot of your training was done together. If she starts a storm do you think that you could protect our cohorts from the worst of it?" asks Lucas.

"I can most certainly counter a general storm however, if she decides to target a specific person with a lightning bolt there is nothing that I can do to counter it." replies Ambrosius.

"Can you bring down the walls of the fortress or hide our advance from the enemy?" asks Kyle.

"Naturally I can do both. I can hide our advancement with a fog and bring down the wall with an earthquake." responds Ambrosius as he unconsciously stands straighter and slightly puffs out his chest.

Lucas raises an eyebrow. He's known the boy for a week, and this is the first time he's seen him display such pride, especially unconsciously.

"Good. I want you to hide our advancement for as long as possible, and to bring down the wall when I give the order." commands Lucas.

"Yes sir." replies Ambrosius.

Just as Ambrosius finishes answering, The whistle to begin sounds off.

Lucas nods at the son of Neptune to begin. The first sign of Ambrosius doing something is the glow of the irises of his eyes increasing slightly, reminding Lucas of a cat's eyes glowing in the dark. The second sign is the rumbling of thunder getting closer and the temperature in the atmosphere getting warmer. Eventually the sky over the Fields of Mars becomes completely covered in dark clouds as lightning flashes and thunder rumbles. Lucas can't help but look at the sky in awe, completely missing the mist rising from the ground.

By the time Lucas gathers himself to look back down, the Fields of Mars is completely covered in fog and the light from afternoon sun is completely covered by the storm clouds.

Lucas turns to look at the most dangerous ten year old alive, perhaps even the most dangerous demigod, and can't help the chill that crawls down his spine when he sees the wolfish grin on the child's face.

Gathering himself, Lucas turns to his fellow centurion who also seems slightly unnerved. While they've seen storms created by demigods before, Azula makes frequent use of them during war games, they've always been destructive storms that if you have enough warning you can steer clear of them. What Ambrosius has done however is potentially more dangerous. In a few seconds he completely changed the battlefield. While a fog by itself is nothing special, if it's used correctly it can have devastating effects, from making the enemy self-destruct due to not being able to see the battlefield, to setting up ambushes, and even helping your army retreat.

"I'll take my cohort along with Hannibal to divert their attention away from you." says Kyle.

"And I'll take my cohort to breach their flank." finishes Lucas.

With a nod to each other, they separate and return to their respective cohort.

"Alright, listen up!" orders Lucas "The plan is simple. The third will take Hannibal and attract the majority of the other team's attention to them. Meanwhile, we'll flank the fortress and breach their walls with our walking earthshaker. Any questions?"

While nobody has a question, the members of the cohort can't help but nervously glance at the son of Neptune standing next to him when Lucas says earthshaker.

Ignoring his cohort's nervous glances, Lucas gives the order to move.

The march itself is an uneventful affair other than the very low visibility. It however, could have been much worse without Ambrosius there to discreetly lower the fog and make it easier to see.

Eventually they start to hear loud banging noises coming from their far left, and are given the order to stop marching.

"How far away from the fortress are we?" asks Lucas.

"About twenty yards away" answers Ambrosius from his right side.

"How close do you need to be to bring down the wall?"

"I can do it here, but it will be messy. I need to be closer to be more precise."

Nodding, Lucas gives the order to resume the march. Soon they make it to ten yards away and stop.

Lucas looks to his right where he can barely see Ambrosius and nods.

"Bring down the wall" he says.

Ambrosius simply nods and closes his eyes to concentrate. Soon the earth begins to shake and the fourth cohort can easily make out the sound of the fortifications holding the wall up cracking. A few seconds later the fortifications break and that section of the wall comes tumbling down.

Approximately fifteen seconds after the wall breaks, a major gust of wind sweeps by the field, blowing away the fog and restoring visibility. Unfortunately for team one, the fourth cohort has already made it inside and are currently fighting the members of the second cohort that survived the effects of the earthquake and the wall crashing down.

Lucas surveys the battlefield as he knocks out a legionnaire using a shield bash. Naturally the battle is in the favor of the more skilled and organised second cohort.

"Leave the formation, and sneak inside to retrieve the flag" he orders Ambrosius who is fighting next to him.

Without saying anything Ambrosius discreetly slips away from the battle.

Circ.u.mventing the battle, he makes his way into the fortress. The design for the fortress is simple enough to be built in just a few hours yet still provide a basic defense from anything except aerial attacks and natural disasters. It is honestly just four walls that are built and connected to each other to make a square and armed with an arsenal of weapons, such as water cannons, scorpion ballistae, and iron portcullis. The inside is an empty square since it was designed with the idea of being built around the legion's camp.

Stepping into the square Ambrosius is surprised to see it empty except for the flag situated in the middle of the square, and Azula who is guarding it.

"You didn't think that it was going to be that easy did you?" asks Azula as her friend stops a few feet away from her.

"Honestly, no. I expected that Centurion Olivia would send you to guard the flag, especially after she found out that you couldn't disperse the fog. I didn't expect for you to be the only one however." replies Ambrosius.

"Well, the third cohort surprisingly managed to breach a section of the wall using Hannibal. How they were able to make it that close without us hearing the elephant coming is beyond me." answers Azula.

"What I wish to know however, is how were you able to stop me from blowing the fog away?"

Ambrosius simply smiles mysteriously and says "Trade secret"

Azula raises an eyebrow before disregarding his answer.

"Keep you secrets. However you probably spent a lot of energy on that trick, and creating that really precise earthquake to bring that specific section of the wall down didn't do you any favors." she says as she sheathes her legionnaire gladius and summons Crocea Mors.

"You don't have the reserves to pull things like that off unscathed yet, that means you won't be able to make any giant lightning bolts, earthquakes, and certainly no storms. You have to fight me with only your skills while I still have enough power to make a storm."

By the time she finishes speaking the sky is already further darkened with clouds and the roar of thunder rings much louder than before.

Ambrosius sheathes his legionnaire gladius and presses the gem on his ring, turning it into his beloved trident. Normally he would take her claims as a challenge and respond in kind. However he knows that she's telling the truth. The power he used to stop her from blowing away the wind was essentially a combination of his father's stormbringer's powers and his mother's ability to affect a battlefield. The technique isn't complete yet and is still a bit crude and inefficient to use energy wise, especially since he's still ten years old. Once complete the technique will be able to give him absolute control over the battlefield, from area of effect attacks such as storms, to precision strikes like targeting a specific person in a formation with a lightning bolt, and even knowing where exactly everything is on the battlefield down to a centimeter. Unfortunately it isn't complete, and he's still a ten year old.

However that doesn't mean that he can't win. He'll just have to be smart about it.

Without saying anything Ambrosius launches his trident at Azula. Azula quickly sidesteps the oncoming weapon, letting it fly past her and in the pole holding the flag behind her. Not sparing the trident a second glance, Azula rushes Ambrosius just as he conjures a perfect replica of Crocea Mors in his hand and sprints to meet her in battle.

Azula blocks the first stab and redirects it outwardly away from her, however Ambrosius quickly follows the momentum of the redirection and quickly turns it into another attack that she dodges. The battle quickly turns into a blur of practiced forms for the two as they block, parry, dodge, stab, redirect, stab. It seems as if they are evenly matched however, Ambrosius ducks under a stab and takes the opportunity to sweep her feet out from under her. Azula quickly recovers and uses the momentum of the fall to roll away from him before springing back to her feet.

As Ambrosius rushes her, Azula raises her sword to the air and smirks. Immediately a big lightning bolt falls from the sky and strikes her sword, and without missing a beat she redirects the bolt at her fast approaching enemy. Ambrosius, unable to dodge the oncoming strike, simply brings his sword up to guard as the lightning launches him off his feet and sends him flying back, straight through the wall of the fortress and onto the field.

Groaning, he slowly stands back up and surveys the now quit battlefield. Azula's stunt with the lightning bolt did not go unnoticed, and now both teams have stopped their battle to watch the commotion. With another groan Ambrosius raises his arm over his head as he lets his conjured sword dissolve. To the spectators it looks as if he's simply raising his hand in surrender, however that's quickly proven to be false as his trident comes flying out of the sky and into his waiting hand, surprising the onlookers. The truly surprising thing isn't his trident, what really surprised the assembled legion is that attached to the middle prong of the trident is the flag pole with the flag of team one in it.

Ambrosius smirks as he brings his arm down and detaches the flag pole from the trident's prong and says "I believe that victory belongs to my team."

His words spoken, Ambrosius closes his eyes as consciousness leaves him.

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Waking up, Ambrosius finds himself laying down on a bed that is most definitely not in the barracks. The room is painted white, with absolutely no decorations in it. Surveying the room he immediately sees Azula sitting on a chair next to his bed.

"How long have I been out." he asks as he sits up.

"About an hour because of your bullshit healing factor. Jake, that's the healer by the way, said that you'll have to stay overnight so that they can make sure that you heal properly, healing factor or not. Apparently they don't really trust anything other than proven methods to heal people, especially not some bs demigod power like a healing factor." she responds.

"Hmm, if my healing factor is bullshit, what does that make your ability to control sound? You can literally transmit the sound of your voice to anyone in a room and charmspeak them without the other occupants hearing. And that's one of the tamest ways I've seen you use it."

Azula merely shrugs, her face taking on a more serious expression than before.

"Alex is out to get you" she bluntly says.

"I've known since day one" he says with a scoff.

"It's worse than you think. When you passed out holding the flag it was decided that your team won, what you did with your trident was valid. Since it was you who won them the game, the fourth and the third were pushing for you to get your tattoo, but Alex was having none of it. However, Julia agreed and so did the first, and it was decided that once you're discharged from the infirmary you would be taken to the augur to receive your tattoo. Alex, seeing that she couldn't stop you from getting your tattoo, decided that she'll get her way by having given to you while you're unconscious. For some reason Julia didn't try to stop her." explains Azula.

Hearing what she said, Ambrosius immediately lifted his arms to check. Sure enough his tattoo is there, the abbreviation SPQR written over a trident is burned onto his left forearm. Seeing it should have brought him a sense of pride, especially since he probably has the fastest record for induction, it only took him a week. He arrived on saturday and received his tattoo on friday. However no matter how much he looks at it he doesn't feel that pride over his achievement.

While receiving the tattoo unconscious might not seem like a big deal, it is in fact an insult. When one receives their tattoo for the first time, it is because they have done something that Rome recognizes as worthy of mention. It's similar to when a child achieves something and the child's parents show it off to others with pride.

However, by giving it to him while he's unconscious, Alex is basically telling him that his achievement means nothing, that while he has accomplished something impressive, he himself is not worthy of it. She's spitting all over his accomplishments and everything he's done to achieve them.

Before he can fall too deep in his rage and obliterate the camp with an earthquake, Azula places her hand on his arm and calms him down.

"Don't worry" she tells him as a sadistic smile slowly grows on her lips. "She'll get what's coming to her. I promise."