Leo

Starts With- Shiny Toy Guns

The deck was on fire again.

I had woken up in the middle of the night to a hissing sound and a scream. The captain's cabin was hot. Everything had a warm glow to it. Fire. Again.

Great.

"Leo's coming." I grumbled, making my way upstairs. Piper had met me on the staircase, dragging me up the rest of the way. There was a minute when I wasn't sure what was so wrong. You were talking to the son of the fire god. I could put out the fire of London. But once I saw it- I understood.

It was blazing- like an explosion had gone off directly from the terminator. I could picture Arnold swooping down- throwing the grenade onto the ground- and swooping off like nothing had happened. Off topic, I know. But it was huge- reaching over fifteen feet in some places. It was spreading fast, and was hot. Even standing twenty feet away, I could feel the heat like I was standing in the fire.

Oh. I forgot to mention. The fire was green. Immortal fire.

That changes things, doesn't it?

The mast of the ship was burning fast, turning into a stub of burnt and splintered wood. It was crumbling- fast- leaving me with little time to put the fire out. The team was already helping somewhat. Frank had turned into some kind of huge flying bird, and was circling over the fire spraying as much water as he could. Percy was at the side of the ship using his weird merman powers and creating waves of saltwater that gushed over the flames. Jason, Annabeth, and Hazel were running back and forth from the kitchen with huge buckets of water, but even dumping them on the fire didn't help.

I stood in the shadows, Nico DeAngelo to my right. My mind was turning. What could I do? What would I do? What would be the most Leo-ish thing to do in this circumstance?

I did something stupid.

I charged the flames.

There wasn't exactly a way to describe what it was like to control flames. I didn't know what it was like to charm a snake, but I guessed it was something like that. You just got this huge sense of pride, that you were controlling something wild. Not manmade. Uncontrollable. It was exhilarating.

But that particular night, it just felt like a lot of white hot pain and burns.

I jumped back out of the flames, yelling. My clothes- my fireproof clothes that Calypso had made- were on fire. My skin was red and blistering. The pain was unlike anything I'd ever felt before in my life.

"Oh my gods, Leo?!"

I moved towards Percy, being followed by freaked out Piper. He took one look at me, saw the panic in my eyes, and doused me in salt water. If the pain before had been bad, this was ten times worse.

"This fire's different." I choked out, sitting on the deck, trying to catch my breath. "I can't fight it."

"Yes you can." Piper said confidently. "You can win."

I fought off her charm speak. Gods, she was powerful.

"Um. A little help?" Jason shouted from the other side of the deck. The fire was cornering them- as if it had a life of its own.

"We have to get off." Percy said finally. I shook my head and started to argue, but he interrupted saying, "There's no way we can fight this. Not after the gorgon attack today. We've got to leave, Leo. We're not too far from Greenland- I'm sure I can get us there before morning."

"But the ship!" I shouted above the roar of the fire. "What about all of our equipment? What about Festes?"

He shook his head. "I'm sorry man."

Taking a look at the fire again, I knew he was right. There was no way we could win this one after the fight that afternoon. We'd all been bombarded on the ship, and the fight was long. We'd been totally drained.

"Get on the boat." I'd said. "I'll be there in a minute, I just need to grab something." Percy nodded, taking off towards the others. Nico followed close behind, making me take a second glance. They looked at each other funny. Nico- like Percy was a meal. Percy- like Nico had a disease.

I ran into the engine room, looking for my bag of tools. It was in the corner, next to the steamer. I opened it and looked inside, taking a deep breath when I saw the piece of atlas paper inside. I needed it- bad. It was my only chance of finding… Her.

Festes hung above everything and gave me a sad look. I rubbed my arm and touched his forehead.

"Love you, big guy. I'll find you soon." I promised.

I ran back up to the deck, shoving the bag into the tool belt pocket. It disappeared immediately. Up top, everyone had gotten into the run-away-row boat that I'd made in case of the extremely rare case of an emergency. Like… a huge immortal fire kind of emergency. I was a kid of Hephaestus, so I'd thought it through. Everything was going great. But then, the idea hit me.

Fighting this fire with regular fire wasn't going to work. Running into the green flames without any protection wouldn't work either. The only way this was going to work would be to put it out with some kind of immortal water, or whatever. I seriously considered asking Percy if that existed for about three seconds until I decided how stupid that was.

But then… I had an idea. Which, if you knew me, was generally a bad thing.

"Leo!" Jason shouted, leaning over the edge of the boat. I waved him off.

"Go!" I called out. "Start rowing, I'll get give you a sign when I'm done!"

"No, we're not leaving you!"

"Jason, now!"

He hesitated. I thought about pushing him over the edge, but I had a feeling that could be misinterpreted. I just turned to the blistering heat and started to pray.

Grabbing a wire from under one of the boards in the deck, I ripped it out from under the deck and pulled it with me, dragging it behind me as I went. I was going to blow the ship out of the water for sure, but it was the only way to get attention. There was no way seven demigods would survive on a rowboat in the middle of the demon-infested sea. I didn't care what Percy said, I didn't trust it.

I clipped off the rubber end to the wire to expose the dangerous stuff, and wrapped it around an antenna sticking up in the sky. I thanked Gods for the little Hephaestus kid that had begged me to put a radio in the ship, for gods know what reason. He'd been so little I couldn't say no, so I gave him the project. I finally had a reason. Doubted he'd ever know, but it'd work.

There was a minute when all I did was sit there and pray. I prayed to Zeus mostly, praying for his attention to strike a lightning bolt at a moment's notice, if only to save his favorite son. I prayed to Hermes for quick speed and medical protection. I prayed to my dad for the ability to built whatever other stuff I might've needed to build. I prayed to Athena for wisdom. And I prayed to Hades, so that he wouldn't banish me to Tartarus just because he wanted to.

As I moved back to the front of the ship, there were a few shaky minutes. Then, the sky erupted with light. Thunder shook the clouds, and lightening flashed. Even I'd admit it was beautiful. There were second thoughts when I leaned against the railing, a few moments before watching my creation explode. But I knew it had to happen to get them the head start and attention to be saved.

A white light flashed to my left, hitting the antennae.

The ship exploded.

Everything went black.