(A/N: this is how I think HoH will turn out. I do not own PJO and HoO. POVs are Leo, Hazel, Jason and Annabeth. Please read and review, it's gonna be awesome)
Heroes of Olympus: the House of Hades
Foes bear arms at the Doors of Death
An oath to keep with a final breath
Two half-bloods bear a hero's curse
With heroes' blood the king is nursed
A giant clad in a molten gown
The Eldest rise where shadows drown
I
Leo
Before the Argo II crashed into the Italian countryside, Leo was feeling very confident. He had sworn to wreak vengeance on Gaea. He had repaired the flying ship as best as he could, and with the help of Festus the bronze dragon head he had steered the ship away from the carnage in Rome towards the east, towards Greece. He had been psyching himself up for his next encounter with old Dirt Face, which of course came sooner than expected. He had just been thinking of creative ways of wreaking said vengeance on the grandmother of the gods (and my great great grandmother, he realised with sudden horror) when everything went wrong. The ship jolted suddenly and listed on the starboard side. The hull creaked and the celestial bronze groaned as if they were in some Olympian construction site. Hazel came rushing into the helm, followed closely by a staggering Nico.
"What's happening?" she asked with a horrified look.
"I don't know," he replied honestly. "The ship is sinking. The anti-gravity generators seem to be working just fine. Something is pulling the Argo to the ground."
"Gaea," Leo heard Nico say, and he swallowed hard. It felt like clay from an Earthborn's fist was lodged in his throat. As much as he wanted make Gaea wish she had never messed with Leo Valdez, she was still very powerful, and she was using that power to destroy them, and more importantly, his ship. He turned to Hazel.
"I think I know what's going on. The ship is under some sort of magnetic attraction." Leo pictured a giant horseshoe magnet with cartoon squiggly lines between it and the Argo and a zapping sound. The thought didn't relieve the growing horror in the pit of his stomach.
"I thought magnets only attracted ferrous metals, not celestial bronze," Hazel countered.
Despite the imminent danger looming over them, Leo managed to give her the- thanks for the science lecture Miss Metal Detector- look.
"Celestial bronze is magical. Who knows, maybe there is a celestial magnet out there."
Hazel looked less convinced. The ship lurched again, sending a shudder across the hull. Nico gripped a control panel with pale hands and held on for dear life.
"Look, it doesn't matter," Leo continued. "Can't you try to, like, destroy it or something? Or at least pull it out of the ground."
Hazel closed her eyes. It was almost comical seeing her trying to keep her balance with her eyes closed on the now slanted floorboards. Her brow furrowed slightly as she moved her arms about, trying to keep herself balanced.
"I can sense enchanted metal throughout the whole of Rome. It's like Gaea stroked the whole city with a giant magnet and all the bits and pieces of metal under the earth got magnetised. The entire city is pulling us down."
Leo set the ship's thrusters to vertical ascent with full power. The Argo righted itself again, but shuddered from the overwhelming magnetic pull.
"Brilliant!" he exclaimed sarcastically. "First Percy and Annabeth, now this. Whose side are you on Tyche!"
Hurried footsteps sounded, announcing the arrival of Jason, Piper and Frank. Unfortunately for Frank, the thrusters got overwhelmed by the magnetic pull at that moment and the ship went for a nosedive, causing Frank to fall and skid across the helm, only to crash on the far row of control panels.
"Frank, you okay?" Jason asked the burly guy. Jason had managed to stop himself and Piper from following Frank's path by holding on to the side of the entrance with one arm with the other around Piper's waist. Leo had grabbed Hazel by the arm at the last second and held on to the wheel, reanacting the Percy-Annabeth-hanging-off-the-edge scenario, only this fall was diagonal and not leading to Tartarus. Luckily for Nico, he was already on the far side of the helm so he only had to hold on some more to stop himself from banging his head on the control panel. Frank appeared to have a small gash on his forehead, but was otherwise unhurt.
"I'm good," Frank replied. He tried to get up, but he pressed the control panel buttons and was shocked to the ground as a loud and totally not scenario-appropriate dubstep track sounded across the helm. Frank shouted something towards Leo which was drowned by the hammering base beats of the dubstep track.
"I can't hear you!" Leo shouted back. "Turn the music off!"
Frank didn't seem to hear what Leo was saying, but his face alighted in what Leo could guess was a lightbulb idea. He opted for charades. His arms flailed about in patterns that Leo couldn't understand. Leo gave him a quizzical look. Frank seemed to be making many beckoning signs. Leo guessed that he wanted him to drop Hazel so he could catch her. Leo inhaled deeply.
"Sorry, Hazel!" he shouted to a confused Hazel, and opened his hand. As she fell, the dubstep track came to a sudden halt with only the soft undertones sounding, and he heard her scream at the top of her lungs. With strange (and awesome, Leo thought) coincidence, the track started again the moment Hazel was caught by Frank, resulting in the base beat dropping as Hazel dropped on Frank's arms.
With his now free hand, Leo reached into his tool belt and pulled out his Wii controller. He silenced the music and turned the thrusters from ascent to forward mode. Fortunately for them, the thrusters had prevented a very fast descent, but the ship had lost a lot of altitude. The ship now moved at a diagonal, it was moving forward and falling at the same time with Festus' head reaching downwards. Leo knew that the ship was going to crash, he just didn't want it crashing in the middle of Rome and killing innocent mortals. The Argo was low enough to touch the peak of the Empire State building, the mortal peak that is. He pushed the thrusters to full throttle and craned his neck as he turned to Jason.
"Jason, help me out here," he said. "Summon a freak storm to get us out of here."
Jason nodded, summoned the winds, flew down and placed Piper next to Nico and flew himself out of the helm towards the back of the ship. Leo heard a rumble of thunder and felt the ship gain more speed. He turned to Frank.
"Dude, get out there. We need to reduce the weight on the ship."
Frank frowned, looking offended. Leo realised then what he had just said.
"No, I mean go out there and start throwing things overboard. Throw out everything," Leo thought for a bit, "except for Archimedes' sphere and my grilled cheese sandwich on the table in the mess hall."
Frank turned into an osprey and flew out of the helm. Leo wrestled with his Wii control while he tried, and failed, to pull himself up on to the wheel. Who knew gym class would be useful in a life or death situation, he thought grimly. Jason came flying in and hovered next to Leo. He looked worried with a hint of exhaustion.
"I can't lift the ship, Leo," he said. "Gaea's magic is too strong. We have to abandon ship."
Leo shook his head weakly, but he knew there was no other choice.
"I'll come back for you and Hazel," Jason continued.
"No need," Leo said. "Go on ahead, I'll get Hazel. And Nico."
Jason didn't look convinced, but he nodded and flew out after grabbing Piper. Leo looked outside through the front viewing panel above Hazel's head. The ship was now flying above a field in the outskirts of Rome. He could see a bunch of sheep grazing lazily on the short green grass. A sweater of sheep, he joked to himself half heartedly. A sudden feeling of dread crept up on him as he realised that the ship was going to fall on these sheep. Fortunately, they saw it coming and scattered across the field, but away from harm's way (A/N: no sheep were harmed during the making of this fic, except for the lamb chop I'm eating for dinner). The ship was now dangerously close to the ground. Leo had to act fast.
He shoved the Wii controller back to his tool belt, put two fingers of his now free hand in his mouth and blew out a shrill whistle. Moments later Buford the automaton table came zooming in, leaving Leo glad that he had fixed it when he could. He jumped on it and told it to head for the two children of the Underworld. He pulled Nico onto the table where Nico sat with his legs dangling over the side. Leo extended a hand towards Hazel, sparing her a small chuckle.
"What?" she asked incredulously.
"Nothing," he said, still smiling. "It's just that… your hair looks like you were electrocuted-by lightning-made by Jason."
She scowled at him, letting him pull her up while her other hand went to her dishevelled hair where she used her fingers as a makeshift comb.
"Your hair looks pretty wild itself," she countered and they both laughed as the table zoomed to the helm's exit. It flew over the quarterdeck and over the rails. Leo saw Jason floating with Piper a small distance away, looking grimly towards the ship. Frank was a giant eagle and he had various junk in his claws and beak. Leo turned to look at Hazel. She was having a whispered conversation with Nico, who was clutching her hand. His pale knuckles look strange over her coffee brown hand, and their heads were the same level, reminding Leo that they were about the same age. Leo looked back at the Argo II.
"Wait," he heard Nico say. "Where's the satyr."
"Coach Hedge!" Jason shouted.
Coach Hedge came running on the quarterdeck, brandishing the remote control as a weapon in front of him. He shouted, "Geronimo!" and leaped of the railing. Frank dropped everything he was carrying and dove to catch the adrenaline-pumped satyr.
Leo watched the Argo II's final seconds in the air and cried internally as the ship ploughed into the soft brown-black earth.
"My ship…" he muttered weakly.
"Leo, it'll be OK," Hazel said. "We can fix it."
Leo assessed the damage. The celestial bronze hull was contorted and ripped out beneath Festus. The dragon head looked less damaged than the rest of the ship, but he hung still and unmoving. There was a large rip through the centre of the ship, all glass and everything fragile was broken. Luckily, the box filled with Greek fire did not break, or else the Argo would have been totalled. It would take more than spit and grit and a lot of ductape to fix this.
"My ship…" he responded.
Leo's mind felt numb. His beautiful ship. Months of hard work. It was all gone. He remembered Hephaestus telling him that he could only forge connections with machines and not organic beings. Leo had found out he had the same problem. And he had forged a strong connection with the Argo. Jason might be his best friend, but he wouldn't feel this bad if he died. His hands, which he usually couldn't stop from twitching, were very still. Jason dropped to their level.
"Leo, I'm sorry man," Jason said. He opened his mouth to say more but he didn't seem to have anything more to say. Piper removed a hand from Jason's shoulder and patted Leo on his shoulder. The gesture depressed Leo even further. Frank circled the carnage, with Hedge muttering, "Great ship" in Frank's left claw.
"The statue." Jason seemed to have found his voice. Everyone turned their heads to the ship. Frank flew inside and they all held their breaths for a few seconds. He came out and started screeching something incoherent, though by the looks of things it was important.
"Is it broken?" Piper asked.
There was a rustle of head feathers and Leo realised what Big Bird was trying to say: No. Leo should have felt happy, but he didn't. At that moment he couldn't care less about the brewing war between the Roman and Greek demigods.
"Leo, land now," Jason said. "You too Frank. We need to discuss our next move, preferably around your table, Leo."
"No!" Nico exclaimed. "We can't travel over the earth. It's Gaea's territory. We have to fly to Epirus."
Leo looked at the son of Hades. He looked slightly better than he did when he first came out of his jar of imprisonment. Some colour had returned to his face, so it didn't look like he used milk as a face cream anymore, but it was still incredibly pale. He was a child of the Big Three. Hazel told Leo that she thought he was the most powerful demigod before she met Percy. And she had already met Jason. The twelve year old didn't radiate power like Percy and Jason did. In fact, he looked like he needed it, a lot of it. They said he could animate skeletons, but he looked like a skeleton himself. Leo tried to stop his voice from cracking.
"We can't travel hundreds of miles on a table, can we," he said. "I doubt Jason and Frank have enough energy to fly that far."
"Either way, looks like we gonna have walk," Jason said. "Until we find some way to fly to Greece."
"And where are we gonna find that, in some Roman flying-ship-for-hire store?" Leo's expression softened and he sighed. "I'm sorry Jason. It's just… it's been a long day for me."
Jason nodded. "It's been a long day for all of us." His face was suddenly more determined. In Annabeth and Percy's absence, he naturally took charge. "Right, lets all land and find ourselves transport."
Leo told the table to fly down where it landed on the soft grass. Jason landed next to them and Frank set Coach Hedge on the ground and he changed back to human. They all looked around, expecting a face to appear in the dirt, or monsters to ambush them, but they were met with savage bleating of sheep that were frightened by the crash.
Hazel and Nico hopped off the table (Well, Hazel did the hopping off, Nico climbed gingerly off) and Hazel stood in front of Jason. They had been friends in Camp Jupiter before he went to Camp Half-Blood, but now… not so much.
"How are you so sure we'll find magical transport in Italy?" she asked him.
Jason gave her a reassuring smile. "This is the homeland. We're bound to find something."
Hazel seemed worried about this "something" they would find. Leo got off the table and for a moment he felt like his old self.
"Don't worry Hazel," he said, smiling. "Italian monsters haven't met us; we're in charge of Homeland Security."