Set after The Last Olympian. Hope you enjoy.
And before you say anything yes Miss Icarus was the best I could come up with.
Leo POV
Leo was having a great day until Coach Hedge tried to kidnap him. Well it was a great day by Wilderness School standards.
He'd stumbled through English and his friend Piper had kept him alive in history and then he'd butchered his maths teacher's inefficient equations. He was just settling down to balanced meal of chocolate, sweets and burgers when the Coach had taken him aside.
After this he had proceeded to tell him his life was on in danger and he had to leave. Really it all went downhill from there.
Now Coach Hedge was desperately trying to shove him into the back of a van and looking around clutching his baseball bat so tightly his knuckles were white.
"You're in danger!" He'd shout whisper occasionally. Leo wanted to respond saying I know you crazy old man!
The disturbing thing was, this wasn't the weirdest thing that had ever happened to him.
"Hurry up!" He hissed.
"Sure, just let me finish tying my laces coach," Leo had no intention of following the coach into his van and was tempted to set him on fire. Not yet. Leo didn't want to kill anyone else.
"Oh damn it just stick with me I need to go and get Piper anyway."
"Why?"
"Because otherwise you're both going to die!" Coach replied. "Where are those reinforcements?" He muttered to himself.
Leo followed the crazy old man.
Leo followed coach mostly because he feared Coach was going to kill him if he didn't. He couldn't figure out why the coach would want to kidnap him of all people. There were plenty of rich kids at wilderness school, he understood why he was trying to kidnap Piper now there was someone with the kind of money to a pay ransom. Hopefully enough for two.
They had just entered the gym when they ran into the head teacher. Leo had never been happier to see her. She was about thirty and seemed to have personal vendetta against Leo but she was intimidating enough to scare a heavyweight boxer into pissing his pants.
"Miss Icarus!" Coach yelped gripping Leo's arm painfully tight and going so white Leo was afraid there was a leak.
"Coach Hedge, what exactly are you doing with Mr Valdez?" Leo was tempted to scream he was a mental kidnapper but was afraid coach would just kill them both.
"Er training, yeah, training. Because you know, I'm a coach!" He let go of Leo's arm and Leo immediately began to back up.
"Are you ok Leo, you seem ill?"
"He's fine Cynthia." The Coach snapped.
"Actually…" Leo began but was stopped by a look from the Coach.
"Go on," Miss Icarus encouraged.
"Ugh," his throat constricted.
"Sorry Miss Icarus could I use the toilet?" Piper stepped out of Miss Icarus's office and Leo frowned in confusion.
"Not just yet dear," she looked uncomfortably at Hedge.
"I should've known," the Coach hefted his bat. "Step away from the girl, slowly."
Miss Icarus sneered and Leo couldn't help but recoil, were those snake fangs? The fuck is going on? "Or what?" She smiled cruelly. "Do you know why you've had such an issue discovering it was me?"
Before he could reply a spear point burst through his stomach.
Holding it was a one eyed man a couple of inches taller than Leo, behind him about dozen others stood behind them. Half were dressed as gladiators the other half as janitors. All were covered in gold jewellery be it ancient torques or modern Rolex's.
Leo and Piper screamed as coach fell to the floor.
He didn't know what would have happened then had they been left alone. Perhaps they'd have been killed as well, put down with a spear through the back or taken away as slaves.
Whatever it was it didn't matter because just then their reinforcements arrived.
~(#)~
Leo hadn't known what coach meant by reinforcements. He'd expected more weird old men like coach.
The person that burst through the door were certainly not what he had had in mind.
When the door to the gym burst open a guy with black hair wearing scuffed boots with steel toe caps, worn jeans and a cracked brown leather jacket charged through. He had bronze sword grasped in his hand.
The one eyed men never stood a chance, he cut the first ones throat as he'd turned around. He rolled past the second and third and cut down the fourth as he stood.
From there he killed 2 more to cut a path to Leo shoving Leo behind him so they had go through him before they could get at Leo. He did this all before the first one had finished crumpling to dust.
"Arimaspian's," he spat at them seeing coach on the floor gripping weakly at his baseball bat trying to speak. The new guy looked down.
"Don't worry Hedge helps on the way," Coach groaned in response.
"Well, well if it isn't Percy Jackson?" Miss Icarus looked at him. "I hoped you were dead."
"The feeling's mutual," Percy, Leo assumed he was called Percy, replied.
When she snarled and a pythons tail lashed out striking Percy in the chest sending him flying into the wall behind Leo and then circling behind Miss Icarus to wrap around Piper.
When Leo realised that the snake tail was a part of Miss Icarus's body, about where her legs should have been was a single large snake trunk that brought her about ten feet off the floor, even wrapped around Piper.
Where her business suit had been now bronze armour was, and where there had been a clip board was now a great big two handed sword.
Leo heard a gasp for air from behind him and turned to see Percy stand up. No way, Leo had seen the blow that had hit him, he should be dead. He had to be dead.
But Percy spat in the laws of reality and stood up, even more he had no visible wounds. He just shook his head.
"Bitch and I thought the Griffin riders were tough." Percy muttered to himself.
Now Miss Icarus, or whatever she was, looked afraid.
"So you did bathe in the Styx." This sticks bath clearly disturbed the snake woman.
"Maybe a little." He said with a gleam in his eyes.
Leo didn't want to get in the middle of this fight between these crazy people invincible and weird ass monsters but he didn't have much choice, Piper and he were good friends in fact she was his only friend, he had to help her.
Percy tensed he looked like a coiled spring ready to strike. Leo could hear fighting outside in the hallway.
The windows that faced the outside let in plenty of natural light and were only single glazing so it was always freezing no matter the weather outside. Of course it also made the glass easy to smash especially for flying horse. Still it did surprise Leo that a winged horse did actually smash the window flying into the snake lady making her uncoil from around Piper who was thrown and rolled off as far away as she could.
Percy had acted at the same time like him and the black horse had the same mind. He threw his sword and it went spinning through the air killing the closest Arimaspian. He dodged another's spear grabbing the shaft and punching it in the throat. As it collapsed he spun its spear around stabbing down to kill its previous owner who had collapsed and then raising it against those that remained.
He had moved so swiftly the other monsters (Leo didn't know when he had started thinking of them as monsters but it seemed right) had little time to react before Percy turned to face a now recovering snake woman.
The horse backed up nickering nervously.
She hissed at them. Piper was trying to shrink back into a corner, hoping like Leo that they might not notice them if she kept as small as possible.
What was left of the Arimaspians began surround Percy. The fighting outside in the hall was beginning to sound even more intense now.
One of the Arimaspians lunged. "Watch out!" Leo yelled.
Percy reacted immediately with his spear he spun around. He held it near the bottom of the shaft and the tip of the blade cut the throats of the remaining one eyed men bar two who managed to lunge back just in time.
"Agh, Sybaris you promised us easy victory! Now most of my best men lay dead and those outside are probably dead as well."
"Shut up you inept fool. If it wasn't for the secrets of your employer you would still be in that shit whole we found you wearing bear skins and being killed by Griffins! Look at you now rich as a king and all you do is complain." She raged at the Arimaspians before straightening herself.
Her eyes flashed towards Percy, who had paused clearly waiting to hear information. Whatever was going on was clearly some kind of larger scale thing. Maybe some kind of secret monster war. Leo indulged his imagination for a second before bringing his mind back to the present.
"Now be silent." Sybaris finished sizing Percy up. Leo realised Piper was at his side. Clutching a spear she must have picked up from one of the one eyed people.
"Do you know what's going on?" She asked as she held the spear awkwardly.
"Do I fuck," Was his reply.
"These are all from mythology, what is going on?" She practically stomped her foot in frustration.
Percy through down his spear and pulled a pen from his pocket. Leo thought maybe his hallucination was finally ending when he pulled off the cap and the sword he'd been holding appeared in his hand.
He looked like he was going to say something suitably heroic and charge, maybe "time to end this" or "let's dance," but before he could more people burst in.
Percy sprang forward at Sybaris.
The girl who came in first was, in a word, gorgeous. She had blonde hair tied in back in a ponytail and was dressed in clothes had the similar don't mess with me look of Percy's. She was just as quick a Percy and had dispatched one of the final two Arimaspians.
This third one had a sword like the others but it wasn't double edged like Percy's or the girls. It curve downwards and Leo could tell, just by looking at it, that it was weighted more like an axe. He couldn't explain it, he didn't study swords but he could just sense that it wasn't balance as close to the guard as the other two. The third one was massive towering over six feet and he beat down his opponent mercilessly.
Both of them were covered in the dust presumably from the fight out in the hallway and the one that was apparently happening outside in the school courtyard where they had been fighting, what had Percy called them? Griffin riders.
"Percy we need you outside!" The girl yelled at him while the guy who beat down the leader ran to Leo and Piper.
"You two follow me," he tossed Leo a spear as he was the only one who hadn't bothered to pick up a weapon.
"I'll be fine!" Percy shouted back. Leo hadn't noticed how the fight had been going with Percy and Sybaris but had managed to crawl onto her back and was strangling her. His sword lost in the tangle of her tail. His horse (Leo assumed it belonged to Percy) was kicking a snake woman and beating its wings like a crazed raven.
"But we won't, they have an army out there! The Stoll's and Clarisse will be dead if we don't leave now!"
Percy savagely twisted Sybaris's head and she fell dead, her neck broken. Percy picked up his sword almost casually.
"They outside?" Percy asked. Both the big guy and the hot girl nodded.
"The windows are the fastest way out." The big guy said as he herded Leo and Piper towards the one shattered by the horse.
"A Pegasus," Piper breathed as if only just realising it was winged.
"We don't have all day you two." Percy shouted at them. He picked up coach hedge who screamed in pain but still clutched his club tightly.
He threw Coach Hedge's limp form onto the Pegasus. "Go up to the other Pegasi and have them circle around, we need to be out of here now." Leo doubted the horse understood but it left as Percy leapt out the window presumably to kill more monsters.
"You two," the hot blonde pointed at Leo and Piper, "I'm Annabeth, that was Percy this is Jake," the big guy waved at us as Annabeth made her introductions at rapid fire speed. "Stay close to us when you're out there and do exactly as we say, do you understand?" We nodded.
"Let's go kick some arse then," Jake said.
~(#)~
Outside it was a fully-fledged battle going on. There was a chariot manned by two people in the sky one driving one firing arrows at what looked like three flying lions.
On the ground things were just as chaotic.
Two guys, they looked like twins, fought side by side moving as one against what looked like even more Arimaspians. They were both wiry and strong looking holding swords and daggers to fight their enemies off.
The third new one was a huge girl in armour. She was the only one armoured and she wore it like she was born to it. The armour itself looked like it had been carved out of ivory as did all of her weapons that hung from her hip (though Leo could tell they were sharp) the weapon in her hand was spear. Because of the helmet she wore Leo could only tell it was a woman because its chest was clearly to afford for a woman.
Percy and the new girl were each fighting their own separate enemy, giant bear men that were viciously beating at them with huge clubs.
"Argius and Oreus," Annabeth muttered, "I hoped they'd stay dead."
Percy dodged around the clubs, without armour he moved rapidly and smoothly nipping at the giant with his sword waiting for him to stumble so he could administer the killing blow.
The big woman just took the hits on her shield matching her strength against the giants and she advanced fearlessly against it. When he stumbled before her inexhaustible her spear skewered him.
At the same time Leo saw Percy leap up towards his own bear man bringing his sword up in an arc splitting its head in two.
Leo couldn't help it he stared at them both in awe.
"Well, they didn't last long." Jake said chuckling.
The Pegasi had clearly understood Percy as they appeared over the sky. Dust was falling as final griffin was dispatched. Despite this Leo saw Percy and the big girl fighting a losing battle as they joined the twins to fight off the Arimaspian horde.
"Get on the Pegasi go!" Percy yelled.
The chariot landed and the guy with the bow was loosing off arrows with amazing speed. Leo watched monster after monster fall with an arrow between the eyes or in the throat. This gave the others the chance to withdraw and mount up Leo went to the chariot as he had never ridden a horse and didn't want to suffer the indignity (and death) from falling off.
All of them were now mounted except Percy and Piper who couldn't make it to a Pegasi. The chariot began to take off. "What are you doing?" Leo yelled.
"They'll be fine but were too close together every monster on the west coast can smell and is probably heading our way," the archer dude replied calmly shooting is final arrow. "I'm out now Butch it's up to you."
Butch grunted in response. However Leo saw it was going wrong, the twins had taken off but were now shooting their own arrows at air, well it looked like air until Leo got a better look and saw that it was more like cloud half formed into human shapes and crackling with lightning.
Jake had flown up to the chariot and coach hedge had clearly changed hands as now he was on a white Pegasus that Jake was flying. "We need to be out of here!" Jake shouted against the wind. "Rhodian giants are down there now, they knew we were coming!"
"Where's the others and that girl who was with them?" The archer asked.
"Percy's cutting his way through trying to get them somewhere safe. Some will follow us the rest should chase Annabeth, Clarisse and the Stoll's, whoever's left Percy will kill and fly back to camp with the spoils." Jake whooped with delight. He was covered in green blood and dust. His eyes had the wild light of someone high on their own adrenalin.
Leo was outraged. "You're just going to leave them!"
"Don't worry." The archer replied calmly as the wind picked up and they headed east. A storm was rising. "Percy knows what he's doing. No one better to protect her."
Leo was still out raged but he was three thousand feet up, surrounded by buff monster killers and a storm was coming. There was nothing he could.
Please Pipes be alright.
~(#)~
When they got to camp it was clear things were not alright.
A horseman called Chiron met Leo where they landed, seeming mildly surprised they hadn't crashed into the lake.
From there a flaming hammer came over his head and after a lot of gasping and explain Leo found out he was the son of Hephaestus an Olympian god.
His cabin councillor (who happened to be the big guy Jake) told him about camp, the gods, how life was dangerous for a demigod blah blah blah. He showed him everything camp had to offer before giving him a dead mans bed and introducing Leo's new siblings.
All this floated over Leo's head as he watched for Piper returning on a Pegasus but it became conspicuously obvious that wasn't going to happen.
First to arrive after the chariot were Stoll's and not only did they bring gifts for everyone (with suspiciously large wallets) they also brought stories of daring and adventure from their latest mission.
The big girl, Clarisse was her name, came next. She looked delighted and came to thank Jake for her new Drakon Bone armour.
"Hey," he told her, "you killed it and that carcass could allow me to make a million more."
Leo saw that Clarisse's body armour wasn't all one piece, instead it was scales all sewn to a leather backing to form an impenetrable armour.
"Maybe just one more fitted for a man." Clarisse said with a gleam in her eyes. "They could be the armour and weapons of Cabin five. To be used by the head councillor." Jake nodded and told her he'd get right on it.
Then blackjack, the Pegasus that had helped save Leo's life turned up. That was when people started to get worried but apparently Percy was some kind of big shot as even this could be shrugged off as 'its Percy, he's probably with Annabeth now riding back to camp fashionably late.'
It was getting dark and Leo was sitting next to Coach Hedge's bed while he lay there unconscious. It had been an odd conversation when he'd found out he was goat man from the doctors (some of whom were younger than Leo)
At last the final Pegasus landed and all hope was finally abandoned.
"Where's Percy?" A girl luscious brown hair, called Katie Gardener, asked.
Leo saw that Annabeth looked shaken. She had injuries Leo hadn't noticed and fell off her Pegasus. A couple of people ran forward to catch her and giver her drink of, was that apple juice?
"I," she started and then began coughing. "I don't know, I lost him and the girl," she paused and looked to Leo.
"Piper," Leo said, "her name is Piper."
Annabeth nodded, still leaning on the two who had stepped forward to help her, and continued "Piper, when more monsters came."
"Surely Percy can handle a few Arimaspians?" Someone from the crowd called.
Annabeth shook her head. "It wasn't just Arimaspians there were," she paused and took a breath. "There were at least three god beings."
By this time Chiron had arrived and Annabeth was trying to stand but was still shaky on her left leg. Leo saw there was an arrow through it.
"Chiron I think I know who the murderers are." Chiron looked around and nodded.
"A councillor meeting then." He sighed looking a Leo who wanted to ask him so much, even he was half horse. "I am sorry my boy but I will speak to you in the morning, Councillors to the big house and Will bring your supplies Annabeth will need them!"
Leo wanted to protest. He barely understood what was going on it was all too fast. Everything the Gods, the monsters, he couldn't even tell if he was in the same country.
So he did the natural thing, he collapsed.
So how was that? It took a lot of digging and research to find those monsters. I hope you all enjoy not having to sit through "And the Minotaur was there!" Yes I did reuse the Giant bear twins from the Sea of Monsters (and killed them off a bit too quick) but by the time I had realised Rick used them they were in the chapter so I guessed you guys wouldn't notice until I mentioned it.
Did you enjoy? I'm kind of out on a limb here as to whether or not I should continue. I know you're all probably confused but then again this was meant to be confusing.
Want to find out who the murderers are? What's happening? Why am I not setting it after HoO? Well I'll answer the last one, because this way suits my story better.