Flavour- Chocolate: Leo Valdez

Summary - Leo Valdez regrets skipping training and is bored out of his mind.

Submission to Camp Half-Blood's birthday event.

Disclaimer - I DO NOT OWN PJO/HOO

Happy belated birthday to DaughterofHypnos17


I was bored, everybody at camp was busy and I had decided to ditch my training lessons today.

Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to ditch, but I wasn't just going to stroll into the arena all casually and have everyone stare at my godly lateness. Of course, I loved the attention, but I didn't really have a good excuse for my tardiness. So clearly, it wasn't an option.

So I thought of the next best thing, and no, it wasn't banging my head on a random tree. I would consider it, but it was acorn season. You wouldn't have thought that nymphs were strong, but damn, those nymphs have the strength of Hercules. I have never met Hercules before, but I'm pretty sure that they were stronger.

I had thought of two options, maybe make something that I can sell to some random camper or join a random class starting, they never take attendance, so they would probably not notice an extra camper that's not from their cabin unless they were very observant and know everyone in their class...

I decided that selling something to broke campers was useless, so I went with the latter, joining another class.

Archery was starting with the Ares cabin, but I wasn't really that good with the bow and arrow, and neither was the Ares cabin, even going near the area would cause one to get hit and possibly lose a body part because they just love their poisonous arrows, speaking of poisonous arrows, HOW ARE THEY EVEN ALLOWED?!

Did the Ares cabin bribe Chiron or something?!

Maybe arts and crafts? I could make a little Fetus, with wings made out of pipes cleaners, I could make Mi-tus fly! Maybe Mi-tus should have some glowing eyes, that would be cool- Sorry, I had gotten off topic, but I think arts and crafts would be great- wait, it's with the Hypnos and Athena cabin…

Well, great, just great! The Hypnos cabin would make me sleepy, and the Athena cabin will notice that I don't belong.

Curse the Athena cabin and their smartness. Not literally though, we might need them in case we have an attack.

I groaned I shouldn't have slept in, now I had missed the first few minutes of training and I had even missed breakfast!

I couldn't even go to bunker 9 because I had locked the door and forgot the key inside, Buford wouldn't even open the door for me because he's mad about me cleaning him with Windex- again. I told him that I was sorry 233 times! And yes I had counted!

I sat on a bench just outside of the Hephaestus cabin, continuing to think about what I should do.

Maybe I could visit Camp Jupiter? Wait, nevermind, it would probably be too awkward considering I had blown up their camp a few months prior, I wonder if they had repaired all of the damage? I really would like to check their camp out, but would they let me in with open arms and pretend it had never happened? I mean, it's an option.

Scrape!

What was that? Was it the tree nymphs playing tricks on me again? Or maybe it was the Hermes cabin… Or worse, the Athena cabin had finally found out that I wasn't where I was supposed to be… Wait- Why would they even care about a lowly peasant from cabin nine?

Back to the sound, I had stood up and looked around the back of the bench, from where the noise was coming from.

Scrape!

There that noise was again!

I know I shouldn't investigate because that's how many people die from horror films, but this wasn't a horror film, and it could be just someone pranking me.

I stepped over a few bushes and pushed away a few branches poking me, finding myself hearing the scraping noise a lot louder than before. Then it stopped entirely.

That was strange, maybe they had heard me coming? So I yelled out.

"Come on this isn't funny!"

If this was some campers pranking me, I swear I'm going to kill them and bribe my way into the underworld, and then kill them again, then bring them back to life and cover up all of the evidence, because I can't kill campers, that would be obviously breaking the rules. I am such a good child.

When I had found it, my eyes had widened in horror at what had laid there in front of me.

It was an old man with the camp t-shirt on. His body looked lifeless, he couldn't have been dead for more than a few years.

But that's when I had realized something, his body wasn't decaying-no, it was rusting up.

I gave the body a little nudge with the tip of my shoe to see if there was any signal of life, but there was none.

I nudge it a little harder and soon I had kicked it, leaving my foot in pain. I had just kicked metal!

But not mortal metal, no, it was something stronger, considering it was tinted gold. It was Celestial Bronze. Meaning that whoever had left this here, wasn't some harmless mortal, no it was probably a killing machine or a failed project that could also be a killing machine.

Which also had confirmed what I had been thinking, I had just found an automation.