Not going to bother with an author's note so yeah.

Let it commence

III

Leo

As soon as everyone was on board Leo called an emergency meeting. Once everyone took their seats, Leo cut straight to the chase.

"We have to sail back to Camp Half-Blood and help them defend against the Romans. Now since I got Archimedes' notes, I can upgrade the Argo II's engines, we'll be doing a lot of air travel, seeing Percy isn't here."

"But we have to save Percy and Annabeth! They would have done the same for us… for any of us" said Hazel incredulously.

"I know Annabeth, she would have done the strategical thing and saved a camp full of half-bloods to fight in the war then tried to save the others. The choices are either hundreds of demigods, not to mention the romans who we might be able to get on our side now with this statue, or two demigods who we don't know for sure are alive let alone saveable!" It all came gushing out of Leo like a tidal wave, Hazel had started to tear up. He hadn't meant to be so harsh, but it was the truth and it's not like they could ignore it any longer.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that." Leo said, more to Hazel than anyone else.

Jason was the one who replied to this rather than Hazel. "Yes you did, it's the truth and we needed to hear it. Our best chance is Camp half blood." As Jason said this his facial expressions didn't waver, it was like he was wearing an expressionless iron mask. Leo knew that he and Percy weren't the best of friends at first but something had changed, it looked like they were about to become best friends, but now Percy was gone. He could tell that Jason blamed himself for it, he saw it in his eyes. He saw that looked down at the polished, mirror like bronze of the ship's deck.

"Ok" Leo clapped his hands and rubbed them together breaking an awkward silence. "We've got work to do, Hazel and Frank I want you to go below deck and do a stocktake, we'll need a list of what we've got if we plan on effectively helping Camp half-blood. Piper and Coach, can you take Nico below and give him the grand tour, when you're done find him somewhere to bunk and try to properly secure the Athena Parthenos."

Frank and Hazel looked happy about being paired together but Piper didn't look thrilled about being put into a group with Coach Hedge. Her face looked like someone who had just decided that a cactus might be a tasty snack and taken a big bite out of one, Leo knew exactly what that face was like, from personal experience. Aaaah, sweet memories…

Jason's voice brought him back to reality, "Hey, great leadership skills and all but you forgot to put me in a group. Maybe I could go with Piper?" He said this so hopefully I almost forgot about mister 'It's all my fault' guy. But not quite, Leo had to talk to Jason, in private.

"No, I need you to come with me."

"But I'm no good with mechanics, when I was ten I managed to blow up an electric toothbrush."

"What?!" Leo laughed hysterically, everyone else joined in except Jason, it wasn't even really that funny but it was good to have an excuse to smile after what had happened in the last hour, eventually even Jason started to laugh. Once the laughing had stopped Leo started talking again "I need to talk to you, plus I figured that now Annabeth's not here we need a knew co-pilot, and seeing as though we're gonna be flying and your dad is the god of the sky… well, it seems right."

Jason finally agreed and everyone went about to their assigned jobs, they were working like a well-oiled machine, in the words of Hephaestus. Leo went up to the controls and Jason followed him. Leo punched the co-ordinates into the built in GPS, Camp Half Blood, Farm Road 3.141, Long Island, New York 11954, and they floated up into the sky, the city of Roam sinking behind the clouds. Leo worked all the controls as he would without anyone watching but gave a commentary as he went, Jason stood off to the side, his eyes on Leo the whole time and his mouth slightly open. When he was done Leo turned to face Jason who opened and closed his mouth like a fish gasping for air, "So did you get all that?" Leo asked, an impish grin on his face.

Jason went over the procedure three times with Leo to make sure he remembered it, Leo only had to help him twice which was pretty good seeing as though it took almost fifteen minutes to get in the air at full speed on auto pilot. Only Annabeth could have gotten it first go… but no, he couldn't dwell on that, he had to get to camp and save his friends, his family. It was his responsibility.

He hadn't realised but he had been silent for almost a whole minute. He snapped back to reality to find Jason asking him if he was ok. "Yeah man, sorry I was just thinking."

"It's not all your fault and it's not your responsibility, we're meant to work to our strengths, sure, but we're also meant to work with each other's strengths. That's how Percy and I defeated the giants, we shared the responsibility. It's not all on you." Jason said with that sad distant look in his eyes again.

Leo was momentarily stunned, "How did you know what I was thinking?"

"Because that's exactly how I felt before Percy and I fought together. Hera made us a team for a reason. Camp half-blood is my second home, I know how you feel."

Leo wasn't sure he did but there were more serious matters to attend to, "Soooo, whats the plan?" asked Leo with a cheeky grin on his face.

"What?! I thought you had a plan!" Said Jason, concern spreading across his face.

"Seriously? I have plans, sure but they're for my chicken nugget smoke screen" Leo did have a plan but they were more of a last resort type thing and he didn't want to bring the idea up unless:

a) He was sure it was going to work

b) He knew it was safe (enough)

c) There was no other option

So for the time being Leo figured that Jason would be their official plan maker.

"I don't really know, we don't know how many of them there are, what weapons they have or even if they've found Camp yet. I figured we should try a diplomatic approach, I could try and talk to Reyna and if that fails I guess we have to fight them, but we just can't kill them. That's going to be our biggest disadvantage, Octavian is trying to kill us but we can't kill them. They are only doing this because of him they are innocent. If only we could see the Roman forces, we need to know what's going on or we have no hope." Jason said this as if it where the easiest thing in the world, then it struck Leo that it was. "I've got an idea!" Leo ran below deck, he had created something that could be vital to the survival of camp and it was sitting down stairs. He had modelled it off a shield that Annabeth had shown him at camp, it was left over from the titan war and if he could use his version correctly he could spy on the Roman camp without them ever knowing.

Ha! I powend on cliff hanger! If you think you know what this contraption might be leave a comment! :p