Disclaimer is still on my profile.
"LEO! You better get back over here or so help me, I'll hunt you down!"
Camp was emptier than usual, but there was still plenty of people around to watch the irate Athenian (me) chase camp's only fire user (Leo) away from the beach.
"Leo, get back here! You're gonna replace that!"
"What'd he do?" a voice asked behind me.
I spun around to find Piper standing behind me. "He ruined my book!" I growled. "The blasted fire user scorched my book!"
"Oh, come on, Grace. It can't be that bad." I know she was trying to protect Leo; Leo didn't need protecting. I held up what remained of one of my favorite books. "Oh." She winced. "Yeah, that's pretty bad."
Pretty bad was like saying Gaea was only a little evil: the biggest understatement of the century. All that remained of my newest book was a few tattered, burnt pages that were slowly crumbling in the wind.
"How'd he manage that?" she asked before I could speak my thoughts.
"Simple," I growled out, still incredibly angry. "He asked me to show him what I was reading, as this used to be an engineering book. He got interested in the machines it discussed and got excited. His hands burst into flames, ruining my book and nearly frying me!"
"Frying you?" she asked. "Oh," she said again as the smell of burnt hair registered. I was missing most of the hair on my arms and one blonde lock on my right side was about two inches shorter than the rest of my hair. I had scorch marks in my shirt.
"Yeah, oh," I growled. "Excuse me, while I go find some materials." I spun around and walked away. Piper knows me well enough to know that even though I'm not acting like myself, I'm not mad at her, though I'd probably apologize later for being rude. Right now, all I could think about was how to hook my camera phone up to a printer. Leo's going to buy me a new book, but first he's going to get a lesson in avoiding angering a child of Athena.
I'd found a couple things about him last summer during the war, and I released all my ammunition at once. First, I went to Aphrodite's bulletin board and anonymously posted a story I'd gotten from two specific dwarves just under a year ago. The hilarious story told about someone nicknamed "Blue Bottom," the one in question so named because, when the dwarves had pranked him, his pants had fallen down revealing his bright blue undershorts. Then, I accessed the printer kept in my cabin and printed off several copies of a picture I had taken on my quest to free the Fates the previous summer. Team Leo was either about to expand or get very, very small; only time would tell which it was.
Annabeth came in just as I was about to enact the second part of my payback. She took one look at me and asked, "What are you up to?"
She knows me too well.
By now, I was no longer quite so mad, and the evil grin stretching across my face did nothing to hide my plan. While others would see the grin and hurry the other way (by now, most people in camp know what I look like when I'm planning a prank), Annabeth would confront me and try to stop it.
With my prank already in motion, even she couldn't stop me this time, so I told her. "Payback. Leo ruined a brand new engineering book. If my timing's right, he's going to start regretting that in five…four…three…two…one…" I pointed out the window right as someone in Aphrodite found my bulletin post. Excited screams filled the air as the story quickly started circling the camp.
Grinning at Annabeth, I snatched up my small stack of papers and ran outside. I was having way too much fun doing this, but Leo had found my last nerve.
In the three days I'd been here for my long weekend break, he'd burned three books and a t-shirt and dropped one of the engineering tools I'd let him borrow so deep into Festus' body it'd never be found. Even Calypso had gotten onto him for that one. So far, all I'd done was yell at him whenever he frustrated me. I was done screaming at him. Friend or not, it was payback time.
Using the chaos to my advantage, I quickly went around handing out the picture I'd printed. I made sure each person that got one was so distracted they'd never remember who gave it to them. Staying unidentified for now was part of my plan.
Eventually, I had one copy left, and I started the final stage.
I folded the paper into an envelope, wrote "Leo" on the outside, and made my way to the Hephaestus cabin, where I was sure fire boy was hiding. Either one of his siblings or one of Aphrodite's should have told him about my bulletin board post, and I knew he'd make himself scarce until the topic of conversation changed.
I knocked on the door, and immediately there was a huge racket inside, but it lasted only a moment before Harley, one of Leo's brothers, opened the door.
"Hey, Harley," I greeted him as if nothing was wrong. "Could you give this to Leo for me? He asked for it earlier and I only just found it. He probably needs it for a project."
Harley studied me a moment. Sensing nothing amiss, he agreed, took the envelope, and closed the door.
I turned and got off the porch. Once out of range of the cabin's cameras, I turned invisible and crept back to the window I knew was above Leo's bunk when it was out.
"You can come out, Leo," I heard Harley say. Leo was probably in the Leo Cave beneath the cabin, but at Harley's words, I heard the metallic grind of his bed coming up. The noise quieted and Harley continued, "It was Grace, but she just wanted to deliver this note. She said you asked for it earlier and needed it for a project.
Leo unfolded the paper and promptly let loose his own version of a cuss word. I started laughing silently from my place outside the window.
Leo got up and started walking toward the door, and I sprinted over to the Athena cabin and turned visible. When he opened his cabin door, his first thought was to hunt for me, but his second thought quickly overrode his first: crap.
Near Aphrodite's cabin, Nyssa looked up from the picture she was holding. Seeing Leo standing in the door, the paper I'd given him hanging limply at his side, she held up the picture and called out two words, but those two words were all the payback I needed: "Team Leo!"
Leo looked askance at me, his expression saying How? I simply gave him a giant, unrepentant grin, and started munching on an opened fortune cookie I'd found.
The next day, just as I was getting ready to leave, I found a new copy of all three books, my tool, and some fireproof cloth, the last courtesy of Calypso, who also left a note stating that if I ever needed help with fireproofing, to come right over.
In LoD (somewhere around ch 30), Grace's first quest had her rescuing the Fates, and she ran into the main quest in Utah. This ties in with a portion of that.
What'd you think? R&R :)
