A/n: I own nothing except my OC
Leo
"Who is Aunt Rosa?" Hazel asked.
Leo really didn't want to talked about her. The words Nemesis had spoken were still buzzing in his ears, taunting him. His toolbelt seemed heavier since he put the fortune cookie in its pockets, but that was impossible. It could carry anything without adding extra weight, even the most fragile, breakable things. Still, he imagined that he could feel it like a rock in his pocket, weighting him down while waiting to be broken open.
"Long story," Leo responded. "She abandoned me after my mom died and gave me to foster care."
"That's harsh." Yahan spoke up. Leo looked back at their two companions. Since they had left the spot where they had met the goddess, they had hung back a bit, giving Leo and Hazel space. Maybe to talk, he didn't know, but he did notice that Tobias had turned introspective, looking at the ground with a thoughtful and even slightly confused looked on his face as they walked. He and Yahan were also holding hands, which sparked a slight jealousy in Leo's heart before it went out.
"I'm over it now," Leo said, even if he wasn't. "By the way, who is Karasuba?" The name sounded weird to him, like maybe it was a Latin word or the name of a god.
Yahan's face tightened. "Someone I hope to never see again." She said tightly. Tobias rubbed his thumb on the back of her hand gently. That seemed to calm her down a bit and she sighed. "Since we seem to be playing twenty questions, what did Nemesis mean about your brother Nico?" She addressed Hazel.
The girl blinked like she had gotten salt in her eyes. "Nico...he found me down in the Underworld, in the Fields of Asphodel. He brought me back to the mortal world and convinced the Romans at Camp Jupiter to accept me. I owe him for my second chance at life."
"So Nico is a demigod?"
"He's the son of Hades, the Greek aspect of the god of the Underworld." Tobias explained, seemingly coming out of his inspection. "So yeah, he and Hazel are half siblings. Still, from what I've heard Nico is...odd."
"What do you mean by that?" Hazel asked, sounding slightly offended for some reason.
"It's nothing against you or him," Tobias responded quickly. "But Nico has always been a bit of a loner from what I've heard. He doesn't stay in one place for a long time, doesn't really open up to anyone. You might actually be interested in him." He said the last sentence to Yahan. "He can shadow travel too."
"Really?" The girl did look interested.
"Yeah."
"Ok, moving on." Leo felt they had more pressing matters than discussing shadow related abilities. "Did you understand anything Nemesis said? About Nico dying or Rome being destroyed in six days?"
Tobias shook his head. "Nothing solid. I have some ideas, but nothing else. I think that she wants us to work it out on our own?"
"How did you stay respectful around her anyways? I felt like punching something every time I looked at her." Leo asked.
"So did I. Then I remember that I'm not looking at the thing I hate most, I'm looking at a goddess who just looks like what I hate most and who is just doing what she does." Tobias shrugged. "I can't blame her for doing what she does."
Leo thought. That made sense. He couldn't blame a machine for doing what it was built to do, and he couldn't blame himself for building what he built. Everything he made was made with a purpose and if it didn't fulfill that purpose, then what good was it? "That's...surprisingly insightful." He admitted.
"I try to keep an open mind," Tobias smiled ruefully. "It doesn't always work, but sometimes it does." They walked in silence for a few seconds before the silver eyed teen broke it again. "How much farther to the bronze Hazel?"
"A few hundred feet." She answered instantly, like she had been waiting for someone to ask. Then she hesitated before saying, "Hey, Tobias?"
"Yes?"
"Where did you and your friends come from?" Everyone looked at him, stopping for a second so they could. Leo had to admit, he was curious on where they had come from, and how they had arrived. He had seen the sparking and reaching electrical tendrils followed by the flash of light, but nothing he knew of did that. Plus that leather on his wrist with the number pad and small screen...Leo had a sense of machinery and how complicated it was, but looking at that piece of metal had only made him confused. It was like his instincts couldn't even begin to understand it, which was really weird to him.
"Someplace complicated." He and Yahan both snorted with amusement before he elaborated. "And very, very far away. But let's talk after we find the bronze and this cursed boy Nemesis mentioned."
"Cursed boy Nemesis mentioned." A voice echoed the words behind Leo. Everyone looked ahead for the source of the voice. At first Leo didn't see anything. Then his eyes adjusted and he spotted a younger woman, ten feet away from them.
Her dress was a Greek-style tunic that was the same colors as the dead grass around them, plus the trees leaves and bark. Her hair blended in with the dead grass near the bottom, with the colors brown, gray and blonde matching the color scheme perfectly. Up near the top it blended in with the darker brown of the bark and light green of the leaves. She wasn't invisible, but she was almost perfectly camouflaged until she moved, but even then Leo had trouble focusing on her. Her face was pretty but not memorable. Actually when Leo blinked he forgot what she looked like and had to concentrate in order to find her again.
Hazel took the first action. "Hello, who are you?"
"Who are you?" Was the answer she got from the girl. She sounded weary, like she was tired of asking that question. Leo and Hazel shared looks. In the demigod business, you never knew what you'd run into, but nine times out of ten, it was bad and wanted to kill you. A ninja girl who was camouflaged in earth and nature tones didn't strike Leo as something he wanted to deal with.
"Hello." Tobias said politely while also walking forwards, stopping when he was five feet from the girl. "My name is Tobias and these are my friends. What's your name?"
"What's you name?" The girl repeated.
"Ok. Um, do you live near here?"
"Near here." She nodded, her dressed and hair changing to match the background as she moved.
"She's repeating everything you..." Leo trailed off as a bell went off in his head. "Oh, wait a minute. Wasn't there a myth about a girl who repeated everything-?"
"Echo," Hazel said, the myth coming back to her.
"Echo." The girl agreed. Her eyes were the color of salt water, but that was all Leo could tell about her features. Whenever he tried to his eyes just slide right off her.
"This is weird." Yahan moved besides Tobias, looking fascinated. "It's like she has a perception filter on her."
"Perception filter?" Leo and Echo...well, echoed, both sounding confused.
"Long story, but you're right, it is like that." Tobias responses before bowing his head slightly. "It's a pleasure to meet you Echo." Echo bowed her head in response.
"So what's her story?" Yahan asked Hazel.
"I don't remember all the details, but...Echo was cursed by a goddess to repeat the last thing she heard."
Leo scratched his head. "But wasn't that thousands of years...oh. You're one of the mortals who came back through the Doors of Death. I really wish we'd stop running into dead people."
"Dead people." Echo said it like she was chastising him while Tobias shot him a sharp look. Leo then realized Hazel was looking at her feet.
"Uh, sorry. I didn't mean it that way."
"That way." Echo pointed towards the far shore of the island, where they had been walking towards.
"You want to show us something?" Yahan asked, looking into the distance. Now that it was clear she wasn't hostile, they all approached until they were in a small group three feet away from Echo. Even up close, Leo struggled to see her. She seemed to blend into the background even more the longer he stared at her.
"Are you sure you're real?" He asked, "I mean...flesh and blood?"
"Flesh and blood." She touched Leo's face and made him flinch. Her fingers were warm.
"So...you have to repeat everything?" He asked.
"Everything."
He couldn't help the smile that creeped across his face. "That could be fun."
"Fun." She said unhappily.
"Blue elephants."
"Blue elephants."
"Kiss me, you fool."
"You fool."
"Hey!"
"Hey!"
"Leo!" Tobias lightly smacked the back of the mechanics head, making him wince and rub the spot. "You'll have to forgive him, he gets carried away sometimes." The silver eyed teen explained to the girl, sound apologetic.
"Sorry." He said, feeling a bit bad now but he couldn't help him. It wasn't every day he ran into someone with a built-in talkback feature. "So what were you pointing at? Did you need help with something?"
"Help with something." Echo agreed. She gestured for them to follow and sprinted in the direction. Leo could only follow her by the movement of the grass and the shimmer of her dress as it changed to match the grass.
"Let's go or we'll lose her." Tobias grabbed Yahan's hand and both took off, leaving the two demigods to run after them and Echo.
They found the problem, if you called a mob of good looking girls a problem. Echo had led them down into a meadow that was shaped like a blast crater, with a small pond in the center. Gathered at the water's edge were several dozen girls that looked around teenager age, with gossamer dresses, bare feet, elfish features, and skin with a slightly green tinge to it.
"What are they?" Yahan asked as she took them in.
"Nymphs, nature spirits." Tobias answered, scanning at the crowd. "Each one is the spirit of something in nature, like a tree, a rock, a stream or river, a cloud, anything."
Leo filed away Tobias's knowledge of nature spirits for another time as he watched them. He didn't understand what they were doing, but they were all crowded together in one spot, facing the pond and jostling for a better view. Several of them were holding up camera phones, trying to get a shot of whatever they were looking at over the heads of the others, which was weird because Leo had never seen nymphs with phones before. Were they maybe looking at dead body? If so, why were they bouncing up and down while giggling excitedly.
"What are they looking at?" Leo asked Echo.
"Looking at," she sighed.
"There's somebody in the center, with about two and a half feet of open space around them." Leo had no clue how Tobias knew that, but he looked pretty certain. He squared his shoulders and walked to the crowd, Yahan following right behind him. They started nudging his way through. "Excuse me, pardon me."
"Hey!" One nymph complained. "We were here first!"
"Yeah," another one sniffed as she looked at Yahan. "He won't be interested in you."
The dark skinned girl shot her a withering look. The nymph that had spoken that sentence had large red hearts painted on her cheeks. Over her dress was a T-shirt that read: OMG, I 3 N!
"Uh, demigod business." Leo said, trying to sound official and important. "Make room. Thanks."
The nature spirits grumbled, but they parted to show Tobias been right. There was a young man kneeling at the ponds edge with two and a half feet of space around him as he gazed into the water intently.
Now Leo didn't normally pay much attention to how other guys looked. He guessed that came from hanging around Jason- tall, blond, rugged, basically everything Leo could never be. He was used to not being noticed by girls for his looks, but he hoped someday his personality and sense of humor would do that for him. So far, that hadn't worked. Yet.
But even Leo couldn't miss the fact that the guy at the pond was a super good-looking dude. He had a chiseled face with lips and eyes that were somewhere between feminine beautiful and masculine handsome. Dark hair swept back over his brow. His age was impossible to tell-he could've been seventeen or twenty- but he was built like a dancer, with long graceful arms and muscular legs, perfect posture, and an air of regal calm. His clothes consisted of a skills white T-shirt and jeans, with a bow and arrow strapped to his back. The weapons hadn't been used in a while apparently, since the arrows were coated in dust and a spider had woven a web in the top of the bow. As Leo edged closer for a better look, he realized the guys face was unusually golden.
In the sunset, the light was bouncing off a large, flat sheet of Celestial bronze that lay on the bottom of the pond, washing Mr. Handsome's features in a warm glow. The guy seemed to be fascinated by the reflection of his face in the metal.
Hazel inhaled sharply while Yahan whistled, apparently impressed. "He's gorgeous." They chorused.
Around her, the nymphs squealed and clapped in agreement while Tobias melodramatically grabbed his heart, acting like he had just been dealt a fatal blow.
"Now that hurt Yahan." He said in a mock hurt voice. She giggled.
"I said he was gorgeous, I didn't say he was you." She teased, which made some of the nymphs scowl slightly before they were once again looking at the handsome guy and smiling giddily.
"I am," the young man murmured dreamily, his gaze still fixed on the water. He didn't seem upset by the last comment Yahan had made or maybe he just hadn't heard it. "I am so gorgeous."
One of the nymphs showed her iPhone screen. "His latest YouTube video got a million hits in like, an hour. I think I was half of those!" The other nymphs giggled.
Leo was drawn out of his thought process of what the hell Yahan and Tobias's relationship was if they made jokes like that by the nymphs sentence. "YouTube video? What does he do in the video, sing?"
"No, silly!" The nymph chilled. "He used to be a prince, and a wonderful hunter and stuff. But that doesn't matter, now he just...well, look!" She showed them the video and it was exactly what they were seeing right now, the guy looking at himself in the pond. Leo glanced at the time for the video and it was clocked at over two hours long.
"Two hours of this?" Yahan asked, sounding confused now.
"He is sooooo hot!" Another nymph squealed. Her T-shirt read: Mrs. Narcissus.
"Narcissus?" Leo asked.
"Narcissus," Echo agreed sadly. Leo had forgotten she was there. Apparently none of the other nymphs had noticed her either.
"Oh, not you again!" Mrs. Narcissus tried to push Echo away, but she misjudged where the camouflaged girl was and ended up shoving several other nymphs.
"You had your chance, Echo!" The nymph with the iPhone said. "He dumped you four thousand years ago! You are so not good enough for him!"
"For him," Echo repeated bitterly. Yahan was starting to lose the look of being impressed with Narcissus and was now gaining the look of being slightly sickened with this scene, like she sensed there was something very wrong here. Tobias looked like he wanted to gag.
"Wait." Hazel clearly had trouble tearing her eyes away from the handsome guy but she managed. "What's going on? Why did Echo bring us here?"
One nymph rolled her eyes, holding a autograph pen and a crumpled poster of Narcissus. "Echo was a nymph like us, a long time ago, but she was a total chatterbox! Gossiping, blah, blah, blah, all the time."
"I know!" another nymph screeched, which made Leo's ears start ringing from the volume. "Like, who could stand that? Just the other day, I told Cleopeia, that nymph that lives in the boulder next to me, I said: stop gossiping or you'll end up like Echo. She is such a big mouth! Did you hear what she said about the cloud nymph and the satyr?"
"Totally!" The nymph with the poster agreed. "So anyway, as punishment for blabbing, Hera cursed Echo so she could only repeat things, which was fine with us! But then Echo fell in love with our gorgeous guy, Narcissus, as if he would notice her.
"As if!" This was repeated by half a dozen other nymphs.
"Now she' shot some weird idea that he needs saving," Mrs. Narcissus said. "She should just go away."
"Go away," Echo growled back.
"That might not be a bad a idea." Yahan muttered as the nymphs started arguing why Narcissus was in this territory while he just ignored them to stare at himself. "This is nuts."
"This is what happenes with fan girls." Tobias said, shaking his head. "And you said I was over exaggerating when I said they were the most terrifying thing in the universe."
"Fine, you were right, happy?"
"Not at the moment, no."
"Hold it!" Leo shouted about the noise. "Ladies, hold it! I need to ask Narcissus something." They slowly settled down and went back to taking pictures and videos.
"It's going to be an absolute waste of time you know. This is the guy that we got our entire concept of narcissism from." Tobias whispered to Leo, not wanting the nymphs to hear his rather unflattering opinion on the guy and go feral. He had seen it happen before, and it was never pretty.
"Got to try at least." Leo replied before going to kneel next to the handsome dude. Having nothing better, he went for a default greeting. "So, Narcissus. What's up?"
"Can you move?" Narcissus asked distractedly. "You're ruining the view."
Leo looked into the water, his reflection looking back next to Narcissus, but he had no desire to stare at himself. Compared to the guy next to him, he looked like a undergrown troll. But the thing that had Leo's interest was the bronze itself, which was hammered, roughly circular, and five feet in diameter. He wasn't sure what it was doing in the pond, but he heard that Celestial bronze fell to the earth in all sorts of odd places. The stories went that his dad Hephaestus got angry when his projects didn't work out like he wanted them to and would throw the scraps into the mortal world when he lost his temper. This looked like it had supposed to be a shield for a god, but it hadn't turned out properly. If he could get this back to the ship, it would be just enough bronze to repair the Argo.
"Right, great view." Leo said. "Happy to move, but if you're not using it, can is just take that sheet of bronze.
"No," Narcissus said. "I love him. He's so gorgeous."
Leo looked around. He figured this had to be a massive joke but the nymphs were all swooning and nodding in agreement. The only people acting differently was their group, with Tobias miming vomiting, Yahan looking shocked and disgusted, and Hazel scrunching up her nose like she realized Narcissus smelled a lot worse then he looked. Of course, nobody except him noticed this because everyone else was staring at a dude staring at himself in the water.
"Man, you do realize you're looking at yourself in the water, right?"
"I am so great," the former hunter sighed. He reached out a hand longingly to touch the water, but held back at the last second. "No, I can't make ripples. That ruins the image. Wow...I am so great."
"Leo, we need a new plan." Tobias whispered to him, kneeling down so he was the same level and covering his lips so no one could lip read. "This idiot isn't going to give up that bronze willingly."
"Maybe if tell him what happened to him..." Leo did the same as Tobias.
"He'd say he's too important to die." Tobias cut him off. "You don't get it, this guy literally thinks he's the center of the universe, that he can never ever die because he's too important. If you offered him a choice between leaving here and living his life or staying here until he dies again, he'll stay here. Let's try to think of something different."
Leo didn't like giving up on a problem(it was a mechanic thing) but looking at Narcissus, he could tell this was making zero impact. The guy might as well be a statue. A living, breathing, really handsome statue, but a statue all the same.
"Ok." They stood up and walked away while gesturing at the others to follow them. They kept moving until they were out of earshot of the nymphs, who had crowded around Narcissus to take more videos and pictures
"I feel like I might puke." Yahan warned. "How can they love him!?" She waved at the small crowd in disgust. "He's so full of himself."
"Now you see where we got the idea of narcissism from. Do me a favor and just kill me if by some miracle I turn into him." Tobias requested.
"Gladly."
"Can we focus please?" Hazel said. "What are we going to do? Nemesis was right, even with a second chance at life, Narcissus is just going to stay there until he dies again."
Leo tapped his chin in thought. "If we take away that bronze, Mr. Handsome might snap out of it. We'd get that bronze and Echo could have a chance to save him."
"A chance to save him." Echo said gratefully.
"It would also make several dozen nymphs very angry with us." Tobias pointed out while looking at the sinking sun. "Plus he might still know how to shoot his bow."
Leo pondered that. The sun was almost down and he remembered what Nemesis had said, that Narcissus got agitated after dark. Probably because he couldn't see his reflection anymore, and Leo didn't want to see what a goddess considered agitated. Plus he had experiences with mobs of crazed nymphs and he didn't want a repeat.
"Hazel," an idea came to Leo. "You're power with precious metal- can you only sense it or can you summon it to you as well?"
She frowned. "I can sometimes summon it, but with a piece of bronze that big before. I might be able to draw it to me through the earth, but I'd have to be fairly close. Plus it'd take a lot of concentration and it wouldn't be fast."
"Be fast." Echo warned.
Leo cursed. He had hoped they could just go back to the ship and Hazel could teleport the bronze to them or something...wait a minute...
"Yahan, can you take things with you or just people?"
The girl frowned. "I can take people and things, but I've never tried it with an enchanted object before. I have no clue what would happen with that bronze."
OK maybe that idea wasn't going to work then. He didn't want one of their new friends (yes he realized he barely knew her or Tobias, but so far they had been pretty good so he'd call them friends until something proved they weren't) to get hurt, or anything else. So that left one unknown.
"Tobias, you have anything that can help here?" He was his last hope otherwise they'd have to go with a really really bad plan. The teen rubbed his chin, thinking.
"I've got a lot that could help, but I don't want to reveal my tricks unless there is absolutely no other choice. Gaea doesn't know anything important about me and I want to keep it that way as long as possible to keep her guessing."
"So nothing?" Damn it, they were going to have to go with that plan he had.
Tobias looked back at the crowd but he didn't see anyone looking over at them. He looked back at Leo. "I might have something so Hazel doesn't have to draw that bronze through the earth."
"Great, what?" Anything would be good at this point so long as it saved them time.
Tobias's eyes narrowed in concentration before Leo felt a breeze slowly push past him. But the weird thing was, looking at the girls hair shifting in the breeze, it seemed to come from all around them and focusing in the center of their circle. After a few seconds, the breeze stopped and Tobias nodded like he had done something.
"There."
"Um, not to be rude Tobias, but nothing happened." Hazel pointed out.
"Hang on a minute, I'll make it so you can see it." Another look of concentration and one of the weirdest things Leo had ever seen happened, and that was saying something. He didn't know how to describe it other than the air gained color. A misty white spread over the surface of something like milk across water until it stopped at the boundaries and started growing more concentrated. Now Leo was looking at a white, five fingered hand. It looked like any other hand,but it wasn't connected to anything and just floating in the air. As he watched, the thing lifted up before waving at him.
"What is that?" Hazels voice shout up an octave as she looked at the hand.
Tobias smirked. "This is one of my abilities. It's nothing creative, but it's called Air Hand."
"Air Hand? That was the best you could come up with?" Leo didn't know what he was expecting, but this...this was a new level of weirdness. Tobias frowned and the hand lifted up before flicking him in the forehead. Hard.
"Ow!" He rubbed the spot that hurt while trying to figure out how air could feel like skin and bone.
"Keep it up Leo, and I'll have this thing give you a black eye." Tobias warned. The hand then melted away into nothing.
Leo let the threat slide, because this might be helpful. "So you can make those things out of air?"
"Yes."
"Is there a range to how far they can go?"
He thought for a second, like he was considering what he should say. "My range is about five to six hundred yards, beyond that I can't do anything. Plus I need to be able to see what I'm doing for this to be effective."
Leo nodded. Ok, they'd still need to use his horrible plan, but now they could do it faster. "Ok then. I have a plan, but it's absolutely insane."
A/N: Well, it's not much, but we're slowly making our way forwards. Tobias is slowly letting out his secrets (or for those who have read the profile about him, it's not a big surprise) and gaining the trust of Leo and Hazel. I hope you all enjoy the story so far, because there is still a long way to go. Also, I want to say, I will not be going through every single scene of the book and detailing it. Some will be the same as the book so I won't bother writing those, the only scenes I'll write is ones with changes to them. But I've got big plans and I hope to put them into motion soon. So, read, favorite, and review please.