Sorry for the very long delay, but the good news is that I'm on summer break and have no life whatsoever, so I will have plenty of time to write!

Also, to Baclava, I forgot to say this last chapter, but since you found my Powerless reference, you get a character in the story. Please, review who you'd like. (Also, if you like Powerless, I do have some fanfictions on it under misc. Books)

ALSO, IMPORTANT: I AM GETTING READY TO POST A NEW STORY. THE SUMMARIES OF A FEW OF MY IDEAS ARE ON MY PROFILE; PLEASE READ THEM AND EITHER VOTE ON THE POLL OR REVIEW THE ONE YOU'D LIKE ME TO POST ON ANY OF MY STORIES.

Disclaimer: I am creative, but I am not nearly creative enough to write what Rick Riordan did. Therefore, Percy Jackson is not mine. Nor is Leo Valdez, Nico Di Angelo, etc.


Leo didn't know how long he'd been in the cell or the closet or whatever it was. All he knew is that he'd been in their long enough for his blood to entirely cover the floors.

Thinking of a plan was hard in this cell. There was no way out. Leo had tried to get out of the bonds, but they were apparently impossible to break and even harder to get off his hands. He'd tried the door, but it was steel and locked from the outside; since it was steel, Leo couldn't even burn it if he could get his bonds off.

He was stuck.

The door opened, and Trent stepped inside.

Trent leaned Leo up and started to take off his shirt.

"What are you doing?" Leo demanded, trying to wiggle out of Trent's grip.

Trent rolled his eyes. "We can't have these cuts getting infected; we need you alive, you know."

Leo stopped struggling and allowed Trent to cast some spells over his injuries and bandage them.

"I have to give the right spells so that they won't get infected, but you'll still feel the pain," Trent explained when Leo hissed as the child of Hecate wrapped bandages around Leo's body.

"Required to, I'm guessing," Leo said.

Trent nodded. "I probably would've done it anyway, though," he sneered.

Leo shook his head. "No, you wouldn't."

Trent stared at him for a long moment before standing and kicking Leo in the ribs, causing the fire user to curl into himself to try and ease the pain.

"Don't try to turn me, fire user. I'm doing the right thing. I am," Trent repeated as though trying to convince himself and not Leo.

The door slammed shut, and Leo smirked.

There was more than one set of keys. One for the guard; one for Trent; and one for Kronos.

Trent's set of keys jingled in Leo's hand like the merry tinkling of jingle bells.

...

Leo's plan was formulated within an hour. He could unlock the door from the inside, and if he did this just right, he could kick the guard in the knees. When he was down, Leo would use the guard's weapon to knock its owner out (or kill it, depending on how big the monster was). Leo would, then, steal the weapon and try to find a way to escape his bonds.

The child of Hephaestus crouched in the claustrophobic cell, slowly turning the key in the lock until he heard a click.

He waited. When there was no alarm or the suspicious grunt of his guard, Leo eased open the door.

The guard hadn't even turned around! It was a dracnea, boredly standing there with a sword at her belt and a net over her shoulder.

Leo kicked her in her trunk legs.

The dracnea fell, and Leo side stepped her net. She tried to wrap her tail around his legs and trip him up, but Leo leaped above it, grabbed her sword, and turned her to dust before she could utter a single word.

Leo tried to use the sword to cut the bonds, but didn't succeed, so Leo tried to use his head instead. And no, not literally.

Leo couldn't cut the bonds, but that didn't mean that the sword couldn't be useful.

He sat against the wall and placed the sword hilt between his knees; then, he wiggled the point between the bonds and his skin and... slid right out of them.

Leo shut the door to the cell, grabbed the sword, and ran. Occassionally, a monster would be walking and Leo would have to dive into a hiding place before he was spotted, but all in all, escaping wasn't hard.

Until he found that there was no way out.

That's right. The only doors he found led to more and more cells, and there were no windows.

Leo was trapped.

"So do you see that you're stuck here yet?"

Leo spun around. There stood Kronos with that awful smirk on his face, and at his side was Trent, Leo's bonds in hand.

Monsters had surrounded Leo by now. There was no escape.

Hands grabbed him and dragged him to the throne room for another torture session, but Leo didn't go willingly. He kicked and writhed and punched and lit on fire, burning anyone and everyone until only the Cyclopi were left standing. And they were much stronger than Leo.

His sword was taken, and the child of Hephaestus was dragged through tunnels until they were just down the hall from the throne room.

"I'm not gonna talk," Leo spat at Kronos. "No matter what."

Kronos laughed, cruelly. "You say that now, but wait until after this torture session."

The door shut behind them...

...

Leo won't go into details about the torture session, but it was the worst yet. The scars would never go away, he knew.

Monsters were dragging him back to his cell; Kronos wasn't with them, but Trent was. He'd long since replaced Leo's bonds, tying them tighter- so tight, Leo lost feeling in his hands.

Trent smirked. "You're never getting out of here, Valdez, so why do you even-"

BAM! A sword slammed against Trent's head, and he fell to the ground. The monsters were stabbed; they were so shocked, they didn't even know what hit them.

Slowly, Leo turned to face his saviors.

Well... he wasn't expecting that one.


"Son of Hades?" Reyna sputtered. "Hades has children?"

"Yes," Nico responded. "Now, you," he pointed to Octavian. "Are you related to Luke Castellon?"

"Yes. He's my half brother, same mother, different father," Octavian responded. "How do you know Luke anyway?"

"He betrayed our camp," Nico told him. "He's hosting Kronos."

Octavian froze, and for just a moment, hurt and betrayal flickered across his face. And just like that, it was gone. "I'm not surprised. After all, he ran away without warning, left me with our crazy mother."

Jason pursed his lips and awkwardly- very awkwardly- patted Octavian on the shoulder

Octavian brushed off his hand. "Wait. What are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you three are. Saving Leo," Nico responded.

"Do you know the way to the fortress?" Reyna asked.

Nico nodded. "The Mist is very powerful here, but so is darkness and that happens to be my area of expertise. I can use the shadows to transport myself right into the fortress."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Jason asked. "How?"

"Transporting so many people could exhaust me, so be prepared for that," Nico warned before holding out his hands. "Grab hands."

The four demigods grasped each other's hands and with a whirl of darkness, they were gone.

...

They collapsed on the floor of the fortress, and thank the gods that no monsters were currently patrolling that corridor.

"So..." Octavian said as he stood up and brushed himself off. "Where do we start?"

The four godlings stared at the walls in disappointment; there were dozens of cell doors lining the hall and probably more in the others. How did they know which one held Leo?

Suddenly, a pained scream rang out from deeper into the fortress.

Nico shakily pointed down the way the scream had originated from. "I'm guessing that way."

The four of them went racing towards the blood curdling scream, killing any monster that dared to get in their way; needless to say, never mess with their friend/ally. Or you get the blade.

The screaming stopped, eventually, and the three Romans and one Greek continued to walk straight, hoping they were heading in the right direction.

When the voices rang out, the four ducked behind unlocked cell doors and waited for the monsters to pass.

Two Cyclopi (Cyclopses? I don't know) came lumbering down the hall and between them was Leo Valdez.

Leo didn't look so hot. He was stumbling, and his shirt was covered in blood. His hands were bound together by a glowing rope that reminded the demigods of steel; I looked like it had the strength of steel too.

One other person was traveling with them. A blonde son of Hecate with runes drawn all over his pants and even a few on his shirt.

"You're never getting out of here, Valdez," the demigod was chuckling. "So why do you even-"

Jason leapt forward so suddenly, even his companions were surprised; he flipped his coin and slammed his sword over the child of Hecate's head.

Reyna tackled one beast while Nico and Octavian stabbed the other at the same time.

Leo blinked at them with the one eye that wasn't swollen shut.

"Didn't see that one coming," he finally muttered.

Nico smiled. "Didn't think we'd leave you hanging, did you?"

Reyna tried to cut through the bonds, but her dagger just bounced off of them.

"They don't cut," Leo told her. "You have to untie them."

Nico walked over and ripped the ropes apart; the task took a good few minutes. Apparently, someone-probably the demigod- had tied them so tightly, it was almost impossible to get them off.

"Now, come on," Nico said. He grabbed Leo's hand, and they created a circle before Nico shadow traveled them away.

...

Leo was shocked to get rescued. Not that he hadn't expected people to look for him (especially after that dream with Percy), but finding the Titan's fortress, much less getting into it, just seemed impossible.

Then again, though, demigods did invent impossible.

Still, when Trent got knocked out and Leo saw his rescuers, he felt like passing out.

They were quite a strange sight for those that knew them. Octavian, a blonde haired, blue eyed, possibly prophetic, and slightly creepy kid; Reyna, a kick butt warrior princess (we all know it's true); Nico, emo, definitely creepy, but still heroic son of Hades; and the other kid, the kid from Leo's dreams.

Leo tried not to flinch as the headache hit him.

"Yeah, Jason, we've all been framed! I didn't run away six times. Piper didn't steal a BMW!"

The kid- now, known as Jason- jumping over the edge of a canyon, like an idiot.

"I am the son of Jupiter, child of Rome!"

"Dude, you been eating red meat?"

So many more images flashed before his eyes, images of Jason's brave and sometimes stupid acts. Leo remembered a friendship that may or may not have existed. He remembered feeling inferior to Jason, feeling neglected by his two best friends. But he also remembered laughter, happiness, jokes, fun shared between their trio. He remembered giving Jason advice on how to ask Piper out.

And the funny thing is that whatever the two of them had been was... here and not here. It'd existed, yet it hadn't.

This was all causing Leo a migraine, and no, it wasn't because of the visions. It was because of how confusing it all was.

When they appeared in a clearing that was probably still in California (Nico wouldn't be able to transport all of them long distances), Leo staggered, pain coursing through him and causing him to almost topple to the ground and give into blackness. Jason caught him before that happened.

Nico turned to the Romans (or at least, Leo assumed they were all Roman; Jason and Reyna were, and Octavian most likely was). He told them, "We have to get going. I'll take him back to... our camp and get him treated."

Reyna nodded. "We'll meet again, Leo. Hopefully soon. Take it easy."

Leo smiled. "Thanks, guys, for rescuing me."

"No need," Jason said.

Nico and Leo waved goodbye before Nico grabbed Leo and supported his weight.

"Wait," Leo said before reaching into his pocket and taking out a small bag of drachmas. He handed them to Reyna. "An Iris Message. Make a rainbow, throw in a drachma, and say Oh, Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show me whoever you want to see. It works quicker if you have the location. You can communicate with us that way; call us if you need anything, alright?"

"We will," Octavian told him. "That goes for you, too."

Nico and Leo smiled at their new allies once more before Nico enveloped them in shadows.

They appeared in the Big House. Right in the middle of a councilor meeting.

The people present stared at them, their eyes threatening to pop out of their heads.

"Hi?" Leo said.

Then, the torture and pain and blood loss finally overwhelmed and extinguished his adrenaline.

He collapsed into someone's arms, and the world went black.


Well, that's that. See you next time! Please look at the summaries on my profile and vote!