Thankyou Outlandishdreamer, Spiesareawesome and Justwatchthestars. you guys are great. :)
Leo Valdez, you are trespassing on private property!
Technically I'm not. Leo thought to himself. I did build this ship.
What are you doing in your girlfriend's room anyway? He asked himself. Taking a look.
If he was going to snoop, now was a good time. Victoria had ditched the ship and gone off with Frank and Piper to find a deadly poison that they needed for the Physicians Cure. Leo wasn't sure how a deadly poison would help cure death, though. It all seemed a little dodgy.
Victoria's room wasn't exactly spotless. There was a guitar case full of paper in one corner; the guitar was sitting on the bed, underneath it, was a sketch book, an assortment of pencils and an arrow. Clothes were flung on the floor. Keep away, Valdez. There were pictures taped to the wall. The eight crew members, Leo and Victoria, Leo with his nose on fire (Wow, not a good look.) A landscape that looked a bit like the pictures Leo had seen of Australia. Majority of the photos were of desolate looking places with a few trees and little grass, which summed up Leo's idea of Australia as Hot, Dry, and Dusty. There was one photo of a group of four people; Ten year old Victoria, a baby, a woman with Victoria's hair and a solid, balding man that Leo knew as 'He', 'Him' and 'That Bloke'. Victoria Vixen had been an orphan since she was eleven; after her 'father' murdered her mother and younger brother on a cattle station in the middle of nowhere, then threating to murder her as well while in court for the previous murders. She was on the run from her past.
Under the photo was a piece of paper:
Home is;
Kookaburra song,
Wind in the Eucalypts,
The Middle of Nowhere,
Up at 4 am,
Dust till the cows come home, and after them too,
Wild, wild weather,
Camp drafts and Rodeos,
Then it changed.
Campfires,
Cheesy songs,
Armour becomes normal clothing,
Proper location,
Weapons are normal accessories,
Apollo cabin,
Real siblings,
The Argo II
That Hephaestus kid,
I was broken,
I was fixed.
Leo stood staring at the piece of paper. He could hardly remember when Victoria had come to Wilderness School; he did remember a loner and wondering what this girl was doing on the other side of the world. It was Piper's fault really; she was teased for her nationality, so had Victoria, until she had kicked bully butt. They left her alone after that. If it hadn't been for Piper, Leo would never have talked a girl, let alone gotten a girlfriend. Gees, he owed her a lot.
.
When the poison hunters came back, they had a hurried meeting on the foredeck, mainly because Percy was watching a giant red sea-serpent as it circled the ship.
"That thing is really red." Percy muttered. "I wonder if it's cherry flavoured?"
"How about you swim over and find out?" Annabeth asked him
"How about, no."
"Anyway, according to my Pylos cousins, "Frank said "The chained god we're looking for in Sparta is my dad… uh, I mean Ares not Mars. Apparently the Spartans kept a statue of him chained there so that the god of war would never leave them."
"Oo-kay, the Spartans were freaks. Of course, we've got Victory tied up downstairs, so I guess we can't talk." Leo said
Piper told them that she had seen Annabeth and herself exploring some ruins in the blade of her knife. Leo wasn't sure how the visions-to-blade thing worked, but they seemed pretty accurate.
"Ruins!" Leo said, rubbing his hands together, "How many ruins can there be in Greece?!"
"Quiet, Leo." Annabeth scolded. Victoria punched him in the arm. "What else did you see, Piper."
Piper continued, saying that she had seen them in a dark cave in front of a bronze statue.
"In the vision I touch the statue's face and flames start swirling around us. That's all I saw."
"Flames." Frank scowled "I don't like that vision."
"Me neither." Percy said keeping one eye on the sea-serpent as it circled around. "If it engulfs people in flames then we should send Leo."
"I love you too man."
"You know what I mean. You're immune. Or, heck, give me some of those nice water grenades and I'll go. Ares and I have tangled before."
"Tangled or Tangoed?" Victoria asked quirking her eyebrows. If anything, Percy blushed a little.
"If Piper saw the two of us going after the statue, then that's who should go. There's always a way to survive." Annabeth said, staring off at the coastline.
"Not always." Hazel said. Being that she was the only one who had actually died and come back; her observation sort of killed the vibe.
"What about this stuff?" Frank asked, holding up the vile of poison. "After the house of Hades, I was kind of hoping we wouldn't have to drink anymore poison."
"Store it securely in the hold." Annabeth told him. "For now, that's all we can do."
The cherry flavoured sea-serpent spewed steam as it came closer to the ship's hull. "Yeah. It's definitely checking us out. Maybe we should take to the air for a while." Percy said
"Airborne it is!" Leo said. "Festus, do the honours." The dragon figure-head creaked and groaned. Slowly, with the sound of ninety umbrellas opening, the ship rose into the air.
"We should reach Sparta by morning." He announced. "And don't forget to come by the mess hall tonight, folks, 'cause Chef Leo is making his famous three-alarm tofu tacos!"
"You have that many personas; I wonder how you keep up with them all." Victoria said. "What do you do? Tie them up and throw them down in the stalls with Nike? Lock them in your tool chests? Conceal them in the walls? Hide them in the sails?"
"That," Leo said "Is for me to know and for you to never find out."
"It must be something really juicy. Is it kinky in any way?"
Leo remained silent. He was not going to answer that question.
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