Remember about that snow? Well, it turned out to be an inch of thick ice and a crap ton of car accidents. Le sigh. . .


Chapter 12

Leo

Leo caught on fire right when he stepped a foot into the forest.

He hadn't meant to, of course. It wasn't because of the fire spurts here and there either. He just set himself on fire for some reason.

He assumed it was fear, or an overdose of some sort of emotion. The whatever-it-was had just let lose a blood curdling scream that was so ear-piercing that they had nearly dropped to their knees. Leo felt as though his ears were bleeding.

"This must be what it's like at an opera," he assumed quietly to himself. "Another reason why I'll never go to one."

But at one point the scream had nearly made him pee his pants, and since he had been so dead set on not doing that in front of everyone, he'd caught on fire. You win some, you lose some, he supposed.

It had nearly given Frank a heart attack. The poor guy had fallen over and nearly squashed Hazel, who had jumped out of the way just in time. Yeah, maybe a man on fire was frightening, but Leo didn't see why Frank was so worried. "Dude, I didn't give you that fire proof bag for no reason, now did I?"

"Fire proof bag?" Piper asked, but they ignored her. Frank didn't say anything in response. He just squeezed Hazel's hand, and then they kept moving. But the screams and fire kept getting closer, and the storm around them was getting even worse. The rain blew sideways and leaves were smacking them repeatedly in the face.

Then, the shriek sounded off, and as if it were a mandrake, Leo's eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed on the ground in agony, clutching his head and begging for it to stop.

The scream made all of them scream, and once the screams died away and Leo actually managed to open his eyes, he was struck by the fact that he was not with his friends. He was not in a forest. He was all alone in darkness.

Naturally, he began to freak out a little.

"HELLO!" he screamed into oblivion, but there was no answer.

Before he completely lost his mind, Leo actually assessed the situation. He was in the middle of nowhere with no one. Okay, good. His location was settled. There were no obvious threats around him. That was a plus. But there was only darkness. He walked this way and that but only met more and more blackness. He couldn't see his own body.

Not only that, but the darkness seemed almost tangible. Leo could feel it slipping through his fingers, wrapping around his clothes, but it didn't suffocate him. It just layered him like an oily, slimy blanket.

"Am I dead?" he asked to no one. That was the only conclusion he could come up with. Lightning had struck him dead while he'd been flinching from the screaming. Maybe the screaming had been coming from his friends, trying to tell him to move. Maybe they had come from him.

It was a scream-ception.

Leo was definitely losing his mind.

"No, son of Hephaestus," said a voice from the void, speaking in a soothing, calming tone that set Leo on edge and freaked him out almost as much as the screaming had. "You are not dead yet."

Once again, Leo spun around, this time to find the source of the voice, but it was no use. He was alone. Was he hearing voices? But wait. . . this voice sounded familiar. He had heard this voice before.

"No, you are not hearing voices, Leo Valdez. I've simply taken you here, to my domain, very briefly. I cannot allow you to see my domain, or you would never leave. You would be shocked and choked by memories of your past. That is one thing that I cannot help. I am not a monster. I am a goddess. But I need to warn you."

Leo snapped his fingers. The remembered the voice. "Hecate?"

The goddess huffed. "Always Hecate," she muttered sourly. "I am always confused with Hecate."

"Okay, you're not Hecate."

"Not in the slightest, though we we're always confused for one another. Why, I'll never know. Those mortal historians get on my last nerves. When they die. . . oh, they'll be sorry they ever confused the two of us." And then she cackled aloud, and even though it was a little weird, it was also very said. The goddess seemed to be crying at the same time.

He gulped. This goddess did not seemed like the kind to give out lollipops and advice.

"I've watched you for a long time now, Leo Valdez," said the goddess sorrowfully. "I've seen all things that haunt you. I've seen the love ones that have died, the ones that forgot about you, and above all else I've seen your nightmares. You have them quite often, don't you?"

"Who are you and what do you want?" he demanded, hoping his voice didn't sound too frightened, because he was sure that she was lying and he was in the Underworld. "I need to get back to my friends. How do I do that?"

"Your nightmares used to consist of your mother and Gaea. You would dream about that burning house and waking up to no more of your mother. And you always blamed yourself. But recently, your nightmares have been centered around your friends. You've been seeing them die at the hand of the Giants. You are now dreaming about that girl Calypso, too. You think that you'll never see her again."

"Why do you care what I dream about?" he hissed, getting angry now. His blood was beginning to boil.

"I enjoy nightmares," she said simply. "But Leo Valdez, you much be warned that someone will betray you."

He blinked at her. "What?"

"One of your friends will betray you." And now that goddess had started to sob again. As she sobbed the darkness seemed to get thicker around him, now like a big winter jacket. "They will betray you and leave you to die at the hand of the Giants, and there is nothing I'll be able to do about it. None of the gods can help you. You must help yourselves."

Leo stared into the darkness and tried to speak, but he couldn't find any words. For a long moment he did nothing. "You're wrong," he finally whispered. The repeated loudly. "You're WRONG! My friends would never betray the gods. We are all on the same side, and I don't know what side you're on, but you should be on ours too."

"Your friends may never willingly betray you, but that doesn't mean they won't."

"Whose side are you on?" Leo hissed. That anger wasn't getting any better. He had better places to be, believe it or not, than with a cracked up goddess telling off his friends.

"That of the gods," she breathed and sniveled. "Of course, I hate the gods. I hate Hades. In the last war, against the Titans, I was on their side like most others. But I cannot and will not side with the Giants in this battle. Their way is not the correct way. Even I know that?"

"Who are you?"

"You will learn that all in good time, I'm sure," she said hesitantly.

"Why doesn't anyone ever give a demigod a straight answer?" he whispered to himself, and then cursed under his breath. Did the gods ever realize how annoying it really was?

"I need to go back to my friends, now," he told her. "We have things we need to do, and I have better places to be." Leo wasn't afraid of this goddess. If she wanted him dead, he'd be dead by now. There was still that nagging voice in his head that said he was already dead, but he paid no mind to it now.

"Yes, of course." The darkness around him lightened a little. "And while your back there, tell him I said hello. He may want you dead, but he's a doll and a great friend of mine."

"Wait, what? Who's this he?!"

"Well, you'll find out when you wake up, now won't you?"

"Wake up?"

"Yes of course, Leo Valdez. This is all just a dream. It's part of your imagination. But that doesn't mean it's not real. Now, make sure you tell him I said hello, but try not to get burned too badly. And keep having those nightmares."

The darkness subsided. Leo saw his friends kneeling over him. Jason and Piper were shaking him.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, guys, quit that." He felt nauseous and insanely confused. He still had no idea who the goddess was, and though she had said to trust him, he wouldn't dare. She was trying to tell him that one of his friends would betray them.

Leo just wasn't able to fathom something like that happening.

He remembered the way the darkness had been thick and nearly tangible, gilding over his body and at times nearly choking him to death. She loved nightmares, and had a very sad, lonely voice. Who was she?

"I have to tell you—" Leo began to say, but Piper clapped a hand over his mouth. Jason brought a finger up to his own lips to tell him to remain silent. Then he pointed behind them, to where Hazel and Frank were peering out.

Leo blinked. There was a guy, in the center of a clearing, spread eagle and tied down on a giant wheel. The wheel, which was upright, was just rolling around on the ground in circles, like it was confused just as Leo was. The man on it was huge, with white hair and bursting blisters, and these crazy red eyes. And weirdest of all, he wasn't only screaming. When the screams stopped, the man started laughing gleefully.

Why was he screaming?

The entire wheel was only fire. Flames ricocheted into the air and hit trees, catching them on fire. He wasn't too far away from them, and the rain seemed to do nothing. The man's screams were even worse now, but Leo seemed to be fine. Maybe they weren't bad enough to cause someone to pass out. Maybe that was just the goddess that had done that.

"Oh, Gaea, ye scoundrel. I wish ye coulda helped me further. Take away the binds to I may move, you have a done, but I am still a tethered to 'his blasted wheel, even after a millennia." But he laughed like it was a joke.

Leo was over his nausea and adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He crawled over to Hazel and Frank as they all observed this guy, who was shooting flames everywhere. They needed to get around him, and Leo knew walking wouldn't do this. The man was out of control, even if he couldn't seemingly move his arms and legs.

"Any idea who this is?" Leo whispered. Theirs responses were the shaking of heads.

The goddess had said to try not to get burned too badly. He was Leo Valdez. He didn't get burned. But that didn't mean his friends didn't.

"OH!" The man said gleefully once he stopped screaming for a second. "I a think I may've smelled a demigod 'r two! Come out, come out! It's been too since I've a seen o' demigod! Come, come, lemme see ye! Don't be a spoil sport like those Olympians!"

Fire shot out at them when they refused to move. They yelled and hit the ground, all except Leo who just let it blow by. It didn't do much but singe his hair a little. The man on the wheel was spinning, squealing, "WEEEEEEEEEE!" like he was two.

If this man was the kind of friends the goddess like to have, Leo knew that he didn't want to be allied with her. Or believe a single word that she said.

"It'd be a sure shame to kill ye befo' I've even met ye," the man said, still spinning and wheeling around.

"Weapons out," Frank told them quietly. He was moving out towards the clearing, looking terrified but somewhat brave at the same time, holding that composure that Reyna always kept as a praetor.

"Have you lost your mind?" Leo demanded.

"He's not going to stop shooting at us, and while you may be fire proof, the rest of us aren't, and we do not want to die from fire, I assure you. So we may as well go out there. He might hunt us down if we don't, or go burn down the Argo II. Besides, we can take him. He's tied to a wheel."

He had a point, but Leo still didn't like it. But they stepped just out of the line of the trees.

The man looked delighted and stopped turning. "Five! Five! One, two, three, fo', five! What a wow!"

"Huh?" Piper asked, confused. Then she added with power, "Who are you and what do you want?"

"Who am I? A king! A father, and a demigod too! Related to that folk righ' there!" He pointed at Frank. "'Cept fo' the fact that he's a Roman. Ares be my father, but who in this world would side with the god of war?"

"You know that's not the full answer," snarled Piper, brandishing her spiffy clean dagger. "What do you want?"

"To avenge all like me. Perhaps I was o' bit o' a murderer, but everyone is these days. You can't go without killing if ye a demigod. But fo' that I was a punished by my father and his father and so on and so forth. Fo' many of a years I have been tortured in the Underworld, spinning on a wheel of fire. But a thanks to Gaea, I'ma out o' Tartarus now! Since me step father is already dead by yours truly, I suppose my real father will have t' do!"

"What is your name?" Piper asked slowly, power dripping from every syllable.

The man was obviously too far gone to be affected by charmspeak. His eyes roamed the group. "Daughter o' Pluto, yes, yes, don't like him, Aphrodite'll die alongside Ares and Mars. Hephaestus can be pitched off o' Olympus again, just the same as I, and—" His eyes saw Jason. "Oh my oh my, Zeus's spawn, or Jupiter as it may be. I should've known."

A burst of fire left the wheel, coating the man. He screamed so loudly and the fire came right at them. They jumped out of the way as a bunch of trees behind them were taken out. The rain was starting to really hurt Leo.

"Ye work fo de lovely Hera, eh?" came the cackling voice. The man spoke as if he were missing many teeth. "I'da known 'er well, if not fo ye meddlesome father, Jason Grace, I'da been free to be with 'er, I suppose. Too bad they's a couple, ya know?"

"How does he know my name?" Jason asked. What was the point in asking? Leo wondered. They were like the most famous and fabulous demigods in the world. It was weird if someone didn't want them dead by now.

"This man's off his rocker," Leo muttered with a slight shrug. He was still shaking from the meeting with the goddess and remembering her fatal words. But she had said that she was. . . what, friends with this crazy guy?

"I ought to kill ye," the man reasoned suddenly. He cackled like a witch. "Fo workin' with Hera. That despicable goddess, it's not as though anyone likes 'er. She's snobbish, rude, and only cares about da proper family. Why'da think I'ma being tortured on a burnin wheel right now, eh? I know fer a fact Hera told Zeus to do this to me. I'd like to see her die."

If only Annabeth were here, Leo thought. She'd love this dude.

"As o' matter o' fact, I'ma kill you."

If it was possible, the flames burned even hotter and shot further out in all directions, and he screamed with laughter as he rolled around in circles, yelling and smiling at the pain as clumps of his white hair fell out everywhere. All of them recoiled behind trees, but things were catching on fire quicker, despite the pouring rain. Leo was finding it hard to breathe, even though fire was his thing, and he couldn't imagine what his friends were like.

Frank looked like he was ready to turn into a rhinoceros. Piper looked like she was about to charmspeaking his flaming butt. Jason looked ready to fly the all to China, and Hazel seemed to already be manipulating the Mist a little. Things were getting distorted.

"Hey!" Leo said loudly. "Leave us alone. We know a friend of yours, she said to say hello. But she's a friend of ours too."

The man stopped laughing about their death for a second. "Eh? Who is this lad?"

"Um. . ." Leo's plan fell short. He still didn't know the girl's name. His friends looked at him expectantly. "Well, she's like. . . um, she's not Hecate, but a bit like her—"

"How dare ye!" the man yelled. "How dare you disrespect a friend o' mine? Oh, I know who yer talking about. Yer just the same as all of them, just as idiotic an' ignorant! She is a master o' the Underworld. She o' friend o' mine, ne'er a friend o' yers! She'd never help meddlesome demigods! How dare ye lie!"

"But—I'm not—"

"DEATH! Death to ye all!" he shrieked, trying to point at them.

His friends shot him dirty looks.

"Whoops," Leo whispered.


Why the heck did this guy turn out to be an evil Hagrid? I have no clue. Who do you think the crazy guy is? Do you want Hazel, Percy, or Reyna/Nico as the next POV?

-BBH