Hey, guys! I gots Good news, Bad news and Worse News. All of which shall be explained at the end of the chapter.
You all have been hilarious with your guesses. But now it's time to see how Tulio did it! :o
Disclaimer: The kids and the few obvious OC campers belong to me, though the campers are honestly filler...Rick owns all the canon characters :D
Twenty-Four: Adventures in Babysitting
Harley was now thoroughly convinced of Leo's honesty about raising the twins. They were a right nightmare to take care of. They didn't like to be awakened, apparently, acting an awful lot like their father used to if Nyssa or Jake tried to get him up before nine in the morning—meaning, threatening to set fire to the cabin.
Morning bath time was an episode. Espie thrashed around when Piper—who was bravely volunteering to help Harley out with the twins since Jason could handle Mark for a few days—tried to give her a scrub-down, not wanting the daughter of Aphrodite to even touch her with the nasty-smelling berry shampoo. She wanted the shampoo her father used (Harley figured he still used some variant of Old Spice, just like he did as a camper), but Leo had either forgotten it back in Houston or taken it with him. She did not approve of Piper's replacement V08 shampoo in the least! Harley saved the day on that one by getting his Wolfthorn Old Spice shampoo (A/N: I use this btw :D) and that seemed to calm Espie down considerably. Harley laughed. That girl would be such a tomboy growing up!
Tulio was way worse when it came to bath time. Harley couldn't even get near the tub when Tulio was plopped into the water. He complained and whined for his Papi, kicking and splashing around in a tantrum. The water heated up to boiling temperatures, making the surface bubble. Eventually, Harley got Tulio bathed and presentable, but it took a heat-proof suit (like one of those suits you see on Doctor Who or ET) just to get close. Tulio's internal heat was probably the source of the problem, and Harley was constantly on edge for an explosion. He had been informed that Espie could explode when angry (and he had the unfortunate luck to experience that this morning-don't ask) but Tulio had yet to get angry enough for the first 'big bang', as Leo had called it. So far, the toddler's internal temperatures had merely skyrocketed, but Harley guessed it would only be a matter of time before little Tulio became a walking bonfire like his sister…
Breakfast had been okay, but the twins were bombarded by all the campers and New Athenians wanting to cuddle and pinch their chubby cheeks, trying to make up for the two years of not knowing them like they knew Sammy, Mark and Lacy. Said toddlers were quite happy with the Valdez twins distracting the adults. They got to enjoy alone-time with their respective parents for once.
The moment they left the dining pavilion became the moment Harley decided he never wanted to babysit Leo's kids again.
The Stolls kidnapped little Espie almost immediately, heading off to the Hermes cabin to brainstorm ideas with their younger siblings about using the girl in a prank. They had yelled back at him that they needed her opinion on some sort of My Little Pony/Jason prank. Harley cursed the Hermes twins for being so much faster than he. He picked up Tulio, meaning to run after them, but Tulio immediately struggled out of his grip.
"No!" Tulio pouted. "No hold! No Uppies! Only Papi do Uppies!"
Harley sighed. "I'm not…" he began. "Tulio, we need to go rescue your sister. Let's—" He had motioned to pick up the boy again. Mistake.
Tulio shot off. For a two-year-old, he was fast! Harley trailed after him. Tulio ran into one of the bushes. Two seconds later, Harley pushed aside the leaves and gasped.
The boy had vanished!
Harley cursed. "No, no! How do you do that!?" He began to suspect that Tulio had a hidden power his sister and father didn't possess. Suddenly, Tulio getting into the rafters became prominent in his mind. He originally thought that maybe Happy had flown him up there, but now he wasn't so sure...
Harley struggled with himself. Should he go try and find Tulio or rescue Esperanza from the Stolls? He finally settled on Tulio. At least he knew where Espie was…not that it was a good place for her to be, but still…
"Tulio!" He yelled across camp. "Tulio Valdez, where are you?"
The more he yelled, the more attention he grabbed. Campers began giving him strange looks as he ran full-speed around the camp, yelling for Tulio to come out. He was getting frantic. What kind of babysitter was he? He couldn't even make it through ONE DAY without losing the twins!
"Harley?"
The son of Hephaestus turned around. His older sister, Nyssa, was standing behind him. She had a concerned look on her face. "Everything okay?"
"No!" he blurted out without thinking. "I've lost Tulio and the Stolls took Espie and Leo's gonna be so pissed when he finds out I can't even take care of his kids for one single day and I'm such a bad uncle and a bad brother and…" He hyperventilated. Panic settled within his stomach.
Nyssa grabbed his shoulders. "Harley, first of all: BREATHE!"
Harley took deep, slow breaths.
"Secondly, please repeat what's wrong. Slowly this time."
Harley repeated what had happened with the twins. Nyssa sighed at the Stolls' twin-napping and cocked an eyebrow at Tulio's sudden disappearance. She gently rubbed her brother's shoulders, which he appreciated.
"Alright," she settled. "Even though it's against my better judgment, I agree that you did the right thing choosing to leave Espie in the hands of the Stolls while tracking down Tulio. But you should've grabbed someone to help you. I'll help get Espie away from the Stolls. You keep looking for Tulio. Check inside the cabins. I doubt that he could've gone outside the borders."
Nyssa ran off. Harley was about to follow her to check and see if Tulio had ended up with his sister when someone else approached him. It was a girl about Harley's age with straight brown hair and striking green eyes. She was new to camp, so Harley hadn't had the time to really get to know her. He thought her name was Annie. The only thing he knew for sure was that she was a daughter of Aphrodite.
"You're Harley, right?" she asked. "The head counselor for Cabin Nine?"
"Yes, but I can't be bothered right now. I'm looking for someone—"
"Come with me, please," she said with just a hint of forcefulness. "Tulio's with us."
Harley tensed and relaxed at the same time. He raced after Annie, heading straight for the Aphrodite Cabin. Annie burst through the doors yelling, "I got Harley!"
The children of Aphrodite all looked up from where they were. Harley noticed an odd pattern. All of the boys were doing whatever around the cabin, mostly relaxing on their beds reading magazines. All of the girls were clustered in a tight circle around one of the beds. One of the girls shushed Annie.
Annie took the hint and motioned for Harley to follow her quietly. The son of Hephaestus did as he was signaled to do and moved closer to the tight circle of girls. Most of these girls were mumbling and giggling, some even sighing an 'aww' or two. Harley pushed past a couple girls and sighed in relief.
Tulio was curled up in the bed, wrapped up in a baby blue blanket. He sucked his thumb as he slept, humming peacefully. Harley suppressed the urge to 'aww' himself. He turned to the head counselor of Cabin 10, Dani, and asked, "How'd you find him?"
Dani blinked at him, looking slightly miffed that she had to look away from the cuteness that was little Tulio. "He just appeared out of nowhere. One second we were enjoying our nice-earned break from training in here, the next Tulio suddenly skidded to a halt in the middle of the Cabin! He hadn't burst through the door or climbed through the windows; he just appeared! Then he looked around, yawned, and crawled into Beth's bed. The little guy is so cute we couldn't bear to wake him, so we gave him a blanket. That's when we heard you screaming for him."
Harley stared hard at the little Latino. He couldn't ignore what he had just learned.
Teleportation.
The little bastard had the power of teleportation!
Harley wanted to know where that had come from…his father and grandfather obviously couldn't have given it to him. Maybe the mother's side of the family had god blood too? Harley desperately wanted Leo to return so he could figure out who this girl was.
"Thanks for getting me," he whispered. He bent down and picked up Tulio gently. The boy groaned but didn't wake up. Harley figured teleportation was still a hard power for him and exhausted the boy like shadow travelling had done to Nico the first few years. He also realized that the power explained how Tulio had gotten into the rafters last night!
Gods, a Leo 2.0 with teleportation powers…he thought with a shudder. This little guy's gonna be a right demon when he grows up!
As he left the cabin, still cradling Tulio gently, a small blue blur ran up to him. "Tui ok! Tui here!"
Harley looked up at Nyssa casually strolling up to him. She looked pleased, like she had won a huge game of poker. Harley shivered at the thought of what she might have done to the Stolls.
"I see you found him," Nyssa remarked. "How'd he get in there?"
"Can our dad pass on teleportation?" Harley asked. When she gave him a weird look he added, "This little devil can teleport! Can you believe that?"
Nyssa's eyes widened. "How?" was all she managed.
Harley shrugged. "Dunno. Obviously it's not something you get from Leo's side—unless one of our siblings or the Vulcan cousins can do it (which I doubt). Do you think Leo fell for a…" he trailed off.
Nyssa caught the hint. "If he did…which goddess would it have been, do you think?"
"Wouldn't have been Aphrodite," Harley ruled. "I feel like she would pay way more attention to the twins. That, and I don't think Leo would be her type…"
"Demeter?" Nyssa pondered. "Definitely not. Leo can burn down fields of anything, so that's a no."
"Though Leo likes architecture," Harley continued, "I think he's just a little too dumb for Athena."
They snickered.
"Hera and Artemis are out for obvious reasons," Nyssa said. "And I highly doubt Leo would be into Nemesis after what happened with the war."
"Which leaves…" Harley's voice trailed off.
Nyssa picked it up. "Hecate. Considering Tulio's power…it makes sense. But, even so…it doesn't explain the disappearing for five years."
"But it does explain the memory problem," Harley added. "Maybe Hecate didn't want Leo to remember her or maybe they fought and it's a punishment?"
Before Nyssa could respond, Wendy Black—head of the Hecate Cabin—passed Harley's vision. He called her over.
When Wendy came over, she swept her punk-styled blonde hair out of her eyes. "What's up, guys?"
"We got a couple questions," Harley said. "Do you mind?"
Wendy shrugged. "Shoot."
"Can Hecate kids teleport?"
"Sure, but only short distances. We can't, like, hop continents or teleport into underground safes or stuff like that. Little hops, y'know? Across camp, in and out of the cabins. We can't go as far as Nico's shadow travelling can, but it works like that."
Tulio shifted in Harley's arms. Harley continued. "Can Hecate manipulate memories? Like, say, blocking them out?"
Wendy seemed to catch on. "You're talking about Leo Valdez, aren't you? You think Leo's disappearance had something to do with Mom?" She grimaced. "EW! I can't even begin to imagine Mom going for Leo! Judging from the other night, he does not seem like her kind of guy!"
"Tulio can teleport, though," Nyssa chimed in.
That got Wendy's attention. She stared at the sleeping toddler in Harley's arms with wide, examining eyes. After a couple seconds, she shook her head.
"There's just no way he could be my brother. I think I'd sense it. Maybe the teleportation is a once-in-a-thousand-years power that Hephaestus gives—like the fire?"
Both the Hephaestus children gave her a withered look. Wendy looked at the ground. "Just a thought. But I highly doubt Hecate was the one to capture Leo's heart. Or vice versa..." She faked a barf at the end of the sentence. "Just ick!"
She left the Hephaestus family on that note. Harley turned back to Nyssa. "Well…maybe it wasn't Hecate. But where would Tulio get that power?"
Nyssa shook her head. "Only time will tell, I guess. We'll just have to wait 'til Leo returns. He said he'd tell the twins who the mother was as soon as he returned. We'll have our answer then."
"But I'm impatient," Harley whined.
Nyssa ruffled his short, choppy blonde hair. "You can stop trying to be Leo now that we know he's okay," she teased.
Harley made a face and stuck his tongue out as she walked away. He thought about that comment, memories flooding back to him.
Right after Leo's honorary funeral, the Hephaestus Cabin had gone into a slow depression, obviously missing Leo's stupid antics. It had gotten so bad that the cabin had begun to think their curse had returned. Harley, being the funny kid that he was, decided he wasn't going to believe in the curse like last time. He made up his mind to remind everyone to keep smiling. Harley began to tell corny jokes, build funny machines that were supposed to mess up and generally make everyone's day just a little brighter. Jake Mason, one of his older brothers, called him Harleo sometimes, which made the rest of the cabin feel better. Soon, it was like old times again, but with one slight difference: Instead of Leo being known as the funny Hephaestus kid, Harley had filled in the position.
Harley, still carrying Tulio, held Espie's hand and walked towards the lake. It was a nice day out, and he figured the twins would like the nice scenery.
As they came near the shoreline, Tulio grumbled, "…no Uppies…"
Harley smiled down at the little Leo. "Hey, big guy."
Tulio gazed up at him with big almond eyes. "Where Papi?"
"He'll be back soon. Look," he said as he set the boy down. He gestured to the lake. "This is our lake. Wanna say hi to the water nymphs?"
Tulio appreciated the distraction and nodded. A couple of water nymphs popped out of the water and waved to the twins.
Espie was ecstatic and started splashing around in the shallows, randomly picking up shells and rocks and showing them to the nymphs.
Tulio wandered on the shore nearby with a pouty face, apparently not wanting to play.
Harley scratched his head. Geeze, what polar opposites. One minute they're like the Stolls—so close in personality you can't tell which one is which—and then suddenly Tulio becomes Mr. Grumplepuss and Espie is Miss Bouncyhouse…
"What that?"
Harley blinked. Tulio was in the shallows now, pointing to something out in the lake. The water nymphs glanced in the direction Tulio had pointed towards and disappeared back into the water. Harley squinted.
A raft was floating in the soft current, slowly drifting their way. There wasn't anything on it. It was just a makeshift wooden raft with a small, sail-less mast.
Espie waded further to get a better look. Harley immediately called her back. "Espie, don't go near it! It could be dangerous!"
Tulio's eyes were still locked onto the raft. They were wide with curiosity. "No bad," he mumbled.
The raft drifted ashore next to Harley. Harley didn't sense any invisible dangers. It didn't seem like a dangerous monster about to eat him…but something didn't sit right with him about it. Where did it come from? Why was it here?
Tulio immediately hopped onto the raft and hugged the mast. "We go! Go now!"
Espie climbed aboard as well, bouncing up and down excitedly. "Go see Papi with boat! Yay!"
Harley scratched his head. "Guys, it might not be safe. Besides, it probably won't take you to your dad. The lake doesn't go anywhere—especially not to Spain!" He hated to discourage them like this, but there wasn't much of a choice.
Tulio shook his head furiously. "Boat go! Boat go far!"
Suddenly, the raft jerked backwards. The waves started pulling it back into the lake. Harley flinched and jumped into the water after it. He climbed onto the raft before the water got up to his stomach. The twins looked a little bothered now.
Well, Espie did.
Tulio was staring straight ahead, eyes wide and mouth formed into a grin.
Harley followed his gaze and gasped.
A thick, dense fog had come out of nowhere and blanketed the opposite shore! Before he could even turn his head to shout to someone—anyone who could have been nearby—to come rescue him and the twins, the fog had completely enveloped the raft. Harley could barely see his nose, let alone the twins. Thankfully, he could still hear them and feel their weight by the mast.
"Kids," he shouted. "You alright?"
The twins each said, "Yes!"
He exhaled in relief. "Don't move around. Keep to the mast."
The fog began to clear, for which Harley was grateful. Then, his gratefulness turned to surprise and dread.
They were no longer in the lake. There were no familiar trees or ports lining a nearby shore—actually, there was no shore anywhere.
Somehow, the raft had ended up in the ocean!
Harley glanced around. "Shi—Styx," he saved. "How in Hades did we get here?"
"Uncle, look!" Tulio was pointing again, this time behind them.
Harley turned and furrowed his brows. Where did that come from? That wasn't there a second ago…then again; we were on a lake a few minutes ago…
He shuffled around, hoping he wouldn't have to get wet again, but sighed. There weren't any oars on the raft. Of course…
So, he jumped off the raft, instructed the twins to sit still, and pushed the raft in the direction of the small island that had magically appeared.
A/N: Oooh! Dun dun duuuunnnnn!
Alright, time for the news!
The Good news: The moment I said the hint, almost all of you got it! Wasn't that hard, now, was it?
The Bad news: I couldn't give everyone's OC an appearance in the one-shot, so I could only choose two-Chris, who had the first half-guess with 'power from his mother' and PercyJacksonOracle for the real winning guess 'he teleported'! You both will be getting your OCs put into the next Valdez family one-shot!
Congrats and cookies to all who got the answer!
To CC: I would like to tell you something regarding your answer, but you aren't logged in, so I can't say it :( Bummer...
Aaaand now...
The Worse news: This is my final pre-written chapter. What the Hades does that mean? It means that I will be slower in updating now that I am writing and updating at the same time. Does that mean I'm discontinuing? Oh HELL NO. The chapter updates will just not be daily anymore. :( Soo, I'm sorry.
The silver lining to that is that I have a whole story-board written out so I won't forget what I had planned for the rest of the chapters :D
'Til next time, guys!