Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto, Percy Jackson is the property of Rick Riordan, and Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is the property of Hirohiko Araki. All other references to any other works are property of their respective owners, I don't own this in any way please don't sue me.
Chapter 3: Shepherd of Fire
Leo was having a great day, emphasis on was, that was all flipped on its head when Coach Hedge had revealed he was a goatman, Dylan had transformed into a Ventus, Jason forgot who he was, and then met a blonde girl who looked like he could kill him in about 700 different ways. As Beckendorf led him through the camp, Leo's mood drastically improved, and everything he was being shown was so amazing it should have been illegal.
"Real Greek warships moored at the beach that sometimes had practice fights with flaming arrows and explosives? Sweet! Arts & crafts sessions where you could make sculptures with chain saws and blowtorches?" Leo thought as he looked around excitedly, "Sign me up! The woods are stocked with dangerous monsters, and no one should ever go in there alone? Nice! And the camp was overflowing with fine-looking girls." Leo didn't quite understand the whole related-to-the-gods business, but he hoped that didn't mean he was cousins with all these ladies. "That would suck." At the very least, he wanted to check out those underwater girls in the lake again. They were worth drowning for; eventually, Beckendorf showed him the cabins.
"Do I get a sword?" Leo asked.
"All in good time, little brother." Beckendorf replied, "but the right of passage for Cabin 9 is making your weapon."
"Yeah, what's up with that? Vulcan?" Beckendorf frowned a bit.
"Usually, we don't call the gods by their Roman names," Beckendorf said. "The original names are Greek. Our dad is Hephaestus."
"Festus?" Leo had heard somebody say that before, but he was still dismayed. "Sounds like the god of cowboys."
"He-phaestus," Beckendorf corrected. "God of blacksmiths and fire."
"The god of fire, Seriously? Considering what had happened to my mom, that seemed like a sick joke." Beckendorf was unaware of Leo's thoughts. "So the flaming hammer over my head," Leo said. "Good thing, or bad thing?"
"You got claimed right away, which is a good thing, but the curse has been well inconvenient, to say the least." Leo was halfway across the green when he spotted his old babysitter. And she was not the kind of person he expected to see at a demigod camp. Leo froze in his tracks. "What's wrong?" Beckendorf asked. Tía Callida—Auntie Callida. That's what she'd called herself, but Leo hadn't seen her since he was five years old. She was just standing there, in the shadow of a big white cabin at the end of the green, watching him. She wore her black linen widow's dress, with a black shawl pulled over her hair. Her face hadn't changed, leathery skin, piercing dark eyes. Her withered hands were like claws. She looked ancient but no different than Leo remembered.
"That old lady …" Leo said. "What's she doing here?" Beckendorf followed Leo's gift.
"What old lady?"
"Dude, the old lady. The one in black. How many old ladies do you see over there?" Beckendorf frowned.
"I think you've had a long day, Leo. The Mist could still be playing tricks on your mind. How about we head straight to your cabin now?" Leo wanted to protest, but when he looked back toward the big white cabin, Tía Callida was gone. He wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or if thinking about his mom had summoned Callida back from the past. And that wasn't good, because Tía Callida had tried to kill him.
"Just messing with you, man." Leo pulled some gears and levers from his pockets and started fiddling with them to calm his nerves. He couldn't have everybody at camp thinking he was crazy. At least, not crazier than he actually was. "Let's go see Cabin Nine," he said. "I'm in the mood for a good curse." From the outside, the Hephaestus cabin looked like an oversize RV with shiny metal walls and metal-slatted windows. The entrance was like a bank vault door, circular and several feet thick. It opened with lots of brass gears turning and hydraulic pistons blowing smoke. Leo whistled. "They got a steampunk theme going on, huh?"
"That wasn't my idea." Inside, the cabin seemed deserted. Leo saw steel bunks folded against the walls like high-tech Murphy beds. Each had a digital control panel, blinking LED lights, glowing gems, and interlocking gears. Leo figured each camper had his own combination lock to release his bed, and there was probably an alcove behind it with storage, maybe some traps to keep out unwanted visitors. At least, that's the way Leo would've designed it. A fire pole came down from the second floor, even though the cabin didn't appear to have a second floor from the outside. A circular staircase led down into some kind of basement. The walls had every kind of power tool Leo could imagine, plus a vast assortment of knives, swords, and other implements of destruction. A large workbench overflowed with scrap metal—screws, bolts, washers, nails, rivets, and a million other machine parts. Leo had a strong urge to shovel them all into his coat pockets.
"I love this kind of stuff, but I'd need a hundred more coats to fit it all. It's just like I'm back in mom's machine shop. Not the weapons, maybe—but the tools, the piles of scrap, the smell of grease and metal, and hot engines, She would've loved this place." Leo thought, then he pushed that thought away. He didn't like painful memories. Keep moving; that was his motto. Don't dwell on things. Don't stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of his sadness. He picked a long implement from the wall. "A weed whacker? What's the god of fire want with a weed whacker?"
"You'd be surprised." A voice in the shadows said, at the back of the room, one of the bunk beds had an occupant. A curtain of dark camouflage material retracted, and Leo could see the guy who'd been invisible a second before. It was hard to tell much about him as he was in a body cast. The boy had gauze except for his face, which was puffy and bruised. He looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy after a beat-down. "Right, Beckendorf?"
"Shut up." Beckendorf countered, but it was light-hearted. "This useless sack of shit here is Jake Mason."
"Wel,l fuck you too then," Jake replied, then he looked at Leo. "I'd shake your hand, but…"
"Please don't hurt yourself on my account." Leo joked weakly.
"Where's he gonna sleep?" Jake asked.
"He can have my old bed," Beckendorf replied. "not too long before Percy disappeared, Selena and I finished our house with his help."
"You sure, you worked hard on that."
"You wanna look me in the eye and tell me you'd willingly piss off someone who could punch a mountain out of existence?"
"Good point."
"Wait," Leo spoke up, looking between Beckendorf and Jake. "Who are you two talking about?"
"My wife Silena Beckendorf."
"Your first and last name is Beckendof?"
"No, my full name is Charles Beckendorf, call me Charles, and I'll backhand you back to the Grand Canyon." Leo gulped.
"Duly noted."
"Bunk 1-A, please." Beckendorf called out, and the whole cabin rumbled. A circular section of the floor spiraled open like a camera lens, and a full-size bed popped up. The bronze frame had a built-in game station at the footboard, a stereo system in the headboard, a glass-door refrigerator mounted into the base, and a whole bunch of control panels running down the side. Leo jumped right in and lay back with arms behind his head.
"I can handle this."
"It retracts into a private room below," Jake said.
"Oh, heck, yes," Leo said. "See y'all. I'll be down in the Leo Cave. Which button do I press?"
"I'll show you the works later," Beckendorf replied, "for now I'll show you to the forges, get some rest, Jake."
"You're the boss." Jake drew the curtain back, and all was silent. Beckendorf led Leo back out of the cabin and off towards the forges. They walked in silence for a bit when Beckendorf's neck stiffened, and he turned towards one of the other cabins.
"Something wrong?" Leo asked.
"You don't feel that?" Beckendorf asked.
"Fell what?"
"The chakra spike."
"What's chakra?"
"Chakra comes in two forms, the first is your 'Physical Energy' this determines how far you can throw something, how long you can run, how hard you can hit someone, or how much you can lift. The second is your 'Spiritual Energy' this determines your mind's ability to handle information, the best way to increase this is by meditation, studying or, Percy's personal favorite, experience."
"When you say 'experience' do you mean-"
"Trial by fire, yes. That is how Madara taught Percy, who in turn taught us all this way, I still have nightmares about the early days of training." Beckendorf shuddered a bit.
"So tell me about this curse." Beckendorf sighed.
"It's my fault, and dad is punishing the whole cabin for my fuck up."
"What happened?"
"About a year ago, Percy and I found a dragon automaton it was deactivated and in pieces, at first Percy and I were very apprehensive about reactivating the thing. Then we both realized that we'd need all the help we could get, and so Percy's brother, Tyson, and I began to rebuild it. Eventually, we had the thing fully operational, and at first, it was working fine with no issues or malfunctions. Then, about a month ago, yours truly got the brilliant idea to ask Percy to enhance it with the power of the Asura path, and things went downhill quickly. I couldn't control the thing, it started rampaging, burning down cabins, Percy had to restrain the thing 30 times and let me tell you that's one guy you don't want to anger."
"Who exactly is this Percy guy? I mean, I know he's Annabeth's missing boyfriend but the way everyone's acting it's like you've lost your leader. What did Annabeth mean by 'It's the Second fucking Titan War all over again?' has this happened before?" Beckendorf sighed.
"Yeah, it has, during the Second Titan war Percy was dragged back in time by Kronos he vanished for two days, but for him, it was three years. As for who he is well, Percy is, in a way, our leader; he's the strongest of us all for starters. Percy is kind to his friends or allies, the guy's a bit tough on us all, but that's so we can become the best we can; however, don't let Percy's kind nature fool you, the guy's ruthless to his enemies. If you cross him and pose a threat to those, he cares for, well, you've dug your own grave and the graves of those who support you. Word of advice if, you meet him, if you two are just talking and he asks, 'Shall we Dance?' get on your knees and beg for forgiveness as you are one wrong sentence from needing emergency medical treatment."
"What's wrong with dancing?" Beckendorf shuddered a bit.
"Percy's 'dancing' is what he calls fighting, you'll see soon enough, everyone who comes here has a training session with Madara who doesn't pull his punches, and he was the one who trained Percy." Leo gulped a bit. "With that, welcome to the cabin workshop of horrors, patent pending." The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon, and they had fused together. White marble columns lined the soot-stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborate gable carved with a bunch of gods and monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several water wheels turning a series of bronze gears. Leo heard machinery grinding inside, fires roaring, and hammers ringing on anvils. They stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls who'd been working on various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers. "9 Fall in!" Beckendorf shouted, and everyone looked at him. "First things first, I'd like to introduce our newest brother Leo- uh, what's your last name?"
"Valdez," Leo responded as he looked around at the other campers. "Am I really related to all of them?" One by one, the kids came up to Leo and introduced themselves to him. Their names blurred together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). Leo knew he'd never keep everybody straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming. None of them looked like the others—all different face types, skin tone, hair color, height. You'd never think, Hey, look, it's the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn't have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat. And all the kids shared a sad kind of seriousness. Their shoulders slumped like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Several looked like they picked a fight with a rampaging rhino. Leo counted two arm slings, one pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Ace bandages, and about seven thousand Band-Aids. "Well, all right!" Leo said. "I hear this is the party cabin!" Nobody laughed. They all just stared at him.
"While I have you all here," Beckendorf spoke, breaking the silence, "I have an announcement." Everyone looked at him, "Effective today I'm stepping down as Cabin Head, I'll be leaving Jake in charge, I'm moving into the house I had built for Silena and I. I will still join you for cabin activities and mealtime, but I just won't be sleeping in Cabin 9. With that settled, who wants to show Leo here the ropes?"
"I got it," one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered. She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buff arms, and a red bandanna over a mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens.
"Cool," Leo said. "I always wanted a sister who could beat me up." Nyssa didn't smile.
"Come on, joker boy. I'll show you around." Leo was no stranger to workshops. He'd grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. His mom used to joke that his first pacifier was a lug wrench, but he'd never seen any place like the camp forge. One guy was working on a battle-ax. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the ax cut into the block like it was warm cheese, but the guy looked unsatisfied and went back to honing the edge.
"What's he planning to kill with that thing?" Leo asked Nyssa. "A battleship?"
"You never know. Even with Celestial bronze—"
"That's the metal?" She nodded.
"Mined from Mount Olympus itself. Extremely rare. Anyway, it usually disintegrates monsters on contact, but big powerful ones have notoriously tough hides. Drakons, for instances—"
"You mean dragons?"
"Similar species. You'll learn the difference in monster-fighting class."
"Monster-fighting class. Yeah, I already got my black belt in that." She didn't crack a smile. Leo hoped she wasn't this serious all the time. "My dad's side of the family has got to have some sense of humor." Leo then saw a large container marked 'Unrefined Vibranium, DO NOT TOUCH WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION OF BECKENDORF!' Leo stopped and looked at the crate. "What's Vibranium?" Nyssa looked at him.
"An extremely rare and powerful metal, we got it from a nation in Africa, Beckendorf and Percy negotiated an alliance with the king."
"What does it do?"
"It absorbs kinetic energy, and then can redirect it, we've been using it to reinforce our armor and weapons. Lately, we've been avoiding using it as we don't have a whole lot, and so we've been keeping it locked up under heavy protection until we think it's safe to use again."
"How unsafe is it?"
"If mishandled, the entire valley will be turned a crater."
"Oh." Leo's voice was small. Eventually, they passed a couple of guys making a bronze windup toy. At least that's what it looked like; it was a six-inch-tall centaur armed with a miniature bow. One of the campers cranked the centaur's tail, and it whirred to life. It galloped across the table, yelling,
"Die, mosquito! Die, mosquito!" and began shooting everything in sight. Evidently, this had happened before because everybody knew to hit the floor except Leo. Six needle-sized arrows embedded themselves in his shirt before a camper grabbed a hammer and smashed the centaur to pieces.
"Stupid curse!" The camper waved his hammer at the sky. "I just want a magic bug killer! Is that too much to ask?"
"Ouch," Leo said. Nyssa pulled the needles out of his shirt.
"Ah, you're fine. Let's move on before the thing gets rebuilt." Leo rubbed his chest as they walked.
"That sort of thing happens a lot?"
"Lately," Nyssa said, "everything we build turns to junk."
"The curse?" Nyssa frowned.
"I don't believe in curses. But something's wrong. And if we don't figure out the dragon problem, it's gonna get even worse."
"Beckendorf mentioned something about that, how he had this dragon automaton that went haywire and said and I quote, 'Dad is punishing the whole cabin for my fuck up' but what is exactly going on?"
"Beckendorf puts too much blame on himself; we all convinced Percy to help." Nyssa took him over to a big wall map that a couple of girls were studying. The map showed the camp a semicircle of land, with Long Island Sound on the north shore. The woods to the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.
"The things got to be in the hills," the first girl said.
"We looked in the hills," the second argued. "The woods are a better hiding place."
"But we already set traps—"
"Hold up," Leo said. "You guys lost a dragon? A real full-size dragon?"
"It's a bronze dragon," Nyssa said. "But yes, at first we could control it, but now not even Beckendorf can reign the thing in, and now it's gone berserk and ran off. Occasionally it shows up, demolishes something then runs away again, everyone expects us to destroy it, and even with Percy Shinobi training, we've had no luck with it."
"Back up, 'shinobi training' what's a shinobi?"
"Everyone here has gone through extreme training to unlock the power that all humans have, it takes a bit of time, but we're stronger, faster, and can fight a lot longer than we used to, even the older demigods who were here before Percy are blown away by how strong they've gotten. You'll go through this training too, Madara trains us in the basics then we learn a more specific skill set once we're ready. For example, the Athena cabin learns in sealing techniques, but some don't fit in with that and take up assassin training."
"What does the Hephestus cabin learn?"
"Mostly Fire style techniques or in some cases, Lava style, but for that training is if you're born with both Fire and Earth affinities."
"'Affinities,' what are those?"
"I'll let Madara explain it as I still don't fully get it myself." Nyssa shook her head. "Anyway," Nyssa turned to face the other girls. "Let's lay more traps in the woods, here, here and here." As she spoke, she pointed to three key points on the map. "Bait them with thirty weight motor oil."
"The dragon drinks that?" Leo asked.
"Yeah." Nyssa sighed regretfully. "He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. If he springs the trap, we can come in with acid sprayers and Lava style to melt right through the hide, then we get metal cutters and finish the job." Everyone looked sad, and Leo realized they didn't want to kill this dragon.
"Guys, there has to be another way."
"Like what?" One asked. "The thing breathes fire, and while that's not hard to dodge, it recently fired a damn laser cannon at us, we can't get close."
"Fire. Oh, man, the things I could tell them about fire, but I have to be careful, even if these are my brothers and sisters. Especially if I have to live with them." Leo scratched the back of his head. "Well…. Hephestus is the God of Fire, right? So don't any of you have, like fire resistance or something?" Nobody acted as if it was a crazy or stupid question, which was a relief, but Nyssa shook her head gravely.
"That's a Cyclops ability Leo, and again the fire isn't hard to dodge, but you're ignoring the more serious problem, the laser cannon."
"How did it get a laser cannon?" the mood dropped significantly, and Leo realized he'd touched on a heavy topic.
"Percy used his, uh, how did he pronounce it again?"
"Rikudou No Jutsu." One of the other kids spoke.
"Yes, that," Nyssa replied, "thanks, Reo."
"No problem."
"Anyway, Percy used that technique to try and give it a little bit more firepower. At first, he objected to having any part in this, but we eventually convinced him, things went downhill quickly, and now with him gone, we have no means of restraining it."
"Couldn't that Madara guy destroy it?" Leo asked. "I mean from what I've heard about the guy he's crazy powerful."
"We thought of that, and he said, 'I'm not getting involved as I'm not always going to be around to fix your problems, and my techniques cause far too much collateral damage,' so yeah, that's not an option."
"There is something I'd like to add about the whole fire resistance thing." A guy in the back spoke. "A long time ago, some children of Hephestus were born with power over fire, but that ability was very, very rare and always dangerous. No Demigod has been born with that power in centuries, the last one…" He looked at one of the other kids for help.
"Sixteen sixty-six," the girl offered. "Guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the Great Fire of London, destroyed most of the city."
"Right." Nyssa piped in. "When a child of Hephestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen, and we don't need any more catastrophes." A conch shell blew in the distance, and the Campers started putting up their tools and projects. Leo hadn't realized it was getting so late, but he looked through the windows and saw the sun going down. His ADHD did that to him sometimes. If he was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If he was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and bam—the day was over. "Dinner," Nyssa said. "Come on, Leo."
"Up at the pavilion, right?" Leo asked, and Nyssa nodded. "You guys go ahead," Leo said. "Can you … give me a second?" Nyssa hesitated. Then her expression softened.
"Sure. It's a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you're ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost every project here can kill you if you're not careful."
"No touching," Leo promised. His cabinmates filed out of the forge. Soon Leo was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels, and small machines clicking and whirring. He stared at the map of camp—the locations where his newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon. It was wrong. Plain wrong. "Very rare, and always dangerous." He held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not callused like the other Hephaestus campers'. Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He'd survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools, strict foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester; he'd learned that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren't scared, you usually didn't get beat up. Even the badest gangster kids would tolerate you; keep you around for laughs. Plus, humor was an excellent way to hide the pain. And if that didn't work, there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over, there was a Plan C, but he'd promised himself never to use it again. He felt an urge to try it now, something he hadn't done since the accident, since his mom's death. He extended his fingers and could feel them tingle like they were waking up, pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm, and a figure emerged from behind Leo. It was humanoid but had a large bird head, heavily muscular torso, and its feathered legs; Its arms have claws instead of nails, and it wears dark bracelets on both of its wrists. "You always cause trouble." Leo looked at the thing speaking to it. "For once, I'll use your power to help, not just destroy." Leo started walking towards the dinner pavilion as the figure floated back under his skin. "Shepherd of Fire."