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 6: The Journey of a Thousand Miles
Leo didn't stick around long after Piper had turned beautiful, sure it was terrific, but Leo had more significant problems that required his attention. He ducked out of the arena and ran into the darkness, wondering what he'd gotten himself into and how these events will end. Leo had stood up in front of a bunch of stronger, braver demigods and volunteered for a mission that would probably get him killed. He hadn't mentioned seeing Tía Callida, his old babysitter, but as soon as he'd heard about Jason's vision, the lady in the black dress and shawl, Leo knew it was the same woman. Tía Callida was Hera. His evil babysitter was the queen of the gods. Stuff like that could deep-fry your brain. He shuffled toward the woods and tried not to think about his childhood, all the messed-up things that had led to his mother's death, but he couldn't help it.
(Flashback)
"Let's set you down for a nap," she said. "Let's see if you are my brave little hero, eh?"
"I remember feeling so sleepy." Leo's thoughts rang out. "Crazy Tia wrapped me up into my blankets in a warm mound of red and yellow—pillows?" The bed was like a cubbyhole in the wall, made of blackened bricks, with a metal slot over his head and a square hole far above, where he could see the stars. "I was so comfortable, grabbing at sparks like fireflies. I dozed and dreamed of a boat made of fire, sailing through the cinders. I imagined myself on board, navigating the sky." Somewhere nearby, Tía Callida sat in her rocking chair—creak, creak, creak—and sang a lullaby. "Even at two, I know the difference between English and Spanish, yet Tía Callida was singing in a language that was neither." Everything was fine until mom came home." I remember her screaming and raced over to snatch me up.
"How could you?" Mom yelled at Tia, but the old lady had disappeared.
"I remember looking over my mother's shoulder at the flames curling around his blankets. Only years later did I realize I'd been sleeping in a blazing fireplace. The weirdest thing? Tía Callida hadn't been arrested or even banished from our house. She appeared again several times over the next few years. Once when I was three, she let me play with knives. Crazy old bat."
"You must learn your blades early," she insisted, "if you are to be my hero someday."
"Somehow, I managed not to kill myself, but I got the feeling Tía Callida wouldn't have cared one way or the other." When Leo was four, Tía found a rattlesnake for him in a nearby cow pasture. She gave him a stick and encouraged him to poke the animal.
"Where is your bravery, little hero? Show me the Fates were right to choose you."
"I stared down at those amber eyes, hearing the dry shh-shh-ssh of the snake's rattle. I couldn't bring Myself to poke the snake; it wasn't fair." The snake felt the same way about biting a little kid. Leo could've sworn it looked at Tía Callida like, Are you nuts, lady? Then it disappeared into the tall grass. The last time she babysat him, Leo was five. She brought him a pack of crayons and a pad of paper. They sat together at the picnic table in the back of the apartment complex, under an old pecan tree. While Tía Callida sang her strange songs, Leo drew a picture of the boat he'd seen in the flames; it looked like an Aircraft carrier, but instead of a traditional design, it had jet propulsions, and it was clear that this ship is born to fly. Just before he finished and was about to sign his name the way he'd learned in kindergarten, a wind snatched the picture away. It flew into the sky and disappeared. Leo wanted to cry. He'd spent so much time on that picture—but Tía Callida just clucked with disappointment. "It isn't time yet, little hero. Someday, you'll have your quest. You'll find your destiny, and your hard journey will finally make sense. But first, you must face many sorrows. I regret that, but heroes can only grow stronger this way. Now, make me a fire, eh? Warm these old bones." A few minutes later, Leo's mom came out and shrieked with horror. Tía Callida was gone, but Leo sat in the middle of a smoking fire. The pad of paper was now no more than ash. Crayons had melted into a bubbling puddle of multicolored goo, and Leo's hands were ablaze, slowly burning through the picnic table. For years afterward, people in the apartment complex would wonder how someone had seared the impressions of a five-year-old's hands an inch deep into solid wood. Now Leo was sure that Tía Callida, his psychotic babysitter, had been Hera all along. That made her, what—his godly grandmother?
"My family is even crazier than I realized or dared to imagine; I wonder if mom had known the truth." Leo then remembered after that last visit, his mom took him inside and had a long talk with him, but he only understood some of it.
"She can't come back again." His mom had a beautiful face with kind eyes and curly dark hair, but she looked older than she was because of hard work. The lines around her eyes were deeply etched. Her hands bore calluses from years of hard work. She was the first person from their family to graduate from college. She had a degree in mechanical engineering and could design anything, fix anything, build anything. No one would hire her, no company would take her seriously, so she ended up in the machine shop, trying to make enough money to support the two of them. She always smelled of machine oil, and when she talked with Leo, she frequently switched from Spanish to English, using them like complementary tools. It took Leo years to realize that not everyone spoke that way. She'd even taught him Morse code as a kind of game, so they could tap messages to each other when they were in different rooms: I love you. Are you okay? Simple things like that. "I don't care what Callida says," mom told me. "I don't care about destiny and the Fates. You're too young for that. You're still my baby." She took my hands, looking for burn marks, but of course, there weren't any. "Leo, listen to me. Fire is a tool, like anything else, but it's more dangerous than most. You don't know your limits. Please, promise me—no more fire until you meet your father. Someday, mijo, you will meet him. He'll explain everything."
"I'd heard that since I could remember, someday I would meet my dad. Mom wouldn't answer any questions about him, and I've never met him, never even seen pictures, but she talked like he'd just gone to the store for some milk, and he'd be back any minute." Leo tried to believe her. Someday, everything would make sense. For the next couple of years, they were happy. Leo almost forgot about Tía Callida. He still dreamed of the flying boat, but the other strange events seemed like a dream too. It all came apart when Leo turned eight. By then, he was spending every free hour at the shop with his mom.
"You're a quick learner Mijo," Mom always knew how to make me happy.
"I always knew how to use the machines; I can measure, do math better than most adults. I'd learned to think three-dimensionally, solving mechanical problems in my head the way mom did. One night, we had to stay late because mom was putting the finishing touches on a drill bit design she hoped to patent. If she could sell the prototype, it might change their lives. She'd finally get a break. I passed her supplies and told her corny jokes, trying to keep her spirits up as she worked. I loved it when I could make her laugh."
"Your father would be proud of you, mijo. You'll meet him soon, I'm sure." She'd smile and say, Mom's workspace was at the very back of the shop. It was kind of creepy at night because they were the only ones there. Every sound echoed through the dark warehouse, but Leo didn't mind as long as he was with his mom. If he did wander the shop, they could always keep in touch with Morse code taps. Whenever they were ready to leave, they had to walk through the entire shop, through the break room, and out to the parking lot, locking the doors behind them. That night after finishing up, they'd just gotten to the break room when his mom realized she didn't have her keys. "That's funny." She frowned. "I know I had them. Wait here, mijo. I'll only be a minute." She gave him one more smile—the last one he'd ever get —and she went back into the warehouse. She'd only been gone a few heartbeats when the interior door slammed shut. Then the exterior door locked itself.
"Mom?" Leo's heart pounded. Something heavy crashed inside the warehouse. Leo ran to the door, but no matter how hard Leo pulled or kicked, it wouldn't open. "Mom!" Frantically, he tapped a message on the wall: You okay?
"She can't hear you," a voice said. Leo turned and found himself facing a strange woman. At first, he thought it was Tía Callida. She wears similar black robes, with a veil covering her face.
"Tía?" he said. The woman chuckled, a slow, gentle sound as if she were half asleep.
"I am not your guardian. Merely a family resemblance."
"What—what do you want? Where's my mom?"
"Ah … loyal to your mother. How nice. But you see, I have children too, and I understand you will fight them someday. When they try to wake me, you will prevent them. I cannot allow that."
"I don't know you. I don't want to fight anybody."
"A wise choice." She muttered like a sleepwalker in a trance. With a chill, Leo realized the woman was, in fact, asleep. Behind the veil, her eyes were closed. But even stranger: her clothes weren't of cloth. They were made of earth—dry black dirt, churning and shifting around her. Her pale, sleeping face was barely visible behind a curtain of dust, and he had the horrible sense that she'd had just risen from the grave. If the woman was asleep, Leo wanted her to stay that way. He knew that fully awake; she would be even more terrible. "I cannot destroy you yet," the woman murmured. "The Fates will not allow it. But they do not protect your mother, and they cannot stop me from breaking your spirit. Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me."
"Leave my mother alone!" Fear rose in his throat as the woman shuffled forward. She moved more like an avalanche than a person, a dark wall of earth shifting toward him.
"How will you stop me?" she whispered. She walked straight through a table, the particles of her body reassembling on the other side. She loomed over Leo, and he knew she would pass right through him, too. He was the only thing between her and his mother. His hands caught fire. A sleepy smile spread across the woman's face as if she'd already won. Leo screamed with desperation, and his vision turned red. A figure emerged next to Leo and was mirroring his movements; they thrust their hands out, and flames washed over the earthen woman. Just before the fire made contact, the woman looked almost afraid; then, the inferno flew over the walls, the locked doors, and Leo lost consciousness.
"When I woke, I was in an ambulance; the paramedic tried to be kind. She told me the warehouse had burned down, and mom hadn't made it out. The paramedic said she was sorry, but I felt hollow. I'd lost control, just like mom had warned. Her death was my fault. Soon the police came to get me, and they weren't as friendly. The fire had started in the break room, they said, right where Leo was standing. He'd survived by some miracle, but what kind of child locked the doors of his mother's workplace, knowing she was inside and started a fire?" Later, his neighbors at the apartment complex told the police what a strange boy he was. They talked about the burned handprints on the picnic table. They'd always known something was wrong with Esperanza Valdez's son. His relatives wouldn't take him in. His Aunt Rosa called him a diablo and shouted at the social workers to take him away. So Leo went to his first foster home. A few days later, he ran away. Some foster homes lasted longer than others. He would joke around, make a few friends, pretend that nothing bothered him, but he always ended up running sooner or later. It was the only thing that made the pain better—feeling like he was moving, getting farther and farther away from the ashes of that machine shop.
(End flashback)
"I'd promised myself I would never play with fire again. I haven't thought about Tía Callida, or the sleeping woman wrapped in earthen robes, for a long time." Leo was almost to the woods when he imagined Tía Callida's voice.
"It wasn't your fault, little hero. Our enemy wakes. It's time to stop running."
"Hera," Leo muttered, "you're not even here, are you? You're in a cage somewhere." There was no answer, but now, at least, Leo understood something that he hadn't before, Hera had been watching him his entire life. Somehow, she'd known that one day she would need him. Maybe those Fates she mentioned could tell the future. Leo wasn't sure. But he knew it is his destiny to go on this quest. Jason's prophecy warned them to 'beware the earth,' and Leo knew it had something to do with that sleeping woman in the shop, wrapped in robes of shifting dirt.
"You'll find your destiny," Tía Callida had promised, "and your hard journey will finally make sense." Leo might find out what that flying boat in his dreams meant. He might meet his father or even get to avenge his mother's death. But first things first. He'd promised Jason a flying ride. Not the boat from his dreams, not yet there wasn't time to build something that complicated. He needed a quicker solution; he needed a dragon. He hesitated at the edge of the woods, peering into absolute blackness. Owls hooted, and something far away hissed like a chorus of snakes. Leo remembered what Beckendorf had told him.
"No one should go in the woods alone, definitely not unarmed." He glanced back at the lights of the cabins. He could turn around now and tell everyone he'd been joking. 'Psych! Nyssa could go on the quest instead.' He could stay at camp and learn to be part of the Hephaestus cabin, but he wondered how long it would be before he looked like his bunkmates—sad, discouraged, convinced of his bad luck.
"They cannot stop me from breaking your spirit," the sleeping woman had said. "Remember this night, little hero, when they ask you to oppose me."
"Believe me, lady," Leo muttered, "I remember. And whoever you are, I'm gonna face-plant you hard, Leo-style." Leo willed Shepherd of Fire to materialize. "I promised I wouldn't use you again," Leo looked at the spirit, "but if I'm going to get revenge, to help Jason get his memory back, I'll need your help." He took a deep breath and plunged into the forest. The woods weren't like any place Leo'd ever been before; after all, he grew up in a North Houston apartment complex; the wildest thing Leo ever encountered was a rattlesnake in the cow pasture. Well, that, and his Aunt Rosa in her nightgown until he arrived at the Wilderness school. Even in that twisted place, it was a desert; there were no trees with gnarled roots to trip on, no streams to fall into, and no branches that cast dark and creepy shadows or owls looking at him with their big reflective eyes; this was like being in the Twilight Zone. Leo stumbled along until he was sure no one back at the cabins could see him, then he summoned fire. Flames danced along with his fingertips, casting enough light to see. Leo hadn't tried to keep a sustained burn going since he was five, at that picnic table. Since his mom's death, he'd been too afraid to try anything. Even this tiny fire made him feel guilty.
"That's an impressive gift." a voice called out; Leo turned to the source of the voice to see Madara leaning against a nearby tree. "I know even some Uchiha who'd give quite a bit for the ability to cast Katon without signs."
"How did you know I left?" Madara smiled a bit.
"I'm quite the sensory type, plus I've had years to make sure I'm always aware of my surroundings." Madara walked forward. "So, I noticed you duck out of the amphitheater not too long ago." Madara smiled a bit. "I'm not the best with emotions, but I can tell that you are dealing with something traumatic."
"I'm just fine," Leo laughed, "I'm just nervous; that's all." Madara raised an eyebrow,
"Leo, you're joking attitude, your class clown act might fool others, but tricking me is much harder." Leo sighed and sat down on a nearby log as Madara sat down next to him.
"How did you know?"
"I lived in a world where being able to read people would mean the difference between life and death." Madara laughed a bit. "It's funny if you had told me, fifteen thousand years ago, I'd be sitting in the forest comforting some sixteen-year-old kid I would have killed you without hesitation."
"Why?" Leo looked at Madara.
"Because my philosophy back then was 'Weakness disgusts me,' it has a second part, but that's not relevant, but what is if you hide from your past, or your pain all it will do is fester, it may not be easy, but you need to forgive yourself for what's eating you."
"My mother died because I lost control," Leo glared at Madara, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. "how can I forgive myself for that?"
"Do you want to hear a story?" Leo nodded. "A long time ago, there was a boy; he was one of five brothers, they all lived in a time of war, where children could die at any time, some even younger than you. This boy would watch the world around him become consumed by hatred; this boy always wanted to do something about all the hate. One day he was skipping stones by a river, trying to get it across. After multiple failures, a rock made it to the other side, but it wasn't one that he tossed. The boy turned to see a boy the same age and size as he was, and this second boy told him how he did it; eventually, the first boy got it. After racing to the top of a nearby cliff, they talked about how much they wanted to establish an era of peace." Madara sighed. "But that all changed when one day the two boys discovered that their friend was a member of a family that had a long-standing rivalry with their own. The second boy tried to reach out to his friend, to keep their bond, but the first boy swore he would erase his friend. For years the two boys would clash time and time again, the second always trying to steer his friend back to the path of light. There were several times that the first boy almost returned," Madara's expression darkened "but, the world took everything he held dear; the straw that broke the camel's back was the loss of his last and younger brother. Eventually, he was able to let go of his hatred, to establish the peace he and his friend had dreamed of so long ago, and for a time, he was happy again. Then the boy, now a man, overheard a conversation between his childhood friend and his younger brother."
"Wait," Leo looked at Madara, "Didn't the first boy's younger brother die?"
"It was the second boy's brother."
"Oh."
"Anyway, the first boy's hatred returned in full swing, so he traveled below his family's compound where an ancient stone tablet sat that tells of the secrets of his family's bloodline. It tells the first boy about a secret that could redeem and save his family, so the boy decided to follow the tablet's advice and learn the technique, but he had to gain his friend's power first as that is what he was missing. The first boy left the new home he had and searched for a force that could help him. He came across an ancient being whose power was second to none; the boy used his ability to control this being and returned to bring down his friend. The two clashed in a battle to the death, one so violent that it left a permanent scar on the earth. Even though he lost, the first boy got what he needed from his friend, and so the boy retreated after just barely avoiding death. For years, the boy sat in hiding until one day the boy awakened the power that the tablet spoke of; the power this boy felt was unreal. He felt like there was nothing he couldn't do, so he started learning the technique. There was a lot of struggle in learning it, but eventually, he learned the jutsu and unleashed its power to save his family, but a being who the boy believed was a vessel of his will had tricked him. The Jutsu's real purpose was to revive a being better left dead; the first boy was now only a vessel for that being's revival. As the boy felt his life slip away from him, his last thoughts were, 'Where did I go wrong.' The despair he felt was so overwhelming he just wanted to sleep forever, to dream of a life where things had gone differently, where his brothers were still alive, where someone had not killed the woman the boy loved, and he had a son." Madara looked at the heavens and, to Leo's shock, he saw that Madara was crying. "I lost control of my life to my anger and my hate; I let them consume me until I was nothing but a vessel of pain that lashed out at everything around me to make them feel the pain I felt."
"You're kinda the big brother of the camp, aren't you?"
"I suppose you could call me that."
"So what happened to your friend, the one you tried to kill?"
"Hashirama, that's his name, lived after our battle at the Valley of the End, but the power he had expended weakened his life force. He died not too long after that battle; his last effort was to contain the being I controlled. Let this be a lesson to you, don't live in the past, or you will lose everything you hold dear." Madara stood up. "If you're looking for that dragon, try heading east." Madara pointed to the left. "Found a motor oil trap there two nights ago." Madara walked off into the darkness back towards the cabins. Leo sat for a few minutes, thinking about what Madara had told him. Leo got to his feet and started walking off in the direction that Madara indicated, and after about 10 minutes of walking, Leo saw the trap. A hundred-foot-wide crater ringed with boulders. Leo had to admit it was pretty ingenious. In the center of the depression, someone had filled a metal vat the size of a hot tub with a bubbly dark liquid, Tabasco sauce, and motor oil. On a pedestal suspended over the vat, an electric fan rotated in a circle, spreading the fumes across the forest.
"Could metal dragons smell?" The vat seemed to be unguarded. But Leo looked closely, and in the dim light of the stars and his handheld fire, he could see the glint of metal beneath the dirt and leaves, a bronze net lining the entire crater. "No, it's not that I can see it. I can sense it there, as if the mechanism was emitting heat, revealing itself to me." Six large strips of bronze stretched out from the vat like the spokes of a wheel. "They would be pressure-sensitive, As soon as the dragon stepped on one, the net would spring closed, and voilà—one gift-wrapped monster." Leo edged closer, and he, tentatively, put his foot on the nearest trigger strip. As he expected, nothing happened. They had to have set the net for something weighty. Otherwise, they could catch an animal, human, smaller monster, whatever. "Doubt there is anything else as heavy as a metal dragon in these woods. At least, I hope there isn't." He picked his way down the crater and approached the vat. The fumes were almost overpowering, and his eyes started watering. He remembered a time when Tía Callida, "Hera, whatever." had made him chop jalapeños in the kitchen, and he'd gotten the juice in his eyes, causing severe pain.
"Endure it, little hero." Hera had said, "The Aztecs of your mother's homeland used to punish bad children by holding them over a fire filled with chili peppers. They raised many heroes that way."
"A total psycho, that lady. I'm so glad he was on a quest to rescue her. Tía Callida would've loved this vat because it was way worse than jalapeño juice." Leo looked for a trigger or something that would disable the net. To Leo's dismay, he didn't see anything. He had a moment of panic. "Nyssa had said there were several traps like this in the woods, and they were planning more. What if the dragon had already stepped into another one? How could I possibly find them all?" He continued to search, but he didn't see any release mechanism. No large button labeled off. It occurred to him that there might not be one. He started to despair—and then he heard the sound. It was more of a tremor, the profound sort of rumbling you hear in your gut rather than your ears. It gave him the jitters, but he didn't look around for the source. He just kept examining the trap, thinking, "Must be a long way off. It's pounding its way through the woods. I gotta hurry." Then he heard a grinding snort, like steam forced out of a metal barrel. His neck tingled. He turned slowly. At the edge of the pit, fifty feet away, two glowing red eyes were staring at him. The creature gleamed in the moonlight, and Leo couldn't believe something that huge had sneaked up on him so fast. Too late, he realized the dragon was glaring at the fire in his hand, and he extinguished the flames. He could still see the dragon just fine. It was about sixty feet long, snout to tail, its body made of interlocking bronze plates. Its claws were the size of butcher knives, and its mouth is full of hundreds of dagger-sharp metal teeth. Steam came out of its nostrils. It snarled like a chain saw cutting through a tree. It could've bitten Leo in half, easy, or stomped him flat. It was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, except for one problem that completely ruined Leo's plan. "You don't have wings," Leo said. The dragon's snarl died.
"Why aren't you running away in terror?" A dark, metallic voice echoed in Leo's head.
"Hey, no offense," Leo said. "You're amazing! Good god, who made you? Are you hydraulic or nuclear-powered or what? But if it were me, I would've put wings on you. What kind of dragon doesn't have wings? I guess maybe you're too heavy to fly? I should've thought of that." The dragon snorted, more confused now. It was supposed to trample Leo. This conversation thing wasn't part of the plan. It took a step forward, and Leo shouted, "No!" The dragon snarled again. "It's a trap, bronze brain," Leo said. "They're trying to catch you."
"Will you shut up!" The dragon opened its mouth and blew fire. A column of white-hot flames billowed over Leo, more than he'd ever tried to endure before, it stung a little, but he stood his ground. When the fire died, there wasn't even a scorch mark on anywhere. Even his clothes were okay, which Leo didn't understand, which he was grateful for as he liked his army jacket, and having his pants seared off would've been pretty embarrassing. The dragon stared at Leo. Its face didn't change, being made of metal and all."Oh great, of course, you'd be immune to fire!" The dragon opened its mouth, and, to Leo's horror, a blue light started to appear and grow in brightness and intensity.
"Oohhh shit, laser cannon!" Leo frantically looked from the right and left. Unfortunately, there was nowhere that he could go that would protect him. "No choice; I really hope this works." (A/N: Play Fire Shaman From Stardust crusaders). "Shepherd of Fire!" As his command, the weird creature appeared again; standing in front of him, it turned its head to look at Leo. "We need to do something about the laser!" Shepherd of Fire moved in front of Leo and shifted its focus to the Dragon. As it did, the Dragon fired the beam at Leo, who closed his eyes waiting for death to take him, but something weird happened, Shepherd of Fire held out its hands, and the laser made contact with and started shrinking in size. As the blast shrank, Leo felt himself growing more powerful. Leo looked down at himself, and, to his disappointment, his body hadn't changed in the slightest. Leo looked at Shepherd of Fire and saw the laser's energy flickering around his arms and legs. "Energy manipulation," Leo whispered to himself, "that's your power this whole time."
"What the?!" The dragon's voice rang in Leo's head again, causing Leo to turn his focus back to the dragon.
"You can't burn me, and your laser doesn't work," Leo said, trying to sound stern and calm. He'd never had a dog before, but he talked to the dragon the way he thought you'd speak to a dog. "Stay, boy. Don't come any closer. I don't want you to get caught. See, they think you're broken and have to be scrapped and destroyed. But I don't believe that. I can fix you if you let me—" The dragon creaked, roared, and charged. The trap sprang. The floor of the crater erupted with a sound like a thousand trash can lids banging together.
"DECEIVER!" The dragon's voice roared as dirt and leaves flew, metal net flashing. Leo was knocked off his feet, turned upside down, and doused in Tabasco sauce and oil. He found himself sandwiched between the vat and the dragon as it thrashed, trying to free itself from the net that had wrapped around them both. The dragon blew flames in every direction, lighting up the sky and setting trees on fire. Oil and sauce burned all over them. It didn't hurt Leo, but it left a nasty taste in his mouth.
"Will you stop that!" he yelled. The dragon kept squirming. Leo realized he would get crushed if he didn't move. It wasn't easy, but he managed to wriggle out from between the dragon and the vat. He squirmed his way through the net. Fortunately, the holes were plenty big enough for a skinny kid. He ran to the dragon's head. It tried to snap at him, but the net causes the teeth to be tangled in the mesh. It blew fire again but seemed to be running out of energy. This time the flames were only orange. They sputtered before they even reached Leo's face. "Listen, man," Leo said, "you're just going to show them where you are. Then they'll come and break out the acid and the metal cutters. Is that what you want?"
"Can't say that would be pleasant."
"Okay, then," Leo smiled, "You're going to need to trust me if you don't want that." The Dragon looked at him, and its face was clearly a look of shock.
"Wait, you can understand me?"
"Can't all Children of Hephestus?"
"No, only the boy who smells of the sea and who's tongue brings fire can."
"What do you mean 'whose tongue brings fire?'"
"When he uses the sign of the tiger or the horse from the Chinese zodiac, he unleashes a torrent of flame stronger than mine."
"Humans can't breathe fire."
"I don't know how he does it, but him and the one whose eyes change from gray to blue can."
"You mean Annabeth?"
"Is that her name?"
"Yes, but now you need to stand still as I help fix you." With that, Leo set to work. It took him almost an hour to find the control panel. It was right behind the dragon's head, which made sense. Leo examined the wires inside the dragon's head. He was distracted by a sound in the woods, but it was just a tree spirit when he looked up. "A dryad, at least that's what I think Nyssla called them." putting out the flames in her branches. Fortunately, the dragon hadn't started an all-out forest fire, but still, the dryad wasn't too pleased. The girl's dress was smoking. She smothered the flames with a silky blanket, and when she saw Leo looking at her, she made a gesture that was probably very rude in Dryad. Then she disappeared in a green poof of mist. Leo returned his attention to the wiring. It was ingenious, definitely, and it made sense to him; this was the motor control relay, this processed sensory input from the eyes. "Ha," he said. "Well, no wonder."
"What?"
"You've got a corroded control disk. It probably regulates your higher reasoning circuits, right? Rusty brain, man. No wonder you're a little confused." Then Leo saw something that made him pause, a weird black metal rod integrated with the circuits. "What is this thing?"
"What thing?"
"There's a black rod; it's integrated with your circuits, but what is it doing here?" Leo reached out to touch it, and when he did, he saw a flash of a figure with blood-red eyes, each had nine comma marks in each organized in sets of three, Leo couldn't see much more, but he could feel the rage this figure was unleashing but couldn't get much more than that. Leo let go of the rod as he did; he noticed that his hair and body are covered in sweat.
"Yeah, I wouldn't have touched that if I was you."
"What was that?"
"That would be the one who smells of the sea; for days, I've been feeling his rage."
"I'm going to get started on fixing your control disk." He pulled out the disk, and the dragon went still. The glow died in its eyes. Leo slid off its back and began polishing the disk. He mopped up some oil and Tabasco sauce with his sleeve, which helped cut through the grime, but the more he cleaned, the more concerned he got. Some of the circuits were beyond repair. He could make it better, but not perfect. For that, he'd need a completely new disk, and he had no idea how to build one. He tried to work quickly. He wasn't sure how long the dragon's control disk could be off without damaging it—maybe forever—but he didn't want to take chances. Once he'd done the best he could, he climbed back up to the dragon's head and started cleaning the wiring and gearboxes, getting himself filthy in the process. "Clean hands, dirty equipment," he muttered, something his mother used to say. By the time he was through, his hands were black with grease, and his clothes looked like he'd just lost a mud-wrestling contest, but the mechanisms looked a lot better. He slipped in the disk, connected the last wire, and sparks flew. The dragon shuddered. Its eyes began to glow. "Better?" Leo asked. The dragon made a sound like a high-speed drill. It opened its mouth and all its teeth rotated.
"My thoughts are my own again!"
"You're welcome; now I'm going to free you." Another thirty minutes passed, and Leo found the release mechanism and untangled the dragon, but he finally stood up and shook off the rest of the netting. It roared triumphantly and unleashed a torrent of flame into the sky. "Can you not show off?"
"Why not?" The dragon looked at Leo, tilting its head.
"You need a name," Leo decided, "I'm calling you Festus."
"Could be worse." The dragon whirred its teeth and grinned.
"Cool," Leo replied, "but we still have a problem because you don't have wings."
"Thank you for reminding me." The sarcasm was thick in Festus' voice, which caught Leo by surprise.
"Didn't know that Automatons could be sarcastic." Festus tilted his head and snorted steam. Then he lowered his back in an unmistakable gesture. He wanted Leo to climb on. "Where are we going?" Leo asked. But he was too excited to wait for an answer. He climbed onto the dragon's back, and Festus bounded off into the woods. Leo lost track of time and all sense of direction. It seemed impossible the woods could be so vast and wild, but the dragon traveled until the trees were like skyscrapers, and the canopy of leaves completely blotted out the stars. Even the fire in Leo's hand couldn't have lit the way, but the dragon's glowing red eyes acted like headlights. Finally, they crossed a stream and came to a dead-end, a limestone cliff a hundred feet tall, a solid, sheer mass the dragon couldn't possibly climb. Festus stopped at the base and lifted one leg like a dog pointing. "What is it?" Leo slid to the ground. He walked up to the cliff—nothing but solid rock. The dragon kept pointing.
"Home," Festus responded.
"It's not going to move out of your way," Leo told him. The loose wire in the dragon's neck sparked, but otherwise, he stayed still. Leo put his hand on the cliff. Suddenly his fingers smoldered. Lines of fire spread from his fingertips like ignited gunpowder, sizzling across the limestone. The burning lines raced across the cliff face until they had outlined a glowing red door five times as tall as Leo. He backed up, and the door swung open, disturbingly silently for such a big slab of rock. "Perfectly balanced," he muttered. "That's some first-rate engineering." The dragon unfroze and marched inside as if he were coming home. Leo stepped through, and the door began to close. He had a moment of panic, remembering that night in the machine shop long ago when he'd been locked in. What if he got stuck in here? But then lights flickered on—a combination of electric fluorescents and wall-mounted torches. When Leo saw the cavern, he forgot about leaving.
"Festus," he muttered. "What is this place?"
"I told you Son of Hephestus, home." The dragon stomped to the center of the room, leaving tracks in the thick dust, and curled up on a large circular platform. The cave was the size of an airplane hangar, with endless work tables and storage cages, rows of garage-sized doors along either wall and staircases that led to a network of catwalks high above. Equipment was everywhere—hydraulic lifts, welding torches, hazard suits, air-spades, forklifts, plus something that looked suspiciously like a nuclear reaction chamber. Someone had covered the Bulletin boards with tattered, faded blueprints. And weapons, armor, shields—war supplies all over the place, a lot of them only partially finished. Hanging from chains far above the dragon's platform was an old tattered banner almost too faded to read. The letters were Greek, but Leo somehow knew what they said.
"Bunker 9." Leo looked at the banner. "Does this mean nine as in the Hephestus cabin or nine as in there are eight others?" Leo looked at Festus, still curled up on the platform, and it occurred to him that the dragon seemed so content because it was home. Someone had created Festus on that pad. "Do the other kids know… ?" Leo's question died as he asked it. The camp had abandoned this place for decades. Cobwebs and dust covered everything, and the floor revealed no footprints except for his and the giant paw prints of the dragon. He was the first one in this bunker for a long time. The camp abandoned Bunker 9, with a lot of projects half-finished on the tables. Locked up and forgotten, but why? Leo looked at a map on the wall—a battle map of the camp, but the paper was as cracked and yellow as onion skin. A date at the bottom read, 1864. "No way," he muttered. Then he spotted a blueprint on a nearby bulletin board, and his heart almost leaped out of his throat. He ran to the worktable and stared up at a white-line drawing almost faded beyond recognition: an aircraft carrier from several different angles. Faintly scrawled words underneath it read: prophecy? Unclear. Flight? It was the ship he'd seen in his dreams, the flying boat, or at least a prototype design. Someone had tried to build it here or at least sketched out the idea. Then it was left, forgotten a prophecy yet to come. And weirdest of all, the ship's design was precisely like the one Leo had drawn when he was five. "Okay," Leo muttered, "That's creepy." The masthead gave him an uneasy feeling, but Leo's mind spun with too many other questions to think about it for long. He touched the blueprint, hoping he could take it down to study, but the paper crackled at his touch, so he left it alone. He looked around for other clues. No boats. No pieces looked like parts of this project, but there were so many doors and storerooms to explore.
"I should remind you, son of Hephestus, that time is not our friend."
"Right, sorry, Festus." Leo looked around and saw a leather tool belt that was sitting next to his construction pad. Then the dragon switched on his glowing red eye beams and turned them toward the ceiling. Leo looked up to where the spotlights were pointing and yelped when he recognized the shapes hanging above them in the darkness. "Festus," he said in a small voice. "We've got work to do."
(A/N: Well, that's another chapter done. I am placing this Author's Note to explain my absence and silence. Unfortunately, where I live is known for high winds. The power company in their infinite wisdom, and I use that term sarcastically, has been cutting my power quite a lot for multiple days. This has massively affected my ability to write my stories or publish anything because no electricity, no Wi-Fi can't do anything until it gets turned back on. On another note, I would like to mention that I now have a poll on my profile. The poll has you, as my readers, deciding my next focus after Demigod Uchiha has been completed. There are several choices, and I ask that you vote on which one you want to see worked on first as this dictates what I do next. PLEASE DO NOT PLACE YOUR ANSWER IN A REVIEW AS THIS WILL MAKE IT HARDER TO GET A FINAL TOTAL! The Poll will be open until March 20th, at which time I will announce the winning choice on the next update. I wish you all Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, or whatever Holiday you celebrate, and Happy New Year. Thank you all for your continued support, and with that, this is CJShikage signing off.)
