I do not own PJO or HOO

Myra109 here! I collaborated on this story with RueFlower277; go read her works! Also, we have posted this story on BOTH of our accounts.

Earlier During The Day

"Come on, Chiron!" Leo protested. "I don't need to see a stinking councilor!"

"Leo," Will interjected, firmly. "If what happened was really bad enough that it turned the stomach of a who-knows-how-many-millennia-old goddess, then you DO need to see a counselor."

His tone made it clear the discussion was over, and Leo reluctantly complied.

"Don't expect me to like it!" He yelled as he climbed on Festus.

Now

"Stupid Will... making me see a counselor" I muttered while driving Festus. I had rebuilt him, but I kept a compacted Buford in my pocket in case of crashes. Yeah, I know I fixed him, but on rare occasions, he went on the fritz, mostly just dripping oil out of his ear. I hoped that he wouldn't malfunction and crash and burn, but when did my life ever go to plan?

Festus started making strange whirring and clicking noises in morse code, which worried me.

"Help-p. maln- " Before he could say anything more, his ruby eyes dimmed and his wings stopped flying.

I dropped down like in a cartoon

"Festus! " I yelled while we were dropping. "What is happening?!"

Festus didn't respond, continuing to fall through the air like a stone, Leo lifting off of his back from the speed of their descent. Leo flailed, trying to locate the device in his pocket to fix Festus, but he knew how difficult it would be to repair Festus in midair. The best he could do was find a way to land safely and do any repairs once they were on the ground and not over a hundred feet above it.

Leo swam through the air in a weird motion that would have looked ridiculous, had he not been falling to his death, and pried open the compartment on Festus's neck, sliding his feet into the kinks in Festus's metal hide to keep himself on the bronze dragon. He located the two wires he needed and touched them to each other.

Nothing happened.

He cursed. "Come on! Come on!" He pleaded, scratching the frayed ends of the wires against each other with hope and desperation burning in his heart.

And finally… a spark.

Leo jumped as a crackle sounded, the wires sparking and connecting, activating Autopilot. It wasn't much; in fact, it barely lasted a minute, but it was just enough time for them to slow their descent.

Unfortunately, it was not enough time for Leo to steer Festus to a safer landing spot. They landed in the middle of a forest, much more softly than they would have without that last moment fail-safe, but they still plowed into the Earth with enough force to rattle Leo's brain inside his skull.

Before Festus had even come to a full stop, Leo was jerked forward by the rough landing, and his head cracked against the solid metal of Festus's neck.

He was out like a light.

Leo came around to a brisk breeze biting into his cheeks, stinging pain in his forehead that radiated through his entire skull, and the warm glow of early morning, the light of the dawn beginning to paint the sky blue.

Had he really been unconscious all night? He wondered, trying to lift his hand to feel the wound on his head, wanting to gauge how bad the injury was.

That was when he noticed three things: one, Festus was nowhere in sight; two, he probably had a concussion; and three, he was tied to a tree.

He was a little surprised by how long it took him to notice that last thing.

Leo went from disoriented to wide awake in a split second as his wide eyes glanced down at the weird cable-like ropes pinning his arms to his side and trapping him against a tree. He struggled against them, trying to see how durable they were, and his worst fears were confirmed: the ropes held firm.

He panicked for about thirty seconds before he remembered- in a stupidly belated fashion- that he could conjure fire and simply burn through the ropes.

Leo concentrated, but it barely took any focus to light his arms on fire, and he grinned in triumphant, fully expecting the ropes to burn away…

But they didn't.

His smile dropped, and the flames died, and with the extinguishing of the fire, he could see that his eyes were not deceiving him: the fire hadn't done any damage at all. Not even a tiny scorch mark.

"Fireproof cables," a voice supplied from straight ahead of Leo, reading the confusion and surprise on his face.

Leo whirled his head around to face the person, and for a moment, he was sure that his heart had stopped as he stared at the boy-no, man- in front of him.

The young man was in his early twenties, but he was even shorter than Leo at around 5'5 with Leo at 5'6, and he had dark hair and blue eyes that looked like they had seen Hell. His face was expressionless, frighteningly blank, and he wore a camouflage T-shirt and a black jacket. His jeans were ripped in the knees, and his sneakers were spotted with mud and something red that Leo would rather not think about. He had a tattoo on his upper arm, hidden by the jacket, but the dark tendrils of the ink crept up onto the left side of his neck.

He looked so normal, so ordinary, that it was horrifying because Leo knew exactly what this man was capable of.

"John," he acknowledged, willing his voice not to shake.

John smirked, and it was the closest he ever got to a smile. If Leo wasn't tied to a tree, you would have thought they were two friends greeting each other after a long time apart.

But Leo and John were far from friends.