The entire world of Greek Mythology was in Chaos. Word had traveled to every naiad, every Nymph, every satyr, and every demigod. News had traveled through the Greeks, it traveled through the Romans, and somehow our uncle Magnus found out so now the Norse world is on the lookout. Grover was in hysterics while he searched, somehow managing to get the rest of the coven to spread the message even further. We were told to stay in Camp unless things exceeded to drastic measures, but in my opinion they already had reached "drastic measures." But whatever. Chiron told us to stay put so that's what we were going to do. HA funny joke.
Yeah, I knew that wasn't going to work. What can I say? I'm still my dad's kid. Usually, I take after my mom. I got my fatal flaw of loyalty from my dad, but usually I'm like mom. I love to read, I want to be an architect, and I am generally a "rule follower." Notice the quotation marks. People assume that Mom always followed the rules, which is really not true. A number of times she snuck out of Camp or broke the rules while she and Dad were still out doing quests is almost at the same amount as my dad. Athena children don't necessarily follow the rules, they're just really good at breaking them.
Instead of pointing this out, I nodded to Chiron and guided my group back to the big house. Nobody said a word until we had locked ourselves into one of the rooms and made sure nobody was listening.
"You're really not going to let us go?! This isn't even a question, we're going!" Casey's face was once again red in frustration. The others all looked to me for answers. I set Oscar back onto the bed and sighed.
"No, of course not. But I'm not saying that in front of Chiron. He doesn't want us to leave. Something tells me that it doesn't matter how many people are out there looking, we need to get out there, into the world, and find them. There's a lot of us, and we're powerful. Our family names spike fear into every monster in our path and our bloodlines combine some of the most powerful gods. We're legacies that have never existed before! If we do this, together, then whoever took our parents don't stand a chance," I said. I wasn't completely sure I knew or believed what I was saying but it seemed to work. They all nodded and mumbled their agreement. Casey took a large sheet of graph paper out from under the bed. How did she just happen to have graph paper under the bed?
"We may not have a ping-pong table, but this will do just fine." She spread the paper out on the floor. Adora ran to help, getting markers from her bag and handing them to Casey. She looked up to the rest of us for a plan. What plan? We didn't have a plan! Ok, we need to start with the obvious: transportation.
"Did the Hephaestus kids ever finish rebuilding the Argo ll?" I asked. Jonathan shook his head.
"No, they said it was too depressing," he said, trailing off. None of got to meet Leo, he was killed by Gaia during the final battle. The Argo had been his ship. Many other demigods had helped build it but nobody could fix it quite like Leo had. Plus, the bronze dragon head had disappeared with Leo.
I nodded. "Ok, do you think we have enough pegasi to transport us all?"
Again, I was met with the others slowly shaking their heads. We shot ideas back and forth all night but nobody could think of a way to transport us anywhere. Ok so we hadn't even started and we were already stuck.
As we planned, I fed Oscar dinner and found some food downstairs for Adora. We stayed up late trying to make a plan. We didn't have any way to get anywhere useful. Eventually, we went to sleep. We'd figure it out in the morning.
(Time skip)
I woke up to screams. They weren't screams of terror, but screams nevertheless. I sat upright and groggily looked around. I shook the older kids awake, being careful to let Adora and Oscar sleep. There was a loud explosion, which ended up waking them up anyway.
"Jase?" Adora asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning, "What's happening?"
I quickly wrapped Oscar in my sweatshirt and grabbed her hand. I didn't want to leave them alone so I guess I was taking them with me.
"I don't know."
The others were wide awake by now but by some miracle (AKA, my dad's genetics) Oscar remained sleeping. Adora took my sword from its sheath and held it at the ready. The others got their weapons and we trailed soundlessly outside. Everybody was armed and pointing their weapons toward the mushroom cloud of smoke coming from the field next to the big house. I let go of Adora's hand and took my sword from her. She was too small to fight with it so I handed her a dagger that I had hidden in my waistband instead. I didn't want Adora to be fighting but we didn't really have a choice. She was the daughter of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase and we wouldn't always be there to protect her.
"Whoo hoo! That was fun!" A voice came from within the cloud of smoke and dust. I didn't recognize the latino accent and neither did the rest of us. A young man emerged, waving smoke from his eyes. He wasn't very tall, about 5'8. He had darker skin and lots of thick curly hair. His smile was mischievous and warm. His calloused hands and tool belt were an easy giveaway of his heritage. Son of Hephaestus. He looked to be about our parents age But why had I never seen him before?
"Who are you?" He asked me. The rest of the campers had stepped behind me, so I took the liberty of speaking. First, I tried to think of what to say. His hands fumbled nervously and he pulled a screwdriver from his tool belt. Wait, that screwdriver would not be able to fit in that belt... Oh obviously! I know who this is. But how's that possible?
"Who's asking?" I challenged.
He smiled again. "Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus, supreme commander of the Ago ll and bad boy supreme!" He yelled, throwing his arms into the air and lighting his hair on fire. My eyes widened and I heard gasps coming from all around me. I grinned slightly, then used my powers to take water from a nearby bucket and douse his head. His face contorted in confusion and water dripped from the hair in his eyes. I stepped forward and stuck out my hand.
"I'm Jase Jackson. These are my siblings, Oscar, Adora, and Casey. Over there are my cousins Kat and Jonathan Grace along with Max Zang." I introduced. Everybody waved when I said their name, except for Oscar who was fast asleep. Leo's eyes were wide in shock. Max looked like he was about to pass out.
"Jackson, Zhang and Grace? As in Percy Jackson, Frank Zhang, and Jason Grace?" he asked, mystified. If not for the situation, I would have laughed at the expression on his face.
I nodded. "We're the kids of Percy and Annabeth Jackson, Jason and Piper Grace, and Frank and Hazel Zhang," I said. Leo shook his head quickly as if he didn't believe it.
"Holy Hades I've missed a lot" He muttered. He looked back up to us.
"I went back to Ogygia and saved Calypso; she's in California right now. I didn't realize..."
"Eighteen years," I told him. His eyes looked like they might bulge from their sockets.
"What's going on?" Chiron parted the crowd. He saw Leo and gasped. "Leo Valdez, I never thought..." he gave Leo a quick hug but it looked like the centaur wanted to slap him. Same. The crowd parted as a very angry demigod stepped forward.
"Valdez I am going to murder you!" My godfather yelled.
Nico di Angelo looked murderous. He stomped through the crowd of people, who all parted in fear, and straight up to the whimpering form of Leo Valdez. Then Nico slapped him. Hard.
"Do you know how worried the camp was? We had your funeral! Hazel was crying for weeks!" he yelled. Guilt flashed across Leo's face. I looked down to Adora and nodded. She looked to Nico, then bolted towards the cabins. She knew what to do.
"You weren't in the underworld, you weren't alive, we didn't know what to think! We physically went into Hades' realm and searched for you! You couldn't send one Iris message? Or even a phone call?" His outburst caused the entire crowd to go silent. Nico opened his mouth to start screaming again but Adora had gotten back, with an old camp counselor in tow.
"You know, if you murder Leo, even I might not be able to patch him up." Will smiled and let his hand drop to Nico's shoulder. As soon as his hand made contact, Nico calmed.
"I still want to punch him," Nico whispered. Will tilted his head in thought, then nodded.
"I'll give you that."
Nico smiled, which scared Leo even more, then punched him in the stomach. I chuckled and smiled at my godfathers. Nico turned to us with a look of sympathy.
"Jase, I'm sorry. We came as soon as we heard," he said. Will nodded in agreement and hugged me. He held his arms out and I gladly handed Oscar over. Leo watched the exchange.
"So it's true?" he asked. "The rest of the Seven have been taken?" I looked down to my feet and nodded. Leo, even if just for a moment, went silent. "How can I help?"
Chiron shook his head. "I'm afraid there's nothing you can do, my boy. We have our entire world searching and if their captors know you to be alive then you as well are in danger. You must to stay here, where it's safe" he said. I thought back to how Mom had been taken. She was in Camp. She was in Dad's cabin when she was taken. Was Camp Half-Blood really safe? Piper and Jason were taken from Camp Jupiter. If Mom could be taken from here, then would anywhere be safe for Leo? I glanced at Casey and the look on her face told me that she was thinking the exact same thing.
"Hey Leo, why don't you come back to the big house with us? We'll catch you up on what's happened while you've been gone." I offered, motioning towards the blue mansion behind me. Leo glanced at Nico, who glared at him in turn, and nodded eagerly.
"We'll watch Oscar," Will said. Nico was too busy tickling the baby's side and making faces to notice.
I smiled gratefully. "Thanks."
Leo stared at Nico in interest, not believing that this was the same gloomy son of Hades he's known all those years ago. Nico had changed a lot. He was happy now. He and Will had settled down and were thinking about adopting. (Adora couldn't wait to have another kid around,) Dad says he's more like the nerdy mythomagic ten-year-old he used to know. Adora took Jonathan's hand and pulled him back towards our room. I was hoping that she'd go back to sleep once this was over. So much for that thought. We had four rooms in the big house set up but last night all of us had slept in the same room. It was a mess. Our clothes and bags were thrown into the corner and the rest of the room looked like the Athena cabin had thrown up. It was full of maps and blueprints and lists and markers.
"What happened in here?" Leo asked in awe. I closed the door behind us.
"We're going after the seven," Kat said.
Leo smiled. "I like how you think," he did finger guns.
Kat was the kind of person who rarely ever broke the rules. She was a lot like her dad. More Roman. Casey was the complete opposite. She inherited the troublemaker side of both our parents. Casey has the intelligent and personality of our mom, but the rebellious and dare-devil side of our dad. When our parents had kids, they thought that we'd all have dad's powers. They were wrong. Casey doesn't have any of dad's powers. I, being their first kid, guess I got lucky. Well, "lucky." I've got the intelligence of Mom and the powers of Dad. Pretty cool right? Yeah, no. I have a stronger scent than my dad, and it really sucks. Every time I go out with my friends I am on constant alert, and when I'm with my siblings I almost always have my hand on my sword. Camp was the only place I could let down my guard. Well, not anymore.
"How are we going to get there?" Leo snapped me out of my thoughts. Max and I exchanged a look. We? Looks like we've got ourselves a chaperone.
"Well," Jonathan began, "you built the Argo ll right?"
Oh man, I forgot about that! This was brilliant!
"What do you think about the Argo lll?" His twin finished. Leo's grin widened. He pulled a screwdriver from his tool belt.
"Let's do this."
(Hey guys! I'm still really sick so I decided to give you a longer chapter than usual in case I end up having to go back to the hospital. Blehg. Thanks for reading and I also have another book, Percy Jackson and the Avengers, if that sounds cool to you! :) )
