"You're Charlie Valdez?" Max said. I agreed. Valdez was a pretty common name but I didn't believe in a coincidence this big. He nodded unsurely.

"Last I checked…"

"Does the name Leo Valdez mean anything to you?" I asked. His eyes widened and he jumped from the table.

"What do you know about my dad? Where is he?!" He sounded as worried as we were. Gears turned in my brain as I put it all together. Leo said he left Calypso back in California, which made more sense now that I knew he had a kid there too. If he hadn't told Charlie about the Greek world then no wonder he left them in California. That would also explain why Will couldn't figure out what he was. Calypso was a titan, Leo was a demigod. So Charlie was half titan half demigod. That made him one fourth god and one fourth mortal and one half titan.

"Your dad is a Greek demigod. He's the son of Hephaestus," I said. Everybody looked at me like I was insane.

"Jase, you say this as if he didn't already know," Kat hinted. I nodded.

"He doesn't."

Gasps could be heard around the room. Nico raised himself from the floor.

"Leo and Calypso never told him?" he said quietly. Charlie chuckled without humor.

"This is just some big joke, isn't it? This is exactly the kind of thing Dad would pull. Come on out dad! Great job, really!" He looked round the room as if Leo would pop around any corner. I looked to Nico and nodded. We needed to prove a point.

Shadows seemed to reach from the corners of the room and the temperature dropped. Nico reached behind him into one of the shadows and pulled out his Stygian iron sword. He swung it around a few times for effect before putting it back into the shadow and letting them melt back into the corners of the room. He didn't notice the proud, triumphant smirk on Will's face.

"Oh God," Charlie muttered.

"Gods," Jonathan corrected. I thought Charlie was going to pass out again. Thankfully, he didn't.

"Ok so wait a minute, go back, what were you saying about my dad?" he asked, obviously trying to keep calm. I recognized the worrisome tone in his voice and decided the best move was to tell him what we knew

"Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus. One of the prophecy of Seven, architect of the Argo 2 and the Argo 3, destroyer of Gaea and countless other beasts, currently held captive with the rest of the prophecy of seven by monsters from Tartarus," I said. The more I spoke, the smaller Charlie seemed to make himself.

"Wait, my dad was kidnapped?" He suddenly stood upright and a look of alarm crossed across his face. I nodded.

"The prophecy of Seven is a group of seven demigods who were tasked with closing the Doors of Death and taking down Gaea before she had a chance to wake. The prophecy of seven were kidnapped by monsters from Tartarus for reasons we're unsure of. We're going to find them and get them back," I tried to explain but I knew this was a lot of information for one kid to comprehend. He looked like he was trying to understand everything at once. He also looked like he was failing.

"Just give me like a year to figure this out," he said quietly. He looked heart-broken. I tried to imagine what my life would be like if my parents had never told me of my heritage. At first I thought it would be terrible, but then I really thought about it. I wouldn't be worrying about dying every day, I would be able to spend my weekends hanging out with friends instead of learning how to fight monsters at Camp. I would be able to actually focus on my school work and maybe even try to get into a good college. Now, I planned my future for my family because I wasn't sure I was even going to live that long. I understood why Leo didn't tell Charlie. I almost wish my parents hadn't ever told me. But if I never knew, then would be here to save them now?

A small shock wave hit the ship and I was harshly reminded of the matter at hand. We were still being attacked by a mystery flying monster with fire balls. Charlie looked terrified. I figured that somebody should probably stay behind and help him, so I told Will to wait down here while the rest of us went back up to fight the mystery monster.

"Well you have like five minutes until our boat is knocked from the sky and we all die, so you might want to make sense of this pretty quickly," I said before rushing back up to the deck.

"Wait, did you just say the sky?!" I heard Charlie yell from behind me. Nobody bothered to answer him.

The front deck was chaos. Balls of fire lay all over and were threatening to burn our ship to the ground. I was beginning to regret not letting Leo and the Hecate cabin spend an extra day fireproofing the sails. The wood itself was fireproof thanks to something Leo so the flames wouldn't do anything to the boat, but they could still catch the sail, and us, on fire.

"Somebody figure out what that godsdamn stupid thing!" Casey screamed in outrage. I didn't blame her, I was about to do the same. I couldn't tell what was attacking us and it drove me crazy. I hated not knowing, I hated not being in control. I lifted my arms, bringing a jet of water into the sky. The flying, thing, swerved carelessly at the last second, deeming my attack nothing but a waste of energy. The deck door opened and Charlie shakily entered the scene. He was holding Casey's blue plastic hairbrush in front of him in defense. I was a little preoccupied so I motioned vaguely for one of the others to cover him.

Apparently, the mystery monster recognized Charlie as the group's weakness and targeted him. The fireball came too fast for me to even register. I screamed for him to duck but he didn't have the instincts or training of a demigod. The fireball hit Charlie right on, sending him flying backwards.

"Oh, Hades!" Casey yelled, running to cover him. I doused him with water to distinguish the flames. Even whatever we were fighting seemed to stop its attack.

Miraculously, Charlie stood up. He was dripping wet and his clothes were scorched, but he looked overall unharmed. At first this surprised me because, well, the dude was just on fire. Then I felt like an idiot because I realized this was Leo's kid. Of course he was fire resistant.

By the look on his face, I'm assuming Charlie hadn't known this either.

(Hi peeps! Hope you enjoyed this chapter! I update daily so comment what you'd like to see next and I will try to include your ideas in upcoming chapters! I update daily so I if you like what you're reading please come back tomorrow :) )