AN: Hey guys, welcome to the next chapter. I'd like to thank all you wonderful reviewers.
Disclaimer: Simply, if you recognise it, I don't own it.
I'm sorry for the incorrect grammar. Using the wrong to... Please forgive me as i repent of my grievous error, and I have corrected it now, I swear.
Awesome as Annabeth won the last question. Triptolemus was the correct answer. Review the character you want, and have cookies (::) (::) (::) (::). While reading a story of yours, I came across an idea.
I am going to ask you questions about yourself (nothing too personal) You don't have to answer, but it will be nice to hear from you guys!
1: Who's your fave PJO character (other than Leo)?
2: Whats your fave book series, other that PJO?
3: Should I write longer chapters with longer between updates, or stay as I am now?
Somehow, I always manage to bring it back to me. *sigh*
A guest asked if I was still going to let Percy know about Leo's past with Gaia before the end of the lightning thief arc. I'm changing that. I'm sorry I'm an evil person, but it just doesn't fit with the plot anymore. I will let him know eventually though. I just feel I need to get rid of the titans first before Mrs Evil earth. He will know that Leo is a time traveller in the Sea of monsters arc though.
The things I say about forging in this chapter are purely imagination, and I have no idea if any of this would work in real life. Just saying. HERE WE GO!
In Which Leo makes a decision:
The summer went way too quickly for Leo's liking, and before he knew it, there was a form by the side of his bed, asking whether or not he was staying all year round. Leo frowned at the form, a facial expression he rarely wore. It should have been an easy choice, everything he had was at camp- but he couldn't help but think that he'd go crazy here. Well crazier. He loved camp and all, but he had always run when he stayed there too long, Yancy a perfect example. He didn't want to run from camp, and he loved his family to bits, but... He couldn't cope with them all the time. The summer had been wonderful, but he felt kinda like they were smothering him since his nightmare, and he needed space. Like, outside camp space.
Leo sighed at the form, ignoring the enquiring look sent his way by Shane. He slipped outside; maybe if he walked around a little, he could clear his head. He came across Clarisse, sharpening her new spear by the campfire, a campfire, which was, for once, void of Hestia. He didn't know how many conversations with her it had taken to get him to drop the lady, but he called her Hestia now no problem. Maybe it was around the time he stopped seeing her as a goddess, and began to see her as a friend.
He dropped down next to Clarisse anyway, paying no mind to her suspicious look, and sighed again. Clarisse spoke, making him jump. "I ain't an agony aunt Valdez, if you're going to complain, shut your mouth, or I'll run you through."
Leo eyed her spear, "Not complaining. No complaining here, none at all. No reason to run me through..."
"There will be if you don't shut your mouth."
Leo shut his mouth. He pulled some wires out of his belt, and began to build something, not really noticing what he was doing as he stared absentmindedly across camp. He'd miss it if he went, sure, and wouldn't he be more use at camp, than in the mortal world. He was still trying to limit causalities in the Titan war, and surely staying at camp to try and convince people not to join the Titans was a good start. Chaos had said it was his choice though, so what was he to do? He kinda wanted to leave camp, but he wanted to stay as well.
His train of thought was interrupted by Clarisse's rough voice. "What you making Punk?" Leo glanced down at his hands in surprise, he had barely registered that he was making something at all. It looked kinda like a weapons stand. The type that Jason had used in his room on the Argo two, to hold up his pilum. If he just added a couple of foldable legs...
He dug into his belt, and withdrew three foldable legs that he remembered putting in there earlier. He had been trying to see what type of leg would suit Buddfetta, and came to the conclusion that foldable ones were defiantly not right. He kept them though, because hey, they could come in handy.
He attached them to the body of the stand with practiced ease, and then realised he had failed to respond to Clarisse's question. "It's a spear holder, I think." He folded the legs up into the stand, and offered it to Clarisse, "Do you want to try it out?"
She took it, glancing sideways at his face, to see if he was tricking her. When she put it hesitantly around her spear, and it didn't destroy the thing, she looked more surprised. Leo frowned at that. Was she so used to people pranking her that she had come to be suspicious of even the tiniest thing?
Clarisse removed the stand from around the spear, and folded it back up. She passed it back to Leo, with a brief, "It works."
Leo sniffed, "Of course it works. I made it."He was a bit put down by the lack of reaction, but he pushed the stand back toward her, "Keep it, it's not like I have a spear I can use it for." Leo stood up, and began to walk to the forge, maybe making something would take his mind off whether to stay at camp or go back to the mortal world.
He was somewhat shocked when he felt a hand on his shoulder, and Clarisse fall into step beside him, grunting "Thanks" so low that Leo almost didn't hear it. It made him smile though, he wondered if she had ever thanked anyone before. Or if she ever had reason to.
He turned to her, an idea forming in his head, and voiced a question that had been bothering him for a while. "Why do you hate Percy?"
Clarisse stopped with a snarl on her face. "Because that little worm broke Maimer! And embarrassed me in front of everyone." Leo figured it would be that Percy broke her spear, and, well, Percy had a habit of embarrassing everyone. What he didn't get was why the spear mattered. Sure it had been hers, but it was just a spear. Weapons got broken all the time.
Clarisse seemed to read his face, and he didn't think she was that observant, but she answered his question anyway. "That spear was the only thing my dad ever got me." Leo knew that feeling. He knew it too well.
"Hey Clarisse, you still got the pieces?" His idea had grown. He knew that because Clarisse and the Ares cabin refused to fight in the first part of the battle of Manhattan, quite a few demi-gods had died. He also knew that one of the main reasons she refused to fight was that the Ares cabin had developed an us vs. them mentality. If he could show Clarisse that not everyone hated the Ares cabin, then she might not refuse to fight.
Clarisse glared at him, daring him to mock her, "Yeah, so what?"
"I've got free time, if you want me to try and fix it. I could probably add more abilities that just electric as well. If you want." Leo glanced to his right, and saw Clarisse looking incredulously at him.
"You... What do you want in return?"
"For you to stop hating my best friend. By that I mean Percy."
"That's it?"
"Would you like me to add more conditions?"
Clarisse turned and made for the Ares cabin, at quite a speed, and Leo shouted after her, "Meet me in the forge!" After saying that, Leo rushed ahead to the forge, and grabbed the supply of Chaotic silver he had removed from the hidden area of Bunker nine. If he could fix Clarisse's spear with Chaotic silver, then he could make sure it would never break! That way she wouldn't be caught off guard when the replacement giant for Damasen swung his club at her and Piper.
By the time he had gotten the metal onto his bench and laid out the tools he thought he would need, Clarisse had arrived with her snapped spear. She handed it to Leo, who placed it onto the bench, and inspected the snapped wood. By the look of things, it had been a pretty clean break, so it wouldn't need much Chaotic Silver. If he could wind the Silver around the shaft of the spear, then infuse the Celestial bronze tip with Chaotic silver...
Leo picked up the block of Silver and plunged both it and his hands into the fire, ignoring Clarisse's shout, she had trusted him with his emotions, even if she hadn't realised she had yet. He figured that she knew enough about being an outcast to keep his secret. He glanced up at her, in the middle of shaping the block into a spear shaft to wind around the existing one, and she nodded, agreeing to his unspoken plea to keep it secret.
"Would you rather I fix the wooden shaft, or make a new shaft, with the same Celestial bronze tip?"
Clarisse glanced at the broken shaft, and nodded to Leo, "New shaft."
"Preference's on color?"
"You can do different colors?"
Leo grinned up at her, "Little know fact of the forge, if you add chemicals to the flames you forge in, depending on the chemical, the metal you're forging will end up with a hint of that color. So any preference?"
"Red."
Leo sighed. "Of course. Why would I think any different."
"Something against red punk?"
Leo sighed, and removed the shaft from the fire, to hammer it more into shape. He crossed the forge to get the Lithium powder. He threw a handful in the fire, ignoring Clarisse's reaction to the crimson flame. While the flame was still high, he grabbed the shaft of the spear, in flaming hands, and plunged it back into the fire, watching as the flames licked around it.
After five minutes of this, he removed the shaft for the last time, and let it cool. He then turned to the spearhead, and examined it, he could sense the wiring hidden within the tip, the wiring would produce the electric charge. As long as he left the tip alone, he could fuse the shaft and tip together no problem.
He set about doing just that, and little more than ten minutes later plunged the cooling spear into a trough of water, releasing clouds of steam into the workshop. As he watched the spear cool, he began to sing, a habit he had developed on the Argo two. Thinking back to the problem at hand, and forgetting that Clarisse was in the room, he sang. "Should I stay, or should I go?"
His song was interrupted by Clarisse, who was staring at the cooling crimson spear, with what looked like hunger on her face. "Is it done then?"
Leo snapped out of his mood, and replied. "Kind-of, I need to test the balance though. I tried to make it as much like the wooden shaft as possible, but it's a different metal, so you will have to test it, and tell me if it feels off. Leo plunged his hand into the now warm water, and removed the cool spear, handing it to Clarisse, who swung it round, her eyes closed, then frowned, as the spear tip angled a little toward the ground.
"Add weight to the back, it's unbalanced."
"Sure." Leo grabbed a disk of Chaotic silver, and added it to the base of the spear, heating his hand to a really high temperature, and melting the disk onto the end, then plunging it back into the water to cool, releasing only a little steam.
Leo handed the spear back to Clarisse, who swung it with a smile on her face, then opened her eyes again, and gave him a grin and a sincere, "Thanks Valdez. And about your dilemma. Just think this over. If you stay, you'll be one of the campers who I can challenge with my new spear..." With that Clarisse walked out of the forge, a scary grin on her face, and an upgraded spear clenched in her fist.
Leo replaced the rest of the silver, and cleared his bench, sticking some scraps in his belt. He rushed back to cabin 9. If Clarisse was going to be swinging that spear all year, then he was defiantly heading for the mortal world.
Name three heroes who went to Calypso's island.