AN: Hi since the last chapter was short, here's the next one!
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Like my bank account is less than it would cost me to buy the series, I am definitely not Rick.
In which a year goes by
The year at camp went really quick, Leo spent it, for the most part, inventing, making weapons, a whole load of little things that could be stored in his tool belt, and could be used on quests. Basically he spent the year preparing for a quest to the sea of monsters. He wasn't sure how he'd be on the quest. In Percy's story it was Clarisse who was given the quest, but took no-one with her, and Percy, Annabeth and Tyson followed to try and save Grover. How he fit into that Leo wasn't quite sure. He'd asked Chaos, but the entity was keeping quiet on the matter, instead asking Leo to focus on this, or dropping hints about how this particular invention might help if a rope bridge on an island of meat eating sheep collapsed. Like, what?
Oh, and Leo also spent most of the year hidden in bunker 9. Like he'd come out when he had too, and Beckendorf kind of forced him to attend the monster fighting sessions and patrol, and meals, but apart from that Leo stayed in bunker 9. The reason? Tantalus. Well, it wasn't like he was the only reason, Leo would probably have spent most of his time in the bunker anyway, but he would admit that he was kind of trying to ignore Tantalus. They hadn't really hit it off. And by hadn't really Leo of course means not at all.
Like, ok you're allowed to be a bit grouchy if you haven't eaten for a couple of thousand years, and Leo was sure he would be too in the same situation, but sending a new camper into the forest to 'prove himself' because he hadn't done anything when a camp van was attacked by cyclopes? That was freaking low. So of course Leo pointed that out to him, and of course Tantalus didn't like that, so of course he now had it out for Leo. But that was fine because Leo was very fond of reminding him that as soon as Chiron's innocence was proven, he would be sent back to the fields of punishment.
Unfortunately since then Leo seemed to be on permanent washing up with lava duty. But Tantalus didn't know about his fire powers, so the washing up was actually really quick and then he's go back to the bunker.
Leo had kept his word to Benny about writing to him every week, and he'd been getting letters back, sometimes with little crayon drawings, which Beckendorf thought were cute. They were now pinned to the wall in the Leo Cave. It was quite fun trying to explain camp in terms of a boarding school. His cabin mates liked to help him out with assigning roles. Mr D became the completely useless headmaster, Tantalus the evil assistant head, the head councillors became the teachers, the satyrs the TA's etc etc.
The funniest thing though; was when he was trying to explain events that happened at camp and changing them so they fit, he was telling Benny about how he was exploring the school, and he found a giant room with loads of cool stuff in, and he was now a proper inventor, oh and there was a massive spider named Shelob.
The picture he got back showed Benny and his best friend Erwin riding a giant spider. The caption said that they were off to fight the evil deputy head, and Jo had added at the bottom, with a smiley face, "I hope it's not really that big".
Leo sent her back a picture.
The letter he got back was so, so funny. She ranted about how it wasn't safe and that he could be killed and why on earth weren't there responsible adults who could tell that thing wasn't safe...
Leo had to get Beckendorf to add a note on the next letter to stop hr coming to pick him up.
But the year went on, and eventually the barrier around the camp failed more and more, the patrols got worse and worse, there was talk of a quest going to find a the golden fleece. Then there were mechanical bulls by the tree and Annabeth arrived, with a confused Percy and a scared Tyson in tow.