LEO

The dragon stared at us, Its face didn't actually change, being made of metal and all, but I thought I could read its expression: Why no crispy critter? A spark flew out of its neck like it was about to short-circuit.

"You can't burn me," I said, I tried to sound calm and stern, I've never had a dog before, but I talked to the dragon the same way I thought you'd talk to a dog. "Stay, boy. Don't come any closer. I don't want you to get caught. See, they think you're broken and have to be scrapped. But I don't believe that. I can fix you if you'll let me—"

The dragon creaked, roared, and charged. The trap sprang. The floor of the crater erupted with a sound like a thousand trash can lids banging together. Dirt and leaves flew, metal net flashing. Me and Wyatt were knocked off our feet, turned upside down, and doused in Tabasco sauce and oil. I found myself sandwiched between the vat and the dragon as it thrashed, trying to free itself from the net that had wrapped around all of us.

The dragon blew flames in every direction, lighting up the sky and setting trees on fire. Oil and sauce burned all over them. It didn't hurt me, but it left a nasty taste in my mouth.

"Leo!" Wyatt called, "Yeah?" I said.

"Hold on, I'll get us out of here." He told me.

I looked around and noticed the ropes were meant to keep something as big as this dragon in here, not a demi-god. "I think I can get out, I'm pretty skinny!"

Before I could get out, I looked up to see a shadow…No, the back of the dragon, "Ah son of a-

I felt a tug on my shirt, and then I ended up on the ground, I sat there looking at the ground, what just happened? I felt a little bit cold just now, I looked up again, where I was the dragon was still squirming. "You're welcome." Wyatt said right beside me. "That was you?" I said in disbelief. He nodded, "I can a lot of things I told you this before, didn't I?"

I can't process this right now, because right now I should be working on this dragon. "Okay, there is something wrong with this dragon, and I think I might know what it is." I said and got to work on the dragon.

It took me an hour to the control panel. It was right behind the dragon's head, which made sense. I elected to keep the dragon in the net, because it was easier to work with the dragon constrained, but the dragon didn't like it.

"Hold still!" I scolded.

The dragon made another creaking sound that might've been a whimper.

I examined the wires inside the dragon's head. I was distracted by a sound in the woods, but when I looked up it was just a tree spirit—a dryad, I thought they were called—putting out the flames in her branches. Fortunately, the dragon hadn't started an all-out forest fire, but still the dryad wasn't too pleased. The girl's dress was smoking. She smothered the flames with a silky blanket, and when she saw me looking at her, she made a gesture that was probably very rude in Dryad. Then she disappeared in a green poof of mist.

Wyatt went around putting out fires that were still going on. And since he didn't have anything to do, he took a nap. I returned my attention back to the wiring. It was ingenious, definitely, and it made sense to me. This was the motor control relay. This processed sensory input from the eyes. This disk …

"Ha," I said. "Well, no wonder."

Creak? The dragon asked with its jaw.

"You've got a corroded control disk. Probably regulates your higher reasoning circuits, right? Rusty brain, man. No wonder you're a little … confused." I almost said crazy, but he caught himself. "I wish I had a replacement disk, but …this is a complicated piece of circuitry. I'm gonna have to take it out and clean it. Only be a minute." I pulled out the disk, and the dragon went absolutely still. The glow died in its eyes. I slid off its back and began polishing the disk. I mopped up some oil and Tabasco sauce with my sleeve, which helped cut through the grime, but the more I cleaned, the more concerned I got. Some of the circuits were beyond repair. I could make it better, but not perfect. For that, I'd need a completely new disk, and I had no idea how to build one.

I tried to work quickly. I wasn't sure how long the dragon's control disk could be off without damaging it—maybe forever—but he didn't want to take chances. Once he'd done the best he could, he climbed back up to the dragon's head and started cleaning the wiring and gearboxes, getting himself filthy in the process.

"Clean hands, dirty equipment," I muttered, something my mother used to say. By the time I was through, my hands were black with grease and my clothes looked like I just lost a mud-wrestling contest, but the mechanisms looked a lot better. I slipped in the disk, connected the last wire, and sparks flew. The dragon shuddered. Its eyes began to glow.

"Better?" I asked.

The dragon made a sound like a high-speed drill. It opened its mouth and all its teeth rotated.

"I guess that's a yes. Hold on, I'll free you." I told it.

Another thirty minutes to find the release clamps for the net and untangle the dragon, but finally it stood and shook the last bit of netting off its back. It roared triumphantly and shot fire at the sky.

"Seriously," I said. "Could you not show off?"

Creak? The dragon asked.

"You need a name," Leo decided. "I'm calling you Festus."

The dragon whirred its teeth and grinned. At least Leo hoped it was a grin.

"What…?" Wyatt said sleepily, and then he slowly got up.

"Cool," I said. "But we still have a problem, because you don't have wings."

Festus tilted his head and snorted steam. Then he lowered his back in an unmistakable gesture. He wanted me to climb on.

"Where we going?" I asked.

But I was too excited to wait for an answer. He climbed onto the dragon's back, and Festus bounded off into the woods. Wyatt followed us, he was flying beside us, half asleep. I'm not sure how he was doing it, but whenever he was about to hit a tree, he passed right through it. I lost track of time and all sense of direction. It seemed impossible the woods could be so deep and wild, but the dragon traveled until the trees were like skyscrapers and the canopy of leaves completely blotted out the stars. Even the fire in my hand couldn't have lit the way, but the dragon's glowing red eyes acted like headlights.

Finally they crossed a stream and came to a dead end, a limestone cliff a hundred feet tall—a solid, sheer mass the dragon couldn't possibly climb.

Festus stopped at the base and lifted one leg like a dog pointing.

"What is it?" I slid to the ground. I walked up to the cliff—nothing but solid rock. The dragon kept pointing.

"It's not going to move out of your way," I told him.

"You…Never know, all this stuff about demi-gods and you surviving a fire blast like before, it might actually happen." Wyatt yawned, "Man, can we hurry this up? I want to sleep." He told me.

The loose wire in the dragon's neck sparked, but otherwise he stayed still. I put my hand on the cliff. Suddenly my fingers smoldered. Lines of fire spread from his fingertips like ignited gunpowder, sizzling across the limestone. The burning lines raced across the cliff face until they had outlined a glowing red door five times as tall as me. He backed up and the door swung open, disturbingly silently for such a big slab of rock.

Wyatt went quiet, "Perfectly balanced," I muttered. "That's some first-rate engineering."

The dragon unfroze and marched inside, as if he were coming home.

Wyatt didn't follow us inside, he just stood there.

I stepped through, and the door began to close. I had a moment of panic, remembering that night in the machine shop long ago, when I had been locked in. What if I got stuck in here? But then lights flickered on—a combination of electric fluorescents and wall-mounted torches. When I saw the cavern, I forgot about leaving.

"Festus," I muttered. "What is this place?"

"Bunker 9, huh?" A voice behind me said. I looked back and saw Wyatt, "how did you…?" Wyatt just put his right hand through the wall and brought it back, "Don't be surprised when I come out of nowhere, okay? I'm a powerful demi-god, please remember that."

I looked back at Festus, he stomped to the center of the room, leaving tracks in the thick dust, and curled up on a large circular platform.

The cave was the size of an airplane hangar, with endless worktables and storage cages, rows of garage-sized doors along either wall, and staircases that led up to a network of catwalks high above. Equipment was everywhere—hydraulic lifts, welding torches, hazard suits, air-spades, forklifts, plus something that looked suspiciously like a nuclear reaction chamber. Bulletin boards were covered with tattered, faded blueprints. And weapons, armor, shields—war supplies all over the place, a lot of them only partially finished.

Hanging from chains far above the dragon's platform was an old tattered banner almost too faded to read. The letters were Greek, but Leo somehow knew what they said: bunker 9. I was wondering what he was talking about, I guess this was it.

But wait, did that mean nine as in the Hephaestus cabin, or nine as in there were eight others? I looked at Festus, still curled up on the platform, and it occurred to me that the dragon looked so content because it was home. It had probably been built on that pad.

"Do the other kids know…?" My question died as I asked it. Clearly, this place had been abandoned for decades. Cobwebs and dust covered everything. The floor revealed no footprints except for his, and the huge paw prints of the dragon. He was the first one in this bunker since…Since a long time ago. Bunker 9 had been abandoned with a lot of projects half-finished on the tables. Locked up and forgotten, but why?

I looked at a map on the wall—a battle map of camp, but the paper was as cracked and yellow as onionskin. A date at the bottom read, 1864.

"No way," I muttered.

"Whoa! That was before my time, damn. This place is awesome." Wyatt Exclaimed, and pointed to something on a nearby bulletin board

I looked at Wyatt and then I spotted a blueprint on bulletin board he pointed at, and my heart almost leaped out of my throat. I ran to the worktable and stared up at a white-line drawing almost faded beyond recognition: a Greek ship from several different angles. Faintly scrawled words underneath it read: prophecy? Unclear. Flight?

It was the ship I'd seen in my dreams—the flying ship. Someone had tried to build it here, or at least sketched out the idea. Then it was left, forgotten…A prophecy yet to come. And weirdest of all, the ship's masthead was exactly like the one Leo had drawn when he was five—the head of a dragon. "Looks like you, Festus," I murmured. "That's creepy."

Wyatt was looking at everything, he even flew around.

I looked back at the blueprint the masthead gave me an uneasy feeling, but my mind spun with too many other questions to think about it for long. I touched the blueprint, hoping I could take it down to study, but the paper crackled at my touch, so I left it alone. I looked around for other clues. No boats. No pieces that looked like parts of this project, but there were so many doors and storerooms to explore.

Festus snorted like he was trying to get my attention, reminding me that we didn't have all night. It was true. I figured it would be morning in a few hours, and I had gotten completely sidetracked. I saved the dragon, but it wasn't going to help me on the quest. We needed something that would fly.

Festus nudged something toward me—a leather tool belt that had been left next to his construction pad. Then the dragon switched on his glowing red eye beams and turned them toward the ceiling. I looked up to where the spotlights were pointing, and yelped when I recognized the shapes hanging above them in the darkness.

"Well looks like you're in luck." Wyatt said.

I nodded and said, "Festus. We've got work to do."

This will be all today, I think I'm heading in the right direction now...Heh.

Thanks for reading! I hope you all have an awesome weekend!

Rilurz~