HAZEL

Now, Hazel knew she'd said they'd get a message to the others should anything go wrong. Why exactly she had said this was beyond her.

Thankfully, nothing had gone wrong. Yet. It would, eventually, she was positive. No, she was more than positive. It was guaranteed. But it was also in the future, and for now all she was focusing on was Festus nudging her with the tip of his nose and clicking madly like an anxious bronze-retriever.

"What? Festus - ugh," she grumbled as she tried to calm the great metal beast down. It wasn't as easy as it looked and she wondered how in Jupiter's name Leo did it.

The living automaton refused to leave her be and if anything started clicking with more urgency. Hazel came close to asking Calypso to put him to sleep when she saw the shot of flame in the distance.

She thought she was seeing things, but then they heard the roar of some beast and another funnel of fire erupted into the night sky. It cut through the dark as to be almost blinding, and Hazel's first thought was that Leo was fighting something, which meant all the others had hit trouble as well.

"We need to go help," she said instinctively, more to herself and not totally aware she'd spoken.

"But we can't just leave the pegasi here," Nico objected, however not very wholeheartedly. He was worried too, Hazel could tell. Festus clicked by her ear again. The pegasi pawed anxiously at the ground. Calypso was silent.

Blackjack moved first and the other horses huddled in behind him, heads bowed and eyes wide. The black pegasus bobbed his chin and gave a small whinny in Hazel's direction.

"I believe they would follow the one in black," a so far silent Eugene piped up from the dark. Hazel had nearly forgotten about the hippogriff and suddenly felt very guilty. "They would like to go on and assist the attack."

Sure enough, all the pegasi were now standing a little taller, eyes still wild but trying their hardest to at least look heroic. The beastly wail came again, another bout of flame, but the animals held their ground. They did want to help, Hazel recognized that. And besides, they were all in danger anyways, what was the harm?

"Alright," she said with a breath. "Do we have a consensus?"

No one objected (although Eugene looked a bit like he wanted to say something) and Calypso even gave her a nod.

"I do have one concern, however," the goddess said. "We have a dragon. A giant, metal dragon."

"Good for battle, tricky with travel," Eugene added.

"What do you suggest?" Hazel said. She hadn't thought of Festus at all, and the dragon would surely attract some unpleasant attention if they weren't careful.

"I think I can fix that," Calypso said casually and closed her eyes. Suddenly, Festus let out a surprised click and his metal began to glow a soft orange.

And then he began to shrink.

The great dragon's bronze flanks were rapidly folding in on themselves, his plating retracting until he was no larger than a house-cat. A house-cat with wings, of course, but a house-cat all the same.

"There." Festus spread his wings and inspected them uncertainly, trying to figure out where all his metal had gone. Finally, he seemed satisfied enough and flew up to land on the back of Calypso's pegasus like an overgrown parrot.

"How did you…" Nico stammered.

"I've had a little time to myself to learn some magic," Calypso said quietly, throwing a small smile to the black haired boy when he started to apologize for asking.

They flew low as not to attract any unwanted attention towards the sounds of battle. Hopefully, it wouldn't be some kind of trap.

The hippogriff had decided he was to be Hazel's personal transport and therefore continued to insist that she ride with him. He was unusually quiet, but flew purposefully as not to appear nervous. She started to realize he wasn't really paying attention to where they were going, just flying straight and ignoring the rocks. Therefore, everyone else saw the dragon first and Eugene would have flown right into it had Hazel not stopped him.

It was huge and was bashing through what appeared to be Telkhines like they were dominos.

So it's not with them, I take it, Hazel thought. But was it with or against the demigods was another question.

She spotted a large cluster of boulders a relatively comfortable distance away from the action and motioned for the others to set down there.

It was quite obvious that the fire they had seen had not been their friends', and the battle they had imagined had not been theirs. They'd exposed themselves for no reason.

But then Hazel heard a familiar voice.

Jason Grace was running towards the dragon, gladius raised, ten Telkhines trailing behind him screaming angrily.