LEO

Leo was not having nearly as much luck as he either wished or needed to have.

Festus was ever passive, colder than before, and utterly hopeless.

Not that he liked to be pessimistic, but he legitimately saw no way out of this for the bronze dragon.

He sat down, exhausted and sweating and defeated, on the crest of Festus's head, feeling for all the world like he should just lay down and cry and wait for this all to be over.

Wait to drown.

But that of course hadn't been on the original agenda and, well. Had to stick to the plan, didn't he? He had to rest a minute though. Clear his head and go about this differently.

He heard Annabeth yell, her voice frustrated and laden with annoyance. Meaning she was terrified. And for good reason, as Oceanus was bearing down on her, having advanced much further since the last time Leo paid attention to the battle.

He was now leaning into the flat of her sword with one massive forearm, edging her closer and closer - which means to say millimeter by millimeter - to the lip of the sea.

But then something erupted from beside them. A torrential onslaught of water, an explosive wall of heavily salted liquid that sent even the titan of the sea back a few inches - just enough room for Annabeth to dodge out from the next blow.

Percy and Triton were together, pushing powerful wave after wave of ocean water across the cavern until the titan had his back against a wall.

Wait, Leo took a moment. This is actually working? How in Olympus was a titan - an OCEAN titan - being overpowered by two teenagers, or, whatever Triton counted as? But all the same, it was working, and neither boy seemed surprised at their startling effectiveness.

Leo caught Annabeth's eyes, distracted from Festus. She looked just as awestruck as Leo was sure he did, which was to say, he was sure he looked absolutely ridiculous: matted and frizzy hair complete with a grin of maniacal terror.

So pretty close to the usual.

And then Annabeth's eyes changed and she was staring not quite at him anymore. Below his eyes. At Festus. No, at the two bright spots on Festus's neck. Where his hands had been. No, where his hands were.

They were glowing white hot, tiny sun spots burning through Festus' metal.

He tried to jerk back but it was no use. His hands had inadvertently heated themselves up and fused to the bronze. What a predicament.

He looked back at Annabeth, trying his best to look like he knew what he was doing, to look like he wasn't freaking out, but she was already scrambling over the stones to get to him.

Somehow, he knew that if she got too close she'd burn up from the heat. He could tell it must be hotter than he felt it to be, much hotter. All the rock within a twenty foot radius of his body was steaming profusely.

Annabeth didn't seem to care, because she was still coming.

He tried to motion to her to stop, remembering too late that his hands were trapped inside molten bronze. He could feel the pressure squeeze in around them as they pulled and strained against their bonds. He also knew it should probably have hurt quite a lot.

"Annabeth, no!" he said, shaking his head furiously, unsurprised that she didn't seem to heed the warning at all. She took a sharp breath as she crossed into the edge of the little inferno he was creating, sheathed her sword, and with a determined step, began marching forward.

"Aghh," Leo grunted, focusing his attention on what in Hephaestus' name his body thought it was doing and how he could stop it. He was up to the wrists in gooey, glistening bronze and didn't like the numbness that was slowly creeping up his arms.

"Leo, what the Hades are you - "

Something clicked. He could feel it under his fingertips - or, at least where he presumed his fingertips were. It clicked again, louder this time, and Annabeth stopped advancing, staring at him like he was setting a bomb. Which maybe he was, he certainly didn't know.

Once more, click, bouncing off the walls and sending a tiny shockwave through the molten.

And he felt a release. He tried his hands again, knowing they'd follow this time, and slid them easily from the bronze casement which immediately began to cool.

"Huh. What d'you suppose - "

"Leo, look." Annabeth was no longer looking at him but the look of awe had doubled if not tripled. Leo followed her gaze and immediately understood why.

Festus' tail had moved. And now it twitched again, shuddering down the length of the plating, shifting the wings out of position, the broad shoulders off kilter, the horns slightly askew. And the dragon took a rasping, rusty breath.

"Leo." Annabeth put a cautious hand on his shoulder as if preparing to be burned. "Leo, you did it."

Leo nodded, unsure what kind of sound would come out if he tried to speak.

After a moment, he finally found his voice and decided it wasn't going to conk out on him. "Sometimes I am absolutely positive he's not a dragon at all. He's got to be a cat with all of the lives he's used up."