THE PROBLEM WITH LEO VALDEZ

Disclaimer: thanks Uncle Rick for making such great characters


THIS STORY IS CURRENTLY BEING EDITED. SORRY FOLKS THAT I'M SO SLOW BUT HEY I'M TRYING

07/03/16


CHAPTER: III
PIPER

Problems

"Maybe I just really freaked him out?" Hazel mumbled, tugging on a few strands of her hair as she spoke. "You've seen how jumpy he's been, working so hard and all. I must have really scared him."

Piper laughed. She had Hazel had been sitting outside Leo's room for just over half an hour now, keeping watch and waiting for him to give a signal that he was feeling better. Festus was being fussy about raising the anchor, and without Leo Annabeth had said that it was unlikely the dragon would be willing to cooperate.

"He's slept in sewers, Hazel. I don't think anything can scare him." Piper said, half joking. In their time of knowing each other, Piper had seen Leo face a lot. If one scary prank was enough to send Leo in to a frenzy, Piper was willing to accept that she didn't really know her friend at all. "He's just sick, I bet. He probably caught Jason's fever from a few days ago."

Hazel shrugged. "I just feel bad. About using my Mist powers to prank someone, I mean."

Piper grinned. "You gotta admit, what you can do is pretty cool. The whole sound-effect thing you had going on? Totally impressive."

Hazel smiled. "Yeah, yeah. I'm awesome."

Coughing interuppted them, and both Piper and Hazel froze when a series of crashes and bangs were what followed it. Hazel stood up, panicked, and shot Piper a wide-eyed glance.

"What was that?"

"I don't know," Piper said, rising to her feet as well. She tried for the doorknob. "He's locked the door."

"Well, break it down!" Hazel demanded, gesturing to the door. "Kick it!"

"Do you think I'm that strong?" Piper grunted, trying to force the door open. "Go get Frank. Or a hairpin." She didn't answer when Hazel asked what the hairpin could possibly be for, but the girl didn't wait for an answer anyway and took off down the hallway without further questions. Frank could bust the door open by turning in to a bear and clawing his way through if he had to. If not, Piper knew how to lock-pick.

"Leo?" She tried, leaning her head against the door; trying to hear what was going on better. "Leo, can you hear me?"

A million possibilities of what was happeing raced through her head. Leo had fallen into his desk, or he had tripped and knocked something over, or a bird had flown in to his cabin again and he was currently fighting it off. Whatever was happening, it was bad. Noisy and violent and completely worrying.

Then, it went silent.

Piper's heart raced in her chest. Was it over? What happened? She banged on the door, hoping that Leo would answer.

When Hazel arrived with Frank, the room was still silence.

"You... need me to break it?" Frank asked, scratching the back of his head. Hazel must have left out key details, because Frank didn't seem all that concerned. "The door? You want me to knock it down?"

"Yes," Piper said, a little too quickly. "Yes. Something happeed to Leo- we need to check if he's alright."

Frank, not completely convinced, shrugged his shoulders and mumbled a feeble "something's always happening to Leo" before his arms turned in to those of a Grizzly bear's and he faced towards the door. "Get behind me, maybe." He warned, then his claws ripped in to the wooden door until a sizeable whole had been created. He stepped back, examining his work.

Piper wasted no time rushing through.

Expecting to see Leo, it was safe to say that she wasn't prepared for what she saw instead.

Immediately she stumbled back.

"Is it bad?" Hazel asked, climbing through the door behind her. She nudged Piper out of the way to get a better look, and then her mouth opened in horror. "Oh my gods..."

Piper's shoulders drooped. "What on Earth..." the girl whispered, taking a few cautious steps forward again. Her eyes grazed the walls, then the floor, then the desk.

It was if he had 'flamed up' and saw his room as a battle ground.

"Holy Pluto." Hazel gasped as she stepped up besides Piper. "What happened?"

Piper was too busy examining the room to reply to Hazel's comment. The place itself was a complete mess, but the odd thing was that it looked like someone had purposefully trashed it. Papers had been wiped clean off Leo's desk and scattered all over the floor. Pencils had pens had been snapped in half, also covering the floor. Clothing items were burned, diagrams were ripped up.

Most of all, Leo was completely absent.

"There's no way that it's always like this, is there?" Hazel asked, flinching back when she saw the hand prints scorched in to the walls.

Piper knew that it wasn't. She had been in the room yesterday afternoon, and back then it had been near spotless. It was like the disaster zone had just happened over night. Or now, she supposed. The burns were still giving off heat.

"Is he okay?" Frank called from out in the hallway. Piper felt a bit thankful that he hadn't dared to go in. No one needed to see this. "Need backup?"

Piper looked towards Hazel, curious. Did they? The others needed to be warned about this, that was for sure. They needed to set up a search for Leo, to find where he'd gone and why he had done this. His cabin window was open, Piper noticed. The metal melted by the head and then pried off and crudely discarded on his bed. He had climbed the side of the ship.

Or, Piper thought with fear gripping at her stomach. He had climbed out and then fallen.

"We need to tell the others." Piper announced, ignoring Frank's offer and turning back towards the hallway. Hazel quickly caught up with her.

"And tell them what? Leo went psycho?"

"He didn't go psycho."

Hazel made a face. "You and I both know that what we saw back there looked pretty psychotic."

Frank, who had been trailing after them, furrowed his eyebrows as he tried to make sense of the situation. "Leo's crazy now?"

"No." Piper snapped. "No. We don't know what happened. We don't know anything yet. Just... Frank, go get the others."

"How do we warn them without telling them what he's done?" Hazel asked, folding her arms across her chest. "There's no nice way to say he trashed him room and escaped out the window, Piper. They'll see it for themselves, anyway."

"Leo did what?" Frank's brows furrowed further.

"Frank, hurry up and go." Piper ordered. "The sooner we deal with this, the better. Tell everyone to meet us in the dining hall."

"We don't have time for a meeting!" Hazel protested. "For all we know, Leo could be wreaking havoc on another part of the ship!"

"Well what do you suggest?"

Hazel paused. "We... split up. One group of two, one group of three. Search the ship for Leo, first to find him takes him to the dining hall and then alerts the others. How's that?"

Piper thought about it. "And the person leftover?"

"Annabeth. We have a deadline to get to Athens, and Annabeth's the next best person capable of getting the ship working without Leo. Find her, tell her what to do. Then you, Jason, and Percy search below deck. Frank and I will take above."

Piper was hesitant to nod. "Fine."


"This is ridiculous." Annabeth growled. She was glaring at the controls to the ship with such ferocity that Piper felt as if any second she'd reach out and punch them. "Nothing's working!"

Piper winced. She had sent Jason and Percy to search the ship without her once she had see the predicament that Annabeth was in for. The ship, as great as it was, was proving to be a hassle and nothing the daughter of Athena did was fixing it.

"Anything I can do to help?" Piper offered.

Annabeth furiously stabbed at a few buttons. "No. The screens aren't cooperating. I don't know why."

Piper raised an eyebrow. "The screens?" Last time she checked (which admittedly wasn't often... or at all) ships didn't need screens or fancy technology to function. Especially in the engine room... where the actual engine to the ship was along with other explosive things.

Then again, it had to be accounted for that Leo was the mad genius who had designed the thing. Shaking a certain Wii remote would flush the toilets and saying 'turtle' would turn off all the lights, minus the ones in the ships kitchen. As well, the fact that the Argo II was no regular sailing ship was to be accounted for, too. Piper supposed that magical flying ships had a bit of leeway when it came to technology.

"They're not showing what I'm asking them to." Annabeth hissed as she typed something on the iPad keyboard. Seconds after she stabbed 'enter' pictures of kittens popped up on the computer screen in front of her.

"Look at that!" Annabeth snapped, clicking off the device and shoving it away from her. "It's completely messed up! I don't know what Leo did, but I'll strangle him myself once we find him."

Piper frowned. She didn't doubt for a second that Annabeth meant what she said.

"Here. Just sent an Iris Message to Hedge asking him what commands to put down. He might not know, but he's got a better handle on how the ship works than we do." Piper offered, taking the drachma out of her pocket and tossing it to Annabeth.

The blonde turned it around in her fingers before leaving the engine room. "He's probably too busy challenging the Ares kids to sword fights..." She grumbled as she walked out the door.

Now alone, Piper slid into the seat Annabeth had sat in and began typing away at the computer. Surely working a complicated thing such as the Argo II wasn't as hard as it sounded, right? Leo was smart, but he made things work in a way that was easy. If he could do it, so could she.

Piper could talk people into giving her cars. Making a fancy little ship agree with her should be a cake-walk.

404 Bad Gateway
Was what showed up on the screen.

Piper narrowed her eyes and typed the command again.

Perhaps you meant: How many elephants are in a herd?
No, Piper scowled. What was it doing?

Sighing, she tried again.

Hm... so that wasn't it. Let's try again?
Now Piper was getting annoyed. She typed in a new command, which requested turning on the lights in the mess hall.

Can't do that! Here, would you like to look at kittens instead?
A Google webpage popped up on the screen and Siamese kittens were the images that it displayed.

Still optimistic, Piper tried for a fifth time.

You would like to access security footage? Here, let's take a live look at [Leo Valdez]'s room! Hopefully no monsters are attacking, am I right?

The webpage closed and the video popped up. Since Piper had seen it before, she wasn't surprised when the disaster-zone of a room began playing. It was hardly passing as a bedroom in the first place, Leo had made it worse by adding his own personal touches to it.

Frustrated, Piper leaned back in the chair and uttered a few choice words. She obviously didn't know how to get the system working, Annabeth was having trouble, and Leo was...

Piper's eyes widened when they drifted towards the screen.

"Oh my gods..." She whispered, bolting up from the chair.