The Problem With Leo Valdez
Disclaimer: All characters[aside from a few OC's] belong to RR.
Leo Valdez is-unfortunetly- not my creation as with the other demigod characters.
They're pretty cool, though.
Good job, Rick.
A/N: FIXED IT.
Yay, me.
And, guys, I know that this chapter may seem disappointing right now, but I promise that it will be kinda important later.
I got this.
Don't think I don't know what I'm doing.
Chapter: VII
PIPER
Gone
Piper didn't know what to do when the entire ship shut down. One minute they were docked in the sky, watching as the clouds floated past them and waiting for Annabeth to get back, and the next they were falling.
Falling, falling... still falling.
Piper's immediate thought: We're so going to die. She was quite the daring hero, worrying about death like that.
"Grab onto something!" Hazel shouted, slipping on the floors and reaching for one of the railing shields. Frank wasn't too far behind her, but his feet couldn't seem to stay steady and soon enough he was slipping towards Festus' head.
"Where's everyone else?" Piper called to her friend, wrapping her arms around the base of one of the many ballistae's.
"Below." Frank replied as he whipped past her, desperately trying to grab onto something before he had the chance to be swooped up in the air.
Piper reached for his hand and managed to bring him up beside her.
"They'll be crushed when we land," She panicked, looking back towards the doorway. "do you think one of us should get them?"
From the corner of her eye, she saw Hazel shake her head. Piper waited for an answer, but the wind was pushing all of the other girls curly hair up into her face and she ended up coughing before she got one word out.
Piper frowned and turned back to Frank, who's eyes were wild with fear and face rapidly losing it's colour. "I think I'm gonna be sick..." He announced, using one hand to cover his mouth.
Piper didn't dare let go of her hold, but she imagined herself patting his back. "We'll be fine." She promised, mostly to herself. Was she right? How did she know that the three of them weren't going to meet their deaths in a few minutes?
She didn't.
Piper sucked in a deep breath, let go of the ballistae, and forced her way over to where Hazel was.
The wind roared around them, threatening to tilt the ship in a way that all three of the demigods would be lost to the sky, and suddenly Piper felt just as sick as Frank. Her stomach churned and bubbled, making the girl want to throw up.
"Hazel," She managed out, forcing whatever was climbing up her throat to retreat back down. "You can still control metal, right?"
Hazel nodded, but her faced displayed confusion. "Of course."
"Do you think you can lift the ship?"
The daughter of Pluto's eyes widened with horror, like the idea was suicide. "You honestly aren't thinking..." She trailed off when Piper gave a nod. "I can move metal, Piper, but a celestial bronze ship? I don't know."
Piper dared to look over the edge. She felt another bubble in her stomach when she saw nothing but woodland beneath them, growing closer with every second that they wasted. It would have been different if they had been sailing over water, but during the night it seemed that they had taken a detour.
Now, if they continued falling, they didn't have a chance at making it out alive.
"Hazel, please. You have to try." Piper pleaded.
"I can't! Use your charmspeak on Festus like you did before, to wake him up!"
Her charmspeak had brought Festus to life. Living things didn't 'shut down' like mechanical things did. Living things died.
What was Festus doing now? Acting like a bobble head as they rocketed towards the ground. What did that mean?
Festus was dead.
"Just try, Hazel."
Even to Piper, her idea was a long shot. No way could Hazel keep the entire ship in the air. No way could she set them down gently somewhere safe.
But that wasn't what they needed.
"Just enough to lessen the fall, okay? I know you can do it." Piper assured her.
Hazel took in a deep breath and closed her eyes, tying to concentrate. A few nerve-wrecking seconds past and tears began finding their way to her face.
"It's not working!" Hazel cried. "Nothing's happening!"
"It's okay!"
"No, it's not!"
It was the worst time for it to happen, but seeing the terrified look on Hazel's face reminder Piper that her friend was only a thirteen year old. She was just a kid.
Granted, Hazel had already gone through death once and was living way out of her time, but she was still only a kid nonetheless.
Demigod life is never fair, Piper chided herself. That was something she had learned awhile ago, when she had to save her father from his death. She had gotten another lesson when Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus. And now, life was giving her another one.
Nothing was ever fair when it came to demigods. They weren't supposed to get happy endings like in fairy-tales, they were supposed to die young. As children and teenagers, demigods had always been set up for death.
Not today though, Piper thought. She wouldn't have her last moments in a ship falling out of the sky. She wouldn't have Hazel's final thoughts be of how horrible the situation was. She wouldn't have Frank be clutching onto a ballistae when it ended.
No, definitely not today.
"Hazel," Piper said, trying to mask the desperation in her voice. "we don't have a lot of time. If there's anyone that can do it, it's you. What do you think?"
"I think you're crazy." Hazel uttered, though a slight smile was beginning to form. "But I'll try."
"Thank you."
"And... Piper?"
"Yeah?"
"If this doesn't work, I'm sorry."
She's just a kid, echoed in Piper's mind.
"It wouldn't be your fault." Piper said, forcing a grin. "Now come on Levesque. You can do it."
She didn't fully catch what the daughter of Pluto said after that, but two of the words were definitely "I hope"
And with that, Piper held her breath and waited for something to happen...
...
Nothing did.
Seconds passed, and still the Argo II was falling out of the sky at an alarming pace. Piper looked over to see her friend squeezing her eyes shut, her knuckles draining from their colour as she gripped the railing shield.
"Hazel," Piper started, but the girl cut her off.
"I know."
This was it. Nothing was happening. Hazel couldn't do it. Why had Piper even assumed that she could?
Piper felt the air escape from her lungs as the ship lurched to the side.
It had hit something.
This was how she would die.
Hazel cast a horrified glance at her and the beginnings of tears glistened near her eyes. "Piper, I don't want to die again!" She cried out, just as the Argo II hit something else and sent her flying back towards Frank.
Piper screamed for her friend the hang on, then shouted at Frank to turn into something and get him and the younger girl out of there.
Piper and the others below deck had the odds against them. It was better if two out of seven made it out, rather than none.
"Go!" The daughter of Aphrodite screeched, alarmed by the sound of one of the masts snapping. "Frank, leave!"
Another crack, then a snap, then the sounds of the metal folding and bending as the ship made contact with the rest of whatever was below it.
Frank didn't move.
With another sudden lurch, Piper was tossed over the side of the Argo II and braced herself for impact.
Voices. She was sure that she was hearing voices.
They called her name as she walked through lush flower fields. No one was in sight, but Piper was too absorbed by the roses and daisy's to pay much attention anyway.
It was beautiful, why would she want to turn her attention away?
"Piper!" One of the voices sounded off in the distance. "Piper!"
She ignored them.
Happily breathing in the scents of the field, the girl felt oddly at peace.
"Please, you have to wake up!" The same voice pleaded. "Open your eyes!"
She felt as if someone was shaking her shoulders, but when she turned around, still no one was there.
She scowled, then turned her head back towards the the beautiful field.
When her eyes rested on the roses, what she saw wasn't what she had seen. They were wilted, covered in shadows and planted in oily dirt.
Frowning, Piper looked over at the daisies, then the tulips, then the marigold... all of them. All of them were dead.
Clouds drifted over the fields, bringing with them an icy breeze. Piper shivered, but the sound of the same familiar voice distracted her from the goosebumps.
"Piper!" It called once, then again and again and again.
Each time her name was repeated, the voice got a little bit clearer. She had no idea who was speaking, who was trying to reach out to her, but suddenly the girl had an understanding that they were trying to help her.
Once again, someone was shaking her shoulders.
"Wake up!"
She didn't try to brush them away this time. She felt a tugging feeling, right in her head and in her stomach, and then suddenly Piper felt dizzy.
The sky and the dead flower fields warped into one, but before everything went black, Piper saw what had really been around her the whole time.
Bodies. Hundreds upon hundreds of dead demigods, all being devoured by the earth they had fallen on.
Piper awoke to her own screaming. She hadn't been aware that she'd been doing it at first, but then her throat began to feel like sandpaper and then the next second she was coughing.
Once she regained her breath, Piper tried to get to her feet.
Her legs wobbled beneath her and she didn't think that her left knee was supposed to be able to bend like that, but she wasn't immediately crashing to the ground, so that was good.
Of course, moving her left leg was the real challenge, but after three minutes of pain and cursing, Piper decided it would be best to hop.
Alright, number one thing on the list was completed. Number two, where did she land?
Piper squinted her eyes and tried to find a landmark of some sort. From what information she gathered, she was in a forest. Very helpful.
If only she could have substituted all the tree's for the Eiffel Tower, or a more familiar place like Camp Half-Blood... or Athens, which was where she really needed to be.
Next was the ship.
The girl looked upwards to the sky, and just as expected she saw the damaged tree-top trail that the Argo II had left during it's crash landing. She knew that she should have been devastated, but at that moment Piper laughed.
She was alive.
Alive.
She had thought for sure that she was dead. She had heard the Argo II crumple apart, she had heard the metal twisting and screeching, she had felt the impact as she hit the ground. But despite all that, she was okay.
And then, at that moment, Piper realized that maybe she wasn't okay after all.
Where were the others?
With a sickening jolt, Piper's brain was shoved back into reality. Pain stabbed at her leg, she felt a trickle of blood running down her forehead, but most of all, no one else was in sight.
She was alive, but Piper was completely alone.
The others were alive too, weren't they? There was no way they couldn't be. She had been thrown off the ship from the air and managed to make it, the others...
Four of them had been below deck when the Argo II crashed, Hazel and Frank had been out of Piper's sight. What was she thinking? She had no idea what had happened to them.
"Jason!" Piper screamed, scanning the area around her in case anyone else was there. All she saw was undergrowth and pine tree's in every direction.
"Hazel, Frank!" The girl cried, stumbling forward to where the destruction of the treetops led. "Percy! Annabeth!" Piper shouted, desperate for someone to answer her. "Leo!"
No one. No one answered her.
The fear in the bit of her stomach grew, and soon enough Piper found herself running. Her leg throbbed and something raked across her arms, causing bright red lines to show, but she forced herself to keep going.
She had to find them.
Piper stumbled on a broken off piece of celestial bronze, then ran passed littered bits of wood and metal, and then suddenly the girl was standing right before the ship. What was left of it, anyway.
Half of it was still in tact, the front half was torn apart. Wires and pipes sprung out where the inside walls had been, smoke from the engine room was lifting towards the sky, and a steady sound of buzzing filed through the air.
The Argo II was in ruins.
To make it worse, Piper saw five bodies scattering the ground. She should have felt a sense of relief, but the fact that none of them were moving made her feel sick. Also, someone was missing.
First she recognized the face of Frank, who had landed not far off from Hazel. Their chests moved up and down in a steady rhythm, so Piper moved on to where Percy was.
The son of Poseidon was literally right beside Annabeth and Jason, as if they had all been together right as the ship crashed. The three of them looked fine, only slightly hurt, but to Piper it didn't look as if all their wounds had come from hitting the ground.
Percy's and Annabeth's weapons were both clutched in their hands, burns marking their skin, and Jason's neck showed bright red hand prints.
They had been fighting, Piper realized. They had been below deck with Leo, who was the one who had been acting oddly. Two of them had burns. Their weapons were drawn. Leo was now missing.
He had attacked them, what other explanation was there?
At her feet, Percy began to stir.
"Kill," The son of Poseidon uttered, squinting his eyes, "twice."
Piper knelt down and stared at him, completely centered on everything that he said. "What? Percy, what are you talking about?"
The boy's eyes didn't focus on anything as they looked around. "He came back, to stop. Then it started again when the lights went out. He went for Riptide, to kill."
"Leo? Are you talking about Leo?"
"His eyes."
Piper wanted him to tell her more, but she noticed a matted spot in his hair and realized that he had a head wound. She didn't know if anything in the sick-bay was still in tact, hopefully the ambrosia had made it through.
"She's... she's using him to get us, I think." Percy said, finally looking at her. "He wasn't himself, said he'd kill us all."
Piper nodded and got to her feet. Annabeth hands were lifted across her face, flexing in and out as if she was studying how to work them again, and across from them Frank was beginning wake up as well.
Piper would get everyone bandages and ambrosia, they'd all heal up, and then they would figure out what to do.
As she limped towards the broken ship, the familiar thought played across in her mind once more.
They were wounded, half of them unconscious, one of them missing and apparently attempting to kill the rest. They had the weight of the world resting on their shoulders, a deadline that they couldn't miss, and a camp they considered home about to be attacked by the Romans.
All of them were just children.
