Hola, muchachas y muchachos. I'm in a Spanish mood today. Anyways, here's that Carter and Leo chapter that I promised!

Carter: DaughterOfGaea doesn't own my books or Percy's.

Leo: Ha! Take that DaughterOfGaea!

Me: Shut it Leo. I will tie you to a chair again if I have to.

Leo: *gives me an evil look and goes to tell Festus about his problems*

Carter

HE SEEMED LIKE A TROUBLEMAKER.

I didn't want to hold anything against Leo, but he could definitely clear a room with just one smile. I bet teachers look at him and think He's going to disrupt my classroom forever! I better just give him an F now.

But he was kind enough to let me borrow a shirt and some jeans. I was about to protest, saying that the fabrics weren't good for magic, but I resisted. I didn't want to show distrust. So I went into the bathroom and put on my new clothes. Apparently, Leo was just my size. Everything fit perfectly. I looked at myself in the mirror.

My hair was O.K.- a little disheveled, but at least that "love bite" from Freak was gone. From finding that the clothes fit perfectly, I had a little smile on my face. The t-shirt I was given was orange with big black letters that read: CAMP HALF-BLOOD. It had a little thing under the letters- I guessed it was a centaur- with a little bow and arrow. I was putting my shoes back on when Leo knocked.

"You almost done in there?" he shouted. "You take as long as Piper!"

"Yeah," I answered. "I'm finished." Leo opened the door and trotted in.

"Hey, you look pretty good!" he said, looking at my new style. I looked back at myself in the mirror and realized something terrible: Leo and I looked like twins, and not in a good way. We both had the same shirt, jeans, hair, and oddly shoes; the only thing different was the color of our skin- Leo's was lighter than mine. That smile I had seen… that was Leo's smile. I was so distracted that I didn't see Leo looking at me.

"Hey, man," he said, "are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I replied. There was so much awkwardness that it seemed to be lighting the room, or at least I thought that until I turned to my left. Leo was lighting up the room. "Dude!" I shouted. "Your hair's on fire!" A small flame was dancing in his hair, but he didn't seem to notice until I had pointed it out.

Leo yelled something in a different language- maybe Spanish, or Greek… or gibberish- and the flames went out. "Dang it!" he shouted. "I hate it when that happens!"

"So, that," I said, pointing at his hair, "happens a lot? And you don't even feel it?"

"Sadly, yes," he answered. He blushed from embarrassment. "It's a little gift from my dad, Hephaestus, the god of blacksmiths and fire. I can summon fire at will, and I'm immune to it. Most people see it as a power, but usually I see it as a curse. It got my mom killed," Leo said sadly.

"Oh," I said, at a loss for words. "I'm sorry about that, Leo. I lost my mom too when I was eight."

"Oh, yeah; it's hard isn't it? My mom died in a machine shop fire that-" he paused like he almost said something he shouldn't have. "Uh, was caused because some gas spilled on the floor. I only survived because I was immune to the heat," Leo explained. Usually I don't actually feel anything when someone says "sorry about your mom", but Leo made it sound genuine.

"My mom died at Cleopatra's Needle in London when she saw the future and tried to stop it. She was a diviner: a very powerful magician. She was killed when she tried to banish Apophis, the god of chaos. When she died, Sadie's cat popped out," I explained.

Leo took that into consideration. "So your mom died," he started, "and Sadie got a cat."

"Yeah… that pretty much sums it up," I finished. The awkwardness came again, but luckily this time it wasn't from Leo.

"So," Leo started, "this might be awkward, but I just wanted to ask." He took a deep breath. "Is Sadie single?"

At first I was shocked. We had only landed here about an hour ago, and Leo was already hitting on my sister. Can I just say, gross. [Stop hitting me, Sadie! You knew that you had a boyfriend!] But then it turned to sympathy. No one had ever asked me if Sadie was single, and I started thinking about if Sadie had ever felt like she was left out; or if someone had ever asked Sadie if I was single. And finally, I was nervous. This had never happened before; how was I going to tell Leo that Sadie was taken by a man-god? I gave it my best shot. I replied, "Uh, no."

I could see disappointment in Leo's eyes, but he took it like it had happened before- a lot. "I should've known," he mumbled. "She was way too pretty to be single."

I put my hand on his shoulder. "It's okay," I said, trying to comfort him. "Even though I have a girlfriend back home, I was weirdly disappointed when Piper said that Jason was her boyfriend."

"That's typical, since she's a daughter of Aphrodite. She just has this aura that makes you love her. I've learned to resist it, but it is hard to ignore," Leo explained.

"It's definitely hard," I said. Leo laughed. "So, being demigods and all, do you all have special powers? Or is it just one god's children that do?" I asked. I actually was curious.

"Usually we all do," Leo answered. "But not all are like mine, and not all are powers. For example, children of Apollo are extremely good at archery, and, like Piper, children of Aphrodite are usually beautiful, magazine addicts." I had to laugh at that one. "But children of the major gods usually have the most power; like Jason. He can conjure up storms and summon lightning, and also ride the winds," he finished.

"Ride the winds?" I asked.

"Fly," he answered. Great, I thought, I'm surrounded by flying, spontaneously-combusting magazine addicts. But all in all, I was having fun talking to Leo. It was like we share some sort of bond, like long-lost brothers. We were just starting to relax when Sadie and Hazel popped in the doorway.

"You two having fun in there?" Sadie asked. I could hear Hazel snickering behind her. I guess that I hadn't really realized that Leo and I were still standing in the bathroom. We stepped into the hallway.

Leo took a look at Sadie. At first I thought that he was going to say something about my sister's relationship status, but instead he turned to Hazel. "So, Hazel," he said, "already turning her Roman." Leo made a tsk-tsk noise and gave Hazel a dirty look. I noticed that Sadie had changed, too: into a purple t-shirt that read: SPQR.

"Well, you're not that much better, Greek," Hazel snapped back, looking at me. She shot Leo back a look that even Sadie couldn't attempt. [No, Sadie, I wasn't insulting your death-staring abilities.] I noticed that we might have just started a demigod-duel, but the duel was more of a staring contest. Everything stopped after something shiny appeared at Hazel's feet. She scooped it up quickly and Leo looked away. When Hazel came back up, she was blushing.

Sadie broke the silence. "How about we all go to the mess hall together?" she suggested. "I heard that Jason's awake and will be joining us." She looked at Leo and Hazel. "And maybe we can keep you two from killing each other."

Leo and Hazel led us to the mess hall. Sadie and I followed closely behind until she pulled me back a bit. "Those two people they're all talking about," she whispered. "Percy and Annabeth."

"I know," I whispered back. "Hopefully we'll get some answers soon."

Hey guys! Guess what? I'm trying a new thing now- I'm making a story of one-shots that you guys get to choose! What you do is:

1. Choose a pairing (any pairing-canon or uncanon, boyxgirl or boyxboy or girlxgirl, anything!), an adjective, and a place.

2. Review either of my stories (or this new one after I get my first request) with your pairing, adjective, and place.

3. Keep watching that story to see if your story is there! It probably will be, since I don't get that many reviews...

Let's do this! I really can't wait to start this! (btw- these pairings can be PJO, HoO, or KC.)

Yay! Male bonding time! So now you guys understand the whole 'twins, fire, and a bathroom' thing. Beware of the flying magazine addicts!

Please review and vote! So far, story 1 has 3 votes, story 2 had 1 vote, and story 4 has one vote.

Check out my other story "Keep Your Enemies Closer"!

-DaughterOfGaea2399