Notes: Part of the Auxillaries verse, where Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood officially band together their forces and proceed on an expansion of territory campaign. And more. Mostly, I'm just winging it.
Written for the Endgame on Percy Jackson Fanfiction challenges, for the prompts Leo and Orange.
2
Madison Renaux from the Fourth Cohort walked into the main workroom of the not-quite-yet bunker near Lake Michigan, nurturing dreams of homicide.
From an objective perspective, the prank had been beautifully set up. She had dodged the first three tripwires and the five sinking tile traps (when children of the forge made anything, they tended to make them well- temporary or not), but had completely fallen for this one thing triggered by- as far as she could tell- someone randomly walking past the first-level entrance. Because really, how were you supposed to avoid a trap which was more of a certainty?
This also meant that there were no telltale signs she could look into to see who exactly had made said trap. On the other hand, there was only one person in this entire group who would have done this, so finding him wasn't much of a stretch.
"Valdez, what the hell."
She could hear everything in the room come to a standstill as people stared at her, and in all fairness she couldn't blame them. Every inch of her from head to boots was coated with some sort of stubbornly sticky thing. In a shade so orange that little fluorescent orange spirits everywhere wanted to grow up to become this particular shade. And, if she was not mistaken, she was also stinking of oranges. Overripe, fungi-now-call-it-home oranges.
Valdez took one look at her, chortled and went back to what she assumed were more blueprints detailing out multiple devious traps and layers of reinforcements in the bunker. For all that he acted like a five-year old hyper on sugar most of the time, the kid was really, really freaking good with designing malicious (and also defensive) instruments of everything.
"You think this is funny?" She asked, using her best sergeant voice.
She really shouldn't have bothered. Greeks responded to the sergeant voice (which you know, would have had pretty much everyone in Camp Jupiter –blessed, blessed Camp Jupiter she never knew how sane the place was till she met people from Camp Half-Blood- snapping to attention) with general snickering.
Valdez's snicker was probably code for obviously.
"Valdez," Madsion started, once she's closed her eyes and counted long enough to make her want to kill him a little less immediately, "We have two days to finish this place, or we are going to be completely behind schedule. So why, why are you pranking me instead of working on the plans?"
"Totally working on the plans too," Valdez said through a mouthful of pens, "Relax, Mad. Loosen up a little-"
She really hated that nickname.
"You're been steaming so much, I thought I was going to have to unscrew you-" he paused, and his eyes glittered, "Get it? Unscrew you-"
Madison groaned, "Please, no."
"You're no fun," Valdez told her, turning his blueprints upside down and squinting at them. Madison managed to get a glimpse of some mechanical contraption with spiky teeth before Valdez shoved the whole thing at her.
"Here," Valdez told her, already turning back to a blank sheet of paper, "Plans for the second set of defenses. If you grab a couple of war kids for manual labor, you can probably be finished in a day or so."
Madison very certainly did not yelp as she tried to make sure the blueprints didn't drop off from her hands and get all jumbled up. One instance of setting down Valdez's haphazardly labeled plans (followed by literal hours trying to figure out what was what) had been enough. Valdez didn't notice her panic- he just beamed at her and strode off in the opposite direction, probably to hit more innocent people with juvenile pranks.
"Why are we under him again?" She demanded to the world a large (once she had gotten the plans in order, of course), but mostly to grandfather Vulcan. Not that the guy had bothered to answer any time in living memory, but some questions demanded answers from the heavens.
"Because he's the smartest and the bestest," Jake (another Hephaestus kid she probably thought was decent only because the alternative was Valdez) said offhandly, "Also, he can blow stuff up with his bare hands, which is always a plus. Hand me that wrench, fluorescent fruit?"
Madison wordlessly handed him the wrench, making sure their skin touched a little more than absolutely necessary; and allowed herself to smile when Jake yelped and tried to wipe away the orange thing.
And so began another typical day at Camps Coalition Bunker IL-5.