Chapter 3! Finally done! So while the remaining demi gods are off to Greece, I wanted to make their journey a little "fun". Please review, follow, and other boring stuff. ANYWAY, on with the chapter, still trying to keep it rated K…
Leo I
Leo almost began to believe that maybe he wasn't as good as he thought. Especially ever since he had blamed himself when Percy and Annabeth had fallen into, what was it called again? That's right. Tartarus. But he quickly dismissed the idea. He was Leo, and these monsters we about to enter Leo's world. It had been 2 days since his friends had fallen into Tartarus. He had already begun to miss them. He even missed blond-daughter of Athena, Annabeth. Gods, that girl scares me, he thought. But he knew that they were all a team.
Once they had secured the Athena Parthenos and had contacted Chiron, the camp director, they set sail for Greece, and to be exact: The House of Hades. However, the all-knowing Leo had little idea of what the House of Hades exactly was.
He hadn't slept for nearly a day now. He seemed to be living off of some magical drink, like Ambrosia. It would energize him whenever he was tired. It was Coffee, to be exact.
"I really must have the best job on board" Leo muttered while steering the ship, "Oh you're tired? Why not leave good old Leo to do all the work of running a 100 ton ship"
"Well at least I have you Festus, and Buford" said Leo, however none of the two machines replied.
Someone cleared their thought behind him. He thought it was probably Coach Hedge practising Judo Kicks. "Err, sorry man, didn't mean to interrupt your, uh, Leo time, but can we talk for a sec?" Leo realised that it was actually Jason behind him.
"Oh yeah sure!" said Leo. He hoped Jason couldn't see him blushing in the night. He wasn't "fond" of being interrupted during Leo time. During the last few weeks on the quest, he and Jason had gotten so distant of each other. They had both spent so much time with their girlfriends, they had forgotten about each other, Jason with Piper, and Leo with the Argo II.
"I kind of realised, that ever since this quest began, we haven't had much time to talk, kind of like before" Jason spoke. The words seemed hard for him to get out. "It's not that I was ignoring you or anything but I…"
Leo bit his lip to stop him from laughing. "Piper sent you here didn't she?" he said.
Jason looked shocked, "I uh, listen we need to, ok let's try to…Yeah, she sent me, all her idea"
They looked at each other for a second and then burst out laughing. "Oh man" said Leo, "You really suck at these conversations". And trust me; thought Leo, I'm not too good at conversations myself.
"Yeah, well—, " But whatever Jason was going to say got interrupted. He quickly rose to his feet and ran to the front of the ship.
"Something's coming" he muttered, "I can feel it and oh man, its flying to us really fast"
Just at that moment, Leo sent out the alarm bell and looked into the radar. Jason was right. Whatever was coming: was fast.
Coach Hedge was the first to come out. Leo figured the old guy/satyr had never even slept. He was probably up watching Chuck Norris movies. The Coach had a crazed look on his face as if he'd seen Medusa herself. "Where are they?! Let me at em!"
"Right," said Leo, "You arm the ballistae, but DO NOT shoot anyone unless I tell you to"
At that very moment, Frank, Hazel, and Piper entered the deck all wearing Pajamas which would have made a decent uniform if they were battling rubber ducks and SpongeBob.
Something or Someone was coming towards them and they needed to act fast.
"Over there!" Yelled Jason, "Is that—"
"That's a helicopter!" said Frank, cutting Jason off.
As the Helicopter got closer, Leo realised, with shock, that the pilot was none other than… Rachel. Elizabeth. Dare.
She was never good with helicopters. They all knew that after hearing the story of how the heroic Percy saved Olympus over the titan war. But after being with Percy on this quest, Leo decided that maybe heroic was a well suited name after all.
Looking back to the helicopter, Leo saw two other people sitting on one seat. After all, most helicopters could only hold 2 people.
"We have to help them!" shouted Leo. Just then, Coach Hedge fired the first projectile towards the helicopter yelling "DIE, DIE, DIE!"
"Are you crazy? Why would you shoot them?" shrieked Piper. She hadn't realised that she had used her charmspeak in her anger. But the coach wouldn't stop. Leo guessed that the satyr couldn't hear them at all.
Hedge fired another round. This time, it was a perfect hit. It blasted the bottom of the helicopter, and it caught on fire. Seeing no other option, Leo saw Jason fly up (using his, Jupiter is my dad powers of course) and opened the door to the helicopter with the help of the other two in the back of the helicopter. Then he safely brought all three of them down to the upper deck of the ship. Carrying 3 people at once would be extremely hard, but Jason showed no stress in carrying them. Great, thought Leo, A blond James Bond.
They all ran towards the four. One of them was Rachel, and the other was, with shock, Grover! Leo hadn't had the time to talk much with the satyr but had heard a lot about him. The third, a girl with black spiky hair, Leo couldn't recall who she was, but she definitely looked familiar. She was wearing a vest with badges of several punk bands pinned onto them. Around her shoulder was a bow. She had a little extra eyeliner on which made her look like someone who had just escaped from prison.
"T-Thalia" Jason moaned, "What are you doing here?"
"Figured you're butts could use saving" said Thalia confidently as if she hadn't realised Jason was the one who saved them, "But I just hate air travel, anyway, after we heard that Percy and Annabeth had fallen into Tartarus, we figured you could use some help. So I took a little holiday from the Hunters" she smirked.
She tackled Jason with a hug and greeted everyone else. However, Rachel remained unusually quiet.
After everyone had been introduced, they all settled down in the Mess hall. Leo had to turn on his autopilot which he hated to use since it always malfunctioned. But for now, it seemed to be working fine.
"So Percy and Annabeth into some large hole known as Tartarus, and you guys on a quest to open the doors from Greece…how lovely" said Grover
"And by the way, I have an empathy link with Percy" he spoke, "As we were flying here, I managed to sense him a little"
"But that's not the point" said Thalia, "Both of them are strong and will find their way out, but Rachel says that she has been having these visions…why doesn't she just explain"
They all looked around the room for Rachel but she was nowhere to be seen. And as if right on cue, they all heard a deafening scream coming from the upper deck. It was, without a doubt, Rachel.
They all ran up to where the sound was coming from and what they saw was only the beginning of the nightmares that were turning into reality.
5 meters away from where they stood, was Rachel Elizabeth Dare. But something wasn't right. Oh yeah, it was probably the fact that she was levitating off the ground. All the hairs on Leo's neck seemed to stand up. It was if Rachel was emanating and eerie glow. Her head was set down but Leo could see they her eyes where all white.
"Oh man! I've seen this in a movie before" said Leo, "Listen, Rachel, just get some garlic, and uh maybe some eyeglasses…they have new Ray bans"
"Leo!" All of them shouted in unison.
They heard a laugh. It was a laugh that sounded like, well, a nail scraping a chalkboard. Actually make it 100 nails scraping chalkboard. And it was coming from Rachel, however her lips where not moving. Leo could guess who this was…
"My little pawns, so wonderful to see you all together at last…oh that's right" the voice spoke, "The Son of Poseidon and the Daughter of Athena stuck in Tartarus with no chance to get out"
"I am Gaea. Fear me as I shall destroy everything in my path" said Gaea, "I shall—"Just at that moment, someone behind them snapped their fingers. Rachel fell face first onto the ground. Piper and Hazel both went to go help her up, however she was unconscious.
"Well that was disappointing" said a man. He looked like a model for Hollister with a bow. "She would have made such a fine oracle host"
"Apollo!" Spoke Thalia, "W-what was that?!"
"That my dear, was Gaea" said the god, "I should have foreseen it, after all, I am a god, but legend has it that the original Oracle of Delphi contained Gaea's soul…and well, that legend was right"
"But for now, my friends, we have bigger problems" said Apollo. Leo thought that meant that Apollo was going to sing a poem. Apollo looked fine considering all the other gods were torn with their two godly sides.
He pointed ahead of them, and Leo thought he could see land appearing. City lights began to shimmer into view… he was right, they were nearing Greece.
And that's chapter 3 :) Sorry if it was kind of a cliff hanger but I couldn't add that much into this chapter. Next POV will be Annabeth. If you read chapter 2 well chapter 4 will be quite fun :D Let's see what they find in Tartarus. As for Rachel getting possessed by Gaea, well, it's true according to Greek Mythology. The oracle of Delphi is believed to have actually been the soul of Gaea :S If you have any questions, I'll try my best to reply. On with the next chapter… probably tomorrow :P