Oh my gods thanks for all so awesome reviews :-D And yes, IwooIdreamIwritestories, it means that :-) Or something. I used Google Translate (yes, that's the horrible truth), and it isn't that trustworthy…
Next chapter is here :-D
Chapter 21 – Spheres, Romans and ice
LEO
I'm very confused with my feelings right now.
What was that supposed to mean? Leo was going out of his mind because of all these confusing feelings. Why were girls so freaking complicated?! Machines didn't have feelings, and they were complicated enough.
Couldn't Hazel just tell him that she didn't like him? Leo doubted he could feel worse than this. By saying that she was confused with her feelings, Hazel was getting Leo's hopes up. It maybe was a small, tiny chance that she liked him too…
But Leo knew that was just wishful thinking. Hazel had Frank, a big scary animal-man that she weirdly enough liked, and all Leo was going to get was a broken heart.
He sighed.
"I gotta go." He said to Hazel and got up on his feet. He didn't meet her confused gaze. "See you later."
Leo left the stables and went to his cabin. Slowly he started to fiddle with some mechanic pieces from his toolbelt, when suddenly a voice behind him said:
"Leo?"
He jumped of surprise and turned quickly. An Iris-message with the image of Nyssa was floating in midair behind him.
Leo automatically transformed his frowning face to a grinning one. He could do that in the matter of milliseconds. It was a handy ability when you tried to not show your feelings.
"Hello, sis. What's up?"
Nyssa rolled her eyes.
"Don't call me that, and this is 'up'." Only now Leo noticed that she was holding on of the copies of the Archimedes scrolls, which she opened and showed him.
She pointed at one of the sketches.
"That doesn't even work! How are you supposed to connect the gold wire with the bronze wire if the bronze wire doesn't want to connect with the small metal pad?!"
Leo thought it was incredibly funny that Nyssa came to him for help, especially when she was older than him and had a lot more experience with building magical stuff.
"Oh, poor big sister has to ask little brother for help." Leo said in a fake sympathetic voice.
Nyssa didn't even roll her eyes. She looked almost scary with that super-serious expression.
"Leo, we haven't time to joke around. The Romans are almost here. And as much as I trust the demigods at Camp Half-Blood, I'm really concerned about the Romans attack."
"Why? Camp Half-Blood will crush them."
"If these Romans fights as good as the old Romans of the empire did, we will have a hard time fighting them. And after seeing Jason's powers, I'm pretty sure the Romans aren't to play with."
Leo didn't know what to say. Nyssa was right (but he would never admit it to her); the Romans were good fighters. Just look at Hazel, Jason and Frank. And that Reyna-girl scared him almost as much as Annabeth, and Annabeth didn't have a crazy teddy bear-killing guy who forced her to make stupid decisions.
"Show me the sphere." He said. Nyssa nodded and went out of sight for a few seconds, and came back with a half complete sphere in her arms.
Leo saw the problem immediately.
"The metal pad is sitting on the wrong place. You have to switch places between the metal and bronze pad, so that those wires can be connected to those openings. It's tricky, it would be much better if the instruction images were in color, or if the scrolls were in English…"
Nyssa looked kind of startled.
"Was that everything? No tearing-the-whole-sphere-apart? I think we have torn apart more spheres than we built."
Leo laughed.
"Yep, that's it. But just so you know, that silver wire should be connected to the bronze opening, not the gold."
The Iris-message fainted. Leo was alone again, and now he had even more things to worry about.
The scrolls were really hard to read (dude, it was Ancient Greek) and many of the instructions were unclear. Archimedes really had been a genius; Leo figured that he had made it complicated on purpose, so that he could be sure of that the one who tried to build his spheres wasn't just anybody. You had to be a genius to understand his book, or at least a kinda' smart demigod.
"That dude was so awesome." Leo muttered.
If his siblings made anything wrong, even if it was just a screw that sat a little too loose, it could create massive problems. Problems like enormous KABOOM!'s or super-dangerous spheres going haywire. Sadly, Leo had some experience since he started to try installing his own sphere on the helm.
And, Leo had the horrible feeling that if those spheres didn't work, the whole camp would be crushed by the Romans. The camps chances to survive literally lied on if his siblings were good enough at Ancient Greek.
Leo left the cabin, trying to shake off the unsettling feeling he had gotten from the Iris-message. He decided to go to the mess hall and eat something.
"Leo?"
He turned to see Jason standing behind him. He looked troubled.
"Leo, you might wanna see this…"
Leo grinned.
"What's up, bro'? What do I have to see?"
Jason didn't answer, he just started to go. Leo followed while eating his bagel.
They walked down to the floor where the stables and sickbay where. Leo felt more and more nervous for each minute. Jason was way too quiet.
The first thing Leo noticed when they stepped in to the stables was that Death Kid, Coach Hedge, Piper and Frank was standing in a circle around something.
"Hey, what's happening?" Leo asked and frowned. The others turned, all looking pale and startled.
Didn't Frank even look like he had cried?
"Guys, what's wrong?" Leo asked and gave them a nervous smile. "You look like someone di-"
That's when he realized Hazel wasn't there. His grin melted away and he dropped his bagel on the floor.
He walked to the others, pressed himself between Death Kid and Piper, and felt his knees buckle.
Hazel was sitting there, hugging her knees, just like when Leo left her there. Her hair was frizzy as always, her face cute, but in her eyes there was a startled and realizing look that could connect to her condition.
She was covered in ice.
Next chapter later :-) Love y'all!