Chapter VIII
Disclaimer: I Don't Own the Percy Jackson Series or the Characters. All Rights Go To Rick Riordian for Creating this Extraordinary Adventure!
Percy
I let out a sad sigh. It had been two years. My friends and I gathered in a small wooded area of Camp Half-Blood. Annabeth clung to me, as she cried into my shirt. Everyone hated bringing up this subject. Leo Valdez, where did you go? Our friend had been dead for two years now. At least, we were sure he was dead. He'd gone missing during our attempts to prevent Gaea's awakening. Did we succeed? Of course not. The Goddess or Titaness of the Earth awoke anyway. We did manage to defeat her though and saw that she was put back to sleep. I shifted in my shoes a little, as I listened to Annabeth's quiet sobs. I had heard that Leo and Annabeth had been relatively close, seeing as they both enjoyed construction. We were all there. Annabeth and I, my brother Tyson, Piper and Jason hugging, huddled underneath an umbrella and Frank and Hazel, both of them standing at opposite ends of the wooded hollow. They both gave each other looks of hate. They had broken up half a year ago, (long story) after Hazel and seen Frank kissing a daughter of Aphrodite.
Rachel was also there, standing in at the edge of the hollow, not wanting to be around Annabeth or I. I had a feeling that there was a feeling of jealousy that Rachel directed towards Annabeth. It didn't matter though. No one seemed to want to speak. It was just too gloomy. In fact, today was the two year anniversary of Leo's mysterious disappearance. We had searched everywhere for him, but with no luck. The guy, from what I had heard, was blasted off of the Argo II towards the sea. If you're not a son of Poseidon, which he is not, you aren't expected to survive that fall. I stepped forward, as Annabeth let go of me and placed a single red rose against two wooden boards, branded together to form a cross. Etched into the wood, Leo Valdez. We had all brought a rose to lay against the gravestone. Or was that grave wood? Just then, I heard a hissing sound, like the sound of a snake hissing. I was confused and looked to the source of the sound, which was up in a tree. It was a black cloud of smoke, that was materializing out of nowhere. I drew Riptide and I heard all my other friends draw their weapons. Before we could charge the monster that was apparently spawning from the smoke cloud, a teenage boy fell from the cloud, hitting the ground several feet below.
The boy got up off of the ground and brushed himself off. He wore a black jacket, under that, a black T-shirt torn at the shoulder and denim jeans. He had long, wild black hair, that could be easily pulled back into a ponytail. And on top of that, he had a little bit of five o-clock shadow growing on his chin and below his mouth. "May I advice that you cut your hair, Nico? You look homeless." I said. "Shut up, Percy." Nico said. "Where have you been?" I asked. "Around. I've been hanging out in the Underworld a lot. Hi, Hazel." he said. "Hi!" she said, in a cheerful tone, after seeing her step-brother. "Hi Hazel." I heard Frank mutter under his breath. "I'm going back to Camp." Frank said, before storming off into the wooded area. "What's with him?" Nico asked. "You've been out of action for a while, Nico. You've missed a lot." Piper said. "We'll leave you two alone to talk. Come on, guys, Annabeth." Annabeth rushed over to me. "But, Percy-" she started to speak, as I gently gripped her arms. "I'll be fine, Annabeth. Nico and I are old friends. Right, Nico?" I asked. I looked at him, to see him nodding. "I don't want to go. The last time you were alone with Nico, you got in trouble with his dad!" she protested.
"I'll be fine, Doll. Just go back to Camp, ok?" After I finished talking, I pulled her closer and kissed her. "You're not alone!" Nico hissed. "Sorry." I said, as I pulled away from Annabeth. "Go." I whispered. She sighed, but relunctantly left my grip. "We'll wait for you, Percy!" Jason said, as he walked off. Once everyone was gone, save for me and Nico, I turned to him. "Ok. You obviously didn't come all the way to Camp to see me. What have you found out?" I asked. "Not a lot. I asked around in the Underworld. I asked Dad, the Furies, C-" he was speaking about the Furies, but I interrupted him. "Mrs. Dodds." I corrected. I still had nightmares about my first monster kill. "The Furies." Nico said, in an impatient tone. "I even asked Cerberus. I didn't get very far there." He let out an angry grunt. "So, did you find anything?" I asked. He nodded. "Yes. The second time I asked my dad, I asked if he had any problems, maybe we could help each other out." he said. "And, what did Hades say?" I asked. "He said there were weird happenings going on in his realm. He told me that four or five souls had just disappeared." I was confused. "Disappeared?" I asked, waving my hand. "Like, just vanished, as if they'd never died. I'll tell him I'd try to keep an eye out for his 'lost souls'. And in return, he told me that Valdez's soul has not passed through the Underworld." he said.
"So, Leo's alive?" I asked, in a shocked voice. "Maybe. But I was thinking more like that he is sick and he just hasn't died yet. Or he found a safe haven." Nico said. That's when I heard a shimmering sound. I turned to the source of the noise, to see a haze of mist in the air. It cleared, and I saw the face of a Hispanic male. He had brown eyes and black, curly hair. "Percy! Is that you?! The reception over here is pretty bad!" the guy said. "Who-?" I began to speak, as a chill went down my spine, as I realized who it was. "Leo? Is that you?" I asked in shock. "Yeah! It's me! L-" I interrupted him. "Where have you been the last two years? What happened to you?" I screamed at him. "Percy, look. I don't have much time to explain. But, you and all the others need to get here." Leo said. "Get where?" I asked. "Here! I'm trapped on an island!" I sighed in anger. "What island?!" I asked in anger. "Look, stop asking questions, Percy. Just listen. Do you have Festus there at Camp?" he asked. I sighed, but nodded. "Ok, to find me, Festus is going to need a GPS Locater Chip." Leo said. "Where do I find one?" I asked. "In Bunker Nine. There is wall with a shield-wheel thing on it. It requires a code to open up the store house. You're going to want to spell out Esperanza Valdez. Turn the outer rim of the shield that has the letters, turn that clock-wise and click the center button as you spell her name. You may want to write it down." he advised. "Nico?" I asked. "Paper?"
Just out of sheer luck I guess, Nico actually fished out a pad of paper. He tossed it to me and started to write. "E-s-p-e-r-a-n-z-a space V-a-l-d-e-z. You got it?" he asked. I nodded. "Yeah. I do. Anything else I need to know?" I asked. "Yeah, probably. I needed someone to keep watch over the store house. I appointed Hank McPowell to do the job. He's a son of Hephaestus, just like me. That's why I trusted him." he said. "Why did you need him?" I asked. "I told him to take over and catelog my inventions and create the ones that hadn't been made yet if anything was to ever happen to me." Leo said. "Tell him you need the Festus GPS Chip. He'll know where to find it. And once you've done that, there is a slot in Festus's head that you can put the chip in. Once you've done that, just let me build a locator beacon for Festus to track. That's how you'll find me." I let out an angry growl. "Leo, whe-" Leo interrupted me. "Look guys, I'm fading fast and I don't know when I'll be able to get back to you. Just to what I told. I'll be waiting here with Ca-" The mist dissolved before Leo could finish his sentence, leaving Nico and I in the middle of a wooded hollow, with the grave of a friend we now knew was alive.
Leo
I opened my eyes. I was about to move, when I realized my head was pounding. It felt like I had a killer migraine. I tried to scream, but it came out as a groan, as that was all I had the energy for. I whimpered like a baby. That's when I realized Calypso was lying on top of me and she was naked. And so was I. That's also when I realized I was inside of her, or at least, well, you know. I looked around to room, and tried to sit up, but with Calypso on top of me, I was restricted. I laid back down, and I felt her grip tighten around me. I noticed that the covers came up to just the small of Calypso's back and both of our right legs were exposed, as the covers didn't cover our legs. I let out another groan of pain, as my head continued to pound without showing signs of stopping. I looked over to the side table to the right of our bed and saw what was causing the migraine. "Shit." I whispered, as I saw the two empty bottles of wine on the table. "I must be hungover." I laid my head back down on the pillow and tried to go back to sleep. But with the pounding headache, it wasn't happening.
"This fucking bites." I muttered, as Calypso shifted in her sleep. "Could you just wake up and get me a ice pack?" I asked. Calypso shifted once more, but didn't wake up. I moved a little bit, to try to get out of bed without causing myself too much pain. I managed to move out of Calypso, I have no idea how I pulled out without waking her, but I did. I moved out from under the covers and tried to stand up on the carpeted cave floor. I stumbled a little and nearly fell, but I put my hand on the wall to maintain my balance. I walked over and to the shelf on the left side of the bed, that held all my clothes and a few personal belongings. I grabbed the robe that Calypso had made for me a couple days ago, to symbolize her love for me, it was made of white cotten, and I put it on. I crept out of our room and into the kitchen area, grabbing a glass from the shelf. I turned on the faucet and filled the glass with water. I had heard that if anyone ever got hungover, than you would want to drink lots of water, as it helped sooth it. And that is what I planned to do. I was drinking from the glass, when out of nowhere, my lower legs just felt like jello. "Oh. Ooohhhh. Uh-Oh." I said, as I wobbled on my feet, realizing what was next. I lost my balance and fell on my back, spilling some of the water on my robe and the rest all over the cave floor. My eyelids fluttered as I passed out. Yep. Hangovers are a bitch.
Percy
"So, who is going to go with you up to Bunker Nine?" Nico asked me, as we walked through the woods. "You, first of all. And I feel like Jason would want to come along as well." I said, as we neared the edge of the woods. "I think that's good." Nico said. I nodded. We walked out of the woods and up to the cabins. Everyone was there. Annabeth was sitting on the stair that was beneath the door to the Athena cabin, with her head in her hands. Rachel was standing next to the Hera cabin, which to this day, I didn't understand why it was there, as Hera had no known Half-Blood children. Frank and Jason stood by the Zeus cabin, Tyson by the Poseidon cabin, working on some kind of project and Hazel and Piper sat at the foot of the Aphrodite cabin, just whispering to each other. "Come on man." I said, as we walked up to Jason. "Hey Frank, what's up? Look man, I'm gonna need you to scram real quick. Why don't you go talk to that daughter of Aphrodite that you fancy so much?" I asked. Frank looked at me angrily. "I told you guys that that was an accident." He mumbled, tears coming to his eyes as he walked away. "That wasn't cool, Percy. What do you need to talk to me for?" Jason asked.
"Walk with us, Jason." I said, as he, Nico and I walked back towards the woods. "Okay. Where are we going?" he asked. "To Bunker Nine." I said. "Why?" Jason asked. "We just need to go." I said, not wanting to tell the truth yet. "Is there something that you need to tell me, Percy? Nico?" Jason asked. I waited to answer until we had gotten into the woods. "Okay Jason. You have to promise not to tell anyone about this yet." I said. "Of course. Anything you need to say." he said. "Leo's alive." I said. Jason's eyes widened. "What?" he asked. "How do you know?" I sighed. "When you guys left Nico and I in the hollow, we began talking about what he had been doing lately, and all of a sudden, an Iris-Message just popped up. And it was Leo, calling to tell us he was alive. And that he was trapped on an island." Jason's eyebrows scrunched up together. "What island would he be trapped on? What other proof is there?" he asked. "Nico told me that Leo's soul had not passed through the Underworld in the last two years. It's been silent there." I said. "Yeah. Well, except for four or five souls that have just vanished from the Underworld." Nico chimed in.
"Vanished?" Jason asked. Nico nodded. "Just gone. As if they had never died in the first place." he said. "Does that worry you?" Jason asked. "More than you know." Nico replied. "Guys? We need to get to Bunker Nine." I said. "Right." Nico said. "Let's get moving." We had been walking for not even a minute, when Jason spoke. "Why are we going up to Bunker Nine again?" he asked. "Leo said that if we were to find him, we needed to get a GPS Locator Chip for Festus to use. He told us we could find it in a store house hidden in the bunker." I said. We continued walking, until we came to the door of Bunker Nine. I opened it up and the three of us walked in. We walked around, looking for the shield thing that Leo had described to us, and after a minute of searching, we found it on the wall to the east of where we started. I saw the outer ring of letters. "Jason hold this." I said, as I handed him the note with the name that Leo had told us was the code. "And read it to me as I put the code in." I touched the outer ring of letters and was sort of surprised to find that it actually moved. So, Leo wasn't lying.
"Start reading, Jason. And go slowly." I said. I now noticed a pointer, on the ring below the ring of letters, and it actually made sense now how I was to put said letters in. "E." I turned the wheel to the E and pressed the button. "S." I turned the wheel clock-wise to the S and pressed the button. "P." I turned the wheel clock-wise to the P and pressed the button once more. I kept doing this and listening to the letters that Jason spoke. "Here goes nothing." I said, as I pressed the button. We waited. And waited. And waited, and waited and waited. But nothing happened. I turned around to look at my friends. "I guess Leo was lying." I said. "There is no secret workshop thing." Just then, I heard a faint creaking from behind me. I turned around, to see the brick wall slowly opening. "Spoke too soon, Percy." Nico said. "Shut up." I said, as the passage opened all the way, revealing a stairwell lit only by torches. "Well, into the abyss?" I asked. "Into the abyss." Nico agreed. I took my first step into the passage, with Jason and Nico behind me and began my descent into the unknown.
Leo
I let out a groan as I woke up again. As my eyes opened, I could just make out Calypso sitting beside me, wearing her white robe. "Leo? Are you okay?" she asked. I just stared back at her, as I tried to decide what to say. "I, uh, no. I'm not." I said. She gave me a look of sympathy. "Aww..." she replied, in a cute tone. My heart fluttered. Just when I hear her soothing voice like that, it mentally and a kind of physically incapacitates me. "What's wrong?" she asked, in a more serious tone. "I feel absolutely shit-faced." I said, as I laughed hoarsely. She cocked her head at me. "What does that mean? You said 'shit-faced'. What does that mean?" I sighed. "It means that I'm hungover. We, uh, didn't drink alcohol last night, did we?" She nodded. "As a matter of fact, we did." she said. "How much?" I asked, as I sighed in frusteration. "At least one bottle of wine to the each of us." I let out an angry sigh. "Do you feel alright?" I asked. She nodded. "Aside from a mild headache, I feel fine." she said. "Why do you ask?" I thought for a second. "I'm hungover. When a mortal has too much alcohol to drink, they get hungover. You said you have a mild headache? Well, multiply that by one-thousand and that is what's up with me." I said.
"I'm sorry. Why do you have a hungover, as you said?" she asked. "Hangover." I corrected. "It's hungover when your talking about it, when it affects you. It's hangover when you say something like, 'I have a hangover'." She stared at me for a few seconds. "What causes it?" she asked. I shrugged. "Well, alcohol isn't exactly good for mortals anyway." I said. "Ranging from Whiskey to Vodka, it's all something you wouldn't want to drink on a daily basis." Calypso shot me a questioning look. "Why not?" she asked. "Because if you drink to much alcohol on a daily basis, it could mess up either your kidneys or liver. I don't remember which. I want to say it's the liver." I said. "Speaking of headaches, I could really use an ice pack or something." She laughed as she laid down on top of me. "Forget an ice pack Leo, let's just mess around!" she said, as she kissed me. I returned the kiss with passion, as I wrapped my arms around her. But as I got more excited, the headache increased at what felt like an exponential rate. I stopped the kiss and let out a groan of pain, as I tried hard not to cry. "What's wrong?" Calypso asked, in a concerned tone. "I told you I have a pounding headache." I said. "I can't do this. It hurts me too much." Calypso just grinned as she undid her robe and slipped it off of her shoulders, revealing her stunning body. "We'll take it slowly." she whispered, as she got off of the bed and helped me up. She undid my robe and pushed it off of my shoulders. "Slowly. Okay." I whispered, as I kissed her.
Percy
As we walked down the staircase, I eventually saw a light at the end of the tunnel that went downwards. We eventually came down to the end of the staircase and I found myself in a room that was big, I could tell. I saw a somewhat muscular guy sitting at a desk, with glasses on, flipping through papers. I cleared my throat and knocked on the wall. The guy scrambled up from his seat and grabbed a pipe from under the desk. "Are you Hank? Hank McPowell?" I asked, as I raised my hands, as if I were surrending. "We don't want any trouble." He gave us a weird look, but eventually spoke. "Yeah. I'm Hank. Who are you?" he asked, not lowering his weapon. "I'm Percy Jackson. This is Jason Grace and Nico Di Angelo. Leo Valdez sent us." I said. "Leo Valdez?" Hank exclaimed, as he lowered his pipe. "Leo's dead!" I shook my head. "No, he's not. I got an Iris-Message from him about fifteen minutes ago." He just stared at us. "Yeah? What did he say?" he asked. "He said that if we wanted to find him, that we needed a chip. From you." I said. Hank shrugged. "Well, that does sound like Leo. On the account that he is the one who put me in this hellhole in the first place." he said. "You can lower your hands. I'm not going to hurt you. If you don't hurt me."
"We won't hurt you. We want information on the chip that Leo told us about." I said. Hank opened up his arms. "Then we do business." he said. "Come." We followed him as he sat back down in his chair and wheeled over to the desk behind him. "Okay, you mentioned a chip, but I sense that isn't the real reason you came down here." he said. "So... let's discuss what products Leo sells down here. Weapons, Advanced Armor Systems, Blueprints, and e-" I cut Hank off. "Hank, I don't want to sound rude, but Leo said something about a chip." Hank gave me a confused look. "Um, Percy? What exactly did Leo tell you this place was?" he asked. "He didn't tell us anything about this place. Just that we needed to find you and get the chip." Jason replied. "Leo told me exactly what was down here when he sent me here." Hank said, as he got up and flicked on a light. "Nothing." Dozens of flood lights came on in the ceiling, stretching for at least a hundred feet. There were cabinets with oversized drawers, military-grade chests and lots of stuff that seemed to be a lot for nothing. "Wow." I said, as my voice echoed. "Yeah. He didn't tell me about the extensive inventory he had set up down here either." Hank said, as he smiled. "Come on, I'll show you to the chip."
We all followed Hank as he walked over to a cabinet, unlocked a drawer and he brought the drawer out. In the foam, placed in an outline was a chip the size of mini cereal bar. "A GPS chip, military-grade circuitry board, fully functional. So, what's your interest in it?" he asked. "I uh, want to borrow it." I said. "Okay. Have at it." Hank said. "Wait. 'Have at it'? It's as simple as that?" I asked. Hank nodded. "It's as simple as that." he said. I reached for the chip, but before I could grab it, Hank snatched it from the drawer and held it above his head. "Ah, ah, ah." he said, wagging his finger with his other hand. "You really thought I was just going to hand it over for free? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You are going to have to work for it, pal." I let out a growl of anger. "Okay. What do you want?" I asked. "There we go." Hank said, as he smiled. He placed the chip back in the drawer, closed it and locked it again. "Follow me." he said, as he walked off. We followed him throught the store house and to what looked like a big vault. "So, when Leo put me down here, he left me with the codes to literally everything down in this dump. Well, that is, except the code for this vault. I've been trying to crack this thing for as long as I can remember! And every attempt at cracking it and I fail!" he said.
"Yeah? What does that have to do with us?" I asked. "I need the daughter of Athena. I need your girlfriend to help me out! Your girlfriend Annabeth, I know she can help me crack this code! I just know she can!" Hank said. "You're talking about thievery." I said. "This is all that is left of Leo. We don't even know if he wants to come back. So, no. I'm not going to help you steal whatever Leo has worked so hard on keeping hidden. You can forget that." Hank frowned. "No vault? No chip." he said. "You are going to give us the chip." I said. "No, I am not going to give you anything." he said. "We're not going to help you." I said. "If you don't help me, then I don't help you." he said. He walked off. "If you get wise and decide to help me out, you know where to find me. Until then, get the fuck out." he said. We sighed, as we walked back the way we came. Once we were heading up the stairs, Jason spoke. "So what now, Percy?" he asked. "We have to find some way to get that chip. With or without Hank, we'll get it." I said.
A/N: I hope all of you enjoyed this chapter. So, any thoughts of the brief conflict at Camp Half-Blood? Leo is hungover, however, Calypso is not yet fully mortal and has yet to feel any effects other than a mild headache. So, I do hope that you enjoyed this chapter. As always, a favorite and follow on this story is always appreciated. And if you want to give me your opinion, I'm all ears to a review or PM. I'm going to go though, so have a good day and bye.