***So, for the record, writing in Leo's voice is just plain fun. I hope you enjoy this chapter! It's kind-of short, but next up, in Chapter 8, we're back to Frank's POV, for good times with dead ancestors in Pylos-it'll be up by Friday, April 4. And, once again, I am not Rick Riordan, I just really like his books and wanted to play with the characters.***

VII. LEO

Leo was tired of goddesses giving them ridiculous or impossible tasks. Just once, would it be so hard to give a straight answer? "Here's a bazooka. It's great for blowing up giants. Use it to win this war." Or, better yet, "Why don't you all take a vacation? There are some great beaches around here. We gods, with our awesome powers, will take care of killing these giants for you." But no, that would be too easy. All the demigods ever got were cryptic instructions about "a tool that might help you" in the "place where my festival was held." Nice and clear instructions, nothing cryptic about that at all. Oh yeah, and don't forget, first they had to track down Frank's long-lost grandfather or something.

At least the part about Demeter's festival had been easy to figure out. A quick Google search on the ship's computer made it clear that the major festival dedicated to Demeter was held in Eleusis, near Athens. They were called the Eleusinian Mysteries. Great, because Leo wasn't at all sick of mysteries. And Pylos, where Frank's ancestor was apparently meeting them, wasn't too far away, so hooray, more good news. On the negative side, Frank, Hazel, and Percy were all supposed to die in Pylos. Of course, Leo thought, I was supposed to die in Preveza and that didn't work out so well for Queen Dirt Face.

He shuddered, remembering Cercyon's screams when he'd set the giant on fire. Leo tried to remind himselt that the guy was about to squash him like a bug and then planned to torture and kill Jason, Piper, and Hazel, but it didn't help much. Leo was a mechanic. He liked building things, fixing things, not destroying them. Even though the guy was a monster and he knew he'd made the right choice, Leo still didn't feel good about what he'd done.

"Fire is a tool," his mother had always said. Since December, when he, Piper, and Jason had crash-landed at Camp Half-Blood and Leo had learned he was a demigod, he'd gotten better at controlling his ability to summon fire and more used to using it. He'd even used it as a weapon occasionally, when he had to, but he preferred to use fire as a tool. "Even a weapon is, at its heart, just a tool," he imagined his mother would say.

"Well, then, I guess I'm one dangerous tool," Leo muttered to himself.

"Did you just call yourself a tool?"

Leo jumped. Percy was leaning against the railing a few feet away. Leo had no idea how long the guy had been standing there; he'd been so lost in his own thoughts, he'd forgotten that Percy was also on guard duty with him.

"Um, yeah," Leo said. "But not like a tool tool, more like a hammer tool."

Percy raised an eyebrow. "Or a blowtorch?"

Leo winced. "Something like that."

Around them, the ship was quiet; it was just after midnight. The rest of the crew was asleep. The sea was calm and the sky was clear; Leo could actually see the Milky Way. It would have been peaceful if he weren't constantly on the alert for any sign of an attack.

"Wish I could relax," Percy said, echoing Leo's thoughts, "but when it's quiet like this, it just seems like the calm before the storm."

Leo nodded. "I keep waiting for Shrimpzilla or one of his ugly cousins to pop up on the sonar."

"That would seriously suck," Percy said.

"Agreed."

Silence fell between them. Leo checked the controls, mostly to look busy. Of all the people on the Argo II, Percy was the one Leo had spent the least amount of time with. Jason and Piper were Leo's best friends and he'd gone on several mini-quests with Frank and Hazel. And even though she still scared him, Leo had spent a decent amount of time with Annabeth, when she had helped with building the Argo II. But Percy was still a little bit of an enigma. Leo knew he was tight with Frank and Hazel after their "free Death in Alaska" quest, he'd been with Jason and Piper during the nymphs-and-giants and-Colisseum-battles-oh-my! fun in Rome, and, well, he'd jumped into Tartarus to be with Annabeth—'nough said. But Leo and Percy had never really had any one-on-one time. Leo guessed it didn't help that they'd gotten off to a rocky start when he'd blown up New Rome and all. Plus, Leo still felt guilty about the fortune cookie fiasco. He didn't think anybody but Hazel knew about it, but still. All things considered, now that it was just the two of them on guard duty, Leo wasn't exactly sure what to say to the guy. Glad you didn't die in Tartarus didn't really seem appropriate.

"Glad you didn't die in Preveza, man," Percy said.

Or maybe it was.

"That makes two of us," Leo said. "Besides, 'avoiding death' is one of my favorite hobbies."

"Mine too." Percy grinned. "Plus, no one else actually knows how to work the ship, so we kind of need you."

"That's me, 'Indispensable Valdez,'" Leo said.

"Which reminds me, how the heck did the others get from Africa to Malta to find you if the ship was messed up from the bomb?" Percy asked. "I mean, I know Piper woke up Festus with charmspeak, which—."

"—makes absolutely no sense," Leo nodded.

"Your words, not mine, but yeah. But even with him working, didn't they say the engine was messed up? And that's got to be hundreds of miles to travel. How'd they make it in time?"

Leo grinned. "Apparently, it involved breaking wind."

"Excuse me?"

"Ask Jason about it," Leo said.

"Oh, I will." Percy's grin turned evil and Leo laughed.

But then Leo remembered how he'd ended up in Malta and the smile slid off his face. Percy must have had a similar thought, because he suddenly cleared his throat and looked away. That was when Leo knew.

"You know where I went."

"Lucky guess," Percy said. "I've been there, too."

"Yeah, I know," Leo said, his voice tight with anger. He pulled up a map of Greece, just so he wouldn't have to look at Percy. "And you left her there. You promised she would be free, but you never bothered to follow up."

Leo expected Percy to get angry, to yell, to say how it wasn't his fault, maybe even take a swing at him. He was completely unprepared for Percy to sag against the railing and say, "I know. I messed up."

Part of Leo felt that he should respond with, Darn right, you messed up. But the confused part of him won out and he ended up saying, "Huh?"

"Look, down in Tartarus, we—we ran into these arai, the spirits of curses, and, well," Percy then told Leo about fighting the arai, which sounded like absolutely no fun, since if you killed one, they gave you a curse, and if you didn't kill them, they tried to rip your face off. And he told Leo about the special curse Annabeth had unleashed, from Calypso.

Leo was stunned. "I'm sure she didn't realize," he began, but he had no idea how to finish that sentence, so he let it drop. He wanted to protest that Calypso would never be that vindictive, but he remembered how furious she had been when he'd first landed on her island and the minor meltdown she'd had when she thought Reyna was his girlfriend. He hated to admit it, but he could imagine her, in a horrible mood, wishing that Annabeth would one day feel as abandoned by Percy as she herself did. But he was also equally certain that she never really intended for that wish to come true, and definitely not under the circumstances Percy had just described.

Percy held up his hand. "I don't blame Calypso. It's my fault. I should have followed up, made sure the gods kept their word."

"Yeah, you should have," Leo said, but there wasn't any venom in his words. He was just agreeing. His mouth felt dry, but he forced himself to say, "I promised I would come back for her. I swore on the Styx."

Percy studied him seriously for a long moment, then he nodded. "I'll help you, man. When we get back, we'll figure something out. She—she deserves to be happy."

"She does," Leo said.

They looked at each other, a brief, silent conversation, but Leo figured Percy got the gist.

"Alright then."

"Alright."

"So," Percy said, after a few moments of awkward silence, looking at the map of Greece that Leo still had pulled up over the controls, "how far to Pylos?"

Leo did some calculations. "A couple hours. We could get there faster, but there didn't seem to be much point in showing up before the sun comes up." He zoomed in on the map so they could see Pylos more clearly. It didn't look all that different from Preveza—a marina, red-tiled roofs, then countryside intersected with a couple highways. "Does Zhang have any idea where in Pylos his ancestor is supposed to be?"

Percy shook his head. "I don't think so. I guess we'll just go ashore and see what we find."

"That should work out well," Leo said.

***Again, thanks for reading! Next chapter, from Frank's POV about what happens in Pylos, will be up by Friday, April 4th!***