Thank you to everyone who's been reading up to this point! Shoutout to everyone who voted for who would get put into a coma!

(Leo "won") And because you picked Leo, you picked the Leo storyline! If Frank or Nico had gotten chosen, the storyline would've changed. So, enjoy!

Hazel

An hour later, and Hazel was still trembling. She was sitting in a wooden chair next to Leo's bed in the sick bay. Piper was on the bed's other side, and everyone else was there too, sitting around the bed like it was a conference table or something. Well… everyone except for Frank. Hazel shuddered. Frank was probably throwing up or sleeping off his post-rabies fever. Luckily, he'd turned back to normal. Hazel had wanted him to stay in sick bay, but he refused, only taking some ambrosia and nectar for his burns, sheepishly saying that the distance from the toilet and bed was too far. Hazel understood; she'd spent approximately half of the original Argo II's sea voyage throwing up into the toilet herself. Frank was alright, but the same couldn't be said for Leo. After Frank and Jason's duel, he'd collapsed into a coma. Hazel shut her eyes, remembering…

Frank was a curled-up lump of fur, but suddenly morphed back into a human as the Furores left his body. Well, half-human, half-god, anyway. He had burn and scorch marks all over his arms, and a few on his legs. Hazel rushed to him, feeling guilty.

"Frank! Are you alright?" she choked out. "I'm so sorry, I told you to morph into an animal! I didn't realize that Lyssa…" Frank smiled wryly, his reassuring brown eyes saying that it would be all right.

"None of us realized that Lyssa would do that," spoke Jason, giving Frank a hand up. Hazel hadn't realized that Jason recovered already. "Frank, man, I didn't mean that—ANY of that. It was those stupid Furores. That's no excuse, though… even if they are worse than eidolons!" Frank nodded, shaking Jason's hand to show no hard feelings. But a loud thump distracted them. Leo, at the word "eidolon", had fallen in a dead faint. Hazel, Frank, and Jason rushed over. "What happened?!" Jason knelt down.

"Exhaustion, and I think that you saying 'eidolon' triggered some memories." Annabeth looked grim. "Does anyone know if he actually slept last night? Or the night before, at camp?" Nobody knew.

Hazel's thoughts were interrupted.

"We need a plan," started Annabeth. Sorry, Leo…

"No duh!" Percy got a glare from Annabeth. I should've checked up on Leo again! Hazel berated herself.

"Shut up, Seaweed Brain. Anyone got an idea?" Hazel got the feeling Annabeth was appraising the demigods' potential for good ideas. Or maybe that was just the steely gray eyes.

"Well, this isn't exactly an idea, just an observation, but… six of us have been in a duel already. Only Annabeth and Pipes haven't…" Jason trailed off, wincing guiltily at the two girls mentioned.

"I've got no reason to be mad at you, Annabeth!" Piper protested, unwittingly using an undertone of charmspeak in her voice.

"Me neither!" Annabeth agreed. Hazel couldn't help noticing that Annabeth didn't quite meet anyone's gaze. But she disregarded it. It's just paranoia. After those duels, anyone would be paranoid!

Nico cleared his throat. "So. About a plan?" he prompted. Hazel thought. All the demigods' powers or talents had been tried already, except Leo and Percy's. Leo… Hazel shook off the guilt.

"Percy, could you try to use your water powers to move the ship back to Long Island or something like that?" inquired Hazel. Percy nodded hesitantly, face screwed up in concentration. Suddenly, a miniature tidal wave crashed into the ward at ankle level. Hazel had an uneasy feeling that Percy had just killed the plumbing. Sure enough, Frank yelled:

"PERCY! I need to throw up!" Hazel stifled a laugh. Annabeth face palmed.

"What the…" Percy cursed. "Out of all the idiotic goddesses we could've been captured by, it's got to be the one smart one!"

"Murphy's Law," Annabeth muttered absently. "Clean it up, Percy!" Percy smiled sheepishly and returned the water to who-know-where.

"Thanks!" Frank yelled.

"No problem!" Percy shouted back. Hazel resisted an urge to roll her eyes. (Annabeth didn't resist and did roll her eyes.) Boys.

"Okay, so our powers don't work. We haven't tried Leo…" Annabeth glanced at the curly-haired demigod lying on the bed they were all gathered around, and frowned. Piper leaned forward and spoke confidently, though.

"When he wakes up—" Piper ignored the pessimistic looks—"When he wakes up, he can try something with his fire, maybe."

"Or he can build something," offered Hazel, glad for the slim chance of hope.

"Why don't we just pray to the gods?" Nico suggested. Hazel jumped up and hugged him, the idea was so brilliant. Surprisingly, Nico hugged back.

"Gods, I'm so stupid!" exclaimed Annabeth. "Everyone, pray to your godly parent!" Hazel bowed down her head and thought of Pluto, god of wealth and the Underworld, in his made-of-tormented-souls robes, sitting on his Underworld throne. Please, Pluto. I haven't really talked to you much, have I? But I need you now. Please help us, dad. Hazel lifted up her head. Nothing happened. But then, a vision danced before her. Pluto, riding a skeleton chariot, charging an army of ghosts, deep in the depths if the Underworld. "Thanatos!" yelled Pluto (Hades?) furiously. "The ghosts are trying to sneak back onboard Charon's boat! Again! Get your lazy bifurcum over here!" (Definitely Pluto, then. Bifurcum (A/N: I found this in the glossary for BoO. It means "private parts", apparently) was Latin.) The vision slowly faded, and Hazel sighed. Her dad was too busy rounding up the dead to pay any attention to the living.

"Pluto's fighting a bunch of ghosts trying to sneak back to life. It looks like he won't be listening to his prayers anytime soon…" Hazel sighed wearily.

"Yeah, I saw that too." Nico nodded, not looking any happier than Hazel did.

"Athena and Artemis are busy complaining about Apollo while discussing stuff about training the Hunters." Annabeth glumly stated. There goes two gods right there. Hazel pursed her lips. It wasn't looking good for the demigods.

"That's funny, Apollo was complaining about 'stupid maiden goddesses' to my dad. Except Poseidon was taking a nap. Oh, and I saw Frank's dad too. Ares, Mars, whoever. He was trying to figure out how to cut vines off Dionysus' throne on Mount Olympus without getting attacked by them. Wait… that's Ares, not Mars." Percy munched on a blue sandwich. Hazel blinked. A sandwich?

Annabeth noticed too. "Where'd you get that?" she demanded, looking none too pleased.

"There's a stack of plates—the magic ones—right there," Percy nodded towards a table. "It's noon. And noon means lunch!" Annabeth rolled her eyes again and grabbed a stack of plates, passing them about to the group. Hazel ate of few bites of a creamy shrimp dish that reminded her of New Orleans. (Luckily, Percy didn't see.)

"What vision did you guys get from your parents?" Hazel asked, glancing at Piper and Jason. "Anything?" Anything at all? Hazel silently added.

Jason winced. "He was yelling at Mercury and Bacchus. Something about… uh… a delivery of wine Mercury made to Bacchus by accident? Apparently Bacchus isn't allowed to drink wine for a century," Jason was puzzled. Then he added, under his breath, "Jupiter yells really loudly." Percy snorted, and Jason punched him good-naturedly. "What about you, Pipes?"

Piper blushed bright red. "Aphrodite was… um…" Nico's eyes grew wide and he hissed at Hazel to "plug her ears". But before Hazel could reacts, Piper started speaking again. "Aphroditewasdoingsomethingwithamortalinhisbedroominhisapartment!" Hazel fanned her face wildly. Percy was laughing so hard, he fell off his chair. Annabeth pulled him back up, but Percy promptly fell back down. Poor Jason was the only one still trying to decipher what Piper had said.

"Aphrodite… was… doing… something? With… a… mortal… in… his… bedroom… in… his… apartment… Oh!" Jason flushed, and Percy began howling with laughter. Hazel prepared herself for a lot of Aphrodite/mortal jokes.

"How did that even work? Did you, like, see them?" Percy snickered.

Piper and Jason glared at him. "Aphrodite was… um... suggesting they go into his room… and, uh, they locked the door… and yeah…" Nico smirked. Jason tried to keep a straight face.

"Maybe you should Iris-Message camp and tell the Aphrodite camp to expect a new demigod!" Nico's smirk grew larger. But then, Hazel gasped as the impact of what Nico said hit her.

"IRIS-MESSAGE!" she and Nico shouted together.

Within moments, a prism was found, a window opened to let the sunlight in, and a big pile of golden drachmas stolen from Coach Hedge's messy cabin. (Hazel remembered them from when Mellie, Coach's cloud-spirit wife, had been pregnant, and the satyr called her every night.)

"O Fleecy, do me a solid. Show us Chiron at Camp Half-Blood." Percy tossed a drachma into the rainbow, mouthing to everyone, Shortcut. Everyone leaned forward in anticipation, as a blurry image appeared. But as it sharpened, it was clear that it definitely wasn't Chiron. Not unless Chiron had undergone some sort of reverse plastic surgery. Hazel wasn't judgy, but this guy… he was just plain ugly. But his lined face was honest and hardworking, and he had familiar brown eyes. Hazel gasped. It was…

"Hephaestus! You're Leo's dad!" she exclaimed. A large, misshapen hand reached towards the Iris-message, and the angle shifted. Now they could see both Hephaestus and his surroundings. Hephaestus, dressed in a mechanic's overalls, was standing in a workshop that looked vaguely like Bunker Nine.

"Yes, I am. Although usually people refer to me as a god, not the father of a demigod…" Hephaestus scratched his heard, which was flickering with red-hot flames.
"You're Leo's dad?" Percy asked incredulously.

Hephaestus glared at him. "Got a problem?" Percy nervously shook his head. "Good. I haven't got much time. I've used a time-stopping machine so that Lyssa doesn't detect me here—wonderful design, hard to curl all those Celestial bronze ropes up though, maybe adding a bit of mortal metal could help with that, possibly some Imperial gold? I wonder if Zeus'll let me… no, he'll ask too many questions. Regular gold it is… a couple hundred pounds ought to be enough…" A dreamy glint in his eyes reminded Hazel of Leo when he was busy working on a project.

"Er, Lord Hephaestus?" Piper cautiously prompted.

"Oh! Yes. The time-stopping machine will only last a few more minutes or so. I'm the only Olympian who seems to actually keep track of their kids, so I guess I gotta save you. Anyway, you've got to wake Leo up. Tell him to use code forty-two in the miniature Archimedes sphere I've sent to his toolbelt to make an anti-listening device. Not a very simple machine, it might take a few days, but he'll figure it out. It'll save you. Make sure to tell him to use pure quartz for the inner gears, not diluted quartz, otherwise he might accidentally blow up the ship." Hephaestus was looking everywhere except at the demigods. Why? wondered Hazel. Then, she realized—Leo had told her once that his dad wasn't good with "organic life forms". That must be why. "Shoot!" growled Hephaestus. "Only a couple seconds left. Tell Leo—code forty-two! And remember the quartz! And also, tell him…" The connection dimmed. "Damn, the time-stop's almost out! Tell Leo that…" Hazel didn't catch all of the last sentence before the time-stop ended, but it sounded like "Tell Leo that I'm proud of him."

Reviews are appreciated!