Leo Valdez and the House of Nyx

LEO

THE VICTORY LADY DID NOT LIGHTEN LEO'S DAY.

Even before her, his day was going rotten. He was working on a 4-month project – his own best invention – a huge warship named The Argo II. His live table friend, Buford, helped him get all the supplies he needed. His ship was going amazing.

That necessarily wasn't the bad part.

His amazing day started when he spent one hour fixing a stupid ballista on to the ship, which should have taken less then fifteen minutes. He got worried about the less amount of time he had to build the ship, and polished Buford with Windex. Buford hated Windex. He only liked Lemon Pledge with extra-moisturizing formula. So he ran away. Buford had the Syncopater in one of his drawers, and without attatching that, the ship would have gone ka-boom! but luckily Leo's friends Jason and Piper had helped get Buford back, and Leo fixed back the syncopater in time. Exactly an hour after that Leo's other friends, Percy and Annabeth, called him for a quest to get a rare medicine called the physician's cure to save their camp headman, Chiron the Centaur, from a very serious illness.

Confused? Welcome to Leo's world.

Any normal mortal kid of his age would have collapsed after all that had happened that day, but Leo was seriously ADHD. He handled this sort of stuff everyday. It was absolutely normal for him.

While Leo was polishing Buford with Lemon Pledge with extra-moisturizing formula, Percy entered the bunker.

"Hey, man, we..." Percy faltered, and he gazed all around the bunker in awe. Leo couldn't help smiling. Percy was the third person in the day to show that kind of reaction (well, next to Jason and Piper, who had been here earlier this day to help him find Buford). Percy looked all around the bunker, gaping.

"Man, you've not seen anythin' yet," grinned Leo.

Leo led Percy to the in-process Argo II warship. Leo lit up his hand with white-hot fire and lit up the ballistae. The warship looked extremely beautiful with the blazing ballistae. Percy was left with his mouth hanging open.

"The cabins for the seven of us are still left to build. Plus one for Coach Hedge. So, the ship isn't much..."

"Isn't much?" gaped Percy. "The ship isn't much? Dude, she's a beauty! I could totally do with her!"

Leo blushed. "Gee, thanks man. Um, you were saying?"

Percy was still staring in awe. "Uhuh? Oh! Right. Listen, Chiron isn't healing any better, and according to the Oracle of Delphi –"

"Rachel, " Leo cut in.

" – if he is not cured by sundown tomorrow, he'll die!"

"But Chiron's immortal!" complained Leo.

Percy shook his head. "Means he'll fade, whatever happens to immortal people."

"One more happy thought," Leo grumbled.

"She also delivered a prophecy, about the three of us. So I came to get you. Better hurry."

"Hey! Timeout. Three of us? Who's the third?"

"Annabeth."

"Ah," said Leo. He'd hoped it would be either Piper or Jason. Gods, he'd even settle for Hazel, maybe even Frank. But Annabeth... well, he'd had some pretty bad experiences with that girl. She had cold, gray eyes, and Leo learnt the hard way that she was someone you should not mess with.

"Dude, d'yu know the prophecy?" he asked.

Percy knit his eyebrows. "Yeah... something like 'forge brings light to dark, earthquakes break twins'... Something. Not sure."

"Well, we'd better check with Annabeth," said Leo.

They raced through the woods to the campfire. It was around three in the afternoon, but that didn't make Leo feel any better. From previous experience, he'd learnt how fast time passes, and they needed to save Chiron before midnight today!

At the campfire, Mr. D stood with Annabeth. She was holding a scroll in her hand.

"Here's Leo. Annabeth, think it'll be better if you read him the prophecy too," said Percy.

Annabeth nodded, smiled at Leo, and unrolled the scroll.

She read, "Child of Earthquakes, beware the Earth, Twins' revenge threesome will birth. The forge shall blacksmith to light night, Death unleash through Night's might.Victory shall wisdom defeat, Release Death's Cheater with pain succeed."

A long silence followed this. Annabeth studied the scroll.

Finally, Percy said, "Well, so that's the whole prophecy. What do we know so far?"

Annabeth looked up. "We know the three demigods mentioned in the prophecy. Child of Earthquakes is you, Percy, since your Dad's the Lord of Earthquakes, right?"

Percy nodded. Posiedon's Lord of Earthquakes. Sure. Why not?

"Wisdom refers to Athena, so I guess I should go. And the forge refers to Hephaestus, which is why we need you, Leo," Annabeth looked at Leo.

Leo felt a surge of panic. Why him? There were eleven other Hephaestus kids to choose from. He needed to build his ship, and he was running out of time, too.

"Naw, man," said Leo, with a wave of the hand. "Why me? You can take anyone from the Hephaestus cabin. Besides, I got a ship to build, within two months' time. Pick someone else."

Annabeth seemed to consider that. She was about to respond when Mr.D spoke up.

"You think we would have dragged you out of your work if we could have picked anyone, boy?" he said in an angry tone. Leo and Percy jumped back. They had totally forgotten about Dionysus.

"This prophecy refers to only one Hephaestus kid, and it's YOU!"

Annabeth looked at Leo in confusion. "How are you sure about this, Mr.D?" Leo asked uncertainly.

"Well, it says 'forge shall blacksmith to light night', doesn't it? You're the only kid here who is gifted with fire, aren't you?" Dionysus said, as if it were obvious.

Leo shuddered. He knew that very well. But he had learnt from the past that fire was not necessarily a gift. It could be a curse as well. Leo looked at his hand and summoned a thin layer of fire, which danced softly. He willed it to die and looked up.

Annabeth sighed. "Well, there we have it. Now, I vote that we get going so that we can save Chiron, before it is too late."