Halcyon [Leo Valdez x Reader]

Arson Eyes

Jason’s eyes snapped open. “Cyclops!”

“Whoa, sleepyhead.” Piper sat behind him on the bronze dragon, holding his waist to keep him balanced. Leo sat in front of me, driving. We flew peacefully through the winter sky as if nothing had happened.

“D-Detroit,” Jason stammered. “Didn’t we crash-land? I thought—”

“It’s okay,” Leo said. “We got away, but you got a nasty concussion. How you feeling?”

Jason blinked, obviously confused. “How did you—the Cyclops—”

“Leo and Water Girl ripped them apart,” Piper said. “They were amazing. Leo can summon fire—”

“It was nothing,” Leo said quickly.

Piper laughed. “Shut up, Valdez. I’m going to tell him. Get over it.”

“That’s incredible,” Jason said. “Leo has powers? And wait, you fought with a broken ankle?” he asked me.

I rolled my eyes. “Well, when the other only trained demigod passes out in battle, someone has to step up.”

Jason frowned. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m used to it,” I said. “It’s not a battle if you aren’t knocked out.”

“Seriously?”

“Oh, man,” I said. “I cannot wait for you to remember our old days together.”

“Speaking of that,” Piper started. “When we were tied up, the cyclopes started talking about their last demigod. He spoke Latin and had a purple shirt. They said he was a son of Mercury.”

I looked down to my forearm, my markings starting to burn. I rubbed it through my sleeve, trying to ease my memories.

Jason watched me, his blue eyes holding an emotion I couldn’t read. “We aren’t alone, then. There are others like us.”

I scoffed. “I’m well aware.”

“I had a dream…” Jason said. “I can’t really understand it, so maybe you could help?”

He explained his dream to us. He was inside an earthen cage with Hera, tendrils all around him inside an empty pool. Hera called it her prison. She said something about the earth stirring against us. The enemy we were after could not be defeated, Jason told us. She could only be kept asleep. That made me think of the face in the toilet sludge, but I decided to skip over that. Before Jason woke up, Hera called him and I an exchange; a peace offering, a bridge. The only reason either of us had survived was because Jason’s memory was stolen by Hera. Then, before she left, she warned that Chicago would be dangerous.

The dream left a sick feeling in my stomach.

“An exchange?” Piper asked. “What does that mean?”

Jason shook his head. “But Hera’s gamble is the both of us. Just by sending us to you, to Camp Half-Blood, I have a feeling she broke some kind of rule, something that could blow up in a big way-”

“Or save us,” Piper said hopefully. “That bit about the sleeping enemy—that sounds like the lady Leo told us about.”

Leo cleared his throat. “About that … she kind of appeared to me back in Detroit, in a pool of Porta-Potty sludge.”

Jason looked confused. “Did you say … Porta-Potty?”

Leo told them about the big face in the factory yard. “I don’t know if she’s completely unkillable,” he said, “but she cannot be defeated by a trident. I can vouch for that. She wanted me to betray you guys, and I was like, ‘Pfft, right, I’m gonna listen to a face in the potty sludge.’”