The Blood of Olympus (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Chapter Fifteen

Leo Valdez

He walked behind Percy and Annabeth who were leading the way through the dense, dark forest in Greece. Leo slung the backpack again over his shoulder and continued on accompanied by the sound of canned food clinking together. Each step resulted in another reminder of his failure of how he failed the team when the Argo II was blown out of the sky, and how he failed his team because he had no back up plan. Leo had nothing he could pull out of his tool belt at this point that could get them anywhere. He couldn't just pull another Argo II out of his belt and hope it would fly them to Athens with no trouble. At this point with his self-esteem was so low he wasn't even sure if the belt's magical powers would produce his usual hammer.

The woods seemed to thicken no matter how far or how long he seemingly walked. It was practically never ending with the endless curves and the drooping tree limbs. He passed another dead, scorched tree on the right, then another, and another. The burnt trees continued for miles stretching all the way back to the smoking wreckage of the Argo II. Leo sighed, this was probably one of the worst days of his life, everything he had worked on for almost the past year was destroyed in a matter of minutes. His hope and the quest's success depended on him to get them there. If Leo wasn't the builder, the creator of the Argo II, there would be a good chance fate wouldn't of put him on the quest and put some other poor demigod in shoes.

"What happened back there?" Hazel said, her voice quivering in the quiet forest. No one had spoken since they ran from Jason and Piper who had been engaged in a life or death battle. There was a good chance one of them would not come out of the battle alive and the odds were not in Jason's favor, at all. Especially since he was still healing.

Annabeth sucked in a quick breath of air before speaking to the four, "Piper's gone. She was an ally I wish we wouldn't of lost, but that can't be changed now." She spoke with no emotion, "We...can carry on. Just keep your head up and we can finish this even if Jason and Piper don't come back."

"If they don't come back, Gaea has the blood she needs. If that happens, then we have to have an intense game of keep away. Keep the chalice away from Gaea and make it to Greece." Percy spoke, pounding his fist encouragingly into his left palm.

"It's like Capture the Flag, except we aren't hiding the cup." Leo spoke, a grin stretching across his once grim face. For some reason Percy Jackson made everyone feel better, his attitude changed everyone's emotion and made people feel better. It was a good thing to have around, and Leo assumed that's why everyone liked him so much and people didn't like him because of how many quests he led or what he accomplished, but they like Percy Jackson because of his personality.

"It's a giant game of keep away." Percy said, his face lighting up, "What if we sent it somewhere. Do you think there's anyway we could send it somewhere, where no one would ever get to it?"

Leo thought for a moment, but nothing came to him. His first thought was to send it Calypso, but how would they find her and her island? Leo pushed the mere thought of even bringing Calypso up and began thinking again.

"Can we melt it down into something else?" Annabeth suggested, pulling out the cup.

Percy's eyes widened, "Could we even do that?"

"We live in a world with monsters and crazy goddesses, I think we can melt it down into something else." Leo said, a light grin cascading upon his face before continuing talking, "I can melt it down into a dagger and we could keep it hidden that way."

"Sounds good, but I don't think we should. The magic of the cup will still be in the dagger, and if Gaea were to get the dagger, then she could rise by just stabbing us." Annabeth countered.

She made sense to Leo, their actions of melting down the cup would make Gaea's job that much easier. As of right now, that wasn't the plan. Their plan was to play this huge game of keep away, while making it to Athens in their time limit, and hope that Reyna, Nico, and Coach would make it to Camp Half-Blood before anything real happened, with the Athena Parthenos intact.

"We can do this," Annabeth spoke to the team with great confidence, in which Leo did not have. The daughter of Athena continued, "We just have to---." She was cut off by a great roar in the forest, and there standing behind the five demigods was a draken almost as large as the Argo II.

"Run!" Percy yelled as the draken roared a breath of fire at the demigods. Leo took off, he wasn't sure why thought. He was the only one who could withstand fire like that. He knew Percy could a little because he basically had the sea coursing through his veins, but Leo knew, deep down he was the only one that really stood a chance against the beast.

"Go!" Leo yelled at his quest members, his friends, "I'll hold it off! Prepare for defense!"

The four demigods left Leo's line of vision, disappearing into the woods. He took a deep breath and concentrated hard, somehow he managed to pull his hammer out of his belt and attack the beast, or at least try to. The second he jumped up into the air, the draken's colossal tail whipped out from the right and knocked Leo into a nearby tree. The impact hurt, a lot and knocked the wind out of him. Gasping for air wasn't going to help him at the moment, so manning up Leo stood, his lungs basically empty of air, and charged at the beast. This time he avoided the tail, but was batted away by the draken's back foot.

Sighing, Leo stood up again and yelled, "Now!' He called to his friends who were hiding in the trees.

Only no one answered, no one came out of the woods, no one roared a triumphant battle cry, no one. Leo panicked and watched the approaching creature loom over him. This was the end and he knew it, the draken was going to eat him and there was nothing he could do. He was going to die,

'Man,' he thought, 'Annabeth is going to kill me when she finds out I'm dead.'

The draken, rather then eat him, trapped the demigod underneath its claws as if awaiting orders.

"Good job my pet." A cold voice spoke, causing Leo to shudder. He knew this voice, and it was not one he wanted to be here.

"Khione." Leo muttered underneath his breath as the air around him suddenly became cold.

"That's right, Leo." She hissed his name in disgust, "Bring out his friends." Khione's lackeys, Zethes and Cal stepped out of the forest dragging the frozen forms of his four friends. Percy, Annabeth, Hazel, and Frank were frozen solid.

"Let them go!" Leo yelled, but the draken growled over him making what he was saying was not comprehensible

"I didn't quite catch that." Khione taunted gesturing for Cal and Zethes to put his four friends on the ground.

"Let them go!" Leo yelled again, spitting at Khione as she smirked.

Her eyes narrowed, "Why?"

Leo didn't answer her.

He looked over to his frozen friends, and just about all hope left him. He was alone in this fight and there was nothing he could do, not while trapped underneath the draken's claws. The monster would impale him the second he tried to even get up.

"Where's the Chalice?" Khione pressed.

"Yeah! And where's that pretty girl?" Zethes asked his face spreading into a large grin, "I still need her for my collection."

"Yeah!" Cal echoed.

Leo didn't answer again, earning him a few cracked ribs. Leo cried out as the draken lightly crushed half of his crib cage, sending his entire left side into pain.

Just then one of the frozen bodies shattered, the body collapsed onto the ground, sword readied. It was Percy who laid crouched on the ground, "You should know better than to freeze a son of Poseidon." He spoke.

Then absolute chaos erupted.

And el doneo!

Sorry for taking so long, but now that I'm on summer break I hope to get in more writing time! I'm fairly proud of this chapter, and the next one should be Jason, then back to Percy or whoever. But I'm liking where this story is going a lot and I'm pretty sure it should get good soon. Please go check out my orignal story Finding the Reason! I'd love you all to, it would mean the world to me! And thanks for 200 guys! Love you! Don't forget to vote, comment, and fan as always!