"Leo VIII," Will began.
Leo psyched himself up for an extreme makeover. Will blinked.
"We're only a sentence in, and I already have so many questions..." the son of Apollo muttered.
"A makeover?!" Aphrodite perked up. Her children looked equally interested. "Tell me more!"
"Of course you'd be interested." Artemis said, rolling her eyes.
He summoned some breath mints
"Good idea." the goddess of love nodded her head. "You can never go wrong with those."
and a pair of welding goggles from his tool belt.
She frowned a bit.
"The tool belt doesn't have sunglasses." Leo explained. To prove his point, he pulled out a pair of goggles. "It's the best I could do."
"I see... It's not trendy, but it'll make a fine replacement." Aphrodite said. What type of look is he trying to create?
Leo strapped the goggles on his head.
...He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. He used some machine oil to grease back his hair.
"No hair gel either." he told the others.
Aphrodite gagged.
He stuck a wrench in his back pocket...
"Why?" Will couldn't help but ask.
Leo shrugged. "It felt right."
This is going to get weirder, I just know it. the son of Apollo thought to himself.
and he had Hazel draw a tattoo on his biceps with a marker: HOT STUFF, with a skull and crossbones.
Aphrodite blinked.
"Wait..." she slowly started to smile. "Are- Are you going for a bad boy look?"
The goddess bit her lip to stifle her giggles.
"Sure am!" Leo said proudly. He didn't notice the way the others exchanged smiles as he continued. "I figured if I'm going to be a distraction, why not let these ladies see the real Leo Valdez!"
Unable to hold it back anymore, the readers burst out laughing. Even Hephaestus was booming with laughter.
Leo stopped and looked around in confusion.
"What's so funny?" he frowned.
"You-" Aphrodite breathed. "You think you're a bad boy!"
"Of course I'm a bad boy!" Leo said, crossing his arms.
The laughter grew louder.
"Man, you're a lot of things: a workaholic, a mechanic, funny..." Travis listed off. "But you're not a bad boy."
"The only thing bad about you is how you work past curfews." Will added.
Leo scowled at them.
"I am too a bad boy! I might seem soft now, but you should've seen me back when I was in school. I didn't do homework, I'd disrupt classes, I'd take bathroom breaks so I could miss Popcorn reading, I'd pull pranks..." Leo smirked, expecting them to be impressed, but the others just gave him amused looks.
"I bet you didn't even skip classes." Hermes chuckled, earning another round of laughing.
"I did other things!" he defended.
"Sweetie, I know everything there is to know about bad boys, and you're not one of them." Aphrodite said.
"Fine, don't believe me! You'll be changing your minds after you see how bad I can really be." Leo huffed.
"If you say so." Nico grinned.
"What in the world are you thinking?" She sounded pretty flustered.
"I try not to think," Leo admitted. "It interferes with being nuts.
Annabeth sighed. Great, now we have two Percys...
"It's better not to second guess yourself." Percy agreed.
"Exactly, just go with the flow. Everything will work out eventually... Maybe..." Leo added.
Fates, give me strength... Hephaestus silently thought.
Just concentrate on moving that Celestial bronze. Echo, you ready?"
"Ready," she said.
Leo took a deep breath. He strutted back toward the pond, hoping he looked awesome and not like he had some sort of nervous affliction.
"I can only imagine what they were thinking when they saw you..." Chris chuckled.
"Probably something along the lines of: Now there goes one handsome guy!" Leo suggested.
"Doubt it." Clarisse said.
"Leo is the coolest!" he shouted.
"Leo is the coolest!" Echo shouted back.
"Yeah, baby, check me out!"
"Check me out!" Echo said.
Really? 'Check me out'? That one was probably the weakest. I should have said something like... I dunno 'Make way for the McShizzle man!' Or um... 'Bad boy coming through!' Or something. Leo thought.
He tapped his feet on the ground.
..."Narcissus is weak!"
"Weak!"
The crowd of nymphs scattered in surprise. Leo shooed them away as if they were bothering him. "No autographs, girls. I know you want some Leo time, but I'm way too cool. You better just hang around that ugly dweeb Narcissus. He's lame!"
"Where was this energy when you were being Dionysus?" Hermes asked with a grin.
"Hard to sound this excited after you see the Maenads tear apart a drakon." Leo explained with a shudder.
The nymphs muttered angrily.
"What are you talking about?" one demanded.
"You're lame," said another.
Hephaestus shifted uncomfortably. "Maybe you should stop."
"I know what I'm doing." Leo assured.
Leo adjusted his goggles and smiled. He flexed his biceps,
"Now the book's just making stuff up, you don't have muscles!" Connor snickered.
"I am very fit for a demigod my age, thank you very much." Leo replied in mock offense.
though he didn't have much to flex,
The Stolls snickered.
"I have something." Leo stressed.
and showed off his HOT STUFF tattoo.
He had the nymphs' attention, if only because they were stunned; but Narcissus was still fixed on his own reflection.
Clarisse rolled her eyes. "Of course. Got any other ideas?"
"Give me a couple minutes, I'm just getting started." Leo smirked, rocking his chair back.
"You know how ugly Narcissus is?" Leo asked the crowd. "He's so ugly, when he was born his mama thought he was a backward centaur—with a horse butt for a face."
Hephaestus paled. Did he really just say that to Narcissus' insane fan club!
"Pppfffttt!" Travis burst out laughing.
"I wish Chiron was here!" Connor said, coughing in between his laughing.
"I'm more interested to hear what Echo thought." Hermes chuckled.
Some of the nymphs gasped. Narcissus frowned, as though he was vaguely aware of a gnat buzzing around his head.
"I'd be surprised if he didn't do anything." Apollo said.
"You know why his bow has cobwebs?" Leo continued. "He uses it to hunt for dates, but he can't find one!"
"More like he couldn't get one." Thalia smiled as some of the hunters giggled.
One of the nymphs laughed. The others quickly elbowed her into silence.
"You're winning some of them over?" Chris said in surprise.
Leo turned to him to make a joke, when he felt a sudden wave of lightheadedness. The room swayed side to side as if he was on a boat.
He closed his eyes, waiting for the feeling to pass.
Narcissus turned and scowled at Leo. "Who are you?" Will's eyes widened in surprise.
The readers sat there stunned.
"He... He actually looked away." Katie said softly.
"And all Leo had to do was say a couple insults..." Mitchell muttered.
"I'm the Super-sized McShizzle, man!" Leo said.
"A what?" Will frowned.
The readers turned to the son of Hephaestus.
The boy had his head resting in his hands.
Will's frown deepened. "Leo?"
No answer.
"Leo!" Connor shook him.
The teen nearly jumped out of his seat. "Huh? Yeah? What is it?"
"What's a McShizzle?" Hestia asked.
For a moment, Leo looked confused.
"A wha...?" his eyes widened in realization. "Oh! A McShizzle! You guys don't know what that is?"
Seeing everyone's blank expressions, he playfully rolled his eyes. "Com'on guys, I know I'm in the past, but I didn't go that far. Everybody knows what a McShizzle is."
"We don't, what is it?" Nyssa asked.
Leo rested his chin on his hand. "Um... a McShizzle is a..." he paused, struggling to find the words. "It's like this, to be a McShizzle, you have to... McShizzles are..."
He groaned in frustration.
"I can't explain it in words, but just believe me when I say that a McShizzle is really awesome." he concluded, brushing his hair back.
He made it up. Nico decided.
Will was about to read, when he hesitated.
"Leo, are you okay?"
Hephaestus frowned and looked at his son.
Leo waved off the worried looks. "I'm fine."
He sat up straighter as if to prove his point.
Will hesitated again, but went back to reading.
"I'm Leo Valdez, bad boy supreme.
A couple people snickered.
Leo rolled his eyes. "Ha. Ha. Laugh it up. You haven't seen my true bad boy colors yet."
And the ladies love a bad boy."
"Love a bad boy!" Echo said, with a convincing squeal.
"I don't know how she did it. There's no way I could've taken this seriously." Hermes remarked.
Leo took out a pen and autographed the arm of one of the nymphs.
"Without asking!" Leo made a point to add. He wiggled his eyebrows. "Pretty bad, am I right?"
"It's okay, but you'll have to do better than that." Aphrodite told him.
"Narcissus is a loser! He's so weak, he can't bench-press a Kleenex. He's so lame, when you look up lame on Wikipedia, it's got a picture of Narcissus—only the picture's so ugly, no one ever checks it out."
Some of the demigods laughed.
"I need to remember these for later!" Travis laughed.
"Best chapter, hands down!" Connor exclaimed.
"I'm not even finished yet!" Leo grinned.
"Don't you think you're getting carried away?" Hephaestus worriedly asked. "Maybe you should stop?"
"Bad boys don't listen to their parents!" Leo said enthusiastically.
Machines don't have teenage rebellion... the god grimaced. Poseidon comfortingly patted his back.
"It's a phase, it'll pass..." he soothed.
Narcissus knit his handsome eyebrows...For the moment, he'd totally forgotten about the pond, and Leo could see the sheet of bronze sinking into the sand.
"It's working!" Lacy said excitedly, jumping up and down in her chair.
"What are you talking about?" Narcissus demanded. "I am amazing. Everyone knows this."
"Amazing at pure suck," Leo said.
Some demigods gasped.
A few clenched their chests, pretending they were wounded.
"If I was as suck as you, I'd drown myself. Oh wait, you already did that."
Hephaestus looked like he was going to faint.
"Ooooohhhh!!" the demigods chorused.
Leo high-fived the Stolls.
"Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful." Hermes said, wiping away a tear. "One of the best comebacks I've heard in a while."
"That insult wasn't even for me, and I'm hurt!" Percy chuckled.
"That was pretty bad." Aphrodite giggled. "I take back everything I said. You're a bad boy."
"Thank you." Leo said proudly.
Another nymph giggled. Then another. Narcissus growled...Meanwhile Leo beamed and wiggled his eyebrows over his goggles and spread his hands, gesturing for applause.
"That's right!" he said. "Team Leo for the win!"
"Team Leo for the win!" Echo shouted...
"Oh my god, I am so awesome!" Leo bellowed.
"So awesome!" Echo yelled back.
"He is funny," a nymph ventured.
"I am pretty amazing? Aren't I?" Leo readily agreed, kicking a bolt across the room.
"Don't let this get to your head." Katie teased.
"And cute, in a scrawny way," another said.
Percy frowned in confusion. Is he literally forming his own fan club in, like, the ten minutes he's talked to them? How did he do that?
"Scrawny?" Leo asked causing the Stolls to snicker. "Baby, I invented scrawny. Scrawny is the new sizzling hot. And I GOT the scrawny.
"Oh my gods! He didn't even fight! He just embraced it!" Connor laughed harder.
"Embrace the scrawny, Leo! Embrace it for us scrawny boys everywhere!" Travis shouted, with a fist pump.
Narcissus? He's such a loser even the Underworld didn't want him. He couldn't get the ghost girls to date him."
"Ugh!" Aphrodite shuddered along with some of her daughters.
"Eww," said a nymph.
..."Stop!" Narcissus got to his feet. "This is not right! This person is obviously not awesome, so he must be..." He struggled for the right words. It had probably been a long time since he'd talked about anything other than himself.
"Take your time, we know it takes a while for you to think." Thalia said sarcastically.
"He must be tricking us."
"He's smarter than I thought. He got it on the first try." the daughter of Zeus said, looking genuinely surprised.
... [Narcissus] "The bronze mirror is gone! My reflection! Give me back to me!"
Thalia and a few others cringed.
"Team Leo!" one of the nymphs squeaked.
"She's my favorite." Leo smiled.
But the others returned their attention to Narcissus.
"I'm the beautiful one!" Narcissus insisted. "He's stolen my mirror, and I'm going to leave unless we get it back!"
The girls gasped. One pointed. "There!"
Hazel was at the top of the crater, running away as fast as she could while lugging a large sheet of bronze.
Nico and Hades tensed.
"Yes!" Narcissus unslung his bow and grabbed an arrow from his dusty quiver. "The first one who gets that bronze, I will like you almost as much as I like me. I might even kiss you, right after I kiss my reflection!"
A couple hunters gagged at this.
"Out of all the people who deserve a second chance in life, why did it have to be him?" Phoebe said.
"Because Gaea has a sick sense of humor." Thalia stated.
"And kill those demigods!" Narcissus added, glaring very handsomely at Leo. "They are not as cool as me!"
"You're right, We're cooler!" Leo said.
"Now's not the time, boy." Hephaestus said anxiously. tapping his foot.
"Sorry, I just wanted to add that in." the boy said. He grinned to himself. Can't believe I didn't think of it before.
Leo rubbed his eyes. He was ignoring it for a while, but now they were particularly heavy.
Seriously? I'm still tired? he rolled his eyes and focused on the story.
Leo could run pretty fast when someone was trying to kill him. Sadly, he'd had a lot of practice.
He overtook Hazel, which was easy, since she was struggling with fifty pounds of Celestial bronze. He took one side of the metal plate and glanced back. Narcissus was nocking an arrow, but it was so old and brittle, it broke into splinters.
The hunters broke out laughing.
"I knew it wasn't going to work!" Thalia said.
"He should've just went back to looking at his reflection." Phoebe giggled.
"Ow!" he yelled very attractively. "My manicure!"
"Get over it." Clarisse rolled her eyes.
"What does an attractive yell sound like?" Percy asked.
"When you hear Narcissus, you'll know." Leo said with a shrug.
Normally nymphs were quick—at least the ones at Camp Half-Blood were—but these were burdened with posters, T-shirts, and other Narcissus™ merchandise.
"Who made these?" Percy couldn't help but wonder.
The nymphs also weren't great at working as a team...Echo made things worse by running among them, tripping and tackling as many as she could.
"Go Echo!" Apollo cheered.
The hunters looked impressed with the nymph's persistence.
..."Call Arion!" Leo gasped.
"Already did!" Hazel said.
They ran for the beach. They made it to the edge of the water and could see the Argo II, but there was no way to get there. It was much too far to swim, even if they hadn't been toting bronze.
Leo turned. The mob was coming over the dunes,
Nico tensed. Hopefully Arion gets there soon.
Narcissus in the lead, holding his bow like a band major's baton.
"Please, just throw that thing away before you give yourself another splinter." Thalia rolled her eyes and scoffed.
..."Oh, man," Leo muttered, summoning fire in his free hand. "Straight-up fighting isn't my thing."
"I thought Arion was 'The Fastest Being on Land'..." Hades said impatiently. "Where is he?"
"He's on his way, don't rush him!" Demeter snapped.
"Hold the Celestial bronze." Hazel drew her sword. "Get behind me!"
"Get behind me!" Echo repeated. The camouflaged girl was racing ahead of the mob now. She stopped in front of Leo and turned, spreading her arms as if she meant to personally shield him.
"That was very brave of her..." Hestia said softly. She deserves more than this.
"Echo?" [Leo]... "You're one brave nymph."
"Brave nymph?" Her tone made it a question.
"I'm proud to have you on Team Leo," he said.
"Awww!" Aphrodite cooed.
"If we survive this, you should forget Narcissus."
"Forget Narcissus?" she said uncertainly.
"Probably never considered it before." Lacy said sadly.
"You're way too good for him."
"No kidding, you've been brought back to life. There's so many things you can do now." Naomi sighed. "She shouldn't be wasting her time with him."
"He's going to go back to staring at himself." Celin grumbled.
The nymphs surrounded them in a semicircle.
"Trickery!" Narcissus said. "They don't love me, girls! We all love me, don't we?"
"Is that a trick question?" Thalia said.
"Yes!" the girls screamed, except for one confused nymph in a yellow dress who squeaked, "Team Leo!"
"She's another member I'm proud to have on Team Leo." the son of Hephaestus smiled.
"Kill them!" Narcissus ordered.
Hephaestus, Nico, and Hades went rigid.
The nymphs surged forward, but the sand in front of them exploded. Arion raced out of nowhere, circling the mob so quickly he created a sandstorm, showering the nymphs in white lime, spraying their eyes.
"About time!" Hades snapped.
"At least he's there! Would you rather he be too late!" Demeter argued.
...The nymphs collapsed, coughing and gagging. Narcissus stumbled around blindly, swinging his bow like he was trying to hit a piñata.
A couple people laughed.
Hazel climbed into the saddle, hoisted up the bronze, and offered Leo a hand.
"But what about Echo?" Katie frowned.
"We can't leave Echo!" Leo said.
"Leave Echo," the nymph repeated.
She smiled, and for the first time Leo could clearly see her face. She really was pretty. Her eyes were bluer than he'd realized. How had he missed that?
"It's the curse..." Annabeth sighed.
"Why?" Leo asked. "You don't think you can still save Narcissus..."
"Save Narcissus," she said confidently. And even though it was only an echo, Leo could tell that she meant it. She'd been given a second chance at life, and she was determined to use it to save the guy she loved—even if he was a completely hopeless (though very handsome) moron.
Artemis couldn't help but admire the nymph's strong determination at doing something that seemed so hopeless.
Some of the hunters sighed in disappointment.
"This is in the future," Phoebe reminded them. "We can go see her after she comes back to life, and offer her a chance to be a hunter."
Her fellow sisters perked up at that.
Leo wanted to protest, but Echo leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek then pushed him gently away.
"It's too bad she likes Narcissus..." Aphrodite remarked sadly. Lecho would've been cute.
"Leo, come on!" Hazel called.
The other nymphs were starting to recover. They wiped the lime out of their eyes, which were now glowing green with anger. Leo looked for Echo again, but she had dissolved into the scenery.
"Yeah," he said, his throat dry. "Yeah, okay."
He climbed up behind Hazel. Arion took off across the water, the nymphs screaming behind them, and Narcissus shouting, "Bring me back! Bring me back!"
"Echo's got a lot of work to do." Annabeth grimaced. Seriously? What does she see in him?
As Arion raced toward the Argo II, Leo remembered what Nemesis had said about Echo and Narcissus: Perhaps they'll teach you a lesson.
Leo had thought she'd meant Narcissus, but now he wondered if the real lesson for him was Echo—invisible to her brethren, cursed to love someone who didn't care for her. A seventh wheel. He tried to shake that thought.
"We would never treat you like how Narcissus and those nymphs treated Echo." Percy told him.
"I know, it's just hard to remember that sometimes..." Leo hesitantly admitted. He played with the buttons on his jacket.
"We'll keep reminding you until it sticks." Annabeth swore.
A few demigods nodded in agreement.
He clung to the sheet of bronze like a shield. He was determined never to forget Echo's face. She deserved at least one person who saw her and knew how good she was. Leo closed his eyes, but the memory of her smile was already fading.
"At least you can remember now." Katie tried to cheer up. "We have her description in the book."
Hestia beamed. "You're right!"
"We all can." Will said positively.
Leo looked up and smiled.
He must have moved his head quicker than he thought. The room began to spin. Colors were swirling together. He felt like he was in a spin art machine. He thought he heard screaming (from Hephaestus?) but it was too hard to tell with it sounding so far away.
The last thing he thought before everything went black was:
Way to kill the mood, Valdez.