𝕱𝖗𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖉𝖑𝖞 𝖋𝖎𝖗𝖊 - a Leo Valdez slowburn

Chapter seven

Chapter seven.

[Leah is right to doubt her team]

"If I was the only one 

in the whole damn world

you better bet on it that I would save 

every single one of those innocent souls."

Leah imagined trekking up the mountain for her fellow demigods was hard. So, naturally, she made it her goal to constantly tease and bug them throughout their hike. After a few minutes she had gotten more confident and comfortable with walking with the roots, and her idea wasn't failing Leah. The roots shot out from the ground wherever she needed footing, so she couldn't misplace her foot and fall or anything. 

Her main victim was Leo, at which she sent annoying comments such as "Doesn't your tool belt have everything in there" and "I thought Hedge trained you for things like this!".

It was quite hilarious, really.

To be honest Leah had it the easiest and most comfortable, with the high-top Converse and, well, the roots. From time to time she took Piper's hand, squeezed it, or helped her from not tripping, but nothing more than that. Sure, the roots could keep her up, but if something went wrong she didn't want anyone else to be the victim.

About fifteen minutes in Leo started summoning supplies from his toolbelt - gears, a wrench, some strips of bronze. Leah watched in awe as he built. It was like his hands had a mind of his own. Guess that was a perk of being a kid of Hephaestus.

By the time they neared the crest of the mountain, Leo had made something like a wind-up toy - something that you would buy, use once and then leave on the table forever. Jason crouched behind a wall of rock, gesturing the others should follow his lead. Leo and Leah crawled up next to them, whereas Piper had to drag Hedge down. "I don't want to get my outfit dirty!" he complained. Piper shushed him after which the satyr begrudgingly knelt.

Leah now saw where all the roots came from. Just over the ridge of the wall they were hiding behind, Leah could see a forested depression about the size of a football field, and in the middle the camp of the giant Enceladus.

She let out a gasp when she saw how much destruction the giant had done to all the nature surrounding him. Tons of trees had been cut down and were being used for a towering purple bonfire, the outer rim of the clearing littered with more logs. Together with the logs there was an assortment of construction equipment. Leah didn't recognize most of it, but she had a vague idea that she knew what they were made for.

Once she had a clear view of the camp, she tried to focus herself on the giant. She didn't really want to, but seeing as he was the one they would be fighting, she forced herself to look at him.

And when she did, it felt like the world stopped spinning from fright. Enceladus was thirty foot tall, and from the waist up, he was normal enough. His chest was clad with armor decorated with flame designs. His face was crudely shaped, like an unfinished clay sculpture, and his skin was bronze, sooty with ash.

That wasn't what terrified Leah. Well, it was, partially, but the real thing was how familiar he looked. For from the waist down he was not humanoid at all, but... different. His legs were scaly green, with claws instead of feet- just like who Leah assumed would be his brother, Porphyrion. She shivered. She had seen his carcass once in a fountain in the labyrinth, his skin made of precious metals. He had spoken to her in his nearly-dead state, stating that she would rise again, and that in the end, she would always win. And Leah couldn't do anything about it. Even worse? Leah not only wouldn't be able to do anything about it. she'd be the cause of her uprising.