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━━ chapter thirteen black out days ( leo )
✿✼:*ﾟ:༅｡.｡༅:*･ﾟﾟ･⭑
━━Festus could have landed anywhere to make things easier for Leo. Instead, he decided to land on the toilets.
Of all the places to crash, a line of Porta-Potties would not have been Leo's first choice. A dozen of the blue plastic boxes had been set up in the factory yard, and Festus had flattened them all. Fortunately, they hadn't been used in a long time, and the fireball from the crash incinerated most of the contents, but, still, there were pretty gross chemicals out of the wreckage. Leo had to pick his way through and try not to breathe through his nose. Heavy snow was coming down, but the dragon's hide was still steaming hot.
(Of course, that was the last of Leo's problems).
After a few minutes of climbing over Festus's inanimate body, Leo started to get irritated. The dragon looked completely fine! Yes, it had fallen out of the sky and landed with a big ka-boom, but its body wasn't even dented. The fireball had apprently come from built-up gases inside the toilet units, not from the dragon itself. Festus's wings were intact. Nothing seemed broken. There was no reason it should have stopped.
"Not my fault," he muttered, bitter. "Festus, you're making me look bad."
Then he opened the control panel on his friend's head, and Leo's heart sank. He cursed in Spanish, unable to believe what he was seeing. The wiring had been completely frozen over. Leo knew it had been okay yesterday. He had worked so hard to repair the corroded lines, but somethin had caused a flash freeze inside the dragon's skull where it should've been too hot for ice to form. This stupid ice had caused the wiring to overload and char the control disk. Leo couldn't see any reason that wouldn've happened. Sure, the dragon was old, but, still it didn't make sense.
Maybe you just didn't fix him right, Leo's mind told him. Come on, Valdez, did you really think you could fix this when you couldn't fix anything else in your life?
Leave me alone, he snapped at the voice.
He could replace the wires. That wasn't the problem. But the charred control disk was not good. The Greek letters and pictures carved around the edges, which probably held all kinds of magic, were blurred and blackened.
The one piece of hardware Leo couldn't replace━and it was damaged. Again.
Useless, his mind chided.
Leave me alone! he told it again, trying to solve the problem. His hands shook a little, and he closed his eyes, finding himself shiver in the cold despite being naturally warm. If he couldn't fix this, they were stranded, his friends would hate him forever, and he'd be left all alone━discarded like street trash, just like his aunt had before. Because you are━stop it!
