It's Genius, Actually

Transformation

When Leo opened his eyes, he didn't remember how he got there. He looked at the ceiling, trying to think as fuzzy sounds and voices clouded his ears. Strange.

He was shaken forcefully out of his daze by a loud roar emanating from directly next to his ear. He whipped his head around and saw grayish skin and slobbering fangs less than a foot away from his face.

He scrambled backward on all fours, bumping into the legs of a table behind him as he tried to stand. He quickly turned and ducked underneath them, crawling away from the angry monster behind him.

When he got to the end of the table, he started climbing a net hanging on the wall to get to the rafters, silently thanking Coach Hedge for all the times he'd made them climb rope in Wilderness School.

He felt a tug at the net and looked down. Bromonster had leaped onto the rope and started to climb. Leo wondered why it didn't just fly, but he wasn't complaining. It meant a longer life for him, and less time in his friend's stomach.

When he reached the rafters, Piper was waiting for him and helped pull him up. She was sweaty and out of breath, but somehow her braid from earlier was still intact. Aphrodite magic, Leo guessed.

"Just like old times. You ok?" he asked, hissing as his hand brushed what he guessed to be a bruised rib. Adrenaline must have pushed the pain down long enough for him to escape. She nodded and wiped some grease off her face from an earlier encounter with an exploding oil vat (which may or may not have been Leo's fault).

"We'd better move. He's bound to remember he can fly anytime now." Leo sullenly agreed and together they made their way through the maze of metal beams.

From there on it was a game of cat and mouse; whenever the Bromonster got too close Piper would strike at its eyes with her knife, and Leo would blast it with flames or chuck a screwdriver at it. All of these managed to distract him temporarily as they found a new place to hide.

But they couldn't hide forever.

Leo jumped out from behind a beam and blasted the thing with flames, but it only smiled through the smoke as it cleared, grabbing him around the throat before he could react, lifting him into the air with the strength of Hercules. Leo sorely missed Piper's cornucopia, which could rain down buckets of fruit and roasted chicken on her enemies.

He tried kicking at it, but the Bromoster didn't budge. He felt the claws around his throat squeeze and the warm drops of blood start to trickle down his neck. Pain shot through every muscle as he fought to breathe and stay conscious. He could hear Piper's voice yelling commandingly in charmspeak as if from a long way off, and through his blurry vision see her try and pull Jason away. But it was as if the monster had become a statue; unmoving and emotionless as he choked the son of Hephaestus to death.

Just then, as if to be as dramatic as dragonly possible, the door opened (which would have been impossible but Leo had made some tweaks to the door mechanism for Festus). Mini Festus swooped in, heading straight for the Bromonster's head.

He turned and smashed into it, the clang of metal on stone ringing in Leo's already messed up ears as he gulped in air again.

Piper was helping him move away from the fight, one arm slung over her shoulder as he coughed violently. This was probably why, despite his severe ADHD, he didn't see the man in shiny armor slide in through the closing cement door.

Piper sat him down a fair distance away, handed him some ambrosia, and with a scowl and his choked-out promise to not die, she left to go help Festus. With the Bromonster distracted by Piper's newfound energy, Leo shakily climbed down the rungs on the support pillar he was on and stumbled his way to one of the many messy tables in the bunker.