Wildfire (Leo Valdez x OC) (1)

Why do people always plan rescues in cafes?

My eyes snapped opened. "Paid â ngadael!"

"What?" A familiar voice said beside me.

I whirled around. It was Leo. I looked around to see Jason, Piper, and Coach all seated at a table. We were sat in a café, at the other tables I could see a mixture of cyclists, businessmen and college kids drinking coffee and chatting.

I could smell eucalyptus trees. Groups of teenagers passed outside chatting with large smiles on their faces. The street was lined with bottle-brush trees and blooming azaleas as if winter was a foreign concept.

"Uhm, Anwen? You still there?" Piper asked. I looked at her with tears welling in my eyes. Coach was staring at me with a knowing look on his face.

"Nightmare?" He said. I nodded wiping my eyes. He hesitated. "About her?" I nodded again.

The others frowned at Coach. "About who? What are you talking about?" Leo asked.

Coach shrugged. "Not my place to say."

The others turned back to me looking confused. "Doesn't matter. I'll tell you guys later." I muttered. They kept staring. I frowned. "Are you going to keep staring?"

Piper rolled her eyes. "Anwen, you look on the verge of tears, it's clearly not nothing."

I slumped back in my seat. "I don't want to talk about it."

Piper frowned. "You know when I said you had to take more care of yourself?" I nodded. "That also included mental health. Talking helps." I sighed.

"You aren't going to let this go, are you?" I said.

The others shook their head. I looked at Coach, he shrugged.

An idea popped into my head. I smirked. "Beth os ydw i'n ei ddweud mewn iaith wahanol?"

The others looked at me exasperated.

I sat up again, grinning. "Ni ddywedasoch erioed na allwn."

Piper shook her head, smiling to herself. "Fine, you don't have to tell us. Yet."

I shrugged, looking to my right. Leo was looking at me strangely. "What?" I said.

He blinked. "Nothing, just forgot you spoke another language."

I raised an eyebrow. "I thought Jason was the one with amnesia."

Jason glared at me. "Can we ban amnesia jokes?" He said to Coach.

I snorted. "No." Jason slumped. "Anyways, where to now?"

Hedge began chewing a napkin. "Climb the mountain. Kill everything except Piper's dad. Leave." He belched.

"Thank you, General Eisenhower." Jason grumbled.

"Hey, I'm just saying!"

"Guys, there's more you need to know." Piper said.

She told us about the dream she had while unconscious. I couldn't help but feel like she was leaving parts out but either way, hers sounded slightly more enjoyable than mine.

"So, we're up against Gaia?" Leo said. "Isn't that Mother Nature? She's supposed to have, like, flowers in her hair and birds singing around her and deer and rabbits doing her laundry."

"Leo that's Snow White." I said.

"Yeah, but-"

"Listen, cupcake." Coach interrupted. "Piper's telling us some pretty serious stuff. Gaia's no softie. I'm not even sure I could take her."

Leo whistled. "Really?"

Hedge nodded, clearly not catching onto the sarcasm. "This earth lady – she and her old man the sky were super nasty customers."

"Ouranos." Piper said.

"Right." Hedge said. "Ouranos wasn't the best dad. He threw their first children, the Cyclopes, into Tartarus. Which made Gaia mad, but she bided her time. Then they had another set of kids, the twelve Titans, Gaia is afraid that they'll get thrown into Tartarus as well. So, she goes to their leader, Kronos, and gives him this scythe. Then she basically tells him, 'hey, so, I'm gonna call your dad down for a date or something, and while he's distracted you guys hold him down and cut him into to itty bitty pieces. Doesn't that sound fun?'"

"So... Not Snow White?" Leo said.

"Nah." Hedge agreed.

"Kronos was a bad guy." I said. "But Gaia was like the mother of all bad guys. She is so old and powerful that it's hard for her to stay conscious most of the time."

Leo frowned. "But she spoke to me. How can she be asleep?"

"She's getting more powerful." Piper said, frowning down at her half-eaten scone. "She's forcing the giants to rise, and if their king – this guy, Porphyrion, comes back-"

"They'll raise an army to kill the gods." Jason nodded grimly. "It'll be another war, and Gaia could wake up fully."

"Which is why it's a good idea for us to stay off the ground." Coach agreed.

Leo looked warily at Mount Diablo. "So... climbing up that mountain. That could be bad."

Piper sighed. "Guys, I can't ask you to do this. This is too dangerous."

I shook my head. "Piper, I've said it once and I'll say it again. I'm sick of the gods and their enemies bringing innocent mortals into their stupid wars. We are going to save your dad."

Piper looked at me gratefully.

Coach grinned. "Plus, we're here now. Who's ready to beat stuff up?"

Hi, so you may be wondering why it took me so long to update even though the chapter is really short. My answer? I was doing homework.

That is a pretty lame excuse. But it's true. I have so much homework that it's like I'm doing more work at home than at school. It's ridiculous.

Hopefully once the work eases up a bit I can update a longer chapter but for now I need to focus on my school work.

I'm still going to try and update every week. But is I miss an update then just think about me sat in bed writing essays rather than fanfiction and being sad.

Also. WE ARE SO CLOSE TO 1000 READS! THATS SO COOL!! Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading this. I love you guys.

I hope you guys have been finding school/college/work ok recently. Remember that you should be taking breaks, no matter how much work you have. You are a human, you need rest. If you don't sleep you can make yourself ill, and I don't want any of you guys to go through that. Also please remember to eat and drink water.

I hope you are all having a good day and if not then I hope reading this made you feel better, even just a tad.

Bye from Corgi :)

P.S. (feel free to skip) Just a reminder that all characters (apart from Anwen) belong to Rick Riordan, this is merely a fanfiction based off the Heroes of Olympus series.