Plexure (leo Valdez x male reader)

23) Piper telling us about her father

WE DUNK LEO AND PIPER ON THE river trying to get them turn back to not gold anymore. Leo came out pretty quickly, but Piper took a while. While Hedge was trying to heal Piper and Leo was shivering in a corner, Jason pulled me aside.
"What happened?" He asked looking at me straight in the eyes. "I never felt so angry before when you touched me."
"Now, you know what my powers are. I give rage to people. I make it harder for them to think logically and to just focus on fighting. How do you think so many people died because of it? I hate it."
I felt someone looking at us and Jason and I turned to look at the same time seeing Leo watching us confused.
Jason just nodded. "Understood." He went to help Gleeson with Piper.
I grabbed my sweater that was with our stuff and walked to Leo. He noticed what I was going to do and took the blankets off. I helped Leo put my sweater on and then wrapping him with the blankets. "Now you need my sweater," I said raising my eyebrows.
He rolled his eyes acting annoyed but he had a smile on his face. I sat down next to him and opened my arms inviting him to enter. He immediately shoved his face in my chest getting close. I wrapped my arms around him trying to warm him up.
Piper woke up. "Oh, god." Her teeth chattered. "He turned me to gold!"
"You're okay now." Jason leaned over and tucked a warm blanket around her.
Next to Piper, a campfire blazed, turning the air sharp with smoke. Firelight flickered against rock walls. We were in a shallow cave, but it didn't offer much protection. Outside, the wind howled. Snow blew sideways. It might've been day or night. The storm made it too dark to tell.
"L-L-Leo?" Piper managed.
"Present and un-gold-ified." Leo didn't look great, but better than Piper. "I got the precious metal treatment too," he said. "But I came out of it faster. Dunno why. We had to dunk you in the river to get you back completely. Tried to dry you off, but ... it's really, really cold."
"You've got hypothermia," Jason said. "We risked as much nectar as we could. Coach Hedge did a little nature magic—"
"Sports medicine." The coach's ugly face loomed over Piper. "Kind of a hobby of mine. Your breath might smell like wild mushrooms and Gatorade for a few days, but it'll pass. You probably won't die. Probably."
I snort. "You may survive another day, may."
Jason gave me a look, but I didn't care because I heard Leo laugh.
"Thanks," Piper said weakly. "How did you beat Midas?"
Jason told her the story, putting most of it down to luck. The coach snorted. "Kid's being modest. You should've seen him. Hi-yah! Slice! Boom with the lightning!"
"Coach, you didn't even see it," I said. "You were outside eating the lawn."
But the satyr was just warming up. "Then I came in with my club, and we dominated that room. Afterward, I told him, 'Kid, I'm proud of you! If you could just work on your upper body strength—'"
"Coach," said Jason.
"Yeah?"
"Shut up, please."
"Sure." The coach sat down at the fire and started chewing his cudgel.
Jason put his hand on Piper's forehead and checked her temperature. "Leo, can you stoke the fire?"
"On it." Leo summoned a baseball-sized clump of flames and lobbed it into the campfire.
"Do I look that bad?" Piper shivered.
"Nah," Jason said.
"You're a terrible liar," she said. "Where are we?"
"Pikes Peak," Jason said. "Colorado."
"But that's, what—five hundred miles from Omaha?"
"Something like that," Jason agreed. "I harnessed the storm spirits to bring us this far. They didn't like it—went a little faster than I wanted, almost crashed us into the mountainside before I could get them back in the bag. I'm not going to be trying that again."
I chuckled. "He face-planted on the snow. You should have seen it."
Jason looked at me again. "You should have seen Alister when the storm spirits took us here, he almost screamed a lung out."
I laughed quietly. "Yeah, sure, superman. You should have seen how jealous he was when Lit got—"
"Alister!"
"Why are we here?" Piper asked not wanting to hear us anymore.
Leo sniffed. "That's what I asked him."
Jason gazed into the storm as if watching for something.
"That glittery wind trail we saw yesterday? It was still in the sky, though it had faded a lot. I followed it until I couldn't see it anymore. Then—honestly I'm not sure. I just felt like this was the right place to stop."
"'Course it is." Coach Hedge spit out some cudgel splinters. "Aeolus's floating palace should be anchored above us, right at the peak. This is one of his favorite spots to dock."
"Maybe that was it." Jason knit his eyebrows. "I don't know. Something else, too ..."
"The Hunters were heading west," Piper remembered. "Do you think they're around here?"
Jason rubbed his forearm as if the tattoos were bothering him. "I don't see how anyone could survive on the mountain right now. The storm's pretty bad. It's already the evening before the solstice, but we didn't have much choice except to wait out the storm here. We had to give you some time to rest before we tried moving."
"We have to get you warm." Jason sat next to her and held out his arms a little awkwardly. "Uh, you mind if I ..."
"I suppose." She tried to sound nonchalant.
Leo and I looked at each other snickering slightly at the scene that was unfolding in front of us. Leo moved away from me, much to my dislike, and went closer to the fire.
Leo broke out some cooking supplies and started frying burger patties on an iron skillet. "So, guys, long as you're cuddled up for story time ... something I've been meaning to tell you. On the way to Omaha, I had this dream. Kinda hard to understand with the static and the Wheel of Fortune breaking in—"
"Wheel of Fortune?" Piper said.
Leo looked up from his burgers, his expression was deadly serious.
"The thing is," he said, "my dad Hephaestus talked to me." Leo told us about his dream. In the firelight, with the wind howling, the story was even creepier. I could imagine the static-filled voice of the god warning about giants who were the sons of Tartarus, and about Leo losing some friends along the way.
"I don't understand. If demigods and gods have to work together to kill the giants, why would the gods stay silent? If they need us—"
"Ha," said Coach Hedge. "The gods hate needing humans. They like to be needed by humans, but not the other way around. Things will have to get a whole lot worse before Zeus admits he made a mistake closing Olympus."
"Coach," Piper said, "that was almost an intelligent comment."
Hedge huffed. "What? I'm intelligent! I'm not surprised you cupcakes haven't heard of the Giant War. The gods don't like to talk about it. Bad PR to admit you needed mortals to help beat an enemy. That's just embarrassing."
"There's more, though," Jason said. "When I dreamed about Hera in her cage, she said Zeus was acting unusually paranoid. And Hera—she said she went to those ruins because a voice had been speaking in her head. What if someone's influencing the gods, like Medea influenced us?"
Leo set hamburger buns on the skillet to toast. "Yeah, Hephaestus said something similar, like Zeus was acting weirder than usual. But what bothered me was the stuff my dad didn't say. Like a couple of times he was talking about the demigods, and how he had so many kids and all. I don't know. He acted like getting the greatest demigods together was going to be almost impossible—like Hera was trying, but it was a really stupid thing to do, and there was some secret Hephaestus wasn't supposed to tell me."
Jason shifted.
"Chiron was the same way back at camp," he said. "He mentioned a sacred oath not to discuss—something. Coach, you know anything about that?"
"Nah. I'm just a satyr. They don't tell us the juicy stuff. Especially an old—" He stopped himself.
"An old guy like you?" Piper asked. "But you're not that old, are you?"
"Hundred and six," the coach muttered.
Leo coughed. "Say what?"
"Don't catch your panties on fire, Valdez. That's just fifty-three in human years. Still, yeah, I made some enemies on the Council of Cloven Elders. I've been a protector a longtime. But they started saying I was getting unpredictable. Too violent. Can you imagine?"
"Wow." I said scoffing. "That's hard to believe."
Coach scowled. "Yeah, then finally we get a good war going with the Titans, and do they put me on the front lines? No! They send me as far away as possible—the Canadian frontier, can you believe it? Then after the war, they put me out to pasture. The Wilderness School. Bah! Like I'm too old to be helpful just because I like playing offense. All those flower- pickers on the Council—talking about nature."
"I thought satyrs liked nature," Piper ventured.
"Shoot, I love nature," Hedge said. "Nature means big things killing and eating little things! And when you're a —you know—vertically challenged satyr like me, you get in good shape, you carry a big stick, and you don't take nothing from no one! That's nature." Hedge snorted indignantly. "Flower- pickers. Anyway, I hope you got something vegetarian cooking, Valdez. I don't do flesh."
"Yeah, Coach. Don't eat your cudgel. I got some tofu patties here. Piper's a vegetarian too. I'll throw them on in a second."
The smell of frying burgers filled the air. I never felt so hungry in my life.
Leo put tofu patties on the skillet. The wind kept raging. I thought about how I haven't gotten dreams like they have. During the quest with Percy, I got hella lot of dream, in this one, I haven't gotten anything other than my mother yelling at me.
Leo handed out the food and went back into my arms. He sat comfortable enough that we both could still eat.
"We need to talk." Piper said suddenly. "I don't want to hide anything from you guys anymore."
We looked at her not eating anymore. I put the burger down.
"Three nights before the Grand Canyon trip," she said, "I had a dream vision—a giant, telling me my father had been taken hostage. He told me I had to cooperate, or my dad would be killed."
The flames crackled.
Finally Jason said, "Enceladus? You mentioned that name before."
Coach Hedge whistled. "Big giant. Breathes fire. Not somebody I'd want barbecuing my daddy goat."
Jason gave him a shut up look. "Piper, go on. What happened next?"
"I—I tried to reach my dad, but all I got was his personal assistant, and she told me not to worry."
"Jane?" Leo remembered. "Didn't Medea say something about controlling her?"
Piper nodded. "To get my dad back, I had to sabotage this quest. I didn't realize it would be the three of us. Then after we started the quest, Enceladus sent me another warning: He told me he wanted you two dead. He wants me to lead you to a mountain. I don't know exactly which one, but it's in the Bay Area—I could see the Golden Gate Bridge from the summit. I have to be there by noon on the solstice, tomorrow. An exchange."
Jason scooted next to her and put his arm around her again. "God, Piper. I'm so sorry."
Leo nodded. "No kidding. You've been carrying this around for a week? Piper, we could help you."
She glared at us. "Why don't you yell at me or something? I was ordered to kill you!"
"Aw, come on," Jason said. "You've saved us on this quest. I'd put my life in your hands any day."
"Same," Leo said. "Can I have a hug too?"
"You don't get it!" Piper said. "I've probably just killed my dad, telling you this."
"I doubt it." Coach Hedge belched. He was eating his tofu burger folded inside the paper plate, chewing it all like a taco. "Giant hasn't gotten what he wants yet, so he still needs your dad for leverage. He'll wait until the deadline passes, see if you show up. He wants you to divert the quest to this mountain, right?"
Piper nodded uncertainly.
"So that means Hera is being kept somewhere else," I said understanding where Gleeson Hedge was going with. "And she has to be saved by the same day. So you have to choose—rescue your dad, or rescue Hera. If you go after Hera, then Enceladus takes care of your dad. Besides, Enceladus would never let you go even if you cooperated. You're obviously one of the eight in the Great Prophecy."
"So we have no choice," she said miserably. "We have to save Hera, or the giant king gets unleashed. That's our quest. The world depends on it. And Enceladus seems to have ways of watching me. He isn't stupid. He'll know if we change course and go the wrong way. He'll kill my dad."
"He's not going to kill your dad," Leo said. "We'll save him."
"We don't have time!" Piper cried. "Besides, it's a trap."
"We're your friends, beauty queen," Leo said. "We're not going to let your dad die. We just gotta figure out a plan."
Coach Hedge grumbled. "Would help if we knew where this mountain was. Maybe Aeolus can tell you that. The Bay Area has a bad reputation for demigods. Old home of the Titans, Mount Othrys, sits over Mount Tam, where Atlas holds up the sky. I hope that's not the mountain you saw."
"I don't think so. This was inland."
Jason frowned at the fire, like he was trying to remember something.
"Bad reputation ... that doesn't seem right. The Bay Area..."
"You think you've been there?" Piper asked.
"I ..." He looked like he was almost on the edge of a breakthrough. Then the anguish came back into his eyes. "I don't know. Hedge, what happened to Mount Othrys?"
Hedge took another bite of paper and burger. "Well, Kronos built a new palace there last summer. Big nasty place, was going to be the headquarters for his new kingdom and all. Weren't any battles there, though. Kronos marched on Manhattan, tried to take Olympus. If I remember right, he left some other Titans in charge of his palace, but after Kronos got defeated in Manhattan, the whole palace just crumbled on its own."
I nod. "Yeah, the palace just crumbed. It was destroy by itself."
"No," Jason said. Everyone looked at him.
"What do you mean, 'No'?" Leo asked.
"That's not what happened. I—" He tensed, looking toward the cave entrance. "Did you hear that?"
For a second, nothing. Then I heard it: howls piercing the night.