Anti-Hero || Leo Valdez

47 - Hot Girl Conference

The first thing that came to Via's mind when she saw Reyna was damn. Because Pat hadn't been kidding, she was like a Roman version of Annabeth. They had the same steely gaze (though Annabeth's was more literally steely due to the color of her eyes) that made it seem like she was analyzing, collecting everything she needed to know in order to take you down, and the same dangerous dip in the pitch of their voice during a tense situation. Reyna managed to make post-walk zoomies sound serious, like it was an army training exercise.

Also, she was kind of hot. She had a half-hawk, for Hera's sake, girls always looked incredible with that.

Also-also, she had two adorable greyhounds, one gold and one silver. That was a green flag. Sure, they may not have been real, live, flesh-and-bone dogs, but they sure acted like them. The gold one came up to Via to sniff her and wagged its tail like Okay, you're good, before moving on to sniff Pat.

"Oh, good, you're back," said Thalia. "Leo and the twins just got here, so we're ready when you are."

"Pat, good to see you again," Reyna said, stepping forward to shake his hand. "Leo —" a pained look flashed across her face. "I hope you're doing well? Considering..."

"Yeah," Leo winced. "I'm — yeah. I'm good."

Reyna nodded knowingly. Being Jason's fellow praetor, she must've been close with him, too. And she'd known him longer than Piper and Leo — his death must've been incredibly hard on her. Via felt bad that Reyna, Thalia, and Piper were being called in to help so soon after losing someone they'd all loved. She felt even worse that Leo had been forced to take it in stride before they went on this quest.

Reyna looked at Via then, and she felt like standing tall, arms firmly at her sides, and saying, "MA'AM!" like she was at some sort of drill. Reyna commanded authority and oozed charisma. Via could understand why she'd been praetor.

"So you'd be Via," Reyna guessed.

"Yes, that's me." Via smiled lightly and curtseyed, then frowned and added in embarrassment, "Sorry. I don't know why I did that." Everyone, including Reyna, cracked up. Via felt her face grow warm and she gave a sheepish chuckle. "I, um. I like your dogs."

"Thank you," Reyna replied. "The golden one is Aurum and the silver one is Argentum. They're good at sensing when enemies are near." She smirked in amusement as Aurum booped his nose against Via's leg. "And when dog people are near."

"Well, it's nice to meet all of you."

"And it's nice to finally put a face to the name. Pat told me a lot about you."

"Oh, jeez." Via shot Pat a look, and he raised his hands defensively.

"All good things," he promised. "Mainly just about the whole thing with Commode Man at the Waystation."

"I also recall you describing her as a ghost," Reyna said, furrowing her brows. "You don't look like a ghost, though."

"Oh, yeah, that was temporary," Via said. "Long story short, I'm back to normal now."

Reyna tilted her head curiously. Via could tell she wanted to know but understood that there wasn't much time. "Good to hear. Now, Artemis mentioned something about a snake woman that we're supposed to help you defeat?"

"That's right," Pat said. "Her name is Lamia, and she stole our mom. She's psycho."

"Then we'd better start planning."

"Exactly what I thought," Thalia said. She led the group over to an old air hockey table, which had a Monopoly board with all of its pieces scattered about.