madness and ecstasy // leo valdez

-do that funky dance, white statue!-

 ⋆˖⁺‧₊🧋🛠️🕯️🍂🥠₊‧⁺˖⋆

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Compared to the other modifications Leo had made to the ship, the grabber arm was a piece of cake. Originally, Archimedes had designed it to pluck enemy ships out of the water. Now Leo found another use for it. Other than staring at it and thinking how much it made the Argo II look like something out of Mad Max.

He opened the hull's forward access vent and extended the arm, guided by the console monitor and Frank, who flapped around as an eagle and waved his wings as direction.

It would have been a lot easier if it was Jason in the air instead, but that was why they were doing this in the first place.

After inching it across to the left, Frank the eagle flew back to the crow's nest (Leo didn't even have to make a joke about that, it would've been too easy) and perched on the basket.

Using his trackpad and turntable controls, Leo opened the claw. Its prongs settled around the grooves in the circular stone structure below. He checked the aerial stabilizers and the monitor's video feed.

"Okay, little buddy." Leo patted the Archimedes sphere embedded in the helm. "This is all you."

He activated the sphere.

The grabber arm began to turn like a corkscrew. It rotated the outer ring of stone, which ground and rumbled but thankfully didn't shatter. Then the claw detached, fixed itself around the second stone ring and turned it in the opposite direction.

Standing next to him at the monitor, Piper hugged him around the neck. Her bracelets dug into his skin. "It's working. Leo, you're amazing."

"Thanks beauty queen," he said, once he could breathe again.

Below them, the last stone ring turned and settled with a deep pneumatic hiss. The entire fifty-foot pedestal telescoped downward into a spiral staircase. He got chills just looking down into the shadows.

Hazel came up behind them, eating a steaming omelette off a paper plate. "Leo, even from up here, I'm sensing bad stuff at the bottom of those stairs. Something ... large and dangerous. You sure you don't want me to come along?"

"Thanks, but we'll be good." He patted Piper on the back. "We're old pros at large and dangerous."

Besides, this was about saving Jason.

And sure, he trusted everybody aboard his ship to fight for this cure, but he needed to bring people he knew were prepared to be as... he didn't know the word. But whatever it is he and Piper and Teqi would do to get their unconscious blonde awake again.

"Just the two of you?" Hazel asked, still worried. It was hard to take her seriously when she had a chunk of capsicum on her cheek.

"No," Piper said, her plaited hair shifting as she looked around the deck. "I think Teqi's in the shower."

"I'm here!" came a muffled voice, and Teqi stumbled into the sunlight, blinking against it like she'd been inside all day. Her hair was stringy and wet, and she shivered in her stretched out tank top. "Don't leave without me. Where are we going?"

Piper pointed at the staircase. "Down there."

"...Lovely."

Frank spiralled down from the top of the sails (Leo had had to bring out the old fashioned stuff now that the Argo II was on its last leg) and held out the vial of Pylosian mint once his feathers became fingers. "Don't break it."