The Blood of Olympus (Percy Jackson Fanfiction)

Chapter Twenty Two

Leo Valdez

Leo took one look over to the group of demigods standing to the left of him. He thought for a moment, thinking of whether or not he should interrupt their glorious conversations. Leo is good buddies with Jason, but standing over there in the same breathing air as Annabeth Chase and Percy Jackson was terrifying. They were legends, and Leo, was just Leo. He was good at burning crap and producing altos mints out of his tool belt, but he still didn't think he deserved to stand in the same vicinity as Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase.

So, he stood by and waited for Hazel, Frank, and Piper to approach him and congratulate his massive feat of helping kill his father's bane. He killed the giant very gloriously, blood and guts strewn everywhere. Just joking, they don't really have guts or normal blood. Leo just looked a little too much like Edward Cullen, but Hispanic. He was covered in golden ichor and it sucked.

Leo was greeted by Frank, "Leo, we need to get going!"

"Going where? Aren't we done?"

Hazel laughed and so did Piper.

"Not quite, but almost." Hazel grinned, she had a head wound and was bleeding heavily, but other than that she looked pretty good.

"Yeah, yeah let's go." Leo huffed, he summoned some mints, "Want some?" He offered the tin to the other three.

They gladly took one.

It was only moments until they stood next to the rest of the seven.

Jason was the first to speak out, "We figured out how to put Gaea back into her sleep. It's simple, but effective and you can thank Zeus for the  tip."

Annabeth nodded and glanced over at Percy who was holding the Chalice of Life in his left hand and Riptide in his right.

"Jupiter gave me a vial," Jason continued, "I coated the cup with it, and once we hand it over to Gaea and she drinks the blood from it, everything will be solved."

Leo spoke, "So like a sleeping pill?"

"For eternity." Jason quipped.

Leo looked over at the rest of the seven, his head was spinning, after this final confrontation, everything would be over, all of the hours spent on the Argo II, all of the late nights keeping watch, and fighting countless monsters all led to doing the exact opposite of what we were supposed to do. We were not supposed to give the Chalice to Gaea, and we were really supposed to get aid from a god on our quests, but yet, big daddy Zeus swept in and gave Jason everything he needed on a little platter. Leo knew Jason would be the hero of the quest, even though there were six others, it didn't matter. Now, Leo wasn't jealous of Jason, he got knocked out on this quest more than the amount of fingers Leo had, however it still sucked that sons of Zeus or Jupiter always were the heroes. Leo wanted to be the hero, not just the kid who threw really awesome fire balls and built a ship named after the ship the original Jason sailed on.

He took no time in pushing himself to the front of the group, "I'll take it to the earth lady, I'll be the kick-butt guy and hand over the chalice."

Leo stuck his hand out, but Percy furrowed his eyebrows, and his eyes went wide, he resembled a confused puppy dog.

"But..." Percy began to protest,  but Leo stood up for his actions.

"Let me do it." Leo took the chalice.

Now this may have come across to Leo's friends as out of character, but he was feeling really agitated. Leo had a promise he needed to keep, with Calypso, he promised he get her out of her prison, he swore and maybe, getting beat up by Gaea would let him visit Calypso again.

Leo took a minute of silence, "Let me take up this burden, I can do it." Leo smiled a really stupid grin and spoke to the members of the quest, "If I don't come back, don't worry, I'll show back up eventually." He began to walk away.

Leo probably should have thought this through a little bit more than he did, because he had no idea where he was going. He just began wandering, waving around the Chalice, waiting for Gaea to pop her magical half asleep self out of the ground.

We was walking along the beach, waiting for a sign, or for his feet to sink in the sand, anything, but everything was too quiet, there wasn't a nice breeze, or a bird chirping. The waves weren't even crashing against the sand. Leo had to back track for a second, the waves were even moving. The ocean had gone completely still. He wasn't any science major, but from what basic high school lessons he remembered, the ocean wasn't supposed  to be still, like a puddle.

Just then, the sign he  had been waiting for came, his feet stuck to the sand and he fell to his knees. Leo was totally dead, he knew it, but at least he saved the world right?

"Leo Valdez, I can say that I wasn't expecting you to show up." Gaea appeared eye level to Leo.

Her eyes were half opened, and the poor mortal girl she was possessing had nearly turned to mud, her dark skin had turned cracked, like dry mud, and her dark brown eyes still remained the same, but the whites had turned a lovely shade of chlorophyll. The hair of the young girl had been a lot like Hazel's curly brown, but it was now turning to roots.

"Hello dirt lady." Leo addressed her, rather rudely.

He was kicked in the face.

The sand had hardened into limestone at his feet and now, his hands were stuck in the same stuff also. It hurt, and Leo was afraid his hands and feet were going to fall off before he had a chance to escape.

"Mr. Valdez, why do you have the thing I desire most in the world?" Gaea got up from the ground and dusted her knees off. Sand floated down to rejoin the trillions of other grains littering the beach.

"We dropped it during the battle and I went to retrieve it." Leo lied quickly.

He was sure Gaea was able to see through his lie, but he stuck with it anyway.

"Well Mr. Valdez, I must thank you. Now, I don't have to kill you right away. In fact, I might just spare you."

The earth goddess bent down to pick up the Chalice and smiled, "Thank you, Leo, now goodbye." She kicked him one more time in the head and suddenly it was very dark.

Leo woke up, on a beach, however, his hands were no longer emerged in limestone, and neither were his feet. The place was very familiar, he took a deep breath and was greeted by a lovely sight.

"Leo." The soft voice whispered.

Leo grinned, "It's nice to be back Calypso."

Suddenly, Leo knew everything was going to be okay, and he and Calypso were getting off this island, together.