Percy Jackson and the Dark Elites

XVI

Leo

Leo was still afraid of failure.

He had to wake up quickly and uncomfortably that morning. His friend Walker had busted open the door to his bedroom and threw his eighty-pound go bag onto his chest.

He knew what that meant. On a normal day it was an emergency mission: to stop an assassination or some kind of transportation, something that could not wait.

But not this day. He knew what leaving quickly on a day like today meant, and he had to fight through the sense of his stomach rolling just to get out of bed.

It took him two delirious minutes to run out to their assault jet, a large rocket meant for a giant team of fifty plus Elites in case of an emergency.

Two years ago Leo came across a dangerous piece of information while under deep cover of Chaos' army. Chaos wanted to rule the universe, but he wanted to rule a chaotic universe. And since Zeus and Poseidon almost went to war against each other, Chaos had woken on earth, and had been plotting.

Of course, it didn't happen all at once. Percy Jackson, the man Leo now knew as Ruin, had stopped the war, and disband Chaos to unconscious oblivion. When Luke Castellan poisoned Thalia's tree, Chaos woke up, remembering Percy was the one powerful enough to shut him out.

In the heart of Camp Jupiter, where the most worry and fear was, Chaos focused on a scared, orphaned child. His name was Octavian. 

He poured into his mind and forced him to flee. He forced him to kill. He forced him to bring Chaos. Then Chaos moved on. Grabbing two more demigods, then twelve mortals, then the numbers doubled each time until he stopped counting. Nothing Percy did at that point could make him leave this world.

After Leo and Calypso crashed onto an island on the Caribbean, chaos grabbed them. He and Calypso were the trial runs for a new drug. This way, Chaos could focus only on gaining his strength, and his agents could make the new recruits susceptible.

And soon, Percy came running. He was caught in a tower with Chaos, and when he'd showed up at the Riders camp. Leo had thought he succeeded.

Until Leo's friend Walker told him that Percy was conscious, and looking to fake his death so that Chaos would leave him and his new Elites, alone.

Leo warned Percy that he'd screwed up in one of his tests in Hawaii, and Chaos forced him to fight.

Leo was willing to play the brainwashed, loyal soldier in order to get information.

Chaos kept a close eye on him. He didn't want someone with the power to kill Gaea and come back from the dead plotting against him.

Then things got bad. Chaos came to Leo asking him to find out about Octavian's intentions. He learned Octavian had a plan to overthrow him when Indigo knocked Chaos unconscious.

Leo had been pulled in deep enough to his circle of trust that he discovered a terrible secret. He contacted Ruin, saying he needed to leave, he didn't tell Chaos he knew about Indigo.

But Octavian found out, and proved his loyalty to Chaos by turning him in... One year after Leo faked Percy's murder in that stadium.

The only thing to do left was to have no one to report back to until he had more about Indigo. Telling Chaos he wanted to scare his former friends, he faked his death. He shattered Riptide and placed it on his body.

Ruin always assumed that meant Chaos knew Percy was alive. But Chaos was completely clueless. And it had been so long since Octavian had been brainwashed that he was waking up. With his own plan in mind...