The House of Hades

Chapter 22: Leo

Just an FYI, this chapter starts BEFORE Leo charges into Hazel's room declaring they've reached Greece (end of ch. 20), but AFTER Hazel passes out and everyone goes to bed.

I dedicated this chapter to AvaDecker, for being awesome and voting on all my chapters so far.

Hope you enjoy it!  It took me forever to write this chapter.

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Chapter 22: Leo

Everyone else had gone to bed, except Leo, who was keeping watch. It wouldn't do for anymore more nasties to sneak up on them. Sitting on the deck, with only Festus for company, Leo's mind wandered back to the prophecy. For the last couple of days, it hadn't been far from it. 

Leo had a bitter taste in his mouth. He couldn't  believe that after everything he had gone through, he was going to die. It just wasn't fair. And the horrible thing was, it made sense. Nemesis had been right. He was the seventh wheel. If he died, no one would miss him like Jason would if Piper died, or Annabeth would if Percy died.

Suddenly, the shadows behind him contracted, and Nico popped out. 

"Holy Hephaestus!" Leo yelped jumping backwards.

"Sorry," Nico grinned, "just practicing,"

"Practicing what? Scaring the hell out of people?"

"No, shadow-traveling. I'm out of practice," Nico said casually. Leo decided not to ask for a further explanation, so he cast his mind out for something else to say. 

"So," he ventured, "um - I'm trying to see if I can create some automans to defend the ship. Maybe that would be the 'army' Mars was talking about. Do you want to help me or something?"

Nico's face darkened, "No," he said quietly, "sorry, I'm not really interested in playing with your toys,"

Leo frowned. Nico was a touchy guy, he got that, but seriously, that was crossing the line.

"Remind me why you hate me so much?" he asked finally.

"I don't," 

"The evil look you're giving me doesn't agree,"

Nico sighed, "Look, it's not you. It's just...I don't like Hephaestus. This huge Talos automan that went haywire, one of his little projects that didn't work out, it killed my sister, okay?"

Leo didn't know what to say. It turned out, though, that he didn't need to say anything, because Nico was on a roll.

"And no offense, but there's also your...attitude. Towards the prophecy. Yeah, it may talk about you dying, but that's no excuse to mope around and feel sorry for yourself,"

"Okay, so basically, I should be saying, Hooray, gonna die, bring it on! I live for death!" Leo said, his voice rising.

"No! I think you should stop being a coward about it! Percy? For his sixteenth birthday, he got a prophecy that seemed to predict his death. But he brushed it off, won the titan war, and it turned out the prophecy wasn't referring to him after all! I'm just saying that if you're gonna die, at least maintain the attitude of wanting to kill Gaea before you pop off, or something like that!"

Leo raised his hand, wanting to shoot fire at the small figure of Nico. Nico shrank back...but suddenly Leo realized something; Nico had been right. He had been selfish. Leo thought about Piper, how she had given up her chance of escape for Jason, how Percy had jumped into Tartarus  for Annabeth!