The Demigod Games (PJO/THG)

5- Weird Prisoners In Weird Factories

Edit: rereading this and boy was I cringey at 10 years old...
By the way, heads-up: in a few chapters you'll see message about a huge time gap, and my story will get better from then on. See you around and enjoy the story!

-Leo

Hullo. Leo Valdez here. You might now me as The Grand McShizzle, or Supreme Commander of the Argo II, etc. I am the best and most awesome person of the seven, and yeah, probably the most awesome person in the world too; don't mind me, I'm just being my usual modest (and awesome) self.

- collective sigh

Alright,  let's get to it!

Right, so you might think I jumped (or swam) through the portal after the others, right? Well, I did, but the thing is, I hesitated before swimming down, unsure of myself. Should I stay and try to work out a plan? Or should I jump in stupidly like the others? Naturally, I chose the second option; leave it to me to do the reckless thing. In my opinion, if you aren't reckless in life, you won't get anywhere, am I right?
So I jumped in with the others; but the problem was, I teleported to a completely different area than Hazel and Frank did.

My theory is, that was because of my hesitation: maybe portal changed place every ten seconds or so, sometimes popping in a volcano, or in Minnesota, or at nice suburban Starbucks... so if you don't jump in at the same time as others you won't teleport to the same place.

But I'm rambling - who cares anyway? I mean, all the thinking parts are for Annabeth, whom by the way you'll see in a few chapters. Then she can bore you to death with her "intellectual" language. (Let's hope she didn't hear that because otherwise, I'm already dead.)

So I hear you ask, Where did you go then?  Well, patience, people! The story's coming! Pff, people are so impatient these days. Fine, I've maybe had you waiting too long. Well, let's continue then.

I teleported to some random area in some kind of factory. Well, it seemed like a factory to me. Hundreds of workers were at work here, assembling pieces, putting helmets on robots, and some at computers programming very complicated data.

I looked around, amazed. Being the son of Hephaestus, I knew quite a lot when it came to technology, and could definitely agree that this was very advanced machinery. What the workers were programming didn't seem like it would come from today's science. I saw high-tech computers that never glitched, self-working robots that were made to do almost anything, plasma guns shooting blobs of pure light, and even a silver bow that shot arrows all by itself.

Was it possible we'd been transported into the future? That was the only explanation to all this... advanced tech. Or maybe we'd been teleported into another planet that was more advanced than ours. If that was the case, I was in deep trouble. 

I shook those very joyous thoughts out of my mind, and walked around, trying to find an exit. Even for me, this was too much to take in. I needed some fresh air.

Finally, after an hour of searching (the factory was way bigger than it looked), I finally found the way out, a huge metallic door lined with gold and bronze.

I tried to open the door. It didn't budge; it was locked. But that wasn't a problem for me: I simply pressed my hand against the door and unlocked it from the inside.

Unfortunately, such a huge door being opened attracted a lot of attention. Workers turned around, surprised at the sudden light, like stepping out into a bright afternoon after being in a dark theater all day. The workers yelled, and I realized one fortunate thing: the people here spoke English. So that meant I wasn't transported into another planet. I sighed in relief, but the workers weren't relaxed at all. They kept shouting, and I could hear their cries;  "Alert! Alert!"  "Look, over there!" "Oh my goodness!"  "Someone's trying to escape!"

Trying to escape?  I thought. As far as I was concerned, this wasn't a prison. It wasn't like the workers were trapped here, right?

But this wasn't our world. Maybe they were trapped. Maybe they were forced to work here forever. If that was the case, probably seeing someone escaping was a chance of freedom to their eyes.

I was right. Yelping in joy, the workers abandoned their posts and ran towards the doors, anxious to get out. That was good for me. The crowd would cover me so I wouldn't get caught or recognized. The last thing I wanted to be stuck in an unknown place with unknown people with no idea how or why I was here. So I seized my chance and ran off with the crowd.