The Fire In Me (A Leo Valdez Love Story)

A Baby Doll Tries to Kill Me

Our battle plan: find Octavian, and beat him till he gives us our pets back. Then we'll ask him some questions. Fairly simple and very effective!

Jason, Hazel, and Frank walked into the camp, trying to look like nothing was wrong. Almost instantly, what looked like all of New Rome swarmed them in greetings. Jason was trying to calm the crowd, but everyone was too excited to listen to a word he said.

Then Piper walked toward the crowd, and everyone froze. They stepped back, as Piper played her golden flute. She stopped before anyone swooned over her like Laura had done, and Jason, Hazel, and Frank had some space.

I scanned the Roman crowd. I couldn't see him anywhere. But then, I saw a shortish guy with curly blonde hair, having a silent fit outside the crowd. I smiled. I was getting my dragon back.

My feet took off before my mind had a chance to figure out what I was doing. Octavian looked up, and yelped. He took off, kind of fast for such a little guy. He wound around all of the city, with me hot on his heels. Then, he turned into a narrow alley, and I slammed into a wall.

I collapsed, gasping, just as Octavian walked over, a look of evil glee on his face.

"You really thought that you could catch me, and get your precious flea bags back? Silly Valdez, always getting into his fantasies."

"Where's Festus?!" I screamed at him, trying to get up, but he had rested his hard boot on me.

"He's safe, for now. I thought about having him shredded, but then I thought it would be so much funnier if we set up the pegasi against him: a little one-on-two angry winged ponies. Such a crack up!" He cackled, and I yelled for help. Octavian just clucked at me, and presumed to take out a razor-sharp knife out of his belt. I froze. He wouldn't...right?

Octavian traced the edge of his knife, causing dark blood to drip from his finger onto my shirt, his face darkened with madness.

"You know, I've always hated you Greeks.  Always ignorant, running around and trying to fix everything with your 'big' brains.  I always wondered why you didn't just let it go and move on."

"Like you?" I spat.  Octavion scowled.

"I think it's time you died, Valdez.  Oh, and don't worry. I'll take good care of your little friend!"  I yelled for Laura one last time, hoping she could hear me say goodbye.  Then Octavion brought down the knife to my heart just as I heard furious yelling.

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So, I'm still here, living and breathing, thanks to Laura and her trusty "Doro".

Before Octavian could spear me, Laura had come out of nowhere, and blocked his knife, causing his wrist to break, and the knife had clattered to the ground. Laura had then presumed to push Octavian to the ground, and spit some nasty words to him, telling him that "if you ever touch my boyfriend again, I'll spear you and feed your intestines to swine!" I blushed. She said that I was her boyfriend. Really?

She helped me up, and buried her face in my shirt. I gripped her back.

"Don't you ever run after crazy murderers again," she whispered. I just laughed, and stayed in that position until the rest of our crew showed up.

"What happened," Piper yelled, pointing at Octavian. I jumped in before Laura could say anything.

"Octavian turned into a crazy killer, and it is confirmed that he stole our pets and did not take the Necklace." Everyone looked disappointed. We had all thought that maybe our quest would be over, but we weren't so lucky. I didn't like being the one to bring bad news, so I said, "Well, let's go find our rides! All of this walking around is killing me."

We found our pets fairly soon, thanks to Festus's furious bellows and Percy tracking down Blackjack's mind. It was a little bit tricky to get Tempest out, since the cage had powerful spells to keep the storm spirit inside. Festus just ripped the cage apart, and I said, "Why didn't you do that before buddy?" Festus made some clicking and whirring, and he looked down at his chains. I sawed through those bad boys pretty quick.

Once we were remounted, we stopped by Octavian's resting place, and Piper woke him up with a few notes from her flute. She made him tell us who took the necklace, and he said in a dreamy voice, "Hephaestus took the necklace."