Heroes Of Olympus: Hephaestus's Little Helper

Chapter 1

Clink, clink, clink! I wiped a sweat drop off my forehead and kept working Clink, clink, cl-

"Hey, Leo." I turned around and saw Jason standing with his hands in his pockets.

"Aye. What are you doin' in the forges?"

He shrugged, but I could tell by his facial expression that he had news. "What is it?"

He looked at me and grinned. "We're boarding the Argo II today."

*******

Standing outside of the humongous ship that floated in front of me in the calm sea, I realized it looked a whole lot less new, but it still looked good.

Hazel and Frank flew down on pegasi and landed next to us. Percy and Annabeth followed, hand in hand. Piper stood next to Jason.

"So," Piper said. "Here we go again." We all nodded and boarded the ship.

*******

As I stood at the edge of of the ship, I held onto the railing and flailed my arms around at the campers to say goodbye.

I turned around and my body tingled with excitement. "Festus." I breathed

I ran to the front of the ship and looked down. Sure enough, Festus' head was there, as awesome-looking as ever.

Festus croaked and groaned with a series of metal clanging together. And yes, I can understand this language.

"Yeah buddy, I missed ya too!" I patted the dragon's head.

"Leo!" I heard Piper shout from the dining area.

"One second big guy." I told Festus and ran over to Piper.

"What?" I asked.

"You need to get sailing. We have an important quest to do ya know."

Oh yeah, the quest. I had been so wrapped up about having the ship back, I forgot all about the quest!

"What's our quest again...?" I questioned cluelessly.

She rolled her eyes. "We have to rescue a daughter of Atlas. Calypso, I think."

My heart stopped. I had met Calypso last year when I got stranded on her island. I promised her I'd come back. Maybe this was my chance.

"B-but it's said that you can't try to find the island, that it just comes to you." I protested.

"And that's why we're just going to sail around the area where the island is said to be until it appears."

"Why are we just doing this quest NOW? She's been stuck there for years!" I thought about how she had told me that Percy found her island as well and left her.

"Something about Atlas wanting to rise above all, blah blah blah. But we need his daughter for the quest so we can use her in-"

"Wait, so we're just saving her to use her?!" I scratched my curly brown hair.

"N-no, it's not like that- well sorta... We need her with us to stop Atlas. Any more questions?" She asked in annoyance and crossed her arms.

I shook my head and ran to the wheel. I picked up the Wii remote and shook it forward. The boat started to creak ahead.

I smiled. "I missed this."

*******

We were sailing around innocently in the ocean until-of course- we ran into a sea monster. It was a squid, but double the size of it by a thousand.

I ran to the deck along with the others. "How do we kill it?" I asked.

Percy took out his ballpoint pen and uncapped it. It grew into a full-length sword, called Riptide.

"We do this." He said, bravely. He climbed onto the railing and jumped overboard, and while he was falling down, he plunged Riptide into the squid's stomach and dragged it down.

He let go and fell into the ocean. "Percy!" Annabeth screamed.

"Relax, he's a son of the sea god." I reassured her. "He'll be fine."

After a few seconds of silence, a huge wave came up and Percy stepped off of it and onto the ship. "How the Hades is that thing still alive?!"

Annabeth examined the squid flailing it's tentacles around at us. "Maybe we need a special way to kill it...I got a plan. I'll distract the squid. Percy, you go underwater, try and slash its tentacles off. Jason, you use lightning. Piper, you try to sweet-talk the monster. Frank, turn into a strong sea animal; a shark maybe. Hazel, you try to make diamonds or valuable jewelry appear and throw it at the monster. Leo...uh, you can do whatever. Head out!"

Everyone ran to the place they were told to and began to use the plan's strategy.

I stood where I was. 'Do whatever.' Wow. How encouraging. I pushed my hands towards the squid. Flames bursted outwards and covered the monster.

The squid spazzed around in confusion and rage. With seven people trying to kill it, the thing wasn't doing so well. Finally a loud blast came from the sky and pounded into the monster's head. It bursted into dust.

Everyone gathered around at the deck. "Nice Jason." They all praised him.

Hazel looked at me expectantly. "Well?" She said. "Take the wheel!"

I nodded and rushed back to the wheel and started moving the boat forward again.

*******

"Leo, c'mere!" Percy shouted from the deck with the others. I stood with them. "What is i- woah..."

In the far distance stood a large tropical island. It had greenery everywhere, the sand on the beach was white, and the water was light blue.

But this wasn't Calypso's island. I wasn't familiar with this place...

I glanced expectingly at Annabeth. "Where are we?"

Annabeth grimaced. "I don't know, honestly. This island doesn't even look...different or magical."

"Think it's a mortal island?" Percy wondered out loud.

She shook her head. "Definitely not, it just seems like there's a monstrous presence here, trying to trick us."

"Then, let's go get tricked." Jason said with confidence.

*******

We reached the island and all got off the ship. As our feet stepped upon the soft white sand, I swear this place seemed like a resort.

"Where should we head to?" I asked.

Hazel pointed to a large mountain on the other side of the island. "There."

We all nodded and headed toward the huge hill.