Centaur's Can't Even Shoot Mosquitos

I actually couldn't settle on a chapter title for this one, so the one in place was my favorite but I put the other in the summary above for your amusement. If you come up with an alternate chapter title I will be happy to add it!

PJOHOOPJOHOOPJOHOO

Jason took his turn next with a vague feeling of relief just to see Leo's name again, finally something to expect he wasn't completely wrong about, even a stupid pattern in a book. Hopefully, maybe, that meant they got to see what Leo was up to just this one bit longer and they'd finally see what he and Chiron were talking about!

He still politely looked around to Leo and asked casually, "sure you don't want a turn on one of yours?"

Leo could have said yes, and then lit the book on fire to stop all this in its tracks, or just skipped every other word he didn't want said aloud.

He could have, but he didn't. There was just something about these guys he trusted for no good reason. Probably insanity. He'd never trusted anyone. Now he was just letting a bunch of strangers skim along his brain, a place he hated to be, let alone share with commentary!

But, well, it's not as if he had anything better to do. He'd only been here a few days and heard the talks and whispers nobody tried to hide, of another war coming even worse than the last, these guys had killed a Giant or something, plus there was his dragon. If he made enemies now, he'd never get a chance to take care of that machine that he didn't see as a problem but everybody else clearly disagreed. He knew how to play Texas Hold'um, and right now he was keeping the ace up his sleeve and he'd deal with the consequences later when that was inevitably revealed. His life had never been private, everybody he'd ever met had taken one look at the pieces of paper covering the many screw ups of his past and decided they knew him.

These guys, they hadn't done that.

So he shrugged, and waved Jason on, and went back to his plans, moving farther ahead than these guys still stuck in yesterday.

LEO VI

"HOW DID HE DIE?" LEO ASKED. "I mean Beckendorf."

"Well I'm glad you didn't mean me," Percy said with an awkward smile.

"Why add more ghosts to my collection before they've even punched in," Leo rolled his eyes.

Will Solace trudged ahead. "Explosion. Beckendorf and Percy Jackson blew up a cruise ship full of monsters. Beckendorf didn't make it out."

There was that name again—Percy Jackson, Annabeth's missing boyfriend. That guy must've been into everything around here, Leo thought.

"Against his will," Percy sighed.

"I only force you to eat your vegetables, don't go dragging me into this," Will sniffed, to nobody's amusement but Nico's, and Hazel's small laugh!

"Oh gods, now there's two of them," Percy groaned in defeat.

"So Beckendorf was pretty popular?" Leo asked. "I mean —before he blew up?"

"He was awesome," Will agreed. "It was hard on the whole camp when he died. Jake—he became head counselor in the middle of the war. Same as I did, actually. Jake did his best, but he never wanted to be a leader. He just likes building stuff. Then after the war, things started to go wrong. Cabin Nine's chariots blew up. Their automatons went haywire. Their inventions started to malfunction. It was like a curse, and eventually people started calling it that—the Curse of Cabin Nine. Then Jake had his accident—"

The campers sighed as they looked out the window for their family. It somehow felt more brutal to just be casually said out loud like that, instead of the whispers the rest of them heard. The Hephaestus cabin was well known for solving their own problems and coming to the others with triumph. It was hard to realize, put so bluntly, how bad things had gotten. How sad Beckendorf would be to hear of all this, and he wasn't around to help fix it anymore.

"Which had something to do with the problem he mentioned," Leo guessed.

"They're working on it," Will said without enthusiasm. "And here we are."

"I don't know why we used to call you an optimist, you're being damn depressing right now," Percy gave him a shrewd look, but there was something in his tone that approved more than he was saying. He knew he couldn't have explained all that miserable crap any better.

"More points off my score huh?" Will nodded.

"Got to do it man," Percy agreed.

The forge looked like a steam-powered locomotive had smashed into the Greek Parthenon and they had fused together.

Annabeth's face gleamed with interest at that comparison, she even smiled a bit. She looked kind of nice and like an actual princess instead of wanting to stab Leo for a change. He wouldn't be surprised to see her and her siblings being comfortable in there at any rate.

White marble columns lined the soot-stained walls. Chimneys pumped smoke over an elaborate gable carved with a bunch of gods and monsters. The building sat at the edge of a stream, with several waterwheels turning a series of bronze gears. Leo heard machinery grinding inside, fires roaring, and hammers ringing on anvils.

They stepped through the doorway, and a dozen guys and girls who'd been working on various projects all froze. The noise died down to the roar of the forge and the click-click-click of gears and levers.

Leo scoffed, just like he had then. He couldn't imagine getting distracted from a project he was invested in unless someone dragged him off. This little doodle was barely keeping his mind from racing back out into the woods where he really wanted to be, and he was over fifty pages in now.

"'Sup, guys," Will said. "This is your new brother, Leo—um, what's your last name?"

"Valdez." Leo looked around at the other campers. Was he really related to all of them? His cousins came from some big families, but he'd always just had his mom—until she died.

Jason read that with a nasty catch in the back of his throat, and Leo instantly knew. His mom was dead too. Probably all of them either had a dead parent, or one they weren't going to go around expecting birthday cards from.

It was why they hadn't treated his cryptic hints of the fire or his mom as anything new. Like a part of them, of every kid here half expected your life outside of here to be just as screwed up as theirs. Percy really had been right about him belonging here.

Kids came up and started shaking hands and introducing themselves. Their names blurred together: Shane, Christopher, Nyssa, Harley (yeah, like the motorcycle). Leo knew he'd never keep everybody straight. Too many of them. Too overwhelming.

"I keep saying we should walk around with name tags or something," Will sighed.

"Hand stitched shirts," Hazel agreed half-heartedly.

"We'd go through a dozen a day for some people," Thalia shot Percy a very obvious look. "They'd never last," she shook her head.

"I say we just carve our names into a block of wood and string them on our necks," Jason said with a weird face like he wasn't kidding.

"Like those wouldn't get burned and lost just as fast! Do you want Grover threatening to chop off your limbs," Percy sighed.

"The overwhelming thing is normal," Annabeth told Leo and Hazel. "You two are lucky being here now, it's even more hectic during the summer."

"Great," Leo said without even trying to pretend he meant it. He could tell Nyssa and Jake apart as of now and that was about it.

None of them looked like the others—all different face types, skin tone, hair color, height. You'd never think, Hey, look, it's the Hephaestus Bunch! But they all had powerful hands, rough with calluses and stained with engine grease. Even little Harley, who couldn't have been more than eight, looked like he could go six rounds with Chuck Norris without breaking a sweat.

That at least got a laugh out of some of them, no doubt with the following argument of who Chuck Norris was the demigod and or god of on a better day.

And all the kids shared a sad kind of seriousness. Their shoulders slumped like life had beaten them down pretty hard. Several looked like they'd been physically beaten up, too. Leo counted two arm slings, one pair of crutches, an eye patch, six Ace bandages, and about seven thousand Band-Aids.

"Well, all right!" Leo said. "I hear this is the party cabin!"

He at least got a faint smile from Percy, more than he'd gotten at the time.

"You sure are something Leo," Jason said as if this weren't a real surprise, just confirmation. He'd been called worse.

Nobody laughed. They all just stared at him.

Will Solace patted Leo's shoulder. "I'll leave you guys to get acquainted. Somebody show Leo to dinner when it's time?"

"Nah man, they're all just going to leave him to starve in the woods," Thalia looked at him strangely.

"They've done that before if they lose track of someone, now I know where! Probably down in those tunnels," Will frowned.

"Final verdicts on those tour guide skills?" Annabeth asked innocently, with all the confidence of putting a crown on her head.

"Will didn't make Leo cry, I say he wins by default," Nico smirked.

"And Annabeth gave Piper a knife, that's worth way more cool points than he'll get," Percy protested.

"A cursed knife, clearly," Nico sniffed.

"I say fire them both, as neither bothered to give out an actual map of the camp!" Thalia rolled her eyes. She was literally sitting next to a dusty box of them, apparently forgotten to time.

"I'm ignoring you guys now," Jason decided before this escalated farther.

"I got it," one of the girls said. Nyssa, Leo remembered.

She wore camo pants, a tank top that showed off her buffarms, and a red bandanna over a mop of dark hair. Except for the smiley-face Band-Aid on her chin, she looked like one of those female action heroes, like any second she was going to grab a machine gun and start mowing down evil aliens.

Hazel giggled softly at this, much to Leo's pleasure.

"Cool," Leo said. "I always wanted a sister who could beat me up."

"I believe that, you seem like a masochist with that mouth," Thalia rolled her eyes.

"Only if you're the one tying me up," he grinned.

"Knock it off," Thalia said with a sharp firmness.

Most of her hotness melted at that. Clearly the girl was not just joking about playing hard to get, and there was no fun if she wouldn't play back, so he turned away for the last time. She was out of his league anyways.

Nyssa didn't smile. "Come on, joker boy. I'll show you around."

"Between you and Harley being there, Camp might have a whole other problem," Percy chuckled.

"I promise never to burn money, I'm not that kind of crazy," Leo grinned.

Leo was no stranger to workshops. He'd grown up around grease monkeys and power tools. His mom used to joke that his first pacifier was a lug wrench. But he'd never seen any place like the camp forge.

One guy was working on a battle-ax. He kept testing the blade on a slab of concrete. Each time he swung, the ax cut into the slab like it was warm cheese, but the guy looked unsatisfied and went back to honing the edge.

"What's he planning to kill with that thing?" Leo asked Nyssa. "A battleship?"

"You never know. Even with Celestial bronze—"

"That's the metal?"

She nodded. "Mined from Mount Olympus itself. Extremely rare. Anyway, it usually disintegrates monsters on contact, but big powerful ones have notoriously tough hides. Drakons, for instances—"

"You mean dragons?"

"Similar species. You'll learn the difference in monster fighting class."

"Monster-fighting class. Yeah, I already got my black belt in that."

"Lucky!" Percy laughed. "It took me years just to get out of beginners!"

"You're still in intermediate," Annabeth agreed.

"Oh come on, I should have at least earned a blue belt by now," Percy said with no clue what he was talking about. He was pretty sure there was a blue belt anyways.

Annabeth just rolled her eyes and shook her head at imagining him doing kicks and flips with Leo in the yard later with a laugh.

She didn't crack a smile. Leo hoped she wasn't this serious all the time. His dad's side of the family had to have some sense of humor, right?

Percy rubbed the back of his neck, somehow feeling guilty for laughing while the rest of those guys were so miserable.

They passed a couple of guys making a bronze windup toy. At least that's what it looked like. It was a six-inch-tall centaur—half man, half horse—armed with a miniature bow.

One of the campers cranked the centaur's tail, and it whirred to life. It galloped across the table, yelling, "Die, mosquito! Die, mosquito!" and shooting everything in sight.

"Clearly it's in perfectly working order," Nico said blandly.

Apparently this had happened before, because everybody knew to hit the floor except Leo. Six needle-sized arrows embedded themselves in his shirt before a camper grabbed a hammer and smashed the centaur to pieces.

"I'd buy one," Percy agreed. It was a better shot than him and would eventually hit the bug.

"Stupid curse!" The camper waved his hammer at the sky. "I just want a magic bug killer! Is that too much to ask?"

"Ouch," Leo said.

Nyssa pulled the needles out of his shirt. "Ah, you're fine. Let's move on before they rebuild it."

Leo rubbed his chest as they walked. "That sort of thing happens a lot?"

"Lately," Nyssa said, "everything we build turns to junk."

"The curse?"

Nyssa frowned. "I don't believe in curses. But something's wrong. And if we don't figure out the dragon problem, it's gonna get even worse."

"The dragon problem?" Leo hoped she was talking about a miniature dragon, maybe one that killed cockroaches, but he got the feeling he wasn't going to be so lucky.

Thalia realized she might be about to find out what happened to that dragon Percy and Annabeth had resurrected, and it didn't seem to be a great ending to the story like last time.

Nyssa took him over to a big wall map that a couple of girls were studying. The map showed the camp—a semicircle of land with Long Island Sound on the north shore, the woods to the west, the cabins to the east, and a ring of hills to the south.

"It's got to be in the hills," the first girl said.

"We looked in the hills," the second argued. "The woods are a better hiding place."

"But we already set traps—"

"Hold up," Leo said. "You guys lost a dragon? A real full size dragon?"

"It's easier than you think, they're pretty fast," Will sighed.

"I just want it on record, this one wasn't my fault," Percy raised his hand.

Jason lowered it and gave him a 'you've got to be kidding me look.' "You and Beckendorf turned a game of Capture the Flag into this, it is at least partially your fault!" Then he turned to Annabeth with sudden excitement as he recalled, "you knew, right!? You found this thing before the game and led them here!"

"Yeah," she agreed, "though I never dreamed Beckendorf would get taken by the Myrmekes for it. So, Percy's right, it's actually technically my fault."

"You're forgiven," Leo had clearly decided to bless himself with this ability and expunge them at will. Nyssa had told him the story of Percy Jackson and Beckendorf resurrecting this thing the first time as part of the reason for their curse. It was one of the major reasons he'd been so curious to come up to this attic and meet him.

Annabeth gave him another of those calculating looks like she could see the numbers inside his head as he gulped and turned away back to his drawing. Not yet, they couldn't find out yet until he knew how to fix him! Wings obviously weren't going to be good enough, since they'd all arrived on flying horses...

"It's a bronze dragon," Nyssa said.

Nico's face still twitched in particular disgust for the general existence of this thing being at Camp. He hoped Leo's fabled future would be to kill it quickly.

"But yes, it's a life-size automaton. Hephaestus cabin built it years ago. Then it was lost in the woods until a few summers back, when Beckendorf found it in pieces and rebuilt it.

Percy looked mildly offended Annabeth hadn't gotten at least partial recognition that she deserved for turning that thing back on, but then again, he'd probably somehow turn around and get the blame for this curse, so he let it be. Annabeth just crossed her ankles and began braiding another chunk of hair without concern. That thing had been Beckendorf's baby, she'd just flipped the switch, so she obviously didn't care either about him retaining the credit.

It's been helping protect the camp, but, um, it's a little unpredictable."

"Unpredictable?" Leo said.

"It means sometimes it likes to show up and remind us what buildings look like on fire," Will told Leo in exhaustion.

"No worries here, I'm the definition of unpredictable," Leo somehow managed to say that like it was a good thing.

"It goes haywire and smashes down cabins, sets people on fire, tries to eat the satyrs."

"That's pretty unpredictable."

"Not really, what do you expect giant monsters to really do otherwise? Start croquet clubs?" Percy asked.

"Next time the dragon shows up Percy, you can take a hunk out of his toe again and set a schedule for his next visit!" Will told him in exasperation.

"That was you!" Leo blurted before he could stop himself, he'd already drawn up seventeen new claw designs for his poor Festus.

He got all the looks for that.

"Nyssa just said someone helped Beckendorf subdue it once, your name wasn't mentioned," he swiftly lied.

The game had ended with Percy being Annabeth and Silena's prisoner after he'd been chased across the forest by that thing, so Percy wasn't eager to share the whole story and quickly let it go.

The mild admiration and slight disappointment in Jason's voice reading about all this surprised Leo a lot. Clearly not everyone around here considered Festus a bad thing on principle.

Nyssa nodded. "Beckendorf was the only one who could control it. Then he died, and the dragon just got worse and worse. Finally it went berserk and ran off. Occasionally it shows up, demolishes something, and runs away again. Everyone expects us to find it and destroy it—"

"I really don't see why," Jason said with a sardonic smile. "Sounds like perfect training, a surprise attack nobody can plan for at all hours!"

"I'll be sure you can say thank you personally when he shows up again," Percy rolled his eyes.

"Destroy it?" Leo was appalled. "You've got a life-size bronze dragon, and you want to destroy it?"

"Leo, just because trouble comes to visit, doesn't mean you have to offer it a plate at the table," Will groaned. "Southern hospitality has some restrictions!"

"I don't know, we keep Percy around and he's ten times more destructive than that thing, we could cut Leo some slack," Thalia smirked, though this time Leo had no delusions it was so much for his benefit as Thalia just not passing up a chance to tease her friend.

"Half the time I don't even get a plate, just left over scraps," Percy was apparently agreeing for some strange reason.

"It breathes fire," Nyssa explained. "It's deadly and out of control."

"But it's a dragon! Dude, that's so awesome. Can't you try talking to it, controlling it?"

"We tried. Jake Mason tried. You saw how well that worked."

Leo thought about Jake, wrapped in a body cast, lying alone on his bunk. "Still—"

"Credit for determination," Annabeth sounded actually impressed too. He tucked his next piece of paper into the stack and kept on going, the cramps in his hand somehow easing up with the stress in his shoulders.

"There's no other option." Nyssa turned to the other girls. "Let's try more traps in the woods—here, here, and here. Bait them with thirty-weight motor oil."

"The dragon drinks that?" Leo asked.

"Yeah." Nyssa sighed regretfully. "He used to like it with a little Tabasco sauce, right before bed. If he springs a trap, we can come in with acid sprayers—should melt through his hide. Then we get metal cutters and ... and finish the job."

They all looked sad. Leo realized they didn't want to kill the dragon any more than he did.

Hazel didn't think this sounded any more strange than her own curse, metal dragons, sure, cars were enormous loud beasts that could kill you too. No, she was actually wondering what tabasco sauce was more than anything as she watched Leo-Not Sammy strike something out and then draw it identical to her eyes right beside it.

'If it walks like Sammy and talks like Sammy...' but Nico had given her a strange look and promised he hadn't brought anyone else with her. So she told herself to just be content with a brother and living in a mixed community where nobody told her to get away from their water fountain for now.

"Guys," he said. "There has to be another way."

Nyssa looked doubtful, but a few other campers stopped what they were working on and drifted over to hear the conversation.

"Like what?" one asked. "The thing breathes fire. We can't even get close."

Fire, Leo thought. Oh, man, the things he could tell them about fire... But he had to be careful, even if these were his brothers and sisters. Especially if he had to live with them.

Percy quirked an interested brow at that if he'd found another person prone to setting all manner of things on fire. It would be nice to switch that up.

"Well ..." He hesitated. "Hephaestus is the god of fire, right? So don't any of you have, like fire resistance or something?"

Nobody acted as if it was a crazy question, which was a relief, but Nyssa shook her head gravely.

"It's a fair question, it surprised the heck out of me when I heard otherwise," Percy agreed. After casually finding out he could breathe underwater, he'd thought so too.

"Apollo kids do get sunburned, by the way," Will rolled his eyes. "You just seem to forget you're over powered insanely Perce."

He didn't, actually. More often than not he walked around the grassy hills feeling like a fish out of water, and his curse had only reinforced that. The way kids would wince and raise their shields far too early in sword practice, so he didn't even practice with them. The way they stared as he immediately started eating his dinner and realized it was probably too hot for them.

Chiron had once warned him that a child of the big three arriving meant trouble on the horizon, and somehow he'd never gone long without that coming true. How could he forget he wasn't actually like everyone else in his home, the one place he was supposed to feel normal.

What he said was, "yet another thing I forgot about, man, someone should write all that down," with a roll of his eyes and getting a laugh out of his friends.

"That's a Cyclops ability, Leo. Demigod children of Hephaestus ... we're just good with our hands. We're builders, craftsmen, weaponsmiths—stuff like that."

Leo's shoulders slumped. "Oh."

A guy in back said, "Well, a long time ago—"

"Yeah, okay," Nyssa conceded. "A long time ago some children of Hephaestus were born with power over fire. But that ability was very, very rare. And always dangerous. No demigod like that has been born in centuries. The last one ..." She looked at one of the other kids for help.

"Sixteen sixty-six," Annabeth rattled off like someone had just put a flashcard under her nose. "His name was Thomas Faynor, he started the Great Fire of London."

"You're not one of my sisters are you?" Leo asked in confusion. He hadn't seen her in his cabin last night, but it explained that look he kept seeing reflected back.

"No," she grinned, "child of Athena, goddess of strategy and crafts. I'm no stranger to building my own plans from the ground up, but I'd never make something as good as you could with a hammer." The proud smile had quickly withered right off her face. Something bad had happened recently. Something she'd made that hadn't gone according to plan. Maybe the curse was contagious.

Leo went back to his drawing, refusing to let his hand shake as he knew what was coming at the end. He'd given himself one private moment to show off, to draw confidence in himself...and then the real show would begin.

"Sixteen sixty-six," the girl offered. "Guy named Thomas Faynor. He started the Great Fire of London, destroyed most of the city."

"Right," Nyssa said. "When a child of Hephaestus like that appears, it usually means something catastrophic is about to happen. And we don't need any more catastrophes."

"Been there, done that," Percy sighed he could understand why they wouldn't be jumping for joy at the idea.

"I wouldn't put much stock into those old superstitions, you guys seem to jump at everything," Jason grinned. He instantly decided he didn't like that perspective Nyssa offered.

"Traditions are just peer pressure from dead people, and I will not be intimidated by ghosts," Leo sniffed, but it was entirely false bravado. Even here at this place, he was somehow the freak.

Leo tried to keep his face clear of emotion, which wasn't his strong suit. "I guess I see your point. Too bad, though. If you could resist flames, you could get close to the dragon."

"Yeah, and if we could all turn each other into jackalopes we might be a little nicer to each other, but alas, we have to rely on greater powers for the best things," Thalia shrugged with a smirk at Percy.

"Like you've ever needed a goddess to threaten me," Percy rolled his eyes.

"It would still be nice to change you back and forth, might teach you a thing or two," Thalia said.

"Not with the kind of slow learner who gets dating tips from dolphins," Annabeth sighed.

"I told you I was joking about that," he frowned.

"Then it would kill you with its claws and fangs," Nyssa said. "Or simply step on you.

"Got to love a monster that comes with a variety pack?" Will said half-heartedly.

"Speak for yourself," Percy groaned.

No, we've got to destroy it. Trust me, if anyone could figure out another answer ..."

She didn't finish, but Leo got the message. This was the cabin's big test. If they could do something only Beckendorf could do, if they could subdue the dragon without killing it, then maybe their curse would be lifted. But they were stumped for ideas. Any camper who figured out how would be a hero.

"That something you're aspiring for Leo?" Jason asked casually. No judgment in his voice, just something he'd apparently asked numerous people. It gave the impression he'd been in a position of authority much more than Percy slouching in that beanbag ever could.

"All the ladies love a hero!" Leo agreed.

"If Percy can go from zero to hero, anyone can," Annaetbh smirked at her boyfriend.

"That is devilish, how dare you compare me to Hercules," Percy looked at her in betrayal. "You know what, Will gets to be the official tour guide."

"Yes!" Will smirked while Annaebth gave him a look promising this would never be forgiven.

A conch horn blew in the distance. Campers started putting up their tools and projects. Leo hadn't realized it was getting so late, but he looked through the windows and saw the sun going down. His ADHD did that to him sometimes. If he was bored, a fifty-minute class seemed like six hours. If he was interested in something, like touring a demigod camp, hours slipped away and bam—the day was over.

"Preach!" Percy said enthusiastically.

Leo laughed and cleared his throat, they had a bad feeling Percy had just summoned an entire sermon upon Leo. Thankfully other minds prevailed before that went too far.

"Dinner," Nyssa said. "Come on, Leo."

"Up at the pavilion, right?" he asked.

She nodded.

"You guys go ahead," Leo said. "Can you ... give me a second?"

Nyssa hesitated. Then her expression softened. "Sure. It's a lot to process. I remember my first day. Come up when you're ready. Just don't touch anything. Almost every project in here can kill you if you're not careful."

"No touching," Leo promised.

"I don't believe you," Nico decided.

"That's fair, most people think I'm crazy," Leo shrugged without looking up.

Hazel huffed at him to be nice, but Leo really wasn't paying attention, his skin was tingling in a telltale way that he knew better than to let himself pay attention to. If he scratched, he'd burst into flames. Not here. Not yet.

His cabinmates filed out of the forge. Soon Leo was alone with the sounds of the bellows, the waterwheels, and small machines clicking and whirring.

He stared at the map of camp—the locations where his newfound siblings were going to put traps to catch a dragon. It was wrong. Plain wrong.

Very rare, he thought. And always dangerous.

He held out his hand and studied his fingers. They were long and thin, not callused like the other Hephaestus campers'.

Leo had never been the biggest or the strongest kid. He'd survived in tough neighborhoods, tough schools, tough foster homes by using his wits. He was the class clown, the court jester, because he'd learned early that if you cracked jokes and pretended you weren't scared, you usually didn't get beat up. Even the baddest gangster kids would tolerate you, keep you around for laughs. Plus, humor was a good way to hide the pain. And if that didn't work, there was always Plan B. Run away. Over and over.

"Humor is the worst defense mechanism, anyone can cut through that with sarcasm," Thalia smirked.

"I think the more important lesson there was that if we eradicate bullying we could finally put a cork in Percy and Leo," Nico rolled his eyes.

"Exhibit A," Thalia chuckled.

Leo blinked and found himself looking at Percy wondering if they were all nuts. Where were the tears and sobs and hugging him like a poor little infant some crazy councilors had tried? Where was the cold indifference of the court appointed counselors telling him to try harder at being normal?

Percy shrugged. This was just their normal. It felt good.

There was a Plan C, but he'd promised himself never to use it again.

He felt an urge to try it now—something he hadn't done since the accident, since his mom's death.

He extended his fingers and felt them tingle, like they were waking up—pins and needles. Then flames flickered to life, curls of red-hot fire dancing across his palm.

"I knew it," Annabeth said in triumph, staring at him across the flames.

Leo crumpled up his plans, designs, and maps for Festus, his upgrades and new chip and laser eye mode, and tossed it all into the large cookie glass jar of fire.

The flames roared with pleasure, shooting up to the ceiling and sending sparks in all directions and raining them back down in all colors of the rainbow. He still expected the screaming, the fear and running.

He was pleasantly surprised at Hazel squeaking in surprise while the others just kind of, looked at him like he'd belched too loud.

A large chunk had landed right on his hand, the paper curling up with a doodle for a hatchet crossed with a snorkel device. He gave it a puff of breath that knocked it back into the fire.