#(and relief too as Greasy knew he was the main suspect of why their daughter was saying the T word)

[marinerainbow]

Based on this video, because this absolutely would happen in the Griny household while Jewel was young.

Jewel: Mami, can I pet the titties?

Shiny: *chokes on coffee* WhAt?

Jewel: Can I pet the titties?

Shiny: The... What titties?

Jewel: *points to the front porch, where some of the neighborhood cats have gathered* Them! Can I pet them?

Shiny: Oh, the kitties! Yeah, sure, honey. Don't forget to give them treats... We're not gonna need the talk today.

[jflashandclash]

Attrition of Peace

Two: Leo

Movie Night is on Me

 When Leo realized he had no memories of the last month, he wasn’t surprised. As heroes go, losing a few months of memory seemed comparable to losing one pencil in a backpack. Judging off of when his friends, Jason and Percy, forgot their entire lives, Leo thought it might be more of a coming-of-age thing for heroes. Ah, you’ve turned 16? Better wipe away every awkward experience until this point so you’re completely unprepared to handle the future.

By the time Leo finished skimming through 72 hours of video surveillance, he felt like all his internal circuits were fried. He’d hunkered down in the Leo and Calypso Garage shack with chips and a packet of energy drinks, determined to figure out what had happened.

First, he and Calypso had to figure out how much time had lapsed. It had been happening to Leo more and more recently, though Calypso said that was because of the whole death and zombie experience and their recent detachment from society. This time though, Calypso also couldn’t remember what day it was, or why a group of rowdy centaurs and nature spirits graffitied Red Velvet Cheesecake and The Anti-Corruption Act all over their shed. Even when he couldn’t remember, Calypso’s memory was usually in mint condition.

               After he and Calypso woke up to their little work camp looking like it had been invaded by Dionysus’s crazed fan club—and Leo knew exactly how they liked to party—Calypso realized someone had worked some magic on them. Leo was a little alarmed at how well she could identify forgetful magic, but he figured that was just a sorceress thing.

Leo fiddled with a few pieces of metal. He’d absently crafted three or four miniature Buford tables while wading through all the footage.

Nothing special. Some Cyclops raided their trash again. Leo really needed to Cyclops proof the trash with a tiny robot that said No, Bad Cyclopes, to guilt them into good behavior. A few rowdy centaurs stole one of their umbrellas and replaced it with the rotor blade and mast of a helicopter. That explained where that came from.

Leo’s ADHD drifted his attention away from the screen. He almost overlooked the guy in Calypso’s fireproof mesh suit trying to strangle him.

He sat up. “Hey Sunshine!” he called. “I found the Saturday morning cartoons!”

Calypso came into the tiny shack with a basket of fresh laundry. She sang softly and wore jeans and a T-shirt. Since they left the island, she’d permanently ditched the shiny goddess look, but Leo thought she’d never looked hotter in her work clothes. Her caramel hair was in a practical braid that made him crazy.

Leo reached to help her fold, but winced when she smacked his hand away. “Ow—Sunshine—you’ve got to stop punishing me for trying to help with house chores,” he complained and shook out his hand.

“Your hands are greasy,” she said, her almond eyes narrowing at his fingers.

Leo hadn’t noticed how messy his fingers became while making the mini Bufords. He missed the full-size Buford.

Leo sighed and watched her fold. He suspected she enjoyed something about laundry, probably the therapeutic simplicity of it. This was one action that hadn’t changed since she left Ogygia, though she must have fought with invisible servants to do the chore before. As much as he knew she was happy to be off the island, for every minute she took to enjoy her freedom, she seemed to need a minute in the garden or by the loom so she didn’t get overwhelmed.

He’d offered to build her a clothes dryer, or to have Festus start a fire-drying service, but that usually only earned him a scowl.

There was more to it this time though. Normally, she’d give him a playful flick or something.

Something about going through these videos had left her on edge.  

He had a suspicion, but he wasn’t ready to admit it to himself, let alone to her.

Leo skipped backwards in the video. Although the surveillance camera in the front and back of the shack didn’t capture transition scenes, he could hear and see enough. This group of seven demigods bargained for Leo’s location with his father, Hephaestus. Once they found him, some tall, buff guy of mixed ethnicity named Axel traded Felix’s missing control board to have Leo rebuild a sword.

Felix—a smaller, silver version of Festus designed to find, protect, and reunite Calypso with him if they were ever parted. He was hoping that might alleviate some of her mild… separation anxiety. Leo vaguely remembered Felix disappearing one night. From the video, he gathered Felix went to find Calypso… just the wrong Calypso. Instead, it ended up outside Camp Half-Blood, after Kalypso, a daughter of Apollo that the dragon promptly tried to eat. Who would have thought destroy and protect would be so close when coding a mechanical dragon.

Although Leo felt pretty bad, once he found out everyone was okay, he was glad random strangers got to test out his new dragon, instead of almost having his girlfriend get charcoaled. Maybe he had a little more to learn before he could replicate Festus’s control disk.

When Leo pressed play, Calypso frowned at the screen. They were still at the part where the silver-suited guy strangled him. He could almost envision Percy shouting, “Look out, Leo! You’re about to be attacked by the Tin Man!”

“It’s okay,” Leo assured Calypso. “He didn’t strangle me too much.”

“It’s not that,” she said and waved his personal wellbeing away. “You recrafted Kronos’s blade.”

Leo glanced at her. No matter how long he was in the field of Greek mythology, he could never keep all the names straight. “That’s the dude from God of War right? Is he a big baddie?”

Calypso didn’t seem to hear him. Her frown deepened. “We need to find the people who have that sword.”

Leo tried not to gawk. That would mean hunting down other demigods. Calypso hadn’t been comfortable interacting with other demigods yet. He didn’t remember having a direct conversation with her about seeing his friends, but he had a distinct feeling that she hadn’t wanted to.

Having her say she wanted to talk to some demigods—even if it was a couple of jerks who crashed their shack—made him giddy. Maybe they could go to Camp Half-Blood next and get attacked by everyone for being M. I. A. for so long.

��Um—yea,” he said, half a moment too slow. Smooth, he thought. He probably should have cared more about this whole Kronos-sword thing, but he was mostly excited about the thought of seeing his friends. And beating up the guy who tried to choke him. That would be some nice stress relief.

He grinned, reaching for Felix’s silver control disk. It was on his desk, beside an empty packet of chips. While tracing his fingers along the metal, he said, “If that Kalypso girl is with them—what did they call her? Kally? If she’s with them, I think we’ll be able to find that group in no time. Just leave it to the Leoman.”

Calypso rolled her eyes. Then she glared. “Leo, The God of War is Ares, not Kronos.”

Leo laughed that it took her so long to catch the prior reference. “Sunshine, it’s the name of a game. We can play it sometime after we’re done catching the Tin Man Strangler.”[1]

With that, Leo snatched up some tools and went to find something that could fit Felix’s control disk. Although he couldn’t place why, he was sure finding this group of jerks would result in crossing paths with his friends from Camp Half-Blood and New Rome.

He just hoped this Kronos sword thing wasn’t that big a deal. He’d fought the Giants before. What could a group of demigods pull out that he hadn’t seen before? 

  [1] I know, the main character’s name is Kratos. I just can’t resist the look on Leo’s face when he remembers that is NOT a game you want to play with a jealous girlfriend around.  Nor with someone who knows anything accurate about Greek mythology.

Thanks for reading the second chapter of AOP! I hope you enjoyed! :D  Watch out next weekend for Reyna's chapter: Who Ordered the Trojan Mario?