Heroes of Olympus: The Mark of Athena

This is the first fan fiction piece that I have ever written. So, don’t get mad if I get some of the facts wrong about Riordan’s Greek and Roman characters. I do not own the Heroes of Olympus series or the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. All characters belong to Rick Riordan! (The first two chapters will be an overview on the Lost Hero and the Son of Neptune.)

Jason

            After the Argo II was finished building, Jason had no idea of what to think. He would finally be going home, his home in Camp Jupiter. The Argo II was simply awesome. Still, he had to give credit to the Hephaestus and Athena cabin on constructing the Argo II, especially Leo. He had been working on that thing for about a full year. He had added separate rooms to a section of the Argo II. His room had lightning bolts engraved in the walls and a deck, so that he could see the sky. On the Argo II, there was even a separate television room, which seemed a bit odd.  Leo had created it for the demigods to relax. However, as Leo kept getting the ship ready, Jason began to worry about him.

Could you blame him?!  He wondered to himself after the ship was in the air. He lost the best thing he had ever fixed, the bronze dragon, Festus. Festus was now the masthead of the Argo II, just laying on one of the worktables in Bunker 9, when they had come back to Camp Half-Blood... He had attached it on the Argo II with sad, but thankful eyes. Also, he tended to have a lot of dreams lately (which wasn’t unusual for demigods), usually with Gaea messing with his mind. He often found him crying and occasionally screaming, telling Gaea to get lost. If he was Leo, he would have lined up a thousand drill hammers on the earth, telling her, Get a life! Get a clue! Leave us demigods alone, stupid earth mother!  Leo looked tired with black circles around his eyes, making him look like one of those ring-tailed lemurs you would find at zoos, and he slept during breaks a lot. He missed the old Leo with his bad jokes and cheerfulness.

Piper, on the other hand, was the one who kept the cabins at bay. She had been practicing all throughout the building of the Argo II on what she was going to say to the Romans; he had often found her talking with Annabeth, on what she was going to say. He had overheard her practicing this:  “Fellow Romans! We come in peace with your camp-”  He loved the way her chocolate brown braids fell over her shoulders. Her eyes flashed from beautiful blue to stunning green to dark brown like a kaleidoscope. Oh gods, she is beautiful. He had mumbled to himself, thankful that she still didn’t have the Aphrodite blessing anymore... 

Throughout the way to Camp Jupiter, he had felt sick not because of air sickness, but homesickness. He remembered Hazel, the girl with curly black hair who he met a month before Juno dropped him at Camp Half-Blood, Nico di Angelo, Pluto’s kid with the skull ring, and a girl with piercing dark eyes and glossy black hair worn in a single braid… That was odd. What was her name? He couldn’t remember…  He overheard Piper and Annabeth’s conversation, interrupting his thoughts, “Are you nervous of meeting Percy again?” “Yeah, but I wonder if Percy remembers who I am.” “Don’t worry; you had a dream about him, didn’t you?” “You had a dream about him near a forest of some sort. “It was somewhere in Canada…”

Percy Jackson. He wondered if they would be friends or enemies. What would the Romans think of me being praetor, knowing that the Greeks are my allies? He pondered this question for a bit in his room. He also wondered of how everything at Camp Half-Blood looked exactly like home at Camp Jupiter. It has to be a coincidence. Piper then barged into his room, startling him, saying, “Hey, Leo’s making some sort of video to send to the Romans. You know, so they don’t attack or something. He’s in the engine room...” Outside of the engine room of the Argo II, Jason could hear Leo’s voice projecting; he took a small peek at what Leo was doing while holding hands with Piper, his hand in hers. Jason pleaded to Jupiter to not see him blushing, next to Piper. Leo was talking in a holographic scroll he had personally invented. Annabeth previously thought of sending the Romans an Iris-message to them instead, but she had forgotten that the Iris-message didn’t project sound. The scroll itself was bronze-colored. Leo had created another holographic scroll for Percy Jackson during the flight, but a weird red-plumaged harpy had snatched it out of his blistering hands. Annabeth mumbled a quick and silent prayer to Iris asking, “Oh, please let Percy get the message that we’re coming…”

Leo said clearly,” I’m Leo. I’m the-” He paused for a second asking, “What’s my title? Am I like admiral, captain, or-” Piper yelled out, “Repair boy!” Jason snickered at this remark. Leo seemed more like his old self as he was talking in the scroll. He grumbled back. “Very funny, Piper… So yeah, I’m…ah…the supreme commander of the Argo II. Yeah! I like that! Anyway, we’re gonna be sailing towards in you in, I dunno, an hour in this big mother warship. We’d appreciate it if you’d not, like, blow us out of the sky or anything. So okay! If you can tell the Romans that? See you soon! Yours in demigodishness, and all that. Peace out!”

“Demigodishness?” Jason snorted as Leo rolled up the holographic scroll. “Shut up,” Leo said jokingly. “If you were trying to stop a bunch of Romans from blowing us out of the sky, what would you say?!” “Well, certainly, I wouldn’t use the term ‘demigodishness’ to the Romans,” Piper chimed in. Everyone laughed, even Annabeth who didn’t laugh very much, ever since Percy Jackson was gone. However, Leo was not laughing: Annabeth had noticed that he was not himself, making bad jokes and was full of energy. He must be exhausted, building this ship and all the things that had happened to him… Annabeth figured. She decided to    They were interrupted by a goat’s noise and a tremendous belch. “Hey, cupcakes, what’s the racket?!”

Everyone looked near the engine room and saw a beefy satyr wearing Nikes and a Camp Half-Blood shirt. Coach Hedge. He was completely covered with engine grease and smelled like mushrooms and Gatorade. Despite his dirty hands, he was munching on potato chips, grease and all.  Coach Hedge leaped near Jason, Piper, and Leo, and placed his arms around them.  “How did you get on the Argo II, Coach?” Jason asked in bewilderment. He glanced at Piper and Leo; apparently they were just as bewildered to see Coach Hedge on the Argo II. Hedge answered him, “I was looking for something for munch on, when suddenly, I got an Iris-message from someone… She asked me to see that you cupcakes don’t screw up on talking with the Romans on this peace-thing and told me to board this giant ship...” By the way Hedge was talking; Piper was the first one who “she” was: Mellie, the aura that saved them from Aeolus’s palace a few months ago.