Apollo Gets Wrecked: A Trials of Apollo fanfic

2

Fainting really sucks
Jason Grace, I feel you, bro
...Why's my face on fire?

I CAN TELL YOU that, as a former immortal, it was incredibly frustrating when you just blacked out for no reason. I felt a twinge of guilt for every time I had done this to an unsuspecting demigod. Even though those were mostly for delivering prophecies and sending dream messages, it still felt like a lead weight on my consciousness. Well, except for that one time I "helped" Nico pass out in Will's arms right before Father sent me to gods-know-where. I didn't feel bad about that at all, and I suspect Hades agreed with me.

    But I'm getting off track again. I was floating in darkness, pondering what life choices had led me to this fate, when I was suddenly awoken by a blast of fire to the face.

    Some of you are probably thinking: "Oh, brave Apollo, however did you get yourself out of this situation?" To be totally honest with you, I was more worried about my surroundings than my face, since the Waystation was partly made out of wood, so I just kind of stood there screaming my head off until someone doused my face with water. I blinked the water out of my eyes as I looked around to find the source of the fire. Unfortunately for me, before I could find it I was suddenly attacked by a flaming figure.

    I screamed like a little girl and starting smacking the thing with my hands to put out the blaze. The thing moved again and grabbed my hands. That was when I finally realized that the fiery man-creature was none other than Leo Valdez. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands twitched a little too much for my liking, but he was still Leo.

    He grabbed my hands and flung curses too terrible to print at me like a Norwegian sailor. (Trust me, I would know. I've met a couple before.) Then his hands flew around my neck and started to squeeze while flames lapped at the base of my neck.

    Dimly, I heard someone screaming my name in the background as I gasped for air like a fish for water. Valdez continued his rant, switching from Spanish to English every other sentence. From what little I could make out, he was mad at me for something (no, really), something about hurting his friend...?

    Just when I thought I was going to die, Leo was suddenly knocked off my chest by a tree branch. I struggled to my feet and looked around. I quickly spotted Meg in the corner and ran - well, more like hobbled - to her side, savoring the feeling of fresh oxygen in my lungs.

    From where he was pinned to the wall, Leo glared at me like I'd just shot his dog. Confused, I looked to my companion Meg McCaffery, who stared back with a equally bewildered expression. I cleared my throat, which was almost too loud in the midst of the sudden deafening silence. "So... what just happened...?"

    She shrugged, glancing back and forth between Leo and I apprehensively. "I just heard the screaming and came running. Don't you know?"

    I tried to think back, but my memories were like radio static. The last thing that I could remember with detail was the sudden fade-to-black moment I had experienced in the hallway. Leo took a shaky breath and pushed the branch away, his fire gone except for several small patches in his hair. The white part of his eyes had more or less returned to their opalescent coloring, and his hands were shaking a little less now. "I do. I left the workshop for two freaking minutes to get a taco, and when I came back I found Apollo standing over Festus' remains!"

    I gave him a quizzical look, then finally realized that I was no longer in the same area that I had been in before. I was currently standing in the workshop that Calypso and I had passed by a minute ago, with the former nowhere to be seen. I glanced around the room in confusion and my eyes landed on the metal dragon next to us.

    My first thoughts upon seeing the state Festus was in were, He looks like Agamethus. The metal automaton's head was smoking and lay several feet away from its large metallic body, with wires of all colors and sizes fanning out from where the neck should have been. On first glance, the body looked okay, but a closer look revealed that several pieces of the dragon's exterior had been ripped off, exposing the gears and metal pieces within. A large pole like the one Leo had described earlier lay in the center of the room, but it had several large dents in it and was covered with what looked like oil, rust, and a trace amount of blood.

    I stared, openmouthed. Considering the level of work Leo had put into fixing the dragon, this seemed incredibly cruel. "Holy Zeus... who in the world could have done such a thing...?"

    Leo's scowl deepened, and several small tufts of fire winked into existence in the curly mess of his hair. "Oh, I don't know. Probably someone who has enough god-like strength to pull a dragon's head right off of its body."

    I turned around with my hands up in a placating gesture, eyes wide with fear. "I... I can assure you, I would never do something like this!"

    Meg fiddled with her rings absentmindedly as Leo stalked over to Festus's head. "But if that's the case, then who did this?"

    An idea popped into my head. I wasn't sure where it came from, but it sounded good. "We can ask everybody what they were doing a couple minutes ago, and ask them for proof. If they don't have proof, then they're the culprit."
    Leo nodded his head in agreement, but stopped suddenly and peered closer at the exposed wires coming out of Festus' head. His expression softened a little. "Hold on a second... These wires weren't pulled apart. They were cut."

    Meg raised an eyebrow and walked over to where he was kneeling. "What do you mean? Is that a power of Hephaestus? Can you sense it or something?"

    A smile grew on the fiery demigod's face. "Man, I wish, but no. See how the metal bit is the same length as the tube part? If the head had been pulled off, then the wire part would be longer... but it's not. Someone must have cut the wires first and then pulled off the head. But the only thing that could cut through that would be..." He faltered.

    I tapped my foot on the floor impatiently. "And that would be... what?"

    His eyebrows furrowed and his eyes narrowed in thought. "The one thing that could do that in one clean slice would be something similar to enchanted Imperial gold, but nobody here has anything made of that kind of material."

    Meg started to ask a question (probably about how Leo knew that), but was cut off by someone from the other side of the room. "Hey, what's happening in here?"

    The three of us turned to find Lityerses standing in the doorway, his sword gleaming by his side. For some reason, my eyes were drawn to his sword. It appeared to be golden, like the other things his father had touched, but it had a glow to it that seemed different from normal gold. I glanced at Leo, who seemed to have come to the same conclusion as a look of pure hatred washed over his features. He raised a hand and pointed at the son of Midas. "You... you did this. You killed Festus."

    Liryerses raised his hands in a placating gesture, but before he could say anything, Leo attacked.