in between ❪ leo valdez ❫

I. AQUILA

I. AQUILA
❪ GREEK WARSHIPS
AND JUDO-FLIPPING
GIRLFRIENDS ❫

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AQUILA STOOD WITH HAZEL, PERCY AND FRANK AS THE GREEK WARSHIP DESCENDED OVER THE CAMP. She recalled an hour or so earlier, when they had received the holographic scroll from Percy's camp.

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The scroll was spread out over Percy's lap, and Aquila moved a little more to the front of Frank to get a better view of the scroll that Tyson claimed was from a "funny and small" boy named Leo. A video recording flickered on the parchment, a boy - Leo, she presumed, who reminded her an awful lot of the boy in Hazel's photograph - in Greek armour grinned up at them. He had a rather cute, impish face, curly black hair and wild, hyperactive eyes. He was sat in a dark room with timber walls like a ship's cabin. Oil lamps swung back and forth on the ceiling.

She nearly jumped out of her skin as Hazel stifled a scream, glancing over at her friend, concerned.

"What?" Frank asked, "What's wrong?"

Aquila figured it was the startling resemblance to Hazel's childhood sweetheart from the black and white photograph from her abandoned childhood home in Seward. The kid in the parchment looked exactly like Hazel's old boyfriend.

"Hey!" Once again, Aquila jumped, too distracted by her thoughts to register the scrawny young boy on the scroll had begun to talk, " Greetings from your friends at Camp Half-Blood, et cetera. This is Leo. I'm the..." He looked off screen and yelled: "What's my title? Am I like, admiral, or captain, or -"

A girl's voice yelled back, "Repair boy!"

"Very funny, Piper," grumbled Leo. He turned back to the parchment screen. "So yeah, I'm... ah... supreme commander of the Argo II . Yeah, I like that! Anyway, we're gonna be sailing towards you in about, 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 could tell the other Romans that. See you soon. Yours in demogodishness, and all that. Peace out."

Aquila couldn't help but roll her eyes with a snort, turning to her friend, noting the ashen look on her golden-eyed friend's face. Hazel looked like she'd seen a ghost, and Aquila couldn't blame her. The resemblance between her ex-boyfriend and the boy in the parchment was uncanny.

"It's Sammy Valdez, " she said. "But how... how-"

"It can't be," Percy said. "That guy's name is Leo. And it's been seventy-something years. It has to be a..."

Aquila rested a gentle hand on her friends shoulder, "He must be a descendant of Sammy, Hazel. It's not-"

They were interrupted by horns blowing in the distance. The senators came marching into the forum with Reyna at the lead.

"It's meeting time," sighed Percy. "Come on. We've got to warn them about the warship."