XXIII LEO

In the snowy Detroit yard, Leo surveys Festus’s crash into a row of Porta-Potties. Though the dragon’s body is intact, Leo opens the head panel and finds the wiring flash-frozen and the crucial control disk charred, damage that shouldn’t occur inside such heat. He begins meticulous cleaning and repair attempts, using his tool belt’s supplies.

As Leo works, he broods over being sidelined at Boreas’s palace, his fear of his fire powers fulfilling the prophecy, and his isolation beside Jason and Piper’s growing closeness. He forces himself to focus on fixing Festus to keep their mission alive.

Then the ground liquefies into the giant face of a sleeping woman—Gaea. She speaks into Leo’s bones, asserting he is the most important of the seven, like Festus’s control disk, and that without him the others cannot stop her awakening. Gaea claims to be his “First Mother,” tempts him to let Porphyrion rise, and promises to ease his burdens.

Leo rejects her, hurling a toilet seat through the dissolving face. Immediately, a violent crash erupts from the warehouse, and Leo realizes Jason and Piper are in danger. Defying Gaea’s command to walk away, he arms himself with a heavy hammer from his belt and sprints toward the factory to help.