AN: OK folks, this is a Leo centric time travel story, in which Leo goes back in time to prevent Gaia wining, but as I like some of the characters who die in the first series of books, he's going to be changing them to. For all those who are reading my other fanfic The Other Half-bloods, don't worry it's not been abandoned, it will just be updated slower. This can be seen of a continuation of Under an Earthen Sky, but you don't have to read that one to understand this one.

Disclaimer: I do not own Leo, or anything else you recognize, I wish I owned Leo, but unfortunately that right goes to Mr Riodan, who I thank profoundly for letting us play with his characters. I do claim full fangirl rights on Leo though.

Change through Flame

Prologue:

Leo regained awareness in a dark place. This utterly surprised him, as he was fairly certain he was dead, in fact the last thing he could remember was an axe splitting his skull, and a searing, though brief, jolt of pain. He also knew that wherever he was, it wasn't the underworld, as he had seen it destroyed with his own eyes. This brought him back to where he could possibly be...

"Leo Valdez, your fate was spun eons ago, I marked it out myself. But fate as I wrote it was ignored."

Ah, so there was someone there, and if they were talking about fate as if they wrote it, then they were obviously someone important, meaning Leo better bow, or face unpleasant consequences. Leo had learned the hard way that not bowing to deities ended you in hot water, a lot of hot water. Leo made to stand, in the process realizing that he had a body, and by Hades it hurt! Leo let out a pained groan, it felt like someone had taken every muscle in his body, stretched them twice as far as they should go, tied a few knots in them and added knife slashes for good measure. He promptly got reacquainted with the floor.

"Um, I would bow your fate writingness, but my body has decided that the floor needs a long hug." Just as he had said this, a warm breeze enveloped him, relaxing his muscles, and healing his injuries, a breeze that emitted from the being before him.

"Leo Valdez, you have been chosen to go back and fix the wars, many who should have lived did not, and many who should have died live still, the world as you knew it has now come to an end, and Gaia is fully awakened, she will continue to destroy all life, until she is the only being in the world. This was not my plan. Those who I had entrusted to uphold the fates I wrote has betrayed me, and they will be punished most severely. You however Leo Valdez, have the courage and the ability to fix these problems. Will you?

"You're offering me a choice? No offence sir, but that doesn't seem like the way most deities work."

"I am not most deities." The voice boomed. "I am the oldest, the most powerful, I am Chaos itself. Do not presume to compare me to those whom I created demi-god."

"Right, no comparing got ya." Hades, thought Leo, looking round at the whirlwind that had suddenly ripped through the stereotypical white throne room. If this is Chaos when he's irritated, I do not want to see him angry. Leo turned back to the glowing being in the throne; he still couldn't work out anything but a vague outline of a humanoid figure, the brightness that Chaos was emitting would have blinded him had he still been in a mortal body.

"I am giving you a choice demigod, because it is my fault that you were in the situation that you were, because I was not watching as well as I should have been. It is the least I can do to try and give you this last choice. You can either do what I am asking of you and save the past that desperately needs saving, or you can leave the past and continue into oblivion."

"Wow, saving the world, or oblivion huh." Leo thought that this would be an easy choice, if he had been asked this a year earlier, it would have been easy, he would never have chosen oblivion then. But now after all the fighting he was so tired, so weary of war, that oblivion now had a new appeal. To not exist, no worries or problems, no fears; no friends, no love, no laughter. Leo shivered; maybe oblivion wasn't such a good choice. He was Leo freaking Valdez, he lived to laugh, a place with no laughter, he was pretty sure he wouldn't like.

He looked back at Chaos, who seemed to be emitting a sort of approval, and asked "Why me, why not Reyna, Conner... Why me?" This was a question that had been bothering him ever since Chaos had told him of the fate changing thing.

"Because Leo Valdez" Chaos spoke in a softer tone "You managed to keep laughing the longest. You may not be the best fighter, or the greatest hero, but you have the strongest spirit, and that Leo is what I needed.

Leo gave a confused laugh, strongest spirit, what the Hades, and then froze. He laughed, he had laughed! He hadn't laughed since the destruction of the underworld, since Gaia had taken Hopes vase, and smashed it into a million pieces. Even that now seemed like a distant memory now, like he had, since being with Chaos, forgotten. Leo started to panic, he didn't want to forget, forgetting would mean losing all that he had left of his friends. He didn't want to lose them; his memories of the good times were all that had been keeping him sane!

"Calm child" the commanding voice broke through Leos' panic attack, and bought him back to reality. "I have not taken your memories away, merely dulled them, if you want to think on them you will be able to, I could not have you thinking of them always, should you choose to accept my offer, for you would be haunted by them all the time, and lose yourself in grief."

Oh, well now Leo felt stupid, but he had been so worried that he would lose what little he had to remember his friends by, that he sort of lost it. He looked to Chaos. "Sir, I would like to accept your offer of changing fate sir, but I'm afraid that I don't really know how to do it, I doubt Kronos will stop by me flaming on in front of him."

"You speak true Leo Valdez, but I will guide you. When you arrive back on earth, you will find yourself beginning at Yancy academy, the school that Percy Jackson attended the year before he discovered he was a demi-god. I will give you instructions on what to do, and when to do it, as well as providing you with anything I feel you need. Live well Leo Valdez, and save as many as possible."

Then Leo was falling into darkness, and shrinking, and generally feeling a great deal of motion sickness, till he reached the bottom of what seemed like a dark tunnel, and blacked out.

There you go folks, prologue done, next chapter will be up Thursday or before.

-NBrokenShacklesN-