Leo Valdez

Backstory

WARNING: YOU MAY DIE OF HOTNESS!

Very hot.  Brunnette hair, brown eyes, hot in general

Age: 14

Birthday: 11th of March

Zodiac Sign: Picses 

Likes: Me, Harry Potter, PJO/ HOO, books, socks, school, doing stuff, friends, music (not all), conan gray, can't really name everything

Dislikes: Siblings (they don't deserve me tbh), people not liking me (never happens), homework, tests (yo i used to like those!), stress, a lot of food (sea food, rice, etc. -list is very long)

Related to major people like MYSELF and Percy Jackson and Harry Potter (my family tree is way too complicated...)

Sucks at: Drawing, Swimming (very minor things, still hottest person in the world!!

Backstory

!Warning!

This is super long but my life is pretty interesting 

(this is only before HOO)

Leonidas (ngl i didn't know that was my actual name?!!) "Leo" Valdez is a Greek demigod, the son of Hephaestus and Esperanza Valdez. He is one of the seven heroes of the Prophecy of Seven. After sacrificing himself and then resurrecting using the physician's cure, he rescued Calypso out of Ogygia. He is currently living with Josephine and Himethia, going to high school with Calypso. 

Leo was born in Houston, Texas to the mechanic Esperanza Valdez, and the blacksmith god Hephaestus. Unlike most of his half-siblings, Leo can control fire. He was the first child of Hephaestus to control fire born in centuries.

When Leo was just a baby, his mother took him to see his bisabuelo (great grandfather), Sammy Valdez. Sammy was overjoyed to see him and held him, chuckling and tickling his chin. Sammy told him about Hazel, and said he would not live to see her again. He told his great-grandson that a woman named Doña Callida had warned Hazel's danger would not happen in his lifetime, but he'd promised he would be there for her. He then told Leo to tell Hazel that he was sorry, and told him to help her. He told him to apologize for selling the diamond and that the diamond came with a curse: she never saw her again. He gave Leo his blessing and said he was special, just like Hazel.

Tía Callida (actually Hera the goddess in disguise) decided to lay Leo down for a nap, and said she wanted to see if he was her brave little hero (ofc he was and is). She nestled him in blankets and laid him in what Leo thought were red and yellow pillows, but was actually a fireplace. He remembered sleeping comfortably, grabbing sparks. He dreamed of being on a boat made of fire, and Tía sang him lullabies as he slept, in Greek. He didn't know what the language was at the time. When Esperanza came home, she was furious, went to take Leo from the flames, and yelled, "How could you?", but Tía disappeared.

Tía continued to show up at his house, and when he was three, she let him play with knives, saying that he needed to learn his blades someday if he wanted to be her hero someday. When he was four, she found him a rattlesnake from a cow pasture, gave him a stick, and told him to poke it to show that he was brave, and the Fates were right to choose him. He didn't poke the snake, and it disappeared into the grass.

The last time she watched him was when he was five, she brought him paper and crayons, and sat on a picnic table under a pecan tree while Leo drew. As she sang songs, Leo drew a design of the Argo ll. When he was about to sign his name, it flew away. Tía told him that it wasn't time yet to be a hero, and he will find his destiny, but first he had to face many sorrows. She then told him to make a fire to warm her old bones. A few minutes later, Esperanza came out and shrieked when she saw him sitting in the middle of a fire, with his hands burning the picnic table, and the crayons melted into goo. The fire left his handprints in the table, leaving the people in his apartment to wonder for years how he did it. After the visit, Esperanza had a talk with him and said she couldn't come back again, and he wasn't ready to be a hero. She told him to never use fire again until he met his father, and when he did, he would explain everything.

He and his mom were very close. She taught him Morse code, and they would communicate using it, tapping messages on the walls. Esperanza would switch between English and Spanish when she talked to him, and made him bilingual. It took years for him to realize not everyone spoke that way. His mom worked at her machine shop since no one would hire her, providing for the both of them. By the time Leo was eight, he spent every spare minute at the shop, and could do math better than most adults, solving mechanical problems in his head. They would also have special Friday night dinners of shrimp and catfish from a local seafood restaurant in Houston.

Leo had a cousin who bullied him, named Raphael, and a mean third grade teacher named Mr. Borquin. During Día de los Muertos, his Aunt Rosa took it seriously and dragged him to the local cemetery in Houston, where they would clean their relatives graves and leave offerings of lemonade, cookies, and marigolds. Rosa would force him to stay for the picnic, as if eating with dead people would fix his appetite.

In the blood of olympus, Leo recalled how he used to play with plastic organ models as a kid. He once got in trouble after turning a cross-section kidney and some skeleton legs into a kidney monster, and scared the school nurse. In kindergarten, he was taught how to sign his name.

One night, when Leo was eight, Esperanza and Leo were working late at night. Esperanza was making a prototype, and if it succeeded, she would finally get a break. While they worked, Esperanza made corny jokes and said his father would be proud of him. After they were done, as they were walking through the break room, Esperanza realized that she left her keys in the warehouse and thought she had them, and smiled at Leo for the last time. A few seconds later, the door closed and locked. Leo ran to the door and yelled her name, and tried to open the door, then tapped with Morse code, "You okay?". But then a voice appeared, and said she couldn't hear him. A lady appeared, who turned out to be Gaea (though Leo was unaware at the time). She was asleep with a black robe, a veil, with clothes made of earth.

Leo thought she was Tía Callida, but she said she wasn't, just a family resemblance. He asked where his mom was, and she said that he will fight her children someday, and that when they will try to wake her, Leo will try to prevent it, which Gaea doesn't want. Leo said he didn't want to fight anybody, and Gaea said that she cannot destroy him yet, because the Fates won't allow it. But Gaea said that they didn't protect Esperanza, and that they cannot stop her from breaking his spirit. She told him to remember this night, when they ask him to oppose her. Leo became angry and told her to leave his mother alone, and she asked how he will stop her. His hands caught fire and she smiled, knowing she had won. Leo fell into a rage and trying to save his mother and himself and tried to kill Gaea, but the fire killed his mother and burned her alive.

Leo woke up in an ambulance, and the paramedic was kind to him, saying that the warehouse had burned down and his mom hadn't made it out. Leo felt hollow, and realized he had lost control like his mom had warned him about. He thought her death was his fault. The police were not nice to him and said the fire started where Leo was standing, and he miraculously survived, but his mom didn't make it. The police wondered what kind of child would've started a fire. His neighbors in the apartment complex gossiped about him, saying they always knew something was wrong with him.

His Aunt Rosa turned his entire family against him and called him "El Diablo" (meaning "the devil"), and shouted at social workers to take him away. Leo never forgave Rosa for that, and kept a grudge against her for the rest of his life. Rosa would forever be the person Leo hated most. His relatives wouldn't take him in, so he was sent to foster care. His first foster home only lasted for a few days, and he ran away a few days later.

He would be at five more foster homes after that. Some foster homes would last longer than others and he would make friends, joking around, and pretended that nothing bothered him, but he always ran away sooner or later. At the foster homes he was at, he was frozen out and ignored, and treated him like they didn't need him. He even had an abusive foster mom, Teresa. From being in foster care, and in rough schools, he learned to tell when fights were going to get ugly. He would have nightmares and hug his pillow, which was embarrassing in the foster homes. Due to Leo growing up without a mom, he never had someone to tell him how to treat women and to not call them "mamacita".

Leo was bullied when he was younger by popular girls, who would make fun of him, gossiped a lot, and did everything to make his life miserable. He would tease bullies and mess with them to save himself.

Whenever Leo was between foster homes, he would sleep under the Houston bridge for around a month.

After Leo ran away for the sixth time, when he was fifteen, he was caught by a truant officer in New Mexico. He was taken to court and sentenced to go to the Wilderness School in Nevada, a correctional facility for delinquents, where he would stay for almost half a year. While Leo was there, he was protected by Coach Hedge and became best friends with Piper McLean, who they shared secrets to: Leo knowing how Piper's dad was a celebrity and how she stole a BMW, and Piper knowing how Leo ran away six times. Leo hated being at the Wilderness school, likening it to a prison, and would have to run ten miles a day and be pushed to his limits. It also forced Leo to go on several forced marches. However, he liked to mess with Coach Hedge.

Leo was given fake Mist memories of Jason Grace being there for four months before he left, and Leo and Jason became best friends. They would joke about Piper, and Jason would be fine with Leo's annoying jokes. In the mist memories, Piper and Jason started dating. Even though Leo was happy for them, he felt like the third wheel and that they did not need him anymore.

And then The lost Hero happens and stuff, and Leo was a vital part of the prophecy of 7, without him all the world would've died, and he was awesome and stuff.

(That was EXTREMELY long!! so if u stuck around to read it u must be obssessed w me!! (who isn't tho?))