Leo Valdez

"Believe me, lady, I remember. And whoever you are, I'm gonna face-plant you hard, Leo-style."

- Leo to Gaea

Leo Valdez is one of the main protagonists in The Heroes of Olympus series and one of the seven heroes of the Prophecy of Seven. He is a son of Hephaestus and Esperanza Valdez. He is currently the counselor of the Hephaestus' Cabin.

History
Leo was born in Houston, Texas to a mechanic named Esperanza Valdez. When he was little, he had a babysitter named Tia Callida, whom later was discovered to be Hera in disguise. She was most likely watching Leo because she knew of his destiny as one of the seven in the prophecy. She tried to "kill" him by putting him in an active fireplace and by letting him play with knives. She also tried to make him poke a rattlesnake, which he refused to do. This was done to help train Leo to be strong at a young age. He once drew a picture of a flying boat with a bronze dragon head as the masthead in crayon at the age of five and just as Leo was going to sign his name on the picture, it was blown away by the wind. Tia convinced him to use his abilities to start a fire to "warm these old bones", and he ended up burning his fingerprints into the table.

At the age of eight, Leo was visited by Gaea, whom intended to break his spirit. Horrified, Leo tried to use his pyrokinetic abilities as defense and to save his mother and himself, but lost control and started a fire, burning the mechanic shop. His mom didn't make it out, and none of his relatives would take him in, thus forcing him to be sent to several foster homes.

The death of his mother haunted Leo for years. The emotional strain caused him to run away from his different foster homes. After running away for the 6th time, Leo was sent to the Wilderness School, where he met Piper, who unbeknownst to him, was a daughter of Aphrodite. When Hera switched Percy and Jason, she manipulated the Mist so Leo would think Jason was his best friend, although they become real friends later on.

Leo's back-story is a very rare one, as he is the only known case of a demigod who met and befriended another demigod (Piper) before either of them ever even knew they were demigods.

The Lost Hero
Leo goes to the Wilderness School with Piper and Jason. He partners up to complete their assignment with Jason on their field trip to Grand Canyon. During the ride there, Jason says he does not remember anything and Leo thinks that he is playing a joke on him. When Coach Hedge yells at them from the front of the bus, Leo says that he can not hear him, prompting Hedge to use his megaphone. When Hedge turns on the megaphone, it sounds like Darth Vader or shouts out phrases like "The cow says moo," something that Leo had done as a prank. He seems to be good friends with them at first and seems to know Piper very well, knowing who her dad is and being able to tell that she likes to fight her own battles when she is picked on by some of the mean girls on the trip. When they are walking across the sky-walk, a storm appears around them and Leo is the one that notices the storm is only in this area and nowhere else. As the storm begins to get really bad, most of the students run away back inside with the exception of Jason, Leo, Piper, Dylan, and Coach Hedge.

Dylan reveals himself to be a ventus, or a storm spirit, and attacks the others with the help of two other venti. Leo is thrown off the sky-walk and slams into one of the canyon walls. While Jason and Piper try to fight Dylan, Hedge takes off his disguise and shows the others that he is a satyr sent to protect Leo and Piper. He jumps over the side and manages to grab Leo, pulling him back up as Jason fights off the venti. Hedge manages to get Leo back onto the sky-walk, where Dylan tries to abduct him. At the last minute, Hedge intervenes and is abducted instead.

Annabeth and Butch then come and bring the three to Camp Half-Blood. While on the way back, Leo makes a few jokes about how Butch is a child of the rainbow goddess, Iris, and is one of the best campers with the pegasus. When Butch threatens to toss him off the flying chariot, Leo back tracks saying that rainbows and ponies are very manly. Once arriving at camp, Leo is immediately claimed by his father, Hephaestus, and goes on a tour of the camp with Will Solace, who brings him to Hephaestus' cabin. It is here that he meets Jake Mason, the current head of the cabin. Jake is in a full body cast after trying to stop the Bronze Dragon that has started going crazy and attacking the camp. He also explains that after Charles Beckendorf's death, the cabin has been under a curse that makes any creation of the cabin turns to junk. When Leo asks if anyone at the cabin can control fire (a power he has), one of the members of Cabin 9, Nyssa, tells him that only a few people in history has ever had that power and it is considered a curse because it normally causes great destruction.

That night, at the campfire, Leo is very quiet until Rachel gives out a quest to Jason. When Jason is about to pick which member will go with him and Nyssa volunteers herself, Leo stands up and claims that it is him that must go on the quest, offering that he also has an idea on the transportation problem. Jason says that if he can get them a way to fly, he can go with them. That night, Leo goes into the woods looking for the bronze dragon and stumbles upon a trap set up by Cabin 9, to capture it. The dragon appears in front of Leo, who is upset that the dragon does not have wings to fly. The dragon blasts him with fire, but Leo is unharmed because of his Pyrokinesis, leaving his clothes and body unharmed. After it falls into the trap, Leo takes the chance to find the control panel and fix some of the wiring inside it's head. After he fixes him up the best he can, the dragon asks Leo to climb on his back and takes him to Bunker 9 where he finds a magic toolbelt and a set of bronze wings for the dragon. He spends most of the night working on the dragon and appears in front of everyone the next morning saying he found Jason and Piper a ride, naming the dragon Festus meaning "happy" in Latin. When asked where he got the wings, he says he found them in the woods but not mentioning the bunker. Jason keeping his promise, chooses Leo as last member of the three campers to go on the Quest to save Hera.

They begin to fly to Quebec, Canada in order to talk to Boreas in order to find out where to find Hera. Festus is not allowed in as he is a fire dragon, so Leo flips a switch and Festus turns into a suitcase (but still weighs the same, that is 60 million tons). When a third child comes down the stairs, Leo falls in love with Khione as soon as he sees her, but she dislikes him because he can summon fire (as Boreas' children can smell fire). He is not allowed to meet with Boreas as ice and fire would not be ideal in this situation. While his friends were gone, he had his clothes cleaned of the oil and dirt gathered on him from fixing Festus. Leo is upset that Jason and Piper made her mad because he was planning on making her his prom date, not knowing that she likes to collect demigods. Jason later explains this to him, which Leo thanks him for.

After they leave, Festus is knocked out of the sky and crashes into an abandoned car factory. Leo runs off to go and find where Festus landed, which turns out to be in a row of porta potties. When he looks inside the dragon's head, it is shown the reason Festus crashed was because the wiring had frozen over, something that shouldn't of happened as it would of been to hot inside his head. While he is fixing the dragon, a face appears in the snow, sludge, and dirt and tells him to walk away from his friends and let him die. He tosses one of the toilet lids at the face and it sinks into the sludge.

When he gets back to the factory, Jason and Piper had been captured by three cyclopes lead by Ma Gasket. Piper sees Leo sneaking around and keeps the monsters talking while he creates a remote to control some heavy lifting machinery. When one of Ma's children leaves, he uses that moment to attack, taking out her son by tossing him through the roof and then crushing the other with a metal claw when he returns. Ma Gasket is also defeated when Leo uses his fire to break a chain, causing an engine to fall on top of her. When he goes to free Piper and the unconscious Jason, the dust of the cyclopes begin to reform. He rushes them back to Festus, hearing them reform inside the factory. Piper thinks that his fire powers are cool, but he still feels like they are a curse because he thinks that it was his fire that caused his mom's death. When he also tells them that children of Hephaestus are only born with fire powers when bad things are about to happen, but Jason cheers him up by suggesting that they are born with those powers because that is when they are needed most.

When they arrive in Chicago, Leo takes a whistle out of his pocket and teaches Festus to come when he is called. After that, the group follows a group of storm spirits into the sewer system where they get some rest while Leo makes some food for the other two. They follow the wind into a shopping mall, which is owned and operated by Medea. She begins to charmspeak the trio, but Piper is able to resist. Leo and Jason begin shopping for new clothes, potions, and soon forget the reason they were there in the first place. Medea soon turns Leo and Jason on each other and tries to force them to kill each other. Piper, trying to get them back to their senses, gets Medea to admit that she can see the future and told her patron about Leo being one of the seven, leading to the death of his mother. This is enough to break the spell over Leo and Jason, but Medea lets loose Sun Dragons to fight them off while she escapes. He calls Festus who is able to fight off the other two dragons and the three fly off with Coach Hedge and the venti while the mall is destroyed thanks to Piper.

As they are flying, Leo falls asleep and has a dream of his father Hephaestus, who is using an old pirate radio broadcaster to speak to Leo without Zeus knowing. At first, Leo is very angry with him for not coming to see him sooner, but softens after seeing that his father acts the same way he does when he is nervous (fiddling with gears and small machines). His father tells him that the gods closed themselves off from their children because of Zeus' orders; partly because he felt that their children should respect them and he felt ashamed that the gods needed the help of mortals, and also because Zeus was worried that their activities on Earth were awakening Gaea. Not long after the dream starts, Zeus picks up on the dream and cuts the connection.

When Leo wakes up, Festus is crashing to the ground and he tells Jason to carry Piper away. Jason is unwilling to leave his friend, but does so anyway while Leo tries to reboot Festus. Once the dragon comes back online, it is already too late and the crash into the yard of a large house. Leo survives from the crash. When he comes to his senses, Festus is destroyed by the house's defense system (lasers) and Leo asks his father to bring his head back to Bunker 9 so he can reuse him. Leo takes it very hard and acts coldly toward Jason and Piper for awhile after this, but returns back to normal after Jason says that Leo gave Festus a purpose again and these past few days were probably the best the dragon had in years.

The house turns out to belong to King Midas and his son Lityerses. At first, all seems to be going well until Midas turns Piper into gold and when he tries to fight him with his fire, he can't (the gold somehow suppressed his powers). He is also turned to a gold statue, but is freed after Jason defeats Lityerses and washes off Leo and Piper in the river, which is freezing cold. Jason uses the storm spirits to fly them away from the house and after setting up camp, Leo makes tofu burgers for Piper and the newly freed Coach Hedge.

Not long after, they are attacked by a pack of wolves lead by Lycaon, the first werewolf. He says that their weapons will not work on him because he can only be hurt with silver, but Leo pulls some gasoline out of his belt and lights some of the wolves on fire, but it isn't enough to hold them back. He is only saved thanks to the timely arrival of the Hunters of Artemis that shoot the wolves with silver arrows. Leo falls in love with Thalia after only seeing her for a second and thinks that she is too hot to be Jason's sister, but doesn't tell him that. When the Hunters set up camp, a few hunters go to take care of Piper and Leo begins to follow them, only for Jason to ask him to stay as he begins talking to his sister. He learns about how he was separated from his sister and about Jason's mother, making him feel bad for Jason.

When Piper becomes fully healed, the group begin to travel to Aeolus' palace, but on the way up Leo asks why a wind spirit would need a bridge, to which Thalia says it is an anchor so that it doesn't fly away. Leo gets an idea from this about what Hera said about Jason being a bridge, and a bridge must connect to something. His mind begins to race so fast that his fire powers heat up his body and the bridge begins to crack. Jason manages to get Leo to the palace, but Thalia is left behind and says she will meet Jason at the wolf house.

After returning the venti and finding the location of Piper's father, Aeolus gives Leo a drawing he had made when he was only a small child and tells him that it is the key to his success. Soon after, he turns on the heroes after a voice tells him to, someone that is above the gods. Mellie helps them in their escape and when he wakes up, they are in a dinner in San Francisco and Leo has a set of new clothes (thanks to Aphrodite, who had visited Piper in her dream). Piper tells them who they are fighting (Gaea) and they should be careful from now on and avoid walking on land. They take a cab to Mount Diablo and begin to climb to the top, but Leo's feet begin to sink into the ground as Gaea is starting to wake up.

As they get closer, Leo makes a small wind up toy but isn't sure what it does, as he wasn't paying attention when he made it. When they reach the summit, Enceladus is waiting for them and summons a bunch of Earthborn to attack them. Leo tosses his toy into one of the construction vehicles and hops into another one, using the machine to destroy several of the monsters while Jason was fighting the giant. Soon, the vehicle is destroyed, but his wind up toy activates the other piece of equipment and it begins destroying more monsters until it too is deactivated. One Earthborn was left, but Leo had no more tricks or weapons. He lit himself on fire (he called this the blaze of glory) and charged, only for a dagger to chop the monster in half thanks to Piper.

Jason (with a lightning bolt from his father for help) defeated Enceladus and saved Piper's dad, flying back to the airport when Piper charmspeaks a pilot. Once they land and everyone is safe, they receive an Iris Message from Thalia that she found Hera at the Wolf House, so they borrow the chopper with Leo as the pilot. He is able to fly the chopper well enough thanks to his mechanical instincts, but sleet began to hammer the helicopter and they crash into the middle of a battlefield. They all retreat to the Wolf House, but Khione arrives and freezes all the Hunters, allowing the wolves and Earthborn to walk into the front door. She tells them that she was the one whispering into the ears of the gods and watching them for Enceladus. She was also the one that froze Festus' wiring, and plans on killing Jason and Piper so that the Roman campers will find their bodies and think that the Greeks have sided with the Giants. She offers Leo a place at her side because he is interesting, but he laughs her off and starts fighting her with his fire. The heat of his attacks begins to melt the ice and snow and many of the monsters run away in fear, including Khione herself as she turns to snow and flies away.

Leo then gets to work freeing Hera with an electric saw which he connected to a ventus named Tempest which was under Jason's command while Piper tries to charmspeak Gaea back to sleep to make the cage easier to break. While they do this, Jason is fighting off the newly awoken Porphyrion. Once the main support of the cage was broken, Hera broke free causing any monsters left in the house to run away or be dissolved by her true form. Porphyrion managed to get away, not wanting to fight when not at his full strength and Hera returns the demigods to camp. The trip causes Leo to throw up in one of the offering fires to the gods.

After telling everyone about their trip, Leo shows Piper, Jason, Chiron, and his cabin members the entrance to Bunker 9 and his fire powers. After searching the bunker, they find weapon ideas and designs, including a large war ship that matches the picture of the flying boat that Leo had drawn when he was a child. His cabin members elect him as Cabin Leader and make plans to make the Argo II and fly to Greece. He later attends the War Council as the leader of his cabin, and wonders why Jason picked Annabeth to sail with them. Jason then explains that if he is here at Greek Camp Half-Blood, Percy must be at the Roman camp, called Camp Jupiter and that the Roman campers aren't as nice.

The Son of Neptune
When Percy is dreaming, he sees Leo working on the Argo II when one of the engines exploded. He claims that it could take two or three days to fix and that the deadline to have the ship completed was today. As well, when Percy, Frank, and Hazel are watching Polybotes from afar Ma Gasket (from The Lost Hero) yells, "The camp, yes. Vengeance! The orange and purple ones destroy my home. Now Ma Gasket will destroy theirs! Do you hear me, Leo? Jason? Piper? I come to annihilate you!"

Later, when visiting Hazel Levesque's house in Alaska, Percy sees a picture of Sammy Valdez and thinks he had seen him somewhere before, but can't remember where. Hazel says he would be much older and Percy must just be imagining things. Percy then remembers his dream figuring out that Leo resembles Sammy almost identically.

Upon returning to Camp Jupiter and the defeat of Polybotes, Leo appears on a video scroll that was sent to Percy through Ella. He told them that he would appreciate it if the Roman demigods didn't shoot them out of the sky when they come to rescue Percy and start their quest. While watching the video, Hazel mistook him for Sammy Valdez and Percy remembers the picture of Sammy when looking at Leo.

Personality
Leo is good-natured, easygoing, upbeat, funny, and loves to tell jokes, even if they aren't funny. Leo is genuinely intelligent and honest, and cares about his friends and family. He sometimes doesn't think before reacting and he enjoys pulling pranks on people, especially those who he doesn't like. Despite all this, Leo is emotionally scarred from the death of his mother and knowing that he caused the fire that killed her. Leo has been shown to have a serious side, which happens when he is angered by someone or when the situation calls for it. He is also seen building small bits of machinery and equipment and is very skilled and serious about his work.

He is also known to frequently fall in love with any beautiful girl as long as she is completely out of his league, such as in the case of Khione and Thalia. For example when Thalia, Jason and Leo were in the cave alone, Leo asked Thalia if her no-dating policy was seasonal, but she ignored him. Khione herself being a snow goddess, hates Leo as she can sense the fire within him and takes his compliments (Leo once called her hot) as insults. It is possible that this characteristic comes from his father, Hephaestus.

Near the end of the book, he seems to forgive himself over his mother's death and learns that his pyrokinesis is a gift and tool, not a curse. He also decides to stop running from his past and he starts opening up to his friends.

Appearance
Leo is described by Jason to look like a "a Latino Santa's elf", with curly black hair, dark brown eyes, pointy ears, a cheerful, babyish face, a mischievous smile, and being of normal height with a slim build. He is 5' 6''. His most notable trait is that he has a look in his eyes that makes him look like he has taken much more caffeine then the normal limit.''

Fatal Flaw
Leo's Fatal flaw is probably his feeling of inferiority. He thinks he needs ﻿to prove himself, and often feels inferior to Jason and later on, Piper.

Abilities

 * ADHD: Like most demigods, Leo possesses inborn supernatural battle reflexes and senses that he uses to analyze the fighting style of his opponent.
 * Dyslexia: since his brain is hard-wired for reading Ancient Greek instead of modern languages.
 * Morse Code: Leo's mother taught him Morse code, a skill he has retained, and he was therefore able to understand Festus' last wish.
 * Bilingual: Leo can speak both Spanish and English fluently, having learned both from his mother as a child.

Demigod Powers

 * Mechanical Aptitude: He has amazing mechanical abilities (even for children of Hephaestus); he can manipulate a megaphone to say "The cow says moo" in a low voice like Darth Vader's and build a working helicopter out of pipe cleaners. He was able to fix the dragon Festus in one night, even though the rest of the Hephaestus cabin thought it was beyond repair and had to be destroyed. He even added wings to the dragon so it could fly.
 * He can understand and sense machinery and has the ability to operate machines he has never had experience with.
 * Because Leo is a demigod child of Hephaestus, he can instinctively fly or drive any mechanical vehicle, including cars, trains, or helicopters.


 * Trap Detection: Leo can also sense traps, shown when he saw the hidden trap meant to catch Festus, and when he knew where all the defense mechanisms were in Midas's yard.
 * Fire Immunity: He discovers he is fireproof (he can even survive a kerosene barrel explosion without pain, unlike Jason who feels the pain of heat but is unharmed by lightning), when he is a small baby when Hera (in the form of Tia Callida, his "insane" babysitter) puts him in a blazing fireplace and he is completely comfortable. However, when he was attack by Festus' firebreath, it did sting him slightly. Many other things like this follow.
 * Pyrokinesis: He is the first demigod child of Hephaestus in hundreds of years to master their natural ability of pyrokinesis, the ability to generate and control flames and hot temperatures. At low level maybe moving a candle back and forth, if better maybe putting out the flame with his mind or making it relight. Pyrokinesis is one of the more practiced skills like telekinesis. It is too, for warming people up or setting stuff aflame. His pyrokinesis is supposedly a curse, but he is determined to interpret it as a gift. His pyrokinetic abilities can go as far as to shoot white hot flames high in the air that could burn through a metal chain link. He was able to hold his own against the snow goddess Khione for a long time and caused her to retreat. However, sometimes he has trouble controlling his pyrokinesis when he gets excited or scared, beginning to heat up and smoke. He can throw fireballs/fire bolts, fire blasts and (if he concentrates hard enough), columns of fire.
 * Leo can increase the heat of his fire, and can also create walls of fire. This is his main defensive use of his powers.


 * Heat Sensitivity: He can sense heat, flames, and metals.

Weapons/Items

 * He has a magical tool belt that he uses constantly. He can pull practically any tool he needs from the toolbelt, including the mechanical tools he needs, as well as food, medical supplies, and breath mints. The belt is seemingly endless and he doesn't know where it all comes from. However, larger items, especially things that don't have to do with mechanics, require the belt to recharge or "cool down". It is also known that big items, such as chain-saws, or magic items, like Jason's sword, Ivlivs, cannot be pulled out of the tool belt.
 * Leo's Primary Weapon is his 3-pound Club Hammer, which he summons from his tool belt from time to time.
 * Festus the Metal Dragon was repaired and managed by Leo after his discovery of Bunker 9, used in the American Civil war as the Hephaestus bunker. He supported Leo, Jason, and Piper, all the way to Midas's mansion, where he was destroyed by lasers to save Leo, Piper, and Jason.
 * Holographic Scroll - Leo's own invention, used in The Son of Neptune to alert Camp Jupiter, that Argo II is coming.



Trivia

 * He is currently the only known living son of Hephaestus who has been given the gift of Pyrokinesis.
 * He can get the ingredients for tacos and tofu burgers out of his magical belt.
 * It seems there is a gag of him having pointy ears and saying "I'm not a Vulcan!" referring to the Star Trek species Vulcan (like Spock) whom Will Solace compared him to. It also happens to be his father's Roman name.
 * He and Percy Jackson are the only ones of the confirmed seven to not have lived in California at any point in their life.
 * The name Leo is a zodiac sign which has fire as it's element.
 * Leo, Frank Zhang, and Hazel Levesque are the only known demigods that can speak two languages (that have nothing to do with them being a half-blood, like speaking French for the Aphrodite kids, or Greek/Latin for every half-blood).
 * Leo looks almost exactly like Sammy Valdez, Hazel's old friend from the 1940's. While they share the same surname, it is not stated if they are related as of The Son of Neptune.
 * In Latin, Leo means "Lion."
 * While Leo is a son of Hephaestus, he shares many traits with children of Hermes, including elfish ears, a mischievous smile, and a love for practical jokes.
 * It is said that, even by demigod standards, Leo is seriously ADHD.
 * Leo is the only known demigod who can go toe-to-toe with Khione and not freeze to death.