Leo wandered around in a daze. His mother. The strange lady. It sort of made sense. It also sort of made him nauseous. Not that he wasn't already nauseous from the various events of the day. It had been a trying day for Leo, and he was ready to quit. Right after he got some answers.

Everyone had disbanded after Leo had fainted (again), opting to give him some space. Yeah, space was what he needed. A lot of it. Also a toilet, because he was going to puke (yet again). Scream, puke, faint, (lather, rinse) repeat. He could be a shampoo commercial.

After washing the horrible aftertaste out of his mouth (he was certain his stomach was empty by now), Leo stumbled out of the bathroom and began to explore the room. He was basically Dora. Spanish and all. Vaminos, amigos! Let's go on the Train of Misery! First stop: Leo Valdez.

Leo decided he was becoming entirely too sarcastic. Then again, he just arguably had the worst day of his life. He doubted anyone was ever told their mother was murdered by some crazy terrorist lady and then told they had to go into espionage to defeat said terrorist on the same day. (He hoped.)

The sick bay was spacious, but poorly lit. The middle of the room was bathed in a warm, inviting light under the single hanging lamp, but the edges were thrown into shadow. The effect was cliché, to say the least, and creepy, to say the most. There was a door at the other side of the room, and if this were a horror movie, Leo would have crept slowly toward the door as music built tension, then opened it on the creaky hinges to reveal a dark room and a badly CG-ed jump-scare. If this were a movie trailer, he would have suddenly turned around to dramatic music and noticed the door, then walked toward it as a narrative described (completely unrelated) events, then after a final, screechy build-up, it would cut to black just as his hand touched the doorknob. If this were a metaphor, he would have been stuck in the dark and oppressive room for all his life, then finally opened to door to new and brighter possibilities (and possibly sunshine and rainbows and ponies). If this were an interrogation room, someone would have strolled in just then and began torturing him for answers he didn't have. (Which was actually somewhat likely, but hopefully not true.)

Thankfully, it was just a dark sick bay in a thing called real life. Leo walked toward the door and opened it (AND SCREAMED BECAUSE THERE WAS AN UNKNOWN TERROR BEHIND IT THAT TRIED TO MAUL HIM- just kidding). Behind it was a better-lit hallway. Incandescent ceiling lights lined the hall - the kind that you would find in a school or laboratory. The hall twisted and turned a little, though it wasn't all that long. (In comparison to his adventure earlier in the day, nothing was anymore.) There were a few doors, but they had no windows and Leo had no self-destructive tendencies. Knowing spy movies, there would probably be explosives or dead bodies behind them.

At long last, Leo reached the end of the twisty hall, complete with a set of steel-and-glass double doors and a red "EXIT" sign like in a hospital. He opened them to what appeared to be a sort of living room. It was a decent size, but somewhat dim, even though there were about twenty lamps lying around the place haphazardly. Most of them were unplugged and several of them had broken lightbulbs that no one had bothered to replace. The dark carpet was worn and rather scruffy, and the walls had various scratches and burn marks. The overall impression was a shoddy living room shared by several rowdy roommates that had sword fights with flamethrowers in their spare time.

Strewn across several stainless steel coffee tables was paper of all sorts - official paper, homework paper, paper that needed to be signed, colourful paper, A4 paper, tissue paper, sticky-note paper, blank paper, origami paper (both folded and unfolded), and… Chinese handcuffs? (Looking back on it, Leo laughs. Chinese handcuffs. Pfft.) There were also mugs of what appeared to have once been coffee, but they were all either finished or spilled. Coffee stains lined the insides of the mugs and several sheets of paper and the carpet. (Leo swore he saw a coffee stain on the ceiling. How did it get there? No freaking clue.) What really shocked Leo was the sheer volume of it all. It was as if someone had taken three (hundred) years worth of material from an office-worker's desk and a college student's bedroom and the school recycling and threw it all at the ceiling fan (which had a broken lightbulb. Surprise, surprise). It belonged in an art museum. "The Mother's Nightmare". It would make millions.

-Snooooooooooore-

Someone was sleeping on the couch. Leo jumped.

… Cupcake Man?

Now that he thought about it, Cupcake Man looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember his name. Leo thought about waking him up to ask, but decided that it would be somewhat (read: a lot) creepy and stalker-ish, and opted to sneak silently out of the room instead.

He was a ninja.

Yeah, baby.

Leo edged around the massive piles of paper and coffee and were those crumpled tin cans? This room was too weird. And whooooooa- who put that sword there? Who even has a sword in their living room? Leo grumpily came to the conclusion that, yes, these guys were crazy enough to have a sword sticking out of their coffee table so everyone would die by impalement. (Seriously. There were bloodstains on the tip of the sword that Leo really wished he hadn't seen.)

He would probably die in this room if he didn't get out soon. He quietly slipped out the door and into a spacious hallway.

It was very different from the first hall. It was... clean. In all honesty, it was really more of a lounge than a hallway. Leo wondered why they even needed the paper-filled living room if they had this sweet dorm-lounge-thing. It was well-lit and had several couches and coffee tables (and an absence of paper and coffee) in the centre.

The hall/room was long and rectangular, with a high ceiling and an open entrance on the other side leading to some sort of common area. The floorboards and the walls were both pale, giving the space an airy look. There were several doors along one wall while the other held a large, blank screen. A row of potted ivy hanging between the doors gave the room colour. One of the doors was open, and if this were a- (NO.)

Leo walked toward it, thinking that maybe the room would hold answers. What he found (sort of) shocked him (a lot).

"Beauty Queen?"

"Took you long enough."

Piper McLean grinned at him from the desk chair. He wondered why he didn't recognize her before. Oh, maybe because he was busy fainting and puking his guts out. (He was fairly certain he was missing his spleen or something at this point.)

"What are you doing here?"

"Well, this is my room…"

"No, you know what I meant. Why are you here? With these people? I thought you were still in school?" Leo was utterly confused (to say the least).

"I am." She smiled mysteriously and tilted her head. With the light, her eyes shifted colour from blue to green.

"What?" Leo's new favorite word. What. He could get used to it. Hopefully he wouldn't need to.

"This is school."

Leo groaned and flopped back onto the bed. She was being elusive again! He raised his arm and rolled his hand in a "carry on" gesture.

"Wilderness School was just a cover for OASIS. They took in kids that wouldn't be missed by society and began training them for the business. No one suspected a thing, and the kids didn't know anything until they "graduated", when they would continue into the training program for Olympus. You left too early to find out, though."

"So we went to spy school." His brain was fried (and then boiled and smashed on the pavement) from the information he was receiving today. React now, process later.

"Basically."

"Awesome."

Piper grinned. Her eyes turned a golden hazel as she leaned her head back. "Yeah."

"So did you graduate?"

"Not exactly. The school closed down two years ago because of an emergency. The students were sent off."

"Then why are you still here?"

"Remember Hedge?" That mysterious smile again.

"You are not saying…"

"Oh, but I am."

"No way!"

"Yes, way."

"Cupcake Man?"

"The one and only."

"Dude…" Leo laid there and stared at the ceiling light as he tried to process the fact that Cupcake Man had been his former eccentric teacher. He suddenly propped himself up on his elbows. "Okay, but what has he got to do with it?"

"He recruited me for Mission Gaea." Leo gave her a blank look. "Gaea. The terrorist lady? That's what we're calling her."

"Oh. Right. Might I ask why?"

"World domination is her goal. Typical villain shenanigans."

"Ha, ha. Very funny."

"Isn't it?" Piper laughed, and Leo couldn't help but join. He would be lying if he said that finding an old friend in this insane place was not an utter relief.

Piper and Leo chatted for the remainder of the afternoon about terrorists and old friends and what they had been up to for the past six years. Sooner than he expected, an alarm clock beeped on Piper's nightstand. She glanced over at it.

"Dinner time. You ready to face the crowd?"

Yeah, how about no.

After fifteen minutes of sulking, Leo was forced to go to dinner anyway. He really did not want to deal with Percy and Jason at the moment. It was too much. He might implode. Too bad Piper didn't think so.

The dining room was small but comfortable. It adjoined into the little lobby thing next to the lounge. There was a single long, long table in the middle, and little counters and tables around the perimeter. At one end of the room was a contraption with all kinds of (somewhat strange) food. There were various types of pizza, sandwiches, pizza sandwiches (?), pasta, steak, rice, potatoes (mashed and un-mashed), weird-looking Chinese dishes, and blue desserts. (Leo was more than willing to bet the blue food was Percy's.)

Seated around the table were a lot of people.

Said lot of people were all staring at him.

Lovely.

"Welcome back." The conversation started up again.

Calypso sat in the far corner of the room, a little apart from the others. Leo began to realize she didn't really belong with them. (In the back of his mind, he wondered why.) He followed Piper to a seat near Jason. Leo avoided eye contact at all costs, just in case. Piper grabbed him a slice of pepperoni and got herself a veggie burger. Leo dug in. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until he started eating.

The pizza was good. Really good. Leo went and got another slice and ate it as everyone gathered around the central table. Behind him, Calypso leaned against his chair.

"So now we're all here, let's get started."

"Yeah, you see, we're not all here," said Percy.

Calypso raised an eyebrow.

"Coach. He's still sleeping."

"... We can do without the chaperone for now."

Leo awkwardly munched on his pizza.

"First," Calypso said, turning to Leo, "Let's get you introduced. Leo, this is the Seven. "

"I see more than seven," said Leo.

Calypso ignored him. Leo was formally introduced to the More-Than-Seven. Percy and Jason he already knew (unfortunately), and Piper as well. The pretty girl with cinnamon hair was Hazel, the tall, Asian baby-man was Frank, and the blonde was Annabeth. They were, apparently, the "Argonauts", whatever that meant in terms of spy-world. Percy added that it was "Argonauts, Edition Two". Calypso said they were the field workers - the ones that did the physical spying.

There was also a red-head called Rachel and a gangly, acne-ridden guy named Grover. Leo was brought unpleasant memories of Grover's Coffee-To-Go. (He wondered if Grover had made the bar. The very thought made him shudder.) The two of them and Calypso were base workers and the recruitment team. They did, according to Rachel, all of the "actual work".

"Cool. Nice to meet everyone." He glanced at Calypso. "You said mechanic. Am I supposed to just make stuff for you guys?" Leo had decided over the course of talking with Piper and eating dinner that he might as well own up to this whole spy thing.

"Well, not exactly. There is some spying to be done as well. But..." There was a glint in Annabeth's eyes as she said this. Pulling out a laptop, she opened a 3D blueprint for a vehicle. "This is your first project. Think you can do it?"

The car looked sweet. "Yeah, baby!"

A/N: OKAY I AM SO SORRY GUYS. I just kind disappeared for like, what? A month? Anyhow, this chapter was just refusing to be written, and on top of that I had finals and new teachers that give out a lot of homework... I'm really sorry.

I kinda lose my muse for a while? So i'm really sorry if the ending seems rushed or if the writing style is weird. I just honestly didn't know what to write anymore.

I'll be taking a break for a while and catch up on writing. I'll try to write maybe 3 or 4 chapters before I start posting again? I'm sorry, but I don't know how long it'll take. I'll be on a trip with no electronics for the first week of spring break, but I promise that I will write as much as I can when I get back!

So yeah. Hiatus. I would say don't expect me back until maybe end of April/May? If I don't have 3 chapters written by then, I'll post something anyway. If I don't, someone please nicely rage-quit at me. Thank you. No whining about updates before then, though!

Uuuuuugh I am really done with this chapter. If there are mistakes, message me or leave it in the reviews! On the topic of reviews, I am really sorry I didn't reply to all the reviewers! I promise that I am reading and cherishing everyone's reviews. So leave your reviews, because I DO read them and am actually really excited to see what people think!

Just like in all the other chapters, leave any suggestions you have for where the story could go, or if you feel a character could be better in some way. Constructive criticism, but no flames!

Thank you all for your incredible patience! I love all of you readers so much :33

(Apologies for the long and serious a/n lol)

~Yumi