This chapter is really rushed and sloppy. I'm sorry to be presenting such poor work to you guys, especially considering how amazing you were the past two updates, but it's just been so long since my last update and I needed to come up with something. I've tried several times over the past couple weeks to writer this chapter but they just kept turning out to be garbage. So this is the best I've come up with. I'm sorry.


Sweat was beginning to bead on Jason's forehead when Reyna arrived. He'd been pounding on the punching bag for a half hour now, but he wasn't even starting to lose steam.

"Hey, Grace." Reyna tried, Jason ignored her.

Reyna sighed in defeat "Jason please. I can't take the silent treatment anymore. I know you're mad at me, point taken. Can we please get to trying to work through it?"

"Seventy nine." Jason said

"What?" Reyna said out of a combination of confusion and surprise

"That was the total body count from the Burnout. Seventy nine mutant lives taken, and they think I'm responsible?" Jason stopped punching the bag and just shook his head "You should've told me I was accused."

"I know. I wanted to. But-"

"But what?" Jason snapped "You knew how it would've looked if I'd left, but you let me do it anyway!"

"I couldn't, alright."

"Why? What could weren't leaving me out to dry like that?"

"I wanted you to have sometime with your sister, alright." Reyna snapped "Thalia had woken up less then an hour before. You hadn't seen each other in fourteen years. I just wanted you to be able to get to know each other without this hanging over you." she explained "Look I know that's not that's not a good excuse but I'm not trying to excuse myself. I know what I did was wrong, and you have every right to be mad at me."

A moment of long contemplation passed before Jason spoke. "You want to help me with my sister? Figure out how I'm supposed to tell her her best friend is a terrorist. Otherwise just go away."

"Okay." Reyna agreed "See You."


'There is no way I'm going to remember all these names.' Leo thought as he looked over the sizable group of people that would be his team. It felt wired, being the one in charge for once. He wasn't really used to telling people what to do.

A beefy black man came up to him from the group, he held out a huge, meaty hand for him to shake. "You must be Leo, right? My names Charles, but most people call be Beckendrof." he said as he nearly crushed Leo's tiny, fragile looking hand in his "I'll be second-in -command here if that's alright. I've been working with most of these guys for a while now already so-"

"No, no problem." Leo assured him "I'm not much of a leader anyway. As far as anyone needs to be concerned I'm just the idea guy. I'll probably be the weirdo doing my own thing in a corner."

Beckendrof cracked a grin "Oh, you'd be surprised. Don't worry, it'll sink in. So, what's our first project?"

"Well . . . " Leo sheepishly pulled out a rolled up blue-print and spread it across the table. Beckenbrof studied the blue print and cracked another smile

"You're kidding, right?"

"Nope."

"Alright then. Let's do this."

(Time gap to the end of the day!)

The rest of the crew had already gone home for the day, but Leo'd stayed late. He was supposed to be packing up to lock up the workshop for the night. Actually, he didn't have any intention of leaving anytime soon.

He sat cross-legged on the floor, with his laptop in his lap, Frank's ID card laid unassumingly next to him. His fingers flew across the key board as he hammered through firewall after firewall, cracking his way into the MRD database. Inside was a treasure chest of dirty secrets. Horrible truths about Bedrock, government plans, secret weapons, Leo tore through it all like a kid on Christmas. Finally he found it, the crowned jule of all.

"There you are, you beauty." he said aloud

"Gee, thanks." a voice said from behind him, making him jump

"Piper?" Leo replied, more surprised then ever now

"Yes, I'm aware of my name. What are you doing on the floor?"

"I don't know I felt like sitting on the floor." Leo replied "What are you doing here?"

"They only arrested Jason. He's under house arrest, I think, but they didn't have any reason to keep me."

"No, I mean-"

"I know what you mean, Leo." Piper signed "You're hacking the MRD database, right? Mind if I join you."

"Um, sure, I guess."

Piper sat down next to him and saw what was on his screen. She rolled her eyes at him "Really, dude?"

"Oh fuck yes." Leo replied with a big smile. He hit 'Save' with gusto.

"So what's on here, really?"

"Mostly it's stuff about the mutant prisons." Leo answered "Man, there's a bunch of them now. Not just Bedrock. It makes me sick."

"Wait a second, Leo. I think I'm getting an idea."

"Uh, Is this a good idea or a Piper idea?"

Piper punched him and told him her idea.

"Piper, that might actually work."

"Where's that guard guy? I wanna ask him some things." Piper said getting up

"Piper, wait." Leo stood up too "Seriously, how are you doing? I just - I -"

Piper looked down, defeated "Honestly? I'm fine. I'm not like, Sound-of-Music Do-Re-Me fine. But I'll get over it. In the mean time some stuff came up with my Dad, I'll tell you about it later, but it made me realize it's just not worth losing a friend over."

"Look I just want to say -"

"C'mon!" Piper pulled him towards the door "I need either ice cream or a drink. Let's see what we find first."


"Annabeth Jackson." A voice came from the darkness

"Who's asking?" Annabeth responded

Out of the shadows came a beautiful Hispanic woman in a black trench coat "My name's Reyna. I'm with the Wolf House." she said directly

"I'm not interested in talking." Annabeth said

"Neither am I to be honest." Reyna said "But here I am." she pulled out of her pocket a newspaper clipping and handed it to her, Annabeth recognized it as Percy and here's wedding announcement, circled in red marker (DG: Yes, it is the same one from CH 1) "I heard about what happened. If it helps I can personally garuentee those monsters are dead."

"What's this about?"

"Must be quite a horrible experience to lose the person you love in such a horrible way. Some women might just fall apart. But not you, now, not you. You cause the deaths of seventy nine mutants."

"What? I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh I think you do. You lead the Brotherhood. You switched the bombs as part of your sabotages on construction. But the bombs need a recognized MRD source to detonate. So you waited until you could manipulate it out of someone. And Frank Zhang, bless him, is just so easy to manipulate."

"Stop."

"You caused the burnout! You killed those people!"

"No! That's not true! I-I-" Annabeth was breathing hard now, and sweating

Reyna smiled like that was what she'd been waiting for

"Yes." she said softly "Yes it is. See, that's my mutation. I always, always, know when you're lying."

A long moment passed in silence. The air suddenly felt so much colder

"What I did was free thousands of other falsely imprisoned mutants. I admit the cost was to high but it was for the good of mutants everywhere. We're on the same side here."

"I agree." Reyna said "But there's a problem. Clever move framing Jason for the Burnout. You took his ID card when he was talking to you, didn't you? I bet he never even noticed."

"How'd you know that?"

"Because my boyfriend is an idiot." Reyna said coldly "Now you're going to turn yourself into Wolf House and you're going to co fess your crimes, and you're going to face the consequences. I believe Jason left you with the address."

"Turn myself in? So you're not arresting me?"

"No. See, the Senate would just see that as my finding a scapegoat. They'd likely ignore the evidence and I'd get a scolding for letting my emotions cloud my judgment. So you're going to do this of your own free will, Annabeth."

"And if I refuse?"

Reyna smiled again. That smile sent chills down Annabeth's spine.

"You know, in my line of work I find myself waking up in a hospital or sickbay a lot. And every time the doctors have this little needle that's attached to this sack of clear liquid they're pumping into me. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

"Yes?"

"Well good because I have no idea." Reyna said "Well you seem like a smart lady, educate me. What are those little sacks for?"

Annabeth hesitated and Reyna prompted her with a little "Well, go on then." like she was five.

"They're liquid nutrients. Because you can't eat solid food when your unconscious but you still burn calories, you risk starving your body if your unconscious too long."

"Very good, Annabeth. You'd be surprised how few people realize that. I find it a little concerning because how would anyone know if the sacks are being tampered with?" Reyna responded "But that's hardly an issue. It's not as if someone's life depends on those liquid nutrients right now. Oh, wait."

Annabeth's eyes widened so wide they might as well have exploded. She felt like she'd had the air kicked out of her. Reyna smiled again.

"I see I've made my point. I lose what I love, you lose what you love. Good night, Ms. Chase." She turned to leave

Before Annabeth even realized what she was doing she grabbed her new knife and hurled it at Reyna's back. She wasn't sure what surprised her more; that the knife hit square on, or that Reyna didn't even react. There was no sound of pain or change in posture whatsoever. She simply stopped, reached, and removed the blade from her back.

"Oh, I do wish you hadn't done that." she said.

Reyna dropped the knife, and disappeared into the night.