After suffering a week of horrible writers block, I am finally back!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"Who is he?" A female voice- a very familiar one at that- intruded his ears and processed in his foggy mind, but that voice refused to match up with a face.

"You think I know?" Another familiar voice squawked in suprise. "I've never seen this kid in my life! Grover?"

"I've never seen him before," a male voice responded. "He smells like a child of Hephaestus- motor oil and fire- but I can't be sure. All I know is that he's extremely powerful- not only by his scent, but also because he snuck up on freaking Medusa and killed her!" The voice sounded so shocked, Leo would've laughed if he could; he'd defeated worse monsters during the Giant War.

"Should we wake him up?" Hands were shaking him awake and Leo wanted to tell the person to go away, but found his mouth glued shut and with a lot of difficulty, opened his brown eyes.

He recognized the boy looming over him. The boy was roughly twelve with wild black locks and sea green eyes. He was scrawny and naturally tan, wearing a Navy blue hoodie, a green tee, and ripped up jeans. There was a ball point pen in his hand.

Percy Jackson. That's who this was, but why was he twelve?

The memories can rushing back to him, hitting him full force and he groaned in pain as a headache threatened to overwhelm him.

He reached his hand up to his head and cradled it. "Ow," he mumbled.

"Yeah, you got a pretty good sized bump there," younger Grover said as he handed him a zip lock baggie of ice.

"Thanks," Leo muttered and then decided that he had to play the part, or suspicion would become inevitable. "Who are you! And why are you being so nice to me?"

"Well, one, you saved our lives," Annabeth spoke up. "Remember?"

"Just helping out a fellow demigod," he replied. "Trust me, fighting monsters is not fun."

Percy chuckled. "That we can agree on. I'm Percy Jackson."

"Leo Valdez." They shook hands with identical good natured grins.

"Annabeth Chase," the daughter of Athena introduced.

"Grover Underwood," the satyr greeted. "So I'm going to guess you know what you are?"

Leo nodded. "Son of Hephaestus."

Grover nodded. "I'm a satyr. Percy's a son of Poseidon and Annabeth's a daughter of Athena."

Leo nodded. "Nice to meet you guys, so anyone want to tell me how you wandered into Medusa's lair? Didn't the statue obsession make it pretty obvious?"

Percy stuttered. "Um... well... I- we- why were you hanging around you there?" He asked abruptly.

"I don't really come by here very much, but occasionally, I have to pass through these woods. I heard fighting and I ran to help," Leo answered.

Annabeth nodded. "Well, we're on a quest."

"Quest from the gods?" Leo questioned, acting like he was in the dark about all of that.

"Do you know about Camp Half Blood?" Grover asked after exchanging a look with his companions.

Leo frowned. He'd always felt a bit offended by the name and now was the time to voice that. "Should I be offended by that?"

Annabeth sniffled a laugh. "No, the camp director chose the name. It's a safe place for demigods."

"If I knew about a safe place for people like me, I wouldn't be on the streets, " Leo pointed out. "What's it like?"

The group launched into a whole explanation on Camp Half Blood: how it was protected from monsters; you got to learn stuff like sword fighting and battle tactics; and how there were tons of other demigods there.

Leo had heard it all before from Will Solace and had seen it first hand, but the trio described it in depth and it sounded so much more fun than when Leo had been there.

He smiled in awe and happiness at the memories of his true home; it would be even better when it wasn't broken by the tragedy and hardships of war.

His smile almost dropped, but in order to keep up the charade, he kept it plastered upon his face.

A war was coming- two wars actually. Oh gods, how was he going to save them all? He was a sixteen year old trapped in a twelve years old's body; neither ages very capable of fighting in a war. But then again, he'd done it once and during the quiet moments on the Argo II, Percy and Annabeth had shared a whole bunch of stories with them about previous quests.

"Hey, guys, can I talk to you?" Percy suddenly interrupted Annabeth's speech on the architechture of Camp. "We'll be right back, Leo."

They walked over to the side and had a hushed conversation, leaving Leo alone to begin his planning.

Okay, so they mentioned that they were on the quest to retrieve Zeus's stolen master bolt, meaning that this was their first quest. In the future, Percy had laid out the events: defeating the fury; the Minotaur attacking and stealing his mother; going on the quest; the furies attacking them on the bus; and then there was Aunty Em's, where they were now.

Let's see, what happened after that?

He vaguely remembered them mentioning getting directions from a poodle, but he wasn't sure what that meant and it had seemed more like a joke than potential danger, so he wouldn't try to change that.

The St. Louis Arch. He wasn't sure what to do about that, but there was no way he was letting Percy get poisoned or a Chimara drive a few innocent mortals insane. No way. He'd work on that plan later.

After that, there's Ares and the water park... so much to do, so much he needs to change.

"Leo?" Percy's voice startled him from his thoughts and he looked up at the trio. "We want you to come with us on the quest," he blurted, bluntly.

"We understand if you won't," Grover rushed to assure him, "but we think you could help us."

"It'll be dangerous," Annabeth added. "Monsters, gods, a bunch of crazy stuff occurring. Are you up to it?"

Leo almost laughed. He'd been through a war that made this quest look like a wrestling match between newborn babies. To avoid sounding insane, he choked back the chuckle and spoke.

"Trust me, I've been in bad situations involving about a dozen monsters at once, a collapsed machine shop, and a babysitter that let me play with knives. If this quest doesn't kill me, everyday life will," Leo stated.

Percy laughed. "Good point. Think you can stand up?"

Leo stood and... promptly crashed to the floor. Apparently, he wasn't used to his twelve year old body yet.

"I meant to do that," he blushed as he stood and faced the chuckling demigods. "Whose ready to go on a life threatening quest?"

"Not me," the two half bloods and satyr said in unison.

"Me neither. Let's go, cupcakes!" He shouted, pulling a Coach Hedge as he slung the bag that had mysteriously appeared when he'd time traveled and skipped ahead of the severely weirded out demigods.

"Cupcakes?" Percy asked, perplexed.

"Insult I learned from my insane PE teacher," Leo chirped. "Yeah, don't get on his bad side or he'll wack you with a baseball bat!"

The others laughed, but Leo just blinked.

"I'm not kidding; that guy gave Chris Wheeler a concussion and still kept his job. I still wonder how he managed that one."

The others shrugged and they began to trek through the woods until they found a small clearing- away from the mortals and hopefully monsters. Perfect.

"You guys hungry?" Leo asked as he rummaged through his pack. The others nodded to the point that their heads looked like bobble heads. "Dont worry, so am I."

Fighting monsters was hard work and Leo hadn't eaten since hours before the final battle and even though his body was younger, he felt the hunger of his last moments combined with the starvation he'd suffered whilst running away from another foster home.

Leo broke out some cooking supplies, which he was surprised Chronos had packed for him, but extremely grateful, and set to work. As the others conversed over what to do on the quest, Leo whipped up some tofu burgers.

"Well, fellow questioneers! I have whipped up some of Leo Valdez's famous tofu burgers!" He said as he set out a plate in front of each of them and all of them dug in.

"Where'd you learn to cook like this?" Percy exclaimed.

"When you live on the streets, you pick up a few things, like how to make food out of almost nothing and running ten miles up a mountain!" Leo cheered as he dug in.

"Why were you running up a mountain?" Annabeth questioned.

Leo realized his slip too late; people don't just run up a mountain for fun and rarely when they need to. "It's a very long story," he groaned, "involving a run in with some monsters and weird immortal girls that call themselves the Hunters of Artemis."

"You met the Hunters?" Grover drooled.

"Only once and I wouldn't willingly do it again. They looked ready to kill me by the time they left the cave, " Leo laughed.

"Hey, guys," Percy said as he finished his tofu burger. "I'm gonna catch some z's."

"Cool," Leo called.

"'Kay," Grover mumbled through a mouthful of paper and tofu burger taco.

"Me too," Annabeth said as she laid down.

"Hey, Grover, you go to sleep. I'll take first watch," Leo offered, despite his mounting exhaustion.

"No," Grover said, firmly. "With an injury like that, you need as much rest as possible."

"No... I can... okay, maybe just... a few minutes," Leo stammered as he laid down and as soon as his head hit the ground, he was fast asleep.

Of course, he had to dream.

Well, until next time I guess. Thank you for all of your wonderful reviews; they really made me day!

Trivia:

What is the name of the new activities director in Sea of Monsters- the one from the Fields of punishment?