LEO needed nails.

The roof was cracked and damaged, a healthy chunk of rusty metal completely ripped away (Leo suspected drakons). He may be the best mechanic\builder in all of Zeuopolis, but even Leo couldn't fix this kind of harm without proper tools. Unfortunately, the garage he shared with his half-siblings lacked pretty much everything but fat, long, screws. The kind that needed a proper drill (which, of course, they also didn't have) in order to be used.

Leo sighed. He gazed down from his perch on the twisted metal railing that spiraled from the ceiling and scanned the dusty, littered ground for any sign of his siblings. Though the rail wasn't higher than five meters off the ground, Leo felt he was miles above everyone. He actually kind of liked it.

Nobody. Leo groaned. He felt hot even from just looking down at the stuffy workshop. Sweating already, he tilted his face and let a breeze of (relatively) cool air from the gaping hole in the roof roll all over him.

"HARELY!" Leo finally yelled, bored of waiting. "WHERE IN THE NAME OF ZEUS ARE YOU?!"

He waited for a second, and then: "I NEED NAILS! UNLESS YOU WANT TO FREEZE TO DEATH THIS WINTER, GET YOUR BUTT OVER HERE AND HAVE A BOX OF INCHES WITH YOU!"

That got him a response.

"CALM DOWN! I'M JUST GETTING US SOME ORANGES! YOU KNOW HOW CRAZY NYSSA GOES FOR VITAMINS IN OUR DIETS! I'LL GET YOU YOUR STINKING NAILS!" his half-brother Harley screamed back, annoyed.

Despite the sarcasm in the second-to-last sentence, Leo licked his lips. Oranges were a rare delicacy for simple mechanists like Leo and his siblings, but if you paid ahead for long enough and were regular visitors at the shop, Tendo the shopkeeper would give you some for cheaper. That was why Nyssa (his half-sister) always made a point of buying squishy tomatoes from Tendo's, even though he had softer fruits and not a large choice of vegetables.

Leo was not a patient person. Barely five minutes after Harley had responded to his shouts, he was bellowing again.

"HARLEYYYY! WHERE ARE YOU?!"

"I'M FREAKING TALKING TO JUDSON! I'LL BE THERE IN TEN!"

Leo groaned again. Ten minutes was FAR too long.

He waited two seconds, then started shimmying down the filthy pole he was sitting on. The thing was carved full of ridges, and they wore red grooves into Leo's palm as he scooted along with his hands,

Soon enough Leo's feet were no longer propped on a pile of broken crates, and he was dangling in midair over a large pile of machinery. If Nyssa had been there, she would have already screamed at Leo to get the Hades off of the railing. She wasn't, though, which meant that by the time Leo realized how stupid his idea was, it was too late.

He tried to make the most of it. "HARLEY, I AM ABOUT TO FALL."

"YEAH RIGHT."

Leo wriggled a bit, trying to get a firmer grip on the rail. Instead, the grease and sweat on his palms caused one hand to slide right off it.

"HARLEY." Leo said, nervous. "I AM NOT KIDDING. I CLIMBED ON THE POLE. NOW I'M GONNA DIE."

"GOOD LUCK WITH THAT!"

"HARLEY! GET OVER HERE AND BRING THE NET BEFORE THIS FLOOR GETS A LEO CARPET!"

Harley didn't answer. Leo hoped that meant he was coming, because his other hand was very damp and starting to slip.

"HAR-" Leo started up again, only to be interrupted by a loud crash from outside. He twisted, tightened his grip, and turned towards the entrance.

Harley stood at the door. He was a strong, dark, muscled little eight-year-old who was eyeing Leo with worry, two awkwardly woven bags in his hands.

"What the Hades were you thinking?!" he yelled with fear, dropping the bags and rushing towards Leo.

Promptly at that moment, Leo lost his grip and tumbled off the bar. He landed in an enormous pile of rusty bolts and discarded machinery, crashing into metal.

"OW." Leo groaned, crawling out of the ocean of scattered bits and pieces. "I am never doing that again."

Harley rushed to his half-brother and helped him stand. That having been done, he punched him in the shoulder. Hard.

"You crazy nut!" Harley screamed. "You scared me so much!"

"OUCH, Harley!" Leo rubbed his shoulder, now also painful. "I'm sorry."

Harley grunted (kind of cutely) and began collecting the things that had dropped from the bags.

Leo winced, but leaned over to help him. There was a loaf of dark bread, a chunk of cheese, some wax paper instead of plates…

"No oranges." Leo noted.

Harley nodded, seeming upset. "Tendo said sorry, but there were customers who paid much more than us. He saved for them."

Leo stiffened. "Hey, that's not fair! We paid in advance! Nyssa saved for months- did he at least give back the money?"

Harley tugged a leather pouch out of his pocket and emptied seven silver coins onto the dirty concrete floor.

"We paid much more than that!" Leo cried. "That crook!"

Deep down inside, though, Leo had been suspecting this would happen. In the Machinery District, and in all of Zeuopolis in fact, it was the richer and stronger and more well-known people who got the better deals. That was why he and his siblings were stuck in this patched-up, creaky old garage- nobody knew them. Nobody felt their potential. But Leo planned on making them known, because they were the best mechanics in the District. That was obvious.

Light flooded the broiling-hot garage, and Leo spun towards the entrance. A figure, blocked from his recognition by the sun in his eyes, had knocked down a sheet of metal that served as a guard from the sunlight.

"Oops, sorry." As soon as the sheet was lifted up again, Leo saw it was Nyssa; the light illuminated her strong arms and Spanish complexion. She could have passed for Leo's actual sister (if only he hadn't been so scrawny).

Nyssa tightened the red bandanna that held her hair back and clumped over to Leo and Harley.

"I got this." She told them, smiling slightly. "I found it, Leo."

She was holding up a chunk of metal, twisted with wires. Harley looked puzzled, but Leo gasped out loud.

"Aw, yes! YES!" he grabbed the part out of Nyssa's hand and scrambled up the creaking ladder that leaned on the concrete wall. The rungs led him up to a pile of crates, where he kept his hard-worked-on inventions hidden from the others' sight.

Leo delicately fitted the piece into one of the inventions and tinkered with the controls a bit. The contraption shuddered a bit- and then soared into the air on mechanical wings!

"YEAH!" Leo bellowed, punching the air. The pile of crates wavered, so he skidded down the ladder and landed in front of Nyssa.

"Wow." She said, impressed. "You can take it to Zeus now."

Leo stopped short. "ZEUS?!"

Nyssa grinned. "I didn't tell you? I sold it to God's Court. They'll be seeing you at four o'clock."

Leo felt like floating. "I gotta leave now, then."

"Yeah. Well, good luck!"

Leo called down his invention and dashed out of the garage. Not a moment was to be wasted if he wanted to get there on time.

And he wanted to. Because this would be their lucky break.