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Leo held onto Calypso's hand tightly with his own as the Argo II sailed gently into the port at Camp Half Blood. It had taken him longer than he'd anticipated to find Ogygia on purpose, but once he had it had been incredibly easy to leave it and make his way back to camp. Calypso had enjoyed the sailing and exploring the ship the most, but now her eyes were glued on the shoreline.
Leo glanced over to her with a smile. Her eyes were taking in all the details of this new world, and he couldn't wait to show her around everywhere. She was going to love it!
He docked the ship and Calypso patiently waited for him to secure everything before they went into the camp together. A crowd of people were already waiting, and they gave them both a warm welcome. Leo and Calypso were both hoisted onto shoulders and paraded into the center of camp, the campers proud to display the return of Calypso to the modern world.
Chiron gave them each strong hugs and patted Leo on the back. Leo couldn't stop smiling, and Calypso didn't stray too far from his side. She was excited at all the people and all the new sights, but in a large dose like this it was a little overwhelming.
Rachel Elizabeth Dare offered to share her cave with Calypso, as Calypso wasn't exactly 'cabin' material, and Calypso went off with the oracle to settle in. Leo promised to come help with rearranging the cave for both of them to share and figuring out what would be needed, but first he had to find his friends.
He was a little hurt they hadn't already greeted him. When he asked Clarisse where the six were, he was surprised to see her frown and look away. "Annabeth, Piper, and Hazel are probably in Cabin Six," she said. "It's not gonna be a pretty sight."
With that she walked away, leaving Leo very confused. Shrugging it off, he headed off for the Athena cabin. He had to wonder why Clarisse had only mentioned the girls, and then he wondered why Hazel would still be here. He had thought after the guys day she and Frank were going back to New Rome. And for that matter, wasn't Percy and Annabeth supposed to be in New York City with Percy's family right now? What was Annabeth still doing here?
He knocked on the cabin door. "Guess who's back?" he yelled through the door. He heard his name being called a few time and then a rushed scrambling as the door opened and Piper threw her arms around his neck. He laughed and hugged her back.
"Leo!" she exclaimed. "It's so good to see you!"
He thought her grip around him was a little tight, and he was really left wondering what was going on. She pulled away and stepped aside, letting him in.
The cabin was a mess. White boards and corkboards filled with papers were around one bunk in particular, and loose papers were scattered all over. Annabeth briefly glanced up at him, her face barely smiling before she turned back to her laptop and scribbled something down in a notebook. Hazel got up from the papers she'd been sifting through and hugged Leo, but he could tell her energy was down.
"Not exactly the warm welcome from you guys that I was imagining," Leo prompted. Piper ran a hand through her hair; it was messier than she normally kept it.
"Yeah, sorry…we've just been really preoccupied the last two weeks," Piper said. "Everything is okay with Calypso then?"
"Yeah; she's really excited to be here, and right now she's getting settled in with Rachel. I was going to head up and see what I can do to help after I saw all of you guys again," Leo said. "She's excited to meet all of you guys too."
Piper smiled, but it seemed forced. Leo noticed bags under her eyes, bags that were also under Hazel's eyes.
"We're looking forward to meeting her too," Hazel said warmly. Leo smiled, as always trying to keep a jolly spirit for everyone else.
"So what's had you guys so preoccupied?" Leo finally questioned. He looked directly at Piper for his answer, but she looked away sadly. Turning to Hazel, she looked away to. "Guys?"
"They're missing," Annabeth stated. She now sat with her head in her hands, perfectly still.
Leo furrowed his brow. "Come again?"
"The guys. Percy, Frank, and Jason. All three of them are missing," she reiterated. Leo's spirits sank.
"What do you mean?" he asked dumbly.
"We haven't seen any of them since the morning of their guys' day," Piper said. She crossed her arms tightly. "It's like they just dropped off the face of the earth."
"Did a goddess get angry again or something?" Leo asked.
"That's what our first thought was too," Hazel said. "But Juno actually spoke to Piper in a dream telling her that she needed to find Jason."
Piper didn't look happy about it, but she nodded when Leo looked at her.
"So, like normal mortals kidnapped them then?" he asked.
"As much I don't think it could happen, it's the only option we're being left with," Piper said. "We've got the NYPD looking for them and they've actually been added to a case the FBI was already working. Apparently guys from all over the country have been getting kidnapped for the last few months, and they're all around the same age and the same build."
The papers around the room made sense to Leo now. The girls, not content to just let the feds handle this, had taken the investigation into their own hands. The papers pinned to the boards were all missing people's reports, the notes on the white boards detailed how everyone had been found missing, the pages scattered around were the patterns the girls had found so far.
"What leads do you have so far?" Leo asked. How they had gotten this information, he wasn't entirely sure. But there were more important things to worry about than their hacking skills.
"Not many," Hazel said sadly. She returned to the papers she'd been sifting through. "They were last seen at the laser tag place. The man working it said he recognized them being one of the last groups there at the end of the day, but they left along with everyone else when one of the fog machines broke down."
"I've got Riley from the Hermes cabin working on downloading the security footage of the place, so we'll see if that's true," Annabeth said.
"You think the man was lying?" Leo questioned. Annabeth nodded.
"He was shifty, and I don't trust shifty," she stated.
They couldn't argue with that. "What about Nico?"
"He's looking everywhere, but he can't find them. We've told the Hunters to keep an eye out too," Hazel said. Leo sagged against the doorframe.
"At least Nico is able to reassure us that they aren't dead," Piper said quietly.
"What about that one satyr that has that link with Percy?" Leo offered.
"He's been trying, but their connection has been weak. He can't really get anything from Percy," Annabeth replied. "He thinks the distance is just too great, so he's been moving around the country trying to get a better signal."
Leo nodded. He pushed himself off the doorframe and went to the boards of missing teens. The only feature they all seemed to have in common is that they could probably all beat Leo up. They were different ethnicities, their ages ranged from fifteen to nineteen, they had different hair color and eye color, but they were all well-built and muscled. How all of these kids who looked like they could easily defend themselves had managed to get kidnapped, Leo would love to know.
"They all look like they could be MMA fighters," Leo commented. Annabeth glanced over at him, churning the possibility around in her mind. Her eyes widened and she turned back to her laptop, pulling up a new search page.
Her new frenzy didn't go unnoticed. "Uh, Annabeth? Are you okay?" Piper asked.
"What if Leo's right?" she asked.
"Hey! I'm right a lot!" Leo defended.
She went on like he hadn't said anything. "What if all of these teens were kidnapped because they can all fight? What if they're in some sort of black market MMA or something? Like illegal dog fights or cock fights?"
Leo giggled, but Piper smacked him upside the head. "It would make sense why they would target our guys then," Piper said.
"But how would we find them?" Hazel asked.
"That's what I'm trying to do now…if they were kidnapped for that reason, then whoever kidnapped them would be selling illegal tickets somewhere for people to watch…"
It took her another two hours to find what she was looking for, by which point the other three had stopped hovering over her shoulder and gone back to what they were doing before. Leo went up to check on Calypso and tell her what was going on, but he came back down about ten minutes before Annabeth made her find.
"Jackpot!" she cheered. The three of them jumped and raced over to her side.
"What did you find?" Piper demanded.
"It's called the Gladiator's Arena, based in Kansas somewhere. The website says it's picked special fighters from around the country to fight animals and monsters of all sorts, just like in ancient Rome," Annabeth said.
"Where in Kansas?" Leo asked. With the Argo II, they could easily be there within the day.
"That it won't say…you have to pay for the tickets and then sign a bunch of legal contracts about secrecy before they'll give you the location," Annabeth said, dejecting a little.
"Yeah but…Kansas…we've at least narrowed down what state they're in," Hazel said positively. Annabeth nodded, then pulled out her cell phone.
"What are you doing?" Leo asked.
"If these are mortals who kidnapped our friends, there's not actually a lot we can do. We need the feds to stop this," Annabeth explained.
"Wait what?" Piper demanded. She was ready to go right now and get her boyfriend back. Then she was going to put him some place safe and never let him leave again.
"This is a whole organization of mortals," Annabeth said. Admitting they couldn't take it on was bitter in her mouth. "And there's a lot of kids there; how are we supposed to get them all home safe? Turn the Argo II into a taxi?"
She dialed the number of one of the detectives she knew was working the case. "Hello? Detective Green? This is Annabeth Chase…I think I found something you're going to want to take a look at…"
The others let her handle relaying the information. It didn't take her long.
"So now what? We just sit back and let the feds get our boyfriends?" Piper asked. Annabeth looked at Leo.
"No, now we go scour Kansas and see if we can sneak our boyfriends out of this place first," Annabeth said. Leo smirked.
"Let's fly!"
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