"I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO BE CAREFUL!" screamed Calypso.

"Shoosh! I am the carefulest!"

"Sorry," mumbled Hazel.

"Get out of there, guys!" shouted Jason. "The security system was tripped!"

Grabbing the USB and Buford, Leo and Hazel booked it.

"No, really?" snarked Leo. "I never would have guessed!"

"Left!" shouted Hazel. The two of them careened down the hallway on their left just as two figures holding guns appeared in the hall.

"I thought you guys said there were no people!" Hazel seethed. "Duck!" The two of them hit the ground. A shower of bullets came from behind.

"There aren't!" replied a frantic Piper. She umm-ed and ahh-ed as if typing. "There's still only two humans inside, and they're you."

Annabeth took over. "Festus just scanned the building. They're all robots. While they can't move very fast, they shoot very accurately."

"Yeah, we've noticed!" shouted Leo. "Ah! Right, right, right!" They slid down the hall on their right. Behind them, the ceaseless footsteps pounded around the corner and stopped to shoot.

She ignored him and continued, "The faster you move, the less holes you'll have. We'll go with Plan Delta."

"What? Why?" asked Hazel. "Left!" Bullets imbedded themselves in the wall inches behind them.

"That's a horrible plan," intoned Percy.

"Like you have a better one?"

"Just do something unpredictable. It'll throw the robots off."

Annabeth huffed something about impulsive boyfriends and stupid Seaweed Brains.

"Wait, hold on. Robots?" exclaimed Leo, just realizing what Annabeth had said earlier. "Are you serious? What is this, sci-fi?" They ducked into another hall. "NO, BACK! BACK! BAD IDEA!" he screamed as robots appeared at the end of the hallway.

"A little slow on the uptake, aren't you?" smirked Piper.

"Shush. I'm trying not to dieeeee-" he lingered on the last syllable, yelping as Hazel suddenly grabbed his hand and yanked him down the stairwell. "AGH!" he steadied himself and ran in tow behind her. "Are you crazy? We'll get trapped in there!"

"Robots, remember? They don't like stairs. Trust me!" Bullets lodged themselves into the door, leaving indents in the steel. Leo flinched.

"Yeah, but what happens when we want to get out?"

"Don't worry about it," came Jason's voice. "We'll cover you."

Annabeth continued explaining the robots. "Titan had just begun making androids in its last year of business. They were flawed, so they were never released to the public. They called them "Monsters". Lethal war machines used to defend Titan's base." She paused for a second. "Percy and Jason are in."

"Monsters? Are you actually serious?" They were on the second floor by now.

"Yeah," said Piper. "We've run into them on missions a couple times. They have insane tracking systems. Thermal based, so you can't escape them. Luckily, the guns are manual and delayed. Otherwise we'd all be dead by now. Not good at hand to hand, so if you can't blow them up, disarm them."

"Lemme guess, Titan sold them to Dirt Face." They paused, panting, just above the ground floor door and loaded their guns, waiting for the distraction to come.

"Dirt Face?" asked Percy.

"She plays dirty. Hurry up, Kelp-Head!"

"I take offense to that." The click of a gun being loaded came over the comm, then-

"We're here," said Jason. The beautiful sound of robots being blasted to pieces by detonating bullets (courtesy of the one and only Leo Valdez) drifted from the other side of the door.

"Titan did sell all the androids," Annabeth said, "but not to Gaea. The monsters all belong to Tartarus, a subdivision of the Underworld. She bought them off Tartarus's market. Also gets her manpower there, too."

"What?!"

"The Underworld," explained Piper. "Black markets, human trafficking, underground fighting and the like. Only, more politically targeted than the general crime underworld. We have to deal with them, too."

"Well, that makes our lives just sooo much easier, doesn't it?"

"It does," stated Jason calmly. "Three… Two… One…"

Leo and Hazel quickly slipped out the door and sprinted down the corridor with Percy and Jason, firing at the occasional robot (Monster?) behind them as they went.

"You guys are explaining this to me later!"

"Yeah," replied Percy, "but do you have the intel?"

"Why would I not?"

"I copied everything," said Hazel. "Every file, even the passcode-locked ones." She paused and turned around to shoot at the robots.

"But what if it was erased?" asked Jason.

"Buford has a recovery system."

"Then what happened last time?" shouted Percy from ahead of them.

Leo gasped. "Don't insult Buford! It's not his fault! Besides, he didn't have a recovery system last time!" A line of robots appeared around the corner and formed a wall in front of the exit.

"Alright, guys," grinned Percy. "Ready to blow up some robots?"

"Yeah, baby!"

Hazel nodded determinedly.

"On my count!"

"No, mine!" shouted Jason.

"No time! Now!"

"Wait, n-" Jason was cut short by exploding robots. "Argh…" He dove into the battle and cut at the remaining droids with his knives. "I thought I told you to wait!"

"They were going to shoot!"

"Boys! Fight now, argue later!" ordered Hazel. Wow, Leo didn't know she had it in her.

"I second that," said Piper.

"We're bringing the bikes over," Annabeth added. "Festus is on autopilot. 30 feet from the exit. Think you can make it without dying?"

"Great," said Percy. Turning to face Leo and Hazel, he added, "You two run out ahead. Sparky and I will cover you."

"Got it," said Hazel. She kicked down the lock on the door and gestured for Leo to run at it.

"What?" he exclaimed.

"Automatic lock. No time! Hurry!" (read: We don't have enough time to to recalibrate the lock, so you're just going to have to bodycheck the door.)

Leo grimaced and ran, bracing himself for impact. He slammed into the door and stumbled outside, rubbing his shoulder.

"Go, go, go!" shouted Jason.

Leo and Hazel sprinted toward the vehicles, Percy and Jason behind them. Festus was idling with open doors, Annabeth and Piper already inside. Just as they reached the car, a bullet grazed Leo's injured shoulder. Hissing, he covered it with his hand and signaled for Hazel to jump into the driver's seat. They dove in, doors slamming closed. Percy and Jason jumped onto their bikes, and they were off into the night, alarms blaring behind them.

A/N: I'M SO SORRY GUYS I left y'all on a total cliffhanger please shoot me so I can match Leo. So yeah. I'm really sorry, but I like to be a chapter or two ahead, and the next chapter was refusing to be written! It's total filler atm, not even useful, so I'm considering cutting it (again) and rewriting 1000 words.

Really sorry, guys... IB will be properly starting in 2 weeks, and I already have some homework (almost wrote homestuck there i am trash), so again, I'm so so sorry if I can't update for a while 0n0 I normally write super slow, but with even more homework (i just did it again! agh!), I don't know how long it will take! It might be a few months...

Just thank you guys so much for understanding, and feel free to leave reviews screaming at me to update! Just do it nicely, please 0u0.

As always, tell me if I can fix anything, and give me ideas for what you want to see in the future! The majority of the plot is still open ended. (but i do have an ending in mind) I really do read all the reviews, even if I don't reply to them. I love hearing from y'all crazies. It warms my stone-cold heart.

If you're ever curious as to when I'll update next, I try to keep a status report on my profile that should update every once in a while. More often than the story, at least... orz

See you in chapter 7!

~Yumi

(spoiler alert?)

And for the reviewers who asked where Nico is, well... it's complicated ;)