As to the chapter title: pun not intended.
Or was it? I forget.

I don't own the Secret Saturdays. I don't own Leonidas. I don't own a certain someone who shows up in this chapter. I do own Aeron and Solés.
I also own whatever random or anonymous persons or things that manage to show up...except when I don't.

Episodic, "collection" of short stories, history shared by many stories (but not all of it used by all of those stories—I will point out the differences), not alternate universe, so on and so forth.

Anywho:

New Job

"So, Mr. Van Rook, do you know who we're meeting?"

Leonidas bristled; though Aeron was not his son, it still rankled him to hear the boy, his wife's son, call him 'Mister' anything. He would almost have preferred that the boy just call him by his first name...and Aeron had told him more than once that that was exactly why he didn't.

"Of course I do, pup, I've done business with them before." He scanned the crowd with some distaste; not very many people here this early in the day, but too many for his liking. The sooner his clients showed up, the better.

"Before you met mom and me, right?" Leonidas blinked and turned to Aeron. He raised an eyebrow in question; the boy couldn't see it through the mask, but seemed to anticipate the reaction. Aeron shrugged. "Just curious."

"Yes, my mentor and I—ah! Come along, boy, and let us get the introductions over with."

"Van Rook, how are you?" the blond woman in the grey trench coat asked.

He bowed. Might as well pretend to be civil. "I am well, Solés, and you?"

"Well enough," she replied. She turned to Aeron. "And who might this handsome young thing be?"

"He is my son, Aeron," Leonidas said with pride. Aeron merely rolled his eyes.

"Son?" The man flanking Solés smiled coldly. "Forgive me for saying so, but you don't look much older than the boy. How is it that he is your son?"

Leonidas felt his face grow warm. Granted, the age difference was obvious, in spite of the mask; they would sooner be brothers than father and son. But the reminder was humiliating, especially from a stranger. "My...my wife's son, from before I met her," he mumbled.

"Oh, yes, forgive me," Solés said. "One of our newest recruits, Epsilon." She gestured vaguely in the man's direction.

—

Leonidas lay back on an outcropping and mused over the work done so far. This had to be one of the strangest jobs he'd accepted. He'd spent the first week meeting the archaeology team, worming his way into conversations, leading them on to extract their secrets without a single one knowing of it.

What he found made him lose all professional interest in the dig. The things these people were finding were educational, but of no other value; even if he were inclined to break his promise to Vadoma, there was nothing here for his clients.

No, museums might want a share of the findings, but even the most eclectic of collectors would not pay him to sift through the dig. Nor was he even here as a fighter. He'd half expected some trouble from the locals, at least, maybe some cultural issues or wild animals, but no.

He was just hired muscle in case a wall collapsed, or something of that nature.

He barely even noticed the kitten curled up on his chest. He automatically moved to pet it, and his hand encountered something strange. He lifted his head up and found a green stone hanging from its collar. He shrugged; one of the scientists' pets, probably. Or one of their children; some kids were strange about decorating their pets.

He glanced into the middle of the dig. At least Aeron seemed to be enjoying himself, and learning a great deal. He could see some of the friendlier scientists chatting at the boy. Their children constantly found excuses to spar with him. The same traits that left them terrified of Leonidas Van Rook had them in awe of Aeron.

All things considered, it wasn't a bad job, even with his promise to Vadoma. It was just strange. His habit of poking around for things for his clients may have been moot, but he'd learned something else at the same time. He could find nothing that should be of interest to the Grey Men. Yet Solés was the one that hired him. Why did they want him here?

As if his thought summoned her, Solés hoisted herself onto Leonidas' outcropping. She shaded her eyes to watch the dig site, a habit he would have thought moot with those dark glasses.

The cat hissed and ran off behind another rock. Leonidas followed it out of curiosity, and was perplexed to realize it had vanished from sight. He shrugged and turned back to the agent.

Solés seemed agitated about something.

"Not going according to plan?" Leonidas asked.

She glanced up at him, then back into the site. "How do you mean?"

"The dig, is it not providing enough research?" He shrugged. "You seem...nervous, perhaps?" He chose not to suggest his real assessment. "Impatient?"

She smirked, but she did not reply.

He gave her another bare glance, his eyes drawn to the object in her hands. "And has the spear given up its secrets?"

She glanced back up at him, then at the spear. She scowled, and refused to reply.

And that did not sit well with Leonidas. Granted, these people were always big on keeping secrets, even when there was no secret to keep. But why would she be unwilling to talk about the spear? He and his mentor were the ones who'd retrieved it for these people. It wasn't as though he wasn't supposed to know it existed.

His mentor had always felt that the employers' motive was the most crucial detail of any job, but even that superior mind had been unable to learn the Grey Men's purpose with the spear. If it had only been research, perhaps it had been innocent enough, but these people....

These people had always been more concerned with results than what it took to get them. The only higher priority was to never betray their secrets.

He shuddered. Why had she hired him for this job?

That Epsilon person approached. Solés grimaced, but jumped off the outcropping to speak with him.

Leonidas overheard their conversation, but the puzzle remained unsolved.

—

"Did you actually want something, Epsilon?" Solés asked.

"You have a call. One of the...ahem...other experiments that you're involved in." Epsilon glanced towards Leonidas with an unreadable expression. "They're ready for further instructions."

"Finally," she snarled. "They promised me it would've been set up weeks ago!" She ran in the direction of their office.

One of her people handed her the phone. "It's about time you contacted me," she snarled into the mouthpiece. "What took you people so long?" The person on the other end started to say something, but she cut him off. "No, never mind, I don't want to hear your excuses. Just make sure you get the job done, quickly. Remember where to go?" The man listed off an address, and she confirmed it. "Good. Remember, there are three very important rules in this job. First, do not kill or damage the woman. Second, kill everyone else. Kill her family, kill the servants, kill their pets, kill everyone in that house; if there is even so much as a rat on the property, I want it dead. Kill anyone and everyone that tries to interfere. I don't care how you do it, just get it done. But the woman is to remain alive and...mostly unharmed." The man made a snide remark, and Solés snorted in disgust. "Fine, whatever, just get the job done first, and don't let anyone damage her. Third, stay there and wait for further instructions. Got all that, or do I need to come hold your hand?"

The man repeated her instructions. Solés hung up with a smile.

Her associate handed her a file, and recited the relevant information while she flipped through it.

"Jacob Cheechoo, military, Black Ops, law enforcement," the man said. "Inuit heritage, both parents are Secret Scientists specializing in geology. I believe their team is on Ellesmere Island at the time. His little brother may not be easy to manipulate, but the kid is too young to know for sure."

"Yet the brat is still alive?" Solés raised an eyebrow. "Do we have any use for him?"

"No, Paul has yet to show any value to our research, but our superiors have determined that anything that distracts the parents from their work would be more of a nuisance than he is at this point. We have orders to...overlook their family for the moment."

"And how do we know this Jacob will do the job?"

The man flipped the file to another page. "His specialty in these situations is fighting, not negotiation or 'human relations'; his records show that he'll take out the enemy and leave others to worry about civilians and the like."

"Ah, a good little soldier." Solés chuckled. "Such a pity he won't be around for us to use again. And your men?"

The other agent nodded. "By the time Jacob is finished with those thugs you hired, our people will be in place to deal with him and his associate. It is simply our good fortune that the targets live so far from others; there will be no witnesses."

Solés waited a few hours, then placed another call.

The next step was in motion.

(Looks at the paragraphs about the kitten.)
What the...? Mau? You conniving, trans-dimensional, telepathic, spoiled rotten, fur-faced, little...kitten, what are you doing in this story?
Strange question. I'm playing. Like usual. You humans can be so entertaining.
What have I told you about invading my fiction?
To stick to your originals, and stay out of the fan works...? Please. I go where I want, when I want. Not like you can do anything about it. Pfft.
"Pfft," yourself.
Readers, please, I'm sorry, I don't know what she's doing there. She has absolutely nothing to do with this story, I swear.
How she got there is easy; she can travel between dimensions or universes as easily as you or I might walk from one room to another. I met her some while back, on a trip to Japan of all places, in the home universe of a few characters in my original fiction. I have it on very good authority that she's been spoiled rotten by the Egyptian culture, and thinks all humans ought to worship her.
Why she's in this story.... Well, she seems to find me especially entertaining. (I have no idea why.) At least she's not like Anzu, though; her biggest fault is that she doesn't understand the concept of "stay out."
It doesn't help me any that I'm not a cat person.
Only because you think you're allergic.
Oh, go chase a rat, already.

This next bit is only relevant to those who are interested in my thought process—or the lack thereof—when I write fiction.
If I say a certain character or item or what-have-you "originally appeared" somewhere, I'm not referring to their original "published" appearance, nor their first appearance in terms of when the story takes place.
I'm referring to whatever I was working on when I first had the idea to use that character/item/whatever.

And on that note:
Solés "originally" appeared in one of the later arcs in my Sierra/Pantheon/whatever-the-heck-I-call-it storyline. She was not, to my knowledge, affiliated with the group shown here; I'm not 100 percent certain she was even human in that arc, though she looked like a human.
A hint on the pronunciation of her name: pun not intended, but willingly exploited.

And one more note on Solés. I imagined someone that looked kind of like Agent J from the Pokémon Sinnoh episodes. More to the point, someone with the same hairstyle...but with maybe a kind of a straw-ish blond hair—I'm not too certain of how the shades are named, so that might not be too accurate. Anybody know of a character with that hair? Please? It's really bugging me; I know I've seen a cartoon/anime character with that hair, but I cannot think of who!
Oh, and Solés has dark glasses; you can't even see her eyes. At all. But that has nothing to do with the "where have I seen someone like that before" frustration.