Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

So, it only took a few months for me to read all the PJO books. I think they're a great bunch of friends and honestly I need to read about them in a scenario where they aren't about to die every five minutes. XD

Post-Gaia War. Of course Leo and Calypso have found CHB, they've all been united, hugged, punched shoulders, made sarcastic comments to each other, etc, etc.

The Big Seven and Calypso stood outside of a skeevy looking shop in the middle of downtown Queens. Percy and Annabeth could barely focus on the unassuming window looking into a hall that reminded one of a dull doctor's office. Their eyes were directed on the perimeter around them, searching for any kind of monster activity happening in their general vicinity.

"We must be giving off such a stink right now," Hazel muttered to herself.

"It's okay, Leo always smells like that," Frank said coolly.

Hazel gave his hand a very hard squeeze. Leo waved a hand. "It's okay. That stink isn't my personal body odor, however. This new cologne is doing me wonders!"

"Unbounded wonders," Calypso pointed out, though with a smile at her boyfriend.

Piper wrinkled her nose and covered it with her hand, looking like she'd just gotten hit with a wave of stink. Jason groaned and said, "I wasn't smelling it before, but now I do! What is that awful smell?!"

Percy and Annabeth stopped focusing on what monsters could potentially pounce on them and pinched their noses. All made noises of disgust and looked at Leo with annoyance. "Leo, what is that?" Annabeth demanded to know.

Leo shrugged casually and reached for the doorknob. "Nothing can displace the smell of seven half-bloods than a stink bomb. Is it as bad as your old stepdad, Percy?"

Percy waved his hand around. "Ugh, it's not even in the same ballpark! If Gabe smelled like this Mom would've risked our lives and gotten us away from him! And let's face it, that would've been the safer choice!"

"You made this stink bomb?" Annabeth wondered.

"Are you questioning my genius? I thought I've shown off my ingenuity before," Leo said, opening the door.

"It's not your genius she's questioning, but your sanity," Frank groaned. He was a funny sight: a huge guy the size of a football player, his entire focus on trying to not breathe in.

"How close did you set it off from us?" Piper wanted to know. Her voice sounded choked, like she was struggling to speak with a congested nose.

"Two blocks away. Be glad I didn't set it off any closer." Leo looked scandalized by his friends as they all stared at him angrily, hands over their noses. "What?! You guys wanted to come to the monster-hub of America for a fun time with friends; did you honestly expect us to all come to New York City, us, the faces on Demigods Most Wanted by Monsters posters, and not get hounded the entire time? While I'm down for a good battle, I'd say the past few months have given us a lifetime's worth." He patted his magic tool belt. "All I did was a safety measure." He bowed deeply and looked up with mischievous eyes from behind some curls over his forehead. "I'm now ready to receive all your cries of gratitude."

Hazel had been holding her breath for now over a minute; she put her wrist to her nose and plowed past Leo into the skeevy looking doctor's office. Leo found himself almost trampled as his friends decided that their time was better spent breathing not-foul air instead of exploding with "Thanks, Leo!" "You think of everything!" "What would we do without you, Leo?"

Once everyone could breathe normally, Jason looked up from his hands on his knees and said, "Leo, don't do that, ever again."

Leo threw up his hands. "You're welcome!"

Calypso put a tender hand on his shoulder and said, "That was really disgusting."

"But also genius," Leo said.

Calypso folded her arms and quirked her eyebrows. "But mostly disgusting."

"Genius."

"Disgusting."

"Genius."

"Ugh."

"You know, if you'd kiss me, I would stop arguing—"

It was a relief to everyone that Calypso could take a hint.

Annabeth and Percy started to explore the weird doctor's office. "This is where we're going to do a, and I quote, 'super-fun friend thing'?" Percy wondered aloud.

Annabeth felt for her bone dagger. One wondered what it appeared as to mortals. Maybe an umbrella. She almost raised it when a tiny young woman the age of a college student popped out of the woodwork. "Ah, yes! Is this the Leo Valdez party?" she clapped her hands together.

Calypso heard this and shoved Leo forward. He stumbled in front of the lady, looking a little distracted. "Yes! Leo Valdez? That's me."

The woman looked him over and folded her arms. "You're eighteen?"

"Yep. Promise. Are we early?"

"Nope, right on time, ten minutes early." The woman straightened and smiled. "My name is Fiona and welcome to the Queens Escape Rooms!"

Everyone looked each other in the eyes as understanding dawned on them; Leo had arranged for them to all do a mystery escape room. Fiona went on to explain what exactly this was as she passed around a clipboard for everyone to sign ("A safety waiver?" Percy asked Annabeth as she, always the reader despite the dyslexia, read the disclaiming terms and conditions. "Yep. 'Anyone under fifteen must have legal guardian or parent present.'" Annabeth sighed as she signed. "Guess I'm everyone's parent today." Percy gave her a weirded out look. "Fine. 'Legal guardian.'"). A mystery escape room was a locked room full of puzzles to be solved using clues; you had to get out in an hour or less to win; three clues could be given by her at any point, they could be let out in case of an emergency but that didn't count as winning, etc. Fiona could hear them so she'd know when to step in with a promise of a clue if they were really struggling.

"Has everyone got it?" Fiona asked, once the passed-around waiver had been signed full of scraggly, almost unreadable signatures. Everyone nodded. "I need a team captain to have the walkie talkie to ask me for clues. Anyone want to volunteer?"

Everyone looked at Percy or Jason. They looked at each other, regarding the other, and came to a silent agreement. "Leo," they said, nodding to him.

Leo stood with a red face, surprised. He'd never been the team captain of like, anything. "I'll try not to epically fail," he said, as Fiona handed him the walkie talkie. Calypso gave him an encouraging smirk.

"Any questions?" Fiona asked, once again facing the group.

Frank raised a hand. "Is it a dark room?"

Fiona shook her head. "No, we're not that cruel. It's lit up."

Leo elbowed Frank. "Afraid of the dark, Zhang?"

Frank frowned and ignored him.

Piper raised a hand. "Does the room we have have a theme?"

"Yes." Fiona clapped her hands together. "I'm glad you asked." She led them down a little hall and stopped at a door marked 'SUPER-VILLIAN LAIR.' "You all have been captured by The Mad Scientist, a super-villain who lives in Super-Metropolis; you all are hostages held for ransom; The Mad Scientist has found out that the Superhero is not coming to save you, because he has to save the Mayor"—("Good to know we're low on the Superhero's Priority list," Leo muttered)— "so The Mad Scientist wants to kill the hostages, but first he's decided, for fun and entertainment, to give you an hour to save yourselves. So, you have one hour to get out of his lair because the self-destruct button is pressed; if you don't win, you are destroyed in an explosion. The Mad Scientist watches on. You'll be able to hear him."

"Destroyed in an explosion if we don't make it out in an hour. Are we sure that this isn't a set-up and Fiona's really a monster?" Percy muttered next to Annabeth's ear.

"Only half-bloods can find this place relaxing," Annabeth said warily.

Fiona unlocked the entrance door and they all warily walked in.

They'd entered a purple and blue room that while not dark, didn't exactly scream rainbows and sunshine and happiness. It was circular, its wall lined with dark and creepy objects; almost directly across from them was a small set of stairs that led up to a locked door, presumably one they'd need to open. In the center was a distracting dark red pool of lava.

"One more thing, no phones. No looking up stuff online for clues," Fiona said.

"Does she know who she's talking to?" Jason said. A half-blood wouldn't be caught dead with a cellphone—'cause if they'd had a cellphone, they'd be dead.

"No, she actually does not," Piper reminded him.

Fiona closed the door behind her, speaking through a crack, "Time starts as soon as I lock this door." The door was thus loudly shut, and a computer screen against the back wall went from 1:00:00 to 59:59 instantly.

"No cellphones. Oh no, what are we going to do? It's not like we have fire powers, or lightning powers, or charmspeak, or water control, or the ability to sense stuff underground or turn into animals," Leo said sarcastically.

"Uh-hem," Annabeth said impatiently.

Leo turned to look at Percy giving him a look that said, 'Hurry or you're dead!'

"Let's not count out natural intelligence," Leo amended quickly.

"Let's all try that natural intelligence idea, instead of relying on our powers. This isn't a life or death situation," Jason advised.

"No, it's not. It's a puzzle." Annabeth's eyes burned with a bright grey light full of brilliance and adventure.

Without a word, they spread about the room. There was a lot to take in. Annabeth tried opening a gray dresser. Only a couple of drawers would open; she pulled out several blueprints from these. "These are marked 'Taking Over Super-Metropolis' and 'Evil Gun Ray'," Annabeth said aloud.

Percy observed four beakers of varying sizes atop a narrow table. They bubbled and gurgled, each holding a different colored liquid. None of them held the same amount. Percy, despite himself, tried to move the water inside them. He succeeded, but to no end.

"Percy, are you using your water powers?" Hazel wanted to know.

Percy turned around to see her and Frank staring at him from next to a keypad resembling one used to arm a building's security system. "Yes," he said sheepishly.

Hazel pointed at the pit of bubbling lava Jason was circling. "That shot into the air," she said.

"The lava?" Percy said stupidly.

Hazel looked at what her finger was pointing at: "Yes, the lava."

"Why are there ropes above the lava?" Jason wondered aloud, pointing to the four loops hanging from the ceiling.

"They're evidently the ropes we escaped from. You know, we were hostages," Percy said.

"We've been hostages plenty of times. Which time are we talking about?" Leo said from the desk. Before him was a metallic computer desk; five buttons in a haphazard order were to his left, and then a lever sitting in the middle of a plus sign on his right. Leo moved it at random from north to south to east to west, but the door, surprisingly, didn't suddenly magically open. "We need to find out what way I need to move this lever," he said.

Calypso stood next to him, staring at the big computer screen on the wall above the desk. In one corner was the countdown clock: the rest of the screen kept replying the same video: it was of an old white guy with glasses, frizzy grey hair, and big black gloves. Definitely The Mad Scientist.

"What's he saying?" Leo said.

Calypso focused on the man. "He's monologuing," she decided at last.

"All villains do it. Imagine how many actual plans would've succeeded if the Titans didn't like the sound of their voices," Leo said.

"All he talks about is that he's starting his attack on the city when the sun sets and will have the city vanquished by the sun's rising." Calypso leaned forward. "His favorite part of the city is downtown because it'll get destroyed with bombs, and then the west coast."

"Sun sets. . ." Leo muttered. He pushed the lever quickly to the left, then to the right. "What's his favorite part of the city?"

"South." Calypso knew where he was getting at.

The lever went down, then left again. Suddenly a flash of lights sprayed over the buttons. They turned white in a wave, like a crowd standing up to do the wave, and then went dim again.

Calypso and Leo stared at each other. Without a word, Leo moved the lever again. Calypso carefully concentrated on the pattern on the haphazardly spaced buttons. Her fingers danced over them, pressing them down in the same order. Suddenly a loud, heavy cackling filled the room. Frank let out a helpless whimper; Hazel listened. Were there going to be any taunting words spoken by The Mad Scientist? No—the only noise left in the room was the sound of eight teenagers breathing and the occasional dark crackle of lightning sound effects.

"Okay, I'm really hoping that these buttons do something other than provoke a sound effect," Calypso said. When she and Leo did a thorough search in and around the desk to see if the buttons had opened a secret door or not and found nothing, she scoffed and focused on the monologuing video instead.

Percy meanwhile examined the beakers. They did nothing when moved, shaken, or stirred. They just gurgled. Still, their different colors (red, green, yellow, and blue, a personal favorite) and varied shapes and sizes must mean something.

Piper wandered over, a sense of urgency about her, and hands on her hips, stared intently on the beakers. "Try arranging them into different positions," she said. She put them in order from least filled to most filled, then most filled to least filled; then from shortest to tallest, then tallest to shortest. Percy, meanwhile, examined the narrow table they sat upon. He found a strange black symbol on the side of the table. "Look at what I found!" he said. He drew the attention of Jason, Piper, Hazel, and Frank. They stared at the strange symbol, which looked like a bunched up weird spool of rope.

"What could it mean?" Hazel wondered.

Frank's eyes wandered and focused on the loops of ropes hanging over the pit. "I bet we need to tie those ropes into this symbol. Er, it looks like a knot. We could tie them into this knot."

"Okay, but how do we get over the pit?" Piper wanted to know. It'd been built with safety rails around it, but it was indeed a ten foot plunge into some netting under a red floor.

"We need to somehow get safely over the pit to get to the ropes," Jason said. He looked at a black camera peering at them out of the corner of a wall. "What do you think she'd see if I flew over the pit?"

"Some crazy kid jumping over a ten-foot deep pit, probably," Leo said.

Piper looked down into the pit. "I bet this is the main reason we had to sign that waiver."

Hazel concentrated a little, her eyes closed. She snapped them open. "We need to trigger something. We need to somehow find a bridge to cross the pit."

"Trigger something? Like press a button and suddenly a bridge shows up?" Jason wondered.

"There's not much around here that's long enough to be a bridge," Piper said, looking around the room.

Leo tsked. "What did I say about using our powers, Hazel?"

"I'd like to get out of this highly pressurized situation you put us in, Leo," Hazel said. Her voice wasn't meant to sound unkind, but the anxiety she felt ringed it.

Leo gave her that. "True."

"Hazel, where's the button?" Jason said.

"Is that cheating, finding the button using her powers?" Piper said.

"Well, technically it would, if she actually found it. She can only find it if it's underground or hidden on the ground," Jason said. He looked at Hazel for confirmation of his knowledge; she gave him an affirming nod.

Leo shrugged. "We're already in deep."

Hazel looked at Frank; he nodded. Poor guy felt anxious enough about this pressurized situation. If there was any chance at a slight lead on the clock, he was for it. So Hazel inhaled, closed her eyes, and focused.

Percy, meanwhile, ignored Piper and kept rearranging the beakers. There had to be something significant about them. If they were arranged in a pattern, maybe confetti would fall and a big bell would ring over the room, like 'DING-DING-DING! You won! You solved it!' He put them in the order of the colors of the rainbow; he then, thinking any idea a plausible idea at this point, put yellow next to green, then the blue next to the green, then the red next to the blue. Yellow and green went together; as did green and blue (they reminded him of the sea) and then blue and red together. Suddenly a bunch of dice were thrown up into the air from one end of the coffee table. Percy leapt back; Piper had the sense of mind to go after the dice before they rolled straight into the ten-foot deep pit.

All eight of them collected around the dice on the floor. Piper arranged them into a line. Six dice there were; one of the six numbers on each of them were highlighted red instead of black. "Two, three, five, five, six, six." Piper frowned. "What does that mean?"

"And what order are they meant to be in?" Jason wondered. He knelt on one knee, his arm hanging off his bent knee.

"Is it a code?" Hazel wondered.

"It can't be random. It must have some significance," Calypso said firmly.

"What around here could be activated by a code?" Annabeth stood up, looking around the room hurriedly. Percy looked up at her; he seemed more preoccupied by the golden curls that swished around her shoulders. She strode away to the keypad that looked like it belonged to an alarm system; she held fingertips over the panel, and said, "Figure out the combination. Or do you need me to come over and figure it out?"

"I'm definitely down for that last one," Percy said. Sure, he'd stumbled on a chance puzzle and fixed it, but he was a bit of a one-trick pony.

Piper, however, looked at the beakers. Their set pattern now looked like they were meant to be. They alternated bubbling. First they bubbled for five seconds, then stopped; bubbled for six seconds, then stopped. Five, three, two, six, six, five. She called out this sequence of numbers to Annabeth; she punched them in and a creaking filled the room. A bridge slowly but surely strode across the length of the pit.

"So . . . I don't need to look for a button with my mind," Hazel said after a second.

"There's that bridge you wanted, Grace," Percy said generously, like he'd been the one to figure it out instead of Piper and Annabeth.

Jason ran across the bridge and grabbed the ropes. They fell in his hands like he was picking broken vines that had hung loosely from jungle branches. They fell into a bunch at his feet; back across the bridge, everyone breathing on the sweat on his neck, he laid them out by length.

Frank squatted next to the rope design and traced it with his fingers. "This looks kinda complicated. Reminds me of origami. It looks simple until you find out it takes seventeen steps from start to finish."

"Jason, can you knot it like that?" Annabeth wondered.

Jason thought for a second, but relinquished the thought. He wasn't good at puzzles, like Annabeth. "Have a hand at it," he said, stepping back. "I'll just make them into a knot that you'll need to unknot 'cause it's wrong."

"Can you not knot right now?" Percy asked Jason seriously.

This only incurred upon Percy a punch on the arm, but it made him grin as he rubbed his sore arm.

Annabeth studied the ropes before her. Four of them, in varying lengths. She criss-crossed them this way and that, and occasionally squatted next to Frank to study the intricate knot. Her mind raced but her hands didn't seem to want to obey. She growled more than once and finally had to step back, hands on her hips, and take a walk. "I need a break. This is giving me a headache."

By the time she came back, Leo had a multi-looped knot kinda resembling both a hangman noose's and a Boy Scout's knot. He shrugged at her raised eyebrows and said, "I sailed on a mechanical flying boat for months and months. I've picked up on a few nautical practicalities." Leo handed her the knot, and went back to Calypso and the monologuing The Mad Scientist. Calypso listened to his words, now mouthing them as he'd repeated himself a few times. Leo searched around the desk; that loud crackling noise and white light had to produced something, right?

He made his way to the grey dresser; he rattled the drawers, and the first one, locked when Annabeth had investigated, now sprung open on him—or at him, really. "Hey, Calypso," he said, hand to his nose, "I think I know what we opened."

"Your nose?" Calypso said Smart-Alec-ly, observing the few drops of blood pouring from his nose.

"Nope, not that. Don't worry about that. At least this nose bleed won't start World War 3!" Leo called over the room.

"Thanks for that, Leo. Needed to hear that. Keeps my self-confidence level normal," Percy called back.

Calypso handed Leo a handkerchief from his belt anyway. She searched the drawer but Leo dropped the handkerchief and joined her. "BLUEPRINTS! This is my territory! Finally, something that makes sense." He flattened one out on the floor and frowned. "Okay, I lied. This makes like, no sense whatsoever."

Calypso joined him. The blueprint paper was covered in words written with white chalk. Instead of showing dimensions, measurements, and calculations, it was like a diary entry. "'Mr. Boopsy lost his favorite toy today, the Argian knot. He liked to chew on it and I'd swing him into the air. He and I are both in mourning.' What the heck?" Calypso looked at Leo to make sure that his expression of confusion matched hers.

"Who's Mr. Boopsy?" Frank wondered.

"Probably a pet of the scientist's. A dog, maybe," Hazel remarked.

"Wait, wasn't there something about a dog around here?" Piper said. They spread out and she found a small memorial The Mad Scientist had erected in honor of his dead dog "Mr. Boopsy. His knot?" She put out her hand and Annabeth understood. She handed her the knot and Piper said, "To right a wrong." She put the knot on the little glass memorial over a plaque. The knot disappeared, maybe down a trap door or something. Who knew. A little slab popped out of the memorial, with a button on it.

"Convenient," Piper said, and, pressing the button, looked at the locked door.

It didn't open. She pressed the button, again and again, frustrated.

"I don't think that will make any difference, Piper," Jason said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Is it broken, or something?" she wanted to know.

"Maybe it doesn't open the door," Jason mused.

"Look!" Hazel pointed. They turned and saw the ladder that grew out of the middle of the bridge over the ten-foot deep pit.

"Or it could do that," Jason said, shrugging.

Hazel bounded up the ladder. She saw the holes where the ropes that Jason had pulled down had been attached to the ceiling. She spotted a little grey button. She pressed it. She looked down and said, "Did that open the door?"

Piper pushed and shoved against the door, with Jason kicking it and trying to force it open. "Nothing," he said.

Leo and Calypso rifled through the blueprints Annabeth had discovered, and Leo tried more drawers. "Hey, did this one open for you, Annabeth?" he called, as he scooped up several of them. His arms were bulging.

Annabeth shook her head. "No. Hazel," she called, "you opened the rest of the other drawer with that button."

Hazel whooped a little and scuttled down. Frank met her at the bottom and they joined everyone else, besides Piper and Jason, around the blueprints. The teens scrambled them around, rearranging them, reading them.

Annabeth flipped one over and said, "Flip them all over."

"What do you think?" Percy asked.

"I think this is an actual puzzle." The flipped-over blueprints revealed backs covered in geometrical designs. Annabeth took the field as she shouted out orders. "Frank, move that one right here! Percy, I need those two put next to Calypso's." (Percy avoided Calypso's eyes when he did this.) "Leo, take that corner piece over to Hazel."

Suddenly, Annabeth shouted, "Stop, step back!"

They obeyed, giving room to the finished product—a blue and white puzzle—it was of The Mad Scientist's lab.

"What are we looking for here? Is it a treasure map?" Percy wanted to know.

"Thirty-one minutes left!" Hazel called, looking anxiously at the countdown on the computer screen.

"Treasure map—" Annabeth pointed to a tiny X in the corner of the room. "X marks the spot."

The X, in real life, was a skull decoration. Jason ran over and tried opening it. It yielded to his attempt, and a button showed up for his efforts.

He pressed the button, and that one opened the locked door.

"WHOO!" Everyone else rushed in, Jason last. Piper held him back especially to kiss him as a reward.

They'd all entered a dark blue and purple hall.

"OH, COME ON, I thought we were done!" Leo groaned, his hands in the air.

"Yeah, like we'd be done in only thirty minutes," Frank said.

"We're not that smart," Jason said, bringing up the rear.

"What is this place?" Calypso whispered.

The dark-colored hall was a dead end. Along its walls were mahogany book shelves full of books. Their titles were stuff like 'How to Take Over a City' and 'How to Kill Your Superhero'.

"Is this the Titans' library?" Percy asked curiously.

Piper, Frank, and Hazel immediately began to open the books and flip through them for clues. Percy found a comic book showing The Mad Scientist defeating the Superhero. Wow, good thing they hadn't put their lives in the hands of that dude. Jason ran down to the end of the hall and jiggled a doorknob on a plain door. Of course, it didn't open. Still, it was worth a try. Annabeth stood on tiptoe to read pasted newspaper articles about The Mad Scientist's victories.

"'The Trophy Galley,'" Percy read off of a plaque.

"This guy defines the word 'narcissistic'," Jason said, kinda mortified.

Leo had leapt ahead to the operating seat of a big evil laser. "YES! This is so cool!" All it put out when he pressed a button was a red light laser, though. He slumped back, disappointed. "It doesn't actually work," he sulked.

"Did you expect it to?" Calypso wondered. She was studying the Winner's Wall: it was a bunch of mementos The Mad Scientist had saved from defeating superheroes. She leaned forward, studying. Some were capes, others special weapons or even shoes. "'Won against Hero-Dude, May 19th, 1988,'" she said. She caught Annabeth reading the newspapers and said, "Annabeth, is there is an article from May 19th, 1988?"

"Yeah, I just saw that." Annabeth located it. She pulled it down and said, "There are circled letters on here." She put the paper on the floor and between her and Calypso, they'd collected all the newspaper articles according to all the dates on the Winner's Wall. Piper discovered a pad of paper and grabbing a pen, wrote down the scrambled letters from each article.

"Okay, I've got ULOCC, UNCOS, YOFO, and KELO," Piper said uncertainly.

"What the actual—" Jason said.

The three girls assembled in cross-legged positions on the floor. They ended up passing the pad around so each could examine it.

"They don't make single words themselves. I think they're letters all mixed together that form totally different words, even a sentence," Piper said.

Annabeth had already started figuring out combinations. Piper and Calypso immediately followed suit.

Leo was pointing his laser everywhere he pleased. He used it like a flashlight. Really, he was hoping to find something to help them. He'd gotten them into this mess (as usual—but on purpose this time) and wanted to help get them out of it. Besides, pointing the laser at stuff was fun. He wished he had a cat.

Suddenly the laser pointed out a single button hiding on the side of the Winner's Wall display.

"Frank, I found a button!" Leo said. He shone the laser on Frank's chest, then in his face (accidentally—total accident), and then at the button. "Press it!"

Frank muttered to himself under his breath, something about getting even and lasers can blind and stuff like that. He pressed the button, and a part of the floor disappeared. It revealed a . . . dance floor. There were four square tiles, all pale white. A disco ball appeared and spun and cast sparkling squares on the walls. Some popular mortal pop music played.

"Sweet! A dance floor!" Leo said enthusiastically, jumping down and stepping onto the dance floor. "The Leo likes!"

"I really hope you're not planning to call yourself that," Frank said, mortified.

"Wait!" Jason put a hand out. Leo pouted. Jason nodded Piper over and said, pointing to the tiles, "Aren't those almost the same words you just said out loud?"

Indeed, one tile said LNKOCU, another OFSOL, etc, etc.

"We need to solve these words," Piper said.

Annabeth was on that. She wrote fiercely, removing a letter here and putting it here. Meanwhile, Leo discovered that one tile glowed red when touched, another green, then a blue, then a yellow one.

"They have to have an order to them. It's a code to unlock something, but what?" Hazel mused.

Annabeth HA!ed and leaned back on her hands. She smiled, pleased. Percy picked up her paper and read it slowly out loud, once he could block out the loud annoying pop music and insistent dyslexia. "UNLOCK, CODE, YOU, FOOLS." He looked at Annabeth proudly. "I have no idea how you did that. I could barely read it normally."

"I think the dyslexia helped me. You know, this one time," she said.

Calypso, meanwhile, snatched the paper out of Annabeth's hand and speeding to Leo's side, said, "Red, blue, yellow, green!" For the red one had said LNKOCU, the blue one CDEO, etc.

Leo stepped and sidestepped and twisted and tapped and finally finished with a fantastic ending stance. No one clapped, but a glass popped off the wrist of a superhero's costume in the memento section.

"Smooth," Calypso said slyly.

"Thank you," Leo said appreciatively.

All eight teens gathered around the superhero's costume. Under the glass was a series of buttons.

"It's another code," Frank said obviously.

"What's this guy's thing for codes?" Jason wanted to know.

"I'm more curious about why this Mad Scientist has a secret dance floor," Percy said.

Annabeth ran back to the newspaper articles. "This was one—The Mad Scientist called it 'the day of his greatest victory'"—she pulled out an article featuring the headline MAD SCIENTIST WINS THE DAY, TAKES OVER THE CITY—"the date on the newspaper is October 11th, 1996."

"He's had this city in subjection for two plus decades?" Frank said.

"That's sad," Hazel said, as Piper punched in 10111996. When that didn't work, she tried 101196 and even 111096. "This date isn't working!" Piper said anxiously.

"Wait, October 11th, 1996 is the day the newspaper was published. What day did he actually win?" Percy asked.

Annabeth read the actual article and said, "The day before. Piper, October 10th, 1996."

101096 won them in. They could hear a distant noise, like something emerging from a hiding place.

"Isn't the self-destruct button in the other room?" Hazel remembered.

All eight teens dashed back into the Lab; a button had appeared next to the self-destruct button. They ran to it and looked each other in the face. "This must be it," Hazel said. "This has to win us the game."

"What if this isn't the end and the locked door in the Trophy Gallery just leads into another room?" Piper worried.

"One way to find out." Jason put out his hand, and looked at Piper. She put hers on his, and she looked at Leo. He understand the look, and the others followed his move. All eight hands pressed down as one on the button. Suddenly the time on the computer screen stopped, and confetti showered on them.

Lots of whoops and sighs of relief filled the air.

"I'm never getting this out of my hair," Leo said, managing to brush a single piece of confetti out.

Calypso hung out his arm and said, "Come on. Let's get out of here. Perhaps I can help you, if you can't manage it yourself."

"Like I need your help," Leo teased as they all, relieved, went to the locked door at the end of the Trophy Gallery. This time, when Jason tried it, it yielded under his hand.

Fiona was there to welcome them, clapping her hands. "Congratulations! You guys escaped! And not a single clue used. Also, I'm pretty sure that's the best time anyone's ever gotten here!"

"What was our time?" Percy asked.

"We had 23:51 remaining," Annabeth said automatically. She and Percy looked at each other in surprise. "We crushed it," Percy said.

"Well, we had to. Can you name any other group of kids in the world who've gotten out of situations like that more than us?" she said.

"Also, did I mention at the beginning that I could hear every single word that you guys said?" Fiona said, hands on her hips.

They all looked at each other. Frank blushed, Jason whistled innocently, and Leo shrugged, like he wasn't even sorry.

"We're pretty weird kids," Percy said lamely.

Leo grinned at Fiona as he handed her the walkie talkie. She didn't look like she trusted his grin, which was meant to be totally reassuring.

They got a pretty sweet group shot taken: Percy held up a sign saying, 'I couldn't do it alone' while Annabeth held a sign saying, 'Could've done it faster myself!' Jason and Piper held up a sign saying 'WE WON!' Frank's said, 'I wasn't sweating at all towards the end' and Hazel's said, 'We got this'. And Leo held up '#TeamAwesome' while Calypso, looking amused at him, held up their time of 23:51. Fiona ended up taking the pictures on a disposable camera eight times. She didn't see why none of these eight kids had cellphones, or emails, or even regular cameras, but whatever. . .

"That was AWESOME!" Leo said, bounding out of the door. "And I didn't epically fail!"

"Yeah, I guess that was pretty great," Jason said, giving Leo that as he squeezed Piper's hand. "Congrats to our team captain!" he said, waving a hand at Leo. Leo grinned and Piper made an applause noise with her mouth.

"Are you kidding? That was exhausting, and anxiety-filled, or did I miss the 'fun' part?" Frank said.

"It was cool, but never again, Leo," Hazel said.

"Really? 'Cause that place has a great 'monster' themed room—"

"NO, LEO!" His seven friends all had a good, healthy set of lungs that let him know their opinions clearly.

"I'm going home and lying down in the living room for a while," Percy said, exhaling heavily.

"Think I'll join you." Annabeth leaned her head against his shoulder.

Calypso caught Leo's hand, which settled him down a bit. "I liked it, anyway," she said.

Leo appreciated that. He squeezed her hand back.

23:51! What a time! And hey, it proved what he already knew: that they were a great team together, all eight of them, and, if they somehow got into a situation like that again (which, you know, would probably happen in the next couple of months anyway), they were prepared to work together and walk out as winners every time.

I've done exactly one escape room before and failed exactly one time. Also, I gave myself something like a headache writing this. XP

Thanks for reading!