Disclaimer: Both Kane Chronicles and Heroes of Olympus belong to Rick Riordan. I own the plot, and nothing else.

Leo's day had started out normal enough. He had eaten breakfast with the rest of the Hephaestus cabin, messed around in the forge for a little while, and then gone into the city for one of his "Leo outings." He had just left his favorite electronics store when he saw the giant, flaming lizard running down the street. The thing had three heads, all hissing and a long scaly tale that thrashed back and forth on the ground, splitting the sidewalk under it.

Leo wasn't really sure what the mortals saw–maybe a scaly bear or a very large tax collector––but they were screaming and cowering. One man was curled into a ball, trembling. The monster stood over him and looked poised to strike.

Leo's hand wrapped around his hammer as he pulled it out of his bottomless tool belt. "Hey, ugly!" he shouted. "Over here!"

Two of the three heads turned in Leo's direction and the monster rapidly stormed towards him. Leo had no idea how something that big and clunky moved so fast, but the monster was definitely making tracks.

Leo adjusted the hammer in his hand and lit the other on fire. He readied himself to attack, but the monster beat him to the punch. All three heads took a deep breath and then breathed long columns of fire at Leo.

The flames washed over Leo, searing his skin and filling his lungs with acidic smoke. When the fire finally died down, he quickly looked down to check his clothes. To his relief, his flame retardant clothing had survived. He looked back up at the monster. The middle head was slightly cocked to the side, as if questioning just how he had survived. The left head was just staring at him, and the right head was looking at all the shop windows. Leo couldn't help but feel a bit of sympathy for the right head. He too struggled to resist window shopping.

That sympathy quickly faded when the middle and left head snapped their jaws at him. He swung his hammer in a circle and charged. He sprung up at the monster's heads and smashed his hammer smack dab into the center head.

The hammer landed with a sickening crack. He thrust his flaming hand between the center head's eyes and wrapped his other hand around its neck. The monster thrashed and writhed under Leo, and its skin became uncomfortably hot. The center head threw Leo onto the sidewalk.

Peeling himself off the concrete, Leo groaned and coughed. There was something hot beneath his left arm. He ran his hand over it and was surprised to discover that it was a crack in the sidewalk. Leo realized that it must have been one of the cracks left by the monster's tail. The monster roared and the left head torched a book store's sign that was hanging above it. It must have grown tired of the right head's window shopping Leo figured.

By the time the monster turned its attention back to Leo, he was getting a little concerned. Today was supposed to be a day off for him, so he was really not prepared to take on a monster by himself, much less one that appeared to be immune to fire and most distressingly, hammers.

He honestly felt that his day could not get any worse, but then the first penguin ran past him––or more accurately, waddled. Leo scrambled away from the bizarre bird which was soon followed by yet another penguin. What they were doing in Brooklyn of all places, Leo had no idea, but they clearly took issue with the monster. They screeched and squawked at it in that unsettling penguin way and flapped their useless wings in its general direction.

Yet another entry in the long list of weird things that happened to Leo today, a boy ran past him in a manner similar to the penguins with a battle cry that sounded suspiciously like horseshoe to Leo. He was holding what looked like a ruler in one hand and a boomerang in the other, and he seemed intent on destroying the monster with that boomerang.

Forgetting his recent belly flop on the pavement, Leo rushed over to the boy, unwilling to let some mortal get killed just because he wasn't as good at fighting as Percy or Jason. The penguins gravitated towards the kid as Leo came up next to him, and Leo began to wonder about the relationship between the three oddities. The kid raised the boomerang and wrote a strange symbol in the air. Ice began to cover the monster who had until then been occupied by the penguins. The ice seemed to keep it from moving, but Leo couldn't help but feel uneasy, plagued by thoughts of the last time he had seen someone freeze something solid.

"Are these yours?" he asked the kid.

The kid nodded vigorously. "Yeah, they're my penguins."

"Why penguins?"

The kid beamed. "Because penguins are awesome! Just look at them!"

Leo nodded slowly, but he couldn't help but feel a little differently about the two birds waddling in front of him. "What's your name?"

"I'm Felix."

"Leo."

Felix was about to say something more but then a roar rang out. They both turned to the monster. The monster's skin was steaming as if it had melted the ice right off of its own body despite being frozen solid by Felix only moments before. The monster charged towards the both of them, breathing fire out of all of its mouths.

One of the penguins squawked and the left head fixated on it. It breathed a long column of flames at the penguin. In a matter of seconds, the penguin was no more.

"No!" Felix shouted, his voice raw. He raised his arms and breathed in deep. A cold wind rushed over Leo and began to beat against the monster. Leo took the opportunity the distraction of the wind allowed him and threw three fireballs at the monster, one for each of the heads. He charged the monster, dodging the heads as they came down on him and swung his hammer at the monster over and over again.

Leo kept hitting the monster and pelting it with fireballs and Felix kept hitting it with snowballs, but the monster just kept coming. Both boys were beginning to tire and they still hadn't done any substantial damage to the monster.

Felix especially seemed to be losing his strength. However he had been summoned that ice and snow was clearly draining him and Leo worried that Felix might not be able to go on much longer. The center and left heads seemed to notice Felix's exhaustion too. The right head was too busy sniffing the cracks on the sidewalk to target the kid. The left and center head both breathed fire at Felix.

Felix tried to dodge but his movements were too sluggish. Time seemed to slow down around Leo as he jumped in front of Felix and pushed him out of the way of the flames. Once again the monster seemed pretty disappointed that Leo had failed to be roasted by the flames. Just another person who thought he was a failure. Leo reached into his tool belt and pulled out a handful of nuts and washers. He heated them up in his hand and threw them at the monster.

With the monster briefly distracted, Leo turned back to Felix. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Felix nodded. "I've just been taxing my reserves a lot. I'll be fine in a minute."

Leo frowned. "I'm not sure we have a minute."

"Especially since it seems immune to your fire hand which by the way is the coolest thing ever! I've never seen a fire elementalist do that! I mean I saw Zia do it, but that's different." Felix put his hand down on the ground next to him and yelped. "What the heck! Why is the ground so hot?"

Leo looked down at where Felix's hand had been. It looked like the rest of the sidewalk, grey, rough, riddled with cracks from the monster's tail. Leo tapped one of the cracks with the tip of his finger. "It's the cracks," he said. "The heat is coming from the cracks."

"Yeah, but why?" Felix asked.

Leo studied the monster who was currently torching the awnings of several stores. "The cracks are for the fire powers!" He pointed at the monster's tail, jammed into one of the cracks. "Whenever it does anything with heat or fire, its tail is on the ground."

Felix nodded and stroked one of his penguins. "Okay, so how are we going to stop it?"

Leo took a deep breath. "We need to cut off the tail. Alright, here's the plan. I'm going to sneak around the back and cut off the tail. Then you're going to freeze it again. Do you think you can handle the distraction?"

"Yeah, summoning penguins takes very little energy," Felix said.

Leo frowned. "I'm not even going to question that right now." He helped Felix up. "Let's rock and roll!"

Leo crept along the buildings, trying to keep quiet so that the three heads would keep their attention on the shops. Behind him he heard Felix shouting and penguins squawking. The heads turned towards Felix and the monster began to charge towards him. As the monster got closer and closer to Leo, he prayed to all the gods––even the annoying ones––hoping that the up tight left head wouldn't notice him.

Once the monster fully passed him he let out a sigh of relief. He reached into his tool belt once again and pulled out a circular saw. He tiptoed towards the monster's tail, watching out of the corner of his eye Felix pelting the monster with snowballs and the penguins pecking the monster then running away. Felix was dodging the monster's fire, but Leo knew he wouldn't be able to keep it up forever.

The thrashing tail made getting close enough to chop it off more difficult than Leo anticipated. He made eye contact with Felix, revved up the saw, and brought it down on the monster's tail. He had to force himself not to look away. The last thing he wanted to do was to become one of the posters in the arts and crafts center or the forge. Leo could picture a poster of a silhouette of a boy with no hands with the caption: Leo didn't protect his hands when he used the circular saw, and now he doesn't need to.

Blinking through the monster guts in his eyes and very much wishing that he had thought to wear safety goggles, Leo pulled the saw away from the monster. He threw a flaming hand up in the air, signalling to Felix that he had managed to remove the tail. The monster whipped around, roaring in pain or anger or both. Leo wasn't sure, in his personal experience, his own angry and hurt roars sounded the same.

The mouths opened and Leo turned on the circular saw again. "Any time now, Felix!" As that annoying left head came down on him, Leo slashed at it with the saw but it dodged easily. When the right head came at him, Leo couldn't help but feel a bit betrayed by his fellow window shopping enthusiast. He managed to escape the traitor's jaws, but all three heads soon came for him. He had just resigned himself to a really lackluster death compared to his first one, but then the monster froze. Like literally froze. He instantly relaxed. Felix had come through. He took his trusty hammer and let it fall on the monster's spine. The monster exploded into shards of ice and yellow monster dust. He let out a sigh of relief.

His relief was short lived however because he found himself suddenly surrounded by penguins who were gently headbutting him. His shoulders shot up to his ears and he looked awkwardly at the birds around him.

"They like you!" Felix said, walking over to Leo.

Leo personally didn't think that's what the headbuts meant, but what did he know? He didn't really have enough of a sample size to discern if someone liked him. It was kind of a rare thing. He just nodded at Felix, unwilling to question the kid.

Felix waved the boomerang and three of the four penguins disappeared. Leo hoped that they had simply been returned to Antarctica and not just vanished out of existence because he had exploded in the sky, and zero out of ten, would not recommend to a friend. The last penguin––maybe because freaking out Leo was only enjoyable as a group activity––waddled over to Felix.

Felix's eyes blink sleepily and his stomach rumbled. Leo's own stomach was lodging a complaint as well. The penguin also seemed hungry, but Leo might have just been projecting.

"Do you like tacos?" Leo asked.

Felix nodded vigorously. "I love tacos! And George here loves fish tacos." Felix pointed to the penguin next to him.

Leo decided not to think about the logistics of buying George a fish taco. "There's a great taco place down the street, Cinema Taco, if you want to grab something to eat. My treat."

"Sure!"

On the way to salvation or food as some call it, they mostly talked about tacos. They were far too hungry to talk about anything else, but once they got some food and George had his fish taco, Leo decided to ask Felix the question that had been bothering him all day. "Felix, who's your parent?"

"Huh?" A piece of lettuce fell out of Felix's mouth as he spoke.

"Your godly parent?"

"Well, I follow the path of the God of ice, but I haven't figured out who that is yet, so for now I follow Shu."

"You follow who now?"

"Shu?" Felix said. A chunk of tomato went flying. "The god of air?"

Leo frowned. "So you're not a child of Boreas?" He was honestly crossing his fingers that the penguin obsessed kid had absolutely no connection to the cruel queen of ice.

Felix shrugged. "I've never heard of him, but Egypt has so many gods. It's impossible to keep track."

"Egyptian gods?"

"Yeah," Felix said. "What gods were you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the Greek gods." Leo fiddled with a piece of scrap metal he had found in his belt. "So you're an Egyptian demigod?"

Felix knit his eyebrows, and George squawked at his taco. "I'm a magician, not a demigod." He studied Leo. "Are you a demigod? Is that why you can summon fire without taxing your reserves?"

"Um yeah I guess. It's just kind of natural for me." Leo wanted to ask Felix more about being a magician, particularly whether or not he could show him how to saw people in half, but he resisted. After all, the more Felix told him about magicians, the more Leo was obligated to tell him about demigods and more specifically himself. And while Felix and, to a lesser extent, George seemed nice enough, Leo really did not want to give them the whole story of the Bad Boy Supreme.

"Like summoning penguins is for me!" He patted George on the head.

Of course it was. Leo twisted the metal in his hand and put the finished product on the table. "I might not be able to summon a penguin, but I can do that."

Felix inspected the metal penguin, beaming. He pulled out the boomerang and began drawing glowing symbols on its head. The metal penguin let out a squawk.

Both Leo and George instantly recoiled at the sound, but Felix just laughed. Leo and George shared a look. Yeah, no matter what weird things they had seen, they were never going to get used to that.

I don't really know what this is. I just kinda wanted to see what would happen if Leo and Felix met and so I wrote this. I also wanted to give Leo a positive experience with ice after his bad blood with Khione. Thanks for reading!