Whats wrong with calling you defective?

Everybody's on the same page

No new chapters

We'll never change

Everybody wants to be cool, yes they do...

And I'm just like them

But I won't be no fool

I guess I could waste all my time and my money, just trying to look right

But it doesn't change who I am in my heart if I look like a dime

So I want you to close your eyes

Sing to the world tonight

And show them what's beautiful

I don't care what they think

No, I'm not listening

'Cause I know I'm beautiful

So close your eyes

(Sh-sh-show them what's beautiful sh-sh-show them what's beautiful)

Come and show them... Uh... Hey...

(Sh-sh-show them what's beautiful

Sh-sh-show them what's beautiful)

Everybody's born to be different

That's the one thing that makes us the same

So don't you let their words try to change you

Don't let them make you, into something you ain't... No!

So I want you to close your eyes

Sing to the world tonight

And show them what's beautiful

I don't care what they think

No, I'm not listening

'Cause I know I'm beautiful

So close your eyes

(Sh-sh-show them what's beautiful)

Show the world the you inside

Raise your voice and close your eyes

'Cause you're beautiful...

Come on and show the world the you inside

Raise your voice and close your eyes

'Cause you're beautiful...

So I want you to close your eyes

Sing to the world tonight

And show them what's beautiful

I don't care what they think

No, I'm not listening

'Cause I know I'm beautiful

So close your eyes

"That way," Zoë said, pointing. "That is west."

So obviously, Percy had to question the lieutenant of Artemis over her tracking skills. "How can you tell?"

Rolling her eyes, Zoë explained the first thing Phoebe had taught me about directions. Why didn't Jackson know that? Surely demigods needed to know how to find their way by the stars, after all, I definitely remember hearing about quests, and actually knowing where we're going is a good thing, right? I'll have to give Nics some lessons when I get back, it would be just his style to end up in another state while going to McDonald's.

Grover's voice broke into my thoughts. "Guys, look!"

We'd reached the crest of a junk mountain (and that is why I made you clean your room, Nico). For some reason it was all metal - shattered bronze horses; metal legs from human (I'm guessing, although one of the naids at Camp Half Blood looked exactly like that one right in the corner) statues; smashed chariots, maces, daggers, a sword the size of me! An incredibly intricate bow with vines and stuff growing out of it, that my friend Katie Gardner from Camp would love and other weapons; a gigantic pile of Bentleys, a washing machine and some other stuff that looked quite high-tech, but the others all seemed to think was normal, so must have been invented some time between the mid-1930's and - what year was it? 2028, I think.

"Whoa," I said, shocked. "That stuff...some of it looks like real gold."

"It is," Thalia replied grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."

"Junk?!" Said Grover incredulously, while brandishing a beautiful crown made of gold silver and jewels. It looked fit for a goddess, but was broken on one side as if someone had come at it with an axe. I shuddered to think what to think what happened to the unlucky person wearing it at the time.

"You call this junk?"

I had to say, I agreed with Grover. Surely it wouldn't be too hard for a smith like Hephaestus to fix that?

He bit off a point and began to chew. "It's delicious!"

I face palmed. It looked like Grover and I weren't on the same page after all. Oh well, to quote Meghan Trainor (my absolute favourite singer), "everybody's on the same page, no new chapters." and that work mean NO BOOKS, otherwise known as The Apocalypse.

Trying to find something to look at other than Grover eating that beautiful crown, my eyes landed on...

"Look! A Hunter's bow!"

In my head, though, that was interspersed with quite a few ouches, grunts, wheezes and other expressions of pain, so it came out more like "Oof! Look! Ouch, that wire's sharp, A Hunter's - meep! Bow!"

It glowed silver in the moonlight, and just holding it made me feel more energetic - suddenly, the bow began to shrink, until it became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. It reminded a of something ... Oh yeah!

"It's just like Percy's sword!"

"Leave it, Bianca." Zoë's face was actually quite scary, but there was also something else - was Zoë Nightshade, Lieutenant of Artemis, nervous?"

I decided to try, anyway. If I had that bow, my pack could be so much lighter. 'But - "

Rudely, she cut me off. "It is here for a reason. Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed."

I could see her point, however annoying it was not getting the bow. It was alright for her, she had been a Hunter for ages, judging from the language she uses. I did put it down though, I'm not completely stupid.

Behind me, Zoë and Grover, Percy and Thalia seemed to be having a conversation about, and I quote, "Killer Refrigerators". Scary! Can you imagine if we had one of them?

Titans and co. We have an army.

Us: We have a Killer Refrigerator!

Nico made me watch that film about a million times over while we were in the Lotus. I'm probably never going to get that quote (or parodies of the same) out of my head.

"Wow, look at this!" Again, Grover interrupted my thinking with yet another amazing discovery.

It was a metal tree, with what seemed to be metal birds in the branches.

"I wonder..." Thalia said, and went to throw a bird into the air.

"Sto-"

"It's fine, kelp head, I've seen these before - or similar, anyway."

She threw it again, and without interruptions, the bird soared into the air with a chorus of twitters.

"Are those" Grover said, sharing a glance with Percy.

"Stymphalian birds?!" Percy said. They both looked ready to run, and Percy had one nervous hand in his pocket - probably holding his sword/pen (whatever you called a thing that was both a sword and a pen while it was in pen form), Riptide.

"Yes," said Zoë instantly.

"No," said Thalia at exactly the same time.

They stared at each other for what felt like forever. Finally, "Maybe?" they both said hesitantly.

"Jinx!" Thalia said. "You owe me a soda!"

"A what?"

"A soda. A fizzy drink. Ring a bell? OK, so you are how old, and you do not know what a fizzy drink is? You know what, just forget it. It would be quicker to get my own drink than explain it to you."

"Anyway, if thou dost not mind, Thalia, I shall explain, as I was actually there for the event, and not distracted by soda, like thee!"

"Well, it happened just after I joined the Hunters, so long before any of ye were born. Ares was frustrated because all of the other Gods had weapons - Zeus had the Masterbolt, Hades had the Helm of Darkness, Poseidon had his Trident, Apollo had a horrible singing voice - even Aphrodite had Charmspeak, and she is the goddess of Love! When Zeus mentioned Ares' electric spear, Ares explained that as the god of War, he thought that he should have "at least double the amount of cool stuff" as the other Gods. Eventually Zeus agreed to commission a weapon for Ares, providing it was made to the specifications of both himself and Ares. These are the prototypes of the Stymphalian Birds, and will not harm thee, as when Hephaestus was working, he obviously wouldn't want to be attacked. "

"So basically they're nice Stymphalian Birds?" Grover asked.

"Aye."

"Well, why didn't you just say so, rather than an ancient history lesson?"

"Zoë can't help being long-winded Perce."

Wandering off to escape their constant bickering, "Ow!" I stubbed my toe on something.

Picking up the offending object, I wondered what was so familiar about it. Then I remembered - Nico's Mythomagic set! He didn't seem to have this one, so he'd be delighted, and it definitely said "Mythomagic™" on the bottom of the figure. I could take it back to Camp with me and surprise him! Ha, he'd never see it coming, after all, not many people come back from Quests with presents! Well, monster heads maybe, but not Mythomagic figures.

But...if one of the others saw it, they'd definitely stop me from taking it, even though there really wasn't anything wrong with it.

Decision made, I quickly stuffed it into a pocket of my parka.

"Are you alright, Bianca?"

"Wha - oh, err, fine! I just, ah, stubbed my toe on, err, what is that? "

Casting desperately around for an excuse, my eyes had conveniently alighted on the most obvious answer. Right in front of me was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together. Now where had I seen that before? Then I remembered.

"They look like - "

"Toes," Grover said.

Nodding, I replied. "Really, really large toes." Wierd, was he reading my mind? Hang on, that couldn't be possible - he already had an Empathy Link with Percy.

"Let's go around," Thalia said. "Far around."

Good idea, I mentally applauded. Let's stay as far away from the big scary feet as possible.

But no, Percy Jackson had other ideas. "But the road is right over there," he protested. "Quicker to climb over."

I could see his point, after all, we'd been walking

Gila Claw, after all,and I hadn't finished my taco.

Ping.

I frantically rifled through my pack for something that I could use as a weapon. Why is it that it's all sunshine and rainbows next to the pile of swords, and you're about to be crushed by a giant metal foot next to the dog toys.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Thalia hefting her spear, and Zoë drawing her bow, but it had only been Grover. He had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the column were hollow.

"Why did you do that?" Zoë demanded.

Grover cringed. "I don't know. I, uh, don't like fake feet?"

Hypocrite. I'm pretty sure that he didn't have hooves the first time I met him.

"Come on. Around." Thalia was really glaring at Percy when she said that.

))))))))))))))))))()((((((((((((((((((((((

Eventually we arrived at the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black tarmac.

"We made it out," Zoë said. "Thank the Gods."

But just as Zoë said that, we heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal. Behind us, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up like lava. The ten toes tilted over through the avalanche of rubbish and, my eyes carrying along the length of the "feet" they were attached to, I realised why they looked like toes. They were toes. A bronze giant in full Greek battle armour rose up from the rubbish like a phoenix from the ashes. He was impossibly tall - a skyscraper with legs and arms. He gleamed in the moonlight like the Aphrodite Cabin walls - that is to say, like a mirror. But then he looked down at us and spoiled the effect.

His face had clearly bore the brunt of a horrific catastrophe - the left side had been partially melted off. His joints creaked with rust, and across his armoured chest, written in the thick dust by some gigantic finger, were the words WASH ME.

"I don't think the Gods want to be thanked." I muttered, but noone heard me. Just as well, really, I'd probably jinx the situation.

"Talos!" Zoë gasped.

"Who...who's Talos?" Percy stuttered.

"One of Hephaestus' creations," Thalia explained. "But that can't be the original, its too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model."

Baby Talos didn't like being called defective.

He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheaf was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was easily over thirty metres long - "thirty eight point nine five said a voice in my head, although I decided to ignore it, as now was not the time to be going insane - it looked rusty and dull, but that really wouldn't matter. Having that coming towards you would be like being run over by ten doubledecker, bendy buses.

"Someone took something," said Zoë. "Who took something?"

I immediately felt guilty. Just stay calm, the voice in my head whispered, they have no reason to suspect it was us. Why, it might have been one of the others, there is no reason for Baby Talos, as you call him, to be upset about a silly Mythomagic statue.

What was said next made me feel even worse.

"I'm a lot of things, but I'm no theif."

I felt all tiny and shriveled up inside. Was I a theif? No, said the voice, I highly doubt that that statue belonged to Hephaestus. Why would a god play Mythomagic? Well, I argued back, I did see a Disney movie where Hades was doing something similar. Don't be silly, said the voice, that was a weak argument and we both know it. The statue was probably dropped by some random demigod.

Boom.

The ground shook, breaking off my imaginary conversation. Talos was now twice as close as he had been before.

"Run!" Grover yelped.

We split up, like with the Nemean Lion. For some strange reason, I didn't quite think that Baby Talos would be defeated by spacefood.

Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway. Baby Talos swung his sword and destroyed a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks while scattering across Thalia's path.

I couldn't help it, I screamed. I couldn't bear the thought of Thalia being electrocuted, until I remembered she was a daughter of Zeus. Doh! But still, my heart was in my mouth until I saw her get away.

Zoë's arrows whistled towards Baby Talos' face but shattered harmlessly against the metal, which I'd worked out to be Celestial Bronze. Grover brayed like a baby goat and clambered up a mountain of metal - towards Baby Talos!

I was about to run and help him when a hand grabbed my wrist.

"You took something," Percy said. "That bow."

"N-no!" I stammered. Oh Gods, that didn't even convince me.

"Give it back!" He demanded. "Throw it down!"

"I..." I frantically tried to think of an answer. "I didn't take the bow!" I didn't.I took the statue."Besides, its too late."

"What did you take?"

Luckily, before I could answer, Baby Talos blocked out the sun.

"Move!" Percy yelled, pulling me down the hill.

Behind me, Grover was yelling at Baby Talos, but I was too busy arguing with the voice in my head.

This is all your fault! My fault? I am you. You are not me. What you are is crazy for suggesting that! I'm not the one talking to a voice in her head. Actually, lots of people talk to imaginary friends to relieve stress. Although I don't see how this is relieving my stress, adding to it is more like it! Yeah, you have an imaginary friend at age 102. And friend? Hardly...

With a malevolent chuckle the voice faded away.

A/N: Soo, what do you think? Shout out to whoever guesses what the voice is, and I really want to know what you think. This chapter is a lot longer than the last one, because that one was to stop me falling over dead and having to get Nico or Bianca to rescue me. I mean, the trepidation was killing me! And I don't mean to diss Percy, just the Hunters and Demigods see stuff a little differently. Bianca does like him really, look what she does to save him! The song is Close Your Eyes by Meghan Trainor, and I think it's appropriate for Bianca, considering how she acts at the start of the series :-) . I love music, so if I find a song that works it goes at the top of the page. I also think Bianca would love her songs, as Meghan's style is similar to some songs that came out in the 1930s, and is absolutely amazing!