Godly Junkyard

Watching somebody ride a boar is not fun, trust me, it's probably less fun than riding the boar in person. Well, I guess I looked like a much tastier snack than the apple hanging in front of its big fat nose, so I had to stay hidden, plus, the princess dirtbags would very much like it to put a few arrows in my… you know. On top of that I had to shadow travel once in a while, just in case the boar decided to plough down one of the questors. It's a relief when the boar finally stopped and dropped them off.

After a group huddle, a ton of gossip (Thank you, Aphrodite. Too much information, get your sorry false promises and cheap lipstick out of here!), a good few swearwords and way too many tacos to be healthy, they strolled into a junkyard. You guys really know how to pick a place for a midnight stroll. And did I mention it was a godly junkyard? So, something is guaranteed to go wrong.

The five were halfway out of the junkyard when Ex-sis picked something up from the ground and pocketed it. Nothing happened. One, two, thr ── boom.

A giant killer robot roared into action, making the questers jump. Dirtbag princess, always messing things up.

The Zoo-what's-her-name girl reflexively glared at Jackson, hypocrite. "Somebody took something!" She screeched and proceeded to pat him down, completely ignoring the fact that they were a few feet in front of a ten-ton killing machine.

Somebody had to save their butts, again.

A volley of silver arrows soared into the air, only to glance of the giant's armor. Grover chanted vines to distract it. Unfortunately, it worked.

Sort of. The robot, Talos, they'd called it, turned and swung a huge rusty sword at him. Missing by an inch, it slammed into a pile of scrap metal and Goat-boy disappeared under an avalanche of bolts and screws. Percy scambled over desperately to dig him out.

Thalia was the only one to do any real damage. She raised her spear and electricity shot towards Talos, causing his knee to buckle, but he got up, staggering a bit, and squeaked what I think was robot for "I'm gonna kill you!" With that, he began to chase her.

Talos was big and slow, but his long strides made up for sluggish movement, which meant running around him in a circle was basically the best choice, that is, if you can avoid getting squashed.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen.

Thalia stumbled over some crowbar and that was the window Talos needed. He brought his giant sword down in an arc, narrowly missing her but it sent junk flying everywhere. A particularly large TV slammed into her and knocked her down. Before the robot could move in for the kill, Percy dived in and started dragging her away.

I was amazed at his bravery, or stupidity. At that pace, neither of them would make it. Thalia was limping and Percy wasn't in good shape either. The dry desert was the worst battlefield for a son of Poseidon. Yet he continued to drag her along. Time to wade in, I guess.

Talos is basically a giant pile of metal, and luckily dad is the god of metals. I lifted my hand force choke style and stopped Talos dead in his tracks, his foot a meager three feet above Percy and Thalia.

The expressions on the questers' faces were priceless. Even Talos widened his eyes in utter surprise. He creaked something that sounded suspiciously like "Footsy?"

I walked out of the shadows in slow-mo for effect, hand held up in front of me, thinking: Gods, I look like Darth Vader.

Percy recovered from the shock and carried on dragging Thalia from the line of fire. Show time! I focused inside the robot on his wiring and yanked a few that seemed important. Nothing happened.

Gaahh! Plan B. I shifted my focus to his metal head, levitating him into the air by his coconut. Talos grasped and made an oddly funny attempt of unscrewing his own head. Metal crackled and groaned, slowly giving way to gravity. I decided to speed up the process.

Finally, his neck snapped to metal fatigue, as I felt the weight on my mind diminish from a million tons to ten thousand. Gods, this robot does not know what low carb diet means. Note to self: bench press giant killer robots when possible, great/terrible workout.

"You!" Zoo-girl notched an arrow aimed at the back of my head, when did she ── Oh never mind that.