Hey everyone,

Thanks to all of the people who voted in my poll to see who Percy "meets." Now, there is a new poll. I do lots of thinking and planning ahead so I would like to know if people want this to the first in a series of stories or just one final story. If you readers want a sequel, it would go in the order of Sea of Monsters, Titan's Curse etc. However, it will not be like TTC: Perlia or the BotL: Perlia because there are some major changes in the story. Please go to my profile page to vote. Thanks once again.

Thanks for the reviews and private messages. They really help me to understand what you guys want. I won't be able to grant the wishes for every single reader, so in advance, I apologize for any inconveniences that may occur in the future. I also apologize for any grammatical errors in the following story.

Thanks to all who reviewed in the previous chapter:
ghost83, CourtingTheMoon, Guest, FaTaLClanWii, jenn008, fjclay823, & DeathmatchDrunkard.

I am so sorry. This chapter was really stupid. Have run reading though...

Περσεύς 10

The Junkyard of the Gods

"Stupid Phoenix," I muttered.

I had just blown up anotherbuilding. I really hated my luck. Any bad that happened would be my fault, no matter what. I could be passed out in a McDonalds, and if the building blew up, the mortals would somehow blame it on me. I know my mom taught me to respect the gods and all, but I figured it was good to blame the gods whenever something bad happens to you.

I was just a young kid, but so far I had already faced death, abuse (from Gabe), witnessed deaths, and seen monsters so horrible I wondered how I could have possibly defeated them. In fact, quite a few of the monsters that I had faced, I couldn't kill them. I would just try to run away. And that's what I was doing at the moment. The stupid Phoenix that I'd met in Tucson was pissing me off. I'd read in the monsters encyclopedia that the Phoenix didn't attack humans and fed on balsam oil, but this Phoenix was attracted to me like I was a she-Phoenix.

I had escaped from it in Tucson, but it had found me in Phoenix. Ha! A Phoenix in Phoenix, next you know, Hades'll be in Hades...oh wait. He already is.

Back to my earlier rant...I really hated my luck. What does a ten year old boy do to deserve fighting a whole bunch of monsters who could easily kill me if I didn't have a sword? Well, in my case, I deserved it just because I was born. Awesome, right?

Well, in the past year, I had fought tons of hellhounds, ghosts and spirits, dracaena, nearly fought with a giant with ram's horns, a Lernaean Hydra, the Colchian Drakon, the Ismerian Drakon, and the Lydian Drakon. Lots of monsters had tried to kill me, but I beat them or evaded them all and I was proud of that. Well, I was more proud at the fact that I hadn't died yet.

Seriously though, three drakons and a Hydra. With the Hydra...well, it went a little something like this.

I was eating in a small McDonalds in Missouri City, Texas, which was a totally fitting name seeing as there was a state named Missouri...

Anyway, I was eating in a small McDonalds in Missouri City, Texas. I had finished and I walked out the front door. I was taking the long route and was making a loop around the bottom of Houston and was going to wind my way up to Dallas, and then down to San Antonio. So, as I headed south, it was a couple hours later when the monster first attacked.

I was near Smithers Lake when I heard hissing. I thought they'd be dracaena sent from Hades-at least I thought it was Hades. They would keep mentioning the most powerful lord in history and honestly, I didn't think Hades was the most powerful in history. Don't get me wrong, he was powerful, just not the most powerful.

Hiss! Something shot through the air, over my head from the hill that was in front of me. It landed about ten feet from me. I analyzed it and saw that it was acid. It was burning the grass around it, turning it from dead to...deader. Instead of being dry and yellow, the ground was now black like it had been burned, which I guess it had...to some degree.

I immediately pulled out my switchblade and pen, and activated them. That was a really stupid idea because monsters are attracted to celestial bronze, which was kind of stupid because they were killed by celestial bronze swords easily. Either way, it caught the attention of whatever monster was after me. I prepared myself, flipping my knife into icepick grip. I crouched, preparing for the monster coming after me.

Two heads appeared in my sight. They were weird, shaped like diamonds, but leathery. The teeth looked like shark's teeth, except that this monster wouldn't cuddle up to you like sharks did. Have I ever told you the story about meeting a Great White Shark and having him not eat me? Well, I would tell that later. The diamond-headed monster was my priority.

Then, the necks of the monster appeared over the edge of the hill. I frowned as they wore bibs that read: I'M A MONSTER DONUT KID. Wasn't Monster Donut a donut company? I had eaten there before, in Texas. I shrugged it off and told myself that they were probably souvenirs from demigods.

The monster hissed again and I realized that it was a Hydra. My confidence level decreased drastically. Two heads could easily turn into four, I thought. Then something flashed in my head. Isn't a Hydra supposed to have at least five heads?

I looked back at the Hydra and saw it's torso. It was about the size of a rhino and didn't look all that big. But it's size wasn't the scary part. It had twenty heads hissing and spitting acid at me. My knees turned to jelly, and my grip faltered. No matter how good or bad I was at fighting, I was scared. Being scared doesn't mean you're weak. It just means you're human. And I was...well, at least I was half-human.

Okay, here's the checklist of what I was at that moment. Scared, check; tired, check; just ate, check; about to die, check. Was there anything else that I forgot to mention? Oh yeah, I did forget to mention that I had aged even further. Don't you love when time skips and flies by when you're having fun? It was a year and a bit after the Florida incidents and I was ten years old. When I was in Texas, it was about October. In the present, in Phoenix, it was November.

Back to the story about the Lernaean Hydra, my knees turned to jelly and my eyes widened in fear. Before this incident, I hadn't faced any serious monsters besides the Crommyonian Sow. All I had faced were massive armies of hellhounds, at the time. So there I was, almost peeing my pants, staring at the twenty-headed monster.

"No, no, no," I told the Hydra. "There's no need to kill me."

Hiss! The Hydra spat more acid at me. I spun and hit the deck. The ground where I had been standing before was now bubbling with the acid that the Hydra had spit. "Please don't get on my pants. Please don't get on my pants."

I hopped back up and tightened my grip on my weapons. I twirled the knife in my left hand and pretended to look I was going to attack. The Hydra lunged at me with its fangs bared and tried snapping at me. I dodged to the side and kept the beast at sword-length. I spun and duck as acid came hurtling at me like meteors showering on Earth. After a couple of minutes of holding the monster at bay, I stupidly swung my sword. I cut the Hydra's head off with a schlock!The head came rolling off of the stump that was its neck and disintegrated into the ground. The thing that makes the Hydra so hard to kill was that it grew back heads. If it didn't, I probably would've killed it by now.

Two heads grew back from the stump that I had created and now I was facing a twenty one-headed beast. I took a quick glance behind me and got an idea. I wasn't exactly sure if it was stupid or not, but at least this way I wouldn't have to slice its heads off.

My gaze switched back to the front. The Hydra was slowly advancing on me, hissing and baring its fangs. I slowly backed up until I was at the edge of land. Any more steps backward and I would fall.

More hissing came from in front of me and I closed my eyes. I put my hand out in front of me and pointed at the Hydra with all of my fingertips. I concentrated on water, the ocean, the endless power, the currents, the tides, and I unleashed my might with a yell.

It wasn't much considering I was a ten year old, but it was enough. Water exploded from Smithers Lake and sucked everything in front of me-the Hydra and some dead grass-into the water. I was sucked in as well, but unlike the Hydra who was hissing and trying to spit acid, but only got a mouthful of water, I gained strength. I felt the power of the water coursing through me, as if my life source was water and I had that rather than blood in my veins. My weariness went away, and I opened my eyes to a thrashing Hydra.

I saw brave spirits of the water forcing the Hydra into a locked hold, trying to keep it in place. One of the spirits got bitten and yelped. She jumped away from the thrashing beast and held her arm. Other spirits who weren't helping restrain the beast tended to the girl.

I quickly went over to them. "Do you have fire? Any sources of fire?"

They looked at me warily. "Humans have tossed lighters into the bottom of our lake. They are over there." She pointed to a spot near the edge of the lake. I couldn't exactly see the lighters, but I could sense them. There was definitely something there. My sonar system activated.

I swam over to the spot that the nymphs had pointed me to, and picked up discarded lighters. I tried turning one on and the tiny flame emitted from the thing. I grinned and went over to the Hydra. Then I proceeded to burn the Hydra's heads.

Not to confuse you readers, I left some heads on the beast because I felt like it. Besides, it gave up on trying to hurt me. Maybe monsters did have feelings?

When I finished burning most of the heads, which took a long time because I had to keep holding on to the lighter, and my sword, and the monsters head.

"Son of Poseidon," one of the naiads mused. "There hasn't been one since Winston Churchill."

I nodded. "Sorry about ruining your day's. It was the only thing I could think of."

"It is alright, Percy Jackson. Well, you'd better be on your way."

I had a feeling that they wanted to get rid of me as soon as possible, despite the fact that they said they didn't blame me for ruining their day.

I make a quick departure and continued west.

Then one month later I was being harassed by a Phoenix. In the present, the little Phoenix was nipping at my duffel bag. I was swatting at it like it was a fly.

"I said, pleasego away you stupid bird," I said. It continued to peck at my bag. "Okay, that's it. I've played Mr. Nice Guy for too long." I pulled out sword and uncapped it. Three feet of celestial bronze sprouted from the pen.

I stabbed at the creature's wings and sliced a part off of its wing. It screeched and flew off into the air. It was unbalanced so it went up and curved back down in an arc, crashing into the ground. I couldn't help but chuckle at the creature's misery. Payback sucks. I stopped laughing, though, when it rose up and stared at me.

It's red eyes seemed to pulse and I immediately got a warning. I backed up slowly as the Phoenix rose to its full height. It stretched its wings out to the side and it seemed to glow in the sun. The rays of light shone into the Phoenix and for a second, it looked majestic and proud. Then...it looked angry...really angry.

"Sancto Neptune erat," I said in...Latin? But I had no time to think about that. The Phoenix started flying toward me, its wing seemingly fixed from all damage. "O mi deos! THEOI! THEOI! DEOS!"

The raven was fast, no doubt about it. It was why I was yelling "Gods!" in Latin and Greek. It was also why I was running like a maniac. I leaped across a creek like some athlete doing a long jump in the Olympics. I landed on the other side and nearly twisted my ankle. The raven screeched and soared back up into the sky. But it didn't fly away. It circled around in the sky, looking scared of where I was.

I turned around only to see a ghost town. Ahead of me was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before the gods were born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills…but then I noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was way too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

I frowned when I thought about why the Phoenix would be scared of a ghost town and a junkyard, but I was still glad. At least it wouldn't harass me anymore.

I walked into the junkyard and was immediately amazed by the thrown out items. Piles of metal objects glinted in the sunlight: broken heads of bronze horses, metal legs from human statues, smashed chariots, tons of shields and swords and other weapons, along with more modern stuff, like cars that gleamed gold and silver, refrigerators, washing machines, and computer monitors.

I saw a Greek Eta on one of the thrown out automatons. Eta...eta...junkyard...automatons... Hephaestus! This was the Junkyard of the Gods. I marveled at the wonderful things that had been thrown out. Some deserved to be thrown out, but some were in perfectly good shape. Most of the shields and swords and weapons were in good shape, not damaged and shone in the brilliant light of the sun.

I continued travelling through the yard and found a sweet electric guitar. I couldn't help but pick it up. It was really cool. The sounds of each strum echoed through the hills of junk and bounced back at me. It was like I was playing at a concert or something except that I didn't know any guitar chords.

I continued until I finally sat the end of the massive junkyard. The weird and creepy thing was ten giant column-like things packed tightly together in the largest mountain of junk. That last mountain was at least the size of a football field and as tall as the goal posts. I had a very bad feeling about this, but I went to check out the mountain of garbage anyways. I pulled some junk off of the size of the mountain and saw giant pieces of metal sticking out of the pile. I scooped some more junk away and found more pieces of metal sticking out. I realized that they were fingers. I looked back to the giant column-like things and realized that they were feet.

"Ah, Talos," said a man from behind me.

I whirled around, uncapped my sword and activated my switchblade. When I saw who I was talking to, I almost barfed.

"Quick," the man said. "You're like a fleshy automaton."

I wasn't sure if that was a compliment or an insult, but considering who it was, it was probably a compliment. "Um, Hephaestus."

The god grunted and his bear burst into flames. I took in his appearance. His shoulders were at different heights as if someone had broke his shoulders or something. The left shoulder was lower than the right He had a huge, bulging, misshapen head and his left leg was in a steel brace. His hair was brown and grew wild. Though his terrifying form, he had a lot of muscles, probably from working in the forge for so long.

"What are you doing here?" he asked as he threw some junk from his arms away.

"Um... I was just passing by here."

Hephaestus grunted again. "Good enough for me. Now you'd better be leaving. You don't want Talos to crush you."

"What?"

"Talos." He pointed to the largest mountain of garbage. "Well actually, this is a malfunctioning prototype of Talos, but if you take something from this junkyard, this giant protects it. I don't think you can run away from this beast, can you?"

"No."

"Exactly." He rubbed his beard and tossed the last bits of his garbage into the mountain of junk. "Humans can't evade this Talos prototype. Automatons would do much better. Anyway, you better be going. Head to Hoover Dam. You'll get your next challenge there."

I looked at him suspiciously. "How did you know that?"

"He's very overprotective of you which makes him expose his secrets a lot," Hephaestus explained. "You should have seen him when you were facing that Hydra. Had a heart attack. Naturally, my father and mother are both mad at Poseidon for siring you, but it's too late. Oh well."

I kind of felt grateful that Poseidon cared about me so much, but I didn't want him to have a heart attack...even if he wouldn't die.

"Well," said the god of the forge, "I must be going now. Avoid Talos." And with a flash, he disappeared.

I stared at the pile of junk that covered the prototype of Talos and couldn't help but get the feeling that I'd be back...much sooner than I would think.

And with that, I exited the Junkyard of the Gods, throwing away a plastic statue of a god that I thought was pretty cool.

THIS. CHAPTER. SUCKED. SORRY.

Hey everyone,

This is just an experiment. It is probably going to suck. I know, it has been done before, bla, bla, bla... But I need your opinion on what I should write next. Send me your thoughts by PM or by reviewing. Plus, vote on the poll.

I also apologize for any grammatical errors in the story above.

With best regards,
SharkAttack719