HAZEL
Hazel had been buying her time to allow her friends to find her because she was sure that they would or it would be the very end of her on her safety place when other monsters would come. She was also trying to get intelligence out of those stupid little monsters when her friend came out and killed them all. Some of them started to reform but Alex took out a lighter out of his bag all set to start a fire.
"Try it," he warned, "and I'll set this whole field on fire. Stay dead. Stay away from us, or the grass gets it!" Frank winced like the flame terrified him. Hazel didn't understand why, but she shouted at the grain piles anyway:
"He'll do it! He's crazy!" which she thought was true remembering how he acted in Rome few days ago. The remnants of the karpoi scattered in the wind. Frank climbed the rock and watched them go. Alex extinguished his lighter and grinned at Hazel as Piper wondered if the two of them weren't crazy.
"Do you know that he would've burn all of us if he putted fire on the fields?" 'Percy' screamed at Hazel who grinned at him like some mad scientist; for once Piper had to admit that he was probably saying the truth.
"Wouldn't have been so bad with you being a son of Neptune, some petty fire wouldn't hurt you just like for Alex (who flinched) and I could've take Piper, Frank and I underground." Once again she noticed Frank flinching at the mention of fire.
"Thanks for yelling. We wouldn't have found you otherwise. How'd you hold them off so long?" Alex said as if he never heard 'Percy's words.
She pointed to the rock.
"A big pile of schist."
"Excuse me?"
"Guys," Frank called from the top of the rock. "You need to see this." Alex and Hazel climbed up to join him while Piper, 'Percy' and Arya were joining them. As soon as Hazel saw what he was looking at, she inhaled sharply.
"Percy, no light! Put up your sword!" Frank hushed which he did but Alex stood there for a moment as if he wanted to protest about something but shrugged it off. b
"Schist!" He touched the sword tip, and Riptide shrank back into a pen. Down below them, an army was on the move. The field dropped into a shallow ravine, where a country road wound north and south. On the opposite side of the road, grassy hills stretched to the horizon, empty of civilization except for one darkened convenience store at the top of the nearest rise.
The whole ravine was full of monsters—column after column marching south, so many and so close, Hazel was amazed they hadn't heard her shouting. She, Frank, and Percy crouched against the rock. They watched in disbelief as several dozen large, hairy humanoids passed by, dressed in tattered bits of armor and animal fur. The creatures had six arms each, three sprouting on either side, so they looked like cavemen evolved from insects.
"Gegenes," Hazel whispered. "The Earthborn." She said all together with Piper, then they looked at each other.
"You've fought them before?" 'Percy' asked. She shook her head but it wasn't the case for Piper.
"Yes…I think so, though I can't remember about it" she then glanced at Alex who had his eyes focused on the enemy lines trying to have a number of them but Arya nodded at her confirming her suspicions.
"Just heard about them in monster class at camp." She'd never liked monster class—reading Pliny the Elder and those other musty authors who described legendary monsters from the edges of the Roman Empire. Hazel believed in monsters, but some of the descriptions were so wild, she had thought they must be just ridiculous rumors. Only now, a whole army of those rumors was marching by.
"The Earthborn fought the Argonauts," she murmured. "And those things behind them—"
"Centaurs," 'Percy' said. "But…that's not right. Centaurs are good guys." Alex gave a mocking chuckle in the back of his throat as his face contorted into a disgusted frown which Hazel didn't understood but assumed that he's had a bad experience with them.
Frank made a choking sound. "That's not what we were taught at camp. Centaurs are crazy, always getting drunk and killing heroes."
"Party Ponies" Alex murmured chuckling again and it started to get on Hazel's nerves that he was laughing at a member of Frank's quest even if she wasn't friend with 'fake Percy'.
Hazel watched as the horse-men cantered past. They were human from the waist up, palomino from the waist down. They were dressed in barbarian armor of hide and bronze, armed with spears and slings. At first, Hazel thought they were wearing Viking helmets. Then she realized they had actual horns jutting from their shaggy hair.
"Are they supposed to have bull's horns?" she asked.
"Maybe they're a special breed," Frank said.
"A very special breed" Alex commented.
"Let's not ask them, okay?" 'Percy' gazed farther down the road and his face went slack. "My gods ... Cyclopes." Sure enough, lumbering after the centaurs was a battalion of one-eyed ogres, both male and female, each about ten feet tall, wearing armor cobbled out of junkyard metal. Six of the monsters were yoked like oxen, pulling a two-story-tall siege tower fitted with a giant scorpion ballista. Percy pressed the sides of his head. "Cyclopes. Centaurs. This is wrong. All wrong."
The monster army was enough to make anyone despair, but Hazel realized that something else was going on with 'Percy'. He looked pale and sickly in the moonlight, as if his memories were trying to come back, scrambling his mind in the process. She glanced at Frank.
"We need to get him back to the boat. The sea will make him feel better."
She glanced at Alex who from the first time since she met the boy wasn't looking at 'Percy' as if wanted to out his sword in his heart but with pity though the look he gave her show her that he wouldn't carry him
"No argument," Frank said. "There are too many of them. The camp…we have to warn the camp."
"They know," Alex carefully whispered. "Reyna knows."
A lump formed in Hazel's throat. There was no way the legion could fight so many. If they were only a few hundred miles north of Camp Jupiter, their quest was already doomed. They could never make it to Alaska and back in time.
"Come on," she urged. "Let's…" Then she saw the giant. When he appeared over the ridge, Hazel couldn't quite believe her eyes. He was taller than the siege tower—thirty feet, at least—with scaly reptilian legs like a Komodo dragon from the waist down and green-blue armor from the waist up. His breastplate was shaped like rows of hungry monstrous faces, their mouths open as if demanding food. His face was human, but his hair was wild and green, like a mop of seaweed. As he turned his head from side to side, snakes dropped from his dreadlocks. Viper dandruff—gross. He was armed with a massive trident and a weighted net. Just the sight of those weapons made Hazel's stomach clench. She'd faced that type of fighter in gladiator training many times. It was the trickiest, sneakiest, most evil combat style she knew. This giant was a supersize retiarius.
"Who is he?" Frank's voice quivered. "That's not—"
"Not Alcyoneus," Hazel said weakly. "One of his brothers, I think. The one Terminus mentioned. The grain spirit mentioned him, too. That's Polybotes."She wasn't sure how she knew, but she could feel the giant's aura of power even from here. She remembered that feeling from the Heart of the Earth as she had raised Alcyoneus—as if she were standing near a powerful magnet, and all the iron in her blood was being drawn toward it. This giant was another child of Gaea—a creature of the earth so malevolent and powerful, he radiated his own gravitational field. Hazel knew they should leave.
Their hiding place on top of the rock would be in plain sight to a creature that tall if he chose to look in their direction. But she sensed something important was about to happen. She and her friends crept a little farther down the schist and kept watching. As the giant got close, a Cyclops woman broke ranks and ran back to speak with him. She was enormous, fat, and horribly ugly, wearing a chain-mail dress like a muumuu—but next to the giant she looked like a child. She pointed to the closed-up convenience store on top of the nearest hill and muttered something about food. The giant snapped back an answer, as if he was annoyed. The female Cyclopes barked an order to her kindred, and three of them followed her up the hill. When they were halfway to the store, a searing light turned night into day. Hazel was blinded. Below her, the enemy army dissolved into chaos, monsters screaming in pain and outrage. Hazel squinted. She felt like she'd just stepped out of a dark theater into a sunny afternoon.
"Too pretty!" the Cyclopes shrieked.
"Burns our eye!" The store on the hill was encased in a rainbow, closer and brighter than any Hazel had ever seen. The light was anchored at the store, shooting up into the heavens, bathing the countryside in a weird kaleidoscopic glow. The lady Cyclops hefted her club and charged at the store. As she hit the rainbow, her whole body began to steam. She wailed in agony and dropped her club, retreating with multicolored blisters all over her arms and face.
"Horrible goddess!" she bellowed at the store. "Give us snacks!"The other monsters went crazy, charging the convenience store, then running away as the rainbow light burned them. Some threw rocks, spears, swords, and even pieces of their armor, all of which burned up in flames of pretty colors. Finally the giant leader seemed to realize that his troops were throwing away perfectly good equipment. "Stop!" he roared.
With some difficulty, he managed to shout and push and pummel his troops into submission. When they'd quieted down, he approached the rainbow-shielded store himself and stalked around the borders of the light.
"Goddess!" he shouted. "Come out and surrender!" No answer from the store. The rainbow continued to shimmer. The giant raised his trident and net. "I am Polybotes! Kneel before me so I may destroy you quickly." Apparently, no one in the store was impressed. A tiny dark object came sailing out the window and landed at the giant's feet. Polybotes yelled, "Grenade!" He covered his face. His troops hit the ground. When the thing did not explode, Polybotes bent down cautiously and picked it up. He roared in outrage.
"A Ding Dong? You dare insult me with a Ding Dong?" He threw the cake back at the shop, and it vaporized in the light.
The monsters got to their feet. Several muttered hungrily, "Ding Dongs? Where Ding Dongs?"
"Let's attack," said the lady Cyclops. "I am hungry. My boys want snacks!"
"No!" Polybotes said. "We're already late. Alcyoneus wants us at the camp in four days' time. You Cyclopes move inexcusably slowly. We have no time for minor goddesses!"He aimed that last comment at the store, but got no response. The lady Cyclops growled.
"The camp, yes. Vengeance! The orange and purple ones destroyed my home. Now Ma Gasket will destroy theirs! Do you hear me, Leo? Jason? Piper? I come to annihilate you!" The other Cyclopes bellowed in approval. The rest of the monsters joined in. Hazel's whole body tingled. She glanced at her friends.
"Jason," she whispered.
"She fought Jason. He might still be alive."Frank nodded. "Do those other names mean anything to you?"
Hazel shook her head. She didn't know any Leo or Piper at camp...wait Piper?
Frank too must've understood what they said as they both turned around to look at a shaking Piper threatening to crush her head with her hands.
"I don't know…Jason, Leo…I can't remember" she said in the verge of tears but Alex reassuringly took her in his harms putting her head on his chest. Even if they didn't hear sobs Hazel was sure that she was crying; Alex kept on saying soothing words at her drawing circles on her back. It almost look sweet to Hazel if there wasn't for the dire situation they were in. 'Percy' still looked sickly and dazed. If the names meant anything to him, he didn't show it. Hazel pondered what the Cyclops had said: Orange and purple ones. Purple—obviously the color of Camp Jupiter. But orange…'Percy' had shown up in a tattered orange shirt just like Piper did. That couldn't be a coincidence. Below them, the army began to march south again, but the giant Polybotes stood to one side, frowning and sniffing the air.
"Sea god," he muttered. To Hazel's horror, he turned in their direction. "I smell sea god." Alex stopped breathing and turned white with Piper still in his hands while 'Percy' was shaking. Hazel put her hand on his shoulder and tried to press him flat against the rock. The lady Cyclops Ma Gasket snarled.
"Of course you smell sea god! The sea is right over there!"
"More than that," Polybotes insisted. "I was born to destroy Neptune. I can sense…" He frowned, turning his head and shaking out a few more snakes.
"Do we march or sniff the air?" Ma Gasket scolded. "I don't get Ding Dongs, you don't get sea god!" Polybotes growled. "Very well. March! March!" He took one last look at the rainbow-encased store, then raked his fingers through his hair. He brought out three snakes that seemed larger than the rest, with white markings around their necks.
"A gift, goddess! My name, Polybotes, means 'Manyto- Feed!' Here are some hungry mouths for you. See if your store gets many customers with these sentries outside."He laughed wickedly and threw the snakes into the tall grass on the hillside. Then he marched south, his massive Komodo legs shaking the earth. Gradually, the last column of monsters passed over the hills and disappeared into the night. Once they were gone, the blinding rainbow shut off like a spotlight. Hazel, Frank, and Percy were left alone in the dark, staring across the road at a closed-up convenience store.
"That was different," Frank muttered. Alex and 'Percy' shuddered violently at the same time. Hazel knew he needed help, or rest, or something. Seeing that army seemed to have triggered some kind of memory, leaving him shell-shocked. They should get him back to the boat. On the other hand, a huge stretch of grassland lay between them and the beach. Hazel got the feeling the karpoi wouldn't stay away forever. She didn't like the idea of the three of them making their way back to the boat in the middle of the night. And she couldn't shake the dreadful feeling that if she hadn't summoned that schist, she'd be a captive of the giant right now.
"Let's go to the store," she said. "If there's a goddess inside, maybe she can help us."
"Except a bunch of snake things are guarding the hill now," Frank said. "And that burning rainbow might comeback." They both looked at Percy, who was shaking like he had hypothermia.
"We've got to try," Hazel said.
Frank nodded grimly. "Well…any goddess who throws a Ding Dong at a giant can't be all bad. Let's go."
They headed straight to the store; they got closer with smooth foot falls, a few yards before reaching it there was a hiss sound followed by another one then another.
"Go" Frank yelled at them, already understanding the origin of the sounds. Seeing the girls difficulties with the boys he took off his bow from his back and blindly shot at the sounds trying to buy them time until Hazel called him back and they put aside their doubts on the store before getting in.
Once inside they found out that it was different from what they expected, but it all disappear seeing the state of their friends. 'Percy' leaned on Hazel and looked worse than outside which wasn't much different from Piper who was shaking and crying on Alex's chest. But what worried them was that even Alex was affected because he was shaking as much as Piper and looking paler than usual though he was putting a strong face you tell that there encounter had shaken him up. Only Arya looked fine and was trying to sit Piper while Hazel was doing the same with 'Percy' when a girl appeared making Frank jump backward. The statue of Neptune behind him fell and the god's head rolled off spewing water, 'Percy' looked worse at the sight of his father's statue while Alex surely appreciated the spectacle judging from his broad smile and the light in his eyes, he looked finer to Hazel and as to prove her right he stood and made the effort to sit next to Piper.
From the back of the store, a woman's voice called: "Fleecy? Don't scare the customers, now. Bring them here, will you?"
"Your name is Fleecy?" Hazel asked. Fleecy giggled.
"Well, in the language of the nebulae it's actually—" She made a series of crackling and blowing noises that reminded Frank of a thunderstorm giving way to a nice cold front. "But you can call me Fleecy."
"Nebulae…" Alex muttered in a daze. "Cloud nymphs."
Fleecy beamed. "Oh, I like this one! Usually no one knows about cloud nymphs. But dear me, he doesn't look so good. Come to the back. My boss wants to meet you. We'll get your friend fixed up."
Fleecy led them through the produce aisle, between rows of eggplants, kiwis, lotus fruit, and pomegranates. At the back of the store, behind a counter with an old-fashioned cash register, stood a middle-aged woman with olive skin, long black hair, rimless glasses, and a T-shirt that read: The Goddess Is Alive! She wore amber necklaces and turquoise rings. She smelled like rose petals.
Hazel saw Alex taking a guarded position at the sight of the goddess, she could see him tense ready to fight if the goddess attacked him which she didn't understand but as she remembered how he fought Mars in Rome, she was sure that soon enough he would jump on the goddess. The goddess eyed Alex than his sister as if confirming something before greeting them.
"Hello, I'm Iris."
FRANK
Frank sat on the Pax while Alex guided it through the waters, he had been explaining things to them but Alex was too far to hear him. He couldn't stop thinking about what Iris had told him and he didn't want to talk behind Alex's back or to badmouth him before Piper and Arya was with them.
"Suffice it to say, the Argonauts drove away the harpies in exchange for Phineas's help. That was eons ago, but I understand Phineas has returned to the mortal world. You'll find him in Portland, Oregon, which is on your way north. But you must promise me one thing. If he's still plagued by harpies, do not kill them, no matter what Phineas promises you, especially with that demigod with you. Win his help some other way. The harpies are not evil. They're my sisters."
"Who, Percy?" Frank asked but the goddess who her head "Alex? What about him?"
"I'm not trying to scare you or mess your quest but you'll have to be weary of him." She looked embarrassed but what she was saying but it didn't stop her "that boy loath the gods and no one seems to know him or his reason, just that he's dangerous. He shook the whole Olympus and currently is on Jupiter's wanted list."
"So why is he on the quest with us?" Frank asked not knowing why his father wanted him to take such a dangerous element on his quest. Is it a test or he wanted us to occupied him while looking for something.
"That only Juno and Mars know. But even them are taking a risked bet that might cost them too much. Just don't let him be too long with Phineas."
But as if Olympus heard his silent plea, 'Percy' and Piper both fell asleep while Arya went to join her brother. They watched her as she took one of his hands into hers then whispered something into his ear and he nodded at her. They kept on watching their brother/sister interaction for a moment before Frank repeated at her what Iris had told him after making sure that 'Percy' and Piper really were asleep.
He told her everything including his memory of his encounter with the bear when he was a kid. He saw Hazel glance at Alex then at Piper's sleeping form.
"No" was all she said.
"No, what?" he asked.
"I don't think that he will betray us, especially Piper. I know that for whatever reason he hates the gods but it doesn't mean that he's going to side with the enemy." She said looking at him.
"But Jupiter want him dead" he protested.
"Do you think that trying to kill him would be easier here more than in Rome? If we try we'll both be dead and half of Rome will be lost by his hands." She looked at Alex before adding "I trust him and he's my friend."
Frank started to feel jealous of Alex because not even knowing him for a long time, Hazel considered him like a friend and she trusted him enough with their life. He quickly brushed aside the felling before talking; but he couldn't manage to hide it in his voice when he said.
"Then you'd better keep you friend in line because it will be hard once we'll meet Phineas"
If Hazel hear his tone she didn't saw though surprised by what her friend had say. They both noticed the way Alex tensed seeing Iris and how she lingered her eyes on him. Unconsciously they both looked at Alex with one golden question in their mind: what happened between Alex and the Olympians? They were dying to know the answer already feeling that it wasn't some stupid reason behind it.