To HoO Fan- Thank you! ^_^ And yep, Sea of Monsters! Lots of fun! And his name is Polyphemus but I don't think the island itself had a name... not sure :P But yes! Just this chapter and one more and then that's it for this one! ^_^

To BethnPercy- I literally never stop complaining about being one of six. Being in lockdown with them is a WHOLE different level of torture. Like, I love them (three of them anyway) but I would not be bothered if I had to jail time for murder just for five minutes' peace! Ugh, responsibility dodgers, it's not fair. I'm practically a third parent to the younger three, but older sister and Brother 1 are just... useless, to put it nicely. Middle children always cause the most trouble. It's in their nature. Hope you're all keeping well! How'd you find the chapter?


They edged away slowly. They could not move Festus, they dared not breathe. Louisa held her sword at the ready. Leo drew a mallet from his tool belt and a packet of mints. Calypso reached blindly into his belt, retrieving the noise-cancelling headphones. She frowned at Louisa, mouthing a single word- sword. Louisa winced apologetically, shoulders hunching.

"COME OUT, NOBODY! I WANT TO EAT YOU!"

Who's Nobody? Louisa asked voicelessly, sending Leo her puzzlement. He brought a quick flame to his fingertip and then pointed at his eye. Louisa looked at him blankly. Calypso pointed at the Cyclops. Louisa wished she was better at lip-reading.

"NO HIDE, NOBODY! NO TRICKS!" He inhaled deeply. "I CAN SMELL YOU!" Louisa sighed. That's always a good sign, she thought.

Calypso motioned to them, spreading her hands. Leo nodded and moved towards the cliff. Louisa hesitated. Calypso motioned again, directing her towards the water, spreading her hands once more. Fan out.

Louisa side-stepped her way to the water. The Cyclops' head turned with her, still sniffing the air. "NOBODY!" He boomed. "YOU SMELL LIKE SEA!" She waded into the surf up to her ankles, calm and energy swimming through her nerves.

"I'm not Nobody!" She declared, drawing wide-eyed 'are you crazy' looks from the other two. "I am Steve!"

"STEVE?" The Cyclops repeated. "WHERE IS NOBODY?"

"I killed Nobody! Steve is the best!" The Cyclops blinked, the grey of his skin darkening. He stomped his foot, bellowing in unbridled fury.

"I WANTED NOBODY!"

"Should've been quicker then!" Louisa mocked. "Steve is the best!" She chanted. "Steve is Number One! Steve is the best! Steve is Number One!"

The Cyclops didn't like that. He roared, charging right for her. Louisa clenched her fist, readied her sword.

"Over here!" Leo called. "I'm over here!" He threw his mallet, striking the Cyclops in the shoulder. "Steve is the best! Steve is Number One!"

"KILL STEVE!" The Cyclops promised, not noticing the change in voice at all. He rushed Leo, walking stick primed like a lance.

"Here!" Calypso laughed. "You're too slow! You couldn't kill Nobody and you won't ever kill Steve!" He skidded through the sand, nearly falling as his momentum threw out his balance. Leo weaponised the tin of breath mints, a rattling followed by a small clonk as it struck the Cyclops' temple and fell uselessly to the beach.

Cold gripped Louisa's ankles, shards of iron digging into her skin. She looked down, looked over her shoulder.

"Mermaid." She breathed.

Thoosa lay in the surf, still as unearthly pretty, but no longer cordial and smiling. Her eyes blazed with a fury that matched the Cyclops tearing up the beach looking for Steve.

"Has my son not suffered enough?" She said, rising onto her elbows. Her hands clawed their way up Louisa's legs, grasping the back of her shirt and then her hair, looping her arm around her throat, squeezing. "Poseidon thought him no more than a monster, but I do not! That old barnacle brain has far more monstrous children than my Polyphemus!" Calypso dived past the Cyclops, rolling and coming up a few metres in front of Louisa. She did a double-take at the situation, anger blossoming. She snapped her fingers, holding out her hand. Louisa understood that one- she threw her sword.

"Let her go!" Calypso demanded, raising the blade.

"Steve is over here!" Thoosa called out. "Polyphemus, my darling, I have Steve!"

"MOTHER?"

"Yes, darling! Quickly now! Come and get Steve!" Polyphemus turned, his nasty grin returning. He ambled forward with his walking stick. He ignored Leo's shouts, ignored the chants of 'Steve is Number One!'

Calypso lunged. Louisa ducked her head. She felt the edges of her sword snag her hair, felt Thoosa's arm go limp and slide away as her voice ended on the metal.

"MOTHER!" Polyphemus bellowed. "WHERE IS STEVE, MOTHER?"

"Here!" Leo threw a rock at him. "I am Steve, come and get me!"

"MOTHER! WHERE ARE YOU?" Calypso gripped Louisa by the elbow as the latter caught her breath. Thoosa had melted into golden dust, sifting away in the water. "MOTHER!"

"Your mother is no more!" Calypso raged, grip constricting on Louisa's sword. "You're nothing, Polyphemus! You couldn't kill Nobody, you won't kill Steve and you don't have your mother! Stand down!" He blinked stupidly, brow furrowing.

"Mother… is gone?"

"Yes!"

"Steve… killed Mother?"

"Easily!"

"Steve killed Mother. Steve killed Mother." He took deep, frantic breaths, temper boiling to new heights. He spat his words between each trembling, rageful breath. "STEVE- KILLED- MOTHER! I- WILL- KILL- STEVE!" He screamed. His bare, filth-ridden feet pounded across the sand, ground quaking with each footfall. "FOR MOTHER!" He promised on a war cry, raising his walking stick overhead.

"FOR STEVE!" Louisa countered. The next second was blurred, too much happened to process until later. Louisa shoved Calypso behind her, bringing her other hand up from below her knee, as if she planned to uppercut her half-brother. There was no physical contact, but the water responded instantly. It paralleled her movements, scarfing Polyphemus's neck and head. He was yanked off his feet, sent hurtling upwards twenty, thirty, forty feet, straight into the cliffside. He lost his stick halfway up- it landed point down by Festus's front foot.

The rock dented under the Cyclops' collision, moulding around him. The water dropped. Louisa swayed forward, Calypso grasping her forearm to keep her standing.

With a groan, Polyphemus fell forward. He landed face down in the wet sand. Leo was closest. He drew a spirit level from his belt, sending the girls an anxious grimace. He slid forward on soft feet, sand bristling around his shoes. Holding the spirit level with his fingertips, extending his arm as far as he could and leaning out to his extreme, he poked the Cyclops in the shoulder with the tool.

Polyphemus grunted. Leo seemed to leap cartoonishly back to his original vantage point.

"Not dead!" He squeaked.

The monster began to rise, spitting out sand, coughing and quivering with hardly contained fury. Calypso waved to Leo. He bounced the spirit level off Polyphemus's cranium, shoving his face back in the sand, and made a dash for it. "Any more ideas?"

"Yes." Louisa brightened, grinning devilishly.

"What?" The other two chorused.

"Arson."

"No!"

"Yes!" She attacked Leo's toolbelt. It didn't always give him what he wanted, but it worked for her. A blowtorch hit her palm and a bottle of gasoline. "Hell yes!" She beamed.

"What is it with you and arson?" Calypso hissed. Louisa was already gone. Polyphemus was rising again. She was making a beeline for him, grinning maniacally.

"STEVE!" Polyphemus bellowed, swinging his arms wildly. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

"On my way!" Louisa confirmed, knocking the gasoline open.

"YOU KILLED MOTHER!"

"'N' now I'm gonna kill you!"

"STEVE USED WATER ON ME!"

"Ya needed a bath!"

"I AM SON OF POSEIDON!" Gasoline soaked into his face, falling into his open mouth. He wretched, scraping his fingernails on his tongue. "POISON!"

"Medicine!" Louisa corrected, emptying the bottle over his head and shoulders. He made grabs at her, swiping with his arms, aiming a kick miles from where she was. She circled him in hops and jumps, dashing the fuel over him with each step. When the bottle emptied, she ricocheted it from his temple with a hollow donk.

She stopped in front of him, flicking the blowtorch on. The flame came with a distant yelling from its blue core. "Son of Poseidon, yeah?"

"YES!" He spat out fuel, rubbing at his face. "KILL STEVE! STEVE KILLED MOTHER! I WILL KILL STEVE!"

"Guess again, dickwad." She slammed her foot into his chest, pushing him back against the cliff. "My dad's Poseidon too."

"NO!"

"Yep! Don't worry though, ya ain't gonna have ta put up with me much longer. 'N' ya can see ya mom again!"

"Mother?" He asked hopefully.

"Yeah. Mother." She set the flame to his nose. The gasoline went up faster than he could scream, the heat washing over her like the tide. She stepped back, feeling the air cool. He screamed and thrashed, rolled in the sand.

They weren't sure when it began to happen, but at some point it wasn't just sand falling in clumps from him- he was disintegrating.

"My sheep!" He wailed through the fire. "Help me, sheep!" He stretched his hand up, reaching for the top of the cliffs. Two seconds later, his smoking ashes splattering over the sand.

Leo crouched beside the pile, poking it tentatively. He looked up at Louisa with a quizzical look.

"Something tells me you don't like your siblings."

"What makes ya say that?"

"You stabbed Almops with his own broken trident, you fed Charybdis her best friend and now you've incinerated your blind, sheep-farming brother."

"Carnivorous sheep-farming brother." Calypso corrected. "Although, I am now a little worried for Percy." She narrowed her eyes at Louisa. "Don't kill Percy."

"Is he a dick?"

"No."

"Does he have flesh-eatin' sheep?"

"Not last I checked."

"Whirlpool monster?"

"No, but he did make a whirlpool to beat some twin giants."

"Twin giants." Louisa echoed, questions faltering as a memory tickled her mind. "Somethin' 'bout goo? 'N' no pants." Leo shrugged unhelpfully.

"Ask Percy."

"If you don't kill him." Calypso added.

"Mm." Louisa wiped ash from her face. "No promises."


Stay inside and wash your hands! Love you!