I hope you guys enjoy this chapter! Keep up the reviews!
Replies:
Weirdhead: I imagine they'd be incredibly annoying, I'd end up punching them.
Guest: Percy doesn't exactly know what Hazel's secret is, but Hazel gives her worried looks so she's picked up on the fact that it's something big and that it'll probably effect her.
Drizzle: Archie is using magic to disguise himself, you'll learn more later!
Undeath9087: She'll definitely be a big sister to Hazel, and she and Frank basically take it in turns to play big sibling- Percy would die for one of Franks big bear hugs. And don't worry there won't be the love triangle- a friendship yes but no love triangle.
The Official Clarisse: Rachel will be the only one with any self restraint- I mean she'd be excited but still, she's the common sense of the group, Percy and Annabeth would just forget about the fact that they're on a quest while they get super excited. And honestly I believe it was quite common to wash kids mouth out with soap when they swore back in those days.
Well. If Hazel had to buy time maybe her best bet was to try and get some information at the same time. "You're Gaea's servants," she guessed, just to keep them talking. Maybe Percy and Frank weren't too far away. Maybe they'd be able to see her, standing so tall above the fields. She wished that her sword glowed like Percy's.
The yellow-diapered Cupid snarled. "We are the karpoi, spirits of the grain. Children of the Earth Mother, yes! We have been her attendants since forever. Before nasty humans cultivated us, we were wild. We will be again. Wheat will destroy all!"
"No, sorghum will rule!"
"Barley shall dominate!"
The others joined in, each karpos cheering for his own variety.
"Right." Hazel swallowed her revulsion. "So you're Wheat, then—you in the yellow, um, britches."
"Hmmmm," said Wheat. "Come down from your schist, demigod. We must take you to our mistress's army. They will reward us. They will kill you slowly!"
"Tempting," Hazel said, "but no thanks."
"I will give you wheat!" said Wheat, as if this were a very fine offer in exchange for her life. "So much wheat!"
Hazel tried to think. How far had she been carried? How long would it take her friends to find her? The karpoi were getting bolder, approaching the rock in twos and threes, scratching at the schist to see if it would hurt them.
"Before I get down…" She raised her voice, hoping it would carry over the fields. "Um, explain something to me, would you? If you're grain spirits, shouldn't you be on the gods' side? Isn't the goddess of agriculture Ceres—"
"Evil name!" Barley wailed.
"Cultivates us!" Sorghum spat. "Makes us grow in disgusting rows. Lets humans harvest us. Pah! When Gaea is mistress of the world again, we will grow wild, yes!"
"Well, naturally," Hazel said. "So this army of hers, where you're taking me in exchange for wheat—"
"Or barley," Barley offered.
"Yeah," Hazel agreed. "This army is where, now?"
"Just over the ridge!" Sorghum clapped his hands excitedly. "The Earth Mother—oh, yes!—she told us: 'Look for the daughter of Pluto who lives again. Find her! Bring her alive! I have many tortures planned for her.' The giant Polybotes will reward us for your life! Then we will march south to destroy the Romans. We can't be killed, you know. But you can, yes."
"That's wonderful." Hazel tried to sound enthusiastic. It wasn't easy, knowing Gaea had special revenge planned for her. "So you—you can't be killed because Alcyoneus has captured Death, is that it?"
"Exactly!" Barley said.
"And he's keeping him chained in Alaska," Hazel said, "at…let's see, what's the name of that place?"
Sorghum started to answer, but Wheat flew at him and knocked him down. The karpoi began to fight, dissolving into funnel clouds of grain. Hazel considered making a run for it. Then Wheat re-formed, holding Sorghum in a headlock. "Stop!" he yelled at the others. "Multigrain fighting is not allowed!" The karpoi solidified into chubby Cupid piranhas again.
Wheat pushed Sorghum away.
"Oh, clever demigod," he said. "Trying to trick us into giving secrets. No, you'll never find the lair of Alcyoneus."
"I already know where it is," she said with false confidence. "He's on the island in Resurrection Bay."
"Ha!" Wheat sneered. "That place sank beneath the waves long ago. You should know that! Gaea hates you for it. When you thwarted her plans, she was forced to sleep again. Decades and decades! Alcyoneus—not until the dark times was he able to rise."
"The nineteen-eighties," Barley agreed. "Horrible! Horrible!"
"Yes," Wheat said. "And our mistress still sleeps. Alcyoneus was forced to bide his time in the north, waiting, planning. Only now does Gaea begin to stir. Oh, but she remembers you, and so does her son!"
Sorghum cackled with glee. "You will never find the prison of Thanatos. All of Alaska is the giant's home. He could be keeping Death anywhere! Years it would take you to find him, and your poor camp has only days. Better you surrender. We will give you grain. So much grain."
Hazel's sword felt heavy. She'd dreaded returning to Alaska, but at least she'd had an idea where to start looking for Thanatos. She'd assumed that the island where she had died hadn't been completely destroyed, or possibly had risen again when Alcyoneus woke. She had hoped that his base would be there. But if the island was really gone, she had no idea how to find the giant. Alaska was huge. They could search for decades and never find him.
"Yes," Wheat said, sensing her anguish. "Give up."
Hazel gripped her spatha. "Never!" She raised her voice again, hoping it would somehow reach her friends. "If I have to destroy you all, I will. I am the daughter of Pluto!"
The karpoi advanced. They gripped the rock, hissing as if it were scalding hot, but they began to climb.
"Now you will die," Wheat promised, gnashing his teeth. "You will feel the wrath of grain!"
Suddenly there was a whistling sound. Wheat's snarl froze. He looked down at the golden arrow that had just pierced his chest. Then he dissolved into pieces of Chex Mix.
...
Percy had not expected to run into Frank on her way back up to the cliff- he'd looked terrified, frantic even. Whatever was wrong was really wrong- and Percy cursed very loudly when Frank had gabbled something about the grass stealing Hazel away- and Percy had took off instantly, Frank managing to keep pace with her.
They'd managed to find her- if only because of the fact that she was shouting, and Percy was willing to admit that Frank had danm good aim, she and the son of Mar worked together well, and when Hazel joined them, clearly aware that she had a chance now where she wouldn't have before- she'd been badly outnumbered. Now they took out the karpoi within minutes- they were reduced to piles of seed and various breakfast cereals.
One of them started to reform but Percy was faster- she pulled a lighter from her pack and sparked a flame, holding it out in front of her- pushing down a voice in the back of her mind which whispered, 'Leo would be pretty useful right now' if only because she didn't even know who Leo was, though she got the feeling that she should.
"Just try it." she snarled the words, "Just try it and I'll set this whole field on fire. Stay dead. Stay away from us or the grass gets it!" she did spot Frank wincing like he was afraid of the flames- Percy honestly didn't understand why, but Hazel was helpful.
"She'll do it! She's crazy!"
The remnants of the karpoi scattered in the wind. Frank climbed the rock and watched them go.
Percy extinguished her lighter and grinned at Hazel.
"Thanks for yelling. We wouldn't have found you otherwise. How'd you hold them off so long?"
Hazel 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."
Percy and Hazel climbed up to join him. Hazel saw it first, and when she did she inhaled sharply. "Percy, no light! Put up your sword!"
Percy cursed under her breath and capped Riptide, tucking the pen into her pocket as she peered down below them- down at an army 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 that it was amazing that the fight hadn't drawn their attention
The trio 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."
"You've fought them before?" Percy asked quickly- it was always good to know about the monsters you might have to fight. But Hazel shook her head.
"Just heard about them in monster class at camp. The Earthborn fought the Argonauts," she murmured. "And those things behind them—"
"Centaurs," Percy said. "But…that's not right. Centaurs are good guys." she heard a voice, soft and comforting, telling her that she'd done well- that she should be proud of herself.
Frank made a choking sound. "That's not what we were taught at camp. Centaurs are crazy, always getting drunk and killing heroes."
"That-" Percy shook her head, staring down at the Centaurs. They were dressed in barbarian armor of hide and bronze, armed with spears and slings. They had horns jutting up from their shaggy hair.
She barely heard Hazel's hesitant whisper.
"Are they supposed to have bulls horns?" but Percy managed to whisper back;
"I don't think so."
"Maybe they're a special breed," Frank said. "Let's not ask them, okay?"
Percy gazed farther down the road and her face went slack with horror. "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.
"No-" she saw the flash of a Cyclopes' face, grinning widely, felt arms pulling her into a bone crushing hug, heard a voice calling her big sister.
"This is wrong. Cyclopes, Centaurs- it's all wrong." her head was hurting, she could feel something pushing, memories desperately trying to surface- but she couldn't reach them no matter how hard she tried- it was painful.
She whimpered, clutching at her head, and Hazel and Frank must have noticed because she heard Hazel whispering to Frank.
"We need to get her back to the boat. The sea should make her feel better."
"No argument," Frank said. "There are too many of them. The camp…we have to warn the camp."
"They know," Percy groaned. "Reyna knows."
Both of her new friends looked horrified but Percy could barely even focus on them as Hazel shook her head, "Come on, let's-" but her voice caught, and Hazel's face went pale and Percy forced herself to look again.
It was easy to spot what had caught Hazel's eye. It was a giant.
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. "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."
Percy felt a shudder of fear rush through her at that even if she didn't fully understand why, she couldn't bring herself to look away, even as Hazel and Frank each grabbed an arm and dragged her a little further down the schist so that they'd be more hidden while they 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.
Percy watched as the store seemed to light up with a blazing bright light that turned night into day and the enemy army dissolved into chaos, monsters screaming in pain and outrage.
"Too pretty!" the Cyclopes shrieked. "Burns our eye!"
The store on the hill was encased in a rainbow, closer and brighter than any Percy 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!"
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! Vengance! The son of Hephaestus took our meal from us! Now Ma Gasket will eat their friends! Do you hear me, Leo? Jason? Piper? I come to kill you!"