Chapter 3

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Before I start, I'd like to answer any guest reviews I may have gotten and apologize for the delay between chapters. That was the apology, here's the reviews.

Fushes: I mean… sort of? He does help with defenses.

Scoolio: Thank you! Hope you continue to enjoy it!

Kyle: Cool? If that's a not so subtle hint for me to try writing that, I'm afraid you're going to be disappointed. It's not really on my schedule atm.

Guest: I hope you realize that we're literally in the first few chapters. The MC is supposed to be a bit on the weaker side at this point. Look at Harry Potter, or Percy Jackson, or any number of main characters in fiction. Give it time dude. Give it time.

And that's all of them. Once again a reminder that I have a Pa tree on under the same name as what I use here, and I have a Discord where we talk about my stories (we have some spoiler channels as well where we discuss possible spoilers for my fics as well.) we also talk about memes and random other stuff. The Code to use for it is JtsBGHP.

With that all done, here's chapter 3 of Benjamin Conagher and the Stolen Crucible.

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You remember that story of how I blew up the last truck I worked on? The one where I tried using Jet Fuel and all that?

You do?

Would you be at all surprised to learn that we may or may not have accidentally blown up the electric truck on the way to camp?

It doesn't?

I am both insulted by your lack of faith and impressed by your common sense.

You see, what happened was that we had made pretty decent time up until we hit New Jersey, considering we didn't have to stop for more than the occasional McDonalds or to stretch our legs and that one time in Tennessee for a nap, but with the help of the Mist and Henry's driving skills, we were able to zip on through most of our trip without a cop even glancing in our direction.

Then we hit New Jersey.

And at first, things were going well! We were on the highway leading to the bridge that connects New Jersey and Long Island, we were talking about what Camp was like, and I was hyped.

Then we got a flat tire.

No big deal, right? Just pull over and change it. So we limp off the highway, pull off to the side of the road in an area with an obscene amount of warehouses, and we started changing the tire.

"Alright… This should do it." I said as I finished tightening up the last bolt, dusting my hands off on my pants.

"Alright then, let's get going. We're almost to Long Island, and from there it shouldn't be long to ca-" Henry started to say before pausing. Jerking his head towards one of the warehouses next to us. A big menacing thing made of old, beaten bricks with windows on the front of the warehouse and circling the top of the building, letting light inside. Facing us was an open industrial sized garage door showing the inside of the building to be made of concrete with various tools and parts strewn about.

"Henry? Is everything okay?" I asked as he carefully sniffs the air around us, glaring at the warehouse specifically as he does so.

"Get in the truck." He answered as he pulled me to my feet and pushed me towards the truck doors.

"Wait, what's wrong?"

"Get in the- MOVE!" He grabbed me by my shirt and yanked me back as an engine launched from one of the windows, slamming into the truck and basically folding it sideways so the cab is at a 90 degrees angle from the bed.

"Well then…" I muttered as I stared wide eyed at my ruined truck.

"Come on!" Henry yelled as he started dragging me behind him. Before he could get too far though, another fucking engine flies over our heads and slams into the ground in front of us.

"Well, well, well… Look who decided to stop in for a visit." A deep, rumbling voice with a Jersey accent came from behind us.

Turning to the voice, we see two massive… Beings standing before us.

They both stood at around twelve feet tall, though the one on the left seemed to be a bit shorter than the one on the right. Both were wearing jumpsuits similar to what you'd see a mechanic wear with nametags, letting us know that their names were Sump and Crank. The taller one, Sump, had black hair cut into a mullet while the shorter one, Crank, was completely bald.

Oh yeah, and they both only had one eye each. They were cyclops.

"Looks Like a godspawn!" Crank giggled gleefully with a manic look in his eye, his voice was higher than his brothers and far more nasally. "And he's got a satyr with him too!"

"He sure does!" Sump replied as they walked towards us. "The perfect ingredients for Goat and Demigod Stew!"

"Get behind me…" Henry whispered as he gently pushed me behind him. "When I say run… I want you to run. Try to get to Camp as quickly and safely as you can. I'll distract these two to get you some time."

"Wait, but what about you? They want to eat us! You'll die!"

"I'm your protector. It's an occupational hazard." He shrugged.

"What are you two jabbering about!?" Sump growled as he reached down to grab the two of us.

"RUN!" Henry yelled as he pushed me back, ducking under the hand of the Cyclops and bolting between his legs.

I, obviously, did exactly what I was told to do!

Sort of.

Kind of?

Okay, not really.

I did run though, you can't say I didn't do that. I just ran in the wrong direction, at least… according to Henry.

Instead of running away, I ran towards the fight. More accurately, I ran to my truck. My poor, pitiful, beaten truck.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" Henry yells at me as he ducked under Sumps clumsy grasp and rolled over Crank's poorly executed kick. The kick ended up hitting Sump in the shin, forcing him to the ground as Henry kept playing them as fools. "I told you to run!"

"And I'm not going to just ditch you!" I replied as I opened the hood and started working. "Who even does that? Look, I have a plan. Just give me thirty seconds!"

"Is this plan like your Shish Kebob Plan?" He asked as he used Sump's head as a springboard and leaped into the air, kicking Crank in the nose with one of his hooves.

"Very much so, yes." I answered as I grabbed a handful of wires from some of the batteries and started twisting them together and connecting them to each other.

"That was an awful plan!" He pointed out as Sump slowly started getting up and Crank started recovering from getting kicked in the face.

"It worked, didn't it?" I shot back as I ran around to the driver's seat and climbing through the broken window. I was almost done. All I needed was to rearrange a few more wires, get the engine going, and it should work like a treat.

Should being the operative word.

"Would you both just shut up!" Sump roared as he grabbed Henry by one of his legs and flipped him into the air before catching him right side up. "Crank! Get the other one. Dealing with these brats has given me an appetite."

"Let go of me!" Henry tried hitting the Cyclops fist in a vain attempt to get free. "Ben! Run!"

"Shut up, you!" Sump roared at Henry ubefore he turned around and started walking back inside.

As he rubbed his face in pain, Crank started walking over to me, grunting about stupid goats and annoying demigod all the way.

Just one more wire… done! After cranking the ignition, the engine started to spark dangerously as Crank started reaching for my door.

PZZZZZCCCHHHT

"AAAARGH!" Crank yelled as the truck turned giant taser shocked him with enough power to vaporize him, as not a moment later, he burst into a cloud of golden sand.

"Oh thank god that worked…" I sighed in relief.

"Crank?" I heard Sump ask from inside the warehouse. "What was that noise? Did you get the demigod or not?"

"I'm afraid that Crank has had a bit of a shocking experience recently, so he can-t come to the phone right now." I called back as I opened both doors as far open as I could and crouched in the drivers seat. If I'm going to pull this off… I'm going to need to be ready. "Or anytime soon, really. He's a bit busy reforming in Tartarus."

After a moment of silence, I heard a roar of anger come from the warehouse before Sump charges put of there. His mullet was flying in every direction and his one eye was probably glaring, but it looked more like he was squinting instead. In his right hand was a monkey wrench, but to just call it a wrench would do it a disservice, as its size would classify it more aptly as a club because it was almost as big as I was.

"WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY BROTHER!?" He snarled at me as he raised his club.

"I showed him what happens when you mess with electricity." I replied simply. "And he was a few watts short of a bulb, if you ask me."

"You little Shit!" He yelled as he swung his club down at the cab. "You killed my brother!"

Ducking out of the cab, I rolled out of the way as the massive wrench slammed into the hood of the truck, crushing it like an aluminum can while also springing my trap.

I watched in fascination as electricity jumped from the sparking engine and seemingly wrapped around the massive wrench and ran down its length and through Sump's body, illuminating his skeleton like a cartoon.

With a bang like that of a cannon, Sump got launched from his position over the truck and through the air and into the warehouse before he hit the ground with a solid thump, where he skidded back a few yards beyond that.

"Ben…" I heard Henry from the warehouse. "What did you do, and why is he smoking like that?"

"I may or may not have jerry rigged the truck to act as an oversized taser." I replied as I walked into the warehouse. "Wait a minute… where are you?"

"Up here…" I heard him sigh from above me.

My eyes widened as I glanced up to see him dangling from a hook chain connected to a series of pulleys which finally lead to a motor. It's original purpose was to hold up engines, though it seems to have been repurposed.

"Can you get me down? Or are you just going to stand there and wait for him to wake up!"

"Fine, fine. Gimme a second." I replied as I jog over to the motor and turn it on, grabbing a small tool set on the way there before slowly lowering him till he was back on ground level.

Lowering the chain some more, I waited for Henry to finish detaching it from himself and explain the next part of my plan.

"Henry, do me a favor, would you?" I asked him as I pry open the motor to look at the inner workings.

"Now? Shouldn't we, I don't know, be running to camp before he wakes up?"

"Just bear with me. If this works, he'll be a bit preoccupied to deal with us." I answered as I tweaked a few things in the motor before closing it back up.

"Fine. What is it?"

"Take the hook that he used to give you an atomic wedgie with, and hook it in his eye socket." I reply simply as I prepare to hit the button that will pull the chain back towards the ceiling.

"You want me to what now?" He asked me in confusion. "You want me to hook the cyclops… In the eye. How is this a good idea?"

"Well, If you do it, I'll hit the power button, turning it on and in his confused and in pain state, he'll be too confused to remove the hook before his feet are off the floor. Which would make it so much harder to remove. This will give us more time to run, and Mr. Sump here will either bleed out and die, or he'll survive and be completely blinded and unable to track us. Either way, I count it as a win." I answered. "Minus the destroyed truck of course… I liked that truck…"

"You make both perfect sense, and also make me question your sanity, Ben…" He sighed as he grabbed the hook and walked over to the fallen Cyclops.

"It's a gift." I shrugged. "Now get ready to run. Something tells me having a hook shoved in your eye socket is probably not the greatest experience to wake up to."

"You think?" Henry asked sarcastically. "Fine… Whatever. Let's just get this over with. Three, two, one…"

With a quick hooking motion, the hook was in the eye socket, and the cyclops was not happy.

The quick modifications I made to the motor weren't much, but it was enough to strengthen it so it could lift a twelve foot tall cyclops off the floor in just a few moments.

"RAAAAAGGGHHH!"

As I caught up to the running satyr, I smirked as the screams echoed into the background.

"See! I told you it would work." I pointed out with a grin.

"Ben… I'm probably going to say this more than a few times over the years I know you, but you are a scary dude, do you know that?"

"Only when I want to be." I replied with a shrug. "Anyway, let's get us another ride. I'd rather not walk to camp if I don't have to."

With a chuckle and a sigh, Henry just nodded and gestures for me to follow him.

We were almost there.

Then the real fun can begin.

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Tada. Gimme reviews please.