Author's Note: Back again with another chapter. You all know what this chapter is about, but you don't know my choice, so I'll keep this brief.

Completely unrelated to this, but to my followers who are also gamers (I know there's a few of you). I made a really strange decision. I got Titanfall for the Xbox One... except I don't have an Xbox One yet. It's just sitting I'm my house, taunting me. 'You can't play me yet, loseeeeeer.'

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO, or a life.

Chapter 7

Victory or the Other Option

Percy didn't wake screaming, or in cold sweat. He didn't even sit up suddenly or anything like that. Instead, he woke to the feeling of being kicked roughly in the side, and the sight of Ye Olde Hunter-Girl staring down at him while glaring.

"Get up. It is time we continue to the junk yard." She said, and then turned around to go kick Grover awake.

Geez. Not a morning person are we?

When Percy got up and looked around, the sky was still dark, but the stars had faded just a little bit. Morning would be coming soon.

Everybody was mostly awake, and packing their things. Percy, of course, didn't have anything to pack. He was still wearing his Nemean Lion pelt poncho, and the knife-

Wait.

The knife.

Percy only just remembered it wasn't his. He walked over to Ye Olde Hunter-Girl, held the knife by the blade, offering her the handle.

"I believe this is yours."

She frowned, but accepted it back anyway, without speaking a word.

Hmm. That's probably the first time I've ever returned something to its owner.

Having nothing to do yet, Percy stood by the fire, which was by now just a pile of hot embers and coals, barely any flame left.

A few minutes later, everyone was ready, and they set of towards the godly junk yard.

Percy froze for a second when he saw it.

The junk yard… something, I saw something about it. What was it?

They'd reached a gap in the wall of broken steel and piles of scrap, which was the only entrance in sight. Ye Olde Hunter-Girl turned to the group.

"Okay. This is junk yard of Hephaestus. Everything in here is likely defective, broken, or cursed. Do not, touch anything." The last part seemed directed to Percy, but the word 'defective' had triggered something.

There's something in here…

Percy remembered.

Oh, crap. The dream…

"WAIT!" He called suddenly, and everyone's attention was on him.

"I, uh, had a dream last night; there was something… something in this junk yard."

Punk-Girl seemed concerned. "Wait… you had one of those dreams. I thought only demigods had those dreams?"

Ye Olde Hunter-Girl answered. "No, this is something different. When a clear sighted mortal becomes involved in our world… they sometimes see visions of the future. It does not happen often, but…" She turned to Percy. "Tell me, what did thee see?"

"I, uh, saw a giant bronze leg, crashing into the ground. I didn't anything else, just a leg. In this junk yard here."

A dark look came across her face. "If it is what I think it is… well we can only hope it was a nightmare. We have no other choice. We continue through the junk yard."

They walked on, between the giant piles of scrap, Ye Olde Hunter-Girl guiding them by the star constellations, which were getting dimmer and dimmer. Even if they were still in the junk maze when they disappeared completely, they could just guide themselves using the direction of the sun.

When she'd told them not to touch anything, at the time it sounded simple enough. But, Percy, being a pro dumpster diver, and it pretty much being a natural instinct for him, struggled a little. There was some seriously epic looking stuff in here. He saw a triple deck crossbow, a gilded staff with a strange kaleidoscopic gem affixed to the top, and what looked like the torso of a clockwork battle armour.

If he hadn't had the dreams from last night, and the night before that, Percy was afraid he'd actually pick something up and try to sneak it out with him. Thankfully, he was too terrified to try.

And something else Percy had time to think about. Was having visions of the future going to be a regular occurrence now? Could he change the future once he saw it? He didn't know for sure, but it was unbelievably disturbing.

Later, rather than sooner, they were almost out of the junk yard. By this time, the sun had almost completely risen, and the stars were gone completely.

Just between, them and the highway on the other side, was something that made Percy's blood to ice. Ten metal columns, positioned in such a way, they resembled giant bronze toes. But he knew, they didn't look like toes, they were toes.

The logical assumption is if it has toes, it has legs, and those legs probably have a body attached to it. If the toes were as big as they were, then they were probably standing on… on its head.

"Guys? Any of you feel like taking the long way around?" He asked the group.

They seemed to share his apprehension.

"How about the very long way around?" The Punk-Girl said.

Then there was a loud and sudden ping, like the sound of something hitting something large, metallic and hollow.

Turned out it was only Grover, who threw a piece of scrap metal at one of the giant metal toes.

Ye Olde Hunter-Girl whirled to him immediately. "Why did thee do that?!" She demanded.

"I, uh… don't like fake feet?"

"Let's just get out of here, okay." Percy said.

So they did. Only a few minutes of walking later, they were out of the godly junk yard. By now, the sun had fully risen, and the sky turned a brilliant shade of orange.

Everyone was visibly relieved, but Percy felt like dancing, and he wasn't a dancing person. Maybe his dreams were just that. Dreams.

"Finally, some good luck." Percy said.

Of course, by now, he should have realised that saying stuff like that out loud, meant that anything, can, and will go horribly wrong.

The horribly wrong thing in question, was a twenty story tall metal giant in full battle armour, rising from the trash heap it was buried in, with the sound of a thousand pieces of metal scraping against each other.

Everyone turned to the giant in horror.

Except the Punk-Girl, who turned to him. "You had to open your mouth, didn't you?"

The orange sun reflected off its metallic skin, making it seem as though it was glowing. It looked down at them, freezing for a few second. Percy could see half of its face melted like candle wax, and something even bigger than the metal man had written in the dust on its torso, 'wash me'.

"Talos… gods, the boys dream was right!" Ye Olde Hunter-Girl yelled.

As if it wanted to put emphasis on its name, it chose that moment to draw its sword. The sound was even more horrible than when it got up, and everyone covered their ears from the screeching. The blade was incredibly rusted and completely bronze, and was probably just short of the size of battleship. Percy figured getting hit with that would not be good for your health.

Ye Olde Hunter-Girl turned to the group. "Someone took something! Who did it?"

Of course, she turned to Percy.

He held his hands up. "Sure, blame the thief. I swear, I didn't take anything."

Then, the Talos took one giant step toward them, and covered half the distance whilst making the ground rumble deeply.

There was no point in trying to run, so they split up. The Punk-Girl got out her shield and ran up to it. This time, Percy saw how it was revealed. She tapped the silver bracelet on her left arm, and the shield had sprung up and spiralled into existence.

Ye Olde Hunter-Girl went backwards and launched arrow after arrow at its head with perfect accuracy as usual, but like their first encounter, the arrows sparked across its face harmlessly.

Grover actually brayed like a goat, and went climbing up a mountain of metal, seemingly to get away from the giant.

Bianca and Percy dived behind a broken chariot to take cover. When Percy saw the look on her face, he knew what had happened.

The expression was something that Percy had once felt, but didn't anymore. It was the guilt from taking something that didn't belong to you, and it showed clear as day on Bianca's face.

"You took something, what was it?" Percy asked her.

"I didn't-"

"I know that look on your face, don't try to deny it."

Before she could say anything, something massive blotted out the light, casting a long shadow over them.

Percy looked up to see Talos, the sunlight catching of the edge of its leg, raised in the air, ready to crush them.

They dived out of the way with not a second to spare, the metal mound and chariot crushed, and the ground quaking.

As it turned out, Grover hadn't run away. He stood at the peak of a small mountain of scrap, playing a little tune on his reed pipes. Some torn down powerlines at the highway began to sway. In an instant they snapped outwards like vipers, latching onto Talos and sent lightning arcing along its body. Talos stumbled a small bit, causing miniature earthquakes with every step, but turning around to face Grover.

That kid had some seriously weird magic stuff going on.

Percy turned back to Bianca. "Tell me, what was it you took!"

What she brought out, wasn't what Percy had expected. It was a small metallic figurine. A middled aged man with dark hair, wearing black robes and a crown of bones, holding an orb of darkness in his hand.

Percy didn't question why she took it, but looking at the giant, he didn't think returning it would do anything. It was bringing its mega sized sword down onto the ground, trying to hit Grover to no avail.

Then, it lifted its foot to try and stomp down on him. Percy only just managed to glance at it, but he saw a fair sized hole in the giant's heel, with the words 'For Maintenance Only' painted around it.

Percy turned to Bianca. "Okay, I think I saw a maintenance hatch in its foot. Maybe I can bring it down from the inside."

She took a few second to process how exactly Percy was planning to get inside. "Wait! You'll be crushed!"

"Well I don't see any other solution."

Bianca expression suddenly hardened. "No, I'll do it."

Percy blinked. "Wait, there's no need-"

"No. It's my fault this thing is here. I'll right my wrong, trust me." She stood up to run at Talos.

"Hey, no… Bianca!"

She turned around for one second, and Percy knew there was no changing her mind. So he made a split second decision.

He unwrapped his Nemean Lion pelt poncho, and held it out to her. "At least take this. It might help you."

She took it, and put it on as she ran towards the machine.

Talos raised its foot to try and crush Grover yet again, but as it came down, Bianca pushed him out of the way, and she disappeared as it hit the ground.

Percy realised that this was the exact scene he'd seen in his dream. The exact same angle, and the exact same background, but he hadn't seen Bianca in it when it happened.

This time Talos hefted up its giant sword, over its head, with two hands. It brought it down full power, straight to where Grover was.

Then at the last moment, Talos started swing the sword sideways. He spun it horizontally, in a full circle, before hurling it like a frisbee back into the junk yard.

What in hell?

From where Percy was, he could just hear a sound, like several demolishing buildings. Probably the rundown building on the other side.

Then, Talos raised its own fist, and punched itself in the face.

It's Bianca doing this! She made it inside after all.

The monster staggered around and it kept on punching itself, putting a larger and larger dint in its head.

Then, on the next punch, it actually knocked its own head off, sending it flying back into the junk yard.

Then it started to claw and tear at its other arm, trying to pull it off. But instead of the other arm coming off, it was the one doing all the damage. Then the other arm followed. Bits and pieces cascaded off its body, falling apart from the top down.

Talos fell to its knees, and its torso fell onto the ground with a titanic tremor, sending debris, dust and sand flying up into the air, clogging Percy's vision.

Percy choked and coughed, waving his hands to try and clear some air, but it was too thick. Eventually the dust started to settle. He could make out the figures of the others.

When the air was cleared, Percy looked at the wreck of Talos, and his heart skipped a beat.

He shouted to the others, "Come on! She's inside there!"

He ran to the wreck, and the others followed suit.

They rummaged around in the scrap piles, doing their best to look around the collapsed remains of Talos.

Sometime later, Percy's mind was reeling, and he was too frantic to notice that the others had stopped searching.

Percy slowly stood up.

His heart raced a million miles an hour.

There was a buzzing in his ears.

This… this isn't… it can't…

Percy collapsed in the sand.

This wasn't suppose to…

His vision blurred.

I… I can't…

Percy didn't know how much time he'd spent looking for-

Wait…

Punk-Girl seemed to have kept it together more than the rest. She stood up, and spoke. "We need to keep moving."

No one answered.

"Come on guys. I… I know that-"

"Shut up!" Percy snapped.

The Punk-Girl took a step back. "Well excuse me if I'm the only one who can-"

"No! Seriously, shut it!" Percy said gesturing for them to wait.

He thought he…

Hold on… hold on…

It was coming again, he was sure of it.

Sooner rather than later, a dull clang.

This time everyone heard it, everyone's head snapped to the direction of the sound.

And Percy was already there, pulling away the scrap without caring if he cut up his hands in the process.

The others joined and helped, and then Percy saw it.

An arm.

They pulled away more metal.

A body.

With one great heave, they pushed away one big piece of Talos.

A face

Bianca's face.