Leo

"How good are you at fighting?" Calypso hisses at me.

I peer around the machine at Jason and Piper. Jason seems to be unconscious, he's bleeding from a cut on his forehead. Piper seems fairly alert though. They're hanging from a crane's chain.

There are three cyclopes sitting around the fire. One female and two males. One male is wearing a toga while the other is wearing only a loincloth. The female seems to be the mother by the way she treats the other two cyclopses.

"Excuse me," Piper says to the cyclopes. "You should let us go."

Her words were straightforward, polite and full of charmspeak. It seems to have worked though. Loincloth scratches his head. "Maybe we should let her go, Ma."

"Yeah, Ma," Toga echoes.

"Idiots," the female growls. "She is charmspeaking you, you buffoons! Alas, no one can trick the great Ma Gasket!"

I zone out as I scan the room for anything that can give us an advantage. There's a bulldozer next to Toga with a completely smashed window and a crushed roof. The room is filled with various crates and machines. Right next to the cyclopes' campfire is a row of cranes, one of them holds an engine block in the my opposite direction, away from the stairs.

"-Can we save her until last?" Loincloth is saying as I look back to the three cyclopes.

Ma Gasket hits him on the head, sending him stumbling backwards. "No, you pathetic excuse for a cyclops! Gag the girl."

Calypso snaps her fingers in my face, jolting me back to her. "Well?"

"What?" I say, caught off guard.

Calypso rolls her eyes. "I said, how good are you at fighting?!"

"I'm decent with a dagger, but not enough to take on a fully-grown cyclops!"

Calypso ignores the second part of my sentence. "Perfect! I'll lead the two male cyclopes downstairs and you get the female."

"No-" I hiss but Calypso disappears, leaving me alone, well, partially.

I hear the stairs creak loudly as she walks down them. I instinctively cringe in worry but then I realise that that's her intent. It's seems to have worked too, alerting the cyclopes.

"Go see what that was!" Ma Gasket growls at her sons.

"Yes, Ma," Loincloth grumbles.

She distastefully watches them leave the room. "Idiots." I guess that Ma Gasket is one of those mothers that you can never impress. I've had my fair share of foster parents that were like that. Not fun. At all.

I dart to a crate that is further away from the stairs. I peek out from the crate to see if the cyclops noticed. Ma Gasket doesn't notice me but Piper does and to be honest, I find both females equally terrifying. You try waking up Piper in the morning. I'm pretty sure I still have dagger marks on my chest.

Back to the subject, Piper's eyes widen and I can guarantee she would've gasped if she wasn't newly gagged. Thankfully she's unable to give me away.

A loud crash comes from downstairs and I internally wince. There's no way Ma Gasket didn't hear that.

Sure enough, when I peek around the crate, she is starting to get up. Her expression is not one of worry for her sons, it's annoyance. What. A great. Mother.

I know I can't let Ma Gasket go downstairs, Calypso is expecting me to deal with her. The slight problem, I may be decent with a dagger, but I may have neglected to mention that I forgot mine.

I step out from my hiding spot as Ma Gasket turns around. I chuck a screwdriver from my belt at her head. "Hey!"

Here goes nothing.

Ma Gasket barely seems to notice the screwdriver, but she does hear my shout. She turns back and leers at me. "Well, well, well. What have we got here? Another little demigod to add to the fire?"

Behind her Piper is desperately signaling for me to run. My eyes fix on the engine block that's held suspended in the air by the crane. A plan forms in my head. A stupid plan, but from what I've heard from Percy, that's the best kind of plan. Of course Annabeth had slapped him after he'd said that, but that's beside the point.

"No," I say, and I'm amazed my voice isn't shaking. "Take one step closer and I'll destroy you!"

This only seems to amuse Ma Gasket. She rips off the arm of one of the cranes and I cringe internally. That was way too close to the one I'm focused on.

I grab a weapon from my tool belt, I look down, it's a pocketknife. Ma Gasket laughs. "You think that little toothpick will kill me?"

I curse under my breath and drop the knife, facing Ma Gasket weaponless. It's alright, though. My plan has a fifty percent chance of working. That's the best percentage you can hope for as a demigod. Right?

Ma Gasket takes another step forward, putting her exactly where I want her to be. "Any final words, demigod?"

I feel eyes on the back of me but I stay focused on Ma Gasket, she's my main worry right now. In answer I send a controlled burst of fire towards the chain holding up the engine, aiming for the weakest link.

"Yes," I tell Ma Gasket. "Look up."

As the fire draws closer to the chain in slow motion, it occurs to me that I haven't gotten my eyes checked in ages and I might completely miss the link.

But the engine falls silently downwards and turns Ma Gasket into dust. That was my first kill on an actual monster. "Yes!" I yell, punching the air.

I feel suddenly dizzy from using my powers and I stumble forward slightly. That's when I remember the pair of eyes I felt behind me and I spin around dizzily.

I'm rewarded by a metal flask to the face. I stumble backwards and nearly completely fall over. I pick up the flask from the floor and glare at it's sender. "Ow, Calypso! That hurt!"

Calypso merely grins innocently at me. That girl is going to be the death of me, I swear.

"Were you there the whole time?! You could've helped me!"

Calypso shrugs. "It was your fight."

Calypso sends a torrent of fire at Ma Gasket's remains. She notices my look of surprise. "The two cyclopes downstairs tried to reform somehow. They can't reform if there's nothing to reform from."

I nod. "Makes sense."

"Good. Now drink."

I uncap the flask and peer inside it. Nectar. Clearly my still-present dizziness hadn't gone unnoticed. I took two quick swigs before handing it back to Calypso.

A muffled noise startles us. I look over to see Piper still gagged, next to an unconscious Jason. "Oops," I mutter, rushing to help them.

I touch the crane and sense the mechanisms in it. Using my Hephaestus powers, I get the crane to move so that Jason and Piper are no longer hanging over the fire.

Calypso somehow cuts Piper free by throwing her knives so they just miss her but sever the rope. Piper falls a few metres to the ground and does a roll to take the impact of the fall.

Calypso frees Jason next. As he free-falls to the ground he suddenly slows down and lands gently on the ground. I look over to see Calypso, with her eyebrows creased in concentration.

The annoying thing is, I probably could've built something to get them both down, but Calypso just has to step in and steal my thunder.

Calypso

We use the rest of our nectar to heal Jason but he still won't wake up. After waiting for a bit I find a very effective method of waking him, by slapping Jason in the face.

He shoots up like a bullet. "Ow!"

Jason glares at me, we all know I'm the only one who would do that. I shrug at him. "You wouldn't wake up. It was that or let Leo set you on fire."

Jason stands up and shoulders his backpack. "We should get going. We'll go on foot for a while, let you recover some strength."

I don't argue and we set off north, through the woods. It mayn't seem like it, but every bit of land we cover by foot, saves me some energy. Leo fills Jason in while we're walking, exaggerating his helpfulness in battle.

I cut in. "Actually, I defeated two of the cyclopes while he killed the female. He also forgot to get you both down and untied."

Jason and Piper snicker and Leo pouts at me. "You make it sound like all I did was kill a weak, little girl. To be fair, she was the toughest one."

I nod my consent and he grins in triumph, like I've made his entire day.

That's when I notice the flickers of silver in the trees. As a precaution I summon my bow and hold it loosely in faux carelessness.

One can never be too sure around the Hunters of Artemis.

-SAW