ANTI-HERO, j.grace

THIRTEEN

      Being a demigod was stupid, and that was putting it in the nicest of terms. It was one giant suicide mission, a nonstop series of regret, and a case of bad luck as though you'd knocked over a mirror, shattered the glass, walked backwards underneath a ladder while opening an umbrella, and then adopted a cat named Macbeth that knocked over the salt shakers on your kitchen table.

Klein Maddox knew that she had downright terrible luck on the first place, but getting dropped from the sky by a mechanical dragon into a cyclops lair seemed to be a little far fetched even by her standards.

Jason and Piper were dangling upside down from one of the crane arms, the latter flailing around trying to free herself while Jason hung there limply. As if the group even had anything going for them in the first place - they didn't -the guy who controlled lightning being unconscious wasn't exactly upping their odds. An unfinished pickup truck was being used as a grill, lit ablaze by tires, wood, and kerosene, and a metal spit was suspended above it. If the cooks in question were anything but cyclops, then maybe Klein would have given herself and Leo the benefit of the doubt in freeing the other two demigod.

Unfortunately for everyone, the cooks were three massive cyclopses dressed in a fiberglass insulation togas and chain mail loincloths.

"Tell me those aren't-"

Klein yanked Leo back behind the machine, eyes wide with a look that screamed 'shut the fuck up' as she anxiously peered around the edge to see if they'd gained any monster attention. "Be careful." She hissed, voice as quiet as she could possibly make it.

"That's a cyclops." Leo retorted, voice holding the same tone and urgency as hers had.

"That's a grand observation you made there, Sherlock."

"What the hell are we supposed to do?"

"Well if I knew-"

"Can I take her gag off now?" One of the smaller cyclopses - not that that was against much, given it was still about ten feet tall - asked, v question immediately cutting Klein off as the girl peeked around the machine to see him walking up towards Piper, "I like it when they scream."

Klein was rather surprised that upon having her gag removed Piper McLean did not scream. She even tried her best with her charmspeak, but the mother cyclops seemed more concerned with berating her sons than she did entertaining the 'Venus spawn' she would be eating for supper.

"I think I might have an idea."

The Maddox girl turned her head to look at him, "You are gonna have to do a lot better than 'I think' and 'might' right now."

"Do you have any ideas you'd like to share?"

She didn't, but Klein had her work cut out for her trying to make sure Leo didn't give their position away to any of the cyclops. She helped him where she could, doing her best at making sure none of his tools or the stray parts he pulled from his belt hit the ground of bashed against the machine. Whenever the cyclopses moved in front of them, she made sure to either push Leo down behind the machine or steer him further back into the hidden shadows.

She'd been doing a pretty good job of it until Leo sidestepped her and dashed between a set of robotic machine arms, leaving her smacking the sides of her head in disbelief when Piper gasped at the sight of them.

Pain in my ass. Pain in my ass.

"What's the matter, girl?" Ma Gasket turned to the daughter of Aphrodite, "So fragile I broke you?"