𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑮𝒐𝒓𝒆－ 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧

𝑬𝒍𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏

I 011. I

𝑮𝒍𝒐𝒓𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑮𝒐𝒓𝒆

❝ prize ❞

     THROUGH HER STRUGGLE, THE CYCLOPS HAD OUT A GAG IN HER MOUTH. It had tied her up with a long length of chain, keeping her hands away from one another, preventing her from reaching for Lunacy and cutting through her chains.

Of course, she had tried the whole ordeal of using her powers, but every time she tried to grow a vine she was hit with a massive headache, and her powers stopped working. So, for now, she was stuck trying to make sure her friends were okay.

Gray morning light filtered through the hole in the roof. A few lightbulbs flickered, but most of the factory floor was still lost in shadows. But the smell—it was like burning motor oil and sour breath. She wanted to throw up at the stench.

One of the cyclops impersonated Piper, crying out, "Leo, help!"

If he was even there, he kept quiet. Ariadne hoped he was there. But she knew it was dangerous.

"Leo?" it called out again in Piper's voice.

Leo peeked around the machinery. Hanging directly above the assembly line, suspended by a chain from a crane on the opposite side, was a massive truck engine—just dangling thirty feet up, as if it had been left there when the factor was abandoned. Below it on the conveyor belt sat a truck chassis, and clustered around it were three dark shapes the size of forklifts. Nearby, dangling from chains on two other robotic arms, were two small shapes—maybe even more engines, but two of them were twisting around as if they were alive.

One of the forklift shapes rose. "Told you it was nothing," the cyclops rumbled. It's voice too deep and feral to be anything other than a monster.

Ariadne attempted to scream at them, but the gag caused it to be muffled out.

One of the other cyclops shifted, and called out in Ariadne's voice: "Leo, help me! Help—" Then the voice changed, becoming a masculine snarl. "Bah, there's nobody out there. No demigod could be that quiet, eh?"

The first cyclops chuckled. "Probably ran away, if he knows what's good for him. Or the girls was lying about a fourth demigod. Let's get cooking."

Snap. A bright Orange light sizzled to life—an emergency flare—and Leo was temporarily blinded. He blinked until the spots cleared from her eyes. Then Leo saw a nightmare scene.

The three smaller things dangling from crane arms weren't engines. They were Ariadne, Jason, and Piper. All three hung upside down, tied by their ankles and cocooned with chains up to their necks. Piper was flailing around, trying to feed herself. Her mouth was gagged, but at least she was alive. Ariadne seemed to be bleeding on her head, as there was something dripping onto the floor beneath her. Jason didn't look so goo. He hung limply, his eyes rolled up in his head. A red welt the size of an apple had swollen over his left eye.

On the conveyor belt, the bed of the unfinished pickup truck was being used as a fire pit. The emergency flare had ignited a mixture of tires and wood, which, from the smell of it, had been doused in kerosene. A big metal pole was suspended over the flames—a spit, Ariadne realized, which meant they were about to be cooked if Leo didn't do something quickly.

Three massive humanoids gathered around the fire. Two were standing, stoking the flames. The largest one crouched while facing the trio dangling upside down. The two facing the other way were each ten feet tall, with hair muscular bodies and skin that flowed red in the firelight. One of the monsters wore a chain mail loincloth that looked really uncomfortable. The other wore a ragged fuzzy toga made of fiberglass insulation. Other than that, the two monsters could've been twins. Each had a British face with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The cooks were Cyclopes.

The Cyclops in the chain mail loincloth walked over to Piper, who squirmed and trie dot head butt him in the eye. "Can I take her gag off his? I like it when they scream."

The question was directed at the third Cyclops, apparently the leader. The crouching figure grunted, and Loincloth ripped the gag off Piper's mouth.

She didn't scream. She took a shaky breath like she was trying to keep herself calm.

Ariadne was bloodthirsty at this point. The second she was free she was going to rip each of their heads off slowly, one by one.

The cyclops in the toga poked at the fire, which was now blazing away and billowing noxious black smoke toward the ceiling. His buddy Loincloth glowered at Piper, wishing for her to do something entertaining. "Scream, girl! I like funny screaming!"

When Piper finally spoke, her told was calm and reasonable, like she was correcting a naughty puppet. "Oh, Mr. Cyclops, you don't want to kill us. It would be much better if you let us go."

Loincloth scratched his ugly head. He turned to his friend in the fiberglass toga. "She kind of pretty, Torque. They both are. Maybe I should let them go."

Torque, the dude in the toga, growled. "I saw her first, Sump! I'll let her go!" Sump and Torque started to argue, but the third Cyclops rose and shouted, "Fools!"

The daughter of Dionysus glared harshly at the third Cyclops. She was several feet taller than Torque or Sump, and even beefier. She wore a tent of chain mail cut like one of those sack dresses—a muumuu. Her greasy black hair was matted in pigtails, woven with copper wires and metal washers. Her nose and mouth were thick and smashed together, like she spent her free time ramming her face into walls; but her single red eye glittered with evil intelligence.

The woman Cyclops stalked over to Sump and pushed him aside, knocking him over the conveyor belt. Torque backed up quickly.

"The girl is a Venus spawn," the lady Cyclops snarled. "She's using charmspeak on you."

Piper started to say, "Please, ma'am—"

"Rarr!" The lady Cyclops grabbed Piper around the waist. "Don't try your pretty talk in me, girl! I'm Ma Gasket! I've eaten heroes tougher than you for lunch."

Ma Gasket dropped her and let her dangle from her chain. Then she started yelling at Sump about how stupid he was.

Ariadne gave Piper a look, asking if she was okay. Piper nodded silently, but there was fear in her eyes, being that close to death did a number on her confidence. They needed to find a way out.

"—eat her last, Ma?" Sump was saying.

"Idiot!" Ma Gasket yelled. "I should've thrown you out on the streets when you were babies, like proper Cyclops children. You might have learned some useful skills. Curse my soft heart that I kept you!"

The brunette grumbled to herself. Ugly family.

"Soft heart?" Torque muttered.

"What was that, you ingrate?"

"Nothing, Ma. I said you guys a soft heart. We get to work for you, feed you, file your toenails—"

"And you should be grateful!" Ma Gasket bellowed. "Now I'm gonna tell you this one last time—"

"OW!"

She was cut off my Stump stumbling back, holding his finger while cooing softly. Ariadne spit onto the ground, a sinister look in her eyes, as if one glance and they would all drop dead at that instant. "She bit me!"

Ma Gasket gripped her hair and yelled, "That's what I was going to tell you about, idiot!" Her hand grabbed Ariadne by the waist and flipped her right side up, causing the girl to fight even more. "She is a prized target by all monsters. They all want her for their leader. If we eat her, we'll all be dead before we can open our eyes. So we have to give her away."

Ariadne was dropped. She swung around, yelling obscenities in Ancient Greek at the Cyclops. Piper cringed, and so did Leo, knowing her words were anything but kind.

Torque and Sump nodded. "Daughter of the Vines," they muttered together.

Ma Gasket bellowed, "Now, stoke the fire, Torque! And Sump, you idiot, my case of salsa is in the other warehouse. Don't tell me you expect me to eat these demigods without salsa!"

"Yes, Ma," Sump said. "I mean no, Ma. I mean—"

"Go get it!" Ma Gasket picked up a nearby truck chassis and slammed it over Sump's head. Sump crumbled to his knees. Ariadne was sure a hit like that would kill him, but Sump apparently got hit by trucks a lot. He managed to push the chassis off his head. Then he staggered to his feet and ran off to fetch the salsa.

Leo dashed between robotic arms, the Cyclopes didn't see him, but Piper did. Her expression turned from terror to disbelief, and she gasped.

Ma Gasket turned to her. "What's the matter, girl? So fragile I broke you?"

Thankfully, Ariadne had noticed and was great and distracting monsters and making them angry. She looked away from Leo and said, "I think she's just gasping at how ugly you are, lady. I mean, you and your boys must've gotten thrown off a big mountain to be that disgusting."

Ma Gasket growled. "Nice try. The last hero we ate—remember him, Torque? Son Mars, wasn't he?"

"Yes, Ma," Torque said. "Tasty. Little but stringy."

"He tried to make us angry like that. But he tasted good!" Ma Gasket got close to her face, and she gagged at the smell. "I know your tricks, Daughter of the Vines. We all have heard of you. I wonder what you taste like."

"Tasted like mutton," Torque recalled. "Purple shirt. Talked in Latin. Yes, a bit stringy, but good."

Piper and Ariadne seemed to be having the same thought. Piper asked, "Purple shirt? Latin?"

"Good eating," Ma Gasket said fondly. "Point is, girl, we're not as dumb as people think! We're not falling for those stupid tricks and riddles, not us birthed Cyclopes."

Piper kept talking while Ariadne entries reaching for her ring, laying on the praise. "Oh, I've heard about the norther Cyclopes! I never knew you were so big and clever!"

"Flattery won't work either," Ma Gasket said, though she sounded pleased. "It's true, you'll be breakfast for the best Cyclopes around."

"But aren't Cyclopes good?" Piper asked. "I thought you made weapons for the gods."

"Bah! I'm very good. Good at eating people. Good at smashing. And good at building things, yes, but not for the gods. Our cousins, the elder Cyclopes, they do this, yes. Thinking they're so high and might cause they're a few thousand years older. Then there's our southern cousins, living on islands and tending sheep. Morons! But we Hyperborean Cyclopes, the norther clan, were the best! Founded Monocle Motors in this old factory—the best weapons, armor, chariots, fuel efficient SUVs! And yet—bah! Forced to shut down. Laid off most of our tribe. The war was too quick. Titans lost. No good! No more need for Cyclops weapons."

"Oh, no," Piper sympathized. "I'm sure you made some amazing weapons."

Torque grinned. "Squeaky war hammer!" He picked up a large pole with an accordion looking metal box on the end.

He slammed it against the floor and the cement cracked, but there was also a sound like the world's largest rubber ducky stomped.

"Terrifying," Ariadne deadpanned.

Torque looked please. "Not as good as the exploding axe, but this one can be used more than once."

"Can I see it?" Piper asked. "If you could just free my hands—"

Torque stepped forward eagerly, Ma Gasket said, "Stupid! She's tricking you again. Enough talk! Slay the boy before he died in his own. I like my meat fresh."

Piper turned pale.

"Hey, ugly," Ariadne said, trying to get the Cyclopes' attention. "Who wants me? Hey—"

Wires sparked somewhere in the factory. The Cyclopes froze and turned in the direction she had last seen Leo. Then Torque picked up a truck and threw it at him.

Leo rolled as the truck steamrolled over the machinery. If he'd been a half a second slower, he would've been smashed.

He got to his feet, and Ma Gasket spotted him. She yelled, "Torque, you pathetic excuse for a Cyclops, get him!"

Torque barreled toward him. Leo frantically gunned the toggle on his makeshift remote.

Torque was fifty feet away. Twenty feet.

The the drowsy robotic arm whirred to life. A three ton yellow metal claw slammed the Cyclops back so hard, he landed flat on his face. Before Torque could recover, the robotic hand grabbed him by one leg and hurled him straight up.

"AHHHHH!" Torque rocketed into the gloom. The ceiling was too dark and too high up to see exactly what happened, but judging from the harsh metal clang, Ariadne guessed the Cyclops had hit one of the support girders.

Torque never came down. Instead, yellow dust rained to the floor. Torque had disintegrated.

Ma Gasket stared at Leo in shock. "My son...you...you..."

As if on cue, Sump lumbered into the firelight with a case of salsa. "Ma, I got the extra-spicy—"

He never finished his sentence. Leo spin the remote's toggle, and the second robotic arm whacked Sump in the chest. The salsa case exploded like a piñata and Sump flew backward, right into the base of Leo's third machine. Sump must have been immune to truck chassis, but he wasn't immune to robotic arms that could deliver ten thousand pounds of force. The third crane arm slammed him against the floor so hard, he exploded into dust like a broken flower sack.

Two Cyclopes down. Ma Gasket locked her eye on Leo. She grabbed the nearest crane arm and ripped it off its pedestal with a savage roar. "You busted my boys! Only I get to bust my boys!"

Leo punched a button, and the two remaining arms swung into action. Ma Gasket caught the first one and tore it in half. The second arm smacked her in the head, but that only seemed to make her mad. She grabbed it by the clamps, ripped it free, and swung it like a baseball bat. It missed Ariadne, Piper, and Jason by an inch. Then Ma Gasket let it go—spinning it toward Leo. He helped and rolled to one side as it demolished the machine next to him.

She stood about twenty feet from him now, next to the cooking fire. His fists were clenched, her teeth bared. She looked ridiculous in her chain mail muumuu and her greasy pigtails.

"Anymore tricks, demigod?" Ma Gasket demanded.

Leo glanced up. The engine block suspended on the chain—Ariadne knew what he was thinking.

"Heck, yeah, I got tricks!" Leo raised his remote control. "Take one more step, and I'll destroy you with fire!"

Ma Gasket laughed. "Would you? Cyclopes are immune to fire, you idiot. But if you wish to play with flames, let me help!"

She scooped red hot coals into her bare hands and flung them at Leo. They landed all around his feet.

"You missed," he said incredulously. Then Ma Gasket grinned and picked up a barrel next to the truck. Ariadne just had time to read the stenciled word on the side—kerosene—before Ma Gasket threw it. The barrel spilt on the floor in front of him, spilling lighter fluid everywhere.

Coals sparked. Leo closed his eyes, and Piper screamed, "No!"

A firestorm erupted around him. When Leo opened his eyes he was bathed in flames swirling twenty feet into the air.

Ariadne watched. She shouted at Ma Gasket before she began wriggling some more, and with a lot of effort, was able to push through her headache for a way out.

As a vine began working on breaking down the chains quietly, Ma Gasket shrieked with delight, but apparently Leo didn't offer the fire any good fuel. Kerosene burned off, dying down to small fiery patches on the floor.

Piper gasped. "Leo?"

Ma Gasket looked astonished. "You live?" Then she took an extra step forward, which put her right underneath the truck engine. "What are you?"

"The son of Hephaestus," Leo said. "And I warned you I'd destroy you with fire."

He pointed his finger in the air and he shot a bolt of white hot flames at the chain suspending the engine block above the Cyclops's head—aiming for the link that looked weaker than the rest.

The flames died. Nothing happened. Ma Gasket laughed. "An impressive try, son of Hephaestus. It's been many centuries since I saw a fire user. You'll make a spicy appetizer!"

Ariadne's chains gave way, and she had to tuck and roll to prevent herself from injury. Ma Gasket didn't have any time to react before Lunacy was in her hand, and she launched a vine at the chain.

The chain snapped—that single link heated beyond its tolerance point and broke apart by her might—and the engine block fell, deadly and silent.

"I don't think so," Leo said.

Ma Gasket didn't even have time to look up.

Smash! No more Cyclops—just a pile of dust under a dove ton engine block.

"Not immune to engines, huh?" Leo said. "Boo-yah!"

Then he fell to his knees, his head buzzing. After a few minutes he realized Ariadne was attempting to help him stand and Piper was calling his name.

"Leo! Are you all right? Can you move?"

He stumbled to his feet. His powers had left him completely drained.

It took him a long time to get Piper down from her chains. Ariadne swiped Jason's down, and caught him, before placing him on the ground. He was still unconscious. Piper managed to trickle a little nectar into his mouth, and he groaned. The welt on his head started to shrink. His color came back a little.

"Yeah, he's got a nice thick skull," Leo said. "I think he's gonna be fine."

"Thank god," Piper sighed. Then she looked at Leo with something like fear. "How did you—the fire—hav which always...?"

Leo looked down. "Always," he said. "I'm a freaking menace. Sorry, I should've told you guys sooner but—"

"Sorry?" Piper punched his arm. When he looked up, both girls were grinning. "That was amazing, Valdez! You saved our lives. What are you sorry about?"

Ariadne reached over and ruffled his hair, and he blinked. He started to smile, but his sense of relief was ruined when he noticed something next to Piper's foot.

Yellow dust—the powdered remains of one of the Cyclopes, maybe Torque—was shifting across the floor like an invisible wind was pushing it back together.

"They're forming again," Leo said. "Look."

Piper stepped away from the dust. Ariadne shook her head. "That...that shouldn't be happening. When monsters are killed they're sent to Tartarus, and they don't reform for a long time."

"Well, nobody told the dust that." They watched as it collected into a pile, then very slowly spread out, forming a shape with arms and legs.

"Oh, god." Piper turned pale. "Boreas said something about this—the earth yielding up horrors. 'When monsters no longer stay in Tartarus, and souls are no longer confined to Hades.'

"No time," Ariadne confirmed. "Thanatos usually guards the Doors of Death. But...I don't think he knows where they are anymore. Something must be forcing them open. That means, monsters can reform almost instantaneously."

She thought about the prophecy. About how much more complicated things got with the knowledge of monsters no longer being confined to Tartarus. How—if she was right about them—the puppet master was gaining more power and control over life and death itself.

"Like Ariadne said, not much," Leo said. "But we need to get out of here."

Ariadne nodded. She winced at the pain flashing in her head, but they all noticed the groaning of the earth beneath their feet.

authors note:

Hi.

I'm not sure when the next update will be honestly. It's been snowing so schools off but I have to study for my permit test on Thursday

Let's hope that when I get that picture taken I don't look homeless 🤠

Hope y'all are well.

I've been listening to a lot of Taylor Swift and am in my feels and had a dream that some guy asked me out but ya know pain

Q: What has your favorite moment been in these books so far?
A: So far, it was the underwater kiss. Too cliche, maybe. But my babies got together and I was so happy

But actually, one of my favorite parts is going to be the reunion because I already have that written down so

I also got a discord. Go check my announcements for the link or last chapter I uploaded a link in the authors note and in the comments at the end!!! I have no idea when I'll be on next but I'll make sure to give you all a day and a time. Maybe sometime this weekend and we can all just talk about the books!

Love you guys!