(Y/N)'s POV
The moment Frank took Hazel by the arms, and her whole body seemed to calm down, her muscles went from being entirely rigid like a corpse, to sort of slack, like a fresher corpse. Which (Y/N) was sure must have been a good thing.
(Y/N) tried again to make a connection with her, this time trying to use no symbols that might muddy the waters, and wrote the sign for the legion in the air. With that, he was able to call on the strength of the legion to help him in an endeavor, which sounds a lot more powerful than it was.
This wasn't as simple as marking someone for the day they die, that's as simple as drawing a symbol on them and expecting the judges to handle the rest. No, this was trying to search among the dead for any legionnaires that could make the connection easier, maybe one that knew Hazel or something.
After a moment, the shadow that (Y/N) drew with his fingers bloomed with power, thank the gods someone had found it. Finally some headway, he pushed it towards Hazel, despite Frank's protest, and was able to make a connection with the daughter of Pluto.
It took a turn after that, pushing him into a spiral of darkness, once that had consumed him in a sort of vortex. Like he was in the eye of the storm, he tried to get him bearings. Easier said than done when you're in someone else's memory.
Stepping out of the darkness, he found himself surrounded by a mix of shrubbery and black volcanic rock. Which while it did throw him off a little, also meant that (Y/N) had managed to get into Hazel's head.
"Thank you cousin Até." He mumbled as slowly but surely everything became clearer, he began to see more of the dream around him, or should he say memory? The vision around him shuddered like it realised there was an intruder, or maybe it was Frank shaking Hazel, who knows?
He could feel it, even in the dream, that this place was a powerful place for Gaea, and he could feel her son growing in power. He suddenly remembered his fight against the sirens years ago and hoped he wouldn't have to go through it again.
The dark thoughts almost took him, maybe it was the fact Hazel was dreaming of Gaea, but something about the earth goddess reached out to him, again making him doubt trying to wake Hazel at all. Forcing him to remember bad memories of is own.
That of course meant that was exactly what he'd do, so he pushed the thoughts of his unknown fate aside, reminding himself that he knew his future this time thanks. No matter what happened, he was going to end up in New Rome with Annabeth, He was certain of it.
He felt his body change, get lighter, weightless even, and in a moment of worry, he looked down to see that his body wasn't his own, he stood in a stocky, short soldiers body, it was slightly bulkier than he was used to.
He knew it was a soldiers body, because of the roman garb and armor it wore. He was on an island, around him where several spirits, all of them walked around aimlessly, (Y/N) tried to look around, and finally, saw a familiar face.
Hazel walked up to him for a moment, she looked like she was around the same age. The only noticeable difference was that she looked like she was walking to the gallows, clammy and uncertain in her steps.
"Hazel!" He called out, trying to stop her, the girl paused for a moment and looked back, but before he could try and pull her out of the memory, she walked away. He felt himself start to get pulled back.
Gaea apparently didn't take well to messing with people's heads when she wasn't the one doing it, "She is mine..." The sleeping goddess spoke, (Y/N) disagreed, and though he would sure it would mean very little, called out to Hazel, "She can't take you, she won't!" He promised.
Hazel didn't seem to hear him, he wanted to shout at her, scream at her that she was dreaming, chase after her even, if he could. But he never got the chance, his feet were rooted to the floor, literally, sinking like quicksand, he almost panicked, until he felt himself shake.
For a moment, he was face to face with that figure again, the shadow that haunted him ll his life, and for that same moment, he felt nothing but dread. Wondering if this was how he'd die. It was an outside source that saved him.
He woke up again, this time, as Frank shook Hazel, Percy shook (Y/N), "Hey, you with us man?" He asked after (Y/N)'s eyes stopped rolling into the back of his head, and (Y/N) took a moment to collect himself, then nodded.
"What's wrong with her?" Frank said desperately, looking back with pleading eyes, "Nothing...I think." (Y/N) said confidently, "I think it's a side effect of...stuff." Frank frowned at him for not being helpful.
"She'll wake up soon, we need to get her on the ground, having dirt under her might help." (Y/N) explained, reasoning that even if Gaea was their enemy, Pluto wasn't, and for a child of Pluto, being in Neptune's realm can't be any good.
She would wake up. He told himself, she had to. In the meantime, they had to get her somewhere safe, that was now their top priority. "Can you find us somewhere to park?" (Y/N) asked Percy, who seemed offended and said "Berth, but sure."
After a long while of Frank trying to reach Hazel, and Percy silently judging him, (Y/N)'s eyes came in handy. Peering through the darkness, he saw something cresting the horizon that the night would have hidden from the others.
"There." He pointed through the dark, Percy's head turned to it suddenly, and like a speedboat their little bucket of bolts took off towards it, "A lighthouse. Perfect." He said barely looking, (Y/N) smirked, he forgot about Percy being a living compass.
"Can't we just wake her up?" Frank asked. "No, I'm not sure we can if we wanted to, plus I don't know much about what's going on but I imagine it'll be like trying to wake someone from a sleepwalking. It could be bad for her. I wouldn't risk doing that until we have no choice." (Y/N) said.
"So what do we do then?" Frank asked as Percy launched the boat like a rocket towards some shore somewhere. "There's nothing we can do." (Y/N) said, when Frank looked like he was about to cry, (Y/N) was forced to elaborate.
"What I mean is, I tried to wake her before she got too deep into it. But now she's fully immersed I say the best thing to do is let her ride it out. "And what is it exactly?" Percy asked. His eyes keenly scanning for somewhere to park the boat near land.
(Y/N) sighed. "That isn't really for me to tell. Once Hazel wakes up, I'm sure she'll tell you." "But you knew this could happen?" Frank asked. He nodded. "Yeah Nico and I have seen her do it once before-
"-And you didn't warn us?" "Like I said. Not my story to tell you. If Hazel didn't mention anything about it why should I?" There was a tense silence after that exchange, only filled by their boat chopping through the waves.
As soon as they hit the dock, Percy jumped out the boat and tied it off with some complex looking knot that even with all his time as a pirate, would have stumped (Y/N) just as bad as the Gordian knot.
(Y/N) looked up at the lighthouse looming over them, "One of us should check it's safe." (Y/N) reasoned, "I'm not leaving Hazel." Frank said firmly, Percy clapped (Y/N) on the back, "Well, I have to stay with the boat, so have fun." (Y/N) sighed, "Typical."
Hazel's POV
"Hazel!" Frank shook her arms, sounding panicked. "Come on, please! Wake up!" She opened her eyes. The night sky blazed with stars. The rocking of the boat was gone. She was lying on solid ground, her bundled sword and pack beside her.
She sat up groggily, her head spinning. They were on a cliff overlooking a beach. About a hundred feet away, the ocean glinted in the moonlight. The surf washed gently against the stern of their beached boat.
To her right, hugging the edge of the cliff, was a building like a small church with a search light in the steeple. A lighthouse, Hazel guessed. Behind them, fields of tall grass rustled in the wind. "Where are we?" she asked.
Frank exhaled. "Thank the gods you're awake! We're in Mendocino, about a hundred and fifty miles north of the Golden Gate." "A hundred and fifty miles?" Hazel groaned. "I've been out that long?"
Percy knelt beside her, the sea wind sweeping his hair. He put his hand on her forehead as if checking for a fever. "We couldn't wake you. Finally we decided to bring you ashore. We thought maybe the seasickness—"
"It wasn't seasickness." She took a deep breath. The way Percy and Frank shared a glance meant they had guessed as much, and she realized Percy was giving her an out if she didn't want to explain, but she had to.
She couldn't hide the truth from them anymore. She remembered what Nico had said: If a flashback like that happens when you're in combat... "—l haven't been honest with you," she said. "What happened was a blackout. I have them once in a while."
"A blackout?" Frank took Hazel's hand, which startled her...though pleasantly so. "Is it medical? Why haven't I noticed before?" "I try to hide it," she admitted. "I've been lucky so far, but it's getting worse."
"It's not medical...not really. Nico says it's a side effect from my past, from where he found me." Percy's intense green eyes were hard to read. She couldn't tell whether he was concerned or wary.
"Where exactly did Nico find you?" he asked. Hazel's tongue felt like cotton. She was afraid if she started talking, she'd slip back into the past, but they deserved to know. If she failed them on this quest, zonked out when they needed her most...she couldn't bear that idea.
"I'll explain," she promised. She clawed through her pack. Stupidly, she'd forgotten to bring a water bottle. "Is...is there anything to drink?" "Yeah." Percy muttered a curse in Greek. "That was dumb. I left my supplies down at the boat."
Hazel felt bad asking them to take care of her, but she'd woken up parched and exhausted, as if she'd lived the last few hours in both the past and the present. She shouldered her pack and sword. "Never mind. I can walk..."
"Don't even think about it," Frank said. "Not until you've had some food and water. I'll get the supplies." "No, I'll go." Percy glanced at Frank's hand on Hazel's. Then he scanned the horizon as if he sensed trouble, but there was nothing to see—just the lighthouse and the field of grass stretching inland.
"You two stay here. I'll be right back." "You sure?" Hazel said feebly. "I don't want you to—" "It's fine," said Percy. "Frank, just keep your eyes open. Something about this place...I don't know." "I'll keep her safe," Frank promised.
Percy dashed off. Once they were alone, Frank seemed to realize he was still holding Hazel's hand. He cleared his throat and let go. "I, um... think I understand your blackouts," he said. "And where you come from."
Her heartbeat stumbled. "You do?" "You seem so different from other girls I've met." He blinked, then rushed on. "Not like... bad different. Just the way you talk. The things that surprise you—like songs, or TV shows, or slang people use."
"You talk about your life like it happened a long time ago. You were born in a different time, weren't you? You came from the Underworld." Hazel wanted to cry—not because she was sad, but because it was such a relief to hear someone say the truth.
Frank didn't act revolted or scared. He didn't look at her as if she were a ghost or some awful undead zombie. "Frank,-" "We'll figure it out," he promised. "You're alive now. We're going to keep you that way."
The grass rustled behind them. Hazel's eyes stung in the cold wind. "I don't deserve a friend like you," she said. "You don't know what I am...what I've done." "Stop that." Frank scowled. "You're great! Besides, you're not the only one with secrets."
Hazel stared at him. "I'm not?" Frank started to say something. Then he tensed. "What?" Hazel asked. "The wind's stopped." She looked around and noticed he was right. The air had become perfectly still.
"So?" she asked. Frank swallowed. "So why is the grass still moving?" Out of the corner of her eye, Hazel saw dark shapes ripple through the field. "Hazel!" Frank tried to grab her arms, but it was too late.
Something knocked him backward. Then a force like a grassy hurricane wrapped around Hazel and dragged her into the fields.
(Y/N)'s POV
"Yo, if there's anything in this creepy lighthouse. Feel free to come out. I promise I won't kill you if you don't attack me and my buddies." (Y/N) said as the floorboards of the lighthouse creaked under his feet.
"Hello? Anybody out there? Echo?" There was no echo, which was more comforting than you'd think. He squinted around the room to see if he found anything out of place, or any scratch marks that would dictate a monster being here recently.
(Y/N) was lucky he had Gleam, the sword basically illuminated the whole room, the only parts of it that were somewhat hidden where the dark corners and the stairwell leading to the top of the lighthouse, which meant there were only a few places any monsters could hide.
He didn't know what he expected in this place, judging by the climate, maybe some Harpies at the top of the lighthouse? No, they'd have been found out by now, they weren't hiders, they made too much noise.
Thinking of the area outside the lighthouse, Cerastes might like it here, a lot of tall grass to hide in. But if the whether was this choppy near the sea, he'd doubt they'd settle, they preferred sand.
As he debated what enemy he may face, (Y/N) meticulously checked every corner of the lighthouse, trying to discern if anyone had been here recently, the thick layer of dust would say otherwise.
Once he had cleared the top of the lighthouse, he would have called it a clear place to rest. That was until he saw a tiny stove that looked like it was pre war era, and took note of the heat that still came off it.
Not a good sign, and it definitely meant someone, or something was here recently, or still was. Good news was, they could only be in one place. His brain flashed with images of a chimera stalking down the steps, or an Eidolon peeking their head through a wall.
(Y/N) drew Glimmer too, and holding both of his weapons at the ready, he looked up at the steep steps towards the top of the staircase, made of a sort of pebbled rock, and spiraling all the way to the top, each step covered in darkness. Again he sighed and thought "I could have stayed with the boat."
Cautiously he ascended the stairs, taking every step slowly, as if they would set off a trap, he was tempted to shout out again, now he knew that he wasn't alone, but thought better of it, at least until he knew what he was dealing with, he was three quarters of the way to the top when he heard it.
He heard someone mutter something the moment he rounded the last turn before he got to the top, which sounded like a foul curse word, followed by "No light! Nasty scythe boy. No scythe, no harvest!"
The next moment, he regretted having two weapons, because before he could catch himself he was falling backwards down the long steep stairwell. He was sent tumbling down each stone step. Hitting several very hand on the way down, and landing on his back.
All he could do was groan in pain as the wind was knocked out of him. For once, he didn't see stars, he saw angels, floating around his head before he looked down at the arrow sticking out his chest, the end of which looked smaller than normal.
As the angels fluttered away and he regained some sense, it occurred to him, wait, did he just get stabbed by...a stalk of wheat? Before he could question it the dizziness overtook him and he passed out.
Hazel's POV
Hazel was an expert on weird. She'd seen her mother possessed by an earth goddess. She'd created a giant out of gold. She'd destroyed an island, died, and come back from the Underworld.
But getting kidnapped by a field of grass? That was new. She felt as if she were trapped in a funnel cloud of plants. She'd heard of modern-day singers jumping into crowds of fans and getting passed overhead by thousands of hands.
She imagined this was similar—only she was moving a thousand times faster, and the grass blades weren't adoring fans.She couldn't sit up. She couldn't touch the ground. Her sword was still in her bedroll, strapped to her back, but she couldn't reach it.
The plants kept her off balance, tossing her around, slicing her face and arms. She could barely make out the stars through the tumble of green, yellow, and black. Frank's shouting faded into the distance.
It was hard to think clearly, but Hazel knew one thing: She was moving fast. Wherever she was being taken, she'd soon be too far away for her friends to find her.
She closed her eyes and tried to ignore the tumbling and tossing. She sent her thoughts into the earth below her. Gold, silver—she'd settle for anything that might disrupt her kidnappers. She felt nothing. Riches under the earth—zero.
She was about to despair when she felt a huge cold spot pass beneath her. She locked onto it with all her concentration, dropping a mental anchor. Suddenly the ground rumbled. The swirl of plants released her and she was thrown upward like a catapult projectile.
Momentarily weightless, she opened her eyes. She twisted her body in midair. The ground was about twenty feet below her. Then she was falling. Her combat training kicked in. She'd practiced dropping from giant eagles before.
She tucked into a roll, turned the impact into a somersault, and came up standing. She unslung her bedroll and drew her sword. A few yards to her left, an outcropping of rock the size of a garage jutted from the sea of grass.
Hazel realized it was her anchor. She'd caused the rock to appear. The grass rippled around it. Angry voices hissed in dismay at the massive clump of stone that had broken their progress. Before they could regroup, Hazel ran to the rock and clambered to the top.
The grass swayed and rustled around her like the tentacles of a gigantic undersea anemone. Hazel could sense her kidnappers' frustration. "Can't grow on this, can you?" she yelled. "Go away, you bunch of weeds! Leave me alone!"
"Schist," said an angry voice from the grass. Hazel raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me?" "Schist! Big pile of schist!" A nun at St. Agnes Academy had once washed Hazel's mouth with lye soap for saying something very similar, so she wasn't sure how to respond.
Then, all around her rock island, the kidnappers materialized from the grass. At first glance they looked like Valentine angels—a dozen chubby little Cupid babies. As they stepped closer, Hazel realized they were neither cute nor angelic.
They were the size of toddlers, with rolls of baby fat, but their skin had a strange greenish hue, as if chlorophyll ran through their veins. They had dry, brittle wings like corn-husks, and tufts of white hair like corn silk. Their faces were haggard, pitted with kernels of grain.
Their eyes were solid green, and their teeth were canine fangs. The largest creature stepped forward. He wore a yellow loincloth, and his hair was spiky, like the bristles on a stalk of wheat.
He hissed at Hazel and waddled back and forth so quickly, she was afraid his loincloth might fall off. "Hate this schist!" the creature complained. "Wheat cannot grow!" "Sorghum cannot grow!" another piped up. "Barley!" yelled a third. "Barley cannot grow. Curse this schist!"
Hazel's knees wobbled. The little creatures might have been funny if they weren't surrounding her, staring up at her with those pointed teeth and hungry green eyes. They were like Cupid piranhas.
"Y-you mean the rock?" she managed. "This rock is called schist?" "Yes, greenstone! Schist!" the first creature yelled. "Nasty rock." Hazel began to understand how she'd summoned it. "It's a precious stone. It's valuable?"
"Bah!" said the one in the yellow loincloth. "Foolish native people made jewelry from it, yes. Valuable? Maybe. Not as good as wheat." "Or sorghum!" "Or barley!" The others chimed in, calling out different types of grain. They circled the rock, making no effort to climb it—at least not yet.
If they decided to swarm her, there was no way she could fend off all of them. "You're Gaea's servants," she guessed, just to keep them talking. Maybe Percy and Frank weren't too far away...come to think of it, where was (Y/N)?
Anyway, wherever they were, maybe they'd be able to see her, standing so tall above the fields. She wished that her sword glowed like Percy's. The yellow-diapered Cupid snarled. "We are the karpoi, spirits of the grain."
"Children of the Earth Mother, yes! We have been her attendants since forever. Before nasty humans cultivated us, we were wild. We will be again. Wheat will destroy all!" "No, sorghum will rule!" "Barley shall dominate!"
The others joined in, each karpos cheering for his own variety. "Right." Hazel swallowed her revulsion. "So you're Wheat, then—you in the yellow, um, britches." "Hmmmm," said Wheat. "Come down from your schist, demigod."
"We must take you to our mistress's army. They will reward us. They will kill you slowly!" "Tempting," Hazel said, "but no thanks." "I will give you wheat!" said Wheat, as if this were a very fine offer in exchange for her life. "So much wheat!"
Hazel tried to think. How far had she been carried? How long would it take her friends to find her? The karpoi were getting bolder, approaching the rock in twos and threes, scratching at the schist to see if it would hurt them.
"Before I get down..." She raised her voice, hoping it would carry over the fields. "Um, explain something to me, would you? If you're grain spirits, shouldn't you be on the gods' side? Isn't the goddess of agriculture Ceres—"
"Evil name!" Barley wailed. "Cultivates us!" Sorghum spat. "Makes us grow in disgusting rows. Lets humans harvest us. Pah! When Gaea is mistress of the world again, we will grow wild, yes!"
"Well, naturally," Hazel said. "So this army of hers, where you're taking me in exchange for wheat—" "Or barley," Barley offered. "Yeah," Hazel agreed. "This army is where, now?" "Just over the ridge!" Sorghum clapped his hands excitedly.
"The Earth Mother—oh, yes!—she told us: 'Look for the daughter of Pluto who lives again. Find her! Bring her alive! I have many tortures planned for her.' The giant Polybotes will reward us for your life!" "Then we will march south to destroy the Romans. We can't be killed, you know. But you can, yes."
"That's wonderful." Hazel tried to sound enthusiastic. It wasn't easy, knowing Gaea had special revenge planned for her. "So you—you can't be killed because Alcyoneus has captured Death, is that it?"
"Exactly!" Barley said. "And he's keeping him chained in Alaska," Hazel said, "at...let's see, what's the name of that place?" Sorghum started to answer, but Wheat flew at him and knocked him down. The karpoi began to fight, dissolving into funnel clouds of grain.
Hazel considered making a run for it. Then Wheat re-formed, holding Sorghum in a headlock. "Stop!" he yelled at the others. "Multigrain fighting is not allowed!" The karpoi solidified into chubby Cupid piranhas again.
Wheat pushed Sorghum away. "Oh, clever demigod," he said. "Trying to trick us into giving secrets. No, you'll never find the lair of Alcyoneus." "I already know where it is," she said with false confidence. "He's on the island in Resurrection Bay."
"Ha!" Wheat sneered. "That place sank beneath the waves long ago. You should know that! Gaea hates you for it. When you thwarted her plans, she was forced to sleep again. Decades and decades! Alcyoneus—not until the dark times was he able to rise."
"The nineteen-eighties," Barley agreed. "Horrible! Horrible!" "Yes," Wheat said. "And our mistress still sleeps. Alcyoneus was forced to bide his time in the north, waiting, planning. Only now does Gaea begin to stir. Oh, but she remembers you, and so does her son!"
Sorghum cackled with glee. "You will never find the prison of Thanatos, nasty scythe man. All of Alaska is the giant's home. He could be keeping Death anywhere! Years it would take you to find him, and your poor camp has only days. Better you surrender. We will give you grain. So much grain."
(Y/N)'s POV
He awoke with a start, his head throbbing and pulsing in pain, and he could already feel the bruises all over his body from his fall, suddenly, realizing his mistake, he was overcome with an intense anger, and decided he needed to warn his friends.
Though when he picked up his weapons, wiped the blood from his head and sprinted out the door, he realized maybe he was too late, because even from here in the lighthouse he could hear Frank screaming.
(Y/N) followed the cries for Hazel, and by the time he made it back to his friends, he got an arrow and a sword pointed at him, "What happened? Where's Hazel?" (Y/N) asked once they had lowered their weapons, "There was something, something in the grass. It took her."
"Velociraptors..." (Y/N) immediately thought, but decided it was wise not to voice that thought, because Frank looked stressed already without the thought of dinosaurs added to the mix. "Well then lets go!" (Y/N) said, trying to follow the line of disturbed wheat.
The three of them jogged in unison. "What could have taken her?" Percy asked, looking at (Y/N), "I don't know." He replied plainly as he scanned the fields. "Whatever it is, it attacked me in the lighthouse. Used wheat of all things."
"So you don't know what it is?" Percy said, sounding surprised. "Yes Jackson, it may surprise you, but I don't actually know every monster in the world." (Y/N) said as they increased their pace.
"But if I had to guess, either pygmy mummies, or horned snakes." "Both of which don't sound fun. We have to hurry!" Frank said, rushing forward. They continued to push through wheat until their hands were sore and slashed, making no real progress.
"They can't have taken her far." Frank said hopefully, (Y/N) tried to stop himself but said "Well...depends on the monster." They both turned to frown at him, he looked at the floor, "Sorry, not helping."
But as he looked at his feet, he saw disturbed earth, where something had almost been raised to the surface, he kicked up some dirt and saw a tiny little pebble, about the size of his palm, he picked it up.
He didn't know why, but he had the sudden urge to keep it, not because he needed it, or it was anything special, even among the jewels that Hazel had pulled up in the past, just because he knew it would be important somehow.
"She came through here." He said, showing it to them. "Drop it, Hazel said it was dangerous ." Percy said, and (Y/N)'s ADHD brain was suddenly very offended by this proposition, he had the overwhelming urge to collect the pretty rock, still (Y/N) know what happened to ring bearers, so he did.
Unfortunately for Percy and Frank, they couldn't see in the dark, unlike (Y/N) so they didn't notice that the stone didn't hit the ground when he dropped it and instead slipped into his shadow.
He knew he needed to keep it, and he knew that it was probably the most important rock in the world. What he'd do with it? No idea. Why it was important? Not a clue. But he was seventy percent certain that he didn't just want it because it looked cool.
The three of them immediately scanned the area, it was Frank that found some movement. Trusting the son of Ares' instincts, they marched that way. As always, Frank's instincts turned out to be right.
Once they got lose enough to hear yelling, and study their enemies, Percy said "Well, those aren't snakes." (Y/N) shrugged, "I said it was a guess didn't I? Now we need to be smart about this, they could use her as a hostage- Or we could just do that." He said as he looked at Frank.
Hazel's POV
Hazel's sword felt heavy. She'd dreaded returning to Alaska, but at least she'd had an idea where to start looking for Thanatos. She'd assumed that the island where she had died hadn't been completely destroyed, or possibly had risen again when Alcyoneus woke.
She had hoped that his base would be there. But if the island was really gone, she had no idea how to find the giant. Alaska was huge. They could search for decades and never find him. "Yes," Wheat said, sensing her anguish. "Give up."
She thought back to what Nico said at the senate. That calmed her, she wasn't meant to find Thanatos, that was (Y/N)'s job. Wheat continued to taunt her, Hazel gripped her spatha. "Never!" She raised her voice again, hoping it would somehow reach her friends.
"If I have to destroy you all, I will. I am the daughter of Pluto!" The karpoi advanced. They gripped the rock, hissing as if it were scalding hot, but they began to climb.
"Now you will die," Wheat promised, gnashing his teeth. "You will feel the wrath of grain!" Suddenly there was a whistling sound. Wheat's snarl froze. He looked down at the golden arrow that had just pierced his chest. Then he dissolved into pieces of Chex Mix.
For a heartbeat, Hazel was just as stunned as the karpoi. Then Frank and Percy burst into the open and began to massacre every source of fiber they could find. (Y/N) flew towards her on his magic shoes.
"I WARNED YOU!" He shouted as he dive bombed down and took the head off Barley. Frank shot an arrow through Millet, who crumbled into seeds. Percy slashed Riptide through Sorghum and charged toward Oats.
Hazel took (Y/N)'s arm as he came back up and then jumped down and joined the fight. Within minutes, the karpoi had been reduced to piles of seeds and various breakfast cereals. Wheat started to re-form, but Percy pulled a lighter from his pack and sparked a flame.
"Try it," he warned, "and I'II set this whole field on fire. Stay dead. Stay away from us, or the grass gets it!" Suddenly (Y/N)'s arms burst into flame, that collected at the tips of his fingers, "Yeah, try it. See how fun it is trying to put out Greek fire!" (Y/N) snarled.
Barley reattached his head and yelled "Nasty scythe boy!" Frank winced like the flame terrified him. Hazel didn't understand why, but she shouted at the grain piles anyway: "He'll do it! He's crazy!"
The remnants of the karpoi scattered in the wind. Frank climbed the rock and watched them go. Percy extinguished his lighter and grinned at Hazel. (Y/N) took a deep breath, and then let it out, his flames died down with it.
"Thanks for yelling. We wouldn't have found you otherwise. How'd you hold them off so long?" She pointed to the rock. "A big pile of schist." "Excuse me?" "Guys," Frank called from the top of the rock. "You need to see this."
Percy, (Y/N) and Hazel climbed up to join him. As soon as Hazel saw what he was looking at, she inhaled sharply. "Percy, no light! Put up your sword!" "Schist!" He touched the sword tip, and Riptide shrank back into a pen.
Down below them, an army was on the move. The field dropped into a shallow ravine, where a country road wound north and south. On the opposite side of the road, grassy hills stretched to the horizon, empty of civilization except for one darkened convenience store at the top of the nearest rise.
The whole ravine was full of monsters—column after column marching south, so many and so close, Hazel was amazed they hadn't heard her shouting.
She, Frank, (Y/N) and Percy crouched against the rock. They watched in disbelief as several dozen large, hairy humanoids passed by, dressed in tattered bits of armor and animal fur.
The creatures had six arms each, three sprouting on either side, so they looked like cavemen evolved from insects. "Gegenes," Hazel whispered. "The Earthborn." "You've fought them before?" Percy asked.
She shook her head. "Just heard about them in monster class at camp." She'd never liked monster class—reading Pliny the Elder and those other musty authors who described legendary monsters from the edges of the Roman Empire.
Hazel believed in monsters, but some of the descriptions were so wild, she had thought they must be just ridiculous rumors. Only now, a whole army of those rumors was marching by.
"Careful, they have one hell of a throwing arm, don't get spotted." (Y/N) warned. Percy shot him a glance, (Y/N) frowned back and said "Shut up Percy." "The Earthborn fought the Argonauts," she murmured. "And those things behind the m—"
"Centaurs," Percy said. "But...that's not right. Centaurs are good guys." Frank made a choking sound. "That's not what we were taught at camp. Centaurs are crazy, always getting drunk and killing heroes."
Hazel watched as the horse-men cantered past. They were human from the waist up, palomino from the waist down. They were dressed in barbarian armor of hide and bronze, armed with spears and slings.
At first, Hazel thought they were wearing Viking helmets. Then she realized they had actual horns jutting from their shaggy hair. "Are they supposed to have bull's horns?" she asked. "Maybe they're a special breed," Frank said. "Let's not ask them, okay?"
"Yeah, they don't look like they throw many parties." (Y/N) added. Percy gazed farther down the road and his face went slack. "My gods...Cyclopes." "Cyclopses?" Frank said, "Cyclopi?" (Y/N) said, "I've always said Cyclopi...".
Sure enough, lumbering after the centaurs was a battalion of one-eyed ogres, both male and female, each about ten feet tall, wearing armor cobbled out of junkyard metal. Six of the monsters were yoked like oxen, pulling a two-story-tall siege tower fitted with a giant scorpion ballista.
Percy pressed the sides of his head. "Cyclopes. Centaurs. This is wrong. All wrong." The monster army was enough to make anyone despair, but Hazel realized that something else was going on with Percy. He looked pale and sickly in the moonlight, as if his memories were trying to come back, scrambling his mind in the process.
"Percy, stick with me buddy." (Y/N) said, "Deep breaths, don't worry, it'll pass. Just focus on the here and now. Where are you?" (Y/N) asked rhetorically. When Percy didn't respond, he pursed his lips. "Oh great, Percy's broken."
Hazel glanced at Frank. "We need to get him back to the boat. The sea will make him feel better." "No argument," Frank said. "There are too many of them. The camp...we have to warn the camp."
"They know," Percy groaned. "Reyna knows." A lump formed in Hazel's throat. There was no way the legion could fight so many. If they were only a few hundred miles north of Camp Jupiter, their quest was already doomed. They could never make it to Alaska and back in time.
"Come on," she urged. "Let's..." Then she saw the giant. When he appeared over the ridge, Hazel couldn't quite believe her eyes. He was taller than the siege tower—thirty feet, at least—with scaly reptilian legs like a Komodo dragon from the waist down and green-blue armor from the waist up.
His breastplate was shaped like rows of hungry monstrous faces, their mouths open as if demanding food. His face was human, but his hair was wild and green, like a mop of seaweed. As he turned his head from side to side, snakes dropped from his dreadlocks.
Viper dandruff—gross. He was armed with a massive trident and a weighted net. Just the sight of those weapons made Hazel's stomach clench. She'd faced that type of fighter in gladiator training many times.
It was the trickiest, sneakiest, most evil combat style she knew. This giant was a supersize retiarius. "Who is he?" Frank's voice quivered. "That's not—" "Not Alcyoneus," Hazel said weakly.
"One of his brothers, I think. The one Terminus mentioned. The grain spirit mentioned him, too. That's Polybotes." She wasn't sure how she knew, but she could feel the giant's aura of power even from here.
She remembered that feeling from the Heart of the Earth as she had raised Alcyoneus—as if she were standing near a powerful magnet, and all the iron in her blood was being drawn toward it.
This giant was another child of Gaea—a creature of the earth so malevolent and powerful, he radiated his own gravitational field. Hazel knew they should leave. Their hiding place on top of the rock would be in plain sight to a creature that tall if he chose to look in their direction.
But she sensed something important was about to happen. She and her friends crept a little farther down the schist and kept watching. As the giant got close, a Cyclops woman broke ranks and ran back to speak with him.
She was enormous, fat, and horribly ugly, wearing a chain-mail dress like a muumuu—but next to the giant she looked like a child. She pointed to the closed-up convenience store on top of the nearest hill and muttered something about food.
The giant snapped back an answer, as if he was annoyed. The female Cyclopes barked an order to her kindred, and three of them followed her up the hill. When they were halfway to the store, a searing light turned night into day.
Hazel was blinded. Below her, the enemy army dissolved into chaos, monsters screaming in pain and outrage. "No!" (Y/N) said, so shocked he almost fell off the schist "No, what are you doing here! Go, leave! Move the shop." He said like he was talking to someone.
Hazel squinted. She felt like she'd just stepped out of a dark theater into a sunny afternoon. "Too pretty!" the Cyclopes shrieked. "Burns our eye!" The store on the hill was encased in a rainbow, closer and brighter than any Hazel had ever seen.
The light was anchored at the store, shooting up into the heavens, bathing the countryside in a weird kaleidoscopic glow. "Forget the shop, just run!" (Y/N) hissed quietly, Hazel realized he was about to take off, so she pulled him back, locking her hand around his wrist.
He briefly shot a look back at her, and then she began to feel ill, sick to her stomach, she broke out into a cold sweat, "Let go." He said quietly. "You can't!" She urged, she didn't know what was going on, but she knew if the giant saw them, nothing good would come of it.
She felt like her knees were about to buckle, she remembered the feeling of the oil in her lungs again, just for a moment, and she let out a shocked gasp. He paid it no mind, more focused o the other issue.
"Fleecy..." He muttered, "C'mon, please tell me you're okay. Fleecy!" He said under his breath, patting his pockets, "Drachma, gimme a drachma!" He asked, Hazel was utterly lost. "What about gold? Gimme some gold" He urged.
Hazels stomach turned, she had heard that many times from lot of different people, and it never led to anything good, she shook her head and (Y/N) said something close to schist. His eyes were panicked.
The last time he had seen him like this was when he fished Percy out of the little Tiber, there was the same expression that he was worried about someone getting hurt that made his face darken.
"What is it?" Hazel asked, but (Y/N) didn't answer, now he was looking up at the sky, muttering to himself, "No clouds, what are you guys doing? Just fly out." He grit his teeth and then looked back at the skirmish.
The lady Cyclops hefted her club and charged at the store. As she hit the rainbow, her whole body began to steam. She wailed in agony and dropped her club, retreating with multicolored blisters all over her arms and face.
"Horrible goddess!" she bellowed at the store. "Give us snacks!" The other monsters went crazy, charging the convenience store, then running away as the rainbow light burned them. Some threw rocks, spears, swords, and even pieces of their armor, all of which burned up in flames of pretty colors.
(Y/N) tried to pull away again, and Hazel felt so weak she feared she might die again, but held onto (Y/N). Finally the giant leader seemed to realize that his troops were throwing away perfectly good equipment.
"Stop!" he roared. With some difficulty, he managed to shout and push and pummel his troops into submission. When they'd quieted down, he approached the rainbow-shielded store himself and stalked around the borders of the light.
"Goddess!" he shouted. "Come out and surrender!" No answer from the store. The rainbow continued to shimmer. The giant raised his trident and net. "I am Polybotes! Kneel before me so I may destroy you quickly."
Apparently, no one in the store was impressed. A tiny dark object came sailing out the window and landed at the giant's feet. Polybotes yelled, "Grenade!" He covered his face. His troops hit the ground.
When the thing did not explode, Polybotes bent down cautiously and picked it up. He roared in outrage. "A Ding Dong? You dare insult me with a Ding Dong?" He threw the cake back at the shop, and it vaporized in the light.
The monsters got to their feet. Several muttered hungrily, "Ding Dongs? Where Ding Dongs?" "Let's attack," said the lady Cyclops. "I am hungry. My boys want snacks!" "No!" Polybotes said.
"We're already late. Alcyoneus wants us at the camp in four days' time. You Cyclopes move inexcusably slowly. We have no time for minor goddesses!" He aimed that last comment at the store, but got no response.
The lady Cyclops growled. "The camp, yes. Vengeance! The orange and purple ones destroyed my home. Now Ma Gasket will destroy theirs! Do you hear me, Leo? Jason? Piper? I come to annihilate you!"
The other Cyclopes bellowed in approval. The rest of the monsters joined in. Hazel's whole body tingled. She glanced at her friends. "Jason," she whispered. "She fought Jason. He might still be alive."
"Does nobody trust anything I say?" (Y/N) muttered. Frank nodded. "Do those other names mean anything to you?" Hazel shook her head. She didn't know any Leo or Piper at camp. Percy still looked sickly and dazed.
If the names meant anything to him, he didn't show it. Hazel pondered what the Cyclops had said: Orange and purple ones. Purple—obviously the color of Camp Jupiter. But orange...Percy had shown up in a tattered orange shirt. That couldn't be a coincidence.
Below them, the army began to march south again, but the giant Polybotes stood to one side, frowning and sniffing the air. "Sea god," he muttered. To Hazel's horror, he turned in their direction. "I smell sea god."
Percy was shaking. Hazel put her hand on his shoulder and tried to press him flat against the rock. The lady Cyclops Ma Gasket snarled. "Of course you smell sea god! The sea is right over there!"
"More than that," Polybotes insisted. "I was born to destroy Neptune. I can sense..." He frowned, turning his head and shaking out a few more snakes. "Do we march or sniff the air?" Ma Gasket scolded. "I don't get Ding Dongs, you don't get sea god!"
Polybotes growled. "Very well. March! March!" He took one last look at the rainbow-encased store, then raked his fingers through his hair. He brought out three snakes that seemed larger than the rest, with white markings around their necks.
"A gift, goddess! My name, Polybotes, means 'Many- to-Feed!' Here are some hungry mouths for you. See if your store gets many customers with these sentries outside." He laughed wickedly and threw the snakes into the tall grass on the hillside.
Then he marched south, his massive Komodo legs shaking the earth. Gradually, the last column of monsters passed over the hills and disappeared into the night. Once they were gone, the blinding rainbow shut off like a spotlight.
(Y/N), Hazel, Frank, and Percy were left alone in the dark, staring across the road at a closed-up convenience store. "That was different," Frank muttered. Percy shuddered violently. Hazel knew he needed help, or rest, or something.
Seeing that army seemed to have triggered some kind of memory, leaving him shell-shocked. They should get him back to the boat. On the other hand, a huge stretch of grassland lay between them and the beach.
Hazel got the feeling the Karpoi wouldn't stay away forever. She didn't like the idea of the three of them making their way back to the boat in the middle of the night. And she couldn't shake the dreadful feeling that if she hadn't summoned that schist, she'd be a captive of the giant right now.
"Let's go to the store," she said. "If there's a goddess inside, maybe she can help us." "Except a bunch of snake things are guarding the hill now," Frank said. "And that burning rainbow might comeback."
"It won't. Not for us." (Y/N) said, his eyes danced with light, Hazel could tell he was still debating going down to fight, "Who's in there? Hazel asked, "My boss." He said quickly, What boss?" Frank asked fairly, but again, (Y/N) didn't answer
"They're in danger, and we need to help them, cyclopi can't really hurt a god, but they can still do damage, and with the monsters not being able to die, I'm not risking her getting hurt, us R.O.F.L. need to keep each other safe. "Us what?" Frank asked, but (Y/N) was too busy ranting.
"She's not a fighter, she can't take that giant, but she can help Percy I'm sure." They both looked at Percy, who was shaking like he had hypothermia. "We've got to try," Hazel said. Frank nodded grimly. "Well...any goddess who throws a Ding Dong at a giant can't be all bad. Let's go."