CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FINLEY        BRIGGS

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For a heartbeat, Finn 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. Frank shot an arrow through Barley, who crumbled into seeds. Percy had picked up Finn's gun, and used that instead of Riptide to shoot through Sorghum and take out Millet and Oats. Finn and Hazel 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'll set this whole field on fire. Stay dead. Stay away from us, or the grass gets it!"

Frank winced like the flame terrified him. Finn 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 Finn.

"I have got to get myself one of these," he said, handing Finn her gun back to her. The gleam in his eyes almost looked as crazy as Finn's. "Thanks for yelling, by the way. We wouldn't have found you otherwise. How'd you two hold them off so long?"

Finn pointed at the rock. "A big pile of schist."

"Excuse me?"

"Guys," Frank called from the top of the rock. "You need to see this."

Finn, Percy and Hazel climbed up to join him. As soon as Finn saw what he was looking at, her eyebrows rose. Hazel gasped.

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.

Finn, Percy, Hazel, and Frank 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."

Finn shuddered. She'd never liked monster class—she couldn't coherently read, for one. Jason used to read to her. He'd tell Finn about stories from Pliny the Elder and those other musty authors who described legendary monsters from the edges of the Roman Empire. The only reason Finn ever paid attention was because Jason was the one telling her. The tales were horribly boring, but... Jason never was.

Her shudder worsened. For a moment Finn believed it was due to her thoughts of Jason, but it (somehow) was worse than that. She felt sicker than before. A lot sicker.

If you thought the whole army of monsters marching by helped Finn's ailment, then you'd be mistaken.

"The Earthborn fought the Argonauts," Finn's voice shook as she recited Jason's words. Everything's always about Jason, she'd said once. "And those things behind them—"

"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."

"What's wrong with getting drunk?" Finn asked, frowning.

They didn't have to answer audibly. Finn was visibly shaking, sick, and pale—all because she hadn't had wine in only hours. It was sad in more ways than one.

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, Finn 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?" Hazel asked.

"Maybe they're a special breed," Frank said. "Let's not ask them, okay?"

Percy gazed farther down the road and his face went slack. "My gods... Cyclopes."

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 Finn realized that something else was going on with Percy. He looked pale and sickly in the moonlight, just like Finn, but this was as if his memories were trying to come back, scrambling his mind in the process.

Hazel glanced at Frank. "We need to get them back to the boat. The sea will make Percy 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 Finn's throat. Her arms wrapped around her stomach, fighting the urge to wretch everywhere. 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," Finn urged. "Let's..."

Then she saw the giant.

When he appeared over the ridge, Finn 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 Finn's stomach clench further. 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 supersized retiarius.

"Who is he?" Frank's voice quivered. "That's not—"

"Not Alcyoneus," Hazel said. "One of his brothers, I think. The one Terminus mentioned. The grain spirits mentioned him, too. That's Polybotes."

Finn could feel the giant's aura of power, even from here, in a way that made her legs go weak. This giant was another child of Gaea—a creature of the earth so malevolent and powerful, he radiated his own gravitational field.

She wanted to 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 her friends made no move to. They crept a little farther down the schist, and Finn could do nothing but keep 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. Finn was blinded. The nausea bloomed at the sudden light. Below her, the enemy army dissolved into chaos, monsters screaming in pain and outrage.

"I'm gonna be sick," she whispered. No one reacted.

"Too pretty!" the Cyclopes shrieked. "Burns our eye!"

The store on the hill was encased in a rainbow, closer and brighter than any Finn had ever seen. The light was anchored at the store, shooting up into the heavens, bathing the countryside in a weird kaleidoscopic glow. She really was going to be sick.

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.

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.

Finn's whole body tingled. "Jason," she whispered. "She fought Jason. He might still be alive."

She groaned, doubling over. She shifted so that she was peering off the other end of the schist, and then a second later, promptly vomited.

Hazel and Frank startled, like everyone usually did—Percy was too sick himself to notice. Finn's knees dropped to the schist. Her hands gripped at the stone, desperate for something to ground her. The world was spinning, her whole body felt useless, and her stomach was entirely empty. Yet the bile was coughing right out of her mouth against her will.

"Uh—" Frank hesitantly kneeled behind her while Hazel made sure Finn's retching didn't capture. His large hand held her shoukder. "Let it out... It's okay..."

"S'not," Finn grumbled. "It's—" she gagged, then choked out more vomit. "S'all my fault."

She missed the wary look Frank and Hazel shared.

"What do you, um, mean? No, it's not," Frank said.

The schist was futile in keeping her steady. This had to be the end. Finn felt like she was dying.

Just like her mom.

"I killed her," Finn rasped. Her throat burned. Her eyes were wet.

Frank tried squeezing her shoulder, but this was a sickness that threatened to consume Finn whole. Maybe the ground would consume her. Maybe Gaea would finally end Finn's suffering.

"N-no..." Frank muttered uncertainly. "You didn't kill anyone."

Finn laughed. Then she retched. She looked certifiably insane.

"You'll find death at the mercy of my sins," Finn echoed the words of the karpoi. She sounded loopy. The sudden mood shift was mind-bogglingly eerie.

"Look, Finley, we need to get you some water," Hazel cut in, voice fearful. "Can you stand?"

"I can do anything," she mumbled.

"Of course you can," Frank said encouragingly. He did, however, have to wrap his arm around Finn and help her up.

Finn wiped off the bile from her face with the collar of her shirt, and Hazel and Frank grimaced. They needed to deal with the sick Finn and Percy, but also the monster army threatening to overtake their camp.

"Leo and Piper," Frank repeated the names they'd heard earlier. "Do those names mean anything to any of you?"

Finn shook her head sluggishly. She didn't know any Leo or Piper at camp. Even if she did, her brain was too sickly and dazed to think hard. Percy looked to be in the same boat.

The Cyclops's words weighed down heavier on Finn's weakness. 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 Finn's horror, he turned in their direction. "I smell sea god."

Percy was trembling. 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.

Finn, Percy, Hazel, and Frank were left alone in the dark, staring across the road at a closed-up convenience store.

"That was different," Frank muttered.

Finn and Percy shuddered violently. They needed help, or rest, or something. Finn wasnt faring well with her withdrawal from alcohol, and Percy, well... 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. The karpoi wouldn't stay away forever. Finn didn't like the idea of the four of them making their way back to the boat in the middle of the night. She actually didn't like the idea of doing anything actually. Was curling in a hole and dying an option?

"Let's go to the store," Hazel 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 come back."

They both looked at Finn and Percy, who were shaking like they 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."

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BAILEY YAPS...

Percy finally found his bromate (bro soulmate)... Because chapter 18 of Wildflowers is "your honor he's tweaking"... and now Percy finally has someone to tweak out with...

You know the duo goes hard when you're both deathly ill and shivering with tremors because one of you is withdrawing and the other is remembering a past life

Anyways I've been informed Finley and Percy's duo name should just be called Jesus because together they turn water into wine and. Yeah tbh.

Me when I have to write Finley actually being a deeply traumatized and flawed character... She's just a baby