𝓢𝓞𝓝 𝓞𝓕 𝓝𝓔𝓟𝓣𝓤𝓝𝓔

"SHE WAS KIDNAPPED BY THE GRASS?" Evangeline asked again, "That's... Could you be more specific?"

"I don't know how much more specific I can be!" Frank blurted, practically pulling his hair out.

Percy held a steady hand on his shoulder. "Okay, buddy, just calm down. We will find her."

"She's there!!" Evangeline launched herself forward, sword drawn, her feet moving before her brain could catch up. Hazel's cries could be heard from a distance.

"We're coming, Hazel!" Frank shouted back as he and Percy trailed behind Eva.

She could hear Frank and Percy shouting behind her, the thudding of their boots trying to match her speed, but they were slow. Too slow.

Then Hazel flew.

Hazel tried to tuck in a roll but her legs were caught by one of the gremlins she was being chased by. From her position, she was sure to break her neck.

"No No, do not die!" Evangeline cried and raised a hand in Hazel's direction as she pushed herself to run faster. Her voice rumbled across the meadow. And something in the air listened.

Hazel stopped, floating, inches away from impact.

Evangeline's eyes locked with hers, wide and disbelieving. She didn't know how she had done it. But she had. Somehow. At least, she thought so.

Hazel twisted midair, using the gremlin as leverage, flipping with a gymnast's grace and landing sword-first. A silent hell yes surged in Evangeline's chest.

Hazel ran as the grass rippled after her.

"Hey! Put some pep into your steps!"  she called over her shoulder to the boys, panting and exhausted.

No time for answers. Only movement. She thought.

Evangeline was running in the general direction she'd last seen Hazel. She scurried with no clear sight until she finally spotted her on top of a rock.

The grass swayed and rustled around her like anemone.

Evangeline almost made it to her when she heard them say:

"Now you will die," The grain gremlin, at least that's the only way Eva could describe it, promised, gnashing his teeth. "You will feel the wrath of grain!"

Out of nowhere, there was a whistling sound. An arrow struck the gremlin and blew it to pieces.

She couldn't help it. She laughed. "Power of love, baby."

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

THE BOYS CRASHED IN MOMENTS AFTER, and the three of them tore into the karpoi like gods of war.

Frank was a machine with his arrows. Percy gleamed like a storm with Riptide in hand. Evangeline poised yet deadly, stabbed two at once—Millet and Oats, kabob-style. The sight of all their gremlin bodies exploding into granola

Within minutes, the karpoi had been reduced to piles of seeds. 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.

Hazel shouted at the grain piles anyway: "He'll do it! He's crazy!"

Evangeline watched him closely and bit her tongue. Crazy hot.

He caught a glimpse of her, as if he could read her thoughts and wondered why she wasn't revealing them.  

Percy shook his head, waved the lighter like a warning, and the rest of the karpoi dispersed.

The remnants of the grain gremlins scattered in the wind. Frank climbed the rock and watched them go.

Percy extinguished his lighter and grinned at Hazel.

"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?"

"Wouldn't they like shit?" Eva cocked her head to the side, "Fertilizer?"

"Schist! Not shit!"

"Oh."

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

They joined him—Hazel first, then Percy helped Evangeline up. She grinned, but the moment her eyes reached the valley below, her heart dropped.

"Percy, no light!" she snapped.

"Schist!" He teased. Then touched the sword tip, and Riptide shrank back into a pen.

"Ha.Ha." She stuck her tongue at him, but the joy faded as fast as it came.

Below them: monsters. Columns of them. A whole army. The valley churned with claws, hooves, fur, armor, and weapons. An entire parade of nightmares marching south.

Evangeline pressed her hand over her mouth. "Gods..."

The creatures passing by 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. "Not me, Eva and Jason did during the war. I just heard about them in monster class at camp."

"The Earthborn fought the Argonauts," Eva murmured. "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."

"Or harassing." Eva curled her lip in disgust.

Hazel watched as the horsemen cantered past. They were human from the waist up, and palomino from the waist down. They were dressed in barbarian armor of hide and bronze, armed with spears and slings. At first, Eva thought they were wearing some fugly version of a Viking helmet.

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 built 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."

Percy wasn't okay. Evangeline could feel it in her chest— he was feeling more than fear. There was confusion, fury, and a longing so sharp it scraped against her ribs like a blade.

Even without Eva sensing his emotions, she could tell something was going on with Percy. He looked pale and sickly under the moonlight.

She glanced at the youngest of the four. "We need to get him back to the boat. The sea will make him feel better. Plus we need to warn camp—

"No argument," Hazel said. "There are too many of them. Reyna needs to—"

"They know," Percy groaned. "Reyna knows."

"What?!" Evangeline's head snapped to him, and she glared. "Why the hell didn't she tell me?"

"Uh—"

"Evangeline." Hazel shushed and signaled toward the army.

Eva looked down and held her breath. Thankfully, it seemed the monster's stomping feet drowned out her cry.

A lump formed in Evangeline's throat. She couldn't fathom why Reyna would keep something so vital a secret. Especially from her! Eva may have not been a praetor but she was basically an interim praetor once Jason disappeared; All the work none of the prestige or recognition.

Camp Jupiter was her home. She had a right to know when it was in danger.

So why?

Maybe Reyna was scared? Maybe she didn't want to worry her!

But it would have been better if Eva knew.

Reyna should've told her. She didn't need coddling. She needed truth.

Before she could say more, Hazel stiffened. "The giant."

Evangeline saw him the second she said it. Thirty feet tall. Seaweed hair. Snake dandruff. The trident and net. A gladiator's nightmare. The aura around him was like gravity—it pulled heavily at her bones.

"Polybotes," Hazel said.

A name Evangeline remembered. A Titan...

He stalked the edge of the army like a commander surveying ants. Then a Cyclops—a woman, somehow uglier than the men—ran up to him, yelling about snacks.

She pointed to the closed-up convenience store on top of the nearest hill. The giant snapped back an answer as if he was annoyed. The female Cyclops barked an order to her kindred, and three of them followed her up the hill.

Evangeline blinked. "Are they seriously attacking a... convenience store?"

The next moments were chaos. Light exploded. A rainbow brighter than anything she'd seen. Monsters screamed out in agony.

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

The rainbow light was anchored at the store, shooting up into the heavens, bathing the countryside in a weird kaleidoscopic glow.

"Gorgeous," Evangeline muttered

The lady Cyclops hefted her club and charged at the store. As she hit the rainbow, her whole body began to steam. She wailed 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, and 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 wasting perfectly good equipment.

"Stop!" he roared.

They submitted to his voice in an instant.

"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."

Then—a Ding Dong smacked him in the nose.

Evangeline nearly choked on her own laugh.

Polybotes roared, insulted by the snack cake. The lady Cyclops shouted, "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!"

Evangeline gasped, her stomach turned.

She glanced at Hazel. Hazel whispered, "He might be alive."

"No." Evangeline's heart soared, "He is. He is alive..."

All this time, she didn't bother to mention her vision of Jason to her quest mates. She thought if she did then the image of him alive and healthy would disappear. She also considered she could have been crazy and her grief was just making her look for hope anywhere. But now, now she knew for certain that he was still around.

His body might have been far, but Eva could sense him. His beating heart called to her across miles and miles. An electric current ran up from her arms to her chest.

Her hand fell on her heart.

Jason. Her best friend. Her Praetor. Her love...

She closed her eyes.  Angel.....I'm coming!

Frank nodded. "Do those other names mean anything to you?"

Hazel shook her head.

Eva was pulled out of her trance, Percy looked sickly and dazed beside her, If the names meant anything to him, he didn't show it.

She pondered on what the Cyclops had said: Orange and purple ones. Purple-
the color of Camp Jupiter. But orange...Percy had shown up in a tattered orange shirt, she saw Jason wearing Orange...That couldn't be a coincidence.

Hazel got her attention "Do you know who the other two are?"

"There's no Leo or Piper at Camp Jupiter—I'd know if there was."

Below them, the army began to march south again, but the giant Polybotes stood to one side, frowning and sniffing the air.

His voice rang through the valley:

"Sea god."

Panic rippled through Evangeline. He was looking in their direction.

"I smell sea god."

Percy was shuddering. Eva held his hand without even thinking. She put her hand on his shoulder and tried to press him flat against the rock.

"I'm not letting him near you." She whispered, Percy was too pained or stunned to speak, maybe both.

When she let go of him, he flexed his hand in her direction.

Evangeline understood and kept their fingers intertwined.

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. Polybotes dropped three massive serpents into the grass like twisted party favors. Then he marched south, leaving the earth trembling behind him.

Gradually, the last column of monsters passed over the hills and disappeared into the night.

Finally, the light winked out.

They were alone.

Frank muttered, "That was different."

Evangeline squeezed Percy's hand to coax a reaction out of him.

He didn't flinch and he didn't look up, either.

The redhead knew he needed help, or rest, or something. Seeing that army seemed to have triggered some kind of memory.

PTSD—She knew the signs. It was a common thing among the legion. Teenage Soldiers can carry heavy memories...

"We need to get him back to the boat."

"Let's go to the store," Hazel argued. "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 Percy, who was shaking like he had hypothermia.

"I'll try anything" Evangeline insisted. "Let's just hurry the hell up."

Percy squeezed back, his rough calloused hands softly running over her knuckles

Frank nodded grimly. "Well...any goddess who throws a Ding Dong at a giant can't be all bad. Let's go."