Bewitched || P. Jackson

𝕁unkyard of the gods

Nicki whirled around. Behind them, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and she realized why they looked like toes. They were toes.

The thing that rose from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armour. He was impossibly tall—a skyscraper with legs and arms. He gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. He looked down at them, and his face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off. His joints creaked with rust, and across his armoured chest, written in thick dust by some giant finger, were the words WASH ME.

"Talos!" Zoë gasped.

"Who—who's Talos?" Percy stuttered.

"One of Hephaestus's creations," Thalia said. "But that can't be the original. It's too small. A prototype, maybe. A defective model."

The metal giant didn't like the word defective.

He moved one hand to his sword belt and drew his weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible, metal screeching against metal. The blade was a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.

"Someone took something," Zoë said. "Who took something?"

She stared accusingly at Percy.

He shook his head. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."

Bianca didn't say anything.

"Bia." Nicki whispered, staring at the girl. Bianca avoided eye contact. The giant defective Talos took one step toward them, closing half the distance and making the ground shake.

"Run!" Grover yelped.

They split up, the way they'd done with the Nemean Lion. Thalia drew her shield and held it up as she ran down the highway. The giant swung his sword and took out a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across Thalia's path.

Zoë's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal. Grover brayed like a baby goat and went climbing up a mountain of metal. Bianca, Nicki, and Percy ended up next to each other, hiding behind a broken chariot.

"You took something," Percy said. "That bow."

"No!" she said, but her voice was quivering.

"Give it back!" Percy said. "Throw it down!"

"She didn't take the bow!"

"I... I didn't take the bow! Besides, it's too late."

"What did. you take?" Before she could answer, I heard a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the sky. "Move!" Percy grabbed Nicki's wrist and tore down the hill, Bianca right behind them, as the giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground where they'd been hiding.

"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, looking down at the trio.

Grover played a quick melody on his pipes. Over at the highway, the downed power lines began to dance. One of the poles with power lines still attached flew toward Talos's back leg and wrapped around his calf The lines sparked and sent a jolt of electricity up the giant's backside.

Talos whirled around, creaking and sparking. Grover had bought us a few seconds.

"Come on!" Percy told Bianca. But she stayed frozen. From her pocket, she brought out a small metal figurine, a statue of a god.

"It... it was for Nico. It was the only statue he didn't have."

"Bia." Nicki breathed, tears filling her eyes.