𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐇𝐀𝐃𝐎𝐖𝐒 leo valdez

xi. CYCLOPS TRIPLE KILL

LEO.

——-     Seeing his friends helpless at the mercy of monsters made Leo's day somehow worse.

And he was already having a pretty rotten day, which just emphasized the situation he was in.

Hanging from robotic arms, wrapped in chains was two of his friends. Piper was struggling, wriggling around trying to get free, with her mouth gagged. At least she was alive.

Jason didn't look as good. He hung motionless, passed out with a huge welt above his eyebrow.

On the conveyor belt, the bed of an unfinished pickup truck was being used as a fire, lit by the emergency flare. And by the smell of it, it'd been doused with kerosene. A metal pole rested over the flames, a spit, which meant that this was a cooking fire.

What terrified Leo the most was the cooks.

The single red eye logo, Monocle Motors, should've been a red flag.

The three monsters huddled around the fire, stoking the flames. The largest one was facing away from Leo, crouching in front of the fire. The two he could see were easily ten feet tall, glowing red in the fire light with their strong, hairy bodies. One wore a chain mail loincloth (which looked really uncomfortable), and the other wore a fuzzy looking toga made of ragged, fiberglass insulation. The two looked similar, but not in the way Cal and Zethes did; these two were built the same, with a single giant eye right in the middle of their foreheads. They were Cyclopes.

Leo started shaking again, and Y/n let out a quiet sigh from next to him. Leo had seen some weird things lately, but these ten foot monsters really took the cake. All he had was a backpack, tool belt, and a giant hammer — he was terrified. He turned to the girl beside him. She was glaring at the Cyclopes with a weird kind of fire in her eyes. She looked a hell of a lot braver than Leo felt. Her hand tightened around her sword.

Leo realized that this is what that earth lady was talking about. She wanted him to abandon Piper and Jason to be eaten by Cyclopes and leave Y/n in the frigid winter all by herself. He decided then and there; no way he would ever let her make him feel powerless again.

Leo slid the backpack on his shoulders off and started to unzip it as the Cyclopes in chain mail walked up to Piper. Her head flew up as she tried to head butt him in the eye. "Can I take her gag off now? I like it when they scream."

The crouching figure, the leader, Leo guessed, grunted and chain mail ripped the gag off Piper's mouth. She didn't scream, but she drew a shaky breath like she was trying to keep herself calm.

Leo had found what he wanted: a stack of small remote control units he found in Bunker 9. Well, it's what he hoped they were. The crane's maintenance panel was easy enough to find, and once Leo got a screwdriver from his tool belt, he went to work. He had to go slowly, since the Cyclopes were only twenty feet ahead of him. They obviously had amazing senses which made pulling off his plan without making noise seem impossible, but he didn't have much of a choice.

The Cyclops wearing insulation poked at the fire which was now spewing thick, black smoke. The one in chain mail glared at Piper, "Scream, girl! I like screaming!"

Piper steadied herself before speaking, "Oh, Mr. Cyclops, you don't want to kill us. It would be much better if you let us go."

The Cyclops scratched his head and turned to the one wearing insulation, "She's kinda pretty, Torque. Maybe I should let her go.

Torque stood "I saw her her first, Sump. I will let her go!" The two began to argue, until the third one shouted, "Fools!"

Leo flinched and his screwdriver almost fell from his hands. The largest Cyclops was a woman, multiple feet taller than the other two and packed with even more muscle. She was wearing what must have been several pounds of chain mail in the shape of a dress. She had greasy, black pigtails woven with metal washers and copper wire. The lower half of her face was smashed together and thick, like she spent most of her time ramming face first into walls. Her single red eye shone with a wicked malevolence.