Becoming a Hero

We rode the boar until sunset. Imagine riding a giant steel brush over a bed of gravel all day. That's about how comfortable boar-riding was. I have no idea how many miles we covered, but the mountains faded into the distance and were replaced by miles of flat dry land. The grass and scrub brush got sparser until we were galloping (do boars gallop?) across the desert. As night fell, the boar came to a stop at a creek bed and snorted. He started drinking the muddy water, then ripped a saguaro cactus out of the ground and chewed it, needles and all.

"This is as far as he'll go," Grover said. "We need to get off while he's eating." Nobody needed convincing. We slipped off the boar's back while he was busy ripping up cacti. Then we waddled away as best we could with our saddle sores. After its third saguaro and another drink of muddy water, the boar squealed, then whirled round and galloped back towards the east.

"It like the mountains better," Percy said.

"I can't blame it," Thalia said. "Look." Ahead of us was a two-lane road half blown over with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open in years, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills...but then I noticed they weren't regular hills. The countryside was too flat for that. The hills were enormous mounds of old cars, appliances, and other scrap metal. It was a junkyard that seemed to go on forever.

"Whoa," Percy said.

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Grover. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned. That wasn't good. Though satyrs often looked concerned. "That's us," he said. "Those six nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" Percy asked.

"The little deformed one," I suggested.

"Oh, shut up."

"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "That's trouble."

"A monster?" Thalia asked.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge..." He pointed straight towards the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.

We decided to camp for the night and try the junkyard in the morning. None of us wanted to go dump-diving in the dark. Zoe, Bianca and I produced six sleeping bags and foam mattresses out of our backpacks. The night got chilly fast, so Grover and Percy collected old boards from the ruined house, and Thalia zapped them with an electric shock to start a campfire. Pretty soon we were about as comfortable as you can get in a rundown ghost town in the middle of nowhere. "The stars are out," Zoe said. She was right. There were millions of them, with no city lights to turn the sky orange. It reminded me of the times when my mom used to take me outside and teach me about the stars when I was younger, I decided not to tell anyone that.

"Amazing," Bianca said. "I've never actually seen the Milky Way."

"This is nothing," Zoe said. "In the old days, there were more. Whole constellations have disappeared because of human light pollution."

"You talk like you're not human," Percy said.

Zoe raised an eyebrow. "I am a Hunter. I care what happens to the wild places of the world. Can the same be said for thee?"

"For you," Thalia corrected. "Not thee."

"But you use you for the beginning of a sentence." Zoe's confusion regarding the English language was kind of cute. And relatable.

"And for the end," Thalia said. "No thou. No thee. Just you."

Zoe threw her hands up in exasperation. "I hate this language. It changes too often!"

"Agreed."

Grover sighed. He was still looking up at the stars like he was thinking about the light pollution problem. "If only Pan were here, he would set things right."

Zoe nodded sadly.

"Maybe it was the coffee," Grover said. "I was drinking coffee, and the wind came. Maybe if I drank more coffee..." I was pretty sure coffee had nothing to do with what had happened in Cloudcroft, but I was too tired to say anything about it to him.

"Grover, do you really think that was Pan? I mean, I know you want it to be."

"He sent us help," Grover insisted. "I don't know how or why. But it was his presence. After this quest is done, I'm going back to New Mexico and drinking a lot of coffee. It's the best lead we've got in two thousand years. I was so close."

"What I want to know," Thalia said, looking at Bianca, "is how you destroyed one of the zombies. There are a lot more out there somewhere. We need to figure out how to fight them."

Bianca shook her head. "I don't know. I just stabbed it and it went up in flames."

"Maybe there's something special about your knife," Percy said.

"It is the same as mine and Ruby's," Zoe said. "Celestial bronze, yes. But mine and Ruby's did not affect the warriors that way."

"Maybe you have to hit the skeleton in a certain spot," Percy said. I was too tired to deal with it all. I needed to sleep.

I wasn't asleep for long as I was woken up by the headlights of a car. I was alert almost immediately. It was one of the many things that my mom had drilled into me from a young age. We grabbed our sleeping bags and got out of the way as a deathly white limousine slid to a stop in front of us.

The back door of the limo opened right next to Percy. Before he could step away, the point of a sword touched his throat. Zoe, Bianca and I drew our bows. As the owner of the sword got out of the car, Percy moved back very slowly. He smiled cruelly. "Not so fast now are you, punk?" He was a big man with a crew cut, a black leather biker's jacket, black jeans, a skin-tight white vest and combat boots. Wraparound shades hid his eyes.

"Ares," Percy growled.

The war god glanced at me and my friends. "At ease, people." He snapped his fingers, and their weapons fell to the ground. "This is a friendly meeting." He dug the point of his blade a little further under Percy's chin. I was ready to fight the god of war. Not that it was a good idea, but no one threatened my friends. Not even gods. "Of course I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady."

"What lady?" Thalia asked.

Ares looked at her.  "Well, well. I heard you were back." He lowered his sword and pushed Percy away. "Thalia, daughter of Zeus," Ares mused. "You're not hanging out with very good company."

"What's your business, Ares?" she said. "Who's in the car?"

Ares smiled, enjoying the attention. "Oh, I doubt she wants to meet the rest of you. Particularly not them." He jutted his chin towards Zoe, Bianca and I. "Why don't you all go get some tacos while you wait? Only take Percy a few minutes."

"We will not leave him alone with thee, Lord Ares," Zoe said.

"Besides," Grover managed, "the taco place is closed.

Ares snapped his fingers again. The lights inside the taqueria suddenly blazed to life. The boards flew off the door and the CLOSED sign flipped to OPEN. "You were saying, goat boy?"

"Go on," Percy told us. "I'll handle this."

"You heard the boy," Ares said. "He's big and strong. he's got things under control." We reluctantly headed over to the taco restaurant, leaving Percy behind. I didn't like it. And not just the tacos.

The six of us were standing in the middle of the junkyard, mountains of scrap metal stretched out in every direction. I did not know how we managed to get there. "What did she want with you?" Bianca asked, once Percy had told us about his conversation with Aphrodite.

"Oh, uh, not sure," he said. He was clearly lying, but I decided not to question him about it. "She said to be careful in her husband's junkyard. She said not to pick anything up."

Zoe narrowed her eyes. "The goddess of love would not make a special trip to tell thee that. Be careful, Percy. Aphrodite has led many heroes astray."

"For once, I agree with Zoe," Thalia said. "You can't trust Aphrodite."

"So," Percy said, "how do we get out of here?"

"That way," Zoe said. "That is west."

"How can you tell?"

"Ursa Major is in the north," she said, " which means that must be west." She pointed west, then at the northern constellation, which was hard to make out because there were so many other stars.

"Oh, yeah," Percy said. "The bear thing."

Zoe looked offended. "Show some respect. It was a fine bear. A worthy opponent."

"You act like it was real."

"Says the guy who just had a conversation with the goddess Aphrodite from Greek mythology!" I said.

Zoe smirked.

"Guys," Grover said. "Look!" We'd reached the crest of a junk mountain. Piles of metal objects glinted in the moonlight: broken heads of bronze horses, metal legs from human statues, smashed chariots, tons of shields and swords and other weapons, along with more modern stuff, like cars that gleamed gold and silver, refrigerators, washing machines and computer monitors

"Whoa," Bianca said. "That stuff... some of it looks like real gold."

"It is," Thalia said grimly. "Like Percy said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods"

"Junk?" Grover picked up a beautiful crown made of gold, silver and jewels. It was broken on one side, as if it had been split by an axe. "You call this junk?" He bit off a point and began to chew. "It's delicious!"

Thalia swatted the crown out of his hands. "I'm serious!"

"Look!" Bianca said. She raced down the hill, tripping over bronze coils and golden plates. She picked up a bow that glowed silver in the moonlight. "A Hunter's bow!" She yelped in surprise as the bow began to shrink, and became a hair clip shaped like a crescent moon. "It's just like Percy's sword!"

"Zoe's face was grim. "Leave it, Bianca."

"But-"

"It is here for a reason. Anything thrown away in this junkyard must stay in this yard. It is defective. Or cursed." Bianca reluctantly set the hair clip down.

"I don't like this place," Thalia said. She gripped the shaft of her spear.

"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy asked.

She glared at him. "Zoe is right, Percy. Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard."

"That's the second time you've agreed with Zoe," Percy said, but Thalia ignored him. Probably a good idea, to be honest.

We started picking our way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Ursa Major, we would've got lost. All the hills looked pretty much the same. I was too worried about the others to think about what was around me. Percy and Grover kept on picking things up. I ended up right next to Bianca. "Hi," she said. She clearly wanted to ask me something.

"Hello. What do you want to ask me?"

"How did you... never mind. If something happens to me on this quest..."

"Nothing will happen to you on this quest!" I said, cutting her off.

"As I said, if something happens to me on this quest..."

"Which it won't."

"Please, protect Nico whenever possible. Please?"

I sighed and looked at her. "Sure. I promise that I will protect your brother whenever possible, unless there is a situation in which I cannot. Do you want me to swear it on the River Styx?"

"No. You don't have to. I just needed to hear you promise to protect him."

"OK. Well, he is now under the protection of one of the most dangerous and deadliest assassins in the world. I think he'll be alright in the future. Oh, and the promise extends to if nothing happens on this quest and you remain alive, too."

"Thank you, Ruby."

"No problem."

"What is that?" Bianca gasped. I turned and saw what she was looking at.

Ahead of us was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of a football field and as tall as goalposts. At one end of the mesa was a row of ten thick metal columns, wedged tightly together. Bianca frowned "They look like -"

"Toes," Grover said.

Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes." Well that was creepy. Why did I get the feeling that something bad was about to happen?

Zoe and Thalia exchanged nervous looks. "Let's go around," Thalia said. "Far around."

"But the road is right over there," Percy protested. "Quicker to climb over."

Ping.

Thalia hefted her spear  and Zoe and I drew our bows, but then I realised it was only Grover, the idiot. He had thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the column were hollow.

"Why did you do that?" Zoe demanded.

Grover cringed. "I don't know. I, uh, don't like fake feet?"

"Come on." Thalia looked at Percy. "Around." He didn't argue. That was surprising. The toes were starting to freak me out, too. I mean, who sculpts three-metre-tall toes and sticks them in a junkyard?

After several minutes of walking, we finally stepped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black tarmac. "We made it out," Zoe said. "Thank the gods." But apparently the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment I heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal. I whirled around. Behind us, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and I realised why they looked like toes. They were toes. The thing that rose up 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 us, 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!" Zoe 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 thirty metres long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but I didn't figure that mattered. Getting hit by that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.

"Someone took something," Zoe 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." I decided not to say anything as I hadn't stolen anything either. Bianca didn't say anything either. I could swear she looked guilty, but I didn't have much time to think about it, because the giant defective Talos took one step towards us, closing half the distance and making the ground shake.

"Run!" Grover yelped. Great advice, except that it was hopeless. At a leisurely stroll, this thing could outdistance us easily. We split up, the way we'd done with the Nemean Lion. Thalia drew her shield and held it high 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. Mine and Zoe's arrows whistled towards the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal. Grover brayed like a baby goat and went climbing up a mountain of metal. Percy and Bianca hid behind a broken chariot.

Thalia had its attention for the moment. She'd learnt that the giant was big but slow. If you could stay close to it and not get smashed, you could run around it and stay alive. At least, it was working so far. It wouldn't when she eventually got tired and couldn't keep going. Bianca got right next to the giant's foot, trying to balance herself on the metal scraps that swayed and shifted with his weight. Zoe yelled, "what are you doing?"

"Get it to raise its foot!" she said. Zoe and I each shot an arrow towards the monster's face and they flew straight into one nostril. The giant straightened and shook its head.

"Hey, Junk Boy!" Percy yelled. "Down here." He ran up to its big toe and stabbed it with his sword. The magic blade cut a gash in the bronze. Talos looked down at Percy and raised his foot to squash him like a bug. He had to turn and run. The foot cam down right behind him and was knocked into the air. He'd been thrown into an Olympus-Air refrigerator. I wondered if they had those at Camp Half-Blood. The monster was about to finish him off, but Grover somehow dug himself out if the junk pile. He played his pipes frantically, and his music sent another power line pole whacking against Talos's thigh. The monster turned. Grover should've run, but he must have been too exhausted from the effort of so much magic. he took two steps, fell and didn't get back up.

"Grover!" Thalia and Percy both ran towards him, but I knew they'd be too late. The monster raised his sword to smash Grover. Then he froze. Talos cocked his head to one side, like he was hearing strange new music. He started moving his arms and legs in weird ways, doing the Funky Chicken. Then he made a fist and punched himself in the face.

"Go, Bianca!" Percy yelled. My heart stopped. She was inside the monster?

Zoe looked horrified too. "She is inside?" The monster staggered around and I realised we were still in danger. Thalia and Percy grabbed Grover and ran with him towards the highway. Zoe and I were already ahead of them. She yelled, "How will Bianca get out?" The giant hit itself in the head again and dropped his sword. A shudder ran through his body and he staggered towards the power lines.

"Look out!" Percy yelled, but it was too late. the giant's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. I hoped the inside was insulated. I had no idea what was going on in there. The giant careened back into the junkyard, and his right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG! His left arm came loose, too. he was falling apart at the joints. Talos began to run.

"Wait!" Zoe yelled. We ran after him, but there was no way we could keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in our way. The giant crumbled from the top down: his head, pieces of his chest, and finally his torso and legs collapsed. When we reached the wreckage we searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name. We crawled around in the vast hollow chest pieces and the legs and the torso. We searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck. Zoe sat down and wept. I finally let the tears I had been holding back fall down my cheeks and sat next to Zoe. Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.

"We can keep searching," Percy said. "It's light now. We'll find her."

"No we won't," Grover said miserably. "It happened just as it was supposed to."

"What are you talking about?" Percy asked.

He looked up at Percy with big watery eyes. "The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain." Why hadn't I seen it? Here we were in the desert. And Bianca di Angelo was gone.