"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked, once Sylvia had told them about Aphrodite. Percy hadn't spoken at all, and still had that strange expression. He was also still avoiding eye contact with Sylvia, which was very much unlike him.

Do not trust her, Fawkes warned Sylvia. All she does is stir up trouble.

"I dunno what she talked to Percy about, and I, quite frankly, do not care," Sylvia said, not exactly truthfully, "but she told me my makeup was, and I quote, 'not suited for a daring and adventurous quest,' so she did it for me."

"Sounds like her. Plus, you look great." Thalia smirked at Percy for some reason. "But what did she say to you?"

"Y-you really do look amazing," Lux said, too quiet for anyone but Sylvia to hear.

What did she actually tell you? Fawkes asked.

So you don't know everything? I am shocked.

Fawkes rolled her eyes. Whatever.

I'll tell you later, Sylvia promised.

"Uh..." Percy glanced at Sylvia for a moment, then looked away. "Just...to be careful in her husband's junkyard. We can't pick anything up, because he's...a hoarder? I think she said that, anyways."

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

"I agree with Zoe, for once." Thalia nodded. "You cannot trust Aphrodite."

Grover was looking at Percy funny.

I wonder if those two are in love, Sylvia mused. Aphrodite would probably love that enough to talk to Percy about it, right? 

Sure. Fawkes didn't sound very convincing.

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

"That way," Sylvia said, pointing. "West."

"How can you tell?" Percy spoke to Sylvia for the first time in quite a while.

"The sun set that way a while ago," she reminded him. 

"How do you remember that?" 

"My father is literally the god of the sun. If I didn't keep that type of thing in the back of my mind, I'd be embarrassed."

Lux nodded in agreement.

"That makes no sense." Percy crossed his arms. "You just know where the sun is all the time, then?"

"Yeah. I mean, you always know where water is, don't you?"

Percy looked as though he was thinking about that. "I guess..."

"Ares was right. You do have fish for brains," Sylvia noted.

"Guys," Grover broke in. "Look!"

They'd reached the crest of a junk mountain. Piles of metal objects glinted in the moonlight: broken heads of bronze horses, tons of weapons, metal legs and arms from human statues, and some more modern stuff, like gleaming gold-and-silver cars, refrigerators, and computer monitors.

"Whoa," Lux breathed. Sylvia agreed.

"That stuff...some of it looks like real gold." Bianca was looking around with wide eyes.

"It is," Thalia said grimly.

Sylvia nodded. "Like Aphrodite said, don't touch anything. This is the junkyard of the gods."

"Junk?" Grover, to Sylvia's dismay, 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!"

Is he insane? Fawkes asked.

Sylvia glared at him until he put it down, spitting out the metal. "I'm serious, Grover."

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"Look!" Bianca cried. 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...whatever the name is."

"Riptide." Sylvia nodded.

Percy turned to look at her. "How do you know that?"

"You brag about it enough that I'd remember."

Percy huffed and turned away from her.

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

"But--"

"It's here for a reason," Sylvia interjected. "Anything in here must stay in here. Any junk, that is. They're all probably cursed."

Bianca reluctantly set the clip down.

"I don't like this p-place," Lux said, a hand in their pocket, where their knife must've been.

When did Lux get a pocket? Sylvia wondered. I distinctly remember Lux hiding the knife in their shoe.

Good question. 

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

Sylvia gave him a hard look.

"Sylvia's right, Percy." Thalia said. "Things get thrown away here for a reason. Now come on, let's get across the yard."

Percy muttered something that the blonde didn't quite catch, luckily for him.

They traversed through the hills of junk, Sylvia almost yelling at Percy and Grover whenever they tried to pick something up. 

Finally, they saw the edge of the junkyard about half a mile ahead of them, the lights of a highway stretching through the desert. But between the group and the road...

"What is that?" Bianca gasped.

Ahead of them was a hill much bigger and longer than the others. It was like a metal mesa, the length of five basketball courts and as tall as the Big House. 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.

Lux gagged.

Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes."

"Thanks for the description." Sylvia was pretty sure her face had turned a pale green colour. She exchanged a nervous look with Zoe and Thalia.

"Let us go around," Zoe said.

"Far around," Thalia agreed.

"But the road is right over there," Percy protested. "It'd be much quicker to climb over."

This stupid son of a--

Sylvia heard a ping.

Thalia hefted her spear, Zoe drew her bow, and Sylvia grabbed two throwing knives, only for them to realize it was just Grover. He'd thrown a piece of scrap metal at the toes and hit one, making a deep echo, as if the column were hollow.

"Now, why in the actual hell would you think that was a good idea?" Sylvia demanded, turning furiously to the satyr.

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

"Not a good answer," Sylvia warned. "Come on."

After several minutes of walking around the toes, they finally steeped onto the highway, an abandoned but well-lit stretch of black asphalt.

"We made it out," Zoe said. "Thank the gods."

The gods didn't like being thanked, apparently. Sylvia heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal.

She whirled around, pushing the people closest to her--Lux and Percy--behind her. 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 up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armour. It was impossibly tall--a skyscraper with legs and arms. It gleamed wickedly in the moonlight. It looked down at them, and its face was deformed. The left side was partially melted off. Its 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, still behind Sylvia.

Fawkes leaped off Sylvia's shoulder and flew up, wings ablaze.

"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 being called defective.

It moved one hand to its sword belt and drew its weapon. The sound of it coming out of its sheath was horrible and 100% damaged Sylvia's sensitive ears. The blade was easily 50 metres long. It looked rusty and dull, but Sylvia figured that didn't matter. Getting hit with it would be like getting struck by a tree.

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

Sylvia turned to Percy.

Percy raised his hands up, as if she were holding a gun to him or something. "I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a thief."

Bianca didn't say anything. She just looked at the ground.

The giant defective Talos took one step toward them, closing half the distance and making the ground shake. It paid no attention to Fawkes, who was circling around its head and pecking it and really trying her best to distract the machine.

"Run!" Grover yelped.

That'll never work, Sylvia thought. We could be running 90kph and it'd still catch up with us within three steps.

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

Zoe'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 scraps.

Percy and Bianca hid behind another hill, while Lux and Sylvia stayed put.

Which of my arrows would affect it more...

"Sylveon?" Lux whispered in French. 

"Yeah?"

"I-I'm scared." 

Sylvia's heart twisted. "Me too. I swear to our father you and I will both get out alive, though."

She straightened up. "Which arrow should I use? The sonic one might have some effect, but an argument could also be made for the fire one..."

"I don't think we have t-time to figure that out," Lux reminded her, aiming their crossbow.

"You're right."

Sylvia grabbed two of each kind of arrow she had (sonic, fire, normal, and flare) and shot below Talos's foot. It stepped directly on all of them, causing a mini-explosion, but it only blew a single pinkie toe off.

"Sylvia!" Grover shouted. "I need your help!"

Sylvia immediately sprinted to him, Lux right behind her. They scaled up the metal mountain with relative ease. "What is it?"

"I need you to do your daughter of Apollo thing and just sing along to the song I'm about to play!"

Before Sylvia could ask any more questions, he raised his lips to his pipes and started to play.

Sylvia closed her eyes, concentrating on the melody. She'd never heard it before, but it was pretty easy to catch on to. It felt like the music was coursing through her, travelling through different places until it reached her mouth. She screwed her eyes even tighter and began to sing the same tune, though quickly switching to harmonizing. Her voice didn't even crack, which was surprising, as she hadn't had water in over three hours. 

She opened her eyes again. Over at the highway, the downed power lines were dancing. A few of the poles with power lines still attached flew toward Talos's back leg and wrapped around his calf. The lines sparked and sent jolts of electricity up the giant's backside.

Talos slowly turned, creaking and sparking. Sylvia and Grover had bought everyone else a few moments. It advanced toward the three, stabbing its sword into the hill. Sylvia had to jump over it, though she ended up landing on it.

This is definitely anime-like shit, she thought, realizing what had happened. 

Talos seemed to realize what was on its sword the same second she did, though. It wildly shook the weapon around, and Sylvia shrieked as she was thrown into the air. She could faintly hear the sounds of Grover, Percy, and Lux screaming as they watched her rise high, high, into the air, then fall.

All the air rushed from Sylvia's body. She didn't know what do to. Her friends and family needed her, and here she was, 300 metres above the ground and rapidly falling.

I DON'T WANNA DIE I DON'T WANNA DIE I DON'T WANNA DIE I DO--

Sylvia was cut off as Fawkes caught her in her talons, cutting her arm--and basically shredding her shirt--badly in the process, but Sylvia didn't care. 

I'd never let you die, Fawkes told her as they half-flew, half-fell down.

Thank you so much. Sylvia really could not express her gratitude, especially as she hit the ground and rolled to absorb the shock. Fawkes was already flying back up toward Talos.

Sylvia tried to figure out what had happened in the moments she'd been in the air. Grover and Lux were nowhere to be seen, but that was the least of her concerns, as Bianca was charging at the monster's left foot.

Thalia had its attention for the moment, so it didn't see the huntress.

Zoe yelled, "What are you doing?"

"Get it to raise its foot!" Bianca shouted back.

Sylvia went to reach for her bow, only to realize it wasn't there.

I dropped it mid-air, Sylvia realized, horrified. My quiver, too.

She could only watch as Percy ran up to its big toe and stabbed it with Riptide. The magic blade cut a gash in the bronze.

Sylvia sucked in a breath as Talos looked down at Percy and raised its foot to squash him like a bug.

Thankfully, Percy had some sense left in him, as he turned and ran. The foot came down about five centimetres behind him, and he was knocked into the air. He hit something hard and sat up with unfocused eyes. He'd been thrown into a refrigerator.

The monster was about to finish him off, but Sylvia screamed at it, and it turned. She grabbed a knife and threw it at Talos. It merely bounced off, but it was enough to get the machine to take a step toward Sylvia, then raise its foot to turn her into a pancake. She knew she wouldn't be able to run away in time.

"SYLVIA!" Percy and Thalia ran toward her, but they'd be too late.

Talos lowered its foot to crush the daughter of Apollo. She grabbed another knife and angled it upwards, deciding she may as well do something before death. A bit of blood from when Fawkes caught her ran down her arm.

Funny how you notice the strangest things before you die, she thought.

Then the monster froze. Sylvia stared at it for a moment, before her senses returned and she got the hell away from it. A glowing Lux crawled out of a garbage pile nearby and rushed to her.

Talos cocked its head to one side.It started moving its arms and legs in a weird way, doing some strange dance. Then it made a fist and punched itself in the face.

"Go, Bianca!" Percy yelled, him and Thalia now beside Sylvia and Lux.

Sylvia gasped. "She's inside?"

The giant staggered around, and Percy seemed to realize they were still in danger. He grabbed Sylvia's wrist and dragged her away from the junk and toward the highway. Lux followed, Thalia dragging Grover out of a different pile before following. Zoe was already ahead of them. She yelled, "How will Bianca get out?"

Talos hit itself in the head again and dropped its sword. A shudder ran through its whole body as it staggered toward the power lines.

"Look out!" Sylvia yelled, but it was too late.

The monster's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up its body. Sylvia hoped the inside was insulated. She had no idea what was going on in there. The giant careened back into the junkyard, and its right hand fell off, landing in the scrap metal with a horrible CLANG! that had both Sylvia and Lux flinching.

Its left arms came loose, too. It was falling apart at the joints.

Talos began to run.

"Wait!" Zoe yelled. They ran after it, but there was no way they could keep up. Pieces of machine kept falling off, getting in their way. Sylvia managed to cut herself on multiple, slowing her and Percy down.

The giant crumbled from the top down: its head, its chest, and finally, its legs collapsed. When they reached the wreckage they searched frantically, yelling Bianca's name. They crawled around in the hollow pieces and the legs and the head. They searched until the sun started to rise, but no luck.

Zoe sat down and wept, Lux doing the same.

Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.

"We can keep searching," Percy said. He was still holding Sylvia's wrist, as she'd almost fallen over multiple other metal scraps and impaled her leg on one piece. He was 'keeping her from injuring herself,' apparently. "It's light now. We'll find her."

"No, we won't." Sylvia's voice was quiet. "It happened just as it was supposed to."

"What are you talking about?" Percy asked.

She looked up at him with watery eyes. "The prophecy. One shall be lost in the land without rain."

Why couldn't it have been me? Sylvia demanded. I almost died. 

Don't say that, Fawkes ordered. 

"What's on your arm? And leg?" Percy asked, noticing how bad her injuries were for the first time."

"Just a bit of blood..." Sylvia blinked, feeling faint. "It really isn't too painful or major." 

She collapsed.

Word count: 2.7k 

Unedited :D

I had a fun time writing this

Also, I'm keeping up with the daily updates for now, so I'm proud of that

QOTD: Who's your godly parent? (I may have asked this before. I rlly can't remember)

A: I've gotten so many on the official test, but I've gotten Poseidon 6 times and Athena 5 times, so Poseidon wins slightly. My most recent was either Aphrodite or Apollo, though, so irdk

Anygays, I need sleep. 

Love y'all!

Cya later<333

~Aspen