All Caps - Madvillain

"WHAT WOULD APHRODITE want with Y/N?" Bianca half-whispered, glancing at Zoe.

"Only he would know." Zoe said, her face grim. Y/n walked back to the group, his face a stone statue. He sat in front of the fire, next to Thalia and Percy. Nobody said anything for a full minute. Finally, Percy broke the silence, as usual.

"So... you talked to Aphrodite?" Percy began. Y/N glanced at him, then looked back at the fire.

"Yep."

"What did she say?"

"Not sure," Y/N said. "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, Y/N. Aphrodite has led many heroes astray."

"For once I agree with Zoe," Thalia said. "You can't trust Aphrodite." Y/N nodded, still staring at the fire. It seemed to have gone a weird red colour, and was flickering a lot faster now.

"So," Y/N said, "how do we get out of here?"

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

"How can you tell?" Percy said.

Even in the light of the full moon, Percy could see her roll her eyes at him. "Ursa Major is in the north," she said, "which means that must be west." She pointed west, then at the northern constellation.

"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."

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

They had 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 Y/N 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 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 gave him a hard look. "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," He muttered, but Thalia ignored him.

Y/N still seemed to be deep in thought and lagged behind the rest of them. They started picking their way through the hills and valleys of junk. The stuff seemed to go on forever, and if it hadn't been for Ursa Major, they would've gotten lost. All the hills pretty much looked the same.

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

"What is that?" Bianca gasped.

Ahead of 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," Y/N offered.

Bianca nodded. "Really, really large toes."

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 drew her bow, but then they realized it was only Grover.

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. "Around."

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

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

But apparently the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal. Behind them, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over. The thing that rose up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle Armor. 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!" 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 a hundred feet long, easy. It looked rusty and dull, but that didn't matter. Getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a truck.

"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."

Bianca didn't say anything. Y/N noticed she looked guilty, but he didn't have much time to think about it, because the giant defective Talos took one step toward them, 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 them easily.

They split up, the same way they had 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.

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 metal. Percy ran behind him, hoping to confuse the giant.

Bianca and Y/N ended up next to each other, hiding behind a broken chariot.

"You took something," Y/N raised an eyebrow. "That bow."

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

"Give it back!" Y/N said. "Throw it down!"

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

"What did you take?"

Before she could answer, there was a massive creaking noise, and a shadow blotted out the sky.

"Move!" They tore down the hill as the giant's foot smashed a crater in the ground where they had been hiding.

"Hey, Talos!" Grover yelled, but the monster raised his sword, looking down at Bianca and Y/N.

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.

"Come on!" Y/N yelled at 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."

"How can you think of Mythomagic at a time like this?" Y/N said.

There were tears in her eyes.

"Throw it down," Y/N yelled. "Maybe the giant will leave us alone."

She dropped it reluctantly, but nothing happened.

The giant kept coming after Grover. It stabbed its sword into a junk hill, missing Grover by a few feet, but scrap metal made an avalanche over him.

"No!" Thalia yelled. She pointed her spear, and a blue arc of lightning shot out, hitting the monster in his rusty knee, which buckled. The giant collapsed, but immediately started to rise again.

He raised his foot to stomp and Y/N saw that his sole was treaded like the bottom of a sneaker. There was a hole in his heel, like a large manhole, and there were red words painted around it: MAINTENANCE ONLY.

"Crazy-idea time," Y/N muttered.

Bianca looked at him nervously. "Anything."

"There's a maintenance hatch." He said. "There may be a way to control the thing. Switches or something. I'm going to get inside."

"How? You'll have to stand under its foot! You'll be crushed"

"Distract it," Y/N yelled. "I'll just have to time it right."

Bianca's jaw tightened. "No. I'll go."

"You can't. You're new at this! You'll die."

"It's my fault the monster came after us," she said. "It's my responsibility. Here." She picked up the little god statue and pressed it into my hand. "If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him... tell him I'm sorry."

"Bianca, no!"

But she wasn't waiting. She charged at the monster's left foot. Percy had its attention for the moment. He'd learned 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.

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 shot an arrow toward the monster's face and it 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 Riptide. The magic blade cut a gash in the bronze. Unfortunately, his plan worked. Talos looked down at him and raised his foot to squash Percy like a bug. He had to turn and run. The foot came down about two inches behind and Percy was knocked into the air.

The monster was about to finish him off, but Y/N ran up behind the monster, quickly morphing Aithon into a bronze battle axe. He slammed in directly into where the giants heel was. But the giant didn't even flinch. It turned on Y/N, rasing its massive sword.

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!" Y/N yelled.

Zoe looked horrified. "She is inside?"

The monster staggered around, and only then did Y/N realize they were still in danger. Thalia, Percy, Y/N and Grover ran toward the highway. Zoe was 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 whole body and he staggered toward the power lines.

"No!" Thalia screamed. The giant's ankle snared the lines, and blue flickers of electricity shot up his body. 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. They ran after him, but there was no way to keep up. Pieces of the robot kept falling off, getting in the way.

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

Zoe sat down and wept. Thalia yelled in rage and impaled her sword in the giant's smashed face.

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

"No we won't," Y/N said miserably. His own eyes damp with tears. "It happened just as it was supposed to. Why wasn't it me?" He groaned.

"What are you talking about?" Percy demanded.

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

There they were in the desert. And Bianca di Angelo was gone. In the land without rain.