Chapter 53 - Kurayami The Looter.

Kurayami waited and Percy exited the limo. Percy looked down and Ares frowned when he saw him. Ares grabbed him and pushed him away from the limo. Kurayami shook his head as Ares was dating one of the most unloyal women ever.

"You're lucky, punk. Be grateful I haven't mounted your head on my wall." Percy got pissed as Ares was shit to him.

"Why do you hate me so much? What have I ever done to you to get you to hate me so much?" Ares lowered his sunglasses and looked right into Percy's eyes.

"You are a child of the prophecy killing you will be safer. However, I got a situation. Word on Olympus is that you might start the biggest war in history. I can't risk messing that up.. Besides, Aphrodite thinks you're some kinda soap opera star or something. I kill you, that makes me look bad with her. Until then… Get lost."

He snapped his fingers and the world did a three-sixty, spinning in a cloud of red dust. Percy fell to the ground while Kurayami just sighed as Ares could be a real dick. When Percy stood up again, the limousine was gone. The road, the taco restaurant, the whole town of Gila Claw was gone. The rest of the group was standing in the mountains of scrap metal stretched out in every direction.

"What did she want with you?" Bianca asked Percy. Percy explained what Aphrodite told him. "Oh, uh, not sure, 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." Kurayami sighed as explained what she told him.

"She wanted me to save Artemis and a few other flirtatious things." Zoe and Bianca sighed as it was just like Aphrodite the succubus. At least succubuses were tamable. Kurayami spoke honestly. "Honestly, she is dangerous. I fear her more than I fear Great Red as she has such a way with words."

Thalia nodded. "For once I agree with Zoe, and you are right Kurayami. You can't trust Aphrodite." Grover was looking at Percy funny. Being empathic and all, he could usually read people's emotions and Percy got the feeling he knew exactly what Aphrodite had talked to him about. "So, how do we get out of here? Do we ride on Tyrant over it or do we track over it? Also, where are we anyway?"

"That way," Zoe said. "That is west." Kurayami looked up and saw the constellation of Ursa Major meaning North. Then she was correct. Percy looked around confused. "How can you tell?" In the light of the full moon, Percy was surprised at how well they 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, which was hard to make out because there were so many other stars. He nodded. "Oh, yeah, 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.

Kuraaymi spoke up. "Let's go through it. Tyrant needs a little time to rest." Tyrant was confused as he was in no way tired but when he saw the treasure he squinted his big eyes and didn't make a sound and just followed Kurayami.

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

"It is," Thalia said grimly. "As 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 ax. "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!" Kurayami took off his ring secretly and looked at Castiel. He flicked it toward the tiger and Castiel caught it and put it on his tail. 'Take as much stuff as you can without being seen, Castiel' The tiger spread his wings and flew off. The group looked up and were surprised. Zoe asked. "Where is he going?" Kurayami gave an excuse.

"He said he felt someone was following us and he went to check it out. He may be wrong, but let's not pick anything up." He said that with a straight face as Castiel stole weapons and other things for raw material. They will make great weapons for Grigori.

"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. Little did she know Kurayami used a few shadows to steal it as well when they passed by. Tyrant being the dragon he used his tail to take a few jewels and other shinies.

"I don't like this place," Thalia said. She gripped the shaft of her spear as if she expected terminators to rise out of this and siege them.

"You think we're going to get attacked by killer refrigerators?" Percy asked while laughing. She gave him a hard look as it was possible.

"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 muttered, but Thalia ignored him. 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. Kurayami was having a field day and would come clean if nothing went wrong.

They wanted to ignore the items here but there was too much cool stuff not to check out some of it. They found an electric guitar shaped like Apollo's lyre that was so sweet Percy had to pick it up. Grover found a broken tree made out of metal. It had been chopped to pieces, but some of the branches still had golden birds in them, and they whirred around when Grover picked them up, trying to flap their wings.

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 them 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 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."

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 it. It's just toes."

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 looked at everyone. "Around."

No one argued. The toes were starting to freak them out, too. Who sculpts ten-foot-tall metal toes and sticks them in a junkyard? 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 said. "Thank the gods." But apparently, the gods didn't want to be thanked. At that moment, they heard a sound like a thousand trash compactors crushing metal.

They whirled around. Behind them, the scrap mountain was boiling, rising up. The ten toes tilted over, and they realized why they were toes. They were toes. The thing that rose up from the metal was a bronze giant in full Greek battle armor.

It 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 armored 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. Kurayami's pet's all cringed as they all had better hearing and even Kurayami swore to turn it into mince. The blade was as big as Tyrant was tall. It looked rusty and dull. It did not matter as getting hit with that thing would be like getting hit with a battleship.

"Someone took something," Zoe said. "Who took something?" She stared accusingly at Percy. Kurayami looked away and coughed and raised his hand. They were shocked as they didn't think he would take things. Bianca also looked guilty but it seems she was not the only one.

Thalia grabbed Kurayami and shook him. "WHAT DID YOU TAKE!?" Kurayami pointed at Castiel and the tiger showed his tail and had his special ring. Tyrant spit out what he took and Zoe's facepalmed. "Thee sent him away to steal? We are doomed."

"Run!" Grover yelped. Great advice, except that it was hopeless. At a leisurely stroll, this thing could outdistance them easily. They split up, and Annebth just got on her pet lion with Thalia, Grover, and Percy. Zoe was fast on her own and didn't get on it.

The giant swung his sword and took out a row of power lines, which exploded in sparks and scattered across the lion's path. The thing with metallic skin and fur, it is really weak against lightning, so it froze and went around.

Zoe's arrows whistled toward the creature's face but shattered harmlessly against the metal. Grover brayed like a baby goat and went held on for dear life. Kurayami sighed and walked toward the giant and decided to fix the issue. "I caused this, I will fix it.'

He took a deep breath and the giant looked right at him. The entire area was assaulted by a dark aura as darkness roared off Kurayamis's body. When Annabeth heard that chant she stopped and looked back. "He is going to use it. I love it when he does it."

They all looked at her smiling face and looked back to Kurayami. When they heard that chant they all froze except for Annabeth. She looked right at him as she looked up to him. She wanted to be as strong as him.

"I cheer at the slaying of one thousand humans. I revel in the slaying of ten thousand goblins. My name, immersed in the deepest darkness, I am the Imitation of God in the Polar Night. You who perishes by my own black blade, Fools you are. oh, deformed blade. Night Celestial Slash Dogs. Balance Breaker." A dense black aura covered both Shin and Kurayami.

The entire area went dark and blades, scythes, axes, and halberds left the ground. The sky crackled with purple, white, and black lighting and the same happened with fire on the ground. Three kinds of flames and Rebellion appeared in his hand. Percy was stuck in awe watching Kurayam who now looked like a werewolf and he suddenly vanished.

The sound barrier boomed and they watched as Talos was cut into thousands of pieces. The entire giant fell to earth in scrap and Kurayami was back in his original spot. He stood up and howled to the moon and he undid his balance breaker. He took a deep breath and smiled.

"That was easy. Now that is taken care off-take what you want. I will see if it is cursed and what can be used or not." They all just gawked at him frozen in shock and he snapped his fingers and they snapped out of it. Thalia looked at him and was shocked. Annabeth was the only one not shocked as she had tried to fight him once.

She could barely keep standing when she asked him to use his balance breaker and seeing it again made her want to get the same. She looked at Blazer Shining which had gone through huge upgrades and at her pet. 'Maybe I can have Azazel make me a new artificial sacred gear?' She mused.

"What, was, that?" Kurayami explained balance breakers and how they work. They just about passed out knowing they are 13 and possibly more on that level and that he was dating 2 people with ones at his level. Kurayami looked at Bianca and asked. "I took a lot of stuff, but what did you take?"

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." Kurayami took it from her hand and looked at it. He gave it back and sighed as she was just 14 and he was being quite the ass. "Here, give it to him yourself." She took the figurine in her hands and looked down. She grabbed his sleeve and started to cry.

"Even if you took stuff it does not change the fact that if you were not here one of us would have died. Over a dumb game, I put us all at risk as I don't have your power. What if we died to Talos?" Kurayami couldn't really get mad at her for it. He took hundreds of items and she took only one thing.

"I am selfish. I am a Fallen Angel and we are evil beings. We do what we want, so who cares. Still, you are going to need to apologize to Nico when we get back to camp." He walked away and suddenly a hairpin hit her on the head. She caught it and saw it was the bow she wanted.

He looked back and smirked. "Keep it. It is not cursed, but it can't shoot for shit. It is defective like most things here." He walked away and she frowned and knocked an arrow and shot it. The arrow fell straight down. Percy tried the electric guitar and it just fell apart. They all frowned as this was a junkyard.

Grover was fine with it as he could just eat yummy stuff. They all got on Tyrant and the dragon flew off with a new necklace and jewels on his claws. They all looked at Tyrant who had quite a bit of bling and Percy looked over. "Why did Tyrant get that?"

Kurayami smiled. "Dragons love shiny stuff and treasure. That place was like a gold mine for a young dragon-like Tyrant." Annabeth looked at Tyrant who did not look young. "How old is Tyrant?" Kurayami smiled and explained. "He is 12 years old. He is just a baby." They all looked at Tyrant who was huge and looked strong and did not believe it.

Tyrant kept flying until they reached the Hoover Dam. When Annabeth saw it her eyes shined like she saw a treasure. Tyrant landed away and he shrunk to the size of a big dog. Hopefully, the mist will make him look like a big dog or Kurayami would have to wipe peoples minds again.