How It All Goes Down
Leo
- Leo is scared, but he enters the building anyway.
- He hears Piper's voice calling him to come out, but he senses something is wrong.
- And sure enough he sees that it's a Cyclops imitating Piper.
- A group of Cyclopes have Piper and Jason hanging upside down in chains over a fire pit.
- There are three (count 'em, three) evil Cyclopes, each ten feet tall and ready to rumble. (Did you know that Cyclopes is the plural of Cyclops? Shmoop just found that out.)
- A Cyclops takes off Piper's gag because he wants to hear her scream, but Piper is savvier than that and pulls herself together.
- Then she tries to charmspeak them into letting her go.
- Torque and Sump (the two hench-Cyclopes) almost fall for it, but the chief Cyclops, Ma Gasket, isn't having any of it.
- Meanwhile, Leo has found an abandoned crane and is working on hard-wiring it and linking it to a remote control box.
- Ma Gasket sends Torque off to get salsa, and Leo works on wiring another robotic arm.
- Piper sees Leo and gasps, but then recovers and tries distracting the Cyclopes by flattering them.
- They tell her that they're the best Cyclopes of all; other tribes help the gods or tend sheep. They had been making weapons for the Titan war, but it ended too fast, and they had to lay people off.
- Torque starts showing her weapons, but Ma Gasket interrupts and tells him to kill Jason.
- Leo needs a few more minutes to finish. The wires spark on him, and then Torque sees him and throws a truck his way. Yes—a truck.
- Leo gets out of the way and Torque runs at him. Leo manages to get the robot arm to grab Torque and throw him into the air, though. Torque breaks into dust.
- Sump comes back and Leo whacks him with the second robot arm.
- Ma Gasket manages to break one metal arm, but the second arms gets her. She keeps coming anyway, though. Guess that's why she's in charge.
- Leo tells Ma Gasket that he'll destroy her with fire, but she says Cyclopes are immune to fire. Then she throws kerosene at him and lights him on fire.
- He's a fire guy, though, so it does nothing.
- Then he blasts a chain above her with super-heat, causing an engine block to drop on her. She is not engine-block-proof, so that is it for her.
- Leo apologizes to Piper for not telling her about the fire, and she's all good grief, you saved our lives, you dope.
- Then they realize the Cyclopes are reforming, possibly because Tartarus isn't holding monsters after death anymore. Or maybe because they're in a videogame. Or just because the author is screwing with them. Whatever the reason, they grab Jason and get out.