the great war ✷ valdez

❦ 𝒙𝒊𝒊. 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒓𝒆𝒕'𝒔 𝒐𝒖𝒕

˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚ 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐫 ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚
𝒂𝒎𝒐𝒓𝒂 𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒆𝒓𝒔 𝒙 𝒍𝒆𝒐 𝒗𝒂𝒍𝒅𝒆𝒛
𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗹𝘃𝗲┃🔥🕊️

𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐄𝐘𝐄𝐒 fluttered open, the first thing Amora saw was machinery. She was upside down, chains wrapped around her body all the way up to her neck.

Amora groaned, blinking and trying to stop her head from pounding. She was sure she had a knot on her head and hoped it wasn't too serious.

To her right, Piper was flailing around, trying to free herself. Her mouth was gagged, but thankfully, she was alive. To her left, Jason hung limply, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. A red welt the size of an apple had swollen over his left eyebrow.

"Leo, help me!"

Amora's eyes widened at the voice. It sounded exactly like hers, except it wasn't. She knew she didn't say anything.

Then the voice called out again, but this time less certain: "Leo?"

Hanging directly above the assembly line, suspended by a chain from a crane on the opposite side, was a massive truck engine—just dangling thirty feet up, as if it had been left there when the factory was abandoned.

Then one of the forklift shapes rose. "Told you it was nothing," the thing rumbled. Its voice was too deep and feral to be human.

One of the other forklift-sized lumps shifted, and called out in Piper's voice: "Leo, help me! Help—" Then the voice changed, becoming a masculine snarl. "Bah, there's nobody out there. No demigod could be that quiet, eh?"

The first monster chuckled. "Probably ran away, if he knows what's good for him. Or the girl was lying about a fourth demigod. Let's get cooking."

Snap. A bright orange light sizzled to life—an emergency flare—and Amora was temporarily blinded. If only she stayed with Leo...she wouldn't have ended up in this stupid situation.

On the conveyor belt, beneath Amora, a bed of the unfinished pickup truck was being used as a fire pit. The emergency flare had ignited a mixture of tires and wood, which, from the smell of it, had been doused in kerosene. A big metal pole was suspended over the flames—a spit, Amora realized, which meant this was a cooking fire.

And this is how I die... Amora thought. So much for growing up to be like my dad. Can't even save my friends.

Three massive humanoids gathered around the fire. Two were standing, stoking the flames. The largest one crouched down. The two facing the large one were each ten feet tall, with hairy muscular bodies and skin that glowed red in the firelight.

One of the monsters wore a chain mail loincloth that looked really uncomfortable. The other wore a ragged fuzzy toga made of fiberglass insulation. Other than that, the two monsters could've been twins. Each had a brutish face with a single eye in the center of his forehead. The cooks were Cyclopes.

Amora could feel herself quaking. She had seen some weird things so far—storm spirits and winged gods and a metal dragon that liked Tabasco sauce. But this was different. These were actual, flesh-and-blood, ten-foot-tall living monsters who wanted to eat her and her friends for dinner.

Amora squirmed. "Hey, uh, Mr. Cyclops sir...um, is that the right term? Cyclopses? Cyclopes? I don't know, but—"

One of the Cyclops growled, making Amora close her mouth quickly. She didn't want to get her friends in any more danger than they were already in, but there had to be something she could do to help.

From beside her, Piper kept flailing around. The Cyclops in the chain mail loincloth walked over to Piper, who squirmed and tried to head-butt him in the eye. "Can I take her gag off now? I like it when they scream."

The question was directed at the third Cyclops, apparently the leader. The crouching figure grunted, and Loincloth ripped the gag off Piper's mouth.

She didn't scream. She took a shaky breath like she was trying to keep herself calm. She looked to Amora, who just nodded in understanding.

The Cyclops in the toga poked at the fire, which was now blazing away and billowing noxious black smoke toward the ceiling. His buddy Loincloth glowered at Piper, waiting for her to do something entertaining. "Scream, girl! I like funny screaming!"

When Piper finally spoke, her tone was calm and reasonable, like she was correcting a naughty puppy. "Oh, Mr. Cyclops, you don't want to kill us. It would be much better if you let us go."

Amora nodded, agreeing. "Oh, yes," she said, putting as much magic into her voice as she could. "My friend and I were just talking about how handsome you both were. It would be such a shame for you to kill us."

Loincloth scratched his ugly head. He turned to his friend in the fiberglass toga. "They're kind of pretty, Torque. Maybe I should let them go."

Torque, the dude in the toga, growled. "I want the blonde one! I saw her first, Sump. I'll let her go!"

Sump and Torque started to argue, but the third Cyclops rose and shouted, "Fools!"

The third Cyclops was a female. She was several feet taller than Torque or Sump, and even beefier. She wore a tent of chain mail muumuu. Her greasy black hair was matted in pigtails, woven with copper wires and metal washers. Her nose and mouth were thick and smashed together, like she spent her free time ramming her face into walls; but her single red eye glittered with evil intelligence.

The woman Cyclops stalked over to Sump and pushed him aside, knocking him over the conveyor belt. Torque backed up quickly.

"The girls are Venus spawns," the lady Cyclops snarled. "They're using charmspeak on you."

Amora froze, her body tensing. Piper glanced at her, her brows furrowed, confused as to what the woman Cyclops was saying.

But she shook her head and started to say, "Please, ma'am—"

"Rarr!" The lady Cyclops grabbed Piper around the waist. "Don't try your pretty talk on me, girl! I'm Ma Gasket! I've eaten heroes tougher than you for lunch!"

Amora feared Piper would get crushed, but Ma Gasket just dropped her and let her dangle from her chain. Then she started yelling at Sump about how stupid he was.