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Madalyne looked at Niah and gave her a nod as soon as they got to the junkyard, she got off of the bike and closed her eyes a little bit as she started to focus on the Mist again. She decided to create a Drakon seeing it materialize into the air, and flew over the junkyard and the cyclopes that were outside started to freak out, and started to yell, throwing some junk at the illusion. The Mist illusion wasn't really the best but it was good enough for the Cyclopes in the yard to get distracted looking at Niah and Nancy.

"So should we kill them, the mist illusion isn't my best it's going to disappear rather quickly." Madalyne said, she didn't mind fighting them but the sooner that they could get whatever stuff that they had the better and then they could continue to make their way over to their final goal to Mount Rushmore.

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Nancy looked at the word Niah had written helplessly. It looked more like it said Bleyemma and she had no idea what sort of monster that could be. Of the Roman demigods, she had one of the more severe cases of dyslexia. The letters just flipped and jumped around - and math, that was practically impossible for her, as she had dyscalculia as well. She could deal with Roman numerals a bit better than the standard Arabic numbers, but she still came away with a headache at the end of it all. "Eight? Two for both of you and four for me, then," Nancy asserted smugly. There was a bit of a crazed look in her eyes, a maniacal sort of excitement as taking on more than a handful of cyclopses.

Suddenly, there was a gigantic drakon that swooped in out of nowhere and Nancy's heart started pounding, until she realized it was a Mist Illusion Madalyne did. "Fuck, that's gnarly," she said, shaking her head slightly. The drakon wasn't going to last very long, so to her the best strategy was to go and kill the monsters. It'd be better they did that than wait for the monsters to find them and attack them. "Let's kill these assholes."

Nancy cleared her throat as she walked forward, channeling the spirit of her idol - Joan Jett.



Each time she sustained a note, every time she punched the chorus, another one of the cyclops died. Their heads exploded like pressurized pumpkins, monster guts spraying everywhere before the cyclopses crumbled into sand. By the time Nancy came to the ending note, four of them had fallen, leaving just another four - two for Madalyne and two for Niah as she said before. Nancy twirled her twin imperial gold daggers, looking at the cyclops with a challenge clearly written across her face.

"Who's next?"

"Guess that's my cue." Niah said. She drew her invisible sword and focused her Odikinesis trying to demoralize the Cyclops', she hoped with the drakon, and four of their buddies head's exploding they would be already heading that direction. It didn't look like it worked all that well, but at least it wasn't like the werewolves who had got angrier, though that might have just been cause they were werewolves.

She swung her sword and missed as the Cyclops noticed her coming. Dangit. It blocked her attack and swung to hit her, but she was able to dodge it. She thrust her sword and connected, but its hide was too thick, and she nearly bounced off of it, doing no significant damage. "You've got to be kidding me. Tae."

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Madalyne smiled as she heard Nancy starting to sing she watched as four of the cyclops heads exploded shortly after and then bursting into dust rather quickly as well. She nodded towards her friend as she drew out her imperial gold sword and charged forward, aiming at the closest Cyclops that was there and managed to hit it and burst into dust as well. She noticed that Niah was having some trouble as well and went forward and killed the second one giving Niah a nod.

"You are welcome." Madalyne said giving Niah a playful smile as she looked at the remaining two cyclops that were there eyeing the three demigods. Neither of them seemed to be really scared either after what had just happened to their friend and then Madalyne watched the Drakon illusion that she made quickly disappeared.

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"What's Tae mean?" Nancy asked Niah, assuming it was yet another piece of slang from the 21st century that made no sense at all. It sounded like tea to her and while she was vaguely aware that there was some expression to do with tea, her gut told her this wasn't it. At least from context, Nancy was willing to bet that tae was some sort of swear word - like, oh tae, I overslept! Her aggressively hyper active brain needed to refocus though. Niah and Madalyne had taken down two cyclopses. There were two left and Nancy twirled her imperial gold daggers, before erupting into a little bit of a frenzy.

She darted forward and slit the throat of the first cyclops in a clean sweep, monster dust spraying into the air after she finished the kill. Her eyes darted towards the one that was left alive and it was like every fiber of Nancy's body had awakened with a sense of purpose and serenity. She charged forward and brought up both daggers, criss crossing them over the monster's throat before pulling the daggers down, slicing the cyclops open. "Aww, is that all you pansies got?" Nancy pouted, kicking at some of the monster dust with her feet. "I was starting to have fun here!"

"It is Tagalog, means shit." Niah shrugged. She looked around as the dust settled. "Way to make a girl feel useless." She grinned at the pair of them. "There aren't any others hiding inside, right?" She asked. Then lowered her sword, but kept it in her hand. She slipped into the junkyard building. Niah glanced around and sighed, relieved.

"Looks clear." She could never be certain, but she was willing to say it was clear enough to enter. "What do you think we should grab? Sell stuff to a pawn shop?" She half asked, half suggested. "If we find anything of worth."

Inside she headed to the register, but her attention landed on a set of armor. "Oh." She paused and stared at the armor, she thought for a moment and then double-checked. "I think this was the armor of Scipio Africanus."

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"I didn't think you could swear at all Niah." Madalyne said jokingly as she followed shortly behind Niah into the building of the junkyard, and started to look through the registers, there wasn't really anything of interest in there. She however did find a nice looking box and opened it seeing a lot of jewelry that was in there. "Well I guess I found something useful." Madalyne said as she pulled out a fancy looking necklace, as Niah found an armor stand tilting her head slightly.

Seeing a Pegasus on the armor and all the feathers on the headpiece it did look really pretty. "Well that looks like a really nice set of armor there." Madalyne said looking over at Niah and Nancy. "Anyone want to try it on or something?" She asked, though it could be cursed as well for all she knew as well.

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"Gnarly. I'm going to remember that," Nancy told Niah with a grin. She was fairly certain Niah was the only one at Camp Jupiter who spoke Tagalog, meaning she could swear around people now without anyone else knowing. Of course, it wasn't like Nancy was the type to hold herself back from dropping an F bomb even in the company of the praetors. She wondered if the gods understood Tagalog - maybe she could use the word to cuss out her father without having to worry about a flaming plague arrow coming down from the sky. "I say we grab anything valuable, sell it to a pawn shop, and then hire a cab with the money to take us the rest of the way there."

"Scipio Africanus? Man, that dude was so rad. Basically the best military commander of all time. He obliterated Hannibal. I bet his armor has some sweet tricks to it," Nancy gushed. She wasn't going to try it on though, it was Niah's find so she could decide what to do with it. Nancy glanced around the cyclops den and she found another jewelry box, opening it up and seeing the valuable gems inside. "It's a shame we can't just ship it back to Camp. Imagine the free coffee coupons we could probs get from the Legion for that thing..."

Niah wasn't excited about putting on the armor. Well, she was. She wanted to wear it, but she was nervous that it might be cursed. Niah put it on, Roman armor hadn't changed much in the centuries since Scipio Africanus. Once she finished she started floating into the air. "Oh no!" She shouted. Niah tried to figure out if there was a way to control it, but she couldn't figure it out.

"Help." She squeaked out at them. It was a good thing she wasn't afraid of heights. "I don't know how to control this thing. I didn't want to put it on because I was worried it might be cursed and here I am floating uncontrollably in the air." She hoped one of them would grab her leg and pull her down, or somehow knew the commands for it.

Niah thought about it, if this had any word commands or anything she had never heard of them, but she suspected it was like any other demi-god ability. That meant she might be able to control it like the mist. She took a deep breath and lowered herself to the ground. "I did it!" She said joyfully. "It is sort of like controlling the mist." She explained. "I wonder, both of you hold onto my arms. If I can fly with both of you holding onto me maybe we can just fly to Mount Rushmore." She did worry they might get lost, but at it was an option.

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Madalyne turned her attention towards Niah as she watched her friend starting to suddenly float in the air, and she couldn't help but giggle slightly, it reminded her something out of Peter Pan seeing her friend hitting the ceiling. She walked over towards her, when she was about to grab onto her leg and pull her down but Niah managed to float back down on her own. "I guess we don't have to tie a string onto you or something to keep you from floating away again." Madalyne said with a slight laugh as she looked over at Nancy seeing that she found some more fancy looking jewelry which was really good.

"We'll certainly have a lot of money then if we sell all of that off to a pawnshop." Maddie said and looked at Niah suggesting that flying and her carrying them all the way to Mount Rushmore, though that wasn't a bad idea. "That'd be a good idea, but I think we are a ways off for that still though carrying over 200 pounds wouldn't be to fun."

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Nancy's eyes widened with horror and delight as Niah started floating away - she let out a sigh of relief when Niah managed to lower herself to the ground. She wasn't beyond jumping up to try and grab onto her friend. She bit her lip slightly, thinking on Niah's idea that they could all just float on up to Mount Rushmore. Niah carrying them all in her arms would be exhausting like Madalyne had said. It was too bad they hadn't found a floating vehicle like her father's Sun Chariot or something. That would've been nice. A flying ride all the way to the mountain that they could even take on back to Camp Jupiter.

"Okay, wait, hold the phone, I think I've got an idea!" Nancy exclaimed. She then looked around the room wildly, searching around until she spotted a box. She looked inside and found a small inflatable raft. "You said controlling that was like controlling the Mist... So I was wondering... What if we took a page out of Up? Mads can use her magic voodoo stuff on the armor and we could tie the armor to the raft. I bet if you just have one piece on you could control all of it, we all chill in the raft, and take our grody hot air balloon up to the mountain."

Niah took off the armor. She wasn't totally comfortable wearing it, mostly cause it had made her fly uncontrollably for a moment there. She felt better knowing both her feet were staying on the ground for now. She did grin at Mads joke about tying a string to her. "Might have you do that still." She said and started looking around for a bag or something that she could carry the armor in for now. She found one and stuffed the armor in, following the proper procedure of course.

"Okay, we need a pawnshop now." She looked behind the counter and found a phone book. Niah opened it up and searched for pawnshops. There were a few listed. Niah ripped out the page from the phonebook and put it in her pocket. "We're gonna want a ton of rope. Trying to make that secure is going to be rough. You're also going to have to control the mist to keep us from being noticed. I think we should do some low to the ground test flights before taking off to Rushmore."

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"Would you like the string tied around your ankle or wrist Niah?" Madalyne asked Niah jokingly as she watched Nancy starting to look for something, and managed to find an inflatable raft still in it's box. She started to look around for something and instantly found an electric air pump and smiled a little bit as she pulled it out of some junk looking over at Nancy. The plan was a little bit crazy and weird in her opinion but it also did sound pretty fun as well. "I like the weird and crazy Up idea actually." Madalyne said as she looked around for some rope, sadly she didn't find any at all.

She was able to find a power outlet as well and plugged the air pump, then took the inflatable raft from Nancy and turned it on as well as hooking up the raft as it started to fill up with air. "So, I cant find any rope though we can do a flight test or something before we leave if you guys want."

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Nancy didn't want to have to go to a pawn shop if they didn't have to. She had a stubborn belief that everything they'd need to make Up happen could be found here in the Junk Yard - and that was almost entirely out of laziness. She didn't want to have to go across town, buy all of the rope in sight, and then come on back here to finish constructing the craft. The sooner they got the rope, the sooner they could get onto the next phase of the adventure - the fun stuff like slaying monsters, not the boring stuff of trying to engineer a ride. "I can find some rope, my dad's probably the God of Finding Things too - he really needs to pick something and stick with it."

She started scavenging through all of the junk, briefly wondering if one day some demigod might be picking through her stuff and looking for something. Nancy hoped she didn't end up as an old lady. She didn't really like the idea of growing old - she wanted to go out heroically in combat - the more people who cried at her funeral, the better. She wanted to have the tragic death of a hero. "Found some rope!"

Niah shook her head grinning at the idea of a string being attached to either her wrist or ankle. She didn't think it sounded like a good idea either way, maybe her waist if it came down to it. She didn't want a limb ripped off. While the raft was being blown up Niah put on part of the armor, just the armbands, and set to see if she could control the whole set of armor.

At first, nothing happened. Not even her arms felt like they were going to lift off. Niah frowned. She wasn't certain if she just was failing at the task or if it was an impossible one. She cleared her mind and let herself focus on just getting lift-off. This time she got an unstable upward movement. At least she wasn't shooting up into the sky, practicing this inside was a good idea. That meant there was at least an upper limit to how high she could end up.

Her third try was much more successful. She was able to get altitude and control. That meant it was viable for her to attach most of the armor to the raft and not have herself be in the armor. That was a relief.

When she had finished that she started messing with the rope and the now blown up raft. Since it had to seat all three of them she wanted to make sure it would be stable and wouldn't just dump them if someone shifted wrong. That seemed easier to her than trying to get the armor to fly. In the end, Niah felt confident about the raft and armor set up.

"I'm amazed. This might actually work. I think we should tie the armor to the edges of the raft rather than bundle it all together. That'll keep it flat, instead of pulling up to one spot. I hope. I don't know if anyone has done anything like this before so I can't say for certain if this will even work."

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Madalyne watched as Niah started to make a mini little flight test of the armor and smiled slightly that this weird little plan could actually really work. "I cant believe this weird little idea will actually work." Madalyne said giving a smile as she started to look around and managed to find a manual pump as well, the electric one would have been nice to bring around but that one needed to be plugged into a power source of some kind. She also managed to find several rolls of tape just in case that there was some kind of hole that would destroy their raft.

"Just in case there is any kind of holes or leaks that could happen." She said as she made her way over and took the bits of armor and started to tie it around the raft so that way they could have something stable to sit on. Her tying job wasn't the best at all but Madalyne figured that it was going to be good enough. "I'm not sure if my knot tying is the best, but if you guys want to check and be sure that it's nice and secured to would be nice." Madalyne then started to slowly drag their weird little armor raft air balloon outside.

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Nancy took a bow as Niah exclaimed that the idea could actually work. "I'm a genius, a champion of Minerva in the making," she bragged. "All the gods look at me and go how very!" She wasn't exactly a humble person - nor a subtle one. She was incredibly excited that her idea was a viable one. She helped Madalyne to move their Up!Mobile outside, hoping that the winds would be favorable. She wondered if they would attract any sort of flying monsters - and that was a bit thrilling, more exciting than terrifying. She loved fighting and killing monsters. It was a great outlet for aggression.

Once outside, Nancy went about inspecting Madalyne's knots. She wasn't the best at knot work herself, but she gave the ropes an experimental tug and found that the knots were loose. Nancy untied them and then did her best to retie them tightly, giving them a good tug to make sure that they weren't about to come loose and send them all falling out from the sky. "There, should be good to go, if you wouldn't mind giving the knots a third check, Niah?"

Niah laughed at Nancy's antics. She knew Nancy wasn't humble, but her actions were just so over the top it could only be funny. Niah nodded and followed behind Nancy triple checking the knots. She felt like they were as sturdy as they were going to get them. "Okay, get in." She said and climbed into the boat herself. Niah sat down in the raft. Her heart was thumping.

Once Nancy and Mads had both climbed into the boat and comfortable Niah took a deep breath. She focused on the armor and getting lift, for a moment it was wobbly. Niah winced. She slowed her breathing down a bit more and relaxed emptying her mind. The raft stabilized. "Okay, where to? Straight to Mount Rushmore? Or land on a Macdonalds or something?" She asked as the after lifted more into the air. "Also Mads, up to you to keep us unseen from mortal eyes."

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Madalyne climbed into the little makeshift floating raft as she looked over at Nancy and smirked a little bit seeing her little antics made her smile. "I guess you are also a daughter of Minerva to." Madalyne said jokingly, since there was never a daughter of her at least with the Romans it was entertaining thought though. She knew that the Greeks had children of Athena running around a lot as well, she got herself comfortable and looked at Niah for a moment. "The mist kind of already is all around us and acts naturally so to mortals it should just make us look like a regular hot air balloon or something." She said.

Madalyne looked around and then pointed towards the South West. "Mount Rushmore should be in that direction." Madalyne said towards Niah since she was the one controlling everything. She looked down at everything below and thought about it they could get some food or keep going she looked at the two of them. "Totally up to you guys if you want to stop and get some food, or just head straight there, the sooner the better though."

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"Nah, let's go straight on there - not that I doubt my genius or you guys' skills, but I don't wanna push our luck that we can get this thing up in the air again on short notice." Something always had to go wrong while off on a quest after all. She had this horrifying - and admittedly amusing - image of them falling from the sky and impaling themselves on the Golden Arches if they tried to make a stop for fast food. Maybe they could hit up one on the way back and she could get a Happy Meal Toy. It'd be a fun sarcastic entry to the relics of Camp Jupiter collected from ages of demigods.

"We can always get food afterwards. Or wait! It's a tourist trap, right? There's probably some sort of food court nearby for all the sweaty white families who roll on through for the photo op." She was a little bit disappointed she hadn't brought her camera. It would have been fun to stage some ironic photos at Mount Rushmore. She would have definitely wanted one of her flipping off the Founding Fathers. It would have become one of her treasured possessions.