Chapter 4: All Aboard

"Why would you want to know?" I replied coolly, I felt the cool blade touch my throat.

"Look who has the sword, All-Candles," He said.

Damn Dralkan…

"Wait a minute…" He muttered, "Weren't there two girls with you?"

Erida was missing, and Nikki, seemed to be thinking on how to get me out of this mess… Hopefully…

"Where is she?" He asked, lowering his sword, as he looked around.

Now's my chance! Elbowing him in the gut, I dropped to the ground and moved away from him. He stumbled backwards, disoriented, and wondering what was going on.

"Wha?" He muttered, stumbling backwards, one arm clenching his gut momentarily, before shaking his head.

From behind, Erida tackled him, and started draining energy from him.

"All-Candles… I'll have my… Revenge on you soon…" He muttered weakly before falling unconscious for the second time today.

"By the way, it's Alkandros, not All-Candles," I said.

I let out a long sigh, hopefully there wasn't going to be any more trouble... But, as a precaution I held one hand over Dralkan, and ice slowly formed over him, binding him to the ground. Hopefully until we get to Canada.

"Right, now let's go before anything else happens," I told everyone, heading north.

"Yeah," Nikki replied, rolling her eyes, maybe she highly doubted what I said, but I didn't care.

Tree after tree passed us, the forest was completely silent, save for the leaves and twigs cracking under our feet. Looking up, all I saw was the darkness of the night.

"Why don't we make camp for the night?" I suggested.

"Well then, someone would have to keep watch," Nikki replied, "Monsters aren't going to wait for us to wake up, and then attack."

"I'll take the first watch," I volunteered. I just didn't want to be surprised by Dralkan if he appeared. Although, it's just a "what if," it can't hurt right?

Erida shrugged, and held out her hand as if wanting something.

"What?" I asked.

Nikki shrugged as she pulled out a sleeping bag from her bag, which Erida then pointed at, I stared blankly for a while, before she starting to take out a piece of paper and pen.

"Wait a minute!" I said, before she wrote anything, "The tent and stuff! I have it!"

She rolled her eyes at my obvious statement as I pulled off the bag and started to pull the extremely crumpled sleeping bag out. Not my fault that it was partially wrecked like this.

"There," I muttered, handing to her, and she had quickly snatched it from my hands.

They both unrolled them fairly quickly and went to sleep.

Flexing my fingers, I started walking around, looking to see if there was anything coming at us. After a while I sat down sighing. There was nothing coming, and from that I opened the bag to see how everything was. The bottle of nectar seemed to be crushed a bit, but the godly drink is still safe inside it, while the ambrosia squares were all crushed and crumbly. Oh well, at least they still work… I think. From the chips and granola bars I took, the granola bars seemed crushed like the ambrosia squares, while I didn't really see what was wrong with the chips, after shaking them a bit, it was just as I expected. They too were crushed, and from the sound, into a lot of tiny bits. Just wonderful.

Well it could be worse, I thought, we could have no food, at least we have some, albeit crushed. Sitting on an outlying boulder, I looked around. It was hard to see anything past the trees, but the moonlight was shedding enough light for me to see around me. My eyes then wandered and landed on Erida.

You know, when she's sleeping peacefully like this, she's not that menacing… She looks pretty…. Wait a minute! What am I thinking! I… I'm her enemy! I can't think of her like that. I'm her foe! I have a score to settle with her! Yeah!

"Yeah," I muttered to myself, trying to reassure and convince myself, but I still didn't sound convinced.

I heard a rustle from the nearby bushes. A hellhound maybe? It can't be anything too big… But I can't be too careless, I thought as I prepared to blast it with winter wind. Suddenly a large golden lion jumped out. The Nemean lion. This was not what I expected.

"You've got to be kidding me," I muttered, before shouting, "WAKE UP! The Nemean lion's here!"

They stumbled awake as it let out a loud roar, its golden fur moving with its body.

"What is… Whoa!" Erida muttered, before suddenly surprised by the appearance of the large cat/lion monster, before grabbing her dagger.

Nikki woke up startled, but grabbed her weapon and was ready to attack.

I blasted a gust of cold wind at the Nemean , who shivered slightly, before roaring loudly. Great, my attacks might not work against it. In response, it pounced at me, but I rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding it. Nikki's whip lashed at the beast's side, but it simply bounced off it, doing no visible harm.

"Di imortales!" She cursed.

Erida jumped on it, throwing away her dagger, just as I started to freeze its body. It was becoming harder for me to keep my eyes open, this is taxing my body. The lion was frozen to the ground, unable to move, as it roared, and as Erida sucked its energy clean. The problem was that Erida's own limbs were frozen to the lion's body.

She shot a deadly glare, in on which I tried to give an apologetic look, but I was just too tired. I might as well get this over with, I thought, grabbing Erida's dagger, and destroying the ice around her limbs, freeing them, before I was just about to stab it in the mouth.

"STOP!" a girl's voice yelled.

"Huh?" I tiredly muttered, looking to see what was happening, before a stream of water collided into me, slamming me into a tree with a loud thud.

I groaned in pain, and at our predicament. Has to be a camper… Maybe a child of Poseidon or something… My vision became blurry, as I saw a Japanese, well I think she was Japanese, girl standing protectively around the frozen lion, as if warning us not to kill it. I guess she had a point, she would then be a child of the Big Three, and we're just three children of three minor gods…

"Ughh…" I half-groaned, half-muttered, as my eyelids began to close on my eyes.

She was shouting something, I couldn't hear, and whatever it was, it was pretty shocking judging from Nikki's and Erida's blurry faces. With that, I began my long descent into unconsciousness, but just before, there was a ridiculously annoying voice that I heard, although it was fuzzy and I couldn't make out the words, just the voice.

"Not him again," I muttered, as my body slumped to the side, and fell, my vision becoming nothing but darkness. I hated being knocked unconscious, especially again.

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