'I reckon we have another minute before the hydra is close enough to spray us with acid,' I said. We could see the hydra in the distance, the path we had taken was nicely straight and flat so that we could see our impending doom. 'Does anyone have a plan?'
'You're the daughter of Athena,' Percy pointed out, 'aren't plans what you're good at?'
I rolled my eyes. 'You're monster hunters, so have you ever fought a hydra before?'
'Well yes,' Frank said, fiddling with something in his pocket, 'but last time it was all twelve of us against one hydra, and we had cannons.'
I took the strategic decision not to ask about the cannons.
'Leo,' asked Percy, 'can you call Festus?'
'Who's Festus?' I asked.
'Festus is my massive bronze dragon automaton.' Leo replied. 'And no, I can't call him because you told me that Festus was too obvious and we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves so I couldn't bring him along on this mission.'
'Actually I'm pretty sure that was Jason.'
'Look,' Hazel warned, 'now is not the time.'
She was right, the hydra was getting much closer and we still had no plan.
'What powers do you have?' I asked.
'You mean other than my good looks?' I rolled my eyes at Leo. 'I'm a fire user, I can summon and control it. I also can't get burned.'
'Does that include being burnt by acid?'
'Honestly, I'm not planning of finding out, but I doubt it.'
'Okay, Percy?'
'Other than being an amazing sword fighter I can control water,' he replied. 'Although there isn't any around here.'
'Don't you ever carry extra water with you, if it is so useful?'
The strange look he gave me made me sorry I asked. I could see where Leo and Percy's powers came from, Leo being a son of Hephaestus, God of fire, and Percy being the son of the sea god, but Frank and Hazel's powers surprised me. Other than being brave and strong fighters, children of Ares normally didn't have powers, but Frank could apparently shape-shift into any living creature. Hazel could control precious gems and metals, had flawless accuracy underground, collapse and change the course of tunnels and alter reality by controlling the mist, a veil which can alter what people see. Thalia could do it to a certain extent, but the way Hazel was talking suggested her power over the mist was at least ten times stronger than Thalia's. A plan began to form in my mind.
By the time I finished explaining the plan the hydra was almost on top of us, clearly not realising that it was within acid spitting distance yet. The others agreed, except for Leo who looked unconvinced. 'I'm not sure I can do that much fire. It makes me really tired.'
I remembered Nico after he had finished summoning the skeletons. The last thing we wanted was an unconscious Leo half way through our fight.
'I think I can help,' Frank said.
'How?' I asked, but we were running out of time. Percy and Hazel had already run off to start their part of the plan, and the hydra was closing in fast, a few more seconds and we would be hydra meat.
'Just trust me, now scatter!' It was easy for Frank to say, he turned into a crow and flew into the air, out of the hydra's reach as four of its heads closed down on us.
I stabbed my dagger into one of the heads, not killing it, but I definitely gave it a headache. I jumped over the head and rolled out of the way. I didn't see if Leo was alright; I couldn't spot him when I turned around, but thanks to Hazel's mist magic that meant nothing. I just had to hope he was alright. I ran back into the sea of hydra heads, stabbing and slashing with my dagger whenever one came close. My job was to distract the hydra heads, and it was definitely working, but I couldn't keep going like this. I had to keep moving to stay ahead of the acid and teeth, and I was already getting tired. I just had to hope everyone else would begin their part of the plan soon.
Hazel showed herself first. She appeared on Arion, right next to one of the heads, sliced through it and vanished as soon as she had appeared. A fireball came flying towards the stump of the head and burnt it, before the head could multiply and regrow. The plan was and edited version on how Hercules had beaten the hydra in the old stories: I cause a distraction to stop the hydra rampaging, Hazel or Percy slice a head off and then Frank or Leo burn it to stop the stump regrowing into two new heads. For a while it seemed to be working. Hazel had used the mist so that everyone except me were invisible until they were close enough to attack, and then disappear straight after. Fireballs appeared randomly courtesy of Leo, and occasionally a grey dragon flew in, blowing fire on the stump. When I first saw the dragon I assumed it was another enemy to fight and got nervous, until I realised it had to be Frank. We were making progress, but there was still five heads left when it all began to go wrong.
Perhaps the Hydra got lucky, or perhaps it was never fooled by the mist to begin with. Whatever the cause however, when Hazel moved to take another head, the hydra noticed her and swung at her. Arion's agility and speed avoided the acid blast that would have been fatal from that range, but the head bit at her, sending here flying off her horse and crumpled on the ground, blood leaking out of her wounds.
The mist Hazel was controlling collapsed, leaving everyone visible, and I saw she wasn't the only one who was having problems. Leo wasn't wrong when he said that fire tired him out, he was kneeling on the ground, exhausted; his normal energy and almost infectious smile gone. Percy still seemed to be fine, he stood in front of Leo protectively, his sword held tightly and his bright green eyes furious. Sometimes, when Thalia got really angry, the air around her would crackle and spark with electricity, and every muscle in your body would scream 'run'. Looking at Percy was like that; it was enough that a few of the heads backed off, he kept the rest at bay with a few well aimed jabs with his sword.
Frank the dragon had picked Hazel up, and was now flying up and away from the fighting. Hopefully if she had some ambrosia and nectar she would be fine, but I didn't have time to worry. Instead I started thinking. We had been using the strategy Hercules used, and sure, it worked, but we had lost our ability to create fire and maybe there was a better way... I came up with an idea so crazy it might just work. A couple of heads had come towards me, and I had to act. One of the heads came forward to bite at me, and as it did so I jumped. Somehow I managed to get onto the head, my dagger stabbing it sort of unintentionally. The head reared up in pain, and as it did so I slid down its long neck, using my dagger as a sort of brake or stabiliser. It wasn't pretty and it was undeniably stupid, but I was out of options. Leaving a long cut down the neck of the hydra, my dagger embedded to the hilt, I landed on its large back. I didn't know much about the anatomy of a hydra, in fact I knew nothing. But, making my best guess, I picked a point and plunged the dagger in.
The effect was instantaneous. The whole monster went rigid, and starting at the hilt of my dagger tiny cracks spread out. In less than a second the entire hydra was a pile of dust, and I was crouching right in the centre.
Percy raised an eyebrow when he saw me. 'That was... different,' he said.
I shrugged. 'I killed it.'
'I wasn't criticising.'
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of ambrosia. Breaking off a piece, he fed it to the barely conscious Leo. I couldn't help but notice how this Percy; kind, friendly, caring, was so different from the terrifying one I saw when he was fighting the hydra. It was like they were two separate people. Leo yawned and woke up, the ambrosia working it's way through his system, giving him back his usual energy.
'The hydra's dead,' he noted, sitting up.
'Yeah, Annabeth killed it,' Percy agreed.
'Cool, how?' He asked, looking at me.
I shrugged. 'The "cutting the heads off and burning the stumps" plan wasn't really working, so I came up with a new one. I got on it's back and stabbed where I assumed the heart was. It clearly worked.'
'Aw man, could you have thought of that before I collapsed from exhaustion? Where's Hazel and Frank anyways?' He asked looking around.
'Hazel got injured and Frank flew her away from the fight,' Percy explained and a crow landed on the ground in front of them, a crow that turned into the aforementioned teenager. 'How's Hazel?'
Frank scowled. 'She's alright now she has had some ambrosia,' he explained in a tone that showed she was clearly not alright. From what I could tell Frank was hugely protective of Hazel, and was not happy she had been hurt. 'But,' he continued, 'the fight against the dracaenas over there is not going well. I came to get you to help.'
So, here it is, chapter 8. I was planning on publishing more today, and I'm sorry I didn't, but I decided that I wasn't happy with how I had previously written this, so have spent some time pretty much rewriting this entire chapter. I think it is much better now.
So I don't want to ruin anything, but in the next chapter I definitely have some evil plans, Muahahaha.
-Salty, out
