Hey guys, I just moved into my new room . . . . When was the last time I wrote? Anyway, sorry about this late update, I just can't sit still these days. Ah, well, what can I say? That school is dramatic?
The four stared up at the enormous temple. It seemed smaller from camp, but in truth it must have been ten stories high and at least twice that in length. The energy coursing from it made Jack uneasy.
He had never felt such strong magical power before. It seemed to be in and around everything, including him. It wasn't evil, it was . . . ancient and, if anything, it gave him a hopeful feeling. As if everything would be okay in the end.
But that uneasy sensation was still in the back of his mind . . . .
Jack shook his head and stared up at the two huge bronze doors. It was then he saw the words engraved on them.
Enter, stranger, but take regard
That through these doors is a guard
There will be no owner for this prize
And those who enter will meet their demise
So if you seek behind these doors
For something that was never yours
Thief, you have been warned, and are aware
Of finding more than a treasure there
"Cheerful." Kristoff muttered. Anna shrugged.
"Too late to turn back now . . . several years too late." She said, climbing the stairs. The others followed, their footsteps make soft thuds on the marble.
As Anna reached the top of the staircase, the doors swung open, silently.
Jack's grip on his staff tightened, and he tensed. But nothing happened. No movement came from the doors or behind them and all he could hear was the rustling of the wind through the towering trees.
"That's creepy." Anna finally stated, after several minutes had passed in quiet. Elsa nodded in agreement.
It wasn't long until the others had gotten to the top, and they walked into the temple. There was nothing suspicious inside.
No claw marks, bones . . . nothing. But the interior . . .
A high vaulted ceiling rose high into the air, while huge marble columns stood on opposite sides of the walls. They led up to a stand in the center of the room. But a few things quickly hit him as odd.
The first thing Kristoff noticed, was the heat. It hit him dead on, moist, sticky, and dense. The second was the power.
It came from the center of the temple, where a small, geometrical, rock pedestal stood. Moss grew on the top along with several small flowers, but it was the stone that took his breath away.
It sat gleaming in the dimness, colors swirling inside it. It was smaller than he thought it would have been, maybe the size of the average pebble. But what it lacked in size, it made up in magic.
All four of them ran to the stand, and they encircled it quickly.
A wave of energy crashed into him, giving Kristoff new energy and strength. He took a step forward. He was suddenly full hope. It was strong and it filled him up.
Anna reached out her hand to pick up the necklace, then hesitated. "It's too easy." She whispered, looking up from the necklace.
Jack and Elsa glanced at each other. She was right.
This was far too easy.
Anna stared at the talisman for several moments, gathering her courage and the hope emitting from the object. She took a deep breath, reached out, and gently picked it up.
The moment the talisman touched her, the light flashed wildly. Colors danced off the walls and brilliant rays lit up the temple, filling it with bright beams. Kristoff felt great for about two seconds.
Then everything went wrong.
The ancient bronze doors slammed shut, and a mechanical click made Kristoff realize they had locked. Locked? There were no locks on those doors.
Then again magic was weird like that.
Then they heard it.
A slow hiss coming in from in front of the door. The clicking of long talons on marble. A sniff from a creature.
Elsa looked around wildly, her heart pounding. She didn't see anything. There was nothing alive in the temple besides her and the others. She focused her attention back on the doors.
Nothing. But she could definitely hear the thing in front of them, in front of her.
A blast of fire suddenly appeared out of thin air.
"Okay. That's bad." Jack said, taking a step back.
But her attention quickly went back to the area between the doors and them. The air rippled. Elsa blinked, thinking she had imagined it. Then it rippled again, and a monster came into sight.
It can turn invisible. The stupid reptile can turn invisible. Was the first thought that went through Jack's head. He quickly decided he liked it better when it was invisible.
The scales on its body looked slimy and were a dark yellow. The tail was long and had a barbed end, and the talons at the end of each foot were razor sharp. Then there were the heads. All nine of them.
Each was terrifying. A spiky frill came out of each head, like an ugly crown. Fanged mouths held forked tongues, each flicking in and out every few seconds. Their eyes were a dull green, and full of fury. The head in the middle seemed slightly different.
Its eyes were a fiery orange, and it opened its mouth as if it was about to-
Jack jumped to the side as a blast of fire shot by him. His staff clattered across the floor, stopping near one of the columns. He ran towards it and grabbed the wooden staff just as the hydra let out another blast of fire. Jack ducked behind the column to avoid it.
Elsa was behind the column on his right, while Kristoff was on the left. Anna stood behind the last column, holding the stone to her chest, her breathing heavy.
The hydra's heads could barely fit between the columns, but if they could, their fanged mouths snapped at the teens as the fifth head breathed fire among them.
"Look out!" Kristoff yelled, ducking one of the large heads. The hydra's middle head spewed its fire above Kristoff, scorching Anna's arm.
She cried out, quickly patting out the fire that had hit her. Anna barely noticed it when the necklace flew out of her hand from her desperation of smothering the flames.
The stone sailed through the air, hitting the ground and sliding several feet. It stopped right behind the pedestal.
Jack barely had time to register this before a blast of fire nearly cooked him.
He jumped to avoid it, and ended up landing next to Elsa. He slammed his staff onto one of the creature's snouts. The head quickly retreated, clearly not appreciating being hit with a wooden stick. But it wasn't long until it started its battle with him again.
The head snapped at Jack, nearly biting his arm. Elsa wasn't faring much better, and Kristoff could barely keep the three heads fighting him at bay.
"Anna! Do something!" Elsa yelled, ducking a head. It didn't stop, knowing it would hit the boy.
Jack raised his arm with the staff, as if to protect himself, though he knew it wouldn't help.
Just before the hydra's head hit him, the staff glowed a brilliant blue and shifted into another shape. The shape of a shield.
The head hit the shield and exploded at contact. The temperature of the ice-shield was that cold.
Jack blanched.
How did that happen?! He thought. Did the staff just turn into a shield? Did that head explode? Well, of course it exploded, it's gone now. I should probably start fighting so I won't die. Not dying sounds good.
His thoughts suddenly quickened from their slow pace, and he hit the other head attacking him, it exploded into tiny ice shards. The heads . . . .
"What!?" Anna yelled. Jack blinked, realizing that Anna had finally responded to Elsa's question.
"Anything!" The girl next to him yelled back. Then a thought struck him.
"The heads, that's the weakness! Go for their heads!" Kristoff yelled, a head disintegrating at his feet, as he had chopped it off. Jack froze.
Heads. There was something in that book about cutting off the heads . . . The information had disappeared from his mind, leaving an empty hole that probably used to hold something important.
Whatever Jack was gonna say about the heads, he never got the chance. Because Anna decided to do something. He saw it in slow motion. Anna pointing her wand at the base of the monster's necks. A blast of power emitting from the crystal. Then wind. Jack had heard of winds so sharp, that they could literally cut you. Those stories paled to this.
It came in a single wave, fast, sharp, and deadly. And then they were gone. All of the heads, gone. With a single swoop of Anna's wand.
The creature's body went limp, then fell to the floor. Thud. The necks were a tangle of flesh, all in pile, the heads crumbling into a white sand, unlike that of monsters. The heads . . . . Jack knew something was wrong. Very wrong. But he couldn't remember what.
They slowly walked towards it. They stared at it for several seconds.
"Well, we killed it." Kristoff stated bluntly. He had a strange look on his face, as if he knew, too, something was off.
"Yeah, well . . . ." Anna responded, they all turned to get the necklace. Then it hit Jack. What he had forgotten.
"We didn't kill it. We only made it worse." He said his voice hoarse. Elsa froze and turned around to ask what he meant.
But no words came from her mouth. She stood, her eyes slowly filling with horror.
"Was it that, when you cut off a head, two more grow back?" She finally asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Jack whipped around.
Sure enough, there were heads growing back already. Two for each stump. It wasn't long that they had all grown back. All eighteen.
The middle ones opened their eyes first and fixed the four with a look that said, "You're so dead."
"Look out!" Kristoff yelled, ducking behind a column, as two blasts of fire entered the air.
"You seriously couldn't have remembered this before now?!" Elsa yelled at Jack. He glared at her, and ducked a head instead of hitting it with his shield, like he had before.
"I forgot about it before now!"
"You forgot!? How could you forget a single fact that we might've needed more than any other?" Anna shouted, her voice thick with anger.
"It doesn't matter! How do we kill it!?" Kristoff shouted, interrupting a comeback Jack was forming in his head.
"Don't know!" His friend yelled back. Jack ducked again, barely avoiding another hydra head. He quickly glanced at the necklace, hoping an idea would come to him. One did. Or at least part of one did.
"Alright, I've got a plan!" He shouted, hoping the others heard him over the roars and sounds of metal against talons.
Elsa glanced at him over her left shoulder before slashing out one hydra head's eye. The creature leapt back in pain, and she responded quickly.
"You've got a plan?!" She snapped at him. Jack gave her a glare. Sometimes it got annoying when she knew him so well.
"Fine, I have part of a plan! Kristoff create a diversion! Anna be the backup! Elsa help Kristoff distract the thing!" Jack's friends each gave him a glare before leaping into action.
Even though it was incredibly stupid, Kristoff found himself sprinting across the room, quickly grabbing the monster's attention. He ducked behind a column just as a burst of fire shot after him. Kristoff's idiotic idea gave Elsa enough time to gather her bearings and create a bow and several arrows. The teenager ran behind the columns until she was at the last one. Elsa took a deep breath, and stepped out of safety. She raised her bow.
Jack heard the hydra screech in pain, and saw one of the heads writhing in pain. There were arrows where its eyes once were.
He glanced behind him and saw Anna concentrating very hard, her eyes tightly closed. Jack didn't think about it for long, because he knew Kristoff and Elsa couldn't hold off the hydra forever.
Jack raced to where the talisman rested, and swiped it up in a quick, fluid motion. That's when it went all wrong.
"KRISTOFF!" Jack heard Elsa's scream, and whipped around.
Where his friend was once standing, a giant hole gaped from the marble wall, but the hole didn't show the dense forest. It showed open air. The temple was on top of a cliff. And Kristoff had fallen off of it.
Jack's stood in shock for exactly one second. Thoughts tumbling through his mind like a whirlwind. One grabbing his attention when another will grab him back. He can turn into a bird. But what if he was knocked out? How high is this cliff? What if he's already on his way up? What if he's dead?
Elsa couldn't move. She could barely breathe. He was just there. But now he was gone. Just. Like. That.
She should have seen it coming. She had been slow. It was her fault. Elsa stood there, the rushing of the blood in her ears, the only thing she could hear. At least, it was before Jack's voice cut through the air.
"Duck!" Jack shouted. He wanted to run to her, but his feet seemed frozen in place, luckily Elsa's weren't.
She jumped to the side, barely avoiding a head's mouth. She got lucky. Really lucky. Jack's luck however, seemed to enjoy deserting him. So did Elsa's. Slabs of marble had been raining down on the fight, and one had caught the girl on the side of her head. Elsa fell to the ground, dazed.
"Elsa!"
The hydra turned to him, attracted by his sudden yell. Its eyes glowing with anger and hatred. It reared back and Jack could see the fire beginning to grow in the thing's throats.
This was it. He was going to die.
Then hope shot through him. The talisman's power had broken through his grief and shock.
Hope that, Elsa was okay. Hope that, Kristoff was alive. Hope that, Anna could fight this thing and win. Hope of, finding the villagers. Hope of, defeating the darkness. Hope of, he would see his mother and Emma again. Hope that, this wouldn't be the end.
The ice cracked the floor, as it came out of the ground. Moving, twisting, and battling the hydra. It rose to the ceiling, slowly pushing the monster away from Jack. It almost seemed to be alive.
The hydra blasted fire at the wall. Jack stared at its terrifying beauty. The flames were twisted by the frozen water, which refused to melt. Shots of orange and red bounced off the blue ice, lighting up the building. Then Jack remembered his friend.
He ran out from behind the ice wall, and sprinted to Elsa, who was recovering from having been hit. A head wound poured blood from right above her ear. Jack quickly created a cloth of ice and pressed it against her wound. The blood soon stopped and Elsa rose out of her daze. She stood up, her thoughts slightly disordered.
"You okay?" He asked, taking her shoulders. Elsa nodded, but looked around confused and panicked.
Where was her little sister?
Then Elsa saw her. Anna was standing in front of the hydra, anger sketched all over her face. Jack's raging wall of ice, ignored by both monster and girl.
Elsa immediately tried to run to her, but Jack held her back. He didn't notice when the necklace slipped from his grasp, and slid across the floor to near the edge of the hole.
"No! Jack! Let me go! I have to get to her! I can't lose Anna too!" Elsa shouted, her voice desperate. Jack pulled her against him, trying not to pass out from the effort of holding her back and trying to get the storm to overtake the hydra.
Then time seemed to stop. At least it did for everybody, but two.
Anna stared up at the hydra. She wasn't changing time, but she knew who was.
The hydra glowered at her for a long time. It looked fearsome. It was cut in several places, and arrows stuck out of a few eyes. But the gaze it gave her now, frightened her so much more than any battle wound.
Silence stretched between them, thick and tense.
You are a trespasser. You will die for this.
The voice was raspy and dry, like a desert that hadn't gotten rain for eons. It appeared in her mind, like Kristoff's did when he was in animal form. Kristoff.
Where was he?
Anna looked around desperately, she saw Jack and Elsa. Jack was holding her sister back, with concentration etched on his face. Elsa was frantically trying to get to her little sister, pain in her eyes. It was strange to see them frozen in time. Unmoving. But Kristoff . . .
Then she saw the hole in the marble wall. It was as large as the hydra and led to empty air, a sheer cliff dropping hundreds of feet. Horror spiked through her like lightning.
A small cry escaped her lips. Tears threatened to run down her cheeks and silent sobs racked her body. The grief was overwhelming. He was gone.
You are a trespasser. The hydra hissed again.
Anna stared at it in absolute disgust and anger. It bubbled inside her, like hot lava, but her next words to it surprised her. Her voice was cold and calm.
"How's it trespassing if we were sent by your master?"
The hydra stiffened and snarled at her. Anna could see smoke from inside the two middle heads and a chill went through her as she noticed something else.
Its eyes had turned a dull black, with flecks of green throughout them. Except for the central two. Instead of the fiery orange, they were now blood red.
You are trespassing. I was told that no one can take the power. Even if you are the Chosen One of Hope, the man in black can twist the minds of mortals. Maybe you're not who you say you are. The talisman will stay here. It will never leave. And neither will you.
Time unfroze and Jack's ice wall collapsed. Elsa and Jack started moving, both dazed from being frozen in time. Anna, however, waited for the strike.
The hydra reared back, ready to blast fire at her. As it lurched forwards, Anna held her wand up in front of her. Praying that her plan would work.
She closed her eyes, when she could see the fire building in the throats of the central heads.
She waited for fire to engulf her, Elsa, and Jack, but the heat didn't come. Anna slowly opened her eyes and gasped.
The hydra was turning into stone. It started with the heads, then moved back. Soon there was no hydra, just a statue of a terrifying monster made of dull gray rock.
Anna gasped for breath. Her heart pounded against her chest. She wanted to cry with relief and scream at the same time. The monster was gone and so was Kristoff.
"Jack!"
Elsa's voice startled Anna, making her jump and whirl around. Jack was on the ground next to her sister, while Elsa knelt next to him, concerned.
"What happened?" Anna asked, jogging towards them. Elsa checked Jack's pulse, worry on her face.
"Jack, t-that wall he made. It must have drained him. He should be fine, he just needs sleep . . . Anna . . ." Elsa didn't continue, she just couldn't say Kristoff's name, so instead she asked a terrible question. "Where's the talisman?"
Anna looked around wildly, fear pounding inside her. The talisman wasn't anywhere to be seen. Her eyes landed on the hole in the wall and the floor around it.
A horrible feeling settled in her stomach.
"Elsa?"
"Yeah Anna?" Elsa glanced up from Jack, and stared at where Anna was looking. The same feeling filled her.
Anna walked over to the edge of the hole, her steps slow. She felt empty.
She stared out at the other side of the cliff, letting the wind blow the strands of her hair that had come loose from her braid blow around. That's when she heard the voice.
You don't have to continue this fruitless task. The moon has deserted you. He let the boy die. But you don't have to live like this anymore.
The voice was smooth and cool, like black silk.
The moon has burdened you. He gives you something, then tears it away. It doesn't have to be like that. You don't have to continue giving people false hope, being kind. Because there is no kindness. If there was kindness, the boy would still be with you. But is he?
Anna stared at the far end of the cliff. It seemed to be getting darker. Then she saw it.
It seemed to be in the figure of a man. She couldn't make out the details. But his voice echoed again.
Join me, and you don't have to live like this. Nothing would be taken from you. I could bring the boy back.
Anna stared at him for a long time, contemplating what he said. She looked back at her sister and Jack. Elsa was looking at Jack with a gentle expression on her face. Anna made up her mind.
True, she may never see Kristoff again, but there was a chance that he wasn't dead. It was small, but it was a chance. A small sliver of hope.
"No." She replied.
The darkness faded quietly. And for some reason that scared Anna like nothing ever had. She sighed and finally let the tears flow down her face.
The talisman was lost. Kristoff was gone. Jack was knocked out. Elsa had a wound on the side of her head . . .
Then she opened her eyes. She was still here. So was Elsa and Jack. The hydra was dead. Kristoff could be alive.
She smiled to herself.
It wasn't over.
I'm back, hopefully. Sorry about being gone for like . . . ever. Anyway, yeah . . . I made Kristoff fall off a cliff. I regret nothing. Quote: "Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart." José N. Harris. Bye, and a thanks for all of those who have waited for this update!
P.S. The inscription on the doors is based off of the inscription in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You know, the one on the doors at Gringotts.
P.P.S. The battle against the hydra is based on the hydra battle from the first Percy Jackson movie.
Buh-bye!