Sapphire XXI
Here's a little known fact: Continually fighting monsters for more than three hours straight is tiring. Sure some people get an insane battle high (cough Sapphire cough) but that doesn't mean that they don't get worn out. She wasn't wearing a watch, but Sapphire heard a clock somewhere chime noon at around the time she almost got speared by a retiarius dracanae who was thankfully near-sighted. All Sapphire had to do was knock the snake-woman's glasses off her face and stay close enough that she couldn't be properly seen. Then it was just a matter of doing a little neck chopping and ta da, Sapphire 50-something, Monsters 0.
Cleo was still shooting out spells as fast as a child of Apollo (who wasn't Will) could shoot arrows. She was taking care of all the hellhounds that were still showing up and the dracanae that threatened to stab Sapphire in the back. Thanks to her efforts the ground was littered with stuffed animals and snakeskin purses. The animals that she had turned some monsters into, squirrels, seagulls, pigeons and the like, had all run away as best they could. She managed all that without even breaking into a sweat.
Sapphire on the other hand could have created a new ocean with how much she was perspiring.
Most of the dragonlings were gone. They had chased away all the Egyptian demons, scratching at their eyes and spitting acid in their faces, but a lot of them had gotten damaged in the process. Sapphire had ordered them to go back to camp and the few that wouldn't were stuck high up on the Empire State Building as backup backup. Their air support was now coming in a drizzle of golden arrows that thinned out the army of monsters nicely.
Sapphire was not going to be eating when this was over because she was going to have to sacrifice her food to five gods. Actually, make that six gods; there was too much craziness going on for Zeus to actually ignore it. By now he had to be just pretending to ignore the army of monsters trying to get into Olympus and the suspicious lack of mortal interference.
One of the golden arrows which were certainly not Apollo's passed through the throat of a dracanae that was about to throw her spear at Cleo. The snake-woman crumbled to dust, which blew in the eyes of some of her comrades and allowed Sapphire to stab them from behind.
"I think there are less of them." Cleo croaked to Sapphire encouragingly. Sapphire gave the other girl a quick smile, which probably looked more like a grimace, before jumping back into the fray.
There were fewer monsters than before, Cleo could take most of the credit for that, and there didn't seem to be any reinforcements coming for the monsters' side. The monsters that were left though seemed to be faster and stronger than all of the other ones Sapphire had faced so far, or maybe she was just tired. Whichever it was, her movements were slower, her strikes didn't have enough power, and she seemed to be on the defensive more than the offensive.
She yelped in pain as one point of a trident pierced her shoulder. She swung the arm that was not jammed by the trident and sliced off the arm of the snake-woman who had attacked her. The snake-woman hissed in pain and anger as her arm fell to the ground and burst into dust.
"You will pay for thiss daughter of Hadess!" She swung the weighted net of chains that she held in her remaining hand. Sapphire stepped back…right into the arms of the dracanae that had been standing behind her. She gulped as the second snake woman put her knife to her throat, drew up all her strength, and sent the two monsters flying into the air using some of the nearby shadows. The snake-women shouted in alarm before being killed by two gold arrows. There was that problem solved, except now Sapphire was twice as tired as she was before and she had a two metre long Celestial Bronze trident hanging from her shoulder.
It was unwieldy and painful, and it had to go.
Cleo seemed to have realized what had happened as the monsters near to her turned into purses. Sapphire gritted her teeth and yanked the trident out of her left shoulder. She hurled the weapon points first at the hellhound that was running towards her and somehow she actually managed to hit it. The tank-sized demon dog melted in shadows.
And back to fighting dracanae. There were actually only four of them left but they were all trying their hardest to slip past her and get to the doors. Sapphire didn't know why, their army was gone and they wouldn't last five minutes against Cleo, but they kept pressing on. It was bad for her because her injury from the trident had made it nigh impossible to raise her arm, so she had to use one katana against four monsters that all wanted to kill her.
"A little help would be nice." she murmured. Say 'please', her mum's voice reminded her. "Please." The snake-woman to her left turned into a large metal-covered book with snakeskin pages; Cleo was probably getting tired. The dracanae to her right became the proud owner of an arrow in her eye and exploded with joy. That left two of the monsters for her to deal with.
She shifted her stance and raised Swift Death. "Who's first?" she asked with a smile. Her question was answered when both of the snake-women came charging at her with all the speed of an angered bull. She had to choose which one to kill, and she picked the one with a spear pointed right at her heart.
A good choice, considering the circumstances.
She swung her katana and cut through the shaft of the spear. She dodged out of the way of the trident, ugh, trident, that came towards her knee from the other snake-woman and then cut through the scaly waist of the unarmed dracanae, killing her instantly. As Swift Death absorbed the essence of the monster Sapphire made an executive decision. Her wakizashi was just weighing her down at this point, and she would take more maneuverability over carrying a useless weapon. She backed away from the final monster as fast as she could, twisting the skull on the end of Swift Death as she went. Swift Death shrank back into her ring and her wakizashi disappeared.
The dracanae half slithered, half ran towards her just as she reached into her pocket and pulled out a metal Zippo lighter. She opened the lighter and flicked the thumbwheel twice in rapid succession.
The lighter turned into a Celestial Bronze sword with flames covering the blade. The dracanae had just enough time to think that maybe running into the end of a flaming sword blade was a bad idea before the sword pierced her armor and set her alight.
Sapphire pulled Flamma out of the chest of the dying snake-woman with a sigh. She looked around to see if there were any more monsters, and when she realized that she had killed the last one she tottered over to the entrance of the Empire State Building and leaned against one of the black pillars that flanked the doors.
"Well," Cleo croaked with her dry throat "that was a thing."
"Yeah." Sapphire agreed hoarsely. She reached into her other pocket and took out a bag of extremely squished ambrosia. She scooped up a bit of the paste with her finger and popped it into her mouth. Cleo watched enviously as Sapphire's wounds began to heal.
"I really wish we could use that." None of the magicians had tried nectar or ambrosia, mostly because none of them felt like painfully burning up if it turned out that they couldn't eat it. Apparently most healing potions tasted awful, like 'the-cat-pulled-this-out-of-the-garbage' awful, so Sapphire could see why Cleo would prefer godly food if only she could eat it without perishing.
Sapphire ate a little more ambrosia and let out a slow breath as her shoulder healed completely. It would still be better not to use her left arm if she could help it, but it wouldn't give out completely if she had to use it. It would have been great if eating ambrosia could have healed the wounds on her back at the beginning of the summer, but apparently it didn't work that well on gashes down to the bone that were caused by superheated Celestial Bronze. Go figure.
Cleo reached into the Duat and pulled out a bottle of water. "Do you think that's it?" she asked after she had swallowed half the bottle. Sapphire shrugged. On cue a high-pitched shriek sounded. Both of them jumped and looked around.
"For us maybe." Sapphire replied when they saw that there weren't any monsters coming for them. "We still shouldn't leave the doors." Cleo nodded. Then she looked curiously at Sapphire's sword, which was leaning against the building. Her eyes widened.
"Sapphire, you're burning the Empire State Building!" Sapphire looked at her sword and realized yes, the flames on its blade were scorching the building.
"Schist!" She put away the bag of ambrosia and snatched up her sword. She really had to be more careful where she put it down. It would just be embarrassing if they burnt down the building while trying to protect it from monsters.
Cleo at least managed to finish drinking her water before the Fates decided to throw them a curveball.
A black doorway opened up in the air above one of the piles of weeds that the dracanae had created while they were advancing on the building. A rumpled-looking, scrawny man stumbled out and fell face first into the thorny stems. "Ack!" he exclaimed. Sapphire and Cleo looked at each other, stood up straight, and simultaneously raised their swords.
"Are you alright?" Sapphire called to the man, who was standing up and dusting himself off. The man automatically looked in the direction of the voice he heard and Sapphire immediately let out a barely audible yelp. 'Barely audible' because her throat had started to close up the moment she had seen the man's face.
He wasn't a man, he was a god.
He wasn't just a god, he was Serapis.
He was Searpis, marching towards them with a scowl on his face and a large, evil-looking sword strapped to his back.
"Holy Horus." Cleo muttered, obviously recognizing the god from Sapphire's description of him in her dream. Sapphire would have to disagree; meeting Horus would be a lot less scary.
Serapis marched right up to them and stared at Sapphire. Sapphire tried to shove her fear aside and gave him her best child of Hades glare. Serapis was not as well-dressed as he had been in her dream. He looked a bit like a stereotypical homeless person except for his immaculately waxed hair.
Oh, and the sword strapped to his back. Can't forget about that.
"I offered you everything, and this is how you repay me?" Serapis asked, sounding completely heartbroken. Sapphire began to feel sorry for him, but Cleo's swift kick to her ankle snapped her out of it. She hypothesized that Serapis was using some type of Egyptian magic to try to sway them to his side and Cleo had been able to sense it.
"You offered me a chance to kill a bunch of people." she shot back.
"Don't you want that; a chance to punish everyone who has hurt you, to be the queen of a better world?" The words worked their way through Sapphire's mind and she almost began to nod.
"No!" Cleo shouted, making Sapphire jump. "She doesn't!" Serapis' eyes drifted lazily towards her.
"Magician," he scoffed "let the daughter of Hades speak for herself." So, he wasn't fooled in the least by Cleo's demigod disguise. Oh well, at least it had worked on the monsters.
Sapphire pointed her sword at the god. "I like this world just fine, thanks."
"Pity. I don't suppose you would step out of my way and let me have Olympus? Of course, I would still make you my queen." Sapphire practically growled.
"Over my dead body." Serapis frowned sadly. He drew his sword, which glinted a sickly yellow.
"Then girls, prepare to die."
The sword jabbed forwards, the point aimed at Sapphire's heart. He was moving too fast for her to deflect the sword somewhere harmless and she was too tired to shadow travel out of danger. Sapphire just hoped that, since the god had apparently decided to kill them one at a time, Cleo would be able to get away. It came as a total surprise when Cleo dropped her sword and lunged sideways, pushing her mostly out of the path of the sword. Each of them took half of the strike and Sapphire felt her ribs burning where the sword had sliced her skin. Cleo yelled in pain and clasped her free hand to the cut on her right hip. The sword had to be poisoned; both cuts were shallow and wouldn't have hurt so much if the blade wasn't anointed.
"You had to make it difficult." Serapis chided. He raised his sword for another strike, the blow that would surely kill them both.
The sound of an arrow being released from a bow rang loudly in Sapphire's ears. Serapis staggered forwards and then spun around, the arrow in his back glinting as he faced his new foe.
Disclaimer: I do no own the Zippo brand.
A/N: So, regular length chapter anyone? This story is going to be done soon, hopefully before the end of August. If there's anything you really want to see (short of Sapphire killing Jeremy Asher, that comes later) than let me know. The next few chapters threaten to be short, so a bit of filler would be nice.
-Cynder2013