A/N: Hey guys, got a chapter here for you guys. Not sure when the next upload will be since I'm going in for a seven day stretch at work and then immediately flying out for my holiday vacation with my parents. I might be uploading a chapter during my vacation, but it depends on if I have spare time or not. Either way, I'd like to wish all who celebrate a wonderful time over the Holidays, and I hope everyone has a great time with their families.
"I spy with my little eye, something red."
"Is it your blood on the ground after I castrate you?"
"No, it's a cardinal. The bird."
"No, I'm pretty certain it's your blood."
Samuel gulps and tugs on his color nervously. Artemis turns back to the swampy clearing ahead of them. They're all ducked low in the bushes and behind tree, scouting out the wet, stinky marsh the Cerastes is hiding in. According to Artemis, usually lesser cerastes are found in soft sand since they're not strong enough to travel through soil, but their progenitor The Cerastes is far larger and stronger by many magnitudes. It can travel through swampy and marshy soil with ease, giving it the advantage of superior movement.
That's a problem. A mighty big one at that. Those who can outmaneuver their enemies have the greatest chance of victory. Obviously the Cerastes' is at the disadvantage in terms of weaponry, but it can move underground and is more flexible than an eel.
This will be a fight of endurance, skill, and just a dash of luck.
"What's the plan?" Samuel asks. Artemis doesn't turn to look at him, her gaze firmly fixed on the marsh.
"We wait for nightfall. It's too smart to attack in the day."
Samuel sighs despondently. He's already gotten used to bullshit with Artemis, so it doesn't surprise him at all that they're going to fight a horrible monster literally at the worst time possible.
"Are we trying to get him killed?" Abigail says dryly, "Or are we making this as hard as possible?"
Artemis levels her a flat look, but she just stares back blankly. The goddess looks up at the sky, judging the time to be still towards the middle of the day. She scowls when thinking of the potential for wasted time.
Quickly she comes to a decision and turns to her pseudo-hunters, "I must leave."
Samuel instantly blanches, sputtering a few formless words before being cut off, "We're running on a limited timeline. There's still more monsters to kill in only a few days. You two shall handle the Cerastes and, while I shall leave to kill a nearby nest. Come midnight tonight I will return to collect you, then we shall move on."
Abigail groans and leans back against a tree, clearly upset with the current plan. Samuel finds himself with the same feeling on things. It's stupid but makes sense at least. Splitting up can get crazy dangerous when you're lost somewhere in the wilderness with who knows what kinds of monsters running around.
"And what if you don't come back?"
Artemis looks Abigail dead in the eyes, "You doubt my word?"
"No. I know things never go as planned, and if you're held up, called on another hunt or stuck chasing something across the country we-" She motions to Samuel and herself, "-need to know where to go next. We can't just sit around in the woods for days on end waiting for you. We need more of a plan then waiting for a couple hours."
If looks could kill, then the cold, stony gaze in Artemis' eyes would've sent Abigail to Tartarus forever ago. For being the one who told him not to piss her off, she's been snappier with her than he was. There's something more going on than what he knows, but what ever it is it better not get in the way of this Trial.
'A fault in the integrity of a unit leads to its downfall.' It took him years to learn this lesson, but it came at the cost of many people's lives, even those close to him.
"I will leave nymphs to guide you should we split. Follow them and they will take you to my temple's location. I am gone, I will be back by midnight or we shall meet at my temple later."
Samuel leans back against a tree and looks up at the sky. Slowly the gentle orange of day starts turning blue as the sun heads for the horizon. Soon enough, night will be upon them, followed by a crazy snake monster not long after.
Artemis left them not long after she said she would, disappearing into the forest to hunt other monsters and make it easier for them once the final attack on her temple begins. She gave her reason for leaving as covering more ground, which makes sense. She is far faster than them and can cover more ground and kill much more when she isn't dampening her strength with weaker companions around.
Still, it is incredibly risky since she'll be without backup and even a goddess can be undone by trickery. Hell, it happened before when she was captured by Kronos's forces and made to hold the sky for Atlas. He's sure she'll be fine, especially with that wound to her pride still relatively fresh.
No, what he's worried about is trekking across the country without proper power keeping him safe. No Artemis incase they run into an uber-beast, no rifle to let him fight at his maximum capability, only Samson sort of most of the time.
Though, he will admit that Samson and his other half, Abigail, are powerful even if they're weak for a god. He'll take their help over nothing, at the very least.
He glances back up at the sky and sees it mostly midnight blue. Stars twinkle in the heavens, insects chirp and things splash around in the marsh waters. Every so often he feels tiny tremors in the ground, islands of moss in the water shift and move around.
Looks like the snake is starting to wake up.
He glances at Abigail who's staring intently at the water. Well, it's been a boring ass couple of hours waiting for the snake, might as well pass the time a bit more with a question that's been bugging him.
"Yo." Abigail looks at him for a second before turning her gaze back to the water. Samuel sighs, he's had to deal with stubborn Amazons before, and his 'companion' is a lot like them.
"What?"
"What's with you and Artemis? You were her lieutenant before your resurrection or whatever, so I'd figured you'd be best buddies or whatever."
"Heading straight for the hard questions, aren't you?"
Samuel nods. Abigail sighs. Nothing like that for bonding.
"She wasn't always as nice as she is now. Artemis has killed plenty of innocent people in my service to her, it got too much so I left but died because of a betrayal from one of my fellow sisters. Either way, I don't hold too much respect for her or her Hunters either. Both are full of too much pride, contradict their teachings and are unnecessarily cruel. I'm not fond of either anymore."
Samuel raises an eyebrow, but nods in agreement regardless. He can understand her view, Artemis and her Hunters have a… reputation that isn't always positive.
"Understandable. I was curious since it was putting me at risk?"
Abigail turns to him, ger expression just the tiniest bit shocked, "I get you're immortal and don't understand life anymore, I just don't like that it's probably going to come at the cost of my own."
She turns away from him, just a little disturbed by his words. Samuel gets it's pretty dickish, but someone has to tell her to be mindful of life. She may be a deity, but he's not letting that be an excuse for his life on the line.
"I… never realized how I've changed. Have I really been so careless…? I see… Thank you, Samuel. A little humility can never be lost on anyone."
"Yeah. Whatever. Look, just be mindful. I've only got one life, and in Hylla's line of work only one wife. Enough of that, it's night and that snake should be waking up anytime soon."
She meets his eyes for a flash of a second, and from the twinkling gleam he can tell she's full of thought and emotion, even if her expression is like a brick wall.
"Yeah, let's go."
The water swirls and churns, something angry slithers beneath the dirt and water. Abigail watches tensely as it seems the whole clearing swirls. Just how big is this beast?!
"I give it a good hundred feet plus, give or take a yard or two. Good thing we have our spear, snakes fall in the same category of dragons and are just as vulnerable to magic."
"Oh, you're back, Samson?"
"Don't sound so disappointed. We get enough of that from Samuel."
She supposes he's right. But enough of that, they need a plan to fight this thing. Samuel was right when he said they've not been worried enough about life now that they don't have to worry about dying. They need a proper plan for taking down this thing effectively. It's time to stop playing around and take care of business, like proper professionals.
"Samuel," She calls out to him, "We need a plan. We can't just wing it."
"I agree. What do we know about it? Fire, acid, super strength?"
She pauses for a moment, "It's super maneuverable and fast. No special attacks or anything, just incredible means of movement."
"Then we have to somehow corral it into your spear. That thing works on snakes too, right? A thrusting weapon is going to do a better job killing it than a sword."
"How are we going to move it around, then?" She questions, "It's gotta be over a hundred feet easily. How do we convince it?"
Samuel summons Razor from his ring finger. The blue, magic fire dances silently along the length of the blade, as mesmerizing as Abigail and Samson always remembered.
"That just might work. Everything hates fire, even monsters. Thankfully snakes don't have the same resistances as dragons do."
"That should just do it. You corral it, I go for the head."
The splashing suddenly grows more fierce. Something low hisses under the water as it sloshes and churns. Quickly a head emerges from beneath an island of moss, and in the shadows a red, silted eye opens and glows in the dark.
"Get ready," Samuel yells, swinging the sword in a big arc, throwing a wave of blue fire directly towards the serpent. Quick like an arrow it ducks under the fire, winds up and launches its head directly towards Samuel.
Before it can gulp him up, Abigail quickly jabs it in the snout and sends a current of electricity right into its flesh. The beast quickly recoils away in pain, thrashing and slashing in the water before diving directly into the water and disappearing into the mud.
They watch as the ground shifts and rumbles, a bulge in the ground quickly rushing away towards a different area of the bog.
"Ugh," Samuel groans, "It's running!"
"We need to chase after it, maybe we can rush it into hard ground?!"
The two take off after the quickly moving bulge in the ground. It zips around with lightning speed, but as Samuel suspected it's moving from them. Abigail breaks off from Samuel and runs at the serpent from a different angle, working with Samuel to try and move the snake outside of the wet marshes.
"There!" Samuel yells, pointing towards an area growing only sparsely with the tips of rocks pointing out slightly from the weak grass. Abigail nods and quickens her pace, both of them running alongside the underground serpent. As planned, the serpent barrels straight forward, and with a ferocious crash the snake drives directly into a boulder, shattering it underground and quickly coming to a halt.
Abigail and Samuel ready themselves as the ground starts vibrating like a small seismic event. A split in the ground forms, and in a matter of moments the long body of the serpent burst out, its snout caved in a good foot, teeth missing and blood flying from its mouth. The beast hisses in roaring pain, writhing and throwing its body around like a wacky waving inflatable tube man.
Samuel swings the sword and throws the enchanted fire towards the serpent, in an instant the mossy-green scales sing and burn to a crisp along a wide length of the body. Reacting to the sudden pain, the beast flails towards Samuel, hoping to smack him with its body.
Quickly he darts back, just barely dodging the serpent's body but still being hit by the wind blast from the sheer speed of it. As he is thrown back by the wind, Samuel slashes the air with his sword and sends another wave of fire at the snake.
It manages to snap its body away from the fire, but by winding back so far it puts itself in range of Abigail who makes liberal use of the opportunity to makes several slashes along the length of its body. Blood goes flying from the wounds, followed by more as the wounds are opened by the constriction of the muscles.
As the legend tell, no bones can be seen, meaning the thing is just one massive muscle save for the skull.
The beast lets loose a guttural scream. It constricts in pain, only furthering the wounds and yanks the rest of its body from the ground like some kind of fucked-up noodle. It rises high into the air and looms down over Abigail. Its eyes gleam with a clear manic rage, killing intent almost leaking from it like its blood.
"Uh, Samuel?!"
The beast hisses in pain again as more fire burns along the same burnt flesh Samuel hit from before. The scales disintegrate into ash, the fire burning right through into the soft flesh beneath. In an instant the Cerastes whips its tail at Samuel who quickly jumps over it, but in the last second it curls around his body and squeezes.
He gasps in pain from the constriction, but the serpent decides squeezing him to death isn't apart of the plan and holds him high into the air above its mouth. The maw opens wide, revealing chipped and damaged teeth inside of a bloodied mouth.
The monster drops him and he starts falling right for the opening, but as he falls the creature suddenly recoils, constricting its body and throwing its head back to reveal its neck. He barely spots Abigail stabbing it with her spear, light visible from the lightning being poured into the beast's body from the spear.
He grins and twists his sword in his hands and plunges it straight down, aiming directly for the center of the 'neck'. Blade slices quickly into flesh, momentum helping him pierce the weak scales on the underbelly and sliding down the length of the body.
Samuel screams from the intense pressure squeezing his arms, thankfully the don't explode as he slides down the belly of the snake, gutting it the entire way down until he crashes finally into the hard dirt. The air is knocked straight from his lungs and his vision blur. Only through sheer willpower is he able to force himself to roll away just before the serpent crashes into the ground where he just was.
It takes a moment, but he manages to regain his breath just as his vision goes back to normal. Shimmering in the twinkling moonlight, mountains of golden dust sparkles before him. An oddly beautiful sight compared to the creature it came from.
He groans and plops himself down on the dirt, breathing heavily a few times as his arms burn like they're on fire. He winces from a sharp pain in his chest but ignores it to look at Abigail as she approaches.
"Hey. How… are you doing?"
Samuel winces and coughs up a small amount of blood, "Oh, you know, just hanging around."
"Cool." She takes a seat on the dirt and looks at the mountain of dust, "Think there's a trophy or something in there?"
He looks at the piles of dust, but grimaces, "Eh. It'll take too long to dig through it. I just want to rest."
She nods and looks up at the moon, silence befalling them for several long minutes, "…You're pretty cool, you know that?"
"…Yeah. Maybe… you're alright too."