A/N: Well, guess humanity is due for a new plague. Runs around screaming and hollering of our imminent viral/bacterial demise. Just kidding. Corona-chan is really infectious with a very small death rate. Give it a year or so and we'll have vaccines and medicines. Basically it's our new flu. Also, more people die from the standard flu than Corona-chan. You only have to worry if you're a super old and super unhealthy old person or the same as a young child. Basically if you're not a disgusting fuck with a good immune system you'll be fine. Do you think Corona-chan will take out all the anti-vaxxers? I hope so. We don't need that cancer. Anyways stay healthy ya'll, like you should be but you have to consciously tell people that nowadays.
The fiery pit of molten metal zooms ever closer as the rope holding the Sam's up is cut by a megalomaniacal tour guide. Samson never thought that would be something he'd ever have to think in his mind, but it's not the oddest thing he supposes. Both of them were tied back to back and bound with ropes, meaning they were to be sacrificed to Tartarus together. With their quick thinking Samuel and Samson rocked themselves while they were dangling, an act which one-hundred percent saved their lives.
Falling down at an angle they clipped the side of the vat rather than falling straight down. They land right on the edge, balancing desperately so they don't fall into the molten pit Samuel stares down.
"Ooooh my god! Samson push us! I'm looking at lava!" With a strained groan Samson rocks his body and they two of them fall off the edge that thankfully doesn't lead into a pit of liquid metal. Instead they fall down fifty feet and land on the hard, hot metal floors of the re-purposed coal mine.
Samson groans as he's the one who broke their fall rather than Samuel. For the best he supposes, Samuel likely would've broken his ribs and died from the fall. Up above the duo can hear the screams and raves of the insane tour guide, the tiny psychopath bellowing orders to her army of empty-minded enslaved humans.
"AFTER THEM!"
Samuel starts straining against the ropes, wiggling the tiny knife he hides in his sleeve into his hand, "Yeah, time to go! Help me cut these ropes!" Samson nods and starts trying to wiggle himself free as well.
"Gods, they tied these ropes good!"
"But not good enough!" With a shout Samuel drags his knife across the ropes and cuts them clean, freeing them from their bonds! "Aha! Not too bad. Now let's find my damn gun, I want to see if I can make that psycho-chick's head explode!"
Samson rolls his eyes and fishes his condensed spear from his pocket, thanking the idiocy and arrogance of their temporary captors.
"Okay... know the way to the arsenal? Or where your gun is?"
The Son of Eris pauses for a moment.
"Fuck."
Stomping feet of a dozen jumpsuited-men rush past the dark corner Samson and Samuel are hiding in. Samuel peeks and sees them round a corner, just before he leaves his cover Samson pulls him back and shushes him, giving him a hand signal to wait. Just then two massive... things stomp past. Large men easily seven foot each donned in armor as black as coal lumber past. Each step slams down with a boom, and despite them clearly wearing armor no less than five-hundred pounds each they still cover distance like a normal person might be able to.
Samuel quickly examines the armor for any weak points yet finds none, the men are completely encased in armor like walking tanks. Despite the crude roughness of the armor design, it seeming like a poor bastardization of a traditional knights armor, it encases the wearer completely and the plates slide seamlessly to prevent much against movement.
The Black Knights disappear around the same corner as the rest of the peons and the duo break cover and make their way down the opposite hall. Samuel does his best to remember the hallways from when he was still incognito, but the twisting and winding former mining halls with not a single sign or other marking makes it difficult to remember his way around.
"Here," Samuel points down a hall with actual tiles built into the floor, "I think this is it."
They race down the hall and arrive at a reinforced metal door. Samuel curses and tugs at the metal. It slides slowly into the wall but suddenly stops as the latch inside catches the hook to prevent anyone from opening it without a key. Samson hears stomping faintly in the distance and rushes over and helps Samuel with the door. Both grunt in effort, and with a final shout the metal latch snaps and the door flies open.
Quickly the race inside and silently close the door just in time as more Jump suits race past the door.
"I heard them! This way!"
Samuel hears the men's shout but ignores them and goes about rummaging through the shelves and bins of miscellaneous weapons, hoping to find his gun somewhere in the extensive room. Samson idly fishes through buckets and bins and finds himself increasingly disturbed at many of the contents. Rows and rows of Celestial bronze weapons are stored away, each worn with battle but no less clear they were personal weapons to young demigods of decades past. Samson sighs and recites a silent prayer, it's the least he can do for the unfortunate souls that have died at the hands of the foul cult.
Who knows, maybe Hades will give them an easier time in the underworld? Unlikely seeing as how the God of the Dead is as angsty and edgy as a Hot Topic store, much like Nico actually, but hope is all he can do really.
The Son of Eris curses and slams a bin roughly against the wall. He punches the shelf in anger and cups his face with his hands. Samson gives him a moment to himself while he fishes out old sticks of dynamite he found on a shelf. Samuel removes his hands, his eyes maybe being just a bit red from unshed tears, not that Samson would notice, and grabs a bunch of remote detonators and some scrap electronics.
"Is it just an Eris thing-" Samson asks, "-to know how to jury-rig explosives or did you figure this out by yourself."
"I learned this from the Stoll's, actually," He says casually, "They're basically domestic terrorists just without the death... Maybe. I'm pretty certain they've gotten people killed before, but then again we all have, really. Alright I got the stuff, let's find the core foundry. That vat we were dangling over wasn't the primary one, no way it could be."
He goes over to a nearby bench and starts piecing wires together with the dynamite Samson grabbed, completely immersed with his project. Samson leans against a wall and watches Samuel carefully, examining him like how his mother Athena does with him.
"...What about your gun?"
Samuel stops for a second before continuing with his work, "...It's just a gun, man... Only just a thing."
Samson ignores the sadness in his voice, and Samuel silently thanks him when he does.
Hylla cleaves a robed woman's head clean off her shoulders and uses the momentum to follow up with a strike slicing the arm off the noisy bastard trying to sneak up on her. The fire bombs thrown in the windows spread the fire even more around the mansion. Hylla uses her anger at the disrespect and destruction of her home for extra adrenaline. So far her kill count has reached near a dozen. Despite a relatively high count there's eight fold that number still waiting outside. Only a few can break in at a time it seems, but the pounding on the door means soon they'll be able to overrun the whole mansion.
A flaming body burning with blue fire crashes down through the ceiling, landing by her feet and wailing out in pain. With a quick slash their suffering is over. Mori jumps down through the hole and lands on the body, her person somehow immune to catching fire. Hylla guesses it's her magic at work, the lucky bitch.
"Sorry," She winces, looking up at the hole she made, "I, uh, underestimated my strength there." Something explodes in a distant part of the house and an entire hallway leading to the west wing of the House collapses. Mori tries her best to shrink in on herself, but Hylla simply rolls her eyes and leads Mori with her towards the dining hall.
"This place is going to come down regardless of what we do. We have to find my girls and get out of here. Can you make a portal?"
Mori actually curses in response, catching Hylla only slightly off guard, "I can't. They've got some kind of spell or device on them that's disrupting my abilities!"
Suddenly her eyes widen in revelation, "Wait! My mirror! The magic in it is internal, there's no way they can mess with it! Hylla we need to find the mirror, that's how we can get out of here!"
Said Queen of the Amazons looks down the collapsed, inferno filled hall and feels a lofty weight on her shoulders. Mori follows her gaze and feels the same, breaking feeling wash down on her as well.
"It's down that way, isn't it?"
"Yup, I put it in the treasury in the west wing."
Hylla and Mori make their way carefully across the burning beams and ruined floor leading into the west wing. Forced to take the upstairs route where the fire damage is even greater Hylla makes a promise to her mother to find the Master Mind behind all of this and wring their neck out personally. Hylla's anxiety grows by the second as she finds none of her fellow Amazons, not even Sarah, along the way. Her cries for a rendezvous were met with nothing but crackling fire and a soon to collapse mansion.
The fire licks at Hylla's legs and the intense heat and smoke makes her dizzy. Obstacles such as collapses beams require her use of strength only makes her grow weaker by the second. Mori, the great witch that she is, handles the stream of insane robed weirdos that follow behind them despite the incredible danger it possesses.
A holographic spear of magic blasts through a robed attackers chest and carries her down the hall, impaling another attacker and sending them flying out of a window at the end of a hall. Their shouts are silenced by the raging inferno spreading behind them. Mori clasps her hands together and wavy energy like water surrounds them. With a shout she drives her clasped hands up, releasing the magic into the ceiling behind them, causing it to crack and collapse down on a group of six attackers rushing them.
They cry in shock as the heavy debris crashes down on them, crushing them to death and causing the floor beneath them to collapse as well. Mori pushes Hylla roughly as the collapsing floor spreads, racing after them as well!
Both yell out in shock as the floor collapses just under their feet, taking them down a floor and into a dim room. Hylla groans and pushes herself back to her feet, Mori following suit as well.
"Where are we," Mori questions, straining her eyes to see in the dark, "Is this the treasury?"
She opens the palm of her hand, a ball of gentle light forming in it that raises up in the air. With the room lit, Hylla can see the horror that is her now emptied treasury. She almost falls to her knees as she takes in the completely empty room, void of anything but a spider in the corner and some scampering mice running away from the fire to safety.
"No..." Her voice quivers in disbelief, "It's, there's nothing! Gold, jewels, artifacts, all gone! Every precious item is gone!"
Rage wells in her and she takes it out on a nearby reinforced concrete wall. Her fist strikes right into the concrete, forming a great hole in it and almost smashing through into the other side.
She takes her hand out and growls in pain, collapsing to her knees as pain courses through her busted and bloodied hand that's almost mangled beyond recognition. Mori sighs and kneels down by her, gently taking the fucked up hand in her own. The Queen winces in pain but sighs in relief as soothing, white magic gently shimmers off Mori's hand and enters into the bloodied wounds.
The bones in her hand groan and move back into proper position, her tendons tugging by themselves and mending back together. Her skin still bleeds profusely, but Mori takes a roll of medical gauze from her jacket and wraps it around her hand. The bandages turn red on the first wrap, but subsequent ones stain less and less.
"There," The witch says, "It's the best I can do without potions. I'm good with bones, but flesh and blood is... not in my skill set. You'd need an Apollo kid for that. C'mon, let's get out of here. We can worry about your shit after the threat of death is away from us."
Hylla sighs and stands back up on wobbly feet, her head spinning lightly from the lingering pain, "Yeah, let's get out of here. I know a back way out of here, a hidden tunnel Samuel dug out that leads into the sewers."
"What about your Amazons? Should we still look for them?"
The Queen only growls remarkably similar to Samuel, "I think I know who robbed me blind. Only someone on the inside could've gotten in here, same with turning our defenses off. Mori, I've been betrayed by my own kind. When I find one of those girls they better have a good excuse!"
Samuel rounds a corner, his eyes widening as he sees a massive chamber built like something out of a fantasy novel. Easily two hundred feet up and twice that wide, dozens of smelters each fifty feet high with a few twice as much fill the room with pipes pumping water in, smoke out and many other bits of industrial equipment completely fill the room until it's cramped beyond what must be healthy.
Dozens of workers mingle about the heavy equipment. Even their smiles are dimmed in this place, looks like being miserable even sucks for brainwashed people, huh?
Samson sneaks around the corner and heads left, a bundle of rigged dynamite in his hands. Samuel heads right carrying the rest. He stocks them sneakily around bases of large support beams, hiding them under loose floor panels or in dark corners out of eye shot. All the while Samuel feels like he's being watched, but looking around he sees nothing except metal walkways and various industrial things he has no idea the name's of.
He shrugs and goes back to laying dynamite around. Suddenly something heavy bangs somewhere in the smeltery room. Samuel pauses and looks around, listening as heavy thudding footsteps bang and crash somewhere around him, even over the banging and crashing of heavy machinery he can hear the thing, whatever it may be.
Suddenly Samson rounds the corner, sprinting past him screaming, "Samuel run! They've got a giant wolf!"
Samuel can barely question him as a dark shadow batters him out of the way. His breath is knocked from his lungs as a massive wolf the size of a grizzly bear runs after Samson. Both vanish around a corner faster than he can make out anything about the beast other than it was big, black and obviously a wolf.
Samson shouts echo down the winding steel pathways far away and Samuel groans and gives himself a moment to get his breath back. Just as he stands the heavy bang of a massive paw crashes down just by him. Samuel freezes as a black paw slowly appears around the corner of the support he just rigged. A snout like a feral dog sniffs and huffs until slowly it turns and faces him.
Armor thick like the men from before cranks and groans as it slides harshly against one another, plates hand bent and formed specifically for this cruel bastardization of a bear closes around every vital part of it. Samuel's seen armored horses before but this beast knocks them out of the park. Where horses are lightly armored to keep their speed this is the complete opposite. The bear-like monster is armored entirely for defense, armor so thick and covering it even has bent coverings for its' claws, making them longer and sharper.
Red eyes like laser meets his, a bastardization of his own eye color it seems, only the beast is bloodshot and filled with anger and rage like a newly turned werewolf. Samuel looks down and narrows his eyes at the curious rifle dangled around it's armored neck. His rifle is held by the leather sling around the neck of the beast-bear, so tantalizingly close yet so far from reach.
"So," Samuel says casually, "They gave you that to sniff me out, eh?"
He cracks his knuckles, then his neck and stands up straight, facing down the two ton behemoth of a beast without so much of a hint of worry in his eyes. The beast drags its' claws across the metal floor, sparks flying from the claws as the heat up and smoke unnaturally. Saliva drips from the maw of the beast as it grunts and flounders in anticipation of a meal.
"Well, c'mon then! If you think you're worth that gun then come at me! Prove it, bitch, you're not worth shit!"
Man versus beast, a classic clash as old as humanity itself. The beast roars, and like a clap of thunder it barrels towards Samuel. The Son of Eris, being the badass and not idiotic warrior that he is, turns tail and runs the opposite direction.
As proud as he may be, Samuel's not fighting a metal bear with just his hands!
