To me…
Athena picked his voice drowning in blur.
Here… back to me…
It was cold. Tendrils of ice swelled in her veins. Her heart felt like a glacier. An abstract of grey colors clouded her vision, haunting and dreary.
That's it, breathe… Athena, breathe…
She felt a stiff groan caress her throat. Wet hands steadied the sides of her face, the thumbs sweeping off strands of damp dark hair from her cheeks. And red. Red droplets trickling from his face down to hers. The blur was fading, thinning into focus… and before her were glimmering scarlet pools.
"Come back… to me…"
His ragged voice was fire that ignited her, the heat that flushed from her core and washed her away like an explosion. Her chest started to heave and Athena opened her lips to suck in air as if a newborn babe. She coughed and inhaled until life swam back to her.
Ares patted her forehead gently, hushing her from the debacle she had woken up to. The Queen found herself lying on cold wet rubble with her husband crouching over and their faces barely inches from each other. He was disaster in a nutshell, of bloodied right temporal and livid red welt painted below an eye.
She blinked and moved her head, stiffed by a concussion at the back now throbbing like hell. And then the memory came back – Scylla's heads catapulting one by one, each to their own target in every beam, column, and pediment until hard marble and limestone caved upon them. Half the temple went plummeting down the whirling fangs of Charybdis who greedily sucked it into slabs and never spat them out.
Athena arced her back, flinching at a jab of pain from a twisted vertebrae. Ares wrapped her arm around his shoulder and braced her hip before both grunted to sit underneath a felled pillar.
The King had barely sighed relief when Athena burst into a sharp cry.
"Damn it… shhh! Don't! Don't move!" He held her wrists, forgetting to tell her about the half of her left fibula jutting out her leg. Athena pulled the hem of her skirts and brought them between her teeth to strain the pained screams. Far behind them, the aggressive shrieks of Scylla's heads pierced through the howling rain, teased by the goddess' cry.
Athena sniffled, breathing fast as she commanded… "Fix it."
"Athe – " "Just bloody fix it!" the Queen snarled in tears, pain over reason. When his mood darkened did she only calibrate her ire…
She sighed, "Please... I've been through worse." As in harpooned with raining arrows – stomped over by Minotaurs – chewed by a giant – kind of worse. The only difference then was the immediate rescue, with a more desirable company.
Ares scooted beside the grisly fracture now involuntarily trembling with blood loss from the transverse cut, itself tearing her skin from the inside. The halves must be met. And to do so, the stuck out bone must be pushed hard below the kneecap. Elsewise it will not heal on its own.
"You've done this before yes?"
He chuckled. How that tiny spark of anxiety sounded cute.
"No." Ares shrugged. He watched a lump bob down her slim, amorous neck.
"It's… it's quite simple, Ares... just… try to press th – SLOWLY!"
Ares bucked his hand from almost touching her ankle, chewed on his thumb and averted his face.
The snorting made Athena's eyes grew and she punched his shoulder. "It's not funny, you unreliable cretin!"
The sudden gush of force only made her fickle once again. Seeing her shudder in pain to the point of feverish softened Ares' eyes.
"Leave it… we could wait for the others… have you seen them?"
"I was too busy pushing you from the falling boulder to notice where they scrammed."
Oh. Pinpricks of red surfaced across Athena's face. She did recall standing there, breathless as dust showered from the rafter coming down to crush her. But a vivid force enwrapped her body and whisked her off the impended doom, though not entirely, but made it survivable.
She was shaken from the thought when once again Scylla's heads screeched in unison. It was the sound of sharp nails grinding a smooth surface, magnified by six mutated spawns of hell. The ground shook as the fanged tentacles began chipping off rocks from the precipice to loosen the mountain – evoking them, searching them.
"Goddammit does this thing ever shut up!?" Ares shrank to fend off the ear-bleeding noise, "I knew I should have just bashed Poseidon's brains in…"
"Then why didn't you?"
He smoothed a hand over his bloodied hair without ever meeting her eyes. She waited for a response, subtly getting into his nerves.
Out of nowhere, Ares craned his neck towards Scylla, "Is that…"
"WHAT." All eyes and ears, Athena was already searching at the direction, "What?"
She felt his hands quickly grab the fracture and heard the crunch of broken bone forced to snap close… rattling her body in a explosive, mortifying pain… And Ares heard the loudest, torture-stricken warcry of a thousand harpies bellow from Athena, enough to disarrange the constellations from a hundred leagues. It was thankfully immersed by the more cacophonous screams of the monster wriggling behind them.
He dug her head beneath his jaw and suffered the muffled yowling as she clawed on his arms, leaving angry red ribbons on the firm skin. If not for the injured leg she must have already kicked him to the next decade.
When her weight sagged and the convulsions died to sniffles, Ares exhaled relief. He peeked at her face and was met by a deep frown and a weak mutter – "Ass."
"Wimp," he swept the webs of hair from her tearful eyes, "Some tantrum you got there huh. So… queenly."
"No I… I wasn't ready…"
The King narrowed his eyes playfully. Seeing no room for excuse, Athena finally slipped off a soft embarrassed laughter despite furrowed brows – "Really, I wasn't." She gave a weak punch at his chest.
It was strangely warm in this fading rain. Like hearth, or balm over a scratch. He was warm and it felt good.
"Ares, for the record I don't usually react like that…"
"Mhm."
"You should have told me."
"You're welcome." Ares zipped for the win. Athena smiled to herself and gently pulled away from him, repeatedly bending her knee to assess the progress of her healing. The King sighed, trying to catch fragments of her warmth still idling in his chest.
"Give it a few more minutes."
"We don't have a few more minutes. There's a loose sea monster behind us. Our companions are missing. Not to mention our uncle probably watching us right now," said the Queen unapologetically.
Without caveat Ares gripped on the still healing bone and felt her muscles jump.
"See?" the King hung his head, "And that's the point, you brat. It's a sea monster. It belongs to the waters and cannot get anywhere nearer as long as we remain on land."
"Ares – " "Can't you listen to me just for once! You. BLOODY. Let. Yourself. Heal." He glowered until Athena's lips fell in a tight straight line and leaned her head on the felled pillar that concealed them.
"Good," he mumbled. As soon as he leaned in with her, a small pile of debris before them began to move from underneath. Both Ares and Athena hitched their breaths as gravel and stones stirred. In a moment, a hand popped out, followed by the unruly form…
– of Dionysus.
"What in…" the groggy wine god looked around, yawning, rubbing his eyes and pulling dirt from his long hair. He halted midway at the King and Queen's stupefied faces staring at him.
Dionysus studied them through the drizzle – Athena's skirts bunched midway her thighs and the scratches on Ares' arms. He pointed a finger with the geekiest grin.
"YOU TWO FUCKED."
Blood rushing to her head, Athena groped for anything to hurl at Dionysus biting down the smirk from consuming his face.
Ares lurched to grab Dionysus and squeezed him in hiding within their space. The stench of alcohol reeked from a disgusting burp. The King whispered furiously, "Gods you – how in Tartarus could you have slept through this all!?"
Dionysus wrinkled his nose in contemplation, and finally remembered as he searched himself and pulled out a transparent flask half filled with bubbly umber liquid – "This baby is treasure! It's anything but wine, I tell you. Kind of mead, or grain…"
Treasure. Athena's eyes widened in a gasp, how could she almost forget! Interrupting Ares about to break Dionysus' nose, the Queen grabbed the wine god in the face. "Treasure! Where is the chest, Dionysus!" She shook him, "We told you to secure the chest!"
"Relax!" Dionysus waved off her hands in all smugness, and showed the pile of dirt he came from, "I hid in it and voila, sweet dreams."
"That's it…" Athena murmured to herself as ideas washed away her afflictions, "Ares! We have to get the chest out!"
"Enough, enough! Leave some – "
Ares took a final swig to clean off every drop of the alcohol and shoved the flask on Dionysus' chest. The god of wine sniffled in utter despair as Ares wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and crouched off towards the chest they brought from Olympus. True to his words, Dionysus did sleep his drunkenness in the coffer. Coins of gold and gems rolled out with a clatter as the heavy box was pulled out and Athena's heart skipped when her fingers mantled the etched shaft of her longspear, eight feet retracted to half its size for the comfort of transport.
The welter of treasury revoked Scylla, now inching her way to the source but Athena and Ares had gotten bored with waiting. In a matter of seconds they drew out a plan to get Scylla off its comfort zone. They could feel the monster's energy clamoring closer and closer and within the remaining seconds in their hiding place, Ares chuckled, sword in hand, leaning his head on a cool surface behind them – "I never thought I'd live to see this day."
"What day?" Athena slightly turned to him.
"You and I in arms, on the same side."
The Queen smiled back at the realization sinking. It was true. All those millennia they vouched and gambled on opposing armies had felt so long ago, Troy and the battalions of Greece being the last and most arduous. She tightened her hold on the spear whose luster at point's end was as equally thirsty for monster's blood.
"Now… kisss…"
Ares and Athena faced a smirking Dionysus between them, squatting with palms on his cheeks and lower lip bitten.
"I think we need a bait, Athena," the King hummed, not taking his eyes off Dionysus.
She shrugged, "Impress me."
"Bait? What bait?" Dionysus shrunk back, the edge of his mouth twitching, "I don't think I like the sound of THAAAAAAAAAAATTT! –"
In a blink, Dionysus was a screaming projectile, all limbs and arms in what seemed a slow motion high in the air… with one of Scylla's heads snapping after. Quick as he flung the Wine god, Ares took to speed below the 'bait', raising the flat of his sword above him with an earthshaking cry – "Athena, NOW!"
The Queen came leaping forth, still majestic in her dirtied form and tattered dress, springing high enough to step on the flat side of Ares' blade to leverage her above the attacking head. The goddess of War devoted immense power wielding her spear in its full proud length, eyes burning as she sent the tip tearing across black scales on the neck and impaling it on the rocky ground.
The monster writhed in high pitched screeches, tugging the stuck neck from the cliff. Athena wrapped her arms around Dionysus mid-air as both rolled into the hard surface. Without a time to process what just happened, Athena beseeched Dionysus his power. Still groggy and shaken, Dionysus placed his palms on the ground, causing thick rowdy vines to slither dangerously.
They watched the pinned neck be coiled over and over with the poison ivy now growing with prickly thorns, fastening the head tighter onto the cliff and giving the rest of Scylla no chance to move away.
"Good job," Athena tapped Dionysus' back, who, still reeling from intoxication and nervous breakdown, fell face down the rocks moaning to himself.
"How long do you think it'll last?" Ares questioned, hearing some of the vines, sturdy as they are, pull and snap as the rest of the heads try to free itself from the trap.
One down. Five bloody more.
The Queen was grunting as she retrieved her spear. Scylla's blood was black as tar that ran from the puncture of the now lifeless head. She had some of its filth in her dress, or what was left of it. One of the most constant things about her was the inability to preserve pretty things she wears. She wiped a torn hem across the blackened weapon, "Long enough to – ARES!"
One of the heads was shooting from above when a roll of chains interjected from the side. The iron links snatched the assailant, making it choke on a scream as it jerked down and giving Ares the chance of hacking his sword from one monstrous eye to the other. From where the chains came from appeared Orion and Mars.
"Sweet baby Cerberus..." the Roman was unsheathing his twin swords, gaping at another head stretching full height to attack next.
"Seen nothing like it huh?" Ares stifled a mock, "Bet your Roman balls are all wrinkly right now, boy."
Mars slowly looked at him, eyes enigmatic with what looked like something between resistance and excitement. Having heard the taunt, Athena tried to get between them to prevent any reckless decision...
Her jaws went stiff, though, as the Roman whistled.
The head aggressively came at him and he slipped inside the feral gaping mouth before it shut tight. Athena waited to see it chew, or swallow, instead the head trembled from inside until viscous black fluid began dripping from its edges. Its slit eyes violently rolled behind as the sound of sword cracking its palate came through. They saw one of Mars' blades burst from within, and then the other, until such indestructible force caused the swords to split the monstrous head into two. A fountain of tar boomed from the broken head and out jumped Mars, sliding across its falling neck and leaping in groovy balance affront Ares.
Still steaming hot with the monster's blood and both swords tight in hands, Mars half smiled as he shrugged before the King.
Ares raised a brow, sweeping his eyes at him from head to foot. Mars grinned as the King turned his back to mutilate another head after a bitter mumble –
"You stink."
The Queen shook her head, barely concealing her own smile. It was changed to a look of anguish when she felt a peculiar exhaustion. Strange, she thought. It was unbecoming of her to have quickly felt drowsy when she was the least who took up arms and action since they arrived. Slashing and dicing, she still did whatever means to wound the enemy. It was now a battlefield of slippery rocks and ruins, and a now two-headed freak which had begun climbing out of the swirling waters with its iron claws. Most of the time she could hear Mars and Ares argue about which spot to strike, and yet both pathetically fail the plan. Scylla's pelt was thick as a mountain… almost indestructible.
They were shaken when an explosion lighted from the heads. On a higher ground she saw an amphora of grease thrown to the same target now squirming and squealing from the flame. Hermes had found a sizeable amount of oils from the sacrificial thresh, and is currently whooping as he throws the jars. They broke and fiery arrows shot from a silver bow, its tips making contact with the oiled surface and setting it in wild combustion.
The slender form of Artemis tipped down amongst the masses to help Athena up. As the weakening Scylla made its waning efforts of nipping and thrashing about, the Huntress led her to a safer edge.
"Are you alright?"
The Queen could not answer, sensing a shadow that emerged from behind Ares. She could not fathom whether it was her vision making sport, or if it was a nightmare raising a fist behind her husband. Her eyes snapped open in alarm, gathering a brute force to scream Ares' name.
Too late, she witnessed Ares' head twist to the side with a sprinkle of blood tracing his mouth and his sword spinning to nowhere. Athena's terrified scream filled more of his consciousness as the three fangs of Poseidon's trident tore through his chest, lifted him up the air and sent him crashing on a rocky wall behind them.
Ares growled and cursed, awakening to the hard plunge of his back against the rocks and causing a massive dent. He rolled to his side to spit the blood that pooled in his mouth. His chest was a punctured mess. Meanwhile steadying his head to a clearer vision, he narrowed his eyes to the figure approaching.
Poseidon was wearing a wide smirk, "All hail the King… a mummer's fool to think he'd oppose me," Poseidon's laughter rang about his ears. Ares felt the Sea god's fingers twist around his neck and yanked him up to crush his nose with a bloody forehead. He grunted as he wallowed in pain and went spinning down the rough surface.
"I'd rather be killed by the godslayer than the pathetic scum you are!"
Ares' breath was knocked off with a bone-crushing kick on his abdomen. There were more to Poseidon's words than those he could hear in jumbles of inaudible sounds. When his body failed to respond then he knew he might as well give in to the inviting darkness and exhaustion.
His head lolled to the side, sputtering hot crimson fluid. In the view of hard ground and his immovable hand he saw it – a bloodied piece of cloth wrapped around his palm, slowly enveloping him in a virtual embrace.
Ares clenched his fingers to chase in a veritable power coming from a mere sullied bandage. It crept back to him, of silver eyes and warm fingers cupping his wounded hand… calling him home. The echoing fragments of Athena's voice made his pupils sink to dots in pools of scarlet. Before he knew it his heart was pumping uncontrollable amounts of adrenaline, rushing over and drowning him in raucous energy.
He looked up to see the sharp edges of Poseidon's trident now coming down on him. Cradling the newfound strength, the King swung his armband as shield and watched it break with a crisp split. Ares then clutched the trident's shaft.
Poseidon took time to smirk further.
"You really are a fool, aren't you?" he leaned, "My weapon knows its master. Any other desperate leech's skin burns upon touch."
The hissing sounds from Ares' palm grew loud, burning and melting the flesh aggressively. Yet Poseidon's smile at once disappeared when he saw how Ares' glare deepened hellishly. The War god moved his other hand to grab the shaft despite the sting.
With both of Ares' fists now gripping tight, he tugged at the trident violently and crashed its butt twice against Poseidon's chest. And before the Sea god could even stagger back, Ares caught the shard of his split armband and swiped it across Poseidon's throat, forcing a shower of red in its wake.
Ares' breaths hallowed at the wheezing of despondent inhales now being drowned by sputtering blood. Poseidon's eyes reeled with terror. The trident fell from his hand, its heavy clangors resounding defeat. He desperately pressed both palms on his slimed throat. His blood was hot streaks coursing down his heaving chest and raining on his feet.
Seeing this, Athena's eyes dripped heavily with tears. She covered her mouth in exasperation, knowing she might as well accept Poseidon's demise. And Ares. The scourge of Olympus, glancing for the final time at her before dropping to his knees.
She walked towards him, eager to gather him in her arms and willed to forgive him for what he did. But before she could even reach him, all felt the groan of rocks beneath their feet as Scylla felled her weight and began deluging upon them. Everything was breaking and as if the world had tilted, the ground was inching to a slide… unto the gaping mouth of the whirlpool Charybdis.
Everyone was scrambling to a higher ground. And then it began. The cracks yawned into slabs and Athena fell on her side before slipping down the slanting landscape. She lost the struggle and left it to fate when a thick set of vines coiled around her hand and then she was hanging meters from the edge.
The Queen looked down. The whirlpool below her was hungrily grinding the masses of mountain's edge, spitting rain veiled in black whirling clouds. Up was Dionysus… the perverted weasel they call him, now wearing a very pained expression now about to tear himself apart from two opposing forces.
"Hang on…!" Dionysus was grunting, "I mean you are already hanging but… argh!"
Some vines started to snap, pushing the god further down. Athena studied the situation – his right hand was clutching the vines that she was holding onto, his left gripping to another set of ivies strung to a loosening rock above them. Should it fall, the rock could crush them all down to the waters. Charybdis' vortex was sucking the air around her, causing more weight, and in turn causing more force to pull that threatening boulder upon them all.
Idiot. Athena felt a sting of guilt, blurring her vision with tears made cold by the wind. Our idiot baby brother… her eyes softened… where did you ever get that horrible sense of humor? She didn't want to see him like this; she didn't want to see any one of them like this only to save her.
The last thing she thought – she wasn't going to let them die, or ever get near Death. It was her life or theirs and the choice was not a difficult one.
The last things she heard – The others trying to help Dionysus pull up but to no avail. There was a strong ringing in her ears.
The last things she felt – her grasp on the vines loosening, herself pulled harsh by gravity, plunging straight through rain and winds to the mouth of hungry Charybdis… down… down until a shadow leapt from the edge and two strong arms wrapped around her from sharing a measly fate alone.
They crashed into the black pandemonium, gnawed terribly along with wheeling masses. Broken bones. Blood. Lots of it.
But whose?
A / N: Hi. It feels horrible to leave you for over a month. It's class opening and everyone's psyched about turning online.
Although I hope it compensates that... yes. I did upload four chapters in a row... I just felt the need to because it might seem I may pause writing as often as I did previously. But that doesn't mean I'm going on hiatus. It's just that updating may not be as quick as I could starting today. I have to warn you these chaps are rushed so forgive me in advance the errors and inconsistencies.
Thank you for keeping up with me through your reviews and PMs. I do enjoy discussing with you. My replies to your reviews will shortly come after. Looking forward to more of our conversations :D