To 8Ball3- we measure some stuff in metres and some stuff in feet. And some in inches or centimetres, it all really depends on what we're measuring, I guess. THAT IS BLASPHEMY, HOW DARE YOU ACCUSE ME OF DENYING- *checks notes*- PLOTTING? I NEVER PLOT, NAH-UH, NO WAY! And yes, they're six ^_^
"It's a fish!"
"It's not a fish!"
"That's the fin, there! Look!"
"I am lookin' and I don't see it!"
"Look with your eyes!"
"What else am I supposed ta look with?" Louisa smacked his hand down and pointed at the same cloud with the other hand. "That ain't a fish. It's a lizard."
"How is that a lizard?"
"How is it a fish?"
"Looks more like a fish than a lizard!"
"Does not!"
"Does too! Honestly, how can you call yourself a daughter of Neptune when you can't even see a fish?"
"That's 'cos it's not a fish," Louisa smiled tightly, "it's a lizard." Arnie blew a raspberry at her. "You need your head checked."
"Uh, coming from you!"
"You wanna fight?"
"No, not really. But it is a fish!" She threw her hands up in exasperation and marched off. Arnie hurried after her. "It is, it is, it is!"
"It's not, it's not, it's not!" He elbowed her, she shoulder-barged him, both of them yelling nonsense over the other, determined to be the loudest. He smacked her on the forearm, she replied in kind. Then they were flailing their hands at each other. "Not a fish, not a fish!"
"Not a lizard, not a lizard!"
"Tunnel!"
"It's not-"
"No! Look! Tunnel!" Arnie grabbed her hand, dragging her along.
They stopped at the top of a steep slope, looking down onto four lanes of traffic that disappeared into the hill they were on. Arnie pointed. Louisa shielded her eyes from the sunlight, seeing a door in the hillside, some sort of maintenance entrance. Standing either side of it were people in golden armour, leaning on spears. "Is that it?" Arnie gasped. "Did we find it?"
"I think so!" Louisa grinned. "But how do we-?" She pointed at them and then at the highway and then the guarded door. Arnie followed the direction, pressing his lips together in thought.
"We can play Chicken."
"Chicken?"
"Run across the road and hope we don't get hit?"
"That's a dumb game. I'm not gettin' hit by a car with Camp right there."
"Alright, alright. Um…" Arnie looked around, flexing his hands. "Could we climb down to it?"
"With what?"
"You can't fly by any chance, can you?"
"No."
"Pfft. Lame." Louisa narrowed her eyes at him. Arnie pretended not to notice, though he did hunch his shoulders.
"Psst! Hey! Psst! Demigods! Turn around!"
"If we turn around," Arnie said slowly, wincing at Louisa, "are we going to be eaten?"
"Probably." She stayed still, scanning her peripheral. There was movement in the bushes, a little way back from where they stood. Arnie had his back to it, but he was watching her face, hand in his dagger pocket. She touched her watch, the now familiar weight of her sword jumping into her hold. "Who's there?"
"Only me!" The voice came back. She saw a face poke through the leaves, like a grey potato the size of a soccer ball. Its eyes were mismatched in size, lacking colour. It had a few wisps of hair atop its head, a wide wonky grin, its tongue lolling at them. "Hello!" It smiled, a line of drool running down its chin. Arnie looked over his shoulder, slowly turning around.
The creature stepped from the bush, revealing a thin grey body, hunched over, with knobbly joints and protruding ribs, its only clothing a musty old loincloth. Its feet seemed too big for its body, slapping on the ground as it hopped forward.
"Ah." Louisa warned, pointing her sword at it. It froze, flinging its long-fingered hands up in innocence. "Who and what are you?"
"I am only me." It said, voice high-pitched but raspy. "I am kobalos." Louisa leaned towards Arnie.
"Know what that is?" She murmured.
"Um… sounds familiar?" He shrugged. "I- I can't remember." His brow creased. Louisa left him to sift through his thoughts. She turned her free hand to the tunnel, pointing at the guarded door.
"How do we get down there?"
"I know shortcut." Only Me drooled, tipping his head as if it had suddenly become too heavy on the left side. "Follow me, follow me." He beckoned to them. Neither of them moved, exchanging frowns. "Come, come." Only Me insisted, waving them on again. It hissed when they refused.
"We want to go there." Arnie stressed, also pointing at the door. "How?"
"Shortcut is the best way, yes, yes." It shuffled away a few feet, trudging back when they still didn't move. "Demigods make this hard. Come. I show you shortcut."
"No." Louisa defied. "Arn, let's just go." She nodded at the slope. It looked dangerous- one wrong step, and they'd be tumbling all the way down into traffic. But a shortcut with a random grey thing from the bushes? No. Definitely not.
"Come, come." Only Me persisted, anger filtering into its tone. "Or my friends will make you, yes, yes."
"Friends?" Arnie echoed warily. Louisa tugged on his sleeve, stepping gingerly down onto the slope. Only Me licked its lips, its bugging eyes fixed on them.
"Yes. Friends."
Louisa took another step. Grass and sod exploded under her foot, punched upwards by a large, dirty hand that wrapped around her leg. The arm followed, then another arm and another arm, clawing the way out. It did not let go of her ankle, swinging her upside down as it rose, tossing away her sword.
"Earthborn!" Arnie cried. He swept forward, dagger at the ready. More hands shot from the ground and he was scooped up in a six-armed hug. "No!" He protested, kicking his feet. His dagger fell. "No, let me go!"
"I did ask nicely." Only Me tittered. "Shortcut this way!" It gestured to its earthborn friends, scampering away like a happy little chimp. Louisa swung a punch at her monster captor, consequently breaking many, many bones in her hand. She bit back her scream, part-groaning, part-hissing.
Their two earthborns were not alone- as they were carried away from the hilltop, away from the highway and the tunnel, more of the six-armed monsters rose from the ground. They fell in line behind the captors, all following Only Me, easily thirty of them.
Arnie was still spewing protests, his arms pinned to his sides. He kicked and squirmed and fought to no avail.
Louisa bit back tears, cradling her busted hand to her chest. She needed her sword.
Holding her hand out, she closed her eyes, concentrating on her blade. She imagined the string, as Salacia had taught her, imagined it shooting back up the hill and looping around the hilt. She tugged at the air, opening her eyes, hand expectant. Her earthborn stared at her, curiosity getting the better of it.
A flash of bronze-gold and it grunted in surprise, eyes wide. Louisa caught her weapon, now with a thick, lumpy coating of mud and clay. Her earthborn stumbled to a halt, swaying on the soles of its feet. Its head tipped forward, as if sleepy, but that was not the case. Calling her sword back to her had brought it straight through the monster's neck, decapitating it quite neatly. Its head splatted on the ground in a pile of wet clay. The rest of its body soon followed, Louisa being dropped in the process.
"No!" Only Me cursed as she rolled onto her feet, sword at the ready. "Get her!"
All earthborn but the one that held Arnie swarmed her. Louisa met them with a fierce yell, slicing the arms off of one, removing legs, stabbing in the gut. For a solid thirty seconds, she made progress, leaving behind a trail of wet clay.
But they were many. She took out maybe nine or ten, but one grabbed her by the scruff of her shirt. Another wrenched her sword away, keeping a tight hold on it. When she made a grab for it, it punched her, in the chest, where her broken hand still resided. The resultant pain teetered her on the edges of a blackout, spikes of hot acid flushing through her arm.
Only Me screeched with delight, clapping excitedly. "Here! Here is shortcut! Quickly, quickly!" It hopped from foot to foot, gesturing to a large hole in the ground. It had definitely not been there when they had walked up only half an hour before.
Arnie thought it was a sinkhole. He was tossed in first, Louisa a few seconds behind him. The light above seemed to just stop, less than two feet below the tear in the earth. How far they fell was hard to tell. Arnie landed on his front, catching himself on his arms. His elbows crushed into his ribs, the wind rushing from his lungs. Louisa landed a little way away from him, wheezing, clutching her broken hand.
Above, they saw the grey smudge of Only Me. It threw down their weapons, cackling. "Have fun in the shortcut!" It waved cheerfully. The ground shuddered, raining dirt and roots down on them. The hole closed up like the lens of a camera, rumbling and taking the light with it. Their weapons glowed, but the darkness was all consuming. Arnie could hear Louisa just out of arm's reach, but he could not see her.
"Lou?" He croaked. She grunted in response. He could hear her moving, heard rustling.
"Ambrosia." She told him. Her hand stretched out in the pitch blackness, bumping into his arm. Arnie felt for her hand, cupping his underneath her curled fingers. The ambrosia square was dropped in his palm.
"Have you got some?"
"Mm-hm." She said, clearly chewing. Arnie ate his. The taste of his mother's homemade carrot cake flooded his tongue. She had always smiled at him when he asked for a slice, always told him it was a secret family recipe he'd get one day. He could bake it for his own kids.
He never got that recipe.
"Where are we?" He asked, battling to keep his train of thought. His eyes burned. He was momentarily glad for the dark, wiping at his eyes.
Metal scraped on stone, he saw the bronze-gold blur move and fall over Louisa's face, giving the barest of illuminations. "How's your hand?"
"Ouchie." She grimaced. "Can move it a little bit." He saw the shadow of her head turn, looking this way and that way. "Are we… in a tunnel?" Arnie reached for the shine of his gold dagger. Even the light from that stung his eyes.
He stood, fumbling blindly for her. He must have grabbed the wrong arm as she yelped and jerked away from him.
"Sorry! Can't see!" He found her other elbow and helped her up. A breeze brushed past them, carrying the scent of dampness. Arnie whistled sharply, the echo carrying for quite some time, on both sides. "I think we are in a tunnel."
"Well, if we go that way," she tugged on his arm, pointing with her blade, "Camp's that way. Right?"
"I- I think so." She linked her arm with his.
"So we don't get lost."
"Again." He joked half-heartedly.
"That was your fault."
"Was not."
"Was too." She began to walk. Arnie fell in step alongside her. The breeze was consistent, pushing against their faces as gently as someone's breath. The damp smell only increased the more they walked, although it was hard to tell how far they had gone. In the dark, there was no saying where they were or how long they had walked.
Arnie didn't like it.
"I… I think we've gone too far."
"Mm." Louisa hummed. She stopped, the glow of her weapon moving about as she tried to discern something, anything of their surroundings. "It just keeps goin'."
"Should we head back?"
"How we gonna get out though?"
"Um… I don't know. Climb? Dig?" Louisa nodded, although he clearly couldn't see it.
"OK." She said. "Let's try that." They turned back, holding their weapons in front of them.
They hardly made it ten feet. Louisa's sword, with the longer reach, scraped against stone. "What-?" Louisa puzzled. She slashed, pushed on, bashed her shoulder against it- against the wall that had sprung up out of nowhere. "We came this way, didn't we?"
"Yes." Arnie said weakly. "Yes, we did."
"Then where-?"
"I know where we are."
"You do?" She tried to see his face in the dark, squinting. She heard him squeak, could feel him trembling beside her. "Arn, what is it? Where are we?"
"Um… we're… we're in the Labyrinth."
"The what?"
"Big, constantly growing maze that's made to trap you forever, drive you crazy and change when you're not looking."
"Oh."
"And, uh…"
"What?"
"Well, it was… also made to keep the Minotaur in."
"The what?"
"Bull-man."
"We have to fight a bull-man?"
"No." The voice made them both jump, clinging to each other. They whirled around, weapons at the ready. A spot of fire bounced towards them, easily seven or eight feet off the ground. It lit a face, an ugly snarling face framed with greasy black hair. The face only had one eye, dead centre, a vivid red dancing with the firelight.
The snarl turned into a grin. "There's no bull-man for you. Just lil' ol' me 'n' ma boys. Sump? Torque?" Shadows moved behind her, large hulking masses. They came into the light, two more Cyclopes.
"Yes, Ma?"
"Get them."
Ah! Ahahaha! Excited!
