To 8Ball3- IF THERE ISN'T A CROSSOVER SOON, I'M GONNA RIOT

Short chapter today!

He missed.

Rather than piercing the monster's skull as he had hoped, his arrow shattered on the rocks a few feet away from Python's head. Splinters skittered harmlessly across the cavern floor. Python's lamp-like eyes snapped open.

Apollo landed in the centre of the room, ankle-deep in a bed of old snakeskin. At least he didn't break his legs on impact. He could save that disaster for his big finale.

Python studied him, his gaze cutting like headlights through the volcanic fumes. The shimmering haze that surrounded him was snuffed out. Whether he had finished digesting its power or whether Apollo had interrupted was unclear.

Apollo hoped he might roar in frustration. Instead, Python laughed, a deep rumble that liquified Apollo's courage. It was unnerving to watch a reptile laugh. Their faces were simply not designed for showing humour. Python didn't smile, per se, but he bared his fangs and let his forked tongue lash the air, probably savouring the scent of Apollo's fear.

"And here we are." His voice came from all around, each word a drill bit set against Apollo's joints. "I have not quite finished digesting Nero's power, but I suppose it will have to do. He tastes like dried rat anyway."

Apollo was relieved to hear he had interrupted Python's emperor-tasting. Would it make him slightly less impossible to defeat? Maybe. But Apollo didn't like how unperturbed the reptile sounded, how utterly confident. On the other hand, he didn't really look like much of a threat.

He loaded his bow.

"Slither away, snake. While you still can." Python's eyes gleamed with amusement.

"Amazing. You still haven't learned humility? I wonder how you will taste. Like rat? Like god? They are similar enough, I suppose…" He was wrong- not on the gods tasting like rats, but Apollo had learned plenty of humility. So much so that now, facing his old nemesis, he was racked with self-doubt. He couldn't do this. What had he been thinking?

And yet, along with humility, he had learned something else: getting humiliated was only the beginning, not the end. Sometimes all that was needed was a second shot. And a third. And a fourth. He fired his arrow. This one hit Python in the face, skittering across his left eyelid and making him blink.

The snake hissed, raising his head until it towered twenty feet above Apollo. "Stop embarrassing yourself, Lester. I control Delphi. I would have been content to rule the world through my puppets, the emperors, but you have helpfully cut out the middlemen. I have digested the power of the Triumvirate! Now, I will digest-" Apollo's third shot throat-punched him. It didn't pierce the skin, that would have been too much to hope for, but it hit sufficient force to make him gag.

Apollo sidestepped around piles of scales and bones. He jumped a narrow fissure so hot it steam-baked his crotch. He nocked another arrow as Python's form began to change. Rows of tiny leathery wings sprouted from his back. Two massive legs grew from his belly, lifting him up until he resembled a giant Komodo dragon. "I see." He grumbled. "Won't go quietly. That's fine. We can make this hurt." He tilted his head, like a day listening. "Ah, Delphi speaks. Would you like to know your future, Lester? It's very short." Green luminescent fumes thickened and swirled around him, filling the air with the acrid scent of rot. Apollo watched, too horrified to move, as Python breathed in the spirit of Delphi, twisting and poisoning its ancient power until he spoke in a booming voice, his words carrying the inescapable weight of destiny: "Apollo will fall-"

"NO!" Rage filled his body. His arms steamed, his hands glowed. He fired his fourth arrow and pierced Python's hide just above his new right leg.

The monster stumbled, his concentration broken. Clouds of gas dissipated around him. He hissed in pain, stomping his legs to make sure they still worked.

"NEVER INTERRUPT A PROPHECY!" He roared. Then he barrelled towards Apollo like a hungry freight train. Apollo leapt to one side, somersaulting through a pile of carcasses as Python bit a chank out of the cave floor where he had been standing. Baseball-size debris rained down around him. One chunk hit the back of his head, nearly knocking him unconscious.

Python struck again. Apollo had been trying to string another arrow, but the snake was too fast. Apollo jumped out of the way, landing on his bow and shattering the arrow in the process.

The cave was now a whirring factory of snake flesh- conveyor belts, shredder apparatus, compactors and pistons, all made of Python's writhing body, every component ready to grind Apollo into pulp. He scrambled to his feet and jumped over a section of the monster's body, narrowly avoiding a newly grown head that snapped at him from Python's side.

Given Python's strength and Apollo's own frailty, he should have died several times over. The only thing keeping him alive was his small size. Python was a bazooka. Apollo was a housefly. The reptile could easily kill him with one shot, but he had to catch him first. "You heard your fate!" Python boomed. Apollo could feel the cold presence of his massive head looming above him. "Apollo will fall. It's not much, but it's enough!" He almost caught him in a coil of flesh, but he hopped out of the snare. "You cannot escape your destiny!" Python gloated. "I have spoken, so must it be!" Another thing Apollo had learned- destiny was malleable. Louisa may have been crazy and loud and angry, but she was right about that.

He leapt onto Python's trunk and used it as a bridge to cross one of the fissures. He thought he was being clever until a random lizard foot sprouted next to him and raked his ankle with its claws. He screamed and stumbled, desperately grasping for any handhold as he slipped off the side of the reptile. He managed to grab a leather wing, which flapped in protest, trying to shake him off. Apollo got one foot on the rim of the fissure, then somehow hauled himself back to solid ground.

Bad news: his bow tumbled into the void. He couldn't stop to mourn. His leg was on fire. His shoe was wet with his own blood. Naturally, those claws would be venomous. He had probably just reduced his lifespan from a few minutes to a fewer minutes. He limped towards the cavern wall and squeezed himself into a vertical crack no bigger than a coffin. What a wonderful comparison!

He had lost his best weapon. He had arrows but nothing to shoot them with. Whatever fits of godly power he was experiencing, they weren't consistent and they weren't enough. That left him with an out-of-tune ukulele and a rapidly deteriorating human body. He wished his friends were here. He would have given anything for Meg's exploding tomato plants or Nico's Stygian iron blade or even a team of fast-running troglodytes to carry him around the cavern and screech insults at the giant tasty reptile.

But he was alone.

Wait. A faint tingle of hope ran through him. Not quite alone. He fumbled in his quiver and drew out the Arrow of Dodona.

HOW DOETH WE, SIRRAH? The arrow's voice buzzed in his head.

"Doething great." Apollo wheezed. "I gotteth him right where I wanteth him."

THAT BAD? ZOUNDS!

"Where are you, Apollo?" Python roared. "I can smell your blood!"

"Hear that, arrow?" Apollo rasped, delirious from exhaustion and the venom coursing through his veins. "I forced him to call me Apollo!"

A GREAT VICTORY! 'TWOULD SEEM 'TIS ALMOST TIME.

"What?" Apollo asked. Its voice sounded unusually subdued, almost sad.

I SAID NOTHING.

"You did too."

I DIDST NOT! WE MUST NEEDS FORMULATE A NEW PLAN. I SHALL GO RIGHT. THOU SHALL GO LEFT.

"That won't work. You don't have legs."

"YOU CAN'T HIDE!" Python bellowed. "YOU ARE NO GOD!" This pronouncement hit Apollo like a bucket of ice water. It didn't carry the weight of prophecy, but it was true nonetheless. At this moment, he wasn't sure what he was. He certainly wasn't his old godly self. He wasn't exactly Lester Papadopoulos either. His skin steamed. Pulses of light flickered under his skin, like the sun trying to break through storm clouds. When had that started?

He was between states, morphing as rapidly as Python himself. He was no god. He would never be the same old Apollo again. But, in this moment, he had the chance to decide what he would become, even if that existence only lasted a few seconds.

The realisation burned away his delirium.

"I won't hide." He muttered. "I won't cower. That's not who I will be." The arrow buzzed uneasily.

SO… WHAT IS THY PLAN?

Apollo grasped his ukulele by the fret board and held it aloft like a club. He raised the Arrow of Dodona in the other hand and burst from his hiding place.

"CHARGE!"

At the time, this seemed like a completely sane course of action. If nothing else, it surprised Python. Apollo imagined what he must have looked like from his perspective: a raggedy teenage boy with ripped clothes and cuts and contusions everywhere, limping along with one bloody foot, waving a stick and four-stringed instrument and screaming like a lunatic.

He ran right at his massive head, which was too high for him to reach. Apollo started smashing his ukulele against the snake's throat. "DIE!" CLANG! "DIE!" TWANG. "DIE!" CRACK-SPROING! On the third strike, his ukulele shattered.

Python's flesh convulsed, but, rather than dying like a good snake, he wrapped a coil around Apollo's waist, almost gently, and raised him to the level of his face. His lamp-like eyes were as large as Apollo was. His fangs glistened. His breath smelled of long-decayed flesh.

"Enough now." His voice turned calm and soothing. His eyes pulsed in sync with Apollo's heartbeat. "You fought well. You should be proud. Now you can relax." Apollo knew what he was doing- that old reptile hypnosis trick, paralysing the small mammal so it would be easier to eat. Somewhere in the back of his mind, some cowardly part of him (Lester? Apollo? Was there a difference?) whispered, Yes, relaxing would feel really great right now.

He had done his best. Surely Zeus would see that and be proud. Maybe he would send him down a lightning bolt, blast Python into tiny pieces and save him!

As soon as he thought this, he realised how foolish it was. Zeus didn't work that. He would not save him any more than Nero had saved Meg. Apollo had to let go of that fantasy. He had to save himself.

He squirmed and fought. He still had his arms free and his hands full. He stabbed Python's coil with his broken fret board so forcefully that it ripped his skin and stuck in his flesh like a massive splinter, green blood oozing from the wound. Python hissed, squeezing tighter, pushing all the blood into his head until he feared he would blow his top like a cartoon oil well. "Has anyone ever told you," Python snarled, "that you are annoying?"

I HATH! The Arrow of Dodona said in a melancholy tone. A THOUSAND TIMES. Apollo couldn't respond. He couldn't breathe. It took all his remaining strength to keep his body from imploding under the pressure of Python's grip.

"Well." Python sighed, his breath washing over him like the wind from a battlefield. "No matter. We have reached the end, you and I." He squeezed harder and Apollo's ribs began to crack.