A/N: Fun story. My little 16 month old's favorite board book is the babylit Odyssey. #proudparent #raisinganerd

Fun fact: there's a Japanese hydra story, in which the hydra is defeated by being made drunk with wine. - found that out watching the new Shin Gojira movie, and couldn't resist incorporating it.

So I'm keeping that little extra Tuesday update option open up until the second to last chapter. first time I get 10 reviews = extra update.

Shorter Chapter this time. N'Joy!

Ch. 23 – Helena and the Hydra

Helena giggled. Despite Zoro's impressive beatboxing skills, he apparently had no desire to cut his own label. He shed the super cool sunglasses just as soon as they returned to battle. She'd placed him on her shoulder again, glad to have him there. He was good for keeping an eye on her six.

"Help! Oh, good Zeus, have mercy!"

Helena pushed back half a dozen marines to glance toward the person who had called for help. It was Agamemnon. The wealthy warrior had been caught in the maw of one of Regent's heads. The rest of his men weren't fairing much better against the creature.

Helena used her Wrath of Zeus attack to cut him free. Appropriate, considering who he'd just called upon for mercy. Not that Zeus really cared what happened to any of them, Helena thought cynically. Of course, Regent sprouted an extra head in the process, but what was one more?

Helena caught the huge, armored man as he fell. She placed him on his feet as he spluttered out his thanks.

"Agamemnon, I don't think your men are best suited to fight this beast," Helena observed. "You should leave him to me."

"With all due respect, your Majesty, it's like there are hundreds of him to one of you," Agamemnon insisted. "You can't beat him alone."

"I can handle him until reinforcements arrive," Helena said with confidence, "Anyway, he and I have a score to settle."

"Oh…"

"…by…"

"…all…"

"…meansss!"

"Let's…"

"…sssettle…"

"…thisss…"

"…your…"

"…Majesssty!"

Agamemnon called his men back. To give them cover, Helena did her best to draw the Vice Admiral's attention to herself. She stepped forward and pointed Peleus at him threateningly:

"You've got some nerve coming back here, Regent," she shouted, "You've attacked me and my family for the last time."

"Oh…"

"…Helena…"

"…du…"

"…Cygnusss…"

"You-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou couldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't-ouldn't be-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-eemore-ore-ore-ore-ore-ore-ore-ore-ore-ore right-ight-ight-ight-ight-ight-ight-ight-ight-ight!"

Helena frowned pensively at Regent's waving sea of heads. His echo had gotten completely out of hand now, especially when the heads all spoke at the same time. They all had the same brain directing them, right? Then why were they so uncoordinated?

There was obviously some kind of split-second delay for one of his thoughts to connect from one head to the next. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage.

Regent's middle heads charged up their power as some of the side heads reached toward her like long, dexterous arms. Only these arms had teeth. Helena focused herself carefully and jumped just in time to land atop one before it could snack on her.

She made a mad dash up the adjoining neck, dodging jaws and beams of fire, ice, and noxious acid, and, would wonders never cease, lightning. Just how many powers was he storing up in those middle heads?

Her plan to get him tangled in on himself backfired when he proved more adroit than her original assessment. One of the heads took her by surprise, and though he didn't catch her in his teeth or with any of his powers, he did knock her away from him, hard.

Zoro leapt from her shoulder just in time to avoid being squashed as she rolled away. Wiping blood and dirt from a split lip, she got to her feet.

She had managed to trick Regent into biting a few of his own heads; and melting some with acid, burning them with fire or lightning, and freezing some. But it wasn't at a grand enough scale to amount to much next to the hundreds of heads he had now.

Perhaps if she could slow him down…

"Agamemnon," she said, grabbing the big man by the arm before he could retreat behind his men. "I think I have a plan. When we switched out the poisoned wine from the palace, did we store any in your mansion?"

"Aye, my Queen!" he responded. "My house has been levelled, but we stored it in the basement. I'm sure some of it survived the recent attack at least."

"Perfect, bring it to me as quickly as you can," Helena said. She looked pensively at Regent once more, "Drat. What I wouldn't give for a trebuchet."

"I have one of those in my basement too," Agamemnon said.

Zoro snorted from somewhere around her feet as Helena stared at Agamemnon in surprise. "You have a trebuchet?" she asked flatly. "In your basement?"

"What can I say? I have a lot of valuable property to protect," Agamemnon told her with a shrug.

Helena blinked at him once or twice more in shock, but decided not to waste any more time being impressed by the wealthy man's useful paranoia. "Bring it here as well," she commanded. "Here's the plan…"

With the ghost-nuisance now stumbling the halls of the palace as a drunken pig, Captain Circe turned her attention back toward finding her daughter. Bruce the Bloodhound had led her to the wrong girl yet again.

Not that Circe was complaining. He'd led her through the long hallways of the palace and straight to the Princess Kuina du Helena and her formidable nursemaids.

"Hey now, let's not get too excited here, folks," Circe said, trying to hide her discomfiture at having five intimidating weapons trained on her, not the least of which being a military grade sea prism dagger that big guy was holding. "You don't hafta worry 'bout little ol' me."

Circe dropped her revolver at the feet of the short one with the big sword. She seemed like the leader.

"You wouldn' unload on an unarmed woman and her poor dog, wouldja?"

"Mom, look at her coat. She's a Navy Captain," the big guy pointed out, shifting the sleeping Princess in his arms to put her further out of harm's way. "Queen Helena said no prisoners."

"I know, Ax," the tiny swordswoman replied. "You'd better pick up your weapon, Navy Dog. Unless you want to go out without a fight."

These Iliads sure were vicious, Circe realized. Fortunately at that precise moment, a howl echoed through the hallway, waking the Princess and drawing her nursemaids' attention behind them.

"Did we miss one?"

"He must have followed us!"

"Blasted wolves…"

It was just the distraction the captain needed.

"Wanna play a game little one?" she asked the bleary eyed Princess, who was the only one looking at her. The Princess screwed up her face to cry, apparently recognizing the woman who had tried to throw her father off a cliff.

All the same, Circe gleefully reached toward the leader, "Duck, duck, duck," she tapped each of the nurses on the head in turn as she went. "Duck…" The women's cries of alarm swiftly turned to quacks, and Circe knew she didn't have to worry about them or their ridiculously oversized weapons anymore.

Only the big guy left. He looked formidable with that sea prison dagger, but there was also a lot of him, which meant she had a good chance of hitting him. Thankfully, Captain Aldolpho – Circe would know that mustache anywhere – had just come charging around the corner in wolf form, further drawing the final nursemaid's attention.

"…duck!" Circe said, smacking the big guy's bare arm. She caught the now screaming Princess as he shrunk down to join the others in their avian form. "Goose!" she said, tapping the little Princess on the head.

A moment later Circe carefully cradled a downy green gosling in her meaty hands. The ducks swarmed her in an angry whirlwind of feathers, but she soon yodeled them into a nearby broom closet.

"Well, Captain Aldolpho," Circe said, turning to her ally with a haughty grin. "Looks like I caught me a Princess. Regent's gonna promote me for sure. Thanks for your help, pard."

Aldolpho snarled at her.

"Now don't get huffy," Circe went on smugly, "You know I deserve this. I did all the work." She rubbed her cheek against the soft down of the adorable gosling, who peeped loudly, then bit her earlobe in protest.

Aldolpho raised an incredulous eyebrow as Circe flailed, trying to pull the gosling away. By the time she had pulled it free, the wolf had nabbed a bunch of loose duck feathers and shoved them into his ears.

"Now wait just a gol' darn minute…!" Circe started, but it was too late. The stronger, faster Aldolpho snatched the gosling from her hands with his red, drooling mouth.

Careful not to crush the fragile little princess, he closed his jaws around her and took off. Yodel as she may, Circe couldn't call him back, and so was forced to give chase, Bruce trailing along doggedly in her wake.

Zoro was getting sick of the sidelines. But he had to hand it to Helena, she seemed to have a handle on this one.

"Alright, Agamemnon! Let 'er rip!" Helena shouted, gesturing with her sword.

At a signal from Agamemnon, the trebuchet launched its barrels straight into the forest of hydra heads. Regent blasted a few with his various powers, but just as the Queen had hoped, he nabbed a few with his jaws.

"Again!" Helena cried, "Fire at will! As fast as you can load it!"

Agamemnon passed on her message. He and his men really had their work cut out for them. There weren't a couple of hundred of them against thousands of the navy, but they managed to keep the navy back just enough to follow Helena's orders.

It helped that Agememnon had hired some serious muscle. His people weren't any ordinary soldiers. Zoro even recognized a few from his bounty hunting days, apparently hired and assimilated into Ilium for their strength and skill. Together they fought with ten times the strength of their numbers.

It also helped that the Navy had turned most of its attention and manpower to scaling Ilium's famous walls. From the top of the walls, some of Helena's civilians, and even a few cows, were doing their best to keep the enemy down. It was only a matter of time though. What was keeping that idiot, Calypso? They needed to take Circe out now.

Zoro glanced back at the Hydra. Agamemnon's trebuchet had launched the last of the barrels, and Regent had started to stumble, tired and drunken from the effects of the poisoned wine.

"What what what have have have you you you done done done to to to me me me?" Regent demanded. His heads tried to speak in tandem, but the echo was so pronounced now that the words overlapped each other and he was practically incoherent.

"Just gave you a taste of your own medicine!" Helena called to him sweetly.

Regent's many heads hissed at her inarticulately.

"Alright, time to try this again," Helena said. "You wanna come with me, Handsome?" She addressed this last question to the fox at her feet, holding out an arm to him. He grinned and nodded, dashing up onto her shoulder.

Helena had stashed all but Peleus to make running easier. Taking a deep breath, she dashed toward Regent and the swaying heads. All but a few of them tried to lash out at her as she went, whether by shooting fireballs or snapping at her with their jaws. Now drunk, he fought with even more ferocity than before.

But just like the delay in his speech had lengthened, so had the delay in his movements. Helena easily jumped on top of one of his heads and started to bob and sway through the onslaught of necks, beams, and snapping jaws. She guided the heads in loops around one another, knitting Regent into a giant, wriggling knot.

Zoro knew Helena was strong, skilled, and quick on her feet in her own right. But riding this close to her, he noticed something else. She was predicting Regent's movements before he acted; tapping into something deeper, sensing the rhythm of things.

She was using haki! Zoro kicked himself mentally for not having noticed it sooner. She'd used it in fighting Yoma, used it during the battle in the throne room, and even during that ridiculous sword tango with himself and Calypso. It was the observation haki he had taught her back before he had a word for it. –back when he had taught her to cut steel.

He should have realized that a talented swordsman like her would find ways to apply it elsewhere. She hadn't been idle in the years they had been apart.

Helena summited the peak of tangled necks. All but one had become trapped in the giant knot. She'd even guided the more powerful heads into the center, trapping their mouths shut so that they couldn't shoot lighting or fire or whatever.

"You've been defeated, Regent," Helena informed him, looking up at the lone head looming over her. "You would probably be better off turning back into your human form and facing defeat with some dignity. There's nothing more you can do to us like this!"

"Helena du Cygnussss…" the single-head hissed. The heads within the ball echoed him, but most were so choked that it was easy to focus on the main voice looming above.

"It's 'de Zoro'," Helena corrected, glancing at the fox on her shoulder. "When are you idiots going to acknowledge that a pirate married into the royal family of Prometheus and you guys didn't?"

"…you've over-essstimated yourssself yet again," he went on, ignoring her remark. "You think to poissson me with my own venom?"

"Your own venom, huh?" Helena stated flatly, pursing her lips. "I should have figured you'd want to poison a nation personally."

"I may be a little drunk, but I am ssstill more than enough of a match for you!"

Zoro's fur stood on end as he sensed the energy building inside of Regent. "Helena, we've got to get out of here, now!" he yipped at her in alarm.

She seemed to sense what he did, but her observation haki was still untrained. She took a few steps back and turned to run, but she didn't react fast enough to fully avoid the intense beam of energy Regent's last head shot down into his own knotted flesh.

It was stronger and hotter than anything else he'd shot at them before; some kind of intense energy blast, blindingly bright. Grimacing, though the pain did nothing to deter him, he blew a small crater into the ball of necks.

Helena caught the outskirts of it. It probably would have disintegrated or melted her, but the shockwave of it threw her, hard and fast into the street.

Zoro flew from her shoulder and rolled onto the cobbles. Helena, however, did nothing to cushion her own fall. She couldn't. The blast had knocked her out cold.

Zoro dashed to her, stumbling a bit as he regained his equilibrium. "Hey," he yipped at her. "Get up!"

He pushed her, turning her over so that she faced upright. Her eyes were half open. She didn't respond.

Regent ambled toward them, still grimacing in pain and swaying a bit from the wine. He had managed to unknot himself though, and he'd kept most of his heads.

"Freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee free free free free free…!" he echoed in drunken delight.

The necks he'd blasted off to break through the knot had been reduced to smoking, misshapen lumps speckling his stocky body. Strange. Shouldn't they be growing back?

The Vice Admiral hissed out another laugh. He still had that obnoxiously long delay, which drew it out more than necessary. He took in a deep breath through his hundreds of remaining heads, and light glowed inside all of the centermost maws. They were pointed right at Zoro and Helena.

"C'mon," Zoro urged, nudging her again for all the good it would do, "Don't do this right now! Get up!"

The fur all over him stood on end again, and he knew something worse than the last blast was coming. They had Regent's entire arsenal trained on them, after all. There was no time to drag Helena to safety, no time to run even if Zoro had the cowardly urge to leave her there.

Then he realized that his skin wasn't just tingling from the energy pulsating from Regent. The fox had started to glow gold. The strength rushed back into him as his bones and muscles took on their normal shape and size. In an instant he had turned back into his human self again. But in that instant, Regent had let loose his arsenal.

Zoro's swords appeared in his hands and mouth, precisely where he'd had them last. It gave him the half millisecond he needed:

"1080 Pound Phoenix!"

His attack split the onslaught of fire, ice, and what-have-you, slamming into Regent himself. The Vice Admiral had the wherewithal to use armament haki on his body, so the vertical slash didn't pierce him, but the force of it was still enough to lift his enormous girth off the ground. He fell over backward, his heads flailing.

"Roronoa Roronoa Roronoa…!" the hydra screeched. "Where where where did did did you you you come come come from from from?!"

Zoro straightened, an evil glint in his eye. "You stupid Navy worms," he informed him calmly. "Time and again you squander your chance to kill me."