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Great Serpents
It was almost evening now. Everyone on board was driving one another crazy. It had been an effort for all the different species — human, bat, rat, and firefly — to be cohabiting in two boats. In one boat, it was getting nasty. Arguments were breaking out right and left, especially over food. A lot of the supplies had been stored in the second boat, so they were lost in the whirlpool. Hazel took stock of the remaining food and put everyone on strict rations. But Glow-Glow and Zap insisted they receive their same gluttonous amounts. When they were told that wasn't going to happen, they whined incessantly until Crunch remarked that he could always eat fireflies. Then they simply sulked and only put out light whenever they felt like it.
"Doesn't seem like such a bad idea now, huh? Me building that ramen restaurant with mouthwatering ramen on THRESHER (chapter 7)," Nico whispered to Hick.
"Nico, you built a bowling alley and a goddamn cinema in a battle submarine when we were busy fighting a war!" said Hick.
"Yeah, be a wet blanket, why don't you?" the boy grumbled, shuffling off.
Hazel sighed at the thought of lapping up warm, steamy ramen noodles, and looked down on her napkin of food. Supper consisted entirely of raw fish. She had given her small ration of bread to Nico even though he rejected it at first. He had gained a healthy amount of weight since the first time she met him, but he was still exceedingly thin. She didn't want him to revert back to that war prisoner state he was almost getting to.
Hick, ghost-white except for the purplish bruise that stained her jaw, insisted on steering so that Percy could get some rest. Dane went on watch with Zap for light.
Before the rest went to sleep, Crunch spoke up, his nose twitching. "We're getting close now. I can smell rats ahead."
"What of the sea serpents?" asked Dane. "Do they still sleep?"
"Sea serpents?" said Percy. His thoughts went back to Camp Half-Blood. He remembered a group of half-bloods on a Greek trireme fighting a large orange sea serpent on the canoe lake. It was just another typical day then. No big deal. Except instead a group of strong demi-gods, there were five powerless ones, two mortals, two bats, one sarcastic and ten growling stomachs.
Dane nodded in reply. "The waters ahead are infested with sea serpents. The rats purposely built the Labyrinth at the coast of these serpent-infested waters to make ship combat impossible. After all, Clawers cannot steer with their paws."
Crunch took another sniff at the air. "They're sleeping for now, but it won't be long before they surface. And they are deadly."
It really wasn't the last conversation Hazel wanted to hear before she went to bed. Rats...serpents...deadly...
As soon as Percy took over the steering wheel, Hick did her usual routine of adjusting the boat's sail. Dane had told her that thanks to the effort she was putting into reading the winds, their boat was moving on way faster towards the destination than planned. As soon as she was satisfied, she climbed into the barrel-shaped Crow's Nest and hunkered down, letting the wooden walls block out the night wind.
The ropes started to move. Hick got up and peered from the Crow's Nest. It was Jason. He was climbing up to the rope towards her spot. She waved at him and helped him climb on as soon as she could grasp his arms.
"I'm alright, don't strain yourself!" he had said, referring to her bandaged arms. The punctured wounds Crunch had given were still healing. "Figured it'd be better to have a bird's eye view of the boat, since I'm on guard duty," he added.
They stood in silence, staring out at the darkness.
"You've been spending a lot of time up here, not coming down," said Jason. "Something on your mind?"
Hick cast him a glance and sighed. "It'd be weird if I didn't."
"Well… at least now you know why you've been having those violent outbreaks," said Jason. "And you're not alone with this. Crunch is like you, right? A Rager?"
"They call natural-born killers here 'Ragers', Jason. But back in our world the word would be 'sociopaths'," said Hick.
"Don't be ridiculous, you're not a sociopath," Jason chuckled. "You have a moral conscience. You just don't know how to control it yet. But Crunch can, right?"
"… Yeah."
"So it can be controlled! You just need the right training. Henry said you're merely an untamed Rager. If you could control it, you'd be able to fight better."
"You mean be a better murderer?"
Jason sighed. "You know that's not what I meant."
"I've always killed in defense. For survival. I never thought that one day, I'd enter Camp Half-Blood and actually kill for… I don't know, political stuff. Selfish reasons. The 'greater good', or so Hera had claimed. It's… It's just the term 'Rager', you know? Like how Adolf Hitler was known as 'The Fury'. It sounds as if I'm becoming some bloody tyrant with anger management problems. I don't want to be like that."
Jason chuckled. "Well, like Mars was right, you are technically related to the infamous Hitler."
Hick cast him a warning glare, but the blonde boy merely shrugged it off and drummed his fingers on the Crow's Nest wooden ledge.
"You know, I still can't believe you and Ryan aren't officially dating," said Jason, prompting a groan from Hick. "Come on! Tell me what's going on with the both of you?"
"That… is the question. That is the question," Hick sighed, surrendering to Jason's incessant interrogation. She sniffled, her nose getting runny from the chilly night air. "I don't know what to make of it yet."
Chinatown, Manhattan, 2012
It was Ryan's seventeenth birthday. Hick stood under the light of a street lamp and looked at her reflection from a shop window. Small flakes of snow dotted the shabby beige trench coat she'd worn for years as she bathed her blood-soaked hands clean with the clump of snow she scooped off the pavements. Just another rough night, fending off bloodthirsty basilisks. She then adjusted her navy scarf and loose twin braids for what seemed like the hundredth time. Just across the shop was the restaurant she was supposed to enter. José, Ryan and Ryan's entire family were in there, looking up the menu.
The entrance door of the restaurant door creaked open and Hick turned around to see Ryan walking up to her. He wore a red pointy party hat that had the words 'BIRTHDAY BOY' carelessly scribbled on with black permanent marker. Hick broke into a grin.
"Nice hat," she said, watching the boy she's loved all her life glance at his shoes out of a brief moment of embarrassment. He hastily took off the hat and stuffed it into his winter coat's pocket.
"Yeah, you're in big trouble, keeping me waiting. Me, the birthday boy," Ryan chuckled, as he clear blue eyes shifted up to meet her gaze.
They stood there for a while, smiling at each other on the cold, concrete pavements glistening wet from tiny leaking snow mounds.
"So…" Ryan began.
"Oh, right! Your present!" said Hick. She briefly wiped her cold, wet hands against her coat and started to rummage through her bag. "It took me hours to get this, so – "
"No, no, no! That's not what meant! Hick, just… just leave it," said Ryan, reaching out to grasp her hands in his. "I have something else I want in mind."
Hick couldn't help but snigger as Ryan wore his serious face. It was so out of character for him, the boy that always smiled so angelically, always spout jokes or flirtatious words whenever he opened his mouth. All she could do was try to contain her nervous laughter. She didn't know how else to react.
"Hey. Stop laughing. I'm serious," he said amidst her giggles. "Hick! I'm really serious! Why are you laughing?"
"Okay! Okay! I know! I'm sorry, I'll stop," Hick laughed, and then bit her lips. She mustered all the mental strength in her to keep a straight face.
But as soon as she felt his arms wrap around her waist, all traces of glee vanished from her face. His clear blue eyes stared into hers, trying to read her thoughts. She could feel her heart racing faster.
"What is it?" she asked, curiosity getting the better of her.
"I know you say we should just be friends. That there are things you just can't tell me, and that we're meant to ultimately live different lives. But I… I still can't stop how much your smile lights up my world, how much I love your heart, how much I love your touch, how much I love you. Despite everything, I love you. And I want to be with you."
Hick sighed. How many times have they had this conversation already?
"Ryan, I can't be with you. What happened to my uncle," said Hick, her heart growing heavy as she recalled her encounter with Arachne that one horrible night three years ago. "I don't want it to happen to you, okay? Look, I cannot give you a full explanation but – I just… I just can't stand losing another love one. "
"Really, Hick? Really? Because you can't lose me, we can't be together? Who does that work out for, huh?"
"Let's not go there again. Look, can we just – "
"Please. I love you. Let's make that enough reason for us to be together… Please?"
As he uttered that last word, he pressed his forehead against hers and their noses touched. Their lips were dangerously close now. She wanted to relent and hug him back, kiss him and tell him she loves him too.
But as much as she wants to, she knows she shouldn't.
"I'm sorry, Ryan. I can't. I can't," she said. She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears that threatened to spill, unable to face the disappointment in his eyes.
"You have done this to me way too many times," he whispered to her. "I can't keep doing this, Hick."
Leaving it at that, Hick felt him took a step back away from her. She opened her eyes. He looked so angry, so disappointed. His eyes were brimming with tears. She looked away, unable to hold back hers. Without a word, she turned and walked away.
Two months later. Beacon Hills, California.
As the lights of Jenson's Burgers flickered off, the restaurant's doors swung open and out step Hick, still in her crumpled uniform. She struggled to shrug on her tattered beige trench coat whilst holding on to her equally shabby haversack.
"Well, Hick…" she murmured to herself, playing with the clinking coins in her apron pocket. "Rough night for tips, but every little penny counts."
She stopped in her tracks. Something felt off. She could feel Ryan's presence nearby. And he was in danger. Following her senses, she turned back and ran as hard as she could. Just as she turned down the corner down a dimly lit corridor to the subway station, she came to a halt. A few feet before her stood four grown men, two of which wielded long curved daggers, hunkering over two lifeless figures slumped on the ground. And one of them was Ryan. She could not see his face but she could smell the fear in his sweat, his pain and the blood oozing out from the wounds he had sustained.
Rage seized every fiber of her being. Almost instinctively, she raised her hands and willed the shadows to deflect the daggers from the perpetrators' grasps. Within two moves, she had entangled one of the dagger wielders in his own jacket and tipped him head first into a garbage trunk. As the other three turned to look at her, she got a clear view of their faces under the lamppost light and immediately recognized their specie.
"Well if it isn't another pack of wolves in Beacon Hills," she sighed. For some reason, the Mist did not work on this breed of monsters.
As soon as one of the remaining three attackers lunged at her, a fight ensued. It all ended way faster than Hick expected.
The one covered with tattoos ended up wedged in a narrow drain, the other with a nose ring wounded up in the same garbage trunk with his other accomplice, and the last one ended up hanging on the top of a lamppost by the hood of his coat when he had tried to run away.
"Hick?" came Ryan's voice. He tried to get up, but he was too wounded to stand. Without a word, she turned and disappeared into the shadows. Fifteen minutes after that, an ambulance arrived on site.
The very next day.
José burst into peals of laughter as Hick read out loud a smut One Direction fanfiction off some cheap, trashy gossip magazine.
"Stop it! Stop it!" he laughed, as he tried to concentrate on weaving the colorful flowers into the braids of her shoulder-length hair.
"No! Listen, it's just getting good!" said Hick, trying to hold back her sniggers. "Oh my god, here's the kinky part!"
She held up the gaudily designed magazine and read:
"I gently bit and tugged on Harry's plump bottom lip, pulling away shortly after. Keeping my eyes closed, I rested our foreheads against each other's. "That's what happens when you give me a blowjob ten minutes before a seven hour flight," he pointed out, making me smirk cockily. I then proceeded to suck his - "
"Okay, Hick, that's enough," José hissed, snatching the magazine out of Hick's grasp. "I skipped a movie date with a total cutie so I could accompany you on your pathetic, lonely Friday night. And this is how you repay my kindness?"
"Oh! So you finally asked that fraternity boy out?"
"No, he isn't gay, which was a shocker. But his twin brother is, so I settled for that," sighed José.
It was Hick's turn to laugh now. Until the doorbell rang.
"I'll get it," José exclaimed, leaving Hick lying all flushed and breathless on his fluffy purple floor rug.
A couple of seconds later, Hick saw Ryan enter the room. His cuts were all stitched up, the shallow ones covered with plasters, and his right arm was in a cast.
"What are you doing here?" said Hick. She sat up, plastic flowers sticking out of her messy braids in all directions.
"Don't sweat it, Hick," Ryan managed to a feeble smile, wincing as the small cut at the corner of his lips reopened.
"Gosh, Ryan. The nurse said you should be resting," said Hick.
"So you did visit. At the hospital," said Ryan.
He watched her in amusement as her face paled. Her gaze immediately shifted to the door.
"José left for his date," Ryan said, reading Hick's mind. Oh, how she'd love it if she could just shadow travel out of the apartment to the elevators so she could catch that José and wring his neck with her bare hands.
But instead, Hick got to her feet. Panic had seized her by the throat and she felt her heart racing faster. She ran for the door. And of course, Ryan reached out his left good hand and caught onto hers, holding onto her. Like he always had. And as they locked eyes, Hick wanted to cry and hold on to him, to finally reciprocate his love and end all that pain they had felt the past year, ever since Ryan made that serious confession that wintry night.
What he said next made her fall for him harder, and it broke her heart all over again.
"I don't care how many times you say you can't and won't love me back, because I know you already do. I know it. So get ready, because I'm going to hold on real tight this time. And never let you go. Ever."
The present.
"And what happened after that?" said Jason.
A wistful smile graced Hick's lips. "You know Ryan," she said. "He's stubborn. He'd always try to help me fight the beasts even though the Mist clouds his vision and makes him see the monsters as regular crooks that are inhumanly strong. That is, it only happens whenever I unsuccessfully shake him off my trail."
"That does sound a lot like what Ryan would do," Jason chuckled.
"Ugh… He's so stubborn! He knows he's no match with those beasts, but he fights anyway. Like he's got some kind of death wish. And I get so worried with him around. If I so much as make a small slip-up, he'd surely be dead meat in the face of a troll," Hick sighed.
"You know… I wonder what it'd be like if you and Ryan got married," Jason commented.
"We'd move to Finland, where there's less monsters roaming. And we'd live in the huge boathouse Ryan has always dreamed of living in," said Hick.
"He's still obsessed with that? I remember him always yakking on and on about how great it would be to live in a boathouse with you, and maybe José and I if we'd be his gardeners," Jason scoffed, still offended at the fact that Ryan would only let him on the boathouse if he'd slave away in the soil.
"Right!" laughed Hick. "He did say he'd have a garden on the roof so we could grow all the carrots we wanted!"
"Well, you did munch on carrots a lot in middle school, from what I recall. We assumed you just loved eating them."
"What! They were leftovers from the restaurant my mom worked night shifts at!"
"Damn. And Ryan said he'd go through the trouble of building a green house over those carrots and install mechanical, laser-shooting scarecrows around to eliminate off carrot-thirsty birds."
Both Hick and Jason lapsed into a chorus of sniggers.
"If you guys are done discussing your boathouse plans, come on down and sleep already," came Percy's voice.
Hick looked over her shoulder to see Percy sitting on the edge of the Crow's Nest. She was so engrossed in the conversation with Jason, she didn't realize Percy had settled himself right next to her. And he seemed angry too, for whatever reason Hick has no idea, as usual. But there was also a tinge of anguish in his sea-green eyes. As if he was feeling guilty about something. Perhaps she's just imagining things. She was starting to feel sleepy. Shaking off her suspicions, Hick flashed Percy a grin, caught onto one of the sail's ropes and swung down feet first onto the deck's floorboards.
Hazel could not get her mind to settle down. She went in and out of a sort of doze, never really losing consciousness, so she was the first one to rouse when Dane sounded the alarm.
"The shiners are gone!" he yelled.
Hazel sat up and opened his eyes and saw... nothing. It was pitch-black. Night had fallen. She could hear Henry fumbling around behind him, muttering, "Conniving, vile creatures!"
She flipped on the flashlight on the yellow helmet she always kept right next to her bed. Hick had risen and done the same. So did Jason. Everyone was stirring now.
"What is it? What has happened?" Percy asked, springing to his feet. He looked to see if Hick was alright. She raised a bandage arm and stuck a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. Her eyes were puffy from sleep, but she was snug and safe.
"The shiners have deserted!" said Nico in his stuffy I'm-still-sleepy voice. With a wave of hand, he ignited Henry's torch with the green hellish flames.
"Deserted? They were bound for the entire journey!" said Henry.
"By what? Their honor? They have none. Their word? Equally worthless! The shiners are bound only by their stomachs, and as we cannot satisfy those, they have broken with us!" said Dane.
"Where could they go?" asked Hick. Her voice was hoarse and she was clearly still drowsy with sleep.
"They'll go to the rats," Crunch said flatly, his tail curled around the boat's mast as he slowly pulled himself up on his hind paws. "They'll receive food and safe passage home in exchange for information on our whereabouts." He looked around at everyone's dismayed faces. "On the good side, we won't have to listen to them whine anymore."
The torch on Hick's helmet was starting to die. They only had six batteries left now. She took out the dead batteries and inserted the news one that still had juice. Light was going to be really precious now. Especially since they were going to strike at night.
As Hick was about to turn off her own flashlight, something caught her eye. For days they had been drifting out at sea, with no land in sight except. Now she could see towering rock walls flanking them on either side. They must be in some kind of channel.
Crunch's nose was twitching like crazy. "We will be there in minutes. And Glow-Glow and Zap have done their work. The rats are waiting for us."
"Can you tell how many?" asked Dane.
"Forty-seven," Crunch said without a pause. "They are waiting in the tunnels above the Tankard."
"What's the Tankard?" asked Hick.
"It's a round, large shaft, very deep, half-filled with water. The serpents sleep on its floor," said Crunch.
"So, the serpents are some kind of fish?" said Hick.
"No, they breathe air. But they can sleep underwater for long periods," said Henry, sharpening the edge of his sword with a flat smooth pebble.
Hick thought of alligators. She learnt from one of the National Geographic episodes that they could sleep underwater, too. If these serpents were as huge and deadly as the ones back home, she has no idea how they were going to take on forty-seven of those buggers. And she dreaded the idea of going into her Rager state.
"I can smell it!" Crunch said. He rose up on her back feet, leaning his front feet on the bow. "I can smell the Bane!"
Up until that moment, Hick had been secretly half-hoping they'd gotten the whole thing wrong. That maybe the Bane was like a fairy tale or a myth or something, and the rats had just been planting the rumor around just to intimidate. But if Crunch could smell it...
"Are you sure?" asked Hick. "I mean, how do you know it's the Bane and not another rat?"
"Are you really going to test my sniffing abilities now, pup? I can smell its whiteness," said Crunch. "Only a flash, here and there. It's deep in the Labyrinth, and there are many layers of stone between us. But it is definitely there."
Hick now felt the need to move. She paced up and down the four-foot strip of floor that was available to her. "Okay, so what's the plan? I mean, what do we do when we get to this Tanker?"
"Tankard," said Henry. "There are several entrances to the Labyrinth in the tunnels above the Tankard. Our original plan involved secretly slipping into one of them and tracking down the Bane on foot. But this was before the shiners turned on us."
"So much for Plan A. What's Plan B?" asked Hick. There was a long pause. "Come on, everybody has a Plan B!"
"In all fairness to the council, Sky-dweller, coming up with any plan that brought us this far was difficult," said Dane. "In the event that a plan fails, we usually have two options to fall back on: We may fight or flee. Of course, ahead we have rat-filled tunnels. And behind us are all waters and nowhere for us to flee. So we fight."
Splash! Something landed off to their right, causing a fountain of water to spray into the air. Splash! Splash! The rats were tipping boulders out of the tunnels and sending them hurtling to the water below.
"Well, that's weak. None of the rocks are even getting near us," Percy frowned.
Hick looked over the boat's ledge. It was true; the boulders were missing them by a mile. She felt a little better, knowing the rats were launching such a worthless attack.
Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash!
Dane frowned. "Something is wrong here."
Henry nodded. "Yes, it is not like the Clawers to waste their energies on futile attacks."
And then it hit Hick. Her eyes widened, and she began waving her arms frantically. "Get the bats to fly the boat up! Fly the boat up now!"
Crunch sprang up at almost the same time. "The serpents are waking! Fliers! Fly us out now!"
The rats weren't trying to sink their boat with the rocks — they were trying to wake the serpents! Aurora latched on to the front ropes; Ares got his claws around the two loops in the back. They lifted the boat out of the water, spinning it in a circle as they rose.
Crunch indicated a tunnel opening opposite the channel they'd come in by. "Fly you there! The one shaped like an arch!"
Hick caught it in her flashlight beam. It was only about six feet high, and you could've swum right into it. "But it's half under water! Does it even have a floor?"
"Further in. Look, this is no time to be picky, you silly pup," snapped Crunch. "The serpents are —!" Bam! Something hit the side of the boat, ripping away a chunk of it. They were knocked sideways. The bats barely managed to hang on.
Hick thought one of the rats' rocks had made contact. Then she saw it. "Oh!" she gasped. "Oh, geez!"
"So, I guess they're not extinct after all," Nico commented. Hick knew he meant dinosaurs, but that wasn't quite right. Dinosaurs had the ability to walk on land. This creature propelled itself with flippers. Some kind of aquatic reptile then, but as old as the dinosaurs. And as big as the biggest skeletons she'd seen at the museum in New York City. Its body was a flattened oval. A whiplike tail beat the water, causing waves to roll across the calm pool. The neck was at least thirty feet long, and atop its sinuous, scaly pink length was a bullet-shaped head. There were indentations where eyes might have been, somewhere in its evolution, but they were long gone. Its mouth opened, letting loose a low howl that chilled Hick right down to her DNA. And then her beam of light hit the teeth. Hundreds and hundreds of teeth in three rows petered into sight and was heading straight for Nico.
To be continued.