CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Hunted Becomes the Hunter

Three miles east of the Sanctuary

After walking a good distance, Isaac was once again complaining about his feet being sore, and to get him to finally stop whining, Aileen bargained with Telia to let him ride on her back. By that time, though, they were practically at the spot that Persephone had pointed out to be their first stop on their quest to take down Aphrodite.

"Remind me again why I'm coming along." Isaac demanded.

"We didn't make you do anything. You came out of your own volition." Aileen shot back.

"Well, you could have talked me out of it!"

"I doubt it. Besides, we could use a marksman…granted, I have no idea what that thing is that you're carrying, but it looks like a ranged weapon, so you're the marksman."

"Haven't there been any other people from other planets here before me?"

"Yes, and Aphrodite has sacrificed or executed every single one."

"Is there a difference?"
"Sadly there is. Sacrificial rituals usually involve another step…I believe it was an Earth man named Sigmund Freud that coined the term 'id'. You know, that monstrous part of the mind that is our wants, like hunger and sexual desire…big emphasis on that last one."

"Oh, God…anyhow, good thinking. I'm the marksman. What does that make you?"

Aileen thought about it for a moment. What logical duty could she take?"
"Hmm…I'm not too bad at sneaking around, proven by the fact that I haven't been caught by the other natives in three years. How about the spy?"

"Spy?" Isaac scoffed. "Kid, you may be fast, but you're no Ryu Hayabusa."
"Who?"

"Never mind."

Hephaestus smirked.

"I'm quite enjoying this." he said. "I suppose if Aileen is the spy, I'll be the Minotaur."

"Minotaur?" Marcus questioned.

"It's a term we use on Cerinia for warriors who fight with larger weapons."

"So you're basically a Heavy Weapons Guy. I get it…how can you even lift that thing?"

"What's that phrase that people form your planet use? Work out and eat your green vegetables, if I'm not mistaken."

"Huh…so what am I?"

"Hmm…from what I understand, you are somehow fated to bring this calamity to an end…so I'd call you our leader."

"Whoa, whoa, what?! You can level a small building with that monster sword of yours and you're calling me your LEADER?!"

"Is there a problem with that?"

"Uhh…not really, I guess, but…really?!"

Aileen gently tapped at the back of Telia's head and she came to a halt.

"We're here."

The four of them hopped down from the huge cat's back and stood in front of a cave leading underground. It was hard to make out from the vines reaching down and covering it, but the most damning thing about it was the quiet yet still audible echoes escaping from the entrance.

"So what exactly is in there?" Marcus asked.

"So full of questions, eh?" Hephaestus smirked.

"Maybe, but I'm sensing something really big and really hostile down there…hence why it's called an Abomination, but whatever."

Aileen whispered something into Telia's ear. The grimtiger nodded and bounded off into the forest. Following this, Aileen turned to the men.

"Inside that cave is the same creature that turned Hephaestus to stone, and she did this simply by looking into his eyes."

"'She'?"

"Yes, 'she'. The first abomination is a creature named Medusa."

Is it just me, or are we referencing yet another famous Nintendo franchise?

"Okay…so what's the plan?" Isaac asked.

Marcus took a few moments to think about the situation. Since Medusa would turn you to stone if you looked directly into her eyes, attacking from the front would be a very bad idea. He snapped his fingers when he got the light he was looking for.

"First thing's first: we'll need to go in and pinpoint her location. Next, I'll create a diversion to lure her to wherever Hephaestus and Isaac will be hiding, with Aileen and I well hidden to attack her from behind once she gets there."

"Wait, why do I have to be the bait?!" Isaac whined.

"Because you'll make too much noise if you try to sneak up on her."

"How do you know that?"
"Trust me: I know."

Isaac rolled his eyes.

"I honestly thought that Persephone was kidding when she said that you were psychic on the way to the Sanctuary, but do you really expect me to believe that?"

"Why not? It's true."

"Alright, I'll test you. I'm thinking of a number between one and one hundred. What is it?"

"Sixty-nine."

"Wha…how did you…"

"Two reason. One: I wasn't lying when I said I was psychic. Two: you seem like the kind of guy that would make that kind of joke. Moving on."

The group slowly began to proceed into the cavern, each with their own respective weapons ready. The cave itself wasn't pitch-black or anything, but it still forced the group to strain their eyes to see properly, and it still warranted the use of the glowing tip of Marcus' staff to light the way.

"One hundred bottles of beer on the wall, one hundred bottles of beer…" Isaac hummed in a bored tone. "Take one down and pass it around, ninety-nine bottles of beer…"

"What's that you're singing?" Aileen asked.

"Just some stupid drinking song. I don't think you're old enough to drink, anyway, so I wouldn't worry."

"I'm eighteen. I'm old enough to mate. Does that count?"

"Old enough to…what…never mind, that's just wrong. Why did you tell me that?"

"Does it count?"

"No…not where I'm from, at least."

"And speaking of mates." Hephaestus spoke up. "What is your mate like, Marcus?"

"She…she's not my mate."

"Then she is simply your friend?"
"No, no. We're just dating right now…although I personally would like to take it to the next level."

"Ah, so you DO plan on mating with her soon enough."

"No! I meant marriage! Why are we even talking about this?"
"The term is breaking the ice, I believe."

"Yeah, but that…that's disintegrating the ice and burning it up in a furnace!"

"I apologize. I didn't mean to upset you."

"It's alright. It wasn't upsetting, it just…came outta nowhere."

The sensation that Marcus got when he first sensed for the Abomination grew stronger.

"We're getting closer." he said through gritted teeth. "Keep your guard up."

Walking into a pitfall doesn't really help this matter, but that's sadly what happened. The four stepped forward and suddenly found themselves falling a great distance before landing flat on the dirt…or rather, Marcus landed flat on the dirt and everyone else came piling down on top of him. Nothing like a five-foot long sword smashing your back in, eh?

"Wasn't that just brilliant…ow…" Isaac groaned.

"Would you all get off of…" Marcus began, but stopped when his ears pricked up. "…what was that?"

The sound was a good distance away but was loud enough that Marcus could hear it. It sounded an awful lot like a low hissing noise, like a large reptilian creature stirring awake.

"Oh, shit. Oh shit, oh shit, man…" Isaac began panting. "What did I do to deserve this?"

Marcus' staff lit up at one end and revealed the quartet to be in a sort of stone labyrinth with the walls stopping a great distance below the ceiling. Marcus looked at Aileen and the two of them nodded before the latter wall-kicked her way up to the top and balanced herself before sinking down on all fours are carefully crawling along to avoid making any noise. With their minds linked, Marcus sensed for the creature again. He picked up its traces a little ways north of their current location.

With that said and done, he motioned for Isaac and Hephaestus to stay where they were as he slowly walked forward, trying his best not to make any sudden noises. It had to be around her somewhere.

After walking and rounding corners a few more times, he sensed for the creature again. It was near enough for him to put their plan into action. He carefully tapped his staff against the stone wall, sending the sound echoing throughout the labyrinth. He sensed again and found that the creature was steadily coming towards his position, and he thus began moving away from it back to where Isaac and Hephaestus were.

As he ran down the path, he sensed again after some time and found the creature was about to round the corner of the hall he was in. Unfortunately, it was still too far away from where Aileen had set up her trap. If Medusa rounded the corner and saw Marcus now, the whole plan was shot. Thankfully, he spotted a nook at the last second and ducked into it right as the Abomination came into view. He wasn't able to catch a glimpse of it, but he didn't have time to do so. He couldn't attack her yet, either. He needed support if he was going to take down this monstrosity.

With these facts in mind, Marcus squeezed himself as far back into the shadows of the nook as he could and stayed silent. Perfect timing, because Medusa suddenly stopped right in front of the nook. Her appearance was utterly shocking to say the least. While she thankfully didn't have snakes for hair (that would have doomed Marcus in seconds), she did have the lower body of one and the upper body of a standard Lylatian, not to mention she had to be at least fifty feet long The shocking part was which standard Lylatian she looked like.

"She…she looks like…"

He couldn't even finish his thought. Seeing something like this that looked like Krystal was almost too horrible for Marcus to bear through. He concealed his shock to the best of his ability, especially when Medusa turned her head to where he was hidden, prompting him to close his eyes.

This event was all too familiar, but last time it had just been a psychological test by a benevolent spirit. This time it was a real-life horror, made worse by the fact that the horror looked like one of the people he loved the most in the entire endless universe. Why did Medusa look like Krystal? Was there some deeper meaning behind it? Did Kursed see Krystal as a monster? Well, of course. Persephone had explained that to him black-and-white, clear as crystal. Kursed hated her sister. So in short, Kursed wasn't just a surrogate mother to Marcus. She was technically his aunt, as well…why was he thinking about this when there was a half-snake monster breathing down his neck.

By some divine act of God, Medusa hadn't seen him and continued to slither on after looking hard for several moments. As soon as Marcus was sure she was gone, he opened his eyes and took in a well-needed breath. Steadily, he stepped out of the nook and began quietly stepping toward the Abomination as she slithered along toward the team's trap. All of a sudden, she stopped.

"It's about time you came, Marcus." she said softly before turning around.

Marcus slammed his eyes shut and stood perfectly still. Any sudden movement would be sure to get her in the hunting mood, but the issue was that he wanted to start running the second she had spoken. Not only did she have Krystal's face and body, she had her voice too. Why did he feel so afraid? Was this the only thing he was really afraid of? To be loved by his mother for so long and then just have her turn against him?

No matter the case, he stayed perfectly still and kept his eyes shut as this beast loomed over him, gently bringing herself closer to his face.

"It's me, darling. It's Mother."

"You're…you're not my mother…"

"Oh, don't say things like that. Remember how you had a nightmare when you were little and I came to comfort you. You didn't cry, but you were still scared just like you are now."

"Leave me alone!"

"No, sweetie…I can't. I can't leave you knowing how much you're suffering."

Marcus felt Medusa wrap her arms around and bring him into a warm and soft embrace. It unnerved him that this creature was actively trying to kill him but she was treating him as though he were her actual child. No…he couldn't let that get to him. Whether it was or not, it was certainly frightening him. She looked, sounded, and even felt like Krystal, but no…that didn't mean she had the same love.

"Let me see your eyes, Marcus." she whispered. "Please…let me gaze into your sweet eyes."

Marcus shook his head, even though this embrace made him feel more welcomed by her. The thought of her being a monster taking the guise of his mother was somehow being twisted around to him thinking that maybe she wasn't so bad…maybe…maybe it would be alright to open his eyes for just a moment.

How foolish he was, because when he opened his eyes, it wasn't his mother in front of him even though it had the same face and upper body. She grabbed Marcus' head and forced him to look up into her malicious face.

"Bad luck, little puppy." she giggled with her eyes closed before gently leaning into towards his ear and coyly whispering, "Time to die."

She drew back and snapped her eyes wide open with that horrid smile still on her face. Marcus tried to look away but Medusa's hands kept his head in place and his eyes stretched open as he looked fearfully into her cold and almost dead eyes. She was beautiful, but that didn't stop him from feeling fear, especially when he felt his arm begin to grow increasingly colder and stiffer. This sensation steadily began to inch its way across his body, preparing to take him into a stone-cold sleep when…

"Ready a light snack, Medusa, for tonight you dine in Hell!" shouted Aileen as she came plummeting down to the ground with her blades raised over her head.

Medusa pushed Marcus away and dodged the blow. Aileen shut her eyes in an instant but still stood in a ready stance. Medusa smirked.

"You think you can fight me like that, you dumb little brat?"

"I can do a lot with my eyes closed. Trust me, you won't be disappointed."

While Aileen fended the beast off, Marcus crouched into the nook he'd been hiding in before and took a good look at his arm. He couldn't feel it anymore, and now he knew why. It had turned to solid rock just like Aileen had warned him it would.

"No biggie." he muttered. "I can fix this…I hope."

He raised his other hand over his petrified arm and uttered the same incantation he had uttered when Coyote had that sudden monstrous outburst.

"Cefyriybs Nefgh…" he whispered.

A light shined from his palm and draped itself over his ruined arm, only for it to regain the lost colour and his control of it. He clenched his fist a few times just to be sure, then looked back over the corner to see Aileen still slashing away at Medusa, who was dodging her attacks like nobody's business. Aileen had no time to prepare herself after blocking a heavy attack from Medusa's claws as the Abomination slammed her gigantic tail into the young Cerinian's stomach and sent her crashing against a wall.

"Hey…I remember you now." Medusa cackled. "You were in the Sanctuary when I turned that sweet prince Hephaestus to stone three years ago, weren't you? Didn't Queen Aphrodite cut your father's head off?"

"How dare you call that woman…no, that THING a queen!" Aileen growled before running at Medusa again.

Medusa sighed.

"When will you naïve little children learn?" she scoffed before seizing Aileen's neck and hauling her high off the ground. "Aileen, dear…won't you let me see your eyes?"

"No, but I'll gladly let you see my fist in your face, bitch!" yelled Marcus

Medusa turned just in time to see…well, Marcus' fist in her face. Upon being struck, she reeled backwards in pain and clutched at her now smarting face. Between her fingers, Marcus could see…nothing. Because he had his eyes shut, ya dummy!

"You little rat…" the Abomination hissed.

"Joke's on you." Marcus replied. "I'm a fox."

"You know what I mean."

"No, actually I don't. Please elaborate. I'm so interested."

Medusa hissed and slammed her tail downward. Marcus rolled out of the way at the sound of the tail lifting without even having to open his eyes for a quick peek. His ESP was kicked up enough that he could sense her every move, making him wonder why it hadn't reacted when he first saw her. Maybe it was because he had been dealing with the shock of Medusa looking like Krystal and now he'd recovered judging from the fact that his mother would never do something like that to him, but what do I know, right?

When he heard a loud crash, Marcus thought for sure that Medusa had slammed her tail hard enough to crack the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he saw that wasn't so. Hephaestus had sliced a piece of the wall off and had dropped it down on the half-snake monster.

"Remember me?" he scoffed before grasping the hilt of his blade and swinging as hard as he could.

Medusa wasn't quite dazed enough to not get out of the way in time, though it startled her just how much of an impact Hephaestus made in the dirt when his massive blade hit the ground. She looked up and growled, not helped when the Cerinian prince shielded his eyes.

"You…I thought you'd learned your lesson, fair prince Hephaestus."

"You just can't keep a good man down."

Medusa hissed again and swung her tail at Hephaestus. He blocked it, though it still sent him sliding backwards slightly.

"Where the hell is Isaac?!" Marcus shouted. "He's supposed to be backing us up!"

"You're not going to believe this when I say it, but that damned coward ran away like a child!"

"You gotta be shittin' me! He's got a freakin' machine gun and he thinks that this thing is too much of a challenge for that?!"

"It seems like…LOOK OUT!"

Too late. Medusa had seized Marcus in one hand, Aileen in the other, and had wrapped Hephaestus up in her tail. As if cutting off their air supply wasn't enough, she began to speak incredibly intimidating things to them that only made the tense situation even worse, not helped by the fact that their only backup had bailed on them.

"I haven't had a decent meal in some time," she said. "So I'll give you two natives the honour of being my dinner for tonight."

"We'll give you indigestion, bitch!" Aileen spat.

"Even so, you're too delicious for me to think otherwise. And as for you, Marcus, I'm afraid I'll have to freeze you until the Great Mother comes to collect you. Hopefully she lets me keep your body. I have such a fine collection of statues, and you'd make quite the…"

What replaced the last word was a loud gunshot that echoed throughout the whole labyrinth. Medusa's eyes suddenly bugged out when she realized that something had just surged through the back of her head and came out the other side. Blood came dripping down her face before she collapsed forward, dropping Marcus and Aileen and loosening her grip on Hephaestus.

"Hoo, boy, I thought she'd never shut up." Isaac sighed from his perch on the nearby wall, smirking when saw the looks on the rest of the group's faces. "Oh, I'm sorry. Did you guys want to kill her?"

"Wait…you were just getting in a good enough spot to snipe her?"

"Yep. You can hear and see everything on top of these walls…especially rude comments about cowardice."

Hephaestus scratched at the back of his head as he freed himself from Medusa's tail.

"Uhh…listen, Isaac, I…"

"Don't worry about it." Isaac replied as he hopped down from the wall and clipped the gun on his back again. "You had every right to doubt me. I haven't really done any group work since I was in the Hot Rodders."

The four turned to the corpse of the snake woman, with Aileen pushing the eyes closed first.

"So this is what my aunt Krystal looks like?" she asked.
"Yeah…well, not quite, but pretty close." Marcus said somewhat meekly. The thoughts of that thing trying to comfort him still lingered in his head.

"She's beautiful…promise once this is all over you'll take me to see her."

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here."

"Back to important things." Hephaestus said. "We must find the key."

Marcus sensed the area again, trying to find anything that would be abnormal in this area. He got a response…from within Medusa's body.

"That's just sick, man…" he grumbled.

"What?" Isaac asked.

"She ate the damn thing."

Aileen unsheathed one of her blades and didn't even give the boys time to look away before she sliced open the creature's stomach and reached inside. With moments, she had found the key and pulled it out. It was shaped oddly with the same infamous symbol that had been on the temple wall, and it was grotesquely smeared with blood and other such fluids.

"And you don't feel unnerved doing something like that?" Isaac asked.

"I gut animals all the time for my meals. Unlike them, she's scum. She's better off dead."

"Right…anyhow, do we go after the other one or just call it a night?"

"We'll leave that up to Marcus."

The three turned to him and awaited a response. It made him both honoured and troubled that these three people whom he'd only just met were putting their trust in him to tell them what to do next. What troubled him even more was the question. There was no way he could wait to save Coyote. Kursed could have killed her at any moment…or worse. Then again, he was very tired after having to fight this monster, and he was sure the others were tired as well.

It pained him to say it, but he made his choice and tried his best not to regret it.

"We call it a night. We need to be properly rested if we're going to have enough strength to take down the next Abomination."

"Right." Hephaestus agreed. "…one question, though: how in Grimm's name do we get out of here?"

Try using your head, buddy.

I don't really have too much to say at the moment except that I'm getting pretty close to finishing a chapter for the next Star Fox story I plan on doing. In order to keep with continuity, that story won't be published until some time after this one is done, though if you win the contest I cooked up at about Chapter 14, you'll get to see it early. Remember to message me and tell me your username on whatever site it is you publish your artwork on and I'll have a look. I know I'm sounding desperate here, but I really wasn't kidding when I said I have no drawing/painting skills.

Oh, and if you're so inclined to ask, I'll be so inclined to answer: no. I'm not into vore if that's what Medusa's last words implied...not that there's anything wrong with it?