New Place to Begin

Hydra

"Watch out!" Eunbi screamed, and Chaewon was forced to throw herself to the left to avoid the flying venom from the hydra soaring towards her. Grunting, she rolled along the grass before stumbling onto her feet and clumsily raising her sword towards the beast once again.

They'd been fighting for nearly twenty minutes at this point, and no progress had been made towards killing the monster. Eunchae was still raining arrows across the thing to distract it as best she could, but her quiver was almost empty, and she looked exhausted.

"What do we do?" Ryujin called, just barely managing to dodge one of the heads flying towards her, teeth bared. She jabbed at it with her spear, but it just left a narrow gash in its scales as the hydra jerked its head back once again. "We can't keep going like this!"

"The body!" Eunbi called from far to the left. She was locked in a battle with one of the heads herself, and she grunted as she rolled away from a spray of venom. "We can't target the head, but what about the body?"

"Why not the head?" Eunchae questioned incredulously, sinking an arrow into one of the creature's eyes as if to prove a point. It roared in pain, the sound of it echoing loudly throughout the stadium.

Chaewon leapt to the side as one of the heads jutted out towards her, teeth bared and eyes narrowed in a feral rage. The serpentine head shot past her, and on instinct alone, Chaewon struck with her sword, raising it high above her head and slashing downward.

The head of the hydra flopped to the ground and its neck recoiled back towards the body. The rest of the hydra roared in agony, and Chaewon allowed herself a moment of reprieve as she stared at the serpent head lying motionless on the grass.

Then she heard Eunbi.

"... That's why we don't target the head."

Chaewon almost didn't want to look, but when she finally gathered the courage to face the creature once again, her heart dropped.

Right where Chaewon had sliced the head off, the creature's skin was shifting and reforming. She watched as the neck seemed to extend outward, and her eyes widened as two serpentine heads eventually took form, swiftly replacing the one she'd cut off.

"IT REGROWS TWO HEADS?" Eunchae screamed, and Chaewon didn't even have to look at her to know that she was also staring at the beast in horror.

"YES!" Eunbi called back, just barely batting away the strike of another head by hitting it with the flat of her sword. "So we have to go for the body!"

"Got it!" Ryujin replied immediately, and she made a running start towards the creature, her eyes narrowed.

"Ryujin!" Eunchae called after her, notching her last few arrows in an attempt to cover Ryujin as she sprinted towards the Hydra's body.

For a moment, Chaewon almost thought she'd make it. She was about 5 feet away from stabbing her spear into its heart before the hydra finally struck.

One of the closer heads, the one that wasn't distracted by everyone else, shot towards Ryujin as she approached, and it was only Eunbi's scream of warning that prevented her from meeting a grisly end.

Just in time, she raised her spear towards the approaching teeth, managing to wedge the wooden staff in between its teeth.

There was a beat of tension as Ryujin grunted against the force of the head. However, the moment was shattered when Eunchae sank her last arrow into the eye of the head that was attacking Ryujin.

Ryujin stumbled back as hydra roared in anger and pain, retreating away from them.

As the hydra moved towards the back wall of the field to deal with the arrow now lodged in one of its eyes, everyone gathered at home plate, winded and afraid.