The Warrior Reborn

Part 26

We both looked at each other and drew out weapons. We stood side by side, waiting for the enemy to show itself. The creature first showed it's head, no excuse me, it's heads. It climbed up from the ledge where we were both sitting. It slowly climbed up until it's whole body was shown. We didn't attack it while it was climbing because we were both standing there in shock at the creature. It had 20ish hydra heads, the shell/body of a turtle, the arms and legs of a crab (it had 8 crab legs instead of the normal 6), and 2 manticore tails on its back. It was about 20 meters tall, and 30 metres in both length and width.
"Umm Percy? How did that thing manage to climb up here without alerting the others?" She asked fear evident in her voice. My mind went back to the conversation on the Argo 2. While me and Annabeth were in Tartarus, the others were attacked by a gigantic turtle lead by Sciron the bandit. Apparently, the turtle shell managed to block Leo from noticing it coming.
"It's a freaking stealth turtle" I replied. She stared at me weirdly but I kept my gaze on the monster. It watched us warily, intelligence in it's eyes. It then charged us with the speed of a cheetah. I rolled to the left and Skye rolled to the right. When I got up, one of it's heads were right in front of me with it's teeth bared. Without thinking, I sliced it off and then silently cursed myself as I saw the stump grow back along with 2 more heads. I noticed Skye Blast 3 heads with her light beam in the corner of my eye, effectively disintegrating them. Unfortunately, light was not the same as fire and two more heads took its place. I ducked under a volley of manticore spikes and swerved out of the way to avoid being bit in half. My tails extended from my back and blocked another volley of spikes. I turned into a wolf and charged the creature. 3 meters away, I turned back into a human and baseball slid under the creature, scraping my sword on its underbelly. Sparks flew but it didn't seem to effect the creature. As soon as it saw me go under it, the monster tried to sit on me. I yelped and shadow travelled high above it. My formed a giant chunk of rock around me and I reached terminal velocity just before I made impact with the creature. The rock burst into rubble and I rolled off its back. Not even a scratch. It seemed as if I threw a rock at a lion. It pissed him off but didn't really do any harm. It's claw swung at me but all four of the tails crossed in front of me, making a shield. It blocked the attack but the force still sent me flying backwards a bit. I solidified the water in the atmosphere (surprising a lot up here) and threw the water at it. Half the hydra heads blasted fire at the water while the other half was spitting poison and trying to hit Skye who was gracefully dodging between the heads trying to find a weak spot and only stabbing the heads when needed. While looking at Skye, i didn't notice the spikes flying towards me until last second. I yelped and back flipped over the spikes. While reaching the peat of my flip, the thing swung it's claw and slapped me across the clearing into a rock wall. The tails took the brunt of the damage but I still felt something break on impact. I stood up groggily and felt the wall behind me shake. I looked up and almost pissed my pants. Around 50 boulders were falling on top of me and I didn't have any time to get away. I slapped the button on my watch. It armour formed around me just in time for me to be crushed by the boulders. My arms were pinned under the rocks and my back felt like a dozen elephants were tap dancing on it. I felt some broken bones but nothing too bad. My whole body was buried underneath the avalanche. I heard my name being called and I looked and from between some cracks, I saw a manticore spike hit skye behind her shoulder. I saw the daughter of Order wince in pain but turn back to face the beast. She charged but the poison from the spike caused her to be sloppy and slower. She managed to dodge the first few heads but when the claw was thrown her way, she couldn't dodge in time. It hit Skye square in the chest and she was sent flying. She fell on her butt and spit out blood from her mouth. She grimaced and blasted the creature with a beam of light. At the same time, every single hydra head blew fire that intercepted the beam. Skye's light beam was soon completely gone and Skye crumpled to 1 knee, hiding behind a giant light shield she created. Within seconds, I could see her already weakening. Her shield flickered weakly and I saw blisters forming on her arms from the heat. Just then, a balista bolt hit the creature in the shell. It didn't seem to hurt the thing but the force managed to make it stumble back. My eyes turned to see Nicole manning the balista being backed up by two dozen warriors, including Ruth and Brianna.
"Get away from my daughter you beast!" She shouted firing another bolt. The monster hissed but didn't back away from the daughter of Atlas who was currently struggling to stand up. One of it's heads bit into Skye's thigh and she screamed and her whole body convulsed on the floor as the venom entered her blood stream. The warriors yelled out but we're hesitant to attack in case the thing killed Skye. Just then, with a sickening crack, a hydra head slammed into her like a gold club and sent her flying off the edge. The last thing I saw before she fell off was her eyes rolling up her head as she fell unconscious. My vision turned red and all the rocks around me turned to dust. I ran and jumped off the edge of the mountain like I was diving into water. I desperately looked for the daughter of Order which was hard due to the wind in my face and my hair which was flailing around. I saw her unconscious body falling below me and I used my power over wind to speed my descent. As soon as I reached her my brain just went 'ok now what'. My tails extended and 2 wrapped around her so she didn't fall and the other two stabbed into the mountain. It took 10 seconds before we fully stopped our falling and began to climb up, slowly due to the fact that it only used 2 tails and the extra weight we were carrying. I lay Skye down on my lap and made the other tails speed up our ascent. I heard the battle in the distance and thunder booming in the sky but right now, I was focused on my task. First, I pulled the poison out of her body using my powers. Then I took out 3 squared of ambrosia from my pocket, carefully making sure I didn't drop her. I ate one and force fed one to Skye. I crushed the last ambrosia square into powder and sprinkled it on her wounds. I then bandaged her cut with the sleeves of my shirt. After bandaging her wounds, I placed my hands on her thigh where she got her gash and I felt the power of the hearth heal her. I saw her blisters start to fade, her burn marks start to heal and her injuries close. After about 2 minutes of doing so, her eyes finally fluttered open. My let out a breath I didn't know I was holding.
"Rise and shine flashlight" I tell her. She was too worried to even hit me.
"What happened, after I was sent flying?" She asked.
"I jumped off the cliff and the others fought the thing" I reply. "What was that anyways?"
"That, was one of the hybrid monsters End was working on. The others were all failed attempts but it seems he got results eventually" she explained. We finally came back and saw that most of the warriors were either knocked out or were incapacitated. The only ones left were a few archers from the trees who were slowly getting taken down by the manticore spikes, Nicole who was still manning the balista along with Ruth and Brianna. Ruth was fighting with a large hammer, calling down lightning which only seemed to annoy the creature. She smashed the hydra heads and blocked a swing from the claw. Brianna's was, in my opinion, the coolest. She had multiple clones of herself doing different things. Some were shooting arrows from afar, some were slashing with their swords, some were throwing Greek fire at the creature. The beast attacked at all of the clones but when it's attacks hit a clone, it would turn into mist. All of the clone's attacks seem to do damage but not that much. Then things started to go wrong. The creature jumped slightly into the air and fell to the ground which created a small earthquake which knocked all the clones off their feet and onto the ground. They all disappeared, leaving the real Brianna without cover. One of the hydra heads made s ring of fire around her making her unable to help. Ruth kept smashing the beast with her hammer but was starting to tire. She tried calling down another lightning strike but nothing happened. She looked pale and was sweating hard. Just as a head was about to swallow her whole, another balista bolt struck the creature. All it's heads turned towards Nicole but then they did something I didn't expect. It turtled. All it's appendages, besides it's legs, went into the shell. Me and Skye sat there confused (we weren't helping because we were still injured and wouldn't be much help.) Then, in a burst of speed, something that a creature of that size should not be able to do, it rushed the balista, still turtled. It rammed into the machine sending the daughter of Ares flying. As she was airborne, the two manticore tails peeked out and shot 2 dozen spikes. All of them hit their target. Nicole fell to the ground with 2 dozen spikes in her body and was not getting up. Skye felt so much anger and I felt the exact same way. Ignoring our pain, we both stood up and blasted the monster with everything we had. I put all my rage, sorry, grief, misery and pain into my beam. Both our beams combined just before it hit the creature in the shell, pushing it against the wall. We continued to put all of our energy into the blast as rage fueled our power. We needed to avenge her. Skye, while keeping one hand blasting the beam, raised her other hand and summoned the biggest spear of light I had ever seen.
"Yipee Ka yay mother fu©kr®" she growled before putting the spear between our beams. It hit the beast's shell with the strength and power of a nuclear bomb, disintegrating the monster and blasting us away. I looked up once the ringing in my ear stopped and the place where the monster used to be, was now a steaming crater and the wall which he was backed up against was no more. Me and Skye both ran towards Nicole who was laying down on the floor, not moving. I saw that she was still alive but her life force was fading quickly (blessing of Hades). I knelt down beside her eventhough I knew that we would not be able to heal her fully without ambrosia or nectar, I had to try. I placed both hands on her head and just as I was about to summon the power of the hearth, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked at Nicole who still had her eyes opened.
"I can try to heal you" I say. She just shook her head.
"It is my time Percy. Do not prolong my suffering please. Your a good man Percy, I want to ask you a favour" she said. Her voice was weak and she was dying quickly."I want you to take care of my daughter for me. She can get into trouble sometimes."
"I will. I swear it on the river Styx" I croaked out. She smiled a small smile at me but in her eyes I could see her pain. She then turned towards Skye who was silently crying.
"My child, stay strong. Lead the warriors well and remember, I always loved you" she said. Skye nodded her head slowly.
"Finally, peace at last" she said as the light went out of her eyes and I felt her soul go to the underworld. I looked into the eyes of the kind lady, the one who gave me a home to stay in, even if it was only for a day. The one place where Skye felt closest to her mother, the one place she found peace, was now the place were her other mother died. I honestly didn't know what to do. Then Chaos came into my mind.
"Percy,you and Skye must return to camp. Our spies say there will be an attack soon, not clear when yet but soon" Chaos said. Yay more bad news. I relayed the information to Skye and the last thing I saw before we melted into shadows, was the dead, broken, lifeless form of the adoptive mother of the daughter of Order.