Aadjadslfjalsdkjfhasd I hate myself wow I haven't touched this story in like twenty years which is something because I'm only fifteen. Legends only. Anyways, enjoy that chapter and I can say we'll try to finish this. I'm planning to go back and edit stuff so hopefully the story will be better.
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Andy's POV
Honestly, I was not in a situation to be acting the way I usually did. I should have gone out here seriously, knowing that I could die. I knew it. I knew how I should act in places like this, but honestly no matter how hard I tried; I couldn't. Probably because I had a very bad habit of acting like I was fine when I wasn't.
And that's exactly why I was stuck in a tree with my ax unhelpfully embedded in the ground below me, and a shoe in my hand to fend off the monsters clawing at the base of the trunk.
Scarlet was off gods know where, probably actually doing what she was supposed to, and I was all alone like a DJ performing for a monster rave in a very twisted Coachella. An insane looking dog-monster thing jumped up and snapped its jaws at me, causing me to squeak loudly and throw my shoe, nailing it in the head.
Now I was down to one shoe.
I cursed under my breath and climbed up one more branch, though it was practically useless seeing as the hoard of dogs could still jump higher than a super sized Mario. My fingers fumbled around, picking my hair ties off of my wrist and shooting them at exposed eyes while I tried to formulate a plan, which believe me, is nowhere close to my forte.
My eyes scanned the ground below me, and landed, oddly, on a stick. I suddenly remembered that exceptionally weird "stick-prophesying" thing I'd experienced in the cave the day I found out I was a demigod.
I brought my leg up, kicking the snapping jaws of a jumping beast, and took out my switch blade from my remaining shoe, (Which I had thankfully kept against Makai's wishes "It'll never be useful against monsters," well ha, take this.)
I closed my eyes and pressed the sharp blade against the trunk of the tree. Please, please be some weird future telling ability.
My hand seemed to weave itself against the bark, drawing intricate designs I knew I would recognize as Greek letters. The blade stopped in my hand, but when I opened my eyes, there wasn't even a scratch on the tree. My eyebrows furrowed together as I struggled to remember what exactly I had done to make the words visible.
Eventually, I managed to nick my finger, and when I looked down to inspect it, I almost screamed. It's not that I had a faint heart for blood, but the STICK! I had unknowingly carved a whole bunch of letters into the branch. When my blood dropped on it, it seemed to glow green.
Realization hit me and I hesitantly looked at my hand and back at the ground swarming with evil possessed doggos. Well, I mean, I'd rather lose my hand trying to save myself than lose it in a totally un-cool "getting-eaten-from-a-tree," way, so oh well.
I grimaced and looked away before slicing my blade across my hand, thinking that more was going to better than less. Right?
Sure enough, the moment my blood hit the place my knife had carved, a hissing sound began and green liquid started to form in the shape of words.
Το πέτρινο φρούριο θα πέσει στα παιδιά του θανάτου
That was a line from the prophecy, "The stone fortress shall fall to the children of death." But there wasn't a stone fortress anywhere near here.
Another line formed below it,
πάπια
Duck.
Before I could even really fully translate the words, I was down and clutching the tree branch as if it held the key to passing my drivers test, and not a second too soon.
My ax flew over my crouched body and stuck itself into the tree, causing me to widen my eyes, wondering how in the world it got up there. I looked down below me and found a skeleton smiling at me, (I might add that seeing a smiling skeleton is just as pleasant as it sounds, which is not pleasant at all and very scary,) before disintegrating into nothing before my eyes. There were only a few of those dogs left over and I hesitantly started climbing down after dislodging my weapon. I hacked at their heads on the way down and soon was standing unnoticed in a pile of gross monster dust.
I smiled, readjusting my grip on the rough leather of my handle.
Where legions of monster had been but half an hour before, stood nothing but hasty footprints. The sun shone down and illuminated a trampled pathway, which I assumed would lead somewhere near the huntress.
Five minutes later I was crouching behind a bush, watching a throng of monsters surrounding what was probably Scarlet; judging from the overwhelming sound of death. I thought about charging in to join, but reconsidered when I thought of the ratio of monsters to me. Five hundred to one doesn't sound like very inviting odds unless I was Voldemort.
I closed my eyes and thought, Skeletons... skeletons. Can you like, umm, rise? Like with the Minotaur and just now, tear up the ground like aggressive farmer in planting season. Please? How do I summon you? Hocus pocus give me multiple sclerosis? Wait, I said it wrong. Hocus pocus give me skeleton-osis?
I peeled open my eyes and was met with no skeletons, and thankfully no multiple sclerosis.
There was no way, as much as a bad-ass fighter Scarlet was, that we could defeat all of these monsters. But we needed to take care of these monsters so that they can't attack Makai and Nico, or worst case scenario, attack us while we try to fight off typhoon and Echidna. The only way we could fight all these monsters was if we had aid.
I was going to retire after this. Being a demigod required much more thinking than advanced trigonometry ever did.
The past few times I'd summoned skeletons flipped through my mind. When I had fought the Minotaur, I'd gotten really mad, but I'd also been bleeding quite a lot, from my head as well as from my arm. When I summoned that ghost during capture the flag, I had a cut on my arm. When that skeleton appeared earlier, it was after I sliced my palm open.
I grimaced and looked at my bleeding palm, apologized in my head, and looked for a good place to injure myself that wasn't around any arteries or veins. I wanted human remains to fight for me, not for me to become a human remain. I bit my lip to keep me from screaming and placed several gashes on my forearm as well as one on my cheek, seeing as head injuries bleed more. My fingers pinched at the wounds as I tired to get as much blood out and onto the ground, hoping very much that my guess would be right.
The ground started to bubble where my blood touched the ground and cracks started forming. I let out the breath I'd been holding. It was working.
I backed away and watched as bony hands, and by that I mean only bone hands, started to break through the soil, sometimes picking up a plant as they rose. Soon a mix of thirty foliage covered skeletons and ghosts stood before me, all waiting for my command. I pointed as shaky hand at the monsters in front of me, and as I stared at the heads of those turning into battle, I realized why I recognized every skeleton I ever summoned. It was not because I knew them when they were alive; it was because they were all part of me, all made of my blood, and all a piece of my flesh.
~~~
After my very own "horcruxes" picked off the monsters, I made my way to a panting Scarlet; one who was covered in monsters dust, and, quite unbelievable, was not sporting a single scratch.
She glanced me up and down and raised an eyebrow at my missing shoe.
"What?" I said in defense, "I panicked, okay. It was either the shoe or getting eaten by- what did you call those- hotdog hounds? No, that can't be it. Herpes Hounds? No... Hen hounds?"
Scarlet waved me off and coughed "Hell hounds." through deep breaths.
"Oh yeah, right, Hell Hounds. That makes a lot more sense, but I mean I bet Herpes Hounds could be just as dangerous-"
I caught off my glamorous dialogue to watch as my skeletons disintegrated back into the dirt. They had stayed a little bit longer after the fight was over this time, which meant that the more blood I spilt- the more skeletons I got, and the longer they stayed.
Scarlet's breathing was back to normal again and she was already getting ready to move on to the next obstacle.
She let out a genuine smile, "Thanks for the skeletons, by the way, I don't think my stamina would have lasted much longer." However, the smile quickly turned into a grimace, "But we need to get moving. We need to attack Echidna, but doing it alone is suicide. We need to regroup with Makai and Nico, or at least distract her from a distance till they come find us."
I nodded. "Yeah, just give me a sec."
I tore off the bottom of my white shirt and wrapped in tightly around my largest cut, figuring that I might as well save my blood for when it's needed.
Scarlet looked at my arm and whistled. "Whoa, what managed to give you all those?"
"Hell Hounds." I lied, finishing the knot.
She nodded and we started to trek closer to the mountain; where Echidna was waiting.
When we were half way there, a medium sized wolf named "Silver," joined us, much to Scarlet's joy, and helped pick off the monsters remaining few and between.
Echidna was sitting on a three legged stool, which was rather an anticlimactic sight after walking a good ten minutes to get there.
I could smell her garlic laced breath as she chanted odd and complicated words under her breath, some that not even Annabeth would be able to complete in a spelling bee.
Standing around her were three giant snakes, all hissing and training their beady, red eyes on us as we cautiously approached.
The mother of monsters was solely focused on her chanting and didn't look very affected when one of the snakes dislodged it's jaw and spoke in a low, raspy voice.
"Be careful if you come near,
For those who approach here,
Despair will lend its ear,
And soul consumed by fear."
Scarlet and me both paused and looked at each other uncertainly. Unfortunately, Silver didn't quite get the message and snapped her teeth at the snake, to which all chaos broke out and three snakes turned into three snakes with arms and talons attacking us.
I swung my ax as hard as I could at the snake nearest me, but instead of slicing through the thing, it simple bounced off it's hard scales. The moment my weapon touched the scales, it felt as if it weighed twice as much. My blood ran cold and I couldn't move. I was terrified. My eyes would not break contact with the reptile, and the more I looked, the more I became scared.
As embarrassing as it sounds, the fight was over very quickly. The element of surprise is very useful, not to mention the element of having an invincible coating of scales and filling the enemy with immeasurable fear upon touching said scales.
Soon enough me, Scarlet, and Silver were sitting tied up leaning against Echidna's mega stool as the snakes said something about "Being a great snack for Typhoon when he's finally free."
Scarlet looked frustrated, embarrassed, and furious all at the same time; a facial expression I really can't compare to anything else except being really, really constipated.
She turned to face me and started whispering frantically.
"Andy, do that thing!"
"Huh?"
"You know, the whole skeleton thing! An un-dead army would be extremely useful right now!"
I looked awkwardly to the side, avoiding her gaze.
"Wait- do you even know how you summon them?"
"Hocus Pocus Skeleton-osis?" I muttered under my breath hopefully, even though I knew it wouldn't work.
I could practically hear her eyes rolling as she let out a sigh.
"Okay, well either you summon an army, or we get eaten as welcoming snacks for Typhoon."
I bit my lip and turned back to face her, should I tell her? I couldn't figure out why I hadn't told her yet. Maybe it was embarrassing because my powers were also a weakness. Maybe because I felt like I was useless without hurting myself. A liability.
But as I looked at the bruise forming on Scarlet's cheek, I made my decision.
I coughed awkwardly and glanced at the snakes to make sure they weren't listening.
"No, I do know how to summon them, but it would be very difficult in this situation. Its not like I can just think them into existence."
Silver cocked her head to the side inquisitively and Scar stayed silent, waiting for me to continue.
"The thing is- well, you know all the gashes and cuts on my arm? That's how I summon them. I have to bleed to bring them up. Anyways- basically I have to bleed onto the ground if you want a skeleton; the more blood the more you get."
Before either of us could register what was happening, Silver was already taking action. She leapt forward as much as she could while being tied with ropes, and bit into my thigh.
I let out a yell and started to violently shake my leg. "Ow, ow, get OFF ME!"
This caught the snakes attention, but by the time they pried Silver off my leg, it was too late. Blood seeped into the ground from the puncture wounds and the ground started to shake. Skeletons started to emerge from the ground and sixty seconds later, the snakes were nothing but a pile of dust, same as the ropes that bound us.
I glared at Silver as I got up, exaggerating my limp since I was feeling petty today.
We turned to face Echidna, hoping that maybe she had stopped her cantation in order to deal with us, but she was still chanting. She had not moved at all, and the only thing that could show you life wasn't in freeze frame, was that the hint of a smile on Echidna's lips had grown into a full blown grin.
I hiss sounded from behind us again and I turned to face six of the snakes we had just killed. My mind went blank from fear again and I could only think that I needed to get out of here before I couldn't move again. I pointed towards the snakes. "Attack them, but don't kill them because they'll multiply." The group of skeletons complied and I grabbed Scarlet's wrists before booking it out of there. Before we left hearing range, however, I heard a booming laugh make it's way out of Echidna.
"Your friends, they are too late. The first chain has snapped, and still do they not know where he resides."