Death and Water

As soon as she couldn’t see me anymore, I sprinted out and ran towards the dungeon, punching the body guard in the face, knocking him unconscious, and letting the three guys out. Together we ran over to the most hidden spot in the ring that we could still see the arena from. Jade was still alone, looking impossibly small in the football sized arena. Her brown hair shined with its highlights, and her muscles popped out of her arms as she gripped krypton tightly. She loved that weapon more than anything else. “Ladies and gentleman” the shrill voice could be nothing but Mme. Graceou, “I urge you to give a warm welcome back to our undefeated champion Jade Rhodes!” The seats exploded, people whistling and cat calling, chanting her name, and punching their fists in the air. Jade didn’t react, we didn’t either. Mme graceou had been right, every single seat had been sold out, and I had to guess there were around a thousand seats. “Today she will face her biggest challenge yet, her very own brother! Ladies and gentleman, how about a drum roll for….” It’s like they were announcing race horses instead of monsters that were going to try to kill my girlfriend. “Antaeous!” She yelled, and the door on the other side of the arena opened. No one stirred, waiting for the monster to come out. Several tense moments had gone by before there was a huge growl loud enough to make the ground shake, and for Jade to almost loose her footing. Then it came out. I say it only because it wouldn’t be fair to call it a he. It was a monster. Even more specific, a giant. It towered right around 15 feet, and its two big ugly brown eyes stared everyone down. He was a sumo wrestler of a monster, wearing nothing but a lion cloth and an ugly frown. And then suddenly I remembered his name, I knew why she kept saying they were siblings, and I remember who his mother was. “Jade!” I yell in a frenzied panic. She looks up, which is her second mistake. Antaeous elbowed her to her side, and sent her flying to the left and crashing hard onto the ring wall. She would never forgive me for that one. “Dude what the hell!” Josh yells at me, pushing me back, threatening to hurt me. Piper and Leo were over where they kept the demigods, helping them escape, they would be back soon, but for now it was just me and him. I ignore him and keep looking at Jade, watching her as she hurries back up to her feet, and grips krypton. “Antaeous is a son of Poseidon and Gaea” I say looking him in the eyes. He blanks out for a few moments before it dawns on him, and then I see pure irrefutable terror and concern wash over all his features. “Jade!” we both yell at the same time. Leo and piper who had been listening in were helping us get her attention. But she had learned her lessons, she wouldn’t get distracted again. She raised krypton; side stepped gracefully as he pounced on her, and thrust her sword in his ribs so deep no monster could have survived. She took a deep breath, finally looking up at us, and we took the opportunity, “He's a son of Geae!” We yell at the top of our lungs. Confusion washes over face too, but its wiped away by horror as she slowly turns around and sees the wound that should have been spilling blood, spilling sand instead. The earth comes up and creates sort of cast around the wound. He shucks krypton to the side and smiles. “You are no worthy child of Poseidon, I’ve seen children of Aphrodite fight better than you” he says. But Jade wasn’t listening to his insults; she was looking around desperately for her sword while trying to think of a plan to kill something that won’t die because it will always be saved by his mother. “Really, Antaeous, you have your mommy fight your battles for you, you would disgust our father” she sneers at him. He growls an charges her again, but by this time she had edged her way towards her sword, kicked it up, and thrust it into one of his eyes, then kicked him in the jaw with enough force to derail him from slamming into her and to the wall next to her instead. She looks up desperately; she knew she could never win the fight on the ground, so the next sensible thing was in the air. The arena held a huge chandelier, but not a pretty one, it was made of skulls, and white bones, and the candle wax was red, so it looked like dripping blood. There were chains and metal rails and ropes hanging all over the roof, no other reason but because they looked menacing, and they were probably used for torture. If she could get Antaeous up there long enough, stab him, and not let him back down until he died, she would be ok. The only problem was, the chandelier, and all the hooks were 25 feet above her head, and it would be really damn hard to get him up there and to stay there. But, it was the only thing she had. I saw the plan forming in her eyes, but she turned around too quickly for me to even try to make out what she was thinking. Josh was next to me muttering about what the hell she was thinking, and other past times she’s had difficult challenges. I don’t know what to do, before I would’ve done nothing, maybe said some lame mean remark and started a fight. But now, knowing that what we both felt for her was too intense for words, and that we both hated each other for that reason, we were almost sort of bonded. I clasp my hand on his shoulder. He tenses, but turns his head to look at me before instinctively punching me, like Jade always did. He smiles first, nodding his head at me, and I nod back. I wouldn’t go as far as to smile, but I did nod. I take my hand away and held on to the wood for dear life. Piper and Leo were next to josh, thinking quietly out loud just like he was, and if I squinted, I could see Jades lips moving, she was thinking out loud as well, quietly so he couldn’t hear her plans, but that was something they all did in common. Piper gasps and I turn my head to see what I had missed. Jade had carelessly slashed her sword into his shoulder, and he had plucked it out, smiled ruthlessly, and chucked it behind him, so there was no way she could get it except for going underneath him. Piper and Leo thought she had done something stupid, but Josh and I both knew exactly what she was doing, not as fast as her, we would never be as fast as her, but at least we could sort of keep up sometimes. “She’s a pure genius that one” Josh says, and I can’t help but hum in agreement. Jade runs toward Antaeous, ducking as if she were about to go under his legs to grab her sword, which was not lying on the floor anymore but in her pocket as it magically did sometimes. Antaeous crouches down as well, anticipating to grab her, but right before she actually gets beneath him, she jumps with all her god given might, flying through the air, before she lands graciously on his shoulders, and scampers up to his head not so graciously. He reacted just like anything would do, popping up and yelling “HEY!” which gave her just the impulse she needed as she jumped up and grabbed on the metal chains by one hand. She quickly scampered up the chain, and hacked off the other one swinging next to her. I had barely followed her plan until now; I had no idea what was going to happen next. I hear Leo and Piper gasp in amazement. “Hey fatass, why don’t you come on up here and join me! Or are you too fat and slow” the comeback was kinda lame, I would help her work on that, but it did the job. Antaeous yelled in rage and grabbed one of the chains, and started pulling his massive fat ass up, of the ground, off the protection of his mother. Jade slowly inched the chain with the hook down yelling insults at him to keep him angry and distracted as she finally managed to hook it to his lion cloth after the third try. She then hooked the other side of the chain up to her chain, pulled it taut, and scampered quickly like a crazy monkey to the other side. Flying towards the chandelier. “come back here!” antaeus yells, completely unaware that he's hooked up to chains. He grumbles and moves after her, but not nearly as graciously or as fast as her. and I can finally see her plan as I notice the small tugs the chains have when he moves up and down, through and under them, she just swinging around like a crazy person, and him trying to keep up with her, is just trapping himself. I point that out to the rest of them, and they take their first breath. Only jade would make the enemy do all the work himself. By the time she makes it to the chandelier, and hops on it, I can tell she’s exhausted. She weaves a little on the beam, before gaining her balance and wiping the sweat of her forehead. Every muscle in her body looked just about ready to fall of her bones, but she wasn’t done yet. She waited patiently for antaeus to come for her, smartly gathering her energy, and yelling insults, ill admit some of them were quite clever. By the time he caught up to her, she was breathing not so rapidly, and she could stand up straight, and the chains behind him were a complete mess, there was no way he could get out of them. The audience noticed by then, a little late, and started yelling at him to pay attention that he was trapping her. jade just yelled insults louder and worse and he was completely too wrapped up in his anger to listen to the audience. She then, as if she were an angle, simply leaned back and fell of the chandelier, there were screams of horror, and manly gasps, maybe that was me, before the chain connected to her was pulled taught and she launched forward, grabbing on to a chin in front of her and climbing up it slowly, waiting for antaeous to do the same. Instead of a graceful fall, he stupidly held on to the bar, swung his legs, grabbed the closest chain, and started climbing up. Jade released her previous chain to make sure she wouldn’t be stuck to the chandelier, but antaeus wasn’t as smart. She jumped up to the second ring of candles, did the same thing, making people gasp again, climbing up slowly as antaeous tried to copy her movements because he was really dumb. By the fourth time she had done it, all of the chains were so tightly wrought around a bustling antaeus he couldn’t move his arms. Jade hopped on top of his massive stomach that was covered in chains. “you witch, you tricked me! you're not daughter of Poseidon! You disgrace him! of his swift and gentle, and fierce and merciless I was always the worse side.” The giant laughed when he saw he struck a nerve, jade had gone very rigid, and josh pushed me to explain what was going on, but I shushed him, concentrating and hating myself for ever bringing that up. “but now, it is officially you princess” he says looking away from her and up at the ceiling which was drawn with different morose scenes of Greek mythology. He laughed hysterically as jade drew her sword as deep as she could, with only the hilt poking out, and jumped off of his body. I knew something was terribly wrong when she landed on her butt instead of her feet, like she always did. Something inside her had finally cracked. She had faced her demon; this whole thing was her demon, Mme. Graceou, the ring, being the worse half, josh, just like the prophecy had said. But when I had faced mine, I hadn’t faced nearly as much. I t wasn’t fair. She didn’t move as the audience exploded into applause as anataeous, still bleeding sand, slowly disintegrated piece by piece, and still laughing viciously. A sound I knew I would hear every night from now on in my nightmares. jade doesn’t even look up at us, giving us any show of whether or not to begin; she just stayed on the floor, looking at her feet. Mme. Graceou stepped onto the ring, the dust around her forming a cloud the same color as her leathery skin. “well, well, it looks like we have a winner!” she announces, and the audience cheers so loud I almost go deaf. She says something to jade that I don’t catch, but she doesn’t even react. I was about to tell josh something when someone clamped their hand over my mouth and held my arms behind my back. I looked over and saw that three other morbid giants, 8 feet tall, were holding all of us, dragging us toward the dungeon. That’s what Mme. Graceou had said, she had broken the deal, and jade had not managed to save us. I frantically make eye contact to josh, and we both have a silent agreement. Josh grunts something at Leo and piper, who I have no idea how they understood, but hey stopped struggling with us. I slowly raised my foot, and nodded my head softly, 1, 2, 3. I smash my foot so down it creates a crack. Well it wasn’t entirely the force of my foot. The earth underneath us splits open, and lave and molten rock covers the floor thousands of feet below in a great chasm. At the same time josh had sent down four huge lightning bolts at our aggressors without hurting us, and they screamed and let us go. I could smell burning skin and melted brains, but at that time my army started crawling up, grinning skulls and white bones waiting for me personally whenever I ask. I barely ever raise the dead because it takes so much effort that I sleep for the next three days, but this seemed like an occasion. Leo starts throwing fireballs at the monsters who had circled around us, and piper started screaming commands in them. But there was something mystic in her voice I had never heard before, and they all listened to her I realized that she was using charm speak, like Kelly had, but with a power I had near even heard of. Monsters were literally pointing their swords at themselves and thrusting them into their stomachs. “let’s go!” I yell at them, and josh and I lead while piper and Leo fight of the rest, guarding our backs, as I use my ring for the first time in a long time, holding my sword up in front of my face so the blood red eyes tranced everyone who got in our way, and instantly turned around and slashed the person behind them, killing with such violence and bloodlust it made me sick. “what the hell are you doing to them?” josh asks, jabbing at few closing in, they stepped back at the sight of josh lighting zapped sword. “long story” I huff as we get to the edge of the ring. It was a fifty foot hop down the earth. Jade was still sitting in the center, not looking at anything else besides her feet. Mme. Graceou was yelling at her monsters, telling them to kill us, but they were the only ones on the field. I look over my shoulder to make sure Leo and piper were still good, and boy where they good, before hopping over it, landing on my feet and springing as fast as I could towards jade, creating cracks in the floor beneath my feet with every step. I could hear the electrical buzz of josh’s sword beside me, but other than that he was silent, just as jade was when she walked with me. they were so similar it frightened me. I willed my ring to stop and get on my knees in front of jade, grabbing her face in my hands, yelling her name and reassuring her everything was ok. Meanwhile josh held Ms. Graceou at sword pint, who for the first time looked scared. “let’s see, should I let Leo do it or piper. I mean I would love the honor myself, but I know who deserves it the most” he snarls at her. “jade?” he asks, his voice becoming so soft and gentle I was impressed compared to how he was just speaking. Something behind jade’s eyes stirred at the realization that she could end it. Everything, she could kill her. “no” she mutters, looking up directly at josh. He falters little. “josh” she says, standing up and standing next to him. I stop myself from moving, but I can’t stop my insides tearing into pieces. “it’s not worth it” she says, putting her hand on his sword arm. He tears of his gaze and looks at jade, the look in his eyes was so vulnerable, and angry, and full of love, and hatred that I had to look away. They were having the most vulnerable moment they could, and I had no right looking at it. By looking away I see the monsters were getting to much for piper Leo and my army to handle alone, we needed to get out of here, and fast. “josh” she says again, nothing but love in her voice, and his hand falters a little but doesn’t move. “josh” she says cupping his face in her hands, and I force myself not to react, not to interrupt, but they were closing in, and soon we would have no way out. “she doesn’t deserve it” she says, her teeth gritted, and I know she didn’t suddenly have a spiritual awakening and become merciful, that wasn’t my jade. She thought Mme. Graceou deserved a worse death; one inflicted by her own monsters driven mad by my ring, or her burning to death and falling to hades, to only burn in death some more. The last thing she deserved was a quick and easy death. I had never been more terrified of jade then that moment. But it had gotten through to josh. He dropped his weapon to his side and tuned his whole body to look at her. right when he was about to kiss her is when I spoke up. “guys, we got to move, now” I say, piper and Leo were running full sprint at us, and behind them a huge wave of nothing but death. Jade and josh snap out of it, and we all run full sprint, leaving Mme. Graceou unharmed and behind. But it wasn’t that easy, it never was. All of the sides of the ring were covered by monsters that were scrambling down as harmlessly as they could the fifty foot wall. “this way” jade yells, running towards one of the doors the fighter came out of. The door the monsters came out of. We burst in to another dungeon. There was door on the other side that looked hope worthy, but blocking the way was about half a dozen mixture of minotaur’s, giants, empousi, furies and gorgons. They all stand up, fangs blazing and ready to fight; before they notice that it wasn’t Ms. Graceou here to drag them out, but the demigods who have killed other monsters they had come to know. This could not be good. I felt jade move uneasily next to me, and slipper her hand inside mine. I don’t want to seem pettish but I wanted to rub that in josh’s face. “you defeated him, antaeus?” a fury asks. Jade clears her throat and answers with a strong and confident yes. The monsters look at each other for a second, and then turn to the heroes. “how about a deal, you lead us out of here, and we won’t kill you” the empousi says. I was about to laugh in their faces, they didn’t know who they were dealing with, we could pulverize them in a second, but before I could speak josh says “deal.” That left jade and I surprised, but the monsters nodded and pointed towards the door. Needs demi god blood to open. “Mme. Graceou always comes in with one her little ones to open it, don’t know what’s behind it, but that’s where we come out from, blindfolded, gagged, and chained up.” That’s when I realize that the demi gods weren’t the only ones to feel sorry for, I bet many of these creatures had families to go back to, not all were inherently evil, they count be, because if they were what hope was there for us. Well, there was josh, who had said yes without hesitation, so there was hope. Piper marches up, cuts her hand with her small pretty reflexive mirror and cuts her hand, putting it against a small splotch of darkness that was old dried up blood. “I’ve done it before” is all she says. The door opens and josh leads, his sword glowing faintly. I walk with jade, but I feel her slipping, closing herself in again as she did when she fell on the ground, we needed to get her out quick. The cave lead forever and we could hear the noise behind us get louder and more chaotic, they were following us. Suddenly I smelled lave and death again. “shit” I yell looking down. The ground beneath us was still cracking from what I had done before, and we would all be swallowed up by Tartarus if we didn’t move faster. We begin running, skidding around tight corners and ducking hazily, while the cracks get getting bigger and bigger. All of our collective breathing was so loud it sounded like the crashing of waves. I looked to my right and see jade running at full speed, looking slightly dazed and all out of energy, but with determination set tight in her jaws. I see Josh in front of me, his shoulders bouncing with every step he took, he was breathing deep, his long legs taking big strides, and shouting encouragements to all of us. He looks to his left at Piper and smiles at her, which gives her the motivation to run even faster. He turns his head around and makes eye contact with jade, and she nods at him, her face not moving but a little bit of the darkness leaving her eyes. Finally we made it to the end, and we could slowly see the morning sun beginning to rise over the city skyline. But by then it was too late, the crack shook us all to the floor. I turn to Josh, pleading him, begging him with every ounce of energy I had left, and he nods, knowing what I was about to do. “run “I yell, pushing jade forward. She yells at me to stop, her voice cracking and her eyes pleading. I had never seen her so desperate. I wanted nothing more than to hug her and never leave her, but I knew there was no way we were both getting out of here alive if I didn’t close the entrance. Thankfully, Leo grabs her arm and pulls her forward as I use all my power to keep the ground together long enough for them to get out. when I see jades ankle run past the shade and into the light, I collapse, craving to sleep for days.

Notes

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