#I feel bad when I laugh at Pax's jokes during chapters like this....

[jflashandclash]

Attrition of Peace

Forty-One: Ajax

We Could Have had a Slide, or a Fire Pole

             Had Pax not genuinely been terrified that Hera would turn Alabaster into a Christmas ornament if she got her hands on the child of magic, Pax would have thought hiding against the wall with him was kinda hot.

           But the way Alabaster gritted his teeth and trembled with anger at the Queen of the Gods’ presence was a bit of a deterrent. Will’s alarmed shouts at Euna made things more difficult. When Pax peeked his head in the doorway and saw Joey had been turned into a statue, the chances of a boner went from unlikely to nonexistent.

           Pax’s head was on too much of a delay to fully process what had happened. First, Hera was calling his mother, and Alabaster’s wonderful mother, whores—falsehoods, though Pax couldn’t speak for Will and Jack’s dad—and then Hera made one of his dead friends into the best staring contest partner ever.

           Normally, Pax thought shouting, “no!” for a prolonged period of time was overdramatic, but this situation might warrant the dramatics.

           Especially when Euna stepped out of Cabin Two. Her eyes looked blank.  She held Backbiter in one clenched fist and the rosewood box in the other.

           Pax hadn’t realized he was crying again until he saw the emptiness on her face.

           Alabaster said something to her, but Pax couldn’t make out his words.

           Euna wasn’t really the hugging type from what he gathered. And Pax knew Euna had trouble looking at him because his features reminded her of Santiago Pax, his father—she often scowled when he brushed his hair out of his eyes. Last time though, he’d at least been able to talk to her about her sister’s death when he’d morphed into someone else. Everyone else had been stupid, saying “sorry,” but he knew “sorry” didn’t do anything for someone who was gone.

           But her sister’s death had made sense last time: a heroine standing up to an unjust tyrant. This… this was…

           Pax choked when he tried to stop his sobs.

           Then he felt something latch around his wrists.

           “Cho!” he cried. He glanced down to find splinter-ridden tree roots twisting around his skin. For a split, nauseating second, he could perfectly envision the shackles in his father’s temple.

           This is the opener of passages, Backbiter hissed.

           Euna’s put the rose-colored box in her pocket and reached forward to grab Jack by his crimson locks and wrench him from Pax’s belt.        

           “Hey!” Jack cried.

           “Euna!” Alabaster snarled. He’d summoned his imperial gold gladius from a card. “We’re not your—” Vines snapped up from the ground, snagging around his arms.

           Euna wasn’t looking at either of them though. She held up Jack’s dripping head, like the christening of Simba in The Lion King.

           “You said Gaea resurrected you because your voice can make the ground and air wither,” she said. “Can you make me a passageway to Tartarus?”

           “Wow—you can’t just wrestle a man away from his friend’s belt and—”

           Euna’s gaze narrowed. “Do it or I’ll cut out your tongue.”

           “Oh—um—I think I can—” Jack’s tone had altered from offended to nervous. “If Orpheus can crack open the world to what lies beneath, then so can I.”

           “Then sing,” Euna’s voice quivered.

           The tree root around Pax’s left arm went slack. Numbly, he glanced down to see Alabaster had sliced through his own bindings and was working on Pax’s. “Euna—wait—what are you doing?!” Alabaster demanded, slicing through the roots around Pax’s right arm. “That might kill—”

           Jack cleared his throat—what was left of his throat—and sang. Hearing Jack’s horrible retching notes made Pax grind his teeth. This was different than last time: it felt like Jack’s voice was amplified to the point of making accidental war with any aliens unfortunate enough to be flying by Earth. Hades, Pax was pretty sure a deaf person would try to strangle Jack right now and be disappointed there wasn’t enough neck left to strangle.

           “Ain’t no mountain high enough,

           Ain’t no valley low enough,

           Ain’t no river wiiiiide enough,

           To keep me from getting to you!”

           The ground whined under their feet, like it was begging Jack to shut up. Pax sympathized—as much as he loved Jack, cutting his tongue out was starting to sound like a swell idea.

           “My love is alive,

           Way down in my heart,

           Although we are miles apart.”

           A throbbing erupted in Pax’s head. Beside him, Alabaster crumbled down to one knee. He’d dropped his sword and held his hands over his ears.

           Weakness spread though Pax’s limbs. Without realizing it, he’d also put his hands over his ears, but the barrier did nothing. It was like wearing his anti-charm speaking headphones to cancel out a rocket blast or a scolding from Chiich.

           Although she kept on her feet, with Backbiter in one hand and Jack in the other, Pax could see Euna starting to tremble. As though to alleviate the pressure against her eardrums, her mouth moved to scream, but the sound was swallowed by Jack’s wretched screech.

           “If you ever need a helping hand,

           I’ll be there on the double,

           Just as fast as I can.

           Don’t you know that there ain’t no mountain—”

           The earth beside them released a thundering crack. Pax was pretty sure that was the sound of ground spirits trying to destroy themselves—maybe that’s why earthquakes happened.

           The front half of Hera’s Cabin crumbled.

           Pieces of marble splattered everywhere, so they could perfectly see the extinguished fire and statue of Joey smiling and Hera scowling in the back of the cabin.

           In the rubble of the entrance, the ground snapped and crinkled. As the dust settled, they could see neat little tiers descending down into the blackness of the earth. The front of Hera’s cabin was now a set of stairs to nothing.

           Jack stopped singing.

           Despite the silence, Pax could still feel his ears ringing. “Dude!” he complained.

           Jack was panting. “Voilà!” he said. “Now, I’m not privy to the idea of returning to Tartarus, so if you could redeposit me with the tiny Pax—”

           Euna blossomed a beautiful, white flower in her hands and shoved it into Jack’s mouth. Then, she tied his hair around her belt loop.

           Pax managed to get his feet working. He stumbled forward, careful not to tumble down that narrow passage.  “Euna—I know it feels like we’ve hit rock bottom and we don’t want to take Joey for granite, but—but Hemera’s drops might still be messing with your head, and I know Backbiter sounds like the name of a nice, caring sword, but he’s not—”

           Euna glanced his way.

           Pax felt his rambles cut off at the icy rage in her black eyes.

           “I want to do this,” she said, lifting the rosewood box from her pocket, the thing that could carry the essence of a god or an abstract thought. “Even the gods fear nothingness. I’m going to bring evisceration to them.”

           And, with those words, the daughter of Demeter descended into nothingness, carrying Persephone’s box, Kronos’ scythe, and the head of Orpheus Metal.  

           But Pax wasn’t going to let another one of his friends disappear. Biting back his manly tears, he sprinted after her.

[jflashandclash]

Traitors of Olympus IV: Fall of the Sun

Forty-Five: Euna

A Dream Catcher Would Have Been Easier

             Unlike the last two times Euna took Hemera’s god-enhancing droplets, Euna didn’t try to shut out the noise.

           She listened very carefully.

           As her feet struck the mud, she could hear the dying cries of the trampled grass and strawberry plants, some too mutilated to scream. She could hear the plants being crushed under Pax’s, Eris’ and Python’s foot—er—feet and snakely bodies? Yea, whatever. Those.

           The transition to god mode was much smoother this time. The first time, all the plants screaming had been deafening and overwhelming.  

           Now, Euna could hear, with clarity, Miranda, her sister, praying for vines strong enough to hold down Python’s tail and the cries from the plants. She could sort through those prayers.

           It reminded Euna of how she had tuned out years of her father’s scolding and Joey’s desperate mockery; Euna let her brain unfocus. The screams of demigods—those were outside her head, right?—those faded as easily as the hisses inside.

           This must be how it is for Mom, Euna realized when her emotions for the demigods turned to apathy, and she stalked towards Phobetor.

           Inside, she knew all these things—people, plants, whatever the difference—needed to die, because life relied on death. No animals could live without killing. No plants could prosper without taking the territory of another, without weeding out the trash.

           That’s what Euna was going to do. Weed out the trash. Though, that made it sound like a chore, and Euna hated chores.

           “Euna, oh Euna, my fair maiden—mf!”

           Euna shoved a white, blooming flower into Jack’s mouth, tired of hearing him talk. She didn’t need him right now.

           Phobetor stood ahead of her, a tall humanoid with a weirdly fused kiwi-bird-skull-plague-doctor-thing going on. He had recovered from where she drop-kicked him. He huffed and adjusted his Renaissance-style lord’s cap. “I beg your pardon?” Phobetor demanded again, hands trailing to his pink-and-green pokey-doted bowtie. “You’ll ‘start’ with me? Young demigod, I am the great Ikelos—“

           Traitor to the Second Titan War, Backbiter hissed in her hands. She swept the scythe to the side, rotating it. Although familiar as a farming tool, she wished it was more balanced for fighting or executing.

           The god seemed flustered when Euna didn’t break stride, though Euna couldn’t tell if that was from their proximity or if he’d heard Backbiter’s bitterness.

           “Kronos?!” Phobetor blundered, proving it was the latter. One of his hoofed feet took a step back and he put his piccolo-hatchet to his beak. “I’ll show you your worst fear—” he started to say to Euna, and—if she was correct—he sounded desperate.        

           “I’ve already seen that,” Euna said. With each step, long grass sprouted at her feet, exploding up to her hips. Strawberry vines slithered around the ground, slinking towards the God of Nightmares.

           Phobetor’s cheeks puffed and a high-pitched note pierced the air.

           A wave of exhaustion hit Euna but, the joke was on Phobetor: she was always too tired and in need of a nap.[1]

           Phobetor retreated another step. “Why aren’t you sleeping? You’re not a child of Hypnos[2] or Hecate.” He huffed, then raised the piccolo back to his lips as they curled into a smile.

           Another note.

           Euna didn’t care. She was almost upon him. The grass and vines had expanded to surround them. She stroked the rosewood box in her pocket once before settling both her hands on the cool shaft of her scythe.

           “Dunno,” she muttered, “Kinda hard to trick me when I know what you’re doing.”

           Hemera’s god-droplets probably didn’t hurt either.

           Shuffling nearby barely caught her attention. She didn’t need to look. The grass and strawberry vines alerted her to the presence of several sleepwalking campers.

           Phobetor’s smile crumbled when the strawberry vines snaked up and the grass bent to drag the campers into their thicket.

           Everything was so much quieter now with sleepwalker’s shambles silenced, so much more peaceful.

           Something leaked from Phobetor’s jester sleeves: aphids, beetles, caterpillars, and cabbage maggots. Things that were bad for the garden. “You are a demigod—one of Eris’ pawns! An upstart!” he cried, flinging them towards her.

           Desperately, she thought.

           Euna ignored them, doubting they were real, and not caring if she was wrong. Instead, she plucked a handful of seeds from her berry crown, things she’d been gathering during her and Jack’s trip, and tossed them at Phobetor.

           She closed her eyes, sensing his movements through his steps on the smashed plants and the pollen in the air.

           He turned to tar, assuming her attack was immediate.

           It hadn’t been. She’d been trying to learn from the whole “tact” thing that Axel taught her--the way Joey would analyze an opponent to find their weaknesses during a dojo match.

           Euna settled her hand back onto Backbiter’s long staff. She exhaled, concentrating on where her plants felt Phobetor’s presence and commanding her seeds to take root and grow. She needed Phobetor’s focus on her, so these seeds could expand. She couldn’t have them explode out like the walnuts trees in Santiago’s pyramid.

           Phobetor went to raise his piccolo-hatchet.

           Then she lunged, swinging her scythe in a wide arc.

           Her blade, Backbiter’s two-toned, blade vibrated with a solid strike.

           Phobetor screamed.

           When she opened her eyes, she saw Phobetor standing several feet back. His form was half-melted. Tar dripped off a vaguely humanoid figure, the colorful minstrel adornment unraveling into shiny dribbles. There was no face underneath the kiwi skull as it clattered into the grass.

           One gross, rippling hand held the stump of another. Snakes, spiders, and bugs spilled from it alongside golden ichor.

           In the grass, Euna could sense his dismembered tar-puddle limb and splintered hatchet.

           Ikelos, did you forget that I can permanently cut up a god, as I did Uranus? I told you my vengeance would be swift for traitors to my cause. Backbiter laughed. You coming here bodily was your end.

           Phobetor stood there, stunned. When he finally recovered from his shock—that Euna had something that could really hurt him—he tried to take a step backwards.

           His tar feet stuck fast. He glanced down in panic at the two splendid pitcher plants holding his feet in place—carnivorous plants with deep cavities in the shape of pitchers, dripping with sticky, digestive acid.[3] Massive flowers—stinking corpse lilies—sprouted all around the pitchers, reinforcing their weaker walls with two foot long red and white petals.[4] Tree roots erupted from the ground, twisting the petals together, pushing them up to Phobetor’s hips, sewing the pitchers and petals together like they were making a bodily cast for Phobetor.

           Although hard to tell with an overdramatic puddle, Euna thought he might be shivering. Rippling? Whatever.

           “You’re the one who gave us nightmares for months. You made my sister relive her death over and over again,” Euna said. With barely a tug in her gut, she commanded more corpse lilies to grow, encasing Phobetor’s waist and trapping his tar into a tightly-wrapped, leak proof, biodegradable package. Satyr-approved.

           “Demigod,” Phobetor said, his voice trembling, “This is most unwise! My father will hear of this!”

           She could feel Phobetor try to slip away. He abandoned his legs, letting the upper half of his body melt over the petals.

           She expected he would try to run. Gods didn’t need their full bodies to exist, after all.

           Euna waited patiently as part of his body sludged backwards over the corpse flowers and pitcher plants, dripping onto a larger, thinner leaf. When his melting torso made contact, the massive 10-foot wide gunnera leaf enclosed around him, making Phobetor release a muffled cry.[5]

           Vines and tree roots encased the trap, reinforcing it. At her command, they lifted the wiggling gunnera leaf up, plopping it on top of the corpse lilies to make another vaguely humanoid thing. He looked funny with pitcher legs and a wiggly leaf for a body. Joey would have called it gross.

           “The other gods will hear!” his muffled cry came through the leaves. “The Olympians will never rest until they know Backbiter is destroyed! Anything you do to me will get their attention—”

           “You talk too much,” Euna muttered. She knelt down plucking a smaller pitcher plant from the larger ones, and scooped up the tarlike essence of his dismembered hand before it could crawl away.

           “Getting their attention will save me time,” she said, setting Backbiter down. She withdrew her rosewood box and popped the lid open with her thumb.

           All the vines and flowers entwined in her hair dangled towards the opening. The vortex of Kaos inside greedily suctioned everything around them; the background din of screams and battle seemed to hold its breath. The waist-high grass rustled loudly towards them.

           “After I’m done here,” Euna said absently as she poured the essence of his hand into the swirl to nothingness. The Phobetor cocoon squealed, apparently able to feel his detached limb shatter into nonexistence. “I’m coming for the Olympians next.”

           Euna clicked the lid closed, tuning out his shrieks like she’d tuned out the plant and gardener’s prayers. The air around them seemed to let out a relieved sigh. She put the rosewood box into her pocket, then lifted up the scythe and groaned in annoyance. If only Persephone’s box had been bigger. Cutting the God of Nightmares into pieces to shove each limb into oblivion? This was going to take forever.

           Frowning, she hefted up her scythe to lob off a chunk of his head. Calex and the others better have something good planned for dinner, because after this mess she was going to be starving.

 ***

Thank you for reading! I’m sorry it’s running late. Things have been crazy *sweat drop* I hope you enjoyed despite the lateness! Stay turned (hopefully next week) for some back-to-back Ajax chapters, Keeping it Holy.

***

Footnotes:

[1] Mel betanote: She’s the hulk. She’s always mad! XD

Jack: sleeptime hulk.

[2] I mixed up the god and the Pokemon for a shamefully long period of time. I got really confused when “Hypno” kept coming up as an incorrect spelling.

[3] So, I’m a huge fan of carnivorous plants. Big pitcher plants are known for eating mice, bats, and rats. These can only be found in East Malaysia, but you can get cute, baby ones in lots of other areas. (Being a fan of cute rodents as well, I prefer the smaller ones that like to snack on mosquitoes and gnats).

Mel betanote: “Oh, okay. This is based on your interests. XD All I could think about was the pokemon version because of your last note.”

Jack response, “No Victreebel for you! Only hoards of tiny Oddishes!”

[4] Corpse lilies are the biggest flowering plants in the world and one of the strongest. Also, one of the worst smelling, emitting the unnerving stench of rotting flesh. It doesn’t help their reputation that they look like something from Little Shop of Horrors.

[5] Enormous plant from Brazil, also known as “dinosaur food.” Gunnera plants are thought to be 150 million years old.