The reason I always won wasn’t because I was stronger or faster, although I often was. It was because I had learned what made me different. I didn’t start out winning. I had my ass handed to me plenty of times at the beginning. But slowly I realized that fighting wasn’t just about having big muscles. Pain wasn’t just about taking blows.
Strength of mind was what had always given me the edge; unbending confidence, and an ability to see from another’s point of view. And that would be what gave me the edge in this fight too. I had to be the reason Ares won this.
I had to be. Because if I could make him see how good I was, he would have to help me with my power. He would have to concede that I was more useful with it than without it.
I repeated that in my head as I walked, trying to make it louder than the traitorous part of me that wanted him to see how good I was simply because I was desperate to impress him.
The roar of the crowd as we stepped out of one of the gates onto the sandy stage was deafening. They were cheering for Ares of course, the golden blur who had devastated the three cyclopes half an hour earlier.
I stood straighter as he waved the sword he had won at the crowd. The red plume on his helmet fluttered as he moved, and I couldn’t help rolling my eyes. I was developing an unnatural resentment of his helmet, and I had no idea why.
It’s because it covers his beautiful face, the sex-starved part of my brain piped up. I ground my teeth together. Maybe the extraordinarily high levels of excitement and adrenaline I had experienced since coming to Olympus had done something to my sex drive.
Or maybe I had just met the first man in the world who could handle me.
“Are you ready, mighty God of War?” boomed Pain’s voice, and I pulled my knife from my pocket, focusing. It was time to prove to everyone what I was made of.
“Hephaestus has provided me with a monster fit for a God for your second round!” Pain’s voice was filled with glee.
“Hephaestus makes creatures from metal,” Ares said to me, moving so that his back was to mine.
“More electricity then?” I asked.
“I doubt he would use the same trick twice,” he growled back. The ground rumbled for the second time, but when I looked to the gates, they remained closed. “Move!” barked Ares, and I realized with a jolt that the center of the pit was dropping. We both moved fast, reaching the edge of the ring where the ground was stable and turning back. The middle section of the pit had dropped too far to be able to see what was down there, and I began to step cautiously toward the edge, to peer down. Ares’ arm shot out across my front, stopping me.
“But-” I started and he shook his head, plume bouncing.
“It will rise again in a moment. Carrying our foe.”
“Oh.” This must be common in the pits then. “Should we spread out?”
“No. If it is entering the pit this way, then it is too large for the gates. We should stay where we can communicate.”
My surprise at his willingness to work together was only dampened slightly by my alarm that we would be fighting something too big to fit through the gates. They were eight feet tall at least. What the fuck was coming?
I didn’t have to wait long to find out. I saw its head first, rising from the hole in the middle of the pit. Made from shining metal, the back of its serpentine head was ringed with vicious-looking horns, and black oily liquid dripped from silver fangs. Adding to its snakelike appearance, the head was attached to a long neck, and I held my breath to see if it would be followed by a body with limbs, or if it actually was a snake.
It wasn’t a snake. It was much, much worse than a snake.
The neck was attached to a body. A huge hulking body with four legs ending in lethally clawed feet. But that wasn’t what was causing my pulse to rocket and my heart to pound in my chest. There were two other heads attached to the body. Three long necks wound around each other as the heads snapped and snarled at us and very real fear trickled down my spine, my breath quickening.
“Say hello to my new Hydra!” sang Pain.
“Don’t cut off any heads!” Ares said urgently. I gaped at him.
“What the fuck do you think I’ll be cutting them off with?” I held up my tiny flick-blade as the Hydra made an awful screeching sound. Ares’ eyes darted to the little weapon, then back to me.
“For every one head removed, two grow back,” he said.
“You’re the one with the sword,” I snapped. “How the hell are we going to kill it?”
“I’ve only seen one before, and it was disabled by someone pulling out the power source in its head.”
The pit floor was almost level again, and I didn’t think we’d have long once it was flat before the Hydra charged. “How do we get up to its head?” I was estimating its height at about twelve feet easily. My usual red mist, and calm focus wasn’t coming. My breath was short, and my hyped up heart-rate was making my limbs shake.
I dragged at the blind confidence I had felt just moments ago, trying to fill myself with it. I had to prove myself. I had to prove myself.
“I don’t know. And we have to work out which head.”
“Shit.”
“Are you ready?” Ares asked, dropping his stance and leveling his sword at the Hydra.
Nope, but I sure as fuck wasn’t going to admit that to him. “Course,” I said, mimicking him, trying not to think about how under-armed I was. I loved my knife, I really did, but it had never, ever felt so inadequate. I was up against a twelve foot tall monster made of metal. It would so not be my first choice of weapon.
The thought actually hardened my resolve though, as the Hydra screeched again, and the pit of the floor finally clicked into place. Shoving my knife back into my pocket, I flexed my hands into fists, and the creature stamped and shuffled on the sand. This would have to be about speed and agility.
Your body is a weapon, your body is a weapon, I chanted. It was what I had told myself in prison, the only time I had been separated from my blade.
All three Hydra heads stopped squirming and locked on us. My skin tingled and my limbs shook with adrenaline, blood crashing in my ears. Before it could charge us though, Ares bellowed a roar, and launched himself forward. Abandoning all doubt to the dust, I screamed and followed him.
I saw instantly what he planned to do. As the metal beast powered forward to meet us, Ares dropped, skidding across the sand and raising his sword high above him in a point. He was going for the underbelly. Seizing the opportunity he was giving me by distracting it, I veered to the right. If I could get behind it, I would have a shot at climbing up its back. That had to be the easiest way of getting to one of the heads.
But I underestimated the creature. The head closest to me darted out as I reached it, and I heard Ares’ sword make contact with the metal. A shriek accompanied the shredding sound, but I couldn’t see if the cry had come from Ares or the Hydra because a freaking horned snake head twice the size of my own was snapping at me, metal fangs as long as my forearms glistening with black ooze. I tried to turn on a burst of speed but none came, and the thing caught the back of my ribs as I raced on. The impact was enough that I went flying forward, mercifully out of the thing’s reach, but painfully hard enough to totally screw up my landing. Pain lanced up through my ankle as I stumbled and fell, twisting it. I felt my face screw up as I rolled, turning so that I could see if the Hydra was still after me.