Vol.5 Ch.12.2 – Poseidon

Terror. Pure animal terror gripped me and only a decade of honing my fighting instincts kept me from letting out all the air I had in a terrified scream. The thing at the bottom of that pool was bigger than the Spawn of Scylla we'd fought back in the Underworld, except back then I had been in the relative safety that a boat provided. With this thing I was caught in its element.

The sheer difference in our power was made even more apparent when it reached out with one of its inky black tentacles and grabbed the goat-orc I had killed, wrapping around the beast, coming so close I could have kicked out and hit it, and then yanked the corpse into the depths, into an undulating mouth full of teeth.

I used all my supernatural strength to get out of the water as quickly as possible, flailing my arms and legs as fast as they would go. I would like to pretend that I was fast enough to escape the creature's grasp but that would be grossly inaccurate. If the creature had wanted to pull me under, it would have. I might have been able to avoid one of those tentacles while within the creature's domain, but dozens? No. The creature had let me go, content to devour the goat-orc instead of expending even the minimal effort it would have taken to catch me.

As I broke the surface I saw Yume doing the same, taking a huge breath and then diving right back in, and I took a moment to appreciate just how brave the little fox was.

Diving into the water the way she was doing there was no way she hadn't seen the tentacled horror at the bottom and yet despite that she'd dived back in again and again to free Poseidon.

I, meanwhile, couldn't get out of the pool of water fast enough after seeing the creature effortlessly pulling the goat-orc under and devouring it. But as I scrambled out of the water I spared a thought for what the creature was.

There was of course the possibility that it was a creature our enemies had placed into the water but that was exceedingly unlikely. Not only would it have been a logistical nightmare to bring this enormous beast here, not only did the pool seem like it had been built around the creature, but so far every single monster we had encountered up here had been visibly tainted by the Black Goat and the horror at the bottom of that pool very distinctly hadn't been. Its eyes were green rather than orange with slitted pupils, its head was clearly not goat-like and while it did have dark tentacles they weren't the nasty, oozing things that Dark Young had.

No, this creature had to be a pet Poseidon kept. Maybe the fact that the creature had reached for the goat-orc but not for Yume and me had been deliberate, the creature attacking the monsters that had chained up its master. Of course, the question of why Poseidon kept a giant betentacled horror inside his tholos was one I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer to but for now I decided not to worry about its presence. It didn't matter. What did matter was that I had to get back into the fight, had to figure out a way to kill that gods-damned standard bearer.

I dragged my way back onto solid ground and was immediately greeted by Selene slashing her sword at a goat-orc that came charging at me.

“Welcome back,” she said, sounding a little out of breath.

“Good to be back,” I said as I righted myself and drew my sword before taking stock of my surroundings.

The fight hadn't progressed very far in either direction while I had been underwater. The goat-orcs hadn't overwhelmed our group but neither had the others been able to kill that many of them. That standard bearer still stood there, his aura still empowering his allies and his barrier still keeping our magic away.

I considered what to do about the bastard. Magic was right out and miracles and projectiles slowed down to the point of uselessness before they could reach him. I didn't know whether the banner's effect also slowed people but it was way too risky to test out.

The easiest way to do it would probably be Selene's icicle crash miracle. The miracle appeared high enough in the air to clear the banner bubble and even if the slowing effect could slow affect the giant icicles the miracle created that just meant the standard bearer would be buried under slowly falling icicles but I absolutely did not want us to waste any miracles on enemies that weren't the Holy Maiden or the traitor.

But if miracles were out then that only left the stuff in my bag of holding. I was sure I had some firebombs left over, something I could lob over the slowing effect of the banner. Explosions happened in the blink of an eye so even if the banner slowed it down that just meant the bastard would have a few extra moments to appreciate being cooked alive. I was about to rummage for one of them when there was a huge splash and something shot out of the water. For a moment I was worried the tentacled horror had decided to make a grab for another snack but then the thing that had shot out of the water landed on the marble floor and Poseidon righted himself.

I had mentioned many times that the male Olympians were handsome bastards and Poseidon was no exception to that. He was tall and lean, with a fisherman's tan and rippling abs. His hair and beard were long and gray and flowing and he wore a golden diadem on his head. Right now he was wearing little else except for some soaked underpants and some golden bangles on his arms. And he was pissed.

He reached for thin air and his trident appeared in front of him just in time for his hand to close around the shaft. The weapon was as tall as he was, with an ornate golden head, the three prongs barbed and wickedly sharp. Once he had it well in hand he slammed the butt end onto the marble floor and then pointed the weapon at the standard bearer.

I was about to shout a warning at him, thinking he was about to throw his weapon at the standard bearer, when an enormous rumbling groan shook not only the tholos but the entire rock spire it was situated on. I had a horrible suspicion what that sound was and that suspicion was proven true when four tentacles shot out of the water and reached for the standard bearer.

I heard Alisha let out a shriek of terror from behind me and I couldn't blame her but before the tentacles could grab hold of the standard bearer they, too, slowed to a crawl and the standard bearer had all the time in the world to move three steps back, evading the tentacles.

“Are you kidding me?!” I yelled in frustration. “How strong is that fucking enchantment?”

“Strong enough to overwhelm me!” Poseidon growled back, his voice hoarse. “I forgot how powerful it was. Didn't expect you of all people to come to my rescue, Tailor.”

“You're welcome,” I said. “But you better thank Yume, she was the one to cut you loose.” I nodded over to where the little fox had just finished putting her kimono back on. I was slightly annoyed that Poseidon had seen my little fox naked but I understood why Yume had taken her clothes off before diving into the water. Not only would she have wanted to avoid her clothes getting soaking wet but trying to dive with a voluminous cloth like that weighing her down just would not have worked. And, if I was perfectly honest, I had asked her to do this partially because it would have been the easiest for her to shrug out of her garments. I hadn't quite expected her not to wear anything beneath the kimono into a fight like this, though.

Poseidon nodded over to my little fox, a deep nod of gratitude that she studied diligently before giving him a nod back, and then he turned back to me.

“Any other idea of how to get through that aura?” I asked him.

“I think we have something,” I heard Melinoe grind out from behind me.

She was deep in concentration, a cloud of purple magic wavering around her, looking like it was a single mistake away from collapsing. I thought no matter what she was trying to do it was wasted effort as magic just dissipated on contact with the aura but if the goddaughter of the goddess of magic thought she had an idea of what to do I wasn't going to criticize her.

The cloud of magic wavered a little more before stabilizing and Melinoe's forehead was drenched in sweat. Her dagger was held in both hands, one hand clenched around the handle and, more disturbingly, one hand clenched around the blade, blood dripping freely onto the marble floor. Next to her stood Alisha, the butterfly wings of her aura almost solid and her Qi flaring up around her like a flame. She, too, was sweating like a horse but at least she wasn't bleeding from a self-inflicted wound. It was hard to watch the two of them gathering so much power for something that I was almost certain wouldn't work but before I could say anything Melinoe ground out:

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Alisha squeaked back and then did the absolute last thing I had anticipated. She kissed Melinoe.

Seeing my gorgeous little elf putting a lip-lock on the gorgeously aggravating and aggravatingly gorgeous demigoddess was more titillating than I had expected it to be and before I could sort out whether I should be pissed off or thrilled I realized what the point of the exercise had been.

The cloud of Qi along with the butterfly wings of Alisha's aura rushed into Melinoe's body in an instant, the gray-green and white energies being converted into Melinoe's lavender magic, though a tinge paler than before, as if the Qi was mingling with her mana without being fully integrated into it, and the wavering cloud around her condensed into an almost solid thing she could hold in her hands.

Alisha withdrew from the kiss and Melinoe threw that almost solid ball of lavender magic at the standard bearer's projected aura. I still expected all of whatever that had been to amount to nothing as the aura devoured the spell but instead the opposite happened. The lavender magic covered the colorless aura like a second skin and then sank in, slowly tinging the entire aura a light lavender as a keening sound began to ring out from the standard. The sound grew and grew, the standard vibrating with it, and soon the sound became actively painful, stabbing at our eardrums. The standard bearer, however, standing at the origin point of that awful sound, was hit the hardest. Blood ran out of his goat ears and out his eyes and when he looked as though his head was about to pop he threw the standard away. The moment it left his hand the keening sound ceased, replaced by the sound of shattering glass, and the aura projected by the standard fell apart. In an instant the tentacles still stuck in the slowed time sped back up to their proper speed and after closing on empty air they readjusted and grabbed hold of the goat-orc who had borne the standard.

Each of the four dark tentacles wrapped around one of his limbs, slithering up them almost gently, before tearing the fucker apart, quartering him in a shower of blackish gore.

“Now!” I bellowed, pointing Helios Edge at the goat-orcs who had seemed so confident inside their barrier just moments before. “Take them down before they rally!”

I took my own advice and charged at the nearest goat-orc, a big fucker with a rusty anchor as his weapon of choice. He swung at me, intending to swat me into the water, perhaps thinking the creature in the depths killed indiscriminately, but I jumped over the swing, landed with one foot on the anchor and launched myself off of it to land behind the fucker, then rammed Helios Edge into his back. They were so much slower, so much less durable, than before and that attack alone was almost enough to kill him. Almost.

He spun around, almost making me lose my grip on Helios Edge, trying to swing the anchor at me again, but I yanked my weapon out and danced back. Not giving me time to recover he leaned forward and charged at me, intending to gore me with his horns.

I let him approach and then dived under him, in between his legs, and as I slid past him I yanked on one, causing him to stumble off the walkway and into the water. The moment he touched the surface a tentacle was there and yanked him under.

“Shove them into the water!” I heard Selene yell as she saw it. “Whatever is down there, it's on our side!”

Immediately I saw Alisha sending hammer blows of air at the goat-orcs closest to the water's edge. Whatever that thing with Melinoe had been it had evidently tuckered her out to the point that she wasn't infusing those hammer blows with Qi but for the goat-orcs currently charging at us it was just enough. Her hammer blows never came from the front, always striking at an angle, and more than once her spells caused the beasts to veer off the edge of the walkway, hurtling into the tentacles' grasp.

Poseidon himself wasn't idle, either. I saw him running one goat-orc through with his trident before hoisting the fucker up and throwing him into the water. He turned and gave me a nod as our gazes met and so I charged at the next goat-orc. And the next. And the next. More and more fell to my weapon and to the creature below and soon I could see no more of the monsters ahead of me. I turned back around and saw the others finishing off the last of the bastards and soon nothing was left of the army that had brought low one of most powerful of the Olympians.

**

“Felix bloody Tailor,” Poseidon groused. “Wasn't there anyone else you could have asked for help, Tina?”

“No,” Athena said, her tone brooking no argument. Poseidon and I had a history and very little of it was good.

He wasn't as bad as Demeter or Ares but we had never gotten along. He was arrogant in the extreme and expected everyone to bow to his authority. At the same time, however, he wasn't the kind of vengeful cunt that Demeter was. He didn't hold a grudge. We didn't like each other but most of the time we could just ignore that the other existed. Although I think it had something to do with the fact that all of Poseidon's malice was still directed at poor Odysseus. Gods above had he tried to fuck with that guy.

“We need him and his partners to take Olympus back,” Athena continued. “And we need yours as well.”

He nodded. “You will have my assistance, of course. Going to give that bastard who chained me up a piece of my mind in any case.”

“Who was it?” I asked.

“You're aware of who we're facing I hope?” he asked with no real malice to it.

“The Holy Maiden and her entourage,” I said. “But which one did this to you?”

“The god who hides his face under a fucking cloak,” Poseidon growled. “I'm going to rip that cloak off him and then I'll gouge out his eyes. Gonna make it slow, make sure he can feel it. Then I'm gonna snap his neck.”

“Be my guest,” I said. “If Ares leaves you a piece of him.”

“That whelp Ares won't be able to handle him,” he growled.

“He seems to be doing fine so far,” I said but then wondered why I was defending fucking Ares of all people. “But feel free to kick his ass together.”

“That I will,” he said. “Now, let's get a move on.”

And so we geared up to continue on. Hestia was even nice enough to send a gentle working of fire my way to dry out my soaked clothes. I had half considered taking them off and putting something else on but taking off the armor I'd bought at the Royal Palace's armory would have been madness. I gave Hestia a deep nod of appreciation and then prepared to spend another few minutes hopping across the clouds but as I did I noticed Alisha seeming like she was deep in thought.