━━━━HURRICANE!
❝ it's all we know,
the hurricane. ❞
( the mark of athena & the house of hades )
( l. valdez x fem!oc )
( p. mclean x male!oc )
( heroes of o...
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━chapter twenty-nine, ❝the giants bane, the athena parthenos!❞ 『A N N A B E T H』
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━━━Annabeth has reached her terror limit. She and her little sister had been assaulted by chauvinist ghosts. She's broken her ankle. They had been chased across a chasm by an army of spiders. Now, in severe pain, with her ankle wrapped in boards and Bubble Wrap, and carrying no weapon except for her dagger, with no one but her mentally ill, fourteen-year-old little sister at her side, she faces Arachne━a monstrous spider who wants to kill them and make a commemorative tapestry of it.
In the last few hours, Annabeth has shivered, sweated, whimpered, and cried that her body simply gives up on being scared. Her mind says something like, Okay, sorry. I can't be any more terrified than I already am.
So, she starts to think.
(Thankfully, Regina can read her thoughts, so they can sort of think together. Which is awesome).
The monstrous creature picks her way down from the top of the web-covered statue. She moves from strand to strand, hissing with pleasure, her four eyes glittering in the dark. Either she is in no hurry, or she is slow. Hopefully, she's slow━ not that it matters. Annabeth is in no condition to run, and though she has a telekinetic genius beside her, Arachne probably weighs several hundred pounds with barbed legs. She probably has a poisonous bite or web-slinging abilities like a less hot, Ancient Greek Spider-Man.
No. Combat isn't the answer.
That leaves trickery and brains.
(Yay.)
In old legends, Arachne had gotten into trouble because of pride. She'd bragged about her tapestries being better than Athena's, which had led to Mount Olympus's first reality TV punishment program: So You Think You Can Weave Better Than A Goddess? Arachne had lost. Big time.
Annabeth knows something about being prideful. It's her fatal flaw. She often has to remind herself that she can't do everything alone. She isn't always the best person for every job. Sometimes━and she hates this about herself━she gets tunnel vision and forgets about what other people need (even Percy). And she can get easily distracted talking about her favorite projects.
Could she use that against the spider?
Regina gives her a look. The biggest yes is practically printed on her face.
