"What are these things?" Chaewon asked while fending off the monsters with her sword. They had the heads of lions, but their bodies were covered by goat-like fur.
"Haetae! They're from Korean mythology. As long as there's no water around, you should be fine," Minju replied as she carefully moved and placed Go stones on the board. With each move, white stones for the other side magically began shifting on the board on their own.
That short moment where Chaewon was observing what Minju was doing proved to be a mistake as one of the haetae snuck up behind her and bit her arm.
Chaewon yelped in pain, using her off hand to slice the monster from the side. The other haetae took a cautious step back seeing one of their comrades turned to dust, but Chaewon knew she looked like a wounded gazelle right now. It wouldn't take long for the haetae to realize there were more of them than her.
Chaewon swung her sword outwards, trying to make herself appear bigger than she was. The child of Hades looked back at where Minju was, but she was nowhere to be seen. Before she could call out to her, though, she saw one of the black Go stones begin floating towards a sector of the board.
She must be using the cap, Chaewon realized. A loud growl then brought her attention back to the haetae who had completely surrounded her.
"Nice lion-goats..." Chaewon whispered while racking her brain for any plan to not get torn apart, which was hard given the sting she felt from the wound on her right arm.
That's when she had a wild idea.
There's got to be some dead stuff below here, right? She thought before she began focusing on the ground, scanning like a metal detector until she felt something to pull up to the surface. They were definitely skeletons, but they didn't feel human.
Meanwhile, back at the Go board, Minju had finally moved around enough pieces to turn the game around. The white stones stopped responding, suggesting that Minju had won. On the other side of the room, a new door had now opened up. Minju turned around to tell Chaewon the good news only to find herself face to face with a haetae. She was sure she was still invisible, but the monster seemed to be staring right at her. Minju reached for her dagger, but the haetae was quicker and pounced.
The sound of Minju's shriek immediately grabbed Chaewon's attention. Behind her, the child of Athena was grappling with a haetae that was trying to bite her face off.
"Minju!" Chaewon yelled. She tried to forget the pain in her arm and focused again on yanking the skeletons up.
Just when the haetae were about to pounce her, the skeletons emerged from the ground- a pair of large skeletal tigers.
"Statues, meet fossils." Chaewon said before commanding her new companions to attack. This gave her an opening to make her way to Minju and slice the haetae in half.
"Come on, Minju. We gotta get out of here,"
"Wait, your arm..." Minju said worriedly when Chaewon failed to pull her up.
"We don't have time!" Chaewon grunted. Yes, she was starting to lose the feeling in her arm, but the tigers weren't going to hold off the other haetae forever.
That's when Minju's eyes widened at something else on the ground where one of the monsters was cut to dust. "That pelt! Grab it!"
Chaewon didn't know why Minju wanted her to grab some lion-goat fuzz, but she decided to take her word for it. Once she picked it up, the two girls ran towards the exit which promptly closed behind them.
Once they were in the clear, Minju grabbed the pelt from Chaewon and wrapped it around her wound, which was still bleeding heavily.
Suddenly, Chaewon started to feel a lot better, as if she had never been bitten at all.
YOU ARE READING
IZ*ONE and the Olympians: The Forbidden Ones
Adventure*IZ*ONE Greek Demigod AU" Yena, Chaewon, and Yujin had always thought that their friendship was a product of fate. Ever since the trio met, things just seemed to click. They were the only ones in school who ever understood each other, and there was...
