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STRENGTH ✷ chapter four, ━━━━━ which god is less of an asshole? PUBLISHED. . . February 5th, 2024 EDITED . . . July 3rd, 2025 REPUBLISHED . . . July 8th, 2025
"𝕮LARISSE, WE NEED TO GO."
Nabi tugged on Clarisse's arm, urging her to leave. The movie's final few scenes went on in the background, the room still dark, as Echidna and her monstrous child menacingly bared their teeth. Clarisse scowled, "I'm not going anywhere. We're destroying this bitch, and we're finishing this movie."
"We won't be able to finish the film if we're dead!" Nabi exclaimed. "C'mon, let's go!"
The Chimera was such a large creature that it couldn't prowl into the rows of seats — so it snarled, before blasting fireballs all over the room to make room for itself. Clarisse and Nabi dodged the flaming shots as the movie theatre itself went ablaze, destroying the entire place.
They were so getting banned from the cinema.
Nabi tugged on Clarisse's arm harder, a sense of alarm overcoming her, but the girl didn't budge. Instead, Clarisse raised her dagger to challenge the beast, as it hissed in warning.
How was Clarisse not afraid?
Nabi wanted to run, because that was what she always did. She was afraid of her aunt's reaction that one night, so she left; she was afraid of her powers, so she never used them; she was afraid of her father and who he could be, so she never truly questioned his absence. Despite the bitterness and pain she'd experienced, the longing to be brave, she never actually faced any of her problems head on.
She wasn't strong enough.
Here, against Echidna and the Chimera, it was the exact same. Nabi was afraid, she wanted to run. She wasn't strong enough to kill a monster, let alone the mother of monsters.
But Clarisse was. She was strong enough. She held her head up high, daring anything and everything to come her way — even Echidna wasn't enough of a threat for her to cower in fear.
Echidna laughed, as her form took shape into a more reptilian creature, with sharp fangs and scaly skin. She glared at them both, "You might want to listen to your friend, child."
"Didn't I tell you to shut up?" Clarisse retorted.
She threw her dagger, and it impaled the Chimera's body. It roared in pain before it lunged at the two demigods. They jumped over a few rows to evade the monster's sharp claws, making it to the front of the room where there was more space — less of a chance they'd be hit, if they were able to dodge.
