Hercules and the Modern Girl

Episode 6: River Styx

Episode 6: River Styx - Part 1

Disclaimer: read chapter 1

"Some say the greatest inventor in all antiquity was Daedalus. The master artificer. Some even claimed he's-"

"Uh - hello! Narrator, dude," One of the muses tried to get Bob's attention.

"Oh, for Heaven's sake! Now what?" Bob shifted his attention from the statue of Daedalus to the vase, where the painted muses took place.

"Uh, just who are these some people?" Terpsichore asked.

"Well... Me! I'm saying it, and I wasn't finished."

"Now, don't go all icy on us," Melpomene wagged her finger.

Thalia jumped off the vase and landed on a plate of the inventor's face, "Cause we got the dish on Daedalus, honey."

"He invented the first compass," Terpsichore held up a math compass, then briefly gestured a random sailboat that disappeared just as quickly as the folding chair that appeared behind for her to sit down. "Put the sail in sailing and the fold in folding chairs. He was-"

"The bomb?" Bob asked.

"That was not one of his," Melpomene shook her head.

Thalia was flying around the art gallery with wax-wings, its feathers slowly dispersed one by one, "But he did cook up the waxwings, that got his son brain-fried." Once all the feathers had run out, the muse had taken a rough fall onto the ground.

"Ah!" Bob awed at the spiky-haired boy, "His son, Icarus. I was getting to that."

"Well?! Get to it!" Thalia pulled down a scene that took place in Prometheus Academy.

"Yes, well, in today's story: Daedalus, shop teacher of Prometheus Academy and father of Icarus, faces the greatest challenge of his life. A certain, all-thumbs student named... Hercules!"

~000~000~000~

Hercules was sitting on a log up on the hill with his friends. It's progress report day, and all of them were anxious to see their current scoring.

"Oh, yes, sir!" Icarus cheered, pumping his fist as he read his teacher's comments on parchment. "Passing grade by a passionate, creative mind! Yes!"

"No enthusiasm in class," Cassandra read in boredom, "but with a surprising grade above average." She shrugged without care, "Whatever." Nattie once asked Cassandra if she had ever used her vision to cheat off exams or homework. Cassandra had yet given her a response.

"Manages to get work done but having trouble staying out of trouble," Nattie wasn't surprised by this result. "And she needs to stop asking Mr. Euclid stupid geometry questions and start accepting the work that has been given to her." Nattie scoffed, "What stupid questions? All I ask is, why a ninety-degree angle isn't a hundred-degree angle? Mr. Euclid can't give me detention because he doesn't know the answer himself!"

"Well, Euclid is a founder of geometry," Hercules reminded Nattie, who rolled her eyes. "At least, he's a better teacher than Daedalus."

"Hey, that's my Dadalus's name!" Icarus smiled, but then he realized that Hercules was talking bad about his dad. "Hey!" he cried angrily.

Hercules sighed, "Sorry, Icarus, but listen to this. The school is proud to have the Son of Zeus on school grounds. We couldn't have asked for a kind-hearted and strong-willed student like Hercules."