Stanley Pines, Our Hero (TEOC series #1)

The Revenant

Every monster imaginable seemed to be packed onto that island. There were hundreds of different types of creatures: some I recognized, like one-eyed Cyclops that stood about ten feet tall and wielded heavy-looking clubs; towering giants that strongly resembled the one Percy and Annabeth had been fighting only a few days ago; hunchbacked trolls with skin as hard and gray as stone; manticores who prowled through the crowd, snarling and brandishing their scorpion tails at anything that got too close; vicious-looking dragons, ranging in size and colors, but all of them just as deadly; black-cloaked dementors like the one we had seen in New York, and who were casting a chilly air on everything they passed; flocks of griffins with gleaming claws and evil, narrowed eyes; great, hulking gremoblins that I've seen roaming around the woods of Gravity Falls; the slimy white shape-shifter Sixer had taken notes on in that journal Dipstick always carried around; a swarm of doxys, perhaps the same ones that had lived in that tree on the outer island. There was a large gang of those monstrous quintaped things that had tried to kill us yesterday, as well as those mutant cornish pixies that had helped Chrysalis take Ford, and had also tried to kill us yesterday. But the vast majority of the monsters were unfamiliar, and seemed all the more dangerous. I saw freakish, snake-like women with two long, curled snake tails for legs; a humongous creature that seemed to be half-man, half-bull, and was missing a horn; horrifying eight-eyed spiders covered in long black hair and roughly the size of an average house; weird creatures that were somehow crosses between a seal, a dog, and a person, who were talking in chatters and barks; what seemed to be enormous rhinoceroses, each with one large horn engraved with strange markings; six-foot-long creatures that looked like a cross between a scorpion and a crab, only with no visible heads and two stingers at each end, one of which was blasting out flames; some big monstrous things that somehow had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and the tail of a serpent; creatures that looked like they could be the cousins of griffins, but were half-bird and half-horse; cerulean snake-like things that had the heads and wings of birds; fluffy black creatures with long snouts that were burrowing in and out of the snow; three-headed snakes that hissed among themselves as they slithered past; a few massive birds with a wingspan that went across nearly the entire inner island and had two smaller pairs of wings attached to their long tails. The list goes on and on, as I saw even more monsters the more I scanned the island.

Over the edges of the island, I could see the lake, where all the water-dwelling creatures were gathered, being unable to get any closer to the island. There were merpeople just beneath the surface, as well as some slimy, green octopus-like creatures that were like the ones that had attacked the Stan O' War II on our way to the Isle of Drear - what had Sixer called them? Grindylows? I also spotted a long, thin, reptilian body snaking its way through the water, at least thirty feet long, but anything deeper than that was cast into shadow.

My vision flickered, and I started to panic, fearing that Bill had somehow gotten through my mental barriers; but I relaxed when I realized that I was still in control of my own body. The only thing that was different was how the scene looked before me. I seemed to be seeing the island now from two perspectives: my own, and Bill's. The colors around me danced and throbbed, incredibly vibrant. Then, through the smallest gap in the horde of monsters, I could see the very center of the island.

Sitting in the midst of the creatures was a large, curved boulder, unnaturally smooth and somehow with not a single snowflake on it.

And perched on top of the rock -

Was the axolotl.

It sat placidly, as though confident in its safety, and was staring straight at me, meeting my gaze in an almost human fashion.

A shiver racked my body at the sight of it. I wanted to charge towards the creature, but there were two conflicting reasons battling in my mind. I wanted to rush up and destroy the axolotl, to end this mess before things got out of hand; but Bill wanted to be near the thing so as to shorten the amount of time left before all of his old power was transferred from the axolotl to him. I could feel his presence in my mind growing stronger, more overpowering. I knew instinctively that he almost had all his power back, and the closer we got to Bill's only connection to this dimension, the quicker it returned. It pounded through my brain, begging to be released onto the world.