To Love & Protect (#2 A story from the world of Arcaya)

Chapter 8: The Hydra Of Swamp Death

There was a loud splash and it was suddenly very cold and I started feeling sick to my stomach. I need to get out of this water! I climbed up a nearby moss bank and helped Jackie out as well. I puked my guts out into the water after I helped her, and she ended up doing so as well, "Is this how all water is outside of my realm?" She asked

I looked her in her beautiful, golden eyes, "No, seems it's poisonous." I doubled over again to add more water to the swamp when the moss bank began to move, "What the?" I looked closer, under the moss I could see... Scales! "Get ready to fight!" I yelled to Jackie and took Ashbringer out of his sheath. The Hydra uncoiled from under the swamp, displacing water and land altogether in the process. A head of the Hydra lifted itself out of the water just in front of me, and I found myself staring into red eyes with slits for pupils.

It roared at us, shaking the water and the very air itself. Jackie stumbled onto her back from the roar and I had to kneel to avoid doing the same. Its breath was terrible.

Jackie stood up and looked at the giant hydra, "Need a mint?" and casted a fireball straight into its mouth.

Clever girl. I ran and jumped on top of the stunned head and ran Ashbringer through its skull into its brain, killing it. Standing triumphantly on its head, holding onto Ashbringer, as the head fell onto the water, I didn't see the other three rising out of the water. "Ad!" Jackie yelled and tried to shove me off the head, but one of the other heads grabbed us both in its massive jaws, the only thing keeping it from chewing us was Ashbringer being wedged in between its jaws. The Hydra looked down to let us fall out and as we fell I grabbed Jackie's hand and the handle of Ashbringer, which we are now hanging from above another Hydra head's mouth. The hissing from the head below told me we definitely shouldn't fall, "Ad..."

I looked into her eyes as she spoke, "I'm too heavy along with you and that sword." Her eyes were tearing, "Let me fall." She let go of my hand but I held onto her wrist even harder.

I was shaking from the strain and my hand was starting to give, "Please Jackie, hold on!" She was starting to slip out of my grip and she wasn't going to grab my hand. She finally slipped from my grip, "Jackie!" all the other sounds of the world faded away and all I could hear was the hissing of the Hydra and my heartbeat. I watched the beast swallow her. My eyes were starting to tear up, it's time to kill this thing. I tried to climb back up into the Hydra so I could get my sword back when it dislodged itself on its own and I fell back. The fall seemed to take forever, with those big red eyes and black slits watching me for every second. I fell straight into the same Hydras throat that swallowed Jackie.

The saliva or whatever liquid substance in the beast's throat stung very hot like acid, so I tried to avoid touching the walls of its throat. I landed in the beast's stomach, it was flat and long, and surprisingly had a light in it. I looked around for Jackie. I found her lying on the floor knocked out, probably from the fall.

I ran to her, "Jackie?" I decided to check her pulse and was relieved to find one. That's when I realized a sound, it sounded like Stonewood being rubbed together along with a sword being drawn. I turned around to see skeletons moving. What the hell? I realized not only that, but my sword was missing as well. I looked around and tore a leg bone from a skeleton that was not getting back up. Looks like it's going to be one fight after another! I charged at the nearest skeleton, stepping to the left as it swung overhead down the right and ducking as another skeleton swung for my head and ended up decapitating the first skeleton. I swung the bone at the shoulder of the second skeleton and the leg bone broke with the shoulder joint, making the skeleton drop the sword. I ducked to grab it as I slid under the same skeleton and slid the sword through a gap in the spinal vertebrae cutting the skeleton in half and watching it drop to the floor, unmoving. I threw my sword at the last skeletons head and I missed. Well, so much for being cool. I tackled the skeleton and pinned its arms with my knees as I pulled on its head as hard as possible. With a sick pop the head came free from the skeleton, making sure the skeleton would not retrieve its head, I threw the head deep into the hydras belly.