United As The Ten- Part One Of The Conclusion To The United Series

Chapter Six

Eight's POV:

Marina, Six, and I are in Nebraska. We've been searching for Max nonstop for days and there's no sign of her whatsoever. It kind of feels like we're heading away from her than towards.

"I'm really worried about Max. What if something happened to her?" Marina asks aloud with a worried expression. I smile sadly at her then wrap my arms around her shoulders. We continue to walk down a narrow path in the woods. It's dark outside and the woods looks a bit creepy at night, but the stars and the moon shining above us provide enough light for us to see ahead.

I look around the eerie woods and notice that it's quickly getting darker. I look up and the stars are covered by the thick trees far above us. I look back at Marina but I can barely see her face. She isn't afraid, I can tell. She has night vision, she probably doesn't even know that it's too dark for Six and I to see.

Marina glances at me and realizes that I'm squinting my eyes to see ahead of me. She softly grabs me and Six's hands and leads us deeper into the woods.

After a few minutes, maybe an hour, I can't tell, Six finally speaks up into the creepy silence.

"We're not going to find her, are we?" Six asks us, biting her lip. Marina shakes her head.

"No, we're going to find her, it just takes ti-"

"Marina, do you really think that Max is just going to be wandering the woods in Nebraska, and that we're going to randomly bump into her?!" Six yells, stopping us in our tracks.

"Six, if we don't find her, one of the other teams will. She can't have just disappeared," Marina replies calmly. Six looks away, suddenly interested in a long, thick tree next to her. She's silent for a few moments until her ears perk up. She looks around the surrounding woods and I'm about to ask her what's wrong until she speaks up.

"Did you guys hear that?" Six asks Marina and I.

"Hear what?" Marina wonders, also scanning the ground around her. I eye the dark woods suspiciously, a hand on my sword hidden in my sheath. All I can hear is our heavy breaths and the slow wind until a horrible crunching sound and the quiet squeal of what seems to be a small animal fills the woods. I can tell the sound is very close and after those disturbing noises, the sound of smashing branches and sticks come closer and closer. I look around frantically for any sign of what's making the noise but it's too dark to see. I quickly turn to Marina to ask her if she sees anything, but she seems to be frozen in fear.

"Marina?" I whisper worriedly then notice that she's staring at something in front of us wide-eyed. I turn to see what she's staring at but it's still too dark. I can only see Six and Marina, who are both standing next to me. I shoot Six a look and at one glance, we both know what to do.

Six and I both quietly pull out the flashlights from our backpacks then point them at whatever's in front of us. I can barely make out its silhouette, but I can tell that it's huge.

Six and I glance at each other one last time before turning on our flashlights at the same time. The bright beams are more than enough to clearly see what we're facing, and honestly, I'm kind of wishing we didn't turn the flashlights on.

Standing in front of us, tall and terrifying, is a long, serpentine-like body, a pinkish brown-gray in color, but that's not the scary part. The real thing is the nine, diamond-shaped heads sprouting from its body, all glaring at Marina, Six, and I maliciously with evil eyes with black, snake-like slits as its pupils. One of the heads has a small, limp rabbit clenched in its razor-sharp teeth, blood dripping on the ground.

A hydra. We're facing off a freaking hydra.

I think back to about a year ago when Max would tell me and the rest of the Garde fascinating stories about Greek monsters. At that time we didn't known she was a Greek demigod, so after all the Greek mythology story-telling, we all just assumed Max stayed in Greece for a long time.

I remember what Max told me about hydras- if you cut off one head, two more take its place. Sometimes a few heads can breathe fire and the most important thing is that a hydra's breath is extremely poisonous to anyone around it.

"Guys," I whisper to Six and Marina slowly. "Back away and don't breathe in."

We all start slowly backing away and quietly unsheathing our swords. The air around us suddenly gets colder and I can tell that Marina is ready to use her ice legacy. One of the hydra's mouths curls up, seemingly smirking cruelly, before letting loose a small cloud of fire from its mouth.

Ah schist.

"Run," I whisper to Six and Marina and everything happens in a blur. Six and I throw our flashlights over the hydra, distracting it for a few moments before we all start sprinting down the other way. All nine hydra heads let out a blood-curdling roar, the sound reverberating through the ground below us. The sound of huge feet stampeding towards us vibrates in my ears. I look back for a split second and the hydra is quickly gaining on us. It's a lot faster than I thought. Thankfully, Marina knows what to do.

She thrusts her arm out to the hydra and a huge, deadly icicle shoots towards it's stomach, but the hydra has some fast reflexes. One of its legs smashes the icicle and continues towards us, ice scattering everywhere. Six, Marina, and I sprint as fast as we can but the hydra also knows what to do. One of its heads leans towards us and breathes out a line of flaming red fire bigger than itself. It almost hits our backs and burns us but we all dive out of the way just in time. I feel the the fire singe my back but quickly brush it off. Marina, Six, and I hide behind trees but the hydra still has nine freaking heads.

Marina extends her arms out to the monster and creates four huge ice walls around it. We don't hesitate- we just continue to run through the woods. I glance back at the beast and a couple of its heads smash into each wall, breaking it down, and it continues to slowly advance on us.

"Tell me you got another trick up your sleeve, Marina!" Six yells to Marina desperately.

"I have another," Marina declares before turning back to the hydra and shooting her arms to its legs. First, she encases its four thick legs in blocks of ice then spreads the ground between the hydra and us with a thick layer of ice. The hydra quickly breaks its legs free but when it takes a step closer to us, it automatically slips on the ice in front of it then slides for a few seconds before crashing into a huge tree. Its long necks thrashes and one of them smashes right through the trunk of a thick tree next to it. The tree stands for another second before toppling onto the hydra. The hydra roars in pain, still thrashing wildly. Marina freezes the monster completely over, covering it in layers and layers of ice. She puts a ton of ice on it but the hydra quickly begins to claw its way out.

Marina, Six, and I breathe heavily as we see the hydra already halfway through its ice prison. Without another word, we turn back around and start running away, hoping to lose the terrifying monster, but we turn around too quickly.

Right behind us is a large and deep ravine and all three of us go tumbling down it. I'm too late as I try to catch myself with my telekinesis or teleport myself safely to the ground as my head bangs against the side of the ravine. I'm completely dazed for a few moments, still wildly trying to grab onto anything to hold me up. I crash into a large branch halfway through the ravine and let out a loud shout of pain as I feel multiple bones breaking, but the branch isn't large enough to hold me up. I continue to free-fall down the ravine, my ears popping as the air pressure decreases quickly. I look towards the ground far below me and spot Six and Marina also free-falling through the ravine.

I'm knocked out cold before I can reach the bottom.

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