Merry-Sue And The Sword Of Ther

Ther's Totally-Not Over-The-Top Magical Sword Trials

The long, emerald green snake slithered its slimey body over the surface of the ground quickly and Merry-Sue struggled to keep up with one hand over her face. She could still see some naked people out of the corner of her eyes, but she tried to ignore them until the snake had led her away from the commotion of the city. When Merry-Sue felt comfortable looking around freely once more, she found herself in a forest, next to a small stream. She'd lost sight of the emerald snake she was pursuing, because it blended somewhere in the midst of grass and leaves. Luckily, there was no shortage of snakes in this forest. All Merry-Sue had to do was turn over the nearest rock and a few of them jumped right out. Merry-Sue jumped back, fearing they might be trying to attack her, but she quickly realized they were running away, heading upstream.

Merry-Sue ran after the snakes. She soon began struggling against a rockier, more uneven terrain, as the ground began steadily inclining. Merry-Sue was starting to lose her breath. The muscles across her legs, particularly her thighs and calves, began aching in protest of all the effort required of them. Merry-Sue had really gotten out of shape from all the lounging on the couch with bags of chips in the 21st century. After exerting her body for an additional few minutes, she had to stop and take a rest. Hunched over, she gasped for air and regretted all the times she declined Rachel's offer of accompanying her to The Jim or avoided Myrna and Commander Pain In The Butt.

Higher up on the rocky mountain trail, Merry-Sue could see the outline of a moss-covered cave enterance. She knew there must've been an opening behind the curtain of moss because she witnessed one of the snakes she'd been following slither through it.

When she stopped feeling light headed, Merry-Sue paced herself further up the trail. She was getting a bit nervous, as she wasn't sure whether Medusa remembered her and she didn't want to be turned to stone. (That's right, Medusa could not turn people to stone if she chose not to do so.) Deciding it would be best to cover her eyes again, Merry-Sue felt around the side of the moss-grown mountain. When her hand slipped through the moss, she knew she'd found the enterance. She could feel her heart racing as she stepped into the embrace of the cold, cave air.

Then she got a face full of angry, red snakes.

Merry-Sue screamed as she stumbled over another snake and fell to the ground. Her hand had instinctively uncovered her eyes to aid instead with her fall. Merry-Sue stupidly turned her head to see what had tried to attack her and saw a monsterous outline of a dark woman depicted against the cave enterance, the sunlight streaming in from behind her, so Merry-Sue could only see her in the darkness of shadow.

The woman stepped forward and Merry-Sue screamed again, "It's hideous!"

"Hey," the lady protested, "That's not very nice."

She was quite tall and muscular, with dark eyes, reddish skin and, worst of all, a head full of snapping, venomous red snakes. Merry-Sue would've been intimidated if she wasn't so confused, "You kind of look like Medusa, but I'm pretty sure you're not Medusa," Merry-Sue scratched her cave chin, "Do I have the wrong cave?"

The woman rolled her eyes, "Everyone's always looking for Medusa!" she complained, "She got to be Poseidon's girlfriend. He never noticed me! Athena didn't care enough to put a curse on me! I just turned into an ugly monster because I was such a good, caring sister! Heck, Euryale and I weren't even good enough for Perseus to slay!"

Merry-Sue realized, during the snake woman's dramatic monologue, that this was in fact Medusa's cave, but she'd forgotten that there were two other Gorgons living here. This must've been Stheno.

"Wait," Merry-Sue thought with concern, "Someone slayed Medusa? She'a dead?"

"It's just an expression," Stheno rolled her eyes again, she was feeling very moody, "He took her out to pizza because he felt sorry for her. Why does no one feel sorry for me?"