Zodiac Battles

Chapter Ten

Paige's pov (Virgo)

Paige looked around. Where has it gone? She was almost positive the creature was a chimera, but she couldn't be certain. Her pluse was speeding up so much she thought her heart might have stopped for a minute. Aura was silently screaming, Gemina was muttering nonsense, Asher was stalking around like a cat, Jasper was looking around frantically, and Drew had pulled himself into the car and shut the door. Paige had no idea where Raina was, but she was hoping she would show up soon, because if not they would probably all die. Yay.

A growl ripped through the air and Aura screamed. A large figure jumped out from the trees and jumped on top of Jasper. He teleported away, distracting the monster long enough for Paige to see what it was. To her delight and horror, she was right.

"It's a chimera!" she yelled. Aura screamed again, for reasons unknown, and flew 20 feet into the air.

"Great. Any fancy way we need to kill it because even though I'd rather not fight this thing, I would also like everyone in this region to be alive," Gemina asked as she flew up to retrieve Aura. Jasper was over by the car, trying to convince Drew to come out and help and Asher was running around the chimera at lighting speed to distract it. Paige searched her memory for a myth involving a chimera.

"In the Iliad, Bellerophon defeated a chimera by riding Pegasus and killing it from the air," she said. "He also covered the end of his spear with lead so that the chimera would heat it with its fire breath and ultimately kill itself."

"Well we don't have a spear, or lead, so what are we going to do?" Asher asked, still running circles around the chimera. Paige started scanning their surroundings, trying find anything they could use as a weapon. Twigs and branches will catch on fire, rocks won't do much-

"Hey guys, look at this!" Jasper yelled, interrupting her thought. Everyone's heads whipped toward Jasper, even Drew, whose head was sticking out the window of the car, to find that he had opened the truck and was now holding a large metal staff. What good a staff would do, Paige didn't know. At least it was metal and not wood. "There's a ton of weapons in the trunk."

"Sweet!" Gemina said, flying down with Aura in tow. They all ran over to the trunk, expect for Asher, who was still running in circles. It was a miracle he wasn't dizzy yet. Gemina reached in and pulled out two swords, one blindingly white with gold details along the hilt and the other pure black with an extremely jagged blade. Aura jumped back a bit.

"Those things are terrifying," Aura said, but even so, seemed to be mesmerized by the blades.

"I know. Isn't it great?" Gemina asked. Aura nodded. "The only problem is that I don't know how to use them. Oh well, I'll figure it out." With that, she flew off, most likely to take Asher's place so he could come over and grab a weapon. Aura stepped up to the trunk and pulled out a large, scythe like blade attached to a silver chain with a moonstone gem attached to the other end.

"What's this?" she asked, gently hold the blade in her right hand and gripping the gem in her left hand.

"It looks like some type of add-chain weapon," Paige answered. "I'm not sure what kind though."

"How do you use it?" Aura asked.

"From a farther distance, swing the blade around while holding tightly to the gem and the chain for more control. When in closer combat, just hold onto the handle bit between the chain and the blade. You could also stangle someone with the chain if you wanted." Aura nodded and ran off just as Asher ran up, very uncoordinated.

"Are you okay?" Jasper asked as Asher leaned up against the side of the car.

"The world is spinning and I have the sudden urge to fall over, curl up in a ball, and puke. I've never been better." Asher said, chuckling to himself.

"Get in the car until everything stops spinning, okay?" Paige said. "Drew, get out of the car and help."

"But why do I need to- Hey let go of me!" Drew yelled as Paige grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the car. Asher got in and she slammed the door shut.

"Pick a weapon and go help." Drew grumbled, but walked over to the trunk and pulled out an axe made from steel and blackened wood.

"Happy?"

"Very. Now go." Jasper looked at Paige, shocked, as Drew walked off towards the others, who were all pathetically stabbing at the chimera, only succeeding in angering it more.

"How did you do that?" Jasper asked, his eyes still wide with shock.

"It gets pretty easy when your teachers constantly put you with the students who never do any work," she said. "When you're as determined as me to get an A, you can make anyone do anything. Why don't you go help with the situation over there. I think Gemina was just bit by the lion head." Concern flashed across Jasper's face as he ran over to help the others. As Paige watched, it seemed like he acually knew how to fight with the staff, which surprised her. He didn't seem like the type that would know how to fight. She knew the window of the car was down, so she walked to the trunk and yelled,

"Hey Asher. What weapon do you want?"

"Bow and arrows please. Sagittarius isn't the archer for nothing," Asher replied. She pulled out a bow and a quiver full of arrows for Asher and tossed them into the car through the window. "Thanks."

"No problem. Just try not to be stuck in there for too long." Paige stared at the contents of the truck and settled on using a swallow. The blades at each end would make an attack from any sides easy to deflect, plus she just liked how it felt. Asher got out of the car, finally clear headed enough the walk in a straight line, and they ran over to the fight.

Let's just say that almost everyone sucked at this. Gemina was swinging her swords wildly at the chimera, not inflicting much damage since she was swinging at its back. Drew was hacking at its legs with his axe, but he had to keep dodging the goat head. Aura was actually doing decently well. She was swinging her add-chain at the snake, slowly adding more and more cuts to it. If she would have had any other weapon, she probably would have cut the snake off, but since she was swinging at it with the chain and hadn't mastered the skill of using it that way, she was only causing blood loss. Jasper was very skilled at using his staff, except for the fact that, like Paige had thought eariler, it didn't do much to the chimera except anger it.

"Look at this disaster," Asher said. Paige nodded, spinning the swallow in her hands. She went for the lion head first, because with its sharp teeth and seemingly most control over the chimera body, it appeared to be the most dangerous. While it was distracted by Gemina, she spun the swallow and cut the head clean off. It would be much more efficient to just stab the chimera in the heart, but she wasn't sure where its heart was. The head feel onto the road with a thump.

"I could have done that," Gemina said. Paige gave her a look and she sighed. "No I couldn't have. Thanks." She smiled, but then noticed a large blood stain on Gemina's left thigh.

"Go to the car and try to find something to stop the blood flow to your leg. We can't have you bleeding out and dying." Gemina flew off to the car. Paige looked over to Drew, who was now being helped by Jasper with the goat head. She was going the help, but then Jasper smacked it with his staff and the goat head flopped to the side, unconscious. Now the only head controlling the body was the snake. Paige turned just in time to see Aura finally slice the head off at the same time as Asher launched an arrow that plunged into the chimera's chest. The body collapsed to the ground at the same time Aura did. All was quiet until Aura started screaming.

"What's wrong?" Asher asked.

"The snake! It bit me. I think it was poisonous!" Sure enough, as Paige looked closer, she could see the snake bite on Aura's right hand, gushing blood. What worried her the most was the immediate symptoms. Sweat cover Aura's face, even though it wasn't extremely hot out, her breathing was quickening, and the bite was swelling and turning red. If she was poisoned, Aura could died, and by the looks of it, very quickly.

Well that's it Aura's dead. Again, like always, sorry it took so long to update, and again I have no excuse. I'll try to update more often, but the chance of the happening isn't the best. Hope you enjoyed the chapter!

~CheshireCat615