Legacies: The Champion of Olympus

22- Hydra

I gulped as the Hydra locked eyes with me.

"Please tell me you know the story of the Hydra." I said to Olivia.

"Of course I know, who doesn't know." She asked incredulously. The tone of her voice was shaky, she was clearly terrified.

I didn't blame her.

"What do you know about it?" I asked her as I summoned my bow.

"Umm, you cut off a head and two more grow back?" She questioned.

"Unless?"

"Unless you burn the stump with a flame." She said confidently.

"Good job." I said as the Hydra blew a blast of fire at us causing us both to jump out of the way.

We made eye contact. 

"You get the heads, I'll burn the stumps." She said as flames appeared in both of her hands.

The Hydra has regained itself as was ready to make a leap at us.

I quickly shot an arrow into its eye causing it roar and stumble backwards.

I took off into a run. "Stormcaster." I called causing my bow to change into my sword.

I jumped into the air and willed the winds to take me into the air above the Hydra's head.

It was paying absolutely no attention to Olivia by now which is exactly what we needed.

I dive-bombed towards one of the heads and made a clean slice across the throat of the best and smiled as the head fell to the floor.

Heat radiated off my the back of my neck as the stump was immediately burned to a crisp. The Hydra roared in pain.

I spun in the air and glared at Olivia. "Watch the friendly fire!" I yelled down to her.

"Get out of the way then!" She called back to me.

I lunged out of the way as another head came barreling towards me. As the head darted in front of me, I brought my sword over my head and came down on the neck of the Hydra as another head hit the floor.

Two more burnt stumps later and we only had five left.

"Hustle up, Walker." Olivia said to me. "We don't have a lot of time."

I was too busy trying to reply to Olivia that I didn't see the Hydra's tail make a swipe at me knocking me out of the air and into the cobblestone wall.

I blacked out for a second and came back to as I hit the ground.

"Achilles!" Olivia yelled.

I groaned, my vision was blurry and my head was pounding.

The Hydra licked the five of its remaining pairs of teeth as it stalked towards me. A red-orange glow protruded from its chest as it prepared to toast me.

I closed my eyes and readied myself to be burnt to ashes.

The Hydra roared and a flash of orange made its way through my eye lids. Heat licked my arms and scorched the cobblestone next to me.

Olivia had her hands out in front of her creating a small shield causing the flames to redirect around us.

She looked back at me as she strained to keep the shield up.

"Get up and let's finish this." Olivia scolded me as I regained my composure.

I nodded at her and stood up flying myself straight up.

I felt the adrenaline suddenly rushing through me as I lunged at the Hydra cleanly slicing through two full heads.

The Hydra snapped its attention back to me as I watched Olivia roll to safely and light up the two stumps in flames.

The two of us worked together until the Hydra crashed to the ground dead. A few seconds later the monster burst into golden dust.

I stumbled out of the air as I made a rough landing.

Olivia reached out and caught me as I tripped on the concrete as I came to a running landing.

"You owe me so many favors for the amount of times I've saved your butt." She said as we took a second to look over the dust.

"Okay, I already said the time at the hotel does not count. You literally told him to drop me over the edge." I said to her.

"And? Look at you know you can fly. If you couldn't do that we'd probably be dead."

I nodded. "That's a good point."

"Come on, let's find the way out of here." She said to me.

"Over here." I said noticing the thin gap in the wall right behind where the monster was originally lying.

"You're almost there." The strange voice hissed in my head again.

I decided to ignore it this time as we slid sideways through the gap and continued on our path.

The sound of swishing blades filled the air as we turned down the corridor to the left.

Large axes swung back and forth at different times through the hallway, a wooden door lay just past the axes.

"Traps." I said to her. "There's always traps."

"Doesn't look too hard, it's just timing." Olivia said as we approached the axes.

A string snapped around Olivia's feet and mechanisms sounded throughout the walls.

Time slowed as I looked back at the wall behind us and saw arrows being ready to fire.

"Get down." I yelled at Olivia as I tackled her to the ground.

Multiple arrows fired just above our heads as we hugged the ground.

We didn't stand up until the arrows had stopped for a good half a minute.

We stood up and looked at the door. About fifteen arrows had pierced the door while about another ten had stuck themselves in the wooden handle of the axes.

"We're even now." I said to her as we began to juke through the traps until we reached the door.

A massive amount of power radiated from the other side of the door.

"Can you feel that?" I asked her as I put my hand on the door handle.

She nodded.

"We did it."

"Let's go." I said pulling open the door.

Olivia and I entered the largest room we had been in yet, together.