Xenomorphic

Chapter 34: Changing Hearts

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Above the water, Charybdis looked like a bunch of teeth, and a whirlpool that leads straight to an opening in the water that looked suspiciously like a butthole. Under the water, however, Charybdis looked very different. Honestly, perhaps the best description was that she was a giant slug that was grounded to the seafloor. The bottom line here was that, under the water, she wasn't a threat.

Granted, with the ability to fly, any water-based creature wasn't much of a threat.

Asteria shot out of the water with her dorsal tubes fully extended, wings glowing brightly. The heads of Charybdis' sister, Scylla, emerged from her cave, snapping wildly at the airborne hybrid. Asteria weaved through the swarm of necks with expert skill and precision. Only one head got close enough, but Asteria slammed her fist into the underside of its jaws, and the head exploded into a bunch of little pieces.

Now past the entrance and the monsters that guarded said entrance, Asteria went tearing across the Sea of Monsters at Mach 1, staying low to the ocean. Behind her, a massive tail of water shot into the sky due to her extreme wake. In another life, there would have been an episode on CC's spa and resort, a tale involving the sirens and some rope, an encounter on a boat, all before reaching Polyphemus' Island.

All of that would have happened due to a lack of extreme power, but that was a problem Asteria did not have. As such, much of what would have been a harrowing tale was reduced to a breakneck flight across the Bermuda Triangle.

Meanwhile, on his island, Polyphemus was grazing his sheep, the Golden Fleece draped across his shoulder. The cyclopes heard something, something akin to a jet approaching, like airwaves being split by something moving too fast for them to split around. Looking out over the Sea, his poor eyesight prevented him from getting an accurate read on what he was seeing, but he was pretty sure the water was shooting up into the sky.

Then there were a pair of deadly serious green eyes about two feet away from him, and then there was nothing.

The only thing Asteria felt upon flying right through the cyclopes' head was the wetness of his blood all over her, blood that turned into golden dust just before she impacted the island with crater-inducing force, shaking the entire mass of land, and kicking up a large cloud of dirt.

Asteria recalled there being two breeds of sheep on this island, a normal herd to be eaten as Polyphemus decided, and a flesh-eating variety that was supposed to guard the Fleece. However, since the Fleece was with Polyphemus, and the flesh-eating sheep guarded the Fleece...Asteria stared down the horde with serious, narrowed eyes. What happened to the regular sheep was irrelevant, even the ones with the sharp teeth and dripping maws were irrelevant, because Asteria was here for only one thing.

Unfortunately (for the sheep), they were standing on top of it.

A sheep baa'd loudly, a clear indicator for attack, but Asteria was easily a hundred times faster than any of these things could move. She shot forward like a bullet from a gun, tearing a line right down the middle of the herd. Dozens of sheep went flying into the air, dissolving into golden dust, yet many dozens more remained. Not that they mattered, because Asteria now had the Fleece in hand.

Without missing a beat, she leapt clear off the island, a trail of dirt briefly following her foot. Midair, her tubes extended and her wings glowed to life. And then she was flying back across the Sea of Monsters, once more breaking the sound barrier.

It would have been smooth flying, if not for the harpoon that was shot at her from below, no doubt by a wayward daughter of Athena, from the bow of a cruise ship. Asteria, with annoyance on her face, easily dodged the projectile. Knowing that just a single shot was hardly the end of whatever they were planning down there on Luke's ship, Asteria accelerated to her maximum speed, somewhere in the neighborhood of Mach 3, and shot straight up.