ATN: THE ELEMENTS OF BEAUTY

DELIVERING THE OINTMENT

 "Lets get this over with, so that we can help them." Dadai said, "Hurry!" We opened the gate of the palace, and ran inside. Thank gods the main door was ajar, or I had the perfect spell in my mind to break it.

We entered and reached upstairs. We knocked on the door of the room we last got Aphrodite out of. "Get away!" Aphrodite's voice could be heard, "I am not coming out."

"Mom!" Abhro called out, "Its us."

"My sons?"

"Yes, Mom."

"Did you get the ointment?"

"Yes, Mom. Just come out and take it."

"I can't, honey. My appearance has just gotten worse and worse. I am not coming out."

"I'm so done with this." Dadai said, "Come on, goddess. Just come out. Our friends are dying there in Atlantis fighting the giants. We are supposed to help them, while we are delivering this cream to you. And your insecurities just won't be finished."

"Honey, I am sorry. But I can't come out like this. Only Leia is allowed to see me."

"Who's that?"

"My servant. She must be downstairs in the kitchen. Give it to her."

We didn't linger there anymore and came downstairs. We came to the kitchen. It was a huge one. The walls were light pink. There were silver cutlery sets, golden plates and utensils, and many sweet dishes had been made. I looked outside through the kitchen window. The sun had gone down here in Greece. It would go down in Atlantis in two hours. We had got to hurry. But sadly, the kitchen was empty, and an open door led to the lawn behind the palace.

We reached the lawn. It was a simple field, unlike Aphrodite's garden up front, which had so many flowering plants. We also found Leia there, the same servant girl we had seen the last time. But, to our shock, she was out cold. And in front of her stood a weirdly vicious creature. Perhaps the gigantes had sent this behind us to stop us from delivering this to Aphrodite.

The creature was weird looking alright. It had two heads- one of a lion, and the other of a goat. It had a dragon-like body, and two dragon wings. And finally, it had a snake for a tail. It was the Chimera, the vicious monster Bellerophon had killed in Lycia. It's lion head roared at us, while the goat breathed huge fireballs at us. I instantly uttered, "Aspida!", my shield spell, and blocked the fire using the invisible shield. "That's new." Dadai said.

"You should have seen him against Ladon." Riya said, "He absorbed the fire, and released it altogether."

"What?" the other three looked at me.

"Now's not the time, guys. Spread out." I said. I looked eye to eye at the Chimera, and did not leave Leia's side, who was slowing regaining her consciousness. "Sisters, man the tail. Its venomous. Be careful." I said, "Dadai, Abhro, get the wings, don't let it fly."

As I said this, the Chimera flapped its wings and tried to fly. But two arrows on its hind legs from Hiya brought it down. The Chimera seemed to be in a bit of pain, which gave Dadai and Abhro draw first blood in this fight. They jumped together, swung their swords and the wings of the monster were rippled off its body and turned into smoke. The Chimera groaned, and roared. "Keep dodging. I have a way to kill it." I screamed. The monster released fire towards Dadai, who jumped out of it. The snake tail was constantly trying to strike at the girls. However, Riya revolved her trident to keep it at bay, while Hiya fired an arrow at it. In the meantime, I looked around, trying to find something. And I found it. Broken pieces of rocks. I remembered how Bellerophon had killed this creature using a big rock. I didn't have a big rock, but I had rocks alright. I remembered a joining spell I thought I would never need. I took out my wand, pointed it at the rocks and uttered, "Synefaptomai!" The rocks came together, and started joining, and within a second, the numerous small rocks turned into a bigger boulder. I turned towards the Chimera, and uttered, "Seio!", my favorite one. The ground shook under the Chimera. Always a hundred percent effective. The beast lost its balance, and by this time, I used my telekinesis to pick the rock.

The rock was heavy. Though I wasn't physically holding it, I could still feel it on my hands. I called, "Hey, goat-face. Fight me."

The Chimera turned towards me. By this time, Leia woke up. She saw the Chimera's faces and screamed in fright. I signed to the girls to get away from the tail and handle Leia. The girls followed, and jumped away from the snake tail. They stood beside Leia, and as the Chimera's goat head opened its mouth to release more fire, I waved my fingers to throw the rock towards its mouth. The rock flew towards the Chimera's open goat mouth, went inside it, and got stuck. The goat tried to breath fire, but nothing came out. It tried to breathe through its lion head, but couldn't it. It choked, and moved its feet, agitated. "Monsters never learn." I said triumphantly, as the Chimera choked to death, and turned to smoke. 

We took a pill of ambrosia each, and gave Leia a sip of nectar from Hiya's bottle, for she was the only one who kept her medicine box with her. We gave Leia the ointment, and asked her to give this to Aphrodite immediately. As Leia ran upstairs, we ran out of the palace and jumped through the portal one by one. The ambrosia had reinstated our energy, and we felt super energetic. We landed on the training ground, and found out that we were in the middle of a war. 

I could see the mortal army in their ancient Greek battle armor, fighting some grim creatures, perhaps, the undead. They had super sad and dark eyes, bald heads, and extremely lanky bodies. I saw Tina in her complete Atlantium battle armor, leading the other demigods into battle. I saw Nadia and the Queen herself firing arrows from the top of the tallest tower, while Rahul used the machine gun he was setting up to fire bullets. They had perfect aims. The bullets and the arrows hit the undead, who just turned into smoke. I saw Iris being attacked by the undead, as she kept on doing what Dr. Strange should have done in Infinity War. She was opening a portal under the feet of the undead, and when they had fallen halfway, she closed it, killing them. We found our backpacks at one corner of the training grounds. We took our armor discs and helmets out, donned them, and got ready to fight. I looked at the undead army, and screamed, "Cousins, attack!"

The demigods looked at us and cheered as we joined them in battle. I used the disintegrating spell, "Aposyntheto!" to destroy the creatures in front of me, while Dadai, Abhro and Riya used their weapons to slash them out. The coolest thing was that the swords of the undead could do nothing to us. Our Atlantium armors were invulnerable to those. Rhian, the Poseidon kid got hold of Hiya and spoke something in her ear. The two went to Riya and spoke something in her ear. Riya gave them a thumbs up, and the two left towards the beach. I looked at Riya, who replied, "They have a plan!"

We kept on slashing and disintegrating the undead. Tina came beside me. We fought side by side, as she asked me, "The ointment?"

"She has got it."

"Good."

"Mom?" I asked.

"Not here yet, but Iris says she can feel her coming."

"Where are the gigantes?"

"They are playing chess here."

"What?"

"They sent the pawns first."

I got what she meant. I was hoping that whatever plan Rhian and Hiya had, they better come up and execute it fast.

And then, came the plan of the two little kids. A watery plan, a plan that shocked the demigods and the undead together.