CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

Against Gods and Monsters, Part 2

Hades’ balls, kid! Chiron exclaimed. That’s one nasty skill you’ve cooked up... We should call it something...how about the Clapper?

“You’re making...jokes…now?” Sam sighed.

Gale-force winds buffeted Sam’s face as he braced his feet against the wet ground. The shockwave he’d created was so strong that even he might get blown away from it.

What else am I going to do while watching you struggle against your power from my comfy couch? Chiron chuckled. You can’t get this kind of heart-pumping action on cable.

“Glad you’re so...entertained,” Sam grumbled.

Sam’s tsunami traveled the length and breadth of the lake, crashing mightily onto the far shore where Apex had originally appeared in. Eventually, the waters receded and the winds calmed. But of the aforementioned villain, no sign could be seen. As for Sam, he’d managed to barely hold on, but was now wheezing slightly. Sweat dripped down his brow in buckets too.

“Blimey, that was incredible!” Jackboot cheered. “You were this strong all along?!”

“He does tend to surprise us sometimes, doesn’t he,” Farsight chimed in.

“Like an actual hero, you mean,” Thunder added in a teasing tone.

Compliments had been quite rare in Sam’s life, and so he took each new word of praise he received with a widening grin on his lips.

Wipe that smile off your face, kid, Chiron chided. You’ve got incoming...

The lion’s head hood rose from the water a mere eight feet from where Sam waded. Apex’s massive body—water droplets dripping from his hardened muscles—appeared moments later. As for the villain’s face, well, his angry expression suggested he wasn’t pleased with having half a lake dunked over his head.

I guess we should have known that dropping a tsunami on a descendant of Hercules wouldn’t be enough to waste him, Chiron said disappointedly. It’s not like he’s as weak as you, kid.

“Not the time,” Sam complained.

It was lucky for Sam that [Herculean (Δ)] was still active. Otherwise, he might not have had enough speed to dodge the fist Apex launched at him. Unfortunately, Sam’s inherent clumsiness caused him to trip over the wet sand beneath him and tumble down into the water below.

Way to show your heroic side, lame-brain, Chiron sighed.

Sam didn’t have time for a retort as Apex’s hand speared into the water to catch him by his shirt. The villain then lifted Sam over the water and up into the air where they would be at eye level with each other.

“I am impressed, pretender.” Apex’s grin flashed the two sharp fangs protruding out of his upper lip. “You have more strength in you than your frail body reveals.”

“Let me go...and I’ll show you just how strong...I can be,” Sam managed to say despite Apex’s fingers pressing heavily against his chest.

“Bravado, such a childish response—”

Apex paused suddenly. His head cocked slightly to the side as if he were listening to a voice in the wind that only he could hear.

“No, no, yes, I agree…this hero could be useful if he is changed,” Apex said to the wind.

“Who are you…talking to, you psycho?” Sam couldn’t help but ask.

Apex frowned. “I’m not talking to—”

The villain’s words were cut short by the arrow that he caught in his free hand an inch away from his head.

“Foolish—”

The arrowhead ignited and then lit up so brightly that both Apex and Sam were momentarily blinded from it. Sam felt Apex let him go, but he didn’t drop down into the water. Someone had caught him. He didn’t know who it was until he heard, “I’ve got you, mate!”

Sam and Jackboot didn’t get very far though before they were both pulled back by their collars and thrown into the lake.

“Sam!” Thunder screamed.

He could hear the frustration in her voice, and he understood. Lightning and lake water didn’t exactly mix, and so Thunder was powerless to watch from the sidelines while Sam felt Apex’s fist smack him in the jaw, driving him further down into the water so that his back thumped against the sand underneath.

Fight back, kid, Chiron urged.

He was trying. Hades, Sam was kicking and punching out for all he was worth, but he couldn’t bring out his full strength. Not in the water. Somehow, forcefully being driven underwater despite how shallow the depth brought Sam’s phobia of drowning rising to the surface of his mind and prevented him from being his usual self. His rising panic automatically deactivated [Herculean (Δ)] too, so that Sam was too weak to struggle against Apex’s strength.

Oh, gods, I’m going to die down here, he thought worriedly. The iron taste of blood in the water did nothing to help with his nerves too.

Through the murky haze, Sam could see Jackboot struggling to shove Apex off him. Unfortunately, Jackboot’s kicks, although powerful enough to clock a horror’s lights out, couldn’t even dent the fur coat wrapped around their foe. However, to his surprise, Sam saw an arrow lodge itself in the folds of Apex’s shoulder cape before its indestructible fur repelled the wooden shaft.

Did that arrow actually get through? Sam wondered. But…how?

As for the seer who’d launch the arrow from her bow, well, the varying number of curses she flung at Apex that Sam managed to hear were so colorful that he could tell she was more than a little frustrated. Farsight was basically handicapped without her foresight.

No, Sam would need someone stronger to jump in and help them if he or Jackboot were going to survive this—and he wasn’t thinking of Thunder. Despite the water depriving his brain of oxygen, Sam managed to glean just that bit of insight he needed so that when Apex loosened his grip for just a second to deal with the annoyances that were Jackboot and Farsight, Sam’s head cleared the surface. Then, after taking in that much-needed gulp of air, he yelled, “Hey, this guy’s the descendant of Hercu—”

That was all the time Sam had before his head was shoved back down into the water. But he imagined it was enough to stoke the interests of a vengeful god—and Sam would be proven right seconds later.

“It would be wise not to incur a god’s wrath for they have long memories,” a priestess of Zeus had once said to her congregation. “And they hold grudges so long that even your children and their children’s children might not be safe from retribution.”

The god-possessed bronze automaton appeared above Sam as if by magic. With a glare so fierce that Sam was grateful it wasn’t aimed at him, Achelous let out a mighty bellow, and his roar caused the very realm to shake. His bronze fist came soon after, and the force of his haymaker sent Apex crashing toward the tiny island and into its altar.

Meanwhile, Sam felt himself get raised up by the scruff of his neck so that his body was hanging in the air and he was staring into the glowing pinpoints of reddish hate growing at the center of the river god’s golden eyes.

“Are you certain he’s one of Hercules’ brood?” Achelous asked angrily.

Sam nodded wordlessly because speech had momentarily eluded him. That’s how difficult it was to be staring into the face of an angry god, even one whose vessel held but a small portion of the god’s full strength.

“I thought he looked familiar with those ridiculously big muscles and that ridiculously stupid-looking headgear... I wasn’t entirely sure though, but I believe you...I can tell you’re not lying to me right now,” Achelous said.

Dude, shouldn’t you be a hundred percent sure before you hit someone? Sam thought. I’m not complaining or anything but...thank Apollo he didn’t whack me in the head when he heard me yell out my power...

An inhuman and savage roar exploded out from the very center of the island, causing Achelous to drop Sam back into the lake so he would have use of both his hands.

When Sam got back up on his feet, he discovered all his friends around him. Achelous’s automaton was standing in front of them, almost like he was shielding them from the wave of murderous aura emanating from the island they’d vacated.

“Yes, this one is definitely that buffoon’s descendant,” Achelous snarled. “I can sense the bloodlust even in this toy I’ve taken over.”

The god snapped his fingers. However, the sound that emanated from them wasn’t the usual ‘snapping’ that came with the act, but the ding of an elevator.

Achelous glanced over his shoulder to gaze at Thunder and Farsight, “As sorry I am to see such beauties leave me without so much as a kiss, I’m afraid you mortals would not survive what’s about to transpire here… You should go now.”

An elevator door slid open in the air behind them with familiar darkness lying beyond it.

“Magic,” Jackboot whispered.

“It’s just a weird portal, Jack,” Farsight countered.

She was the first to jump through the door.

“I’m actually pretty amazed at how fearless Farsight can be,” Jackboot admitted. “I’d be a little warier about jumping into the void.”

“It’s fine!” Farsight called from beyond the door, although her voice was slightly garbled. “I’m back inside the water tower’s elevator!”

With a shrug and a wry smile at Sam, Jackboot followed her through it. Thunder remained to help Sam up as he was feeling uncommonly weak from his struggle in the water.

“I think we’ve found your weakening, Sam,” she teased.

Sam didn’t have the strength to retort or to think about the possibility that his ‘weakening’ was something related to water. His focus was elsewhere.

The last thing he saw before Thunder pulled him through the portal was the god and monster smashing fists against fists. With the way its bronze parts were being blown off its body, Sam could almost believe that Achelous was losing—and that was a scary thought.