"So what do we do now?" I asked Lyssa. I mean I had a plan made, but it was better to discuss it with her, she had more experience in here than me, and while she did get on my nerves a bit, with the whole I am crazy thing, that experience was my best bet.
I rolled my shoulder, it still ached from the blast against the Hydra, striking a tree at several miles per hour isn't that great for the back or shoulders, let me tell you. Every movement reminded me that I wasn't built for this kind of constant action. That was Richter's department, and he was being frustratingly quiet.
"Now," she smiled, that manic grin spreading across her face like wildfire. "We build."
The hydra's tooth fell to the ground with a heavy thud that I felt through the stone beneath my feet. The vine that had been keeping it strapped to her back withered and crumbled to dust as if it had aged decades in seconds.
Then she kneeled, placing her right hands flat against the stone floor. She closed her eyes, and I could see her face scrunch up in concentration, beads of sweat forming on her brow despite the cool morning air.
The ground rumbled beneath us, a low vibration that I felt more than heard. It started as barely a tremor, but quickly grew into something that made my body rattle. Stones cracked with sharp reports like gunshots, space was made as the ground made way for something.
Then the something came.
Thick grapevines exploded from the ground like green lightning, erupting with such force that I stumbled backward. They weren't ordinary vines either, these were massive, each one as thick as my torso, covered in a bark-like texture.
Lyssa's other hand, the one that wasn't pressed against the floor. Stretched out to the writhing vines. She made careful movements and the vines listened.
I watched in absolute fascination as the vines entangled against each other. They built knots, which actually looked secure, creating a base that seemed to grow stronger with each passing second. Support beams stretched from one end to another. Columns of grapevines reached skyward, their surfaces smoothing out as they rose, until they looked more like marble pillars than the grapevines they were supposed to be.
The whole process took maybe three minutes, but it felt like I was watching time-lapse footage of construction that should have taken weeks. The vines knew exactly where to go, exactly how to support each other, exactly how much tension to apply. It was like watching a master architect work, except the architect was a drunk teenage girl from the 1920s.
"Phew," she muttered, opening her eyes and standing up with a slight wobble. She patted her knees, brushing away any dirt (there wasn't any, she's just crazy) and looked upon what she had created with obvious pride. I looked along with her-
It was a hut.
A proper hut.
The walls were solid, woven so tightly that I couldn't see any gaps between the vines. The ceiling was domed, rising to about eight feet at its highest point. Two hammocks made from finer vines were suspended from opposing walls, positioned about three feet off the ground, they didn't look comfortable, but then again these were magic vines, so I could very likely be wrong.
The whole structure was maybe ten feet long and ten feet wide.
It wasn't much by most people's standards. Then again those people weren't living on an island which monsters roam, where time is all fucked up.
Yet it was...
Beautiful, in a way I couldn't explain.
"Phew, there we go," Lyssa muttered, swaying slightly on her feet. "Not great I know, but eh, it'll do for now. We'll build it out of stronger materials as we go, thankfully I've done it a few times already so we can get it done in a sitch."
I walked closer to the structure, unable to resist reaching out to touch it. My hand placed itself upon the wall, expecting it to be rough like tree bark, but no, it was smooth as silk, with a texture that felt almost like fine wool.
"How? How is it standing up?" I asked, running my fingers along the seamless joins between vines.
"Magic, how should I know," Lyssa shrugged, conjuring another bottle of wine from thin air. "I will it, it happens, that's mostly what our powers are... will. You want something to exist, you believe it can exist, and if you have the power to make it happen, it does. Simple as that."
She took a long pull from the bottle.
"So you can make grapevines, and make wine appear in your hand, any other powers I should know about?"
"Me? Yeah, I can make people go mad or crazy, whatever you want to call it," she said the bottle of wine disappearing from her grasp, I wondered if I'd ever get used to that. "A few of my brothers and sisters back at camp can cure madness, restore sanity to those who've lost it, but I can't do that. I can only break minds, not fix them. That would have been helpful for both Sophia and Marcus, but alas I've not been blessed enough."
"What do you mean by blessed?"
"Not all children of gods are born equal," she explained, settling down on a smooth stone near our new shelter. "For one there's the big three, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades. Their kids are in a league of their own, power-wise. Only met one of those though, came by my third year at camp. Son of Zeus named Jake, I think. He was strong even for a demigod, could call down lightning strikes like they were going out of style, fly through the air like he had wings. Got killed though, I think by a Nemean lion during a particularly nasty quest. Shame, he was cute."
She took another drink, staring out at the mist that surrounded our island prison.
"But even if you're not born to one of the big three, there's still a huge range. Even if you're born to the same god, you don't get the same powers. It's like a lottery, except the prizes are supernatural abilities and the booby prize is getting eaten by monsters with nothing to defend yourself."
That hit closer to home.
Without Richter, without the Vampire Killer, I was just a kind of strong foster kid who was good at talking his way out of trouble. Well, apparently that last part was a supernatural power, but still.
"Some kids get all the powers of their godly parent but lessened in strength," Lyssa continued. "Like they're a jack-of-all-trades but master of none, some are even master of all if they get lucky enough. Others get one or two abilities which again differ in strength. And some..." She paused, her expression darkening. "Some get nothing at all except the scent that draws monsters and a target painted on their back and the normal demigod package, dyslexia and ADHD, plus a stronger body than most. Those ones don't usually last long, especially if they don't stay at camp year round."
Brutal. Was this really what this world was about? This brutality?
"Charmspeak though, just like making wine," she added, perking up slightly, "is very, very rare. I've only ever met one other person who could do it, back at camp, like I told you already."
Charmspeak.
The thing that made her so sure I was a son of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. The more I thought about it, the less it seemed to fit. I wasn't particularly handsome , decent looking maybe, but nothing special.
I didn't care about fashion or appearance. I'd never been good with romance or relationships. Hell, I'd never even had a real girlfriend, mostly because I moved around too much and had bigger problems to deal with.
"Are you sure I'm a son of Aphrodite? Aren't there other gods whose kids can use charmspeak?"
"I only met the one, and she was an Aphrodite kid," Lyssa replied, a little unbothered. "Nothing is certain until you get claimed though, but again almost everything about you screams Aphrodite to me."
We fell into silence after that, both of us lost in our own thoughts.
I watched as vines suddenly sprouted from the floor near Lyssa's feet, wrapping around the base of the hydra's fang. They wove themselves into something that looked almost like a sword hilt, complete with cross-guards and a grip wrapped in smaller vines.
She picked it up, testing the weight and balance. It looked like a greatsword more than anything else, the massive fang along with the hilt forming a blade that was easily four feet long. Despite its size, she wielded it like it weighed nothing, spinning it in her hands.
Then that manic grin returned to her face, and I knew I was about to be in trouble.
"So, Aphrodite kid," she said, leveling the point of her improvised sword at me, "let's see what you got?"
"What I got?" I asked, already backing away from her slowly.
"Yeah, let's spar!" She bounced on the balls of her feet like a boxer warming up. "That's a celestial bronze whip around your waist, right? So come on, let's see you use it, or at least let's try and get your charmspeak down. Practice makes perfect and all that."
"Uhm, I'm not great at fighting," I said, which was the understatement of the century. Julius was terrible at fighting. Julius was the guy who got stuffed into lockers by football players and considered it a victory because he got a good nap out of it.
'Richter,' I called out into our shared mental space, 'you wanna deal with this?'
Silence.
Complete and utter silence where there should have been Richter's eager bloodlust.
Gods, he was being such a whiny baby. Just do your part in this symbiotic existence we call our relationship.
"That's why you have to learn," Lyssa said, raising her hydra-tooth sword and taking a few practice swings. The blade cut through the air with a whistling sound.
'Richter?' I called out again, more urgently this time. 'I know you're in there. Come on, man, I need you.'
Nothing.
"Either way, we demigods are born for battle," Lyssa continued, starting to advance on me with slow, measured steps. "It's in our DNA, literally. Our godly blood makes us stronger, faster, more resilient than regular humans, our ADHD makes us super focus in tense situations, it's almost like a sixth sense, I'm sure you've felt it just like I'm sure you're better at it than you think."
Then she began to run at me, sword raised high, that crazy grin stretched across her face like she was having the time of her life.
I did what came naturally.
I ran away.
"Come here!" she shouted behind me, her laughter echoing off the stone beach. "At least use your charmspeak or something! This is supposed to be a beatin- I mean training!"
"I'm good!" I yelled back, pumping my legs as hard as I could. Unfortunately, Lyssa had longer legs than me, so she was closing in.
Just then, a thick vine erupted from the stone directly in front of me, I didn't notice it, until it was too late. I caught my foot on the vine and went down hard, scraping my hands and knees on the rough stone.
I rolled over just in time to see Lyssa standing over me, her hand raised high, the hydra-tooth sword gleaming as she prepared to bring it down. There was no malice in her expression, just that fucking craziness. But that blade looked very, very real, and very, very sharp.
Will, I thought desperately.
Will. Will. I have to will it. Lyssa said our powers are driven by will.
I remembered Eudoxia, the way her voice had wrapped around my mind like silk chains, making my body stop moving even though every instinct screamed at me to run. She had willed my body to obey her, and it had worked perfectly.
Will. Will. Will.
The blade etched closer to my face, and I could see my reflection distorted in the polished surface of the fang. I opened my mouth, putting every ounce of desperate need into my voice.
"Stop."
Her gaze went blank instantly, like someone had just switched off a light behind her eyes. Her entire body froze mid-swing, the sword stopping mere inches from my nose. I could feel the displaced air from its passage cooling the sweat on my face.
I scrambled to my feet, adrenaline making my hands shake.
"Ha! How's that for will?" I said, probably sounding more confident than I felt.
Then her gaze returned, awareness flooding back into her eyes along with that manic grin. Without any warning, she pivoted on her heel and swung the flat of her blade like a baseball bat, aiming directly at my face.
"Shit, stop!" I said desperately, but of course I wasn't that lucky.
Nothing happened. She didn't even slow down.
"Language," Lyssa said cheerfully as her improvised sword connected with my head.
Or tried to.
Just as the blade was about to crack my skull like an eggshell, I felt something flowing over my skin like liquid mercury. It spread across my face faster than thought, covering my nose, mouth, chin, and cheeks while leaving my eyes clear. The sensation was strange but not unpleasant, like being caressed by cool water.
BAM!
The hydra tooth struck the mask with a sound like a church bell, sending vibrations through my entire skull. But I stayed rooted to the spot, completely unharmed. The force that should have sent me flying just... disappeared, absorbed by whatever was protecting my face.
I blinked, trying to process what had just happened. My vision swam for a moment, and then something strange occurred. I could see... more.
Around Lyssa, emanating from somewhere deep inside her, I could see a shifting aura of deep purple shot through with gold.
"You've got to be kidding me," Lyssa muttered, letting her weapon fall to her side. She stared at me with wide eyes, though her manic grin seemingly widened. "How lucky can one guy be? How in Hades did you get a mask of a Mormo?"
A/N: I hope you all enjoyed this, finally the mask of the Mormo makes a return. You gotta love it. Also Lyssa was controlling herself that's another reason why Julius stayed on his spot even if the mask did absorb the impact, she wouldn't have actually cracked his skull open like an egg, she's crazy not sociopathic lol. As for the title I didn't mention if it was bad kuck or good luck lol.
Either way. Author out. Thx for reading.