GENEVA

As I walked toward the beach, I took a deep breath.

Getting knocked back into the forest had delayed my chase against Proteus immensely, but no matter how far he was, I was going to get him.

I'll admit, before I had seen the Iris message, I was about to give up and break the rules about capturing Proteus, but seeing Arthur again had given me this hope that I hadn't felt in a long time. Hearing his voice and seeing him one last time, along with sending that reply, was exactly what I needed right now.

When I finally reached the beach, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Proteus was literally ten feet in front of me, taking a nap as if our entire encounter hadn't happened.

I couldn't help but feel skeptical nonetheless. I was expecting him to try and hide or something, so him lying in front of me and just casually sleeping in the open? There was definitely a huge possibility that this was a trap.

I tip-toed toward him and reached for my chain. It may have been dumb to repeat what I did the first time, but there wasn't much else I could do.

Just as I was about to wrap the first part of the chain around his arms, he woke up and shapeshifted into a bear, slashing his paws at me. I ducked and rolled to the side, narrowly dodging his attack.

I turned into a bear as well and lunged, filled with anger at the fact that my attempts had failed once again. He dodged my attack and proceeded to swipe his claws at my face, but I was able to slap his paw away and get a good slash on his side.

He roared in pain and transformed into a lion, jumping on me and raising his claw in preparation. Before he could hit me, I took the form of a rabbit and ran in between his legs, evading his attacks yet again.

Before Proteus had the time to turn around, I took the shape of a lion as well and jumped on top of him, pinning him to the ground. I was about to stab my claws into his neck but he transformed into a bee, stung my paw, and zoomed away. I quickly became a bird and flew after Proteus, trying my best to keep sight of where he was.

I honestly would have lost him if he hadn't transformed into an eagle halfway through the chase. We were flying above the ocean, leaving the island behind us as we flew around the Mediterranean Sea. We approached a rocky area in the water and he began to ascend toward the sky.

Instead of flying behind him in a straight line, I flew in an arch around him and cut him off, blocking his direction. Before he could fly over me or pull off some shenanigan, I slashed his face with my talon and grabbed the scruff of his neck, dragging him back towards the island in my talons.

But I couldn't hold onto him long as he managed to fight back and get out of my grasp.

I screeched in frustration. Why was Proteus so hard to capture?

Instead of running off as I would have expected him too, he lunged toward me and tackled me right into the ocean.

The moment I hit the water, Proteus took the shape of a shark and began pursuing me. The roles had switched. The hunter had now become the hunted.

I quickly turned into a marlin fish, one of the fastest marine animals in the world - according to Amethyst - and began swimming as fast as I could.

Along the way, I began getting more tired and tired as Proteus got close. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this situation.

I had to think fast. I knew I couldn't outswim Proteus or somehow lose him in the water. He had the advantage in water, so transforming into another marine animal wouldn't work either. My best bet was to lead him to land and somehow trick him into not knowing that he had just left the ocean.

I began accelerating to the left, trying to make it seem that I was trying to find some other direction to escape to when in reality, I was leading him towards land. Proteus didn't seem to realize this however, so hellbent on killing me to the point of complete and utter recklessness.

Despite how good my plan sounded, Proteus was really catching up, only a few yards behind me. If he caught up to me, then my plan would completely backfire. It would be quite a close race to land.

As we approached the shore, I looked behind me. I knew it was a bad idea, but I had to know where he was. He was essentially right on my tail, which caused a shock wave of nervousness to pass through my body. Here goes nothing.

I swam toward a crowd of rocks and at the last moment, I swerved to the right and dived onto shore, transforming back to normal, officially out of the ocean. Unfortunately for Proteus though, he expected me to crash into the rocks, so he leaped - as much as a shark could anyway - toward my direction. Since I had moved out of the way, he instead slammed into the rocks, transforming back to normal on impact as sheer momentum took its toll.

I took advantage of the opportunity and stabbed my knife into his shoulder, disabling his shape-shifting.

To further elaborate, using the books Amethyst had lent me on shape-shifting, form changers couldn't shape-shift if one of their pressure points was hit or injured, as it would send an immense pain through their body and disable their ability to morph.

Proteus grunted loudly as I began tying the chain around his body. He couldn't escape now, not when he was injured, unable to shape-shift, and tied in thick metal chains. When I finished, I slung him over my back and headed toward the direction of Hercules' island, lugging the decrepit old man along with me.

It was a long road, one filled with close calls and me getting progressively more tired as we went on, but I made it, arriving at the foot of Hercules' island as I caught sight of the son of Zeus. I shapeshifted back to normal, made sure to check Proteus was tight on my back (he was), and went to drop off the old man.

"I got him!" I shouted to Hercules, who was flexing his muscles while doing what seemed to be an ab workout.

Hercules turned around, sweat falling off his chin and going down his skin like crazy, and smiled. "Good work. Now, give him to me."

I handed Proteus over to Hercules hesitantly. "What are you going to do with him exactly?"

"That's none of your business, now is it?" Hercules said. "What you do need to know however is that I think you may have a career here."

"What, as your servant?" I asked.

Hercules shrugged. "Kind of, but there's a lot more in store for you."

"Sounds like slavery if you ask me," Proteus grunted.

"Shut up, old man!" Hercules shouted. "Now, what do you think, demigod? Do you wanna work for me?"

I balled up my fists. "You know what? I'll consider it."

I then jumped right into action. I transformed into an elephant and wacked Hercules with my trunk, throwing him into a tree. Before he could get up, I took the form of a gorilla, ripped off the rock ledge that Hercules had been standing on before, and threw it at him. I repeated the same process with the two Greek and Latin pillars, absolutely burying the disgraced god.

I turned towards the sea and transformed into an eagle, flying off as I heard Hercules' roars of anger behind me.