ALEXANDER

In my time as a demigod, I've encountered a lot of scary, formidable, and horrific monsters, with the Hydra and Skolopendra fitting the criteria for all three. However, neither of the two creatures freaked me out more than the monsters that were attacking us at the moment.

Having now gotten a closer look at them, I felt like even putting it near the same category as the Hydra and Skolopendra was doing it an utter disservice. There were about ten of these floating creatures and they seemed to be approaching us in a phalanx formation. They had large, leathery wings sprouting from their backs that were almost a yard long in length. The creatures were almost transparent in color and were covered in veins and blood vessels. Sharp claws that were a dark yellow, glossy red eyes that seemed to peer into your soul, and mouths full of glimmering yellow fangs finished the look.

Amethyst grabbed her bow and notched an arrow in the bowstring. "Be careful, the Arai inflict curses upon death!"

"Then how in Hades do we beat them?" Rose asked.

"Keep your distance and try to shoot them down!" Amethyst answered. "You're less likely to be cursed if you stay away from their attacks!"

With those instructions in mind, I morphed my shields into a bow and a set of arrows and began firing at the Arai. I landed a good hit on one of them, dropping it to the floor, but my other shots missed the Arai by a wide margin. Amethyst managed to hit one or two, but none of her shots were fatal and the monsters continued their pursuit forward.

Kai and Rose shot fireballs at the monsters and Timmy hurled a potion at the group of Arai, but they did well to swerve around his potion and then get back into formation. Oman was in his cabin hiding for his life, taking refuge behind the sofa and peeking out every now and again.

Where was Geneva though?

As if she heard my question, a bald eagle swooped through the air and bashed into one of the Arai, slamming the monster into the ground. Geneva then transformed into a tiger and slashed at the creature until it died.

She suddenly reverted back to normal and tumbled down to the ground, writhing in pain.

"Geneva!" Rose cried. "Amethyst, what happened to her?"

Amethyst shook her head disappointingly. "Well, like I mentioned earlier, when you kill an Arai, you are inflicted by a curse an enemy has set upon you in the past. In Geneva's case, she's been inflicted with some kind of weakness curse."

Oh no. I could only imagine the amount of curses Kai and I have attained in our years of monster slaying and adventuring. For now, all we could do was just stay back and hit them down from distance.

But as it turns out, we would end up having to fight them up close, as none of our ranged shots were able to keep them at bay and they progressed a little too close to comfort.

"Alright, they've gotten too close," Rose said, rather stating the obvious. "This is gonna get messy, but we're forced to just attack and get close. Amethyst, you can try and pick them off from range, but the rest of us are gonna fight from up close."

Amethyst nodded begrudgingly as she positioned herself back from all the action. I reverted my bow and arrow into my two shields, with Kai and Timmy unsheathing their swords and Rose bringing out her knives.

The Arai then attacked, with two gunning for me. One of the Arai slashed their whip at me while the other tried clawing at my face. I was able to block both attacks with my shields before counter attacking, reverting one of my shields into a sword and slicing off an Arai's wing. One of Amethyst's arrows then finished off the already damaged Arai. The second Arai was still floating around though, having drifted away a little from the ship, so I morphed my sword into a boomerang and threw it, with the boomerang hitting the Arai right in its neck area and decapitating it.

I assessed myself and found that I hadn't been cursed quite yet, meanwhile Kai was being faced down by four Arai whilst limping, with his hobble likely being achieved after killing one of the Arai and getting cursed. Rose hit one of the Arai down with a purple energy blast and then slayed another one by dodging under its whip and stabbing her knife right into its chest, slaying the creature. After doing this, her feet were suddenly frozen to the ground and she couldn't move at all. Probably Khione.

Another Arai attacked Rose, but they missed their attack and Rose reacted by frying the Arai with an electricity spell and killing it. A second came and got a lot closer than she was ready for, but Rose just sliced off its head before it could do anything, subsequently becoming blind as she cried, "Is anyone there? Hello?"

Amethyst tried calling out to Rose, but she was then preoccupied by another Arai attacking her. Not too far away, Timmy was engaged in a long battle with an Arai, struggling to move past its attack as he seemed far slower than usual.

I needed to help out both Rose and Timmy with their battles. But which one first?

Timmy seemed to be handling himself a bit better, so I decided to help Rose. I sprinted across the top deck to where Rose was.

"Is anyone here?" Rose asked panickedly.

"Yes, I'm here. Don't worry, I'll protect you until you regain your vision," I said.

"Okay," Rose mumbled.

I blocked an Arai from attacking Rose by shooting it down with an arrow, but the Arai didn't die and swooped towards me, whip ready to attack. The Arai lashed the whip at me, and while I was able to block the attack, I felt my shield heat up immensely and suddenly my hand was burnt, making me drop my shield.

The monster went back for round two, but before it could do anything, a jaguar pounced on it and clawed it to death. Again, Geneva stumbled to the ground, this time with a gash across her stomach.

I approached Geneva hurriedly and knelt beside her. "Geneva, are you good?"

Geneva could barely muster a response, but I presumed it was something along the lines of "does it look like I'm good?"

"Amethyst!" I yelled, looking around for her. "I need some help here!"

"Give me a moment," she yelled back, still busy attacking an Arai. She quickly finished off the creature then made her way to Geneva and I.

"Oh this doesn't look good," Amethyst said.

I nodded. "It really doesn't." When I looked up at Amethyst's face, her glasses were dirty with blood and she had a sizable wound on her forehead. "Wait, you're injured as well."

"Yeah, I know," Amethyst replied. "But right now, I need to focus on Geneva and Rose. You need to help Kai and Timmy."

I turned away from them and saw as Kai, his left hand over his side and limping, was hit down to the ground by an Arai. Timmy had taken down the Arai from earlier and was now facing another.

I ran over to where Kai laid and stood in front of him, trying to defend him. I transformed one of my shields into a bow and began firing at the two Arai circling around the ship, being able to nip the foot of one and damage it a small amount. An Arai whizzed at me from out of nowhere, but I was well prepared for their attack and blocked with my shield, before shooting them down with an arrow. The second one took me by surprise, as I only recognized it was rushing at me when Timmy yelled, "Look out!"

The Arai was then vanquished by a blast of fire from Kai before it could hit me.

"Thanks," I said.

"No… problem," Kai grunted.

I bit my lip when I looked at him again. He had a large claw mark on his forehead, he had a bloody wound in his rib area, and his left knee was bruised. He had a black eye that was surrounded by slits of blood on his forehead and cheeks. His sword was covered in dust and blood, which made me wonder just how many Arai he had slain.

I realized there was still one more left, the one that Timmy was fighting, but when I turned around to help, the Arai was slain, Timmy having finally killed it. To my surprise, Timmy was completely fine except for a few scratches on his arms and head. He seemed exhausted and out of breath, but he was still in good condition.

Couldn't say the same for the rest of my friends though. Rose was no longer frozen to the floor, though she had sustained many cuts and bruises and was still blind. Amethyst was also pretty damaged, Geneva had a concerningly large gash across her stomach, and Kai was easily the worst, with slashes and wounds in almost every crevice and portion of his body. Amethyst was not kidding when she warned us about the risks fighting an Arai presented.

Oman, who had been hiding the majority of the time, came out of his cabin only to see the damage everyone had taken.

"By Zeus' name, what happened here?" Oman asked worriedly.

"Well, the Arai overwhelmed us very quickly and we ended up having to kill all of them," I summarized. "Even if that meant injuring ourselves in the process."

"But how are you to beat Erebos and his goons if y'all are all.. Y'know, like this?"

Amethyst cleaned off the blood that had gathered on her glasses before readjusting them onto her face. "The simple answer is that we need help from a healing god. These injuries certainly don't heal themselves, and we can't exactly see a normal doctor."

Oman nodded. "So what healing gods are near our whereabouts?"

"I have no idea," Amethyst admitted, her tone defeated.

"Anyone else have an idea?" Oman questioned.

"I might," Timmy offered. "About six months ago, I was part of a raid of the Asclepion the GHOSTs did to raid medical supplies. If any of you don't know, The Asclepion is home to Asclepius and his family, but when we visited they were strangely gone."

"Yeah, that would make sense," Amethyst said. "After Asclepius helped the Seven make the Physician's Cure, Zeus decreed some punishment onto him. Something about being unable to help demigods or future patients. I can't remember the exact details."

"Exactly," Timmy said, continuing with his story. "So anyways, news came out about a new 'Asclepion' built years previous by Asclepius' wife, Epione, in Genoa, acting as a secondary home for her husband and children. We tried going there for even more medical supplies - we were pretty greedy - but we quickly abandoned the scene as the whole place seemed abandoned and filled to the brim with monsters."

"So you're suggesting we go there?" Amethyst asked.

"Yeah, if there's really as many monsters as you say, then I don't want to be anywhere close to there," Oman added.

Timmy rubbed his chin. "I get it sounds bad, but it's really the only option we have. The first Asclepion likely won't have anything, and no other healing gods inhabit these parts."

"I think it's a solid idea," I said.

"Thanks," Timmy replied. "So, what do the rest of you think?"

Amethyst shrugged. "It's the only viable option we have, so yeah, I guess we should try it."

"Rootin-tootin!" Oman said. "Sounds like a plan. Go ahead and give the coordinates and I'll fire up the ship."

Oman headed back into his cabin and began getting the ship ready for flight. We took the time to quickly move Rose, Kai, and Geneva down to Timmy's prison cell before giving Oman the go-to to fly the ship.

The next fifteen minutes or so went by in a blur, as all I remember doing was looking out the window for some indication of where we were repeatedly. Oman soon announced via speaker that we had arrived in Genoa and were about two minutes away from reaching the second Asclepion, per Timmy's instructions.

I looked at the window once more, getting a good visual of the Asclepion. It was surrounded by a plethora of trees, was about as wide as a mansion, and stood at approximately three stories high. A statue of a half naked man in robes sat atop the roof of the structure, directly in the middle. Underneath was the name of the building with a red plus sign to the left, labeled something in a foreign language. The hospital had a very old look, with it being made out of stone tile and having vines covering portions of the building. There were multiple windows, all covered with a sand colored curtain.

The BBB began losing speed and drifting slowly downwards as Oman landed the ship directly in front of the Asclepion, being careful not to hit the thick tops of the trees around the building. We woke up Kai, Rose, and Geneva, who had been resting the majority of the flight, and caught them up to speed with what we were doing.

"Wait, what?" Rose asked, now mostly cured of her blindness. "Why are we going to the Asclepion knowing full well that monsters are waiting for us and when we're in bad condition? Doesn't that seem risky?"

"Of course it's risky, but the injuries you guys had aren't going to heal without godly help," I answered.

"Yeah, this is a must," Amethyst said. "Without godly aid, we're going to be screwed in all of our future endeavors. How are we supposed to beat Erebos if we're all bloody and banged up?"

Rose sighed. "I guess. Let's make this quick though."

Having reached a consensus, we all made our way off the BBB. The front of the Asclepion had large brown doors covered in vines and had several curtain-covered windows to the sides of the entrance. Stone slabs and tiles made up a staircase that led to the doors. The entrance also had spiky bushes and shrubbery to each side of the staircase.

I made my way up the staircase first and attempted to open the door by pulling on the handle, but upon touching it, the handle broke off the door. I reached my hand to the other handle and repeated the process, the same result occurring. I then tried to push the doors open, seeing if that would change anything but the doors didn't budge.

"Here, I have an idea," Timmy offered.

He pulled a flask containing a yellow colored liquid out of his pocket. "You guys might wanna back up."

Amethyst and I did as he said, retreating down the stairs and behind him. Timmy then chucked the flask at the door, the glass breaking almost immediately. The yellow liquid spilt on the door and in a short span of time, a chunk of the wooden door dissolved, creating space for us to crawl through to get in.

"Well done," I said, impressed.

"Thanks," Timmy replied. "Go in first and try pushing the door open."

I nodded, going back up the stairs. Now in closing distance of the door, I went down to the floor with my belly down and crawled through the gap like Spider-Man. Once I reached the other side, I pushed the doors open, allowing my friends to get through. Kai arrived in the house last, having had a lot of trouble going up the stairs considering his limp.

The inside of the first floor was… let's just say, very ominous. The lights kept flickering on and off sporadically, which was step one to raising paranoia levels. Audible monster growls and footsteps echoed off the walls and they came from relatively close to our location. I shivered in my boots as a result of the very low temperature and my heart rate steadily increased.

"Oh gods," Amethyst said. "Why did I agree to do this?"

Her voice echoed through the building loudly.

"Dude, there's an echo," Kai said. "Hello!"

His hello had the same outcome of Amethyst's statement, reverberating through the first floor.

"Awesome," Kai muttered.

"Can you not do that?" Amethyst asked. "I swear every time there's an echoey building, you have to say something very loudly like some petulant kid."

"Jeez Mrs. Uptight," Kai said. "Wanna take a chill pill? Literally everybody does it."

"That doesn't mean you should!"

"Guys, stop," Geneva said. "If you keep bickering, our location is going to be further broadcasted to all the monsters in the building. Let's start moving on."

"Fine," the two siblings said at once.

We moved along slowly and carefully down the long, dark corridor, the growling getting eerily quieter. The lights seemed to go off for a very prolonged period, and after Kai failed to illuminate the place with his fire, the injuries he had sustained seemingly holding him back, Rose told us to stop moving until the lights came back on.

We followed her directions and stopped moving entirely, waiting in anticipation. When the lights came back on, we were immediately attacked by a triumvirate of harpies.

We weren't too intimidated though and in no time, Amethyst shot one down with a Taser arrow, Timmy sliced another in half with his sword, and I morphed my shields into a javelin and threw it at one of them, catching the monster right in the chest and slaying it. I retrieved my javelin and we progressed forwards.

It didn't take long for us to get ambushed again though, as this time, cyclopes of enormous proportions swarmed us. I blocked a red cyclopes' punch with my shield and got a good slash with my sword on its stomach, but the monster wasn't killed. The red cyclops then rushed me like an NFL player and despite me blocking, I was sent back a considerable distance and went back-first into Kai, the two of us falling down on the greasy floor.

"Ouch," Kai groaned in dismay.

"Crap," I said, grunting in pain as I got up from the ground. "My bad, Kai."

"No...worries," he said. "Go.. get him, my apprentice."

"I will. Wait, apprentice?"

Kai didn't bother responding, so I just forgot about what he said. I turned my sights to the red cyclops from earlier, morphed my sword into a boomerang, and threw it at its head. The cyclopes' attention immediately went to me as it roared and rushed at me. I caught the boomerang as it came back to me, transformed it to a shield, and got ready for the attack. When it did, I blocked it with my shield, pushed it back a bit, then slashed the cyclops' head off with my sword.

I quickly turned my attention to how my friends were doing, and while they had slew one of the cyclopes, three more still remained. Geneva was locked in a pretty intense battle with one of the cyclopes, but was able to pounce on it as a tiger and kill it.

Timmy and Rose were trading fighting another of the cyclopes, and seemed to be doing fine on their own. Amethyst on the other hand was struggling. The cyclops she was facing, which was easily the tallest of the bunch, around seven or eight feet, had four arrows embedded into its chest area but still hadn't died. To make matters worse, the cyclops was almost within arm's reach of Amethyst.

I armed myself with a shield and a sword and charged at the creature, hitting it clean in the chest with my shield and sending it flying backwards. It's back hit against a pillar, and before it could get up, Amethyst hit a precise headshot on it, turning the one-eyed beast into dust.

Timmy and Rose were able to take down the last cyclopes, meaning we had slew all of them. I went to check up on Kai and helped him off the floor before moving forward with everyone.

For the rest of the way down the corridor, we weren't attacked by anything, making it to a long, curved flight of stairs. We proceeded up the stairs with caution, being careful not to trip and ready for any monsters who dared ambush us.

We made it up to the second floor unscathed and took in our surroundings. The light on this floor was far brighter than that of the first, with us being able to view almost everything the floor contained. The area was mostly barren, with a few closed doors and boxes being present in the dim light but not much else. We stood upon creaky wooden floorboards that produced an ear raping screech every step we took.

We also saw the monsters that were awaiting us, with there being hellhounds, harpies, empousa, and cyclopes all joining in on our beatdown. I shot down one of the harpies with my bow before changing my weapon to a sword and slicing an empousa in half. I reverted my other weapon into a sword and began slashing through as many monsters as I could with my two blades in a blind frenzy, killing two hellhounds, two harpies, a cyclopes, and an empousa in the process.

Geneva bounded everywhere in her cheetah form and sliced down an empousa with ease, while Rose, Timmy, and Amethyst took down the remaining cyclopes. Kai meanwhile just shied away from the fight completely, wiping blood off his favorite red jacket and picking at his nails. I'm sure he'd be joining us in battle and absolutely slashing every creature in our vicinity if he hadn't gotten injured so badly against the Arai.

Being able to see the entirety of the second floor made it very easy to navigate around and in due time, we found the stairs up to the third floor. Along the way we encountered some stray harpies, but Amethyst and I swiftly shot them down with our bows.

"If the intel the GHOSTs had was right, then there should at least be a ton of medical supplies and medicines up on the third floor," Timmy said as we began walking up the stairs.

"So the plan is that we grab these supplies, heal up, then head back to the ship?" Kai asked, still messing with his leg with a few basic stretches.

Timmy nodded. "Essentially. The medical remedies and medicines kept here are the finest of fine. I mean, this is the stuff that Alcyoneus used during his revolutionary medical career. There's little chance we're not all healed after using some of the stuff here."

"Well, I do like stealing stuff, so you know I'm on board," Kai replied.

"Do you now?" a womanly voice asked.

Standing at the top of the steps was a stocky woman of short stature wearing an old, navy blue nurse's outfit. She had peach skin, light blue eyes, and long black hair tied into a ponytail. She wore a red bandanna around her forehead that gave off some serious commando vibes. On the right side of her nurse outfit she had a name tag that read either epilepsy or Epione, with the latter being more likely.

"Cause I don't think any of you kids are stealing anything," Epione said.