Prytaneum
Extinguished
I met the Goliath halfway up the path to Rivira, not daring to let it any nearer to Welf. The fact that it had been forced to take the long way around had given me some time, and I'd armed myself as best I could with what had been left in the city, taking Bors up on his offer and using whatever had been left behind. It was, unfortunately, nothing of particular value on its own—all that stuff had been taken by either its proper owner or whoever thought they could get away with it in the chaos—but there were a few useful things here and there. I had pants that weren't falling off of me now, for example, which was important since my swords ability to magically return to my pocket required I have actual pockets. I had some new armor, too, though it was fairly poorly made compared to what I was used to now. A somewhat beaten up shield and a large pack completed my new ensemble, and I expected absolutely none of it to last, so I didn't bother growing attached to it.
Instead, I gathered up everything I thought I might need and waited for the giant on the barren trail up the cliff, catching my breath the old fashioned way. I'd probably only have one shot at this, assuming it worked in the first place.
"Hey, big guy," I said to the Goliath as he lumbered towards me with slow and heavy steps, treading carefully up the cliff. "I hoped you enjoyed the trip up as much as I did."
The Goliath made a heavy, droning sort of sound deep in its chest and opened its jaws to gather light between them, preparing its roar. Taking that as my chance, I twirled Riptide and then drove it point first into the ground.
Break, I thought, trying to keep it somewhat under control this time—at least enough not to affect the town. I wasn't sure if I succeeded, but I felt it respond somewhat as Riptide struck stone and a network of a thousand cracks exploded across the cliff below and around us. A moment later, water explored from between the fractures, bursting from the stone with explosive force, and with all the warning of a landslide, the stable ground beneath our feet was abruptly gone.
The Goliath's howl went wild as he suddenly fell, blast lashing out at the ceiling instead of me, but I was already gathering the water into an aerial stream, swimming away from the abruptly falling rubble and down towards the middle of the lake far below. Willing myself to go faster, I beat the rocks to the water, plunging in seamlessly and pushing myself away from the majority of the falling rubble. As I did, I shrugged off the bag I carried and tore it open, dumping its contents into the water and keeping only a few key pieces for myself.
A moment later, there was a colossal splash as the Goliath and however many tons of cliff side crashed into the water, and I both saw and felt it. Using my awareness of what was within the water and the heat radiating off the Goliath's skin, I spread out the contents of my bag and targeted it as best I could, even as I made my way to the surface and broke through, rising to stand atop it.
The Goliath had been hesitant to come into the lake before, always attacking me from a distance and trying to force me out of the water—but it was in my house now and I fully intended to show him why he was right to stay away. Putting my hands against the water's surface, I pushed down with everything I could muster, pressing against it with my will, and I knew that beneath the surface, the pressure was rising fast, exceeding what was survivable for a human being many times over. It got to the point that the pressure would have crushed bones in moments and the water quickly began to grow hot, rising past the boiling point and yet not evaporating.
Buried under however many tons of rubble, the Goliath attempts to rise were abruptly cut short as it was pushed back down and began to cook. Even so, I wasn't delusional enough to think that alone was going to be enough to keep it down and was rewards for my cynicism with vindication. The Goliath roared beneath the water and there was a massive explosion near me, sending water shooting high into the air and causing waves as the shockwave stirred the lake.
On the surface, that was all I felt, but thanks to both my powers and personal experience, I knew the Goliath had experience far more. The blast fought against something that couldn't compress, expanding and collapsing in a matter of moments, and transferred that energy to the water around it, carrying straight through its body as it had mine. Though the blast had made me struggle to retain control, I was willing to bet it had hurt itself as much with that attack as if it had shot itself directly.
Not that that seemed to deter it any, seeing as it quickly opened its mouth wide for another go, but still—it felt kind of good.
"Not as fun when you're on the receiving end, is it!?" I growled, sweating as I strained to keep up the pressure. Since it was kind enough to open wide anyway, I took the chance to force water down its throat, up its nose, and into its ear cavities, invading anywhere it couldn't resist. I didn't stop there, either, because why would I? I pushed and crushed and pulled, drawing water against its nose to try and tear it off from the inside, popping eardrums, and doing my best to tear its lower jaw and throat away from the rest of its body.
In some ways, I succeeded and the Floor Boss thrashed and writhed as it was crushed and torn and drowned beneath the surface—but it didn't die and it's didn't stop. It roared again, somehow, despite only loosely having a mouth to do so with, leaving me to assume it had more to do with magic than any actual breathing, and the blast teared at its body and my control. I kept up the pressure through the second blast, the third, even the fourth, watching carefully to see if it was starting to weaken and show signs of dying.
Maybe. But if so, not as fast as I would if I tried to keep this up until the end—and there were better ways to do this, anyway.
That was it, after all; I knew exactly what Annabeth would do if she was fighting someone she shouldn't be able to beat—she'd try to think of a way to win that didn't rely purely on the difference in power, trying to at least even the odds. She'd use what she had and she'd come up with a plan and not just a plan like 'stab it until it dies,' but something smart and real, using whatever she could to her advantage, even if it was just some little tidbit she'd heard once a couple years ago.
I wasn't Annabeth, for better or worse, and I couldn't become as smart as she was just by wanting to be—but I tried my best and did what I could, mixing in my own talents and experiences to try and come up with a solution. So when I let up on the pressure, I wasn't surprised that the Goliath exploded from the water, taking advantage of the 'weakness' in an instant; in fact, I was pretty much expecting it. I wanted it to focus on me and not something more important, after all.
All I had to do was survive it's attentions for a little while.
The Goliath swung at me with a single, colossal arm, the speed and immensity of the immensity of the limb shaking the water beneath it—but I used the battle to my advantage and rolled under it. As in, I dropped to the water's surface and slipped into the water, rolling beneath the arm and then coming back up on the other side. The monster, waist deep in the water, growled at my survival and brought down its other arm like a hammer, to which I raised my dinky little shield, not resisting it directly but stepping slightly to the side and raising both my arm and the water to push the blow slightly off target. It came down with a massive splash that I ignored outright, smiling at the monster tauntingly.
"That all you got?" I asked challengingly, and if it didn't understand the words, I'm sure it at least understood the intent behind them, because it opened its mouth at me and roared.
I was too close to possibly dodge and I didn't intend to, anyway. Instead, I lifted the water before me into a massive shield, grit my teeth, and met it head on.
Water exploded into a massive spray, torn from my control with such force that it felt like a physical blow to my gut. My shield nearly collapsed, withstanding it only beneath it was a fluid defense on a fluid surface—where it tore it came back together and instead of being uprooted, I was merely pushed back along the surface of the water. Even so, I barely held up to the blast and the exhaustion I'd been fighting off all day came back with a vengeance.
But sometimes, barely is still enough.
Within the water I'd been using as a defense, something began to glow. Bright green, it shone through the water, spreading like a liquid in its own right until it seemed to catch onto something within it, at which point it abruptly caught fire, the flames as green as the fluid that had given them life—and it quickly began to spread. As the son of Poseidon, I could make fire burn underwater if I wanted to, but Greek Fire burns that way on its own, and it burns hot enough for anyone. It's a tricky thing to make, but everyone at Camp learned the recipe at some point; Nectar's the only thing that's really hard to come by, after all, and then you just have to had some stuff like alcohol and pitch and so on.
The tricky part is that it needs a catalyst, something with enough energy to give it life. A lot of electricity could do the trick or a few magical fuel sources. It seemed like being at the center of a big enough explosion could do it, too.
Of course, fire's nothing without something to burn.
Luckily, I had that covered, too.
All at once, lines of light began to glow throughout the water, bright blue against the darkness of its surface—Undine Silk, made from every spool of thread I could find and spread through the water. Incredibly heat resistant, it was more than up to the task of, say, eduring superheated water while being coiled around a distracted target. Against something the size of a Goliath, what is thread? Nothing.
But it made a pretty good path for Greek Fire, holding up long enough under the flames to let them spread. The Goliath seemed to realize that too as it looked down at itself, noting tiny traces of blue against its black skin and moving to try and tear them off. They were like spiderwebs, though, too thin and silky to be brushed off so easily—not that I was going to just stab back and watch him try.
Chains of water exploded from the surface and tied around the Goliath's limbs and for a moment it was just him against me, muscle against water. I fought against him, pushing his limbs back as the lake beneath us caught fire—and I led those flames right to him, along countless lines. And while fire wasn't normally my style…he burnt pretty well.
"You can just go straight to hell, you bastard," I growled, clenching my hands into fists as I continued to chain him down as he began to scream and struggle. The lake water's began to swirl around him, churning into a whirlpool that stretched down into a darkness that seemed somehow deeper than the lake itself. As the Goliath was drawn closer to the center of that spiral, its burning flesh began to flake off, like the ash monsters turned into when their magic stones were removed. Maybe that was just a result of the burning or the cutting force of the water—or maybe it was actually working.
I don't know. I'd never done this before and I'd seen it done all of, oh, once, so as a last resort it was questionable even by my standards—but when I'd seen it happen, it had taken down something bigger than this thing could ever hope to be. Granted, the person I'd seen do it, my father, was probably stronger than I could ever hope to be and he'd had the help of a bunch of gods and other beings besides, but I was hoping the details would all sort themselves out in the end. I was no Poseidon, but this thing was no Typhon, so I figured we could just all it even.
More to the point, last ditch efforts weren't really the time to hold back.
Turning my fists over I motioned as if dragging something down, eyes focused on the living pyre of bright green in the center of the churning lake. It roared in both rage and agony, trying to resist the pull even as its flesh blackened and melted and was regrown again. It struggled against the draw of the dissolving whirlpool, resisting it with all its might, and it released blasts randomly, explosions sometimes coming dangerously near me. It was burning and melting and dissolving, coming apart at the seams as it tried to resist the pull of the darkness beneath the water.
Which made it all the more frightening that it was somehow holding on. It was hurting, hurting worse than anything I'd thrown at it before combined, but it wasn't dying—or, at least, it wasn't dying as fast as I was tiring.
"No," I growled, refusing to let up. "No. Fuck…you. Just die."
The Goliath roared again, blast firing off into the air as it fought and refused. In return, I struggled and fought and tried to force it down into the abyss—but in the end, when something began to snap and give way, it wasn't him.
Damn it, I thought.
I hated persistent enemies.