91. Ares Contender
Medusa has been on the uninhabited island for four days now. She found it after swimming without direction for a full day. Surprisingly, the lone island's flora and fauna were untainted by whatever ambrosia had done to the rest of Cosmolith.
The plan was to briefly explore it with Rico, then find her way back to Themiscyra.
But... Well, she liked it a little too much on the island.
One day had turned into two. Then three.
Now it's been four days, and she hadn't returned to the Amazons.
The bracelet waited around her wrist, reminding her to use it now.
In two days, she'd have to head to Olympus whether she liked it or not.
She splayed her fingers, watching her trimmed nails lengthen and grow pointed. All the while, she stubbornly refused to acknowledge the ball of anxiety in her chest.
Since draining the first Monolith vein, her body had changed in unexpected ways, and now she could switch parts of her body to her cursed version.
What refused to change were her snake hair and fangs when she was in her adult form.
But what did that matter? It wasn't like her red-head disguise needed snake hair. Claws were good enough.
The plan for the games was a tad audacious but worth all the risk in the world. Still, it was terrifying, hence the stalling.
"Today. I'll leave later today," Medusa muttered, even though that was what she said yesterday.
The ocean breeze swept past and the palm leaves above rustled.
It was late morning, and she had only returned to the resting spot after running several laps across the beach, not stopping for hours until the sweating became unbearable.
She didn't want to consider how extremely the Monolith's energy and aether had changed her body.
As far as she was concerned, she was still human.
Still mortal. She ate and slept like a regular person.
"I bleed, too," she muttered. Even though bleeding was now harder to achieve.
The temptation to remain on the island and never return to the chaos of games, gods and war sat heavily on her shoulders.
After all, Clotho was gone, and Akrivi was off somewhere chasing money and women.
Her parents would be fine; Lachesis said so.
Remaining here wouldn't be such a bad idea.
She could live out her days with Rico...
But Poseidon will remain alive. Athena too. They would go on living and winning. They may even attempt to take her duplicate and repeat what happened in her first life. There was also Zeus with his war and plan to harvest Greece.
Sighing, Medusa absently petted one of her snakes that loved bumping against her cheek. Ahead, Rico dived and emerged from the waves with a catch. For days she had eaten only fruits and the strips of dried meat she had initially packed for Rico.
Rico, on the other hand, was gouging himself. She had been absently counting all he had caught after their morning run. Forty-four fish so far. Yesterday was the same eating frenzy. Perhaps the overeating was because of his impossible growth spurt.
An excited gurgle drew her attention to the lapping waves. Holding a flapping fish between his teeth, Rico bounded out of the water and placed it at her feet.
She chuckled and shook her head. "No, thanks. Sorry."
He pushed the dying fish with his snout, sat on his haunches and yawned, exposing sharp canines. Like the days before, he would continue to wait until she accepted his offering.
"Fine." Medusa picked the fish by its tail. Raw fish had been her only diet when she was banished to Sarpedon; now she hated it so much that nothing, not even Rico's adorable pleading gaze, would make her eat it.
He leaned into her touch as she patted his large head. He had grown to roughly the size of an adolescent grizzly bear and was twice as adorable, hooked claws and all.
"Very well. Only because it's you." She turned, raised the fish dramatically and pretended to gobble it in one bite while surreptitiously drawing it into her dimension.
Chewing and gulping for show, she nodded. "Delicious! Thank you."
Satisfied, he began pacing and looking at her expectantly.
When she pulled out her practice stone, he answered with an excited yip. She had wrapped it with cloth and leather to cushion its hardness. Rico's teeth were strong, but she would take no chances with his dental health. There were no veterinarians in Cosmolith.
She tossed the stone at his feet and controlled it like a yo-yo. Rico bounded after the rolling stone, jumping this way and that as he swiped at it with large paws.
It was good practice for Medusa. Even with the practice stone wrapped in cloth and Rico slapping it farther and farther, her connection remained strong.
As Rico played in the background, she retrieved two things from her dimension: the stone slab Lachesis gave her and the large stone she had pried off the drakon.
Lifting the heavy palm-sized stone, she observed it in the light.
It looked like granite cut into a perfectly round ball, and it still gave off the same waves of monolith energy it did when she removed it from the drakon's corpse.
What she still found curious was its marking.
The symbol was also present on the slab Lachesis claimed was Prometheus'.
The slab contained thin lines of text written in one of the old languages her parents made her learn in her first life. It read like a personal journal, but the tone was formal, and it contained his findings on his journey to find the Monolith.
When Medusa saw through Perseus' memories, she had caught glimpses of the Monolith. Unlike the rest of his memories, the sight of it was hazy, and every attempt to focus on it muddled the picture. To her great frustration, she couldn't get anything solid enough to pinpoint its location.
But the slab revealed something interesting—very much worth the days she laboured translating its contents.
It revealed all the locations of the four Monolith veins scattered across Cosmolith.
So far, Medusa had accessed three veins.
One at Tartarus, where Prometheus had been chained; the other at Olympus, where she nearly died by her sister's hand; and the third at Sarpedon.
The fourth was in Greece, specifically Athens. Since Athens was a large city, finding the vein may be difficult. And it didn't help that, in the instances she accessed the veins, the Moirai assisted her.
Then there was the stone she retrieved from the beast. It possessed a potent reserve of Monolith's energy, one that seemed not to drain. Could she use it to find the last vein or even the Monolith?
Who was she kidding? She was no scientist. The people smart enough to help were Clotho and Akrivi, and they were gone. She dumped the stone at her feet and picked up the slab, rereading the lines in hopes of finding a hidden message on the Monolith's location.
"Come on. Anything," she whispered.
Just then, Rico lumbered over with the practice stone in his mouth. He dropped it at her feet like a dog demanding a game of fetch.
She pulled the ball and distractedly tossed it some feet away. Rico glanced in its direction, then shifted his attention to the larger stone at her feet. He sniffed it, then nudged it with his nose.
"Not a toy, Rico." She pulled the practice stone into her dimension and returned her focus to the slab, determined to find something. Then in her peripheral vision, she saw Rico bite the stone and...
Did he... did he just swallow the stone?
For a brief, disbelieving moment, Medusa could only stare. Then she rushed at him, grabbed his snout and attempted to pry his jaws open. He resisted, twisting his head away and pressing his teeth shut.
"Spit it out." Heart jackhammering in her chest, she grew larger and her leather one-piece stretched from the strain. Grabbing him around the middle, she pressed, frantic to force the stone out. "Bring it out now!"
He huffed and kept his mouth shut. The sight of the stone outline in his throat bathed her in a fresh wave of terror. He'd choke to death! "Please, Rico."
The panic had so completely seized her mind that she failed to notice that Rico wasn't showing the typical signs of a choking animal.
When he licked her face with his sandpaper tongue, she froze and blinked at him. "What..."
He chirped; nothing in his face showed discomfort. But that didn't mean all was fine. Back on Earth, Rico swallowed a plastic figurine, and days later they were rushing to the vet with Rico dying in his carrier.
"Give me the stone." She extended a trembling hand. "Can you do that for me?"
Rico cocked his head and placed his heavy paw on her hand instead.
"No. Not your hand. The stone. I mean the stone. Give it to me." A bead of cold sweat rolled down her brow. "Bring it out, please."
She motioned at the protrusion in his throat. "The stone. I need it back."
He looked from her hand to her face, and blinked slowly like a cat.
"You understand me, don't you?" Even though she knew the thought was ridiculous, she still hoped. "Give it back."
He yipped as if he truly understood, then, before her eyes, the protrusion vanished, and a sudden shadow fell on her.
For a disbelieving moment, as Medusa looked up, random thoughts mashed in her mind.
He is as tall as a house. How is his collar still intact with that size? Shouldn't it snap? Of course, I am seeing things. Maybe I suddenly shrank. Am I hallucinating?
An impossibly large Rico remained. No matter how often she blinked and pinched herself, nothing changed. When she reached out to confirm the view with her sense of touch, reality registered.
It was real. Rico was suddenly giant.
This cannot be what her father meant when he said water cats grow as large as a spotted mountain bear. Those were only slightly larger than a polar bear. But this... this was larger than an elephant!
Rico sat on his haunches and scratched his ear. Medusa only snapped to action when grains of sand fell like rain.
"Rico!"
He looked at her, collapsed to his stomach with a grunt and rested his head on his front paws.