Chapter 11: Good Deeds And All That

Chapter 10

“Take that you damn Roman! That was for sticking a thorn in my foot!” Sisyphus yelled as he ran after the boulder.

Well. That, that I would not have predicted.

The time bubble thing disappeared around us and we hit the ground running. Not the kind of opportunity you wanted to waste. We ran around tap dancers without feet, jugglers without arms, and all other sorts of tortures that seemed pointless and ridiculous to us, but must have been horrible to experience. We reached the wall and Steve went first. As Steve was climbing over Alex slapped her necklace, changing her armor back into its not so protective form, tightened the straps on her backpack, and as soon as Steve was over started climbing.

I stood with my back to the wall, watching to make sure that no one was sneaking up and about to try and climb out after us, so I was the first to see the storm.

About the location of Sisyphus a giant whirling tornado of energy appeared. Flying creatures, blue and black hell hounds and what looked like Luke’s horse were sucked in and spinning every which way. Then the tornado started moving in our direction.

Not a good sign.

I looked up just in time to see Alex slip over the wall, so I grabbed the rope and started climbing up. I reached the top in quick order, and was about to go over when I realized something. I was pretty darn high up.

My body froze. I hate heights.

Then I saw one of the blue hell hounds fly through the air and get sliced to pieces by the blades in the wall.

That got me moving.

I climbed down this time, pretty quickly, and then Steve set the rope on fire. May not help against someone who made a tornado that was throwing anything not bolted down into the air, but it was something.

We ran to the bridge and dashed across it. We almost didn’t make it, as the bridge began to dissolve as we reached the top. But we got across and ran to Otus.

He was still complaining about the chains lying across his legs.

“Ach, its you two and the bird again. What do you want? To watch me suffer?” He asked as we approached. I didn’t say anything, but grabbed the Sphere out of my pocket and shoved it into his mouth. Seemed the right thing to do. His mouth opened impossibly wide and ate the sphere. We could see the parts of his body expand to accommodate the sphere as it passed into his stomach. When it stopped moving it began to glow brighter and brighter. Then Otus began to grow.

When he was finished, we barely fit the size of his big toe. He wasn’t back in chains.

This could have gone better.

We heard a roar of anger behind us, then a flash of light. Caligula fell to the ground next to the Styx and started running at us. We got ready to fight him, but he did the time thing on us again and ran by, heading up the tunnel to New York. We moved to follow him when Otus began to laugh.

“Ha, I do be free! It feels great to be able to stretch, dontcha know? I guess it do be time to get me brother and storm Olympus again. I could use a good feisty woman after all this time alone, if ya know what I mean.” He winked at us.

Great. Another giant who wanted to storm Olympus, free and able to do so because we gave him his powers back. I guess that left it up to us to do something about this.

“Wait oh glorious Otus.” I said. Alex and Steve both looked at me in shock.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked. I looked at Steve and asked as quietly as possible, “If they ended up in the right position, do you think you could do something with the chains?”

He looked at them, then nodded.

“What do ye wee little ones want now?” He demanded.

“Times have changed greatly since you last stormed Olympus. I think I can help you get your demands to them without all that effort.” I yelled up at him.

“And how might that be?” He asked. I reached into my bag and pulled out the briefcase I had packed earlier. If this worked quickly enough we could use it to try and catch Caligula.

“This is a communication device that does not use the Goddess Iris,” I lied. “The problem is, down here in the Underworld it doesn’t get good reception, so I will need your help to get it to work.”

“HA,” he laughed. “Who needs Iris anyways. Alright boy, what do I need to do?” He asked.

“I need you to pick up the chains and hold them up, that way they can catch the frequency I need to get this thing to work.” I told him. He smiled, then he reached down and grabbed the chains and held them at the highest they could go, his knees. To make it easier on himself, he sat down, making sure to keep his feet out of the pit’s they were supposed to be in. He reached them to the longest they could go.

“Alright, now what?” He asked. I held the briefcase up so that he could not see what I was seeing, and made a show of turning non-existant knobs.

“I think I am getting something,” I said. The box started to growl and make static, loud enough for Otus to hear. Alex, who was standing ahead of me and couldn’t see what I was seeing, looked at me in shock.

“Oh Zeus,” I started rambling. Meanwhile, Steve had snuck around and started working his magic on the chains.

“The Great Otus demands that you hand over Hera and Artemis to his brother and him, as well as provide them with their own island,” the purple lightning that Steve had started reached the manacles. “The island must have state of the art equipment, and a weather shield and - “ I stopped rambling as the damn spell finished and re-imprisoned Otus. Once he realized what had happened, he screamed and lifted his foot to crush me. Before he could finish the move however, the pit where his foot was supposed to go started a vacuum that made him slam his foot inside of it, then it made a locking sound and he screamed. It happened a second time with his other foot. Then the mountain started to grow over him until he couldn’t move anymore.

Steve landed next to me.

“Now what?” He asked. Instead of saying anything I picked Growlz off the briefcase and tossed it towards the tunnel. The briefcase started to unfold an impossible amount of times.

When it was finished, there stood what looked like a hummer with a snow plow front, all made of imperial bronze.

“Now,” I said. “We try and catch Caligula.”

Chapter 12