The Flames of Hope Ch 20

Chapter 20~Unlikely Allies
“I wouldn’t suggest that,” one of the sisters said as she placed a wrinkled hand on the manticore’s claw.

“Well, I guess I could split it with someone,” the monster said. “There are two hearts after all.”

I managed to wiggle my hand free and pulled at the pendant around my neck. As it grew to its full length, I slammed the claw that held me. The monster yelled in pain and dropped me to the ground. As soon as I felt my feet hit the ground, I jumped up and hit his other claw forcing him to drop Megan as well. She fell to the ground and I stared down the army of monsters trying to decide my next move.

“You brat!” the monster said and started charging at us along with a lot of other monsters. However, all three Grey Sisters moved to surround us and the rest of the monsters seemed to back off.

“You asked what we were going to do about it. Well this demigod and his friends are what we can do,” the sister said. “All we can do to preserve ourselves is to help the demigods.”

There was a large sound of complaints from the monsters that could talk, while some of the more primitive ones only grunted or roared in complaints. It got so bad that one of the monsters took a swing at one of the Grey Sisters and I stepped forward to block it.

“I refuse to help demigods,” a telekhine said and a few monsters seemed to agree from what I could tell.

“Then we are doomed,” the Grey Sister said before passing the tooth to the next sister.

“None of us like this idea,” the sister said. “Demigods always destroying monsters, getting on our way, stealing eyes from defenseless old women, but I digress.”

Then the tooth exchanged hands again. The monsters seemed less tense now as they backed away from us.

“I didn’t ask for your help,” I said as I held my hammer in case I was attacked again.

“But we would like it,” Megan said as she stood in the middle of the Grey Sisters.

“I still refuse to help them,” I heard a monster say and by this point, I wanted to just get out of here alive, but I then thought of a way to possibly get them to help.

“You won't be helping us,” I told the manticore. He looked at me confused for a second, but seemed to wait for more.

“Go on,” he said.

“We would be helping you. We would be helping you not fade into nothingness. However, if that just so happens to help up, it would be completely unrelated, right?” I asked in a rhetorical tone.

“I suppose you are right,” the monster said as he rubbed his claw against his chin. “You know this won't change anything between monsters and demigods, right?”

“I know that, even as we speak I’m thinking of ways to destroy you,” I said back.

“Likewise,” he said. “And you would be helping us, correct?”

“Of course, us demigods are weak and defenseless after all,” I replied, and he seemed to enjoy the insults I was saying about myself.

“Indeed you are, at least you taste good and if the demigods were all killed, there would be no more food for us…alright, I’ll help,” he accepted. The rest of the monsters groaned in aggravation at this, but they all seemed to relax a bit. “After all, the worst that could happen is I die and reform.”

“How exactly are we suppose to transport this many monsters anyway?” I asked the Grey Sisters. One of them went to speak but her tooth was stolen by her sister the moment her mouth opened.

“We know when we are needed. We did manage to summon all these monsters here after all. We will come to you when the time is right,” she said. “Now go, you have someplace to be. There is not much time.”

I followed her instruction and began walking down the hill with Megan. The monsters began to part allowing us to pass, but that didn’t stop them from trying to scare us as a hydra head snapped at us and Cerberus began to lick his lips with all three of his heads. It was kind of worrying, having to trust a bunch of monsters. However, we needed all the help we could get so any help would be accepted.

Before long we reached the bottom of the hill and I walked right into the side of the van. I held my head in pain and a second later, the side of the van opened up and everyone looked at me as I walked around trying to walk the pain off. Malcolm let out a small chuckle before sitting back in his seat.

“So what in the gods name is going on up there?” Malcolm asked.

“Well, we might be getting a little help from some unlikely allies,” I said.

“Who else is there?” he asked back. At that moment a hydra came crashing through the woods and came out a few feet from the can. “Holy Cow,” Malcolm yelled and pulled out his bow and loaded an arrow. I moved as fast as I could and swatted the bow causing the arrow to stick to a nearby tree.

“What are you doing Swift?!” he yelled. “Did that bump on the head make you lose your mind?!”

One of the hydra heads turned toward us and let out a low growl as it came right up to Malcolm. It then pulled away and kept walking as even more monsters passed us by without do anything, except giving is a few dirty looks.

“Swift,” Malcolm said. “You are going to get into this car and tell us everything that happened on that mountain.”

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive