//------------------------------//
// Hydra 
// Story: You Can't Spell Slaughter Without Laughter 
// by Tatsurou 
//------------------------------//

	Kratos awoke slowly, the ship having come to a halt.  Blinking his eyes, he pushed himself out of bed as he checked his senses.  He could hear the storm raging outside.  He could hear the creaking of the ship.  He could hear the groans of risen monsters.  He could hear the thrashing beneath the waves of the Hydra they had come to slay.  He could hear the breathing of his bed companions.  He could hear the sounds of battle outside.

He could not hear his daughters sleeping three rooms over.

Growling, he drew his blades and rushed out into battle.  "I told them to wait for me!" he growled under his breath.  "Those two will be the death of me, someday."  Bursting out of the ship, he leapt into the fray, carving away the monsters with his blades.  As he fought, he glanced around, looking for some sign of Pinkie and Calliope.

One of the monsters had been impaled on a spar attached to a few railings passing between the ship and other ships that were empty.  Attached to the creature was a sign that read, 'We went this way, Daddy!' in bright pink.

Kratos sighed.  "Pinkie...that is not how I taught you to leave trail sign..."  Shaking his head, he continued onward.

Continuing through a wrecked ship, Kratos bitterly regretted that the magic he had gained in the past had faded over time, the contract binding the Efreet running out and setting it free.  Thankfully, Persephone's wings were more durable, and still remained, not that they were useful inside a wrecked ship.

Hearing a scream, he rushed forward to discover Pinkie and Calliope confronting one of the heads of the hydra.  The scream, as it turned out, had been the hydra's, as the two had gotten around on either side of the sinuous neck and were happily chopping away, aiming specifically to cause heavily bleeding wounds even as the flesh regenerated.  As the creature was distracted, Kratos leapt onto the head and drove his blades into its eye.

It roared in pain, pulling back and withdrawing into the sea.  Kratos then turned to his daughters.  "What have I told you both about running off without me?"

Calliope kicked her boot against the deck.  "We didn't mean to go too far without you."

"We really only meant to deal with the monsters on our own ship," Pinkie explained.  "But then one started throwing things at us from another ship, and we had to go across.  I left the note, but we didn't mean to go that far.  We just...got carried away."

He sighed, shaking his head.  "Just stay close to me," he instructed.  Seeing the gap covered by only thin spars, Kratos leapt into the air and used Persephone's wings to glide and flap his way across it.  Calliope climbed onto Pinkie's back and leapt across in three jumps.

Coming into the next chamber, a voice could be heard.  "Stay away!  Stay away!"

Coming close, they saw a man in a cage.

"I know who you are, Spartan!" the man proclaimed.  "I know what you've done!  I would rather die than be saved by you!"

"What has Father done?" Calliope asked.

"And can I save you instead?" Pinkie asked.

The man stared.  "Don't you know what he has done?  He-"

"Swore a blood oath to Ares, who then distorted his awareness of reality to make him kill enemies, innocents, and his own kin in an attempt to make him the perfect warrior," Pinkie replied.  "He also saved the entire planet from being destroyed by Persephone and Atlas when she loosed the titan.  Also, this is Calliope, my sister, the daughter he killed who forgives him for it."

"That's right!" Calliope agreed.  "I left Elysium behind and can now only walk the world in this possessed armor because it was worth it to be with my Father again."

The man blinked, apparently unsure how to handle this.  "...you can save me," he finally told Pinkie.

Grinning, Pinkie popped the lock on the cage.  "You can wait on our ship!"  Opening a nearby door, she revealed one of the spare rooms on their ship instead of the ship they were currently on.  She pushed the man through.  "Rest up.  We'll take you back to shore as soon as we kill the hydra!"  She then closed the door.

"People are weird sometimes," Calliope commented.

Rolling his eyes, Kratos led them on.





Not long after, a second Hydra head punched through the deck of the ship they were on in the middle of a flock of flesh eating bats.  The flock's numbers had been greatly reduced from Pinkie and Calliope leaping about and chopping them to bits.  After the three of them carved away at the hydra, the head withdrew, allowing the trio to continue on through the underwater passage the head had left behind.  Out of the water, they continued onward.  Pinkie took the time to grab every human they came across and - somehow - push them back onto their ship.

Coming across a large group of humans, one addressed them.  "You have come!  The visions, they were true!  The gods came to me and said their champion would save us from the Hydra!  But you're too late!  We're pinned down-"

"No you're not!" Pinkie said.  "I threw Calliope at the archers.  She's invincible, so she should have them dealt with in-"

"All done!" Calliope called across to Pinkie, waving a monster's decapitated skull.

"See?  Easy!" Pinkie said happily.

"We'll handle the hydra," Kratos informed the man.  "For now, evacuate to our ship.  It is under the gods' protection."

"Thank you!" the man proclaimed, calling for his companions to follow him back to Kratos' ship.  Kratos used his wings to glide across to where Calliope awaited them, knowing Pinkie would make her own way across somehow.

Reaching the deck of the next ship, they found the Captain's quarters locked, with the sounds of women screaming for help behind it.  "It's locked!" Pinkie complained.

"...I wanna try something," Calliope said softly.  Stepping up to the door, she inserted her gauntlet into the keyhole.  There was a brief clinking sound.  "It worked!" she said, rotating her hand and turning the lock.  She then extracted her gauntlet, which had morphed into the shape of a key before morphing back.  The women quickly fled through a door Pinkie opened in the air back to their own ship.

"Sweet!" Pinkie said happily.  "But we gotta hurry to find everyone else and kill the hydra!"

"We can only move so fast," Kratos pointed out.

"Wanna bet?" Pinkie grinned.  Grabbing both Calliope and Kratos, she zipped away, seeming to blur through the air.

Passing through an archway, Poseidon's voice could be heard.  "Kratos before you reach-"

"Thanksforthemagicwe'lluseitwellgottarunpeopletosave!" Pinkie said quickly as they blurred through the archway, the magic of Poseidon's rage being absorbed into Kratos as they passed.

Poseidon blinked for a time.  "Well, that was rude," he grumbled.  Then he saw something left behind, something colorful and soft, with a note attached that read, "Sorry!  Have a cupcake!"  Picking it up from Olympus, he took a bite.  After several minutes of savoring the taste, he smiled.  "Apology accepted."

Reaching where the main body of the hydra was attacking, Pinkie took quick stock of the situation.  "Dad, you take the giant head!  It's healing the little ones.  Calliope and I will keep the little ones from interfering!"

Nodding, Kratos leapt up the mast to confront the giant head, the other humans quickly running for it.

As Calliope fought her head, she noticed something upsetting.  "The wounds heal too fast!" she called to Pinkie.  "We need to find someway to stop them from healing!"

"Broken mast!" Pinkie called back, pointing at the sharp spur of wood still attached to the ship.

"Right!" Calliope called back.  Leaping to the mast, she threw her gauntlet up to seize one on the fins on her hydra head.  Using her spiritual force, she then dragged both gauntlet and hydra head back to her, slamming the broken mast spur through its eyes.

Pinkie, meanwhile, had angled some hanging blades to pin her hydra head to the deck.  Up above, Kratos had managed to break the top of the mast and was struggling to drag the largest head down to be impaled.  Seeing him struggle, Calliope leapt to Pinkie's back, and Pinkie leapt onto the hydra's neck, forcing the head downward with the weight of their impact.

With the primary head impaled and dead, the lesser heads exploded.  "It seems we're finished here," Kratos said calmly.

"We need to get everyone we rescued safely to Athens," Calliope pointed out.  "We're going to run out of rations on the way."

"I brought our fishing poles," Kratos pointed out.  "We'll be able to fish for extra meat."

Pinkie glanced up at the hydra.  "Is hydra meat edible?" she asked.

Kratos glanced up at the beast.  "...I suppose," he admitted.  "But we'd never be able to cook that much-"

Pinkie grabbed the hydra's corpse and shoved it into her mane.  After a time, she yanked out a huge pack of smoked hydra meat.  "I asked Zephyros to cook it for me.  He's such a sweetie when he isn't running from me in terror for some reason."

Blinking, Kratos shrugged.  "Well, let's take it back to the ship, and then set sail for Athens."