Into the Woods

Aria jumped when the spider was thrown at her. That weird hissing noisy that it made, along with the fuzziness on its legs and the beady black eyes, how could someone not be scared of a spider? She slashed at the air, the spider disappearing before she could ever get mid-chop. "Seriously? The Mist? The spider was the dang Mist? What is wrong with you?! Every word came out high and sort of squeaky, making it sort of hard for her to sound fierce. What a typical thing to do for a child of Hecate.

The spider disintegrated into tendrils of impalpable green Mist, which faded away into thin air.

"Would you have preferred it to be real?" I cocked an eyebrow.

Aria smirked, her hand on her left hip, sword at her side.

"No, of course not. On the other hand, you two play a bit dirty. Now please, tell me why we are trying to talk to the dead?"

"For the heck of it," I said. "Didn't you ever feel like breaking the rules just to try your luck? Who knows, Tiresias could've given us this month's lotto numbers."

Absent-mindedly fiddling with one my copper curls, I looked at Aria with an accomplice smile.

Salem walked around the perimeter of the forest clearing, humming 'Hanging Tree' from Mockingjay Part 1. She loved being out under the covering of night. She listened to Morgan and the other girl talk before saying, "Why are you here?" She countered, causing small explosions here and there.

"Salem, I swear to Hecate, if you do not stop blowing up trees I will tie you up and freeze you," I said.

Literally. Now that I knew each tree was home to a nymph, I wondered how Salem could kill them off so quickly -- one after the other. It was murder.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh get the broomstick out of your a$$ and leave me alone." Salem stopped and placed her hands on her hips. "I wasn't even blowing up the trees! I was just doing it in the air or whatever."

I looked at Salem and acted on impulse, punching her right in the face. I had gotten very good at punching people since my Quest.

"Don't you realize what you're doing?" I said in a freezing hiss. "Creatures are dying because of you, creatures with feelings, thoughts, souls and lives. Doesn't that give you a slight conscience problem?"

Salem stumbled backward, holding her head in her hands. "Y-you hit me Morgan..." She took her hands down, blood coming from her nose. She had allows looked up to Morgan, but now..this was different. She frowned and swiped her arm across her body, causing a telekinetic push toward her.

"I'll burn you so bad..."

The wave of force hit me and I flew backwards, hitting the ground with my back and skull. My spine.
I was rarely truly angry but Salem had hit a chord. Brushing away my Mist-disguise, I appeared as who I was: no more big luxurious curls or wide blue eyes, no more greenish veins and pointy ears, I was now nothing but a scrawny fifteen years old with choppy brown hair cut at my shoulder blades, covered in old scars from my Quest.

"As if you could," I growled, pure Mist gathering at my hands, ready to take whatever shape I wanted it to.

Salem took a step back, glaring at her sister. "I could if I wanted, Morgan." She hissed and glared at her and created a circle of protection around herself. Although Salem was strong, she wasn't stronger than Morgan and her intense power.

I sent the Mist at her protection circle, imagining it as a destructive force. Not a killing force -- a disruptive, destructive force. The green fog flowed sluggishly towards Salem's circle like half-existing veils, vibrating with power, biting away at her defenses.

"You don't scare me." She crossed her arms and watched as the mist tried to break through her protective circle. It held the back Morgan's magic pretty nicely, but it wouldn't hold up for much longer. Salem pointed toward her sister, causing the ground to explode underneath her feet.

This time I was ready. Instead of being blasted to bits, I contained the explosion with a cask of Mist and made it move under the surface of the ground like a chess player moving a piece, until it was right under her.

"Ready for the blast?" I asked, friendliness gone. I wasn't going to go with all my might on Salem, just enough to keep her in track.

Salem growled and watched as Morgan moved the explosion over to where she was at. She ran and did a handspring back flip out of the circle. She pointed her finger again at her half sister, narrowing her eyes.

"Flames of tartarus here my plea
Contained the witch that dares to threaten me!"

Yeah, she knows if corny but it seemed to work. A circle of flamss surrounded Morgan, giving salem enough time to run into the forest and wait for her next attack.

The Mist acted like a protection, extinguishing the flames just as I let the explosion go, seeing Salem run off into the forest. Oh really, that was how she was gonna play it? Fine.
Mist gathered around me, encompassing me totally like a green nebula. It gathered and formed and morphed around me and when it disappeared, five Morgans stood there, two either side of me. And all of us ran after Salem, two to the right, two to the left, one straight ahead.

The daughter of Hecate panted as she watched the copies of Morgan cbase after her. Salem pausef and put up both of her hands, making the mist form into heatseeking Greek fireballs. She tossed then at the copies, hoping to hit the real Morgan.

The fireballs hit the Mistforms as if they were made out of water, making them disappear in puffs of Green Mist. Already two down. I kept running though, having myself fade away into the landscape to be lesser of a target until the moment where one of my forms stood right behind her, drawing a copy of my sword and letting the tip rest at the base of her neck.

"Really? Running?" she said with my voice, translating the thoughts I sent into her. "How brave of you. Mother must be very proud."

Salem didn't move, thinking it was the real thing. She hadn't thought this part out, trying to figure out what spell to use, but realized that Morgan could quickly cut her neck.

"Morgan, you don't win..." She whispered, still trying to be strong. The daughter of Hecate let out a small magical pulse, just enough to cause someone to stumble back a bit.

The pulse vibrated through my Mistform but she kept her ground, coming back after she had stumbled.

"If I didn't win, I wouldn't be standing here now, right?" she asked.

Gosh, did I really sound like that? I was sometimes surprised at the sound of my own voice when I heard it from a recording or something, it just sounds different in my ears. It was also super weird to see images of me running around, moving like I moved, talking like I talked, with the same clothes, same expression, same everything. On the one hand it was really cool but on the other one it was kind of creepy.

She took the time to wipe out her dagger and put it to her hand. "Hey, you think you would bleed?" She asked, pricking her hand. Salem hoped that this was the real thing so she wouldn't have nothing to worry about. She waited for the blood to come from her hand.

"Magic," my form grinned and she had the exact same grin as me.

It was odd yes, but I felt empowered.

"Let's stop this joke, Salem," I said, merging out of the landscape to walk towards her.

"You call that a joke?! I call that being mean!" She growled. She was about to say something, but stopped when a growl came from the woods behind them. Salem jumped and turned around to see a large hellhound leaning over her. "Morgan..."

Aria had watched there sisterly fight from the tree were they had caught her spying to begin with. It was a bit nasty, but she had seen worse. She had a peculiar feeling that the nymph was not as she seemed. Seeing what Salem did, Aria froze. A hellhound. Not knowing what else to do, Aria stayed in the tree, looking at the large black mass towering over Salem.

I looked up and saw the Underworld dog, except it was bigger than most I had seen. It couldn't be Mrs O'Leary though, she wasn't here at the moment, she was with Percy. This dog was a real monster, a real threat who'd rip our throats out and snap our necks.

My three remaining reflections didn't lose a second; obeying my mental command, they jumped at it, surrounding it, whilst my sword shifted from kopis form into a long whip made out of razor sharp Stygian iron scales and blazing with flames of the Pyriphlegethon. Lashing out whilst the hound was busy clawing at my forms, the tip of my whip wrapped around its large neck and I pulled, ordering the flames to burn brighter. It tugged at my stomach and I realized I had to let my forms go back into the Mist otherwise I'd collapse in a minute. The three Morgans dissolved into green fog which slithered on the ground into the forest while I pulled harder, the scales digging into its hard skin and ripping its flesh open. It howled and barked and came running at me but the scales and the Underworld fire had done their job; when I pulled the next time, I ripped its head right off.
It exploded right in front of me, sending me flying backwards and smacking sideways into a tree. Golden and green sparks flew around, the monster's body burning up and dissolving back into Tartarus.