“SCISSORING WHAT?!?”

“SCYTHIAN DRACAENA!!” 

/ 

Foolish demigods… 

...hsssss… 

Let’s see what happens when you lose your precious light… 

...hsssss… 

...you cannot oppose the passage of time… 

Momo woke up from her nap with a jolt . Her mind was hazy with sleep but she quickly snapped out of it when the truck experienced another rough bump, launching her a couple inches into the air. She hissed as she landed painfully hard on her . 

You know what — forget what I said, naps can hurt!  

With one hand gripping the side of the truck for dear life, Momo opened the sliding window and yelled, “WHAT’S HAPPENING?!” 

She saw Jihyo clutching onto the seat with a comically terrified expression. “ Well , we got some good news and some bad news!” 

“YEAH?” Momo prompted, she had to lean closer since the noise from outside the truck was too loud. It was like a thousand hissing waterfalls surrounded them.  

“The good news is we found the glacier mentioned in the riddle!” 

Momo looked around as she processed that part. Yeah, the area they were in now was totally different from the grassy plains. Just like the parchment depicted, there was a small lake surrounded by rolling mountain hills. The lake water was a crystal clear sky blue hue while the hills were either a gleaming grassy green or black and white stone and snow. 

She would be in awe of the beautiful sight if it weren’t for something moving jaggedly behind the truck. Momo yelped once she caught an eyeful of the thing. 

“Yeah, that’s the bad part! When we got here, the Mares of Diomedes were lapping up the lake water. We were about to park when a pack of Scythian Dracaena jumped out!” 

“SCISSORING WHAT?!?” 

“SCYTHIAN DRACAENA!!” Jihyo screamed back as Chaeyoung laughed hysterically at Momo’s mishearing. Hey, it wasn’t her fault. The excessive speed and wind was making it really hard to hear. 

“They’re a bunch of female monsters with physical forms of half-human and half-reptilian. They’re vicious and won’t hesitate to tear our limbs apart!” 

Momo turned around trying to catch a glimpse of the monsters, but she flinched when one of them got too close to the back of the truck. She summoned her sword and one Scythian Drakaina hissed when the celestial bronze gleamed in the light. Momo grunted as she slowly got to her feet—no thanks to Chaeng’s reckless driving—and swung her sword in wide horizontal slashes, effectively chopping off the reptilian lady’s head. 

“You, uh… got something on your face.” Jihyo pointed to the monster blood that managed to splash onto her face. Momo grimaced as she wiped it off with her sleeve. Gross.  

“We have to get rid of them! Or else we’ll be dead meat if we try to get to the horses now.” 

Speaking of, the Mares of Diomedes were just chilling in the shallow end of the lake. They would attack any of the dracaena if they got too close though. 

“Ayy, you got it boss!” Chaeyoung imitated a New York accent as she turned the steering wheel rapidly, turning the truck around in a 180 direction. 

With a second twist to her ring, Momo swapped out her sword for her two-handed celestial bronze spear. She readied her stance, acting like the truck was her racing chariot. 

The grassy hills were a perfect spot for the Scythian Dracaena; their camouflaging hide and scales made them appear almost indistinguishable within the landscape. Even with their lower bodies being split twin serpent trunks, the reptilian ladies were able to move freakishly fast. 

Chaeyoung revved the engine once, twice, before taking off at a breakneck speed. Momo swung her spear smoothly, the extended range of her weapon giving her the advantage. Sounds of striking flesh and hissing filled the air. Jihyo played her part by leaning out of the truck’s sunroof and getting headshots with her bow like it was nothing. One drakaina hissed and screamed violently when an arrow lodged itself right into her eye. Her hissing was cut short when the arrow exploded in an excessively violent burst of light. 

Momo was about to swing her spear down again when a hard jolt to the truck sent her stumbling onto her back. 

“OH MY GODS, YOU RAN ONE OF THEM OVER!” Jihyo screamed in realization, her eyes widened in horror. The tires were a mix of gooey green and yellow, the sight of it making Jihyo gag. 

“OH MY GODS, I RAN ONE OF THEM OVER!!” This time it was Chaeyoung who screamed in delight. 

“DO IT AGAIN!” Momo laughed heartily as she spartan-kicked a drakaina off from the cargo bed. It rolled and rolled before colliding heavily into some others like a bowling ball to a cluster of bowling pins. The wind rushed through her hair as she prepared herself for another round of dracaena slaying. 

Momo didn’t know how long it had been but they were now down to about a dozen Scythian Dracaena left. It was time to end the fight; she came up with a plan and told it to the others. 

Chaeyoung drove the truck in a constant donut, rounding up the reptilian monsters and trapping them into a narrow space. Jihyo and Momo would take down a dracaena if it tried to escape. 

“Let’s finish this!” 

Chaeyoung then lobbed fireballs out the window and into the circle of reptiles as she continued driving in a donut shape. The dracaena couldn’t escape as Jihyo and Momo stood guard against the edge of the circle. The monsters hissed and wailed as they were engulfed by the intense flames, until they were no more than charred corpses. 

Chaeyoung parked the truck when the coast was clear and the demigods slowly got out. They only sheathed their weapons once they were sure the snake-dragon monsters stayed down for good. 

Momo breathed out a sigh of relief. “That’s one problem taken care of.” 

“Ok, what now. What do we do with those horses?” 

The three turned to the Mares of Diomedes, who were nonchalantly drinking the lake water. As if a whole battle sequence didn’t just happen in front of them. 

Jihyo pulled out the handy guidebook that Sana and Mina assembled for them. She flipped through it until she reached the chapter titled ‘The 8th Labor’ . 

“Well, according to the legends… Hercules’ fed the horses King Diomedes because… they were flesh-eating carnivores. And then they became tame after that.” Jihyo made a disturbed face at the book’s illustration. 

Momo had open in disbelief while Chaeyoung openly gasped. “You mean these horses EAT PEOPLE?!” The two demigods scrambled behind one another, shoving each other so that the other would end up being closer to the horses. 

The three stayed silent as they looked at each other, looked at the horses, looked at the charred dracaena, looked back at the horses, and then looked back at each other. 

“... it’s worth a shot…?” Chaeyoung shrugged her shoulders in a hesitant gesture. They made eye contact again. “Well, I don’t see anything else out here other than us! And I’m not cutting off a hand to feed them! I happen to ENJOY using these hands! ” 

A few minutes later… 

Chaeyoung huffed, trying really hard not to throw up as she hauled a charred serpent trunk into the pile of dracaena limbs and bodies. They moved the remains so that they were closer to the Mares of Diomedes. It worked essentially; the horses were eating and they weren’t attacking the demigods. 

“Ok, now go on and pet one.” Momo pushed Chaeyoung forward with a smirk on her lips, steering the child of Hephaestus towards the flesh-eating horses. 

“W-wha—why can’t you go?!” 

Chaeyoung panicked as Momo continued pushing her. She tried to fight against her friend but the Daughter of Poseidon had a tight grip on her shoulders. 

“Mhmm, no thanks.” Momo wrinkled her nose as she eyed the horses. “They aren’t under my dad’s domain.” 

Jihyo agreed from her safe position a few feet away. “Yeah, flesh-eating horses don’t honor Poseidon unlike regular horses.” 

“B-but why me—” Chaeyoung was cut off when a horse turned and flared its nostrils right in front of her face. The action brushed a lock of her hair away. She trembled, looked back at her friend’s encouraging (snickering) faces, looked back at the horse and reluctantly reached a hand out. 

She closed her eyes, only opening them when her hand brushed the horse’s surprisingly soft mane. She sighed in relief—she still had her hand attached. 

Chaeyoung’s trembling stopped but her friends were still giggling behind her. 

“Where to next?” 

“Seattle.” 

Momo began walking towards the truck. “C’mon, I’ll drive. You can steer them in the back.” 

“Oh! And grab some more of this.” 

This being the charred bits of the Scythian Dracaena. 

“Ughh...”, Jihyo covered . Chaeyoung got her revenge as she waved a charred severed serpent tail at her friend. The archer ran away towards the truck but then got a better idea and started running towards Chaeyoung. 

“Wha—HEY NO! GET AWAY FROM ME! YOU BETTER NOT VOMIT ON ME!”