Trials of Tartarus

Chapter Twenty 

Mutt’s POV

Something wasn’t right. She was stalling. That didn’t make sense though, because by my calculations she should’ve been up and running at me about five minutes ago.

Instead she was giving me basic small talk. And I knew that I was just too awesome to kill, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t just do it anyway. After a second of silence, that was a little bit awkward I decide to speak up.

“So when are you gonna attack me?” I ask. “Gotta say I was expecting it a bit ago.”

“What?” Caltaya demands.

“You didn’t think I was stupid did you? I assure you that I know how long my little trap thing was gonna hold. And I can say that it stopped performing properly about five or so minutes ago,” I say. “And yet, you still haven’t made a move to attack me. Sooooo when’s it going to happen? I was kind of hoping that it would’ve been done already.”

“You actually want me to attack you?” she asks.

“Well I mean, you didn’t bring any cake so that means we should finish this quickly so that I can go and get my own,” I say, yawning.

She stands up, “You think that you’re going to make it out of this alive?”

“I think that I have a fairly good chance at being able too,” I reply.

“Then I’ll take great pleasure in killing you, really, I will,” Caltaya says with a smile.

“You don’t really have the face for a bad guy,” I tell her.

“What?” she asks, looking taken aback.

“What?” I repeat. “I didn’t hear anything. Must’ve been the wind.”

“What is wrong with you?” she asks.

“Lots of things,” I state. “I’m more worried about what’s wrong with you. I mean, yeesh. Have you realized that you’ve could’ve killed me already? But you haven’t. Why not?”

“I-” Caltaya frowns, like she hadn’t expected, or wanted me to figure that out. “I’m giving you a chance to change your mind.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Come again?” she asks, avoiding the question.

“Why? I already gave you my answer, like a thousand times over. So why are you thinking I would change my mine?” I ask.

“Um,” Caltaya says. “I guess I just have hope?”

“Right,” I say, looking at my shoes.

After a second I look up and meet her eyes, I don’t know what she saw in them, but whatever it was, it made her take a step backwards.

“You shouldn’t have hope,” I tell her. “Hope isn’t real. All that’s left is pain.”

“So that’s your problem?” she asks. “You don’t believe in hope?”

“I don’t believe in anything anymore,” I whisper.

“Well then I guess it’s going to be fairly easy to kill you. After all, it’s so easy to kill someone who’s already dead,” Caltaya says.

“I think it’s more of impossible to kill someone who’s already dead wouldn’t you think so?” Mutt asks.

“Depends on the way they die I guess,” Caltaya replies. “It seems that it’ll make a fun experiment don’t you think? We’ll see if killing you will make any different considering you’re already dead.”

“Oh!” Mutt exclaims, hitting his forehead. “You were talking about me! Wow, okay, that makes a little bit more sense I think. See, I thought that you were referring to the fact that I was just so great and awesome that you knew you were already dead, even though I hadn’t actually delivered the kill blow yet.”

“Why would you think that?” Caltaya demands.

“Because I am so greatly awesome and you fight like baloney?” I offer.

“How would you know how I fight?” Caltaya demands.

“I don’t,” I say with a nod. “You’re right. Because you’re too chicken to fight me.”

“I AM NOT CHICKEN!” She shouts.

“Prove it!” I shout back at her.

She glares at me, and then she holds up her hand, and flings it at me. Squeezing my eyes shut I tilt my head to the side, bracing for impact. Except it never came. I blink, nothing happens. Slowly I pat my chest, trying to find anything wrong. A gaping hole, blood, anything.

“Um,” I say. “I was expecting something a little bit more ‘BOOM’ - ish to happen there.”

“I don’t understand,” Caltaya says, looking at her hand. “What happened?”

“Well you see, you tried to hoodoo voodoo me and you failed,” I say.

“It should’ve worked! Why didn’t it work!” She demands.

The next thing I knew she was in front of me, her golden-purple eyes glaring at me. Like she wanted them to fry my brain, and it wasn’t working that well for her.

“What did you do?!” She hisses at me.

“Um. Nothing?” I offer her, staring at her in complete confusion. “Oh! You think it’s my fault your hoodoo voodoo didn’t work? Girl get real, that was all you.”

“No!” Caltaya snarls. “I have never failed at anything before! Not until I met you!”

I slam a hand against my heart. “You wound me. Truly you do.”

She screams, the sound was animalistic and fairly creepy, and then she shoves me. With strength that she shouldn’t possess. I fly backwards, hitting the place where the wall met the ceiling.

“Owwwww, what was that for?” I groan, sliding to the floor.

She growls and starts towards me, her hand igniting with white fire, it was kind of like a gel substance as it surrounded her fist. But it turned smoky as it extended outwards, towards me.

My eyes widen, obviously that had to be the death fire or whatever it was that everyone had warned me about. Well, just Themis, but others should’ve warned me about it. Maybe then I would’ve figured it out sooner.

Without knowing what I was doing I kick out, attempting to get Caltaya’s legs so she falls back. Misjudging the kick I end up hitting her in the stomach, but still achieving my goal of getting her to land on her butt.

She jumps up immediately, running straight for me again. At the last second I roll to the left, not thinking that she would actually fall for that, but when she slams head first into the wall I hold in a chuckle.

“That was pretty stupid,” I say, regretting it almost instantly when she turns a glare on me.

“Something I said?” I ask when she runs at me again. “Donuts girl, you turned psycho!”

She snarls at me.

“Maybe you’ve always been this way?” I offer.

Plan. Come on. Plan. I need a plan. What’s my plan? I bite my lip and look around. I had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Caltaya was slowly making her way towards me. Like seriously? I don’t want a slow death if you gonna kill me, get it done already.

As she walks the flames appear on her hands. I step back, not really eager to know what those flames would do to me. In fact, I was beyond eager to see what they did.

So instead I duck underneath the table and send water out to slam into her legs. I roll out from underneath the table just as she crashes into it.

“That’s gotta hurt,” I say.

The fire pulses on her hands, growing brighter and then duller. Almost like it was breathing. She sits up, blinking, like she was dizzy. The fire fades from her hands.

I remembered then, she only gets her powers in short bursts. And it looked like this one was gone. Which meant that I was at the advantage now. At least, I hoped that’s what it meant.

She leaps up when she realizes this, and then the next thing I knew there was a chair flying at me. I duck, and it barely passes over my head, skimming my hair.

“What did that chair ever do to you?” I ask her.

Without her powers she seemed more like the Caltaya I knew and less like the psycho coconut that had attacked me a few minutes ago. But that wasn’t much of a comfort, because the psycho coconut I had no problem hurting.

But now, this was Cal. And yeah, she lied to me. And tried to kill me. And she has some kind of problem with Moon. And she put me through hell, literally. Despite all that though, she was my friend.

At least, she was before she confessed. Even though mostly everything she had told me was a lie, that had to be true. Right?

She leaps at me one last time, and then she was in front of me. And as she holds out her hand which was once again covered in fire she hesitates.

Without thinking I slam my own fire and water at her, causing her to fly backwards.

The minute she lands the building falls apart, and I carefully walk over to her, touching her neck, looking for a pulse. There was nothing. She was dead. Bowing my head I whisper goodbye, and then control the water to take me home.

𝌀

As the word slowly solidified and Godville took form all I could do was close my eyes and breath deeply. Home. Fresh air. Everything and anything that I could want.

“Holy Hades!” someone shouts. “IT’S MUTT!”

“Mutt!”

This time I open my eyes, and I grin. Because the voice belonged to Moon. She was running towards me, Alex and Quinn following behind. It looked like they had just came back from somewhere. But that was a story for a different time.

My clothes were shredded, my hair matted with blood and dried blood was probably all over me. But all I could think about in that moment was Moon. She leaps at me, and wraps her arms around my neck. And for the first time in so long, when I smiled, it wasn’t forced. Finally. I was home.