Mother and her children

{Island of Salamis, May 1st 2005}

My eyes opened once more from my dreamscape after the meeting with my father. I sunk into the floor of the tomb reappearing on the surface of the island, giant craters and sand turned to glass littered most of it, Heracles' body now nowhere to be seen, it had probably been taken to Elysium, so he could once more feast with the greatest heroes in history for eternity.

I shook my head trying not to think of that, I had a new labor to do, my final labor and I hoped that at the end I could find out the reason for quest after all even when I had met dad in the Underworld he had never told me the reason why he had sent me on such a long quest, most of the time quests were simply so demigods could prove themselves to their parents, but I think I had already done more than enough to prove myself, hell dad had even said he was proud of me that's much more than most demigods would get.

Still I'll figure that out once I finish this stupid labor, I just needed to kill Echidna and her children how long could that possibly take? Let's see the hint was that a good mother loves her children, and that was especially true for Echidna so since I didn't know how to find her I needed to lure her out by killing her children after all a good mother would always want to protect her children from a murderer.

"So which child of Echidna should I kill first?" I asked myself since both Swiper and Lailaps were still sleeping in my shadow healing their injuries from the fight with Heracles. The first name that came to mind was Ladon, the one hundred-headed dragon, the guardian of the golden apples, the third son of Echidna and mostly recognized as one of the strongest monsters in greek mythology.

Also Ladon made the most sense since I actually had a location in which he could be or at least a good estimate. After all many demigods were sent to collect a golden apple of the Hesperides, and they always found them in the same place, Mount Tamalpais the new Mountain of Despair.

With a breath to steady myself I plunged into my writhing shadow once more feeling a tempered cold rush through me.

{Mount Tamalpais--San Francisco, 1st of May 2005} 

I resurfaced under the shadow of a tree at the base of Mount Tamalpais, I immediately noticed the Mist clinging to the mountain, the amount was almost as much as the one that surrounded camp Half-Blood, a testament to how well Hera wanted her apples to be hers alone. 

-ROOOOAAAARRR-

"There it is." I muttered, the roar that could only come from a monster, a powerful one. The earth shook as I saw at the edge of my vision trees falling down, as Ladon ran through them. He was one of the weirder monsters, he was enormous, with one hundred heads, like a hundred pythons had been fused together, his serpentine body almost 200 meters long and more than 50 meters thick, two bat like wings were sewn to its arms and even the monster's tail wasn't like a serpent's it looked more like a drill and to top all of that Ladon's aura was like nothing I had ever seen it was red like most other monsters but on Ladon it looked more like a sea of blood that ran across the beasts scales.

Watching the monster run at me, barreling down the mountain I opened my mouth ready to recite the divine incantation "Οπάλιον σβέσον τὸ φῶς σου (Opal dim your light)"

Strength surged through me once more, Ἄκουε τὴν ἀπαλλαγὴν ταύτην (Hear this fatal plea)." As the last syllable escaped my lips my heart pounding in my chest suddenly stopped. I fell to the ground my hand clutching my chest, I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think, I couldn't move.

My blood vessels writhed under my skin, at any moment dictating they would burst. Yet while I stayed kneeling on the ground, Ladon continued running at me I could now smell its breathe, acidic, my eyes burnt and for the first time in years my hair stood on end. I smelt the breath of death.

-------

Ladon now stood before me, stretching its hundred heads at me, all their maws opened ready to tear me apart down to my bones. Only one word echoed in my head MOVE,MOVE,MOVE!!!!!!

My body wasn't responding so I let my knees fully buckle to the ground, my face planted itself to the muddy earth, a head snapping its maw directly above me but there were still ninety eight heads ready to eat me as its meal, the only one it should have had in quite a while. 

Two heads launched at me barreling under the first head, yet as each head was just a few millimeters from biting my head and body off in two, my vessels stopped writhing, my heart began pounding, I fell into the earth using the shadow that Ladon's massive body had brought. 

I reappeared in San Francisco, creating distance between me and the dragon. "What the hell is going on?" I asked myself, slowly standing up as my body returned to normal I no longer felt as if I was about to explode. 

I summoned my spear into my hand, using it as a walking stick as I caught my breath. I thought of the divine incantation again thinking that maybe my body couldn't handle so much power I just recited the first sentence yet almost unconsciously I recited the second verse, once more crumbling to my knees.

Don't tell me my body can't handle it? I'm supposed to be a demiprimordial why the hell would I have more power given to me that I could handle? And why didn't this affect me that way when I was fighting Heracles. I continued thinking and thinking as to why I couldn't handle it, I continued reciting the incantation trying to get accustomed to it but no matter what I did my veins felt like they were going to explode.

I waited once more until my body returned to normal, I then teleported to a hotel which I saw nearby and entered a vacant room cloaking myself in Mist. I needed to rest and think.

A/N: There is a reason as to why he can't use the power it isn't just a nerf on my part since even without the divine incantation Ozzy is still stronger than any living demigod.

[Greek Myth Fact: Ladon was the name of a monster in Greek dragon, the guardian of the Golden Apples in the Garden of the Hesperides. Different characters have been named as his parents; these are Ceto and Phorcys; Typhon and Echidna; Gaea on her own; or Hera on her own. One source also mentions him as being the brother of the Nemean Lion.

During the Labors of Heracles, one of the tasks the demigod was given was to steal the golden apples from the Garden of the Hesperides, which was located somewhere in the western corner of the world. After traveling through the Libyan desert and getting assistance by the sun god Helios, Heracles eventually reached the Garden of the Hesperides. There, he killed Ladon, managed to retrieve the golden apples, and returned to Tiryns successfully completing his task. According to a different version of the story, Heracles never went to the Garden, and therefore, never killed the dragon. Instead, he met the father of the Hesperides, the Titan god Atlas, tricked him into retrieving the apples for him and completed the task.]

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