No Look Into Her Eyes pt2
"Percy!" Harry shouted.
Percy, who had been waiting just on the other side of the crates, leapt toward Medusa's back and, with an upward slash, carved a deep wound across the gorgon's back.
"AAAH! Miserable brats!" she screamed in fury as she ripped the broken arm off a statue she had smashed with her tail and hurled it in the direction Percy was running to hide again.
Percy saw the projectile coming and reacted instantly. He jumped and rolled across the floor to dodge it.
But that made it impossible for him to slip back between the crates in time.
The gorgon, following his shadow with serpentine speed, lunged at him completely enraged.
Percy didn't look at her directly. Instead, he raised the crystal sphere.
Through the glass he could see Medusa rushing toward him. Even like that, he could tell the woman's face was horrifying.
Though maybe the crystal helped soften her appearance a little.
Percy rolled across the ground again, like someone dodging an enraged bull, while at the same time slashing quickly toward Medusa's shoulder when she tried to grab him with her claws.
"GRAAAH!" the gorgon roared again as she turned toward Percy.
Her vision was already beginning to recover.
But before she could launch her next attack, several fireballs started striking her, aiming straight for her face.
It was Harry.
He stood on top of one of the crates with his wand raised, unleashing a continuous barrage of fireballs. The projectiles floated around him for a moment before shooting forward like meteors toward Medusa's face.
Harry also had something to keep from looking at her directly.
A piece of ice.
He had created it quickly with his own magic. The ice slowly dripped between his fingers from the heat of the flames swirling around him.
"Miserable little pests!" the gorgon shrieked.
Her serpentine body twisted and moved quickly, dodging many of the fireballs. Some of them hit, but they didn't do much damage, showing just how tough her scales really were.
There was a reason Percy's earlier strike hadn't cut very deep.
"Percy! Harry!"
Suddenly, a shout echoed from above.
Harry and Percy both glanced up toward the ceiling of the basement.
There they could see what looked like a garden table floating in the air.
But a moment later the invisibility cloak slipped downward, revealing Grover flying with his eyes tightly shut, wearing the winged shoes as he dove straight down while carrying the heavy garden table aimed directly at Medusa.
BOOM!
The table slammed straight into the gorgon's face, knocking her to the ground for a moment.
"AAAH! You damned satyr! You too!" Medusa screamed, growing even more furious.
"That's for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover shouted before flying back up into the air.
Harry and Percy used the opportunity to slip away again between the statues and crates.
"Percy, you have to cut off her head," Harry said quickly to his brother.
"I tried the first time, but well… she doesn't seem to like that idea very much," Percy replied.
"Even blinded by your magic, she won't give me another chance," he added.
"Then we need a distraction."
The voice came from right beside them, making both Harry and Percy jump so badly they almost knocked over a garden gnome.
It was Annabeth.
She pulled off her Yankees cap and became visible again.
"A distraction?" Harry asked, looking at her directly, while Percy held his chest, pretending he hadn't just nearly had a heart attack.
"I'll do it. She hates my mother. If she sees me, she'll come straight for me," Annabeth said.
"Are you crazy?" both boys said at the same time.
"It's the only way to finish this quickly. If we fail, we'll end up turned into stone decorating somebody's garden," Annabeth said while staring straight at them.
"What's the plan?" Harry asked immediately.
In the distance they could hear Grover throwing more objects at Medusa, along with the gorgon's furious roars as she tried to grab him in the air.
"Snakes are afraid of cold, right?" Annabeth asked quickly, looking at Harry.
…
"Hey… I think she's unconscious," Grover said for a moment while flying near the ceiling of the basement. In his hands he carried what looked like a small marble beam he could barely hold because of the weight.
"GRAAA!" Medusa roared as she stood up again, furious.
Around her, several shattered decorations lay scattered across the floor where they had fallen on top of her.
"Guess not," Grover muttered before quickly flying away.
He dodged the objects the gorgon kept throwing at him, but one of the projectiles suddenly struck his leg.
Grover lost control of his flight.
He started spinning wildly in the air before crashing straight into a stack of crates.
Luckily they were filled with styrofoam, the kind used to protect statues during transport.
"Guys… I think that's about all I can do," Grover said, his eyes slightly dizzy.
"That's enough. You're a genius, Grover," Percy said.
He jumped onto one of the crates and then pushed himself upward again.
His sword was no longer in his hand.
Instead, he held his wand.
Normally he only used it at Hogwarts and during classes, because magic had never come as naturally to him as it did to Harry. He had always preferred swords.
But he still knew a bit of magic.
Especially water magic.
"Aguamenti!" Percy shouted, pointing his wand toward the ceiling.
A huge stream of water burst from the tip of his wand, and like a fire sprinkler system gone wild, water began flooding the entire area in seconds.
Percy dropped to the ground while his wand continued pouring out water in massive amounts.
Something completely abnormal for such a basic spell.
But there was a reason he had the ability to flood entire places with it.
Now it made sense why.
Percy ran between the statues and crates as water began pooling everywhere. With every step he took, the floor grew more slippery.
Behind him he could hear the sound of Medusa dragging herself across the ground, chasing him.
"Oh, crap…" Percy muttered while picking up speed, still spraying water everywhere like a hose completely out of control.
Suddenly, just as Medusa was about to grab him with her clawed hands, Percy ran past a stack of crates.
And Harry stepped out from behind them.
His wand was raised above his head.
"Flash!" he shouted.
A blinding burst of light exploded through the basement, blinding the gorgon once again. Medusa stopped her charge instantly and, by reflex, her enormous body lifted almost all the way to the ceiling.
She had been doing that since the very beginning, ever since Percy had nearly cut off her head with the first strike.
Harry took advantage of the moment.
He moved his wand again.
"Glacius! Freeze!"
In an instant, all the water Percy had spread across the floor froze solid. Ice raced across the ground, covering crates, statues, and everything around them.
The gorgon herself, who had been soaked while dragging her body through the water, was also coated in a thin layer of ice.
Her body shook violently.
As if she had some instinctive terror of the cold.
Immediately she started searching for a place without ice where she could move.
And she saw one.
But just as she was about to slither toward it, she heard a voice.
The daughter of Athena.
Annabeth stood a few meters away, holding a green sphere while staring directly at her.
"Over here, you horrible woman. No… you're not a woman anymore. Now you're just a very ugly snake," Annabeth shouted from the opposite side of where Medusa wanted to go.
For a moment it seemed like the gorgon's survival instinct might win.
But her rage won instead.
Medusa lunged straight toward Annabeth.
Her enormous body slid across the ice at incredible speed, but the farther she moved, the more her speed seemed to slow.
Annabeth ran in the opposite direction, weaving between the ice-covered crates.
Medusa followed her, now visibly struggling.
Her skin was covered in frost.
Her mouth trembled slightly.
Even so, she screamed with pure hatred.
"I will kill you! And I will send your corpse to Olympus so your mother can see it!"
She turned in the direction Annabeth was running.
But as she turned, she saw that annoying boy with the flashes again.
Medusa instantly covered her face.
By reflex, her body lifted upward again.
But this time, much slower than before.
Harry didn't say the spell.
He didn't need to.
Because Percy was standing on top of one of the crates, hidden beneath Harry's invisibility cloak.
The cloak slipped off just as Percy jumped.
His leap went straight for Medusa's neck.
And with his sword…
Swish.
The gorgon's head fell to the floor.
At the same time, the lower half of her body began dissolving rapidly into dust and a strange dark mist.
When the head hit the ground, the snakes in Medusa's hair began hissing furiously, writhing and spitting insults and curses.
Harry had to cover his ears from all the vile curses they were hissing.
Percy, meanwhile, let out a disgusted noise as he felt something thick and slimy soak into his sock.
Grover, who had approached with his eyes still shut, suddenly turned completely green.
A second later he staggered toward a corner and started throwing up, probably from the smell of freshly severed monster drifting straight into his nose.
Annabeth appeared beside Medusa's head, carefully looking upward so she wouldn't see the face.
After all, even separated from the body, the head could still turn someone to stone.
In her hand she held a black cloth.
She knelt carefully, wrapped the head quickly, and then just to be safe placed a crate over it.
When she finished, the three of them finally let out a long breath.
The adrenaline that had been keeping them moving during the fight slowly began to fade.
One by one, they dropped down onto the floor between the crates, statues, and ice.
Completely exhausted.