Penn's P. O. V.

  I would have to say that, by far, the morning after the cockatrice attack was the worst morning I had ever woken up to. (Which was fair, seeing it was a Monday and all, but still.) No bedhead or burnt toast could ever stand against needing to roll out of a sleeping bag ready to fight monsters.

  I was startled awake by the sound of tree limbs snapping. My eyes shot open and I froze up, listening for more; what I heard was fairly odd. Vicious snarling, somewhat familiar hissing, and the occaisonal shout or groan greeted my ears. Something huge slammed the ground, sending vibrations that reached me and in turn caused me to sink deeper into my sleeping bag. My leg nudged something warm and soft, and Fredric muttered at me in Ferretish in protest.

  He squirmed out of my bag and stood on my chest, blinking drowsily and giving me a wide, toothy yawn. His breath blasted my nostrils; meat-flavored kibble and ferret musk. What a lovely thing to wake up to.

  I shushed his squeaking and sat up and glancing around, causing him to tumble into my lap as I hunted for the source of the sounds. It sounded distinctly like battle, but it came from many places at once; one minute the hissing and snapping was at my right, the next at my left or behind me. My heart raced as I waited for it to get closer, to reach us. Then it died down, just long enough for me to not immediately fear for my life.

  Somewhere behind me and the still-sleeping Jesse, the battle raged on, though quieter, as though the fighters were getting tired.

  Only one thing left to do: not panic and wake up Jesse (that's two things, actually, but you know what I mean).

  I pulled myself out of my sleeping bag, abandoning Fredric on the warm spot I left behind. I scrambled across the short space of grass separating me from Jesse.

  "Jesse...Jesse...Jesse!" I whispered loudly, paranoid of the noises hearing us.

  "Ugh...five more minutes, dad," Jesse muttered drowsily, turning the other way.

  "Jesse, it's me, there's a fight, wake up!"

  "Fight?" She yawned, blinking.

"Break it up yourself dad, jeez, use that hatchet we have in the study..."

  A particularly loud about echoed through the trees: "καταριέται το σκυλί!"

  Jesse was awake in an instant. "'Darn dog'? What was that supposed to be?" She asked, scrambling out of her bag.

  "Greek?" I answered unsurely. I just had a gut feeling it was Greek, even though neither Jesse or I had ever heard the language spoken. It would turn out I was right, but it didnt matter at the moment. Still, I wonder how she had translated that...

  "Well, why are people shouting Greek in the woods--wait, is there someone out there? Are they fighting? Why didn't you wake me up sooner?!" She demanded.

  "Well I tried, but you thought I was your dad..."

  "Oh," she mumbled. "Never mind, that's not important. Do you know who's fighting?" She questioned.

  "Uh, I heard hissing and barking and someone shouting," I said hesitantly. "But I couldn't see them...trees too thick, y'know."

  She looked deep into the thicket of trees, toward where the sounds of battle - and a lot more Greek swearing - were coming from. She got up from her sleeping bag and streched quickly.

  "Come on," she said, "let's go check it out."

  "What?!" I yelped. "Why are we going towards the danger?"

  "Someone is out there fighting a monster, Penn! We can help them, and this could be our chance to receive help!" She explained hurriedly, already moving towards the sound of battle. "Grab your hatchet and Fredric if you're coming, but I'm checking it out!"

  "Uh, okay," I called after her as she parted the shrubbery, running towards the fight. She didn't look particularly stoic, what with the messed up hair and tired but determined expression, but I would rather have her than whatever was making the ruckus. She'd know what to do, she always did. If she didn't, though, she made it up.

  It only took me a moment to locate my hatchet. It stood against a tree, glinting in the early-morning sunlight, a few drops of condensation clinging to the blade. I grabbed it with one hand, resting it on my shoulder as I went to get Fredric.

  He was still in my sleeping bag, cozy as could be, present as a lump about halfway down the sack.

  "C'mere," I cooed, reaching my free hand into the bag.

  He scuttled away.

  "Fredric, come on," I sighed acrimoniously. "I've got to catch up to Jesse before her Good Samaritan side gets her killed or something. You wouldn't want her to die, would you? I wouldn't..."

  Fredric came up to the top of the bag, gave me a solemn look, and scampered right back to the bottom. I took it as a sign that he was still sore over last night's sudden bike right and night in the woods.

  A tree branch snapped and something gave a long howl from behind me, making me whip around instinctively.

  Deciding I had had enough of trying to sweet-talk grudge-holding ferrets, I took a deep breath and said, "Sorry, Fredric."

  With a good amount of guilt, I took the edge of the sleeping bag and proceeded to haul Fredric and the bag across the bumpy forest path I had seen Jesse run down. I tried to ignore his enraged comments about the exprience and ran as quickly and quietly as I could (although I'm sure the yowling ferret totally blew my cover).

  I found Jesse a good thirty metres away, crouched behind a flowering shrub. She was down on one knee, fingering her necklace as she watched the fight intently.

  She beckoned me over, and I hauled the sleeping bag and my hatchet over to where she was. I bend down to hide next to her, dropping the sleeping bag.

  "Couldn't get my ferret out of bed?" She muttered with an amused smirk. I ducked my head and blushed.

  "Eh, don't worry, he's not a morning ferret, and his stubbornness gave me a minute to spy. Anway, look what we walked in on," she muttered with interest, gesturing towards a hole in the shrub.

  I hunched forward and looked.

  In front of us lay a natural clearing, at least a quarter mile wide, with us on one edge of it.

  It was occupied by three parties, the first being a huge dog - and by huge I mean huge. It was bigger than a draft horse, and seemingly made of solid shadows and pure fury.

  The second party was a pale, lanky blur. It was jumping around the dog, slashing at its sides and stabbing at its snout, occasionally rolling or ducking away from the dog's swipes and snaps. Neither competitor stood still long enough for me to get a good look at them.

  The two weren't alone, and I was very displeased to learn that the last group were three ugly metre-long snakes. The snakes slithered around, occaisonally tripping up the boy and giving hisses that sounded suspiciously like evil laughter. They kind of reminded me of vultures, because they didn't really attack; rather, they seemed to be letting the dog do the work, and if the dog finished the kid off, they would come in for the corpse.

  The snakes were a bit hard to describe, especially their heads. They were hooded, like a cobra, and their scales were a bloody red. Their eyes gave me the shivers, even from a distance. One of the snakes bore a distinctive coloring on his headdress; instead of just red, it was made up of many shiny golden scales as well.

  How that poor blur of a kid could stand up to both sets of monsters for so long I didn't know.

  After even the thirty-second view, I  had already enough. I tried to speak, but only managed a quiet whimper.

  "We have to help this guy," Jesse stated.

  "What? But he seems to know what he's doing," I protested weakly.

  "That's just it, Penn," Jesse explained impatiently. "If he knows what he's doing, he could help us, who don't know what we're doing! A you-help-me-kill-my-attackers-and-I'll-explain-your-situation thing, you know?"

  "I have never been in one of those scenarios before in my entire life," I muttered under my breath.

  "Well, you're about to be. Now, how do we join the fight without drawing the monsters' attention?" Jesse wondered out loud.

  A low, vicious growl sounded at our feet. We both looked down to see Fredric crouched in the space between us, eyeing the snakes hungrily.

  "I read somewhere that ferrets like to eat snakes," Jesse commented helpfully.

  "Fredric!" It was too late. My call couldn't summon him for anything now. The fiesty little ferret charged straight into the field, right toward the serpents. He took off like a slinky little bullet into the clearing, heading to what he believed to be his rightful breakfast. The crowned snake rose up, looking grumpy that some insolent little ferret dared defy him. It flicked its tongue and let out a sharp, challenging hiss. One of the two snakes left rose along beside it, snarling and hissing under its breath. The leader gave a nod towards Fredric, and the smaller snake shot after the ferret, mouth open and prepared to strike.

  "Fredric, no! Bad ferret!" Jesse called, leaping out from our hiding place after her beloved pet.

  I followed, stumbling a bit on the edge of the shrub.

  The ferret and snake launched at each other at the same time; the snake lunged straight forward and slightly up, while Fredric twisted beneath, sinking his sharp gangs on the snake's underside. It hissed and snapped at him, but Fredric held on, sinking his teeth in further. It shook itself. Fredric hung on. It slammed into the ground. Fredric let go and pounced on the snake's head. He crunched into the snake's hood, and the snake let out a muffled hiss. The two wound up in a tangle of a fight that we couldn't watch any longer, because we now had the attention of the other two snakes.

  Jesse unlatched her necklace and bent the key, bracing herself.

  "Help the dude with the dog, Fredric and I will get rid of the snakes!" She called, her necklace no longer a necklace but a dagger.

  "What - okay," I yelped, dashing towards the bigger battle. I didn't look back to see how Jesse fared, but I soon heard a sharp slash and a wail of pain from a snake, so I trusted she would be okay.

  When I came to the kid and the dog, the beast had finally pinned down its attacker with one enormous paw. It growled deeply, baring its teeth, before wacking away the object in its  victim's hand. A strange sword flew through the air and stabbed itself into the ground near me, causing me to halt sharply. I glanced worriedly up at the two, who seemed to be waiting for my reaction.

  My eyes wandered to the hatchet in my hand. I had thrown it once and hit the target, so why not again?

  Sharp bronze dug into the dog's side, the blade of my hatchet becoming stained red with dark blood. The dog yelped, releasing some of the weight of its paw off the kid's ribcage, just long enough for the kid to free himself.

  The blur ran towards me and my heart nearly stopped.

  It was a boy. A handsome boy, a teenager maybe a little older than me. A teenage boy that had taken on three snakes and a humongous dog all at once (and probably much more than that judging by the various scars and wounds on his body). Then here I was, couldn't even handle a cockatrice without some major help from Jesse.

  The boy was lean and tall, with skin as white as bone and a stoic, calm face. His ash blond moptop was stuck to his head with sweat, and a some  white scars on his arms and legs stood out especially in the morning light.

  I don't know what it was about him, but he scared me almost as much as the monsters. There was an air about him, an air of determination and do-what-you-gotta-do.

  Sprinting over to me, he grabbed his sword out of the ground without hardly looking at me. He whipped right back around to fight the dog, who was trying to bite and scratch at the hatchet I had stuck in its side like it was trying to remove a (rather painful) flea. With a battle cry, he ran back to the dog and slashed its face, and it helped again before snarling and biting back. The boy barely jumped away in time.

  I tried not to get distracted and decided to focus my energy on getting my hatchet back. I wouldn't be of any use if I just stood there and gawked on the sidelines.

  The hatchet had finally fallen out of the dog's side and hit the ground. It was laying there open for the taking, if the scary boy and the scary dog would just move away from it.

  I quickly saw my chance and dived for it. Hitting the ground, I caught the handle,  just as a mass of black fur flew over my head. I threw my hatchet straight up at the dog, quickly rolling out of the way (because what comes up, must come down, and I wouldn't look as nice with my own hatchet in my face). I didn't move quite fast enough, however, and some warm, sticky liquid sprayed my face. My hatchet fell near me and I snatched it up again.

  The boy appeared next to me and I scrambled to my feet. We both faced a very large, very irked, very dangerous dog.

  "Nice one," he commented dryly.

  "Uh, y-you too," I mumbled nervously, caught off guard.

  "Ever fight before?" He asked conversationally.

  "Uh...once?" I answered unsurely.

  "That's alright," he said. "Ever fought a hellhound?"

  "No."

  "Well, you're about to," he stated.

  Why does this guy remind me of Jesse?

  We launched at the dog like two vets about to put down a rabid hound: slightly unconfident, completely emotionless, and with sharp objects in hand.

  He circled around the dog--no, hellhound--and slashed at its side. I kept the attention of the face and hacked at its snout. Taking a chance, I pitched my hatchet at its face, nailing the beast right in the nose. Yuck.

  With the hatchet firmly lodged, it howled again, raising its head towards the sky, making the fatal mistake of bearing its neck. The tender spot was struck instantly by the boy, who stabbed his sword clean through the neck. Apparently he sliced the vocal cords, too, because the howl was instantly silenced. The hellhound fell in silent agony, going stiff then limp as the life left its body.

  "Wow," I mumbled dazedly. "You're really good at this."

  "I'm decent," he said gruffly, giving me a small shrug as he pulled his sword out of the hellhound. He walked over to the face and  pulled out my hatchet, pausing for a moment to appraise the blade. With that, the beast dissentigrated into grotty yellow dust. More yuck.

  "This yours?" He asked admiringly, handing me back the hatchet.

  "Er - sort of," I answered, taking it back gingerly by the handle. "I mean, it was Jesse's but she gave it to me, so yes?" Uh oh, I had started rambling. Speaking of Jesse, there hadn't been any hissing sounds for a while... "I wonder if..."

  "Hi, I'm back. Finished off the snakes. You're welcome."

  I turned around to face Jesse. She was panting, had several suspicious scapes and burns on her sweatshirt and skin, and looked a little pale, but alive. She was also carrying a very ticked off looking Fredric, who was fighting to get out of her arms and at the piles of snake dust behind them (he was probably responsible for most of the scratches, actually). She was aware of the boy in an instant.

  "Penn, who is that?" She asked immediately, turning to me.

  "Oh! Uh, Jesse, this is, um, this is...I don't know who this is," I answered, feeling more and more sheepish.

  "Who are you?" Jesse asked the boy, point blank.

  "Jesse!" I said, mortified at her lack of manners.

  "It's fine," The boy said, smirking at her cheek. "I'm  Andy."

  "You okay there?" He approached Jesse casually, standing by my side.

   "No, I am not okay! I just rolled out of bed in the middle of the woods after burning my own house down. To aid a stranger, I killed three bloody fire-breathing snakes with the help of my carnivorous pet. After that, I had to pull my hungry, grouchy ferret out of the grotty yellow dust of those snakes! Then the boy whose life we just saved has the nerve not to thank us, then ask if we're okay!" She finished her tangent, giving Andy a look.

  "No need to bite, ferret girl." He said, shrugging it off with a wry smile. "I'm guessing you're Penn," he said, nodding at me," and the spitfire is Jesse." Giving her another smirk, he said pointedly, "your hair looks bananas."

"Your face is going to look even more bananas if you make another smart-arse comment," she shot back with a half-smile. Insults and jokes were more her forte than fighting.

  "Whatever," he said. "But situations like the one you just heatedly described are normal for a half-blood."

  Wait. Half-blood?

  "What's a half-blood?" Jesse pounced on this new piece of information like a cat on a mouse. (Or a hungry ferret on three big snakes.)

  Andy just stared.

  "You're telling me that you have not one, but two Celestial bronze weapons, know enough to bring a ferret into a fight with a basilisk, and have the sense to lead monsters away from civilization, but you don't know that you're half-bloods?"

  "First, my ferret ran out and I had to save him. Second, we ran away. Third,  maybe we would know if someone would tell us what a half-blood is," Jesse said, raising a single sassy eyebrow.

  "Of course you would," Andy muttered. "Fine, Spitfire, tell me how you got those weapons."

  "My dad owned the hatchet. The key...the key I've had since I was adopted."

  "Key?"

  Jesse twisted her dagger delicately back into a necklace and clasped it around her neck.

  "Key."

  "Ok then. So, are you on your own?" Andy questioned.

  An awkward silence filled the air. Jesse and I took opposite approaches to this; she stared Andy down, seemingly evaluating his trustworthiness, while I looked at the ground. On one hand, you shouldn't talk to strangers, on the other hand, this Andy guy seemed to know what he was doing...

  I shifted my feet and waited for Jesse to speak up.

  After the brief staredown between Jesse and Andy, she finally decided talking was safe, and sighing, said, "Yeah. We ran away after a cockatrice attacked us. Like I said, it kind of burned my house down. We came to this forrest last night, and woke up to hear you fighting. We decided to help hoping that you might help us in return afterwords."

  "Yeah, I can help you," Andy sighed. "But it's a bit of a long-winded, seemingly discreditable explanation."

  "If you can help us, I don't mind at all," I spoke up.

  "Alright then," he shrugged, turning abruptly towards the forest behind him. "We should get out of here," he said, looking around. "We're easier to spot in a clearing like this."

  "Only because your bright blonde hair and dark clothing would give us away," she muttered to herself.

  Was she blushing? I could have sworn I saw a red tint in her cheeks. Come to think of it, she's been even cheekier than usual...

  I wonder if this will end well.