If It's Stupid But It Works... Then It's Still Stupid & It's a Miracle That It Worked - Chapter 5

On the fourth day of our sea journey, we reached Westport, Connecticut. Thorny docked the boat in Saugatuck River at Bluff Point.

"So I'm gonna head out and come back with at least two demigods, so please be ready to head out to Long Island as soon as possible." I told Thorny.

"At leas—You know what?" He raised his hands, palms open in a gesture that says 'I don't give a shit anymore'. "I don't wanna know. Take all the time you need. In fact, don't come back for a few days, I'm gonna need to see what damage My Baby suffered from your shitty sailing."

You way too easily let me sail 'your baby'—and yes that was the boat's name—and the storm wasn't my fault.

I let the matter go as its in the past and not bothering me, so not worth thinking about.

Also I have the slightest feeling that Thorny may wish he never sees me gain. Maybe.

"I don't know, I'm kinda on a time limit. I think." I said back.

"You think?"

"Well, Hermes said to be here within a week, and I am, so now I'm not sure if I need to actively find them, or wait for them to reach here." I shrugged. "Anyways, I'mma head out, thanks for the ride, Thorny, see you when I get back."

"Yeah, yeah." He waved me off, trying to be angry and annoyed at me, but for some reason failing. Nice guy. Satyr.

First things first, I headed out to find a bookstore, or just a phone booth. I had Luke's name so I just need to find his home address.

Would it be under his mother's name? Shit, am I gonna need to look at every Castellen residence? Do I need to search by the internet? I mean, it's 2000 right now, so it's not as used as I remember it being. Or maybe it is?

I kinda decided to be way more outdoors with my hobbies in this life, so I didn't pay attention to that.

Anyways, found a bookstore and a phonebook. Good news, right?

There were about thirty or so houses belonging to a 'Castellan'.

Okay, okay, this should be fine. It's only thirty houses. Going around is gonna be a pain, but I can always get a cab if I get tired of walking.

I think I can knock visiting those houses in under a day.

And besides, statistics-wise I'm bound to get the right house before ever needing to visit all of them.

After coming out of the bookstore I ended up fighting some generic wolk monsters, I don't even think those have names. They look like regular dogs through the Mist. I hightailed it outta there, since I didn't want to be known as some animal abuser.

I found a bench nearby, sat down, La Baseball Bat on one side, backpack of holding in the other.

Thirty houses and they are spread all over Westport. I think I can knock visiting those out in under a day.

And besides, statistics-wise I'm bound to get the right house long before ever needing to visit all of them.

"Yeah, this should be menial but easy." I nodded to myself.

Immediately after I said that, an eagle owl and took my backpack.

"WHAT THE FUCK!"

I ran after it, and of course I couldn't get my bag back.

Okay, Moirai, I don't think me calling a simple task, as a simple task, should not count as me tempting you. You don't have to be hair trigger on the Murphy Button!

===x===

Two Days Later

Fuck owls, fuck vultures, fuck birds in general.

After losing my backpack, I've fought so many cannon fodder monsters, in the last two days I should get a medal.

Also the Stymphalian Birds were back. The catty bitches.

"Stupid demigod."

"Foolish demigod."

"Slow demigod."

Great. Another group of them. I'm not sure how many total there were in the myth, but I'm pretty sure I've butchered over a few hundreds in the last two days.

My arm hurts from all the Le Bonze Ball throws I did.

"I'm going to fucking eat you!" Because at this point, I'm broke, tired and hungry.

And I still didn't find the right Castellan house.

Twenty fucking nine down the list thus far, all wrong. Are you fucking kidding me?!

"""Cah! Cah! Cah! Cah!"""

The birds were laughing at me.

===x===

I was panting, sweat dripping down my face and fall off my chin from how much I was sweating.

I slayed who knows how many Stymphalian Birds today. I just want some water at this point, but I don't have any money. I was in a park right now, so there should be some drinking fountain somewhere.

At least I have only one Castellan house left to visit, and it's relatively nearby.

Okay, get some water, then head to Luke's home and mooch some food off his mom.

...That sounded scummy but it's for a good cause, I swear. Hermes can vouch for me!

I should probably clean her house as payment if she gives me food.

I found a lone drinking fountain in the middle of a very large empty circular walkway. Normally I'd be suspicious of this, but right now I didn't care about how cliché this looked, or that archway at the end of one part of the circular walkway that, looked to sorta have a statue in it.

I drank from the fountain and...

Holy shit, this is some of the best water I've ever tasted. Might be exaggerating due to how thirsty I am but I'm not sure.

Also weirdly enough I feel like I just had breakfast and three shots of caffeine. Like, I'm so hyped up now to go for a run. Or a fight.

Weird.

Then a growl came form that archway, and a big reptilian creature came out of it.

Oh. This is a boss save point. Alrighty then.

The dragon...?

It was a dragon. Small though, like less then size of a car. Almost all its body was serpentine, that I'd have called it a giant snake.

Except for the two arms at the top of it's body. Like a half-dragon, half-serpent. Or a lizardman naga.

The hissed and growled at me, acting like it was slowly advancing and circling around, which I did the same to keep a distance between us.

It was kinda slow... So it's probably really fast, wasn't it?

"Still though. Kinda looks like a half-assed dragon design-wise." I said to myself, but he seemed to have heard me.

The dragon snake growl and lunged forward. Yep, it was fast. Almost whip-like fast.

But I was already used to those speeds in Divine Dodgeball games I played with my dad. We finish warming up with those speeds.

I dodged to the side, bringing up La Baseball Bat with practiced upward swing, aiming to knock its jaw off.

The dragon snake instantly weaved back, dodging my swing. It's body seemed pretty flexible and prehensile. Is that the right word?

It could move and swing it's upper body pretty quickly, while remaining balanced. Add in the arms and claws and it had a rather high agility attacking sequence.

The dragon snake slashed at me with this claws, and I met him with a bat swing.

Claws clashed with celestial bronze again and again. Right, left. Right, left, I met his charge.

Something trickled at the back of my mind about this situation. A serpent guarding a spring. A Greek story. Where did I hear it before.

The dragon snake tried lunge with its jaws open for a bite.

CLANK!

Only to be stopped by my bat, now stuck in it's mouth, teeth clenched on celestial bronze. The instant it's jaws locked onto my bat, my leg was already thrusting out in a donkey kick.

BAM!

There was a small shockwave from my foot connecting to its stomach. Although I didn't feel I hit the monster with my full force.

Ah, it was already in the process of moving its body back, when I kick my leg forward, but I was faster than it managed to dodge. It only managed to lessen the force.

This dragon snake was pretty fast and vicious, in how relentless it attacked, but it wasn't all that strong.

Well, maybe for the average untrained demigod it would be.

It also lost a few of its teeth, which I could see from the gaps in it's mouth as it tries and fail to intimidate me by hissing. Must have happened when it was forcibly ripped away from the bat, since I didn't let go of it.

Something had to give, and its teeth did. Honestly, killing it would be a mercy at this point. All the other monster would make fun of it for the teeth gaps now.

As the dragon snake jumped back, putting some distance between us, I saw it with the drinking fountain behind it, and it clicked into my head.

The Ismenian Dragon.

This was the Ismenian Dragon, and the drinking fountain must be the Sacred Pool, well, Sacred Fountain of Ares. No wonder it rejuvenated me so well.

Okay, how was this dragon beaten in the myth again? It's annoying that I used up my Stupidity Nullification for the day on all those asshole birds, so I have to use the fate paved path to win.

Let's see, the Ismenian Dragon was beaten, I think I recall, via a giant rock, right?

Giant rock, giant rock, giant rock. Where can I find one?

Wait. Le Bronze Ball can grow in size from a marble to a regular baseball. Dad mentioned that my weapons had many hidden features according to Hephaestus. What's to say more size changes aren't also in there?

After all, dad did bankrupt himself to get me these two celestial bronze weapons. Not to mention all the times he asked Apollo to heal him from our training sessions all these years, so he's indebt to the Sun God—

Right. Stop.

One problem to fix at a time. I stopped and took a Breath. Capitalization was important.

The world is in one sense made of matter and energy and operate on physics and mathematics.

For the divine however, the world was made up of higher and lower divinities, operated on by myths, stories and belief.

For me, a demigod, someone that's halfway into myth, that means I can tap into all those myths to draw power, even if I didn't know anything about my divine heritage, this would still be a power I can draw on. Something I hope I can teach other demigods later on when I meet them.

For us, beings of mortals and divine, the world is made up of the literal bodies of the protogenoi.

The sky is Ouranos, the sea is Pontus, and the ground is Gaea.

And the air is Aether.

Technically that's the upper air of the gods—basically the idea of why mountain air is difficult to breath. No one thought back then there was just less air, but more pure air meant for the gods—but due to the mix myth and physics that our world is in, the normal atmosphere now wasn't divided into three airs, but a mix of all.

Due to that Aether is now also present in normal atmospheric air.

The more divinity is within a demigod's body, the more powerful they become. It's why nectar and ambrosia can heal us, but also why too much would kill us.

I learned how to tolerate how dosages of divinity from all my training, as well on how to bleed it out (metaphorically... and also literally).

So, when I really focus I can breath in such a way as to draw in more Aether from the air.

And given all the healing Apollo gave me over the years, after the especially tough training sessions with dad, I got far more than just a good feel for Light.

Thus when I Breathed, I filled my body with Aether, using light itself to draw it in.

Long story short, I learned how to do Breathing Styles. I call it Pneuma though.

For localization purposes.

The Ismenian Dragon roared as it's body coiled and launched like a spring much, much faster than before.

I was already in the air, about a whole two stories height. A bit too much really, since I only wanted to make a small jump. Precision is still something to be worked on, but this height isn't too bad.

I had a whole view of the area of the park I was in, and more importantly the dragon snake.

I held Le Bronze Ball and channeled my divinity into it. Pneuma, along with practicing my divine power helped me in actually sensing it. It felt like it moved through my body like energy, that didn't have temperature as a concept and didn't obey the laws of thermodynamics. Yet I could tell it was grant, intense and potentially volatile.

I fed that divine energy into the celestial bronze baseball, focusing on the mechanism to alter its size.

Then, I fed Le Bronze Ball what I felt was an appropriate amount, and just before it started to change, I threw it.

The Ismenian Dragon tried to dodge what it saw as a small but deadly and fast projectile. Except one moment it was a small ball, the next the monster's vision was engulfed by celestial bronze as the normal sized baseball because the size of the Indiana Jones rolling boulder.

The monster regardless of it's speed or vicious will to fight, it couldn't dodge, for it was fated to die this way, just has been itched into its myth.

CRASH!

The Ismenian Dragon was flattened like a pancake.

"WOOOOW!" I cheered as I landed on the giant bronze ball. Okay, now to try and get it small again, or it will likely be seen as a park attraction.

Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap.

I blinked in confusion as I turned to see who was clapping, since no one was around a moment before.

I saw a man—No. A god wearing a familiar biker outfight and sunglasses hiding fire burning eyes, that I've read about so long ago.

"Not bad, kid. Not bad." Ares, the God of War, said to me with an amused smirk, as if a plan of his was coming together.