There was something deeply nostalgic about having a giant monster charging wildly towards me. Over the past few years, a not insignificant percentage of all Greek monsters have done just that to me. From the minotaur––during that very first frantic rush to Camp––to laistrygonian giants, giant crabs to the minotaur again––this time wearing armor instead of tighty-whities and wielding a giant axe.

There’s one common factor between almost all those monsters. They’re stuck down in Tartarus and I’m standing right here. I wonder how that could have happened.

Hookwolf was pretty big and scary looking––like a big ol’ pile of blenders shoved together into the rough shape of an ugly dog––but I wasn’t too worried. He was one of the heavier-hitters in the city, but compared to some of the foes I’d faced over the years…Well, he just didn’t really measure up.

He was a bit bulkier and stabbier than the minotaur, but not as physically powerful. Being made out of knives and hooks did a lot to make up for not being able to throw a sedan quite as far, but between the curse and my armor I was not overly concerned. And compared to the Nemean lion, a metal dog may as well be made out of bubble wrap.

A small part of me was tempted to meet his charge head on. I obviously didn’t do that. I wasn’t going to throw away years of experience just because I was a little harder to hurt than I used to be. Instead, I followed one of the very first bits of advice anyone had ever given me. Sure it came from my mom and not Chiron or some other demigod, but it was still damn good advice. And anyway, my mom was pretty amazing.

I waited until Hookwolf was almost on top of me, Riptide held loosely in my hand, then dove out of the way like a matador except without the little red towel thingy. Riptide flashed and steel parted easily in the face of celestial bronze, bits of Hookwolf raining down onto the pavement.

I rolled once, then sprang back to my feet. “Nope, not quite! Better luck next time!” I called out. Hookwolf, looking none the worse for wear, skidded to a stop and turned towards me again. Even though I could see the bits of his metal ‘skin’ I’d cut off lying on the ground, he looked completely unharmed, new blades rising from his mass to replace those I’d removed.

About as I’d expected. For all that I didn’t really like doing it, I’d done at least a little research on the more dangerous capes I might run into here. Particularly villains like Lung, Kaiser, Purity, and of course Hookwolf. I didn’t know how his power worked specifically, but I knew that Hookwolf was supposed to be pretty damn hard to meaningfully injure.

I would either need to whittle him down until he ran out of metal or, if that didn’t work, I could finish him off with one overwhelming hit. I wasn’t really sure which of the two I would have to go with, but either one was manageable. For now, I first needed to get a proper measure of how he fought, how strong he was, and how he reacted to injuries.

Hookwolf came at me again, but this time his movements were slower and more measured. Instead of a single reckless charge, each attack was carefully measured and filled with deadly purpose. He clearly was an experienced fighter and really knew what he was doing, but so did I.

I danced smoothly between his strikes, not letting him get in a single solid hit. Whenever he overextended the slightest bit, my sword out in a measured arc to remove the offending limb. Hookwolf was good, but he wasn’t Luke and from his movements I could conclude that most of his combat skill came from fighting as a man and not as a metal wolf. It made sense, not many things could stand up to him just running into them, but it left exploitable gaps in his movements.

As we fought, I took the time to study my opponent. I might not be the sharpest knife on the block––right now that was clearly Hookwolf, he was basically made of them after all––but without centuries of mythology to lean on it was up to me to figure out the weakness of my enemy.

Hookwolf fought simply, but well, without any unneeded flourishes. I imagined that when he was human shaped he probably fought like a boxer or a wrestler, and that carried over into his changer form as well. It felt somewhat suboptimal, but given that any contact with his body was probably pretty fatal for most people, I guessed that was a huge problem for him.

His body was kinda cool. It looked like the sort of thing that Hephaestus might throw together if he stumbled into his Junkyard while drunk. Instead of one big piece of metal, Hookwolf looked like a big pile of knives, needles, hooks, and other pointy bits of metal all mashed together into a single whole. Furthermore, the entire thing was spinning and violently grinding together, turning an already fearsome sight into a veritable murder blender.

After nearly a minute, I could tell that Hookwolf was starting to get frustrated. After all, he hadn’t so much as touched my armor yet, while I’d removed a good forty pounds of scrap from his body.

“Stand. Still!” he growled, his voice blending with the whirring and screeching of his body until it was nearly unintelligible.

I stopped mid step and tilted my head to the side. “Now why would I––”

He lashed out at me with a massive metal ‘paw’ and I bent over backwards until my spine was nearly parallel with the ground to avoid it. A moment later, Riptide came up and severed the offending limb with a single smooth stroke and a loud screech as countless bits of metal scraped against one another.

“Oops! Didn’t see you there!”

Instead of straightening, I rolled sideways and Riptide cut a furrow through the pavement beneath me. My gut wrenched as I channeled divine power through my sword. When Hookwolf tried to use my momentary ‘distraction’ to jump on top of me, the earth beneath his feet shook and gave way and he fell to the ground with a thunderous crash.

“Too slow!”

I was back on my feet in an instant and this time, instead of shearing off another layer of metal, I lunged forward and plunged Riptide nearly down to the hilt into Hookwolf’s side.

Hookwolf screamed, a horrible sound somewhere between nails on a chalkboard and Mrs. Dodds’ usual speaking voice. I swept Riptide out to the side, leaving a gaping wound in Hookwolf’s side that quickly vanished as more blades and needles rushed in to fill the gap.

That didn’t look like it accomplished anything, good to know. Perhaps if Riptide was another five feet longer I could have cut the mean doggy in half, but as it was removing limbs seemed much more effective.

Hookwolf used the opportunity of finally being close enough to actually reach me to punch me in the face. A new paw grew out of his side and slammed into my helmet. There was an ear piercing screech as metal ground against metal and I actually stumbled back a few steps. It didn’t really hurt, but it certainly rocked my head back and the sound was somewhat disorienting as well.

Hookwolf immediately pounced on the perceived weakness. I took a powerful hit on the chest, then blocked the next two blows with my arms, but Riptide was knocked out of my hands during the exchange.

The next few seconds were a blur as our fight devolved into a furious grapple. I was much better with a sword than I was at hand-to-hand, but no hero trained by Chiron was going to be a slouch in a brawl like this. The centaur trained freaking Hercules, the undisputed king of smacking monsters around with his bare hands. I wasn’t Hercules, but Hookwolf was no Erymanthian boar either.

I got a nice firm grip on Hookwolf’s torso, whirring blades blunting themselves on my skin and gauntlets, and promptly heaved him over my shoulders. Hookwolf––seemingly utterly baffled by the move––crashed into, then through, a brick wall. I stumbled a little from the sudden shift in weight, then quickly took the moment of respite to draw Riptide again, the ever-faithful blade having returned to its usual place in my back pocket.

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Looking around, I found the street to be both much emptier and much more beat up than it had been when I’d arrived. I couldn’t see Crystal, but I could feel a single watery silhouette in the air a few hundred feet away behind a building that I assumed was her. Oni Lee and most of his men were gone, taking the bodies of their fallen with them. A bunch of the Empire goons had also fled, though I could still see a couple of them lurking around in what I was sure they considered adequate hiding spots. Fun fact: wrecked cars don't block my water sense.

I couldn’t blame them for hiding. Hookwolf was not kind to his surroundings, his bulk turning asphalt to gravel and reducing every obstacle in his path to scrap. Near the start of the fight I had dodged past a telephone pole and he had simply charged through the obstruction, turning the thick wooden pole into kindling and sawdust. I had absolutely no doubt he would have no compunctions against doing the same to any of his own men that got in his way.

A scant few seconds after I threw him, Hookwolf charged out of the rubble like a bull elephant, dust and bits of shattered masonry pouring off him in thick clouds. I tensed, pretending like I was going to dodge out of the way at the last moment like I had the first time. Hookwolf gleefully pounced towards me, his entire body stretching out mid air to catch me as I tried to get out of the way.

Instead, I dodged forward, sliding underneath him like a baseball player with Riptide raised up above my head. Hookwolf crashed into the ground like a meteor. A moment later there was a second, smaller impact as what had just been his back left leg fell to the shattered pavement beside him.

“Nope!” I exclaimed loudly, deliberately popping the p. “Damn doggy, missed again! I know twelve-year-olds that could kick your ass six ways to Sunday!”

Hookwolf didn’t so much turn around as he shifted towards me. One moment his head was facing away from me, the next a new head sprouted from his torso and fixed me with a furious glare. “I’m getting sick and tired of your shit!” he swore loudly, “Kaiser said to just rough you up, but I think I’m just gonna rip your fucking head off instead. And I’m going to enjoy every minute of it!”

The taunt probably would have been more intimidating if not for the hundreds of pounds of scrap hook-metal scattered in heaps and clumps all up and down the street. As it was, I had trouble taking him too seriously. Like, really. How many times could you listen to someone plotting your death before it all just got a little old?

Still, I did agree with Hookwolf. This fight was starting to get a little old.

My eyes became unfocused for a moment and I looked through Hookwolf to the sea. Though I was quite deep into the city, I was still all but within my domain. Waves crashed against the shore. Water rushed through countless pipes. Far below I could sense a massive reserve of water resting just beneath the bedrock, a constant presence on the very edge of my awareness.

I could have easily called the sea to me from here, but I didn’t want to show my hand to that extent just yet. I was starting to feel a lot more comfortable trusting the local heroes than I had been just a few days ago, but underplaying my abilities still seemed like a good idea. Just in case, you know?

I wasn’t carrying a lot of my supplies with me today. Despite some misgivings I had decided to leave my bag at the Pelhams. After all, there weren’t any monsters here and I hadn’t been planning to fight anyone today. That was a mistake I wasn’t going to repeat; I had a feeling I wasn’t going to leave home without my handy bottle of seawater ever again.

However, what I did have were my shells. They were small, unobtrusive, and I’d instinctively shoved a few into my pockets before I left the house with Crystal. I reached out to those shells now, feeling for the echoes of the sea trapped within them.

I didn’t need much. Certainly nothing like the massive geysers I could summon from within them. With a thought and a tiny wrench in my gut, seawater began to slowly trickle from one of the shells and dripped slowly down my leg.

Instantly my body was filled to the brim with new energy. The slowly building fatigue in my bones and muscles––an unfortunate consequence of the Curse of Achilles––vanished like it had never been there in the first place.

This time when Hookwolf charged towards me, I rushed forward to meet him. Riptide flashed once, then twice, and nearly a quarter of his bulk was gone in an instant. I jumped over his whip-like tail, then removed the offending appendage with a perfectly timed flick of my wrist.

I took a few steps back and Hookwolf followed after me. There was a manhole just a few feet away from me. If I could get Hookwolf right up next to it I could easily pin him down without bursting any pipes. Hookwolf was getting tired, I could feel it. Furthermore, he was visibly smaller than he had been at the start of the fight. His mass was regrowing, but not nearly as quickly as it had been before.

Unfortunately, that was about when everything suddenly went wrong.

I slipped past another far-too-predictable jab and moved to remove the overextended limb, only for Hookwolf’s entire body to warp out of the way. The massive wolf shifted into a smothering blanket of death, growing up and around in an attempt to surround me.

It was a clever idea, but ultimately meaningless and self-defeating. He simply wasn’t fast enough to actually catch me, and in his attempt to create more surface area he had conveniently made himself thin enough that I could slice fully through his body with Riptide once I had a good angle. I shifted my stance, ready to backpedal the moment Hookwolf tried to envelope me.

“Riptide! Look out!” a high pitched, familiar voice cried out fearfully.

I looked up just in time to see Vicky––no, she was in costume so it was Glory Girl right now––plow into Hookwolf’s broad back with her knee and elbow extended.

Suddenly, timing became a moot point. I didn’t even have a moment to roll my eyes. Really. Really? Of all the stupid––

Then Hookwolf crashed over me like a wave, propelled far faster than he could move himself by the force of Glory Girl’s blow. My back hit the ground hard and I barely managed to avoid having the breath knocked from my lunges. I grit my teeth in discomfort as the screeching of metal on metal became deafening, every inch of my armor surrounded by Hookwolf’s violently skirring body.

I tried to move, but Hookwolf had much better leverage and was doing a commendable job of keeping me pinned. I wasn’t on the ground for long. Hookwolf recovered quickly and began to envelop me fully, his metal body tearing through the ground under me as he did his best to pull me into his mass where he could attempt to crush me or grind my body into paste.

Well, this was a little awkward. Boy was I glad for my armor right about now, because this was exactly the sort of situation where having one glaring vulnerability would have really, really sucked. Dying because my opponent attacked every possible spot on my body all at once would have been just super lame.

Realistically, while it looked bad I honestly wasn’t actually in a bad spot. Sure I was a little stuck right now, but there was running water a scant few feet beneath me and more and more seawater was slowly trickling out from my shell and pooling inside my armor.

I had been hoping to avoid doing too much damage to the local infrastructure––replacing pipes was expensive and might deprive a lot of people of water until it was done––but at this rate they were going to have to dig up and replace this entire stretch of road anyway so it wasn’t that big a deal.

The problem was, my new friends didn’t seem to be thinking about any of that right now. As a matter of fact, they didn’t seem to be thinking much at all. I could sympathize, they had just seen me get swallowed up by the scary-looking blender blanket, but they were only making things harder for all of us except the stupid blender in question.

I mentally tracked the two blobs of water flying through the air around me. Hookwolf’s body shook as what I assumed were Laserdream’s lasers pounded into him. Glory Girl looped around for another hit and I actually felt it when she crashed into him like a wrecking ball for the second time.

She began to fly away when suddenly a terrible cry of pain reached my ears even through all the metal surrounding me. I felt water splatter across the ground and suddenly the other blob, which had flown slightly too close to the ground, was reduced by nearly a third and its flight became erratic.

Oh shit. Hades, Zeus, Dad, anyone who was listening! Please let her be okay! This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was my fight. I’d told her to call the PRT and stay out of the way. What was she doing getting so close to someone so dangerous!

The pipe beneath me burst open and a pillar of freezing water punched clean through plastic, dirt, gravel, asphalt, and living metal. Ichor roared in my veins and a moment later the pillar split into a dozen tiny streams, each one moving fast enough to sheer clean through solid steel.

I was free in an instant, Riptide appearing in my hand like it had never disappeared in the first place. I was barely paying attention as I methodically tore the Empire cape to pieces, blades of water and celestial bronze reducing one of the most dangerous villains in the Bay to scrap.

It was over as quickly as it began. Metal shifted, warped, and then Hookwolf’s human body emerged from the scrap, his skin covered with countless tiny cuts and scrapes. He tried to stand up, but I kicked his legs out from under him, then slammed the flat of Riptide’s blade into the side of his head. It took all the self control I had left not to remove his head, but I knew that would only cause me more problems in the long run.

He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, but that didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. I had eyes only for the massive bloodstain slowly spreading across the street and the horrified look on Glory Girl’s pale face as she cradled her cousin’s limp body in her arms.