Day 14 part 3

“You said you only encountered him a single time... how long exactly did you chase him?” [Squid to Charybdis]

“A decade, give or take a year.” [Charie]

“Hey, mop-head! Did you go into hiding because Charybdis was chasing you?” [Squid]

“Of course! The witch was relentless! Uh... just a moment I need to take a consensus.” [Main Hydra Head]

They huddle together for several minutes. A different head begins speaking in a feminine voice, as opposed to the booming bass of the last.

“Please miss, we beg for mercy! Please let us be and we will obey any stipulations you offer.” [New Main Head]

“Uh... why the sudden change? In your approach, I mean.” [Squid]

“We had a vote and I was re-elected.” [New Main Head]

“Wait... you're all unique... and you're a democracy?!” [Squid]

“Did you think we could work any other way? According to the notary the days of anarchy and tyranny were the worst... and the factions and demarcation incidents... border disputes... the cold war was tough... oh and lets not forget the abolishing of the slave trade.” [New President of Hydrapolis]

As we watched a dark red head snapped off the President's head with a bite.

“Assassin!” [Squid]

“You called?” [Windy]

“Sic semper tyranus!” [Hydra Head #3]

… okay... this is getting weirdly familiar.

“Is it always like this?” [Squid]

“Down with the Proletariat!” [Hydra head #4]

“Viva la revolution!” [Hydra head #5]

“Death to the Bourgeois!” [Hydra head #6]

“No... they're a bit riled up... mostly they were talking about armistices and conditional surrender.” [Charie]

Who would have thought a hydra would be a nest of vipers?

Politics...

“The lizard people are working with the Rigelians...” [Paranoid Head #52]

“I just want tax reforms...” [Hydra Head #98

“Less public spending...” [Hydra Head #543

“Better child care...” [Hydra Head #29]

“War...WAR... WAR!!!” [Psychopathic Head #35]

“The sheer amount of identity theft is intolerable...” [Hydra Head #782]

“Ask not what your body can do for you, ask what you can do for your body!” [Hydra Head #452]

“Illuminati everywhere...” [Paranoid Head # 25] “Majestic twelve...”

“We are not amused...” [Royal Head #2]

“SHUT UP, ALL OF YOU... STUPID HYDRA!!!” [Squid Shouting] “I regret to inform you... this is a coup d'etat! All hail your new Emperor. ME! Surrender or join me. All others will die.”

“Burn him! Burn the squid!” [Several hundred heads in chorus]

“We surrender!” [A couple hundred heads]

“All those that surrender, if you would be so kind as to move to the rear... your literal rear.” [Squid]

“Die!” [Seventy aggressive hydra heads.]

A wave of lava spills out of the volcano at us.

“You made it mad.” [Woody]

“No, I made it simple. We have only those hundreds of heads to defeat. Everything else, we let live.” [Squid]

I pull a torrential downpour upon us.

“Hey, Fire Boy... can you work with a little rain?” [Squid]

“As long as you don't target me with something stronger, I'll make do with this...” He pulls out the heavy sword.

“Could be worse... you're immune to fire, right?” He nods. “You're the vanguard then.” I look at Rocky. “You cover barriers and channels, block the lava.”

“Yarp.” He says with a serious look.

“Windy, you're obviously the most mobile, hit and run tactics. Do you understand insulation and combustion?” He gives me a blank look. “The main substance in the air? Compress it into liquid and drop it on the molten rock. The stuff we need to breathe? Keep it away from the cat o'nine hundred tails there. The stuff we breathe out? Send as much as you can down it's throats! Use wind shear to deflect the heat, I'll help with that.” [Squid] “And Woody... ah... good luck...”

“Wait! What the hell do you mean by that you bastard!” [Woody]

I give her a pitying look.

“I'm gonna kill you!” [Woody screams]

“As for me... I'm your mother fuckin' artillery!” I raise waterspouts around the volcano. Permafrost spears surround me and I release my cold aura, directed at the Hydra. “Sorry Charie... we aren't killing it completely.” I add to Charybdis.

“Awww...” [Charie a little disappointed]

“You can have the next one.” [Squid]

“Yay!” [Charie happy] “I get that bastard god!”

“Sure thing, babe.” [Squid]

“Hehe...” [Charie giggling]

“Now... lets rock and roll, bitches!” [Squid]

Walls of rock spring up.

“Hollow the barriers, I'll add water.” I add to Rocky.

The air demigod tests my first suggestion with curiosity... creating liquid nitrogen. He splashes several gallons of it at the molten rock and it solidifies, cracking from the sudden temperature shift.

“Avoid hitting any of us, except Charie and myself with the liquid nitrogen. It will kill.” [Squid] “It flash freezes things.” I explain.

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My rainwater reaches the wave of liquid rock just fine, cooling it to a snail's crawl. Unfortunately none of the water is reaching the Hydra.

Fireball man wades through the lava uninhibited by the surface... ice immunity works the same way...

Two hundred heads turn toward our swordsman.

“For the glory of the great soviet socialist republic!” [Bolshevik head #209]

Several dozen charge... biting at the demigod. The Bolshevik head stays back. Head after head is cut off, the sweeping blade seems heat immune too.

A head pulls back to avoid being cut off. “Not one head length back!” the Bolshevist cries, killing the coward. “Death to traitors!”

Oi! Aren't you the traitor?!

“Death to oppression!” I shout, sending a permafrost spear at the head. A second hydra head snatches it from the air, snapping it in powerful jaws.

Fine. You want to do it that way?

Permafrost Barrage activated~

“For the Emperor!” [Squid]

Five heads block the barrage but they fall quickly, exposing the Bolshevik leader. He is pierced in the eye and droops, uttering: “I die for... Communism.”

“You die because you're an evil sonovabitch!” I yell.

As I watch the Capitalists charge with their own patriotic cries...

“For the price of oil!” [Greedy Hydra #456]

“The hunt for WMD's!” [Paranoid Hydra #13]

Then the neutrals with their cries of...

“It doesn't involve us...” [Apathetic Hydra #683]

“I'm a conscientious objector.” [Moral Hydra #725]

My god... what makes a Hydra turn Neutral?! Is it lust for power? Women? Or a heart filled with Neutrality?

The air demigod swoops past, slinging sharp edged gales at the fire monster. They don't ignite...

“That stuff we breathe out is great for fire-fighting!” [Windy]

Ah. That explains that.

“Just don't breathe it yourself!” I advise. “Or use it in a small space!”

“What should I do?” [Woody]

“I don't know. Try to look less useless?” [Squid]

Ignoring her screeching I focus on the hydra... but the permafrost isn't strong enough to do much damage and I can't get the water close enough, without it evaporating. What to do... what to do...

Several dozen heads focus on me... sending a great gout of molten rock sailing at me...

Charie steps in the way and vacuums the mass before I even Have to react.

“No fair!” [Childish Hydra #56]

...

OH!

IDEA!

“Hey Flyboy! Can you create a bubble that stops the movement of gasses?” [Squid]

It's still sending magma waves at us and biting at the fire demigod...

Distracted.

“I'll do it. What do you have in mind?” [Windy]

“You'll see.” [Squid] “Hey Fire! When I say so, get back a bit, okay?”

He nods curtly.

I send a spray of permafrost spears overhead to give him cover as I order a retreat.

Then I direct all the water at my command to flow at the hydra.

The hiss of steam is very loud... the hydra seems amused... until it realizes the steam isn't decreasing or escaping the area... no it's building, trapped there.

Hundreds of heads scream as the water builds on their skin and in the air they breathe. I add to this, the amount of steam counts as liquid water to my power... I start to drown the bastards in superheated steam.

“Surrender!” [Squid]

“Yippie Kiyay...!” [Diehard Hydra # 648]

“Hail, Hydra!” I shout as I turn the condensed steam into ice. For the first time my normal ice reaches the creature... heads scream at the tiny impacts. The hydra isn't white hot any more... he isn't even orange. Dull red.

“I say again submit to my rule! I am your Emperor! Your King!” [Squid] “Submit or I will freeze you. When very hot things cool too quickly they get brittle and break...”

The hydra's body, a massive thing like a dinosaur shudders and then slowly kneels.

“We surrender... please be merciful our Majesty...” [All Hydras]

“That's right! Hail to the King baby!” [Squid]

Hey a notice popped up...

Due to your actions you have passed your tribulation and attained full god status. You have become: The God of Chaotic Liquid.~

Hail to the god?

What we learned:

The Hydra is a self contained world...

Woody was useless.

Squid is a full god!

What we didn't see:

A small squid and his kraken go adventuring...

But nothing is stupid enough to get in the way.

The final three pirates escape from the island they were marooned upon, on a raft of human bones and leather and a mast woven from human hair.

They land on an island owned by a cannibalistic tribe.