Non-Canon Omake: The Little Spider, Part 3

Arachne was in a good mood.

She discovered something interesting. Her father told her about the ‘Mists’ and other nonsense around here, but she only half listened.

She discovered that she could use the Mists to change how people perceive her clothing!

Originally, she either had to choose to change into ‘normal’ clothing, or use her own Magic to hide her appearance. Both of which annoyed her in some small measure. But the Mists, they did it automatically after ‘activating’ the effect and she didn’t need to keep a spell continuously cast!

She hated not wearing her combat attire, so this was a most welcome discovery and she was very happy after discovering this.

Not to mention she could even walk around with her spear in hand if she desired. Though, her Mom taught her to handle her weapon properly and not just show it off for no reason. Thus, she still stored away her favorite spear – her Gae Bolg copy, even if she didn’t want to.

If she remembered right, she should be around the school her Da went to….and the ‘camp’ or whatever it was supposed to be was a couple hundred miles southwest…

She just needed to figure out a way to get there quickly. The thought of riding a bus for around four hours, maybe five did not sound too thrilling.

Before she could decide on what to do, there was a vibration through the ground, almost like an earthquake.

For the normal people around her, it must have felt like such, but she could see the Mists swirl around and hide what was truly happening.

Was that a Frost Giant?

She fought a few before! And it was a dead ringer for one of them, a bit on the smaller side, but each of its steps shook the ground, a good 15 feet tall!

It was walking towards the river.

Her first instinct was to throw her spear at it and fight it to the death!

But she was curious about what it was doing, so she followed it silently.

It continued to walk towards the large river running through the city as she followed, fewer and fewer humans were around, which indicated that something was happening.

That was when she saw it, there were many monsters all gathered around the edges and within the waters as if they were trying to catch something.

Very quickly, as if a blur, something would shoot out of the water, narrowly avoiding capture, creating splashes of water.

Arachne could see it clearly though, a beautiful large fish with glistening blue scales. The only oddity was that it had the head of a cow, but to her, she just found it more appealing!

I want it.

That was her only thought that pushed her feet forward.

“It escaped again!” A monster she didn’t recognize hissed out.

“It’s too fast in the water.”

“Where are the nets?”

“If we don’t hurry, we’re gonna get the attention of something bad and we won’t get any profit!”

“What’s going on?” Arachne casually walked up.

Perhaps due to her casual demeanor and rather arrogant way she ignored everything going on, the monster she spoke to barely spared her a second glance. “Don’t’ think about getting involved!” It hissed under its breath. “We’re the ones who found it first, aint no one taking it from us.”

“Just here to watch the show.” Arachne hummed.

The Monster pursed its lips, perhaps annoyed that it was on the proverbial sidelines. “A few of us found the Ophiotaurus, the legendary Bane of Olympus!” It sounded excited. “After we capture it, we can ask for almost anything from Olympus as a reward!”

She felt that was a dumb name.

Though the Monster said that, the fish, every single time, ‘narrowly’ escaped from capture.

That was until two sides of the river froze solid and large ice walls rose up.

The Frost Giant from before made its move.

“Wait, you’re not – “

Arachne wasted no time stabbing the monster through the heart before it could utter anymore words.

Her Power of Destruction ignited in her hand. It wasn’t ‘mutated’ like her Fathers a she took after her Aunt Grandmother in this regard.

It raged in her hand and she grabbed the head of another Monster as it turned around to look at her, swiftly destroying it in one go.

The others became alerted and immediately, a sharp and spiked tail swept at Arachne.

Arachne, stabbed her spear into the ground and used it to push up, vaulting over it and slamming her foot downwards on the owner’s head, knocking it to the ground.

Some sort of lizard alligator creature she didn’t recognize.

Her head tilted to the side as an arrow-like feather passed by. With a screech, a bird-woman – most likely a harpy – took to the sky and razor-sharp feathers rained down.

Arachne however just smiled viciously, and her spear swung at increasingly impressive speeds, blocking and deflecting each one.

With a lull between the barrage, Arachne, jumped backwards to fix her stance, her feet pushing into the ground as she pulled her arm back and threw her spear.

The Harpy in the air barely had time to screech again before the spear pierced through her. To others, it would have only looked like a red beam of light that shot right through the monster.

“Throwing away your weapon, foolish!” A roar bellowed out as a shadow was cast overhead. A large, icy hand came downwards. “Demigod!”

Arachne perhaps got too caught up in the thrill that she allowed something like the Jotun get this close to her.

However, under the massive hand that threatened to squash her, she smirked.

Her index finger twitched downwards.

Barely noticeably as the sun shined on it, an extremely thin thread was revealed, swaying in the wind before her movement caused it to become taunt as it extended from her finger.

Before the large hand could slam down on her, the Jotun let out a pained cry and his body was knocked down by a familiar ‘red light’ as her spear returned, impaled on his side.

Ever so slightly, if you paid close attention, you could see that extremely thin thread connected to the base of the spear.

Arachne then leaned back, cartwheeling backward to avoid claws swiping at her. Years of practicing elegant and dexterous movements allowed her to easily avoid such obvious attack patterns.

She jerked her hand and the thread connecting to her spear caused it to dislodge from the Jotun and return to her, but rather than catching it, she kicked it, sending it impaling through the head of a cat-like monster that had just tried to gouge her stomach.

The ground shook, and the sunlight vanished again as this time the Jotun’s large fist was clenched, barreling down upon her.

Arachne, with grace and skill lightly tapped the side of its hand, pushing herself out of its way and gathered her Power of Destruction at the tip of two fingers.

Dodging the attack , she jabbed the two fingers forward and a condensed beam of destruction opened a hole cleanly through its head.

The Jotun dropped to the ground like a puppet having its strings cut before turning to dust like many other monsters in the area.

There were about a dozen more monsters left and they were all acutely aware of her now and preparing to attack.

However, after the Jotun died, Arachne lost her motivation to fight as they were just small fry.

Without even turning around, she waved her hand and dozens of shadows shot out. Within the blink of an eye, the remaining monsters were skewered by spears, each of which was one of her treasures that she collected just like her father.

Holy, Demonic, Magic, Divine, all manner of legendary spears sunk into the ground as the bodies they impaled turned to dust.

With a gesture, they all flew back to her and she returned them to storage, peace returned to the area.

She did briefly question why a Jotun was participating in something that involved Greek Monsters – or whatever was happening, but she settled on not caring for the reason and tossing the thoughts away.

All monsters were dead, bar one.

A cow head popped out of the water.

“Mooo~”

Arachne smiled lightly, squatting down at the edge of the river. “Hello.”

“Moo.” The strange fish cow greeted her back, jumping into the air very high, far higher than the walls of ice had been.

“Ah.” Arachne came to a realization. “You were playing. I apologize for interrupting your fun. I believed you to be in peril and wished to assist.”

The fish made another strange cow noise like it was confused. The monster was by no means unintelligent, perhaps naive, whimsical and innocent, but it had clear intelligence.

It stared at her because it was the first time anyone had ‘protected’ it. In its long life, it’s only ever been chased after as people tried to use it.

“Cute.” Arachne muttered, looking at the cow fish.

The Fish head butt her playfully.

“My Da has a pet partner. Would you like to be my pet?” Arachne was never one to beat around the bush. If she wanted something, she was direct about it.

The fish blinked. “Moo.”

There was a beat as Arachne registered what seemed like an agreement form the fish. She had a beat of her stoic demeanor crumbling before she grabbed the fish from the water in a big hug, startling the fish at the speeds in which she moved, and the strength in which she squeezed it.

“A will call ya Mr. Blueberry and a will love ya forever.” She squealed happily.

“Moooo~” The now named Mr. Blueberry didn’t know what was going on, but it was happy.

“What can you do?” She asked her newest partner.

“Moo.” It wiggled around and escaped her grasp before jumping back in the water and jumped in and out. “Moooo~”

She realized that her pet can only do cute things and had no combat ability.

“That’s okay, A love you anyways.” She grabbed him back into a hug as he swam back up to the edge of the water.

It didn’t matter to her, she fell in love with Mr. Blueberry the moment she saw him and didn’t mind if he couldn’t fight.

“I finally found you!” The words were followed by deep and tired breaths.

Arachne turned around to see the satyr from earlier heaving in exhaustion with a big lump on its head.

“You –“ It paused. “Is that the Ophiotarus!?”

“His name is Mr. Blueberry.” Arachne corrected.

“Mooo~”

It was insulting, it was like calling him Satyr.

Said satyr stood there, mouth open.

“Oh my gods.” The Satyr breathed in and out. “The Ophiotaurus! This is huge, if we bring it back…my punishment.”

“His name is Mr. Blueberry.” Arachne punctuated with her spear against the Satyr’s throat.

The satyr swallowed hard as sweat dripped down his brow. “…..Mr. Blueberry.”

“Hmph.” She withdrew her spear. “Why are you following me?”

“You…..” He hesitated because he had been beaten up already and he found he was rather intimated by the….probably rather young girl if he could guess her age to be in her early teens. “Are you Annabelle Schweinorg?”

“No, my name is Arachne.” She denied.

The Satyr choked as soon as he heard that name.

Did she want to be cursed!?

Who would name their child that!

“But you appeared in the house of Wilhelm Schweinorg!”

“That’s my Da. He gave me the house. It’s my house. That you were in without permission.” She gave him a slight beating earlier, but that didn’t mean she forgave him. “Why were you in my house.” Her spear raised up again.

“Wait!” The Satyr raised his arms up defensively. “I can explain, please don’t hit me with your spear again.”

“Explain from the beginning.”

The Satyr swallowed against as her spear didn’t lower. “I was told to come collect Annabelle Schweinorg to bring her to camp Half-Blood. I couldn’t find her anywhere and Goddess – “ he stopped. “Her Parent said that if I couldn’t find her, then I shouldn’t come back……no one’s been able to find her for three years. Since I had no leads…..that was the only place I knew about so I….bummed in the house for awhile.”

Arachne pondered what he said.

If he were telling the truth, then technically, he was trying to ‘help’ her.

It didn’t sit well with her to harm him if he was being nothing but helpful and nice.

“I’ll make it to the camp on my own, your mission is over.” She nodded to herself.

“Wait, so you are Annabelle Schweinorg?” He asked for clarification.

“Mah name is Arachne.” She said stubbornly.

The Satyr looked at her with mouth open again because he knew who her mother was. Of course, Satyrs weren’t supposed to reveal godly parentage even if it wasn’t a secret. The less they get involved in Godly matters, the longer their lives tend to be. And it’s often the whim of a God if they wanted their kids to know or not, so best leave it up in the air.

Especially the gray eyes were a dead give away.

That just made it all the more absurd that her name was Arachne.

The Satyr wisely decided not to say anything. Between a young demigod that could beat him up rather easily and a Goddess that could smite him, he chose to keep his mouth shut.

Otherwise, his eyes looked towards the legendary Ophiotaurus.

It was called the Bane of Olympus.

Legend had it that if you killed it and burned its entrails, you could even bring down the Gods.

Who wouldn’t be greedy for something like that?

Not to mention there was a standing bounty on the thing from thousands of years ago that was never rescinded.

The Satyr licked his lips.

“Why don’t you let me take care of your…..friend.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t think Camp Half-Blood lets fish inside. Besides, he can’t stay away from the water, right?” He smiled putting on his most charming smile. She was a young girl, he was decades old, he felt like he could easily trick her. “Just let me take care of the Ophiotaurus for you.”

Arachne frowned. “His name is Mr. Blueberry.”

The Satyr barely registered what she said before his eyes rolled back, her spear smacking upside the head once again.

“Mooo.” Mr. Blueberry just bobbed his head happily.

Arachne was upset because he did bring up a point. He was a fish, fishes needed to stay in the water.

As if divining her thoughts, Mr. Blueberry swam out of the water, a thin almost membrane-like water layer clung tightly to him, and he continued to make little cow noises as he swam or rather flew around Arachne.

Despite Mr. Blueberry being significantly larger than her, she still grabbed him and held him up again with a big smile.

“Its okay, a will protect you.” She cooed. She wasn’t stupid, she knew that Mr. Blueberry was apparently very famous even if she didn’t know the specifics. But she didn’t care about that, he was Mr. Blueberry and she wouldn’t let anyone harm her pet.

She would kill anyone that tried.

“Let’s get going. I need to figure out how to get to this camp though.” She looked at him. “You wouldn’t happen to know the way?”

“Mooo!” Mr. Blueberry seemed to nod.

Arachne smiled and swung one leg over her new pet, sitting on its back. “Let’s go, Mr. Blueberry!”

@***@

A/N

Arachne captures a wild Ophiotaurus and heads towards Camp Half-blood