Published May 13, 2015
Jaz's POV
I had to admit, Hades was good at being an evil madman.
Time after time I glanced at the door, waiting for Sadie and Will and Kronos to come crashing in, fight Hades, save me, and run away.
I've watched too many heroic movies, I thought.
I screamed as the images continued. They were vivid, so real I could literally smell blood. Despite that, I was learning to control my thoughts and now, most of the scream was a fake just to make Hades think he was influencing me that badly.
But one day, everything went wrong. I kept on screaming, and the images kept playing, until Hades suddenly stopped his cackling and switched off the images. He cocked his head and glared at me, his cold eyes glittering like obsidian. Hades growled. "I sense you do not feel fear anymore, Jasmine. Why?"
I desperately hoped he wouldn't find out my secret. I pretended to collasp and gasp for breath. "I...don't know what you're-what you're talking about, Hades. Are you really smart enough to tell the difference?"
"One of my abilities is to sense fear, demigod. And right now, I do not sense it. So the images are not affecting you anymore, are they, Jasmine?"
I hoisted myself up and glared at his evil black form. "I hate to say this, but you're right. You're powerless now, Death Breath."
Hades smiled like he was pleased with the nickname I had given to him, then spread his arms. "Well, if you're so sure, let's see if you can withstand my pets."
He clapped twice and two cages were thrown onto the ground. But before he could clap again, the doors creaked. I turned and so did Hades, and what I saw almost wasn't worthy of my eyes. Will, Sadie, and Kronos stood there in all their glory. Sadie spoke first. "Not today, you old sot."
She drew her sword, and so did Will. Kronos produced his scythe and Hades a two-pronged fork. "Shall we begin?" Kronos said pleasantly then without warning, lunged at Hades. The lord of the Underworld just managed to block the blade and clapped leisurely. The cages swung open to reveal two extra large, extra furry hellhounds with extra sharp teeth and fangs. This wasn't going to be very pretty.
I managed to draw my own sword and stand up, staggering over to Sadie's side to attempt to help. I ducked it's flailing law and slashed at it. Sadie had turned to look at Will's condition, meanwhile, and I just had time to scream, "Watch out!"
I thanked ADHD five thousand times. The hellhound's foot-long teeth snapped down at where my friend's head had been. I used its surprise at not getting Sadie as my advantage--I cut its head off. I glanced at Will, who had frozen his beast except for the head, which he chopped off. I ate some ambrosia squares which cured a little bit of my shakiness and the cuts and gashes the hellhound had landed on me with his claws.
My friends did the same and then we checked up on Kronos. The battle was intense. Kronos lunged at all of Hades' weak spots with his scythe, but the god was just quick enough to dodge them. Time after time blades made contact with flesh, but Hades never seemed to get tired and neither did Kronos. Black lightning flashed. Time slowed down. Once Hades almost incinerated Kronos' weapon. Finally, Hades roared and a wall of black flames erupted around him. "I'll see you again, Jasmine," Hades snarled. And with that, he disappeared in a blazing swirl of fire.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
137,484 Literary Works • 672,034 Reviews
Quick review. I'll tell you already that I haven't read your other chapters.
I don't think you should describe Hades's cuts as "nicks." If they're deeper, use words like wounds or gashes.
Hades's dialogue is a little choppy in two places. "Well, if you're so sure, let's see if you can withstand my pets" and "I'll keep the girl alive, but only because I'll kill her someday!"
The first one is worded a bit wrong. In the sentence before it, Jaz states that Hades is now powerless with his projector. But Hades retorts with "Well, if you're so sure..." But Jaz never said that Hades was completely powerless, just powerless with his projector, so it doesn't make sense if he doesn't use it again.
Second sentence. If you say, "but only because I'll kill her someday!" it sounds a bit unnecessary. Usually, when your nemesis lets you go, it's because he still plans to kill you. Try to spice up Hades's parting words. It's really up to you, through.
Why are you not describing the fight between Kronos and Hades? It's freaking Kronos and Hades! No doubt it's bound to be epic.
Grammar nitpicks:
"Shall we beigin?" Self-explanatory: begin.
"Lord of the Underwold" Underworld.
"foot long tooth" foot-long.
Overall, this chapter needs to be longer. There's a lot of potential here, and it's all up to you how to cultivate that. This review was mostly opinion, anyway. Cheers.
-Chaser
Thanks for the review! I do have to admit...my writing sucks.
Well, I just read all of your story, took about thirty minutes. So this will sort of the a review on the overall story and this chapter.
Your story moves at breakneck speeds. It's called "Going Through Time" But the passing of time itself is rarely shown. There are no descriptions of the backgrounds, just vague suggestions of scenes from the books. There is no chapter eight for some odd reason. The characters do not grow. It seems Jaz is the typical hero with slightly dimwitted colueages though they are older than her. Her father is strange and awkward but seems to morph both his emotions and character to fit the situation. There are no steady personalities and things are inconsistent. Jaz meets Hades but acts as if it were her first time meeting him in chapter eighteen though they have met before.
I mentioned the lack of room for character growth before. To expand on that idea, Kronos mentions some of Jaz's flaws and she immediately responds and fixes them. Nothing seemed to motivate her other than the authors idea of a perfect hero. Sadie is almost more interesting than Jaz because of how she starts to become braver in order to be like her friend. It's cool that the girls have such a deep friendship but they need to stay separate characters. Just because Jaz wasn't there to kill all of the bad guys doesn't mean that Sadie needs to do so. The story hints that Sadie is intelligent yet easily traumatized into stupidity. With this information one may suppose Sadie must become braver to put her plans (that she doesn't know that she has) into action not turn herself into a mini Jaz and kill all of the monsters.
Speed and passage of time seems to be a struggle in this work. It's fast but too fast. There isn't enough description for the reader to build a picture in their head and live in the story. The time changes are strange and spastic. Things happen that the reader doesn't pick up on until way late because of the lack of information passed through the text. Using phrases such as "after a while" or "a few seconds later" May help the reader pick up on these changes.
To solve the personality problem I would suggest making a list of your cast of characters. Elaborate on their traits. Are they strong, hardworking, goofy, smart, intuitive? Add what they do and don't like and what they are loyal to if anything. There is so much you can do with these descriptions from emotional to physical traits. Once your done, you could use these defining features as a base. When a character is making a decision, become empathetic to their mindset by using your imagination to give yourself or others these qualities. This can help make characters unique, steady, and (if you include flaws) have room to learn and grow.
I would also propose scanning other chapters to make sure you're not repeating yourself.
I consider this work to be in the very early stages of development. The rough draft of the rough draft perhaps. I also realize that you are a very young writer which will give you plenty of time to revise this story.
This chapter:
First words possibly emboldened to keep consistency.
"heroic movies" I'd suggest action movies.
"Despite that, I was learning to control my thoughts and now,... "
Run on sentence. Period before "and" then capitalize "now".
"I ducked it's flailing law... "
'I dodged it's flailing maw...'
Perhaps revise the word flailing.
There are a couple of other things I'm sure others will knit pick out eventually, if not I'll leave another review.
Thank you for reading this. You don't have to take all or any of my advice, it's up to you.
~Shade