Gia slays the dragon

Gia Slays the Dragon

 

            Once upon a time on the island of Samos lived a princess named Gia.  Like many Greeks, Gia was very close to her family.  Not just to her mother and father but to her cousins as well.  Likewise her mother’s siblings instilled this closeness of extended family onto their children.  One of these was Gia’s uncle Thraso, who had two boys Kosta and Kash.  Growing up, Thraso had always believed in protecting his younger sister, Princess Gia’s mother.  This was a trait he wanted to pass down to his boys as well.  From the moment of Princess Gia’s birth, Thraso saw his opportunity and when Gia would be over the house, he would tell his boys that Princess Gia was their responsibility to protect.  As Princess Gia grew older, the message to Thraso’s boys was the same, they expressed this responsibility to their other cousins, who agreed with it.  In peaceful times, it was easy to take on this role; being older, they would easily be able to protect her against younger, weaker boys in her class.  Little did Kash and Kosta know how these responsibilities would be tested.

Due to her obvious protection, Princess Gia had never developed a large sense of fear.  She always felt the love of her family that protected her, which made her unafraid of anything from big slides, to big dogs to her head being under water as a baby to going out on her own when she got older.  Like many kids, she didn’t think anything bad would happen to her.  On one particular day, Princess Gia was playing near the palace, when a group of minions from the island of Rhodes captured her and brought her to their castle to be guarded by a dragon.  The king of Rhodes wanted to expand his kingdom to Samos but to do so without the bloodshed of a war.  He felt the only way to do this was to kidnap Princess Gia and use her as ransom.  He had always used his dragon castle to house prisoners though he never would go in himself.  Only his minions would enter the castle that the dragon lived in.  It was the most secure place to shield a prisoner because even if you escape the room, you would have to contend with the dragon.  It is here that the king kept Princess Gia guarded by the minions.  As soon as Princess Gia was secure, the King of Rhodes called Princess Gia’s family and informed them of his demands.  The royalty of Samos, Gia’s parents, uncles and aunts, knew they couldn’t leave the kingdom but also wanted to avoid war with Rhodes. 

While everyone talked about what to do, Kosta and Kash went to their cousins Alex and Zach’s palace and asked them to help them rescue Princess Gia.  Alex and Zach immediately agreed and they wrote a note to their parents, for they knew they wouldn’t approve because they would worry about them.   Together the four of them set out to Rhodes willing to meet any challenge that was presented to them.  The citizens of Rhodes knew which castle housed the dragon for they all feared it.  The four cousins arrived at the castle and found a moat.  They looked down into the water and saw alligators waiting for unsuspecting people to be thrown in.  They decided they would hide nearby and wait until someone entered the castle and the drawbridge was let down.

After a while, they found minions returning to the castle and the drawbridge being let down.  Kosta, who was an aggressive skateboard rider, leapt onto his skateboard armed with a shield and a sword and sped out toward the castle.  Without breaking his momentum he killed the minions and went over the drawbridge.  The other three rescuers ran for the bridge armed similarly to Kosta except without a skateboard.  They had planned this attack while waiting, Kosta’s job was to distract as many minions as possible allowing the other three to look for Princess Gia.  Like most plans, however, it didn’t go exactly as they thought it would.  To avenge the minions’ death, many minions chased Kosta on his skateboard but others pulled the levy to raise the drawbridge in order to stop any other attackers from entering the castle.  This trapped the four cousins inside and made failure no longer an option.  The minions did not know who these attackers were, thus would seek to kill them.  It was either rescue Princess Gia or die.  That, however, was not on their minds when they went in.  Kosta zig zagged around on his skateboard trying to not get caught by the minions that were chasing him.  He saw an opening in the castle and headed toward it.  What he didn’t know is that a minion had opened a door to the castle and left it open.  The attackers were getting closer now and Kosta was having trouble dodging the swords being thrown at him or swung toward his body.  He headed outside with a group of minions following him.  The minions had the advantage that they knew their castle better than Kosta and decided that rather than catch him, they would trap him by leading him to the moat so they could just push him in.  This is why they opened the door, they hoped that Kosta would take the bait and head outside toward the moat; and he was playing right into their hands.

Kosta sped toward the moat and saw out of the corner of his eye the minions surrounding him in order to stop him from going sideways.  As he neared the moat, the minions got excited that they would eliminate one of the threats.  This gave them renewed energy to run faster and harder toward Kosta.  Kosta didn’t seem to be slowing, instead, he sped up toward the moat.  As he approached the edge, he stepped on the back of his board and launched him with the board into the air and landed on the other side of the moat falling upon impact and panting while lying on the ground.  He heard screaming and doubted it was coming from inside the castle but he didn’t want to find out until he recovered from his death defying leap.

The minions proved to not be as aware of their surroundings as it appeared at first.  They focused so intently on trapping Kosta that they didn’t realize the possibility of Kosta not being there when they attacked.  They assumed they would slow down when Kosta did so they could better trap him.  Since Kosta never stopped, they ran toward the edge of the moat and when they tried to pull up and stop, they were shoved from behind by other minions trying to get to Kosta and most of them were sent into the moat and became food for the hungry alligators down below.

           

Meanwhile back at the castle, Kash, Zach and Alex were battling the minions not going after Kosta.  Kash and Zach stood back to back defending against any minions that approached them.  They were both highly trained in sword wielding and put these skills to use working together to kill the minions that attacked them.  Alex was less trained in swordsmanship.  She knew she would have to outmaneuver her attackers.  Since most of the minions saw Kash and Zach as the real threats, they focused on them and only a handful went after Alex.  They thought it would not be difficult to beat a girl and chased after her with bad intentions in mind.   Alex was a cheerleader and a good one at that.  This made her very quick and agile.  Most people look at cheerleading as what some girls are doing to distract people from the sports event and don’t give them credit for their athleticism.  As the minions stalked Alex, Alex faced them and smiled pointing her sword at them.  The attackers just smiled wider and slowly made their way toward her waiting for her to make the first move.  Alex jumped up doing a back flip followed by a front flip and lunged her sword into one minion, withdrew, and killed the other one that was still stunned by the athletic display.  This only drew more minions as four more came after her.  Alex ran toward them and jumped onto their shoulders and ran across them to the other side.  She anticipated them turning around and did a back flip only this time she put her arms out and her legs out not wanting to land this back flip.  Her legs smacked against two minions knocking them over.  She rolled over as the two remaining stabbed down hitting only rock.  Alex then somersaulted into their legs tripping them before getting up and running.  She hoped she would have enough stamina to do what she needed to do. 

Kosta had gotten up from his short rest. He knew that his job was far from over and he had to go back to the castle and help his cousins.  The couple of minions that had not gone into the moat went back to help inside no longer seeing Kosta as a threat.  Kosta peddled himself away from the moat only to turn back and try his leap again.  This time he was much less anxious since he had already done it so knew it was possible.  He leapt over the moat again and entered the castle ready to fight.  He immediately found Zach and Kash fending off minions and ran toward them taking out minions from behind.  The minions were being decimated now and they were few in number.  Kosta and Kash stood back to back while Zach ran off and leapt into the air.  Zach played football and knew how to execute a tackle.  He had noticed a minion head toward Alex from behind but Alex was too focused on a couple more minions.  As the minion jumped toward Alex wielding his sword, Zach jumped up, dove his shoulder into the minion and tackled him to the ground before killing him with his sword.  Alex froze from fear realizing that Zach just saved her life.  Zach immediately sprung to his feet and killed the other two minions before they could take advantage of Alex’s hesitation. 

With the amount of men they were losing, the minions were getting desperate.  A door opened in the castle and more minions came running in.  Zach ran back to Kosta and Kash to help.  Kash yelled, “block for me” Zach ran in front of Kash and put his arms up to hit the approaching minions so that Kash could keep going.  Kosta ran over to help Zach and Kash bent down while running and picked up a small rock.  He saw the door closing and threw the rock toward the door so that it wouldn’t be able to close.  Unlike Kash’s idol, Lebron James, Kash didn’t choke under the pressure and nailed the high pressure shot.  The door clanged against the rock.  Kash went to the door and stuck his sword in it stopping the minion who tried closing the door from moving the rock.  He then squeezed his way in and pushed the door open in case others wanted to enter.  When he went inside, he came face to face with the dragon, which was sleeping.  Kash wanted no part in battling the dragon, he tiptoed toward a door on the opposite side.  He didn’t know this at first, but through the door was where Princess Gia was being kept. 

The room with the dragon was a lot more dangerous than the other room.  Although there was a roundabout path to the door, the middle was merely platforms on top of hot lava that the dragon craved.  Kash found the key to the door hanging to the side of it.  He took the key and unlocked it and entered coming face to face with Princess Gia sleeping in a bed.  He woke Princess Gia up and told her to be quiet but then something happened that made them freeze with fear. 

What Kash didn’t realize was attached to the door was a string leading to a rock above the dragon’s head.  If the door were opened, the rock fell waking up the dragon.  The dragon awoke from its slumber and roared as fire shot from his mouth, for it was angry. 

Kash was scared but he had to get Gia out of there.  He grabbed her and approached the door cautiously anticipating going out to face the dragon.  He told Princess Gia that when they got out they would run as fast as they could to the other door.  She agreed and Kash opened the door and ran out screaming trying to divert the dragon’s attention to him.  He had given his sword to Princess Gia so he had a free arm to hold on to her.  This he only did so he would know she was still with him when he ran.  While running, Princess Gia tripped and fell down.  The dragon breathed in and breathed fire toward Princess Gia but Kash dove in front of her and held out his shield absorbing the fire.  Kash ducked under his shield and pressed as hard as he could but the force of the fire was strong.  Princess Gia saw a statue with a soldier holding a spear nearby.  She walked to it and grabbed the spear.  The dragon had decided to go after Kash first and didn’t see Gia with the spear.  Princess Gia turned toward the dragon and threw the spear stabbing it in the eye.  She then ran back behind Kash because the Dragon wailed around spraying fire everywhere.  The dragon dove once again for them and Gia felt it coming so turned around and swung the sword cutting the throat of the dragon.  The dragon pulled its head up only to slam back down to the ground slain. 

Kash and Gia went outside to see the others resting from their battle.  They heard the roar of the dragon and decided to catch their breath before doing battle against it.  When they saw Kash and Princess Gia they all ran in and gave them hugs.  Alex, Zach and Kosta thought for sure that Kash didn’t make it past the dragon and they had no idea where Princess Gia was.  They lowered the drawbridge and exited the castle and returned back to Samos victorious.  Although their mothers scolded them for running off to Rhodes to fight the dragon, their fathers praised them in private.  All five of them continued to tell their story to all who would listen. 

The king of Rhodes having lost his dragon, no longer could keep his subjects from rising up against him.  His own people ended up overthrowing him and a new leader was crowned.  The royal family of Samos’ legend just grew with the tale of their future leaders.  They had gained the respect from their subjects and ruled fairly and triumphantly as everyone lived happily ever after.