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| “ | Immediately Cerberus sprang at her with his three heads and gave three barks together.
— Metamorphoses by Ovid
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Cerberus is a monster from Greek mythology that is typically depicted as a three-headed dog with snakes protruding from its body and a serpent for a tail. Despite being a monster and a son of the monsters Typhon and Echidna, Cerberus is not inherently evil, acting as a guardian of the gates of the Underworld and a loyal companion to the god Hades.
Cerberus' only known surviving appearance is in the myth of Hercules, acting as the subject of his twelfth and final labour. On the orders of his nephew King Eurystheus, Hercules was to bring Cerberus before him. In most traditions, Hercules had to obtain Hades’ blessing to borrow his faithful hound, who granted it under the condition that he subdued him without his equipment. In others, Persephone, Hades' wife and Hercules' half-sister, simply handed Cerberus over to him.
Regardless, Hercules carried Cerberus to the world above. According to multiple traditions, Cerberus vomited bile upon seeing sunlight for the first time, from which the poisonous aconite plant grew. Hercules was praised for his achievement, and after he presented Cerberus to Eurystheus, the hound was allowed to return to the Underworld.
Battle vs. Chimera, Nemean Lion, and Sphinx (Greek Mythology) (by Appelmonkey)[]
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Expert's Opinion[]
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To see the original battle, weapons, and votes, click here.Battles here were deemed to be unfair or otherwise not in accordance with wiki standards, and have been removed from the statuses of the warriors and displayed below.
Battle vs. Samson (by GSFB)[]
At the gate to the underworld, past errie pale green mists and the mouth of the river styx, sleeps Cerberus the three headed. The hound, the size of grizzly bear, with mastiff heads and tiny writhing gray snakes for hair, dreams about a nice, fat juicy soul, licking its three lips, when it woke with a bark. The animal sensed something near, something...alive.
It was a mortal man, he could tell by the scent, a big man carrying the jaw of a donkey, an animal whose taste he didn't care much for, either the flesh or the spirit. The man made heavy footsteps, which echoed across the cavern. The dog had heard similar footsteps before; the other time he hard heard such noises, such powerful footfalls, was when Hercules entered the underworld, to capture, him. But this was not Hercules; He had been dead for centuries now, and the man did not smell the same. The hound also noted that there was not lion skin smell, or that of any armor of the above; this man's flesh was exposed, vulnerable. Cerberus licked his lips again.
After two minutes, the man emerged from a tunnel. Cerberus squinted, rearing up at times to get a better glimpse. The man was poorly dressed, like a man of the deserts, but he was heavily built, with dark skin and seven great locks of hair that reached down to his legs. The man was stern of face, and Cerberus sensed anger, a rage that he had also sensed with Hercules.
When the man took three steps fowards, Cerberus barked. The man, not seeing the hound yet, jumped back, raising a bronze Canaanite Sickle-sword. The hound continued barking, yet the warrior started to approach again. As he took his fifth step, the huge man spotted the hound, and freaked. The animal howled, trying to warn the man off. Yet the hulk walked closer again. He pulld out a rock, put it into a ragged sling, and twirled it. Cerberus growled. He was about to leap when the rock was thrown, smashing into one of his eyes. The beast shook its heads, not hurt but startled by the rock and the debris that followed it. Sneeing, the hound ran towards the man.
"Yes, come to Samson!" The warrior said. The hound barked in response.
Samson drew his sword and threw it at the hound, but it bent when it struck one of its noses, failing to break the skin. Then he drew his jawbone. As the dog collided with the strongman, he brought the jawbone down on one of the dog's heads. Once again, no wound, and the bone shattered into countless pieces.
The combatants rolled over and over on the ground. Cerberus got on top of him ad raised its snake tail, preparing to strike. Samson caught the tail with one hand and bashed it with his other, knocking it unconscious. As the dog's heads bite down repeatedly, the snakes on its body bit as well, but the strongman managed to keep the dogs heads from biting him, and he threw the hound off.
Landing thirty feet away, Cerberus stood, shaking its three canine heads. Turning to face his opponent, he suddenly finds himself tackled, once again on the cave floor. The strongman swats the hounds paws away, delivering several cracking blows to the beast's head. Cerberus clawed at his gut with his hind legs, his snake hairs biting constantly. Samson grabbed the beast, whirled him around, and threw him two hundred feet away. The hound smashed right through several cave walls before falling down near the river styx.
Samson looked at his hands, seeing numerous tiny snake bites. He felt almost dizzy, shaking his head. He realized that he couln't keep getting close to the monster to kill it; he had to hit it from a distance. As he looked for a good boulder, he heard the dog snarl and head towards him.
Cerberus was frothing at the mouth now. Aconite plants formed wherever his spittle landed. But as he drew to thirty feet from the hero, he suddenly found his faces full of broken rock, courtesy of an incoming boulder. Cerberus was knocked off his feet, crashing into another thick cave wall. As he shook his heads and tried to rise, another boulder crashed down on him. Desperately, the hound looked around, wide eyed, trying to find a means of escape, but Samson kept ripping huge chunks of stone from the underworld ground and throwing them at him. Looking at his opponent, seeing how he roared with battle fury as he continued to rip rock from the earth and throw them, Cerberus decided to charge at the enemy, feeling that he would rather die in a final lunge than being curled up on the cave floor. The beast busted through three huge boulder, larger than the others and traveling four times as fast, before the hero brought down both hands clasped together onto the dog's center head. The beast made a huge crater of rubble and pebbles as he struck the ground, so terrible was the blow. Cerberus was almost unconscious as the strongman examined him. Turning, he saw a huge column of rock, reaching from the roof to the floor of the cavern, and decided to use it as the finishing weapon. Grabbing the column with both arms, Samson broke the column from the cave, yelling with joy. He ran over to the dog and was about to club him when he felt the ground vibrate. Looking up, he saw and then heard the roof begin to crack. The walls were breaking apart. He had guessed wrong about the cave's integrity. It was going to collapse!
Samson was about to turn and flee when a huge boulder fell down onto his head. Others followed. The whole ave was about to fall under its own weight. Adrenaline flowing through his veins, due to a sudden panic, Cerberus got up and ran towards the gate. As the cave collapsed, falling down on Samson, the guardog of the underworld leaped onto the gate, knocking it down with a heavy underground thunder.
....
Half an hour later, Cerberus sniffs at the rubble, trying to find the body of the superstrong warrior. He wanted to bore his way through the rubble, but he didn't want to get caught in another cave in.Yet just when he wa going to give up, he smelt the strongman again, and his scent was not coming from the rubble.
Turning, he saw a blue and black ghost, a shade, a phantom of the formerly living, walking a nearby tunnel. The ghost looked around, confused. When it saw the hound, he shook.
You are dead, Cerberus thought.
Your strength is gone, for you are now spirit, and I devour the souls of the foolish...!
Cerberus charged. The hero, still not realizing he was dead, ran towards the approaching hound, his hand sready to recieve him. In a few seconds they collided. Samson's hands grabbed onto two of the brute's three heads, but quickly lost his grip as Cerberus bit down on his soul, rendering the spirit into three ghostly mouthfulls. Swallowing the spirit in three parts, with three canine heads, Cerberus barked with joy, his snake tail wagging happily.
Suddenly, every mouth of the dog, from his dog heads and snake tail to the numerous snakes that made up his own hairs, opened their mouths, letting loose a noxious, grotesque burp. Then, to the chagrin of the tail snake, a fart was unleashed.
WINNER: CERBERUS!
Expert's Opinion[]
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To see the original battle, weapons, and votes, click here.