Growing Pains

Some time later Donna and I had patched and cleaned ourselves up the best we could and shuffled over to the door leading past the Minotaur’s arena.

It wasn’t any different than the other doors we went through after beating one of the monsters so far, but this time felt different because we actually had some lasting injuries from our last fight. Yeah, there had been some close calls and we got beaten up. But my arm was still messed up and Donna couldn’t stand on one foot. And considering if we had to fight another monster it would be tougher than the Minotaur…

Well, we basically agreed to just see what was beyond the door and back off if it looked like another fight was waiting. Part of me didn’t like it, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that we could handle another fight without healing up a bit.

Not that we needed to worry.

The two of us pushed open the doors to find a brightly lit room that reminded me of the temples on Themyscira. No labyrinth or monster waiting for us.

“Is this a special area like the rest one?” I asked Donna.

“I have no idea. I’ve never seen something like this down here before.”

So this was new? That was kinda exciting.

“Let’s check it out then!”

“Wait - Califa!”

I obviously didn’t wait and happily wandered into the room. It was pretty empty though. Just a bunch of pillars and a depression in the middle with some kind of altar. With nothing better to do, I wandered right up to it and looked around. Nothing popped out though.

“Well that’s lame.” I was hoping there would at least be some cool treasure or something. Oh, well, couldn’t win them all I guess.

I gave the altar a small pat and turned to look around the edges of the room. Maybe Donna could figure something out while I –

I paused as the altar lit up with a bright light.

That was unexpected!

I jumped back to where Donna was watching from and did my best to block out the glare, paying special attention to my Ki sense just in case this was something trying to be sneaky. My Amazon buddy did the same, flying just off the ground and shifting so most of her injuries were hidden behind me or another part of her body.

The light eventually died off and no attack came for us, so I tentatively lowered my hand to look back towards the altar.

Nothing about the slab of rock had changed but now there was a woman with purple hair and a green dress hovering over it. Menaci–

No, actually she was looking pretty distracted. Not paying any attention to either of us or the surroundings.

“Is that Aunt Circe?” Donna asked in surprise, but all I could do was shrug. I mean I kinda recognised the name but how was I supposed to know who was her aunt or not.

“Maybe? Does she show up here a lot?”

“...no, no one besides Diana ever… I just guessed based on her outfit and what Diana’s told me.”

Ouch, that was kinda sad. And she said this was her aunt? Well I guess my own family wasn’t much better…

“W-well, let’s go say hi. Maybe she can tell us how to get out of here.” I did my best to not make Donna feel any more awkward than she probably already did and headed towards the floating woman. Hopefully –

“Greetings and congratulations Diana! You have–” The woman - Circe - boomed suddenly, only to completely stop when I jerked backwards and go back to looking completely distracted.

I looked to the floor.

…I wonder.

I took a step forward.

“Greetings and congratulations Diana!”

I took a step back.

“...”

Forward.

“Greetings and congrat-”

Back.

“...”

“Greetings and -”

“...”

“Gree-”

“...”

“Gree-”

“Gree-”

“Gree-”

“...heh.”

“Will you stop that?” Donna scolded me with a solid slap to the back of my head. “I want to hear what she says.”

“Fine!” I grumbled and rubbed the sore spot mulishly. Ruin my fun, why don’t you?

“Greetings and congratulations Diana!” Circe started again, staring directly at me. “You have managed to complete your training and now qualify as an Amazon Warrior in full standing.” There was a small pause and Circe’s tone sounded a lot more worried. “I’d like to say there was a party being organized in your honor, but something has triggered my protections and I can not guarantee you will be safe after leaving the mirror. The best I can do is reverse the time difference between here and the outside world. Instead of time moving slower here you will have roughly a month before you are ejected regardless of if it is safe or not. If we cannot deal with the issue and retrieve you normally, then I am sorry. You may be required to defend yourself immediately after you exit. Use this time to grow stronger.”

So something messed with the mirror? That didn’t sound good. But wait…

“What about Donna?” Circe hadn’t mentioned anything about her coming with me. Or even that she was here at all.

If Circe heard me she didn’t bother to show it. Right, magical recording. Instead there was another little pause before she started speaking again in a normal tone. “Now that you’ve completed your training you have a choice to make about your reward, a small spark of Divinity. You can have a minor weapon forged by Hephaestus or you can imbue something inside the – not what I would have picked, but that is your choice.

“Now you don’t actually have to leave the mirror just yet. There are more challenges waiting for you, but they are much more difficult than anything you have faced so far. Things like the Sphinx and Manticore wait below along with even more powerful monsters.”

Wait, Manticore? But we already fought that…

I don’t remember seeing a Sphinx either.

“Good luck, and I can’t wait to spoil you for completing your trials! Your mother will be so jealous I was the first one to congratulate you!” Circe gave one last wave before vanishing in the same flash of light she appeared in.

Holy shit, did we sequence break the dungeon? That must have been when I blasted through the floors to speed things up. But why did the recording skip over asking what we wanted to do with the spark? It was like…oh. Oh, no.

I turned to look at Donna who had gone completely pale at Circe’s message.

“...Am I…not real?” She asked in a small voice.

We didn’t have a choice in what to do with the spark because it had already been used on something.

Or rather…someone.

-o-

“I mean is it really that big a deal?” I asked for the millionth time, fists curled under my chin as I watched Donna pace back and forth for the third day in a row.

It was really getting old.

“Yes it’s a big deal! I just found out I’m not a real person! That’s why I kept going into the monster den after Diana stopped coming. It was the last thing I was ordered to do and then to top it all off I ended up stealing a piece of Divinity! This literally could not be a bigger deal!”

“I mean no one else was going to use it. And even if you weren’t a real person before, you are now. So does it really matter?” I muttered again, completing our new daily ritu- no, you know what? We weren’t doing this anymore.

“Okay, time for moping is over.” I declared, getting up to grab Donna by the hand and start dragging her towards the forest. I wouldn’t tell my Amazonian buddy, but it really was nice not being stuck underground all day. “Training time starts now.”

“Training?! Califa, I’m having a literal existential crisis, I don’t care about training right now!”

“Nope! None of that.” I snapped back. “Remember what Circe said? Something was messing with the outside of the mirror. We’ve got less than a month to make sure we are ready to deal with whatever it is. You can continue your breakdown after we get out of this, kick whatever is waiting for us’s butt, and I’ve gotten you to try a Big Belly Burger.”

Donna glared at me but allowed herself to be pulled along anyway.

Good.

We were going to need all the time we could get to both heal our injuries and get stronger.

And if we were too tired from training we couldn’t worry about stupid questions like ‘am I a real person?’ or ‘do I deserve to be alive?’. We had better things to do.

Like figure out techniques that still didn’t work right!

-o-

Three weeks later it seemed like my idea paid off.

I doubted Donna was suddenly fine with everything but she was no longer moping in corners anymore. So I’d call it a win.

Other than that though, things weren’t exactly perfect though I couldn’t complain too much.

I was failing miserably at completing my new technique. And what was worse was that I knew how close I was to getting it. All I would need was one spark of inspiration or even just seeing someone else use Ki in a similar way and I was sure I’d have the whole thing down.

Unfortunately for me, that didn’t look like that was going to happen anytime soon.

So instead I spent most of my time sparring with Donna and preparing for our exit.

This was an opportunity I could only hope wouldn’t happen often enough to be a theme, because getting trapped in a magical device kinda sucked even if this one had been a bunch of fun,so I had to take advantage while I still could.

“Do you really need the cape?” Donna asked as she helped with the last of the stitching.

And by helped, I meant basically did all of it after I proved I was more dangerous to myself with a needle than any scrap of cloth.

“Of course we need the cape. It’s what pulls the whole outfit together!”

“Sure, sure…wait, what do you mean we?”

“Well obviously you need to be the legs. But if whoever is messing with the mirror outside can see that, it won’t work nearly as well. So we need a cape to hide you until we can figure out if we need to beat them up.” I explained.

“...why would I ever agree to something so…” Donna failed her hands around, apparently looking for the right words. “So childish?!”

I smiled innocently at her.

“Five words. I’m calling in my favor.”

My Amazonian buddy froze, staring at me in disbelief. “Is that why you never made a request after you won our last spar? Because you wanted to use it for this stupid thing?!”

“It’s not stupid if it works.” I shot back. “Also yes. Now the big question is are you going to keep your word like a true warrior or are you going to back out just because you don’t like the task?”

Donna glared at me for a few seconds before she picked up the discarded cape and started stitching again. “I’ll do it, but just so you know? I’m going to get you back for this.”

I just grinned at her.

Unfortunately for her I was pretty shameless so anything she came up with wasn’t likely to bother me that much. And if she did manage something? That was future-me’s problem.

“Cool. We should also probably practice a little bit so we don’t tip over if we move unexpectedly.”

Donna sighed and dropped her head into her hands.

“Gods, I regret this already.”

-o-

A few days later we noticed the surroundings were beginning to break down and figured it was getting close to the time we would get let out.

So with little time to waste, I hopped on Donna’s shoulders and made sure the costume we put together looked alright.

Then all we had to do was wait until it was time. There was a tingly feeling very similar to what it felt like when the mirror hit me in the face the first time and the both of us were suddenly somewhere else.

“AHAHAHAHA!” I cackled menacingly. “After ten thousand years I’m free! Time to conquer Earth!”