THEOS

At the edge of the clearing, a white scroll bounced off the ground, and it was then that Luke remembered that Rex had been holding onto it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Arya slowly make her way towards it. Luke would have thought the action brave, were it not for the fact that Theseus was very distracted.

“FUCK. FUCK. FUCK.” The Son of Poseidon roared, his face set in a viscous scowl, and his fists clenched. His eyes burned with anger and he stared as every inch of Blinky, and her many eyes, were engulfed in flickering orange light.

Blinky the Demon had been eliminated from the trial along with Rex.

It made sense to Luke, considering that she was only participating because she was Rex’s familiar, and secretly he thought it best. There weren’t any indications that she would rampage or anything, but some part of him had never been able to let his guard down around her.

It was a shame however, that everyone from Sylcra, save him, had been defeated, and left Luke’s shoulders feeling heavy. If the quest panned out, and there wasn’t any guarantee it would, he’d finish in second place.

High enough to get Cyzicus what he wanted, and push the Emperor to the Saint tier. In the process, repaying him for all the favors he had done for Luke and the goodwill he had shown him. It might even cheer hero up a little, help him get out of the spiral Sophia’s death and finding her corpse in the Rebels ring had put him in.

But first, he needed to get Theseus off their backs.

It’s not going to be easy though.

The son of Poseidon was glaring at Luke through his reformed water shield even as Spiros relentlessly assaulted him with the Spell. The liquid defense rippled, hisses, and steamed, but otherwise held up without any strain.

The two hits Spiros and Rex had managed to land with Luke’s help, had burned away the upper half of his robes, revealing two distinct patches of raw, pink, skin that were already shrinking.

So that did hurt him, but not enough to deplete the potion we drank earlier. He really hit Rex hard, huh. Which means I won’t have to feel too bad about stabbing him. Luke thought, grinning at the teen in challenge.

“This is your fault.” Thesues yelled, his voice hoarse and cracking under strain.

Why he was so upset, Luke couldn’t even begin to fathom, and so he didn’t even bother responding.

He must be on something.

Wanting me to come with him to Atlantis because we might be related is one thing, and I can kinda get where he’s coming from. If I met some stranger who looked like me, knowing that my dad was out there having kids, who I thought might be my half brother, I'd want to get to know them too. Even wanting to extract opportunistic favors from family, I get. But, where the fuck does he get off eliminating my friend, and then blaming it on me?

Why did he want to fight Blinky so bad, anyway?

All questions, I’ll never get the answer to, because he’s going home, and hopefully, I’ll never see him again.

Letting his mana flow freely, uncaring of how much he was spending, Luke accelerated his blade to the very limits of his ability. Then watching Theseus’s apparition, he preemptively dodged a torrent of water blasted his way.

“How are you dodg–” Theseus began to say, but the words caught in his mouth. Alerted by a strange whistling noise coming from above him, he looked up, and immediately dove out of the way.

Unfortunately for him, Luke had already known what he was going to do.

A single exertion of his will was all Luke needed to adjust the course of his sword to where he would be at the end of his movement.

But even that didn’t turn out to be enough when Theseus’s ghost suddenly changed its posture as if he was holding a spear. Before Luke could make sense of it, Theseus’s ring flashed and a glimmering trident, seemingly made of diamond, appeared in his hand– threatening to bat his weapon away.

Hmf. Looks like he’s finally taking this somewhat seriously, but he couldn’t have picked a worse time.

Summons from a storage ring were another weakness in his technique, but this particular weakness was something Luke could overcome with time.

Luke could see what someone would do in the future, but the apparitions he saw were based on what he could actually see, and in part based on his own experiences. The First Truth of Death was a higher form of the deductive reasoning granted by the First Stances– one that showed the future as his opponent intended it. What it couldn’t do however, was peer into their storage rings, or even act on information that Luke didn’t have, or couldn’t know. People did have tells however, so even if the future he saw was incomplete, there was usually enough information to act on anyway.

Someone moving as if a shield was about to pop into existence, was typically a good enough indicator that a shield would pop into existence. That ran the risk of uncertainty however, because people could act like they were about to summon a shield, and instead summon something like a shield, or much more commonly a shield that was a shape Luke wouldn’t be able to guess. Exactly like Theseus had just done by summoning a trident. As such, the act of summoning something, while a minor inconvenience, wasn't the end of the world. What tended to be more annoying however, was that Luke wouldn’t know what an artifact did, until it was actually used.

Even that wasn’t an insurmountable problem.

The Technique worked better the longer he battled someone or knew them, allowing him to see more clearly, the more he understood their abilities. Give him long enough, and the gaps in the predictive ability would shrink until they vanished entirely.

He hadn’t known it then, but Luke suspected it was part of the reason the First Truth had worked so well against the Rebel. He had after all, spent hours harassing her, and seeing her deal with not only his attacks but Heracles’s too. Well, that, and the fact that when he had fought her, she was half dead and his own mana was unlimited.

Considering all that, Luke tamped down on the unease that surfaced, and decided to trust in his abilities. He may have overplayed his hand, and the trident Theseus summoned could be a game changer, but he wasn’t without tricks or allies either.

Spiros was still striking the bubble Son of Poseidon had surrounded himself in, with dogged determination. Unleashing blistering balls of flame one after another, over and over again.

Even for Theseus, something like that would take its toll eventually. And the strikes that had already landed on him, while not enough to send him home yet, were taking a toll on his mana.

Another good hit, and he’ll probably run. Even if he is stronger than us, we can dodge most of what he can do…. All three of us. We aren’t the only ones he has to worry about either… he was by far the person with the best performance on the pyramid, but he needs to hold the pair of scrolls for seven days, and no one who’s made it this far is weak. No one will go without some sort of fight.

So one more…

Readjusting the course of the blade by a few feet, he watched as it whizzed by Theseus, barely out of his range. Then, with every ounce of willpower he had, he stopped its downward momentum as quickly as he could, and attacked Theseus from underneath. It was a risk. He had drained a lot of the inertia and energy Maximus was carrying– if Theseus was smart he would focus on trapping the blade within his bubble. It was an action that would take Luke out of the fight.

But he wasn’t fighting alone.

His sword cut upwards, at the very edge of his barrier. For a split second, carving a line thought the water. Like Luke had thought, and despite his best efforts, Thesues managed to catch his blade within the forks of his trident.

It was all the opportunity Spiros had needed. His own ring flashed, and in the blink of an eye, a golden spear flashed through the air, clean through the barrier, and impaled the Son of Poseidon through his shoulders.

Theseus winced in pain, and tore it free. Blood sprayed from the open wound, but it wasn’t enough to eliminate him.

Luke grinned, and using the fact that he was distracted maneuvered his blade free from the trident, and out of Theseus’s range.

No sooner had Luke’s sword had left Theseus range, Arya lunged forth, and threw her own dagger with perfect aim. Unlike Luke, she wasn’t able to use her weapon as a conduit for her own mana, and strength was never her primary focus. Which was why she had thrown it to Spiros, who was only feet away from their common foe.

He caught it mid air, and held it tauntingly. Dodging another jet of deadly water with an arrogant grin plastered over his face.

“Theseus, right? Why don’t you give me back my spear, and your scroll, and we let you leave?” Spiros said with a grin.

“Why would I do that?” Theseus asked, seemingly unfazed, even as he wiped away blood that was seeping out of his mouth.

Luke took to the sky, and joined the pair, a grin plastered across his own face. “Because you can’t beat us, and you’ll never get our scroll. While we’ve hit you what, three times now. How much more, before the potion runs out and you're eliminated?” He said, having a fairly good idea how much efficacy the potion had left. If there was one thing to be said of Cyzicus’s methods, they had taught Luke how much healing he’d get from a single drop of the stuff. Hepheastus’s may have been better than what he was used to, but he was confident in his guess nonetheless. One more solid hit, and that would be the end of the road for Theseus.

“There’s no one here who can defeat me. All three of you are too afraid to even come close, and none of you have anything that can break through my defenses. This one,” he pointed at Spiros, “probably has just enough mana to stay in the air.”

“You’re point? You think I can’t land a hit on you, or that she can’t either?” Luke raised an eyebrow and nodded towards Arya briefly before glancing at Spiros.

Realizing immediately, that Theseus had Spiros’s measure. Luke didn’t know exactly how much mana the spells Hephaestus had given them cost nor how much mana Spiros had, but it was clear that there was a cost and it was high.

It didn’t take great observational skills to notice that Spiros was having trouble maintaining his flight. Which was a very bad sign and a bigger problem. With Spiros out of mana, Theseus would have an easy time hitting him, and eliminating him entirely.

For the sake of the quest this needed to end.

Tilting his head to the side, Luke carefully considered his next words.

“Look. You’re a stiff breeze away from being booted, and he’s tired. I think we can both agree that continuing to fight isn’t in either of our best interests. You say he’s not great on mana, but I know you aren’t either. The number of attacks you let loose, there’s no way. Besides, there's a reason you're talking this out now, instead of blasting me with water. So, let’s cut the posturing. You’re strong enough that getting two more scrolls won’t be a big deal. Give us yours and we’ll have a rematch in the next round… and if you tell me the real reason you want me to come to Atlantis, I’ll think it over.” Luke added the last part at whim. He had no intention of ever setting foot in the place, but Theseus still probably thought, and for good reason, that Luke was in fact related to Poseidon, and Luke wasn’t above manipulating that desire.

Theseus clicked his tongue, an unwilling expression on his face.

The three of them hovered in the air in silence. Luke with his agility boosted, and the First Truth activated, ready to leap into action if he decided to attack. Eventually though, the Son of Poseidon nodded, and reaching behind him, he pulled the scroll from a pocket and held it out, his watery shield evaporating into nothing as he did.

Carefully, in case he pulled a trick, Luke reached out and grabbed it, and pulled. Theseus didn’t let go.

“Let me hang with you three.” He demanded.