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Jinx didn't use her sword very often.
Yeah, Alchemist made it specifically for her. The longsword resonated with Luck, the edge keener and sharper the luckier the wielder was...
But she just wasn't well-versed in the style of using the weapon. She was far too mobile to properly utilize the Blueblood longsword the way it was supposed to be used.
A spear would probably fit her style better. Not great. Just better.
"Hold still!" Zagreus shouted, his blade whiffing past where she'd been just a moment earlier.
Case in point.
Utilizing a pair of daggers, Jinx could and did dance around the battlefield. Ducking under blows, sidestepping around thrusts and heavy strikes, cartwheeling back from a dedicated attack before darting in to score glancing slices against whatever bit or piece of her foe was left exposed.
Something she did with glee as Zagreus swung too far, leaving himself wide open. She ducked in and left a bleeding gash along his forearm before ducking under the retributive backhand he aimed towards her face.
"Mmm... No!" Jinx grinned, her pink eyes glowing with malicious glee. Zagreus closed in on her, swinging hard at where her head would've been only to miss once more before abruptly reversing his momentum. Jinx caught the swing with the edge of one blade and, rather than try to stop it, she pushed it further along the axis of its swing.
Zagreus stumbled as his sword jerked him out of balance, an opportunity Jinx took to slam the pommel of her other dagger against his gut, right into his liver.
"Enough!" Diana shouted, hovering down to the floor of the arena to check on the god. Zagreus had dropped his sword and doubled over, one hand held firmly against his belly.
Jinx put her blades in the sheaths at her hips and stood up fully, stretching her arms overhead to inhale deeply. The dragon cracked her eyes just a bit to glance over towards Kary and Alchemist, a small part of her jumping in glee to see that the two of them were watching her, clapping for her.
"That was so cool!" Billy shouted, practically bowling her over as the boy invaded her personal space. "How did you learn to do all of that?"
"Skill. Talent." Jinx told the boy, placing her hands on her hips and radiating as much smug as she could put into her voice as possible. "Oh, and a little practice."
"Given your talents with magic, dragon, I find myself quite surprised at your physical prowess." a very unwelcome voice cut in, wearing away at the girl's grin. Artemis was not clapping or singing her praises. Which, fair, but still! "What purpose do you have in developing such mastery in the arts of war?"
"...Kary likes them." Jinx answered, barely keeping a frown off of her face. "She learned magic for us, we're working on melee for her."
Alchemist had told her and Kary about the goddess asking to join them so she could flee from the reality. Jinx wasn't sold on the idea and Kary had remained silent, neutral. Yeah, Jinx understood why he was allowing it...
Well, she just didn't like it. Something about Artemis bothered her and she didn't know what it was, specifically, but it kept her on edge.
"Terrifying," the goddess said, though her voice remained even and absent of any real inflection. It was kind of similar to Alchemist, in a way. Her emotions, often dark or moody so far as Jinx had noticed, just didn't quite make their way into the goddess's voice.
Jinx inhaled slowly and quashed the irritation she constantly felt over the goddess. It wasn't helping anything. Instead she turned back towards Billy and adopted a toothy grin. "Small and quick works out just fine, you know? I don't -have- to use something big and heavy like Alchemist, Kary or you do!"
"...Yeah, but we're all bigger than you." the young man pointed out. He waved towards Kary, standing even taller than Wonder Woman. Then he moved towards Alchemist. "So we have to fight a different way. I can't do backflips or somersaults unless I'm flying. And my sword is, uh..."
"A good fit for Captain Marvel," Jinx sighed, her thunder stolen. "But it's still a little too big for you and your scrawny little stick arms."
"Hey!" he shouted, pushing away her hand when she poked him in said arm. "I've still got a lot of growing up before they get all big!"
"Uh-huh. Sure." Jinx was having fun, teasing the kid. The way Billy got all flustered, he reacted way more than Dinah did. And he didn't get angry over everything, either! "Eat your Wheaties and you'll be bench-pressing mountains in no time, right?"
"Right!" the boy shouted, an infectious smile on his face. "Pretty soon, I won't even need to transform! I'll be-"
"You know, Kary?" Diana's voice cut the young man off, imperial and demanding all at the same time. "I don't believe we've yet had a chance to spar."
"No, we've not," the fallen angel agreed, crossing her arms and looming imperiously over the Amazon. "I suppose you'd like for me to take this seriously, would you not?"
"I would, yes," Diana agreed, unsheathing her own blade.
"Very well."
To Jinx it didn't sound as though Kary was particularly enthused with the idea. In fact, the way she walked over towards the rough circle that the sparring happened in seemed more put-upon than the girl would have expected.
Kary didn't draw any of her weapons. The woman barely deigned to uncross her arms. No, instead she just inhaled deeply and said "Come."
"...This'll be pretty short," Alchemist said as Jinx, Billy and Artemis joined him at the side of the training room. He was nodding towards the space where Diana was circling Kary in the center of the room.
Jinx observed for a long moment, her own eyes darting between Diana's feet and Kary's eyes.
"What do you mean?" Billy asked, leaning around Artemis to look at the older man. "Wonder Woman's the best! I've never seen someone better with a sword!"
Jinx kept her mouth shut as she watched Kary and Diana go through the feeling-out stage of sparring with someone new. The warrior princess kept taking cautious steps, making as though she was ready to lunge only to back off at the last moment.
Kary, in contrast, was just watching Diana neutrally. Her own weapons were still sheathed, Levantine on her hip and the much larger Bloodskall Blade on her back. The woman wouldn't draw them until she needed them, something Jinx knew from first hand experience.
Finally, at some unseen signal, Diana lunged forward! Her blade came in low, ready to swing up, to get under Kary's guard. Something the archfiend didn't so much as allow, stepping into Diana's swing and slamming an open palm against the titan's elbow.
Diana hissed, the afflicted arm reflexively dropping from her two-handed grip.
A critical mistake, one that Kary capitalized on by pivoting the Bloodskall Blade over her shoulder and slamming the dull base of the sword into Wonder Woman's cheek.
"That's what I mean," Jinx said aloud as Kary proceeded to unleash every dirty trick she'd taught Alchemist, and then more besides. "Diana's like, what, a century old? Kar'Yashlan measures her age in the thousands."
Jinx winced when Diana went to land a blow against Kary's side and the older woman, instead of blocking, pulled her other sword just far enough out of the sheath to absorb the blow.
Technically, Diana was still on the offensive. Unfortunately that didn't seem to matter as Kary used each of the woman's attacks as a means of punishing her.
"...She's really mean, isn't she?" Billy asked, wincing when Diana's overhead strike was first deflected and then answered by a pommel to her breast.
"You kidding?" Alchemist asked, waving towards the spectacle. "For a demon? She's an absolute sweetheart."
"Sir, that is perhaps the most concerning thing you've yet said in my presence." Zagreus sounded like he was finally getting some of his energy back. Jinx hadn't thought she'd hit him -that- hard. "What, pray tell, was done to you that you would think so vicious a woman to be so attractive?"
"She's honest," Jinx answered before Alchemist could. She sent him a wink and a grin when she heard his teeth click.
His answering grin was confirmation enough that she'd gotten that spot-on.
Whatever Zagreus was going to say next was cut off when Diana was thrown out of the ring, rolling several times before coming to a halt.
"...And that's my cue," Alchemist said, stepping away from the group and heading towards Diana. Jinx could literally feel the healing magic before the man raised his hand to cast it.
"...Really, though?" Jinx heard Zagreus mutter, likely thinking he was too quiet for her to hear. "The form, the skill, the power? And it's 'honesty', she says."
Jinx leaned back and relaxed with her arms behind her head and her back against the wall.
Zagreus wouldn't be thinking that if he knew that Kary used to be a twelve-foot tall snake woman made of fire...
Well...
Considering the way he acted with Dusa?
He just might.
-----
Zagreus felt truly emboldened as he dashed through the halls of the netherworld. His sword was light in his hand and the grim shield loaned to him was beginning to really feel at home in his left hand.
He truly found the journey far easier than he'd ever before experienced. The magic spell, Drain, it worked wonders to restore his vitality.
Watching his wounds seal over, feeling as his ichor was replenished whilst his foes withered... Yes, Zagreus could well understand why the spell was considered a dark art. A forbidden magic.
Still, it could not be denied. The mystic weapon was incredibly convenient!
It allowed him to reach the Temple of Styx in record time, his pace kept steady and even as he'd not had to nurse any wounds or take care with any broken bones.
Though... Zagreus did feel his courage fading as he approached the end. He'd fought his father multiple times and each attempt had only brought about bitter defeat.
Zagreus may have been youthful and full of enthusiasm, pith and vinegar as some might say. Hades, however, was old and experienced.
Steeling his courage, the godling patted Cerberus on the shoulder and pressed further beyond the temple.
"...You seem intent on wasting my time, boy," Hades had his back turned when Zagreus entered the room, gazing out into the frozen fields beyond the temple. He always started off the same way, gazing out towards something that Zagreus, too, felt drawn to.
"It's the only way to get your attention, Father. I thought it best to make the most of it," Zagreus told him, sword and shield held in a loose but ready stance.
"Stick to the blade, boy. Your humor is lacking," Hades grunted as he turned around. He raised one hand to the clasp of his cloak and tore it, tossing the crimson article behind him where it disappeared in a sheet of flames.
Zagreus brought his sword to bear as his father summoned his bident.
The young man... Just, didn't have the heart to tell his father he'd been completely serious.
Hades struck first, rushing in, practically pulled by his spear. A strike that Zagreus barely dodged, knowing from far too much experience that he wouldn't be able to shrug off or block the blow. As the god dashed by, close enough that his glorious beard brushed against Zagreus, the younger god lashed out with the Stygian-
Which glanced off of his father's bracers, failing to score even a touch of golden ichor for his efforts.
Still, Hades was an absolute bear of a man. It took him time to readjust his footing, to turn. It was an opening that Zagreus did his best to take advantage of, slamming the edge of the Dread Aspis towards his father's side!
It failed to connect where Zagreus wanted to, slamming instead into the warden's arm, just above the elbow.
"Really, Zagreus?" Hades taunted, kicking out against the face of the shield and sending Zagreus skidding backwards. "Your jokes fall flat and you try to go for my funny bones?"
"I would never!" Zagreus shouted, his eyes darting around the snowy battlefield, looking for -something- he could use. "I know you were born without them, after all."
Nothing. At least, not right now. During their last fight, Zagreus had pressed Hades enough that the older god had made use of his raiment, a helmet that gifted him the power of invisibility. At the time, he hadn't been able to figure out how to discern his father's location.
This time, this time he noticed the snow.
But that would be later- Hades hadn't resorted to such tricks, not yet. So Zagreus needed to find something, some opening, some opportunity.
Nothing.
Hades was an old hand at combat. A veteran of the war which upset the heavens themselves and brought low the titans of old. Expecting the man to just leave himself open?
Folly.
Zagreus tightened his grip on his blade and crouched low. His boots creaked, the fabric within burning as he built up a charge of flame.
He held it, held it and watched.
"I tire of this, boy." Hades rumbled, his wine-red eyes narrowed in irritation.
An expression that Zagreus had long, long grown tired of seeing aimed at himself.
"As do I," Zagreus answered, watching, waiting. When Hades began to pull his arm back, to prepare for another lunge, Zagreus saw his cue. He exploded forward, fast enough that even Hermes would have been impressed, and let Stygian lead the charge.
"...Is that all?" But was stopped fully. Hades had grabbed the blade itself with one hand, the tip barely embedded into the god's stomach. Golden blood, divine ichor dripped down the length of the infernal metal. Zagreus tried to rip the Stygian free but it was held fast in his father's bleeding hand.
Hades pulled his bident back with his other hand and slammed it through Zagreus's guard, burying the twin heads deeply into his gut and drawing a soul-rending scream from his son. Hades stared down at Zagreus, his gaze unblinking and said "I don't know who you disappoint more. Myself? Or the fools who think to train you."
Zagreus couldn't think. The pain, the feeling of the metal buried inside of meat, scraping against bone- At least the last few times, Hades had been kind enough to aim for his heart!
But Zagreus didn't need to think. He needed to act. His numb fingers released their hold on his weapons and instead wrapped around the shaft of the spear embedded in him. He tried to push the weapon out but it was held firm in his father's iron grip.
He tried to take a step back but, for all that they trembled, his legs refused to move.
"...Me," Zagreus whispered, feeling the waters of the Styx lapping at his ankles.
"What's that, boy?" Hades asked, leaning forward, pushing forward with his bident. "Did you have something to say?"
"...Don't," Zagreus hacked, blood and bile on his tongue. He let go of the spear with his left hand and reached out, toward the fading image of his father.
The Styx was calling him, its embrace as comforting as the arms of the mother he never knew.
This wasn't right...
He was stronger than this, wasn't he...?
"...Don't act..." Zagreus refused to die like this! Not again! Never again!
His left hand closed into a fist and he reached out, towards the thrumming, beating Life in his father and ripped at it. A crimson orb, the color of blood and filled with golden Life ripped free from Hades's chest and slammed into Zagreus.
"Guh!" Hades doubled over and grunted in pain, actual pain, as the spell stole his vitality and fed it back into Zagreus. The young god grabbed the spear once more in both hands, his strength restored, and shoved it for all that he was worth, flames ripping from the soles of his boots, slamming the butt of the spear back into his father's gut. "Argh!"
Like as not it was the shock more than anything that saw Hades release his hold on his weapon.
Shock or not, it saw the bident stolen from his hands.
Zagreus twisted the weapon around, casting Drain upon his father once more. The elder god grabbed at the crimson orb, his massive hands just missing the manifested life force as it flew directly from him and into his son.
"What...?" Hades asked, one hand clutching at his chest, the other over his belly. Right overtop his liver. Zagreus had learned his lesson well, pain had been his teacher. "What sorcery is this? Where did you learn...? I see."
Zagreus heard his father begin to laugh and almost hesitated. Almost.
Hades had never hesitated in harming him. Zagreus would be sure to return the favor.
"Don't think you've won, Zagreus!" Hades shouted, stumbling upright and turning his burning eyes back on his son. There was no flicker, no shimmer before the god disappeared, his words echoing around the room as he turned invisible. "A few surprises will not avail you, not against-"
Zagreus dashed forward, his father's bident leading the charge as he thrust it into and through the spot his father stood, made obvious by the fresh depressions he left in the snow underfoot.
"-me?" Hades sounded... confused. Honestly confused as he looked down to the spear his son had buried in his chest.
Zagreus did not relinquish his initiative. He pulled the heavy weapon back, shouting with exertion as it pulled the great bulk of his father with it, and slammed Hades into the ground with such force that the twin blades of the bident finally pushed their way through his father's back.
"...Don't act like you know me, Father," Zagreus said, his voice quiet but full of certainty. Both gods could feel the Styx tugging and pulling on Hades, the elder god sinking into its crimson waters. "You never took the time to try."
-----
"...Huh."
Alchemist hadn't really been expecting Zagreus to pull off a victory, not yet. It was a possibility, yes, but there was just such a wide skill disparity that it really shouldn't have been possible. Not without some kind of surprise or upset.
Though, unexpected magic that hurt Hades to heal Zagreus was something of a surprise, wasn't it?
Alchemist had been watching, invisible and hidden, to try and figure out what else Zagreus needed to learn. What other tools the godling might need to master to eke out a victory over his far more experienced foe.
A holdout weapon? Buffing magic? A better grasp on the basics against more-experienced foes?
Nope. Zagreus just had to get lucky.
"Well... Good work?" Alchemist stepped around the frozen forms of Zagreus and Hades, the latter of which was sinking into a pool of water that hadn't existed prior to getting stabbed and then embedded into the floor. "Kind of made a mess of my schedule, though..."
Standstill had been a knee-jerk reaction once Alchemist had realized that he had literally no time to go and get everything cleaned up, get the people who were coming with him squared away. He'd still been in the process of feeling out Medusa and how the woman viewed her current situation.
Kary was... Less than happy with Nyx. The primordial's dismissive and casually cruel attitude towards anyone that didn't hold her favor had been turned on the Archfiend of Chaos and Kary had outright admitted to him that the only reason she hadn't drawn her blades on the woman had been because she hadn't wanted to create even more problems for Alchemist.
Something he genuinely appreciated but... Well, he didn't want her accepting abuse from anyone just because she thought it would make things more convenient.
Even if, in some way, that person could be considered her older sister.
Alchemist reached up to scratch the side of his head and sighed. With Standstill active, he could in fact afford to get distracted. Afford it but, really, that spell was the only reason he hadn't been sent back to his home yet and he had a to-do list before deactivating it and letting the Instant Quest slingshot him through the source wall and back to D.C.
Looking over the dead body of Hades, locked in the process of being claimed by the Styx, Alchemist shook his head and sighed again before raising a hand and teleporting back to the House of Hades.
The normally slow but perpetually active spirits were frozen in place. Hypnos was in the middle of snoring, his mouth hanging open and drool dripping to the floor. Thanatos was nearby, caught as he'd been walking thunderously towards his younger twin with irritation in his eyes.
Alchemist didn't figure he really had time to actually defuse any sort of situation and instead opted to follow the expedient option instead.
He shoved the floating Hypnos through the door of the demi-plane, the gods momentum seeing him pushed slowly into the realm until he hit the end of the selective field of time around Alchemist and once more froze in place.
Finding Artemis took a few minutes. The girl was apparently spending her time inside the room where Zagreus trained with Skelly. She had a knife in hand and looked to be in the process of...
Well, she was crouched over Skelly's chest and had her knife pulled back in a full swing, aimed towards the skeleton's eye sockets. Her face was locked in a rictus of rage, one Alchemist knew all-too-well.
"Gonna have to teach you how to use a mace..." Alchemist mused as he stepped around the spectacle and towards the stand that held the broken fragments of Aegis.
Wonder Woman had been working hard on learning Mending and Alchemist was glad to see her putting in the effort... But how she'd yet still failed to learn the spell was beyond him. It was as basic as spells got, a tiny little nudge against the greater momentum of reality!
He was going to have to take a long look at what could be causing the problem. It was always possible that she simply lacked any talent in the arcane arts, but...
In Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder, the source of the spell, it was possible to obtain feats, the 'Perks' from that game system, as rewards for quests or possibly through extensive training during downtime. Among those feats was an ability to cast a cantrip and a first level spell from any school like Arcane Wizards or Divine Clerics.
The implication then was that anyone -could- do those things, most simply did not have the time to get such training or to offer such training.
Thus Alchemist was fairly certain that Diana was -able-, technically, and he genuinely did not know what the roadblock was between her and that spell.
The wizard shook his head and cast Repair on the shield he'd broken during his first encounter with Zagreus. Then repeated the spell several more times, shrugging off the discomfort he felt when the Eye of Chaos hidden within the shield turned its gaze on him.
If Chaos wanted something from the mage? It wasn't like Alchemist could do anything about it.
Instead he just returned to Artemis as the girl was busy enacting violence on one very talkative training dummy and grabbed the girl's shoulders. He lifted her directly over his head, not a single green hair moving out of place as he returned to the door of his demi-plane and set her just inside the portal.
Closing it and lifting the door, he set that into his inventory and moved on to his final project.
"How passing strange," A voice called out into the still silence of frozen time. The shock of it brought Alchemist to a very abrupt halt as he debated the best method of enacting his final plan. "I'd noticed a few oddities here and there but told myself they were but the rumblings of strange magics from strange figures."
Alchemist turned away from the frozen visage of Dusa, a simple smile on the Gorgon's face as she was busy dusting some of the ostentatious finery of the palace. Instead his attention was turned towards Nyx, an entity that was decidedly mobile when all else was not.
"I suppose that's still true, isn't it?" Alchemist asked before turning back around to face the Dutiful Gorgon. "The manipulation of Time is a very limited field of magic. Difficult to master but incredibly versatile, provided someone is willing to shoulder the costs."
"Quite so," Nyx's voice came from directly behind the wizard but he specifically kept himself from overtly reacting. Whatever she wanted to say, she could say while he worked. "Cronus would rage endlessly if he knew that mortals had stolen away his greatest strength and done more with it than his own children."
To Alchemist, that seemed a bit redundant. Cronus would rage for the sake of raging.
"I know he's not quite dead." Alchemist said instead as he circled around Dusa, his eyes locked on to the magic wrapped around her soul rather than taking in her appearance. "And I'm well aware of the other gods still trapped inside of his corpse that Zeus didn't free."
Athena's curse upon Dusa was a work of art. Complex and terrible yet still oddly elegant in its shape and structure. It was woven into her, something Alchemist meant quite literally as he could see the countless small threads of magic and purpose intertwined tighter than the individual fibers in a roll of silk.
If he had to guess, the wizard would assume that Athena had adopted the technique and precision that came from her domain in Handicrafts and turned it towards bolstering the curse, something that would otherwise have been in Hecate's domain.
"...That is rather dangerous information, even among the gods. You would do well to keep it to yourself," Nyx told him, circling around the frozen Gorgon with a look of clear disgust upon her face. "...What is your fixation with this accursed soul, mortal? Even Zagreus seems fixated upon her and I truly cannot comprehend-"
Alchemist ignored her, twisting his magic into a second spell as he tried to maintain Standstill.
"Do you know what the difference is between Sympathy and Empathy?" Alchemist asked, cutting the primordial goddess off as he struggled to maintain two incredibly demanding spells. He didn't, couldn't wait for her to respond before he continued. "Sympathy involves feeling bad for someone because something happened to them, but you don't actually understand what they're going through. I'm sure you can sympathize with Zagreus and the situation with his father, but you don't actually know what it's like to Hate your father, to feel lost and alone because the closest thing you have to a Mother mixes her Affection with Politics."
Alchemist turned his eyes, the same pale yellow as Nyx's own, to meet hers in an unblinking stare. The primogenitor met his gaze, her own eyes narrowing into a hostile glare.
She agreed to the game Hades was playing with Zagreus. Alchemist did not care if she found the truth distasteful.
"Empathy, though? It doesn't demand understanding, not at all. Just that you can look at someone, that you can see their pain and you're willing to feel it with them." Alchemist turned his eyes back on Dusa and held his right hand out, slowly bringing it around in a circle before slashing down upon returning to the peak. A beam of light passed between Alchemist and Medusa as the spell was cast-
As Majustis struck the cursed goddess and erased all of the magic that was cast upon her.
Unfortunately, it also broke the hold Alchemist had on Standstill.
"...How disgustingly Mortal," Nyx spat, the shadows in the room growing darker, small lights shining within them as she seemed to fill the room with her presence.
"Maybe," Alchemist agreed as the Styx fully claimed Hades, in the temple far away on the border of the living world-
~~ Congratulations! ~~
~~ Quest Completed! ~~
~~ Please Select (1) Infernal Armament As Your Prize! ~~
"-but it's given me people I can stand beside," he told her as Dusa collapsed to the ground, screaming in confusion and pain as the snakes that made up her hair slithered away from her head, luscious black locks sprouting from her scalp. As the scales flaked off of her body and her face began to crack and groan as it reshaped itself, her nose pushing itself back together instead of remaining flat. "And it's why Zagreus cares for the people here, you included. Making you happy makes him happy. What's he asked for in return?"
"...Nothing," Nyx admitted with a sigh, the encroaching night sky halting its advance into the room. She looked to Alchemist, then turned her gaze down to the now-revealed beauty that Athena had hidden within Medusa. "...I see. I... Must think on this."
The mage stepped aside as Nyx walked up to, and then past, him. She crouched down next to Medusa and gently cradled the confused, sniffling woman in her arms.
"...Making her happy makes him happy," Nyx muttered to herself quietly, her head shaking from side to side as she carried the woman down the hall. "How often must I forget something so simple...?"
"Hey, Nyx?" Alchemist called, the goddess stopping halfway down the hall to turn her gaze, considering now instead of hostile, on to him. "Would you tell Zagreus I'll be looking forward to sparring with him in the future?"
"...I shall tell him upon his return," Nyx said, turning back around as she held her niece in her arms.
Alchemist quietly sighed, well and fully done with this entire mess. This entire struggle that had more than filled his limited appetite for drama.
Now it was time for him to go back home and deal with -that- drama instead...
Deciding it was well past time for him to set things straight with that particular group of people, he returned to the window hovering in front of him and selected the Adamant Rail, the Infernal Arm in the form of a gun.
Upon clicking 'Yes' when the window asked him if he was sure, he felt a hook wrap around his navel and Alchemist was jerked-
Away.
"Oh?"
"
