As Leon once again took to his feet, his magic body felt flush with energy as every fiber of his being demanded that he seek vengeance against the man who had so violated and humiliated him. It even looked like it would be easy, since Nestor remained upon Leon’s throne, his eyes closed and seemingly none the wiser that Leon had freed himself.

A vicious smile graced Leon’s lips as he took in the sight of his ancient kinsman completely unaware of what was about to happen. Then again, Leon, too, had little idea how he ought to proceed. He took a few menacing steps toward Nestor before catching himself.

He took a deep breath and took stock of himself. The possession wasn’t total since Leon could still command the magic in his soul realm, but the Mists of Chaos didn’t respond to his attempts to control them. Neither could he do anything to fix the damage he and Xaphan had done to his Mind Palace during the fight with Nestor. Compounding his issues was the fact that his soul realm was still quite bereft of magic power, leaving him with precious few options available to him to deal with Nestor.

On Nestor’s end, Leon noted that he still possessed the glowing ‘collection’ rune filled with all of the power that Leon had thrown at Nestor and that Nestor still hadn’t used. If Leon were to somehow wake the man up, Nestor would probably have little difficulty restraining Leon again, and if that happened, Leon doubted he’d get another chance to free himself. Nestor had arrogantly left him to his own devices, either trusting that Leon would remain restrained or having something much more important to take care of in the physical world.

No matter the case, it was both a blessing and a curse to Leon that Nestor still had that rune. On the one hand, it meant that Nestor had much more power than Leon had. On the other hand, it also implied that there was a cap to Nestor’s power that Leon didn’t necessarily have. If enough time passed, Leon’s body would regenerate all of his lost power, sending it to his soul realm.

But Leon didn’t feel like he had the time it would require for him to regenerate enough power to exceed what Nestor had. Worse than that, though, was that Leon doubted that power would help at all. He had no idea how to get past Nestor’s ‘collection’ rune, so more power would do little save for giving Nestor more to work with.

No, Leon would need to fight smarter, not stronger. His strength had been failing him lately, anyway, and now was as good a time as any to start changing his habits.

Leon’s eyes drifted in Xaphan’s direction. The demon still lay unconscious upon the ground, the fires that usually burned on his body now barely more than a few glowing cracks in his obsidian skin. As much as Leon hated to admit it, he’d need help to beat Nestor in a timely fashion. At the very least, he wanted Nestor incapacitated before the Thunderbird chose to come back.

Leon didn’t know what he would do if she were to side with Nestor. He had to assert himself before she was given the choice. Given all that had happened between them, from his anger at her to her lies, he wasn’t confident that she’d choose him over the clearly more capable Nestor.

He quickly shuffled over to the demon and started trying to wake him. He shouted and pushed and kicked, but Xaphan remained out. The rune that knocked the demon out, Leon figured, was probably still active, and unlike with the ‘open’ rune, he didn’t know any ancient runes that might be used to counter this.

With a long sigh of frustration, Leon sat down to think, his burning gaze rarely wandering from Nestor. He wondered what the man was doing, whether Valeria and Maia were all right, and where the Thunderbird was.

As if on cue, the mists in the distance began to darken, heralding the Thunderbird’s approach, and Leon had to fight the instinct to bury his face in his hands in shame and anxiety. His anger cooled in his chest like he was a child nervous that he was about to be scolded.

And there she was, flying out of the mists, her feathers radiant and her aura as oppressive and powerful as it always was.

Leon wasn’t able to get much of an idea of what she thought about the situation as she flew over, for she didn’t seem to be in a hurry and neither slowed down or reacted at all when she came into indisputable visual range of his Mind Palace. But she’d seen Nestor, there was no doubt in his mind about that. However, as she flew in, she shapeshifted into her human form and lightly landed in front of him, her yellow avian eyes locked onto him. Not once did he see her turn to look at Nestor.

After several long seconds, she asked in a carefully neutral tone, “What are you doing?”

Leon, desperate not to show weakness in front of his Ancestor, stood back up and replied with as much composure and nonchalance as he could, “Thinking.”

The Thunderbird’s eyes pierced into him with an almost physical force; her gaze threatened to tear away all of his defenses and leave his real mental state bare for her to see.

“And what is it that has so taken your mind that you are not ejecting this interloper?” Her tone was accusatory, and her eyes were even more so. She wasn’t acting outright imperious, but her quiet and serious demeanor still demanded an answer.

“Trying to think of a way to eject this interloper,” Leon coolly replied, his voice starting to quaver a bit, yet he still maintaining his natural stoicism. “He beat me once, I want to ensure that he doesn’t do so again.”

The Thunderbird finally glanced back over her shoulder at Nestor upon the throne, but her features were completely inscrutable; Leon had no idea what was on her mind.

“Are you nervous?” she finally asked, an almost imperceptible smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “Do you fear what I might think of you?”

Leon’s expression didn’t change much, but when he averted his gaze from his Ancestor, she had her answer.

“I will not abandon you, Leon,” she declared. “I have spent too long raising you up to drop you now for a shiny new toy.”

Leon wasn’t convinced.

“He says he’s Nestor, son of Jason Keraunos.”

“So he is,” the Thunderbird confirmed, putting that matter to rest, at least.

“You told me Nestor was dead.”

“So I did, and so he is.” The Thunderbird’s expression finally softened a touch, and she explained, “I thought he was dead and gone. That over there is just his magic body. His physical body and soul realm are destroyed, leading me to the reasonable assumption that he was dead. If you lost your soul realm, I would assume the same about you, for I would not be able to see you anymore. For all intents and purposes, you would cease to exist to me, for all magical connections between us would be severed.”

Leon slowly nodded. She’d made a reasonable enough mistake, and he wasn’t of a mind right now to hold a grudge over it. So, with his anxiety at least temporarily assuaged, he pushed his emotions down as far as he could and refocused on the task at hand.

“For now, why don’t we take care of this?” the Thunderbird said, a smile finally blooming across her tanned features.

“Wait a minute,” Leon said as a terrifying thought suddenly occurred to him, “does he know you’re here? Like, right now, not in a general ‘you’re always with us if we believe’ kind of way.”

The Thunderbird’s smile took on an amused quality, and she gently shook her head. “No,” she said. “So long as I don’t do something that clues him in, he won’t notice me.”

Leon nodded again, his worries temporarily assuaged. Mentally, he accepted that the Thunderbird was on his side, that she was choosing him over Nestor, but emotionally, he wasn’t going to really start believing her until he was back in control of his body.

Eager to make that a reality, Leon took a deep breath and asked, “What should we do now? I hope you have something in mind because I’ve got basically nothing.”

“Tell me about him,” the Thunderbird replied. Leon cocked an eyebrow at her, but he indulged anyway and told her everything that had happened since his triumph over the colossus outside.

Supposedly triumphed, at any rate; he hoped that he had, in fact, beaten it and that Nestor hadn’t simply let them inside once he realized a Clan member had finally arrived.

He didn’t give voice to these thoughts, and when he was finished, the Thunderbird was quiet for a moment before saying, “I understand, now. A master of ancient runes is, indeed, a difficult opponent to face without also possessing knowledge of such things. How much do you know about ancient runes?”

“They’re basically pictograms as opposed to the alphabetical nature of modern runes,” Leon answered. “Each one has a specific meaning to it, which imbues it with power. They’re limited in scope, but tremendously powerful compared to modern runes within that scope.”

“Not a bad description, as far as such things go,” the Thunderbird replied. “The modern runes you use are much more versatile and easy to use, it’s true, but ancient runes are not so limited as you might think. You managed to escape using an ‘open’ rune, did you not?”

Leon nodded.

“If ancient runes were so powerful, you would’ve specifically needed a rune to ‘open restraints’ or to ‘counter this specific rune’. Each ancient rune has its meaning, but they can be applied in various ways. Just as an ‘open’ rune might be used to open restraints; it can also be used to open locked doors, to open up a hole in something, even to open minds to truth. The ancient runes are regarded as simpler and more restrictive than modern runes because their rules are based more on the thoughts and intent of the mage wielding them, with the runes growing easier to use the more specific they become.”

By this point, Leon’s brow had furrowed in thought. Everything she was saying was resonating with what he’d done to escape—he’d willed the ‘open’ rune to work in the way he’d wanted it to, rather than having it work through any specific intrinsic nature of the rune itself.

“Getting the ancient runes to work as you want them to is difficult,” the Thunderbird continued, “even more so if you’re using vague, simple runes. Your attempt to escape your restraints would’ve been much easier if you’d known the runes for ‘open restraints’ or ‘release prisoner’ or something of that more specific nature.”

“Makes sense,” Leon said. “Unfortunately, none of that really helps me now, does it? I haven’t the knowledge to counter Nestor, and without being able to counter his runes, I’m basically helpless unless I can beat him to death. Can I beat him to death?”

“No, his magic body is far stronger than yours, and it looks like he has quite a bit of magic in that storage rune next to him,” the Thunderbird replied with an amused look on her face. “Before the death of his physical body, he’d achieved Apotheosis.”

Leon’s eyes almost bulged out of their sockets. “He did what?”

“He’d achieved Apotheosis,” the Thunderbird repeated. “By any metric you might choose to measure his power, he was powerful. And while he’s lost almost all of that power—much like that worthless demon over there—his magic body yet contains a hint of that power, and even just a hint is more than enough to completely overpower you in a hand-to-hand scuffle.”

Leon took a deep breath. “All right, so no engaging in close range.”

“It’s probably best not to violently engage at all, especially not on equal footing,” the Thunderbird said.

Leon gave her some side-eye, his worry about her choosing Nestor over him rising again.

“Think about it,” the Thunderbird continued, “the things I can teach you about the runic arts are limited. Same thing with the demon. But here, before you, is a master of the craft, someone who can teach you everything you might want to know. I would recommend you subordinate him, rather than aiming to end him permanently. Conquer. Not destroy.”

Leon scowled. He wanted to see Nestor dead about as much as he’d ever wanted anyone dead, including Justin Isynos… but the Thunderbird was making at least a degree of sense.

“I can’t trust him,” Leon stated. “He’s stolen my body. He’ll try to do so again.”

“There are ways to prevent that,” the Thunderbird replied.

“Magical oaths are sworn using blood or connecting to a mage’s soul realm. Nestor has neither. I don’t see how he can be prevented from trying again.”

The Thunderbird smiled and glanced at Leon’s vault not too far away.

“You have what you need here, already. I’ll help to show you the way, but you’ll need to do this yourself. Consider it a taste of what you’ll need to face in the Nexus.”

Leon glanced up at Nestor on his throne and seethed.

“Then let’s do this quickly,” he said with determination. “I don’t know when he’s going to come back in here, and I want to be ready when he does.”