Chris' POV

Stepping through the portal my body's hit by the unusual heat against my fur. I haven't seen the daylight for quite sometime, not that I was particularly missing it. I walk up to the pack doors, remembering the construction of this place, the sizes are proportionate with the sole intention of making it easier for me and Oracion to walk through.

A foot at a time I make my way through the place the others call home, my heavy steps alerting those in their rooms and causing them to come out of their room in a hurry. "L-" I hear one about to scream out but an additional slam of the door opening cuts them off.

From the front entrance, Yasmine walks through. "Chris!?" She practically screams out before charging towards me for a hug.

"It hasn't exactly been that long, chill out" I hug back with reluctance as everyone stares.

She notices my discomfort taking a few steps back to look around at the surroundings, "This was the beta of Daybreak, husband of Athena. Respect him as much as you would the others." She calls out to them, closing their gaping moves as they gradually return to calmer states.

"You'd think they recognised me from helping out building this place, huh?" I laugh out, making my way to the way she came from.

"They haven't really seen that form of yours so it's understandable to an extent, but I get you! Where are you off to in such a hurry?" She asks.

"Athena was telling me that someone was waiting for me in Oracion's tomb, no clue what it was but it sure as hell seemed to rush her." I shrug while looking behind to meet her eyes.

"Come visit more often! See you around!" She waves off which I respond back with a thumbs up.

'Off to that damn cave it is' I ponder to myself.

'Is that not where you placed the sword?' Anubis asks.

'Yes, why?'

'No reason' He finishes without explaining, once again.

I walk through the centre of the town, the stares of the humans being full of smiles unlike the pack house. A reaction I'm never going to be able to wrap my head around, but maybe that's just a nature vs nurture thing. There's a reason to fear something after knowing what it can do, and we all know what that imagery has been burned into those pack members, as unfortunate as that is.

'Although saying this...who could even stop me from-lemme not go there' I laugh to myself, catching the eyes of others as I almost give into that little voice in my head.

I turn through to the gate, picking up the pace cause I feel oddly out of place here instead of the underworld. Eventually making it to the cave that's lined up by torches. "Hello?" I call out into the flickering shadows.

'Hold the sword, Christopher' Anubis informs me, urging my body towards the hilt of it.

"I could barely hold it the first time, what makes you think I can do it this time" I speak out loud before reaching for it, wrapping my hand around the Lycan sized blade.

Lines of black and red run up my arm, twisting themselves up towards my neck as I try to let go of it but end up ripping it from the stone. "Because you're going to need to" A voice seemingly whispers into my mind.

"I don't know what she's done to us, but clearly...we're not done here" He speaks again, lighting up the engravings of the blade as I stare at it with bewilderment.

Standing back up, I notice a significant difference from before. "I can...lift it?" I call out.

"Swing the blade" His voice rings through my head once again.

I tense the hilt with both my hands, quaking the floor beneath me as the wind gathers to the tip of it. Swinging down and causing the pedestal I was once on to shatter beneath my feet, tumbling me to the ground as some rock falls on my head. "Well alright then, fuck it haha!" I smile before getting back up to stare at it in my hand again.

"You're no Oracion...but I guess you can make do for the time being." The voice calls behind me this time, urging me to turn around and look at it. His sharply lined teeth formed with a gaseous lining, grinning at me with acknowledgement. "Hello, Anubis"

-

Arthur's POV

"Arthur wait up!" Nimue screams just behind me as I run through the turns of the maze, instinctively picking the direction just based off of intuition. 'Here...' The feminine voice whispers.

'I'm here...'

'You're so close...' It continues to guide me.

"ARTH-!" Nimue's voice slowly becomes overshadowed by the voice.

'I'm right here...' She keeps powering the muscles in my body.

'Run...'

'Claim thee...' I watch as the light in the sky begins to burn brighter, the aurora of gold beginning to concentrate as I take one final turning.

This is it. The sword that rivals Oracion's, the sword that can make all our problems go away. The sword that I can protect them all with. Owned by someone with the same name as me in a distant past, is that not a coincidence?

I slow my pace, looking up to the steps that lead to the sword in stone. Behind it rests a calm lake, glistening from the gold aurora acting as a false sun of this curse zone. The sword doesn't quite look golden but that must be from the efforts it took to even be placed into the stone, it almost looks...black? "Arthur!" Nimue calls just behind me.

"Come back down here! Let's find the others now that we've found it!" She cheers out with a large smile.

"We?" I spit back with obvious malice.

"Wha-"

"What do you mean we found it? I found it, I'm picking it up, and I'm using it Nimue."

"We couldn't lift up Oracion's sword, what makes you think that we could do it for this one!?" She yells back at me, gradually climbing the steps up to me.

"I can feel it calling to me! I just know I can use this!" I hover my hand over it.

"Arthur please, you don't know what you're dealing with" She continues climbing the steps as I lower my hand to it. "Besides! I heard the voice too! It isn't just calling out to you Arthur!"

I feel a surge of hate flow throughout me, "Bullshit! You just don't want me to, that's it. Isn't it?"

"I don't want you to Arthur, that's the truth. But I don't want to either!". She reaches the same platform as me, standing on the opposite side of the sword from me with her right hand extended out.

"Let's just go back, please" She offers her hand to me. "I'll convince them to give you a try first" She reasons with me.

I hesitate a bit, ultimately flopping my hand into hers. "I'm sorry" I pull her into a hug as she lets go of my hand to put it around me. "I don't know what cam-" A metallic clink rings through my ears.

"Nimue..." I regrettably hum out, pulling my head away from her slowly to see her left hand wrapped around the sword.

"Yeah?" She nonchalantly responds.

"You...grabbed it."

"What?" She breaks away from the hug, visibly surprised at her hand entirely wrapped around it as if intentional. "I didn't mean to!" She tries to let go of it by pulling away with grunts of desperation...but she can't.

"Arthur believe me!" She tries to reason with me but I can't bring myself to believe her. "HELP ME ARTHUR!" She screams out before traces of purple run out of the sword, filling the air around us with sparkling orbs that whisper to us both.

"Break"

"Heal"

"Restrain"

All different voices, all of them commanding different things with varying colours that match the elements of the gifts. "ARTHUR!" Nimue brings me back from my thoughts as the gold above us begins to spiral in concentration as she looks up in horror and then back to me. It slams down on her like a golden waterfall, drowning out my vision of her and forcing her head down.

Pieces of her face come visible to me as some traces of her black hair turn to a violent purple and her arm traces up with black lines, digging into her flesh and making its way into her eye. Her muffled screams cause me to shiver, removing the strength from my feet and causing me to drop to the floor.

A crashing boom startles me as the wall behind us explodes open, revealing a Lycan charging at me throughout the air. "ARTHUR!" I hear Jackson's groggy call as I become alerted of it, instinctively throwing myself down the rocky stairs.

A black hazed figure of a wolf leaps through the air, landing on the beast and tearing through it with shadowy claws that don't fit the structure of his body..."Percy?" I murmur with a tear in my eye, dragging his attention towards briefly me.

"FLY AND COLLAPSE!" The Lycan belts out in an explosive tone, exploding its own head and sending Percy crashing through walls before smashing him into the ground.

The headless beast turns itself towards me, gurgling something before smashing up rock in its hand and running towards me like a beast with nothing else in mind but its own survival. I freeze in place, attempting to grab the sword on my belt but it's not with me. I quickly glance around to see it just under the beast, back where I jumped off, trampled and snapped into two like a twig.

"NIMUE!" I scream with desperation, holding my arm up in front of myself just as Yue and Jackson yell out my name in an attempt to reach me. I shut my eyes, instinctively holding in a breath and prepare to be sliced through, my back against the wall with nothing more to me. All I can think is that it isn't fear overwhelming me in this moment...it's rage.

A blast winds me against the wall, forcing my arm away from my face and making me look up into the figure of the beast that stands above me. "Come here!" Yue's naked form drags me from under him, I can't feel my heart beating anymore. I can't feel anything, not even that previous vehemence of rage.

A voice of ethereal tone brings me back to my senses, her words completely juxtaposed to her manner of speech. "Shatter like glass, wither like bone." She hums out with a clear grin in her pitch.

The Lycan gurgles again, clearly in an expressionless pain as the body of it shakes violently. The minerals from the rich primordial land attach to it, crystallizing itself before shattering pieces of its rotten flesh. Dropping chunks of it at a time to the floor before withering and breaking away into the wind. The more that breaks off, the more it reveals the person standing behind it. Her purple and black dyed hair alongside the delicate touch of a sword, a gentle stab accompanied by the violence of a god's wrath against the flesh of the Lycan.

The beast gurgles with an intense pool of rotten black blood spilling from its head, "You seem mad at the result this time, maybe you should of stayed in the mirror?" She hums out with a giggle.

Jackson holds his stomach while coming up behind me, "The Spirit...the sole origin of what gave you all your gifts. The literal embodiment of power...I had no clue the Kindreds are capable of dispatching of it that easily? Even if it picked a corpse, that's not something we could of done at the wave of a hand." He explains while looking towards Nimue.

"A-re...are you okay?" I call out to her, going to run up to her but she holds a hand out. "What's wrong?" I ask.

"I can still see traces of it, running throughout the air. Give it a few seconds Arthur." Percy explains after dragging in his torn clothes to fit back on his body.

"And where exactly are they going?" Yue asks.

"Into the sword, probably similar to Oracion's to prevent it from coming back this time. But it's not a Shade, it's its own thing so I'm not sure how interacting with it directly would do. Be careful" He responds.

"Nimue?" I walk up to her after waiting a few seconds, but she turns around for a second before running her hands through her hair.

"Did something change about my hair? It feels off!" She panics, dropping the sword into the air which I dive to grab but...it floats.

"Are you doing that, or the sword?" I ask.

"The sword" She states before walking back a few steps as it glides next to her, spinning when she spins and essentially latched onto her like a child to their parent. "That's cool...I guess?"

"Odd to say the least." I deadpan, feeling a tad bit of jealousy.

Jackson walks up to us, "Now-"

His words interrupted by the sword's violent shakes behind her, "What's wrong with it?" He tilts his head to the side before it begins to glow. Beckoning us all to follow it to the edge of the large lake, stabbing itself into the ground and twisting to the sound of a key as if unlocking something.

We wait beside the river, gradually backing up as rumbling shakes the entire space. The water parts as a gigantic structure rises from it, draining itself of the water and giving a clear image of a grand castle that was once resting in that spot.

"Let's...explore this...a different day?" Yue drags on, admitting herself that she's tired.

I look at all of us, noticing how beat up we are overall, "Yeah I agree, we'll head back and rest for now I guess."

"Arthur you're hurt!" Nimue rushes to me after realizing some blood staining my shirt that I failed to notice.

"I'm fine" I laugh out a bit to get the attention off me but if I'm honest...do I feel a bit faint. I attempt to walk on my own, looking back down and visibly feeling the wound opening even more. I can hear them saying something to me, but it's too quiet for me to distinguish. Everything's safe...maybe it's fine that I can take a rest now. Just for a bit.