Determination

by Angela B. Macala-Guajardo

  Fueled by anger, Roxie opened herself to sensing what her opponents’ intentions were.

  Death. Kill the Aigis. Quick and painless. Yet they wanted to be wrong. They wanted her to win. However, they wouldn’t let her win. For some reason they saw it as too cruel to just throw her at Nexus and hope for the best.

  But she wanted to go straight to Nexus; not waste precious energy fighting them. How could they be so sure they were doing the right thing?

  Thanatos and Keres split up, positioning themselves on either side, fists held ready. Roxie presented her shield to one and her sword ready for the other. She didn’t care that she was about to fight children. They weren’t children. Their appearance was how they’d chosen to show themselves to her. The only disconcerting thing about them was their two-colored eyes. Their serious gazes looked off-balance. She wanted to stare until she could make sense of it, along with familiarize herself with their heterochromia, but she forced herself to just accept and ignore it. They were her last barrier standing between her and Nexus.

  Roxie lunged at Thanatos and swung her shield. He backed away and Roxie turned to Keres, who intended to punch her in the back of the head. Roxie swung her blade and Keres danced around, redirecting her attack on any opening she could find. Roxie held her back with both sword and shield, and willed the goddess to stop fighting. Keres’s movements slowed but she willed herself to keep moving, urging Roxie to really prove herself.

  Roxie sensed Thanatos’s attack and swung her sword just in time to block the kick to her spine. The kick sent a jolt up her arm and she grew angrier when the blade didn’t even cut his pants. Keres tried to get around her shield but Roxie whirled in place and faced her again, forcing the goddess back.

  If she was to get out, she had to beat them, but how was she supposed to accomplish that without inadvertently killing them? If she held back, they’d probably kill her, but if she didn’t hold back, she might kill one or both of them.

  Both deities came at her from opposite sides. Roxie dodged out of their path and swung her arms like she was about to clap her hands, willing her opponents to bash into each other. Their mismatching eyes widened, but their bodies grew transparent and they passed through each other unscathed. They found their footing and faced Roxie, fists ready, then attacked her at the same time again.

  They weren’t holding back. They were honest to goodness trying to kill her, yet Roxie found herself holding back in order to not kill the very beings that could send her back to the living side. However, in a way, those two were holding back a bit as well. They were waiting for her to outmaneuver them, to force them to yield. They trusted themselves to stop the fight before they were killed.

  Roxie trusted her self-control enough to work with that. She began fighting all-out, nonverbally exerting her will as they double-teamed her.

  It was difficult fighting two opponents at once, but her fight with Nero had prepared her for this. The hardest part was keeping track of whose intentions were whose. Despite the difference in the gods’ voices, it was like trying to listen to two conversations at once, ones that moved with thinking-on-feet speed. She caught snippets of each of their intentions, just enough to keep up and keep her sword and shield between them.

  Their fight became a dance. Thanatos and Keres attacked from opposite sides, and Roxie spun and countered their blows. The three of them moved with superhuman speed and Roxie constantly tried to break their rhythm, but they seemed indifferent to her enhanced strength. She didn’t let this daunt her, though. She would find a way to beat them.

  Thanatos and Keres jumped back and closed their eyes. Replicas of them fanned out and faced Roxie with fists raised and serious gazes fixed on her. Dear god, how was she supposed to fend off dozens at once?

  Closing her eyes as well, she took a deep breath. It didn’t matter how many there were. She’d defeat every last one of them.

  Roxie spread her mind vision in all directions but white outlines of only two children showed up. She snapped her eyes open. She was surrounded by a circle of dozens of children, but her mind vision saw only the real two, who hadn’t moved. Roxie dropped into a defensive stance. Let them waste her energy trying to fool her.

  The real Thanatos and Keres remained stationary while their doppelgängers launched into the offensive like a volley of arrows. Roxie braced herself but made no move to fight or block all their attacks. They kicked and punched, making Roxie stagger and flinch, but she held her ground, clenching her teeth with every blow and keeping her awareness on the real two. Thanatos and Keres were trying to distract her into not paying attention to them.

  Roxie split part of her concentration on her shield, imagining it protecting her like a full-bodied magic barrier. She willed their fists and feet to fall harmlessly away, and they thunked against air, allowing her mind to absorb all the blows. The doppelgängers came at her in greater numbers, pounding her mental shield with the ferocity of a predator trying to rob its prey of its last scrap of safety. She could sense their murderous intentions through the doppelgängers. The fact that they were willing to try and kill her without their own fists fueled Roxie’s anger all the more. To her, they were fighting like cowards.

  Nero was right. Gods were selfish when it came to preserving their own lives.

  Closing her eyes, Roxie brought her shield hand to her forehead and spread her awareness to every last doppelgänger, along with keeping part of her attention on the two originals. The fakes surrounded her like an angry swarm of bees but they couldn’t break her will and land a blow. Thanatos and Keres were indifferent to her contempt. If Roxie couldn’t overpower their doppelgängers with the attack she was preparing, then it’d only confirm their assumption that they were better off not throwing her at Nexus.

  Fine. Let them think what they wanted. Her need to be the Aigis everyone needed her to be outweighed any god’s opinion of her.

  Roxie swung her shield arm. “Stop!” The ground shook and all the doppelgängers froze in place. They stood unmoving in a fighting stance, mid-stride, and even midair, as if someone had taken a snapshot of that instant. Their serious gazes went wide-eyed and they grunted and struggled to break free, but Roxie swung her sword at the nearest ones. They flinched and disintegrated like shadow people. She marched up to the others and they tried to flee, but her hold over them allowed no more than squirming as she cut them down one by one.

  As their numbers dwindled, Thanatos and Keres began winning control over those left. Roxie pressed harder to hold them in place, imagining every last one bolted to the ground. The doppelgängers flailed their arms but couldn’t move their feet. Roxie swung her sword and another vanished, then she ran instead of walked as she felt her control failing, cutting down the last ten in seconds. When it was just her and the originals, she crouched into a fighting stance and tried to think of a strategy to overpower and outmaneuver them.

  Fighting head-on wasn’t going to work. Being one against two, there would always be someone in her blind spot. Eventually one of them would land a blow that’d throw her on pure defensive. From there, it’d be an uphill battle to go back on any offensive, a struggle to keep them off. She needed to find a way to incapacitate one so she could focus on the other.

  Maybe she needed to kill one to prove to the other that she was worth sending off to fight Nexus. She didn’t like the idea but she conceded it might be the only way. She didn’t want to kill Nexus either, but he was shamelessly killing so many with his prophesied war. It was for the greater good that she had to try to kill him. With Thanatos and Keres in her way, part of acting for the greater good might mean killing one of them as well.

  She felt her anger cooling, but latched onto it as she clenched her sword tight. She hadn’t asked to have these decisions thrown at her. Thanatos and Keres had forced them on her. For the sake of saving lives and honoring Aerigo’s memory, Roxie would make all difficult decisions she had to. There were too many people depending on her for her to go all timid. She squared off with Thana
tos and charged him.

  He backpedaled and Roxie sensed both their intention to avoid directly fighting with her.

  “You are very dangerous,” Thanatos said plainly.

  “But so was the one you love,” Keres said.

  “Think us cowards all you want, Aigis.”

  “You have not yet satisfied us with your worth.”

  The key word there was “yet.” They saw potential in her, hope. But they were still worried that throwing her at Nexus would be a mistake. She wanted to yell at them to stop worrying and send her on her way already, but that’d be a waste of energy. She was stuck doing things their way.

  Roxie raised her sword and Thanatos vanished as she cut only air. She sensed him reappear beside Keres. Both children stood side by side, watching with their serious gazes. They held out their little hands, palms up, and Roxie yelled, “Stop!”

  They flinched and struggled to resume concentrating. Roxie drew closer, forcing out one step at a time, but it was like trying to plow her way through snow up to her waist. Each step required monumental effort and careful placement to keep her balance. They wanted her to stay far away.

  The ceiling cracked and started falling apart. They intended to bring the mountain down on her.

  Keeping a part of her awareness on the deities, Roxie scanned the hallways for the nearest exit. The sunlight lancing in overhead disappeared, as did what carried through the dozen hallways, pitching her into total darkness. Using her mind’s eye, she watched the halls collapse, starting from the outside and working inwards, and her legs felt like jelly. She had to plow through hundreds of tons of rock.

  She ran for the carved hallway leading in the opposite direction of where Thanatos and Keres stood. The air rang with cracks and thuds, and the ground shook. It didn’t matter which hall she picked. Holding her shield overhead, Roxie charged into the crumbling darkness, unsure if her Aigis strength and durability would suffice to help her survive. Rock fell on and all around her, and she found herself barricaded in from all sides. Thanatos and Keres teleported out of the mountain and collapsed the main chamber. The crackling and rumbling grew muffled as Roxie found herself pinned under her shield. She held the rock at bay with strength of will, but the sheer amount pressing down on her made her gasp for breath.

  Breath. Air. Come to think of it, the harder she breathed, the faster she’d run out of air.

  Panic encroached on her anger. She couldn’t help but breath hard while holding up part of the mountain. Thanatos and Keres hovered hundreds of feet overhead, out in the open and watching on in silence. They weren’t certain the mountain would crush her, but they’d worry about exploring other tactics if she broke free.

  Roxie struggled to grasp how determined they were to kill her. Here she was, wanting to stop Nexus, and stood a fighting chance against him, yet those two weren’t sure giving her that chance was a good idea. They owed her an explanation once she found a way out of this claustrophobic mess.

  She filed through her fight with Nero and her thoughts jumped to the idea of growing. The bigger she was, the more physically strong she’d be. The stronger she was, the easier it’d be to move more rock. But if she grew, would she be crushed as she expanded, or was she durable enough to force the mountain to move for her?

  Unable to think of anything else, it was a gamble she had to take.

  Roxie wiggled her way to one knee as she held her shield overhead, and focused on growing all the way to her limit. She grew slowly, just in case, and felt the rocks squeeze her body as it filled up every last cubic inch of space. The air became thinner and each breath felt too small, but she concentrated on pushing the rock out of her way as she continued growing.

  Her heart pounded away in her head and chest as she pushed and grew. Rock shifted as it bore its tonnage down on her, which felt like one body-sized sinus headache clamped in a vice. She grit her teeth and pushed against the mountain with her will and limbs, trying to rise to her feet. Rock shifted and rumbled, but Roxie felt herself slowly losing the battle. She stopped growing and took several deep breaths, bracing herself for one more idea.

  Doing her best to not care about how heavy all the rock was, along with forget about how thin the air had become, Roxie sucked in one more dirt-tinted breath and concentrated on growing as fast as she could. She braced for the pain she might feel and envisioned herself growing to freedom. She felt the sensational whoosh of going up in an elevator, but the mountain pressed down on her, forcing her to stop. She took another deep breath and concentrated again, this time pushing against the crushing weight. Her body ached all over and bones screamed to stop being poked and jabbed by all the boulders but Roxie pushed through the agony and rumbling filled her ears.

  The mountain began to shift and she started growing faster. She slowly got to both feet under her and got stuck in a crouch, but the bigger she got, the easier it became to keep growing.

  The mountain suddenly pressed harder as Thanatos and Keres willed it to crush her. Their efforts angered more than frightened her, and she could feel their amazement at her having survived this far.

  Roxie grew to her limit and was still buried under the mountain’s summit, but she didn’t care. Still crouched, she focused her will on the crushing rock and sucked in yet another thin breath. “Move!” She willed herself to straighten her knees and raise her arms. The rock shook and vibrated as the contest of wills struggled against each other. Roxie shouted again and managed to straighten her knees.

  Both deities felt a trace of fear. Roxie smiled inwardly as she shouted a third time. The mountain exploded away in all directions as she flung her arms out, and she got doused with sunlight. She squinted at the sudden brightness as she took one gulp of air after another, then wiped her eyes and launched into the sky, thoroughly relieved to be free.

  Thanatos and Keres pelted her with boulder after boulder, but Roxie dodged and smacked them out of the way with her shield. She swung at their minuscule frames with her giant, glowing sword and they darted off like hummingbirds. She spun and swatted at them with a wing, sending them tumbling through the air. They went with the momentum and darted towards the Chthonian Mountain as it reassembled itself.

  Roxie gave chase but her quarries darted inside a rebuilt tunnel. She thudded against the mountain and latched onto it, feeling like King Kong atop the Empire State Building. Her hand was too large to fit down a tunnel. She lined up her sword tip with the opening and stabbed, burying it to the hilt. Her mind’s eye watched the blade slice only air and rock.

  Thanatos and Keres were scared of her. They’d been scared all this time, but not as terrified as they felt now. They were beginning to understand how determined she really was.

  Retracting her sword, Roxie hacked at the mountain, her sword thwacking the summit with one metallic clang after another. Chunks of rock broke off, bouncing their way to the water far below. Despite how big she’d grown, the drop still looked at least ten stories to her.

  She grunted with every swing, paying attention to Thanatos as he planned an offensive attack. Roxie didn’t quite understand his intentions, beyond his desire to kill her. Mindful of anything that might shoot out of the tunnels, Roxie kept chipping away with her glowing sword, half waiting, half daring Thanatos to throw everything he had at her. She knew the dare wasn’t wise, but she didn’t care. They’d demanded this fight from her.

  “You think us cornered, Aigis?” said a deep, booming voice from within the mountain.

  Roxie stopped hacking and pushed off the mountain, flapping her wings to hover in place.

  Two giant, clawed hands reached out from two different tunnels, grabbing the archways as shadows poured out of the three tunnels in between. The shadows molded into a giant head, the hands pushed at the mountainside, and a giant spectral figure poured forth.

  Roxie swung at it but the shadow parted like a school of fish evading a shark. It reformed, looming larger and larger over her. Keres sat huddled inside the mountain, unwilling to continue fight
ing. She was finally convinced Roxie stood a chance against Nexus. Roxie’s unwavering determination had won her over. This shadow person before her, Thanatos, wasn’t ready to agree with his sister. Roxie could feel Keres’ annoyance with her sibling.

  So, one down and one to go.

  Roxie sheathed her sword, seeing no point in wielding at against shadows. Thanatos lunged at her and Roxie blocked him with her shield, willing him to fall away like water, but his arms were almost as big as her giant body. He wrapped her in a bear hug and knocked her out of the sky. Roxie tried to free her wings but the shadow held them clamped to her back. She cannonballed back-first into the water and sucked in a breath right before bubbles filled her hearing. She kicked and punched at the shadow, landing blow after blow, but it felt like she was punching a stretchy pillow, the water hampering her movements. They sank deeper into the darkening water, Thanatos willing them to the bottom as Roxie willed him to let go.

  The water pressure squeezed her head. She paused mid-struggle to pop her ears, then resumed fighting Thanatos’s will. Take me back to the surface. I have to go fight Nexus; not waste time fighting you. She clutched his arms and tried to pry them off.

  Your fight is with me, Aigis.

  Those words made her wonder. You’re sided with Nexus, aren’t you? It made sense. Why else would he be so determined to keep her far away from Nexus? That mercy stuff had to be lies.

  But Keres wasn’t interested in fighting her anymore, so...

  Thanatos’s will lessened as a wave of surprised passed over him.

  Not caring why he was surprised, Roxie yanked her wings free. Her feet found the ocean bottom. She bent her knees and launched off the sand, flapping her wings, propelling them towards the surface. You’re just stalling me, buying Nexus time so his prophecy can play out in full. Why didn’t I see this earlier?

  You’re wrong, Aigis, Thanatos said patiently in his deep voice, so very wrong. He swam with her, pushing her ahead of him. You forget I am the Keeper of Time. I’m the one buying you time.