The Mythos Trials

Chapter Six, Part Two

One minute, Forneus and Phenex were there. The next, they had vanished, two of the Moirai along with them.

Leaving the third with Gwen and Lucas.

Gwen had just decided to summon the ethereal armour when Lucas vanished too, gone before she could blink. The bleak greyness surrounding her began to morph, and she heard the first Moirai's voice echo, though she was nowhere to be seen.

"Now that the trial is underway, please allow me to introduce myself." Gwen spun around, green light crackling around her and settling across her body like a second skin. "I am Clotho, one whom spun the thread of fate in days of old. As I can no longer spin the threads of either of your fates, I must content myself with spinning the thread of your trials."

Gwen reached for the holster at her hip, only to realize it wasn't there. Both the holster and the ethereal blade contained within were back in her cabin, completely out of her grasp. It was just as Lucas had said; she felt naked without it. Useless.

Clotho went on, heedless of Gwen's growing dismay. "The two of you will undergo your trials separately for a time, facing that which you fear and loathe most. Only once you have surpassed these trials—if you do—will you be permitted to move on to the final stage. Now, let us begin!"

There wasn't time to ask Clotho what she meant. The disembodied voice faded to a whisper, and it was with a growing sense of dread that Gwen took in her new surroundings. She had been here before, had seen the fluted columns and crumbling stands, all covered in lichen. Row upon row of circular seats rose up on either side of her, stone of grey and tan reflecting pale orange light from the setting sun overhead.

It's just like it was that day. Gwen willed more energy into the armour, a sudden tightness starting in the centre of her chest. Any minute now, the sun is going to disappear behind that upper tier there, and when it does...

It happened just as she thought it, the sunlight filtering in through the narrow apertures at the very top of the Colosseum, casting dappled yellow and orange light. The sky faded from a swirl of red and orange to a bruised purple, and finally, to deepest blue with traces of black. No stars shone down from where Gwen stood, no moon to cast the shadows she had seen that night in what felt like a lifetime ago.

Just impregnable blackness.

How am I supposed to pass the trials when I don't even know the rules?

Fear took hold, driving its icy thorns into Gwen's muscles until she couldn't move. It was faint, but she could just make out the Colosseum stands, grey against the solid black of night. Distantly, Gwen knew this must be an illusion, that there was no way she was really back in Rome, about to witness Forneus and Phenex taking on the three Akuma while she went in search of the Goblet of Bacchus.

And yet, when figures began to emerge around her in the gloom, two taking on the familiar, comforting forms she'd come to know so well over the past few months, with three others materializing across from them, Gwen couldn't stop the fear from escalating. All thoughts of Lucas and the Moirai fell away, leaving a terror she knew all too well in its wake.

Any minute now, Forneus would tell her to go after the goblet on his mark, electricity crackling in his hands as they circled the three Akuma. Phenex would spring forward, attacking the larger one, Kizah, his fiery fists slamming into him again and again...

But it didn't happen. The Forneus and Phenex figures finished materializing one instant only to vanish the next, not even stirring the dust of the arena floor, leaving Gwen to face the three Akuma.

Alone.

There wasn't time to consider the impossibility of the Akuma being there in the first place. The Misa copy was the first to move forward, the scrape of steel being pulled from its scabbard unmistakable, the length of her katana glowing ominously. Every movement was so precise, the figure's eyes bearing the same golden-flecked violet of the genuine article so perfectly that had Misa really been there, Gwen wouldn't have been able to tell them apart.