The two barely had time to react.

  The creature moved like lightning, too fast for Jason’s magic to track. His arcane bolt streaked past its shoulder, exploding against the wall in a fsh of ozone.

  Annabeth stepped forward, bde raised. The weapon she’d been examining sliced a shallow line across its ribs. The creature shrieked, twisted unnaturally, and sshed upward. Annabeth hissed, stumbling back with a gash across her forearm.

  Jason lunged, his magical shield fshing as he pushed the creature away. It didn’t retreat. Instead, it rolled and dodged, cws scraping the barrier, which held.

  The beast leapt back, crouching low, circling.

  “It’s fast,” Jason called. “We need to pin it.”

  Annabeth gritted her teeth, blood dripping from her arm. “Then stop trying to zap it and help me corner it.”

  It lunged again this time at Jason. The enchantments on his dress shimmered as cws gnced off his shoulder, but the impact nearly knocked him over.

  Annabeth feinted left, then drove her bde into its thigh. The creature shrieked, but as it pulled away, the bde snapped.

  “Aw, fuck,” she spat, tossing the hilt at it and dodged back.

  Jason didn’t move.

  He wasn’t seeing the fight as alien words and emotions crashed over him. He was somewhere else, someone else, on a different battlefield.

  Then, with a jolt, he was back. His eyes bzed. Ancient words spilled from his lips, burning the air.

  The creature screamed as raw magic exploded around it, hurling it into the wall.

  “Holy shit, Jason!” Annabeth yelled, rising her arms protectively as the magic washed over her.

  But shadows immediately coiled around the creature’s feet like smoke, knitting its wounds.

  “I don’t think so,” Jason growled. He hurled a bolt, not at the creature, but the ground behind it. The bst scattered the shadows, forcing it back with a hiss.

  Annabeth charged, hammer in hand. She leapt, bringing it down with a satisfying crack. The creature stumbled, twisted mid-fall, and raked a cw across her ribs. Blood sprayed. She gasped, armor shredded, stumbling back.

  It didn’t see Jason reappear behind it. He struck from its blind spot, driving a charged dagger into its back. The impact sent them both skidding across the stone floor.

  The creature nded on all fours, grinning. But the mask had cracked, and for a moment, the beast flickered.

  Jason’s eyes narrowed. “The mask is an anchor. We need to break it.”

  Annabeth nodded. “Okay.”

  The creature lunged again. Jason stepped aside. Annabeth swung.

  The mask shattered.

  The creature shrieked, staggering, clutching its face.

  Jason didn’t hesitate. He spoke harsh, eldritch words. The creature froze at the center of the bst, unraveled into shadows.

  “Finally,” Annabeth exhaled. “Jason?”

  He stood still, eyes burning, then colpsed like a puppet with its strings cut.

  She rushed to him, checking for wounds. Nothing. Then his eyes snapped open.

  “Jesus Christ, that sucked.”

  “Geeze, don’t scare me like that,” Annabeth winced.

  Jason reached over, touching her side. “You, okay?”

  “Mostly,” she muttered, wiping blood from her hands.

  With a groan, he sat up and pulled off his backpack. “Come here. Let me see.”

  Annabeth hesitated, then knelt beside him. “It’s not deep,” she said, dropping her ruined armor.

  She tried to lift her arm, but grimaced.

  “Stop that. You’ll make it worse.” Jason pulled a vial from his pack, uncorked it with his teeth, lifted her shirt, and poured it over the wound.

  Annabeth hissed as it bubbled and stung.

  “Sorry,” he said. “Drink the rest.”

  “You sure?”

  He nodded. She slugged it back, gagging.

  “Nasty tastes like dirty socks.”

  “We need to wrap it,” he said, chuckling. “Take off your shirt.”

  Once they finished, Jason looked back. The creature’s shattered mask sat in the shadows, softly glowing. Something about it pulled at his memory.

  Wiping his hands, he knelt and pulled out the journal he had found earlier.

  “There was something more in here… I didn’t finish reading before that thing showed up.”

  He flipped to the marked page. “‘Here we go. Twin sentinels guard the threshold. Only the marked may pass.’”

  “Two?” Annabeth looked at the corpses. “So, this wasn’t just some random monster.”

  “A guardian of some sort and apparently comes in pairs,” Jason groaned.

  They didn’t speak for a while.

  The hallway beyond the archway was quiet, but neither had the energy to move even if they wanted to.

  Jason leaned against the stone with his eyes half-closed, the journal opened nearby.

  Annabeth sat beside him, her hammer on her knees and her chest bare. The shoulder and arm guards were set aside, but the leather jerkin was a complete loss. However, the mail on the corpse that wore the bracelet looked promising.

  “You good?” he asked, voice low.

  Annabeth nodded, then swung her arms back and forth. “Better than I should be. That potion worked pretty well. Still a bit sore.”

  Jason nodded. “Let it do its thing. We're not in a rush.”

  “Gd you were able to read those runes,” she grinned. "Speaking of useful skills, I picked up two more.”

  “Oh.”

  “So, I started with Runic Guard.” Annabeth pulled up her skill list. “That’s the one that absorbs damage if you're not attacking.”

  “Right.”

  “Unfortunately, it only sts for eight seconds, then there’s Echo Step, which is that double-step thing. I now have Aegis Reflex, which looks a lot like your magical shield. Even better, there’s a chance it will reflect damage back.”

  “Nice,” Jason nodded approvingly. “What about offensive? You said you got a new one.”

  “Shadow Laceration.”

  “Interesting. What does it do?”

  Annabeth frowned. “If I hit with it, the target takes damage for so many seconds, which appears to be random.”

  “Ahh, you’ll dot your target, I wonder if they stack,” Jason hums.

  “Huh?”

  “Sorry, damage over time. In some games, they stack, so the more you strike the target, the more damage it will take. Sort of like a bleed effect, but I guess it's shadow.”

  Annabeth then said excitedly. “What about you. Those st two spells you hadn’t used before.”

  Jason hesitated.

  She then frowned. “And you mentioned that you were an arcane mage, but that st one looked like some sort of fireball.”

  He sighed. “I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Okay, but now you've got me worried. What’s going on?”

  “So, all the spells I have been casting since the first vision haven’t been from my spell list,” Jason began. “Neither is my ability to decipher runes or read new nguages.”

  Annabeth’s brow furrowed. “From the visions?”

  Jason nodded. “It’s like… I’m not learning spells. I’m just remembering them. Actually, since the first spell I cast wasn’t on the list, I haven’t been able to access the system. It doesn’t work for me anymore.”

  Annabeth was quiet for a moment. “So, what does it mean? You're still Jason, right?”

  One thing she noticed: At first, she thought it was just a coincidence, but since the visions he had, he had been acting more and more feminine. The way he walked, spoke, and behaved. Still, she didn’t want to bring it up, not wanting to upset him.

  It's not that she was a hypocrite. She hadn’t felt like a woman in quite some time, almost since the day they appeared. Was she truly one anymore? She didn’t feel like one and couldn’t remember ever being one. It's as if she were born with this body. She actually felt more comfortable being called a 'he'. Could she talk with him about pronouns, or would that be too much?

  Jason waved, then grinned. “Still me. Just a little bit weirder.”