Once she and others learned that they could not use magic, their lady so painstakingly taught them, they felt disappointed. Not in their lady, no. But rather they felt disappointed in themselves since they so unbelievably failed.
While their lady did not seem disappointed in them, as much as she should be, they still felt a huge shame for their inadequacy. Initially, none of them knew what to do next. And all of them were lost for a while. But then it became clear, that they would have to pick up a slack and learn and improve as much as was possible for them.
And they trained, in anything and everything they could. Spears and slings, other weapons, they could reasonably replicate with materials available, and of course other skills as well, like tracking and stealth. All of them learned to move in the forest of Mount Athos and other places, with such grace, that the wild animals would be jealous of them. They fought enemies, faster, stronger, and taller than them. And they defeated every one of their numerous adversaries.
One such adversary was a mysterious cyclops. They fought it bravely, and with minimal injuries until they finally managed to defeat it. Though presenting it to their lady might have not been a good idea, while she congratulated them in the end, their lady also harshly scolded them for not calling for her. None of them could, for a long time, understand why. Why was their lady so harsh at them? Many thought it was for their inadequacy in learning magic, some thought that they displeased their lady by not allowing her to fight a worthy foe and only very few thought that their lady simply cared for them so much, that she did not want them to get hurt.
She, personally was in the second group, as that was what she would have wanted, should she be in her lady's place. Alas, to everyone's surprise, it turned out to be the last option. Quite frankly it should have been more obvious, than that. Their lady already did save their lives many times over, by healing the wounds that would have killed many. Their lady might have never explicitly said so before, that she genuinely cared for them, but they all now knew better.
Suddenly, one day, their lady Arachne, came to them along with the lady Medusa, who looked terrified. Their lady ordered them to break the camp and prepare to leave immediately. And so, all of them scrambled to fulfill their lady's orders as fast as they could. Soon, all of them found a new side of their lady, she almost appeared like a different person when with her friend. However, that was to be expected as Lady Medusa shared their lady's fate.
And once again, it was like so many months before, they all were on a march, but this time they were better prepared, better trained and even better equipped since they were able to procure weapons in the same settlement, where Lady Medusa's human friend lived. Even still, their lady was more on the edge, than before, telling them to be ready for anything, even the false gods.
This turned out to be a great foresight on their lady's side, as several days into their journey, their group was suddenly ambushed. Arrow barely missed their lady and then many more arrows hurt her personally as they did to others. Three of them were ordered to escort Lady Medusa away from the battle. While the rest charged to engage the enemy. And of course, she and her closest ones went to strike the enemy from their flank. After all, they were the best ones at sneaking, around.
But an uncomfortable feeling turned them in a different direction. There was one enemy, she was as disgusting as much as the false god Athena. They felt the need to go away but quickly realized, where the second false god was aiming her bow. She wanted to strike their lady, from the rear like a coward! They could not let it be, but ambushing their enemy from up close would be outright suicide, which would anger their lady since it would be an ineffective use of their mortal bodies.
"Artemis, NOW!" shouted the false god Athena, who was engaged in combat with Lady Arachne
But it was too late for false gods, the rock had already been slung at Artemis and even with inhuman reaction time, as she shot instantaneously when called, the rock managed to hit her aiming hand, kicking the arrows off its target, Lady Arachne
"Artemis, NOW!" the god-pretender shouted before I could react.
I've been had. If the name Artemis would suggest anything, it was the fact, that there was most likely another god-pretender, or at least a proof that Athena had some sort of backup. On the other side, it could have been nothing but a last-ditch effort to distract me, before I could deal a final blow to her.
And that very same moment, a fast-flying arrow, barely missed my body, embedding itself with unnatural weight into the ground. If I was doubting that there was another god-pretender seconds ago, then this arrow provided undisputable proof that that there was one. It flew so fast that I did not have time to enact protective film, to at least diminish the damage, which the arrow could have done me. This mistake was rectified immediately, since I was already in close quarters, engaged in combat with Athena. The protective film quickly shimmered all over my body into existence.
Alas, this Arteis must have been quite bad at hitting the relatively close-up target. Otherwise, I would have been pulverized or suffered a crippling injury. But a shouting in the direction, from which the arrow flew, would suggest something else. As it was some of my numbskulls of troops, who decided that it would be a good idea to attack a god-pretender.
Though they could not have known that at the time, thanks to their actions, they were now in mortal danger. But thanks to their actions, I was still uninjured and the enemy was momentarily confused. Clearly, I had to use this opportunity, which my brave, or perhaps stupid troops created.
It was sad to waste the protective formulae I just barely applied to myself, but getting rid of Athena was of utmost importance. I could deal with the other god-pretender afterward. Kicking the god-pretender Athena away, I broke the protective film, by the sheer muscle power. Needless to say, my spider limbs seem to exert an inhuman amount of strength, since Athena flew away tens of meters.
Using this opportunity I swiftly recovered her shield. I would not allow her to have such an advantage over me. And the severed limb still holding its handless, could be perhaps used to revive the fatalities, should any be sustained and my troops did not lie the first time, about being revived by the golden sparkling fluid. Quite frankly, it was true, then there was no real danger in this world since this god-pretender's blood could even revive the dead. Although, this could be Being X's plan, to lull me into complacency, only to flip the rules later. But this particular thought could be explored subsequently.
Right now, I had to finish off Athena, before the other god-pretender made mincemeat out of all of my meatshields. With her shield missing, Athena found herself in the desperate dance of dodging my optical formulae. And while it was quite an unelegant dance, it was effective in avoiding my attacks.
With wailing screams of my troops, from somewhere behind me, I knew that my grace period, where I would be attacked by only one god-pretender, expired. I could do nothing to prevent the loss of my exceptionally well-trained human resources since I had a previous arrangement with Athena. What a waste. That was why, I had to finish Athena quickly before Artemis could make me her target again. And she would not certainly miss for a second time.
Charging Athena, by propelling myself forward, by using bastardized flight formulae, I caught her momentarily shocked. Yet, not apparently shocked enough, since she struck her spear at me, which I parried, using her own shield.
One well-aimed optical formula erased most of the body of the god-pretender out of this world. No big geyser of golden liquid followed this time, and with that, Athena was gone. At least temporarily, until she decides to bother me again sometime later. Since it appeared, these god-pretenders could regenerate seemingly fatal injuries and even missing parts of the body.
As much as I would love to learn how Athena and Artemis, or even Zeus, found me and Medusa in the first place, I had no luxury of time to interrogate her. And mainly I doubted that she would be even willing to speak to me in the first place. Moreover, there was the other god-pretender, who screamed in rage and thus gave away her position, the exact moment Athena was evaporated by a concentrated beam of charged particles.
Emotions have no place on the battlefield, as was proven by her aim being completely off the mark. The god-pretender Artemis was screaming at me, while recklessly shooting one arrow after another. Was my assessment wrong about who was the emotional berserker? Well, perhaps both of them were. But I still wanted the information, about how they managed to find out my and Medusa's location. So Artemis better calm down, allowing me to interrogate her. It would be quite infuriating if she provided me with no information. However, if she proved to be too much of a danger, no information was worth risking the lives needlessly.
With our practical roles reversed, the god-pretender was now shooting at me, while I was parrying and dodging incoming projectiles. Slowly but surely I was closing the distance between myself and Artemis, who despite hurling curses my way, faster than her arrows, did seem to have at least a modicum of intelligence and sanity left in her enraged state, by backing away from me.
Alas, I was not alone. Some of my troops sustained injuries during the initial arrow barrage, some were still fighting the enemy, while others died at the god-pretender's hands. But that still left me with one or two capable meatshields, observing my fight. And with an appropriately aimed stone, they hit Artemis to her knee, which caused her to stumble. At the exact same moment, I was upon her, pushing her down to the ground by my spidery spindly legs. Of course not directly, that would most likely caused her extensive injuries. No, instead I pinned her down, using my front spider legs and Athena's shield, to distribute the weight more equally.
"How did you find me?" I shouted at her.
But my question was ignored, as she was raving about hurting me and about the other god-pretender while attempting to wiggle her way out.
"I will skin you alive! Make snake belt out of your friend for my Athena!" she shouted back, once she found out that the shield, holding her down, would not budge too much.
At this point, I was glad to be able to keep a straight face, as her strength was no joke. And were I not focusing my mind on repeatedly propelling my body down, by reduced flight formulae, every time she tried to overpower me, Artemis would have long escaped. Alas not even increased pressure on her, made her talk. The exact opposite was the case. She was writhing beneath the shield, incoherently shouting and grunting. If this continued, I would have to end her, before I managed to get the information I needed.
I was about to ask her once again, to see if the increased pressure and probably some ruptured organs helped to change the opinion. But the moment I opened my mouth, she found an absurd strength and threw me off the balance. Barely managing to react to the sudden change, I fired optical formulae at the god-pretender, but she was gone that very moment, along with the shield. Whether I managed to hit her or not, was irrelevant, as she would undoubtedly return, sooner or later. It seemed that my greed, the need to extract crucial information out of her, almost cost me, either my life or my precious human resources. Quite frankly I was lucky that she decided, or was forced to bail, instead of continuously attacking me.
Although, I still did not know how she and Athena managed to find me and Medusa, in the first place. Moreover, this Artemis, seemed to be even more unhinged than the other god-pretender, since she wanted to skin Medusa's children, as they were the only ones who had snake scales.
"Get me enemy survivors and all of our wounded, now!" I shouted another order to my troops.
If neither Athena nor Artemis wanted to talk, about how they managed to track me down, I would ask their human companions. Those would not be able to run away so easily.
"And gather our dead, we will give them quick burial," I added after I saw some of my troops, who were brutally killed by that maniacal god-pretender.
In the end, my troops quickly fulfilled their orders. The dead were gathered, and laid gently on the ground, while I was healing our wounded and the prisoners. There were only three enemies, that were still alive. I did not know whether to congratulate or berate my troops for being so efficient. But I suppose I could not blame them when they were fighting for their lives.
The three enemies were, quite frankly, hard to deal with. When asked, they did not talk. Or were saying, how would they never betray their leader, Artemis. Certainly, they were loyal, but I had no time to deal with that. How lucky, that the laws of war, would not be established for some time, thus I was free to extract the desired information by any means necessary. Moreover, I could always stop, should I see them going insane, since I needed the information about how they found us.
But I was no monster, unlike Artemis, who promised torture. No, I was, after all, a reasonable modern person. So I did show them an illusion of the future, what was to come for humanity in a few thousand years. The three prisoners got a nice excursion into the trenches of my previous world. First row seats.
Soon, the information I needed, was extracted out of them. It was almost laughable. The way they found us, was by simply following our tracks, all the way from the Mount Athos. None of the prisoners knew though, how Zeus found Medusa, only that Athena got our location on Mount Athos from him and that Artemis tracked us down.
It was possible that Zeus used a very similar method and followed my tracks to Mount Athos. Alas, that would make little sense, since I arrived at Moun Athos, a year before he appeared, unless. Of course, he could have had a sudden bout of a "divine inspiration", provided by none other than bastard Being X himself.
But, with a crucial part of the information missing, all I could do, was to make sure that we would not be tracked down again. In order to do that, to escape the seemingly supernatural senses of god-pretenders, I and my troops would have to fly, to leave no clues of our whereabouts. Yet, that was completely impossible since there were no computations orbs available, and none of my troops were mages. The only other option, how to leave as little clues as possible, was to go by sea, where the monsters dwelled. But the monsters were also on the mainland, so it made not that much difference in the end.
Alas, I could think about the escape strategy later, right now, we all gathered in front of our dead, my still living troops singing "Once I had a comrade", the very same song I taught them. Next to me was Medusa, who was escorted back by her guards, who somehow knew that the fight was over. I initially admonished them, for returning to the potential combat zone with VIP. But they explained, that they were informed, by their comrades about the the burial of the dead and wanted to say their own goodbyes. I could not blame them for that, alas how did they shared the information between themselves I did not know, since I so no one leaving this place. Did my troops develop some kind of communication that I was not aware of? I would have to ask them about it later.
"Arachne! Sorry! I'm so sorry..." said Medusa clinging to my person, like a little child.
Was it good that she talked now? Probably not, since her original shock has been overridden by another traumatic experience. While she did not have to witness the brutal fight in person, she was not that far away from hearing it. And now, she saw the corpses of my troops, lying on the ground unmoving and cold.
"It is not your fault, Medusa. The only ones responsible for this are the false gods and no one else," I explained, trying to calm her down.
She said nothing but cried. Even her children seem to be in a somber mood. And now it was a time to turn many of my troops into nothing more than ashes, by optical formulae.
"Fifteen dead... What a waste!" I cursed, the god-pretenders for taking so many precious human resources from me.
"I might be able to help with that," yet another foreign voice said, as I fired optical formulae their way.