Hey everyone! So obviously this is a Xena Fanfiction. First off, anything and everything in the Xena universe does not belong to me, I claim no credit for that brilliance.
Secondly, while I fully accept X/G as my OTP, this is not focused on their relationship, although it will be in here this story will be more like the show; the relationship is there, but it is very much innuendo.
Thirdly, time period is AFTER the 25-year time skip, after Xena basically destroys the pantheon; that's actually kinda the basis.
Lastly, according to my and my poetic license, Xena killed a lot more of the Olympians than it showed in the...well, the show. And in my Mythology-buff mind, I figured hey! a perfect chance to incorporate the Roman gods! Basically a lot is actually explained in the second chapter...so if you can hold on until then, well, have a cookie.
Chapter one: Not in Kansas anymore
Fourth year cadet Katharine Shields jogged at a steady pace through the woods. She was bruised all over and her head ached, but she knew she had to keep moving. As she looked around her, trying desperately to remain calm, a terrifying thought kept occurring to her; that she was completely lost.
"Echo, Foxtrot, Gulf…can anyone hear me? Come in Echo."
It was probably the hundredth time she had tried for radio contact, with no response. As she looked up at the darkening sky, she knew she would have to find somewhere to pitch camp, and soon.
Kate had been with her company, Echo, on a standard training mission in the mountains of New York, when a storm had come entirely out of nowhere and they had been forced to find shelter. They had been making their way to a set of caves on the side of a cliff when a lightning bolt had struck a tree to her right, and Kate found herself tumbling down the cliff. Fortunately for her it wasn't a straight drop, unfortunately she hit her head on a rock and was knocked out.
When Kate had come to, the storm had stopped. Her head hurt like a bitch, but besides that and a lot of bruises she was fine. She had looked for the caves but had somehow rolled so far away from the cliffs that she couldn't find them. That's when she first started trying radio contact, but to no avail. She had pulled out her map and compass, this was after all a navigation exercise, but she couldn't find any of the landmarks on her map. Not to mention some of the foliage was starting to look suspiciously foreign to New York.
That's when she started to get worried.
Now the sun was setting, Kate hadn't gotten in contact with any of the training companies that she knew were out there, and she had no clue where she was. Tired and sore, she finally resigned herself to pitching a tent and calling it a day. She came upon a nice small clearing with a stream nearby, set herself up for the night and, with nothing for dinner besides a clif bar, she promptly fell asleep.
A loud rustling noise outside her tent woke Kate up. Checking her watch she saw that it was six in the morning; she was usually up before then. Something rustled again, it sounded large, and slowly Kate reached for the small red knife that she always kept on the waistband of her pants.
It's probably just a…raccoon or something, she thought to herself, trying to calm her racing heart. She knew there were bears in these mountains, and suddenly she wished, not for the first time, that WestPoint issued its cadets guns when they were out in the wilderness. She shut her eyes, ears straining to hear what the animal or animals were doing. That's when she heard it.
Voices.
Kate's eyes snapped open and she slowly crawled out of her sleeping bag, trying to make out what whoever was out there was saying. Suddenly she heard a tearing noise behind her and, still crouched, Kate spun around, flicking open her knife, to find a large rip in her tent and one of the ugliest faces she had ever seen staring in at her.
"I'm telling you Xena, we should have taken that road back there; it may not be a shortcut but at least it's the actual road to Athens." A small blonde girl huffed, brushing aside a large branch that was in her way. Moments like these she wished she still had her staff; a pair of sais were little help when it came to moving through shrubbery.
The tall brunette next to her did not have the same issue, as she hacked away at the forest in front of her with her sword. "Gabrielle, if we had followed that road we wouldn't have gotten to Athens for another week; and I don't know about you but I don't really want to keep Autolycus waiting, he'd steal half the city out of sheer boredom."
Gabrielle just grunted in agreement, kicking at a rock that proved to be larger than she thought.
"Tartarus curse it, Gods damnit, fucking son of a Bachae…" she continued to swear eloquently, hopping up and down while trying to massage her wounded toe.
"Shhhh, quiet Gabrielle." Xena stopped, putting a hand on Gabrielle's shoulder. She had heard something that sounded like fighting, but Gabrielle's curses were making it hard to hear properly.
Gabrielle stopped, gingerly setting her foot back down, and glared up at Xena. "What?" she hissed, clearly annoyed.
Xena's eyes were still darting around, searching for the cause of the noise. "Do you hear that?" she asked softly.
"No, in fact I have no idea what the Hades-" but then Gabrielle stopped, she heard it too. She turned to her right, and suddenly she saw a flash of sunlight reflect off of what was unmistakably a blade, quite a few yards off. Quietly she motioned in the direction to Xena, who nodded.
Xena whispered for Argo to stay, and slowly, without even having to speak to each other, the two moved silently towards the fight.
Kate had her back to a tree, as her eyes darted between the three men in front of her. They were by far the ugliest, smelliest men she had ever met; but they were also very dangerous as she had quickly discovered. She had thrown the first one off by charging the opening where he had torn her tent with his…sword. The shock still hadn't really hit her that she was being attacked by three men, wearing filthy clothes and carrying weapons that hadn't been in use for hundreds of years.
No, she was more focused on the fact that they were trying to kill her.
She had a nasty gash on her left arm where one had got her, but her adrenaline helped her ignore it for now. She now held two knives, one was her WestPoint issued one for her involvement on the Combat Arms team, and the other was her own little Benchmade, the small one she had initially grabbed, her companion since her 18th Birthday.
The Brute on her left swung his sword at her head, but Kate ducked swiftly and shot out her leg towards his knee, feeling it buckle beneath her heel. Without missing a beat she reached up to grab the arm that had attempted to lob off her head seconds before, and used the man's own momentum to send him reeling into the thug next to him.
As those two tried to untangle themselves, the man on her right charged her, bringing his sword down towards her shoulder. Kate stepped to her left, avoiding the blow and bringing her knee up to connect solidly with his stomach as he passed her. She slammed the hilt of her large dagger solidly into the back of his skull, feeling it give ever so slightly as the man collapsed on the ground. Kate turned in time to see that the first two had freed themselves from each other, and they now both charged her.
Kate knew that she couldn't handle both at the same time; she had two small daggers and they were full grown men with swords. She decided to throw them off by charging them, screaming wildly, and then ducking down to roll between them. As she came up behind them, turning quickly, she suddenly heard an odd cry.
"Aieelalalalalaaaaaa"
Kate looked up to see a streak of brown, black, and gold as someone neatly jumped over her, landing solidly in front of her and swinging another…sword, against one of the thugs. Kate turned to face the remaining man, but he was already engaged with a smaller, blonde girl who was fighting him with what looked to be a pair of long, thin daggers. Except she held them with the points faced inwards, and used the hilts to attack her opponent. In a matter of seconds both men lay on the ground, unconscious like their friend, and Kate was left wondering if these two strangers would attack her as well.
Before they had jumped in, Xena and Gabrielle had only taken the time to notice that it was three on one, and that one was in trouble. Now that it was safe they took the time to appraise the woman they had just rescued, and they were both quite startled.
Standing in front of them was a tall young woman, as tall as Xena, in a tan shirt and long pants that had a design neither had seen before. It had multicolored patches of brown, green, and tan, and seemed to be incredibly well made. She had hazel eyes and long brown hair that was pulled back in a ponytail. Her boots were also of a kind they had never seen before, a tan mix of leather and fabric. She was incredibly fit and obviously knew how to fight; and right now she was eyeing them with a mixture of confusion and apprehension.
"Are you all right?" asked the small blonde girl.
Kate blinked, she had been staring at the two women's clothes, they were…bizarre to say the least; the tall woman wore a leather corset and skirt, with armor over it, while the smaller woman wore a knee-length fleece jacket, under which she wore what barely passed as undergarments. Kate eyed the weapons the two still had drawn as she spoke. "Uh…yea-" she was cut off by something warm and wet dripping in to her right eye. She flicked her Benchmade closed, pocketing it, before reaching up to her eye to wipe off the sticky substance. Holding her hand up she saw that it was blood, and she felt her forehead to find a large gash right above her eye. "oh Bloody Hell" she muttered Must have cut it on a rock when I rolled she thought, annoyed. She turned back to the two strange women, who were looking at her expectantly, and finished her reply. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Um…thanks I guess. Who are you two? And who were they?"
The tall, dark-haired woman spoke first, "My name is Xena, and this is my friend Gabrielle, I have no idea who those men were, but I assume they were just your typical, run-of-the-mill thieves; and you are…?"
Kate knelt down, wiping her larger knife on the ground before replacing it in the sheath on her belt. Run of the mill thieves? Yeah right, she'd never heard of men running around New York State brandishing swords and assaulting people. And now here were two more, equally strange women. This was just getting stranger and stranger. Straightening up, Kate fell into parade rest; maybe this was some wacky test WestPoint was throwing at her. "My name is Katharine Sheilds, I'm a Fourth-year cadet at the United States Military Academy at WestPoint."
Xena and Gabrielle stared at her blankly. Kate faltered a bit, everyone knew WestPoint, "You know, WestPoint, it can't be more than ten miles from here. I was on a training exercise and got separated from my company."
The two women looked at each other, both thinking the same thing; this woman was either very lost, or crazy. They hadn't heard of any of the places she had mentioned, and it certainly wasn't close by.
Kate noticed the looks on their faces; they clearly had no idea what she was talking about. Great, I must have stumbled upon some kind of…renaissance reenactment or something, god those people take these things too far sometime. She pinched the bridge of her nose, her head was throbbing, and so was her arm. "Ok whatever, so you guys don't know WestPoint. Look could you point me in the direction of the nearest town or city? I really need to get back to civilization."
Gabrielle piped up, "Actually we're heading to Athens right now, according to Xena it's a little over a days walk from here." At that she gave the tall warrior a pointed look, but Xena missed it.
Athens, of course; I suppose the woman's armor looks vaguely Greco-Roman, must be some kind of ancient civilizations reenactment. They must have given all the local towns and such Greek names. Kate held herself back from rolling her eyes, "Athens, right, ok then which direction is it?" she started moving towards her tent, picking up the few items that were tossed about in the fight. When she got to her tent she looked forlornly at the tear in the back; that would be a bitch to fix.
Xena and Gabrielle stood in the same spot, watching as the woman broke down her camp. One of the men on the ground groaned and they realized it would be a good idea to tie the men up. Xena set about dragging the men to a tree as she answered. "It's due east from here, but the woods can turn you around pretty quickly; you're welcome to travel with us if you wish. It'll probably be safer anyways."
Kate paused in her packing; there wasn't any harm travelling with the two, she supposed, and they did have a point, it would be safer. She stuffed the rest of her things into her pack, slinging it onto her back as she stood. "I guess I can tag along with you guys, thanks."
As Xena and Gabrielle finished tying the men to the tree, they smiled at their strange new companion. Xena whistled and Argo came running, and just like that they were off.
So what do you think? Opinions, comments and edits are welcome.
