He wasn't sure where Gina, or whatever the monster that was impersonating her was called, had gotten off to. Moreover he wanted to know why a high and mighty goddess had not figured out that the demigod that was right next to her was not a demigod at all. The thought gave him pause, something that was extremely unlike him, and he momentarily doubted his judgement. Ryker shook off the momentary indecision and fell back on the instincts and senses that had served him well for years. They roared in his mind that he was correct, that Gina was not in fact Gina. He had just begun to comb the camp when someone grabbed him from behind and yanked him off balance. "I thought I told you to come get your claws back?" Victoria whispered in a rather husky tone. She shoved him away and watched as Ryker stumbled away and quickly regained his balance. "Or did you think that those claws would suit you well enough from now on?"
"You!" Ryker barked, recognizing the Amazoness that had stolen his clawed gloves from him as an apparent prize. He glowered at her, temporarily forgetting all about Gina in favor of the challenger that stood before him, and scowled. "What do you want?"
"I thought I made that very clear the last time that we met." Victoria said, smirking. She reached into the pockets of her leather jacket and withdrew Ryker's gloves from their depth. She held them up for his inspection and then hid them away in her pocket again. "I told you to come get them from me. Or are you too scared to try?"
"What did you just say?" Ryker hissed, his position slightly shifting into a ready stance out of sheer force of habit. Challengers had to be met head on. He growled at her and Victoria's smirk widened into an arrogant smile. "Are you sure you know what you are doing, challenging me?"
"I don't think you are that much of a challenge." Victoria sneered, rolling her eyes and further infuriating Ryker.
Unable to take much more antagonism from the Amazon, Ryker lunged at her and summoned his claws in the same instant. He had crossed the distance between them and was less than six inches away from her throat when Victoria snapped her fingers and Ryker's hands were jerked down to the earth. Temporarily at a loss for what just happened he tried to keep his attack going but his hands would not move from where they were pressed to the ground. Victoria laughed softly in the face of his glare and pointed down at his hands. "You aren't going anywhere unless I say so." She told him, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder carelessly. Ryker looked down at his hands and his lip twitched into a snarl. His claws had vanished and the metal bands that encircled his wrists, the ones given to him by the Amazons themselves, were now glowing brightly. He tried to move his hands again, but the metal merely glowed brighter and refused to budge. "I thought that I should give myself all the advantages I can have with you." Victoria said, a very smug smile on her face.
"Let me go." Ryker warned. He hated being trapped. He hated being trapped, he hated being trapped almost as much as he hated losing. This girl had effectively beaten and trapped him with one trapped gift. The Romans gave them curious glances as they passed whilst the Amazons beamed at Victoria in pride. A few even congratulated her on her accomplishment. "Let me go now."
"No, I don't think so." Victoria said after a moment's contemplation. "Not until you ask nicely."
"Not a chance." Ryker said immediately, recognizing the request for what it was. Submission. By giving into her request he was effectively giving her power over him and that was unacceptable.
"Suit yourself." Victoria said with a careless shrug. She put a hand on her hip and smiled pleasantly down at him. "I can wait for as long as it takes. Besides, those gloves are tailored specifically to my specifications. No one else can release you."
"You aren't going to win here." Ryker snarled at her, pulling at his hands again. Unsurprisingly they showed zero movement.
Victoria smiled and rolled her eyes at his declaration. She crouched down next to him and placed one hand under his chin. Ryker was forced to raise his eyes to hers and she smirked down at him. "I always win. But you'll learn that soon enough."
"Let me go." Ryker repeated, glaring at her with a fair amount of malevolence.
"Ask nicely." Victoria repeated just as sweetly.
This went back and forth for several minutes until Victoria gave an exasperated sigh. "You can argue with me as much as you want, but you aren't getting up until you ask me nicely."
"Please let me up." Ryker snarled, growing tired of the exchange.
"I said nicely." Victoria said, wagging her finger at him. "That was not nice. Say it like you mean it."
Ryker thought long and hard about tearing his hands off just to spite the woman. She seemed to be thinking along the same lines he was and laughed at him. "What is it with you?" Ryker demanded finally. "Why are you doing this?"
"Because I can." She murmured to him. "Because you are very interesting to me."
"Find someone else to be interested in." Ryker muttered, unhappy with her reasoning. She merely smiled at him in response. Ryker roared internally, struggling with the problem before him for a long while. "Please let me go." He muttered through gritted teeth.
Victoria leaned in and stared at him innocently. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you, can you say that again?" She asked.
"Will you please let me up?" Ryker asked again, his voice shaking with the effort of suppressing a snarl.
"Now was that so hard?" Victoria asked sweetly, standing up and taking several steps back. She snapped her fingers again and Ryker was free to move.
He shot to his feet and immediately tried to pull the metal bands from his wrists. The bands would not move however and Victoria laughed softly. Ryker snarled at her and stalked away, not wishing to be near her any longer. The few Romans who had stopped to watch the event parted to let Ryker pass, snickering. "He's the big bad demigod who everyone is afraid of?" One of them scoffed. "He isn't so tough."
"Who said that?" Ryker demanded, whirling around and glaring at all of them. Every one of them save one looked away, suddenly nervous. The one who didn't look away was looking at Ryker with derision and contempt.
"I did." He said carelessly, leaning on his spear. "Gonna do something about it? Maybe I should go have a talk with your little Amazon girlfriend. She seems to have a hold on you."
In a very uncharacteristic moment of self-control, Ryker took a deep breath and said, "Just walk away." He warned the arrogant man. "Walk away and I won't have to break you."
The man laughed and pulled the head of his spear out of the ground. He leveled it casually at Ryker and smirked. "Oh, please. You aren't that scary. I'm a son of Mars."
Ryker stared at the sky and sighed. Such hesitation when faced with a foe were unlike him in the extreme. He blamed the link that Rhea had facilitated between him and Jason. He felt the eyes of others on him as the Roman continued to goad him, though Ryker had stopped listening to the words. "Fine." He said finally, glaring at the arrogant demigod. "Let me remind you of just why you should be afraid of me."
The man's smile faltered and Ryker was upon him before he could recover it. The son of Cybele dismantled the son of Ares' defense in less than a minute and left the man broken and bleeding on the dirt as he strode away. Strangely he felt none of the normal satisfaction that usually came with successfully defeating a challenger. The other Romans shouted for help as they went to their wounded comrade's aid, none of them brave enough to try to stop Ryker. "It's just as well." He decided, pushing down the indecision he felt in his heart. He continued his search for Gina, combing through the camp with a hunter's precision. It didn't take long. She was sitting in the Senate along with Ceres and a goddess that Ryker did not recognize. The three were smiling and laughing even as they sat and ate something that Ryker did not bother to identify. He summoned his claws and rolled his shoulders in preparation for what he was about to do.
"RYKER!" Jason roared as the man prepared to spring at Gina. He crashed into the wild demigod's shoulder and sent them both tumbling into the dirt. Ryker recovered first and crashed a fist into Jason's lower ribcage with all the power he could put behind the attack.
The son of Jupiter took the blow with a wince and used it and the wind to propel him to his feet. He pulled his sword from his scabbard and held it readily before him. "Calm down man!" He told him. "If that wasn't Gina don't you think that the gods would have noticed?"
"What's this?" Ceres asked, striding between them and folding her arms across her chest. She looked between them and then to their weapons, raising one eyebrow. "What seems to be the cause of this confrontation?"
"That girl there isn't what you think she is." Ryker said harshly, scowling. His element of surprise was lost and the others seemed to have no idea of the danger a hidden predator presented. Especially one as well positioned as Gina was. "Her story doesn't add up. The people she said were with her when she was captured were dead long before."
"So you think that I am mistaken?" Ceres asked coldly.
"Absolutely." Ryker glowered back at her, not backing down an inch.
"And what about me?" The goddess that Ryker could not identify asked, standing in front of Gina protectively. "Greek or Roman, do you think that I would not be able to tell if this girl was not my daughter?"
"That is Sirona." Ceres explained to Ryker, frowning at him. "The Roman form of Hygeia, Gina's mother. Do you truly think that she would fail to recognize her own daughter?"
"Evidently, yes." Ryker growled. Now that he was closer to Gina he could clearly identify her scent. It was definitely not the scent of the Gina he had known. It was not even close. Everything about her smelled wrong, like death. "Because that girl is not the one you know."
Ryker opened his mouth to speak again when he glanced at Gina and saw something in her hand. In the span of a second time seemed to slow. Something formless and dark seemed to be seeping out of Gina's hand, and her face had contorted into a cruel smile. Sirona had her back turned to what she thought was her daughter as she came to her defense. Ryker watched as Gina drew her hand back and prepared to attack the goddess. His first instinct was to allow the death to happen, to let them see how foolish they had been. But something else inside him told him that such a course of action would only lead to pain in others, and for some reason that pain bothered him. Even though it shouldn't have. Ryker snarled just as Gina's hand began to move forward and ripped one of Sciron's pistols from its holster. He had not practiced with them, not even slightly, but he had a strange feeling that there was something magical in the pistol's sighting mechanism. He moved impossibly fast, too fast for even the goddesses to react. He fired the pistol at Gina, a momentary feeling of satisfaction in his chest when her head rocked back from the impact of the Celestial Bronze bullet. That feeling of satisfaction was cut short when she stopped her backwards momentum and continued her attack, shrieking as she attacked Sirona.
