Hercules had almost forgotten about Phil and the league Meg was starting up. With all the chaos stirred up by the incomprehensibly wicked couple who'd ruined his Megara's life, he'd worried exclusively about cleaning up their mess. Now that it was time to build, he'd been caught on the back foot.
"Ya know Triton, of course," Phil was saying, and Hercules was grateful that he did know his cousin, the son of Poseidon.
He clasped forearms with his clammy, scaly friend. "Good to see you. You won't mind slumming it with us land folks?"
"What? No! It'll be fun to spend some time with you, too! I've been studying all the monsters of the deep! I betcha if we need to have another voyage, I'll be your top guy!"
"Not if my Telemachus gets there first!" Odysseus pushed his son forward.
"Yeah, we got along great last time. How've you been?" Hercules asked, making sure he put an arm around his cousin so he wouldn't abandon Triton to pay attention to another old friend.
"Well! My friends and I have founded an academy in Ithaca, and we're sponsoring advancements in navigation! We've been training navigators with short expeditions, so eventually, we can try and sail our way out of the Mediterranean!"
"Is that so?" Hercules looked to Triton. "How does that sound to you, buddy?"
"Fascinating!" Triton's eyes were wide, and he clasped forearms with Telemachus. "I could be your guide! I'd love to see what it looks like from above, and maybe I'll see if I can show you more from down below!"
"Plenty of time for that!" Odysseus gave each young man a squeeze on the shoulder. "There are some more youngsters here who are excited to see you. Phillip, do you want to step in here?"
A man wearing the sun emblem of Macedon stepped forward with a familiar young man stumbling along with untied sandals.
"I told you I wasn't ready!" complained the boy.
Hercules tilted his head this way and that, trying to place the face, but it was the untied sandals that clinched it. "Alexander?" he guessed. "I thought I wouldn't be seeing you for… well, a lot longer than now."
"The boy won't stop talking about that field trip of yours," Phillip said. "If I wasn't a general with my own responsibilities, I might become a member of this League, myself. But the boy is so certain he wants to be like you. I thought the only way he'll get up the courage to go is if someone makes him."
"He'll still need some trainin', but it's hard to match his eagerness," Phil said. "Only one guy I know who wanted it even harder than him, and I know how to get him the rest of the way."
Hercules clasped their forearms with Alexander and squeezed his shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be great, Alexander."
"Thanks, Mr. Hercules!" Alexander gushed.
"Ah, we're not in school anymore. You can call me Herc now."
"Really?" Alexander looked as if he'd never been so excited for anything in his entire life.
"Yeah! It's no problem. I'll be here to back you up whenever you need me. We're all a team now. Have you had time to get to know each other yet?"
"Yeah," Telemachus piped up. "Alex is great at leading when we have training exercises. He's a great tactician."
"I'm looking forward to seeing you in action, guys!" Hercules said, completely sincere. He noticed there was another familiar face lingering on the outskirts of the group and tensed up. "Paris?" he asked, wondering if he had remembered the right name.
"Hercules. Leaving Prometheus Academy seems to have done wonders for her, but it's a shame what you did to it on the way out!" The prince of Troy started to laugh, but a slightly older man whacked him upside the head and stopped his laughter mid-gasp.
"Apologies," the older man said. "My younger brother still needs to learn manners, but he's here to see if you can make him useful. I'd like to be involved as much as possible myself, but as a crown prince, I fear I'll have less availability."
"I already saw Helen at this party," Paris said. "I'm looking forward to rekindling that connection."
"Act fast. She hasn't gotten back with Adonis yet, and you've got to be an improvement. I'd like to see her really happy, so see if you can manage it."
As Hercules glanced across the group, at Odysseus and Telemachus, Phillip and Alexander, and even Hector and Paris, a thought occurred to him. These fathers and an older brother were essentially entrusting their sons to him. Yes, they'd do a great deal of their hero development with Phil's help, and the whole point was so that Hercules himself wouldn't have to be so hands-on with the hero business, but a dizzying realization occurred to him: this was perhaps the best way for him to model himself as a father before Harmonia's arrival. He'd better take it.
"Is it my turn yet?" A teenage girl stepped up. Her hair was arranged in a pair of braids that went back from her face to give her narrow, angular features an aerodynamic look. She wore what looked like runner sandals, securely and comfortably fitted to her feet with heel protection that kept them from sliding off. "Hi. Atalanta. Only girl in the squad so far!" she reached out to shake Hercules's hand.
He checked over his shoulder to see if it bothered Meg before he clasped arms with her. "I heard it's pretty rare for a girl to try out, so you must be special," he said, hoping it only sounded polite when he said it.
"I'm the fastest runner anyone's ever met. Maybe you could beat me, but none of these scrubs can!" Atalanta giggled. "Don't worry, though. I'm learning to be a team player. They all know if they can't outrun me, they can't date me, and for a couple of them, that keeps them motivated." She grinned. "One day, I'll find a guy fast enough to be worth my time, but I'll let you slide on by since you're taken."
"Thanks," Hercules said and took a step back from her. "I'm sure my wife appreciates it."
"What do I appreciate?" Megara hadn't spoken for a while, but Hercules was glad to hear her voice.
"Our new friend here has no interest in me, isn't that great?" Hercules took Megara by the hand and gave it a squeeze.
"Good, that's step one," Megara said, eyeing Atalanta up and down. "You'll do well here if you don't irritate me."
"I don't go for any prize that's already been won, ma'am," Atalanta said and tossed her hair. "Trust me, I'm looking for a guy who's been unconquered so I can be the first to get some. But he's got to be faster than me, and it's really too bad that nobody has been so far."
"Count yourself lucky you can outrun the unwanted suitors in your life," Megara said. She snaked an arm around Hercules's waist. "I used to waste so much of my time doing it myself, but now we watch each other's backs."
Hercules sighed in delight. "Yeah… Meg's the best." Out of the tail of his eye, Hercules noticed that Theseus was talking to Hector and Odysseus. He'd get the details on that later.
"I'm already noticing how much fun it is to let people handle their business without me," Hercules remarked to Meg and punctuated that statement by kissing the top of her head. "Thanks, hon."
"So this was your idea?" Atalanta asked Meg.
"That's right," Megara said, seeming blissfully sure of herself.
"I would've thought it was an ego trip," Atalanta said. "No offense, Mr. Hercules."
Megara snickered at that. "Oh, it's Mr. Hercules now, huh?"
"I'd rather you kept calling me Wonder Boy," Hercules was quick to say.
"It's true Meg had this idea, though," Galatea said. "She's been the heart of this whole project."
"Are you Mrs. Hercules's sister?" Alexander asked Galatea.
The girls looked at each other while Hercules tried not to die of embarrassment.
"Oh, yeah, sure! I'll be her sister!" Galatea slung an arm around Megara's shoulder. "I'm essentially what would happen if someone sculpted a portrait of her and then it came to life! We may as well be related!"
Galatea and Megara then began to cackle unabashedly at a joke neither of them felt like explaining. It was the confusion on the faces around them that made Hercules join in.
Cassandra and Megarion slid into the gaps of the group. "I'm glad to see you're all getting along, but I had a premonition, and you need to hear about it!"
"What?" Hercules instinctively pulled Megara closer to his side and shielded her head with one arm. "What's happening?"
"Everything will be fine," Megarion said, "you don't have to suffocate her."
"It's–" Cassandra gasped rather than finish her sentence.
A chorus of screams alerted everyone to a window on the western side of the palace. Something– no, someone had just come crashing through on a set of wax wings. He crashed to the ground at the center of a circle opened by the partygoers who didn't want him to hit them. It could only be one man.
Hercules relaxed his hold on Megara, at least hopeful that his best friend wouldn't do her any harm. "Icarus…?"
Another form came barreling through the same window, but this one landed with slightly more finesse. A harpy, but not as monstrous as the other ones Hercules had seen before. She stood hiccupping with a sharp, "Ki! Ki!" sound.
The two of them straightened and congratulated one another on the flight.
"Herc! Buddy!" Icarus cried when he'd settled his business with the harpy. "Good news! I'm here to join your league! And I brought along someone special!"