Supposedly, the people of Thebes mourned their king the day after his death. Megara sat in her school's amphitheater, trying not to roll her eyes out of her head. Everyone knew Eteocles was personally responsible for the narrowly averted war that had almost wiped them out. The only person who seemed genuinely broken up about the situation was Antigone, and you might've thought she was the heroine of a tragedy for how she carried on.
"Eteocles was my brother, the son of Oedipus. Whoever takes the crown next must be just as worthy as him," Antigone said.
"Here we go," Megara muttered to herself.
"I believe it is our duty to call upon the esteemed Polynikes to take his rightful place and finally end this conflict," Antigone said.
The entire auditorium gasped.
Antigone was a senior royal. Despite the obvious horror on everyone's faces, they knew there was no way to speak up without being silenced by the crown.
Everyone except for Megara. She got out of her seat and saw the rage in Antigone's eyes at the mere sight of her. "Polynikes is an inbred bastard who should never wear a crown," she said. "Thebes will never accept him as a king."
"How dare you, Megara? Sit down!" Antigone snapped.
"Oh, get over your tantrum, Tigs," Megara spat. "Remember that fun little joke he pulled on the city by planning to wipe us out?"
A few people murmured support for what she had to say, but Megara kept her eyes fixed on her cousin.
"How dare you speak this way in front of the commoners?" Antigone shouted.
"You're the one out here insulting everyone's intelligence! Go home and try to think of ways to be a decent person, or so help me, I'll tell Haemon to break faith with you!"
"Go ahead!" Antigone gripped the podium as her face reddened. "Show the whole family how childish and selfish you are!"
"Are you serious? Do you hear yourself talking?" Megara shook her head, and her ponytail whipped around to hit the people near her. "You're the one here who lacks empathy! You're forcing the rest of us to pretend your brother wasn't a worthless meat sack and that the other one is any better! It's time your line stopped inflicting horrors on our people, including your horrendous speech! Go home before you embarrass yourself and the rest of us any further!"
Antigone began to disagree, but Haemon appeared from backstage. He whispered to her and guided her off stage, giving Megara a sad, sympathetic look on the way out.
The head teacher and theater director took their place and, among other mourning minutia, introduced a new student.
"Who would bother coming here for the first time on a day like today?" Megara wondered aloud.
All eyes turned to the search for a new student, but the boy ended that search with a wave. "Hey, everyone!" he called cheerfully. He got to his feet and posed with his fists on his hips, looking up with a grin as he showed off what was a passably fit physique for a teenager. "I'm Alcides!"
A few people started to chuckle, and one person shouted, "No one cares!"
"Be nice to the new kid," Megara said. "He had terrible timing, and he's obviously a little out of place, but nobody cares about you, either!"
The new kid looked right at Megara as if trying to share a secret with her. He was a conventionally attractive boy with an athletic, tanned frame. He had chestnut brown hair tinged with gold that curled around his face in an unruly mane. Despite his attractiveness, he seemed uncomfortable in his own skin. He shifted around as if looking for a comfortable stance, but something that didn't change was the way he looked at her.
If she hadn't spent so much of her time recently locking lips with a god, she might've struck up a conversation with this guy.
Megara rolled her eyes. "Oh, now I get it. You're a weirdo."
He laughed. "I guess I am!"
Megara looked away. He was a temporary distraction from the Hades-on-earth that was high school, but his chipper attitude was getting on her nerves.
Someone nudged her shoulder from behind. "Wanna get out of this lame session?" Theron asked when she turned to look at him.
"Yeah, but not with you," Megara said. "I've got a boyfriend now, and the last guy who messed with me got a hole through his head." She rose from her seat in a huff and strode out of the amphitheater as soon as the speaker was finished.
A set of footsteps close at her heels put up Megara's defenses, but she didn't turn to let her shadow on to the fact she knew he or she was there. She took a sharp corner and whirled around to see Theron keep walking, only to slow down and backpedal in her direction.
"What do you want?" Megara demanded.
"Obviously, this thing with your cousin is bothering you more than you're letting on," Theron said. "You don't seem the type to admit it, but I know you're bothered. You can tell me about it, though. Nobody else has to hear."
"What makes you think it's any of your business?" Megara snapped, folding her arms. "Guess what? My business is not your business."
"Oh, sure," Theron said. "Not yet. But I understand you better than a lot of people here would. Is it true you were there when he died?"
"Yeah, because he got killed for messing with me. He was trying to coerce me into marrying him. Kind of like how you're trying to pry into my business as if it has anything to do with you. Remember that small detail where my boyfriend is a god? Are you planning to what? Wrestle the god of strength? You're better off walking away before either of us gets irritated enough with you to do something about it." She turned her back on him. That was a mistake.
"Listen to me!" Theron gripped her arm so tightly that the bruises Eteocles had left before his death were reinflamed.
She yelped, and her knees buckled. "Let go!"
"Stay still for a minute and listen!" Theron snarled at her.
"Take your hand off me!" Megara pushed on his hand, but he wouldn't relax his hold.
"Stop making a scene!" Theron dragged her closer, and then an idea occurred to him. "We'll have to go behind the scenes for this talk." He dragged her heedless of her attempts to free herself, and Megara felt her hope diminish with every step. He yanked a door open and then hurled her through it.
Megara leaned heavily on her side and sat stunned while he barred the door.
How was she going to get out of this one?
Hercules. How would she reach Hercules in this place?
Megara's mind swam with confusion while she tried to force reason between her ears. Unfortunately for her, she was mired in confusion as Theron approached again.
"Do you even care what we commoners have been through during this whole thing?" he demanded.
"Sure, it's been bad," she mumbled.
"Nobody would ever ask you to go to war!" Theron continued as if she hadn't spoken. He grabbed a stage sword from a costume rack and approached her with it. "You think none of this affects you, don't you? As a princess, you're exempt from the things that we have to go through, so none of it matters!"
"Listen, I barely know you, but you seemed like a not-terrible person until this morning. How about you put down the sword, and we'll talk about this outside?"
"No! You're going to sit there and hear me out!" Theron leaned over her. "I've done something desperate to survive your family's petty war, you know. Hear me out. You owe me."
"I literally have nowhere else to go right now," Megara said. Had she broken a bone? Her body felt so rattled and numb that she likely wouldn't know.
"You know Hades? He offered me a deal. If I could find someone who would die for me, I would live. But I didn't go with that option. I raised him one better. If I could find someone who would serve him, he'd protect me from danger."
"So what? Do you expect me to volunteer? Who do you think you are to me?"
Theron lifted her off the ground, his grasp so tight she couldn't breathe. "I think I'm someone you never gave a chance because you're enamored with a god. But I'm the realistic option. Gods always leave their mortal paramours. He'll forget you and leave you when the next pretty young thing presents herself. You can't stay young and beautiful forever like he can. What are you realistically worth to him?"
"More than you are to me," Megara remarked with a defiant jut of her chin. "Get your hands off me, Theron, before you do something you can't talk your way out of."
Someone knocked on the backstage door. "Meg? Are you in there?"
That voice sounded familiar, and she would've worked harder to figure out who it belonged to if not for the way Theron shook her.
"Who is that guy? How does he know your name?"
"It's… I don't know; maybe it's the new kid? I don't see how it's any of your business."
"You should've always been my girl," Theron said. "Now you're basically more interested in that new kid than me."
"Maybe because he hasn't assaulted me?" Megara suggested.
"This isn't assault," Theron said. "This is me reminding you who you should love. Not some know-nothing god, but me." He pulled her in tighter for a kiss. He pressed his whole body to hers, and she felt the telltale hint that he had plans for her.
With all her might, Megara tried to force her way free while someone banged harder on the door.
"I'm coming in there!" The voice was full of rage.
"Ignore him," Theron said, then went back to kissing her.
The door burst open despite the bar that held it closed, and a figure marched into the room.
"Meg?" The voice was different now, wounded but even more familiar. "What are you? Who is this?"
"Will you mind your own business, dweeb?" Theron snapped at Alcides.
Megara gasped several hoarse breaths into her lungs and balanced on all fours. "Get… away… from me!" she crawled away from Theron, who snagged her by the hair.
"We have unfinished business to discuss," he told Alcides. "You'd better remove yourself from our business."
"Stop it," Megara begged and felt a little of her pride dissipate with the words.
"Yeah, stop it!" Alcides lunged at Theron and tackled him to the ground.
At first, Theron maintained a grip on Megara's hair that made her move a few inches after him, but his hand spasmed open with the first few punches from Alcides.
"What did you think you were doing?" Alcides roared. "Who do you think you are?" He kept punching Theron, who could only lie prone and sputtering.
A small cluster of students had gathered at the door and peered down the stairs at them.
Megara tried to collect herself, but she was now covered in bruises, and her hair was a mess. Nobody would believe she'd emerged from this unscathed. They might think a few other things, too, unless she could present proof that nothing had happened—not because it wouldn't have, but because Alcides had interrupted them.
She inched toward the door, hoping to escape both boys who had seemingly too much interest in her.
What would Hercules think?
"You've got to stop punching him!" a student pleaded with Alcides. "He's going to die!"
Alcides raised his fist one more time, then paused.
Theron lay bloodied beneath him, and he seemed to see through the red-hot rage in his heart. Finally, he let up and dragged Theron to his feet.
"Get out of here," Alcides ordered and shoved Theron toward the door. "Don't touch her again, or I swear by Zeus Almighty I'll smite you where you stand!"
Theron spat blood onto the ground. "Everyone knows you're a brute, new guy! We will only learn your name to remark on how great a monster you are!"
"How am I the monster when you dragged a girl in here to violate her?" Alcides demanded. "She didn't want to be with you, so you thought you could take her?"
Megara blinked at Alcides in astonishment. Aside from her brothers, he was the first mortal man she knew who didn't believe "no" meant "yes." Where was this guy from? Could Thebes start an exchange program and never take their guys back?
"You don't know the whole story here, man!" Theron said. "She would've been my girlfriend! But then she had to get all delusional. She believes a god could love her." He walked toward the stairs, and their fellow students parted so they wouldn't have to stand beside him. He took hold of Megara's hand. "She belongs to me. She might not know it right now, but you can't keep her from me. It's destiny. She's going to come with me, and then she'll understand. She'll know why we have to be together."
Unsuccessfully, Megara tried to yank herself free.
"None of that! Behave yourself!" Theron started to drag her back up the same stairs he'd thrown her from, but Alcides was right there with him.
Megara hadn't even seen him move.
"Unhand her!" Alcides punched Theron in the solar plexus so hard he flew into the air.
He went up the stairs, howling in fear, then over the walls of the school. He landed with a heavy crash, and the screaming stopped.
Everyone now stared at Alcides in disbelief.
Any hope he'd pass for normal was gone with the wind.