TORIN YOUTH – CHAPTER 09: THE FIRE

Atreus, Bia, and Leon stand at the edge of the abyss in the Temple of Death, where Rhea has just plunged.

Atreus exhales, weighing the consequences of his next action, knowing that time may not be on his side.

Bia shakes her head, having an awful feeling about this pit.

“We have no idea what’s down there. It could be a fall to the death,” she warns.

“I’m going after her,” Atreus says.

“What—” Before Bia can question his decision, Atreus leaps into the void, following Rhea.

“ATREUS!” she cries into the darkness, where not even an echo seems able to escape.

She turns to Leon beside her and takes hold of him, pleading, “Don’t do it, Leon. Stay with me!”

Leon gently but firmly pulls his arm away from her.

“No, Bia,” he refuses. “All my life I’ve tried to save my cousin Rhea. I won’t stand by when she needs me the most.”

Leon dives into the abyss after Rhea and Atreus.

Bia’s eyes well with tears as she falls to her knees at the edge of the pit.

Cadmeia, Helia, and Gale approach and kneel beside the tiny human girl to comfort her, though fear quietly grips them all.

Meanwhile—

Rhea descends into silent darkness, alone with her thoughts.

“Strange…” she thinks.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m falling.”

“But I can’t tell which way is up or down anymore.”

A light appears beneath her, illuminating a stone pathway.

“Light? Have I reached the end?”

Rhea’s feet touch the ancient stone softly.

She looks toward the source of the glow illuminating the path.

A red flame burns there.

A familiar voice calls out.

“Rhea.”

The girl advances. “That’s… my voice,” she breathes.

Drawing closer, she sees herself standing within the fire.

“Is that… me?” Rhea asks, marveling at this version of herself.

“She’s so strong… so confident… and so beautiful. She’s perfect.”

She becomes unsettled by the vision after a moment and wonders if she’s imagining things.

“Are you real? What are you?”

“I am the desires of your heart,” the Rhea of flame replies.

“Can you make me whole again?” Rhea asks, gently touching beneath the bandage over her left eye socket.

“I can do more than that,” the Rhea of flame says as it begins to grow and change its shape.

“…if you are willing.”

Rhea gazes at the flame’s final form with deep longing.

Meanwhile, Atreus lands softly on the stone pathway below him.

He looks toward the light illuminating the trail.

Like Rhea, he sees a flame burning at the path’s end.

He approaches it cautiously.

A version of himself forms within the fire.

Atreus studies it, gazing upon it with suspicion.

“What are you?” he asks.

“I am your heart’s deepest fear,” the Atreus of flame answers.

Atreus stiffens at the flame’s answer.

“And what would that be?” he asks, visibly shaken.

“Inevitability,” the flame replies.

“No, I don’t fear the future… anymore,” Atreus says, denying the flame’s claim.

The flame shifts, revealing a dreadful vision within its fire.

“You don’t fear the future because you believe it is uncertain,” the flame says.

As this unfolds, Leon also finds himself surrounded by darkness.

He desperately calls out to his cousin, hoping she isn’t too far gone.

“RHEA!”

At last, her voice answers him, echoing in the void.

“LEON!”

A light appears in the near distance.

Leon swallows hard, recalling his dreams.

“Is this really happening?” he asks himself as he begins to tremble.

“LEON!” the girl calls again.

Determined to save his cousin, the young man moves toward the light.

As he draws closer, it resolves into a flame.

“Rhea!” he calls, seeing the girl standing within the fire.

Rhea reaches her hand out toward him from the flames.

Leon grasps it.

“I will not lose you, Rhea!” he declares as he tries to pull her free.

“LEON!” Rhea cries as she emerges halfway from the fire.

“Just hold on to me,” he says. “Don’t let go.”

With a final effort, he pulls her out of the flame.

Rhea leans against Leon as he supports her.

“Leon…” she says somberly as a tear slips from her right eye. “I’m so sorry.”

“Rhea?” he asks, unsure what she means.

Suddenly, pain lances through his body.

Rhea’s right hand grips the handle of a dagger buried deep in his back.

Leon’s eyes fill with tears as he looks down at Rhea.

He sinks to his knees, still held in Rhea’s embrace as she kneels with him.

The dagger dissolves in her hand, dematerializing into a luminous red mist that drifts back toward the flame.

Rhea gently lowers Leon to the stone floor.

Leon reaches up to caress her face.

His hand slowly falls.

His eyes close.

“The price is paid,” the voice within the flame says as Rhea bows over Leon’s body.

At the same moment, Atreus stands before the Atreus of flame, resisting its pull.

A fiery bow and arrows manifest before the Torinian boy. They cool and solidify before being placed in his hands. Atreus considers the weapon and the immense power emanating from it.

“I will give you the power to slay Cadmeia, the woman who caused you to suffer and who took away your future,” the flame says. “This is your opportunity to leave the path you are on—to decide your own fate.”

“No,” Atreus answers, bracing himself. “I can’t.”

“You could return home and be heralded as a hero. No more shame. No more poverty. You have nothing left to lose,” the Atreus of flame insists.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Atreus answers with calm determination. “I’d lose myself. As long as I know who I am, I have hope.”

The Atreus of flame reflects on the boy’s answer.

“We have rehearsed this before, haven’t we? In quieter moments. And we know that hope is no guarantee—”

As the flame speaks, it pauses, looking past the boy as a gust of wind moves through the void, briefly distorting its image.

The flame shifts its gaze back to Atreus.

“As it appears, your time has run out. You should have taken this opportunity,” it says quietly, dissipating before Atreus’s eyes.

Light tears through the black void as time and space twist around the young man.

The darkness is at last driven away completely, and Atreus finds himself back in the sanctuary.

“What? I’m back?” he says, disoriented.

“LEON!!!” a voice cries out in agony.

Atreus turns toward the sound.

He sees Bia clutching Leon’s bloody and lifeless body on the floor of the ruins, wailing tearfully.

Helia, Gale, and Cadmeia crouch near her.

“He just appeared here like this… after following you and Rhea into the abyss,” Helia says, distraught.

Atreus’s heart drops. His legs threaten to give out beneath him.

“No! Not Leon!”

“What happened?”

He asks the question even as he knows the answer.

Tears pour down his face.

“Rhea…”

“How could you?”

Light erupts from the pit, flooding the ancient sanctuary.

“What’s going on?” Gale asks, shielding her face with a wing.

Fear spreads across Cadmeia’s face as she understands what has taken place.

Sophean, in his quiet and steady voice, gives shape to what the fox giantess already knows.

“Something is coming,” he says. “And we are not safe here.”

Atreus rushes to Bia’s side to help lift Leon.

“We’ve got to get him out of here,” he says.

“Don’t worry,” Bia replies tearfully. “I can carry him myself.”

Atreus nods and straightens.

“Atri,” Bia says before he can turn away. “Things are different now. Please… do what needs to be done.”

Bia lifts Leon in her arms and carries him out of the sanctuary.

“I’ll go with her,” Gale says. “I’ll make sure she gets someplace safe.”

The giant harpy carefully follows the tiny girl outside the temple, overshadowing her.

Cadmeia gently sets Sophean down.

“You should go, Sophean,” she says.

The Laiko man nods, understanding, and hurries to flee the temple behind Bia as it begins to crumble.

The pit erupts violently, splitting wider as fire blasts upward, collapsing what remains of the ceiling.

The colossal sanctuary shudders on the brink of complete ruin. Cadmeia and Helia dodge falling stone.

“Atreus!” Cadmeia shouts. “Get out of here!”

The young man sprints for the wide-open front end of the giant structure, augmenting his speed with his psiki.

Once clear of the collapsing ceiling, he slows his pace and looks back through the cloud of dust, unable to resist the urge to see what is emerging from the abyss. He stops between the aged pillars at the front of the sanctuary and watches intently.

“What has Rhea done?” he asks, his heart trembling.

Within the shattered sanctuary, fire gathers into the shape of a massive harpy, alighting atop the rubble of the fallen ceiling.

The flames disperse, revealing Rhea’s new form.

Her long strawberry-blonde hair flows freely, no longer bound by the ribbon she once wore. Feathers of a dark pink color cover her wings and legs. Her human torso is bare, no longer burdened by the armor she once needed for protection.

The reborn girl examines her gigantic body, happily giving her wings a light flutter.

With restored vision, her light green eyes take in the world from a giant’s perspective for the first time.

“At long last,” she says, regarding Helia and Cadmeia. “We can finally see eye to eye.”

Cadmeia gazes upon the transformed girl with pity.

“What have you done to yourself, child?” she asks.

“I have been fully realized, fox,” Rhea replies. “Liberated! No longer a prisoner of that weak form… or that hellhole called Torin City.”

Atreus stares, stunned.

“Is that… Rhea?” he says, barely breathing.

Helia’s eyes narrow, recalling the day before Atreus’s trial—and the look Rhea gave her then.

“So you think this makes you strong?” she asks.

“This is only one aspect of strength,” Rhea replies calmly. “The ability to carry out one’s will. Another is having the fortitude to eliminate vulnerabilities.”

“Are you satisfied?” Cadmeia asks. “Now that you’ve sacrificed your own cousin?”

Rhea exhales, considering.

“Unfortunately, no,” she says. “There is yet one more vulnerability to eliminate before I can be perfect.”

Her enhanced vision passes over Helia and Cadmeia, locking onto Atreus just outside the sanctuary.

Atreus feels the weight of her gaze and stumbles backward.

Rhea licks her lips at the sight of him, her mouth watering.

“I understand why you were so uncomfortable in the Scarlet Vixen’s body, Cadmeia,” Rhea says. “These gigantic forms… they awaken a peculiar hunger. But unlike you, I enjoy it.”

Cadmeia turns toward Atreus outside the sanctuary, horrified, realizing what Rhea intends to do.

“NO! Not my son!” she cries.

Atreus scrambles to take cover behind one of the towering pillars, pressing himself against the stone. His heart pounds violently in his chest.

“This can’t be happening,” he breathes. “It has to be a dream.”

Fanning out her wings, the girl-turned-giant-predator smirks.

“You can’t outrun fate, Speros,” she taunts, launching herself into the air above the ruined sanctuary.

Helia shoots upward to intercept Rhea in the air.

In the sky above the temple ruins, Rhea eyes the other harpy with little concern.

“You’re no fighter, Helia. Everyone knows that.”

“True, but if you think I’m just gonna let ya scarf my best friend without a fight, you’re crazy,” the bronze-skinned harpy declares as she aims her talons at Rhea.

While she has only inhabited this body briefly, the pink-feathered harpy narrowly manages to evade Helia’s attempts to grab or slash her with her talons. She begins to learn quickly as she maneuvers in the air, becoming comfortable enough to counterattack.

She snatches Helia by the neck in her talons and drives her violently into the ground below, pinning the white-haired harpy down.

“I’ve watched you waste so many opportunities, Helia,” the transformed girl says with frustration in her tone as she shakes her head disapprovingly. “Now, it falls to me to do what you never had the guts to.”

“What’s that?” Helia asks, grimacing and choking under the pressure of Rhea’s talons.

To which Rhea answers coldly, “I’m going to digest him.”

With a powerful beat of her wings, Rhea takes flight again, dragging Helia with her.

The dark-pink harpy spins midair and hurls Helia into the temple wall, sending her crashing through stone.

Atreus dives behind the opposite wall of the temple as the ground trembles.

“This is bad,” he mutters. “I have to do something.”

He steps out and scans the distant city ruins, searching for anything he can use.

A ray of dawn’s light glints off a caeli crystal among the stones overgrown with grass.

“There!” he says.

Meanwhile, Cadmeia rushes to Helia’s side. She touches the harpy to check for signs of life.

“She’s alive, just unconscious,” Cadmeia says, her concern deepening.

She then looks around frantically for Atreus.

“Please don’t tell me he’s still hiding here,” she prays. “I hope he’s gotten far away from here by now.”

As Rhea’s shadow sweeps over her, Cadmeia looks up and spots the tiny human sprinting toward the city ruins in the distance.

The scarlet-haired giantess watches in horror as Rhea dives, snatching him up in her talons.

Atreus is yanked skyward, and the ground drops away beneath his outstretched hand.

The newly transformed harpy smirks, pleased with her catch.

“Isn’t this poetic?” she says as she climbs higher. “You, born to be prey. Me, born to be predator. Fulfilling our destinies together.”

Atreus looks upward toward her face defiantly.

“Bite me!”

Rhea tosses him above her head.

“No,” she says. “I’d rather swallow you whole.”

As he spins, Atreus reveals the caeli crystal clenched in his hand. Despite the fall, he manages to aim.

A bolt of lightning blasts into Rhea’s face, crackling loudly in the sky above the city ruins.

Atreus falls freely as Rhea recoils, jolted by the strike.

She soon shakes off the sting and finds him plunging toward the ground.

“You’re going to pay for that,” she growls, diving after him.

Atreus looks up just in time to see Rhea’s jaws engulf him moments before he would hit the ground.

“Got him!” she cheers as she flips and lands on her feet.

Inside her mouth, Atreus grits his teeth as Rhea’s tongue presses beneath him.

He grips the crystal, charging it again, hoping to give the giantess another jolt.

However, Rhea tilts her head back and swallows, interrupting the boy’s plans.

As she feels Atreus drop into her stomach, Rhea exhales in satisfaction.

“So, this is what it feels like.”

“Wonderful.”

Her moment of triumph is violently interrupted when lightning erupts from the crystal in Atreus’s hand, slamming into her stomach walls.

Rhea gasps in pain, pressing her abdomen with her wings.

“Nngh… foolish,” she mutters. “I should have separated him from that crystal first.”

Cadmeia charges, catching Rhea off guard and driving a fist into her stomach.

“Cough him up,” she commands.

The blow forces Rhea to retch, spitting Atreus free.

Cadmeia snatches the tiny human out of the air and runs.

Fighting through the pain, fury ignites in Rhea, and she launches herself after them.

Afraid that Atreus will be hurt, Cadmeia desperately tries to lower him to the ground safely, leaving herself exposed.

Rhea seizes Cadmeia by the back of the neck and slams her into the ground while Atreus lands and rolls clear of the titans as they shatter stone upon impact.

The human girl-turned-harpy slams the Vixen into the ground repeatedly with a puzzled expression on her face.

“It’s inconceivable that you would willingly abandon such a body,” she says while crouching low and pinning Cadmeia beneath her weight. “You would rather return to being powerless? To hiding behind walls? To being relegated to the bottom end of the food chain? Why would anyone choose to go back—”

Rhea pauses mid-sentence. The answer to the question on the tip of her tongue suddenly becomes apparent to her.

“Oh—it’s because of him, isn’t it?” she asks, turning her gaze toward Atreus. “Well then. For both our sakes, allow me to take care of him.”

“WHY?” Cadmeia demands weakly, unable to rise under the harpy’s weight. “Why do you want to take my son from me?”

“It is because we cannot coexist in this world,” Rhea replies in a frigid tone. “I will not say it again.”

Atreus watches in desperation as his mother weakens, barely able to breathe in Rhea’s grip.

He cries out as he hurls another lightning bolt at the harpy, “GET OFF OF HER!”

Rhea raises a wing, blocking the strike as her feathers scorch, never taking her eyes off the fox giantess in her talons.

Cadmeia’s struggle comes to an end beneath Rhea’s weight. Her movements falter as she slips out of consciousness.

“Why?” Atreus mutters, watching his mother’s eyes close. “Why would Rhea do this? I just don’t get it!”

He lifts his gaze to see Rhea’s face, looking past the harpy that is before him now to the girl that he once knew.

“Rhea!” he calls.

Hearing her name called, she exhales in exasperation. While keeping her weight on Cadmeia’s neck, she turns her head toward him and fixes him with an icy stare.

“What?”

With her attention on him, the broken-hearted boy speaks.

“I need to know one thing—why did you buy me that lute?”

Rhea’s thoughts lurch backward…

…back to the day she and her teammates spent together before their trial began.

She remembers seeing Atreus—how he lingered over the lute, wanting it but unable to afford it.

Then… she remembers what she felt in her heart, the feeling that drove her to buy it for him.

At the time, it had been the closest she could come to confessing—

The memory strikes her like a blow.

She freezes.

“W-what are y-you trying to do?” Rhea asks, her face flushing as her heart begins to race. “W-why would you m-make me remember that?”

Atreus confesses, “That was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me… And it meant everything that it came from you.”

Rhea grimaces, emotions clawing their way to the surface.

“No… STOP!” she shouts. “Don’t do this to me!”

“You told me not to make a big deal of it,” Atreus says. “But it was a big deal. You must know, because I’ve never hidden how I felt about you. It had to mean something to you too, didn’t it?”

“I said STOP!” Rhea cries, covering her head with her wings.

“What did it mean to you, Rhea?” Atreus presses. “Why did you buy the lute?”

She looks at him, her expression faltering.

Tears well in her eyes.

“It’s… because… I…” she whispers, the confession trembling on her tongue.

“I…”

She breathes heavily as the tears begin to fall.

“…n-no!”

“No no no!”

“I can’t!”

“Rhea, please!” the boy begs her.

Rhea jerks her head away.

“WHY?” she demands. “After everything I’ve done… why do you still care?”

Atreus stands before her, speaking with resolve and compassion.

“Leon died trying to save the girl who gave me that lute,” he says. “I believe that girl is still inside you… and that she’s not beyond reach.”

Rhea shifts her weight off Cadmeia and steps toward him, forcing her heart shut once more.

“For a moment, Atreus,” she says quietly, “I forgot how urgent it is that I end your existence.”

She crouches to meet the tiny human’s gaze.

Atreus inhales deeply, steadying himself.

“Then I’ll keep surviving,” he answers. “And prove your view of the world wrong.”

Meanwhile…

Cadmeia finds herself wandering within a light-filled space, untouched by darkness.

“Where am I?” she wonders as she examines her surroundings, somewhat alarmed. “Where’s Atreus?”

She looks down at her hands and body, gasping in pleasant surprise.

“Wait… I’m human again… I’m in my own body!”

The hazel-eyed woman runs her fingers through her long, curly auburn hair, beaming.

However, her joy doesn’t last long. Her memory of this place returns.

“Wait… I’ve been here before,” she says. “This is the Vixen’s mind.”

“Indeed, it is,” a voice answers from within the white void.

Cadmeia recognizes it at once.

“Utalle,” she says.

“It has been a long time,” Utalle replies, manifesting before her as the Scarlet Vixen. She stands at Cadmeia’s height now, eye to eye. An equal. “This must be bittersweet for you.”

“It is.” Cadmeia exhales. “I’ve wanted to hear from you for so long. I felt abandoned in this body… and it was taking control of me.”

“It was me you were resisting,” Utalle says gently. “You were fighting the inevitable merging of our consciousnesses.”

Cadmeia grows still, emotion weighing heavily on her chest.

“You were able to see your son again,” Utalle continues. “Together, you were able to find peace. Now… it is time for us to become one. It is the only way to save him.”

“I had hoped for more time with him,” Cadmeia admits softly. “And… I promised Atreus I wouldn’t forget him.”

“We won’t forget him,” Utalle assures her, compassion filling her eyes.

A soft smile touches Cadmeia’s lips. She exhales.

“Thank you.”

Slowly, they approach one another until both vanish into a brilliant white light.

As this happens, in the material world, Rhea opens her mouth before Atreus, intent on devouring him—ridding herself of him once and for all.

Suddenly, the Scarlet Vixen rises to her feet, glowing with an electric-blue aura. A luminous mark in the shape of an open eye blazes on her forehead as psionic energy surges outward.

The giant harpy turns, sensing the power behind her.

“Damn it,” Rhea breathes, frowning.

She casts a frustrated glare at the boy who caused her to hesitate.

“Leave him be,” the Vixen commands. “Your fight is with me.”

She charges, slamming into Rhea and driving her back to the temple atop the acropolis.

Helia jolts awake as Rhea crashes through the ruins. She yells defiantly, not accepting defeat just yet.

“Is that the best you can do? It’ll take more than that to—”

She pauses, realizing that she’s been out of the fight for some time now.

“What?” she groans, suddenly feeling the pain surface.

The harpy rubs her head with a wing, trying to remember what happened before everything went black.

“Owie… That’s right—I really got my tailfeathers handed to me.”

The Scarlet Vixen lands before her, poised for battle.

Helia immediately recognizes that there’s something different about her, not just in the power emanating from her but in her stance. She’s like a completely different person.

“Friend of Atreus,” the Vixen says, “take the boy somewhere safe. He’s in the city ruins. Go! Quickly!”

Helia scrambles to her feet, planting her talons firmly on the ground. “R-right! Gotcha!”

She launches into the air and begins scanning the ground below. Her golden eyes locate him near the city ruins, away from the acropolis.

“Yay—there he is!” she cheers upon spotting him.

Atreus stands alone when Helia lands nearby, his expression distant and somber.

The white-feathered harpy kneels and overshadows him. She doesn’t ask questions. Compassion moves her instead.

“Come, Atreus,” she says softly. “I’m here for you.”

High above, Rhea and the Scarlet Vixen clash atop the acropolis.

Fire and psionic force collide, shaking the ruins with each impact and fracturing the ground beneath them.

Centaurs emerge from the ancient city ruins they guard, drawn by the violence. To them, such a battle at the Temple of Death had always seemed inevitable.

Bia watches tearfully, still carrying Leon in her arms. Gale crouches nearby as a giant centaur kneels to offer help to the grieving girl.

Above the ruins of the ancient temple, Rhea retreats skyward under the Vixen’s relentless assault. But even there, she finds no refuge.

The Scarlet Vixen runs through the air itself, propelled by telekinesis, and seizes the harpy mid-flight.

She hurls Rhea back down and lands atop her as the island beneath them begins to crumble.

The Vixen crouches over the fallen harpy, claws extended.

Rhea looks upon the vulpine giantess and perceives within her a being of great age and power. A force of nature.

“Now you have the eyes of a predator,” Rhea says.

The Scarlet Vixen retracts her claws, pity softening her gaze.

“I will leave you to your fate,” she says quietly.

She turns and departs quickly, leaving the harpy sprawled on the shattered remains of the temple as it crumbles around her.

Rhea lies motionless, staring blankly up at the dawn sky.

The acropolis collapses as a sliver of the island beneath it breaks away and falls into the sea.

(NEXT CHAPTER)