DOUBT

"GRAAA!!!"

Scylla confused roars overshadowed Charybdis' growls as she was spun around horizontally at great speed. Athos' arms which gripped Scylla's upper jaw had begun to loosen, but Perastos sacrificed its cape to form long, barbed spikes that pierced into the monster's scales and dug into the monster's flesh, eliciting more pained roars.

'Any moment now', Athos thought as he spun one of Greek mythology's strongest monsters, her body a blur.

He'd wanted to explore the power his Electrokinesis had to offer ever since the disappointment he'd faced in the Library.

Realising that magic wasn't all that easy to acquire wasn't exactly a shock, but it was disheartening as he'd looked forward to it greatly, but when he'd cursed his horrid luck with magic systems and in turn accidentally incinerated a cupcake, he'd realised that he had one of the most versatile powers at his fingertips.

Electrokinesis.

There was far more to the power than just dishing out superpowered bolts of plasma - there had to be.

If magic wasn't going to help him, perhaps its counterpart, science could. He'd be even more disappointed if his physics textbooks failed to help him here.

The only problem was that his lightning had always been the hardest to control, but after his three-month-long training session with his father, he was now lightyears ahead of what he once was. Moreover, after realising the sheer power that his bolts could express, he knew that he had to gain complete control over it.

"RRAAAWWWRRR!!!"

His bronze skin slowly paled as he continued his experiment. He was pouring a stupendous amount of electricity into the monster and he couldn't go on forever. After all, both his innate abilities, electrokinesis and limited aerokinesis, originated from his body and were linked to his stamina which, although considerable, wasn't unlimited.

'Is this it?', Athos suddenly thought, his strained brows twitching in surprise.

Faint spinning electrical sparks appeared in the air. Although dark and shadowlike, they danced and crackled, displaying an unpredictability that wasn't unlike his black lightning. It was volatile, but clearly ordered. The sparks lined up directly perpendicular to Athos and Scylla's horizontal motion and outlined multiple perpendicular circles that strongly resembled a magnetic field.

"Hahahahah!!! It works! Thanks Ampre!", Athos laughed in happiness as he continued spinning the giant monster. It was almost impossible for him to become dizzy and it had been merely a couple of seconds since he decided to start to eke out his inner mad scientist. He'd never liked studying but he had never slacked off. His hatred of losing had prevented him from dropping out, thus, he was fairly well-versed in electromagnetic fields and magnetism.

He knew that a current would induce a magnetic field and the direction of the magnetic field could be calculated using the Flemmings left-hand rule. What he did NOT know was whether such jargon would actually work when using magical lightning on a mythological monster.

'Why is it so weak though? If this is all it can do, it's useless'

Athos' brows furrowed as he felt the magnetic field's strength. The sparks flickered in and out of reality. The circles seemed ethereal - periodically collapsing and reforming. It was beyond weak. Nothing he could use in a fight.

"GRRAAA!!!", Scylla growled once more and her wolf heads whimpered in the background.

'I can't keep this up for long', he thought while gritting his teeth.

His reckless usage of his lightning had left him drained and his spinning a gigantic monster a couple of kilometres up in the air wasn't helping.

He had to finish this fight.

Fast.

"RAAAAAWWWRR!!!"

"Stop screaming!", Athos growled, a vein pulsing in his forehead, before swinging one last swing and hurling the monster to whence it came.

BOOM!

The electrical sparks vanished and the dark clouds dispersed as Scylla broke the sound barrier with her entire body for the very first time.

"GRAAA!!!"

With a pitiful wail, the four-hundred-and-fifty feet behemoth smashed into the rugged black island. The foundation of the small landmass shook as most of it peeled off, disappearing into the choppy waters below. Scylla's body pushed through most of the island like butter, forming a mini-crater. A sickening crack momentarily drowned out the sounds of the turbulent ocean. The wolf heads howled in agony and some of them began to spasm.

He had broken her spine.

"That should've hurt", Athos sighed and dropped down from the sky like a hawk. In a few seconds, his feet slammed into Scylla's chest, pushing her a few feet deeper into the crater.

She roared weakly in response as both her tentacles and heads convulsed in suffering. Two of her veiny tentacles were ripped and torn while one head was crushed by falling debris. Broken scales and burnt fur were what was left of a body that was the definition of nightmare fuel, while purplish-red blood coated her mighty form - pouring out in large streams from her numerous wounds.

"Purplish-red blood...The Tales of the Demonic and the Divine...It's not a coincidence, is it?", Athos murmured, examining the viscous substance that trickled down his fingers. It was far more viscous than human blood and made him feel...uncomfortable. Merlin's blood - the ink in his book, gave him no such feeling.

Perhaps it really was a coincidence.

Or not.

In a world where the line between Myth and reality refuses to exist, coincidences are scarce, if not non-existent. If it wasn't a coincidence, then just what was in the poison that Circe gave Scylla?

"Raaawwrrrr....."

"Right....I still have to administer the antidote", Athos shook his head once he heard the weak roar. Scylla's wounds were beginning to heal and a fast pace at that. He could see scales beginning to reattach and regrow while her skin joined back together but her lost limbs and head showed no signs of life.

He walked up Scylla's chest before summoning Leviathan, the axe he had barely used ever since its evolution. Dionysus was impossible to beat using Leviathan anyway but Athos had given him a run for his money using his axe, pre-Divine form. He was the only Immortal to ever properly face his axe but had fallen to Vajraha in the end.

The seven-foot, double-edged axe with intricate blue lines curling down its dark body materialized in his armoured hand. It looked at home in his hands, every contour and blade an extension of his body. It seemed to purr in his grasp as it reflected bright sunlight on its dark blades.

ROOOAAARRRR!!!

Athos' head snapped to the side, toward the sinkhole in the distance. Something seemed to have caught Charybdis' attention as she began to suck far more of the sea than before, giving out large muffled roars that were laced with anger, pain and sadness.

'She isn't worried about Scylla, is she? She didn't roar like this when I was spinning her around like a top', Athos frowned as he watched the hurricane above the sinkhole turn worse.

'Is it the axe?', he wondered and put away Leviathan.

Sure enough, the rumbling ceased and the hurricane went back to its usual speed.

He resummoned Leviathan.

ROOOAAARRRR!!!

'Is it really not about Scylla?', he thought and put away Leviathan once more. He would worry about this later. He now had to administer the antidote lest Scylla recovered.

With a satisfying clink, his claws extended and he immediately plunged them deep into Scylla's skin. With precise motions, he began ripping apart chunks of flesh while she roared in the background until he met a fairly large blood vessel. He flipped his palm and a bottle of bright silver liquid appeared on his open hand.

'This whole Scylla fiasco is incredibly fishy. Any poison that can turn a nymph into a monster with the strength of Scylla has to be concocted with incredibly valuable ingredients. An antidote for the poison must have even more valuable ingredients. Since Merlin's blood looks the same as Scylla's blood, I doubt the ingredients are from the Greek Pantheon. Just what is the relation between an Incubus and Scylla?...'

His eyes narrowed before he sighed, "Or I could be completely wrong. Regardless, Circe will have some explaining to do.

He sliced the blood vessel using a claw and popped open the bottle with faint anticipation before pouring the contents into the cut.

It was time to meet the real Scylla.