A hero's aristeia is their moment of complete victory and prowess before their inevitable death. Katarina believed in learning from literature and history, and this lesson was all but shoved down Six's throat since she first arrived on Earth.

To be the best is to die.

She looks up from her own fight to see Nine in all of his glory. He is fighting in a way she has never seen before, all fluid grace and deadly skill. Not that he isn't usually graceful or skilled on the battlefield. But today he is especially so.

It's the final battle, Six thinks. This is no time for an aristeia.

When he goes down with a sharp cry, Six is hardly even surprised. Still, she finds herself rushing to him, to where his body lays on the ground. "Nine, are you all right?" she asks as she looks down at him.

Six feels so very much like Hector, after the Trojan breaks Ajax's spear. She feels like Hector as he stares down at Patroclus on the Plains of Ilion.

No.

The pain in her chest is almost unbearable. She is not Hector, staring down at her fallen enemy. She is Menelaus, straddling Patroclus' body like a heifer guarding her newborn calf. Six is Achilles, looking at his therapon's body and screaming in agony while pulling out his own hair. She is Briseis, mourning the loss of a beloved friend who had made her so many promises about the future.

This is not where their story ends; it can't be.

"Get up, Nine," Six finally musters. "There's work to be done."

But Nine doesn't seem to understand her. His eyes are glazed over, and the bloody remains of his arm seem to scream injustices at her. It's your fault. You know all about a hero's aristeia, and you didn't say anything.

It's so like Nine to die this way. Six had thought that it would be John to go out in a blaze of glory to avenge Sarah's death. But no… that would never be how steady, thoughtful John died. Nine has always been the star, the comet streaking brightly across the sky before exploding in a brilliant flash of light. In a perfect aristeia that even Homer couldn't make it any more beautiful.

He's fading, and quickly. Six has never seen Nine so pale and clammy, so near to death. She needs to find Marina or John. Someone, anyone who can help him.

She looks up from him and wildly scans what remains of the West Virginia Mog base.

There!

"Marina!" Six calls out. Or, means to call out. It comes out as something between a choked scream and a sob.

The brunette girl whirled towards Six with an alarmed expression across her face. In moments, Marina was kneeling beside Nine. "I got this, Six. You need to go help John."

Six stared down at Nine. His aristeia had been beautiful. Something worthy of poetry that ought to live on forever. Heroes always die after the aristeia. Would Nine live? Would he live for better things? For an even greater moment of destruction and death before the inevitable darkness took him.

"Yeah. You'll make sure he gets through this, right?"

Marina nodded. There was a strange look on her face as she looked back and forth between Six and Nine. "Yes, of course. I can save him. Now you need to save John, and the world."

"Right."

As Six approached the remaining army of Mogadorians, she readied her sword. If it wasn't time for Nine's aristeia, then perhaps it was time for hers. Not every hero can escape the war alive, right? Each is trapped by his or her two fates; whether to return home and be without kleos or to die in battle and live eternally through long-lived glory.


Or, in which I've read the Iliad one two many times, and now this happened. I hope you enjoyed! Please leave a review and tell me your thoughts!
~Nerd