Panathenaic Stadium – Late Afternoon
April 6th, 1896 – After the Sprint
The sun hung lower now, slanting across the stadium and painting the marble steps in rich gold and shadow. The air had shifted—no longer fevered, but electric, as though the crowd itself had finally accepted they weren't just watching sport.
They were watching something singular. Something divine.
They had seen him lift.
They had seen him spin.
They had seen him fly.
But now—
Now they wanted to touch him.
Or rather—
They wanted to see someone else try.
If this man truly was a myth, would he bend? Would he bruise? Would he bleed?
They didn't want to see him win.
They wanted to see if he could be hurt.
They wanted the truth of him to be dragged into the dirt and tested body to body.
Because if he could not be stopped in wrestling—the oldest, rawest, most honest of all contests—
Then he wasn't just the strongest man in Athens.
He wasn't just the champion of Russia.
He was a god among men.
The Ring is Set
No ceremony marked the change.
Just a few officials walking to the cleared space at the southern end of the field, dragging heavy canvas bags behind them, filled with chalk, stakes, and a wooden template.
The lines were drawn by hand.
Two circles, one inside the other—simple white chalk spirals etched into the hard-packed dirt with an edge of stone. No banners. No music. No flags overhead.
There were no mats.
No ropes.
No corner posts or timekeepers.
Only a boundary.Only space.
This was wrestling as the ancients had practiced it.
No points. No categories. No second chances.
One man stands.
One man is pinned.
And as the dust settled around the ring, the announcer stepped to the center stage.
His voice, in formal Greek, boomed across the marble walls—then repeated in elegant, practiced French for the foreign dignitaries and international press:
"Final event for the day—open submission wrestling!"
"Victory by full pin or clear concession. No strikes. No time limit. No draws."
"All registered contenders—present yourselves!"
There was a pause.
Then the movement began.
The sound of shifting bodies, rising voices, murmurs along the marble benches.
And in that breathless beat before the first man stepped forward—
Every eye in the stadium turned the same direction.
Toward him.
The Challenger Appears
There was a moment—just one—where the circle remained empty. The chalk lines gleamed fresh and untouched beneath the golden afternoon sun, a pure space waiting for violence, for glory, for humiliation.
Then a man stepped forward.
And the crowd rose with him.
Leonidas Nikolaos – The Champion of Greece
He was massive—though not as tall as Arthas. His frame was thick with labor-forged muscle, not carved like marble but packed like granite. His shoulders were wide. His arms braided with cords of tendon and weight. His skin bore the deep tan of a lifetime in the sun.
He wore no shirt—only a simple cotton wrap around his waist and hardened leather straps around his wrists.
The crowd cheered as he entered. The kind of cheer not born from hope but from pride. Because Leonidas wasn't just a wrestler.
He was a defender of tradition.
The Greeks had invented this.They had written the rules.This was their event.
And now one of their own would remind the world of it.
Leonidas paced the ring once, head held high, chest pushed forward. He raised a hand to the king's box.
Then he looked across the stadium.
"Where is he?" he asked, in Greek. "Where is the one who runs barefoot and carries thunder in his hands?"
And Then—He Arrived
From the side of the field, past the athletes and the murmuring press, Arthas stepped forward.
The moment he moved, the crowd hushed again—as if his footsteps absorbed sound.
He had removed the cloak, leaving only the gray cloth tied at his waist. Bare from head to foot, dust streaking his legs, muscles glowing with sweat, hair hanging loose behind his shoulders like a lion's mane, he did not walk with challenge.
He walked with certainty.
Leonidas turned to face him—and for the first time all day, his confident grin faltered.
Because up close, Arthas wasn't just big.
He was perfectly proportioned.Balanced.Still.
And his eyes—those glacial blue eyes—didn't glare.
They simply looked through him, as if measuring not a man, but a problem to be solved.
The judge raised his hand between them.
"Grip."
Leonidas offered his hand with pride.
Arthas took it—not crushing, not limp. Just… final.
They did not speak.
They did not bow.
The judge stepped back and dropped his arm.
"Begin!"
---
The Clash
"Begin!"
The word barely left the judge's mouth before Leonidas was in motion.
There was no posturing. No sizing up. No hesitation.
This was his territory.
He had won here before. On this very chalked circle. Against men taller, heavier, faster. He didn't need time to gauge an opponent—he felt them, the way a mountain feels wind before a storm.
He dropped low, knees bending wide, arms out, hands flexed like claws.His body compacted into a boulder of momentum—rolling downhill, gathering force with every step.Dust kicked up from the hard earth.His breath was steady.His aim precise.
Waist-lock. Pivot. Pin.
He would floor this outsider in ten seconds.
The Crowd Holds Its Breath
They'd seen Leonidas do this before.
He was a Greek champion—respected, revered.His name was known in wrestling circles from Athens to Constantinople.He wrestled like he was born for it.
And so the crowd waited for the impact. For the slam. For the grunt of pain.For the moment the foreigner with the golden hair realized he didn't belong in this ring.
The Impact
Contact.
Full-speed.
Chest to chest.
Flesh met flesh with a thump that echoed strangely through the marble amphitheater.
And then—
Leonidas bounced back.
His feet slid on the earth.
His shoulder dipped. His hands lost hold.
He recoiled.
Not from a counter.
Not from a redirection.
From hitting something unmovable.
It wasn't a block. It wasn't technique.
It was like running into a tree trunk the size of a man—rooted in something deeper than physics.
The crowd gasped.
Not dramatic.Not wild.A sharp inhale, like thousands of lungs forgetting what air was for.
Arthas Stands
He hadn't shifted.
Not one step.Not even a flinch.
His feet dug into the dirt like anchors. His arms had barely lifted, half-curled at his sides, relaxed. His chest rose in a slow breath, but there was no tension in him. Only presence.
His eyes didn't glare.
He just looked down at Leonidas—as if curious.
Is this all you are?
Leonidas blinked, stumbling back one step.
The smirk that had rested on his lips during every other match?
Gone.
His face darkened—not with fear, but something deeper.
Realization.
This Is Real
He came again.
But this time smarter.
He shifted his hips, moving with a twist. He faked right, ducked low, spun in a tight arc to the left—his right leg hooked behind Arthas's knee in a classic sweep maneuver, while his upper body reached for a shoulder grip and pivot.
A move he had executed a hundred times. A move that had dropped men far heavier.
His fingers locked on Arthas's shoulder—
And stopped.
It was like grabbing the corner of a marble column.
The muscle didn't give.
It didn't even shift.
Leonidas tried to turn him.
He might as well have tried to move a cathedral.
No.
Not him.
He looked up—
And Arthas moved.
The Lift
There was no warning.
No surge of force.
No dramatic wind-up or roar of effort.
Just a shift.
A breath. A decision.
Arthas moved like water flowing into a mold, slipping between the seams of Leonidas's offense with no resistance and no fear.
He stepped forward—into the half-grip, not away. Where most men would back off, counter, scramble—he entered.
One hand snaked across Leonidas's lower back, fingers spread across the man's thick waist like steel clamps locking into place.
The other arm slid—high, behind the shoulder blade, wrapping around his upper back with the calm finality of a gate closing.
And then—
He lifted.
Not jerked.Not strained.Not explosive.
But smooth.
As though he had done this before. As though lifting 200 pounds of seasoned Greek wrestler was no different than lifting a blade from a scabbard.
Gasps spread across the crowd like wildfire.
First from the front rows, where older athletes and trainers understood how impossible what they were seeing truly was.
Then from the upper seats, as Leonidas's feet left the earth.
His legs kicked reflexively, scrabbling for purchase. His hands flailed for grip—his fingers pressed to air, desperate, stunned.
His back arched involuntarily as his body was stolen from balance—his core no longer his own, gravity no longer listening to him.
His eyes widened—panic and disbelief etched across a face that had never before known either.
I've been caught.
And I can't stop it.
The Turn
Arthas didn't slam him.
There was no aggression. No cruelty. Only control.
He rotated Leonidas mid-air like a sculptor spinning clay, one seamless motion—a fold rather than a throw, a graceful redirection of force rather than a contest of wills.
The Greek's body twisted, curved, flipped—
And landed.
The Pin
The impact was heavy—but not brutal.
It was the sound of reality being reaffirmed.
Thud.
Dust puffed upward like steam from a crater. The chalk lines were blurred, the earth marked with the outline of a man no longer standing.
Arthas dropped with him—fluid again—his knee planting gently on Leonidas's chest.
Not enough to bruise.
But enough to say:
"Do not rise again."
The crowd froze.
Then hushed.
No cheers. No movement. Just wide eyes and shallow breaths.
Leonidas didn't resist.
He didn't even try.
He lay there beneath the knee of a man who had taken everything—his momentum, his center, his air, his name—in a single, silent motion.
The judge stood, mouth half open, hand half raised.
He had never seen a cleaner pin.
He had never seen a quieter fall.
But a fall nonetheless.
"Match!" he declared, voice cracking slightly."Arthas Menethil—Russia!"
The Crowd
There were no cheers at first.
No clapping. No whistles. No cries of national pride.
Just a vacuum of noise—silence stretched too far—as if the very act of sound had been broken by what they'd just witnessed.
A man lifted the undefeated champion of Greece.With no noise.With no effort.With no violence.And simply placed him on the ground.
The pin had not been a defeat.It had been a demonstration.
And then—
A sound.
A single clap.
One sharp, uncertain beat of palm against palm.
It came from the second tier, from an elderly Italian noblewoman seated in lace and black pearls. Her hands trembled as she clapped a second time.
Then a French officer beside her followed.
And then another.
And another.
Until the applause cascaded across the stadium, not like rain—but like an avalanche rolling over disbelief, etiquette, and national pride.
It became a wall of sound, not triumphant or wild—but reverent.The sound people made when they had no other way to process what they had seen.
People stood.
One by one at first.Then in rows.Then in full sections of marble stands.
Hats were removed. Handkerchiefs pressed to stunned mouths. Children looked to their parents with questions too big for language.
Nobles exchanged glances—some impressed, some calculating, some nervous.
Military envoys leaned toward one another, speaking in hushed tones:
"What regiment did he come from?""He's not on any list.""If he's Russian, why was he unannounced?""Could he be… something else?"
One German colonel looked down at his own Olympic hopeful and shook his head slowly.
"He doesn't belong to sport. He belongs to legend."
And in the royal box, surrounded by silk banners and sun-polished brass—
King George I of Greece leaned forward in his seat.
He had not moved for most of the day. Had not spoken since the discus event. But now, his eyes locked onto the man still kneeling in the ring, knee gently resting on the fallen champion, shoulders high, expression blank.
"That one," the king said, softly, but with the authority of a throne behind the words."Bring him."
He paused. His gaze narrowed.
"I wish to know his name from his own lips."
---
Xania – In the Aftermath of Power
Panathenaic Stadium – Late Afternoon
She stood just beyond the edge of the ring, her gloved hands clenched at her sides, breath caught somewhere between her ribs and her throat.
All around her, the crowd was rising. The marble seats trembled with the echo of thunderous applause. Voices roared. Dignitaries leaned in. The press scribbled furiously. The King had spoken.
But she couldn't hear any of it.
Not really.
All she could see was him.
Arthas.
Kneeling calmly over a man who had never before been defeated. Not triumphant. Not boastful. Just… settled. As if the victory had never been in question.
Her breath left her in a slow, trembling stream.
Her lips were parted.Her eyes wide.Her heart—
It didn't race.It pounded.
She could still feel it.
The weight of him against her body in the alley.The heat of his lips as they devoured hers.The thunder in his chest when he ran through Athens with her in his arms.
But this…
This was different.
This was not the man she kissed behind a bakery wall.
This was the man the world had seen.
And they wanted him.
All of them.
Princes. Kings. Generals. Envoys. Nobles. Athletes.
They see what I saw before anyone else did.
They want what I found.
And that truth—terrified her and thrilled her in equal measure.
A nobleman beside her spoke softly.
"He should be guarded. Watched. Recruited."
Another murmured to his wife:
"He could change the balance of Europe, if placed in the right hands…"
Xania's head turned slowly toward the voices.
Her jaw clenched.
Because they didn't see him as a man.
They saw him as a piece.
A trophy.
A force to be shaped, managed, owned.
No, she thought, her eyes flicking back to him.No. You don't get to use him. You don't even get to understand him.
He's not yours.
And then—
He looked at her.
From across the ring. From above Leonidas's fallen body. From under the sun that gilded his hair like a crown.
Their eyes met.
And for that breathless second, she didn't see the man the crowd worshipped.
She saw him.
The man who kissed her like a secret.Who held her like a promise.Who never asked for a name before carrying her into the heart of the world.
You're not a myth anymore, she thought.You're not just mine now.
But I will fight to keep you anyway.