The duo pushed on, boots dragging grit in the narrow corridor until it widened into a chamber lined with marble statues, some even inlayed with bits of gold.
Dozens of them. Heroes from ancient Greece frozen in marble, some with raised swords, some kneeling in prayer, some broken at the knees as if they'd been half-finished and abandoned.
Lucas recognised a few; there was Perseus holding Medusa's head. Achilles with his spear and shield, though the shield was no longer whole, cracked through with missing pieces.
Lucas squinted at a familiar chiselled face. "That looks like-"
"Doesn't matter," Elizabeth cut him off, stepping around a cracked pedestal and immediately attacking the stationary statues. "They're all waiting to kill us."
The first one twitched as if on cue, a scrape of stone against stone. Lucas readied himself, but Elizabeth was already in the midst of an attack. She kicked the base of the statue hard enough to knock it backward into another, toppling two at once like rotted columns.
"Vandalism," Lucas muttered.
"Shut up, Princess."
They slipped past the chaos, ducking beneath an outstretched marble blade. A second statue lunged, but Lucas flicked his wrist, knocking the attack to the side and shifting the statue's balance, allowing him to kick the statue with enough force to shatter its stomach and send it into two statues behind it.
Moving through the attacking statues, they ducked and weaved, only retaliating to create space. Lucas' daggers were pointless here, and with his magic being interfered with, he could only use his body as such. They both unanimously decided to flee this place instead of being dragged into a fight against unrelenting statues.
Just as they managed to leave the chamber and escape into the corridor, Lucas paused and turned, throwing a punch towards the statue behind him, the one he found familiar. They didn't look back when the sound of cracking stone chased them out into the tunnel, and kept going until silence returned.
Huffing and catching her breath, Elizabeth turned to Lucas.
"Did you really have to go back and hit that statue?"
Lucas shrugged, smirking, "If any camper had the opportunity to punch Mr D without repercussion, then they would; you can't blame me for that."
Elizabeth just shook her head; even if it was just a statue of him during his demigod days, such a thing as destroying it could incur the gods' wrath. The fact that Lucas could still laugh was just madness to her.
The corridor beyond the shattered statue room narrowed again, forcing them shoulder to shoulder until it suddenly gave way to a vast rectangular chamber. Smooth mirrors, polished so clean they reflected their figures back a dozen times over.
Lucas stopped first, eyes flicking across the glass. His reflection peered back at him, tired eyes, bruised cheek still faintly red from Elizabeth's slap, the slight tilt of his shoulders mirroring every breath.
Elizabeth stepped beside him and stared at her reflection, snorting. "I hate it." Her flaming hair was caked in mud, her normally pale skin was tinged brown from grime, even her bronze leg was dull, no longer shining.
Lucas ignored her remark and pointed at his cheek. "In a killer labyrinth the worst injury I have recieved was from you...I think I deserve a better class of murderous maze."
That caused Elizabeth to crack a smile, revealing her fangs.
They took two steps forward. The door behind them sealed with a quiet thud of shifting stone.
"You just had to taunt the labyrinth," Elizabeth sighed.
Lucas rolled his shoulders, turning slowly in the center of the chamber. Whatever was going to happen, he expected to see coming thanks to the mirrors surrounding them.
He kept circling, watching for any movement, but all that changed was his-
Lucas dived out of the way, a knife slicing where his neck had been.
He twisted, slamming an elbow into the side of the wielder of the knife.
Only for them to mimic him perfectly, twisting around the strike and countering with a knee that knocked the breath from Lucas' gut.
"Copycats," he hissed, ducking another swing. He dipped low, shifting his weight and throwing his double off balance, shoulder-checking it hard enough to send the reflection crashing into the mirrored wall. The glass was webbed with cracks, but it didn't shatter; the reflection melted back into the glass, only to step out again behind him.
Elizabeth knocked her copy's dagger aside with her hand, flipping her opponent over her shoulder to the floor. However, it still launched a kick from the ground, striking toward Elizabeth's head, causing her to block and take a step back, allowing the doppleganger to stand and gain distance, back to the starting position.
Elizabeth snarled, flicking hair out of her face. She lunged towards her copy, and the copy replicated this; a dance of steel and fangs was enacted between them.
Lucas, meanwhile, was using feints to try and create openings, but the copycat knew all his tricks, seeing through them and returning with feints and strikes of his own, which Lucas saw through.
He knew he needed to do something. Like the situation with the statues, only the two of them had flesh. A long battle would just cost them energy, energy they needed to conserve in this dangerous place, so Lucas started thinking of ways to create a breakthrough before landing on his illusions.
Since his magic couldn't be used, and his clone wasn't using magic, that was off the table. But he didn't believe the labyrinth could copy the abilities of a primordial, even if they were weakened for his use. Though he would only have one chance, for the labyrinth might adapt to the illusions after use, just as it had adapted to his attempts to divine the path to the exit.
He sidestepped a blow from his clone and grabbed his wrist, hauling him towards the centre of the chamber. The copycat took this opportunity to slice towards Lucas' neck, it cut through, spraying blood in a wide arc, but the blood soon disappeared, along with the falling corpse. It was an illusion.
There was a shattering sound, causing the copycat's attention to return to the mirror he had stepped out from. Lucas was there, having punched through it and destroyed it. The copycat tried to move towards Lucas, but there must have been a connection for just like the mirror it came from, it too shattered, falling apart with each step before turning to shards of glass on the ground.
Elizabeth seemed to pick up on the trick, for she forced her copycat towards the mirrored wall, exchanging injury for injury just to accomplish this, and just when the copycat was melting into the mirror and a step away, Elizabeth headbutted the mirror, shattering it and the half-complete copy.
She turned towards Lucas, a shard of glass stuck in her forehead and blood dripping down her face.
"Next time you taunt this place, I headbutt you instead."
Lucas nodded and made his way to her, and started healing her. While most of his magic was interfered with, he always carried some supplies for emergencies. He handed her some ambrosia and nectar while he removed the shard and bandaged the wound.
Before he could even ask if she was okay, they heard it.
A distant scrabbling. A hiss that turned into many. Dozens. Hundreds. Red pinpricks of eyes glittered in the dark, a tide of fur and teeth and white foam dribbling down tiny jaws.