Xena: The Scholar's Chakram
A history grad student wakes in Thrace two years before Xena and Gabrielle ride down from Amphipolis, with every episode in his head and one decision already made: which deaths get prevented and which belong to the story. Iskander carries a chakram with a forge-mark Hephaestus made and never explained, a battle cry that breaks divine compulsion, a finger-pinch that kills or heals at one pressure, a war-forged body Ares wants back, an Olympian Blood Sense that tastes iron when a god enters the room, and a shamanic technique untested on humans that may call one specific Amazon back from death. He saves a centaur the show let die. Ephiny watches from thirty feet and recalibrates her hostility. Ares is already circling. The hardest casting is years away.