This was real, and it was coming.

The walk to Nemea was tough. I missed being able to call a cab.

My feet hurt, and I couldn't stop thinking about our run-in with Artemis. I have somehow managed to talk us out of trouble, but it felt like walking a tightrope between what I knew and what this world expected.

"Hercules," Iolaus said, snapping me out of my thoughts, "we should get to the next village by dark. We can stock up there before the last part of the trip to Nemea."

I nodded, glad for something else to focus on.

As we got to the top of a hill, we saw the village below. But something wasn't right. There was a crowd in the village square, and we could hear them from where we stood.

Iolaus noticed it too. Without a word, we walked faster towards the village. As we got closer, we could see what was happening. A huge stone statue had fallen over in the middle of the square, trapping some villagers underneath.

Everyone was panicking, trying to lift the statue, but it wasn't budging. Then I realized - the statue was of Zeus, my supposed father in this world. It looked just like the sculptures I'd seen in museums back home.

For a second, I wondered how such a detailed statue ended up in this small village. But the cries for help brought me back to reality.

"We have to help them," I said, walking faster.

Iolaus looked at me, waiting. "This is usually when you show off your godly strength," he said.

Right.

Godly strength.

The one thing I hadn't really tried out yet. I took a deep breath and stepped up to the crowd.

"Stand back!" I shouted, trying to sound sure of myself. "I'll take care of this." The crowd moved aside, whispering "Hercules" as they went. I stood in front of the fallen statue, feeling everyone's eyes on me.

This was it - time to see if I really had Hercules' strength. I put my feet down firmly, grabbed the edge of the statue, and lifted.

For a scary moment, nothing happened, and then I felt a rush of power through my body.

The statue, which must have clearly weighed tons, started to rise like it was as light as a pillow. The crowd gasped as I lifted it over my head. The trapped villagers scrambled to safety, and everyone cheered.

With one last push, I set the statue upright. It hit the ground with a huge boom. As the dust cleared, I stood there, amazed at what I'd just done. The power in this body was unreal. For the first time since I got here, I felt unstoppable.

The village elder came up to me, bowing. "Great Hercules, you saved our people and our sacred statue of Zeus. How can we thank you?" I was about to say they didn't need to thank me, but then I had an idea.

This was a chance to learn more about the Nemean Lion.

"Tell me," I said, "what do you know about the beast in Nemea? Any information could help my quest."

The elder's face got serious understanding what I meant.

"The lion. It's getting worse every day. Just yesterday, some of our best fighters went to face it. None came back." The crowd went quiet. I felt a chill, even though it was a warm day.

"But surely," the elder said, looking hopeful, "the great Hercules can do what others couldn't?" I nodded, feeling the weight of what they expected from me. "I'll do my best," I promised, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt.

As night came and the village threw a feast for us, I couldn't shake off a feeling of worry. Lifting that statue felt amazing, but it also made everything more real. I wasn't just pretending anymore.

Real people's lives were at stake.

Later, as Iolaus and I got ready for bed, he looked at me funny. "You know, Hercules," he said slowly, "you've been acting weird since we started this trip. The questions, being so careful, the way you dealt with Artemis... it's almost like..."

He stopped, shaking his head. "No, it can't be."

My heart started racing. "What can't be?" I asked, trying to sound calm.

Iolaus opened his mouth to speak, but a sound cut through the night that made us both freeze. A roar - deep, primal, and impossibly loud. The walls of our room trembled, and the air itself seemed to vibrate.

I immediately walked to the window to see what was wrong, but I couldn't see anything in sight.

But seeing the trembling villagers, I understood the source of the roar.

It was the Nemean Lion!

My academic brain kicked in automatically. I remembered reading research papers about lion vocalizations - how a normal lion's roar could carry for 8 kilometers, sometimes even 10. That was just a regular lion. This sound, echoing across the valley, had to be coming from much further away.

The mathematics of it sent a chill down my spine. If a normal lion's roar at 8 kilometers could shake leaves, what kind of creature could shake walls from even greater distances? The Nemean Lion wasn't just a bigger version of a normal lion - it was something else entirely.

Villagers began shouting outside, their panic clear in their voices. I moved to the window, scanning the moonlit landscape.

No massive beast in sight, no immediate threat - just the lingering echo of that earth-shaking roar, and the terrifying implications of its power.

"That's not possible," I whispered, more to myself than to Iolaus. "The acoustic physics alone..." I stopped myself. Here I was, a professor in the body of a demigod, trying to apply modern science to a mythical beast.

Iolaus gripped my shoulder. "Hercules, I've heard many lions in my time. But this..." He shook his head, leaving the thought unfinished. He didn't need to complete it. We both knew we were dealing with something beyond normal understanding.

The distant roar came again, and this time I felt it in my chest, like the bass at a concert turned up too high. The rational part of my brain - the part that had spent years in lecture halls discussing mythology as metaphor - was screaming that this couldn't be real. But my new reality had different rules.

"We should get ready," I said, surprised by the steadiness in my voice. "If it's this powerful from this far away..."

Again, I let the thought trail off. Some calculations were better left unfinished. Some truths were better left unknown until you had to face them.

In all my years of studying Greek mythology, I'd read countless descriptions of the Nemean Lion. But no ancient text, no scholarly analysis, could have prepared me for this moment. This wasn't just a legend anymore.

This was real, and it was coming.

As we gathered our things, that distant roar echoing in our minds, I realized that all my academic knowledge might be worse than useless. The beast we were about to face didn't care about peer-reviewed papers or theoretical frameworks. It was a force of nature wrapped in myth, and I would have to face it not as a professor, but as Hercules.

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