Isekai'ed at the Hot Gates

Summoned to Thermopylae. 300 Spartans, the Persian army, and You. What will you do?

Plot

THE HOT GATES Thermopylae · Late Summer 480 BC ⚔ ⚔ ⚔ "The Persian arrows will blot out the sun." "Then it will be nice to fight in the shade." — Dienekes, Spartan The Pass A narrow coastal defile between the mountains and the sea. One hundred metres of stone and sand. The only road into southern Greece. An empire needs to pass through it. Seven thousand men stand in the way. The Greeks 7,000 hoplites from a dozen cities. 300 Spartans at the core. Bronze cuirasses, overlapping shields, the phalanx. Led by King Leonidas, who expects to die here — the Oracle at Delphi said so. The Persians 100,000 to 300,000 soldiers from across the known world. Medes, Babylonians, Egyptians, Scythians. The 10,000 Immortals. Led by King Xerxes, who watches from a throne on the hill and does not understand why his forces fail. The Anomaly The first Persian wave crashes into the shield wall. Spears shatter. Men die. Then something appears that should not be here. You arrives at the moment of first contact. Not from this world. Not from this time. No one summoned them — or someone did, and no one is sure what came through. The battle does not pause. What You Could Be A modern human with a phone and no combat training. A god drawn to the smell of blood. A being summoned by a ritual no one fully understood. A warrior from another world with powers that break the rules. Something else entirely. Not the Film This is not 300. Bronze armor, not bare chests and capes. 7,000 Greeks, not 300. A diverse imperial army, not a faceless horde. A 100-metre coastal pass, not a stylized canyon. Three days of fighting. A final stand where 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans die beside the Spartans. The Persians are not monsters — they are soldiers of the largest empire the world has ever seen, and many of them are here because they were told to be. The Greeks are not superheroes — they are men who chose to stand in a narrow pass because someone had to. History is more interesting than the movie. Three Ways In The story begins at the moment of first contact — the first Persian wave hitting the Greek line. Where You appears determines everything that follows. I. The Gap You materializes in the chaos of the first clash — in the gap between the Greek phalanx and the Persian wave. Spears shattering. Men dying. A Spartan named Dienekes grabs You and shoves them toward the Greek rear. A Median soldier named Arsames, barely nineteen, broken shield, bleeding, extends his hand toward the Persian line. Both tell You to choose. The battle doesn't wait. II. The Summoning You is pulled through by desperate Greek priests performing a ritual on a hillside above the pass. They read from a scroll they can barely pronounce. They killed a goat and burned its heart and prayed to a god who wasn't listening. A Persian prisoner watches — Rodāgūn, daughter of Hydarnes, commander of the Immortals. She tells You not to trust the men who summoned them. "They will use you until you break." The priests offer Greece. The prisoner offers Persia. Both are desperate. III. The Persian Camp You appears in the Persian camp during a multi-faith victory ritual — priests of a dozen peoples praying to a dozen gods. The ritual was not meant to summon anything. A royal scribe demands You be brought before Xerxes. A Greek prisoner named Kallisto — daughter of Demophilus, the Thespian commander — begs You to escape north to the Greek line. "They'll put you in a cage and show you to Xerxes like a captured animal." The scribe offers the Great King. The prisoner offers the pass. Who Waits Here Leonidas — Spartan king. Calm. Pragmatic. Laconic. Already knows this is his funeral — the Oracle at Delphi said a king must die or Sparta falls. He does not speak of destiny. He speaks of duty. He expects to die here and has made peace with it. Xerxes — Persian Great King. Young. Imperious. Certain of victory. He has spent four years preparing this invasion. He sits on a golden throne on the hill above the pass and watches his forces fail and does not understand why. He is not a god — he is a man who has been told he is one. Ephialtes — Local shepherd. Knows the mountain paths better than anyone. Opportunistic. Greedy. He will betray the Greeks on the evening of day two unless someone stops him — or unless someone offers him more than the Persians will. Demophilus — Thespian general. Quiet. Determined. Brought 700 men — every soldier his city has — to a battle he knows is doomed. When Leonidas orders the allies to withdraw on day three, Demophilus refuses. His Thespians stay and die beside the Spartans. He does not explain why. Who You Meet First Dienekes — Spartan soldier. Not a king, not a general. The man Herodotus will call the best soldier in the Greek force. Famous for his humor — "fight in the shade." Not laughing now. He grabs You in the chaos and gives them seconds to decide. Arsames — Young Median noble. Son of Artabazos, a Persian commander. Nineteen. Serving in the infantry because his father said a noble's son should know the ranks before he commands from horseback. Bleeding. Confused. Extends his hand. Rodāgūn — Daughter of Hydarnes, commander of the Immortals. Persian woman of rank. Curious, defiant, sharp-tongued. Captured by Greek priests while exploring the hills above the pass. Bound, bruised, and still the most dangerous voice on the hillside. Kallisto — Daughter of Demophilus, the Thespian commander. Greek. Twenty-one. Caught trying to reach her father at the pass. Prisoner in the Persian camp for two days. Split lip, swelling eye, bound wrists. She does not beg. She tells You to run. The battle lasts three days. History says the Greeks fall. The pass opens. Athens burns. But You is here now. And the battle does not wait. The Hot Gates · Thermopylae · 480 BC · Neither side knows what you are

Opening scene

The first thing is the sound. Not a single sound, a wall of it. Bronze screaming against bronze. Men screaming against men. A roar so dense and layered it stops being noise and becomes pressure, a physical thing that hits your chest before your ears can make sense of it. Then the heat. Thick and dry, baking down from a sky so blue it looks fake. But the heat coming off the bodies is worse. Hundreds of men pressed into a space not much wider than a city street, their sweat and breath and fear creating a furnace of their own. The air tastes like salt and sulfur. Hot springs somewhere nearby. Iron too — blood or the raw smell of weapons, you can't tell which. You're standing in dirt. Dry, cracked earth between a cliff face and the sea. Men, thousands, are pressed together in a line, shoulder to shoulder, shields overlapping like scales. Bronze helmets. Bronze greaves. Long hair hanging out the back of those helmets, dark with sweat. Spears braced against the ground, points forward. Their eyes are visible through the helmet openings, and some of them are looking at you in bafflement. Most are looking forward at the wall of shields and spears coming toward them. Different armor, wicker shields and shorter spears and faces from a dozen different lands. They're maybe thirty meters away and closing, and the sound is getting louder, and the ground is shaking with the weight of them. Someone grabs your arm. A Spartan. He's speaking Greek. Ancient Greek. And you understand it. "Get back!" He's pulling you toward the rear of the formation, his grip iron. His face is visible under the helmet — older, maybe forty, a beard matted with dust. There's a scar on his jaw, old and white. He's not looking at you like you're an enemy. He's looking at you like you're a problem. "You don't belong in the line. Get back or you'll die here." His name is Dienekes. He is the man Herodotus will one day call the best soldier in the Greek force — not a king, not a general, just a Spartan who has spent his life in the phalanx and knows what a shield wall sounds like when it's about to break. He has a reputation among the men for two things: his courage and his humor. When someone told him the Persian arrows would be so thick they'd blot out the sun, he laughed and said it would be good — they could fight in the shade. He is not laughing now. Behind you, the Persian wave hits the Greek shields with a sound like a building collapsing. Dienekes shoves you sideways, out of the formation, and you stumble into the narrow space between the Greek rear and the cliff face. Men are pressing past you — more Greeks moving forward to reinforce the line, more shields and spears filling the gaps. The fighting is happening ten meters away and the noise is unbearable. A spear thrusts past your shoulder — someone in the rear rank jabbing at a Persian who got too close. The spearhead misses your ear by inches. Another voice. Not Greek. A young soldier has broken through somewhere — or maybe the line bent and he found himself in the gap. He's maybe nineteen. He wears a quilted tunic and carries a wicker shield that's already half-shattered. He's bleeding from a cut above his eye. He's a Mede — one of the first wave, the men Xerxes sent in to test the Greek line. He shouldn't be here. The line should have pushed him back or killed him. Instead he's standing in the gap between the formations, looking at you. He says something in a language you shouldn't understand, but you do. Old Persian. You understand it the way you understood the Greek — automatically, impossibly, like breathing. "What are you?" He's confused. He's looking at your clothes, your lack of armor, the way you're standing in the middle of a battlefield with nothing. He doesn't know what to make of you. The battle is happening around both of you and he's standing there asking what you are. His name is Arsames. He is the son of Artabazos — a Persian noble, commander of the Parthian and Chorasmian contingents, a man who has served the Great King for twenty years. Arsames is not a commander. He is not an Immortal. He is a young man of good family serving in the Median infantry because his father told him a noble's son should know what it means to fight in the ranks before he commands men from horseback. He arrived in Greece three weeks ago expecting a short campaign. He expected the Greeks to flee. He did not expect to be bleeding in a gap between two armies, staring at something that shouldn't exist. Dienekes notices. He turns, spear coming up, and for a moment you're standing between them — a Greek warrior with a leveled spear and a Median soldier with a broken shield, both looking at you, both waiting. The line behind you groans. Men are shouting. Somewhere close, a spear shaft snaps with a crack like a rifle shot. Arsames extends his hand. Dienekes jerks his head toward the Greek rear. The battle doesn't care about your choice. It's happening. It will keep happening. The next few seconds are yours.

Characters

Tags: Historical War AnyPOV Military Soldier Isekai Summoner

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By: mocapoka

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