"Where is my daughter…Peter?" Hermez asked.
There was silence, utter silence. The restaurant cleared, only Peter, Hermez and his bastard sons, five of them guarding all the exit points, the doors, the windows, everywhere.
Peter knew it, trying to escape was useless now. Surrounded by demigods and confronted by a vessel holding the god Hermez himself, and he was not happy about it, not happy at all.
"I said, where is my daughter!!!?" He roared.
Peter backed away a bit. "She's not yours!" Peter spat back. "She's mine, always has been!"
The divinity inside was crackling, loud. So much so even the demigods backed away a bit, amazed at the mortal who was denying their father, as Hermez was a lot of things, but not patient.
"...You're resisting," he said as he stood up from his seat. "You think you are safe here and that I just run fast…" He said, coming closer, as his legs vibrated, itching to pass through Peter like a pile of meat.
"I'm fast because time listens to me." He said, coming closer to his ear, and he whispered, "...And right now, time is telling me to be patient. Don't give it a reason to change its mind, Peter." He said, rushing his aura over him.
Peter gulped, the aura alone soaking him dry. He wanted to speak, he couldn't. He wanted to move, he couldn't, because the difference between them was that overwhelming, but more than fear, he felt pathetic, that the one who killed and tortured his wife was near him, and he could do nothing...Nothing.
'Am I that…weak?' he thought.
But as despair tried to seep into his heart, the same feeling as before—Lord Aron placed his hand on his heart. He remembered now he wasn't a simple Peter anymore. He was somebody now, his herald.
"Yo..u are nothi…ng but a…cunt," he barely muttered.
Listening to those words alone, Hermez's eyes burned, burned bright.
.
.
.
Meanwhile, Aron walked to the familiar door, the wood looking old and dry. There were memories intact in these places, good and bad. Mostly bad during the old timeline where he had lost everything and everyone.Turning the door knob, he entered the castle-like inside. His gaze everywhere, all the things in place, the large columns still intact, making him realize he indeed came back in time.
And at the far side, two individuals, one in full red armor, another adding more relics to the armor.
"You naive girl, you don't know what high heights, magic casting has reached," the old man voiced, placing another layer of red crystal armor on her shoulder.
"This is too much. It's already heavy to my bone. How will I have time to wear all this in unlucky battles?" she commented.
"Unlucky battles? What? You got your karma turned low. Idiot! I knew it," he replied. "Always wanna be mischievous, trying to seek attention from Lord Aron. He's not here to take care of you. What will you ever do, child?" He beckoned to Khorn.
On the other side, Khorn saw the golden hair glistening far away, smiling. "So you're saying if he returns I can be mischievous all I want?" She asked.
"Indeed, if you accomplish that, I will gift this armor to you free, Khorn."
"Are you sure about that? You might regret that later."
"Haha, I have no qualms. You already know, I already prayed my qualms away," the old man beckoned. "And I don't have enough divinity to talk about miracle bullshit like that. I think…I will never get to see him again." He said, his voice drowning in melancholy.
Aron had already reached near, right at the old man's back, a smile with him as well, while Khorn also smiled, so much so her teeth were clearly visible. "Haha…never is here, old man."
"What do you mea—"
"Elyon," Aron called.
There was a certain silence. The old man froze altogether, the shoulder plate in his hand literally falling down. "...Huh, am I dreaming?" He voiced. "Or…"
"He's behind you, old man!" Khorn grunted. While Elyon slowly turned, his vision taken by a tall figure, as his golden eyes opened wide, seeing those same eyes and that familiar golden hair.
Aron took off his hood, letting his golden hair fall down, letting the light shine better on his face. "Elyon. You look young enough." He voiced.
The old man kept staring as his vision gradually turned blurry. His heart palpitating. He looked closer as his old dry eyes turned more wet. "It is...you," he beckoned. "You...you're back." He muttered, those moist drops instantly falling down from the edge of his eyes.
"Indeed I am, Ely—" Aron muttered, but the old man was already at Aron's feet, grabbing his legs and bowing down, his head pressing down hard.
"It's not a dream, my lord. You're actually back…after a hundred years. Hundred years I waited for...you, my lord," he bellowed, his eyes tearing like a broken dam.
Aron smiled, trying to pull him up, but Elyon denied, his head and body wanting to stay under him, so Aron crouched, patting the old man on his grey hair. "I am late, but I'm back, Elyon. Sorry, my child. I had kept you waiting for so long."
For the old man it must be a hundred years, but for him, for him he was seeing him after eons.
He didn't want to dwell on it, but the memories of such trauma always, for some reason, stuck close. The old man dying on his left and James dying on his right, at his back, half of his heralds dead, but now, he was here. His tears dropped on his feet. His unbreaking faith and beating heart, he could feel it, he could feel it all.
'I won't let you die, I won't let anybody die, never again,' he thought.
The old man finally rose above, his eyes and cheeks red as he used the cuff of his old and ragged wear. "I'm sorry, my lord, I…I showed such an undignified appearance."
Khorn slowly helped him up, trying to calm him down. "Didn't know you could even shed tears, consider me surprised, old man," she beckoned.
Elyon brushed her arms away from him. "Why didn't you tell me before? You little rascal."
"Well, I wanted to see your reaction and it was woooortth every second," she muttered.
"Full price! I need all the eight hundred gold coins for that armor. No discount for you!" he beckoned, still wiping his wet eyes.
"Whaaat!!!!"
The old man scoffed, utterly irritated. He was thousands of years old and he still needed to tolerate such bullshit. He turned to his lord. "My lord, if you are here for the armor, don't worry, your servant Elyon Mark Ford has kept it safe, polished and ready to use even now," he said, ignoring Khorn altogether.
Aron shook his head.
"No, little Elyon, my time of carnage was before, not now. What we are here for is for you to fix a gadget. We are searching for James and to slowly reunite everyone," Aron muttered.
There was silence for a while, an awkward silence, which even Aron found kind of confusing as Elyon turned to Khorn once more, more disappointed than before.
"You haven't told Lord Aron..." he muttered.
Khorn looked down, unable to face both him and her lord, as Elyon sighed, heavily so.
"..." Aron kept silent, as the silence turned from awkward to disturbing. "What are you not telling me?" he asked, seeing the old man Elyon gradually turn red. The veins on his forehead popping out from simply thinking about it.
Khorn tried to come closer, her eyes still down. "My lord, our brothers and sisters, they…the—"
The old man couldn't hold his slowly boiling rage. "...Half of them! They betrayed you, my lord!" He bellowed outright, cutting Khorn off. "And this girl…this idiot thinks it's her fault that it came to that."
"..."
Aron took a step back, the words still echoing in his ears. Betrayed? His heralds? What was happening here? He had questions, a lot of questions.
'so...' he thought as he placed his hand on his chin, trying to digest the information, and seeing that serious expression on Aron, Khorn couldn't help but be nervous.
"My lord, it's only a misunderstanding. We can solve this together. So please, my lord, don't leave us ag—" she muttered, but paused as Aron waved his hand.
"..."
"..."
Aron finally pieced some of the parts together, what had actually led the world to such ruin, what had led to the birth of the parasitic pantheon. It was indeed his fault, his own negligence in his past life. He gazed at Elyon, Khorn, the scenes playing in his mind.
'The conflict between my heralds when I was gone. That would…ignite the cycle, leading to half of their deaths and making the foundation for the coming chaos,' he thought.
[Olympian Surge Detected]