Chapter 4: Chapter 4: The Day Scathach cried
Rem jerked upward like he was electrocuted.
He was quickly greeted with a welcoming committee.
"So you are awake mortal," Cy looked at him with 60% pity and 40% concern. "Now it stats check time."
The badger hurried toward the boy, clambered up his leg and checked his temperature with a palm of her hand.
"Look like everything is fine," Scathach wrapped her hand around Rem's slim neck and started shaking. "Now show me the card."
The glowing celestially weighted card with gossamer texture arrived in Rem's hand.
...
Remus Breaker
Messenger
Stat
Str: 70 [E]
End: 120 [E]
Mag: 135 [E]
Wis: 385 [C]
Dex: 140 [E]
Skill
Active
Arrival of Dream [N/A]
Calm mind [A]
Passive
Territory [E]
Reality Breaker [Ex]
The Way of Optimism [N/A]
...
"Good job kid your power-level broke through 800. This means you escape being fed to the crocodiles," Scathach said after short a calculation. "Wait!? A wisdom base... Messenger."
Scathach turned silent as her brain began to grind itself apart in an attempt to dissect this information.
"Power-level?" Rem asked the goddess about this newest question.
"It was how the potential of each citizen is judged." The exhausted Cytortia handed Rem a cup of water out of concern while trying to avoid looking at him in the eyes. "Basically, it's the potential you have, indicated by the total sum of your stat which in this case is 850."
"Most human actually awakens at around 600-750 while some broke 900," Scathach said still puzzled at the mystery that was Rem's epithet. "This is bizarre; half of your stat belongs to wisdom, and your class is Messenger."
"Wait," Cytortia's eyes-brows burrowed in disbelief and confusion. "Isn't the elf had an entire island dedicated to getting that job. That title was given to someone who received divine's mission from a high-ranking god, isn't it?"
"Yes, but which god could..."
"Her name was Satholia of the Center-force," Rem threw the name out into the open as a timer rigged to a metaphorical atom bomb.
"Who?" Cytortia replied, her eyes turned into a pair of dots from curiosity.
Scathach wordlessly arched her arm back, and to the surprise of everyone--especially Cytortia--socked a clueless goddess in one punch. She was sent spinning like a top and resoundingly fell flat on the ground with a resounding slump of a dying horse.
"Wow," Rem looked at the unresponsive goddess with a minuscule hint of concern but still concern nonetheless. "That was uncalled for. I know she might be a bit childish and arrogant sometimes, but that right hook was way too mean to be used on a kid."
Scathach brushes Rem comment to the wind, agilely lept at his lap and wrapped her paw around his neck before shaking it.
"What do you know about that monster!?"
"She was a nicest, most understanding person I've ever met," Rem answered. "Which say something about the rest of humanity because I met her for just about a minute."
"Kid, listen to me! That woman was a beast."
"So the honey badger who just sock an innocent goddess in the face just claim that the patron of all that is good is a beast?" Rem's mouth curled from annoyance. "Okay, as idiotically bias as that sound, I will at least gave you a chance to explain why the closest thing to benevolence incarnate is secretly the enemy of mankind."
"She sacked Olympus," Scathach yelled. "That clusterfuck was so apocalyptical every pantheon was still reeling from its aftermath. Your benevolence incarnate took the balance of power to the chopping block and killed it with a chainsaw."
"A) Zeus was an ass B)Athena was homicidal and C) none of the Olympian are any better," Rem listed, building up a cold bonfire to defend the honor of the Queen of Center with every reasoning he could muster.
"Kid," for once since Rem met her, Scathach looked defeated. Her shoulder slumped and her leg threatened flopped to the floor like a wet Spaghetti.
"I was there on Olympus when your 'goddess' went to town and, trust me, she is the devil."
...
A brown hair woman in dark red leather jacket and ripped black jean ran across the scorched pavement while falling building resoundingly crashed around her.
The air was filled with black smoke from all the flame and smog. The smell of brimstone filled the air like an image from the lowest circle of hell.
It was unbelievable to think that this burning disaster-zone was once the paradise capital of the Olympian.
The woman, the warrior maid Scathach, turned around as the flashes of blue light turn the smog-packed sky azure. The wind from the all-powerful attack pressed her skin to her cheek. Its air pressure ripped her jacket into ribbons of leather.
The blue wave of sky-parting light faded and a body fell from the sky. The torso was burnt black. Both the body's legs reduced to a burnt stretch of rubber. The man's lustrous beard had charred away, and his crown of coral was in pieces.
Meanwhile, his emerald armor was steaming and cracked like porcelain hammered by that azure beam of devastation. Pieces of metal fell around him. The smashed fragmented of his trident tinkered as it fell pathetically on the ground like its owner.
Poseidon, the King of the Sea, laid defeated and broken--an inch away from death but barely hanging on to life.
Scathach nearly folded on her knees. Who or what could render the Olympian only second to Zeus into this heart-wrenching state?
A cried of pain and tear resound, and a club landed next to her...
The club of adamantine split open like it was made out of paper.
Scathach looked at the broken weapon in disbelief. She was called here as a referee for a match between Heracles and Ares. Not that it's matter, the duel was canceled. Heracles was crucified on Athena temple with all his limbs broken.
She looked up and finally saw the devil. The ender of the gods and the incarnation of their worse fear.
The queen of Center floated on top of the burning scape. Her silhouette highlighted by the red light of inferno. Dress of white and rainbow arrays danced like shining gossamer. Black lustrous hair flowed fabulously in the wind. Her eyes shone bright reds as they unleashed a volcanic ray of light, torching another temple and causing another scream. In her hand, the broken war god hung helplessly by his neck. The war god's right arm was reduced to a cauterized stump, while his eyes were emptied from a millennium of torture.
Scathach gritted her teeth. She knew that scream. Hera, the queen of Heaven, was getting lasered. Scathach always thought rainbow was too hippie to qualify as a scary color, but now she changed her mind.
Rainbow was fucking terrifying.
The scream went on for solid five minutes. A shadow flashed behind Satholia as a figure faster than wind arrived. Meanwhile, an
owl flew from the sky and transformed into a beautiful woman with black hair holding a golden shield brandishing image of the Gorgon. An ivory Javelin flashed silver as she spun it artfully.
"Satholia isn't it?" The woman, Athena, stood up against an overwhelming force of power before her. "Why are you doing this to Olympus?! What have we done to provoke you? What are you trying to gain by crippling my family!!?"
The normally stoic Athena screamed.
The goddess in white cut off her heat vision and turn toward Athena. Then she snapped her finger.
"World," She whispered.
Athena felt something, someone, flew past her and embedded into the road below them.
The man wearing light armor and winged boots were buried into the pavement. Fist-shape impressions adorned his body as if he had been repeatedly punched for over a thousand time.
"How?" Athena looked flabbergasted at Hermes who laid beaten in the pool of his own blood.
"I stop time when your half-brother was about to launch the sneak attack," Satholia said smiling proudly at Athena. "It was a nice plan. Starting a conversation as a distraction for Hermes to slap a teleporter to move me into Tartarus. It wouldn't work, but I gave solid 95/100 for effort and creativity."
Satholia stopped smiling.
"Now if only you applied that intelligence to solve the food distribution problems rather than, well, I don't know, challenging a talented young girl to a weaving contest and turning her into a spider when you don't like the result. Let me say this, Athena dear, turning a rape victim into a monster does not make you any hipper."
Satholia dropped the broken shell of the god of war to the ground and cracked her fingers.
"I heard their crying and wishes for salvation. It was sad for me to say you had been a very, very naughty girl, Athena."
"How do you know about my plan?" Athena readied her spear, ignoring her opponent comments.
"I overheard It, " Satholia pointed at her ears. "Superhearing."
Sweat's trickled down Athena's cheek.
Time stop. Heat vision. Superhearing. Super-strength that could overpower Heracles, the illusion that broke the will of Ares and Energy attack so powerful it's brought Poseidon an inch away from death. Athena grasped her spear a bit tighter. Just how many powers could the woman in front of her use? What exactly is her limit?
The goddess of wisdom pointed her spear in a rarely used defensive stance. Athena's breathing became controlled and synchronized. Her eyes sharpened. She had to be careful. One mistake, and she would end up like Hermes or Poseidon.
Satholia disappeared in flashes of rainbow lightning.
Athena's eyes widened. Super-speed too!? She gritted her teeth. In a flurry of swings, she lunged with her lance aiming to take the enemy attacking her blind spot.
In return, single tap at the shaft of her spear was performed by the goddess who effortlessly dodged her blows. In bizarre wrapping of flesh, the elegant divine lance began to warp in a mass of scale which contorted itself the into green snaked baring it fang at Athena.
The goddess of wisdom flung the snakes away with the force that shattered its spine and raised her Aegis against the patron of good.
The creature cried in wretched pain before it stopped moving.
Athena stoically ignored it cried while Satholia wiped away a silver of tear.
Cracked!
"What is..." Athena fell face-first to the ground, crying from the intense pain of her shattered spine. "I...I can't feel my leg!"
"Of course you can't, " Satholia said with sympathy and touched the paralyzed Athena with all five digits of her left hand. "The injury that snake experience is reflected back at you. Of all things you could have done, you smashed that poor creature mercilessly, trampling its life as like so many people you hurt to protect your petty little pride."
Satholia's voice turns motherly and reproachful as she charged the finishing blow.
"Every action had its consequences. Every voice of the wronged victims, all the voice of those torn lovers, men, women, and children who suffered your injustice had reached my ear, begging for peace and salvation. And now I will answer the call. Learn Goddess of Wisdom. Let this final blow taught you empathy and may its pain taught you humility."
Athena tried to the scream, but her own fear chokes the cried dead in her throat.
"Hundred-Fold Rejection Force!"
Scathach tried not to breath as the force of the impact caused an avalanche all over the mountain of the gods. Its raw intensity dug a massive tunnel right into the heart of Mt. Olympus. A broken and bloodied Athena ate the full impact of the attack and punched through the entire width of Mount Olympus with enough force to dig a trench several kilometers long. She exited the other side of the mountain; her flapping body finally came to rest in an explosion of a mushroom cloud. As for Hermes, the god was caught in the devastating attack. His bruised sack of a body flew up and up into the air and disappeared as a twinkling star in the sky.
Scathach spun away rainbow goddess who flew away searching for another target and scrambled away as quickly as possibly could.
...
"Wow," Cytortia's eyes danced with stars, her hand clasped in a sign of prayers. "That was awesome."
"When did you wake up?" Rem asked her, regretting the fact that he didn't have marshmallow. On the second thought, maybe marshmallow in the desert might not be the best idea.
"When that awesome goddess stopped time like a badass and beat up Hermes," Cytortia's pupil shines sixty times brighter, her voice rose in a fangirling squealed. "And her final speech against Athena was just too cool!"
"Do you know you are admiring a terminator so terrifying the gods, one of them happened to be your master to boot, are too terrified to even named?" Scathach tried not to curl into a ball and cried in terror. Rem could understand why Scathach was that afraid, so he decided to respond with detached silence. Cytortia, on the other hand, was ruled by her passion.
"You wouldn't understand," Cytortia looked accusingly at Scathach. "You and the rest of the gods are like Chuang and Tie Hua, so drunk in the taste of power you can barely see anything else any better than ants."
Cytortia pointed at Scathach from the high ground.
"That's why I never hear about her, isn't it? The gods probably had a stupid pact to keep the younger one like us from knowing that mommy spanks the Olympian into behaving. Ra's stupid decision or Odin's policy wouldn't fly if anyone could pray for mom's intervention. So the best you can do is hide mommy's existence away to nurse your injured pride. Given that I overheard everything, the oath's binding must be pretty pathetic too."
Scathach's expression pretty much confirmed what Cytortia had said.
"How is this possible...don't tell me she broke the pact?" Scathach whispered. "Or maybe the pact never stick from the beginning...oh my gods."
"Or maybe because you reveal a patron's feat to her chosen one." Rem stated flatly.
""What?!""
Rem's face twisted into a painful realization.
What had already been said couldn't be taken back so he explained everything.
...
...
"Fuck," Scathach cursed.
"WHY?????" Cytortia cried a river. "I am pleased and all that she chose me. But seriously why is it me? There are..."
"... a ton of better choices out there, " Rem looked at the heaven and nodded at the goddess with a renew a sense of kinship. "You could always ask her when you had a chance."
"But this means that you had to join me!!" Cytortia said. "No offense and all but, mortal, my rivals will completely annihilate you."
"Which is why we will go incognito until the time is right." Rem stated and looked at Scathach. "I guess you know the stake now?"
"Stupid goddess and her plan..." Scathach muttered as hurried to the bike. Her stress was obvious. "Why the hell did I'd to be dragged into this death trap?"
"I will ask her the next time," I said. "So about the Northland. What should I be expecting?"
"The elves," Scathach said crying river of blood. "They stay in the land of forest the size of Earth with an ancient capital city made out of trees. Although they lost to the human in number, even the weakest awaken elf would trump untrained mortal like you. This is bad. Just the first mission and I might have to face death by strangling. What have I done to offend her?"
Scathach pressed a button on the bike's console.
In a flash of light, the bike transformed into a black family van. The van was well-maintained with a glossy back surface and silver components. The car rumbled with a slow growl of an engine.
"Welcome to Black Mercy, " Scathach dejectedly climbed onto a driver seat. "Hop on."
She closed the door dejectedly.
....
The Black Mercy was a van incorporating space-folding technology. It had four bedrooms, each containing a bunk-bed and a wooden desk. The common-room contained a tea-table and sofas full view of a flat-screen television. A mini-fridge and a computer were shoved to the side of a cupboard-wide cubical. The ceiling of the bus decorated with a panel lamp and skylight. For the final touch, a black glass wall separated the back of the driver seat to the living quarter.
Cytortia and Rem looked into the bathroom.
It was a Japanese style bath-house with a sweet hot spring. The aroma and steam hit the duo nose like a new beginning of the the the adventure. Further investigation leads to a door labeling supply, gym, kitchen, and Armory.
Cytortia procured a towel from one of the bathhouse shelves.
"No peeking." She stated
Rem nodded. He was not a degenerate, so an excuse wasn't needed.
And with that, the van headed toward its first adventures.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone