บท 22: Chapter 21: Pluto and the boys hunting Deviants in the Bronze Age, 3000 – 1300 BCE (3)
A/N: I don't really know if I like this chapter to be honest...
[1500 BCE, Thessaly]
It's been a couple of hundred years, Greece changed a lot since then, kingdoms are starting to rise, people started to differentiate themselves from one another… the Acheans, the Aeolians, the Dorians, The Ionians, and The Thracians are the examples of this, settlements collaborating with one another that would eventually form an identity.
We are now in Thessaly, quite close to Athens. We were tempted to go back and stay there for a couple of years, but we decided not to.
We are in a rather big settlement in Thessaly that is friendly to Athens. The place was apparently preparing for a festival, as Kingo heard from the locals that the king of the place is getting married.
"Should we stay?" Kingo questioned. "I mean… we should mingle with them for a while… drink some wine, eat some food…"
"I'm down for it." Gil shrugged. "What about the two of you?"
"Sure," said Ikaris. "We need to resupply anyway."
I hummed at Ikaris's words. "Alright, we're staying here for a while."
All of us then searched for a place to stay, and after that, we walked to the town center where the people were gathering for a celebration.
As soon as we got there, people were already celebrating, but the groom and bride had not appeared yet.
The town center smells like wine and bread, people were talking, cheering, and drinking in honour of the king and his bride.
"They are fucking like rabbits there." I pointed at the corner of the town center, where there's practically an orgy there.
"Want to join in, Pluto?" Kingo teased.
"I'll pass." I shook my head, "You go on though."
"Yeah no, I'll pass as well." Kingo quickly dismissed it.
"Anyway…" Gil coughs out loud to divert the attention from the orgy place to him. "What are we going to do now?"
"I don't know." I shrug. "Drink, eat, talk…"
"We aren't exactly a social bunch,,, except maybe Kingo." Gil commented.
"True…" I hummed. "Let's wait for the groom and bride to arrive, maybe something interesting might happen."
"Sure, why not."
After that, we waited for the groom and the bride to appear. We grabbed some wine and bread, and we drank in the corner of the town center.
We watched as people got drunk, they fought using their fists, punching their friends' faces. People also got frisky, they flirted with everyone, women, girls, and boys alike, some even tried to force themselves on them, but being the protector he is, Gil stepped in, preventing it.
"I'm starting to get why you always say that alcohol brings the worst out of people.." Gil grumbled as he went back to us. "Humans with their uncontrollable lust..."
I hummed as I drank my wine from my goblet. "It's times like these I'm thankful that I'm an eternal… we can't get drunk after all."
Then, the king and the bride suddenly walked out from the palace, greeting their subjects.
From what I observed, the king is middle aged, while the wife-to-be looks quite young, probably fifteen to seventeen years old…
But the girl looks happy, so I can't really judge the king…
Anyway, the king starts to speak, but I didn't really listen to it as it was the typical formality stuff.
After that's done, the king went back to the palace, and let his subjects celebrate.
"That's it? Quite boring…" Kingo complained.
"Well, what more do you want? The king doing the wife in the middle of the street?" I snorted.
"You have a really dirty mind Pluto." Gil shook his head. "It makes me wonder why you don't want to touch a human woman…"
"Just a personal preference is all…" I muttered. "It just feels… wrong…"
"Wrong how?" Ikaris, who had been silent the whole time, finally speaks.
"Well, do you consider yourself to be superior to humans?" I questioned.
"That's…"
"Is that important?" Kingo questioned.
"It is…" I mumbled. "In my eyes, we, as an Eternal is superior to humans in every way, so it just feels wrong to 'touch' a human…"
"That's… racist…"
I chuckled. "Racist? That's different." I shook my head. "With race, the only difference with the other races are usually skin tone, height, facial features, and other things that are like that, but we as an Eternal and Humans are different in every way… we can control cosmic energy, they cannot, our strength is many times more powerful than the humans, we are immortal, and they are not."
Gil hummed. "Okay… but what's that got to do with touching a human woman?"
"What I'm saying is… it just feels wrong." I said. "It's like a human having sex with a monkey."
"Ugh, why do you have to say that…" Kingo groaned. "That image is stuck in my mind now…"
I just chuckled, and continued to drink the wine. "But that's just my opinion."
"So you're saying that you will only touch a woman that is as powerful as you?"
"I mean… not really… sure, strength is a contributing factor, but if she has no sex appeal, then it's all the same."
"So what you're saying, as long as she's powerful and beautiful, you'll go for it."
I shrugged. "Sure, why not."
"Well, there's not a lot of choice…" Gil said. "There's Thena… Sersi… Makkari… and Ajak if you're into that kind of thing…"
"And Sprite." Kingo added.
"Kingo… Just stop…" Gil sighed.
"What? You're counting the female eternals right?"
"The Eternals that look like adults." Gil refuted.
"Oh." Kingo chuckled. "Yes, Sprite is a little girl."
I sighed. "Well, we're eternals anyway, we have time to do those sorts of things."
I hummed, and after that, we just chatted casually while our surroundings eventually became calmer and calmer, and finally, it was midnight, the drunk had fallen asleep on the ground, and people went to their homes.
"I think it's time we continue our journey." I stated.
"Alright." Gil hummed. "Let's get our stuff first."
We then went back to our stuff, and started to pack up our things to continue our journey. When we were about to leave, a soldier suddenly ran towards the town center and shouted something. He looked really pale, and he was panicking.
Not a good sign nonetheless.
"Centaurs! Centaurs coming in!" the man shouted frantically.
As soon as people heard that, the ones who were not drunk stood up and prepare, most of them ran to their homes, locked the door and hid, while some men grabbed any weapon they could get and followed the soldier to the edge of the settlement. All of them looked pale, but they kept going.
"Centaurs?" Kingo questioned.
"Let's check it." I said, and the rest nodded.
We then quickly followed the soldier towards the edge of the settlement.
There, we saw the guards of the settlement forming a defensive line, facing a forest near the settlement.
"Remember Men! Our wives and children are in our homes, we must protect them at all cost! Even if you need to sacrifice your lives!" a man who looked like a commander shouted.
The men shouted in unison, raising the morale. They were banging their spears and swords to their shields, making a lot of noise.
"What's going on?" I approached the commander and asked.
"Travellers, you must go back to the settlement quickly." the man warned. "Centaurs are coming?"
"Centaurs?" Gil questioned. "What's that?"
"Half man half horse monster that roams this forest," said the man. "They've been terrorizing the people nearby, kidnapping a lot of us, we often find the victims' bones in the forest."
I hummed, and the four of us had an understanding.
This was a horde of deviants.
"Do they usually come to the settlement like this?" I questioned.
The man hummed. "They often came in groups, or rather, hordes… we tried to protect the settlements… but their skins are so thick our spears can't penetrate them, it's hard to kill them."
I nodded. "Then let us help."
"I advise you to go back, traveler." the man shook his head. "This is not your burden."
"Oh, but it is." Gil stepped in, rolling his sleeve. "It's our job to kill these things."
"Job?" the man mumbled. "No matter, I won't force you, but I've warned you travellers, these monsters are no joke."
I chuckled as I conjured my bident, making the man surprised. "Trust me, we can handle them."
The four of us then walked to the edge of the forest, watching it closely.
"I can see them approaching." said Ikaris as his eyes glowed golden. "There's a lot of them."
We then started to feel the ground trembling, the sounds of galloping hooves echoed throughout the forest.
"Well, there's a lot of us too." I smirked. I snapped my fingers, and my legions of constructs appeared around us, enlightening the dark night around us. When the men saw what I did, they were scared, they wanted to attack us…
The commander realized that we are no ordinary humans. "Stand your ground men! The gods are with us today!"
The guards were confused for a while, but then, they quickly piece it together, they sighed in relief, but still on guard around us.
I don't blame them really…
"Bloody hell man, how much did you summon?!" Kingo complained. "Save some for the rest of us!"
"I don't know, I just summoned a bunch… maybe like, 700?" I shrugged.
"The more the merrier." Gil grinned.
"Here they come!" Ikaris shouted, and he rushed towards the forest, and we instantly saw that Ikaris was fighting, because golden lights were flickering inside the forest, along with the screams of monsters.
My eyes then glowed golden, and I commanded my legions to charge inside the forest, attacking the hordes of centaurs.
I rode Fluffy, and it charged as well.
Once we entered the forest, we finally saw it.
There were probably around 1000 deviants in that horde, all having a horse as his legs, and a semi-humanoid body and head.
I don't know if they can talk though.
After that, my Golden Legion(yes, that's what I'm calling it now) clashed with the Centaur horde, slamming themselves at them in the middle of this dark night.
My humongous constructs such as Hydra and Ghidorah utterly demolished the centaur lines, they destroyed trees around them, and even made holes in the battleground.
"We never fought this many deviants before!" Kingo commented as he shot down multiple centaurs in one shot. "This is fun!"
"Tell me about it! I never summoned this many constructs as well!"
I jumped from the head of Fluffy, and impaled a centaur as I landed on the ground. I absorbed one of the constructs nearby, and shot a golden beam of cosmic energy from my bident, cutting multiple centaurs in one go.
The sounds of screaming deviants echoed throughout the entire forest, birds fly away from the place, scared.
Seeing the battle, the commander was excited. "Men!" he shouted, raising his bronze sword. "To me!"
The guards shouted in unison, banging their swords to their shields. The guards then move forward towards the forest, intending to enter the battle.
But my constructs then 'growl' at them, signalling that they shouldn't interfere. They just gulped, scared of what might happen if they disobeyed.
So they stood down, waiting for the battle to end.
Meanwhile, the forest had almost became desolate, burned down trees, scorched ground, and deviants' bodies littered the forest, making a strong stench,
The scene of Ammit eating a Centaur whole and turning it into cosmic energy beams was a sight to behold.
Hydra eating nine Centaurs at once was a terrifying picture.
Ghidorah 'summoning' a storm and shooting beams from it was a majestic view.
And my golden legion utterly decimating the centaurs was satisfying, as I never really used my constructs in a big battle like this.
"Pluto! Catch!" Gil suddenly shouted, I turned around, and saw a body of a centaur flying to me. So I absorbed a nearby construct, and shot a beam, cutting the body in half.
"The hell was that?" I questioned.
Gil just laughed and continued to fight.
I then saw that the centaurs started to run away, so I gave chase.
I quickly caught up with them, and jumped to the biggest centaur that was running away. The centaur stumbles, and now, it's lying on the ground, unmoving.
I was about to impale him, when it suddenly did something that I never thought I would encounter this early.
'He' was laughing desperately. And he spoke. "How unlucky…"
I stopped. "Did you just… speak?"
"Of course I spoke." the centaur laughed. "You're bound to meet one of my kind someday, Eternal."
I frowned. "How many did you absorb?"
He laughs again. "Does it matter?"
"It does."
The centaur chuckled at my words. "I'm not going to snitch on my own kind, Eternal…"
I stabbed the centaur, but not deep enough to kill him. "How many of you are there?"
"The speaking kind?" the man chuckled. "Not many of us… I'll tell you that, but upon my herd? Only me."
"So you're the leader." I hummed.
"Is it that obvious?" the centaur said sarcastically. "So… Eternal… Where will we go from now?"
I stabbed deeper. "How do you know that I'm an Eternal?"
"Your kind slaughters plenty of my herd here," said the centaur. "The female Eternal… the one that uses the weapons of the humans…"
"Thena…" I murmured.
"Why are you doing this Eternal?" The centaur suddenly questioned. "Do you know where you came from?"
"I do actually." I said. "I know that we are the children of Arishem."
The centaur frowned. "You knew, but you still slaughtered our kind, your brothers."
"You are no brother to me, Deviant." I said calmly.
"We just wanted to live Eternal…" said the centaur solemnly. "We just want to survive."
"And I want to be free." I refuted. "But all of us can't get everything, your kind gave me a path to freedom, so I would be happy to slaughter all of you."
The centaur sighed. "At least… May I know your name Eternal?"
"Pluto."
"This one's name is Idemnon." said the centaur. "It is one of the humans' names that I've absorbed, I simply use it."
"Sure, I'll remember that name. I'll be sure to mention your name if I ever encounter another one that can speak." I said.
The centaur just hummed. "Then do it."
And I stabbed my bident until it went through his body, killing him instantly. I absorbed his cosmic energy, and he had plenty of that, I'll tell you that.
Suddenly, Gil shouted from the forest.
"Did you catch them all!?"
I turned to him and shouted back. "No! Some of them ran away!"
"Ah shit, well, we need to chase them, let's go!" Gil shouted again.
"You go first!" I shouted as I looked at the withered corpse of the centaur one last time, and ran towards Gil, continuing to hunt the centaurs.
And in the morning of that day, people of that city started wondering who actually fought for them, because we left swiftly, leaving no traces at all, except the burned forest of course.
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