Bryce
“How did you guys end up docking in Captain Fiona’s territory, anyway?” I asked as Thea and I stepped into the hangar where our ship was waiting for us. It was a strange feeling to see it again for the first time. “I figured Aoyama would have been the obvious choice.”
“Yeah, we started with her, but then she got pissed when we accidentally put Captain Penn in charge of the war effort. After that, Ithnaa talked Fiona into letting us dock here. Which kind of worked out anyway since now we’re a lot closer to Suriel and Leila. Or we were. Sami said they left after she turned off their self-destruct.”
“How?” I stopped walking as I tried to process the implications of what was just said, and Thea did the same while turning to face me.
“I mean, Sami was basically done repairing it before all the drama. So, I guess they just skipped the last couple of checks and left.”
“What? No, not that. How did you accidentally put Captain Penn in charge of the war effort?”
“Oh, uh, right. I wasn’t actually super there for all that. It was only like a month after you died, and I haven’t exactly been at my best since then.”
“A month? Was I really gone for that long?” I ran through everything I remembered in my head, and I could only account for about a week at most.
“Well, yes, but also no. For me, it was a little over a month, and for everyone else, it was like two weeks. I don’t know how long it was for you, though.”
“Right, because Tess warped the Elysian timescape in order to keep it hidden.” I adjusted my mental timeline to account for the change as best I could. It didn’t make too much of a difference, but it was definitely worth keeping in mind.
“Seriously? Is that why time is such a headache there?” Thea blinked back at me in surprise, but then switched to a frown. “Wait, hidden from who?”
“That's a whole other headache that we don’t need to be worried about right now, but trust me when I say there’s a very good reason for it.”
“Hey, I’m not going to complain—” Thea completely froze mid-sentence with a smile still on her face, and I immediately went on edge looking for the cause, but I didn’t see anything or anyone. I took a step forward to make sure she was still alright, and while she wasn’t moving or even breathing, she didn’t seem hurt or distressed in any way.
In fact, she didn’t seem like anything. She was just standing there, frozen mid-conversation. I poked her shoulder, but there was none of the usual warmth or give that you’d expect with a living being. It felt like touching a stone statue.
“You know, I’m not going to tell anyone if you do something to her while she’s like this, but I’ll definitely judge you for it.” I spun around to see a certain goddess of chaos standing there with a half smile and a raised eyebrow. “Like I get that you two are dating, but this definitely feels like it’s a gray area at best. Unless you already talked about what you would be okay with if one of you were frozen in time. But that just seems too specific to be real. Actually, should Z and I talk about that? Maybe it's more common than I thought.”
“Kai, was there something you needed, or did you just come here to talk to me about the issues with implied consent?”
“Look at you, attracted the attention of a mantle, and now you’re all insolent and shit.” She strutted across the room to poke me in the chest. “You better watch it, little elf. You may be tougher than most mortals, but even the weakest god could still wipe the floor with you.”
I took a deep breath and swallowed my pride before responding with a smile. “You’re right. What is it that I can do for you? I’m more than happy to help with anything I can.”
She blinked at me before looking around the hangar with a frown, then she suddenly switched to a wide grin as she finally seemed to remember why in the hells she came here. “Of course, sorry. I’ve always been a little distractible, but there’s just so much going on right now that it’s even worse than usual.”
“That’s fine, but you still haven’t told me why you’re here.” I don’t know why, but somehow the goddess apologizing made me even more on edge.
“Oh, I’m just here to kill you.” She smiled sweetly, and I felt my blood run cold.
“Wait, what? Why?” I took a step back while a million different thoughts and half-baked plans raced through my mind. Fighting absolutely wasn’t an option. She was infinitely more powerful than I was, and I didn’t trust any of the handful of spells I had converted to even put a scratch on her. Escaping felt like a solid Plan B, but it was far from a guarantee that I’d even be able to open a portal around Kai. Even if I could, she would probably just intercept me before I could get to it or just casually follow me through.
No, my best bet by far was going to be talking her out of it. I was still breathing, which hopefully meant she was at least open to the idea of letting me live.
“It’s really nothing personal. It’s just that you escaped from Tess’s afterlife, and normally I’d be right there with you laughing and cheering you on, but now I’m married to a woman who actually buys into the whole great power, great responsibility bullshit. Which means when Tess calls, she actually picks up the damn phone. Leaving me to manage both of our shit while she’s gone. So, I figured I’d just pop down, send you back up, and maybe even catch a movie with my favorite paladin while I’m here.”
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Your favorite paladin?” I asked, cautiously. I wasn’t sure if this was an in, but it definitely sounded like something that would at least distract her from killing me for a while longer.
“Good point. I guess it is a little personal. I mean, I don’t exactly love the idea of Sora living on a ship with another goddess. So, I probably would have killed you after you ascended, anyway. Sorry, I just don’t get all that many followers, and I’m protective of the ones I have. Especially my paladins.”
Sora being a paladin of Kai was news to me, but not exactly surprising. They definitely had a lot more mana than I remembered, but I had been waiting to ask them about it until we had a chance to sit everybody down and go over what happened. “Maybe that’s something I could help you with?”
“What? By like joining my pantheon?” she scoffed. “No offense, but to do that, you’d have to ascend first, and Tess still wants you back. Trust me, I learned a long time ago that working against her is basically always a bad idea. Besides, the mantle you’re being considered for doesn’t exactly scream ‘chaos,’ you know?”
“You know what my mantle is going to be?” That definitely got my attention. Becoming a candidate had been a major source of stress for me, and a lot of that was due to not knowing whether or not ascending was going to get me killed.
Kai shrugged disinterestedly. “I mean, sure. The whole ‘aspect’ thing was created to manage gods when the lady in charge was too busy to do it herself. Which, let’s be honest, is most of the time. So, we’ve got all the important skills and abilities to do that. I just never actually bothered to help before.”
“In that case, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to tell me what my mantle is?”
“What would be the point? It’s going to go away when I kill you, anyway. Speaking of which.” She took a step towards me, and I held up a hand as if that would stop her.
“Wait, just give me a second, okay? There must be something I can do for you, and trust me, there’s no way in all the hells Sora would even consider leaving you for me if I ascended. I mean, they don’t respect me enough to listen to what I say, let alone follow me as their goddess.”
“You promise you won’t go after Sora?” she asked, and I nodded as enthusiastically as I could manage. “Okay, fine, in that case maybe there is something you could do, but you need to promise that you’ll do it with no questions asked. Understand?”
“Can I have some time to consider it?”
“That sounds like a question.” The goddess narrowed her eyes at me, and I took another step back.
“Right, sorry. In that case, I promise. Now, what is it that you want me to do?”
“You’re really not getting this ‘no question asked’ thing, are you?” She crossed her arms and pouted, which definitely took away from the intimidation factor.
“Well, how am I supposed to do what you want if I don’t know what it is?”
“Seriously? More questions? Maybe you really would fit in my pantheon, since you can’t even follow basic instructions. Look, I’ll make this super simple for you, just stay alive and ascend, then if Tess doesn’t rip your mantle to shreds, do the thing I want you to do without asking anything about it, and we’ll call it even, okay?”
I clenched, then unclenched my fists as I resisted the urge to repeat my last question, and instead simply nodded. “Okay, fine. I’ll do everything in my power to do exactly what you want me to do, despite having no idea what that is.”
“Well, don’t try too hard. Otherwise it won’t work,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the universe, and I could feel my eye twitch.
“Look, Kai, I’m seriously trying here, but I just don’t get what it is that you want.”
“That’s your problem. You can’t try, and you definitely can’t try not to try, because that’s obviously just trying with extra steps,” she explained it like it wasn’t complete nonsense, but the look on my face must have given me away, because she let out a defeated sigh before changing tactics. “Can I give you something? It might help, but it will definitely have side-effects, and we can’t possibly know what those side-effects will be, otherwise there would be no point in giving it to you.”
“Yes, do it,” I answered without thinking, which earned me an appreciative smile from the goddess.
“See? Now you’re getting it. Here, take my hands.” She stepped forward and held out her hands at about waist height. I placed mine in hers and felt a minuscule amount of mana moving from her to me. My first impulse was to reject it. Put up barriers, and fight back. Instead, I fought those instincts and just let it happen.
It was a risk to be sure, but it was also a gift from a powerful goddess, and the scientist in me was definitely curious to see what would happen.
“That’s it. Now, let’s see what it did…” she let go of my hands as she trailed off and placed a finger on her chin while she looked me over. Then suddenly her eyes went wide, and she looked back up at me. “Shit. Okay, so, I’m going to go now. I’ve got some important aspect things to take care of. You wouldn’t understand. Just, you know, be careful when casting spells for a little bit. Maybe, don’t do it with anybody you care about standing nearby? Oh, and let Sora know I’m sorry that I couldn’t make the movie. I’ll be sure to catch it next time. Cool? Thanks, bye.”
She waved and then disappeared before I could actually process what she said. I was left standing there, dumbfounded, and regretting quite a few of my recent life choices.
“—if you don’t want to give me another thing to worry about,” Thea continued as she suddenly unfroze. “Uh, Bryce, what just happened? Why are you suddenly facing the wrong way?”
I turned back around towards her and shook my head as I explained what I could. “I genuinely can’t answer your first question, because I have no fucking clue. The second one, though, well, Kai was involved.”
“Yeah, okay, that explains a lot. We should probably go talk to Sora about it then, right?”
“Agreed. At the very least, they have a lot of explaining to do. What’s this I hear about a movie night?”
“Oh, yeah, that was tonight, wasn’t it?” Thea brightened up, which made me smile. “Believe it or not, the whole thing was Ithnaa’s idea, and since we let Sami pick the movie every time, she actually looks forward to it.”
“Really? Are the movies she picks any good?”
“Yeah, they’re great, but we have to keep any commentary to the feed. There’s a private channel we use for it. I’ll send you an invitation once you get your implants fixed.”
“Well, maybe if it doesn’t take too long to get everyone caught up, then we can still watch something tonight.”
“In that case, we definitely need to hurry. Come on, let’s go.” She turned towards the ship's ramp, and I had to jog in order to keep up with her.