Leah gulped as she was face-to-face with the Sixth and Forth Valkyrie Harbingers. The Sixth stared at Leah like she was some sort of tool while the Forth looked at her with cold calculation.

“So, you had found the Abyssal when you were Integrated, and when you got a Quest to kill him, you decided that you’d betray him after becoming his ‘friend’? And you followed him around the Abyss, gaining his trust, but apparently, he got away with his Dragon before you could land a killing blow?”

Leah nodded, trying to ignore Voice in her head.

You should have killed him when you had the chance, Leah Bane.

Shut up.

You wasted so many opportunities and now look where you are.

Shut. Up.

If you had just listened the first time-

SHUT THE HELL UP ALREADY!

While struggling with this, she tried to listen to the Valkyries. At a certain point, it became too much as Voice began screaming at her. Leah fell to her knees, screaming to herself until she passed out.

~~~

Leah woke up to… silence. Expecting Voice to scream again, she scrunched up her eyes and prepared.

But nothing happened.

“Wha-” she coughed uncontrollably for a few moments before taking a deep breath. “What? Where-?”

“Oh, you’re awake!”

A blurry form peeked from above down at Leah, assessing her. “Man, you Demigods have got it bad.” Definitely female. “Voices screaming to kill the enemies of the gods in your heads, uncontrollable urges to battle anything that remotely threatens you or your godly parent, all the bad stuff. You’re lucky though. I figured out how to seal it away, temporarily at least.”

As Leah’s vision began to focus, she began to make out details of the figure above her. She had brown hair, pale skin, brown eyes that occasionally turned red for a few moments. She wore a smile that would make even Jason give her a second look.

She also had the tail of a dog.

Well, maybe not, she thought, sitting up groggily. It’s Jason after all. Him and his snakes.

“Wh-where am I?”

“Hm?” the strange girl looked at her with a confused expression. “We’re on Starship V. Don’t you know this?”

Leah groaned. “Of course not, I’m new here. I thought you could put at least one and one together.”

“That’s two.”

“My point exactly.”

The girl looked at Leah like she was insane. Leah then heard footsteps from behind a closed door and the door in question folded open smoothly, letting in another female, this time a woman. She wore dark blue armor that was practically skin-tight though Leah thought she probably wouldn’t be able to punch through it.

“What she’s saying is that you’re an idiot sometimes. The moment she said, ‘Where am I?’, you should have realized she’s not from here,” the woman said. “You should have realized this before when she was brought in here for the Voice, Char.”

The strange girl, Char, looked bewildered. “Oh… right.”

“Anyways, you’re Leah Bane, a Demigod, right?” the woman asked Leah, getting a nod in response. “Good. Welcome to Starship V, one of the 10 ships of the Valkyrie Fleet.”

“Please don’t tell me that they're all called ‘Starship’,” Leah groaned. “I don’t think I could live with calling them Starship I - X.”

The woman laughed. “Of course not. We’re not that cruel. This is just the fifth iteration of this ship, don’t worry.”

“Thank the gods,” Leah muttered, earning another laugh.

Looking at the woman again, she frowned. “Am I supposed to be sitting here still?”

The woman gave her a thoughtful look but, instead of answering, she waved to Char, who answered for her.

“Well, you don’t technically still have to be here unless you choose to join the Valkyries, which means you’ll have to make a few vows, one of which being that you cannot be in a relationship with the opposite sex, which is a stupid rule. That’s why I just decided to be a scientist-slash-doctor.”

Leah gave Char a horrified look. “I can’t make those vows.”

“I know, right?! I’ve always wanted a boyfriend but I also wanted to join the Valkyries. Kinda conflicting things, right? So instead I made a compromise. I went for this position. Though, I still haven’t found a boyfriend…”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Leah gave her a flat look. “I can see why,” she grumbled.

Char didn’t notice, continuing her muttering. Leah looked back at the other woman and sighed. “So, what do you want from me?”

“What makes you think we want something from you?” the armored woman asked

“The fact I said ‘you’ and you said ‘we’?”

The woman gave Leah a quizzical look. “Huh. You’re more observant than I expected.”

“I learned from the best, though I should have realized that earlier. Maybe I would have realized that the Abyssal had known I was there to kill him…”

The woman nodded. “Well, we have a proposal for you. You don’t even have to take the vows for us. All we need you to do is agree to help us find the Abyssal and we’ll Integrate you with our technology. You can leave afterwards and do whatever, but we just need your help to find him.”

Leah thought for a moment. “What exactly does this mean for me?”

***

Char really did feel stupid. She’s always been different from other people, but she never really knew why. She didn’t hold resentment towards Abyssals like others did and, if anything, she’d be fine with a boyfriend who was Abyssal.

Char sighed as the new girl, Leah, spoke with Boss, feeling left out. Slipping out the room, she snuck down the hallway and into her office/room to lay down on her bed, trying not to whimper. She held her tail and pulled it towards her chest.

Why do I always feel so lonely? Char thought. I hate it so much; other people get to have friends, while I sit here, all alone.

Char tried to keep the scowl off her face as she buried her face into her pillows.

Maybe one day, I won’t be lonely.

***

Leah’s face seemed to be in a perpetual state of confusion as she tried to understand the new Interface. There were bars for her Health and Divinity, a menu that had her Quests, Stats, Titles, ect. As she went over it, she began to prefer the simplicity of the original System Interface. Groaning, she began to explore.

***

Systie had the strange habit of getting attached to a mortal every few million years. Kinda like how she was currently attached to this Jason. She knew she should hate him since his kind destroyed a lot of planets, but she had also forgotten that was much longer time ago, and they’d gotten their punishment.

However, she actually wasn’t sure what had happened next time. She assumed it had something to do with the gods, but she couldn’t be sure. Hitting the side of her new Android's head, she tried to remember the reason this time by compiling the memories of some of the gods to no avail. It was almost like they hated Abyssals by default… which was strange since she knew that Abyssals used to be great assets for them.

Then it clicked.

An Abyssal rose to godhood, She thought, nearly smacking her head as her current Manager gave her a strange look. That’s what it was. I remember.

“Finally figured something out?”

An Abyssal, a tool of the gods, rose to godhood, and the gods didn’t like it one bit, so they sealed away the Abyssals in the Abyss, which was probably a horrible idea.

Her Manager clapped. “Good job, Systie. You understand now, right?”

Yes… the reason the First Valkyrie Harbinger hasn’t been seen is because she’s arisen to godhood and is coercing the other gods into not letting the Abyssals out, Systie mused. But this goes deeper than some husband. In fact, I think that’s a cover story. So the real reason is something deeper… I’ll have to keep digging. But something isn’t right. The gods’ memories aren’t intact.

“Yep. I noticed that too. I don’t understand it. They just involuntarily hate Abyssals. Well, all except for Hidra, though she did kind of run off.”

And her daughter must be exactly who I think it is for her to be able to resist the Voice so well.

“Yep. Leah Bane. She has a direct path to becoming a goddess, though she’d throw that path away if it meant that she could do something to help Jason get stronger so he can protect himself.” The Manager then frowned. “However, the gods aren’t making any moves on him. Specifically, Mother Nature and the Sun. They seem to have taken a liking to him. Also, have you been hiding him from the gods?”

Systie nodded, a gesture she copied from Jason. Yes, however, I think we should probably figure something out for him, since if he keeps up the way he’s going, he’s gonna get found out. And he is an important piece of my puzzle.

“Like all those other mortals?”

No. I mean he may be the key to fixing me. Especially this memory problem. My memory is somehow being leaked from my main body. And it definitely has something to do with the Valkyries.

Systie looked over to the screen with the nervous form of Jason as he was confronted by the woman. She couldn’t play favorites, but she could influence the System. Well, if she didn’t have a memory problem. Once he fixed that, she could make the first update to the System she’d done in a while.

First, however, time to see how her favorite Abyssal dealt with this woman.

***

Leah sighed and looked up to Hernada, the blue armor woman. “This is… interesting, to say the least. I don’t understand some of this stuff, but it’s all really organized. I feel like I could connect something external to it and make whatever changes I want to it myself.”

Hernada smiled. “That’s the point of it. To give people, specifically the Valkyries, a way to customize their System Interface. However, it’s still in it’s testing phase, so we can’t release it to the public.”

Leah nodded and stared into space, thinking. For a few moments, she seemed to think before frowning. “I have a… controversial question.”

Hernada’s eyebrow rose. “Oh? Shoot.”

“Why have Abyssals been forced to stay in their prison for longer than their sentence?”

Hernanda froze in place, looking at Leah like she was insane. “What?”

Leah tilted her head, her frown growing confused. “I asked-”

“I know what you asked, but how do you know about the sentence?”

Leah responded with, “I met the Queen.”

Hernada cursed. “Well, this complicates things. Anyways, I don’t have authority to answer your question. No one should even know about their sentence in the first place.”

Leah sat there for a few moments, trying to understand. If no one knew about the sentence the Abyssals were supposed to have, then the normal populace must think that they were banished forever. For one, that was manipulative. The Valkyries had the knowledge of this, but they still forced the Abyssals to stay in their prison. Second, this meant that they purposefully killed Abyssals even if they had the right-

Wait. She said no one should know about the sentence. Leah thought. So does that mean that Valkyries are told to kill Abyssals with no idea that they aren’t even supposed to be trapped there anymore?

Leah gulped. This story was getting more and more complicated by the second. And Jason was in the middle of it.