“Come on, move it you kids!” Jake knew that Charlie wasn’t actually annoyed or in a hurry, but he was trying to instil a sense of urgency in the Demigods nonetheless.

Jake could appreciate the cause, as they were truly going to fight a God, which one was a bit confusing, but one of the options was apparently Terri’s own ‘father’ Hermes.

The quotations were there because no Demigod child truly loved their own parent… because the only one they had that was alive killed the other for their birth. It was complicated like that.

Some could maybe tolerate the idea of their godly parents, but others couldn’t stand the idea of even seeing the being that cursed them to be alone in this world.

Terri was handling the idea of fighting her father with a grain of salt. If it was her father, that would be a bit annoying, but not a train wreck.

If it wasn’t, better.

“Sir, do we have confirmation on the God yet?” Derek asked, given that he was the vice-commander of team Charlie, he was in the right to ask.

That was decided a week ago, and no one felt it to be a mistake… Derek was a son of Ares, War was his thing.

Jake was Charlie’s assistant and fellow long-range fighter, and Mary was strong but she was used to being alone, but Derek had the charisma to lead.

“It’s probably going to be Hermes, but it’s not a certainty. Regardless, we know we will be facing a God associated with the same tenants, that being a thief, messenger, and connected with the dead in some form.” That last bit came as a surprise to some, but Terri simply nodded in acknowledgement.

Of course she would, Jake thought to himself, as she would have obviously researched her own father much like Jake researched Apollo.

“It’s a lesser known aspect of Hermes, as he is associated with those sandals that let him fly and that staff of Caduceus which allows healing, but he was also the God that ferried deceased souls from the mortal world to wherever they had to go, usually the underworld.” Charlie said, looking over a piece of paper, likely with information written or printed on it about said God.

Jake was considering more and more that Hermes was already confirmed as their enemy, but Charlie wanted them second guessing because things wouldn’t always be as certain when it came to fights.

“Now to mention a much more annoying fact about fighting Gods when compared to fighting Spirits and Dragon… their Domains get weird.” The Demigods blinked in confusion.

“If a God of the sea descends then the ocean may start rising and become turbulent, a God associated with fire or the sun would cause the global temperature to increase over time, and so on.” That was a worrisome bit of information, and the Demigods looked to each other for a bit of reassurance.

“You all might not have even noticed this since Aegis is typically on time to battle the Gods before it can get too drastic around the world, but at the epicentre of a fight it can be especially felt.” Charlie explained, glancing at Jake for a moment.

“The reason Jake here didn’t seem to notice this despite fighting a God up close is because he shared abilities with said God, the changes didn’t affect him, but if one of us had been there we might have been cooked alive.” Jake raised a hand, and slowly a flame flickered to life upon it.

Fire… ever since Awakening as a Demigod Jake felt no fear to heat anymore. In fact, his body temperature had risen and flames no longer burnt him at all, though he wouldn’t be changing his last name to Targaryen anytime soon.

He wasn’t related to Dragons after all.

“But against a God like Hermes… well, I’ve actually fought against Mercury and they are extremely similar. In the area around them the world… shifts, and certain objects might be displaced or in a clearly wrong position, like a tree with rocks for leaves, and more importantly…” Charlie looked up from the page at this as he stared at the Demigods.

“While Hermes is around, it’s extremely likely that no one will be able to pass on after dying. Their spirits will linger, and if enough people die in one place their spirits might become visible to normal humans. That would be bad.” Charlie seemed annoyed with the information he gave them.

“Gods associated with the afterlife usually all affect the world in a similar manner… just know that it won’t happen immediately, but the longer we let Hermes stick around, the more likely this will happen.” Team Charlie nodded, preparing themselves for battle as they got on the teleportation array.

Within a moment the group found themselves in Greece, a clear sign of which God they’d be facing, causing Terri to frown for a moment before steeling her resolve.

Fighting your own parent must be horrible… then again, Jake thought to himself, most Demigods disliked their godly parents with the exception of a few odd cases who are ambivalent to the idea of Godly parents.

“So as expected, it’s Hermes, though we won’t always be right… careful, he’s appearing in a minute, Mark, get your basic equipment ready, Terri, I know this will be an odd fight for you but you probably won’t be able to be a communication tower this time around…” Terri nodded in understanding at Charlie’s words.

When Gods fought their children, they typically got a sort of tunnel vision for their children alone.

Everyone got into position, knowing that the God would be appearing soon enough, and that the fight would begin…

“Well this is interesting.” The voice appeared nearby and immediately the group was disturbed, looking at the source of the voice, finding a ‘man’ with blonde hair and blue eyes, wearing sandals with feathers on its side and holding a lyre.

It was immediately obvious who it was, but the scary part was that they barely felt his presence until he spoke… the God Hermes.

There was a strange whipping sound, and a tiny explosion, and Hermes was gone, having vanished at a speed almost too fast to follow… but what attacked him was still a mystery, until Charlie spoke.

“God Hermes. I see we were correct in our assumption that it would be you my team would face.” Charlie said, Winter’s Bane vaguely smoking as it was aimed where Hermes was just moments ago, the barrel aiming squarely at where Hermes head was.

“You in particular are quite a scary child… why so violent, can’t we just talk?” Hermes asked, a good natured smile on his perfectly sculptured features, gesturing with his hand to mime sitting down.

“No, we can’t. Gods corrode the planet the longer they stray away from the Divine Realm. Even as we speak you are affecting the world around us.” Charlie warned.

Jake and the others could already see it to an extent, the air around Hermes almost seeming… still, silent. The grass near his feet stopped rustling and yet the winds were blowing strongly.

“That we do… I don’t really decide that, much as I wish I could. I’d just like to visit really, partake in the interesting things mortals have created over the years… visit my children maybe.” Hermes said with a pointed look in Terri’s general direction, making the girl frown, tensing slightly.

“Shame. I’m afraid that just can’t happen.” Charlie warned, his off-hand holding a bowie knife in a reverse grip, the Demigods by now had all their weapons out like their commander.

“It’s a bit annoying… I mean, just being what I am results in our conflict… oh?” Hermes paused for a moment to look at Jake in particular, and then Mary, before stopping to look at Mark and Derek… then his gaze went back to Terri.

“Four Greek Demigods… one of which is my daughter, two others being children of my half siblings… and you, son of Apollo.” Jake seemed a bit uncertain as to why the God was focusing on him, but Charlie answered the unasked question.

“Is your rivalry with Apollo not a myth?” Charlie asked, getting a scoff from the God, who smiled at the group for a moment.

“Not really. Siblings fight and argue, and yes Apollo dislikes me a bit… but we don’t hate each other.” Hermes said, looking to Jake with a smirk.

“Though I suppose harming one of his children would get him annoyed, I don’t really have a choice in the matter, do I?” Hermes then shrugged, and a wave of force seemed to emanate from the God.

The lyre in his hand vanished, and in its place was a Greek short sword called a Xiphos, and on his other hand a small hoplite shield, bronze armour falling over his previously toga-covered form.

Seeing the God was now well and truly ready for combat, the battle could begin…

“Scatter!” Charlie called out immediately, the team of younger Demigods obeying his commands as Mary and Derek stepped forward, keeping Charlie’s line of sight clear, Terri jumping to the side, Mark the other, while Jake stepped backwards, it was a rudimentary formation.

It wasn’t the entirety of their battle strategy, but it was a point from which to continue, as Hermes stepped, appearing next to Mary whose arms grew scales, raising her hands to block the chopping blow of the Xiphos.

She was forced to a kneel instantly, even when he wasn’t associated with battle or strength, a God was still strong, as Hermes proved, though he was forced to dodge a spearhead.

Pulling back from the thrust, Derek chased after Hermes, knowing that Mary recovered quickly due to her dragon blood, Derek took a standard stance, shield in front of him, spear tucked close and ready to shoot forward as he approached the God.

“My siblings are lucky to have such talented children…” There it was, that ethereal quality that Gods possessed… Jake had heard something similar with Huitzilopochtli, the Aztec God sounding gruff and powerful compared to Hermes and his flighty voice…

Derek stabbed with his spear, making the God raise his own shield in response, and then Jake saw a blur of the arm, Hermes thrusting his Xiphos while aiming for Derek’s own chest hidden by his shield…

Jake had already launched an arrow, streaking through the air as it aimed for Hermes’ face, forcing the God to step backwards rather than commit to an attack.

“Especially that one… How rare to see a blessed child.” Hermes words were confusing, though they were aimed at Jake he didn’t quite get what was meant by ‘blessed’…

It didn’t stop Jake from launching more arrows, aiming the bolts of fire at the God in an attempt to keep the God on the defensive, Charlie taking an occasional shot.

“Gods get stronger the longer they’re around, so we have to finish this as quickly as possible, reinforcements have an ETA of ten minutes.” Charlie spat out as two more shots went off.

One was deflected by a shield, a second was dodged when Hermes leapt into the air and instead of falling like mere mortals, stood as if atop a platform of air.

Ah, the Hermes sandals.

There was a strange whipping sound as a large arrow, almost a javelin, shot off towards Hermes, the arrow bursting to become a net in an attempt to trap the God.

Mark was clearly busy building things.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

There was a blur as Hermes slashed out with his weapon, the net being cut instantly as Jake spoke to Charlie.

“Hermes is a bit… blurry? He’s hard to focus on, does it have to do with his Aspect of Thievery?” Jake asked aloud, launching another arrow, aiming another a bit behind where Hermes in the case he might dodge in that direction.

Jake’s question was met with a nod, and his attack was met with a dodge and then a block of the second arrow.

“That seems likely, Gods associated with things like that are obviously difficult to follow, makes it all the more easier for them to steal things.” Charlie explained, flicking Winter’s Bane as if reloading it.

Charlie didn’t really need to reload the weapon, but it was similar to how he snapped his fingers to activate magic that he already knew how to do, a physical action that evokes a mental reaction, in this case, reinforcing his next six attacks done with Winter’s Bane, if he fired without reinforcing he might only deal a bit more damage than Jake’s arrows.

With the reloading action complete, Charlie held the Divine revolver to his side and began shooting like out of a western movie… oh wait, Charlie was actually around for those days.

Six shots, all at extreme speeds making the Greek God widen his shining blue eyes as six streams of ice wound around him, morphing to appear like dragons as they bit at the God.

“Well that’s scary.” Even in danger the God seemed jovial as he slipped downwards, the dragons all missing with their bites.

And it was because Hermes dropped down that he got kicked in the face by Mary as she used Derek’s shield as a platform to jump off of.

Jake could be serious and just accept the incident for what it was, but deep inside he couldn’t help but find that funny as the God was knocked ‘ass over teakettle’ as it were…

The God didn’t hit the ground, but certainly came close to it as the God finally stopped spinning, floating and staring at Mary as she landed.

“…ouch.” Was all the God said, his face becoming a bit more serious, the casual smirk on his face dropping slightly, but not disappearing entirely.

Ah, Gods were typically prideful beings, whether they were kind or not, even Buddha would not tolerate a third offense, so why would less patient Gods even tolerate one?

Hermes seemed jovial, but it was clear that he was taking the fight a bit more seriously as he seemingly vanished, appearing next to Terri.

It was a moment of terror really, Terri was the weakest of the group when one considered Mark’s inventions, not to mention the God in question being her father…

“How about you daughter, are you interesting like them?” The God asked, swinging his blade as Terri held out the two daggers and began parrying, having focused on learning Escrima or Kali.

She was quite good at it, judging by the fact that she was managing to stay alive against the God while the other Demigods approached, Jake and Charlie still firing shots while making sure they wouldn’t hit Terri by accident.

Charlie was obviously a bit more confident than Jake in this regard as Jake had never had to hit a target while making sure to not hit another…

Charlie noted this and decided that Jake would be getting training for this as soon as possible.

But Terri wasn’t exactly trained as a combatant first, she was just trained to survive much in the same way medics in warfare know how to use a gun but aren’t expected to go run in front.

Hermes was overpowering his daughter, and would have landed a felling blow if it weren’t for Derek’s interruption, thrusting forward with his spear to interrupt the battle, making Hermes step back while Terri rolled away.

“You are all becoming quite annoying…” Even the ‘jovial’ God was starting to sound annoyed as he dodged a few thrusts of Derek’s spear, attacking back with his sword, making Derek roll backwards into a kneeling position, spear pointed at Hermes defensively.

The melee continued with Hermes stalking forward, his sword morphing into a spear of his own while Mary dashed forward, joining them once more.

During this, the two supporting members of team Charlie, Mark and Terri, began to flank the God, stepping backwards while Mark spontaneously constructed a repeating cross bow of his own to launch attacks at the Greek God.

Hermes stepped forward, seemingly vanishing from perception from a moment before reappearing in front of Mary, who decided to fall onto her back rather than get hit.

Taking advantage of her moment of weakness Hermes tried to stab at her neck, spinning his spear into position only for Mary to roll backwards, kicking the spear upwards as she did so, a burst of fire added to her movements through her instinctual magic.

“Oh, a Dragon… you know, that fire of yours isn’t going to help much… my elder brother is the God of the sun remember, your fire is a bit lack-lustre in comparison.” The God mocked as Mary growled, Derek rushing at the God before Mary could jump back in.

Derek then managed to engage the God in a surprising display of close range spearman-ship, with Derek and Hermes both moving their hands from the rear end of the spear closer towards the middle, ‘shortening’ the spear so as to make it more viable for close range as they parried one another, Derek eventually being forced back by the more powerful blows of a God.

All while this was happening, the other four members of team Charlie were attacking at range, with the exception of Terri who was actively using magic to boost the stamina and recovery abilities of the two melee fighters… but Charlie was noticing that Jake wasn’t acting up to par at the moment.

Unlike the fight with Python, their opponent was more human-sized, meaning that the members of team Charlie were closer to the target… Charlie immediately recognized the problem.

“Jake, you got to take a more proactive stance here you know.” Charlie said, reloading and attacking once more, Hermes ducking down and hiding behind his shield, the powerful blasts of ice somehow doing next to nothing against the shield.

The younger Demigod heard the words of his commander and considered it… Jake was still worried about hitting his friends… he didn’t want to miss and harm them… and Jake’s arrows weren’t exactly something that could be shrugged off easily, even Mary’s draconic defence would still be damaged.

“I know, it’s just… if I miss, I could make things worse.” Jake’s statement was met with a scoff by Charlie who motioned for both of them to move, Hermes trying to drag the fight away.

“So, your teammates can’t truly blame you for trying… a person who tries has a fifty-fifty shot of succeeding. Someone who doesn’t try at all has a definite chance of failing.” Charlie reminded, watching Hermes morph his shield into a lyre, his blade vanishing…

The God smirked, his fingers moving to the strings.

“Shit, block out the sound!” Charlie shouted, but by then it was too late, and Hermes strummed the lyre, a smirk on his perfect face.

As one, the Demigods screamed in agony.

And in response a God laughed.

“Where the hell is Lukas, we told him to wait for his chance to step in, so why is there a delay?” Rose screamed at the unfortunate Agent who had to deliver the message, prompting Edgar to place a hand on her shoulder to calm her down.

Sometimes people forgot that while Rose seemed like a triple-c person, cool, calm and collected, she was quite passionate about things, and quick to give into her emotions so long as she could rationalize them.

Not too much though… for Rose especially it was bad to give into her emotions, which was why Edgar was usually around to calm her down or remind her to relax.

And no, despite what many people suggested, Rose was not dating Edgar, as much as either of them might want to, their interactions with each other were not that simple.

“Rose, calm, Lukas was being held back by an incident with the Rainbow Serpent down in Australia, we estimated he’d be back by now, we were likely off by a few minutes.” Edgar reminded, using information given by Karma as the second-in-command of Aegis sighed, her face becoming impassive once more.

“I understand that mistakes can be made, but with children… we’ve lost a few before, but I don’t want to see that happen again.” Edgar’s frown came naturally, knowing exactly what Rose was talking about…

Aegis had only been around for about sixteen years, officially at least, and they didn’t have all the answers when they first created Aegis.

Back when Aegis was first created Gods, evil spirits, mythological monsters, and even a few Dragons attacked more frequently, in a week there would probably be more than twenty different types of attacks… at minimum.

And the answer to those attacks was to send a Council-member at the problem, particularly Edgar, but if there were eight incidents happening at once then obviously with seven Council-members they’d be one short.

The result was that they’d decided to let other Demigods act as stopgaps, keeping the enemy busy, defeat if they could, but it likely wouldn’t happen…

Defeating a God was different from winning a competition with a God like Jake had done, unless the God was known for lying or trickery they would likely keep their word, their pride not allowing them to care for the effort lying would take.

Defeating a God was extremely difficult… and many young Demigods died fighting Gods, waiting and hoping for a Council-member to be able to reach them in time.

Rose would have gone herself, and if Lukas took too long to get back she probably would, but Rose was the best at interpreting the information gained by Aegis’ magical network.

She set it up with some help powering it up from Edgar, so she could use it best, magicians who worked for Aegis could at best look at one area and if there were multiple problems in that area they would only see the single worst problem.

There was a reason that the Council-members rarely actually held Council with how busy they were.

There was a hum, and Rose looked to the side, seeing one of the teleporting landing pads flashing, and out of the light stepped the lowest ranked of the seven Council-members, Lukas Winter, son of Hercules.

Black/brown hair, cut very short, extremely muscular and huge, he’d probably be able to compete with the Terminator himself at his prime with his physique, the man stood wearing a chest plate, wrist-guards, and skirting commonly worn by Greek warriors, greaves as well, his weapons already placed inside storage…

And for all that he was the most physically imposing being in the room, he immediately paled upon seeing the glare Rose was sending him, raising his hands defensively.

Strong as he was, Lukas knew he wasn’t going to be defeating Rose anytime soon, and if she was mad, there was a reason.

Rose wasn’t an emotional person.

“Wait, wait miss Cora, what did I do?” Lukas shouted defensively, cringing as he stepped backwards off of the pad, looking for support and seeing Edgar…

Edgar, who had his palms pressed together in mock prayer.

“You’re late, team Charlie has been fighting Hermes for the past twenty minutes, we’ve already got reports of the entire southern half of Greece having odd things happening, go fix it!” Rose demanded, and Lukas saluted, knowing that he was going to have to come back from a peace-talk straight into battle…

The life of a Demigod… then again, battle was the natural state of being for many a Demigod.

“Understood, Hermes right, I can handle that.” Lukas reassured as he was directed towards a different teleportation pad, Rose following him to better place him at the battlefield…

“Rose, the affected area just had a massive jump in size, the rate of expansion is increasing, Hermes is doing something dangerous, get Lukas there fast!” Karma shouted as he looked up from a screen, getting a horrified look from Rose as she turned back to the teleportation pad, the son of Hercules’ face changing from apprehensive to determined.

It was a good thing, Edgar decided, that Lukas could so quickly go from okay to combat ready, knowing the difference between a joke and a moment of seriousness.

“Damn it, the affected area can’t be accessed, Lukas, I’m going to need to teleport you outside of Greece and you’ll need to move on your own from there onwards.” Rose cursed as she attempted to trigger the teleportation, instead watching the magic fizzle out.

“That’s a big area, good thing I’m fast.” Lukas admitted with a huffed out sigh, nodding as Rose calculated.

The problem with structured magic, it struggled with concepts like teleportation, one needed to specify distance, elevation, consider the curvature of the Earth, the speed at which it rotated, all sorts of things, which meant that most people would struggle to recalculate a teleportation point so far off from the original point.

Rose was not most people though, as within a minute she had already worked it out, finalizing everything as she punched in enough magic energy to trigger the connection.

With a buzz and crack, Lukas was gone, the noise a sign of how rushed the teleportation was…

Luckily with Demigods innate magic resistance, teleportation couldn’t be used to kill them… for humans, humans would probably need to worry about leaving an organ behind or something when they teleported.

“This is still an issue, why did the rate of the ‘dead zone’ expansion increase so much?” Karma noted as Edgar sat in the back, thinking about the question.

“Edgar, didn’t you face Mercury once, any ideas?” Rose asked as she walked closer, stumbling a bit from the sudden expenditure of magic.

Rose had a huge amount of Mana, but it wasn’t the highest among Demigods, that position belonged to either the children of Gods of Magic such as Hecate or possibly Edgar with his abnormal strength.

But Rose had the greatest efficiency of using said Mana, making her the ‘greatest’ magic user… but acting on the fly like that ate up more Mana than usual due to her being unable to optimize the spell in time.

The result was that she had essentially brute forced the magic into working, which took up quite a bit of her Mana when normally it wouldn’t have taken even a hundredth of what she just used.

Edgar, noticing this, held out an arm to help balance Rose while she recovered, nodding as she took his seat, leaving Karma on the side to smile at the image…

“Yes, I fought Mercury, one of the few Gods I fought that I wasn’t able to kill really.” Edgar admitted, and that casual admittance once more cemented his place as the strongest Demigod to all the humans in the room…

No other Demigod spoke of ‘times I killed Gods’. He was the only one who actually killed a God despite there being two others who could do the same, three if Shane was prepared.

“The only reason I can see for the dead-zone increasing… music.” That got odd looks as Karma nodded, the head agent agreeing with that outlook.

“That makes sense, both Gods are associated with music and the dead, as well as thievery, communication and to a lesser extent, healing due to a gift from Apollo.” Karma added, his near encyclopaedic knowledge coming in handy as he continued.

“Music is sound, vibrations, it’s actually the basis of one of my more powerful spells, the vibrations or oscillations help disperse Mana, widens the area of effect and it’s just about impossible to really defend against unless you use vibrations in an opposite frequency.” Karma explained getting a frown from Edgar and Rose.

“Yeah… if Hermes is playing music, he’s likely doing a lot of damage, Lukas better get there quickly if he wants to save those kids… the only ones who might stand a chance are…” Edgar paused for a moment.

Meanwhile, back in Greece, Hermes was smirking as he looked at his knocked out audience… well, knocked out with the exception of two people.

“I suppose this was to be expected… it only really makes sense that you two would be able to still move like this.” Hermes offered, looking to the two young Demigods.

Terri and Jake stood on wobbly feet, their skulls paining even as they glared at the Gods, not wanting to give up and let their comrades die…

They had to stop him from playing.

The next segment of this fight was going to be two of the young Demigods against the God Hermes, as Jake held out his bow, and Terri her daggers, still wobbling, but unwilling to fall.

From a few hundred metres away, a cloaked being stood watching, eerie blue light shining from its eyes as it watched, waiting, expectant for the events as they unfolded before it.

The fight continues.