Vol.5 Ch.25.1 – Fallout I

Chapter 25: Fallout

My eyes met Syr's.

She opened her mouth as if to say something but then she turned and ran away.

I could feel the tether her spirit had with my body fraying and did the only thing I could think of.

“Yume,” I barked. “Dreamscape. Now.”

Yume didn't ask, didn't hesitate, didn't even say anything. Instead, light blue haze formed a ball behind her, then shot toward me and hit me right in the face. I was asleep before I even felt my body crumple to the ground.

**

Yume's dreamscape had been hastily cobbled together and it showed. A confusing mess of Southern architecture and the marble columns of Olympus formed a roughly circular arena with no apparent exit. It was just Syr and me in here.

“Can't you just leave me alone?” she asked. “I need some time to think.”

“You were about to cut your tether to me,” I said. “And alone with your thoughts is the last place you should be right now.”

“What would you prefer then?” she demanded. “Do you just want me to ignore that my mother is the monster you've been fighting this whole time? That I was made so she could take over the world? Should I just go back to being the teasing voice in your head for two years until she tries again?”

She was lashing out now. Good. Better than the resignation she'd given me before.

“You decide your reason for living, no one else,” I said.

“We can't all be the Godsforsaken, Felix. Some of us didn't get that choice.”

“I didn't do a very good job being the Godsforsaken there, did I?” I said. “I just barely managed to make her run away.”

“Why did you do that, anyway? You could just have killed her and been done with it.”

“Even if I had been willing to kill you to stop her, did you not see her shrug off getting stabbed through the heart?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line. Clearly even in this state Syr was unable to ignore the fact that Poseidon had very much tried to kill Shub-Niggurath and not even stabbing Syr's body through the heart had done the trick. “You need to kill me,” she insisted. “It's the only way.”

“I refuse to accept that,” I said.

“Face it!” she screamed, stomping her foot. As she did, the same black and purple energy Shub-Niggurath had used flared up around her.

I took an involuntary step back. I had never seen anything like that from her and it took me off guard. Unfortunately, she'd noticed.

“See?” she whimpered. “I am a monster.” And once again she tried to run away.

This time I was ready for it. I slammed Qi into my legs and didn't even have time to appreciate how much faster it happened in this dreamscape before my body blasted forward and only a moment later I was on Syr, grabbing her by the shoulders and throwing us both down to the ground. We rolled for a good long while, over polished wood and marble and mats made of something like reed. When we finally stopped Syr was on her stomach and I on top of her.

I flipped her around and when she immediately began flailing I grabbed her wrists and pinned them against the floor.

“Just let me go alre—“

I kissed her.

She squealed and thrashed beneath me for five long heartbeats. Only when she realized that I wasn't going to stop no matter what did she melt into the kiss. Gods above, I couldn't believe I'd never kissed her before. Syr was just so... soft. Her lips against mine, her pillowy breasts between us, everything.

With her no longer struggling I let my hands roam, wrapping around her waist with one and stroking her cheek with the other and she, in turn, ran her hand over the muscles on my back.

Despite us being in a dreamscape I felt the need to break the kiss for air. “I...” I began, not quite sure what to say.

“Shut up,” she said and pulled me back down for another kiss.

We remained like that for a while, just kissing and exploring the other's body, never going further. In any other situation I would have taken the opportunity to find out just how soft she could be but this was not the time for that. Making out with her didn't mean our argument was over. If anything, this, too, was an argument. I was proving a point here.

“What I said earlier?” I said when we finally broke the kiss. “I meant it. I love you, Syr. And that's why I refuse to kill you.”

Her breathing hitched at the declaration of love but when she opened her mouth to argue once again I spoke over her:

“Do you know why I fought her the way I did?”

She shook her head. “I don't even know what you were doing there, attacking the empty air above her. And then she ran away in terror. What was it she said? Something about the threads of fate?”

I nodded. “After she beheld me, there was another presence. I don't know what, I don't know how, but it gave me the ability to see the threads of fate.”

“That's an Olympian thing, isn't it?”

My eyes widened. So she didn't even know that? “Every living being has a thread that symbolizes their life force. When someone's time comes, the Fates cut their thread. Somehow, I can see those now. There's also other threads, like one connecting you to your body, ones connecting all of us, even one I assume connects you to your parents.” Her face started twisting up in disgust so I amended: “Your proper parents, the ones who raised you.”

That mollified her. “So you're seeing... what? Connections?”

“That's what I figure,” I said. “And, most importantly, on your body there is a fat, red tendril that I just know connects the Black Goat to your body. If I manage to cut that thread, she is driven out of this world.”

“Except you couldn't cut it,” she said.

“I couldn't even touch it,” I said with a nod. “But I made her think that I could. That's why she ran.”

“So all you did was postpone the inevitable,” she surmised.

I shook my head. “No. Two years, those knights said. I have two years to find a way to cut the threads of fate. That was my plan. Either cut the tether outright or, if that doesn't work, buy us all time so we can find a way to.”

“And if there is no way?” she demanded.

“If I still haven't found a way to cut that tether in two years,” I began, and my heart was heavy because I knew my next words were true no matter how much I didn't want them to be, “then I promise I won't hesitate to strike her down.”

She searched my expression for any hint of deception but she wouldn't find any. This was my final gambit, my final chance to find a way to free her that wouldn't result in her death. If there was no way for us to cut that thread, then yes, I would kill her, as per her wishes. If that was the only way, I would do it. But I wanted to exhaust every other possibility before resorting to it.

“Thank you,” she said and pulled me into a hug.

We stayed like that for a while, just basking in each other's company, when she said:

“Hey, Felix?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, too.”

**

I didn't feel the usual bout of grogginess after waking up from a dreamscape. I was awake and alert the moment I opened my eyes and leapt to my feet. Judging by the way the tholos looked I had been asleep for a lot shorter than it had felt like in there. Did time flow faster inside a dreamscape, happening at the speed of thought? If so, how many years of perceived time had Syr spent inside that cell before I had found her?

I shook it off and looked around. One of the knights, the lead knight who had spoken to Shub-Niggurath, lay dead on the ground. The one Alisha and Melinoe had disabled was still in the exact same spot as before. The other two had placed their muskets on the ground and had placed their hands behind their heads.

So they'd been allowed to surrender, then.

“Felix?” Alisha asked, her tone concerned. “Where did Syr go?”

“In here,” I said, tapping my temple. “She's fine now.” Mostly. She was still horrified about what she'd learned today but at least she was no longer about to do anything rash. I had made my feelings toward her clear and I had promised that I wouldn't put her life ahead of the entire world. And, most importantly, I had made it clear to her that killing her would be the absolute last option because she was precious to me. She, in turn, had promised not to do anything stupid, like breaking our tether.

That was the most immediate problem dealt with but there was still another. Anna was standing again, and she was neither crying nor staring at the heap of clothes Wilhelm had worn before he'd turned to dust, which I took as a good sign, though when I caught her gaze I saw that it wouldn't take much for the tears to flow.

I walked over to her and wrapped an arm around her. She leaned into it and sucked in a shuddering breath that wasn't quite a sob.

“You think we'll really see him again?” she asked.

“He hasn't lied to us, as far as I know,” I said. He'd claimed that he'd 'transcended mortality' but he had refused to explain what exactly that had meant, other than saying that he wasn't immortal like the gods. I didn't know how far I could trust his word but, really, Anna didn't need honesty right then. She needed someone to be there for her. I feared we would meet him again soon enough and that the result would be just as devastating to Anna as this had been. I hated that I actually felt pity for the guy. He had taken up with the bad guys, yes, but he did care about Anna, in his twisted way, and a lot of what he'd said had resonated with me. The question was how much of what he said were his own beliefs and how much were the honeyed words Shub-Niggurath had used to ensnare him.

I gave her shoulder a squeeze and when she looked at me I gave her a look that said: “Will you be alright?”

She gave me a soft nod, then nodded her head toward Zeus' throne, where Hermes, Athena, Hestia, Hera, Odysseus and Albrecht stood. Unlike the other Great Heroes Atalanta was keeping her distance but I recalled that she had issues with Hera similar to the issues I'd once had with Athena, so I couldn't really blame her.

I walked over to them and was immediately greeted by a soft (for him) pat on the back from Albrecht that knocked the wind out of me.

“Glad you could join us, sleepyhead.”

“This is a wonderful mess you dragged us into, Tailor,” Odysseus said, though he didn't sound too upset about it.

“Are you debating whether to free him?” I asked, looking at the ball of black goo on the throne. It was an ugly, shapeless blob and the only indication that there was a living person inside that blob was the dick at half mast poking out of it.

“More like debating how to free him,” Hermes corrected. “Your cleric's miracle didn't seem to have any effect.”

I nodded. “Syr and I talked about it. We're pretty sure this mass of black goo was part of the Black Goat's own essence, that's why it survived the Cleanse. With her gone, the miracle should work on it now. So, do you want to free him or do you want to leave him there?”

“There are fewer things he can ruin so long as he's in there,” Hera opined and I took the opportunity to look her over.

Of all the Olympians, Hera was probably the one I'd had the least to do with. She really only got snippy about her husband sleeping around and getting railed by Zeus was one of the few ways to piss off an Olympian that I would never even consider, so Hera and I had had precious little to do with each other. Judging by her expression she clearly disliked me from sheer hear-say though.

Hera was a gorgeous woman, though she appeared slightly older than most of the Olympians. Of course, apparent age had absolutely nothing to say when it came to gods. Hestia was sister to Hera and Zeus and yet she looked to be the youngest person here. Hera looking older than most Olympian women was simply a reflection of her role as the goddess of motherhood. Still, she was beautiful, with long flowing dark brown hair and generous curves. Her toga was long and purple and she wore a golden diadem in her hair.

“I say we free him,” Hestia said. “I have a few choice words for him that he can't hear from in there.”

I turned back to see Alisha already chanting her miracle and gave her a smile and a nod.

“Cleanse!” she called out and another wave of bright warmth washed over the tholos, and this time it didn't ripple uselessly over the blob that was Zeus. The black sludge evaporated in mere moments and beneath it appeared the alleged King of the Gods, stark naked and with his boner hanging out.

He took a shallow breath, then another, and then his breathing began to gradually even out. Finally he opened his eyes. The moment he noticed that pretty women were looking at him he jumped up and so did his little friend, going from half mast to full hardness in moments. His statue in that temple had been entirely accurate in that regard.

For a moment his eyes scanned over all the women in his field of view, my women, the goddesses, and Atalanta. Only when his gaze passed over Hera did his erection wilt the littlest bit. And she noticed.

Finally his gaze landed on me. “Felix Tailor,” he said, and his voice was utterly at odds with his lecherous behavior, rich and powerful, made for public speeches, “of all the people to come and save us from these abominable Outsiders I did not expect you, though I welcome your assistance nevertheless.”

I punched him.