Killing Olympia

I haven't slept this well in years, and the only reason I even wake up is because there's sunlight coming through the window and landing directly on my face. I groaned and turned over, then got hit by a smell that wasn't what I was used to at this time in the morning. Bianca? I forced my eyes open and wiped the drool off my mouth. Oh. Right. I lay back down and stretched until my joints felt loose. I scratched my side and slowly sat upright, then watched Bianca stuff notebooks into a handbag as she crossed back and forth around her room. I massaged my face. My mouth tasted bitter. What time is it? I found my phone under the sheets, warm and dead. I sighed and yawned.

"You talk in your sleep," Bianca said, stopping in front of a mirror leaning next to the door. She was in jeans and a pink t-shirt. Simple. A little cute. I rubbed my eyes and tried not to yawn again. "How do I look?"

"Like a million bucks," I said, getting onto my feet. Food in your gut, butt in the air, then figure out what you're going to tell Becca when you get home. Where did I put my sneakers again? "What was I talking about?"

Bianca turned around, fiddling with her ear rings. "A lot of threats, a couple of things in some kind of language I didn't understand." She flinched. I smelt the tiny droplet of blood seeping out of her ear when she missed her ear lobe. "I'm gonna be so late for my first class. I knew I should've set an alarm. But you're heavier than you look, Ry." I paused, kneeling on her carpet and searching for my sneakers under her bed. I straightened, face going hot as I looked at her. Bianca shrugged. "You rolled onto my side, and honestly, you're a lot warmer than my grandma's blanket." My brain was moving way too sluggishly to fully realize what she was saying, so, being the genius I was, I swallowed, laughed uncomfortably, and went back to searching for my sneakers under her bed.

I wasn't hiding my face because it was red. That was different. I was allergic to being embarrassed.

"Got you," I said into the carpet, grabbing them. "Sorry about…you know, sleeping on you."

Bianca grinned. "I took a bunch of pictures."

I blinked. "I'm sorry?"

She got the ear ring right and draped her bag over her shoulder. She really did look like a million bucks. And better. A lot lighter than when I found her, almost lighter, eyes a touch more electric. And hey, my skin wasn't reacting, my nose wasn't bleeding, so it wasn't all bad, right? "I'm kidding," she said. "There's a bunch of coffee places on campus in the main building. I'd take you, but I might as well just skip out on my first day entirely."

I waved my hand. "It's cool. I've got to get home, anyway. Superhero side-gig. You know how it goes."

Bianca adjusted her bag and nodded. We stood on opposite ends of the dorm room, the sun on my back and soft light on her face. It was warm today. Barely any clouds in the sky. Winter was slowly trickling away, and finally—it'll make flying home a lot less painful. Not that I could really focus on that with Bianca's eyes on mine.

A lump was in my throat. Even if I wanted to say something, I couldn't.

I smelt like her perfume. I smelt like her. And that had my gut in knots.

"So…" she said slowly. "See you around?"

"Yeah," I said, barely managing that. "Tomorrow?"

"How about tonight?"

"Won't you have homework and stuff?"

Bianca opened her door and smiled. "You can help me do it, Ry. Heroes help with anything, right?"

I snorted. "Yeah, sure, unless you wanna fail before you've even got halfway through the semester."

Bianca giggled. My skin prickled with something warm, something I liked. "Get home safe, Ry. Love you." We both froze. Bianca had her back to me. I could hear her heart racing that little bit quicker. She swallowed. Opened and closed her mouth, cheeks bright red, then quickly left. I heard her swear as she rushed down the hall.

I stiffly turned around and climbed out the window, then paused before I left. I looked over my shoulder at her messy bed, at the unfinished pizza and the sloppy blue slushie. The room felt warm, the smell was warmer. I kinda wanted to stay here a little longer. But I couldn't. One night off the job was long enough. I had a list of things I needed to do today. Becca was at the top of that, Limelight second, Ava third (because gods know I couldn't leave her to her own devices for too long), and… I was smiling. Smiling so much it almost hurt. I swallowed and bit my tongue to make myself stop, because this wasn't normal, right? Do people walk around this happy all the time?

Always?

"Yeah," I whispered, watching Bianca jog across the quad of grass. "Love you too, B."

I gently shut her window, then flew into the sky, skimming over the trees until I angled higher and higher toward the lacy clouds. I slowed and ran my hands through my hair, a pit of warmth in my chest warmer than the sunlight on my back. For whatever reason, New Olympus sparkled a little this morning. Billboards shined. Streets still being washed clean glittered. The cloud of smog sitting above Lower Olympus had cleared over time, and today must've been the first day in ages that you could see its entire skyline. It was still a mess of crumbling buildings and charred remains, of a static buzz of chaos I could hear echoing from all the way up here, but for once, it wasn't quite so loud. It was tempered. Easy. Not as aggravated, not as harsh—just about what it should be, almost on the right track. I only realized halfway back home that I forgot my sweater, but…whatever, she could keep it.

Like she said, Heroes help with anything, right?

If I wasn't able to keep her warm at night, my sweater would for as long as she wanted it to.

The Earth fell silent.

I suddenly stopped, standing in the sky. Clouds crawled. Wind weakly blew against my skin. Something's not right. A surge. It felt like a surge of something. A flare of heat and light and power that shoved against my chest. I tried to swallow. I flinched. My throat and lips and tongue were dry. I didn't realize my hands were tense until blood seeped out between my fingers. Dad felt like this. Felt like a pressure against my chest, a hand squeezing my throat. They all felt that way. The young ones. The oldest. The Royal Family would just about force you onto your knees with a fleeting look. I'd never say it to her face, but being close to Europa was like standing in front of a star.

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This wasn't anything like that. This felt violent, like a thunderstorm was coming. The air smelt different. Felt different. I looked up into the sky, straining my ears and shading my eyes. A sound. A shattering sound barrier. The atmosphere shrieked as something tore through its thin blue skin. Every muscle in my body jerked and tensed.

A force that felt like a comet slammed into my back. The next moment, and I was in a smoldering crater in the middle of the New Olympus woodlands, ears ringing, mouth full of dirt and rubble and thick iron. I coughed. Forced my eyes to stay open. What the fuck was that? I dug my fingers into the smoking soil. Pushed upward. My arms buckled. I didn't let them give out. The world was moving slowly. Hazily. I dragged myself out of the burning pit of dirt, resting on my knees on the edge of the crater. I looked around. Nothing. Burning trees. Something warm coming from my gut. Warm and slick. I put a hand to my gut, took it away. Blood. A lot. All over my palm. Wet and scarlet. I groaned and clutched onto the snapped trunk of a nearby tree. Puked up blood and meaty digested food.

A shock of ice ran down my spine. I froze, my forearm sliding along my lips. I looked behind me.

Hovering above the crater was a figure. A person. A blur my eyes couldn't focus on for several seconds.

My vision cleared, and a woman with golden eyes was staring at me.

Tendrils of heat clung to her toned arms. Her red and white regalia crackled with energy as she folded her arms. Deep brown skin. A hard face. Thick white dreads ran down her spine and fell over her shoulders like a vail.

The air around her simmered with golden light.

"Oh my Gods." The words fell out of my mouth like vomit. I stumbled backward, my stomach in agony and my back raging with pain. They're here. My foot caught on shattered stone. I fell. Scrambled. Exploded from a crouch and tore through the forest so violently I went straight through one wall of trees to the next. Through gaps between them. Around boulders. Then upward. Faster. My body strained. She's behind you. I threw my fists out in front of me and carved toward the sky. The shrieking wind went silent the second I broke through the sound barrier.

I glanced behind me. Nothing.

She grabbed my throat, stopping me so suddenly the air in my lungs vanished. I gasped. Panicked. I kicked out and caught her jaw with my heel. She snarled, grabbed my leg, my neck, then slammed my spine against her knee. I screamed. I think I did. She didn't give me enough time to piece together what happened once she clawed the back of my head and drove me directly into the concrete below. A flash of sky. Of sooty air. Then my face was in the asphalt again. And again. And again. She stopped and dropped my head. I wheezed and spluttered, choking on blood and dirt. Up. UP. I tried to move. My arms made it underneath me. She dug her heel into my shoulder blades.

"Daughter of Red Herald Thaddeus." Her voice was harsh. Too loud. I tried to move. She slammed her heel into my spine, splintering the concrete underneath me. "Granddaughter of Great Conqueror Leona. It is an honor."

She crouched and grabbed a fistful of my hair, yanking my face out of the asphalt. It was smoldering, slowly melting underneath her boots. Her body heat alone made me flinch. My skin prickled. I was face-to-face with a supernova, one burning so brightly, so violently hot I wanted to shut my eyes and look away. She didn't let me.

She wouldn't even consider that a possibility of it ever happening.

"You," she said softly. "All that's left of the mighty House of Korr. My condolences."

"Atalla." She looked up. I tried to. Her grip wouldn't let me. My heart was quick. Mouth bitter. Europa. Cleopatra. Every breath came out shakily. Fast. With blood spilling down my lips. A shadow fell over us, then came the sound of the pavement cracking underneath the weight of a man wearing white and gold. Higher rank. Upper Echelon. What the hell is he doing all the way here? Right-handers to the Royal Family. Barely ever got their hands bloody. Not until they needed to. Not until they were told to by the king directly, and when that happened, planets stopped resisting. Not in months. Not in weeks. In hours. Titan was one long before dad ever got the chance to be one, too. He looked down at me, the way you would a semi-crushed bug. My gut stung. Something had chewed it open when I hit the ground. My face ached. One good eye left, and I used it to stare at him, the sun behind his head blinding me. A thick beard. Tanned skin. Shaved head and hard, narrowed, golden eyes—arms behind his back, not guarded, barely afraid. "Enough."

She let go of my hair. I dropped onto my hands and knees. I shivered and sank my fingers into the dirt, gasping and choking on goblets of greasy, gritty blood.

"Our greatest apologies," he said. Voice like gravel. A sound that reverbed through the ground. "As far as we are concerned, you're violent—we had no other option than to subdue you appropriately." I coughed. Vomited blood. I gagged and craned my neck up at him. Atalla grabbed the back of my head and smashed my face into the dirt hard enough to make my entire body go numb. "You've forgotten your customs, Adira." He said something I couldn't understand. Atalla eased up. I tried. My body didn't respond this time. "Please, let's do this without any more violence. Your death would be unfortunate, and your fragile humanity would most likely agree, wouldn't it?"

"This planet is so loud," Atalla muttered, her knee beside my skull. "Their heartbeats scream."

"We didn't come here to negotiate, nor did we come here to cause you great harm." He moved. The ground shook. Atalla forcefully picked me up and forced me onto my knees, my head bowed, my arms yanked behind my back in her grip. "Earth is wasted on humanity. Even the air is infected with that disgusting little sickness. Atalla."

She stood, wrenched my right arm upward, then twisted.

Crunch. A gristly, wet, meaty crunch as my shoulder snapped.

I screamed. They let me until I was panting and crying.

"Your bone marrow is needed," he explained. I felt something burrow into my skin, into the meat of my shoulder. Pain raged through my body. I gritted my teeth as blood lined my lips. "So is an adequate blood sample."

"This will be enough," Atalla said. She let go. I collapsed onto the ground, cradling my shoulder.

Through my one good eye, I glared at her—stared and memorized and learnt her face as tears welled.

"Return to the outpost," he said. His hand, big enough to almost wrap around my skull, grabbed my one good arm and lifted me off the ground. No. Not really. I was a sack of flesh and bone he kept beside him, almost dragged along without care. "I'll announce to the humans of our arrival. The Royal Family expects them to prepare for their arrival, and the state of this planet would be inadequate. Don't destroy their transmission technology."

"It's still so archaic," Atalla said, looking into the sky. "Understood, Lord Gayne. Gods Blessings."

She exploded into the sky, a sonic boom trailing in her wake.

Gayne lifted into the air, then looked down at me. Fear. Primal. Cold. Violent fear ran through my veins as he smiled. But it was all wrong. Not right. Empty. Barely a flicker of light in his eyes. Dull and golden and hollow.

"Let us make history, Daughter of Thaddeus. Today marks Earth's first step to universal peace. Excited?"

His voice didn't rise or fall. It was dry. It was flat. It came from a place where his soul should've been.

At the end of the day, he was simply just doing his duty.

And there wasn't a single fucking thing I could do about it.

I coughed blood. It splattered onto his boots.

A twinge of disgust flashes across his face. The smile vanished.

Before he even fully erupted into the sky, the ground splintered, slabs of concrete rose.

And then I was hurtling through the air faster than I ever had, a body trailing blood as the Upper West came into view. I couldn't stop. I couldn't open my mouth to scream loud enough to warn them. Gayne didn't let me.

The crowded street below us didn't even realize, not even when he used me to gorge through them.

The humans just weren't fast enough to run.