Killing Olympia

A storm was coming, and the world seemed to know it. Even in this state, the air felt heavier, more concentrated, like it was trying to push me further down than the knees I was already on. I was beside my own body, not far from mom and the others. I couldn't bring myself to turn around and glance at the bloody, brainy mess spilling out of Andreas' fractured skull smeared all over the wall and the pillar beside him. I expected myself to be angry, to be so filled with a kind of rage that would turn me into everything that the world and the billions of other realities kept telling me I was. But…I wasn't. I was still, my throat dry, my body feeling hollow as I looked over my real body. So many scars, old burns, bones that hadn't set right and— I shut my eyes and bit down on my tongue, sighing from my nose and massaging my eyes. I had wanted to give Adam a chance. I'd thrown him a bone just that once, too.

But I guess some dogs were better left with the collars around their throats. Should've known better than to trust a guy who looks exactly like dad, I thought, slowly getting to my feet. I flexed my fingers and looked around, because that feeling was getting stronger—that pressure that kept building against my skin, making me feel like a slow echoing hum was resonating through my bones. Adam and Lucian had left. I knew that much. Shadows had gushed out from the stairwell leading beneath the chamber, and then they had gone. Swept away in the same kind of darkness I couldn't seem to get away from dealing with supervillains. And I was helpless. A part of me was terrified.

The kind of terror I'd forgotten I could feel. The kind that coiled in your gut and made your jaw tense and your saliva bitter. My heart was fast in my chest, a timid war drum that wasn't sure if I should run toward the danger, toward the people I knew were going to change the world if tonight ended just how they wanted to, or if I should sit down beside mom and wait—wait for someone to come and save the day, fix everything with a snap of their fingers. And in some ways, it was weird, wanting mom to put her arm around me and whisper, 'It'll be fine, Ry. Just breathe.' It wasn't like she'd ever done that in the first place. Bianca's mom was the one who coached me through school tryouts and told me to focus on doing my best and leaving the rest of it up to fate. And that's what I'd done up until now, but I guess fate, that bitter little bitch, just didn't seem to want to give me any kind of break now and again.

"What now?" I whispered. "We lose?"

The Olympiad brings Zeus back?

"Deep in your heart," It said quietly, "you wonder if losing is so bad, don't you?"

I stayed still, then looked at It over my shoulder. "You don't get it, do you?"

Silence, then: "What could I possibly not get? I have witnessed countless lives, so many human, more than that so far removed from humanity you wouldn't even begin to conceive of them, and you think I don't 'get it'?"

"You're all the same," I muttered, walking toward Rhea and Thalia, toward Icarus and his weak breaths that rattled up his thin throat. Rhea was the worst off, because those worms, those purple, squirming, violent little things were burrowing into her wounds and feeding on her flesh. Some were in festering clumps. Most slithered and dug. I swallowed my disgust. "I'm not going to waste time debating what I feel and don't feel, or what you get and I don't get." I turned around. The air was getting denser, harder to breathe in and even worse to shoulder. Footsteps were getting closer—not one, but several, almost like a march. "Put me back in my body, and let's get this over with."

"Making demands won't work this time," It said. "I specified what would happen if we met again."

"Listen," I said quietly, walking toward It. "My cousin is dying. Her friends are almost or already dead. My mother isn't going to be able to live with herself if I die beside her." I stopped in front of the flickering shadow. Its buzz was harsh against my skin, its corona almost violent. "There are times when I begged for you to give me another shot, and there were times I demanded one—if there's something you should've learnt by now, it's that you don't freak me out. I'm terrified of things I know. The Empire and their Conquest. Supervillains and just how easy it is for them to shed every single ounce of what used to make them human. Fuck me, I'm afraid I might die half the time my feet leave the ground, but it's the kind of fear that makes sure I don't give up, because if I give up, so many people are going to get hurt, or die, or won't see the end of the day. So I don't give a fuck if I can't make demands." I grabbed It. Agony burst through my fingers, making my skin scatter and rage and turn all shades of all kinds of colors. I swallowed the pain and pulled It closer. The being made of shadows and jagged fractured light got more frantic. Violent. Harder to keep a hold of, until I dug my fingers deeper and deeper into its moldable body. I stared at it. Breathed it in. Then slowly said, "God Butcher, that's what you called me. And if you keep me here, it's what I'll be, over and over, for all eternity, because you won't even be able to imagine the kind of bloodlust you'll have to contend with." Closer, so closer my face stung and eyes burnt as I stared into dark oblivion. "Put. Me. Back. Now."

Silence hung heavy in the air. A silence so deep it dampened the world surrounding us.

Then: "How dare you put your hands on me? How dare you threaten me?"

"You must not know who I am," I whispered. "So no, you don't get it, because if you think it's gods and death that terrifies me most in the world, then you've not been paying attention—so save yourself all the trouble."

And don't even bother trying to fight me.

I let my thoughts seep into It, because it was always there ever since the hospital with Witchling, poking and prodding and slinking through my mind like a rugged iron fork. I felt it so often that I had gotten used to it. I first thought it was a lasting migraine from having to listen to New Olympus whimper every single day and night, but then It had come for me in the desert right after Glasses killed that future version of myself, and that's when I figured no, It was watching—and closely. Very closely. For a being that's probably been around for millenia, for a period of time that I couldn't even begin to imagine exists, it had such a devoted interest in me that I kinda didn't buy it anymore. My guess was pretty simple as to what the hell this thing was in the first place, and that was easy.

It was a prisoner, some kind of guard not allowed to over-extend itself for whatever reason. My soul might not be mine anymore, but It was right beside me, a shackle and iron chain dragging behind it too. Witchling had forced it to agree to take my soul, even if it toyed with me for a while, pretending it wasn't going to take it in the first place. And why me? Sure, I knew how most versions of myself turned out. I knew I had a bigger chance than most people to be the reason Earth got devoured into the planet-grinding jaws of the Empire in all its glory, but at the end of the day, this flickering fucker had lingered and whispered and done nothing but hound me for months.

It wasn't some kind of cosmic gatekeeper, because why would it have listened to me? I couldn't even get normal people to listen to me, I couldn't even get superheroes from the Olympiad to listen to me, so if humans wouldn't even bother trying to give me a second of their time, then why would a god be so willing to buckle?

Unless It didn't really have a choice in this—unless someone else was running the show.

"You don't even have my soul, do you?"

"Your hands, get your mortal fingers off my—"

"Witchling," I said. "She has it, doesn't she?"

"You—"

"Quiet," I said. My voice carried. The chamber remained silent for several moments, then: "Why?"

What does Witchling even want from me?

It vanished, then reappeared behind me, its cloudy dark form flickering more violently now. I half turned to look at the thing, not really sure of what I could do against it, but it wasn't about making It afraid—it was all about sending a message. I stepped closer. It moved backward until it hung over mom's body. I stopped. Looked at the pained flicker that crossed her face, then looked back at the flickering shadow hanging above her. For a good several seconds, nothing happened. Neither of us moved. I breathed out and tried to settle my war drum of a heart.

"If you touch her," I whispered. "There's gonna be hell to pay, and that's on my soul."

"I do not work for the witch," It hissed. "I am not bound by any mortal means. I exist outside of space and time, and as for your soul, you're correct—I personally don't have it, but that should serve as a warning for you."

Life Lesson #I-Lost-Count: Don't trust S-Grade Supervillains to bring you back to life.

"Then why do you hate her so much if you're not her errand-thing?" I asked.

It stayed silent for a moment, the hum of its static fluctuating as if it was irritated. Then: "Why?"

I walked a little closer. "So I'm right, aren't I? She has something over you." I stopped inches away from It, my feet so close to my mother I almost had the urge to crouch and nudge her awake. Instead, I said, "Let me help."

A long stretch of quiet hung in the air, so long I was starting to get annoyed. The longer this took, the further Adam and Lucian got, if they weren't already out of the city for all I knew. But Cassie kept her monsters close, so close she could feel it shake the foundation of her building—at least, I was hoping she hadn't changed in these few months we hadn't seen one another. At the very least, someone was going to end this year hurting. It didn't matter who at this rate, but I hadn't gotten this far to let people off the hook just because I couldn't find them. It was in my gut again, this odd, flickering flame that licked my heart and made my chest burn. Someone's gonna have to hurt, I thought. Lucian was always the one on my list, always the one I wanted to make keel over.

But I'd already made the devil bleed once tonight, so I think the clone deserved some, too.

"Help?" It whispered. "Help me? God Butcher, how could I ever possibly require your—"

"I'll kill the witch," I said.

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What, you expected me to have some kind of camaraderie with a mostly absent Supervillain? People like Witchling shouldn't be left to their own devices for months on end. Gods even know what she's been doing all this time, considering I left her with that damned book, and she's seemingly managed to lose it somewhere along the way. And seemingly, judging by the harsh hum of static coming from It and its entire body, then I wasn't alone in that line of thinking. Just as long as I don't die down here—just as long as somebody pays for the year I've had.

This was barely about justice anymore—I just really, really wanted to hurt someone.

I'd deal with them having dad's corpse and whatever else they've stolen, because, well, how couldn't I? Cassie wanted to bring the Olympians back, and if mom was telling the truth, then Lucian and dad had some kind of life pact. My guess? If one of them died, the other did, too—and why wouldn't either of them take it? Lucian's powers made him nearly immortal, a version of Cadaver so impossible to deal with the Olympians decided to shake his hand and leave it at that instead of trying to kill him. The one time someone tried, there was barely enough of Ben left to bury. Zeus wasn't meant to die either—and seemingly, he wasn't dead yet. By some slim, one in a billion chance, he'd been alive all this time. But if he was down here, hidden so deep underneath the city he was barely even a whisper, then he wasn't the same. Something was wrong with him. Hell, for all I knew, the Arkathian tech was keeping him alive just enough for his heart to keep beating and for him to not go completely brain dead, too.

"You?" It asked. "Kill the witch?"

"Yeah," I said, shrugging. "How hard can it really be?"

It laughed. A sound I thought I'd never hear in my life. A noise so loud, so irritating, it left my skin crawling and the air singed with a bitter aftertaste that crawled down my throat when I swallowed. Then it stopped. So suddenly as if someone had put a knife straight through it. I folded my arms and waited. "Oh, dear child," It said. "I have crossed many versions of you, countless with blood on their faces and vengeance in their hearts, but not once, Ry'ee, have you ever made me laugh." It got closer, forcing me to step backward, nearly tripping over myself. "Promises like this don't go unanswered, and neither do they ever go unpaid for. Are you willing, God Butcher?"

"As long as you make me able, then I'll even split the Earth in two—just as long as Lucian dies." Before It could speak, though, I said, "But I need to know what I'm signing up for first. What exactly is on the line here?"

"Your existence," It said. If It had a mouth, it would be wet, salivating, judging by the hunger that was resonating off its shapeless body. And I almost liked it. Loved it. Emotions so raw I could nearly taste them were bleeding off its flickering shadow, so much of it painful and disgusting and so filling. I swallowed, my mouth partially hanging open as It neared. "Your body. Your being. It will be mine. You fail, and you cease to exist—I inhabit your body, I break my binds, and for all eternity, you stand in the Realm Beyond All to submit to the gods." For a heartbeat, silence lingered, then it quietly said, "And we both know, Goddess of War, you are not obedient. Hell comes in many forms, but there are beings who can make even the most stubborn of souls grovel and cower."

I almost smiled. "Looks like even you're afraid of something, huh?"

Silence, then: "You've made your choice already, have you not?"

I folded my arms again and shrugged, almost trying to protect myself from the onslaught of skin-crawling emotion gushing from It. I flexed my fingers. The world felt like it was trapped in a freeze-frame, a moment in time when the blood spilling from Andreas' head didn't spit, when Rhea wasn't flinching and the others weren't shaking so badly with exhaustion that they looked like corpses fighting against rigor mortis. For the first time in months, it almost felt like the world was waiting to see what happened next. But in all fairness, It was right about my decision.

"When do you want her dead?" I asked quietly.

"For once," It said, "I'll be lenient. A month to the day."

That's lenient?

But I guess beggars, in most cases, are never choosers.

"Deal," I said, offering my hand. "And when I do win this wager, I want my soul back."

"If the witch is dead, you would have already earned it," It said. "What you will receive is my favor."

"Like, what, some kind of magical wish?" I asked.

It said nothing—the only thing that happened was a sudden explosion of agony erupting through my entire body, like someone had dug their fingernails underneath my skin and was trying their damndest to peel it off my skeleton. I gasped. Blinked. My head rang, feeling like my skull had just been smashed against the tiles underneath me. Then I breathed. Sucked in so much air that it hurt. It was gone. My body felt heavier. Then I rolled onto my shoulder and groaned, pain lancing through my side so suddenly my vision swam. I forced my knuckle against the floor, then shoved my face off the cracked tiles. I collapsed. Gasped for air as sweat sting my eyes. You got another chance, Ry. Last one. No more lucky breaks. Can't stop now. You're almost at the finish line. This time, I opened my palms and pressed them to the floor, my arms quaking and back screaming as I slowly, surely got up.

I left a blood handprint on the stone altar beside mom as I used it for balance. I gave myself a second to get my bearings, then I grabbed mom's arm and dragged her closer to the rest. I collapsed. I spat blood and sticky saliva and knuckled it off my chin. This was gonna kill whatever little energy I had left, but all I needed was a chance. A shot. It didn't matter if I wasn't at my best, because my worst was still better than Adam's best day, and that's all that I cared about, that's all I could even think about when I gathered them in a pile of loose limbs and unconscious bodies. I let electricity crackle between my fingers, and I paused. I listened to its echo, waited for the stench of ozone to pierce the blood clogging my nose and drag itself deep into my lungs. I shut my eyes, breathed slowly, calming my heartbeat to the point each pulse sounded like an echoing thump inside of my head. Then I put my hands on mom and Rhea, and let the electricity surge through each of them. It lasted for a second, barely that either.

But it was enough to make the worms burrowing through Rhea's body gush out from her wounds, shrivel, and then die. It was enough to stir Icarus, it was enough to make mom groan—and it was good enough for me to stand up, swaying on my feet, my head pounding as sounds, smells, things so minute on the cracked tiles, filled my brain all at once like a sledgehammer to the temples. I wished I had the time to let my body catch up with the world, but it would just have to wait a little longer. Six months of fighting. Six months of spiraling. Six months of learning that I knew almost absolutely nothing about the world I was trying to save. And it all comes down to a bad attitude.

First, though, I needed a costume—I needed something to cover my wounds, the blood, because I guess the version of me with the billion dollar smile was a little right: sometimes you just needed to make it look better than it actually was, and I knew exactly how I was going to do that. Chambers like these weren't just tombs, they were quasi homes for Legionnaires and their slaves. If this was where dad had kept most of his things, then my old man was just going to have to stomach the fact that I was going to have to steal a suit right off the shelf. Finding it wasn't a problem. Sliding it on and waiting for it to adjust and fit my body wasn't a problem either. It was the exhaustion gnawing at my vision. The tiredness that whispered so close to my ears I would whirl around as I made sure the boots stayed fitted and the costume stretched where it should. I always had to focus on what I wanted to hear, I always had to make sure my mind didn't melt from the sensory overload that was one of the biggest cities in the entire East Coast—and right now, I just didn't have the energy to do that. It meant my skull was getting fucked.

Because I was pretty sure I was hearing voices, seeing ghosts—I stood facing a reflective silver archway, a brief pause to look at the blood red, the deep blue, and the golden accents on the costume. A child's colors, in the eyes of the Empire. A child who hadn't yet seen war, but was ready, timid, afraid, but willing. I kinda just liked the colors. The apparition of dad standing behind me, shaking its head, eyes grim and jaw set, probably thought otherwise. All in your head, I thought, stepping back. I stumbled. My leg nearly giving out. Now or never, Ry.

I walked through dad's apparition, through the shadow of Lucas standing at the foot of the dark stairwell that followed me halfway up the stairs and stopped. I left the regalia's cape on the floor, my family's crest glinting in the darkness as the floor behind me closed. The chamber was silent. The bodies on the ground were slowly moving, slowly starting to get up again. I couldn't help Andreas, not right now—all I could hope was that someone else could. I hated that Frankie popped into my mind, but Rhea would just have to sit this fight out and clean up.

"Rylee?" I stopped, one foot already in a hallway leading out of the chamber. I glanced over my shoulder, the blood crusting my eyelids together rubbed away on the back of my hand. Mom had managed to get halfway up before she collapsed again—but I was there to catch her, there to make sure she didn't smack her skull against the floor again. I helped her sit back down, resting her against a pillar. I had to leave, though. So I stood up, or I would have, if she didn't weakly grab onto my hand. I looked down at her. The breaths rattling up and down her throat were louder than they were filling. But…she was smiling. Smiling at me. I crouched and squeezed her hand, but apart from that, I just kinda didn't know what to do. We'd never been air-tight. We'd never had that TV relationship I always fantasized about the first time I watched shows on Earth. And I guess that's why I partially froze when she touched my cheek, her fingers cold, hand shaking, but rubbing her thumb under my eye. "You're…" she whispered. I waited. She breathed. Smiled again. "You're so strong. Look at my little girl, all dressed up like a superhero."

I couldn't help but smile and slowly take her hand off my face. "I'll be back soon. I promise."

"You're—" She swallowed. Her eyes unfocused. Really bad concussion. Hopefully not anything worse. "You're going to kill him, kill Adam, right?" I paused, then reluctantly nodded. Mom nodded too, then rested her head against the pillar, shutting her eyes and swallowing deeply again. "Don't," she said quietly. I froze, and before I could speak, she continued. "He was built with a fail-safe. Cassie wanted to make sure that if anyone ever got close to ending his life, then nobody would get their hands on her toy." She tilted her head to look at me. "Get close, make him afraid—so afraid he'll change. That he'll have to change. He's a weak, terrified little boy who misunderstands his importance." She dug her fingernails into the back of my hand. "But just make him bleed."

"Why…" I shut my eyes, then sighed. "Why do you still care about him? He left you for dead."

"People," she breathed, "deserve a chance to change. I'd think you agree, too, don't you?"

Mom hadn't held my hand this long in…years. I couldn't even remember the last time it was so tight that her fingers shook from the effort alone. She looked at me through bloody strands of blonde hair, one eye swollen shut, the other caked with blood. She doesn't want to let go of my hand, I thought. Her fingertips were white, her arm shook, and it wasn't because she was defending Adam—the last time two Arkathians fought, they both died.

I guess, in some way, she was afraid she might lose her daughter, too.

But this time, the world wouldn't mourn alongside her.

She would be alone.

"I need to go," I whispered.

"I hate that you do," she said quietly. "I hate that all you've ever had to do is fight."

I smiled, and pulled her hand off mine and squeezed it. "I'll be back," I said.

"Your father said the same thing," she whispered.

"I thought you never loved him."

"But I do love you." Her voice quivered, then she swallowed. "I know I've never shown it properly, and if there's just one promise you can make, if there's one promise you can keep, then it's that—it's selfish, and I don't deserve to even make it"—she sat upright, swallowed deeply, and smiled, blood on her teeth—"but come back, so we can at least try this one more time. I can't lose you before I've gotten the chance to fix the damage I've done."

If it wasn't for the heat rolling off my skin, then my eyes would've kept stinging. I stood up and nodded, because I knew, deep in my heart, that speaking right now would only mean staying. Waiting. Being afraid again. But somebody had to do it, somebody had to draw a line in the dirt—and at the end of the day, it's what I always do.

I kill Supervillains.

This year wasn't going to end any differently.

And for once, it wasn't just for myself—but for everyone I cared about. For everyone who wasn't here anymore. For Dennie, who would have been alive if I'd done better. And for all the people who still couldn't say my name, who still called me nothing except the Daughter of Zeus—this wasn't to prove them wrong, this wasn't for the statue or the applause anymore. This was so I could look at myself in the mirror and not have to shake myself out of a trance, gore still clinging to the golden symbol on my chest. Dennie had said something to me when I came back from Witchling's little expedition into fleshy hell—he said the only reason I ever kept fighting was because I was a lover deep down, and I guess…I guess the old man was kinda right. My anger got me so far, but at the end of the day, it was about the little girl who wanted to fly through the sky, to be good enough—to just be a superhero.

And only because she simply loved doing it.

"Fuck me, Ry." I whispered, taking two steps backward, then blasting into the tunnel fast enough to let the tears balancing on the ridge of my eyelids fly off my face—so fast the air stung my cheeks and dried my throat.

I guess you're getting kinda soft.