Chapter 518 Failure?
?After Athena fell through the ceiling of Anubis' temple, Thea came leaping through the hole in the structure so that she could stand on top of Athena's chest.
Smiling, she pointed her sword directly at her neck as if she was trying to signal her victory.
"Now, now, look at the mess you made out of this nice place? Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
"I-I tripped, you ingrate!"
"Excuses are unbecoming of someone your age, you know?"
"You whore!"
Apophis felt his eyes widen from shock as he stared at his sister in her new and terrifying figure.
Black skin? Their father and grandfather had it, so it was no big deal.
Horns? He was a bit jealous hers were bigger than his, but cool nonetheless.
Tail? He was going to have to teach her to use it to open beer bottles.
No, his issues were much bigger than those trivial things.
"Put some god damn clothes on!"
Immediateluy, Thea's cheeks darkened into a blush.
"S-Stop shaming me! My body is beautiful and it empowers me!"
"I promise I don't give a shit, put your ass away!"
"Shut it, twerp!"
While Thea was distracted, Athena quickly swatted away her enemy before that dangerous sword came any closer to her neck.
Despite all of his grumbling, Apophis still leapt to catch his sister before she hit the ground.
...Though he immediately draped her in his robe right after.
"Don't take it off."
"Stop being like this, I'm older than you!"
"Don't take it off."
"You're as bad as dad, now let me go!"
"Don't. Take. It. Off."
"...Fine... bitch..."
When Thea finally looked back towards her opponent, she realized that Athena was gone.
And not just gone from the rubble, but the realm entirely.
"Damn it, when did she-"
"Around the time that this one was lecturing you over your state of dress." Ammit answered.
Thea finally noticed the seven-foot-tall crocodile woman and her eyes lit up like firecrackers.
"Oh, hello! You're Ammit, right? You look a little different from the pictures!"
Apophis suddenly snickered like he had inside information. "Actually, she-
For reasons she didn't understand, Ammit covered Apophis' mouth to prevent him from speaking quite so carelessly.
"Yes, well... Any murals you may have seen must have been severely outdated."
"Is that so? Well, if you come home with us then we'll put up all of the murals and billboards of you that you could ever want! Though... I don't know if you actually care about such a thing."
Before Ammit could offer up any sort of comment, rocks were kicked around as more individuals started to crawl through the rubble.
First came the twins, then came Mira and Gabbrielle.
All four of the girls seemed to be immersed in their own conversations when they entered.
Yemaya: "Eh? Where's that god bitch?!"
Yemaja: "She owes us her fucking head!"
Gabbrielle : "She appears to be gone... Mind hosing our sister down while you're free?"
Mira: "No! I still haven't commemorated this battle with a selfie yet! ...Okay, I'm ready!"
Eventually, the group realized that there was a new addition standing in between their brother and sister, and they quickly surrounded her with curious eyes.
As far as appearances went, none of them were really that put off by the whole crocodile thing.
In Sheol, it wasn't that difficult to find dragons who walked around with their heads transformed and scales on their bodies, so they had learned to see true beauty even with scales attached to it.
And their new sibling was quite the charmer.
"You're so tall!"
"You have to get a room next to me, okay??"
"I was hoping you would have those chunky little legs we saw in pictures!"
"You're coming home with us now, yea?"
Ammit actually seemed to be a bit flustered by all of the attention, and backed away innocently at first.
"I-I did not say that I would go with you all.…"
""""""WHY NOT?!?"""""
"Because she is integral to the balance of this world."
Anubis finally stood up and was seemingly no worse for wear than when the fight first started.
He waived his hands in unison and repaired the entire damaged temple like nothing had ever happened.
"I can still send pure souls to Osiris to receive immortality, but if she leaves with you I have no way to dispose of malevolent souls in this domain, and they will be forced to wander here forever until they break down."
"…I don't care though?"
"Mira!"
"What?!"
Thea sighed as she reverted back to her usual body.
"Then what if we give you a way to destroy souls? Then everything should be fine, right?"
Anubis' golden eyes narrowed and he stared at the children much more carefully than before.
Already, he could sense the dragon army circling overhead as they finished hunting down the last of Athena's forces.
They didn't HAVE to negotiate with him.
If they wanted, they could just take Ammit with them right now, and his options to stop it were limited.
So why were they going about things this way?
"You would casually give away soul destroying weapons to me…?"
"Not really weapons to be honest. And besides, you can't really do anything with it anyway…" Thea muttered before turning her head up to the sky. "Bel-Bel!!"
Heeding his sister's call, Belloc came plummeting through the roof of the temple like a meteor.
He dropped right in front of Thea with an overly large bird wing in his grasp.
He took a large angry bite as if he was trying to relieve some internal frustrations.
"Eight escaped… I failed..!"
Thea ran her fingers through his younger brother's hair and gave him a reassuring smile.
"You don't need to worry, you did your best, okay? You're not the only one who had an enemy get away today. We'll find them later when the time is right."
Belloc, who looked up to his oldest sister almost as much as he did his parents, was utterly unable to turn away in the face of her reassuring demeanor.
"…I'm too big for you to be treating me like this."
"Lies! I'll be doing this even when you're father's age."
"Whatever… what do you want?"
Thea suddenly pointed at the recently repaired fountain on the other side of the room.
"Do your big sis a favor and fill it up for me would you?"
"Ah… sure?"
Belloc held out his hand and fired a gout of sinister black flames from his palm.
In an instant, a little fountain of black flames was created.
Thea turned back to Anubis with an expectant look on her face.
"Well? This is fine, right? My brother's flames won't go out unless you try to take them somewhere or use them for anything other than disposing of souls, so you can use it for as long as you need."
"…Why are you doing this?"
Thea shrugged as she turned around, not intending to give an honest answer. "Consider it repayment for taking care of my sister for all these eons."
One by one, the rest of Thea's siblings started to follow her.
For the most part, they all seemed satisfied with their efforts and the fact that they had done what they came here to do.
Mira and Ammit were the last to leave, but the primordial beast took a moment to stare at the god whom she'd shared a duty with for as long as she could remember.
She didn't hate Anubis, nor did she love him.
He was like a co-worker.
And when you've been on a job for quite a long time, you can develop certain attachments to them.
However, Ammit could not, and would not deny the mounting curiosity that she felt surrounding this 'true' family of hers.
She wanted to explore, and gain a deeper understanding of the man who called himself her father.
"…Farewell."
"…"
Mira took Ammit's hand gently, and the two of them walked out of the temple together, and into a new life.
- Several Hours Later…
Thea stepped out of the shower in her bedroom at the castle and reached for the nearest towel to dry herself off.
Perks of being bound to the witchblade meant that she wasn't particularly tired or sore, but she was slightly apprehensive.
Once she finished drying off, she wrapped her towel around her hair and went to lay down on the bed.
She held out her hand to summon her phone, and she unlocked it to scroll to her father's contact.
*Click!*
Suddenly, Thea's bedroom door opened and her second wife, Jasmine, stepped inside.
Once she saw Thea's amazon-like figure lying uncovered on the bed, a line of dark red blood ran from her nostril and she temporarily forgot why she came here in the first place.
"Babe?" Thea called.
"G-Give me a second… Vovin's horns, you make wearing underwear a liability!"
Thea chuckled quietly, but she didn't add any perverse comments or make a lewd pose.
This seemed to be the first inclination Jasmine received that her wife wasn't okay.
"We were wondering why you weren't downstairs celebrating with the rest of us… Mira is doing that thing where she stuffs her cheeks with pastries again. Ammit actually seems to find it funny."
Thea smiled sadly as she continued to stare at her phone. "I just… needed to take a breather I guess."
Jasmine had on a very feminine and delicate red sundress that contrasted with her war-like personality she displayed earlier.
However, before she got into bed she loosened the strings keeping her dress up allowed it to fall to the ground.
She curled up next to Thea and gave her a soft kiss before spying into her phone.
Once she saw that she was hovering over her father's contact, she made a confused expression.
"Hm? You haven't told him yet?"
"I… can't find the words." Thea admitted.
"Why are you so nervous? We got Ammit and the Scarlet Legion lost no soldiers. This is wonderful, hun."
Thea had to admit that there was some truth to Jasmine's words.
And normally, Thea would have focused on the positives and taken the win.
However, this time she was having difficulty simply moving on.
"I know that I should be satisfied, but… I can't stop thinking about my own mistakes. Things should have gone smoother, a-and Athena shouldn't have gotten away!"
"Darling… she is an Olympian. Give yourself some grace." Jasmine interlocked her fingers with Thea's and gave them a firm squeeze.
But for all of her coaxing, Thea's eyes still seemed to have a complicated light.
"I just… should have been better. And I am afraid that when he asks me for a report, he'll be disappointed with what he hears. I feel like I failed him…"
Unable to listen to any more of this conversation, Jasmine finally straddled Thea and cupped her face in her hands.
She pressed her forehead against Thea's and spoke to her in a low, serious voice.
"Thea, I love you, but you are being nonsensical. You think I don't know what this is about?
You are Abaddon's daughter, and you don't have to prove anything to him, yourself, or anyone else.
You will not be abandoned by him, my darling. No matter what happens in that dream of yours."
Small lines of tears ran from Thea's face and she felt herself becoming choked up.
Jasmine wiped Thea's tears away and gave her another kiss that lingered longer than the first before she placed her phone back into her hand.
"Now… tell your father that everything went smoothly and you can't wait to see him again."
Thea chuckled as she started typing; not even fully aware of what she was saying. "I'm not even sure if he'll be able to get this given where he is."
"Doesn't matter, just hurry up and do it."
"You're so bossy…"
"I'm just trying to rush you so we can have our own celebration before we go downstairs."
"What kind of celebra… Oh."
Thea finally finished typing her message and then tossed her phone off the bed to be lost until later.
Not long after it was sent, three familiar dots showed up underneath her message.
Me: Hey dad, we miss you! I hope that you're safe and everything is going well but I just wanted to let you know that we got Ammit and we're all at home safe now… Please, come back soon!
*'Papa Dragon' is typing…*
New novel chapt𝒆rs are published on free(w)ebnovel(.)com