The God of Gravity part 3: Apocalypse

Talaria

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*

Philip opens his eyes. He can hear his breath whistling in his ear and feel his sweat dripping from his forehead. It makes him uneasy, because how could he sweat in this cold unnatural weather the apocalypse created? As his vision clears up, the red background slowly condenses into a single dancing fire in front of him in the middle of a closed room. The crackling of the wood from furniture is amplified by the silence. A silhouette of a hip appears before his sight of the fire. It faces him then bends down. His hair is the color of the fire. 

“Oh, you finally open your eyes!” declares Jasper. He shows Philip his smirk.

Philip is feeling dizzy and confused. With squinting eyes and wrinkled nose, he asks, “Do I… know you?”

“Of course, you don't know me. I'm Jasper!” Smiling, he holds out his hand to ask for Philip to shake it with his.

It takes quite a bit of time for Philip to read the situation because of his clouded mind. He shakes his hand but Jasper leads the tempo of shaking it. Too violent and fast—as he prefers. Philip could feel his arm would come off.

“What's your name?” asks Jasper, sitting beside him at his right to face the fire.

“Philip.”

He senses Jasper as someone peculiar. As well as Sayuri closing her eyes and sitting straight on a chair. She looks like she is not sleeping. Hyun is sitting in the corner. Prisha and Hiroki are in the same blanket shoulder to shoulder with their backs against the wall. It is the dead of night but only Philip and Jasper are awake.

“You're a deity,” says Philip.

“Woah, good guess!”

He narrows his eyes because it is obvious that he is a god and acts as if he doesn't know demigods can sense it. “Are you with them?”

Chewing from cooked beef, Jasper asks, “With who?” like an ignorant kid that does not know anything but eating.

“Masked Men.”

“Oh, those shady guys? No… Nuh-uh!”

“Are you guys rogue?”

“Kind of,” he nods and swallows with a dry throat.

“Then you're lying to me about not being one of those people.”

After drinking water to moisten his throat, Jasper puts up a smile before saying, “It doesn't mean if we're rogue, we're one of those people. You're gravely mistaken, my friend.”

Crashing together his eyebrows upwardly, Philip is confused about Jasper using the word, friend. He decides not to mind it but asks, “What then?”

“Just lost people following one lady.”

Philip steals a glimpse at Sayuri. He could not look at her for a second more because of the bright fire. “You mean her?” he asks. Jasper nods. “Then what does she want?”

“Good question but the answer is something I don't know yet. She might say what she wants to do and we guess ‘why’ she wants to do that because she doesn't say it to us. We can only guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“She's a mystery.”

“Mystery?”

“Yes, and that's what makes her very…. very very interesting.” He smirks.

“She does seem to look powerful.”

“Right but wait until you see her in action. You'll still get blown away even you have already seen her do it. I know how powerful she is but I'm amazed every time she fights.”

“Who did she fight against?”

“Recently, she killed Cleopatra.”

“What?!!” Philip exclaims. “I haven't heard that- No, you're lying!”

“Nah, I won't force you to believe it,” he smirks, not blinking even once as he looks at Philip's eyes. “I planned that no one will know.” 

With a faint green glow in Jasper's eyes, Philip is reminded of how dark everything else is. Literally and figuratively. Under the curtains of darkness, disturbing truths are discovered. It is the first time that he meets someone like him. Cunning and clever in every way, even though have not yet displayed. 

Startled by himself, Philip goes back to the present. “Why did she kill her then?” he asks.

“Simple: Cleopatra is a bitch.”

He is surprised by the straight vulgar from Jasper's mouth. “Just because she's like that, she killed her?”

“It depends on what you consider the lady has to do, so you get to call her that. I call a lady with that word if she kills innocent people, children and a single scratch on her skin makes her go mad that she could kill anyone without reason.”

It is indirect but Philip gets what he means. “How do I know you're telling the truth?” he doubts.

“In the first place, it's not my goal to make you believe me. You're just a person we've rescued along the way. Sooner or later you will leave and we will forget about you. I'm just talking to you so I can make it past this night with no sleep. I can't sleep, dammit! I keep thinking about how they planned this amazing Apocalypse! It's a grand masterplan that even I couldn't arrange!”

Philip looks around. “If I remember correctly, there should be another god with you earlier, am I wrong?”

“You mean Mario Monde, the God of Griffins? Hyun killed him.”

“What?! Why?”

“He's a greater traitor to Olympus than I am. You saw it, didn't you? You saw how his griffins tore apart the god who used to own the boots you are wearing now.” He looks at Philip's winged boots.

Just now he notices it. He removes them from his feet and looks at them. The blood of the god stained the silver wings. “Why did he kill him?”

“It might be something related to what's inside that sack,” he points but this time it is the knapsack around Philip's body.

“He said to deliver this,” he said deep in thought, recalling the memory. “but I don't know to whom.”

“Open it and see.” A spark of curiosity can be seen from Philip's eyes. “But don't open the message or whatever it is.”

He nods and swallows before even touching the tie of the bag. He unwinds it and reaches for something inside. It is something like cold metal but paper-thin. Then when he pulls it out, the light from the fire makes it shine. It is an envelope made out of gold. 

Jasper does not hesitate to read what is written on the back. “‘To: Lady Aiko. From: Lord Seok’—that's definitely something important. A message from an Olympian to another Olympian.”

“Seriously?!!” Philip yells out loud. 

“Shhh!” he hushes him. “Lady Sayuri needs her beauty sleep.”

“Seriously?” he asks quieter than earlier.

“Depending on what's written there? Yeah, it is. Since the God of Wisdom made it, if we open it, maybe it will explode or something.”

Widening his eyes, Philip says, “Okay…” Casually and slowly, he puts the letter back inside the knapsack.

Jasper snortingly laughs at him. “I'm just kidding, come on! Ouch!” he cries in pain. A flat side of a knife hits his head. He swallows at the sight of Sayuri dimly lighting up her eyes, glaring at him. Smiling like an i***t, he looks away. Sayuri closes her eyes again and he sighs. “Scarier than a nightmare,” he mutters then clears his throat as quiet as he can. “Well, anyway… you get to decide if you want to read what's the content since he entrusted it to you along with his relic.”

“Relic?”

“The boots. Did his eyes glow when he looked at you?”

“Yes, and my head ached after that.”

“Gods like us have these things called, ‘Gifts’. We can give it to others under our power. It could be something like a skill that depends on the power which the god who gave it, possesses. It could also be a relic. In this case, the Talaria. They are only supposed to be used by her God of Messenger but since he gifted them to you, you have control over them now. At least for now. If another reincarnated God of Messenger calls for them, they're no longer yours. But I can tell they will be yours for quite a long time, given our circumstance.”

“These…” He holds the boots. “are now mine?”

“That's right.”

Philip thinks about the Talaria in how in par they are to his style of fighting. They can boost his kicks into block-breaking blows—as he did a while ago. Then he remembers his father. He frowns at the memory.

“Tell me,” he says to Jasper—who is at the moment chewing his food again. 

“Whot?” he asks with his mouth full.

“Tell to me what exactly is your Lady Sayuri after?”

“Revenge,” says Jasper in a more serious voice unlike earlier. “Her entire family is slaughtered by the man who leads these masked dudes. She wants to kill him with her own hands.”

With a determined face and teeth-gritting stronger than any clamps, he growls “Then like her, I will have my revenge on my own father… Let me join you so I could get a chance on doing so.”

Showing again his signature smirk, Jasper finds this young boy interesting. He giggles eerily but quietly. “We too have reasons of following her. But we are merely here to assist her, and along the way, we were able to help people. Remember that. Our goals might differ but they revolve around her. Don't ever betray her.” Philip nods. “And to her, you ask to join. She's the one who leads us after all. Ask her in the morning.”

“I will.”

*

-

Our footsteps on the ash-ridden ground are silent. Even I, feel that we are walking on the clouds. Darius is following behind me until we stop before a ledge of the roof of a building. I check my senses for anybody around. Enemy or survivor. I sense no one so we continue by jumping to another roof of a building. It is dead in the night but we are not yet tired. There's no time to sleep. I need to find my family and friends. My mind is always full of them and with the memory of how Athena District—my hometown, once was. Right now, I see it looking nothing like what I remember.

We have been traveling for days. Normally this would take only a single day if not for the enemies we have to avoid and people we have to rescue. My home is not that far away so I quicken our pace.

Wait, I sense someone. I stop running and Darius waits behind me. I regulate my breath to stop the air whistling inside my lungs and interfere with my senses. Right… there. I point my finger to where I sense the presence is coming from. It's a little odd because there is a familiar presence among them. I need to check it out. To get there, we need to go down into an alley. We climb down carefully. They are right behind this brick wall. There are three deities among them. Three of which I don't know who they are. They are mixed with a demigod and two humans.

I look at Darius and scream, “Duck!”

We did and in time to dodge the sword almost sliced us in half. We retreat and see violet, green, and red lights, lighting the ashes and dust. From it, a strange lady with a violet flaming sword comes out.

“How did you find us?” she asks in a growl.

At her right, is a god with red hair. His eyes glow green. At her left, a vampire like Hyeon with his eyes glowing red. Who are these deities?