The entire company stood in front of the Pegasus dressed in their uniforms in respectful silence. Of course it wasn't the maiden voyage, but the opposite. The ship would take the crew on one last trip before disbanding for good as things were changing, not just for the company but for humanity as a species.
The gacity was covered with propaganda from different gods trying to recruit the strongest hunters and the news covered similar events taking place in other gacities too. The chosen ones were able to reach new heights and displayed in front of everyone, while those who failed were sacrificed like cattle to at least provide sustenance to the gods.
Aphrodite's words turned out to be true as they confird with Alice who used her trait to take a peek forward in ti and what she saw must not have been pretty at all as she was left traumatized.
An entire week went like that and during that ti neither Dana nor Jon contacted the company. Miss Dragonfang spent the ti with her father who was still recovering from using most of his power, but the rest of the Dungeon Raiders spent that ti preparing themselves diligently for the end of the world. In other words, they were getting wasted. Especially Nika, who contrary to dusa who wanted to et her mother and Luna who wanted to save hers, had no one but Uriel in the world and offered herself as a guide against her better judgent.
And so, the Dungeon Raiders traced their plan and made the preparations for the trip. Everything was set and ready to depart, yet no one wanted to be the ones to break the silence and actually step forward as it ant the beginning of the end for their company.
"Chop, chop, you morons! I'm not paying you to slack off!" Uriel's voice bood in the hangar causing everyone to move with practiced efficiency as they didn't want to beco the target of his venting.
The entire week they had barely seen dusa, who remained in her workshop fashioning all sorts of gadgets and weapons for Uriel and the sa happened with Luna, who despite knowing it was likely the last ti she could spend with her friends had decided to lock herself up in her room studying. But Uriel, he had been on top of everyone shouting commands and making sure everything was perfect.
"This feels nice." Uriel said to his friends as they sat on the cafeteria, eating together for the first ti in a week.
"It does." dusa said, slurping a cup of cheeky chicken as though it was the last one left in the world, though that was nothing unusual.
"Weather is nice, we could probably get there in less than a day." Said Nika after gulping down a beer, her easygoing deanor shifting as she crushed the tin can with her bare hand into a small crumpled ball.
It was an unspoken agreent, to not speak of their upcoming separation, yet the atmosphere was filled with thick emotion to the point not even Nika could pretend things were normal. This, of course, did not apply to Luna who seemingly acted like her usual self. She was reading her own journal scratching parts and jotting down footnotes while eating a bowl of cereal without bothering to speak.
"Hey, where's Wendy? And Ika? Did you seriously left them behind?" A disbelieving voice ca out from the laptop sitting in the table.
"Be good or I'll turn off the wifi." Uriel said with a smug.
"What wifi? This thing does not have internet connection!" Sam scoffed.
"We all know what kind of sites you would visit if it was connected, so it's better that way." Luna said coldly.
"True." dusa laughed.
"Just like in the old tis." Nika muttered to herself, a tear struggling to co out in the corner of her eye.
"Don't be sad," Uriel gently wiped her tear with his thumb in a comforting manner. "be angry! They cornered us, they twisted our arm and now ask us to work for them. I will make them pay." Uriel's eyes glimred in blue as a toothy smile ford in his face.
"If only you listened to back then, things would not have co this far." Sam said, earning himself to have the laptop cover be forcefully shut which rendered him unable to communicate with the outside world.
"Are you sure this is Okay? We could easily exorcise him from the laptop." Nika asked, wondering if Sam could be of any help at all in his current state.
"It's better this way. I know it's likely that it was Water warlock the one who made him do all those things, but there's also a chance that he didn't." Uriel said, not bothered, not curious even, he was just stating a possibility.
He wasn't sure about Water warlock's identity yet, but if his theory was correct, then maybe there was hope for humanity after all. It was a long shot, a blind shot, but it was way better than whatever plan the gods had.
'Fighting against titans to rig their quarrel and keep balance? That's nonsensical. The only hope we have is...' Uriel stopped his line of thought and said out loud. "We can't sell the skin bear before hunting it."
"We're not hunting bears, we're going back to that damned place." Nika shivered at the thought of facing the two naless horrors guarding Chichén Itzá. Every minute that passed the ship drew closer to the place where everything began for Uriel which should have caused the tension to grow in direct proportion.
However, they spent the rest of the day playing and chattering like nothing happened. Granted, they were very different people from how they were back in the day, but their relationship evolved to the point where they considered each other family.
Sam got to witness this first hand, or rather, from the screen of the laptop he remained trapped into. He saw Uriel asking Nika to fetch a book he 'forgot' sowhere in the ship just to ss with her, while dusa prepared als for the team. Her working so much in the workshop had caused her hands to beco rough and callouses to grow on her fingers, yet her tough hands were still capable of turning food into loving als. Luna, remained by dusa's side despite not reaching the top of the counter and she used her heavenly rank reflexes to steal food whenever dusa pretended not to pay attention.
This made dusa feel warm inside and she questioned if Athena really did take her capability of experiencing love away.
"If this isn't love, I don't know what is." dusa mumbled.
"I... uhm... this is... I don't like won." Luna said in a monotone.
"You idiot!" dusa smacked her in the back of the head at the sa ti Nika showed up breathless.
"Really funny, hiding it beneath the floor." She said after handing Uriel the book which he promptly opened.
"This book is special," He said. "this is the book that explains the beginning of humanity according to the ancient Mayans and if I'm correct, this will be the key for us to clear the dungeon."
"Co on! You hat to talk about work? Why can't you just enjoy the mont?" Nika huffed angrily, yet after her outburst she reached out to her friends and drew them closer to her using shadow tendrils. The disparity of their heights gave way to a very awkward mont where dusa bumped her head onto Uriel's and Luna's face was pressed against dusa's rear.
The rest of the day progressed just like that, with them pretending nothing was wrong and pulling pranks on each other. It was their way of saying they loved each other without actually saying the words.
"Are you sure this is safe?" Nika asked in front of a small circular glass placed in a particularly suspicious wall in a supply room next to the bathroom where Uriel liked to take a shower.
"This is our last chance to take a peek." dusa replied in a hushed voice.
"If you don't want to, then make way." Luna said as she attempted to look through the fish eye, but due to her small stature she was forced to turn into her lycanthrope making the room feel even more crowded.
"Luna!" Both dusa and Nika complained out loud, which prompted Uriel to exit his museum and scan his surroundings with suspicion, only to go back into studying his artifacts when nothing else happened.
"It's not that I don't want to. I've been trying to do this for the longest ti." Nika gulped down her saliva before taking a peek. Two seconds after, her face paled and she leaned on the wall giving way to dusa who reacted in a similar way.
Luna, who had been forced back into her human form, could barely contain her anticipation and placed a box that finally allowed her to see what the others had seen before her.
"Now it makes sense why he went by 'Magnum'." She uttered before passing out due in a sudden nosebleed.
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