Both gods dropped into formal bows—flawless, practiced, the kind of obedience only eons of groveling before cosmic titans could engrain.
"Yes, my lord," they said in perfect unison.
But Hera couldn't help herself. The question had been gnawing at her from the mont they arrived. And standing in the presence of beings who spoke of corrupting Pri Cores like mortals plan afternoon tea had finally burned through her diplomatic restraint.
"With all the ti the Three have spent here…" she began, carefully, "why didn't you take the cores sooner? Why risk waiting? Parker could have intervened at any ti."
The silence that followed wasn't awkward—it was existential. It made Hera suddenly hyperaware of her own heart. Her skin. Her bones.
Erevin looked up from his reality-carving with sothing like amusent, while Aelion's eyes glead with the dangerous patience of a predator considering whether to play or strike.
Callianeira just laughed.
It was the kind of laugh that didn't belong to mortals or even gods—wind chis made of crystallized storms. Beautiful. Terrifying. And utterly indifferent.
Instead of rage, she turned to Erevin, who still stared out the window like he hadn't heard a thing.
"Why do you think," she said softly, like revealing the universe's favorite secret, "the Prince of Existence didn't just protect all the cores at once? Why leave these two—South Korea and Egypt—completely untouched?"
Hera opened her mouth. Closed it. The answer wasn't there.
"Alignnt," Callianeira said, voice gleaming with dangerous pleasure. "The multiverses that orbit Pri Earth only align in a single direction once every cosmic rotation. That's the only ti anyone can approach those two cores."
A pause.
"The alignnt hasn't happened yet," she finished. "So, the Prince had to wait."
It hit Hera like a divine freight train.
"…So even the Prince of Existence is bound by sothing?"
"Mmm~." Aelion's grin sliced the room in half. "That's Fate and Karma at work. Even the ones who created Existence are chained by its oldest Laws they created themselves for y'all own good, so we use it to our advantages."
Apollo, silent till now, went pale. His voice cracked slightly when he spoke.
"If we're waiting for the alignnt… that ans…"
"The Prince will be here in Egypt soon," Aelion purred. "Unlike the Korean core—where he can delay two days later after the alignnt—the Egyptian one must be and can only betouched in the first five minutes of the alignnt window. That alignnt lasts only ten."
The mathematical certainty of cosmic collision hung in the air like a countdown tir.
Apollo's voice ca out slightly strangled. "So, by what you're saying it ans you're saying you'll crash into the Prince of Existence in the next five days, either during or before the alignnt?"
As he spoke, Apollo couldn't help but shiver. He'd never actually seen Parker use his powers in earnest, but just looking at that deceptively chill guy who behaved like he was just another powerful being and nothing more, like he did not care and was just dump powerful kid, you could feel that he could snap Earth out of existence if he felt like it.
"Isn't that what makes this fun?" Erevin said, finally looking up from his window-watching with eyes that pulsed with genuine excitent.
Callianeira and Aelion both turned to look at their brother with expressions that suggested they were reconsidering their family's approach to cosmic terrorism.
"Easy there, brother," Aelion warned, though his tone carried fond exasperation rather than real concern. "Although the Prince is only 0.1% of what he's supposed to be, he's also ONE."
"0.1%?" Apollo couldn't keep the shock out of his voice. "The guy who could snap Earth out of existence isn't even one percent of his real power?"
"What about us, brother!" Erevin protested, cosmic energy crackling around him like barely contained excitent. "We're five tis more powerful than he is right now. I alone can take him on!"
"You're missing the point, muscles-for-brains," Callianeira said with the patient tone of soone explaining basic mathematics to a particularly enthusiastic toddler. "He's ONE, and you know what that ans. Let's not forget his beasts, then the Daemon of Judgnt... Even if she's weak now, she's still Judgnt. She doesn't need her powers to end you - what she is would be enough."
Erevin remained suprely unimpressed. "You're forgetting that I'm the devourer of all Existence Concepts, including your oh-so-proud Judgnt."
Callianeira found herself with no imdiate way to refute that. Indeed, Judgnt would have no way of ending sothing that literally ate the concept of judgnt itself.
"Are you a fool?" Aelion turned to face his brother with an expression that could have frozen conceptual fire. "Are you forgetting that there's Throne? If that being descends..."
The change in Erevin was imdiate and dramatic. All his cosmic swagger evaporated like morning mist, replaced by sothing that looked suspiciously like genuine terror. He actually took several steps backward, power unconsciously recoiling from whatever mory Aelion's words had triggered.
"How could I forget that nightmare," he whispered.
"If Throne descends," Callianeira said quietly, her voice carrying the weight of soone who'd seen things that made cosmic horror look like children's bedti stories, "we would have to run from the Pri Earth and all the multiverses connected to it."
Aelion nodded grimly. "And we'd be the lucky ones if we managed to escape."
Hera, despite every survival instinct screaming at her to keep her mouth shut, found herself asking, "There's soone you fear more than the Prince? Who is that?"
All three siblings turned to look at her with expressions that suggested she'd just asked them to explain the color of existential dread.
"Throne is—" Callianeira began.
"Sister!" Both Erevin and Aelion interrupted simultaneously, their voices carrying a warning that transcended dinsional boundaries.
The silence that followed was pregnant with implications that made Hera wish she'd never asked.
"Anyway," Aelion said, smoothly moving past whatever cosmic family trauma they'd just brushed against, "go with Sun and Marriage to Korea to get that core when the alignnt happens. The Prince will be here, and the only obstacles will be Nihility and Beginning. But they're just as weak as he is since he's not whole yet, so they're not at full power either."
Erevin nodded, his earlier excitent returning now that they'd moved past the Throne conversation. "Also' dearest Big sister, if you et our dear traitorous little sister there," he grinned with the kind of smile that suggested he was planning sothing that would make war cris look like practical jokes, "bring her hand. I haven't devoured Forbidden Souls since she turned."
"I'm afraid Forbidden Souls is always with her husband," Callianeira said, already beginning to fade around the edges as she prepared to leave. "So, you'll be the one to have the honor of eting that traitor, not , brother."
And with those words, she simply... wasn't there anymore. Not teleported, not vanished - just suddenly absent, as if reality had briefly forgotten she existed.
Erevin's grin widened to proportions that probably violated several laws of physics.
"Very well. I can't wait to et you, Forbidden Souls."
The way he said those last two words made Hera and Apollo exchange glances that spoke of a shared desire to be literally anywhere else in the multiverse.
Reviews
All reviews (0)