Where The Dead Ones Go Book 4 -Union-

Chapter 8

"We have finally reached cruising altitude, it is now safe to remove your seatbelts," Zenith announced once more when the plane stopped ascending, "Please, take care of your belongings and don't run along the aisles. The buffet table is now available for your pleasure."

Asher and his dogs quickly unfasten their belts and ran towards the end galley of the room to check out on it as I removed mine to try and look around this magnificent contraption.

As I walked up the aisle I noticed that everything from the chairs, windows, doors, and carpet is pristine and unused.

Like this is its maiden flight and we are privileged enough to be taken in for the ride.

As I reached the door of the cockpit, it suddenly opened revealing my friend who looks shocked and in disbelief.

I was about to ask for the reason but the answer presented itself when a handsome man in his early thirties appeared out behind him wearing a white and blue pilot's uniform smartly.

"Gala, he is..."

I stepped back as I felt a powerful surge of supreme power emanating from the man.

"King Zeus?"

"Truly the child of my favorite daughter. Right on the mark on the first try."

I shook my head in disbelief as I blinked my eyes repeatedly to make sure he is real.

"As suspicious as Athena which she gets from me. Truly the best of your lot," the Heavenly King said as he motioned me to sit on a chair near him and his son, "I guess a proper introduction again is in order. It has been many years since I last regaled someone in high altitude after all."

He then puffed his chest out and held his head up high, "I am the Heavenly King of Olympus. The God of the Gods and Lord of Electricity and Lightning. Zeus, the Thunderer!"

As if to give credence to his words, the plane is engulfed in a massive lightning storm in a split second.

"Though in my current, this is nothing more than the merest personification. The smallest of the small fraction of power my son holds inside his very being."

I nodded slowly as I have an idea of what he is saying right now, "Each and every demigod carries a bit of their divine parent's very being the moment they are birthed into our world. I learned that from Vivet and Morris."

"True, g*****a my granddaughter. Demiurges have the most knowledge and access to their parental powers because of their deep connection as firstborns of their parents. However, even mere demigods still hold a part of their parent's powers as whenever we produce an offspring, we give a part of our divine being automatically in the process."

Zenith scratched his head in confusion as he tries to wrap the idea that his father, or a part of him, is really here with us, "Imagine my surprise when I saw him sitting in the cockpit the moment I entered it."

"The moment you decided to use the fullest extent of your powers, my son, that was the time I regained consciousness. If just for a little while."

"Father..."

The King raised his right hand sternly to silence us as Lytta's son and dogs emerged from the buffet room only to be welcomed by Zeus himself.

"Though I am sure that the son of Lytta and his dog has already smelled my presence inside my son the moment the two met."

Asher and his feral companions rushed in front of Zenith's father and placed their heads at the feet of His Majesty respectfully.

"I thank you for following my orders diligently even though your mother's allegiance lies with my wife," the thunderer said as the canines barked lowly in submission while wagging their tails happily, "Your mother shall be generously rewarded should we ever even survived in this gambit of ours intact."

"Your Majesty..."

He nodded grimly at all of us as he began talking, "I am only here thanks to the machinations of Asher and my son's acceptance of his full potential as my son."

"The power of the demiurge of hope cannot help my son in his direst hour since hers and her mother's abilities extend only to those who believe in hope. Its light shines to those who believe, not to those who completely gave up on its as my son sadly did," finished with a look of pity in his spawn.

Zenith bit his lip as he tries to stop himself from crying as his father continued speaking.

"I am inside his very being and I understand why he did so. But it is up to him to confess his sins to your dear friend, am I right, my son?" the King asked his child fatherly that made Zenith nod quickly, "Good. Now, Asher here, thanks to him not bearing a humanoid form, can sense my presence trying to reach out. His heightened senses as an animal allowed me to communicate with him, crudely but it did the job. I ordered him to dump my son at the necropolis so that he will see the graves of the fallen. Of those whom he made a vow to never give up and lose sight of their dreams. That did the trick. He pulled himself out of his stupor and hopelessness and it gave the memento of Viera the power it needs to be with you all in your times of direst need."

I nodded slowly as everything is finally making sense now.

The logic and reason behind Asher's seemingly random behavior and Zenith's miraculous self-recovery.

"I will not bother you with unimportant questions, Your Majesty for I know you still have a lot to tell us all, and your time is not infinite with us."

He nodded gravely as he looked out of the window where the turbulence he made is still somewhat protecting us from harm.

"You are not incorrect, g*****a. This will be the first and last time I can probably appear in this form until the promised day where we can all stand side by side together as equals against our common adversary," he agreed quickly as he continued talking clearly, "I am here to tell you all that what you are doing so far is exemplary, so to speak. As Athena always say, everything is going according to plan. A plan that even I and the rest of the gods agreed, yes, including your own mother. A gamble of Olympic and Primordial proportions, Nyx herself has to be begged by her children and grandchildren just for her to agree to it. But like any gamble, as Hermes always says, there is an equal chance of winning and losing. The outcome of this risk we have all taken falls upon you and your friends' shoulders."

I shook my head quickly as I touched my chest to feel the memento of my husband pulsating in warmly, "I don't even know what to do. I am just wandering about aimlessly, Your Majesty!"

"Aimless wandering can be good for experience and perspective, you know?" King Zeus answered lightheartedly that made his son looked angrily at his father.

"Are you taking all of these a little bit too lightly, father?!" Zenith irritably shouted that made the King chuckle a little, "In case you didn't know. You lost. We lost the war! Gearth is ravaged, destroyed, and splintered beyond recognition! The seas are as bloody as the skies and the night is covered with impenetrable darkness without a single light in sight! Our friends, parents, dead. Who knows if we can find others alive if any at all and all you can say is about experience and perspective?!"

To our surprise, His Majesty fondly touched the face of his son as if he is seeing not the face of his spawn but his very own.

"This may be what my face looks like after the First Fall. Angry, frustrated, and impatient. Pride and dignity in tatters. Humiliated beyond imagination and my rule questioned. Oh, how I seeth in anger and pain as I remember how I am ridiculed and forced to see my weakness laid bare for all to see. My beloved mortal world decimated, my mankind dead, fractured, my family wounded and weak. I think you can now imagine the emotions I have to contend with as I slowly and painfully pick up the pieces of the broken world that were destroyed because of my arrogance and ego. But you all now have something I never had back then."

"Father..."

He nodded at his son and Asher as he pointed at my heart, "Yes, Zenith and child of the goddess of rage, you have hope. Even with my infinitely unreachable pride and hyper-inflated ego, as Hera suggested, I am forced to grovel and pray to Elpis, to at least shed some of her light to me and the whole world in dire need of her succor and radiance."

His form began to slowly fade away in static and electricity and we know his time with us is coming to a close.

"Don't forget the words of the demiurge of hope, losing a battle is not the end of the war. Nor death is the final say of everything that is mortal and ephemeral. This war has yet to reach its c****x, this is merely the prelude to the promised Golden Age of the Vietan Empress," he then finally disappeared in thin air as Zenith cried but we heard his voice outside the airplane as if it the rumbling of the thunder is speaking for him.

"Immortals and mortals until this very day are still wondering why I put Elpis, a dainty and kind goddess, in the pithos I gave mankind containing the deities of chaos, misery, and death among other vengeful gods and goddesses to plague mortals..."

"Father..."

"Even I who did it didn't know the answer, well until now that is. Looking at the three of you bearing what little remains of hope in this decaying husk of a world we call our own, I guess the real reason was that I want to make sure that mankind will not lose the ability to dream, yearn and believe like us divine beings do. Sometimes without realizing that we do it ourselves. Carry on, children, carry on. Whatever happens at the end of this journey of yours, know that before it even began, we already made peace with our choices. Not just immortals but mortals as well. Impossible it may seem, we still believe in hope and maybe, that's what we can say if things didn't go our way. At least we dared..."

"King Zeus, you..."

Zenith is still sobbing uncontrollably when the turbulence finally subsided and we are back in the scarlet skies looking down at a beautiful archipelago that looks like a beautiful pearl necklace strewn in the bloody ocean.

"They say he is a heartless king. But I know better. A king mustn't show weakness and emotions but deep inside, I know he cares for the world and his subjects."

I nodded as I wiped away his tears, "I know, Zenith. I know. Kindness, sympathy, understanding. Three qualities any mortal and immortal ruler must have if they wish for a long, happy reign as my mother once said," I said quietly as Asher barked in agreement, "Before Vivet's empire, kings and queens of old have hard hearts and soft minds without those qualities. That's the reason why strife and wars are neverending to the point of Lord Ares falling in exhaustion and mankind on the verge of self-destruction. However, one petty king ruling a minuscule kingdom at the edge of the Cretonian wilderness bears the qualities your father has, my friend. Soft heart and hard mind. Amidst the neverending war, he and his queen alone remains the beacon of kindness, sympathy, and understanding. So the Heavenly King uplifted him. Granted his descendants a title greater than his in the mortal world. Emperor."

The High Priest finally smiled a little and nodded, "Or so goes the founding history of the Vietan Dynasty as Clite's mother has documented."

Asher barked happily as he and his dogs returned to the buffet room apparently to eat some more.

"Go, Gala, have your fill, father said that we will arrive at the Visayas main island in eight hours," he pointed at the door where our furry companion has disappeared to, "Get some rest, and our priority when we landed there is to find Syden. He said that he is somewhere near the coastlines. Tell Asher to prepare for battle. Our stupid friend is understandably in a very foul mood being left all alone in his devices."

I just nodded in agreement as he went back to the cockpit and close the doors behind him.

Instead of heading to the buffet, I decided to head back to my seat to get some more sleep.

My gut tells me that this will be a lot messier than Asher and Zenith's combined.

But to be perfectly honest?

I think I am not worried that we will meet again the son of the god of stupidity.

Fear.

That's right...

That's what I am feeling right now. Indescribable, illogical, and unreasonable fear that is slowly eating my very consciousness.

We will be lucky if we found him in the same state as when we found the son of the god of lightning.

But if we found Syden when he is in a state like Asher?

Well, even mother is secretly afraid of Koalemos for a reason.

Intelligence and wisdom, the cornerstone of civility, reason and understanding. It can create, produce knowledge and affect those around it, living or not positively.

Stupidity on the other hand?

To call it the complete opposite of everything my mother stands for is not a very accurate description and gross over-simplification of a primal force that is said to be birthed way before mankind was even created.

Way before the concept of logic and reason was existing.

Back when the primordial beings and deities acted solely on their primal instinct and impulses.

Koalemos is more than the good of foolishness and unintelligence.

He is the very god of primality, impulse, and destruction.

The very primordial beings themselves are under his powers' sphere of influence.

And they say that our friend is the best spawn he ever produced in eons.

The one who was capable already of unleashing the full extent of his father's powers way before he entered the Hellenic Citadel.

Morris, Vivet, and Kairos feared him the most of all our classmates.

The most powerful demiurges in our generation and the contraption of the time god himself.

Elpis help us, may her light shine upon our friend as I am now sure that what we will be facing soon is more fearsome and formidable than the swarms of mindless monsters we have defeated before.

Benevolent mother, guide me in this endeavor.

Now, more than ever, wisdom is needed to stave away my dear friend's powers.