A romantic slayer of gods
After Athena's gift, Noriko's brain doesn't need sleep anymore; since it's powered independently from the rest of her body, theoretically it can work forever.
Her body and her mind are another story, which is why she's fallen asleep on the golden throne of the Twin Dragon, the mothership stolen from Demeter.
She wakes up suddenly when something crashes into the ship so hard that Noriko falls from the throne. She's still half asleep when she hears Max:
Max disappears for a second, turning into x-rays and leaving the ship.
Kari answers, pointing at the screen.
Deck 7
Talas Khanos is sitting in his prison, waiting. He's so freakishly tall that he can look Noriko in the eye when she's standing up.
Khanos answers, keeping his tone as neutral as possible.
Talas Khanos laughs, exuding arrogance and condescension.
The thin giant and the teenage girl look at each other, understanding that neither will admit that the other one knows a lot more than is willing to share.
Bridge
Vesta is hunched over one of the control panels, trying to make sense of the situation. Ancient Olympian is her native language, so she can read perfectly the words the computer is writing. She just doesn't know what they actually mean.
Torn comments.
Vest and Max look at Noriko with a puzzled expression. She corrects herself, used as she is now to think in metric like most of the world.
<2.6 million miles. Max can get there in four hours, but he can't bring any of us with him.>
Vesta boasts.
Noriko says, smirking.
Triton, Neptune's largest moon
With its surface covered by frozen nitrogen, this is the coldest place in the solar system at minus 400°F. The atmosphere is so thin here that the sound of the Twin Dragon's landing is little more than a whisper.
Vesta steps out of the airlock wearing her signature orange tube top and pants; even she feels a chill when her bare feet touch the nitrogen ice.
She takes a deep breath, and flames start to erupt from the icy wasteland. A ring of fire surrounds the Twin Dragon, keeping it at a slightly cozier minus 100°F.
Noriko wipes the frozen moisture from the window with the sleeve of her horribly green leather jacket. She snaps a picture with her N-Phone.
Noriko ignores him, talking instead to the N-Phone and looking at the hatch.
Outside, on the surface of the frozen moon, red chains made of interlocked curved knives appear out of nothing, securing the escape pod. Vesta grabs the chains, carefully avoiding any sharp edge, and starts to float.
She gains altitude, ignoring the gravity that tries to keep her down, and quickly rises over Triton's feeble atmosphere. She takes a good look at Neptune, wondering if she'll ever see her brother Poseidon again. But her mind is on Earth now.
She once considered her exile on that planet as a badge of shame, but now she can't wait to see her home once again.
The escape pod isn't comfortable. There is limited space, which is why Max is traveling besides it in his radio wave form. Noriko is sharing the pod with two persons who have never seen Earth before. Then finally Torn, of all people, decides to break the ice.
Noriko recalls.
Torn raises an eyebrow. Given the past weeks, Noriko knows it's the full range of his facial expressions.
The awkward silence returns. None of the three people inside the escape pod have much to say for almost a minute.
Noriko answers, looking out of the window.
They're already way past Neptune, and all she can see are thousands of stars. Many of which, she now knows, are the personal property of genocidal gods.