Shadows Of The Past

Atalanta was nearing the beach to where they decided to hold their meeting to discuss things about their plan of action. As much as she hated to admit it, she was not near enough to face someone as strong as Herakles by herself.

She should know, she traveled with him on the Argo. Although he kept to himself most of the time, the Great Hero still managed to make an impression not just with her, but with the rest too with his imposing figure alone.

The Huntress was worried the moment that man came with a proposition to join his crew again. It was not because she feared death, but if she died there the moment she refused, then this place would have one less warrior to defend it. Seeing what they were against, every force, no matter how small, was essential to face them.

Although...she sometimes wished that she got stuck with another person other than David. Seriously, what was his damn problem saying that she needed to get laid?! Just because he is a manwhore doesn't mean everybody else has to be too! Doesn't he know the importance of a vow to a Goddess?!

The man of the hour was trailing behind her with an exhausted look on his face. Numerous arrows were stuck in his body, making him look like a porcupine. Surprisingly, there weren't signs of any further damage.

When they got to the beach, however, they were surprised at the sight before them. Their new companion was lazily sleeping on top of a Chimera without a care in the world. They knew that with their recent stunt they had decreased a little of seriousness to the topic, but this was plainly surreal.

Atalanta's eyes narrowed. Her instincts as a huntress were screaming to hunt this beast down, but she held them in. It didn't seem to be hostile, at least not yet. The proof was in her calm demeanor, even when she had a weakened pray on top of her. Though, now that she thinks about it, considering who he is, almost every trace of surprise was becoming nonexistent.

Another thing that caught her attention, certainly less than David who rushed past her like a mad bull, was the white-haired woman sitting next to the monster with a happy smile and swaying from side to side. Another thing to note was the ugly plushie bear she was hugging with fervor. Her eyes must be playing tricks on her because she saw that thing moving.

"Why hello there, my lady. It's a pleasure to meet you! What's your name? What are your hobbies? Can we skip all this and go straight to marrying?" David was quick to kneel in front of the woman and ask a barrage of questions. Atalanta couldn't help but deadpan at this. There was no doubt that men were lost cases.

Much to his dismay, though, she just shook her head with the same smile. "Not happening~! My heart only belongs to darling! In fact, he can take me whenever he wants. Kya~!"

...Atalanta was beginning to think the same thing applied to women.

She wasn't the only one disappointed, though. David was now sulking, and drawing circles on the sand while a smile rain cloud hovered magically above him.

Turning to the sleeping man, she began her questioning. "Any idea who is this hopeless fool for love is and why is she here? I do not recall her being here before."

The answer came from the source herself. "Mou! How can you be so cruel, my huntress?! Even after all that I did for you!" The white-haired woman pouted with inflated cheeks.

"Wha-?! What is the meaning of this?! I am the proud Huntress of Lady Artemis and no one else! To compare yourself, a woman who is rubbing an ugly bear between her breasts, to her...hast thou no shame?!" To say Atalanta was offended and enraged by what she said would be an understatement. If the white-haired woman was trying to make a joke, it was not a funny one.

"Who are you calling ugly?! My darling Orion is the most beautiful thing you will ever see! I can't believe this! When was it that I raised such a heartless monster?" She looked at the sky with obviously fake sadness, completely ignoring the ever-growing anger of the Huntress.

"Enough!" Atalanta practically snapped before turning toward Seth. "Cease this trickery at once, or I will make sure to shoot an arrow straight through your butt!"

Seth slowly opened his eyes and then moved them to look at Atalanta with raised eyebrows. "Language," Was all that he said as he snapped his fingers. Immediately, the figure of the woman dissolved into sand.

"Well, that was wicked," David spoke from the side after having recovered from the previous ordeal. If it was because the black-haired man deceived him or it was because of Atalanta, only he knew.

The green-haired girl folded her arms with an angry glare, she was also snarling at him for that stupid thing he just did.

"Hey, lion girl. As much as I enjoyed your distress, I did it with a purpose in mind. That is what Artemis has been reduced to, believe it or not. I am just preparing you in hopes you don't suffer a mental breakdown when you meet her." Seth stated simply as he closed his eyes again to relax. He would never admit it, but the fur of the Chimera was too comfy.

"As if I would believe that! There is no way Lady Artemis is as thou describe her!" Obviously, she didn't believe a single thing—Not that she expected her to.

"We all have our quirks, you know? Although it is slightly creepy, that's who she is, and I am sure there is a deeper meaning to it, as difficult as it may be to find. Besides, when you want to hunt with a bow you don't go looking for a swordsman. What I mean is, as someone on the same standing as her, I can understand Artemis better than you." His words left no room for refusal, and as much as Atalanta wanted to voice out that he was wrong, she couldn't really deny that he had a point, more so being someone who walked the Earth at the same time that her Goddess did. Though, that brought a question to her mind.

"I have noticed, but thou art not a Servant. How is it possible for you to be alive in this day and age? You should be an old fossil by this point." This matter also intrigued David. He had his misgivings about his identity, but he was not someone to judge a character by just that. That said, he was interested in knowing this miracle, so to speak. It was a well-known fact that Gods couldn't exist in this era. If there was, then the circumstances had to be nothing short of extraordinary and with many restrictions.

"To add to that, I would like to know if you have met God before and if you could talk to me more about him." When he was young, the Shepherd was able to speak to God directly, but as he grew older, he had to rely on others to tell him his words due to some...unsavory incidents. That left him with a bad taste in his mouth. He hoped to comprehend a bit more about the 'man' he dedicated his life to, and what better choice than one who shared his title?

Seth fixed his glasses — for some reason, he felt this would be a common occurrence from now on — and took a moment to think about his answer before eventually speaking. "First of all, I am not old. My age barely exceeds two hundred thousand. As for how I am here, consider this as some sort of Pseudo-Servant experiment. You purposely weaken yourself to the point where the World thinks of you as nothing more than a human, and then slowly but surely you grow into power until you return to your original strength. Think of it as if you were gaining the trust of a wounded animal. You must take your time so it doesn't think of you as a threat."

Now, it was the turn to address David's question. "I have met Yahweh twice. The first time it was a pretty random encounter. He...gave me the chills. Even if he acted indifferently and had a somehow approachable attitude; I couldn't help but feel that guy was a monster. I confirmed that the second time I encountered him."

A sigh escaped his lips. He was so ridiculous that the concept of strength didn't even apply to him. "After I set on a quest to...let's just say stop existing, I went to pretty much every pantheon to find someone that could make that a reality. I started from the bottom and slowly climbed my way to the top. In the middle of it, I remembered the feeling I have gotten from that guy, so I decided to have him do the honors. Sadly for me, he was a slippery bastard."

David's eyebrows twitched at hearing the nickname but otherwise made no further comments. "That was when I got the brilliant idea of going after one of his Angels to get him out of his cave. I could take on any of them at any time, but if it didn't align with my objective, then there was no point."

Atalanta seemed to have immersed in the story as well, so she decided to ask some questions of her own. "Who did you choose then? To...possible kill you?"

Seth smirked at her eagerness to know. At least she was not mad anymore at the little prank he did. "I chose the one who had some similarities to the 'beast' I fought in the past. That Angel was Samael; the Venom of God."

"...Has someone ever told you that you are out of your mind?" The green-haired man knew about some of the crazy things that Seth had done, but come on. No one with that title should ever be provoked. That was clear as day!

"Many times actually. Still, continuing on with the story, I fought him and managed to kill him after some effort. The good, bad back then, thing is that I had some resistance to poison after continuously being bathed by it on my fights with Apophis, so I didn't have to suffer much. Anyway, as you might already know, Angels don't die, or to be more precise, they don't stay dead. I knew Yahweh would turn a blind eye and think of it as a mere child tantrum knowing that he can revive his little pet any time he wanted. That's why I went a bit further to anger him."

"You aren't suggesting what I think you are suggesting, right?" As much as he wanted to believe otherwise, something told him that his fears were true. Atalanta was in the same boat, albeit a little tamer. It wasn't her pantheon the one being spoken of, and she was also a Huntress, to begin with. There was nothing wrong with...eating your pray. Although, she would be lying if she said she didn't have misgivings at doing so with a humanoid figure.

"Yep." He said, popping the p, "Back then I didn't care much about such things. Now I just find it distasteful if that makes you feel better. Moving on, when the old geezer found I have done such 'sacrilege' in his words, he proceeded to beat me so hard that I still remember the pain to this day. Then, don't ask me how, he managed to get Samael out of my stomach. Something straight out of a fairytale I tell you. It was then that I realized how far apart the bastard was from everyone else. I don't know what Hocus Pocus he did, but I couldn't even lift a finger before I was only an inch away from dying. So, to answer your question, he is a damn shut-in dinosaur who likes to wear the appearance of a young-looking man in his twenties."

David was speechless. He couldn't believe these events actually happened, it felt so surreal but at the same time, they weren't that farfetched. He had the urge to say 'Yeah, this is what God would do.' at the moment, so much.

Atalanta, for her part, enjoyed the part where he said he got a beating, but personal tastes aside, there was something that gained a raised eyebrow out of her. "Aren't you doing the same? I mean, thy form is human, but there is no doubt that appearance is fake and less beastly that I would have imagined."

"Most of us are born in human form. We gain beasts' traits later on in life. That's why the representations of our forms are half-human and half-beasts. Anyway, I am kind of a special case as I am the opposite. I exited the woman that birthed me prematurely, so according to my instinct, I searched pieces of beasts to develop what I hadn't previously. You can consider me a Chimera if you want. So, without much choice, I had to develop a human form instead of a beastly one like the rest of my peers. And, if you are wondering why I am so young, that's because ten human years equal to one hundred thousand for us." Seth stated, not troubled about satiating their curiosity. If they were going to work together, then nothing had to be an impediment.

The Huntress felt her eyes softening unconsciously while her hands tightened into fists. "You...your parents abandoned you, didn't they?"

David seemed to have also realized the way he addressed his mother, and could understand the rampaging emotions currently going inside of Atalanta. After all, it was no secret to everyone who knew her story how much pain and rage she felt at parents that abandoned her children.

Seth opened his eyes only to give her an amused look. "Hey, hey. Don't need to go pity mode on me. You kids are too young to be worrying about other people's problems."

"Please...just answer me this. If you do so, I will throw away any doubts I had previously about you. What did they do to you?" Her tone was borderline begging. Even if he was way older than she was, the fact that he was once a kid that suffered through something similar to her prompted to ask that question.

The black-haired man had to roll his eyes at this. 'Great, another one.' His inner voice was dripping with sarcasm. Even so, he decided to humor her so that she dropped the subject quickly.

"Parent A was an asshole who no matter what I did, it was never enough. He practically killed me a couple of times, and blah, blah, blah. Parent B..." When he spoke about his 'father' he didn't have much trouble. He was so-over it at this point that it didn't matter. That didn't diminish his hatred for the old bastard, though. However, when it was time to talk about the thing, the ONLY thing that his 'mother' had done, his words automatically left him. Even he didn't know this was going to happen, and it didn't go unnoticed by the other two.

'...What the hell. Might as well take it out of my chest.' He was sure that something inside of him screamed 'bad idea' at this. He was already forcefully preventing one of the chains guarding the door from breaking, and speaking about this subject might cause another one to follow. Considering the situation of his human vessel that was barely holding on, it was a shitty idea if he ever heard one. Still, when all was said and done, it was now or never.

"She cursed me. In a fit of rage for having torn her sides to escape and preventing her from ever conceiving another child, she cursed me. 'From now on, every woman who bears your child will suffer a miscarriage.' or some shit like that. Lost two to that curse." Even though he said it in a light tone, just thinking about it was enough to make him rampage until there was nothing left. For once, he was glad of the powerless state his body was in. However, he was not the only one who carried that hatred. 'Chaos' was the same too. He awakened from his despair, and that included the death of his two unborn children. It was something that weighed on his mind too. He felt sorry for Anat and Astarte. Remembering their heart-wrenching cries the moment they lost them was something that pained him to this day.

Not long after he finished speaking, Atalanta's Magical Energy spiked tremendously. He's got to admit he had never seen her with an expression of so much hate in her face; not that he had interacted much with her, though.

Much to his misfortune, it wasn't the only thing happening. Just as he predicted, another chain was on the verge of breaking. He had to quickly and strenuously stop that from happening, although it came at the price of coughing blood and aggravating his injured a bit more.

The Huntress mistook it as if it was her own doing and promptly calmed down with her head lowered in shame. After a long-drawn sigh, she looked back at him. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to."

Seth shakily waved his hand dismissively, telling her not to worry and that it wasn't her fault. This managed to calm her down, albeit not so much. His story had hit home, very much so. It was not something she could simply forget and let it go. So, against her better judgment, she decided to ask him one last question. "What are you planning to do with them?"

She purposely didn't refer to them as his parents, knowing that they didn't deserve that title. In his book, that was appreciated. Heh, they started with the wrong foot and now they were tragic-childhood buddies. Oh, the irony.

After recomposing himself and taking some deep breaths, he addressed her with a calm smile that did little to hide his thirst for blood. "Why, kill them of course. As painfully as possible. I have killed my father before, but doing it again doesn't sound so bad."

His words managed to bring a hunter-like smirk to her face, one that she wouldn't show unless the pray was challenging enough to make her give it her all. "I hope you don't mind if I tag along."

David shook his head at their antics but said nothing. To be honest, he was also a little shaken by what the Egyptian God told them. He knew he had it hard growing up, but this...it was something else. 'That goes to show that Humans and Gods aren't that different, I suppose.'

"You would have to get in line, kiddo—" Seth paused what he was about to say, his brows immediately furrowing and his demeanor becoming serious. The other two also noticed this change, prompting them to ask what was the matter.

"It's my group... They have encountered the Argonauts."