Chapter 38 - Someday you're gonna wake up

The little Olympian was quite gullible, or perhaps too simple for his own good. A pretty face, a bit of a smile and a copious amount of wine unlocked his lips. Perhaps a bit too well. And even if her teacher enjoyed the embarrassing tales, the Olympian known as Ares, told her about Aphrodite and several others, she would have gladly forgotten all of them. The Olympians were just strange.

But the gossip was not what Hecate was after. No, her dear teacher wanted to know the current state of affairs on Olympus, in order, to come up with plans for the future and revenge. And of course, with the right questions, she, as her teacher's mouthpiece asked, Ares told her everything and more.

Her teacher explained, that Olympians seemed to be more divided than they were during her time. Which was good, because this way, they could be picked one by one, eventually.

Ares also revealed, that there was apparently some kind of a monster, that could easily hurt one of the Olympians and that he would have loved to fight it. Hecate noted, that they should try to find this monster in the future.

But even the Olympian-slaying monster was not the most shocking thing, the drunken Olympian revealed. Apparently, there was somewhere an undivided Primordial. The Primordial was also not that far away, but a special means would have to be taken to reach him. Which of course Ares also spilled out.

All of this, sounded too well to be true and not a trap. Thus, she and her teacher took all possible precautions in confirming Ares's statements. And surprisingly, he was not lying about anything.

As such her master decided the Olympian's fate, by eating his body.

"Are we going to look for the monster now, my teacher?" Medea asked, trying to predict her teacher's next move.

"No, my dear student, we are going to stay here," Hecate answered.

"But shouldn't we be on the move to avoid Olympian retaliation?" she was surprised, by her teacher not wanting to leave the city.

"Hush, my beloved student! I've been empowered by the Olympian body. It was quite a hearty meal. Now there is nothing the Olympians are willing to send my way, that could hurt me. No, my student, I want them to send more offerings my way," her teacher said with a toothy grin.

"Why?" she could understand that her teacher would love to have more things to snack on, that were not just humans, but being under constant threat from the Olympus was the exact opposite of what her teacher initially wanted.

"Oh, my dear Medea, I once, a very long time ago, got a taste of divided Primordial. There is nothing in this world or any other, that would be even remotely as ecstatically delicious as it. Now, imagine what an undivided Primordial would taste like," her teacher said

"And in order, to eat the primordial you need to get stronger. That is why we are staying here," she contemplated what was, her teacher's possible course of action.

"Brilliant!" Hecate praised her.

The point was for her to find a secure place, where she could at least temporarily hide her and her brother's core. Which was proving to be harder than she originally even though possible. No wonder that of all of the places, that were under Olympian control, it was only Olympus and the Underworld where their cores could be hidden safely. So, for the moment, both cores she stole, remained on her person.

Not that she was planning to keep her brother's core for so long, but the idiot must have done something stupid because she was unable to reach him. He probably got into some fight, or he got drunk, either way, Ares was not responding.

For a moment, a thought occurred to her, that perhaps her brother was just so unlucky and actually found the Golden Fleece, he was searching for. But his chances to do so, were so miniscule, that he would have to be particularly unfortunate to encounter it.

And then her brother's core shone in gold. Initially, she thought that he might have finally gotten sober and was now contacting her, but that was not the case, since the core would not stop shining and blinking.

"That idiot!" she cursed.

Why shouldn't she? Her brother got himself killed after all. More specifically, his body was destroyed and he was now in a panic trying to catch her attention.

Not even a moment later, the gold turned slightly reddish, and the blinking of the light intensified. Ares must have registered that his sister called him an idiot, and was now berating her for it. Too bad for him though, since she decided to pocket her brother's core, ignoring his swearing.

Of course, this new circumstance did change her plans, since she now needed to revive her brother's body. Which would be very hard to achieve, because she lacked a steady supply of ichor, which was needed for an Olympian, like herself and her brother, to reform their bodies.

Given that Olympus was not an option anymore, and the Underworld was inaccessible to her, this left her with only a single option of where to obtain the golden fluid needed for her brother's revival - the garden island of Crete. The place, where was the Talos, an automaton constructed by Hephaestus and powered by the ichor. The gods' blood, she so needed for her brother.

Getting on the garden island was surprisingly easy. She might have been unable to just teleport here, since that would give her away, and Zeus was not quite keen on others poking into his pastime projects, but a simple disguise and a bit of manipulation, allowed her to sail to the island of Crete without any problems.

Once there, the hunt for Talos started. It might have been a big, or even giant, but given that it was always on the move and how large the island was, while she also was unable to use most of her powers, in order, to stay hidden from detection, finding the artificial giant would not be so easy.

Hours did pass, and she still was not closer to figuring out, where on the island the colossus could be. Perhaps it was possible, that as it was moving, she was just moving in the wrong direction, thus always missing it. Of course, she would have to eventually encounter it, since it was circling around the island.

And then she realized, how stupid she was. Of course, she would have already encountered Talos, if she stayed on the coast since it was supposed to go around the whole island three times a day. Did she catch her brother's stupidity?

No, it was not possible for Ares's idiocy to be contagious. Unless of course her brother was intentionally made stupid. But that would be that their father made him as such.

"Curse you, Zeus!" she uttered under her breath, for her father was the absolute worst.

Either way, she now had to find a good place, where she could catch Talos away from the sighs of humans and then secretly attach her brother's core, so he could regenerate.

Several hours later, Eris lay in wait for the colossus until it finally appeared from behind the rocks. She did not expect it to be so agile, because of its size. But the titanic automaton was striding with grace, not unlike her own. Hephaestus was sure really good at his job.

But she had no time to think of Talos's creator right now, as she could not miss the precise timing, which was required for her to be able to attach Ares's core to the automaton, unnoticed. Jumping from the cliff, she landed on its thigh. Quickly looking for the next gripping spot, she climbed swiftly upwards. Swiftly for humans, since she had to suppress most of her Olympian's powers to avoid detection.

Only because of that, the colossus paid her no mind. But it did not have to, since its movement alone was making it hard for her not to fall. The thing was damn fast!

After several more meters of climbing upwards, she reached Talos's nape, a place from which she felt ichor the closest to the surface of the titan. There she attacked her brother's core, so he could regenerate his body. The tiny sphere was still blinking angrily with red light.

Apparently, he was being considered an offspring of a local deity, which technically was not wrong, since he seems used this individual's blood to reborn himself as a human, or more specifically in a demigod-like body. Moreover, this individual was the half-spider half-woman monster that hurt Athena, which then somehow resulted in the destruction of his original body. If he ever meets her, he should probably thank this Arachne.

But for now, he was kind of busy being a baby, literally. And it was starting to get annoying. How in the world did humans manage to stay sane, when they were growing up so slowly and could barely do anything? The inability to invent things was driving him insane - he did not expect that to happen.

At least there was something entertaining to watch when a group of warrior women came to the island. At first, he thought them to be the Amazonians, but that was soon disproven since they originated from this island. Still, all of them were uncanny, since they carried themselves with inhuman grace, always ready to strike.

Not that some of the people, on the island weren't also slightly off, but he, as a presumed human infant did not come into contact with that many people. The only reason he saw these women was the fact that they came directly to his human mother, who happened to be the queen of Lemnos.

But he did notice something peculiar about these returnees. They all had a medallion of unknown material somewhere on their person. Observing it, was a highlight of his current human life, so far. This was where being apparently "cute" came in handy, as he was able to examine the medallion with his own tiny hands.

And what he found stunned him. The outer shell of the medallion was soft, silky and flexible, yet incredibly strong. No material, and he knew many, could possibly have all of these qualities at the same time, there were always some compromises. How much he wanted to get his mitts on it! If only he was not so little.

Yet, the real surprise was hiding inside. The medallion had a highly viscous core, which he would have considered solid if he only possessed the strength of the human child, but as a factual demigod, he was able to discern, that the core of the medallion was, in fact, a liquid. The only liquid with these qualities was the same thing that the Olympians used as a circulation fluid in their bodies. Which was hard to contain long term, since it was made to evaporate.

Regrettably, he was just a baby, and as such it would take years before he could do properly anything. The only thing for him to do nowadays was to make different blueprints in his mind in preparation for the day he finally grows up. He could not wait fast enough.

Yet, several weeks later, that day, when he finally grows up, would have to come rather sooner than later because he detected someone manipulating Talos, where his core was secretly hidden. This was not good. He quite did not anticipate such a situation to happen. The island of Crete was his father's little garden project and everyone was made known, that they should keep their hands off of it. But apparently, someone decided not to listen to Zeus. He was sure that it must have been Ares, no one else was stupid enough to try something similar.

And of course, if it was indeed Ares, who was poking Talos, then he could damage it to the point, where his own core would be exposed. And if that happened, and Ares did not though the tiny sphere to be some form of food, and realized that it was, in fact, an Olympian core, he could bring it to their father, or worse, destroy it.

He could not allow that, besides the obvious self-preservation, he also did enjoy his newfound freedom, even if he was still a human infant and thus was unable to fully explore his freedom. He had no intention to return to being a glorified punching bag. Clearly, he would have to retrieve the core, but how would he achieve it?

His mind racing, coming up with different solutions, faster than any human could possibly comprehend, he concluded, that as a tiny human, there was nothing for him to do. He might have been considered a child of a local deity, but even if he forced himself to talk, it would be greatly limited by his still undeveloped vocal cords and motor functions. So, there existed a great risk of him not being able to relay the intended information properly. And if humans misinterpreted his request, it could end up disastrously, in so many ways.

But after panicking for a bit, he realized that there was indeed a solution to his problem. All he had to do was to grow up, at least somewhat, in order, to have a decent ability to explain his intentions.

Under normal circumstances, it would be outright impossible for a human offspring to age several years in the manner of moments, unless someone decided to do a less ethical experiment on humans. But since his current body was more of a demigod than human, then he would be able to use the ichor, which the many warrior women on the island carried in their medallions, to hasten his growth.

And so he did it since he could not waste time, while someone was dangerously close to his core on the island of Crete.

"Target activity, detected!"

"Recalculating, optimizing route..."

"Mobility, unavailable..."

"Enacting countermeasure..."

"Kronus core, Overdrive!"

*CRACK*