...
For some unknowable reason, Kya's father always liked to remain silent at the start of a call. Maybe he was testing the other party's patience, maybe he was sifting through documents and was unaware the call had gone through, or maybe he was trying to decide how to address Kya specifically. He never referred to her as his daughter before but maybe one of these days he would overthink how to speak to her and accidentally do exactly that... Or not, Kya knew better than to expect such a thing. Her father was one of the five heads of the cult of destruction, there was no chance his mind and opinions would deviate from their current path, Family life? When he was a deeply rooted in this cult as he was? Hell he was one of the original founders so the chances were slim. There was a higher chance he was remaining silent just to make Kya feel uncomfortable while reinforcing hierarchy and forcing her to wait patiently for his commands, like dangling a rotten carrot in front of a pig on a treadmill.
"Have you seen the mission outline?" A voice came through the communications device but it was flat, monotone, and cold. Proper emotion and clarity couldn't really be conveyed through the sort of device Kya was using but, honestly, it wouldn't have changed much of anything anyway because this man was just always like this.
"Yes." Kya had a lot to say about this particular request but knew her father wouldn't give a damn about any of that and so didn't bother speaking any more than was necessary to move the conversation along.
"The champion of destruction has appeared and disavowed us publicly. The fundamental organisation saying it without proof was one thing, the man himself saying it is unacceptable. Who we thought would be our greatest ally has become our biggest obstacle and we've become a laughingstock universe over. Our allies', investors, and benefactors' trust in us is shaken and a number of plans for the future need to be thrown out because of this. Cult members in the lower brackets and more detached branches are leaving and now we have a global reputation of petty rabble rousers not backed by any significant power. Without the champion we have no credibility, long term strategy, or future. That's where we are right now according to the rest of the world. It's not entirely true nor is it entirely false. This is not the end of what we fight for but it is a major setback and a serious blow to the achievability of our ultimate goal.
This is where you come in. I've already sent others to the pagoda but most have failed. Some are still en-route and haven't arrived yet, like your sister who is still mid-mission and will pay the pagoda a visit afterwards, but for now we'll be relying primarily on you to sort this mess out. We don't know how determined this 'Ares' is in terms of being opposed to us, and to his own inevitable fate, so we need someone to probe him. Every time anyone we sent mentioned our cult they were decapitated on the spot so we've yet to start any kind of actual conversation with him about the matter. You are different, you can last long enough to have meaningful discussion with him. It will not be easy, tales of his strength are comical but not exaggerated. In fact, I expect you will lose the fight ultimately so don't make that option your priority. You should either convince him, however, possible, to join us or find some sort of weakness. Killing him would force him into a terrible position, as his pagoda clone is single-handedly preventing a great deal of trouble for him off the back of its reputation alone, but I doubt it's possible. In short, utilise your speed, souls, and apotheosis if need be to last as long as possible and establish a rapport with him. If you can get him to let his guard down at all you might be able to make some progress. If you fail, wait in line and try again. You are not permitted to return until you've shown results and accomplished something as this matter takes priority over everything else. The entire cult is all-in on this issue and we've sent countless of ours to try and reach a consensus with Ares. In fact, we're even sending you that. It's been a while since we've granted you authority and access over 'it' but we are playing all of our cards in the hopes of winning Ares over and so the situation has called for it. Should you complete the mission, your reward will be permanent allocation of 'it' to you. Controls will be transferred to you immediately upon returning to the cult. Any questions?"
"... You're giving 'it' back to me?" Kya's control over technology once netted her an extremely powerful treasure that was seized from her by the cult for making her a very real flight risk. The treasure was absurdly powerful and synergised well with her magic and talents so they took it from her and only on the rarest occasions did they let her pilot it. Being allowed to use it for this mission wasn't shocking. being allowed to keep it if she came back with results was unthinkable. Clearly this Ares matter was do or die for the cult her father was understating the impact of it to try and remain dignified. The cult wouldn't die without him but it would stagnate for a long while and really ruin their whole vibe and mojo.
"Yes, that's what I said is it not? However, if you fail to accomplish anything before your sister arrives then I'll be rescinding the reward. You can stay at the pagoda as long as you like, until you're satisfied with what you've managed to accomplish, but if I don't here from you with good news before I do from Lash then you won't be receiving anything."
"I understand." There was a time limit but a decent one as Lash, Kya's sister, was in the middle of ruining an entire planet. That was no small task and required demolition of an economy first and foremost, the stagnation of which would lead to decreased military budget before Lash began her overt offensive. It was a process and one that meant Kya had time on her hands. If she couldn't complete one fo the three goals by the time Lash showed up then she probably never would anyway so this caveat didn't functionally change anything.
"Any further questions?"
"Can I have a file on Ares?" The more the merrier and this was always true of assassination targets. A comprehensive list of talents was ideal but, lacking that, any information whatsoever was preferable to going in blind.
"It's being sent as we speak. We've complied a lot but most of it is second-hand rumours from other pagoda participants. We can't verify it all but the stories we can verify, or those that come from reputable sources, indicate most of what we're sending you should be accurate to some degree at least." As Kya's father spoke, the data in question was transmitted to Kya's device and she scanned it while listening to her father who was once again reminding her to take this matter seriously and execute the task with utmost dedication. Complacency would blah blah blah. Kya was more interested in the absurdities she was reading in the report because none of it sounded real or feasibly possible. Beating Armageddon with a single attack? A merging of revenant and draconic bloodlines to become a mutant race superior to both? A country destroying nuke? Impeccable, 100% pressure enhancement mixed with destruction magic thanks to a unique bloodline? Damaged Ject in the simulation and sent him into hiding by reverse obliterating his Godly magic? Already formed alliances with Gods and became a Brotherhood member after sneaking out of the barrier in a lower domain?
Kya squinted her eyes at the list but it only ever got longer and more ridiculous the further down she went. This wasn't even a human she was dealing with at this point, it was some kind of good-fortune protagonist monster, born with every advantage possible and amassing more with every passing moment. No wonder her father was encouraging her not to engage directly, and to make use of that, she wouldn't last a minute otherwise! The worst part of it too was that Ares came from the domains blocked off by the Primordial Blade barrier so he wouldn't own any sort of technology whatsoever. Most modern cultivators had phones on them at the bare minimum, and that didn't include weaponry with automated functions which was also decently common, and Kya could exploit that... But this guy? He was a damn caveman! If he had a watch, at least, she could use her soul power to sneak onto it, hide, and assassinate him maybe... But then again, maybe not. He was a revenant too! Even if a sneak attack were successful he would just heal it all back up in seconds anyway... What a nightmare. No wonder the destruction cult wanted this guy, they would be insane to ignore him.
"Anything else?"
"No." Kya had everything she needed so the conversation with her father was over.
"Good. 'It' should be arriving in the next ten seconds. I hope the next time you and I speak you'll bring me good news." With those final words, Kya's father ended the call and left Kya sighing to herself in the middle of nowhere. The quiet, abandoned facility was behind her now as she'd walked out of it during the conversation earlier. She was in a grassy area about a mile away from the nearest city and birds were chirping on nearby trees. The place was quaint, cosy, and unassuming. Most people who passed by probably thought this was some sort of industrial ranch but the truth was more sinister than that. Or, well, it had been. Now there really was nothing left.
CRASH
It was in this breezy grassland that a sleek mecha formed a massive crater as it fell from the skylike a blazing purple meteorite. Though its impact was monumental its arrival had been eerily silent, only making itself known when the earth roared and quivered as it was mashed inwards by the weight of the falling object. Kya looked through the kicked up dust at her 'baby', her pride and joy, and couldn't help but smile a bit under her mask. This mecha was small, much smaller than Mako's, and it was probably more of a power-suit if one went over all the technicalities and semantics related to robotics, but if there was one thing Kya knew for sure, with absolute certainty... This thing was fun as fuckto pilot! She giddily hopped and skipped over, disappearing inside the smoky brown cloud of earth, and shortly after a purplish streak was seen racing through the sky and vanishing from this planet altogether. The pagoda wasn't far from here but it didn't really matter, with the help of the mecha Kya would race there in a matter of hours at most as long as it wasn't on the other side of the universe!
Over in the pagoda, a few hours after the previous overlord incident...
"Bust." Ares whined and pulled a strand of hair as he lost to Dominus yet again. He'd managed to get his hands on a deck of cards and played all sorts of games with Dominus but lost often and lost hard. Dominus wasn't just good at blackjack, any game that involved cards seemed to be a forte of his. Apparently him and the rest of the outcasts, Larsh, Tom Tom, Dago, etc, played card games more than pretty much anything else. Board games were common too, and obviously there were Tom Tom's lengthy campaigns, but card games were quick and easy to set up and play while discussing matters that required actual consideration in the background. These games didn't necessitate much thought, unless it was one of the more complex ones with cards that had health and attack values and / or paragraphs of written text on them, so the outcasts had spent probably millions of years playing these kinds of games without even realising it. Ares stood no chance against Dominus, the oldest of the lot and by extension the one with the most expertise, and so was bested multiple times over without fail. of course one couldn't win every single time, luck was also a factor in card games, and so Ares clawed out a couple of victories here and there... But for the most part he was getting his ass beat and, worse still, by the ever talkative and smug Dominus who wouldn't shut up about it! Ares was closer to pulling out his hair because of the insufferable revenant pecking his brain with verbal stupidity than the actual losses! "Did you outcasts do literally anything other than play games all day?! You should call yourselves nerds if anything!"
"Hehehehe." Dominus, an apparition of him anyway, sat opposite Ares and laughed. Thanks to the pagoda clone's boredom, and exploration of matters real Ares hadn't touched on yet because he was busy, clone Ares could summon this ghostly, accurate form of Dominus. He was still stuck in his red samurai armor but he could interact with the world much better than the real blood clot Dominus could. He had a form that wasn't completely insignificant so clone Dominus was actually doing better than his real counterpart right now. Of course this also had a lot to do with the clone 'reaching' bloodline awakening first so it wouldn't take Ares, the real one, long to get to this point from now on. Plus, when the memories were synced later on, real Ares would have the blueprint for how to accomplish this and need only implement the changes the clone had already paved the path for. Real Ares would probably work on this matter when he arrived back at the sect and had some down time but Dominus, in general, was a work in progress and wasn't any of his immediate concerns. Anywho, right now, clone Dominus was gloating and enjoying his win. "Don't be jealous. I bet you wish you could just sit around with your family and play games all day too."
"Tsk, you're not wrong asshole... Speaking of family, what about yours? I'm not talking about your wives, I mean like brothers and sisters and parents and what not. You mentioned your parents briefly but never really said much beyond that."
Dominus shrugged. "Not much to say. No brothers, no sisters, don't know my uncles or aunts, so basically only have two parents. My father, Loki, was a evolution of a wolf of some sort, one of a kind and could shapeshift, and my mother was a phoenix. Phoenixes don't usually intermingle with other races but my father tricked her by transforming into one. She still loved him after learning the truth but he was banished by the other phoenixes who couldn't accept the relationship. I was born of it and never really saw either of them. I couldn't enter the land of phoenixes and my father... Is a bit of a wanderer. That's a polite way of calling him a no show. He looked after me for a while but then just kinda dumped me in the middle of nowhere and told me to 'go explore the world or whatever'. I think he genuinely tried to be a good parent for as long as possible but, uh, my mother would have definitely done a better job if she were permitted to leave the land of phoenixes. She'd probably peck my dad's brain out if she knew how quickly he ran away. They aren't bad folk, just different. My dad's whimsical and lackadaisical at the same time, somehow, and my mother... Well I don't really know much about her so I can't say. Again, not much to talk about."
"Ah, fair. You want me, the real me, to try and find them for you? Shouldn't be too hard to track down your father with the help of Transmit and as for your mother... Well real me will find a way of getting into the land of phenixes, I'm sure. I mean, dragons are the only other race permitted entry and I'm technically one right? It might require some politicking with the dragons, to become an envoy temporarily, but I'm sure I could make it happen as I'm fairly confident the dragons will want to talk to me at some point regarding my racial traits and bloodline... If push comes to shove I can do a bit of brute forcing and fight my way into the land of phoenixes too..." Ares was mid thought when...
BANG
SPLAT
Ares' head was blown clean off and the stump of his neck spurted blood like a gory fountain. contrary to the suddenness of the incident, Dominus simply dealt another hand to both himself and the headless corpse opposite him. Ares' body tilted and swayed but didn't fall over, instead it picked up the two cards and... Well it couldn't exactly see what he'd been given because he had no eyes! The headless body turned the cards around so Dominus so could seen them and make a decision on his behalf. Dominus made Ares fold at twenty while he went digging for a potential twenty one but the deck of cards was soon blasted into smithereens by the same thing that blown Ares head to pieces. Dominus shook his head and disappeared, seeping into Ares body like a wisp of smoke because he knew when he was a third wheel. Evidently, this new pagoda challenger was here for Ares and so he would take a back seat for now. Speaking of Ares, his head had regenerated completely and he wasn't happy! He was about to beat Dominus, he was sure of it! Curse this new intruder! Still, though, he hadn't noticed their arrival so they were clearly quite the talented foe and needed to be taken at least a little more seriously than the other clowns that popped up here and there.
BANG
Ares ducked, in the nick of time, and avoided a large shell that flew behind him and annihilated a row of houses, blasting through them all like they were made of paper. He lifted his head, activated Omniscience and divine sense, and peered into the distance, extremely far away, at least a good few miles, and eventually located his attacker. It was night time but the moon directly behind them illuminated their form and he could see clearly weaponised menace entirely. A sleek, complex power suit with multiple moving parts stood from its crouched position and lifted a long range, heavy rifle over its shoulder. The mecha was about eight feet tall, pure black with light purple, almost pinkish lights near its power core and eye sections, a knight-like armet helmet with a two downward slants at the front near the chin and forehead sections, two upstanding antennas on the head that housed Kya's wings, and a stormy cape that crackled with the same purple-pinkish glow as the core. The cape wrapped around the back and side of the mecha's thin neck and rested on its broader shoulders like a bold-shoulder style jacket and the simplicity of it contrasted with the form of the mecha's frame which was littered with hundreds of midpoints between segments of metal. The suit was designed with functionality in mind so its many parts were connected by light, neon orange wiring around the edges and so it looked more like thousands of pieces of metal strung together than a complete product in and of itself. That's not to say it looked cheap, quite the opposite, this thing would have been manufactured at great cost by many skilled labourers and experts in this particular filed of magical engineering. The design was smooth and wasn't drastically different from anything humanoid aside from the shape of the helmet but, more importantly, it looked dangerous. Like a silent assassin, locked on to its target in perpetuity, keeping a low profile even when stood tall, and ready to strike at any given moment from any given range with any type of given weaponry. Mako's mecha was bigger, bulkier, and a brutish powerhouse. This one was the poison on a blade, the knife in a back, or the bullet fired from another region unnoticed until it claimed its kill. Evidently firing from that range required some effort on the mecha's end as it was letting of pinkish embers that looked like miniature shooting stars as a form of ventilation. To be able to hit a target and kill it instantly from the range this person was at was the most impressive thing Ares had seen along these lines basically ever. The magical engineering behind this mecha was worth studying and this person piloting it was worth talking to which, funnily enough, happened to be what they wanted too.
Ares Shifted right behind the distant mecha and greeted them. Kya, startled she could be reached in such instantaneous fashion, activated her jet propulsion systems and Bullet Danced about a mile away from her original spot in a second flat. Unfortunately, Ares was already waiting for her there too and she was realising she'd seriously underestimated this freak. Forget the mecha, even this wasn't enough. It had more tools at its disposal but there was no world in which any of it was enough to subdue this monster, apotheosising was mandatory. Kya was about to undergo the deification process when she was stopped by Ares waving his hands with a wry smile and asking her to "Wait! Wait!" She was hesitant but knew from the data she was given that Ares had a habit of killing people immediately if he didn't want to deal with them. If the records were true then he wasn't going to attack her... Yet... The second she mentioned she was from the cult... That might change.
"Why are you here? You don't look like a journalist, you aren't an ally, close friend, or family member, and you don't seem interesting in testing your strength relative to mine or you would have gone about this fight differently..." The latter group of people tended to start off with their weaker methods and work their way up slowly, if Ares gave them the time to, but Kya came in guns-a-blazing and tried to outright assassinate him. It was to no avail, and it seemed like there was room for her to become a bigger threat, but Ares knew she wasn't that type of person because her actions didn't align with that sort of personality or reason for being here. Kya acknowledged that Ares wasn't being aggressive so she disembarked from the mecha and stored it away for now, revealing herself to Ares who blinked multiple times. He'd been unaware that the big mecha housed a relatively small, female aevysquall inside it. The difference between the two was quite striking and so he was momentarily taken aback.
"I'm..." Kya had to choose her words carefully." ... A captive of the cult of destruction." It was illogical to state as such, she didn't look like one and she seemed powerful enough to break free if she wanted, but Ares didn't kill her on the spot so he was at least playing along for now. Kya breathed a sigh of relief and decided the best policy was honesty. She explained her position and predicament and Ares seemed to take a great deal of interest, surprisingly. Kya didn't know this but Enyo was almost identical to her in terms of their faither's expectations. granted Enyo's father wanted her to do 'good' and Kya's wanted her to do 'bad' but the underlying premise of expectations was fundamentally no different. Regardless, she seemed to have been able to find a way of talking to Ares without getting blown up so that was a step ahead of everyone who came before her if nothing else. By the end of her speech, Ares stopped nodding along, contemplated for a moment, reached his hand out, and pet her on the head.
"Cute." Ares gave a broad smile and closed his eyes as his hand snuck underneath Kya's hood and gently pat her wings. He didn't see Kya as a threat, a monster of the destruction cult who was hell bent on ruining everything, all he saw was a tiny, trapped bird puffing up their chest and being moody because they didn't get much attention. Ares reckoned Kya had never talked half as much in her entire life as she did jsut now to him about her situation and he felt a bit of pity for her even if only because he recognised Enyo in her to some degree. Kya was stunned on the spot, however, as the only other person to give her and her wings head pats was her sister. Was this a breach of personal space? Should she shoo him off? Call him a creep? It was hard to tell because he seemed to have no ill will towards her and she still technically needed to win him over to get her mecha back for good... Also she didn't hate it...She lowered her face and blushed a little but Ares didn't notice because he was just happy to be petting something soft again after so long. The clone didn't get to see Appa after all. "Ok, how about this... I'll help you make sure you mission is successful even if, in reality, it isn't."
"... You mean?" Kya looked up at Ares as he retracted his hand with a glint of hope in her eyes.
"I can't let you beat me... But the other two options are maybe possible to lie about with my own co-operation..." Ares grinned as ideas flowed through his brain. The one that stuck out, to him though, was... "I 'love you'." Kya's eyes widened and her heart beat at an increased rate as she fidgeted about but Ares ignored that and kept talking. "Not really, of course. That's just a convenient cover. My weakness is my family and those close to me. I would do anything for them and if one of them were in danger I would, therefore, be at my weakest. you were told to get me on side by any means necessary right? Stay here with me for a while and, later, contact your father and tell him you made me fall for you. You have no experience with men so say it was an accident and that I found you cute because I'm a lecherous man or whatever. Even if your father doesn't think a relationship will convince me to join the cult he can blackmail me later with your safety because I 'care' about you to some extent. Of course you can't tell him this right now, there's no way he'll believe i fell for you that quickly, but if you, again, stay here and just relax for a while it will seem more convincing. Your father will want you to try and foster a deeper relationship with me and use your charms to lure me to the cult and, if that fails, he'll just 'kidnap' you. That second option can't happen for a while, though, because I'm not in the outside world yet so blackmailing would be impossible and pointless. You'll succeed in your mission, be given a higher position in the cult due to your important relationship with me, get to come here to pagoda frequently instead of going on missions you don't want to, get your robot back, and catch a break for once. Not bad, eh?"
Kya calmed down and analysed this plan objectively and, actually, it really was brilliant. Her father would absolutely utilise a relationship in such a way if he knew of it. Kya was a tool and if Ares' affection, real or otherwise, could be leveraged against him... H would do it in a heartbeat and ever look back. As for the kidnapping and blackmailing, that would only happen much later and Kya planned to run away by then anyway. She would be much stronger than she was now, and maybe be able to garner support from Ares' allies down the line depending on how things went, so this was a purely win-win scenario. At worst she wound up in house arrest and Ares admitted it was all a lie, in which case Kya couldn't even be killed she would just never be given freedom ever again and nothing would change, but at best she could escape this life for good while also enjoying a short term reprieve from the cult. Turns out, Ares smarts were underestimated heavily because of his 'stupid smile' that had become somewhat iconic of him. He was seen as annoying revenant but there was some wiles behind that mask that weren't being appreciated as much as they should be. he knew how powerful people operated and how to exploit them, that was for sure. Kya actually didn't mind staying here with him for a while, he seemed like a nice enough man and thew fact he was willing to help a complete stranger meant he was at least ideologically completely opposed to the cult too. Admittedly, she assumed he would be a terrible person what with being the embodiment of destruction and all. Turns out, not at all. He was nice... Really nice. Nice enough that a part of Kya wanted to maybe stay with him after leaving the cult. Not as a romantic partner, that thought wasn't in her mind just yet, but if he had a clan or sect she could maybe ask him to join it later...
Ares and Kya would go on to chat pleasantly for a long while and certain feelings would eventually blossom but for now there was only budding friendship and closeness. Ares, having more experience with relationships, had an inkling he knew where this was headed, and by the time he contacted real Ares again he felt pretty sure of it, but he wasn't going to rush anything for now. For now he would just keep 'innocently' petting the bird and having her warm up to him, helping her find a place she felt like she could belong and someone who could understand her and listen to her whenever she had something to say. She was opening up for the first time in her life and Ares knew it was important to be there for her while she did. For once, she could be normal and express herself and her feelings about her past without being reprimanded for 'misunderstanding' it.
'Acceptance' was a particularly apt term for what she felt.