With more than a little help from Serenity’s built-in GPS, they found Red’s residence. It was a surprisingly normal-looking suburban house. Serenity had expected it to be done in the stereotypical “southwestern” style since it was in Nevada, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was an ordinary one-story building; there was brick about halfway up, to the bottom of the windows. Above that, it was painted white, and the roof was a pale gray.
It was a very bland house, not at all like Red herself.
There was no car out front, so Serenity wasn’t certain if they were there or not. He shrugged to himself and rang the doorbell.
A surprised-looking Red opened the door. “Serenity? I wasn’t expecting you.”
Serenity smiled sheepishly. He’d deliberately not called ahead because he wasn’t sure what to say; he hadn’t wanted to talk about the curse, since it seemed to be driving Phoebe’s behavior. He should have made something up and called anyway. “I probably should have called ahead. Is Phoebe -”
“That fucking asshole.”
Serenity swung around to look at Helios. Swearing was not something he’d expected. “What?”
“That two-timing thief decided to impersonate me. Make anyone else blame me for his actions. You said there were more? Get out here, in the sunlight, I need to get a better look at you.” Helios shone brightly in the sunlight, obviously having lost control of his aura in his fury. It felt strange to Serenity; it wasn’t particularly strong, but it felt both hot and bright.
Red glanced from Helios to Serenity and back. It didn’t take long for her to reach a decision and grab Serenity’s arm, trying to pull him into the house. “It should be safe in here, it’s warded.”
Serenity didn’t move. She wasn’t strong enough to budge him unless she caught him by surprise. “Please come out? He’s not angry at you, and he probably does need to see you in the sunlight. It’s … it’s connected to Phoebe’s issues with Jacob.”
Mentioning Jacob was true, because they were pretty sure that problem was connected to the curse. It wasn’t everything, but it was at least true.
Red raised her eyebrows at Serenity, then squinted at Helios. “Not until he calms down.”
Serenity turned towards Helios, who seemed to be impatiently waiting. “Can you at least get control of your aura?”
Helios stared at Serenity for a moment, then turned and threw what looked like a series of plasma bolts at the sky. He didn’t say anything, but bolt after bolt ran from his hands, leaving a haze of heat and a faint scorched smell.
Serenity watched as Helios vented his irritation at the sky. He couldn’t even really call it fury; it was too controlled. It was strange; he couldn’t immediately identify a Tier or even Tier range for Helios. As a deity, he ought to be at least Tier Ten, and his movement ability did seem to be around that grade, moving on sunlight. The attack ability he was using, however, was far weaker.
Helios’s aura was strange. It didn’t feel all that strong. It was filled with the elements he was connected to, but without the bite that meant danger. Serenity wasn’t certain if that was Helios’s fault or his own; he hadn’t actually felt an aura that made him feel endangered since he became Serenity. Perhaps he was looking for something more than he should, at his Tier.
Red walked up beside Serenity and put a hand on his shoulder. “So what’s really going on here?”
“We had a bet,” Serenity answered without turning to look at Red. “He lost. He’s supposed to take care of the curse that - well, you know about Jacob. As for why Helios is attacking the sky…” Serenity trailed off, unsure how to answer the question.
“He’s angry and he has the self control of a teenager even though he obviously isn’t one.” Red didn’t bother to speak quietly. “I expect he does whatever he wants to and doesn’t pay attention to what other people think. Not that unusual in the powerful, really, though I’m not sure I’ve met anyone else as powerful as that.”
She had a point. Even though those bolts weren’t individually all that powerful, Helios had thrown a lot of them. Serenity shifted his sight to watch the mana flows. “He draws power from the sunlight.”
They watched until Helios finally cooled down and turned to them. “Step forward. Yes, all the way into the sunlight.”
Red followed Helios’s directions, though Serenity noticed that she waited for him to nod first.
Helios paced around Red, looking at her, then muttered something under his breath. “Hidden unless you know to look, but once you do it’s not all that well hidden. This is old. Was it a trap? A trick? A hidden landmine, definitely. Good thing he never triggered it. Must have been placed soon before the War.”
Helios made a gesture and Red started to glow slightly to ordinary vision; to Serenity’s mana sight, it was even more obvious. He could see the construction of the outer “blessing”.
Serenity shifted to Essence Sight and saw a very different story. The “blessing” was threaded with essence, but with whatever Helios had done, there were large gaps in it where something dark shone from underneath.
“Hmm. Linked, interesting. There’s an unlinking trigger, I wouldn’t have expected that. Did he want a way to cut people off individually? It looks like it, but why? How many of you are there?” Helios did something else. His eyes began to glow and he simply stood there, staring at Red.
Serenity stepped closer, but didn’t say anything. Helios was looking at something, and Serenity knew better than to interrupt a mage during a spell. Even if he wasn’t spellcasting, breaking his concentration could be painful.
“Hundreds. Maybe thousands. How can there be that many?” Helios muttered, then turned to look at Serenity. “Did you know?”
There was light gathering around one of Helios’s hands. Serenity expected that it was a spell, but he wasn’t certain what it was for. Something to deal with the curse on Red, maybe?
“Know what? About the curse? It’s a bloodline curse, I know that much. I didn’t know there were that many people affected. I was guessing maybe a dozen.” Serenity wasn’t sure what difference it made. Sure, it was a difference of scale, but that just meant you had to prepare for it.
Helios nodded. He glanced over at Red, then back at Serenity. He seemed to start to say something, but instead of speaking he lunged at Serenity, moving almost as quickly as he had on the sunbeam. Serenity started to try to get out of the way, but he was caught by surprise and simply couldn’t move that quickly to begin with. Helios’s hand smacked into Serenity’s chest, discharging the spell he’d spent time building while he distracted Serenity.
[Heat Resistance increased]
“Red, run!” Serenity shouted without taking his eyes off his opponent. Serenity wasn’t certain what Helios was up to, but he was far sturdier than Red and had a far better chance of dealing with him. Even if he was a confusing former deity.
The increased heat resistance told Serenity the attack was more powerful than anything he’d seen in a long time, but he didn’t really need it to know. It had penetrated his armor-self in front, literally searing away part of his armor-body. There was a ring of pain surrounding an area that didn’t feel anything in the middle of his chest; Serenity could feel that the heat had made it all the way to his back armor, though he could tell that it wasn’t destroyed.
He supposed he should be grateful he was still standing; he had no idea what that spell was, but to get through his resistance it had to be ridiculously powerful.
Serenity pulled his dagger set to himself from the other side of his Rift; for all that he was armored, he hadn’t been expecting combat. He quickly duplicated a dagger and stabbed the duplicate at Helios, but he wasn’t fast enough.
The world was suddenly darker as a giant shadow appeared above them, blocking the sunlight then streaming down into Helios’s body, covering him in darkness. Helios writhed and seemed to be trying to scream, but no sound came out; the glow he was still emitting suddenly vanished.
Helios was now made of shadows and darkness instead of light.
Serenity plunged the duplicate dagger into Helios’s chest anyway. He wasn’t certain how long he’d be standing, and waiting to see if this was a new attack from Helios or perhaps a counter from the curse wasn’t productive. Helios attacked Serenity without warning; Serenity couldn’t afford to wait and see what he did next. Not if he could do an attack that burned through Serenity’s Heat Resistance in a single blow.
Helios didn’t seem to react to the first stab, so Serenity stabbed again. This time, Helios seemed to crack into pieces, like a piece of broken glass. Light streamed out of the cracks as shards of Helios’s body fell to the ground and dissipated.
The light seemed to target Serenity. He couldn’t see any headed in any other direction.
His chest hurt even more as the hot light hit it, but it was quickly obvious that it wasn’t exactly an attack; at first, it even felt good as his mana and essence pools filled; he always ached in the low-magic environment of Earth. Once there was no more room there, the bright magic seemed to try to work its way into his flesh.
It hurt. Serenity knew he wasn’t feeling it all, either; Pain Resistance was doing its job. He wasn’t sure what to do with it, so he shoved his Rift of Potential between himself and the light.
The pain stopped. Some of the light still made its way to him, but it was little enough that he could cope.
The light show lasted less than a minute, but it seemed far longer. Moments after it ended, the shadow dimming the air around Serenity and Red vanished, leaving them in ordinary sunlight that seemed almost pallid after the light show.
Serenity dismissed the Rift and stared at what he could see past where it had protected him. Helios was completely gone. “What happened?”
Serenity didn’t expect an answer, but he got one anyway.
[Helios deliberately violated the terms he had agreed to by attacking one of Rissa Latimer’s allies]
“Why did he do that? He seemed willing to help, but then he just turned and attacked me.” Serenity shook his head. He simply didn’t understand people sometimes.
“He said something about not losing a bet to a dead man,” Red replied. “Didn’t you hear that?”
Serenity shook his head. “I must have missed it.”
The world seemed to shiver a bit. Serenity really wasn’t feeling well; Helios must have hit something important. His healing would take care of it, but he’d rather be sitting while it happened. He turned to face Red, about to suggest heading inside, when he was interrupted by some very unusual notices.
The Lord of Sol has Fallen.
Only one Planetary body in the Solar System is currently claimed.
Solar System ownership reverts to the only inhabited planet, Sol 3, also known as Terra or Earth.
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Never back someone into a corner with no options. Helios said removing a curse would temporarily weaken him. Removing thousands would have crippled him if not outright killed him.
That could be the reason. Without knowing what Helios was thinking ... well, Serenity will never know. He certainly had no idea there were that many affected.