The rest of the car ride home was fairly uneventful. I should have known that my mom would be completely fine with me getting into a fight, but it was a little weird still. I think she wanted me to actually show an interest in something other than a video game and to her, fighting was an interest and not a bad habit like other, normal parents. She eventually pulled into the garage under our house and parked, shutting off the car.
"Well, it's getting late, so I am going to go to bed, I think." She yawned a little and cleared her throat, the muscles in her neck flexing. "Good night, sweetie." She said before kissing me on the forehead then heading upstairs out of the garage and to her bedroom to the left. I looked around at the cars for a little while before heading upstairs to the living room. I headed upstairs to my room and found the login screen for MythoMagic Online on my computer monitor.
"I wonder if they're still on…" I said, sitting down in my desk chair and quickly signing into my account, I entered the game as Petrocles and waited for it to load up as I kicked off my shoes, tossing them to the corner of my room. I yawned a little and when my character came into the picture. He was still dead and Prixius and Agatha were standing around him. I heard the faint hum of talking from my headset next to my keyboard and with a little sigh I slipped my headset over my head.
"…Completely stupid. We're trying to whittle down the numbers, Bradley. Why would you expend seventy percent of your endurance to go up against a bunch of hellhounds?"
"They're buffs, Hayden. I can deal more damage and take more damage when I'm fully buffed."
"No, Bradley. You're going to die anyway. That's the point. We're killing time for Peter to come back and draw agro and then we'll finish this godsforsaken dungeon."
"Time is about the only thing you're killing." I said with a chuckle. "How'd you guys rez?"
"Well, I had enough money to bring myself back and then I sold some enchanted weapons and stuff to bring Agatha back and then some."
"Then we took turns fighting the skeleton warriors." Hayden cleared her throat. "We haven't really gotten much done."
"Well, let's rock this dungeon then." I said with a nod. I quickly rezzed Petrocles and rode my Pegasus back to the dungeon entrance.
"Where'd you go?" Hayden asked after a moment once I caught up with them.
"Oh, my mom had me go to a football game." I said with a sigh. "I never really know why."
"It's Spring. Football is in Fall." Hayden said, pausing a moment to direct her character into another group of Skeletons.
"My school doesn't have sports teams, but the community, if you can call it that, started a club team, so their kids can still get scholarships. It makes our sports schedules a little backwards."
"When did it start?"
"Six-thirty, I think."
"Well, unless one team didn't show up, why are you here?" Bradley asked.
"I just…I got into a fight, so I came home early."
"You got into a fight? Like…a fight, fight?"
"No, it was a battle of rhetoric. It was so graphic that we were sent home early."
"…really?"
"No, Bradley. I punched a guy in the face and then he pushed me onto the field and it was…a bit of a mess." I sighed a little bit and grabbed my cup to find it empty. I sighed again then turned back to the screen. For some reason I found myself thinking about the fight. Not the fight itself, but what happened afterward. Where I put
"Hayden is Agatha's draught up?" Bradley asked, breaking me out of my thoughts
"Is your health low again, Bradley?" Hayden said with a sigh. "You're wearing armor, right? And using weapons? Prixius isn't just prancing in there and bashing the skeleton warriors shields with his face?"
"I caught some agro. Leave me alone." There was a pause for a long moment when Hayden finally cleared her throat.
"Peter? Nothing?" I shook myself again and finished off the last warrior with a shield bash.
"Sorry. Just…thinking about something." I said quietly.
"You don't have to apologize."
"Shush. You okay, Peter?"
"Yeah. I just…had something weird happen at the football game." I said, taking a deep breath. "It's probably nothing. I just kind of…burned this guy."
"So, it was an argument."
"Don't be stupid, Bradley." I said, rolling my eyes. "No, I seriously burned him. His hand. He held my by the throat and I grabbed his hand and I got really angry and then…I burned him. I don't know how."
"Do you mean burned burned him? Like hot fire melt skin blister heat burn?"
"Yeah! I don't know. He let me go and backed away. He was covering it, but I could tell his hand was burned."
"Are you okay?" Hayden asked. The game had been pretty much placed on the side at this point.
"Sure. I'm fine. Surprisingly, I think I won that fight." I said with a laugh. "I just don't know how if I should be going to school tomorrow or if I should be research exorcism rituals."
"Could be witchcraft." Bradley said. "Or demon possession. Maybe, just random combustion."
"I was going to make an appearance-hot joke, but you just kind of sucked the fun out of the room, Bradley."
"Maybe, you're a demigod. Like in the game!" Bradley said with a laugh. "Hephaestus or Ares. Control of fire usually goes to those two."
"Well, I highly doubt that."
"What do you know about your dad?" Hayden asked, but I didn't really have an answer. Ever since I found out that my dad was 'not in the picture' I didn't really care to know anything about him. My mom had offered to tell me how she met him, but I just really didn't care to hear it. The information genuinely had no appeal to me. I had spent 14 years living with my mother. I accepted it a long time ago.
"Umm…Nothing." I said quietly.
"Well, the odds that he's an Ancient Greek deity are virtually non-existent anyway." I nodded a little, but the talk of my father had got me thinking.
"Hey, you know, I think I'm going to go to bed. We can pick this up tomorrow, yeah?"
"Good night, Peter." They said. I logged off and put my headset on my keyboard. I took a moment and shut down my computer then pushed my chair away from my desk. I stood then changed into a pair of athletic shorts then got into bed. As I laid in bed, I battled with my head to let me fall asleep, but it wasn't easy. I was in bed for about an hour before I fell asleep.
The next morning was just like any other. I woke up, got dressed, slipped on a pair of triforce Vans, then headed downstairs for my typical morning pleasantries and cereal combination. My mom wasn't sitting at the counter like she usually was, but she'd probably be down soon. I couldn't drive. I walked to the cabinet and poured myself a bowl of Shredded Wheat. I walked to the fridge and grabbed the milk, stretching a little as I returned to my bowl.
"You know, typically the old person in the family eats that cereal." I finished pouring the milk and looked up as my mom walked into the room. "I really just buy it so that our cabinet looks somewhat intelligent." I shrugged and grabbed a spoon out of the drawer then sat down on the opposite counter next to the fridge.
"I don't mind it. It doesn't really turn into a giant clump of marshmallow and mush when you pour milk on it." I said, taking a bite. My mom walked over to the cabinet and retrieved the Lucky Charms. "I see you feel differently." I said with a chuckle.
"Well someone has to eat the good cereal." She said before stepping toward me and kissing me on the forehead. "Good morning, by the way."
"Morning." I responded, smiling at her a moment. There was a long pause as I ate my cereal. It wasn't awkward or anything, but it was definitely there. I was about half-done with my cereal when I set my bowl down and looked at my mother. I had my dad on my mind from last night and school was useless if I didn't take care of it now. Not that it was very useful anyway. "Mom, tell me about my dad." I said with a sigh. She looked up at me a little surprised and took a sip of orange juice to wash down her cereal.
"Well," she started, clearing her throat. "It was the night after my fight with Theresa Hernandez. I lost in the scorecards, but I won that fight. Anyways, I was young and so I was really angry. I went to a bar and that's when I met Tim." She smiled a little at first, like she was remembering a fond memory, but her face soon turned sour. "He was a really big guy. Built like a mountain. He had a head of fiery red hair and he was incredibly imposing, but there was just something about him. I wasn't sure if I should have run away or bowed in his honor. Well, he sat in the corner and I was at the bar when a bunch of guys came up to me and started taunting me." She took a deep breath and took another sip of orange juice. "They were giving me grief for losing the match and one of them was really mad because I apparently lost him some money."
"I'm so sorry, mom." I said quietly. I had only seen my mother as the woman she is now and trying to imagine her differently was hard for me, but she didn't deserve that kind of ridicule. She smiled a little.
"Thanks, kid, but that's not where it ends. Well, I was starting to get pretty steamed and so I uh…I punched the guy in the face. Pretty hard. Well, that's when all hell broke loose. Apparently this guy had a lot of friends in this bar, so a bit of a fight broke out."
"What, and you got in a fight with my dad?" She laughed and shook her head.
"Quite the opposite. He got on my side. We cleared out the bar. Quite literally, actually. It was just us and rubble that was left. I remember that he had this…incredible bright orange classic thunderbolt and we both got in and we just took off. He said his name was Tim and that's as far as we got when we were back to my hotel room. You probably know what happened next, but he was gone when I woke up in the morning." She said with a nod. I just stared at her for a few moments.
"I…was not expecting that." I said with a small chuckle. "I uh…"
"What were you expecting?"
"And you're sure he's my father?" She nodded and I laughed quietly again. "I don't know. I don't know what I was expecting. Not some roving biker vagrant who randomly beats up people and has sex with boxers."
"Hey, be nice." She said with a bit of a laugh. "When you say it like that…" She said, blushing a little bit. I laughed again and looked up at the clock. I had to go to school soon. I stood up off the counter and poured my bowl I the sink and washed my hands. "Is it that time already?" I nodded and she finished off her orange juice. "Alrighty. You grab your bag. I'm going to get dressed. Meet me back here in 5 minutes?" She said with a smile. I nodded again and headed for the stairs. "Peter?" I looked back. "Thanks."
"No problem, mom." I said before hurrying over and hugging her. She hugged me back and after a second we broke apart and I headed upstairs.
