First of all to Lady Sonora the Black-Rose, thanks for the nice words!

Now Hera enters on her most dangerous mission so far. And I've also added a short guest-appearence of a Norse god - Odin, here with his original name - Oden.

Entering the city of Titans

There is something interesting in with what war does to people. Of course it maims and hurts both the bodies and souls, but it causes other things too. Fighting side by side brings people close. And after saving each others lives countless of times in various raids and battles Neario and I found that we were falling in love.

I don't really know how it started, I only knew that after an attack against a Chronite troop encampment we found usselves kissing like madmen. Drenched in blood we were standing in the pouring rain among the smoking ruins of the Chronite training camp and kissing and caressing like school kids after a spring ball. After letting go to catch breath we were staring in surprise at each other. "How did that happen".

Discovering Neario was one of the greatest adventures in my life during these years. Much more exciting than the tedious and tiring handicraft war often is, whatever all these "wanna-be-heroes"- veterans say.

Neario was multi-levelled to say the least. Being from the Santori he was one of the last real aristocrats. Beneath the warrior was the poet and beneath him was the lover, hiding a little playful boy with a wicked sense of humour. His tongue could cause burning sensations at various body parts of mine as well as create everything from inspiring speeches to crazy puns. And what a singer he was! His dark voice could handle both romantic standards and aggro-inspiring war-songs.

Neario also taught me that I was beautyful. He wrote poetry about my eyes and about my laughter, praised my legs and hands and told me how he loved the colour of my hair. He kissed my lips and breasts and told me again and again how he treassured them. All this until my last piece of self-insecurity melted away. He taught me to look at myself in the mirror in a new way - and to see a beautyful woman instead of a plain-looking teenager.

And the love-making part! Sensational to say the least. He was so tender, so sweet, soothing, calming after a terror-painted raid. And he could also be heating for a frosen soul. Like burning ice. Like melting fire. Moments to treasure. Moments that made this whole war business bearable.

Most of the raidings we did during these years were rather uninteresting out of a strategic perspective, although they could have been great action movies if someone had been there with a camera. If cameras were invented back then of course. But there were some notable things that made it into the history books. One of these was the destruction of the MIMER.

Two years after my first encounter with Zeus (he came back later now and then, but mostly to see the officers. I believe I only spoke to him twice or three times over that period, once to offer him Nectar.) Hestia arrived into Uroka with a little band of what she referred to as hackers. They were young godlings, only in their early teens. Well, I was still 19 so I wasn't that much older. And they called themselves hackers because they were marvellous at breaking into the enemy's computers.

And out of their abilities together with our war skills the idea of taking down the MIMER was born. MIMER was - if you don't know - the central intelligence computer, located somewhere in Titanopolis. That computer held all the valuable information the Chronites needed to fight their war against us, including the presumed genetical coding of "The Usurper" which was their name for Zeus.

Daelona and Jujo went off as forerunners to gather intelligence, like blueprints over the CTIO - Chronite-Titanic Intelligence Office - including the location of the MIMER. I was the one selected for the job, and together with me I would bring two of the hackers: Aniersa and Oden.
- Be careful, Hera! said Neario and kissed me.
- I will. And you too.

Three days later we were in Titanopolis. These days that city was a gloomy and depressing place littered with ugly monumental architecture. Gray, gothic concrete castles, broad esplanades lined with hawk crowned colonnas, big windy plazas with enormous Chronos statues. And lurking over the city - The Great Hall of the Titans.

Gee - I still shiver when I think of that building with its huge dome. It represented all and everything we wanted to get rid of. Or - as Zeus used to say: the five T:s. Titans, Tyranny, Terror, Torture and Titans. Yeah - Titans twice. Zeus's idea of humour. All of the city breathed and lived Titan Force. Not in any way like the colourful happy-go-lucky party town that is Mychenae of today. So don't complain if you think it's tacky. You don't know what this town has been through and what it is still revolting against.

We were staying under cover in a colourless hotel. I as Juno Jaleeza again and the two youths went as my children. (Weird to have children only five years younger than yourself.) The whole town smelled of fright and you felt like there were spying eyes everywhere. So we talked little and showed less of our abilities.

Next day we sought up the CTIO building. Another creepy concrete complex. Getting in was easy while following the rules Jujo had provided us with. Fake ID:s proved us as collar workers in the CTIO. And Oden with his odd gray hair colour could almost pass for a Titan. A tiny and slender one all right, but still a Titan. Later on I learned that Okeanos, his father, was actually a half-Titan.

Locating the MIMER was harder. It was not in the blueprint. But Aniersa had an odd ability, being able to trace the tracks of huge amounts of data being processed. An ability I have never encountered later. So we followed her through the building, trying not to look as lost as we felt.

I had expected the MIMER to be located in the basement. Such a huge computer must take up a whole hall and weigh tons. (To put things into perspective I must point out that the MIMER possessed less memory than the palm pilots of today, but back in the Titan era it was considered a marvel). But the Titans were crafty construction engineers, you must give them that, even if their aesthetic abilities left a lot to wish, and the MIMER was actually located high up in the building.

As we did not trust the elevators (too easy to get caught in) there were a lot of stairs to climb. And Aniersa, the brain on legs, was not made for physical labours, so I ended up carrying her up the last dozen of flights. Even Oden was pallid when we reached the level where the MIMER was located.

Less than ten minutes later I found myself in a big hall with a monstrous machine.
- Looks like nothing I've seen before, said Aniersa.
- Yeah, that wouldn't be easy to hack, answered Oden.
- Well, we better not stand here staring at it, Aniersa told her comrade. We won't get in that way. C'mon let's hack and make Hestia proud of us. That's what we came for, right?

I sat down and watched while the two 14 years olds went on trying to break into the MIMER. At first it looked like they were succeeding. But then someone somewhere must have made some kind of mistake, because things were starting to behave strange.
- Chaos! Aniersa sounded worried. There's a hardware lock. And it's being programmed to self-destructing things.
- Let it self-destruct, I urged the teens. That's what we came for, wasn't it? Destroying the MIMER.

-That's not what's gonna happen, said Oden. It's only gonna destroy the access points. The core will remain, inaccessible to us. So when the Titans have repaired the access points they will be able to harvest an undamaged core.
- Let's prevent that from happening then, I said. Can you do that?
- We can always try, answered Aniersa. But we have to hurry, there has probably been some alarm going off somewhere.
- Screw the alarms, said Oden. Let's blast the thing! By that he started to hammer on a keyboard.

- No, Chaos! you are doing everything wrong! screamed Aniersa. That's not the way to... At that very moment there was a short cut. A beam of light flashed from a place near where Aniersa was standing, past Oden and hit the opposite wall, where it blew a big hole in the wall. The room filled with smoke and now audible alarms went off even on this level. Faith! We had screwed up big time!

Aniersa was lying on the floor, lifeless eyes staring up in the ceiling (or into eternity). There was no life-energy around her anymore. She was dead. I wished her soul a safe travel through the hyperdimensions to the Beyond. That was the only thing I could do at that moment. Oden on the other hand was alive. But barely. Half of his face was blown off and he had burn damages on his chest and left arm. But there was a faint flickering of life inside him. The MIMER was destroyed though. In that burning wreckage there could be no data to retrieve.

I realised that we had to be out of here like yesterday. The hyperadrenaline that started to flow through my body made Oden feel light as a feather while I grabbed him in my arms and lifted him over my shoulder. Then I ran out of the room and through the long corridor the same way we had come. Behind me I heard commands being shouted. The Titans were coming. And probably Chronites too. I decided I needed a diversion. Holding on to Oden I ran through the great panoramic window ahead of me, shattering glass as I went. There was a fall of 50 floors below me, but I turned in mid-air and entered the CTIO the same way I had left. Instead I opened up the nearest door, and hid myself in a minor office chamber.

The Titans bought my trick. They might be strong and tough, but they have never been the biggest brains on the planet. That's why their race was doomed from the start anyway, when the new Homo Sapiens came along. 16 angry security staffers ran up to the window. And among these there were five with levitation abilities, who followed my false trace out of the window. At the same time I did my best to mask mine and Oden's energy patterns where we were hiding.

The rest was a kind of an anti-climax. I left the same way I had entered, rendering Oden invisible and even wishing the security guard a happy evening. He wanted to know what all the mayhem was about, why the alarm had went off at floor 53.
- I have no idea to be honest, I answered. I have more than enough work with minding my own business.

The next day I was back home among my own again. Oden was really bad off though. Demeter managed to heal most of him. But she told us:
- There is something wrong with the boys regenerating abilities. I can't get his left eye to rebuild.
- But at least he is alive, Kaoran said.
- There's more than that, said Demeter. There is something stuck in his brain. An alien core of something.

- Chaos, you're right, said Kaoran after piercing into the teenagers mind. It's - it's data! Megabytes of information.
- How did that get there? asked Demeter. I retold the accident with the MIMER and offered my conclusion. Somehow data had been transferred through that electric flash and into Oden's brain.
- But that's impossible, was Kaoran's reaction.
- Not really, said Demeter. The brain communicates through tiny electric sparks and in theory information can be transferred through to brains via electricity. Like some technical version of mindspeak or even telepathy. That might've been what happened to Oden.

- So some of the information from the MIMER is actually relocated into the boys brain? said Anzoura.
- That's probably the case, answered Demeter. But in what shape it is and if it's retainable is more than we can know now. We must wait until he regains consciousness again.
- And that will take...
- Maybe a day, maybe more. It depends on the status of his brain.

It turned out that we had to wait 25 hours before Oden was back up again. But I was right, information from the MIMER was stuck in the hackers brain. Nothing we could find use for though, it was mostly medical information concerning the human body and also maps over the Central Continent and the Northern Peninsula. And Oden was so burned-out and confused that he had to be taken out of active duty, and I never heard much of him anymore during the war. Later on, when he regained his strength, he left the Order and travelled up north. And years later I heard that he had somehow managed to get his odd abilities under control and actually managed to form his own pantheon - the Valhall - on the rubbles of the fallen Asgard.

But I was back in the arms of my dear Neario and we made love and traded stories throughout the night. And when the first lights of dawn started to shine through the mirrored light shaft I finally fell asleep in the arms of my love.