They took him to a temple over which the sky was curiously dark, threatening a thunderstorm, which never came. As a result, there was very little light inside the temple; a jagged crack ran through the pedestal on which the marble statue stood inside the temple, as if made by a lightning strike. The statue, by itself, was very intriguing to the Master.

For he had never, in his past universe, come in contact with any ancient art that depicted godly beings; he had not known much of art and had not cared much for it. But now though, his views had changed, and changed a lot regarding that issue. Why exactly, is a story for a different place and a different time. Suffice it to say, that he had never before seen any physical rendering of the body of Jupiter, the Roman King of the Gods, and hence was very much interested in what he saw, rather than awestruck.

For the statue was anything but just a marble illusion of the real being; behind the marble, flowing white beard cascading down his chest, and strong, muscular arms holding a thunderbolt to a face which was devoid of emotions yet had a turbulence underneath, there was something which the Master saw. Maybe it was the eyes that played the trick upon him; the apparently lifeless eyes which shone to him as orbs of paradoxical balancing of lust and power and justice-more mercurial than mercury himself, yet more steadfast than Apollo's truth, the balancer of destinies, and, as the Master remembered, the one who chose Achilles over Hector yet doomed both. Another memory flashed through the Master's mind: of a twelve-year-old boy standing, coated in dust and grime, in a dark, half-lit chamber and looking up at another statue, large, tall, imposing, yet ridiculous in the revealed frailty behind its imposing outlook. The Master did not lock the memory away immediately; but savoured it, and found what he had been looking for: there was always a parallel of a promise of hidden violence, in both cases. He decided, then and there, that he had to be more careful with the King of the Gods than he had been with the God's most temperamental daughter.

The sentries who had been assigned to him, he saw, were definitely unnerved by his staring at the statue, and was fidgeting, possibly looking for someone. Though they did not find that someone before the Master himself did.

By squinting a bit hard, he could see a solid mass of shadow under the pedestal of the statue moving, like the shadow of a flitting light. He moved to the shadow, and kneeled down.

A young man sat there, head bent over his work. He had dirty golden hair, and was a sickly looking fellow; he was utterly unremarkable, but only for the fact that he had a teddy bear in his hands, as well as a sharp, hunting knife, and was using the latter on the former with an amazing dexterity, the Master noted. In fact, the young man seemed to almost have a penchant for torture; even as the Master watched, the man tore off neatly the last remaining leg of the bear, and then gutted it, and opened a long gash from chest to belly, and expertly brought out the wool and stuff inside, and threw them on a nondescript fire, the Master for the first time saw, was burning by his side.

As the Master kneeled to observe the man quietly, the man startled, and stopped his work. He decided to throw the teddy bear into the fire itself, and returned the Master's emerald gaze with his cold blue ones.

"The Gods haven't told me of your arrival." He simply said.

"Neither have they told me. Who are you? And why do you worship Jupiter by stuffing teddy bear entrails into fire?" the reply came.

The young man was unperturbed by the jab; he simply said, "They are not supposed to speak with you-obviously they would not tell you. And I don't wish to sacrifice teddy bears to Jupiter if I can help it. We do not have an abundance of humans, and I daresay I wouldn't find many who would consent to having their entrails cut out and burnt in front of them, even if it be for an empire."

The Master replied, "Very true. But you are in New Rome, which is not an empire, as Rome by itself was not, in absence of its conquered states. Also, I doubt the Gods wouldn't want to speak to me. A Goddess herself only compared that for me the night before the last."

The young man sighed rather dramatically. "I suppose. Ah. Forgive me for not introducing myself sooner. My name is Octavian. I am the augur of New Rome: I read the destinies which awaits them at the end of their path. But I cannot see you in the fumes, apart from a single warning from the Gods."

"What is that warning?" The Master asked.

The man told him. The Master turned his head and shook it once a bit, and then went on his way, throwing the words at Octavian: "Tell them not to fear me as long as I do not start to fear them first. I will know more from you, Octavian. Thank you."

As he left, Octavian watched him shrewdly, and decided he would keep an eye on this one for the time being.

It was only when it was time for him to go, that he understood that he had quite forgotten to question him what his name meant.

Ah, that could be done another time, he thought, and turned to the flames and tried to decode the message again.

It was the same reply.

Fear him, just in case.

(line break)

"Don't you three have names?" The Master enquired of his escorts, or rather, guards. They eyed each other nervously for a moment before the girl behind him told him, "I'm Centurion Susan, of the second cohort."

She was tall and heavily built, and had cut her hair short, and had her mouth set in a most determined expression which conveyed the clear warning to the Master for her to be taken seriously; the Master simply nodded and raised his eyebrows at the two other men to his sides. None of them gave their names, but eyed him nervously. The Master understood the subtle message: he was an unknown danger to them, and they would treat him as such. Well, he would have to make do with what he knew until then.

It was only when he passed the small, scowling, pale boy did he detect something enough to stop him in his tracks, as he whirled round, and directly addressed the boy.

"You are familiar with the realms of death, yet still are very much in the living." He merely said. The boy immediately replaced his heavy scowl with a look of black anger and yet confusion: The Master noticed how one hand of his immediately slipped to the hilt of the black sword he carried and held it stiffly, as the boy said, no, not said, but demanded in a low voice,

"Who are you? How do you know?"

The Master gazed at him for a while, and then simply raised his hands-the black sword disentangled itself from the boy's fingers, and floated straight to him-and he caught it by the sharp edge of the blade, and cut his hand on it, trails of red travelling across the black sword now.

"Interesting." The Master murmured. "This sword knows both death and the promise of it-nothing borne of mortal metal can break this one. I have never seen something of this like death-so twisted into an instrument of killing-after all, why need an instrument to kill when a gesture can do it? Take this back, Nico di Angelo."

It was only when the sword had floated back to him, and Nico had grasped it firmly, did he digest what the Master had just said. "Wait!" he turned around. "How do you know my name? Who told you? Tell me!" He yelled.

"I have seen into your heart, Nico di Angelo, and while I must admit that I was very intrigued by what I saw, still, you could do a bit better than blaming yourself for something obviously you never had the power to influence into happening or stopping from happening, and would never have. Oh, and it is most hopeless. Shift onto greener pastures, Nico di Angelo, before you get yourself hurt more." The man continued on.

Nico was aghast, beyond fury. He couldn't believe himself-all the years of carrying around a heavy burden like that, endangering his life to protect another, always misunderstood, and now this stranger comes along and destroys all privacy and secrecy of his very mind and presumes to advise him to shift onto greener pastures? Even as Nico struggled to contain his fury, his power did not-and as a result, the three slack-mouthed guards were the first ever witness of the incident of ground breaking in New Rome and a skeleton emerging with a rusted sword in hand. Nico was beyond horrified himself-what had he done! He ordered the skeleton back immediately-but something was blocking the way. What? Who? Father? Why was Pluto doing this? Did the God want to kick Nico out of New Rome or what?

But there was still surprises to be given, it seemed. The man simply looked mildly entertained, and glanced at Nico's trembling hand, and said as if he was discussing the weather-"Oh, don't hurt yourself over it, kiddo. How is your immortal father going to get his skeletons back without the ground choosing to not give way?" And with that mysterious remark, the stranger strode, and dodging a blow from the skeleton, reached out and touched a rib. In front of Nico's very eyes, the skeleton turned to dust, dust that mysteriously flew into the stranger, who now kneeled on the ground and surveyed the hard surface. "Don't you guys have an immortal being for the earth too?" He asked.

"Yeah-Gaia." Nico said, watching the man carefully. The man's bemused expression didn't change-he simply sighed, and stood up, and walked away, with the three dumbfounded guards following him.

(line break)

"Praetor Reyna." The words were spoken as soon as Reyna had entered her apartment and had thrown down her heavy armour and spear-and she immediately picked her knife from her belt and threw it at the voice-for no one was supposed to be in her room without her knowledge and all those under her knew well to stay apart from her private quarters, and she wasn't a woman who gave second chances. She was quite suspicious that the man who was captured today was there, and somehow knew in her heart that the knife couldn't hurt him. But surprising her, a silver blur dashed past her, and before she knew it, her own knife that she had thrown was at her throat, its flat edge pressing onto the skin, her hands held behind her by another hand, and the kick she readied behind her was brutally beaten back.

"I like your readiness, Praetor Reyna." A soft, female voice spoke at her ear, and then pushed her a little hard, enough for her to narrowly avoid falling on her face. She immediately whirled around in a half-sitting position, but fell back with shock, to see who her accoster was.

As long hair like a stream of fire was swept back, a pale, smooth, slightly cruel, yet uneasy face, with silver eyes and a heavy frown, stooped down towards her. The woman clicked her fingers, and her silver clothing changed to dark green, almost black, that melded her perfectly with the gloom.

"That was too conspicuous, I see." The woman said in a smooth voice.

"L-Lady Diana." The Praetor said in an uneasy voice-none disliked her in New Rome, but none loved her for fear of being on the wrong end of her wrath for doing just that. She had no worshippers-hadn't asked for any; and she had never visited them before-it usually didn't bode well for them when a divine being who had never visited them before visited suddenly.

"Praetor, today at morning, you found a man on the banks of the Tiber, and encircled him. It seems he impersonated several gods, and you decided to bring him in. He supposedly went to the temple of Jupiter and met your augur, and had a run in with the son of Pluto here-and then had vanished. I need you to take me to him."

Soon, the apartment Reyna had marked for her supposed captive had its door blasted open, and Diana entered cautiously, with bow and arrow at the ready and the arrow notched-but it was all in vain. The apartment had never been entered that day. Diana closed her eyes and took a breath. When she opened it, she knew. The Master, if that was what he called himself, had, for some reason, decided to vanish from New Rome.

"Who is he? Is he a God we haven't heard about before?" Reyna asked in a tight voice. Diana surveyed her a bit, and then said,

"No. He is not a God. He is a wanted entity-and Olympus has ordered me to look for him. I am his huntress, and he is my prey. Send out all your sniffers and scouts-I want a hundred miles all around New Rome scanned for him. Contact all your ex-citizens in cities throughout the country-I'll have to see what I can do by myself. Do not, except my explicit orders, allow anybody who resembles him to ever enter New Rome again."

"Wait! He-he killed a river serpent we have only read about in the mythical books-something not fifty of us can kill together! Why are monsters like the river serpents coming back-what's happening? We need to know-we need to stay on alert!" Reyna shouted at Diana, who was already moving away.

Diana gave her a long, hard stare. "A river serpent? I certainly didn't hear of this one. Still, this doesn't change anything. Girl, be pleased that atleast you've read about river serpents. We have never heard of any being like him, and certainly do not like what we see. The orders remain the same. Find him if he is within a hundred miles of here-and do not let him enter New Rome of his own volition except extracting an oath from him to not to harm anyone here or either New Rome. But do not, engage him if you see him. The "Master" is my hunt, and I will tolerate no interference here."