Chapter 7
The burning object in the sky had been seen by many people on the ground. Only a few however saw the place where it had come down to Earth.
Most of them were scared by it. They thought of it as a bad omen, a sign of coming doom. Some were praying to their gods to protect them. Of course, what few of them knew was that most of their gods were already dead.
But in some of them, another feeling awoke: curiosity.
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Among the ones who had seen it and were tempted to investigate it, were also Xena, Hercules and the others.
"Xena, what is that?" Gabrielle asked, her eyes attentively investigating the night sky.
"I don´t know," she answered. "We will find out, eventually. But not right now, we'd better wait till the morning. And by the way, we were on the way to visit your family after all, so I maybe we should spare this for the next day."
xxxxxx
They were starring at her. Both of them, Lila and Sarah were looking at Gabrielle´s double, who she had claimed to be her daughter. Just a short time before they had already enthusiastically greeted Hercules and Iolaus- an unprecedented chance to meet two legendary heroes like them. Hope´s presence on the other hand was something of a shock.
For Lila it was not the first time that they met. It had however been under less than favorable circumstances. In all honesty, Gabrielle´s daughter scared her, but also fascinated her.
"Yes, we have met before," she said.
"We did," Hope confirmed. "In fact, I lived here for a few months. Of course everybody thought I was mother, back then."
"Yes we believed that and then you threatened us and tried to kill us," Lila replied.
"Kill you? No, not really, you are my family after all."
"You tried to throw me off a bridge," she responded angrily.
"If I wanted to throw you off a bridge, Aunt Lila, I would have just done it," Hope said casually. "I left you instead in a position for Xena to reach you. I never had any real intention to hurt you, I just wanted an distraction for Xena."
Gabrielle´s sister felt her jaw drop at the callous words of her `niece´, as she talked about how she had once, seemingly without a second thought, endangered her life.
"I am sorry Lila," Gabrielle told her. "Hope had never been much under normal people."
"That much is clear," she replied.
At this point Eve got involved into the conversation.
"Hope has really changed," she said. "Okay, she is acting somewhat strange sometimes, but she has really proven herself."
This statement only earned her a sharp look from the half-god. As she herself saw it, Hope had not actually changed much characterwise. She had merely changed her loyalties. But when she remembered everything that had happened in the last months, maybe she had changed to some degree, she admitted to herself.
"Like you did," Sarah replied, "or me," she added a bit quieter. "Like Eve once said, you are in good company here."
Lila´s daughter so far didn't get involved their conversation at all, till now.
Hope had already heard about her cousin. Years ago she had been kidnapped by the warlord and slave-master Gurkhan, who had also killed Gabrielle´s parents as they a short time later tried to get Sarah back. He had made her a part of his harem as one of his wives. That was in this case only a glorifying name for a slave-concubine.
When she was part of the harem, Sarah had developed a simple strategy to survive, to become more nasty and more ruthless than any of her competition. In that way, she became Gurkhan´s head-wife. In that role she mistreated the other `wives´, she ordered torture on many of them who had crossed her and without a doubt she got rid of some of them, if they turned out to be dangerous rivals.
This continued until Xena and Gabrielle finally freed her three years ago. Sarah was a murderer. Of course she could not be compared to any of the others here, by far not. But she herself seemed to think that she was. Hope could feel the guilt eating at her mind. Sarah didn´t let it show, but it was there, deep down.
"If you excuse me mother," she said, turning to Lila, "I still have a few things to do."
"Of course," her mother replied while the young woman left quickly the room.
Gabrielle kept looking pensively at her as she left a bit hurriedly the room. It was obvious that she was feeling uneasy around Hope and around Eve. Maybe they reminded her too much of her own past.
"My `dear cousin´ and Eve have something in common," she commented quietly to Gabrielle, "they both hate themselves."
"And what about you Hope?" she replied.
The half-god didn´t answer.
"Mother, what I said about Xena..."
"Yes?"
"Don´t expect me to stop."
"You know it hurts me when you speak about her like that," Gabrielle told her.
"I know, that is the reason I do it," she replied.
"You will never stop being angry at me, will you?" Gabrielle sighed.
"No and I will never stop reminding it to you." she smiled. "You see, I will always be there for you."
xxxxxxx
Several miles away
He was trying to move, as quickly as possible. Where was he? he asked himself.
He was back on planet Earth, that much was clear, but where exactly, he wasn´t sure. The landscape seemed somewhat familiar to him, but he couldn´t quite place his finger on it.
The last thing he remembered was how he had shot his energy at the machines of the space-station.
He remembered fire….The station had been destroyed, he was sure of that.
Afterwards, he wasn´t quite sure what happened. And now he was here. The station must have crashed over this place, he realized, wherever that was. But they had been dozens of light-years away from any habitable world.
That meant they had to have jumped through hyperspace, in a vessel that was breaking apart. It was no wonder that he felt so miserable. Every mortal being in his place would have been killed.
Ares could tell that he was disoriented. He was moving, as quickly as possible. He didn´t have the strength left to teleport. So he was walking. His body was hurting with every step. The damage he had taken was too much, even for a god. It was far more than just physical harm. But he knew he had to move on, as quickly as possible.
He could feel them, several presences that he knew. But it was impossible. Some of them had not been around for thousands of years.
Hercules? …It was impossible, he had seen him die. Had his brother somehow survived the explosion of the station? He also felt the presence of two certain individuals with connection to higher powers, Eve and Hope. But that was even more unlikely.
Unless...unless he was not longer in the same world. Was he dead, was this some sort of afterlife? He doubted that.
Or he was no longer in his own time and space. Was that possible?
Was Xena also there? he asked himself. He reached out with super-natural senses. Yes, he could make out someone else, touched by darkness, aggressive, but somehow restrained. It could be her. Ares remembered, her essence had been just like that, at least after Dahak brought her back from the dead.
He had to reach them, as quickly as he could. The crash...he feared that he was not the only one who had survived.
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Potidaea
"So this is the place?" Hope asked.
They were standing at a place a short distance outside of the town, close to the woods.
"Yes, it is right here," Gabrielle answered, gesturing to a point on the ground.
This was the place where they had buried the Destroyer many years ago…. The small mound of earth above the unmarked grave had long vanished.
Hope knelt down in front of it.
"You know he only killed out of hunger…He needed to feed" she said to Gabrielle. "He didn´t really care what he ate or who. He only did it to survive or to protect me. Never out of hatred or bloodlust. He was never truly evil. I guess this is the main reason why father was ultimately dissatisfied with him.
Deep down I have always known that he was outside his reach."
Gabrielle listened silently to her words. She admitted that it was strange, seeing Hope as a mourning mother over...a monster.
"It took me a long time to make the decision to change sides," she continued. "It went against everything I had been raised for. Well, except the few shreds I was able to learn from you. But as I finally did, I had an entire number of reasons. The most important was of course that father was obviously willing to destroy entire worlds. But this was a small part of it too.
I knew that my offspring wasn´t with us after he died. So, now I take my chance to reunite with him," she said. "I know for you he was just a monster, but he was my son."
Gabrielle stepped closer and laid her arms around Hope´s shoulders.
xxxxxx
The sun had set for a long time. Xena nonetheless had trouble sleeping. She had a terrible feeling that something was wrong. It was the overwhelming sense that something dark and dangerous was out there.
…And maybe it was. When they had first seen the mysterious object falling from the sky, she had first wanted to wait for the coming day. But now she couldn't get rid of her nervousness.
She suddenly realized that she was not alone.
"Eve," she said.
"Is everything okay mother?" she asked.
"Yes, of course," Xena replied.
"You can feel it as well, can you?"
"What do you mean?"
"Something is out there, a darkness, something evil," Eve told her. "I know you have been unsettled the entire afternoon. You are right, there is reason to worry. Like you said mother, we will go tomorrow and see what we can find out."
"Okay," Xena just replied.
Eve took a seat next to her.
"You know mother, you don´t have to lie to me," she said.
"What?"
"You are not completely sure about something, afraid or simply nervous, but you deny it to everyone else. If someone asks you, you just lie about it. I know this, I felt this often enough myself when I was still Livia.
Of course that was mostly in the first years for me. Later, as I built up my reputation, no one would have dared to ask me if something was wrong any more. But that didn´t change the fact that I was always pretending that everything was alright, that I couldn´t fail.
I have seen you also acting this way mother, nearly the entire time actually- never admitting a weakness. You know, you don´t have to be like this. This isn´t an army camp and you are not a warlord anymore. We are your family and your friends, we all trust you here."
"You mean with the exception of Hope," Xena responded.
"Yes, of course," Eve replied, laughing. "But still, think about this."
"I will," Xena said, "thank you. We will then deal with whatever is out there tomorrow."
"Yes, goodnight mother."
With that, the Warrior Princess finally went to sleep.. She had no idea that the coming night would be something she would never forget.
xxxxxxx
Xena was hearing a voice. It was calling to her. She couldn´t help but think that she somehow knew it.
"Xena," she heard it saying her name.
Then suddenly she realized something. The voice, it was her own.
xxx
At the outside.
Ares was struggling to push himself forward. As he finally sank to his knees, he realized his location.
He had just reached the outskirts of Potidaea, Gabrielle´s home-town. There was no doubt anymore, he was in the past.
