Chapter 10

Hope had been listening to what the other Child of Darkness had been telling her. She could barely believe what she was hearing.

"Do I understand this right? You plan to go against father´s designs for the future? You want to conquer this world here and now and practically erase the time where you come from?!" she exclaimed.

"You should not act so surprised, you have turned against him as well, after all."

"Not like this," she replied. "I disagreed with him on some matters and with his methods. So I decided to support the other side. Father knows my reasons. In the end he has accepted my choice, even if he certainly doesn't agree to it. But what you are planning now...that goes too far."

"In my way, it will all turn out even better in the end..." Adrianna replied, "well, at least for us," she smiled. "Even father will see that in the end." she shrugged.

"You think you know better than he does?" Hope asked her incredulous. "You are insane sister. Do you have any idea what he will do with you? He will destroy you, he will completely crush your mind and soul and will drop what is left of you into a forgotten dimension. That means if he even bothers to deal with you personally and not send someone else to do it, after Hercules, Xena and the others are finished with you."

"Father is busy with his struggle against the Light. Till he finds the necessary time to deal with me, things will already be done. And then, seeing what I have created, he will learn to appreciate it."

"I have already seen many cases of arrogance," Hope responded, "but you are truly on the top."

"I see, so it is senseless to talk to you," she replied grimly. "It is obvious that you are not interested in this chance. You will come to regret this decision in the future `sister´."

The attack came suddenly and vigorous and it was strong. It was a mental assault. Hope was barely able to shield herself, but she was able to do it.

And yet, the mental powers of the other dark child were terrifying. Of course, they had to be if she used them to control the creatures, all of them. Her telepathic abilities had probably been the main focus of her training. They might be even greater than her own.

A few moments later, she woke up. Hope was lying motionless on her bed, starring at the ceiling.

xxxxxxx

The man, his name he said was Kayus, was just telling them about what was happening in his village.

"What kind of creature was it that attacked you?" Hercules asked him.

"It was…" for a short moment, the man hesitated. "….a monster like it has never been seen before. There are beings that hold some resemblance to it, yes...and so, he started naming the closest thing to it that he could think of.

"It...it was a Dragon," he said.

"A dragon," Hercules repeated. He was thinking about the descriptions Ares had given to them, of the winged beings that had been caged up on the metallic fortress up there in space. It had to be it.

"I will help you," he finally said to the man.

He and Xena exchanged a knowing look.

"Can I talk to you for a moment?" she adressed him.

Both of them walked a few meters away.

"You've heard it," he told her. "This village is only a few days from here. It had to be one of them."

"Yes, but you do realize that we need you here, right?" she said to him.

"I know, but you understand as well as I do that this is obviously one of the same beings Ares has just described earlier. They have already spread this far. This means we have to separate."

Xena nodded reluctantly.

"That doesn´t mean I have to like it," she responded.

"I will try to be back as quickly as possible," Hercules stated.

"But it will probably still be too late," Gabrielle, who had just joined them, pointed out. "You know that we will start to look for them tomorrow and till you are back..."

"I know," he replied, "but we have no other choice. We can not allow them to attack other villages or to get away from this area at all. If the creatures manage to spread over the borders, this region and all of Greece might be in great danger."

"Creatures?" Kayus, who overheard them talking, asked.

"Let's just say that the monster that appeared in your village is not the only one out there" Xena clarified.. "This town here is also threatened by them."

xxx

Gabrielle had just left them. She was on her way to Ares and Eve, to inform them what happened. She was right about to open the door to Ares' room, where the god was currently living in when she heard something moving behind her.

She turned around to see that she was looking into her own face.

"Hope," she said, recognizing her.

"Mother, I think there is something I should tell you about."

"You are not the only one," Gabrielle replied. "A man has just arrived. As it looks, the creatures have already reached the neighboring villages. They seem to be spreading over the entire region."

"This is no surprise," Hope told her. "It is actually far worse than that. My sister is planning to use her creatures to conquer the entire world. This place here is only the beginning."

"How do you know that?"

"Let's just say she contacted me."

"I understand," Gabrielle said. "Ares," she called out as both of them finally entered the room.

"I am here! " he responded, a bit impatiently. The Olympian was lying on the bed. He wasn´t asleep, of course not, he was a god after all. Sleep was for his kind something completely different than to the mortals. The only reason he even needed the bed was to recover from his injuries. By now, he was almost fully healed, and back to his old strength, mainly thanks to Hope´s help…..This meant however the greatly dismished strength he had in the future.

"What can I do for you ladies?" he asked them.

"We have just welcomed a new guest," Gabrielle told him. "There are a few things you should know about him."

xxx

A short time later, Gabrielle had informed him about the attack on the other village and the arrival of the man who had arrived from there. Hope had additionally told both of them about her `meeting´ with her sister.

Ares took in the information without saying much. If he were honest to himself, none of it came as a real shock.

She was using her creatures to attack other locations and widen her influence, someone from this places came here, looking for help from Hercules. No great surprise indeed. This new Daughter of Darkness had also contacted Hope and attempted to sway her to her side. It wasn't anything that they shouldn´t have anticipated.

"And Hercules?" he asked. "I guess that means that he will be leaving us soon."

"Yes, Xena's already with him, helping him prepare everything for their trip tomorrow. She is having second thoughts about this, herself, of course." Gabrielle told him. "We need Hercules' help here as well, after all."

Ares nodded.

"But he is right," he told them. "We can not allow these creatures to reach other places, to possibly hide there and in the worst case breed even more of their kind. All of Greece would be in danger, the entire world even. Hope, you said it yourself that this Adrianna is planning exactly that. We need to stop her and this spawn before it comes to this."

"He is right," she confirmed. "Even if we do stop her, what if the creatures still manage to infest other areas and spread further and further from there? Adrianna told me that she is controlling them with her mental powers, but that doesn´t mean that they can´t possibly continue without her directions."

"You mean we could defeat her and it would still all be lost?" Gabrielle stated.

"Yes exactly. And there is something else, there is a chance that father might get active."

"What?"

"Think about it. This is just as much a threat for his plans for the future like it is for every living being on this planet."

"I have never thought about it like this," Gabrielle admitted.

"There is also another point," Ares said to them. "Hercules met this Adrianna in the future and I am pretty sure that he had never met her before. So it is probably safer if he weren't there if we face her, unless you want to risk undermining the future and possible destabilizing the entire universe."

"But he already knows about her, doesn´t that endanger the future you know of anyway?" Hope pointed out.

"Not necessarily," he replied. "I have never told you exactly from what time period I came, the only thing I said was that there was a great war going on. So even if he knew that he might meet a being like her at one point, he couldn´t know when and under which circumstances.

Come to think about it, he was more than a bit uneasy that he found out about the woman who had become the mother of this creature. He showed me a file about her on purpose, and at that time I thought it was only because she looked just like Xena. But maybe he knew more than he let us know"

"What is a file?" Gabrielle asked him.

"A list of informations about a certain person," he answered.

"That means Hercules will leave us and it is probably the right decision and that for an entire line of reasons," she resumed.

"Yes."

"Thank you for your input Ares," she told him. "Come", she said to Hope, "let us see what we can do for the rest of the night. To be honest, I don´t think I will be able to get some sleep after everything that happened. Maybe Xena could use some help."

"If you two don´t know how to occupy yourself for the rest of the night, I might have some idea," the war god suggested.

"Yes?" Gabrielle asked curiously.

"Well, I am already feeling much better and you see I could really use some company here on my bed now. To be honest I have missed Xena by far the most of you, but since she is busy right now I thought you might be interested Gabrielle or you Hope or maybe both of you want to spend some...mother-daughter time with me," he offered.

He layed back and gestured with smile to the place on the bed beside him.

Both of the identical looking women rolled their eyes in a very similar manner.

"It is obvious that he is truly on the road to recovery," Gabrielle said.

"Clearly," Hope commented.

xxxxxxx

The following morning.

Hercules, Iolaus and the man who had arrived the night before were preparing to leave.

Kayus had been talking by now a few hours to Hercules and got a bit of an impression on him. He had to admit that the legendary hero was not exactly what he had expected. But that didn´t mean that he was any less impressive.

Hercules was not so much different from a normal human being. Aside from the fact that he should have been an old men and looked barely older than in his thirties, he was more than ok. The half-god actually turned out to be a rather modest person, a detail rather surprising if you consider who he was and what was his bloodline. He was actually a guy who Kayus decided he could like.

Ironically, the equally famous or maybe infamous, but completely human, Warrior Princess Xena, by what he had seen of her, seemed to be a far more full of herself than the actual half-god. Still, she was there and she was willing to help, even if it was not his own village but this one.

This just led to another frightening fact that he found out after he had arrived here. There were other creatures out there, similar to the one who had attacked his home and as it looked, there was an entire group of warriors here to fight them. Even the War God Ares himself had been mentioned at one point. It was truly staggering.

They were just getting ready to leave, he, Hercules and his friend, the man named Iolaus. By what he had heard about him, he should have been as well over sixty years old but looked half his age. Maybe he was another half-god, he speculated.

Kayus thought by now that he had seen everything. But nothing would have prepared him for the next surprise.

Suddenly, right in front of them, a woman appeared in a burst of flames. The woman was dark haired, tall and quite beautiful, but it was also quite clear that she wasn´t human.

Everybody present froze in place for a few moments as they saw her appearance.

"You are back, I see," Hercules finally addressed her. It was clear that he had seen her before.

"What do you want?" Xena asked her aggressively.

"I want to talk to you," the demon `Sin´ replied. "Some things have changed since we last met."

"We are well aware of that," she responded.

"I know, you want to stop the Child of Darkness who arrived here from the future…Well, I have news for you….so do I "

"Why would you want to help us?" Eve, who was standing a few meters from her, asked.

"Oh, this is not just about helping you, certainly not. The Darkness has certain plans for the future of this world, as you all know. This new arrival however endangers them all. That is the reason I am here."

"Why should we trust you?" Eve demanded to know, interrupting her.

Hercules and Iolaus shared a short look at her question.

"Trust?" the demon asked. "You should realize that it is as much in the interest of my side to put an end to her as in yours. Do you realize how far the intentions of this Adrianna truly go? She plans nothing else than to bring humanity to extinction and replace them with this breed of demon-hybrids that you have met. Plans and designs developed over many centuries would be lost if she succeeds."

"Never mind the countless innocents who would die," Iolaus commented sarcastically.

"That is more your worry. But now that you've mention it, you are right, it would be really a shame if they all died before they had the chance to corrupt themselves and make their way to Hell," the demon responded.

"That is enough," Xena called out. "You say you want to help us against her?"

"She has gone rogue," she stated, "the same sort of rogues that Dahak had originally resurrected you to eliminate Xena. You see, even now you are still fulfilling his purposes."

"Don´t even try that one with me," Xena replied coldly. "I had enough of the manipulations of your kind for at least three lives."

"But that doesn´t change the fact that most of this `manipulations´, as you call them, actually consisted of just telling the truth, right Xena?" she asked smugly.

"Stop this now," Hercules spoke up. "Given the situation, we accept your help, for now" he told her, "but if you try anything...anything, then we will continue on our own."

"Hercules," Iolaus stated uneasily.

"I know," he said, "but we don't have much of a choice, really. We need to find and stop them, and quickly or countless people will die. Besides, you know she would have just gotten involved anyway and this way we can at least keep an eye on her."

"I have to agree with Hercules," Xena said, "even if I hate to admit it."

"You see, you have made a wise decision." the demon smiled.

"There is one other thing," Hercules told her.

"Yes?"

"Could you please stop looking like Serena? It's …distracting…"

"Of course," she replied in a friendly tone.

Before their eyes she changed back into the blonde form they had seen her in earlier.

The villager Kayus felt how his jaw dropped.