He couldn't believe what he had just heard. She had spoken in his native language. A language that only a handful of people even knew existed much less could speak. For her to know what those words imparted could mean only one thing. "Phaedryn? Is it truly you?" he asked, also in Atlantean.

"Yes Acheron, it is me."

"How…? This can't be real. I dreamed it was you but…"

She laid a comforting hand on his arm, "It's really me Acheron," Still finding the Atlantean language difficult to use in this body that didn't know its intricacies was nearly painful so she reverted to English. "I'm really Phaedryn. Or rather I was."

"You were? I don't understand."

"Now is not the time and here is not the place. I'll tell you everything but not here."

He nodded, still trying to absorb what she'd just told him. She was turning to leave the storeroom when he stopped her with a hand on her elbow. She turned and he pulled her to him, kissing her deeply as he winked them both out of the storeroom and into her bungalow. When he let her go she glanced around at where she was and grinned at him wickedly then she threw herself at him and covered him with kisses.

He once more flashed their clothes off and buried himself in her waiting warmth as deeply as he could. She accepted him entirely and cried out over and over at the joy she felt and the incredible waves of pleasure that were cascading over her body. He growled in ecstasy as he found his release and was surprised to find that he'd bitten her neck again, this time on the other side but her blood pooled in his mouth like the most rare nectar and he savored the incredible feeling of wholeness it gave him.

He healed the tiny wound in her flesh and looked into her eyes to see the spark of life that he remembered so very well. "Phae, it's too good to be true. Tell me how you got here."

"Not here, not on this plane." She closed her eyes and thought for a moment and then looked back at him. "Do you trust me?"

"Of course," he whispered.

Suddenly his clothes were back on and she wore a gauzy white dress and there was a noise behind him. He turned quickly, ready to defend her from anything that came at him but found only a face that he knew all too well. "Sav?"

Another blinding flash of light transported them to Neratiti and into the large domed room with the massive table at its center. Acheron started to lunge for Alicia to protect her but Savitar stepped in front of him and opened his arms to her.

She walked into his hug and he kissed her gently on the cheek. "Will you do something for me?" Savitar asked her.

"Anything."

He whispered something in her ear and she smiled and left his hug and walked to Ash. Still trying to figure out what the hell was going on he looked terribly confused and she could see the turmoil in his eyes because somehow Savitar had left his sunglasses behind in New Orleans.

She stopped in front of Ash and slid a hand around his waist. "Trust me, you want to hear him out. I love you." She tilted up on her toes and kissed him softly and then padded out of the room towards the beach.

Acheron stared after her in confusion and then looked to Savitar for an explanation. "What the hell is going on Sav?"

Savitar laughed heartily and faced the other man looking him up and down as if the answer to life's mysteries would be written on his flesh. "I really don't know what she sees in you but who am I to question? You want a drink?"

A wave of anger washed over Ash's face like a storm cloud and his eyes swirled fiercely, "I want answers not a drink. Tell me what's going on. Now."

Savitar held up his hands in defense, "Whoa there brother, calm down. Sit." He said indicating the chairs around the table. He pulled one out himself and draped himself across it. When Ash had seated himself a few chairs over Savitar cleared his throat and seemed to collect his thoughts. "Oh where to start, where to start."

"Perhaps you can tell me what the hell the only woman I've ever loved is doing inhabiting the body of a woman I've just met."

Savitar nodded, "Yeah, that's a good place to start. Well you see, Phaedryn or Alicia or whatever you feel like calling her at the moment is kind of special. And I'm not just talking about the fact that she's smoking hot but like she has a purpose." He paused for a moment and a bucket full of ice and beer appeared in front of him. "Ya want one?" he offered. When Ash shook his head no Savitar shrugged then opened one of the beers and took a swig. "Where was I? Oh yeah, Phae. Well a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…wait, wrong story." He glanced over at Ash who looked anything but amused. "Yeah, so way back when Atlantis was the height of civilization and a certain Goddess who went by the nickname 'the Destroyer' decided to wipe out a huge chunk of the population just because she was feeling a bit PMS-y certain measures were taken to ensure that she couldn't wipe out all of humanity."

Ash looked blankly at the man/god/being he thought he'd known and tried to figure out what the point was. Coming up with nothing he made a 'go on' motion with his hand.

Savitar suddenly got very serious, "Okay so the powers that be decided that it wasn't a good thing if she destroyed humanity. They kinda enjoyed the antics of the humans and they wanted to protect the little buggers. Well, locking her away wasn't quite enough, she still managed to cause some pretty serious devastation. So, knowing the potential for chaos Apollymi's son held, remember he's the key to that destruction thingy, they wiped the knowledge of that potential from his mind. Unfortunately the bitch still knew about it so they had to try something else. They sent him a reason to keep living." Savitar looked at Ash and wondered how much of this he was following. The Atlantean gave no clue to him so he went on. "They sent him a reason, in the form of a woman, that he fell madly in love with. The powers felt that if he could find love it would win out over the hatred and destruction."

"Good plan, did it work?"

"Sort of. He found the woman, fell in love with her and everything was looking like sunshine and puppy dogs until Apollymi found out about it."

Ash rolled his eyes a little and rubbed his chin in the classical motion of thinking things through. "So things went down hill pretty fast I take it."

"Yeah, you could say that. Apollymi just messed with them at first, made the girl's father forbid her from seeing her lover anymore. When that didn't work she pushed the boy away by having a relative take him away for a while. But he found his way back to her. Then Apollymi found out something else about the girl, something that would keep her locked away in Kolasis forever and, well she killed the girl."

Ash pinched the bridge of his nose like a massive headache was coming on and then he got up suddenly and started pacing the room. Savitar watched him, waiting for the inevitable revelation. "Phaedryn right?" Ash spat.

Savitar nodded slowly, "Phaedryn."

"Damn it Savitar, why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you tell me she was still alive?"

Savitar rose from his seat and started out to the balcony that overlooked the ocean. Ash followed him and they both leaned on the marble railing. "Well she wasn't alive so I couldn't tell you. Let me rephrase that, she wasn't alive most of the time."

Ash looked terribly confused by that. "I think you may be spending too much time in the sun Sav because despite your normally cryptic nature you're really not making any sense now."

Savitar laughed and said, "Well it's true, she wasn't alive most of the time. She's been reincarnated a whole lot of times but for the most part she's been nothing more than a soul floating around waiting. She's been here driving me nuts for the majority of the time but every once in a while things would line up again and I'd have the chance to ship her off to a new life in the hopes that she's finally fulfill her original purpose. It never worked, until now."

"All right, I'm ready, tell me the whole thing." Ash pushed himself up onto the marble and leaned on his knees, settling in for the long story he knew was coming.

"Fine," Savitar sat next to him and looked wistfully out at the beach. "First of all she's not just anyone, she's my sister."

"What?"

"Yeah, she's my baby sister. Couldn't you tell by her looks?" Ash snorted in amusement. Alicia looked absolutely nothing like Savitar. "Actually she's not really my sister as you would consider it by definition. She is however, a part of me, and she came from the same place I did so I guess that counts. Anyway, sister is the best way I have to describe what she is. So keep that in mind while you're violating her will ya?"

"You are absolutely insane you know that?"

Savitar chuckled, "You're not the first person that's said that. Anyway, she's kind of special, but you knew that already. She was created to counteract Apollymi's possible destruction of the human race. Her purpose is to create the antithesis to the Destroyer."

"Create how?"

Savitar rolled his eyes, "You're really dense sometimes you know. How do you think a woman would create something?"

"Uh….Oh! Got it."

"Yeah, you did, in fact, get it. And she, in fact, got it and the end result was that little escape clause for humanity. Unfortunately Apollymi got wind of the plan and she killed Phaedryn."

Acheron's head flew up and he glared at Savitar. He'd known that Phaedryn had been murdered but he never until now knew who had been responsible. The anger of this revelation showed in the viscous swirling of his quicksilver eyes.

"Calm down Ash, that's not the end of the story." Savitar paused and let the other man calm his boiling emotions. Once Ash's jaw had unclenched enough that it looked like it wouldn't shatter he went on. "Well I wasn't gonna let my little sister go without a fight so I pulled her soul here where the bitch couldn't get to her. Believe me, I for one want that escape clause to come into being. I kinda like humans and I'm not going to let them just poof out of existence because the bitch breaks a nail. So I tried to make the plan work again a few years later. I put Phaedryn's soul into a new host and hoped that she'd hook up with you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. C'mon man, I know you knew that Apollymi was your mom. You don't play dumb very well."

"Yeah I had a pretty good idea of it but…well never mind it's a question for another time. So she never found me did she?"

"No, unfortunately fate wasn't smiling on you two. Not for a very long time. But guess what pal, you just won the fate lottery. She's back, you're back and the time is right. So as much as it pains me to say this, you need to sleep with my sister." Savitar curled his lip up and shivered a little.

"Won't work. I'm sterile remember?"

Savitar took a deep breath, "Not entirely."

"What do you mean 'not entirely'?"

"Okay, try to keep up with me here. You were human and you could do everything humans could do including reproduce. When the bitch found out about our little plan she took away the key to that reproduction, Phaedryn. Well somehow she figured out that I'd saved Phae's soul and she decided to try something a bit more drastic. She had you killed. Well you obviously didn't die, at least not for too long, and she had to do something else. So all this time she's been screwing with Phae and making her never find you."

"That still doesn't solve the sterility problem."

"Oh but it does. You're only sterile because you don't have a soul."

Ash huffed in exasperation. "I don't get it."

"All you need to do to reproduce and fulfill the destiny that I, and the human race would like you to opt for is to get your soul back. Then wham bam thank you ma'am, problem solved."

"So where's my soul? Doesn't Artemis have it? Cause if that's the case you're screwed pal. She's not about to give that up."

Savitar grinned a wicked grin that made Ash almost scared. He'd seen that look before but only on the face of a Charonte demon who was about to dig into something exceptionally tasty. Usually in Ash's world, that grin meant a massive amount of chaos was about to follow.

"Have no fear my friend, I took care of that little issue too. I can't explain to you what happened to your soul, even I can't figure the blasted thing out but suffice to say, it's in a very safe place that not even Artemis can get to. And it's not going to be hard to get back at all. In fact, you're really going to enjoy it."

"Okay, I'm waiting for the catch."

"You just knew there was one didn't you?"

"There's always a catch Sav. Always."

"Right, so the catch it that you can't breathe a word of this outside of here. You can't even think about it. If Apollymi gets even an inkling of what's lining up she'll do whatever it takes to screw it up again. And there's not going to be another chance to fix it. Phae's soul has reached the end of its 'shelf life' if you will. I can't pull her out again and try over. Once she dies this time it's for good."

"Let me get this straight, I have to figure out how to get my soul back, get it back, impregnate your sister and not let Apollymi or any of her peons find out about. Yeah Sav, no problems, want me to pick up a pizza while I'm at it?"

"Hmmm pizza." Savitar shook his head to dispel the idea of a fresh hot pizza. "It's not going to be as hard as you think. Trust me on that. Just keep doing what you're doing. Don't let anyone know that Alicia is the reincarnation of your long lost Atlantean lover and everything should fall into place. Oh, and don't let Phae die before she has a chance to birth that escape clause."