Chapter 24: Anubis and Loki Come Clean

The moment they returned to Mediansburg, Anubis was struck with a fever. A side effect to Osiris' spell, Isis had explained. Anubis was immediately placed in bed, Isis continuously tapped his face with a wet towel, Hera summoned Argos, a creature the height of a basketball player with countless peacock eyes covering every inch of his skin, to patrol the perimeter of Marion's house, Ishara prepared a lotion to soothe the burning skin of the young god, Horus guarded the front door, and Marion ran to town to get some food and medicine.

She went to get bacon from the Homely Diner, where Anubis loved the meat there. The moment Ol' Simon found out about 'Jack Allen's' illness, he immediately went to help her pick up the most organic products and bribed the pharmacist for his most sufficient painkillers. He even asked the local priest to pray for their friend's health.

"Remind me again, Marion, how exactly did Jack manage to catch the fever at your job?" Simon was making his family recipe of bacon and green veggie soup in Marion's kitchen, a combination that Marion thought was rather gross but effective. And she knew how much Anubis craved Simon's meat.

"We were chasing a suspect and Anubis got pushed into the Potomac." Since they couldn't talk about their GAMA work with their friends in Mediansburg, he and Marion came up with the lie that they were working for a special detective branch in the East Coast. They generally made sure to come back home during weekends and holidays whenever they got the chance.

"I always knew jobs in fancy cities was dangerous." Simon shook his head. "You two should have considered working at the sheriff station."

"Simon, nothing dangerous ever happens in Mediansburg. What would Jack and I have to arrest? A stampede of loose cows?"

Simon arched his eyebrow due to the unusual tone Marion used. "Are things going rough at work?"

"That and... let's just say that Jack is facing his family problems again. His dad just got out of prison and he's going all serial killer and his aunt and cousin are in my house at the moment." It was the best lie she could come up with. What was she supposed to tell Simon? That three gods from Ancient Egyptian mythology were roaming freely in her house?

"Are you out of your mind?" Simon was getting angry. "Why is he even near these maniacs?"

"Well his aunt really cares about him and..." She groaned. "For some reason, it took only until now for his cousin to realize that Jack's uncle was no saint."

But Simon continued on as if he hadn't heard Marion by hammering the lid onto the soup pot. "For crying out loud, Marion! Whether these people are saints or Satan or from the Conjuring Universe, they're bastards! Jack's been in Mediansburg for a year and he's not very good at hiding in his sufferings! It takes one mention of the words 'family' or 'parents', and when he feels his face going wrong, he goes to the bathroom and comes out with a black eye! Did you forget how we found out he knocked himself out in the bathroom during the Thanksgiving service at the church?" Simon put his hands on the table and took a deep breath to calm down. "Look. Jack's a good kid. He's had a rough life and there ain't a soul in Mediansburg that doesn't know how much staying in this town with you makes both of you happy. You both changed each other. Why are you both risking each other's lives like that when you could do more?"

The clock in the kitchen began to indicate that it was 7pm. Ol' Simon made his way back home since he still had to fill up his tax papers. With the soup ready, Marion poured it in a bowl for Anubis just as Horus came in.

"Get out," she grumbled.

"I will after I check on my mother," Horus said.

"Isis hasn't moved from her chair all day. My best recommendation is that you GET OUT!" Marion threw a cooking knife at Horus. He ducked before it could potentially hit eye. The knife landed on the door.

"Horus, get out," Hera said flatly. She was reading some sort of wedding magazine on the couch. To camouflage herself, she switched her divine peacock outfit for some blue PJs with peacock-feathered patterns. "Or I'll ask Isis to let me throw you over a cliff."

There was no need for words. Horus immediately flew outside in his falcon form.

"I'll go ahead and bring this up to Anubis." Ishara came in and took the bowl. Like Hera, she was also in PJs, only hers were skimpier and with scorpion patterns.

"Want anything to drink?" Marion asked Hera.

"No thanks." She continued flipping through the magazine. "Wanna sit down?"

Marion nodded. She sat down in the brown cushioned couch where her mother used to sit down, have a younger Marion on her laps, and read her a book she had purchased from the bookstore. Marion's fingers rubbed the fabric, as if to hope that she could feel the warmth of her now dead mother.

"She was a very good mother to you, wasn't she?" Hera looked up from her magazine. "And very faithful to her husband."

"Just the way you like it." Marion knew very well the stories of Hera's poor relationship with her Casanova of a husband, and the irony was that Hera was the Greek goddess of marriage. "What happened to Zeus, by the way?"

Hera grimaced. "He took up his roman name and fled to Rome with Mars. They're pretty much stuck in there ever since the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of the Catholic Church."

Marion just shook her head. "Why do you immortals let yourselves get inflicted with such crap? To be honest, you could just have called up a divorce."

"Too easy." Hera shrugged. "Besides, that way I could keep him at the end of the leash and bring more suffering to his mistresses."

A ringtone came from Marion's phone. She picked it up and found a text from Zoë.

Sent you a private link to your laptop. Tell none of the Avengers or GAMA.

Luckily, Marion always kept her laptop in the same room as her. She grabbed it, sat down, placed it on her lap, and began logging in. She didn't bother to shoo Hera away as the goddess curiously looked at the screen too. Marion clicked on the link Zoë had sent her and gasped.

"My God!"

"What is it?" Hera asked.

"You know how back in 2014, Cap found out that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD and planned to use Project Insight to wipe out millions of people?"

"Yes, that was rather scary."

"Well, when my colleague Zoë, Barnes, and Bonnie stumbled at an abandoned GAMA airport overrun by the Gorgons, she also found that Arnim Zola made a stop there last century. He stashed all his data about what he learned on the organizations. Zoë gathered it and... she just sent me the entire list Zola had on the targets." Marion scrolled down the list. "Man, the list is so long..."

"May I try?" Hera asked. Marion passed the laptop to Hera. The goddess summoned a peacock chair to appear for her to sat down on it. "OK, let's see. If I put 'Avengers'..." The screen began to simplify the list. "It has all the Avengers from that dimwitted Stark to the young Spiderman."

"But Spiderman isn't an Avenger."

"No, but he's connected. The list doesn't just include the Avengers, but those connected to them. Living relatives and friends, mentors, colleagues, ex-girlfriends, and other sorts. I wonder..." She cleared her search filter and managed to do some digging until she managed to have the list split up into different categories. "There! The names are now organized based on the fields most related to the potential targets."

"You're good." Marion complimented. "Have you ever considered working for a divine immigration organization?"

"I have, but the one in Greece is no good. Here are the categories."

Avengers

Mutants

Government

Military

SHIELD
Divine Immigration Organizations

Medical

Diplomatic

Financial

Security

Minimum Wage

Social Elites

Education

Minors

Religion

Unknown Gene

Hera went on to click in the 'Education' category. "Impressive. Turns out that Spiderman isn't the only teenager that HYDRA suspected to be a threat. Wait. Romanson, you're on the list!"

"What?" Marion choked when she saw a profile picture of her younger self on the screen, along with all the files that dated back to the years before her parents were dead. "That can't be!"

Hera did some more searching. "And to boot it all, you're the only one on the list to come from Mediansburg... but not the only mortal who works for GAMA."

Marion calmed down and pondered. "Then again, Zoë mentioned on how Zola chose to not get involved with the organizations because he just figured that we'd destroy each other. Maybe he figured that if the immortals killed each other off, HYDRA would just shoot off the mortal agents. But how did I make it to the list? I only met Anubis and joined GAMA in 2016 and Project Insight was destroyed in 2014."

"I don't know," Hera said sarcastically, "maybe because HYDRA found out that since you were six, you won first prize in all youth competitions related to archery, crossbows, and biathlon?" Hera continued searching through the list. "Oh. Humberto Lopez is on the list."

She pulled up the documents on the screen for Marion to read. The picture revealed a young teenager of Hispanic ethnicity with a half-shaven hairstyle. "He's primarily a B+ student, has participated in all his school's marathons, and he spends his summers either volunteering at the Natural History Museum or assisting his paleontologists parents." Marion frowned. "I don't see the rib amulet Zoë told us about in any of his images."

"The child has an amulet stuck on him permanently that can transform him into a dinosaur. You honestly think he'd throw out the white flag?" Hera clicked on UNKNOWN GENE. "I wonder what this is."

"I truly do not know what is up with these individuals," a recording of Arnim Zola's voice spoke through the speakers. "Our sleeper agents have taken DNA samples from them, and I detect something in their genes that... speaks nothing to me. I do not know if it's a disease, an abnormality, a parasite, a mutant gene, or... something unknown. But we all fear the unknown, so whatever these people are, Project Insight must dispose of them."

Donald Gill

Daisy Johnson

Victor Kohl

Flint Jaycen

Geldhoff

Dante Pertuz

Lunella Lafayette

Kamala Khan

Yo-yo Rodriguez

Andrew Garner

And the list kept getting longer.

"I wonder what was so peculiar about their gene." Marion shook her head. "I mean, the Lafayette one isn't even thirteen. She's nine." Out of curiosity, she clicked on the name of Kamala Khan. "She goes to the same school as Humberto Lopez."

Marion went on to do some Internet surfing on the school's website, go through the online yearbook, and check the calendars. "It says they'll have a field trip at the National Mall tomorrow. Apparently they're already on the bus to go from New Jersey to DC." She emailed the link of her discovery to Zoë just as Ishara came downstairs.

"Isis would like you to come upstairs," she said quietly.

Marion put her laptop away and went up the stairs. Anubis was being tended in his room, the room where Marion's parents once slept. When she opened the door, Anubis was still sleeping soundly despite his tense breathing and sweating forehead. Judging by the sloppy condition of the empty soup bowl sitting on the desk, Simon's meat must have really satisfied Anubis' appetite. Isis was sitting on the chair by the desk where Marion's parents used to file paperwork.

"Still feverish?" Marion asked.

"I've never seen him this ill." Isis shook her head. "He's sick from his guilt, his insecurities… Though how long he was lovesick…" Isis stared at Marion when she got to that point.

"It's not what you think!" Marion shook her head and spoke quietly to make sure that Anubis wouldn't wake up. "We made it clear when he first moved in that I'm not the kind of mortal to go that deep with a god! Some have criticized that how quickly I recognized his identity was stupid, but it's the 21st century and people are weird!"

"I agree on people being weird." Isis chuckled. She looked at Anubis who was still sleeping. "When my sister begged me to adopt him, I saw a chance to have the kind of son I always wanted. My husband didn't really help Anubis with his childhood troubles and titling him as god of mummification was just another way of saying that the God of the Egyptian Underworld managed to convert the son of his treacherous brother into a low-leveled servant of his category. I tried to give Anubis the love, attention, and care that he needed, and… well, you can probably imagine what was going on in my head when Seth escaped and attacked the Rapharion city."

"You didn't want him involved, did you?" Marion guessed. "Convincing to leave… It wasn't because he was needed to stop Seth… You wanted him to run away so he could untether himself from his problems. Go in hiding to get the kind of life you wanted him to have…" She nodded. "You're probably the only clear-minded deity I've met so far. And you almost sound a lot like Simon."

Isis smirked in amusement. "The same Simon who cooked the meat soup Anubis just ate?"

"That Simon."

"Then that Simon is a wise man."

Anubis agitated in the bed, varying his forms from jackal pup to humanoid, before eventually groaning in his sleep as his human body slouched and his ears were more dog-like. A worried Isis got up to gently brush the sweat off his forehead and soothingly shush him until he transformed back to his human form. "He's having nightmares…" Isis properly tucked the bed sheets over him.

"Do you know what he has nightmares about?"

"Usually it has to do with Osiris and Horus tormenting him, but considering what we just went through, it probably had to do with you." Isis gestured Marion to come next to her. When she did, Isis took Marion's hand and placed it on Anubis' cheek and the moment she let go, Anubis unconsciously grabbed Marion's hand, his breathing calming down, his sweat disappearing, and his slumber getting more peaceful. "You see that?" Isis smiled. "In the end, the one who protects most is the one who feels safest when the one he protects is close to him."

Isis left the bedroom, taking the bowl with her. Marion stared at Anubis, who made the visible signs of someone waking up but keeping his eyes shut to 'continue' sleeping. He finally gave in and popped his eyes open. "Please tell me I dreamed everything…"

"That you dreamt what?" Marion asked. "That nothing happened, that everything was all a bad dream, and in the end, it turned out that today is the day after I first found you in my barn?" She didn't even have to apply sarcasm; the firm, but calm tone in her voice made it clear that she wasn't going to indulge him with a pity party. Anubis sighed and struggled to sit up. His muscles still ached from the spell that nearly shut him down. His grip on Marion's hand slightly tightened while he kept biting his lips.

"Don't start with one of your pity parties about how this is all your fault, because it isn't." Marion shook her head.

"I can't say anything useful," Anubis said. "I still feel like I went through a meat grinder…"

"I still can't believe Osiris…"

"I don't blame him. Remember the stories? Seth dissected Osiris alive the first time they fought over this." Anubis tapped the Eye of Ra with his spare hand.

"It worries me. Seth must have told Sedna about the spell. I worry he'll use it on you."

"Uh, Marion, about Sedna…" Anubis hesitated a bit. "I can't lie and claim that the things she said weren't true. My nasty involvement in her imprisonment… and the things relating to you."

"She was obviously jealous for no reason…" Marion miserably failed to laugh it all up before dropping it. "Anubis, are we anywhere… past where we are?"

"I don't know how to answer. I crashed in your barn a year ago, I live and work with you, we really function well together, and of course, I hit a stage where my positive opinions of you increased and I hold back because of my promise."

"Your promise?"

"When you first let me in?" Anubis frowned. "I agreed that as long as I stuck around, I wouldn't get any funny ideas?"

"Oy vey, you silly dog." Marion was exasperated. "Your sense of dignity was known to everyone by now."

"I know, but… what if I took the plunge and found out that it wasn't the same? What if none of us sticks around when this is all over?"

"We'll still stick around… and we'll talk further about it when we defeat Seth. Now go back to sleep." Marion wasn't aware that while she got Anubis to go back to sleep again, Isis was eavesdropping on them from the hallway. When she got back down, Hera and Ishara saw the frustrated look on her face.

"Told you that it would be too soon." Hera shrugged as she flipped through a magazine.

"Give her some slack, Hera." Ishara muted the TV as the news talked about the metro flood in DC while Isis silently sat down. "Look, I know you're overjoyed to meet with the kid you adopted and raised as your own and beyond ecstatic that he finally has a friend that cherishes more than anything in the world, but maybe hold your reins down before you decide that you want that girl as an in-law."

"I never said that, Ishara." Isis shook her head. "But come on, I was really hoping to witness a romantic kiss! And they're planning to hold it off until they defeat Seth! Do you have any idea what it's like for a mother to root for her son's future when he finally meets the girl of his dreams?"

"Oh, yeah! Got the personal experience to confirm that Anubis might have a better chance to have a permanent relationship than the countless womanizer from my pantheon." Hera rolled her eyes. "Ishara's right, Isis. Don't push it with these two. Love's obviously in the air, but maybe Marion might want to take some time before she makes the regrettable mistake of being abandoned as the single mother to hybrid cubs. I know you're going to say that Anubis isn't like that, but I have the ex-husband, the sons, the daughters, the in-laws, and Horus to confirm the messes of flings after gods say they met their true loves… ten thousand times."

Isis sighed. "You're right. I'm overthinking things. It's just… It's been thousands of years. I'm finally that he finally has someone good in his life, someone who gives him a sense of meaning and who didn't turn on him the moment he was presented as Seth's son. I mean, how often do you meet people, especially mortals, who aren't that prejudiced to judge someone based off heritage."

"We literally just met Thor's descendant to answer your question," Ishara said. "Come to think of it, what do you think Loki and Aaricia are doing right now?"

Meanwhile, in Rose Park, Georgetown, DC

Aaricia wouldn't budge from the bench she was sitting on. Despite how it was past dark and the park was closed, she just sat on the bench and watched the city lights illuminating the sky.

"Aren't you supposed to be with Bacchus and Maui?" Aaricia didn't bother turning to figure out that Loki had appeared under the row of trees and came to her.

"They're sleeping off their booze at Kory's house, and frankly, I don't think she'd want you to know where she camouflaged her house."

"I don't blame her."

Aaricia let him sit on the bench's spare space and she checked her phone when she received a notification beep. "Spiderman's aunt will probably murder Stark. He still won't give up after what he went through as Carnage. And fortunately, he's not ticked that I nearly electrocuted him."

"What you did was brilliant." Loki nodded. "It was risky, but you did the impossible. Using His blessing to prove that a determined soul was enough to repel the plague from the host. Your heroic dork will owe you big time."

"I used the spell Kaïra used on Doctor Strange… That reminds me…" Aaricia's hand traveled the pocket of her coat until she pulled out Kaïra's ring. She twisted the gem area and pulled out the resized Tesseract, her fingers not even burning once at the touch of it. "I think it belongs to you. Just don't use it for another invasion."

"I don't feel like invading. I'm a trickster, but in the end, my family matters more." Loki took the Tesseract and hid it somehow. One moment, it was in his hands, and the next moment, it was gone. "I appreciate, by the way, that you didn't slay Jormugand in the end. I think he'll like the Bermuda Triangle."

Aaricia tapped her fingers on the bench. "So… am I really Thor's great-great… something grandchild?"

Loki tilted his head as if to contemplate. "Well you don't exactly have the beard… The former ego he had isn't present in you yet… He never had a familiar… Wait, where is your pet?" Aaricia pointed at the Rose Park basketball court. Sure enough, Fjordson had destroyed all the nearby water fountains to create a splashing surface just for himself on the court. The beast was in its small self and splashing water around. "And minus the eye patch… Yes, I see the family resemblance."

"So does that mean Kory and I have to be cousins instead of sisters?" Aaricia's expression saddened a bit.

"Why would you degrade your status? You two already have such a good bond. Honestly, if anything else, you two are more like true sisters to one another than Thor and I are. You didn't make the same mistakes than we did."

"Sure." Aaricia rolled her eyes. "I'm the bossy blonde one who wields a magical sword and she's the magical ice queen brunette with daddy issues. I CAN'T see the resemblance."

Loki laughed. "I stand corrected. But… how to you feel about your heritage?"

"I've heard worst." Aaricia shrugged. "Besides, when you think about it, nearly every single human on the planet must have had some tough ancestors that survived since the Ice Age ended. And frankly, knowing the stuff out there, I wouldn't be surprised if I had a god from outer space as an ancestors. I mean, do you have any idea of the amount of Americans out there who are probably descended from the Europeans who first settled here? Things happen."

"Indeed." Loki went through his coat and pulled out a familiar box wrapped in blue wrapping paper and a silver bow. "You didn't get the chance to open up your present."

"Is this legit or is it one of your pranks? Because neither Anubis nor Kory would explain to me on how they smuggled my sword of destiny in my stuff." Aaricia contemplated the present a bit before finally giving in and accepted it. She ripped off the wrapping from the top and pulled out the small-sized present: a glass cube with pictures on the side. 3 pictures focused on Kory and Aaricia, the other 3 on Kory in her youth.

Aaricia stared at the god of mischief. "I swear on the River Styx that those are real pictures and not fabrications."

Aaricia looked at the sky and sure enough, the heaven's didn't electrocute Loki or something. "Where do you even keep a camera?"

"Somewhere." Loki shrugged. "I thought you might like this thing that you humans use to commemorate memories."

"Aw, the times when Kory and I celebrated Hanukah and our birthdays!" Aaricia happily looked at the modern pictures before going towards the monochrome ones of the 1940s. Aaricia wasn't surprised to see pictures of a younger Kory with her mother, but she was surprised to see a picture of Loki cradling a baby in his arms while Evangeline Ikolson was working on a woven artwork. "I don't remember this picture… I don't think Kory has it…"

"She wouldn't." Loki shook his head. "It was the one time we couldn't make two copies of one photography. In the years that followed, Evangeline would always make two copies of one photography so that she'd leave something for Kory and send the other copy to me. I stopped getting letters and photographs from her when, you know…" Loki looked away miserably.

"What was it like? When you found out that you were going to be a dad?"

"Well with Jormugand, it was more of an experiment than intercourse, and naturally having demigod offspring wasn't something that came to my mind on a daily basis. So… when I paid a visit to Evangeline, she was a bit scared to tell me that she was pregnant, not because she thought I'd be angry but because the situation was too much to handle."

"Because how else could anyone explain that a single Jewish lady had a baby out of wedlock to a guy who's not even of any religion but a freakin' alien god?" Aaricia guessed.

"Exactly. It was unexpected, but then all I did was ask Evangeline what made her happy. Just like that, asking it calmed her down and, well, I stuck around for months, helping her out with things like how would we prepare for Kory's arrival. Honestly, at the time, the only relative I really got involved in this story was my mother. Compared to my father's oppressive rules and my brother's former arrogant occupations, she was actually happy at the idea of having a demigod granddaughter. She brought in the Asgardian goat milk that she knew Kory's divine half would need and even ideas for cribs…"

"Woah, Kory's golden-plated crib with the goat mobile that's in the basement?"

"Yes! So, you know, I did stay around and got to see Kory come out. It was so wonderful… I just couldn't believe I was holding a baby that didn't cry at the sight of me!"

"Aw, how sweet. Even as a baby, Kory pulled you a tough face on you!" Both laughed at Aaricia's comment.

"Yes, well… Imagine my shock when Odin paid me a visit and informed me that I spent too much time during the visit. I hadn't paid attention that along with my time with Evangeline during her pregnancy, I spent nine months with her and Kory…"

"Hold it!" Aaricia raised her finger. "Kory never brought up on long you stuck around, but you're telling me that you spent a year in Norway?"

"Minus the round trip to get some supplies."

"Ugh! This is messed up!"

"Believe me, I was dissatisfied that I had to leave Evangeline permanently, that we had to come up with a cover story, that she was alright with our separation…"

"Not that! Odin's rules and Kory's insistence on keeping you out of her life! Yeah, they got their reasons, but with everything that happened, you actually had a shot of having a family! You know, the kind that you could add to your current one and you could have created a steady life balance between them rather than being forced into choosing one! Uncle Loki, did it ever occur to you that whatever problems you had in this century could have been a whole lot different if you had stayed with Evangeline and Kory? I mean, you could have experienced the joys of raising a demigod child, beat up any potential date like dads do, save Evangeline from World War II…"

"And watch Evangeline die of old age, Kory finding some other deranged event to cause her immortality and general demigod trauma, and to worsen things, never have you in her life?" Loki's calm response got Aaricia's attention. "You bring her a sense of balance in her life. I don't want to disrupt that."

"I guess." Aaricia sighed. "Still, maybe…" A beeping noise coming from her phone alerted Aaricia to pick it up. She gagged at the sight of the text she received. "BALLS OF MUSPELHEIM, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?"

"Did Kali find that boy with the dinosaur bone?" Loki got up in a panic.

"No! Look!" Aaricia showed Loki the picture on the text, and sure enough, Loki gagged as well.

"What is wrong with that deranged banshee?" He demanded.

"I know! I mean, come on, why does Bonnie feel the need to take pictures from the air vent and share to everyone that Barnes and Hazelfields are making out?"

(Note from the author: I know I haven't updated this fanfic in nearly a year, but please understand that I had a lot going on in my life that caught my attention. And while I really like reviews of my fanfics, I prefer reading reviews that say what the readers liked about the chapters and what they looked forward to. HOWEVER, I'm getting tired of how most of the reviews my fanfic has gotten are always about 'when will you update', 'you should have said this or should add this in your story', or 'what you wrote is stupid and you're a feminist libtard.' Please understand that what I write is for the sake of my interests in what I like and for giving myself a small ounce of distraction with my current problems in life, so please DO NOT push it.)