An Old Friend 5
"You! What are you doing on my ship?" Dylan asked as he struggled to sit up. He managed to climb to his feet and glared at Ares.
"For your information, I just rescued your crew and healed them." Ares replied calmly. He had his arms crossed over his chest as he watched Dylan with interest. "They know who I am. Do they know who *you* are? You know, I would think after all of this time you would be happy to see me."
Dylan felt the eyes of his crew on him. He glanced around and saw everyone was present: Becka, Harper, Trance, Rommie, Tyr and Rev Bem. He also noticed that none of them had any wounds. Well, Rommie had a hole in her stomach but then she was an android. Dylan looked down at himself and saw his wounds were gone. He flexed his injured shoulder, or the one that *had* been injured and only felt the smooth movement of muscle. The pain and stiffness that should have been there wasn't. Dylan's blue eyes focused on Ares. "What do you want, Ares? Since when do you heal people?"
Ares leaped forward and grabbed Dylan by the front of his uniform. He easily hoisted him up into the air and slammed him against a wall. "Now you listen to me! This is important! There is far more at stake here than you and your crew, understand? And this isn't some plot or scheme I cooked up. I don't do that anymore, OK? But I can't let you stay on this ship and breed a bunch of soulless Destroyers. If they get hold of your Olympic blood, then you'll have a mess even the mighty Hercules won't be able to fix."
Tyr moved forward to help his captain but Dylan waved him off.
"Olympic blood?" Harper asked in confusion. "What in the world does that mean?"
"I haven't the slightest idea." Trance said as she waited to see what the two men would do next. "But it sure looks like those two know each other."
"Yeah, but how does Dylan know a God?" Harper replied.
"Destroyers?" Dylan's heart froze at the word. Old memories surfaced, memories he hadn't thought about in years, his best buddy with the blonde curly hair who had taken a dagger through the heart to save a princess. He had mourned Iolaus for months only to discover his friend's body was possessed by an evil demon, the same demon that had raped another one of his friends and had forced her to give birth to a dark-hearted evil Goddess. The Goddess Hope, in turn, had given birth to a Destroyer. It was said that a Destroyer had the ability to kill Gods and mortals alike. They were fast, dangerous and deadly. And since they had no souls they were unkillable. Xena had managed with great difficulty to kill the Destroyer while it was young. But then it had been flawed. It had actually cared about it's mother, Hope, so it was not the perfect Destroyer the demon had wished for. Still, it had managed to kill many innocent people due to its hunger and violent nature. The demon had planned to use the Destroyers to kill all of the Gods so it could rule the planet. Of course, thousands and thousands of mortals would have been killed in the coming chaos. Luckily Xena had killed it before that had happened.
"Yes, Destroyers!" Ares snarled. "And all they need is your Godly blood to make them Destroyers! I can't let that happen so you are coming with me!"
"Wait!" Dylan cried. "I just can't leave the Andromeda and pop off to Olympus! What about my mission do restore the Commonwealth? What about my crew?"
Ares set Dylan back on his feet and stepped back. "We'll take your crew with us, but the ship stays here. And no, I can't teleport it. It's too big. Besides, it's all smashed up. There's nothing worth saving."
"Look, Ares, I can't restore the Commonwealth without the Andromeda! This ship IS the Commonwealth. She's the last of her kind. I just can't leave her here." Dylan argued. He frowned as he remembered how stubborn Ares always was. They never saw eye to eye on anything. Well, maybe it had happened once or twice, but that was very rare. "Look, if you could just get the Maggog off the ship we could repair the damage."
Ares rolled his eyes. "You can't repair that kind of damage. You have huge gaping holes through the ship's center. She's open to space. The structure is damaged. If you try to jump to slipstream, she will tear apart. Now give this up, Hercules. You are the Champion of Mortals and you will always be. Your fate is not to die here like this. But then again, it wouldn't kill you, would it?"
"Hercules?" Harper asked. "Who's Hercules? Gee, the way you talk makes it sound like Dylan is a God or something!"
"Half God actually." Ares explained as he turned to face the others. "Or what is called a DemiGod. His real name is Hercules, but call him whatever you prefer. It doesn't matter because we are leaving this ship."
"You're a DemiGod and you never told us?" Becka said in shock. "Dylan! How could you keep something like that from us?"
"I didn't think it was important." Dylan replied automatically. His mind wasn't on the conversation. He was thinking about what Ares had said and realized his half-brother was right. Getting infected by Maggog wouldn't kill him. He was, after all, immortal. It would hurt an awful lot and he would pass out from the pain, but his body would slowly heal itself. When they realized that... Dylan didn't want to think about that. Of course, once they became Destroyers they *would* kill him. Even the bite wounds he had would have healed by themselves in time. Ares just saved him a lot of pain by healing them with his powers. In fact, he had never seen Ares do anything like that before. Could it be his brother really had changed? If so, Dylan wanted to know what had changed the God of War.
"Now everyone gather around me so I can pop us out of here." Ares stated as he motioned for them to come closer. Harper gripped Trance's hand and pulled her over to Ares. He was glad to get off the Maggog infested ship! Tyr stepped towards Ares. The Nietszchean had already battled the Maggog once today and had lost. He was not about to fight them a second time barehanded. Becka also moved towards Ares, as she knew fighting an endless supply of Maggog was hopeless. Rommie and Rev Bem joined the others by Ares. Only Dylan stayed where he was by the wall. "Come, Dylan." Rev Bem said to Dylan as he held out his three-clawed hand. "It is what the Divine wants. He has sent Ares here to save us. If it is as he says, that you are a Champion of Mortals, then you must not die here. The Divine has gifted you with a very special task. I do not understand this talk of Destroyers, but I know you must leave this ship now with us. We can always get another ship."
"There must be another way to save the Andromeda. There always is." Dylan forced his brain to think. Think! He had to think of something! A name floated up from his past and Dylan jumped. "Hephaestus! What about Hephaestus? Couldn't he fix the ship?"
"Possibly. He is the God of the Forge and Making Stuff. But there is one little problem. Hephaestus is dead. He was killed by Xena when she was on her God-killing tirade." Ares reached out with his powers and grabbed Dylan just as the bridge doors busted open. Trance shrieked loudly as she saw dozens of Maggog pour into the room. Dylan was dragged to Ares by the God's magic powers.
"Then take us to the Underworld!" Dylan ordered Ares. "To find Hephaestus!"
"Fine." With a flash of bluish-white light, they were gone. The Maggog leaped but crashed onto the empty floor. The hairy aliens stared at each other in confusion and snarled angrily. Their prey was gone.
