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Me: well GOLLY I guess I better UPDATE THEN!
The city was, actually, in pretty good shape for having been attacked by an immortal warlord and his army of living dead.
Olivia sat in the tall grass of the field the city had fled to, leaning back on her hands as she listened to the chatter from the citizens behind her. She had heard from Hero, who heard it from Steven, who heard it from - well, who knows, that the undead had been pushed back from the city, fleeing as the cloud of fog that had shielded them disappeared. Orion was nowhere to be found, and the soldiers had gotten to work putting out the fires. Apparently, the damage was minimal. And, best of all, Alex was perfectly fine.
Somehow that was more chilling, because it implied that Orion had come to the city for the sole purpose of coming to talk to her.
Footsteps crunched in the grass behind her, and as she tuned back into her surroundings she felt a familiar presence draw near.
"Hero."
"Olivia." He lowered himself down beside her, and she tilted her head in his direction. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine." The response came automatically. Her fingers curled around the grass beneath her, absently noting how it scratched against her palms.
"How does your arm feel?" She took a moment to check, dragging her fingertips across the patch of scarred skin.
"Still numb."
"Ah." He sounded disappointed. She didn't respond. For a moment, they just sat there, a muted silence settling over their forms as the smell of smoke and burning flesh drifted past with the wind.
"What did Orion do to you?" Hero broke the silence eventually. "Do you remember?"
"Yeah." She trailed a fingernail across the site of the frostburn. "He said some creepy stuff about how I had promise, and I was interesting, or something, and that's why he let me live. He didn't really give a reason for half-freezing me to death. Oh," She tilted her head back a bit. "He said Isaac's alive."
"Isaac?" Hero echoed. "Your brother?"
"Mhm." Olivia gave him a nod. "And he's either straight up lying to me, or the only reason he's been left alive is as some sort of bait. Not exactly a win-win situation."
"What are you going to do?"
"Nothing, I guess. What can I do?"
"I- I suppose just what you have been doing. But surely you don't plan to just abandon him? Don't you care?"
"I'm not abandoning him." Olivia spat. "That's not- you're the one that keeps stressing how weak and helpless I am. But of course I care about him, he's my brother." A thought occurred to her, and she mumbled, "But I guess I can see how that's something you don't understand." Hero didn't respond.
The wind was cool as it caressed her face, the scent of the forest soothing her smoke-deadened senses. She shivered, hugging her arms to her chest. It was chilly, but she preferred the cold to the heat.
"What do we do now?" Hero asked softly. She hesitated for a moment to formulate a response.
"I guess we go to another city and try to research some more."
"Not ready to give up yet?"
"Not by a long shot."
"I'm glad." And for once, he did sound glad. "Because I've had another idea for what we could do."
"Oh?" She cocked her head at him.
"Rather than searching for a weakness that will allow us to bring him to our level, we can find someone who's as powerful - or more powerful - than him."
"That's- good in theory, but where are we supposed to find someone like that? Except for Orion, there haven't been super-powerful godlike beings around for a long time."
"You're forgetting the most obvious one." Olivia raised an eyebrow.
"Who?"
"Notch."
Silver silks glided about the man's delicate form as he swept down the hallway, feet only barely touching the ground. His shimmering hair flowed behind him, a stark contrast to his bone-pale skin. Each of his fingertips ended in a claw of pitch-black.
But, of course, he was not focused on his own appearance. Rather, that of his prisoner, hanging in stasis at the end of the silent hall.
The boy's mouth was half open in a silent cry, eyes closed as he hung limply in thin air. His skin was a pale blue, body frozen in time and space to prevent any attempt to escape. At a snap of his fingers, he would be reawoken, but now was not the time for that.
Orion leaned in, closer, as if his target could hear him better that way.
"I have you right where I want you." He spoke softly to the silent figure. "You can't hide from me forever, Brine."