Chapter Thirteen:

Heroes and Villains

Lance

"There's no way in hell you're gonna be able to open that door," I told my dad. "It's friggin' huge!"

He smiled at me. "This isn't opened by physical means. It's opened by sheer willpower, and an incantation. You have to really want something to open this thing. Plus, these so-called 'Gods' aren't dangerous to me. Ever since we passed through that door, all Conduit powers have been rendered null and void." He pointed to Cole's and Alec's unconscious bodies on the floor. "Those two challenged me, as I knew they would. They were nothing without their powers."

"They just forgot what it was to have none," I said. "If they'd had more time to adapt, they'd have kicked your ass!"

"Too bad that they didn't. They nearly killed Two, Three and Five. That's unforgivable. They're lucky I don't kill them now. With them out of the way, and you five currently imprisoned, there's no way you can stop me."

"That's really cliché, you know?" said a voice.

We all turned to see someone dressed in Egyptian clothing with a scarf covering their face, but that nodachi was unmistakeable.

"I mean, how many villains try to take over the world? How many do the whole, 'no one can stop me' speech, only to be proven wrong?" She pulled the bottom half of the scarf away from her face and smiled. "Not to brag, but I'm usually the one who does the 'proving wrong' part."

My dad took a step back. Clearly, that was one more flaw in his plan. I couldn't help but smile.

"Didja miss me?" Joan asked.

"What? But you were left in the desert!" my dad exclaimed. "How're you alive?"

"I had a little help," Joan told him. "Now, if you don't mind, I've got to stop you and save the day. As usual, I guess."

Suddenly, my dad smiled. "Wrong! Your powers don't exist in this place! You can't beat me!"

"So what?"

Confusion crossed the Senator's face, but Joan's remained serious. It wasn't the seriousness I'd seen in her face for the last three years, but the kind I'd seen before we were married.

Joan's back, I thought. She's back for good.

"I know I don't have my powers in here, and that's a damn pain in the ass. But you were there when I was growing up, Senator. You know that powers weren't the only thing that Kessler gave me." Joan put a hand on the hilt of the nodachi. "I guess he just knew that it was best not to totally rely on powers."

The Senator grabbed an Egyptian sword from the wall and held it in front of him. My dad was in the army, and had done God knows what while he was missing. I was sure he'd be a pretty even match for Joan. Experience versus stamina.

"I'm giving you this chance to surrender, Senator Grey," she said. "It's gonna be your only chance. If you refuse it, I can't promise you'll be alive by the end of this."

My dad started laughing. "Keep the chance! I won't give you the same courtesy!"

"Then I'm not gonna hold back against you."

Joan

For a long time, the Senator and I just stared at each other. I could see Alec, Cole, Connor, Three and Five lying on the ground, but they were breathing.

The Senator suddenly shifted, and I took that as my cue. I ran at him and leaped high into the air, drawing my nodachi all the way and slamming it into his blade. As if caught off-guard by the sudden assault, the Senator was pushed back violently, right into the doors where the Egyptian Gods were supposed to be. He ducked as I slashed my nodachi at his neck, and he retaliated by attacking my legs. I used the doors and jumped over the blade, back-flipping over the Senator and rolling away. I came up just in time to block a slash to my side.

"You've definitely come far from trying to beat your teachers to escape," the Senator said as we held the lock. "Didn't you almost kill one?"

"No. I just knocked him out." I leaped back and spun around, bringing the blade around, but the Senator blocked it and we were caught in another lock. "And then I might've hit him in the head with a bat while he was unconscious, but that's not the point."

The Senator jumped back, but I moved forward at the same time. I slashed his chest and swung my nodachi around so the blood would come off.

"You're good," the Senator said, "but I've got the upper-hand!"

"How?" I asked.

The Senator pulled out from his suit a stick with a big red button on top of it. Common sense told me that the big red button was bad.

As soon as he pressed the button, the room was rocked insanely. I fell to the ground, along with a few other people in the room, but quickly got to my feet as I heard a cracking. And it wasn't the floor.

The Senator and everyone got to cover, but I was nowhere near any. I jumped back as a chunk of the roof gave out and smashed where I'd previously been standing. I started to dodge as many chunks as I could, and at one point I saw no exit.

"Aw, shit." I ran up a falling piece and flipped onto another. I jumped onto one more before I broke through another and free-fell towards the Senator. "Yo! You gotta do better than that!"

I kicked him in his wounded chest and sent him crashing into the door. I guess he saw that he was losing, so he started to say something, but I didn't understand what he was saying.

"Joan! Get back!" Lance yelled.

Well, I guess it's safe to say that I didn't get back in time. I was blasted backwards as the doors swung open, and I rolled a few metres before coming to a complete stop. The Senator was right beside me.

My eyes were blinded by a bright light that emanated from the doors. I got a migraine just from looking at it!

"You have to do dramatic entrances, don't you?" a man's voice said in an annoyed tone.

"What can I say? When you've been locked up for thousands of years, you need to impress!" a woman's voice replied.

"Isis, how about you tone down the lights?" the man's voice said. "You're burning their retinas."

"Says the self-proclaimed, 'God of the Sun'," the woman muttered.

"Oh, would you both just shut-up?" another man snapped. "Horus, Isis, you still insist on acting as children for all of these years?"

"Ma'at! I'm trying to finish an argument here!" Horus groaned.

"All of you, be silent," resonated a deep voice. "Or I will send your immortal asses to the Underworld!"

"We're already in the Underworld, Anubis! Plus, I don't think my husband Osiris would like me there all the time," Isis said.

"I would not," Osiris muttered.

I heard a groan. "Oh, for heaven's sake! Would you all calm down? We have guests!"

"I think Bast just wants to get out of here and see a cat…" Anubis muttered.

"I haven't seen a damn cat in thousands of years! Of course I do, but we have guests!"

"SHUT UP!" yelled a seventh person. "I'VE TOLERATED YOUR BICKERING FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS, AND I REFUSE TO GO THROUGH ANY MORE!" There was a tiny pause as the man regained his breath. "Now that I have your attention, I suggest that Isis and Horus dim the lights. Anubis and Osiris, shut your mouths and stop glaring at everyone. Bast… how about you just wait a bit longer? You'll get to see cats soon enough. I mean, it's not like you can conjure up one, considering we can't use our power here."

"No, really? You have once again proven why you are the God of Wisdom, Thoth," Horus said.

"Hey speaking of not being able to use powers, how come Horus and Isis are making this place brighter than the damn sun?" Anubis growled.

"Oh, sorry." There was a loud groaning sound, and then the light was turned off. A young-looking man in ancient Egyptian garb patted a gigantic machine and smiled. "I made this a few years back. Brilliant, isn't it? Because my blood contains power, even though I cannot use it, I used this machine to utilize it and create light!"

"Hard to believe that a God of War could be so fascinated by such a contraption," Thoth muttered.

I looked them over. Anubis was taller than Horus and had darker skin, and scarier features than anyone. Thoth looked like he could fit into a crowd these days, but his eyebrows were arched higher than I'd ever seen, probably because he was stuck with them for thousands of years and the expression of disdain just was stuck on his face. Isis was wearing a flowing white… thing and could've probably been a supermodel. Bast was dressed in black, and did kinda look like she had lost a bit of her sanity. Ma'at was darker-skinned like Anubis, but he seemed much more approachable, and Osiris was just… well, to be honest, he looked like somebody the Italian Mafia would want to avoid. No wonder he was the God of the Underworld.

"Holy crap…" I muttered. "Not what I expected, I gotta say."

The Senator got to his feet and smiled. "Finally… Now that I've freed you, you're indebted to me!"

"You damn idiot!" I snapped as I jumped up. "Haven't you ever seen a movie? The bad guy never gets his way!"

"You should stop living in those fantasies!" the Senator spat.

"Oh, I should stop? This is real life! It is a fantasy! We have friggin' superpowers, you damn idiot!"

"Hey, um… guys?" Lance said. "But… well, to put it simply, they're right beside you…"

I jumped backwards as I saw Isis staring at me sternly from about a foot away from me, but right into Anubis. The Senator started to back off, but Osiris grabbed his shoulder and forced him to stay put.

"Um… hi?" I offered quietly. Yeah, those people were like me, but you have to feel a tiny bit intimidated about their age.

"Sehkmet?" Bast came forward and flicked me in the head. I rubbed the spot angrily.

"Joan," I said. "My name's Joan, not Sehkmet."

"Hm… strange," Isis muttered. "Too bad. I guess the bitch really did bugger off." She suddenly caught sight of my mother. "Unless you're Sehkmet? If so, age seems to have caught up with you."

Oh God. My mother's face turned red instantly. "I'm not Sehkmet," she muttered angrily. "Make another comment about my age, God or not, and I'll beat you to death."

Not exactly the wisest thing to say, I know, but my mother seemed to get her message through. Isis backed-off.

"Okay, I know this is sudden and all, but I need to explain the situation to you guys," I said. The Conduit Gods looked at me and stared intently. "Right. So, this guy here wants to get a few Conduits like us on his side so that people will vote him up for Presidency. He's planning to brainwash the Conduits (which, for most, he already has), and since Conduits are the main guardians of the modern age, many of the normal people will probably vote for him too. Thing is, this guy's not a nice guy. He's a bad guy."

"That's not how it is!" The Senator waved his hands around furiously. "She… She wants to control you all for an army to take over the world!"

I facepalmed. "Really, on the spot, that's the best you could come up with?" I shook my head. "I don't want anything to do with the world, except save it, as I usually seem to do. Besides, I'm an army all in myself!"

Ma'at and Thoth scratched their heads. "I am the God of Justice," Ma'at said, "so if one of you is lying, I shall deal it swiftly."

"And as the God of Wisdom, I will judge who is right." Thoth glared at us. "The favour of the Gods shall be bestowed upon whomever is worthy. Anubis already knows who it is. Are you willing to share?"

The God of Death shook his head. "I am not. It is by their own power that the one who is right will be shown the way." He glared at the remaining people working for the Senator. They released everyone and bolted from the chamber.

"Cowards!" the Senator screamed.

Lance was coming over to me, but I held up a hand to stop him. "I have to settle this before anything," I told him. "So please… just wait a little longer, okay? And don't let Kayce wake up from her sleep, no matter what." I gave him a smile, hoping to reassure him. If I knew Egypt, I knew that this was going to come down to one move.

"Then a one-strike duel," Horus proclaimed. "Whoever Anubis favours will most likely win, but the rest of the Gods must pitch-in as well. Anyone could die."

"What? No!" Lance handed Kayce to Joanna and came to me. "Hell no! I'm not letting you do anything like that again! Do you know how many times you've nearly died? I'm not going through that again!"

"Lance…" I sighed. "Look, I know that I'm a suicidal maniac—I get it. But this… if I don't do this, then the world's gonna be in danger, and the truth will be twisted. So, wait for me, okay?" I quickly kissed him and then hugged him as tightly as I could. "I can do this. I know it's nothing as epic as when I fought Kayce, and this time I might not have a daughter from the future come to save my ass, but it's something I can actually do now."

I could tell by the way that he tensed up that he didn't like it. "Isn't there another way?" he asked.

"Well, I can't exactly use magic to look into minds…" Isis said. "Sorry."

"And before you ask, I will not tell," Anubis told Lance. "I have my own code to go by. Life is not as simple as you wish it to be."

Lance held me tighter (to the point where I was gasping for air) and then released me. "If you don't come outta this alive, I'm going to destroy your collector's edition of Star Wars," he said.

I gasped. "You… You wouldn't!"

"Watch me." He grinned and pecked me on the forehead. "So you'd better come back."

"If I don't make it outta this, and you destroy my Star Wars, then I'll haunt you!" I snapped as he went back to Kayce.

The Gods moved away and gave the Senator and I some space. We glared at each other and moved back. I raised my nodachi and held it like I always did, but I found that my grip was even tighter than before.

"This is it," the Senator said as he raised the sword he grabbed from the wall. "No turning back now, Joan Grey."

I smirked. "Just for the record, you were a horrible father-in-law."

After a few seconds, we rushed at each other. My eyes widened as it looked like his blade was glowing an eerie light. Are they showing him favour? Crap! But… I gritted my teeth. I won't lose! I won't! Because I have to be there! I have to be there for everyone! Especially Lance and Kayce!

The glow in his sword faded as we got closer. We roared our battle-cry and thrust our blades forward, with only one goal in mind:

Destroy your opponent.