Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters contained herein, I merely make them dance in what I hope is true to their rhythm.

Chapter 7

Dangling from a Hook

I didn't know that a horse, let alone a Pegasus, could give a look of such outright disgust. However, sure enough, Stormageddon was looking at Greed as though he were something stuck to the bottom of his hoof.

"Come on, horsey," said Greed silkily. "Don't be like that. It'll be fun for all! It will especially be fun for me, but I'll make sure to cut you in on the action too."

Stormageddon snorted and looked at me. "How could you agree to go along with this demon?" he asked me with an unnecessary amount of righteousness. "You know he'll betray you, he'll betray us, the first chance he gets!"

I shook my head. "I know that he's not trustworthy," I said.

Greed mocked injury at this. "Me, untrustworthy?" he asked sarcastically. "How could you say such a thing?" He let out a melodramatic groan, and fell to the ground as though he were fainting.

I cast him a cool look, and then looked back at Stormageddon. "He's definitely not trustworthy," I continued. "I know that he's only looking out for himself ultimately, but I also know that he's the only person that can really help us get rid of these monstrosities for good."

Stormageddon cocked his head. "How can you be so sure that nobody else is able to help us?" he asked. "What about the gods?"

I shook my head. "They're vulnerable too," I said. "And they can't interfere too much anyway. It goes against some sort of rule."

If Stormageddon had eyebrows, he would have raised one of them with the amount of incredulity he was now looking at me with.

I threw up my hands. "What do you want from me?" I asked him. "I talked to Zeus. I talked to Athena. They helped me as much as they could!"

"What about the other gods?" he asked.

I shrugged. "If the most powerful god can't help, and the wisest one can't help, how could any of the others do any good?"

He blew air out of his mouth to make his lips flap. I assumed this meant that he wasn't satisfied with the alternative with which we were left.

I looked at him imploringly. Finally his head drooped and he nodded.

"Fine," he said through his teeth, and he looked at Greed. "But be warned, demon. If you show a hint of betrayal... if for a second I suspect you are about to double cross us... I will put this hoof," and he lifted his back right leg, "through your face." To demonstrate, he kicked the nearest tree just hard enough to knock a coconut down, and then kicked out again. There was a crunching sound, and the coconut was on the ground in shattered pieces. "That is your face," said Stormageddon icily. "Do you understand?"

Greed said nothing, but nodded stiffly. I didn't think he was particularly scared of the prospect, since he couldn't die, but I wondered if he could feel pain.

Stormageddon apparently wasn't finished. "And one more thing?" he said, his voice deathly soft. "If you call me horsey one more time, that will be both of your knees, along with whatever is between your thighs."

This time Greed visibly swallowed, but it may have just been for show.

There was a period of time in which none of us spoke. Stormageddon and I were both looking at Greed, with Greed himself appearing to look at nothing at all.

"Well?" I asked when the silence had become unbearable. "What do we do then?"

Greed looked up and appeared to shake himself out of his reverie. "Well, we need to go somewhere else now," he said, then smiled. "Or rather, we need to go some when else."

I started to roll my eyes, but Greed stopped me by lifting a finger. "We'll have no more of that, young lady," he said. "I'm your boss now, and you will at least show manners, if not respect."

I grudgingly nodded. "How will we go some when else then?" I asked.

He held out his arm. "Grab a hold," he said. "And hold on to him if you want him to come along," he added, nodding at Stormageddon.

I didn't want to have to touch the creature, but I reached out and took a hold of Greed's wrist. I wrapped my other arm around Stormageddon's neck and held him close. He nickered softly.

"Here we go!" said Greed. I blinked.

When I opened my eyes, I could see we were no longer in a desert oasis. We were now in what appeared to be a desert village, but everyone was running around, and you could almost cut the tension in the air with a knife.

"Oops, almost forgot," said Greed, and he reached out to touch Stormageddon's wing. It disappeared at his touch.

I looked in anger at him. "What did you just do?" I asked.

"Hush, child," he admonished. "The people in this place are not as forgiving of appearances as you are. They would not appreciate a Pegasus in their midst, and would shoot him on sight. Now he just looks like a regular horse to them."

I narrowed my eyes. "What do you mean by 'he looks like a regular horse'?" I asked.

Stormageddon spoke up. "I still have my wings, Pandora," he said. "I believe he has simply turned them invisible." I felt a quick gust of wind from his direction. "See?"

Greed smirked. "Of course she can't see, you flying hippo," he said. "That's the point."

Stormageddon stared daggers at the homunculus. "I'm warning you, demon," he growled.

Greed held up a finger. "Uh uh uh," he said. "We can't have you talking. What would these people think of a talking horse?"

As much as it sickened me, I had to agree. "He's right, Stormageddon," I said. "You just have to keep quiet for a while." I looked at Greed. "So where exactly are we, and why are we here?"

"We're in a country not terribly far from your own," he said. "Just across the Mediterranean Sea and to the east, we are in a place called the Middle East, in a country called Afghanistan."

"When are we?" asked Stormageddon, forgetting his agreement to keep silent.

Greed grinned. "That's the best part," he said gleefully. "Today is September eleventh, in the year two thousand and one."

I looked at Stormageddon and he looked back at me. Neither of us knew what significance that date held, nor why it was important that we were in a place called Afghanistan on that date.

Greed slumped comically. "Don't tell me you don't know what today is!" he cried. We shook our heads. Greed waved it aside. "That's okay," he said, and jerked his thumb at the people running about, and who were still apparently oblivious to us. "They know what's about to happen across the ocean, in New York City and Washington, D.C."

"What?" I asked urgently. "What's going to happen? Where are those places anyway?"

Greed's smile widened. "They're in America, where your friend Agnes and her husband lived. Washington, D.C. is the capital of that nation, and New York City is their largest metropolis. As for what's going to happen..." His sentence trailed off and he let it hang there for a moment. "Well, you'll see." He skipped a bit, and I was suddenly terrified for the people in America.

"What exactly is this place?" I asked. "And I don't mean the country, but what are all these people doing running around here? What is this village?"

Greed shook his head. "This, my dear, is a training camp," he said. When I just looked at him blankly, he continued. "It's a terrorist training camp."

I had never heard the word terrorist before, so I must still have had a look of confusion on my face.

Greed was getting increasingly frustrated at my ignorance. "My goodness, you are stupid," he muttered, and got right in my face. "This place is intended to train people to terrorize others!" He waved his arm around. "Do you see these people that are all running around? They're called the Taliban! They are dedicated to seeing everyone that is not like them or don't believe the way they do be eradicated from the earth!"

It was finally starting to sink in. "So," I started hesitantly. "So, they have weapons and intend to scare people that aren't like them?"

Greed shook his head. "It's not just about scaring them," he said. "It's about terror. It's about making people fear so much that they will change their ways into becoming like themselves!" He gestured at the people still running around. "Do you understand now?"

I hesitated, still hardly daring to believe it. "But that's insane!" I said. "You can't scare people into changing who they are. How can they think that will work?"

Greed shrugged. "Sorry, sweetheart, but you hit the nail on the head," he said. "They are insane. But they think they're right, and unfortunately for about three thousand people, they think all of America is wrong."

I could feel my heart beating very fast. "What's going to happen?"

Greed didn't say anything, but gestured for Stormageddon and I to follow him. There was a large fabric building, what Greed called a tent, set up in the middle of the camp. We headed towards it. There were a lot of voices coming out of the tent.

When I stepped in, I was surprised. There were screens that I recognized all over the tent. I remembered Agnes talking about something called a television. These screens must be televisions. They were showing all kinds of different images, but the three largest screens were focused on some large buildings. One screen was looking at a pair of very tall towers, one, was looking at a stone building in the shape of a pentagon, and the other was looking at a white building that appeared to be made of stone and had columns in the front of it.

"Those are the World Trade Center towers in New York," whispered Greed in my ear and pointing. "That's the Pentagon and the White House in Washington D.C."

I swallowed. "What's going to happen to them?"

Greed pursed his lips. His glee seemed to be gone now. I didn't want to think about what could make him as pale as he had turned. I turned back to the screens and watched.

In a moment, I saw a flying craft that looked like a bird near the buildings Greed had called the World Trade Center towers. As I watched in horror, the metal bird hit one of the towers. There was a great ball of fire that came out of the point of impact.

My hand went to my mouth and I looked at Greed again. "Were there people in there?" I breathed, trying to choke back tears.

He nodded solemnly. "In the tower and on the plane." At my confused look, he went on. "The metal bird that hit it is called a plane." He nodded at the people gathered in the tent.

I was sickened to see that they were all cheering. How could they be so happy about such a great loss of life? Through my sorrow and grief, I didn't notice myself start to get angry at them.

My eye was drawn back to the screen with the burning tower and its twin. A second plane was in the picture now. "No," I whispered. "No."

But it was useless to say anything. The second plane hit the second tower about halfway up with an even larger fireball coming from the impact point. At that moment I knew that the knowledge of fire that Prometheus had stolen was not a good thing. That humans had learned of such a thing and created this kind of devastation with it was an abomination.

I heard a small hiccup and turned. I was shocked to find that Greed was actually crying over the situation. It was lost among the shouts of jubilation around us.

"Why aren't you cheering along with them?" I asked him bitterly, and nodded at the picture of destruction. "I would think that you'd be happy about this."

Greed swallowed. "You would think that, wouldn't you?" he said, and shook his head. "I'm sad for the exact reason that they're happy."

I shrugged and shook my head. "Don't talk to me in riddles, Greed," I said.

He stared at me. "You have no idea what those two buildings are, do you?" he asked.

"No," I said. "You said they were the World Trade Center towers. What is that supposed to mean?"

"It's about trade," said Greed. "That's where the stock exchange is." He pointed at the people around the room, still smiling and shaking hands. "To them, it's the center of America's greed, and one of the reasons that America needs to fall. Those towers being hit is a triumph for them."

Then it dawned on me. "So you're upset that the center of America's greed is gone, not that thousands of people just died?" I was really getting angry now.

He shrugged. "What can I say?" he said. "I can't change who or what I am. I am Greed. I revel when someone makes a lot of money for the sake of making money. I abhor when someone does something selflessly. Not that this act was selfless," he said, nodding at the burning buildings. "The people around you entirely have their own interests at heart. But that symbolism of greed is a great loss." He put a hand on where his heart would be if he had one, and hung his head.

I shook my head in disbelief. All of a sudden, there was another cry of elation. Looking back at the screens, I was just in time to see another plane smash into the side of the Pentagon building. I looked away. I didn't want to see anymore.

Stormageddon moved closer to me and rested his head on my shoulder. I leaned my head into his and sobbed quietly.

A few minutes went by where neither of us said anything. Then Greed tapped me on the shoulder. I looked up at him, glaring at him through my tears. He pointed at the people.

The joy was gone from their faces, and they were talking quietly. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but it seemed like something had gone wrong. I looked at Greed for an explanation.

"The plane that was supposed to hit the White House went down in Pennsylvania somewhere," he said. "They're not sure what went wrong, but I know that the passengers on the plane overpowered the hijackers to bring it down."

Most of these words, like Pennsylvania, didn't mean anything to me, but I assumed it meant something good. "Did it land safely?" I asked. Greed shook his head.

"It crashed in a field," he said. "Everyone aboard perished. And look," he said, pointing back at the screen with the burning towers.

I was afraid to, but I couldn't stop myself. The second tower to be hit was now crumbling to the ground, and I knew that anyone that had managed to survive the initial strike and was still in the building was dead. I turned away. I didn't need to hear Greed telling me that people were jumping out of the upper floors to fall to their death. I didn't need to hear him tell me that they chose that rather than face the flames. I didn't need to hear him tell me that, minutes later, the other tower was falling as well. But Greed made sure that I heard.

The terrorists in the tent with us also made sure that I heard their cheers as the towers fell. It made me angry to hear their joy at such wanton destruction.

"They're saying 'death to America,'" said Greed in my ear. "Are you angry yet?"

I looked at him, finally realizing what this whole trip had been for. Greed smiled at me knowingly.

"Sorry, kid," he said.

"Bait," I said. "It's not their wrath for America that's the bait, it's mine against them."

"If there was anything that I knew would rile you up this much, it had to have been that amount of fire!" he nearly crowed, while somehow still keeping his voice down. "There were a couple of other spots I could have chosen. August sixth, nineteen forty five was one such place. Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!" he laughed.

I glared at him, disgusted. "Yeah, I guess I am angry," I said.

He nodded. "And it's too late," he said. "Wrath is here."

I felt a hand rest on my shoulder and I felt my heart stop.