Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter.
Consul of the Underworld: End of Disc 1
Chapter Eighteen: Titanomachy II - Black Ops Save 4
Beta: ShadowofAxios
After the winter holiday season, Black Team was back on the job and was once more giving the Titans and their allies hell. Particularly in response to the Titan Army massing their resources in the region around New York City, presumably in preparation for a major attack on the Empire State Building and Olympus above it. Unfortunately, perhaps learning from the Black Team's repeated attacks on them in recent months, the Titan's efforts were cautious and so Alkaid and Pyrrha's team were reduced to targeting only what Titan operations they could uncover.
Today, said team of Olympian special operatives found themselves hidden away in a specialized truck that Michael had converted into a mobile command center some distance away from their current target, where Alkaid was looking through Rhip's senses whilst the rest of Black Team were watching through the sensors of Michael's spider drones. Together they watched a group of mobsters prepare to conduct a trade deal with the Titan Army at the Port Newark–Elizabeth Marine Terminal, the principal container ship facility for goods entering and leaving the New York metropolitan area and the northeastern quadrant of North America.
"Are they seriously all just standing there looking all suspicious?" Helena asked, shaking her head at one of the screens showing a large group of mobsters standing around a particular shipping container waiting for the monsters they would be dealing with to arrive. "Aren't they afraid of the police spotting them when they're so obviously being up to no good?"
"A number of them are Wizards." Peggy pointed out, gesturing at a handful of the mobsters who were wielding wands. "I imagine they are using their magic to hide their presence."
Alkaid nodded. "They are using Muggle-Repelling Charms."
"And what about the Wizarding police, the Aurors I believe they're called?" Michael asked curiously.
"Are too thinly stretched to come check on a bunch of people using a perfectly legal ward." Pyrrha explained with a shrug. "Even if they are being suspicious."
"They should get more manpower then." Caelus said with a snort.
"They should." Alkaid agreed. "But Auror recruitment isn't easy. Not with how limited funding for it is set aside by the various Wizarding governments."
"No wonder Wizarding crime is a perennial problem and they keep having problems with Dark Lords." Caelus said with a disgusted huff.
"How is that any different from the mundane world?"
"Nothing much really." Pyrrha said with a shrug in answer to Helena's question.
"So much for magic solving all our problems." The Legacy of Venus concluded with a disappointed sigh.
"Okay, enough chit chat." Alkaid said, cutting into the conversation. "The Titan Army has arrived."
"Where?" Caelus asked, not seeing what had caught the daughter of Hades' attention. The feed being sent from the Bertinellis' drones having failed to see what Alkaid had already spotted through Rhip's eyes. Sometimes having a living, breathing familiar who could think for itself and could autonomously direct its attention towards what was important, beat having mechanical drones.
"Look up." Alkaid suggested.
The feed did exactly that and revealed a dozen or so bat-like female humanoids with pug noses, furry faces, fangs, bulging eyes, shriveled arms, claws, leathery wings, and stubby bowed legs flying in for a landing.
"'Kaidy, are those what I think they are?" Pyrrha asked with a frown.
Alkaid nodded with a frown of her own. "Those are Keres."
The rest of their team gasped and shot shocked looks at each other.
"Why would they side with the Titans?" Helena asked, her eyes narrowed in confusion. "I thought the daughters of Nyx tended to keep to themselves and stay in the Underworld."
"They feed on death and their power increases from more death." Peggy reminded them. "It's why they are known to haunt battlefields."
Pyrrha nodded. "They probably think by siding with the Titans, they can sow death and increase their power."
"You're probably right." Alkaid agreed.
"Yeah, that's interesting and all." Caelus cut in. "But, more importantly, what should I watch out for when dealing with Keres? I've never dealt with them."
"Be wary of their claws." Peggy informed him. "Their slashes cause an infection that requires godly power to heal, nothing else will work. Even nectar and ambrosia only slows down its effect.
As Caelus nodded, Helena politely coughed. "So~ is it time to hit the enemies yet?"
"Give them a few more minutes." Alkaid told them as she watched the Keres and the mobsters engage in pleasantries. "We should wait for them to open the container and get down to talking business, they'll be more distracted by then and that will give us an edge."
Pyrrha, Caelus, Peggy, and Michael all nodded in agreement.
Together they watched as the mobsters opened the container to show off the goods they were selling, revealing it was filled by what Alkaid and Pyrrha recognized as various magical herbs and other potion materials that must have been sourced from the Wizarding World. A sight that had Alkaid frowning with displeasure.
"It seems the Titans have found an alternative source of what they wanted from the Wizarding World despite us shutting down their operation in Wizarding Britain."
Pyrrha nodded. "Looks like, 'Kaidy."
"Yeah, so… Outside being careful of the Keres' claws and the Wizards' magic, is there anything else to be on the lookout for?"
"Be wary of the mobsters' guns too." Peggy reminded Caelus.
"Right. Got it." He said with a nod. "So are we ready to go?"
Alkaid nodded and telepathically sent Rhip the order to retreat and to stay safe before cutting her active connection to her familiar. Standing from the chair she had been sitting in, she gestured for Pyrrha, Peggy and Caelus to gather around her.
"Now," she said as the frontline members of her team obliged her and gathered around her. "Ready?"
Caelus nodded and summoned his trident, flourishing it dramatically. Peggy rolled her eyes at him but nevertheless followed his lead and drew her pistol, Athena's Wisdom, and her trick shield, Athena's Wrath, before offering Alkaid her own nod.
"All good." Pyrrha said as she hefted her labrys over her shoulder.
"Helena? Michael?"
The Bertinellis nodded from behind the multi-monitor computer stations which they used to control their drones.
"Ready when you are." Michael added on behalf of both himself and his wife.
"Then let's go." Alkaid said as she mentally commanded the shadows and had them stretch unnaturally, making them surround her and the rest of Black Team's frontliners and using them as a means to Shadow Travel them into battle.
It was time to give the Titans another black eye and hopefully disrupt their preparations for their upcoming assault on Olympus.
As the shadows cast by Alkaid's Shadow Travel faded, the first thing that Peggy noticed were Michael and Helena's spider drones opening fire with their guns, sending electroshock bullets flying at the mobsters whilst their wolf drones rushed into the fray from where they were hiding a safe distance away from the battlefield. She however did not wait to see how effective the drones' attack was.
Instead, she immediately leapt into battle by using her trusty pistol, Athena's Wisdom, to put a bullet through the head of the nearest Keres. A shot that swiftly reduced the Spirit of Violent Death to gold dust as the explosive round detonated in a ball of Greek Fire and the mystical green flames consumed it.
"Peggy! Duck!" Caelus shouted urgently.
Heeding her lover's call, Peggy ducked just as a trio of beams from Wizarding spells sped over her head.
She shifted Athena's Wisdom to put her attackers out of business but was saved the trouble when Caelus swiftly dealt with them. Using his superhuman speed that was one of his godly gifts, he blurred in front of them before proceeding to painfully bludgeon the three mobster Wizards into unconsciousness with his trident.
Taking a quick glance around her and concluding that things were safe for her to do so, she rushed to join her partner. In the process she noted that their surprise attack had taken out most of the mobsters but annoyingly, some of them were still standing.
"Why aren't all the mobsters knocked out already as per the plan?" She asked over the magitech radio that Michael had equipped them with. "Are the Wizards proving resistant to the electroshock bullets?"
"Some of the Wizards cast some kind of anti-knockout ward on themselves." Helena answered as Peggy put a few bullets in a Keres. "It needs to be overpowered. You'll have to hit them a lot harder to knock them unconscious."
"We've noticed." Alkaid replied over the radio as the Keres that Peggy shot was consumed in Greek Fire. "I'm honestly curious about the spell they're using."
"Worry about that later, 'Kaidy!" Pyrrha scolded whilst Peggy used Athena's Wrath to deflect a spell shot her way. "Focus on the fight!"
Peggy chuckled at that, causing Caelus, whose side she had just reached, to turn to her with a grin and roll his eyes.
"Honestly, Pyrrha, I don't think Alkaid needs to." He commented as Peggy took out the Wizard that had sent the last spell her way by filling him with lead. Her enchanted bullets passing through the anti-bullet spells that Wizards used to keep themselves safe from mundane bullets completely unaffected. "Not against low-level mooks like this."
Watching the fight unfold through the sensors of his drones from back in their mobile command center, Michael had to agree with Caelus' assessment of things. Looking as Alkaid quite literally filled the screen in front of him with emerald colored magical projectiles with her Axel Shooter, Phalanx Shift and subject both the Keres and mobsters to a bullet hell, he couldn't imagine anyone surviving that.
A prediction that was quickly proven right, as within minutes of Alkaid using just that one spell, she sent the Keres back to Tartarus and knocked out the few still standing Wizards. Well, most of them anyways.
A number at the edges of the swarm of her magical projectiles had escaped the onslaught and tried to flee. 'Tried' being the operative word though. As though whilst they escaped Alkaid's fury, they weren't able to escape Pyrrha, Caelus, Peggy, or his and Helena's drones. Between the five of them, they easily picked off any loose ends that Alkaid left behind.
"It's almost like we're nothing more than Alkaid's cleanup crew." Michael joked with an amused laugh.
"Maybe," his wife said from her station besides his own. "It makes for an easier job though so don't complain."
"I knows, I'm just-"
Cutting him off, Helena added. "And besides, it's not like every mission is just Alkaid roflstomping our enemies or did you forget how tough that fight in Afghanistan got? Yes, Alkaid, and even Pyrrha, are strong but they have to deal with gods a lot, they'd be dead if they weren't. And they sometimes need help against the lackeys those gods bring with them to the fight, that's why they hired us."
"I know all that. I don't need a whole lecture on it."
Helena shot him an unimpressed look. "Well, you seemed to need a reminder."
Michael just pouted.
Several days after the mission at the Marine Terminal, Caelus found himself standing by the BBQ chatting with Michael as the latter cooked the latest batch of food for Black Team's current gathering. The group having met up to hang out and discuss what more they could do to disrupt whatever the Titans were prepping to do in New York.
The serious stuff could wait though. This was also a chance to relax and engage in some team bonding after all. Thus, he was instead talking to Michael about maybe having his trident kitted out with some gimmicks.
"So I've seen what Peggy's shield can do and I'm interested in getting a little of the same for my trident too." Caelus shared. "But I'm also wary of the idea because gimmicks aren't really my thing. I'm a pretty straightforward fighter."
"True." Michael allowed as he flipped a steak on the grill. "But it's always good to have a gimmick or two to fall back on."
Caelus nodded noncommittally. "I need to think about it. Are you sure that you can add a trick or two without messing with my trident's feel?"
"Definitely."
Caelus nodded again and the two fell into a friendly silence as the spearman drank his can of beer and the smith kept working at the BBQ. Using this lull in the conversation, Caelus turned his attention to take a look around and couldn't help the smile that spread across his face at what he saw.
Nearby, at a table in the backyard of the house in the Hamptons that Alkaid had secured for them for their little team BBQ, were the four ladies of the team happily chatting with each other as they waited for Michael to deliver the barbecued goodness they had met up to enjoy. All four of them were gushing over three weapons of her husband's creation that Helena had pulled out of her Hammerspace Backpack.
The first was a rose-red rectangular device named Crescent Rose that was roughly the size of a backpack that from what Caelus had heard from Michael and Helena was a hybrid between a scythe, and a bolt-action sniper rifle.
The second was a long cane with a handle that was embellished with a floral pattern and featured a large knuckle guard that reached down to the bottom of the handle. The larger area at the bottom of its handle contained small gold-colored gears, while the shaft of the cane had a gray-black coloration and was square in shape as opposed to most canes which had a round shaft. The cane was actually a bludgeon called Long Memory that according to Michael was a commission from someone which wasn't picked up and had the power to store kinetic energy, which could released in kinetic blasts at the user's discretion.
And last but not least, was what Helena had told everyone was her favorite weapon, Huntress' Crossbow. It was a collapsible arm-mounted crossbow resembling a bird, which she said could, should the need call for it, transform into a shield. Though it was currently inactive whilst strapped to her right arm.
That's quite a bit of variety. Caelus thought. Michael sure makes some very interesting weapons.
He had just finished those thoughts when suddenly Alkaid stiffened in alarm and turned towards the sea that the beachfront home they were renting was right next to.
Turning to look at where his boss was looking, Caelus was just in time to see the mast of a sailing ship, complete with crow's nest, suddenly poke out of the water just off the beach. A mast that was soon joined by the rest of the ship - one with a strange, skeletal look, and appeared to be similar to a 16th century Spanish galleon, possessing a quarterdeck and forecastle, square-rigging and two masts. - as it emerged out of the water in what looked remarkably like a sinking going in reverse.
Caelus was still trying to process the sight of an old fashioned sailing ship emerging out of the ocean like it was a submarine, something which was freaky even for a demigod, when Alkaid hastily threw her hands forward.
"Oval Protection!" The daughter of the underworld incanted urgently, conjuring a dome of protective green magic to surround all of them.
It was just in time too because milliseconds before Alkaid cast her spell, the cannons on the magical ship opened fire and what Caelus could only assume were magical cannonballs slammed into the barrier just as it snapped into place. Whatever those cannonballs were packing must've been nasty because even as it deflected them, they shattered Alkaid's barrier like glass and somehow sent her flying from where she'd been standing, trailing blood as she did.
"Shit!" Caelus cursed and deployed his Imperial Gold trident from its hidden state as a pendant by squeezing it, causing it to appear in his free hand as he prepared for a fight.
He wasn't the first one to do so however, as, perhaps to be expected, the first person to react to the boss getting taken out was the woman's wife. Pyrrha having already drawn her labrys and swinging the ax down, all whilst she and her weapon was surrounded by an flaming aura of blue shot through with red.
"Tidal Slash!" She roared as she brought her weapon down, sending a cutting wave surging at the ship and bisecting the vessel. She wasn't done with just that though and proceeded to repeat the feat over and over again, occasionally mixing in a Apes Igniferae (Crimson Bees) spell here and there, thus setting the ship's remains alight and reducing it to a flaming wreck.
Even as that happened though, groups of mobsters started appearing around them in loud pops. It seemed these guys had really thought through their plans.
Not that it's going to help them. Caelus thought with a vicious smirk. These idiots picked the wrong people to mess with.
Even as Pyrrha vented her righteous fury on the ship that had attacked them and hurt Alkaid, Helena had also jumped into action and grabbing hold of Crescent Rose from the table where she had laid it down to show it off, she deployed it into its sniper rifle mode. It took a while to finish the transformation though and Helena took the precious few seconds that gave her to reach into her Hammerspace Backpack and pulled out her favored Bladed Heels.
As she did, she shouted at her husband. "Go check on Alkaid!"
"Got it!" Michael shouted back.
Satisfied with that, Helena grabbed the medium-length, straight-pull bolt-action sniper rifle that Crescent Rose had transformed into and braced it against the table she'd laid it on earlier. Acting with the precision that came from ample practice, the Legacy of Venus managed to fire off eight shots into the ranks of the mobsters that had exploited Alkaid being knocked out and the subsequent failing of the wards she set up to protect the area dropping to teleport in. Each of her targets had been Wizards, the wands they were holding made them unmistakable, and, thanks to her accuracy and the enchanted bullets that her husband's weapons were armed with as a default easily piercing through the anti-bullet wards Wizards used, they died from perfect headshots.
She would have taken out more but one of the groups had teleported in too close for comfort and she quickly had to make Crescent Rose fully extend into the form of a scythe. A weapon that with one broad sweep, she proceeded to use to bisect the half dozen closest mobsters before they could so much as get their bearings and raise their guns at her.
She wasn't exactly all that well versed in using a scythe though and with it being unlikely that she would get another chance to use its sniper rifle mode, she abandoned Crescent Rose and snatched up Long Memory as she ran towards a group of mobsters that were about to level their guns at Michael as he tended to a downed Alkaid. Behind her, she heard Peggy deploy Athena's Wrath's rotary gun and begin blasting the mobsters apart even as out of the corner of her eye she saw Caelus and Pyrrha use their superhuman, Half-blood speed to whizz through the gunfire that the mobsters were starting to unleash and reap a bloody toll amongst their numbers. Helena paid them no concern however. They could take care of themselves. She had her own group of enemies to deal with.
Making a dramatic entrance by using Long Memory as a pole, she vaulted right into the midst of the pack of gunmen she was targeting, the blades of her Bladed Heels and a few well placed kicks, killing one and mortally wounding two more before she even landed. Another died as she swung Long Memory hard into his skull and yet another fell to a bolt from Huntress' Crossbow, now fully deployed and looking like a bird with its wings spread.
I wish the bolt loaded as default was explosive. Helena lamented. She'd have liked to see the mobster blown to bits for what his compatriots had done to her friend.
Sadly, she wouldn't have the chance either, as she had no time or space to reload it. Instead, she quickly shifted Huntress' Crossbow to shield mode, having its wings fold together into a round shield. One she brought in front of her as she used it to protect her against the panicked shots that the mobsters were taking her way whilst she danced through their ranks, slitting throats with her kicks courtesy of her Bladed Heels or cracking skulls with Long Memory.
She kept this up for the few minutes it took for Long Memory to build up the charge she needed, but the moment it did, she slammed the tip of the cane into the ground beneath her. In response, the kinetic energy it had collected from all the bone breaking blows she had landed was unleashed in a shockwave. One powerful enough not just to lift the mobsters surrounding her off their feet but to literally liquify them, thus what landed from their impromptu flight wasn't so much bodies as bloody smears.
As dramatic as what she'd pulled off was however, it paled in comparison to the massive pillars of energy that suddenly burst into being on either side of Alkaid at the same time that Helena had finished off her group of gangsters. Pillars, one a sickly gray and another a light blue, that announced the arrival of two of Alkaid's daughters. Her very, very pissed off daughters.
The daughter of war slashed with her labrys, sheathed in the blood red aura of her Αιμοληψία (Bloodlust) spell. Her spell enhanced her already superhuman Half-blood speed and strength even further but, more importantly, the aura granted her Celestial Bronze labrys which normally could not harm mortals an edge that very much could. Thus, her blades easily ran through the gut of the unfortunate mobster before her, leaving his bowels to spill onto the ground.
The man wailed, trying to stuff his intestines back in.
Pyrrha had no mercy for him and simply made to move to her next foe, only to halt as she sensed twin bursts of power nearby. Power from two very familiar sources.
"Oh they are so grounded." Pyrrha snarled as she grabbed the dying man, turning him to her side as she used him as a human shield against the salvo of gunfire sent her way. Using the moment of cover this provided her, she turned to look towards the new arrivals: the two 'youngest' of their family.
There, on either side of the downed Alkaid, was Kura, hovering in the air and… Mina.
Oh, that isn't good.
"You hurt what's MINE! You touched what's MINE! Your souls are MINE!" The white haired deathbringer that was her middle daughter raged as her form flickered, her divine form bleeding through her current shell as she shot out of the pillar of gray energy that had accompanied her arrival.
The goddess of serial killers flashed through the enemy ranks like the creature of steel and death that she was. All the while, she screamed her rage even as billowing mists spread out from around her with sprays of blood erupting here and there from within their banks. Banks which occasionally thinned enough to reveal the grisly slaughter that the tiny murder goddess wes perpetuating against the mobsters. Such as when she landed atop a man's head, proceeded to stab his eyes out before twisting his head off, creating a fountain of blood in the process.
And while she couldn't match her older sister's savagery and kill count, Kura was certainly making a good attempt at it. Screaming with incoherent rage, she stood within her pillar of light blue power and used her telekinesis to send her swarm of deadly cutlery to kill mobsters by the dozens. That was impressive enough, but it seemed Pyrrha's youngest had added something new to her arsenal of repurposed household items, that being coasters of all things. Coasters that exploded.
I really need to talk to her about that. Where did she get those vicious explosive discuses?
She and 'Kaidy certainly hadn't bought them for her. They'd bought her coasters yes, but they weren't enchanted to explode! Which left only really one option for who might have done so for Kura…
Gracie, we are going to have a big talk about enchanting your little sister's stuff! You don't need to arm her with explosives…
In the face of the fury of a powerful Zashiki-warashi and her goddess big sister, the mobsters practically ceased to exist within moments and as they did, the lung blackening gray mist that Mina had covered the whole area in dissipated, revealing nothing less than a field of corpses. A revelation that created a somber quiet that settled over everything. Like the eerie quiet left behind in the aftermath of a good horror movie in a theater.
And with the rest of Black Team looking on in horror, that wasn't too far off a comparison as one might expect. Not that the team was terrified by all the death that was left behind by Mina. No, what scared them was how Mina was visibly struggling to contain her divine form, her typical child-like form covered in cracks from which sickly gray mist wafted out alongside blinding gold light.
Pyrrha made to say something, she wasn't sure what, to help her but she was preempted by, of all people, Kura.
"Mina! Get a hold of yourself! Mum needs us!" The little spirit exclaimed.
That seemed to snap Mina out of her bloodrage, the cracks along her form closing up as she shook her blood soaked hair. She had thankfully succeeded in stabilizing herself.
"Y-Yes!" She said as she teleported to 'Kaidy's side.
A ball of ice formed in Pyrrha's gut as she realized something was wrong with her wife. If her two youngest were so rattled…
She tossed the dead man in her hand to the ground, making a mad dash past both Michael and Helena who were standing a respectful distance away and slid to a kneeling position next to her wife.
"What happened?" She asked her girls as Kura gently lifted 'Kaidy from the recovery position Michael must've put her in and onto her back with her telekinesis.
Pyrrha shuddered as she saw her wife's condition. The already naturally abnormally pale woman's skin looked almost white as a sheet and blood was flowing from the corners of her lips. All signs of dangerously severe internal injuries.
"What's wrong with Mum, girls?" She asked once more, desperation leaking into her voice.
"Mama! It-It was those nasty cannonballs! They were pumped with so much destructive power that they made her barrier pop! But, but, but-! It also created enough backlash doing so, giving her too many owies. Even worse than that, they were imbued with the curse of the Keres. Because of that, we need divine healing to fix her!" Kura rushed out in a motormouth fashion, worried tears flowing freely down her face.
Pyrrha was stunned at the quick assessment. "Kura, honey, how do you even know that?"
Kura puffed up her cheeks, looking like a cute, annoyed tiny Alkaid. "It's one of my powers. Home Embodiment. It lets me know everything that I need to know about my home and family. Everything. That includes details of any sickness or ouchies that someone in the family gets."
Mina shivered next to them, most likely in overwhelming rage. "I don't know what to do. Mum is hurt, I don't know how to heal things like this! I can't heal her, Mama, I can't!"
Her little goddess was crying, fat tears rolling down her pale cheeks. "It goes against my nature, Mama!"
She screamed again, throwing a knife into a corpse, no doubt struggling with her emotions. She turned to Kura, stuttering out. "K-Kura, how do I heal Mum? I'm a goddess, so it would work if I heal her, r-right?"
Kura pondered for a moment, crossing her arms in thought before lighting up - literally as she was suddenly surrounded by her light blue aura - and turned to look at Mina with a megawatt smile on her face. "Mina! You don't need to heal it, you just need to kill the boo-boo!"
Mina had a look of confusion at her sister's words. Heck, she wasn't the only one that tried to decipher what the little spirit was talking about. Everyone was looking at her with confusion. That is, until Helena spoke up.
"It seems Kura thinks that Mina can use her powers of killing to heal Alkaid."
"How the Pit do you know that?" Caelus asked with a baffled look on his face.
Helena shrugged, somehow making it look seductive. "My kids call injuries 'boo-boos' too."
Peggy frowned, a stern look on her face. "Kura, did you deduce that with your Home Embodiment power?"
"Yep!" Kura nodded her head rapidly. "It lets me know what my family can do."
"But, Kura! How am I supposed to kill a boo-boo?"
Kura patted her sister's shoulder, a winsome smile on her face. "Just think of the boo-boos as separate from Mum. And then stab it. Stab it really hard like you hate it."
"Uh, Mina, love, b-be very careful." Pyrrha said with some alarm. Considering her power to impose death on things… If Mina made a mistake…
It doesn't bear thinking about!
"Yes, Mama." Mina nodded with a look of supreme concentration on her face. In the blink of an eye, she suddenly stabbed a triangular shaped butcher's knife that she held in her right hand into Alkaid's abdomen, before pulling out immediately. All whilst moving with surgical precision.
"Done." Mina nodded, looking mighty pleased with herself.
In response to this, all of 'Kaidy's inuties magically disappeared and her emerald green eyes began to flutter open.
"Huh?" The sorceress asked as she regained consciousness, only to be immediately glomped by both Mina and Kura.
""Mum!"" The two cheered.
"Kura? Mina? What are you two darlings doing here?" The daughter of Hades asked.
Not even answering, Pyrrha just joined the hug, glad that her wife was safe.
That evening, back at the Potter Manor, a startled Alkaid found herself with her arms full of a distraught Gracie. Her eldest weeping heavily and pleading for forgiveness as she clung to her like a limpet.
"I'm so sorry! I'm a terrible daughter!" Gracie lamented with another burst of tears. Apparently, as the only one of her sisters who hadn't realized Alkaid had been hurt and thus not being able to aid/get revenge against those who harmed her, she was wracked with guilt.
All she had known was that something had happened. And she'd only known that because one second, Kura and Mina were watching T.V. with her and the next they had just teleported away. As a result, she had been left a frantic mess, knowing something terrible must have happened but not knowing what. Such was her worry that she had started to I.M. everyone who might know what was going on in a bid to figure out what had occurred.
In fact, she had been in the middle of being reassured by Mother that everything was fine when Alkaid and the rest of the family had returned to the manor. Naturally, their half-blood daughter had thrown herself into Alkaid's arms and demanded answers between her sobs.
"Gracie, dear," Alkaid said as she gently comforted the girl in her arms with a tight and motherly squeeze. "We're all okay. Rest assured that we're here. With you and safe."
"But something did happen!" The chestnut brown haired girl whimpered.
Alkaid and Pyrrha shared a look, having a nonverbal conversation on how to proceed. Trying to come up with a gentle way to break it to the distraught girl. Unfortunately, they had forgotten to share that memo with Mina.
"Mum nearly got killed!" The goddess chirped as Kura tried to cover her mouth, but she easily fended her off. "It was super scary and I had to stab her to make all the bad things go away!"
"WHAT?!" Gracie cried out, her sobbing doubling in intensity as she roared in despair. "I'm unworthy, Sensei. I'm just unworthy to be your daughter! I'm sorry for being useless! I'm sorry!"
Snapping out of her shock at Mina's complete lack of tact, Alkaid gently pushed her eldest out of their embrace to look into her green eyes firmly. "Gracie, don't you dare to even think that! That is untrue, young lady!"
"Yeah, Grace. You didn't know what happened. What were you even supposed to do? You can't blame yourself for doing so, kid. If you did, I know you'd have been there too, right?" Pyrrha asked.
"Of course!" Gracie screamed.
"Then that's enough." The redhead told their daughter with a firm nod.
"No, no, it isn't!" Their stubborn eldest disagreed.
The couple shared a helpless look.
Suddenly, Cappy, their head House Elf, popped in. "Missuses, I's be having a suggestion."
Mina, looking just as worried and desperate as the adults in the room, turned to the Elf. "Yes mister Cappy? What is it?"
"There be's a item from a Wizarding household I'd worked for. An enchanted grandfather clock. Kept track of status of the family, it does. Mayhaps we could get the same for Miss Gracie, but smaller? A pocket watch sized for the young mistress to check on the status of the rest of the family whenever she needs to rest her mind worries."
"Oh!" Kura clapped her hands enthusiastically. "As expected of Cappy! That's a brilliant suggestion!"
Gracie looked up from Alkaid's arms, a pleading look in her eyes.
Leaning forward, Alkaid kissed the girl's forehead lovingly. "We'll have one commissioned immediately, dear."
Gracie gave her a relieved look at this, once more throwing herself at Alkaid, wrapping her arms around her mother like an adorable limpet. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I promise to always be there in the future when you need me, Mum!"
Even as Alkaid spent time with her family in the wake of her near death experience, in an well-lit study, a woman with short, magenta hair and a mole just below her left eye and who was dressed in a black, two piece business suit with a red-violet necktie which was accompanied by two ovaloid earrings was speaking on a cellphone.
"Yeah, I'll accept the job. Wire me what we agreed on and I'll get to work." She said as she sat behind a desk and reviewed a small stack of paperwork laid out in front of her.
Ending the call and flipping the phone shut, the woman looked over the file before her. A file with a family crest consisting of a shield emblazoned with an owl and a money bag as well as a banner with Aurum Est Potestas (Gold is Power) printed on it acting as a watermark. A file the contents of which caused the woman's pretty face to smile, particularly as she eyed the picture of the infamous Alkaid Potter staring back at her.
"Heh, it'll be interestin' to test my mettle against the so-called Consul of the Underworld."
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless and Axios as always!
Mysterious lady said the thing! XD Ah, so it seems not all missions finish with a flawless win. Other factors and people can still surprise someone clever like Alkaid, so it makes sense she'd take a hit once in a while. What I really enjoyed was Mina learning to kill outside of killing itself. Conceptual killing is pretty interesting after all. Gracie losing it is because Alkaid and Pyrrha are her support structures after being affiliated with madness. She needs them or Alkaid mostly, as her teacher and foster mother to feel grounded. After all, her divine mother, Hecate, trusts Alkaid, so that means Gracie can trust her. If something happens to her, she'll rage and weep.
Nameless: Yeah. Alkaid, and, to a lesser extent, Pyrrha, are the pillars to Gracie's world now. So the fact that Gracie almost lost Alkaid without her even knowing what was going on really shook her. As such, her getting an analogue to the Weasley Clock will be a massive relief. And the next time that Alkaid, or Pyrrha, are in trouble, totally expect her to show up and unleash Lovecraftian hell on them.
Indeedy! And expect Mina and Kura to not be fair behind. Heck, it'd be a race to see who got there first. Though, with Gracie having to check a clock… She's heavily handicapped.
Nameless: So, if you didn't notice, we have had our mobsters use a lot of Wizarding stuff up to and including having them use a replica/another iteration of the Drumstrang ship (Because of course more of it would be produced or it would be imitated. It's too useful not to be.). Why? On one hand, this is to bring this story back to its Harry Potter roots. On the other hand, we had to give the mobsters some kind of edge to be a threat to our heroes. And why not give them some Wizards in their ranks and thus access to Wizarding toys? I mean organized crime isn't exactly going to let itself be limited by something as trivial as a law separating the mundane and Wizarding worlds. They are after all criminals!
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!
