Space station Sword of Justice
The twenty-story tall Themis walks into the hall, taking her place on the throne. Noticing that Athena, Vesta and Hermes rise up when she arrives, Noriko does the same.
She is wearing once again her formal attire: it's not her style, but the occasion warrants it. As Themis takes her time before talking, Noriko glances at the other goddesses present.
Persephone has her feet on the desk, unwilling to show any kind of respect to anyone: she even gives the middle finger to Noriko when she notices her. Artemis is at least more composed, but doesn't bother to hide her utter and complete boredom.
All the three bodies of Hekate are present: the Child and the Maiden are sitting next to the Crone's corpse, whose head is mercifully covered by her dark hood.
Themis doesn't react to Persephone's vulgarities and continues:
Hermes intervenes. Noriko expected him to be mad, but he's strangely subdued.
Her fellow gods don't react with the same demure, but start shouting louder and louder:
One by one, the gods leave the hall after looking at Noriko. Their stares range from homicidal to challenging, and none of them leaves a good taste in her mouth.
Project Silver, classified location
When General Anderson enters the room, the two female soldiers keeping guard salute him.
A stream of white-hot plasma flows out of the African-American woman, incinerating a block of granite. The power still runs through her veins when she's done.
-I'm feeling great, General. I've already learned how to shoot a dozen different types of energy.
one of them answers, leaving his colleagues to analyze the ashes before continuing the explanation.
<"Regrettably" isn't the word I would've used> Kayla highlights.
Myridia
The southern continent is mostly uninhabited, and for good reason: it's a never-ending swamp where plants grow uncontrollably, feeding off the light of the planet's six suns.
The Artemis Hunters have stationed here since the invasion, and they couldn't hate it more. They are space pirates that thrive off the chance to rape and pillage entire planets, but they've seen little to no action since their landing.
Elytra Elater knows this forced inactivity is hurting her leadership. The Ghost Maker she carries makes her literally untouchable, so she has little fear of assassination attempts, but mutiny is a real possibility at this point. She needs something to make the Hunters remember why they follow her.
Luckily, a scoutship from Athena's fleet just landed three people inside her camp.
Kari Zel is one of them: she's going to put up a fight. She doesn't recognize the man with red skin wearing a worn-off duster; she's never seen a human with that skin color, for that matter.
But the third one is Noriko Null. The girl with silver eyes. Much shorter than she'd expected.
Noriko has never seen a Lampyrian before. Elytra resembles a slim woman with blue skin, large bat-like wings and no nose; not very physically imposing, even with fully spread wings.
-Null, The God Slayer. Nice of you to drop by – she says.
<"God Slayer"?> Noriko repeats, glancing at Kari.
Elytra can't complete the sentence: she vanishes before she can say a single other word. For once Noriko is caught off-guard, until she hears someone behind her saying:
Hermes moves forward, kissing Noriko on the cheek. She vanishes in the blink of an eye.
Null Tower, New York City
In front of the elevator door, Erika Rhys shakes Max's hand, offering to do the same for Kari but receiving only a nod and a cold stare.
Max watches the British girl with glasses leave the building; when she's out of sight, Kari adds:
Just then, there is a bright flash of light in front of Max and Kari. They get ready for anything…and are a little disappointed when they see it's just Vesta, Torn and Noriko.
the latter fumes.
The Aegis, Athena's mothership
As the ship exceeds the speed of light, the handmaiden fills two glasses with ambrosia. Both Athena and Hermes take a drink.
Athena looks outside the window; her cold, silver eyes shine over the reflection of the stars.