Siran, Silas, Carl, Dana, Benjie, Ali, Demetri and Don left Vega. Siran has been silent since he left the arena, and John strangely seemed more pleased than scared. Siran, however, seemed to be in a mix between sad and angry. After they leave Vega, they eventually return to Pilloa HQ. There, Loki, Thor and Athena had been waiting while helping protect the HQ. When they arrive, they find Holly, Tanya and Blake had returned, and they were quickly escorted to Robin, who was bedridden and in pain with a hole in his leg. "We have some soldiers with first aid training, but this is beyond what we're training for" Ryan says. "I'm afraid we did all we could, but we can't do enough to close the hole in his leg."
"Let me see boy" Demetri says as he shoves some of the soldiers aside. Demetri studies Robin for a while, and removes bandages that were wrapped around his leg. The hole in his leg had minor burns to stop the bleeding, but the burned skin was peeling and giving way for fresh abs exposed skin and blood to meet the air. However, the skin around the wound was turning red, and bits of yellow liquid was inside of the wound, mixed with blood. "Looks like sepsis" Demetri says. Demetri then pulls out kits to clean the wound, morphine, a syringe, and a stitching kit. He then points at Ryan and asks "Do we have any medication in HQ?"
"We should have plenty" Ryan says. "After linking nearby territories, gathering supplies has been a cinch, until recently."
"Go find me penicillin" Demetri demands. "450 milligram doses, if you have it. Bring it here fast."
"Right away!" Ryan says as he and two other soldiers rush out of the medical room.
"I'm sorry..." Holly says. "You've been taking care of Siran for the past two years. Now you have to take care of Robin too. We've been keeping you busy too much lately."
"It is not optional" Demetri says with a sigh. "I am doctor. It is what I do. I'm going to need you to clear room. I will need time, and space to focus. If you will please leave, I'll make sure Robin gets well." Demetri then sticks the syringe in the bottle of morphine and measures a set amount within the syringe. He slowly inserts an IV into Robin's left arm. The IV was hooked up to a bag of water, and had a second sealed hole where a syringe could fit. Demetri slowly injects the morphine into that hole as he prepares to start working on Robin. "Go now" he says. "I'm sure you have much to catch up on."
"So, how long have you guys been back in Omnia?" Ali asks.
"We've been back for almost two weeks" Holly says. "It's been hell since we got back. Robin has been in so much pain, and we barely got treated for endo-poisoning in time."
"Endo-Poisoning!?" Benjie asks. "What the hell happened?"
"Long story" Tanya says. "But, we may be in danger because of it, so you'll have to listen well."
"What's the danger?" Siran asks with a stern face.
"I'm sure you remember the President of the United States" Holly says. "His little lap dog, Jacob McNamara waited for us as we were investigating Dead Crater."
"Why the hell were you in Dead Crater!?" Benjie asks. "No wonder you had endo-poisoning. That's too crazy, even for The Six Guns!"
"What did you find?" Loki asks.
"Nothing much" Holly says. "And we'll need to have a talk about how to possibly close the streams after this."
"Ah, we have some theories about that too" Loki says.
"Good." Holly adds. "But hold onto that thought." Holly then takes a deep breath as she slowly unravels a scarf that was around her neck, as Tanya and Blake roll up their shirts partway to expose the lower parts of their ribs. Tanya and Blake each had giant bruises that were purple and red all over their left abdomen. Holly, however, had a deep red burn scar roughly in the shape of a hand on her neck, with some scars of blisters that were healing scattered about. "McNamara caught us and tortured us." Holly continues to say.
"What!?" Siran shouts, getting visibly angrier.
"Calm down" Holly says. "We got away, but Robin probably sustained the worse of the damage. It seems he wanted to use us as a lure to bring you out for whatever reason. Maybe he thinks he could defeat you, or maybe he just wanted to make you run around while they made a move on Omnia. I'm not sure. However, seeing as how much tampering they did with my laptop, I'm assuming a few more possibilities. One; using us as a lure may have been part of it, but in case that would fail, he'd have my laptop's information on where to find the rest of the crew. Two; he was hoping to perpetuate the blame of recent happenings on The Six Guns, and hoping we had information on how to stop the current crisis, keeping us there for the right moment to have us made into a public display. Or three; he was hoping to gain control of the situation using us as hostages and our intel as a compromise to gain leverage and gain control over our actions, or more directly, gain control over Siran's actions."
"That's quite the assessment" Benjie says as he thinks.
"Either way, it was nothing good." Holly adds.
"But, what information do you have on your laptop?" Ali asks.
"Locations on all of The Six Gun members by tracking their phone" Holly says. "Which brings us to the danger. Strangely, activity in Omnia hasn't been as heavily focused lately. Almost as if the flow of enemy forces in the area are ebbing. Meaning they know we're here, they know you're here, and most importantly, they know the rest of the crew is scattered around the world. If I'm right, and this is speculation, they manages to get my tracking off of my laptop and are currently tracking us all down."
"I thought thought said they'd kill us the moment they had that information off your laptop though" Tanya reminds her.
"Correct." Holly answers. "Which made the timing of our escape no short of perfect. The moment Jacob opened that door, he didn't know we broke out of the chairs. He stepped in the room and without even a warning, put on these gloves that I pried off of his hands. Most likely scenario: he was coming one last time to kill us. With that being said, the fact that we got out of there by using him as a hostage turned out easier than it should've been. Why do you think that is?"
"Because he was the Secretary of Defense. He's an important figure." Tanya answers.
"Maybe." Holly replies. "Or maybe it's because we weren't important assets. They didn't need us there as much as they did originally, thus why they didn't put up much of a fight. Which brings me back to my assessments of why we were captives to begin with. Thinking back on it now, I can now think of a fourth possible reason. We were held there in case they weren't successful in cracking my laptop. Whatever information they were looking for is still just a wild guess, but I'm also open to the possibility it might be all of the reasons I previously stated before. He wanted to gain control of Siran, pin the blame on us, be the hero by ending the crisis and track down the rest of the crew. Using us as a backup in case they weren't able to get the information they needed from my laptop."
"And the fact McNamara came to kill us off..." Tanya adds, "just solidifies the idea that they got what they came for."
"Right" Holly agrees.
"This isn't good..." Benjie says. "What are we supposed to do?"
"We need to find Zia" Siran says.
"Dammit, Siran! Focus!" Holly says as she gets angry. "The rest of the crew... your crew, is in immediate danger!"
"Zia could be in immediate danger!" Siran argues. "She's been missing for months!"
"I've heard about it from Ryan already!" Holly says. "But think about it! They haven't found a body, plus this is Zia we're talking about! She's strong! If she hasn't been found, she likely has her reasons for it! But the rest of them... they may not be able to handle this!"
Siran sits for a moment, with his head hanging low, angrily staring at the ground. "You're right..." Siran says. "I believe in Zia. But I also believe in the rest of the crew too. But if you say they're in danger, then we'll go help them."
"After all" Holly says, "the tracking information was based on cellphone tracking. If you have Zia's phone, they can't track down Zia."
"Right..." Siran says, defeated.
"On to the next topic, before we decide our next move" Loki says. "There's the issue about closing the endo streams. Going on about this has proven to be more... problematic than we thought."
"Can't you just seal it!?" Siran asks.
"Well, we can, but it's not safe" Loki says. "Not only can I not promise the seal would completely close off the streams, unless you happen to have a primeval god on speed dial, but apparently someone is prone to breaking those seals and bringing Valhalla and Earth closer together."
"Oh, so this is my fault!?" Siran yells.
"Look, we don't have time for this" Athena interrupts.
"Right..." Siran says as he calms down. "So, how do we close the streams?"
Loki looks at Siran, then looks back down. "Unfortunately..." he says, then pauses. "We have to sacrifice many human souls for each stream... and consider the amount of streams that are open... it's not going to be pretty."
Siran draws his gun and points it at Loki. "I won't let you do that." He says.
Athena puts her hands over her head and rubs her forehead in frustration. "Relax!" Loki says. "I'm joking! You know, god of mischief, Loki? Anyways, we'll have to track down the ones that opened the streams to discover their method to opening them."
"What?" Siran asks.
"Their technique" Loki simplifies. "We need to find out the technique used, and reverse it. However, they might've used a unique method for each stream, I don't know. They only way to play it safe is to get the information from-"
"From Ares, Eris, Dolos and Zeus" Athena interrupts. "And considering Eris and Zeus are dead, and Dolos and Ares are now in control of God knows how many shards of Chronos..."
"Shit, just when you think things are coming to an end!" Siran says.
"That's not all" Athena adds. "Ares betrayed Zeus, and Dolos is with him. So they've been working separately from Zeus, which makes this job worse than I expected. Now we don't know who's really behind this scheme or why. I mean, Ares is no leader. He doesn't have the capacity to make this all up on his own. Dolos is a coward too. There's no way it's him!"
"Then who could possibly be pulling the strings here?" Loki asks. "You're the Greek god expert among us."
"I wasn't tightly knit with any of them!" Athena argues. "What makes you expect I'd know what the hell they're thinking or who's thinking it!? All I know is that Ares and Dolos are shallow gods! Zeus more so, but he's dead. Beyond that, I don't know!"
"If Zeus was shallow, what makes him more likely to lead than Ares who's also shallow?" Loki asks.
"I don't know!" Athena argues. "That's just how it is!"
"It's because Zeus holsters power in his essence" Siran answers. "People naturally flock to power. Assuming gods were designed to model after mankind, they likely share the same traits in that demeanor."
Loki, Athena, Thor and the crew froze and looked at Siran. "I'm sorry, what?" Athena asks.
"How... do you know that?" Loki asks.
"Wait, didn't gods exist before mankind?" Holly asks. "I always assumed the latter."
"Nope, humans were designed by YHWH before gods were assigned to protect them." Siran answers.
"How do you know that!?" Loki asks. "There's no way you should be able to learn that from a book!"
"I guess... it just sorta came to mind" Siran says.
"What happened to you while you were in your coma?" Athena asks. "Did you see Valhalla again?"
"Ah, yeah..." Siran answers. "I saw Gaia again, but more importantly, I saw... my past life."
"You mean, as Ishmael. Right?" Loki asks. Siran nods his head slightly. "So... you were able to remember it? How did Gaia do it? What happened? How much did you learn?"
"I don't know..." Siran says.
"What do you mean you don't know!?" Loki asks.
"I mean I don't know!" Siran yells. It was silent for a moment, then Siran says "All I know right now is, I want to save my crew, find my wife and stay with my son. I don't have all of the answers."
"Alright... I'm sorry" Loki says.
"Then we have no way of knowing how to stop the streams without tracking down Ares after all?" Athena asks.
"That's not entirely true" Holly says. "I can't keep up with all of that god talk nonsense, but that aside, we came across an interesting hypothesis in Dead Crater. We found one of the seals that Siran drew before the Naris Catastrophe. After examining it, it was actually no different in terms of endo from the surrounding environment. With that being said, it's almost as if the seal doesn't have an effect anymore. Or rather, it wasn't a seal, but a charm."
"That's right" Siran says. "Naris lied about what it was. It wasn't a seal that brought our worlds closer together, it was a charm that broke the seal that was put there by Nyx and the other gods when they left Earth."
"I'm still absolutely not used to hearing Siran talk like this" Loki complains.
"Shut up for a moment" Athena says.
"The charms loosened the seal until eventually Naris broke the seal partially." Siran adds. "But the two worlds didn't come together. Rather, the endo that makes up Valhalla started to seep into Earth through sort of cracks, I guess."
"And if Ares and the others were doing the same?" Holly asks.
"B-b-but that can't be right!" Loki asks.
"Now, hold on, brother" Thor interjects. "The human may be right."
"Alright, go on" Loki says.
"Think about it." Holly says. "Gods don't need charms to use magic, just like Siran doesn't need charms to use magic. If they did the same thing that Siran did, but concentrated the effect to loosen the seal further like Naris did, they would both not need charms to do it, but also need a power source to serve as a way to control it better by making them streams that slowly spew into the world rather than simply break the world itself. Why it is that they're doing that is beyond me, but you mentioned they had shards of whatever. If that acts as a power source, then it all fits together."
"Wow..." Athena says, amazed. "That's simply amazing. You're quite the human, you know."
"And it just might be on the ball too" Loki says. "Which means the way to close the streams... could be what now?"
"Well, I haven't gotten to that part yet" Holly says. "But at least we can work on that without needing Ares and Dolos if it's true."
"Way to go, human!" Athena says. "I'm rather impressed. Alright, then we'll split from here and find a way to try to interact with these holes now, keeping your idea in mind this time."
"Then we'll go and get our crew back together, then find Zia, and meet up afterwards." Siran says.
"Sounds like a plan" Loki says.