"Ugh, this fucking guy." She thought.
Much to her displease, Vega looked over to respond to her fellow champion.
"There are too many things happening right now, I don't wanna deal with you right now." Vega told Vulcan.
She had already gotten yelled at by her mom and was probably about to lose her job because Quetzacoatl was mad at her. She didn't need Vulcan of all people to yell at her now. She knew what she did wrong, she was gonna fix it, and she's an adult now, she didn't need everyone telling her that.
"No I want…"
"I don't give a fuck. If you wanna know what happened, you'll hear it when I announce what happened."
Vulcan went silent and continued to glare at her for a moment, then finally backed away so she could make her speech.
She just wanted to get this over with so she could go and see Willow.
"Okay, they gotta know about how the team did and why it took so long." Vega rehearsed to herself as she walked up to the edge of the gold balcony, making sure her mask was on so nobody could see her face.
"HEY!"
Vega pounded the railing of the balcony to get the crowd's attention.
After a second of them all looking up, the whole room fell silent except for a few mumbles coming from behind and below her.
She gave them all a moment to pull out their cameras and phones. There were a few hundred of them, most of them likely for news or just curious citizens of her city.
Vega gave herself another second or so to take a deep breath… and…
"I'm sorry I took so long, so I'm gonna make this quick! During the latter half of our trail we got caught up in a fight with Xuihcoatl, the fire serpent! There were some injuries, but nothing that couldn't be healed!"
Vega had to pause from all of the flashes that were seeping into her vision. She must've been super dehydrated because her whole vision was getting clouded by black splotches. She couldn't even see how the crowd was reacting.
"Ugh… okay. For those who want to know how Vulcan's team did, these… hold on!"
"Shit I really wasn't prepared for this." Vega muttered as she walked over to the team.
"Come're." She grabbed Martyr, and then grabbed Vanagloria's hand, tearing her from the familiar looking white-haired girl.
"O-Oh, okay." Martyr said, almost tripping.
Vanagloria looked way more timid than Vega remembered her looking. She had really only just noticed she was there.
Vega yanked them over to the side edge of the balcony and held up their hands for the crowd to see.
"This one, Martyr, he is the one who single handedly slew Xiuhcoatl."
Murmurs started to rise up in the crowd.
"Vanagloria, she also slew a wyvern completely by herself."
"I give these two, Vanagloria and Martyr, an endorsement!"
The crowd's volume really rose as she continued to hold their hands up high for the crowd to see.
"They have shown me they are powerful enough to take down incredibly strong creatures of the wildlands and responsive enough to survive on their own without my help. The rest of their team have passed my trail."
"Are you crazy?"
As Vega slowly was letting down the hands of the two prodigies, she turned to see a group of her knights that had walked up to her.
"Save it for later. I'm busy." She said as sternly as possible while still trying to keep her composure.
"Vega, these kids blinded Demetrius! We spent the past week looking all over for them, they have been evading…"
"Oh my god! Please stop, this is too much to handle right now. Just let me do what I need to do." Vega was actually about to fucking snap, she was so close to being able to go.
"For anybody who wants to get in contact with Vulcan's team I would do it now as I escort them out!" Vega shouted down to the crowd one last time and pulled away.
"Alright come on. I'm getting Quetzacoatl to give you guys another ride back to your home." She started walking toward an exit, not waiting for anyone.
"So that's all you have say about how my team did? Do you not have any advice on how I should train them based on what you learned by being around them." Vulcan said, walking by her side. Vega would've gotten really mad at that, but seeing his short legs try and keep up with her strides was making it hard for her to take him seriously. It still ticked her off that he was still trying to push her.
"Yup. That's all I gotta say."
"…Alrighty then."
Vega heard murmurs behind her. They were unintelligible but definitely from Vulcan's team. Although they didn't really feel like his team. It felt like she was taking care of his team more than he was. More than she was taking care of her own team. Which she had to visit soon and was gonna keep her away from Willow.
Vega didn't even really know any of her team members that well. She wasn't good at being that social butterfly leader she is expected to be as a champion. She wanted to be a badass mysterious, secretly super powerful member of a group like divergence. Not a mega famous public figure that had to take care of a whole capital all on her own, on top of taking care of her kid and now two teams of prodigies.
She sighed. "Maybe this really isn't the job for me. Maybe getting fired won't be that bad after."
But that stuff wasn't even the worst part about being famous.
In fact the worst part was staring right at her.
Vega had just walked down a flight of stairs that finally led to an exit out of the castle.
Outside was a crowd of people all talking at once, blocking her way to the road.
"Hey! Sylvie! Eva! Kyrie! What's-yer-face! Get on this!" She directed her knights over to the crowd so they could create a path. They were practically the only way Vega was gonna get through without having to push and shove.
She would gladly push and shove if she could but there was no way she could do that in a smart way. There are too many cameras on her that we're fishing for a bad story about her. Plus who knows what weird thing some grimy crowd member might try and do if she got that close and physical with them.
It sucks how as soon as people get in a crowd, they think they can do whatever they want.
The knights started to part a way through the crowd, some of them physically having to push them back further.
Vega took the front of their now single file line down the skinny pathway.
Hands were literally stretching out trying to touch Vega, behind her was the same thing. She noticed Martyr's arms being grabbed and Samsara's hair being swatted. Mics were being shoved in everyone's faces and flashes of cameras were everywhere she looked.
On top of all that, there was the constant chatter piercing her ears.
Vega was getting the same request she had always gotten, which is to model for a celebrity magazine she didn't care about. She had explained numerous times in interviews that she wore the mask for a reason, but it didn't stop people from asking to see her face. Vega was lucky enough to become champion without having to do the Vying, so she was one of the only people who still had the option of hiding her face because of how late the fame caught up to her. She knew everyone would freak out as soon as they saw her face, she already got enough comments even without showing her face, imagine how many she would get if she did.
It wasn't the only one either, Vega also constantly got requests to model for clothing brands, sports and drink brands. Not just modeling too, there were also requests for interviews, appearances on podcasts, shows, music videos, movies or advertisements. Requests to help promote upcoming artists, writers or bands.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
It was all so overwhelming. It made her regret even trying to go for champion.
Vega was hearing so many requests right now, and it was taking all her willpower to stay strong and keep her head up, looking forward and ignoring everything around her.
And then finally, she saw the shadow pass over her head.
"I assume you don't want to chat about what happened at this moment." The goddesses voice popped into her head, cutting clearly through the coarse exterior noise of the outside world.
"Nope, we can talk about it later. I need a break." Vega told Quetzacoatl in her mind.
"Understandable. I will take things from here. Go see your child."
"Thank you. I really do appreciate it." Vega told her as the goddesses massive body slammed down on the temple behind her.
The ampithere's tail landed onto an open space past the crowd, not too far from where they all were right now.
"Aight, there's your ride! Train hard guys!" Vega shouted to Martyr and Vanagloria as they ran by her. The rest of the team followed along with Vulcan. Her knights stayed back with Vega and watch with her as the made their way over to the goddess.
The whole mob went silent as the camera's focused on the magical dragon.
"Now's our chance. Let's go." Vega started swiftly advancing back to the castle to get to her kid before the crowd started noticing her again.
The knights followed her, and it seemed to be working for a moment until…
"Just one question Ms. Artemis, please just one question. One question, that's all I need. Just one question." Said a guy with a camera who jumped out in front of her. He was a small guy with an angry face and wore typical white people clothes.
Vega continued to walk, trying to ignore him as best she could.
"Do you have more tell us about the situation in the wildlands?"
"No." She said as she walked by.
"Nothing about what you did wrong? You're not gonna apologize more? You're not gonna talk more about how you killed one of the most powerful creatures in this region? Or how you almost killed two of the most promising contestants in the Vying? Or what about…"
Vega shot vines out of her hands and started forming walls around herself.
She started running towards the temple with this vine wall forming right out of her hands.
The shouts of the crowd were clearly shocked by her doing this, but she didn't care. Why should she care about her reputation anyways?
She stopped fabricating it when she reached the door and started skipping up the stairs.
So many people were yelling at her.
This was too overwhelming.
Vega ran up the next flight of stairs, up into the real part of the capital castle where no one could bother her.
A left, another left into the next staircase, up a story, right, past the vault room and into the door at the end of the hallway.
The only thing she could hear were her footsteps echoing through the hallway.
She stopped and calmly opened up the door, breathing hard from her run.
Her injuries were starting to flare up, showing themselves now rather than earlier.
Walking in, she found herself inside her bedroom, a large open room with plants and greenery that decorated the walls. It felt more like a sunroom than an actual place to sleep. Too large to feel comfy and secure, and too decorated to feel like she could be messy.
The ceiling was one giant glass dome, lighting up the entire room with a stressful amount of sunlight. It made the whole room feel exposed to the outside world.
Gold bookcases and gold dressers had pots of green plants and colorful flowers placed atop them.
A bed took up the whole back of the room, large clean gold sheets and pillows decorating its exterior. Green laces came down from the ceiling, not covering up the bed as much as she wanted to.
Honestly this whole bedroom really wasn't made for Vega.
It looked like it was made for a princess.
Sitting on her bed were two people staring right at her, surprised at her sudden entrance.
"MOM!!"
Vega crouched down as the little girl ran up to her and embraced her.
"Hey Willow. I missed you." Vega told her as lifted the tiny girl up and started carrying her back to the bed.
Willow had a little green gown on, her brown hair tied up into a ponytail just like Vega usually had hers.
She started getting a little emotional, having somebody finally being happy to see her felt really nice.
Vega couldn't cry around Willow though, she had to show her that she was strong.
The other figure on the bed stood up, his large dark frame making an obvious presence in the room.
"Hey dad, how'd she do?" Vega looked up to see the old guy smiling at them.
He looked tired, making him look even older than usual. His back was a little arched and he looked extremely drained.
"She did well. Y'know she's full of energy and was constantly scheming on how to get you back, but otherwise we had fun. Lots of board games, lots of disney movies and lots of foam bow wars." Dad's voice sounded tired, but compassionate.
"I won every time!" Willow perked up proudly.
"I'm sure you did." Vega patted her head and then went back to talking to her father. "Did, uh… mom help at all? Orrrrr…"
"Nope. It's exactly why we don't share the same last name anymore." Dad frowned and walked past Vega towards the door.
"Yeah I get that. Sorry about that, I can send some of my knights to help you for next week's trail if you want."
Dad sighed as he looked back at them, holding the top of the doorframe. "Maybe, I'll think about it, but I gotta go home. I'll let you two have your moment."
"Okay, Thank you!" Vega shouted as Dad walked out.
She sighed and put Willow down on the bed.
In one last leap of effort left in her body she jumped onto the bed, flopping into the middle of the vast pool that was the blanket.
"Where were you? You were away for years." Willow said dramatically as Vega turned around to look at the ceiling.
"I told you silly, mom had to go and help out some teens for a few days."
"Teens?"
"Yeah, teenagers. They're like almost fully grown people."
"Are you fully grown?"
"…yeah. But I could use some more growing up, even though everyone else expects me to be fully grown."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I guess it's just the way things are. It doesn't make much sense. I feel like nobody ever fully grows up."