Pretty pathetic, I know. Blacking out when a giant bat attacks your kind of friend? You're probably ready to blame me, but after this next segment.. Maybe you won't.
I woke up in what I could only guess was an infirmary. I know this, because I've been in one before. Warm blankets, ice cream on a tray, and blistering pain. Except, the last one was absent. I felt fine, and that made me wonder why I was here. And, where was Thomas?
"Where is Thomas?" I croaked, my throat felt dry.
I could make out Thomas and someone else who seemed his age talking. Thomas glanced in my direction. "I'm fine, Ultima things- sorry, it's time I explain this mess."
I could feel a headache coming on, reminding me of the days in the orphanage where they placed the hot towel on my head and made me rest for hours without moving.
"That would be preferred, yeah." I muttered.
He sighed, and sat on the bed. By that time, I was rubbing my eyes and sitting cross legged on the bed, too.
"As you may or may not know, the pantheon you know as the Neo-American pantheon is very much real. I don't know how much you know about the pantheon so I will make a quick explanation of some of the most important gods. Mymus and Odanis are the gods of Order and Chaos respectively, they're married and to my knowledge are some of the most powerful gods. Cosmus is the god of you guessed it, the cosmos. He's the third oldest god. Eternus and Clockmass are the oldest and most powerful gods, parents of Mymus, Odanis, and Cosmus. They're supposed to be the ones who created the universe. My father is Ultima, God of Life and Death."
My heart sank into my chest. I felt bad for these people, but now I feel envious. They have solace, they know their family. Now I've put two and two together, I know that my parents probably left me… abandoned me… just to protect me? Because they knew that their ancestor, and mine, could cause trouble just because we have their blood?
"And I'm one of them." I guessed.
He nodded, a sad look on his face. "I wish it didn't have to be this way, I wish I could rewrite your story or something but… a lot of bad things happen to us, because what you saw? It's all real, I was attacked by a Hellbat. It's… a monster." He looked around, probably because of his "Words have Power" thing.
"You're most likely not the direct child of a god, that's very rare. Most likely you're a distant descendant of one."
"I don't know whether that's good or bad for me" I half ask half state.
"Both"
I nodded. "So… I don't want to be stuck here, but I suppose it's too late for that?"
"No. Because we've just been issued a quest."
"A quest? When did that happen?" I asked.
"Obviously when you were asleep" He deadpans
"Okay back to the quest! What is it?" I quickly retort
"It's an assignment from The Protectores, they're essentially robots made by the god Entus to protect us. From any threats, from monsters, from even any other demigods. As for what the actual quest is, apparently some monsters have been mutating. Our first thought was radiation, but we aren't anywhere near the locations where the nukes dropped. Before you ask, yes I know what a nuke is."
"Surprising" I chuckle
He rolls his eyes.
"Anyways, now we have to figure out the cause of this little situation. I'm guessing they want to break in the new guy. Now, let's go." He says before beginning to walk away.
"Of course they want to break in the new guy" I mutter under my breath before following him.
20 minutes later, I was deep in thought. He summed up some of the myths, but I was still confused about it all.
"So your father is Ultima? God of Life and Death, interesting."
"Yeah, sorry it's probably pretty confusing." He said. "I want to help you here but… it's not easy to process. Most would lose their mind once they realize it's real."
"And that's why normal people don't know about it?" I guessed.
"Correct. Their brains simply cannot process it. They either remove it entirely or replace it with something normal. Humans can't process the supernatural, or at least most. I've heard that when the gods created humanity, they intentionally made them this way, a sort of limiter if you will. Few can break past this limiter whether on purpose or by accident, and it essentially makes them supernatural themselves, allowing them to see the supernatural."
"So how do you know I'm not a normal person who just accidentally broke the limiter?" I ask him.
"You said the water healed you? Even if you broke your limiter that wouldn't be possible if you had been born a normal human." He replies.
"Another question!"
"Yes?" He says
"Why did you wait so long to tell me this stuff, you know in detail."
"We weren't in a secure location, Luciferrus, God of Hell and ruler of the monsters made a deal with the other gods. Monsters will hunt demigods and their descendants in an amount proportional to how much they know. The reason only one hell-bat came is because you didn't know much. Now you might think that with how much you and I know, we would be facing a monster army, but a second part of the deal was that all hunts have to be fair."
"Fair?" I question
"There always has to be some kind of chance for us to survive"
"Lucky us" I sarcastically reply.
We kept walking until we reached a hallway with a screen lying on the wall. Images flashed and whipped around, holographic paragraphs and articles sat there too. "What is this?" I asked. He stared at it for a couple of seconds.
"American Technology, do you have this in Italy?"
It did seem familiar. "Yeah, we have very similar technology though the specifics are different, I believe. Why?"
"I don't know. Sorry. I just… wanted to see how far off we are from the rest of the world.
I didn't know how to respond, I didn't really know him or the past he had faced. So I just changed the conversation. "It's fine. Regardless, it does seem foreign. What's the information it displays?"
He began clacking and clicking on a keyboard and mouse, bringing up a holographic blue tinted image of a lean, scruffy bearded man. He had jet black hair, like Thomas, and those same bushy eyebrows. He wore a necklace of three skulls on his neck.
"Ultima." I guessed. He nodded in approval, staring at the image. Perhaps he was nostalgic, had he ever met his father? No, those are too personal of questions. Especially for someone with the likes of you, Will. I said to myself.
"He's interesting to say the least. Anyway, let me answer your question. This is the Titanbase, but we just call him Titan for short."
"Him?" I inquired.
"Yes. What about it?"
"Is he an artificial intelligence?" I had experience with AI before, as they were commonplace in a lot of stores and merchant shops in Italy. It was an easy way to communicate things, pay, et cetera.
"Perhaps. I don't know much about him, nor do most of the people here. Some do if they have ancestors that are technology or industrial based. I don't, so he remains a mystery to me."
Suddenly the blue holograph morphed into a small robot the size of an infant. "Hiya!" His voice was very high pitched. I was already annoyed. "I'm the Titanbase, but you can call me Tite! Or… TITAN!" He did a little dance, then stared (can robots stare? He had a light in his helmet, I don't think those qualify as eyes) expectantly at me. "Any questions, mister William Fresco?"
Thomas looked surprised. "He knows your name?"
"Probably tracking, we use these a lot in Italy."
"Yes yes!" Titan squeaked. "Italian Diplomat, your mission is-- ooh… I don't have access to those files! Top secret, mister?"
"I don't know if I'd say Top Secret. But… I do have a question for you." His voice was giving me a headache now, I wanted to pound his tiny head helmet thing into the floor.
"Yes… YES YES YES! I love QUESTIONS! Yes!" He danced around for a while. "WHAT IS THE QUESTION!?!?!??! I KNOW ALL THE ANSWERS!!!" He screamed.
Thomas frowned. "Titan, calm down."
"BUT MASTER! THERE'S A QUESTION! OTHER MASTER HAS- HE HAS A QUESTION FOR ME!?"
"Can you shut up now?" I asked.
"I don't like that question!" He pouted, or at least, tried.
"Okay." I said. "This is my actual question. Do you know who my parents are?"
He tapped his finger to his chin repeatedly, supposedly thinking. This made no sense, because he's an AI. AI don't think, they respond with the information they know. He already knows the answer, he is just stalling. "Nope!" He dragged on the O for about 30 seconds. "Don't ask me weirdly personal questions!"
"Okay pipsqueak." I said. He was… frustrating, to say the least.
"HEY!" He put his tiny, stubby, little, arms on his hip. "I'm not a pipsqueak!" He said, just like a pipsqueak would.
"Only a pipsqueak would deny being a pipsqueak." I said, and Thomas waved at the holographic. Titan dissolved back into the screen.
"Titan is good if you have questions but as he said, they can't be very personal. If you want facts or information, he can provide that. But specific things to you or others? He's just an AI, he can only delve so deep into the world. Now, let's go to the X-Tunnel."
"X Tunnel?"
"Yes." He said. "It's a tunnel that goes 800 miles an hour, transports us to the other Labs. Very helpful, very fast. I don't have my license but… the entities will make an exception.
"Can you translate that to kilometers?" I ask nicely
"Hell no, just know it's very very fast." He smugly replies
"Anyways, do you get what I said about Titan?" He asks
"I understand." Still, I wanted for the answer to my problems to be so easy. "It's just something I've struggled with. Wanting to know who I am. Now, this whole godly descendant thing has made it easier but… it feels like looking at a half complete puzzle through a foggy spyglass. You can see the pieces and arrange them, but it's not easy to do. It's still a challenge, no matter how good you are at doing puzzles. You're still lost, sight is important to anybody."
He simply nodded. "Look, I can't provide magic answers but I can use this quest to our advantage. Perhaps your answers lie on the same path as mine. If not, I promise to help you. I take that oath, Juramentum."
"Juramentum?" I said. I remembered when I learned Latin. "That's latin for oath."
"I know." He said. "It's for one of our gods. Isonomia the god of oaths, karma, and other things."
"You took an oath for me?"
"Yes. I did." He said, solemnly.
"Why? And, what are the consequences?"
He stared at me for a couple of seconds. "If you take an oath for Isonomia and don't honor it? He kills you."