The Runaway Rebels- Book 1

Chapter Eleven: Back To Olympus

A second later, the six of us reappeared in the centre of a large, white Amphitheatre. One of the meetings of the Godlands was in full swing.

The meeting was being looked over by Zeus, the ex-King of Olympus and Eir, The Goddess of Peace and Healing. The two stared at the small figures below from the highest part of the Amphitheatre. They were followed with many other pairs of disapproving eyes looking down on us from all sides.

All around us, each figure was clad in long white robes, Zeus and Eir wearing small golden badges pinned to theirs, symbolising their status.

A few seconds of silence later and Zeus spoke out, his loud voice booming out around the Amphitheatre.

"What is the meaning of this?! Why have you brought a human into our court? And why are Hades and Hel tied up? You better have a good explanation for this! She is the problem here!"

Zeus pointed at me, then over to Pandora, with a thunderous expression on his face.

As Dawn took a step back in quiet outrage, Ace spoke up, bravely, looking right into Zeus' electric blue eyes,

"That's what you think, because none of you questioned the prophecy, did you?! No, safer to just assume that, as always, the Prophecies were set in stone. Now, I wonder, are you all really SO stupid that you didn't see their plan? They leave the world thinking it was their daughter that was to blame, while they can start taking over each Realm one by one, the Chaos Realm, Midgard, the Godlands; all of them! I mean come on, I know you're bad, but you can't be that stupid!"

A bold, defiant expression streaked across Ace's face as she finished her speech, leaving a wave of silence in her wake, broken only by the goddess Eir.

"This is a serious accusation. Do you have any evidence that this is not just you being, quite frankly, a disruption as usual, Astrid?" The Goddess of Peace asked coolly.

At this, Pandora spoke up, looking livid as her blazing green eyes pierced upwards.

"Evidence?! What do you call these?!" Pandora asked, pointing at the large collection of cuts across her face and arms, then flinging her other arm back at the extreme amounts of cuts and bruises upon Dawn and Ace.

"Calm down, if you would Pandora, we will care for you and your wounds in due course," Eir said calmly as Zeus folded his arms, looking as though he was going to burst unless he let out the speech desperate to escape his lips. In response, Pandora scoffed, with a laugh marred by years of a life she had never wanted. 

"Care. Ha! You don't know the meaning of the word. I didn't see you wanting to care for me for all those years where all of you left me with them, I bet you check on the others round here, but when you have to make an effort to see if someone's okay, well then it's not worth it is it?! You're telling me to calm down, you're telling me you'll care for me, well where were you when I needed that help all those other times? Where were you when I actually needed you?" Pandora asked, looking round at the assembled Immortals with a look in her eyes that was the look of someone centuries older than her.

Her eyes showed someone wholly different from the thin woman standing before them all.

Someone who'd been forced to be brave when it was hardest, to stand tall when the whole world was pushing them down, to talk when the universe told them to be silent. 

The Goddess of Darkness was tired of being silenced, she was out of her nightmare and she wasn't ever going back. No matter what anyone told her.

"Calm down-" Eir began, going about this in a much calmer manner than Zeus, who interrupted her, clearly not used to shutting his mouth for this long.