HIDDEN

Chapter 30

A shiver ran down Mia's spine as she heard what Roxanne said.
"Run?.... Why? Have you ever encountered any?" she found the courage to ask.

"... Just one", Roxanne replied after a short pause, "And that was around the time of the last lunar eclipse, early this year."

"What- happened?"

"(Sigh)It was too much for us to handle. We barely escaped... some more than others", Roxanne said with a sorrowful expression. Almost immediately, her face became bright once again, "But enough about that. Now that I think of it, I guess we haven't told you which gods we descended from."

"Oh yeah. You never mentioned that", Mia replied trying to recall.

"Well, no time like the present. Dale is the descendant of the kitsune or the nine tailed fox. I'm the descendant of Ares, god of war. And Nathan is the descendant of Dolos."

Mia's eyes widened. "D-dolos? As in, the god of..."

"The god of deception, trickery, cunning...", Nathan interrupted. He glanced at Mia, who had a wearily, cautious look on her face. "Yeah, I get that look a lot. Feel free to start avoiding me if you want", he said with a carefree expression on his face.

"Th...that's not it", Mia defended, "I didn't expect that. I just thought..."

"You thought that the descendant of god of deception would be a bad person, right?"

"Uhm.... well I..."

"Don't sweat it. You can keep your guard up around me. I really don't care. Let's just move on."

"I don't know what to say to him...", Mia thought, "I think its actually best to change the topic. I'm still quite confused about Roxanne and Dale."

Roxanne decided to break the silence. "You said your from Egypt, right?" Roxanne asked Mia.

"Yeah?" Mia replied coming back to reality.

"Hmm.... Since you don't know, judging from your power, I think you're the true descendant of Nephthys, goddess of protection."

"I'm sure I've heard this name before- but from where?" Mia thought. "How do you know? Did you check the origin of my power? Or do some telepathic energy sync."

"I just watched the movie 'gods of Egypt' and your power was kind of similar to the Nephthys there... well atleast, the protection part", Roxanne chuckled briefly.

Mia was disappointed. "Uhh- Apart from this, I think I'm a bit confused.... How did both the kitsune and Ares have true descendants. I thought that atleast one of them won't be reincarnated. You know, since the kitsune only helped to defeat Cronus and disappeared, while Ares didn't join in the fight but helped to seal the gate."

"Correction. We're not their reincarnations, we just possess their powers", Roxanne explained, "How the powers of Ares and the kitsune both appeared is still a mystery.... In the prophecy, it said that 'the gods of victory would be reborn'. I thought that the true victory was when the gods sealed Cronus. I was really shocked when I met Dale for the first time."

"But doesn't that mean that- there are 10 true descendants although they're only 9 seals."

"That's our assumption right now."

"That means that one person doesn't have to be present to strengthen the seal", Mia thought. "So what now? Are we going to start looking for the other true descendants?"

"That's by the side. If eventually we can't find all of them, we'll make due with our number and try to strengthen the seal.... We mustn't be complete. The prophecy quotes 'the strength of the seal, may all or some'. Meaning that either all of us or some of us can strengthen the seal. It may not be as strong as when all of us strengthen it but it should last for some hundreds of years", Roxanne replied.