Max Johnson And The God of War

9. Family Reunion

I told them about my conversation with Sohum but I skipped the part about his birth, I don't know why, but it felt wrong for me to tell it to them. They weren't exactly happy and didn't want to trust Sohum's word, but it was our best chance, plus we didn't have much time before Mars came back.

I was a little curious so I asked, "What was your plan before this?"

Anushka answered, "Well, we knew you are the one who would stop Mars, so we just thought we would distract him while you stab him. We didn't know about the draining of the life energy part, I still don't want to believe it, but what other option do we have, right?"

"So, you wanted to leave things to luck?"

"Yeah", she seemed offended.

On that note we formulated a plan with the assumption that Mars' sons would be with him. The plan was simple and pretty much the same as before. They would cast protective spells on themselves to distract Mars and his sons while I drained Mars' life energy and then me or Nico would stab him through the heart. Mars dissolves into dust, we win, go home and rejoice, with an additional bonus of saving the camps of gods. Simple and easy. Well, the problem was when Mars arrived, we didn't see him coming.

A red bolt of lightning struck the ground in front of us and sent us all flying back, my first thought was, how can lightning strike in the cave, and my second was, we all are going to die. At the place where the lightning had struck, now stood a buffed-up tall man in a red battle armour, along with two boys who seemed to be in their early-20s accompanied by an army of huge evil red greyhounds.

Mars seemed annoyed by our intrusion, "I thought I told you kids not to come after me. Well, now I'll have to kill you. Generally I love to play with my prey but I am a little short on time today, you see I have a few camps to destroy. Don't worry, I'll make sure it is quick and painless." And he threw another bolt of lightning at us but this time all of us managed to dodge it. Takalush had already converted into his cyborg-hulk form and charged through the hoard of greyhounds, Anushka signalled me to get behind them so that I could focus on Mars' life energy. Meanwhile, Nico summoned a troop of zombie soldiers and ordered them to the front lines. Mars' sons did their best to spread fear and terror, but couldn't penetrate through Nico's and Anushka's magic, and apparently even Takalush was not affected by their magic in his mechanical form. After a while they gave up trying to scare us, and charged at us, drawing out their swords, they were easily taken out by Takalush. Mars didn't charge, he just kept throwing lightning bolts at us, which we managed to keep dodging.

I would love to tell you that I drained his energy at this point, stabbed him and won, but here is the part where everything went downhill.

Firstly, we were outnumbered by them, and it was taking a lot out of Nico to manage the undead and keep them on our side. I hadn't realised at the moment, but Mars being the god of war too had control over all armies and soldiers even if they were dead ones, and Mars wasn't breaking a sweat while Nico was nearly exhausted.

Secondly, I couldn't use my powers for some reasons, had Sohum lied to us. Anushka turned around and shouted, "Max, do your thing!"

"I can't......I can't use my powers."

"Just....Try harder", and she went back to fighting.

I couldn't, I couldn't even move, we had lost and we were all going to die. Nico fainted from exhaustion, Anushka ran to his side to protect him, I had no idea for how long could Takalush maintain his form, and how long before would it be that the zombie soldiers would turn against us. I had accepted my fate of dying there, but then a shadow appeared from nowhere and carried us all with it. We were back in the park where we were earlier. Gradually, the shadow solidified into a girl, it was Hazel.

"Whose idea was it?"

Ansuhka raised her hand, embarrassed, and this made me angry as I was the one who couldn't do the one thing I was supposed to do, I didn't deserve a second shot at life.

Hazel sighed, "Well, at least all of you managed to stay alive."

"But how did you find us?", I asked.

"Before Nico fell unconscious he sent me a signal, I just shadow travelled to it as a shadow cloud and saved you all. So, what was your plan by the way?"

I told Hazel everything that happened while Anushka and Takalush treated Nico. She kept quite while I explained to her everything that had happened. Once I had finished, she thought for a while and then said, "Well, there's only one person who can tell us why this happened."

"Who?"

"Our father, but before that we should eat something and it'll be better if Nico comes along with us."

"What about Anushka and Takalush?"

"Time moves differently in Pluto's realm, it'll be only a few seconds for them by the time we are back."

I didn't want to leave them alone, as also I really didn't want to see Pluto again, but Hazel was right, he might be the only one who would know what was happening to me. After Nico recovered, we ate some food and nectar, and shadow travelled into Pluto's throne room. Pluto was still sitting on his throne and standing in front of him was my old buddy Mors, the embodiment of death. When they saw us, Mors bowed to Pluto and vanished.

"Hello kids, what brings you here?", Pluto smiled but none of us smiled back.

Hazel bluntly replied, "Max's powers didn't work in front of Mars, we assumed you could tell us why it didn't happen."

"Well...." he seemed to be scanning me, then suddenly his eyes widened, "Where did you get that ring and watch from?"

"These....oh.. Proserpina gave them to me, they are pretty cool."

Something told me Pluto didn't think they were cool.

"Well, I didn't think she will do such a thing."

"What are you talking about?"

"They are enchanted to dampen the wearer's powers on command."

"Who's command?"

"In this case, Mars I would assume"

"But why would she do such a thing."

"Because Mars promises to spare the camps of the gods who side with him."

"So, what should I do now, even if I throw it away, it'll just reappear in my hand."

Pluto grinned, "Did I say I can't remove enchantment."