Paleos simply looked at me for a second before nodding his head, his eyes still remorseful.
“I understand that this is a lot to process-“
“A lot to process?” Interrupted, still smiling my joker smile. “I’ve just been told that I basically died and came back to life, on the condition that two gods, that have been fighting for eons over some feud by the way, play nice together with my soul. Why would that be a lot to process?” I said and heard the note of hysteria creeping into my voice, but was unable to do anything about it.
Paleos watched me for a few seconds as my emotions became more and more intense until it looked like I would be crushed beneath the sheer volume of them, then, quick as a snake, darted his hand out and slapped the back of my head down. Hard.
“Owwww!! What the hell was that for?” I asked furiously, rubbing my stinging head.
“You were becoming hysteric. I need you to calm down and it looked like reason would not work, so I chose the next best thing.” Paleos answered calmly.
As I glared at him, I realized that he was right; I did feel a lot calmer than before.
I mumbled a word of thanks and Paleos smiled before continuing his story.
“Now that your life was secured and no longer in danger, we turned away from your life to focus on our individual lives. Imagine our surprise when a few weeks later we hear of a human sporting the powers of an immortal and found out that it’s you of all people!” Paleos chuckled lightly from the memory
“We kept you under close surveillance for the next few days and were stunned not only by your appearance, but your intense power that you radiated. However, because of how much attention we were giving you our own children started to feel neglected and grew to resent you. They planned to fight you in the upcoming transference ritual.”
“The Transference Ritual is one of our oldest customs. It’s when all immortals gather their favored children and have them compete against one another in random battles. The winner of the battles would go on to the fighters that won their round and so on and so forth until only one is left remaining. That person is then officially declared the winner and is given the gift of immortality and granted a title and a realm.”
“Because you have sustained the powers of not one, but two immortals, we could see no reason that you could not participate. Jerald had known this and was paired to fight you in a month’s time from today. I pleaded to be your trainer as you’ve had no schooling in immortal relations, rituals or reasoning. It was agreed upon and here I am.” Paleos said wrapping up his tale.
“Wait so…I’m going to fight the spoiled storm kid? And these Immortals expect me to win?” I asked my eyes widening.
Paleos let a bark of laughter so loud, it startled me. “No of course not! Most of them are expecting you to lose within the second you step in the arena.”
I felt my checks heat up with anger. So these immortals think I’m going to lose this fight, eh? Well won’t I have a surprise in store for them? I was already formulating a plan when Paleos glanced at his wristwatch that he wore and his eyebrows shot up. “Good heavens look at the time! I must be off, but make sure to find someplace secluded where we can begin training tomorrow.” He stood and stretched and I followed suit, questions still buzzing in my head, but I tried to wait patiently until tomorrow to ask.
“Oh and J.P? A word of advice?” Paleos said looking at me with a strange mix of sympathy and mirth.
“Sure Paleos, what is it?” I asked cautiously
Paleos’s grin was big enough to blot out the sun. “Next time you go somewhere private; make sure to check your surroundings better to avoid situations like this.” Before I could ask what he possibly meant by that, time returned to its normal pace and Paleos was gone, his laughter ringing in my ears.
I looked around at my classmates eating lunch in a daze. What was that all about? I shook my head to clear my thought when I saw Jo looking around the lunchroom.
I smiled, thinking there couldn’t be a better way to clear my head of all this Immortal nonsense than to spend time with my girlfriend/sister. I waved her over, a smile on my face.
Jo spotted me waving and her expression instantly froze over. She walked towards me quickly in four powerful strides of her long legs. It was only when I was close enough to see her eyes that I saw the absolute hate blazing in her eyes, and realized that I was in trouble way too late for Jo reared her legs and swung them for all she worth…right into my crotch.
My eyes rolled back into my head as I screamed in pain and slumped to the floor, my vision turning black as I came closer to passing out from the pain. As tears clouded my vision, Jo knelt down to whisper in my ear. “I hope it hurt you bastard.” She stood up, dropped something at my face, then turned on her heel and left the once again silent cafeteria.
I lifted my head to try and see what Jo had dropped at my head, hoping for some explanation for the sudden and very brutal onslaught of my private sector, What I saw was my face looking back at me, or more accurately, my face in Ava’s face as we kissed on the bench.
I felt my pain-wracked body go cold as I realized what this was. It was our school newspaper. And our kiss was on the front cover for everyone to see.
We had been captured in the light perfectly, so that there was no mistaking our faces. The headline read High school Hero hooks up with Harp! More juicy details inside! Thankfully, that was the last thing I had seen before the pain had become too much and I mercifully blacked out.
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