Illusiveone - 108: Marvel's Green Lantern, Contest of Champions II: Electric Boogaloo pt.2

Max sat shirtless against the headboard of the enormous bed inside Aphrodite's temple while emerald light flickered faintly across the ring on his finger. The curtains surrounding the chamber remained mostly closed, leaving only narrow bands of morning light between them.

His attention remained on the communication link opened through the ring.

"Yes, the world is in that location," Max said. "Getting to it is a little difficult, but you should be able to manage it."

A muffled response came through the connection.

"Yes. Yes, that's the one."

Another response came.

Max rubbed his forehead. "And make sure you take it without anyone noticing."

Another response.

He frowned. "Oh, you're offended I even mentioned that? Fine. Forget I said anything."

The connection ended.

Max stared at the ring for a second before shaking his head.

Behind him, the bedding shifted.

Aphrodite stirred awake and slowly moved across the bed toward him. Max felt an arm slide around his waist before she rested her head against his shoulder, her loose pink hair falling over his skin.

"Who was that?" she asked, her voice still soft with sleep.

Max glanced toward her. "Nothing important."

Aphrodite smiled and settled more comfortably against him.

Max looked down at her for a moment before turning the conversation toward what he had intended to ask since arriving.

"So. Three days until this grand council, and I still don't know what the prophecy actually says."

The smile remained on Aphrodite's face, but something more thoughtful entered her eyes. She pulled away from him and rose from the bed without any concern for her lack of clothing. Max watched her cross toward the open side of the chamber, where pale light slipped between the curtains.

"That is because no one agrees on what it means," she said.

Max leaned back slightly. "Then give me the words and let me decide for myself."

Aphrodite turned toward him.

For a moment, her expression became unusually serious.

“When Heaven's blood takes root in changing flesh,and mortal flesh bears what no god ordained,a child shall rise beneath an unclaimed star.Divine of blood, yet bound to no divinity,mortal in birth, yet beyond mortal measure,ever changing, ever becoming."

Max's amusement disappeared.

Aphrodite continued, her voice quieter now.

"From the blood of the Demiurge came the gods,and by changed blood shall their dominion be broken."

Max's eyes narrowed.

"Demiurge."

"The primordial Demiurge," he continued. "The thing from which the Elder Gods and most divine bloodlines ultimately descended."

She nodded.

Max looked toward the closed curtains while he turned the words over in his mind.

Changed blood.

Mutant.

"The Anunnaki think the child is going to destroy the gods."

"Some do, yes."

Aphrodite's expression became faintly disdainful. "Marduk claims the prophecy warns of the end of divine rule. He argues that a child born from divine blood and changed blood will grow beyond the laws governing either."

Max snorted. "Or Marduk is terrified his half-brother will eventually replace him, just like he replaced his father."

Aphrodite's smile returned.

"I've met a lot of rulers with family problems."

"That describes most gods," she said.

"That explains why I keep having problems with gods."

Aphrodite laughed before turning back toward the balcony.

"My father does not presently support killing the child. Neither do several of the other Godheads. But if the council produces evidence that the child truly represents a threat to every pantheon, his position may change."

"And yours?"

Aphrodite turned fully toward him, looking almost offended. "How can you even ask me that?"

Max lifted both hands. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry."

She came back and climbed onto the edge of the bed beside him, the irritation already fading from her face.

"My father was barely involved in any of this at first. Like I said, he did not believe it. Then he saw your friend fighting the Anunnaki, and of course, you arrived not long afterward."

"He still holds his grudge against you. For years he has told anyone willing to listen how dangerous you and your friends were."

Aphrodite's smile weakened. "Then, of course, the incident happened."

Max's expression changed.

"Ah. The incident."

There were probably gentler ways to describe one of the worst periods of his life. Mephisto's attack, the Quarry, Firehair, Aurora, everything that followed.

Aphrodite's voice softened. "My father believed you dead. When word reached Olympus that the Phoenix had fallen, Zeus openly celebrated it as a victory over one of the beings who had humiliated him."

Max's jaw tightened.

"He tried more than once to strike at those who survived," she continued. "Bor, King of Asgard, eventually proclaimed the rest of your Avenger friends under Asgard's protection, and even my father understood that attacking them after such a declaration would risk war with the Aesir."

Max looked at her. "But I wasn't included."

Aphrodite placed her palm against his chest and slowly rubbed her thumb over his skin.

"You have no protection from that proclamation, Max. As far as my father is concerned, you have returned from the dead carrying every insult he believed buried with you."

Max watched her face.

"So he wants to..."

"Fight you," Aphrodite said. "Perhaps even kill you, if he believes he can. To him, defeating you would finally wash away the shame of Olympus burning and the humiliation of his defeat."

Max stared at her for a second before a faint smile appeared.

"My family has never been particularly skilled at letting things go," she said, seeing his expression.

"Understatement of the century."

Aphrodite's hand remained on his chest. "It is also an opportunity."

Max's eyes narrowed slightly.

"Oh?"

"The woman and her child are under my father's protection while they remain on Olympus."

That made the shape of her idea obvious.

"You want me to give him the fight he wants."

Aphrodite grinned as Max continued.

"In exchange for the mother and child being placed under my protection instead of his." 

"And we're already thinking the same way. Some might say we're meant to be."

Max ignored that.

"So Zeus gets his chance to beat me, kill me, avenge Olympus, heal his broken pride, whatever story he wants to tell himself, and in return, he guarantees the woman and her child leave Olympus alive and under my protection."

"Yes."

"And what about the rest of the council?"

"Like I said before, most of the Godheads do not want the child dead. Even those who fear the prophecy would rather find another solution." Her expression sharpened. "Marduk is the fool pushing hardest for blood, and I saw what you did to Marduk."

Aphrodite moved closer until her lips were only a breath from his.

"Give my father what he wants, beloved."

She leaned closer.

"Let them see you."

Her eyes darkened toward violet.

"Many of those godlings looked at you today and thought you were some mortal. They mocked you. Dismissed you."

There was real irritation in her voice now. Aphrodite's fingers curled lightly against his chest.

"I hated it."

Max's smile slowly returned.

She leaned closer.

"Show them your power."

Max found himself nodding slowly. He had never considered himself particularly vain, but there was something dangerously satisfying about hearing Aphrodite say it.

She leaned toward him until her lips almost brushed his ear, her voice dropping to little more than a whisper.

"Show them what true power is."

Max watched her for several seconds.

She sounded like Aphrodite.

But there was something else beneath it. Something familiar. Something that reminded him of someone he had not spoken to in a very long time.

There was another conversation they needed to have. Max climbed from the bed, emerald light moving over his body as a pair of dark green trousers formed around him. His attention remained on Aphrodite, though now for an entirely different reason.

"We need to talk about something else."

Aphrodite walked toward him.

Max studied her carefully.

"How long has Predator been empowering you?"

Her expression changed.

Max had expected shock, perhaps even anger at being discovered. Instead, Aphrodite looked genuinely confused.

"What?"

Max's certainty wavered.

"Come on, Aphrodite. I can feel her in you. I should have figured it out when I first saw you." He gestured toward her. "When did Predator come here? What did she offer you?"

Aphrodite continued staring at him.

"Beloved, I do not understand. What is Predator?"

Max waited for the lie, but it never came. Her confusion was genuine.

"Huh."

She stepped closer. "What are you talking about, Max?"

Max examined her more carefully now, allowing his awareness to extend beyond the surface of her divine energy. There it was again, buried so deeply within Aphrodite that distinguishing one from the other was almost impossible.

What was this?

"You don't feel like an Olympian anymore," Max said slowly. "Not entirely. There's something else woven through you. Something from the Emotional Spectrum."

Aphrodite's eyes widened.

"Emotional Spectrum?"

"Something like me."

Understanding appeared gradually across her face.

"Is that what she was?"

Max became completely still.

"She?"

Aphrodite looked toward the balcony again.

"The being who came to me."

"What being?"

Aphrodite's answer came without hesitation.

"Love."

That confirmed it. Max no longer had any doubt about who she meant. Now he needed to understand what had happened.

"She is an Emotional Entity, like me," Max said. "The Entity of Love."

Aphrodite studied him. "If she was Love, then what are you?"

"Will."

Her gaze dropped briefly to herself.

"So that is what happened to me."

Max frowned. "Tell me exactly what happened."

For the first time since he had entered her temple, Aphrodite seemed uncertain how to begin.

"It was many years ago. After everything that happened here, after you disappeared and Olympus was rebuilt, I began spending more time away from the others. I returned often to Kythera."

Max knew the place. Kythera was one of the oldest lands associated with Aphrodite's worship and, according to some traditions, her birth.

"I felt lost," Aphrodite continued. "And then she came to me. She was lost as well. Hurt, as I was."

"She was hurt?" Max asked.

Aphrodite's expression changed.

Her eyes began to glow.

The deep pink slowly became violet, and when she spoke again, something entered her voice. It reminded Max of the subtle change in his own whenever he stopped merely using Ion's power and allowed the Entity to flow fully through him.

"Rage attacked Love."

Butcher.

Aphrodite's glow strengthened.

"Fear attacked Love."

Parallax.

Aphrodite looked down at her hands.

"She was weak when she found me. Frightened. Alone. I felt her pain as though it were my own before she ever touched me."

Max could piece together some of it now. The Entities had escaped the Source after the Black Night. Parallax and Butcher had been loose, and Predator had sided with Max when the others were imprisoned. Apparently, they had not forgotten. 

What the hell had they done to her?

"She was beautiful," Aphrodite continued. "She was love without flesh, without vanity, without all the little limitations gods and mortals place upon it. I could barely comprehend her."

She slowly raised her eyes to Max.

"She asked me to help her survive."

"How?"

"By becoming one."

Max looked sharply at her.

Aphrodite met his eyes without hesitation.

"She promised that neither of us would ever be alone again. She told me that what I understood as love was only one part of something infinitely larger, and that together we could understand it all."

"And you agreed."

"Yes. How could I not?"

The answer carried no regret.

Max studied her aura again, and suddenly he understood why he had struggled to identify Predator. The Entity had been so badly weakened that almost nothing distinguishable remained of what she had once been. Butcher and Parallax had not truly killed her, perhaps they could not, but they had reduced her enough that surviving alone was no longer possible.

That realization troubled him more than he wanted to admit.

If that could happen to Predator, it could happen to any of them.

It could happen to him.

Aphrodite stepped closer.

"I am not her puppet, nor is she mine. There is no voice inside my head ordering me what to do." She placed one hand over her heart. "We became one. She is no more separate from me than my heart, my memories, or the love I feel."

Max exhaled slowly and ran one hand through his beard.

"The being who merged with you is one of the seven Emotional Entities. Predator embodies Love in the same way I embody Will. Adara is Hope. Parallax is Fear. Butcher is Rage."

Recognition flickered across Aphrodite's face when he spoke the last two names.

"Those are the beings who attacked her."

"Yes."

The air around Aphrodite changed.

Pink-violet light spread throughout the chamber, washing across the walls and curtains. Several flames in the braziers bent toward her as her expression hardened.

"Why?"

Max watched the power gathering around her.

"WHY?"

"Because they're evil, Aphrodite. And because Predator sided with me against them, and Parallax and Butcher don’t forgive betrayal."

Her eyes burned brighter.

"Where are they?"

"Aphrodite…"

"WHERE ARE THEY, MAX?"

He stepped closer and placed one hand lightly against her arm.

"Calm down."

Her eyes remained fixed on him, the violet glow flickering around them.

"We have a lot to talk about."

The light lingered for several seconds before gradually dimming. Aphrodite finally allowed him to guide her toward the nearby klinē, though the anger had not entirely left her face.

Max sat beside her and studied her again.

This was not Predator possessing Aphrodite. She was not empowering her or whispering instructions into her thoughts or controlling her actions.

This was something else.

Something much closer to what Max himself had become not the same but…

And he was beginning to get the uncomfortable feeling that the Emotional Spectrum had just become considerably more complicated.

.

.

A small chapter.

Next chapter...