"The operation of the President's rescue has been completed-" The Goddess turned off the screen of the room, looking at Valeonor who was standing next to the throne. "What do you think? Ethin has acted far less aggressively than I expected! That's an improvement!"
Valeonor, on the other hand, didnt seem too convinced, which worried the Goddess. "They could have destroyed a little less, but the fact that it's just been a building is something I really appreciate. Ignoring them for a moment, the NOVA_suits are as tough as we thought, Goddess; we should give the authorization to the moon base to begin the mass production"
"Before, I would like a final test in the aspect of psychic empowerment of the NOVA_suits.
I know it sounds presumed because the are my creation, but I would like to make sure that it doesnt cause any irreparable damage to the psyche of the bearer" The Goddess took a deep breath, thinking in the appropriate test for a process that should be given in the long term.
"Anyway, I think it's time to meet Lucy. Give the order to let her pass, Val"
Valeonor nodded, opening a holographic screen in front of him with a gesture of hands and pressing one of the buttons. The doors of the throne room opened slowly, while two soldiers brought Lucy in a wheelbarrow. With two different wives in his hands (some classic and others more futuristic that covered the whole hand), shackles on his legs and a muzzle in the style of Hannibal Lecter. "Here is, my Goddess!" The soldiers said before leaving the throne room.
Eva didnt give credit to what she saw, alternating the look between Lucy and Valeonor. "She is so dangerous to tied her like that?!" The Goddess asked suffering for Lucy's physical and mental health.
"...She has asked for it, my Goddess" Valeonor said looking away.
"Excuse me ... what did you just say?"
"I say... Lucy Crews, the reporter present... has asked us to handcuff her at all possible levels" The Goddess slowly stopped looking at her wife, looking up at Lucy.
Lucy nodded proudly, stepping out of the wheelbarrow and removing herself hand cuffs and muzzle.
"Everything is right, Goddess! Lucy Crews, reporter from the Alabama Gazette! nice to meet you!" Lucy smiled taking a second step and offering her hand to the huge woman.
"You are responding much better than I expected, Lucy Crews" The Goddess Eva smiled, kneeling on the floor accompanied with a loud bang and taking the reporter's hand between index finger and thumb. "And before you ask, my Goddess, I was so scared that you were as big as your daughter that I preferred to come tightly bound to avoid any wrongdoing before... before you"
"Ahhh! The muzzle was for that!" The Goddess said while with an imperceptible movement of eyelids, made all the bonds of Lucy disappear.
Something that Lucy could appreciate if she wasnt shaking from sheer fear.
"Yep..." Lucy smiled nervously, one side of her face with a smile of tranquility and the other about to cry. "I'm really terribly scared and I cant understand how you can exist, but nothing happens! I am a modern woman with an open mind! I'm sure everything has a logical explanation!" Lucy kept smiling, but the Goddess was beginning to see drops of sweat forming on the forehead of the reporter.
"A scientific explanation? I consider myself a scientist, but certainly I still dont have an explanation to my existence... could we call it a combination of possibilities? A genetic lottery? I've had my whole life, which is a lot, looking for an answer to why I exist..."
The Goddess looked up at the ceiling, closing her eyes and remembering. "Throughout my existence I have seen my genetic family die, I have seen the country that saw me be born disappear from the history of humanity, I have seen wars that threatened to end the world as we know it... All from my golden throne, surrounded by those who once called me Goddess, and later of their descendants...
Many of the people with whom I have crossed have called me a holy reincarnation, for many others it was the incarnate demon, a being that should be cut off from the same cycle of life... but for now, all I can tell you, Lucy Crews, is that I am as real as life itself, and my sons and daughters too"
The Goddess's smile was reassuring, but Lucy couldnt help but think that it would be more reassuring if it werent on the face of a young woman of the size of an elephant... or a whale... once again, Lucy regretted not have learned to measure by eye.
"If you dont have a scientific explanation... I suppose..." Lucy smiled nervously, looking to the side. "I'll have to accept that a 50-foot woman is in front of me...-"
"30 feet! 50 feet? How exaggerated you are!" The goddess laughed, returning to her throne and bending one leg over the other.
"30 feet... whoever they are... I have many questions, but first I want to apologize for what I have done to your daughter, Goddess" Lucy knelt down completely, sticking her head on the ground.
"Raise your head, Lucy Crews, I've decided to pardon you if you agree to a little punishment in return" Eva leaned on the side of the throne, smiling mischievously.Lucy looked up, confused and cheerful at the same time.
"Your punishment, Lucy Crews-" The Goddess stood up, using her body to cover the reporter. "It will be to assist Tora, the messenger of my husband Lao, in his work controlling my children"
Lucy and Valeonor looked up quickly at the Goddess, it being impossible to know which of the two was more confused.
"Goddess, please ... think about it" Valeonor tried to say, without understanding what line of thought had led the Goddess to make that decision.
"Val, do you trust me? Lucy Crews has come to this island looking for the money she would receive for this job, so the best way to get that salary is to get to know her intimately! And what better way to do it than working directly for our family? Front page news!" And strange as it was, Valeonor understood the idea.
Lucy crossed her arms, thinking. It was true that in the faculty of journalism had explained that the best way to do a story about something was to live closely... but that girl with the dick the size of a rolling pin or more had left unconscious to her only with the look... A great risk in exchange for a salary that would allow Lucy to make her father stop working.
Her her father, and all her brothers and sisters. And it would still be too much for her to buy the house on the beach that she had always dreamed of!
"What would happen if I refused?" Lucy asked, lamenting him at once, for before she could understand what had happened, Valeonor was already in front of her pointing the fake toy gun at her.
"Deny?! This dont work like that, Lucy Crews!" Valeonor said, placing his finger on the trigger. "One doesnt deny the Goddess... on the contrary, you should give thanks for your situation! You have the opportunity that many others in the past would have wished:
Survive and get your exclusive"
Lucy raised both hands, asking for mercy while taking a step back. "OK OK!..."
Valeonor raised the hand that held the gun, firing at the ceiling several times.
"THIS ISNT HOW YOU SHOULD ANSWER THE GODDESS! EVA IS THE ONLY AUTHENTIC HOPE IN THIS WORLD! EVA IS THE RIVER THAT WILL BREAK THE DESERT! EVA IS THE BEAT THAT KEEPS A DYING WORLD LIVING! THE OASIS-"
"It's over, neither you nor Ethin have allowed you to play P5 dancing star night all night!" Eva slammed her fist on the throne's armrest. The echo of the impact sounded so deep that Lucy herself could feel it echoing through her interior.
"Never, Eva! I've been waiting for a good musical game for years and you'rent going to snatch this one from me!" Valeonor screamed as he left the room running, Lucy imagining that he was going to hide the record.
Eva pretended that everything was going smoothly, waiting for Valeonor to disappear from her range of mental vision. "I'm sorry for what you just saw, Lucy Crews. Valeonor spent the whole decade of the 90s and the 2000 playing Dance Dance Mix... so as soon as hse found out that there were also musical games today... she has a lot time hooked on that shit.
Ignoring that, I'm going to clarify one thing, Lucy Crews. You cant refuse my order. It's not an option. "Fixing her gaze on the reporter, Eva went back to her full height, stopping over Lucy.
"I'm much more powerful than I look, Lucy, and I know I look really powerful. I'm not going to hurt you, but I want to make it clear that my will is capable of challenging the same fate!"
And with a stomp with enough force to knock Lucy down, the Goddess made the situation clear, sitting down again. It wasnt until she sat down and looked at the reporter that Eva felt Lucy was fainting.
...
.....
.......
"Move away" An electric shock ran through Lucy's entire body, reactivating it instantly.
"I DONT WANT TO DIE, GODDESS!" Lucy jumped up from the stretcher, screaming and crying. The pressure and fear of that stomping of the Goddess too close had been too much for the poor reporter.
Lucy took a few seconds to return to herself, seeing that she was in a very different place. Blue curtains covered a small window in front of the stretcher where Lucy rested half naked wearing only an open white coat. And when she turned her head, the reporter drowned another scream.
Another huge woman, one who looked like a younger and smaller version of the Goddess, was looking at her with the palm of her right hand raised and emitting small electric currents between her fingers. The woman was sitting on a kind of stool that was too small and low for her, standing in a position with her knees raised and her legs open not too dignified.
"Thanks to the goddess that has worked! I have no idea we would have told your mother, Hope!" A male voice coming from the other side of the woman sighed quietly, before going under one of the endless legs of the woman (That Lucy could try to guess that it would not have more than 20 years).
A young boy with a very dark hair and very dark approached the reporter, carrying a pill and a glass of water in each hand. "The Goddess is very sorry for having caused you to faint, Miss Lucy"
"... Thanks, or accepted apologies... or what there is to say before her... who are you?" Lucy asked while taking the pill and examining it. At first glance it looked like a common capsule analgesic, and with the headache so intense that the reporter was feeling, it was something she appreciated.
"My name is Tora, technically messenger of the achi-patriarch Lao but in reality I am more like the boy of the messages of the Descendants! And this one here is the person who has attended you and has revived you, the primogenita of the Goddess Hope!" Tora stepped aside and left the room, letting Hope make a small bow of courtesy to Lucy.
"I'm going to look for Lucy's belongings, so dont move!"
Lucy almost choked on the water, unable to understand the situation. Why a daughter of the Goddess had attended her?
"Miss Hope, there's no need-"
"Hope" Lucy looked confused, not understanding the message. "My name is Hope, without any extra in front or behind"
"And that wouldnt be disrespectful?" Lucy asked as she tried to sit on the edge of the stretcher, feeling all the muscles of her body feel free. If it were for his body, Lucy right now could start doing somersaults ... but logically that would not happen.
"Is it respectful to call the sun Sunshine Mister or call a flower Miss Flower? I dont consider myself better than anyone; not because I'm not, because I can not deny my own condition; so I dont need honorifics or nicknames" Hope put her hand towards Lucy, feeling the whole body of the reporter from top to bottom. (In a gesture that Lucy might consider very invasive)
"I see that my psyshock therapy has worked properly, your whole body was quite bruised by the falls when you fainted before my little sister and my mother, Miss Lucy"
"Lucy" This time it was Hope who was caught by surprise by the courage of the reporter. "If you're Hope, my name is Lucy"
Hope smiled sideways, before disappearing and reappearing instantly with a change of clothes. "Your clothes are washing right now, so I've asked my assistants to buy you a custom set, feel free to ask for another one if the combination of colors you do not like"
Lucy nodded before sighing nervously, staring at Hope. "Forgive the question... but what you just did-"
"Teleportation" Hope answered instantly, still smiling. "We use our Pk capacity to rebuild our cells in a place where our mind is able to reach, transmitting our consciousness to that body and consuming the previous one to recover energy. Although doing so at such speed due to years of training, for you it must look like an instant movement like in Dragon Ball, right?"
Lucy nodded without being able to understand the explanation. "Unfortunately for your illusion, the instantaneous or high-speed movement is another thing, one that in my case I dont enjoy doing, having to be attentive to opening doors so as not to destroy everything in my path isnt my style.
And as a tip, I would tell you not to try to understand the logical functioning of our abilities, Lucy. Human beings are simply amazing, but your mind stops at the smallest wall of non-logical thought"
Lucy blinked a few seconds, confused by the expression "Human Beings." These people do not think about-
"Right again, Lucy. As my mother has told you, we still dont have an explanation for why our genes, and both me and my mother and my brothers... we have come to the conclusion that we cant consider ourselves human like you or Torah.
Not by wanting to mark our superiority in words, but because we do not conceive time or life as you do... Our ability to see humanity from a rung to another height alienates us from the value of life, or of experience that the years grant. For our family, the sky is always the same.
For a human, the sky is only a limit to overcome, and after the sky came the stars, and after them will come the universe. You see barriers to overcome and with which to grow as a person; while we, on the other hand, see an open field to learn and experience" Hope disappeared, appearing this time with a glass of what looked like orange juice.
"Ok... one thing is 'you read my mind?', But also read my stomach is too much!" Hope bowed apologetically, something Lucy quickly tried to stop. "No no! It's weird but it's cool!... Hope, I have plans to transcribe all this-"
"And make it exclusive for Gave's newspaper to pay you 12 million dollars and you can retire for life before 40 and also be able to protect your parents and your 7 brothers and 5 sisters from working. counted with objective.
If what you need is the money to fulfill your dreams, you can fulfill your order here. Anyway, if you dont do it, the other reporter who is trying to extract information from the guards at this time will do- "
"Hope, you're disturbingly interesting! Like Origin, the movie! Let's make a deal, okay? Can you see it in my mind?" Lucy knew that it was impossible to win a mental battle with these people, and she also knew that Hope was listening to all this.
"Listening isnt the word, rather it is reading the pulses that your brain sends in.
Your deal is that you will work as my mother has offered you in exchange for getting our testimonies and exclusive interviews, am I wrong?" Hope knew perfectly well that he was not wrong, but humans used to use that verbal form when closing deals.
"Right, there was nothing intriguing about it, but still you're good at pretending!" Lucy laughed, standing up, pretending not to be ashamed to be almost naked.
"You give me the material to write, and in return I give you a lesson in humanity and I make sure the press sees how valuable you are! You are basically a race of superhero children, like the X-men kids! Couldnt people like that?!
It's all about selling your image properly and showing that you arent dangerous- "
"Destroying the Elysee palace to give a message to the French president is not advisable for that plan, right?" Hope asked without an edge of irony in her voice, something that made Lucy white.
"No... no... that definitely does not help your image"