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Author's Chapter Notes:

The most dramatic chapter yet! What will become of our heroines when they find themselves stranded in the midst of an archaic Athens?

Well, all things considered, they'll likely be fine. The real question is what will become of everyone else?


 

The last vestiges of winter snow were hiding away from the sun, nestled in the cracks of the ornate marble columns that lined the cobblestone road. Traders and peddlers meandered about their stalls, some calling out jovially as young Isidore navigated the crowded street, passing by temples, artisans' workshops, and homesteads. He lowered his head, unable to prevent an awkward smile from creeping to his lips as he clutched his purse. Isidore sought little else but to get home from his apprenticeship, and only spared a quick look up to the hill upon which sat the mighty citadel dedicated to that great goddess of wisdom and warfare, Athena. As though a boon from the goddess herself, its glory just barely hid Apollo's sun, high and lonely on its airborne chariot, from blinding his eyes, casting Isidore in a comfortable shade.

 

The magnificent city of Athens had been blessed for some years now, and by all rights – should her citizens not depart from their patronage – it would likely stand tall for many many more.

 

A cold wind blew, and Isidore stopped in his tracks. His hands – calloused from many many months now of working the forge – instinctively went to his coin purse, then recoiled at the electric shock as the pouch slipped from his grasp to the ground. Isidore stared down at it grimacing, then he returned his gaze to the rest of the street, which seemed similarly perturbed. The more rambunctious livestock brayed and neighed, and the chickens began to cluck emphatically. This wasn't a sensation anyone present had ever been privy to. This could only be...

 

The arrival of the gods. Fickle beings they were, there were few recorded accounts of their visitations to the Grecian lands, and fewer still that could be corroborated. And yet, as Isidore looked up and saw the sky torn asunder, a colossal apparatus descending from the rupture that was made... he could not convince himself this was not the doing of the Olympians. Isidore looked to his left and to his right; the others spotted it as well, and were running in the opposite direction, even as the more fragile wooden structures and trees were ripped from their roots, swirling and being sent high into the air before disappearing into the void.

 

Isidore looked back up at the hill as the machine landed cleanly on the Acropolis, just barely avoiding the Parthenon. A cloud of dust ascended and rolled down the mountain, forcing Isidore and those who remained to fall to their knees in a coughing fit as the contraption opened, unveiling its momentous occupants like a curtain unveiling the machinations of a theater.

 

***

 

Unlike the last time, Demi was the first and most eager of the pair to ultimately poke her head outside the machine. She was blasted by the fresh smell of the early spring winds, bringing with it all the sweet salty air of the Mediterranean Sea. Demi inhaled deeply as she swung one towering leg out from over the carriage. Her boot descended triumphantly, crashing directly into the Parthenon below. The building's front facade collapsed, even as a dozen or so worshipers and stewards came rushing out, pinned between the disintegrating rubble, the rubbery treads of her boot, and the crumbling columns.

 

“Oh... Oops!” said Demi, looking down at her accidental demolition, even as a lovely smile couldn't help but spread across her own face.

 

Agatha had finally managed to get the own pit forming in her stomach under control as she swung out from the carriage herself. With a nervous chuckle that boomed across the countryside, she spoke, “Heh heh... okay, we're here! We've made our mark. We... are we done?”

 

“Oh... not yet,” said as she crouched, surveying the collapsed ruins of the temple. Planting her tree-like index and middle fingers on the ground, Demi began to walk them through the ruins as they collected dust and blood from the wreckage.

 

Blood.

 

Demi's heart skipped a beat. It had barely even registered, even as she looked down at the mangled bodies, some still clawing at the ground, shouting any number of curses and lamentations to the gods in an archaic form of Greek. Her simple action of stepping out had led to the collapse of a building, and the utter demoralization of dozens. It was an accident, and it hadn't even been a minute. It was an intense feeling. Demi didn't know much, but she did want more of whatever that was.

 

“Demi?” asked Agatha. She got to her feet, looking over to Demi's side of the vehicle, but the sloped surface that she was on caused Agatha to lose her footing. With a yelp, she tumbled, sliding down the hillside through a number of smaller shrines and alters, before landing in the midst of the market district. As she came to, Agatha's blurry eyes cleared to realize she was indeed looking from the perspective of the ground, despite her giant size. And around her, carnage. Unable to control her descent, she had utterly destroyed most of the path, one leg curled up beneath her, the other sending a hole through several storefronts. A fist-sized bead of sweat accumulated on Agatha's temple as the last remains of humanity that weren't caught in the wreckage tried to run away, clambering over debris and fallen walls. Agatha pushed her elbow down, and braced her hand against the ground to begin to get up when she heard something crack and felt something soft and moist beneath her give.

 

Agatha's voice quivered. She wanted to say something, but nothing of volume came out as she raised the hand to her face with a determined resistance, not wanting to see what she knew she would see. There, splattered on her palm, was the form of a human woman, still draped in her cloak, now saturated with blood. If she squinted, maybe, just maybe, Agatha might've been able to mistake it for a bug of some kind. An odd, half-inch, twitching, gurgling bug.

 

A collection of booming stomps, monotonous and methodical, chattered up Agatha's spine. A shadow fell over her, and she looked up, seeing Demi make her way up the road to her, just slightly too big to avoid grazing and subsequently destabilizing into any buildings that were not caught in the initial destruction. With each step, a plume of dust from the rubble and concrete rolled along the landscape, and in preparation, Agatha quickly pulled her goggles onto her face, which had the added effect of allowing her to avoid looking Demi directly in the eyes as the giantess crouched to meet Agatha's eye level.

 

“What're you doing here on the ground?” she asked, giggling with a smile.

 

“I... I tripped.” In another effort to get up, Agatha placed her palm flat on the ground, but forgot about the human still adhered to it. Between Agatha's tough builderly hands and the soft dirt and gravel below, the human woman acted as a lubricant, flattening completely as Agatha inadvertently slid her hand across the area from the pressure she applied.

 

“Oh!” she gasped, seeing the red streak that was now on the ground. That uncomfortable pit grew in its magnitude. “I'm... I'm sorry?”

 

“Oh, that?” said Demi, looking down at the red streak and then back to her friend. “But isn't it... pretty fun, though?” Demi straightened her back, standing to full height and looked down at her friend. In her hand was a giant metal object, a figurine of some sort.

 

“What's that?” asked Agatha.

 

“Oh, this? Nothing much, just their god.” Demi spoke nonchalantly of the Athena Parthenos, monument to all things good and holy of their ancient goddess, a thirty-foot armored statue made of gold and ivory, plucked from the wreckage of the Acropolis like the first item atop the bargain bin. Even as she raised it in front of her face like a toy, the din of screams around them increased in panicked and confused fervor.

 

Demi looked down at them, seeing little, but knowing the bugs were still there, hiding, waiting, to see what would happen, hoping something would save them. Demi planted one black-painted nail between the statue's neck and chin and dug in, pushing as the metal and gold stretched and twisted, until with a resounding POP, the head detached from the body, flying hundreds of feet into the air like a cork. Demi shaded her eyes with her free hand, watching it land somewhere far off into the Athenian countryside with a whistle.

 

“Huh,” she said, and allowed the statue to fall to the ground, its weakened form splitting into several pieces as a dust cloud shot up from its impact point. “Cool...”

 

“Demi,” said Agatha, finally sitting up from her place at the foot of the hill. “It's just... I don't know about doing all of this,” she explained, looking up at her friend who had a neutral, interrogating expression.

 

Demi crouched back to eye level, and the two giantesses looked deeply in one another's faces. Demi could see in Agatha's face an unfathomable level of confusion and trepidation, so much so that she could even see the beating of her heart beneath her sweat-damaged undershirt and overalls. Agatha, on the other hand, could see an inquisitive look on Demi's own face, unperturbed by their current location, what they had just done to hundreds of people, and – if Agatha's evaluation of Demi was correct – what she would do to many many more.

 

“Let me see,” said Demi, and without warning she grabbed the rim of her shirt and pulled it down, placing a hand on Agatha's bare sternum.

 

“Whoa, hey!” said Agatha, twitching as Demi's cold hands dug into the shirt and planted themselves on Agatha's skin. She stayed stock still as Demi adopted her detached look.

 

“You're trembling,” said Demi after a long time of staying like this. “You should loosen up. Take deep breaths.”

 

Demi removed her hand from Agatha's shirt. Agatha, who realized she had been holding in a breath for the longest while, finally exhaled. Mustering the courage to stand to her feet, Agatha did, taking as much caution as she could to avoid destroying any more buildings. She tried to look into Demi's eyes, but found herself unable to, staring instead at a rogue cloud mystifyingly close to Demi's own head. “This just... this feels so wrong,” said Agatha, the final word coming out hollow.

 

To this, Demi laughed. “Wrong? Says who?”

 

And Demi began to take a walk, looking down at the buildings beneath her. With one step, her massive black boot reduced a line of houses to piles of dirt on the ground.

 

Agatha stammered, “It's just –”

 

We decide what's wrong, now. Don't you get it? This is more than some shitty science fair. We can do whatever the hell we want.

 

And to punctuate her point, Agatha drew her leg back, and kicked it with a devastating fury, obliterating another line of homesteads. Those who hadn't escaped were either buried within the rubble, or were running out of hiding places.

 

“I'm just worried, that –”

 

“We're going to mess something up? Now that just isn't true.” Demi walked back to her friend and planted her hands on her shoulders, using her forearms to gently brace Agatha's head and force her to look Demi in the eye. And Demi spoke, “We have a time machine. If we had messed anything up by now, we wouldn't even be here. The fact that we exist here, and now... together... is how I know that this is right. And you know it too.”

 

“But, all those people...” said Agatha as Demi let go. Agatha looked down, glancing at the stragglers still trying to make ground beneath their feet.

 

“These people will fear you, hate you... respect you... desire you...” explained Demi as she eyed them greedily. “You can't tell me that you don't feel it. With each building you demolish. The rush.”

 

Pang.

 

Agatha felt it. That odd feeling in her stomach again. She removed her goggles and looked down herself at the remaining people running away. They were scrambling between the chunks of broken wood and marble with desperate abandon. They looked so vulnerable. So scared.

 

“Think about your life. A dad that's not there. A mom that doesn't get you. Students that envy you, teachers that hate you for being smarter than them. We're the only ones in the world that understand each other, aren't we?”

 

A tiny nod.

 

“There's more for you in your life. And you need to take it yourself... or you'll spend the rest of your life thinking about what could've been.”

 

Demi watched Agatha say nothing, and she internally felt a victory. She knew Agatha was going to take some convincing, but despite everything, she couldn't help but feel Agatha had it within her, everything it would take to give herself over to this life. Just a little more of a push.

 

Demi paced about, this time deciding to pay just enough attention to avoid explicitly stepping on any of these ancient, storied structures that she was just itching to upend. Each footstep she took shocked the stragglers as she created a circle of death, locking them in with the expectation that if they attempted to leave, they would be crushed without remorse.

 

Then, gulping, Demi stopped, and she went for the kill:

 

“You said you would try it. So try.”

 

Agatha felt her own heart speed up. “Wh... you mean–”

 

Demi gestured to the meandering group of half a dozen or so ant-like humans now between them, locked with nowhere to go. “We're a million years from ever remotely feeling consequences from this. Don't you want to be loved?”

 

Agatha fidgeted.

 

“Worshiped?”

 

Agatha bit her lip.

 

“Deified?”

 

Agatha lifted the heel of her brown work boot from the ground. Demi gracefully backed up a few to give her space to take that first step.

 

“Don't even worry about them. Do you know why? Because you're perfect... and you deserve it.”

 

As the boot hung above the pleading crowd, oblivious to the English conversation taking place over the group, or how close they were to avoiding the fate that was about to befall them, Agatha came to a realization. Finally, she understood what it was. That pit, that weird uncomfortable pit in her stomach. She knew where it came from.

 

And Agatha allowed her boot to drop. Rather, she pressed it down with force. A mist of blood escaped from the much-too-fast compression, spraying the lower bottoms of Demi's own knee socks as Agatha ground her foot hard into the dirt. She considered this less of a condemnation of otherwise innocent people, but more of an affirmation of herself and everything she is, and had yet to become. And a smile began to tug at Agatha's face as that pit in her stomach was finally beginning to fade, shrink, and become nothing. Demi was right. Agatha was exactly where she needed to be.

 

“I...I do deserve it,” said Agatha as a red hot blush filled her cheeks. Demi blushed too, feeling her heart beat as Agatha glared deeply at Demi, a brutal sense of purpose finally filling those amber eyes.

 

“I'm so glad you finally see it my way!” cheered Demi, who wrapped her arms around Agatha in a tight hug.

 

Agatha nodded, dreamlike, in a daze as she allowed Demi to hug her. Once she let go, Agatha lifted her left foot and saw the blood splotch in between the treads and on the ground. In a spur-of-the-moment decision, Demi clutched the bottom of Agatha's shoe, dragging a finger along the moist treads and planting it in her mouth, before giggling as she let go, Agatha grinning at the admittedly gross but just-as-admittedly appropriate action.

 

Demi let out a deep sigh, salty sweet taste washing down her throat as she surveyed the remains of Athens. They hadn't done much, but the emotional toll of what the pair had just been through took a fair bit out of her. And the city did look like it had just suffered a brutal defeat at the hands of invading enemy forces, at the very least. They didn't want to wipe it out... just let them know of the arrival of a new pantheon. “So, you ready to go?” asked Demi.

 

Agatha stood in deep thought for a moment, her eyes intent on the ground. Demi was curious, following her gaze to the remains of a shrine. With a start, Agatha crouched, crawling through the rubble and knocking down other still-standing buildings, digging her hand into the shrine corridor until she retracted it. There, covered in dust and debris, was an alive young man, coughing and writhing around in pain and fear.

 

“Oh, another one? What'cha wanna to do to him?” asked Demi, excited that Agatha had taken the initiative for once.

 

Agatha smiled, seated cross-legged on the ground as she raised her screaming prize up to her face. A mouth that subsisted mostly on Pepsi and a various supply of fast food breathed these wholesale unfamiliar scents upon the classical-era young man, and he coughed even more, unable to even pay attention as her gaping maw opened, dripping with drool and ropes of saliva, befitting one eyeing a morsel of food they had an addiction for. It was only when he looked into this abyss, this unfortunate descending hole to the deepest depths of Hades, that he screamed a truly gut-wrenching scream.

 

Mmmmmmmmuah!

 

The sticky kiss enveloped the man's entire front and upper section, as Agatha melodramatically drew out the smooch. Her lips popped off the man, leaving him in a quivering pile of spit in the palm of her hand. Agatha deposited the man gently on the ground, and stood up to face her partner, staring in dumbfounded amazement.

 

“What?” asked Agatha. “If you truly wanna be worshiped, that's how you do it.”

 

“You learned from the best,” said Demi, putting her hands on her hips.

 

Agatha nodded. The two took their hands in each other's, and began the trek back up the hill to the awaiting time machine. “The poems they'll write about this day are going to be awe-inspiring.”

 

“Of course,” said Demi. “Too bad this is going to be the last trip.”

 

At once, Demi felt Agatha's hand get sweaty.

 

“Right...” said Agatha. “The last trip.”

 

Demi's grip tightened.

Chapter End Notes:

Where do we go from here?

Well... they have a few ideas.

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