Chapter 691: Dying Earth
Very few things were as scary as when the group was having trouble locating one another.
With their marital bond being as strong as it is, they can never truly lose each other no matter the distance, or even if they are in another universe.
Hence the reason why Ayaana was so unnerved when she felt her husband and her sister suddenly teleport away.
It was as if the pair of them were close, yet far at the same time. To make matters worse, it sounded like they were communicating with them through a layer of syrup.
But there was one thing that the girls could hear clearly.
'Trap.'
There was nothing else that Ayaana needed to hear.
She immediately set herself upon Themis like an angel of death looking for answers.
And do you know what that wench did while Ayaana was making herselves sick with worry??
She laughed.
Loudly, obnoxiously, and victoriously as if she had won the final battle.
Ayaana couldn't stand for that.
Which is why she bit half of the bitch's face off.
"AAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Hades was horrified.
Mira was in awe.
'Mommies are so cool..!'
As Ayaana relished her first taste of titan, they clamped their hand over the mouth of the goddess to stop her from screaming.
"Don't dull my ears with such horrid screeching if you value your life."
Themis would have laughed at Ayaana's complete lack of reasoning if she hadn't already learned her lesson about doing such a thing.
"We're going to ask you again, and we'd like an answer instead of more wailing. Where have you sent my family?"
Themis was a titan. She was naturally unruly and hardheaded to a fault.
So even though she was scared to death of the empresses, she couldn't resist giving her answer in the most pointed way possible.
"The creature you call your husband will be nearing his end right about now. My mother will have surely grabbed hold of him by now and will have found a way to be done with him forever!"
Themis braced herself for another wave of intense pain that never came.
Instead, there was only a cool, soft voice that seemed to have only heard parts of what was just said.
"…Your mother, huh..?" Ayaana muttered. "Is she the only one participating in this act of cowardly treachery?"
Themis looked like she didn't understand the question.
And her delay in answering only seemed to agitate the empress even further than before.
She took one of the titaness' hands in hers.
Themis wasn't proud of it, but the act nearly made her blush.
That is, until Ayaana crushed all of her fingers in her grip.
Themis was afraid of what would happen if she screamed out again, so she held back her screams of pain and wept silently.
"Things will be worse if I have to ask you again. If you want to avoid any more pain then I recommend you give me my answers the second that I ask for them."
"M-Mother is the only one." She confessed.
Her earlier pride and attitude had miraculously disappeared somehow.
"Oh… It seems all will be well then." Ayanna concluded.
"What..?"
Ayaana dropped her captive to the ground; displaying a sudden disinterest and callousness that wasn't there before.
"Twelve billion years against an entity who defies comprehension and crossed the line into indeterminacy.
If you were going to try to keep us apart, you should've atleast brought something like that in your back pocket… or atleast amassed all of the ogdoad."
Themis only understood around half of what Ayaana was warning her about.
However, she quickly lost the opportunity to press for any further details when her body started to become dizzy.
She began to have a difficult time processing information as well… and had a difficulty keeping her body upright.
She felt herself hitting the ground and drifting off into a sweet unconsciousness that felt long overdue.
She would never know that the entire left hemisphere of her brain had been smashed in before she could even blink.
But Hades knew.
Because he saw it all go down in horrifying fashion.
And he honestly didn't know if he would ever be able to forget such a sight.
"W-Will mom and dad really be okay..?" Mira suddenly asked.
Ayaana wiped away the traces of blood on her hand and underwent a total change of demeanor. "Sweetie, what do we always tell you whenever you start to get worried about your father?"
"That he is the strongest ever, and that nobody can force him to kneel other than you guys and Nick Saban?"
"No, the other thing, cupcake."
"That he wouldn't dare leave you because it takes all twelve of you to raise me?"
"That's right." Ayaana patted their daughter on the head.
'What the hell kind of family is this...?' Hades wasn't sure if this was disfunction or dragon affection he was witnessing.
"Trust us, Mira. Your father and your mother are going to come back to both of us very soon." Ayaana comforted.
"How can you know that?"
"Well..."
As Ayaana was trying to think of a way to satisfy their daughter's endless curiosity, they suddenly raised a hand to their lower stomach.
A warm feeling spread throughout their navel and a warm smile crossed her lips.
"Just trust us, sweetie. They'll be back very soon indeed."
- Gaia's Divine Realm
If Bekka or Abaddon's friends could see them now, they would hardly be able to recognize them.
The two members of the Tathamet family who were both chastised and sometimes picked on for their lazy personalities were now showing what happened when they did choose to step onto the field of war.
And it was far from pretty.
Where to begin with the destruction that the two of them wrought?
Bekka was an unmerciful black hole who devoured whatever came within her range; tearing apart Gaia's perfect paradise for good without even needing to move a single step.
Abaddon had a much more hands on approach.
Flashes of red light darted from clone to clone of Gaia in quick succession.
With new, giant holes in their heads, the clones fell back down into the earth where two more would take their places.
This was a battle of who was going to blink first.
Gaia would not run out of energy in her divine realm, which meant she would not stop producing clones.
Abaddon did not run out of energy regardless, which meant he would never stop destroying them.
And through all of their fighting and resurrecting, Bekka was eating more and more of Gaia's personal paradise, and the earth mother was unable to regrow what had been taken from her.
When all of this was done, what would become of Gaia? What would happen to her mind?
Her reluctance to find out such a thing is what led to her switching her tactics around.
Instead of playing footsie with Abaddon any further, she instead turned her focus towards his wife.
For most of this bout, every projectile that Gaia had launched at Bekka had been swallowed by that mouth of hers.
It didn't matter the size, range, or power lobbed at her, Bekka ate it all without pausing to so much as wipe her chin.
Which led Gaia to conclude that she had to stop beating around the bush and tackle this from a more physical standpoint.
But Abaddon, ever dutiful husband that he was, did not allow any of Gaia's clones to come within striking distance of his beloved wife.
Any body that Gaia sent Bekka's direction was almost instantly destroyed, and the broken remains would just be used to feed the dark empress anyway.
So Gaia had to drive a wedge between the two… which was coincidentally what she had planned on doing from the beginning.
As Abaddon crushed body after body with only a single strike, his vision suddenly distorted.
When it cleared up, he was in a much different location than before.
Distance in a divine realm is sort of irrelevant, given that it can be as big or small as the owner needs.
But in this instance, Gaia had put an entire continent's worth of space between Abaddon and Bekka.
And put an army of duplicates in between them.
"Not another move, Abaddon. Lovers shouldn't quarrel like this, should we?"
On top of one of the mountainous figures was Gaia's much smaller mature body.
Once again, she was holding Kanami hostage while wearing a sinister smile.
She raked her green eyes along Abaddon's ghastly body with great pleasure and lust.
"Stay still now, sweetheart." She cooed. "Just let me enjoy this view…Urk..!"
Before Abaddon could do anything, Gaia suddenly grabbed her mouth and coughed up a spray of black blood.
Confused, Abaddon looked around for a possible explanation, but there was none to be found.
His answer came half a second later when he felt Bekka's aura run wild through the world and all of the color left the sky.
'What did I miss..?'