Chapter 367

The path towards the beach house was a bit nostalgic. She hadn’t been back here in a little while and seeing the tree where she’d stood to talk to John, the stone path where she’d walked with the aspirants towards the beach, the spot on the side of the building where her security system had detected Lillian and her friends trying to break in, it brought a smile to her face. She lingered at the door for a moment, though, a flicker of a deeply complicated emotion washing over her. She imagined Ollie standing there, his little notebook in hand and felt a sigh bubble up.

Is it really my fault he turned out like this? She thought, her eyes lingering on that spot. I know I could have been there more, but was he doomed from the start? She looked down at her fingertips and turned her hand over. Sometimes, Deus Ex Machina seems more mysterious than Broker itself. She exhaled finally and ran her fingers through her hair, turning back to the door and pulling it open. Maybe I should ask Set about it while I'm there. She thought as she glanced back at Barry and Marta who had been standing by in their own respectful quiet.

She cracked an eyebrow. “Watching me reminisce?”

Marta’s smile softened and she shrugged. “Better than brooding, miss.”

Barry snorted. “Will ya get yer shit done already boss? I got showin’ off to do.” He grunted but his eyes carried that easy camaraderie that they’d developed over their years knowing one another.

She huffed and raised a hand in dismissal, walking into the building. “Run along and keep an eye on the tykes, make sure they don’t try to break into my beach house again.”

Barry chortled. “Heeeh, on it boss,” he said and threw an arm over Marta’s shoulder, already turning to lead her back out to the beach. Sonya watched the two of them for a heartbeat and then turned inside. She shut the door behind her with a click and moved. She swept through the entry hall and into the large central space, passing the large couch where she’d caught Lillian and Snow in a rather compromising position. Then she descended into the space that functioned as her training area for the longest time before she moved onto bigger and shinier buildings.

The shock absorbent floor beneath her feet gave way just a little as she strode over and sat down in the middle. Crossing her legs and closing her eyes. She took a single deep breath and allowed herself to drift into her inner world. When she opened her eyes she was standing in the open air once again. The blue sky was clear over her head and the green grass beneath her feet spread on for as far as the eye could see. For the most part, anyway. There was a small very active change taking place in front of her.

Set stood a short distance away. Despite still being in his elderly form, she could feel the palpable waves of battle and something else radiating off of him. The fury in his eyes was more than a little shocking, but the most eye-catching detail was the perfect circle of sand that had overtaken the grass beneath his feet. He marched forward with a hard look in his eyes. Every step left a formation of sand in its wake while the grass moved to reclaim the land he left behind. His wrinkled, aged face tight with controlled fury. “Sonya,” he growled. “Have you been making soul deals with ‘Broker’?” he demanded, not wasting any time.

Her brows furrowed in confusion and he spotted Erina approaching from the side. She turned to greet her but Set would have none of it. “Chernovna!” He barked, drawing her attention back to him. 

She raised an eyebrow. “Set, what is this about?” she asked, though she had a sneaking suspicion she knew.

“Answer the question,” he growled.

She let out a sigh and crossed her arms, shifting her hip to the right as she frowned. “Yes, I made some,” she said. “In fairness, at the time I figured the phrasing was more metaphorical than literal,” she said with a shrug. “For Blackrazor the intent was asking for him to devote himself to me,” she explained. “For Erebus, well,” she exhaled. “After it worked with Blackrazor I figured I could use it as a price to help balance out the transaction.”

He stared her down for several heartbeats before visibly deflating a little. His eyes still carried a distinct flint to them but his tone was measured again. “I see. It’s fortunate you cannot lie, otherwise I would have trouble believing your words.”

She pursed her lips. “Set, we’ve known eachother-”

He held up a finger. “My point exactly!” he said. “This is serious, girl. Come with me.” He rounded on his heel and began walking. Sonya glanced towards Erina who made an almost apologetic face, a little odd on her usual grumpy exterior. When Sonya raised her eyebrows in question, Erina just shook her head and gestured to go with Set. Sonya frowned and watched the old man’s back for a heartbeat before following him.

They arrived at Loki and Pandora’s little house a short time later. Loki was sitting on the steps with one hand raised in front of him. An odd looking symbol was floating over it as if conjured out of light. It was made up of several circles and lined with runic patterns, a few of which she felt were… familiar. Not that she knew them per-se, but that she felt them resonate with something inside of her.

“Hand on the circle,” Set barked, his arms crossed as his jaw tightened.

Sonya glanced at him and then exhaled, looking down at the circle. “And this is…?”

“A karmic scale,” Loki said simply, leaning back lazily against the steps and holding the magic circle out.

Sonya glanced towards Set. “Can’t you see my Karma?”

“I can see your connections, girl, this will see the current weight of your karma, both good and bad,” he said with a huff and gestured to it again. “Please, Sonya.”

She shrugged and put her hand over it. She’d never had a reason not to trust the trio living in her inner world. Loki leaned forward and his eyes shone for a moment as he mumbled under his breath. She wasn’t familiar with the language so she could only assume it was Asgardian or something. Loki frowned after a moment and glanced up at Sonya with furrowed brows. He squinted at her. “It’s shockingly clear,” Loki said with a chuckle and waved his hand, the circle disappearing. “There’s so little bad karma that it’s a bit…”

It was Sonya’s turn to grin. “My first declaration was Duality. I’ve been using it to convert bad karma into good karma. It helped out when I was tricking out a new ability for Amos so I figured I’d do it for myself.”

Loki stared at her before snorting out a laugh, slapping his knee. “I don’t know why I’m surprised,” he laughed.

Set was less amused than he was thoughtful. He stared at her for a while before speaking. “Karma, like luck and gravity, are true forces of nature. Fundamental laws. Their rules cannot be broken, only bent, and only at great risk,” he huffed. “You should be fine to interfere with your own Karma since you are a claimant and it is a function of your declaration, but I would caution you against repeating what you did for your friend.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That bad?”

“As I said, those laws can be bent but they do not break. Eventually they will snap back into order. For example, there were those in my time who attempted to occasionally manipulate their own fortune or the fortune of others. They found their own fortunes deeply affected in response.”

Sonya squinted at him. “Luck didn’t catch up with Qilin in the previous timeline.”

Set raised an eyebrow. “How did she die last time around?”

Sonya frowned. “I… honestly don’t know.”

“It was probably grizzly as all get out,” Loki said with a snort. “Especially if she kept it on all the time,” he said and got to his feet, brushing himself off and gesturing with his thumb over his shoulder. “We should go check in with Pandora now. She’s waiting with the result of Sonya’s poor life choices.”

“Poor life choices?” she asked, “Okay, what the hell is going on?”

Set was already moving though, gesturing for her to follow. She walked with him through the green grass until they found one of the burbling ponds that had started popping up in Sonya’s inner world a while back. She froze as soon as she got within eyeshot of the pond and Pandora. The younger incarnation of that pushy ghost was sitting next to a man whose head was tilted forward in what could only be described as deep sleep.

Erina, who’d been staying on the sidelines, walked up next to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Sonya could only stare in disbelief. The broad shouldered man looked so content as he sat there, snoozing away without a care in the world. She blinked a few times, shaking her head as if she could chase off the hallucination she was seeing. Yet there he was, Erebus, in the flesh, sort of. 

She walked slowly over to the big man and crouched down, looking over his face with wide eyes. “...what am I looking at?” she finally breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from the big man that she thought she would never see again.

Pandora shifted once and looked at her. “The result of recklessness, I imagine,” she said before letting out a sigh. “The poor man is inert. He hasn’t moved an inch since he appeared here.” she explained. “I’ve tried waking him to little success. Soul damage. There’s a large rent in his soul that I’m afraid I can’t help with.”

“I have as well,” Set said, coming to a stop nearby. He crossed his arms. “It is as if something was torn from him before he passed and your ability claimed him.”

Loki sat down next to Pandora and put a hand on her shoulder before looking up at Sonya. “Any ideas about what happened?”

Sonya glanced at the three of them and then looked back at the sleeping form of Erebus. She knelt down in front of him and examined his face. She reached out as her heart tightened a little in her chest. Her hand snapped back and she blinked before looking down at herself. She reached towards him again and felt pressure behind her eyes. She let out a heavy, weary sigh and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I think I know what to do here, and what happened.”

Her fingers hesitated next to his face. “We’re as close to my soul as we can get right now, right?” she asked quietly, feeling the ache in her chest intensify. It felt strange, like it was a distant echo. She glanced back at Erina whose stoic features were set into a thin lipped frown. 

“Arguably, yes,” Set said and then a flicker of understanding crossed his features. 

Before Set could say any more, come up with another crazy rule about the world to throw her off, she reached forward and tapped her fingertips against his face. The feeling crashed into her so suddenly the air was driven from her lungs. Guilt came first. Grief came next. Anger. Regret. Frustration. They each slammed into her with the force of wrecking balls as her head fell forward, her fists clenched tight in her lap as a small grunt drew her attention back up. She looked up and saw Erebus staring back at her with a flicker of confusion on his face.

“Madame Ishtar?” he asked, tilting his head and cracking an amused smile. “Why on earth are you crying girl?” he grunted before looking around, looking up at the sky and the grass before focusing on her again. “Where are we?”

She opened her mouth as hot tears streamed down her face. They’d met so few times, far too few times for her liking. Every one of their encounters, though, had reminded her of her old friendship with Medved back in the previous timeline. Perhaps that was why she’d grown so attached. She couldn’t rightly explain it herself, the two of them had just clicked. She closed her mouth and wiped the tears from her face. The slight shuffling of movement told her that Pandora and Loki had risen to give them some space. Set didn’t move, though.

“You died, Erebus.” she finally forced out.

He raised an eyebrow and snorted. “Died? I feel fine!” He raised his right arm and flexed his bicep. “Still as strong as an ox, my friend, see?”

“Erebus.”

Her voice came out firm this time as she held his gaze. She clenched her fists in her lap even tighter and looked him dead in the eyes. He stared back at her and his brows furrowed. He looked around again. She could see a flicker of something close to panic followed by a grim understanding. “What happened?” He finally asked, looking back towards her. 

Several minutes later, Erebus sat with his arms resting on his knees and his head tilted forward. His fists balled up so tight that his knuckles turned white. “An end unworthy of a king.”

Sonya scoffed. “That’s what you’re worried about? Saleh-”

“Emancipated himself,” Erebus said, fixing her with an unblinking stare. “I am in no position to punish him for his actions now,” the big man continued, “Why should I sit and fret about what I can do nothing about? A king does not weep for what he cannot change.”

Sonya let out a wet laugh and leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his neck and giving him a hug. The big man tensed before returning the embrace for a moment. She pulled back and he let out a weary sigh. “So what now? Do I contemplate my existence in this tragically beautiful place?” he guffawed and crossed his arms. “HAH! I am not one to sit still for long.”

Set cleared his throat and Erebus glanced up at him, his eyes widening as if he hadn’t noticed the old man. He hopped to his feet and Sonya moved to join him, watching as Erebus offered a theatrical bow with a warm feeling of exasperation in her chest. “You must be a friend of a friend!” he barked and planted his hands on his hips. “I am Erebus! Conqueror of the Middle East and ruler of Cairo!”

Sonya winced at the Cairo comment and shot a sidelong look towards Set. The old man, to his credit, only narrowed his eyes a bit before he offered his own half-bow. “I am Set.”

Erebus froze and blinked only once before slowly turning his head to Sonya. Sonya grinned and waggled her eyebrows at her friend’. “Erebus, dear, you are about to have your entire worldview blown away,” she chuckled.

Erebus’ eyes widened a bit and to his credit stood up a bit straighter. He looked like he was about to bark a more ‘appropriate’ greeting when Set held up a hand. “We will have time to properly introduce ourselves at another time. We have more important things to discuss.”  He turned his focus fully on Sonya. “Such as what to do with the second Legacy Spirit that has formed in your mind.”