24 Apprentice & Master (III)

Things continued as rather normal (Well normal to two immortal gods after all). Hades continued to learn everything that Hecate could teach him, which, considering she is The Goddess of Magic, it was a lot.

Healing, clairvoyance, enchantment of organic and unorganic creatures and objects, abjuration, astral, divination, telepath and telekinesis, alchemy and many others. Discounting all the other rituals he now knew, from the simple and harmless ones to just manipulate weather to give rain, to the more advanced and dangerous like a powerful geo-ritual meant to crack a continent in half.

So in hindsight, if Hades ever wanted to literally set the planet on fire, he now knew how to quickly do so. And given the future of this planet, he might actually need to do that at some point. After all, he is not only on the DC Comics universe but also on GOW universe as well, as both have merged with each other.

So that means that Kratos is going to get a massive power boost. After all, he is going to need it. The Olympian Gods will get stronger and get more numerous as time continues to pass. Mainly thanks to Zeus and his numerous lovers.

'Now, that I am thinking, should I interfere with that?' Hades thought before shaking his head 'No, in the grand scheme of things they don't matter' Call him cruel for basically turning a blind eye to all the suffering that his family would rain down upon the innocent mortals, but honestly Hades wouldn't give a shit.

As of now, he is already 'more' than human, and as the God of The Underworld he saw more humans dead than he did in all of his life (both past and present), he is slowly but surely distinguishing from his previous human life and morals. He is sure that it will come a time that one could kill trillions of sentient beings in front of him and he wouldn't even blink.

Because on a personal level, none of them mattered to him.

He can already see certain parts of his past life disappearing under the weight of his new experiences. His previous mortal family's faces and names were becoming blurry, and even the knowledge that he had of both franchises was slowly becoming more and more strained to remember all the details.

In hindsight, he should at least write it down, but that isn't enough in his mind, so he did something with his new found magical prowess.

An orb that carried all the knowledge that he remembered from the multiverse that was his in, hidden deep inside his mind under a ton of mental barriers and defenses, that he would improve as time continued to pass.

It wasn't foolproof, but it was better than nothing, at the very least.

With that finished, he returned his full attention to the Goddess of Magic, Sorcery, among other things. But what he didn't know was that she was facing quite the dilemma over the past few days, one that was slowly but surely eating her alive.

And that dilemma was himself.

********

Hecate was not having a great day- no scratch that, she wasn't having a great century, not only thanks to her foolish bargain with Desire but also because her other selves were becoming more and more active.

'Still mad over the ring?' A childish voice echoed in her mind. It was 'The Maiden' persona, the "youngest" and most naïve of the three personalities that composed the being known as Hecate.

'Yes, I am,' She answered back with a mental growl, remembering the near disaster that happened with Hades. She didn't want to give him a ring, especially the one that in the reality that Desire showed her: After all, in that reality, he was proudly wearing it on his ring finger.

'I don't understand the problem. We should just go there and say that we like him there easy.' An older and more regal voice spoke. This was the Crone, the "oldest" personality and the most vindictive and straightforward of the Trinity.

'... That I am not even surprised you are giving such 'advice' to us is really frustrating!'

'Look 'Mother', if you didn't want us to be in this situation, then why exactly did you go to Desire?' The Crone asked, even if she knew why she had done that.

'Because I wanted to know if we would ever had someone that would cherish us like we would cherish them!' The Mother shouted back to her two annoying 'sisters', normally she would be the most calm of the Trinity, but ever since her encounter with Desire anything that was related with Hades made her aggressive and protective.

Why there were many times she wanted to rush towards the Titanomachy to help him, especially after his first fight with Atlas.

'And look where that left us, slowly going insane, because you just had to go to Desire!' The Crone's barbed words stung more than they should, because they were true.

It was her idea to go towards Desire, to learn if she would ever find a man (or a woman, she wasn't picky) that would love her and finally spell the loneliness that she knew all parts of her felt.

In hindsight, it was terribly idea.

She knew that Desire enjoyed screwing with both mortals and gods (both figuratively and literally), but she arrogantly believed that she could survive whatever the Endless threw at her.

And she didn't, and now all of her thoughts were now centered on Hades. What was he doing? Is he okay? Does he need something?

In short, they were all going slowly insane thanks to her decision. And given that he was this close to her, and she couldn't even touch him... well, she was actively marveling at her self-control.

'I think confessing our love is an excellent decision as well!' The Maiden's excited voice made her sight. 'Oh, come on, what is the worst that can happen?'

'I don't know, he rejecting us?'

'I will admit that is a fair worry, but at least that way we would have said our feelings instead of having them to destroy us.' The Crone's words made a surprise amount of sense, but even then she was still scared. That's right, the mighty Hecate that had power to reshape an entire universe given time was terrified of revealing her feelings that have been accumulating for a century.

But she knew she couldn't hold these feelings inside her forever and so, with a heavy sigh, she looked into the eyes of the man that could utterly destroy her without even trying.

"Hades, there is something I need to tell you," Hecate said, hating how her voice trembled.

"What is it?" Hades asked, clearly curious (and worried?) as he gave her his full attention.

The Maiden part of Hecate dearly hoped she wasn't making a mistake. Because if he rejected her she doestn't know what how she and the others will react.