[Sudan, 4200 BCE]

It’s been fifty years since we decided to stay in the Savannah for a while.. Yes, I realize that it’s not really productive, but hey, I need some experiment materials.

Speaking of experiments, I’ve made a breakthrough! Even though? I can only combine three constructs at once, but I can also combine a combined construct, I feel like I’m a Persona protagonist right now..

I’ve also discovered that Lions are not a good construct.. but.. Lions/Deviants hybrid construct is, which opened a whole lot of possibilities. After discovering that, I went searching for animal corpses in the Savannah. I found some Cobras, Crocodiles, Hippos, Zebras, and all those animals. And after that, I’ve combined every single combination I could think of.. and I got a lot of good shit.

And also, since I’m combining combined constructs, some weird things are happening to those constructs..

You’ll see what I mean soon enough.

For me, it’s been quite a productive 50 years, but for Thena.. not so much. Honestly, I feel bad for her for staying with me; she’s been incredibly bored around the shelter we made, aside from the occasional deviant that I detected around us; she’s been idle the whole time, while I’m locking myself up for experiments and rarely talks to her.. yeah, I’m a bad friend.

So, I think it’s time to move..

“H-Hey.. Thena?” I nervously call her name; she’s inside the shelter right now.

She doesn’t answer.

“R-Right.. I think it’s time we move.” I started again.

Still doesn’t answer.. fuck, I think she finally broke from the boredom..

But then, she opened the door of the shelter rather harshly, so harshly in fact, that it broke. It looks like she doesn’t care about the shelter anymore..

“Let’s go.” She flatly said, staring at me with those intimidating eyes.

“Y-Yes..” I stuttered, she’s really scary..

After that, I summoned one of my fastest and newest constructs. I named it Apophis.

It’s a Giant Snake Construct (made from combining Snake/Deviant hybrid, Snake/Deviant hybrid, and Snake/Deviant hybrid), and it’s quite fast for a land construct, and also, its head is quite wide, so it’s a good mount.

I commanded the snake to lower its head, so we could climb to it easily. Thena did the same, and instantly sat on top of it.

I said nothing to the goddess of war, not willing to irk her any longer, and commanded Apophis to move towards the south east. We are in Sudan right now, so if we move in this direction, we will arrive in Ethiopia, I think there’s a civilization there.. I can’t remember..

As Apophis slither through the dying Savannah, I look at Thena, who’s staring at the scenery solemnly.

I sighed. “Look..” I said. “I’m sorry for being a bit selfish..”

“Selfish?” She finally spoke. “I don’t think it’s selfish at all.”

“You don’t?” I asked, a bit surprised.

“I signed up for it when I asked Ajak to follow you.” She stated. “Though I wish you could talk to me more in these 50 years..”

“Yes, that’s my fault. I’m always consumed by experiments..” I muttered. “Still, I’m sorry for making you sit idly for the past 50 years.”

“Just don’t do it again..” She answered.

“I’ll try not to.” I nodded; I hope I can find a cure once the Mahd W'yry kicked in..

After that, she looked in the direction of Egypt. “I’m curious about the others, to be honest.. did they succeed in entering the settlement?”

I chuckled. “Miss them?”

“A bit.” She hummed. “Almost 750 years we’ve been together, and now, we’re separated.. it’s a bit of a weird feeling.”

“Who did you miss the most? Gil?” I asked curiously.

“Yes..” she answered weakly. “He’s good company.”

“Good company huh?” I teased, trying to see what’s going on with those two.

She raised her eyebrow, confused at my words. “What are you saying?”

I sighed, perhaps I misunderstood something. “Never mind.”

A couple of hours later, we arrived in modern day Ethiopia, and we discovered a herd of Deviants.

Thena prepared herself for a battle, as am I, but I don’t really have a weapon right now.. so I can only watch..

“Can you make me a weapon construct or something?” I asked Thena, hoping that she could do that.

“I’m not like you.” She snorted. “I can’t conjure a weapon construct for you, only for myself.”

I sighed in disappointment. “Well, I tried..”

We’re nearing the nest of the deviants, and Apophis started to slow down, sneaking through the rather humid highland.

“Let’s finish this quickly.” I whispered to Thena. “We’ve done this too many times. I don’t want to drag this.”

“Right..” She mumbled. “With your constructs, it’s probably going to be too easy.. now I don’t even know Ikaris could beat you; those new abilities of your constructs are.. bizarre..”

I chuckled as we arrived at the nest, around 7 deviants, three winged, two hound deviants, and-

“Is that a horned deviant?” Thena whispered while grinning. “That’s new, I wonder how fun it’ll be?”

“It’s quite humongous.” I answered, grinning like Thena. “And new experiment material is always welcomed.”

“I’ll take the horned deviant.” Thena said. “The rest is up to you.”

“The body is still mine though.”

“Sure, like always.” Before I could say anything, she jumped to the horned deviant; she conjured a spear, and tried to stab the horned deviant’s head. The deviant knows it however, and tries to attack back. The deviant charged at Thena, who was still on air, and the deviant aimed his horns at her, trying to stab her with it. Seeing this, Thena changed position and quickly dropped down to the ground; she dashed to the deviant, and continued to attack it.

Meanwhile, me and Apophis are surrounded by the other deviants. I just smiled at this, and commanded Apophis to attack.

The giant snake slither quickly to one of the winged deviants, and quickly strike to prevent it from flying.

And this is when the fun comes in, Apophis has an ability.

You see, I theorized that because Apophis comes from three combined constructs, it means that the experiences and cosmic energy of those combined constructs came together to form Apophis, so because Apophis comes from three snake/deviant constructs, which means that he has cosmic energy equivalent to three deviants and three Cobras, which is a lot.

And somehow, because of the heightened experience, knowledge, will, and cosmic energy, it makes it that Apophis has an ability.

Which is cosmic energy draining.

When he bites an enemy, he can absorb its cosmic power, slowly making the enemy die, and Apophis will become empowered as well from the looks of it, as his body will slowly get bigger.

Anyway, Apophis slowly absorbs the winged deviant’s cosmic energy, and I can see that the deviant is slowly withering.

I quickly summoned another new construct of mine. I called it Ammit(Hippo/Deviant hybrid, Lion/Deviant hybrid, and Croc/Deviant hybrid).

It has the head of a croc, front legs and paws like a lion, and the back legs of a Hippo, it’s pretty weird, but its ability is something else..

Ammit is quite big, and can easily swallow a dog deviant in one bite.

So, he did just that. He swallowed a dog deviant whole, and finally, I could see its ability in action.

I can see that Ammit’s stomach started to glow golden, and finally, it opened its mouth, and he shot a yellow beam from its mouth, decimating a couple of other deviants.

To simply put, its power is consuming a being, converting it into pure cosmic energy, and shooting it back in the form of a cosmic energy beam.

It’s neat.

Apophis then finished consuming the winged deviant’s cosmic energy, and I can see that the body of the winged deviant has withered completely. I see that Apophis has become longer and slightly larger, probably from absorbing the winged deviant.

After that, the two constructs quickly decimate the rest of the deviants, and only Thena is left to deal with the horned deviant.

I saw that Thena elegantly jumped to the back of the horned deviant. She conjured an axe, and she split the horned deviant’s head open like it was nothing.

It’s pretty badass. I dig it.

“You done?” I asked in amusement, commanding Apophis to get closer to her.

She looked around, seeing what my constructs did. “You know, I always wanted to fight your constructs.”

I hummed. “Maybe next time.”

“Your constructs are always evolving; it’s hard to see how I can deal with it.” She pointed out.

I shrugged. “Apparently, I’m the only one who trained.”

She hopped off from the horned deviant. “It’s your power who is flexible, the rest of us? Not so much.”

She jumped to Apophis once more, and I absorbed the horned deviant, pretty nice catch. “Probably, but I also need to mention that I experimented on it all the time.”

She rolled her eyes. “How could I forget that, it’s not like we stayed 50 years just for that..”

“Wow, Thena being sarcastic? That’s new.. Sprite is really rubbing off on you.” I mused.

“No, it’s you who influenced me.” She stated.

“Really? I don’t remember being sarcastic..” I mumbled, and shrugged. “Oh well.”

After that, when we were about to leave the area, Thena suddenly became alert and conjured her weapons.

“What’s wrong?” I questioned. I also noticed that Ammit was looking in a direction, and I turned to that direction, and saw a group of humans carefully closing in on us, with spears and all. They probably saw us fighting the group of deviants.

“A Tribe?” I questioned.

“Possibly.” Thena nodded. “What should we do?”

“You’re the wise one here.. you should decide.” I muttered.

“I thought you’re the leader of this mission?” She mused.

“I thought that I’m going on this trip alone.” I refuted with a shrug.

When we were talking, the humans kept walking closer to us, and suddenly, they dropped their spears, and began to.. worship us?

“Well, this is? rather.. interesting..” Thena said in amusement.

I can hear the humans speak their language to us, but really, I can’t understand them.

“You brought a translator when we left?” I asked Thena.

“Of course I didn’t.” she said as if it was the obvious.

I sighed. “What should we do?”

“Why are you asking me?”

“You’re the best fighter of Olympia; surely you must know something about this situation...”

“Fighting is different than talking; this is more of Sersi’s and Ajak’s job..”

Well, fuck.

“So.. should we run?” I offered a solution.

---

[Ethiopia, 4199 BCE]

So.. Me and Thena became gods.. that’s something.

Turns out, the deviants that we killed had been harassing the tribe that we encountered, and once they saw us defeating them easily, they became really friendly towards us. Too friendly, actually.

"You know, when I decided to come with you on this mission, this wasn’t what I had in mind.." Thena spoke to me slowly.

"Well.. this isn’t what I had in mind either.." I murmured.

Right now, we are sitting with the humans that we encountered, and they are offering us food right now.

Thena and I just smiled, not taking the food as they looked thin, probably because their hunting routine was disturbed by the deviants. But it looks like they are afraid of us, probably because of me, having a creepy smile and all..

"So now what?" I asked Thena.

"This is your idea Pluto, I thought you knew what you were doing?"

"Not really.." I murmured. "Stay here again? "

"We just moved." Thena answered with a deadpan expression.

"You’re right.." I sighed. "Let’s give them some food and be done with it."

"And how are you going to give them food?" Thena asked, with an amused face.

"Hunting?" I said rhetorically.

"I thought you didn’t like killing animals."

"For sport." I pointed out. "In this scenario, the animal gets eaten by humans, so it’s okay."

She sighed. "Do whatever you want."

"Well.." I snapped my fingers, and summoned a bunch of dog constructs, frightening the humans around us. I commanded them to spread out, and find food for the tribe.

I turned around again, and saw that the humans were kneeling, worshipping me. They are bowing down to me, like I’m a messiah or a god incarnate.

"Well, this is awkward.." I murmured.

"Enjoying being worshipped?" Thena hummed in amusement.

"To be honest, I assumed you'd be the one who received the most adoration." I said as I helped the humans stand up, but it looks like it made it worse.

"What gives you that idea?" She questioned curiously.

I shrugged. "You’re beautiful, badass, and have weapons for days."

"You think I’m beautiful?" She teased me... Thena is teasing me...

I rolled my eyes at the obvious. "Don’t flatter yourself, you know that your beauty is legendary."

"Is it now?" She asked me back, her face full of amusement. "Are you one of my fans back in Olympia?"

"Well, I wouldn’t say a fan.." I said, there’s no Olympia, so yes, I’m not a fan. "But you are well known."

She just hummed at my statement and kept staring at me with those intimidating eyes. Then she spoke again. "How come you’re not famous?"

"Pardon me?"

"I said, how come you’re not famous back in Olympia? Your power clearly surpassed a lot of people. "

I just smiled and said, "I don’t like being in the spotlight."

"I can see that.." She nodded. "You’re really anti-social, but I like talking with you."

"Really?" I raised my eyebrow.

"Yes, it’s fun teaching you how to fight back then." She continued.

"Well, I’m honored to be taught by Thena herself." Sincerely, I stated.

Then, the dogs that I commanded quickly came back, scaring the humans who had been worshipping us while we were talking, and they put the carcasses of the animals down.

I spot a few zebras as well as some wild buffalo. Nice catch.

I absorbed back the dog constructs, and looked at the humans.

"For you." I said, pointing at the carcasses.

They don’t understand what I’m saying, but my gesture made them understand.

They instantly cheered, and continued to worship us.

"Well, it’s time to go." I said to Thena, helping her stand up.

After that, the humans gathered around the carcasses, carrying them to be skinned, and while they were doing that, me and Thena sneaked out of the Tribe encampment, leaving the place once and for all.

But what they don’t know, is that the tribe will probably worship them from afar, making them god and goddess in the tribe’s eyes. Pluto’s action will be echoed in that tribe, and they will focus their skill in hunting, as they impersonated Pluto’s hunting, who gave them food easily.