6 Hestia Flare

Waking up the next morning, Simon and Lily both realized that they felt stronger. Simon specifically felt that his overall power increased by a few times. As for Lily's power, while it rose, it was still slower his own. This made Simon worry as the other demigods were possibly having their powers increased as well.

"Wow, you're way stronger than yesterday Lily." Simon said with a smile as he got out of bed.

Lily nodded as she grinned. "Want to try testing my power against your body again?"

"No thank you." Simon said like he was afraid with a smile.

After a small chuckle between the two, they ate some breakfast and left the inn. Heading over to the adventurers guild, Simon and Lily couldn't help but notice how nervous everyone was. As they entered the building, they approached Julie and asked. "Is something going on? Everyone seems tense."

Julie nodded and explained. "Yeah, just this morning there has been news about some kind of new dragon human hybrid monster. The monster appeared in Fire Desert, Killed off every member of an A rank party except for one. This is the picture the last surviving member managed to draw out."

Lily and Simon instantly realized who it was as they shared a knowing gaze.

"There's also news about monsters running away from Mt. Lightning due to massive amounts of unnatural lightning storms. Adventurers are thinking this might be due to a lightning dragon as some are known to live on that mountain." Julie explained before she sighed. "All of the extra monster running away are invading other lands and many villages are evacuating. Some have already been destroyed by hordes of monsters."

Connecting their minds together, Simon spoke. "This could be two of the demigods."

"Yes." Lily agreed before she voiced her opinion. "We should go to the Fire Demigod first, it's closer and you were once friends correct?"

Simon nodded. "Yeah, it'll be quicker and the sooner we deal with those two the better."

Deciding on their plan, Simon turned to Julie. "Sorry Julie, looks like we'll have to take a quest another day. Something just came up."

"Oh, ok?" Julie shrugged as the two left the building.

Getting out of the city, Simon started flying towards Fire Desert. The entire land was known for not having lakes of water in some areas but lakes of fire. This had never happened on earth before so they were both interested in finding out how it looked.

Soon after reaching their destination, the two of them stopped in mid air. As far as they could see, there were patches of lava with flames dancing above them. The heat could be felt as far as where they were and they were a few kilometers in the air.

"That's looks pretty hot." Simon noted before asking Lily. "Do you think you can handle the heat?"

"Don't even feel it." Lily said and Simon took that as a yes.

Flying down, the heat began to get higher but Simon still felt nothing. Looking at Lily, it seemed she was also not affected by the heat yet. When they landed, Simon finally started feeling warm but other than that, he felt alright. Lily on the other hand was already visibly sweating until she took deep breath. Her body began glowing and a mist surrounded her body, protecting her from the heat.

"That's neat." Simon said.

Lily looked at him and smiled. "No cool jokes today?"

"I'm saving my humor for later." Simon explained before they started walking outside of the lakes of fire.

"I wonder how adventurers even got here?" Lily asked and she knew normal people would have been roasted alive.

"They probably had on them some ice gems, depending on the size of the gem the degree of coldness the user feels differs." Simon explained as he remembered this tidbit of information.

Lily nodded and before long, they approached the fire demigod holding her head in pain. She was still the same size but her energy had grown larger. As they entered within a few dozen meters of her, she turned around.

"Why do I look and feel like this!" The fire demigod screamed before she charged over with her large claws.

Her entire body was emitting flames far stronger than the lakes and this made Simon worried if this was permanent or not. Creating a barrier around Lily, Simon met her head on in a tackle. The fire burned Simon but they healed as fast as they were made. Simon being used to pain didn't even flinch as he threw her into a lava lake.

Creating a barrier around himself, Simon wondered why the other demigods could hurt him but not Lily. "It could be how the serum works, but their mana levels are almost similar in power."

Simon couldn't finish his train of thought before the fire demigod charged over once more, pinning him down onto the floor.

"Who am I!" The fire cloaked demigod demanded to know.

Simon was about to dive into her mind but she was too strong at the moment. Being surrounded by heat, fire and lava only seemed to make her stronger which wasn't a good thing. This meant for Simon that he couldn't weaken her enough to dive into her mind and calm her down.

As for Lily who was watching, she felt helpless as she did nothing but watch Simon do everything. Sick and tired of Simon being hurt for her, Lily thought about ways to help Simon as he fought. From what she noticed, the fire demigod was still as strong as she was in the beginning due to the environment.

"Maybe if I cool the surrounding area." Lily thought before she looked at her hands. "Can I do this?"

Looking back at the fight, Lily saw the fire demigod's claws pierce Simon's skin and searing the wound before it healed, albeit slower than normal as the cells were burned. Deciding to at least try it, Lily increased the coldness she was letting out. As she did this, she felt weaker but there was no effect. The cold that she let out was instantly erased by the surrounding heat.

"No! I have to try harder like Simon!"

As Simon was beginning to get irritated, Simon started to increase his strength which helped out well. He was using about fifty percent of his physical power and speed but his opponent just kept on getting up stronger than before. Just as Simon was thrown into the distance, landing in a lake fire, he sensed Lily's mana spike higher than before.

The fire demigod seemed to notice this as well and as they turned to look at her, they noticed her entire body glowing a bright icy blue color. It was almost blinding as Simon could feel her power concentrating within her body. The surrounding was getting colder but it still wasn't enough.

Sensing the danger, the fire demigod charged over at Lily with the speed of a racing car but Simon was faster. Intercepting the hit, he tackled the fire demigod into the ground and that was when the world froze, literally.

The fire was frozen solid, the lava, the steam, the moisture, everything within a five kilometer radius was frozen solid. Simon felt chills all through his bones as he began shivering, just like when he was a human in the ice tank. This brought back memories he wanted to forget but seeing Lily fall brought him back to reality.

"Lily!" Rushing over, Simon checked her body and energy levels to find they were low.

"Tell me you're ok!" Simon yelled but Lily just smiled.

She raised her hand to Simon's arm and rubbed it. "Looks like I am strong enough to affect you like the others."

Simon who was still in shock looked at his body to realize that his skin was frozen solid, cracking and breaking with every movement. He was in awe before he smiled, knowing that Lily was more powerful than what he had believed before meant he could relax. Ice dragons were known to be capable of doing the same feats so this meant Lily was just about as strong as they were.

As for the fire demigod, the main things she had been doing so far were physical feats of strength. This made Simon shiver, not from the cold but from what she might be capable of if she decided to use the mana within her to power her fire abilities.

Right as Simon thought this, he felt a massive amount of power building up behind him. The ice sculpture of the fire demigod was glowing red with the ice melting off. She seemed like she was about to go supernova which wasn't the best of things at the moment.

"Oh crap."

Creating a three barrier layers around him just to be sure that Lily would stay safe, he felt a wave of hot energy pass him. The first layer of his barrier shattered while his second started to crack and that was all the damage that was done.

The fire lakes had been reignited and a crater formed with the fire demigod at the center, unconscious and in the same state as Lily. It was at this moment that Simon started noticing that the demigod's form started changing. From her red dragon form, she slowly turned back into a normal human girl with red markings around her body.

Lifting Lily up into his arms, Simon walked over and probed the fire Demigod's mind. She was confused, angered and scared of everything around her. The memory fragments that had gathered were of the week long torture and of her abusive father.

This made Simon sigh. "Why couldn't happier memories have stayed fragmented in her mind before I brought them together."

Lifting her up using his telekinesis, Simon was about to fly back to Crossroads city until he took another glance at the red haired demigod and sighed. Since she might be dangerous when awake and enter her dragon form, Simon decided against having her in a city full of people. So with this decision, Simon flew out of the fire desert and into a flat area of land.

With a thought, the ground molded itself into a four walled house with a roof. Trees and grass decorated the outside and stone was used to make the floor. There was a bed of grass in two corners of the room and setting the two girls on the grass, Simon patiently waited for one of them to wake up. Hoping that it would be Lily who would wake up first.

As he did this, he thought back to his power and speed. While he knew his body was powerful in both strength, durability and speed, he wondered how. His body while looking like a human was completely different as Simon had noticed his muscles, bones and other tissues were denser by dozens of times. Only the red haired girl's body was only five times less dense than his own, but his power was many times more stronger than just five times.

Then a thought hit him. "Is it because of my telekinesis?"

Thinking about it, Simon guessed that he was using his telekinesis to subconsciously increase his power and speed beyond his physical limits. It would explain how he was able to lift and throw the giant demigod a few meters into the ground when they all had just changed. It would also explain why he was able to fly so fast. Even though this was a great thing for anyone else, Simon felt a little annoyed that his full power was dependent on his telekinesis.

"Oh well, I might as well count it as a blessing." Simon said with a sigh, looking over to red red haired girl.

It seemed she was the first to awaken. "Where am I!"

The girl got up on her feet quickly as the air around her began to heat up. Simon not wanting his makeshift house to be destroyed with Lily inside, raised his hand. The girl surprisingly calmed down as she stared at Simon who stood up and walked to the center of the room. With a thought, he formed two chairs and a table.

"Come and sit." The girl listened and sat down as she kept on staring at Simon.

After a few seconds, she spoke. "I know you, I remember you but I don't remember anything else about my life. Tell me why!"

"It's because of what happened to your memories and why we were fighting before you ended up in that desert." Simon started but the girl growled. "Hurry up and explain it faster! I want to know who I am!"

Simon frowned at this since he himself didn't know who she was, but he had to at least help her understand the situation. "Well, I don't know who you are."

This made the girl growl so Simon decided to show her instead of explain. As her mana levels were still low, Simon entered her mind easily enough and soon the two stared into space. Their minds were currently going through memory lane.

The red haired girl who found her world twisting tried to activate her powers but they wouldn't work. She also found that her body was back to normal like her memories as she now had brown hair and green eyes.

"What? Where am I?" The girl said.

Simon appeared in front of her in a mist as he answered. "We are in your mind. I'm here to show you what memories you have left in perfect clarity. Sadly only the bad memories survived and I will show you my memories of why your memories are gone. Do you still want to see your memories even if it will only cause you pain?"

"Yes." The girl answered and Simon sighed.

As the memories passed through the girls mind, she kept on mumbling and mumbling as her fragments of her childhood passed through her mind. When the memories of stage one appeared, she froze in fear as she experienced everything again. The only positive memory the girl had was of Simon saving her from the instructor. It was a sad life and the girl had tears in her eyes, not only in the memories but the spectating girl as well.

"Is this who I am?" The girl asked Simon and he shrugged.

"I don't know who you are. I just saved you and helped you mentally prepare to face the worst, that's all I did." Simon said before he showed the girl memories of Nina, the woman who still made Simon growl in irritation.

"Erase their memories?" The girl repeated. "Why did they want to erase our memories?! We were kids!"

The girl charged at the woman in the memories but since it was only just that, a memory, the girl hit nothing but air. She then broke out crying before she hugged Simon who had walked up beside her. He had now known why the girl was fighting and it was quite sad as he fully went through the memories with her.

She had a younger sister and they were going to the park when the kidnappers appeared. The two of them were kidnapped but on the first day, the younger sister died and the older one refused to believe it. She struggled day in and out, believing that her younger sister was waiting at home but it was a false dream. A dream that the current girl had realized was a reality.

"I'm sorry." That was all Simon could say as he held her tight with no words coming to mind.

The girl after crying looked up to Simon and asked. "What am I supposed to do now? I don't know who I am, the memories I have are all bad and i'm in a whole different world!"

Simon thought for a moment before he sighed. "The only thing you can do right now is move on forward. If you stay in the past, then you'll never be able to live your life. Live for your sister who isn't able to. Smile for your sister who isn't able to. So everything that your sister wanted to do for her. Make this your future."

The girl sniffled before she nodded. "Ok… I will."

"As for your name." Simon thought for a second before he remembered the bright flash of fire and heat. "Hestia is the goddess of hearth and fire, just like how you looked before you did what you did. It was basically like a flare so, your name will be Hestia Flare."

The girl was silent for a while and Simon thought that he had named her terribly before the girl held him tighter. "Thank you…"