Going to the HQ

I was a little startled at first but quickly regained my composure. Homer was fuming mad at what he had heard.

"Those files were confidential!"

"Yes, but I have the clearance granted by Lady ... right, not supposed to say."

"Lady Hestia, goddess of the hearth, protector of the torch and as far as is known, the only surviving God. That's what you were going to say, right."

Hank was caught of guard by that, he looked at Homer like the man was some kind of threat.

I didn't really pay attention to him, I was mindblown. I mean, a literal had survived the War of Rusting Gold.

"How did you know that, nobody knows about her except God-level heroes and people like me who got security clearance."

"That doesn't matter, let me take a look at those blood test results, if Hestia trusts you then it's fine."

Homer skimmed through the results, stopped at the DNA markers and after a minute of thinking he looked up.

"It's not the same as my ability, although I do think I know what she can do."

He turned towards me and there was a hint of fear in his eyes.

"Nora, Imagine you could summon a fireball and that you had fire resistance, then try to do it."

I imagined, then I tried. A fire came to life, floating above my hand. I was so startled I lost concentration and it dissapeared.

"Now imagine you have superspeed and run to the end of the room."

I did it, and then I smashed into the wall. Hey, imagining you can do something whilst doing it and keeping track of your surroundings was hard.

"Do you understand now?"

Hank looked at me with astonishment in his eyes.

"Whatever ability she imagines she has can be used by her! But how would that even work?"

"She rearranges her DNA, that's why it's such a mess, the only drawback is that she needs to focus on three things for her to effectively use her powers."

This conversation went on for quite some time but the gist of it was, I would be OP if I learned how to focus on three things at once.

While we walked back to the teleporter it was way too quiet so I annoyed *cough* asked Homer some questions, the most important one was: "Homer, how does your artifact give you powers?"

"My artifact bends reality to my will, though the more it is against the natural laws, the more I have to pay.

Giving myself powers works the same, I have to understand what I want to give myself and the use a complex array of symbols I give them to myself.

The more powerfull the ability the bigger the price, take the wings for example, the symbols I used to create them are burned onto my back.

The ability that has DNA markers similar to yours have my pay the price on use.

That golden energy, well I think you know the result of that one."

He said that last sentence while he tapped his right arm.

When we arrived at the teleporter, I was given a temporary ID that would allow me to teleport.

I was afraid of teleport pads, the idea of disintegrating just to reform somewhere else is terrifying.

The maintenance people did a few checks, made sure the battery was full and gave the go ahead.

A whooshing noise could be heard. It was accompanied by the sound of a machine powering up.

The pad started to emit massive amounts of light and suddenly shot out an energy beam.

When the light faded we weren't standing i the tower anymore, we were standing in a big courtyard.

When I could finally see properly I saw the biggest building I had ever seen in my entire life.

Homer, Bolt and Kirby (who had to come along for debriefing) chuckled.

It was Kirby who spoke the first.

"Welcome the the Order of Heroes' HQ, formerly known as Olympus, home of the gods."

I fainted on the spot. Not my finest hour, I know, but cut me some slack. I had learned today that a goddess had survived and I was standing in Olympus. It was crazy.

When I woke up I said: "Any other mindshattering information I need to know about?"

"I'm gay." Thea replied with a hint of pride.

"I'm bi." Kirby said, the same pride shining through.

"My artifact contains the soul of the goddess Athena." Homer said nonchalant.

I fainted again.