Chapter 2.

Remi felt like she'd been drop-kicked. Every of her muscle shrieked, and a sudden headache gnawed at her in nearly consuming pain. Most of all, her panic felt newly renewed. There was something really disturbing about this place.

"Lycan?" He didn't answer. Her accompany snored noisily beside her, in a darkened room where she could barely see a thing. Body and hands tied firmly to a surface.

What had she gotten herself into now?

"At least one of them awakes." She frowned at the familiarity that voice withheld.

"I was just starting to get bored."

Her gaze met the priest's, smiling darkly as he stood before something that seemed to have been a complete set of science apparatus, with different color of chemicals brewing from each tubes.

She wasn't no science freak, but she knew that wasn't any good.

"What in the world are you?" Remi asked the darkness.

"Just someone who likes children."

"I've dealt with your kind before, and I can tell you're anything but a human."

She saw him dig his fingers through one of the apparatus, likely aiming to remove a stain from the chemical. She held within the curiosity that fear had suddenly unhinged in her to know what it was. However, she'd been taught not to give away emotions, liabilities, weaknesses. But she'd die before she let him get in the way of her quest.

"So it's true you can't hide your true reflection isn't it now?" The priest sighed. "You see, I've always loved to be around children, to experience the same happiness as they did. For a monster who was named among the others, I rather consider their naivety and innocence a blessing unto me and God."

Remi stifled her breathing, trying her best to not inhale the awful smell that arose from the chemical.

"And these children, are of course the closest to his heart. But when you bring in a young demigod eleven some years ago with an unkindled interest for negativity, then you know you have to begin to make adjustments."

Lycan's deep snore was his response. For a moment there, she'd almost wished she was him, rather lost in her nightmare than to listen to this man sum up his boring tragedy.

She could've yawned if tension and adrenaline hadn't replaced the warm blood in her veins.

"And so thanks to the sadness of a demigod child, I was able to come up with this idea," he continued, grabbing a small test tube with a golden liquid content. "A solution that bids bad memories away, making the children feel unexplained joy. I call it the Elixir of Exuberance."

Remi sucked the air in disgust, "So, in a nutshell, you're just a useless science freak who forces happiness on kids?"

The priest smiled darkly, "aren't you the least curious to know how your target is doing?"

Remi's heart jerked in panic, followed by the aggressive pull she made on the ropes as she tried to break free, "you lay your hands on that girl, and I'll make sure to see to the permanence of your death!"

"Relax, she's safe. There's a reason why I haven't killed her all these years." he poured the Elixir into a steaming bottle of purple liquid, and out of it came a ghastly vapour of green. "You see, like you guys, I knew she was special. A demigod? Yes. But the day her negativity got the whole of her? That day was too revealing."

"What do you mean?"

"It was supposed to be like any other day, as she was usually resorting all her problems to anger. But this day, Tori had had the brink of it. And unfortunately for us, she didn't take her dose of the Elixir." He explained.

"But what we weren't expecting was the sudden change of the sky's appearance. From a peaceful morning sky, to a stormy dark one."

Remi was almost taken aback by how fast Tori had already learnt how to control the sky.

"Good Lord, she almost destroyed the entire orphanage that day." the priest made a cross over his chest. "But that was the day I figured out that all this time, I've only been harboring the child of the prophecy."

"Why didn't you eat her at first?" Remi asked, matter-of-factly.

"I'm vegetarian." He simply replied. "And besides, child of the prophecy or not, I was only going to put her up for sale."

"To who?"

"Atlas of course, he's looking to recruit as many demigods into his already large army. But now that I have the child of the prophecy, I'm only going to be rich for it."

Atlas had escaped the punishments of the gods thousands of years ago, leaving another immortal entity to bear the sky's weight in his place. He'd been running earth in a pilage, recruiting monsters and humans into his wing, all from within the shadows to avoid being found by the gods. Only recently had he been scouting for demigods too.

Atlas was the reason for the existence of the prophecy.

"So now, you motherf@!#ers are allowed to run a demigod recruitment program without their consent?" Remi barked.

"The only one who gives consents around here is Atlas, the ruler of earth." the priest laughed, "at least that was only confirmed after Hephaestus tried to take him out on his own

The fire god literally got burned, I won't be surprised to see that his children may be as gullible."

"Are you done yet?" Lycan's voice held a sudden grudge, his eyes suddenly brimming a red light of burn.

"Lycan. You're alive!" Remi's relief wasn't undeniable. However asides being alive, he had also set himself free, the ropes that had him tied was now burned to black, smoke arising from it.

"When did he….?"

"Wh–!? How are you free?!" The priest was startled and he moved aback as Lycan slowly approached him.

"It's one thing to talk shit about Hephaestus and laugh at his failures." The glow in Lycan's eyes became more intense. "But it's another completely different thing to attribute those failures to his children."

He brought his hands up, and above his palms, two red fireballs incinerated wildly, waiting to be thrown off to burn a target to ashes. That was only one of his many gifts, as he was a son of Hephaestus - the god of iron and fire.

Remi smiled mischievously at the priest as he turned to face her, panic welling up his composure, "now you've done it."