Chapter 10: The Adventures of Pluto and Thena, 4250 – 3900 BCE (3)

[Congo, 4050 BCE]

It's been quite a few years since we left the tribe, and we've been fighting nonstop since then. We've been to South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, and we even crossed the sea to go to Madagascar.

Right now, however, we've decided to take a break from all the fighting. Even Thena agrees with the break, and we're now in Congo, watching and studying gorilla colony behavior.

"What did you name this species of ape again?" Thena asked, while eating a banana.

"Gorillas." I answered. "Cool name, huh?"

"A bizarre name..." She countered.

"So does "human"." I shrugged.

She hummed and continued to eat the banana rather slowly. "Speaking of humans, they're like them."

"Humans evolved from apes, so yes, they have pretty similar characteristics." I answered.

"You're going to kill a couple of them to add it to your legions of weird constructs?" She suddenly questioned.

"What makes you think that?" I asked back, acting offended.

"What else are we doing here? I don't particularly have any business watching a bunch of gorillas interacting with each other. "

"Well, we're taking a break from all the fighting, I won't kill any of them. It's the same strategy as before. I'll wait until one of them dies of old age or something.

She hummed and sighed. "To be honest, I'm starting to dislike our immortality. a lot of waiting. "

I shrugged. "I don't particularly have any offense to my immortality... It makes me do things that normal people can't do in their lifetime, but yes, a lot of waiting."

She looked at me for a second before saying. "I'm thinking about those children I taught a couple of decades ago…"

"Yes, they've probably died of old age long ago."

"It's a sad life we're living in, don't you think?" She stated.

"I try not to think about it." I hummed. "I try not to get attached to humans, and that's going well so far."

"Why are we immortal anyway?" She questioned. "We're living beings, right? We should die of old age...

"I don't know Thena…" I hummed, I know, but I'd rather not tell right now. "But yes, we should."

"While everyone dies, we live to bury them." She murmured sadly.

I coughed a bit. "Well, we should stop the depressing talk. Do you want to get closer?"

"What?" She asked, and she looked weirdly at me.

I noticed what I had just said and added hurriedly. "Closer to the gorillas."

"You're kidding..."

"I'm not."

She sighed. "What are you doing?"

"I kind of want to teach them sign language…"

"Can they even understand?"

"We've got a lot of time. Surely we can teach them."

She sighed. "Fine…"

After that, we got closer to the gorillas, and started to slowly mingle with them. They didn't seem to be scared of me, just cautious, but when we gave them a lot of bananas, they accepted us easily… I guess it's just plain ol' bribery.

And after that, we've spent around 50 years staying there, mingling with the gorillas, teaching them how to communicate using sign language, Thena even taught them how to use weapons… which I think it's a bad idea… but hey, it's probably safe right? The knowledge will probably die down after a couple of centuries…

[4001 BCE, still in Congo]

We've started preparations to leave the place, the gorillas have been treating us like deities, but it's probably fine…

"Are you leaving your majesty?" A big ass gorilla suddenly tapped my shoulder and said to me in sign language. Yup, I succeeded in teaching them sign language…

"Yes, we still have a duty to take care of." I answered back in sign language. "Your name's Harambe right?"

"Yes, your majesty!" He said excitedly, jumping around.

"Okay, calm down…" I said, and Harambe calmed down. "I appoint you as the leader of this gorilla society, take care of your peop- gorillas from now on." I patted his shoulder.

"It's an honor, your majesty!" He said excitedly again, but this time, no jumping up and down.

"Use our knowledge that we have given you properly, I will know if you use it to harass other animals in this region…" I warned sternly.

"We will abide by your orders." He saluted me… damn, Thena must've trained them harder than I thought…

"Good." I nodded. "Take care Harambe, and don't tell the others we're leaving, we don't want to make a ruckus."

Harambe is crying right now. "We will make sure that our children and their children will remember you, your majesty!"

"Please don't…" I pleaded. "Well, this is goodbye Harambe." I said as I left the colony discreetly, as Thena was waiting for me in the edge of Congo.

I arrived at Thena's location and spoke. "You had everything?"

"Yes." She nodded. "This has been a fun project."

"I don't know Thena… I still think it's a bad idea to teach them how to use weapons…"

She shrugged. "The knowledge will probably die down after a couple of centuries."

"I hope so…" I murmured, after that, we left Congo, into the next area.

What they didn't know, that those gorillas' descendants will trouble the future colonizers, pushing them back from their territory, and they will make headlines all over the world, speaking of a 'smart' gorilla colony.

Pluto will be treated as a god there, the god of wisdom because he gave them the knowledge of sign language, and the god of the dead as he absorbed the dead gorillas while he was still there.

While Thena will be treated as the goddess of war, as she taught them how to use weapons, and as the goddess of fertility, as she was very beautiful, even in the gorillas' eyes.

---

[Gambia, 4000 BCE]

Right now, we're at The Gambia River. I am guarding Thena, who is bathing right now in the river. My back is facing her, while standing naked in the river itself.

"We're almost done cleansing this part of earth, right?" Thena asked me while she's still bathing.

"It should be." I nodded. "We've cleansed the east, south, and part of the west, the region we haven't touched is north and central Africa."

"Africa?" She questioned. "You named this continent?"

"Might as well name it right? I've named every single animal we've encountered, so why not the continent itself?"

"Fair enough." She hummed. "I wonder what the others are doing…"

"Probably laying around lazily." I shrugged. "It's been quite a few years since we saw them. After all, they should already integrate with the society there."

"Thankfully, I joined you instead of staying." She stated.

"Really?" I raised my eyebrows. "Well, I'm glad you joined me as well."

After I said that, suddenly, I heard a loud sound from the river. It was a loud boom, and I could feel water splashed to me.

"Thena?! You okay in there?!" I shouted, still not turning to the river, afraid if Thena would get mad at me for seeing her naked.

"I'm fine now!? But can you help!?" She shouted back.

"What's going on!?"

"Look at it yourself! Turn around!"

I turned around, and saw a naked Thena on the edge of the river, she was holding a deviant's mouth open, preventing it from swallowing her whole.

"What the fuck!?" I shouted as I summoned Apophis. I commanded it to attack the deviant.

The shape of the deviant is weird, it has a long neck, its head is like a horse, it has horns, it has a body of a crocodile, and has a long tail.

Apophis then quickly slithered to the deviant, and bit its neck. Apophis threw the deviant away from Thena, making her free to release the mouth she was grabbing.

"You alright?" I said as I threw her clothes to her, silently asking her to dress up.

"That deviant came out of nowhere…" She said, "I thought you checked the area?"

"Well, not thorough enough apparently, it came out from inside the river, right?"

"Yes." She said as she quickly dressed up. I saw that Apophis is nearly done with it.

"Don't absorb." I commanded, and he obeyed.

Apophis gave the deviant one last bite before snapping its long neck, killing it instantly.

I walked closer to the deviant, inspecting it.

"This deviant… is like my construct…" I murmured as I saw the body.

"What?" The now dressed Thena asked.

"It's like my construct… it has all the parts of the surrounding animals…" I said. "A head of a horse or a zebra… a crocodile's body… a ram's horns... a giraffe's long neck…"

"But… how?" She questioned.

Deviants can absorb eternals' power… which means they can absorb eternals' cosmic energy… which means that they can absorb other animals' tiny cosmic energy as well! And they evolved because of it!

"I- I don't know…" I said to Thena, lying through my teeth. "But it looks like they can do things that I can do…"

"What do you mean? They can absorb animals?"

"I think so… but why only this one? I didn't see the others absorbing other animals…"

She examined the corpse of the deviant. "We need to tell the others about this…"

"Yes, I think so too." I spoke. I then summoned a bird construct. "Write a note or something, I'll send it to the others."

She nodded and quickly wrote a note using goat skin and animal blood, after that, I commanded the bird construct to fly to Egypt, giving the letters to the other eternals.

"It's still bizarre though, why is it only this deviant that has the ability to do it…" I stated.

"We have time to investigate this…"

"I doubt we'll discover the reason unless I find another one of these…"

"Well… it's time to move again."

"Right…"

---

[Sahel Region, 3975 BCE]

After that incident, I made sure to check our surroundings more carefully, and Thena also kept reminding me to check as well, a sign that she is cautious.

Right now, we're in the Sahel region, a region where the desert and the forest are supposed to meet, but the Sahara is still a savannah now, so it makes no difference whatsoever.

One thing I've noticed though, that the savannah is dying, fast.

The temperature is much hotter than before, so I guess it's a sign.

We were walking through the savannah, enjoying the scenery, when suddenly, I sensed something was targeting me. I followed that instinct, and quickly grabbed something that was thrown to me, and I saw what I just grabbed, a wooden spear.

Thena saw this and became on guard instantly, conjuring her usual spear and shield.

"The hell!" I shouted as I summoned Ammit besides me.

I turned around to see a group of humans looking at me like I'm a prey.

"What do we do? Should we kill them?" I asked Thena.

"I don't know… we never encountered this situation before…"

"I'll try to scare them." I said, I commanded Ammit to step forward, in an attempt to scare the humans, but it didn't work at all. Instead, the humans kept throwing rocks and wooden spears at Ammit, trying to take it down.

"They're resilient alright…" I murmured. "Any ideas?"

"Use your spider construct." Thena said. "Incapacitate them."

"Good Idea." I nodded as I summoned Anansi, I commanded Anansi to use its web strings to incapacitate the humans. Anansi moves, and it carefully crawls to Ammit's back, hidden from the humans.

After it arrived at the top of Ammit, it began to work. Anansi weaved its spider web from on top of Ammit, wrapping the humans one by one. Anansi used Ammit's body as an anchor as it swung from human to human, carefully weaving a cocoon like prison for the humans.

As soon as the final humans were wrapped, I saw Anansi trying to devour one of them. Seeing this, I shouted.

"Anansi! Stop!"

Anansi froze in place, and I absorbed it, along with Ammit.

"What do we do now?" I asked Thena once again.

"Leave them here." She said, "These yellow energy webs are going to disappear right?"

"Only if I told Anansi to get rid of it."

"Then let's walk away first, then tell your construct to make it disappear."

I nodded, and we walked away from the screaming humans that were trapped in the cocoons.

Needless to say, after the humans had been freed, they told everyone in their tribe about the incident, and a particular myth about a spider trickster began to bloom in their culture.

But Pluto didn't know that…