The Truth of Zeus

"Where did you escort everybody off to?" I turned to Ruby, Ipa, and Ken as they all gathered around Soul and me after the encounter with Zeus. Ruby explained that the living civilians were sent back to a nearby destroyed village... which would line up with Jane and Janice's geography.

"That's fine. Look, we need to escort everybody out of this city as soon as possible. We don't have any time to fool around and we need to corner Zeus as well. Does anybody have any leads on his position?" I asked around, hoping for some answers, but nobody spoke up.

"There". Ken muttered while pointing east. Toward the water? What business would Zeus have being close to the water?

"Huh? What makes you say that?" I asked Ken, but he pulled out his sword and concentrated on the direction itself. I primed my staff for another attack by reflex and waited with Ken for something bad to happen.

"Maybe it was just my imagination... hey, Soul, Tama, you need to tell us what to expect from Zeus and Ono so we can prepare for an attack," Ken muttered over to the two standing behind us.

"Ono's skills... hey, Tama, do you remember what Ono could do?" Soul asked her sister, but she didn't know either.

"You two don't know his attacks? Weren't you together with him for a while? How could you..." I paused while asking to think about something.

She doesn't know his attacks, isn't that kind of weird? Somebody that good with the air element was quiet about his attacks?

"You're dead serious. You don't know what he's capable of at all... why? What's going on?" I asked Soul, but she didn't seem to know.

"Soul... where were you born?" I asked her. I pulled out my Wand again and primed [Bullet] while walking close to her.

"W-What? Hey, what are you doing with that? I don't know! It was a while ago!" Soul yelled out to me, backing away from Tama.

My suspicions were being raised.

"When did you and I first meet?" I asked her next, waiting to watch her body language closely.

She slowly swayed back and forth and nervously darted her head back and forth. Finally, she moved her hair to cover a part of her face, looking into it as she answered.

"Is there some point to this? You know the answer, why do I have to tell you? You know... it's really embarrassing..." She said. I nodded.

"And one last question then. Sorry, for embarrassing you." I said to her, looking at her skirt.

"What kind of panties are you wearing?" I asked her with a straight face.

I swore I heard the steam rise out of Ruby's head, and Soul's red face lighting up was all I needed to see.

"W-What kind of indecent question?! I should kill you for that!" Soul yelled out. She ran over to me and went to throw a punch at my head.

I willingly took the punch and Ken slashed at Soul's chest, cutting out a ghost-looking spirit that rose into the air and faded away.

"What the... hey, does somebody want to explain what's going on?!" Tama yelled out, more in anger toward me.

"Zeus vanished. The last time he did that, he didn't end up going too far, so I knew something was up. I've been suspicious of his position this entire time, and I had plenty of questions to ask him since I saw him this time around. When Zeus vanished this time around, Ken told me he went over to the water... but Soul was standing by the water." I explained, but that's all I could manage to piece together.

"It's fairly obvious Zeus has some practice in possessing people, and I could sense two lifeforms within Soul's body, one of them didn't belong to us. That being said, a simple look of suspicion to Anima and I was able to provoke thought within him. As expected of my leader." Ken said.

"The Soul I know would've never cried in my shoulder. She's too strong to show anybody about that. I figured it was a desperate cry if it wasn't Zeus, but the chance of it being Zeus to lower my guard and feel bad for Soul was far too high. He's trying to psychologically win against us before killing us. Trying to lower my guard. So, was I right, Soul?" I turned back to ask her.

"Y-Yes... but never catch me off-guard with a question like that again! I hate you." She yelled out to me. She slapped me in the back of the head, but I gladly took it.

"I just had to make sure you were still Soul at least. If you were fully Zeus, you wouldn't have reacted the way you did." I explained to her.

"So, Zeus just casually possessed her? That doesn't make any sense at all. Why would he do that? When did he do that? I was by her the whole time." Tama asked Ken and me.

"It's not possession, per se. It's a replacement. Zeus was trying to replace her, the same way he vanished, he was trying to move Soul as well. I could sense it." Ken explained.

Wow, I've never seen a random plot hole that big since... maybe I shouldn't say it.

As Ken explained, it became more and more clear to me, but everything was riding on the fact that he could sense 'lifeforms' which didn't make that much sense.

It was weird how I had the intuition to detect Zeus's spirit around her, but it was something about the way Soul acted that bothered me initially. It was hard to explain, and maybe it's a fabled 'Hero Sense', but when I looked at her, she was the spitting image of guilty and a liar. Either way, we know Zeus is playing dirty now, so we have to hit him with the same force.