Page 28 of Destinies of Diamond
“Another war. The humans always fight for resources, but this time, they think we could be the key to breaking the stalemate between the world powers. And if the gods allow it, we might be.”
An eerie laugh echoed through the dark chamber. “We will allow it. Maybe it’s time to see the humans for what they really are. What will they do with the power of the ancients at their disposal?”
I didn’t recoil, but came awfully close. As a creature of sunlight and life, I didn’t have a close bond to Tartarus, but I understood and respected his power anyway.
“Perhaps you’re correct,” another voice, this time female, said. “The humans have run amok on our world for long enough. It is time for them to pay the price for their recklessness.”
“They will destroy themselves, won’t they?” I asked with sudden dread.
“They might,” Tartarus agreed. “Or maybe they’ll use their new power to build something different, something better. That’s the charming thing about humans. You can never be sure what they’ll…”
I didn’t hear the end of Tartarus’s sentence. My vision began to blur and the room slowly dissipated, my family and friends vanishing into the ether. “Pegasus!” my mother screamed, her eyes very wide.
I let out a startled equine snort and extended my wings, fully intending to try to make my way to her. But she vanished just like the others, and I could do nothing.
My anguish came roaring out of me in a blast of power I couldn’t control. Tartarus and Gaia were inside me, their power feeding my rage and grief.
A ray of light reached out to me through the darkness. “Don’t be scared little one. I’m here. Now, open your eyes.”
I did, although I wasn’t sure when I’d closed them. And just like that, reality hit me once again.
The room was completely gone, but so was the terrifying all-consuming darkness. I was lying on a nondescript cot and Jared was by my side, holding my hand. “Back with me?” he asked softly.
I nodded, his mere presence reminding me of who and what I truly was. “Yes, thank you. I’m okay now.”
“Forgive me if I have my doubts about that. I was considering going to get your mother, but Sphinx insisted it was too dangerous to expose you like that.”
“I don’t know about dangerous, but it’s definitely unnecessary. I don’t want to worry my mother with something that might not be important.”
“If it knocked you out while you were in the cockpit of the Sphinx with me, Selene, it’s important,” he protested.
He wasn’t wrong. I’d had visions before, but I’d never been catapulted into the skin of a mythological creature. They’d also only ever come to me as dreams, when I slept. I’d never blanked out like this. Was it another side-effect of the pregnancy? It seemed likely. Everything that was going wrong with me as of late appeared to be related to the baby.
“I’ve been experiencing this kind of thing for a while, although only as dreams,” I told Jared. “I think it’s the pregnancy that’s making it worse.”
“That makes sense. Your hormonal imbalance would make your brain far more vulnerable to fluctuations of power. Is someone sending you these dreams?”
“I have no idea.” I shrugged. “The last couple of times, I dreamed about being a Heliad involved in a battle against the Grand Chimera Unit. At the time, I didn’t dwell on it. In hindsight, that might have been a mistake.”
I should have asked the Great Mother about it when we’d been in Nexus, but it had slipped my mind. But I knew that those dreams of mine had been, in some way, real. Before my kidnapping, I’d never heard the name ‘Heliad’. It had only appeared in my dreams and it wasn’t something I could have known. Did that mean this new vision was true as well? There was only one way of finding out.
My chimera had been there, in my vision, although she had been in her flesh and blood form. She had to remember something, no matter how vague. Taking a deep breath, I reached out to her with my mind.“Sphinx… Do you by any chance recall a meeting between you and the other chimeras? Something that concerned your decision to join forces with us Terrans?”
My bond with Sphinx was still strained because of what I’d done during the attack of Gaia’s Haven. Still, my chimera heard me and promptly provided me with a reply.“I recall we did have one, but the details are blurry. I think some of us weren’t very happy with the idea of serving humans, but ultimately, Gaia and Tartarus intervened.”
That was pretty much what I’d seen, although those details Sphinx couldn’t remember were very relevant for our current situation. Still holding onto our connection, I asked, “Do you know what happened to the others? To the chimeras that are now dormant?”
I spoke out loud, addressing the question to Jared, as well as Sphinx. “They should be at the Hades Base on the moon,”Sphinx replied. “Most of the time, that’s where old chimera shells go when they’re no longer usable. There are furnaces where the special alloy is crafted and it’s just more practical to store the mechas in the same place.”
“On the moon, I think,” Jared offered at the same time, “although last I heard, there are a few who are occasionally given to individuals to keep. I checked the tracker codes individually when I was looking into the systems at Tartarus Base and noticed that several known chimeras were sent to a classified location.”
“Which ones?” I asked, finally getting up on my haunches.
“I remember Medusa and Pegasus. There might have been more, but I didn’t have time to look.” Jared scowled. “Why? Is it important?”
“I don’t know yet.” I rubbed my temples, trying to chase away an impending headache. “It might be. It’s certainly not information we can discard.”
According to my vision, Tartarus and Gaia hadn’t entrusted chimeras to mankind out of a sudden decision to help us. It had been a trap and a test, a way for people to prove to themselves and others that they were more than power-hungry lunatics. My ancestors had utterly failed, which was what had brought us to this horrible situation.
