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There were slights he was still holding onto from before the world ended that he would likely never forget.

Perhaps it wasn\'t the healthiest way to go about life, but that was just who he was.

As such, when Bast suddenly offered him a token of her regret, his immediate reaction was simple.

"You can keep it. I don\'t want anything from either of you ever again."

Malachi removed Bast from his head and turned around to leave without exchanging another word.

Apophis and Belloc both assumed that there was more to this story that they weren\'t aware of, but they didn\'t know if it was their place to say anything.

Besides, they weren\'t really all that fascinated one way or another.

They too ended up turning to follow in Malachi\'s footsteps; leaving behind the pair of apologetic deities.

"Well… that is certainly your right, son of Nyx."

"Even so… please accept these on our behalf."

When Malachi looked back, both deities had disappeared and could no longer be found on the mountaintop.

However, Malachi couldn\'t help but notice that his pockets were suddenly heavier than before.

Investigating, he pulled out two distinctive charms.

One was a wooden totem in the shape of a claw; the same collar that Bast once had hanging around her neck.

The other looked like a small circular drum; the same kind that adorned Raijin\'s back.

"…" Malachi raised his arm like he was about to throw the totems off the cliff and never think about them again.

However, something seemed to stop him from disposing of these weird trinkets.

In the end, he finally just stuffed them back into his pockets and started walking back inside.

"Put the barrier back up." Were the only words that came out of his mouth for a while.

-

Currently it was nightfall, and Malachi and Belloc were walking back from the \'prison cells\' downstairs.

In Mal\'s hands, he held the notebook that was literally chock full of plans, serums, notes, schematics, the results of genetic and chemical testing, all information that the old government knew about the New Day faction, and loads more.

It was so much.

Too much.

He had been reading for upwards of twenty minutes and he still wasn\'t done.

Compared to the stuff he and Aubrey found when they raided the base, it was like a drop in a fucking well.

"I… need a drink." Mal finally decided.

Belloc had nothing to say in response.

He wasn\'t the sort of person who was unaware of the lengthy atrocities in which humans were willing to commit against one another, but there was a difference between just knowing about something and actually witnessing it firsthand.

"Well… you boys look like you\'ve had quite a day."

From out of the corner, Nyx emerged out of the shadows on the wall and offered the boys a friendly smile.

"Was spending the day together that abhorrent for the two of you, or do your faces have something to do with that notebook in your hands?" She asked.

Malachi forced a smile onto his face as he tried to hide the notebook behind his back.

"It just made me remember how good I have it is all. I\'ve been spending so much time around beautiful women everyday I forget how insufferable guys my own age are."

Belloc said nothing, as he famously prided himself on being an asshole.

Nyx could tell that maybe her son was trying to keep something from her, and she waffled a bit over whether or not she should pry further.

But first, she snapped her fingers together and unbound the boys from each other.

Afterwards, Belloc practically sprinted away to go and find Melanie.

When she saw him and Malachi sitting together earlier she understandably got spooked and bolted before he could chase after her.

Mal had already figured where he was going and didn\'t bother chasing after him.

Instead, he leaned against the wall beside his mother and basked in the silence.

"...Would you like to talk about that notebook that\'s behind your back?"

"...Not really." he admitted.

"I understand...but you know you can talk to me about anything, right?"

"Of course, ma."

"Just checking."

The two of them stood around in the corridor for just a little longer before Mal remembered that he did have something he wanted to ask him mother.

"Y\'know... I met Belloc\'s fiancé yesterday."

"Oh yea? What\'s she like?"

"Hot and scary."

"That tracks." Nyx nodded.

"But she started to say something to me about expecting me to be stronger... because I wasn\'t human."

"W-Well of course you aren\'t human anymore, hon... Let\'s go find your sister, I think she wanted to ask me for my advice on-"

Nyx started to turn away, but Malachi grabbed her hand at the last moment.

"No, ma... for some reason she implied that I was a monster. You wouldn\'t happen to know anything about that, would you?"

Nyx fell silent for a very long time leading Mal to believe his hypothesis might\'ve been correct.

"...Let\'s go find your sister, dear."

"Ma, I need to-"

"I know, hon... Let\'s grab your sister and go home first, yea?"

Mal noted the quiet tone of his mother\'s voice and nodded while following closely on her heels.

He couldn\'t see her face, but he hardly needed to in order to know how grim it was.

\'I don\'t understand... Why all the secrecy?\'

-

After grabbing Aubrey (and Camille who demanded to tag along) the family returned to the depths of the greek underworld where Nyx led her children upstairs to the master bedroom.

As soon as she opened the door, she placed Cami down on the ground at her feet. "Alright sweetie, go and get them for us."

Camille nodded and used her little legs to run over to the bed and pulled out two very familiar wooden boxes from underneath.

And a couple of seconds later, Camille pulled out another, much smaller box.

This was her own, and she was very proud of it.

Needless to say, both Malachi and Aubrey were completely shocked to see their baby boxes sitting in the Greek underworld.

They thought they had lost those long ago when their parents first died.

"Ma… how do you have-"

"I\'ve told you both before, but even though I never birthed you, you are still my children. And I have loved you long before I even knew you."

Nyx crossed the bedroom to reach a closet on the other side of the room, which Aubrey just realized she had never seen her open.

And she wondered why she even had one in the first place.

After all, she fabricated all of her clothes out of shadows, so she had no need to store stuff like that.

So what on earth was inside?

Nyx placed her hands on the door handles and pulled them open with a soft click.

Inside, Aubrey and Mal saw no clothes at all.

Instead, there were shelves lined with over thirty different boxes; with some being very, very old.

"For a long time, your family has been more special to me than you can possibly know.

Everyone from your father Marcus, to your grandmother Esther, and even more distant ancestors you won\'t know.

You have all taught me a love of humanity that I have never known, and filled me with an appreciation for that which is fleeting… as well as a sorrow."

Out of nowhere, Nyx began to cry as she smiled.

"But even so… you are the first ones I\'ve actually gotten to care for and spend time with.

And the experience is even sweeter than I ever could have imagined.

It saddens me… that this all began because I was trying to prove a silly little point."

"H-Hang on, mom…" Aubrey held up her hands in a stopping gesture. "What are you trying to tell us…?"

Nyx accepted the tissue that Camille brought her so that she could wipe her eyes.

"Ah, I\'m sorry… I should probably start from the beginning, where I turned a vicious monster into a human in the midst of an ongoing debate with Keres."