False Gods

Book XII Finale

Chapter LXXXVI

"Hello? Serena? Where'd you go?" I questioned. I had fallen asleep for a short nap, and I'm pretty sure Pyra had too. I don't remember intending to go to sleep, but we were both pretty exhausted after the battle. Ok... maybe "pretty exhausted" was a pretty vast understatement, but it didn't explain where Serena was.

"I'm here, cool you jets," a female voice said behind me.

I turned around quickly to see her standing with her arms crossed, as if she were bothered by something.

I suddenly remembered why she was in my mind to begin with. "You're leaving... aren't you?"

She nodded. "With him gone, there's nothing left keeping me here, but I'm glad I got to see your face one last time."

I was definitely concerned. "Are you going to be ok?"

She sighed, "I'll be fine. Although, I have a question for you."

"What is it?"

"No person becomes a monster because they woke up one day in a bad mood," she explained. "That goes for Adonis, Juliani, Amalthus, Jin, Malos, Galea, or even me."

I assumed this meant that she knew all of their pasts, and probably a lot more about them than I could.

"It doesn't change the fact that they're monsters, and should be punished for their crimes.... But when you face her, will you give her one chance to change her mind? I know it sounds immature, but she once convinced me that she was human, looking through the eyes of a monster, no less," she continued, before letting out a sigh. "Know that, just like Adonis, nothing you say will change her mind. However, I'd like to at least know she had her chance."

"I understand," I nodded. After all, I was talking to a blade that had killed so many people and blades. Not to mention she had single-handedly handicapped the Aegis and almost wiped out the world. With how she acted now, it was honestly hard to imagine her ever being that malicious.

She began fading right in front of me, before she took one last look at me.

"Oh, and don't be so hard on Waylon," she said. "I know he's dead now and you probably don't have the highest opinion of him, especially with all he let Pyra go through. But, everything he and Alvis said were true, if Alvis hadn't withheld the truth from him, he would've let the entire world die before he would've let Pyra, Nia, Mythra, or any of them go through everything Adonis did to them and this world. Alvis is just too black-and-white to put emotional consideration into any of his logical steps. After spending about a year reading his mind, I can say his intentions were, at the very least, in everyone's best interest. Even at the expense of his own happiness most of the time...."

I sighed, "I know. I guess it just annoys me that what history claimed to be a 'god and equal to the Architect' was so flawed."

"Galea and Klaus were no less flawed," Serena pointed out. "The thing you can appreciate from Waylon is that he acknowledges this and does everything in his power to make it right. Klaus acknowledged it but refused to do anything about it until the very end when Rex moved him, and Galea refused and refuses to do either."

"That makes him seem no different than any other human," I said in realization.

Serena giggled, "Then you understand him perfectly. That's all he is. Good luck, Silas."