The Olympians: The Fall of Kin

The Wendigo

Betrayal.

It was a bitter pill to swallow. When you finally saw the true face of the friend you thought you'd known your entire life.

Athena knew that better than anyone.

Clarion couldn't blame her for being the way she was. That was what he thought as he silently rode the elevator to her floor.

How long has it been since I last visited her?

He felt guilty for foregoing his weekly visits a few months ago.

I had no choice though. We're spread too thin as it is. I wonder if she resents me for it. Pfft. Nah. That's not possible. Just remember how she was when you first met her...

It'd been a wintry, frigid day. A morning frost was clinging to the grass of Hell's Haven Central Park, as Clarion had meandered along the path. Of course, he'd gone to the park that day for a reason. Since The Shredder Corps. lacked any sort of official recruiting agencies, it was up to all Enforcers to recruit when possible. In fact, in terms of permissions, one needn't get it. There were no regulations regarding Enforcers recruits. They could dress as they wanted. Recruit who they wanted, no matter their station in life. As long as they weren't wanted criminals, they were fair game.

Clarion had gone through potential recruitment files of any and all Athena-Kin he'd known of.

But, considering that Athena-Kin were some of the rarest breeds of Godkin, the pickings were slim.

And then, out of nowhere, The Department of Godkin Denominations had posted a new file of a Godkin who'd been posing as a human at Hell's Haven University. And, upon discovery, she'd been tossed from her dorm to the street, kicked out of classes, and vanished.

After weeks of searching...

Clarion took a seat at a stone table, along the path of the park.

A woman was playing with her dog ahead of him. The waves crashed against the bay wall as a jogger rushed across the ruggedly carved path just above the water.

Sitting across from him was a girl, a girl that looked as though she couldn't be more than nineteen, though he knew better.

She was skinny. No, that wasn't right. Malnourished was a better word. She had hair of the deepest brown, so much that it nearly appeared black. Her eyes were red, conflicting with her hair color. Her skin was ash-white, nails long and unkempt. A white and red shirt with a faded oval-shaped logo on it hung loosely around her shoulders, a pair of tattered jeans barely clinging to her narrow hips. The girl's lips were dry as desert dunes.

Upon the table sat a chess set.

"Care for a game?" Clarion said, puffing on a cigarette.

"Sure. If I beat you though, you gotta' get me some food."

"Sure. Only under the conditions you can beat me in ten moves or less." He chuckled, his raspy voice resonating, the brisk morning hair smoking from his breath.

There was this stilted way the girl spoke. Like she didn't know how to talk to people. And she wouldn't look him in the eye. She was reading a book so fast that she was turning a page every five seconds.

Eidetic Memory. In humans it was basically a myth. But in Godkin, true photographic memory was entirely possible, especially with an Athena-kin.