Origin of the 11th

Chapter 12: The Birth of the 11th

"Recruit me?" I asked, not having understood a word that Apollo had said. I couldn't recollect ever hearing the term 'Divine Sovereign,' but there was something vaguely familiar about it. Apollo had said that his name was Apollonidus, but that was a mouthful to say every single time. "Why would you want to do that?"

Apollo grinned happily. "Well that's one of my jobs right now. I am one of the recruiters of Divine Sovereigns." He said simply, rocking back and forth in midair. Despite knowing that he wasn't using his real body, just seeing Apollo give this message as a frog seriously devalued the actual message, and I didn't even understand the message yet.

"By the way, can I just keep calling you Apollo?" I asked, wanting to get that clarified before moving on.

"For now." Apollo said, walking over to the Academy students around me who seemed to be in some sort of trance.

"What are you doing?" I asked, not actually caring very much but still somewhat curious.

"Tying up loose ends." Apollo replied. Then he snapped the necks of every single one of the students, allowing me to watch each of them fall down in death.

"Why would you do that? They were just there." I demanded, looking around at the corpses of the students. I didn't even know why I cared, but I just felt that there was something wrong with senseless killing like this. It didn't even look exciting.

"I take my job very seriously and I'll go any lengths to make sure it succeeds." Apollo said, tearing off one girl's arm and inspecting it closely. "I'll even go so far as to set up circumstances in advance to make sure that it works, in the case of a difficult one like you. You must be hungry after ten months with no solid food. Do you want this?" He asked, tossing me the severed arm, which landed on my lap.

"I can't eat this. This is a person's arm." I insisted, trying to look away from the bloody arm. My stomach growled and I realized fully how deprived of nourishment I was. Living off of nutrient-infused water had seriously taken a toll on my body.

"Oh that's right. You probably can't eat it raw in that body." Apollo said, apparently completely missing the point. He snapped his fingers and the arm suddenly became very warm and changed texture until it looked like any regular cooked piece of meat. "Eat up. From what I've read, when eating people, the opposite gender tastes better. That's why I chose a girl."

"What do you mean by setting up the circumstances in advance?" I asked, hoping to get the subject off of eating people. The arm smelled oddly tantalizing, and combined with my hunger, it was incredibly hard to resist. My saving grace to prevent myself from eating the arm was that my arms were still bound to the chair.

"I did a few things." Apollo admitted slyly. "For example, I made the female death flu in order to reduce the number of girls in the HSFMA so your avatar would spend more time with you. I gave your Commander the metal to make that hammer so I could make sure that you lost the fight you had with him, even with your special weapon. I swung his mind so that he would send you on that mission so that I could meet you alone. I allowed him access into the library owned by me and the 5th so he could learn enough about you to not try to kill you before you were ready for me to recruit."

"You did those things?" I exclaimed, shocked at the revelation, but not all that surprised. Apollo did seem like the kind of guy that would do those things. "Why? Do you know how many people you killed in doing those things?"

"Because I could and it would make my job easier." Apollo answered, looking quite bored. "Why would you care how many people I kill? These people are the ones who put you and your avatar through this of no fault of your own. Right now, these people are enjoying the benefits of her body as they mass produce themselves with it. And you care about these people?"