When they started getting close, Pasha had Reece move up to the co-pilot’s seat to help him navigate to as close to the ruins as they could manage. Pasha set the YF-77 Phoenix down vertically in a large field overgrown with grass and weeds near one of the large pyramid tourist attractions that were in the eastern part of the spreading city of Teotihuacán, northeast of Mexico City.

Pasha waited to drop the rear ramp until his passengers were unbuckled and prepared for an attack. Aika released her buckle and drew her katanas from her back, while Reece did the same, readying his new saber a few seconds later. Pasha hadn’t seen anything on his approach, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

“Okay,” announced Aika.

Pasha pressed an overhead button in the cockpit and the rear ramp slowly swung open with a soft whirring sound. Reece stood at the ready, as did Aika, but no terrors were waiting for them. Pasha unbuckled as well and grabbed a semi-automatic rifle from a weapons rack in the large jet and followed them outside. Using a remote he had removed from the console; Pasha closed the ramp. Reece figured Pasha probably didn’t want any uninvited guests waiting for them in the jet once they got back.

Reece took the lead as he let the images that led the way to the hidden complex float to the forefront of his mind. Aika and Pasha flanked him as he picked up on a landmark that resembled one from his new memories. It was the largest structure in view. All around them were smaller structures and ruins that dotted the landscape of mostly flat grassy plains. The light brown grass was offset by a smattering of bushy green trees and shrubs.

The immense structure, like the rest of the ruins around it, was made from a reddish-colored volcanic rock from the surrounding area. It looked to be over sixty or seventy meters tall, probably one of the largest pyramids in the world. The closer they walked, the more it loomed over them in the waning hours of the day. Reece made his way to a tunnel entrance over a hundred meters from the front of the pyramid and entered. Reece was about to pull out his Z-Spark when Pasha stopped by putting his hand on his arm.

“I got this,” explained Pasha as he pulled a pair of orbs from his pocket and shook them vigorously before releasing one above Reece’s head and one above his own.

Each orb illuminated the area around them and floated, staying centered a few centimeters above their respective heads.

“Nice, where did you find wisps?” asked Reece as he marveled at the autonomous flashlights that had replaced headlamps years ago.

“We traded a few MREs for them from a survivor that claimed he had hidden out in a mine for weeks to avoid the undead plague as it ravaged the land and its inhabitants,” answered Pasha. “Aika, as it turns out, can see in the dark like it’s the brightest day, but I don’t see any better than a regular human. Se la vie.”

“Okay, well...thanks,” replied Reece before cautiously continuing down the long winding tunnel that was roughly cut into the rock.

Pasha followed while Aika brought up the rear. Eventually, the passage widened a bit, and Reece came to a stop. The image in his mind showed a four-way crossing right where he stood. He knew he was supposed to take a right at that exact spot. He explained as much to his companions.

“Stand back,” responded Aika as she stepped in front of him. Then, she wound up and let loose with a spinning side kick, blowing a huge hole in the wall.

“Thanks,” said Reece, arching an eyebrow as he stepped up to the hole and looked it over.

The same adobe mud that covered parts of the ruins had been formed into crude bricks and stacked up to create a wall. More mud had been used to blend the newly built wall into the rest of the tunnel. Reece stepped into the hole and stood up in a new tunnel about the same construction as the one he just left. Reece’s wisp lit up the area, including the reddish dust floating in the air after just being disturbed.

The air smelled stale but breathable, so Reece continued down the straight passage for around twenty meters before it hung to the left at a hundred-twenty-degree angle. This made the turn jut back the way they had come a bit. As they traveled down the new passage, Reece noticed the slope start to descend farther into the earth. After walking about eighty meters into the passageway and feeling it slope about thirty meters down, the passage ended in a large chamber.

The room was easily ten meters across and ringed with nine adobe mud bricks. Each brick had been smoothed down to perfection and was roughly a solid square brick nearly a meter across. On each one sat a relic of some sort; a Jade figurine of a cat, an obsidian dagger, an intricate adobe clay pot filled with dust, and several other interesting artifacts that didn’t matter to the task at hand. Only one relic display stone was empty. Reece pulled his backpack off and dug out the nightcore, placing it on the stone.

The moment he did, a rumbling emanated all around them as a rectangular area of stucco cracked and flaked off the wall revealing a stone door covered with intricate stonemasonry. Reece only had a moment to study the image as the door rolled out of the way and into the wall.

Reece recovered the nightcore and the trio continued down the newly discovered passage. It was smaller than the last and only went about fifteen meters before widening into a roughly circular chamber with a large Egyptian-style sarcophagus set on a dais in the middle. Thirteen alcoves were carved into the outer wall of the chamber, each one housing a statue of a different human-animal hybrid.

Each monstrous statue was holding a bowl with a different object set upon it, most of which Reece didn’t recognize. He did make out a jade rose, an obsidian bird, and a silver chalice. All these objects were important to the next step, according to the images coursing through Reece’s consciousness.

Leaving the other eleven alone, Reece collected those three relics and brought them to the central dais. A smooth white marble offering bowl sat on an adobe brick pedestal. The one-meter-tall pedestal was carved from basalt and resembled the nude torso of a woman.

Reece carefully placed each object in the bowl before adding the nightcore to the small grouping of objects and then stepped back a bit. For a good minute, the trio watched and waited. Pasha looked at Reece a couple of times and Reece just put up his hand, indicating patience. As they watched and the seconds ticked by, Reece noticed a subtle movement in the bowl. The three objects from the chamber had begun to quiver, much like a tuning fork.

The rose’s quivering became more violent, making the object bounce around within the bowl before it abruptly turned to a dark green liquid and pooled beneath the objects in the center of the bowl. Another minute and the obsidian bird did the same thing, forming into a black liquid and mixing with the dark green. Finally, the silver chalice followed suit and formed a silvery liquid. The three liquids mixed into each other, forming a color indistinguishable from the remaining object in the bowl, the nightcore.

Then, as if the liquid was ferrous metal and the nightcore was a large magnet, the objects were attracted to the nightcore and climbed the black object. Once the liquid reached the area where the nightcore had apparent damage, it was absorbed into the damaged spot. When the process had completed, the nightcore sat alone in the bowl, looking less damaged than it had before. Reece took the nightcore and put it back inside his backpack.

“What now?” asked Pasha.

“We wait,” replied Reece as he shrugged. “I don’t make the rules. I guess these things take time.”

As soon as Reece had spoken, they all heard a dull thump from the sarcophagus. Then another thump and some sand sprinkled off the edges of the large stone coffin. A third thump made the entire lid hop a good inch before crashing back down. Then there was a long pause before a fourth thump sent the lid flipping end-over-end to come crashing down onto the floor and breaking into several large chunks. Luckily, it was on the opposite side of where the three were waiting. Reece noticed a naked foot recede into the coffin.

“Finally, after millennia, I am free once again!” flowed a sultry female voice from the depths of the ancient stone coffin. “Thank you for this mighty gift!”

First one hand, then the other grabbed either side of the coffin and a dark-haired beauty pulled herself from the coffin’s bottom and stood in the middle of the tomb. She appeared as a voluptuous human female except for the subtly glowing emerald eyes and the large mane of blue-green feathers that emerged from within her flowing brunette tresses and fell to just below her shapely bare bottom.

The way it hung from her made it look like an elaborate headdress, accenting her eyes and body perfectly. Beads and baubles of every color were strung through her air and feathers and they tinkled when she moved. Her green glowing eyes examined the coffin for a moment before she kicked the side of it hard, causing it to explode outward. Once the dust and rubble settled, Reece noticed she had created a large opening in the side of the coffin without a single chunk of it touching any of the three companions.

She then took a step out of the wrecked tomb and smiled with pure joy as her foot touched something that wasn’t the inside of the sarcophagus for the first time in over two thousand years, assuming she was speaking literally. It suddenly dawned on Reece that he was looking at an actual goddess and his knees buckled in awe.

He found he wasn’t the only one so affected. Both Pasha and Aika were kneeling as well. Then the goddess, Xochiquetzal approached Reece, reaching into his mind as she sauntered forward seductively. Suddenly, a Japanese schoolgirl outfit just like Karina’s formed itself out of dust around the enchanting figure as she reached for Reece’s chin with one delicate-looking hand. Putting two fingers under his chin, she looked into his eyes and smiled sweetly.

“Rise,” she commanded in her sultry voice, a voice that this close, contained hints of laughter, moans of ecstasy, and a slight purring of satisfaction.

So, Reece found himself being able to stand again, as did his two comrades. The goddess thought for a moment, considering each one of them in turn before her demeanor became much less ominous.

“I must apologize for the kneeling. Some of the stuffier gods made it a thing. They thought it made their followers more obedient. I find it distasteful and obnoxious. You must know, gods are the personifications of every aspect of the universe. It is you, sentient creatures, that give us this gift so that we may communicate more efficiently with you. What we truly are is beyond your comprehension, and that’s as it should be. So, you see, bowing and kneeling are pointless. You may as well bow before a simple rock or kneel before a steady breeze.”

Then, she touched each of them on the forehead with her index finger, lingering there for a mere second before moving on.

“There. Now, none of you will ever have to kneel before a god or goddess again unless you desire it,” she explained. “And I for one, would rather you not bow or kneel to me. After all, it is I who owe the three of you for releasing me from the God of Many Face’s prison. You need not tell me anything. I’ve already examined each of your minds and am ‘up-to-speed’ on the ‘goings-on’ in the world. Thank you for that. Oh, do you like the outfit?”

She giggled playfully at this last comment, causing both Aika and Pasha to wonder, their brows furrowed in confused silence. Reece, on the other hand, turned beet red. This didn’t go unnoticed by Aika.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked as she looked directly at Reece’s glowing face and connected the dots. “You have a school-girl fetish?”

“It’s not my fault,” complained Reece, “I can explain, but this is hardly the time.”

Then Reece looked back to the goddess.

“Goddess Zokiketzal?” he said, stumbling over her name’s pronunciation. “What now?”

She laughed and the tinkling of bells could be heard in every sound of it.

“Call me Shoki,” she purred in amusement as she looked Reece and his comrades up and down while she paced back and forth, enjoying the ability to move around after being trapped for so long. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Reece screwed his face up in mortification. “Sorry, I owe you an apology for butchering...”

“You owe me nothing,” she cut in soothingly but forcefully. “Anyway, I found it charming and quite endearing. I now understand your way with the ladies... and everyone else for that matter. You are quite powerful, you know. It makes sense, considering your lineage.”

Both Aika and Pasha looked at him questioningly as he responded,” My lineage?”

Shoki tilted her head back and pressed a finger to her pursed lips as she seemed to give his query some thought. After a moment’s pause, she nodded her head.

“I believe the oldest word would be an Inanna-dine. Inanna watched over ancient Mesopotamia in her role as a goddess of sex, war, and justice, and you would be considered one of her creatures. I was surprised that there was any trace of the bloodline left when I first detected yours. Inanna grew tired of this world over four thousand years ago and entrusted her region and roles to another goddess, Ishtar. She tried to come back shortly after I was imprisoned, but the God of Many Names persuaded her to leave again through lies and trickery.”

“Is there a way to bring her back?” he asked. “And what can you tell me about Inanna-dines?”

“Oh, there is... and you’re going to have to succeed if we’re going to keep our power in this world once it is restored. The God of Many Faces is very powerful... and very clever,” replied Shoki. “The only reason we have a chance is that he left this world centuries ago after murdering, banishing, imprisoning, or enslaving every god of every region on this poor planet.”

“You see, he was able to accomplish this by denying us the presence of the nightcore when we were at our weakest, in the middle of an age,” she continued. “When the new age began, we slowly began replenishing our power and storing it for the right moment in time. It was decades ago, the Roman year 2765 as you would understand it. It was marked on the Mayan calendar, but the knowledge of what the time-tracking device was actually tracking had been forgotten. When many humans thought it was the end of the world, it was simply the end of an age and the beginning of a new one.”

“You must understand, Reece, there is power in this world and the ones nearest it in the multiverse,” she said. “This power can be harnessed and used for a great many amazing things. It’s all for naught without the nightcore though. The power we gain from the multiverse is a mere trickle in comparison to the river that replenishes us from what the nightcore contains. That is why, some twelve-hundred revolutions around the sun ago, that trickle became a stream when the nightcore again replenished us like it once had. Color me amazed when I looked into your mind and discovered that it had been hidden on the dark side of the moon this entire time.”

“And what about the Inanna-dines?” Reece pressed, ignoring the other incredible revelations due to his anxiousness to know the truth about his ancestry.

“Ahh, yes. Well, you are closely related to satyrs and incubi as they fill a similar role as you. Your ethnicity is also the origin of skalds and bards. The main difference is which regional goddess you serve. All gods and goddesses have servants, but they are typically leaders of worship. Some gods and goddesses have chosen to gift their most successful followers with abilities that allow them to better serve them or sometimes they are simply gifts without strings. Those gifts are tied to one’s lineage, so their offspring will often have them as well.”

Shoki paused for a moment, looking Reece in the eye. She must have seen something there that wasn’t unexpected because she nodded before continuing her explanation.

“You have the power of influence, both in love and war. Your mere presence, but especially your words, contain the power to bolster your friends and make friends of your enemies. However, your power was a gift with a string, but that string hasn’t been pulled ever since the goddess Inanna left and it has been diluted through the generations. You must be a convergence of more than one bloodline to have enough genetic markers to register with this Order’s silly test.”

“Speaking of this Order that you’ve been battling, they are an anomaly that follows no guiding force or way of life except for that which they have created for themselves. That isn’t bad in itself, but their way is entirely selfish and destructive. Things never would have gotten this bad if there had been any gods or goddesses left to stop it. Even the God of Many Names wouldn’t have put up with their blasphemy.”

“Now, we are all too weak to stop it on our own and must band together to overcome this common enemy. The world has been out of balance numerous times throughout history, but never so bad as now. Our aspects, the elements of existence that we control and direct, are like leaves on a breeze. They can’t not exist, for existence itself would end if even a single one ceased to be. But they can go awry...and oh, how far away from their center they have all strayed of recent.”

When the goddess finished, she clasped her hands together and waited for the three of them to process her words. Reece noticed that both Aika and Pasha seemed troubled. If he were being honest with himself, Aika looked downright pissed. What they had learned from the goddess had affected them deeply. Aika noticed his gaze on her and looked away.

“What’s wrong?” asked Reece in concern, already suspecting her answer.

Aika waited a moment before deciding to look back at him. She had tears in her eyes.

“I thought I was in love with you. I still do,” she lamented. “And Pasha considers you his best friend. And now we find out it may all be a lie due to some special ability you have. How can we trust our feelings, Reece? At least concerning you? I know that you didn’t plan for this or even know about it, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is the way it is.”

Reece's blood ran cold as he processed what she was saying. For him, it was much worse than even she realized. He began to see that all the people he had led, loved, befriended, and sacrificed had all followed him due to some power he had over them. It had nothing to do with doing the right thing or convincing people through the truth of his words.

He was a sham and it made him sick. It was all a lie. All the words, the shared feelings, the actions of those closest to him.

Deep down, he knew he had already known about it, but refused to consciously accept it. He knew it would be the end of him, and now, here it was. He couldn’t deny it any longer. No less than a goddess had told him the truth. He turned and walked out of the chamber to empty his stomach in the passage.

The taste of bile quickly replaced the ashy taste in his mouth as tears rolled down his cheeks, dripping into the mess that he was making on the floor of the passage. He didn’t know how long he had been there or what the others were up to while he completely lost himself.

After some time, he tired of the battle raging within him and decided on a course of action he could live with. He couldn’t stand to be around those who he had tricked into feeling anything for him, but he did need to help them win this war. He would stay to himself, speak as little as possible, and use his gift to help defeat the enemy. Then, once the war was over...he would beg a god or goddess to remove the gift and allow him to be a regular human again.

Only then could he trust himself to have real relationships again. It was his only glimmer of hope, and he clung to it desperately. He stood and approached the goddess Shoki, Aika, and Pasha who were talking amongst themselves. Once he drew near, they all stopped and looked at him.

“Again, you have my apologies,” he began. “I have a question. Can you remove my gift?”

“No, I am sorry,” Shoki answered with pity in her voice, “Only the goddess who bestowed it can take it away.”

Reece’s heart dropped, but he still had a sliver of hope... if he could find Inanna.

“Okay then, please tell me; what do I need to do to return Inanna to our world?” pleaded Reece.

Shoki smiled at Reece as she put her hand on his shoulder and looked deeply into his eyes. Thousands of images flashed through his mind, filling him with knowledge.

“There, I just saved us a week of storytelling and instruction,” explained Shoki. “It’s normally not advised and often leads to insanity, but we’re on a clock and you need to get moving. It is here that we part ways. Now that I have been freed, I can assist in freeing the rest of the gods and goddesses of the world and bring them into the fight once we’ve replenished our power.”

The goddess paused abruptly, her brow furrowing in concentration. She quickly looked up at the three of them and frowned.

“I’m sensing a large amount of dark energy coming this way in a hurry,” she explained. “Somehow, your enemy has found you and seems to be desperate to capture or kill you. You need to get out of here right now. The first of them will be here soon. Gods and goddesses don’t have the power to fight by your sides, but I can give you my blessing.”

With that said, she touched each of them on the forehead and they all felt a surge of power flow into their bodies from the simple contact. Once she finished with him, she faded out, blowing Reece a kiss as she fully vanished from their sight.

“You heard her,” announced Pasha loudly. “Let’s get out of here before this little get-together becomes a party.”

Reece nodded numbly and checked to make sure the nightcore was secured in his backpack before taking off after his two ‘companions’. Reece wasn’t sure, but they seemed to be keeping their distance from him. He couldn’t blame them. He was emotionally drained.

A feeling of cool, numbing emptiness filled his entire being, leaving loneliness and little else in its wake. He absently readjusted his backpack and drew his saber as he quickly trudged along, having trouble keeping up. He knew he needed to snap out of it, but part of him wanted to stay miserable. Maybe it was because deep down, he felt he deserved it. Maybe it was his way of selfishly pushing others away so he wouldn’t have to deal with their confrontations over his unintended betrayal.

Nevertheless, he needed to focus. He used some of the mental aspects of yoga that he had learned from Thato to cleanse his mind of the unhealthy and unhelpful thoughts and replace them with the cold rationale that he had a war to win.

A shout from ahead snapped him out of his dark reverie. Reece noticed that his companions had cleared the tunnel and must now be outside. Still fifteen meters from the tunnel exit, he broke into a sprint and cleared it a few seconds later.