Chapter 213: Olympians

Back at the cave, Peter stripped the blood-soaked suit and took a long, hot shower to scrub the stench of death from his skin.

Once clean, he joined the girls and recounted both the day in Cuba and the night’s events.

He and Karen described the car show and the race in vivid detail, which immediately triggered the children to beg for driving lessons.....a request unanimously denied by every adult in the room.

Afterward, the girls described their day of laziness at the spa while Peter listened quietly.

When the house grew still, Peter wandered into the room that housed the grand piano. He poured himself a whiskey, sat down, and began to play.

"What is wrong, Karen?" he asked without looking up.

"I have never seen you play the piano."

"Come sit down," he said, patting the bench beside him.

She sat.

Peter cleared his throat and began to play a melody.....a haunting ballad about the moon, a gypsy woman, and a child born of sacrifice. His voice was low, controlled, and unexpectedly beautiful.

Neither of them noticed that the clouds outside had parted, revealing a full moon and a sky dense with stars. Moonlight flooded the room as if drawn by the song itself.

When he finished, Karen offered a few soft claps and a small bow of her head. Peter accepted the silent compliment with a faint smile.

"Come on," Karen said gently, taking his hand. "You have burned through enough mental and physical energy. You need rest."

She led him to his room.

"Rest, Father."

"Thank you," he said, and she left.

He changed into something comfortable and lay in bed, waiting for the girls to arrive so they could sleep together.

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Far beyond the mortal world, a woman sat beside a campfire that burned without fuel. She had been watching the scene through the flames as if they were a window into another reality.

"That was beautiful," she whispered.

She rewound the vision to watch again, so absorbed that she failed to notice another presence approaching.

"Aunt?"

Hestia ¹looked up and smiled warmly. "Hello, Artemis²!"

"What are you doing?" Artemis asked, sitting beside her.

"A few days ago, I sensed a great concentration of love. I traced it to its source.....and I found him."

She gestured toward the flames, where an image of Peter flickered.

Artemis grimaced in reflexive disgust.

"He is remarkable," Hestia continued, showing her niece recordings of Peter’s public deeds.....the medical breakthroughs, the charitable work, the speeches that filled ordinary people with hope and faith.

She carefully omitted his nocturnal activities, knowing exactly how her niece would react. "He is filling humans with hope, faith, and joy."

"You flatter that man too much," Artemis said dismissively. "He is just like all the others. Do not let his good deeds cloud your judgment, Auntie."

Hestia chuckled softly and changed the vision. This time, she showed Peter with his family.....the women who loved him, the children he adored, the quiet moments of genuine tenderness between them.

"They love him, and he loves them," Hestia said. "His capacity for love is enormous. And the love he has for his children.....look."

She showed recordings of Peter with his kids.....training them, teaching them, holding them. Artemis’s eyebrow rose involuntarily.

"With a little science, he was able to make them human," Hestia added. "It is almost like Law of Creation."

"Athena might be interested in this boy," Artemis admitted reluctantly.

"As would Apollo," Hestia said.

She played a recording of Peter singing, and even Artemis was privately startled.

She would never admit it aloud, but the mortal’s voice, while not rivaling her brother’s divine talent, stood comfortably alongside Apollo’s finest children.....surpassing several of them.

"Hermes and Apollo would treat him as a brother," Hestia mused.

She continued showing recordings. Peter’s fighting techniques. His physical conditioning amplified by the Super-Soldier Serum. His intellect. His ruthlessness.

"Ares would covet his combat methods," Hestia observed. "And Athena would be fascinated by his mind."

She kept certain recordings hidden.....Peter’s relationship with cosmic entities, his casual interactions with beings far above the Olympian hierarchy.

She did not trust Artemis’s tendency to speak freely, and she did not want to imagine the consequences if the pantheon learned certain truths.

"Interesting, is it not?" Hestia asked.

"He is just another ordinary man," Artemis said flatly. "I do not see what is so special."

"Well.....this ’ordinary man’ caught Selene’s ¹attention. And Iris was flattered that he named his satellite and medical communications system after her."

Artemis looked genuinely surprised. Hestia simply smiled.

Using her divine power, Hestia formed a mirror of water. Both goddesses watched as Selene sat in her celestial domain, replaying Peter’s song with a dreamy, lovestruck sigh.

"He has not slept at all," Selene murmured, gazing into her own scrying sphere at the image of Peter already back in his laboratory.

Hestia closed the connection and turned back to her campfire, watching the mortal work through the night.

"At this rate, he will die from overwork," she said softly, worrying over him as though he were her own child.

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Peter had rested for only a few hours before a silent alarm.....one calibrated to frequencies only he could detect.....woke him. He slipped out of bed and descended to the cave.

The NS-5 units were operating at full capacity, constructing, welding, and assembling components for the Watchtower with tireless efficiency. Peter walked among them on an elevated catwalk, observing their progress with quiet satisfaction.

He left them to their work and entered the training room. He programmed a specific opponent type, a fighting mode, and the weapons to be used. He picked up a simple katana and clasped the spider-power suppressor bracelet around his wrist.

No powers. No enhancements. Just skill.

The room went dark. Then the environment materialized around him.....a featureless arena with stark lighting. He climbed a short staircase to the center platform.

Standing at the top, waiting for him, was himself.

The other Peter smiled.

"Hello, Peter," PETER said, his voice dripping with mockery. "It has been a while. I hope this will not be another boring session."

"I doubt it," Peter replied.

They walked to the center and stopped centimeters apart, staring into each other’s eyes.

"Do you not find it controversial," PETER said with a cynical grin, "that your greatest and most dangerous enemy.....is you?"

"That is why I try to be better."

"Stronger than me?" PETER laughed. "Please. We both know that is impossible. I am the one who makes the decisions you refuse to make. I am EVERYTHING."

Neither of them noticed that for a brief, flickering instant, the silhouettes of two other figures were reflected behind them.....and then vanished.

"I came to fight," Peter said. "Not to talk."

He struck first. PETER ducked beneath the punch and countered with a staff thrust aimed at Peter’s stomach. Peter blocked it, but the force launched him several meters backward.

They clashed.

Steel met steel in rapid, brutal exchanges. They were mirrors of each other.....identical techniques, identical instincts, identical timing. Every feint was anticipated. Every opening was a trap. Fighting this opponent was like dueling one’s own reflection, only the reflection fought dirtier.

"You should have escaped," PETER taunted between strikes. "Now you will die here."

Their blades locked. Peter forced a separation and slashed for PETER’s ribs. PETER parried and riposted with a thrust aimed at a gap in Peter’s guard. Peter twisted his katana, deflecting the blade by millimeters, and countered with a pommel strike that drove PETER backward.

"Mercy is no longer an option," Peter said through gritted teeth. "You killed an innocent person."

"I made the criminals disappear," PETER snarled, pressing his attack with renewed ferocity. "I erased everything from the old self. Fighting. Killing. That is what we were chosen for."

They traded cuts. Blood appeared on both of them.....shallow wounds on arms, legs, and torso. Identical injuries on identical bodies.

PETER grinned when he saw Peter bleeding. The grin faded when he realized he was bleeding too.

At one point, PETER knocked the katana from Peter’s hand. Without hesitation, PETER lunged for the kill. Peter caught the falling blade an inch from the ground and deflected the thrust at the last possible moment.

He struck PETER with the katana’s handle, forcing distance between them. PETER drew a pistol.

Four shots rang out.

Peter spun the katana, caught every bullet against the flat of the blade, and drove them into the floor. PETER hurled the embedded rounds back like projectiles. Peter cut them all in half.

They charged simultaneously.

Their blades collided with such force that the contact point glowed red-hot. Both men roared through clenched teeth, pouring every ounce of strength into the deadlock.

Then Peter moved. A single, precise motion. He disarmed PETER and drove the katana through his chest.

PETER looked down at the blade protruding from his sternum. Then he looked up.....and smiled.

He reached forward, grabbed Peter’s hand, and pushed the katana deeper.

"I am not the disease," PETER whispered. "I am the patient. It is cowardice that nullifies us. Look closely at your kindness. Do you really think I am evil?"

His smile twisted.....sadistic, egotistical, unhinged. "You see my reality as something harmful. You try to escape what you have achieved. And you do not see that without me.....you are not alive."

Peter’s jaw tightened.

"I am your best mistake," PETER breathed. "Your worst fear. Come on.....accept it."

The arena dissolved into darkness, leaving Peter standing alone in a featureless white room.

He walked to the exit. As he reached for the katana to return it to an NS-5, the blade shattered in his hand, leaving only the hilt. He clicked his tongue, handed the broken weapon to the waiting robot, and walked to a dark corner of the cave.

He climbed to the ceiling. Using organic webbing, he wrapped himself in a cocoon.

He needed to rest.

-------

In the firelight of her eternal hearth, Hestia watched the mortal seal himself away in darkness.

Beside her, Artemis sat in uncharacteristic silence.

Neither spoke for a long time.