The Rebirth

Nico
“What do you mean, he’s not here?” he hissed. Nico wasn’t sure it’d been a very good idea to uncuff his hands from the magical binds. He was very close to strangling everybody around him. He couldn’t handle this. He couldn’t handle being so close, and so far away. He couldn’t handle him wasting seconds, time slowly ticking down.
“He must’ve been taken,” Anubis murmured, disbelievingly, just as in shock as everyone else was. For good measure, he changed into human form, which relieved some of Nico’s stress. No animal discrimination, but the jackal head kind of unnerved him. Actually, this handsome, rugged man with black messy hair kind of unnerved him, too, in a different way. However, just as Nico was starting to think he was cute, he was hit with the sudden realization that this man reminded him… a lot like him. And that kind of unnerved him even more, as he stood there, scowling.
Basically, everything about this guy was weird. But that wasn’t the issue here.
“Lord Anubis,” Bree had said, tense. Nico’s stomach dropped at the sight of her. She had similar features to Bianca, and even her name kind of sounded like what some people used to call her (Bee)...
But she just wasn’t her.
“Almost eighteen years old,” she’d told him reluctantly, as she unbound his hands. “I turn next week.”
The age didn’t match up.
She’d either be 15 years and 5 months and 2 days exactly... or somewhere around 16 years and two months. There was no in between. And there was definitely no way she could’ve been any older than that.
The boy, also, was seventeen.
Nico’d almost cried.
He really was a mess. What is with him? Why did he have such a gut feeling-
Something terrible was happening?
“Lord Anubis,” Bree had said. “We need a council with the gods. Now.”
Anubis raised his eyebrows. “That is easier said than done.”
“Well, it’s important. Extremely important, actually. And it needs to happen soon. Don’t you feel it? Don’t you see what’s happening?”
Anubis’ eyes traveled off into the distance, narrowing.
“Chaos,” he noticed. “It’s moving closer.”
Bree set her jaw, like that was all that needed to be said.
“I can’t get you a Council,” Anubis said quietly. “But I can take a message.”
“What?! Lord Anubis-”
“Tell me everything that’s happening,” he said. Nico wanted to scream. Osiris wasn’t here?!
Bree and James- that was the boy’s name- launched into a tale about an evil magician, Chaos, something… called Mat (...?), Creation, gods, something even about the Greek and Roman gods, but Nico was too busy staring at the empty throne.
Where was Osiris?
***
Elena stared. “Kilmorey Mausoleum?”
Here it was. It was an obviously Egyptian area. A fairly nice area, with its pretty garden and cobblestone paths that made Elena feel like she was in a fairytale.
But apparently it housed some dead people.
“A mausoleum?” she asked again, just to make sure. She glanced sideways at her… her maybe-possibly-new-friends(? Eep!). “The trail goes in there. We’re breaking into a tomb?”
Benji began to say something but Wyn hushed him by placing a hand on his hand. Benji’s cheeks tinted pink, and Elena’s cheeks burned again, but she kept the rest of her face cool, calm, and waiting.
“I am. And only me. Sneak in, sneak out. It’ll be better if just one of us goes,” Wyn reached out to place her hand on the tomb- a trapezoidal prism made out of stone, etched with hierogylphs. It rose up about seven feet.
“Wait. What?” Elena protested. “No!”
“Girl,” Wyn turned around, an amused expression on her face. She was clearly delighted at using that term to describe Elena, because she savored it again on her tongue. “Girl. I’ll be fine.”
“Wyn-“
“Oops!” she called, laughing, a glow enveloping her. When the light cleared, Wyn had vanished.
Elena remained stunned, finding that the only thing she could do was dip into her Sight.
There was something blue, scattered through the air, shimmering as it settled down into a human floor, hands on her knees inside the tomb. Elena opened her mouth, reaching forwards, but Benji took her hand and pulled her back. She glared at him, tugging before realizing that he wasn’t letting go.
She whipped her face back around towards the tomb, trying to not light herself and her skin on a slow, broiling red fire. Her cheeks burned. Her chest burned, skipping and tripping up all over the place. Her hand burned.
She dipped into her Sight again, her brain focused elsewhere. We’re holding hands, we’re holding hands, we’re holding hands-
Wyn had disappeared from inside the tomb.
“What?” Elena blurted, still trying to hide her cheeks. Her raven waves fell down around her face. She could only imagine her brown eyes flashing. “Where-“
“Elena. Sh. We don’t know who’s listening,” Benji let go of her hand, shaking his head mockingly, as if he was saying, “What are we going to do with you?”
But he was smiling. Jokingly. Elena touched her cheek, trying to will herself to cool down.
“But-“ she tried to say. “What if she gets-“
“Trust me. Wyn? In trouble? Near impossible. When she sets her mind to it, she can be pretty invisible,” the way Benji talked about her, his voice getting all soft… After he just held Elena’s hand… It made a roar of jealousy explode in her mind.
She mentally-slapped herself.
Wyn is the sweetest, Elena told herself sternly, in the deadliest strict voice she could possibly give herself, Kindest, best person you’ve met. You might even be roommates, if you move in next year. You’ll definitely be friends. Maybe you already are friends. Don’t ruin that over this boy you’ve only known for a couple days.
You’ve only known Wyn for a couple days, too, the tiniest of tiny voices whispered to her. If voices could smile, it’d be smiling.
Fine. I’ve only known both of them for a couple days. Even more the reason to stay out of all of… this.
You’ve known Benji longer than that, the other side of her brain argued back.
You mean when I saved his life and he ditched me on a street alley? Do you really want to recount that memory?
“What if she does get in trouble, though?” Elena asked, calm again. Her cheeks died down. She managed to suppress the roar inside of her. Now, she turned to Benji, expectantly.
He shook his curls. “In fifteen minutes,” he told Elena. “She promised me. Fifteen minutes, and if she doesn’t come out, we go in. Or, she’ll buzz me.” He held up a coin. Elena didn’t ask what “buzzing” was, and she didn’t really care to get into details of magical coins. “And we’ll come running.”
Elena nodded. Her mind was over thinking everything, every little detail. This wasn’t just some over-lusting crush. Believe her- Elena has had those. Pop sensation Jason Randy? Lucas Hughes, the most adorable boy she’s ever seen in her life, the one that sat next to her in math class and asked to borrow her pencil? Matt Yuge? Michael Turner? She’s had crushes before.
This was different.
This was so different.
It was like…
Like…
She already knew him.
And he already knew her.
It got very, very quiet, and she spent the first two minutes studying him. He was looking down at the watch, trying not to make eye contact, and doing a very bad job at trying to look casual.
Elena realized that this is what she must have looked like when she was trying to avoid looking at him.
She laughed out loud, on accident.
Benji looked up, unable to stand it any longer. “What?”
She shook her head, embarrassed.
“No, no- now you have to tell me.”
“I was… just thinking… I can’t,” she pleaded.
“Just tell me. I don’t care. It was about me, wasn’t it? Let me hear it,” he shoved his hands back into his pockets and raised his shoulders, expectantly looking down at her. Elena rolled her eyes, smiling.
“I was just thinking about how obvious you are, sometimes,” she noted quietly.
His hands shot up, and he took a step backwards. “Me? What about you?”
Elena groaned. “I was afraid of that.”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
A pause.
A long pause.
And then-
“Should we,” they both started, and stopped. They stared at each other.
“Yes,” Elena sighed. “We should. Okay. Well. Twelve years old. You fought my first monster with me.”
“And you saved my life.”
“I can’t believe you remembered that,” Elena said, the words coming out like they always did around Benji- comfortably. “I can’t believe you remembered my name.”
“Well. I did. And I still did. I remembered it when I saw you, days ago.”
Elena clenched her fists, trying to keep her feelings to the side. Why couldn’t she keep THIS feeling to the side? The one she needed to ignore most? She didn’t trust herself to speak. Once she started talking, she might keep talking. Until she couldn’t stop.
“I remembered… Agh. Well. I remembered your face for weeks,” Benji admitted, jamming his hands into his pockets further, his shoulders rising up. “And I just kept thinking… If it was-“
“Another time. Another place. I remember.”
Benji shifted feet. A slow red was coming to his face. He was just so awkward at this.
Elena loved it.
“Yeah. One where we weren’t, like, separated…”
“We didn’t have to be.”
“I thought we did.”
“I think you have to let that go. The separation thing. It’s going to ruin you.”
“Yeah, well, it kind of did. Already. I mean, it kind of ruined this, already, right? What we could’ve been? I mean-“ the red deepened. “Not, like, necessarily in that way, but we… at the very least could’ve been friends... I could’ve helped you train… Figure out what was going on with you… I know you’re going to say something about you doing pretty okay without me, and I agree, but I could’ve… helped.”
Elena closed her mouth. She had been going to say something like that. She was going to say, “I figured out what was going on pretty well on my own, thanks.”
“Did we really, really talk that much when we met at twelve?” she wanted to know. “I feel like we didn’t. But how come I feel like I know what you’re going to say before you say it?”
He stared at her. “I don’t know. We didn’t talk much. I… yeah, I don’t know.”
And they just stared at each other. Trying to figure out the other one’s expressions. “What are you thinking?” screamed Elena’s face. “What are you thinking?” Benji’s face yelled back. “What do I say?” both faces shouted at each other.
“Maybe it could’ve been,” Elena swallowed, her eyes cast downwards. “But… I mean, it’s too late now.”
Benji didn’t respond.
“Maybe, if things were different, if Destiny was in our favor-“
“You believe in Destiny?”
“I believe in God. And I believe in what he does. And I believe Destiny has something to do with it.”
“You believe in God?”
“Yeah. And… I don’t know, Benji. I just can tell the lines between right and wrong. And this is right.” She pointed at him. “And this is right.” She pointed at the both of them. “But not right now.” And she waved her hands around the air. “Because… I wouldn’t go back in a second. I wouldn’t go back to the day you left me hanging, without a name, while you went on to remember my face and I went on to remember yours but never did anything about it. Because then… Would I have trained as much? Would I have killed the monsters that I’ve killed? Would I have protected my city? My city…” She realized, frowning. “If I go to your Brooklyn Sanctuary… who’s going to protect my city…”
“Elena? Wait, what were you saying about not going back, remembering faces- what?”
Elena started becoming robotic, numb. She’ll deal with all her feelings later. Right now, she just had to keep them to the side. “I mean… Oh, my. I can’t believe we’re even having this little chat. We’ve known each other for five days, counting the ones where I was in a drug-induced sleep?”
Cat eyes met hers. “We would’ve obsessed over this if we hadn’t.”
And he was totally right.
“I was just saying that I wouldn’t change the past, even if I wanted to.” She felt like she swallowed an explosive ball of lead, and it landed in her chest. She pushed the hurt back. She pushed the pain back. And she got through the words, no matter how hard it felt to say them. “I wouldn’t even change it for you.”
He swallowed, too. He gave a shaky smile. “Right. Because-“
“And I don’t think you would either,” Elena continued, hurting. This was hurt. She didn’t even know where it was coming from, but it hurt. Badly. She managed a smile through the pain. “Because… otherwise, where would be you and Wyn?”
There.
The way Benji thought about it, and softened. She knew she hit a nerve.
Benji grabbed his head, frustratedly. “If we were just in a different situation-“
Wait.
Wait, wait, wait.
They both thought the same thing at the same time.
“How long?” Elena yelled, not caring if she was supposed to be quiet. How long had they been talking?
“Seventeen minutes,” Benji muttered. “But… Wyn…”
“We’re going!” Elena yelled, grabbing Benji’s hand and pressing it to the door. She was expecting them to dissolve into air, like Wyn had. But, no- that was stupid of her to think. Wyn was following the path of Nut. Of course she had the power to transform herself to air.
But, no.
Instead, for Benji, the hieroglyphs glowed blue. One by one, the little symbols began slipping off the stone, flitting off into the air, adding upon each other and swirling, whipping Elena’s hair in her face, in her eyes, stinging her skin.
And very loudly, the tomb made a large burping noise, like the airtight container was suddenly being released all at once, and the smooth door slid up, as if gravity suddenly switched directions.
Elena didn’t hesitate for a second.
Grabbing Benji’s hand, together, they jumped.
***
“No!” Nico cried, desperately, on the verge of insanity. He grabbed Anubis’ robes just as he was about to leave, clutching empty air while Anubis transported two feet away from him.
“Don’t touch me,” Anubis snarled.
“I need to know. I need your help. You’re the god of the dead, too, right? Can you find a soul for me? One of the reborn?”
Anubis shook his head. “I don’t have time. I need to leave now-”
“Please. Please. You don’t understand-”
“And even if I did, that’s not my realm of magic. I’m sorry, Greek. Osiris is the only one. And you are in danger here as we speak. You have to leave.”
“No!”
But the god disappeared, leaving Nico with two grim teenagers and an empty hall room.
***

Notes