Blessed by Night

The only one who seemed to find Malachi's blatant defiance funny in the slightest was of course, the devil himself.

Lucifer fell out of his chair while laughing hysterically, and seemed uncaring of the amount of dirty looks he received as a result.

But for that matter, neither did Malachi.

His eyes swiveled towards the area where the greeks usually sat and he looked towards his mother's throne.

Upon finding it empty, he let out an indiscriminate scoff.

"Now I wonder... why exactly everyone is at this little get together except for my mother? I don't believe in coincidences, and I would hope that you all aren't incompetent enough to make such a simple fuck up, soo..?

Did you think you were going to be able to throw your weight around a little easier if she wasn't around? Get your answers from me by whatever means necessary?"

"Insolent boy!"

"Yea, here it comes..."

Out of nowhere, a giant hand made out of pure-blue lightning fell out of the sky with the goal of suppressing Malachi.

Before he could voluntarily wrack his own mind for evasive maneuvers, the golden bracelets around his wrists started to shine brilliantly.

A moment later, a silver and gold spear with faint red markings inscribed upon the blade appeared within Mal's hands.

There was a small switch in the middle where the weapon could be broken into two in order to form more familiar one-handed iklwa.

Not letting himself be fully mesmerized by this new weapon that he didn't understand, Malachi threw his spear directly into the palm of the electrified hand over his head.

Surprisingly, the two forces seemed to be fundamentally incompatible with each other.

The second that they made contact, the air seemingly vibrated with an odd power before the electric attack became unstable and fizzled out.

A moment later, Malachi's spear returned right back into his open hands and he looked at it with somewhat of a dejected look.

'This reminds me... I really need to stop avoiding Aisha at some point…'

"What… is that weapon..?"

The sight of a very concerned Zeus was not something that Malachi expected to see when he went to bed this morning, but he would be lying if he said it was not an enjoyable scene.

"A familial gift. Seems a little more special than I originally thought though… leave it to Tsath to go above and beyond like this."

"You dare bring such an offensive weapon into these hallowed chambers?! Have you no shame?!"

"Hm? Offensive? They're just bracelets."

"T-They are most certainly not just 'bracelets'! Those weapons are made from the remains of a god!"

"Oh..?"

This revelation admittedly made Mal pause just a bit, because he didn't understand exactly how such a thing was possible.

According to Tsath, the N'Kai were supposed to be incompatible with divinity, so how in the world did they manage to kill an entire god and make this weapon??

'I wish that he would have left his phone number or something… I'm kinda scared to push that big red button.'

"So your heart has fully revealed itself at last! You have fully aligned yourself with the invaders, and in doing so are likely planning to assist them in the wager! What game are you playing?!"

"…Wager?" Malachi asked in confusion.

"Do not play games with me boy! Your attempts to feign ignorance will serve you no purpose!"

Malachi clenched his jaw so tightly that he very nearly cracked all of his perfect porcelain teeth.

He felt so angry now that he could hardly stand it.

The world's blame was being unfairly placed upon him from up high.

The fact that he was once their greatest champion did not matter.

All that was of consequence was what he was now.

The alien.

An invader.

Earth's natural enemy.

Multiple gusts of wind disturbed Malachi from his furious realization.

When his eyes refocused, Malachi was surrounded by multiple gods of the Greek pantheon.

But these were not just any gods.

They were his siblings.

In particular, Nemesis and Keres came the closest to him and they each placed a hand on him protectively.

Apate: "Your accusations grow more exasperating by the second, Zeus."

Hypnos: "We will not stand here and let you belittle him any longer."

Nemesis: "He is far from the conniving sort. If he had any sort of nefarious intentions then we would no doubt already have been made aware of them."

Even with several of Nyx's children coming to his defense, Mal was only slightly moved.

He slipped past the encirclement of his siblings and moved to speak on his own behalf.

"You want to know why the N'Kai left earth? Because I asked them to."

Even though Zeus was fired up only a few seconds ago, his brain suddenly sputtered out as he tried to wrap his ancient mind around everything that he had just learned.

Not only him, but every other god in attendance had to clean out their ears as well.

"Brother... what do you mean that they left..because you asked them to?" Keres asked.

"It was my birthday gift."

"Come again?"

"Tell you at mom's place later."

"Alright..."

"You will tell us all what you mean, now!" Zeus interrupted.

"I will do no such thing."

Malachi leapt into the stands so that he could land directly atop the stone desk Zeus was formerly resting his elbows on.

The greek god seemed horrified by this sudden insolence and his body started to churn with godly blue lightning.

"Boy... you-"

"I have been remarkably patient so far, but this shit is getting real old real fast. I owe you gods jack shit. Not my allegiance, my answers, and I have been gracious enough to give you my time.

Ever since I came here you've been hostile, treating me as if I was some kind of schemer who was searching for a method to bring down the whole planet that I still fucking live on."

The longer Mal spoke, the easier it was to see how angry he was becoming.

His dreads became animated and changed into miniature, grey looking snakes.

Just looking at them made Poseidon and Athena uncomfortable and they felt they had no choice but to look away.

The four snakes coming out of Malachi's back also woke up and hissed at Zeus with staggering aggression.

Their bodies grew larger and they started to expand in length until they were a staggering ten meters in length and as thick as telephone poles.

"If you want to know why the N'Kai left earth, then go and ask them. Maybe if you grovel low enough when you ask, they will give you an answer before they bite your head off...!"

"That's enough!"

Malachi was suddenly flung through the air by an invisible forced was forced to perform a somersault to avoid landing on the back of his head.

Against Mal's expectations, he found that the culprit was the archangel Michael.

"Why are you behaving like this, Malachi? This isn't like you!"

This final statement proved to be the last bit of straw that broke the cart.

"Now do you know me!? The last time I was brought here you stared at me as if I was a man you couldn't even recognize!

When my wings were taken from me, when my future was being argued over, you did not know me then! How the fuck are you going to act like you know me now?!"

He was speaking to Michael at the moment, but his rage was also directed at Bastet, Raijin, and even Erebus.

They had enough trust in him to bless him initially, but when they had found out what he had become they lost all faith in him.

They offered no words in his defense at all, and where content to simply test him like a lab rat as if he had not already proven his character numerous times over.

"And even after you all labeled me a potential catastrophe that needed to be restrained I STILL saved humanity!

The N'Kai value their blood above all, so when I asked them to leave the earth they did not hesitate! Even after knowing me for a single DAY they still did what I asked without one complaint!

So none of you have the right to question me about allegiances or make assumptions about my character! The crisis is over, your game is done, so whatever issues that you have left don't have shit else to do with me!"

Lashing out, Malachi punched the air in front of him and created a very large crack in the fabric of this space.

Once the gods saw this, they immediately leapt out of their seats in surprise.

Scowling at them one last time, Malachi stepped through the portal and vanished from their sight.

All that remained after his departure were the stunned looks on the faces of the gods, and the laughter of Lucifer that sounded like it was getting progressively closer to wheezing.

-

"Babe.... babe...!"

"Hm..?"

When Malachi opened his eyes again, he was still lying in bed with all of the girls with seemingly very little time having been passed by.

At his side, Anna was only barely awake, her hair strewn across her face and her eyes hardly open.

"You woke me up... You're shaking a lot."

"Oh.. really? My bad."

"I didn't want you to apologize, I just wanted to make sure that you're alright."

Faced with such genuine concern and love, Malachi nearly forgot all about the unpleasantness he had just sat through with the gods.

A smile crept onto his face as he leaned in to give Anna a gentle kiss.

"I'm fine... thank you for your concern."

Anna felt like there was a little bit too much intimacy in Mal's kiss so she tried to pull away from him immediately.

"Stop trying to have sex with me... I'm too tired right now."

"I'm not, I just wanted to show you how much I love you."

"I see the bulge underneath the covers..."

"...That's just my tail."

"Nice try, but you have four, not five. Goodnight, babe."

Anna rolled over not long after and left Mal staring at the ceiling above.

He wanted to go back to sleep too, but after kissing Anna a single time he had libido to burn.

He contemplated counting sheep as a means of relaxation but he only got to fifteen before the sheep in his imagination became replaced by the face of his extremely attractive tattooed girlfriend.

Unfortunately, it didn't seem like he was going to get very much sleep today.

*Sigh...*

One of Anna's violet eyes flashed open, and she nearly rolled them so hard that they came out of her head.

"...I'll give you ten minutes in the bathroom."

"Yes!"