Chapter 332: Of Ploys and Schemes

Chapter 332: Of Ploys and Schemes

If you want to support me check out my patron at /athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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16th May 2013, Sayre Manor

(Jasmine Sayre POV)

She was putting on a brave face, but I could tell that her heart was breaking, "Medusa, before I go. Can I ask you something?"

I nodded and she continued, "Can I kiss you, one last time?"

I slowly leaned into her face and met her lips one last time. They were salty from the tears coming down her cheeks. As the kiss ended, we both looked into each other's eyes, not wanting to forget this magical moment.

Hestia's brave face crumbled from the intensity of the emotions, "I don't want to go." The source of this content nov(el)bi((n))

I lunged to comfort her with a hug, but slowly the woman started to slightly glow, and I could tell that Hestia was gone, leaving behind an unconscious mortal and me with a broken heart.

I looked up to the rising sun and spoke up, "Goodbye, Hestia."

It took a few days for me to get over my encounter with Hestia. It was just such a blast from the past, that it caught me off-guard. I will admit that seeing her again, even if she was possessing a mortal brought back a lot of old feelings.

Honestly, while I treasured our time together, I always did my best to forget about Hestia. It wasn't out of malice, or anything. It was simply too painful to remember my first true love. Surprisingly, for all my stupidly long lifespan, I have only been in two romantic relationships. One ended up banished to another dimension, and the other betrayed me in a way that was truly unspeakable.

I had to admit that, Hela's story was a sad one. She was raised in the middle of a war and encouraged to fight as much as possible. And when her father suddenly shifted his priorities and changed after his ritual, she was lost. She tried to continue as if nothing happened, to make her father proud, but was beaten by me, and then imprisoned by her father. It was tragic, but so are half of the stories in the universe. She would have my sympathy, but nothing more. Still, the young Asgardian was still traumatized by Entropy's use of the Mind Stone. Being mind-controlled like that freaked her out, even if she was pretending that everything was fine.

Even I was pretending that everything was fine, that Selene's betrayal didn't matter, that seeing Hestia again wasn't heartbreaking and that figuring out that I was still under Death's thumb after my little illusion of freedom was dispelled, didn't make me want to burn the world in anger. No, I compartmentalized everything and chose to channel my celestial side to be able to function without blowing something up.

Speaking of Celestials, the news of their demise was a big blow to my plans. They were a long shot, but it was a promising one. Having the Celestials help me fight Entropy would have made things a lot simpler, and I didn't expect to be outsmarted like this. I, especially, didn't expect Entropy to find fucking Knull's sword as well.

Still, if he took the Celestials away from me, I would need to find something to replace them. Honestly, I only expected Arishem to involve himself, not the entirety of the council. As for his replacement, I had an idea who would fit this role. He wouldn't even come close to Arishem's power and skill, but he would be better than nothing.

I would still need to track down this specific replacement and to do that, I would need something connected to him, to track him properly. Genetic material would be better. My solution wasn't really pretty, but I stopped caring about things like propriety a long time ago.

I called out to my new student, "Hela, we're going on a small mission."

The Goddess of Death ran up the stairs looking excited, "Really? What are we doing?"

"Nothing strenuous, don't get your hopes up too much. Tell me, my dear, what is your opinion on grave robbing?"

Hela's excited smile turned into a gleeful one, "Who's the unlucky man?"

"It's not a man, actually, it's a woman. Her name is Meredith Quill. I need to use her remains to track down her son, Peter Quill."

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If you want to support me check out my patron at /athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.