Chapter 13: The Beach near Grenville

“You were Frederick, Thomas,” Ayida Weddo explained to him. It was still a beautiful sunny day at the beach near the town of Grenville in Liberia in 2003. Thomas had his back turned away as she explained it all to him. It was just after their tumble together. He was still naked as he looked at her naked form.

“I have been exposed to so many things today...” he remarked. “You tell me this whole story that I was some slave owner that bought you and that I found a Lintarsha shard for you by accident?”

“Yes...” Ayida replied to him.

“It’s ... amazing. I was part of a group in which our whole goal was to find the paranormal, to find out if something else existed out there that wasn’t human. Now I find out about all this. It explains everything to me now of why I felt drawn to this place. I killed to get here, all to be reunited with you.”

The rainbow serpent nodded her head. “Yes ... that was you. You were and still are my husband. We are finally together after all these years. Look at the handsome body you have now. Mmmm ... my heart cannot be more fulfilled...”

“Tell me something, Ayida-Weddo,” he interrupted her. “I need to know everything about what you are a part of and why you are here in some war-torn area.” He turned around to look at her.

“I am part of a group of what we call ourselves ‘Mythics.’ We are the unity of deities, mythical entities, and fairy tale characters that we call ourselves the ‘Coalition of Deities.’ I am on the search for any magic or vile things brought here during this war.”

“These Lintarsha shards you told me of and me finding one of them that you took,” He asked her. “Why are they so important?”

“A long time ago, all of the ‘Mythics’ united together to stop a horrible enemy from destroying the Earth. It was called ‘Cataclysm,’ the devourer of everything. Even with our combined strength and power, this thing was on its way to Earth, and our hopes to stop it were near impossible. Defeat was inevitable.”

“Wha?...” he tried to say in shock. “We would have heard something about this in our history books if this thing was going to destroy us. When was this?”

“Roughly over four hundred years ago. You would have never seen it. You, humans, identified what you call ‘Black Holes.’ It looked very much like it. It was a maw that consumed everything in its sight, including light. It even consumed magic, making most of our abilities useless against it. Our greatest minds and predictors concluded that our only hope was to put everything together and try to find a way to combat it, or everything, ourselves, the humans, Earth would have been lost forever. But we did discover one way that we could defeat it. If we created a magic crystal in which each god channeled some of their magic into it, then turned it on Cataclysm, then it would have been destroyed. This became known as the ‘Lintarsha Crystal,’ and it would take years to complete its construction. However, the crystal was not complete by the time Cataclysm arrived. Wave after wave of our best went to go and combat the creature, and very few of them returned. My friends, family ... my former husband before I met you ... all gone. All hope was lost. You, humans, were still trying to figure yourselves out. You would have been doomed to be consumed by this creature, and you wouldn’t have even known it.”

“Well ... we are still here. It must have meant that you succeeded.”

“The Egyptian and Hindu Deities were able to complete the Lintarsha Crystal,” She continued. “We used the crystal immediately, almost too hastily. The crystal fired into its maw, and Cataclysm dissipated into nothing. We killed it and saved everyone that was still alive. The crystal, however, shattered and went to all areas of the Earth. We are on the search for them for all time. We have no idea how many shards are out there, but we have found six of them so far. We are determined to find all the shards in case we need the crystal again, but there are mixed feelings about us trying to gather the shards and possibly reassembling them. You found the third shard which I sent up to the vault to be guarded where it still sits today.”

“Why not go to humanity and ask for their help on this? We would be excited to work with you.”

She smiled. “Oh, I can definitely tell you would be happy to be with me. Unfortunately, nobody outside of you and the few humans can know about us.”

“Why? With the knowledge of the things that exist in our mythical studies and religious textbooks. Goddesses like yourselves would...”

She interrupted him by shaking her head no. “We can never reveal ourselves to the human public. You cannot tell them we exist. You answered the very question with your statement. Some people worship us. Other humans worship other gods. What if they knew that they were actually out there right next to them? What if they found out that some of the things they worship did not exist because of Cataclysm. Us mythics made the agreement that we hide as humans amongst the humans until we see otherwise. It would have dire consequences on your religious beliefs. It could create crusades or worse. We made the agreement because some of our mythics are inherently evil, and going about showing ourselves would only encourage them to go out and try to gain attention of their own by doing horrific things in return. We have successfully created our own checks and balance system with its own price.”

“I see...” he commented.

“What is it?”

“I just wonder about some things. I consider myself a Christian.”

“Things written in your history books and mythical writings are not always the same with us when it comes to if they are accurate or not. Again it is why we don’t reveal ourselves. It could alter your beliefs for better or worse. That is not our job.”

It was not a satisfactory answer for him. He would bring up a question, but he decided that it was best to ask about it later.

“So you are part of this Coalition. How many are part of your group?”

“We are almost five thousand strong. Prior to Cataclysm, we were in the hundreds of thousands, so you can get an idea of how much our numbers have taken a hit. It’s not like we are having a difficult time replenishing our numbers now. Some of us mythics spend quality time together; have families when we are not on missions. Some of us like myself have taken humans as mates where we live peacefully and happy together. Some of us have children amongst you humans. One thing nice is that you live for only so long compared to us, so you give us children in return for making your lives better that helps our numbers grow. You have no idea of the new gods that exist amongst you now that have never been written down in your books.”

“Kacela...” Thomas noted. “We ... my past self had a daughter with you?”

“Yes,” she replied as she looked down. “She is a pragmatic child, but I think she would be happy to see you again.”

The thought of another one that was like Ayida-Weddo was astonishing to hear. He had no idea if he would call her his daughter or not. He decided, for now, to bring it up later. He could even see that she was only going to discuss so much about it too.

“Xuanwu, Lilith, and I are part of a team that goes into a conflict area such as this Liberian Civil War,” Ayida explained. “Conflict stirs magical energy, and it gives off the same signature as a Lintarsha shard. Not only that, but conflicts have a way of bringing rogue mythics into play that we have to deal with. We have other teams that go into other conflicts besides just ourselves. Agayu, Nemty, and Hirsent are still in neighboring Sierra Leone right now as they handle the closing of the civil war that tore their country.”

“Rogue Mythics?” he asked.

“The term is neither good nor bad. It is simply a term. For example, your ‘Jesus,’ as you call him, is a rogue mythic, but it’s not a bad thing. Some not in the Coalition of Deities even call themselves part of the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ to prevent any misunderstanding where they stay out of the way of human activities and not violate the rules of the Coalition. The term can be used for those who intend to use their magic and abilities to dominate humanity or imply their beliefs onto others or harm the environment that you humans haven’t done already. Think of us like the United Nations that you humans have. You have a core set of rules that you follow and make sure those outside of that jurisdiction don’t try to bring ill will towards others.”

“What are these rules?” he asked.

“One is to search for the shards. They give off a faint magical essence that we can track, but it is challenging to find them. Our top priority is to retrieve those shards. If they are out in the opening, it attracts other rogue mythics to them, and they think it gives them extra power even though it doesn’t at all. We have the authority to even kill humans to get those shards, but we try to find alternatives and have yet to really do that. Much like your situation, there was no need to bring harm to you for it. Needless to say, if somebody finds a shard and starts waving it around, then we are to come and get it immediately.”

“And the second rule...”

“The next rule is enforcing our rules as long as it does not interfere with human laws. This includes us going after other mythics that violate this set of rules that I am telling you now. We cannot use our magic to harm or help humanity, but it does not mean we can still bend those rules. For example, In other words, we can’t go and cure cancer, nor can we go and cause a volcano to erupt in a neighboring village because the population does or doesn’t worship a deity that they should be worshipping.”

“The third rule is that we cannot reveal our true forms to humanity, with the exception, of course, those that are already human-like in appearance like Agayu is. If somebody goes and starts doing it, which is very rare, then we have to go after them, even kill them if need be to ensure that the truth does not get out.”

Thomas put his hands to his hips as he considered her words. He had worked with a group that was all about trying to find out what was out there.

“The fourth rule is that we are to seek out those that display magical properties. We always try to add more to our group. Sometimes we find humans that are long-lost mythics or distant bloodlines to our deities that we try to get into our group. You would be surprised how often us mythics get around when it comes to you humans.”

“How do you get around being as human?” He asked her. “No offense but you stuck out in the crowd even out here.”

She sighed. “Yeah, our human forms ... our human forms are our main ways that we can hide with you humans. These forms are based on where we are born or created. For example, I come not far from here at where you call Benin. Most of us only have one human form available that we can take with the exception of those that are natural shape shifters or already human, to begin with, that don’t have the ability nor need the ability.”

“Why not just send African Gods or ... African mythics together in one team to accomplish your mission?”

“There are not enough of us to do that. We have so many teams that are out there and so many African mythics to check out one region on this continent alone that it makes it impossible. Our only way to work around it is trying to stay out of public as much as possible, like you saw us where we were at. We also try to have one in the team that comes from around the region like me to help allow us to ‘mix into the crowd’ so that is draws less attention. It works ... more or less.”

Thomas pointed his finger at her. “So how long have you been here in Liberia?”

“I have been here for four years and the last civil war. Xuanwu has only been here the last four years and Lilith about a year. We rotate with our teams to avoid exhaustion. Even us mythics get worn down in time. This civil war was ... appalling.”

“Yeah...” Thomas added. “I watched dead bodies mutilated and signs of people eating one another. If only the world knew what was going on here.”