Authors note: cowritten with Anonymous aka Real History.
Darren paused, hearing a grunt of pain as his friends crowded around him. Looking past Raiden and Sachiko, he noticed the Boss slowly rising to his knees with a groan. Despite what the celestial kitsune had done, the fight wasn't over.
"Stay here." he said, grunting in exhaustion as he stood. "Keep the kids safe. I'll finish this." Darren no stepped forward, trying to ignore Tatsu's protests of not being a child. Staring at the Boss, he could see the rage in his eyes as he spat upon the ground. "You think you can finish me off kid?" he grinned through bloody lips. "Go on. Do it! We both know how that's going to end."
Darren shook his head no, drawing a wheezing chuckle from the Boss. "I'm not going to kill you," Darren said softly. "I already know you can't die."
"Puts you in one hell of a predicament then," the Boss smirked. "I'm not going to stop. I'll never stop and one day soon...I'll end you and the rest of these creatures. You know that don't you?"
"I do." Darren said softly.
The Boss grinned, both knew that this fight would continue for eons. An irresistible force and an immovable object, two forces on constant battle with one another. "I have to know something though," Darren asked. "Why? Why fight me at every turn? I barely knew what a Catalyst was when you started coming after me. I never wanted a war, to see people suffer, I just wanted to make things better. For everybody."
The Boss paused, casting Darren a curious look before chuckling. "Ah the naivety of youth." he sighed with a smile. Taking a moment to look Darren over, the Boss shrugged. "I can see you're serious with that question, so I'll humor you kid. When you get older, you'll understand. Just because you think something is for the greater good, doesn't mean others will. People always disagree on everything. It's how the world works. I just happen to have the balls to fight for my point of view."
"People can change," Darren countered. "And people can be persuaded. You just have to be willing to listen."
"Maybe," the Boss shrugged. "But I'm not one of then and trust me...even after I'm gone, you'll find people even worse than me. A Catalyst for change? Your position is a curse, not a blessing."
Darren sighed, shaking his head. The Boss was set in his ways, unwilling to change or compromise. Despite his youth or maybe in spite of it, he would move forward from this experience, using it to learn from and make a better world for everyone. Rising to his feet, Darren now looked into the malicious eyes of the Boss as his eyes began to glow.
From where they stood, Raiden and the others were unsure of what Darren was doing. One moment the Boss and Darren were talking. The next, everything went quiet, Raiden noticing the Boss’s eyes grow wide and glaze over. Slowly and unsteadily, the Boss stood before turning and walking away. As Darren turned back towards his friends, they could see the exhaustion in his face. The teen now trudged towards the group before collapsing, breathing heavily. "What happened?" Raiden asked.
"He wasn't going to stop, ever." Darren replied wearily. "That, and I can't kill him. I won't stoop to his level and kill those I disagree with."
"Darren," Tatsu said softly, the golden kit fiddling with his oversized robes. "As commendable as it is to spare a foe, the Boss is far too dangerous to just wander away. What if he decides to attack again? What if he returns to the Normal?"
"He won't." Darren grinned. The four kitsune now raised an eyebrow in confusion. The Boss wasn't the type of person to just forgive and forget. "One of the trick Ms. Yuriko taught me," Darren continued. "Was how to erase a memory. She taught me after I had a nightmare. I figured out how to take it a bit farther."
"You erased his memory?!" Shizen exclaimed.
"Temporarily," Darren replied. "But that's only part of the spell. The other part will keep him from harming anyone else."
"How though?" Sachiko asked.
"After I erased his memory I told him to wander." he said. "He can stop when the sun rises in the west. Then and only then will he get his memory back." The four kitsune gaped, understanding what Darren had done. The Boss wouldn't die, but he could not return until he completed an impossible task. Since the sun never rose in the west, the Boss would forever walk the Earth, not remembering what kind of a monster he truly was.
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Demeter returned first to the lair that they all had called home. She searched everywhere for her adopted son finding no sign of him at all, then heard a creak upstairs.
"Dimitrios? You're...." Demeter called out in relief before stopping midway and seeing not her son, but a figure she never hoped to see again: Death.
"Hello." Death said in a deep voice as he sat in a chair his body looked like it was encompassed in total darkness with only his eyes visible.
"Y-Y-You? Why are you? Where's Dimitrios?" Demeter demanded to know as Death stood up from the chair and walked towards her.
"Who? Ah yes, you mean Elmer your adopted son, or should I say your son by natural birth. Isn't that right?" Death asked with a delightful smirk.
"How....? How do you....?"
"Please. My wife is Life, I am Death we know of all gods and goddesses out there and we know the demigods as well. You thought yourself so clever to hide the truth from us, but you could never do that. You told your precious Dimitrios that it was Shizen who did all that with his grandfather, when in reality you were so furious with Hades about Persephone that one day that you couldn't stand it any longer when you couldn't see your daughter during her confined months." Demeter's face became firm as Death stopped for a moment and studied her face. She wasn't going to deny any of it.
"So after taking a beating from Hades guards before you could even smell her hair, you fled to the human realm. You were near death as I observed or as close as you wanted to be. That's where you found him: Ian. Not Francis as you claimed, but his own father. You had never felt a human touch you as he did. All the Greek gods are so...egocentric, it's a wonder you're still with them. Your counterpart in the Norse realm, Sif, she's got it a lot better." Death chuckled to himself as Demeter raised her eyebrow at him wanting him obviously continue on about her son.
"All your consorts? They were nothing like Ian. He treated you with respect, he actually loved you, cared for you. When you were healed, you said your goodbyes and thought that was the end of it. You went back to the gods as if nothing happened. Who would notice poor little Demeter gone for a few months? Nine months later you returned to Ian and dropped off his son, then when he was barely a year old after his poor father died, you claimed to have 'found' him and raised him." Death explained while pacing around Demeter as her face became angry that he knew all this.
"So tell me this: Why? Why lie to your son? Why disguise yourself as Shizen and have another stand in place for you or vice versa was it? Why do all this and attack the kitsune of all the realms and people?" Death said as Demeter could no longer take it all.
"They deserved to die!" Demeter finally shouted at him.
"For years Hades killed the children I would bear. Because he thought none could be more precious or beautiful than Persephone, my precious dear Persephone. I couldn't take anymore of it and went to the human realm and met....Ian. I had never known passion before I met him. I had an affair with him, yes, but I ran back to the gods and covered my tracks." Demeter said taking a few deep breaths.
"Then when or if I had a child, I would proclaim to the child another god, I could have just said it was Zeus and he would have believed me. I dropped off Dimitrios to his father. It was never kitsunes that came to kill his father, but some random thugs. I myself told him they were kitsunes to keep him from hating someone other than his own me, his own mother, he needed an enemy and I chose them. Why? Because they prospered with their families while my own child is always trapped in the underworld for half a year for the rest of her life. So I chose the kitsune because they disgust me so, that's why." Demeter said without the slightest hint of remorse in her voice.
"So why be unfaithful to your own husband then? The god one not the human one." Death asked.
"Unfaithful? Husband? We are the Greek Gods! We're not married and Zeus and Poseidon both forced themselves on me and they are my own siblings! Don't judge me for what those bastards do." Demeter said crossing her arms.
"Well, I'll be seeing your son off then, don't worry, he has a 'long walk' ahead of him until death." Death said as he began to turn around.
"Until death? He's immortal fool, he cannot die." Demeter said with a smirk.
"Oh is he?" Death winked with Demeter confused and now a little worried what that meant.
"Oh, actually, just one more question: Why did your son choose the name 'Elmer' instead of keeping Dimitrios?" Death asked.
Demeter took a deep breath and shook her head in embarrassment.
"Looney Tunes." Demeter finally answered as Death now gave a hearty laugh.
"He watched those cartoons and always thought that Elmer was the most level headed of them all not counting that other human male. He had to deal day in and day out with rascally animals who were always picking on him. That's why he chose that name. Because of a stupid cartoon character." Demeter said as Death nodded and chuckled with a grin.
"Be seeing you....oh, and one final thing: Don't go after my son or his friends again, if you do...." Death warned as he grasped Demeter's neck and she felt Death's icy touch as she could only start seeing darkness. Demeter felt more fear in that one instant than she ever had before in life with any of the other gods before Death let go and dropped her onto the ground as she caught her breath.
"I won't hesitate to kill a god." Death warned as he walked off.
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Meanwhile on a lonesome road far from anyone, a lone man walks towards the rising western sun which will never come. As he walked on, a man in a dark cloak sat on the side of the road playing a harmonica which sounded of key but was played in a G harp, then an F harp, and finally a B harp.
The walking man didn't stop or may much attention the man with the harmonica as he continued walking on and the harmonica man now stopped playing and stood up watching the walking man proceed without a care in the world.
"I know you can't reply," Death stated with a smirk. "But I just wanted you to know, I'll be following. Darren may not be able to take your life....but I can. When you finally become too old to walk, I'll be waiting for you." Death said with a small chuckle before vanishing.