Blessed by Night

"Malachi Saint."

Mal followed the booming masculine voice towards the Norse section where Tyr was staring at him like he was looking for any excuse to cut him down.

"One among us has accused you of harboring origins closely related to the coming enemy. What defense do you have?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Malachi saw his mother sitting in her usual place high above the greeks, but there was something wrong.

He could see very clearly that she was upset, even though her face showed no real signs of it.

Because of that, he offered her a small smile as he pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Origins is a bit of a stretch... It's kind of a new thing if I'm honest."

Seeing as how they already knew, Malachi did not see any real point in lying about anything and just decided to come clean.

"A new thing you say... Just how new, mortal?"

"Few months or so I guess."

Osiris leaned forward from his throne to bring his golden eyes closer to Mal. "Can you... Show us?"

The gods and higher beings visibly tensed up at this, and a few even clenched their weapons in anticipation that he would lose control.

Before Mal could offer any words to calm them; all light within the area was suddenly cut out entirely.

Malachi usually had no fear of the dark even since he was a child and the acquisition of night vision to his list of abilities had only further hampered that fear.

But this kind of darkness was something he was scarily unused to.

There was no comfort, no peace that came with this darkness.

It was just empty, cold, and frightening.

A single feminine voice echoed from all around; and made every higher being in attendance shiver uncontrollably.

The words were spoken in an ancient dead language that only a few of the oldest highers in attendance would recognize, and of course the son who had spent time in the underworld trying to learn it all thought that he would have been among them.

But he wasn't.

Whatever language his mother was currently speaking in was so old and complicated that even he didn't understand it completely, and trying to do so made him feel like his mind was going to split apart.

However, their was one part that he did catch- a single name that sounded like it belonged to a woman; albeit one that he had never heard mentioned before.

A small bit of light tried to pierce through the darkness, and the sun god Apollo was revealed to be holding up a small ball of golden fire in his palm.

"N-Now now, Nyx, this isn't personal. And besides, you may have taken him in but he isn't even your real-"

Apollo only blinked and Nyx appeared directly in front of him without so much as a sound or gust of wind.

She forcefully grabbed his hand and suffocated the light lingering within his hand, but that wasn't all.

With a twisting motion, she nearly ripped his hand completely off his wrist, leaving only a small strand of flesh dangling around.

"GAAHH!!! What in the seven hells is wrong with- Ugh!"

With speed that defied human explanation or comprehension, Nyx stuck her hand in Apollo's open mouth in the midst of him talking and grabbed his lower jaw.

Malachi watched his mother rip a man's jaw out of his face with scarily empty eyes and no remorse.

"Oh damn.."

Apollo's body twitched as golden blood ran down his chest like a river.

He fell over not long afterwards; unconscious as he made a symphony of gurgling noises.

Nyx grabbed the god by the neck before tossing his body directly into the lap of Hygieia; the greek goddess of healing.

"Does anyone else have anything to say about the legitimacy of my relationship with my son? Go ahead and say something now, so that I might liberate you of your need to speak."

Unsurprisingly, there wasn't a higher in attendance who bothered to chime in, and Nyx returned to her throne in a worse mood than before.

The light finally returned to the realm a few seconds later, and the looks that everyone was giving Malachi were much different than before.

But then again, that was probably because he'd changed.

Instead of a handsome young man who was standing around nearly naked, an unholy horror with deep black skin and living tails took it's place.

The creature had it's legs crossed as it floated up above the ground; deep in thought over everything his mother had just said and done.

Naturally, Malachi knew that he and his sister weren't even Nyx's real children and more like strays that had been taken in off the road.

And yet... the way she had always treated him just like all of her other children was more than a little touching to him.

It almost made it easy for him to forget that in the eyes of everyone else, he was just an orphan.

'Why exactly does she care for Aubrey and I so much...?'

"He really is..."

"A small one, but yes..."

"And he doesn't seem to be on any sort of warpath..."

"That's right... Have you ever known one to just sit still like this...?"

With the murmurs of numerous gods finally reaching his ears, Malachi looked around to gauge their different reactions to his appearance.

There was awe, suspicion, and of course a carefully veiled animosity.

"Perhaps we can find greater use with him like this..." A god suddenly said.

Malachi looked toward the hindu pantheon and found another man whom he didn't recognize; one with four arms and three faces who had a long grey beard and glowing white eyes.

"I believe... The phrase of fighting fire with fire is best applicable here. The nightmare who devours other nightmares."

"I am not so sure about that." Another goddess objected. "He is a wild card... uncontrollable. Things like that are better off locked away or properly disposed of."

Again, the visible light within the domain flickered as Nyx's hair started to float wildly in every direction.

"Tiamat.. Are you actually suggesting that as if I am not right in front of you?"

The primordial goddess of Mesopotamian monsters, chaos, and the sea was every bit as beautiful as Nyx, and just as cold.

She had soft looking skin that was lightly tanned and complete with a shock of long raven hair.

Her eyes swirled with a great number of dark colors and images; making looking into them maddening beyond description for a mortal mind.

"Your favor for this boy blinds you terribly. I don't care if you want to take in a stray human, but you need to understand the potential consequences if he starts to run amok."

*Rumble*

A fierce earthquake shook the entire colosseum so fiercely that it was a miracle that it didn't all come crashing own.

The pressure Nyx was putting out to force Tiamat into submission was currently being contested by her own, and suffocating almost every other higher in attendance who wasn't at the primordial level.

Even Malachi's body was reduced to dry heaving as he dropped down onto one knee and clutched his head in his clawed hands.

This pressure was nauseating, horrifying and unimaginable all at the same time.

Just sitting within this domain made him feel like he was about to go insane!

And he wasn't the only one here who was feeling like this.

"Can the two of you stop it? Tiamat is right, Nyx. If we are going to let your child out into the world we have to have some kind of assurances that he won't become a creature that turns it's fangs against us."

Another primordial being chimed in, this one being the incarnation of the sun itself; Helios.

"He is already an avatar with blessings from four different highers! We cannot have an unkillable nightmare walking around with access to godly power!"

Bit by bit, all of the primordial gods started to voice their agreement.

"The potential ramifications are indeed too great."

"Steps need to be taken to ensure that he doesn't become the sort of monster we are already contesting against."

"You must think logically for a moment, night mother."

"You pieces of fucking garbage..." Nyx muttered. "If you make even the slightest attempt to cripple him there will be no place in creation where you can hide from me..!"

A god who was literally made of nothing but the clearest blue waters folded his arms and shook his head in disappointment. "You cannot fight all of us for him, Nyx."

"You think me so cowardly as to not even try?"

As the pressures in the air mounted; one man suddenly clapped his hands and drew all of the attention towards himself.

"Right, right, we are all so impressive here but let us put this discussion on hold for a moment, shall we? I believe that I may have a solution that will help us all if you are only willing to hear it."