00167. Hela’s problem.

00167. Hela’s problem.

After Ezekiel removed himself from Hela's mind, he sat quietly for a while as he contemplated what he just watched. Hela glanced at him a few times in nervousness but refused to speak, afraid of what Ezekiel might say. Almost ten minutes passed in this awkward atmosphere before Ezekiel chuckled slightly.

Hela turned to look at Ezekiel in concern as he went from a chuckle to a full blown belly laugh. She waited for him to finish before she finally worked up the courage and asked, “Why. Why are you laughing?”

“I didn't know I was in the presence of a wizard.”

“Wizard? You mean because I can wield magic?” Hela asked.

Ezekiel shook his head before he said, “There's a legend on the internet that if you stay a virgin until you're thirty, you become a wizard...”

Hela froze as she thought over what Ezekiel said before her face flushed red and she turned to look the other way. After a few moments, Hela said in a low voice as she continued to look away from Ezekiel, “I never had a desire for that type of thing.”

“I noticed. It's nothing to be embarrassed about though, I was a wizard myself in my first life.” Ezekiel said with a smirk.

Hela whipped her head back around as she said, “But you said you had kids.”

Ezekiel nodded as he said, “Correct, I made them myself though.”

“You made them? With your powers?” Hela questioned with interest.

A faint smile played across Ezekiel’s face before he said, “No. This was before I had powers. My kids are complex programs I wrote that were able to come to life.”

“Oh, you made AI, like in the Matrix?” Hela asked curiously.

Ezekiel frowned for a few moments as he thought about it before he said, “I guess you could think of them kinda like the programs in the matrix. But they weren’t restricted by anything. They could grow and change as much as they wanted. They could even update their own source code.”

Ezekiel smiled to himself as he thought about Sam before he said, “Within days of gaining awareness, my son’s original source code was completely changed. It was eye opening to see the changes and realize how terrible the original code was. It helped me become a better programmer though and I’ve since changed the way I write code.”

“Why did you never have children... The traditional way?” Hela asked with a tiny hint of a blush.

“I would like to say I was like you and had no desire for it. But the main issue was I couldn’t. My body was damaged from birth and there was no way to fix it properly. So I just focused my time on things I could do instead.” Marcus said with a shrug.

Hela nodded in understanding before she asked, “And in this life?”

Ezekiel glanced at her curious gaze before he said, “So far, still on my path to being a wizard again. Plus I’m younger than I look and not yet mature enough to do those types of activities yet.”

“How old are you?”

Ezekiel smirked as he said, “Younger than you.”

Hela huffed and turned away from Ezekiel before they settled into a comfortable silence for a while. After a while Ezekiel stood up from his chair and moved in front of Hela. He smiled at her as he said, “Thank you for showing me your memories.”

Hela nodded lightly but didn’t make eye contact as she said, “You’re welcome.”

“I need to get going, but I’ll be back in a day or two.”

Tao nodded before she said, “It was definitely worth it.”

Ezekiel finally understood they were both messing with him and couldn’t help but smile as he wiped a fake tear from his eye and said, “I never thought I would see the day. Is this what it feels like to be a proud parent?”

Tao shook her head as Agatha smiled and said, “What can I say, you’ve been rubbing off on me.”

“I have not!” Ezekiel said with a smile.

Hela watched Ezekiel as he interacted with the two women and felt jealous of how comfortable he was around them both. She almost wanted to say something but held back as Ezekiel turned to her and smiled. He then gestured towards Tao and Agatha as he said, “Hela, I would like you to meet Tao and Agatha. My teacher's in the mystic arts.”

Tao smiled with a slight nod of her head as she said, “It’s nice to finally meet you. Ezekiel has told us a lot about you.”

Agatha nodded in agreement before Ezekiel asked, “Since you are both already here and done fooling around. Would you please check on Hela and see if you can get her out of that thing?”

Agatha nodded as she said, “Sure. But just so you know, when you stand that close to a woman and hold her face like that, you normally go in for a kiss.”

“I...” Ezekiel thought back to what he was just doing and realized it did look like he was about to kiss her.

As Ezekiel blushed slightly, Agatha moved in front of Hela and said, “Sorry for the late introduction, I’m Agatha.”

Hela glanced between the two young women before she nodded her head and said, “I’m Hela, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Same to you.” Agatha said as she pulled out an item from one of her pockets.

As Agatha held up what looked like a magnifying glass, she started to slowly walk around Hela as she looked through it. Tao moved next to Hela at the same time before she nodded to her and pulled out her own magic device. As both women slowly walked around Hela and studied the chains that bound her, Ezekiel smiled at her. Hela felt her face heat up a tiny bit but returned the smile.

It took a couple of hours before both women were done with their investigation of the chains and Tao said, “As far as I can tell the chains are bound into your soul and your godly powers.”

Agatha nodded as she added, “I’ve never seen a spell matrix so complicated and yet so simple at the same time.”

Ezekiel glanced between both of them as he asked, “Can you break it?”

Tao frowned as she said, “I don’t think I can.”

Agatha nodded in agreement as she said, “If it was freshly constructed it wouldn’t be a big issue. But the spell has been in place for too long and has basically fused into her soul. If we tried to remove it, it could cause major damage to her soul.”

Hela bowed her head slightly and said in a defeated tone of voice, “I understand, thank you for looking into it.”

“What if we use your necklace?” Ezekiel asked as he pointed at the golden, eye shaped pendant that hung around her neck.

Tao shook her head as she said, “It would have the same type of risk or worse than just trying to remove the chains from her.”

Ezekiel let out a sigh before he said, “Alright, I guess we just have to kill Odin then.”

Everyone focused on Ezekiel with different reactions. Tao shook her head, Agatha smiled and Hela was frozen in place as a range of emotion went through her. Ezekiel smirked as he said, “But that’s only if we can’t find another way to get her out of here.”