We had arrived at the large park on my city. There were trees, a large running course and some equipment to exercise. Quite the place, all things considered.
"So... we're here." I said to my father while looking at the full moon. It was ironic, that I had been born into a night of full moon and after so many year had passed my father came in during my birthday with the full moon on the sky. "Come on, lean on me your big secret."
He let out a small chuckle at my words. "Well, I suppose you would be excited to learn more about your origins. Though I'm not sure how excited you will feel when I tell you about the truth."
"Life was both pretty boring and a chore, to be honest. I admit it was all my fault things descended like this, doesn't mean I can't find it unbearable or wanting to find some kind of escape from it. If I didn't knew it was such a terrible idea, I would be using drugs a long time ago."
He nodded, a bit sad at my words. "To be honest, I wasn't sure you could catalise. Not all of my children reach the heights necessary to become heroes, most often having their dreams snuffed out from under their feet." He shook his head. "At least they all lived long, peaceful lives, even if they all grumbled about how unfair life was or something. Few of them managed to get past that, and fewer still did so at your age." He said while eyeing me, "a younger hero is often better than an old one, specially when they are starting out, but it's not me who decides such things, nor are my sons and daughters themselves."
"It is Fate." He let the next words of his mouth carry the gravity it deserved, I could even hear the capitals in his words.
I suppose I should shiver in dread at them, but frankly I never had much in terms of self-preservation when something caught my interest. Of course I would curse and moan about it later, and deeply regretting it for the most part, but at the heat of the moment I usually went along with such harebrained ideas. Which many would consider ironic since I'm not the type to follow on other people's schemes, at least not after I grew up.
"So, you have children, and those children become heroes. While you have children, not all of them become heroes, and it isn't yours or the children desire that makes them heroes, but rather it is Fate, correct?" He nodded. "Then what exactly made me into one, or warranted making you come from whenever you came from to tell me about this?"
"The man who tried to kill you", wait, seriously? He wanted to kill me? But so far he looked quite pathetic in doing so, even if he looked scary for a while. "He was possessed by a titanspawn. If you had taken too long in defeating it, the person would have been consumed by the hungry spirit and been a threat to the whole city. It discovered your divine scent, and thus tried to finish you off before you could ascend."
"Wait, back up. My 'divine scent'? Does that mean when you said you were Tsukiyomi, you weren't named after the god but instead..."
"Correct, I AM the god of the moon."
I didn't do this often, but my mouth was left hanging. I'm an honest to god demigod? Wasn't those people supposed to be super talented at something and be inspiriing figures and shit? Then again...
"You weren't expecting much from me", I finally said, "perhaps you even thought I would have died against this titanspawn, isn't it?"
"I admit, your performance thus far was rather disappointing. Most aspiring heroes are exceptional in at least one area, but you failed to meet the requirements to ascend. At least, until Fate itself decided to bring you in on our war."
Great, I'm that son families doesn't like to talk about during meetings and is sometimes invited by courtesy alone while desperately hoping he wouldn't come. Guess nothing much had changed since before I learned I'm a demigod.
I shook my head to disperse those thought. No reason to get all depressed and shit, not today at least. Still...
"Then you came to help me get to my feet? Because I'm not much of a fighter anymore, and if those titanspawn come I don't think I can deal with them as I am. Specially not if me defeating one was considered praticaly a miracle to a god like you."
He coughed a bit. "Not a miracle, just unexpected is all. The titanspawn acted hasty, if it had more foresight it could have easily killed a mortal man at the time with none the wiser. Fate have certainly favored you my son."
I nodded, internally grimacing. All the bad karma I had accumulated until then will be cashed soon enough I guess.
"So how exactly I'm supposed to fight against those threats?"
He smiled. "You didn't think I came here after all those years without bringing gifts, didn't you?" He presented me a necklace and a wrist band, both made of wooden beads, the necklace with one magatama and the wristband with two. "May I?" He said while putting them on me, and as soon as he did that I felt something inside me, some kind of power, instinct, came over me.
It felt AWESOME!
"Those are your Birthrights, they will allow you to access the purviews associated with me. There aren't many, but I found they synergize well together. They should be able to help you fill a role of infiltrator, should you choose to do so, or at least will greatly help you with those actions."
"Good for a lone operative", I said while envisioning myself like Sam Fisher or Snake, "will I have to do whatever I'm supposed to do alone?"
"For a while, yes, until you find your band. They are currently scattered across the globe, and eventually you will meet with them."
Across the globe? So I will be traveling a lot? "I can't really expect to travel without the proper documents and with my current debt."
He nodded. "There are those who will aid you in the future, but certain minor concerns will be dealt with by mortals that will aid you in your journey. They have been blessed to recognize you as someone above them. You won't be able to command most of them, but minor things will be at your reach more easily than before due to your parentage."
Next, he pulled a piece of paper and handled it to me. "Handle this Birthright with care. It's a new invention that greatly helps any heroes in their journeys, and while common, at the same time they are irreplaceable."
I looked at the piece of paper in disbelief. This was, this was...
"The world of Scion from White Wolf is REAL?" I knew something was oddly familiar about his talk.
"One of our allies on the greek pantheon was involved in creating the tabletop game. The information contained in this paper came about after countless millennia of research and trial and error. It will also help you improve your abilities in a more optimized form instead of trying to fumble around with your abilities. We found out that giving such detailed coverage of a heroes abilities lead to better results on the long term."
I had no words before looking at my character sheet. It was, well, pretty shitty all things considered. So standard mortal fare.
"Place a single drop of blood on the paper, and it will help you grow in power, alongside updating itself. It's far more durable than normal paper, but compared to other Birthrights it is rather fragile. The good news is that it can repair itself back if there is a hole on it, the bad news is that it takes time, time which you can be unable to properly improve on your abilities unless you wish to risk Fate doing it for you like the heroes of old."
"Keep the character sheet safe, got it." I said and he nodded before pulling out something else.
It looked like a blocky red and black object before he twirled around and it became a massive scythe. "It's a giant scythe that can also turn into a high impact sniper rifle." He said, pleased with himself.
I stared at him.
"It's also a gun." He helpfully supplied.
I turned my gaze to the weapon before looking back at my father. "Is that Crescent Rose?"
"... noooo? Why would you think it's a weapon from a web show on the internet?"
"It's a scythe sniper rifle, it's black and red and it looks exactly like the weapon of Ruby Rose."
"I assure you, it's not."
"Then what's the weapon's name?"
"Mikatsuki no... bara...."
I glared at him. "You literally named it Crescent Rose!" I shook my head, "dear god, my father is an otaku."
For some reason the blush he gave me wasn't very reassuring.
"Speaking of father's and gods, what about the christian god. Since the world apparently run on Scion rules is the being worshipped as YHWH the titan Aten?"
"Yes", he said in a neutral tone, "we tried to bind his legend to that of YHWH, an older God that was long since been slain by Aten himself in the hopes to make this titan less likely to go on a rampage since he is much more powerful than a normal titan."
That was a chilling thought. "Did it work?"
"Better than we hoped, not nearly enough, and that's the end of the discussion."
Well, I suppose that's fair.
"You said a god was killed, does that mean more gods were killed?"
"Yes. In fact, most pantheons through history were killed in the process sealing away the titans, while some were so terrible we were forced to slay them at great cost to many."
"Wasn't killing a titan a bad idea?"
"It still is. Many concepts died with the titans that only us elder gods remember them by. Of course, as the age passed the surviving pantheons made alliances between us, and new gods rose to fill in the gaps."
Just as he said that I heard multiple growls from all around us and I looked around. Seeing shadows at the edge of the small forest of the park. "Looks like we have compa... ny?"
My father wasn't there anymore, the spot he previously occupied by him empty. I heard his whispers on the wind though. "I believe in you my son, make me proud."
As I looked at the approaching beasts, no doubt titanspawn of some short, I took Crescent Rose from the ground and swung it over my hands. It felt natural to a degree, like I had trained with it for a long time before.
Well, no use crying over spilled milk now.
"Come on, you mutts. I just got myself some discount awesome cosmic power and I'm itching to try them out."
As far as pre-fight banter goes, that was pretty bad, but still with those last parting words, I joined battle with the monsters of darkness in front of me.