[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/rFsVPbQ.png[/img][/center][center][img]https://i.imgur.com/UQuTKNr.png[/img][/center]
[center][b][url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5374106]Previously On Create-A-Hero[/url][/b][/center]
[center][b]Pallas Athena | Odysseus Laërtiades | Miyamoto Musashi | Joel Vaughan[/b][/center]
[center][b]Day of the Arlaaekan Invasion[/b][/center]
[center][b]Pacific Point, CA[/b][/center]
	While the heroes of Pacific Point were storming the Arlaaekan capital ship’s bridge and threatening to capture Captain Tri’Karda, the officers and engineers on the communication deck were blissfully ignorant about the ship’s current predicament. They had been tasked with overseeing the powering and discharging of the Psionic Inducer. Although these Arlaaekans had received news about the Purifier, they were ordered to continue preparing the Psionic Inducer, just in case they needed it if their other plans happened to fall through.

	So attentively were these Arlaaekans at their work, almost none of them noticed the blast doors slide open. One poor soul just so happened to glance up at the room’s entrance. But when he took a few steps in that direction, he only saw an empty hall. Befuddled, the junior officer turned to go back to his position, only to have a magical arrow pierce straight through his chest. With a thud, did he crumble to the ground.

	Almost as if he had come out of nowhere, Kensei rushed into the communication deck and began cutting down the Arlaaekans. His sudden appearance, along with arrows and laser beams flying this way and that, hurled the room into chaos. The remaining Arlaaekans scrambled to put up any sort of defense against the heroes, but only in vain.

	Amidst the carnage, an Arlaaekan engineer crawled towards the control panel. Silver blood poured down her forehead. The console display revealed the progress of the Psionic Inducer’s charge: only 72%. Although it was not nearly enough to reach its max potential, it was still enough to cause mass casualties. She reached out her hand towards the switch for activating the Psionic Inducer.

	[color=teal]“Odysseus!”[/color] Kensei shouted after slaying another Arlaaekan. He pointed towards the Arlaaekan engineer at the control panel with his sword to indicate what should be his next target. Odysseus drew his bow and launched a well-aimed arrow at the engineer. However, even though the arrow struck the Arlaaekan in the head, the forward momentum of her body caused her corpse to land on the switch and activated the Psionic Inducer.

	The three heroes hurried to the console panel and pulled the Arlaaekan’s body from the controls. As none of them could read the alien script displayed on the panels, all they could do is wonder what she had activated.

[hr]

	Athena watched Captain Tri’Karda gloat about the futility of the heroes’ surprise counterstrike against the Pacific Point capital ship and the inevitability of Arlaaekan victory. However, before anyone could take any sort of action, the entire ship lurched.

	Fear is normally an alien concept for gods. While not entirely unknown to them, immortals normally have little to fear. But now a chill ran down Athena’s spine as she deduced what had happened. She immediately and effortlessly teleported outside the capital ship, where she beheld the Psionic Inducer: a purple light began to swirl around the exterior frame of the spire and then loop straight up into a giant spherical conduit situated at the base of the spire. As this sphere slowly produced an ever brighter purple glow, the Psionic Inducer threatened to destroy the city below.

	Still invisible to the mortal eye, Athena zipped up to the spire that housed the Psionic Inducer. Right when she arrived there, the weapon fired and had Athena not been an immortal goddess with superhuman reflexes, the Psionic Inducer would have blasted her point blank. Instead, she whipped out her aegis and hurled it into the weapon’s path. The force of the weapon’s blast nearly dislodged Athena from her foothold on the spire. Nonetheless, she stood strong.

	While Athena knew that she could probably hold this position indefinitely, she noticed some of the energy from the Psionic Inducer was beginning to overflow beyond the seams of her magical aegis. Therefore, she realized that she needed to destroy the conduit while also preventing the beam the Psionic Inducer was emitting.

	She needed to reveal her true form.

	Athena rotated around the aegis and placed herself in front of the Psionic Inducer’s laser. Her pale skin began to crack, much like a porcelain doll. A radiant light began pouring forth from these cracks. Piece by piece, these shards crumbled off her body until she appeared like a being of pure energy, glowing like the sun.

	An explosion of divine energy, much like a nuclear detonation but without the deadly radiation, erupted from Athena’s true form, vaporizing the neighboring structure of the spire. With the Psionic Inducer’s conduit now destroyed, the entire system short-circuited, causing another explosion that signaled the end of this weapon’s threat towards the city of Pacific Point.

	With her work done, Athena returned to Olympus, where she could regenerate her physical form. Without it, she could not aid the mortals without putting them in harm’s way. Now, it was up to the heroes to defeat the Arlaaekans.