Scar cringed internally. The sheer absurdity of the situation grated on his cynical nerves, but he forced his posture to relax and offered an awkward, halting wave. "Um... hello."
Emily stared at him for a long moment, studying his face. Then, she voiced the anomaly she had just noticed. "Are the purple eyes an indicator that he's an alter ego?"
"Yes," Felicity confirmed effortlessly. "That is exactly how we'll differentiate him from Henry."
Emily took a deep breath, pulling her blanket tighter around her shoulders. It was a staggering amount of information to take in. "Why do I have a feeling things are about to get really weird around here?"
Felicity chuckled, standing up from the bed. "You'll get used to it. Now, I'll leave you to rest up. I'll see you tomorrow." She leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to Emily's forehead. "Goodnight, my little snowflake."
"Goodnight, Mom," Emily said. She shifted her gaze to Scar as he turned to leave, her expression a mix of lingering wariness and newfound empathy.
When they stepped out into the hallway and the door clicked shut behind them, the polite facade vanished from Scar's face. He let out a dry scoff.
"Lying to your own daughter with a straight face," Scar chuckled. "That's just diabolical."
Felicity sighed, the cheerful motherly warmth fading back into cool pragmatism. "I had to. For Emily's own good. The less she knows about all of this, the better." She turned and began walking down the corridor toward her own room. Scar fell into step behind her.
"Can I ask you something?" He murmured.
Felicity paused, turning to face him.
"Why did you leave me in control of the body?" Scar asked, his brow furrowed. "I mean, you and I both know that Henry was in control first. So why aren't you saying anything about the fact that I forcefully removed him from the driver's seat?"
Felicity smiled faintly. "Because I have no right to interfere. Whatever is happening between you and Henry is something the two of you must work out on your own. But either way, you both occupy that body, which means you are both in immense danger from Keraunos. It does not matter to me who is in control. All that matters is that you get strong. Strong enough to defeat anyone who stands in your way."
Scar reflected on the sheer, ruthless practicality of her answer. It made perfect sense. "Okay."
"Good," Felicity said, turning back toward her door. "Now, you should get some sleep. Tomorrow's a big day."
Scar raised a brow, crossing his arms. "What's happening tomorrow?"
Felicity smiled brightly. "We are throwing a party. A small indoor soirée to celebrate you being found, and to publicly announce to the world that you have awakened an ability."
Scar frowned. He had completely forgotten that he was practically living with royalty. They threw parties for the slightest and most ridiculous of reasons.
"Is that really necessary?" he asked.
Felicity chuckled softly. "Oh, quite very."
She continued walking, her tone calm and effortless. "Right now, the entire world is drowning in rumors. That you were found four days ago. That you returned different. That something happened to you while you were missing." Her expression became slightly more thoughtful. "And TRIAD is listening."
Scar's eyes narrowed faintly at the mention of the global federation.
"They investigate anomalies," Felicity continued. "And whether we like it or not, you qualify as one." She glanced at him briefly. "A missing boy with no ability returns home and suddenly begins to exhibit superhuman speed... that is not the kind of thing they ignore. They'll begin to investigate, and it won't be long until they discover that you do not possess a single mana cell in your body, yet you wield an ability."
Scar furrowed his brows. She was right. This was a big problem. But he didn't see how hosting a party was going to solve it.
Originally, the best course of action would be to keep your powers a secret," Felicity continued. "but thanks to your daring display during the beast attack in the city, that is no longer an option."
"Why not?" Scar countered defensively. "I thought you said you already erased the security feed."
Felicity chuckled humorlessly. "I did. But TRIAD is not an organization to be taken lightly. They have backdoor access to every camera in every city in the world. They are always watching everything, everywhere, everytime. I have to assume they already downloaded the footage of you using your speed before I wiped the local servers. Which means it won't be long until they come knocking on our door with questions."
She stopped in front of her bedroom doors, her sapphire eyes locking onto his. "We cannot let that happen. We need to block the window of suspicion before it even opens."
Scar's gaze darkened slightly as the strategy clicked into place. "So... we tell everyone first," he muttered.
Felicity smiled, a brilliant, dangerous expression. "Exactly. Silence creates suspicion. But Information controls it. If the public already accepts the narrative that you awakened an ability after surviving a traumatic incident, TRIAD will lose their only leverage. They'll lose the opportunity to create their own narrative. Because they cannot look into what has already been logically explained to the world." She folded her arms lightly. "We will have normalized your existence before they can even question it."
Scar reflected on the tactical brilliance of the move. Then, his expression shifted slightly as a secondary realization hit him.
"Wait..." he said slowly. "You're also planning to tell them about the dissociative disorder."
Felicity nodded without a moment of hesitation. "Yes. I am."
Scar frowned, genuinely perplexed. "Is that wise?" He said. "Would telling the world your son has mental issues not damage your reputation?"
For the first time that evening, Felicity actually laughed. A soft, genuinely amused sound.
"My dear," she said, her eyes gleaming with political cunning. "It will do the exact opposite."
She reached out and rested her hand on the ornate handle of her door. "If we announce your mental condition publicly, then your behavioral changes will become expected. Your memory lapses, your sudden personality shifts, your inconsistencies... none of it will look suspicious anymore. And best of all? It will earn you sympathy."
Scar remained silent, absorbing the lesson.
"People are naturally protective toward tragedy," Felicity continued, her voice dropping into a persuasive, hypnotic cadence. "A poor boy who disappeared into the wilderness, miraculously survived, awakened an ability, and returned home mentally broken?" Her eyes glinted knowingly. "The public will adore you."
Scar looked entirely unconvinced. "I don't think this is a good idea. Playing the victim only works thirty percent of the time. And didn't you tell me not to draw attention to myself? Throwing a party to announce all of this feels like the exact opposite of staying under the radar."
Felicity smiled knowingly at his rigid, tactical perspective. "You are thinking logically," she corrected gently. "But the masses rarely think logically. They think emotionally. Yes, I did say you shouldn't draw attention to yourself. But I meant that only when it comes to displaying your ability in ways that are abnormal or surpasses the established norms of this world. What we are doing tomorrow is simply harnessing the media to garner pity. You will be seen as a tragic celebrity, not an abnormality."
Scar's jaw clenched. He was deeply conflicted. Exposing himself went against every survival instinct he possessed.
Felicity stepped slightly closer to him, her presence commanding. "Trust me. Once the world pities you, it will begin to protect you."
Scar blinked faintly. "Protect? How?"
"If you make mistakes, people will forgive them," Felicity explained softly. "If you behave strangely in public, they will rationalize it for you. If nasty rumors spread, the public will rise up and defend you before we even need to lift a finger." Then, her smile thinned into a sharp, lethal line. "And most importantly... TRIAD becomes limited."
Scar's eyes narrowed as the final piece of the puzzle snapped into place.
"They can no longer aggressively investigate or detain you without appearing unnecessarily cruel to a traumatized child," Felicity explained calmly. "Because publicly, you are no longer an anomaly." Her gaze sharpened, cold and absolute. "You are a victim."
Scar fell completely silent. He ran the scenario through his hyper-accelerated mind, searching for a flaw in her logic. There wasn't one. It was a perfect, impenetrable shield forged out of public perception.
He finally let out a breath, a dark smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "...This sounds an awful lot like mass manipulation."
Felicity's smile deepened slightly as she pushed open the heavy doors to her suite.
"No, my dear," she chuckled lightly. "It's just politics. Have a goodnight, darling." Then she stepped into her room with a final tease. "And don't try to run away again."
Scar stood there for a while before making his way to his own bedroom.
The heavy door to his suite clicked shut, sealing him inside the quiet luxury of his room. He stood there for a moment in the dark, the faint, ambient glow of the crystalline walls casting long shadows across the floor.
He walked over to the massive bed and sat heavily on the edge, resting his elbows on his knees. His physical body was exhausted, but his mind was running at breakneck speeds, dissecting every single word Felicity had spoken over the last hour.
He believed her story about the Great Schism. He believed the lore of the dead gods, the creation of the Celestial System, and the looming, catastrophic threat of Keraunos and his acolytes. The timeline aligned perfectly with Miley's thousand-year-old origins, and the logic was airtight.
But he absolutely did not trust Felicity's intentions.
Scar scoffed into the empty room. No one was that inherently selfless. No one possessed that kind of absolute, unconditional kindness—especially not a matriarch who manipulated her own traumatized daughter and planned to do the same with the global press without batting an eye. To Felicity Myers, he wasn't a tragic victim or a beloved son. He was a piece on a cosmic chessboard. He was a weapon. She intended to mold him, aim him at this god-killing entity to save her Realm, and then likely discard him when the war was won.
"Fine," Scar murmured into the silence, his purple eyes narrowing with cold, calculating resolve. "If she wants a weapon, I'll be a weapon. But I'll make sure to use her, too."
The reality of the situation was brutally simple: Felicity couldn't kill him. No matter how dangerous or unstable he appeared, she needed him. He held the legacy of Hermes. He was the only one who could eventually stand against Keraunos when the barrier fell. That made him entirely indispensable.
And he would take full advantage of that immunity. Just as he was formulating a permanent, lethal solution to eliminate the blackmailing threat of Alicia, he would devise a long-term strategy to bleed Felicity for every ounce of training, protection, and resources she had.
He couldn't eliminate Felicity—that was a laughable concept. The woman was basically a supreme entity, capable of flattening him with a single thought. But he could siphon her power to ensure his own survival. It was a mutual parasitism.
Scar let out a long breath, kicked off his slippers, and lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
As the silence stretched, his mind unspooled, and a far more dangerous, vulnerable thought crept into his consciousness. Her words:
I was the one who gave you that name.
He remembered the look on her face when she had said it. He recalled the single tear, the profound, aching sorrow, and the absolute, undeniable genuineness in her eyes. She had meant every single word.
Scar frowned, his brow furrowing as he forced himself to weigh the logic and analyze the facts. He was living proof that reincarnation was real. He possessed a system created by dead gods. He had crossed the boundaries of the multiverse into a new body. If all of that was true, was it really a statistical impossibility that his mother's soul had done the same years prior? Could the universe really orchestrate a coincidence that massive? Was it actually possible that Felicity Myers—the terrifying Ice Queen of Arcadia—was the same woman he knew as his mother before the car crash?
His chest tightened with a sudden, suffocating ache.
"No," Scar muttered aloud, aggressively shaking his head against the pillows to dislodge the thought. "What am I even saying? That's insane. There is absolutely no way she is our mother."
Then he paused.
He blinked, his mind catching on the specific pronoun he had just used; "Our" mother.
A sharp, dark smirk slowly spread across his face. Down in the absolute lowest, most heavily fortified depths of their shared brain, he felt a distinct ripple in the mental landscape. A frantic, disoriented stirring in the void.
"Hm," Scar whispered, his eyes glinting with predatory amusement. "Looks like that brat is finally awake."
He adjusted his position on the bed, folding his hands neatly over his chest. "I better go make sure he's getting accustomed to his new home."
Scar took a deep, steadying breath and closed his eyes. He didn't drift off to sleep. Instead, he actively pulled his consciousness inward, sinking past the physical sensations of the soft mattress, past the ambient hum of the estate, and plunging directly into the deepest, darkest trenches of his own mind.