Time flew by as quick as Alucard took down the maiden. Staying true to his word, Ashton did not entertain any of Avalina's attempts at talking to him. Apart from a general courteous greeting, Ashton spent no time around Avalina.
Soon it was time for the guests to depart. They had overstayed their welcome as a result of the instance dungeon popping up. But now that all of it was over, none of them wanted to piss off Alucard who was known to despise being around too many people, despite his status as the Overlord.
Among those people, was Avalina. Who had to return to her lab and continue her research. Ashton's behaviour was churning her insides, but she knew it was for the better to let him go now. Their worlds were meant to cross each other so soon, to begin with.
She could simply live the rest of her life cherishing the sweet moment she got to spend with her son, one last time. However, he couldn't just go away without at least trying to bid farewell to him.
Thus she used Verina to have a letter delivered to Ashton. In which a request was enclosed. A request to meet her son, before she disappeared again. An hour passed, but Ashton didn't arrive at the garden they had met before.
'Optimism... is my worst enemy.' Avalina smiled wanly and began walking away.
She could understand Ashton's pain, but it didn't mean her pain was lesser than his. She too was losing her son all over again, all because she wanted to protect their relationship. In the end, the secret was what ended up destroying whatever semblance of a relationship they had.
"Maybe I should have told him... at least then he would have the right reason to be furious at me." She mumbled a moment before leaving the garden.
"Then tell me."
Ashton's voice filled her ears. As she turned around, there he was... standing right behind her. His arms were crossed in front of his chest while his eyes were fixated on her.
It took her a moment to form a sentence in her mind, because of the sudden overwhelming emotions she felt erupting inside her. However, it only lasted for a moment as she gathered herself fairly quickly.
"I thought-"
"That I wasn't coming?" Ashton gave her a smile, "I might be an asshole, but not such a big one to ignore my mother's first and only request in over a decade."
"Sweet talker..." Avalina pulled him for a hug, "Are you sure you want to-"
"Pretty much." Ashton immediately cut her off, "Let me hit you up with a deal. If you tell me a secret, I'll tell you a secret. Something only a handful of three others know. How does that sound?"
[Oi oi oi, what the hell do you think you're saying? I don't care who the lady is to you, don't you dare spill the beans yet!]
Astaroth was screaming inside his head, but Ashton ignored him entirely. It wasn't like he was going to out him or anything. After all, he just said he would tell her a secret, he never said he would tell her about him being a tribrid.
"You are really persistent. A quality the princesses would admire."
"Yeah... let's not talk about that."
Avalina chuckled as soon as she saw the look on her son's face. She knew it very well that the princesses have been trying to force an engagement upon him. But Ashton was always dodging them.
They were beautiful girls, there was no doubt about it, but their neediness was a huge turn off for Ashton. In fact, he was already thinking of ways to get them off his back permanently. But right now, all of his undivided attention was on what Avalina was about to uncover.
"I'll have to sit before I spill any secrets..." Avalina took a deep breath preparing for the shit storm that was about to start, "Where do I even start? Let see... Five decades after the first generation of mutants appeared on the planet, there was a man they all feared."
"Not because he had any super abilities or any wild thing like that. To the mutants, he was a mere roadblock. But considering most of humanity didn't even measure up to shit in front of them, being branded as a 'roadblock' was their own way of respecting him."
She continued, "Hell, I have read records of the vampires from back then referring him to as a 'Demon'. Pretty damn hilarious for literal monsters to refer to a human as a demon. But they were right... he was the only one who was able to put a temporary stop to their march to dominance."
"No matter how many times they tried to kill him, he always remerged at some other place to mess up their plans all over again. None of them had any idea how did he manage to escape from their clutches every time."
Even though it was hard to believe there could be a human that even the mutants were cautious of, Ashton was impressed by the man in the story.
The more and more Avalina spoke about the man, the clearer it got why the mutants branded the man as a roadblock instead of throwing him along with the pile of shit, they referred to the rest of humanity as. But Ashton was wondering, what the hell does that man have anything to do with him?
"Despite his valour, the man was killed while he was on the mission to bring back the secret hidden within the crashed meteorite." Avalina couldn't cry but the sadness on her face was evident, as she continued.
"However, due to the respect the mutants had for the man, they did not mutilate his corpse as they did with the rest of them. But the man's mission was a success. Whatever remained of his team, brought back two corpses with them. One of the men and the other corpse was of some extraterrestrial species."
Ashton nodded along. This was a detail he already knew of, they had found the corpse of Astaroth. However, there were a lot of inconsistencies in the story, like who was the man and how was he able to fool the mutants so many times.
If Ashton was being entirely honest, all of it seemed like a bad made-up story from some weird bedtime storybook.
"It's not like I don't want to believe you, but do you mind telling me the name of the man in question?" Ashton asked her.
"His name was... Austin Wolfe, my only biological son."