Power Thief's Revenge [BL]-Chapter 168: Beetle

Chapter 168: Beetle
Hermes’s breath caught when Raphael said it.
Eirwyn’s powers.
His fists trembled. His lips parted, but the words lodged like broken glass in his throat. "...How do you even know that?"
Raphael tilted his head, calm as ever, eyes steady. "Does it matter?"
"Yes," Hermes snapped. "It does."
"No," Raphael countered gently, almost like he was scolding a child. "What matters, my Lord... is that you can fix this. With Rewind."
Hermes stared at him, then at the beetle’s still body. The silence was unbearable. The song was gone. The room was dead.
His chest tightened. His jaw shook.
"...Rewind," Hermes whispered. "I... I can try."
He pressed his palm to the cold floor.
Something inside him broke open.
The power came rushing in, not like a flood, but like all the rivers of time clawing at his body at once. He gasped, his back arching.
Gold veins tore across his skin, burning like molten cracks. His limbs stretched, gangly, thin as vines. His hands warped, fingers becoming long, trembling tendrils. His face smoothed away into a blank mask, white and featureless. His chest caved into a hollow void where a golden clock turned backwards, ticking loud enough to echo through the house.
Raphael didn’t move. He only watched.
Hermes’s voice was gone. His throat had no mouth to speak from, no lips to shape a sound. But the power pulsed, and with every tick of the clock, the world bent.
The beetle twitched. Its shell gleamed faintly.
And then...
The walls rippled.
The house shuddered as the present was peeled back like paper. The windows no longer looked outside. Time froze there, the world halted. Inside, the air twisted into scenes of the past, replaying themselves under the glow of his clock.
Hermes staggered, the vines of his body dragging across the floor as he reached out to steady himself. He could see them...
Samuel’s family.
At first, their voices were gentle.
"Don’t let anyone know."
"Please, Samuel. You’re a lawyer. Who would hire you if they saw you... like that?"
Samuel’s voice broke, young, desperate. "I can control it. I swear, I’ll figure it out. Just... just don’t lock me away."
The image shifted. Samuel’s body twitched, legs curling in, arms folding, his skin stretching into a dark sheen. His family recoiled. His mother clutched her mouth. His father looked away.
"No one can see you like this."
"Please, son. Just stay here until it passes."
Days passed. The scene blurred, then sharpened.
Samuel banged on the door, half-human, half-beetle. His voice raw from screaming. "Help me! Please! I don’t... I don’t want this! I don’t want to be—"
The door never opened.
Hermes’s fists clenched. His blank face betrayed nothing, but the veins of gold along his arms pulsed harder, shaking with fury.
The visions kept flowing.
His father muttering, "He’s a burden now."
His sister whispering, "He was supposed to be perfect. Always perfect."
His mother crying, "Why couldn’t he just stay our Samuel?"
Hermes trembled. He tried to breathe, but this body had no lungs. His tendrils curled into fists.
The clock in his chest ticked faster. Louder.
Every sacrifice Samuel had made.... Becoming a lawyer when his heart burned for baseball, buying this very house, clawing his family out of poverty. He had given them everything, and they returned it with shame.
Hermes wanted to scream.
A hand touched his.
"That’s enough," Raphael said softly.
Hermes jerked his head toward him. Raphael stood untouched, unfazed by the storm of time. He wasn’t part of the vision. Just like Hermes, he was only watching.
"Stop," Raphael whispered. His hand gripped Hermes’s tightly. "If you push further, you’ll regret it. You’ll go too far."
Hermes froze.
The golden clock in his chest slowed. Tick... tick...
The scenes warped, shuddered, then collapsed into themselves.
The house stilled. The air cleared.
Back to silence. Back to the present.
The beetle lay dead before them again.
Hermes’s body shuddered, vines trembling. His blank face turned down to it. The clock in his chest spun slower, slower.
He focused, pouring everything he had not on the whole house, not on the family, not on the shame and cruelty. Just on the beetle. On Samuel Gregor.
The clock spun, tick by golden tick.
The beetle’s shell glowed, cracking. Its body convulsed, shifting, shrinking, twisting back into flesh. Arms. Legs. Skin. A face.
Samuel Gregor gasped, chest heaving. His eyes shot open, darting in panic. "Wh—what happened? Where—"
Hermes’s body slumped forward.
Raphael smiled faintly. He turned to Hermes, eyes waiting.
Hermes forced his body down, kneeling beside Samuel. His tendrils curled, holding himself steady as his blank white mask faced Samuel’s trembling form.
"...I understand," Hermes whispered, his voice echoing strange from this body. "I understand you."
Samuel blinked, confused. His lips parted, but no words came.
"I understand that desire," Hermes went on, "that need to make them accept you. To love you. To see you the way you wanted to be seen. Perfect. Golden. The good son. The one who bought them a house. The one who clawed his way up from nothing, who worked until his bones broke, who swallowed his dreams because they needed him to."
Samuel’s eyes widened.
Hermes’s hands shook as he leaned closer. "But their acceptance is fickle. Their love... conditional. They will only ever choose the parts of you that they want. The parts that make them proud. The rest... the rest they will bury. Lock away. Shame you for."
Samuel’s throat bobbed. His breath came shallow, uncertain.
Hermes pressed his palm to Samuel’s chest, where his heart raced. "So don’t give it to them. Don’t give them that power. Accept yourself, Samuel. Your true self. No matter how hideous they call it. No matter how unacceptable they find it. Even if your own family turns away."
His vines trembled. His golden veins dimmed. The clock slowed.
And with a shudder, his beast form melted.
His limbs shrank back, skin returning, face re-forming. Hermes gasped as his lungs filled again, his mouth opening for breath. He knelt there in his human body, sweat dripping down his face.
He smiled faintly. "Even if you’re a beetle, even if they think you’re disgusting... you deserve to exist as you are."
Samuel’s lips parted, a trembling sound caught in his throat. He shut his eyes, covering his face with both hands.
Hermes stood slowly.
Raphael had been silent, watching the whole time. Now, as Hermes turned to him, Raphael’s lips curved into a quiet smile.
The two of them moved to the door.
Hermes glanced back once at Samuel, still trembling, still alive.
"Goodbye," he said softly.
They stepped out.
And as the door clicked shut, Raphael’s voice followed, smooth and light.
"Tell me, my Lord..."
He tilted his head, studying Hermes with those sharp, unreadable eyes.
"Were you talking to him? Or were you talking to yourself too?"