No More Olympus

Chapter 5

"You are moving too slow," Ares warned, "Speed up."
"I'm trying," Connor panted as he repeatedly sent punch after punch into Ares's hands which were protected by boxing pads, "But I'm running out of juice here."
"It doesn't matter," Ares objected, "Your enemies will not give you a break just because you're running out of stamina. A true warrior fights till his heart gives out or the air can no longer enter his lungs."
Connor seemed inspired by Ares's words, using his last bit of strength to throw a leaping strike, a clumsy punch that Ares easily stepped out of the way, leading to Connor falling face-first on the ground.
Ares stared down at Connor, poking the boy with his foot to see if he was still conscious.
Connor groaned and rolled over, looking as if he was about to pass out due to exhaustion.
"Okay," Ares said, "We will call it a night."
Connor used the last bit of his energy to give a thumbs up.
Ares began to pull off his boxing mats and squeezed his way through the ropes.
"Are you thirsty?" Ares asked, looking back up at the ring,
Connor wheezed in response.
"I will get you some water," he shrugged.
Ares made his way to the beer cooler he kept outside of his office. He lifted the top and pulled out two bottles of water, stopping when he heard a crash out in the distance.
He immediately made his way out of the open garage door that was the service entrance of his gym in the summertime and peered into the park across the street.
Using his sharpened senses, he was able to make out what was going on through the trees.
He heard the sound of fighting, of claws hitting the dirt and of knuckles hitting flesh.
One of the voices Ares immediately recognized was his sister Athena. The other two were harder to place.
Thankfully he was able to see what Athena was fighting.
A pair of Gorgons.
And Athena was losing.
"Connor, do not go anywhere," Ares warned.
All Connor could do was let out a breath of heavy air as Ares closed the garage door behind him.
The god, self-assured that no one could see him leapt into action, transforming into his sacred animal, which took the form of a massive black Cretan hound, giving him the burst of speed needed to reach the battle in time.
The gorgon that was the colour of sand had wrapped herself around Athena and was preparing to strike the killing blow with her stone-petrifying stare.
But in her glee to kill the goddess, she had foolishly left herself wide open.
Ares leapt forward, opening his jaws to bite down hard on the Gorgon's arm, ripping her off of Athena.
The two struggled for a moment. The gorgon released her charged-up blast into the sky, petrifying a pair of birds that shattered on impact with the ground.
"...Stupid malaka dog..." The gorgon spat, using her free arm to claw at Ares's tail and loosen his grip.
However, she was far too late as Ares quickly used his powerful jaws to completely remove the gorgon's arm at the shoulder, leading her to spill blood everywhere and let out a horrifying scream.
Ares' victim quickly slithered away to regroup with her sister.
The two gods stared at each other for a moment as Ares returned to his human form.
"You look like shit," Ares remarked as he wiped the blood away from his mouth, "Healing slowly in your old age?"
"The one you just disabled," Athena explained as she stood up, the wounds on her ribs and arms very slowly healing, "She got me with her venom. It's made things difficult."
"...Two gods..." the larger of the two Gorgons began, "...even better..."
"I'll cut off your arm!" the small gorgon shouted, clutching her wound as the muscles in her shoulder slowly began to grow back as her body began replacing her arm, "See how you like it!"
"...Euryale, please..." The larger one said, "...you'll be able to cut off whatever you want of theirs when they're petrified...,"
"Ah," Ares began as he recognized his opponents, "Euryale and Stheno, I know of you two. Hermes used to tell us your story around feasts all the time. It is one of my favourite comedies."
"Ares," Athena hissed under her breath, "Stop taunting the blood-sucking gorgons!"
"Such an embarrassing shame about your dear sister Medusa," Ares continued despite his own sister's plea, "Being slain and all... by a mortal."
"I will hang your heads from your front doors!...," Stheno spat.
"Great," Athena sighed, "Now they hate us even more. Why don't you kick their puppy next?"
"You seem moody. Do you need a minute?" Ares asked, poking fun at his sister, "Perhaps a coffee break and a nap?"
"Just shut up and fight," Athena said, summoning her spear, the Owl's Talon and holding it at the ready.
"That has to be my favourite sentence in the English language," Ares grinned, summoning his counterpart to the Owl's Talon, a large black steel sword the size of a wolf named the Hound's Jaw.
The four warriors charged at each other with impossible speed,
The air was soon filled with the sound of metal against claws and grunts of exertion.
The gorgons quickly found themselves outmatched by their opponents as well as being separated.
Athena had focused her attention on Stheno, sending spear thrust after spear thrust toward the gorgon who could barely dodge the onslaught. That was until she found herself on some loose dirt that gave out from under her, despite having no feet to speak of, she lost her footing for a split second, giving the lighting-fast Athena more than enough time to slice off her hands at the wrists.
Stheno screamed in pain, leaving herself wide open for Athena to stab her straight through the heart.
She began to vomit blood as her heart was torn to shreds, desperately pawing with her stumps at the spear to loosen it from her chest.
"Ares!" Athena shouted, grabbing her partner's attention and nodding to her speared opponent.
Ares nodded back, summoning the gauntlets from his armour and using the spikes forged into the knuckle plates to put three holes into Euryale's forehead with a punch that lung her across the park.
Athena flung Stheno's flailing body toward Ares.
The god swiped his massive sword through the gorgon in midair, removing the head from the body in one clean cut.
The two stared at the remains. Ares poked her with his boot. Her lifeless eyes failed to move.
"Ah, how I missed killing immortals," Ares thought aloud.
Athena recognized the glowing fire in her brothers' eyes.
It was both the part she hated the most in him and his biggest strength.
Where Athena was the goddess of strategic warfare, Ares represented the bloodlust and raw brutality in warfare, and his powers reflected this by giving him the ability to multiply his strength as well as the strength of his weapons the longer he was around conflict.
Hermes would tell stories of week-long battles Ares participated in where his strength had increased so much that he would have had the power to destroy Olympus all on his own.
Upon seeing what was left of her sister, Euryale found herself in an even more fanatic rage. Seemingly devolving into a more animalistic state, hissing and gnashing at the gods before lunging forward to rip out Ares's throat.
She underestimated Ares's newfound strength, however, and therefore was ill-prepared when Ares grabbed the gorgon in midair and slammed her to the ground, sending blow after blow down into her skull.
This went on for at least a minute, each punch sending blood and tissue into the air with the sheer force of the strikes.
"Ares," Athena called out, trying to get her brother's attention.
Ares ignored his sister and continued to strike Euryale's lifeless corpse.
"Ares," Athena repeated, still no response.
"Ares!" Athena shouted at the top of her lungs, finally catching her brother's attention.
Ares finally climbed off the ground, his hands, chest, and face covered with the red shine of gorgon blood.
"What," he asked, shrugging as if nothing had happened.
"What the hell was that?" Athena demanded, motioning to the red smear of the grass that was once Euryale.
"It is dead, isn't it?" Ares asked rhetorically.
Athena sighed.
"We have to clean this up before anyone sees this," Athena said.
"Their bodies will waste away fast enough," Ares shrugged, "Just let nature take its course."
"Ares, we can't let someone find a dead gorgon," Athena explained, "Need I remind you that their remains are just as capable of turning someone to stone as a live one."
Ares considered this for a moment.
"Shit," Ares cursed, "I will go get us trash bags and a bucket of water, wait here."
Ares slowly began to make his way back to his gym.
"Hurry back," Athena requested as she stood guard over the carnage, "We need to talk."