No More Olympus

Chapter 21

From the perspective of the people living in Athens at the time, they had just lived through some sort of natural disaster. Buildings crumbled around them as the entire earth shook with frightening regularity.
Then reports of projectiles flying through buildings began to spread through town, and people began to assume this might be some sort of act of war against the people of Greece, starting with its capital.
While most citizens were busy running as far away from the incoming apocalypse as possible, Jacob Bauer was running farther and farther into the middle of the city, desperately calling Athena's name into the night, dodging piles of rubble and flying sparks as he sprinted down the street.
After at least fifteen minutes of this exercise, he finally heard his wife's voice in response, but she didn't seem to be responding to him. She instead was shouting something that seemed like nonsense to Jacob's ears.
"To Hades with you!" Athena's disembodied voice shouted in the near distance.
He quickly identified where the voice was coming from and went to follow it.
Jacob found himself entering a city park.
The concrete below him had been shattered beyond belief, the trees around him had been splintered in half, and the marble statue in front of him had collapsed to the ground.
And in the centre of it all was a collection of figures, a blond woman in a pink dress lying on the ground struggling to hold air, a large man in black armour who was also lying on the ground with his face covered in blood, and finally, a woman in a blue dress and bronze armour who was holding a spear above the man's head, preparing to plunge it through his skull. The worst part was he recognized his bronze-armoured woman.
"Athena, stop!" He shouted.
Athena looked up with animalistic rage in her eyes. Upon recognizing Jacob, her face fell. She looked up at the spear in her hands before calmly dropping it to the ground.
"Jacob..." she said with audible panic, "I can explain."
He didn't get a chance to hear this explanation, however. As suddenly, out of nowhere, a golden blur flew past Athena, hitting her so hard that she went flying through one of the only trees that had been left untouched, shattering it into splinters.
The golden blur stopped as James Hermes came into view,
"Are we done now?" He asked. He paused and followed the group's gaze, "Oh, hi, Jacob!"
His smile faded almost immediately,
"Oh fuck, it's Jacob."
Jacob was truly speechless.
Not only was his wife of eight years seemingly responsible for destruction equivalent to that of a natural disaster.
But famous basketball player James Hermes had just seemingly materialized out of thin air and thrown her through a tree, an event that Athena seemed to find mildly irritating, almost as if he had simply tripped her accidentally.
And to top it all off, all four of them were dressed in very real-looking armour that looked like it had been designed centuries ago.
"Jacob," Athena repeated, having since climbed out of the tree and begun slowly approaching her husband as she pulled off her crown and tossed it to the ground.
"Athena, what the hell is going on?" Jacob asked, his brain moving at a hundred miles a minute as he tried to come up with some sort of rational explanation for irrational events.
"You're dreaming," Hermes joked, trying desperately to relieve any tension he could, "We're all dreaming, mass hallucination, it's a bitch."
Aphrodite shut him up by kicking his knee.
Athena just stared at him, terrified at how the truth was so quickly ripped from her hands.
A million calculations flew through her head of all the possible answers she could answer with, does she lie? Come up with some fantastic farce explaining why she was sitting in the epicentre of a destroyed city dressed as a warrior princess. Or go with the other option...
"I'm a goddess," Athena admitted, using every single strand of her remaining willpower to look Jacob in the eye.
"Oh, shit, she said it," Hermes remarked in surprise.
Aphrodite shushed him with her returning vocal cords.
Jacob blinked.
"I'm sorry, what?" He questioned with a raised eyebrow, "Is this some sort of girl power, self-help book thing I don't know about?"
"No, I mean literally," Athena corrected, every word feeling like she was digging her own grave, "I am a female deity."
Jacob looked more confused than anything.
"Are you serious?" He asked, almost laughing.
"And you don't believe me," Athena sighed.
"Believe you?" Jacob repeated, "Honey, you just told me you're an actual goddess, with a straight face. What did you expect me to..."
Jacob was silenced immediately.
Athena had suddenly disappeared into thin air, and in her place was a tiny little owl looking up at him with big yellow eyes.
In another blink of an eye, the owl grew at alarming speed back into the shape of Athena.
Jacob seemed to be on the verge of having a panic attack in the face of his current reality being shattered in front of him.
"So what..." Jacob stammered, "Who are... what are...,"
"I'm the Greek Goddess Athena," She began, "The goddess of wisdom and war, weaving and pottery, good counsel and reason, daughter of Zeus, princess of Olympus, patron of heroes, bringer of victory and once guardian deity of the city of Athens."
Jacob looked as if he was going to melt onto the very stones he stood on.
"All of this," he pointed at the destruction around them, "Was all of this you?"
Athena's head had finally become clear enough to see what she had done.
She had lived long enough to know a war zone when she saw it, and this was undoubtedly a war zone.
If one assessed the damage, one would have most likely assumed that this had been the product of several air raids and several days of combat.
Not ten minutes of sibling fisticuffs.
"Yes..." she said meekly.
Jacob's face did not react.
"Jesus Christ," He said, his voice almost sounding like it was on the verge of breaking, "I'm sorry, can you repeat that?"
"My name is Athena," she repeated, much more slowly and calmly, "I am a Greek Goddess."
"As in from the myths?" Jacob asked.
"Yes," Athena confirmed.
"As in her?" Jacob continued, pointing to the decapitated head of her statue.
"That is a statue of me, yes," Athena clarified.
"Okay, so you're a goddess," Jacob accepted, "What does that mean exactly? So, you were... how old are you exactly?" Jacob asked.
"I don't know," Athena sighed, "When you're immortal, you don't bother counting. We have a saying, 'never counted, never cared.'"
"Immortal?" Jacob repeated, "Fuck, you're being serious right now."
"I am..." Athena said she slowly began to approach Jacob.
He held out an open hand to stop her.
"So, who are they?" He asked, pointing at Athena's fellow Olympians.
"The tall one in the stupid hat," Athena began turning back toward the others.
"The famous basketball player," Jacob added.
"Yes," Athena awkwardly confirmed, "That's Hermes."
"Hi there," Hermes awkwardly, "You remember we met on the phone."
Jacob didn't respond.
"The one clutching her throat is Aphrodite," Athena continued, feeling an extra twinge of guilt at her current state.
"charmed..." Aphrodite wheezed, her voice no longer having its usual melodic tones and instead sounding like that of a thirty-year smoker.
"And that's..." Athena said, pointing toward her brother, who was still lying flat on his back with a bloody face that had just now begun to heal to its normal shape.
"Ares..." Jacob realized as he recognized the familiar build and flaming red hair, even through all blood he was covered in, "Oh my god, that's Ares, as in the Ares."
"Look, Jacob, you have every right to be mad," Athena began,
"Of course, I'm fucking mad!" Jacob nearly shouted, "What the hell, Athena! This is impossible. What you're telling me can't be real. You just turned into a fucking owl!"
"I know, but if you would just let me explain," Athena begged.
"Explain? Explain what?" Jacob asked, "We've been married for eight years. Did you just forget to mention it?"
"I couldn't," was all Athena could bear to say.
"What do you mean you couldn't?" Jacob asked.
"Mort- normal people," Athena corrected herself, "They seem only to have two reactions when they find out we're gods. They run in terror, or they start praying, and by the time we were close enough that I thought I should tell you I was too afraid of either happening."
"Athena, do you not trust me?" Jacob asked, sounding hurt.
"Of course, I trust you," Athena assured him, "You're my husband, I love you."
"Am I your husband?" Jacob asked, "You sure I'm not some plaything to keep you entertained for a few decades."
"No," Athena insisted, "Jacob, you are not some plaything, I swear."
"To what?" Jacob demanded.
"Pardon?" Athena asked.
"You swear to what?" Jacob repeated, "If you're a literal goddess, exactly what higher power do you swear to?"
Athena considered swearing to Styx, but she decided that swearing to a magic river that flowed through the realm of the dead wouldn't exactly help matters, so she remained silent.
"I thought so," Jacob said, hanging his head low.
He then slowly turned and began to walk away.
"Jacob," Athena begged, chasing after him.
"Don't follow me," he demanded.
Athena couldn't help but recognize the look of fear in his eyes.
She stopped and watched as Jacob disappeared down the street.
Athena stared hopelessly into the distance.
"Sweetie," Aphrodite began, her voice still healing, "I'm sorry."
Athena transformed into an owl and disappeared into the sky without another word.