No More Olympus

Chapter 24

Five Minutes Ago...

Maria was having a strange day, to say the least.
What had once been a typical late night in her apartment had turned into a life-or-death scenario after her building began crumbling around her.
Even when the disaster seemed to have stopped, she still wasn't remotely safe, being stuck on a platform made up of the remains of her apartment. Balancing on what was left of the support beams and praying it wouldn't collapse before a rescue team could save her.
Each creak she heard felt like the beginning of a heart attack, knowing that any second she remained there had a chance of ending her life.
She clutched the easy chair she was sitting in as if it were her only lifeline in the middle of a bottomless ocean. It didn't matter that it would likely do nothing to protect her, it was something, and she needed to do something.
Her worst fears soon came to life as she felt the floor crumble beneath her chair.
Her life moved in slow motion. She witnessed the floor crack and separate into chunks, dust releasing from the crevices.
She could feel each individual heartbeat crawl up her throat as they happened, and only one thought bounced around her skull as gravity took effect.
'I'm going to die.'
She closed her eyes and prepared herself to face whatever she saw once she opened them again, be that in this world or the next.
Perhaps Heaven.
Perhaps Hell.
Maybe some different kind of afterlife humanity was not yet aware of. Whatever it was, she was prepared for it.
What she was not prepared for, however, was the feeling of being lifted from her chair by a pair of arms and now free of gravity's cruel hold.
She carefully opened her eyes to find she was in the arms of a man, a very tall man, a very tall man who was flying thirty feet off the ground and quite possibly wearing the strangest outfit she had ever seen, paired with perhaps the stupidest helmet she had ever laid eyes on.
The two looked back at the building, which was now nothing but a pile of bricks and garbage.
"I don't think you're getting your security deposit back," the man said almost jokingly.
The two floated to the roof of a building that, unlike the other, was perfectly intact before she rested on the gravel.
She looked up to see the man was already halfway across the roof, looking out over the city. He reached into the messenger bag on his hip and pulled out a dusty police radio that looked as if he had just ripped it out of a squad car an hour ago.
"Are you okay?" He asked as he held the radio to his ear.
"I'm fine," Maria squeaked.
A series of overlapping voices emerged from the radio speaker. She heard mention of something about two women fighting a demon of some sort.
The man listened for a moment, clearly waiting for the officers to mention exactly where this fight was happening.
He searched the skyline for any sign of the conflict but found nothing.
He tapped his golden boot impatiently.
Suddenly the skyline erupted into a giant blood-red tornado.
"Holy shit," the man exclaimed as he took a step back.
"What the hell is that?" Maria asked.
"Judging by the colour, it can't be anything good," the man said, pacing back and forth.
A monstrous roar rattled the air.
The strangely dressed man prepared to step off the edge of the roof.
"Wait!" Maria called out, stopping the man in his tracks, "What- Who are you?"
The man paused for a moment.
"You don't watch sports, do you?" He asked.
Maria shook her head.
The man paused for a moment as if considering his options.
"I'm Hermes," he said proudly, raising his arms, "Olympian extraordinaire."
And with that, Hermes rocketed into the sky as Maria watched him disappear into the distance with amazement.
Naturally, it didn't take very long for Hermes to land at the base of the tornado, and it took even less time for him to notice something large was moving within the massive swirling vortex of red clouds.
His eyes then locked on a pair of figures walking out of the storm cloud. He raised his fists for a fight but quickly put them down when he saw Athena and Aphrodite running out of the range of the storm.
"Are you guys okay?" Hermes asked, closing the distance between them in the blink of an eye.
"We're fine," Athena assured him as Aphrodite caught her breath.
"What happened?" He asked.
"I had him under my trance, and then he just exploded," Aphrodite explained, sounding very much panicked.
"What in Dad's name is he summoning?" Hermes asked.
"I'm not sure, but it's big," Athena said, "I have a few ideas, though, and none of them are ideal, especially at this size."
"Wonderful," Hermes groaned.
"It'll be a miracle if he survives this," Athena continued, "All of this is coming out of him, and without any ambrosia, a mortal body can't handle this much power."
"Well, that's one less thing to deal with," Aphrodite shrugged.
Their attention was then drawn to the sound of Ares landing on the pavement a couple of meters from them.
Jacob quickly climbed off his back and ran to a trash can to puke his guts out.
"I am never doing that again," Jacob groaned, clutching his stomach and holding onto the trash can for dear life.
"Walk it off," Ares said, violently patting him on the back, "I was being gentle."
He then left Jacob to recover and made his way over to his fellow gods.
"I leave for ten minutes, and you let this happen?" Ares questioned.
"Why did you bring him here?" Athena demanded, pointing to her husband, "What were you thinking bringing him to this? Need I remind you he's mortal?"
"Hey, you brought the mortal. I was just giving him a ride," Ares explained, "Besides, he seems tough enough. I lied. I was not being gentle at all."
Aphrodite smiled with faint laughter.
"Whatever, we don't need you here," Athena said, staring Ares directly in the eyes, "So you can take him and go."
Athena turned to march back to the tornado and face whatever emerged.
"You know you need me," Ares said gloatingly.
Athena stopped and turned back toward him.
"I need you like I need a hole in the head," Athena said, marching up to Ares with violent purpose.
Ares shook out his shoulders, readying himself for another fight.
"Alright, stop," Jacob demanded, stepping in between them to stop the fight.
Everyone stared at him in both amazement and concern, considering who he was trying to physically separate.
"I understand the bad blood here," he began, "But the last time you did this, you nearly destroyed the city, by the looks of that goddamn thing..."
He pointed to the tornado.
"It's going to be doing a pretty damn good job of it without your help, so you don't have to like each other. But for the time being, can you two try not to kill each other, because from where I'm standing we need all the help we can get."
Athena and Ares stared at each other, then at the cloud and back at each other.
"Fine," Athena said, outstretching her hand, "Just for the moment."
Ares immediately took her hand and shook it.
"Agreed," he sneered.
"Good enough," Jacob sighed.
Then he noticed that the two weren't letting go.
Their hands were still tightly gripped around each other, both squeezing so hard that their knuckles were turning white. It had suddenly become some sort of contest to see who would let go first.
"Are they usually like this?" Jacob asked, turning toward Aphrodite and Hermes.
"Not really," the latter admitted, "It used to be really bad."
Athena's face contorted, and she was eventually forced to pull away.
"Ha!" Ares cheered in victory.
Suddenly five green tentacles shot out of the storm and wrapped around each of their individual necks before lifting them off the ground.
All eyes turned toward the storm and source of the tentacles to see King walking out of the clouds.
At least what was left of him.
He had lost most of his monstrous enhancements, but that didn't make him look human.
The thing that stood before them could have once been human. It was undoubtedly the right colour and had the vague silhouette of a person, but everything else was wrong,
His muscles were all in the wrong place and tied into knots, almost like someone had twisted him around using the smear tool on a photo editing program.
His limbs were bent the wrong way in at least three different spots on each appendage. Frankly, it was a miracle he was still standing. In fact, he looked like he was about to fall apart on the spot into a pile of bones and gore.
Finally was his skin itself. Within the loose pink organ was a complex system of glowing red veins pulsing with magic power.
In short, what remained of Wallace King was a terrifying abomination that would make a chimera whimper in disgust.
Athena summoned a single-edged blade to slice the tentacle at her neck.
"Do that, and I pop the mortal's neck like a pimple," King warned her.
Athena glanced over at Jacob, who was struggling to breathe and dropped her sword. As the blade fell to the ground the tentacles extended, wrapping further around them and restricting their arms.
"Someone wishes to speak with you," King continued.
"Hello children..." a new voice hissed, "It's been a while,"
Athena then noticed something crawl across what was left of King's face and stop in the spare point between his misshapen eyes. He lifted a bony finger to point at it.
"Is that a spider?" Jacob asked as he struggled for breath, "Did that spider just talk?"
"Not just any spider, young mortal," the voice clarified, "Why don't you ask the goddess of wisdom who I am?"
Athena grew pale. She recognized the voice.
"Arachne?" She gasped, barely believing her own words.
"She remembers me!" Arachne cheered with excitement, "That fills me with such glee."
"Wait, the Arachne?" Hermes asked, knowing the name by reputation alone.
"But how..." Athena stammered, "But you're... you... you're supposed to be..."
"Dead!" Arachne finished, "About that... you know how easy it is to sneak onto Olympus and steal a bite of some ambrosia and nectar when you're my size."
"You what?" Athena asked, her eyebrows narrowing.
"Such a tasty little dish," Arachne continued, "After I had some, I felt like a new spider. I found I had a certain way with people. Once I climbed onto them. I could just spend days planting little thoughts in their heads, like... I don't know, to overthrow Olympus?"
Athena could feel Ares twitch at these words.
"It was incredibly simple to do as well," Arachne continued, "Simply inspire a secret truce between Sparta and Athens, inflame their very real hatred of you and tell them where to find Hephaestus's forge. In fact, the only difficult thing about it was finding out how to send a hydra after you. Which after a short order I was able to do with ease, yet I still failed. I did not anticipate Zeus using Pandora's box the way he did, nor did I foresee being trapped within like a common beast before I could see the mission's end. But here we are anyway, I know what mortals say when life gives you lemons. Wallace, dear boy, kill them. Start with the mortal,"
"Wait!" Athena screamed in desperation.
A silence fell over the air.
"What is it, goddess?" Arachne asked, sounding very annoyed to be interrupted.
"Please don't," Athena pleaded, her voice quivered.
"What's this?" Arachne asked. If it were possible for spiders to grin maniacally, she probably would've been doing it that very moment, "Is the lady Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, patron of Athens... begging?"
"...yes," Athena answered weakly.
Arachne howled with laughter.
"Oh, this is just too perfect," she cheered, "I have to see this. Put her down, my boy, but if she moves, do not hesitate to cut her open."
King complied, lowering her to the ground, releasing her from the grasp of his tentacle, which then grew a long sharp gorgon claw at the tip and positioned itself by her throat, ready to execute her at a moment's notice.
"On your knees," Arachne ordered.
Athena complied. King's blade followed her.
"Go ahead," Arachne said with glee.
"I know I wronged you," Athena began, putting her hands behind her back almost as if she was handcuffed, "I can see that now, you were an innocent mortal, and I committed an atrocity against you."
If one was from the perspective of the other gods still in King's grip, one would've seen the strange sight of Athena materializing a small black pouch as well as her cell phone in her hands.
Ares could barely hide his grin. Luckily for all of them, he found the strength.
"I'm begging you," Athena continued, "Please spare them. They're innocent of this crime, just kill me and get it over with, you can have your revenge, and you can move on."
"You think I will be satisfied by killing only you?" Arachne chuckled, "Do you really think that will sate me? Need I remind you that you didn't just rob me of my humanity when you transformed me into this creature? No, you robbed me of what I hold most dear in my life, my greatest love, my work, my reputation. So now I will do the same to you. I will destroy all you hold dear, this mortal for starters, then your brothers and sisters, and finally your city. You may have destroyed quite a bit of it already, but when I'm done with it the city of Athens will crater. A warning staining the name of Athena for the rest of recorded history, and I will make you watch as I do this, every second of it, then I will allow you to die, and fall into Tartarus where you belong, to join your many victims."
Athena stared into the spider's many eyes.
"Are you done?" Athena asked, her mask of fear instantly falling away, "Good, you talk too much."
In less than a second, she whipped out the gorgon eyeball and switched on the flashlight on her phone, shining the light through the eyeball and onto King's tentacle arm, petrifying it at the elbow.
Before he lost control, however, he was able to use the blade at the end of the tentacle to slice the eyeball in half, destroying it for good.
King screamed in pain as his elbow began to crumble away at the weight of itself, removing his connection to the tentacles, which shrivelled up into a dry husk, releasing all within its grasp.
"You think yourself so clever, don't you?" Arachne asked rhetorically. Her tiny body had begun to surround itself with the familiar blood-red smoke, the same way Kings had when he had transformed himself, the same as the giant storm which still raged behind her as all this happened.
Her previously tiny body was growing at an alarming rate as she climbed off King's face. She also seemed to be changing her shape as well. Her old spider body was melting away into something more resembling a human being, with two of her legs growing hands at the end and another two growing feet and toes.
When she was done transforming, she almost looked like her old self. A twenty-something-year-old girl with black hair and a round jawline, only now she had two hideous and gigantic spider legs sticking out of each set of ribs and holding her a good five feet off the ground. Her eyes also remained the same shiny black emotionless marbles, only now there were simply two of them rather than eight.
King collapsed to the ground. The previously glowing veins in his skin had now disappeared. He desperately tried to use his power of monsters to regrow his arm, but it soon became clear that these abilities were no longer a part of him.
"Why didn't I do this sooner?" Arachne grinned, flexing her newly groaned fingers, "Just cut out the middleman, take the power for myself. Oh, you have no idea how amazing this feels,"
Arachne looked up at her opponents. Each one had assumed battle stances, ready for the upcoming fight, including Jacob, which made Arachne chuckle.
"As much fun as it would be to kill you with my bare hands," She gloated, leaping into the air and climbing up a building at an alarmingly fast rate, "It's been a long couple of days, and I'd like to get this done and over with, so I rather let my pet deal with you."
"Pet?" Jacob asked the group, "What exactly does spider woman here keep as a pet?"
The tornado finally began to slow down as the red smoke rose into the sky and dissipated, slowly revealing the creature's body.
It was amphibious first of all, with four massive clawed feet decorated in scales the colour of emeralds.
It had a long, sleek, curved body with spikes running down the spine and eventually a tail which ended with a golden two-pronged fork at the end large enough to impale a cruise ship.
No one was worried about the tail, however. Instead, all attention was turned to the other side of the body. Where eight heads swerved around each other on impossibly long and flexible necks, observing their new environment. Each head was equipped with large yellow aquatic fins, giant under-biting jaws filled with at least eight rows of teeth and eyes that snapped back and forth constantly, hunting for anything that dared to even flinch in its presence.
"What the hell is that?" Jacob demanded, taking a step back in pure terror.
"That Bauer," Ares said stoically, "Is a Hydra."