The Battle of Olympus | III

8. Vampire Zombies 2.0

Guys. I'm not even kidding when I say I hate this chapter SO MUCH I actually tried to not write it for as long as possible. It's terrible and I hate it and I wish I scrapped it but I have a rule of not editing so here it is.

And yes. I hated it so much I tried to avoid writing it for two months. Amazing, isn't it, what a human can do when fueled by hatred?

Also I hate the title. You know what? I just hate everything about this chapter. Really makes you wonder why I'm making you guys read this trash.

"I'm not crazy!"

"I'm not saying you are, but also... maybe you should think about what you just said?" Hermes avoided Apollo's murderous gaze. "Look, that's some serious magic you're saying Gaius is capable of. That's basically reanimating the dead. Not only has Uncle Hades not reported any sort of that, but that kind of magic... how would we not be able to sense it?"

"Monsters are running amok in the mortal realm. The Galerii were born of chaos magic. You know how to cover tracks. What other proof do you need?"

"It's not just me." He lowered his voice. "Father won't believe you. He can't. He's worrying too much about the primordials—he's trying to figure out which ones are aligning with who, but other than Hemera, Aether, and Olympus the First, of course, we don't know who else is our ally. The earth deities we have no hope for—only Gaia remains neutral still, though if she turns in favor of our enemy, I would not be surprised."

"She won't." Both gods turned to me in surprise, but I continued, "She said the gods were her only family left—she was tired of being forced to choose. When it comes down to another familial war, she'll stay neutral."

"Hooray," Hermes said unenthusiastically. "We still have a million more primordials to figure out. Look, you can try and tell Father, but I doubt he'll listen."

"Fine," Apollo ground out, but we all knew his anger wasn't directed at Hermes. "I'll go talk to Athena."

Apollo didn't even wait for me as he stormed out of Hermes' manor, muttering things in a language even I didn't know. Hermes just sighed.

"You know, Apollo's always been a dutiful son," he said to me as we watched him go. "Too dutiful. He's always listened to Zeus no matter what, even when he thinks it's stupid, or even when Zeus clearly doesn't like him. I've seen him only crack twice. Twice, in ten thousand years. Do you know when those two times were?"

I shook my head.

"The first time was when we destroyed your memory of Galeria," he said softly. "He had reluctantly went along with it, because he knew that you could be reincarnated and maybe you could still be saved, and he knew he needed to stop your reign. But when Father declared that we were to all take our memories... he lost it. He refused. You see, he knew, even all those millennia ago. But Father insisted.

"They had a horrible argument. The mortals suffered from their wrath. In the end, Zeus had to forcibly rip the memories from him, and none of us could do anything. When we all took our own memories, afraid to follow in Apollo's steps... we forgot.

"The second time was when you were forced back to Gaia's realm despite the monsters and the chaos; Apollo begged and begged Father to reopen the gates. I've never seen him beg before. Of all the gods, Apollo is one of the most prideful. But we were all stunned to see him practically flat on the ground begging Zeus to open the gates and to not let you have to suffer alone. As you know, it didn't work.

"And when you were injured, when you were hurt despite Apollo doing everything to convince Father to reopen the gates... that was the second time I've seen him lose it. He took the sun out of the sky, wildfires began spreading, and those few civilizations that were still woefully ignorant of the existence of monsters found themselves attending rather morbid and depressing concerts. If Zeus hadn't reopened the gates when he had, I'm not entirely sure there still would've been an Earth to defend, or an Apollo to destroy it."