Pantheon of Heroes

Zeus's Trial

Content warning: multiple mentions of sexual assault.

High in the mountains of the Basque region of Spain, two Gods hadn't quite gotten the memo about the alien invasion yet, having spent a lovely morning together deep inside their cave.

Basque goddess of fertility and agriculture Mari yawned and stretched as she wandered out to the cave's entrance, wrapping her light robe around herself as she took in the morning light, blinking slightly as she noticed a Greek youth with curly brown hair and freckles flying rapidly toward them as fast as he could, the wings on his sandals beating with everything they had.

Mari watched him approach with befuddled amusement for a moment. "Suggar, darling," she called back to her husband deep in the cave. "Were we expecting a letter from the Greeks?"

Speaking of the Greeks, Zeus and his daughter Athena lighted down at the doorstep of Hades, Zeus's brother and lord of the Underworld. "I'm still not sure I want to go through with this plan anyway," Zeus huffed.

"It is a wise plan, father," Athena said. "If the souls of humanity are kept safe down here, we'll be able to go all out in our battle against the aliens without doing undue harm ourselves. And then, when it's over, if we can get Hades to agree to the plan, we'll restore to life any killed since the invasion began."

"But what does it matter if we let them all die. I've wiped them all out before. So did Jesus's father, for that matter. Half of all the pantheons I know had a hand in that deluge. Why are we pretending humans are so important now?"

Athena gave her father that same patient smile she always gave him when he was in one of his moods. A patience few others ever had when dealing with him. Zeus recognized the smile, and part of him was half-tempted to smite her for patronizing him, but the other half couldn't bring himself to smite his little girl, not least because of her resemblance to another woman he had once known long ago.

"Let's just go along with it for now," she said. "At the very least, you'll get to star in another epic like the Titanomachy or the Iliad."

Zeus smiled. "Ah, the Titanomachy," he said, looking nostalgic. "Alright, let's get on with it. I just wish I didn't have to deal with my brother."

He and Athena put out their hands and the doors swung open wide. The pair walked into the great hall beyond, ignoring the large three-headed dog that barked at them as they entered, or the three vulture women with flaming whips who fluttered around in the rafters above. Zeus kept his full attention on the two thrones at the very end of the hall, where his brother and daughter sat hand in hand.

Zeus cleared his throat. "Hades," he said. "Kore."

The queen of the underworld narrowed her eyes. "My name is Persephone," she said. "I am only Kore to my mother."

Zeus shifted uncomfortably. "Of course," he said. "Persephone." He turned his attention to his brother. "I assume you received Hermes's message."

Hades tilted his head, his expression remaining unchanged. "I read it," he said.

"So, I assume you're going along with our plan?"

"Your plan to break the most fundamental laws of life and death, laws that I have painstakingly upheld for millenia, on your orders. You want me to take in billions of dead souls, just keep them here, mixed in with all the other dead souls, and then . . . let them all go back to their bodies after your little war up there is over?"

Zeus glanced at Athena, who maintained her stoic poise. Zeus did his best to match her. "Um, yes, that plan. More or less."

"You do remember that there is a reason we don't just let souls return to the Earth, right? There is a reason Orpheus was required to not look back, EVER, as he led Eurydice out. A reason we condemned Sisyphus to rolling a boulder up a hill forever. A reason we keep such a tight grip on the Doors of Death. We cannot just bend the laws of reality to our whims just like that."