Son of Odin

The Prince

The Prince of Asgard kneeled in silence. His flank rested calmly on his feet while the tips of his toes and his knees were pressed into the fiery rock floor. The Prince had been locked away in the deepest and darkest parts of the pit, only Tartarus' daunting voice left to keep him company. He'd been stripped to nothing more than the tattered remains of his now ragged black combat trousers.

Heavy chains crafted out of the remainder of his armor were what banded his wrists together, tightly knit indestructible industrial sized chains wrapped his arms together at the hands and trailed up the rest of his recently lashed body. The chains hung around him in an odd majesty as they held his broken bloody wings in place. A thick stygian iron mask was bound around his face, with only two narrow slits for eye holes. The torture meant for him was as extensive as hell itself could give.

The pit rumbled slightly. That was the Prince's cue, he had to move quickly as the building rose up out of the ground around him. After a moment it was evident that he had once again successfully survived the mysterious building that had kept following him. His captors never took long to recapture the Prince no matter how many times he escaped them, there was always the problem of the chains. Fashioned from the remnants of his indestructible armor, the hide of the Leviathan that had been molecularly remodeled to be created out of Chaotic Platinum, the strongest metal in the universe. He was literally unable to break out of them.

He had been stripped of much of his power, the only things that remained were the things that could not be taken away from some such warriors. Pride. The Prince would always have his pride, he knew that no matter what horrors Tartarus instilled onto him, he would forever keep his head high. The Prince was too proud to give hell the satisfaction that he so sought.

It was because of a last minute sacrifice that the world above him was safe, despite how temporary that might be. He discovered that through his successful ploy to take Tartarus with him, that the power needed to keep the Prince incarcerated would require Tartarus to remain in slumber at all times, for the rest of eternity if he wished to keep him down here.

Gaea was forced back into a peaceful sleep, like Hydros. The Primordials were no longer an imminent threat to Olympus, Asgard or anyone else for that matter, all because of the champion of Chaos. He had his duties and he fulfilled them to a text book definition. Chaos picked well, she sought someone who would be selfless enough to take the dive when the proper time came, and he did so, without any hesitation of where it would take him. A major player in Gaea's plans had been permanently taken out of the game, and if Gaea ever forced him to return, the Prince would break free.

The horrors that had been inflicted upon him were not easily forgiven or forgotten. He was saving every moment, every lash and cut that he received in the pit, and when he did eventually break free, he would give every second of the pain right back to Tartarus. A blood debt, to be paid in full.

Tartarus had taken away from him the one thing that mattered the most, Artemis. He knew that she was alive and well somewhere out there, and that was his driving force, the one thing that kept him sane down here.

Time moved slower in the pit, slower than the world above him. One day in here was only a couple of minutes in the world above, and for what that was worth, the Olympians, Artemis, was well aware of that. How much time had passed for them while he had been here? He would have to wait until they captured him again for him to be brought back to his cell, the markings that he'd crudely scratched into the wall were what told him of his passage of time. They were the only thing that had reminded him of the time lost that he could have spent with Artemis. The anger welled deep inside his soul but for one trained so well he let it simmer and it slowly boiled his blood as his anger briefly overcame him. Whenever it did on rare occasions overwhelm him, something else in the pit would die, permanently. Last time it had been a Cyclops unlucky enough to taunt him about rape, something that he could never forgive, and something that he would never condone, not even to his worst enemy.