"Father?"
Almost sleepily, Anubis turned and tilted his jackal head as he stared at his only child. He, like his elder brother Ra, could feel change. It was an ability imbued in his golden, furnace heart; he could feel a coldness creeping in, and the God of Death could feel that destruction was coming. As he sat on his throne of golden reeds, the hair at the back of his canine head rose in uneasy hackles, anticipating the stream of souls that might well be lining before him soon for judgment.
His daughter Ahmanet stood not too far away, half in shadow, her glimmering eyes fixed on him. Unlike his own heterochromatic eyes—one of which was golden and one red—both of her eyes were a deep gold, speckled with red. As the judge of the departed, Anubis existed to straddle the line between redemption and perdition, mercy and punishment, bliss and pain—his eyes reflected that fact. With Ahmanet, he knew, her eyes represented her nature: merciful, but with the seeds of great wrath within her. Her face, however, reminded him of her mother—Sekhmet, the every-smiling healer. She had the same warm brown skin, and the same slight pout to her red, bright lips that always seemed a heartbeat away from a smile.
You feel it as well, he acknowledged, the words echoing through the room, though his snout never moved. He never spoke through his mouth; the only time he bared his canines at all was at the height of wrath. As the offspring of a God of Death, especially one of immense power like himself, he knew she would have felt the coming onslaught and death.
It is time to be prepared child of mine, his voice echoed heavily as a troubled grumble rose in his cavernous throat. Something is coming—and I have the greatest of all feelings that my brother shall be summoning you, my dear one, he nodded to her as she paused, looking worried and slightly concerned at his words.
Ahmanet eyed her father closely and was worried as he seemed to be concerned. Not many could read his emotions, but years of practice told her all she needed to know from the slight knitting of his fearsome brow. If her great father was concerned, then she certainly was.
"Very well," she nodded; then something occurred to her as she sighed. "Something tells me, though, that Ada is going to be dragged into the middle of all that's coming."
Anubis rumbled wordlessly as he waved her away. As she disappeared, he sighed mentally, and ringing a miniscule brass counter-bell beside his throne, resumed the steady stream of translucent souls whimpering their way towards the understated dais before his throne.
As Ahmanet turned on her heel and stalked past a balding specter standing in line, her eyes flashed jungle green like a cat's before switching to the fiery red of a jackal. She knew Adamantia had spent centuries of hard effort to steer clear of the Greek Gods for numerous damnable reasons but mainly she would rip out her sperm donor's spine if Ocean God dared to speak to her. Ahmanet rubbed her the back of her neck with a sigh and muttered darky under her breath as she walked through her father's kingdom. Shaped like a cosmically vast, upside-down pyramid, her father's domain was all onyx, gold, and bronze; escalators of copper-worked iron carried nervous souls through the decade-spanning escalator ride to judgment, and jackal-headed guards gave her bored waves as she passed.
There was still no idea yet of what was coming for them or towards them; after all, all she had was a feeling, not knowledge. But she did know one thing, though: she would be standing right beside Adamantia if someone dared to drag her into a fight, and she would fight at her side to the end.
***
"You feel it as well, do you not, brother?" Ares, God of War, tilted his prodigious head towards his younger brother as the sprightly, younger god stepped up beside him in the night. "A slaughter is coming, be it for the humans, or us."
The two made for an unlikely pair of siblings. Ares, the older brother, exuded an aura of raw strength and intensity. He had a sturdy build and stood tall, emanating a powerful presence. His dark, tousled hair framed a strong jawline and piercing eyes that held a bloody determination. He wore a long, tattered trench coat, his broad shoulders spreading like wings. Dark camo encased his legs, and sturdy, hobnailed boots completed his rugged look. Burns and half-healed scars crisscrossed calloused hands.
Beside him stood Apollo, radiating a somewhat graceful air, vaguely displaced by the childlike gleam in his orange eyes. His lean frame boasted an effortless elegance that commanded—no, demanded attention. His golden locks cascaded in perfectly styled waves, contrasting with his fair complexion and an intelligent, chiseled face. He wore a tailored suit of white; the suit jacket was left unbuttoned, revealing a crisp white dress shirt, unbuttoned to reveal a golden chain glimmering against a hairless chest. His trousers were impeccably tailored, tapering down to polished, white shoes. Diamond cufflinks twinkled as he rubbed his hands together.
They looked around at the ruins of the temple; blackened remnants of pillars lay scattered between a cobweb of yellow DO-NOT-PASS tape, and the rubble was crushed to sheer dust under the weight of Ares' feet as he strode through the scene, kicking pillars over as though to check under them.
"Father's going to have a fit," Apollo observed morosely, thinking about the last time Zeus lost his cool.
"That he will," Ares agreed. "He was pissed enough when he thought it was just tampered with; the moment we report that the place is blown to fuck, he'll tear us a new one. It'll be a whole fuckin' mess."
"It'll be war," Apollo said, carefully stepping over the rubble.
"Yup," Ares grunt, before smirking. "Funny how everyone always assumes that I'm the only one associated with war," he said bitterly, staring at nothing in particular as Apollo snorted dryly at him.
"Ah, brother, you should be used to it by now. People…gods and humans, they tend to forget the sum of us. You're not just war; you're rage! You're aggression, violence," Apollo announced, before smiling slyly "…Just to name a few. But then again, they've forgotten that I do more than drive the sun around. Did I not bring the plague and the medicines to cure it? Did I not unfurl prophecies from the skies?" grimaced Apollo as he rolled his eyes.
Ares tapped his fingers on the arm upon where they were crossed. "Something is coming, and I don't just mean father's inevitable tantrum or mother's panic attack because of him." He narrowed his eyes dangerously and darkly while tilting his head to the side. "We need to be prepared. Whoever did this, did this to show us that they do not fear father…the most ruthless and powerful of the Gods. Don't know about you, but that's fuckin' worrying."
Apollo sighed dramatically, before looking around like a man eager to leave. "Right. Now, when do we exit this Olympus-forsaken dreg? I haven't seen this much sand and ruins since that one time they started worshiping me in Egypt."
Ares sighed; his brother often had the attention span of a small child, or a distracted diva. Nodding curtly that they should leave, he rolled his eyes at Apollo's jubilant sigh of relief. Withdrawing a set of keys from his coat pocket, the sun-god beeped them; almost instantly, in a blinding flash that briefly turned the night into day, the sun chariot appeared. As they approached the chariot, Apollo reached out his hand, his palm glowing with golden light. The chariot responded to his touch, its metallic body humming with power and life. Its surface, a shimmering fusion of bronze and titanium, glowed even in the night, as though reflecting the sun.
With a flourish, Apollo opened the gull-wing doors, revealing an opulent interior that would have left anyone but Ares awestruck. The seats were adorned with intricate patterns of intertwined constellations, and the steering wheel, fashioned from a celestial alloy, emitted a soft pulsating glow, reflecting the god's fiery passion. Apollo gracefully leapt into the driver's seat, his fingers gripping the steering wheel. The sun-chariot hummed to life, a surge of celestial energy coursing through its core. Golden horses appeared at the head of the chariot, formed from pure solar radiance, their fiery eyes gleaming. Then, with a burst of light and energy, the sun-chariot shot forward, leaving behind a trail of stardust in its wake.
For a moment, the brothers reveled in the breathtaking beauty of the cosmos, Apollo's loud laughter echoing through the heavens. As they shot past an ancient graveyard of constellations, one in particular regarded them with baleful eyes.
"More gods, cruel gods," the shimmering stars hissed, before turning to the earth. The star-being's glowing eyes widened as she saw the ruins of the temple, pulsating with untamed power. "Power—forgotten god-power!"
With hunger etched upon her celestial, once-beautiful countenance, the being shot earthwards; the shape of a gaunt woman materialized as she moved.
Her name was Cassiopeia. Once a proud queen of unrivaled elegance, she had been long-ago transformed into a star-scavenger sentenced to wander the heavens. Long punished by the jealous gods, she had learned to hate them; with a tenacious resolve, she now plummeted through the atmosphere, her starry form burning with desire. Her descent was neither graceful nor gentle; her tattered robes fluttered around her, and she wore a crown of starry thorns.
As she had landed amidst the ruins, her presence cast a slight glow upon the ruins of the fallen temple. Cassiopeia stalked through the destroyed temple grounds now, careful lest a stray human notice her. Most of the mortals did not notice what they did not believe in—but then again, she knew there were those that could pierce the veil and see what is not human. She narrowed her starry eyes, staring at the spot she could sense the power coming from.
Appearing in the center, she craned her head and looked all around herself before zeroing her eyes onto the ground before her. With spectral fingers, she reached into the rubble; her touch shimmering with radiance. Perhaps even the gods could not see so keenly as her, for unlike the sons of Zeus, she could feel the sky-god's power dormant here. With shaking fingers, she drew a single thread of electricity from the earth like a strand of honey. She laughed, high and true.
But then, hearing something, she straightened fast, whirling around. A glowing dagger appeared with a flick of her wrist, but before she could twist all the way, a gasp tore from her. Cruel, cold agony spread like wildfire through her entire body as she was impaled. Her eyes widened with horror as she stared into familiar eyes, ancient and ageless.
"You," she hissed as blood like hot plasma sputtered from her lips. He had been the one sent by Olympus to chain her, so long ago.
Brows knitted. "Do I know you?"
A hateful screech tore from Cassiopeia as she tried to swing her dagger at him. But another hand grabbed her knife-wrist, twisting it till the dagger disappeared. Another figure stood at her side, this one a female.
"Don't talk to her," warned the woman, her voice dispassionate.
"Now I remember you," said the man, the depths of his eyes looking at her appraisingly. "Cassiopeia the Proud, mother to Andromeda. You must hate us for what we did."
She snarled, her painful form glowing with eerie light.
"Hush. I will tell you a secret: soon, Olympus will fall," said the man, and Cassiopeia's eyes widened. "I thought you might appreciate that."
"Why are you telling her this?" the woman hissed.
"Because she is dead already," the man said indifferently, twisting the knife embedded in the star-scavenger. She screamed, and her scream was lost in the whistling wind; her skin cracked with light, and she burst into bright flame. In an instant, Cassiopeia was gone; above, a constellation faded in the night sky.
The man looked around at the ruins, shaking wisps of stardust from his bronze dagger.
"I see the mortals are treating this like an act of vandalism," he laughed humorlessly. "As always, they are idiots. They see nothing—but now a new dawn approaches. They will learn to see. They will learn to obey."
The cloaked woman stepped beside him with an impassive look on her face. "Waxing dramatically does not suit you," she said. A mild sneer contorted her beautiful, if severe, features. "The star-thing has already done half our work for us—now do your part," she demanded.
He shot her a withering look, before crouching down. He hovered his hand over the cracked earth as a symbol appeared—the symbol of his power. She could not help but smile thinly as she saw white, crackling energy drawn from the ground and into his hand. Lips twitched; even without the star-scavenger's knack, she could feel that it was indeed Zeus's power.
"I remember it like it was yesterday," the man smiled darkly as the bright light bleached his pockmarked skin. "He fought here eons ago—back when the giants awoke, when the mountains cursed his name. So he did what he always does: he flattened the earth and burned the forests. So much power did he waste in his pride, that it was imbued into the very earth."
"He does like to be showy," the woman smirked.
"Instead of removing this reservoir of his power, the fool had a temple created here in his supposed honor. He was always too arrogant, especially after the defeat of the Titans…after the fall of Kronos. It is this very arrogance that will lead to his downfall," said the male with a hungry smile as he stood back up, eyeing his companion. Doubt flickered in her eyes.
"If we fail, we are dead," she said, a touch of fear tinging her matter-of-fact voice. "You know there is no going back once we do this?"
The man sneered at her cowardice, but he knew her fear was not entirely unfounded. If the others found out what they were going to do…they would be killed, without hesitation.
"Do not tell me what I already know," he snapped. "So they will have no mercy if we're caught. Fine. Let's not get caught, then, shall we? Is that a good start?" he said scornfully.
She glared at him, resisting the urge to draw her blade and gut the bastard. She'd been waiting to do just that for thousands of years now, ever since the bastard had tainted her most favored handmaiden. But she was uncertain whether she'd win against the bastard—he was older than her, far older, and even he did not know what lay in the depths of his heart. She knew she must walk on eggshells around him—at least until the opportunity presented itself.
Finally looking away, she inclined her head before turning on her heel to disappear from his sight. For his part, she was the last ally the man had ever expected in his undertaking—but a useful one. With her gone, he took one last look at the temple's rubble, smiling in contentment as he melted away into the night air.