Chapter 83 - Fallout II

  “How dare y—“ Zeus began, his voice sounding a lot more nasal after my fist had broken his nose, but before he could finish the sentence Hestia's hand struck his cheek, the sound echoing around the tholos.

  Damn, I thought. The acoustics in this pce are amazing.

  This time he didn't even get a word out before Hermes kicked him in the balls, causing him to let out a loud squeal, though even that didn't calm his boner down. Gods above.

  He stood there doubled over for a good long while, his breathing controlled and heavy from the pain. When his balls were no longer killing him he righted himself and came face to face with Hera, whose expression could have melted forged iron.

  “Honey, surely you'll save me from those sav—“

  She buried her fist in his stomach, causing him to throw up all over her shoulder.

  “What did I do to deserve this?” he whimpered. “I'm as much a victim here as all of you!”

  “You opened a portal for her!” Athena screamed in outrage. “You almost doomed this world! And for what?”

  “She threatened to—“ he began but Hera cut him off:

  “She didn't even have to threaten you. All she had to do was stroke your prick a little.”

  “To be fair, it was a really exceptional handj—“

  CRUNCH. Hermes' fist smmed into his face, fttening his nose even further.

  “If I had resisted she would have tortured someone to get me to comply!” he defended.

  “No, of course, dear husband, that makes it better,” Hera said, her words dripping sarcasm before it shifted into a growl: “I would say you almost doomed the world for some third-rate hussy's cunt but she didn't even have to offer you that.”

  “Can we skip the theater?” Odysseus asked, causing everyone present to turn around and look at him. “Oh please. No matter how upset you are, none of you are willing to depose Zeus for this, even though that's what he deserves for this betrayal.”

  Hera began to argue but Odysseus simply talked over her:

  “You won't throw away your position as queen of the gods for this, either. And if you were willing to toss him aside you would have found yourself a faithful husband centuries ago. So can we just get to the part where you come up with a punishment for him that's just bad enough that it seems like he isn't getting away with it but not bad enough that he feels the need to punish you once this blows over?” I kept nodding my head at everything he was saying. This was exactly how it was going to go.

  “We could lock him up in chastity,” Hera suggested, her expression smug.

  “You wouldn't,” Zeus whispered, his bronzed skin paling to an unrealistic degree.

  “Why wouldn't I?” she asked. “Because I wouldn't get to have you? You only touch me on sufferance anyway.”

  Zeus' lips thinned, clearly realizing only now just how much he'd fucked up. And then his eyes flicked to me. “You're a mercenary. I hire you to protect me from them. Call it a mythic quest. You can have whatever boon you wish for.”

  “Not happening,” I said. “Athena hasn't even paid us for the mythic quest of saving your asses yet.”

  He opened his mouth to argue again but before anything could come out Hera gave Odysseus and Albrecht a nod and the two of them grabbed Zeus and dragged him off, presumably to get his dick locked up. “No! No! Noooooooo!”

  “A fate worse than a thousand deaths, for him,” Hestia said.

  “Well deserved,” Hermes said.

  “Where will they even get a chastity belt for him?” I asked, then immediately regretted the question when I saw Hermes' grin.

  “He keeps a bunch around to put on the young bucks he pounds,” he said. “Gets them more used to cumming with their asses when they can't py with their dicks.”

  Under different circumstances I might have found that idea hot but I knew that Zeus' taste in men focused on youths of... questionable age.

  “Be that as it may,” Hestia said, clearly trying to change the topic, “you should start thinking about what you'll demand of Zeus once he's no longer... indisposed.”

  “Athena is already paying us,” I said with a frown, then wondered why I was arguing against getting paid twice.

  “For coming here and bailing us out, sure,” Hestia said. “But there's more, isn't there?”

  I frowned at her.

  “Mythic quests are rare, even to beings with memories as long as ours,” Hestia said. “Adventurers who survive mythic quests are even rarer and yet you and your women not only succeeded, you all survived. This is... well, not unique, as Albrecht can attest, but exceedingly rare. Under any other circumstances you would all be hailed as Great Heroes for this but...” She let her sentence trailed off and I finished for her:

  “But you can't allow news of what happened here to spread.”

  She nodded. “It would throw into question the strength of not just the Olympians but of all the gods. And so Zeus will be forced to negotiate for your silence. So think up something big, something outrageous that only the King of the Gods could grant, because chances are you'll never have another chance like this.”

  And as she said that she nodded over to an ornate vase containing... Gods above. Zeus' lightning bolts. The mythic items the King of the Gods used to obliterate whatever drew his ire, thrown spears that, on impact, created craters rge enough to be given names on maps. Even just one of them, used judiciously, could turn the tide of a war. And I could ask for a full set of them if I wanted to. I could also demand Prometheus' freedom if I wanted to. I could even... no. I couldn't ask for that, could I?

  I shook myself out of it. It wouldn't do to lose myself to those thoughts right now. “I'll...” I shook my head and corrected myself: “We'll think about it.” It wouldn't do for me to make a decision like that on my own.

  Hestia's expression turned from solemn to satisfied once I corrected myself and she gave me a nod.

  **

  “Should we start looking at magical items for your reward?” Athena asked once Hestia and Hermes had left to tell the other gods of what exactly had happened with Zeus. As they walked away I swore I'd heard Hestia mutter “Have fun, lovebirds”, though considering the fact that Athena wasn't a blushing mess I must have misheard.

  “There's something more important,” I said and I could already see Athena's breathing begin to quicken. “Not like that, pervert goddess.”

  She pouted.

  “Later,” I promised her and she perked up again, then blushed. “No, it's about the threads of fate.”

  “So it's true?” she asked. “You can see them? Since when?”

  And so I expined. “When Syr said the Bck Goat's name, it beheld me, saw through me. And right after that another entity beheld me. After that I could suddenly see them. At first I thought it might have been your doing.”

  She shook her head. “No, I can't see the threads of fate and I certainly can't give that ability to anyone else. Seeing the future in action is the limit of my powers.”

  “But if it wasn't you, then...”

  “It might have been the Fates,” she said. “Although I've never heard of them getting involved so directly.”

  “Have you ever heard of the seat of a pantheon getting overrun by an Outer God and her army?” I countered, hoping she'd answer in the negative.

  To my immense relief she shook her head. “No, this was unprecedented, even in my long life. But if they gave you this ability, then why let you see them but not touch them?”

  I quoted one of the most common proverbs of the Olympian faith at her: “'The Fates never give us what we want, only what we need.'”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “It saved the day but it won't be enough next time,” I said.

  Athena nodded. “What will we do in two years?”

  So I told her about the red tendril connecting Syr's body to Shub-Niggurath and finished with: “If we want to win, I need to be able to cut that thread.”

  “I'll talk to the Fates,” she said. “See if they are willing to teach you. If they were willing to go this far maybe they'll be willing to help a little more.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Although it does make me wonder exactly how she will return in two years,” Athena mused. “I doubt father will open that gate without her making him do it.”

  “If every pantheon has a portal like this it should be easy for her minions to find another one,” I said. “Ares and Bres are still out there and, I suspect, so is Wilhelm.”

  She nodded. “And that is assuming she doesn't have other agents that weren't present here.”

  “And even if we stop every one of her followers, Syr will never be free until we defeat her.”

  “Are you suggesting that you would open a portal yourself if need be?”

  “If the alternative is letting an Outer God rampage across another world?” I asked, then looked at her pained expression. “Or is it 'better them than us'?”

  “I wouldn't phrase it that way,” she hedged, “but maybe the world she escaped to has more accessible ways of banishing her.”

  I thought about it. “Even then, Syr's body would still be lost in another world.”

  She opened her mouth to argue but then seemed to defte. “I used to pride myself on putting the needs of the many ahead of the needs of the few but... it's a lot harder when you know the few who would suffer.”

  I surprised her by hugging her. “That's what it feels like to be a mortal.”

  “I'm not supposed to think like a mortal,” she muttered into my chest.

  “Tough,” I said, stroking her hair.

  “Asshole.”