I Am Zeus

Blood trickled from his split lip as the doorway changed.

The whiteness that had been fixed like a pillar since the seal failed began to thicken. It didn’t rise from below, but pushed itself outwards, as though whatever waited on the other side decided the opening was sufficient. The pressure in the chamber doubled in the space of a breath. The dust of the room curled from the floor even without air currents, the walls fracturing with sharp reports.

All the remaining gods felt it at the same time.

Hades reeled back, his green light flaring uselessly against the force, while Persephone grabbed his arm, her dark eyes fixed on the shifting light. Poseidon, wiping blood from his lip, planted his trident into the floor to keep from being driven backwards. Athena’s knuckles were white around her spear, and the golden glow that had surrounded Sun Wukong’s earlier grin was absent, her usual confidence leeched away. Even Kratos took a step back, his chains clinking as though they too were wary. The Father of All turned towards the doorway, his voice like the sigh of a man who has held his breath for too long.

"Finally."

Zeus forced himself upright as lightning lazily answered his call. The others were not faring any better. They had done their best to halt the Father, and in the end, only slowed him. Now the greater danger became obvious, as whatever waited beyond the threshold ceased its pressing.

"Split the force," Zeus growled. "Half to him, half to the door. If that thing finishes crossing, none of this will matter."

No one argued. Poseidon, Hades, Persephone, and Kratos turned their efforts to the task of halting the Father while Zeus, Athena, Odin, Sun Wukong, and Hermes focused on the light.

Two gods clashed in the middle of the chamber, the sound of their weapons ringing out.

The Father easily shrugged off Poseidon’s trident, a shallow cut the only sign he’d been struck. Hades drove a spear of death and spring into his ribs, only for the Father to grasp the weapon, crush it, then send him skidding across the stone with a backhand. Persephone’s roots curled around the intruder’s legs, only to wither and die on contact. Kratos came in low and silent, twin blades opening the Father’s thigh up to the bone. He regarded the wound with something akin to mild curiosity before driving his palm into Kratos’s sternum and sending him flying into the far wall.

"You still do not see the difference in scale," the Father said, voice easily rising over the din of battle. "I am not the force that will cross that threshold. I am only the one who remembered how to open it."

Meanwhile, Zeus and the others reached the edge of the light where it spilled into the chamber.

It was blinding, but the source was not fire or any other element. Athena drove her spear into it, and found her weapon unraveling from the tip backwards, ancient concepts of warfare peeling away like parchment, until she pulled it free with a curse. Odin planted Gungnir into the base of the doorway, and the others found the old god’s presence in the light the longest before the runes along the shaft began to smolder, forcing him to withdraw. Sun Wukong spun his staff in a blur, the weapon striking the light again and again, sending shockwaves rolling through the chamber, but each time cracks of force rippling outwards were the only damage the beam suffered. Hermes darted around the edges of visibility, hunting for an opening that did not exist.

Zeus pressed his palms against the light, feeling his strength ebb as every spark of power he had left scorched across his hands and into the beam. For a time, it grew thinner, the pressure lighter, and he was rewarded with the sensation of something on the other side pressing back against the assault. Then the doorway itself began to push, and he was forced off with blistered, smoking palms.

Behind him, theFather spoke again.

"I built this world to withstand what lived beyond those walls. I built laws and order and a throne. But you chose your freedom over the safety it provided, and so I must remake this place as a true craftsman would any flawed creation."

He caught the next charge from Poseidon, twisting the trident free before driving the weapon’s shaft into the sea god’s gut hard enough to lift him off his feet.

"I will break it."

The doorway pulsed strongly enough that the ceiling of the chamber began to crack.

Something began to emerge from the other side. It was impossible to tell what, as the entity took more forms all at once, but it was massive, its presence alone suffusing the room with weight and a hunger that made the walls tremble. One limb, or perhaps the suggestion of one, wrenched its way through the doorway, and the light around the portal turned sickly. Free souls in the Underworld screamed simultaneously. Above, in the world of mortals, countless things suddenly became aware of the intruder. The pressure in the chamber returned to what it had been when the battle began.

Hades had blood running down his nose from where the force of the presence had knocked him back, Persephone’s green light sputtering fitfully. Athena stumbled, and even the Father paused for a heartbeat, regarding the thing emerging with something like awe.

Zeus wiped at his eyes as he spoke. "All of it. Now."

All the gods who still could fight steeled themselves and threw everything they had left at the thing advancing through the doorway, the power of their attacks blending into a single, chaotic wall of different energies.

The doorway was briefly lit like daylight, the entity recoiling, the limb nearly withdrawn from the chamber. The combined might of the gods had done its work, and for a moment, the doorway seemed to buckle.

Then the Father stood between the entity and the gods, his hands outstretched and catching the weapons of all who would strike at the intruder.

His skin split open, light bleeding from the wounds, but he held his ground, his mouth twisted into something like a smile.

"Not yet," he told the thing waiting to finish what he had started. "I am not finished speaking with my children."

The pressure in the room lightened, just perceptibly.

The limb remained, nearly halfway through the doorway.

The Father turned to face the panting, bloodied gods, his eyes full of something between sorrow and resignation. "Come," he said, spreading his arms to either side, as if asking them to stand with him for what came next.

"Finish this," he said, his voice carrying across the chamber. "Or watch everything you love be unmade by what I called."

Above and beyond the doorway, something huge watched the crack in the wall.

And began to lean into it.

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