I Am Zeus

Stone rained down from the ceiling, each slab disappearing before it could hit the floor.

The second mass from beyond forced its way halfway through the doorway, dragging the cold that devoured sound and color with it. Each breath tasted of iron and endings, and Zeus could feel the pressure trying to squeeze his lungs flat. Even as the lightning sputtered from his ruined arm, weak and useless, he pushed himself forward.

They were losing.

Not by degrees, not by inches. The math was simple, and every heartbeat the thing on the other side of the door pushed forward, and every heartbeat they spent trading blows with the Father was a heartbeat they could not afford to waste.

Athena’s voice rang out, sharp through the din. "The door is the only thing that matters! If it finishes crossing-"

"I know!" Zeus’s own voice was a broken snarl as he turned to glare at his warriors. Green light bloomed from Hades’s wounds, and Persephone kept him upright. Poseidon’s arm was wrong, and Kratos bore old battle scars, and Sun Wukong’s staff was cracked, and Odin’s eye was fixed on the fight. All of them were still here. Barely.

Zeus made his decision.

"All of you. With Athena and Hermes. Now. Hold the doorway. Push it back. Do not stop, for anything."

Poseidon turned his head sharply at that. "And him?" His eyes were fixed on the Father, who watched them all with open interest, green light still bleeding from the places Zeus and his allies had opened in him. "You think you can take him on alone?"

Zeus smirked, something like a smile flickering across his face. "I took three of him when they still wore the same skin. What’s one more?"

He did not wait for an answer.

While the others prepared to hold the line, while Athena shouted orders and Hermes darted to either end of the light spilling from the doorway, while Hades and Persephone poured their strength into the fight and Poseidon, the others, and Kratos formed a line of their own to meet the oncoming mass from beyond- Zeus turned to face the Father and reached into the depths of himself.

The seal was not metal, not magic. It was will. After the Trinity fell, after the Father, Son, and Spirit had been broken, Zeus had buried the chaos that bled from their destruction in the deepest layers of himself. It had been too wild, too close to the thing he had just killed to be safe. He had sworn never to touch it again.

He touched it now.

The seal broke.

Chaos poured out, black and writhing, and devoured the channels of Zeus’s power. It did not twist and dance like his lightning, but was something raw and unfinished, something that had been there before anything else. His back arched, and blood speckled the floor, and the green-black light from Hades’s wounds flared in recognition before dying away.

When Zeus opened his eyes, they were no longer only the color of the storm.

The Father’s expression changed as he took in the shift in Zeus’s eyes. Something like interest sharpened his features. "Ah. There it is. I wondered when you would stop pretending to be only the sky."

Zeus did not answer.

Instead, he crossed the distance between them in a single step, and the floor cracked where he landed. He drove a fist of roaring chaos into the Father’s chest, and this time, it was not the Father’s power that met his attack. It was something else, something far less structured, and the impact sent the older god skidding backward, off-balance. Light and dark sprayed outward in equal measure from the impact.

The Father pushed himself to his feet, slower this time.

Zeus wasted no time. He met the Father’s charge in the center of the ruined chamber, and the two powers clashed. Ordered power met raw potential, and the sheer force of it sent shockwaves outward. A single column in the room vanished, and a length of the floor turned to dust. The Father’s fist snapped toward Zeus’s temple, but chaos stitched the wound shut before the pain could follow. Zeus answered with a brutal double-blow to the ribs, and the Father’s arm bent at an unnatural angle.

Behind them, the others fought their own battle.

Athena and Hermes led the effort at the doorway, their combined power fueling the effort to hold the light at bay. Poseidon, Hades, Persephone, Odin, Sun Wukong, and Kratos formed a wall at the other end, their own power pushing back against the mass from beyond. The thing on the other side of the door pushed harder, and a second shape forced its way through the crack. The cold was so intense that frost bloomed across the skin of the gods before vanishing.

Zeus paid it no mind.

His entire focus was on the Father, on the maelstrom of potential that fought against his own power. He shaped it with his will, forced it into his fists, his arms, his ruined shoulders, and made it into something that could hurt the Father. The other man met each blow with his own power, twisting the chaos into something else, something more ordered.

Zeus and the Father pushed at each other, their power carving away at the very fabric of the room. A moment stretched into a dozen heartbeats before Zeus saw an opening. He took it, letting the Father’s power drive into his own chest, and drove a chaos-wreathed elbow into the older god’s jaw. The Father’s head snapped back, and Zeus took advantage of his opening, driving the man toward the doorway. He forced blow after blow into the Father’s ribs, each one threatening to end the fight.

The Father’s body began to unravel, his borrowed power slipping away.

Blood, or something like it, ran freely down his chest now, and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. He met Zeus’s eyes across the distance between them. "You cannot hold that force. It will consume you as surely as it consumes me."

Zeus let out a furious growl and took another step forward.

Behind him, Athena’s voice rang out, and the combined effort at the doorway flared. The mass from beyond recoiled, and the doorway narrowed. The light from beyond the door had slowed, and for the first time since the seal broke, the Father’s forces were no longer gaining ground.

The Father’s gaze snapped to Zeus, and something like finality entered his expression. "Then we end this the other way."

The Father opened himself to the doorway, and the power beyond surged into his body. It was not controlled, not directed, but it filled him all the same. His wounds vanished, and his presence grew, and the chaos that had been wreathing Zeus’s fists hissed and shriveled.

Zeus understood what the Father was doing.

He had stopped trying to win the fight, to push Zeus back. Now, he had chosen to become something else, a conduit for the power beyond the door. The Father’s presence grew impossibly strong, and the power beyond the door surged in response.

Outside the chamber, the doorway widened, and the third mass from beyond forced its way through. Somewhere, in the mass of gods holding the line, someone cried out in horror.

Zeus lowered his stance, the chaos still writhing at his fingertips, and met the Father’s eyes. Neither of them looked away as the two forces, one trying to end all things, and the other trying to open the way to them, prepared to collide.

The chamber continued to fall around them as the two power sources prepared to meet.

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