I Am Zeus

Zeus went first.

A torrent of the substance that had been chained and bound within him erupted from the god’s body in a great, surging wave of black-gold. It coiled around his arms, his chest, his shoulders like living metal and responded to every thought in the god’s mind with an equal part of unbridled destruction. He crossed the room in a single bound and drove his fist into the Father’s center mass, driving the old god backward by sheer force of will and momentum. Light and ancient stone exploded outward from the blow in a flash of energy.

The Father hit the ground on his backside and rolled, already drawing upon the energies flowing from the now-open gate to push himself to his knees and then to his feet, his body wreathed with a heavy radiance of condensed power. He caught the next punch thrown by Zeus, his arms coming up to meet the oncoming strike, and the force of impact sent rippling shockwaves across the chamber like a split continent.

They did not break.

Power bled from Zeus’s fingertips in wild flashes, each one catching the Father’s body in a storm of sheer potential. The Father, for his part, was no less impressive in the art of combat, his hands shaping barriers of pure law that fractured mere inches from the god’s face before vanishing entirely. With each strike and parry, the two combatants carved great chunks of the ruined battlefield from existence. The walls of the structure vanished, leaving open the prospect of endless space beyond. The stone floor became something fit to float among the stars.

Zeus pressed forward with renewed vigor.

He caught hold of the Father’s wrist and twisted, driving his knee into the older god’s ribs with enough force to send him skidding across the floor. Following up immediately, he drove an elbow across the Father’s jaw and sent him flying through the remains of the structure. Zeus himself was right behind him, his fists chopping down in rapid succession to press the Father back toward the gate and the great well of radiance spilling from it.

"You opened the door," Zeus rumbled, the sound of his voice like thunder itself. "I’ll see you buried beneath it."

The Father’s eyes flared open in response, and he planted his feet firmly against the floor. From his body, light poured out in a great blast of raw, focused power that should have devoured everything in its path. Instead, the chaos that had taken root inside Zeus devoured it, swallowing the attack whole before forcing the Father to stagger backward by several long strides.

Far above the combatants, the other gods were locked in their own struggle. Athena and Hermes were the vanguard, throwing everything they could at the edges of the seething light that bled from the tear in reality, while Poseidon braced himself against the oncoming tide, his trident raised and great torrents of water twisting to bind the approaching figures. Hades and Persephone were right behind him, their powers interlocked in a macabre waltz that wove ghostly chains and blooming vines together to slow the Father’s progress. Odin, Sun Wukong, and Kratos made up the rearguard, their own displays of power cutting in to slice through the Father’s tendrils of energy and force.

The pressure was relentless, unrelenting, and yet they kept coming. The air itself seemed to tremble under the strain, but the collective effort of the gods held firm. The next mass of power was coming alongside the first, and the cold that rolled out with it nearly froze the combatants where they stood. Athena growled in frustration and drove her spear into the heart of the light, while Hermes flickered in and out of sight, his attacks carving away at the edges only he could see. Poseidon roared in turn, shaping yet another wall of water to keep the Father from rushing through the opening.

They did not break.

Zeus and the Father collided once more in the center of the room.

This time, however, the god who had once ruled the heavens did not waste time on single blows.

He opened both hands and fired a steady stream of raw chaos into the Father’s body, driving him backward toward the waiting light of the gateway. The older god’s body began to fray at the edges, and his carefully shaped radiance unraveled to reveal the mass of ordered power beneath it. The Father pushed back against this display of strength and will, his own power hammering into Zeus’s chest in a forceful attempt to overwrite the chaos with something purer, something heavier. Both combatants screamed as their energies clashed and warred.

Finally, Zeus drew closer, his hands wreathed in the maelstrom of his power, and growled out a single phrase.

"You should have stayed dead."

He drove his forehead into the Father’s face and followed up with a rising knee to the jaw, lifting the older god clean off the ground. In the same motion, Zeus caught hold of the Father’s throat and drove him face-first into the floor, leaving a fresh crater in the battlefield in his wake. The Father’s body bounced once before coming to a stop on the ground, the light of the gate spilling from several wounds in his body.

The Father rolled onto his side and came up onto his knees, his breathing uneven. Strange fractures ran up and down his arms, vanishing and reappearing every few seconds before disappearing altogether. "You still do not see it," he rasped, his mouth bleeding freely. "I am not the ending. I am only the key that turned."

He drove both hands into the floor, planting them against the churning mass of power that was the gateway.

Power surged through his frame in a single, mighty pulse, and the wounds across his body vanished in an instant. His presence stretched and bloomed until the battlefield itself seemed to recoil from the sheer force of his will. Rising to his feet, the Father pushed himself up to his full height and met Zeus’s oncoming charge with a renewed sense of purpose.

The two gods became one writhing mass of power.

Chaos and stolen higher order clashed in a fight unrestrained by any battlefield or force other than their own. With each exchange, the ruined chamber trembled and shook, and the few remaining bits of stone were reduced to dust. The light of the gate pulsed and surged with every passing moment in time with the rising power of the Father.

Zeus met him strike for strike.

He took the next blow to his chest, one that split him from collarbone to sternum, and responded by driving both hands into the Father’s midsection, lifting him clean off the ground with a great burst of chaotic power. Zeus drove the god back toward the edge of the chamber and into the light, his body colliding with the beam in a shockwave strong enough to crack the battlefield itself. The Father’s form fractured like brittle porcelain, the edges of his body vanishing into the glow. Still, Zeus pressed on and on, driving his fists into the Father’s torso in a desperate attempt to grind him beneath the light.

Behind them, Athena’s voice rang out like steel on stone. The combined efforts of the gods pushed against the gate, and for a long moment, the light faltered in its advance. The flow of figures from the other side slowed dramatically until suddenly, the gate convulsed mightily.

A great hand broke through the plane of existence, smashing into the battlefield with a force that sent shockwaves rippling through the chamber. The fingers of the limb, each one as long as an entire temple complex, flexed and bent, opening to reveal the palm of a godlike being. The hand pushed down onto the ground in a slow, deliberate motion, and the very floor cracked beneath its weight. The air around it grew unbearably cold, and the gods felt the bitter chill of it wrap around their bodies.

The Father looked up at the giant hand with something like triumph on his face, while Zeus turned his head to regard the limb that had finally forced itself into their world. His chaos still danced and burned at his fingertips.

The hand flexed once.

And pulled the rest of the behemoth through.

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