Olympus infirmary
This place that in the past was always nearly empty was now always packed with gods and goddesses coming and going.
Injured and recovering patients, visitors, and healers were coming and going every day.
But like in all hospitals, there was a private room for the VIP, and in Olympus, who was more VIP than the sons of the god King, Hermes and his brother.
"What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to heal them? Their injuries are too severe," one of the head healers of Olympus, a powerful goddess of healing, asked her companions, looking at the state of her two patients. Her voice was soft and desperate.
It wasn't just the physical injuries, those, even though it would take a lot of time, could be healed; no, what really caused problems were the internal and spiritual ones.
Hermes seemed to have had burned part of his essence in his last run, they were now sure that he had also been injured by Maeron the moment he rescued his youngest brother from the clutches of Maeron, and everyone knew the fate of that youngest son of Zeus, the poor kid had part of his essence stolen before it was completely formed causing him to become incomplet, even after all this time they didn't know how to fixed that.
"What are we going to do, the king obviously wants his sons completely healed,"
"How are we supposed to do that? It has been months now, and we have completely failed. There is hope for lord Hermes; he is slowly improving, but the other, I have no idea what to do for him, do you?"
Everyone shook their head as nothing came to mind.
After an uncomfortable silence, one of them opened her mouth
"Do you... Do you really think he will kill us if we fail to heal them?"
It was a threat that Zeus had issued when the two gods were brought into anger into their hearts.
"Of course not," one of them said a little cheerfully
"We are the best healers of Olympus, and with the war going on, he needs us. Every day, gods are coming back injured after fighting the monster hordes; he cannot just kill us; he needs us."
"Yes yes it's true, he needs us, the situation is already dire as it is, they need us if they want to have a chance to win,"
The hopeful words spoken by one of those goddesses were like a lifeline for all of them, all of them clung to that hope that Zeus' threat was only that, just a threat.
As their spirits were being uplifted, the powerful sound of thunder, followed by a piercing shriek coming from Zeus' throne room, reached their ears and souls.
"What-what was that?"
"Was someone killed?"
The goddesses pondered in fear, but they didn't have to wait for long.
Minutes later, the doors of the room were pushed open, and an injured goddess was brought in by two throne guards.
As their name suggests, the throne guards were gods tasked with protecting Zeus' divine throne.
There are ten of them all of them elites fiercely loyal to their king.
The woman's face was burned, skin charred black, barely alive, barely recognizable, but.
"A-ADILAAA~"
The raw, pained scream of one of the goddesses broke the silence in the room as she recognized her colleague, friend, and sister.
As they took their broken sister from the hands of the guards the silent guards opened their mouths in unison.
"This is a warning. Your last warning. Don't you ever forget your place again."
The nineteen goddesses froze and sweat poured down their faces as they realized what had happened.
'He heard us!'
'He is spying on us, every word,'
"I want an update every week, and if there is no improvement..."
Without finishing the sentence the two throne guards turned around and walked out, leaving the trembling goddesses with this lingering threat.
They knew those were Zeus' words.
Thunderous clouds, indications of Zeus' foul mouse, cast a dark shade on Zeus' palace and more than half of Olympus.
Seated on his throne he said
"Now they know what will happen if they fail me... my son's you will recover,"
His voice was soft, yet for the few still present, it was loud and filled with pain.
In her palace, where the sun shone brightly, Hera, seated on her throne, was looking at all that development with great interest.
An idea slowly took shape in her beautiful head.
"I can use that,"
***
Aphrodite's temple
"Hahaha ..."
The melodious laughter of beautiful goddesses, nymphs, and gods could be seen having a good time despite the dark state of the world.
Aphrodite's temple, which until now had been a place of debauchery, had, due to the oppressive state of Olympus, become a place of relaxation where everyone could unwind.
Of course, for those looking for excess and debauchery, it was only one door away.
And yet in that place where gods gather, the one that many consider their mortal enemy, Maeron was present.
click
Aphrodite opened the door leading toward her personal sanctuary.
"Hello love!!"
Aphrodite shouted, running at full speed.
The servants slowly backed away in time as they saw their mistress lunging at the sleeping Maeron.
Bang
The recliner chatterer, a cloud of dust was created as the poor Maeron was shot awake from his sleep.
"Damnit, are you trying to kill me?" Maeron reproached, spitting out sand.
"Nah, just wake you up," she giggled melodiously "You finally came to my temple again and instead of coming to see me you, your lazy ass is sleeping, you could have at least sent a clone,"
Aphrodite complained and with a mischievous laugh, she pinched his ass.
"Haha, sorry love, but I can no longer show myself as easily as before, my dear father has become quite controlling and paranoid, he often uses his divine sense to monitor everything in his territory and outside. I need to be careful if I don't want to be caught."
While talking they moved toward two recliners that had already been installed by the goddesses present.
As they lay there talking the goddesses started to feed them grapes and give them massages.
"Is it really that bad that he could actually find you?" She appeared taken aback by that.
"That is nothing surprising about that. I mean, I opened portals in Olympus at the start of the invasion, in case you forgot."
"Ah... Yes,"
She tapped her temple in realization, the portals that Maeron had opened that day were opened from the inside, of course, they realized that there might be traitors in Olympus, or that Maeron himself had infiltrated the place.
"So what do we do now?" She asked curiously wondering if he had something planned
"We, we do nothing. We have already done what needed to be done, we just have to wait for things to start falling into place."
"Ah!"
Seeing her confused expression he decided to explain.
"The moment he met me and learn my identity he was bound to suspect someone of betrayal, someone who could have known that I was still alive and chose to keep it quiet to protect me,"
"And who might that be, you told me very clearly that no one knew that you were alive. Zeus himself didn't know that you live in..."
Seeing her silent and awestruck he knew that she understood
"Athena!"
"You are Athena's brother from the same mother, you both grew up inside him, of course, in his paranoia, he will suspect that she knew of your existence. Tell me, did she actually know of you?"
She asked, looking him in the eyes, and Maeron smiled at that. Indeed, everyone who realized the circumstances of their birth and their mother's death would unconsciously look at Athena with suspicion, no matter how loyal she had been.
In fact, it had already started from their father to the gods of Olympus to the mothers of Hermes, and the others, they looked at her with quite suspicion.
"Nope, never knew I existed. Doesn't matter though, it's how suspicion works, no need for evidence."
Another thing that she forgot is that when they went to free Typhoon with her and Hera he had changed their divine presence to make it close to that of Maia and Leto.
After sowing all those seeds of doubt, he was now lying around watching Zeus lose his mind.
"I feel sad for her."
Seeing her expression drop he flicked her nose.
"Hey,"
"Don't be, Athena is a big girl, she has probably already started investigating everything and everyone, including you, looking for the spy."
"You don't seem worried!"
"Why would I be, everything is under control."
Akashi had a smile plastered on his face as he said that, and indeed he was right to be, Zeus had become paranoiac and no longer trusted his allies, lost the support of the majority of the gods of Olympus, and rule the others we fear, on earth he had lost most of his realm and his brothers and sisters blamed him for the invasion and liberation of Typhoon as they tried to maintain control of their own realms.
At the same time, through Hera and Aphrodite Maeron controlled the other half of Olympus, multiple territories on earth, and half of Tartarus, he had everything going for him
"Don't get too cocky and lose everything,"
Aphrodite warned giving very good advice
Maeron's cocky grin slowly disappeared as he answered seriously
"I understand,"
He had to be serious after all her life was in his hands.