I could hear the waves crashing long before I ever reached Olympus. That wasn't supposed to happen.
The sea was too far below, too distant to reach these altitudes. But still—those echoes of water slamming against invisible shores stirred something deep in my bones. Not just a sound, but a warning.
Neptune was growing bolder.
I didn't land immediately. Instead, I hovered in the thin air above the mountaintop, letting my wings unfurl into the morning mist. Black feathers shimmered with embers of divinity as I held still, my shadow stretching down the slope like a specter. Olympus had changed little in the year since Zeus last called a council. The golden halls still gleamed, the air still smelled like roasted grapes and ambrosia, and the egos still filled the skies thicker than the clouds.
But something had changed. Beneath the polished marble, the cracks were spreading.
I folded my wings and stepped down.
The council chamber greeted me like a throat waiting to swallow. A vast dome carved from sunstone and cloudlight, its ceiling open to the heavens, or what passed for them now. Twelve thrones surrounded the central platform—some empty, some occupied. Mine stood shadowed and obsidian beside Demeter's wildwood seat and Hera's throne of polished agate. I made my way there, nodding once to Hestia, who offered a warm if tired smile. She had been here long before any of us and carried the burden of patience like a crown.
Hera sat poised and cold, as always. The faintest smirk curled her lips, but her fingers drummed against her knee. She wasn't pleased to be here.
Demeter had vines growing along the edges of her throne, the green snaking tendrils curling anxiously. She was listening but already agitated.
And then there was Zeus.
My younger brother sprawled on the central throne like he owned it. Technically, he did—for now. Lightning flickered in his beard and eyes as he lazily tossed a golden apple from hand to hand.
He hadn't even looked at me yet. Typical.
"I see we've finally found time in our King's busy schedule," I said, voice calm but pointed.
Zeus caught the apple mid-toss, his knuckles cracking with barely-contained electricity. "Brother," he greeted, voice booming with feigned warmth. "Always the dramatist. I was waiting until we had everyone."
Zeus leaned forward from his throne, his eyes scanning the chamber slowly—counting.
"Where's Poseidon?"
Silence answered.
Demeter scoffed under her breath. "Really?"
Zeus blinked, then gave a dry chuckle. "Ah. Right. Neptune now, is it?"
I didn't return the humor. "This isn't the time for mockery," I said, stepping to the center of the hall. The floor beneath me was cool, cracked marble—faint scars from a war we thought would be our last. "We need to act. Before whatever's happening spirals into something worse."
Hera folded her arms. "You think it hasn't already?"
"Typhon," she spat the name like venom, "that's all we know. That's all you gave us. A name from your vision and a storm-wrapped shadow wearing our brother's face."
"He didn't look like Poseidon," I replied quietly. "He didn't feel like him either."
Hestia's voice, calm as ever, carried through the room like a warning flame. "There are murmurs in the temples. Storms that don't obey the seasons. Entire fishing villages were swallowed in the night. The sea doesn't rage—it mourns. Or it sickens."
Demeter nodded. "And it spreads. I've lost entire river networks. Nymphs fleeing inland. Dryads dying with no visible wound. It's like something beneath the ocean is unmaking life. And the land is starting to feel it."
Zeus ran a hand through his beard, eyes distant. "All from one creature. One… Typhon. No stories, no myths. Just a name and a trail of ruin."
I almost spoke aloud the question twisting in my mind—Why Neptune? Why now? A Roman name in a Greek world. But I held my tongue. One crisis at a time.
"He's not alone," I said instead. "Whatever Typhon is, he didn't just take Poseidon. He repurposed him. What I saw wasn't madness. It was designed. Controlled fury. As if he'd been reshaped into a weapon and programmed to forget who he was."
Zeus narrowed his eyes. "You saw all that in a vision?"
I hesitated. Not because I doubted myself—but because I still couldn't explain what I had felt at that moment. Cold. Heavy. Hollow. Like looking into the abyss and seeing something familiar blink back.
"When I found him," I said, "he didn't speak. Didn't even flinch. There was no brother in him. Just this… pressure. Like the storm itself had a mind. And it hated me."
Zeus straightened slightly. His fingers tightened on the edge of his throne.
"You're certain?"
"Yes."
He exhaled, and for a heartbeat, thunder trembled in the bones of Olympus.
"I thought Cronus was the last," he muttered. "We tore down the old tyrant. Burned the roots of the Titans. And yet here we are again."
Hera's voice cut sharp. "Then don't wait this time. Act."
Zeus glared at her. "With what information? A name and a ghost story? For all we know, Poseidon wandered too deep into some abyss and cracked. How do we fight a force we don't understand?"
"We start by admitting we don't know anything," I said. "Not about Typhon. Not about where he came from. Not about what he wants. But we do know what happens if we keep standing still. The earth trembles. The oceans boil. Mortals are dying by the thousands. This… this is only the beginning."
The room fell into a hushed stillness, each of us lost in the weight of what wasn't being said.
Poseidon was gone. Neptune had taken his place.
And whatever Typhon was—he wasn't just coming.
He was already here.
"I've had enough," Demeter growled, rising to her feet. "First our brother disappears beneath the tides, and now he resurfaces wielding death and chaos like a trident? That's not Poseidon anymore. That's a weapon. A puppet. And we've allowed this infection to spread for far too long."
Zeus's eyes seemed to crackle like a storm cloud. "Watch your tone, sister."
"Or what?" she snapped. "You'll delay again? Hide behind your clouds while more of us vanish into the sea? You were warned, Zeus. Hades came to you last year—and you did nothing."
He stood slowly, his voice tight. "I was weighing our options."
"You ignored the threat!" I cut in, my tone sharper than any blade. "You dismissed it—like you always do. When things get difficult, you wait for someone else to fix it, hoping it'll go away on its own. But this? This isn't going away. Typhon isn't some lingering Titan problem. He's evolving. He wants more than destruction this time—he wants dominion."
Zeus's jaw clenched. Lightning shimmered in the whites of his eyes. "Careful, Hades."
"Or what?" I took a step forward, the shadows around me stretching, coiling like serpents. "We both know who's stronger."
His aura surged, the air heating, crackling with divine tension. The clouds above turned black with a storm. But I didn't flinch. I stared into his fury, unblinking.
Hera let out a sigh and rubbed her temples. "For the love of Chaos, could you two not turn this into a pissing contest?"
Zeus's laugh was short and bitter as he stood to his full height, storms trailing down his arms. "I've held Olympus together through war, through prophecy, through the fall of our father. I don't need lectures from the corpse-king of the underworld."
My fists clenched. "And yet here we are, standing on the brink again because you refused to act."
A moment passed. Then another. No one moved. The sky growled.
Hestia finally broke the silence, her voice soft but unwavering. "You both need to stop. This isn't about your pride. This is about what Typhon wants. The Father of Monsters doesn't conquer for pleasure. He creates. Breeds. Corrupts. If he's taken Poseidon, it's because he's building something. A new kingdom. A legion. And the ocean is the perfect womb for it."
My breath hitched. Her words made too much sense.
"He's not just trying to kill us," she continued. "He's trying to replace us."
Zeus looked to me then, and for the first time in a long while, I saw it—fear, buried beneath the storm.
And I nodded.
"We're running out of time."
But before I could reply, a new voice rang out across the chamber. Soft, firm, and unmistakably sharp.
"You do need perspective, though."
All eyes turned.
Hecate stood by the northern pillar, draped in black and silver, her presence veiled in twilight. Her golden eyes shone like twin moons, and her staff—midnight obsidian carved with runes—clicked softly as she stepped forward. I hadn't seen her arrive. No one had.
Zeus's nostrils flared. "She's not council."
"She's my advisor," I said evenly. "And a goddess in her own right."
"She wasn't invited."
"Perhaps if you acted sooner," Hecate said, "you'd have more allies and fewer monsters in the deep."
Zeus's eyes narrowed. "Speak again and I'll—"
"You'll what?" I cut in, stepping between them. "Blast her with lightning? Scare her off with wind and fury? You forget who she is. You forget what she's seen."
Hecate gave a small bow of gratitude. "Thank you, my lord."
She turned to the others. "Neptune isn't the only threat, mortals are dying out, live for a whole month and then die."
Demeter frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," I said, "that even the Underworld can't keep up."
A beat passed. Then I continued.
"The dead are arriving too quickly. Too many. Too soon. Reapers can't process them all and Charon is struggling to ferry them all across the Styx. Prometheus needs to fix it, as this version of humans was a major failure."
"Of course," he muttered, rubbing his temples.
Demeter looked sick. "How many have died so far??"
"A little over Ten Thousands," I said. "Maybe more."
Zeus swore loudly. "I'll drag that cursed Titan down from his little tower and—"
"No," I said. "Not yet."
He stopped mid-sentence.
"I'll speak with him," I continued. "Prometheus and I… we share a past. He may listen. I want answers before we decide on fire and fury."
Zeus gritted his teeth. "If he's broken the balance—"
"Then we fix it," Hestia said firmly. "Together."
Hera folded her arms. "You expect us to wait? While souls pile up and the seas rise?"
"Yes," I said. "Because rushing into divine war without understanding the cause is how we all die. Again."
The word lingered in the air. Again.
None of them knew what it meant coming from me. None of them could.
Because none of them remembered what it was like to be human.
They didn't remember hospitals filled with beeping machines, or wildfire smoke choking the sky, or cities drowning in plastic and concrete. They didn't remember how it all ended—how death came not in a flash, but in a slow, dragging tide of hubris and failure.
But I remembered. I always would.
Because once, not so long ago, I was one of them.
🙛🙚🙛🙚🙛🙚⯡🙘🙙🙘🙙🙘🙙
Prometheus' forge was tucked away near the southern cliffs, far from the grand palace where Zeus liked to hold court. I wondered if that was Prometheus' choice, or if Zeus forced him to remain at a distance. My brother had never been fond of Titans, especially one who outsmarted him on a daily basis.
I approached the massive iron door, wreathed in black smoke and the pungent scent of burning oils. Loud hammering echoed from within, metal striking metal in rhythmic fury. I raised my fist and knocked, the sound absorbed by the thick steel. It took another knock before the noise stopped, silence pressing against my ears like a warning.
After a moment, the door creaked open just enough to reveal a single, weary golden eye.
"Oh," Prometheus grunted, opening the door wider. He looked like he hadn't slept in days, his auburn hair tied back with a strip of leather, his muscular arms streaked with clay, soot, and blood – definitely not his. "Hades. Come in."
I stepped inside, ducking under a hanging rack of iron tools. The forge was a vast stone chamber, fires roaring in deep pits along the walls. Worktables lined every surface, each covered in half-shaped humanoid forms made of red and white clay. Some were missing limbs, others had collapsed in on themselves like rotten fruit.
Prometheus wiped his brow with a grimy rag, smearing soot across his temple. His forge lab smelled of wet clay, burned ash, and old sweat. He gestured vaguely to a cracked marble bench piled with scrolls, shattered jars, and what looked disturbingly like a partially formed spine.
"Sorry about the mess," he muttered. "Been…problematic."
"Tell me something I don't know," I said, my gaze drifting to a headless clay figure slumped against a pillar. Its torso was caved in, the skin unfinished and peeling like old bark. "Care to explain why my realm is being flooded with half-finished mortals? The judges are complaining about the influx of unclaimed souls."
Prometheus let out a sigh so heavy it rattled the brass chains hanging from the ceiling. "The clay isn't binding properly with the divine essence," he grumbled, flicking a broken stylus into a jar of stagnant water. "I've tried everything – red river clay from Pishon, white silt from the Nile Delta, powdered adamantine, phoenix ash, obsidian dust…nothing holds the shape. They keep rejecting the spark. They live a week, maybe a month, then collapse into rot and grief."
I folded my arms. "What about that Primordial Clay you wouldn't shut up about last time I visited? Didn't you say it could birth anything from gods to monsters?"
Prometheus blinked at me, hazel eyes bloodshot. "Oh, I've got barrels of that stuff," he said, gesturing to a sealed stone vat in the corner. "But it's too unstable on its own. The Primordial Clay carries fragments of pure divine essence; it needs to be tethered with something – something to anchor the divine spark within organic form. Otherwise, it burns the body out from the inside or unravels it entirely."
I raised an eyebrow. "So what do you need, Prometheus?"
He rubbed his temples, his fingers streaked with clay dust. "Ideally? I need a stabilizing agent. Something that binds divinity to flesh. Last time, when I created Adam, I didn't have this problem because I used pure Primordial Clay mixed with divine blood and the Breath of Life. But ever since Yahweh snatched Adam and Eve from me to 'study' their design, I've refused to replicate that exact model. I want to create something better this time. A race that can endure the gods, rival monsters, build civilizations worthy of Olympus. But to anchor them properly, I need…something from Adam's line. Even a drop of his blood, a lock of hair, anything to tie the species to a stable bloodline."
I blinked at him. "And how exactly will that help you?"
Prometheus snarled under his breath and smashed one of the malformed clay figures with a flick of his wrist, shards scattering across the stone floor. Without pause, he scooped up another lump of damp clay and began kneading it with furious precision.
"You're not understanding the problem," he muttered, his voice rising with manic intensity. "It isn't just about replicating Adam's genetic code. The original human genome was a rudimentary scaffold formed by Primordial Clay interlaced with divine ichor to induce metaphysical catalysis, then activated via exogenic pneuma injection—the Breath of Life. But that framework is inherently flawed for my current objective."
He slammed the clay down onto the anvil, fingers working rapidly as sparks of divine energy flickered between his palms. "To surpass Adam's lineage, I must engineer a hybridized genome incorporating stabilized divine alleles bound through ichoric-lipid encapsulation to prevent molecular rejection, while simultaneously embedding a metaphysical conductivity matrix to sustain the divine spark within organic cellular architecture. But the real challenge—" he snapped his fingers for emphasis "—is integrating chronotemporal resilience factors so their souls don't fracture under prolonged exposure to higher-dimensional energies."
He glanced at me, eyes wild and fever-bright. "In simpler terms, using the encoded metaphysical signatures within Adam's DNA, layered with stratified ichor infusion and specific mineralized substrates—preferably structured adamantine microcrystals laced with liquid aether—will create a race structurally superior to baseline humanity. Stronger. Faster. Spiritually anchored. Capable of withstanding cosmic-level ontological destabilization events."
He sighed, rolling his shoulders as if the explanation were self-evident. "But of course, nobody seems to understand that these things require delicate balancing of quantum metaphysical harmonics within biological matrices. It's infuriating."
I really didn't know what to say, I barely understood anything the guy even said. "So... you need Adam's DNA to make the new race stronger? Don't tell me that you want me to go convince Yahweh to let me get a sample of his DNA?"
Prometheus gave me that wide, innocent Titan grin. "If it's not too much trouble."
I pinched the bridge of my nose again, feeling a migraine bloom behind my eyes. "You owe me for this," I muttered, rising to leave.
He clasped my shoulder with a soot-stained hand. "I'll owe you more than I can repay, Lord Hades."
"Damn right you will," I said, turning to go. I stumbled over a slab of clay and nearly fell face-first into a bucket of oil. "And clean up your damned floor before someone dies. Again."
He chuckled behind me as I stepped out of his forge into the blinding Olympus light, cursing under my breath as the sun struck my eyes like knives. For a moment I considered returning to the Underworld and hiding beneath my desk until someone else dealt with this mess.
But then I remembered: there was no one else.
With a resigned sigh, I reached back, feeling the familiar prickling sensation ripple across my shoulders and spine. I channeled a surge of divinity, letting my wings burst forth in a storm of feathers. Their sheer weight of presence bent the air around me as I stretched them to full span, feeling the strain ease the stiffness from my shoulders.
I rolled my neck, flexed each wing joint, then bent my knees and pushed off the marble courtyard. The world blurred around me as I shot upward, winds tearing at my robes. I angled toward the mortal world, flying high above the clouds until the blue faded into deep purple. Below, the world spread out like a painter's canvas – deserts, mountains, oceans, rivers twisting like silver serpents.
I didn't know how to explain it, but I could sense exactly where the Garden of Eden was. Like a beacon calling out to me through layers of reality. I followed that silent tug southeast across Mesopotamia, towards what would one day become Iraq.
The land below blurred with speed as I angled down, folding my wings tighter around myself. I poured raw divinity into them, reinforcing every feather with strength and resilience. The wind screamed against me as I began to spin, faster and faster, becoming a spear of darkness plummeting from the sky.
The moment before impact, I closed my eyes.
—CRACK—
I shattered through something that wasn't entirely there – a dome of light and energy that rippled and tore as I breached it. My wings flared out instinctively to slow my fall, catching currents of wind that rushed against me. When I opened my eyes, the world around me was… different.
The air smelled richer here, thick with divine essence and blooming life. Warmth seeped into my bones in a way Olympus never managed, soothing and heavy. Below me sprawled a vast garden, glittering under golden sunlight. Trees of every kind lined winding streams, their branches heavy with glowing fruit. Flowers bloomed in impossible colors, their petals pulsing with subtle light. The ground itself radiated life.
I hovered in the sky, stunned.
"So this is the Garden of Eden." I whispered to myself. "Got to say, I am impressed."