Let me tell you something I've discovered: Greek gods are... the opposite of chaste.
Now, I wasn't some blushing virgin in my mortal life, experimented in college, figured myself out in adulthood, really lived—but the way Demeter looks at me? Makes the hairs on my neck prickle. And Hera eyeing Poseidon? Like a starved wolf watching prey. As for Poseidon himself...
Let's just say if he becomes the legend I recall, the Underworld better prepare a VIP cell.
But back to business. My siblings are all gathered now, all except Zeus. Probably off learning tactics from Gaia? My mythology's rusty, but whatever. Point is: soon we face Father.
How do you defeat a Titan who manipulates time?
Turns out it might be simple. See, though my brothers and sisters have divine domains, they fight like mortals—just sprinkling god-power on top of punches. If Father's the same...He'll likely just use time-bending to move faster.
Annoying? Sure. But far better than him wrapping himself in an infinite time-loop shield. That shit's terrifying—I saw it in a 21st-century comic. And how do you beat it? You don't.
Back to the divine entourage at my side. Let's break them down:
Demeter? She's wildfire wrapped in silk. I keep my distance—not out of Puritan guilt (our bodies are divine clay, not blood-bound meat sacks), but because I haven't forgotten my wife.
Would she reincarnate here? Could she?
My sister of harvest and fertility turned Father's stomach into a godsforsaken jungle. Vines strangle titanium pillars; flowers bloom in acid pools under the "Sun's" amber glare.
The food situation? Still a disaster. Last week, Hestia ate a peach-shaped abomination and vomited lightning for hours. Poseidon bit into something he swore tasted like "salty victory"—turned out it was digesting Kronos-cells. Even I felt queasy. Demeter hasn't nailed the edible/poisonous/horrific trifecta yet.
Hera stood out like a monument to order in our divine circus. Where Demeter radiated wild fertility and Poseidon oozed chaotic energy, Hera embodied control. All those curves scream maturity—like some immortal headmistress who'd make mortals kneel with a glance. Rigid. Proud. That was the first impression, anyway.
Now she covets the crown of Olympus, wants to rule this nascent pantheon of barely-contained chaos. Why? What drives someone who values control above all to chase a throne that'll drown her in eternal family drama? What kind of masochist is she?
The math doesn't compute.
Yet thanks to Demeter and Hera, I finally silenced a nagging problem deep in my subconscious. My new body—alive, yet lacking certain vital functions—could mimic life but not generate it on its own, a consequence of my domain over the dead. Their blessings, however, granted me access to a Filter that transmutes my death-saturated energy into genuine life force, infused solely with the aspect of Wealth. In this way, the infertility that once plagued me has been irrevocably corrected for the future.
Preparing for the future, I began generating value for my Tales—those coins granting five-minute audiences with the dead. Gods and mortals would owe me favors for this chance, weaving a web of debts only Death could broker.
But let's return to my sisters. If Demeter's wildfire and Hera's icy control formed extremes, Hestia was pure sunlight. She cared only for warmth and safety—hers and others'. Don't mistake kindness for weakness, though. That mortal saying haunts me here: "Nothing is more terrifying than a good person's rage." And she might be the strongest among us.
She is also the shortest, with an unassuming form that exudes no overt sensuality. Her hair is embers-red, her eyes coal-black and aglow. After Hestia's arrival, time itself seemed to hasten: the gaps between each sibling's appearance shrank. What had felt like an eternity in darkness became mere months between her arrival and Poseidon's.
Now our youngest brother exudes raw masculinity. Tallest, broadest, built like a dockworker after a decade of hauling fish and anchors, solid belly over corded muscle, the very blueprint of peak male strength. His chestnut beard frames laugh lines carved by what must've been a lifetime of booming humor. But where's the sea? I searched for tridents or brine-scented power... only to feel earthquakes rumbling in his bones and storms crackling in his palms. Not a drop of ocean kinship.
At that moment I realized that—even though I wield power over the dead—I had not yet claimed dominion over the Underworld itself. Perhaps realms like the Sky and the Sea aren't bestowed at birth but must be won. Maybe even the Earth, for I recall no legend of Gaia's defeat.
Zeus's birth—heralded by the swallowing of a stone—was my signal to prepare. I would not be disgorged naked and unarmed, as the myth would suggest.E assim o tempo passou, Hera nos avisou que sentia a presença de um outro irmão do lado de fora de nosso pai, e aguardamos o momento do resgate.
On that final "Morning" (Kronos' gut equivalent), when Hera confirmed our jailbreak brewed, I slipped away.
Demeter and Poseidon were engrossed in a new game of Divine War—essentially chess in which Demeter was the Queen, Poseidon the Knights, Hera the Bishop, Hestia the King, and I commanded the Rooks, the pawns represented by stones, the two sides distinguished as Diamond and Emerald. I'd wisely avoided original names. Watching Poseidon scowl as Demeter's "Queen" devoured his Poseidon shaped-knight, I almost smiled. Almost.
Hestia busied herself replenishing our miniature sun with her own divinity, while Hera concentrated on forging ever more dazzling—if slightly garish—new adornments for herself.
Before me, the titanium walls swung open, revealing a circular chamber ringed with flattened diamonds set into the flesh of our father. Some bore faint etchings, imperceptible to anyone without the gift to see from within—like me. Opposite the entrance, two massive chains anchored what appeared to be drawers, but my focus lay on the center of the room, where two figures stood at attention. They had been fashioned from my father's dead flesh and the strongest precious metals I could summon.
It's hard to judge scale exactly, but each towered twice my height, humanoid in form and clad in full armor forged from the toughest alloys at my command. I suspect they rival Poseidon in strength, yet without their own divinity they were useless against a true god; their purpose was study, not combat. I created them to hone my mastery over the dead—no easy task within an immortal titan.
"Experiment 156," I intoned, my voice echoing once the door sealed behind me. In the comfort of my laboratory, I watched as tiny letters materialized inside one of the wall diamonds, cataloging my tests. "Figures continue to regenerate dead energy but show no capacity for thought beyond following orders".
I exhaled. Still failures.
Delegating battle was impossible; my efforts to create monsters, golems, guardians, or assassins had all faltered. Lacking a true soul they cannot condense divinity, wield divine power or receive blessings, all crumbled under the same limitation. All they have is brute strength.
"Present Experiments 001 and 013 for analysis," I commanded. Both automatons marched to the chains and strained to pull. Despite their immense physical might, freeing the drawers took several moments. When they finally opened, I beheld my only two successes.
Experiment 001 was My first robe. The very cloth that clothed me when Demeter emerged from the acid. I had infused every thread with my divine essence—and even some of the life force granted by the blessings. Now it was both alive and dead, a singular treasure, a contradiction like my own existence. It amplified my shapeshifting beyond all known limits... yet still clinging like a symbiote, its transformations echoing that primal hunger.
In the other drawer lay the experiment I both feared and needed: a bronze staff, refined through countless failed attempts to forge a weapon, its metal now shimmering with greenish highlights whenever light touched it. Merely holding it sent my nonexistent heart racing.
This single metal bar represented the absolute limit of what my dominion could create of this material—each creation draining its potential as a 'treasure,' rendering subsequent attempts exponentially more complex. Its length mirrored my height, its width calibrated for my grip. Though its weight strained mortal arms, divine strength bore it effortlessly.
"Our brother approaches" Hera's warning echoed and all dread vanished
The staff flew to my outstretched hand. its touch drew a cry of disdain from my divinity —but my human mind smiled. "Come. We leave."
"Come, let us depart," I said to the living robe. It writhed into a serpent before striking toward me and wrapping me in a living suit of armor.
As I strode from the palace, the ground trembled beneath me. Through one diamond window I saw the acidic lake roiling and spilling into the chamber.
"Hades, it's time—come, little sister! Let us show what we can do!" Poseidon's roar reached me before I even glimpsed him.
Hera and Hestia flanked him; Demeter stood on the terrace, gazing at our surroundings with bittersweet melancholy.
Perhaps I understood her: since birth, our world had known only the false light of our sun, flesh walls, and palaces now teeming with life thanks to Demeter's plants. This place was both our prison and our home.
My gaze found her across the terrace—half a palace between us, yet her eyes locked onto mine the instant I looked. No words passed. Only a smile, sharp and silent mirrored between us. The next step awaited."
I must admit: the path out was easier than the way in. Now that I understood how to control my divinity, I shielded myself with a veil of my own domain—and in an instant found myself on solid ground, surrounded by my siblings and Zeus at last.
He bore golden hair and a neatly trimmed beard shorter than Poseidon's, blue eyes, and a physique that screamed Greek god. He had flung swords, spears, and shields beside our fallen forms
But I scarcely noticed. Before me towered the greatest being I'd ever seen—easily eight times my size, clad only in scraps of cloth to preserve modesty, with gray hair and beard, wielding a colossal scythe aimed straight at me and my family..
Instinct—not reason—flooded me then. I won't lie. The thought of gentle Hestia wounded, or mischievous Demeter and pridefull Hera harmed, or even frankly horny Poseidon gutted… it seared away my last shred of humanity. What remained focused on the one thing humans do best:
Making monsters.
My form expanded; the bronze staff's metal writhed into claws around my hands and the tip of my tail. Gold and silver fibers snapped from my robe, replaced by titanium that cracked into dust, then graphene that fed on my divinity until ἀδάμας (Adamas) was born. Divinity-hardened diamond.
My claws struck the scythe's blade just as the transformation completed, and for a moment I sensed a surge of power—Destiny—before it recoiled.
If my father was startled when his scythe met resistance, he showed no sign—only roared profanities as his assaults became temporal blurs. Even with my siblings' divine fury, we bled.
Every blow we dealt was deflected. Though we covered one another, ichor slithered from wounds faster than our guard could close, attacks struck from angles we could not anticipate.
The battle had begun when Helios's chariot still pulled the sun across the sky, and though Selene took over countless times, we saw no end to this struggle
Still no advantage emerged. No glimpse of victory. The Titan of Time stood unbroken
By then, calm had anchored me, my focus narrowing to defense alone, the role where I excelled. With Zeus and Poseidon fixated on assault, Hera, Demeter, and Hestia strained to Shield and Heal them. But as I shifted to protection, my sisters redirected their fury. Finally, our father staggered back. Golden wounds bloomed across his flesh—first true damage in this timeless war.
Precious metals, plants, flames, storms, lightning—and curses, a surprising addition when Hera unleashed them—rained down across time. Even still it was impossible to hold Kronos even for a moment: his wounds healed as if they'd never been inflicted, time itself folding back upon his flesh.
Even as I shifted from physical blows to assaults of pure domain power, despair grew. When the ground trembled beneath me, I sensed another presence before I saw it: a Titan approaching. Moments later, his head loomed above the mountains—Atlas, my gut told me, the one condemned to uphold the heavens.
Hestia's pleas to retreat went unanswered. I briefly considered abandoning Zeus and Poseidon to their fates and fleeing with Hestia and Demeter, but the wildfire in Demeter's eyes told me she would never yield.
The crack of stone striking Zeus was our only warning before Atlas began tearing chunks from the mountain and casting them like missiles.
"Foolish children! You'll never escape again!" Kronos's roar, as Zeus was ripped from the sky, proved a devastating distraction.
Next, Poseidon was hurled from the fray when the scythe's haft slammed into him.
A razor-sharp arc of the blade then swept toward my neck, gaining lethal velocity and breaching my guard, the blade blurred toward my neck...
...yet before it could strike, Kronos vanished from sight.
Tapping the divine energy within me, I shot backward and collided with the Titan, who had abandoned me in his pursuit of my sisters. Shaping my form into a serpentine coil, I wrapped around his arms and the scythe. He'd slipped this hold before. Not this time.
Meanwhile, my sisters fell back while maintaining their assault. In the distance, I saw Zeus deflecting mountain boulders hurled by Atlas; Poseidon charged forward, crackling with divine storm and shaking the earth with each step.
Perhaps my little brother heard me when I once said that raw strength isn't everything.
I felt Kronos attempt to twist time itself to break free, and in that desperate moment I poured every drop of my divinity into denying him that power.
Time is treasure; time is not alive, and thus can be considered dead.
I claim what is dead.
Reality, Time, Space screamed.
I felt ichor trickle from my form—whatever I had done wounded both me and Kronos, whose roar of agony shook the air. Less than an instant later, I sensed something strike him. Though still entwined, I felt him flung away, carrying me with him.
We slammed into the mountainside, the stone fracturing beneath our weight. A shockwave pulsed outward from Kronos, cloaking my siblings behind an impenetrable dome.
I staggered free, struggling to reclaim every ounce of divinity I could muster. My body shrank back to its original size; my claws remorphed into the staff. Every drop of ichor that fell burned away precious reserves already running low.
"Hades." Kronos rose from rubble, face bleeding Ichor and Golden Sand, eyes insane.
"You were first. The prophecy's true target." He took a step; I retreated. "I believed the prophecy spoke of you, but to be safe I devoured your siblings"
"I will kill you, even if it takes eternity. I am the Titan of Time; I have castrated and dethroned the heavens, and no child of mine shall do the same to me!" He rose atop the rubble, the mountain crumbling around him.
He hadn't been trying until now.
This revelation struck me the moment I saw him smile. All the anger that had filled his form just moments before had vanished, leaving only pure insanity—and in that madness, I saw reflected in his eyes the instant his scythe cleaved me in half.