1.15: Crossroads

Prometheus stayed at his knees, simply breathing exhaustedly, trying to get his mind clear. Kronos flapped down to one side of him, prepared to congratulate him on his victory, but Hekate reappeared to his other side.

“You’re a fool to come here witch,” Kronos said, “You’re trapped on all sides, just like your pets.”

“If you knew what an orbital transport relay was, you’d think that was hilarious,” Hekate said as she nonchalantly clicked one of her bracelets.


Nyx flapped down to earth next to Kronos, shrouded in swirling darkness and brandishing a steel sword, “It is three against one now,” she said, “Stand down and surrender your Legacy, Hekate.” What remained of Prometheus’s troops, including Typhon and Echidna, closed in from the other side with their spears.

“Is it three against one, Prometheus?” Hekate said.

“What?” Kronos asked.

“Let’s talk privately for a moment,” Hekate tapped another bracelet and the world around them froze as if they were back in Tartarus’s virtual reality.

“What… what did you do?” Prometheus looked around at the motionless people around them, and then realized that they were moving, albeit so slowly that it was nearly imperceptible.

“It’s the closest our race ever came to time travel,” Hekate said, “A small bubble within which time moves a great deal faster – I suppose it’s actually the antithesis of time travel, isn’t it?”

“How long will it last?”

“Not very long at all,” Hekate said, “So I won’t mince words. You, Pandora, and I are the only powerhouses left on this island. Kronos and Nyx are strong, yes, but without their Legacies, they can’t match us. Pandora wants to leave, travel the world, and take the box with her and bury at the far reaches of the earth. We can let her, leaving just you and me to set things right here.”

“Set things right?”

“Just like I said that night we spent together. As queen and king of Knossos we can reinvent our society. Limit our kin’s abuses of power and share our science and technology with the humans. The humans could leave behind their life of hard labor to study science, art, philosophy – aspects in which they have every chance of becoming our equals. This barbaric feudal system we’ve implemented is pointless and doomed to failure.”

“You freed a pair of sociopaths,” Prometheus said, gesturing to Kasios and Tiamat's bodies.

“Sociopaths with short leashes,” Hekate corrected him, “Morgania did more than give them a hyper-violent world to explore all of their sadistic fantasies, she also had Lauma implement a little bit of conditioning to make sure they remained manageable.”

“They killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people, including Thanatos. You almost killed Macaria!”

“I hate to resort to cliché, but you can’t make wine without crushing some grapes. I know you’re pragmatic enough to understand that. Yes, my warriors killed many, many of Kronos’s soldiers, human and titan alike, but all because I knew that the alternative was to allow society to continue on as it had. My plan cost many lives, but it was always with the ultimate goal of saving our civilization. And, might I point out, many of those who died in this war died as a direct result of you repeatedly cocking up my plans.”

“Is that how you rationalize betraying and torturing Pandora?”

“Really?” Hekate shook her head and walked within reach, “Do you really think I could do that? What seems more likely? That I resorted to barbaric interrogation methods that yield questionable intelligence, at best, or that I sent Pandora into your camp to give you that,” she pointed to the box and coin in Prometheus’s hands. "The tools you need to end this."

“But… why?”

“Tiamat and Kasios fulfilled their purpose – they provided you with an enemy to prove yourself against, provided justification for arming your human soldiers with weapons of iron and steel, and provided an opportunity for you to demonstrate your remarkable leadership while Kronos exhibited his breathtaking mediocrity. In short, their purpose was to give you an army and a political base to overthrow Kronos, and to place you in a moment where that would be possible. I told you before that moment was close, and now it's come.”

“Why expend so much effort convincing me to betray Kronos? Why not just seize power yourself?” Prometheus asked.

“You’re an honest man,” Hekate said, “good people will follow you. I’m… less honest. I have a cult-following, true, but by myself I’d never command enough loyalty to govern a nation.”

“So now you need my support to legitimize you as Kronos’s replacement, to metaphorically wash the blood off of your hands.”

“That’s one thing I need you for, but I’m sincerely hoping we can try for more than a political relationship,” she smiled, reminding him of the night they'd spent together.

Prometheus wasn’t sure what to do – her case was persuasive, but he felt like it was too persuasive, and worried that his own lust for power and – admittedly – for Hekate, was clouding his judgment.

“I’m honorbound to serve my king,” Prometheus said.

“Declare yourself king," Hekate said, "then you only need to serve yourself. And occasionally me.”

Prometheus called back to their previous conversation “That’s still… not how it works…”

“If you care for anyone other than Kronos, it should be,” Hekate said. There was an electronic chime from her bracelet, “That’s it, time’s up. Time to make your decision; don’t disappoint me Prometheus.”

With that the world around them began to move at normal speed again. Kronos was shouting for Prometheus to apprehend her, to use the box to take the Legacy of Morgania from her. Prometheus looked over at Typhon and Echidna. They read the uncertainty on his face and subtly shifted their stance, ready to engage Kronos and Nyx. Here, now at the very end of the line, the humans were ready to change sides if Prometheus led the way, just as Hekate had said they would.

“No,” Prometheus turned and addressed his king, “Hekate’s lost the war now, but there are still a lot of people – humans and Titans alike – that believe she was right to start it. They hold that belief in spite of enduring violence that was far beyond anything they were prepared to deal with. If you want to lead those people, you can’t martyr Hekate. You need to make peace with her.”

“That… was not the direction I expected this to go,” Hekate said.

“Then you won’t be disappointed,” Kronos said, “Because you can consider any such suggestion of clemency summarily dismissed.”

“Why?!" Prometheus shouted, "The humans need a sign that you’re going to be reasonable, that you’re going to look out for their needs, or else you’re going to fight this war over-and-over again.”

“Hekate manipulated and then betrayed my father and the rest of his court," Kronos said, "Nothing she says or does can be trusted; negotiating with a liar is fruitless, and pandering to slaves will accomplish nothing but make me look weak.”

“Slaves?” Echidna spoke up, “When did we become 'slaves'?”

“Yeah,” Typhon followed her sarcasm, “I thought we were all ‘The Sky Father’s Children.’ I mean, sure, we work ourselves to death in the fields to feed you – even though you could probably summon a meal with the snap of a finger – but I thought we were supposed to be doing it out of love or some bullshit.”

“You would do well to quiet your insolent tongue,” Nyx hissed at the man.

“What have you been telling your soldiers, Prometheus?” Kronos glared at his general.

“You’re the one who just called them slaves to their faces,” Prometheus said, “But thank you for that demonstration of your bull-headed stupidity; it makes my decision a lot easier.” Prometheus stepped over to stand next to Hekate. He clutched the box in one hand and lit a fireball in his other.

"Hand over Pandora's Box, Prometheus," Kronos demanded, "And the coin. Now."

"Over my dead body."

"The only way this was ever going to end was with death." Kronos gestured to Nyx, and from her dark shroud she tossed him a large capsule, which Kronos cracked open.

"What...?" Prometheus was confused.

"He's been sitting on a prison full of sleeping prisoners, almost all of them with Legacy A.I.s in their dormant bodies. I'm genuinely surprised it took him this long to resort to this," Hekate said.

"Of course, without Pandora's Box to draw out and contain the Legacy we had to get creative," Kronos said, "Fortunately, quite unlike our unfortunate soul, the Legacy can survive cremation."

"Those are ashes?" Echidna gave Prometheus a bewildered look, "Your people are fucked up."

"Who was the unlucky inmate, Kronos?" Hekate asked.

"A poor woman by the name of Kalma," Kronos smiled.

"Well... damn..." Hekate stepped back a bit.

"What?" Typhon asked, "Is that bad?"

"Her sister Loviatar was worse," Hekate said, "But Kalma was pretty bad in her own way, yeah..."

"Kronos," Prometheus said, "Don't do this. Even bonding with your great grandfather's Legacy would have had a measure of risk - there's no telling what will happen to you if you bond with some old world psychopath."

"So they say," Kronos said, "But, no one ever did test that theory, did they? Which makes me think that maybe, it was a load of bullshit our ancestors came up with to keep the Legacies within their bloodlines.

"No one ever tested the theory because they didn't need to, dumbass," Hekate shouted, "For the love of... If I tell you a fire is hot you don't go and throw yourself in to find out, do you?!"

Kronos didn't answer, apparently bored of the back and forth. Instead, he just up-turned the capsule over his head, raining the dead titan's remains down on his face while taking a deep breath. The previously inert nanites that constituted Kalma's Legacy came back to life, and swirled into his mouth and nostrils. They funneled down into his lungs, crossed the membranes into his bloodstream, and began to quickly bond with Kronos's nervous system.

Kronos's tan skin changed color to match the grayish-white ash he'd spread on his face. His wings shed their golden feathers to reveal tattered black leather stretched across thin bones tipped with sharp claws. Kronos's feathery hair also fell away, small horns beginning to grow in on his brow, and when he opened his eyes they blazed red. It was the most extreme mutation Prometheus had ever seen anyone undergo when bonding with a Legacy, doubtless due to the genetic incompatibility between the A.I. and the host. There was no telling what changes Kalma's Legacy was making to Kronos's mind in its attempts to bond with him. Most disconcertingly of all, the grass around Kronos began to age and die quickly.

Kronos opened his mouth and two voices came out, "I am become... Death."

Hekate still seemed confident - more confident, anyway, than Prometheus felt. “Okay, you've got a pretty ugly makeover going on there, but you're still facing two experienced Legacy Bearers,” Hekate said, “That’s bad math Kronos. But I’m not you. I can be amenable to negotiation. This day doesn’t need to see any more bloodshed.”

“I disagree,” Macaria hissed from behind Hekate as she grabbed the woman from behind. Macaria thrust her steel sword into Hekate's back and out of her sternum. “My husband sends his regards,” Macaria pulled the sword free violently, loosing a stream of blood and viscera.

Prometheus shouted in horror and caught Hekate in his arms. He heated up one hand and quickly cauterized the wound on either side, but that would do nothing to stop the massive internal bleeding. Prometheus desperately tried to think of a way to heal Hekate, but there was nothing… no one with that power outside of Tartarus.

Typhon and Echidna bravely closed in around Hekate and Prometheus with their shields raised, ready to defend them, but Kronos knocked both of them away with a shock of black electricity that left them face down in the dirt. Their weapons and armor rusted, and their hair began to turn grey.

Hekate coughed, blood trickling up from her punctured lung, “I guess I should have let Macaria die, huh? Hard way to learn that lesson…”

“Hekate…” tears welled up in Prometheus’s eyes.

Hekate smiled faintly, “Are you finally going to… work up… nerve... to…” Her voice stopped mid-sentence and her eyes stared blankly into the distance. She was gone.

Typhon and Echidna tried to get back on their feet while Macaria raged over Prometheus’s betrayal. Kronos ordered Nyx to bring him Pandora's Box, so that he could "fully" claim his “birthright.”

Prometheus felt rage boiling inside him. The earth shook and cracked, jets of steam erupted around them. Typhon and Echidna took advantage of the distraction to rush Nyx and Kronos, but Kronos's eldritch energy had aged them - made them slower, weaker. In their state, they would have struggled to fight two human enemies - they stood no chance at all against two Titans. Kronos batted them away with another bolt of black lightning, aging them even further and promising to visit worse down upon their families.

Macaria swung her sword at Prometheus, but the master of metals took command of the blade, ripped it from her grasp, and flung it at Kronos. The sword buried deep in the titan king’s thigh, dropping him to a knee and interrupting his assault on Typhon and Echidna. Prometheus struck Macaria's jaw with the heel of his hand, knocking her away. Nyx leaped upon the human warriors, prepared to execute them with her talons, but Prometheus warded her off with a fireball.

“I think this is the end of the road, Kid,” Typhon rasped in an aged voice to his partner, but she didn’t respond. Typhon dragged himself over to Echidna and rolled her onto her back, shaking her withered body violently, “Kid? Echidna? Hey! Snap out of it! Snap… she’s, no... no... no!”

Prometheus looked around them; Macaria was crawling away, coughing and gagging for some reason, but Kronos and Nyx were back on their feet and the other titans were descending like hungry vultures, their eyes on the box holding the captured legacies.

“Damn it all,” Prometheus cursed. He dove to the ground next to Typhon and Echidna, twisted the key to 'release' and opened the box next to their faces. The dust inside exploded into a small cloud, from which two tendrils snaked out and hesitantly flowed into the two humans. Prometheus twisted the coin back to the 'capture' position, and the rest of the Legacy dust swirled back into the box.

Nyx gawked in horror, “What… what have you done?”