Pandora reluctantly led Zeus through the maze of tunnels beneath Knossos - she kept trying to think of a way to wriggle out of her current situation, but the man was warier than any she'd dealt with before. He kept his hands tight on the coin and the box, threatening to use them on her at the slightest hint of treachery. She'd offered to teleport him directly to where he wanted to go, but he'd correctly surmised her intention to leave him some place inhospitable, and so they'd had to walk to Knossos so that they could use the access tunnel every other titan used to get to Tartarus.
The tunnel itself housed a small underground river, and at the edge of the river sat a single boat, tended by a skeletal figure much like the drones Thanatos and Macaria had once commanded in their underworld domain.
“Mistress Pandora,” the figure spoke in a strange, stilted voice, “Do you require transit to Tartarus?”
“Yes, Charon, please.”
Charon’s eyes glowed, “Voice recognition and facial recognition match. Passage authorized. Prepare for departure.”
Zeus was surprised by how fast the current was flowing – the rolling water had sounded loud in the tunnel, but in the darkness he’d greatly underestimated it. What was more, it seemed as if the little boat was accelerating beyond the speed of the flowing river.
“Where are we? How long will this take?” Zeus asked.
“Our present location is 25 meters below the sea floor. At our present speed, we should reach the facility in... two hours.”
"Two hours?!" Zeus exclaimed.
"You were the one who insisted we take the scenic route," Pandora said, "I'm just the hostage."
Two hours sitting in the dark sounded boring to Zeus. He'd rankled at the decades he'd spent hiding in his cave or passing for one of the weakling humans. He'd longed for the freedom to go out and do as he pleased with no consequences to worry about. Now, at last, he had one of the Legacies - presumably the Malanginui Legacy, though it hadn't 'spoken' to him yet - and with it more than enough power to not only walk Crete as a free man, but as its ruler. Instead, he was sitting in a boat, in the dark, with a sour woman.
Zeus leered at Pandora, thinking of ways to pass the time. She was sour now, yes, but she might warm up to him if he put on a little pressure. He reached around to lay a hand on her shoulder. Pandora shrugged him off, but that just made him more interested. He moved a little closer, but Pandora pushed him back, an orb of multicolored energy pulsing in her hand.
Zeus laughed, “Are you threatening me? With a rainbow?”
“It’s a Brahmastra spell Lauma taught me – it summons two particles from opposite ends of the universe and holds them in a temporary balance. If that balance tips, the particles will annihilate each other and vaporize both of us. I will help you awaken your siblings as you've demanded, but if you ask any more of me than that, you’ll find out what happened to Dhrumatulya.”
“I’ve never heard of that,” Zeus said.
“Exactly.”
For a moment, Zeus was inclined to call her bluff, but a broken voice within him said simply, “Not this time,” and inflicted Zeus with a flash of memory – a pillar of fire consuming a city. Zeus shook the image from his mind. So the Legacy could communicate with him after all; Zeus had expected the conversation to be more... coherent, but so long as it was there and it served him, that was the important thing. They spent the rest of the voyage in silence, the colorful spell floating above Pandora’s palm.
At last, they arrived at a point where the river they were on merged with five others at a central point, and flowed deeper into the earth. Charon brought their small vessel to a stop at the edge of the circular waterfall, and Pandora led Zeus out onto a metal walkway that crossed over the edge of the falls. At the center of the void, a platform rose to meet them. Pandora boarded it, tapped some buttons on a console, and once Zeus was aboard the platform they descended into the falls. After what felt like minutes, it slowed to a stop, and the falling water parted on one side to reveal a large metal door that opened with a hiss. Through the door, Zeus and Pandora entered a room filled with glass-enclosed sarcophagi, illuminated by the cool lights. Inside the sarcophagi were men and women of every sort.
"Where are we?" Zeus asked.
"Tartarus's prison block, in the upper aft portion of the old ship," Pandora said, "This used to be the most secure place on the planet, but I assume without either Thanatos or Macaria to help him get in here, Kronos must have made a bit of a mess of things."
Pandora glanced at the pods they went past, fidgeting with the capsule holding Morgania - the only reason to bring Zeus this way was in the hopes that Hekate might be ready for her resurrection, but the read-out on her pod's glass indicated she still had months of healing ahead of her.
"And my family?" Zeus asked.
"Kronos's children are in the Time-Capsule," Pandora explained as she led Zeus away from Hekate and down to an open cargo door with a large ramp. She pointed across the cavern floor to a round, black building surrounded by water. "Thanatos's earliest predecessor, Mictlanggun, constructed it for voluntary interments. He moved some of the crew's pods out of the ship over to there where they could be kept separate from the pods their prisoners were being kept in."
They followed a rock outcropping through the water and entered the round building. Dozens of pods like the ones on board the ship lined the walls. Five of them held Zeus’s older siblings, though they looked younger than Zeus himself.
“Suspended animation has caused them to grow and age more slowly,” Pandora explained, "Between that and the hit I saw you take from Kronos, it shouldn't be surprising if they seem younger than you expected."
“How long have they been in these chambers?” Zeus asked.
“Except for your eldest siblings, Hades and Hera, they were all suspended shortly after their births, I believe,” Pandora said, “Electrical stimulation of their muscles will have prevented their bodies from atrophying, and Tartarus’s interconnected information web will have facilitated simulated interactions, and furnished an advanced education.”
“Simulated interactions?”
“Unlike the pod Amalthea used to educate you in Selakano, these pods are all connected to one another. Tartarus connects the occupants' consciousnesses so that they can interact and grow socially while absorbing the information from their individualized education plans.”
“Did my father… create this?”
“No, many have added to the virtual world inside the system, but this technology was used by your great, great grandparents when they traveled here.”
“Do my brothers and sisters know they’re asleep?”
“If I were to guess,” Pandora said, “Hades and Hera probably do, as they were old enough to know what was happening when they were sent here. Your other siblings will have no memories before awakening in the artificial environment Tartarus provides. Obviously, that includes your twin sister, Aphrodite, who, as far as everyone in there knows - is you.”
“What sort of education have they received?”
“As Kronos’s heirs, they’ve been privileged to the best education of any of Tartarus’s residents. Each of them would have been given an education Kronos felt would one day make them valued advisors.”
“So nice of father to be prepared,” Zeus commented, “Well, wake them up then.”
It took the better part of an hour, but all six of the pods finally slid open, and their occupants awoke, with varying degrees of shock.
“Thank Malanginui,” Poseidon said, “We’re finally free of that sham of a world.”
“Thank Malanginui?” Hera said, “No, I imagine we need to think this fine looking fellow. Hello handsome, and you are?”
“Zeus,” he introduced himself, “Your youngest brother.”
"Zeus... no... Zeus doesn't look like..." Hera looked around at the people stepping out of the other pods - she recognized Hades, Poseidon, Demeter, and Hestia, "Who's that bitch?" she pointed at the young red-headed woman stepping out of the last pod.
"I'm Zeus!" the woman said then put a hand to her throat when she realized her voice was entirely different from what she'd grown up with. She moved her hand down and began to inspect her very effeminate body. "I guess I'm not Zeus," the woman said.
"Is there going to be a problem?" the real Zeus asked.
"No... I..." the woman looked at herself in the reflection of one of the glass doors, "Wow... I'm... really hot. You know, this actually really explains a lot. I've had dreams like this. Having a cock was kind of fun, but it never felt right... right? Wait, if I'm not you, then who am I?"
"Your mother wanted you to be named Aphrodite," Zeus said, "but you can be whoever you want."
“So you're our brother? No wonder you look so good,” Hera said to Zeus, “you do come from fine stock, after all.”
“I take it you weren’t sealed away like the rest of us?” Hades asked.
“Fortunately for you, no. Mother had me hidden away, and her,” Zeus pointed to Aphrodite, “put here in my place.”
“Wait,” Hades and his siblings tried to reconcile what they were learning in the real world with what they'd known in the virtual one. "So he - I mean she - is not really our brother? I mean, sister?”
“I… I don’t know,” Aphrodite said, “All I know is what I was told in there.”
“She’s your half-sister,” Pandora said, “Born at the same time as Zeus but to a different father.”
“So, mother played the field? Good for her," Hera said, "Where is dear old dad?” she asked sarcastically.
“I left him in a collapsing cavern, castrated, gored, and severely burned.”
“And how were you able to achieve such a thing?” Poseidon asked.
Zeus snapped his fingers and a small lightning bolt flashed between his fingertips, but as he moved his fingers the bolt wove into a flickering, animated sculpture that depicted himself stripping Kronos of his power and seizing his own.
“Are you... a Legacy Bearer now?” Poseidon asked, "Who gave you this power? Should you not have inherited if from Kronos himself?"
"Much has happened in the world above while you six have slumbered here," Zeus said. "Our grandfather decided to contain all of the Legacies rather than pass them on, and that led to a... complicated war among the titans." Zeus showed them Pandora's Box, “Contained within this box are the memories, the knowledge, the power of our ancestors and the rulers that succeeded them on this world. Inhale but a measure of the dust within the box, and you will be able to command power as I do.”
"...Who is your friend?" Hades asked.
"I am Pandora, bearer of the Legacy of Lauma, and I would warn you, not to-"
Zeus backhanded Pandora, knocking her over one of the pods. Hestia caught her and helped her back to her feet.
"Very little of what she says about anything is true," Zeus said, "she cannot be trusted, as every ally she has ever had has discovered."
"Perhaps that is the case," Demeter said, "But I should still like to hear what she was going to say."
"Don't accept the Legacies," Pandora said, "They will increase your power, but it will be at the cost of the people who sustain that power. With seven of you wielding Legacies, you'll starve each other..."
“The human population has been thinned by war, but ours has been as well," Zeus cut her off, "If you take up this power, we can sweep away those who are left,” Zeus said, “What Kronos started with us we will finish with the rest of the titans. Kill them or seal them away, leaving only those willing to submit to our power and not contend for our immortality. Then we will expand as Kronos planned to, but we set our aims higher, much higher.”
“Hm, that sounds like a reasonable plan to me,” Poseidon said.
“What right have we to imprison anyone?” Hestia objected.
“If needs must,” Demeter said, “I don’t want to languish in this dark abyss any longer, nor do I want to starve competing with our kin for a finite resource.”
“And what happens when we climb out of this abyss?” Aphrodite asked, “Who do we follow? Zeus because he awoke us, or Kronos’s eldest son, Hades whom we grew up with, and have known as our brother all our lives?”
“If Zeus has claim to the throne,” Poseidon said, “Then so do I.”
Hera put an arm around Zeus, “Dear brother, Zeus has a claim to the throne because he took it while we were lying on our backs down here. Hades, do you wish to challenge that?”
Hades studied a panel covered in scrolling luminous script. Alone among the lot of them, Tartarus had gifted him with knowledge of its own systems, grooming him to be Thanatos's successor, “All the people we knew, they’re still in there, living in that virtual world?”
“Yes, of course,” Pandora said.
“As will many more once we are done,” Zeus added.
“Someone needs to watch over them,” Hades said.
“Are you volunteering?” Demeter laughed.
Hades was quiet for a moment, “Yes. I’ll do it. And I’ll offer no challenge to your throne, Zeus, if you all agree to honor my sole dominion over this place.”
“You want to stay down here?” Hera asked incredulously.
“We have friends down here,” Hades said, “At least, I do.”
“I will agree to your terms,” Zeus said, “Provided you accept anyone I send down here without question.”
“I swear, I’ll turn no one away.”
“And what about me?” Poseidon asked.
“Right now, Oceanos still rules the seas around Crete, but when we are done, Tethys’s palace at the bottom of the Aegean will be up for grabs to anyone who doesn’t mind a little water.”
“You were always fond of the sea, Poseidon, even having never seen the real thing,” Demeter commented, “Also, most of the Earth’s surface is below the waves, so mathematically…”
“Very well then,” Poseidon said, “I accept.”
“All of these plans will be for naught if you do not claim the power I bring you, though. We must defeat not only the remnants of Kronos’s army but Prometheus’s as well. Only when you have power like mine will we be able to overcome them and bring an end to this war.”
Zeus’s brothers and sisters nodded in agreement. Hestia was reluctant at first, but capitulated.
Pandora tried to explain that the boxed-A.I.s may have been corrupted, but apparently she'd spent her one opportunity to persuade them against the course of action. “What will you do to my brother-in-law?” she asked.
“Prometheus is too valuable to kill without having a proper successor to his foresight in hand,” Zeus said honestly, “Hades will imprison him here, in Tartarus, until we find such a successor. Now, let's get this done."
Zeus bid all of his siblings to breath deep as he opened the box.
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