Recognition came too slowly for Zeus. He exhaled, and the ancient spirit that gave him much of his power flew out of his lungs and into the box. The box itself flickered in his hands – the glamour Athena and Hephaestus had created failed, and Zeus saw that he was, in fact, holding Pandora’s Box, complete with Fortune’s Key slotted firmly into the round lock.
“What… why?” Zeus said, realizing what had happened and feeling the greater portion of his power ebb from his body.
Poseidon stood to gloat, “Because, it was always a mistake for the youngest son of Kronos to take the throne and rule over his other children. But now that mistake is amended. I will marry Hera, and at very long last, unite our kingdoms.”
“Yes, about that…” Hera said and gestured towards the twins, “I think my stepchildren might object.”
Poseidon turned, but Apollo and Artemis were already drawing their bows. Hermes moved to catch their arrows from the air, but Athena had anticipated his intervention and already hit the button on her Aegis. The gorgon visage on its surface blazed, and the pulse of energy froze the running god as he leaped over the table.
Ignoring Hermes, the twins put five arrows tipped with pure iron into Poseidon’s chest before he could reach for his trident. He slumped forward, hands on the table, trying to stay on his feet. Hera took the box away from Zeus, and collected Poseidon's Legacy with it.
“Hm, I guess it did work after all,” Hera said, snapping the box shut.
“There was no way to know for sure,” Athena shrugged. Poseidon's strength failed and he fell face first onto the table. His guards had raised arms to try and avenge him, but Zeus’s guards - turned by Hera and Athena – killed them without hesitation. Demeter fled from the violence, forcing her way through the guards' small battle.
“Brother!” Zeus shouted staring at Poseidon’s corpse, “Apollo! Artemis! What… what have you done?!”
“You’ve repeatedly proven yourself to be incompetent and cruel,” Athena said, “With you stripped of your power, and Poseidon unable to claim your throne, Hera will find no challenge to her rule as sole sovereign of Olympus and the Aegean Sea.”
Zeus tried to summon a storm, but with so much of his power now contained in the box, the most he could manage was a lightning bolt in each hand. Hephaestus pulled a silver contraption from his robes and tossed it before Zeus. It sprung open and both lightning bolts snaked from his hands and disappeared into the device.
“It’s a de-radiant grounding capacitor,” Hephaestus explained, “I use smaller ones to keep my workrooms static-free.”
Zeus lunged at him in rage – even without his Legacy, Zeus was physically powerful enough to seriously harm his disabled son, but Athena calmly tripped him and sent him sprawling to the metal plates they stood upon.
“Peace, husband,” Hera said, “It should give you some comfort to know that you live by the grace of your children’s love. We could have killed you as easily as we did Poseidon, but Apollo and Hephaestus insisted that you must be spared such an ignominious death.”
“And what, then, do you intend to do with me?” Zeus growled as Athena hauled him to his feet, “Or do you forget, that when I first fought our father, it was without my legacy? I can still take any one of you.”
"Fortunate for us, then, that any one of us isn't betraying you," Athena said, "We all are. Well, half of us are."
“You will be banished," Apollo said, “To the far reaches of the north. Perhaps, one day, when you understand why this was necessary, you can return.”
“Oh,” Hera said, “It will be so cold that far North, and you’re so poorly equipped to live outside of a tropical climate. Let me help you prepare for your trip.” She transformed her hand into a chitinous claw-like appendage and drove her lengthening finger tips into his chest.
“What are you doing?!” Apollo shouted, “This wasn’t part of the plan!”
“We don’t want this handsome face wandering back to Greece and challenging our power, do we? And now that he doesn’t have Oranos’s power to protect him, I can rewrite his DNA just like a human's…”
“What… how…?!” Hephaestus cried.
Hera laughed, “Did you all really think I spent two centuries experimenting on humans because I wanted a servant with 100 eyes? A dog with three heads? A monstrosity with snakes for arms and a wolf’s head for a crotch? I was honing my skills, you fool, because I knew one day I’d be able to alter Titans as well.”
“I’ll just change myself back!” Zeus grunted.
“That’s why I’m twisting your shape shifting abilities first,” Zeus screamed in pain as the tendrils spreading from Hera’s fingers bulged through his bronze skin, “There we go. Now what’s left of your electromancy…” Hera said.
“No, this wasn’t the plan!” Apollo raised his bow to fire at Hera, but Athena quickly created a portal in front of him that swallowed the arrow. Artemis’s heightened senses detected the other end of the portal opening right behind them, and shoved Apollo out of the way as the arrow streaked out. Apollo’s detoured projectile sank into the center of her lower back, driving its iron tip through one of her renal arteries.
Hephaestus cried out, and Apollo dropped to Artemis’s side, hoping there was some way to save her.
“Make it count, brother,” she said as she bled out, the iron causing her blood to boil out of the wound.
"I didn't mean to!" Athena cried, "I meant to send the arrow into the table! I... I..." Athena had been sure Apollo's shot wouldn't kill Hera, and equally certain that Hera - if actually wounded - would not hesitate to kill the twins.
Zeus struggled, but Hera’s grasp was inescapable. “Now, to give you a look more appropriate for your new abode,” Hera said. His body twisted and malformed – it was like watching a human being forcibly reverted to a Neanderthal. His bones thickened and his arms lengthened as coarse white fur covered his skin. His silvery eyes sank into his face and changed to an icy blue while his teeth grew long enough to protrude from his mouth.
“That’s good enough, I think,” Hera said, “Athena, dear?”
Athena had been distracted by Artemis’s death, but she snapped out of it and tapped her bracelet again to create another, larger portal. A cold wind carried snow through it for a moment before Hera retracted her tendrils and shoved the creature that had been her husband through it.
Hephaestus tried to comfort Apollo, but the sun god shook him off so that he could rage at Athena, shouting at her for causing him to kill Artemis.
Athena stammered for a moment, distraught over Artemis's death, but the cold calculating side of her psyche shouted down Morgania's sentimental inclinations. Athena shook off the emotional swell and examined the scene calmly, “It took five arrows to the heart and lungs to kill Poseidon, but a single shot to the kidney mortally wounded your sister," Athena observed, "She doesn’t have her legacy anymore, does she?! What did she do with it? How?!”
“She showed us how to pass our powers onto mortals,” Apollo said, “There are millions of humans in the world – good luck finding the right ones!”
“Us? Plural?” Athena wondered, “You forfeited yours too, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” Apollo spat at her, “But while I may have given up much of my strength, I will spend every day using what I have left to tell the world of your treachery. I will tell them the truth – that Hera is not all powerful and that Athena is not all knowing, and that neither of you even understand the notions of compassion and love! I will devote my life to seeing the humans cast down their gods, so that they can live in a world of reason and freedom!”
“Well, we can’t have that,” Hera said as she walked over and grabbed him. She sank her fingers into his face, her tendrils spreading through his body as they had Zeus’s, “Leda’s son – Ugh, I always did hate your mother. How humiliating was it for me, to be the second wife to Olympus’s master, second after a Titaness so weak willed and dim-witted her greatest aspiration in the absence of Zeus was to herd goats? Goats! I married a man who fucked a goat herder! I might as well have married a man who fucked the goats themselves!”
Apollo grabbed one of his arrows to stab Hera, but she caught his arm with her free hand and snapped the arrow shaft.
“Oh, Apollo… the Light Bearer. People used to call Aphrodite the Morning Star, but truly, who else could warrant that title but the sun god himself? Most beautiful of the gods; adored by the humans because of his pretty face and beautiful voice. Let’s change that.”
The bones in Apollo’s face and extremities popped, warped, and grew longer. His toes disappeared, subsumed by crude hooves, and his face – now hideously long – sprouted irregular fur, floppy ears, and long curving horns. She released Apollo from her grasp, and he clawed at his distorted face in horror. He tried to shift it back to his divine form, but all he could do was briefly transform it into a succession of human faces – none of which he could hang onto for more than an instant before his face shifted back to the hideous, goat like visage that Hera had cursed him with. Apollo used his powers to create a pair of powerful white-feathered wings and started to flee the palace.
“Athena,” Hera said, “Ground the heretic.”
Athena grabbed Poseidon's trident and threw it at Apollo's back like a spear. The razor-sharp edges of the fork sliced clear through one wing and punched through the other. Apollo faltered in the air and plummeted from the sky.
Hera walked over to the edge. With a push of her foot she sent Artemis's body off the precipice after him – if there was any life left in her, being splattered across the rocks below would finish the job.
Tears welled in Hephaestus’s eyes. He couldn’t fight them – without his weapons, his physical deformities made him no match for the two goddesses. But he also knew that trying to run or betraying Athena’s plan to Hera would get him a knife in the back - or worse. He’d been cast out of Olympus once, and it had taken decades for him to recover from the physical injuries. All he could do for now was play along with Athena’s plan, be servile and obedient, then slip away when the women were distracted.
Hermes would be free of the Aegis's paralyzing spell soon, but Athena and Hera hadn't yet agreed on whether to strip him of his Legacy. Athena didn’t want him running off until they'd made a decision one way or the other, so she ordered Hephaestus to put some restraints on Hermes while he was still incapacitated. Hephaestus did as he was asked, but tucked the key into Hermes’s belt when the women weren’t looking.
“That still leaves Demeter, Hestia, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Persephone, and Hades to contend with,” Hera said as they walked back into the Constellar Palace’s throne room.
“Demeter will flee to her daughter’s protection,” Athena reasoned, “And we always planned to spare Hades and Persephone. Let Demeter continue to tend our ambrosia crops from the underworld. She won’t be unmanageable, and it’s a tedious job none of us want. My agents can handle Aphrodite and Dionysus.”
“And Hestia?” Hera asked as she sat down upon the new throne Hephaestus had gifted to Zeus.
“What about her? You’re worried about the most timid and forgettable of all the gods?” Athena asked.
“I probably shouldn’t, but she is my sister. I always worry we underestimate her.”
Hera sat back and took a deep breath, placing her arms on the rests of the chair. Athena pressed a button on her bracelet, and manacles snapped from the arm rests of the chair and pinned Hera’s wrists down. Metal hands worked into the detailing of the throne’s back came to life and grabbed Hera’s head, restraining it and forcing her mouth open.
“You should have been worried about underestimating the genius son you abused for hundreds of years,” Athena said as she retrieved Pandora’s Box from Hera’s grasp, “Or at least, you shouldn’t have been so predictable as to immediately sit in your husband’s new throne without examining it first.”
Hera tried to speak, but she couldn’t say anything intelligible with her jaw locked open.
“I always saw Hephaestus's potential though. He and I have always shared a special bond,” Athena said, “Or at least, Mbomxolodur and Morgania did, and that is enough.”
Hera glared at her with penetrating eyes. She tried to shout, but she couldn’t. She tried to shape shift to escape the bonds, but every time she started to change form the chair shocked her painfully.
“That’s right, Morgania. I’m genuinely surprised you didn’t figure it out yourself, Tiamat,” Athena said, “I’m sorry old friend, but you’re as damaged as the others. Time to go back into the Box; maybe one day I can fix you.” Athena held the box in front of Hera’s face until her Legacy left her body and swirled into the vessel. For safety’s sake, Athena popped the flat coin-like key from the box’s lid and tucked it in a separate pocket. The chair released Hera’s head, so that the woman could rant freely at her usurper.
“Don’t be angry,” Athena said, “I helped you achieve your life-long dream – you were sole ruler of Olympus. Briefly, yes, but still, it must count for something?”
“Why?!” Hera said, “Why betray me?! We had a plan!”
“Betraying you was always my plan. You were among the worst of them all. Removing Zeus from power and putting you in his place? That would have been counterproductive at best. With you both gone, Hephaestus and I will be free to…” Athena turned and saw that Hephaestus was gone. “Damn it,” she said out loud.
Hera laughed, “You never could hang onto a man,” she crowed.
The lights in the room went dark for a long moment before they were replaced by slowly spinning red lights and a horrific noise.
“…Hephaestus…?”
A deep rumbling came up from the mountain below and the floor started to buck and shake under Athena’s feet. Hera continued laughing as Athena ran to the nearest platform, pushing her way past hordes of panicked guards, so that she could see what was happening from outside.
The palace appeared to be warping, collapsing in on itself, and that deformation was causing uncontrolled explosions that disintegrated whole sections of the palace. Athena knew the palace was doomed. She opened a portal to Hephaestus’s mountain and stepped through.
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