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The echo of Ares’ voice carrying across the Great Hall managed to rouse Hades, his head protesting against the noise. Pushing himself up, he sat up enough to see Ares dropping next to Joxer on the other side of the hall. As the younger god was helped into a sitting position, Hades saw the trail of blood running down his face. He watched as Ares coached Joxer through the process of self healing the small wound, an ability all gods naturally had and was developed in their childhood years. Hades supposed that, in godly terms, Joxer was a child.
“Brother?” Poseidon’s voice sounded to his right. Still aching from the collision against the wall, he turned slowly towards his older brother. Poseidon was resting against the wall, just below the indentation his body left on the thick marble slabs that covered the temple. Hades was sure that if he looked up, he’d see a similar hole.
“I’m okay… sore, but okay.” Rising unsteadily, he managed to stay on feet only by holding onto the wall. “Ares, you and Joxer okay?” he asked, wincing at the loudness of his own voice.
“We’re fine,” Ares said, his words of assurance losing their worth as he stumbled from his kneeling position, bracing himself on Joxer and only barely managing not to fall on top of him.
“What happened?” Poseidon asked as he got up himself, just as shaky as Hades, and half heartedly swatted the dust and debris off his hair.
The goddesses were still laying in the middle of the Great Hall, locked in a tight embrace; Athena’s twitching tempered slightly by Artemis hold on her. Hades and Poseidon approached them carefully, unwilling to be thrown back again.
“I think it’s safe,” Joxer said carefully as he wiped the blood off his forehead with a cloth Ares had given him. “For now. And no, I don’t know for how long. But if Artemis and Athena win, we have nothing to worry about. If they lose, we have to be prepared for the worst.”
“Should we move them somewhere safer? To Tartarus, perhaps?” Hades suggested, as he went to touch the Artemis.
“NO!” Joxer shouted, scrambling to get to his feet, and half running and half crawling, managed to get to Hades’ side. “No, don’t touch them, we don’t know what’ll happen. And we shouldn’t move them, much less to Tartarus; Dahok could control the dead. Worst case scenario, we don’t want to give him a ready made army.”
“Any suggestions, Ares?” Hades asked as his nephew made it to their side.
“There’s no way to tell how this little mind walk of Artemis is going to pan out, so we’re operating assuming the worst. Artemis fails, Athena dies and Dahok breaks free. We have no idea if Dahok will be weaker or stronger coming out of this, but we’ll say stronger. That means, that even you, Uncle Don, won’t be able to take him out again. I’ve declared war. We need an army.”
~*~*~*~
Hades looked out one of the windows of the Great Hall and smile in satisfaction. Joxer was just now relaying Ares’ instructions to the rest of the gods assembled outside and around the temple.
They managed to get the strongest gods in Olympus plus other many minor but brave gods here in less than a minute. It was amazing the commanding power Ares exuded, and now functioning as King of the Gods, his booming demand for their presence was not ignored. Only Ares, Poseidon and he remained inside the Hall, the front line of defense. If they should fail against Dahok or if the demon managed to escape, he’d be confronted by over fifty Olympians upon setting one ugly foot outside.
“Hades!”
He only hoped Artemis was successful. Persephone was outside.
~*~*~*~
The silence unnerved Joxer more than anything else that was going on. No one was talking.
If one thing he’d learned of the gods in the time he’d been one, is that in groups of three or more gods and goddesses, conversation was hardly scarce. But all around him, they stood at the ready, weapons drawn and silent. Silence that had fell upon them as they heard Ares loudly calling to Hades.
Nothing could have been deciphered from the one word, Ares’ yell carrying neither fear nor relief with it.
He’d done his part, informing the gods of the current situation and now stood next to Eris, holding his own sword up the ready, but feeling as small and helpless as he had when he’d been a small boy.
Eris nudged him, bringing his attention to the temple. The windows rattled in their frames.
~*~*~*~
Hades moved closer to Ares, as they studied with morbid fascination the increasingly rapid twitching of Athena’s body.
“This is it, right?” Poseidon asked, pulling his sword from its sheath and stepping back, giving himself move to maneuver.
“Where we live or die,” Hades confirmed, also unsheathing his sword and mimicking his brother’s movements.
“Where we live, gentlemen. I have one very important god outside those doors to love for the rest of eternity,” Ares corrected his uncles, easily swinging his sword.
They were unprepared for the light that once more burst from the goddesses’ bodies.
~*~*~*~
All fifty three gods stood, breaths held, unwavering eyes locked on the doors.
Which opened suddenly, a dark figure looming in the threshold.
Before anyone could move, Joxer ran up, dropping his sword as he reached Ares, grabbing him in a fierce hug.
For a second, Ares allowed Joxer to squeeze the stuffing out off him, before pushing him softly away in order to grab his face and kiss him soundly. Smiling easily, he pulled Joxer to his side.
“Apollo, we need you.” His calm voice indicated that it was not a case of life or death.
Already just a few paces away, Apollo bowed to Ares, and jokingly replied, “Aye, my King.” He laughed as Ares playfully shoved him inside the temple.
Seeing the anxious faces before him, he walked toward his ‘army’.
“Artemis is fine. Athena is understandably weak but also fine.” Drawing his lover closer to him, Ares continued. “And thanks to Joxer’s knowledge, Dahok is gone. For good.”
If the silence had been unnerving, the sudden release of tension in the form of cheers was deafening.
Hades walked past them, clapping a grateful hand on Joxer’s shoulder, gracing the young god with a smile. Stopping a few feet away, Hades scanned the faces in front of him, looking for a specific goddess, who managed to find him first.
“Hades! Are you alright?” Persephone asked, standing just far enough to not be close enough. “I was so worried.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
Awkward silence lasted for a few seconds before both of them started to talk at the same time. A brief session of deciding who spoke first ensued, before Hades finally just took the proverbial horse by the reins.
“You were very brave to come out here today. I wanted to thank you.”
“Oh… um…” Persephone stammered, blushing a bit. “Well, I couldn’t just sit at home and knit while this was going on.”
“Ah… you knit?”
Blushing bright red now, Persephone stammered a bit more. “No… um… figure of speech.”
“Ah.”
~*~*~*~
“That’s so cute,” Joxer remarked as they watch the interaction between Hades and Persephone.
“I might gag,” Ares replied, but pulled Joxer closer to him with a strong arm around his waist.
Joxer smiled.
The end