Medusa: Fate's Game Ch. 15

And then they faded away, only to be replaced with new ghosts.

The tears started up again. She tried to keep them at bay, keep walking, power through, but more memories started to hit her. The sound of her daddy's feet walking around when she was taking a nap. The tap tap of her mommy's fingers while she worked. How mommy used to play with her toes when waking her up.

Darian stroked her knuckles with her thumb. And, when Otrera took her free hand, she smiled through her tears down at the two little warriors, and kept walking. Holding hands too? Otrera had changed.

"W-wait," she said. "What about Darian? I got to see someone, Otrera got to see someone, we could—"

"No."

"But—"

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~~Darian~~

"No." He shook his head again as they walked down the lovely grass street of the perfect city. His parents weren't dead as far as he knew, and his brother, he had nothing to say to him. Who else could he talk to? Proetus? Patrius? None of it would give him closer, none of it would make him happy. It'd do nothing but scar him.

And the afterlife knew it. Or perhaps it remained unaware of who he was due to the mask. In either case, he was content seeing the others content.

It was quiet, but not dead quiet. Gentle breeze, lovely river, everyone was smiling and chatting and enjoying themselves. Some people were carving wood; no idea where they got the wood. Some people were fishing; did the river have fish? Some people were wrestling, some people were practicing with fake swords, and some people were making necklaces of beads. He didn't see where they got the materials to do any of it, and yet, they were.

And of course, far more commonly, people were having sex. Just as the first time they walked through the delightful city, this time they were treated to a new array of people naked and hooked at the waist. Kids weren't in the area, probably something the afterlife did on its own. And that meant a bunch of men and women, healthy again in the afterlife, were free to run around naked and do whatever they wanted. The afterlife seemed to be quite good at pairing people up who either wanted to be together, or needed to be together.

It gave him a sliver of hope. When he died, maybe he would be with Medusa? Would he get to enjoy this haven of peace and bliss for as long they wanted?

He squeezed her hand. Not a single night without her.

The emotional turmoil of the situation lost its impact as they walked past yet more and more people having sex. Hard to be solemn and heavy with the weight of their actions when everyone around them was grunting and moaning. While some were satisfied to enjoy each other in the privacy of their homes, plenty were happy to either have sex in front of their windows, or simply have sex outside. And as the curve of the city street wound close to the river, they found a host of couples having sex on the edge of the beautiful stream, and not only just couples.

At a certain point, they wandered past an orgy, with a group of men having their way with two women. And the women were getting little say in the matter.

Darian frowned and readied a hand, but stopped. The women were trembling, but their toes were curled, and their moans were quite loud. They were enjoying themselves.

Not exactly a kink he shared, but he had to admit, the women did indeed look like they were having the time of their lives as the men held their arms behind their back, and each women took at least three men at a time.

Darian kept walking. Medusa and Otrera didn't. The two women stopped, and stared at the mess of legs and arms, then each other, then back at the display.

"... really?" Darian said when he looked back at them.

"Hey, judge all you want. They're really enjoying themselves." Otrera grinned at him, blushing, and she leaned against a wall as she watched the orgy continue. "Some women just want to be pinned down and taken. Some women want a lot of men at once. And," she gestured to the group, "some women want both at the same time."

The trials and tribulations of their journey, washed away by Otrera's sex drive. He laughed, but Medusa was frozen, staring, blushing even more, with a finger on her lips. Her bronze eyes were locked on the women, their raised legs, and their trembling feet.

"We um... we should go," Medusa said. She didn't move.

Rolling his eyes inside his mask, Darian reached out, grabbed the two girls' wrists, and started walking toward the light in the distance.

The Amazon pulled against him a bit, and let her weight lean back so she could keep watching until he finally got them around a building corner. "Fine fine."

Medusa giggled at her. "I've only been gone a day, right? So much has happened in that time! You're both so different!"

"Yeah well." Otrera fell back in step, and the three walked out of the city up onto the flower-covered hills. "We can fill you in later. First we have to actually get out of the underworld."

"I... don't remember much," Medusa said. "Athena found me, yanked me out of the river many hours later, and... it was all a blur. So many lights, and things so huge I couldn't understand them."

"Sounds about right." Otrera took Medusa's hand again, and grinned at Darian as they got closer to the wall of light. "So stay near us, Medusa. If things go like they did last time, we'll just walk right out of the underworld, take the ship back to the living, and be back in Aethiopia before sunset."

Medusa nodded, and looked back over her shoulder at the beautiful, humble little city of bliss. "I... don't know what you're going to do about me though. I'm dead. I can't—"

"I'll handle it." Darian nodded, and tried to smile at Medusa. But she couldn't see it, and only returned him a puzzled look.

They couldn't see what he could see. They couldn't see the waves of color, the resonance, the life forces that connected everything in the afterlife. The hidden streams, the floating wisps of white and pink, the way Otrera's body left glowing footprints of gold where she walked, and how her skin radiated a subtle white. Medusa's footprints left no color, and her body glowed an aura quieter, like a gentle mist. And he knew how to fix it.

As they approached the white light, he pulled Medusa in closer. "Stay by me until we're through. Neither living nor dead should be able to pass through this."

She nodded, gulped, and put her arm around his neck and shoulder. Otrera switched sides, hooked hands with him, and waited.

A quick glance back, and his breath stopped short. A knife in his gut, twisted, and yanked out. He stared down the hill, and felt his body freeze, even as his memories bled out onto the grass and flowers at his feet.

Lukas.

The man — boy — looked up at him from the bottom of the cliff.

Otrera and Medusa turned to look at him, and he turned to face down the hill, the unending fields of white, and the face of his brother, only a hundred feet away.

"Is... that..." Medusa squeezed his hand tighter, tugged on it a little, but he didn't respond. He just stared down the hill, while his brother did the same.

His brother waved at him, in that little way he did when he used to tease him, drawing a finger from his forehead away. Smile on his face, or something more like a grin, Lukas faded away.

And that was it. No screams of betrayal, no cries of anger or anguish, not even a heartfelt reunion like Otrera or Medusa. No, just a wave. A wave that spoke a thousand words.

He smiled, turned around, and stepped through the light.

Darkness hit Otrera and Medusa, he knew, but he could see the swirling vortex of... something, flowing up and down. It crashed against him, tried to push him back into the afterlife, and he ignored it. Energy bashed against skin and armor, like a great roaring river, demanding he turn back, and he pushed through it, with his lover and his friend in tow.

When all this was over, he was going to have a lot of questions for Moros.

The three stepped out of the barrier. Medusa and Otrera both collapsed, gasping.

"I... thought for sure... that was death," Medusa said as she got up.

"I suppose you'd know." The Amazon laughed, and gave the tall woman a gentle punch as she got up as well. "Good to have you back. Half the journey done, half..." Her voice fell away as she looked out.

Darian growled, let go of the hands of his friends, and clenched his fists as he stared out over the enormous cavern of the underworld.

There were no more glowing light beings, no more floating spheres of pulsing energy with tendril arms. He looked up, and scanned the various temples and massive homes that decorated the titanic stalactites and stalagmites. The Erinyes had grown in number, and all of them were armed, each staring down at him. The other demon-like creatures that he'd seen before were gone, likely hidden in their temples.

But it wasn't the Erinyes that were enough to give him pause. It was the thousands of gold masks that stared down at him.

He scowled, and stepped past the three judges. No need for weapons, no need for anything but his hands. And they knew it. As he started to walk forward, up the crater and away from the pillar of light behind him, the army of gods took a step back.

So many gold masks, on gods of all human shapes and sizes. Everyone was wearing gold armor with silver lines decorating it. Many wore a sword and shield, many a spear and shield, and others carried large swords he did not have a name for. Others, bows and arrows the same as Otrera's. And there were weapons he did not recognize at all, with spiked balls on chains, or large clubs with spikes along their ends. And many of the weapons glowed with their own sinister colors of what was, no doubt, weapons meant for killing something stronger than a human.

"Darian! W-wait!" Medusa ran up to him, and grabbed his wrist. "What's going on?" But her paltry strength didn't slow him, didn't phase him, and he continued up the slope.

The three fates drifted among the gods, though they were still without human bodies. Standing as ten-foot-tall robes with black masks, they drifted to the front of the crowd, and raised a few of their mist-like limbs.

"Bellerophontes! You have harmed Athena, assaulted a god!"

Another god stepped forward, and Darian chuckled at the sight of Athena standing next to one of the sisters. She was holding her wounded body, but the silver blood had stopped.

"And you abuse the power of Moros!" Athena said. "You are just a human! This appalling act cannot be—"

"Appalling?" He took another step, and an army of thousands took a step back again. Medusa's voice had become a quiet whisper in the background, but he realized it wasn't her growing quiet. It was him getting louder, loud enough to shake the walls. "You cursed a human because you're jealous of her. And you call me appalling?" He stomped his foot. The ground erupted with vibration, tore through the whole of the underworld, and had the walls ringing with the sound of the earthquake. "The only reason you live, goddess, is because a human you despise didn't wish pain or death upon you. Because a human you were going to leave in Tartarus for a thousand years, wanted to spare you agony."

The crowd of gods looked at each other, at the Fates, and many turned to look at Athena.

"That does not—"

"It matters!" Again he stomped his foot. How comical, for the little man to stomp his foot like a child. But with the rage, with the pouring white of his eyes, with the blinding fury that tore through his spine and into his skull, stomping his foot felt like slamming the weight of a thousand ships. Felt like stomping with the foot of a Titan. The ground cracked underneath him, veins of ruined stone spread outward, the temples themselves vibrated until homes began to crack, and the hanging braziers of blue flame started to fall from their hooks.

They didn't understand. They didn't get that he could kill them all. But he'd make them see.

"Where is Poseidon, and Zeus?" he said.

Three men in the front of the crowd stepped forward. Tall, powerful looking men, with golden masks, thick armor, and each armed with enormous swords wielded with two hands. One sword dripped of unending blood, the other cracked with sparks of lightning, and the other swirled with tearing currents of water.

Moros snarled. "I let you live Hades, and Medusa let Athena live. This is how you repay us?"

Medusa gasped loud enough to cut through the noise.

"You have assaulted our home, destroyed the guardian gate, attacked the Fates, attacked a god, and defied the will of another. You are not Moros, and you will fall before us."

The three men stepped forward, and behind them, three more gods, three women. One bore a scepter and a peacock feather on her head, the other carried fire in her hands, and the other carried a torch of searing flames.

Hera, Hestia, and Demeter.

Others joined them, gods and goddesses with symbols and names he recognized. Artemis, Ares, Hermes, Apollo, Dionysus. Others he did not recognize marched behind them. Over a thousand symbols, over a thousand different golden masks, weapons drawn and held ready, came toward him. The Fates remained where they were, and they stared down at him from the top of the crater as their army marched. Proud of their army perhaps. Or desperate to see him dead?

He put his hands out in front of him, palms downward, and slowly raised them up.

The cavern began to shake once more, but it did not start with him. From deep in the Earth, below the underworld, vibrations started to rise. Slowly at first, so quiet he could barely feel them. But they were coming, and the closer they grew, the more he strained his hands to lift the power beneath them.

And the earthquakes grew until the ground began to rupture. The army of celestial beings stumbled and struggled to stay standing, and many started to float as the earthquake grew, and grew, until the jagged spikes of black rock shot up from the cavern floor and split the oncoming masses.

But it wasn't the rock he was summoning. It wasn't the shaking Earth or the tearing floor he was beckoning. It was Moros.

"After everything... after all this... I let you live, I spared you despite your crimes against Medusa, I spared you despite the horrible things you've forced on us. All I wanted was to undo the injustice done upon Medusa. But now..."

Lightning cracked, black, searing, and it struck into the crowd. The gods fell, threw themselves into the air and flew away, like house flies panicking before a swatting hand. The lightning tore through the rock, ripping it apart and showering the city in shards.

"Hypocrites. Liars. You should all die."

The lightning ripped across the open air of the massive cavern, and cracked against the raised buildings. Screams of panicked creatures filled the air, and a host of wings flew away from one of the temples hanging from a stalactite. The sounds of breaking rock flooded the cavern, and then, the dead silence as everyone watched the temple fall free from its roost, only for the thunder to deafen the world as the temple shattered upon the cavern floor.

"And you three!" He stuck out his hand toward the three men who had begun the charge, the three men who now hovered and stared at the chaos around them. They plummeted from the sky of blue fire, and crashed onto their knees at Darian's feet. "You three are the worst of them all." He reached out with his other hand toward the men, and drew them near. They skidded along their armored shins and knees, and dropped their weapons as they rolled. Once they were near, he squeezed his hand, and then ripped it away. Their masks ripped from their faces, and turned into mist before hitting the floor.

Only once he could see their faces did he start to squeeze his hand, and bring the three gods up to their knees while crushing their insides. They gasped, clutched at their chests and throats, and stared at him with panicked eyes.

Zeus. Darian stared down over him, brought him closer, brought the god of gods closer, until he was only inches from him. Moros kicked forward, sank his foot into the man's chest, and sent him onto his back before he marched forward, and sank his foot down against his sternum. Darian would have been too light, not strong enough to give Zeus a moment's pause. Moros brought the king of the gods down like a child, and pinned him to the stone hard enough Darian felt something crack underneath his sandal.

The lightning never stopped. The quaking never stopped. The army did more than panic, they scattered as black clouds started to form over Darian's head, as the judges started to quake, and their stone hearts started to beat faster. The pillar of light, the vortex of souls, changed tints of color to red and purple. The rivers of souls leading to it churned and splashed over the underworld, and the shattering of more pillars of stone echoed for miles in all directions. The three goddesses, Hera and her sisters, did their best to fly in toward him, but each was barred by the bombarding strikes of black lightning. He could see their mouths moving, demanding he stop, but their noises were but the buzzing of flies upon Moros's ears.

It was all background noise for Darian, and the grip he held upon the three before him. As the white mist leaked from his eyes and mouth, it started to pool around his feet until it flowed from him like a monsoon of fog. A quick glance back to see Medusa and Otrera were alright, before he returned to staring down at the three helpless fools, and the one pinned underneath his foot.

"Bellerophontes! You... can't... do this!" Zeus reached up with one of his hands and grabbed onto Darian's leg, squeezed and tried to toss him off. But the king of gods could do nothing but roar in agony as Moros pushed more of his weight down against Zeus's chest, until he felt a couple more things crack, and Zeus's roars turned into screams.

Medusa gasped, and stared at one of the helpless gods. At Poseidon.

"... you."