Chapter: The Queen and the Tide
The battlefield was chaos. Water, fire and other elements met, steel met flesh, and divine ichor and blood spilt freely on the ground. Hera stood on the fragmented edge of the war, her armour stained with some blood and debris. Her breath was short and came in angry bursts. Her staff, which she used as a weapon, was heavy in her hands, and her limbs ached from fighting. She hadn't done much of it, and her fighting wasn't that intense either. But since she was born, Hera hadn't really fought much.
However, no matter what her body felt like, the ache she felt in her heart was far worse.
Ares, her son, such a powerful god he is, had been humbled by Hephaestus. That sight, the sound of Hephaestus' warhammer cracking against his head, rang louder in her ears than the racket of the battle around her.
She should have felt outrage. She should have gone to his aid and done something. But instead... she felt regret.
Hephaestus. Her son. The son she had cast away, rejected for his flaws, disfigured and thrown off Olympus. Yet it was he who stood at Poseidon's side, proud, strong, and with loyalty and strength, without the disfigurement she had hated so much. It was Poseidon who had taken him in, offered him a place, and given him something no one else had: dignity and love. She felt it. Hephaestus saw Poseidon as his father and that woman... as his mother. Not her. Not Hera, who had given birth to him.
She saw it now. She had always seen it, really, Poseidon's mind. His decisiveness and pride. His refusal to entertain her arrogance or allow her antics to go unpunished. The way he called her out when she postured, when she schemed, when she masked pain in pride and rage.
He was never kind about it. No. Poseidon had always been cuttingly sharp and cold. He was very proud, but he had been right.
Now, seeing the raging, passionate storm that was his marriage to Ra, so different from the silent, pathetic ruin that was hers with Zeus, she felt the weight of every choice she had made. He had told her about it, warned her about Zeus, and shared with her what happened to Metis. She didn't listen.
Suddenly, she was attacked.
Dozens of sharks, large and disfigured, leaping from the water on the ground, tearing through the battlefield like scythes through wheat. Hera spun around, using her staff and striking them down one by one. She filled her staff with divine energy and managed to destroy them, but they just kept coming, circling around her, and testing her limits.
One sprang out of the water behind her and lunged at her, its teeth biting into her arm.
"AAAAAHHHHH!!"
Hera screamed and drove her staff into its eye, but another grabbed her leg.
"AAAAAHHHHH!!"
And another tore into her side. Pain assaulted her brain as she felt herself weaken. The sharks were taking bites out of her and drinking her ichor. She dropped to one knee, blood leaking from her mouth. Enraged, she stabbed her staff into the sharks and killed them.
A shadow loomed over her, blocking the sun.
"KACK...."
A clawed, large and powerful hand reached down and grabbed her by the neck, lifting her into the air.
Riptide.
[Picture]
The monstrous general of the Solar Tides Pantheon, the shark that walked like a man and consumed to grow in strength and power. His body shimmered with wet, white and blue muscles, his eyes glowing with intelligence. He looked at her with something almost like curiosity.
"You fight well, Queen of Olympus," he rumbled, voice deep and rough. As if it came from the deepest parts of the ocean. "But this is not your war anymore."
Hera choked and tried to struggle. Her limbs thrashed, sparks of golden energy flickering around her, but Riptide didn't flinch. Her strength was nothing to him, not after his soldiers had drained her massively and weakened her.
"Poseidon does not wish to see you killed," he said, tilting his head as though weighing her.
Hera stopped struggling, but still held on to his arm with hers. Her chest heaved as she looked at him, really looked at him. Not the monster, not the general, but who he represented. Poseidon didn't want to see her die. So there was a warm aspect to him, which was directed at her.
"You... follow him." Her voice was strained. "You'd die for him."
"I would," Riptide said without hesitation. "We all would. But not out of fear. Because he makes us want to. He made me."
There was a long silence between them. Then Riptide spoke again.
"Why do you fight for them? You know your king is a liar and r*pist. You know what Zeus is. So why stand on his side?"
Hera didn't answer immediately. Her limbs trembled with more than pain as the anger wore off. The ichor dripping from her wounds drenched the remaining pieces of fabric she wore. She was healing slowly.
"There are things I can't control," she whispered at last, her voice brittle. "Things... I started. Things I'm bound to. Maybe I choose this. But it's not that simple. Not anymore."
Riptide stared at her for a long moment and then into the distance. Then, without warning, he opened his hand. Hera fell to the ground, coughing violently.
"I could kill you now," he said, turning away. "But you're not my enemy. Not yet. Stop fighting, or I will return to kill you. I am interested in tasting Olympian flesh after all."
Hera looked up at him, the war raging behind her, the sky split with lightning and flame, showing where Zeus and Hera were clashing and the others who were supporting either side. Riptide and the sharks left.
.
.
On Ra's side of the battlefield, things were taking a turn. Sixty Oceanids and twenty Nymphs, the Huntresses of Artemis, made it across the battlefield to protect and fight alongside their goddess. Their eyes burned with blind devotion, pulling back their strings and firing their arrows. Their target was clear: Ra.
But the Solar Queen did not stand alone. Not even close. And the Huntresses of Artemis weren't worth her time.
Thetis, Eurynome, and a wave of Nereids formed a protective line in front of Ra and her battle, standing in armour crafted by Hephaestus. The two who had saved him and brought him to the Sun's Tide Pantheon were special to Hephaestus. They weren't born for battle, but they were now equipped for it. Each one carried a small water gourd on their hips, crafted by Hephaestus and enchanted to unleash jets and blades of water with every swing or motion, mimicking a style akin to the waterbenders.
The two sides met.
Oceanids shot arrows through the air like rain; the Nereids responded by waving their hands through the air and creating waves of water, which turned to spears. The ground was slippery and red. Water shot through the air, blocking arrows and flinging attackers aside, while creating simple constructs to attack the Huntresses. For a moment, the Nereids held their own and were even pushing the skilled hunters back.
But as it were, this was war, and the tides could change at a moment's notice. All it took was a single arrow.
*FWOOSH*
Eurynome jerked; a look of shock could be seen on her face. A long, obsidian-tipped arrow pierced her chest.
"Eurynome!" Thetis screamed.
The other Nereids hesitated, stunned as their sister, once a conquest and woman of Zeus, fell to her knees. Blood spilt down her chest and to the ground. Thetis dropped to her side, catching her before she fell. Eurynome's eyes fluttered, her mouth working to say something, but before she could, another arrow came.
And another.
*FWOOSH*
One pierced a Nereid's throat and flew out the other side. Another hit Thetis, but before it could pierce her heart, Eurynome pushed her aside and took the blow herself. The arrow pierced her chest from the side and made her fall to the ground.
"NO!" Thetis cried, cradling her.
From the back, a figure approached, clad in a lion's skin, bow still warm in his hands.
Heracles.
He lowered his weapon with casual disdain, his eyes scanning the scene with disinterest and arrogance. Heracles, the Halfgod son of Zeus, who was supposed to complete 12 labours, but hadn't done so, not yet. Zeus had called him to fight in the war, as he was powerful.
The Huntresses paused at the sight of him. Many of them hated him, some for his deeds, others for his arrogance and some because he was male. But he was here now, fighting on their side. He didn't care about the chaos or the pain. He simply knocked another arrow.
The war moved on.
But Thetis did not. She held Eurynome close, ichor staining her hands, and deep sadness and pain could be seen in her eyes. Heracles took aim again and fired the arrow.
.
As Heracles loosed his next arrow, the water on the ground suddenly erupted. From the water puddles and blood on the ground leapt horrors of fang and muscle, sharks, hundreds of them, commanded by their general after he saw the Nereids' need of assistance.
Wherever water had pooled, spilt gourds from fallen Nereids, even the sweat-slick grass trampled underfoot, sharks emerged. They burst from the ground with jaws wide and only one objective: to consume and kill. The battlefield had become their ocean, their fighting ground.
They appeared among the Huntresses, crashing into their tight formations and tearing them apart like paper.
One Oceanid screamed as a shark surprised her and bit into her stomach. The blood and a large chunk of flesh and intestine were ripped out, and left her momentarily shocked once more. Only for another shark to appear and bite into the left side of her chest and kill her. A Nymph hunter spun around with her bow in her hand to fire an arrow, but was tackled to the ground, her scream ending in a gurgle as the shark bit her head off and then consumed the rest of her.
The leader of the Huntresses stood firm amid the chaos, her eyes sharp, fearless and calculating even as blood soaked the ground. She wasn't like the others; she moved with incredible skill honed over centuries, experience, and bloodlust. With a calm breath, she fired two fire-infused arrows directly into the gaping mouth of an incoming shark. It detonated in a splash of gore, sending teeth and bone into the air.
But the moment of triumph was short-lived.
"Lyra!" she shouted, seeing one of her closest companions paralysed by fear as a massive shark burst from a nearby puddle.
She leapt toward her friend, yanking her to safety just as the shark bit into her. Its jaws clamped down on her arm instead. She gritted her teeth, refusing to scream, even as the beast thrashed and tore at her. With her free hand, she pulled an arrow from her quiver and rammed it into the shark's skull. It spasmed and died, still locked onto her arm.
Another shark surged toward her, refusing to give her any respite.
Without hesitation, she ripped the same arrow from the corpse in front of her, turned, and buried it into the throat of the next attacker, dropping it before the shark could bite.
But the first shark's jaws remained fixed on her arm. Breathing heavily, she looked at Lyra, whom she hoped to see safe, but widened her eyes as she saw her close friend look down at her missing stomach and then at her mangled limb. There was no time.
With pure rage, she drew a short sword from her side and cut off her arm. The blade sliced clean through, and her severed arm fell to the mud, still held in the shark's mouth. Blood poured freely, but she acted quickly, using a cloth to close the wound. With the sword in her remaining hand, she continued fighting, now with twice the fury she displayed before. This hadn't gone as she had thought.
The Huntresses tried to regroup, forming defensive lines, calling out orders, but for each shark they killed, more seemed to rise from the battlefield itself. The Nereids saw the sharks fighting on their sides and attacked again, their water gourds hissed and burst with water, but there was no more strategy or order. Screams and blood filled the air.
Heads vanished in a blur of crimson. Torsos were torn open. Arms and legs splashed into puddles, and shark corpses littered the ground, next to the huntresses and Neireids.
From the back, the large, ripped figure of Riptide stepped forth.
His presence announced another change in the slaughter. The earth quaked slightly beneath him with every stride. His eyes locked on Heracles, who smashed his club through another shark. The power of Heracles was enormous, and he didn't have the same problems that the weak huntresses had.
"You've done enough," Riptide told the Nereids, who stood stunned among the dying. "Pull back. Let me handle this one."
Heracles straightened and grinned at the new challenge. They stared at each other. Warrior and monster. Supposed Greek Hero and predator. They said nothing.
Then they charged.
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This war is going to take a while. If you don't want to read this, it will take quite a few chapters before it's done.