Dragon of War Chapter 3: Death and Sibling Rivalry
Author's Note: I know I pissed off a lot of people with what happened last chapter, but I do have a very good reason for doing so. And while this chapter is shorter than I would like, I think I got its point across. Enjoy.
There was only darkness, and it was blinding.
He felt pain, and he felt nothing.
There was no sound, only silence.
There was no scent, yet it was everywhere.
The taste of blood came with every breath he took.
He was all of it, yet none.
...
"What is this?"
Kratos kicked at the beast's corpse. Seeing that it was no longer a threat, the Spartan put his foot on the chest of the body and began pushing with all his might. It took a few seconds, but eventually, the body went tumbling over the side of the walkway, disappearing into the cloudy abyss below.
"You've done well, Spartan." came Athena's voice from behind Kratos. She had apparently just come back to witness his disposal of the dragon creature.
"I did what needed to be done." The warrior stated simply, before turning to face the still-unconscious child behind him. He went forward and bent down to look at the boy's injured leg.
"Athena, can you take care of him?" Asked the Spartan in a rare tone of sentimentality.
Athena gave Kratos a glare. "Do not let your heart get in the way of what needs to be done Spartan."
Kratos turned and returned her glare with a stone, cold gaze. "I won't. But I will not leave this child unless you take him somewhere safe." He said defiantly toward the former Olympian.
The ghost continued to glare at the stubborn warrior until she gave a sigh of submission. "Very well, Spartan. But once I heal him, he will be your responsibility."
With that, Athena extended her hand, which glowed with green energy. Hiccup's body became surrounded in the same energy before lifting into the air. He came by the ghost's side, head limping as he floated.
"I will take him to the Labyrinth. He will be safe there." She said to Kratos before a large light began to engulf her and the unconscious Viking.
"Remember Kratos," She warned, "as long as Zeus reigns, there is no hope for mankind. Destroy the Flame of Olympus, and the very foundations of Olympus itself will crumble." That was the last thing she said before both her and the boy she was carrying vanished in a flash of green light.
Kratos thought over her words for a minute before turning towards the cliff. There was another platform across the way and a running start would be needed to get to it.
Zeus sat on his throne, a frown set on his face. He could feel the tremors of the battle below, and each one made the room shake, causing more rubble to fall in front of him.
The King of Olympus was thinking about how it had all come to this. He had ensured that the prophecy would never come to fruition, yet here he was, waiting for his son, who foolishly thought he could kill him. The monarch slammed his fist down on the throne in frustration, sparks of electricity surrounding his hand.
How could it have come to this?! He had everything under control, but his son had gone and started what was now the Second Great War between the gods and the titans. If it hadn't been for the Sisters of Fate being too inept at stopping Kratos from changing his fate, the mortal would be dead and everything would have turned back to what it was before Athena had idiotically made the Ghost of Sparta the god of war. And his brother Poseidon would still be alive, along with the majority of humanity.
"Something must be done." He said to himself, standing up on his throne. "I will wipe out this plague of a son myself, and nothing will stand in my way!"
Then, to Zeus's surprise, the floor in front of him cracked open, revealing a black hole of smoke and wailing dead arms that reached for anything to drag. But they were ignored as a fellow Olympian jumped out of it.
Hades, God of the Underworld, roared in triumph, brandishing his claws and having them swirl around his body in unison before bringing them back to his side. He breathed hard through the metal mask he was wearing, fire and smoke coming out of the facial plates.
Zeus glared at Hades in annoyance. "What is it, brother?" He demanded. "You should down there handling the Titans! OLYMPUS MUST BE DEFENDED!" The king punctuated his shout by turning around and throwing a bolt of lightning at the throne, which exploded into nothingness.
The Underworld god did nothing but wait for his brother to stop his bout of rage before letting out a deep, demonic-sounding laugh.
"Impatient as always, dear brother." He said. "I have come bearing something I think may interest you."
"And what could be so important that you would abandon your duties?!" Zeus yelled, arms crackling with electricity in his anger.
Whether or not Hades was intimidated by his brother was impossible to determine, but the god's laughter this time around seemed a little more subdued. Brandishing his claws, the God brought them together before quickly embedding them into the ground. The claws scratched along the marble floor, opening a large black portal in the ground that grew wider as Hades spread them farther away from one another.
The hands of the underworld came out once again. Only this time, rather than trying to find anything to bring down, they seemed to be lifting something up.
Zeus relaxed somewhat, his arms no longer covered in electricity. His anger gave way towards confusion as the hands pushed up what seemed to be a dragon-like creature out of the depths of the underworld before tossing it at his feet. From the way the creature's neck was angled, it was clear that it was dead.
"I was sending out my troops to defend Olympus," Hades hissed through his helmet, "when I sensed something that wasn't man or demon enter my realm. I found this corpse not long after."
Zeus's confused expression became one of irritation.
"Why should I care about whether a creature of yours is dead or not? Their goal should be protecting Olympus, and I do not care if they must die to so."
Hades laughed another demonic laugh, like his brother had said something very amusing. "But this creature is not of my creations brother. And if you were to look into this one's mind, like I have, then you would also see that it is not even of this world."
The king of the gods became intrigued at this revelation. Looking down at the body once again, he could now see that the dragon-like corpse lacked many of the visible signs of belonging to the underworld. The corpse's wide dead eyes were a regular green, not like a shade's, which had white, milky orbs because of their association with death. There was also evidence of it being alive earlier, since, besides the cracked neck, their was no evidence of decay on the body. It seemed freshly killed, not just killed again.
"I see now that this beast is not of your realm Hades, but what you said earlier confounds me. Just what do you mean by 'not of this world?'" Zeus asked suspiciously.
Hades said nothing, but instead went and stood over the corpse. Placing one hand on its head, he held out the other towards Zeus.
"Let me show you." He hissed.
Zeus walked forward, eyes half-lidded in suspicion. If Hades considered this important enough to personally share minds in between himself, then this deserved attention. However, if this was all an elaborate hoax, he would deal with Hades after he had killed Kratos.
Grasping his brother's hand, Zeus closed his eyes...
...and was instantly bombarded with a series of highlighted events of the creature's life from its perspective.
He saw the small, thin barrier of an egg being broken and heard the cry of an infant just before it was lifted by two older dragons.
He saw the tip of a cliff just before the sight of the rocks in the ocean below started coming closer.
He saw an enormous dragon roaring inside of a giant dead volcano ordering an army of dragons to get food for her.
He saw an attack on an island that was inhabited by a large group of humans that, despite their roughness, looked incredibly stupid and narrow-minded, rushing in to attack the dragon just before they imploded from the blast of a fireball.
He saw a pair of ropes with two metal balls wrapping around the dragon's body just as it flew over to attack, landing down in the forest not long after. A screech of pain followed.
He saw a young, extremely weak-looking child lifting a knife above the trapped dragon's head and closing his eyes. The boy hesitated for a moment as he stared down at his victim just before the dragon's eyes closed.
He saw that the same boy was now making some sort of saddle for the dragon, which soon became a scene of the boy flying on top of the dragon while dodging through pillars of rock in their way.
The rest of the visions in Zeus's mind told a lot about what happened. Apparently, whoever this mortal boy was, he and the dragon had become allies and had gone against the boy's people to help the other humans. It eventually became one long vision of a great battle between the giant dragon and the duo, who had barely managed to escape the explosion of her body before being knocked down by the dragon's tail. The creature had attempted to save the boy from the flames before they were engulfed by a strange orb of energy that had come out of nowhere.
Zeus frowned. Why would Hades waste his time trying to show him this creature's life if it-
Then he saw why.
Kratos, his son, was now fighting the creature head-on, and from the looks of it, he had easily incapacitated the dragon. The view focused on the boy, who seemed unconscious and severely injured. The last thing he saw was his son's enraged face before everything went dark in the dragon's mind, followed only by a loud snapping sound.
Zeus opened his eyes, wrenching his hand away from Hades, who stood and awaited his brother's response. The king of the gods meanwhile, stared at the dragon's body, thinking over everything he had just saw...
...before bursting into deep, uproarious laughter.
