PART 9
The skies throughout Thessaly were growing darker and darker as if storms were rolling through the region from the north. There was a sense that a shift in power had erupted on Olympus as sheepherders looked up and saw the huge figure passing in the hills beyond the fields below Olympus. Some saw the titanic beauty in godly armor and flowing blonde locks and thought she looked like the bard, the exuberant partner who followed Xena, but then they shook their heads or shrugged their shoulders. Several didn't have the time to do that as they saw lightning coming from her hands and watched their farms burned before them. Maybe she was a daughter of Aphrodite or another of those gigantic progeny of Poseidon, like Chrysaor or Orion. Whatever her name or origin, she was determined to slay the gods of Olympus.
"Alyssia!" Ares appeared suddenly after a burst of light in a tree as Gabrielle stopped and looked at the war-god. He grinned and looked into her eyes as he scanned over her new body and figure and grimaced in perverted admiration. "That's right, I know your real name. I also know you would like to destroy the Olympians. However, I can show you the back door into Olympus if you could take it into your heart to let me help you. We could be partners! How about it?"
Ares watched as her mighty hand started to reach for him then instead gripped the tip of the tree he was in and began pulling it back. Ares hung on as the trunk of the pine tree was arched back nearly halfway to the ground.
"What are you doing?" He screamed. "Stop it! Stop it!!"
She did and he was launched into space like a stone from slingshot. He looked down and saw miles of farms shoot under him too fast to make out.
"Hercules," Iolaus stopped his horse from trying to catch up with Gabrielle. "What is that? Is it a bird? A plain…" He paused for a second. "…old harpy?"
"A harpy?" Hercules wondered himself about the sailing wingless figure.
"It's Ares." Xena had to grin a little bit as her nemesis hit the ground hard and left a trench behind him twenty feet long as he skidded to a stop in the rock hard ground. The impact would have killed and stripped the skin off a mere mortal, but gods were made of sterner, denser stuff than mortals. As Ares awkwardly stood back up, it was obvious he had met the new Gabrielle. He sauntered a bit trying to stand and catch his bearings, cracked his neck and stared indifferently to Xena, Hercules and Iolaus.
"Tried to strike a bargain, huh." Xena replied knowing the truth.
"No," Ares lied in case his father was listening. "Tried to get her to turn back and she wouldn't go for it." He looked to Hercules. "Father, on the other hand, thinks you can stop her."
"We're still some distance to be any good." Iolaus admitted as a flash of light from the war-god's fingers transported the heroes without their horses to one of the smaller peaks adjacent to Olympus. They looked up and saw the cloud enshrouded home of the gods lighting up with lightning bolts and thundering with booms of thunder louder than they could stand. Mortals had long believed that Olympus was atop the mountain it was known for, but the realm of Olympus was almost as vast as the former kingdom of Atlantis and much more vast than the mere mountain top. The mountaintop merely held merely one of a few access points from Earth to the land of the gods and Gabrielle had already forced her way through the breach between worlds. Her presence trapped between heaven and earth was creating repercussions between the two realms. The rarely seen Pegasus neighed and flew out of the cloud-covered peak majestically in fear as another figure tumbled from the top. Skidding and bouncing off the edge of the sheer mountainside, armor flying off her body in all directions, Athena hit bottom with her cape wrapped around her neck and her sword bent.
"Awww," Ares didn't move to help as Hercules lifted her up. "Where's your stragedies and warfare now, sis?" She threw her ruined sword at him in disgusted anger.
"What's happening?" Xena asked.
"Everything!" Athena gasped. "Apollo and Artemis attacked first. They're mortals now by the way. Aphrodite tried to reason with her, you know, thinking they were friends or something. She's bound to Tartarus with the connections between Olympus and Hades shut off. Poseidon and Hades are bound in their realms too. Father's up there at it alone trying to hold her off!!" Athena paused, looked briefly to Xena then back to Hercules. "Hercules, to defeat her, I might have to call upon the other pantheons of Earth for help and pull in all of father's markers. She's devastating Olympus!"
"I'm willing to do it!" Ares held his hand up. "Montu owes me a big favor and Tyr loves taking down giants. Nergal, however, doesn't take requests…" He named off a few war-gods from Egypt, Germany and Sumeria. They were all former cohorts in war and conflict, and they all had varying opinions on each other's talents and egos. Xena tuned away realizing how far this far was going. They were planning the complete destruction of someone she considered her sister! Hercules realized her heart-breaking passion for Gabrielle and sighed a tone of regret to share in her depressed compassion. There was a sigh of defeat as they searched for ideas. Hercules noticed the engraving of Medusa on Athena's aegis and had a thought. He remembered something one of famous ancestors one remarked. A Titan against a Titan...
"What ever happened to that?" He enquired of the image.
"It's in the tombs beneath Olympus."
"Show me!" Hercules rushed into the battle. "Xena, Iolaus, keep her busy!!"
"Right!" Xena pulled her sword and looked around for Ares as she took a flying leap for Pegasus grazing near her. Landing on the majestic creature's back, she spurred him on and coaxed him further up into the breech as Bellerophon had done decades ago. Flitting through the clouds, she was a lot less successful than that mad king as she looked down on Olympus hidden in the clouds and it's broken gates, arches and ruined halls and saw Gabrielle's gigantic form standing high above her and storming the heavens. Streaks of lightning bounced off her as she reached down to the ramparts beneath her and lifted the annoying Discord up on one leg, dangled her above her mouth and dropped her into her gullet. The psychotically screaming goddess was still heard passing through her throat before her voice vanished all together.
"Titanson!!" Gabrielle roared as she towered over the structures she was trying to conquer. "Where are you?!! Show yourself!!"
Xena's battle cry sounded above her as Ares and Athena reappeared with Iolaus at the ramparts of the devastated paradise. He watched them firing a unison of lightning bolts and flaming arrows at her to no avail as Xena still came in closer. She placed the frightened winged-horse directly in her friend's line of vision and stared into her immense green eyes.
"Gabrielle!" Xena implored her. "If any shred of you still exists in there, let me know!! Please don't make me kill you!!!"
Gabrielle opened her mouth and hissed at her. Her breath ignited into flame as Pegasus buckled and inadvertently knocked Xena off his back. Bouncing off a ledge, the warrior princess landed in Ares' arms as Zeus appeared and covered their retreat with mystical lightning bolts and cyclones projecting from his hands. Out the corner of his eyes, he watched as Hercules gripped the same sack that had once his been his great-grandfather's cloak. History was repeating itself as he climbed up a broken wall to the roof to be seen clearly. Athena watched and warned the rest as her young brother proved why he was a champion for gods and men and reached in the red cloak for its contents.
"Gabrielle!!!" Hercules reached in and felt the still soft limp snakes on Medusa's head. He lifted the gruesome trophy up as the long dead goddess's head opened its eyes and glared at the possessed Titaness. The snakes twinged with life for a brief time as their mistress's gaze once more invoked her unholy power.
"No!!!!!!!!!!!!" Gabrielle might have known what it was, but not Alyssia. Her eyes froze as her mind and spirit felt heavy and foreign. She looked upon her skin was already turning gray and hardening as it turned to stone. She tried to fight it off as she attempted to conjure more energy, but she could feel herself cracking already as she lost her bearings. Her head was turning to stone, and her body was cracking and crumbling. A bit dazed as her mind shut off into permanent sleep, she grit her teeth and formed the face that would be trapped on her for eternity. Her immobile arm was solid rock and slightly cracked as she tried to turn. Her body fell back trapped in that movement as one large statue becoming more than a thousand years old. The ground quaked with the sound of thunder as Xena watched in shock realizing she lost her best friend. Her heart stopped, her breath froze in her lungs and her eyes widened in shock. Suddenly, the world was changed on her…
"Discord!!" Ares jumped down the cliff where the petrified giantess had fallen. Landing on her stone abdomen, he cracked the surface and reached in through layers of soft mud-like goop and stony liquid and pulled out Discord from the partially soft stomach. She was covered in mud and liquid rock.
"Did we win?" She peeled the stuff from her eyes.
"Yeah…"
"You saved me?"
"Sure." Ares admitted. "You're my favorite target."
"Xena." Hercules briefly returned the Gorgon's head to Athena in his great-grandfather's cloak as he looked around for her. He slid down the slope to the lower cliff beneath Olympus as the warrior goddess stared at the massive stony effigy of her best friend. "I'm sorry, she was..."
"It was the only thing you could do." Xena watched the cracks still splitting through the huge statue's head and sighed. She never knew how much Gabrielle meant to her till now. She was much more than her best friend; she was practically her sister. Trying to adjust to the fact that she was gone, she started to turn her back as she heard a voice echoing out from the statue.
"Someone get me out of here!!"
Everyone watched as Xena spun round. A hand broke out of one of the eyes cracking and caving into the hollow head. A familiar face looked out of the small hole as Xena broke the opening and made it wider. Hercules watched perplexed and Ares scowled disinterested as Xena reached in and pulled Gabrielle out of the great stone head. She was naked, shaken and covered in a grainy sandy substance. Xena hugged her tightly as they realized how close they came to losing each other. Her best friend was alive and confused. Barely aware of what had happened, the petite bard gasped for air and fought for her breath with her head turning up to the sky. Last thing she recalled was running into that cemetery and then she found herself inside the head of that giant statue.
"Is it daylight already!!" Gabrielle asked out loud as Xena cried for joy to be holding her once more.
