Clash of the Neotitans

Here, outside the entrance to the mining tunnel, we met several of ours and even more Titans. All and sundry fighting like mad. I spotted almost everyone from our group together with a lot of Penthesileia's fighters. Some of them were herding terrified mortals out of harm's way. Mortals wearing iron collars and with chained legs, probably to keep them from running. Wherever there were to run in a place like this, hundreds of feet underground.
"Akheloios, Proioxis, Kumiko, Aidra, Palioxis! Engage!" Ishiro ordered. "Narion, Paradox, you come with me to where Dinamarca and Lysandros are protecting the mortals! We're taking them into safety! Same procedure as earlier!"
"Okay, cover us!" Paradox confirmed as she and Narion ran over to the samurai. Meanwhile I had already pulled out my swords and engaged Titans, who were crossing blades with Xantos and Astyokhe. Once more I lost myself to time and space, only bothering with the next Titan to kill.

This time I took advantage of all four dimensions, jumping in the air and somersaulting to reach behind an enemy and stab him in the back before I spun away and pushed my sword in the belly of another one. I saw Aristides fighting with his long, double tipped spear, soaked in enemy blood as well as some ichorished orange which might be his own, even if it didn't seem to bother him. I saw Aleata emptying her gun into a group of Titans and then I saw tourist bus-like vehicles arrive with Titan enforcements, but Oenomaus lobbed a grenade into the foremost car and as it exploded the second one drove right into it and it too became engulfed in the ball of orange fire. Kumiko had retrieved a huge Titan battle axe and was swinging it against her foes while screaming insults at them. There was Androkles who was lifting an enormous boulder, with the strength he had inherited form his father Hercules, and then hurling it at a couple of Titans. I also saw Romulus behead two Titans with one single swing of his battle axe and I saw Nerio fall, grasping her belly and Saxa pulling her out of danger. The twins were screaming like creatures of hell as they fought back to back, the terrible sound of their voices only punctured by the rattle of machine guns.

"There are more mortals down here!" Polemos called and pointed behind himself. "We better go get them!"
"Where's the others? The liberated ones?" I asked, screaming over the deafening noise.
"Dinamarca and Lysandros took them away, defending them somewhere." Pol replied.
"I believe Paradox can send them to that Elysium place." Kumiko huffed as she ducked a swinging mace, using her katana to neuter the Titan in front of her. As the foe started to scream Aristides rised his voice to ask:
"Doxxie's really sending them to Elysium?"
"Yeah," I replied.
"Can she DO that?" Aristides wondered, pulling his spear out of a dying Titan.
"Yes, I've seen it myself." I replied and conjured up more bullets for my machine gun. "Even went there together with Palioxis."
"Tell!" Oenomaus asked and when I shook my head, Polemos replied in my stead:
"That's for later!" The next second he spun away, tricking a Titan to follow him using an odd trajectory which made her fall, and in that instance I could kill her. I looked up and met Polemos' smirking eyes.
"Smooth, Aidra!" he said.

Now our assault was beginning to pay off, the remaining Titans became pushed against the opposite wall of the cave, retreating with wildly slashing blades, clubs, axes and maces, since they had understood that bullets couldn't harm us because of our shielding. As they retreated, they were beginning to make those kind of mistakes scared and stressed beings do, and we were able to slaughter them fast. I don't know how many I killed during those short minutes, but it felt like more than ever since we had come to this place. My fellow Olympians were doing the same.
"I feel like I'm in 'Clash of the Titans'," I heard Alala joke behind me.
"I'd rather call It 'Bash of the Titans'," Xantos replied.

Then two more 'busses' arrived and while Oenomaus gave the first one the same treatment as the earlier ones had gotten, the second one managed to break in time and start emptying its content of fresh Titans down on the ground. This meant they were becoming a bit too many, I feared. At that moment Enyalios called out:
"Okay, every Olympian over here, I have an idea!"

With questioning eyes we obeyed and the son of Ares reached up with his hands in the air and seemed to grab it. The next second everything went dark around us, and I heard angered and surprised screams coming from the Titans and even some bemused words from some of us.

Now, Olympians, circle clockwise so we reach the pond of water over there! Enyalios mindspoke and we followed him in said direction. And as we spun around Enyalios ordered Nerio and Akheloios to pull up some of the water from the pond (which actually was a broken sewer, the smell was terrible) and then freeze it into ice.

Meanwhile the Titans had conjured up magic flares of the kind that overrode Enyalios' darkcloaking magic - but that was apparently according to his plan. Because when the Titans saw us they had a hockey arena of frozen ice between us and themselves, and without noticing that in the dusk and in their fighting frenzy, they rushed ahead. It was almost like Paradox' Möbius trick, a trap with us as baits. Soon the Titans were slipping and falling all over.
"Now - guns!" Enyalios ordered, calling out loud this time, and we all pulled out what we had of that kind and begun to emptying bullets into the Titan's frames. Shooting, shooting and shooting until not a single Titan remained. Well two of them actually made it across, only to meet their faith at the end of the blades of Keiko and Xantos.

After that final skirmish silence lowered itself over the place, the only thing heard was the singing of the water as the ice melt again beneath the dead Titans. Enyalios retrieved his darkcloaking and the place became lit with the Titan's electric lanterns again.
"Now what?" Akheloios asked, looking at Enyalios who had become in charge by default now since neither Ishiro nor Penthesileia were present.
"We'll continue with the plane," Ares' son replied. "Scan for mortals, that's the most important thing. There still has to be some of them down there in the mine, if my math isn't completely off."
"Where's the others?" Alala asked.
"Gathering mortals," Enyalios replied. "Further below."
"Then let's go there!" Romulus suggested. "They might need a hand - or two dozen."
"Roger that, Rom!" his brother said. "Can you find them?"
"I'm not the best tracker, but come on, let's go!"
"And if more Titans come here when we are gone?" Keiko asked.
"Well, it's not that important guarding that dirty gutter," Polemos said and nodded over to the pond.

The next moment we were all heading down yet another tunnel, spiraling down even deeper underground. I had no idea how far beneath the surface of the Earth we were now - and I wasn't so sure I wanted to know. Soon an eerie green light began shining from below and we soon saw why. We had reached into a broad and deep shaft, open in the middle and where our narrow track was circling down the walls. It was from the bottom of that shaft the green light came. Now Romulus stopped us and suggested that we dived down in the hole instead of bothering with the sloping track. And as we did, Keiko told us to scan the place carefully so that we may find possible stray mortals. A good idea! We had just dived a few metres before we spotted three women who were fleeing upwards with a couple of Titan persecutors at their heels. The women's legs were chained together so they had hard to run and they were malnourished and injured, still they seemed to do unexpectedly well against their tormentors. It was probably the adrenaline of fear and despair which fed this Chinese trio.

By seeing them Enyalios gave some quick orders and Proioxis and Palioxis dived down and pulled the chains off the feet of the women and then the twins were carrying the Chinese back the way we had come from, with their mind set upon finding Paradox and the others. Meanwhile Enyalios placed a few well-aimed bullets in the bulks of the Titans. While the now chattering women praised their saviors Enyalios called over the hubbub:
"Come back here as soon as possible, Olympians!"
"Sure thing," Proioxis called back, and then they were gone with their trio of mortals. The rest of us continued diving, scanning the sides of the shaft. But we met neither more mortals, nor any of the Titans. Instead we were soon standing on the floor of a long, straight tunnel with vaulted roof. It was disappearing far away into the mountain on both sides. Large green lamps were lining the walls, it was from them the creepy light emitted.
"Nuclear magic," Xantos said and I wrinkled my brow. Yet another technique I didn't understand.

"West!" Romulus said after having scanned the place for a few moments. "That is to the right," he clarified.
"Mortals there?" Keiko asked.
"Yes - as well as more of our guys."
"And Titans?"
"You bet!"
"Am I surprised?" Aristides jeered as he pulled out his large sword, which looked way too heavy for an ordinary man to lift. Then of course he was no ordinary man...

The next moment we were marching west, and after a while Keiko who was walking next to me, stopped and bent down to pick something up.
"Nuggets of gold," she replied. "Probably dropped from some transport."
"We'll retrieve those later," Enyalios said. "Now we're here to liberate mortals." Keiko shrugged and rolled her eyes but she didn't stop for more gold after having placed her findings in the utility belt. But when I found a nugget myself a few minutes later I couldn't help picking it up too. Then I remembered something and teleported it back to New York and more exactly into my home vault.
"Keiko, you know what?" I said and told her what I did.
"Didn't think of it", she smirked. "I guess too much fighting makes you a tad dumb."
"Not dumb, just tired," I replied.

Not much later we reached the main mine, which was an almost endlessly large cavity with shafts and drifts running all over the place. And with more fighting going on. Reaching that place we realized we had arrived just in time. There were Penthesileia and a few other Olympians trying to hold back a much larger Titan force while they were defending perhaps two dozen mortals who had been liberated. It seemed impossible for them to reach that opening we had arrived from and any other way out seemed difficult to locate. Enyalios didn't hesitate a second when he ordered our attack, and we hurled down in the large cavity and begun fighting the Titans in our tries at reaching our comrades who were defending the mortals.

"Great!" I heard Peneteseleia call. "We never thought we would be able to get these people out from here. It's too tight and crowded for a try at teleporting."
"And we're running out of time," Anaximachos cried out from behind her. "Only two more hours to withdrawal."
"Can't we ask for an extension?" Keiko asked and ducked a Titan attacking her from behind. "After all this must definitely be one of those places Ares described as being 'extraordinary'."
"I'm not so sure, after all it's just a mine," Peneteseleia replied.
"With hundreds and hundreds of mortal slave workers, we ought to..." the Japanese began.
"Negative," the Amazon cut her off and as Keiko made a move to go on, she was firmly silenced.
"Keiko, millions of mortals have been killed by the Titans over history. We can't possibly save them all."

I stopped paying attention and concentrated instead on the Titan who was pushing me backwards as I was maneuvering out across a beam which held up wires and cogwheels to elevators going up and down in the large cavity. When I ducked and swept out in a Taekwondo Tornado Kick with my leg, I felt it connect with the hocks of the Titan and the next second the beast lost her balance and fell down in the canyon with a death-cry. Just as planned. The next second I heard a distant splash, that was how I came to realize there was an underground lake or sea on the bottom of this great mining cave. Not reflecting much more over it I launched myself forward, attacking the next beast, killing him more or less with a lucky strike. After him the next and the next in a seemingly endless row, feeling how tiredness was starting to get to my me but still trying to go with the flow. The last Titan was slimmer and faster than the woman I had just defeated, and she was a more adequate sword fighter as well. So I had to duck several times to avoid her from injuring me with her Adamantine blade. In the end I became the one to lose balance, but since I knew how to levitate I could leap around the beam and enter on the other side, and that almost took the Titanesse by surprise. However I never learned if she was caught enough off balance because the next second her head became severed by a wide swing of Androkles' blade.

The son of Hercules then held out his hand towards me, saying:
"We're leaving with the mortals now, so come on, dear!"
"But there are more down there. How about..."
"We cannot help them, Aidra!"
"There has to be a way!"
"Penthesileia have ordered retreat, come on now!"
"But... If I..."
"Aidra, you can't stay here, we have to stick together!"

I nodded vaguely, he was right. I had told the very same thing to Theosoris back in Babylon when he had wanted to hack that computer for what felt like centuries ago. Now Penthesileia wanted us out, and we had to go to not risk the whole venture. With regret I looked down into the large mine where I saw that a kind of upheaval was going on, the mortal slaves revolting against their tormentors, hitting back at their suppressors with axes, spades and other tools, not seeming to care if they were living or dying at the end of this day. Still there was no way we could help them, we were needed on the planet surface and we had to stick together. On top of that I tried to think of all the people we actually HAD saved, those who were running across the fields of Elysium as we spoke.

Behind Androkles I saw Saxa, she was saying something and pointing above, fear contorting her sweet features. Craning my neck in indicated direction, I saw a Titan standing on an outcropping some ten metres on top of us. Or - no, that was not a Titan. The large being was tar black, and not in the African way but more as if it was made out of scaled iron and surrounded by an aura of flaming and sparkling blue magic. Add to that fangs, claws and burning violet eyes and you found yourself staring at a pure monster.

"Shit!" Androkles said. "A Sybaris!"
"Say what?" I asked.
"A powerful magic daemon. It's probably..." the son of Hercules begun. The next second I felt the gravity turn and I toppled over and fell, instinctively grabbing one of the thick elevator cables before I remembered how to levitate. At the same time a flood of water came crashing down upon me as the sea below turned into a waterfall and gushed 'down' over me. I heard Saxa yell and Androkles calling out that he had her.

"Aidra," I heard Androkles call. "Let go and follow us!"
"What? Where?"
"Just do it!" the next second I felt his strong hand grab me around the waist. "Trust me, young one!" As a response I let go of the wire, instead taking hold on to the strong arm of the ancient god. The next moment we were falling with the water, me screaming on top of my lungs as we went. We hit stones several times and I could feel how my shielding was draining me of power. Still Androkles didn't lose his grip, he held me and Saxa in an iron clasp. In the back of my mind I wondered what had happened to the others. And the mortals, they were probably chanceless against this strange new beast which had appeared out of nowhere.

The water reached a horizontal drift which might as well be the tunnel from which we had come, but I was not sure, and the three of us were flowing with it, spinning, wobbling and tumbling, and hanging on to each other for dear life. Now and then we reached surface and then we gasped for more oxygen with cursings, coughings and spittings as we tried to find our bearings. But it was impossible to even tell what was up and what was down and that was not only because of the magically shifted gravity and the pitch darkness of the place. We fell through another hole and then the water spewed us out in a place where light was falling in from somewhere, and then we fell again, and landed on a suspiciously slim surface. Now the weather washed away, leaving us lying down and panting, sore and battered in spite of our shielding and most of all soaked down to the bones.

As I lifted my still spinning head and tried to focus I found myself staring at two heavy boots.
"Well well well, what have we here?" someone was saying above me. "Three fallen Olympians, looking more like nearly drowned cats than gods if I may say so."

That accent - so Titan!

Out of pure instinct I reached for my knife and aimed to bury it in the boots of the stranger. But my try failed - because Androkles caught my elbow and pulled back my arm so I dropped the weapon. At that moment I looked up - and gazed right into the slightly amused face of Lysandros.
"That wasn't funny, Lys!" Saxa raged behind me. "Hadn't you been lucky enough in having a cousin with fast reflexes you'd have an Adamantine knife in your foot by now."
"Oh, I'm sorry then." The blond great-great grandson of Hephaestos grinned, not sounding the slightest like he meant it. I sat up while glaring at him, a profanity escapling my lips. Androkles was a bit more held together though. As he let go of my arm he described our situation in a few short sentences and then he asked about the others.

"Over yonder," Lysandros nodded his head. "Leia teleported them up here, but she lost contact with you when that monster showed up. We're out of here now!"
"It was a Sybaris, Lys!" Saxa said.
"You sure?" the blond god said. "I mean..."
"I know what I saw," Saxa spat.
"But you know how rare these..."
"You bet I do, still I'm..."
"Come, let's go!" Androkles cut them off, held out a hand and helped me up, returning my knife as well. Sheating it, I turned back to look at the cave where we had come out. We were back at that large plane where we had begun, I realized. The plane with the now empty caves which had housed the mortals.

Lysandros led the way across the now empty plane and we followed him. I turned to Saxa:
"I can't believe our luck, was it the train tunnel we came out from?"
"No, a drift a bit up," the daughter of lost Avalon replied, yawned and shivered in the cold air. "And it wasn't luck. Andy was navigating us. He's kinda good at these things."
"Kinda...?" I echoed with disbelief at Saxa's casual choice of words and glanced over at big Androkles. Turning back once again, I looked at the tunnels we had come from, contemplating the fate of all the people who had surely drowned in there. The Titans I couldn't care the least about, but those poor mortal humans...

O0O0O

"Okay, I've counted twice to twenty-four. So that makes everyone." Penthesileia said. "Anyone not here, please speak up now!" At that spread laughter was heard. Then Ishiro's voice was heard from behind me and I turned.
"If it's true that there was a Sybaris in there, then we'd better hurry and get out of here, because the situation might get direr yet."
"What's a Sybaris?" I asked.
"It's also called a Lamia demon," Ishiro explained. "It's a beast living on the souls of sentient beings. Sounds cliché I know, however most clichés have a background in rea life, or they wouldn't be clichés to start with. The Sybarites are and old race of clever and adaptable beings. So if the Titans have managed to employ one of these, we might be in real trouble if we don't get out of here quick."

"So you don't think that thing drowned?" Narion said.
"They're often quite a bit more die-hard than that," Proioxis huffed, glancing over her shoulder, as if she expected to see the being coming crawling out of the tunnel. "I'm not the only one mistaking a Sybaris for being dead. A Sybaris who rises the very next moment to give me more trouble than ever."
"Yes," Palioxis added. "Remember that being in Palestine? Which came running out of a lorry we just blasted to burning debris!"
"Not to mention that one on the German sub in 1943," Elaos fell in.
"Nazi-Sybaris, can it get any worse?" Proioxis made a face.
"So what are we waiting for?" Akheloios asked, apparently less amused with the discussion of intransigent Sybarises.
"Our ride," Penthesileia replied and kept on staring at a dark, orb-like object in her right hand. Now what?

"So Clash of the Neotitans is over for this time?" Alala figured.
"Don't worry, there's a sequel coming soon in a theatre near you," Xantos smirked.
"With us as the stars!" Romulus filled in.
"Then I want a raise," Nerio said. "And a private lounge with a bucket of champagne waiting for me."
"I guess that can be arranged," Saxa grinned.
"As long as I don't have to write autographs I'm fine," Kumiko giggled.

"A Sybaris, we have to tell the others," said Romulus with quite a bit more seriousness in his voice. "Because this sets the stakes quite a bit higher."
"I agree," Paradox said. "So how's it going, Leia?"
"Just a few moments now," the Amazon said, and she didn't sound particularly worried. Which made me keep on with my enquiries:
"Is this - Sybaris - harmful for immortals as well?"
"Harmful, yes. Lethal no." Androkles replied. "It do eat souls, but that's from mortals. Ours it cannot get. But as we saw in there, Aidra, it can do a lot of other things as well. Like giving us quite a shake over. And even if that's not lethal it prevented us from saving more of the mortals. To put it short, these things down there can hinder us from doing our thing and in the end giving the Titans an upper hand in the game."

The next second Penthesileia was dropping that orb on the ground and in a whirl of smoke and silvery sparkles it expanded rapidly and had soon closed us all in.
"Okay, fasten seatbelts," the Amazon announced and the next second I felt reality shift around me again. It felt almost like back in that cave, but in a way slightly easier to handle. I didn't fall over, I just felt my stomach do funny things. Looking around, I found all of us standing firmly attached to the inner surface of this dark but oily shimmering orb, thus we were all posed at a slightly different angle from each other, still everyone with his or her gravity point down towards that black and shiny floor.

"This is trippy!" I exclaimed as I kept on checking out this novelty mean of transportation, having to bend my head to look at people like Elaos, Anaximachos and Keiko who were standing upside down from my point of view, looking perfectly fine with that.
"I think this whole thing was trippy," Palioxis replied. "Titans in caves, that's what they write fantasy books about. I've been longing for a fight like this for so long, whilst having to be content with crooks lurking in New York alleys and mere guns."
"There's nothing wrong with guns!" Proioxis grinned back at her.

As I felt tiredness catch up with me I was reminded of my own plans. When this was over and we were safely home I was going to hand in my resignation and then join Apollo's group. Working with music and entertainment, that sounded quite a bit more relaxed. No caves and Sybarites, no suffering mortals, no dark tunnels and ration bars. And foremost no Titans! Yes, that was going to be way more relaxed. Not to mention I got to spend the time with my beloved. I so missed Apollo, and I felt ashamed that I had almost forgot to think about him during these underground hours. That was sure going to change from now on!

Turning my attention to what was going on outside the semi-transparent walls, I could tell that I was actually the one travelling almost upside down. We had left the underground and exited somewhere probably right above where the mine had been. At the moment we were flying through a night sky with a moon crescent beneath my feet and to the left. Above me was a large black thing dotted with glittering lights which I soon figured was the Earth surface with lands covered with human habitations, shimmering in their shrouds of electric lights. Eastern China, with some brighter spots which might have been Shanghai and surroundings. Then the lights disappeared and the surface turned dark - no, not really dark, but glittering slightly like mercury and with some odd specks of lights upon, and I realized that we were now travelling over the Pacific Ocean. My inner ear was protesting against the conflicting sensations and I had to brace myself to not getting nauseous.

"What is this thing we're riding?" I asked and Saxa next to me replied:
"It's called a Vimana. It's a magic chariot which has been used by the gods for millennia. A rather simple method to transport large quantities of goods - or gods. You just wrap the gravity around yourself and then repel it so you fall out in the sky. And then the rest is pure levitation and navigation."
"But why is it black? And what is it made of?" I inquired further.
"Because of the inverted gravity, it warps the light as well." Saxa went on as she removed the last of the now destroyed plastic tubes out of her hair. "You can make that discolouring go away and turn it completely transparent, but I guess Leia doesn't bother, after all we're all rather tired now."
"You got that right," Penthesileia replied as she glanced around and looked at us from where she was standing some 45 degrees from us.
"And it's made out of nothing," Saxa went on with a grin. "You see it's not a surface you're standing on, just warped gravity which holds you in place."
"Told ya it was trippy," Palioxis said from her place opposite of Penthesileia. She had sat down and when I saw she was not the only one, I followed her example.

O0O0O

"Aidra, are you out of your... why?" Ares looked at me with surprise in his brown eyes, pushing his laptop away as I sat down in front of him by the table in the living room turned into war central.
"Because to be honest, I'm not a warrior, Ares. I was a cop, that's true. But I joined the force to protect and to serve and not to kill. I was... I don't really know how to explain it, but I cannot do this anymore."

Ares sighed.
"It's Apollo, right?"
"What?"
"The bastard! What has he been telling you now?"
"Ares I came to this..."
"No, you did not come to this conclusion yourself, Aidra. Do you think I'm stupid or what? No, Apollo has been feeding something into your head and probably promised you that it will all be green grass and jolly joy over at his office. But it's not. To be honest with you, Aidra, this war is going to spread and we will soon have to draft more of the gods to defeat this threat. I heard about that Sybarite and also about other beasts which other groups met down under. Now, the mission was a huge success with more than twenty Titan cities and habitations more or less destroyed, but this means the war is going to reach another level. A level which will have 9/11 looking like a dress rehearsal. Soon the Titans will know that the only way to defend their society is to hit ours. That moment they're going to come swarming up on the surface. Then we will have to fight them with all we have and then some. On top of that it's going to be way harder keeping up with all the disinformation that keeps the mortals in the dark."

"Ares..."
"Aidra forget it! If you lean back in that comfy chair and think a bit you'll see that I am right. We can't afford to lose a single soul now. Besides you're not just 'any soul' Aidra. You might be a newbie but you're creative and promising and I'd hate to see you abandoning the case just because you're a bit battle-tired right now. To be true we all are."
"Ares, it's not just battle-tiredness. What I saw down there..."
"Might become five times worse if we don't do what we can to stop it. Imagine if the Titans took over this world! Then what you saw down there might just be a petty prelude."

I sighed and hid my face in my hands, rubbing the rim of my nose. Then I took my eyes off him, regarding the kanban on the wall, with all our battle plans and stratagems. All the clever little logistic solutions. Maps and timetables. It had seemed almost impossible back then, too large a project. But we had managed, simply because each one of us had done their little detail. Including myself. Now, Ares counted on me to keep doing it. How could I let him – and all the others down. Wasn't that pretty selfish after all?

"I'm... what do I tell Apollo?"
"I can talk to him if you like," Ares offered.
"No I... I think it's better he's getting to hear it from me than from anyone else. He'll have to understand that it's my own decision."
"That's great, Aidra." Ares reached out and grabbed the hand I had dropped on the table. "You're a magnificent goddess, don't you ever forget that. Now, go home and rest! Sleep and meditate! And then return refreshed and invigorated to the celebratory dinner here tomorrow night!"
"Aye aye, general!" I smiled and gave him a salute.

After that the war god showed me things on his computer which he had been working on. Interesting things about the magic destruction of some major Titan habitats and also what it would take to eradicate the world from these beasts. It was sure not done in a jiffy and I understood now the tiredness in his chestnut eyes. I squeezed his hand back. Wasn't there a better way? An all-out solution?

But when I walked out of the room I sort of felt that I had been tricked somehow. I knew that Apollo was going to be disappointed. Then again I owed this to the world. Those mortals I had seen down there in the mine - may it never happen again!