Chapter 4: Of Making All Kinds of Plans

"Time it took us
To where the water was
That's what the water gave me
And time goes quicker
Between the two of us
Oh, my love, don't forsake me
Take what the water gave me."

What the Water Gave Me by Florence + The Machine

To be honest, Apollo had always preferred Delphi over Thebes. After all, he had his own temple AND an oracle dedicated to himself only in Delphi! That, if anything, would make a guy (or a God) feel special.

Sure, officially he was considered as the patron God of both Delphi AND Thebes, but he shared the patronage over Thebes with his half-brother, Dionysus.

Dionysus, the god of wine and merrymaking, was not the one to be relied on as the leading god of a city-state: that much was obvious considering how much damage both the city-state and the royal family of Cadmus had suffered during the past few centuries. Not to mention all the destruction Hades had brought upon the city-state as he had tried to bring down Hercules, the young hero and the son of Zeus himself.

Nevertheless, Apollo had been more than happy to let Dionysus rule over Thebes as he looked after his beloved Delphi. Everybody knew that the royal house of Thebes had been cursed: not many gods seemed to be bothered over this situation that much. City-states would come and go as the mortals fought against each other and fell to either sword or old age: that was how the things were supposed to go and everybody on Olympus knew that. There had been even rumors going around that the city-state would be eventually obliterated and Dionysus, as a god who lived for the present moment only and did not concern himself over the matters of what might be, did not seem to be too much concerned because of this. Neither was Apollo, concerned that is.

Now the situation had been changed however. Hercules, the beloved son of the lord and the lady of Olympus, had chosen to live his life as a mortal (a choice Apollo himself had still hard time in understanding) with a woman he loved. And out of all the cities in Greece, they were living in Thebes! And this woman Hercules was in love with just so happened to be a direct continuation to the lineage of Cadmus, the founder of Thebes.

So yes, Apollo had the funny feeling that if Thebes would just so be wiped out of the map and the son of Zeus happened to get in the line of fire (so to speak), he would be the one becoming responsible in that unfortunate situation. (Every God of Pantheon knew that holding Dionysus as responsible over such matter was complete waste of time, it was as useful as the work Sisyphus had to do to pass his time in Underworld.)

So from now on, Apollo would keep his eye (both eyes, if possible) more eagerly glued to the matters concerning Thebes. Heck, Apollo was already in Zeus' list of unpopular Gods because he had been oblivious to what Hades had been doing in Thebes for almost two decades. He had enough matters on his plate as the things were. He did not need to anger the king of Gods any further to make matters worse. Apollo had to step up his game and keep a better eye on matters of Thebes, if he wanted to become mr. Popularity on mount Olympus once again.

He could only hope that all those rumors concerning the destruction of Thebes would stay as they were: as rumors. Luckily Hades was staying grounded in his own kingdom at the moment, so how hard could protecting one city-state be?

Hercules had been summoned by king Creon to his palace once again. Unluckily for Hercules, he had nothing new to tell for the king, which displeased the ruler immensely. If there really was someone plotting against the king, he had heard nothing of it. After all, he was a hero, not a spy, so that really wasn't part of his job description in the first place. Unfortunately, the king himself didn't seem to agree with him on this.

The king was left pacing around his throne-room in a frantic manner and muttering to himself. Hercules caught a word from here and there, he was muttering something about everybody plotting against him and the Gods themselves turning their back at him.

"Your Highness, I'm sure that the common people at least are not plotting against you. Maybe were not looking at the right place?" Hercules tried to reason with the frantic ruler.

"Lies, all lies. Off with their heads, all of them!" The king shouted, still pacing around the room. Hercules shared an uneasy look with Phil.

"Your Majesty, I'm sure we'll find a better solution…" Hercules tried to offer, but was quickly stopped by the king.

"If you're not with me, you're against me!" The king looked furious and for a moment, Hercules wondered if the king was going to start the executions with him.

"Now now, calm down dear, you're exhausted and you need to lay down. You look all pale!" An elderly woman suddenly entered the throne room and put her hand around the king. Now that the woman had mentioned the king's appearance, Hercules too took a notice of his unusually pale complexion.

The king looked displeased, as if he was going to disagree with the woman, but then he just sighed.

"Fine, you win, mother. I'll go and rest, but we're going to talk about this matter later on," the king grumbled as he headed obviously towards his private quarters.

"Thank you for your help, Your Highness," Hercules slightly bowed down his head before the older woman.

"Oh, I don't think we had the pleasure of meeting each other. I'm the queen-mother Harmonia, mother of king Creon," the queen-mother's eyes were sparkling with mischief.

"I don't think so either. I am Hercules, son of Zeus, and this is my trainer Philoctetes," Hercules introduced the two of them.

"It is a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness," Phil was uncharacteristically eloquent before the queen-mother. Hercules wasn't surprised: she obviously was a woman who demanded people's attention no matter where she went. She was an elegant and up-right woman, no matter her age.

"The pleasure is mine, I'm sure," she replied with a slight smile.

"I must apologize for my son's behavior. He might be the king, but it seems like his mental state has been… Deteriorating lately," She sighed, deep sorrow etched to her aged yet beautiful features.

"I'm sorry to hear that. What happened?" Hercules gave the woman a compassionate look.

"Lots of things. Let's just say that he lost way too many things in such a short span of time. He himself is sure that the Gods themselves have cursed his whole bloodline," the queen-mother shook her head.

"I certainly hope not. If there's any way I can assist, do not hesitate to ask, Your Highness," Hercules gave her a reassuring smile and she smiled back at him.

"Such a fine man you are. Thank you, I'll keep your offer in my mind," She replied with a smile.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I need to see how my son is faring," the queen-mother took her leave and headed after her son.

Hercules and Phil took off as well, heading to the royal stables to find Pegasus and went back to Herc's villa.

In there, they found Meg who was surrounded by numerous pieces of Herc's battle garment. Both Herc and Phil were taken aback by the sight.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Hercules asked, his mouth agape with surprise.

"What does it look like I'm doing? Planning to become a gladiator? I'm sorting this stuff out, your storage room is a mess," Meg huffed as she continued with her work.

"Oh. We should really find you something more useful to do, you're not my maid," Hercules told her, as he moved away few heavier pieces of equipment.

"Be careful with those, they're worth of many drakhmas!" Phil warned her and she simply made a face back at him. Hercules sighed and shook his head at their antics.

"So, how did your meeting with the king go?" Meg still kept herself busy with the equipment, her voice completely even.

"Not so good," Hercules sighed.

"His losing his mind, the king is," Phil replied, polishing a trophy he found just lying on the floor.

"What?" Meg stopped her work, her brows knitted together in a concerned manner.

"Well, he was talking about beheading anybody standing against him. Luckily for us, the queen-mother Harmonia stepped in and talked him to taking some time to rest. So afterwards she told us that her son has witnessed so many personal losses that his mental state is not very good at the moment," Hercules explained.

"Oh," Meg simply sighed out, sitting down on the floor. She had a blank expression on her face.

"And you met the queen-mother?"

"Yes, she seems like a wonderful woman," Hercules sat down next to her.

"Sharp as a razor-blade. Like her much better than her son," Phil agreed.

"Oh. That's… Good," Meg simply answered back, her eyes still glossy and distant.

"Meg, are you okay?" Hercules gave her a concerned look. She wasn't really acting like herself at the moment. Why was this affecting her this much?

"Yeah, I'm sure. What would you say if we went to visit your parents, your MORTAL parents in Arcadia?" Meg brushed the first topic off and changed the subject.

"You want to go to Arcadia?" Hercules was taken aback by her sudden change of topic.

"Yeah, well your folks sent us a scroll, thanking us for the last time when they were visiting Thebes. They also invited us to visit them as well for a change. If you're not on the king's list of most popular people of Thebes at the moment, maybe laying low for a while would be a good idea?" Meg proposed.

"Yeah, I see your point. I guess we could do that," Hercules agreed, still a little perplexed. He had the most peculiar sensation that Meg was not telling him everything

"Great, I'll write a scroll to answer them immediately, I'll ask Hermes to deliver it ASAP," Meg replied, already heading to another room to find a scroll and a quill.

"Sign me out, I don't feel like visiting the countryside. Too many sheep for my taste," Phil told her as he too went his own way.

"Well, you weren't even invited, goatman!" Meg snappily told him and Hercules heard Phil muttering something more or less profane back at her.

Hercules sighed as he was left sitting there alone, still wondering what had just happened. He hadn't been back in Arcadia since he was a teenager and now, suddenly he was going back there. He already felt the trepidation.

Hades was royally pissed. The plan he had threaded out so carefully for countless years and now, it was all but gone. And why? Because of his Nutmeg had for some unknown reason fallen madly in love with that irksome son of Zeus.

Maybe using her to learn more about Jerkules wasn't such a brilliant idea as he had thought it was.

Hades had thought that maybe, just MAYBE he could trap both Meg AND Jerkules as a consolation prize in the river Styx, but NOPE. That plan had also crashed and instead of the two lovebirds, he himself was trapped to the river, where he had spend good amount of not-so-much quality time.

AND when he had thought that now that Jerkules was a god and all that jazz, he would at least have a chance to have is revenge on poor little mortal Nutmeg. But NO, that plan was out of question as well: he quickly learned from his two minions (who had obviously been just lazying around and occasionally reading Greekly World News) that Jerkules had in fact declined from his position as a god and decided to stay with his sweetheart on Earth. REALLY?! After all that dolt had gone through to stop his plans from working, he didn't even want his position as a god, just because of that foolish mortal girl?

And when he finally got out of the river where that dolt had plummeted him in, he found out that his brother Zeussie had kindly grounded him inside his own domain. And out of all gods and demi-goddesses out there, they had put Nemesis as his guardian. Numerous times a day, Nemesis would drop in to check on him, complaining how he wasted her valuable time (Hades had pointed out that he did not enjoy her visits any more than she did, that just maybe she could go her merry way to any other direction, but this only irritated her more and she declared that she would smite him, if he continued to annoy her). So yes, Hades was in fact more than annoyed: he was royally pissed.

This had been going on for days, when he finally had a visitor (well, any other visitor than Nemesis). A voluptuous woman dressed in earthy brown cloak, her long red hair trailing behind her. Her face was timeless and her age could only be guessed: Hades knew that she was in fact, older than the time itself.

"Cybele, babe! Good to see you! Not here only for a social visit, huh?" Hades went to greet her, but she only gave him a suspicious look.

"Hades, you weren't my first choice, but I have the reasons to believe that you are holding a grudge against the Olympian gods just as I am," Cybele ignored his out-stretched hand, walking past him. Hades felt his temper flaring, yet he fought against his urges. Then her words started to raise his interest. Grudges, against his brother and the other high and mighty Gods? Now this was interesting.

"Oh boy, do I have my reasons? Do you want the list or the brief version?" Hades huffed out a humorless laugh.

"I prefer no version, actually. I thought you and I might be able to… Help each other," Cybele studied him, a cold smile on her face.

"Help each other, huh? I suppose you want something more than just grief counseling. What exactly do you have in mind?" Hades' mind was already racing.

"Oh, so much more. As you might know, I used to be worshiped all across Greece and Asia Minor. That was, before the Olympian Gods displaced me. I still had my worshipers in Asia Minor, but after the Trojan war, the numbers of my followers dropped dramatically. First, my place was usurped and then the Greeks came and annihilated my people! I cannot tolerate this!" the ancient Goddess ranted and raved. Hades felt a smug smile tugging the corners of his mouth: Zeus had said that he couldn't leave the Underworld and rise against them, but what if he would use her to do it? She would be the perfect scapegoat and he could be collecting the pieces afterwards.

"You got a point there sister, you have been pretty much ridiculed before the whole Cosmos!" Hades only fueled her anger.

"Those ignorant Greeks thinking they can do anything," Cybele huffed as she kept pacing around.

"What if I told you that I can give you back your Trojan army, Hector and all the other bad boys of Troy?" Hades had a devious plan already forming in his mind.

"But my Trojan army was slain!" Cybele looked perplexed.

"Exactly. Slain heroes is kind of my specialty," Hades had a predatory smile on his face.

"Hmph. Tell me more, Hades," Cybele was starting to like the sound of this plan.

-A/N: So Hades is officially back in picture and has a new ally! How do we feel about that? The last chapter was so sweet, so now it's time to move the story itself forward. I try my best to incorporate elements of Greek mythology in this story, but in the style of Disney's Hercules, I'll interpret them in my own way. Once again, thank you so much for the comments, favorites and follows: above all, I appreciate you taking time to read my story.