Super and Magical Moments - A T-Rexcellent Reviews Fanfiction One-Shot Series
I of course own no DC Comics properties or characters and make no money off of this, I am merely a giant DC Fan who wants to share my stories with all of you.
Chapter 3: The Fall of Antaeus the Invincible
"Because kid, you're NOT the first young prince who has tried to take on my father's favourite son." The Master Trickster told him honestly, the God of Speed's usually carefree voice becoming deadly serious and somehow, Kal knew that Hermes wasn't joking around anymore.
"Far from it." Hermes said as he leaned back and stretched out with his trademark smirk across his handsome face, although Kal couldn't help but notice as he sat down that the Greek God's sly smile failed to reach his teal eyes this time, in fact, Hermes usually insufferable smile looked rather melancholy, more than anything else. "Far from the first…"
"… But the biggest was the hundred-foot-tall Stone Titan, Antaeus the Invincible, or so many mortals and immortals at least thought at the time." Hermes explained as he began to tell Kal a truly important story, a story that in his professional opinion, the kid needed to hear, the unedited version anyway.
"Antaeus was the Last Son of the Primordial Earth Goddess Gaia the Gentle, who just so happened to also be my great-grandmother, she was one who protected Zeus from my tyrannical Titan grandfather Cronus the Cannibal you see, when he went on his whole, child consuming rampage due to prophetic paranoia over the cycle patricide that tends to run in my family."
After hearing that particular sentence, Kal gave the Messenger God a rather perturbed look that Hermes noticed after a few moments. "But that's a whole other story kid, one I'll tell you about another time." The Olympian said with a wave of his hand.
"Anyway, after ten long years of war, my father finally overthrew my grandfather, imprisoning the Tyrant Titan King in a specially made chasm in the Underworld and of course mercifully sparing many of the defeated Titans as he had promised my great-grandmother he would upon his ascension to the throne."
"Well, that's good, I gue-." Kal began to say, only for Hermes to immediately cut him off.
"For all of five seconds, he then blew up the Titans bodies with that infamous Thunderbolt Blade of his, before banishing their immortal souls to the deepest darkest pits of Tartarus for all eternity, breaking the one promise he made to my great-grandmother in exchange for her help in his rebellion in the first place, afterwards he exiled Gaia and then used the broken corpses of her children to build the foundations of his new kingdom of Mount Olympus."
"So, a bit mixed bag on how great a start that was to my families divine reign really." After that rather long tangent, Hermes noticeably paused for a moment as he had a somewhat contemplative expression across his face, seemingly staring at nothing at all.
Kal waited patiently for a few moments before he cleared his throat loudly, causing Hermes to seemingly snap out of whatever trance he was in and resume telling his tale.
"Hmm? Oh right! Antaeus! Sorry! Anyway, well, as you could probably imagine kid, the big rockhead wanted to avenge his mother's firstborn children, the Titans, his big brothers and sisters, and I mean the big part literally."
"Which he chose to do by slaying the King of the Greek Gods favourite child in single combat. Only problem with that particular strategy was that he had to wait, a long, long, long time, as my father isn't really big on playing favourites for very long or likening most of his children in general, believe you me, the stories I could tell you about my brother Ares, kid…" Hermes said as he began to ramble again.
Kal looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Hermes…"
"Right, right, sorry, so skip ahead a few centuries later and a couple dozen Demigods killed with my father not caring in the slightest, then comes along Hercules, Zeus's Golden Boy, the two knuckle headed idiots naturally sought each other out so they could wrestle to the death, and to give Antaeus credit, for a moment there, it DID actually look like he could succeed where all others had failed." Hermes admitted and for the first time his voice had an admirative quality Kal had rarely heard from the Master Trickster before.
"Wait! How exactly was Antaeus able to take on Hercules in a wrestling match?" Kal asked, interrupting the story to hopefully gain some important insight into what he needed to do to defeat the Demigod himself one day. "Like, was he just naturally good at wrestling? Or did he have some special powers to help him? Was trained by someone in that particular fighting technique?"
Surprisingly, instead of getting angry or annoyed at the young prince for interrupting his tale, Hermes looked noticeably impressed with the boy.
"Ahh, so nice to see your clever enough to ask the important questions kid." Hermes said with an almost proud smile on his face, before continuing. "The answer is all of the above, actually, Antaeus was already an incredibly gifted fighter but he was also gifted in another way, born with the power of invincibility from my great-grandmother Gaia as long as his feet were touching the earth."
"Not only that, but he also trained, long and hard, under my uncle Poseidon in fighting on both the land and the sea, so that no matter where he was battling someone, he would never lose the homefield advantage, not a bad strategy as my sister Athena once said to me, eventually, he even became my uncle's Champion and hero to the mortals of Ancient Greece, he was a pretty good one too, only stepping on people who had it coming in his own words." Hermes said chuckling almost fondly.
"Anyway, Antaeus swore to defend a sea side village famous for worshipping my uncle Poseidon that Hercules and his horde had set out to conqueror, he defeated every single Barbarian challenger that my bastard brother had sent before him and piled up their skulls and bones into a throne for him to sit on as he waited for Zeus's favourite son to finally show up and face him."
"Eventually, after a few hundred dead barbaric idiots, Hercules did finally show up on the way to do one of his Famous Twelve Labours with his whole horde of fearsome fanboys at his back, that day the Favourite Son of Zeus and the Last Son of Gaia met just outside the village walls where they fought each other for what would be both the first and last time."
"Hermes, how do know all of this." Kal couldn't help but ask, from the way Hermes spoke, it almost sounded as though he was...
"I know kid BECAUSE I was there, watching from a hilltop a good distance away, I saw it all happen." Kal watched as Hermes smirk fell from his face as he said that final part, and his eyes looked more sad than merry in that moment.
"I'll let you take a guess at what happened next, kid." The God of Speed's usually cheery voice had a suddenly somber tone to it and Kal couldn't help the shiver as he thought of the answer, he already knew to be the right one.
"Hercules killed him." Kal whispered hoarsely.
"No kiddo, Hercules didn't just kill Antaeus." Hermes corrected the young prince with a dead serious expression on his face now. "My bastard brother completely annihilated him! Crushed him! Smashed him and otherwise utterly obliterated him! Remember this kid, whether we are only Demi or full God, we Olympians don't believe in half measures when it comes to killing our enemies."
"After about an hour into their wrestling match, Antaeus, pridefully believing victory was already his, came charging right at Hercules, planning on crushing the bastard beneath his big stone foot." Hermes suddenly kicked up some dirt into the air with his left foot, his boot's wings flapping and seemingly transforming the floating cloud of dust into a makeshift shadow puppet show which re-enacted the horrific scene.
"But Hercules just grabbed him by the toe and lifted the giant piece of granite right off the ground, severing his connection to the earth and thus removing his famous invincibility, before flinging him up into the air." Kal watched as two huge muscular figures, who could only be Hercules and this Antaeus the Invincible that Hermes spoke of, wrestled one another, before the larger of the two, Antaeus, came charging right at the smaller, Hercules, who grabbed him by the foot and flung him up high into the sky.
"Hercules then threw his club right up into the air and shattered Antaeus into a thousand pieces, the villagers cheers turned into screams in seconds as blood, guts and brain matter fell from the sky like a red rain." Hermes explained as they both watched the gruesome scene play out in disturbing detail in the dust cloud before them. "And just like that, the last free Titan in all of Ancient Greece died that day."
Kal saw Hercules throw his club like it was javelin right at the helpless Antaeus with enough force that it completely shattered the Stone Titan just as Hermes had said, he then watched as the dead champion's remains fell down atop of what looked like the village the God of Speed spoke of.
"Wait! His body parts!" Kal asked in horror, finally pulling his eyes away from the dust re-enactment to look at the now humourless Hermes. "They fell on the village?"
"I'm afraid so, kiddo." The Master Trickster answered with a grim nod. "After Antaeus died, his body's rocky remains came crashing back down to earth like a meteor shower, levelling the village and killing almost everyone inside it, Herc always took credit for planning for that to happen, but the truth is kid, the big brute just got lucky, a few members of his own horde got crushed by those falling rocks as well."
"The outcome remained the same though, Antaeus ended up destroying the very place he had sworn to protect." Hermes said sadly. "I assure you kid; the tragic irony was not lost on me as I left that terrible scene to tell the rest of Olympus what had happened."
"Those villagers who survived were all enslaved, the women as breeders, the men as servants, the girls as future entertainment and boys, well the strong ones at least, were brainwashed into future warriors for the horde whilst Hercules took Antaeus still mostly intact head to use as his new favourite footstool."
"The rest of the dead Stone Titan's shattered remains still lie there to this very day, permanently embedded in his mother's own earth, an everlasting testament of Hercules brutality and sobering reminder to the rest of us that pride always comes before the fall, always." Hermes said solemnly as Kal watched these events play out in the re-enactment, until the dust finally settled again, putting an end to the disturbing display.
"What is the point of this story, Hermes?"
Hermes turned to look at the gathered crowd of Amazons and the two Greek Goddesses, which included the Queen Hippolyta, Princess Diana and her four best friends, Queen Hera, General Philippus and the rest of the Themysciran Council, as well as Captain Alkyone and the other three members of the Queen Circle.
It was Lady Persephone though, who asked the question.
"Well cousin, I suppose that all depends on whose point of view you tend to share." Hermes pondered aloud for a moment as he stood up from where he sat, carefully considering the question.
"For Antaeus, I believe it's that your own overconfidence will eventually get you killed." Hermes said, looking directly at the Queen's daughter and the rest of the young Amazonian girls beside her. "Usually in the most gruesome of ways possible."
"For the villagers, it's that putting all your hopes in a single brave champion to save your home is a mistake in the making." Hermes spoke slowly, making sure to look at each and every member of the Themysciran Council in the eye as he said these words. "No matter how big or strong he is."
"For my uncle Poseidon, it's that perhaps he should have taught his star student more discipline and less wrestling manoeuvres." Hermes said, glancing at Philippus, who glared back him.
"For my great-grandmother Gaia, it's that vengeance, no matter how justified it might be, always has a price attached to it." Hermes said, looking directly at Hippolyta. "And sometimes, we don't realise we aren't prepared to pay it, until its already too late."
"And for Hercules, it's that there will always be people who want to take you down just because of who and what you are, kid." Hermes said looking down at Kal, but glancing at Alkyone and the rest of the Queen's Circle out of the corner of his eye ever so briefly.
"But as long as who and what you are just so happens to be the most powerful Demigod who has ever existed, well, no challenging young royal, vengeful mother or angry Olympian can ever take that away from you." Hermes said, first looking at Kal, then Diana, then Hippolyta and finally Hera as he said that last part. "No matter how hard they may try."
Hermes than turned back to the young Demigod who he had been originally telling this story too, and Kal saw that the God of Speed's roguish features were fixed in a dead serious expression that seemed strikingly out of place on his usually smug face.
There was no sign of deception or merriment on the Master Trickster's regularly smirking face, no humour or sarcasm in his usually mocking voice at all, just cold, hard, undeniable truth.
"But for you, kiddo, the point of this whole story is not to make the same mistakes Antaeus the not-so Invincible did." Hermes explained calmly, looking Kal right in the eye as he said this. "Never give into your adversary's goading and petty insults like you did when you were chasing me earlier, don't allow your pride and overconfidence get the better of you in battle like that of the now Shattered Stone Titan's."
"But most importantly of all kid, is that you need to learn the value of trickery as a skill to help you beat opponents stronger than you like both Hercules and I have, and always remember, that your enemies are NOT going to play fair, because if you don't, well, you just saw what happens…" Hermes then promptly turned and walked away, turning invisible as he did so, disappearing seemingly into thin air, leaving a silent crowd of women and a now rightly worried young prince in his wake.
Greetings to all my fellow fanfic readers and writers, I hope you all enjoyed Super and Magical Moments Chapter 3: The Fall of Antaeus the Invincible, please let me know what you think of the tragic story of Antaeus the Stone Titan and Hermes ominous warning to Kal about just how horrific Hercules really is.