The toga hung over his broad chest like drapes, covering a body of brutal muscle. A circlet of golden laurel leaves adorned his head, resting on thick hair the sheen and rich color of polished chestnut. Over his shoulders he wore a sheepskin, presumably for warmth.
But Cathy did not take in his attire. As both pairs of eyes locked, she froze into place like a statue under his imperial, stormy blue stare—caught in a bear trap and staring her predator down. Her heartbeat disappeared, as though his gaze had literally turned her to stone.
The man made the first move. He huffed through his nose like an angry bull, then took a single step forward as a test of intimidation. Cathy curved and shrank beneath the blanket, her knuckles whitening. Itchy tears throbbed in the corners of her eyes.
This was it. The end.
She never made it out of Arkham City.
If the man's visage was horrible, it was nothing compared to what his voice did to her.
"You dare enter Mount Olympus?!" he declared in a commanding brusque. His voice was deep and strong, spreading and encompassing every inch of the room.
The face, though weathered and aged with thin cracks and lines since the last time she'd seen a picture, was still a face that Cathy had never forgotten.
Maximilian Zeus himself.
And evidently he was very territorial of his property.
Powerfully sickening nausea bubbled from deep in Cathy's gut. Her skin crawled, and her fingers constricted painfully in anticipation for the inevitable, violent end. Bile and acid burned in her stomach, but there was so little in there that Cathy couldn't muster anything to vomit. She didn't dare break her line of sight with Zeus. She feared it would send him into a raging fury.
Cathy sputtered her lips to plead for her safety, but her voice was dead and buried. She made a stuttered rasp, but words failed her and they melted away as soon as they formed in her head.
Maxie had by then already entered the room and approached Cathy's pitiful, huddled form. In his hands he held a long, metallic rod, nearly the length of a staff. Blue lightning crackled in constant movement between two prongs only an inch or two apart, situated at the very top. His muscular forearms flexed against golden bracers on his wrists.
"Answer me, mortal!" Maxie thundered, stamping the rod on the floor. As if on cue, an fork of electricity snapped. "Your unworthy presence before Almighty Zeus shall be short lived, let your tongue confess intrusion on my mighty realm!"
"Wait, please," wheezed Cathy, failing to control her quivering. "I-I was just cold, I meant no harm! I promise, I'll leave right now."
As much as her body told her to stay put, she made a move to stand, to prove to Maxie that she'd be good on her word, that there was no need for brutality.
Maxie's reddening face did not change.
"Pathetic!" he roared before she could rise. Anger caused veins and chords on his knuckles to pop alarmingly. Raising the rod off the floor, he flipped it and pointed the glowing tip threateningly to Cathy's face. Her eyes popped, unable to stare at anything but the retina-burning light of her demise. "Continue to cower, being. You know not of the wrath you have unleashed!"
A burning hot tear trailed down Cathy's cheek. In the firelight, Maxie's face was grotesque with flickering shadows— the last thing she'd ever see.
Just as she had committed to that image, another came to Maxie's face. Hardened brows, so fixed a split second ago, loosened. The electric rod sank with his arms. His taut cheeks fell into parted, unsure lips, and his blue eyes dashed, searching her over.
In an event that Cathy could have never predicted, Maxie's shoulders lowered and he dropped to one knee, gripping the lightning rod for support as he bowed his head deeply before Cathy.
Her own eyes grew large in what was the exact same expression Maxie had just worn. She was so stunned that she didn't think to drag a sleeve across her dripping nose.
"An eternal pardon. Forgive me, I did not know it was you," begged Maxie in a complete turnaround.
He did not rise, only continued bowing.
To her.
Cathy barely heard his words. The rush of blood in her ears was deafening, and her mind barely even grasped Maxie's sudden change in tone and demeanor, she was still cowering from his rage.
"Wh-what?" she whispered, more to herself than to him.
Maxie lifted his head and met her gaze, this time filled with compassion and...something else. Something hard to place.
"Dearest sister...you have returned to us," he said.
Familiarity. That's what it was.
"I-I'm sorry?" Cathy finally took the sniffle she'd been needing so bad.
Maxie suddenly rose onto his feet and spread his arms wide. Cathy flinched, ready for an incoming blow.
"Welcome home, Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth," he announced grandly, as if surrounded by a coliseum audience. He grinned widely in expectation at the grounded Cathy, like he wanted her to stand up and take a bow.
She watched him blankly, wary for seemingly little reason. Or rather, little explanation. It had to be a trick, and yet, Maxie's behaviour had turned so bizarre that it didn't seem to fit any logical progression of something more nefarious. Was this part of the torture? Gain trust and then go for the kill?
"Stand, stand," encouraged Maxie with the gentleness of a new parent, motioning upwards with his hands. His mouth could not simply accommodate the welling excitement in his grin. "You honour us most graciously with your presence."
Us? Cathy was suddenly reminded of Gotham's former District Attorney, Harvey Dent, who spoke in that same way after an unfortunate accident. News media constantly quoted him saying "us" rather than "I", solidifying his psychosis. Dent had also been placed in Arkham Asylum, and she had to wonder if he and Maxie shared the same mental instability.
Maxie didn't wait. As though helping a felled comrade, he offered a meaty hand to Cathy and helped her rise to her feet. Cathy didn't want him to touch her, but he had already reached for her upper arms, and the after-shock of being discovered still left Cathy weak to protest. Weaker than she would have planned. It was one thing to tell yourself how you would react in dire situations, and as she found out now, it was entirely another to live it.
"It escapes me how I could not have seen the signs sooner," he carried on. "The lively hearth, the cloth you bear..." He pinched the brown blanket on Cathy's shoulders. "These long years spent apart have made even The Great Zeus foolish. Do not let this come between us. It fills me with such joy to have you home again, where you belong."
The Great Zeus? Perhaps his meltdown had also intensified some symptom of narcissism.
Cathy remained hunchbacked. Her iron-locked fingers couldn't be pried off the blanket around her neck. She felt woozy and light-headed, as though her brain couldn't have seen farther than sure death a minute ago.
"Ah, but we shouldn't delay," said Maxie, placing his heavy hands on Cathy's shoulders to get a good look at her, nearly buckling her weak knees. "The others will want to see you! Come, you must get nourished. Follow me."
With the tall, proud posture of a monarch, he led the way and exited the room, disappearing into the dark hallway.
Cathy stayed put, and she felt lost in the smothering silence that followed. Her legs begged to collapse again, but she was scared stiff. She glanced at the window she entered through, only to see driving sheets of snow. Was it better to risk the weather outside? Braving harsh wind and rolling waves would at the very least leave a sliver of a chance of surviving. Was there time to escape out the window?
"Hestia?" called Maxie.
No. There wasn't.
Just do what he says for now. Go along with it for a little bit. Just a little bit. Figure something out along the way.
Cathy's legs dejectedly moved of their own accord, compelled by Maxie's command, but she purposely slowed to buy time needed to formulate a plan on how to dance around his hairline-trigger temper. She didn't want to do it, but not obeying Maxie's commands would only ask for trouble. It wasn't even a viable option to tell him that this was all some terrible misunderstanding. As made clear by his raging threat, he was not receptive to strangers. If she was anybody else than who he thought, she was done.
Cathy entered the hallway, only to find it not black but dimly lit from the night sky through the open windows. It was hard to see details, but the walls seemed to be pale periwinkle in tone, and the edges along the floor bore some sort of Grecian decoration strip. Framed canvas paintings lined the walls at intervals. The electric rod in Maxie's hands provided only a tiny, blue spot of illumination, much too small and unstable to discern much.
Maxie smiled when she emerged. Then turning, he started walking down the hall, a wordless beckon for her to match step. Cathy stepped over the threshold, but nearly hissed out loud at the shock of cold under her feet. The halls were laid with large, marble tiles, slanted in a diamond pattern, that absorbed the air's intense temperature. She looked back into the room where her wet, useless sneakers lay. She'd be worse off with them than without them. Maxie's shoes, Cathy noticed, the ones she heard pattering down the hallway, were actually strappy, gold sandals. Impractical choice of footwear for the dead of winter, but even so, Cathy wished she had shoes of any type to protect her bare feet.
"Your timing is most convenient," said Maxie once he heard Cathy catch up. "We have just begun our daybreak feast. No, no, I will not hear to your objections," he added over his shoulder humourously, in the sense that the real joke was that somebody would turn down such a thing. Booming, luxurious laughter churned from deep inside his chest—the type of laugh reserved for kings. Cathy was sure the vibration alone could have shaken drywall dust loose from the ceiling.
She only half heard his subsequent words, she was distracted by trying to step delicately along the floor. "Joyous day...", "I knew you would return...", "Reunited with our sister..."
Cathy's mind backtracked, triggered by an echo of his previous words reverberating in her head. He kept calling her 'sister'. He had to be at least twenty years her senior. Cathy wondered if perhaps she bore a resemblance to a real sibling. Was Hestia the name of his actual sister? Cathy almost felt a twinge of sympathy for the mistaken identity. Almost, if she happened to forget that if he hadn't had a change of heart, she would be a smoking pile of ashes by now.
She felt even worse when she wondered if perhaps the real Hestia was lost somewhere in Arkham City.
Despite an odd costume choice anywhere else in Gotham, especially for the season, Maxie appeared right at home in Gotham City Olympus's Greek inspired hallways. He was likely dressed to match the theme of the architecture, not to mention playing up his surname, but Cathy was at a loss as to why he would be making the effort now. There were no patrons, no customers, and no employees, as the darkness and loud echo of their feet revealed. It was as though he was all alone in this sprawling building, keeping in character in case somebody turned up.
In normal circumstances, Cathy would have thought of Maxie's appearance as humourously tongue-in-cheek. But there was nothing funny about him and the way he talked, or the way he walked. After the incident from minutes ago, everything about him was dead serious.
"I would have summoned Hermes to fetch you, but alas, he has yet to return. Upon his arrival to Mount Olympus, I shall see to it that he summons our brethren immediately."
Cathy's heart dropped. She previously thought that Maxie's use of 'Mount Olympus' was just for the building; an affectionate nickname at worst. But the name Hermes. Cathy's knowledge of Greek mythology only went so far as her sixth-grade textbook, but Hermes was not a strange name to her.
He had also called her 'goddess'. She remembered. At the time, Cathy had been more concerned with not what Maxie was saying, but how he had been saying it. Now that her senses had time to catch up, she realized with every step that there was more to this man than what the news had been reporting.
"Does something vex you, Hestia?" inquired Maxie. He stood fifteen feet further down the hall than Cathy. She had lagged behind.
She evaluated his form, hesitant. The everpresent ball of dread in her stomach grew. Maxie's demeanor changed in her imagination's eye. What used to seem a little crazy, if not temperamental, was slowly becoming something a little more hidden, a little more sinister and purposeful. Was he speaking in some sort of code? He did have ties with mobsters after all.
The window was still open back in the room she broke into. If Cathy spun around and booked it right now, maybe she could make it. Maybe. But then again, that glint in Maxie's eye, the one that could go postal at any minute, stayed her feet to the ground.
"No," she answered softly, taking a casual glance at the painting to her left. "Just...overwhelmed."
Maxie's face glowed in approval. "It is the same upon me, dear Hestia. Do not let my serene countenance fool you, I am overjoyed for your arrival. I could not have wished a better gift bestowed. Make haste now, the others await."
Cathy continued following, at a loss to choose anything else. Although, she at least made sure to stay out of arm's reach. Just in case.
Whoever the "others" were, she dreaded their meeting already. The more people who saw her, the more difficult it would be to escape.
A/N: Quick note, I know that in the comics Maxie speaks often in Ye Olde English, ie 'thee', 'thou', 'hast', etc. But I found that it got a little distracting to have to re-read his sentences just to decipher what he said properly. That tends to break immersion for the reader. So I think I'll stick with more recent English, but still very formal and regal, like that befitting a king.
Not sure if it looks like I gave away the Maxie Zeus angle too early in my description, considering that it took this long to get there, but it was my only major draw to this story. But even though the main plot has arrived, "A Bolt Out of the Blue" is far from over, I can promise that a lot is still coming up if you're ready for the long haul with me. I originally intended Maxie to appear by the third chapter at least, but once I started this story, I just got so carried away. You can't make a character go place to place without a reason. And the political prisoners weren't even in my original outline, they were added at the last minute.
Whoa, 100 visitors dropped in to this story with the last chapter! The pressure's mounting on me to deliver *tugs at collar nervously* I will try not to fail expectations.