Practical Parenting 5 : Chasing the chaos C'icken
by Shamenka
Hercules had only just got his feet under him after his somewhat precipitous arrival on Olympus when his reception committee all started to speak at once. The hero looked at the sea of frightened Godly faces all around him. Principal amongst them was Ares. That almost had Hercules panic there and then.
"Everybody shut up! Now!" He glared them all into silence and looked at them all one at a time. He finally turned to Athena and Herdecided that she was less hysterical than any of the others. "Okay, now, Athena, will you tell me what this is all about?"
As soon as she opened her mouth Hercules realised she wasn't anywhere near as calm as he had thought she was. The very sight and sound of an hysterical Athena filled him with both dread and the urge to laugh till he wet himself. Until he made out the essential parts of what she was trying to say. He'd skipped through references to Bliss and only really listened when she got on to the part of her rambled tale that had Strife in it.
"...And that was when we realised the Strife was missing again. Only this time we couldn't trace his signature anywhere what with it being masked by Greagus' own more dominant signature. Which is only logical if you think about it, Greagy's been around a lot longer than Strife even if we took his previous incarnation into account, which, again logically speaking, we really shouldn't so essentially Greagus' signature is far more powerful than any two year old Godling's signature is going to be, so we couldn't look for Greagy because there's only two Gods as can do that, Ares and dad. Only Greagy is utterly terrified of dad so that left Ares and he's only the one God and naturally there's a limit to where he can search. Like only the one location at a time. Which is why it took so long to track them down. Only when we did the Strifelette had been injured and Greagy took him home on command all right, perfectly in fact. Only... only... only the Strifelette thought he was going to be punished for everything, because Bliss had told him he was a wicked evil Goddling and only here to be punished which was like I said back at the start, was the trigger for it all to start in the first place and now he's behind a barricade he's made, because he might be the Strifelette and only two years old but he does have his first life memories sort of, and adult powers, so he made himself a wall the likes of which we simply can't get through. So we thought, and that was all of us, we all agreed that perhaps he'd respond to you because you're his Uncle Snugly and he really loves you for some odd reason. There's no accounting for taste after all, but you'd have thought that after all the awful things you did to him first time round he'd not be so keen on you now! " She finally stopped for a breath and gave Hercules the opportunity he'd been waiting for.
"What do you mean Strife is hurt and you can't get to him? How, who? Where are they? Who'd hurt a two year old baby? I'll... I'll... WHO?" He demanded of his Godly audience.
"Xena. She did it!" Apollo finally informed him.
When the hero looked at his blond half brother he realised the Healing/Music/whatever god was physically holding Ares both up and back from his own temple.
"Xena?" He couldn't believe it of his onetime lover. That she of all people would raise her hand to so young a child, Godly or otherwise was rather incredulous.
"Oh she did that all right. She's right out of her tree that one. Mark you she'll not be doing anything ever again, not in the real world that is!" It was Cupid who spoke this time, just to confuse the already stunned hero.
"Okay, let's start at the beginning. What happened to Strife that would have him dashing around the world with Greagus of all animals?" Hercules looked at Ares for an answer and realised his brother was only just aware of them all. "But before we do that will someone please tell me what's wrong with Ares?"
"Strife's barrier drained him pretty thoroughly, but he keeps trying to get in, to get to him. We know Strife was injured but we can't reach him, can't heal him, can't even make him understand that we don't hold him to blame for anything that happened." Cupid spoke again. " See, like Aunty Ath said it was Bliss' fault. I handed Bliss in to pops because I didn't have time to arrange someone to baby sit him. He's not been the same since his mom and me split up which kinda makes him a dreadful handful." It was then that Hercules realised he had been talking about his son, not his father. "Dad didn't have time to baby-sit either but he knew Joxer could cope. He's great with the kids, they adore him. Even if Bliss hates Strife with a passion he usually doesn't act on it when Joxer's watching them both..." He was interrupted in his wandering narrative by his still confused uncle.
"Wait, you and Psyche have parted? I thought you loved each other?" Hercules realised that he was even further out the loop for family gossip than he ever thought he was.
"Yeah, a while back. Just after Strife came back in fact. Seems some helpful soul showed my dear ex-wife how to use the mirrors in the Hall of Time and she watched a lot of ancient history and decided she might be able to keep her Godhood and ditch me if she could divorce me on grounds that I was being unfaithful to the bitch with a former lover." The winged God looked every inch the son of War. He was livid, and judging by the mutterings of yeah, bitch and other monosyllabic grunts of agreement his fellow Gods thought his rage justified. "Only the stupid bitch tried to convince everyone that I was being unfaithful with Strife!" His shock was genuine, that much Hercules could clearly see.
"Strife! How could she imagine you'd be sexually involved with a baby?" the Hero was rather disgusted by the unwanted mental images flooding his mind at that awful thought.
"She'd never seen Strife in the flesh, only in those fuckin' mirrors and didn't realise Strife had died and been reborn. Emphasis on reborn! Not that she ever bothered to realise he'd dumped me because I wasn't faithful to him. Even though I had been to her, we had a kid together after all! Anyway, I'd spent quite a bit of time trying to help dad settle Strife in on his return, baby-sitting and that, and she tried to claim I was having some sort of a very sick affair with Strife at that time." Cupid tapped a foot as he talked, his irritation growing by the second. "And it's all of no real importance right now because Psyche's gone, mortal, outta my damn hair for good. And Strife's in there, possibly bleedin' to death and we're all stuck out here. Just get in there, be the fucking hero and save him!" The Love God pushed the hero towards the door to Ares' temple and sent Hercules flying against the closed door.
Pushing himself away from the door and checking his face for breakage's the hero pondered all that he'd been told thus far. It still wasn't enough to tell him why Strife was so terrified of being punished, why were Xena and Gabrielle no longer a threat to the little tyke and why in Tartarus' name had Ares let his psycho dog loose near a baby, even if that baby was Strife?
"Okay, I'll go in in a minute. But first I want some straight answers. Question number one, What is it that Strife thinks he's going to be punished for? Two: What has happened to Xena and Gabrielle? And Three: What on earth was Strife doing being left with that psycho mutt in the first place?"
The Gods and Goddesses shuffled from foot to foot. Whatever the reason it was going to be a good one, so long as you weren't a God or a Goddess, that much was so very obvious to the exasperated hero.
"Strife seemingly wanted to feed Greagus and picked on the nearest source of birds he knew of. He fed him at least two if not three of mother's peacocks." Ares finally spoke to his half brother having managed to shake off the effects of running full tilt into Strife's defensive wall several times. "Look, watch the edited highlights, it'll give you a clearer picture quicker than any of us can." Ares created a large mirror before Hercules. As it took shape each and every God and Goddess standing around Ares' temple door was now seated, as was Hercules. It came as a surprise to the hero to find himself seated comfortably between his brothers Ares and Apollo.
The hero looked at the mirror and tried very hard to pay strict attention to the images before him.
Hera wandered onto the mirror's surface and crouched down beside the small child feeding half strangled peacocks to the mutt monster that was Ares' pet dog.
"Strife, sweetling, what are you doing?" She asked calmly, sweetly, lovingly and Hercules was amazed she didn't instantly turn the child into a dead child.
"She's not really Hera is she, she's way too sane?" He tried asking Apollo, he rather thought Ares might just be tempted to defend his mother's insanity.
"Shh!" Apollo hissed at him, swiping at him for good measure. "Of course that's the real Hera. She loves Strife, always has. Now cut the catty comments and watch!" The Sun God glared at the hero. For his part Hercules was suitably chastised and turned back to the frozen image.
"If you've quite finished impugning my mother, shall we continue?" The acid sarcasm dripping from Ares' words could have been used to etch glass.
"Sorry." Hercules muttered and turned his full attention back to the Queen of the Gods and the little Godling he had sworn to defend from all that would harm him.
"'S a c'icken. Greagy eatses c'ickens, Jox'r says so, so is! So am feedin' him c'ickens." Strife held up his prize, a now seriously dead peacock. "More c'icken!" He presented the tasty morsel to Ares' favourite dog and grinned at the beast.
For his part Greagus tried to hide the multi coloured feathers dangling out of his mouth from his last c'icken. He didn't recall c'ickens having quite so many long multi coloured feathers last time he'd caught some.
As he watched, Hercules was rather amazed to realise he knew what the large, and in his opinion dangerously psychotic, dog was thinking.
"That is not a chicken, sweetling, it's one of Nana's peacocks." Hera smiled gently to the child. Right before he stabbed the back of her hand with the beak of the mangled peacock still firmly grasped in his.
"Bad words!" he decried his Nana for foul language and made a long, loud 'oh' sound at her as if she were about to spontaneously combust.
"OUCH!" Hera cried for her part and tried to stem the flow of blood from a rather nasty looking gouge on the back of her hand.
"I did not use bad words!" She tried to be calm, but the audience could hear the strain and agony in her voice. "All I said was that that dead bird is not a chicken. It is, or rather was, one of my prize peacocks... OUCH!" She screamed again as Strife dug the beak of the bird into her shin this time.
"Bad words!" He said again.
This time Greagus crossed to stand right next to his daddy's tiny charge and tried to look as if he wasn't quaking in his paws at the prospect of an angry Queen Goddess telling daddy that it was all his fault.
"Zeus? I need your assistance." The audience could hear the mental call of the Queen as she called her husband to her side. It was obvious that neither Strife not Greagus heard her call.
"You're bleeding!" The King of the Gods dashed to his wife's side and took her injured hand in his. "What happened? How did this happen?" She leaned into him for support and smiled up at her husband.
"Strife thought I was saying bad words." She glanced at the Godling at their feet and as both sets of eyes locked onto the Godling Greagus got into a full panic at the very site of daddy's daddy looking less than pleased, so much so in fact that he picked up Strife by the simple expedient of grabbing the seat of his little leather pants and vanished them both off Olympus via Strife's escape portal and to relative safety. Or so he hoped.
"Then what happened? Is Hera still cross with Strife? Is she going to harm him as punishment for hurting her like that?" Hercules didn't take his eyes from the mirror as he asked his questions.
"I have no intention of harming Strife what so ever." The whispered response came from directly behind the hero and all but had him leaping from his chair. "He thought I was saying pee and cock which he has been taught, and quite rightly so, are bad words that one simply does not use in polite company. After all the little lamb thought he was feeding his doggy chickens." Hera's reasonable response had the hero turning round to face her. Just to make sure it really was Hera right behind him.
"So why did you call Zeus?" He asked fairly politely for an encounter with Ares' mother.
"I was bleeding and Greagus doesn't listen to anyone but Zeus or Ares. Since Ares was busy I thought Zeus could handle the silly dog. He's usually so docile after eating, and he had had about three of my peacocks before I turned up."
"Oh, so where did Greagus take Strife then?" Hercules could clearly see that Hera was telling the truth, she had had no ill will towards Strife or Greagus.
"Watch." The Queen of the Gods whispered to him, pointing over his shoulder at the mirror as she did so.
Hercules turned and watched some more.
"Oh, 's a bad doggy thing." Strife shook his head in dismay at Greagus as they both appeared in a familiar setting. Corinth's main market square. "Uncle A'es is gonna be so cross..." The tiny Godling looked around at their surroundings, obviously still unhurt at this stage and also obviously thinking hard as to what to do next. "We's gonna be in big badness if we's caught here. We's need a d'guise. If we's not us then we's not dood it." The little Godling screwed up his face in deep thought and came up with what he clearly thought were fool proof disguises.
Hercules almost swallowed his tongue as he saw the larger than life image of Greagus now dressed like him, right down to the boots and wrist guards. And what was even more amusing was the sight of Strife now dressed as a three foot tall Ares, right down to the earring.
"If yous is Uncle Snugly an' I's is Uncle A'es, then nob'dy will know we's us." The three feet tall Faux God of War took a tighter hold on his dead peacock and looked for somewhere to go hide from his angry grandparents. "Where is we?" He looked at his doggy companion and shrugged. "You knows where we's can hide here?"
Once again Greagus grabbed a hold of Strife and tugged at the Godling.
"Okay, I'm movin' I'm movin'!" And Strife appeared to be opening a Godly portal only to have it taken over by Greagus and they both vanished once more. Only to instantly reappear in the Corinthian throne room, right before the less than happy to see them Iphicles.
"Greagus? What are you doing now?" Then the King looked at his guests and laughed. He couldn't help it, he held his sides against the agony of such unbridled laughter and let rip as if he hadn't laughed in all his life. "He suits those pants just a much as Herc doesn't either!" He muttered rather confusedly at his courtiers. All of whom seemed to know what their King meant as they were all pointing and laughing at the huge dog dressed as the King's annoying brother.
Hercules could hear their thoughts and was less than pleased with them all. Including his brother.
"'Eave my puppy 'lone!" The little War God look alike demanded of the rude King, stamping his little booted foot for good measure. "We's only here to hide from Uncle A'es and g'anpa Zooz." Strife tried his very best to look like a fierce God. The struggle between old memories and his new ones was clearly visible in the child's troubled eyes.
Iphicles obviously didn't look anywhere near the Godling's eyes.
"Look Godling, take Ares' mutt and yourself and your... " Iphicles came down to Strife's height to look at just what the Godling was carrying. "...And your dead peacock and leave, this is a busy... Ow! You little bastard!" And Iphicles lifted a hand to the child who had just stabbed his hand with the beak of the dead peacock.
"Bad words!" The Godling shouted. "'S only a goggy c'icken!" And he screamed as the King's open handed slap contacted with his cheek. He had no memory of ever being slapped in his current life time. His past life time was all too familiar with unjustified pain and punishment however. Strife was terrified.
It was obvious to one and all that Greagus was not at all happy with his little friend being hurt like that. He snarled up at the King and bared his teeth at Iphicles. If anyone had ever asked his opinion of King Daddyfriend he'd have told them he thought the mortal was likely to snap.
"Now Greagus, he hurt me. It was an accident, I didn't mean to slap like that. But he stabbed that damn peacock's beak... OW! The little fucker did it again!" This time the King shot to his feet and pulled a leg back, obviously intent on kicking the 'little fucker' in question.
"'un 'way!" Strife screamed and created a new portal only to have this one taken over by Greagus too. Greagus gently picked up the frightened two year old Godling and turned his back on the now startled rigid King. Just as he stepped into their escape portal Greagus left a rather smelly little gift for King Daddyfriend... it even had peacock feathers sticking out of it!
"That's my Greagus!" Ares whispered in awed delight at his dog's behaviour. "He didn't bite Iphy, just shit on his foot!" The War God laughed at his dog's antics. He knew he was unlikely to ever get into Iphy's bed ever again, but after the way the mortal had tried to hurt his little Strife he was disinclined to want to share his bed anyway.
"You and Iphicles?" Hercules asked his half brother in a strangled gasp.
"Well, not any more!" Ares whispered back. "He hit Strife, was going to hit him again. Kick him no less. Not my kid he doesn't!" Ares' softly hissed snarl warned the hero not to try and defend his other half brother.
Hercules recalled all too clearly his own abortive attempt at killing Strife before he knew the Godling was just a baby.
"I'll have to have 'words' with my dear brother!" The warning he got into the word words rather impressed the hard to impress War God.
"Can I watch?" Ares asked, raising a single eyebrow.
"Can I stop you?" Hercules countered.
"Stop planning mayhem together and get on with the story. Strife's still locked in the temple, still hurt and still not rescued!" The irritated command was accompanied by two deft fingers poking into the backs of the hero and the War God.
"Yes mother!" Ares responded instantly.
"Yes, Ares' mother!" Hercules answered just as instantly. But the hero smiled at the concern for Strife's well being that he heard in Hera's voice.
In response she hurumphed loudly and sat back.
The images on the mirror took up their narrative once more. They all saw Strife and Greagus turn up on a rather quiet battlefield and sit down to watch the soldiers warily watching each other. None of the would be combatants noticed their oddly dressed audience at first. All eyes were on the tent sitting squarely between the two opposing armies. Then Greagus wretched all over the nearest soldiers feet and making the most loathsome foul smelling stench any mortal had ever smelled. Worse even than Cerberus' halitosis and that smell was the thing of legends.
"Argh!" The put upon soldier cried and took a swift kick at Greagus, only to come up a foot short. As in he's started with two and now he had one! He fell over in agony and fear, screaming like a stuck pig and pointed to the fast disappearing sight Hercules' famous pants crawling under the peace negotiations tent. "It was Hercules! He did it!" Then blood loss and shock had the man faint.
His fellow warriors gazed, stupefied at the disappearing Hercules butt then at the bleeding to death warrior at their feet. Was it better to send him to Hades as a fallen warrior in battle with Hercules, or save his life so he could exact revenge for the supposed hero barfing on his feet?
Finally the poor fellow's life was saved, but only just. And as his side accused their opponents of deliberately trying to derail the peace talks the peace talks were effectively put to one side and War broke out! A rather bloody War at that. Not that it could be anything else with a War God and the God of War's own personal War Dog on the field of combat.
The tent opened and a less than stable looking Warrior Princess exited with a somewhat confused looking Gabrielle right behind her.
"What's going on here?" Xena snarled as she grabbed the nearest fighter by his throat and threatened his life with her deranged look alone.
"Hercules bit off a man's foot and crawled under the tent. It was clear they wanted this war so we're giving them the war they so richly deserve." He pulled free of her nerveless fingers and ran away, preferring to take his chances in the thick of battle rather than with her Derangeness the Warrior Princess.
"Hercules bit off a man's foot? How?" Gabrielle was sure Hercules didn't have a wide enough mouth to achieve that particular act of violence.
"He's a God, partly anyway. Makes him just as bad as the others. They all deserve to die. We don't need them. It's time they realised their days are over!" She drew her sword and ripped the floor of the tent apart until she found her targets. It mattered little to her that they were a two year old child and a dog. They were obviously Godly and that was enough for her to want them dead.
"Stop!" Gabrielle raised her staff to ward off her friend's blow. "He's a child Xena, little older than your Eve. Do you want another child's death on your conscience? If you kill him, what then for your hard sought redemption?" She tried to reason with her friend. Ever since the Romans had killed them both Xena had been losing a little more of herself each day. She had thought it connected to the baby she had been carrying and had hoped it would sort itself when the child was born. It hadn't, if anything it had gotten worse, much much worse.
"Redemption? Who wants redeemed by these pathetic excuses for Gods? Certainly not me!" Xena pushed Gabrielle away from her and raised her sword once more.
A pair of callused hands grasped her arm and Gabrielle's voice hissed once more in her ear.
"You don't even know who it is you're killing, you don't even know why you're doing it, do you?" The red headed warrior looked into her long time friend's face and saw a complete stranger. "Who are you Xena? Who are you becoming?"
"I am the avenging angel!" Xena wrenched her arm free and glared at her friend. "Godslayer!" She snarled at Gabrielle. "I am what I have to be."
Strife was cringing, terrified at the sight of the mad woman before him. He knew the sword would hurt him but not kill him. He knew what his memories of pain felt like and he didn't like them. The Godling had listened to the mortal women talking and knew the dark haired woman was not normal, her thoughts were all over the place. She was hurt in her soul. Beyond help.
"Go 'way!" he commanded and both women were enveloped in a thin blue light. As a last act of murderous intent Xena fired her chakram at the tiny Godling cringing before her.
As a last desperate attempt to save an innocent Gabrielle threw her staff at the chakram and deflected it, at least a little bit.
The blue light faded as the chakram struck the Godling on the arm, squarely on the leather wrist guard his Uncle A'es wore. As he cried in pain the two women began to fade away too, trapped in an expanding world.
"Strife?" Ares finally appeared in the mirror and gently touched his nephew's mind. He recoiled at the pure fear and hatred he saw there. He hadn't realised Xena was so far from sane these days. "What did you do little one? What have you done to Xena and Gabrielle?" The women's private world seemed to get bigger, yet took up no more real space in their world.
"Sent them 'way." Strife mumbled between sobs, holding his arm close to his belly, refusing to let Ares see it.
"All right, we'll deal with that later, right now I want you two to go home and wait for me. I'll be right there ok?" He smiled at his nephew and glared at his bad dog.
Greagus attempted to appease him with head tilts and tail wages, but daddy was so cross that cute didn't work. He whimpered and raised a paw to Ares, pleading for his understanding. Ares resisted dead cute too. Greagus knew he was in deep trouble. He wasn't too sure if it was knowingly eating the chickens when he knew they weren't really Strife's chickens, or the rest of it. And he wasn't in a hurry to find out.
With his tail between his tails he permitted himself and Strife to be sent back to Strife's room. Head firmly slumped between huge paws of doom Greagus couldn't even raise the enthusiasm to chew the other leg off Strife's Hercules doll.
"We's in deep badness.." And with the little Godling's words the image broke up as Strife's sheilds came up.
"Now, will you please get in there and get Strife out for us?" Ares pointed to his own temple door and waited for Hercules' response.
"What exactly happened to Xena and Gabrielle?" He had to know that his favourite little Godling didn't kill them, that he hadn't done something so drastic in order to save himself, he knew Strife's baby level thoughts wouldn't be able to cope with that idea.
"Strife put them in their own little world. They're still there, we can't get them out only watch them. They will live out their lives never able to touch this world ever again. You know, for all that he's just a baby, he created a complete world. There's a Hercules, a me, everyone. And the funny thing is..." Ares walked with his half brother to the temple doors and opened them for Hercules to proceed him. "The funny thing is that only us Gods and our near Godly relatives remember that she ever existed. No one in the real world remembers that there ever was a woman called Xena. She's vanished for this world entirely. That is why she'll never return. All her anchors to here and now have been severed. He could have killed them both, but all he did was remove them, sent them away!" Ares' delight in his nephew's talents was clear to see. Hercules knew it reflected his own delight in his little nephew's abilities.
"I'll go have a word with little mister doggy pants shall I?" He smiled at his dark haired brother and knocked on the door support to Strife's room.
First Greagus, still in his Hercules costume looked up, then Strife did.
"Hey, Strife, can I come in?" Hercules asked the obvious question first..
"Why?" And got the obvious response to it.
"Because I have not seen you in weeks and haven't had any Strife hugs in all that time, is why?" The hero let a teasing tone enter his voice and smiled at the twitching of Strife's lips. Strife hugs always involved tickling and climbing over your uncles and sweet treats you normally didn't get and lots of nice things.
"Why you need Stwife hugs?" Strife asked, trying very hard not to smile. As he stood up he nudged his arm and winced.
"Oh, baby, you're hurt. Let me see?" Hercules dropped to his knees and joined Strife on his eye level.
"Bad 'Na hurt me. I p'nished her. Now e'b'dy cross wiff me.." Strife looked close to tears once more, lip quivering, gut wrenching tears.
"I'm not, uncle Ares isn't. He's very impressed with you. Cupid is worried you're hurt, so is Uncle Apollo and Nana is fretting with worry that her little darling is seriously hurt and she can't get to him."
"Them's all worry?" Strife was amazed that all his relatives were so worried.
"If you don't believe me go look outside the temple." Hercules pointed to the window in Strife's room that could look out wherever he wanted it to look.
Strife ran to the window and saw everyone was outside, and they were all worried.
"They all need Strife hugs to make them better. Except Bliss, I think he needs his bottom spanked." His uncle Snugly's voice filled the room from behind him.
"No B'iss?"
"No Bliss." Hercules confirmed.
"Ok then. Let's go." And as simply as that Strife walked out the room, hand in hand with Uncle Snugly and got no further than half a step before Uncle A'es swept him up for a close hug.
"Thank the Fates little one. You had us all so worried." Ares dashed them both out the door straight into Apollo's arms. The Healer, the War God and the Queen of the Gods all fussed and fixed Strife's broken arm. Smiles and tears almost in equal measure.
As Hera carried Strife round the Gods and Goddesses waiting to see him safely returned to them Ares walked over to his heroic brother.
"Thanks, for getting him out. His arm was broken. It's fixed now." His short sharp sentences indicative of his highly charged emotional state.
"What now?" Hercules asked, not too sure what it was exactly he did want to ask.
"We get him back, put him to bed, get Greagus out of your pants and settle in for a good long sleep." Ares flicked a glance at his half brother. "You staying for breakfast hugs?"
"If it's not too much trouble, I'd like that." Hercules didn't dwell on the fact that he seemed to spend more time on Olympus these days than on Earth. And he didn't even need to become a God to do so. All he had to do was visit his favourite nephew.
"Just as well I made you a permanent room them. You've been stopping over so much you really needed your own space, ya' know?" Ares retrieved his little charge and guided Hercules back inside his temple.
"You did?" Hercules was astounded at Ares' forethought.
"You're opposite Strife, right next door to me." He turned to their nephew. "Shall we go show your Uncle Snugly his new room?"
Strife grinned and clapped his hands, nodding his head as if it were on a spring.
"There you go, in there. Strife and Greagus decorated it..." He ushered the hero into the room and counted. He got to three before a loud bellow of laughter rang out throughout his temple. He guessed Uncle Snugly liked his room. "Guess he likes his room then." He told Strife as they crossed the threshold to join Hercules in his new permanent bedroom.
"Now this has got to be a story worth hearing?" Hercules laughed as he surveyed Strife and Greagus' ideas of just what a bedroom for heroes should look like.
The End - again!